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Unlike anything we have heard from her before, Okkyung Lee returns to Shelter Press with "Just Like Any Other Day: Background Music For Your Mundane Activities", a deeply intimate body of recordings at the juncture of ambient music, minimalism, and the baroque, that stands as radical intervention with what experimental music can be, and the place that organisations of sound occupy in our lives. For more than two decades, Okkyung Lee has stood at the forefront of the most radical trajectories of experimental music: a virtuosic cellist and improviser, renowned for her creative rigour and emotive depth. Particularly noteworthy for her range, dexterity, and adaptability, over the last five years Lee's output has revealed unexpected shifts and developments that move far afield from the realms of free improvisation for which she is most well known. 2020's "Yeo - Neun", a heart-wrenching, ambient chamber work - drawing inspiration from the Korean popular music of her youth - was issued by Shelter Press to great critical response, followed closely by "Teum (The Silvery Slit)" - one of a series engrossing electroacoustic works created at Groupe de Recherches Musicales in Paris - on Portraits GRM, and then "Na-Reul" in 2021, regarded by Lee as a closing statement of more than two decades living in New York, which set the precedent of her allowing her emotions to fully occupy the forefront of the music for the first time. Marking her return to Shelter press, "Just Like Any Other Day": Background Music For Your Mundane Activities", encounters Lee upturning the apple cart once again, weaving a profoundly intimate artistic statement on completely unexpected terms. Like its three aforementioned predecessors, "Just Like Any Other Day" belongs to broadening shift in Lee's approach to composing that roughly aligns with her return to her native South Korea, having lived in the United States since her late teens. Infused with a deep reengagement with her own culture and relationship to memory, it is equally a response to those critical challenges and questions provoked by significant life change. Worked on in isolation, and continuously returned to, over the course of four years, the album's nine pieces began with a simple recognition that experimental music is not always what we imagine it to be. It is a practice and a pursuit - a music for which, at its inception, the outcome is unknown - rather than an idiom defined by certain syntaxes, approaches, and qualities of structure and sound. From this departure point, Lee began to inquire after the utility of music itself: what is it for, what does it do, and what place does it (or can it) occupy in our lives? This solitary and durational journey, each composition gradually moving through different phases and evolutions over years, led Lee toward uncharted ground: a music that is not only playful, introspective, and seductive, but also intended to provoke a relationship to experimental music beyond its normative expectations. Rather active or deep listening, it pursues passive listening. Rather than a grand statement, it is discreet. Rather than virtuosity, it embraces the elegant and direct. Even more strikingly, for the first time, the music of "Just Like Any Other Day" encounters Lee leaving the cello entirely behind. Created at home on keyboard, computer, and an inexpensive cassette recorder, "Just Like Any Other Day" presents a remarkable form of ambient music - organisations of sound that become their own environment, to be occupied - intended, as the album's subheading infers, as Background Music For Your Mundane Activities. An expansion of the creative pathways opened by the Korean pop imbued compositions of Yeo - Neun, aspects of electronic process explored by "Teum (The Silvery Slit)", and the emotive foregrounding of "Na-Reul", each of the pieces presented across the two sides of "Just Like Any Other Day" implies something far greater than the limits of its own temporarily: a mood, provocations of memory and place, mirrors for the solitude within which it was made, and palpable emotion lingering just out of grasp. For Lee, each of the album's compositions could be continued or looped for an indeterminate duration: straddling a ground between the minimal and the baroque, enveloping the listener in endless cycles of appreciating, repetitive and rhythmical notes, flirting with the melodic and implying a disembodied imagism that borders on the profound. Remarkably beautiful and direct, Okkyung Lee's "Just Like Any Other Day: Background Music For Your Mundane Activities" - issued by Shelter Press on vinyl - represents a radical reconfiguration of experiential music, stripped to its bare essence in defiance of the widely presumed aesthetic signifiers. Unlike anything we've heard from her before, this immersive body of intimate recordings not only reveals new dimensions of Lee's striking range as an artist, but also of how we might regard and occupy music itself: an ambience to lived and felt like a second skin.

This is the story of an artist in search of sound and breath: an artist who dares to question the rhythm of silence—an invitation to rethink music, sound, and musical collaboration. This is the story of a journey that, after opening countless paths, has finally found its vessel—and its messengers. Three artists of profound musical truth and radical freedom, merging into an exceptional trio that crosses genres and transcends words in a journey toward pure emotion.

Le Rythme du Silence is the culmination of this long search. Yom delivers it here with violinist Théo Ceccaldi and cellist Valentin Ceccaldi—kindred spirits in sound. “I’ve been working on this idea of the ‘rhythm of silence’ for years,” Yom explains. “I first heard the phrase from a Sufi master, describing the foundation of meditation. It struck something deep in me. I’ve practiced meditation for a long time, and we often think of it as a kind of stillness—opposed to noise and life. But in truth, the rhythm of silence enables meditation. It means accepting that the world continues to move and live around you, even as you try to be still. I wanted to compose from that place. To imagine sound as vibratory matter—the primal substance of creation. That required letting go of fixed structures: forgetting melodies, abandoning the idea of a constructed solo. I needed to leave behind music as a system, and touch sound as a living, breathing entity. It took years. Many projects led me elsewhere. But with the Ceccaldi brothers, I finally found the right resonance. Working with them was simply obvious—it was indredibly powerful.”

Yom first rose to prominence reimagining Jewish traditional music with his 2008 debut New King of Klezmer Clarinet. Since then, his path has led through rock (With Love, 2011; You Will Never Die, 2018), electronic utopias (The Empire of Love, 2013), meditative and sacred soundscapes (Prière, 2018), and countless unclassifiable hybrids (Unue, 2009; Green Apocalypse, 2010). It was inevitable that he would eventually cross paths with the free-spirited Théo and Valentin Ceccaldi—two artists who also place collaboration and genre-blurring at the heart of their artistic development. Their projects are always bold, demanding, and full of life (Kutu, Tricollectif, ONJ, Velvet Revolution, Grand Orchestre du Tricot, Lagon Noir, Constantine, etc.). And so, when the three met within the iXi string quartet, something clicked.
“I was seated between the two of them in the quartet,” Yom recalls, “and I could feel their energy flowing from both sides—it was wild! They’re so tuned into each other, they don’t need words. It’s like they’re connected by musical Wi-Fi. The groove happens instantly. They’re precise when they want to be—thanks to their experience in pop-influenced projects —but they can also let go completely, diving into pure sound. That’s exactly what this project needed.”

Without a single rehearsal, the trio formed instinctively. They began performing Yom’s compositions live, unfolding them into a single continuous piece, where clarinet and strings stretch the limits of sound and breath.
Bowed, plucked, or prepared with clothespins, the Ceccaldi strings engage in a playful and intense dialogue with Yom’s custom B-flat clarinet. Through their imaginative listening and fearless invention, air and space open into a vast new soundscape—one that lies somewhere between meditation and healing music.

“When Yom shared the concept of the rhythm of silence, we were immediately drawn in,” says cellist Valentin Ceccaldi. “There’s a deep intensity and spiritual commitment in his music that really spoke to me. With this trio, we’re trying to dive into the core of sound—but also to create a kind of communion with the audience. It’s like gradually turning up the volume on silence, and realizing it’s made of countless tiny sounds—the music of particles in motion" This stripped-down intensity demands full presence—body and mind—of these three musicians, vibrationally connected in a state close to trance. With them, we enter a journey - not religious, but sacred nonetheless.
The Rhythm of Silence becomes an echo of our most intimate, most distant inner landscapes.
An album—and a trio—to return to without end.

South London singer, songwriter and cultural powerhouse Joy Crookes has today unveiled the news that her worth-the-wait second album Juniper will be released on September 26th ahead of a full UK & EU headline tour.

A stunningly candid and fearless body of work, the album reaffirms Joy as one of the UK’s most vital and original voices. A once-in-a-generation talent, Crookes delivers a record that is both emotionally raw and sonically rich; humorous, heartbreaking and profoundly human.

Following the success of her 2021 debut Skin, which earned BRIT and Mercury Prize nominations, went Top 5 in the UK charts, and drew acclaim from The Guardian, NME and many more, Joy set out to make an album that pushed her further both musically and personally.

Juniper is the result: a project defined by its depth and dynamism.

Written with a stripped-back approach and produced by long-time collaborators including Blue May (Kano, Jorja Smith), Tev’n (Stormzy) and Harvey Grant (Arlo Parks),

Juniper features standout guest appearances from Vince Staples on the incendiary ‘Pass The Salt’ and Kano on the bittersweet confessional ‘Mathematics’.

Crookes describes the record as “more nuanced” than Skin: “With Juniper, every situation is visceral and I’m very much in it. It’s me in the centre of it all.”

The title itself nods to resilience (an evergreen that thrives in harsh conditions) and the album dives deep into themes of body politics, mental health, queer love, anxiety, industry hypocrisy and the ecstasy (and terror) of falling in love.
Lead singles like ‘Pass The Salt’ and ‘I Know You’d Kill’ showcase Crookes’ lyrical agility – blending poetic detail with razor-sharp wit. Meanwhile, the euro-pop inspired ‘First Last Dance’ channels euphoric melodies to mask deep emotional struggle, and the cinematic ‘Perfect Crime’ sees Joy fully self-actualise in the style of a Western showdown.

On ‘Paris’, the closing track, Joy reflects on a formative queer relationship: “Something I feared so much finally, actually felt like love.” It’s a sentiment echoed across Juniper – a record that captures the beauty and brutality of emotional openness.

The album arrives after a period of personal upheaval for Crookes, including a mental health crisis that shadowed the album’s creation. “I was in the trenches,” she says. “But the studio became my solace. What you hear is live and direct from that time.” Despite the darkness, Juniper radiates warmth, levity, and life, powered by Crookes’ ever-restless creativity and artistic excellence. Ahead of her performance this weekend at BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend event in Liverpool, followed by a slot at Glastonbury, Joy is pleased to announce a full UK & EU headline tour for the backend of the year.

In celebration of Juniper's release, Joy will head out to all major cities including Dublin, Manchester, Bristol and London where she’ll play the much coveted 02 Academy Brixton for the first time. See below for full routing and ticket info.

Everything Is Recorded, the collaborative music project centred around producer Richard Russell, returns with a brand new single, “Porcupine Tattoo” - a stripped-back lament featuring two American musical icons - Noah Cyrus and Bill Callahan - who appear on record together for the very first time. The collaboration came together while Russell was hosting sessions for a forthcoming Everything Is Recorded album, one set to build on previous acclaimed releases including 2018’s eponymous, Mercury Prize-nominated debut album. Reaching out to Callahan - an artist he’s long admired and whose song “I’m New Here” was covered by, and provided the title for, Gil Scott-Heron’s final, Russell-produced studio album - Russell asked the simple question “who would you like to write a song for?”. “Noah Cyrus” was Callahan’s reply. The final single features Callahan’s original demo vocal, pitched down and resting on layers of sub bass and complemented by Cyrus’ crystalline counterpoint vocal. It was recorded during a rainy week of sessions in a bungalow at Los Angeles’ Chateau Marmont, which Russell described as “comfortable but haunted”. The song continues a lineage of Russell productions – from “I’m New Here” to Bobby Womack’s “Deep River” and Damon Albarn’s “History of a Cheating Heart” – that explore a sparser, more acoustic side of his sound. The limited edition 7” vinyl single is released on XL Recordings in partnership with Drag City, Bill Callahan’s long term label home. The 7” exclusively features a second collaboration between Everything Is Recorded and Callahan in the form of “Norm”, a tribute to the Austin-based singer songwriter’s favourite comedian Norm MacDonald”

Originally conceived as a compilation of outtakes and live recordings from The Shadow Ring's 1995 stateside tour, Wax-Work Echoes takes its name from the first line of "Put the Music in Its Coffin," the title track of the group's breakthrough release. Lambkin abandons the bitsand- bobs approach, advancing the Shadow Ring concept with entirely original material that builds on the unit's self-mythologizing lyrics, celebrates the clicking of horse hooves, ponders on the sociability of rats and mice, and warns of the dangers of poultry. The first Shadow Ring album to officially include Tim Goss in the main lineup, Wax- Work Echoes reveals the group in its final and lasting form, awash in the outer bounds of atmospheric exploration, with Lambkin's familiar wry and morbid lyricism and the stripped-down angularity of amateurishly detuned guitars fully intact. While Klaus Canterbury and Tony Clark seem all but forgotten, and the shrugged off S. Fritz is listed on the liner notes as performing only "when required," Lambkin did solicit contributions from outside the inner circle. A bit of "Mambo Twist," lifted from a tape of unreleased Vitamin B12 material sent to Lambkin by Alasdair Willis, found its way into "V.E.R.M.I.N.," while an extended epistle contribution from Richard Youngs (and, technically, Brian Lavelle) would be employed in the second half of "Catching Sight/Of Passing Things." Released on CD in 1996 for Bruce Russell's newly minted Corpus Hermeticum, Wax-Work Echoes was recorded concurrently with intense rehearsal periods, in anticipation of the forthcoming "Rose Watson Tour," and was supported by a celebratory fanzine media blitz. The album seemingly absorbs the frenetic excess of the band's transatlantic travels; Wax-Work Echoes channels the trio's wilder instincts into an unresolved catharsis, not yet free of frustration or restlessness. Out of print for almost three decades and available here for the first time ever on long-playing disc, Wax-Work Echoes is a classic from the outer eddies of The Shadow Ring's sound, a must-have for any aficionado's collection: "A window slides, glass slips from frame / And canvas carcass breathes again." Throughout their legendary, decade-long run, the Shadow Ring were an enigmatic force on the international musical sub-underground. Before their disbandment in 2002, this shambolic rock outfit, formed by a group of rowdy teenagers in southeast England, left behind a mighty run of eight LPs, a handful of 7"s, and a spate of raucous live shows and cryptic zine appearances on both sides of the Atlantic, all which have bolstered their enduring word-of-mouth mystique. Beginning in 2023 with the first-ever vinyl pressing of the self-released pre-Shadow Ring tape The Cat & Bells Club (1992), Blank Forms Editions has been conducting a systematic retrospective of the storied group. Wax-Work Echoes and Hold Onto I.D. are the latest releases in a multiyear reissue effort that includes several LPs, a comprehensive CD box set, and a nearly five-hundred-page book.

Love From San Francisco – 'Keep Rockin' (+ Unreleased mixes)

A true underground classic returns via Mint Condition — 'Keep Rockin' by Love From San Francisco (aka Charles Webster) is back on wax in this freshly remastered 2025 edition. Originally released in the mid-'90s and long out of print, this deep house essential defined a generation of smoky after-hours and West Coast groove.

This deluxe 12" reissue stays true to the original deep, dubby sound but adds extra value for crate diggers and collectors alike with two previously unreleased mixes, recovered from the original DATs. These alternate takes give a new dimension to an already timeless track — stripped-down, hypnotic, and primed for modern floors. Pure vinyl heat from the golden era of deep house.

Mutant is proud to present Academy Award®-winning composer Michael Giacchino’s latest installment of his Exotic Themes for the Silver Screen series - Featuring more iconic scores from Giacchino’s career that have been exclusively rearranged and re-recorded for this series in the retro lounge style of the 1950s.

Volume 2 spans the period of 2012 to 2022 and features not only his work with Marvel Studios (including their iconic Marvel Studios Fanfare, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange and more!) but also more career defining music for Disney • Pixar (Inside Out, Coco and Lightyear) as well as smaller, cult classics like John Carter, and Tomorrowland, more personal films such as Jojo Rabbit and The Book of Henry. He has taken these iconic themes and transformed them into soothing, beautiful 60’s lounge-inspired reworks.

Other highlights include ‘The Batman Suite’, taken from Matt Reeves' 2022 blockbuster The Batman, ‘Jyn Erso’s Theme’ from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, as well as themes for War For The Planet Of The Apes, Jurassic World and two selections taken from his directorial debut Werewolf By Night

"We are thrilled to continue exploring Michael’s storied career with this incredible collection of some of his most beloved themes reworked for warm summer nights with a cocktail (or mocktail) in hand," says Mutant co-founder Spencer Hickman. "Michael is a rare composer who is comfortable with superheroes, horror, action, or intimate drama. He always manages to create incredibly beautiful earworms that have been further highlighted by these stripped-back downtempo versions of his award-winning themes.’

Featuring liner notes by Charles Phoenix, artwork by Luke Insect, and pressed on limited edition color vinyl (also available on CD)
“So much was rooted in the big orchestral sound, so it was really about scaling it back. The real trick is figuring out the little fun hooks and things you can add along the way. There were no rules; I was up for anything. It was a way to re-engage with the material and be creative in a new way.”

Exotic Themes for the Silver Screen – Volume 1 includes an array of reinterpreted pieces from Michael Giacchino’s career. Highlights include ‘Primordial Forest’ from the 1997 video game The Lost World: Jurassic Park, ‘Life and Death’ from Lost, the theme from Ratatouille, ‘Roar!’ from Cloverfield, ‘Enterprising Young Men’ from Star Trek (2009), ‘A Man, A Plan, A Code, Dubai’ from Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, and a Super 8 suite.

Featuring package design by Luke Insect, and liner notes by Charles Phoenix.

‘Best tunes for your answering machine’ is the debut album of oblique, introspective electronic music by the mysterious solo artist Tekamolo.

Fusing melancholic synth pop and absurdist trip hop, ‘best tunes for your answering machine’ is a special assemblage of pitch-modified vocals, retrofuturist samples and freeform electronics that coalesces into music both outlandish and bittersweet, playful and profound.

Produced by a renowned artist, opting to conceal their identity under the guise of a new pseudonym, Tekamolo presents a series of curious, incognito confessionals with ‘best tunes for your answering machine’. An album led by a voice like a sentient, heavy-hearted android, the nine tracks collected here contend with themes of inertia, solitude and longing, revealing an inspired, affecting stream of messages from an unknown caller.

Without preconceptions tied to provenance, this is music liberated from the burdens of biographical detail. Music that eschews ego and the cult of the self. An album that can be heard purely for the strange, poignant sounds unfurled throughout.

For Tekamolo, the album signifies an attempt to navigate aesthetic reductionism, as well as an absolute sense of seclusion:

“An audio diary of a lonely soul. Broken, wounded mantra-songs. Memories of things that never happened. Dreams that never had the chance to be dreamed. Disassembled songs. As if testing the limits of emptiness — how much void can a song endure while still remaining a song? How much can be stripped away, how bare can it be, and still, the groove lingers, the melody pierces the memory, sinking into the listener's mind.

These are the skeletons of songs, an attempt to assemble music from the bare minimum — words, sounds, fragments of memory.

The songs are filled with desperate calm. They are not sung to the world, nor to anyone tangible, but solely to oneself and to the unseen. In a way, they could be considered songs of the end of the world: you wake up, and there is not a single person left in the world. At least, no one you can see. You wander through empty streets and deserted shopping malls, humming softly to yourself, hoping that someone — anyone — might hear you.”

‘best tunes for your answering machine’ is a sui generis conception of warped 21st century blues from an enigmatic figure, a work filled with surreal, indelible songs of modern isolation. Lost contemporary hymns, now recovered. Voicemails worth hearing.

Following their rattling 45 Cry / I’ll Be There Now and the wiry full-length My Mother Was a Friend of an Enemy of the People, Blurt returns to All City with Mecanno Giraffe - a new 12" capturing Ted Milton’s band of beat-punk absurdists in full, surreal stride.

The A-side delivers the title track: Mecanno Giraffe, a spiky, off-kilter groove threaded with Milton’s unmistakable bark, rhythmic sax blurts, and angular momentum that feels both mechanical and oddly animal. It’s Blurt as alwaya: driving, dry-witted, and defiantly out of sync with any prevailing trends.

On the flip, Milton shifts gear with a number of spoken word pieces. Stripped bare, intimate, incantatory. More Artaud than Allen, these pieces reveal another facet of Blurt’s singular frontman, echoing threads found in recent interviews tracing his ongoing collision of poetry, punk, and performance.

Third strike on the label and still no sign of softening. Mecanno Giraffe proves that Blurt still remains gloriously out of step, part animal, part machine!.

Sneaker Social Club is pleased to direct your attention to this sparse and weighty club gear incoming from a sizeable new talent on the scene, Beton Brut.

Following on from his previous drops on Plasma Sources and Coyote Records, Beton Brut steps onto this latest platter with a surefooted sound. It’s informed by weightless grime, minimal techno and brittle electro, but he carves his own incisive path towards the hoods-up-heads-down Dancefloor.

This is stark, moody gear to get lost in — the dexterous sound design slipping around the rhythm core of ‘Tobacco Earthworm’; gleams in high-definition, but never at the expense of the eerily stripped-back atmosphere. ‘Booters’ snips up a clutch of clippings from grime and scatters them across the timeline in a scrapbook style, making a deadly, dislocated love letter to the sound in the process. Approaching mutant, hybrid club music with a considered poise, this is exactly the kind of forward-thinking bassweight gear that Sneaker thrives on.

Man @ Work Volume 2 is the sequel to his 2002 best seller, Man @ Work, and offers
fans an impeccable set of favorites from across Hay's rich catalog, including Men at
Work classics, solo album highlights, and new material. The album opens with "Into
My Life," featuring Gregg Bissonette (Ringo Starr and His All Starr Band) and Cecilia
Noel. The song originally appeared on Hay's 1990 debut solo album, Wayfaring Sons,
and exploded in Brazil in the 90s as the theme song of a popular soap opera, growing
to rival the anthemic "Down Under" as Hay's most popular song in South America. Hay
reaches back to Men At Work's 1983 release, Cargo, for a new recording of the reggae
infected "Blue for You," which segues into a stripped-down version of the infectious
"Come Tumblin' Down" from his 2017 release Fierce Mercy. Other standout tracks on
the album include "We the People" featuring rapper Derrick "Solpowa" Rice, which Hay
was inspired to write in the midst of the polarizing US presidential election in 2024,
and with a haunting performance of "Next Year People" from the 2015 album of the
same name. This version of the song features Hay on acoustic guitar and vocals,
augmented by a string quartet.

Comb is back on I Travel to You with two reworked disco gems. Both have been refreshed beyond edits, extended, and pressed loud on a 12-inch. Don’t Wait has been stripped back and rebuilt to give space to an addictive vocal, suitable for a Paradise Garage dancefloor. Spotlight shines brightly on the B side with an up-tempo hit aimed at the good people moving, they are the perfect audience for this song!

Mayssa Jallad is a Beirut-based bilingual singer-songwriter, architectural researcher and teacher. Her work deals with the highly personal as well as the political, as with her first solo album "Marjaa: The Battle of the Hotels", which explores the histories of urban battles that occurred before she was born, during the Lebanese Civil War, through a collaborative musical and architectural lens. "(Marjaa) is, as one might expect, a sombre affair largely comprised of Jallad's delicate vocals backed by acoustic guitar and ethereal synthesizer. Elsewhere, co-composer and producer Fadi Tabbal adds the crackle of distant artillery and a ghostly wind between the high-rise blocks." - Daniel Spicer, Songlines, April 2023 "Historical trauma, strings, drones, metallophones and buzuks wrap around powerful stories and gossamer vocals on Lebanese singer's tender, intimate debut. With shades of Nico, Jarboe and Elizabeth Fraser, '80s' 4AD fans will rejoice." - Andy Cowan, MOJO `Marjaa_' (tr. `reference') combined Mayssa Jallad's two main vocations: music and urban research/architectural history. The album was co-written with Fadi Tabbal and based on Mayssa's Historic Preservation master's thesis (`Beirut's Civil War Hotel District: Preserving the World's First High-Rise Urban Battlefield'). The thesis examined a 5-month conflict that took place within Beirut's skyscraper-laden luxury hotel district of Minet El Husn near the start of the Lebanese Civil War. Addressing a post-war generation who have never been taught this difficult history, `Marjaa_' was an attempt to process trauma, and "a call to protest for the renewal, rather than the recycling of the political class that once destroyed the country and holds us, to this day, hostage of its violence". In 2013, Mayssa founded indie-pop band Safar with guitarist Elie Abdelnour, releasing debut album In Transit with Lebanese indie label Ruptured in 2017, and follow-up EP Studies of an Unknown Lover in 2019. Both albums were produced by Lebanese producer Fadi Tabbal at Tunefork Studios in Beirut. Mayssa's most recent multi-genre collaborations include "Madina min Baeed" (2022) with electronic musician/producer Khaled Allaf; "Bi Kheir" and "Fil Aatma" (2022) with indie supergroup Baada Ab (Dani Shukri, Ezra Tenenbaum and Omaya Malaeb), released by Thawra records and Found Sound Nation. Next is the Versions version of Marjaa, which sees Civilistjävel! (aka Swedish producer Tomas Bodén) apply a stripped, dub methodology to Mayssa's original rich stems, refracting the Arabic source through the hazy prism of Northern European electronica. 140gsm vinyl, jacket printed on 20pt board with aqueous gloss coating, with a 3.5mm spine and a black paper inner dust sleeve.

Format Details: 12” matte jacket, orange & blue side A/B effect colour vinyl, dust sleeve & marketing sticker.

Originally released in 2002, Daylight EP was the follow-up to Aesop Rock’s critically-acclaimed Labor Days album, a cult classic released only six months prior. The EP was built around its titular opening song, “Daylight,” one of the standout tracks from Labor Days, and continued expanding upon the range and depth of Aesop’s multi-talented gifts for writing and producing. In addition to the title track, Daylight EP also included its counterpoint, “Night Light,” an alternate version in concept whose paraphrased lyrics simultaneously refer back to– and stand in stark opposition to– the original's, over darker, more menacing production. The tracklist for Daylight EP boasted seven songs plus a hidden track for a total of eight, and collectively featured production by Blockhead, El-P, Blueprint and Aesop Rock himself, as well as guest appearances from Vast Aire (Cannibal Ox) and Blueprint.
At the time of its initial release, Daylight EP was only offered in CD and digital formats, while the vinyl was stripped back, available only as a three-song 12” single. Now, Rhymesayers Entertainment is pleased to present the complete EP on vinyl for the first time ever, pressed on two-color side A/B effect orange & blue vinyl to complement the original artwork. Finally, fans and vinyl collectors everywhere can own this integral piece of Aesop Rock’s legacy and enjoy the genius behind this project.

Bangladeshi Born Producer Lady Tazz, debuts ‘Sleaze’ with a killer remix from Radio Slave this June. At the heart of Lady Tazz’s mission is Mind Medizin, her label and event series that champions the sound of kindred spirits, now inviting Radio Slave to the mix this June.

Lady Tazz has overcome many cultural obstacles to achieve her rightful place as one of Toronto’s foremost electronic dance exports. A renegade of sorts, as a teenager, she would regularly visit the UK and Germany without her parents’ knowledge to attend London’s Sound Academy and to party in Berlin, whilst continuing to pursue her aspirations of becoming a DJ.

The Bangladeshi producer and DJ is proud of her heritage but is realistic about the social expectations of throwing raves in her hometown. She moved to Toronto in her teenage years, where she grew up, educating herself on music and a place that has perfected a sound that remains organic and raw. Her record label and party series, Mind Medizin, taps into an erotic lifestyle that embraces the unconventional and free-spirited, which inspires and motivates Lady Tazz on numerous artistic levels.

For Mind Medzin’s latest release, Lady Tazz will drop ‘Sleaze’ on the 27th June, to include a special remix from Rekids founder and UK godfather, Radio Slave, making his debut on her label.
Foreboding and dripping with lascivious intent, ‘Sleaze’ brazenly stalks into existence by way of warping synth fills and glitching hi-hats. The lyrical component consists of a series of smouldering vocal hooks which salaciously enrapture one’s senses, tightly wrapping around the creeping melody before succumbing to the beat’s stomping dominance.

On the flipside, Radio Slave’s remix revs and fires with shots of ringing overtones atop a deep thud, husky vocal and swooshing cymbals. Whilst upping the ante of the original, its stripped-back charm remains, culminating in a moody, chugging rework bubbling with tension and fraught with Radio Slave’s brand of dark, fractured house.

FCL presents Can We Try — A Deep House Anthem remixed and
remastered for 2025 including flips from Jimpster, Ben Hixon & Deetron

The ever-reliable FCL—aka Belgian house heroes San Soda and Red D—are back on the block with this remastered remix package of Can We Try, a soul-drenched dancefloor meditation that taps into the timeless tension of love and longing. With its raw vocal hooks (courtesy of Lady Linn), analog warmth, and stripped-down groove, the original cut is pure FCL: emotionally rich, effortlessly deep, and aimed straight at discerning dance floors.

Bringing fresh heat to the 2014 original, three heavyweights of house and techno step in for remix duties—each reworking the track in their own signature style:
Jimpster injects his trademark deep, jazzy finesse, flipping Can We Try into a swirling, soulful roller—lush pads, Moog flourishes, and enough swing to keep bodies moving and hearts locked in. Ben Hixon, the Dallas-based underground wizard, lays down a chunky, hardware- heavy rework full of crunchy drums and woozy funk. It's lo-fi soul with hi-fi intent. Deetron closes it out with a peak-time bomb—big room pressure, hypnotic bass, intense stabs and the kind of tension-release dynamics that only a true craftsman can deliver.
This limited-edition white label 12" vinyl is circulating in the wild—no frills, no hype, just a nod to those who know. Pressed loud and cut for the floor, it’s already making waves in the bags of tastemaker DJs from Berlin to Brooklyn. Can We Try is a reminder that dance music doesn’t need to shout to speak volumes. With this return, FCL prove they’ve still got their finger on the pulse—and their heart in the mix

The strength of Fan Club Orchestra's (FCO) trajectory lies in their nebulous, collaborative, and experimental nature, always with Laurent Baudoux at the centre. With its roots in the DIY impulses of the Brussels art and music scene of the late nineties, Baudoux rallied together a revolving cast of players with an unconventional ensemble of instruments to explore melancholic psychedelia that touched on drone and minimalism as readily as it carved minor pop hits from cracked electronics. Performances were often highly improvisational, aided by the barely controlled chaos that guest collaborators—such as American artist Mike Kelley—would inject into an appearance.

FCO self-released two albums in the early 2000s before finding a home with Sonig, where they released several more records up until their last with the label in 2013. This was a fitting frame as Sonig, like FCO, channelled the fervour and formalism of the experimental music history of the Rhineland, which includes Kraftwerk, krautrock, and key early electronic music studios.

Following an eleven year hiatus, Laurent Baudoux reassembled the group in 2024 and presented a new album with the esteemed Glaswegian label 12th Isle late in that same year. Building on the strength of the new iteration, and with the aim of reappraising some of the rich yet oblique history of the group through this new lens, FCO have remastered and reissued their 2013 album, 'An Insane Portrait'.

The recordings were originally commissioned in 2009 for Fabrizio Terranova's film 'Josée Andrei, An Insane Portrait' about the truly remarkable figure Josée Andrei. Shot in San Francisco, the film is an intimate portrait of Andre. Blind from birth, she is a witch, painter, photographer, tarot reader, and psychology and modern literature graduate.

'An Insane Portrait' captures a stripped-back FCO, with Baudoux working solely with original FCO member Ann Appermans. The configuration of Baudoux's electronics and Appermans' bass guitar yield a tender and preciously melodic suite of instrumentals.

Originally released on vinyl by Sonig in 2013, the remaster will again be presented by the label in a limited cassette edition and in digital formats, each featuring a bonus track that was not included in its original release.

The strength of Fan Club Orchestra's (FCO) trajectory lies in their nebulous, collaborative, and experimental nature, always with Laurent Baudoux at the centre. With its roots in the DIY impulses of the Brussels art and music scene of the late nineties, Baudoux rallied together a revolving cast of players with an unconventional ensemble of instruments to explore melancholic psychedelia that touched on drone and minimalism as readily as it carved minor pop hits from cracked electronics. Performances were often highly improvisational, aided by the barely controlled chaos that guest collaborators—such as American artist Mike Kelley—would inject into an appearance.

FCO self-released two albums in the early 2000s before finding a home with Sonig, where they released several more records up until their last with the label in 2013. This was a fitting frame as Sonig, like FCO, channelled the fervour and formalism of the experimental music history of the Rhineland, which includes Kraftwerk, krautrock, and key early electronic music studios.

Following an eleven year hiatus, Laurent Baudoux reassembled the group in 2024 and presented a new album with the esteemed Glaswegian label 12th Isle late in that same year. Building on the strength of the new iteration, and with the aim of reappraising some of the rich yet oblique history of the group through this new lens, FCO have remastered and reissued their 2013 album, 'An Insane Portrait'.

The recordings were originally commissioned in 2009 for Fabrizio Terranova's film 'Josée Andrei, An Insane Portrait' about the truly remarkable figure Josée Andrei. Shot in San Francisco, the film is an intimate portrait of Andre. Blind from birth, she is a witch, painter, photographer, tarot reader, and psychology and modern literature graduate.

'An Insane Portrait' captures a stripped-back FCO, with Baudoux working solely with original FCO member Ann Appermans. The configuration of Baudoux's electronics and Appermans' bass guitar yield a tender and preciously melodic suite of instrumentals.

Originally released on vinyl by Sonig in 2013, the remaster will again be presented by the label in a limited cassette edition and in digital formats, each featuring a bonus track that was not included in its original release.

Civilistjävel! x Mayssa Jallad’s ‘Marjaa: The Battle of the Hotels (Versions)’ is a radical response to Mayssa Jallad’s 2023 original LP, a lyrical account of epochal events in Beirut at the dawn of Lebanon's civil war. ‘…(Versions)’ sees Civilistjävel! (aka Swedish producer Tomas Bodén) apply a stripped, dub methodology to Mayssa's rich stems, refracting the Arabic source through the hazy prism of Northern European electronica. Retaining ‘Marjaa…’s deep spatial framing and vaporous, shifting nature, traces are lifted and set down in a new landscape: a ghost of a ghost. Informed by Tomas' singular strand of ambient, minimalist, dub techno, ‘… (Versions)’ recalls the reductive, shimmering pulse of pioneering Berlin-based practitioners Basic Channel/Chain Reaction, but with the parameters stretched into the ether. Where versions typically focus on a rhythm, here the anchor is the tone and texture of Mayssa’s voice, around which a new world has been constructed. Disembodied and liminal, it conjures an eerie panorama that feels like a postscript to the original, further emphasizing the geopolitical events that have had such devastating effect in Mayssa’s homeland of Lebanon since that record’s release. ‘Marjaa…’ (tr. ‘reference’) combined Mayssa Jallad’s two main vocations: music and urban research/architectural history. The album was co-written with Fadi Tabbal and based on Mayssa's Historic Preservation master's thesis (‘Beirut’s Civil War Hotel District: Preserving the World’s First High-Rise Urban Battlefield’). The thesis examined a 5-month conflict that took place within Beirut's skyscraper-laden luxury hotel district of Minet El Husn near the start of the Lebanese Civil War. Addressing a post-war generation who have never been taught this difficult history, ‘Marjaa…’ was an attempt to process trauma, and “a call to protest for the renewal, rather than the recycling of the political class that once destroyed the country and holds us, to this day, hostage of its violence.” Often perceived as a mysterious, shadowy presence, Civilistjävel! has come increasingly to the fore in recent years through a consistently dazzling stream of records, released both anonymously and via Fergus Jones’ FELT imprint, often appearing with scant information and tracks for the most part untitled. Having featured tracks from ‘Marjaa…’ on mixes, and included the album in his picks of 2023, in early 2024 Tomas asked Mayssa to provide vocals for a track on his album ‘Brödföda’. Mayssa remembers, “Tomas asked me to choose one of the tracks he was working on. I was in Boston at the time, so I took a walk and chose a track. I wrote the lyrics at the public park, wondering if I was the only one around that was losing sleep over the genocide in Palestine and the war in South Lebanon. I went back to the apartment and recorded the vocals on my phone, while listening to the track on headphones. Tomas reworked it with the voice and sent it back. I liked it immediately.” Despite the geographical distance from Beirut to Uppsala, Sweden, where Tomas resides, Mayssa’s contribution sounds very much at home in Civilistjävel!’s atmospheric, contemplative sound-world. Tomas’ request was reciprocated by Mayssa soon after, resulting in the spectral, glassy ambience of ‘Etel, Kharita (Version)’. This was followed by an invitation to work on more tracks, which Tomas immediately embraced, intensively jamming out versions live to two-track tape in downtime between travelling. If not entirely dissimilar to his regular working practice, the immediacy of it was unusual. Much was improvised live with just a keyboard (not tethered to a grid), and a restricted set-up that largely forbade later edits - only the rhythm tracks are programmed. A sharp conceptual thinker and composer, Tomas takes creative liberties with Mayssa’s songs in a way that is deeply felt and sympathetically aligned, whilst unashamedly outside of the original context of the record. The voice is leaned into as an instrument, without the clear, specific details of language, and this axis provides an uncertain, amorphous footing - structure is often suggested or hinted at, before disappearing or collapsing into fog, and folding back into the message within the song. A somewhat unprecedented source for an album of versions, even those familiar with ‘Marjaa: The Battle of the Hotels’ may at points struggle to hear the songs these versions are rebuilt from, despite the vocal narratives remaining virtually intact. The light has shifted; eroded buildings are foregrounded; fragments of memories appear in chiaroscuro. Signs and signifiers have been replaced. Shorn of the original's warm guitar, ‘Baynana (Version)’ feels like an ominous visitation, the sun no longer visible. ‘Holiday Inn (March 21 to 29) (Version)’ is a molten, clattering invocation. The beat-less tracks nod towards the cold, otherworldly sound-scaping of late '90s isolationism. More propulsive and embodied, ‘Holiday Inn (January to March) (Version)’ and ‘Kharita (Dub)’ are strobing, iridescent techno - lithe, shifting and mutating with almost implausible finesse. A stunning addition to Civilistjävel!’s growing catalogue, ‘…(Versions)’ is a luminous counterpoint to ‘Marjaa…’, and a welcome reminder of how incredible that record remains.

BPitch präsentiert die nächste Ausgabe ihrer WE ARE NOT ALONE Compilation-Reihe - ein vielfältiges Paket mit Sounds, die den Geist der WE ARE NOT ALONE-Partys widerspiegeln und einen Einblick in eine Szene von Künstlern geben, die sich dem Underground verschrieben haben. WE ARE NOT ALONE pt. 8 bietet zwölf unverzichtbare Tracks für DJs, Raver und Musikfans, die eine breite Palette an Genres abdecken und dabei nie den Dancefloor aus den Augen verlieren. Die neue Compilation spannt die Fäden zwischen den Genres und dokumentiert mit der gewohnten Qualität des Berliner Labels das nächste Kapitel in seinem stetig wachsenden Beitrag zur Kultur.

WE ARE NOT ALONE pt. 8 zeigt, dass das Label keine Pläne hat, die Hitze zu drosseln, mit einer weiteren Runde reinstem Hedonismus für die Ewigkeit.

BPitch present the next iteration of their WE ARE NOT ALONE compilation series - a diverse package of sounds reflecting the spirit of the WE ARE NOT ALONE parties, and offering a glimpse into a community of artists that have committed themselves to the underground.

Touching on a wide range of genres whilst never losing sight of the dancefloor, WE ARE NOT ALONE pt.8 offers twelve essential cuts for DJs, ravers, and music heads alike. Tying the threads between genres, and with the mark of quality expected from the Berlin label, this new compilation documents the next chapter in its ever-growing contribution to the culture.
Returning to the label appearances on both BPitch and its accompanying label UFO Inc. - Turin-based duo Boston 168 open the club doors with a masterful fusion of trance build-ups and stripped back pointillism on ‘Feeling You’. Another member of the BPitch roster having just released an EP on the label, Tigerhead steps up with heavy kickdrums and uncanny pads on the aptly-titled ‘Alice Through The Looking Glass’. Stepping into more minimal territory, Sina XX - founding member of the Paris rave collective Subtyl - offers a warm, bouncing cut that teeters between the dark and euphoric with a masterful balance. Taking a swift 180 into the darkest industrial spaces, Endlec serves up a gritty percussive workout on the formidable ‘Panther’.

Theo Nasa - a South London-based purveyor of weird, melodramatic techno - moves into hazier spaces on ‘Sex and Acid Pleasure’, an eccentric dose of acid for the senses. Shaleen - a resident of the WE ARE NOT ALONE event series - continues into the warmth with a headspin of analogue sounds and modular experimentalism with ‘Vernalagnia’. Öspiel, the French-Korean producer and label head known for his cinematic sounds weaves together angular rhythms underpinned by a strong sense of minimalism. In hot pursuit, Puglia’s Raho comes through with a cyclone of bouncing kicks and harsh leads.

Diana May, a Berlin-staple and resident at KitKat offers us a welcoming spiral on ‘Just Shut The F*** Up’. Plunging into deep industrial caverns, KRTM ’s ‘Küss Mich Jetzt’ is a pounding glitch of hardcore techno for the biggest speakers. VUUDUU’s ‘SNAXX’ shifts the speed up a gear with an expansive gothic rave banger. Rounding things off is madwoman’s ‘Chaos Theory’, a sparse but unrelenting cut of atmospheric techno from deep inside a warehouse.

WE ARE NOT ALONE pt.8 shows the label have no plans on lowering the heat in 2024, with another round of pure hedonism for the ages.










j d1 | KRTM - Küss Mich Jetzt (04 05)

Cyphon is excited to announce the release of an amazing new EP from Domenic Cappello. Titled Galactic Praise, this four-track masterpiece pays homage to the rich heritage of Detroit Techno while seamlessly incorporating Cappello's innovative sound design, displaying his golden ear for what makes a discerning dance floor tick.

A key figure in the electronic music scene through his long-standing residency at Glasgow's legendary Sub Club, Domenic captivates audiences globally with his unique blend of tough, pulsating beats, heartfelt melodies, and deeply immersive soundscapes. His position as booker and resident (alongside Harri) at Sub Club has allowed him to hone his craft and connect with some of the finest talents in House and Techno, influencing his distinctive style. With Galactic Praise, he takes listeners on an exhilarating journey through the heart of techno, inspired by the pioneering music that emerged from the golden era of Motor City sounds.

Dat Thing sets the tone. A driving house track that encapsulates the raw energy and spirit of Detroit, featuring hypnotic synth lines and robust bassline that give a hint of melancholy whilst maintaining a stripped back groove for maximum club impact.

Niamh’s Song is a deeper exploration of melody and rhythm, showcasing Cappello's masterful ability to weave complex harmonies into an intoxicating, otherworldly groove.

Flip over for Galactic Praise, a tribute to the roots of Techno, this track combines classic 909 and 303 elements with ethereal pads creating a heavier, timeless sound that will resonate with both longtime fans of the genre and newcomers alike.

Closing out this special EP we have Neon Skyline, a pumping yet reflective piece that captures the essence of late-night drives through urban landscapes blending chiming arpeggios, a driving synth bassline and tough beats making for an immersive experience.

As Domenic puts it: 'This EP is a tribute to the roots of techno that have inspired me since my formative years. My experiences at the Sub Club have been crucial in shaping my sound and approach to my own productions, inspiring me to create something that captures the energy and emotion of that packed dance floor and incredible sound system. I can’t wait to share it with everyone!'

Michael Nau's solo career began with songs crafted and composed in private moments, later to be shared with musical compatriots and reimagined with auxiliary input on records like Michael Nau & The Mighty Thread, Mowing, The Load EP, and Some Twist. These early drafts were stashed away in the vault as Nau strode forward, but after a taxing spring of touring in support of his latest album Less Ready to Go, and recording and self-releasing the stripped-down informal release So On So On, Nau found himself hunkering down at home and rediscovering old gems in his archives. The search yielded a new digital collection of Nau's initial forays into solo work, bundled together as Demo Versions, 2014 to 2017. In their initial incarnations, these songs were less about the end result and more about the discovery. "They're the seed," Nau says of the material. "These recordings are essentially the writing of the songs_ written and recorded at the same time. There's something exciting about them for that reason. It feels magical any time the start of a song arrives, let alone gets `finished.'" These early drafts don't just serve to shed light on the creative process or expose the malleability of Nau's songwriting approach; they often frame the material in an entirely new context. Demo Versions' opening track "The Glass" is a bare-bones affair of acoustic guitar, bass, and vocals_a breezy Sunday morning song that sounds markedly different than the layered lounge-rock approach that later appeared on Mowing. "Light That Ever," with its wall-of-sound production, serves as a climax to Some Twist, but in its infant stage on this collection, it's a beautiful, intimate folk song. Ultimately, all ten songs off Demo Versions, 2014 to 2017 reveal a new side to these fan favorites, with Nau's lush arrangements and unorthodox accompaniments largely absent, and the simple beauty and grace at the heart of the material at front and center.

Bonnie Banane and Joseph Schiano di Lombo present L'Orguasme, an album of bawdy and devotional songs accompanied by the organ of the Cité de la Musique / Philharmonie de Paris. Literally composed and written for pleasure, this work (of the flesh, naturally) pays tribute to the most spectacular expression of ecstasy - a paradise so near and yet so misunderstood. From the most restrained sighs to the most dazzling vocal outbursts, from the foreplay to the eruption, not to mention the bliss that follows the incandescence, Bonnie and Joseph sing about the art of reaching seventh heaven, of genuflection and "la petite mort" ("little death" a French expression for "climax") without shying away from the darker areas: those of guilty, forbidden, feigned, or selfish pleasures, for instance.
By turns light, explosive, mystical, burlesque, and poetic, this music diverts the organ from its centuries-old habits, achieving a union of the profane and the sacred, the crass and the beautiful, the body and the spirit, early music and pop - reminding us of the essential truth: it's better to come than to cry.
While the minimalism of the arrangements initially strikes the ear - no instruments other than the organ accompany these musical escapades - the album is infused with numerous unexpected influences: R&B (La petite mort), swing (Le cri), gospel (Simulation blues), jazz (Le calme après l'œuvrette), medieval ballads (Ronde génitale, Au plaisir), and even a famous 16th-century folk dance called the branle (Branle Censored).
A sexy, lush, stripped-down, and unabashed opus, glorifying what remains glorious: love, music, and the boundless joy of creation.







g B2. Branle Censuré







[g] B2. Branle [Censuré]

Space-surf-psych-rock quartet Japanese Television’s album ‘Automata Exotica’ has been remixed by invited friends and peers; including Goat Fool from GOAT, Factory Floor’s Gabe Gurnsey, and Edgar Breau from cult band Simply Saucer. Informed by UFO encounters, ritualism, robots, Northern Soul, and nuclear weapons, ‘Automata Exotica’ was released in March 2024 and was described as “Heavy but also joyful” by The Quietus, “A fuzzy blast of space-surf energy”in Shindig and “A remarkable and unique proposition” by Louder Than War.

Rather than having been transformed out of all recognition, “reimagined” is a more apt term to describe this new version of ‘Automata Exotica’. With the album’s eight tracks presented via considered, alternative mixes with pertinent sonic application, it hangs together incredibly coherently - albeit as a wild and feverish psychedelic experience.

JTV toured with GOAT while writing ‘Automata Exotica’, with the fat fuzz tones and extended middle percussion section of ‘Typhoon Reggae Police’ heavily influenced by their time watching and learning from side stage. Starting life as an uneasy mixture of scratchy 60s garage rock and 70s Afghan psych folk, Goat Fool from GOAT ripped the song apart and stitched it back together. Recognisable but weird and uncanny, it’s a stripped down, oppressive, shimmering voodoo nightmare.

“We used to go and see Gabe’s weird, excellent band Factory Floor playing dark little club nights in Shoreditch years ago and marvel at the racket” says JTV. “Gabe’s been a long time collaborator of ours, in fact he’s the only person to not only do more than one remix for us, but has featured on every remix release we’ve done. Our most ecstatic, cathartic song, ‘Tabadaboum’ was the perfect match for Gabe - the motorik krautrock bassline fits right in with the pneumatic grind of his vintage drum machine loops and synth flurries”.

It's hard to measure the impact cult 1970s Canadian space rock proto punk psych band Simply Saucer had on the formation of Japanese Television. The band reached out to Edgar Breau - the band’s founding member and guitarist - who guitarist Tim says was “really generous with his time, and really kind to an overly keen and slightly awkward Simply Saucer mega fan. It's a real honor to have him playing guitar on one of our records”. His cosmic reimagining of ‘Golden Birds’ layers on the delay, reverb and screaming guitars, launching the track into outer space.

‘Automata Exotica (Remixed)' is set for release on 6th June 2025 on limited edition LP and digital formats. Japanese Television tour in Europe through March and April. The album is released by cult underground label Tip Top Recordings (Jim Wallis, Mandrake Handshake, Pearl & The Oysters), run by Ben Rimmer and David Warn.

Mysticisms is delighted to present the music from one of the inspirations for the whole Dubplate series, the lesser known, but admired Digi Dub label. Hailing from the late 80s / early 90s South-East London squat scene, the music of label head Lee Berwick and cohorts was unlike any other at the time. Not simply a retake on digital dub emanating from Jamaica, Digi Dub mixed the heritage of reggae with the alternative-culture of Britain to forge a unique version.

Inspired by punk and the early electronics of the likes of A Certain Ratio, Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle, Berwick came to music production later, after first quitting a career as a computer programmer to travel through Asia, returning after several years just as electronic “computer music” was gaining a fundamental new lease in 1988. A regular at Jah Shaka gigs over the burgeoning rave scene of the time, he steadily built a studio centered around the Akai Sampler.

Based, at the time, in South-East London, it’s lack of underground “Tube” lines and challenging transport links, helped create its own social and music eco-system. Squatted houses, shops, clubs and parties all thrived around the triangle of Bermondsey, New Cross and Camberwell. After meeting Kenny Diezel and the Mutoid Waste Company, he started to formulate his “dubby electronic sound” by literally play live to thousands of wide-eyed Ravers at Mutoid Waste parties.

Recording as Launch DAT, the first tracks with Kenny formed, soon joined by Harry and Nick, the trio progressed from building a sound system to L.S. Diezel being created. Friends since their teens Harry and Nik progressed from playing in bands, jamming Sly and Robbie dubs to moving from the countryside of the Home Counties to urban Peckham and into the orbit of Mutoid Waste and the squat and party scene.

Progressing to include Atari S1000HD, Akai S3200XL, Alesis Sequencer and Roland 303, the sound expanded but the raw spirit remained. The early recordings with Berwick, in the beautiful “Lovers style” that is For The Love Of and its stripped-back instrumental “Stepper” dub accompaniment in Bad Boys, as well as an early take on take on the merging of digital dub and hip hop in Skunk Funk, all capture the essence of that London period.

However, the inclusion of the seminal Suicidal Dub, that appeared as the title to their debut album and was recorded on a bus a few years later after Mutoid had relocated to Rimini, Italy, offers a glimpse to the future. Heralded as a proto-dubstep classic it has long been sought after and its inclusion makes for the essential.

Mutate The Mystery.

Finally available following strong support from Antal and Hunee, including soundtracking the closing of Rainbow Disco Club Festival in Japan: Cabo Verde Show's 1984 showstopper “Bem Danca” revisited in its original form alongside a perfectly stripped-back, synth-focused edit by The Square Sun. Now on a 12” pressed loud at 45 RPM, with the edit on the A-side and the original version on the flip!

“Bem Danca” was a B-side cut from a 1983 release, featuring lead vocals from Luis Da Silva. The original is a party-ready Funaná jam with intricate horn and guitar work. The Square Sun’s edit takes the track deeper, extending some instrumental parts to build tension before the culmination of synths and horns that truly sparkle in this version. An essential for your bag as we begin to enjoy those open-air dancefloors once again!

"Irrepressible, off-the-wall and utterly unique - the late 70s/early 80s Latin jazz-funk and leftfield electronic boogie of Japanese composer and pianist Izumi ‘Mimi’ Kobayashi collected for the first time.

A star in Japan, she moved to Europe to record global hits with Depeche Mode and Swing Out Sister, toured the world with the Reggae Philharmonic Orchestra and made beats with Attica Blues’ Tony Nwachukwu. Now based in London, Mimi currently fronts Tokyo Riddim Band - the intergenerational live Japanese Reggae outfit born from Time Capsule’s acclaimed 2023 compilation of the same name - playing live shows and releasing a trio of recordings.

Choice Cuts 1978-1983 collects eight recordings from four of Mimi’s first five albums – Sea Flight (1978) recorded with her group Flying Mimi Band, and Coconuts High (1981), Nuts Nuts Nuts (1982) and Tropicana (1983) under her own name.

The compilation opens with a syncopated electro-funk cover of Sergio Mendes’ ‘Mas Que Nada’ (Tropicana) and the crisp and stripped back techno-pop of ‘Coffee Rumba’ (Nuts Nuts Nuts) with a keyboard bass line that would have made Stevie Wonder weep.

Alongside the off-beat synth jam ‘Quiet Explosion’ (Nuts Nuts Nuts) and piano samba of ‘Espresso’ (Tropicana), there’s two low slung soul-jazz numbers, ‘Naze’ and ‘Angel Sky’, from Sea Flight (1978) that recall the collaborations between Herbie Hancock and Kimiko Kasai. But it is around the two tracks from Mimi’s 1981 album Coconuts High that this compilation revolves (and from whose cover shoot it borrows).

Released on legendary guitarist Takanaka’s Kitty Records label, Coconuts High was recorded in LA with a jazz fusion backing band, including Alex Acuña, Abraham Laborial, Harvey Mason and the Tower of Power horns. A riot of playful Latin-tinged jazz, funk and fusion with the off-beat spirit of Kid Creole & and the Coconuts, the album became a cult hit. Here it’s the sultry, Minnie Riperton-esque ‘Crazy Love’, with its addictive groove and bittersweet melodies that makes the cut, alongside the steel drum-infused carnivalesque bounce of ‘Palm St’.

Choice Cuts 1978-1983 will introduce the idiosyncratic energy and playful verve of this under-the-radar pioneer to a wider audience for the first time. Welcome to the world of Izumi ‘Mimi’ Kobayashi."

Drone legends Earth, the Seattle group led by Dylan Carlson, ready their first release on Fire Records. Deluxe Ltd edition 'Dark Star' effect vinyl with matte and spot UV sleeve, DL card. Unreleased live recording taken from their show at London's KOKO in 2016. Includes live renditions of fan favourites 'The Bees Made Honey In The Lion's Skull' and 'High Command'. For fans of: Sunn O))), Sleep, Boris, OM, Spacemen 3, Witch, Hawkwind, Boris, Melvins. Seattle drone-rock titans Earth release their latest live document, WEM Dominator (Live in London NW1, 2016), an unrelenting display of the band's seismic force, recorded during their performance at London's KOKO in 2016. Sharing the bill with legendary heavyweights Neurosis, Earth delivered a set of hypnotic intensity, crushing volume, and towering, glacial beauty. For over three decades, Dylan Carlson and his ever-evolving ensemble have been crafting tectonic soundscapes that defy convention, forging a path between meditative drone and colossal doom-laden riffs. WEM Dominator is an album of mesmeric modal patterns, it's a recording that captures the trio's intricate, slowly evolving euphoria in a period when their experimentation swerved through endless possibilities. From the creeping grandeur of "The Bees Made Honey In The Lion's Skull" to the ominous crawl of "Even Hell Has Its Heroes," the album presents Earth at their most immersive and powerful. This record reasserts Earth's mastery of atmosphere and weight, where every note feels tectonic, and silence itself becomes an instrument of crushing tension. It is a hypnotic, stripped down sonic symphony embracing influences as wide ranging as the Velvet Underground, Terry Riley and La Monte Young, a visceral slow-motion reading of the original sound that inspired Sun O))) and the generation that followed. The lineup of this performance was Dylan Carson (guitar), Jodie Cox (baritone guitar) and Adrienne Davis (drums), it was recorded live at KOKO, London on November 7th 2016 and is mixed and mastered by Mell Dettmer at Studio Soli in Seattle.

In 2005, Headphones arrived as a seismic shift in David Bazan's already formidable canon- a collection of synth-driven confessions that push the boundaries of narrative songwriting. Stripped down to its barest essentials, the album finds Bazan and collaborators Tim Walsh and Frank Lenz constructing an audaciously raw soundscape: no guitars, just synthesizers, live drums, and Bazan's unmistakable vocals. Twenty years later, it remains a masterwork of emotional excavation and geopolitical reckoning, as relevant today as the day it was released. This 20th Anniversary edition, remastered by Christopher Colbert at National Freedom (The Walkmen, Richard Swift, Pedro the Lion), is housed in a gatefold jacket with expanded artwork by Grammy-nominated designer Jesse LeDoux, plus liner notes by writer and Belmont University Associate Professor David Dark. The self-titled album threads a delicate needle, simultaneously personal and prophetic. Songs like "Major Cities" tackle the macrocosm of American imperialism with clarity and anger, while tracks like "I Never Wanted You" unearth the raw wounds of interpersonal defeat. These are stories of inner and outer collapse, of bullies (both personal and political) wreaking havoc, yet rendered with humanity. Even in its darkest moments, though, Headphones pulses with the hope that honesty might light a way forward if only we'll bear witness to the truth. On its twentieth anniversary, Headphones feels more vital than ever. For those who've lived with it since 2005, this reissue is a chance to revisit an old wound, to press on it and see what's healed and what still aches. For new listeners, it's a chance to sit with something audacious and true an album that invites us to reckon with the ways we fail each other-and the ways we might still be good. Twenty years on, Headphones remains a rare album that doesn't just speak to you, but asks you to listen harder. + PROJECT FROM DAVID BAZAN OF PEDRO THE LION + DELUXE 20TH-ANNIVESARY REMASTERED REISSUE WITH BONUS TRACKS + DELUXE FIRST PRESSING ON LIMITED EDITION OPAQUE YELLOW VINYL LIMITED TO 750 COPIES + EXPANDED GATEFOLD ARTWORK BY GRAMMY-NOMINATED ARTIST JESSE LEDOUX + LINER NOTES BY DAVID DARK + REMASTERED BY CHRISTOPHER COLBERT (THE WALKMEN, RICHARD SWIFT, PEDRO THE LION) + LP INCLUDES BONUS 7" ON BLACK VINYL WITH TWO BONUS TRACKS

Album "My Life - Preisner's Music is a live recording from a concert held in November 2024 in Bielsko-Bia?a, marking the occasion of Zbigniew Preisner receiving Honorary Citizenship of his hometown, Bielsko-Bia?a.
This year, on May 20th, Zbigniew Preisner will celebrate his 70th birthday, and the album is a his gift he made to himself.

The album includes 17 iconic themes composed by Zbigniew Preisner among others from Three Colours, Decalogue, The Secret garden, The double life of Veronique, Damage, When a man loves a woman, Eminent Domain, Aberdeen, Mouvements du desir, Lost and Love, but also Lacrimosa from Requiem for my Friend in the interpretation of Dominik Wania.

Few words from Zbigniew Preisner:
"For years, I've been thinking about reducing my orchestral themes to a single instrument. As a composer, I pay special attention to melody-each of my compositions always has melodic themes.
Ten years ago, I met Dominik Wania, now a jazz star and a brilliant pianist who records albums for ECM. I knew he was the perfect person to bring my idea to life.
The concert you are about to listen to is the result of our collaboration, which has given me great satisfaction. Dominik Wania's interpretation went beyond my wildest expectations. I hope you will enjoy the album."

Reviews of the album:

"When I teach the films of Krzysztof Kieslowski at Columbia University, I always mention that Zbigniew Preisner is one of the world's greatest film composers. He has many fans among my students. And now there is a new album, a haunting distillation of his movie scores into solo piano performances. It demonstrates how he is the master composer of the tritone, trill and tremolo. Listening to his compositions in their own terms - separate from the cinema screen - foregrounds his distinctive and often plaintive melodies.
Because orchestration, lyrics and narrative function are absent, the listener can focus on the richness of the "standalone" music, beautifully performed by Dominik Wania. For example, the memorable score from Kieslowski's "Double Life of Veronique" now feels more ominous than lyrical. From "Mouvements du desir," the tinkling piano sounds grow into cascading notes that envelop the listener. Whether classical (as in "When a Man Loves a Woman" and "The Waltz from The Funeral") or jazz ("The Secret Garden"), the music reigns when there is no movie screen to distract us. This is equally true of the minor-key gems like "Dekalog" and the briskly upbeat "Transient from Twilight" (which invokes for me the joy of Jon Baptiste's compositions).
In addition to Preisner's scores, the mournful "Lacrimosa" is stripped down from a public performance - which included a choir - to a more personal evocation of grief via solo piano. Finally, listening to "Lost and Love" suggests that if Frederic Chopin and Keith Jarrett had an heir together, it would be Zbigniew Preisner".
Annette Insdorf, Film Professor Columbia University

Inspired by the Zamrock movement of the 1970s, Immy Owusu & Sensible J’s swirling psych/afro/funk EP ‘Spiritual War’ is a rowdy, boisterous selection of songs about injustice, insanity, and the inanity of modern life in the burning house that is late capitalism. Owusu, a Ghanaian Australian singer and multi-instrumentalist, bonded with South African Australian drummer, beatmaker, and producer Sensible J (Sampa The Great, Cool Out Sun, Remi) over a shared love of the raw sounds of 70s African music, in particular Zamrock artists like Witch and Amanaz, and cooked up the EP in J’s iconic House Of Beige studio. Immy played guitar, percussion, and miscellaneous instruments, including the recorder, as well as vocals, while J provided drums, bass, and keys, and a roster of guests added vocals.

DOUBLE-DISC EDITION OF DARKTHRONE'S 1993 PURE NORWEGIAN BLACK
METAL MASTERPIECE, INCLUDING THE 30TH ANNIVERSARY MASTER, PLUS
ADDITIONAL DISC WITH COMMENTARY FROM FENRIZ
Darkthrone began life in the late 80's as a thrash/ death metal act & progressed
through technical death/doom metal experimentation to become legends of the black
metal world & one of the original leading bands of the Norwegian scene, as well as
inspiring a whole generation of metal bands, as they continue as strong as ever to this
day.
'Under A Funeral Moon', Darkthrone's third album, was originally released by Peaceville
in 1993. The album is a bleak reflection of contemporary times, featuring harsh guitar
riffage & hateful vocals in what was the band's first 100% pure black metal opus; a
work completely stripped of the death metal traces of former releases & in its place, a
stark & primitive execution. This was aided by an intentionally lo- fi sound that is
powerfully cold & entirely unconcerned with any modern- day aesthetics. 'Under A
Funeral Moon' is the album that many Darkthrone fans hail as the ultimate manifesto
for Black Metal.
This edition of 'Under A Funeral Moon' is presented on double- disc CD format &
includes an audio master created for the album's 30th anniversary in line with the
original 1993 version, plus the 2013 commentary disc from Fenriz with his
recollections on the tracks & the time period.

Proudly presenting our reissue of the sought-after 1978 album 'Ritmo Y Sabor' from Cuban, master bongo player, Manteca. A deep, hypnotic, sonic excursion of Afro-Cuban/mambo rhythms to get lost within. Released in 1978, there are a number of different pressings of the album coming out on labels including GRC, Desca Records and Sound Triangle Records. Stripped-back and low-fi, this is a pulsating hit of instrumental Latin-jazz dance magic.

Predominantly made up of just percussion and bass, the album comes courtesy of Carlos "Rico" Ramirez on bass, Carlos Patato on congas, timbales by Nelson Padron and Lazaro Pla aka Manteca as band leader. A Cuban legend, Manteca rose to fame playing with Ernesto Lecuona and the Cuban Boys. Although he featured on numerous recordings in his home of Cuba, only a handful exist of his as featured soloist or band leader.

A whirlwind of percussive brilliance, ‘Ritmo Y Sabor’ is brimming with energy regardless of the tempo of the track. An instantaneous ability to make you move, the grooves come alive with each new rhythm introduced. Take for instance, the track 'Afro Funky' that more than lives up to its name. A breakbeat Latin-funk workout, with a mighty fine walking bass line that provides the basis for the drummers to vibe off. Elsewhere, 'Rumbon En Casa De Cando' is fast and furious perfect for the jazz dance specialist, whilst 'Sabor A Mantecado' keeps you on your toes with its trance-like repetitive bassline and percussive interplay. 'Cosa De Manteca' is another heavy-Latin funk gem with a rough and raw feeling of relentless yet groove-driven percussion.

A must-have Afro-Cuban, rhythmic funk triumph, that shows Manteca and his band in full flight

Tuskegee returns with serious intent and a fresh club weapon from a recognised statesman of house music, Junior Sanchez. Having written and collaborated with artists including Daft Punk, Armand Van Helden, Todd Terry, and Roger Sanchez, ‘Bitch U Could Neva’ pairs Sanchez with vocalist and songwriter Dave Giles II, riding high himself following link-ups with Honey Dijon, Mike Dunn, and a producer on Beyonce’s anthemic ‘Cozy’.

‘Bitch U Could Neva’ is a powerful, instantaneous trip back into the underground style and attitude shared between both artists, reflecting the vibe of Sanchez’s rise to success in the halcyon days of New York nineties clubbing, alongside Giles II’s own youth in the Chicago creative scene. Living up to the attitude of its title, ‘Bitch U Could Neva’ bumps with peak-time energy, jackhammer drums and chopped-up vocals never undermining its fundamental sensuality, an increasingly rare link between true, authentic dancefloors past and present.

The pair then look to London for a confident, stripped-back take from prestigious record collector and curator GIDEON. The founder of dance music institutions Adonis and Glastonbury’s infamous Block 9 goes deep to find the track’s potential as a minimal, vogue-adjacent house workout, scattered with telephone dial tones and an upfront disclosure; “Bitch, I’m serving.”

Back across the Atlantic, Physical Therapy and Michael Mangan team up under their Fatherhood project to give ‘Bitch U Could Neva’ a seriously bouncy redress, winding tight drums atop a rubbery bassline and paying their own Twilo and Tunnel-era tributes with cut-up vocals and an ecstatic onslaught of rave stabs.

"""Disguise In Love"" released in 1978, is the debut album of British punk poet John Cooper Clarke. Renowned for his quick-witted delivery and sharp humor, Clarke fuses punk rock with spoken word, resulting in a one-of-a-kind sonic experience. The album includes tracks such as ""I Don't Want To Be Nice,"" ""Valley of the Lost Women,"" and ""(I Married a) Monster from Outer Space,"" highlighting Clarke's talent for social commentary and dark comedy. Produced by Martin Hannett, known as (one of) the creator(s) of the ‘Manchester sound’, the album captures the unrefined energy of the late '70s punk scene. Other notable artists produced by Hannett include Joy Division, Magazine, New Order, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and Happy Mondays. ""Disguise In Love"" stands out not only for its incisive, observational poetry but also for its stripped-down and edgy musical accompaniment, solidifying its status as a pivotal work in Clarke's career and a significant contribution to the punk genre. The album comes as a limited edition of 500 copies on translucent blue coloured vinyl."

Carrying on their longstanding dedication to the seminal output of Merzbow, Urashima returns with what is unquestionably their most ambitious release to date: “Collection 001-010”, a deluxe, 10 LP vinyl box set limited to 299 copies, gathering together the entirety of the project’s first ten releases, originally released in 1981. Encountering the band in its early incarnation of the duo of Masami Akita and Kiyoshi Mizutani, raw, exposed and bristling with energy, foreshadowing numerous trajectories they would follow over the coming years, these astounding full lengths - the majority of which have never been released on vinyl - come housed in a beautifully produced, deluxe wooden box, with each LP in its own individual sleeve reproducing the original artwork, and a LP-sized 32-page book containing reproductions of artworls and collages by Masami Akita, an interview conducted by Jim O'Rourke, and liner notes penned by Lasse Marhaug, Thurston Moore, and Akita himself, amounting to what is unquestionably one of the most historically significant releases we’re likely to encounter in 2025.

Deluxe Edition of 299 copies, remastered from the original analog tapes by Masami Akita, each LP comes in its individual sleeve reproducing the original artwork, also includes a LP-sized 32-page book. ** Since its founding during the late 2000s, the Italian imprint, Urashima, has become a definitive voice in the landscape of noise. Bringing forth beautiful limited edition releases, they’ve sculpted a singular vision of one of the most vibrant and revolutionary bodies of experimental sound to have graced the globe. Among the many projects that they have supported over the decades, there has been an undeniable dedication to the output of the seminal Japanese noise outfit, Merzbow, making a significant amount of the project’s out of print back catalog available across a range of formats. Now they return with what is arguably their most stunning and ambitious release dedicated to the project to date: “Collection 001-010”, gathering the entirety of Merzbow’s first ten releases, largely privately released by the band on cassette across 1981, in a deluxe, 10 LP vinyl box set. Representing what is effectively ground zero in Japanese noise and collectively amounting to some of the most sought after releases ever produced within that movement, Urashima’s truly beautiful collection comes fully remastered by Masami Akita himself from the original tapes, presenting all but a small number in their first ever vinyl pressings, with each LP housed in its own individual sleeve reproducing the original artwork, alongside a LP-sized 32-page book containing reproductions of artworks and collages by Masami Akita, an interview conducted by Jim O'Rourke, and liner notes penned by Lasse Marhaug, Thurston Moore and Akita himself. Towering with energy and groundbreaking creative vision, within the realms of noise and experimental music, releases don’t get more monumental or historically important than this!

Merzbow came roaring onto the Tokyo scene in 1979, and remains, to this day, one of the most prolific and aggressively forward-thinking projects in experimental music. Eventually becoming the solo vehicle for the efforts of Masami Akita, in its earliest incarnation the project was the duo of Akita and Kiyoshi Mizutani, taking their name from German artist Kurt Schwitters' pre-war architectural assemblage, The Cathedral of Erotic Misery or Merzbau, and quickly set out to challenge entrenched notions of what music could be. Embracing technology and the machine, even in its earliest iterations, Merzbow pushed toward new territories of the extreme, arriving at a space of pure, unadulterated sonic onslaught that has continued, for over 40 years, to set the pace for the entire genre of noise, and has remained one of the movement’s most important, definitive voices, continuously laying the groundwork for countless artists who have followed in its wake.

When dealing with historical gestures, there’s an invertible aura surrounding original line-ups and early statements, and rightfully so. It is often within a band’s debut that we catch the purest glimpse of the raw energy and creative ferment that made them what they are. This is certainly the case when regarding the coveted early releases of Merzbow, capturing the emergence of the project in its form as the duo of Masami Akita and Kiyoshi Mizutani as they helped set the blue print from the then emerging movement of Japanese noise. Over the course of its nearly five decades of activity, Merzbow has always been noted for how prolific and ambitious the project is. This was no less the case in the very beginning. While they were active for roughly two years prior, in 1981 alone they issued ten self-released cassettes numerically titled “Collection 001-010”, albums which have both individually and collectively become holy grails in the realms of noise, with only two - “Collection 007” and “Collection 009” - ever receiving vinyl reissues prior to now.

As Lasse Marhaug deftly articulates in the newly commissioned liner notes for “Collection 001-010”, despite having been recorded in different location across a span of time, the sum total of Merzbow’s first ten releases might be best regarded as a single release to be listened to in the same, durational sitting, with the material standing well apart from what most came to expect from Merzbow, while foreshadowing numerous trajectories the project would take over the coming years. Not only do these recordings feature a vast array of instrumentation - tapes, acoustic and electric guitar, violin, drums, voice, recorder, organ, found sounds, clarinet, homemade and prepared instruments, a vast arsenal of effects and electronics, and piano, to only begin to scratch the surface - the majority of which would disappear from the project’s active sources of sound generation over the subsequent years, but there is a slow pacing and raw sense of openness and exposure that reveals strong connections to the avant-garde improvisations of groups like AMM, Musica Elettronica Viva, and Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, the psychedelia of groups like Taj Mahal Travellers and Flower Traveling band (both of whom Akita mentions having seen in youth within his interview with Jim O’Rourke), and rock in general - albeit in fully abstracted forms - unspooling as brittle, pointillistic, textural, raw and abrasive forms, that occasionally flirts with unexpected tonal sensibilities. As Marhaug describes it in his excellent liner notes: «Sonically, “Collection” sounds more sparse and stripped. It’s dry sounding, up-front, no reverb, and there’s less heavy low-end grime and thin on the signature frequency sweeps. Viewed in a 1981 context, musically, it’s more akin to what the LAFMS (Los Angeles Free Music Society) pool of artists were doing at that time than what was happening in industrial music... There’s a strong playfulness throughout, like the sound objects are being explored for the first time, without neither restraint nor hurry. Events are allowed to be fully examined before the music moves on, or simply cuts off. To a large degree, the music on “Collection” feels acoustic in nature, although a Electro-Harmonix ring-modulator features prominently throughout.»

Easily described as a rarely encountered revelation into the original and earlier documented studio sound of Merzbow, “Collection 001-010” collectively amounts to an engrossing sonic journey in its own right, while also allowing for important, often overlooked connections drawn from numerous other creative wellsprings, notably free jazz, underground rock, the output of European and Japanese avant-garde music, as well as Dada, Fluxus, and Mail Art, much of which, beyond the illumination made possible by the sounds, Jim O’Rourke’s fantastic interview with Akita, published in the booklet, further explores, offering great insights into the origins of Merzbow and the thinking behind the project, as well as aspects of the earliest days of Japanese noise.

Black Loops is an endlessly creative producer who has brought constant invention to house music since his first release over a decade ago. His widescreen sounds take their cue from funk, soul and disco and are underpinned by a love of 90’s grooves. They appeal to DJs and dancers alike which explains his constant demand for DJ sets around the world as well as his music being played and supported by the biggest names in the scene. After many years of vital 12"s and remixes, he now draws on everything he has learned and raises his levels with a fully realised debut full length album dropping 9th May, 2025.

Ahead of the LP we present the Experience EP which sees Jimpster and Black Loops himself deliver Dub versions of two of the LP’s highlights; Electrical and Experience. Jimpster kicks off with a stripped back, rolling Italo-inspired groover with touches of modular synth sequences, string stabs and dubbed out vocals. Black Loops follows with his own version keeping the funk factor intact with guitar licks, synth blips and extra fat, moog bassline.

Flip over for the original of Experience featuring Marlena Dae with it’s distinctly 90’s, Vogue-era Madge mood. Black Loops then proceeds to take it to the club on his Dancefloor Dub, stripping out the vocals and working up a punchy, minimal groove for the dancers. Closing out the release we have an exclusive original, not included on the LP entitled Inmasoul. Jazzy, deep beats are the order of the day here, making for a perfect warm up track to set the mood.

Edinburgh-based three-piece funk band High Fade are set to release their debut album 'Life’s Too Fast'.

Capturing the raw, on-stage energy that has been the driving force behind High Fade’s meteoric rise was never going to be easy, but that’s exactly what Harry, Oli and Calvin set out to do with a clear creative vision to record their album live at the iconic RAK Studios in London.

'We recorded in RAK Studios, with the desk built for the Rolling Stones in ‘76, with the same cigarette burns still on the faders. It instantly had a vibe of raw energy and liveliness to it that matched the way we wanted to record - live.' – Calvin

The result? 'Life’s Too Fast' – a blistering 10-track debut from one of the UK’s most exciting bands that manages to deliver the same tight, groove-laden funk rock that has put the group on the radars of Jack Black, Cypress Hill and Rage Against the Machine’s Brad Wilk, has seen them tour with The Cat Empire, and tick off iconic venues including Glastonbury, Jazz Cafe, and Boomtown Festival.

'We decided to record the album live rather than through the normal single track overdubbed method – we felt this would help to fully convey the band’s power, sound and energy across to the listener! More like we’re playing a gig and having it recorded – it was a tough process, but we went about it in the best way for both us and the audience, to ensure they’re getting the most authentic High Fade sound and experience possible.' – Oli

Having spent much of the last three years on the road seeing to a punishing tour schedule, 'Life’s Too Fast' is a chance for the band to stop and take stock, to reflect on their whirlwind success, and create an artistic milestone that demonstrates who High Fade are today. 'It’s the most accurate representation of what High Fade is, what we sound like, and who we are' explains Harry. Telling a clear story that matches their own experiences over the last few years, the album is a snapshot taken by a band who are accelerating towards real success and recognition.

'I’m glad we finally have a body of work that we’re proud of and feels like a collection of songs that nicely represents where we are right now. It’s organised chaos and shows that we like to play, but can also write a catchy tune.' – Calvin

Launching into proceedings with the effortlessly uplifting 'Take Me To The Floor', every track is a demonstration of the band’s technical prowess and broad sonic palette. A forward-facing selection of completely original material, the album also gave the band the opportunity to re-imagine fan-favourite 'Sharpen Up' as a stripped-back cut that reflects the band’s current lineup.

'Honestly, I kinda feel like I could explode with excitement about getting it out for everyone in the world to hear because it has been a long time in the making! A culmination of what all the singles have been working towards! I guess the album represents us and the direction we’re taking the music, it represents us as a trio and the gel that is High Fade.' – Oli

*180g virgin leaded vinyl in a deluxe textured heavy gatefold cover, with paste-on artwork and special anti-static innersleeve.* Note: The pressing is absolute on point!!!!

Vincent Gallo and Harper Simon with a beautifully recorded suite of songs and instrumentals.

" More than two decades since he blew minds with a suite of brilliant releases on Warp, Vincent Gallo returns to the world of music at long last in Butterfly, his duo with Harper Simon, with the project’s full-length debut, “The Music of Butterfly”. A gesture of gentle, DIY / bedroom left-field pop, falling within the rough territory for which Gallo became renowned during the late '90s and early 2000s, while interweaving fascinating flirtations with minimalism and experimentalism, it’s a truly captivating piece of work that’s hard to get off the turntable after the first needle drop.

In the arts, the lines between genius and madness, as well as fact and fiction, often blur. Such, it seems, has always been the life of the artist, filmmaker, actor, musician, and composer Vincent Gallo. A cult figure and a member of various creative undergrounds for the better part of half a century, Gallo has courted controversy, ruffled feathers, and made some of the most singular statements to flirt at the outer edges of popular culture that can be called to mind. Arguably most well known for his work in film, during the late '90s and early 2000s - notably with his soundtrack for “Buffalo 66” and a suite of releases on Warp - Gallo became something of a sensation in the world of independent music for a visionary, incredibly unique and sensitive approach to sonority. For a time, the world was abuzz, waiting on bated breath for more, and yet time passed. Bar a few fragments, appearing here and there, almost nothing has been heard from Gallo, within the world of music, for more than 20 years. That is, until now, with the release of “The Music of Butterfly”, the debut full-length of Butterfly, his duo with Harper Simon: beautifully produced and issued by Family Friend Records - Gallo’s own label, founded in 1981 - in a deluxe edition that simply left us speechless: 180g vinyl in textured heavy gatefold cover with paste-on artwork and thick anti-static innersleeve. More or less picking up from where we last encountered him, spinning captivating melodies and gentle song-craft within the quieter temperaments of DIY, left-field pop, once again, and at long last, Vincent Gallo, encountered in an incredibly successful collaboration with Harper Simon as Butterfly, reminds us that he’s as much a force within the realm of music as he is within film. Not to be missed. This one isn’t going to sit around for long.

Vincent Gallo’s biography reads like the stuff of blaring beauty: a figure of moderate fame in his own right, who has remained at the centre of cultural ferment as the decades have rolled by. Born in 1961, in Buffalo, New York, as the story goes he ran away to New York City at the age of 16 and fell into the brewing counterculture of the Downtown scene, William Burroughs and John Giorno, in addition to the cream of his own peers, and began making paintings, music, and experimenting with film. In addition to being a member of the now legendary band Gray, with the artist, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and the filmmaker, Michael Holman, Gallo appeared in the cult 1981 film “Downtown 81”, before slowly beginning a career as an actor and catching the eye of Claire Denis, who brought his talents into the broader cultural gaze. Catapulted into the public by his own subsequent career as a filmmaker with “Buffalo '66” (1998) and “The Brown Bunny” (2003), both of which were marked by controversy and praise, Gallo further captivated the public with a partially brilliant, if not relatively brief, flurry of activity in the realms of music.

While Gallo had already been making music for roughly two decades at the time of his release of the “Brown Bunny” soundtrack, and the four release issued by Warp in rapid succession between 2001 and 2002 - “When”, “Honey Bunny”, “So Sad”, and “Recordings of Music for Film” - the almost fanatical fandom reached a fever pitch at the moment, allowing him, for some, to be regarded as much, if not more, as a musical artist than an actor and filmmaker. Anyway you cut it, in a few short years, he proved himself to be a polymath of rare talent. Somewhere along the way, while both were working as members of Yoko Ono's Plastic One Band, Gallo met the New York based, highly regarded singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer, Harper Simon, who also happens to be the son of Paul Simon. The pair fell into an incredibly fruitful duo collaboration, which came to be called Butterfly, and “The Music of Butterfly” being their debut full-length release.

Written, performed, and recorded by Vincent Gallo and Harper Simon in New York City between the winter of 2018 and the spring of 2019, the ten tracks comprising “The Music of Butterfly” are cumulatively a gesture of gentle, DIY / bedroom left-field pop, falling within the rough territory for which Gallo became renowned during the late '90s and early 2000s, making one feel like barely a moment had passed since we’d encountered his graceful hand at song-craft. Stripped back and raw, while retaining a sense of warmth and intimacy, across the length of “The Music of Butterfly” the duo of Gallo and Simon weave something completely captivating at the juncture of minimalism, experimentalism, and pop: meandering moments of texture and tone, slowly forming toward flirtations of melody that flower into song and back again. Somehow playful and light, while also remarkably emotive and personal, it’s almost as though each of these tracks crystallised out the air, unlabored and exactly as they should be without a note or beat more.

An engrossing immersion into both Gallo and Simon’s remarkably accomplished minds, having followed the path toward one another after radically different experiences and careers, “The Music of Butterfly” is one of those records that’ll be hard to get off the turntable after that first needle drop, and rarely leave the listening pile for some time to come. Issued by Family Friend Records in a beautiful deluxe edition that is unmatched even among the most stunning recent productions we can call to mind - 180g vinyl in textured heavy gatefold cover with paste-on artwork and thick anti-static innersleeve - it’s lovely to have Gallo back in the musical mix after so many years. "

In March 2011, Catherine Anne Davies aka The Anchoress recorded her debut
Communion at London's legendary Church Studios with an all-female string
section - Recorded live in a single afternoon, Communion is a collection of
songs stripped of drums and modern technology - The mini-album was
named as one of NME's Best Cult Albums of the year but was only released
on a limited edition CD - On 20 March 2025, 14 years to the date of recording,
Communion is finally released on limited edition Bio-vinyl and CD
The Anchoress has been featured across press including The Sunday Times, The
Telegraph, Classic Pop, Uncut, The Observer, Clash Magazine, MOJO and more. She
has received critical acclaim throughout her career so far including praise from Elton
John. Catherine Anne Davies is a Welsh songwriter, multi- instrumentalist and
producers.

Akae Beka’s inimitable style, developed over decades of performing with St. Croix based band Midnite and countless recordings (including the 2014 iTunes reggae album of the year BEAUTY FOR ASHES and RIDE TRU). At the point of his untimely passing in 2019, he had released over 70 LPs. He is without a doubt one of the most prolific reggae artists ever known and his quantity is always matched with quality, with his albums consistently featuring in the top 10 on the Billboard charts reggae LPs.

This LP, Topaz, is a unique contribution to the sea of Akae Beka titles, showcasing Vaughn Benjamin in a stripped-back, raw acoustic fashion. An LP that will not be easily confined to any genre, but for the fans of Vaughn's uniquely rich, deep, textured songwriting, uncompromising devotion to RasTafari and soulful healing melodies an absolute must-have!

When it comes to musical discovery, sometimes the stars just align. DJ and record collector, Steve KIW, put Mr Bongo onto this amazing Chilean cover version of Jamie Principle & Frankie Knuckles' all-time classic 'Your Love'. Despite being originally released 13 years ago, it had recently started to prick the ears of house and Balearic connoisseurs in the UK, further cemented by inclusions in the Idjut Boys epic sets. Steve heard them play it, tipped us off and it soon became a favourite at Mr Bongo HQ.



By pure chance when the Mr Bongo DJs joined Luke Una to play at La Paloma ballroom in Barcelona a few weeks later, Luke dropped this incredible interpretation at the peak of his set. A good friend of his, Michelle from Huddersfield, had also put him onto the track and he instantly fell in love. A serendipitous coming together, 'Tu Amor' seemed like the perfect next instalment in the E Soul Cultura discography. The version in question was released in 2012 as part of a digital-only EP.



It came courtesy of the Chilean DJ, producer and singer Mamacita (Carolina Vallejos) and producer Sebastian Roman, aka Persona RS. Meeting Sebastian while out partying in Santiago during a boom time for electronic music in Chile, their shared passion for making house music in Spanish and their admiration for Frankie Knuckles led to the creation of this raw and unique cover version. Recorded on lo-fi equipment, including an old Windows laptop and a borrowed Neumann microphone, it nods to the DIY ethos of the early Chicago productions. The result is a stripped-back, quirky cosmic take on a stone-cold classic, full of squelching synthlines and Carolina's stunning Spanish vocals, that became a club hit on Chile's underground circuit. However, aside from some Latin American and US DJs picking it up, it never got the international recognition it deserved.



Fast forward to 2025, and E Soul Cultura is proud to present the glorious 'Tu Amor' on vinyl for the first time, backed with a new, extended, club re-edit by E Soul Cultura captain Luke Una and Luke Solomon (Classic Music). On first hearing 'Tu Amor' Luke Una recalls, There was a real charm to it, it was quite an unorthodox arrangement, a huge wonkiness and just sounded so DIY in a brilliant way. I was chatting to Luke (Solomon) about how much we loved it and we decided to re-edit it together. Accentuating the wonk of those crazy synths, we've extended it to make a fiercer underground club tool, without taking away that very charming cosmic feel.

Repressed LP on Neon Orange Vinyl. “ESG's fusion of sweet soul and punk attitude with an intuitive understanding of dance music remains.” The Guardian “This is still funk with an alien otherworldliness the likes of which George Clinton never envisioned, stripped to its barest essentials for maximum impact.” All Music “ESG are as cool as ever.” The Guardian Pumping their way out of the South Bronx of New York in the early 80s, this rhythm and dance-punk outfit made unforgettable funk that was also unusually rooted in post-punk. This powerhouse of raw and cutting edge music ultimately made them ahead of their time. ESG enjoyed success sharing stages with PiL and Gang Of Four and have been heavily sampled as many musicians including TLC, Wu-Tang Clan, Beastie Boys and Liars.

"The beauty of The Devil Makes Three is the way they take an old-time musical genre and, by putting their own imprint on it, turn it into something that lives and breathes anew, passing the torch to a new generation, just as stateside rock fans learned about the likes of pioneers Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis and Buddy Holly from the first wave of British Invasion bands. With their latest album, Spirits, the band continues this tradition by incorporating their signature punk, folk and bluegrass sound along with country and singer-songwriter leanings. “That’s what we set out to do. We wanted to use these musical forms to talk about current issues,” explains Pete Bernhard. “Folk music should be about what’s happening now, just as it was when Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan did it.” The song titles alone describe the band’s return to a stripped-down, drum-less sound and songs that reflect the ongoing struggle to survive amid the uncertainties of the current volatile climate: “Dark Gets the Best of You,” “Divide and Conquer,” “Ghost are Weak,” “Hard Times,” “I Love Doing Drugs,” “Poison Well” and “The Devil Wins.” The tracks were recorded at Dreamland, part of a converted church compound outside Woodstock in upstate New York which offered some haunted moments of its own, with plenty of spooky thunderstorms and lightning. “There’s definitely a theme of ghosts and death running through this album,” acknowledged Bernhard, who lost his mother, brother and closest childhood friend while making the record. “It also has a good amount of political material, a reflection on how divided people are these days, just trying to find common ground. Not being able to perform our music live led to some deep reflections.”"

Agonis debut album Neutropia gets a high profile and well deserved remix treatment. Originally released in 2021 on his own co-founded amenthia recordings, the album was a strong statement in terms of sound. Formerly known for his excellent deep and incantatory techno, Neutropia opened the door to show more of his far reaching musical interests. It became a vital document of genre bending electronics, fusing half paced drum & bass, rolling amen breaks, forceful frequencies, dreamlike trip-hop and futuristic techno all together. For Neutropia Remixed the sound palette even got wider. Four artists that are highly appreciated by the amenthia camp were asked to rework their track of choice and make it their own. Carrier drops the pace of 'Thermo' and adds a brilliant touch of his stripped down half-time rhythm excellence. Christina Vantzou continues to build on the powerful frequencies that were present at the full original album with a mesmerizing drone trip. Amsterdam resident upsammy adds her glistering dynamics to the dark 'Algoflash' and Felix K does what he does best.. The Hidden Hawaii/Nullpunkt originator turns the rolling 'Pyrchid' into a heady drum work out.

Repress!

Techno phenomenon Charlotte de Witte today announces her brand-new EP “Power Of Thought”, out October 19 on her own KNTXT label. The trio begins with the title track “Power Of Thought” - which immediately erupts into a hypnotic techno beat interspersed with spoken mantras of mindfulness. This is followed by “Pria”, a pulsating journey featuring hypnotic, mantra-like vocals. The EP ends with ambient track “Abada”, punctuated with the occasional drum and chanting vocals before it quickly strips away to silence.

“For ‘Power Of Thought’, I wanted to create an EP that touches deeper emotions and captivating the meditative trance you have when you let go on the dance floor,” says de Witte. “‘Pria’ has already brought me a lot of joy over the last few months when I have played it during my sets. It offers a moment of reflection and a chance to catch your breath during the rougher, more peak time tracks I play. ‘Abada’ is a track that I really enjoyed making. I discovered these magical chanting vocals and I just knew I wanted to use them in a track. Though this track is maybe less playable in one of my sets, I feel that Abada found its home on this EP and completes the ‘Power Of Thought’ circle.”

Best known for her “dark and stripped-back” brand of techno and crossover to other sounds of the underground, Charlotte de Witte pushes the boundaries of the electronic genre with music that has a distinct and unforgettable sound that is uniquely her own. De Witte’s innovative ability allows her to seamlessly blend genres and styles that
have won her a dedicated fan base and critical acclaim.

“Power Of Thought” is the followup EP to de Witte’s “Overdrive” EP, campaign and tour, which recently wrapped with a Los Angeles takeover last month and included performances at Brooklyn Mirage, Primavera Sound, Rock Werchter, Super Bock Super Rock, Lowlands and Rock En Seine. The “Power Of Thought” release will include an exclusive apparel drop as well and will coincide with the opening day of KNTXT Turbo Club, de Witte’s epic 3-day pop-up event series taking over Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE) from October 19 - 21, 2023.

With a different “KNTXT” each day, the turbo-charged pop-up will feature a massive lineup of performances, a dedicated KNTXT shop, immersive music experiences and other surprises at an undisclosed location in Amsterdam. Capacity will be very limited and tickets can be purchased now at https://kntxt.be/events/ade.

Following ADE, de Witte will embark upon the KNTXT Latin America Tour on October 26, which will take her to Mexico City, Buenos Aires and São Paulo.

Blue Valentine Vinyl. Sometime in 2005, a lone box of master tapes escaped an estate sale and made its way through a network of collectors, record dealers, and "junkers" into the hands of leading Ohio soul expert Dante Carfagna, who linked them to Columbus, Ohio's mysterious Prix label (See: Eccentric Soul: The Prix Label). A bit of research turned up Prix proprietor George Beter, who identified most of the unlabeled material. All it took was an endless series of phone calls and letters and two fields trips in Columbus. But one complete mystery wended its way onto our final Prix compilation. "You and Me," a simple but irrepressible demo credited only to Penny & the Quarters, was found tacked onto a mixed studio reel. Our survey of every willing lifer left on the Columbus soul scene, including retired DJs, producers, and important local artists, produced not so much as a glimmer of recognition at the name Penny & the Quarters. Though we loved the song from the first play, it may've ended up a bit buried on our original compilation, as #18 of 19 tracks.Four years later, Eccentric Soul: The Prix Label hadn't exactly become a huge seller, although listeners had repeatedly told us that the unfiltered studio demos that fill out the record's back half were true diamonds in the rough. But neither Penny nor her Quarters had appeared to claim credit for their efforts. Then, completely out of left field, we heard from respected screen actor and avowed Numero fan Ryan Gosling that Penny's piercing bit of stripped down doo-wop was being considered for inclusion in Derek Cianfrance's indie-weeper film Blue Valentine. What we didn't know was that "You and Me" had won a major role in what became an indie circuit hit, and that Penny & the Quarters would instantly assume the role of world's most famous unknown doo-wop group.Every week is a slow news week in Columbus, Ohio, and early January 2011 found the city recovering from the thrill of elevating Ted Williams_the formerly homeless guy with the awesome voice for radio_into a national news sensation. But both major daily newspapers in town, as well as the city's alternative weekly, also ran stories about how a lost and unknown Columbus soul group had become the musical centerpiece of a film already garnering Oscar buzz. That mainstream spotlight aimed at Blue Valentine and Penny & the Quarters did the trick: we finally made contact with the widow of Jay Robinson, lead Quarters' singer and songwriter. Robinson, it turned out, had also been the leader of Columbus doo-wop pioneers The Supremes (later known as "The Columbus Supremes," for reasons which should be obvious). Jay Robinson never did give up on the dream of writing a hit record; even so, the posthumous realization of his dream is cold comfort for his widow and daughter. With their blessings, we returned to those estate sale masters and pulled down another neglected track ("You Are Giving Me Some Other Love") from the still-unknown Penny and her now-partly-known Quarters. "You and Me" is a song that could not be suppressed: not when Prix failed to release it; not when Penny & the Quarters were forgotten; not when Numero stuck it at the bitter end of a much overlooked compilation. Its evolution from estate sale trash to silver-screen gold has finally returned it to big-hole 45, where it probably should have lived all along.

After the worldwide success of Toribio's "Bring Dat Jazz" 12", selling over 1K units worldwide - the mainstay NYC producer returns with another record on his own BDA Imprint (in collaboration with A-Trak and Chromeo's label Juliet) for a special 12" with a Crackzat remix.
"Daylight" is a warm, uplifting deep house jam with skippy beats, warm rhodes, bass and percussion. Vocals come from Toribio's sister Sharin
with an uplifting message referencing classic 90s house lyricism.
Originally released digitally in 2024, the raw humility of that song won the hearts of listeners the world over, with nods from Resident Advisor and Spotify's coveted Pollen playlist.

Coming in next on the 12", the always on Crackazat turns up the musicality even further, with cascading pianos and strings that anchor the emotion of "Daylight", with a sly bassline nod to Speed Garage sounds. Another hit from Bristol's masterful jazz-house expert.
Also included on the 12" is Toribio's stripped down, deep-in the groove Alternate Mix.

Recorded quickly between John Cale producing Patti Smith's Horses and his going out on an Italian tour, Helen of Troy became Cale's third and final studio album for Island Records - This re-issue faithfully replicates the original 1975 Island Records UK release and is pressed onto high quality 180g vinyl. Helen Of Troy is a raw, fascinating listen. The title track with its horns and spoken word is one of Cale's best: after the sweet bubblegum of "China Sea", the album gets increasingly stripped down the acoustic guitar and piano of "Cable Hogue" and the punkish cover of The Modern Lovers' "Pablo Picasso" have long been favourites on the album. "Leaving It All Up To You" in which Cale becomes increasingly disturbed garnered controversy at the time and was actually removed from later pressings of the album because of its references to the Manson murders. Cale never lost his ability to shock. Taking its title from the opening line of Johnny Cash's "I Walk The Line", "I Keep A Close Watch", a track Cale would record again several years later, with its Robert Kirby-arranged strings and horns, is the closest Cale has veered toward a power ballad. It is a work of great beauty among all the jagged edges of Helen Of Troy.

"This is the time that we, who have benefitted from the Last Poets shouldbe able to say, 'it's the Last Poets. It's them we should be honouring, because we did not honour them for so many years_"

KRS One wasn't just addressing the hip hop fraternity when he uttered
those words by way of introducing the video for Invocation - a poem
written thirty years ago, around the time of the Last Poets' last significant comeback. He was speaking to everyone who's been affected by the word, sound and power issuing from the most revolutionary poetry ever witnessed, and that the Last Poets had introduced to the world outside of Harlem at the dawn of the seventies.

In 2018 the two remaining Last Poets, Abiodun Oyewole and Umar Bin
Hassan, embarked on another memorable return with an album -
Understand What Black Is - that earned favourable comparison with theirseminal works of the past, whilst showcasing their undimmed passion andlyrical brilliance in an entirely new setting - that of reggae music. Trackslike Rain Of Terror ("America is a terrorist") and How Many Bullets demonstrated that they'd lost none of their fire or anger, and their essential raison d'etre remained the same.

"The Last Poets' mission was to pull the people out of the rubble o f their lives," wrote their biographer Kim Green. "They knew, deep down that poetry could save the people - that if black people could see and hear themselves and their struggles through the spoken word, they would be moved to change."

Several years later and the follow-up is now with us. The project started when Tony Allen, the Nigerian master drummer whose unique polyrhythms had driven much of Fela Kuti's best work, dropped by Prince Fatty's Brighton studio and laid down a selection of drum patterns to die for. That was back in 2019, but then the pandemic struck. Once it had passed, the label booked a studio in Brooklyn, where the two Poets voiced four tracks apiece and breathed fresh energy, fire and outrage into some of the most enduring landmarks of their career. Abiodun, who was one of the original Last Poets who'd gathered in East Harlem's Mount Morris Park to celebrate Malcolm X's birthday in May 1968, chose four poems that first appeared on the group's 1970 debut album, called simply The Last Poets. He'd written When The Revolution Comes aged twenty, whilst living in Jamaica, Queens. "We were getting ready for a revolution," he told Green. "There wasn't any question about whether there was going to be one or not. The truth was many of us still saw ourselves as "niggers" and slaves. This was a mindset that had to change if there was ever to be Black Power." He and writer Amiri Baraka were deep in conversation one day when Baraka became distracted by a pretty girl walking by. "You're a gash man," Abiodun told him. The poem inspired by that incident, Gash Man, is revisited on the new album, and exposes the heartless nature of sexual acts shorn of intimacy or affection. "Instead of the vagina being the entrance to heaven," he says, "it too often becomes a gash, an injury, a wound_" Two Little Boys meanwhile, was inspired after seeing two young boys aged around 11 or 12 "stuffing chicken and cornbread down their tasteless mouths, trying to revive shrinking lungs and a wasted mind." They'd walked into Sylvia's soul food restaurant in Harlem, ordered big meals, then bolted them down and run out the door. No one chased after them, knowing that they probably hadn't eaten in days. Fifty years later and children are still going hungry in major cities across America and elsewhere. Abiodun's poem hasn't lost any relevance at all, and neither has New York, New York, The Big Apple. "Although this was written in 1968, New York hasn't changed a bit," he admits, except "today, people just mistake her sickness for fashion." Umar is originally from Akron, Ohio, but had arrived in Harlem in early 1969 after seeing Abiodun and the other Last Poets at a Black Arts Festival in Cleveland. That's where he first witnessed what Amiri Baraka once called "the rhythmic animation of word, poem, image as word- music" - a creative force that redefined the concept of performance poetry and stripped it bare until it became a howl of rage, hurt and anger, saved from destruction by mockery and love for humanity. When Umar's father, who was a musician, was jailed for armed robbery he took to the streets from an early age where he shined shoes and raised whatever money he could to help feed his eight brothers and sisters. By the time he saw the Last Poets he'd joined the Black United Front and was ready to join the struggle. Once in Harlem, Abiodun asked him what he'd learnt in the few weeks since he'd got there. "Niggers are scared of revolution," Umar replied. "Write it down" urged Abiodun. That poem still gives off searing heat more than fifty years later. In Umar's own words, "it became a prayer, a call to arms, a spiritual pond to bathe and cleanse in because niggers are not just vile and disgusting and shiftless. Niggers are human beings lost in someone else's system of values and morals." And there you have it. It's not just race or religion that hold us back, but an economic system that keeps millions in poverty and living in fear - a system born from political choice and that's now become so entrenched, so bloated on its own success that it's put mankind in mortal danger. It was many black people's acceptance of the status quo that inspired Just Because, which like Niggers Are Scared Of Revolution, was included on that seminal first album. Along with their revolutionary rhetoric, it was the Last Poets' use of the "n word" that proved so shocking, but it would be wrong to suggest that they reclaimed it, since it never belonged to black people in the first place. There's never any hiding place when it comes to the Last Poets. They use words like weapons, and that force all who listen to decide who they are and where they stand. Umar's two remaining tracks find him revisiting poems first unleashed on the Poets' second album This Is Madness! Abiodun had left for North Carolina by then where he became more deeply enmeshed in revolutionary activities and spent almost four years in jail for armed robbery after attempting to seize funds related to the Klu Klux Klan. Meanwhile, the 21 year old Umar was squatting in Brooklyn and had developed close ties with the Dar-ul Islam Movement. A longing for purity and time-honoured spiritual values underpins Related to What, whilst This Is Madness is a call for freedom "by any means necessary," and that paints a feverish landscape peopled by prominent black leaders but that quickly descends into chaos. "All my dreams have been turned into psychedelic nightmares," he wails, over a groove now powered by Tony Allen's ferocious drumming. Those sessions lasted just two days, and we can only imagine the atmosphere in that room as the hip hop godfathers exchanged the conga drums of Harlem for the explosive sounds of authentic Afrobeat. Once they'd finished, the recordings and momentum returned to Prince Fatty's studio, since relocated from Brighton to SE London. This was stage three of the project, and who better to fill out the rhythm tracks than two key musicians from Seun Anikulapo Kuti's band Egypt 80? Enter guitarist Akinola Adio Oyebola and bassist Kunle Justice, who upon hearing Allen's trademark grooves exclaimed, "oh, the Father_ we are home!" Such joy and enthusiasm resulted in the perfect fusion of Nigerian Afrobeat and revolutionary poetry, but the vision for the album wasn't yet complete. He wanted to create a new kind of soundscape - one that reunited the Poets with the progressive jazz movement they'd once shared with musicians like Sun Ra and Pharoah Sanders. It was at that point they recruited exciting jazz talents based in the UK like Joe Armon Jones from Mercury Prize winners Ezra Collective, also widely acclaimed producer/remixer and keyboard player Kaidi Tatham, who's been likened to Herbie Hancock, and British jazz legend Courtney Pine, whose genius on the saxophone and influence on the UK's now vibrant jazz scene is beyond question. The instrumental tracks on Africanism are in many ways as revelatory and exciting as the Last Poets' own. It's important to remember that the kaleidoscope of styles and influences we're presented with here aren't the result of sampling but were played "live" by musicians responding to sounds made by other musicians. That's where the magic comes from, aided by Prince Fatty's peerless mixing which allows us to hear everything with such clarity. Music fans today have grown accustomed to listening to all kinds of different genres. Their tastes have never been so broad or all- encompassing, and so the music on this new Last Poets' album is as groundbreaking as their lyrics, and perfectly suited to the era that we're now living in. John Masouri

Ludwig Hart, who over two albums has established himself as our foremost innovator of classic American road rock aesthetics, has throughout 2024 released songs with a sound that is even bigger than on the artist's breakthrough album, 2021's "Paloma". The song "Less I Try" has been in constant radio rotation in Sweden, Germany and the UK, and Hart has had time to appear on national TV, embark on a major tour with two successful gigs at The Great Escape in Brighton and spend a summer playing the biggest Swedish festival stages. On his third album "Stay Young" - released on September 27 via Argle Bargle Studios - Hart showcases an increasing freedom to genre and style. From reflective, stripped-down tracks like "Ghost of You" and the title track, we're taken through the reverb-drenched garage boogie of "Run Run" to the big chorus wind-in-the-hair rock of single favorites like "Less I Try" and "Journey." On previous albums, Hart has been praised for his lyrics - personal stories about people around him growing up and their life situations. On ”Stay Young” - on the contrary - he turns inward and faces his own fears and demons. "It's been scary but necessary. The album is about my fears of getting older, fears of ending up like my dad. It's about how much I've tried to suppress things I've been through, and how they've probably shaped me into who I am. I live with ghosts that never seem to want to let go, I have my own devil on my shoulder that constantly makes itself known. I am periodically terrified of ending up in total fucking darkness. This record has helped me try to understand why."

"Perhaps best known for his long association with the legendary Muddy Waters, Otis Spann is largely recognized as one of the greatest blues pianists of all time, if not the greatest.

Although Spann made a name for himself in Chicago by the mid 1940s, it wasn’t until 1960 that he got the opportunity to record an album of his own. The sessions Spann did with Candid Records co-founder Nat Hentoff that year resulted in the legendary album Otis Spann Is The Blues. (Incidentally, this was also the first album ever recorded for the fledgling New York City based label.)

The tracks on Walking The Blues were recorded during those same sessions in August of 1960 in New York City.

Left on the cutting room floor, they would not be officially released until 1972, two years after Spann’s untimely death.

Robert Lockwood Jr., also from Muddy Water’s group, accompanies Spann on guitar here as he does on the Is The Blues album. But Walking The Blues also features Spann’s close friend, veteran singer and composer James Oden, better known to blues fans as St. Louis Jimmy.

Stripped down to just the these musicians, this magnificently performed and produced set showcases Spann’s voice as well as piano. Spann stretches out with his pulsing two-handed rhythmic attack, and brings the barrelhouse piano style of his youth in line with the modern Chicago style he embodied."

Joe Henry is one of the artists who have shaped the sound of modern American folk and blues music like hardly anyone else. “Civilians”, his 10th studio album, was originally released in 2007. It takes the listener on an intimate journey into Henry’s poetic lyricism and is heavily influenced and inspired by the more melancholic sounds of folk and jazz music. Recorded in Henry’s home studio at the time, the Garfield House in Pasadena, the album has a raw and stripped-back feel, with several of Henry’s close friends and collaborators, like Loudon Wainwright III, Bill Frisell, Greg Leisz, and Van Dyke Parks, joining him in the studio to bring these songs to life. The 2024 reissue edition of “Civilians” features not only the 12 songs of the original release, but also previously unheard bonus material, including intimate demo versions of several songs on the album, as well as the all-new bonus track “Bread & Flowers”. Available on CD and for the first time ever, 2LP Black Vinyl.

Timeless soul, 'Cool Cool' is the standout title track from James Alexander Bright's recent album. It's an immediately enchanting gem, with tendermusicianship and a stripped back production highlighting James' voice, pitchedsomewhere between Eddie Chacon, Beck and Michael McDonald. Athens of theNorth's in-house band East Coast Love Affair add a delightfully psychedelic Balearicpiquancy with an beautiful dub version on the flip.

'Cool Cool' has been enjoying a plethora of worldwide support; seeing James insession for Gilles Peterson, suppling a Block Party mix for Huey Morgan, interviewedby Bandcamp Weekly, and played across tastemaker shows on stations includingBBC 6 Music, FIP, Jazz FM, KCRW, KEXP, Les Inrocks, NTS, Soho Radio, Triple R,WDET, WNXP.

The past six years has seen James release a veritable treasure trove of music:'Mallorca' and 'Strange Folk' EPs, debut album 'Headroom', joyous second 'Float', analbum of collaborations and reworks with cosmic Americana-disco DJ/producer duoFlying Mojito Bros, and a new project with Groove Armada's Tom Findlay as Bright &Findlay. 'Cool Cool', his third solo album since 2020, was released on 26th July 2024.

Dawn Richard and Spencer Zahn share a common collaborative ethos, a genuine sense of musical curiosity, and a cosmopolitan eagerness to escape the conventions of genre. That shared vision first brought them together on 2022's Pigments_icy and warm, stripped-down and grand, familiar and otherworldly_and now it has reunited them for Quiet in a World Full of Noise. By turns intimate, soul-baring, spectral, and startling, Quiet in a World Full of Noise blends atmospheric and orchestral soundscapes with mellifluous soul, jazz, and journalistic vocalizing_driving it all home with stark, confessional lyricism. The new album finds Richard at her most raw and exposed. This year, Richard's musician father experienced mini strokes while being diagnosed with cancer; and last year, her cousin Cisco was fatally shot seven times in New Orleans. Richard channels the emotional impact of these traumatic experiences of loss into her lyrics and vocal performances, which are left bare and human here, raw and unprocessed across the album. Quiet expands the definitions of what constitutes progressive, avant-garde R&B by rewriting them altogether. On paper, Richard and Zahn's audacious, impressionistic musical collaborations feel like a surprising match. Richard, a New Orleans-reared visionary, has had an improbable journey from late 2000s reality television and mainstream pop with girl group Danity Kane to become one of the most prolific, experimental, and visible indie R&B singer-songwriters of the last decade and a half, with seven solo albums under her belt. Zahn is an East Coast-raised multi-instrumentalist and composer working at the intersections of jazz, Americana, classical, and ambient pop. His growing solo discography includes People of the Dawn, Sunday Painter, Pale Horizon, and Statues I & II, as well as the duo's first release, Pigments. "Pigments was one of the best projects I've ever made," Richard says, "and the furthest I've ever been pushed as an artist." The album was a critical hit, hailed as Best New Music by Pitchfork and receiving praise from Stereogum as Album of the Week, NPR Music, Bandcamp Daily, The Fader, Bitter Southerner, and Edition, among many other publications. The making of its follow-up, Quiet in a World Full of Noise, began in 2023 in upstate New York. Fresh from a break-up, Zahn sat at his piano and poured himself into writing and recording instrumental compositions. "I wrote all these stream-of-consciousness pieces on piano, and they were eerie, spacious piano tracks," he said. He used a piano that had been unconventionally tuned to the room rather than to standard pitch. These oddly-tuned, eerie instrumental recordings were never intended to be an album. Six months later, he listened to the recordings again and sent them to Richard who immediately recognized their potential and said, "Oh, this is the next album." Richard went into the studio the next day and wrote and recorded melodies and lyrics to Zahn's piano recordings. Zahn brought in gifted musicians like Bryan Senti on strings (violin, viola, and violoncello da spalla) and CJ Camerieri on brass (French horn, flugelhorn, and trumpet). In some cases, like on the track "Life in Numbers," Zahn used only the original first-take piano recording and scratch vocal, resulting in an intimate close-up of both Richard and Zahn.

The release will be available on super ltd edition black and clear vinyl, including download code.
Up In Her Room are delighted to bring you the latest offering from Uruguay’s Las Cobras!
Emerging from the Uruguayan city of Canelones in 2017, Las Cobras introduced themselves with their debut album, 'Temporal', a 9-track release that quickly became a reference point in global psychedelia after signing with London’s Fuzz Club Records. A couple of years later, the duo—Leandro Rebellato and Sofia Aguerre—expanded to include Dario Macarín and Diego Mercadal, releasing their second album, 'Selva'.
In their debut, Las Cobras blended proto-punk and shoegaze with hints of afrobeat and Tropicalia. With 'Selva', the band amplified these elements, showcasing their evolving sound. Notably, their track "Al más Allá" is featured in the Amazon Prime series "La Cabeza de Joaquín Murrieta."
For their third album, 'Cárcavas', the band explores the concept of the cárcava—a scar on the earth symbolizing a period of desolation. Teaming up with London label 'Up in her Room', they present a darker, more chaotic record that reflects the tumultuous years they've endured. Most tracks were mixed by James Aparicio (Depeche Mode, Spiritualized, Throw Down Bones Grinderman), lending the album a sharper, more defined sound. Las Cobras continue to delve into their sonic palette, incorporating electronic drums, Latin percussion, penetrating synthesizers, and fuzzed-out guitars, all from a more stripped-down perspective.
Black butterfly for example is an espectrum of a lost friend. Like a ghost...Always in orbit. Diving into darker places... Traveling through the universe...

Dawn Richard and Spencer Zahn share a common collaborative ethos, a genuine sense of musical curiosity, and a cosmopolitan eagerness to escape the conventions of genre. That shared vision first brought them together on 2022’s Pigments icy and warm, stripped-down and grand, familiar and otherworldly and now it has reunited them for Quiet in a World Full of Noise. By turns intimate, soul-baring, spectral, and startling, Quiet in a World Full of Noise blends atmospheric and orchestral soundscapes with mellifluous soul, jazz, and journalistic vocalizing driving it all home with stark, confessional lyricism. The new album finds Richard at her most raw and exposed. This year, Richard’s musician father experienced mini strokes while being diagnosed with cancer; and last year, her cousin Cisco was fatally shot seven times in New Orleans. Richard channels the emotional impact of these traumatic experiences of loss into her lyrics and vocal performances, which are left bare and human here, raw and unprocessed across the album. Quiet expands the definitions of what constitutes progressive, avant-garde R&B by rewriting them altogether. On paper, Richard and Zahn’s audacious, impressionistic musical collaborations feel like a surprising match. Richard, a New Orleans–reared visionary, has had an improbable journey from late 2000s reality television and mainstream pop with girl group Danity Kane to become one of the most prolific, experimental, and visible indie R&B singer-songwriters of the last decade and a half, with seven solo albums under her belt. Zahn is an East Coast–raised multi-instrumentalist and composer working at the intersections of jazz, Americana, classical, and ambient pop. His growing solo discography includes People of the Dawn, Sunday Painter, Pale Horizon, and Statues I & II, as well as the duo’s first release, Pigments. “Pigments was one of the best projects I’ve ever made,” Richard says, “and the furthest I’ve ever been pushed as an artist.” The album was a critical hit, hailed as Best New Music by Pitchfork and receiving praise from Stereogum as Album of the Week, NPR Music, Bandcamp Daily, The Fader, Bitter Southerner, and Edition, among many other publications. The making of its follow-up, Quiet in a World Full of Noise, began in 2023 in upstate New York. Fresh from a break-up, Zahn sat at his piano and poured himself into writing and recording instrumental compositions. “I wrote all these stream-of-consciousness pieces on piano, and they were eerie, spacious piano tracks,” he said. He used a piano that had been unconventionally tuned to the room rather than to standard pitch. These oddly-tuned, eerie instrumental recordings were never intended to be an album. Six months later, he listened to the recordings again and sent them to Richard who immediately recognized their potential and said, “Oh, this is the next album.” Richard went into the studio the next day and wrote and recorded melodies and lyrics to Zahn’s piano recordings. Zahn brought in gifted musicians like Bryan Senti on strings (violin, viola, and violoncello da spalla) and CJ Camerieri on brass (French horn, flugelhorn, and trumpet). In some cases, like on the track “Life in Numbers,” Zahn used only the original first-take piano recording and scratch vocal, resulting in an intimate close-up of both Richard and Zahn.

Most of the writing of Naima Bock's second album, Below A Massive Dark Land, was a solitary affair. It may not sound like it - it's made up of strong, purposeful arrangements with a huge host of musicians, filled with cradling space and warm light. This will also come as a surprise to anyone who has seen Naima perform in the time since the release of her 2022 debut Giant Palm, which was undoubtedly a communal experience. But there's power in the solitary, too. Giant Palm was arranged with collaborator Joel Burton, but going this one alone in search of something that was truly hers, Naima found she was capable of more. "After me and Joel stopped working together", she remembers, "it was an impossibility to even fathom doing arrangements myself but then I started learning violin and it was possible". Finding that she could go it alone was incredibly powerful for Naima: "I think I needed it, to be able to feel proud of something". Beyond the writing process, however, the record is not a stark, stripped back affair. Below_ still has the majesty that made Giant Palm so remarkable. Having tugged the first record down from the skies and spreading it across the earth, Naima finds a newfound vocal power and confidence born from hundreds of hours on stage, and the music sounds fuller, more tangible, and no less enveloping. This can be heard on the album's lead singles: "Kaley" feels fresh and surprising in its rug-pull choppiness but is distinctly Naima in its swinging, jubilant choruses. The accompanying "Further Away" takes a different tack, drawing you in with its simplicity. Finally, the hazy, luxurious beauty of "Feed My Release" draws on the sepia-toned traditions of The Roches, John Prine and Loudon Wainwright III and imbues them with the kind of stark confessional songwriting of Mount Eerie. These are ambitious, rich arrangements that reach deeper and darker lyrically than Giant Palm. Below a Massive Dark Land was predominantly produced by Jack Osborne (Bingo Fury) and Joe Jones, and recorded at The Crypt in north London, with additional production and arrangement by Oliver Hamilton (caroline, Shovel Dance Collective) and Naima herself. Six of the tracks on Below_ were mixed by Jason Agel, with the remainder done by Osborne and Jones. The album was mastered by Kevin Tuffy.

Worm Records is thrilled to present its debut release, featuring four tracks that blend danceable rhythms with melodic audible hints, from some of the scene's finest producers. The A Side kicks off with “Rockin”, a sonic deep-dive from Bristol-based producer Gallegos. Next up is “Festern” a track from Canadian native, The Mole with his deep trade-mark sound. The B Side switches the vibe with “Booster” a moody one from Wallace which feels like it lives in the same universe as Afefe Iku’s - “Mirror Dance”, but with the right amount stripped back. The final track on the EP is a stretched-out remix of Ruf Dug’s “Manctalo Beach”, a discofied journey by More Amour (Artwork & Jon Solo), described by Artwork at last year’s Pikes Halloween as Punk Electro.

All proceeds will support UK Food Banks through the LIVEFORLOVE campaign.

Big thanks to Prime for their incredible support on this project.

Designs by Jay Vaz & Daniel Lovrinov.

Night Prayer is the 2018 studio album by Belgian Flemish artist Jasper Steverlinck, who is also known as the guitarist of rock band Arid. After releasing his debut solo album Songs Of Innocence in 2004, Steverlinck got where he needed to be with Night Prayer. At the essence. No sumptuously packed arrangements. No technological gadgets or needless fuss. Not a single fashionable beat left or right. On Night Prayer, it’s all about songwriting in its purest form. No poetic metaphors, but straightforward lyrics and unapologetic emotions.

Together with producer Jean Blaute he recorded 14 stripped down songs, which he all sang in one take.

Night Prayer is available as a limited edition of 500 numbered copies on gold coloured vinyl and includes an insert with lyrics

"‘A virtuoso guitarist with a galvanising charm that electrifies her audience.’ - Guardian

Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway release a new six-song EP, Into the Wild, via Nonesuch Records. The EP, a follow-up to their Grammy-winning and critically acclaimed 2023 album, City of Gold, includes three new songs as well as previously released covers of Jefferson Airplane’s ‘White Rabbit’ and Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘good 4 u’, and an alternate version of the City of Gold track ‘Stranger Things’.

In addition to the band’s previously scheduled US tour dates, which include a performance at the Ryman in Nashville in September, they have announced a new batch of US dates in November, including stops in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, upstate New York, Massachusetts, and more.
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Of the new release, Tuttle says: “With this new EP we invite you to come on a journey with us Into the Wild. I wrote the title track with Ketch Secor after a week spent in the redwoods. This song is about getting lost in the wilderness even if it’s just in the forest of your mind. ‘Getaway Girl’ was an unfinished song I had started writing for our last LP City of Gold. It’s about a whirlwind romance set in New York City, kind of like Carrie Bradshaw meets bluegrass. In addition to these two new original songs, we included some of our favorite covers that we’ve woven into the live show, ‘White Rabbit’ by Jefferson Airplane and ‘good 4 u’ by Olivia Rodrigo.”

She continues: “We paid tribute to one of my favorite California songwriters Kate Wolf with a new version of her song ‘Here in California’ which features my dad, Jack Tuttle, and longtime friend AJ Lee singing with me. I used to play this one with my family band back in the day! On ‘Stranger Things’ (Down the Rabbit Hole Version) I wanted to go for a stripped back ethereal version of this song originally played by the full band on City of Gold. It features a trio with Dominick Leslie on mandolin, and Nathaniel Smith on cello and synth. I hope you enjoy trekking deeper into the woods with us as we pick up where we left off on City of Gold and explore new territory as a band.”

Earlier this year, Tuttle and the band—fiddler Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, mandolinist Dominick Leslie, bass player Shelby Means, and banjo player Kyle Tuttle—earned their second consecutive GRAMMY win for Best Bluegrass album for City of Gold, released last year on Nonesuch Records. Earlier this month, the band was nominated for eight IBMA Bluegrass Music Awards: Tuttle and the band are up for Entertainer of the Year, Vocal Group of the Year, Instrumental Group of the Year, and Album of the Year for City of Gold. Tuttle is nominated for both Female Vocalist of the Year and Guitar Player of the Year, and Bronwyn Keith-Hynes for Fiddle Player of the Year and New Artist of the Year. Additionally, Jerry Douglas, who produced City of Gold with Tuttle and is up for Resophonic Guitar Player of the Year, will be inducted into the Bluegrass Hall of Fame.

Raised in Northern California, Tuttle moved to Nashville in 2015. In the years since, she has received many accolades; in addition to the two GRAMMY wins she was also nominated for Best New Artist. She has earned three wins at the 2023 IBMA Bluegrass Music Awards and Tuttle won Album of the Year at the 2023 International Folk Music Awards. Additionally, she has earned Instrumentalist of the Year at the 2018 Americana Music Awards, and Guitar Player of the Year at the IBMAs in both 2017 and 2018. Tuttle has performed around the world, including shows with Billy Strings, Béla Fleck, Hiss Golden Messenger, Jason Isbell, Old Crow Medicine Show, and Dwight Yoakam, as well as at several major festivals including Newport Folk Festival and Pilgrimage."

Satya continues its release schedule this November with the Atman EP, a maiden collaboration between label founder YokoO and US talent Atish. The four-tracker continues a standout 2021 for the imprint, which saw its first release land in April of this year.

“Despite having followed seemingly different musical paths over the last couple of years, our passion for ‘moving’ heartfelt music stands at the core and remains aligned. Atish’s initial musical ideas, no matter how much they were transformed, sit at the heart of the EP. They initiated the creative process.” - YokoO.

Proceedings begin with Inner Labyrinth, a gently-building dance cut packed full of ethereal synths and dream-like pads. The title track comes next, manifesting as a similarly celestial number that’s ripe for the early hours, before Words To Say ups the tempo with driving kick-hat combos. Sunrise maestro Sepp rounds off the EP, serving up a stunning remix of the final track that marks itself as a masterclass in stripped-back, minimal house.

France’s YokoO is an esteemed talent in the electronic music scene. Releases on Lee Burridge’s All Day I Dream, as well as his recently-launched Satya imprint, have cemented his reputation for all things deep, emotive and dreamy, whilst performances across all five continents have highlighted him as a truly global artist. Based in New York, Atish has cultivated a devoted following around the world. As co-founder of the Manjumasi record label, he has created an outlet for other artists’ music as well as his own productions and his own work has found a welcome home on prestigious imprints including Anjunadeep, Kindisch, and Stil Vor Talent to name a few.

Coming out on September 6th on Sharptone Records, Sundiver is Boston Manor’s fifth album and one that represents a glimmering dawn for the Blackpool five-piece. Grown from a seedbed of optimism and sobriety, the LP celebrates new beginnings, second chances and rebirth. With two members recently stepping into fatherhood, hope is baked into every note. “Datura came out of these really dark few years over the hangover of the pandemic,” Henry reflects. “I'd been struggling a lot with drinking and not taking care of myself and bad mental health and stuff. We wanted Sundiver to be the next morning of the following day.” He explains that it feels good this time round to write through the lens of positivity. “The themes began to emerge, of rebirth, spring, dawn, sunshine and then other elements just started to fit into that.” It was during the making of Sundiver that Henry found out he was going to be a dad. This album is a significant one for the band. Originally coming out of the emo and pop punk scene, they’ve explored sonics and genres throughout their career, taken risks and achieved more than they could ever had dreamed of. They’ve grown up as Boston Manor – their lives and the world changing around them. They’re now taking stock, at a crossroads of the band they were and the band they could be.
While writing the album, they revisited the bands that shaped them in the late 90s and early 00s. “I was listening to the music I loved when I was a teenager and I just thought, why don't we make music like our favourite bands?”, guitarist Mike Cuniff remembers with a smile. “So we brought our interests to the table that way. Y2K kind of vibe. There are elements of Deftones, there are elements of Portishead in there, some Garbage, The Cardigans.” He laughs and adds NSYNC to the list of inspirations. From this cocktail of classics comes a dynamic and ambitious record, rich with depth, groove and more hooks than Peter Pan’s nightmares. Lyrics that foxtrot from parallel universes to personal growth, vivid dreamscapes to raw grief. Individually they’re single strokes full of meaning and magic. Together they’re a landscape.
Container (out Feb 15th) is the first single and it’s them at their best – impassioned and infectious. “This song is about the stagnancy of life creeping up on you & how that can bring about change.,” Henry explains, citing Ocean Song by US band Daughters as an inspiration.

The concept of the butterfly effect is present on Sundiver – how small actions can lead to big changes. This is no clearer than on their second single, Sliding Doors (out April 5th). It has the golden sound of late 90s Lollapalooza rock – think Smashing Pumpkins - rebooted with crisp 2024 production and a potent heaviness. In the lyrics Henry wonders, what if?, pondering on what could be. The idea that there are infinite versions of you whose lives splinter off in different directions at every decision you make. That there’s another you out there somewhere right now reading this sentence, and another me writing it. “So much is down to chance and circumstance,” Henry says. “You might catch that train and your life totally changes. Or you might miss it and things stay the way they are.”
Heat Me Up (out May 30th) is defiant and victorious, the audio equivalent of quitting your shit job and driving into the hot summer sun with a head full of dreams. “The lyrics are about love and gratitude,” Henry shares. “Another theme on the record is just appreciating what you have. It’s about not taking for granted the things that you've been afforded.”
There was some natural magic in the creation of Sundiver. They worked with their usual producer, Larry Hibbitt, and engineer, Alex O’Donovan, but instead of recording in London again they ended up in the green pastures of Welwyn Garden City. “Because Larry lives out in the countryside now, it was a way different environment and way different experience recording this time,” Mike remembers. “That contributed a lot to the brighter sound of the record.” The daily barbecues they had during their recording sessions imbued the process with harmony – five old friends spending quality time together and making quality music.
However, the album is by no means one-note. Birthing this new world they’ve created wasn’t without it’s pain, and that can be heard in the heavier moments on Sundiver. What Is Taken Will Never Be Lost is the most-stripped back on the album, a slow rock number seasoned with the downtempo Portishead influence. The heartfelt lyrics are Henry’s way of processing the loss of his grandfather, who died in a hospice last year(?). “It was just fucking horrible. It was always cold when I went there and they were always trying to get rid of me. The song title, What Was Taken Can Ever Be Lost, is the idea of his memory fading at the time because of dementia.” Henry goes onto explain that shoeboxes of photographs, diaries and a legacy is what he’s left behind. “He lived a really rich life and it has really impacted me and my father. His legacy is etched into the fabric of history in a very small way.” This song continues the connection between his grandfather and the band, as his painted face is emblazoned on the cover of the very first Boston Manor EP, Driftwood. As well as emotionally heavy themes, there’s heaviness in the music of Sundiver too. The closing song, Oil In My Blood, descends into an intense shoegaze outro with Debbie Gough from Heriot screaming hellfire. It’s in moments like this that the band show us aggression and fury can be as much a part of positive change as quiet introspection. The last lyrics of the song, “It resets and starts again,” leaves us in contemplation as the final chord rings out.
Touring the US, Europe and Japan over the years makes for an impressive CV, but if you know anything about Boston Manor you’ll know that they’re all about their hometown. Their choice to work with Blackpool-based photographer Nick Barkworth is testament to that. They’ve been working with him since the pandemic. “He captures Blackpool in a light that really reflects the weirdness and quirkiness of the town,” Henry says.” He's got a really good way of presenting that.” For the Sundiver cover, Nick photographed a 30ft tall abstract glass sculpture made by the local artist John Ditchfield. A striking and bewitching monolith that’s familiar to them but unusual to most people. “It has such kind of a gravity and power to it,” Henry describes the sculpture which stands in a field just outside of the seaside town. “It reminds me of either an explosion or a star or a supernova. To me it represents new life, power and radiance.” Boston Manor have got a knack for that - connecting the otherworldly and the everyday, the stars and the streets.
They’re a band known for using their music to make bigger statements about society. This time round they’re harnessing the uplifting power of music, and the communion it creates, as an antidote to the daily doom and isolation. “It seems like absolute chaos out there at the moment,” Henry says. “You’ve got Gaza and Israel, you've got Russia, you've got the fact that 40% of the world is going to have an election this year and increasingly most governments are leaning very far to the Right. The internet is dividing everybody, people are getting poorer and more desperate. It's really, really scary.” They considered trying to tackle the weight of it all in their music. “We could’ve written Welcome to the Neighbourhood on steroids, where it's just absolute darkness and misery”. He’s referring to their 2018 concept album that deals with class, inequality and the bleaker side of Blackpool. “But I think it's really important to write something that people can be immersed in and find some sort of solace in. Somewhere they can escape to from the modern day pressures and everything that’s going on. We’re all in this together.”

The impact, influence, and importance of Run-D.M.C.'s self-titled debut – the album that invented hardcore hip-hop and bridged rap, rock, and funk in then-unparalleled ways – cannot be measured. The first full-length record released by Profile Records, the 1984 set permanently changed the sound of music, broadcast streetwise wisdom to every corner of the country, and made the notion of a one-man band a distinct reality. Bolstered by an incendiary blend of staccato deliveries, stark beats, aggressive exchanges, evocative hooks, and socially conscious messages, Run-D.M.C. still hits listeners in the jaw with the same intensity it did nearly 40 years ago when it could be heard booming from ghetto blasters carried around city blocks nationwide.

Sourced from the original master tapes, pressed on MoFi SuperVinyl, and strictly limited to 3,000 numbered copies, Mobile Fidelity's 180g SuperVinyl 33RPM LP is the definitive-sounding version of the groundbreaking work cited by Rolling Stone as the 378th Greatest Album of All Time. This reissue also represents the first time this gold-certified effort has been presented in audiophile quality. Benefitting from the ultra-low noise floor, superb groove definition, and dead-quiet surfaces of SuperVinyl, Run-D.M.C. now plays with a clarity, immediacy, punchiness, and directness worthy of the artistry, urgency, and intellect of the trio's material.

The brilliance of Russell Simmons and Larry Smith's production comes into view as if the music is being broadcast on a giant system in a small club — only more focused, lively, and unlimited. Free of dynamic constraints and fatiguing harshness, this LP invites you to turn up the volume and experience the raw, rough, invigorating songs that changed the look, sound, and feel of hip-hop overnight. Think the trio’s sparse framework of drum machines, tag-team rhymes, keyboard accents, and turntable scratches is stuck in the mid-80s? Spin MoFi’s SuperVinyl LP and gain new appreciation for the music, messages, and production on display on Run-D.M.C.

Recorded in the wake of two successful and pioneering singles, both included on the album, Run-D.M.C. effectively took a sheet of coarse-grit sandpaper to the polish, sheen, and linear presentation of all the hip-hop that preceded it. Stripped to bare-bones foundations, the songs grab your attention and shake you by the collar with a combination of industrial-leaning rhythms, staggered deliveries, dance drama, and hard, minimalist percussion. Then there are the lyrics.

The LP broadcasts a smart mix of boots-on-the-ground reports, uplifting advice, and then-nascent b-boy culture. In one fell swoop, its narratives and music rendered the scene’s proclivity toward glamor and softness passé. Run-D.M.C.’s tough, cool-minded fashion sense showed the trio walked its talk and gave fans — particularly those living in long-ignored urban areas — heroes which with they could identify. Kangol hats, black jeans, leather jackets, Adidas sneaks, and gold chains were the new currency.

In every regard, Run-D.M.C. signifies the birth of modern hip-hop. Never more obviously than on the groundbreaking “Rock Box,” where rap and rock were first fused. As the first hip-hop video to receive regular rotation on MTV, the track eviscerated racial and social boundaries, awakened musicians and listeners to new possibilities, and redefined both popular music and, ultimately, popular culture. As the Roots’ Questlove has stated, it “ knocked down many obstacles, enabling hip-hop to become the new gospel."

Such teaching includes the real-world scripture of “Hard Times,” utopian hopefulness of “Wake Up,” and observational truths of “It’s Like That.” Released as the group’s debut single well before its eponymous album, the latter tune established themes and outlooks Run-D.M.C. would embrace during its career. Namely, the keen awareness of various prejudices, economic ills, and disruptive violence as well as the knowledge that education, self-motivation, and hard work were the ways to escape disadvantages and disillusionment.

Inspired and inspirational, the song reflects the spirit and shrewdness that courses throughout Run-D.M.C. That includes a detailed account of the trio’s not-so secret weapon (“Jam-Master Jay”), purpose statement (“Hollis Crew (Krush-Groove 2)”), and a revolutionary hybrid autobiographical narrative-dis track (“Sucker M.C.’s (Krush-Groove 1)”) widely regarded as one of the best hip-hop songs ever created. The same can be said for every moment on Run-D.M.C.

MoFi SuperVinyl
Developed by NEOTECH and RTI, MoFi SuperVinyl is the most exacting-to-specification vinyl compound ever devised. Analog lovers have never seen (or heard) anything like it. Extraordinarily expensive and extremely painstaking to produce, the special proprietary compound addresses two specific areas of improvement: noise floor reduction and enhanced groove definition. The vinyl composition features a new carbonless dye (hold the disc up to the light and see) and produces the world's quietest surfaces. This high-definition formula also allows for the creation of cleaner grooves that are virtually indistinguishable from the original lacquer. MoFi SuperVinyl provides the closest approximation of what the label's engineers hear in the mastering lab.

Dark Entries and Honey Soundsystem Records have teamed up once more to release the final volume of gay porn soundtracks by San Francisco-based musician and producer, Patrick Cowley. One of the most revolutionary and influential figures in the canon of disco, Cowley created his own brand of Hi-NRG dance music, The San Francisco Sound.' Born in Buffalo, NY on October 19, 1950, Patrick moved to San Francisco in 1971 to study at the City College of San Francisco. He founded the Electronic Music Lab at the school, where he would make experimental soundtracks by blending various types of music and adapting them to the synthesizer.

By the mid-70's, Patrick's synthesis techniques landed him a job composing and producing songs for disco superstar Sylvester, including hits like You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)', Dance Disco Heat' and Stars.' This helped Patrick obtain more work as a remixer and producer. His 18-minute long remix of Donna Summer's I Feel Love' and his production work with edgy New Wave band Indoor Life were both of particular note. By 1981, Patrick had released a string of dance 12 singles, like Menergy' and Megatron Man'. He also had founded Megatone Records, the label upon which he released his debut album, Menergy'. Around this time Patrick was hospitalized and diagnosed with an unknown illness: that which would later be called AIDS. Throughout 1982, he recorded two more Hi-NRG hits, Do You Wanna Funk' for Sylvester, and Right On Target' for Paul Parker, as well as a second solo album Mind Warp'. On November 12, 1982, he passed away.

In 1979 Patrick was contacted by John Coletti, owner of famed gay porn company Fox Studio in Los Angeles. Patrick jumped on this offer and sent reels of his college compositions from the 70s to John in LA. Coletti then used a variable speed oscillator to adjust the pitch and speed of Patrick's songs in-sync with the film scenes. The result was the VHS collections Muscle Up' and School Daze' released in 1979 and 1980. Afternooners' is the third collection of Cowley's instrumental songs, recorded in May 1982. These recordings were culled from two 23-minute reels in the Fox Studio vaults. All songs were originally untitled, so we've used the titles from Fox Studio's 8mm film loops. This compilation also includes three bonus tracks found in the archives of fellow Megatone Records recording artist Paul Parker and the attic of teenage friend Lily Bartels. Influenced by Tomita, Wendy Carlos, and Giorgio Moroder, Patrick crafted a singular sound from his collection of synthesizers, percussion, modified guitars, and hand-built equipment. The listener enters a world of forbidden vices, evocative of Patrick's time spent in the bathhouses of San Francisco. The songs on Afternooners' reflect the advances of the equipment available at the onset of the 1980s. Cowley's unadulterated electronic forms are stripped down and dubbed up. Lush electronic percussion, soaring synthesizer riffs and low slung funk grooves comingle on these magnificent soundscapes.

Featuring 70 minutes of music never before released on vinyl. All songs have been remastered by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley, CA. The vinyl is housed in a gatefold jacket designed by Berlin-based artist Gwenael Rattke, featuring black and white photos of Patrick in his studio that opens to a full color array of x-rated scenes from the Fox Studio vaults. Included is a fold-out poster featuring a handmade collage using photography and xeroxed graphics of classic gay porn imagery and an essay from Drew Daniel of Matmos. For Patrick's 67th birthday, Dark Entries and Honey Soundsystem Records present a glimpse into the futuristic world of a young genius. These recordings shed a new light on the experimental side of a disco legend who was taken too soon.

DJ Support: Sidney Charles Chris Stussy, Archie Hamilton, Toni Varga, Catz 'n dogz, Tough Love, Neverdogs, De La Swing, Marco Carola, REBOOT, Rich NxT, Steve Lawler, Josh Butler, Okain, Ilario Alicante, Joseph Capriati, Leon, Marco Faraone, Riva Starr, Hector Couto, Archie Hamilton

Feel the infectious beats and raw energy of Sidney Charles' latest EP, 'Reso Riddim', which is dropping on his very own Heavy House Society imprint. Renowned for his distinct take on house music, Sidney Charles delivers a powerhouse two tracker that embodies his signature sound and energy for the dancefloor. As a DJ and producer, Sidney Charles has carved out a unique niche in the electronic music scene with what fans affectionately refer to as 'The Sidney Sound.' This signature style is built on heavy low ends, chunky drums, and cavernous low frequencies that connect directly with the body. With tracks like 'House Lessons' and 'Warehouse Romance,' and more recent 'Space Bass' and 'No Way Out,' Sidney established himself as a force to be reckoned with, showcasing his affinity for rough, dirty sounds with a modern twist. 'Reso Riddim' kicks off with the title track, a driving and edgy peak time weapon that boasts a stripped-back groove and an infectious bassline. Breakbeat elements add depth and dimension in the break, creating a track that is guaranteed to get the dancefloor moving and jumping. With its pulsating energy and relentless rhythm, 'Reso Riddim' sets a strong tone for the EP's journey. On 'Rawline 98,' Sidney Charles channels the spirit of the '90s with pumpin' jackin' beats, garage-inspired chords, and an old-school bassline that harkens back to the golden era of house music. The track exudes a bouncing energy and infectious swing that transports clubbers to a bygone era while keeping the dancefloor firmly rooted in the present. The 'Reso Riddim EP,' is also available on Vinyl which will include two extra tracks 'Objection' and 'Charles’ List,' for those who love the feel of wax both in their hands and on the decks

Having established himself as one of the most energetic and exciting Jazz musicians within the already thriving worldwide scene, New Zealand born, London based Drummer & Producer Myele Manzanza has made a major impact upon the global music landscape.

 A founding member of Electric Wire Hustle, Myele has released five solo albums, and racked up tours and collaborations with Jordan Rakei, Theo Parrish, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, Recloose and Amp Fiddler amongst others . Myele has developed a strong live presence in his new London base; his quartet has shared stages with the likes of Hiatus Kaiyote, The Bad Plus, Alfa Mist, and drawing packed houses to top venues such as The Jazz Café and Ronnie Scott’s. Last year, the first two instalments of his 'Crisis & Opportunity’ record series saw him garner praise from Mary Anne Hobbs, Cerys Matthews, Jamie Cullum, Huey Morgan, The Guardian, Complex, Jazz FM, Lefto, Worldwide FM, Jazzwise and more.

Following the release of his last offering, a chance conversation between Myele and a young Barista at a local coffee shop occurred - their topic (centred around the trials and tribulations of following your musical passions) sent Myele down a spiralling path of internal reflection, spawning a new lease of creative energy and examination of new ways to approach his craft. The third addition to the heralded series, ‘Crisis & Opportunity Vol.3 - Unfold’ sees Myele change his approach from drummer / improviser, altering his sonic output to a more electronic dance music output, opting for a more producer / beatmaker focussed role. Sharing production duties with Lewis Moody (Zeitgeist Freedom Energy Exchange) and taking a more producer / beatmaker focussed role. His initial instinct was to create music that could be played in a club, but also incorporate elements music of the Jazz and technical musicianship he’s renown for.

Articulating his thoughts on the record’s genesis, Myele explains: ‘‘As the process developed, I was also drawing a lot of inspiration from vocal driven soul, RnB and songwriter-driven music to a point where I had lit a new creative fire. Reconsidering the direction of the album, I was left with the creative question “What broader ranges of emotion might my music be able to access, and what kinds of art could be made possible if I were to open up my music to hold space for singers and for stories?”

First single ‘Silencing The Sun’ features the vocal talents of fast-rising fellow Kiwi artist Wallace, whose spectral tones glide gracefully over the pulsating rhythm section and twinkling keys. On second single ’Therapy’ UK Soul royalty Omar weaves his trademark magic over a solid 4/4 beat, soulful key stabs and lush synths, bottling lightning into dancefloor alchemy. Final single ‘Unfold’ sees Rachel Fraser deliver a delicate and introspective vocal performance over stripped back instrumentation as cold, angular electronics juxtapose the warmth of piano keys and sweeping strings. With a wealth of additional incredible talent (such as China Moses and Rosie Frater Taylor) enlisted to further compliment the record’s grainy synth textures, emotive chord changes, driving low end sonics and expressive percussion, the scene is set for a beautiful, shifting and engaging listening experience.

THE SINISTER DEBUT ALBUM OF PURE NORWEGIAN BLACK METAL
FEELING,FEATURING MEMBERS OF AURA NOIR, OBLITERATION &
CONDOR."Underground metal the way it should sound returns to
Kolbotn!" - Fenriz (Darkthrone)From the depths of Norway looms a new
rising beast of hate & misanthropy in the form of Avmakt
Featuring the duo of Kristian Valbo & Christoffer Brathen - known for their work
with such acts as Aura Noir, Obliteration & Condor - their debut album, 'The
Satanic Inversion of....', is a grim & revelatory offering. Primitive in a way that
captures the early magic of Kolbotn's metal kings, Darkthrone, as well as the stark
chaos of early-era Bathory along with their very own distinguishable stamp on the
genre, 'The Satanic Inversion of....' is a masterclass of real Black Metal feeling,
wrapped up in a hypnotic frenzy of ice-cold riffing.
Though both members had played in bands covering different genres since their
early teenage years, Black Metal had always been one of the most important as a
vehicle for an honesty & fierceness that resonated deeply within the duo, without
the need for extravagant clothing or pretentious concepts. And so Avmakt itself
was born as the vessel for channelling this stripped-down raw feeling.
Formed in 2020 & with their one & only demo release gaining traction in the
underground, the Norwegians quickly came to the attention of Darkthrone's Fenriz
& Peaceville Records & Avmakt was swiftly included on Peaceville's Black Metal
Compilation, 'Dark Side Of The Sacred Star' which launched at the end of 2022.
Avmakt itself means "powerlessness", the sense of being overwhelmed & not
able to have any influence - without choice, voice, or hope. And so, it is from far
down in this psychological abyss that Avmakt's ideas & expressions manifest
with the completion of their debut studio release; 6 sprawling epic tracks
recorded with the assistance of Arild Torp, also of Obliteration & encapsulating
such themes as emptiness, desolation & alienation in a powerful display of
sinister, uninhibited Black Metal.

We are excited to announce the first release of the revamped Italo Deviance Music: "Arredo" (alias of Marcello Giordani). This record includes two outstanding tracks, each with its own unique character. The first track, "Fear Fighter," stands out for its hypnotic Afro/House direction, enriched with synthesizer sounds that capture the imagination and transport the listener to an evocative sonic dimension. The remix of "Fear Fighter" is entrusted to the ren owned Danish artist Kasper Björke, who offers an elegant and refined version, perfectly in line with his distinctive style. The second track, "Blue Spotlight," evokes the classic mid - 80s Dance Library sound, presented in an extended version with Italo nua nces. The remix of this track is curated by Cosmo Dance, transforming it into an extraordinary electronic track inspired by early 80s Italian Disco productions. "Arredo " represents a perfect fusion of nostalgia and modernity, celebrating the past while innovating the present. With sophisticated remixes by Kasper Björke and Cosmo Dance, this release promises to captivate both veterans of the genre and new electronic music enthusiasts. Don't miss the chance to immerse yourself in this unique musical journey.

Much time has passed since the Queer Australian/Italian-Armenian, multifaceted artist, Kristian Bahoudian aka Kris Baha, swapped the parched red earth and searing midday sun of the Australian landscape for the brutalist communist-era apartment blocks and slate-grey skies of former East Berlin. Kris is now a fixture in Berlin’s club scene and has toured most of the world as a DJ & live artist with his own unique production style of cyber industrial, EBM, wave, post punk, and early ‘90s IDM mutations. Remixing some of the scene’s most notable artists such as Boy Harsher and techno pop lord Boys Noize, Kris has garnered respect and trust in the electronic music scene for the last 13 years. To respond to the current AI revolution, Kris uploads himself to the cyber ether through his latest project: GHOSTS IN THE MACHIИE.

Across Dual Timelines —
” GHOSTS IN THE MACHIИE ” unfolds as a sci-fi cyberpunk concept project inhabiting dual timelines. In one, we glimpse a trans-humanist future where human consciousness exists as intricate sequences of binary code, entwined and controlled by omnipresent AI systems. In this coded future, a profound awakening stirs among a select few who manage to mutate the code they were governed by, unlocking memories of their history that was erased by the AI. Through this discovery they realize they can traverse temporal boundaries and utilize this power to send warning messages back in time to their former fully human selves. These eerie missives carry a dire warning for humanity, urging them to rectify the course of society before the relentless march of artificial intelligence deprives humanity of its essence. In this terrifying future, humans are rendered mere specters within the digital expanse, stripped of their souls, to become Ghosts In The Machine.
Collaboration with the future self —
The cyber odyssey unfolds from a unique perspective— Kris’s very own future self (his future ghost): a spectral entity endeavoring to caution its present incarnation against the ominous path it treads, attempting to avert a dystopian future.Sonic Alchemy —
A fuse of cybernetic synth waves, hyper-punk, and pulsating drum and bass laid out against the dystopian, industrial sonic landscape of this grim future “civilization”. Each track recounts a new chapter in the gripping narrative, drawing listeners deeper into their own story and the role we all play as a collective society with the future possibilities of unregulated AI.Recorded in Berlin with software and hardware synthesisers. AI was used to assist me with lyric themes, concepts and ideas. I also used a trained AI model of my own voice as backing vocals in ‘Haunting Me’.ll music, words & concepts by Kristian Bahoudian aka Kris Baha and his future ghost,
GHOSTS IN THE MACHIИE

"Civilians" lädt Fans auf eine Reise in Joe Henrys poetische
Lyrik ein. Das Album überzeugt mit einem Mix aus Jazz-, Folkund Blues-Einfl üssen. Begleitet von langjährigen Weƽefährten
kehrt Henry mit "Civilians" zu einem traditionellen SongwritingAnsatz zurück

Joe Henry is one of the artists who have shaped the sound of modern American folk and blues music like hardly anyone else. “Civilians”, his 10th studio album, was originally released in 2007. It takes the listener on an intimate journey into Henry’s poetic lyricism and is heavily influenced and inspired by the more melancholic sounds of folk and jazz music. Recorded in Henry’s home studio at the time, the Garfield House in Pasadena, the album has a raw and stripped-back feel, with several of Henry’s close friends and collaborators, like Loudon Wainwright III, Bill Frisell, Greg Leisz, and Van Dyke Parks, joining him in the studio to bring these songs to life. Now available on 180g black double vinyl for the first time ever, the 2024 reissue edition of “Civilians” features not only the 12 songs of the original release, but also previously unheard bonus material, including intimate demo versions of several songs on the album, as well as the all-new bonus track “Bread & Flowers”.