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A collection of structured piano improvisations and their surrounding sonic environments, an album in four parts: Songs From a Distant Summer | From November For Snow | Together Recorded between 2011-2013, the album was never intended to be a direct response to the seasons. The coincidence of the recordings having been made at points within the seasons was only pointed out at a later date by a friend. Alongside wishing to avoid any parallels or associations being drawn with Vivaldi’s masterpiece, the title - “The Seasons Are Not Four” - a line from a poem by Syrian poet Adonis , appeared to fit perfectly - recognising our relationship to time but also alluding to the impossibility of truly categorising it. Due to label arrangements and complications the majority of these recordings have remained unreleased for a decade. One notable exception being the piece “I Promise”, that went on to amass in excess of 24 million streams - an unfathomable prospect for a piano-less pianist recording a reunion between himself and a piano at a point of not having played one for several months. The Seasons Are Not Four serves as a sonic record of real-time responses to the character of a piano, to transient states of being and to disparate, fleeting moments in time - some will hear Summer in Winter, others- Autumn in Spring; distant conversation beyond the sounds of a hesitant human shuffling fingers against wooden keys, the ticking of a grandfather clock or the song of birds outside masking passing traffic. - ‘The Seasons Are Not Four, a week is not seven days, a year is more than it is, and less’ Adonis

Paul Hillery, Plattensammler, Archivar und DJ, präsentiert mit 'Folk Funk & Trippy Troubadours Volume Two' 17 brillant psychedelische und funky Juwelen, die er auf seiner unermüdlichen Suche nach musikalischen, Generationen und Genres umfassenden Schätzen entdeckt. Liebevoll handverlesene, verlorene Nuggets auf privat gepressten Obskuritäten, vergessenen Studiotapes oder tief in digitalen Ordnern versteckt, warten darauf, wieder gehört zu werden.

Im Jahr 2022 veröffentlichten Bear's Den ihr hochgelobtes viertes Studioalbum "Blue Hours", das in den UK Album Charts auf Platz 6 landete, sowie den Original-Soundtrack für die Apple TV+ Serie Trying, bei dem sie mit Stars wie Maisie Peters und Jade Bird zusammenarbeiteten. 2023 kehrt das Folk-Pop-Duo Bear's Den zurück, um zwei neue EPs zu veröffentlichen: First Loves und White Magnolias.
Bear's Den wurden 2012 in London gegründet und haben sich mit ihren hymnischen Songs eine treue und internationale Fangemeinde erspielt. Mit vier Studioalben sowie einem gemeinsamen Projekt mit dem Komponisten Paul Frith sind sie seit ihrer Gründung regelmäßig in den Charts in Großbritannien und Europa vertreten. Ihr Debütalbum Islands" wurde für den Ivor Novello Award für den besten musikalischen und lyrischen Song nominiert.
Nach Tourneen durch die ganze Welt, bei denen sie in Theatern, Arenen und auf Festivals spielten, kehrten sie 2019 nach der Veröffentlichung ihres dritten Albums "So That You Might Hear Me" zu ihren Ursprüngen zurück, um eine Tournee durch winzige "Highlands and Islands"-Locations in ganz Schottland zu machen und eine begleitende Dokumentation zu drehen. Die Band ist keine Unbekannte im Bereich der Musikdokumentation und spielte neben Ben Howard, Nathaniel Rateliff und The Staves eine wichtige Rolle in dem preisgekrönten Dokumentarfilm Austin To Boston.

Malian and French pair Siraba unveil their much-anticipated self-titled debut LP on Damian Lazarus’ Secret Teachings label, a 10-track odyssey fusing Mali’s rich musical traditions with cutting-edge electronic music.

Malian hunter Boubacar Samake and Damien Vandesande, one half of the French electronic band dOP, have won plenty of plaudits for the early singles taken from their debut album as duo Siraba. Those singles, spanning across the summer months, have found the pair bring the traditional sound of the Wassoulou - a river valley of West Africa - to the electronic world after 20 years of friendship. The music comes with an important underlying message of love and respect and results in spellbinding tracks that move heart, body and soul, finding a perfect home on Secret Teachings - a left-of-centre alternative label to Lazarus’ celebrated and often more club- focused Crosstown Rebels. With the arrival of the full album, the pair exhibit and showcase the emotional breadth and depth of their music, with detailed explorations of organic textures and native sounds merged with future-focused ideas and concepts.

The title track opens with an atmospheric mix of spoken words and spine-tingling chords that bring rich Afro flavours, while ‘Dounoiia’ is a languid groove made from hand drums and pixelated synth leads that cast a fine spell. The slow-blooming ‘Bani’ brings rich Malian blues and melancholic horns, while ‘Komafly’ is a rich mix of acoustic strings and broken beats that transports you to a hot and dusty landscape. A vital component of the sounds of the Wassoulou, the indigenous stringed instrument the Ngoni features again on the rousing ‘Nanse’ as spiritual vocals sung in Bambara rouse the soul.

‘Djandjo’ is another rich infusion of Malian culture with simmering electronics to make for something both ancient sounding yet futuristic, and the hypnotic ‘Ngana Fôlly’ with its rich bass is a song ‘dedicated to those who fight for the well-being of their families, for unity... a song for the people who also fight a great disease, between life and death’. The sublime ‘Toro’ is a wavy groove perfect for sundown - a deep and inviting sound rich in soulful vocals and dreamy melodies, while ‘Tolonawoulile’ is driven by the intense strumming of the Ngoni with busy hand claps and hurried drums and last of all ‘Fo Te Mokobana’ sinks into a heart-warming slow groove with sweeping strings and Malian percussion all overlaid with impassioned vocals.

A rich listening experience, Siraba’s debut album is an immersive journey and absorbing dive into the minds of two artists breaking new grounds while spotlighting native traditions and musical techniques spanning hundreds of years.

Prisoners Of Love And Hate' is an offering to community, to desires that imprison and liberate, to people in all their divinity and ugliness. Apostille - aka Night School Records’ captain Michael Kasparis - presents is third album with a bang, a bursting ball of NRG, empathy and bristling living.
Like its predecessor 'Choose Life', 'Prisoners…' was recorded at Full Ashram Celestial Garden in Glasgow with Lewis Cook (Free Love) through 2022. A nine song treatise on pop music, trauma, ecstasy and the mundanities between the extremes, Kasparis takes on classic 80s synth pop, 90s house music, 00s trance, wistful balladry, 70s power pop. The thread that runs through the album is a boundless energy, an openness to the moment, to living
the pains and joys equally, open armed.

This is a place of no judgement, of possibility, challenge and comfort. The nine songs on 'Prisoners…' can be read as separate ruminations on the feelings and desires that imprison our experience. Through it all the narrator struggles against them, transported and fooled by love and longing, peering through the bars of anguish, flailing in a cell of emotions. 'Saturday Night, Still Breathing' breaks the album open with an invigorating scream and pounds into the night with a nod to Whigfield, Kasparis’ punk roots and house music. Over a thumping 909 kick and bassline, Kasparis pens a love letter to being with people, the collective energy of hearts in a room, thrumming together, making it through together. Written as private ritual magic, manifesting community during a time of isolation, it’s as if the party is the most important thing in the world. 'Rely On Me' imagines 80s Mute synth pop, Erasure fronted by Bruce Springsteen, romance doomed and forever perfect in the mind. 'Spit Pit' completes the opening triptych of fast paced rollercoasters, an ode to childhood forged out of change and discomfort told with a bold, epic production by Lewis Cook, AFX breakbeats, 160BPM kicks and a commanding vocal performance.

On 'People Make This City', Kasparis eases off the gas, lets the mist blowing in from the Clyde River blow over his version of Glasgow. A wistful ballad about small town gossip and coming through anger to leaving it all behind, it provides some shadow to the bright light of the vibrancy of the album. 'Natural Angel' owes much to 70s and 80s power pop, guitar melodrama, Thin Lizzy and Rick Springfield through the prism of co-dependence in relationships. It’s a theme that’s picked up in slow burner 'Nothing But Perfect', a hazy synth soul-inflected song about building your own mythology, constructing a dream to hide in, to hold on to. The most surprising track of the album, 'Summer of ’03' re-imagines the trance music of early noughties Europe into a lament for an eternal summer or as a fan once put it, “Meat Loaf with a donk on it.” A recognition that all ecstasy has tragedy laced within it, it’s a theme that is sewn throughout the LP and continued on the final song 'Feel Good (You Can Make Me)'. Referencing Shalamar’s 1982 mega hit by way of N-Trance’s piano riffs, the epic closer is riddled with heartbreak, vulnerability and power. It’s a testament to the new confidence in Kasparis’s songwriting, sure, but also to the enduring power of people to come together in mutual dependence and love. If ecstasy is always laced with tragedy, then 'Prisoners of Love and Hate' can always reach out between the bars to meet in the middle, the eternal now.

Balmat co-founders Philip Sherburne and Albert Salinas have been fans of Shy Layers’ lilting, Balearic pop for years, so when Shy Layers’ JD Walsh asked us to listen to a set of demos he was working up with fellow Atlanta multi-instrumentalist Jeff Crompton, we jumped at the chance. And once we heard their work in progress, the decision was almost immediate: We have to release this.

Together, Walsh and Crompton are Anagrams, and their debut album together, Blue Voices, might initially seem like a departure from Balmat’s habitually electronic terrain. It’s not ambient music, but it’s also not not ambient music, at least to listeners in the right frame of mind. The two musicians, who met when Walsh moved from Brooklyn to Atlanta in 2016 and began collaborating a few years later, see the music in similarly ambiguous terms. “I like it because it’s not jazz,” jokes Crompton, a veteran and credentialed jazz player. “And JD likes it because it’s jazz.”

Crompton is a musician (and former high-school band teacher) with deep roots in Georgia’s improvised and experimental music scenes; his credits include shows with Eugene Chadbourne, a guest appearance with Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and a collaboration with Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel’s 12-hour drone performance at Knoxville’s Big Ears. On Blue Voices he plays alto and tenor saxophone, clarinet, electric piano, and organ. Walsh has been releasing music as Shy Layers since 2015, when he started self-releasing on Bandcamp; the following year, Germany’s Growing Bin packaged his first two EPs as a self-titled album, and in 2018, Tim Sweeney’s Beats in Space label put out Shy Layers’ sophomore album, Midnight Marker. Where those records channeled Walsh’s playful harmonic instincts into wistful songwriting with tropical overtones, on Blue Voices he lets his experimental tendencies take the lead. Playing acoustic and electric guitars, electric lap steel, bass, Moog Matriarch, modular synth, and programmed drums, he concentrates his energies on richly textural layers and abstract assemblages of tone color.

Across the album’s 11 tracks, there are faint echoes of familiar touchstones: the atmospheric twang of Daniel Lanois’ pedal steel on Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks; the mercurial modal runs of Ethio- jazz; the late-summer calm of Fuubutsushi; the versatility of players and composers like Patrick Shiroishi and Sam Gendel, who are asking similar questions about where jazz ends and some other, nameless territory begins. Mostly, though, what Blue Voices captures is the quixotic sound of two restless musical imaginations making it up as they go along, two voices discovering a shared language in a hitherto unexplored shade of blue.

The last twelve months have been a whirlwind for Henry Counsell and Louis Curran, the men who make up Joy (Anonymous). Having established themselves during the Covid-19 era by playing impromptu meet-ups on London’s South Bank, they have graduated to bigger venues, travelled to far-flung locales and recorded their second album, Cult Classics, while maintaining the spontaneous energy and irrepressible joy that made their name. Their music revels in the euphoria of being alive and all the feelings, good or bad, that come with it. It invites us into a community, draws us close and promises the night of our lives.

Recorded over the course of a year, the blueprint for Cult Classics was laid down over a two-week span at Imogen Heap’s Round House in east London. Joy (Anonymous) invited friends old and new to visit - they’d record live instruments in jam sessions upstairs and then retreat to a second room to flip and loop and generally mess with the sounds, moulding them into sizzling dance tracks. “Loads of people were coming up to me like ‘I thought this was going to be a dance record?’” Louis says, remembering the quietly beautiful music they’d be recording. “I’d be like, don’t worry about that, just keep playing.” He’d send it back to people later and they’d be floored - “That was my bit and you’ve made it... jungle!”

It was an organic and creatively fulfilling approach, one that didn’t allow any of the music to get stale or stagnate. As they built the tracks from the sounds they’d collected, Joy (Anonymous) would weave the new songs into their famously improvised live sets, testing them, refining them, taking note of the audiences’ reactions. In a year punctuated by a lot of travel, they’d also incorporate the voices of people they met along the way - “Beazley’s Poem”, which opens the record, features the words of a man who was working security at a Fred Again show at New York’s Terminal Five. “He was basically doing the opposite of his job and being a hype man, climbing on the fence and ramping up the crowd - we ended up hanging out with him - like, who’s this legend?” Louis explains. “He just speaks really amazingly about his life, all these amazing thoughts and opinions - he started jumping on the mic when we were playing, preaching these amazing messages to the crowd, like that we all need to be nicer to each other. The first time we played the record in its entirety, he introduced us and that’s the recording we’ve used.”

Joy (Anonymous) remain dedicated to the spirit of spontaneity. They shut a street down with a surprise waterside party in New York. On a trip to Copenhagen they played an impromptu set in a cafe, which turned into a house party and a night-long good time. In Lithuania, they ended up playing in a decommissioned prison. It’s harder, perhaps, to keep that spirit alive now that they are operating more within the confines of the music industry but they will keep lugging their kit to wherever the party calls for as long as they can. “I think if we lose that, we’ve kind of lost what makes us us,” Henry says.

Bursting with multi-genre reference points and disparate influences, Cult Classics is very much a dance album. The samples we made ourselves or we took from music that is quite different to dance music, but we definitely wanted to shout out a lot of the dance influences that we love,” Henry says. They listened to a lot of Daft Punk and Basement Jaxx as well as The Prodigy (“more rage stuff”), taking songwriting tips from their dance forebears, but also recording bits that felt more like jazz and motown (see: A Place I Belong and the lovely album closer, You’re In Or You’re Out). Emir Taha’s gentle classical guitar runs like a thread throughout Cult Classics, washing into the undertones of the record, tying it all together.

The album follows the beat of a night out, from frenetic, sweaty movement to the gentler winding down as the dawn breaks. At times it is euphoric, celebratory and pure, whirling fun, at others it seeks the joy in the darker emotions that life throws our way. 404 is designed to encapsulate everything about the Joy (Anonymous) journey so far. Skittering beats and ghostly vocals give way to vibrating house chords: sirens blare as we approach a dubstep drop. It’s dramatic and wild, ratcheting up, seeming to settle then hitting you with an intense and frantic breakdown before the ghostly vocal returns to lull us back into the world. It has the feel of a hungry cat playing with a mouse, toying with it before letting it get away.

What sounds like someone playing the spoons on playful, housey How We End Up Here is actually Louis’ restless habit of clicking his rings on everything, one of a myriad of calling cards and easter eggs that day one fans will recognise. They rework Miley Cyrus and Swae Lee’s Party Up The Street into a French-electro-inspired future classic, adding a note of melancholy to a tune that you can imagine hearing blaring from every car on a summer drive. The lyrics on Cult Classic are generally reassuring, inspirational, originally drawn from Henry in stream-of-consciousness freestyles. You’re fine the way you are, they seem to say - the repeated “No need to try” of A Place I Belong, the assurance that “It’s in me all the time” on In Me All The Time. Even the summery but regretful Did You Wrong hints at the growth that is possible from less than ideal behaviour. For Joy (Anonymous), joy isn’t about just being “happy” all the time - it’s about relishing every element of your being.

The name ‘Joy (Anonymous)’ is taken from the work Henry did with Alcoholics Anonymous groups: it is a way to build a community around sharing joy. Their impromptu live sets are known as ‘meetings’; they encourage fans to share moments of joy to their website. They care deeply about the scene they’ve come up in and are determined not to leave it behind. Every show is another chance to reach out and connect with people who love to come together and revel in music as loud as it can go.

Support slots for Fred Again and The Streets, wild B2Bs with Fred and Skrillex, and a set at Four Tet’s Finsbury Park all-dayer this summer have given the duo the opportunity to live out childhood dreams and introduced their infectious live shows to new audiences at huge venues.

With an album as assured and joyful as Cult Classics on the horizon (and a killer collab with The Blessed Madonna coming up), they’re only going to reach higher heights. But the essence of Joy (Anonymous) remains on the South Bank. Between shows at Ally Pally in September, they dragged their camping chairs and gear back down to the banks of the Thames: and it just felt right.

Repress of the sold out Record Store Day release, this time on a different colour. Black Spiders – Those trusted and true sons of the north are back. “We knew the new album had to be special. We’ve been away for a while. The first album was a straight shot, the second on the rocks, with this new one we had to kick down the brewery doors!” Pete Spiby. Back in June of 2017, Sheffield rock beasts Black Spiders waved goodbye to an army of loyal fans with some sonically charged shows before retreating into the shadows. And then, in November of last year, with the world in the grips of the Coronavirus pandemic and after a long year of very little fun from out of the silhouettes they returned with ‘Fly In The Soup’, the first new Black Spiders music in 6 years. Exactly the feel-good shot in the arm the world needed, while we await that other vaccine. The seeds of the Black Spider return were actually planted last summer, when singer and guitarist Pete Spiby began taking to guitarist Ozzy Lister to start writing new material and before they knew it, they had amassed the best part of 40 songs in a very short period of time which they whittled down. And then the pandemic hit. “It’s certainly been a strange process, in unfamiliar territory,” explains Pete. “We started to look at how we could do it given the restrictions and not only that, but we had to replace our original drummer too. For us and probably most other bands, we would usually take a riff or song idea to a rehearsal and thrash it out ‘till we either had something or it ended up in the song graveyard! This time around we couldn’t do that, so myself, Ozzy and on occasion Adam Irwin (bass player) started to send ideas back and forth until we had something to work with in GarageBand. We got to a point where we had enough song ideas with basic structure to go into a studio. It was at this point when we had to look for a new drummer.” With former drummer ‘Tiger’ Si Atkinson unavailable to play, with a week or two of grooming, the band took a chance on Planet Rock DJ Wyatt Wendel to occupy the drum stool. “I've never joined or worked with a band in this way EVER,” laughs Wyatt. “2020 certainly made it surreal. “A Pete/Ozzy writing session at the beginning of the year had produced some promising results, but it felt like barriers were popping up everywhere,” explains bassist Adam Irwin. “We started talking about how we could use technology such as GarageBand to help, and slowly but surely the song writing gathered pace. It was time to hook up with our old producer Matt Elliss and try these new songs out in the studio. “Heading into the studio to record songs we’d written but never played together, with a drummer that we’d never met, is one of the stranger experiences I’ve had while being in a band. Thankfully, Wyatt has turned out to be an excellent addition, who despite his faults (loud, southern) has fit right into the band dynamic. Covid has made life really tough for so many of us in our industry. And yet, this new way of song writing has been liberating, this is the most consistent and prolific we’ve ever been, and I am immensely proud of this album.” Against all of the odds, Black Spiders have crafted an album that features 13 tracks of high-energy, feel-good rock n’roll contrasted by demonic doom that despite the disjointed, isolated way it was recorded. It sounds like a band, firing on all cylinders. “We had to dig down deep to pull out some gems and what would we want from Black Spiders,” questions Pete. War, vengeance, mental health, death, conservation & climate change, where are we from? Relationships, friendships, our flaws. Where are we going? Alien life and Mother Earth - some of which made the record.” Kicking off with the aforementioned ‘Fly In The Soup’ single, this 3rd ST long-player wastes no time in grabbing you by the scruff of the neck and dragging you through an album where good times, hooks and riffs are not in short supply, but the doom-drenched likes of ‘Wizard Shall Not Kill Wizard’ and the psychedelic groove of album closer ‘Crooked Black Wings’ give us an album of many moods and dynamics and a reason to be cheerful in 2021. And why does the album have no title? “It wasn’t hard picking a title for the album, as we decided that the focus should be on the band, not the album title, so we decided not to have one. Let the music do the talking....

Collignon is a three-piece band with Yves Lennertz on guitar (and bass), Gino Bombrini on drums (and percussion) and Jori Collignon on the keyboards (and taking care of the production). The three friends have been making music together for some time, collaborating in different groups and settings, Jori and Gino as part of the band SKIP&DIE, Gino as a producer for Yves’ former group, YĪN YĪN.

After a decade of touring the world, Jori settled in the quiet and dusty village of Lagoinha, Portugal, where he built a studio complete with a guesthouse, a small piece of land, and a few chickens. From here, Jori worked with a global range of artists from La Reunion, Colombia, Argentina, Mozambique, Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guiné-Bissau, and beyond. All these experiences led to the creation of his first album, suitably named ‘Lagoinha’.

Shortly after its release, Gino and Jori jumped on the tourbus again, and later, Yves joined them to complete the band. They initially started developing new material live on stage, allowing for improvisation and exploration. After finalizing these new songs in the studio, the result is an explosive and high-energy mix of sounds that has surprised audiences all over Europe during the past summer.

From Northern Ireland and the South of England hail Jetplane Landing - which, for the last two decades has been variously composed of: Jamie Burchell (Bass/Vocals), Raife Burchell (Drums), Andrew Ferris (Vocals/Guitars), Cahir O’Doherty (Guitars/Vocals) and Craig McKean (Drums). Big Scary Monsters are releasing their debut album Zero For Conduct on vinyl this January as well as putting their entire back catalogue back on streaming services. Their debut album ‘Zero For Conduct’, was recorded on an 8-track tape machine in Jamie's parents' garage in Bognor Regis and mixed during engineer Sean Doherty’s downtime in a London studio owned by a diamond mining company. Hailed a 'masterpiece’ (5Ks - Kerrang!) upon its release in 2001 - it contains fan favourites ‘This Is Not Revolution Rock’ and ‘Summer Ends’ and perfectly encapsulates the vitality of the 00's post-hardcore DIY scene that inspired its creation. Deriving their name from the moment a blissed-out Burchell/Ferris witnessed At The Drive-In perform ‘One Armed Scissor’ on their debut British TV performance - “Fuck me Ferris, they sound like a jet plane landing!” - ZFC channels that riotous energy across its heart-felt eleven cuts. Delicate acoustic confessionals sit alongside full-throated math-rock experimentation; this is an album as varied as it is ambitious. Jamie: “We initially set out to track the record during a two-week period Andrew had off from work. At the end of those two weeks, we didn’t even have all the drums recorded let alone the overdubs. So the idea emerged that Ferris and I would drive down every weekend from London to my parents’ house and we would make the album that way. Cut to… one year later…” Andrew: “When I listen back now, I can physically feel the conversations we had on those long drives, all those micro-decisions - getting the songs to be… right. It was a long process, but truthfully I’d have been happy to let it go longer. Jamie gave me so much confidence and pushed me to places I didn’t know I had or even needed to be. It was a really special time.”. Jamie continues, “There was this weird fusion between us musically which seemed to just work.” Fans of Elliot Smith, Nick Drake, J Mascis, and Stephen Malkmus will feel right at home with this lovingly crafted set. Spoiler alert: heavier sounds and bigger rooms were to come for Jetplane but on Zero For Conduct their musical universe feels at once expansive and deeply personal.

For anyone familiar with the Swedish progg movement of the '60s/'70s, this album will feel both familiar and completely new. The songs have a distinctive feeling where jam session- like soundscapes are balanced with exquisitely wellwritten melodies. Like A mixture of Slowgold and Dina ogon in the soundscape and whith a vocal tone that in some parts of the songs reminds of (Markus) Krunegard. The music brings back the summer evenings and lazy days vibe.

With a dreamy undertone in the sound but a story that is more serious. All songs are recorded on tape, adding even more character to the sound. Jattedam is an unfiltered expression of whatever absurd fantasies, fantastic pretensions, soulheavy burdens, clear insights, insatiable curiosities may come their way. Join the band and explore "Onda Blommor".

Midwestern psychiatrist Suzanne Mathis' world is turned upside down when she decides to protect Mae, a fragile teenager on the run from a cult. As Suzanne’s daughter Jules begins to suspect there’s more to Mae’s story, a series of incidents – seemingly brought on by Mae’s presence - leave the family in chaos. Soon the Mathis family is fighting for survival against a strange cult while Suzanne and a local police detective try to unravel the clues of Mae’s past and sinister happenings in the town she escaped. Adapted from Daria Polatin’s best-selling book inspired by true events, DEVIL IN OHIO is a thrilling, shocking tale of demonic mayhem and mystery in the heart of small-town America.

British composer Will Bates incredible work on DEVIL IN OHIO began with a hymn for the cult, written before shooting. It expanded with songs for Bishop Briggs and Maiah Manser, with melodies for hurdy-gurdy and synth, until it became a haunting world of its own, blending score, soundtrack and diegesis. Now, together with Netflix Music, we’re excited to release DIO’s first-ever full-length soundtrack on vinyl.

Shotmaker was formed in 1993 by three friends from the small towns of Tweed and Belleville in Ontario, Canada: Matt Deline (drums, vocals), Tim McKeough (guitar, vocals), and Nick Pye (bass, vocals). The band relocated to Ottawa in 1994 before ending its run in 1996. They are widely recognized for influencing the direction of emo and post-hardcore music. During their relatively short time together Shotmaker harnessed the collective creativity of the Canadian DIY community to make something special happen. They wrote and recorded two 7”s, two LPs, a split LP (with Washington, D.C., based Maximillian Colby) and numerous songs for compilations and other split records.

The band thrived on playing live shows and completed three coast-to-coast North American tours in addition to many smaller tours. They regularly shared the stage with bands like Policy of 3, Los
Crudos, Unwound, Rorschach, Cap’n Jazz, Indian Summer, Rye Coalition, Modest Mouse, Propagandhi, Hoover, Clikatat Ikatowi, Blonde Redhead and Fugazi. "A Moment in Time: 1993-1996"
is a band-curated, 3xLP box set on colored vinyl. Also included is a 12 page booklet with never before seen images from Canadian photographer Shawn Scallen who chronicled much of the band's history.

All the music has been mastered for vinyl by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege in Portland, OR.

Repress!

Four Units is a kind of Japanese jazz “all star”. Recorded in Tokyo on April 1969, it was released the same year on Union records.
On the first two long songs that open this album, “Four Units” and “Dull Slumber”, we can feel the influence of the “avant-garde” scene of US jazz (and in particular ESP Disk), without however the music sounding too “free”. A whole new vibe on the astonishing cover of “Scarborough Fair”, in a modal style, where the shadow of McCoy Tyner seems to hang over the piano.
The next two tracks, “Rainbow Trout” and “Black Bass”, are still pretty much along the same line, sometimes oscillating towards “hard bop”, the album ending in a blaze of glory with a solo by Masahiko Togashi. While this album had a second pressing in Japan in the 70s, this is the first time it has been reissued with its gatefold cover. Musicians : Tenor Sax, Flute - Akira Miyazawa Piano - Masahiko Sato Drums - Masahiko Togashi Bass - Yasuo Arakawa Recorded in Tokyo, April 2 and 25th 1969

We're proud to announce renewal of our near-ten year relationship with raw black power ambient ritualists Sutekh Hexen in announcing the band's colossal new 2LP "P:R:I:S:M", a full collaboration with Canadian nightmare-weaving enigma Funerary Call (AKA field recording and experimental soundscaping artist Harlow MacFarlane), to be released this summer in collaboration with our good dearest frequent co-conspirators from the US Sentien Ruin.
With "P:R:I:S:M", magisterial sonic-alchemists Sutekh Hexen and Funerary Call join forces to deliver a fully collaborative album of eight highly experimental tracks. Throughout this octonary journey, concepts and unseen source energies are refined into spectrums of deeper consciousness. The resulting narrative guides the listener through a vastness of (dis)charging energies, rebirth through dissolution, and harrowing harmonic passages in tremendous spaces. Inner-workings suspend transformations in time. Pushing their respective boundaries, Sutekh Hexen and Funerary Call initiate the listener with the crystalline, static miasma of the album’s opener 'Meridian غ', only to enshroud them in the manifesting psychosis of 'Infernal Folly'. The churning mysticism of 'Perilous Shade' offers temporal sanctuary, and 'Toward the Eastern Gate' calls forth tectonic-prophecies as the album's centerpiece, tipping the scale into 'Fractal: Void'—a blistering disarmament in a storm of guitars, scathing electronics, and the disembodied calls we all anticipate and fear. 'Æscend Obsidia' tests the preceding tension and overwhelms in shimmering radiance before declaring release in 'Pangæa Ultima² (Dread)'. Closing with 'Shores of Purgatory', thresholds are breached anew with hectic guitar feedback, spectral synthesis and meditative melodic embellishments. Where the mirror blinds, the "P:R:I:S:M" offers vision—refractions of new perspectives, dissolving the shadow-self.

For fans of Khraungbin, El Michels Affair, Skinshape, The Shacks. Taken from the forthcoming debut EP ‘The Still Brothers’ Firm favourites with BBC 6 Music’s Steve Lamacq, Gilles Peterson, Huey Morgan and Lauren Laverne, Brooklyn’s The Still Brothers return with another double header. ‘I Wanna Be With You’ was created by The Still Brothers in New York much like their previous single ‘Wake Up’. Created in isolation, while much of the world was reeling from the effects of Covid and precautions were still in place, the basic tracks of the instrumental were laid down in a light hearted attempt to impart the joy and excitement of a live concert. The song was sent to collaborator Marina B., whose initial impulse inspired her to write the lyrics and an equally exciting melody. ‘Sungalz’ was created in the Summer of 2021 by The Still Brothers in New York. It began as a jam between Andrew and Evan which gradually evolved into a moody and relaxing piece. Marina B. contributed lyrics and a melody which evoke themes of dreaming and self-reflection. ‘I Wanna Be With You’ produced by The Still Brothers and mixed by St. Francis Hotel ‘Sungalz’ produced and mixed by The Still Brothers.

Fresh from supporting Blur at Wembley Stadium this summer, Sleaford Mods are getting set for some of their biggest ever UK and Europe dates this autumn with the release of new six track EP, More UK GRIM, on 20 October. Recorded at the same time as their acclaimed 2023 album, UK GRIM, the freshly released songs not only continue Andrew Fearn and Jason Williamson's current dancefloor dominance, but with a mix of insight and wit, outrage and compassion, they critique and celebrate our turbulent times.à Lead single Big Pharma, shares a 'take no prisoners' lyrical approach with the band's recent album as it casts a doubtful eye down the 'truther' wormhole, although entwined around a slinky bass riff the track confirms the two-piece at their most dexterous musically. Big Pharma, which sets the tone for the More UK GRIM EP, is accompanied by a sharply satirical animated video directed by Sean Sears, who has applied his distinctive, stylised 2D vision to examining the consequences of a health 'philosophy' that prizes drinking urine over carefully researched medical treatments.à "Big Pharma was written in the opening chapters of autumn 2022 when Covid kicked in again. It carries a lot of the normal Sleaford Mods absurdism but also looks at the ongoing fascination with trying to find truths in information wholly pushed by very questionable people," explains Jason Williamson. Alongside the lead single, the More UK GRIM EP also features Under The Rules, Old Nottz, PO Crazeh and My 18hr Girdle, all previously unavailable.

Cala Tarida Musica is thrilled to present this summer anthem collaboration by some esteemed Balearic residents. 'Residentes Balearicos' team up with legendary Ibizan DJ Alfredo and include new unreleased vinyl exclusive remixes from Chris Coco and SIRS. 'Sundown' features an infectious vocal that seamlessly fuses dub influences with a nostalgic old-school house groove. This EP is guaranteed to get your dance floor moving.

DJ support: DJ Nova / RodonFM Greece, Luca Averna / Pikes Ibiza, Leo Mas, Chris Coco, SIRS, Adam Warped / STRANGE DAYS radio show, Andy Wilson, Ibiza Sonica, Nancy Noise, Problematic Disko, Tomi Chair.

Following their sold-out launch at London’s iconic KOKO, Mercury Prize-winning MC, producer and creative Skepta and
renowned Lord Of The Mics founder Jammer are keeping things moving in impressive fashion as they continue to establish their new Más Tiempo project. Taking the sound from London to Miami and Milan via high-profile DJ sets before returning to Ibiza for the collective’s debut at the World’s #1 Club Hï alongside The Martinez Brothers, the co-founders unite once again as they deliver the second instalment of their house-focused imprint.

Set for release on 30th June 2023, the BBK mainstays are joined by British singer-songwriter and OddChild Music favourite Etta Bond, who reunites with the Big Smoke Records boss following their 2012 record ‘Mastermind’, as they serve up a resonant and soulful anthem built for the summer months with ‘Touching My Body’ - showcasing a deeper, more profound side to their sound.

Harnessing Bond’s alluring and absorbing vocals and weaving rich sun-soaked melodies, crisp percussion arrangements and
sweeping, warping leads around them to create a captivating journey through sounds, ‘Touching My Body’ welcomes a
production built for bustling daytime terraces and memorable early hours moments in equal measure.

Welcoming another new name to the Más Tiempo family, the B-side brings an impactful label debut from fellow Grime talent and London-based musician/producer Jus Jammin, who steps out under Jammin and showcases his own explorations into house music. Here on ‘Down Shovel’ he draws for sharp snappy drums, zig-zagging synths, bubbling leads and warped vocals, serving up a heavy slice of dancefloor ammunition that has been making some serious noise in Skepta’s recent DJ sets.

It's a pertinent start-point because, in many ways, God Is Luck exists firmly within that realm, many of the songs pulled directly from improvisation before being twisted into the mysterious shapes we find here on the finished record.

Recorded between the summer of 2020 and the summer of 2022, God Is Luck is an exercise in artistic freedom. The songs came quickly and easily by design, the whole point of the record and the approach to simply let go.

The third Bad History Month LP - following the Pitchfork-championed Old Blues (2020) - where aspects of the new album mirror the shape of Sprecher's previous work, its creation was an altogether different experience for the Philadelphia-viaBoston songwriter. He describes it as a collaboration with 'luck', the freeform nature of the recording resulting in a process that felt "fun and easy and fearless in a way that recording had never been."

"God is Luck means you can control reality by choosing your perspective to always see the luck, which makes you the god of your own reality," Sean Sprecher says of his latest record. With that notion at its core, Bad History Month's latest adventure finds twisted new ways to tell age-old tales. Even in its most fearless compositions, buried within dense fog, it strives for goodness; freedom from fear, love for friends, surrounding yourself with those who inspire.

The first half follows all of the paths that lead in circles, the tangled yarn that never finds the end. But it holds on. It's stronger than you think.

The second half is how we untangle and get put together again. The final song features a recording I took at the end of last summer, a warm night with a campfire, some crickets, and the people we love. Because even when we unravel, there are ways to be put back together.

The best I can tell, we thought we'd get this album done in 2016. Roughly (not exaggerating) 60-70 songs later, we've whittled and worked and reworked the songs into 'After the Gold Rush Party.' Danny and I started this album while we lived in different cities (I was in DC and Danny was in OKC), then wrote some of them in the same city (OKC), and then the rest of them in different cities (I was in OKC and Danny was in Costa Rica and then Seattle). And weirdly, some of our most generative times happened when we weren't living in the same city. We've both grown up quite a bit and have real life jobs and families. In these songs we were grappling with trying to be punk rock (which we've never really been) while putting on a suit for work (hence, the Mr. Downtown character). But at the same time, punk rock has all but disappeared as a thing that exists - where are the punks, anyway? (See: Speed Racer). The songs read a bit like a travel guide. Part of the growing up process is coming to terms with one's own escapist tendencies - or embracing them, as you'd hear in a track like "Mexico" or "Culebra". Other times, the escapist themes come out musically, not lyrically, like in "She's a Betty" or "Tijuanarevor" maybe. Other times, we play around with just the idea that people are entitled to anything at all (Ms. Universe). And while Danny mixed most of the album, we have much to thank Chad Copelin for - he mixed four of these tracks, and we learned a ton from getting to spend time working with the man who recorded and mixed BRONCHO, Sufjan, Sports, and others. The time last summer we spent honing those four tracks were kind of the catapult for finishing up the rest of the tracks. So, to conclude, After the Gold Rush Party kind of represents us at this phase of the creative process. Big dreams, absurdly ambitious timelines, put into contradiction with the realities of family life, the challenges of the everyday, the mundanity of the workweek. "After the Gold Rush Party" is a nonsensical phrase, but it's exactly what we wanted to name the album. A frenzy of ambition, and then, the lull that lingers afterward.

Introducing a super charged split LP featuring the talents of Cameron Stallones aka Sun Araw and Spencer Clark’s duo with Jan Andersen, Tarzana.
What originally started as an Aquapelago inspired residency in the summer of 2021 quickly developed into its own thing. Truth be told, both artists always surfed their own personal waves of musical freedom, so Aquapelagos Vol.2 album became AQUA X, a split offshoot work featuring rehashed Tarzana compositions on one side and a live presentation form Cameron’s residency in the island of Tenerife around Keroxen festival’s 13th Edition. With two artists very dear to us this split LP picks up perfectly on the aquapelagic concept and twists inside out into worlds high and below creating a further testament to both’s artists oeuvres. Here’s an extract of Professor Haywards original liner notes regarding the music:
‘’The tracks on this album reflect the geo-cultural position of Californian-based musicians, Cameron Stallones, (who records here under the Sun Araw moniker), and Spencer Clark and Jan Andersen’s (performing as Tarzana) with oceanic atmospheres and structures of feeling.
Sun Araw’s dedication to producing subtle, flowing, psychotropic compositions can be read as an attunement to the oceanic sublime. Recorded within the disused Keroxen tank in Santa Cruz harbour in Tenerife, The Canary Suite is an extended piece that features a mix of electronic pulses, short synthesizer fragments and distorted guitar bursts. The textures are relatively sparse throughout, with a linear emotional contour sustained by an ongoing melodic play within a defined band of possibilities before settling into a calmer, soothing and floating mood, like an aural floatation tank.
Tarzana’s tracks artfully blend simple synthesizer tones, vocal exhortations, and an assortment of treated instrument sounds to create a pulsing, wandering and restless music. Short rhythmic ostinato fragments push and pull against bold blown pipes and horns while subtle darker colours and shades intermittently move through the soundscape to intensify the mood. This is busy and dense music but with an orderly flow and internal sense of motion that sweeps up the listener in its wake, like a sailing ship propelled through tropical seas.’’

Zach Bryan prepares to release his self-titled follow up record to American Heartbreak on August 25th. The album will not only showcase Zach’s incredible songwriting but will also include some very special features including Kasey Musgraves, The Lumineers & War and Treaty. The focus single for album release is “I Remember Everything (feat. Kasey Musgraves). Zach wrote & produced the entire album himself! Zach has been continuing to sell out arenas and headline festivals all over the country as he continues to rapidly grow as one of the most influential new artists of this generation. “Something in the Orange” just became the longest standing Country song on the Billboard Top 100 this Century, marking this only the beginning of Zach continuing to break records as he goes!

Dad Loves His Work was James Taylor's tenth studio album. The album is a real fan favorite because it was Taylor's first album without covers. Again, James Taylor had a real commercial success, Dad Loves His Work was certified Platinum. The album also contains the hit single "Her Town Too", a wonderful duet with singer/songwriter J.D. Souther. The song peaked at number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Dad Loves His Work is available as a limited edition of 1000 individually numbered copies on blue coloured vinyl.

More complex and purposeful than the fragile post- punk of 2019 debut Essentials, the album reflects transition, conceived to flow from "day" (contemplative opener "The Sun") to "night" (dub- inspired closer "Inheritance"). New sonic influences like disco (Donna Summer, The Bee Gees) and 2000s New York indie (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol) evoke freedom and euphoric joy -- maintaining the band's signature minimalism, When the members of Patio contemplated the inspirations for their long-awaited second album, Collection, they came up with an eclectic mood board comprising videos and images.

A 1977 David Bowie performance of "Heroes" on Top of the Pops.

Laura Branigan belting "Gloria" beneath a sea of disco balls. Masterpieces in marble by Michelangelo and Bernini. Jude Law in The Young Pope. Portraits of iconic superstars: A dapper Bryan Ferry, a melancholy Carmela Soprano, Bianca Jagger serving side-eye, and Andy Warhol eating a cheeseburger. "Collection" is out in September on Fire Talk.

The Evening Sons wear their powerpop credentials like a badge of honor; crunchy barre chords, big choruses and multi- layered harmonies hark back to those halcyon days when 3-minute songs ruled the world.

Emitting a soulful, nu-jazz sound that builds into an uplifting chorus refrain, "On My Way Up" is sonically inspired by the likes of Joy Crookes, Roy Hargrove and Leanne La Havas.

Hailing from Bristol, Cut Capers bring an elevating message and a big sound. The 4 piece horn-section blends with the lead vocal to create a textured juxtaposition rich in depth and layers. With infectious ear- worm melodies and warm vocal energy, Cut Capers deliver a feel-good summer hook that takes you from themes of reflection to new discoveries. With over 13 million streams across major streaming platforms, Cut Capers returned with their first release since their 2019 critically acclaimed album, Metropolis. A passionate and dedicated fanbase has
waited patiently, and the wait is over!

Formed by Monster Magnet’s John McBain and Soundgarden’s Matt Cameron & Ben Shepherd in 1993 during some downtime from their day jobs and side project Hater (who released a self-titled album in 1993), Wellwater Conspiracy set about immersing themselves in the dayglo world of sixties psychedelia, channelling the vibrations of Syd Barrett’s Pink Floyd and the 13th Floor Elevators to produce the garage lo-fi-lysergic assault on the senses that is their debut album ‘Declaration of Conformity’. Originally issued on Mudhoney’s Steve Turners Super Electro label in 1997, the album was met with critical acclaim upon its release, and Rolling Stone magazine said, “Declaration’s tinny, fuzzed-out sonics decidedly evoke the Summer of Love.” God Unknown Records are proud to be welcoming the album back into print and on all digital platforms, and this coming September 22nd will see the release of a remastered vinyl pressing with extra tracks and new artwork taking influence from Blue Note Records’ fabled artwork. From start to finish, ‘Declaration Of Conformity’ is a loving homage to the true beginnings of psychedelic rock, long before the music got harder and heavier. Songs like ‘Green Undertow’ and ‘Sleeveless’ hark back to the time when The Beatles were spinning the world on its axis with ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, Syd Barrett was the piper at the gates of dawn and Roky Erickson was introducing the world to his Texan psychedelic sounds. Wellwater Conspiracy’s music exists at that moment when pop music started to fracture and go far further out. It was still pop music, but the edges were starting to blur and the sounds were starting to fracture. This is where ‘Declaration of Conformity’ sits; at the dawn of one of the biggest cultural shifts in musical history. The Bandcamp link will also feature two bonus download-only tracks, a cover of ‘Akka Ragga’ by Shocking Blue and ‘Late Night’ by Syd Barrett. Both tracks feature Josh Homme on guitar and bass. Tracklisting A1 Sleeveless A2 You Do You A3 Trowerchord A4 Green Undertow A5 I Love You Every Day Sandy A6 Nati Bati Yi A7 Far Side Of Your Moon B1 The Ending B2 Space Travel In The Blink Of An Eye B3 6-6-5-4-3-2-1 B4 Shel Talmy B5 Lucy Leave B6 Declaration Of Conformity B7 Palomar Observatory

FIRST E.P FROM THE VOODOO MAN / INCLUDING INSERT WITH PIC / INCLUDING TIM CURRY cover: Ain’t No Love On The Street. Eric McFadden is back with his first 4-track vinyl, ahead of his new album in autumn/winter 2023 and has taken advantage of this release to complete a frenzied summer tour of France (Avignon, Cavalaire, Saint Cyr Sur Mer…) that he has a secret for. His recent acoustic tributes to AC/DC and Alice Cooper have introduced him to a much rockier audience, and his performance at Patrimonio (Corsica) in July 2019 and 2023 with Pat McManus did not go unnoticed. On the menu for this new opus: blues and rock and a cover of a Tim Curry song (No Love On The Street), all wrapped up in a dark, Tom Waits-style voice and a unique guitar style with high flights of fancy. Thrills guaranteed!

RIYL: The Fall, Royal Trux, The Dead C, Shirley Collins, ’70s British progressive rock, Dean Blunt.
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 this year with the first-ever vinyl pressing of the self-released pre-Shadow Ring tape The Cat & Bells Club (1992), Blank Forms Editions is conducting a systematic retrospective of the storied group, including a multi-year LP reissue effort and a forthcoming comprehensive CD box set and an over five hundred page book. Recorded in summer of 1994 at S.H.P studios (frontman Graham Lambkin’s parents’ home), the group’s sophomore record Put the Music In Its Coffin is a more sinister, saturnine affair than their debut City Lights. Coffin was many listeners’ introduction to the Shadow Ring, who had hitherto self-released their music, courting a steady stable of international fans through the magazine and mail-order catalog Forced Exposure. For their follow-up, the duo reached out to the ascending Philadelphia label Siltbreeze, whose eclectic roster of sneering, low-fidelity rock and noise connected disparate subterranean scenes from rust-belt America to the English Midlands, Dunedin, and beyond. As luck would have it, Siltbreeze proprietor Tom Lax was already a fan of the band’s first record and arranged to release both a 7” and their “difficult second album.” The connection proved to run deeper than vinyl within six months, Lax would pick up the pair from the airport for their spring 1995 US tour. This episode marked not only their first trip to the States but their first live performances at all, formally introducing the Shadow Ring to the American underground and solidifying the allure of the Folkestone pair. From the get-go, the record has a menacing, vile ambience. Its opening track “Horse-Meat Cakes,” inspired by an anecdote by pulp author Philip K. Dick about how he and his wife subsisted off low-grade pet food when he first arrived in San Francisco, sets the tone lyrically and sonically. Subsequent tracks are filled with Rabelaisian body horror and sinewy, haptic diction. “I try to pass out vital organs, convinced that they are waste,” intones Lambkin in “Heart, Liver & Lungs,” before a chorus of detuned guitars kicks in, nearly drowning out the speaker’s account of consuming chevaline intestines. Later songs similarly detail vernacular cooking (“Caribbean Porridge,” about a cornmeal hangover cure), bodily processes (“Nocturnal Middle Rumbles,” about nighttime defecation), and creaturely conflict (“Crystal Tears” and “Spin The Animal Dial”). The album’s makeshift percussion and teenaged rawness resembles the verve of City Lights, while its screeching strings and gnarly distorted vocals give it a sparse, miasmic atmosphere that look towards the uncompromising, otherworldly experimentation of the band’s Hold Onto I.D. (1996) and Lighthouse (1997), making this one of the Shadow Ring’s most distilled musical statements

Much Love is the debut album by British singer Shola Ama. Ama worked with songwriting collective D'Influence on much of the album.

Stix Records, a sub-label of Favorite Recordings, proudly presents Disco Reggae Vol. 5, pursuing the highly acclaimed series started 10 years ago.

Birth land of the Reggae music, Jamaica has also always been fed by Soul, Funk, R&B and Pop music from the US scene, delivering some of the best covers anyone could think of. With it’s Disco Reggae series, Stix Records therefore simply carried on this tradition, offering new versions of classic songs from a wide spectrum of musical styles.

On this 5th edition, the list extend to famous name such as The Undertones, Bobby Caldwell, Cerrone, Patti LaBelle, or Ray Parker Jr. to name a few. At the control to tailor these hits with new and exclusive Reggae suits, you’ll find the best producers from the Stix’ roster like Soul Sugar aka Booker Gee, Taggy Matcher, Simon Nyabinghi, or Mato.

Together they signed again a perfect soundtrack to extend your summer and fill your playlists, whether to light the dancefloors or just sip a nice cocktail facing the Negril’s sunset!

It is with great fanfare that we proudly announce the return of the esteemed improvisational chainsaw blues trio Young James Long. Young James Long formed in Dallas in 2003 with a weekly residency at a local (and appropriately named) dive bar called Muddy Waters. PW Long (guitar, vocals) and Kirkland James (guitar) had known each other socially since the 90s when Long was fronting Quarterstick Records’ Mule, and James was playing with Tenderloin. Long would go onto make a series of incredible solo records under his own name and that of PW Long’s Reelfoot and James would play with Alejandro Escovedo (among many others) before their paths finally crossed again. They recruited Taylor Young (Hi-Fi Drowning, Young Heart Attack, The Polyphonic Spree) on drums and a raw, blues-punk-rock-and-roll band emerged fully formed, songs flying out of them with enthusiasm and ease. They recorded the You Ain’t Know The Man EP with their friend (and eventual Grammy winner) Stuart Sikes not long after. The EP came out via Southern Records in 2007, and thanks to the tasteful ears of the people this side of the pond, a European tour followed. If you saw that tour, you’ll agree that it felt like the band were really hitting their stride. However, here we are in 2023, so what happened? Answer: geography - the age-old enemy of creativity. One member left Texas and the others (being the extremely able and skilled musicians that they are) were perpetually wooed away to play in other bands. Everyone’s got bills to pay, right? And with that, things just kind of fizzled out. Long even insists he quit playing music around 2010. One of the most recognisable voices in underground music: out of the game. Incredible. Inconceivable.
Then, last year we at Wrong Speed got an email asking if we’d be interested in some new music Young James Long had been working on. We thought it might be a joke. They sent some mixes through, and it became very quickly apparent that it was anything but. Turns out the trio had started chatting about music again in 2020 (before the world had other plans) and had finally made their first full-length album Orogeny in the summer of 2021. Orogeny sounds live and thrillingly immediate, as though all obstacles between their delivery and your ears have been removed and discarded as irrelevant. There is no filler, no treading of water at any point. Amps buzz, songs teeter on the edge of collapse, you feel like you’re sitting in the middle of the band as they play and it’s a pretty sweet place to be. The album contains a whopping 17 songs, most under 2 minutes long. They don’t want to waste your time, or most importantly (after sixteen years away), theirs. If you’re familiar with Long’s previous bands, you’ll know he has a rare gift for pairing extreme volume with extreme tenderness and it’s thrilling to find that gift present and correct after over a decade away. And that voice – holy shit, that voice. He can go from a Beefheart howl to the sweetest country baritone in the space of a single line. In James and Young he’s found the perfect foils, a power trio of instinctive and soulful musicians able to conjure shining gems of magic out of the grit and the dirt. Young James Long is risen from the ashes – it’s a miracle!

The most potent memories I have of music are from my early childhood listening to the oldie's station, riding in the back of my Pops' 1975 Cadillac Seville to work alongside him moving plants in Sacramento at the now long gone Capitol Nursery during white hot summer afternoons, and then the drives back home in the purple twilights and oily blue-oranged nights. I'm talkin' The Temptations, War, Earth Wind and Fire, Al Green, Sly and the Family Stone, The Delfonics, Stevie Wonder, Chaka Khan...soul music. I loved the melodrama of it all. The world outside refracted and transmuted through the crackling speakers past Pops' thumping thumb and my tiny whirring mind and left whatever road behind us fundamentally changed in our wake. Through the years other sounds too left its imprint well before I picked up a guitar. Rap, Punk, hardcore, dub, R&B--and a little later in middle school, blues, folk and country. But those early Cadillac memories always remained the bedrock. With folk and blues music, I fell in love with the immediacy of it and found the acoustic guitar economical for all the solitary roaming of my early 20's. All the while I knew that one day, when I had something I felt like I could add, I wanted to incorporate the sound of those early Cadillac memories. But only after I felt established as a songwriter in its most simple form, banging on a wooden guitar and yodeling up some melody did I feel comfortable exploring other sounds and only recently did I find the time and space to do that. The pandemic trapped all the world in their rooms. While recording my last record in the height of it and at the behest of my friend and You, Yeah, You producer Brad Cook and his friend Justin Vernon, I bought my first keyboard. A Roland Juno DS. I started tinkering on it throughout the past couple of years and as I became more stationary started writing songs on different instruments that I accumulated. Layering sounds on garageband in my apartment writing bass and horn parts, making drum loops, adding synth... I became pretty obsessive with the endless possibilities it brought and got quicker and quicker at making songs that way. It was just so fun and limitless.

The most potent memories I have of music are from my early childhood listening to the oldie's station, riding in the back of my Pops' 1975 Cadillac Seville to work alongside him moving plants in Sacramento at the now long gone Capitol Nursery during white hot summer afternoons, and then the drives back home in the purple twilights and oily blue-oranged nights. I'm talkin' The Temptations, War, Earth Wind and Fire, Al Green, Sly and the Family Stone, The Delfonics, Stevie Wonder, Chaka Khan...soul music. I loved the melodrama of it all. The world outside refracted and transmuted through the crackling speakers past Pops' thumping thumb and my tiny whirring mind and left whatever road behind us fundamentally changed in our wake. Through the years other sounds too left its imprint well before I picked up a guitar. Rap, Punk, hardcore, dub, R&B--and a little later in middle school, blues, folk and country. But those early Cadillac memories always remained the bedrock. With folk and blues music, I fell in love with the immediacy of it and found the acoustic guitar economical for all the solitary roaming of my early 20's. All the while I knew that one day, when I had something I felt like I could add, I wanted to incorporate the sound of those early Cadillac memories. But only after I felt established as a songwriter in its most simple form, banging on a wooden guitar and yodeling up some melody did I feel comfortable exploring other sounds and only recently did I find the time and space to do that. The pandemic trapped all the world in their rooms. While recording my last record in the height of it and at the behest of my friend and You, Yeah, You producer Brad Cook and his friend Justin Vernon, I bought my first keyboard. A Roland Juno DS. I started tinkering on it throughout the past couple of years and as I became more stationary started writing songs on different instruments that I accumulated. Layering sounds on garageband in my apartment writing bass and horn parts, making drum loops, adding synth... I became pretty obsessive with the endless possibilities it brought and got quicker and quicker at making songs that way. It was just so fun and limitless.

Limited Black & White Swirl Vinyl. On December 29, 2012, three songs into Chastity Belt's first KEXP in-studio, something extraordinary happened: they shared "Black Sail" with the world. That year, I'd seen Chastity Belt play countless basement, bar, and DIY shows all over Seattle, but nothing could've prepared me for how my friends turned patience and quiet observation into something so affecting and effortlessly cool. Ten years later, "Black Sail" isn't just a fan favorite - it's practically a statement of purpose for the great albums that followed. But before those records, there was No Regerts: the sound of four friends evolving from a party band into a "real" one (whatever that means) in real-time. They're above it all on "Seattle Party," "Happiness," and "Evil," but remain the sirens of Whitman College's cursed frat houses - see the explosive choruses of "James Dean," "Healthy Punk," and "Pussy Weed Beer." When No Regerts came out in the summer of 2013, Seattle - and the world at large - took notice. I still hear these songs in surprising places, and they still surprise me - just as they did a decade ago. If you missed out the first time, this is your second chance.

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Orions Belte has been a steady supplier of groovy, catchy and dreamy instrumental pop since their 2018 debut album Mint. Women is their third studio album, but that doesn’t tell the whole truth when you also count their two live albums with accompanying films, three EP’s and a huge project where each of the members released their own solo album under the Orions Belte moniker. The three musicians rarely sit still, and the inspiration seems to be endless. This is probably also why their music is in such high demand. As usual, all the songwriting and production is done by the band members themselves, and this time they have put a lot of effort into making everything bigger and more powerful than on the previous records. The string arrangements flow easily throughout the record. It almost feels like releasing a million balloons all at once while lying looking at the night sky and dreaming of road trips on bumpy country roads through the Amazon in Brazil. There is always a great span to the Norwegian trio's songs, and on Women we are served noisy guitar riffs on "Silhouettes", cinematic string arrangements on "I Will Always Miss You", irresistible and catchy summer vibes on "Jai Alai", while Louien (Live Solberg) contributes beautiful vocals on the almost mournful "When You're Gone, I'll Be Gone". Matias Tellez is – as expected of an Orions Belte release – involved in the mix, while Ola Kvernberg and Øyvind Torvund have written string arrangements.

Prog Rock band from Bergen, Norway, formed in late 1969 , and disbanded in the spring of 1974.
They had several reunions since then. Saft was among the first rock bands to sing in Nynorsk
("Fjovisere" in 1971), also made history when they won the European summit with "People In Motion"
in November 1971. The members of the first Saft incarnation came from other established Bergen
bands: Ove Thue (vocals, guitar), Tom Harry Halvorsen (keyboards, vocals) and Trygve Thue (guitar,
vocals) from Neither Nor, Magne Lunde (drums) from Human Beings, and Rolf Skogstrand (bass)
from various - including Human Beings. The band had ample opportunity to play in the hippie musical
Hair on the National Stage in Bergen in the autumn of 1970. A recording from the performance was
released on LP by Polydor just before Christmas 1970. Saft made a demo recording of their
self-composed material at about the same time, and a contract deal with Polydor. In summer of 1971
they released "People In Motion" / "Albertine Hall", which was a big success and critical aclaimed. The
record was chosen as Norway's contribution to the European Summit on November 20, 1971. “Horn”
was their second album released in 1971 an experimental record with diverse styles, and
improvisations with all members contribute in songwriting. Available on vinyl again for the first time
since 1971

Like an annabac, the first seconds of the first song from the first album by SAFFRON EYES (a group from Saint-Etienne including members of Raymonde Howard, Le Parti, ThOmas.W...) summarize, for those in a hurry, the themes and feelings that will be developed on the short half-hour of music that the disc contains: smiles in front, blows in the back, amicable breakups and deaf threats. Smile Until It Hurts encapsulates all of this: pleasure in offering (racy and referenced songs, in the fine tradition of indie rock), joy in receiving (pies in the mouth). If the previous EP - first recording act - of the group Pursue a Less Miserable Life (released in 2020 on our label) had a taste of the end of summer, this one clearly smells of the Cold War. He is degreased, boned and only the desire to fight remains, mischievously camouflaged under a form of obvious beauty that whistles in the shower. A production fed on indie rock and its roots (blues, post-punk and a hint of doo-wop), bringing together around a happy campfire the Pixies, Jesus Lizard, Wet Leg, Fugazi, The Cramps, The Gun Club, La Luz, The Feelies, The Bad Seeds, Kathleen Hanna, Anna Waronker…