Buscar:t mid

Hitting play on SEAMOSS2, the latest missive from Portland noisetinkerers Sea Moss, is like punching the big red button on a cartoon
bomb before it explodes into a multicolored mushroom cloud
From the second Nap Time revs up, vocalist Noa Ver and drummer Zach
D'Agostino absolutely clobber the listener with a distorted hodgepodge of sounds
as raw and violent as they are winkingly playful, as if Black Dice and Melt-Banana
were caught in the middle of some kind of psychotic square dance together.The
duo's setup "which involves a primitive assemblage of hacked feedback
oscillators, colorful Rococo tin boxes, and a contact mic plugged directly onto
Ver's neck to capture her barking intonations " harkens back to an era of DIY
where live performance meant everything. Blurring the line between reckless
improvisation and tightly- knit compositions, the band achieves a disorientingly
complex interplay. Though Sea Moss's music may initially seem to be an act of
pure blunt force, the duo's true prowess lies in the intricacy of their rhythmic
interplay. As freeform as it all might seem, SEAMOSS2 contains the band's most
potent, precise compositions yet, refining the distinct style they forged on
disorienting releases like Bread Bored and Bidet Dreaming into a thrilling act of
controlled chaos.
In an era where the communal spirit of DIY feels more difficult to achieve than
ever, Sea Moss embody the classic ethos of weirdo punk music in all its absurdity
and wonder. It's this same sense of scrappiness that's earned them attention
from legends like Lightning Bolt and Machine Girl, and SEAMOSS2 illustrates why
they're every bit as deserving of their own trophy in the noise-rock hall of fame
one adorned in broken contact mics and scuffed-up scratches from one too many
bloody basement shows.

XAM Duo – the Yorkshire-based pairing of Matthew Benn and Christopher Duffin – follow-up their The A-side features a reworking of the album’s closing track, ‘Cold Stones’, by legendary electronic artist and DJ, James Holden. In one of his first remixes for a number of years, he has taken the original’s calming, comedown energy and transformed it into an epic, 11-and-a-half-minute journey, which somewhere around the five-minute mark comes right back up. “It didn't turn out quite how I expected, but as they say the sculpture is already in the stone, we just have to find it,” says Holden. “It's like the most rave thing I’ve done for ages and also not rave at all, like a blurry dream about a rave?” Whatever it is, it’s incredible, as are the two further reworkings on the B-side. The Early Years resurface after another lengthy hiatus and reframe ‘LGOC’ as a divine astral jazz / krautrock crossover, while Richard Pike (of PVT and Deep Learning, among others) turns ‘Blue Comet’ into a glitchy and discordant soundtrack to the best 1980s computer game you never played. “It’s lovely to hear three different interpretations of songs that we already tend to keep quite loose and elastic,“ says Matthew Benn. “These remixes feel like a natural extension of the music on the album, like they're from the same world, but perhaps in a different language.” Praise for XAM Duo II: “Thirty minutes of top-quality retro techno ambience and high-tech jazz” – MOJO “An elegant swirl of MIDI exotica, digital wind chimes and health-spa tones... threading saxophone through Boards Of Canada-style funk” – Uncut “Simultaneously more eclectic and more concise, the album expands, refines and folds down the twosome’s electro-organic explorations” – Concrete Islands “XAM Duo’s layered electronics pivot between the meditative and the assertive” – Clash “Made up of sweet synths, precise beats and some piano and sax, they create an atmosphere that feels as if it’s designed to accompany times of concentration and calm” – Loud And Quiet A1 - Cold Stones (James Holden Remix) B1 - LGOC (The Early Years Remix)
B2 - Blue Comet (Richard Pike Remix)

Promise & Illusion is the first LP from Ecka Mordecai, following the release of her solo Critique + Prosper on Takuroku in 2020. Cello, voice, horsehair harp, violin and field recordings combine to spin narrative melody, rich intimacy and melancholic landscapes. Composed around an exploration of la charnière (from the French ‘hinge’), Promise & Illusion begins with the sound of footsteps and a door opening and closing repeatedly, unsure whether to let us into the mysterious interior beyond. We are reminded of the house of Penny Slinger in An Exorcism, an abandoned mansion of gothic hallways and inky corridors. “woe are we” twists violin and voice together into the sort of tension and high drama heard in “The Executioner” - Henning Christiansen’s soundtracks made for the films of his partner Ursula Reuter Christiansen in the 1970’s. Then things begin to soften, almost despite themselves. Distortion on ‘a unit has no unity’ can’t quite smother a rising tune on warped harp. The cello on ‘indigos’ - its voice pizzicato with a velvety sustain - brings comfort and clarity. Mordecai hums a line, feeling out the edges of a song in an intimate release of tension. We are across the threshold - into a romantic sort of nocturnal gloom that feels somewhat out of place in London’s experimental music scene. Trained on viola da gamba as part of a renaissance youth group in the historic midland town of Stafford, Mordecai went on to study performance art in Brighton, later graduating in sound art in London. She performed with David Toop and Rie Nakajima as part of Allan Kaprow’s Yard at the Hepworth Gallery, as well as performing scores by Yoko Ono and George Brecht solo at White Cube Gallery as part of Christian Marclay’s Liquids exhibition. Later, various moves across the north of England found her working with Andrew Chalk and Tom James Scott (forming the trio CIRCÆA), Miles Whittaker (of Demdike Stare) and performing alongside free improvisers. A myriad of influences have crossed her path, her work slowly taking shape across music concrète, improvisation and performance art. A more recent recording with Valerio Tricoli as ‘Mordecoli’ made during the development of Promise & Illusion found its final form as a cassette - a collage of sustained tones, ominous atmospheres and brief 4th wall dissolving vocal interaction. With both CIRCÆA and Mordecoli, Mordecai deals with landscapes - playing with the imaginary over the real and using improvisation as a useful way to dream. On Promise & Illusion, Mordecai sharpens her focus and pivots toward the interior over the exterior - the landscape becoming a personal, psychological one - both comforting and strange. Tracks 4, 5, 7 & 10 recorded and mixed by Adam Matschulat in December 2020. All others recorded and mixed by Ecka Mordecai. Mastered by Shaun Crook at Lockdown Studios, London. Artwork by Ecka Mordecai. Layout by Zofia Sobota.

Track list: 1 la charnière I 2 woe are we 3 a unit has no unity 4 indigos 5 study of a flame 6 la charnière II 7 promise & illusion 8 hush now you say 9 tempera 10 mistakes & continue

Leatherette are, by their own description, “five shy guys who sometimes get off the stage and punch people,” a quintet whose car-crash of jagged noise, twisted love and dark, anguished melody has delivered a remarkable – and eminently combustible – debut album. The group are based in Bologna, but all hail from different towns in Italy. These five young men – singer/guitarist Michele, bassist Marco, drummer Francesco, guitarist Andrea and saxophonist Jacopo – are united by a profound need to make music, to express themselves naturally and honestly. The group bonded over wildly differing influences – everything from midwestern emo gods American Football, to Berlin-era Bowie, to James Chance & The Contortions, to rap and electronic music – to create a dense, passionate, articulate sound of their own. You can file them near fiery post-punk kindreds like Shame and Squid, or unhinged 90s noisers like Unwound or Hoover, or squalling No Wavers like James Chance, but the truth is there are few bands like Leatherette that walk this Earth. Their first full-length, Fiesta follows an EP, Mixed Waste, recorded during lockdown. The songs on Fiesta precede the Covid era, though the group spent the pandemic rewriting and overhauling their maiden batch of songs at leisure. The result is an astonishing and remarkable debut: poetic, caterwauling, broken and beautiful. The album title is “a reference to the bullfights in Pamplona,” the group say. It’s no empty metaphor. “Bullfight is a strange ritual,” they elaborate. “And we’re against bullfights, but they’re fascinating in an iconographic way. And also metaphorically, violence flows on both sides, but in a feastful way. It’s similar to a concert, really – you’re expressing violent things, in a physical way. And people react to that, which is wonderful, which is fantastic.”

Combining elements of indie-pop, punk, emo and just a little bit of 2009 vintage math-rock for good measure, adults are four pals trying to find their way in a disintegrating world. for everything, always reflects on how we look after ourselves, one another and people in our community; it’s a riotous collision reminiscent of Johnny Foreigner, The Beths or Trust Fund, bursting with crunching guitars, speedy drums and yelping dual vocals. The first single all we’ve got // all we need is a song about individual torments: “having a breakdown on the Megabus to Bristol", and about collective support: “mutual aid, building strong networks of community resistance to the hostile environment, to food insecurity, to the homophobia and transphobia by the state and about trying to look after one another”. the secret song to end side one deals with loss, guilt, rejection and anxiety, exploring the travails of a messy breakup and the masculine urge to bury everything deep down despite the fact that that only hurts people more. tfl has a lot to answer for is a “reflection of drinking way too much in yr mid 20s, staying up too late, burning yrself out and how it impacts on yr relationships and mental health”. Recorded and produced by Rich Mandell (Happy Accidents, ME REX) over a couple of weekends in the summer of 2021, for everything, always is the constantly naive, but optimistic, outlook: always striving for a better future in the face of modern society’s bullshit. lts are a noisy pop band desperately clinging on to the ghosts of 2009. Their songs are a silly, joyful, and occasionally sad, look back at the tail end of their 20s, a way to grapple with breakups, parties, alcohol and loneliness, and looking hopefully into the future. They’ve released singles with Art Is Hard and For The Sakes Of Tapes, and self released an EP (The Weekend Was Always Almost Over), which was subsequently released on vinyl by Caballito records. adults are based in south London. Faster, messier and sillier than they have any right to be, adults are hopeful and joyous, fighting through the existential angst of youth to try and find their place in a world on the brink, as grown ups, as adults. Like the octopus on the artwork says: “we're all we've got, we're all we need”. // “a cacophony of clattering drums and belt-it-out choruses Los Campesinos! or Martha would be proud of evidence that adults seem to have stumbled into something rather marvellous” For The Rabbits // “There’s an ample buoyancy from the vocal work, and the guitars are crunchy, though I like how they’re a bit tempered here; think of Martha having to play at your local library…hooks, but just a little more subdued. There’s just something about this that radiates joy” Austin Town Hall // Tracklist: A1) I Had A Little Snooze & Now I Will Probably Never Arrive At Yr House A2) Janine (JG Forever) A3) All We’ve Got // All We Need A4) Tfl Has A Lot To Answer For A5) 2 Sqs A6) The Secret Song To End Side One B1) Things We Achieve B2) The Nod B3) The Pitch And Yaw Of The 6.12 To Brighton (Plain Wrong) B4) Between Buildings B5) Killing & Dying & Something More Positive B6) The High Watermark (Thoughts Of U) B7) Wasn’t Like That

Experimental black metal from Brooklyn featuring the conductor of the Glenn Branca Ensemble. For fans of Krallice, Mizmor, Liturgy. Also featuring member of Pyrrhon, Weeping Sores, Glorious Depravity, and Seputus. There’s a real sense of loss on Brooklyn experimental black metalists Scarcity’s debut album Aveilut, an inescapable presence of the realities of death. Multi-instrumentalist Brendon Randall-Myers (conductor of the Glenn Branca Ensemble since Branca’s passing) wrote Aveilut while processing the sudden deaths of two people close to him, tracked it while caught in Beijing’s first lockdown of 2020, and finished it while surrounded by the overwhelming plague visuals of New York’s early COVID peak. Back in Brooklyn, vocalist Doug Moore (of Pyrrhon, Weeping Sores, Glorious Depravity, and Seputus) soon found himself in the midst of an equally bleak lockdown experience—living next to a funeral home when New York City was America’s COVID epicenter. From conception through development, tangible death surrounded Aveilut. The result of such a profound closeness with death is this grief-stricken release, which takes its name from the Hebrew word for mourning. 72-note octaves, alternate tunings, psychoacoustic phenomena and macro-phrases embody the hugeness of loss, the inexplicable space of death’s void that Randall-Myers faced both on a personal and existential scale. Together with Moore’s gripping vocal delivery and stark lyrics, the album takes the form of a hyperobject, an entity with such vastness and reach that it’s difficult for the human mind to comprehend. Consisting of one 45-minute composition, the music is black metal roughly in the vein of Jute Gyte, Krallice, Mare Cognitum, and Enhare—with hefty doses of post-Branca microtonal guitar abuse, and a cinematic scope that draws on Randall-Myers’ work with orchestras. Aveilut’s mathematical abstraction and lyrical focus on the greatness of the void breed raw emotion, attempting to represent a catastrophe, the vastness and inevitability of things outside one’s control, as well as a direct expression of grief, a kind of requiem. Though born of Randall-Myers and Moore’s intense intimacy with absence, Aveilut is an attempt to present a harrowing universal representation of death’s true form. Tracklist: 1 I 2 II 3 III 4 IV 5 V

Improvisation, composition, language and culture meet, merge and
influence each other
Under The Surface knows no boundaries. On their extraordinary third album, the
group reflects on their own background and finds their own "folk".After the
group's first two completely free-improvisation albums, Under The Surface (2017)
and Trinity(2019), both nominated for an Edison, the nextstep for Under The
Surface is a fully composed album: Miin Triuwa.
Under The Surface was formed in 2015 and since then the band has enjoyed a
great deal of international success. Drummer Joost Lijbaart recognised the
group's potential early on and organized more than 200 concerts in 25 countries
on 4 continents: from Africa to South America, Asia, the Middle East and Europe.
Inspired by their many travels and the cultures they encountered, the group
developed a unique improvisation language thatcombines jazz, folk, ethnic and
electronic music.
With Miin Triuwa, Under The Surface embarks on a new musical journey with
compositions by guitarist Bram Stadhouders. He wrote a suite of eightpieces in
which the characters and qualities of the band members are transcendent. The
constantly changing improvisations that are so characteristic of the band are now
captured in a powerful musical statement that showcases what the band stands
for. Instead of traveling to other worlds, in this project the group looks inward and
explores how their own roots influence their music.
Under The Surface has a common drive to find the universal essence of different
cultures. Thus, for this album the connection was made with theband's own
"forgotten" language, Old Dutch. With the help of historical linguist PeterAlexander Kerkhof and the Dutch Language Institute, Sanne Rambags carried out
research and wrote beautiful lyrics for the album in Old Dutch. This is the
language that was spoken in the Netherlands from circa 600 to 1150 CE and
sounds similar to Gaelic and Icelandic. Below is a short excerpt from Track 3,
"Fear and Trembling," from the album Miin Triuwa.

ARCHITECTS have delivered their 10th studio album; an arena-ready
opus entitled, the classic symptoms of a broken spirit , the follow up to
their 2021 breakout album For Those That Wish To Exist, which hit #1 on
the UK sales chart.Finding yourself with a UK Number One album and
selling out arenas is enough for some to repeat a winning formula
Architects however, are forever moving forward. "It was definitely validating and
felt really cool for like a day," recalls drummer, producer and songwriter Dan
Searle of hitting the top spot with For Those That Wish To Exist."For a lot of the
bucket list things you reach in any career, there's a momentary gratification then
you're like, 'What next?' You just move on. By the time the album came out, my
head was already in the mindset of 'broken spirit'. That was where I was at."
Searle notes how it was their albums Lost Forever/ Lost Together, All Our Gods
Have Abandoned Us, and Holy Hell that really "cemented what the band was
about" and "took them to a new level" as a rock powerhouse and leaders of the
UK's metalcore scene – making it all the more "daunting" to reinvent themselves
on the records that would follow. "I wanted to make this album with a different
aesthetic. We were enjoying working with the synths and doing stuff that we
hadn't done before."
As a band who never stop writing, the kernels of the songs that make up the
classic symptoms of a broken spirit were already in progress before the ink had
time to dry on the artwork of their last record. Architects were on a creative roll,
and the record was born of that creative freedom. Produced by Dan Searle and
guitarist Josh Middleton, with additional production from frontman Sam Carter at
Decon's Middle Farm Studios and their own Brighton Electric Studios before being
mixed by Zakk Cervini, the band were buoyed by finally being back in a room
together after their last album was made mostly remotely due to COVID
restrictions. The result was something altogether more "free, play - ful and
spontaneous," Searle explains.
Carter agrees: "This one feels more live, more exciting and more fun – it has that
energy. We wanted it to be a lot more industrial and electronic. That was the main
mission. They can sit side-by-side: Mr. Electronic and Mr. Organic."

Nashville-based instrumental rock combo Los Straitjackets have been
proving for years that rock & roll is a truly universal language by doing
away with vocals, but for this album the masked guitar manglers have
decided to focus on a more specific tongue - namely Spanish
For Rock en Español, Vol. 1, Los Straitjackets have recruited three talented friends
to perform a set of rock & roll classics in Spanish -- Cesar Rosas of Los Lobos,
Big Sandy of retro-country kings Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys, and Little Willie G.,
lead singer with legendary East L.A. soul-rockers Thee Midnighters. While most
folks will be familiar with these tunes in their English-language originals, many of
the versions that appear on this album were taken from Spanish rewrites
recorded in the '60s by Mexican teen groups such as Los Teen Tops, Los Locos
del Ritmo and Los Rebeldes del Rock. This 15th anniversary edition LP is the first
ever reissue of Los Straitjackets' 2007 classic album and is pressed on purple
vinyl.

Wilson Pickett was quite simply one of THE great soul singers. Pickett's phenomenal gospel-honed voice and involvement in his best songs marked him down as a major soul performer and even as late as the mid-70's, a producer as astute as Brad Shapiro was not likely to take too many musical liberties when 'updating' Wicked Pickett. This 1976 album, recorded at Sound Shops Studio in Nashville, featurees the two R&B single hits : "The Best Part of A Man" and "Love Will Keep Us Together" This success prompted this 10-track "Chocolate Mountain" album. Shapiro chose a musical 'sound' to tie in with the more funky demands of the mid-70's but Pickett's voice and approach to a lyric never really changed. Swampy and bluesy with plenty of 'rap' from Pickett or more gospel oriented funcky tracks, Pickett works the lyrics like the soul veteran he already was by 1976 and the quality of these excellent songs for all to enjoy.

Mark IV were from New York and released one album on Mercury Records in 1974 until we released their second in 201b called 'Signs Of A Dying Love,' which was a collection of unreleased songs recorded in the mid 1970s. There were two versions of the song 'I Knew It Wouldn't Last.' We featured the midtempo version on the album and the other was an exclusive play for Soul Sam, Lars Bulnheim and Steve Clancy for the past eighteen months.

In 2021, in the midst of COVID, in a desire to continue to share music and stay connected, Gauthier worked to produce collaborations with artists from all over the world, Ottoman Grüw (Canada), Nekro TFFV (Turkey), Lucas Martins (Brazil), Lethal M (Macedonia). The result is four techno tracks both melodic and powerful inhabited by voices that resonate like the whisper of a music that, whatever happens, will never stop to exist.

Never Alone is the testimony that even isolate we continue through the music to be together.

Well known as the Deep’a half of Deep’a & Biri, and a huge influential source of energy and innovation in Tel Aviv’s house and techno community, Yaron Amor goes solo for the very first time with an incredibly personal project. Introducing Zeena…
“The decision about the solo project was made during a visit to Morocco, in the main city square of Marrakesh I came across an improvised jam of 20 drummers from all over the country, the crazy rhythms they played together spontaneously amazed me and made me realize that the perfect beat I've been looking for, for so many years, was under my nose. In Arabic and Moroccan music that was constantly played in the house where I grew up…”
Home is where the soul is… Zeena translates to beauty in Moroccan and this label exists wholly to celebrate and push cutting edge Arab electronic music. It starts here with Yaron’s first solo EP. The result of an inspired creative series of recordings with drummers and musicians from Israel, Algiers, Morocco, and Berlin, across three tracks we’re taken on a beautiful excursion of emotions, tension and introspective places.
“I tried to merge together influences from the world of techno which I have been active in for almost 20 years along with the rhythms of Arabic music while paying respect to each of the genres.”
From the tension and powerful emotion of ‘The Pain Body’ (a mesmerising kick-less tableaux that would work perfectly for an intro or mid-set game-changer) to the powerful synth-laced Detroitian drive and thump of title track ‘Zeena’ via the wild rolling toms of ‘Omipresence’, this is Yaron Amor as we’ve never heard him before… Raw, honest, direct and totally at home. The middle east has played a huge role in so many inspirations, influences and sample sources since the very start of electronic music. Now its time to bring that to the fore and celebrate it on a whole new level. Zeena is that level. Stay tuned…

Gegensätze ziehen sich im Leben ja bekanntlich an und sorgen für reichlich Abwechslung und Spannung genau so ist es auch hier. Auf der einen Seite die alten Haudegen ''The Warriors'' die in altbewährter Manier klassischen englischen 80`s Oi! abliefern.

Musikalisch geht es hier, geprägt durch Saxby´s rauhem Gesang auch ernster und genretypisch hauptsächlich im Mid-Tempo zur Sache. Als krassen Gegensatz dazu knallen dann auf der B-Seite ''The Pogos'' aus Philadelphia (U.S.A.) mit erfrischendem Punkrock & Punk`n`Roll Einlagen aus den Boxen. Hier geht es deutlich melodiöser und lebensfreudiger zu, Songs wie ''Fuck The Shit Up'', ''10 Beers In", ''We came to drink'' verbreiten gleich Party Feeling und laden zum mitsingen ein. Die Jungs brauchen sich hier auf keinen Fall verstecken und sind der eigentliche Geheimtipp auf dieser Split-LP. Wer sowohl auf klassischen Oi! und auf Punkrock steht kommt hier voll auf seine Kosten.

2022 repress.

Vickie Chérie and Leo Bear Creek, aka The Pirouettes, need no introduction: after two albums (Carrément Carrément, 2016, and Monopolis, 2018), incessant tours in France and abroad (culminating in triumphant concerts at the Cigale and the Olympia), and numerous collaborations, the duo has become one of the most striking and endearing figures in French pop today.

But after the announcement of their separation in love, one could fear the end of the musical adventure. Not at all, the Pirouettes are back with a new album whose title, Equilibre, is not insignificant.

"Equilibre tu es un rêve inatteignable" says the eponymous song. And yet, balance is the goal that Vickie and Leo have set for themselves in order to continue working together: an ideal of wisdom to which to turn, in the midst of the turmoil, and which has guided the Pirouettes, both as artists and as human beings, during the writing and composition of this new album. They had to relearn how to work together, put aside conflicts and mood swings, and find resources of calm and empathy. But their common will to write a new chapter, to continue to tell their story, for themselves as well as for the fans, resulted in a result as generous as it was touching.

This new album, balance obliges, takes more into consideration the desires of each one and gives more voice to personal expression. No more unison, everyone can now take turns expressing their point of view and asserting their personality. From this point of view, the idea of the double album is quite symbolic: to produce two equal sets and put 9 songs on each side of the scale.

• Finding a new Eddie Hill recording from 1969 was quite a thrill and on hearing the beautiful mid-tempo groove, we included it on both our “Westbound Northern Soul” and “Masterpieces Of Modern Soul Vol 3” CDs in 2010. Since then, demand for ‘I Am So Thankful’ has risen and we can now issue it as a single. It was originally scheduled to be Westbound 151 in the USA but that spot was claimed by Emanuel Lasky’s ‘Never My Love’. Eddie now has a Kent release to go with his Detroit waxings on Thelma, Ge-Ge and M-S.

• ‘Long Live The King’ was an LP track from the Detroit Emeralds’ acclaimed debut album “Do Me Right”. It didn’t get a US 45 release but did sneak out on a Various Artists UK DJ-promo EP in 1973 for then-current Phonogram releases. This is the first time this superb and popular dance track it has been commercially available as a single.

Vinyl reissue of the absolutely brilliant fourth full length album from the pop-punk / melodic hardcore legends Four Year Strong.

This album is now getting pressed onto vinyl for the first since it's original release in 2010, as the band's first major-label released studio album. Album features the huge singles 'It Must Really Suck To Be In Four Year Strong Right Now' and 'Wasting Time (Eternal Summer)', amongst an album filled with fan-favourites.

Vinyl reissue of the absolutely brilliant fourth full length album from the pop-punk / melodic hardcore legends Four Year Strong.

This album is now getting pressed onto vinyl for the first since it's original release in 2010, as the band's first major-label released studio album. Album features the huge singles 'It Must Really Suck To Be In Four Year Strong Right Now' and 'Wasting Time (Eternal Summer)', amongst an album filled with fan-favourites.

For Fans Of Temples, Allah-Las, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Khruangbin, David Axelrod. Each song on Ghost Funk Orchestra's 3rd album, A New Kind of Love, due to be released on Colemine Records … 2022, resonates like the soundtrack to a scene from an imaginary movie. The music could score a romantic drama, an action thriller, or a modern twist on a classic film noir. The spare, cascading vocals accentuate the lush instrumental orchestrations composed, performed, arranged and produced by multi-instrumentalist Seth Applebaum, whose latest brainchild was conceived and conceptualized during The Great Pause of 2020, a time of tension, bewilderment and isolation. Evoking the grooviness of an era which preceded his arrival on earth, Applebaum draws upon sonic devices of mid-century exotica and the succinct but dense arranging style of the leaders of the pop orchestras which dominated the hit parades of the 60s and early 70s. He blends impressions of this bygone era with an expression of his actual experiences as a young filmmaker coming of age in the 21st century, citing influences such as Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings and Antibalas. A New Kind of Love encompasses a reverence for the past without attempting to recreate it. In the tradition of the "production forward" discographies of such record makers as David Axelrod and the Mizell Brothers, it's easy to visualize Applebaum as a "mad doctor" figure, hunkered down in a studio channeling this musical representation of his inner world into the 12 compositions which make up A New Kind of Love. His writing stretches his psyche to explore a terrain in which to capture emotional notes of love going well, love gone sour, manifesting love songs based in ghostly affairs. While the studio is obviously a wondrous happy place of experimentation and creativity for Applebaum, he's a band guy too (having actually fronted punk outfit The Mad Doctors). Applebaum has the wherewithal to bring his dreamy material to the 10 piece all star Ghost Funk Orchestra, leading them to breathe life into this sophisticated body of work which heralds the celebration of a new era for the group. Ghost Funk Orchestra will be touring in concert this summer and fall to celebrate the release of A New Kind of Love, an album which is sure to stand the test of time. Also Available From Ghost Funk Orch: Night Walker/Death Waltz LP/CD, Opaque Red LP, An Ode To Escapism LP/CD, A Song For Paul LP / CD 1. Introduction 2. Your Man's No Good 3. Scatter 4. Prism 5. Quiet Places 6. A New Kind Of Love (pt. 1) 7. Why? 8. Blockhead 9. A Song For Pearl 10. Bluebell 11. Rooted 12. A New Kind Of Love (pt. 2)

Daniel Barenboim will turn 80 on November 15th. Warner Classics are celebrating the great musician, who has had tremendous success since the ‘60s both at the piano or conducting, with an album made in the mid-90s that is close to his heart and Argentinian origins, though aside of the classical repertoire. Tangos Among Friends - Mi Buenos Aires Querido (named after a tango by Carlos Gardel) proves again all the talent and swing Daniel Barenboim has, and has been a huge success since released by Teldec on CD in 1996.

“I spent the first nine years of my life in Argentina and only in Argentina. The rest of the world was far away. Everything Argentinian was close to my heart. The concepts of cosmopolitan existence or international thinking were not yet awakened. The air that I breathed was Buenos Aires, the language that I spoke was Spanish porteño and the rhythm to which I danced (figuratively speaking…) was the tango! My idol was Carlos Gardel. Nearly half a century later I came back not only to Argentina, not only to my childhood but especially to my Buenos Aires querido and many other wonderful melodies that make up this sentimental record.”
Daniel Barenboim – from album booklet


In an interview made in the 90s, Daniel Barenboim added: “In Argentina during the late 1940s there was no chasm between classical music and the tango, in the way there was a chasm between classical music and jazz. The tango is a basic part of Argentine popular culture; when you went to a restaurant or a party, that was the music you would hear. (…) Already as a child I was crazy about the tango. I still am.”

“The young Daniel found himself drawn to the bittersweet tales of passion, tragedy and nostalgia sung by Gardel, the tango singer and songwriter who exerted a major influence in popularizing the tango throughout the Western hemisphere and Europe. (…) Over the following decades Barenboim would regale friends at home or at parties with piano arrangements of tangos he heard in his youth. (…) Barenboim never thought of sharing his passion for tangos with the public until last year when he had returned to Buenos Aires for concerts with his Berlin Staatskapelle orchestra. At a reception he found himself talking tangos with a young Argentine. Learning of Barenboim’s interest in performing them, he offered to drum up a few local musicians with whom Barenboim could play tangos at home. That’s how he met Mederos and Console. “The first day we just played for fun,” Barenboim says. “Then we decided to make a recording. So we rehearsed for two days and made the record in one afternoon.” (…) Once he, Mederos and Console set out to record their tango program, Barenboim was surprised at how much of the characteristic tango rubato – a subtle alteration of rhythmic weight and accent – he still had at his fingertips, more than four decades after leaving Buenos Aires. That said, he insists on sharing credit for the success of the disc with his Argentine colleagues. “What they gave me was a pure sense of the tango, especially in the melodic freedom over a very strict rhythmic foundation. Performing tangos, you are constantly anticipating the downbeat or coming after it; this is part of the tradition. What I gave them was the necessity to rethink certain aspects – say, the volume and transparency of sound – so that playing tangos didn’t sound routine.”
– The Chicago Tribune, Oct. 1996