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Kneading dough is tricky – you should know how it’s supposed to feel. If you try too hard you could make it worse. It’s a beautiful practice – creation with a gentle touch, to work at something so it can be left alone. “If it’s too drawn out it’s awful. It’s easy to give too much.” Dance in the mirror. Contemplate your veiny hands. Who do they remind you of?

You begin by mixing flour and water. “What happens when your people die? Why’d they move the rock to the other side of Ulster Park?” Eliza Niemi asks two seemingly unrelated questions in a rising melody with guitar accompaniment, like fingers playing spider up to the nape of your neck. Gentle pressure. Strands of gluten form to bind the mix. A new question lingers in the binding. When she admits “but I don’t know how to tell if I’m feeling it or not,” that question surfaces through the text. It is reiterated throughout the album. When I’m working with dough I think the same thing to myself.

On Progress Bakery, her second album as a solo artist, Eliza knows to leave some questions alone – to let juxtaposition and tension be the proof. It doesn’t have to be hard. The feelings and revelations they provoke rise in the heat. The smell is sweet. Crispy on the outside and soft all the way through. She playfully slip-slides through words and sounds and images, delighting in surprise, skimming ideas like stones cast across clear water, touching down briefly with uncommon grace.

The question provoked between those opening lines resurfaces in the strands between songs – “Do U FM” is fully formed and beautifully layered, while “Novelist Sad Face” is a short, acapella rendering of gentle curiosity. What is holding these ideas together? Some songs demand more, seem to carry a whole load – eventually the skipping stone will halt to sink and resume its idle duty – while others drift in and out of focus, the way thoughts and dreams become interwoven before the mind is sunk into true sleep.

Music and words don’t always have to interact. Where she decides to keep them apart gives a new contour to where and how she puts them together. The kind of thing you’re supposed to take for granted with songs and their singers comes alive in Eliza’s hands – the little miracle of mixing, kneading, stretching, and stopping.

So often on Progress Bakery, Eliza teases out truth and meaning by asking questions. “Do I wanna be crying?” “Do you want me good or do you want me bad?” “Do I need an eye test?” “I’m writing songs in my head while you’re going over stuff with me — is that cruel??” In “Pocky” Eliza ends with a question that feels to me like the actual biography, succinct and revealing:

I don’t wanna be made to see
I just wanna ask “what’s that?”

Grace that ought to be rare, but in its care and precision is offered humbly, with great generosity, and without announcing itself. Eliza’s simple, miraculous music is given further form and shape by a group of collaborators – invaluable guest musicians Jeremy Ray, Evan Cartwright, Steven McPhail, Kenny Boothby, Ed Squires, Carolina Chauffe, Dorothea Paas, Louie Short, and Avalon Tassonyi. Together with Louie Short, who recorded, mixed, and produced the album along with Jeremy Ray and Lukas Cheung, Eliza has cultivated a richness in sound and texture that prods and provokes the ticklish ear. Barely audible guitar tinkering, a brief lo-fi field recording of trumpets, the harmonic clicking of a looped synthesizer, a flourish of reeds, a child’s conversation, each uncanny sound perfectly placed, rippling out under a soft breeze.

Lay in bed alone at night and ask aloud to the stillness,

“What were you doing at the Albuquerque Airport?
What were you doing there??”

And hear your question answered by a dream of swelling, undulating cellos. Try to grasp at the melody and structure. It’s not an answer (if there could be one), but it moves deeper, closer to the weird layer of fleeting moments and disconnected images, barely perceptible at its core. Wait for the dream reel to click into place.

Eliza took me for a ride in Nicole (her beloved Dodge Grand Caravan) and told me she’d been thinking of the album as an embodiment of transition – and I think every transition, known or unknown, carries the weight of new meaning, skittering off the surface tension of life as you know it, creating ripples, sometimes bouncing off and sometimes breaking through. There is a trick you can use to tell if a dough is glutinous enough. You’re supposed to stretch it out as thin as you can without breaking it and hold it up to the light. If you can see through, even if it renders the world murky and uncertain, you should leave it alone. I love this trick. It’s one that Eliza seems to know intuitively: work gently and ask questions and don’t always expect answers, and when you can, take a glimpse at something new, and then leave.

Kneading dough is tricky – you should know how it’s supposed to feel. If you try too hard you could make it worse. It’s a beautiful practice – creation with a gentle touch, to work at something so it can be left alone. “If it’s too drawn out it’s awful. It’s easy to give too much.” Dance in the mirror. Contemplate your veiny hands. Who do they remind you of?

You begin by mixing flour and water. “What happens when your people die? Why’d they move the rock to the other side of Ulster Park?” Eliza Niemi asks two seemingly unrelated questions in a rising melody with guitar accompaniment, like fingers playing spider up to the nape of your neck. Gentle pressure. Strands of gluten form to bind the mix. A new question lingers in the binding. When she admits “but I don’t know how to tell if I’m feeling it or not,” that question surfaces through the text. It is reiterated throughout the album. When I’m working with dough I think the same thing to myself.

On Progress Bakery, her second album as a solo artist, Eliza knows to leave some questions alone – to let juxtaposition and tension be the proof. It doesn’t have to be hard. The feelings and revelations they provoke rise in the heat. The smell is sweet. Crispy on the outside and soft all the way through. She playfully slip-slides through words and sounds and images, delighting in surprise, skimming ideas like stones cast across clear water, touching down briefly with uncommon grace.

The question provoked between those opening lines resurfaces in the strands between songs – “Do U FM” is fully formed and beautifully layered, while “Novelist Sad Face” is a short, acapella rendering of gentle curiosity. What is holding these ideas together? Some songs demand more, seem to carry a whole load – eventually the skipping stone will halt to sink and resume its idle duty – while others drift in and out of focus, the way thoughts and dreams become interwoven before the mind is sunk into true sleep.

Music and words don’t always have to interact. Where she decides to keep them apart gives a new contour to where and how she puts them together. The kind of thing you’re supposed to take for granted with songs and their singers comes alive in Eliza’s hands – the little miracle of mixing, kneading, stretching, and stopping.

So often on Progress Bakery, Eliza teases out truth and meaning by asking questions. “Do I wanna be crying?” “Do you want me good or do you want me bad?” “Do I need an eye test?” “I’m writing songs in my head while you’re going over stuff with me — is that cruel??” In “Pocky” Eliza ends with a question that feels to me like the actual biography, succinct and revealing:

I don’t wanna be made to see
I just wanna ask “what’s that?”

Grace that ought to be rare, but in its care and precision is offered humbly, with great generosity, and without announcing itself. Eliza’s simple, miraculous music is given further form and shape by a group of collaborators – invaluable guest musicians Jeremy Ray, Evan Cartwright, Steven McPhail, Kenny Boothby, Ed Squires, Carolina Chauffe, Dorothea Paas, Louie Short, and Avalon Tassonyi. Together with Louie Short, who recorded, mixed, and produced the album along with Jeremy Ray and Lukas Cheung, Eliza has cultivated a richness in sound and texture that prods and provokes the ticklish ear. Barely audible guitar tinkering, a brief lo-fi field recording of trumpets, the harmonic clicking of a looped synthesizer, a flourish of reeds, a child’s conversation, each uncanny sound perfectly placed, rippling out under a soft breeze.

Lay in bed alone at night and ask aloud to the stillness,

“What were you doing at the Albuquerque Airport?
What were you doing there??”

And hear your question answered by a dream of swelling, undulating cellos. Try to grasp at the melody and structure. It’s not an answer (if there could be one), but it moves deeper, closer to the weird layer of fleeting moments and disconnected images, barely perceptible at its core. Wait for the dream reel to click into place.

Eliza took me for a ride in Nicole (her beloved Dodge Grand Caravan) and told me she’d been thinking of the album as an embodiment of transition – and I think every transition, known or unknown, carries the weight of new meaning, skittering off the surface tension of life as you know it, creating ripples, sometimes bouncing off and sometimes breaking through. There is a trick you can use to tell if a dough is glutinous enough. You’re supposed to stretch it out as thin as you can without breaking it and hold it up to the light. If you can see through, even if it renders the world murky and uncertain, you should leave it alone. I love this trick. It’s one that Eliza seems to know intuitively: work gently and ask questions and don’t always expect answers, and when you can, take a glimpse at something new, and then leave.

Scowl is a band that sounds exactly like their name implies. Venomous, fierce, antagonistic. A sneer not to be crossed. Over the last five years, the Santa Cruz, California, band has firmly planted their flag in the hardcore scene with their vicious sound and ripping live show, sharing stages around the world with Circle Jerks, Touché Amoré, and Limp Bizkit, and filling slots at prominent festivals like Coachella, Sick New World, and Reading and Leeds. But with their new album, Are We All Angels (Dead Oceans), Scowl is aiming to funnel all that aggression through a more expansive version of themselves. Much of Are We All Angels grapples with Scowl’s newfound place in the hardcore scene, a community which has both embraced the band and made them something of a lightning rod over the past few years. Standout single “Not Hell, Not Heaven” outright rejects the narratives cast onto them by outsiders. “It’s about feeling victimized and being a victim, but not wanting to identify with being a victim,” explains vocalist Kat Moss. “It’s trying to find grace in the fact that I have my power. I live in my reality. You have to deal with whatever you're dealing with, and it ain’t working for me.” The band breaks from a sense of disassociation to seek deeper connections on “Fantasy.” “It’s incredibly challenging to try to balance my love for the scene while also feeling, in some spaces, extremely alienated and hated,” Moss says. “‘Fantasy’ is about feeling like I don't know how to connect with these people anymore, because I have shelled myself away so hard.” The album ends in a philosophical place on the closing, titular track, “Are We All Angels,” asking questions like, “Is this all there is?” and ultimately putting it on the listener to decide. “It’s about the personal struggle between good and evil. It doesn’t matter how ‘good’ or ‘bad’ you are, there are systems that will try to rewrite your narrative no matter what you actually do,” explains Moss, noting that punctuation on “Are We All Angels” has been deliberately omitted in an attempt to leave the statement open-ended. Are We All Angels is the highly anticipated follow-up to Scowl’s debut, 2021’s How Flowers Grow, a 16-minute primal scream over punishing riffs. But amidst the pounding chaos, it was the record’s sonic outlier, a cleaner interlude called “Seeds to Sow,” that, true to its name, planted the seed for what was to come for the band. “It kind of laid out this destiny for us, and I feel like now we’re fulfilling that,” says drummer Cole Gilbert. The band continued to expand their sound on 2023’s widely acclaimed Psychic Dance Routine EP, incorporating more pop hooks and favoring gentler singing over heavy screaming, paving the way for what would come next. Scowl’s growth got a huge boost from producer Will Yip (Turnstile, Title Fight, Code Orange, Balance and Composure), who broadened the band’s scope. “Will would say, ‘Everything you have here is correct, but it’s in the wrong place,’” says Gilbert. Moss adds: “Will really helped restructure a lot of the material. Some songs he tore apart to make more space for the really good hooks and choruses.” But even through this more eclectic approach, Scowl loses none of their edge, and still manages to convey the anger and frustration that lies underneath. They are deeply committed to carrying the ethos of punk and its sense of community. “Hardcore and punk have sculpted how we operate, what we want to do as a band, and how we participate,” says guitarist Malachi Greene. “At our core, we are a punk and a hardcore band, regardless of how the song shifts and changes.

Scowl is a band that sounds exactly like their name implies. Venomous, fierce, antagonistic. A sneer not to be crossed. Over the last five years, the Santa Cruz, California, band has firmly planted their flag in the hardcore scene with their vicious sound and ripping live show, sharing stages around the world with Circle Jerks, Touché Amoré, and Limp Bizkit, and filling slots at prominent festivals like Coachella, Sick New World, and Reading and Leeds. But with their new album, Are We All Angels (Dead Oceans), Scowl is aiming to funnel all that aggression through a more expansive version of themselves. Much of Are We All Angels grapples with Scowl’s newfound place in the hardcore scene, a community which has both embraced the band and made them something of a lightning rod over the past few years. Standout single “Not Hell, Not Heaven” outright rejects the narratives cast onto them by outsiders. “It’s about feeling victimized and being a victim, but not wanting to identify with being a victim,” explains vocalist Kat Moss. “It’s trying to find grace in the fact that I have my power. I live in my reality. You have to deal with whatever you're dealing with, and it ain’t working for me.” The band breaks from a sense of disassociation to seek deeper connections on “Fantasy.” “It’s incredibly challenging to try to balance my love for the scene while also feeling, in some spaces, extremely alienated and hated,” Moss says. “‘Fantasy’ is about feeling like I don't know how to connect with these people anymore, because I have shelled myself away so hard.” The album ends in a philosophical place on the closing, titular track, “Are We All Angels,” asking questions like, “Is this all there is?” and ultimately putting it on the listener to decide. “It’s about the personal struggle between good and evil. It doesn’t matter how ‘good’ or ‘bad’ you are, there are systems that will try to rewrite your narrative no matter what you actually do,” explains Moss, noting that punctuation on “Are We All Angels” has been deliberately omitted in an attempt to leave the statement open-ended. Are We All Angels is the highly anticipated follow-up to Scowl’s debut, 2021’s How Flowers Grow, a 16-minute primal scream over punishing riffs. But amidst the pounding chaos, it was the record’s sonic outlier, a cleaner interlude called “Seeds to Sow,” that, true to its name, planted the seed for what was to come for the band. “It kind of laid out this destiny for us, and I feel like now we’re fulfilling that,” says drummer Cole Gilbert. The band continued to expand their sound on 2023’s widely acclaimed Psychic Dance Routine EP, incorporating more pop hooks and favoring gentler singing over heavy screaming, paving the way for what would come next. Scowl’s growth got a huge boost from producer Will Yip (Turnstile, Title Fight, Code Orange, Balance and Composure), who broadened the band’s scope. “Will would say, ‘Everything you have here is correct, but it’s in the wrong place,’” says Gilbert. Moss adds: “Will really helped restructure a lot of the material. Some songs he tore apart to make more space for the really good hooks and choruses.” But even through this more eclectic approach, Scowl loses none of their edge, and still manages to convey the anger and frustration that lies underneath. They are deeply committed to carrying the ethos of punk and its sense of community. “Hardcore and punk have sculpted how we operate, what we want to do as a band, and how we participate,” says guitarist Malachi Greene. “At our core, we are a punk and a hardcore band, regardless of how the song shifts and changes.

Legendary postmodern, post punk, post human, past caring collective Mekons return with a brand-new album for 2025. Their first release on Fire Records, ‘Horror’ a collection of songs written in late 2022 but providing a horribly prescient reflection of the world in its current miasma and how we got here. ‘Horror’ looks at history and the legacies of British imperialism with mashed up lyrics set against a typically eclectic sound that amalgamates everything from dub, country, noise, rock & roll, electronica, punk, music hall, polka and you can even take your partner for a nice waltz on ‘Sad And Sad And Sad’. The roots of their global sound reflect their nomadic journey through time and space from Leeds to California in the West and Siberia in the East and is woven into the fabric and intricacies of their song creation… Sounding like The Chills and R.E.M circa the I.R.S Records years, ‘Mudcrawlers’ sees just about the whole band joining Jon Langford on vocals speaking of Irish famine and refugees journeying to Wales. ‘War Economy’ shivers in the cold of such Boroughs spiked one-liners: “Clinical coercion will not achieve dominance!” Sounding like its straight off a Jenny Holzer neon sign (she of Abuse Of Power Comes As No Surprise), it’s held together by a disgruntled swaggering riff that underpins an explosion of disquiet. Meanwhile, Rico takes the lead on the maliciously luscious ‘Fallen Leaves’ an appalled and appalling Hammer Horror take on climate breakdown reminiscent of Rolling Thunder Dylan, that recalls The Pogues at their most introspective, its Celtic twilightism augmented by Susie Honeyman’s keening violin as the dying sun sinks down and the river Styx flows on in the pitch black night. Almost 50 years in the making, these Mekons continue to astound, their sound, sentiment and method of delivery blended to perfection by bass player and studio wizard, Dave Trumfio. The Mekons are Jon Langford, Sally Timms, Tom Greenhalgh, Dave Trumfio, Susie Honeyman, Rico Bell, Steve Goulding, and Lu Edmonds. "Effortlessly eloquent post-punks" Pitchfork // “The Mekons are still vital” Rolling Stone // “The most revolutionary group in the history of rock ‘n’ roll,” Lester Bangs // UK Tour 8-15 May 2025 (including London, Manchester, Glasgow, and more).

LORCO aims to evoke an ancient Naturalism, like a relic brought back to light from the depths of the sea, a buried simulacrum rescued from the pyre that sought to erase the philosophical legacy of Giordano Bruno.
"Stories are battle axes to be unearthed" (Wu Ming).

In Giordano Bruno Will Have His Revenge on Rome, the human presence is sparse. Voices are rare, words remain in listening.
It’s industrial music played “as forests think” (Eduardo Kohn), speaking the language of waterfalls, hurricanes, and serene lakes Far from the factories, it listens to something we still belong to.

DJ Support: Gilles Peterson (BBC Radio 6 Music), Tom Ravenscroft/Deb Grant – New Music Fix (BBC Radio 6 Music), Huey Morgan (BBC Radio 6 Music)

From Budapest, Mörk (pronounced Merk) play on the boundaries of jazz and soul music. After meeting as students, they created a band that not only toyed with sounds but the methods of delivering them too. They’ve played in kindergardens, climbing halls, tea rooms and living rooms, countering expectations of where and how you find music.

Following April's much loved ‘Astral Visions’ EP, played across Bandcamp Weekly, BBC 6 Music, FIP, Jazz FM and KCRW, their upcoming album ‘Still Dreamin’’ delivers even more soul and uplifting choruses, coupled with the synchronicity of a band that has been through so much together.

Firstly, I want to thank Soulox & Soeneido for their patience because I have slept on their music for years haha

They have both been sending me music for a long time which I was pretty slack on checking (as a lot of people may have also noticed when sending me music, there's a huge backlog to get through and not enough hours in the day!) but it wasn't until Pete Dev/Null was in London for an event and we met up in person to record a mix for Blog To The Oldskool (our show on Jungletrain) that I realised what these two were capable of. Pete started the show with Lavish and I had to know what it was straight away, he told me it was by Soulox & Soeneido and I felt so bad that I had probably not bothered to check this tune if they had sent it to me, but I knew I had to have it!

I messaged Soen the next day asking about this tune and thankfully it was still available, one thing led to another and this release now exists. Big thanks to both of them for their wicked tunes, big up Comfort Zone on his quality remix of Lavish and a special mention to Jay Vaz (of Dreaming Vinyl) who did the design for the b-side of this release.

Googling “paradise house”, the first results to pop up are an endless list of European b&b’s with whitewashed lime façades, all of them promising “…an unmatched travel experience a few steps from the sea”. Next, a little further down, are the institutional websites of a few select semi-luxury retirement homes (no photos shown, but lots of stock images of smiling nurses with reassuring looks). To find the “paradise house” we’re after, we have to scroll even further down. Much further down.

It feels like yesterday, and at the same time it seems like a million years ago. The Eighties had just ended, and it was still unclear what to expect from the Nineties. Mobile phones that were not the size of a briefcase and did not cost as much as a car? A frightening economic crisis? The guitar-rock revival?! Certainly, the best place to observe that moment of transition was the dancefloor. Truly epochal transformations were happening there. From America, within a short distance one from the other, two revolutionary new musical styles had arrived: the first one sounded a bit like an “on a budget” version of the best Seventies disco-music – Philly sound made with a set of piano-bar keyboards! – the other was even more sparse, futuristic and extraterrestrial. It was a music with a quite distinct “physical” component, which at the same time, to be fully grasped, seemed to call for the knotty theories of certain French post-modern philosophers: Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Paul Virilio... Both those genres – we would learn shortly after – were born in the black communities of Chicago and Detroit, although listening to those vinyl 12” (often wrapped in generic white covers, and with little indication in the label) you could not easily guess whether behind them there was a black boy from somewhere in the Usa, or a girl from Berlin, or a pale kid from a Cornish coastal town.

Quickly, similar sounds began to show up from all corners of Europe. A thousand variations of the same intuition: leaner, less lean, happier, slightly less intoxicated, more broken, slower, faster, much faster... Boom! From the dancefloors – the London ones at least, whose chronicles we eagerly read every month in the pages of The Face and i-D – came tales of a new generation of clubbers who had completely stopped “dressing up” to go dancing; of hot tempered hooligans bursting into tears and hugging everyone under the strobe lights as the notes of Strings of Life rose up through the fumes of dry ice (certain “smiling” pills were also involved, sure). At this point, however, we must move on to Switzerland.

In Switzerland, in the quiet and diligent town of Lugano, between the 1980s and 1990s there was a club called “Morandi”. Its hot night was on Wednesdays, when the audience also came from Milan, Como, Varese and Zurich. Legend goes that, one night, none less than Prince and Sheila E were spotted hiding among the sofas, on a day-off of the Italian dates of the Nude Tour… The Wednesday resident and superstar was an Italian dj with an exotic name: Don Carlos. The soundtrack he devised was a mixture of Chicago, Detroit, the most progressive R&B and certain forgotten classics of old disco music: practically, what the Paradise Garage in New York might have sounded like had it not closed in 1987. In between, Don Carlos also managed to squeeze in some tracks he had worked on in his studio on Lago Maggiore. One in particular: a track that was rather slow compared to the BPM in fashion at the time, but which was a perfect bridge between house and R&B. The title was Alone: Don Carlos would explain years later that it had to be intended both in the English meaning of “by itself” and like the Italian word meaning “halo”. That wasn’t the only double entendre about the song, anyway. Its own very deep nature was, indeed, double. On the one hand, Alone was built around an angelic keyboard pattern and a romantic piano riff that took you straight to heaven; on the other, it showcased enough electronic squelches (plus a sax part that sounded like it had been dissolved by acid rain) to pigeonhole the tune into the “junk modernity” section, aka the hallmark of all the most innovative sounds of the time: music that sounded like it was hand-crafted from the scraps of glittering overground pop.

No one knows who was the first to call it “paradise house”, nor when it happened. Alternative definitions on the same topic one happened to hear included “ambient house”, “dream house”, “Mediterranean progressive”… but of course none were as good (and alluring) as “paradise house”. What is certain is that such inclination for sounds that were in equal measure angelic and neurotic, romantic and unaffective, quickly became the trademark of the second generation of Italian house. Music that seemed shyly equidistant from all the rhythmic and electronic revolutions that had happened up to that moment (“Music perfectly adept at going nowhere slowly” as noted by English journalist Craig McLean in a legendary field report for Blah Blah Blah magazine). Music that to a inattentive ear might have sounded as anonymous as a snapshot of a random group of passers-by at 10AM in the centre of any major city, but perfectly described the (slow) awakening in the real world after the universal love binge of the so-called Second Summer of Love.

For a brief but unforgettable season, in Italy “paradise house” was the official soundtrack of interminable weekends spent inside the car, darting from one club to another, cutting the peninsula from North to centre, from East to West coast in pursuit of the latest after-hours disco, trading kilometres per hour with beats per minute: practically, a new New Year’s Eve every Friday and Saturday night. This too was no small transformation, as well as a shock for an adult Italy that was encountering for the first time – thanks to its sons and daughters – the wild side of industrial modernity. The clubbers of the so-called “fuoriorario” scene were the balls gone mad in the pinball machine most feared by newspapers, magazines and TV pundits. What they did each and every weekend, apart from going crazy to the sound of the current white labels, was linking distant geographical points and non-places (thank you Marc Augé!) – old dance halls, farmhouses and business centres – transformed for one night into house music heaven. As Marco D’Eramo wrote in his 1995 essay on Chicago, Il maiale e il grattacielo: “Four-wheeled capitalism distorts our age-old image of the city, it allows the suburbs to be connected to each other, whereas before they were connected only by the centre (…) It makes possible a metropolitan area without a metropolis, without a city centre, without downtown. The periphery is no longer a periphery of any centre, but is self-centred”.

“Paradise house” perfectly understood all of this and turned it into a sort of cyber-blues that didn’t even need words, and unexpectedly brought back a drop of melancholic (post?)-humanity within a world that by then – as we would wholly realise in the decades to come – was fully inhuman and heartless. A world where we were all alone, and surrounded by a sinister yellowish halo, like a neon at the end of its life cycle. But, for one night at least, happy."

CSN was the trio's last fully realized album, and also the last recording on which the three principals handled all the vocal parts without the sweetening of additional voices. It has held up remarkably well, both as a memento of its time and as a thoroughly enjoyable musical work." — AllMusic

Crosby, Stills & Nash was a folk rock supergroup made up of American singer-songwriters David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and English singer-songwriter Graham Nash. CSN's 1977 self-titled album is a return to the harmony-soaked idealism with which the trio had been catapulted to popularity; it reached No. 2 on the charts, behind Fleetwood Mac's megasuccessful Rumours.

AllMusic says the songs on CSN show a "great deal of lyrical maturity and compositional complexity compared to those earlier albums (from a far more innocent time). "Just a Song Before I Go" was the latest of Graham Nash's radio-friendly acoustic numbers, and a Top Ten single. "See the Changes" and "Dark Star" ranked with the best of Stephen Stills' work, while David Crosby contributed three classics from his distinctive oeuvre: "Shadow Captain," "Anything at All," and the beautiful "In My Dreams."And Nash's multi-part "Cathedral," a recollection of an acid trip taken in Winchester Cathedral on his 32nd birthday, became a staple of the group's live repertoire.

Ground-breaking music perfection deserves definitive sound and top-notch packaging. This reissue was mastered directly from the original master tape by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering and cut at 45 RPM. Pressed on 180-gram vinyl at Quality Record Pressings, and housed in a tip-on old style gatefold double pocket jacket with textured stock by Stoughton Printing.

Soul music has always been in Paul Weller’s blood from early Jam covers of Martha & the Vandellas 1963 classic ‘Heatwave’. Along with other forms of music, soul found its way into Paul’s record collection, nourishing his ears and informing his own songwriting

We don’t need to recap a questing musical career from the Jam to the Style Council and then blossoming into one of the most productive and revered careers of any UK solo artist. Paul has written anthems, standards and a songbook that have always developed from his own feelings.

Whilst Paul has talked about his love of soul music he has, before now, simply been too busy to sit down and curate a collection of his favourite tracks and get it into the record racks.

Ace Records are honoured and delighted to finally release that Paul Weller curated collection which he has aptly titled, “That Sweet Sweet Music”.

This 2-LP set and CD open the curtains on 26 tracks that are some of Paul’s favourite soul records most of which nestle on vinyl in his own collection. He can still recall paying £70 for his copy of Jon Lucien’s 1971 ‘Search For The Inner Self’ 7” at a record shop in Leicester in the 90s. Some of these tracks are soul classics like James Carr’s 1966 ‘Pouring Water On A Drowning Man’ and Brother to Brother’s brilliant take on Gil Scott Heron and Brian Jackson’s ‘In The Bottle’ from 1974. Others are deliciously obscure wonderous gems like the A-side of Blackrock’s sole 1971 single ‘Blackrock “Yeah, Yeah”’, ‘Life Walked Out’ from the same year by the Mist or Syl Johnson’s ‘Black Balloons’ taken from his 1970 album “Is It Because I’m Black?”.

There are plenty of big vocal hitters such as Darrell Banks, Spinners, Joe Simon, O.C. Smith, the Dells and Betty Davis. Whilst the core is vocal soul the music does branch out with Paul selecting a wicked instrumental from the flipside of the Isley Brothers’ ‘Twist & Shout’ from 1962 and the funky jazz of the Headhunters ‘God Made Me Funky’, the A-side of their first 1975 seven-inch.

Diese Sonderveröffentlichung feiert den 20. Jahrestag von The Grind Date. Die LP ist als Splatter-Vinyl
in limitierter Auflage erhältlich und enthält neben dem Originalalbum 4 Instrumentalversionen der Haupttitel. Die 2CD enthält außerdem 2 brandneue Titel, die während derselben Sessions wie The Grind Date
aufgenommen wurden. Diese noch nie zuvor veröffentlichten Titel mit den Titeln „Respect“ und „Bigger“
ergänzen dieses bereits bekannte Album perfekt.
De La Soul ist eine einflussreiche Hip-Hop-Gruppe, die Ende der 1980er Jahre gegründet wurde. Das
Trio, bestehend aus den Mitgliedern Kelvin Mercer (Posdnuos), David Jude Jolicoeur (Trugoy the Dove)
und Vincent Mason (Maseo), ist für seinen einzigartigen Sound und seine innovative Herangehensweise an
Hip-Hop bekannt. Ihnen wird oft zugeschrieben, dass sie mit ihrem eklektischen Stil, ihrer Verwendung
von Sampling und ihren positiven Botschaften die Landschaft des Genres mitgestaltet haben.
„The Grind Date“ ist das sechste Studioalbum von De La Soul und wurde 2004 veröffentlicht. Das Album markierte eine bedeutende Rückkehr der Gruppe nach einer Pause seit ihrem letzten Album im Jahr
2001. „The Grind Date“ zeigt De La Souls charakteristische Mischung aus cleveren Texten, innovativer
Produktion und einer Mischung aus verspielten und introspektiven Themen. Das Album enthält eine Fülle
spannender Gastauftritte von Künstlern, darunter MF Doom, Ghostface Killah, Flava Flav und Sean Paul.

If every significant artist has an underrated gem in its catalog, then Mirage is that album for Fleetwood Mac. An obvious return to relative simplicity after the dramatic tension of Rumours and experimental ambitions of Tusk, the 1982 album finds the band re-grouping after a brief hiatus and again climbing to the top of the charts. Extremely well-crafted, well-produced, and well-performed, the double-platinum effort distills the group’s hallmark strengths into a filler-free set that never runs short of addictive pop hooks or daft accents.

Sourced from the original analog master tapes, pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing in California, and housed in a Stoughton jacket, Mobile Fidelity’s numbered-edition 180g 45RPM 2LP set presents Mirage in reference sound for the first time. The efforts co-producers/engineers Ken Caillat and Richard Dashut went to capture the splintered albeit formidable band can be heard with stunning accuracy, range, depth, and detail.

Though Rumours understandably gets a permanent spot in the audiophile hall of fame, the smooth, clear, and dynamic sonics on Mirage confirm that the record that stood as Fleetwood Mac’s last effort for five years deserves a place in the same vaunted arena. The presence and imaging of Mick Fleetwood’s percussion alone on this reissue might have you wondering how this slice of soft-rock bliss has gone under-noticed for decades. Other prized aural aspects — separation, definition, impact, tonal balance — are also here in spades.

Like much surrounding Fleetwood Mac in the 1980s, arriving at Mirage was not easy. Caillat searched for studios located outside of Los Angeles on a mission to change up the vibe of the band’s prior recording sessions. Everyone settled on Le Chateau in France, where relations between some members remained icy — and cooperation with the producers strained. Battles with exhaustion, bitterness, and addiction further informed the proceedings at the 18th century complex in the French countryside, where even communal meals were allegedly eaten in silence.

Inevitably, the feelings that co-producer Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, Christine McVie, and company harbored — as well as the situations in which they found themselves — drifted into the songwriting. In its rapid ascent to rock-star royalty status, Fleetwood Mac drifted apart, embarked on solo pursuits, and found it was lonely at the top. Emptiness, the illusion of dreams, the longing for love, the want to escape to bygone times of innocence and happiness: Such themes inform a majority of the narratives. Even if the lyrics regularly take a back seat to easygoing arrangements that allow Mirage to come on like a refreshing breeze on a sunny summer afternoon.

Home to three Top 25 singles in the U.S. and having occupied the pole position of the Top 200 album charts for five weeks, Mirage rightfully resonated with the mainstream and attracted listeners on both sides of the pond. And how, via a smart blend of sugary melodies, warm harmonies, interlaced notes, nimble rhythms, taut structures, and passionate vocals. Not to mention the presence of what arguably remains Nicks’ signature song, the biographical “Gypsy,” a meditation on the loss of her close friend Robin Anderson that teems with majesty, mystery, and mysticism — and which gets an assist from Buckingham’s shaded tack piano and richly strummed guitar chords.

Its ranking as an all-time classic aside, that No. 12 hit has plenty of company when it comes to brilliant pop turns on Mirage. On the subject of Nicks, the raspy singer gets a little bit country on “That’s Alright.” Its clip-clopping pace and two-stepping progression complement subtle vocal swells that emerge during the final verse of a tune that is ostensibly about leaving but still conveys forgiveness and grace. And what would a Fleetwood Mac record be without Nicks drawing on the tools of the supernatural — cards, dreams, wolves, and the like — on the twirling “Straight Back.”

Despite the potency of Nicks’ primary contributions, Mirage seemingly unfolds as a tight competition between Buckingham and McVie — and one that ultimately ends in a draw. Buckingham’s salvos include the contagious “Can’t Go Back,” a yearning to time-travel back to the past that’s complete with hall-of-mirrors backing vocals; “Oh Diane,” out-of- left-field ear candy sweetened with hiccupped vocals and salt-and-pepper-shaken grooves; the chiming “Eyes of the World”; and “Empire State,” a delightfully fluttering track whose high-range vocals, lap harp notes, and ringing xylophones hint at the galaxies of sound that would erupt on Tango in the Night.

Then there’s McVie. As elegant, understated, and coolheaded as she’s ever been on record, she pours her heart out on cuts that revolve around her inevitable split with Beach Boy Dennis Wilson. In the process, she punctuates Mirage with a characteristic not always associated with catchy pop music: emotional weight, and the sense of dreaded acceptance in the face of dreams deferred.

“I wish you were here/Holding me tight,” McVie sings over a delicate melody on the album-closing piano ballad “Wish You Were Here.” Though they hoped otherwise, for the members Fleetwood Mac, distance and separation were always close at hand. Believing otherwise, inviting nostalgia, and pretending everything was fine only amounts to a mirage.

Because Sound Matters' meticulous One-Step process creates the definitive sounding audiophile version of k.d. lang Ingénue. This all-analog release comes from the original first-generation master tapes for the first time. Vinyl guru and editor Michael Fremer says, "This k.d. One-Step is insane – It's otherworldly great!"

This One-Step version is strictly limited to 3,000 copies. The album is housed inside a top-quality, foil-stamped, uniquely designed numbered slipcase. The enclosed gatefold jacket will feature an "old style" tip-on jacket with the original artwork.

Special care has been taken to faithfully preserve the original sound with exceptional clarity and depth, capturing the recording's nuances and subtleties at every step to create the best sounding record possible.

The One-Step process is highly regarded among audiophiles and collectors for its unparalleled sound fidelity and represents the pinnacle of vinyl manufacturing craftsmanship.

Ingénue was originally released March 17, 1992 and is k.d. lang's second solo album.

Upon release, the album charted at #18 in the US, #13 in Canada, #3 in the UK and Australia and #1 in New Zealand. Nominated for six Grammy® Awards with the breakout single "Constant Craving" winning a Grammy® Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. "Miss Chatelaine" and "The Mind of Love" were follow-up singles.

k.d. received universal critical acclaim for the album from publications like Mojo, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, Uncut and dozens more! Today, Ingénue is a true classic album and considered one of the great audiophile recordings of the modern era. This One-Step version certainly proves that!

Notes for This Release:

Ingénue was originally recorded and mixed on analogue tape and produced by Greg Penny, Ben Mink and k.d. lang. The original analogue master tapes were directly used as the audio source for this One-Step pressing! This is the first time the analogue tapes have been used as a vinyl source for this brilliant recording. The results are stunning.

Because Sound Matters used the Neotech VR900-D2 180g High-Performance vinyl compound, which is the same as what is known as Super Vinyl – the best in the world.

Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering cut the lacquers with meticulous care! He also did the original mastering of the CD release in 1992.

Dorin Sauerbier at Record Technology, Inc (R.T.I.) has been plating records for decades and is considered the best in the world – he also has done more One-Step processing than anybody. This is a vital step in the process to ultimately delivering the absolute best sounding version of Ingénue ever.

Record Technology, Inc did the pressing – using the exact pressing machine used for so many other One-Step releases. The QC team is constantly monitoring each copy as it comes off the press.

Because Sound Matters' slipcases and gatefold "old style" tip on original art jackets were printed by world-renowned Stoughton Printing Company.

This new all-analogue edition will draw you into the music as never before—at least it did me. The sonic picture is rich, well-textured, harmonically saturated, spatially deep and all the rest of the audiophile buzzwords that no doubt the producers (who include lang) intended to give listeners but until now couldn't fully deliver. The musical flow will have you swooning in your seat. Before the opener 'Save Me' concludes you may already feel overwhelmed and in need of lifting the stylus to catch your emotional breath...What a treat!
-Michael Fremer, Tracking Angle, Music 11/10, Sound 11/10

The Smile veröffentlichen heute zwei neue Remixe für Tracks ihres dritten Albums "Cutouts". "Don"t Get Me Started" im Remix von James Holden und "Instant Palm" als Robert Stillman Remix sind ab sofort digital verfügbar. Für beide Tracks hat der Künstler Weirdcore, der bereits für alle Songs von "Cutouts" Videos kreiert hatte, einen "recycled video mix" erstellt. Die Remixe gibt es als limitierte 12". Das Sleeve-Design von Stanley Donwood kommt in Anlehnung an die ikonische Housebag-Serie von XL Recordings. James Holden und Robert Stillman arbeiten beiden regelmäßig sowohl mit Thom Yorke als auch mit The Smile zusammen. Robert begleitet die Band auf der Bühne, um bei ihren Live-Auftritten Saxofon und Keyboards zu spielen. Zudem steuerte er Saxofon zu allen drei Platten von The Smile sowie zu Thom Yorkes "Confidenza" Soundtrack bei. James hat bereits einen Remix zu Radioheads "Reckoner" veröffentlicht und war als Support auf den Touren von Atoms For Peace und bei Thoms Soloshows zum Album "Tomorrow"s Modern Boxes" dabei.

Der Nachfolger von City of Evil, Avenged Sevenfold's viertes Studioalbum, das selbstbetitelte Album im schlichten Weiß mit Logo, debütierte auf Platz 4 der US Billboard 200 Chart und Platz 24 in UK. Mit dem Fan-Favoriten "Afterlife", "A Little Piece of Heaven" & "DearGod", wurde das Album mit dem Kerrang!-Awards als Album des Jahres ausgezeichnet. Das Album ist auch auf Kerrangs "666 Alben You Must Hear Before You Die" aufgenommen. Für Fans von Metallica, Slipknot & Bullet For My Valentine. Avenged Sevenfold (abgekürzt A7X) ist die amerikanische Heavy-Metalcore-Band aus Huntington Beach, Kalifornien, die 1999 gegründet wurde. Das aktuelle Lineup der Band besteht aus dem Sänger M. Shadows, dem Rhythmusgitarristen Zacky Vengeance, dem Leadgitarristen Synyster Gates, dem Bassisten Johnny Christ und dem Schlagzeuger Brooks Wackerman. Avenged Sevenfold sind bekannt für ihren abwechslungsreichen Rocksound und teilweise für ihre dramatischen Bilder auf Albumcovern und Merchandise-Artikeln. Die Band trat mit einem Metalcore-Sound auf ihrem Debütalbum Sounding the Seventh Trumpet in Erscheinung und setzte diesen Sound bis zu ihrem zweiten Album Waking the Fallen weitgehend fort. Der Stil der Band hatte sich bis zu ihrem dritten Album und ihrer ersten Veröffentlichung bei einem Major-Label, City of Evil, zu einem traditionelleren Heavy-Metal-Stil entwickelt. Mit dem selbstbetitelten vierten Album erkundete die Band neue Klänge und feierte einen anhaltenden Mainstream-Erfolg, bevor ihr Gründungsschlagzeuger Jimmy ,The Rev" Sullivan 2009 starb. Trotz seines Todes machten Avenged Sevenfold mit Hilfe des Dream Theater-Mitglieds Mike Portnoy weiter und veröffentlichten 2010 ihr fünftes Album Nightmare, das an der Spitze der Billboard 200 debütierte und ihr erstes #1-Album war. Doppel-LP, 2025er Pressung in rot-rotem Vinyl!

Apollo / R&S are delighted to welcome back The Primitive Painter, aka the duo of Roman Flügel and Jörn Elling Wuttke for a timely reissue of their 1994 lost classic self-titled album of sonorous IDM.

Growing up in Frankfurt, in the 80s and 90s the duo met at an indie rock club in their home town of Darmstadt, bonding over their shared obsession with the first wave of acid, Chicago house and early Detroit techno as well as their patronage of now iconic Frankfurt club nights like The Omen or Dorian Gray or the infamous Delirium Record shop run by scene stalwarts Ata (Robert Johnson) and Heiko MSO (Playhouse).

Taking inspiration from the likes of The Black Dog and Transmat as well as seminal compilations such as Planet E’s Intergalactic Beats and Warp’s Artificial intelligence compilation the duo honed their inventive take on the Detroit techno blueprint under the monicker Acid Jesus, debuting on their freshly minted Klang Elektronik label. The label was started in conjunction with Ata and Heiko after Fluegel & Wuttke (regular patrons of the Delirium store) pressed a demo on them, muttering the immortal line; “Please listen to the tape, we are big Mr. Fingers fans.”

Through the mid ’90s the project flourished giving rise to a classic album and a brace of singles that number amongst the best of the era’s techno, winning them a influential fans most notably Sven Väth, David Holmes and Andrew Weatherall who invited them to play live at one of the legendary Sabresonic parties in London.

Alongside the success of the Acid Jesus project, the duo found great inspiration in outside of the club, including an ambient happening when the KLF came to play Frankfurt; “There were live sheep eating grass on stage while they played at Mark Spoon’s club XS”, as well as cinematic influence from the likes of Jim Jarmush and Wim Wenders. It was however the euphonic IDM grandeur of Apollo Recordings self titled compilation of 1993 that really got their creative juices flowing: “It was a ten track compilation with artists like David Morley, Model 500, Aphex Twin which still sounds so good today,” Jörn enthuses. “ It was really the trigger to go away from the Detroit sound and more towards the big melodies of B12 etc.”

Deciding to make their tribute to this style of music the duo turned out 10 tracks of gauzy, melodious electronica in a white hot fever, one after another over the ensuing months. Settling on a name for the new project they picked ‘The Primitive Painters’ taking inspiration from the band Felt. “We are both children of the C86 movement,” explains Jörn. “this attitude of noisy art school influenced rock like Primal Scream, MBV, The Jesus & Mary Chain really inspired us to take a DIY approach to our music.”

They sent the resulting demo cassette to Renaat at R&S / Apollo. “We really had no expectations,” Jörn explains. “So we were shocked and delighted when we received a fax saying that he wanted to release it”.

The resulting release was bungled by an R&S mix up that attributed the album to the duo’s own Klang Elektronik label which confused both fans and distributors alike, denying the release the critical boost and attention that it so richly deserved. Accordingly the release slipped out without much fanfare, with a chastened Fluegel & Wuttke returning to their Acid Jesus activities which would eventually lead to their blockbusting success as Alter Ego.

Over the ensuing years the reputation of The Primitive Painter album has only grown, with second hand copies (only 500 vinyl were pressed) changing hands for exorbitant amounts on Discogs, leading us to this opportune moment of a richly deserved ‘first’ release on the label for which the project was started, Apollo / R&S.

“This really brings us full circle,” says Jörn. “Apollo / R&S meant and means so much to us as artists and so it was bittersweet to not have the official release - to put that right all these years later feels really good.”

This new vinyl release comes in re-created original gatefold artwork and includes all original 10 tracks (Stoned Soul Picnic was previously on the CD only).

2025 Repress

"Hydroplane reinstate their formidable 1997 debut of sublime guitar atmospherics, fragile lyricism and droning incidentals with an overdue vinyl and digital reissue.

An offshoot of the now-féted The Cat’s Miaow, the trio formed after drummer Cameron Smith decamped to London, charting new territory with tape loops, manipulated samples and a borrowed Jupiter 4 in the wake of Endtroducing. Adopting a handle that Dean Wareham once considered calling Luna, Hydroplane intended to only ever release Excerpts From Forthcoming LP, a single-sided 7” sonic collage, before imploding in mystery. Their label however insisted they deliver their taunted album. From the comfort of a Brunswick flat, they continued to record soaring melodies and restrained song structures to 4-track, sculpting dramatic Radiophonic Workshop cues weighted in reverb and near-perfect dream pop lead by Kerrie Bolton’s empyrean vocals.

Bored of industry expectation and largely ignored by local audiences, the reluctant performers followed the way of The Cannanes and formed meaningful overseas alliances by mail and phone, securing releases on Michigan outpost Drive-In and Broadcast launching pad Wurlitzer Jukebox. Championed by John Peel with twenty spins on his converted Radio One slot and even polling in Festive Fifty of 1997, the humble three-piece still walked to their neighbourhood shops undetected.

Im Lateinischen bedeutet das Wort Gemini "zwei zusammen" oder "Zwillinge". Astrologisch gesehen sind Zwillinge unter anderem dafür bekannt, dass sie neugierig und vielseitig sind. Für die 9-köpfige (meist) instrumentale Combo The Sure Fire Soul Ensemble aus San Diego waren Jazz und Funk schon immer die beiden Genres, die sie konsequent und effektiv miteinander verschmolzen haben und die das Fundament ihres Sounds bilden. Mit ihrer stilistischen Neugier und Vielseitigkeit haben sie dieses Fundament auf ihrem neuen 11-Song-Longplayer für Colemine Records weiter ausgebaut. Aufgenommen zwischen Ende 2021 und Anfang 2024 im The Kitchen II in ihrer Heimat Lemon Grove, Kalifornien, lenken SFSE ihre ,introspektive Partymusik" in neue klangliche Gefilde. Während ihr Breakbeat-lastiger Funk-Soul-Jazz immer noch der Eckpfeiler ihres Sounds ist, wie er in Stücken wie ,Makin' Moves", ,TheGrifter" und ,Don't Trip" zum Ausdruck kommt, haben sie begonnen, mehr und mehr Einflüsse von Library-Musik-Labels wie KPM Music, spirituell orientierten Jazz-Labels wie Tribe & Black Jazz Records und exotisch angehauchten Jazz-Künstlern wie Cal Tjader und Dorothy Ashby aufzunehmen. Jetzt lehnen sie sich mehr an den ,introspektiven" Teil ihres Sounds an, insbesondere bei ,Mother Earth", ,Freddie" und dem Titeltrack, und beschwören die Geister von Freddie Hubbard, Phil Ranelin, Wendell Harrison, Bubbha Thomas, Chester Thompson und sogar Cannonball Adderley in seiner kopflastigsten und kosmischsten Zeit herauf (hören Sie sich Adderleys Alben ,Soul Zodiac" und ,Soul of The Bible" als Referenz an). ,Corporatocracy" geht noch einen Schritt weiter mit einem ausgedehnten Tabla-Solo, das auf der perkussiven Welle reitet, bevor es in seinen funkgetriebenen, modalen Vibe übergeht. In der aktuellen Besetzung mit Tim Felten an den Tasten, Jake Najor am Schlagzeug, Omar Lopez am Bass, Kiko Cornejo Jr. an Conga/Percussion, Aquiles ,Lito" Magana an der Gitarre, Wili Fleming an der Posaune, Sheryll Felten an der Percussion, und Jesse Audelo und Travis Klein am Saxophon und an der Flöte. SFSE bleibt dem Funk treu, traut sich aber auch, neue Wege zu gehen, die sie bisher noch nicht beschritten haben, und betritt damit faszinierendes Neuland in ihrem Gesamtsound.

Im Lateinischen bedeutet das Wort Gemini "zwei zusammen" oder "Zwillinge". Astrologisch gesehen sind Zwillinge unter anderem dafür bekannt, dass sie neugierig und vielseitig sind. Für die 9-köpfige (meist) instrumentale Combo The Sure Fire Soul Ensemble aus San Diego waren Jazz und Funk schon immer die beiden Genres, die sie konsequent und effektiv miteinander verschmolzen haben und die das Fundament ihres Sounds bilden. Mit ihrer stilistischen Neugier und Vielseitigkeit haben sie dieses Fundament auf ihrem neuen 11-Song-Longplayer für Colemine Records weiter ausgebaut. Aufgenommen zwischen Ende 2021 und Anfang 2024 im The Kitchen II in ihrer Heimat Lemon Grove, Kalifornien, lenken SFSE ihre ,introspektive Partymusik" in neue klangliche Gefilde. Während ihr Breakbeat-lastiger Funk-Soul-Jazz immer noch der Eckpfeiler ihres Sounds ist, wie er in Stücken wie ,Makin' Moves", ,TheGrifter" und ,Don't Trip" zum Ausdruck kommt, haben sie begonnen, mehr und mehr Einflüsse von Library-Musik-Labels wie KPM Music, spirituell orientierten Jazz-Labels wie Tribe & Black Jazz Records und exotisch angehauchten Jazz-Künstlern wie Cal Tjader und Dorothy Ashby aufzunehmen. Jetzt lehnen sie sich mehr an den ,introspektiven" Teil ihres Sounds an, insbesondere bei ,Mother Earth", ,Freddie" und dem Titeltrack, und beschwören die Geister von Freddie Hubbard, Phil Ranelin, Wendell Harrison, Bubbha Thomas, Chester Thompson und sogar Cannonball Adderley in seiner kopflastigsten und kosmischsten Zeit herauf (hören Sie sich Adderleys Alben ,Soul Zodiac" und ,Soul of The Bible" als Referenz an). ,Corporatocracy" geht noch einen Schritt weiter mit einem ausgedehnten Tabla-Solo, das auf der perkussiven Welle reitet, bevor es in seinen funkgetriebenen, modalen Vibe übergeht. In der aktuellen Besetzung mit Tim Felten an den Tasten, Jake Najor am Schlagzeug, Omar Lopez am Bass, Kiko Cornejo Jr. an Conga/Percussion, Aquiles ,Lito" Magana an der Gitarre, Wili Fleming an der Posaune, Sheryll Felten an der Percussion, und Jesse Audelo und Travis Klein am Saxophon und an der Flöte. SFSE bleibt dem Funk treu, traut sich aber auch, neue Wege zu gehen, die sie bisher noch nicht beschritten haben, und betritt damit faszinierendes Neuland in ihrem Gesamtsound.

On Chrystia Cabral's fourth album as SPELLLING, the Bay Area artist transforms her acclaimed avant-pop project into a mirror. Cabral's lyrics for Portrait of My Heart tackle love, intimacy, anxiety, and alienation, trading the allegorical approach of much of her previous work for something pointed into her human heart. The album's thematic forthrightness is echoed in its arrangements, making it the sharpest, most direct SPELLLING album to date. From the dark minimalism of her earliest music to the lavishly orchestrated prog-pop of 2021's The Turning Wheel to this newly energetic expression of her creative spirit, Cabral has proved again and again that SPELLLING can be whatever she needs it to be. The title track, with its propulsive drum groove and anthemic chorus of "I don't belong here," is the most potent embodiment of the album's turn toward emotional directness. Once the main melody emerged, Cabral used the song as a tool to process her anxiety as a performer and opted for a tighter, more rock-oriented composition. This transformation mirrors the album's broader shift toward energy and immediacy, driven by the core band of Wyatt Overson (guitar), Patrick Shelley (drums), and Giulio Xavier Cetto (bass), whose collaboration uncovers new contours of the SPELLLING sound. Cabral still writes and demos in isolation, but presenting the songs for Portrait of My Heart to her bandmates helped her discover their eventual lively, organic forms. So did working with a trio of producers_The Turning Wheel mixing engineer Drew Vandenberg, SZA collaborator Rob Bisel, and Yves Tumor producer Psymun. Key guest contributions further shape the album. Chaz Bear (Toro y Moi) delivers SPELLLING's first duet on "Mount Analogue," Turnstile guitarist Pat McCrory turns Cabral's original piano demo for "Alibi" into the crunchy, riff-y version that appears on the record, while Zulu's Braxton Marcellous gives "Drain" its sludgy heft. These parts aren't just incorporated seamlessly into the album; they feel like an integral part of its universe. Ultimately, though, Portrait of My Heart is nobody's record but Cabral's. She fearlessly draws the curtain back on parts of herself that she's never included in SPELLLING before_her feelings of being an outsider, her overly guarded nature, the way she can throw herself recklessly into intimate relationships and then cool on them just as quickly. "It's very much an open diary of all those sensations," she says.

"Daft Punk brought me here, he brought me Daft Punk"

Just knowing that this slice of hyper-rare disco dynamite was crafted by Thomas Bangalter's dad should be enough for you to buy this on sight, if only to understand a little bit more about Thomas and Daft Punk's background. But this is so much more than a Daft Punk family curio.

Born Bangalter in 1947, Daniel Vangarde is a French songwriter and producer. In 1975, Vangarde founded his label, Zagora Records, who we have worked closely with on this lovingly curated reissue. For years, Vangarde wrote and produced songs that remained underground, under several pseudonyms and for various artists. Dubbed "the secret father of French disco" this here groove-fulled firecracker - using his Who’s Who moniker - is for disco-funk, library music and cosmic beat lovers.

The intense, evocative opener "Palace Palace" positively throbs with raw energy and sounds, honestly, like something off Daft Punk's Discovery. The title refers to the fashionable Parisian club Le Palace, essentially the Parisian Studio 54. "I’d been to a nightclub in New York, a big ring where people were roller skating with a whistle. The atmosphere was great. The music was all disco. I made this song when I came back. A vocoder transformed my voice. Back then, it wasn’t used much." The track rides a killer groove and is deceptively complex, with layers of fantastic percussion and ace synth work going on all over it. Listed to on repeat, it's brilliance is simply undeniable.

The louche, slo-mo heater "Hypno Dance" is, in Be With's opinion, *the* deadly dancefloor track. A svelte slice of ace space disco again geared towards the roller skating dance mania of the day. So deep, so disco, so instrumental. An unreal track and, as the title hints at, totally hypnotic. The side closes with the somewhat throwaway "Popeden" - it's a jaunty number that you're probably best skipping, in all honesty. Have we ever steered you wrong?

The B-Side opens with the frankly enormous "Roll Jacky Roll" is another thrilling, high class roller-rink jam with beautiful melodies that's adored the world over. The wonky, abstract "Ad Libitum 80" is a super dope, swirling, staccato electro-funk bounce which sounds light years ahead of its time. This might be the real lowkey sleeper gem on this record. CHECK! This remarkable LP rounds out with the huge "Dancin' Machine". It's got sleek drums that emit an absolutely ace swagger and elements of Italo synth funk feels. A relaxed, slow rhythm throughout ensures you can't help but get your funk on when this crashes soundsystems. We'll leave the final word on this to Daniel: "It amuses me to think that my son Thomas was influenced by "Dancin’ Machine" for "Around The World", he says. Both songs being based on an hypnotic repetitive refrain. Both songs being, of course, timeless pieces of Euro genius.

Who's Who really is a fantastic late-70s-early 80s roller disco-funk essential. The audio has been carefully remastered by Be With regular Simon Francis, ensuring it sounds better than ever. Cicely Balston's expert skills have made sure nothing is lost in the cut whilst the records have been pressed to the highest possible standard at Record Industry in Holland.

When it came to the sleeve for this we were presented with an unusual problem: we usually have to rely on an original sleeve as the starting point for the restoration, but instead we were able to scan the original 35mm transparency of the front cover photo. The problem is that with a modern scanner the results were far sharper than when they made the original sleeve. We’ve played around with the exposure and the colour grading but we’re sorry to say that our version of the front cover still ended up looking too good! Don’t hate us.

Laurin Rinder & W. Michael Lewis's Seven Deadly Sins is a hugely influential, synth-powered, atmospheric space-disco masterpiece. It's arguably the best American Disco LP ever made. It's certainly one of the most important albums in the history of dance music. And, like its innovative producers, it's absolute genius.

During the mid to late seventies the production team of Laurin Rinder and W. Michael Lewis helped to define the Disco sound that was coming out of Los Angeles with studio projects such as El Coco, Saint Tropez, Le Pamplemousse (with vocals from The Jones Girls), In Search Of Orchestra and many others.

Like all of their work, Seven Deadly Sins comprises beautifully arranged and incredibly well produced deep disco that is revered by aficionados. A seven track, largely instrumental concept album covering each of the sins, it was recorded for AVI in 1977. It's a brilliantly conceived, groove-fuelled album that layers moogy keys and druggy synths over club-ready rhythms. The idea that this record is celebrating rather than condemning the sins is said to be another factor that made the record a big one in the underground clubs.

Opening sin “Lust” is an intense, swelling, seven minute blockbuster synth journey. An ethereal Loft/Garage classic, it's a sprawling, brooding slice of epic dancefloor dynamite that remains a firm favourite of discerning disco heads like Harvey. So ahead of its time, it still sounds ridiculously fresh today, drifting through a multitude of melodies over a smooth, lightly percussive mid-tempo beat. A slow-mo sexy killer.

Up next, the sprightly-manic “Sloth” is nothing like its title. A driving, swaggering instrumental incorporating the same Euro-disco elements as our Daft Parisian friends did a few decades on, it's certainly not for the faint-hearted.

A clear highlight, the cosmic, throbbing proto-techno of “Gluttony” gets things firmly back on track. Pure industrial vibes with dark synth bass punctuated by uplifting melodic sequences that brilliantly utilise guitar and horns, is this the sound of Wax! Trax being born? You won't be able to get enough of this.

Opening up the B-Side, “Pride” is a breezy slice of classic late seventies jazz/funk with deft Hammond and clavinet grooves and expansive horn sections. It's absolutely fantastic. The wicked leftfield vocal cut “Envy” provides more disco pump with squelchy acid synth flourishes, funky guitar and neck-snapping percussive breaks.

The dark proto-techno/house cut “Anger” is a fully on top tour de force of drums. With heavy African percussion throughout and a short Afrobeat section towards the end, it was sampled by Carl Craig and Laurent Garnier for their Tres Demented project and was also a massive Ron Hardy / Music Box favourite. The album is rounded out by the hard-grooving “Covetousness”, another driving jazz-funk workout par excellence with liberal use of the syndrum.

As Laurin Rinder recalled in an interview with Dream Chimney, the duo essentially lived in the studio: “we really had cots, beds and the whole thing, we were just pumpin’ them out. 7 days a week, 3 different projects at the same time. I played drums on everything but had to play a little differently. I had to ask the engineer ‘What’s the name of this group?‘”.

Evidently, their prolific output was the result of a crazy cocaine-fuelled production schedule: “The amount of coke we did, to do all this, you can’t even imagine. $300 a day. I had to have plastic inserts in my nose so I could do more.” Looking at the frankly terrifying cover, you'd have never known!

Be With is beyond delighted to present the first ever legit vinyl reissue of Seven Deadly Sins, carefully remastered by Be With's engineer Simon Francisco to ensure it sounds better than ever. Cicely Balston's expert skills have made sure nothing is lost in the cut whilst the records have been pressed to the highest possible standard at Record Industry in Holland. The unforgettable cover artwork has been reproduced here at Be With - dare you stare back at it for too long?

Für ihr Debütalbum hat die Band einen Vertrag mit High Roller Records unterzeichnet. Neben dem Hitten-Sänger, der auch Rhythmus- und Leadgitarre bedient, komplettieren Mirko Negrino am Bass, Mattia Itala an der zweiten Gitarre sowie Marcello “Cell” Leocani hinterm Schlagzeug die Besetzung. “Dieses neue Projekt ist noch niemals zuvor in der Öffentlichkeit diskutiert worden”, erklärt der Sänger. “Vor einigen Jahren ist eine Demoversion von ‘Shadow Rider’ im Internet hochgeladen worden, doch danach ist die ganze Sache für einige Jahre wieder auf Eis gelegt worden. In der jüngeren Vergangenheit haben wir uns dann dazu entschlossen, die Arbeiten abzuschließen, weil das Material viel Potenzial hat. Die aktuelle Besetzung hat neuen Enthusiasmus in die Sache hereingebracht, was letztendlich zu einem vollständigen Release geführt hat.” Und was für ein Debütalbum Vigilhunter da gelungen ist! Kompositionen wie “Disconnected”, “Titan Glory” oder “Sacrifice” sind einige der besten Songs, die Queensryche nie geschrieben haben. Alexx Panza fühlt sich geschmeichelt: “Ich nehme das als ein großes Kompliment. Natürlich sind wir stark von Queensryche beeinflusst, aber wir könnten niemals zu 100% Songs schreiben, die sich anhören wie sie – so etwas ist ein Ding der Unmöglichkeit. Dieses Projekt zeichnet sich durch mannigfaltige Einflüsse aus, stilistisch lässt es sich nicht auf eine bestimmte Band herunter brechen. Es liegt uns fern, das Rad neu erfinden zu wollen, aber ich denke schon, dass wir als Band eine eigene Identität besitzen. Ich kann jedenfalls sagen, dass eine Menge Arbeit in die Platte eingeflossen ist und wir mit dem Endresultat äußerst zufrieden sind. Ich kann es kaum erwarten zu sehen, wie die Platte dort draußen ankommt. Ich denke allerdings, dass alle Anhänger des originalen US Power Metal viel Gefallen an dem Album finden werden.” Davon ist stark auszugehen, denn neben Queensryche schwingen bei Vigilhunter auch noch ein wenig Crimson Glory und frühe Fates Warning mit. Alexx Panza lacht: “Damit hast du die Referenzpunkte ziemlich genau erkannt. Das ist genau der Sound und die Atmosphäre, die wir einfangen möchten. Dazu noch ein Schuss Savatage und Vicious Rumors. Manchmal kommen allerdings auch Songideen aus Bereichen, mit denen man nicht gerechnet hätte.”

1-800 FANTASY is the third studio album from producer, artist, and visionary, BLK ODYSSY. In what represents somewhat of a sonic shift for BLK ODYSSY - from the dark, brooding blend of R&B & G-Funk to a brighter, warmer and more upbeat Alternative leaning sound - the concept album tells a coming of age story of a teenage boy in the 90s navigating the unfamiliarities of love and lust. The 13-track album includes the previously released singles, “WANT YOU,” “XXX (feat. Wiz Khalifa),” “STANK ROSE (feat. Joey Bada$$),” & “CHANGES” - as well the song, “PHASE,” which was premiered via COLORS. This latest project marks a pivotal moment in BLK’s career, cementing his role as a forward-thinking artist who continues to push the boundaries of R&B and beyond. “Between exploring a new level of storytelling and also a new world of production and songwriting, this record has been a new chapter for me as an artist.” BLK ODYSSY says about the new album. Pressed on Baby Blue Galaxy vinyl, includes double sided insert.

(2018 Remix)

30. Juni 2022 – Im Januar 1977 veröffentlichten Pink Floyd ihr zehntes Studioalbum „Animals“. Das Werk eroberte Platz 1 der deutschen Charts, gilt als eines ihrer besten – und es wird nun, 45 Jahre später, als Deluxe Gatefold, CD, LP und Blu-ray wiederveröffentlicht. Zum ersten Mal überhaupt wird das Album in 5.1 Surround-Sound zu hören sein. Die einzelnen Versionen werden ab dem 16. September 2022 erhältlich sein, die Deluxe-Version folgt am 7. Oktober.

Pink Floyd – David Gilmour, Nick Mason, Roger Waters und Richard Wright – nahmen „Animals“ 1976 und Anfang 1977 in den bandeigenen Britannia Row Studios in London auf und produzierten auch selbst.

„Animals 2018 Remix“ wird als CD, LP (mit Klapphüllen-Artwork), Blu-Ray und als Deluxe-Gatefold-Format veröffentlicht. Die Deluxe-Gatefold-Version beinhaltet eine LP, CD, Audio-Blu-Ray, Audio-DVD und ein 32-seitiges Booklet. Die Audio-Blu-Ray und -DVD enthalten den Remix von 2018 in Stereo, in 5.1 Surround (beide von James Guthrie) und den ursprünglichen Stereo-Mix von 1977. Das 32-seitige Booklet gewährt mit selten gezeigten Fotos einen Blick hinter die Kulissen des Shootings für die Plattenhülle sowie Live-Bilder und Memorabilia. Das Album-Artwork wurde für diese Veröffentlichung mit einem zeitgemäßen Motiv neu interpretiert.

„Animals“ ist ein Konzeptalbum, das sich kritisch mit den sozialpolitischen Verhältnissen im Großbritannien der mittleren 1970er-Jahre auseinandersetzt und damit eine Abkehr vom Stil der früheren Arbeiten der Band markierte. Aus einer Ansammlung ursprünglich nicht miteinander zusammenhängender Songs entwickelten Pink Floyd ein Konzept, das den offenkundigen sozialen und moralischen Verfall der Gesellschaft beschreibt. Inspiriert von George Orwells „Farm der Tiere“, verbildlichen sie die menschliche Natur mit einer Analogie zum Tierreich und teilen die Menschen in drei Klassen von Tieren ein: Die Schweine stehen an der Spitze der sozialen Kette, die Schafe tun als hirnlose Herde, was man ihnen sagt, und die Hunde sind die Geschäftsbosse, die sich am Profit und ihrer Macht über andere schamlos bereichern. Seit 1977 ist viel Zeit vergangen – und dann wieder gar nicht, denn die Erzählung des Albums hat als Kommentar auf unsere gesellschaftliche und wirtschaftliche Situation nichts von ihrer Aktualität verloren.

Das berühmte Cover von „Animals“ zeigt ein aufblasbares Schwein (heute bekannt als Algie), das in luftigen Höhen zwischen zwei Schornsteinen der Battersea Power Station in London schwebt. Die Idee für das Cover kam von Roger Waters, die Umsetzung übernahm der langjährigen Kreativpartner der Band, Storm Thorgerson von Hipgnosis Studios. Für die jetzige Neuveröffentlichung wurde das Artwork von Storms Hipgnosis-Partner Aubrey „Po“ Powell für die heutige Zeit neu gestaltet. Basierend auf neuen Aufnahmen des Gebäudes während der jüngsten Umgestaltungsarbeiten (das ehemalige Kraftwerk wird für die kulturelle und gewerbliche Nutzung umgebaut, gestaltet von Frank Gehry und Norman Foster), experimentierte Po mit neuen Blickwinkeln und erschuf einige beeindruckende neue Varianten des berühmten Originals. Po dazu: „Das Original-Albumcover von 1977 ist ikonisch und steht so sehr für sich, dass ich eine Menge Respekt davor hatte, ihm ein Update zu verpassen. Doch Hipgnosis nahm die Gelegenheit zum Anlass, das Motiv neu zu fotografieren und damit eine sich verändernde Welt widerzuspiegeln. Durch den Einsatz moderner digitaler Färbetechniken konnte ich Pink Floyds düstere Botschaft des moralischen Verfalls beibehalten, und auch die Orwellsche Tier-Analogie in Form des Schweins Algie lebt in dem neuen Artwork fort.“

Pink Floyds „Animals 2018 Remix” kann ab jetzt hier vorbestellt werden.

Jazz re:freshed are proud to present Zola Marcelle's new album HOME.

Saracen's initial reign was in the late 70s and early 80s, which saw the release of their now legendary debut album “Heroes, Saints & Fools”. Some twenty years later, in 2003, they surprised & delighted fans with the release of Red Sky. Both albums, plus bonus tracks, featured in a special boxed set, with new artwork and mastering, released in January 2006 on the Escape Music label. The main focus of the signing, however, was Saracen's eagerly awaited release of their 2006 album – “Vox In Excelso”. “Vox In Excelso” is a concept album, based on the mysterious and controversial history of the Knights Templar – a medieval body of warrior monks, who grew to become one of the most powerful military & financial organizations in Europe. Their story goes far beyond battlefield exploits – the Knights Templar were guardians of Ancient Knowledge; secrets that had major implications for the nations and religions of the western world... secrets that are still cherished and protected even to this day. “Vox In Excelso” (pronounced Ex-chel-so) is laced with poignant narration, linking the tracks, and thereby helping the listener to navigate this turbulent yet touching epic story. The combination of original members, vocalist Steve Bettney and guitarist Rob Bendelow, new blood, former HELLOWEEN drummer Mark Cross amongst others, proved to be an exciting combination on this now classic album.

"“We can still hold the line of beauty, form, and beat. No small accomplishment in a world as challenging as this one... hard times require furious dancing. Each of us is proof” Alice Walker, Hard Times Require Furious Dancing

Snapped Ankles have given up trying to make sense of it all. The forest only offers so much protection. Feeding on a diet of fractured narratives, meme culture, viral moments and the very worst of human impulses weighs heavy. The woodwose hold up a mirror to the absurdity of modern life once again. The only sane response is to dance. Make your way to the clearing, gather around the megalith of speakers, drum machines, amps and synthesisers and dance like there’s no tomorrow.

Hard Times Furious Dancing is an invitation to all those lost in the unrelenting noise of the present, to leave it all behind and come together in the forest. Driven by the primitive thrust of their single-oscillator ‘log’ synths, high and low culture collide in a surreal, free flowing narrative - but the rhythm is universal. This is easily the closest Snapped Ankles have come to capturing their rapturous live energy in the studio.

The sound of Hard Times Furious Dancing evolved at Snapped Ankles’ South London ‘Forest Rayve’ club nights in 2024 in response to that age-old primal urge to bring people together and make them move. It’s the first time the woodwose have road tested new material to this extent before committing it to tape since debut album Come Play The Trees, and in doing so have harnessed that feral energy once again. This surreal human/woodwose connection is the very best release from an algorithm that knows you better than you know yourself. Dance it all loose."

'Through Today' is the sophomore album for rising Australian band Chimers. A husband / wife duo comprising life partners Padraic Skehan (vocals / guitar) and Binx (drums / vocals). Recorded by Jono Boulet (Party Dozen) over two days at Stranded Studios, Wollongong and mixed at Boulet’s Sydney home studio, produced by the band and veteran manager / promoter / producer Tim Pittman (Feel Presents), 'Through Today' features ten tracks of tightly-coiled intensity that barely lets up for all of its 34 mins. In enlisting Boulet, the band were confident that due to his own experience of being one half of Party Dozen, they had someone who understood the confines of working within the structure of a two-piece but also the possibilities that creates. Boulet, in turn, rewarding that trust by capturing a powerful bedrock of sound that allowed the band's taught rhythms to circle and permeate and yet give full breathing space for the melody within. For Pittman’s part, having a third ear on hand to devote serious listening time and critical commentary was an added bonus. It’s a major step forward from the band’s 2021 self-titled debut. A twelve track effort that snuck out during covid and only hinted at the power within. "Our debut felt more like just trying to capture the songs we had at the time, we weren’t sure if we’d even release it or if it would be our only album" "This time around we were intent on capturing the energy and intensity of our live show on the recording but with a more produced sound than self-titled. We worked more on song structure previous to the sessions. We rehearsed a lot playing quietly so we could actually talk to each other whilst playing the song and iron out any kinks.” “Jono turned the whole live room into a drum room, mics everywhere. The guitar amps were situated outside to prevent too much spill but still recorded live along with about half of the vocals. Second guitar and the rest of the vocals were recorded the next day. Jono was super quick and had the same work ethic and mindset, get in, get it done. If the first take was good enough, move on.” - Padraic Lyrically Chimers maintain the intensity as they tackle the themes of love, life, death and relationships, distance from home (Padraic is Irish, moving to Australia in 2001) and the current political climate providing enough drama to fuel a forest fire. Guest musicians on the album include saxophonist Kirsty Tickle - also of Party Dozen - and violinist Jordan Ireland of The Middle East. Both of whom were invited in on short notice adding their respective parts in just 1-2 takes each without any prior knowledge of the material. Binx too showing added versatility contributing lead vocals to An Echo and sharing lead across 3AM, Generator and others. “Singing is not something that comes naturally to me, and it was at the last minute before we went into the studio that Padraic suggested I sing the lead in An Echo. Having very minimal musical instruments within the band I think having the two different vocals adds a nice dynamic to the record.” - Binx 'Through Today' is a great album. Solid and confident from the get go. No waste. No unnecessary fat. Should it be Chimers last it would remain a defining statement of originality and intent. But it’s not the last, it’s just the beginning. And there’s plenty more where that came from. BIO Like many good bands Chimers are a band born of isolation, not geographically though, via the pandemic. Irish born Padraic Skehan and his life partner Binx, formed the band in their Wollongong backyard during the initial lockdown of 2020. Veterans and drummers both of the ‘Gong’s vibrant garage-scene – The Pink Fits, The Drop Offs, Evol and more – Chimers is an altogether different beast, Padraic taking a giant leap forward by removing himself from the back-seat and assuming the role of driver; singing, playing guitar and writing the songs that would eventually become their 2021 self-titled debut album. It’s a sound and album that draws heavily on Skehan’s time as a youth in Ireland and the post-hardcore sounds of Dischord Records, Husker Du, The Wipers and which has seen the band find friends and favour in like-minds The Mark Of Cain, Henry Rollins, Guy Picciotto and Mudhoney. This is no mere nostalgia though, the band instead landing at the vanguard of a new generation of Sydney and surrounds bands – Body Type, Second Idol, Dust, Private Wives, R.M.F.C – borrowing from the past in order to create a future.

War Drosselbart eine Krautrockband nur weil sie aus München kamen wie Amon Düül, deutsch sangen und 1971 bei einer großen Plattenfirma ihr erstes und einziges Album veröffentlichten? "Nein", meint Monika Vincent-Gunia aka Jemima, Sängerin von Drosselbart. "Wir waren die erste Punkband Deutschlands. Die Jungs von der Band konnten damals nur drei Akkorde, vielleicht auch vier, aber sie brannten vor Begeisterung." Doch mit dem Punk der Mitsiebziger Jahre hat dann Drosselbarts Musik auf dem gleichnamigen Album recht wenig zu tun. Die Jungs hatten anscheinend doch ein bisschen geübt und sich mehr als vier Akkorde draufgeschafft. So klingt das Ganze stark nach den 1960er Jahren, erinnert gelegentlich an härtere rockende, psychedelische US-Bands wie Iron Butterfly oder an die Musik britischer Bluesrocker wie z. B. Brian Auger und Julie Driscoll. Keyboarder Christian Trachsel steuert ein paar progressive Momente bei und Gastmusiker Ralf Nowy sorgt für klassisch angehauchte Hörerlebnisse. Gesungen wird, wie bereits erwähnt, in Deutsch, von Jemima und Peter Randl. Der bevorzugt einen eher aggressiven, agitativ-deklamierenden Stil, wie man ihn auch von diversen deutschen Politrockbands Anfang der 1970er kennt. Aufgenommen wurde in den Union Studios in München, wobei der Band ein junger Toningenieur namens Reinhold Mack zur Seite gestanden und für den Mix gesorgt haben soll. Unter dem Kürzel Mack machte dieser ab Mitte der 1970-er Karriere als Soundmixer und Produzent von Größen wie ELO, Sparks, Deep Purple und vor allem Queen.

Seit fast zehn Jahren streift das virtuos aufspielende Trio durch die Welt. Einst in der vielfältigen Welt des Klezmers verwurzelt, stehen heute vor allem die eigenen Kompositionen im Mittelpunkt. Die faszinierende Tonsprache der jiddischen Hochzeitsmusikanten stets als stilistisches Element im Handgepäck, sind es die drei Persönlichkeiten des Trios, die mit ihren individuellen Zugängen die Musik des jungen Dreiergespanns zu einem wahrhaftigen Feuerwerk machen.

Some record crates deserve a sub-category called 'play it again, Sam'. tracks that spin on the turntables without a push. Funk Kraut, Zombie Zombie's second LP on Born Bad, is of this kind. This well-proportioned classic is a fine example of the style the trio has been embodying: instrumental for synths and drums music played live. This time it was a quick affair, recorded by Laurent Deboisgisson in the studio of Cheveu's singer. A pretty straightforward job, and a far cry from their previous concept album. Let us praise Krikor Kouchian's mix: drums have been resampled with some restraint, and that Linn Drum kick lightens up the overall mix. It marks a notable evolution in the band's sound, and adds some dynamic. The album kicks off with 'No cruise control', a big bad sedan that effortlessly eats up the distance at 120 BPM. Kraut as can be, with a twist. And as far as funk goes, it's not Bootsy Collins, but there's a whiff. Space is structured by synth patterns, for optimized drumming : forward, straight and fluid, top-notch suspension (Cosmic Neman / Dr Scho?nberg take care of business on drums). They treat themselves to a diversion via Darmstadt to take some musique concrete on board : mechanical birds chirp, the odd atonal piano here and there. Nerds will appreciate liner notes detailing the equipment used : about twenty synths and they still describe it as minimal. With 'Densite?', we've just passed a polyphonic milestone: outright chords ! Long, suspended pads, pierced only by fat claps. Clapping hands are not far off. The band shows it has mastered concise pop formats. That same vibe can be found in 'Jungle the Jungle', paradoxical tune, catchy and moody at once. You'll get some brass riffs in 'Helix', which takes off on a synth moving from one speaker to another to herald the crash of syncopated drums to come.Zombie Zombie sounds ready to write themes for niche TV series.'Aurillac Accident' documents a haphazard soundcheck which, once in the studio, became a bitter ballad, breaking apart into dubby gravy. Live with two drummers performing, this aspect showcases in 'Snare Attack' and 'Double Z', with its jogging hi-hats and creepy little toy piano motifs. Cardio levels are high on 'Dodorian', perfect track for depraved spinning classes, with its moving filter, disco arpeggios and flashes of synthetic brass. 'Magnavox Odyssey', a nostalgic but bouncy synth lasagna, brings this album to a majestic close. The cover by Dddixie sets the tone with its 'Motorik Vibes & Stereo Grooves' sticker. Motorik, absolutely, it's autobahn time for 45 minutes. And when it comes to stereo grooving, the acoustic image is as wide as the canyons of Mars. DO NOT MISS THIS ALBUM (or the previous Vae Vobis)!

Ventura (Lausanne, CH), started in 2003, and has released 4 albums so far, with Superheld being the proud fifth. It was recorded with Serge Morattel again, and displays a slightly more aggressive and intense sound than its predecessor, even if it explores a few new paths with songs like the semi-acoustic "Freeze In Hell" or the motorik "Optimistic". The line up still consists of the same three guys, Diego (bass), Grégoire (drums) and Philippe (guitar and vocals) as on the previous album, Ad Matres.

In dem neuen Werk ''Shlimazl'' des Schweizer Komponisten Michael Wertmüller verschmelzen Sinfonieorchester und Big Band zu einem virtuosen, polymetrischen Organismus zusammen, der nicht nur Stile, sondern auch eine gefühlte Linearität der Zeit überwindet. Dabei knüpft er explizit an die reiche Tradition der Big Band an und belebt sie im sinfonischen Kontext unter neuen Vorzeichen wieder und lässt sie emporfahren. Alle Solisten agieren wie ein Bild im Bild der Big Band, die zwischen musikalischer Keimzelle, Ort der Konzentration und utopischem Freiraum oszilliert. Wertmüller beleuchtet die Doppeldeutigkeit des jiddischen Titels Shlimazl (dt.: Durcheinander) mit den strukturierenden Phrasen Mazely Shlimazl (dt.: Glück und Unordnung). Die stilistische Karombole und das Chaos der Polyphonie ohne Einheitlichkeit bergen nicht nur den überwältigenden Effekt der scheinbaren Unvereinbarkeit, sondern auch das Glück neuer Möglichkeiten des Miteinanders: aus der Kraft des Widerspruchs und der Reibung an irgendetwas, welches weder planbar noch vorstellbar ist. Ein Model, das in Zeiten zunehmender Unvereinbarkeit und Verhärtung die Vision eines konstruktiven Auswegs birgt. ''Shlimazl'' von Michael Wertmüller ist eine Auftragskomposition der Basel Sinfonietta und der Ruhrtriennale. Basel Sinfonietta & NDR Bigband Musical Director - Titus Engel Drums - Lucas Niggli E-guitar - Kalle Kalima

Although still very much a secret, Oakland, California's Justin Pinkerton has perfected and expanded his Futuropaco project to a stunning degree over the past seven years. The one-man band is deeply rooted in Pinkerton's masterful drumming, which builds on the legacy of 1960's and 1970's legends such as Tony Allen and Jaki Liebezeit. But he's an accomplished multi-instrumentalist as well, and the Futuropaco sound is a colourful fusion that sees him throw fuzz guitars, flutes, vintage synthesizers and Anatolian string instruments into the mix - seemingly without much effort. The second and final volume of the "Fortezza Di Vetro" series feels like a conclusion, the sound of an artist reaching his creative zenith. It's an experimental album, yet immediately seductive in its energy - channeling the vibey art-rock of Tortoise, Black Sabbath riffage and vintage Italian film music in equal measures. It's such a refined and esoteric blend, yet hits so directly. It's simply impossible not to crank the volume knob once this slab of vinyl is on the turntable, followed by immediate head nodding. Buy the ticket, take the ride. Justin Pinkerton is a vastly talented rhythmsmith, best known as a member of Californian stoners Golden Void. On this project he plays all the other instruments too so he can do what he blooming well feels. And it's not as if the drum solos go on for twenty minutes like those of John Bonham and his pale imitators. Nope. Into tracks that are both jam-packed and concise, Pinkerton has squeezed his love of vintage Italian library music, classic krautrock and heavy psych rock. At one point it suggests Grails have been performing super-speed cover versions of fusion-era Miles Davis with Adrian Younge on production. -The Quietus Futuropaco returns in a big way with Fortezza di Vetro, a buzzing, groove-heavy album that expands on what came before while staying true to the project's origins. Dizzying, fuzzed-out psych with just the right amount of melancholy for good measure. Justin Pinkerton and Futuropaco have done it again. Fantastico! -Complex Distractions

In 1991 Coil released the third of their early classic full-length albums “Love’s Secret Domain”, seemingly casting aside the gloom
and funereal beauty of its predecessors in favour of a painstakingly multi-layered hallucinogenic electronic beast, which unlike
some of their fellow ex-industrial contemporaries’ releases of the time wasn’t an attempt at easy accessibility or (the-godsforbid) danceability, but a vibrating psychedelic masterpiece unrivalled in their discography and still a landmark album.
To mark its 30 year anniversary Infinite Fog are beyond proud to present an expanded, fully remastered re-release of this fan
favourite available for the first time ever in its entirety on vinyl with 10 rare and mostly unreleased tracks and alternative
versions from the period added as a bonus to a luxurious 3LP/2CD set.
Love’s Secret Domain contains among its many highlights the Lynchian William Blake tribute of its title track and the
intoxicating single “Windowpane”, original versions of the later Coil live staple “Teenage Lightning” and the majestically warped
classicisms of “Chaostrophy”. Marc Almond guests on the typhonian “Titan Arch” and This Heat’s Charles Hayward provides
some amazing drum stylings.
This album is Coil pushing their sound ideas and probably their sanity to their very limits. Beyond the iconic Steven Stapleton
cover art here reproduced in unseen definition the doors of perception still open wide for both long-term Coil aficionados and
new-comers to this supremely innovative release to explore unknown depths. The long-overdue re-release illustrates how far
ahead of the curve Coil were with the sounds on this album, which still sounds as fresh and mind-blowing as it did back in the
early 90s.

Reverend Gary Davis aus Laurens, South Carolina war Singer-Songwriter, Gitarrist
und ein wahrer Virtuose des Piemont-Blues-Fingerpicking-Stils. Jack White
erwähnte ihn als einen seiner Gitarrenhelden in der Dokumentation It Might Get Loud
und zeigte darin den Videoclip von Death Don't Have No Mercy (He'll come to your
house and he won't stay long).
Blind Gary Davies spielte Gitarre mit Daumen und Zeigefinger auf eine Weise, die nur
ein blinder Mann spielen kann. Viele seiner Songs wurden im Laufe der Zeit von
internationalen Künstlern gecovert; unter anderem gehören The Grateful Dead und Bob
Dylan zu den Interpreten, die durch ihre Davis-Interpretationen dem blinden Virtuosen
Ehre erwiesen. Harlem Street Singer beinhaltet seine größten Hits, die bis heute
populär sind.

Sub Basics is back on his own fledgling label Temple of Sound - but under a new alias. As Tommy Basics he leads into a fresh house sound but still serves it up with plenty of his textbook bass-heavy low ends. 'Latitude' is a bubbly groover with dusty drums and fleshy basslines that get you moving and warmed up. 'Longitude' is even deeper, with smeared dub chords and woody percussive hits peppering the laid-back and inviting groove. Two stylish sounds from this versatile producer.

13 years in the making, Mr Bongo proudly presents a new compilation of beloved Brazilian disco and boogie finds from the legendary London disco connoisseurs, Horse Meat Disco. A labour of love, it showcases a tantalising cross-section of disco, funk, boogie, samba and MPB, from past to present. Unearthing tracks from the seemingly endless gold mine of Brazilian gems, the compilation features legends such as Jorge Ben, Gretchen, Marcos Valle and Robson Jorge & Lincoln Olivetti, alongside unsung heroes including Zé Carlos and Carlos Bivar.

Over 20 years ago, the Horse Meat Disco crew (James Hillard, Severino Panzetta, Jim Stanton and Luke Howard) began their weekly residency at Eagle London back in 2003. That same year, Luke made his first visit to Brazil, beginning a musical love affair that is still going strong.

“I had always wanted to go to Brazil since I was a kid, and when I finally had the opportunity to go with Princess Julia, I was just blown away. I’ve visited Rio every year since 2003, and in that time, I’ve learned Portuguese and tried to discover as much as I can about Brazilian music and popular culture. I learned to dance samba with the Paraiso School of Samba in London and paraded three times at Rio Carnival. Brazilian music was a brand-new world for me to explore and get excited about—a whole universe of genius musicians, singers, and styles.”

9 years later, Mr Bongo invited Luke down to their Brighton HQ for a listening session of some of his favourite Brazilian boogie and disco 7" finds. A compilation was green-lit, but multiple licensing delays and the release of other HMD compilations meant that it lay dormant for years.

Fast forward to 2024, and with the help of esteemed, Rio-based record collector Tee Cardaci, along with suggestions from HMD’s James Hillard, the dream of an HMD Brazilian compilation finally materialised. It’s a carefully curated collection that includes the electronic-boogie/italo-disco-esque 1984 groover 'Venha (Remix)' by the singer Źe Carlos, two cuts by Luiza Maura taken from her sought-after Deixa Girar 7", and Gretchen's sultry 'Ela Tem Raça, Charme, Talento E Gostosura' written by Jorge Ben.

At its core, this compilation captures the excitement and sense of discovery that won over Horse Meat Disco’s heart more than 20 years ago. A vibrant mix of feel-good flavours, it homes in on a sun-soaked strand of disco and boogie that has been enriched with the spirit of a nation where music serves as a central pillar of life.