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Two sublime unreleased scores from Basil Kirchin. Need we say more.
So here we are. The next Trunk / Kirchin assignment. Basically some more unreleased music from the unpredictable and slightly chaotic Kirchin Tape Archive.
Very Limited Black Vinyl.

These tapes were labelled up as follows:
Assignment K (with lots of pencil scribbles everywhere). The Strange Affair (with lots of pen scribbles everywhere).
As usual with Basil tapes / things there is little else to go on, no tracklist, no list of musicians, no singer names, no dates or anything. I have actually tried to establish the name of the singer on the song from Side One (we have called it “Love Is To Walk Away “ as it is unnamed) but having played it to a handful of knowledgeable collectors and enthusiasts who I would count as experts in this field, no one has a clue who it might be. If you think you know please get in touch. We know who it isn’t.

We can tell you that Assignment K dates from 1968, was a film about a toy maker who has a double life as an international spy. It was directed by Val Guest, who’d just finished trying to rescue the cinematic hotchpotch that was Casino Royale - he had been brought in by the Bond producers after Peter Sellers had walked off the movie. We imagine Assignment K may have been a slightly less stressful few months of shooting. As for the Kirchin score that we have here, we can tell you very little indeed, apart from the fact that the bass player was Ron Prentice (an ex blacksmith turned musician and craftsman) who worked on several Bond scores, but we know little else. And we only know this because it says so in the academic tome “Jazz On The Screen” by David Meeker.

The Strange Affair is also from 1968, and was not only controversial but also a reasonably unsuccessful movie. Directed by David Greene who also directed, amongst other films, I Start Counting and the quite brilliant Sebastian. In this rather grubby flick a policeman called Peter Strange (played by Michael York) falls for an underage girl (played by Susan George), finds himself compromised by a pair of pornographers and gets lured into an errand for a smack gang. We can tell you little else because I have no more information about it all.
But we do know that this music has all the classic Kirchin mid-period sonic hallmarks that have always set him apart.

***
We sat there
smoking cigarettes
at 5 in the morning.
***

C-thru - The Otherworld is a collection of introspective cosmic-leaning dance music that gives a healthy nod to the golden era of trance, ambient, and down- tempo from Austin, Texas based producer Jesse Edwards. Inactive for several years, these 10 tracks mark a new chapter for Jesse Edwards.

Previous works include his well received psychedelic project, Red Morning Chorus, that included Boards of Canada amongst its fans. Edwards began his musical journey in the late 90s playing shoegaze and experimental music with Jessica Bailiff (Kranky). The pair collaborated on several albums together including works with Flying Saucer Attack, His Name is Alive, & Odd Nosdam (Anticon).

I see lucid blue flames moving before my eyes.
I hear voices melting. Voices somewhere from within.
Speaking words I do not know but feel connected to, almost as if I have known the meaning once..
Noises that obscures the multiple pictures hidden in these digital compositions.
Iku Sakan have created a set of five tracks that takes the listener on a
trip deep into the human psyché. Emotional flickering movements that twists and turns. The albums have a darker, much more intense feel than some of Ikus earlier magical and often hypnotic music. A myriad of different voices creates pulsing patterns and constantly morphing pictures for my inner eye. It's an album that might work as a hack to our lingual structures, pushing limits, pushing possibilities of meaning.

A pool of over-saturated information boils and out of the vapor new contours take form.
The magical and hypnotic is not gone, I still recognise the softer aspects of Ikus highly detailed hybrid sound design. But I no longer see where it takes me. It excites me. It feels like the world is expanding again, breathing. The sounds on the album asks us questions and points in several directions at once. In the shadows, weeds of lucid dreams grow deeper roots, reaching for my inner ear.

The faint sounds on the track Nature Morte reminds me of expeditions to the local witch house ruins as a child. Something almost not there, something felt. History, Memories and the connection between the two seems to have played a part in these compositions. Emotional reactions that plant reactions in other people, all around creating soft movements on the face of our planet.

Whether our collective psyché is an open field or an impenetrable dark forest, is of less concern with a key like Omnitopoeia, that works like an enhanced mirror, reflecting the dreams of the words we speak everyday, reflecting the emotional charges of significant places. Unrecognisable but still remembered.

Upstate NY heavyweights 38 Spesh and Conway The Machine have joined forces for a collaboration album fans did not see coming. Having recorded with each other for well over a decade, these two lyrical powerhousesstyles mesh effortlessly on this 10-track offering. The soundbeds for the illustrious affair are provided by Spesh himself with the help of a producer he has championed for years, Jimmy Dukes. Instead of continuing to mine the '90s like their contemporaries, the duo bring a sound that calls back to early '00s Hip-Hop. On top of verses that will etch themselves in your mind courtesy of Spesh and Conway, the project includes standout bars and hooks by the likes Lloyd Banks, Pharoahe Monch, Benny The Butcher, Che Noir, ElCamino, and Emanny.

Das Überraschungs-Mixtape "Trip Tape" des deutschen Alternative-Superstar-Duos Milky Chance aus dem Jahr 2021 ist jetzt auf Vinyl als limitierte Blue Splatter LP erhältlich. Auf dem Mixtape performt die Band in ihrem eigenen, unverwechselbaren Stil Hits von The Weekend, Dua Lipa, Soft Cell und Rosalia sowie einen umwerfenden Gast-Remix des Produzenten Icarus aus Bristol. Als ob das noch nicht genug wäre, enthält das Trip Tape" auch noch ein paar Originale, einige davon als Demoversionen, die sicherstellen, dass alle Arten von Fans ihrer Musik mehr als zufrieden sind. „Trip Tape" erlaubt es Milky Chance, ihren unverwechselbaren Stil mit einer eklektischen Songauswahl frei zu erkunden.

Producer, DJ, Facilitator & Publisher (Balraj) Samrai (of Swing Ting/SEEN Magazine) steps out for their first full length release "Work & Roti" along with a host of talented collaborators on new label Sangha Industries.

The album title came from a phone conversation with Samrai's mum who features on the opener reflecting on first generation Punjabis heading to the UK only going to work and eating roti, not getting a chance to travel until their senior years. In addition the project explores the complexity of migrant experiences - healing, self-love/care, reciprocity and connections to the earth. A theme throughout is the inclusion of South Asian percussion and rhythms such as Tabla, Dholak, Kanjira, Dhol and Mridangam overtly at times as well as covertly which grounds the record.

Samrai is joined by host of talented collaborators across the 8 tracks - SCAPA, Vindya, Vikaash Sankadecha, Pops Roberts, Shanique Marie, LINTD, Gavsborg, Joey B, Fox, Raheel Khan, Thai Chi Rosè, Chesqua and Deepikaa Sreenivasan who all enrich the project with vocals, additional production and instrumentation. Although at times dealing with difficult subjects (Help Me, Oil Money, Dirty Dirty) there's a sense of joy, playfulness (Fresh) and release across the set (Yellow Crocus, Create Your Own Bless) culminating in closer (Breathe) when you feel the sunlight pushing through despite the clouds above…

Producer, DJ, Facilitator & Publisher (Balraj) Samrai (of Swing Ting/SEEN Magazine) steps out for their first full length release "Work & Roti" along with a host of talented collaborators on new label Sangha Industries.

The album title came from a phone conversation with Samrai's mum who features on the opener reflecting on first generation Punjabis heading to the UK only going to work and eating roti, not getting a chance to travel until their senior years. In addition the project explores the complexity of migrant experiences - healing, self-love/care, reciprocity and connections to the earth. A theme throughout is the inclusion of South Asian percussion and rhythms such as Tabla, Dholak, Kanjira, Dhol and Mridangam overtly at times as well as covertly which grounds the record.

Samrai is joined by host of talented collaborators across the 8 tracks - SCAPA, Vindya, Vikaash Sankadecha, Pops Roberts, Shanique Marie, LINTD, Gavsborg, Joey B, Fox, Raheel Khan, Thai Chi Rosè, Chesqua and Deepikaa Sreenivasan who all enrich the project with vocals, additional production and instrumentation. Although at times dealing with difficult subjects (Help Me, Oil Money, Dirty Dirty) there's a sense of joy, playfulness (Fresh) and release across the set (Yellow Crocus, Create Your Own Bless) culminating in closer (Breathe) when you feel the sunlight pushing through despite the clouds above…

FAT JON returns with the 2nd installation of "tephlon Funk". This 12 track LP serves as a soundtrack to the eponymous manga published by Dark Horse Comics and comes with a 12"x12" manga poster, with a full print jacket. A must have for fans of FAT JON's work as Five Deez and on the Samurai Champloo soundtrack.