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Mr Lee Perry who in no uncertain terms defines the words musical genius, recorded some of the most inspiring, soulful, funny and weird / wild reggae music ever put down on tape. Working through all the manifestations of reggae from Ska to Roots and Dub, where his ground breaking 1973 ‘Blackboard Jungle’ LP, set the standards, he was an innovator. If this was not enough his recordings of THE WAILERS, many believe to be their finest work. Born Rainford Hugh Perry, 28 March 1936, Hanover, Jamaica. He began his career at the grand age of 16, working for Clement ‘Coxone’ Dodd’s sound system, rising quickly to the position of record scout and organising recording sessions during his 3 year period 1963-1966. Restlessness and unsatisfied with credit he felt due to him he moved on to work with Producers J.J. Johnson and Clancy Eccles, the later of which would help him set up his ‘Upsetter’ label in 1968,which would see his first of many recordings telling the injustices done to him by previous employees. ‘The Upsetter’ track itself pointed at Mr Dodd but reflected back to Perry when he inherited it as a nick name along side many others during the coarse of his career, including ‘Scratch’, again taken from one of his recordings ‘Chicken Scratch’ recorded in 1965/1966. Perry’s work in 1968 with producer Joe Gibbs was fruitful and resulted in many successfulreleases, but again lack of credit and itchy feet, it was time to move on. But not without leaving his trademark recording summing up his feelings at the time ‘People Funny Boy’ this time aimed at Mr Gibbs. Still not having a studio of his own, Perry recorded at the various Kingston establishments of the time, Randy’s Studio 17 on North Parade, Dynamics on Bell Road and Harry J’s on Roosevelt Avenue where the bulk of the aforementioned recordings with The Wailers were carried out. During this time and the years that followed Perry has built up a vast catalogue of backing tracks / instrumentals, he had cut over a 100 releases on his ‘Upsetter’ label alone. A library of music that he has an uncanny knack of reutilising to work into something new when put against a new song / singer. This collection of rare and unreleased dubs stems from his 1971-1974 period. We can here on tracks like ‘Perry’s Jump Up’ Ska-ish up tempo chopping guitar cuts leading through to organ laden tracks like ‘Roots Rock Dub’. The sound moving to a slowed down rhythm on ‘Perry in Dub’ which would predominate his sound, when in mid 1974 he’d open his own studio at his home in the Washington Gardens district of Kingston. We hope this selection of lost treasures will add to the jigsaw that makes Mr Perry’s output now spanning over 5 decades so remarkable.
RESPECT.... JAH FLOYD.

This collection assembles the range of sources that Robert Johnson heard and learned from including songs from his mentor Son House and from other Delta performers and from sources that show aspects of the musical world in which he lived. His tastes ranged far and wide and he had a gift for absorbing sounds of all kinds, including from tin pan alley to hillbilly songs. He was a brilliant creative musician who managed a stunningly effective fusion of his Delta roots and the smoother approach of the then prominent contemporary blues artists. As with any genius in any field he was able to produce great work only because he was standing on the shoulders of previous great artists. This collection provides an introduction to a number of them and gives a sense of how Johnson adapted and combined their styles. It presents music that can still excite and inspire us today just as it did to Robert Johnson back in the first golden age of the blues.

Devon made her musical debut earlier this year, releasing her first ever recorded single, ‘Swim’ to swooning fans in September, and has decided to follow it up next week with a sultry and high energy tune entitled ‘Killer’. ‘Killer’ is the second song to be released by Actress/Model/ — and, now —Musician, Singer/Songwriter: Devon Ross. ‘Killer’ hits all digital platforms worldwide on the next ‘Bandcamp Friday’ (1-December -2023) in advance of her very first concert taking place at London’s legendary 100 CLUB on December 13, 2023. Inspired by Sixties and Seventies legends, such as The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Patti Smith, Bob Dylan, The Stooges and Television, Devon Ross is finally debuting her first recordings on the forthcoming EP, entitled Oxford Gardens. Oxford Gardens was recorded in Paris and mixed & mastered at Abbey Road Studios in London and set for release on Thurston & Eva Moore’s indie record label, The Daydream Library Series. TRACKLIST: 1/I Don’t Wanna 2/Swim 3/Killer 4/Mine Not Yours. Bio: Model-actress-guitarist, 23-year-old recording artist was raised in Los Angeles and moved to London in 2020. British Vogue cited Ross as “the coolest model currently climbing up the ranks”. During 2019, Gucci recruited her for a Rome runway show before casting her in the launch of the Gucci x Disney Collection (notably shot at Disneyland). It opened up the floodgates as she went on to walk for Valentino, Erdem, Gauchere, Sies Marjan, and Simone Rocha and lead campaigns for Vivienne Westwood and Mulberry. Her career would be chronicled by L’Officiel, 10 Magazine, W, and many more. In 2021, she joined the cast of HBO and A24’s Irma Vep - The Serial (2021) alongside Academy® Award Winner Alicia Vikander, Adria Arjona, Carrie Brownstein, Byron Bowers, and others. Eva & Thurston met Devon at Cannes Film Festival in France in 2021 and started going to shows and kicking around London together. After witnessing her guitar playing and hearing her music the couple invited her to release music on their independent record label. This month November 2023, The Daydream Library Series independent record label will celebrate five years in operation. Thurston & Eva founded the label in 2018 to release the debut album Sistahs by London’s black, feminist, punk band Big Joanie.

Dazzle rolled deep. Very deep. In the 1980s, it wasn't unusual for the Milwaukee-based group to show up at various Midwest night clubs in a caravan of 30-40 cars and vans. Their live following was hard won over a career that spanned 20+ years, many line up changes, and a handful of project names. Friends, family, and fans made the journey with them weekend after weekend, a testimony to both the musical prowess of the group and the tight-knit community that they emerged from.

Donald Smith, band leader, was there the whole time - joined by many of his siblings and friends - first as founder of the Ghetto Players, a early 70's nine-piece which also included siblings Michael, Ronald, and Charles. They played hard funk in the style of early Kool and the Gang, and although they sadly left no recordings, the strength of their live act managed to catch the eye of local Milwaukee R&B music entrepreneur Cobie Joe Payne. Cobie had made a couple of records locally in the early/mid 70s as a singer, including the impossibly weird and amazing rare afro-blues-funk 45 "Sweet Thing", but had never enjoyed national success. When the Ghetto Players disbanded in the early-mid 70s, Donald soon put together a new group, C on the Funk (the 'C' referring to lead vocalist and sibling Charles), under Payne's tutelage. Sister Lorrie Smith came in as the drummer, the line-up being fleshed out by brothers David and Melvin Johnson, and friend Robert Mitchell. After a few years as a strictly live attraction, they drove to Chicago and produced a single, "In the Disco" / "A Place" for Payne's small record label Sweet Thang Records in 1980. Lacking the financial backing needed to supply the local R&B disk jockey's "promotional fees" , this single sadly languished in obscurity, gathering dust inside the local tavern jukeboxes and manilla promo envelopes that comprised Payne's DIY distribution network.

C on the Funk were traveling the Mid West extensively at this point, and making some important friends on the road. Ike Wiley Jr. of the Dazz Band/Kinsman Dazz took particular interest and the band was re-christened Dazzle, partially as a tie-in with Dazz, partially to embrace the new sounds that would distinguish the 70s disco scene from what record collectors and DJs would now refer to as the "Boogie" era. There no doubt was a stigma attached to the word "Disco" as the eighties began, and as we see in this collection C On the Funk's "In the Disco" is remixed and transformed into the psychedelic synth instrumental of Dazzle's "Disco's Out", a title which embodies both the next-step approach Smith and company were pushing for, and humorously comments on the state of black dance music in the early 1980s. The Dazzle recording, done in Chicago in 1982, updated the sound and featured an expanded line up, most notably a second synth player (Charles Washington), and a percussionist/second lead vocalist (Greg McDonald). The added synth textures and deep percussive grooves give the Dazzle recordings an elegant late night vibe that resonate just as well in a good pair of headphones as they do on the dance floor. The trance inducing cough syrup-warble of "Explain" may best exemplify this here. Sadly, a pressing flaw in the 12" halted production and promotion, and the EP and the songs within were lost to the ages. The group, having done a much better line in the live music business, followed that path instead all the way to the early 90s. --bio provided by andy noble

This is the new 20th anniversary edition of one of Soul Jazz Records’ classic Studio One releases, now available as a one-off special blue vinyl very limited-edition pressing (2000 copies worldwide). 


Studio One Roots set the standard for Soul Jazz Records’ long-standing series of Studio One collections and features many of the classic artists from Clement 'Sir Coxsone’ Dodd’s mighty roster of reggae. This album includes Freddie McGregor, Willie Williams, Cornell Campbell, Alton Ellis, Devon Russell alongside some of the defining crack-session men groups of Jamaican reggae history – The Sound Dimension, Brentford All-Stars, The Skatalites, New Establishment and more. As ever the album is filled with a mixture of
seminal cuts and super-rarities from the vast vaults of 13 Brentford Road. 
Stand-out tracks include Alton Ellis’s Blackish White, a surreal and powerful Afro-centric dream, Count Ossie Nyabinghi and Rastafarian drummers genre-defying interpretation of Booker
T and The MGs ‘Meditation’, Willie Williams awe-inspiring versioning of the Skatalites seminal Rastafari anthem Addis Ababa and many, many more.
 This album has been fully digitally remastered, analog cut and packaged complete with the following: Original sleevenotes by Lloyd Bradley (author of When Reggae Was King),
compiled by Mark Ainley (Hones Jons), high-quality Soul Jazz mastering, wicked images of Count Ossie and the Mystic Revelation of Rastafari on the cover, and a rare image of Clement Dodd and musicians inside the studio at Studio One on the full colour inner
sleeves.
 “The music of this compilation is of a rare, rare beauty and is essential to anyone's reggae collection” All Music

FAZI are a post-punk band based in the ancient Chinese city of Xi'an. However, there is much more to their story than meets the eye_ With five immersive full-length records and a brief stint on peak-time commercial TV already establishing the four-piece at the forefront of a truly pioneering wave of alternative music in China, the Euro-pean re-release of their latest offering, `Folding Story', represents an incredible new beginning for a band who have already spent years honing their craft - transforming timeless traditions of love, life and death into a perpetual dance of fre- netic, krautrock energy and sprawling, shoegaze panoramas. Fittingly, `Folding Story' is itself a cyclic experience of rebirth, renewal and a return to origin. Album opener `Invisible Water' is a contemplative start as frontman Peng Liu's yearning vocals reach out across synthesisers reminiscent of sonar and the hypnotic lapping of water on an un- known shore. Described by Peng as an "artistic conception of amniotic fluid in the mother's body", this motif returns at the end of the album's final track, `Way to Atman', this time as a gentle tide washing away the ash of a spent funeral pyre. Just as the album and its protagonist is born at the beginning and dies at the end, by deliberately opening and closing `Folding Story' with the sounds of water, Fazi invite listeners to flow through the record on a never ending loop, to listen to a story without pause, one that rises from a whisper to a roar only to subside as quickly as it arrived. First released in 2022 on pioneering Chinese record label Space Circle, `Folding Story' is a collection of 10 tracks that serve as stories themselves as well as part of a universal narrative in constant flow. A phenomenal accomplishment, its forthcoming re-release in Europe via Pelagic Records will ensure that Fazi continue to blow as many minds and ruffle as many feathers as possible. Gatefold sleeve, silver offset ink, printed on special all-black cardboard. FFO Joy Division, Suicide, Savages, Cabaret Voltaire, Iceage, Gilla Band, Fontän

“I wrote these six new pieces with simple French words that a student learning French can understand. It is always intended for fanciful dances and musical fantasies” - Bernard Fevre

Legendary Parisian disco pioneer and producer, Black Devil Disco Club is back and has announced the release of a new album via UK independent imprint Lo Recordings on the 1st December.

‘Etincelles’, which translates as ‘sparks’ in English, is the follow up to 2020’s ‘Lucifer Is A Flower’ and will be digitally available and released on limited edition coloured vinyl wrapped in screen printed sleeves with lazer cut triangles designed by the award winning Non Format team. A truly future perfect and infectious collection of electronic sounds and beats, the new album features six brand new tracks including the lead single ‘L Mer Sur L’enfer’ which was inspired by Salvador Dali and will be available from the 3rd of November.

With a story as deep and strange as the music itself, Black Devil is the alter ego of Bernard Fevre, a French composer of electronic library music with a highly sought after back catalogue that includes the magnificent ‘Strange World Of Bernard Fevre’.

Having grown up and worked in Paris, it was the African clubs and rhythms in the city that inspired him to make his celebrated debut album ‘Black Devil Disco Club’ with only a small arsenal of electronic keyboards, a vocoder and looped conga drums. One of the most enigmatic electronic masterpieces ever made, the record was so ahead of it’s time that no one could believe it was made in 1977 on it’s release in ‘78. When it was re- issued in 2004 on the Rephlex label many thought it was a hoax and that the music was made by Aphex Twin or Luke Vibert but when Lo Recordings put out the ‘28 After’ album in 2006, the truth was finally revealed.

Fully remastered edition of the classic rarities collection from The Obsessed, plus new tracks and new liner notes! A historic document of the stoner/doom godfather's original and best-known band. This new version is Black.Blues Swirl Vinyl! 2020 is the 40th anniversary of the formation of The Obsessed, one of the preeminent bands in the worldwide stoner/doom scene. Led by Scott "Wino" Weinrich, a heavy music lifer admired and acclaimed by the likes of Dave Grohl, Pepper Keenan, Henry Rollins and Phil Anselmo, The Obsessed has been releasing milestone albums for decades on labels like Hellhound, Columbia and Relapse, with Wino himself playing and performing with members of Sleep, Neurosis, Foo Fighters, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath and more. Since their earliest days, The Obsessed accumulated dozens of demos, b-sides, covers and alternate recordings, many of which were issued in various limited releases and an early-2000s collection called Incarnate. Long out of print, Blues Funeral Recordings' new ultimate edition of The Obsessed 'Incarnate' is completely remastered, features the addition of 4 new tracks, and is packaged with all new artwork, photos, and extensive new liner notes with Wino himself telling stories behind each long-lost gem. Fully remastered, new tracks, new artwork, new photos, new liner notes! Press Quotes: 'The career of Wino is a rich and fabled one, and his tentacles of influence weave throughout the arenas of rock, punk and metal.' _Alternative Press 'Wino, what a fucking guitar player, and one of my favorite singers, nothing to prove, just soul-felt vocals.' _Phil Anselmo (Down, Pantera) 'Wino's music has always been so serious, that's the only thing he knows, and he's gonna do it whether or not he makes a million dollars or ten bucks... he means it.' _Pepper Keenan (Corrosion of Conformity) 2020 is the 40th anniversary of the formation of The Obsessed, one of the preeminent bands in the stoner/doom scene worldwide for nearly 40 years. Led by Scott ""Wino"" Weinrich, a heavy music lifer admired and acclaimed by the likes of Dave Grohl, Pepper Keenan, Henry Rollins and Phil Anselmo, The Obsessed has been releasing milestone albums for decades on labels like Hellhound, Columbia and Relapse, as well as Wino himself playing and performing in bands with members of Sleep, Neurosis, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath and more. Since The Obsessed's earliest days, the band accumulated dozens of b-sides, covers, alternate takes and demos, many of which were issued on a variety of compilations and an early-2000s collection called Incarnate. Long out of print, Blues Funeral Recordings' new ultimate edition of The Obsessed 'Incarnate' is completely remastered, features the addition of new tracks, and is packaged with all new artwork, photos, and all-new extensive liner notes written by Wino himself to tell the stories behind each long-lost gem.

Fully remastered edition of the classic rarities collection from The Obsessed, plus new tracks and new liner notes! A historic document of the stoner/doom godfather's original and best-known band. This new version is Black.Blues Swirl Vinyl! 2020 is the 40th anniversary of the formation of The Obsessed, one of the preeminent bands in the worldwide stoner/doom scene. Led by Scott "Wino" Weinrich, a heavy music lifer admired and acclaimed by the likes of Dave Grohl, Pepper Keenan, Henry Rollins and Phil Anselmo, The Obsessed has been releasing milestone albums for decades on labels like Hellhound, Columbia and Relapse, with Wino himself playing and performing with members of Sleep, Neurosis, Foo Fighters, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath and more. Since their earliest days, The Obsessed accumulated dozens of demos, b-sides, covers and alternate recordings, many of which were issued in various limited releases and an early-2000s collection called Incarnate. Long out of print, Blues Funeral Recordings' new ultimate edition of The Obsessed 'Incarnate' is completely remastered, features the addition of 4 new tracks, and is packaged with all new artwork, photos, and extensive new liner notes with Wino himself telling stories behind each long-lost gem. Fully remastered, new tracks, new artwork, new photos, new liner notes! Press Quotes: 'The career of Wino is a rich and fabled one, and his tentacles of influence weave throughout the arenas of rock, punk and metal.' _Alternative Press 'Wino, what a fucking guitar player, and one of my favorite singers, nothing to prove, just soul-felt vocals.' _Phil Anselmo (Down, Pantera) 'Wino's music has always been so serious, that's the only thing he knows, and he's gonna do it whether or not he makes a million dollars or ten bucks... he means it.' _Pepper Keenan (Corrosion of Conformity) 2020 is the 40th anniversary of the formation of The Obsessed, one of the preeminent bands in the stoner/doom scene worldwide for nearly 40 years. Led by Scott ""Wino"" Weinrich, a heavy music lifer admired and acclaimed by the likes of Dave Grohl, Pepper Keenan, Henry Rollins and Phil Anselmo, The Obsessed has been releasing milestone albums for decades on labels like Hellhound, Columbia and Relapse, as well as Wino himself playing and performing in bands with members of Sleep, Neurosis, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath and more. Since The Obsessed's earliest days, the band accumulated dozens of b-sides, covers, alternate takes and demos, many of which were issued on a variety of compilations and an early-2000s collection called Incarnate. Long out of print, Blues Funeral Recordings' new ultimate edition of The Obsessed 'Incarnate' is completely remastered, features the addition of new tracks, and is packaged with all new artwork, photos, and all-new extensive liner notes written by Wino himself to tell the stories behind each long-lost gem.

180g limited edition on high-definition premium vinyl for super fidelity the great Nina Simone's style encompassed a broad range of musical genres ncluding jazz, blues, folk, R&B, gospel, pop, and classical music. This collection ompiles some of her best performances of jazz ballads and blues, the album's A ide programmed to feature the ballads, and the B side for the blues. mong the many highlights are her classic readings of the ballads 'I Loves You orgy', 'Little Girl Blue', and 'Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair', as well as lues such as 'Trouble in Mind', Billie Holiday's 'Fine and Mellow', and 'Nobody nows You When You're Down and Out'. s a bonus, one of Simone's biggest hits, 'My Baby Just Cares for Me', has been dded to this essential collection.

Synth pioneer and musical polymath, Wally Badarou is a genius. But you know that already. A vinyl version of his majestic Colors Of Silence has been craved by the Balearic cognoscenti ever since its low-key 2001 release. Indeed, when we first started work on Be With, we asked some pals with exquisite taste what their dream release would be. We asked Balearic legend Moonboots and, without hesitation, he said Colors Of Silence by Wally Badarou. We didn't know Wally had made this album. And most still don't. But that's about to change.

Colors Of Silence is ostensibly a new age album. As ever though, Wally's sophisticated synth textures and expressive keyboard runs are so full of character, so full of life, that this work of art transcends any easy genre categorisation. It's simply stunning, throughout. It sounds like A.r.t. Wilson or Suzanne Kraft, with traces of CFCF and Jonny Nash. But it was made a good decade earlier than the work of these modern giants. Sometimes, it doesn't seem far from some Larry Heard albums.

Island Records founder Chris Blackwell's friend Nathalie Delon asked Wally to provide music for the yoga DVD she was to release. Lack of time on both sides made them agree on using "quality demos" Wally had in his ideas bank. It's understandable why Colors Of Silence remains somewhat of a lost gem. As Wally explains: "Total lack of promotion made it an 'intimate' release, which was exactly what I was looking for: just a buzz-maker and time-buyer that would allow me to concentrate on the real thing as soon as I'd have time, which could also turn into a rare collecting item later, once the final versions made their way to success. You never know."

Over the years, Colors Of Silence has become a true cult record for the ambient/Balearic heads.

The beguiling but brief "Dance In The Dust" is the shuffling, hyper-percussive, hypnotic opener. It gives way to the deep serenity of "Amber Whispers". It's a gliding, divine, mini melodic masterpiece. It'll make you swoon in its extreme beauty. The bright and breezy "Where Were We" follows, a tropical, reggae-tinged bounce through the islands.

The uptempo groove is maintained on the keys-drizzled soca-funk of "The Lights Of Kinshasa" before Side A is rounded out with "Pictures Of You". It starts with stately, melancholic, unadorned piano and this alone would make for a beautiful song. But Wally always gives us that bit extra and he effortlessly introduces warm, dreamy pads and minimal, slo-mo percussion to augment a frankly stunning piece of work.

Ushering in Side B, Wally's mesmeric piano playing is to the fore again, in the intro to uber-chilled "Serendipity For Two". The playing becomes more mellifluous as the track progresses and adds warmth through exotic percussion, woodwind, sweeping synths and digi-drums. It has echoes of, er, Echoes. It segues seamlessly into the more propulsive, wavy "Smiles By The Millions". If you're not nodding and grinning along widely to the gently throbbing bassline underpinning this, we can't help you. The meditative "Higher Still" follows, cinematic in feel and ever so slightly sinister with the strings. It sounds particularly Badalamenti-esque, if you ask us.

That unmistakable, almost peculiar Badarou funk - so lyrical, so texturally rich and so rhythmically spacious - is all over "Oriental". Next up, "Days To Wonder" brings the serenity back, insistent yet melodic keys, as if played in a place of worship, coupled with birdsong, conjure a kind of instant nostalgia for halcyon days of youth. The contemplative "Dawn Of Europa" is a sombre, beatless, ambient journey whilst the glorious, too-brief "Crystal Falls" features soft percussion and sparkle before fully glistening with some gentle head-nod beats. Wally brings this incredible collection to a mellow, tender close with the graceful "Purple Lines".

There can be few artists more under-appreciated given their vast influence than Wally Badarou. His solo work practically defined the sound of the Balearic DJs of the 1980s, and thus the more sophisticated sound of dance culture thereafter. A synth specialist, Badarou was the long-time associate of Level 42. He was one of the Compass Point All Stars (with Sly and Robbie, Barry Reynolds, Mikey Chung and Uziah "Sticky" Thompson), the in-house recording team of Compass Point Studios responsible for a series of albums in the 1980s recorded by Grace Jones, Tom Tom Club, Mick Jagger, Black Uhuru, Gwen Guthrie, Jimmy Cliff and Gregory Isaacs. Badarou's keyboard playing could also be heard on albums by Robert Palmer, Marianne Faithfull, Herbie Hancock, M (Pop Muzik), Talking Heads, Manu Dibango and Miriam Makeba. He also produced Fela Kuti. Phew!

Meticulously remastered and cut by both Simon Francis and Cicely Balston respectively, it has been pressed to the highest possibly quality at Record Industry in Holland. Special thanks must go to Apiento from Test Pressing who first introduced us to Wally and facilitated all those early zoom meetings. It couldn't have happened without his help. Not least on pulling the art together, too, which features striking original photography by Mads Perch. Benji Roebuck of Roebuck Press did his thing brilliantly in art working the whole package to completion. All in all: essential.

To celebrate the 10th Anniversary of Major Arcana, Speedy Ortiz will release a remastered edition, on Carpark Records.

On their debut full-length, Western Massachusetts' Speedy Ortiz manages a bit of magic by conjuring the spirits of classic American indie rock, while twisting those ghosts into new shapes. It's easy to hear the influences of Helium, Jawbox, and Chavez on this album, as well as nods to their contemporaries including Grass is Green, Pile, and Roomrunner. Sweet vocal harmonies run up against gnarly distortion, aided by basic, chunky bass parts and heavy, fill-laden drums.

The album was recorded in a few days in November at Justin Pizzoferrato's (Dinosaur Jr., Chelsea Light Moving) studio, Sonelab, a huge space in an old factory in Easthampton, Mass. The sessions went from very early in the day until very late at night, with the band taking its time to experiment. Pizzoferrato's collection of old distortion pedals were utilized on both the record's guitars and vocals.

The theme of the occult and the supernatural runs deep through Major Arcana, inspired by singer-guitarist Sadie Dupuis' reading on black magic. Dupuis' sometimes knotty and abstract lyrics bring to mind fellow wordsmith Stephen Malkmus, while referencing horror film tropes, chemistry, and neuroscience. Major Arcana's literal translation is 'major mysteries,' a phrase from tarot cards. 'I don't write in a narrative way and am more concerned with use of language than meaning,' Dupuis says, 'so I like the open-endedness of the title and the way it invites interpretation.'

After too much time freelance writing and watching re-runs in a windowless Brooklyn basement, guitarist and songwriter Sadie Dupuis left New York City for the wilds of Northampton, MA in order to pursue a master's degree in poetry. In doing so, she began Speedy Ortiz, a self-recorded lo-fi project named after a minor character from the Love and Rockets comic series. Speedy Ortiz soon became something else entirely as bassist Darl Ferm, guitarist Matt Robidoux, and drummer Mike Falcone teamed up to form a full band, balancing abrasive noise with infectious earworms. The newly minted Speedy Ortiz quickly found an audience in the Boston DIY scene, playing frequently with their friends Pile, Grass is Green, Fat History Month, Sneeze, Krill, and Arvid Noe.

Almost immediately, the band recorded a two-song single, 'Taylor Swift' and 'Swim Fan,' with Paul Q. Kolderie (Pixies, Hole) and Justin Pizzoferrato (Chelsea Light Moving, Dinosaur Jr.), and self-released it in March of 2012. Shortly thereafter they spent a few weekends at the dingy yet atmospheric Sex Dungeon Studios in Philadelphia recording the Sports EP, a five-track, loosely conceptual 10' released that June on Exploding in Sound Records.

The creation of Major Arcana, their full-length debut, marks the evolution of Speedy Ortiz into a wholly collaborative effort. Darl leans toward basic, chunky parts, while Mike, a talented songwriter in his own right, helped arrange while also providing aggressive, boisterous drums. And Matt is a classically trained guitarist, but his experience in noise and experimental music comes through in his anti-melodic guitar solos, which counterbalance Sadie's angular, scalar guitar riffs and poppy vocals.

The end result is a band able to distill their influences and creative impulses into something at once dissonant and melodic, noisy yet undeniably pop.

When Kronos plays a piece, they become fellow composers, true collaborators. Without them, we wouldn’t have the kind of string quartet playing that we find around us today. There are two kinds of string quartet playing: the ‘Before Kronos’ and the ‘After Kronos’.” – Philip Glass

‘Kronos Quartet has broken the boundaries of what string quartets can do.’ – New York Times

Nonesuch releases Kronos Quartet’s acclaimed album Kronos Quartet Performs Philip Glass on vinyl for the first time to coincide with Kronos Quartet: Five Decades, a year-long celebration marking the quartet’s 50th anniversary. Originally released in 1995, the album features David Harrington (violin), John Sherba, (violin), Hank Dutt (viola) and Joan Jeanrenaud (cello) performing Quartet No. 2 (Company) (1983), No. 3 (Mishima) (1985), No. 4 (Buczak) (1990), and No. 5 (1991), the first piece Glass wrote especially for Kronos. Recorded at Skywalker Sound in California, the album was produced by Judith Sherman, Kurt Munkacsi and Philip Glass. The cover art features Francesco Clemente’s painting The Four Corners (1985). At the time of the album’s release, the New York Times said, ‘It contains some of Glass's best music since Koyaanisqatsi. His ear for sumptuous string sonorities is undeniable,’ while the Washington Post called it ‘An ideal combination of composer and performers.’ It was a top 10 hit on Billboard’s Top Classical Albums, and spent 12 weeks on Billboard’s Classical chart.



In his original liner note, critic Mark Swed wrote, ‘Glass’ string quartets may contain his most intimate music. They are works through which a very public composer, perhaps the most important opera reformer of our age and a longstanding collaborator in large-scale music theater, holds up a mirror to himself and his way of composing. “In an odd way,” Glass explains, “string quartets have always functioned like that for composers. I don’t really know why, but it’s almost impossible to get away from it. It’s the way composers of the past have thought and that’s no less true for me. It’s almost as if we say we’re going to write a string quartet, we take a deep breath, and we wade in to try to write the most serious, significant piece that we can.” Glass says that as he sat down to write String Quartet No. 5, he had discovered that perhaps not taking a serious tone might be the most serious way to deal with it. “I was thinking that I had really gone beyond the need to write a serious string quartet and that I could write a quartet that is about musicality, which in a certain way is the most serious subject.”’



Glass’ first numbered quartet was written in 1966; however, he did not return to the string quartet medium until 1983, when he provided incidental music for a dramatization of Samuel Beckett’s prose poem, Company. During those 17 years, Glass had formed an ensemble and developed his style in a series of increasingly elaborate pieces for it. String Quartet No. 3 is also adapted to dramatic music, this time from his score to the 1985 Paul Schrader film, Mishima. It was with the music of Mishima that Kronos became associated with Glass, recording the string quartet sections of the soundtrack and subsequently working extensively with the composer on all five of his numbered quartets. Kronos also gave the first concert performances of Company and Mishima. String Quartet No. 4 was composed in remembrance of the artist Brian Buczak, who died of AIDS in 1988.



As Kronos’ anniversary season continues with further concerts around the world, Nonesuch will reissue Black Angels on vinyl on February 16. First released in 1990, the award-winning album includes George Crumb’s title piece, which inspired David Harrington to found the quartet. Called ‘an unusually elevated and searing Vietnam War protest’ by the New York Times, it sets a dark, powerful tone for this collection, which addresses the political/physical/spiritual consequences of war. Also featured are works by Charles Ives, István Márta, Thomas Tallis, and Dmitri Shostakovich. ‘Stylishly packaged, intelligently programmed, superbly recorded and brilliantly performed,’ proclaimed Gramophone. ‘In short, very much the sort of disc we’ve come to expect from the talented and imaginative Kronos Quartet.’ The Evening Standard included it among its ‘100 Definitive Classical Albums of the 20th Century’.



Born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1937, Philip Glass is a graduate of the University of Chicago and the Juilliard School. By 1974, he had created a large collection of music for The Philip Glass Ensemble. The period culminated in the landmark opera, Einstein on the Beach. Since Einstein, Glass’s repertoire has grown to include music for opera, dance, theatre, orchestra, and film. His scores have received Academy Award nominations (including Kundun and The Hours, as well as Notes on a Scandal) and a Golden Globe (The Truman Show). Recent works include his memoir, Words Without Music, his first Piano Sonata, opera Circus Days and Nights, and Symphony No. 14. Glass received the Praemium Imperiale in 2012, the US National Medal of the Arts from President Barack Obama in 2016, and 41st Kennedy Center Honors in 2018.



Nonesuch’s relationship with Glass began in 1985, with the release of the score for Paul Schrader’s Mishima featuring Kronos Quartet. Over the years other Glass works on Nonesuch have included Einstein on the Beach (1993), Kronos Quartet Performs Philip Glass (1995), Music in Twelve Parts (1996), Glass Box (2008), as well as the soundtracks for Powaqqatsi (1988), Kundun (1997), Koyaanisqatsi (1998), and The Hours (2002), amongst others.



For 50 years, San Francisco’s Kronos Quartet – David Harrington (violin), John Sherba (violin), Hank Dutt (viola), and Paul Wiancko (cello) – has challenged and reimagined what a string quartet can be. Founded at a time when the form was largely centred on long-established, Western European traditions, Kronos has been at the forefront of revolutionizing the string quartet into a living art form that responds to the people and issues of our time. In the process, Kronos has become one of the most celebrated and influential groups of our era, performing thousands of concerts worldwide, releasing more than 70 recordings of extraordinary breadth and creativity, and collaborating with many of the world’s most accomplished composers and performers. Through its nonprofit organization, Kronos Performing Arts Association, Kronos has commissioned more than 1,000 works and arrangements for string quartet – including the Kronos Fifty for the Future library of free, educational repertoire. Kronos has received more than 40 awards, including three Grammy Awards and the Polar Music, Avery Fisher, and Edison Klassiek Oeuvre Prizes.



Kronos is prolific and wide-ranging on recordings. The ensemble’s expansive discography on Nonesuch includes three Grammy-winning albums: Terry Riley’s Sun Rings (2019), Landfall with Laurie Anderson (2018), and Alban Berg’s Lyric Suite featuring soprano Dawn Upshaw (2003); the 40th-anniversary boxed set Kronos Explorer Series; Nuevo (2002), a Grammy- and Latin Grammy–nominated celebration of Mexican culture; Pieces of Africa (1992), a showcase of African-born composers that simultaneously topped Billboard’s Classical and World Music charts; and Folk Songs (2017), Nonesuch’s 50th album with Kronos, which featured Sam Amidon, Olivia Chaney, Rhiannon Giddens, and Natalie Merchant singing traditional folk songs.

Repress! With all due respect to New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Miami, the epicenter of the rap universe in 2016 just may be Chicago. With young stars ranging from Chief Keef to Chance The Rapper to Lil Bibby to Vic Mensa, the Windy City continues to push the boundaries of hip-hop music and culture.

The latest artist to emerge from this hotbed of talent is Mick Jenkins, a gifted lyricist who has built a strong buzz online with a series of acclaimed mixtapes. Now, one of those collections will be available in physical format for the first time ever, with a limited-edition vinyl pressing of “The Waters” set to hit stores soon. Originally released online in late 2014, “The Water

Take the 101 north out of Los Angeles, and you'll pass by Agoura Hills, where the core duo of the band Dub Thompson grew up. Whatever you see in that town won't readily prepare you for the music they wrote while there, but you're free to look."Most everyone who's in a group who's our age lives on the Internet," says guitarist Matt Pulos. "The kinds of things that have shaped our band aren't anchored to any one time or place."Pulos and his bandmate, drummer Evan Laffer, are currently both 19 years old, and are putting that line of thought to the test; their musical influences travel from the Midwestern malaise of Big Black and Pere Ubu, to Kraut pioneers Can and Kraftwerk, while bowing to the British belligerence of The Fall and This Heat.Recording the album while living with Foxygen's Jonathan Rado at his rented house in Bloomington, the band had its first taste of a heavy Indiana summer, and all the humidity and insect life that buzzes along with it. "We woke up every day, ate hard-boiled eggs and stood on a porch," says Pulos of the experience.Their first collection of songs slyly unties the shoes of genre and convention, shapeshifts mischievously, and tramples on the promises delivered on the name itself.There are only eight songs on this rangy debut.Intense blasts of hook-filled noise rock ("Hayward!"), rocksteady marionette stomp ("No Time"), hypnotic bouts of doomy poetics ("Epicondyles"), outlandishly sexy groove rock ("Dograces"), and a number of other bite-sized forays into parts unknown are made manifest across 9 Songs. The vibes are strong here. Pulos sings and plays like he's working out long-standing grudges, pulling the most sinewy tones from an acoustic guitar and ripping huge chunks of demon flesh out of his electric. Laffer matches him step for step on the drums, an exacting presence behind the kit who pushes even the band's more placid moments into bouts of tension. Together they succeed in animating their musical ideas to startling, almost unnatural life. Reverb units, keyboards, samples and processing gluing everything together, saturated in the August heat and worn in until they sound second nature, it's like somehow you've been listening to these songs forever.

The words "Wolde Senayet" are scrawled in silver ink across a black-and-white image of Peter Tosh on the cover of Best Of 1978 - 1987. these words are an honorific Rastafarian title meaning "Son of Thunder", which does this collection justice. The 14-track compilation is seamless in their quality and are more than representative of Tosh's vision - one that has been adopted and reworked in all sorts of reggae subgenres since his death.

Listen to classics like "Bush Doctor," "Mystic Man," "Oh Bumbo Klaat," "The Day the Dollar Die," and ofcourse the single version of "(You Gotta Walk And) Don't Look Back" with Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger.

Best Of 1978 - 1987 is available on vinyl for the first time as a limited edition of 2000 individually numbered copies on silver coloured vinyl. This 2LP is housed in a gatefold sleeve, including a 4-page photo booklet.

The Beatles 1962 – 1966 & The Beatles 1967 – 1970 (2023 Edition) 6LP BLACK

These landmark compilations have introduced generations of fans to the incredible history of the most storied band in music. For its 50th anniversary, the collections have been expanded: ‘Red’ has 12 additional tracks, including for the first time some of George Harrison’s earliest songs and some classic Beatles versions of R&B and rock ‘n’ roll hits that were so influential on the band. ‘Blue’ has 9 additional tracks including “Blackbird” and “Glass Onion” including the last new Beatles song, “Now And Then” for a total of 21 new additions which are all compiled onto the 3rd disc, effectively creating a ‘new’ LP for each set.

Together the 6LP’s contain 75 tracks, 36 of which have new mixes for 2023. The inserts contains new sleeve notes by journalist and author John Harris. For current fans and future generations alike, the new 1962 – 1966 & 1967 - 1970 collections are a joyous celebration of The Beatles’ timeless musical legacy.

In the 1950s and 60s, the blues was the dominant form of Black vernacular music throughout Texas and the surrounding areas In segregated neighborhoods, community members gathered in saloons, dancehalls, and each other's homes to hear their neighbors sing their stories of sorrow, heartbreak, jubilation, and triumph. Robert "Mack" McCormick, an academically untrained but fanatical devotee of the blues, stepped into this world and became one of its most devout advocates and documentarians. By photographing Black and Latino Texans and their neighborhoods, as well as recording and interviewing musicians, many of whom never stepped foot into a proper recording studio, McCormick endeared and eventually embedded himself into these communities. By the time he died in 2015, McCormick had amassed a collection of 590 reels of sound recordings and 165 boxes of manuscripts, original interviews and research notes, thousands of photographs and negatives, playbills, and posters. Because McCormick never published or released most of these materials, his collection became a thing of legend and intense speculation among scholars, blues aficionados, and musicians alike. 'Playing for the Man at the Door..' is the first compilation of music drawn from this fabled collection, which indelibly documents a pivotal moment in African American history. It features never- before- heard performances not only from musicians who became icons in their own right, including Lightnin' Hopkins and Mance Lipscomb, but also, crucially, performers whose names may be unfamiliar to even the most devoted blues fans and scholars. Newly mastered recordings and accompanying photographs bring to life many of these forgotten figures: offering insight into their lives and illuminating in new, enlightening ways their joys and anguish, deep social connections, distinctive voices, and cultural networks. The collection spans gospel, ragtime, country blues dirges, the unclassifiable music of George "Bongo Joe" Coleman, and more, showing that no community, no matter how tight knit, is monolithic. Accompanying the music is a 128- page book, which contains breathtaking photographs by McCormick and his associates, as well as contextual essays by producers Jeff Place and John Troutman on McCormick's life, and by musicians Mark Puryear and Dom Flemons on some of the marginalized communities throughout "Greater Texas" to which McCormick devoted his life's work.

Demon Records is proud to present ‘Produced by Tony Visconti’, a new definitive retrospective compilation assembled with the assistance of legendary record producer Tony Visconti.
“This boxset covers five and a half decades of my efforts in the art of making iconic recordings. Some of it is familiar and some will have a eureka moment, ‘I didn’t know Visconti produced that one!’
I am honoured that Demon Records took on this enormous task.”
– Tony Visconti

Often described as one of the most important
producers in rock, Tony Visconti has helped create
countless classic musical moments. His work can be
heard on celebrated albums by artists such as T. Rex,
Procol Harum, The Moody Blues and Thin Lizzy to
name but a few.
• This new collection features 30 tracks personally
curated by Visconti, gathering together some of his
favourite production work from across his career.
• Includes tracks by T. Rex, Sparks, Thin Lizzy, U2,
Dexys Midnight Runners, Gentle Giant, The
Boomtown Rats, Manic Street Preachers, The Good,
The Bad & The Queen, and many more.
• Pressed on 2 x 140g LPs, mastered by Phil Kinrade at
AIR Mastering, approved by Tony Visconti. Artwork
designed by Grammy-winning creative studio
Barnbrook.
• Includes a 12-page booklet with previously unseen
photographs, and extensive track-by-track liner
notes by Mojo writer Mark Paytress based on new
interviews with Tony Visconti.

























x 5. U2 – A Sort Of Homecoming Live

You are about to embark on a new intergalactic journey into black space, fuelled by funk, powered by computers. Soul Jazz Records" new second collection of twisted hyperspace electro/funk "Space Funk 2: Afro Futurist Electro Funk in Space 1976-84", continues its intergalactic journey.

Featuring rare and off-the-wall space funk and electro rarities and obscurities, all released on small independent USA record labels in the late 1970s and 1980s. Artists on this release include Alien Starr, Bobby Demo, Maggatron, Mid-City Crew, Tribe, Junie, Rich Cason and the Galactic Orchestra and many more intergalactic space warriors! This is space age bionic funk, programmed to make you dance!!!

If the name of this collection of traxxx offends you, move on — there’s no hope for you here. If, on the other hand, Toribio’s salacious fun-pun cracked your cool exterior, here’s an introduction to a set of bangers that helps exemplify New York’s increasingly exuberant dancefloor, and what producer/DJ Cesar Toribio brings to it. His is a ribald, rhythmic take on dance music, neither for the weak of musical character (purists need not apply) nor for the weak of ass (-shaking). In fact, the proof is right there, in Toribio’s label’s and monthly party’s name: Bring Dat Ass. This command is not optional, but *the* key ingredient for a good time.

The five songs Toribio has created for “Tongue In Cheeks,” BDA’s first release, comprise a horny melting pot of tribal house and Linn-drum plug-ins, minimalist synth textures and basslines, hi-hats reminiscent of electro and freestyle classics, some of which are infused with New York’s Latin club history and futures. The lead-off track, “No Pare,” is based on the producer’s 808-driven reinvention of the call-and-response hook from Proyecto Uno’s 1993 merengue-house smash “El Tiburón,” marking the first time the group has ever cleared a sample of this Nuyodominican classic. We predict that “No Pare” will be a Fall 2023 monster.

Guest vocal appearances by The Illustrious Blacks and Maluca, cornerstones of different dance-floor scenes in a city currently hitting peak-energy levels, show the breadth of Toribio’s regard for community: There is a lot of crossover to how the punky Dominicana MC from Washington Heights chooses to slang-tastically “Werk It Out,” and how the Neo-Afro-Futuristic-Psychedelic-Surrealistic-Hippys Monstah Black and Manchildblack infuse a dollop of booty into “Work Dat Shit.” And the two different metallic beats point at seemingly separate parts of Toribio’s musical heritage uniting. There’s no formula, but if there was, it would be: Make it sexy. Make it (consensually) grindy. Make it funny to the point of ridiculous but so funky that the laughter becomes more fuel to the joyous momentum propelling the movement. Then make it home — or try to.

Cesar Toribio’s home is, originally Tampa — and the DR, where he’d spend summers with family. He was a drum-corps prodigy who went to Berklee to become a jazz drummer and be like Gil Evans. He idolized Miles’ orchestral arranger’s work as much as Dilla’s beats, but then discovered house music, so it was a wrap. The 2021 band album Toribio made under the name Conclave — which included his sister Sharin and musicians from such great projects as Standing On the Corner, No Regular Play and Irreversible Entanglements — unearthed the work of a singer-songwriter-arranger-producer of immeasurably nuanced, soulful jazz-house music. But when Toribio started DJing more and more, he decided to listen to the devil on his shoulder who told him to Bring Dat Ass. As Cesar damn-well knows, it’s the devil who has the better jokes and holds the better parties, so his ears perked up. “Tongue in Cheeks” is the music Toribio says he made to play at these parties, because he can’t find it anywhere else. It’s hard to disagree.

Dan Auerbach’s debut solo album, Keep It Hid, returns to physical formats, with the seminal 2009 collection being reissued on vinyl and CD via Easy Eye Sound - the label that Keep It Hid first inspired him to create. The fourteen-song debut marked Auerbach’s first major work outside of The Black Keys, helping to establish his multifaceted career as a Grammy®-winning producer, mentor to emerging talent and founder of Easy Eye Sound, which is now Billboard’s reigning Blues Label Of The Year. Keep It Hid was originally recorded by Auerbach as he was building his first home studio in Akron, Ohio - a precursor to his Easy Eye Sound Studio in Nashville, where Auerbach now records and produces most of the label’s current releases. Inspired by trips to many of his all-time favorite rooms - from Suma Recording in Cleveland to Robin Hood in Texas to Toe Rag in London - Auerbach discovered a passion for studio work that remains at the center of his musical world nearly fifteen years on. Also tapping into his love of record-collecting and crate-digging more than ever before, Keep It Hid was inspired by forgotten 60s psych rock, obscure British power-pop, bluegrass family bands and even the lyricism of his own father, Chuck Auerbach (Dan would go onto produce Chuck’s debut album, Remember Me, in 2018). The album was hailed as “intimate and thrilling” by NPR’s Fresh Air upon its original release, with reviewer Ken Tucker adding it “sounds like a clearing of the throat and mind.”

You are about to embark on a new intergalactic journey into black space, fuelled by funk, powered by computers. Soul Jazz Records" new second collection of twisted hyperspace electro/funk "Space Funk 2: Afro Futurist Electro Funk in Space 1976-84", continues its intergalactic journey. Featuring rare and off-the-wall space funk and electro rarities and obscurities, all released on small independent USA record labels in the late 1970s and 1980s. Artists on this release include Alien Starr, Bobby Demo, Maggatron, Mid-City Crew, Tribe, Junie, Rich Cason and the Galactic Orchestra and many more intergalactic space warriors! This is space age bionic funk, programmed to make you dance!!!

ENG 180 grm classic black vinyl, 2023 repress. At the risk of further labouring a rather obvious point, with Thank God for Mental Illness, their third collection of absolutely stunning music in 1996, the Brian Jonestown Massacre parallels the prolific and effortless brilliance of the Rolling Stones at their fevered late-1960s peak; the sheer scope of their achievements is stunning - rarely are bands quite so productive, or quite so consistently amazing. Thank God is the BJM's down-and-dirty country-blues outing, all 12-odd tracks supposedly recorded on a single July day at a cost of just $17.36 The Brian Jonestown Massacre is a psychedelic rock band originally from San Francisco, California, led by guitarist/singer Anton Newcombe. Since 1995 The Brian Jonestown Massacre has released numerous albums, first for Bomp! Records, the label which gave them their start, and later for TVT and Tee Pee. BJM has been essential in the development of the modern U.S. garage scene, and many LA and SF musicians got their start playing with Newcombe, including Peter Hayes of The Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Originally Newcombe was heavily influenced by The Rolling Stones' psychedelic phase - the name comes from Stones guitarist Brian Jones combined with a reference to cult leader Jim Jones, but his work in the 2000s has expanded into aesthetic dimensions approximating the UK Shoegazing genre of the 1990s and incorporating influences from world music, especially Middle Eastern and Brazilian music.

"To kick off the yearlong celebration and provide the perfect summer soundtrack, Capitol Records and UMe will release a newly remastered and expanded edition of The Beach Boys career-spanning greatest hits collection, Sounds Of Summer: The Very Best Of The Beach Boys, on June 17. Originally released in 2003, the album soared to no. 16 in the US and stayed on the chart for 104 weeks. Now certified 4x platinum for sales of nearly four and a half million albums, the collection has been updated in both number of songs and audio quality, expanding the original 30-track best of with 50 more of the band’s most beloved songs for a total of 80 tracks that span their earliest hits to deeper fan-favorite cuts and from their 1962 debut album, Surfin’ Safari through to 1989’s Still Cruisin’.
Assembled by Mark Linett and Alan Boyd, the team behind 2013's GRAMMY® Award-winning SMiLE Sessions and last year’s acclaimed boxed set, Feel Flows – The Sunflower and Surf's Up Sessions 1969-1971, Sounds Of Summer features nearly every US Top 40 hit of The Beach Boys’ incredible career, including “California Girls,” “I Get Around,” “Surfer Girl,” “Surfin’ U.S.A.,” “Fun, Fun, Fun,” “God Only Knows,” “Good Vibrations,” “Be True To Your School,” “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” “Kokomo,” “Barbara Ann,” “Help Me, Rhonda,” “In My Room,” and many others. Fifty additional tracks showcase a broad mix of songs from across their wide-ranging catalog with some of the many highlights including “All Summer Long,” “Disney Girls,” “Forever,” “Feel Flows,” “Friends,” “Roll Plymouth Rock,” “Sail on Sailor,” “Surf’s Up,” and “Wind Chimes.”
The collection boasts 24 new mixes including two first-time stereo mixes, plus 22 new-and-improved stereo mixes, which in some cases feature the latest in digital stereo extraction technology, allowing for the team to separate the original mono backing tracks for the first time.
The expanded edition of Sounds Of Summer will be available in a variety of formats, including a 3CD softpack, and as a Super Deluxe Edition 6LP vinyl boxed set on 180-gram black vinyl in two options – a standard set or a numbered, limited edition version featuring a rainbow foil slipcase and four collectible lithographs. Both versions will feature color printed sleeves that replicate the original “Capitol Catalog” sleeves that highlight the entire Beach Boys discography, and all formats will include a booklet with new liner notes and updated photos. The original 30-track version will also be available in its newly remastered and upgraded form on single CD or double gatefold LP on standard weight vinyl or as a higher-end limited edition numbered version pressed on 180-gram vinyl with a tip-on jacket and a lithograph. "

PAURA explores the horror repertoire from the precious CAM Sugar archives taking us on a hypnotic journey into the labyrinths of fear, through the different variations that Italian horror took on from the esoteric and supernatural to the slasher films of the early 1970s; to reinterpretations of Romantic literature and gothic fiction to the splatter films of the ‘80s; and from witchcraft to metropolitan horror. This is not a real “best of” but an eclectic menu full of mysterious voices, childlike lullabies, sweet melodies, obsessive music boxes, obstinate harpsichords, crazy distortions and threatening synthesizers, conceived as a succession of sequences, as if a film edit. The new collection includes some of the most creative music ever written and strives to do justice not only to some of the best known composers in this genre, but also to many great unsung composers: From celebrated composers like Ennio Morricone, Riz Ortolani & Stelvio Cipriani to long-forgotten personalities who fed the industrial backbone of Italian cinema such as Daniele Patucchi, Marcelo Giombini & Berto Pisano. The collection includes 6 previously unreleased tracks plus 3 tracks released on vinyl for the first time and 5 tracks available commercially for the first time (originally released only as a limited promo item).

The Endless Coloured Ways is a collection of songs by legendary singer/ songwriter, Nick Drake, performed and recorded by over 30 incredible artists from a range of different backgrounds, genres, age groups and audiences From Fontaines D.C. to Guy Garvey, Aurora to Feist, and Self-Esteem to David Gray, each artist has offered their own incredible take on a timeless classic "Nick Drake was not that concerned with promoting himself as an artist but I think he would have been overjoyed to hear his art promoted by so many vibrant and talented artists such as the ones we approached. Each track is an example of a fellow artist adopting Nick's art as if it was their own, submitting to the song, and the results prove to me that talent can so often win out over mere skill or 'personality'. We are honoured and so grateful to all our friends, old and new, who took part in the making of this set." - Cally Calloman, Bryter Music "Having initially exchanged a list of our favourite artists and realised how much our tastes overlapped, Cally and I set out on this venture with one simple brief - to ask the artists to ignore the original recording of Nick's in terms of arrangement, production and singing style; basically, we were asking them to reinvent the song. First of all, it was humbling to hear so many similar responses, saying how important Nick's music was to them, and how much they wanted to be part of this project. But as the results came in one by one, we were staggered by the brilliance and invention that each artist had shown. They had done what we asked - they had made the song their own." - Jeremy Lascelles, Chrysalis Records

The Endless Coloured Ways is a collection of songs by legendary singer/ songwriter, Nick Drake, performed and recorded by over 30 incredible artists from a range of different backgrounds, genres, age groups and audiences From Fontaines D.C. to Guy Garvey, Aurora to Feist, and Self-Esteem to David Gray, each artist has offered their own incredible take on a timeless classic "Nick Drake was not that concerned with promoting himself as an artist but I think he would have been overjoyed to hear his art promoted by so many vibrant and talented artists such as the ones we approached. Each track is an example of a fellow artist adopting Nick's art as if it was their own, submitting to the song, and the results prove to me that talent can so often win out over mere skill or 'personality'. We are honoured and so grateful to all our friends, old and new, who took part in the making of this set." - Cally Calloman, Bryter Music "Having initially exchanged a list of our favourite artists and realised how much our tastes overlapped, Cally and I set out on this venture with one simple brief - to ask the artists to ignore the original recording of Nick's in terms of arrangement, production and singing style; basically, we were asking them to reinvent the song. First of all, it was humbling to hear so many similar responses, saying how important Nick's music was to them, and how much they wanted to be part of this project. But as the results came in one by one, we were staggered by the brilliance and invention that each artist had shown. They had done what we asked - they had made the song their own." - Jeremy Lascelles, Chrysalis Records

Published in 1989 in the "Weekly Shônen Magazine", "Hajime no Ippo" by George Morikawa has become over the years a cult sports manga, and remains to this day one of the longest river series, still being published, counting more than 130 volumes.

It is only natural that an animated version was born in 2000, produced by Madhouse, under the name of “Hajime no Ippo: The Fighting! of 76 episodes (covering the first thirty volumes of the series). This narrates the beginnings and the rise of a high school student, Ippo Makunouchi, in the world of professional boxing. Find now a selection of the best anime music with rock and jazz accents with the final destination: The ring! Three composers worked for this selection: Tsuneo IMAHORI (TRIGUN and GUNGRAVE), Hideki TANIUCHI (in collaboration with Yoshihisa HIRANO on DEATH NOTE) and Naoya MORI.

Marc Richter aka Black To Comm released his debut record 20 years ago. In 2023 he is still busy releasing music under various disguises and is currently signed to the Thrill Jockey label. To celebrate this anniversary his own Cellule 75 label is re-releasing some classic out-of-print vinyl albums that originally came out on the defunct Type and De Stijl labels. The LP will feature a full-colour printed inner sleeve exclusive to this edition.

In 2009 the Type Recordings label run by John Twells had just released seminal records by Grouper, Jóhann Jóhannsson and Yellow Swans when they signed Richter and put out his breakthrough Alphabet 1968 album. The LP sold out within two weeks, receiving a glowing full-page review in The Wire Magazine by the late Mark Fisher (later reprinted in his book Ghosts Of My Life), was selected for Boomkat's Top 10 releases of the year (alongside debut albums by Leyland Kirby, Demdike Stare and Oneohtrix Point Never) and was greeted with universal praise in the underground blog network as well as established magazines such as The New Yorker and Pitchfork.

The music itself played with the notion of nostalgia without being nostalgic itself. It's the sound of half-remembered dreams, a surreal distorted vision of the past, an aural polaroid of long forgotten musics, a ghostly voice from a non-existent era.

From the original Type one-sheet:
"The mission statement for Alphabet 1968 was to write an album of "songs" for want of a better word. Short tracks which represented genre points, the milestones which stuck in Richter's mind when he thought back to his favorite records. What we arrive at is a breathtaking 10-track album which, over the course of 45 minutes, explores world music, techno, noise, avant-garde, ambient music and even exotica. Each track is linked with a loose thread of radio static or environmental sound, dragging you through the album, as if tuning in to a stray broadcast or a particularly adventurous mix. Richter has pieced the album together from hours of recordings made at his studio with home made gamelan, small instruments and loops gathered from a collection of ancient vinyl and 78 records. The scope of the album is admirable, but ignoring this, it is simply a shockingly arresting collection of experimental oddities, with references ranging from Moondog to Basic Channel by way of Bernard Herrmann. It's not hard to fall in love with Alphabet 1968, far harder would be to place exactly where the record should fit into your collection."

Mark Fisher in The Wire:
"But what if we were to take Richter's provocation seriously - what would a song without a singer be like? What would it be like, that is to say, if objects themselves could sing? It’s a question that connects fairy tales with cybernetics, and listening to Alphabet 1968, I’m reminded of a filmic space in which magic and mechanism meet: JF Sebastian’s apartment in Blade Runner. The tracks on the LP are crafted with the same minute attention to detail that the genetic designer and toymaker brought to his miniature automata, with their bizarre mixture of the clockwork and the computerised, the antique and the ultramodern, the playful and the sinister. Richter’s musical pieces have been built from similarly heterogeneous materials - record crackle, shortwave radio, glockenspiels, all manner of samples, mostly of acoustic instruments. ….. JF Sebastian's apartment was itself an update of older spaces in which science and sorcery co-existed: the workshops of ETA Hoffmann's inventor-magicians, or of Pinocchio's creator, Geppetto. I think, too, of Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam's astonishing 1886 tale The Future Eve in which Edison, using the expertise he has recently acquired from inventing the phonograph, sets himself the task of constructing an artificial woman. But if there are songs here, they are sung by the gramophone and other recording and playback machines. Richter so successfully effaces himself as author that it is as if he has snuck into a room and recorded the objects as they played (to) themselves. Rather than simply automating his music, as in the case of Pierre Bastien and his mechanical machines, Richter makes us feel that he has merely recorded the unlife of objects. ….. Indeed, the impression of things winding down is persistent on Alphabet 1968. Entropy has not been excluded from Richter's enchanted soundworld. It feels as if the magic is always about to wear off, that the enchanted objects will slip back into the inanimate again at any moment."

From Alehouse to Playhouse Bjarte Eike and his barnstorming Barokksolistene capture the vital spark of Restoration London’s entertainment scene with a captivating new recording for Rubicon Classics! The Playhouse Sessions will be released on 23 September 2022 to coincide with Barokksolistene’s concert double-bill at London’s Southbank Centre.

‘A smattering of Purcell, dances from Playford’s Dancing Master, shanties, reels and ballads succumb to a nine-piece ensemble drawing on Baroque, jazz and folk styles for a no holds barred hooley of riotous improvisatory give and take,’ (BBC Music Magazine review of The Alehouse Sessions, August 2019)

London’s musicians, pushed in the 1650s, to the margins of society by order of Oliver Cromwell, found room for new forms of entertainment in city-centre taverns and alehouses. They remained there long after the restoration of the monarchy, performing sets of dances, theatre songs and bawdy ballads to audiences glad to be free from Puritan constraints on pleasure.

Norwegian violinist Bjarte Eike and his Barokksolistene have restored the spirit and substance of those long-forgotten performances with their Alehouse Sessions, hailed by The Times as ‘irresistible’ and ‘fabulously unrestrained’ by The Guardian. Five years ago the Norwegian violinist and his band scored a best-selling album with The Alehouse Sessions on Rubicon Classics. They return to the label with another compelling collection of music and words of the kind on offer more than three centuries ago at Henry Purcell’s favourite Westminster watering holes. The Playhouse Sessions, set for release on Rubicon Classics on 23 September 2022, reflects the uplifting energy and engaging emotional contrasts of Barokksolistene’s Alehouse performances.

“The album contains a sort of inner narrative that runs through the recording,” says Bjarte Eike. “It has become like a play in its own right, with each track being a small tale within a larger story.” The recording’s tracklist includes Eike’s beguiling arrangements of music from Purcell’s semi-opera The Fairy Queen and his own original compositions on words from the play on which it is based, Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream; popular songs and ballads such as ‘The Irish Washerwoman’, ‘I often for my Jenny strove’ and ‘The Three Ravens’; tunes from Purcell’s welcome odes and stage shows, Come ye sons of art and Dido and Aeneas among them; the ‘Willow Song’ from Shakespeare’s Othello; Eike’s own voice in Puck’s monologue from Act 5 of A Midsummer Night’s Dream; and John Dowland’s sublime air ‘Can she excuse my wrongs’.

London’s theatres were closed at the start of the English Civil War in 1642 and remained shut until the Restoration. Alehouses offered redundant musicians, actors and dancers a place to scrape a precarious living and soon became their creative refuge. “Although a few surviving theatres reopened in 1660 with the return of Charles II, there was little money around to rebuild those that had been demolished,” observes Bjarte Eike. “And a generation of musicians had already found an audience in places like the Black Horse in Aldersgate Street. So popular were their alehouse sessions that Cromwell tried to abolish them! But they outlived him and became part of Restoration musical life.” The form of a Barokksolistene Alehouse, he adds, is like a creative room. “Within its framework I can frequently refurbish the show with new contents. The Playhouse project is likewise an extension of the ever-evolving Alehouse Sessions. Together they tell the story of music and theatre in London during Cromwell’s time and after the Restoration. Of course there’s an historical context to what we do. But there’s also the practical context – which is even more important to me – of connecting with a contemporary twenty-first century audience. An Alehouse / Playhouse performance is not something for the museum; it's about music made in the present moment, just as it was in the London alehouses of Purcell’s day -- with their playhouses annexed to the rear of the beer-drinking saloons. The encounter of musicians onstage and the audience in the hall is the real magic of it. We have to fuse the audience into the action of our performance!”

The Playhouse Sessions will be launched on Friday 23 September with a late-night concert at the Purcell Room and a post-concert Alehouse Session in the foyer of the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Soprano Mary Bevan is set to join Eike and his Alehouse Boys for the first half of their Southbank Centre double-bill, offering unique interpretations of songs from Purcell shows and other hits from the late seventeenth-century London stage. “The Southbank Centre is a direct descendant of concerts given in the 1650s in the alehouses of London,” notes Eike. “These alehouses after all staged some of the world’s first public concerts. Later, after the Restoration, it became common for promoters to advertise alehouse concerts in the press and offer subscription tickets. Purcell and his fellow musicians were thus just as at home performing there as they were in the chambers of the royal court or in London’s new theatres.”

Bjarte Eike launched his Alehouse Sessions in company with like-minded musicians 15 years ago. The ensemble comprises a core of regular performers, all of whom have committed to memory a huge setlist of up to four hours of music. Typically they meet a day or so before a concert tour to share a meal and make music together; then next day, re-grouping thirty minutes before the show, they discover Eike’s select-menu for the evening. “That ensures that every show is fresh,” he notes. “I make sure we never repeat the same programme twice. It’s therefore essential to work with people who share my outlook and dare to adventure. We’re into a high-risk sport, with lots of traps and places where the unexpected appears - for good or for ill. And so the audience knows we’re vulnerable. But our skill is seen in how we re-act on the hoof to the unpredictable. That’s authenticity and honesty - and above all it’s a performance that’s genuine.”

Armed with a classical training and a background in folk music and improvisation, Bjarte Eike was drawn naturally to Early Music in all its stylistic variety. “I never really felt at home with only one genre,” he recalls. “Early Music allowed me to study profound, complicated compositions, but performing it has also opened up the chance of rebellion and uproar! Early music offers wide, multi-faceted areas of musical exploration for me. You find, for instance, links to different types of music wherever you look in seventeenth-century English repertoire. And I am fascinated by all these connections. They offer a foundation for the Alehouse Sessions and for all Barokksolistene performance more generally. Every member of the group plays, sings, dances and improvises without limitation. We’re all interested in the many different fields of being a stage performer and pushing hard at the ‘normal’ boundaries of what it means to be a classical musician.”

A wild and funky collection of Afro grooves that was ahead of its time in 1977 and has become a collector’s item in recent years, especially due to the growing international interest in Colombian picó sound system culture. Fruko and his studio bands Wganda Kenya and Kammpala Grupo treat us to a diverse set of African and Caribbean styles, laced with crazy synths, psychedelic guitar and infectious pan-African polyrhythms. By the time Discos Fuentes released the album “Wganda Kenya Kammpala Grupo” in 1977, Wganda Kenya’s discography was expanding with many 45 singles and appearances in various artists collections. The group’s 1975 debut record “África 5.000” was a full length LP in the U.S. and a various artists compilation in Colombia, which was followed by the self-titled long player the following year. However, Kammpala Grupo, which shared the album’s title and was credited to three songs on the record, had never appeared before, yet was basically the same studio group as Wganda Kenya. Most likely the creation of this short-lived studio band was just a ploy by the label to make it seem like there were more groups playing the type of exotic afro tracks favored by the picotero DJs of Colombia’s Caribbean coast (especially in Barranquilla and Cartagena). 1974 Discos Fuentes’ management had sent musician, band leader and producer Julio Ernesto “Fruko” Estrada to the coast on an A&R mission to discover what people were dancing to in the verbenas (communal open air neighborhood parties) run by the owners of picó sound systems (decorated mobile DJ rigs). Always game for an adventure, Fruko was tasked with bringing some popular examples of these esoteric, hard-to-find African, French and Dutch Antillean records back to Medellín to serve as inspiration (or to outright copy) so that the label could enter into the growing regional market and spread its popularity to the interior of Colombia and other Latin American countries via its own studio creation, Wganda Kenya. Fuentes was always returning to exploit the rich African-rooted culture of the coast as it had with the cumbia and other regional genres before, so in a way it was not surprising that they were attuned to this particular niche phenomenon from a marginalized sector of the population. The most popular genres with the champeta dancers in the 70’s and 80’s were styles like Congolese rumba, highlife, afrobeat, juju, mbaqanga and soukous as well as the music of Haiti, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Curaçao and Dominica, all of which were fiercely guarded by the DJs who had managed to acquire them often through extreme means of travel, barter and intense digging. The record kicks off with the joyful ‘El Gallo Africano’ which features exquisite interplay between Sepúlveda’s highlife style guitar and an authentic-sounding African style saxophone, perhaps played by Carlos Piña. In reality it was ‘Go Call Police Chief’ by prolific Nigerian highlife guitarist Chief Oliver Sunday Akanite, aka Oliver De Coque. Next up is Kammpala Grupo’s ‘La Yuca Rayá’ (‘Grated Yuca’), written by Isaac Villanueva in a style he termed son haitiano which sounds much more like Zimbabwe Shona mbira music. Wganda Kenya’s ‘Caimito’ (star apple, a type of tropical fruit), on the other hand, is actually a cover of a relatively well-known Haitian merengue song. Kammpala Grupo then takes us from the French Antilles to the multi-cultural discotheques of Paris, where a cover version of Black Soul’s Afro-boogie anthem ‘Black Soul Music’ is retooled and renamed ‘King Kong’, perhaps in a nod to the 1976 remake of the monster flick of the same name. Side two introduces us to the infectious merengue rebita of Angola via ‘La riphyta’ with “Paparí”, aka Mariano Sepúlveda, doing the vocals and faithfully replicating the Angolan guitar style. ‘La Trompeta Loca’ (‘The Crazy Trumpet’), probably the nuttiest track on the album, is an ingenious cover of ‘Ye Gbawa Oo Baba (Tribute To Nigeria)’ by Joe Mensah of Ghana. As with all their covers of African tunes, this rendition tightens up the original with some pop sheen, more consistent drumming and higher production values, remaking it into a powerful slow-burning dance floor filler. This is followed by one of the most powerfully original songs to come out of the entire Wganda Kenya project, Mike Char’s reggae anthem ‘El Nativo’ with Joe Arroyo on vocals. The record ends on a more authentically Caribbean sounding note with the instrumental ‘El testamento’, a cheerful islands banger with bright brass, syncopated calypso beats and chunky cuatro guitar (or ukulele). The original was in the mento genre and titled ‘Sweet meat’, written and recorded by Jamaican trumpeter Bobby Ellis. First time reissue. 180g vinyl.

First Ever Vinyl Reissue (released in collaboration with the Numero Group)

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

Little is known about the mythical band ‘Heart-Soul & Inspiration’ and their band leader, L.A. drummer and producer Vince Howard…The crooning Howard got his start in 1957 on Herb Newman’s Era label where he released a bunch of excellent Doo Wop, Funk & Soul singles. Over the ensuing decade Howard slowly began piecing together his “Orchestra” consisting of bassist Jimmy Soul, guitarist Ron Carr, and pianist John True.

Howard’s Heart-Soul & Inspiration Orchestra cut their self-titled (and only) album in 1974 for John Spriggs’ Los Angeles-based Viscojon concern under the watchful eye of R&B godfather Johnny Otis.

The result was the birth of an astonishing piece of art filled with playful sexy moans, climaxing grooves and soulful hooks. One of the many highlights on the album (and clocking in at an epic eleven minutes), Vince Howard’s “I’m Gonna Love You More” is a tantric reimagining of Barry White’s 1973 sexually charged classic. Where White was content delivering a subtle and syrupy innuendo, Howard transformed the break-heavy track into a meandering funk workout.

Sadly, after their Barry White/Isaac Hayes facsimile LP failed to gain traction, the group released their final recordings—“Funk on Down” b/w “Fallen Angel”—for Viscojon in 1975 which became a hit among prominent DJ’s in the nightclub circuit. This ushered in the end for Howard’s Heart-Soul & Inspiration project.

Heart-Soul & Inspiration was a true example of a bright light burning out way too quickly. Thankfully we are left with the unique (and very rare) document that is their self-titled album. Almost impossible to get ahold of…a well-deserved reissue has been long overdue. This is an album that deserves a prominent place in every serious Funk & Soul enthusiast’s record collection!

Orpheu the Wizard has a magic touch at finding records that fall between the gaps in music - oddities, curios, the weird, the wonderful. But that's just half the trick. It takes a sensitive and selective ear to construct a coherent, accessible narrative from them. So you get DJs who can play for the crowd and "selectors" adept at mining the black gold. In Orpheu, you've got yourself someone who can do both. On a festival main stage, he can keep it weird enough for the heads. In an audiophile setting, he'll keep the flow.

These skill sets come into play on the fifth The Sound of Love International compilation. Jumping between genres, decades, continents, the truly rare, and many B-side cuts that passed you by. But never eclecticism for its own sake; this collection makes sense. Orpheu never loses sight of the listener - he's a friendly and knowledgeable guide to the cosmic outer reaches.

He opens his account with the warm, psychedelic electronics of Drawing Future Life, with ‘1969’. Tucked away on the B-side of an LP of ambient/trance hailing from Fukuoka, this is a very pretty piece of music on a truly rare piece of wax. Then, leapfrogging a couple of decades and timezones, we have Rutuu Poiss' "IHATSIN." Off-kilter, experimental sounds with an endearing melodic hook, followed up by the with lethargic ambient breakbeat of Digital Distortion's "Mellow Bug".

On the B-side, things start to get lively. French Audacity featuring Valerie's "That Fine One" is Gallic garage that has simultaneously got it hugely wrong and mas­sively right. Owing as much to new wave as New York house, this is propulsive and quirky dance music at its finest. Next, we're on a ferry over the channel for DJ Spike and "Gaps In Space." Up-tempo electro with a fondness for sampled vocal cut-ups, like its predecessor.

lnterdance's "Kurz" (another B-side) is the perfect segway - house from 1990 with that sweet, slightly goofy naivete. Things move toward the gnarly with Bad Behaviour and "Living on Smoke," a lesser-known cut on the legendary Atmosphere records. The tempo edges upward on "Systematic Input" by Frequency, hectic hardcore techno that still retains a lightness of touch.

"Lushes" by Diffusion spins us off into space, filigree techno with an emotive trance edge. The chiming intro of "Blue to Be Happy" by MFA lulls us into a sense of false security before massively putting the boot in with a pounding kick drum, bassline, and arpeggiation. From there, it's a sharp left turn into the urban psychedelic dub of R.I.P's "E.O Pan" on cult label Digi Dub.

Sticking with UK sound system music but taking it down a notch, Orpheu closes proceedings with a leftfield reggae excursion from the master of the mixing desk, Mad Professor’s"Oh Hell".

It's a compilation as varied as the many moods and grooves of Love International itself - from sun-dappled olive groves to moments deep in the strobes. This is serious music for party freaks or party music for serious freaks. Tisno is calling.

Factory Benelux presents a limited edition 180gm vinyl singles collection by Marcel King, best known for his sparkling 1984 dance single ‘Reach For Love’ on Factory Records, as well as the youthful vocalist on ‘SadSweet Dreamer’ by Sweet Sensation, a UK number one back in 1974 Limited to just 1000 copies, Reach For Love: Singles 1983-88 features both sides of the infectious electro single co-produced by Bernard Sumner (New Order) and Donald Johnson (A Certain Ratio) and released as Fac 92 in April 1984, as well as a previously unreleased demo for ‘Love To Shine’, the planned follow-up single on Factory produced by Tony Henry of 52nd Street. (NON-RETURNABLE).

The album also features ‘Hollywood Nights’, a later single cut by Marcel with Gee Bello of Light of the World, along with a rare US remix of ‘Reach For Love’ by noted New York DJ Mark Kamins, and extended dub and instrumental versions.

King was invited to record for Factory in 1983 by Joy Division/New Order manager Rob Gretton, a devotee of soul and black music, and prime mover behind the famous Hacienda nightclub. ‘Rob was a massive fan of Marcel and thought he was as good a singer as Michael Jackson,’ explains Tony Henry. Not just a gifted and
plaintive soul singer, King also wrote both sides of his Factory single, ‘Reach For Love’ and ‘Keep On Dancin’, both paeans to perseverance and enduring Hacienda classics.
A classic video clip for the single, filmed at The Hacienda with local breakdancing crews, is available in.

Alas ‘Reach For Love’ was destined to remain an underground hit rather than a chart topper. Rob Gretton blamed Factory’s disdain for conventional promotion. ‘At Factory we still basically believe that you don’t have to hype a group in any way, and that a record should success on its own. But it’s getting increasingly difficult.
We put a record out by Marcel King and it’s hardly sold at all. The charts are wide open to hyping and marketing.’

Adds Bernard Sumner: ‘Marcel was an incredibly talented guy, but a tragic figure. He used to sleep in a car in Moss Side and was a bad heroin addict.’ A troubled but pioneering artist, Marcel sadly passed away in 1995 after suffering a brain haemorrhage.
1000 copies only of FBN 47 will be available on Record Store Day on 22 April 2023, pressed on 180gm black vinyl. The sleeve is based on original artwork for the Factory single and also includes a press interview with Marcel from 1984.

Ultramarine are an English electronic music duo, formed in 1989 by Ian Cooper and Paul Hammond.

Cooper and Hammond first worked together in the band A Primary Industry during the mid-1980s. Following the split of that band, they formed Ultramarine and released their debut album 'Folk' in April 1990 on seminal Belgian label Les Disques du Crépuscule. The duo found critical acclaim with their second long player, 'Every Man And Woman Is A Star', initially released in 1991. Over the next decade or so, they recorded two John Peel sessions, collaborated with Robert Wyatt, toured the States with Orbital, then Europe with Björk. After a hiatus, they began recording again in Ian's home studio, overlooking the Blackwater Estuary in Essex.

The moods and movements of this English estuary can be heard running through the duo's stunning and deeply intriguing new album 'Send and Return'.

Flowing and mutating as it transitions from an Essex river into the open sea, the Blackwater Estuary, north of London, inspired this beguiling collection of hypnotic jazz, itching electronica and softly dazzling ambient shapes.

For the 6-track album, Paul and Ian hired a Thames sailing barge moored on the estuary for one day and recorded below deck in the ship's downstairs wooden saloon; the idea was originally inspired by seeing Robin Williamson of The Incredible String Band perform on a similar barge.

The duo were joined by jazz musician Greg Heath and accomplished percussionist Ric Elsworth for the day, who added stunning saxophones, alto flute, percussion and vibraphone to the mix. It's a contemplative, ambient record with gentle jazz inflections and softly pulsing electronica.

Demon Records presents a new collection of 23 classic alternative anthems, brought
together on vinyl for the first time, exploring a golden era for American guitar music

Across the two 140g vinyl, highlights include tracks such as - Sonic Youth ‘Teen Age Riot’, R.E.M. ‘The One I Love’, Soundgarden ‘Black Hole Sun’, Pixies ‘Debaser’, The Flaming Lips ‘She Don’t Use Jelly’, and many more huge tracks.

Pressed on two 140g vinyl, housed in printed inner sleeves.

An essential collection for any alternative music fan!

When Leon Michels and El Michels Affair released their fi­rst record, Sounding Out The City, in 2005, it was hard to guess what was next for Michels and his then-introduced, now-patented “cinematic soul” sound. Now, four EMA studio albums and scores of tribute and remix projects later all while producing for some of the biggest names in the industry Michels has trademarked his sound, with each project taking audiences somewhere new and pushing the boundaries of what he is known for. The man is a river, not a lake and this time he takes his golden touch into the realm of hip-hop laying down a musical bed for one of the greatest to ever rhyme into a microphone: Black Thought of The Roots crew.

Releasing on Big Crown Records, the LP is called Glorious Game and it is a remarkable debut partnership in more ways than one. Michels provides his bottom-heavy, soul-tinged production for Black Thought who gives us some of the more personal and transparent verses we've ever heard from him. Michels and Black Thought have been in each other's orbit for a while now. The two fi­rst met in the 2000s when Thought was fi­rst getting familiar with the contemporary soul scene. "Out of that whole world, Menahan Street Band was probably my favorite," recalling the funk and soul group Michels was a founding member of back in 2007. Fast forward a few years and musicians from that collective Dave Guy on trumpet and Ian Hendrickson-Smith on sax are now full time players with The Roots. This connection eventually led Leon and Thought to doing a few fundraising events around NYC and Philly together. "Before long, Black Thought was coming around the studio and would jam with us from time to time," Michels explains. "Then, fast forward to 2020 and COVID lockdowns, he just hit me up out of the blue, wanting me to send him stuff to write to. We both were looking to stay busy."

Being that Black Thought is the co-founder and emcee for, hands down, the best live-band group in hip-hop. Michels took a decidedly different approach to this project and instead of sending recorded tracks of live compositions, he pulled out the sampler and sampled himself and some records from his collection. "I'm a big fan of soul music," as if Michels has to remind us. "And part of hip-hop's appeal to me has always been the sample-based production".

For Glorious Game, Michels would make wholly composed and recorded soul songs in his studio, sample himself, then chop and/or loop up his sounds and create instrumentals for Black Thought. On some tracks he took a more traditional hip-hop approach, starting from samples of other people’s music but then adding live instrumentation on top. But for the most part, it's him reinterpreting his own compositions into something new.

The result is an organic feel of loop-based tracks that breathe and fluctuate enough for Black Thought to ‑ex on. "What I write about is determined by the equation of the producer's energy and my energy," Black Thought says. "It's about where we meet." So armed with Michels sampled and re-sampled soul cinematics, Black Thought rhymes through personal memories and distinctive.

When Leon Michels and El Michels Affair released their rst record, Sounding Out The City, in 2005, it was hard to guess what was next for Michels and his then-introduced, now-patented "cinematic soul" sound. Now, four EMA studio albums and scores of tribute and remix projects later - all while producing for some of the biggest names in the industry - Michels has trademarked his sound, with each project taking audiences somewhere new and pushing the boundaries of what he is known for. The man is a river, not a lake and this time he takes his golden touch into the realm of hip-hop laying down a musical bed for one of the greatest to ever rhyme into a microphone: Black Thought of The Roots crew. Releasing on Big Crown Records, the LP is called Glorious Game and it is a remarkable debut partnership in more ways than one. Michels provides his bottom-heavy, soul-tinged production for Black Thought who gives us some of the more personal and transparent verses we've ever heard from him. Michels and Black Thought have been in each other's orbit for a while now. The two first met in the 2000s when Thought was first getting familiar with the contemporary soul scene. "Out of that whole world, Menahan Street Band was probably my favorite," recalling the funk and soul group Michels was a founding member of back in 2007. Fast forward a few years and musicians from that collective - Dave Guy on trumpet and Ian Hendrickson-Smith on sax - are now full time players with The Roots. This connection eventually led Leon and Thought to doing a few fundraising events around NYC and Philly together. "Before long, Black Thought was coming around the studio and would jam with us from time to time," Michels explains. "Then, fast forward to 2020 and COVID lockdowns, he just hit me up out of the blue, wanting me to send him stuff to write to. We both were looking to stay busy" Being that Black Thought is the co-founder and emcee for, hands down, the best live-band group in hip-hop. Michels took a decidedly different approach to this project and instead of sending recorded tracks of live compositions, he pulled out the sampler and sampled himself and some records from his collection. "I'm a big fan of soul music," as if Michels has to remind us. "And part of hip-hop's appeal to me has always been the sample-based production" For Glorious Game, Michels would make wholly composed and recorded soul songs in his studio, sample himself, then chop and/or loop up his sounds and create instrumentals for Black Thought. On some tracks he took a more traditional hip-hop approach, starting from samples of other people's music but then adding live instrumentation on top. But for the most part, it's him reinterpreting his own compositions into something new. The result is an organic feel of loop-based tracks that breathe and uctuate enough for Black Thought to ex on. "What I write about is determined by the equation of the producer's energy and my energy," Black Thought says. "It's about where we meet." So armed with Michels sampled and re-sampled soul cinematics, Black Thought rhymes through personal memories.