Suche:state

Luca Yupanqui was not yet born when she recorded her debut album. The music on the aptly titled Sounds of the Unborn is the expression of life in its cosmic state _ pre-mind, pre-speculation, pre-influence, and pre-human. It is the first album created by a person while they were still inside the womb, the expression of a soul that hasn't yet seen the light of day nor taken a single breath of air. It is a message that comes from a different realm, a sublayer of our existence. Sounds of the Unborn was made with biosonic MIDI technology, which translated Luca's in utero movements into sound. With the help of her parents, Psychic Ills bassist Elizabeth Hart and Lee Scratch Perry collaborator Iván Diaz Mathé, Luca's prenatal essence was captured in audio. They designed a ritual, a kind of joint meditation for the three of them, with the MIDI devices hooked to Elizabeth's stomach, transcribing its vibrations into Iván's synthesizers. They let the free-form meditations flow without much interference, just falling deeper into trance and feeling the unity. After five hour-long sessions, the shape of an album began to emerge. Elizabeth and Iván then edited and mixed the results of the sessions, respecting the sounds as they were produced, trying to intervene as little as possible, allowing Luca's message to exist in its raw form. This cosmic soul summoning created new sounds, striking into uncharted territory for Elizabeth and Iván as musicians. A new language was being created, a new form of communication. It was a music without intellect or intentionality behind it, with no preconception or attempt to create any specific sound or melody. Every note on Sounds of the Unborn occurred naturally. It is human nature to wonder what life is like inside another human being's consciousness. How does it feel? What does it sound like? All these questions became stronger and more important to Elizabeth and Iván while they were waiting for Luca to come into the world. At a certain point the questions turned into, What would she say if she could speak? How would she react to the outer world? And ultimately, What kind of music would she play if she was able to? This album is an attempt to answer those questions. RIYL: Brian Eno, Mort Garson, Kaitlyn Aurelia-Smith

Songs of Comfort & Hope is inspired by the series of recorded-at-home musical offerings that Yo-Yo Ma began sharing in the first days of the COVID-19 lockdown in the United States. Throughout the spring and summer, Ma’s #SongsofComfort grew from a self-shot video of Antonín Dvořák’s “Goin’ Home” into a worldwide effort that has reached more than 20 million people.

Ma and longtime collaborator Kathryn Stott mark the next chapter in the project with this brand new album, offering consolation and connection in the face of fear and isolation. The album includes 21 new recordings, which span modern arrangements of traditional folk tunes, canonical pop songs, jazz standards, and mainstays from the western classical repertoire. Among the new takes on old favorites are Pulitzer Prize® winner Caroline Shaw’s artful and eloquently arranged “Shenandoah”; Australian composer Harry Sdraulig’s “Fantasia on Waltzing Matilda”; pianist Stephen Hough’s lush arrangement of “Scarborough Fair”, and two-time Academy® Award-nominated icon Jorge Calandrelli’s re-imagining of a pair of songbook treasures: “We’ll Meet Again” by Ross Parker and Hughie Charles, and Violeta Parra’s “Gracias a la Vida.”

Yo-Yo Ma and Kathryn Stott share the warmth of decades of music making again with Songs of Comfort & Hope, offering audiences new paths into treasured musical memories and a few notes of hope for a better future.

Despite the fact that we are all still hanging in there, 2021 kicks in heavy in style for CHILDHOOD with a killer 4-tracker 12" release by DON WILLIAMS. Thomas and I met a while ago on a dancefloor, however our friendship sealed for good when we met online playing endless Splatoon sessions on Nintendo Switch. Our common interest in a broad range of things and music in particular led to a deep exchange of ideas when it comes to the love for the vinyl product. Having started the label last year with DJ DEEPs VAINCRE EP, I can surely state that Thomas was kind of a mentor and of countless help when it comes to setting things up. I therefore couldn't be happier and more thankful to welcome him to the CHILDHOOD family with BLITHE SPIRIT, a true masterclass EP ranging from experimental and complex rhythms, over driving dancefloor madness to soulful early morning ecstasy cuts. The first 100 copies come in marbled red vinyl. Be sure to grab a copy and while listening to it at home, having in mind that these grooves will tear dancefloors apart in a not so distant future. WE SHALL DANCE TOGETHER! - David Muallem

Luca Yupanqui was not yet born when she recorded her debut album. The music on the aptly titled Sounds of the Unborn is the expression of life in its cosmic state _ pre-mind, pre-speculation, pre-influence, and pre-human. It is the first album created by a person while they were still inside the womb, the expression of a soul that hasn't yet seen the light of day nor taken a single breath of air. It is a message that comes from a different realm, a sublayer of our existence. Sounds of the Unborn was made with biosonic MIDI technology, which translated Luca's in utero movements into sound. With the help of her parents, Psychic Ills bassist Elizabeth Hart and Lee Scratch Perry collaborator Iván Diaz Mathé, Luca's prenatal essence was captured in audio. They designed a ritual, a kind of joint meditation for the three of them, with the MIDI devices hooked to Elizabeth's stomach, transcribing its vibrations into Iván's synthesizers. They let the free-form meditations flow without much interference, just falling deeper into trance and feeling the unity. After five hour-long sessions, the shape of an album began to emerge. Elizabeth and Iván then edited and mixed the results of the sessions, respecting the sounds as they were produced, trying to intervene as little as possible, allowing Luca's message to exist in its raw form. This cosmic soul summoning created new sounds, striking into uncharted territory for Elizabeth and Iván as musicians. A new language was being created, a new form of communication. It was a music without intellect or intentionality behind it, with no preconception or attempt to create any specific sound or melody. Every note on Sounds of the Unborn occurred naturally. It is human nature to wonder what life is like inside another human being's consciousness. How does it feel? What does it sound like? All these questions became stronger and more important to Elizabeth and Iván while they were waiting for Luca to come into the world. At a certain point the questions turned into, What would she say if she could speak? How would she react to the outer world? And ultimately, What kind of music would she play if she was able to? This album is an attempt to answer those questions. RIYL: Brian Eno, Mort Garson, Kaitlyn Aurelia-Smith

Sam Gendel’s new album, DRM, is the follow-up to his Nonesuch debut, Satin Doll, released earlier this year. DRM features Gendel’s solo musical experiments with vintage instruments such as a forty-year-old Electro Harmonix DRM32 drum machine, antique synthesizers, and a sixty-year-old nylon-string guitar — accompanied by his voice. While Satin Doll was a futuristic homage to classic jazz, DRM includes just one cover song: Lil Nas X’s ‘Old Town Road’, which Gendel interprets as an instrumental, playing the melody on an old German analogue synthesizer. The album’s accompanying short films were directed by Marcella Cytrynowicz and filmed at various locations around Gendel’s home state of California during COVID lockdown.



“I’m imagining people listening to DRM and thinking, ‘What the hell is this?’, like they’d just encountered some sailing ship in the sky,” Gendel says of the new work. “I imagine it as if someone many years into the future listened to the popular music of today and then tried to recreate it, without any of the tools or the understanding. Stylistically, it’s not too far from so much contemporary pop-rap music that you hear on the radio. A lot of those electronic backgrounds and instrumentals you hear today are tending towards something really out-there and experimental. It’s rhythmic and pointillistic, collaging different, seemingly unfitting elements together in cool ways. The visuals aren’t necessarily dictated by the music, but they both share the same slightly surreal feel, like I’m a video game character, inhabiting all these different backgrounds,” says Gendel.



Gendel is best known as a world-class saxophonist — it’s the instrument with which he’s led most of his bands, as well as the instrument on which he’s guested with the likes of Vampire Weekend, Ry Cooder, Moses Sumney, Sam Amidon, and Louis Cole’s Knower — but DRM is saxophone-free. “There was no active effort on my part not to include it; it just wasn’t part of the equation when I started recording it,” he says. “I just found a formula, working around this DRM32 drum machine, and rolled with it. I don’t consider myself just a saxophonist, I’m just someone who works in music.”



DRM was recorded in one sixteen-hour session, and then manipulated by Gendel with electronic percussionist Philippe Melanson. It was mixed by Blake Mills, and mastered by Grammy-nominated engineer Mike Bozzi. Gendel’s previous discography includes 2018’s Music for Saxofone & Bass Guitar with bassist Sam Wilkes, 4444, and Satin Doll, which the Los Angeles Times called “a woozy, blissfully twisted album.” He also performs on two other Nonesuch releases this month: Joachim Cooder’s Over That Road I’m Bound and Sam Amidon’s new self-titled album.

random color vinyl

Miles was right, Embryo was more than a unique experience. While talking with Charlie Mariano (the saxophone player was one of the most impressive collaborator of the german band) one day he stated: ‘Embryo - they are these crazy creative musicians playing really weird stuff.’ When you get the blessing from the prince of darkness itself, nothing can go wrong, so here’s the story. Opal was the beginning of all things to come, the record was released in 1970 and licensed by pioneering early Berlin rock/jazz/experimental music label Ohr. It was quite a shock! Forget about your kosmische debris and sought after kraut rock genetics, this was pure and mind bending (heavy) psychedelia, the kind mr. Julian Cope would have killed for. The long stretching People From Out The Space – seven minutes plus of outstanding jam – was sitting at the end of the album, right after a series of heavy hitting jazz rock numbers. This was the foundation of a whole myth. A cornerstone in European experimental and popular modern composition. (Released by LONEOS in cooperation with MATERIALI SONORI.)

Over the course of four albums, Manchester based trumpeter, composer, arranger and band-leader Matthew Halsall has carved out a niche for himself on the UK music scene as one of it's brightest talents. His languid, soulful music has won friends from Jamie Cullum and Gilles Peterson to Jazz FM and Mojo as well as an ever-growing international following. His label Gondwana Records is home to GoGo Penguin and his own albums have found Halsall exploring the modal jazz of John and Alice Coltrane, paying tribute to the hard bop of the late '50s and early '60s or most recently on Fletcher Moss Park drawing on Eastern influences in his most personal statement yet. His latest album When The World Was One is something of a companion piece to Fletcher Moss Park (much of the music was written at the same time) but draws more explicitly on Halsall's love of spiritual jazz and Eastern music as well as his own studies in meditation and travels in Japan. Beautifully recorded at Hasall's favourite studio, 80 Hertz in Manchester, and engineered by Brendan Williams and George Atkins it features the recording debut of Halsall's large ensemble, The Gondwana Orchestra, which utilises the exotic flavours of harp, koto and bansuri flute and Eastern scales to create a global palate for Halsall's life-affirming sounds.

The Gondwana Orchestra features long time collaborators Nat Birchall, saxophone, Gavin Barras, bass and Rachael Gladwin, harp as well as Taz Modi on piano. Modi who also plays with Halsall in their more electronic trio shares his passion for spiritual jazz and plays the music with real feeling while the role of the harp here is to bring a touch of 'magical reality' a floating dreaminess that is a vital part of Halsall's elegiac and beautiful music. The drummer Luke Flowers is perhaps best known as part of Cinematic Orchestra, and Halsall describes him as 'one of the best drummers in the world' and hails him for 'playing the music exactly as I heard it in my head', Keiko Kitamura is a Japanese Koto player who is becoming an increasingly important part of the Gondwana Orchestra, her role is similar to Gladwin's in that the koto helps free up the music while also bringing a real sound of the East. Finally, flautist Lisa Mallett brings a love of Indian music to the orchestra, much travelled on the continent she brings all of her knowledge and experience to play offering a unique texture to Halsall's dreamy melodies.

The album opens with the title track, When The World Was One, an expansive ascending tune that nods to Art Blakey and McCoy Tyner and draws the listener in before giving way to the dreamy, meditative A Far Away Place which features great work from Gladwin on harp and draws on Eastern influences alongside the music of Alice Coltrane and Yusef Lateef. Falling Water which features the beautiful soprano of Nat Birchall nods to classic spiritual jazz as well, but mixes in the more contemporary influences of Nostalgia 77 and Cinematic Orchestra, while the hard-driving Patterns conjures an up-lifting celebratory vibe with fine work from pianist Modi to set the mood. The beautiful Kiyomizu-Dera is inspired by Halsall's travels in Japan and in particular his visit to the Buddhist temple of the same name. Likewise Sagano Bamboo Forest is named for another place that left a deep imprint on Halsall and aims to capture his feelings as he worked through the vast maze of bamboo trees. Finally the album closes with the self-explanatory Tribute To Alice Coltrane a grooving tribute to one of Halsall's key influences. Driven by a powerful bass line and featuring wonderful work from Mallet on bansuri flute and harpist Gladwin, the band all really find their way into Halsall's groove before the leader plays a beautiful wistful solo of his own and it is the oneness of the Gondwana Orchestra that makes it such a powerful vehicle for Halsall's music as the leader takes you on his very own journey through his musical and spiritual world.

solid white vinyl / 180 grams

British Electro veteran Bass Junkie returns for his second vinyl outing on Bass Agenda Recordings, this time with a full-length album. As his last release, "Low Frequency Fugitive" indicated, he has been working hard on developing his trademark sound and taking things forward; no mean feat for someone who has been ahead of his time since he began releasing Electro in the mid-nineties. He has succeeded though and everything he is loved and respected for is here, plus some advanced structures and elements - Bass Junkie evolved - a true Sub Sonic Survivor. The harder edge is here in tracks such as "Blast Them to Infinity!" and the insanely hard kick of "Star Destroyer". His funkier side shines through too, in tracks like the shimmering space funk of "Rum and Raspberries". For fans of his exceptional vocal work there are treats in store too, particularly in the aggressive attack on the modern state of things that is "Reset".

Wait for Me is the compelling new album by Snowpoet, created by Irish vocalist and lyricist Lauren Kinsella and producer Chris Hyson. After their hugely successful release of 2018 Thought You Knew, this fourth body of work is a bold, flowing statement offering a mantra evocation to explore the deeper questions of how we love, how we accept our faults and how we let go in a time of profound confusion. With storytelling at its core and impeccable taste they weave their signature and evocative hook-like melodies, rich harmonic movements, flutters of emotive sung-spoken singing and thick, rich production to create an album that suggests repeated listening.

La Morte Viene Dallo Spazio (Death Comes From Space)’s name is taken from an a late 50s Italian sci-fi b-movie, and this ensemble’s cinematic odyssey of sound is like Argento, Fulci and Bava taking acid with Magma and Jodorowsky. A solid departure from anything you will be listening to right now, La Morte Viene Dallo Spazio’s free-form journeys leave you in unknown astral territory and bake your brain. Composed of an open gathering of players, the Italian quintet combines flavours of Middle Eastern scales, droning theremin and guitars. Their flute-player’s frantic, progressive and abstract elements tear open the cosmic gates like Jethro Tull in a Giallo nightmare. The first album, ‘Sky Over Giza’, released in 2018, was a synth laden soundscape full of ancient mysticism and alien apparitions which gained them a rabid following in their home country of Italy and beyond. La Morte Viene Dallo Spazio’s second album on Svart Records; ‘Trivial Visions’, is a wholly unique experience. An enthralling listen in a confluence of sound and ritual atmospheres that craft a both vibrant and hypnotic effect with nods to black metal and extreme ends of the sound spectrum. This vivid, dreamy and cosmic material will transfer the listener to vast sonic dimensions where one could easily lose the way back to reality. Is this Jazz, Stoner-Rock, Psych-Rock or Progressive Rock? This is La Morte DalloS pazio and they’re in a universe of their own. Start receiving your deathly visions when the new album drops via Svart Records on the 26th of March 2021.

"Terrific!"- Steve Lamacq, BBC 6 Music. Double header 7" from NY production duo The Still Brothers. 'Wake Up' Mixed by Skinshape. The Still Brothers are Andrew LeCoche (Ula Ruth) and Evan Heinze (The Shacks). 'Wake Up' was created in a New York winter on a cloudy day. The song's bones were sculpted in the classic Still Brothers' fashion making use of a collection of favourite sounds. It came to life when Brazilian friend and collaborator Marina B heard the track in her sleep and thought of the song's lyrics as she woke up. It might take you to that place in-between dreams and the waking life, where you are pulled in and out of a state of slumber. It incidentally speaks to the abrupt change that was about to fall upon the world in early 2020. Between the singing in Portuguese and the sounds of subway doors, the song is just alienating enough to make anyone these days to feel right at home. 'Wake Up' was mixed by Will Dorey aka Skinshape and mastered by Alex DeTurk. The cover art was designed by Sofia Ohanna. Inspired by subway preachers, jazz funerals and Hip-Hop 'The Deep' serves as an introduction to the dazzling skills of New York production duo The Still Brothers. Their debut track breaks open with a reverend crying out about the transgressions we have committed against each other. He then observes that so many of us are throwing up our hands in an act of surrendering. A poignant sentiment in these troubling times and one that will resonate throughout the world.

Red Vinyl

Ornament – an information carrier and a coding element for a unique and complex algorithm that modulates the state, space, intention, and path.

Embroidery technique – a conscious coding ritual, where the intention is modeled by both the external forms and the internal structures of the ornament symbols.

An embroidered structure – geometrical and sonic – is a set of energies, generating and conducting a harmonious path and destiny, where both holding the same harmony principles of the sacred process of the cryptography of the heart.

The sound ornament dances in time and space. The patterns with the rhythmic repetition of geometric tones embroider your symbolism, enhancing the expressiveness of the feeling and catching up after the spirit.

Feel the high frequencies, while perceiving the low pulsations. It is the contrast between slow and fast energies, where balance is the key. It is the basic impeccability of the curves in the harmonious flow, it is the conscious ritual of awareness with pure thoughts to create the unique.

Trace inner power into other dimensions. Encrypt intent with the ornament and weave your bright oscillation into the fabric of Existence. Explode as the calm light and jump into the Immeasurable.

It took Sibille Attar five years and a lot of soul searching to produce Paloma’s Hand, the 2018 EP that served as the long-awaited follow-up to her debut album, Sleepyhead. Both that record and her first EP, 2012’s The Flower’s Bed, seemingly left her with the world at her feet, with widespread critical acclaim, television appearances and a Swedish Grammy nomination for Best Newcomer. The years that followed, though, involved both creative and personal turmoil, and left her feeling increasingly adrift musically as the uglier side of the industry reared its head.

“For a long time in my life, I tried to sit in certain constellations to please other people,” she says. “And it didn’t work, because I could only do it for a little while before I’d get frustrated and want to do things my own way. There was a time when I felt like I couldn’t trust the business, and it was draining me of my love for the music. Eventually, I realised you can’t live your life trying to fit into somebody else’s mould all the time.”

Paloma’s Hand, a six-track pop odyssey that slalomed through genres, brought years of struggle to a long-overdue end. Just as importantly, though, it served as a much-needed palate cleanser for Attar, breaking through the barrier of writer’s block. Just two years later, she’s back with her second full-length, the aptly-titled A History of Silence, a reference to that long period of searching for her voice. “I thought about calling it A History of Violence, because in many ways, the album is like a violent attempt to tell my own story when I’ve been silenced,” she explains.

Key to the pace at which she was able to work this time around was a realisation that she functions best on her own - “I just felt like, “fuck it - I can’t be bothered dealing with other people and their opinions.” Accordingly, A History of Silence was written, recorded and mixed entirely by Attar herself, and where she needed a little bit of outside help - sweeping strings on the epic "Dream State", for instance - she penned the arrangements herself and had friends record them exactly as directed. “It seems like that’s the way I have to work to get things done, and it helped things come together really quickly - the first song was done at the start of 2019, and the last one was finished around the time the pandemic was taking hold. It was frantically fast, but I work one song at a time, so it was never too chaotic."

The album never sounds too chaotic, either; like Paloma's Hand, it takes a broad approach to pop, but one that’s anchored by the key through-lines of sharp melodies and atmospheric soundscapes. Largely recorded in Attar’s Stockholm apartment, A History of Silence finds room for everything from sparse alt-rock ("Go Hard or Go Home") to spacey, electropop (the Madonna cover "Oh Father"), via the more up-tempo likes of "Somebody’s Watching". “On some tracks, I had really specific influences in mind,” says Attar. “There’s a lot of eighties stuff going on, and I was deliberately tracking down those kinds of synthesizers to try to capture that sound.”

Attar shies away from talking in too much detail about the themes that run through A History of Silence - she wants the record to be received as universally as possible - but it’s clear that the album marks the beginning of a hugely exciting new chapter after the rebirth that Paloma’s Hand represented. “If anything, it’s like a preacher’s album,” she says. “I’m preaching to myself, teaching myself, telling myself off in the lyrics. It’s about accepting loss of power, changing expectations, and getting rid of some heavy baggage. That’s the way I made the album, and it meant I had no limits - every single idea I had, I tried. When I said I was falling out of love with music, that feels like a very long time ago now.”

“I made this record for young women to feel invincible.” - Izzy B. Phillips, Black Honey Having last week been pre-empted by the landing of their colossal new single ‘Run For Cover’, today Black Honey have announced their brand-new album – ‘Written & Directed’. ‘Written & Directed’ will be released on the 29 th of January 2021 on Foxfive Records. ‘Written & Directed’ is Black Honey’s second album. It follows their outstanding self-titled debut released back in 2018 when the world that surrounded the Brighton four piece looked and felt like a very different place. Black Honey however are still the bad-ass, truly original band they have always been, they’ve just graduated from the intriguingly anomalous newcomers to becoming one of UK indie’s most singular outfits. They've travelled the world and released a Top 40 album; graced the cover of the NME and become the faces and soundtrack of Roberto Cavalli's Milan Fashion Week show; smashed Glastonbury and supported Queens of the Stone Age, all without compromising a shred of the wild, wicked vision they first set out with. It's now time for the next instalment of their story – ‘Written & Directed” – which see’s Black Honey deliver one, very singular, message – a 10 track mission statement that aims to unashamedly plant a flag in the ground for strong, world-conquering women. For fierce frontwoman and album protagonist Izzy B. Phillips – it’s the most important message she could send to inspire her cult-like fanbase and fill the female-shaped gap that she felt so acutely when she was growing up and discovering rock music for the first time. Written throughout 2019 and recorded in fits and spurts between touring, ‘Written & Directed’ is drenched with a hedonistic, anything-goes attitude. It’s also the most full-throttle collection of music that Black Honey have ever-written – egged-on by their run of shows supporting long-term friends and collaborators Royal Blood. Exploring everything from womanhood, to identity and power, it’s an album that revels in the rich history of pop culture, throws a wink to its rock- and-roll heroes, but ultimately (and in true Black Honey fashion) it stands on its own two feet. With a typically hyper-visual world referencing grindhouse cinema, kitschy pulp films and a flip-reverse of female cinematic representation all primed to unfurl and explode around them, 'Written & Directed' is the sound of Black Honey strapping in and saddling up, of harnessing their quirks, and, as the Phillips has always hoped, riding them joyously into the sunset.

Pale Spring wrote and recorded CYGNUS in Baltimore, whose fertile music scene has seen acts like Lower Dens, Ami Dang and Beach House build rich, self-contained worlds of sound.
CYGNUS expands on this foundation, with stately, smooth pop songs incorporating layered harmonies, glitches, and, on “Old Sounds” dog barks. Music runs in Harper Scott’s family: a classically trained musician herself, her grandfather studied at Juilliard under his uncle, who played for the New York Philharmonic.
Scott’s grandfather sang doo wop, and his influence paved the way for Scott to explore music; eventually, he taught himself how to sample. His accompaniment provides an underpinning for Harper Scott’s vocals and instrumentals.
Critics noticed CYGNUS when it first came out last year, with glowing reviews in Bandcamp, Tiny Mix Tapes and DAZED.
American Dreams Records’ vinyl reissues of CYGNUS and DUSK mark the first time they’ve been made widely available as physical media.

British Heavy Metal legends Saxon will deliver a full-roar-fun-down set of covers on March 19th 2021 (Silver Lining Music), with their latest album Inspirations, which drops a brand new 11 track release featuring some of the superb classic rock songs that influenced Biff Byford & the band.

From the crunching take on The Rolling Stones’ ‘Paint It Black’ and the super-charged melodic romp of The Beatles’ ‘Paperback Writer’ to their freeway mad take on Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Stone Free’, Saxon show their love and appreciation with a series of faithful, raw and ready tributes. Recorded at Brockfield Hall near York, UK, with a firm eye on the old school way using Marshall cabs, Marshall amps and real drums, Saxon approach the likes of Motörhead’s ‘Bomber’ (with added whistle!), AC/DC’s ‘Problem Child’, Black Sabbath’s ‘Evil Woman’ and a raucous Deep Purple’s ‘Speed King’ with refreshingly warm, unfiltered, “vintage” sounding renditions.

Byford takes on some new vocal challenges, which he duly smashes on the likes of Thin Lizzy’s ‘The Rocker’. Saxon do a supreme job of entertaining both themselves and their audience throughout Inspirations. For even more proof of the validity behind that statement, wrap your ears around their sparkling take on Toto’s ‘Hold The Line’ and consider Saxon’s Inspirations a mission accomplished.

- The definitive overview of one of Canada's unsung musical heroes - Rare/previously unreleased recordings, photos, and interviews - Lyrics, discography, and filmography - Audio re-mastered by John Baldwin Mastering - Artwork by Christi Belcourt and Alanna Edwards - Liner notes by Kevin Howes (Voluntary In Nature) - Contributions from the Dunn family, Bob Robb, and Alanis Obomsawin (OC) // How did you first experience the poetry, music, and film of Willie Dunn? In a Montreal coffeehouse during the mid-1960s? On a CBC Indian Magazine broadcast with host Johnny Yesno? At a Toronto record store or Native Friendship Centre at the turn of the 1970s? Waiting outside of the Mohawk Nation Longhouse? Maybe in your parent's record collection on the Rez? A White Roots of Peace gathering? Pow wow? The Mariposa Folk Festival? Or was it that Save James Bay Benefit back in '73? On a good friend's stereo? Sitting around a crackling campfire? How about an old NFB film reel or VHS tape in high school? Or while attending Manitou College? A German concert hall in the 1980s? Maybe a direct action protest on the colonial streets of Canada? Busking in Ottawa during the 1990s? College radio? At Willie's celebration of life service in 2013 alongside Alanis Obomsawin and Willy Mitchell? LITA's Grammy-nominated Native North America (Vol. 1) compilation or the very anthology you hold in your hands? There should be no judgment for coming to things when you do. All that's important is remaining open to life-changing messages such as these_ Willie Dunn shared truth through song and celluloid. His original composition, "I Pity the Country," is an unparalleled statement on the greed and hate created by humankind, recorded in 1971 and still unfortunately needed today. "It's like the reason you're supposed to make music," said Kurt Vile about the song to MOJO Magazine in 2015. With "Charlie," Willie was the first to deliver the devastating story of Chanie Wenjack and the Canadian residential school system to the music community, nearly 50 years before the much-celebrated Secret Path, yet ignored outside of Indian Country and the folk festival circuit. Dunn's film technique, featured in 1968's The Ballad of Crowfoot (NFB), predates the "Ken Burns effect" to great effect. Are you catching the drift? Willie Dunn was not only a trailblazing leader in his time, but well ahead of the curve, simply without the PR push and big money backing of major label players. "He was our Leonard Cohen," said singer-songwriter Eric Landry about his musical hero. The only difference is that Willie refused to play the Hollywood showbiz game. In talent, he is Cohen, Dylan, and Cash rolled into one and along with Buffy Sainte-Marie, Floyd Red Crow Westerman, and A. Paul Ortega, brought a new set of perspectives and realities to the folk music tradition. Willie spoke directly to his people and Mother Earth through his creations, not only from experience but by examining his roots and connecting with the world in which he lived. We are humbled to help honor Willie Dunn. May he never be forgotten_ PEACE

A well-known figure of the Roman nightlife, resident of the city's iconic Goa Club and its infamous Ultrabeat nights, Simona Calvani, aka DJ Red, steps up on Danza Tribale with 'The Prophets Are Smiling' - her first material to surface since the release of her 'Raw Cacao' EP on Wolfskuil in 2016, here featuring an exclusive revamp from local hero Lorenzo D'Angelo, alias Lory D.

Fitting the label's trance-triggering ethos to perfection, this new record finds the Italian DJ and producer rushing headlong into tropicalised techno grounds, halfway ethno-ritualistic music and a future-ready kind of big-room churn, primed for Berlin's fiercest subterranean raves as much as ayahuasca-induced rituals in the heart of a misty rainforest.

Dipping its toes in teeming beds of organic textures and ancient rhythmic tribalisms, 'The Prophets Are Smiling' fully gears toward awakening your senses and elevating your mind to a broader and further acute state of consciousness. Bathed in a mystique-imbued atmosphere, the track steadily oscillates betwixt a no-nonsense steely swing, glazed industrial tints and epic-sized primitive chants to better daze and confuse its audience.

Hopping on remix duty, Italian techno legend Lory D provides the wares with implacable efficiency, as he reveals the more intricate side of DJ Red original's cogs and wheels to turn it into a proper off-axis floor crusher. Rolling onto a more classic and functional pathway, 'Moon' is a paragon of hypno-tech efficiency. Channeling the pulsating energy of a thousand dancing hearts through a distinctively rich and deep melodic prism, DJ Red confirms her status as one of the Roman scene's most gifted pacesetters.

Following his spiritual and artistic rebirth, and hot on the heels of his incredibly well received release, ‘Mona Bone Jakon’, Cat Stevens unveiled his second album of the year in November 1970 … and it was to become one of the defining musical statements of the new decade. ‘Tea For The Tillerman’ not only consolidated Cat’s success in the UK and forged him a glittering new career in the USA, it also set him on the road to global superstardom and gave the world songs like ‘Wild World’, ‘Father & Son’, ‘Where Do The Children Play?’ and many more.
To commemorate the album’s 50th anniversary comes this stunning new 180 gram gatefold vinyl 2020 remaster of ‘Tea For The Tillerman’ by Geoff Pesche at Abbey Road, overseen by original producer Paul Samwell-Smith.

The mighty Channel One Studios,Kingston, Jamaica, has its place set in Reggae's Musical History.Its distinctive sound the studio created on opening its doors in 1972 to its closure in the early 1980's made it the Producers, Singers and Musicians studio of choice during this furtive period. Achieving that vibe and clarity, separated it from the other Kingston establishments.

Run by the Hookim Family's four sons, Jo Jo the eldest followed by Paulie, Ernest and Kenneth. Their father originally came from China and married a Chinese Jamaican lady and settled in the St Andrews district before moving to Kingston Town itself. The family business was built on jukeboxes and one armed bandit machines in and around Kingston. A lucrative venture until the gaming laws changed in 1970, outlawing the gaming machines. So the music side of the business would have to be expanded. So it was decided to open a studio to make the music to supply their already established Jukebox enterprise. The four brothers opened Channel One Recording Studios in 1972 at 29 Maxfield Avenue, Kingston 13. Initially as we stated the purpose of the studio was for the brothers use only, but this would soon change when the various Producers all looking for that Channel One sound came asking for studio time.

The brothers had used the services of Bill Garnet a renowned and well respected technical engineer on setting up the studio. They spent a lot of time laying out the space to get the right acoustics and picking the right quipment. They went with a four track API desk and the best quality microphones such as Neuman, Sony and AKG, vital in obtaining the quality sound and track separation that would prove so worthwhile after the music was recorded to give the best flexibility on the final mix downs. Jo Jo would take over the production duties after the initial hiring of Syd Bucknor a producer who had worked closely with Coxonne Dodds Studio 1 stable. The first release on the Channel One label would be 'Don't Give Up The Fight' by Stranger Cole and Gladstone 'Gladdy' Anderson.The initial two thousand run being swallowed up by their Jukebox interests and so the steady flow of hits would run up to the brake through hit of 1975 'Right Time' by  the Mighty Diamonds.

1977 saw Jo Jo extending his stays in New York to a semipermanent status, returning mainly to oversee recording sessions and then taking the results back to America for worldwide distribution. His brother Paulies senseless killing in that year also added to Jo Jo's decision to spend more time with his Hit Bound Manufacturing set up in New York. The Channel One studio would be upgraded in 1979 to sixteen tracks and although Jo Jo and Ernest still covered the mixing and engineering duties Kenneth would now supervise sessions. An often untold part of Channel Ones history is the involvement of Producer Niney The Observer. The mid to late 1970's were heavy times both musically and politically and Maxfield Avenue was in the heart of this crossfire. Some artists and musicians were weary of using the establishment especially when sessions ended late at night and exiting the studio at these times could be somewhat dangerous. But Niney’s fearlessness seen him over running and in many cases running the all night sessions with his trusted set of musicians loosely called The Soul Syndicate. Having the run of the mighty Channel One studio's allowed Niney to build up and work on a stockpile of rhythms that he still has yet to unleash on the world. We have been lucky to select a bunch of material from Niney's vaults for this release. Some great unreleased rhythms and some different cuts to some tracks you might already know. Niney's work with Dennis Brown and his own distinctive heavy roots style productions have been documented and indeed his work on Channel Ones Yellowman releases stand tall also. We hope this fine set of Niney Productions set inside the hollowed walls of Channel One will sit beside them as they so richly deserve.