"Do you dream too?" Tomemitsu"s Martin Roark asks on his sophomore album with Friends of Friends Music. The question is also what stemmed from the album title, "Dream 2", a shorthand written in the lyrics. "Dream 2" is quite possibly Tomemitsu"s dreamiest LP, if not his most diverse. It is brimming with both new territory and nods to his past. This record reveals a more buoyant side to accompany his traditionally spaced out productions.
2026 Repress
Un-American Activities is the 11th Studio album by Molly Nilsson. Written and recorded entirely on location in California at the former home of writer, poet and early opponent of the National Socialist regime in 1930s Germany, Lion Feuchtwanger and his wife Marta. An album of experimentation, genre-mashing and, above it all, Nilsson’s instantly recognisable melodic skill and empathy, it continues the songwriter’s explorations of power, freedom, oppression and its opposing force, a love unbound.
After accepting an artist residency as part of the Villa Aurora program, Nilsson began work crafting a new album from scratch in a new environment, afforded the freedom, space and time to challenge her practice and take her music into new territory. The resulting work, Un American Activities, is a love note not only to the artist who was among the very first to be declared an “enemy of the state” by the Nazi regime but also to both the eternal struggle he fought and the human spirit that pervades all of Nilsson’s best work. It is also a double-pointed poison pen letter: a critique of the new forms of oppression wielded by her temporary adopted country of the USA but also an acknowledgement of the promise it always offers but never fulfils.
Along with the novel use of colour and photography in the artwork for Un-American Activities, there are swathes of new techniques, genres and timbres new to Molly Nilsson’s music in evidence, 16 years into her music career. On Jackboots Return is an icicle-cold New Beat track that deals directly with the current situation in Germany and the resurgent Nazi-affiliated AfD. The question the song asks is, what’s the timeframe we’re talking about? Is this the 30s, or somewhere a lot closer to home? The beat is picked up on The Communist Party, Nilsson’s deepest bow to House music, evoking the early 90s Rave pioneers, Belgian 80s music and Vogue-era Madonna. Here the lyrics are direct quotes from the McCarthy-era, anti-Communist pamphlet 100 Things You Should Know About Communism in the U.S.A. The Beauty Of The Duty does to pounding Electro what Nilsson’s last album Extreme did to Metal: subsume it into the Molly Nilsson aesthetic. It goes hard.
While Un-American Activities finds Nilsson experimenting, creating instinctive music on a first-thought-bestthought basis there are still “classic” Molly moments liberally spread throughout. Excalibur feels like the Molly of old, an absolute star of a chorus refrain smudged with the vaseline of fuzz and hope, Red Telephone is wide-eyed, slathered in reverb and chorus effects, distorted with soaring melody, a heart-tugger that tugs the body upwards to the heavens with each evolving wave. Glistening digital tones wash through the album, providing a Y2K etherealness to Nilsson’s audacious Stars and Stripes reference to Wetcheeks. Perhaps the album’s standout, however, is Palestine (Somewhere Over The Rainbow), which is suffuse with empathy, solidarity and, in referencing the classic socialist-penned canon song from The Wizard Of Oz, speaks directly to the tradition of fighting oppression with full hearts of hope.
Mermaid Chunky. It's all in a name, sometimes. The danceable, costumed, curiosity rich duo of artists Freya Tate and Moina Moin are as imaginative as they profess. Or, to get more to the point, as we all need them to be. Freya and Moina are two visual artists and musicians from Stroud and South London, places where they importantly found communities (Stroud's SVA and the capital's Total Refreshment Centre) of like minded people just as willing to chase down an idea to its possibly illogical conclusion. And it is in the collective and the idea of participation that Mermaid Chunky really clicks. This is a party, a collective dance, made all the better with more: people, ideas, layers, kick drums, recorders, saxophones, frogs. To wit, the album's first track and first single, "Céilí," named after a traditional Scottish or Irish social gathering and dance, which builds from a simple recorder line into a swelling, warm burst of major chord dance music. Goosebumps or check your pulse. Further down the rabbit hole, "Chaperone" is almost boardwalk electro, like Fischerspooner on a ferris wheel; "Frogsporn" and "Nature Girl" are mucky, trippy dirges filled with stalactites of synth and squelch; "Tiny Gymnast" is a kaleidoscopic waltz into the night. Hold onto your seats, ladies and gentlemen. You might be wondering how we, DFA Records, all the way over in cynical Brooklyn, entered the picture. There was a day a few years ago, sun shining in full Springtime splendor, when James heard something while waiting for a coffee down the street from the office. It sounded simple yet deceptively complex: a dance track, but one where the one - that anchoring first beat in a measure - could be heard a thousand different ways. Frustrated and interested, he Shazamd the song, playing at the shop from an episode of Zakia's Questing show on NTS, and brought it back to the office, where we all listened to it about fifty times. (The song was "Friends," from Mermaid Chunky's VEST EP, released in 2020. It led to an invitation to open for LCD at Brixton Academy in 2022. Mermaid Chunky has also played live alongside The Comet Is Coming, Alabastair Deplume, Snapped Ankles, and many others.) Thus began our search for Mermaid Chunky. A quest it has been and a quest it will always be.
Following his highly acclaimed 2021 album "Atotal" (Aesthetical) and 2022 "Magnetoscope" (Raster), Vigroux returns with eight heavyweight tracks composed in 2023 and 2024. Vigroux states about his current work: "I am not very talkative about my music unless I am specifically questioned, the immaterial dimension of music partly spares us from the major questions which are the prerogative of theatrical forms for which I am also very active, in this sense for me music is a real outlet where things are done intuitively, for pleasure". Always pushing forth and expanding his now classic rigidly cold analog sounds and rhythmic structures entwined with lush atmospheric synth compositions, "Grand Bal is another milestone in his ever growing discography.
The new album from the original founding member of Kool & the Gang -- 2024 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees! Drummer George “Funky” Brown, along with Robert “Kool” Bell on bass, his brother Ronald Bell on tenor and lead vocalist James "J.T." Taylor, was one of the main songwriters in their pop/R&B band Kool & The Gang, whose classic hits like “Jungle Boogie,” “Hollywood Swinging,” “Celebration,” “Get Down on It” and “Joanna” made for a novel and immensely successful pop-funk groove in the 1970s and ‘80s. Such songs have been featured in films (“Jungle Boogie” was in Pulp Fiction while “Summer Madness” appeared in Rocky) and have been sampled countless times by artists including DJ Kool, Mase, Too Short, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, Boogie Down Productions, Brand Nubian, De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, Nas, N.W.A., Kris Kross and Jermaine Dupri. Aside from being crowned 2024 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees, Brown, with Kool & the Gang, has been inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame--and there’s a street in Jersey City named in the band's honor. The Grammy-winning group has received the Soul Train Legend Award and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Tip!
Polido has been fantasizing with the idea of free music throughout his artistic career. Free from restraints, logos, musical genres, but also from this modern obsession with narratives, plans, business plans, algorithms and bubble wrapped ideas for comfort of those of you that can’t breathe without everything making sense.
“Hearing Smoke” has nothing of that. It has been four years since Holuzam released the double album “A Casa e os Cães / Sabor a Terra” and for four years I have been daydreaming about what would come next. This is it, eleven new pieces about the future of the future of music. It is the result of years of study, research and sound consolidation. Sound as matter, mutating, transforming, absorbing all around, a shapeshifting entity connecting with the principles of freedom.
"Polido has been researching Portuguese contemporary composition, its very own sounds and ideas. Its origins, the web of repression, tension and censorship before the April 25th revolution in 1974; secondly, as an afterthought, freedom, equality and a unique sense of community and belonging screaming through the music. He absorbed those states of mind and made an album that listens to the current world and presents globalization as a mental trap.
If the music that inspired him somehow comes from a post-colonial world, “Hearing Smoke” questions how we can create something new in this permanent state of cultural colonization, where new trends or forms of music only thrive if they are accepted by the dominant cultures. The physical world has been transformed, but ideas like “world music” or “ghetto music” still show that dominance, the Strange can only be accepted if it incorporates the rules and codes of that dominant force. What I am saying is that it is hard for Portuguese musicians to present themselves as original. They will never have that credit unless the music relates to something that exists in another
realm. Never for their benefit, but for the power of association. I may sound arrogant here, but Polido is unique, original, one of a kind (all those words, all those redundant synonyms). I knew it four years ago when I got lost in the way “A Casa e os Cães” is assembled and how he makes something memorable out of the most commonplace conversations. “Hearing Smoke” continues the flow and puts us in the centre of these ever evolving masses of sound.
Somehow his music finds you, it starts speaking with you until it asks you to be a part of it. Polido’s beats and harmonics are combined in such a tender way that you mellow out while listening to these beats - thinking of the brilliant “Saque”. Even when he exposes you to something more harsh - “Canto D’Amorte” or the closing moments of the last track “Custa A Crer” - there’s still a cradle effect.
But what keeps me returning to this album is how it seems to transform in my ears. Not every time I listen to it, but while I am listening to it. The sound seems to move, embracing me and controlling my inner thoughts. These start to move along at the same pace, with the same feeling of cloudiness. Nothing new here, the thing is how it feels different from time to time, how the music, because of something that changes or moves, comes as a catharsis/revelation. It drives me nuts how the beats come and go in tracks like “Fogo Firme (Encomendação)” or “The More I Think, The Less I Can Speak“, leaving everything suspended and, simultaneously, relieved. When dramatic - ”Prova De Existência“ - it is sad af and gorgeously epic.
Trap, bass music, dubstep, ambient, hauntology and contemporary music flow side by side here, no pushing around, free of interpretation, and you are free to feel or listen to whatever you want in “Hearing Smoke”. That’s free music for you. Not a hard concept, something for you to enjoy, feel, reflect about. This is what the future will sound like."
André Santos // Holuzam
Futurismo proudly present a celebration of the Paisley Underground scene with TWISTED DREAM MACHINE The Paisley Underground / California’s Psychedelic Renaissance: 1982-1986, the next volume in their Altered Vision compilation series.
This collection draws from the neo psychedelic movement that took hold in California during the early to mid 80’s, one that melded the psychedelia, country, garage rock, avant-garde and pop of the 60’s with the DIY ethos of the then burgeoning punk scene, a hypnotic amalgamation of sound that came in staunch contrast to the blown out sonic excesses of the time.
Twisted Dream Machine takes you on a trip from the city to the desert, as the kaleidoscope of noise drifts from the The Dream Syndicate’s Velvet Underground inspired take on Crazy Horse and The Three O’Clock’s chiming baroque powerpop, to Rain Parade’s dreamy Beatlesesque melodies and the Bangles hook-laden Love inspired pop. Also featured are the wondrous sounds of Green On Red, The Long Ryder’s, Game Theory, True West, Thin White Rope and others highly worth your attention. If you are not familiar with some of the bands here, you will surely question how that is possible. The Paisley Underground, if anything, encapsulated a certain musical mindset, an outlook where the past and the future would collide in the moment. This thread would bond the bands, yet each honed it’s own sound in a twisted incarnation of the seeds planted two decades earlier. Whilst the ‘scene’ did remain contained, its influence did in fact spread throughout mainstream culture as the Bangles stuck a chord into the heart of MTV, whilst Prince took inspiration from the movement in his own songwriting and the naming of Paisley Park, as well as signing The Three O’Clock to his label and writing one of the Bangles biggest hits.
As you listen to the tracks on Twisted Dream Machine you will be reminded that there is still music left to discover and inspire, this compilation is aimed to hopefully delight longtime fans, as well as ignite a passion for those new to the bands. The Paisley Underground was the sound of neo psychedelic rock, it was subterranean pop...in
the classic sense, it was alternative rock before the term existed, a distillation of the fundamentals present at the dawn of rock ‘n’ roll, with a twist. The bands of the Paisley Underground may have been writing out of their own time, but as you listen to them in today’s context these songs should be heard as landmarks, rather than throwbacks. After all, nothing this good should stay underground. This 2xLP comes on limited edition coloured vinyl, it is housed in a gloss laminated outer sleeve with colour inner sleeves and contains a large fold-out poster with unseen photos and liner notes by Lisa Fancher of Frontier. Also available on CD with Gloss laminated Sleeve and Fold Out Poster.
Balancing glitch-pop and contemporary piano, the Belgian pianist explores the edges of her voice, language and twisted electronica
The Belgian pianist and producer maya dhondt releases a new album titled 'wow, x', marking her debut solo album under her own name. Navigating between bedroom glitch-pop and contemporary piano, she presents sounds of alienating beauty.
The album ‘wow, x’ will be released on September 13 on vinyl and all digital platforms via VIERNULVIER Records.
“I find beauty in the uncomfortable and disorienting" - maya dhont
The first single, 'desire,' is a mutated synth-pop track that gets under the skin. The song centralizes longing for something you don't know (yet). Perhaps it's the smell of damp earth, which can be both pleasant and unsettling? The single is now available on all streaming platforms and comes with a schizophrenic video by Sakis Brönnimann.
The first release show is scheduled for Saturday, October 5, at De Koer, Ghent.
More shows will be announced soon.
A postmodern cramp, that's how one could describe the music of pianist and producer maya dhondt. Her music is an intuitive and a never ending exploration that has the potential to be and become a multitude of things at once.
On her first solo album under her own name, 'wow, x,' she presents 10 varied tracks in which she creates equally idiosyncratic sound worlds. She takes the liberty to endlessly experiment with vocals, piano, and a mix of distorted lo-fi electronic sounds with an open mind. The result is sometimes synthetic and weird, sometimes compellingly beautiful, and always captivating, drawing you into its underlying melody. These intelligently crafted productions are connected by a penchant for alienating beauty: like a warm, but damp cave where it’s pleasant to linger just a little longer. Her original sound moves within a sonic spectrum reminiscent of contemporary artists such as Lolina, Astrid Sonne, claire rousay, aya or Carla Dal Forno.
"What I create never stands alone, it can be many things at once"
If the world were a sculpture garden, maya dhondt eagerly picks from it to draw inspiration from both visual and literary passages as well as personal experiences. Her highly personal bedroom productions are grounded firmly in the world due to philosophical references and politically charged messages. And the world she lives in is being questioned on 'wow, x', as the title refers to "What Or Why?". This is evident in the single 'desire': "What is the thing that matters / to exist / or to know you’re existing?" What does one choose in life: to live in the moment or to live to remember that moment?
In the lyrics on 'wow, x', maya dhondt plays - at times childishly - with language and its boundaries. On 'tip toe tip,' banal wordplay leads to an unexpected confession, and the seemingly simple phrases in 'untitled' conceal hidden life lessons. dhondt's world of words is multilayered and multilingual: Dutch ('kleine cijfers, groot verlies'), English ('desire'), and French ('untitled') are at her disposal. And on the fierce track that is 'minimalinvasiv,' not only she turns to hardstyle, but also to German - a language dear to her due to her Swiss heritage.
Death and the Maiden’s Uneven Ground draws back the velvet curtain on the trio’s crepuscular dreamworld with nine songs of their distinctive shadowy slow-motion fusion of underground electronic dance music and post-punk guitars washed through with psychic unease. The trio’s name is taken from that of a nineteenth century engraving by Edvard Munch: an artwork steeped in mythology, exploring the dark boundaries between love and death, strength and frailty, beauty and decay. Their three albums to date each reinforce the symbolism of the name, and Uneven Ground’s title could apply as much to their own journey in the years since Wisteria, their previous album, as to the times in which we live. Bassist and vocalist Lucinda King is the bedrock, guide and storyteller. Guitarist Hope Robertson weaves swooping, soaring motifs and sometimes deconstructed layers of noise to build analogue atmosphere for these alternate worlds. Danny Brady’s beats mix old-school drum machines with electronic tones and distortion, while his synth arrangements blend elements of psy-trance and acid house with more amniotic ambient and industrial textures. While Uneven Ground may be the most overtly “pop”-sounding album in their catalogue, it also ratchets up the ominous atmosphere, noise and experimentation. Once again King’s evocative lyrics appear as cryptic stories, built from events, memories, dreams, moments, warnings, regrets; where questions raised are left unanswered, and possibilities remain open.
Admittedly, I'm not a great salesperson when it comes to running our little label. I do my best not to give into hyperbole or build something up too intensely if someone has not heard a new artist yet. I prefer to simply present the music and let the listener decide how they feel about it. However, we live in an age when the "story" put together by publicists, labels, and managers are often the driving force of an artist's ascension into the zeitgeist. And for me, that's always felt rather artificial, even when the narrative is genuine. But every once in a while, a project comes along that takes on a life of its own. And I can say without a doubt that the growth of Pale Jay's reach since we first started working with him has little to do with conjured narratives or clever marketing, but more to do with how the music makes the listener feel. It's that simple. In fact, Jay is so enigmatic and without a narrative that the mere absence of a story has become the story. Who is he? Where is he from? What's next? Some questions are better left unanswered in my opinion, my friend. Including the question, "Why does this music make me feel so much?" You're better off just sitting back, disconnecting, and letting Low End Love Songs by Pale Jay wrap you up. Enjoy and spread the good word. - Terry Cole
"Low End Love Songs", more so than previous releases, is a diary in form of song. I knew I just had to wait for the songs to be ready to be picked, like ripe fruit from a tree. Each tune encapsulates a distinct moment in my life, with music serving as my means of processing complex and sometimes conflicting emotions. In this album, I depart from loop-based song structures towards more intricate and lush compositions. Latin influences permeate the music, adding new layers of rhythms and textures to my soul-music roots. - Pale Jay
“Tu non hai questo suono. Non avrai mai questo sound”
Blank Mind presents three sublime versions of Big Hands’ ‘Girde Maye / Astere’ from Tammo Hesselink, Notte Infinita and Paperclip Minimiser - originally released on the Ossario EP in 2021.
Though playful in nature, and not overtly political - the lyrics explore identity and geographical boundaries. As the artist explains - it is written by an Italian and a Türk that talks in Italian, released in Britain in times of Brexit “and that’s why I chose to have a title in Kurdish in a song “sung” by a Türk.”
The vocal provides endless scope for reshaping and is entrusted to some of the most distinctive producers in electronic music; each of whom sensitively reimagine the original.
On the flip, the esteemed and prolific Tammo Hesselink produces a robust, and heavy version in his angular, crystalline style. Finally, Cong Burn wizard Paperclip Minimiser slows the tempo with a futuristic roller, an impressive creation by a man deeply immersed in technological innovation and at one with his machines.
ercury Rev take you on a swan dive into the mystic: a rapture of ballad-dreams and emotional memoir at the crossroads of The Dharma Bums, Pet Sounds and Side Three of Electric Ladyland. A profound, transcendant trip from the psychedelic explorers who brought you Deserter's Songs.
David Fricke In upstate New York, deep in the seam between the Catskills mountains and the Hudson Valley, a richly swelling, spellbound sound emerges, eddying and flowing like the local Esopus Creek, or in the slipstream of the grander Hudson river, carrying the flotsam and jetsam of our hopes, dreams, fears. A sound composed of organic and electronic; guitars, keys, brass, strings, woodwind, drums - and a voice of incantations, tapping streams of consciousness that similarly eddy and flow.
Spiritually, literally, psycho-geographically: where else does Mercury Rev’s ninth album Born Horses spring from? This cascade of gleaming, glistening psych-jazz-folk-baroque-ambient quest that searches its soul but can never truly know the answer? A sound and vision linked to their exalted past whilst quite unlike anything they have created before?
The answer is somewhere between the homes of founder members Jonathan Donahue (the hamlet of Mt Tremper) and Grasshopper (the town of Kingston), in their veins and brains of their now-legendary tapping of musical cosmology, and the vital presence of new permanent member Marion Genser (keys), plus long-term ally Jesse Chandler (keys) and guests Jeff Lipstein (drums), Martin Keith (double bass) and Jim Burgess (trumpet). A place that feeds off the levitating mood of their last album, 2019’s expansive tribute Bobbie Gentry's The Delta Sweete Revisited, and the instrumental psych explorations under the names of Harmony Rockets and Mercury Rev’s Clear Light Ensemble, and the spiritual guidance of avant-garde artist Tony Conrad and Beat poet Robert Creeley, to whom Born Horses is
dedicated.
Admittedly, I'm not a great salesperson when it comes to running our little label. I do my best not to give into hyperbole or build something up too intensely if someone has not heard a new artist yet. I prefer to simply present the music and let the listener decide how they feel about it. However, we live in an age when the "story" put together by publicists, labels, and managers are often the driving force of an artist's ascension into the zeitgeist. And for me, that's always felt rather artificial, even when the narrative is genuine. But every once in a while, a project comes along that takes on a life of its own. And I can say without a doubt that the growth of Pale Jay's reach since we first started working with him has little to do with conjured narratives or clever marketing, but more to do with how the music makes the listener feel. It's that simple. In fact, Jay is so enigmatic and without a narrative that the mere absence of a story has become the story. Who is he? Where is he from? What's next? Some questions are better left unanswered in my opinion, my friend. Including the question, "Why does this music make me feel so much?" You're better off just sitting back, disconnecting, and letting Low End Love Songs by Pale Jay wrap you up. Enjoy and spread the good word. - Terry Cole
"Low End Love Songs", more so than previous releases, is a diary in form of song. I knew I just had to wait for the songs to be ready to be picked, like ripe fruit from a tree. Each tune encapsulates a distinct moment in my life, with music serving as my means of processing complex and sometimes conflicting emotions. In this album, I depart from loop-based song structures towards more intricate and lush compositions. Latin influences permeate the music, adding new layers of rhythms and textures to my soul-music roots. - Pale Jay
Lukas de Clerck brings us the ancient greek instrument, the aulos, of which his new interpretation of long form expression is coaxed forth on this tremendous recording. Lukas de Clerck explores a niche of archaeological research in music; the aulos is a historical Greek instrument that Lukas analyzed and reinterpreted by a luthier in modern times_navigating this impression as an artwork or living sculptural object, as there is an absence of historical partitions or written information about how to recreate technique on the instrument. Lukas de Clerck has interpreted information from the rare archaeological resources and visual art of the classical Greek period to recreate both playing technique and possible sound timbres with the instrument. With his contemporary approach to drone, post-minimalist music, and contemporary folk, we find a deeply satisfying and compelling, even playful set of songs, timbral exercises and compositions. An important document of new music meets contemporary archaemusicological research via Stephen O'Malley of SUNN O)))'s label Ideologic Organ. _ The telescopic aulos is speculative: might it have existed? It takes on features from the historical aulos, a double-reed instrument of which we know how it looked but little about what music was played on it or how it would have really sounded. It's an instrument without the limitations of canon or manual, providing creative freedom and awakening curiosity. The new instrument featured on this album is ancient and futuristic at once. The aulos has no tone holes; instead, each of the two tubes consists of three parts that can slide into each other. In this sense, the metal pipes bear a certain resemblance to the principle of a trombone. However, since both hands are already in use to hold both tubes, the sliding has to be done by way of gravity and the help of a «phorbeia», a leather mask which helps keep the reeds in place. The aulos's material is metal (instead of wood), which gives it a certain electronic allure and intensity, as well as a variety of sonic possibilities and textures. It produces overtones efficiently and allows them to play with their microtonality. The aulos Lukas plays on this recording was developed at Brasserie Atlas, a temporary occupation of a former brewery in the heart of Brussels where Lukas lives. It is quite a poetic coincidence that the birthplace of the instrument is named after the Greek titan condemned to carry the sky, while this instrument needs to be turned skywards to lower its pitch with the help of gravity. At Brasserie Atlas, Lukas has found collaborators who have shared in the process of building this new instrument: the collective Noir Métal has constructed the tubes, in this way becoming instrument builders; the phorbeia has been manufactured by Jot Fau; a former water reservoir in the vast cellar of the building carried the instruments' resonance for its first sounds. The place has left an imprint on this new instrument. With all of the telescopic aulos' layers, its sonic, musical and extra-musical components are still unfolding their potential as a medium for discovery and research, next to being an instrument of great musical potential. The music on The Telescopic Aulos of Atlas reflects this spirit. In several miniature pieces, it presents an encyclopaedia of musical possibilities that the instrument offers while keeping an intense and corporeal sonic specificity. The short pieces are studies that reflect on the sonic possibilities of this instrument that are yet to be explored. It meanders, searches and interacts with itself and the space. It needs to answer common expectations of old instruments being harmonious or pleasing. It transports a kind of experimental archaeology that, by formulating hypotheses in the present, allows us to reflect on what might have been in the past and simultaneously questions concepts of beauty, harmony or virtuosity. However, in the end, this instrument might have never existed before. -Julia Eckhardt
Ace hat den Teppich ausgerollt, als es um die Neuauflage der Deluxe-Vinyl-Edition von The Seeds' gleichnamigem Debüt (HIQLP 129) sowie 'A Web Of Sound' (HIQLP 135) ging. Beide Alben enthalten nicht nur die Original Tracklistings, sondern auch eine zusätzliche LP mit Outtakes, alternativen Versionen und anderen Juwelen. -Ace freut sich nun, eine 2-LP-Deluxe-Edition des klassischen dritten Albums 'Future', anbieten zu können. Diese LP erschien ursprünglich 1967. Die erste LP präsentiert das Original-Stereo-Master von mit Titeln wie 'Out Of The Question', 'A Thousand Shadows' und 'Travel With Your Mind'. Die zweite LP enthält Bonustracks, alternative Takes und Mixe, die zeigen, dass der klassische Rock'n'Roll-Sound von Seeds unter den Overdubs genauso stark geblieben ist wie eh und je. 'Future' wird in einem dicken Hochglanz-Foldout geliefert und enthält außerdem ein achtseitiges, reich illustriertes Booklet mit Anmerkungen von Alec Palao.
This original three-track set questioned all sorts of norms, the standout item “Chasin’ The Trane” lasting 16 minutes with the tenor man the only soloist and a 12-bar grid the only thing for performers and fans to hold on to. “Spiritual”’ was the first time Trane opened and closed a piece entirely out-of-tempo, while the conventional “Softly As In A Morning Sunrise” began with over three minutes of just the rhythm trio before his soprano solo. Bonus track on this LP “Blue Train” recorded in Sweden. Not merely the first live Trane to be issued, but a turning-point for him and essential listening for us. This version is limited on Solid Purple & Solid Red mixed vinyl.
2024 Repress
Alleviated Records presents the first-time vinyl reissue of Larry Heard's mid-90's gem ''Sceneries Not Songs, Volume 1''. The album stems from a time when the tempo slowed down and Heard reached a perfect synthesis of jazz influences, deep electronic ambiance and the house sound he was known for. The result is a brilliant album that should cater to both house and R&B heads alike. Now for the first time released as a 2x12''
The impact, influence, and importance of Run-D.M.C.'s self-titled debut – the album that invented hardcore hip-hop and bridged rap, rock, and funk in then-unparalleled ways – cannot be measured. The first full-length record released by Profile Records, the 1984 set permanently changed the sound of music, broadcast streetwise wisdom to every corner of the country, and made the notion of a one-man band a distinct reality. Bolstered by an incendiary blend of staccato deliveries, stark beats, aggressive exchanges, evocative hooks, and socially conscious messages, Run-D.M.C. still hits listeners in the jaw with the same intensity it did nearly 40 years ago when it could be heard booming from ghetto blasters carried around city blocks nationwide.
Sourced from the original master tapes, pressed on MoFi SuperVinyl, and strictly limited to 3,000 numbered copies, Mobile Fidelity's 180g SuperVinyl 33RPM LP is the definitive-sounding version of the groundbreaking work cited by Rolling Stone as the 378th Greatest Album of All Time. This reissue also represents the first time this gold-certified effort has been presented in audiophile quality. Benefitting from the ultra-low noise floor, superb groove definition, and dead-quiet surfaces of SuperVinyl, Run-D.M.C. now plays with a clarity, immediacy, punchiness, and directness worthy of the artistry, urgency, and intellect of the trio's material.
The brilliance of Russell Simmons and Larry Smith's production comes into view as if the music is being broadcast on a giant system in a small club — only more focused, lively, and unlimited. Free of dynamic constraints and fatiguing harshness, this LP invites you to turn up the volume and experience the raw, rough, invigorating songs that changed the look, sound, and feel of hip-hop overnight. Think the trio’s sparse framework of drum machines, tag-team rhymes, keyboard accents, and turntable scratches is stuck in the mid-80s? Spin MoFi’s SuperVinyl LP and gain new appreciation for the music, messages, and production on display on Run-D.M.C.
Recorded in the wake of two successful and pioneering singles, both included on the album, Run-D.M.C. effectively took a sheet of coarse-grit sandpaper to the polish, sheen, and linear presentation of all the hip-hop that preceded it. Stripped to bare-bones foundations, the songs grab your attention and shake you by the collar with a combination of industrial-leaning rhythms, staggered deliveries, dance drama, and hard, minimalist percussion. Then there are the lyrics.
The LP broadcasts a smart mix of boots-on-the-ground reports, uplifting advice, and then-nascent b-boy culture. In one fell swoop, its narratives and music rendered the scene’s proclivity toward glamor and softness passé. Run-D.M.C.’s tough, cool-minded fashion sense showed the trio walked its talk and gave fans — particularly those living in long-ignored urban areas — heroes which with they could identify. Kangol hats, black jeans, leather jackets, Adidas sneaks, and gold chains were the new currency.
In every regard, Run-D.M.C. signifies the birth of modern hip-hop. Never more obviously than on the groundbreaking “Rock Box,” where rap and rock were first fused. As the first hip-hop video to receive regular rotation on MTV, the track eviscerated racial and social boundaries, awakened musicians and listeners to new possibilities, and redefined both popular music and, ultimately, popular culture. As the Roots’ Questlove has stated, it “ knocked down many obstacles, enabling hip-hop to become the new gospel."
Such teaching includes the real-world scripture of “Hard Times,” utopian hopefulness of “Wake Up,” and observational truths of “It’s Like That.” Released as the group’s debut single well before its eponymous album, the latter tune established themes and outlooks Run-D.M.C. would embrace during its career. Namely, the keen awareness of various prejudices, economic ills, and disruptive violence as well as the knowledge that education, self-motivation, and hard work were the ways to escape disadvantages and disillusionment.
Inspired and inspirational, the song reflects the spirit and shrewdness that courses throughout Run-D.M.C. That includes a detailed account of the trio’s not-so secret weapon (“Jam-Master Jay”), purpose statement (“Hollis Crew (Krush-Groove 2)”), and a revolutionary hybrid autobiographical narrative-dis track (“Sucker M.C.’s (Krush-Groove 1)”) widely regarded as one of the best hip-hop songs ever created. The same can be said for every moment on Run-D.M.C.
MoFi SuperVinyl
Developed by NEOTECH and RTI, MoFi SuperVinyl is the most exacting-to-specification vinyl compound ever devised. Analog lovers have never seen (or heard) anything like it. Extraordinarily expensive and extremely painstaking to produce, the special proprietary compound addresses two specific areas of improvement: noise floor reduction and enhanced groove definition. The vinyl composition features a new carbonless dye (hold the disc up to the light and see) and produces the world's quietest surfaces. This high-definition formula also allows for the creation of cleaner grooves that are virtually indistinguishable from the original lacquer. MoFi SuperVinyl provides the closest approximation of what the label's engineers hear in the mastering lab.
