Buscar:the beautiful south

Violet vinyl, limited to 400 copies. New super-band featuring desert rock legends Mario Lalli, Brant Bjork, Sean Wheeler and Ryan Güt. The first release from this band of pioneering Desert rock musicians captures the band and its purest form exercising the desert born ethic and approach of rock improvisation, psychedelic and flowing, heavy and explorative. The foundation of Mario Lalli's grooving heavy bass lines and meditative themes with a intuitive guitar work with Brant Bjork and percussion of Ryan Güt set the scene for Sean Wheeler's poems and songs capturing the dark and beautiful stories and images of life in the Mojave desert of Southern California. This is a representation of desert rock in its purest form. A very special live performance in Gold Coast Australia.

Jimpster delivered some great releases in 2023, most notably his Natural Child collab EP with Crackazat as well as his Tribute EP featuring South African vocalist Mavhungu and including heavy Osunlade remixes. He also produced some of his best remixes to date including Thakzin’s Don’t Let Me See, Blaze’s Wonderland and Detroit Rising’s Rocket Love.

It’s always a good day to announce a new Jimpster EP on Freerange and with two captivating originals plus a stunning Atjazz remix you’re in for a treat! You’re My Ecstasy sets the tone with Jimpster’s trademark deep Rhodes pads, punchy bassline and shuffling classic house drum groove. He once again manages to strike a great balance between soulful, musical, warm and just a touch moody.

Next up we have The Passion which builds a deep and jazzy mood around a 4 bar piano progression whilst the sampled interviewee gives his insight into how he maintains his passion for music. London based trumpet player KingCrowney adds some lovely horn parts, emphasising the jazz feel to compliment the spoken word.

Atjazz gets well and truly stuck in on his remix of The Passion. Reportedly completed in just two studio sessions the hardest working man in deep house (as Jimpster calls him) brings his well-loved deft touch introducing an beautifully syncopated bassline and classic Atjazz drums making for a clubby interpretation for the deep, discerning dance floors.

On September 9th, 2022 at the Harrison House in Joshua Tree, Georg and Heike debuted a collection of songs that would later comprise Son of Velvet Rat’s Ghost Ranch studio album. A sacred space to present these new pieces, stripped-down to their most essential elements: two voices; one gruff and anchoring baritone, the other lifting in weathered hope, over six strings danced upon by Georg’s possessed spider-fingers, every note plucked with intention. A bare-boned outpouring, reverberating through the House like Midnight Mass in a rare church brave enough to explore the complexities of love.
That night, which ended with a refreshing baptismal monsoon as we walked out to our cars, would have to be preserved in the amber of memory until Georg and Heike would properly document the pieces at Gar Robertson’s Red Barn Studio in Morongo Valley the following spring ’23, before finishing the album in Austria.

London noise-rock quartet USA Nails have announced their upcoming album Feel Worse’, out March 22nd 2024. It’s the first album on their new label One Little Independent Records (home to anarcho-punk bands both old and new; Crass, Bad Breeding and more). The band have forged a considerable reputation since their formation in 2013 from their South London base, comprising of members of Kong, Future Of The Left, Blacklisters, Death Pedals and Silent Front.

‘Feel Worse’ explores schadenfreude; the pleasure derived from another person’s misfortune. With this, they use new material to attack austerity and UK authoritarianism, consumer culture (particularly the consumption of quick fix reality TV and hyper-capitalist agendas), youth culture and bullying, and more. They do so with their intense and unmistakable brand of abrasive, chaotic post-hardcore. There’s a raw and uncompromising energy to USA Nails, and ‘Feel Worse’ is their most powerful and vital album to date.

London noise-rock quartet USA Nails have announced their upcoming album Feel Worse’, out March 22nd 2024. It’s the first album on their new label One Little Independent Records (home to anarcho-punk bands both old and new; Crass, Bad Breeding and more). The band have forged a considerable reputation since their formation in 2013 from their South London base, comprising of members of Kong, Future Of The Left, Blacklisters, Death Pedals and Silent Front.

‘Feel Worse’ explores schadenfreude; the pleasure derived from another person’s misfortune. With this, they use new material to attack austerity and UK authoritarianism, consumer culture (particularly the consumption of quick fix reality TV and hyper-capitalist agendas), youth culture and bullying, and more. They do so with their intense and unmistakable brand of abrasive, chaotic post-hardcore. There’s a raw and uncompromising energy to USA Nails, and ‘Feel Worse’ is their most powerful and vital album to date.

NOW Music is proud to present the next instalment in our ongoing ‘Yearbook’ series – and the second to celebrate the ‘90s, NOW – Yearbook 1990; 79 tracks from a fantastic year in Pop! Available on 4CD deluxe book format with 79 tracks , 4CD std digi with 79 tracks and 44 tracks from a fantastic year in Pop, pressed on gorgeous translucent triple orange vinyl. Disc One includes #1s from New Order, New Kids On The Block, Steve Miller Band, and The Beautiful South, as well as Pop smashes from The KLF, The B-52’s, Kylie Minogue, Whitney Houston Kim Appleby, and concluding with the theme from Twin Peaks, Julee Cruise’s ‘Falling’, Chris Isaak with ‘Wicked Game’ and Pet Shop Boys defining ‘Being Boring’. Dance floor-fillers kick off Disc 2 from Deee-Lite with ‘Groove Is In The Heart’, #1s from SNAP!, and from Adamski & Seal plus club classics from Bass-O-Matic and Adventures Of Stevie V with ‘Dirty Cash (Money Talks)’, plus the unexpected collaboration between DNA & Suzanne Vega. Disc 3 opens with the still-breathtaking interpretation of Prince’s ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ from Sinéad O'Connor. Up next are film related hits; Maria McKee’s ‘Show Me Heaven’, from the ‘Days Of Thunder’ soundtrack, and the ‘Young Guns II’ track ‘Blaze Of Glory’ from Jon Bon Jovi

The first release from the remastered catalogue campaign on Melanie’s own revitalised Neighbourhood Records label (via UKs Easy Action) features the song recently used on the cult TV show Black Mirror, backed with an unreleased version of the 60s hit ‘Bo Bo’s Party’. This year Shindig Magazine did a 3-page feature on Melanie as more and more people start to ask who is she? The 7” is limited to 350 coloured vinyl copies and comes in a spined picture sleeve. Melanie landed in the New York City music and radio scene in the late 1960’s. Her first single Beautiful People immediately became a turntable hit. Her first tour began with an impressive 40-day run of shows at Paris’ world-famous L’Olympia Theater at the personal invitation of Bruno Coquatrix. In the years to come she would entertain millions: at An Aquarian Exposition (the 1969 Woodstock Music Festival), at Carnegie Hall, and the Isle of Wight and Glastonbury music festivals, The Sydney Opera House, the South Korean DMZ, the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, the Royal Albert Hall, and other Venues around the globe. Melanie launched Neighborhood Records, making her the first American woman to open a mainstream record label. She recorded over 20 chart hits. Melanie received an Emmy after composing lyrics for the theme song of the hit television series Beauty and the Beast. “What Have They Done to My Song Ma” was re-recorded by Ray Charles with the Count Basie Band. Nina Simone delivered a remarkable rendition, as well. “(Lay Down) Candles in the Rain” was re-recorded by Mott the Hoople on their 1971 album Wildlife. Meredith Brooks and Queen Latifah later re-recorded the anthem. “Some Say (I Got Devil)" was re-recorded by Smith’s frontman Morrissey. Melanie has always known her calling in life was to entertain. Audiences have welcomed her to the stage for more than fifty years, and she continues to perform today.

In 1994 the South London collective Archive was formed by Darius Keeler and Danny Griffiths together with female singer Roya Arab and young rapper Rosko John. Unfortunately, a few months later, they broke up, however Darius and Danny regrouped and continued releasing more Archive albums. Their 1996 debut album Londinium features a very strong mix of trip-hop, electronica, string arrangements, and female vocals from Roya Arab. Rosko John’s tough-spoken words are very similar to Tricky, Future Sound Of London and Massive Attack. The original 1996 issue only came out as a limited edition advance release, and has steadily built in reputation as a rare and expensive record to get a hold of. Fun fact: the song “Londinium” was featured on the Playstation
1 demo-disc and the music video was directed by Matt Cook.

This 25th Anniversary Edition of Londinium by Archive features the singles “So Few Words”, “Londinium” and more. It is packed in a gatefold sleeve, and includes a 4-page booklet with song lyrics and credits.

A blistering advancement of the knife-sharp hooks and urgently efficient post-punk structures that they’ve spent over a decade refining since their formation in 2011, the band’s fourth album – and second on Specialist Subject - emerges from a period of flux for the band’s chief songwriting partnership of Emma Wigham (drums/vocals) and Mark Jasper (guitar/vocals). First came a move north to Yorkshire from their native London. “We had decorated a tiny, rented house in Mytholmroyd” Jasper explains. “We setup a practice room in the top of a mill nearby and tried to write music, which we did amid stress about money, and a fear of having made the wrong decision. We had left our jobs, friends and a nice but absolutely tiny flat in London behind, and moved to a small village in West Yorkshire.” Although they found the location to be beautiful, the transition from city life to rural turned out to be an odd fit – too much so, it turned out. From this relatively short stay in West Yorkshire, however, came a more permanent change as the couple welcomed their first child Ivy into the family. Although, they’re hesitant to put too much of Streams and Waterways influence on the shoulders of their young daughter – she arrived a year and a half into the album’s conception – there’s no denying that its themes of loss, birth, and being part of this eternal, momentary life were brought into sharp focus following their new arrival. “Streams and Waterways is about the struggle of looking at the clock, realising it’s actually going pretty damn fast and knowing that really you have no control over anything” Jasper confirms. Perhaps that explains the way that opener The Valley doesn’t even introduce itself before careering into a full-throttled, three-minute scuzzy rager that would approach the descriptor anthemic had it not been kicked and scuffed along the way; it’s maybe why the wiry, ferocious Choice You Make feels like a charge into a storm despite the uncertainty of what you might find. It’s perhaps why even when Witching Waves allow themselves respite on the pared down Open A Hole, there’s a churning anxiety that lies below the acoustic guitar and harmonising vocals: in many ways musically and thematically Witching Waves are relinquishing the control that’s always been a fixture of their music – with all the thrilling and nervous fallout that comes from that. Although the pair have since returned south (having relocated to Exeter), Streams and Waterways also serves as a document of their foray northwards. The surviving artefact from Jasper’s never-to-be-finished studio that he’d began to build in Yorkshire – following the ending of his London-based Sound Savers studio – the record is also the first to feature current bassist Will Fitzpatrick, who joined initially live on their support tour with Australian punks Camp Cope. Fitzpatrick – a key component of Liverpool’s DIY scene for two decades – quickly became a key part of the writing process. Recording sessions were done during periods of lockdown that allowed congregation, Jasper recalling a still unborn Ivy kicking hard during an early mix playback of It’s A Shame’s layered noise rock assault. “The song was about my past, a much harder time. But my future was egging me on” he says. It’s a neat summation of Streams and Waterways and its representation of the discomfort of life amidst the compulsion to ride on its journey regardless. It’s a record that finds Witching Waves looking into the future more than ever before, but still bristles with the rush of being in the moment – because ultimately, despite what may have happened or may yet come, the band’s strongest trait remains being able to keep you feeling in the present.

This recorded autobiography of Catherine Howe, age 20, briefly appeared in 1971. Too young for memoirs, most artists have barely established any sort of musical competence by the age of legal adulthood, let alone compositions matching the maturity and complexity of Howe's. What A Beautiful Place, however, is a prodigious effort wrought from the melancholy ruminations of post-adolescence. The album's twelve songs unfold like a classic bildungsroman, beginning in the smoke-stained industrial county of Yorkshire, transformed by the electrified creative landscape of mid-century London, and retiring to the warm pastoral bliss of the county of Dorset on England's southern coast. Produced by noted jazz pianist Bobby Scott, the LP_oft-mistaken for a concept album_was available for only a month in the summer of 1971, disappearing after Reflection Records' shuttering in 1971.

This recorded autobiography of Catherine Howe, age 20, briefly appeared in 1971. Too young for memoirs, most artists have barely established any sort of musical competence by the age of legal adulthood, let alone compositions matching the maturity and complexity of Howe's. What A Beautiful Place, however, is a prodigious effort wrought from the melancholy ruminations of post-adolescence. The album's twelve songs unfold like a classic bildungsroman, beginning in the smoke-stained industrial county of Yorkshire, transformed by the electrified creative landscape of mid-century London, and retiring to the warm pastoral bliss of the county of Dorset on England's southern coast. Produced by noted jazz pianist Bobby Scott, the LP_oft-mistaken for a concept album_was available for only a month in the summer of 1971, disappearing after Reflection Records' shuttering in 1971.

Flora Yin Wong’s ravishing interiority finds lucid expression on an absorbing second album for Modern Love, manifesting her instrumental storytelling in a syncretic bind of supernatural themes with hyperrealist, concrète sound design.

Through ten parts, Flora crystallises the ennui that followed an uncanny, disorienting trip to East and Southeast Asia. “On an unexpected stopover in Hong Kong after five years away, my friends took me to a Bazi reader one night - something I was curious about, but much of a ritual for them - ” Flora recalls. “My father told me that when I was born, he had obtained an auspicious reading that since stayed like a guiding talisman with me. It was almost past midnight but people were still lined up, rather shaken and visibly upset, to see the old man. He had kind eyes and asked me why I was there and I said I was at a crossroads. He asked me my time and date of birth, and told me to pick one of his four little white canary birds as a vessel for divination.”

This was the final stretch of an ultimately aimless few months across the continent, including a 20 year overdue return with her father to his adoptive family in his hometown Kuala Lumpur - for many reasons, ended up as a strange and uncanny trip. She spent solitude in a haunted house during the quiet snowfall of Kyoto, where she might have offended some spirit... and nights in mountain temples with South Korean monks, and an equally strange feeling return to the Island of the Gods.

“It culminated in what felt like a final disillusionment with Asia - sudden deaths and a breakdown in beliefs - somewhere I never really have or will be able to connect with. The process of the reading summoned a final blow to my gut - an overwhelming sense of rootlessness, and understanding that all there is is emptiness and entropy. No birth-divined protection, just a measurement of the night sky based off nothing and everything.”

Heavy with a sense of nightmarish dissociation and grief, Flora read about Giuseppe Tartini’s ‘Violin Sonata in G Minor’, aka the Devil’s Trill Sonata, a notoriously tricky c.18th composition which attempted to transcribe music heard in a dream, which the composer felt he could never fully bring into reality. It’s this soporific motif that binds and underpins ’Cold Reading’, finding Flora chasing the dragon of fleeting fantasy through passages of etched melancholy, pinched with hypnagogic jerks that linger in the memory.

From her use of the ‘Devil’s Trill’ Sonata in ‘All My Dreams are Nightmares’ through evocations of subtropical humidity in the Bryn Jones-esque, resonant hand-played percussion of ‘Konna’ and ‘Banjar’, to a breathtaking dreampop denouement ‘Nectar Dripping’ and the Enya-like lush of ‘Beautiful Crisis’, Flora blooms her ideas with an openended ambiguity so often missing from so called Ambient music, ushering the listener into a soundworld that disturbs and displaces, just as much as it calms.

The last twelve months have been a whirlwind for Henry Counsell and Louis Curran, the men who make up Joy (Anonymous). Having established themselves during the Covid-19 era by playing impromptu meet-ups on London’s South Bank, they have graduated to bigger venues, travelled to far-flung locales and recorded their second album, Cult Classics, while maintaining the spontaneous energy and irrepressible joy that made their name. Their music revels in the euphoria of being alive and all the feelings, good or bad, that come with it. It invites us into a community, draws us close and promises the night of our lives.

Recorded over the course of a year, the blueprint for Cult Classics was laid down over a two-week span at Imogen Heap’s Round House in east London. Joy (Anonymous) invited friends old and new to visit - they’d record live instruments in jam sessions upstairs and then retreat to a second room to flip and loop and generally mess with the sounds, moulding them into sizzling dance tracks. “Loads of people were coming up to me like ‘I thought this was going to be a dance record?’” Louis says, remembering the quietly beautiful music they’d be recording. “I’d be like, don’t worry about that, just keep playing.” He’d send it back to people later and they’d be floored - “That was my bit and you’ve made it... jungle!”

It was an organic and creatively fulfilling approach, one that didn’t allow any of the music to get stale or stagnate. As they built the tracks from the sounds they’d collected, Joy (Anonymous) would weave the new songs into their famously improvised live sets, testing them, refining them, taking note of the audiences’ reactions. In a year punctuated by a lot of travel, they’d also incorporate the voices of people they met along the way - “Beazley’s Poem”, which opens the record, features the words of a man who was working security at a Fred Again show at New York’s Terminal Five. “He was basically doing the opposite of his job and being a hype man, climbing on the fence and ramping up the crowd - we ended up hanging out with him - like, who’s this legend?” Louis explains. “He just speaks really amazingly about his life, all these amazing thoughts and opinions - he started jumping on the mic when we were playing, preaching these amazing messages to the crowd, like that we all need to be nicer to each other. The first time we played the record in its entirety, he introduced us and that’s the recording we’ve used.”

Joy (Anonymous) remain dedicated to the spirit of spontaneity. They shut a street down with a surprise waterside party in New York. On a trip to Copenhagen they played an impromptu set in a cafe, which turned into a house party and a night-long good time. In Lithuania, they ended up playing in a decommissioned prison. It’s harder, perhaps, to keep that spirit alive now that they are operating more within the confines of the music industry but they will keep lugging their kit to wherever the party calls for as long as they can. “I think if we lose that, we’ve kind of lost what makes us us,” Henry says.

Bursting with multi-genre reference points and disparate influences, Cult Classics is very much a dance album. The samples we made ourselves or we took from music that is quite different to dance music, but we definitely wanted to shout out a lot of the dance influences that we love,” Henry says. They listened to a lot of Daft Punk and Basement Jaxx as well as The Prodigy (“more rage stuff”), taking songwriting tips from their dance forebears, but also recording bits that felt more like jazz and motown (see: A Place I Belong and the lovely album closer, You’re In Or You’re Out). Emir Taha’s gentle classical guitar runs like a thread throughout Cult Classics, washing into the undertones of the record, tying it all together.

The album follows the beat of a night out, from frenetic, sweaty movement to the gentler winding down as the dawn breaks. At times it is euphoric, celebratory and pure, whirling fun, at others it seeks the joy in the darker emotions that life throws our way. 404 is designed to encapsulate everything about the Joy (Anonymous) journey so far. Skittering beats and ghostly vocals give way to vibrating house chords: sirens blare as we approach a dubstep drop. It’s dramatic and wild, ratcheting up, seeming to settle then hitting you with an intense and frantic breakdown before the ghostly vocal returns to lull us back into the world. It has the feel of a hungry cat playing with a mouse, toying with it before letting it get away.

What sounds like someone playing the spoons on playful, housey How We End Up Here is actually Louis’ restless habit of clicking his rings on everything, one of a myriad of calling cards and easter eggs that day one fans will recognise. They rework Miley Cyrus and Swae Lee’s Party Up The Street into a French-electro-inspired future classic, adding a note of melancholy to a tune that you can imagine hearing blaring from every car on a summer drive. The lyrics on Cult Classic are generally reassuring, inspirational, originally drawn from Henry in stream-of-consciousness freestyles. You’re fine the way you are, they seem to say - the repeated “No need to try” of A Place I Belong, the assurance that “It’s in me all the time” on In Me All The Time. Even the summery but regretful Did You Wrong hints at the growth that is possible from less than ideal behaviour. For Joy (Anonymous), joy isn’t about just being “happy” all the time - it’s about relishing every element of your being.

The name ‘Joy (Anonymous)’ is taken from the work Henry did with Alcoholics Anonymous groups: it is a way to build a community around sharing joy. Their impromptu live sets are known as ‘meetings’; they encourage fans to share moments of joy to their website. They care deeply about the scene they’ve come up in and are determined not to leave it behind. Every show is another chance to reach out and connect with people who love to come together and revel in music as loud as it can go.

Support slots for Fred Again and The Streets, wild B2Bs with Fred and Skrillex, and a set at Four Tet’s Finsbury Park all-dayer this summer have given the duo the opportunity to live out childhood dreams and introduced their infectious live shows to new audiences at huge venues.

With an album as assured and joyful as Cult Classics on the horizon (and a killer collab with The Blessed Madonna coming up), they’re only going to reach higher heights. But the essence of Joy (Anonymous) remains on the South Bank. Between shows at Ally Pally in September, they dragged their camping chairs and gear back down to the banks of the Thames: and it just felt right.

THE KORGIS’ latest album release ‘Orchestrations’ beautifully re-imagines in amazingly inventive and unexpected ways the greatest songs of this inspirational chart-topping band with a fully-orchestrated classical treatment.

Opening with the immortal line “Change your Heart, look around you, change your Heart, it will astound you” from international hit and one of the greatest love songs ever, “Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime”, these brand new classical interpretations weave their way through the The Korgis’ rich tapestry of song-writing.

Featuring the1979 Andy Davis-penned debut hit “If I Had You”, The Beatles homage “Something About The Beatles”, enduring fan favourite “All The Love In The World”, original Trevor Horn production and South American hit “Don’t Look Back”, concluding with prophetically-entitled James Warren and Andy Davis collaboration “This World’s For Everyone”, ‘Orchestrations’ is a fitting tribute to over 40 years of class song-writing.

The amphibian song revival begins here! This classic of both biological fieldwork and natural sound recordings, compiled and narrated by renowned herpetologist Charles M Bogert, was originally released by Folkways in 1958, and presents sounds of 57 species of frogs and toads (remastered from the original tapes) that were recorded in swamps, lakes, woods, creeks, and roadside ditches all over North America Listen to the bewitching tones of the Pig Frog, Dwarf Mexican Treefrog, Little Green Toad, Southwestern Woodhouse's Toad, Great Basin Spadefoot, and other unsung heroes of the bog creek. In a time when frog and toad populations are in rapid decline, this recording reminds us of the remarkable diversity and beautiful sounds we are in danger of losing.

Dutch indie band from the south of Holland. Produced by Grammy-nominated British producer and mixer Christopher Elms (Björk, Ben Howard and A Blaze of Feather) as well as mastered by Tim Debney who worked with Thom Yorke, Mumford & Sons, Bastille and Keane, among others, and provided the mastering for the Bond tune by Billie Eilish.

Johnnie Taylor was an accomplished soul artist despite having little instrumental skill and he rarely wrote any of his own material. He was known variously as the ‘Blues Wailer’ and the ‘Philosopher Of Soul’ and recorded over 30 albums and 120 singles throughout a career that cemented his status as one of the leading male soul vocalists during the late sixties and throughout the seventies.

He started his recording career mid-50s with the doo-wop group The Five Echoes and gospel groups The Highway Q.C.’s and then in 1957, The Soul Stirrers, replacing Sam Cooke who had left the group for a solo career. Taylor followed that path a few years later signing for Cooke’s SAR label. and had a minor hit in 1962 with “Rome Wasn’t Built In A Day”.

in 1964 he moved to Stax Records where he started as a blues artist enjoying many fruitful years, most notably with “Who’s Making Love” selling more than a million copies. Following the unfortunate demise of Stax in 1976 he moved to Columbia Records where he went platinum with the hit “Disco Lady” (ironically not a disco track at all) and the album from which it came ‘Eargasm’ (1976) was a commercial peak he would never scale again. However, he continued with many collectable releases before moving to Beverly Glen Music in the early eighties and then Malaco Records in 1984, where his style became the more soul-blues based sound that was synonymous with the label. He remained with them until he died of a heart attack in Dallas aged 66 in 2000.

“Let’s Get Back On” Track comes from the CD ‘Gotta Get The Groove Back’ (1999) produced (and co-written with Charlie Brooks) by Frederick Knight, who also used the same backing track some 7 years later with his production of the David Sea track “Stay In My Arms” which was a modern soul favourite and will help to register the significance of this earlier production. It is now available as a vinyl release for the first time. It was taken from his final album although Malaco released ‘There’s No Good In Goodbye’ posthumously in 2003.
Robert Calvin Brooks, known professionally as Bobby “Blue” Bland spent his early career in Memphis, developing a sound that mixed gospel with blues and R&B and was known as the ‘Lion Of The Blues ‘and the ‘Sinatra Of The Blues’. His father abandoned the family not long after his birth and he acquired his name from his stepfather, Leroy Bland. His formative musical years were centered around the Beale Street scene and he was scouted by Ike Turner for Modern Records.

His progress was interrupted by a two year stint in the US Army and when he returned to Memphis he signed for Duke Records, run by Don Robey. Bland was illiterate and Robey helped him sign his contract which only gave him half a cent per record sold instead of the industry standard of 2 cents. He had his first hit in 1957 and continued a successful run of R&B chart entries without breaking through into the mainstream markets and was ranked number 13 of the all time chart-topping artists in Joel Whitburn’s “Top R&B/Hip-Hop Singles: 1942-1995”.

Duke Records sold out to ABC and with them he managed to return to the R&B charts but he still couldn’t succeed in the pop charts. In 1985 Bland signed for Malaco who were specialists in the Southern black music sound and he recorded many albums and toured for them, frequently with B.B. King, and was inducted into the ‘Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame’ in 1992.

Whilst “Heart Open Up Again” was a vinyl release in 1985 it was not chosen to be the single release from the Tommy Couch & Wolf Stephenson produced album Members Only (1985). This beautiful ballad, penned by George Jackson/Robert Miller/Michael Wooten, was never before released as a single and is a fabulous pairing with the topside – two of the best from two of the all-time greats.

Cogan Has Been Part for Many Years of Parisian Collective House of Underground With Whom He Played Records All Over the French Capital as Well as the Country's Main Cities Clubs and Festivals From North to south.

He Recently Joined the Collective and Label Friendsome as a Resident to Take His Career to Another Level, Releasing His First Solo Wax : Power Source EP.
This Ep Is an Extract of His Live Performance, Which He Has Been Working on for Almost a Year, and Will Be Shown for the First Time at Badaboum on September 9th 2023 as Part of Friendsome's 5th Anniversary Party. We Will All Discover a New Side of Cogan's Work, Being More Known for His High Energy House Music, This Ep Takes Us on a Ride of Acid Techno With 90's Rave Inspirations. a Music That Will Not Let the Dancefloors and Audiences Restful !

Opening Up "Softly" on the Track for the Hackers Will Get You Into the Vibe of the Whole Ep, Before Taking Off on the Banger for the Racers. Track 2 and 3, Being for Gamblers and Farmers, Conclude This Beautiful Ep to Keep It Engraved in Your Mind Until the Next Party! Enjoy the Ride......

What comprises a dream?

An astral plane of our own making where thoughts, love, and desires of the inner mind abound with irreverence - ripe with connection & perspective beyond constraints of time, set, and setting.

Azu Tiwaline exists within the wonders of these interstitial worlds, diving deeper towards inner sanctums of mystic imagination, sublime intrigue, & profound understanding on her second full length LP “The Fifth Dream”.

Released again through her beloved partnership with I.O.T Records, “The Fifth Dream” finds Azu painting an expansive vision towards unified multitudes, mercurial realities, & abundant inner sanctums.

Where her first album “Draw Me a Silence” was a loving ode to her family & upbringing in the form of an elegant diptych, “The Fifth Dream" is the enactment of actualizing her roots into new routes, taking her multifaceted identity into new means of communication towards herself, the world, & the cosmic unknowns that surround her.

Throughout The Fifth Dream’s 54-minute runtime, we hear all elements of the uniquely transcendental sound that Azu is beloved for worldwide. “Antennae Opening”, “Blowing Flow”, & “Amen Dub” embody her talents for tectonic, dubwise soundscapes that channel the innately maternal elements of bassweight into bold & abstracted pulsations, indebted to the most psychedelic & body activating ends of dubstep.

Still attuned to the spatial awareness of dub sonics but giving way to the hypnotic syncopation & synaptic frequencies of techno, “Reptilian Waves”, “Long Hypnosis”, & “Mei Long” bring forth her spectacular expertise for entheogenic rave rhythms - guiding us warmly towards trance-inducing hyper states of dance & delight. Fluctuating between an adventurous velocity and enveloping stasis, the expansive abyssal planes of “Golden Dawn”, “Night in Palm Tree”, & “Canope Imaginaire” conjures a wondrously invigorating rhythmic enlightenment & celestial comprehension - simultaneously moving us forward, inwards, & outwards through Azu’s uniquely omnidirectional & kaleidoscopic musical visions.

Adorned with sampled field recordings of her deeply inspiring home in the desert of El Djerid in South Tunisia, Azu opens a portal into the synergistic inner sanctums of being, self, and the world around us that’s essential to her work as an artist - from the macro levels of humanity’s naturally intimate connection to the Earth we share, down to each of our own micro levels of culture, ancestry, and belonging. All of this is alchemized through a combination of timeless Saharan knowledge & modern cybernetic tools, creating new dimensions of bewitching, euphonious sonic energy. This is music that gives back as much as the listener wants to give themselves unto it - detailed and layered, orbiting a steady core as ethereal swirls and intonations of the natural world embrace us warmly within a spellbinding journey.

8 of the album’s 9 tracks feature a deep level of collaboration from innovative Franco-Iranian percussionist Cinna Peyghamy. Cinna’s use of Tombak, the principle drum of Iranian music throughout time, is beautifully sonorous - channeling the passion of centuries of Southwest Asian rhythm & expression into his own personalized flourishes, with Azu adding her own electrifying frequencies & undiluted artistic freedom to their shared interplay. This profoundly communicative diasporic essence is transmuted between Azu & Cinna, their expression, & the listener. Both are music lovers, intimately connected to their respected Iranian and Tunisian cultures - concurrently acknowledging the wisdom of their resonant pasts, while proudly bringing the sounds of their heritage into the present & future.

“The Fifth Dream” embodies a cosmic anodyne for those feeling caught in between life’s abyssal inbetweens, whilst aiming for a consonant awareness of where our home truly lies in the swells of life’s spiritual maelstrom. This dream belongs at once to none & to many, that of a common language unified in concentric depth - finding beauty in all aspects of our world, and ultimately, within oneself.