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Forest Swords' debut album 'Engravings' is back in print on vinyl and CD for the first time in years, newly remastered by Rashad Becker with previously unheard bonus tracks exclusive to this edition.

Created by electronic producer and composer Matthew Barnes, and originally released via Tri Angle Records, 'Engravings' received instant acclaim from the likes of Resident Advisor, Pitchfork, The Guardian and saw Barnes take his hypnotic live show across festivals like Sonar, Glastonbury, Unsound and Le Guess Who.

While much of British electronica is defined by its inner cities, 'Engravings' was recorded in Barnes' hometown on the banks of an ancient river in Merseyside, the album's earthy, organic soundscape reflected the landscape and climate: all silt and sandstone, woodlands and wind, with the ghosts of Liverpool's pop music and clubbing history echoing in the near distance.

The album was a prototype for a sonic vocabulary Barnes has expanded on over the next few years: in critically acclaimed studio albums ('Compassion' and 'Bolted' via Ninja Tune), collaborations with Massive Attack and Neneh Cherry, remixes for the likes of Bjork, as well as commissions for video games, ballet and film scores - of which he has carved a career as an in-demand composer and sound designer.

'Engravings' is a snapshot of an artist confidently defining their own language: a piece of work that distills influences like dub, ambient, rave, post-rock and psychedelia into an ancient-futurist musical vision that feels timeless and vital.

FKJ returns with Tyber— a project that captures a period of personal and creative transformation following the release of his acclaimed album ‘V I N C E N T’. Written and recorded across multiple continents, the album reflects years spent navigating movement, solitude, collaboration and renewal.

The result is FKJ at his most expansive and uninhibited. Across ‘Tyber’, groove-driven compositions sit alongside jazz-led instrumentals, sample-heavy explorations and more direct songwriting moments, moving seamlessly through genres without ever losing cohesion. The album feels both deeply personal and globally informed, spotlighting an artist documenting his evolution in real time. It captures musical snapshots across London, Los Angeles, Paris, Brazil, and beyond to create music that combines intricacy and intimacy seamlessly.

Anchored by themes of emotional equilibrium and self-care, Tyber balances vulnerable storytelling with an unmistakable, groove-laden optimism. The album seamlessly weaves together spontaneous, late-night collaborations with artists like Labrinth, Bas, and Baby Rose, alongside deeply personal solo compositions. Ultimately, Tyber is a vibrant celebration of human connection and resilience, offering listeners an immersive, cinematic invitation into FKJ’s newly restored world.

LILDAVE215 is a proud Philly representative who channels funk, soul and acid jazz into his delicious take on disco. For this new outing on the young but already promising Sweet Breeze Sound label, he kicks off with 'Music Takes Me' which rides on slinky drums that slide irresistibly on nice dusty cymbals and has funky riffs down low. The vocals add simple but effective colour that adds to the feel-good nature. 'Carnaval Del Tiempo' is more Latin influenced, with prickly percussion and big vocals, even bigger drums and sax energy all added for when the sun shines down hot.

Following a hugely successful debut, the LA collective Boogie Down Edits return with a second volume that turns its attention to one of hip-hop's most untouchable catalogues - A Tribe Called Quest. The approach remains as tasteful as ever: the defining vocal fragments and musical DNA of the originals stay fully intact, while the grooves and rhythms get subtly reworked for DJ-friendly, peak-time impact. 'Award Tour' opens proceedings with that unmistakable vocal hook gliding over a chunky, rolling house beat built for packed floors, while '4Momz' takes things deeper and more atmospheric, warm bass pressure and dreamy textures giving it a genuine late-night feel. Golden-era hip-hop attitude meets contemporary house production. Mad respect.

Mr. K turns his attention to his hometown with a couple of deep underground NYC disco cuts that have never appeared on 7-inch before: the stomping ‘Hey Roots’ by Black Rock and Ahzz’s sought-after ‘New York’s Movin’’. Black Rock’s ‘Hey Roots’ was the band’s follow-up to their 1975 proto-disco single ‘New York City Bump’ and takes a similar four-on-the-floor approach while raising the tempo to match the energy of a standard 1977 dancefloor cut. Mr. K’s edit builds the track methodically, using a sparse sprinkling of the original vocals and focusing on the hypnotic, Bohannon-esque beat. On the flip, he tackles the Peter Brown-adjacent classic ‘New York’s Movin’’, this time dropping the vocals entirely in favour of working with the wicked instrumental take, a wild jam that layers handclaps, tambourine, slicing rhythm-guitar and perfectly cheesy synth strings to make an irresistible dancefloor banger. Adding a dubby breakdown and arranging the parts to get the maximum out of the limited 7-inch real estate (both cuts here top the five-minute mark), Mr. K has given us another powerful tool in an ever-growing arsenal of dancefloor weapons.

American DJ, producer and Lone Romantic / Ellum Audio label boss Maceo Plex joins Radio Slave’s Rekids with the ‘Monster’ EP.

Maceo Plex opens the ‘Monster’ EP with 'Flute Jam', a muscular, progressive cut with broken beats and subtle chords lighting up the airwaves. Drifting vocals and widescreen synths add great scale to this intergalactic journey while textured bass brings the weight. The hyper-real and aptly named 'Baby Monster' then features vocals from Baby Monsta, refracted through a full-bodied Electro-Techno fusion. The chords dance over fizzing bass, all with future-facing sound design and an outer space atmosphere. Closer 'Cold Flow' is a prickly breakbeat cut with dehumanised, trap-style vocals and precision engineering in the groove. It's a cinematic sound that takes breaks, techno and electro into new realms while retaining a soulful, melancholic core.

Active since the 90s, Maceo Plex haș long been operating in his own musical world, where Electro, Techno and House all fuse into something futuristic and fresh. He's been shaping the underground for three decades as a DJ and producer but also head of the infl ential Ellum Audio and Lone Romantic labels. Already this year he has dropped the dark 2-step sounds of his 'The Plan EP' via the latter, which also features Baby Monsta, and continues his purple patch with a standout debut on Rekids that finds him exploring yet more new ground.

San Francisco’s 21 st century take on disco has long tended towards the cosmic and
psychedelic, a reflection of the Bay Area’s long association with trippy, mind-altering music.
Over the years, Leng Records has periodically dived into these fertile waters, delivering
inspired slabs of cosmic-minded and dub-flecked excellence from 40 Thieves and, more
recently, Marshall Watson and Cole Odin.


It’s to Watson, a long-serving producer and sound designer whose work has previously
appeared on labels including Sprechen, Shades of Sound, Seven Villas, Italians Do It Better, Highpoint Lowlife and NuNorthern Soul, that Leng has turned this time around. It marks his first solo appearance on the imprint and lands two years on from his inspired Odin collaboration, Voyager. ‘Little Monster’ is Watson at his most potent, club-focused best. Built around rock-solid
disco drums and a deliciously dubby, low-slung bassline, the track slowly builds via waves of intergalactic electronics, spaced-out and echoing vocal samples, audible nods to cosmic rock and bursts of starry synth melodies. Thickening and increasing in effects-laden intoxication as it progresses, ‘Little Monster’ not only lives up to its name but also cements Watson’s growing reputation as one of 21st century cosmic disco’s most distinctive talents.


Fittingly, the accompanying remix comes from Leng regulars and fellow San Francisco
residents 40 Thieves. Delivering a genuinely epic, near nine-minute excursion, the veteran
collective drag Watson’s inspired original mix further towards Daniele Baldelli style dub
disco-meets-Afro-cosmic territory. Expect bolder, funkier bass, echoing synth motifs, eyes-
closed electric guitar solos, echoing synth snippets and wild, sustained organ chords. It’s
cosmic disco in dub… and the perfect accompaniment to Watson’s future cosmic disco
classic.

Geoff Kirkwood (Man Power)

I’dgained some notoriety as a music producer and DJ but I hit a horrible case of writers block around 2018.

The problem I was finding was that I was trying to shoe horn every smart arsed clever dick musical reference I had into the music I was making, but the function of dance music is to make people dance, not to show people who broad your musical references are, so I was making pretty shitty music that landed in the middle and didn’t achieve either aim.

To tackle this I ended up committing to just trying to make the most expressive and wanky experimental stuff I could. I was immersed in club culture at the time so the whole enterprise started as a joke, hence the name “Bed Wetter”. However when I fully submitted to just naked exploration the really unexpected thing that happened was that I found myself unavoidably having to deal with a lot of my own bullshit. That bullshit turned into the “Billy Mill is Dead” album, which was essentially the sound of me excavating my own life and looking at how I felt about where I was from, where I was headed, my family, my history, my region and all of the things i have conflicting feelings about.

It was partially catharsis and also a bit of deprogramming around being able to call myself an artist after being raised to believe that wasn’t an option for me.

I self released Billy Mill is Dead in the months before the pandemic and it found it’s fair share of love in the places I hoped would connect with it, and just the right amount of being ignored by people who I’m pleased didn’t feel it. This all lead to me being emboldened enough to apply for an artist in residence position at a big regional opera house months later in the middle of lockdown.

My feeling was that if my DJ career was potentially over for the remainder of my lifetime then there was no harm in exploring this alternative method of expression to see where it could take me.

I submitted a ridiculously ambitious plan for what I would like to do as a project, and to my absolute shock I was selected for the position.

I was 40 years old and from a scarcity background so I had a potentially unique response to that kind of validation for the first time and what followed next was a process of me just coming back with bigger and more ridiculous ideas just to find out at whatstage they’d tell me to stop.

The thing is, nobody did. I got as far as suggesting writing a full symphony to be performed by an orchestra before my own nerve gave out and I decided that was probably as far as I should push things.

The problem with people giving you permission to do things is that you then need to go out and figure out how to do those things.

The biggest issue for me, beyond raising the money to pay for everything, was how does a person actually write a symphony?

I was introduced to Fiona Brice, a multi instrumentalist and orchestral arranger. She’s also a recording artist who releases on Bella Union. On top of that she’s a violinist who used to be part of the band Placebo and who used to appear regularly playing for other bands on things like Top of the Pops.

Not only was Fiona uniquely placed to not look down on the strange provenance of someone from an Acid House background wanting to write a symphony, but more to the point we really hit it off from day one.

Fiona coached me in the essentials of writing for an Orchestra, and then I went off and wrote the 8 movements.

I’d love to say I laboured for years over this bit, but it took about 2 weeks in total. I’d also love to say what I wrote was a complete symphony, but the version of this which is solely me feels like looking at something without your glasses on. The shape,feel and borders were all there, but the definition was absent. Fiona taught me the broad language of a symphony, but without her it would have lacked all intonation, nuance and detail. Where I had shaped ideas with a hammer, she brought out my meaning with precision using a scalpel.

I think the prodigiously quick turnaround for the music is as much proof of how conceptually and musically aligned Fiona and I are. I know we’re both incredibly proud of what we’ve created.

It took nearly 2 more years to stage the debut performance in what was potentially the most traumatic period of my life which saw me embroiled in an international crisis with my own family and the death of my father, all with the backdrop of COVID.

The work itself is inspired by the working class experience, but it’s also a comment on how we get to decide what we are and how we’re defined, and we get to choose what we do to prove these things.

The original recording was contractually impossible to ever share again, so we re-recorded it in a working men’s club with jobbing (albeit world class) players. In many ways it’s a record that feels like it shouldn’t exist, which is why we’re all so happy that it does.

Shaped in the shadows and sounds of the legendary Topanga Canyon, California. The debut album from Biita Houdei is buoyed by a magic that feels wildly and beautifully untamed; wild-hearted sentiments that are shaped by the world around it, fascinated by the enchantment of it all, and delivered via a collective (harmony layered) voice that understands the complex nature of what it means to be alive in the here and now.

Produced by Haley Heynderickx, 'This Bed Was Made For Me' is a striking collection of stirring, signature folk songs animated by subtle instrumentation and orchestral flourishes. It feels lived in: vocals weave together in a beautiful harmonic dance, seasons shift, sunshine appears and bold psychedelic colours warm the horizon.

In the early stages of making her debut album, Biita Houdei knew two things: that she wanted the recordings to feel distinctly and palpably warm, and that she would sew a unique patch for every song on the album. The first of those things is subjective, though brightness pours in from all corners of This Bed Was Made For Me. The second became a laborious task she undertook throughout the process, the completion of which is testament to the slow process of it all, to the physical commitment and patience required to make a full work of art.

The patches she crafted during the making of This Bed Was Made For Me became a full quilt, one that now adorns the album’s front cover. Beneath it sits a striking collection of Houdei’s stirring, signature folk songs, brought into fruition with the help of fellow songwriter Haley Heynderickx, in her first lead production role, and the album’s producer/engineer Sahil Ansari. It’s also the first release Biita (pronounced “bee-tah”) is releasing under her newly-taken name, one that was gifted to her by her auntie and means "unique" in the Farsi language. “I proudly take this name,” Biita says of the change. “It makes me feel that much closer to my Persian heritage.”

Recorded across ten back-to-back and full days, the album touches on themes of love and heritage, of taking chances, the preciousness of time and the impact we all have on the world around us. A number of the songs were written in Topanga, California, while Biita settled into a new home as wild fires raged, and as she adjusted to a life which no longer held distinct seasonal changes, far from the Ozark Mountain home she felt so attached to. Such themes reveal themselves in a variety of ways across the album’s fourteen songs, that key sense of warmth retained in the bones of the album whether they are stepping into darkness or seeking out light.

The album feels lived in and alive; dust swirls, seasons shift, sunshine appears and is held. Biita calls it ‘psychedelic’ and there is indeed a sense of that in the world building, in the way the bold colours are always shifting. Formed of fourteen songs, and filling nearly forty-five minutes, This Bed Was Made For Me not only builds a whole world for listeners to inhabit but also implores you to stay a while. This was deliberate, indeed it’s Biita’s wish that listeners give the album dedicated time; to learn its shape, to explore it fully, away from the instant grab of playlists and skewed algorithms.

“Many of my favourite albums didn’t reveal themselves instantly to me,” Biita, now based in the Catskill Mountains of New York, explains. “Some did, of course, but I had to work to understand the full scope of the piece as a whole. I encourage people to dive deeper into everything that they choose to consume. It is not my intention to sound pretentious, but instead, I am trying harder to explain the gratitude I have for being able to craft every part of this album— using my hands, my brain, my voice, my visions. To me, it is an all encompassing work of art,” she continues. “Making the quilt was laborious. Taking the cover photo was laborious. No shortcuts, but rather a manual and tangible approach. I am thankful for the time it took.”

Continuing in its series of Yoko Ono reissues, Secretly Canadian has announced that Ono’s seminal 1982 album It’s Alright (I See Rainbows) will be released August 28, 2026, in expanded CD and digital versions, and on vinyl for the first time in more than forty years, with expanded and enhanced artwork. Influenced equally by 1960s girl group vocals and 1980s synthesizer experimentation, It's Alright (I See Rainbows) is an album of “adventurous… lush… committed and convincing avant-gardism” (Rolling Stone). As Ono said in her 1992 Onobox liner notes, “It was ’82 and it seemed as though I was finally in sync with the world.” Vacillating from a widow’s never-truly-over grief, to the necessary uplift for an artist and mother to continue her life’s missions, tracks like “Loneliness” and “Spec of Dust” make way for poptimism via “Let the Tears Dry,” and title track “It’s Alright.” As Ono said of the album in 1983, “It’s like my diary that I went through… and I’m just saying, hey, I’ve got the same kind of emotions that you’ve probably got too, and here I am saying hello… Around December 8th or whatever, I was feeling really heavy and feeling sort of down, you know… and then, side two, it’s all right… It was Sean Lennon who says, ‘Wake up, wake up, mommy.’ Like an angel that came and said, ‘Wake up!’… Wake up and dream love, and let the tears dry and I see rainbows. And sort of I’m saying all that. In result of Sean waking me up, see?” Lennon, speaking of his mother in a more recent interview with NPR in 2025, “She would say that energy is just energy, so you can turn it into anything you like. And she always said that she would take that negative energy and turn it into something productive and creative… It never stopped her from creating and putting herself out there, and I really think that it paid off… You never know how long it'll take for people to appreciate you if you just kind of hang on and don't give up.”

Lummer is the Swedish name for the now protected family of vascular plants (Clubmoss/Lycopodiaceae). Lummer grows slowly and the spores with which it reproduces can take 12—20 years to develop. These spores, known as Nikt in Swedish, were once ground into an extremely flammable light yellow “old woman’s gunpowder” that was used for early theatrical pyrotechnics. Volatile and explosive, Lummernikt requires careful handling.

There is something of the small scale dangerous in Finn Loxbo’s Lummernikt, too. A not-at-all-risk-free traversal at the limits of technique: building, blowing up and working through a band’s worth of harmonic scaffolding. Eight songs on a stage. Dramatic, breath-taking. At the same time the wild, flickering rush of tones spins up a centrifugal force that suspends a certain calm or sitting still at the music’s core.

On Lummernikt, Loxbo’s guitar often sounds more like a concert harp or the West African kora as he shifts a set of melodic fragments and extended lines through rapid-fire arpeggiated permutations with a spontaneous energy that is countered only by his extraordinary touch on the instrument and an undeniable sensitivity to his material’s dynamic potential.

It’s a glorious extension of the chiming chords and experimental preparations heard in his contributions to Magnus Granberg's Skogen (Another Timbre) or via his own ensemble Kommun (Fönstret, Thanatosis) and in striking contrast to the distorted wail he contributes to Anna Högberg Attack’s Ensamseglaren (Fönstret) or his all-in-the-red trio Kyosaku (Corbett vs Dempsey).

It’s now several years ago that Finn sent me the first recording of his new band Kommun and asked if I had suggestions for a label that might want to release it. I played that recording on repeat until I couldn’t shake the idea that I needed to start a label to put it out myself. Lummernikt is the spark that keeps that fire alive.

Remastered limited edition double vinyl with double-sided screenprinted poster-cover (sleeve folds out to be one huge poster). A real collectors item!

When Off Off came out around June 1984, one couldn’t speak of an independent music scene in Portugal. Warm Records’ vague existence didn’t have any impact and Dansa do Som’s inaugural release appeared only in December. 10 years after the revolution, after two IMF interventions, a lot of political instability (not to say turmoil, in the first couple of years) and the natural excesses of a sudden burst of freedom, the Portuguese consumer had more choices but a generally poor standard of living. There was no entrepreneurial culture and serious second thoughts about investing private money in risky ventures.

After many complaints about the whole music scene (institutions, critics and record label executives, popular and classical music alike), something that would continue well beyond the end of the decade, Telectu decided to finance, record, produce, release and sell an album with complete independence from outside structures. Their karmic reward was profit. According to Vítor Rua, Off Off was the only album fully payed by the duo and the only one that really payed off. Not an easy accomplishment for a double LP housed in a large (also double-sided) screenprint with complicated cuts and folds. The artwork was conceived by António Palolo, a friend and multidisciplinary artist. It was based on a collage of heavily saturated and xeroxed polaroids framed in shocking pink and green. Palolo was considered the third member of Telectu, regularly producing slides, video and other visual support for their shows. The inspiration for the type of cover came from GRM’s Gramme series.

Off Off is divided in four distinct sides, each one corresponding to a “theme” or “function” related to Telectu’s manifold artistic interests and interactions. The titles are also gateways to influences and a small portion of Portuguese cultural life:

- Side 1 / “Diagonale” is dedicated to Egídio Álvaro, art critic and gallery director (he opened Diagonale in Paris). Performance art was arguably his main artistic concern over the years, so the music on this side is suggested for use by one or more performers in live or playback situations. The three tracks segue into each other, linked by a synth arpeggio much in the same way as Telectu’s previous “Belzebu” álbum (1983);

- Side 2 / “Anarké” is dedicated to the composer Filipe Pires, one of Jorge Lima Barreto’s recurring invocations when asked about worthwhile contemporary music in Portugal. It is subtitled “concert music”, proposing «a new form of listening». Three tracks also, and these are separated by “clap interludes”, which basically consisted in the following: JLB and VR each had a pair of headphones on, and they clapped their hands according to the rhythm of the music each one was listening. Both musicians were interacting with a different Steve Reich piece: Vítor with “Music for Mallet Instruments”, Jorge with “Six Pianos”. The result is disjointed clapping, an awkwardly deliberate celebration of their own music. Telectu applauded themselves.

- Side 3 / “Cornucópia” is subtitled “music for theatre” and dedicated to Luís Miguel Cintra and Luís Lima Barreto (JLB’s brother), both connected to the Cornucópia theatre company. The side consists of several short pieces previously used as interludes in the Cornucópia staging of “Mariana Espera Casamento” (1983). Field recordings, mood pieces, ambience and a numeric poem (“Soneto Soma 14x”, by E.M. de Melo e Castro) read by João Perry, a quite well-known stage actor. His voice is treated with a flanger effect;

- Side 4 / “Palolo” is “video music”. It’s a one-take mix recorded from cassette sources (Telectu studio experiences) and done live while watching António Palolo’s Om film (1978) projected on the living room wall. It’s a deep, immersive, quasi-mystical 20-minute piece perfectly suiting the meditative, abstract, fluid images created by Palolo by mixing paint and water inside a bathtub. One imagines the Cosmos, hardly suspecting the technique. The film is 90 minutes long, so the music on the LP is of course edited.

The six titles on sides 1 and 2 evoke demons, all of them with conflicting symbolism, since it varies from culture to culture, religion to religion. No explanation is given and Vítor Rua has no idea where this imagery comes from. During virtually the whole stretch of the 1980s, Jorge was the one in charge of titles and concepts, and Vítor didn’t bother too much even reading the liner notes :) In any case, when you synchronize the listening experience with the imagery, a powerful impression emerges, a feeling of being in the presence of these entities while placing yourself inside the sonic narrative.

Off Off is undoubtedly a seminal album in the history of electronic music, as much Heldon as Fripp & Eno, jazz and American minimalism, cosmic out-thereness, mantric miniatures. Telectu at the height of their powers, still very early on, delivering an album-manifesto advocating intermedia art and the fierce independence of Portuguese musicians «from the scum of capitalist music industry monopolies. It’s a path to follow, albeit one that requires enduring hardships and retaliation from music industry gangsters.» Despite a few journalists deemed «capable of being free», the media are «enslaved by the dominant and fascist imbecility of the speculators of light music.» Off Off is addressed to those journalists «and to an audience angry at the cultural misery imposed upon us ..., certain that this music will open new horizons of musical pleasure in the conception of Portuguese avant-garde music, and in the open consciousness of us all. OFF OFF repeats Freedom.»

Those two words are a direct lift from Alberto Arbasino’s 1968 book Off Off, the basis of which is a critical analysis of Theodor Adorno’s and Dwight MacDonald’s ideas concerning the stratification of culture in different levels (high, mid and low) and the pervasiveness of mass culture in the form of a culture industry. In very simplistic terms, and that is precisely the point that inspired Jorge, Arbasino argued that it was possible and desirable to effect a revolution from below, cultivating alternative circuits completely cut-off from what he termed the in-in reality. Telectu’s record was a deliberate demonstration that it could be done, displaying Freedom in the face of all the gatekeepers and other human obstacles.

Brazilian artist Rubel isn’t one to be pigeonholed and typecast into staying in one sound. Casas, the follow-up to his debut album Pearl from 2015, brought a bigger, more epic, and richer production quality to the table. Fusing the worlds of MPB and hip hop, Rubel’s sophomore LP built on the momentum of its predecessor, gaining a Latin-Grammy nomination along the way. Mr Bongo is proud to be giving Casas its first worldwide release on vinyl and CD outside of Brazil and Japan.

The cliché they say is that the second album is always the trickiest; however, Rubel doesn’t seem to have had any problems on Casas. It’s a fountain of creativity and originality, marking an artist in full flow.

Conceived after Rubel spent six months living in Los Angeles, Casas is MPB-leaning at its core but is also driven by a hip hop inspired pulse. There is a clear influence from hip hop’s aesthetic across the 2010s woven subtly but fundamentally throughout. Nods to Frank Ocean, Kendrick Lamar and Tyler, The Creator can be heard across an album full of playful edge and personality. Luscious string-led arrangements and tracks that explore the rich folkloric rhythms of Brazil, sit next to songs with low-fi drum machines and features from acclaimed Brazilian rappers.

One of the highlights of the album, ‘Mantra’, starts with a traditional Brazilian rhythm that morphs into a hazy hip hop beat. A sublime song with a hooky call and response chorus, it features a guest appearance and verse by the Brazilian MC Emicida. Another highlight is the epic ‘Colégio’ (College) which further showcases the melding of stripped back drum machine beats with cinematic, sweeping arrangements. Elsewhere, ‘Partilhar’ is a swaying, heartwarming hug. A tale of longing and love that has become a singalong fan favourite at Rubel’s concerts.

Casas also shines a light on a string of key players in Brazil’s new vanguard, such as Pedro Fonte, Gus Levy, and Brazilian rapper / poet Rincon Sapiência to name a handful. The record has pop sensibilities yet also feels underground. It beats with the heart of a singer-songwriter, a feeling that was felt so strongly on Pearl, yet this time is bolstered by a level of arrangement and richness of sound that take it to another dimension - soaring horn and string sections elevating the songs from home recording to stadium-ready anthems. Keeping that intrinsic beauty and simplicity of a well-constructed song yet reframing it within a pop context is the true gift of this album.

Casas cemented Rubel’s status as one of Brazil’s leading contemporary talents and a key figure enriching the country’s already effervescent scene.

Channeling his honed sample craft towards the ominous portent of modern times, Romare returns with his fifth album Oblivion, with the previous 3 out of 4 LP's appearing on Ninja Tune. Across a suite of downtempo, broken beat, bubbling grooves and brooding reveries Archie Fairhurst threads a narrative that wrestles with the big questions of the present moment — the tipping points of the planet and technology, the fight for social justice and the power structures that govern our existence. While his trademark source material continues to cast a long line back through recorded history, this is Romare at his most contextual.

Nothing is placed by accident. 'Machines' hums its throbbing 4/4 pulse along to a German language recital of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's 'Blessed Longing' — an enduring reflection on the human condition that rings true from way back in the 19th Century when it was written. 'Computer Love' slinks into a sumptuous trip-hop lull laced with sci-fi flourishes sculpted from samples of old computer documentaries — a bittersweet romantic backdrop to our complicated situationship with the devices in our lives. 'Take Us' goes one step further on its hard-stepping boom-bap strut as a subtle tale of possession by screens unfolds around Romare's signature strain of technicolour mutant funk.

There is space for optimism in the message on Oblivion as well — the strength of the suffragettes as a benchmark for social justice and activism amidst the speakeasy slink of ‘Deeds, Not Words', and spring-loaded acid house joint 'Change' pointing to the need for positive action in the face of imminent calamity.

The artwork for the album follows Fairhurst's thought process, drawing on Edvard Munch's iconic 'The Scream' along with Philippe Halsman and Salvador Dali’s ‘Voluptuous Death’ to help render the ideas of the album visually.

The wild ride of Oblivion races towards a final beguiling opiate on 'The Last Lullaby' — the perfect sedative after the rush of information and emotion that comes with a full-length trip through Romare's vivid, uniquely creative world of sound.

Moving between lo-fi experimental songwriting, sparse post-punk textures and intimate recordings; Ukrainian artist Regina Collage’s new album ‘Horizont’ is a personal and honest document of rebuilding a life and creative voice in Bristol. The record holds space for themes of burnout, quiet shame, tenderness and the courage of staying emotionally open when the world feels unstable. Sung entirely in Ukrainian, ‘Horizont’ does not ask the listener to understand every word. Feeling carries the songs forward. Across bedroom recordings and borrowed studios, Regina moves between cloudy dissonance and stark minimal arrangements built around bass, fragments of guitar, and an exposed voice. The recordings hold onto their rough edges. Mistakes remain and imperfection becomes part of the story. “Music for me is about not being scared to be vulnerable,” Regina says. “Almost every song I have is about what it means to be open and emotional. I really do not think it is a weakness. I hope people can listen and feel welcome to take a break and just let their emotions exist.” The album takes its name from the Ukrainian word for “horizon,” that unreachable line where sky meets earth. For Regina, the horizon became a quiet metaphor for living with distance and uncertainty. Inspired by one of her collage artworks showing a figure lying in grass and staring toward that far line, the title track reflects a feeling of moving toward something that never quite comes closer. Even without understanding the lyrics, the song carries a slow sense of longing and suspended arrival. m‘Vpiznavaty’, by contrast, initially feels almost light. Beneath that surface is a candid portrait of burnout and depressive exhaustion. The song looks at those moments when even greeting friends feels overwhelming. It captures the quiet embarrassment of withdrawing from people you care about, and the slow recognition that sometimes stepping away is simply how you survive. Other songs reveal different sides of the same emotional landscape. ‘Weak’ strips everything back to bass, a hint of guitar, and a bare vocal. Written and recorded in a single instinctive session, the track circles around the idea that softness might be its own kind of strength. Repetitive and intentionally unpolished, it quietly sets the tone for the whole record. Running through ‘Horizont’ is the reality of Regina’s life between Ukraine and the UK. Her hometown Kharkiv continues to face attacks, and many of her friends remain on the front line.

“An amazing new project…” Tony Minvielle, Jazz FM

“A lush, heatwave-friendly piece of dancefloor innovation…” Clash Magazine


First Word Records is delighted to bring you the debut EP from Ships of the Pharaohs.


Ships of the Pharaohs are a London-based collective led by producer Last Nubian, who’s had releases in his own right on labels like CoOp Presents, Eglo Records & Touching Bass. Blending jazz, soul, bossa nova, d&b and house-influenced grooves, the band also consists of vocalist Achanté, keys player Goldbar & bassist, Dougan.

The 7-track EP kicks off with the high-energy, vitamin D-saturated lead single ‘Sun is Rising’, featuring the guest vocals of brilliant Berlin-based singer Red Bird, who appears on three tracks on this project (‘For You’ and ‘Seasons’). ‘Can’t Quit’ follows on a smooth soulful house/bruk tempo, and invites in the thought-provoking spoken word prose of AKEEM. ‘Seasons’, ‘For You’ and recent single ‘Joys’ add another element to the band’s eclectic take on fusion, leaning heavily into the bossa side of the quartet’s influences. The latter track sees Achanté’s soulful harmonies gracefully float across a warm bed of keys, percussion, guitar picks & synth strings. We take a short jazzy breather on the ‘Interlude’ cut, featuring the resplendent sax of multi-talented Norwegian artist, Bror Havnes, who also features on the outro cut ‘One’ - this one seeing the crew ride out with a sonic salute to jungle/d&b, closing this first opus from the group with the energy levels remaining high.

Tre Wright (aka Last Nubian) explains “Our debut EP is a reflection of who we are, both individually and as a collective. Drawing inspiration from jazz, jungle, bossa nova, house, r&b and the music that's shaped us, we've explored our own interpretation of these sounds and how they come together in a way that feels true to us. It gave us the space to experiment without boundaries, trust our instincts, and create something that genuinely reflects where we are creatively right now.”


Originally conceived to perform Last Nubian material live for a Touching Bass showcase at We Out Here festival in 2023, the project soon took on a life of its own, as the group effort unleashed a unique chemistry & sound of its own merit. Thereafter followed numerous sessions in a studio-converted bedroom of a Brixton flat, developing this new sound. The finishing touches were taken care of at the infamous Total Refreshment Centre in North London, resulting in the formation of captivating new original material, which appears across this first extended release.

Ships of the Pharaohs have additionally performed live across London at Brick Lane Jazz Festival, House of KOKO, Jazz on Wick Festival, Peckham Levels, 91 Living Room & GROW in Hackney. Developing their powerful stage presence has gone hand in hand with the creation of their own material.

The initial singles from this project received praise & support from a variety of DJs, press outlets & tastemakers from the worlds of jazz, soul and clubland, including Shy One (NTS), Tony Minvielle (Jazz FM), Rohan Rakhit (Worldwide FM), Somewhere Soul & Clash Magazine to name a few.


With sonics somewhat reminiscent of Acid Jazz legends Incognito, merged with the class of Nuyorican Soul, and the dynamic fluidity of 4Hero, the 4-piece have cooked up a set of style & flavours uniquely their own, fresh for modern dances, incorporating organic improvisation with more contemporary club sounds.

The Ships of the Pharaohs are about to set sail for what is sure to be an exciting journey ahead.

‘Part 1’ will be released on 12” vinyl & all digital platforms on September 18th 2026.

Whirr and Luster have been orbiting each other for years, bound by a shared language of glide guitar, buried vocals, and volume as emotion. A through line that’s only deepened by Nick Bassett’s hand in producing and mixing the majority of Luster’s previously recorded output. The Whirr & Luster Split pairs one of American shoegaze's most storied bands with one of its most vital new voices across four new songs. Out on 12" EP, CD EP, and digital via Freewhirl Records. Splits are sacred territory for Whirr. More than a decade after the band helped define the modern heavy-shoegaze landscape, the Bay Area five-piece returns with its first new material in years. “Spiral Again” opens the record in classic Whirr fashion: an avalanche of guitar wrapped around a lyric about losing yourself in someone else’s gravity — spiraling, intertwining, coming down together. “Wish I Could Give You The World” follows, one of the most openly romantic songs the band has ever recorded, all wildfire imagery and dizzy devotion, desire rendered at full volume. Produced by Whirr and Zac Montez, both tracks find the band in signature form: enormous yet tender. On the flip side, Los Angeles' Luster continue their run as the standouts of the new shoegaze generation. Formed with the intent of pushing the genre forward rather than reenacting it, Luster fold electronic pulse and '90s texture into walls of glider guitar, and the two contributions here find the band in peak form. "Against the World" is a love song as a locked door — it's you and me, us against the world — claustrophobic and comforting in the same breath. "Forever" closes the record in a haze of doomed-romance repetition, a mantra of do you feel it now dissolving into the knowledge that nothing lasts. Also produced with Zac Montez, the songs make the case plainly: Luster aren't students of the form. They're peers. Taken together, the four songs read like a conversation. About distance, obsession, and the ache of never being able to give someone enough — carried across two coasts and two generations of a genre that refuses to fade. Loud, longing, and gone too soon: the Whirr & Luster Split, out September 18th. Whirr and Luster celebrate the release and cement the collaboration with two shows — the only U.S. Whirr performances of 2026, with no shows planned beyond them. Each night features a unique set built from rarities and live debuts, alongside exclusive vinyl variants and merchandise available only in that room, on that night: 9/18 — Los Angeles, CA @ The Wiltern 9/20 — New York, NY @ Brooklyn Paramount Two nights, two coasts, and no telling if there’s a next time — for the songs, the pairing, or the band itself.

From Berlin to Lagos: Jembaa Groove expand their sound on "Be A Lover"

Berlin-based outfit Jembaa Groove return with "Be A Lover", a four-track EP set for full release on 18 September via global soul imprint Agogo Records. Following two critically acclaimed albums and an intensive period of touring across Europe and the US — including a SXSW showcase and a widely acclaimed KEXP session — this latest release marks a new chapter in the band’s trajectory. Built around highlife rhythms and shaped by Afro-jazz and the more organic edges of Afrobeats, "Be A Lover" unfolds with a warm, languid and deeply soulful feel, capturing different strands of today’s multifaceted Afrofusion scene.

Here, the band strips back from a seven-piece ensemble to its two founding members, while at the same time opening outward into a deeply collaborative space. At its centre is a close creative partnership with celebrated Nigerian highlife revivalists The Cavemen., alongside contributions from London-based, Nigerian born soul artist Azekel, Lagos vocalist Tim Lyre, and Malian icon Fatoumata Diawara.

“This record has a different flavour,” says Owusu. “It’s really about collaboration — different feelings, different thoughts, different energies coming together.” While centred around the Lagos contemporary scene, the record is shaped by a wider diasporic network stretching across London, Lagos, Berlin and Amsterdam, cities producer and bass player Yannick Nolting describes as “the pillars where everything that is happening in today’s highlife and Afro-fusion scene.”

Formed in Berlin in 2020, Jembaa Groove began after a chance meeting between bassist, producer and composer Yannick Nolting and percussionist, vocalist and songwriter Eric Owusu. Drawing on their respective musical journeys — Nolting’s years working with Lusophone artists in Lisbon and Owusu’s deep roots in Ghana’s highlife tradition, including work with Pat Thomas and late highlife legend Ebo Taylor — the project quickly took shape: their debut album Susuma established a powerful, poly-rhythmic sound grounded in highlife, jazz and soul, while 2024’s "Ye Ankasa | We Ourselves" expanded that vision through collaborations with artists across Ghana and its diaspora, including UK based Ghanaian singer, rapper, percussionist, and arranger K.O.G and legendary Ghanaian highlife musician Gyedu-Blay Ambolley.

The collaborative spirit continues on "Be A Lover", most of which grew out of a meeting with sibling duo The Cavemen. at Supersonic Jazz Festival in Amsterdam in 2023, leading to a sustained exchange of ideas between Berlin and Lagos. With two acclaimed albums behind them, The Cavemen. have emerged as central figures in both Lagos’ alternative music scene and the wider contemporary highlife revival, bringing the genre to a new generation through a stripped-back, melody-driven sound. “There was some kind of magnetism towards Lagos,” says Nolting; for Owusu, who is Ghanaian but spent much of his life in Nigeria, the connection runs even deeper. “I feel lucky to be able to bring different cultures together and make something really beautiful,” he says. A key part of that process was a close working exchange between Nolting and The Cavemen.’s Kingsley Okorie, who effectively stepped into a co-producing role on three out of four of the tracks.

The one exception is opener No Pain No Gain, which features Nigerian-born, East London-based Azekel, whose smooth, R&B-leaning vocal moves through a slow-burning arrangement of bright keys, gently rising horns and atmospheric synths, anchored by Owusu’s organic percussion.

The title track Be A Lover, featuring Afro-fusion Lagos artist Tim Lyre, distills the EP’s central message into its most immediate form. Backed by syncopated percussion and a gently smouldering arrangement, Lyre’s voice moves with a laid-back, melodic ease, delivering a simple refrain: “be a lover, not a fighter.” “It’s a very simple message,” says Nolting, “It’s about showing more love, on a personal level but also more broadly… just show love.” That same sense of warmth runs throughout the record, reflecting its core idea.

On Obi, The Cavemen. take centre stage, with Kingsley Okorie leading through melancholic, plaintive vocals rooted in classic highlife. In contrast, his brother Benjamin James punctuates the track with high-pitched vocal interjections, heightening the emotional tension against a backdrop of slow, restrained instrumentation.

Waka follows with a more melodic, hook-led refrain from Eric Owusu, whose loose, almost conversational delivery creates a striking contrast with Fatoumata Diawara’s unmistakably powerful, raspy vocal. The collaboration grew out of a chance meeting while Owusu was on tour, with ideas exchanged quickly and Diawara returning a finished vocal within days. “We are so proud to have her. It’s a privilege” says Owusu. "Be A Lover" is a record shaped by connections like these — between people, scenes, and cities. “It was partly intention, partly destiny,” says Nolting. “We met these people along the way, and somehow Lagos was meant to come into our path.”

Covering Our Tracks“ ist weit mehr als ein Coveralbum: Satan Takes A Holiday interpretieren Rock- und Popklassiker von Bruce Springsteen bis Charli XCX in ihrem eigenen Mix aus Garage Rock, Punk und Indie neu.
Die schwedische Band gilt als einer der explosivsten Live-Acts Skandinaviens und spielte bereits mit KISS, The Sonics und Backyard Babies. Unterstützung und Lob erhielten sie u. a. von BBC 6 Music, Classic Rock und Iggy Pop.

Coloured Vinyl. Harsh Reality - the fourth studio album by Seattle's The Drowns - is an unapologetically political punk record, coming this September from Pirates Press Records. Recorded at The Blasting Room in Fort Collins, CO by punk rock legend Bill Stevenson (Descendents, Black Flag) and mixed by Jason Livermore (Teenage Bottlerocket), this collection of 13 new songs fuses everything fans have loved about the band's previous sonic experimentation and focuses it into laser-tight melodic songwriting firmly rooted in punk rock, but with the potential to reach listeners from all walks of life. Singer-guitarist Rev Peters, singer-bassist Andy Wylie, and drummer Jake Margolis largely bashed out the tracks themselves, with the exception of additional guitar work on "Vengeance" by Zach Blair (Rise Against, Only Crime, GWAR), and a touch of accordion on "3rd & Pike" courtesy of Matt Hensley (A-100s, Flogging Molly). While the title of lead single "Relentless" could easily refer to The Drowns' infamously non-stop touring regimen, it refers instead to something far more humanitarian: the crushing weight of capitalism on the working poor. The song acknowledges the toll it takes on one's mental health, struggling day in & day out with no breaks only to be left farther & farther behind. "I wish life would just give it a rest", laments Rev. The album contains its fair share of venom, however, like all great political punk in the tradition of The Clash or Stiff Little Fingers, the lyrics prioritize people over polemic, reaching out with compassion in an age where it is in distressingly short supply. "I'm sure that we could change it all if we only had a heart", implores Andy on "Have a Heart". This is life-affirming music for hard times, made for everyone that could sorely use it right now, and a record poised to give the band's hard-earned position as a fan-favorite in the global punk scene an even greater trajectory. For a band that has won over fans around the globe, record by record and show by show, it is a big statement, but simply put: Harsh Reality is The Drowns at the top of their game.

Could it be that the world is finally ready for the tempestuous folk-rock opera that is "All the Leaves are Gone?" In 2004, only the truly informed and forward-thinking heads "got" this mini masterpiece. Critics scratched their heads and usually resorted to comparisons of past artists, like ol Grace Slick and her Great Jefferson Society, Fairport Convention (but which era? SURELY Judy Dyble's early reign?), and at best, Shirley Collins. A few fans attempted to connect the record to even more obscure "freak folk/rock" like Mellow Candle, Fear Itself, or Trees. "All the Leaves are Gone" was made by unique personalities not concerned with influences or copying any bygone era. Surely, some things are in our DNA or even early childhood, as Josephine Foster's roots in opera manifest themselves as much as any other influence in this organic song cycle. Sure, guitarist Brian Goodman may have heard Richard Thompson before, but his alchemical and molten guitar spray is purely his own, in tunings and intervals still not meant for normal humans to understand, mostly because his 2004 guts were poured into every sublime note (I think even Brian himself never even understood how good he was). That fiery emotion is also in every nuance of Foster's songs--like life, there's disquieting, jagged moments of unease, and there's calm both before and after the storm. There are moments of utter gentleness along the journey---because yes, every concept album should be a voyage, and this is one everyone should take. - Steve Krakow.

Pioneering Ghanaian musician King Ayisobareturns September 4, 2026 with his forthcoming seventh album Pure Confusion, recorded and produced by On-U-Sound’s Adrian Sherwood.

Ayisoba is one of Ghana’s most distinctive musical voices. The world’s foremost player of the kologo - a homemade two-string lute fashioned from a calabash and covered in goatskin - he delivers fiercely political and socially observant songs using three different voices, including the voice of his grandfather that possessed him as a child. Sherwood meanwhile is the pioneering British producer and founder of On-U Sound whose hugely influential career has connected dub, post-punk, industrial, hip hop and experimental music through collaborations with artists including Lee “Scratch” Perry, Mark Stewart, Horace Andy, Sinéad O’Connor, Nine Inch Nails and Depeche Mode.

Ayisoba and Sherwood first collaborated during a BBC Radio 3 Late Junction session at Maida Vale in 2017, organised by Ayisoba’s long-time collaborator Arnold de Boer/Zea of The Ex. The pair immediately connected, and during the pandemic, when Adrian’s long-time African Head Charge collaborator Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah was in Ghana looking for musicians to collaborate with Sherwood suggested Ayisoba, who eventually featured on two tracks on African Head Charge’s 2023 album A Trip To Bolgatanga (Bolgantanga is the region Ayisoba is from). Ayisoba then returned to the UK in late 2024 and travelled to Sherwood’s Ramsgate studio where the pair laid down the songs that would become Pure Confusion: “All the songs were already in my head,” says Ayisoba. “This album is all recorded live, over one afternoon. Adrian only plays live, and I like that. And he works hard - he doesn’t sleep. I woke up in the night and he was still working.”

“In my role producing it, I just let it roll to make a good vibe,” says Sherwood. “We recorded it completely live, did some programming and processing on some tracks, using dub techniques live on the mixing desk and adding some slick touches. We wanted the colours on the album to swing off what Ayisoba was doing, so we invited some friends to participate. Doug Wimbish (Sugar Hill Gang) arrived from America and lent his services playing bass on a couple of tracks; the wonderful Ivan Hussey (Celloman) played bass, keyboards and cello - cello is not really featured on African recordings so we thought it would be really cool to try it. I'd been working with Alex White (Fat White Family/Primal Scream) on my album (The Collapse of Everything) and so he added sax to a few tracks and I brought Alan Glenn down especially - Alan was in Little Axe but also Nine Below Zero and played in the Yardbirds – to add some mouth organ; Mark Bandola added a bit of flavour with his Juno, Ayisoba’s long-time Ghanian collaborator Ayuune Sule added some percussion and vocals and Matt Smith did some programming.”

“King Ayisoba is quite amazing, so unique,” Sherwood continues. “He’s got his own handmade instrument and three different voices - when you’re listening you think it’s three different people. He’s a breath of fresh air, full of love for the music which he wants to share with everybody. Some tracks we kept very straight and others we experimented with - adding dubby psychedelic little touches to trip you out a bit. The added production we did at On-U has given it a shine while still keeping it vibrant, live and spontaneous. I’m really proud of this record”.

On Pure Confusion, Ayisoba documents the anxieties, contradictions and changing social realities of contemporary Ghana. “Land is a problem for everyone,” says Ayisoba of the opening track “Property”. “If you don’t build on your land they will take it away. Plenty corruption in Ghana, plenty confusion. They sell the land to two, three, four people and then everybody fights.”

Elsewhere Ayisoba explores illness, spirituality and social stigma on “Bemba”, warning against hiding sickness out of shame or fear of “bad juju”: “People hide their sickness and the sickness kills them.” “Tewigiloge” reflects on cultural difference and open-mindedness encountered through world travel: “We will tour the whole world and we will see many things we may not like or understand… your eyes will see, but don’t talk - you have to be open-minded.”

Spirituality runs deeply throughout the album. Ayisoba’s grandfather was a respected spiritual healer whose presence the musician says still guides him today. “The grandparents’ spirits are the ones you can contact,” he explains of the spiritual chant “Nkaase”. “This song talks about the forefathers.” The closing track “Leeda-Mampanga (It’s Not My Strength)” acts as a statement of humility and gratitude: “You have to be humble, even if you have talent. God gives you the power.”

For more than two decades, King Ayisoba has been one of Africa’s most distinctive musical innovators, transforming northern Ghanaian kologo traditions into a bold contemporary sound rooted in hypnotic rhythms, social commentary and spiritual intensity. Since the breakthrough success of 2006’s Modern Ghanaians, Ayisoba has built an international following through acclaimed albums, relentless touring and collaborations with artists including Lee “Scratch” Perry, Orlando Julius and African Head Charge. Performances at Roskilde, WOMAD, Le Guess Who? and the Barbican have further cemented his reputation as a singular live performer and cultural force.

Anushka Chkheidze + Robert Lippok continue their collaboration with »The Sky Was Out of Tune«. Its eight movements form a long-form ambient piece in constant flux: soundscapes emerge from electronic synthesis and layered textures, while small melodies, rhythmic patterns, metallic noises, or distortions drift through like clouds across the sky. But a sky that is out of tune is still a sky. What shifts is the register in which it speaks.

»The Sky Was Out of Tune« emerges from a live performance for »Festival of Future Nows« at Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie. Its organically tangled sounds mirror the artists’ attention to nature as a system that is never quite in equilibrium. Ecosystems lean, compensate, tip, and recover—balance, in the natural world, is not a fixed state but a perpetual negotiation. Chkheidze and Lippok take this as both subject and method. Their sounds shift weight between one another, approach resolution and then withdraw from it, hold tension without release—they find form in the unstable. »Preparing something unstable completely changed the method of how we would normally split our skills or roles,« Chkheidze says. »I think in this one looong piece you feel how much we listen to each other.«

Anushka Chkheidze + Robert Lippok continue their collaboration with »The Sky Was Out of Tune«. Its eight movements form a long-form ambient piece in constant flux: soundscapes emerge from electronic synthesis and layered textures, while small melodies, rhythmic patterns, metallic noises, or distortions drift through like clouds across the sky. But a sky that is out of tune is still a sky. What shifts is the register in which it speaks.

»The Sky Was Out of Tune« emerges from a live performance for »Festival of Future Nows« at Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie. Its organically tangled sounds mirror the artists’ attention to nature as a system that is never quite in equilibrium. Ecosystems lean, compensate, tip, and recover—balance, in the natural world, is not a fixed state but a perpetual negotiation. Chkheidze and Lippok take this as both subject and method. Their sounds shift weight between one another, approach resolution and then withdraw from it, hold tension without release—they find form in the unstable. »Preparing something unstable completely changed the method of how we would normally split our skills or roles,« Chkheidze says. »I think in this one looong piece you feel how much we listen to each other.«

The year was 1989, and Derrick May was at a creative peak as both a DJ and producer. Under his Rhythim Is Rhythim moniker, he released a string of landmark records on Transmat, while his residency at Detroit's The Music Institute showcased the distinctive DJ style that would soon take him onto the international stage. Around the same time, he hosted a weekly radio show on Detroit radio station WJLB, alongside influential programs by The Electrifying Mojo and The Wizard (Jeff Mills).

For one of these broadcasts, May assembled a 15-minute megamix in his studio during the week leading up to the show. He opened his radio set with this continuous mix, blending his own tracks and versions into a seamless introduction that reflected his approach to DJing at the time. It includes unreleased versions of classics such as ‘Nude Photo 88’ and ‘Strings Of Life’.

‘All of this is unreleased because I made it as I was playing it on the spot as a special Mayday Mix for my show on the radio station WJLB in 1989, edited together straight from the keyboards live to tape. There is no other recording of these tracks in this form, only here’.

The original WJLB master tapes have since been lost, and no official recording is known to survive. Fortunately, many listeners recorded the broadcasts at home. One such cassette, preserved by Richie Hawtin, eventually made it our way. It has been carefully restored and mastered, with the artist’s approval.

To highlight this remarkable document of techno history, the recording is now available as a limited-edition, one-sided 12-inch release. The mix has been cut as a continuous side, visually divided into eight sections, while the reverse features a custom engraving.

MĀRARA, meaning flying fish, is a musical project born in the heart of a still largely unknown Polynesian island. While Tahiti commands attention and the spotlight, Mārara remains in the shadows, ignored by tourist circuits and dominant cultural narratives. This album aims to put Mārara on the map and give voice to an island that deserves to exist in all its richness.


Through this work, we offer an immersion into our traditions, customs, legends, and myths. These stories, deeply rooted in Polynesian culture, are transformed by the environment: for example, the legends of an atoll differ from those of a mountainous island, shaped by the climate, the terrain, and the elements. MĀRARA captures this diversity and reveals its unique character.


This album is not just a musical creation: it is an act of cultural transmission and visibility. Music becomes a vehicle for identity, a voice for an unknown territory, and a bridge between past and present.


"With MĀRARA, we make our island sing so that its voice resonates beyond its horizon."

Lovemonk and Barcelona’s Marula Café bring back their Marula Soulfood 7" series with two standout tracks taken from The Jade’s debut album, "Love Harder". Behind The Jade is Oli Stewart, aka Casbah 73, leading a transatlantic ensemble of top-tier musicians equipped with heart and heat, bridging worlds while remaining firmly centered around home base Madrid.

‘Let The light In’ is a radiant burst of sunshine and a riotous cross-pollination of sounds. Nebraska’s Josh Hoyer delivers a powerhouse vocal performance, soaring over exuberant rhythms and fluid grooves that feel right at home in sweat-filled basement clubs or an open-air set as the sun dips low over the horizon. On the flip, ‘At The Queensboro’ is a beautiful jazz-funk instrumental that stretches out with elegance, giving its wonderful groove plenty of room to breathe. It was highlighted as one of BBC 6 Craig Charles’ favourite tracks of 2025.

Palace return with their most open-hearted collection yet, 'Ox', out September 18th. The announcement of the new album arrives alongside the release of its latest single, ‘Dream On’. Palace’s fifth album, Ox, finds beauty and wisdom in the most human of revelations: watching a child encounter music for the first time, feeling overcome by gratitude, or sensing that the possibilities ahead are endless The album arrives as Palace continue to thrive as an independent act. What began in 2016 as Palace Presents, a monthly takeover at The George Tavern in London, has evolved into a worldwide community. This autumn, the band will embark on a major North American run, following a sold-out homecoming show at London’s iconic Somerset House this summer. 'Ox' will be available on CD and in four LP formats including 180g heavyweight black vinyl from the official store and a black cherry vinyl available from independent record stores.

Liam Hayes is an acclaimed American musical artist known for his songwriting and uncompromising approach to making records. He started cassette multitracking while a preteen and made his first real studio recording at twenty one. This started an obsession that ultimately led to his releasing a 7” single (Found A Little Baby/Three Quarters Blind Eyes) on a small US indie label. Those tracks garnered the attention of the UK music press, and on the strength of those songs a career was launched. The follow up was highly anticipated by critics and listeners alike, but rather than playing to expectations he delivered a highly personal album of solo piano/vocal songs (More You Becomes You). Not one to repeat himself, Hayes started off the millennium by serving up the extravagant pop/soul opus (Fed). Both records are now considered to be masterpieces.

Hayes’ songs are recognised for their exquisite melodies, poetic lyrics and distinctive vocals. He’s released seven albums, two singles and a soundtrack, and applies his craftsmanship to a variety of genres from orchestrated pop to stripped down rock. Comparisons to Brian Wilson, Laura Nyro, Carole King, Harry Nilsson, Badfinger (and even Prince) are numerous. His music takes the best of radio and stellar classic pop records of the 60’s and 70’s and brings it into the present.

Along with making records Hayes has appeared on screen performing his music in High Fidelity (directed by Stephen Frears) and A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III(directed by Roman Coppola) which he also wrote the soundtrack for.

In this, their first production for Hayes, are (executive producer) Terrence Washington and (multi-instrumentalist/producer/arranger) Vincent Carlo with additional contributions from Terrence’s father, legendary arranger TOM TOM 2084 (Chi-Lites, Phil Collins, Plush).

His latest album, Dancing Backwards, sees Liam stepping through the shadows in his life and into a new musical day.

Archimboldos have clawed their way out of the starcaves of their primordial past and into the tranquil light of a coral garden on their third full length album, Crusta Arcana, a gumbo stewpot of transcendent electronica suffused with tribal rhythms and liquid ambience. Across a stereo field smeared with tolling bells, post-industrial folk percussion, and tinkling keys, Archimboldos soundtrack a science fictional journey, not into the depths of space, but deep beneath the waves.

In the past the Chilean duo of Nicolás Carcavilla and Felipe Crocco have described their music as “liminal shrimp folk.” Here they continue this strange exploration when they visit the court of the prawns, producing stately electronic chamber orchestrations. Perhaps these are the frequencies used for ritual dream initiation into the mystery schools of drowned Atlantis. Weaving an ancient sacred science, Archimboldos take listeners on a mystic vovage into their singular crustacean mythology, the crusta of their hidden arcana.

Archimbolodos are masters of conjoining cyclonic and centrifugal lines of electricity into spellbinding incantations. These deep-sea transmissions envelope the listener into aquamarine forcefields that are as hallucinatory as they are hypnotic. Navigating these strange fantasias could lead one to getting lost at sea, but the work is buoyed by the somnolent melodies of lonely harpsichords and swelling synth pads whose sustained tones reach towards distant shores. Sailing across a vast expanse of oceanic harmonies and percolating percussion, these pieces are as precise as the hand of a sailor on the rudder, moving with the tide.

Casting their net wide across eight pieces, Archimboldos have made a big catch. From the emotive electronic counterpoint found on “Bursting Armor” to the blocks of seaweed tangled sonic sculpture trawled up from the ocean floor on “Aphelion IX.” Other songs are like samples of biological ambience collected from luminous tide pools: resplendent tones placed into a Petri dish of sound, swirled, cultured and fermented until it undulates with the rhythmic movement of microscopic lifeforms. Alternating between rippling minimalist sonority and pounding, progressive, synth-heavy entrancement, Crusta Arcana charts its own idiosyncratic itinerary of instrumental invention.

All the while light is down streaming from the heavens to pierce the waters, here calm, there choppy. The intrepid musical captains commanding Archimboldos have laid a course for new archipelagos of the imagination, guided by heavenly constellations.

-Justin Patrick Moore, author of The Radio Phonics Laboratory, Telecommunications, Speech Synthesis and the Birth of Electronic Music

Jonathan Kaspar returns to Crosstown Rebels with an eclectic four-tracker that shows his stylistic range. The EP features his own vocals, as well as some long-time personal secret weapons.

After an intense touring summer with acclaimed gigs, including Fusion Festival, Fabric London, Else Berlin or Woodstock 69 Bloemendaal, Jonathan Kaspar lands back on Crosstown Rebels. After remixing CRM head Damian Lazarus with two different versions in 2025 and his last massive "We Come EP” to the label in 2024, Jonathan is in a purple patch right now with upcoming remixes for the likes of Âme and Acid Pauli. This upcoming release reveals different sides to his sound while still feeling connected as one body of work.

Opener 'Take Control' will be familiar to fans who have seen Kaspar play recently - it's stripped back but tense, with a searching lead synth and tight, dusty tech drums that grip you and never let up. 'The Reason Why' came to life when Bákayan's incredible vocals were added to the deep, dreamy groove, bringing a smoky soul and human warmth that tugs at the heart. 'Play With Me' and 'I Love Your Voice' both feature Kaspar's own vocals: the former is a subtle, late-night grower that unfolds with trippy synth details and sci-fi motifs. The closer is a deeply immersive and widescreen mid-tempo sound that carries a heartfelt reminder to hold on to the voices of the people who love you when everything else gets loud.

Still hot on the heels of compiling the first volume of the Italian Dancefloor Outsiders, and moved by the urge to explore new musical landscapes and discover sounds produced in subsequent years, we decided to continue our quest of tracking an alternative map of what was happen- ing in the Italian electronic music scene. This second volume takes inspiration from the concept of “Mezzanotte Mezzogiorno” (literally “from Midnight to Midday”), a term first used for a now legendary party held in 1992 at Club Imperi- ale in Tirrenia, Tuscany. The owner of the club, Roberto Pannocchia, was eager to attract a different kind of audience to his venue and so decided to extend the closing time until midday, well beyond the Italian law limits. But as Imperiale was a members club, he was allowed to do it, and he already knew that this act would forever shape the Italian club scene. "Mezzanotte Mezzogiorno" was then used to describe long dancing marathons that lasted for the whole weekend, spread across clubs, after-parties and more off-the-grid open air venues but, most of all, became the symbol of an era. The music ranged from slow, pitched-down landscapes to epic techno progressions, filling both feverishly packed big rooms and colourful chillout zones. A parabola of musical move- ments related to specific genres was born, reaching its peak and then fading towards the end of the millenium.

“Environments 3” is one of ‘the great lost albums’ by The Future Sound Of London and these sessions have taken on almost mythical status with the group’s fan base. It was initially due for release after the 1993 release of the UK Top 10 album hit “Lifeforms”, but that didn’t happen. Instead, much later in 2010, it came on CD and download. Only now is it being released on vinyl for the first time..



This release also comes after the success of the first two installments which have sold steadily across the different volumes over the years and still climbing. This third volume is a sparse, highly minimal, and vivid departure from their dense 1990s period, and cited as one of the standout ambient releases of its time with FSOL in fine creative form. Reviewers at the time noted he complete absence of the heavy, spacey atmospheres of Lifeforms or the dark chaos of Dead Cities with delicate textures and moody variety throughout. While mostly calm and meditative, certain cuts evoke a desolate, lonely, or gently industrial feel.

The first new material from Krash Slaughta since last autumn finds our man dropping a tuff 45 featuring two dope ATCQ remixes. And what else to call that but ATCK a.k.a. ‘A Tribe Called Krash’! First up is Scenario which gets a gritty guitar-led new beat making it sound closer to something by Gravediggaz at their noisiest (or even DMX) than the Afro-centric jazz-hope vibes of Native Tongues. Over on the flip, a co-production with, and tribute to, the now sadly departed Del the Soul Condor, takes Low End Theory’s Buggin’ Out and sticks with the jazzy vibes but swaps Buggin’s minimal double-bass dominated shenanigans for something rather more Latinate and Bonita Applebum-esque. Naturally these are as cheeky as they come so it’s a strickly limited affair. Don’t sleep…

A deep cut from the extensive back catalogue of South African group Splash, significant artists in the narrative of the country’s fiercely independent Gallo Record Company, CWPT presents two uplifting mixes of 1990’s ‘An Eye For An Eye’, arranged by a modern day hero of the craft, Lipelis.

Originally released in parallel with the official beginning of the end of South Africa’s decades-long Apartheid, lead vocalist Daniel Tshanda dispels the philosophy of the track’s title, instead offering a still poignant call for unity; “An eye for an eye is no good… Let’s live together as one.”

Lipelis’s carefully crafted take retains this sentiment front and centre, while nudging the arrangement toward contemporary dancefloors, enriching a steady and bubbling mix of colourful keys, bubblegum percussion and a lifting backing chorus that includes another Gallo sensation, Dalom Kids.

These same voices form the spiritual centre of Lipelis’s 12” dub version, which further demonstrates the track’s irresistible rhythm, making space for complimentary piano melodies from Lipelis, alongside collaborator Eugene Piankov. Here, sunsetting piano lines dance with the analogue techniques of Lipelis’s own production instincts, forging a blissful tribute to a potent moment in South African musical history.

Oscar Later is the solo project of one half of Once Twice, formerly known as Parallels. The EP takes its premise from the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which ruled that no nation could claim ownership of the Moon or any other celestial body. Across six tracks, that idea of ownership, distance and free imagination runs through the record, which combines breakbeat and shimmering synths with processed vocals and clips from vintage ads and obscure films.

"I wanted the record to feel like public-domain myths, commercial promises and space-age optimism all colliding," Oscar says, "blurring the line between memory and fantasy."

Opener 'Air Time for Andre' channels chopped-up breaks reminiscent of Skee Mask, combined with processed found audio. 'Wenlocked', named after the East London street where it was written, develops from a downtempo sketch into a heavier club track as the bassline builds, inspired by releases on Voam and Floating Points' live sets. 'It Never Made Sense' steps away from the dancefloor, built around a granulated Orion Sun vocal that, as Oscar puts it, "ties the track into quite a surreal space," leaning towards Burial, Overmono and Radiohead.

The title track, 'The Moon Belongs to You', runs a vocoded 90s ad through a detuned one-note synth. It's the track Oscar says "best encapsulates the intention of the EP as a whole: surreal, wacky and clubby." 'Yaya' keeps the energy up as a straight techno cut, its gated bassline locking in around a chopped vocal and pitched samples. Closer 'That's Quite A Lot Of Zeroes!' expands from a stripped-back Buchla line into something huge, driven by chopped samples and inspired by sci-fi scores like Dune and Annihilation.

The cover is designed by art director Will Millner with designer Josh Lowe, a homage to space food and 80s industrial design geared to survive life on the moon. It's available as a limited vacuum-packed 12" record.

The EP launches alongside a music video for 'It Never Made Sense', directed by Louis Mackay, telling the story of a group of kids who steal the moon for themselves.

Kraak & Smaak formed in Leiden in pursuit of a particular blend of funk, disco and electronic soul, and over two decades and seven albums, Oscar de Jong, Wim Plug and Mark Kneppers have sharpened a sound that's unmistakably their own: warm, analogue, and always twisting old soul into something new. That sound has carried them from small European clubs to Coachella and American late night TV.
Their 2025 album Velvet Seas was written between Leiden and Los Angeles, and it shows: Californian light and a touch of psychedelia sit easily alongside deep funk and a cinematic reach. The record leaned on a wide circle of guests, among them IVAR, Berenice van Leer, Izo FitzRoy, Butter Bath, The Undercover Dream Lovers, iogi, Kosta G and Kainalu.

Velvet Seas Remixed hands the album's best moments to a curated set of international producers. British disco heritage, classic French touch, Brazilian disco funk, Melbourne club music and homegrown Dutch groove all take a turn, with each producer bending a familiar song toward their own instincts while keeping the album's character intact. Longer, extended versions and alternate mixes round out the full release, letting several of these tracks land in more than one form.




a 01: Nothing Is Forever (Yuksek Remix) [feat. Kosta G]
[b] 02: Travel Light (Diogo Strausz Remix) [feat. Ivar]
[c] 03: Velvet Seas (Ray Mang Remix) [feat. Izo FitzRoy]
[d] 04: Heat (Anoraak Remix) [feat. Butter Bath]
[e] 05: Real Love (Harvey Sutherland Remix) [feat. Kainalu]
[f] 06: Tracel Light (Sound Support Remix) [feat. Ivar]
[g] 07: Heat (Stirmouth Remix) [feat. Butter Bath]

[a] A1 | Nothing Is Forever (Yuksek Remix) [feat Kosta G]
[b] A2 | Travel Light (Diogo Strausz Remix) [feat Ivar]
[c] A3 | Velvet Seas (Ray Mang Remix) [feat Izo FitzRoy]
[d] B1 | Heat (Anoraak Remix) [feat Butter Bath]
[e] B2 | Real Love (Harvey Sutherland Remix) [feat Kainalu]
[f] B3 | Tracel Light (Sound Support Remix) [feat Ivar]
[g] B4 | Heat (Stirmouth Remix) [feat Butter Bath]

UK underground heavyweight Ploy unleashes his second release on Dekmantel with a brand new four track EP. The release sees the dynamic producer continue to push the envelope with his own flavour of driving, sexy, Ploy house. Putting every ounce of his production prowess on show while proving yet again that Ploy is a force to be reckoned with both in the studio alike. Making tracks for DJs has always been the source of inspiration for Ploy and this is no different with each offering carrying its weight and then some. Straight up, no frills house music that oozes quality by doing the simple things well.

Kicking off the record is title track 'Glizzy', an arpeggiated tech house tool built for the hours that you lose yourself on the dancefloor. From the off Ploy puts his ear for percussive dynamism on show with the understated subtleties of this opener. Thematic sampling, nuanced arrangement and odd ball melodies combine to set Glizzy apart with a gentle nod to hot dog lovers worldwide.

The EP follows suit with A2 'Global Underground'. A contemporary progressive house roller, which rips through the atmosphere with melodic blasts, unrelenting groove, and a powerful bassline.

Offering an equally effective double B-side, B1 is 'Yesterday Now Tomorrow', which sees Ploy lean on his production mastery with entangled percussion and expertly dosed sampling. The result is a swinging heavy house burner that is truly greater than the sum of its parts.

Lastly on the EP is ‘SlowanDip’. A heavily swung, percussive chugger to warm up a dancefloor, paired with a bassline to test the system, this B2 closes out a stellar second showing on Dekmantel for Ploy.

The record arrives at the crest of festival season and is primed to soundtrack dancefloors around the world under the glistening Summer sun. Ploy has quickly carved out a reputation for his unmistakable, drum driven take on house music, and Glizzy only sharpens that identity further. Focused, effective and built with DJs firmly in mind, the EP captures an artist operating with total confidence, delivering four tracks that prove Ploy isn’t just part of the conversation, he’s pushing it forward.

The Comfort enters the double digits of its catalogue with the label’s most ambitious release to date by Saudi Arabian artist Noboot, titled “Call and Pulsate”.

Fluid in genre yet wholeheartedly electro in spirit, Noboot’s creative output shapeshifts across the record: from four-to-the-floor acid-tinged propulsion to time-freezing illuminations, with neon-coloured synths, body-twisting low ends and piercing drum hits mutating throughout the album, and often within the tracks themselves.

Noboot’s capacity for sonic manipulation is on full display here with the pieces moving with a captivating direction and command. Sometimes gentle, sometimes dramatic, but always carried with a particular elegance and poise. To listen to the record from start to finish is to step into Noboot’s own conceptual world, one in which the artist has the confidence to take floor-oriented dance music and elevate it both in spirit and form.

There is composure and ambition in this approach. Tracks move the listener from one emotional state to another in the span of six minutes: not merely teasing transformation, but by fully taking the listener there. To deliver on that ambition requires control and idiosyncratic intuition. If “Desolated Delay” and “Timer Set” are striking examples of Noboot’s capacity for propulsion, “Meter Tired” shows the other side of their talent: the ability to make time feel briefly suspended in a weightless flux of cybernetic psychedelia.

To achieve this once or twice would already be impressive. To sustain it across an album of this scale is rare in electronic dance music, and makes The Comfort’s tenth release a defining moment in the label’s catalogue.

Sempra makes his debut on Up Ya Archives with tracks imbued with his signature blend of jungle and breakbeat, interpreted through his unmistakably soulful lens. Warm vocal melodies and ethereal instrumentation ride smoothly atop the rolling waves of breakbeats and warping basslines. It all culminates in a soulful take on ragga jungle sound, setting Sempra apart from his junglist peers. When asked on his process behind ‘Wicked N Ruff’,

Sempra said:
“I’m really proud of this release! I love the fusion of genres and feeling, these tracks really show my love for contrasts. You get the soft with the hard without losing any of the euphoria”.

Having released consistently across labels including Future Classic, Headroom and Hardcore Energy, Sempra continues to refine a unique sound that draws equally from soundsystem culture and contemporary soul.