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Methods of Mayhem was Tommy Lee’s first project after leaving Mötley Crue in 1999. He was joined by rapper Tilo and released their self-titled album that same year. It charted on the US Billboard 200 at #71 and went on to be certified Gold by the RIAA. The album features two singles, “Get Naked” and “New Skin”, and is full with guest appearances
- Fred Durst (Limp Bizkit), Snoop Dogg, George Clinton (Parliament-Funkadelic), Lil’ Kim, Mix Master Mike (resident DJ of Beastie Boys), Kid Rock, U-God (Wu-Tang Clan), Scott Kirkland (The Crystal Method) and Filthee Immigrants.

Piano, handmade electronics, tenor sax, couple strings.

I was after something tangible. Sounds you could roll around in your palm and consider different, complex, and flawed textures. Feel the weight, maybe even smell them.

This desire is probably a reaction to the dissociative nausea from the constant simulacra of these early 2020s. Like deliberately going barefoot to feel yourself grounded in a real place, as I read Andrea Needham did when facing charges for disarming a warplane.

Anyway, my methods to achieve these sound "objects" was to use a healthy amount of acoustic instrumentation with all its familiar sonic unevenness, to free sounds from rhythmic or thematic structure, and to give plenty of blank space around each note so the ear can reach in and pluck it out. A berry from a bush, an eyelash from a friend's cheek.

Really though, a lot of the time now I just want to listen to the birds. There are plenty on here. Mourning dove, titmouse, helicopter.

"Hunter on the Wing" is a reference to De'Andre Hunter, the Atlanta Hawks small forward.

KF, Dec. 2021

Diego el Cigala is, with any doubt, one of the greatest flamenco geniuses of our times. Not only because of his voice and charisma, but also for recording such vast and wide discography singing with majesty and no complex any style he could be challenged to perform. At Flamencoenvinilo we wanted to re-catch one of his early works back to his flamenco roots: "Entre Vareta y Canasta" (18 Chulos) was originally published in the year 2000 and, as many of his works, this album has proved the test of time and it has become a true classic. This will be the first time this album comes out on 12". Limited to 500 copies. Accompanied by Niño Josele (guitar) and a large group of percussionists, "Entre Vareta y Canasta" the second album by Diego El Cigala made him known among many people outside the traditional nucleus of flamenco for his simplicity, purity and mastery. The unique voice of this artist moves with naturalness and feeling in styles as different as martinete, bulería or fandangos.

In the small inland town of São Domingos on Cape Verde's Santiago Island, The Ano Nobo Quartet delivers a fresh take on Koladera, a guitar-driven, subtly rhythmic sound of a lighter spirit. Their sound tells a global story with Cape Verde at its center, a creole melting pot in the middle of the Atlantic attracting the best from four continents: hypnotic, haunting Koladera guitars inflected with twangs of Salsa Cubano, Spanish Flamenco, Brazilian Samba Canção, Jamaican Reggae, Argentine Tango, Mozambican Marrabenta, and finished with a dash of Black American Blues. It's all here. Absent percussion, the quartet's sound still drips with rhythm. Rich, raw acoustic music you can dance to.

This album was recorded in three locations on Santiago Island: at homes, by the sea, and on the volcanic hills of Cape Verde. Each location used a mobile recording studio equipped with different mics placed near and far to capture both the Spanish and Chinese-made guitars and the natural environment that shapes the saudade, a melancholic longing, of Koladera. Each space has its own atmosphere heard in the interludes.

A double LP pressed at 45 RPM for an even silkier listening experience and packaged in a luxurious matte-laminated gatefold with a high quality 12-page booklet along with a hardcover bookcase CD with a 24-page booklet.

‘Free World’ is the first full-length issue from an
ongoing collaboration between Behavior (Bedros
Yeretzian, Evan Burrows, Justin Tenney, Robbie
Cody) and Mayako XO (Sara Gernsbacher). It was
tracked between 2019 and 2020 and assembled
over the course of the last year in Los Angeles.
 The album reflects its creation under open-ended
yet intent circumstances. What’s recorded is a
tangled pas de deux between discredited and
demonstrative characters, singing through shifting
voices over a living, melancholic music rendered
legible by surveillance.
 Mastered by Sarah Register.
 For fans of Sonic Youth, Velvet Underground,
Dead C, Blonde Redhead.

Hot on the heels of his doom-electro release on CYBERDOME, Italian producer D3070 readies his Lobster Theremin debut with five lairy cuts of end-of-the-world techno and electro.

‘Orbital’ is a simple, no frills track; uncompromising in-your-face energy meets melting acidic basslines on a 4x4 rhythm, before the noise breaks on ‘Space Invader’ and a mutated electro-step emerges out from a dark alleyway covered in slime.

Dubstep/footwork blends increase the velocity on ‘You Got Me’; new territory for the emerging producer and one that we can’t wait to see him explore more - before we come crashing back into the horror with a cut of downright frightening sound design on ‘Darkness’, it’s dusty lo-fi rhythm marching on fourth and into the fiery gates.

‘Artemis’ provides room to breathe as we awaken from our nightmare, getting our head above water before floating towards a kaleidoscope of tangled emotion.

While previous albums, most notably Leland and Minutes of Sleep (2014) as well as two albums released as one half of the duo Aris Kindt (most notably the stellar Swann and Odette from 2017) have relied on singular thematic and narrative drives that were often of a personal, collaborative, or hermetic in nature, Thresholds is an album that aspires to sonic universality and the presentation of a fully formed psychoacoustical world. That being said it is not an “album of ideas”. Inspired by the ecological and political upheavals of the present and the role of speculative thought as an avenue of global transformation Thresholds is the work of a mature artist fully in control of his powers. Both expansive and nuanced the album widens the aperture of the affective possibilities of the electronic assemblage; themes skip from one track to the next, elevating and informing each other in tangible fields of abstract figuration. The titles, while often heady, concisely allude to strategies implicit in the construction and arrangement of the works: Cut Up, within the context of the album, is exactly that. Luck Takes a Step juxtaposes stately synths with just the right touch of playful fluctuation and latent atonality. The title track itself is a knotted mass of uncertainty and propulsive beats the breakdown of which is a nervous series of fits and starts that resonate not just within the track but as the fulcrum of the entire album: the threshold of our Threshold: “…we are caught up in our own original transversals of time to the point of dissolution, and that which remains a part of the contrivance of ourselves is ultimately that which crosses the threshold and is somehow, miraculously, reconstituted on the other side of it. Because it is via the threshold that we can best observe the conditions of experience as lived even as we cross to the other side of understanding, rejoining the ancient equilibriums of which we, in our depths, are comprised.” (From the liner notes)
No track overstays its welcome and with the help of standout vocalist Eliana Glass, and instrumentation by Dave Harrington (Darkside with Nicolas Jaar), Mark Nelson (Pan American), Will Shore, Greg Paulus and Gareth Redmond, and mixed by Phil Weinrobe, the result is a dizzyingly pure inward gaze that is first and foremost an album about connection.

Cut For The Original Analog Tapes At Bernie Grundman’s Mastering. Includes Hi Res Audio Download Card. Black vinyl re-issue For Europe (2000 copies). CURTAINS is the eighth solo album by JOHN FRUSCIANTE. It was originally released on February 1, 2005. The album features contributions from AUTOLUX drummer CARLA AZAR, upright bassist KEN WILD, and THE MARS VOLTA guitarist OMAR RODRÍGUEZ-LÓPEZ. John Frusciante is an American guitarist, singer, composer, and producer. He is best known as the former guitarist of the rock band RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS (1988 until 1992 and from 1998 until 2009). He recorded five studio albums with them and was recently inducted into the ROCK & ROLL HALL OF FAME. Frusciante has an active solo career, having released twelve solo albums and five EPs; his recordings include elements ranging from experimental rock and ambient music to new wave and electronica. He has also recorded with numerous other artists, including the Mars Volta, for whom he was a studio guitarist (and occasional live performer) from 2002 until 2008; JOSH KLINGHOFFER and JOE LALLY, with whom he released two albums as Ataxia; and various collaborations with both Klinghoffer and Omar Rodríguez-López. He has also produced and/or recorded with Duran Duran, Wu-Tang Clan, Swahili Blonde, Black Knights, The Bicycle Thief, Glenn Hughes, Ziggy Marley, Johnny Cash, George Clinton, Johnny Marr, Dewa Budjana and others.

THE ELECTRONIC VISIONARIES RETURN WITH THEIR NEW STUDIO
ALBUM
.On their new album 'Raum', Tangerine Dream develop the concept of its
precursor EP (Probe 6—8) further
Composed & produced with full access to Edgar Froese's Cubase arrangements
(& Otari Tape Archive with recordings from 1977-2013), Thorsten Quaeschning,
Hoshiko Yamane & Paul Frick deliver late-night real time compositions combined
with classic studio productions, sequencer driven haunting soundscapes
alternate with anthemic warm synthesizers.
Composed in a time of social distancing & cancelled shows, the tracks cannot
exactly be recreated (or will at least need significant re-instrumentation for a live
performance). With the 17-minute 'In 256 Zeichen', they lay the fundament of this
record. 'Continuum', with its repetitive sequence & broken beat shows glimpses of
acid sounds & increasing choral atmospheres. 'You Are Always On Time' is built
on PPG wavetable sounds & eerie field recordings. The title track 'Raum' makes a
nod towards the early live studio performances like 'Zeit' & 'Phaedra' - the melody
accompanied by a chorus- like Roland Jupiter 8 part. An ambient rave Moog
Minitaur sequence highlights the final peak, till the violin slowly transports the
listener out. A heavy Moog bass marks the beginning & the end of this 15-minute
piece.
'Raum' is the band's second studio album after the passing of the founder Edgar
Froese in 2015. With deep respect for the sound of the previous five decades, this
record continues in the ever-evolving pathway of Tangerine Dream.
The band will be supporting the release of 'Raum' with live shows in 2022, starting
with an extensive headline tour of the UK in March. 'Raum' will be released as a 7
track CD presented in a digipak with a 12-page booklet

John Carroll Kirby brings his talents as a composer
and producer to film scoring. His vivid imagination,
dreamy compositions and knack for storytelling with
instrumental music make for a perfect match with
comic book writer, artist and filmmaker Dash Shaw’s
vibrant, fantastical animated feature.
 Kirby’s score is at once deeply evocative and
mysterious, evoking nostalgia, wide-eyed innocence,
and ethereal otherworldliness. As with all of Kirby’s
music, the score resists easy genre classification,
melding together sounds from new age, exotica, library
music and the sweeter side of electronic music.
 ‘Cryptozoo: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack’
features the voice of Kacy Hill.
 Artwork by the film’s director, Dash Shaw.
 ‘Cryptozoo’ won the NEXT Innovator Award at
Sundance, premiered internationally at the 2021
Berlinale, and was bought by Magnolia Pictures.
 The film is currently streaming on MUBI UK and
Ireland as a MUBI Release and will be on the platform
for several months.
 ‘Cryptozoo: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack’ is
Kirby’s latest album following the release of his
electronic-jazz album ‘Septet’ in June 2021. He will be
touring the UK and Europe in March 2022.
 For fans of Bibio, Tangerine Dream, Susumu Yokota,
Laraaji, Joanna Brouk.
 Support from AV Club, New York Times, The Guardian,
Cinemacy, Collider, The Wire, BBC 6 Music, triple j
and KCRW, among others.

San Francisco Moog: 1968-72 documents a missing link in the history of electronic music, as well as the little-known moment when psychedelic music went electronic.

In 1968, Bay Area native Doug McKechnie got hold of one the very first modular Moog synthesizers ever made and began finding his own way to play it. Soon, he was hauling the finicky instrument around to perform improvised concerts at colleges and ballrooms, as well as an ill-fated appearance on the bill at Altamont. Many of the performances were recorded, and the surviving tapes—never before released—capture a free- flowing, transportive sound that fills in the gap between the austere mid-century academic avant garde and the expansive cosmic suites of Tangerine Dream and the rest of the Berlin School in the ‘70s.

This is not another corny old Moog record. San Francisco Moog sounds as fresh as anything by today’s analog-synth heads while bringing to life a lost moment in the development of the music.

All pieces were created improvisationally in an atmosphere of exploration and discovery on a Moog Modular Series III synthesizer and recorded live with no overdubbing to Ampex PR-10, Nagra 3, or TEAC four-channel recorders.

Produced by Doug McKechnie, Lee Gardner, and PJ Dorsey
Mastered by A.F Jones at Laminal Audio
Art direction by Frank Hamilton and Nolen Strals
Mandala art by Richard Winn Taylor

Wounded Bird by Flying Norwegians is the best Norwegian country rock
album to ever have been made - An album that is so convincingly good, in
every conceivable way, that it was almost released by A&M Records
But it's also an album that serves as a classic example in which everything that
can go wrong, does go wrong. And at the worst possible time..

Purer, aggressiver traditioneller Metal, der den Geist von NWOBHM für das 21. Jahrhundert einfängt! Auf ihrem selbstbetitelten Album beleben Vancouvers Maule die Sounds der frühen 1980er mit einem frischen, energiegeladenen Twist und machen es zu einem der aufregendsten Debüts des Jahres! Mehr als vier Jahrzehnte nach ihrer Ankunft inspiriert die New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) weiterhin neue Musiker. Ihre erste Welle trug natürlich dazu bei, Thrash zu kreieren und legte den Grundstein für die europäische und US- Metalszene, die im folgenden Jahrzehnt Gestalt annehmen sollte. Und während Iron Maiden und Saxon als Speerspitzen des Stils auftauchten, etablierten sich auch Bands wie Angel Witch, Blitzkrieg, Diamond Head und Tygers of Pan Tang, die jetzt durch Bands einer weiteren Generation entfernt weiterleben, darunter Vancouvers Maule.
CD & LP (Black Vinyl + Inner Sleeve & Download Card)

"Astreines Futter für diejenigen unter euch, die gerne einen Ausflug zum Keep It True, Headbanger´s Open Air oder Muskelrock machen, erreicht uns diesen Monat (wie so oft) aus Kanada. MAULE konnten schon 2019 mit ihrem "From Hell"-Demo erste Wellen schlagen, jetzt steht der Release der Debüt-Langrille ins Haus. Erfreulicherweise hat sich musikalisch im Vergleich zum ohnehin schon sehr guten Demo nicht allzu viel verändert, MAULE setzen auch drei Jahre später auf Heavy Metal mit starker NWOBHM-Schlagseite. Vor allem Sänger Jakob Weel hat in der Zwischenzeit aber einen ordentlichen Zahn zugelegt, der Mann klingt deutlich versierter, klarer und druckvoller als auf "From Hell". Der Rest der Band tritt derweil gut aufs Gaspedal und klöppelt sich in weiten Zügen mit ordentlich Schmackes durch die neun kurzweiligen Tracks. Sehr schönes Ding!"
(Rock Hard Soundcheck # 3)

Serendipities surround the collaboration between Berlin's Stroboscopic Artefacts label founder Lucy and their most recent record with Malaysian Bangkok based emerging artist Wanton Witch. The release culminates in the reimagining of WW debut LP as seen and felt through the lens of Lucy. This is a follow up full-length album by Lucy not approached as a usual remixes record, but instead a fully fleshed out new body of work with the WW material being an integral part of Lucy's sonic palette.

Despite the label hiatus during the first year of lockdowns, the isolation of the pandemic helped create a fertile ground for a back and forth between Wanton Witch and Lucy's own distinct sound palettes to collide. With the normal every day pressures of touring lifted and enlightened by WW's sonic world, Lucy has seen this as a positive opportunity to manifest new pathways of connectivity and process a phase of personal growth. Not simply about the breaking of gender lines, but also about the blurring of creative boundaries, especially when making music.

Lucy's original patronage of Wanton Witch and her relatively fresh and new voice in the electronic music scene can be seen as a contribution to this idea of dismantling industry norms. In more than a decade of SA operations this is a reset moment for the label's mission focusing on empowering new talent, refreshing and growing with them, presenting a dynamic two-way process bewtween the label as a whole and the individual artists output.

Lucy's personal revolution has coincided with Wanton Witch's own discovery of her musical voice and their paths have created a synchronicity. This osmosis of thought and feeling, even through massive distances, can be so real and tangible. Lucy's new album is a testament to the power of connective tissue in collaboration. It is this catalyst of realisation that has allowed the creative work to flourish under the toughest of pandemic conditions.

In 1994, hip-hop was going through an at-times painful growth spurt. Since N.W.A.'s and Ice-T's ascent in the late '80s, the rap game was no longer owned by the East Coast. After the worldwide popularity of Dr. Dre's The Chronic in 1992, things were looking even worse for hip-hop's hometown. The East Coast / West Coast feud that would later indirectly claim the lives of Biggie and Pac was still in its infancy, but New York needed a shot in the arm. The hype behind young Queensbridge native Nasir 'Nas' Jones had been in full swing months before his smash debut album Illmatic, thanks to Columbia Records' promo machine. From his earliest appearance on Main Source's 'Live at the BBQ,' to his own accomplished debut 'Half Time' (as Nasty Nas, on the Zebrahead soundtrack in late 1992), it was clear that this kid was something special. In fact, the pressure on him must have been overwhelming at times. April 19, 1994 couldn't have come soon enough. And as soon as the first lines of 'N.Y. State of Mind' kick in, bolstered by perhaps DJ Premier's darkest beat of all time, the entire East Coast breathed a collective sigh of relief. God's Son had arrived. Backed by an absolute all-star cast of New York's top-shelf producers - Premier, Pete Rock, Large Professor, Q-Tip and a youngster named L.E.S. - the album never lets up. Serious to a fault, and lyrically dense to an extent that has possibly never been matched, the 20-year old Nas stood on the shoulders of his predecessors and proudly proclaimed, 'Don't f*** with the East... we are BACK.' Illmatic was actually a slow-burn, which might surprise fans that have come to its genius more recently. Despite an unheard-of '5 Mics' in The Source - despite an unwritten rule of never awarding classic status to debuts - it didn't go gold until early 1996, and didn't hit platinum status until late 2001. But when you dive deeper that shouldn't be a shock: like Black Moon and Wu-Tang's debuts, it was a dark, hard record, made for heads in New York, not teeny-boppers in Des Moines. There were no dance beats, no crossover love songs. Just boom-bap and rhymes, skills and heart.

2022 may bring much much uncertainty to the world but one thing we know for a fact is that we are introducing our most innovative and intriguing new act in years – the French duo Archil & Leon with their five track debut (appropriately called) “Blooming”.

Having both released in the past independently, Archil & Leon were originally brought together thanks to their teenage band His Majesty and from there, their passion to create music together never has faltered. Leon is a veteran session and live drummer who also produces music for his own dance project Ongaeshi and the dance collective moovance. Archil is an accomplished solo electronic musician and the force behind Archil Lab handmade musical devices. Using elements like springs (Springophone) and wheels (Roulettophone), his instruments are lovingly manufactured in wood and somehow carry the characteristics of modular gear but in the most unconventional way possible.

At a first listen, Archil & Leon’s music comes off as a well oiled live jam but as you dig deeper, it’s clear these tracks have a precision and style that separates them into a category of their own. Their EP “Blooming” is the result of two full years of being locked in their studio, writing and experimenting together. Indeed, an underlying flow of 70’s funk permeates throughout their music, however pigeonholing them into such a stereotype would be a travesty as they have impeccable song writing skills and their self made instruments conjure an experimentalism which is through and through rooted in electronic music. We can only hope that fans of now-classic Jamie Lidell / Super_Collider will appreciate where they are coming from, and you agree their “sound” is brilliantly individual. After all, they created their tracks literally from the ground up.

Watch more about Archil & Leon and their wonderfully outlandish instruments.Das Jahr 2022 mag viel Ungewissheit in die Welt bringen, aber eine Sache, die wir mit Sicherheit wissen, ist, dass wir euch mit dem französischen Duo Archil & Leon unseren innovativsten und faszinierendsten neuen Act seit Jahren vorstellen werden. Passenderweise trägt ihre ihre Debüt 5-Track EP den Titel "Blooming".

Archil & Leon haben beide in der Vergangenheit unabhängig voneinander Musik veröffentlicht haben und kamen ursprünglich durch die Teenager-Band His Majesty zusammen. Von da an hat ihre Leidenschaft, gemeinsam Musik zu machen, nie nachgelassen. Leon ist ein erfahrener Session-Musiker und Live-Schlagzeuger, der auch Musik für sein eigenes Tanzprojekt Ongaeshi Studio und das Tanzkollektiv moovance produziert. Archil ist ein versierter Solo-Elektro-Musiker und die treibende Kraft hinter den handgefertigten Musikinstrumenten des Archil Labs. Seine unter Verwendung von Elementen wie Federn (Springophone) und Rädern (Roulettophone) hergestellten Instrumente sind liebevoll aus Holz gefertigt und erinnern irgendwie an modulare Geräte, aber auf sehr unkonventionelle Art und Weise.

Auf den ersten Blick wirkt die Musik von Archil & Leon wie ein gut geölter Live-Jam, aber wenn man tiefer gräbt, wird klar, dass diese Tracks eine Präzision und einen Stil haben, die sie in eine eigene Kategorie einordnen. Ihre EP "Blooming" ist das Ergebnis von zwei Jahren, in denen sie sich im Studio eingeschlossen haben, um gemeinsam zu schreiben und zu experimentieren. Ein unterschwelliger Flow von 70er-Jahre-Funk durchdringt ihre Musik, aber sie in eine solche Schublade zu stecken, ginge gehörig am Thema vorbei, denn die beiden haben tadellose Fähigkeiten was das Songwriting angeht und ihre selbstgebauten Instrumente zaubern einen Experimentierfreude hervor, der durch und durch in der elektronischen Musik verwurzelt ist.

Wir sind uns sicher, dass Fans von dem jetzt schon klassischen Jamie Lidell / Super_Collider Material ahnen, woher der Wind hier weht und von welch individueller Brillanz Archil & Leon's Sound ist. Immerhin haben die Jungs ihre Musik wirklich von Grund auf neu kreiert. Schaut Euch ihre wundervollen, außerweltlichen Instrumente auf ihrer Website oder YouTube an

Hailing from Rio de Janeiro, Marcela Dias Sindaco is formerly a classical piano and cello player. With early musical influences drawing from experimental German groups like Popol Vuh, Tangerine Dream, and Cluster, her electro productions encapsulate more than one sound palette. In 2021, she released her first EP on DEEPTRAX, and here we have her second gift of huge, thoughtful, vocalized electro ready to be received by heady listeners across the world.

Each track brings together unique pieces that fit into her cohesive vision of electro. There are big bass drums, panned hi-hats, and crunchy bass lines. Stabby pads, punchy piano licks, tantalizing but direct Portuguese vocals, loopy Rhodes progressions, and a touch of acid...bonafide DJ rewind material right here!

Spread across 4-tracks, the producer offers fanciful instrumentation and production while conveying a narrative of preservation for mother nature.
The theme of Mother Land is inspired by one of Nohan’s main interests: nature. In response to ongoing climate change and global environmental degradation, he opted to craft a project that captured the planet's beauty - with a message of sustainability.

The EP is a faithful representation of Nohan the producer - packed with his love for the piano, ipnothic synths, and suspended ambient compositions. The project opens with the title track - kickstarting the subtle, yet palpable production rooted in tangible instrumentation. “The world’s on fire… It’s calling out for you and me” are the opening lines from the vocalist, reminding listeners that earth’s fate revolves around us.

“Heavenly Sing” presents a more upstart offering, with loose shakers and scintillating keys leading. This more tropical take provides optimism in sound, serving as prose for uplifting introspection in headphones as well as the ADID dancefloor. “The Sun in December” reflects its title - somber piano leads the way through a serene, melancholy soundscape. The EP also includes an ambient take on “Mother Land,” which strips its electronic backing in the intro to draw focus to the words and theme of the project.

Noahn makes a perfect fit with this emblematic imprint.

Retro-futurist cinematic synth-fest from Supersilent keyboardist and composer. Just as radio drama is said to provide the best pictures, so some music can make for a perfect film soundtrack without the need for a film to exist at all. ’The Haze of Sleeplessness’ is a case in point: as the album starts to play, the listener’s imagination kicks in and does the rest, supplying the necessary plot, character and setting until a full-scale narrative unspools behind one’s eyes. A suite of seven movements whose common musical material is continuously recycled into new shapes and sounds, while recurring leitmotifs create a connecting thread of continuity, ’The Haze of Sleeplessness’ operates on several levels simultaneously. Most obviously, perhaps, it’s an unapologetic synth-fest; a love poem to old-school electronica and analogue sound whose squelches, bleeps and blurts can’t help but recall the heroic era of Wendy Carlos, Vangelis and Tangerine Dream. It’s also a remarkably original and successful attempt at using by now antique instruments to form a true orchestral palette, building a symphony of sound through combining monophonic sources and their new digital variants into a densely populated audio landscape that is captured with astonishing sonic fidelity. The super-saturated surface of the music fairly crackles with raw electricity, as if the over-amped distortion was about to short-circuit itself, with a wobbly jack plug connection flickering dangerously before finally cutting out. That many of these sounds and their treatment can’t help but suggest the retro-futurist setting of a dystopian sci-fi thriller might make the cinematic analogy inevitable, but it doesn’t lessen the music’s power or cheapen its effect.

Not much is known about the German session musician ensemble Studiogruppe 1 from the ‘70s and ‘80s. It’s believed that the grandfather of one member, known only as V.S., originally soundtracked silent films in theatres - although that hasn’t been proved. Studiogruppe1 never rose to prominence in the heyday of studio groups and library records, but it certainly wasn’t due to lack of trying.

Although it’s unknown who the individual members of Studiogruppe1 were, it’s clear they could find a groove within the machines. It appears the sessions were also engineered by V.S., and there’s plenty of space between the notes, which lends a heady atmosphere of anticipation to the music. Just close your eyes and you will find that the music triggers many scenes from the movies in your mind.

Take the opener Dunkler Sonnenaufgang, for example. Waves lap on the shore line of an alternate Coney Island, while the sound system of an abandoned amusement park plays arpeggios in the distance. Errinungen could complement expansive panoramic time-lapses of natural cycles and rolling clouds. The track Wenn Der Tiefe Schlaf Kommt, might accompany a documentary on REM dream cycles and flotation tanks. Sonnentanz raises the temperature, as act III in every movie narrative should, as protagonists rush to overcome their challenges. Ein Neuer Anfang would perfectly soundtrack the plot twist of any number of thrillers, film noirs, or sci-fi mysteries. Album closer War Alles Nur Ein Traum could supplement slow-motion shots of dawning realization, foreshadowing a betrayal or a cliffhanger.

V.S. and Studiogruppe1 have condensed the evocative sounds of the ’80s into something of an art form. Bringing to mind the lilting melodies and melancholy chord movements of Tangerine Dream, Vangelis or Manuel Göttsching, Studiogruppe1 manage to capture widescreen emotional flash points without the need for celluloid, or barely any visual aid, for that matter. These tracks work just as well in the furnace of your imagination or a dark room filled with dry ice and lasers.

Reissue from King Crimson LP from 1982.
Remastered on 200g vinyl.

Mimsy describes himself as someone with many interests and few skills, and sure, you can put it that way. But more precisely, he is a seeker and finder who has always felt more at home in the intermediary spaces. Since his first releases on Karaoke Kalk under the names Saucer, Motel and Wunder in 1997, he has mostly been active as Wechsel Garland, working with samples beyond recognition and thus blurring the lines between his own songwriting and the musical material he uses.

In 2011, he ended the project with the album »Dreams Become Things« and is now opening a new chapter as Mimsy with »Ormeology.« The album was ten years in the making and saw the producer work with sounds, voices and text fragments that were gathered over time. The twelve pieces—based on guitar pickings, looped textural sounds, rhythm boxes and shimmering organ sounds—install themselves in the unconscious through sound, melody and subtle rhythmic shifts to send the listener’s perception on a journey into the unknown.

The name Mimsy is a nonce word coined by Lewis Carroll in his famous nonsense poem »Jabberwocky,« a combination of »miserable« and »flimsy,« while the term »Ormeology« refers to the Italian film »Le Orme« (»Footprints on the Moon«), in which the main character is haunted by memories of a fictional film of the same name. While this alone creates a rich thematic frame of references for the album, it does not at all define its themes. Instead, the references are reflected in the methods with which the pieces on »Ormeology« were designed—sound and language orbit freely around one another, images within images are being layered, following their path unconsciously. In »Sans mobile apparent,« the lyrics get to the heart of this: »die Widersprüche aushalten / die Folien übereinanderlegen« (»enduring the contradictions / laying the foils on top of each other.«) Creative frictions emerge not out of binary decision-making patterns, but from additive layering.

Mimsy followed traces forth and back through time and space, collaborating for a few tracks with set designer and musician Lydia Schmidt and letting Wolfram Wire record various lyrics based on automatic writing that were gathered by Mimsy. Furthermore, he asked the photo blogger Lilia Katherine from Brazil and the Canada-based Andrea Hernandez to translate and record his lyrics in their own respective languages. Human global coincidences resulted in collaborations which are presented as discrete and thus make the album as a whole and even more complex meditation on the interplay of the concrete and the abstract. This is best exemplified by the song »Ginster,« throughout which Schmidt and Mimsy’s voices overlap more and more until they enter a sort of call and response pattern, although they never seem to address each other directly.

»Ormeology« is an album that whirrs and flickers, seeking to mediate between the tangible world and the intangible by blurring the boundaries between words and sounds and space. It is an archipelago that is in many ways connected to what surrounds it, while at the same time opening up a space of its own.

#1 charting, award winning band from Australia. This album already has
two #1 singles on US Liquid Metal charts and Top 25 Billboard Mainstream
rock indicator chart and includes a feature from Tatiana Shmayluk
(lead singer of Jinjer).

 Celebrating The Chameleons’ 40th Anniversary, this
iconic concert is released on vinyl for the very first
time.
 The Camden Palace was a special performance
recorded on the 11th of September 1984 for a satellite
TV broadcast and features Middleton’s finest on top of
their game, playing tracks taken from ‘Script of the
Bridge’ and ‘What Does Anything Mean? Basically’.
 This album also includes four bonus tracks from the
Arsenal concert, which was recorded for an
independent Catalonian local TV channel in 1985.
 The cover art has been exclusively designed by
Chameleons guitarist Reg Smithies, who designed all
the official Chameleons studio releases.
 The Chameleons are an acknowledged influence on
future generations of indie and alternative rock bands,
including Stone Roses, The Charlatans, Smashing
Pumpkins, The Flaming Lips, The Killers, The Horrors,
The National and Interpol. Oasis main songwriter Noel
Gallagher claims The Chameleons were an early
influence on his song writing and stated in a recent
interview: “I’d forgotten how much ‘Strange Times’
meant to me. It came out in ‘86. I was 19!! I’ve been
listening to it every day since and I have to say it’s
blown my mind… again! It must have influenced my
early years as a song writer because I can hear ME in
it everywhere!!”
 Double LP pressed on ‘Chameleon’ (orange / blue)
coloured vinyl. Also includes a copy of the album on
CD, previously unseen photos and poster.

Summer at Land’s End is not an interlude or tangent for The Reds, Pinks & Purples but rather a perfect fourth movement following the albums Anxiety Art, You Might Be Happy Someday, and Uncommon Weather. As with these self-recorded records (the primary work of songwriter Glenn Donaldson), the songs on Summer at Land’s End were crafted slowly and then drawn together to make a unified statement. But here, and more than before, Summer at Land’s End combines Donaldson’s rueful pop sensibility with a parallel musical universe, one composed of pictures, dreams, and feelings without words. Even if the underlying theme of this collection is one of conflict or unhappiness, the vision of the music presents an escape to a new world, always fading in and out of sight.

For listeners who may not be familiar with Donaldson’s corner of San Francisco––the Richmond district––or the current wave of hazy, melodic DIY pop groups performing in the city, Summer at Land’s End pulls in images and scenes that feel like a collision of the mundane and the sublime of this present landscape. But settings such as these are the backdrop for personal narratives, expressed as a struggle with love, with companionship and the conflicts of home. With this record, The Reds, Pinks & Purples give less focus to the vanities of a subculture and more to the challenge of connecting with someone, to the ordinary goals of being human and finding harmony with others.

This deliberate saturation in drama and ambiance, along with some of Donaldson’s best songwriting to date, is what gives Summer at Land’s End its special class in the project’s discography. Of the album’s cinematic mood, Donaldson refers to films like Summer of ‘42 and the influence of the classic 4AD catalogue of the 1990s. This style informs much of Donaldson’s prior and current ventures of course (The Ivytree, Vacant Gardens, and a dozen projects in between) but now The Reds, Pinks & Purples have taken the mantle, embracing this instinct for instrumental or dreamier modes of pop songwriting. It’s a pleasure to experience Summer at Land’s End, as this record finds a thrilling balance between songs and sounds, instruments and voices, and the ironic twin poles of art and life.

Electronic artist Kristian Shelley - AKA Inwards - announces new EP ‘Feeling So Fun Reality’ for October 8th via Brighton based tastemaker label Small Pond. ‘Raindrops’ is the first single taken from it, and is out on July 29th.

The EP is a sister release to 2019’s ‘Feelings of Unreality’ EP - merely shifting where the spaces between the letters land to flip the meaning entirely on its head. Whereas the 2019 effort was laced with anxiety and cyclical internal conflict at the perspective destroying, fathomless possibilities of ideas and scenarios built in the mind, ‘Feeling So Fun Reality’ reflects an optimism grounded in the real world. In this, it takes on a similar human warmth to the best work of Aphex Twin, Clark or Boards of Canada.

‘Raindrops’ is an apt opening gambit in this sense, combining technology and the earthy tangibility of the natural world. Precise modular synths, inspired by the rain, are twisted into wordless conversations conveying a million and one different meanings to a
million and one different ears. This points to the reason Inwards favours instrumental music over lyrical - the capacity to run off emotion without fully understanding what it is you’re channeling per se, and the multitude of interpretations on the receivers end.

Legacy Recordings, the catalog division of Sony Music Entertainment, will celebrate the 20th anniversary of international superstar Shakira's first English language album with the release of Laundry Service
(Washed and Dried) (an expanded digital edition featuring four bonus tracks new to DSPs) on Friday, November 12 and a special, yellow opaque 12” vinyl edition to follow on 17th December in the US and
the UK/EU on 7th January 2022.

The tracklist for the vinyl mirrors the original tracklist from 2001, however the newly expanded 20th anniversary digital edition of Shakira's Laundry Service (Washed and Dried) premieres the previouslyunreleased remix of "Whenever, Wherever" from Shakira's electrifying halftime performance at Super Bowl LIV (February 2, 2020), the previously unreleased "Whenever, Wherever (Pepsi Super Bowl LIV Halftime Show Remix),“. Laundry Service (Washed and Dried) also offers three more bonus tracks newly available on DSPs: "Whenever, Wherever" (Sahara remix), "Underneath Your Clothes" (acoustic version) and "Objection (Tango)" (Afro-punk version).

Laundry Service generated six singles including the worldwide #1 smash "Whenever, Wherever" and the subsequent hits "Underneath Your Clothes," "Objection (Tango)," "Te Dejo Madrid," and "Que Me Quedes Tú" and "The One." Laundry Service topped the charts around the world in countries including Australia,
Austria, Belgium, Canada and Switzerland, while entering the Top 5 in other countries such as Argentina, France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom. Stateside, Laundry Service peaked at #3 on the Billboard 200 chart. Laundry Service has sold 18 million copies around the world, making it one of the top-selling
albums of the 21st century.

Never stuck for inspiration, people-powered and newly electrified singer-songwriter, Jamie Webster watched the world get weird and channelled every wicked turn into a new, 10-track album, Moments, set for release on Fri 28 January 2022. Following last month’s teasing single, Days Unknown, Webster reveals the follow up to last year’s number six-charting debut with new, rallying-cry single, Going Out.

Melding together two short stories, one of Paul and the other Annabella, Webster’s renowned people-watching prowess, setting vivid pen pictures of neighbours and strangers in his native Liverpool to music, switches to pin-sharp short fiction for Going Out. Cutting

across the strange absence of empathy for Britain’s young, Webster uses his characters to spell out the loss, frustration and rebellion of the twenty-somethings stopped in their tracks by recent circumstance and a tangle of incomprehensible rules.

Never stuck for inspiration, people-powered and newly electrified singer-songwriter, Jamie Webster watched the world get weird and channelled every wicked turn into a new, 10-track album, Moments, set for release on Fri 28 January 2022. Following last month’s teasing single, Days Unknown, Webster reveals the follow up to last year’s number six-charting debut with new, rallying-cry single, Going Out.

Melding together two short stories, one of Paul and the other Annabella, Webster’s renowned people-watching prowess, setting vivid pen pictures of neighbours and strangers in his native Liverpool to music, switches to pin-sharp short fiction for Going Out. Cutting

across the strange absence of empathy for Britain’s young, Webster uses his characters to spell out the loss, frustration and rebellion of the twenty-somethings stopped in their tracks by recent circumstance and a tangle of incomprehensible rules.

A Colourful Storm presents Tangerine, a collection of songs by Reiko and Tori Kudo. Recorded at Village Hototoguiss, Japan, in 2011 and 2012 and Cafe Oto, London, in 2009, Tangerine is the result of over thirty years of improvisation and intimacy between Reiko Kudo and Tori Kudo (Maher Shalal Hash Baz, Fushitsusha, Noise, Ché-SHIZU). Their live performances would welcome local musicians, neighbourhood children, friends and passersby on stage while in the studio, they have been joined by Ikuro Takahashi (LSD March) and Takashi Ueno (Tenniscoats), releasing on indie labels such as Geographic and K. A touchstone of contemporary Japanese folk minimalism and significantly the last recorded appearance of the duo. Originally released on CD by Hyotan in 2013 and presented for the first time on vinyl by A Colourful Storm. Full-colour sleeve with insert, postcard and lyrics in Japanese and English.

The third instalment on O’Flynn’s club label Hundred Flowers is a collaboration between Spooky - J (Nihiloxica) and Ekhe.

Two high speed and energetic bangers in their rawest form, these are club weapons that can be used to spice up any set.

A distillation of dance floor energy, the record is the result of a live improvised performance over New Year’s Eve 2019/20.

Spooky - J: "We both enjoy jamming together and not planning too much ahead of time, so naturally it makes sense to improvise at live shows. It also leaves space for the music to go off on a tangent depending on what the crowd or we are feeling.”

Ekhe: “Live improv becomes a real antidote for my concerns about preparing music. Instead, you’re creating something in the moment, directly corresponding with the energy around you, which in turn is influenced by your sound. Getting caught up in that is unlike anything else."

Spooky - J is currently on tour with Nihiloxica and the pair have a gig planned for this NYE in Amsterdam.

It’s time to get high and live life (safely).

For 100 LIMOUSINES’ third release, mad genius KEMETRIX unleashes 8 tracks of pure, raw, underground Detroit techno.

As a long time member of URBAN TRIBE, the name KEMETRIX rings out loud throughout the underground as a force to be reckoned with. Yet only the savviest of listeners seem aware of the prophetic depths of this artist’s unique style of anthemic, futuristic street music. HERE AND NOW explores a terrain of paranoid industrial soundscapes - an extinction level event at the centrifuge of a particle collider that endlessly creates a vast universe. This album is a clinic in the sacred and profane, the horror and the beauty, that can only be brought to you by someone that has truly lived it.

HERE AND NOW will appeal to lovers of ONYX, CYBOTRON, WU-TANG, and the SP-1200.

Bryan Ponce's delicate, plaintive vocal, this time accompanied by the sweet, rich timbre of Adriana Flores make for two earnest duets that exude palpable chemistry.
On "Tangled Up" the pair sing of a love affair that has run its course but (against their better judgement) lingers in the form of late night entanglements and dream-induced longing - imprisoning the lovers on a carousel of heartache and despair. "Soon Enough" is a gorgeously sparse ballad rife with melancholic guitar, percolating percussion and a groove that will have you swaying side to side with the one you love.

A trademark feature of Fontän is their ability to sound far out into cosmos but still earth-bound. The spacious vibrations in the music seem to come from somewhere hidden deep beneath the moss, a sound travelling through thousand miles of mycelia from tree to tree covering vast areas of forest landscape before shooting out from the leaves through the atmosphere, straight into space.

Fontän pays justice to the term neo psychedelia. It´s easy to grasp the term “psychedelic” but harder to actually produce relevant psychedelic music. This band does just that; the respect for the for the past masters of psychedelia is obvious but Fontän doesn’t make sentimental music – they keep pushing the envelope of what this genre is.

In a parallel universe with the Kosmiche Musik being born in Sweden, this is how the Norse equivalent of Tangerine Dream might have sounded like.

For Memory Pearl’s »Music for 7 Paintings« Moshe Fisher–Rozenberg traveled to art galleries throughout North America searching for paintings which would enrapture him.

Like the experience of being drawn into the worlds of those paintings, these seven tracks — each one directly referencing a single work by Joan Mitchell, Robert Ryman, Lee Krasner, Helen Frankenthaler, Franz Kline, or Jackson Pollock — are love letters to the sympathetic vibration of one creative mind encountering another. They trace the way art inspires and generates art. Each resonates with the reconstructive energy that comes from translating the visual to the auditory.

One might expect a jagged, alienating angularity, given the modernist and postmodern source material. Instead there is warmth and depth of sentiment, accented by the analogue and digital synth pitch–shifts and cascades. The pieces crackle with the energy of translation: something new is created as the medium changes, mediated across the boundaries of genre. There are associations, asides, tangents as each work is »read« into its new format. There is no alienation, no cold distance: only engagement and warmth. The album’s lead track, Natural Answer, 1976 opens with sounds that feel like the gaze being caught and drawn into an intimate emotional connection with a work. Cupola, 1958–1960 begins with a thickly layered wash of sound as nostalgic as a train ride through the outskirts of a city at night, then expands into a cavernous memory–scene of personal association.

Fisher–Rozenberg brings a vast experience to bear on the paintings that inspire »Music for 7 Paintings«. While this may be his debut full length as a solo artist, he is a consummate collaborator (Alvvays, Fucked Up, U.S. Girls, Youth Lagoon, Man Forever) best known as the drummer and synthesist in Absolutely Free. Also clear is his visual sensibility — his instinct for how to translate the emotive context of visual art into sound, honed in collaborative work on kinetic sculptures, immersive installations and film scores. But what most comes to the fore is perhaps his recent graduate work in music therapy, and the sensitivity learned through his leading of music therapy sessions at Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. This direct encounter with music’s power to heal lends the tracks a sacred, therapeutic quality. They are suffused with curative frequencies that connect the isolated individual to a world of contemplative beauty.

»Music For 7 Paintings« catalogues the energy in the gaze of a seasoned musician, translating brushstroke to sound.

Scuba begins a new project with London vocalist and producer DOMiNii, who makes his debut with ‘Diivorce’.

Paul Rose (aka Scuba) has long since explored cross-genre sounds, blending disparate elements and mining nostalgia to create cool moods and moments of pure escapism. Over four critically acclaimed albums and mix CDs for DJ Kicks, fabric, and Ostgut Ton, he’s established himself as one of the industry’s most respected artists and tastemakers. He’s continued to evade musical pigeonholing over the course of his career, never hesitating to challenge himself with new creative endeavours. The fresh sonic direction expressed on ‘Diivorce’ is one he’s been developing since 2018, when he took an indefinite break from the full-time DJ circuit.

‘Diivorce’ is a collaboration with debut artist DOMiNii, a vocalist and producer who takes influence from the likes of Wang Chung, David Newman, Arthur Russell, and The Blue Nile. Although he appeared uncredited with backing vocals on Scuba’s ‘Forgive Me’, which initially came out last summer, ‘Diivorce’ marks his first official release.

Covering areas as varied as power pop, indietronica, exuberant house, and classic rock, the project seemingly touches as many points as it can think of, something Rose acknowledged in a recent interview where he stated that “we made so many tracks, with no real set direction, so with this record I just wanted to pick a limited number that kind of showed where we’d been. We are working on something now that I’d call a ‘proper album’, which I think will come out in 2022, Diivorce is something I see as a documentation of a period of time.”

The project includes illustrations by French artist Virginie Kypriotis who tells the story of ‘Diivorce’ through the eyes of DOMiNii, detailing a world of abandonment and separation against a backdrop of a faded paradise. Rose was first acquainted with Kypriotis’ work through her iconic illustration ‘A Night at Berghain’, which was later used by the club as their official flyer artwork in December 2017.

The vinyl edition of ‘Diivorce’ includes previously unreleased (and vinyl-exclusive) track ‘Tricks’, and is packaged in a limited edition, numbered, screen-printed sleeve.

Westbound 1976 Funk classic - Featuring an all-star Parliament/Funkadelic line-up - Limited 180g TANGERINE COLOR Vinyl Edition (400 copies) - Comes in Deluxe Gatefold Jacket with Obi Strip - Comes with liner notes // A co-founder of the P-Funk movement, Clarence Eugene "Fuzzy" Haskins was born in West Virginia in 1941 and started as a singer in the doo-wop vocal group The Parliaments, led by George Clinton in the late 1950s. He was a founding member of the groundbreaking and influential 1970s funk bands PARLIAMENT-FUNKADELIC. Fuzzy Haskins toured and appeared on P-Funk albums as a singer, and occasionally as a guitarist, throughout the 1970s. He is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, inducted in 1997. Despite the success of Mothership Connection, Fuzzy Haskins was growing frustrated that his songs were no longer being featured on albums by Funkadelic and Parliament. He also watched as Bootsy Collins, a relative newcomer to the family, embarked upon a solo career. This added to Haskins' frustration and at the height of P-Funk's popularity, Fuzzy left the ensemble to pursue a solo career. Fuzzy Haskins released his first solo album, A WHOLE NOTHER THANG, in 1976. The album features funk `all-stars' from the likes of Bernie Worrell, Donald Austin and Bootsy Collins. Haskins wrote eight of the nine songs and served as producer, singer, songwriter, guitarist and even drummer. The result was an album that oozed quality. With his brand of earthy and heavyweight funk, Fuzzy Haskins' solo work fits right in with many of the other great P-Funk side projects. Also featured on the album is the track "Cookie Jar", which was later recorded by Prince. Despite the quality of music, the album didn't sell in vast quantities and didn't find the audience it deserved. `A Whole Nother Thang' is a true gem to funk fans, mint vinyl copies are hard to find and pricey these days. If you are a Funkateer_this one's for you. Originally released on Westbound Records in 1976, now back available as a limited deluxe 180g TANGERINE COLORED vinyl edition packaged in a gatefold jacket featuring the original artwork and liner notes.

On Wayfinder, the follow-up to the acclaimed 2019 album Free Company, Oakland-based songwriter Taylor Vick, under her songwriting moniker Boy Scouts, chases down life's queries to the very edge of the horizon. This is an album that's not afraid to track down what it all means -- how life unspools around the monoliths of love and death, the heavy knots of even quotidian conflict, the task of carrying your own suffering with you day after day, the challenge of meeting other people out here in the tangled expanse of living. In a warm, expansive style that recalls the raw punctures of Lucinda Williams and Alex G, Vick once again shows herself to be a fearless seeker shedding light on the unanswerable. Vick's true superpower is her voice. Strands of slide guitar, organ, and strings ring under her affable, ex?pressive voice, bolstering layers and layers of harmony. There is something so honest about her songs, they feel like a late-night therapy session with your best friend.

LP+Buch

Limited Edition Deluxe Version comes with 50 page children's book inspired by the album. Written by Francine Prose and illustrated by Omar "El Oms" Juarez. The colored vinyl is red. Fresh off of their 2020 offering Adult Themes, El Michels Affair is back with a new full-length release. Titled Yeti Season, this newest album has everything we've come to expect from EMA's patented cinematic style of instrumental soul music. Where Adult Themes inspired a soundtrack to an imaginary film, Yeti Season brings us to a different place in time_with new inspirations. Taken with Turkish-styled funk and an almost Mumbai-esque take on soul, El Michels Affair offers us a different kind of drama and imagination with Yeti Season. If you've been following along, this shouldn't be viewed as too far a departure for El Michels Affair. The first single off of Yeti Season showed their hand back in 2018. A double-sided banger, that release brought the musical textures to the fore that dominate this record. The first song, titled "Unathi," is fully realized with the beautifully haunting-yet-hopeful vocals of Piya Malik, formally of 79.5_another Big Crown artist. Singing in Hindi, Piya's ethereal voice is telling us to work and strive together toward progress. Even if you don't understand her language, you can still hear the urgency of purpose, creating a lasting vibe that sits on top of it all. Leon Michels explains that Piya had a vital influence on this record: "When Piya started singing in Hindi, she had a different voice, a different tone. I knew we had to do something together." And so Piya appears on three other songs on Yeti Season: "Zaharila," "Murkit Gem," and "Dhuaan." Each providing particular signatures to the album. "Zaharila" is a building and changing love song punctuated by blaring trumpets, driving drums, and Piya's pleading lyrics. While the more upbeat "Murkit Gem" opens with a fuzzed out, Wu-Tang-esque baseline that buoys Piya's stylings. The psychedelic guitar and Piya's changing tones and textures singing about an all-consuming love are what pushed "Dhuaan" on to the second single from Yeti Season. There is also a vocal appearance from Shannon Wise of The Shacks, yet another Big Crown artist. Her song called "Sha Na Na," lies more in the familiar EMA vein: melodic, hypnotic, soulfully visual. But between Shannon's airy singing, the jumpy baseline, moody vibes, the active drum lines, it sounds like a pensive walk home after a strangely dramatic night. So what is Yeti Season? It could be more of a feeling than an actual place or time of year. It's a heavy album_as evidenced by the signature musicianship and dramatic vocal expressions. But it's also a hopeful record, with phrasings, textures, and chord changes that hint at something better_or fuller_coming our way. You hear it in songs like "Ala Vida," with its stabby, pulsing chords laying a bedrock for EMA's bright, atmospheric horn lines. Or even in "Fazed Out," which leaves you with a feeling of determination, a striving for resolution even though the driving, march-like song structure should accompany some conquering army. This persistence has to come from the fact that Leon Michels and company finished this record during the lockdown. It was a tough and troublesome time. But look at what has come of it: Yeti Season_a record of high and heavy drama, but also one of hope and promise. It may take a year like 2020 behind us to find hope in a winter big footed creature like a Yeti, but that's where we are.