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No shortage of colorful characters emerged from Cameroon’s bikutsi scene in the 1980’s and early 90’s. Gibraltar Drakus is one of the most enduring and enigmatic of the artists who helped transform bikutsi into a beautifully endless fabric of triplet rhythms that eventually reached ears around the world.

Following the advent of Cameroon Radio Television in 1987, bikutsi began to supplant makossa and soukous for domination of the local airwaves and the attention of cosmopolitan, thrill-seeking residents of Cameroon’s capital Yaoundé and beyond. Biktusi perfectly fused Beti traditional music and increasingly electronic, highly rhythmic guitarbased bikutsi. Mimicking the sound of village-based xylophone music by rigging a mute to electric guitar strings, bikutsi artists provided a relentlessly energetic dance format for those with a taste for music steeped in their hometown sensibility (countering the popular makossa that many felt sounded less indigenous).

By the early 1990’s, Les Tetes Brûlées were indisputably the most famous and influential artists in bikutsi, due in part to the innovations of their incendiary guitarist Théodore Zanzibar Epeme. Following their first European tour in 1987, the band blew up internationally but Zanzibar tragically, and mysteriously, passed away, which nearly brought an end to the band completely. In hindsight, the consensus among most Cameroonians is Zanzibar’s contributions to biktusi were transformational and immeasurable.

“Zanzibar is the one who taught me how to compose a song, and I learned a lot from Zanzibar musically. We spent whole nights working on methods and other approaches to compose beautiful songs. I owe half of everything I have today to Zanzibar!”

Swept up in all this was Gibraltar Drakus, who was the youngest member of Les Têtes Brûlées and was also the protégé of his biggest supporter, Zanzibar. So it was fitting that he dedicate his 1989 debut to their groundbreaking late guitarist who had meant so much to him. Drakus literally exploded from his first album Hommage A Zanzibar (1989), which sold over 100,000 copies despite rampant piracy. For the recording, Drakus made sure he engaged prolific producer Mystic Jim to record and mix the album. The innovation musically rests both within the guitar interplay and the discipline in the orchestration, which result in a mind-bending clockwork of cross-rhythmic harmony.

Rare 1986 Funk/Soul From Alabama.

Originally released as a private pressed cassette tape only.

First Time On Vinyl.

Released in collaboration with the Numero Group.

180g BLACK vinyl limited to 500 copies w/obi strip. Non-Returnable.

Armed with little more than his Peavey T-60 guitar and a Jumbo Fuzz pedal, Errol Stubbs and his bar-band cohorts cranked out a self-released tape of funked-up disco soul in 1986. With no label or distribution to speak of, Errol would simply put on his best suit and sell the cassettes by hand. The tape languished into obscurity…until now!

The story of Errol Stubbs begins in Birmingham, Alabama in 1959. The youngest of five, he was surrounded by music as a child–his aunt taught piano at Daniel Payne College while his older brother, Avery Beavers, was an accomplished jazz trumpeter. Under the guidance of Avery, Errol started playing trumpet at the age of nine, though he gravitated toward songwriting and quickly picked up the guitar. Inspired by blues greats the likes of Albert King, Buddy Guy, and Little Milton, 12-year-old Errol began mimicking the sounds that filled southern airwaves. As a teenager, he played at barbecues, fish fries, and dive bars across the Magic City. After a brief stint at Jefferson State studying music, Errol’s passion for songwriting beckoned him away from the classroom.

Stubbs bounced around bar bands before settling on a live lineup and saving enough dough to take his vision to the recording studio. Over the course of two days, his well-rehearsed band recorded Turning it Out mostly live to tape at the Sound Of Birmingham Studio. Located on Birmingham’s east side, the state-of-the-art studio kept the lights on by recording commercial jingles but was more than happy to open their doors to local talent.

Taking notes from guitar god Ernie Isley and funk legend Rick James, the resulting recordings are drenched in cosmic phaser-fuzz guitar work, slapping bass lines, and sexual disco innuendos. Big brother Avery lends a hand on Clavinet for “Sweat,” while studio owner/engineer Don Mosley adds a tasteful dose of Moog synthesizer across a handful of cuts.

Soon after the Sound Of Birmingham sessions, Errol released the private pressed EP “Dancin’ Fancy,” b/w “Spaced Out On Your Love,” the latter of which was featured on Numero Group’s 2019 compilation Visible and Invisible Persons Distributed In Space.

The seven-song cassette Turning It Out was sold in local record stores and from night club stages, but only a few copies made their way out of Birmingham.

The debut album, "Won’t Die This Way," from Cleveland-bred singer/songwriter/guitarist Erin Viancourt brings her lived-in storytelling to a gritty but gorgeously detailed batch of songs, encompassing everything from Americana to Western swing to classic outlaw country. Rooted in the warm and radiant vocal presence she’s shown onstage in touring arenas with Cody Jinks (who recently made Viancourt the first signing to his Late August Records), Won’t Die This Way ultimately reveals her rare capacity to soothe the soul and leave the listener newly empowered to live each day to the absolute fullest.

If your brain has a shortlist of bands that instantly evoke New Wave, Suburban Lawns deserve a slot right next to the likes of Devo, Talking Heads and the B-52’s. After putting out two singles on their own Suburban Industrial imprint, the Lawns signed to I.R.S. Records and released their debut LP in 1981. While the band gained cult status thanks in part to a Jonathan Demme-produced music video which aired on Saturday Night Live, their self-titled album would sadly be the five-piece’s only full-length statement. Suburban Lawns’ asymmetrical aesthetic is personified by co-vocalist Su Tissue, whose mesmerizing stage persona was at once childlike and terrifying. Her unique style embodies the awkward/arty female singer of the Reagan era, while the group’s male vocals—courtesy of Frankie Ennui, Vex Billingsgate and John McBurney—maintain the satirical themes of Southern California’s postwar mirage of limitless sprawl. Suburban Lawns’ catchiness can be attributed to their drum-tight performance and taut songwriting. Listen to the vocal trade-offs on “Anything,” which could have easily come out on any purely Punk label from LA at the time, while Tissue’s deadpan delivery on “Janitor” glides into the best art-warble this side of Lene Lovich, broaching the possibility of nuclear annihilation with a murmured “Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom.” From a West Coast scene dominated by 7-inch singles and EPs, the Suburban Lawns’ lone LP remains in a class with precious few. It’s not surprising that they found acceptance in the Hollywood punk scene, despite their Long Beach roots, and would influence other bands such as Minutemen. This is not a disc that will get parked in your collection hoping to get pulled once in a while; this is a record you will play.

Colloboh (a portmanteau of Collins Oboh) is a Nigerian-born, Los Angeles-based experimental producer and composer who has spent the past several years cultivating genre-spanning modular wizardry. A self-taught synthesist, Colloboh’s DIY recording diaries (still archived on Instagram) quickly amassed a dedicated online following, eventually catching the eye of Leaving Records founder, MatthewDavid, who wasted no time tapping the then-twenty-six-year-old to perform at the monthly Leaving showcase, Listen to Music Outside In The Daylight Under a Tree. In 2021, Colloboh permanently relocated to Los Angeles from Baltimore, dedicating himself to music full-time, and quickly becoming a fixture of the city’s vibrant experimental scene. Whereas Colloboh’s debut EP Entity Relation (released that same year) dove headlong into club beats, Saana Sahel, out May 5th 2023 on Leaving Records, showcases the breadth of the fledgeling composer’s ambitions. The EP’s title, Saana Sahel, refers to a land of Colloboh’s pure imagining—an untouched utopia spanning lush coastlines and sweeping deserts. Beginning with the stately “Acid Sunrise” (like a Phillip Glass rave comedown), the EP functions as an atlas of sorts, mapping the region’s varied environments and moods. And varied indeed—across these six tracks there lie ecstatic jazz freakouts, samba shuffles, guest vocals from (seemingly) the very Seraphim, and interpolations of Debussy and Gabriel Faure. The breadth of sounds conjured here is a testament not only to Colloboh’s eclectic roster of influences, but also the period of deep and challenging personal growth that immediately preceded the EP’s composition. The construction of Saana Sahel (both the imagined locale and the release) served as a spiritual lode star, a place to which Colloboh could retreat for energetic restoration. Ever-generous, Colloboh has charted these expeditions for us in song, and now we may all draw sustenance and inspiration from the wellsprings of this rich land.

On The Deep and the Dirty, Eric Johanson is a roots-rock innovator and
modern-day guitar hero who uses blues as a springboard for an edgier,
broader sound
The Louisiana native teams up with Producer Jesse Dayton (Rob Zombie,
Supersuckers) and a taut power trio, firing twin barrels of sharp songwriting and
fiery fretwork along the way. The album arrives on the heels of four solo records
that all reached the Top 10 on the Billboard blues chart. Johanson fills The Deep
and the Dirty with revelatory anthems about embracing the modern moment and
the raw, honest sounds of a band performing together live. Offering everything
from roadhouse roots-rock to dark, bluesy Americana, it's a diverse album glued
together by a musician who's never been afraid of the grey area between
traditional genres.

Numero Group tauchen mit "Seafaring Strangers: Private Yacht" erneut in die Welt der amerikanischen Privatpressungen ein. Nach ihren musikalischen Exkursionen zu den Hexen und Zauberern von Darkscorch, den Geächteten des Cosmic Americana, neben 'Ladies From the Canyon' und ihren 'Lonesome Heroes', ist es an der Zeit, es einfacher anzugehen. Diesmal ist der Sound weicher und glatter, die Mitspieler allesamt kamen aus den Welten von Jazz, Folk, Rock und Soul, und hier spielen sie mit enormen Popappeal. Manchmal klassifiziert als West Coast Sound oder AOR - und später Yacht Rock - sind die Kompasspunkte unserer Private Yacht Expedition die blauäugigen Harmonien von Hall und Oates, der Kokain-bestäubten Fender Rhodes von Michael McDonald und die Combover-Streicher von James Taylor.

"Soap Opera" ist das vierzehnte Studioalbum der Kinks aus dem Jahr 1975 und eine Fortsetzung des theatralischen Musikstils der Band aus "Preservation Acts 1 & 2". "Soap Opera" ist das großartigste Konzeptalbum, das die Kinks je gemacht haben. Ray Davies thematisiert darin, wie "gewöhnliche Menschen" mit ihren Träumen vom Starruhm dem Trübsinn entkommen. Darin tauscht ein Musiker namens "Starmaker" das Leben mit einem gewöhnlichen Mann namens Norman, um das Leben besser zu verstehen. Herausragende Stücke sind "A Face In The Crowd?, "Underneath The Neon Sign? und das hervorragende "You Can't Stop The Music".

Diese originalgetreu reproduzierte schwarze 1LP mit Klappcover ist die erste Neuauflage des Albums seit der ursprünglichen LP-Veröffentlichung, abgesehen von einer limitierten US-Pressung im Jahr 2008. Eine weitere erfolgreiche Veröffentlichung, vor allem in den Vereinigten Staaten, wo es auf Platz 45 der Charts einstieg.

Als autodidaktische Musikerin und charakteristisch private Künstlerin, die ihr Leben ihrer Arbeit widmet, taucht die amerikanische Songwriterin Julie Byrne nach über sechs Jahren seit ihrem ihrem letzten Album "Not Even Happiness" aus einer zutiefst anstrengenden und generativen Phase mit der kraftvollsten, glänzendsten und lebensbejahendsten Musik ihrer Karriere auf. The Greater Wings wurde über mehrere Jahreszeiten hinweg geschrieben, mit Bildern von Nächten auf Tour, Zeiten der Isolation und den Fahrten quer durchs Land für die verschiedenen Kollaborationen zwischen Chicago, New York und Los Angeles. Die Aufnahmen begannen mit dem verstorbenen Eric Littmann (Phantom Posse, Steve Sobs), ihrem langjährigen kreativen Partner und Not Even Happiness-Produzenten, und endeten in den Catskills von New York mit dem Produzenten Alex Somers (Sigur Rós, Julianna Barwick). Obwohl sie die Plastizität des Verlustes in sich tragen, sind die Lieder universell, ungezügelt in ihrer Hingabe und Freude. Byrne lehnt sich weiter in Atmosphären, die sowohl weitläufig als auch intim sind; das üppige, beschwörende Songhandwerk fließt zwischen ihrer charakteristischen fingergezupften Gitarre, dem Synthesizer und einem neu hinzugefügten Klavier, das durch Ausschmückungen mit Harfe und Streichern erweitert wird. Es ist der transzendente Klang von Ressourcen, von Freundschaft, die nie ohne Romantik war, von Loyalität, die von innen heraus brennt wie ein brennendes Herz, und der Lebenskraft, die in unwiederholbaren Momenten heraufbeschworen wird - roh, wunderschön und wild. "Meine Hoffnung für The Greater Wings ist, dass es als Liebesbrief an meine auserwählte Familie und als Ausdruck der Tiefe meines Engagements für unsere gemeinsame Zukunft lebt", erklärt Byrne. "Durch die Trauer neu geformt zu werden, hat mir auch bewusster gemacht, was der Tod mir nicht nimmt. Das nehme ich mir zu Herzen, in Worte, in Töne. Musik ist nicht an eine lineare Zeit gebunden, so dass sie in der Lage ist, die Zukunft aufzuzeichnen und zu ihr zu sprechen: So hat es sich für mich angefühlt, als wir gleichzeitig lebendig waren und alles auf einmal geschah. Wie es sich angefühlt hat, an meine Grenzen zu gehen und zu stoßen, die Liebe, die diesen ganzen Kampf wert war. Diese Erinnerungen sind meine Werte, sie gehören zu mir."

Als autodidaktische Musikerin und charakteristisch private Künstlerin, die ihr Leben ihrer Arbeit widmet, taucht die amerikanische Songwriterin Julie Byrne nach über sechs Jahren seit ihrem ihrem letzten Album "Not Even Happiness" aus einer zutiefst anstrengenden und generativen Phase mit der kraftvollsten, glänzendsten und lebensbejahendsten Musik ihrer Karriere auf. The Greater Wings wurde über mehrere Jahreszeiten hinweg geschrieben, mit Bildern von Nächten auf Tour, Zeiten der Isolation und den Fahrten quer durchs Land für die verschiedenen Kollaborationen zwischen Chicago, New York und Los Angeles. Die Aufnahmen begannen mit dem verstorbenen Eric Littmann (Phantom Posse, Steve Sobs), ihrem langjährigen kreativen Partner und Not Even Happiness-Produzenten, und endeten in den Catskills von New York mit dem Produzenten Alex Somers (Sigur Rós, Julianna Barwick). Obwohl sie die Plastizität des Verlustes in sich tragen, sind die Lieder universell, ungezügelt in ihrer Hingabe und Freude. Byrne lehnt sich weiter in Atmosphären, die sowohl weitläufig als auch intim sind; das üppige, beschwörende Songhandwerk fließt zwischen ihrer charakteristischen fingergezupften Gitarre, dem Synthesizer und einem neu hinzugefügten Klavier, das durch Ausschmückungen mit Harfe und Streichern erweitert wird. Es ist der transzendente Klang von Ressourcen, von Freundschaft, die nie ohne Romantik war, von Loyalität, die von innen heraus brennt wie ein brennendes Herz, und der Lebenskraft, die in unwiederholbaren Momenten heraufbeschworen wird - roh, wunderschön und wild. "Meine Hoffnung für The Greater Wings ist, dass es als Liebesbrief an meine auserwählte Familie und als Ausdruck der Tiefe meines Engagements für unsere gemeinsame Zukunft lebt", erklärt Byrne. "Durch die Trauer neu geformt zu werden, hat mir auch bewusster gemacht, was der Tod mir nicht nimmt. Das nehme ich mir zu Herzen, in Worte, in Töne. Musik ist nicht an eine lineare Zeit gebunden, so dass sie in der Lage ist, die Zukunft aufzuzeichnen und zu ihr zu sprechen: So hat es sich für mich angefühlt, als wir gleichzeitig lebendig waren und alles auf einmal geschah. Wie es sich angefühlt hat, an meine Grenzen zu gehen und zu stoßen, die Liebe, die diesen ganzen Kampf wert war. Diese Erinnerungen sind meine Werte, sie gehören zu mir."

Catz ‘n Dogz make a standout debut on Crosstown Rebels with two compelling new house tracks on ‘Can’t Stand’, complete with a remix from leftfield innovator Robag Wruhme.

A pairing whose renowned reputation has been built and shaped across an illustrious career, Polish duo Grzegorz Demiañczuk and Wojciech Tarañczuk, aka Catz’ n Dogz, have been serving up their own diverse and varied take on house for more than fifteen years. Founders of their own Pets Recordings imprint, in that time they have released on esteemed labels, from Diynamic to Defected, Glitterbox to Watergate and more, while playing at almost every major club and festival across the globe. Their fresh in-between sounds and knack for cooking up curious and impactful sounds have made them mainstays of the scene, and that run of stellar releases continues here with a debut appearance on Crosstown Rebels as they link with ZenSoFly for ‘Can’t Stand’ - with longstanding German favourite Robag Wruhme on remix duties.

Opener ‘Can’t Stand’ sees the pair reunite with vocalist ZenSoFly, a talent they’ve worked with on notable hits like ‘Wave.’ Her vocals bring soul and attitude over a tight, rubbery and sleazy house beat, underpinned with a heavy bassline - providing the sort of chunky cut to lock in a dancefloor and make it march in unison. Robag Wruhme has been a Pampa label mainstay and famously curveball producer for many years with his scintillating blend of minimalism, melody and unusual sound sources. That is the case again with this remix, a dark workout that hurries along on snappy drums, detuned vocals and scuzzed up, droning synths to ensure maximum impact.

The EP is closed out with ‘Wake Up’, a widescreen and atmospheric cut packed with detail. The bassline is taught, freaky vocals echo within the mix, and synths spray about to dramatic effect, delivering another full flavour house cut with a dark soul and futuristic designs.

BLACKSCAPE ist der Schlag ins Gesicht, nach dem du dich sehnst. Verschwende keinen Gedanken an den Schmerz, wenn du dich dieser musikalischen Lawine hingibst, denn du wirst reichlich belohnt werden!
"Suffocated By The Sun", das Debütalbum des schwedischen Trios ist vollgepackt mit schweren Riffs und einer Mischung aus Thrash Metal und Death Metal, die dich mit ihren majestätischen Melodien in ihren Bann ziehen und dich mit einer heftigen Dosis Metal fertig machen wird.
Die eingängigen Kompositionen des Albums beinhalten eine Fülle an innovativer Gitarrenarbeit, halsbrecherische Drums, kreischende Soli und brutalem Leadgesang.
Taucht tief in die Lyrics ein und erforscht die inneren menschlichen Konflikte in absurden Realitäten und schmerzhaften existenziellen Erweckungen.
Die Tracks des Albums verkörpern Metal in Perfektion und markieren den Beginn einer neuen skandinavischen Metal-Macht, die man im Auge behalten muss: BLACKSCAPE.

"Bastian Epple makes an eagerly anticipated return to marionette under his elusive MinaeMinae guise that imagines rich sonic architectures for the journeying spirit to voyage to. Räumlichkeit is Epple’s debut album and third release to date following Gestrüpp from 2020, venturing further into melodic electronic nostalgia and percussive beat oriented soundscapes.

Growing up in a small village in southern Germany, Bastian Epple was never interested in kitschy folk sounds, rather he took solace in the time he would spend meditating to repetitive and hypnotic patterns. His guitar strumming and what sounded to his mother like a young Philip Glass on a cheap Casio keyboard encouraged little Epple to tread on this self-taught path of developing his own musical language. This led him to start experimenting with a tape recorder and layering sounds with non-musical samples to eventually working with a DAW.

Bastian went on to study Media Art at the Center for Art and Media (ZKM) in Karlsruhe and graduated with a diploma in film and documentary media - where he now works as a freelance filmmaker and lecturer at Stuttgart Media University. However, this never stopped him from creating and playing with wide-eyed sounds, eventually amassing a vast collection of tunes and finally emerging from this anonymity.

Utilizing modular synth, self made tape echos, synthetic sounds, recordings of ethnic percussion and guitar, MinaeMinae understands musical material similar to documentary footage which he would splice, repitch, and rearrange intuitively into captivating worlds."

Niemand hätte im Jahr 2023 damit gerechnet, dass beim Keep It True Festival die ganze Halle den Refrain von „Somewhere Up In The Mountains“, die heute sehr rare Single aus dem Jahr 1981, mitsingt und dann auch noch ein neues, quasi erstes Album erscheint! Gute Zeiten für NWOBHM Fans!

MARQUIS DE SADE aus London wurden 1979 gegründet neben der heute unbezahlbaren 7“ Single „Somewhere Up In The Mountains/Black Angel“ gab es 1981 auch noch ein Tape mit vier Songs. Bassist Pete Gordelier ging in Folge zu Angel Witch und ist auf diversen Alben zu hören. Keyboarder San Remo startete 1982 mit Sanctus, deren gesammelte Werke (zwei Tapes) 2015 bei High Roller veröffentlicht wurden.

2005 wurden die Aufnahmen von MARQUIS DE SADE (Single und Tape) als Bootleg veröffentlicht. High Roller Records folgten schließlich 2012 mit einer offiziellen Version auf CD und LP. 2015 coverten Roxxcalibur den Song „Somewhere Up In The Mountains“ auf ihrem dritten, erfolgreichen Album „Gems Of The NWOBHM“ und verhalfen dem Titel zu zusätzlicher Popularität. Diese Umstände führten schließlich 2019 zur Reunion von MARQUIS DE SADE, nach einem Todesfall nun zu fünft mit drei Originalmitgliedern. Alte und
neue Ideen wurden ausgearbeitet und man nahm nach all den Jahren endlich das erste Album „Chapter II“ auf. Zeitgleich konnte man nach Corona die ersten erfolgreichen Clubshows spielen und schließlich, im April 2023, der Ritterschlag auf dem renommierten Szenefestival Keep It True bei Tauberbischofsheim.

„Chapter II“ ist nicht nur ein Fest für NWOBHM Fans und Liebhabern von britischem Heavyrock im Allgemeinen, sondern weist auch epische und pompöse Elemente der Marke Magnum auf. Die natürlich gehaltene Produktion, getrennt für CD und Vinyl gemastert, sorgt für ein authentisches und dennoch druckvolles Hörerlebnis.

Nobody would have expected in 2023 that at the „Keep It True Festival“ the whole hall sings along the chorus of „Somewhere Up In The Mountains“, the now very rare single from 1981, and then also a new, practically first album is released! Good times for NWOBHM fans!

MARQUIS DE SADE from London were founded in 1979 and besides the today priceless 7“ single „Somewhere Up In The Mountains/Black Angel“ there was also a tape with four songs in 1981. Bassist Pete Gordelier subsequently joined Angel Witch and can be heard on several albums. Keyboardist San Remo started Sanctus in 1982, whose collected works (two tapes) were released by High Roller in 2015.
In 2005, the recordings of MARQUIS DE SADE (single and tape) were released as a bootleg. High Roller Records finally followed up in 2012 with an official version on CD and LP. In 2015, Roxxcalibur covered the song „Somewhere Up In The Mountains“ on their third successful album „Gems Of The NWOBHM“ and helped the track gain additional popularity.

These circumstances finally led to the reunion of MARQUIS DE SADE in 2019, now with five original members after a death. Old and new ideas were worked out and they finally recorded the first album „Chapter II“ after all these years. At the same time they were able to play the first successful club shows after Corona and finally, in April 2023, the accolade at the renowned scene festival Keep It True near Tauberbischofsheim.

„Chapter II“ is not only a feast for NWOBHM fans and lovers of British heavy rock in general, but also features epic and pompous elements of the Magnum brand. The naturally kept production, mastered separately for CD and vinyl, makes for an authentic yet powerful listening experience.

Blue Lake is the musical moniker of American born, Copenhagen based multidisciplinary artist and musician Jason Dungan, who signs to the Tonal Union imprint for the release of his new longform album ‘Sun Arcs’. It follows 2022’s release ‘Stikling’, earning a nomination for ‘Album of the Year’ at the Danish Music Awards plus warm praise from The Hum blog and musicians and DJs alike including Jack Rollo (Time is Away/NTS) and Carla dal Forno. A self taught player, Dungan began freely experimenting with self-built multi-string instruments, preferring to build his own hybrid 48-string zither and working in the realms of left-field ambient music, off kilter folk and improvised acoustic minimalism.

The starting point of ‘Sun Arcs’ saw Jason travel for a week alone to Andersabo, a cabin set in the idyllic Swedish woods just outside of Unnaryd, known also as the music project, festival and residency space which has been run by Dungan since 2016, hosting artists like Sofie Birch, Johan Carøe and Ellen Arkbro. Whilst writing 1-2 pieces per day, a conscious decision was made to leave behind everyday distractions and shut out the outside world to instead focus on the natural passage of time as Dungan recalls: “My only sense of time came from these daily walks out in the woods with my dog, and an awareness of the sun’s path as it moved across the sky each day.”

The album’s immersive world unfolds with the opener ‘Dallas’, an ode to his home state and a musical synthesis of these two disparate spaces (Texas and Denmark), the touchstones of Dungan’s life. A folk-esque single acoustic builds to a flowing arrangement of clarinets, organ and cello drones coupled with percussion. ‘Green-Yellow Field’ chimes in as the first of two solo oriented zither recordings twinned with the dreamlike title track ‘Sun Arcs’, both densely rich as cascading and overlapping harmonic tones resound. ‘Bloom’ emerges with a krautrock psyche before an eruption of cello drones, slide guitar and free-ranging zither playing, ushering in the anticipation of spring. With half of the recordings conceived in Andersabo, Jason returned to Copenhagen to form the album's centre piece ‘Rain Cycle’ which features a tempered Roland drum machine alongside shifting zither improvisations. ‘Writing’ explores the shimmering harp-like qualities of sweeping playing figurations with Dungan mapping out adjusted tuning “zones” on the zither for unconventional but creatively liberating effects. ‘Fur’ captures the feeling of openness and the momentum of time, seeing Dungan perform waves of solo clarinet, often in one takes and embellished with textural drones, a zither solo, and layers of guitar. ‘Wavelength’ the album's closer is fondly inspired by the film works of Michael Snow and Don Cherry’s seminal live album ‘Blue Lake’ (1974), as it builds out from a drone-generated zither chord and features an alto recorder solo. Dungan found a deep connection to Cherry’s stripped back performance ethos, focusing on the core beauty of minimal instrumentation creating a genre-less meeting between folk and jazz. A dialogue is formed between the solo and the bandlike performances, interlinked in a geographical duality with all finding a sense of commonplace as musical sketches of visited landscapes. The bountiful instrumentation ebbs and flows as further layers emerge with Dungan constructing his material much like an artist would, recording and reviewing, adding and subtracting.

Musically it portrays a form of double life led by an American-identifying person living in Scandinavia, and a new found presence in Denmark, seeking out underdeveloped marshlands and barren stretches of beach adrift from other rhythms and distractions. Highlighting their individual and potent importance Dungan concludes: “Both places feel like “me”, I think on some level the music is always some kind of self-portrait.” ‘Sun Arcs’ depicts the intricate balance of nature’s cycles and the paths outlined by the seasons, from a winter dormancy to a warm sun drenched scene. The album scales new glorying heights and further defines Dungan’s musical narrative, inhabiting a unique space in left-field, improvised and experimental music, borning his most accomplished compositions to date. A singular and visionary expression, drawing on an array of instruments and sound worlds with a renewed sense of joy and discovery.

The album's rich tapestry was mixed by Jeff Zeigler (Laraaji, Mary Lattimore, Kurt Vile /Steve Gunn) and mastered by Stephan Mathieu (Kali Malone, KMRU, Félicia Atkinson).

Sungate's new V.A. record, "Killer Loops", is a testament to the musical talent of Volpe, Johannes Volk, Deano and Taupe, delivering four captivating, dubbed-out and grooving tracks.

When I first heard Natalie Rose LeBrecht's time-suspending, air-ionizing music, more than twenty years ago, I thought "this kid is on to something." She's been proving that thought right ever since. Her recordings, from the teenage 4-track tapes she made as Greenpot Bluepot to the recent albums under her own name, have been fascinating dispatches from her progressively deeper dives into her gorgeous, weird, wildly idiomatic aesthetic. Holy Prana Open Game is a jewel of intensely personal cosmic music, created through a remarkable process of openness, craftiness, addition and subtraction. It belongs to a tradition of albums that document a rich, meditative sound as it rises up to join the world outside its creators' minds: Alice Coltrane's Universal Consciousness, Harmonia's Musik von Harmonia, Philip Glass's North Star, Talk Talk's Laughing Stock.

"Meditative" is specifically the idea here: Holy Prana Open Game had its origins in the fourteen days LeBrecht spent silently meditating in her home's small music room in the summer of 2019. "I came out of that bursting with the will to create new music," she says, and she created it sound-first. LeBrecht taught herself to program an analog synthesizer's timbres from scratch, and built a new set of glacial, heady compositions out of them, eventually singing to accompany the keyboard parts she was playing.

Then she closed her eyes at her computer, "let my mind be clear and open, imagined light pouring down through me, and began auto-writing to my memory of the music playing through my mind. Most of the lyrics emerged this way, and then I used my conscious mind to refine them a bit at the end." One other song came along with LeBrecht's new pieces, a cover that seems wildly unlikely from the outside and makes total sense in its context: it's a version of Atoms for Peace's "Amok" (which had been created by improvisation and editing, too), mutated into her own idiolect.

In early March of 2020, LeBrecht recorded Holy Prana Open Game's analog synth parts with Martin Bisi at his studio in Brooklyn--and then the world shut down. As you may have gathered, LeBrecht is very much a spiritual, head-in-the-stars type. She is also extremely hardcore, and if making the art she wants to make means doing things the hard way, she cracks her knuckles and gets down to it. Within weeks, she had taught herself how to record, mix and edit with a digital audio workstation. She recorded her vocal parts (sometimes multi-tracked into a radiant choir) at home, assembled a rough mix of the album, and sent it off to her collaborators.

LeBrecht spent some years studying with and assisting La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela at their legendary sound-and-light installation, the Dream House. As with their work, her singular, precisely focused vision is shored up by its openness to artistic voices beyond her own. For Holy Prana Open Game, she worked with the Australian guitarist Mick Turner and drummer Jim White (both of Dirty Three, the Tren Brothers and innumerable other projects), as well as woodwind player David Lackner, a longtime presence on her recordings.

Turner and White have been playing together in one context or another since 1985; in the summer of 2020, they were only blocks from each other in Melbourne, Australia, whose strict lockdown meant they couldn't meet up to record together. So both of them, as well as Lackner, recorded their improvisational additions to LeBrecht's rough mixes individually, often without hearing each other's contributions. "I had asked them to play as much as they could on each track," she says, "and told them that I would edit it all down in post, so I had a lot of source material of theirs to work with."

LeBrecht arranged and edited the recordings from all four of their homes to flow together like breath across the duration of her suite. Prana, one of the album's central conceits, is in fact the Sanskrit word for breath, with the connotation of the breath of life. Like LeBrecht's music, prana flows at its own pace, and demands stillness to take in fully--but it's also subtly playful and surprising, a force that can be as light as air or as immersive as the atmosphere itself.

Geese veröffentlichen ihr zweites Album '3D Country', den Nachfolger ihres Debüts 'Projector'. Im Sommer 2021 tauchte die Band wie aus dem Nichts auf und obwohl die 5 Jungs aus Brooklyn eigentlich vorhatten, nur ein paar Songs vor dem College zu veröffentlichen, wurde schnell ein Album draus, dass u.a. von der NY Times, Stereogum, Rolling Stone gefeiert wurde und ihnen Auftritte im TV bei Colbert und im Vorprogramm von Jack White einbrachte. '3D Country', von der Band und James Ford (Arctic Monkeys, Depeche Mode, Shame) co-produziert, entpuppt sich als ein abgefahrener, wilder und unvorhersehbarer Ritt, der eine Welt unter die Lupe nimmt, die nicht mehr so ganz die alte zu sein scheint.

Geese veröffentlichen ihr zweites Album '3D Country', den Nachfolger ihres Debüts 'Projector'. Im Sommer 2021 tauchte die Band wie aus dem Nichts auf und obwohl die 5 Jungs aus Brooklyn eigentlich vorhatten, nur ein paar Songs vor dem College zu veröffentlichen, wurde schnell ein Album draus, dass u.a. von der NY Times, Stereogum, Rolling Stone gefeiert wurde und ihnen Auftritte im TV bei Colbert und im Vorprogramm von Jack White einbrachte. '3D Country', von der Band und James Ford (Arctic Monkeys, Depeche Mode, Shame) co-produziert, entpuppt sich als ein abgefahrener, wilder und unvorhersehbarer Ritt, der eine Welt unter die Lupe nimmt, die nicht mehr so ganz die alte zu sein scheint.