Suche:step by step

Once again a work by Patrick Campbell-Lyons without Alex Spyropoulos, this time Songs Of Love And Praise showed a return to a more classic Nirvana sound. Campbell-Lyons revisited two of the most loved songs by the band, Pentecost Hotel from their debut LP and Rainbow Chaser from their second one. The album opens precisely with the amazing uptempo beat of Rainbow Chaser, which while sounding faithful to the original recording, it comes with a totally different approach on the arrangements. Campbell-Lyons states on the liners that he went for a step further in that field, and looked for a jazzy atmosphere. It sets the tone of the album: upbeat good vibrations songs that differ from the dark mood of the previous Local Anaesthetic LP and that besides these two songs revisited presents all new material.



Uplifted and positive, Songs Of Love And Praise gives what the title promises to take the classic Nirvana sound from their first three albums one step further with the collaboration of Bobby Harrison (Procol Harum, Snafu) Lesley Duncan, Maggie Bell and Sylvia Schuster (who had already played live with Nirvana at the time of their debut album).

Acclaimed Stirling-based group Constant Follower, led by Stephen McAll, and renowned folk guitarist Scott William Urquhart have today announced their forthcoming collaborative album, ‘Even Days Dissolve’, which will be released on 14 April 2023.

The album follows on from Constant Follower’s lauded debut long-player ‘Neither Is, Nor Ever Was’, which was released in 2021 and nominated for the 2022 Scottish Album of the Year (SAY) Award.

‘Even Days Dissolve’ is an enchanting, deeply absorbing, and meditative album, the product of a musical affinity between two thoughtful and uniquely talented Scottish songwriters and musicians.

The songs that make up ‘‘Even Days Dissolve’ were inspired by ‘the grand old man of Scottish poetry’, Norman MacCaig (1910-1996), whose work is characterised by its gentle humour, precise observation and love for the natural world, which forms another key theme for the album.

MacCaig’s poetry holds great significance to McAll, as it formed a major source of comfort and support to him during a long period of recovery following a violent and unprovoked attack that left him with catastrophic head injuries, partially paralysed and unable to write or play guitar.

‘Even Days Dissolve’ is McAll’s nod of respect to McCaig, and the great man’s unmistakable words and inimitable voice feature on two of the tracks - single ‘Wildlife Cameraman’, and ‘Comes A Silence (Basking Shark)’ – sensitively set over the backdrop of beautiful and exquisitely crafted songs.

Scott William Urquhart’s masterful acoustic guitar playing is a stunning centrepiece of the album, imbuing the songs with a moving sense of atmosphere, and sounding at once both elegant and robust. Urquhart’s unassuming yet compelling vocals also feature throughout ‘Even Days Dissolve’.

Speaking about ‘‘Even Days Dissolve’, Stephen McAll said: “The magic in music for me is all about collaboration. Finding people who inspire me to make better music, then working with them and creating something between us that’s better than what either of us could have made alone. It’s been an honour to work so closely with Scott William Urquhart on this album. He’s someone whom I’ve admired for some time - unquestionably up there with the best acoustic guitarists at the moment in Scotland, and such a beautiful writer of songs.

“Bringing two of these songs together with the voice of our beloved Norman MacCaig has been a real highlight of this project. His poetry was introduced to me by my high school teacher Mrs Tatarkowski, and it was the first prose I was able to read and understand when I was recovering from a traumatic head injury. So his work holds a deep space in my heart. I don’t think any poet or songwriter has matched his ability to capture the space and wonder of the natural beauty of Scotland.”

Sonic chaotic, tender terror. On New Stone, Lithuanian producer Kamile Rimkute a.k.a. Caline with C dazes and uplifts us with her reflective post-modern electronics. This album is a personal long-term project in the making, one of auditive self-expression, treading across themes such as adventure, love, discovery and grounding.

The album is driven by Kamile's interest in futuristic boundary-crossing music and intersectional feminism, as well as her studies in Sonology. With an advanced skill for composition, sound synthesis and her knowledge on the totality of sound, she claimed the means of production, as New Stone is all produced, mixed and mastered by herself.

New Stone was recorded in a period of two years that started in 2020 and incorporates highlights of her landmark livesets ever since. New Stone is full of concocted emotion that sustains and releases through her trademark of stark contrasts - triplet-driven, jolted yet angelic atmospheres - resulting in a tangible, body-driven sound.

Interweaving her vocals near the final salvo, this album marks the end of a creative cycle and start of a next, allowing her personal touch to seep through her art more and more. Embarking from home ground, stepping on a new stone.

8 years almost to the day after releasing his unique re-interpretation album of his field recordings made in the late 90's in Tanzania, Kink Gong is back with another volume of bushmen madness. Here’s what Kink Gong aka Laurent Jean-neau has to say about his end of millennium trip:

‘’My experience in Tanzania is now over 20 years and most of the so called remix was started in Tanzania and left un-finished, then eventually retouched in Vienna, Paris, Shanghai, Kunming, Dali or Vientiane. 20 years later I searched my Tanzanian files and rediscovered unfinished tracks which are being now refreshed on this new record.

Back to the early days of the XXI century, when I lost my health trying to survive with the HADZAs, the last bushmen in northern Tanzania. In 1999 James Stephenson from NYC invited me to join his Hadzas friends. I would leave the bush to rest in a place with enough food and electricity and start to edit, loop and work on the original recordings, to trans-form them into organic abstract compositions, the only instrument I had recorded a lot with the Hadzas was the malimba and I bought different malimbas in Arusha to take back with me to Europe, I used either the original record-ings or me playing malimbas on some tracks and applied some electronic treatment to it, at that time I used Roland synths for some tracks.

The original recordings are related to scenes at night by the fire with the Hadzas, but also 3 different types of celebra-tions, Epeme Men was recorded on a moonless night with men and women singing and dancing in complete dark-ness in Mangola, an Hadza camp. Irawk Drum Under the Rain was recorded during daytime at a Multi ethnic gathering at the Franciscan Spanish catholic mission with a crowd dancing and singing under heavy rain while an IRAWK large (and wet) drum was being played, Northern Tanzania. Makonde Island was recorded in southern Tanzania at the boarder with Mozambique and is a pure scene of trance taking place on an island where the MAKONDE fishermen off the coast of Mtwara, get wild, hitting plastic containers for the sound, drunk and stoned men and women are hysterical-ly jumping and falling on each other, ending up with a few wounded.
Once again I'm responsible for this act of multicultural sabotage, but don’t forget that you can always listen to the origi-nal recordings on the Kink Gong recs collection. ‘’
Laurent Jeanneau, Berlin 2023

Formed in 2016 by transatlantic buds Nick Mitchell Maiato and James
Toth, One Eleven Heavy is a band designed as a Venn diagram of the
pair's shared musical loves Crazy Horse, Grateful Dead, and Dylan come to the fore when listening to their joyful third album, Poolside, but the influences go much deeper.

Toth says, We were lucky to have our touring drummer, Jake Morris (Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks) at the ready to play drums. Nick's pal, the fantastic Guy Fowler, plays bass on the record.

Guided by mysterious producer Colin Sick, One Eleven Heavy spent
a year writing and recording the tracks that form Poolside, an album that feels like a gothic western romp through cartoon dreams of escaped criminal ciphers ( Tyrant King ), rebound coke binge recollections ( Rizzo In The Wig ), and tales of sasquatches crossing state lines ( Bama Yeti ).

rand, the exciting new collaboration between pianist Jan Gerdes and electronic music producer Frank Bogdanowitz, is proud to present their debut album "Peripherie".

With Gerdes' background working alongside renowned composers such as Karl-Heinz Stockhausen, Wolfgang Rihm, and Helmut Lachenmann, and Bogdanowitz's extensive touring experience as Dr.Nojoke in the experimental minimal techno scene, rand brings together the worlds of acoustic and electronic music in a unique and captivating way.

Recorded live in 2019 at Berlin's Chez-Cherie Studios with no overdubs, the pieces were created through both improvisation and composition with Gerdes having access to three pianos during the recording process.

The resulting music is characterized by atmospheres that exist away from the conventional limelight, with musical elements blending together in a fluid indeterminacy.

The album showcases rand's ability to blur musical edges and create a wide ocean of sound, with piano and electronics taking listeners on a journey between detachment and connection.

rand's "Peripherie" represents the next step in their musical journey, following the release of EPs "I" and "II" on Bandcamp, a one-hour music improvisation for The POOL Berlin collective,
and a track on the Nonclassical label's "I hope this finds you well in these strange times Vol. 4" sampler.

The cover painting for "Peripherie" was created by Jan Gerdes, adding another layer of artistic expression to the project.

With their debut album, rand is set to make a name for themselves on the international stage and push the boundaries of what is possible in the world of contemporary music.

CALAMITA = KARKHANA members TONY ELIEH, SHARIF SEHNAOUI and Lebanese drummer MALEK RIZKALLAH join forces with the Egyptian singer AYA METWALLI - the result is the improbable meeting between free jazz / improv, punk rock & Oum Kalthoum!

CALAMITA is the "rock project" of SHARIF SEHNAOUI and TONY ELIEH, two of the most active musicians on the Lebanese experimental scene (among others projects, both are members of the "free Middle Eastern music" collective KARKHANA). SEHNAOUI comes from a jazz and improv music background, ELIEH is primarily a rock musician and founding member of the Lebanese post-punk band THE SCRAMBLED EGGS whose work in the last decade has covered many directions from pop-rock to plain experimental. They are joined by Lebanese drummer MALEK RIZKALLAH (WHO KILLED BRUCE LEE, ex THE SCRAMBLED EGGS). As trio they develop instrumental pieces that draw their inspiration from artists as diverse as Tony Conrad, Last Exit or Oum Kalthoum.

AYA METWALLI is an Egyptian singer/songwriter, composer and sound artist currently based in Beirut. Grown up in Cairo, her father would play non-stop Oum Kalthoum songs on road trips to the beach and Aya's mother; known to have the most beautiful voice in the family, she always sang at home and at family gatherings, so long before Aya was able to form her own music taste, immense amounts of Arabic classic songs and melodies already settled in her subconsciousness …

After her first EP "Beitak" in 2016, Metwalli (named "a musical enigma" by The Guardian) started to integrate more experimental and eerie sonic excursions into her avant-pop, so the collaboration with CALAMITA feels like a natural or logic step.

The roots for "Al Saher" ("stay awake") were laid when SEHNAOUI and METWALLI first worked together in "Night", a dance piece by ALI CHAHROUR which included a wide collection of Arabic songs and ancient poems, later Sehnaoui invited her to work with CALAMITA. The four met in a recording studio in Beirut, using songs by "The Voice of Egypt" Oum Kalthoum as starting point.Together they aim to fully revisit the song format and explore the possibilities of classical Tarab songs, extracted from their origins and reframed within the music of the twenty-first century. The result is a mix of various styles and influences that often seek to stretch the contrasts to towering extremes - animprobable blend between free jazz & improv, punk rock & Oum Kalthoum!

To need, to be needed, in four corners. Sleep and privacy, gases come and gases go, and now you are the only one in the room you sit in, you are one with the room you sit in, as if there are no negatives and no positives--did you know that you are an extension of your apartment? Did you know that you are in a codependent relationship with your apartment? Did you know that your apartment knows and appreciates all of your secrets?--I feel safe, which is not a new need for human beings, but a very ancient one, almost the first one. It is enacted by the possibility of sound, humming or strumming something mostly. But the quiet apartment makes its own sounds: a single longing note of birdsong told to the beat of restful breathing, the angelic insistence of tinnitus, the neighbours. Sometimes I wonder if silence means nobody's home. How still I sit. Sometimes I return to silence and feel hugged by the cool lightness of its touch, like sleeping with just a sheet in summertime. Like turning the key. Like a visit from the cat next door. Like a somnambulant ray reaching across the room, asking if you'd like to step outside. Reste Envie is a desirous message to oneself, made from a place of lived solitude: the parameters of home. Roger 3000 is a painter and a musician from Brussels, Belgium. Rest En Vie follows his 2020 release on his own imprint Tundra Records, Fiftine. His first solo EP, UFO Love Letters, was released by JJ Funhouse in 2014, followed by a contribution to Ekster's 2017 compilation album EXO3. Roger 3000 frequently collaborates with other musicians and artists, most recently with Lawrence le Doux (with whom he released the EP Chou Chou on Lexi Disques in 2021); with Carole Louis as Ondine & Turbotin for the EP Club Solitude, as well as with Bitsy Knox, with whom he released the LP OM COLD BLOOD in 2018 on Tanuki Records. Text by Bitsy Knox

Two years after his acclaimed ‘Darkos LP’, Jonquera is back to Charlieu’s surrounding vales for his second album on Bamboo Shows.

Through ‘La Croix des Cros’, the French Musician delivers a loner-folk eclogue about the fantasized inner demons of a country dweller. Just like clay, audio recordings here are a malleable substance, slowly reworked over a year, following a sinuous production process where all mishaps are welcomed as breaches to step into.

Far from the spaghetti western myth of the reckless bounty hunter, riding his faithful horse in the great outdoors to spill blood; this 14-track album is the grieving lament of a wistful cowboy, longing for a simple patch of peace where one’s free to cultivate the earth and noodle on the guitar.

Heldon’s cosmic space-rock, Badalamenti’s Twin-Peaksesque foggy jazz or Morricone’s glorious soundtracks, so many references to portray another fertile imprint by Jonquera, available from February 13, 2023 on a 12” vinyl.

Asphalt Records second output is a forward thinking, hardcore continuum friendly take on the grittier side of industrial techno from Birmingham by the neighbourhood's new pestilent squathouse residents NeonDemon. This EP has its roots buried deep in seamless concrete foundations scaffolded by Mick Harris, via Surgeon & Regis inspired techno half-times, while pushing tech-step’s most asphyxiating soundscapes to sheer schizophrenia (i.e Guided by Whispers). The grime influxed club architectures (Pattern Down), the weightless demonic punk industrial attitude reminiscent of Throbbing Gristle (Pentastar) and the dark humor embedded in this 12’ (Pandeirada de Tella Remix) make Stains EP the perfect soundtrack for today’s apocalyptic contemporary events. Mastered as usual by Jason Goz at Transition, pressed in thick asphaltic 180g and wrapped in our usual pavement-black outer sleeve.

Orange Vinyl

»Love As Projection« is the new album by Frankie Rose, her fifth studio LP and second for Night School following the reissue of her interpretation of The Cure’s »Seventeen Seconds«. Frankie Rose has forged an enviable musical legacy, from playing with bands like Crystal Stilts and The Vivian Girls but on »Love As Projection« she takes a bold step into electronic pop production. A sumptuous recorded statement, it dances in ecstasy and broods on the tumult of the western world’s decay in equal proportion. At the heart of the album is glowing, confident songwriting, resplendent in hooks and choruses but still touched with an optimism undimmed.

After spending nearly two decades establishing herself across New York and Los Angeles independent music circles, Rose re-emerges after six years with a fresh form, aesthetic, and ethos. Celebrated over the years for her expansive approach to songwriting, lush atmospherics, and transcendent vocal melodies and harmonies, »Love As Projection« is a reintroduction of her established style through the lens of contemporary electronic pop. Recorded with producer Brandt Gassman and mixed with long-term collaborator Jorge Elbrecht this is the album Frankie Rose has been building up to her entire career.

More than a rebirth, a refinement, a resurgence, »Love As Projection« boasts a widescreen scope: a long- form project heavily considered for half of a decade, culminating in the most personal and accessible collection of art-pop that Frankie has ever written. When Rose aims for the pop jugular as in first lead track »Anything«, the result is unstoppable. A majestic pop song built for radio, it erupts into an irresistible chorus that marries classic epic 80s American pop with the cult effervescence of Strawberry Switchblade »It’s like a prom scene in a John Hughes movie. It’s a hopeful song about abandoning fear even if the world is quite literally on fire.. In the end, at least we have each other,« says Rose. »Sixteen Ways« further boasts a propulsive, massive chorus, though tempered by a cynicism built in global post-truth, global malaise. »It’s about getting your hopes up, but simultaneously making lists in your head about how it will never work out in your favour.«

The big anthems don’t let up there. On »DOA« some massive, rolling drums lathered in big mid-80s gated reverb dovetail with a syncopated baseline for the ages as Rose’s vocal sails effortlessly above. The effect isn’t unlike ethereal vocalists Clannad circa Howard’s Way or Enya jamming with Simple Minds in their stadium-conquering heyday. Rose tempers the adrenalin with heart-tugging bittersweet tones and there are plenty of them. »Sleeping Night And Day« takes its time with an off-the-cuff chorus, swirling around in harmony and chorus-bass. »Saltwater Girl« picks up the balladeering baton with another nod to album track-mode Switchblade, deep space opening up in the mid-tempo drum track and soupy, digital atmospherics. Album closer »Song For A Horse«, reimagines modern Pop production a-la-PC Music but shorn of the meta-atmosphere. Pianos, swelling synths, minor keys cut through with major. These moments, also seen in Feel Light offer ballast to the soaring pop choruses. Moments like these are big oceans of emotion to fall into before being led out by Rose into a bright new day.

»Love As Projection« is released in the USA by Slumberland.

Two years after their previous effort, regular as clockwork, Swiss throbbing synth pop duo Veil Of Light is back with a new album and what can we say? These guys keep on getting better and better.

If you have followed the Zurich-based outfit over the past few years, you must have noticed the constant moving towards 80’s FM new wave and synthpop tones – without losing their electro/body music outline – that have marked the band’s parable, especially since their latest Landslide LP.

Sundancing is their sixth full-length and it stays the course, bringing what we’ve just said to the next step. Nine new dancy and bright tunes with emotional depth that blend lush instrumentation and robust rhythms, guided by funky and rubbery basslines. Syncopated rhythm sections match suburban cool synths in the lead single Apricot Kiss and Hypersleep, while Raindancing and Tonight summon a sinuosity long gone since the mid Eighties. The musical backdrop here serves as the fundament for emotional vocals delivering lyrics dealing with the fragility of love, joy and loneliness.

There’s some subtle addictiveness to these songs, one that will gently grab you by the collar of your coat and stick the refrains from Sundancing inside your head for good.
Veil Of Light might make it look easy to keep it neat without being minimalist, intimate without being depressing, romantic in the most true sense of the word, but we know that’s possibly the hardest thing to do.

Evocative and spooky contemporary prog. Meine U Teksi has absolutely nailed it to fetishist levels. It sounds like the synths were the only thing keeping the castle warm the night this was recorded.
The whole record it's made even more unnerving by the fact that the 4th track doesn't exist.

SPF 50, real name Stephan Kimbel Olson, has graced New York’s finest sound systems with his deep, rolling club sets. In his numerous roles – DJ, engineer, party promoter, label head, producer and dancer – Stephan has become an essential contributor to New York’s nightlife culture, a fixture in the city’s extended sonic community.

On Social Life, his first release with NY label Bliss Point, Stephan has channeled two booming club workouts, each with modular synthesis evoking the organic: an unruly bassline snakes through the aural fauna of “Body Concept”, while breaks and acid fly by on “Liquid USB”, an intricate sonic constellation propelling through space, culminating in the release of classic house chords midway.

On the B side, Stephan takes us deeper into the unknown. “Grove Map” is world-building club ambiance aptly named after The Grove, a stage deep in the woods at New York’s Sustain-Release festival, where portals have long been known to be opened. “Iris (Bad Water Version)”, rounds out the offering, a drippy dub that time seems to slip off of, perfect for a melted warm up or come down.

British musician, multi-instrumentalist, producer and DJ cktrl returns with the release of his new EP ‘Yield’. Born from a desire to change the narrative around contemporary Black British music, the boundary-pushing musician aims with this project to prioritise the art of bonafide musicianship. A stark departure from cktrl’s previous work, ‘Yield’ is a celestial and palpably more inward body of work that harkens back to the pre-electric age of modal jazz while simultaneously pulling in elements from the disciplines of classical and baroque music. Speaking on the project’s sonic identity, cktrl says: “I want to be able to show that you can make things from scratch again that have that feeling and beauty without having to sample an old record. Even though that’s an art-form within itself, I want to show raw orchestration and instrumentation can be the sole source” The origins of the title came from a period where cktrl was looking to find solace in himself after an introspective period of grief and heartbreak. As an intentionally instrumental project with minimal vocals, cktrl wants prospective listeners to see these new songs as guided meditations where they can wholly insert themselves in it. Eliciting and reaping whatever feelings come to the fore. Speaking on what ‘Yield’ means to him as a concept, cktrl explains: “Some people who I've asked to define the word ‘yield’ have looked at it from a harvest point of view, whereas others have seen it as something to submit to, to render, like you're giving up yourself. I see it as a barometer for how you feel - no matter if you're at your lowest or your highest vibration, you still need to show up for yourself. You still have to be present. It’s about getting the best from yourself no matter where you are in life” The new project is the follow up to last year’s ‘Zero’ which featured collaborations with esteemed contemporaries like the GRAMMY-nominated Mereba and anaiis. Upon the project’s release, it was met with a plethora of critical acclaim from highly regarded publications and platform such as British Vogue, Dazed, CRACK Magazine, Resident Advisor, NOTION, Harper's Bazaar and ES Magazine for its sprawling and experimental scope, spanning avant-garde jazz, classical music, alternative R&B and electronica. cktrl has a tune for every occasion: as content making beats by himself at home in Lewisham as he is amongst this generation’s fashion and cultural vanguards. Music has been a part of his life for as long as he can remember: from clarinet lessons throughout his school life to fond memories from his NTS days. Moulded by a unique blend of his West Indian heritage, years of classical training in both the clarinet and saxophone, cktrl strives to do what hasn’t been done before. His approach to creation is decidedly wide-ranging and broad. In fact, where sonic descriptions might fail to encompass the breadth of cktrl’s scope, three words surface when he unpacks his musical aims: freedom, range and feeling. Elsewhere, throughout his career, cktrl has been recognised and heralded by fashion and film VIPs as he firmly embeds himself within the black cultural renaissance emerging here in Britain. Acquiring a global network of creatives that include the late Virgil Abloh, Bianca Saunders, Tremaine Emory, Saul Nash, Maximilian Davis, Ahluwalia, Stephen Isaac Wilson, Sean Frank, Campbell Addy, Ib Kamara and Jenn Nkiru who secured him a cameo in Beyoncé’s ground-breaking film ‘Black Is King’.

Ivor Cutler is loved by generations of fans - including Paul McCartney, Billy Connolly and Alex Kapranos - for his unique music and poetic humour. A phenomenal stage presence for 50 years, with a prolific output. Championed by legendary DJ John Peel for whom Cutler recorded 21 sessions. 'Privilege' was produced as a vinyl LP for Rough Trade Records in 1983 and has been unavailable for decades. The album is only one of two where Cutler collaborates with other artists. It is unique in that there is a second voice - singer Linda Hirst. Musicians Steve Beresford and David Toop play several instruments and produced the record.

I’ve started to work on this album before I knew it.

During June 2018, I was in Japan for a month to release my previous album "Cairn" as well as my first solo exhibition of drawings in Tokyo.

Everyday on my way to the gallery I passed in front of the same building, its name kept haunting me : Rogue Hill.

Back then I was digging for cheap 80’s Japanese CD’s (Balearic, New Age, Ambient,...) in second hand stores. Most of them set the tone of this album and the direction I wanted to follow. I feel there’s a direct connection between these original sources and the sound I pursue by their meditative aspect.

Most of the demo songs were done before my daughter’s birth on August 2019 and were finalized since then. Many of the titles refer to this main event and relate to how it changed my position in life : being a link through time by becoming a father.

Melancholia is a made-up medical condition manifested in an incessant moment of reflection. The newest album is a soundtrack to different stages of it and the accompanying feelings. The extremes of those got illustrated by Wojtek Łebski who designed the graphic identity of the album.

"I wrote this music during the last 3 years which for me and to many others were the most bizarre time on the planet we live. Lots of dilemmas, problems, ups and downs, self-doubt and permanent anxiety I transformed into different frequencies of sound. From the very first song, you can hear my fascination with the bass and half-step music scene. Thanks to Mr Envee who mixed the album, it sounds exactly how I imagined - deep and worm. Welcome to the journey." - says the author.

Teielte is a very important person to U Know Me Records - his debut album was the first one in the history of the label. To honour the album properly, the "Melancholizm" was labelled with the number UKM 100 and it will be released exactly 12 years after the famous debut of Taielte's album "Homeworkz".

The album will be released in two versions - classic black LP and limited colour LP. What's special about the limited edition is that every copy is different and is numbered by hand (100 copies). Also, both versions have different covers designed by Wojtek Łebski

restock

Melodies Of Ancient Beats Depth or Deep, (with Dep also meaning beautiful in Indonesian) is the meaning of this newly created persona from the artist DemoDc. After many years of experimenting with music making, releasing digital eps and albums, Demo has come to an end of a cycle arriving to a mature state of craftsmanship, ready to deliver his dream onto the vinyl medium.

This is the 1st ep that kickstarts a volume of a 5 ep project. Its own kind of album type edition so to speak. Down the rabbit hole is a deeply rich exploration of the unknown, immersing oneself with faith and love into a pandora’s box type scenario to find not chaos and random violence of destruction yet a carefully arranged melodic structure of orderly tapestry, traveling through the expression of quirky acid gobbles, with a steady deep chord of drive, arriving at a climatic unwind of free moving dance type melodies and wonder. This track gives electro a fresh stroke to a well founded genre, giving it a different approach to the medium. Today’s special is a track held close to heart, made back in 2007 after a skiing incident left MOAB DEP immobilized for 2 weeks. Whilst having travelled to NZ Queenstown for the trip, it dawned on the wounded artist to make sense elsewhere with his time, using it to create a very special track, of course unknowingly at the time. Returning home to Adelaide it quickly become a favourite for many underground artists yet the track has never really been given a chance to shine, to be heard…. not until now 12 years later, 2019. 
All made on his laptop, no midi used ( which is to be said mostly with all tracks created at heartheartrecords studios).

Today’s Special has a certain energy and vibe that immediately calls for the listener to pay attention. From its moody beginnings with lush rhodes keys, glitch ambient sounds, followed by the groovy-type horn sounding hook, whisking the listener away into a sunsetting type mood elevating itself onto new ground each step of the way. With some subtle bass movements and emotive chord progression, we arrive at a very warm heartfelt dance track that can only leave any dedicated listener and lover of common deep house music, with a tingling effervescence of radiant glow and smiles.
 Today’s Special proves to be its own cult hit within the archives of tracks made in the heartheartrecords realm. Today's special celebrates the meaning of 'NOW' the present moment.

Originally Re Eff (pronounced Ri Èf) was a bunch of texts. One hundred and fifty pages that Julien Gasc wrote by trying his hand at the art of cut-up: a literary and political act of counter-fiction based on William Burroughs’s method. It was also Julien Gasc’s response to the isolation of 2020, while he was seeking refuge in the Southwest of France, with time as far as the eye could see, and a piano.

For a long while, it hadn’t been about songs, but about expressing the indescribable by cutting randomly from books and his own notes, attempting to fleetingly strike a balance, find a beauty, a happy accident. Incidentally, it was almost by accident, while recycling a piece that he’d composed for steel guitar pedal, that Julien Gasc sketched the first draft of “Ce soir les bouteilles dansent” (“Tonight the Bottles Are Dancing”). This was combined with a version of “Rosario Bléfari”, recorded on an inexpensive Casio synthesizer. These were Re Eff’s baby steps.

While everything was at a standstill, in stasis, Julien Gasc wanted to send a group message to some friends, to his family, a message from a confinee to those who weren’t answering, friend or foe, imaginary or otherwise. It was this collective recipient that he nicknamed Re Eff. The name comes from “re” (re-) and “effacer” (erase), words found during a cut-up and transformed into ri èf for added euphony, like a facetious grief (grievance, reproach in French) without the “g”.

Like its title, a kind of serious joke, the album is one long interplay between humour and gravitas, sense and nonsense, shadow and light, aiming to fully describe feelings in terms of their ambiguous and contradictory elements.

Through a return to regular piano practice, calm recovered at a holiday resort town, and literary experimentations, to which he added transcribed dreams, as in “La scie de la vision modern” (“The Saw of Modern Vision”), Julien Gasc composed ten demos on his computer. These demos were then rerecorded at Syd Kemp’s Haha Sound studio in London, in December 2021. The mix was completed there again, in February 2022, by Syd and Julian.

Play to play and write to write, those are the keywords of Re Eff, in which memories are freely combined (“À travers le regard de l’indienne” / “Through the Amazon’s Eyes”), the theme of enclosure and passion (“Amour velours” / “Velvet Love”), melodrama ("Délivrance"), and romantic novella (“Tout ne peut pas nécessairement donner quelque chose” / “Not Everything Leads to Something”). Music resolutely oriented towards the piano, towards bold and filmic harmonic movements that make a successful form of lyrical poetry possible. Because all in all, by singing about current events – his own and those of the world – in an elegiac tone, like bards, Julien Gasc was gradually transformed from pop singer into poet.