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Following on from Vince Watson’s sell-out 2020 release, that saw tracks lifted from his 9th studio album ‘Via’ taken to a whole new level with remixes by the mighty Joe Clausell, Steve Bug & Langenberg, Osunlade and Manoo, he unleashes two fresh, new, feel-good cuts on Everysoul Audio!

Defining them as House or Techno would be a mistake, as Vince effortlessly bridges the gap between both worlds in a way that he does so very well. ‘Make A Wish’ was born out of the same studio session as his ‘Teardrops’ track for Sacred Rhythm, taking the initial sketch into a different direction with powerful drums, big basslines and silky synth stabs, adding to the orchestral strings that build. ‘Forever’ was originally a studio jam that made it into his live shows pre-covid, but this gave him the chance to finish it the way he always wanted. It’s an upbeat, jazzy cut with funky 909 drums and acid bassline.

Music in Exile announce their forthcoming remix EP, featuring reworkings of Music Yared by Melbourne cult hero, Mikey Young (Total Control, Eddy Current Suppression Ring, The Green Child). SINDAYO - MIKEY YOUNG REMIXES features remixes of an original track from Music Yared’s self titled debut EP, released last year through Music in Exile. In addition to today’s announcement, we’re delighted to also share the first single, Sindayo (Mikey Young’s Masinko Remix - Radio Edit), out March 26 via Music in Exile.

Mikey Young’s legacy is well known throughout the Australian music scene, most notably as part of garage punk band Eddy Current Suppression Ring, and synth-driven outfit, Total Control. However, the talents of Young extend well beyond the performance setting to the world of engineering and mastering with his name appearing in the liner notes of an incredible number of releases, becoming something of a trademark of quality. In this release, Young showcases his skill and nuance, creating a remix where tradition and sonic exploration co-exist.

Anbessa Gebrehiwot and Haftu Reda are masterful players of krar and masinko, traditional string instruments from Eritrea and Ethiopia. Now based in Melbourne, Australia, the pair collaborate with multi-instrumentalist Dale Gorfinkel to create an innovative ensemble sound that celebrates their East African culture. The band's seemingly endless repertoire ranges from modern takes on folk songs to new, original compositions with Anbessa’s strong vocal presence a perfect match to Haftu’s sweet lyrical modesty.

Music Yared’s compositions are inspired by traditional Etheopian and Eritrean folk songs and they sing about love, distance, separation and culture. Their songs also feature virtuosic mastery of traditional instruments - the krar, (a 5 string lyre style instrument), and the masinko (a single string violin-like instrument that is played using a bow.) Although inspired by tradition, Music Yared’s compositions embrace the notion that music is always developing and changing with the times. Taking influence from traditional folk songs, Music Yared finds newness and originality through their personal approach to their lyrics, their treatment of rhythm, and the creation of new beats. This change and openness to new sounds is also apparent in their instrumentation, as they pair their traditional instruments with drums, as well as samples of bass lines and percussion.

Given their openness to new musical approaches and experimentation, it only seems fitting for the songs of Music Yared to be remixed, allowing further exploration of their inherent musical attitudes towards change and development. The first single from the EP, Sindayo (Mikey Young’s Masinko Remix - Radio Edit) traverses new sonic territory, pairing the traditional character of Music Yared with contrasting ideas from different sonic landscapes. Beginning with a musical acknowledgement to the original song, Young’s remix then changes direction into a new sonic world; synth pads and melodies swell and intertwine, samples interject, whilst grooving electronic beats underpin a new approach to texture and song structure.

Recorded by Dale Gorfinkel in Thornbury. Mixed and mastered by John Lee at Phaedra Studios.
Remixed & additional production by Mikey Young in Rye.

Celebrating a determined and ambitious 15 year tenure as Yorkshire’s chief bastion of deep house music, Hudd Traxx enlist a who’s who from their gilded halls to contribute tunes for a special anniversary release. Split across two vinyl parts and an expansive digital release, it’s a pretty prestigious occasion featuring dance music legends Nightmares On Wax & Jovonn, long term label stalwarts Iron Curtis & JT Donaldson, a guest appearance from Mark Hawkins (FKA Marquis Hawkes) and a track from label head Eddie Leader. Adding to the already weighty credentials are Agnès (releasing his first material since 2013), Berlin-via-Italy producer Black Loops.

On Part Two longstanding Hudd Traxx veteran JT Donaldson drops “What I Got” - twisting and contorting throughout its duration, a serpentine roller rich with block party flavour and the very essence of deep house coursing through its veins.

Dixon Avenue Basement Jams’ Mark Hawkins does some moonlighting under his newly deed-polled alias with the epically beautifully “Chasing Paper”. No royalty credits heading north of the border here, just swathes of satisfied revellers and euphoric dancefloors guaranteed upon delivery.

Meanwhile, another Hudd Traxx regular, Iron Curtis, pays tribute to one of the scene’s greatest on “Kerri On (Chandelier Dub)”. A red-lit nocturnal jam that Mr. Chandler himself has rubber stamped, its ever-growing bassline, soaring strings and delicately placed keys taking us towards a seriously blissful conclusion.

Concluding part 2 is a track by Agnès - founder of Sthlmaudio Recordings. The stylish Swiss keeps true to his remit – deep, dubby, transcendent grooves that sway lushly with the midnight air. “Embryonic Connections” taking us right back to the roots of that tribal beat and a fitting end to this mammoth release and a perfect lead up to his forthcoming Hudd EP.

4 tracks which perfectly instil why Hudd started this label of love 15 years ago; to showcase fierce, uncompromising dancefloor workouts in as sincere and stylish manner as possible. The artists and tracks chosen show the adventurous routes and development the label keep as their main point of focus – to unearth the tantalizing new and exciting sounds of house music’s continuous evolution.

This release is dedicated to Richi Larkin & Yuriano x

After 4 years of re-issuing some of the best house and disco, from hard to find deep-house gems to all times classics, Groovin Recordings are really excited to start releasing new music too, featuring some of the best young producers from the new generation. The first release introduces Groove Boys Project (Lucas Moinet and Alexandre Valard), a talented duo from Paris with a unique sound, a classy mix of fender rhodes, jazz chords, MPC based drum beats, soulful strings and some classic synths.
“Studio 937 cuts” is a two tracks EP that show their skills in the best way.
"Never Give Up" is a sophisticated jazzy-house track, composed with Kamasari and GBSiX who wrote the lyrics and the vocal part too. You’ll never get tired of GBSiX’s vocals !
On the B side "Deep In The Blue" is a Fender Rhodes deep-house ballad from Lucas Moinet, for all the Rhodes lovers out there.

There's no denying the hype surrounding Anton 'ScruScru' Bogomolov is fuelled by a string of celebrated singles, demonstrating an extraordinary prolific prowess all throughout 2020.
His ability to blend jazz-funk classics with the sweet sounds of disco-powered house grooves is always on point.
It's music that blurs the boundaries between the serious yet playful and takes the listener on a truly unique-sounding ride

ScruScru's appearance on Omena is one of his finest so far. These six tracks makes a fine mini-album called 'South Wind, Clear Sky'.

There's jazz, disco, big warm rhodes chords and sparkling synth sounds of course, the bustling grooves takes you as far as outer space and back.
It's a wild ride and you should not be afraid to take it twice.

With a fundamental emphasis on the encouragement of genre hybridization, Evar Records, the Los Angeles-based imprint co-founded by Trickfinger (John Frusciante) and Aura T-09 (Marcia Pinna), continues its momentum with an expansive 9-track collection from Netherlands-based luminary, Limewax.

After making a strong first impression with its 2020 debut offerings, Evar Records has recruited Limewax to carry forward its mission of blurring boundaries and challenging conventions in electronic music. The Ukranian hard drum and bass hero happily obliged, referring to signing with Evar as a breaking point which allowed him, finally, to take full stock of his background in classical and electronic music simultaneously. Although Maxim Anokhin is widely known for his hard-edged breakbeats, releasing on labels such as Tech Itch Recordings, Position Chrome, Freak Recordings, and PRSPCT, the full scope of his artistry shines through on Untitled.

The opening cut, "Porcelaineworm," is a futuristic electro cut recalling IDM classics like AFX's "XMD5A." Of course, the virtuosic drum programming and hectic D&B sound which Limewax has built his reputation upon is here in spades on tracks like "Stay Lackey. Cuts like "Ushio" and "Whay1" are fascinating studies in contrasts—the former balances bludgeoning techno of the Ansome and Perc variety with a resolve that recalls Fennesz's pastoral glitch abstractions. "Whay1," meanwhile, is sub-rattling drum and bass nuanced by cinematic string themes. "Getupa" is an experimental beat track that truly bangs, its layers of texture and field recordings placing Limewax in the company of bleeding-edge acts like SVBKVLT's breakout star Hyph11E. The very next track, "19NB," is a subtle update to the original minimal technical template established by Detroit icons Robert Hood & Jeff Mills.

While most of the album hurtles forward at hard techno and D&B tempos, "Maleisae" is a sensual 70 BPM track mixing ghostly R&B and acid. That spectacular cut heralds Untitled's intricate denouement. The brief "Wernmqbram" effortlessly reconciles a baroque minor-key piano theme with the renegade snares of classic jungle. "Hasan" is a true "closing credits" master stroke, half-time acid giving way to gorgeous IDM-meets-Blade Runner synth leads.

Far from a genre-jumping hodgepodge, Untitled is a remarkably coherent full-length by a virtuosic artist free to explore the entirety of their creative influences. The Tilburg-based artist cites the poets Marina Tsvetaeva and David Whyte as influential on Untitled and also listened to works by 1771-1862 works by organ builders when crafting the album. The end result reveals Limewax as a masterful, diverse artist, capable of any style he pursues. It's a clear indicator of the boundless promise of Evar's core principle—a staunch refusal to put artists in boxes.

Mi Conga es de Akokan is built on the Conga de los Hoyos rhythms from Santiago de Cuba. Saxophones and trombones alternate with vocals imploring the listener to dance over intensely syncopated percussion, leading to a melodic flight by the masterful trumpeter Reinaldo "Molote" Melian. The horns re-enter, and the Orquesta takes off to soaring heights of rhythmic intensity and sophistication.

La Guajira is a slow country rhythm told by the tres guitar and percussion onto which horns and strings add slinking, narcotized harmonies. Pepito tells a sensual tale of romance with a girl from the country "la guajira", which slowly builds in intensity over soneos, coros and mambos until all parts interlock in a lugubrious climax.

Be With is delighted to present Jorge López Ruiz’s El Grito (Suite Para Orquesta De Jazz), eternal Argentinian magic released on CBS in 1967 that must be one of the most sought-after South American jazz LPs.

Living in Buenos Aires in the 60s, driven by creative impulse and rage Jorge López Ruiz used music as his platform to protest the Argentine military dictatorship: “I could never stand dictatorships, to be told how you have to think, what you have to do. Nor did I endure discrimination”.

A young López Ruiz had appeared on a television panel alongside writer, politician and philosopher Arturo Jauretche, criticising the Onganía dictatorship. Jauretche told López Ruiz “Now say it with music”. This was the deep inhale that lead to El Grito, literally “The Scream”. As López Ruiz later explained “Jauretche urged me that my protests should not remain in words and acquire the consistency of a work… but it was not so much what he told me but how he told me, what prompted me to make the work take shape, first in a live concert and then in a recording”.

As the police and military began resorting to kidnapping, torture and summary executions to quiet dissent, with depressing inevitability the artist community and their work were a particular target of the increasingly brutal regime. El Grito was banned not long after it was released and the majority of original copies were unceremoniously destroyed.

The work of a genius artist living under an opressive dictatorship, erased by the government of the time, this is buried treasure in every sense and it’s been a rare record for over 50 years. But it isn’t just being hard to find that has pushed up the prices of those few original copies that survived, this is a foundational record in the development of jazz in South America.

El Grito (Suite Para Orquesta De Jazz) is a showcase for Jorge López Ruiz’s skills as a composer and arranger as he leads a virtuoso orchestra of the likes of Mario Cosentino (alto sax), Baby López Furst (piano), Pichi Mazzei (drums), Gustavo Bergalli (trumpet), Oscar López Ruiz (guitar), Arturo Schneider (flute) and Jorge López Ruiz himself plays double bass on the fourth and fifth movements.

As the album’s sub-title explains, The album is a Jazz orchestra concept suite. Five movements, to be heard as a whole, that end where they begin.

“When I wrote it there was no history of a cyclical work in jazz. But I didn't notice that, I needed to express something and I did it. At that time they told me I was crazy, that such a thing was very difficult to do. But hey, I like challenges”.

Yet this is not challenging jazz. There are certainly avant garde, free jazz flourishes, but the hard bop characteristics make this a very accessible album: easy to listen to without being easy listening. López Ruiz’s love of film brings a definite cinematic feel.

The title movement opens the album in bombastic style. “El Grito” grabs you by the lapels and refuses to let go. Raw then controlled, it’s by turns stabbing then soothing, with rage weaved in and out of the elegant styles. “M.A.B. = Amor” is our favourite here. With a tense introduction and a patient build, a gentle sax sweeps in to lift everything up to meet the serene piano and soft drums. Elegantly paced, it moves back and forth between deep contemplation and a more urgent call and response between strings and horns. A near-eight-minute, slow motion marvel.

The second side eases in with the beautifully-titled “Hasta El Cielo, Sin Nubes, Con Todas Las Estrellas” (“Up To The Sky, No Clouds, With All The Stars”) a relatively brief mid-tempo piece featuring López Ruiz’s insistent bass notes high in the mix, and again blending the sublime with the emotive with its wild horns and tight rhythm section.

It’s followed by “Tendré El Mundo” (“I Will Have The World”) which also leads with hypnotic bass, but this time swifter, driven by crashing drums, rapid horn conversations and effortlessly cool piano flourishes. Rounding out the suite, “De Nuevo El Grito” (something like “The Next Scream” or “The Scream Renewed”) is a stylish closer. Whilst López Ruiz’s bass shifts the track along, the horns and piano are more restrained, yet no less stunning.

This Be With edition of El Grito sounds sensational, if we do say so ourselves. Working with audio from the original analogue tapes, the vinyl mastering chops of Simon Francis are on full show here in what he considers to be some of his best ever work for Be With. Pete Norman’s cutting skills have made sure nothing is lost. The tortured artwork has been restored here at Be With HQ as the finishing touch to helping this revered work find a rightful place in every protest art collection.

Sandy Grooves Vol.1 is the debut compilation release from Boogie Bodega, a newly formed label based in Bali set up by Mexican Disco wizard Sould Out. Comprising of some of the most sought-after producers within the Disco & Edits scene of the last years, Sandy Grooves vol.1 tickles all the Disco senses with something for everyone. From laid back Balearic inspired incarnation to a more uptempo dance floor heaters, this comp focuses on the full spectrum of the Disco & Funk arena.

Opening things up, “Easy Way To Groove'' could not have a better title for the music to match, it's a definite “does what it says on the tin” kind of vibe. Hotmood works his magic once again with this bass led stomper, tidy guitar licks and cinematic string section that’s sure to get butts off seats and wiggling

Stepping up next, New York’s Razor N Tape boss JKriv fires off with his atmospheric builder “Sunshine”; a slice of filtered, loopy Disco House goodness with progressive percussive elements.

On the B side, Disco Deviance Pete Herbert & Dicky Trisco compliment the more downtempo offering of this selection with a dubbed-out guitar laden trance inducing gem that is sure to spin a few heads. Following that, Igor Gonya’s “Habibidisco” holds its place as a romantic vocal Disco funk journey through Arabia with plenty of energy - another one for the dancefloor crew.

Finally, “Keep You Burning” by Clean Is Good is a mid-tempo swinger that’s sure to heat up the listeners ears. Sleek, smooth vocals, classic disco beat and undeniable funky guitar - I dare you not to groove to this one!

Throughout his vast career, the New York based Australian composer JG Thirlwell has adopted many masks as a means of infiltrating and subsequently subverting a wide range of pop cultural forms. His work under the Foetus moniker has taken on everything from big band to opera to noise-rock. Steroid Maximus embraced exotica and the world of soundtracks, while his Manorexia project continued his quest to the outer limits of contemporary composition and musique concrete. Thirlwell has also carved out a significant output in the field of the soundtrack via the large body of work created for the animated television shows Archer and The Venture Bros. In addition he has been commissioned to create compositions by such notables as Kronos Quartet, Bang On A Can, Alarm Will Sound, String Orchestra of Brooklyn and many others.

Now we have ‘Omniverse’, the second release under the moniker Xordox. Xordox is a synthesizer-based project, and on this evocative album we see the project branch into many new avenues. The science fiction element brushes up against crime noir, even veering into areas that could well fit in the video game soundtrack genre. With an audacious attitude and an arsenal of machines Thirlwell serves up a selection of thrilling retro-future mind capsules. This is music made from a life saturated in culture, both underground and mainstream, high and low. Tense sequencing and noir tinged keyboard lines invoke a powerful visual image of films and memory, of screens and speakers, of sound and space, all entering the cosmos and the subsequent galactic race. Thirlwell’s decades long exploration of sampling and sequencing, composing and ingesting a daunting amount of audio and visual artworks speaks volumes for the bold assimilations exposed here. ‘Between Dimensions’ lays out a tense theme which starts off like a score to a a crime thriller before morphing into a simulacra of Kraftwerk scoring a video game. The living ghosts of Giorgio Moroder and John Carpenter haunt ‘Oil Slick’ as it permeates wormholes, updating lifeforms with its stealth sequencing and tense momentum.

‘Omniverse' is a synthesised soundtrack journey, one which embraces past forms whilst reshaping them for the new unknown. ‘Omniverse' is a thrilling liquid ride through fear and hope, and like all the best of Thirlwell’s output, is simply one hell of an enjoyable journey to take.

Tamiko Jones - born Barbara Tamiko Ferguson in 1945 in Kyle, West Virginia – debuted in 1967 on Atlantic with flautist and mentor Herbie Mann on the soul-jazz-bossa flavored ‘A Mann & A Woman’. Her solo career take off in 1968 with the rare groove inflected I'll Be Anything For You, released on A&M/CTI and produced by label owner Creed Taylor. Recorded and engineered by master Rudy Van Gelder at his own Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, the album is such a lovely combination of soul-funk jams and r&b ballads with craft strings arrangements by Artie Butler and Don Sebesky. Featuring a who’s who line-up of classy session men – Bernard Purdie on drums and Eric Gale on guitar just to name a few - I'll Be Anything For You is namely one the best soul-pop crossover ever.

The second release on Constructive (sister label of SN Variations) is Last Afternoon by Japanese composer Takuma Watanabe. Having studied at Berklee College in America, he is now living in Japan where he composes for film using his own string ensemble. This is Watanabe's first full length artist album.

He also created the animation music videos for the two tracks Tactile and Last Afternoon creating a unique imaginary visual counterpoint to the music.

Last Afternoon features collaborations with American vocalist and composer Joan La Barbara known for her recorded works with John Cage, Morton Feldman, Robert Ashley and composer and software developer Akira Rabelais known for his collaborations with Bjork and David Sylvian. The album is mastered by Jim O'Rourke. Cover photo courtesy of Swedish photographer and cinematographer Anders Edström.

Straight Outta Caledonia is the first commercially available “Greatest Hits” of the outsider songwriter Jackie Leven, an artist
who has largely remained in obscurity in his native Scotland despite being one of the greatest wordsmiths – and singers – it ever
produced. A well-travelled musician who began making psychedelic, progressive music in the late 60s before emerging as an
epic storyteller full of pathos, humour and humanity in the 90s, Leven lived and wrote like many of the fragile, gregarious
characters of his songs; large, full of life and empathy. Leven passed away in 2011 after recording 30+ albums under different
guises or with his briefly successful New Wave band Doll by Doll. Straight Outta Caledonia is a compilation collated by Night
School Records on its Archival label School Daze that seeks to introduce Leven’s music to new generations.
In an age of isolation, alienation and loss of visceral experience, Jackie Leven’s music can be massive and welcoming. It feels
connected to some universal humanity and vibrates with vitality. His songs are often full of tragedy and comedy simultaneously,
cutting straight to the heart, often plugging directly into the nervous system of the listener. His lyrics are rich, dense with imagery
that can veer from apocalyptic to the comically banal in a sentence, with a songwriting panache that can be heavy handed to
almost bursting point before skewering the song with a clownish, warm punchline. His productions ranged from Bob Dylan’s
Rolling Thunder Revue style rock band orchestrations with strings and organ as on the epic Ancient Misty Morning or they could
be pared down to the purest form of folk song as on Poortoun: Leven on stage alone with an acoustic guitar, albeit played with a
mastery of the instrument that he often only hinted at. Musically his sound can bend traditional structures or stay completely
confined within them yet still forever push towards an ecstatic release, as on the cinematic Snow In Central Park.
The most exciting, jaw-droppingly effective tool at Leven’s disposal was his voice. A multi-octave instrument that, though
damaged during a savage assault in Fife, he used with flair; he had both a brazen disregard for the rules and a deep humility, all
of which is evidenced with every phrasing. A baritone that could flit up through the register – always touched by his gentle
Kirkcaldy accent – it’s the prime delivery method for his songs. Leven’s voice enabled him to inhabit the characters in his songs to
an uncanny degree, a skill that in turn enables the listener to empathise with them and, subsequently, the singer. It’s most evident
in stand out song The Sexual Loneliness Of Jesus Christ, a breathtaking re-telling of the life of its protagonist, not as a pure,
sinless messiah but as a sexually frustrated, solitary man condemned to an existential loneliness no one else will ever feel. In
many ways the track is the archetypal Jackie Leven song. Produced by Pere Ubu’s David Thomas, what strikes the ear first –
after the samples of unemployed workers in Glasgow following the closing of the Clyde shipyards – is the audacious, rhythmic
tremolo effect Leven employs through the verses before the production opens up to allow Leven’s vocal to lift into a soar, a
freeing glide powered both by the force of the singer’s chutzpah and the inherent, doomed destiny of the protagonist. With any
other singer such subject matter could come across as gauche or worse, pretentiously sonorous, but Jackie Leven’s genius was
such that he could be this cinematic and brazen while touching something elemental and true in the beholder. It’s a skill evident in
every song on Straight Outta Caledonia, the trademark of a songwriter who revelled and excelled in intensity with a lightness of
touch.
In his lifetime, Jackie Leven toured, wrote and recorded at a ferocious rate. He recorded under aliases to avoid record contract
restrictions, played house shows in Europe after or instead of official concerts, events which were often spoken word story telling
masterclasses as well as performances of his often bewilderingly dense songbook. His music has traditionally been catalogued
as “folk” music and has been largely banished to a small, dedicated group of international fans and apostles both private and well
known, like author Ian Rankin or Glenn Matlock. Since his passing in 2011 however, there has been a growing recognition
amongst a newer generation, with artists like James Yorkston or Molly Nilsson publicly stating the influence of the unsung
troubadour on their own craft. Jackie Leven’s fairytales for hard men are often forensic deconstructions of masculinity, sad and
ecstatic, light and shadow, always endlessly rich, a resource as bountiful as Leven himself’s human spirit undoubtedly was.

Based in Bristol, LTO first made waves as part of mysterious electronic collective Old Apparatus. As a solo producer, LTO has since attracted attention with three albums.

LTO's ambition to create ever more ambiguous and far-reaching sonic environments, whilst retaining something of the familiar and physical, have led him to take inspiration from imagined landscapes of the folklore of his Welsh ancestry and of the planet Mars. Both images of enchanted forests battling enraged giants from the underworld and unimaginably hostile planetary events guide this work of great magnitude.

In 'Daear', LTO explores an expansive sound pallet of swelling synths and noise, ambiguous string instruments, thunderous percussion, unearthly voices and his signature sound the piano, mostly processed beyond recognition. The result is a mysterious and deeply textured journey that could be set in both the distant past and uncertain future, on this planet or beyond.

Astral Black welcome Eahwee (pronounced errr-wee)to the fold for his 'Solitude' EP. Through his production work with MC's such as Mutant Academy's Koncept Jack$on & High Focus' Coop, a handful of releases on Dallas-based label Sunday Dinner and a flurry of bandcamp beat tapes - the London-based producer has quietly made a name for himself on the international beat scene. With the release of 'Solitude', Eahwee joins the ranks of Astral Black alumni & his production peers Budgie, Shy One & JD. Reid amongst the labels forward-thinking-producer blessed catalogue.

Across the 12-tracks here on 'Solitude', Eahwee contorts a gold-mine of 70's soul samples into a psychedelic reflection on isolation & the human experience, presented in the form a life affirming 17-minute long mixtape. From the exultantly ethereal sounds of 'Duuduu' & 'Windough' to the heart string pulling 'Naybahuud' & 'Rarecandy', Solitude is a testament to how Eahwee has developed his craft into an effortless touch. Though largely instrumental, peppered along the way are a handful of vocal performances in the form of guest appearances from Blah Records commander-in-chief, Lee Scott, the mafioso memoirs of extra terrestrial MC Melanin 9 and neo-soul sage, Ninjah Aragniz – who closes off proceedings with the infinitely loop-able summer anthem 'yah yah'.

The 7" vinyl edition is limited to 100 copies and includes tracks 'LOOOL', 'Shame' & "yah yah' featuring Lee Scott, M9 & Ninjah Aragniz respectively, alongside their instrumentals. Whilst the cassette edition, limited to 30 copies, features all 12 tracks in full on the A-side, with all 12 instrumentals on the B-side.

The Artwork, a comment on working with the best & worse of human nature, comes courtesy of Eahwee himself with yypography & additional design by Morgan Hislop.

Aged only 15, Lulu burst onto the pop scene in May 1964 with “Shout”, her unforgettable cover of the Isley Brothers’ timeless favourite. On EMI’s Columbia label she enjoyed a string of hits produced by Mickie Most, including US # 1 “To Sir With Love”, “The Boat That I Row”, “Me, The Peaceful Heart”, “I’m A Tiger”, and the joint winner of 1969’s Eurovision Song Contest, “Boom Bang-A-Bang”.
After Lulu recorded the title song for James Bond film “The Man With the Golden Gun”, David Bowie produced her versions of his songs “Watch That Man” and “The Man Who Sold The World”, the latter a UK # 3 hit. And in 1993 collaboration with Take That on “Relight My Fire” reached # 1.
Pressed on 140g vinyl, this 13-track set contains her best-loved hits.

a a1. SHOUT Lulu and The Luvers











[radio version]

Gordon Koang, South Sudan’s enigmatic superstar and ceaseless fountain of infectious, upbeat pop music, kick starts 2021 by revealing a series of remixes from his recent Unity album, this time partnering with two of the undisputed leaders of electronic music in his adopted home city of Melbourne, Australia - Sleep D and Andras.

Stranded overseas after civil war tore apart their country over six years ago, Gordon and his cousin Paul Biel Kueth, who were on tour performing to expatriate communities in Australia, were forced to apply for humanitarian protection and made the heartbreaking decision to leave their families stranded at home, on the chance that citizenship would be granted and reunification made possible.

After languishing on the outskirts of Melbourne’s suburbs for many years, Gordon met the Music in Exile label, a not-for-profit run by members of Melbourne’s flourishing music scene in order to create more opportunity for the city's numerous refugee and migrant musicians. He immediately assembled a band and tracked his eleventh full-length album, Unity (his first recorded album featuring performances in English and made widely available).

In the midst of a successful run of singles and festival performances around Australia, the Covid-19 pandemic hit, derailing Gordon’s newfound success and growing status as the darling of Melbourne’s vibrant music scene. Forced to find alternatives, Gordon reached out to some of his newfound friends in that city’s community. The result - this set of startling remixes by some of the finest voices in electronic music today.

Gordon, who was born blind in a small village in South Sudan’s Upper Nile Valley, began composing on the thom, a five-stringed instrument sometimes referred to as a Sudanese banjo, He started busking on the streets of Juba, accompanied by his cousin Paul Biel, who would sell homemade cassettes and CD’s. His anthems of peace, love and unity struck a chord, and before long Gordon found himself as something of a folk hero and a voice for peace in a country torn by ongoing conflict.

Now resettled in Australia, Gordon records and releases music in order to support his family back home in East Africa. He still awaits Australian citizenship, and forges on in the hope that this may one day be granted, allowing him to reunite with his wife and family in his newfound home.

Unity is Gordon’s eleventh full-length album and first to be recorded in Australia. It was produced by Stefan Blair and Liam Parsons of Melbourne lo-fi legends Good Morning, and features an ensemble cast of Australian performers. South Sudan and Y Dah are taken from the album, reimagined here by Andras and Sleep D. The remixes were a gift to Gordon and his family, with no fees paid or royalties due - all proceeds go directly to Gordon to help him reunite with his family.

This is Gianni and Erika third album, after two works released by Voodoo Rhythm Records and produced by Jim Diamond, musician and producer for two iconic bands from Detroit, The Dirtbombs and The White Stripes.

The record features former Screaming Trees vocalist - and acclaimed solo artist - Mark Lanegan and Chilean multi-instrumentalist Alain Johannes (Queens Of The Stone Age, Spinnerette, Ten Commandos, The Desert Sessions).

“The title track of the new album was born during our last day of re-cordings” - says Gianni Blacula and Switchblade Erika.. “Alain is an enthusiast of strings instruments, and on the last day he arrived at the studio with a Neapolitan mandola he bought in the historical centre of Naples. We were astonished about how a traditional instrument as the mandola can get a rock sound, so we followed up went to the recording room. Alain at the mandola and vocals and us on guitar and drums. There was suddenly the right atmosphere that to Alain reminded “ the Desert Sessions” , so much that the song came out at the first take. Then Alain wrote the lyrics and the last line “Beast Must Regret Nothing” affected us , we have chosen it as the title of the album because it totally reflects his mood, and it does taste of Devils!”

Gianni and Erika got in touch with Alain for the first time in September 2019, during a Spanish tour, while they were looking for inspirations for their new record.

In the same moment Alain was on a European tour which ended in Italy. The collaboration was born in a spontaneous way, for a mutual esteem between the Devils and the famous producer and musician. The album have been recorded in Naples, Italy, with a two weeks session in a historic studio equipped with a large tracking room with truly unique acoustics. Alain actively collaborated in the production of the album taking part to creative process and helping them with the arrangements.


The Devils formed in Naples in 2015 and their first two albums “Sin,You Sinners!” in 2016 and “Iron Butt” in 2017 were produced by Jim Diamond (The White Stripes, The Sonics and the Dirtbombs), pub-lished by Voodoo Rhythm Records. From 2016 the duo constantly tour, and has played everywhere doing over 400 shows between Europe and Canada. The Devils are the sound of desolation and chaos; their style is primitive, filled with sex, sin and rock’n’roll. They are wild, loud and sexy.

The name of the band was chosen has tribute to the movie “The Devils” by Ken Russell and they have been on tour with Jon Spencer, The Sonics, Boss Hog and The Monsters, and has open act around Europe for Mudhoney, Nashville Pussy, Guitar Wolf, Kid Congo and many more.

It is with extreme pleasure that we, Basement Boys Records proudly announce our 100th single release and 30th year in the music business as an active recording label!

Holding down our 100th release is the legendary multi-faceted singer/songwriter/producer Byron Stingily. As one third of the Chicago-bred, world renown trio, Ten City and as its primary lead vocalist, Byron’s velvety falsetto graced such House Music staples as “Devotion”, “That’s the Way Love Is”, “My Piece of Heaven” along with scores of other classic House music favourites. As a solo artist, Byron went on to create such memorable House jewels as “Get Up” & “It’s Over” a classic collaboration with the Basement Boys for his project on Nervous Records.

“We Belong Together” contains four mixes. The Monday Night Vocal Dub and Instrumental are up first, with percolating congas and swinging violins that accentuate the well-paced drums and percussion of this delectable mix. The brassy horns sing in tandem with Byron as he tugs on the heartstrings with his romantic, chromatic vocal adlibs and signature riffs. The sugar-laden strings and sparkling pianos brings to mind the 90's Ten City production of Marshall Jefferson.

DJ/songwriter/musician/producer, Maurice Fulton is one of House music’s true originals, back where he started. Maurice had the first release on Basement Boys Records with Sticky People "Kong". A man with a mind-blowing complexity behind all that is deep, dark and funky.

Fulton’s mix takes a more soulful tech approach employing a host of electro sounds. A fervent polyrhythmic vortex of percussive wind chime effects, married with classic snares, tom toms & hi-hats, deep sub bass and a meaty kick all define this masterful alignment of electro and acoustic elements. At the midway point, Maurice turns the suspense-filled symphonic intro from the previous mixes into this electro breakdown groove fest sure to drive dancers into a frenzy complete with Byron’s heartfelt lyric.

Closing it out the Main Mix in all its glory, hi-powered, dense bottoms and percussive elements, sweet R&B “boogie” style chords, neatly placed horn accents with Byron slaying the lyric as he always does in his exquisite, soulful pleading falsetto telling the object of his affection, “We Belong Together”.

Womack updates his material for the 80s, creating grown-up sensual soul.

The passion for earthy R&B seemed to have dimmed as the 80s began.

Synthesised confections abounded and veteran Bobby Womack, the Midnight Mover, was at a crossroads. His peers were either in the wilderness (Marvin Gaye, James Brown and Isaac Hayes) or otherwise indisposed (Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, Sly Stone), so it was left to Womack to fly the flag for down-to-earth, quality soul.

Womack had been a recording artist for best part of two decades when he made The Poet. After making his name with The Valentinos in the 60s, he cut a string of heartfelt, emotional albums for Minit, United Artists and Columbia throughout the 70s. The Poet was written with great optimism; Womack was out of contract and was approached by agent Otis Smith to set up on his new label, Beverly Glen.

Working with Patrick Moten, Womack crafted eight songs that sounded breathlessly contemporary. If this material had been put in the hands of a soul crooner, it could have sounded perfunctory. The Poet works because of the juxtaposition of Womack’s feral growl with the album’s sweet, smooth, urbane soundtrack. This is grown-up, sensual music; from So Many Sides of You to its epic closer Where Do We Go From Here, this is a luscious collision of Womack’s soul mastery and slick musicianship. It rises and falls, with Womack sidestepping cliché thanks to his preaching, heartfelt delivery. For example, when he cries “I wanna dedicate this song to all the lovers tonight / And I expect that might be the whole world,” on If You Think You’re Lonely, it sounds honest, simple and sincere.

The Poet put Womack back on the map, and gave him his first US R&B chart-topper and first mainstream top 30 album. It was adored in the UK, and sent many back to investigate his grittier 70s heyday as an albums artist. The album became the best-selling record of Womack’s career

Womack cut the equally sublime follow-up The Poet II, released in 1984.

Daryl Easlea – BBC

Womack updates his material for the 80s, creating grown-up sensual soul.

The passion for earthy R&B seemed to have dimmed as the 80s began.

Synthesised confections abounded and veteran Bobby Womack, the Midnight Mover, was at a crossroads. His peers were either in the wilderness (Marvin Gaye, James Brown and Isaac Hayes) or otherwise indisposed (Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, Sly Stone), so it was left to Womack to fly the flag for down-to-earth, quality soul.

Womack had been a recording artist for best part of two decades when he made The Poet. After making his name with The Valentinos in the 60s, he cut a string of heartfelt, emotional albums for Minit, United Artists and Columbia throughout the 70s. The Poet was written with great optimism; Womack was out of contract and was approached by agent Otis Smith to set up on his new label, Beverly Glen.

Working with Patrick Moten, Womack crafted eight songs that sounded breathlessly contemporary. If this material had been put in the hands of a soul crooner, it could have sounded perfunctory. The Poet works because of the juxtaposition of Womack’s feral growl with the album’s sweet, smooth, urbane soundtrack. This is grown-up, sensual music; from So Many Sides of You to its epic closer Where Do We Go From Here, this is a luscious collision of Womack’s soul mastery and slick musicianship. It rises and falls, with Womack sidestepping cliché thanks to his preaching, heartfelt delivery. For example, when he cries “I wanna dedicate this song to all the lovers tonight / And I expect that might be the whole world,” on If You Think You’re Lonely, it sounds honest, simple and sincere.

The Poet put Womack back on the map, and gave him his first US R&B chart-topper and first mainstream top 30 album. It was adored in the UK, and sent many back to investigate his grittier 70s heyday as an albums artist. The album became the best-selling record of Womack’s career

Womack cut the equally sublime follow-up The Poet II, released in 1984.

Daryl Easlea – BBC

Ryley Walker currently resides in New York City. But his latest LP is a Chicago record in spirit. The masterful Course In Fable, the songwriter’s fi@h solo effort,
draws from the deep well of that city’s ferCle 1990s scene, when bands like Tortoise, The Sea and Cake and Gastr del Sol were reshaping the underground,
mixing and matching indie rock, jazz, prog and beyond.
Walker spent his formaCve years in Chicago, absorbing those heady sounds and finding ways to make them his own. Even though he emerged at first in folkrock
troubadour mode, it makes sense that he’s arrived at this point; each LP has grown more intricate and assured, his influences disClling into something
original and unusual. To put it simply: Course In Fable is Walker’s best record yet, full of acCve imaginaCon and endless possibiliCes.
Last October, Ryley went straight to one of the primary architects of the Chicago sound to make the LP. John McEn:re, Course In Fable’s producer/engineer/
mixer, can rightly be called a legend for his work with Tortoise, Stereolab, The Red Krayola, Jim O’Rourke and countless others over a prolific career that now
spans more than three decades. Seeing his name in an album’s liners is preVy much a trademark of quality.
Another Windy City exile, McEnCre is based on the west coast these days, working out of the Portland, OR studio he’s dubbed Soma West. On the seven songs
here, he delivers the signature shimmering and prisCne sonics he’s become known for over the years. But McEnCre was also inCmately involved with Course
In Fable’s overall creaCve process. “I told him to take the mixes and have at it,” Walker says.
The result is a rich, immersive affair — a headphones record if ever there was one. Course In Fable’s songs are twisty, labyrinthine things, stuffed full of ideas
(Walker half-jokingly calls it his “prog record”). But no maVer how complex it gets, the album is never overwhelmingly busy. Wiry guitars melt into gorgeous
string secCons (arranged by Douglas Jenkins of the Portland Cello Project). Tricky Cme signatures abound but feel as natural as can be. Melodies o@en dri@ in
unexpected direcCons but remain downright hummable. Like Walker’s beloved Genesis, the pop element is never too far from the surface even when shit
gets weird. (And speaking of weird, Ryley says that in addiCon to Genesis, much of the album’s inspiraCon comes from “Australian extreme scooter riders on
YouTube and balding gear heads on Craigslist.” Go figure.)
To help put together these various puzzle pieces, Ryley assembled a band made up of several longCme collaborators. Bill MacKay (another Chicago mainstay)
and Walker have made two excellent instrumental duo records of interlocking guitars and warm give-and-take — a rapport very much in evidence
throughout Course In Fable. The freakishly talented drummer Ryan Jewell has performed with Walker for years now in a variety of seangs, from
straighborward song-centric sets to blown-out improv extravaganzas. Bassist Andrew ScoJ Young (Tiger Hatchery, Health&Beauty) has logged many miles on
tour with Walker; he and Jewell are frequently astonishing, a buoyant-but-always-locked-in rhythm secCon, able to navigate someCmes dizzying turnarounds
with apparent ease. Listening to the interplay between Walker and these musicians and you might be fooled into thinking they’d spent a year roadtesCng
Course In Fable’s songs. But it all came together relaCvely fast, thanks to demos, rehearsals and the kind of musical empathy that comes from years of
playing together.
Beneath the wondrous interplay, you’ll find some of Walker’s most personal – if sCll typically crypCc — lyrics, hinCng at some of the trials the songwriter has
been dealing with in recent years. Balanced with necessary doses of dark humor and oddball poetry, Course In Fable feels most of all like a life-affirming
record, fresh air in the lungs, sun on your skin. “Fuck me, I’m alive,” Ryley sings at one point, a moment of both disbelief and pure joy.
Walker has released his albums on a who’s-who of independent labels over the past decade — Tompkins Square, Dead Oceans, Thrill Jockey and Drag City
among them. This Cme around, he’s doing it DIY-style, puang Course In Fable out on his own Husky Pants imprint. You’re in good hands. This is an album that
sounds great (mastered by Greg Calbi), looks great (artwork by Jenny Nelson and design by Michael Vallera). It probably even smells great. Whether you’ve
been onboard since the beginning or are new to the Ryley Walker universe, you’re in for a treat.

At first glance, Sarah Louise might seem an unlikely candidate
to credit technology as inspiration for her new album, Earth Bow.
After all, she has lived in rural Appalachia for the last decade,
foraging numerous species of wild mushroom, concocting
medicine from plants she gathers, and performing what she
terms “Earth Practices” to deepen her relationship with the
natural world. But it is precisely her ability to find connections
between false binaries that makes this album so novel and richly
immersive.
Louise conceived Earth Bow as an interconnected ecosystem,
meant to evolve, interact and grow. Known for her inventive
guitar playing, vocal harmonies and electronic experiments,
it was her use of the SP-404SX sampler that became a primary
inspiration for the album’s woven nature. “Improvising with the
404 during live shows allows me to collaborate with the music
as a living system, almost the way generative music works,” she
says. “I kept finding more and more samples that worked together
and realized I wanted to connect the entire record—and
that there were many ways it could be connected.”
Through this process, what began as eight core songs
blossomed into two sweeping suites. Samples—denizens of
her electronic forest—move around the record with changing
context like words in a sestina or phrases in the I Ching,
revealing new connections with each listen. Mesmeric sounds
abound on Earth Bow, from analog synth tones, to digitally
manipulated sonics that she stretches and layers with a painterly
touch. These electronic sounds inhabit the same environment as
field recordings, ceremonial percussion, guitars and empathic
vocals, weaving together her vast and borderless influences into
an enveloping world. “I want this record to take people on a
journey through the wonders of our incredible planet, to help
people feel held by the mysteries of nature,” she enthuses. “I
believe music can heal.” After a string of celebrated releases on
Thrill Jockey, Sarah Louise is self-releasing Earth Bow on her
new imprint of the same name.

Music For Dreams proudly presents a limited Edition 7” from LIPS LIPS LIPS A 2 track release of tracks from his forthcoming album ‘Life Is Pretty Surreal’ (Co-Produced by Peaking Lights’ Aaron Coyles)

Behind LIPS LIPS LIPS is Danish musician, electronic producer and songwriter Søren Løkke Juul (previously Indians and Søren Juul, both on 4AD).

The A Side, In All Eternity, was written in 2015 on piano. It’s a love songthat seems arrested in a state of estranged wonder or bittersweet bliss. Piano stabs rise in a towering, stadium-leaning riff while the metronomic beat float beneath and strings swirl in supporting arcs.

Side B ‘Lifetime Girl’ is a more electronic indie dream pop love song reminiscent of early Air meets Beck in a Nordic forest.

With the debut album, LIPS LIPS LIPS launches an ambitious project of lush and melodic electronic structures layered around hypnotic vocals. The music is yearning and melancholic yet warm and hopeful. Rarefied yet expansive. Cerebral yet wired with pop charm.

Anessential difference from Juul’s previous work here has been the sense of easeand spontaneity with which the creative processes have flowed. According to Juul, this new sort of feet-on-the-ground freedom has helped develop a more physical side to his music.

While he hasn’t totally jettisoned the ethereal or spiritual qualities of earlier days, LIPS LIPS LIPS represents a much more pronounced rhythmic vision, materialized at the hands of Aaron Coyes (Peaking Lights), whose well- accomplished dub-engineering is layered deep into the texture of the album.

All recording on the album was carried out during a week-long refuge in co-producer Frederik Nordsø’s cabin in Sweden. The team included Juul, Nordsø, Coyes and label head and co-producer Kenneth Bager.

‘The Watchful Eye Of The Stars’ is Adrian’s ninth studio album.
Produced by luminary John Parish (Aldous Harding, PJ
Harvey), this sublime collection of ten songs invites us to join
Adrian at his storytelling best, regaling us with tales of travel
and wonder, by sea, by road, all quietly transfixing,
transformative and wholly captivating.
Suffused with a hazy and surreal quality, Crowley describes
‘Watchful Eye’’s poignant narratives as those which insisted
themselves upon him. After the fact, it seemed these songs
came to him more or less fully formed. “It’s a beautiful and
mysterious thing,” he says. Perhaps it is a tendency to hold onto
memories (“It’s taken me so long to write to you / Well I just
couldn’t find a pen,” he laments in ‘Bread And Wine’), that
allows him to unleash them lyrically in completion. For Crowley,
the creative process is an organic event rather than a practice
he feels compelled to regulate or control. He approaches lyrics
much like he does short story writing. “The songs straddle the
conscious and subconscious world and some are even
psychedelic in my mind, but to me they are all at once true
stories and born of another place,” he shares.
In making the album, Crowley moved between studio and at
home recording, while John Parish produced. The pair worked
from tracks made initially by Crowley on a charity shop ¾ size
nylon string guitar or Mellotron: “In this way, John wanted to
keep some of the magic of that first take,” says Crowley.
Contradictions and complexities are left intact, initial recordings
were limited to one or two takes and the songs feel more like a
dream recounted upon waking.
Jim Barr of Portishead contributed double bass and was
brought in to engineer parts of ‘Watchful Eye’ in Bristol. Nadine
Khouri and Katell Keineg were invited in as guest backing
singers.
The heavyweight vinyl includes a digital download card.

Band of Brothers is a 2001 American war drama HBO miniseries based on historian Stephen E. Ambrose’s 1992 non-fiction book of the same name. Produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, the series tells the story of “Easy” Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, of the 101st Airborne Division, from their first jump training in the United States through their participation in major actions in Europe during World War II. The series received universal acclaim and went on to win many awards, including multiple Emmy and Golden Globe Awards.

The Bright Lights of America is the seventh album released by American punk rock band Anti-Flag. Released in 2008, the album marked a change in the band’s sound: although still very much punk, the album is their first to feature a string section and child choirs. Two singles were released from the album: both the title track and “The Modern Rome Burning”. Other popular songs from this album are “Good And Ready”, “Spit In The Face” and “Vices”. The song “Wake Up The Town” features guest vocals by Billy Talent-songer Benjamin Kowalewicz. Produced by Tony Visconti, Anti-Flag sounds fiery and angry as ever on this album. This is a limited edition of 500 individually numbered copies on solid red vinyl. The lp’s are housed in a gatefold sleeve with a deluxe leather laminate finish, and contains a double-sided poster with lyrics and liner notes.

180 gram Vinyl LP Producer - Jah Thomas Toyan aka Ranking Toyan (born Byron Letts, died 1991) was a Jamaican reggae deejay active since the mid-1970s and best known for his early 1980s recordings.
Toyan began his career in 1974, deejaying on Kingston’s sound systems, such as Socialist Roots and Romantic HiFi. He recorded his debut single, “Disco Pants” in the late 1970s for producer Don Mais. He went on to work extensively with Joseph Hoo Kim and Jah Thomas, resulting in a string of hits including “Girls
Nowadays”, “Kill No Man”, “John Tom”, and “Talk of the Town”, as well as combination hits with The Mighty Diamonds (“Pretty Woman”), Badoo (“Rocking the 5000”), and Freddie McGregor (“Roots Man Skanking”).
In 1981 he joined Henry “Junjo” Lawes’ Volcano Sound system, and toured Canada. With Lawes, he recorded the album How the West Was Won, and went on to produce his own work and that of others such as Billy Boyo and Anthony Johnson. He toured the United Kingdom with the Jah Prophecy band and performed in Jamaica alongside Dennis Brown. He was murdered in Jamaica in 1991.
Mailout to relevant music press and radio. Promotion across social media platforms Advertising in Riddim, Black Echoes and Record Collector Magazine

*repress*

Phonica Records welcomes Spanish producer extraordinaire Pional to it's main label with the 'XME / One Night Stand' 12'.
Pional is Miguel Barros and the Madrid based musician has been producing for over a decade. With a string of well received solo releases on Hivern Discs, Permanent Vacation, Young Turks and Counter, remixing the likes of The xx, Chairlift, The Rapture, Prins Thomas and John Talabot (who he also co-wrote the incredible 'Fin' album ender 'So Will Be Now...' with) as well as DJing around the world, Pional has been keeping very busy indeed.
For his Phonica release he has produced two versions of two very special tracks. On the A-side, 'XME' is a melancholic and uplifting electronic excursion with delicate flourishes of it's synthesised melody becoming a real ear-worm throughout its six and a half minutes. The slower and more foreboding 'Quiet Ceremony' reinterpretation takes the same melody in a darker direction.On the other side, 'One Night Stand' is a bumping, stripped back and moody club track with ghostly vocals floating above metallic pads rising to a release of energy and emotion. The 'Slow Drumapella' lowers the tempo and alters the feel of the track, reducing its elements to a bare-bones drum track with the vocal, fx and pads eventually coming to the fore.

On February 27, 2018, Chris Forsyth & The Solar Motel Band (comprised, in this iteration, of long-time SMB bassist Peter Kerlin and Kerlin’s Sunwatchers battery mate Jason Robira on drums) were close to wrapping up an 18-date tour of the EU and UK with a two-set, one hour and 45 minute show at Cafe OTO, London’s premier venue for adventurous music. Highlights of that show are included in this live release, RARE DREAMS: SOLAR LIVE 2.27.18, recorded before a packed house seated mere feet from the band’s amplifiers. These recordings reveal a band that is clearly in high spirits and high gear, operating with an expansive, improvisatory fleetness that allows them to stretch the material to almost ludicrous extremes and then let it to snap back to some semblance of form while somehow seemingly never wasting a note, a beat, a gesture. The four tracks included here comprise material culled from (at the time) the two most recent Solar Motel Band records DREAMING IN THE NON-DREAM (No Quarter, 2017) and THE RARITY OF EXPERIENCE (No Quarter, 2016) plus covers of two Neil Young songs - the autobiographical plaint “Don’t Be Denied,” lyrically relocated by Forsyth from Young's Canada and Hollywood to the more personally relevant geography of New Jersey and Philadelphia, and encore “Barstool Blues” (they’d run out of material to play, so another Neil Young tune it was). While the covers establish Forsyth’s basis, serving as an homage to Young and the quest for self-realization, the long tracks’ jams showcase the trance-inducing power of the Solar Motel Band as a performing entity. Kerlin’s gymnastically propulsive bass playing locks in with Robira’s relentless thud, each serving as counterpoint to some of the most blistering guitar work of Forsyth’s career. The telepathically dynamic interplay of the trio explodes with whiplash intensity across the 15-plus minute takes of “Dreaming In The Non-Dream” and “The First 10 Minutes of Cocksucker Blues,” each song’s structure serving as a framework for extended lava flows of energy. At one point late in the “Dreaming” jam, Forsyth unplugs the jack from his guitar, dragging it across the strings and lashing the body of his single-pickup “parts" Esquire, producing a desiccated barrage of percussive static. This is music beyond the notes; it is an expression of pure electric ecstasy, a simultaneous negation and celebration of rock music’s (indeed all musics’) essential energy. In contrast to the expansive but meticulously detailed guitar arrangements of his recordings, here Forsyth’s unhinged live guitar sound positively roars with a barely restrained vocal intensity, from liquid melodic lines to gnarled blasts of free jazz scree, to pulsating lead/rhythm vamping. I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing this band up close for a number of years now and I can authoritatively attest that while every show is different, when the SMB is running down a steep hill at full speed (as on these takes), they become a single leaderless vibrating sonic tornado, possibly beyond the control and logic of the players themselves, picking up listeners along the way and taking them along for the ride straight into a solar furnace of sound. - Jerome Onfront, Philadelphia

Few Danish bands have been so far around the block at such a young age as Communions.

In 2014, while still in highschool and still shaking dust from the rafters of Mayhem — Copenhagen’s famed underground venue — Communions released their debut EP Cobblestones. The release marked the beginning of a long and productive streak for the band,


who followed it up with the 2015 Communions EP, the 2017 album Blue, a string of self-released singles and an EP, Flesh and Gore, Dream and Vapor, in 2019. Now Communions have joined Tambourhinoceros with a new, reshaped constellation.

Communions’ Rehof brothers — Martin (vocals and guitar) and Mads (Bass) — have decided to continue at the helm of the band after the departure of their long-time bandmates Jacob van Deurs Formann and Frederik Lind Köppen (although the two still feature in the forthcoming Communions recordings). Letting their brotherly musical connection take center stage, the Rehof brothers have assembled a new five piece constellation around themselves going forwards, adding even more depth to their indie rock.

Communions’s early work drew inspiration from the underground scene’s punk cynicism, evidenced by their lofi debut EP which was recorded — with amps blaring — straight onto a USB microphone. Communions’ next two EPs and debut album saw the band refine their craft of songwriting and production while riding a wave of international attention and festival performances. Their forthcoming music now represents another shift in the Communions aesthetic. Marked by sharp cultural criticism, self reflection, and artistic commentary of a grand scale, Communions’ new music takes the signature indie rock from the dark clubs of their youth and merges it with full-fleshed cerebral critique and symbolism.

Veteran NYC based Scottish electronic musician Drew McDowall's latest work is his loftiest, most liturgical, and least industrial outing to date —and potentially the apex of his recent discography.Named after an ancient Greek word for votive offering, Agalmaexudes a hooded, devotional aura, creaking and keeling under vast rafters of stone, stained glass, and shredded wires. It's a music of majesty and mystery but also modernity, McDowall's refined modular system shape-shifting strings, piano, pipe organ, and choral masses into disorienting synthetic mirages of the sacred. He cites the intersection of “joy, terror, and the elegiac” as a centering inspiration –or, phrased more bluntly, “that 'what the fuck is going on' feeling.”



As a career collaborator himself, with stints in Coil, Psychic TV, and countless other shorter-lived partnerships, it's telling that McDowall chose this project to gather such an impressive spectrum of peers. Italian synthesist Caterina Barbieri, American drone organist Kali Malone, prolific multi-instrumentalistRobert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, operatic Humanbeast vocalist Maralie Armstrong-Rial, Saudi producer MSYLMA, and warped futurist beat-makers Bashar Suleiman and Elvin Brandhi cameo across the album's 42 minutes, contouring McDowall's nuanced negative spaces with shudders, shadows, and shivering flickers of serenity. Each of them shines in their spotlight, elevating these elusive alchemical states into surreal revelations of texture and transcendence.



McDowall's original working title for the record is revealing: Ritual Music.He speaks of his creative practice in ceremonial terms, negating binaries by seeking the middle path to anuminousequilibrium that erases the distinction between the inner and outer worlds.These compositions feel similarly processional and intuitive, at the crossroads of holiness and hallucination, the sacred vertigo of yawning naves rising into untouchable night skies. It's a vision of industrial music as enigma and invocation, cryptic hymnals of shroudedbeautysummoned in catacombs and crumbling cathedrals.



Despite its depths, Agalmais also an album of immediacy and emotion. Celestial laments of and for times of unrest and suffering. McDowall characterizes his initial intention for this music as an to attempt to convey experiences he felt incapable of putting into words: “To try and approach sublimity, or at least acknowledge it in some way.”Agalmamore than acknowledges the ineffable –it embodies it.

Songwriter and fingerstyle guitarist, Jason McNiff releases his 7th full length album, Dust Of Yesterday, on April 16th. Produced and engineered by Roger Askew (Joe Strummer, Wilko Johnson, Christy Moore) the album was recorded throughout the summer and autumn of 2020 in Roger's home studio in Eastbourne, UK. It features McNiff's signature acoustic guitar work throughout with significant contributions from Beth Porter (of Eliza Carthy's band) on cello and Basia Bartz (most London based folk bands) on violin. 
 
His first album since leaving London - McNiff is now based in Hastings - Dust of Yesterday is an elegy on moving away from a beloved place and a lament for lost youth. We are treated to a musical tour of McNiff's life to date, from his 8-year residency as a Flamenco guitarist in a Spanish bar in Waterloo (Damaged Woman) to hopping the northbound train from King's Cross, hiding in the lavatory up to Nottingham (A Load Along). All the songs on Dust of Yesterday, in one way or another, speak of the past. But it is not bleary-eyed nostalgia. 

"I read somewhere that it is possible to literally change the past and I became very interested in this idea. It so happened around the same time that I discovered the Greek/Egyptian poet, Cavafy. In his poems he would talk about the past, but the memory is not a thing of the past, but something that is still part of him in the present. I could relate to that. "

Musically, Jason is influenced by the British acoustic guitarists (Jansch, Graham, Wizz Jones) and the great folk/rock troubadours of the 60s and 70s. He loves Mark Knopfler in the early days; the English teacher turned reluctant rock star, singing about Leeds and Newcastle and sounding like JJ Cale. For McNiff, the lyrics are central, and he has been especially captivated by those considered poets and writers as well as musicians. He loves literature and cites Hemingway, Chekhov and the aforementioned Cavafy, as major influences in his work. ( He has 'translated' Hemingway's 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' into a song on a previous album, 'Nobody's Son')
 
 
Jason McNiff was born in Bradford, Yorkshire in 1974 to an Irish father and Polish mother. Academically gifted, he did well at school and went to the University of Nottingham to study French and Russian. He fell in with the Folk & Blues scene in that city before moving to London in the mid-nineties to do another degree in English Lit. He was just in time to catch the Bert Jansch residency at the 12 Bar club. For 6 months, every Wednesday night, McNiff would be in the front row of Soho's tiny club learning fingerstyle from the master. He would later sign his first record deal with Snowstorm Records, a label run by Bert's brother-in-law and found himself opening for Bert on numerous occasions. 
There followed a string of albums on various labels, including 2003's Nobody's Son (Americana UK album of the year) and 2011's April Cruel (nominated for best alt-country album at the Independent Music Awards in the US.)

Isasa’s fourth LP is a guitar excursion from a skillful, humble guide. Minimal, contemplative songs, rich in atmosphere and warm in spirit.

Some musicians give their name to their first album, signifying introduction. Some hold it in reserve — it took Wire 39 years to get around to calling an LP Wire. But whenever they do so, they are making a statement. For Conrado Isasa, an acoustic guitarist from Madrid, Spain, the decision to call his fourth album Isasa reflects the fact that his music’s relationship to his own identity has evolved. Isasa presents an artist whose work reflects that he knows and accepts where he comes from.
Between 1993 and 2003, he played electric guitar in the hardcore metal band Down For The Count and the post rock combo, A Room With A View. These were collective statements, communications between small groups and a select underground community. After the latter group’s demise, Isasa stepped back from recording, and for a while from guitar playing as well. He spent some time learning to play the trumpet, but was inspired to return to the guitar in 2007 after he heard Geoff Farina play a Mississippi John Hurt song for the encore of a Glorytellers gig. Then came another period of learning, during which he studied the playing of Hurt, John Fahey, Jack Rose, and Glenn Jones.
Performing as Isasa, he made three records, each of which can be heard as confrontation with an artistic challenge. Las Cosas (2015) is between the man and his acoustic guitar; what could he do with his fingers, a slide, six steel strings, and a box of wood? Los Días (2016) faces the broader issue of how to deal with the requirements of the American Primitive guitar style. Like Fahey, Rose, and Jones, Isasa sought to make an album that used a cohesive sequence of guitar and banjo instrumentals to express personal experiences. With its references to the sights, sounds, and tastes one might encounter in Madrid, it is like a poetic diary written with the distance that comes from having mastered a second language. After making that record, Isasa toured parts of the United States, and played at The Thousand Incarnations Of The Rose, a festival that gathered representatives of American Primitive guitar’s past, present, and future in Takoma Park, the town where the style’s original synthesist, John Fahey, was born. Insilio (2019) began to look beyond that style, dealing with Hindustani raga forms and adding other instrumental textures.
And now comes Isasa. The name suggests something very personal, and it’s true that it draws upon Isasa’s closest relationships. Two compositions are either named for or feature the voices of his children, but their presence helps this music to transcend the purely personal. For what could be more universally shared than the joy and love one feels for children? Others invoke concepts — absence, liberty, love, reunion. They may mean one thing to Isasa, and another thing to you, but by sharing his reactions to them, he invites you to recognize yours. Isasa isn’t just using his experiences to tell you about his life; he is using what he knows about life to help us know a little more about ours.

Just like Freddy Krueger, Final Dream resurrects from the past to haunt your nights and deliver to the masses his threatening message. Author of a mighty album and three collector EP's on experimental techno label Audio Illusion Recordings from 1995 to 2002, British Electro veteran Phil Klein aka Bass Junkie returns with a vengeance under his most frightening alias. 19 years after his last transmission, he serves up a new four tracker full of his infectious strain of corrosive and weird electro.

The A-side opens with the mental "Dark Flow", a pounding tune based upon hammering beats surrounded by sinister strings and a gloomy atmosphere. The title track "Project Fear" coming next goes deeper into the realm, merging lethal frequencies to demonic beats.

The flipside introduces "Force Majeure", a milestone of an instant classic made of robotic drums sequences fused into subtle acid lines while "The Devil's Playground" concludes the 12" with 7 minutes of brain manipulations. Present "Project Fear EP" appears as an opened window to the future, an invitation to foresee what Evil is cooking for you in his laboratory. Just a reminder that there's no way to hide, accept your fate, nothing can stop the darkness!

MICROCORPS is the new project by artist and musician Alex Tucker (Grumbling Fur, Alexander Tucker, Imbogodom) exploring electronics, cello and voice. The debut release XMIT, an eight-track album featuring collaborations with Gazelle Twin, Nik Void, Simon Fisher Turner and Astrud Steehouder, is out on 16 April 2021. Tucker's ever-evolving soundworld continues to unfold with this collection of harsh realms centred around processed electronic systems, strings and vocal manipulations. On the new album, MICROCORPS employs altered voices, sound synthesis and atomised beat constructions. In a move away from previous projects XMIT investigates erasing the self, removing obvious traits of the hand and voice, and allowing a focus on the humanoid rather than the human. Instead of recognisable lyrics and coherent imagery, MICROCORPS evolved synthesised voices to generate alternate characters. He expands, "I was investigating how language brings our world into being and how manipulating the actual grain of the voice could open up momentary shifts in perception." Each track is born from a balance between composition and improvisation within set parameters. At each stage audio is heavily processed and then reconfigured. Setting up systems that are non-repeatable, where decisions can be premeditated and intuitive but never the same with each performance, using hardware and instruments outside of the computer to make live stereo takes that have limited room for editing and mixing. "I'd been looking into combining dream music with machine rhythms, but there are so many great examples out there of both music forms, so I started to cut up the drones and really filter the drum patterns to create a hybrid space." The album artwork features manipulated ink drawings by Tucker that originally featured in his recent comic ENTITY REUNION 2. XMIT refers to a time in which information both physical and nonphysical transfers at an alarming rate beyond human comprehension into an age which is at once banal and terrifyingly alien.

Hexvessel and Svart Records celebrate the 10 year anniversary of Hexvessel’s debut album Dawnbearer with a set of reissues, including CD, double vinyl. “Dawnbearer is a very important album for us, being our first album but also the first original album release for Svart Records. It’s also a very special record for our fans, and one that’s particularly close to my heart, in a world of its own when compared to the other records we have made. Considering that it’s been out of print now for some time, I’m delighted to be able to oversee a reissue of this album, together with original demos and out-takes, and liner notes showing the making of this album which carries the initial DNA of Hexvessel’s musical and spiritual journey”, says band leader Mat McNerney, “We haven’t touched a thing on the original layout, but added some bonus material for the limited edition, should you wish to own a luxury edition of this, our now classic debut.” Hexvessel band was founded by English singer/songwriter Mat McNerney (Beastmilk, Grave Pleasures, Carpenter Brut etc) after he moved to Finland in 2009. Their style of music has been referred to as “forest folk” or as Noisey/Vice puts it: “Weaving English folk, lilting Americana, and mushroom-induced psychedelia”. Their debut album 'Dawnbearer' was released worldwide in 2011 on Svart Records and is considered to be an influential classic record of the modern Occult Rock revival. Highly popular with Hexvessel fans and unique in their catalogue, featuring guitars by Andrew McIvor (Code), violin work of Daniel Pioro (who works on Paul Thomas Anderson’s soundtracks with Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead), the early production work of Jaime Gomez Arellano (Ghost, Paradise Lost), and guest vocals from Carl Michael Eide (Virus, Ved Buens Ende, Aura Noir). “Think Woven Hand, haunted ’60s/’70s pastoral folk, or a darker riff on Midlake. McNerney covers Clive Palmer’s post-Incredible String Band crew C.O.B. and successfully transforms and darkens Paul Simon’s “Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes.” He quotes Crowley, Truman Capote, Isaac Babel, etc. Unlike black metal-ready folk, this is folk by a talented, ambitious black metal musician. But the energy’s there. As is the atmosphere.” - Stereogum “(Part of) a new wave of bands who share many of the original occult bands' musical and philosophical characteristics, spearheaded by Ghost, from Sweden, and the Devil's Blood, from Holland – have begun to lure in a new generation of fans, predominantly from the metal scene, their names alone – Ancient VVisdom, Hexvessel, Blood Ceremony– point to a focused step back to the age of Wheatley and Hammer. ” - The Guardian (2011)

MICROCORPS is the new project by artist and musician Alex Tucker (Grumbling Fur, Alexander Tucker, Imbogodom) exploring electronics, cello and voice. The debut release XMIT, an eight-track album featuring collaborations with Gazelle Twin, Nik Void, Simon Fisher Turner and Astrud Steehouder, is out on 16 April 2021. Tucker's ever-evolving soundworld continues to unfold with this collection of harsh realms centred around processed electronic systems, strings and vocal manipulations. On the new album, MICROCORPS employs altered voices, sound synthesis and atomised beat constructions. In a move away from previous projects XMIT investigates erasing the self, removing obvious traits of the hand and voice, and allowing a focus on the humanoid rather than the human. Instead of recognisable lyrics and coherent imagery, MICROCORPS evolved synthesised voices to generate alternate characters. He expands, "I was investigating how language brings our world into being and how manipulating the actual grain of the voice could open up momentary shifts in perception." Each track is born from a balance between composition and improvisation within set parameters. At each stage audio is heavily processed and then reconfigured. Setting up systems that are non-repeatable, where decisions can be premeditated and intuitive but never the same with each performance, using hardware and instruments outside of the computer to make live stereo takes that have limited room for editing and mixing. "I'd been looking into combining dream music with machine rhythms, but there are so many great examples out there of both music forms, so I started to cut up the drones and really filter the drum patterns to create a hybrid space." The album artwork features manipulated ink drawings by Tucker that originally featured in his recent comic ENTITY REUNION 2. XMIT refers to a time in which information both physical and nonphysical transfers at an alarming rate beyond human comprehension into an age which is at once banal and terrifyingly alien.

Master craftsman James Welburn’s new LP, Sleeper in the Void, marks the 50th Miasmah release.The six years after his monumental debut have bred six tracks Welburn brings to fruition with the help of past co-conspirators from the Norwegian underground scene - Tomas Järmyr (Motorpsycho, Zu, Barchan), Hilde Marie Holsen (Hubro Records), and vocal artist Juliana Venter (W/V, Phil Winter).

On Sleeper in the Void, Welburn expands the domain of his sound, unveiling surprises until the very end of the album’s 36 minute playtime. While the character of the record is unmistakably his own, the tracks veer into many different territories, including a banging foray to the dancefloor.

The LP begins slowly with Raze, where Järmyr’s ritualistic cymbals introduce layers of Welburn’s signature sculpted bass drones and noise, building into a heart-wrenching epic of a track. This is perhaps the closest we ever get to Hold - Welburn’s previous LP. Falling from Time immediately surprises with it’s subdued mechanical techno beat, stark and cold as a glacier. Welburn’s texture-work is the star of the show, creating curious nooks and crannies of drone adorned with eerie melodies straight out of oblivion. This sense of wonder shines through to the album’s title track as well, where Welburn and Järmyr build another patient, echoing, and deeply cinematic piece, the drum patterns slowly shifting around a metallic hum that evokes the vision of church bells, ringing out under tonnes of seawater.

Sleeper in the Void feels like a story in two parts, rising lethargically, but with gargantuan power. The second begins with the momentous In and out of Blue, where Juliana Venter’s disembodied, spectral dirge takes center stage among the furious drums and bassy riffs, reaching a full crescendo with seconds to go. Parallel marks a release - Hilde Marie Holsen’s nostalgic soundscapes, pristine as glass, meeting the distant thunder of Welburn’s strings on the horizon. And finally, Fast Moon ends the record in a most surprising way - a tribal industrialized banger, complete with vile distorted beats and every other spice in demand on a blackened dancefloor.

Welburn’s Sleeper in the Void is a generous shapeshifter. Every inch of its soundwave breathes emotion and imagery - an invitation to take a dive and linger.

Keith Tucker and Gerald Donald of Dopplereffekt did it......They finally got together two of the originators from the monumental Detroit electronic groups Aux88 and Drexciya. The combination of these two musicians has created a retro bombardment of funk as only Keith Tucker and Gerald Donald can bring.
That unearthly eerie funk and strings from other worlds. This release gives a sense of a melding of Cybotron and Kraftwerk....That snappy intelligent funk that Detroit so heavily influenced and unleashed to the universe

1) "Star Gazing"- Is reminiscent of Cybotrons eclectic funk style with Tucker unmistakable electronic vocals and electronic beats slapping you in the face.

2) "Telescope Array"- Is an extension of Gerald Donald legendary aliases that give listeners that cold minimal drum and beautiful arps that hypnotize. Thumping bass line and .....bonus vocal interlude at the end of this interstellar track