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To celebrate the 20-year anniversary of our label Jamaican Recordings and to mark the sad one year passing of the musical maestro reggae producer Bunny `Striker’ Lee, we have pulled together a brand new collection of some great Bunny Lee rhythms.

Our label started way back with initial meetings with Bunny Lee and a promise to keep his music available, out on the streets. He will be sorely missed but will live on through his extraordinary musical legacy and we hope to add to this by including this release to the stable of an unbeatable catalogue.

Legendary record producer Bunny `Striker’ Lee’s vast selection of rhythms were ever present at any Sound Clash or Dance worth talking about in the early to mid-1970’s.
Where the version found on the b-side of a single or special dub cut on acetates, would be played to win over the people and conquer the dance. Bunny Lee was the undisputed rhythm master and on this special release he is also the MC telling the crowd how it is and that any rival sound system should watch out as he has the rhythms that can reign supreme. The band cutting these timeless rhythms were a group of top Jamaican musicians Bunny had put together called The Aggrovators.

The Aggrovators were a group of reggae musicians that usually featured Carlton `Santa’ Davis on drums playing alongside Robbie Shakespeare on bass, with other musicians added like Earl `Chinna’ Smith on guitar and Tommy McCook and Vin Gordon and Lennox Brown added for horn arrangements. Keyboards and organ duties normally fell
to musicians Ansel Collins and Bernard ‘Touter’ Harvey. The band was named after singer Eddie Grant had repeated the phrase to Bunny Lee on one of his many trips to England, that such and such artist was giving him `Aggro’. This was a term used in England in the 1970’s by the Skinhead followers of reggae music. A term shortened
from the word `Aggrovation’, meaning trouble, fighting or making the situation worse. Bunny Lee was so taken with this term that on returning to Jamaica, not only did he name his group of musicians the `Aggrovators’ but he also named his record shop situated at 101 Orange Street `Agro Records’.

We have compiled some great tracks recorded by this fantastic group of musicians. With the added extra magic of Mr Bunny Lee calling it out as only he can on the microphone.
Yes Run Sound Boy Run the version master is here…Respect

First Word Records is extremely proud to welcome back Kaidi Tatham, with a brand new 12-track album entitled 'Don't Rush The Process'.

This is Kaidi's 4th solo album under his own name, following on from 'An Insight To All Minds' (2021), 'It's A World Before You' (2018), and 'In Search Of Hope' (re-pressed in 2020), all released on First Word, along with several EPs from 2017 onwards.

To bring you up to speed, Kaidi Tatham is a legendary multi-instrumentalist born in the Midlands and based in Belfast. Once dubbed "the UK's Herbie Hancock" by Benji B, he's a virtuoso on the keys and a true innovator in sound production as one of the original creators of the Broken Beat sound. Over the years his musical prowess has blessed numerous projects, recently with the likes of DJ Jazzy Jeff, Andrew Ashong and with longtime accomplice, Dego. This in addition to session and remix work for artists such as Mulatu Astatke, Slum Village, Marcos Valle, Amy Winehouse, Soul II Soul, Nubya Garcia, Rosie Frater-Taylor and Leroy Burgess, along with First Word label mates Eric Lau, Children of Zeus, Allysha Joy and Darkhouse Family. Kaidi is also a revered DJ known for rocking parties globally, whilst his solo catalogue spans tons of EPs and releases for labels such as Dego's 2000 Black, Alex Nut's Eglo Records and Theo Parrish's Sound Signature.

This new album 'Don't Rush The Process' opens with an intro of sweet strings on 'Mystery Solved', ahead of lead title track, which is on a mid-tempo boom bap vibe, before switching to a more uptempo boogie vein, with the assistance of The Easy Access Orchestra, who also appear on 'We Chillin' Out', which is on a similar boogie tip. 'All I Need' is some gospel flavoured hip hop, whilst 'Knocknee Donkey' steps things up in a jazz-funk fashion. The second half of the album takes on a very Brazilian flavoured stance, with a set of delicious latin flavoured grooves on 'Any Flavour', 'Runnin' Tru', 'What A Dream' and 'Sooretama', the latter featuring the additional prowess of pianist Robert Mitchell. There's a touch more of the hip hop beats thrown in via 'Funky Fool' and the album closes out in inimitable Kaidi style with a short message: 'Mind Yourself'.

A hugely prolific artist, here he adds to an already impressive catalogue, a body of work that falls within the cracks of jazz and dance music, exemplifying modern British black brilliance; uncompromising, innovative, groundbreaking, intricately sophisticated and deeply funky. His fanbase expands on every release and it's no surprise that that fanbase includes a diverse set of peers such as Madlib ("ahead of his time"), Gilles Peterson ("a key part of an entire movement"), K15 ("a limitless source of inspiration") and Kyle Hall.

'Don't Rush The Process' is released on vinyl & digital worldwide, July 2022 via First Word Records.

Redux, an ambient-folk album from Portland, Oregon musician, poet, and multimedia artist Dao Strom, is a collection of nine resurrected pieces. Reimagining songs she initially composed as a member of the Austin, Texas alt-country and singer-songwriter scenes of the early 2000s, Strom reworks these lost songs into ambient-folk mini-epics—part grounded and earthly, part ethereal and otherworldly. Drawing on an intimate yet spacious palette of folk, ambient, and experimental textures, woven through with a poetics of vulnerability and quiet emotion, Redux explores song as gently reverberant fields of layered vocals over finger-picked guitars with touches of electronics and sampling. Strom’s musical journey initially began in a roots and acoustic vein, simultaneously with her career as a fiction writer. In the years since, she has moved from Austin, Texas to Juneau, Alaska to Portland, Oregon; her work too has expanded across genres into more experimental formats of poetry, music, and multidisciplinary art. In returning to these earlier songs, Strom reclaims and revives them, exploring her relationships to time, voice, and the continuances of emotion and memory. The word redux means “brought back; revived”; a sense of something restored—earlier renditions of some of the Redux songs were recorded with Austin-based collaborators and producers; some songs were written in that time period but never recorded. Produced, performed, and recorded by Strom alone in her home studio, Redux is a return and reemergence of the artist to her own most personal, intuitive structures and atmospheres of voice, sound, and song. Released on cassette by Antiquated Future Records, and reissued on vinyl in 2026 by Disasters By Choice.

Dao Strom is an artist who works with three “voices”—written, sung, visual—to explore hybridity and contemplate the intersection of personal and collective histories. Her music releases move between “song-poem” cycles and ambient-folk albums. She is the author/composer of several hybrid projects that blend poetry, music, and visual art into unique multimodal experiences, including Tender Revolutions/Yellow Songs, a song-cycle with set of four chapbooks, jointly released by Beacon Sound, Antiquated Future Records, and The 3rd Thing Press (2025), and Instrument/Traveler’s Ode, a poetry-art collection and song-cycle released by Fonograf Editions and Antiquated Future Records (2020). Born in Vietnam and based in Portland, Oregon, Strom began her musical journey in the early 2000s, when she first began infusing into the context of “Americana” folk/roots music her own diasporic Vietnamese experience and stories. Her music has since moved in more experimental directions, resisting easy categorization, yet still maintaining tendrils of folk ethos. She also writes songs about the ineffable nuances of emotion, memory, and connection, as captured on the album, Redux, which gathers songs from across her songwriting years into an ambient-folk setting, self-produced and recorded by Strom, released on cassette in 2022 by Antiquated Future Records, and reissued on vinyl in 2026 by Disasters By Choice. As a multidisciplinary artist, Strom has presented performance and installations at venues such as the Time Based Art Festival (Portland Institute for Contemporary Art) and Moving Poets Novilla in Berlin, Germany, and has received awards from the Creative Capital Foundation, Spark Artist Award, and others. Strom is also a founding member of She Who Has No Master(s), a collective of Vietnamese women writers and artists making polyvocal poetry-art works as a means of reaching across borders.

In 2025, we celebrate 30 years Out Of Line - Three decades of chaos, passion and 0 Years in - Still defiant, still evolving…2026 marks the 30th Anniversary of Massive Ego, and the release of a brand new album: “Symphony Of Flies” is revealed on May 8th, 2026 and marks the band’s first ever vinyl release. Available as Digipak CD and Limited Red Vinyl. Symphony Of Flies is a powerful, defining statement in Massive Ego’s long and uncompromising career, marking not only the band’s 30th anniversary, but also a moment of reckoning, survival and renewal. Across ten tracks, Massive Ego transform personal collapse, recovery and resistance into one of their darkest, most personal and emotional works to date. Musically, the album moves effortlessly between darkwave, electronic rock, EBM, glam-infused bombast and confrontational pop, pairing club-ready intensity with deeply introspective lyricism. Singles such as “In Your Own Darkness”, “Hit The Kerb Running”, “(My) Death Song”, “Man Become Monster”, and “Broken Tomorrow” showcase the band at their most fearless, culminating in a standout collaboration with Boy George, whose presence underscores the album’s themes of endurance, reinvention and personal growth. Lyrically, Symphony Of Flies reads like a confession and a journal. Frontman Marc Massive confronts mental health, betrayal, isolation, and the long climb back from the brink, reframing darkness not as something to romanticise, but something to fight through. The album’s central metaphor, the “Symphony Of Flies,” evokes surveillance, toxicity, decay and transformation: the unseen forces that drain, observe, and attempt to undermine, until they are finally confronted and dispersed. “The worst things that happen to you are the best things that happen to you”

VINDICATE, Black Veil Bride’s seventh album, casts a brilliant symbolic signal across the darkened skies. It’s a living will and testament to the band’s storied past, triumphant present, and unwritten future. VINDICATE harnesses the blend of grandeur and intimacy at the heart of the band’s melodic and metallic sound. Across timeless songs, VINDICATE conjures enduring archetypes, interwoven with themes of revolt and vengeance, and shades of John Milton’s epic 1677 poem Paradise Lost.

Guitarists Jake Pitts and Jinxx, drummer Christian Coma, bassist Lonny Eagleton, and frontman/vocalist Andy Biersack celebrated several milestones in recent years, including massive shows in London and Mexico City. “Bleeders” was a Top 10 hit at Active Rock radio and a several-month-long mainstay on YouTube’s Hard Rock & Metal chart (which tracks both current and catalog music videos) in 2024 and 2025.

VINDICATE is the first new Black Veil Brides full-length produced by Pitts and Biersack, exercising complete creative control while synthesizing the best of what they’ve learned from A-list producers. The album was mixed by Zakk Cervini (Bring Me The Horizon,
Evanescence, Bad Omens).

VINDICATE ushers in Black Veil Brides' most visceral, creative, thrilling, and uncompromising era yet, as the band continues to defy expectations and misconceptions held by casual onlookers. Black Veil Brides forever champions the isolated and the dismissed.
They’re an object of devotion and obsession for those who sing their anthems in unison, a diverse BVB Army that never surrenders.

VINDICATE, Black Veil Bride’s seventh album, casts a brilliant symbolic signal across the darkened skies. It’s a living will and testament to the band’s storied past, triumphant present, and unwritten future. VINDICATE harnesses the blend of grandeur and intimacy at the heart of the band’s melodic and metallic sound.
Across timeless songs, VINDICATE conjures enduring archetypes, interwoven with themes of revolt and vengeance, and shades of John Milton’s epic 1677 poem Paradise Lost.

Guitarists Jake Pitts and Jinxx, drummer Christian Coma, bassist Lonny Eagleton, and frontman/vocalist Andy Biersack celebrated several milestones in recent years, including massive shows in London and Mexico City. “Bleeders” was a Top 10 hit at Active Rock radio and a several-month-long mainstay on YouTube’s Hard Rock & Metal chart (which tracks both current and catalog music videos) in 2024 and 2025.

VINDICATE is the first new Black Veil Brides full-length produced by Pitts and Biersack, exercising complete creative control while synthesizing the best of what they’ve learned from A-list producers. The album was mixed by Zakk Cervini (Bring Me The Horizon, Evanescence, Bad Omens).

VINDICATE ushers in Black Veil Brides' most visceral, creative, thrilling, and uncompromising era yet, as the band continues to defy expectations and misconceptions held by casual onlookers. Black Veil Brides forever champions the isolated and the dismissed.

They’re an object of devotion and obsession for those who sing their anthems in unison, a diverse BVB Army that never surrenders.

The upcoming album is sharp, cohesive, and rooted in who she's always been. Growing up in North London, she absorbed the chaos and hooks of the indie sleaze scene, and now she channels that restless energy into songs that feel alive, pulsing like a sweaty gig in Camden or Shoreditch. It's classic girli alt-pop -- nostalgic, chaotic, and fearless, but sharpened with a bold new edge. girli has been teasing the new era since the end of 2025, sharing 'Better Undressed' and the powerful recent single 'Slap on the Wrist'. Known for her shimmering, highconcept production and fearless commentary, girli now pivots toward a more grounded, girl- next- door energy, trading gloss for grit, and polish for raw, intimate expression. Since emerging with her breakthrough sophomore album, 'Matriarchy', girli has carved a space in the alternative scene for bold, boundary-pushing storytelling. Her ability to merge pop essence with underground energy has earned her a tight- knit and dedicated fanbase.

SACRIVERSUM were formed in 1992 in Łódź (Poland), playing old school Death Metal with progressive elements and atmospheric sounds, making their complex mixture special and unique. Their debut album „The Shadow Of The Golden Fire“ was released in 1994, at a time when a lot of Death Metal bands started to push their boundaries and became more experimental. Their music was a perfect fit along with legendary bands like PESTILENCE, DEATH, GOREFEST & ATHEIST. And this counts for SACRIVERSUM and their upcoming new album „Before The Birth Of Light“ even more. „Before The Birth Of Light“ will be released on May 8th, by their new label FIREFLASH RECORDS (HOLY MOSES, WOLF, RUTHLESS a.o.) and is available on CD, limited vinyl and digital. The album stands for raw Death Metal, with those incomparable Hammond organs. Death meets Deep Purple. Their sound is a mixture of the above mentioned acts and is not too far apart from the latest BLOOD INCANTATION album. Both combine tradition with fiction. You have to hear and experience this Death Metal gem. Since 2022, SACRIVERSUM are back and continue, where they ended up with their debut album. Those nine new tracks on „Before The Birth Of Light“ are possibly the best songs SACRIVERSUM ever composed – once you got into it, they don’t let you go. It is a dark ride into another dimension, another time and another space. You are captured in their own world, in a time before the birth of light.

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of its release, Happening Songs, the debut album by Dionysos, is finally being issued on vinyl for the very first time.

Recorded in 1996, the record captures the early days of a band still in its rawest form, already driven by a singular stage energy and a boundless imagination. Entirely sung in English, Happening Songs unfolds a free and inventive sonic universe where indie rock, dark humor, and surreal visions intertwine. Tracks such as "Wet," "Polar Girl," and "Screamin' Like an Egg" sketch the foundations of a poetic, strange, and deeply endearing artistic world that would become Dionysos' signature.
Long regarded as a cult album, passed from stage to stage and through word of mouth, it now returns in a brand-new vinyl edition, faithful to its original spirit.
This anniversary release is presented by EGGMAN RECORDS, the label founded by Mathias Malzieu, giving new life to this foundational work and inviting listeners to rediscover the initial spark of a project that has since become essential.
Thirty years on, Happening Songs remains the opening chapter of a unique artistic journey: inhabited, unruly, and profoundly free rock.

In an age that demands hyper acceleration, kinetic flashes and byte voracity, Blak Saagan sticks out like a sore thumb with a sprawling body of work that requires attention and unlocks profound symbols and meaning with every passage. After a 5 year gap, the Venetian composer returns with his most personal and openly political statement yet, ‘Un Sequestro Lungo 10.000 Anni’, a staggering 108 minute triple album soundtracking a dystopian city through flashes of futuristic fourth world visions, warehouse 80s rave-ups, meditative trance and dark rumblings. Following his acclaimed ‘Se Ci Fosse La Luce Sarebbe Bellissimo’ was never going to be an easy feat but Samuele Gottardello (Blak Saagan) approached the fresh canvas with a renewed sense of commitment sparking a dense parallel world inhabited by paranoia, control and repression. A world that is relieved by the figure of a woman with the body of a bird emerging from the asphalt and freeing humanity from the “sequestro” (kidnapping) to which it has long been subjected. Dystopia pushed to the limits and sadly close to our current affairs.

Resonant Duality is an album built around Kyouzon, the Japanese idea of coexistence, where duality and togetherness are always present. The tracks move between light and dark, soft and loud, tension and release, but always come back to a feeling of sharing the same space. So Takahashi, originally from Yokohama, Japan, is a multidisciplinary artist who studied visual communication in New York. Since the late 1990s, he has been active as a composer and performer within electronic music, noted for his minimalistic melodies, sample manipulation, and unique sense of composition. Having released nine releases since 1999, he has lived and worked in Oslo, Norway in recent years, where "Resonant Reality" marks his tenth release. Charles Lynch, born in Tours, France, began his musical journey with classical piano at an early age before expanding his studies to art, visual communication, and design in Paris. Under the artist name A Saner Lynch, he has released two classical music albums, blending his background in classical performance with a contemporary artistic sensibility. The two musicians met in Oslo, Norway, a decade ago. Their shared interests in both classical and electronic music led them to collaborate, merging their distinct backgrounds and creative visions. Together, they compose music that reflects their combined influences, bridging the worlds of classical tradition and electronic innovation.

Northern Electronics presents NE112, a collaborative work by Anthony Linell and Evigt Mörker, entitled ’Ett anständigt liv’.
Marking the first alignment between the two artists, the record unfolds as a study in continuity, pressure, and sustained focus. Across four pieces, a steady and tensile sonic language develops, immersive in its repetition and controlled in its ascent. Subtle psychedelic inflections — recalling early trance states — surface within a darker, more restrained framework. The result is neither nostalgic nor decorative, but reduced, deliberate, and directed forward.
All tracks written and produced by AL & KL in Sofia, Sweden, during the winter of 2024 Mixed and mastered by Giuseppe Tillieci at EnissLab, Rome

A wild animal with a kraut pop instinct, Chaton Laveur prowls the depths of minimalism in search of light, intoxicating melodies to make his prey. Raw and authentic, the duo always opts for the shortest route, lined with repetitive rhythms, analogue sounds and soft voices in French, which also reveal a darker side. After more than 70 dates in France, Germany, Benelux, and the UK, Chaton Laveur returns in early 2026 with a second album, Labyrinthe, a record for fans of kraut/pop sounds and intense emotions.

A wild animal with a kraut pop instinct, Chaton Laveur prowls the depths of minimalism in search of light, intoxicating melodies to make his prey. Raw and authentic, the duo always opts for the shortest route, lined with repetitive rhythms, analogue sounds and soft voices in French, which also reveal a darker side. After more than 70 dates in France, Germany, Benelux, and the UK, Chaton Laveur returns in early 2026 with a second album, Labyrinthe, a record for fans of kraut/pop sounds and intense emotions.

Budapest-based concept label, Blue Sun is launching their new line of vinyl focused releases, aimed primarily on DJs and collectors: the Blue Series. A counterpart to the Orange Series launched last year that showcases a more upbeat side of the label, the new collection presents a darker, more experimental, and introspective musical vision.

The first release in the Blue Series is a six-track EP by Budapest based multimedia artist, Virág Réti. Choosing her legal name as her artist persona (“Flower of the Meadow" in Hungarian) also with the track titles capturing the folk names of local fauna, Peremidő evokes the artist's innate connection to nature as a place of refuge from the noise of Eastern European urban life.

The EP’s motifs point back to early memories of sitting by a river, simply observing time flowing by. The arc of the songs follow the passage of a day, beginning with the hesitant sounds of early morning, gradually moving on toward more defined, rhythm-driven forms. As the airy textures slowly give way to structure and percussion comes to the forefront, the sense of direction becomes clearer, letting moments of gentle disorder and unexpected sounds to surface.

Virág previously appeared on the label’s Blue Sun VA II compilation with her track Bíbic. Since launching her ambient music project in the fall of 2024, she has become one of the promising newcomers in the Hungarian experimental electronic music scene. Her debut EP, Minden Ami Megmaradt (All That Remains), was released last November as the final offering of temporary nites label (2023–2025). She is also the founder and organizer of the Budapest-based experimental electronic event series Still Places.

Deaf Florists, the alias of Conor Wheeler, returns with a powerful new EP on trUst Recordings, the imprint founded by Saoirse. A key figure in the pre-social media UK techno and bass underground, Wheeler first made his mark in the early 2010s with his label Nineteen89, operating alongside the era that birthed influential collectives such as Night Slugs, Swamp81 and Hessle Audio.

After years spent navigating the industry—managing artists, overseeing A&R for major labels, and curating club nights at some of the UK’s most respected venues—Wheeler channels 17 years of deep listening and lived experience into Deaf Florists. The project moves fluidly between peak-time intensity and introspective depth, unbound by strict genre lines.

Lead track “Squelch, already a highly ID’d fixture in Saoirse’s DJ sets, is built around a corrosive acid line from a Roland TB-03, reinforced by a Behringer Crave counter bass and a pitched-down vocal command to “get down.” “Melt” detonates with industrial force, inspired by the chaos of a reactor in meltdown—earning Saoirse’s succinct verdict: “It’s a bomb.” Closing cut “Gunk” nods to the hypnotic repetition of Mr G, transforming a stripped-back DJ tool into a distorted techno workout primed for dark rooms.

In 2023, Wood secretly worked with producer Kevin Antreassian on a new mix of his top-selling release "The Normal Album." Digging into the original 2019 recordings for more muscular takes, smoother edits, and a more nuanced and balanced mix, Antreassian and Wood created a version of the fan favorite that is one of the rare cases where a new mix is widely considered to improve on the original noticeably. "The Normal Album" is yet another turn in Wood's discography, sardonically playing with Americana and doo-wop sounds, strategically restrained but still highly emotive vocals, and lyrics densely packed with scientific and philosophical references. The dark mania of Wood's prior 2016 release, "SELF-iSH," continues on some tracks but is arranged with greater precision with a new band at his command. Like his 2015 debut "Everything is a Lot," the songs whiplash tonally but are brought together through intertwined themes and recurrent musical motifs and an undercurrent of simultaneous obtuseness and vulnerability. After the original mix of "The Normal Album" was released, a live version of the 4th track on the LP, "I/Me/Myself," had an unexpected viral moment, which brought attention to many other songs on the LP. Songs like "2econd 2ight 2eer" and "Laplace's Angel" continued to attract new fans with their dense wordplay and high-energy attitude, and the album became Wood's first major break into larger notoriety, proving that his sudden burst of popularity was not just a fleeting trend. After taking some time away from the public, Wood began to revisit the album with the intent of giving it the production that he had originally envisioned for it. Wood's top-selling album re-edited for a fuller sound and clearer instrumentation, bringing the album to a new level: new Modern Stereo Mix - 2023 Edit

Firstly, there is also a new special limited-edition one-off pressing edition orange-pressed CD enclosed in jewel case and slipcase. 18 years on from its original release Studio One Dub remains super-hard hitting featuring classic + rare Dub tracks from Studio One, many available on vinyl for the first time in over thirty years.

Studio One Dub includes the dubs of many classic tracks such as Horace Andy’s “Skylarkin”, Johnny Osbourne’s “Truth and Rights”, John Holt’s “Hooligan”, Freddie McGregor’s “Bobby Bobylon” plus many more rare tracks.

The album also comes with two rare interviews - one with Clement 'Sir Coxsone' Dodd about dub and dubplates and one with the sound engineer Sylvan Morris, talking about his groundbreaking period at Studio One and his many innovations that he evolved there.
In short, this is a 100% essential album!



"Almighty slab of dub featuring loads of rare and classic dub versions of Studio One's foundation tracks." Rough Trade

“Quite a treat awaiting here for the unsuspecting reggae faithful – as always with Soul jazz chock full of a bunch of big tunes – but here in version form lies some of the freshest rhythms and most radical revisions of some of the greatest Studio One music. The darkest and the absolute deepest in the series – naturally essential.” Boomkat

"Continuing the Studio 1 Series this album features classic and rare Dub tracks from Studio One, many available for the first time in over thirty years. Studio One Dub includes the dubs of many classic tracks such as Horace Andy’s “Skylarkin”, Johnny Osbourne’s “Truth and Rights”,
John Holt’s “Hooligan”, Freddie McGregor’s “Bobby
Bobylon” plus many more rare tracks. In short, this is an essential album!" Wax Museum

Some grooves don’t rush to the dancefloor — they crawl there, slow and heavy, like smoke wrapping around a bassline. With Fragments of Reality, The Balek Band sculpt an electronic funk that lives between shadow and light — an end-of-the-world fever dream, a Barjavel-style Ravage where chaos turns nihilistic.

No sequencer grid here — just four musicians sharing the same room, shaping air and tension together: drums locked tight with a slap bass, a guitar dripping with echo and heat, and a one-man orchestra behind his machines, weaving acid lines and synth arpeggios while mixing the band live — drenching it in delay, reverb, and saturation, like a dub producer in a Kingston studio, Lee Scratch Perry or King Tubby conjuring ghosts through smoke.

This isn’t fusion — it’s friction. A living ritual where the TB-303 hums, and machines don’t dominate but converse with the human pulse. Each track feels like a night that refuses to end — that humid in-between where trance slips into languor, and the body starts to think for itself.

The record recalls the cosmic jazz of Alain Mion or Eddy Louiss meeting the fiery energy of West African afrobeat musicians freshly arrived in a smoky Belleville basement in the mid-’80s. When The Balek Band summon ghosts, it’s only to reshape them — bending the past into something futuristic, alive, and strangely refreshing. Both disciplined and delirious, Fragments of Reality feels like a promise at dawn: dark funk for the late hours, slow acid for warm blood.

This EP isn’t nostalgic, though it remembers. It’s a transmission from a parallel past — a moment when jazz players met drum machines and decided never to stop playing. Each note sweats, each rhythm breathes. You can almost see the light cutting through the haze, faces half-awake, half-possessed.

The Balek Band aren’t recreating a moment — they’re keeping it alive.
Flesh and cables. Impulse and patience.
A band, not a loop.
A trip, not a format.

All-Amerikkkan Badass is the second studio album from Joey Bada$$. Originally released on April 7, 2017, the album features Schoolboy Q, J. Cole, Kirk Knight, Styles P, and more. Executive produced by Joey Bada$$ and Jonny Shipes with production contributions from Kirk Knight, Chuck Strangers, DJ Khalil, and Statik Selektah.

Foxbam Inc is building up a fine head of early steam and after featuring the likes of LFO's Gez Varley and Mark Archer, that looks set to continue into 2026 with this latest various artists EP. It's a white knuckle ride through panel beating techno fervour, starting with Foxtrot's 'Tartam Tripper', which could be called paint stripper, it's that caustic. Collision lays down flat, hard, distorted drums on 'Plop Projekt', Egebamyasi offers up a stuttering, bass-driven club take on an unmistakable 80s electronic classic and Minimum Syndicat's 'Tunnel Chase' is a slower, darker, more foreboding closer that carries serious weight and a soot-black atmosphere from which there is no escape.

For the first time, this landmark album of ritualistic dark folk and shamanic soundscapes is pressed into Double LP, and the result is a breathtaking artifact that transcends the boundary between music and mysticism. Presented in a deluxe edition LP with a lavish 30x30 insert, brought to life by Rune Serpent Europa, this release is a kind of talisman. The packaging itself feels like a gateway: ornate, otherworldly, and perfectly attuned to the spirit of Havamal , where Nordic tradition, animistic ritual, and primal sound converge in a timeless invocation. Spinning Havamal on vinyl unleashes the full incantatory power of NYTT LAND 's music. The analog warmth deepens the resonance of the throat-sung mantras and the droning instrumentation, pulling the listener into a world that is equal parts ancient ritual, frozen landscape, and whispered prophecy.

Every track becomes a rune carved in sound, vibrating with hidden meaning, echoing the eternal cycles of life, death, and rebirth. There is a romance in this edition that goes beyond mere presentation. The act of lowering the needle becomes an invocation, a summoning of ancestral voices and forgotten gods. The record itself feels alive, as though the spirits of the sagas reside within its grooves. Each listen is a ritual, each flip of the vinyl a turning of the cosmic wheel. With Havamal now available on LP, collectors and devotees of dark folk finally hold in their hands a relic worthy of the album's mythic aura. This is music to be inhabited, to be carried into dreams and into shadows, to be used as a key that unlocks the hidden chambers of the soul. A triumph of art, craft, and spirit, this vinyl edition is destined to become a coveted treasure.

Oceanine, Jolanda Moletta’s third album and her first for Beacon Sound, is a powerful and ethereal statement of artistic community. Expanding on her previous work, each track represents a collaboration with a different female vocalist, with the foundational elements being generated entirely by her own voice. By turns haunting, enchanting, and inspiring, you won’t want to come up for air once you’ve been pulled under. Representing a
musical practice that is distinctly feminist, this is an album with a longer view in mind, to an age when the altars were to goddesses and women were centered as powerful beings representing the earth’s cycles of regeneration and renewal. Oceanine then, in all its beauty, can be viewed as an album of survival. It is deeply transportive, accessing something that lies within all of us. As the late, great Lithuanian folklorist and archaeologist Marija Gimbutas noted, “We must refocus our collective memory. The necessity for this has never been greater as we discover that the path of 'progress' is extinguishing the very conditions for life on earth.”

Jolanda Moletta is a multimedia artist and one-woman electronic choir. She creates wordless compositions through extended vocal techniques, integrating wearable-controlled live processing, alongside symbolic visuals. Moletta considers her performances to be a collective ritual and creates her Sonic & Visual Spells following the cycles of nature and the moon. Jolanda's 2022 critically acclaimed album Nine Spells was released on the Ambientologist label, followed by Night Caves on Whitelabrecs in 2025. Moletta’s artistic practice is a radical and spiritual journey through sound art, ritual, and the symbolic archaeology of the feminine.

Oceanine is inspired by sirens, water nymphs, and the timeless call of the sea. At its core lies Jolanda’s deep, lifelong connection to the Mediterranean Sea and to the ancient and modern myths and folklore that have emerged from its waters. Growing up by the Mar Ligure, Jolanda was surrounded by stories carried by salt, wind, and waves: legends of sirens, echoes of ancient voices, and the sea as both origin and oracle. This intimate relationship with the Mediterranean is not merely a backdrop, but a living source that shapes Oceanine’s emotional, symbolic, and sonic world.

Each track features a different female vocalist, creating a rich tapestry of voices, styles, and perspectives. This artistic choice not only broadens the album’s sonic palette, but also deepens its narrative core: celebrating the power, beauty, and mystique of feminine energy through myth, history, and sound.

The entire album is built exclusively from the human voice, processed and layered, yet always remaining voice, and nothing else. For each piece, Jolanda invited every vocalist involved to contribute a raw stem: a short, unedited melodic fragment of just a few seconds, inspired by the album’s themes. These intimate vocal seeds became the foundation of each track: the guest artists’ voices appear as brief, melodic stems, while the entire surrounding “orchestral” fabric is created solely from Jolanda’s own layered and processed voice. In this way, Jolanda’s voice becomes the Ocean itself, embracing, absorbing, and carrying the sirens’ calls within a vast, immersive soundscape. Every song is a unique expression of the feminine experience, revealing its depth, complexity, and emotional range, echoing the call of the sea and the many faces of the siren archetype.

The figure of the siren has transformed across centuries. In myths of Ancient Greece and Rome, sirens were hybrid beings, part woman, part bird, whose irresistible songs lured sailors to their doom. During the Middle Ages, the image shifted toward the half-woman, half-fish figure, often associated with temptation and danger. Historically, the voice of women has often been feared. Sirens were considered harbingers of misfortune not simply because they seduced or destroyed, but because they were powerful liminal beings.

In Ancient Greek, sirens functioned as psychopomps: figures who existed between worlds and guided souls, especially between life and death. Their songs were believed to carry forbidden knowledge, including prophetic insight and the ability to reveal truths about fate and the future. The danger of the sirens lay in what they revealed: knowledge that humans were not meant, or ready, to hear.

Oceanine confronts this legacy head-on. The voices heard throughout the album are not merely beautiful: they are dark and luminous, wild and enchanting, magical, soothing, dreamy, and at times fractured or distorted. They whisper, lament, beckon, and enchant. Like sirens, they skim the surface of the water and sink into its depths, hovering on the edge between tenderness and danger, vulnerability and power. They rise toward the sky, dissolve into mist, and return as echoes charged with raw, elemental emotion: voices that seduce, warn, mourn, and remember. They refuse to be reduced to decoration.

Alongside the album’s release in May, Oceanine will also unfold as a visual and performative work through a short art film. The film includes a live session recorded inside a sea cave facing the Mar Ligure, the very coastline where Jolanda spent her childhood, dreaming of sirens and listening to the sea as if it were speaking directly to her. This site-specific performance reconnects the music to its place of origin, allowing the voice to resonate within stone, water, and air, and transforming the cave into both a sanctuary and a threshold between myth and reality.

What if the sirens’ songs were considered dangerous because they carried another truth, an ancient truth long forgotten?

Oceanine embraces the idea that we are still deeply woven into myth. Though we may see ourselves as rational and modern beings, our world is saturated with ancient symbols and archetypes, often distorted, simplified, or stripped of their original meaning. And if those symbols are allowed to shift, if the mirror once held by the siren becomes an invitation to look beyond appearances and into what has been obscured, then we may finally uncover a deeper truth and reclaim the voice that was always ours.

Oceanine is not just an album. It is a reclamation, a spell, and a call from the depths.

They Came Like Swallows is the first album-length collaboration between Thurston Moore and Kramer (now officially Bonner Kramer), two giants of alternative/ experimental music. The accomplishments and influence of these two artists in the world of independent music cannot be overstated and the result of their artistic union is a startlingly cohesive statement that burns through landscapes of primitive outsider rock, avant-garde composition, progressive ambient and further locales boldly and beautifully unnamable. “Kramer and I reconnected in Miami, Florida, a few years back, many many years after each of us had departed NYC on separate life adventures. It was only a matter of time before Kramer and I started making plans to record together and with his irrepressible due diligence he quickly set up a mobile recording contraption in the pad I was decamped in, the Florida sunshine flowing through the palm leaves, lithe lizards skittering across the windowsills, and we just went for it.

Kramer had the idea to cover a Joy Division tune, a left turn from the improvisations we had been tracking, though wholly in keeping with both our sensibilities of light and dark unifying in transcendent songwriting, both of us devotees of 'the song' as well as 'the freedom.’ What transpired is They Came Like Swallows, a session we immediately felt should exist as a prayer to the war-torn souls of the families of Palestine continually decimated by the brutality of genocide. We agreed beyond words to offer our music as a sonic activism and as a beneficent energy. This album is our duo exchange for human dignity, it is our soul music for any semblance of a peaceful planet.” ~ Thurston Moore “For the first time in our nearly 45 years of friendship, we had identical time windows open to make a record together,” recounts Kramer. After all this time not a moment is wasted as the duo immediately taps into the heightened core of improvisational tension across these seven offerings. Volcanic opener “Urn Burial” notches a similar historic union (John Cale and Terry Riley) to meet the circumstances of the moment, with swirling mists of organ and pounding toms over guitar that thickens the atmosphere with jagged, grimy dissonance.

Solemn strings open the second track, “The Redness In The West,” with Kramer’s cello and viola in dueling bow beneath the high tension drive and sustain of Thurston’s electric guitar, tapping out a Morse code of tension that mounts endlessly into a fog of inevitable war by the end. Moore and Kramer’s sense of experimentalism is in free and full grandeur throughout They Came Like Swallows, though the duo keep a strong and constant sideways eye on melody, composition and architecture, to the ends that any strict lines between song and improvisation are blurred beyond qualification.

As if to punctuate this point, Swallows closes with a nightwork cover of Joy Division’s “Insight,” a doleful coda that breathes out with a solemn inner grace under Thurston’s instantly stylistically recognizable guitar melodies as they weave into he and Kramer’s unison voices. As the lone vocal piece and only traditional ‘song’ form on the album, “Insight” is unique to this set and as a closing statement draws connective lines back to the kind of dynamic, electrified melodicism that wove deep, melancholy patterns into the untamed fire of Sonic Youth’s Sister and Daydream Nation. In the album’s final moments, the two voices repeat the lyric “I’m not afraid anymore” as mantra, underscoring the heavy, unsettled themes and methods that preceded it. Kramer describes the creative process of They Came Like Swallows: “I had composed and recorded a few pieces at my home studio over the course of a couple weeks. Thurston was spending the winter in South Florida, so I flew down and spent a few days recording his guitar parts in his home there. Watching him spontaneously compose his parts was pretty astonishing, to say the least. Once we'd finished working on those pieces, we began improvising and following wherever the music pointed us, and another few pieces were born. We got straight to it, without anything driving us other than the joy of finally working together.

My personal goal was to remain present and catch as many surprises as I could from Thurston's guitar work, and there were plenty during those few days. We had a fucking blast.” Thurston’s contributions here will be readily familiar to any acolytes of his other works, the through-line between his inspired playing, cradled in Kramer’s meticulous, solid arrangements. “If I had to make this record again, I'd do it all exactly the same way,” Kramer says. “It’s like jazz, you don't think about it. You just do it. It was miraculous, and you don't fuck with a miracle.”

They Came Like Swallows is the first album-length collaboration between Thurston Moore and Kramer (now officially Bonner Kramer), two giants of alternative/ experimental music. The accomplishments and influence of these two artists in the world of independent music cannot be overstated and the result of their artistic union is a startlingly cohesive statement that burns through landscapes of primitive outsider rock, avant-garde composition, progressive ambient and further locales boldly and beautifully unnamable. “Kramer and I reconnected in Miami, Florida, a few years back, many many years after each of us had departed NYC on separate life adventures. It was only a matter of time before Kramer and I started making plans to record together and with his irrepressible due diligence he quickly set up a mobile recording contraption in the pad I was decamped in, the Florida sunshine flowing through the palm leaves, lithe lizards skittering across the windowsills, and we just went for it.

Kramer had the idea to cover a Joy Division tune, a left turn from the improvisations we had been tracking, though wholly in keeping with both our sensibilities of light and dark unifying in transcendent songwriting, both of us devotees of 'the song' as well as 'the freedom.’ What transpired is They Came Like Swallows, a session we immediately felt should exist as a prayer to the war-torn souls of the families of Palestine continually decimated by the brutality of genocide. We agreed beyond words to offer our music as a sonic activism and as a beneficent energy. This album is our duo exchange for human dignity, it is our soul music for any semblance of a peaceful planet.” ~ Thurston Moore “For the first time in our nearly 45 years of friendship, we had identical time windows open to make a record together,” recounts Kramer. After all this time not a moment is wasted as the duo immediately taps into the heightened core of improvisational tension across these seven offerings. Volcanic opener “Urn Burial” notches a similar historic union (John Cale and Terry Riley) to meet the circumstances of the moment, with swirling mists of organ and pounding toms over guitar that thickens the atmosphere with jagged, grimy dissonance.

Solemn strings open the second track, “The Redness In The West,” with Kramer’s cello and viola in dueling bow beneath the high tension drive and sustain of Thurston’s electric guitar, tapping out a Morse code of tension that mounts endlessly into a fog of inevitable war by the end. Moore and Kramer’s sense of experimentalism is in free and full grandeur throughout They Came Like Swallows, though the duo keep a strong and constant sideways eye on melody, composition and architecture, to the ends that any strict lines between song and improvisation are blurred beyond qualification.

As if to punctuate this point, Swallows closes with a nightwork cover of Joy Division’s “Insight,” a doleful coda that breathes out with a solemn inner grace under Thurston’s instantly stylistically recognizable guitar melodies as they weave into he and Kramer’s unison voices. As the lone vocal piece and only traditional ‘song’ form on the album, “Insight” is unique to this set and as a closing statement draws connective lines back to the kind of dynamic, electrified melodicism that wove deep, melancholy patterns into the untamed fire of Sonic Youth’s Sister and Daydream Nation. In the album’s final moments, the two voices repeat the lyric “I’m not afraid anymore” as mantra, underscoring the heavy, unsettled themes and methods that preceded it. Kramer describes the creative process of They Came Like Swallows: “I had composed and recorded a few pieces at my home studio over the course of a couple weeks. Thurston was spending the winter in South Florida, so I flew down and spent a few days recording his guitar parts in his home there. Watching him spontaneously compose his parts was pretty astonishing, to say the least. Once we'd finished working on those pieces, we began improvising and following wherever the music pointed us, and another few pieces were born. We got straight to it, without anything driving us other than the joy of finally working together.

My personal goal was to remain present and catch as many surprises as I could from Thurston's guitar work, and there were plenty during those few days. We had a fucking blast.” Thurston’s contributions here will be readily familiar to any acolytes of his other works, the through-line between his inspired playing, cradled in Kramer’s meticulous, solid arrangements. “If I had to make this record again, I'd do it all exactly the same way,” Kramer says. “It’s like jazz, you don't think about it. You just do it. It was miraculous, and you don't fuck with a miracle.”

Barely six months after the debut, the paths of the label and the artist converge once more — at their intersection, TECH039 emerges. This work significantly expands the musical language of Andy Martin: evolution is audible within every single recording. Tonally, rhythmically, and accent-wise, the release becomes a deep exploration of how personal experience transforms artistic signature, turning it into a new legacy for the local and global scene.

We see the author in a moment of artistic self-determination, on his path to international recognition. This is the sound of a master who cares about context, yet fundamentally refuses to meet outside expectations. At the core of TECH039 lies the concept of techno-futurism — sound projected forward, yet anchored in the fundamental laws of nature.

On the record: a transit from atmospheric harmonies and complex percussive structures to near-ambient variations, followed by gripping, mind-piercing sounds set against a functional bassline. This is a story of five distinct states, conceptually unified by a shared relation to the outer world, rather than the rigid boundaries of style.

- Mechanical Vals — fully positions the spirit of the record, referencing the incomparable signature of Andy Martin.
- The Paths of Rhythm — creates a rhythmic hypnotic structure, inviting DJs to uncover additional layers.
- Toltequidad – serves as a reminder that even the darkest night has its limits, and lighter hours inevitably arrive.

The integrity of the statement is completed by two interpretations:
- Vardae Reinterpretation — a reinterpretation deepening the original's hypnotic component.- Feral Reshape — a structural transformation emphasizing natural, organic power.

A substantial record for the collector’s archive and home listening, as well as a functional tool for the club night.

Wasteland is a record that is unafraid to plunge into the darkness of the modern world and embrace the weirder, edgier and more unnerving moments that come from doing so. It is an album that captures all the enormity of life from the micro to the macro, zooming in on the personal as well reflecting on broader societal issues.

“Wasteland is about the idea of a place once known or familiar that is now broken down and unrecognisable,” says Ghedi. “It’s about exploring the process of watching someone’s surroundings and environment collapse.” And within that you have a lot going on. “It also explores death, personal loss, grief, mental health and how the natural world provides solace and meaning for that loss and how these worlds blur into one another.”
Ghedi has always been an artist that in many ways perfectly encompasses folk music in its purest form but he is also someone that frequently pushes the boundaries of that label and no more so is that apparent than on this record. As like previous albums, such as 2018’s A Hymn for Ancient Land and 2021’s In the Furrows of Common Place, Ghedi uses traditional folk songs as a means to explore contemporary issues via modern and experimentally-leaning music. “With the traditional material on this album I wanted to find songs with content that resonated with me,” says Ghedi. “But also that were based roughly around the north of England.” This is a central underlying theme to the album for Ghedi. The feelings of loss, erosion, and degradation are often most pronounced in working class communities and this was something he wanted to weave in. “It was important to voice and choose material that represented or expressed issues that correlated with things going on around me.”

However, as remarkable as some of the traditional material is, some of the most arresting work on the album is Ghedi’s entirely original compositions. Lead single ‘Wasteland’ is a stunning piece of work that while rooted in an environment being corrupted and broken – “there’s violence on these hills” Ghedi sorrowfully sings, before claiming this is no longer somewhere that can be called home – it is also a stirringly beautiful composition that soars and glides as it opens up, as sweeping strings swoop and in and out of Ghedi’s twangy electric guitar.

The decision to incorporate more fuller sounds, such as electric guitar and huge drums, results in a notable shift and evolution in tone for Ghedi. “The lyrical content needed something more band-driven and loud to deliver them,” he explains. “Incorporating the electric guitar in my songwriting was also a big part of opening the sound up, using drop tunings pushed me to use my voice in a wider range, which forced me to use falsetto a lot which I haven’t previously done before. That then opened the sound up and gave me creative ideas for bigger arrangements and to sonically really push things.”

What Ghedi has done in creating his masterpiece is construct a remarkable space where deeply intimate and personal feelings coexist with reflections on environment, place and society, while also interweaving historical context via traditional songs. Wasteland is as much of a world to explore and exist in as much as it is an album, with Ghedi carving out his distinctly unique sonic language and voice to explore that singular environment.

Wasteland is a record that is unafraid to plunge into the darkness of the modern world and embrace the weirder, edgier and more unnerving moments that come from doing so. It is an album that captures all the enormity of life from the micro to the macro, zooming in on the personal as well reflecting on broader societal issues.

“Wasteland is about the idea of a place once known or familiar that is now broken down and unrecognisable,” says Ghedi. “It’s about exploring the process of watching someone’s surroundings and environment collapse.” And within that you have a lot going on. “It also explores death, personal loss, grief, mental health and how the natural world provides solace and meaning for that loss and how these worlds blur into one another.”
Ghedi has always been an artist that in many ways perfectly encompasses folk music in its purest form but he is also someone that frequently pushes the boundaries of that label and no more so is that apparent than on this record. As like previous albums, such as 2018’s A Hymn for Ancient Land and 2021’s In the Furrows of Common Place, Ghedi uses traditional folk songs as a means to explore contemporary issues via modern and experimentally-leaning music. “With the traditional material on this album I wanted to find songs with content that resonated with me,” says Ghedi. “But also that were based roughly around the north of England.” This is a central underlying theme to the album for Ghedi. The feelings of loss, erosion, and degradation are often most pronounced in working class communities and this was something he wanted to weave in. “It was important to voice and choose material that represented or expressed issues that correlated with things going on around me.”

However, as remarkable as some of the traditional material is, some of the most arresting work on the album is Ghedi’s entirely original compositions. Lead single ‘Wasteland’ is a stunning piece of work that while rooted in an environment being corrupted and broken – “there’s violence on these hills” Ghedi sorrowfully sings, before claiming this is no longer somewhere that can be called home – it is also a stirringly beautiful composition that soars and glides as it opens up, as sweeping strings swoop and in and out of Ghedi’s twangy electric guitar.

The decision to incorporate more fuller sounds, such as electric guitar and huge drums, results in a notable shift and evolution in tone for Ghedi. “The lyrical content needed something more band-driven and loud to deliver them,” he explains. “Incorporating the electric guitar in my songwriting was also a big part of opening the sound up, using drop tunings pushed me to use my voice in a wider range, which forced me to use falsetto a lot which I haven’t previously done before. That then opened the sound up and gave me creative ideas for bigger arrangements and to sonically really push things.”

What Ghedi has done in creating his masterpiece is construct a remarkable space where deeply intimate and personal feelings coexist with reflections on environment, place and society, while also interweaving historical context via traditional songs. Wasteland is as much of a world to explore and exist in as much as it is an album, with Ghedi carving out his distinctly unique sonic language and voice to explore that singular environment.

Preston duo White Flowers announce new album, Dreams For Somebody Else - due for release 1st May 2026 via The state51 Conspiracy.
White Flowers, the long-running collaboration between Joey Cobb and Katie Drew, exists within what they call “the realm” – a shared creative space, wherein time, rather than being a restrictive force, is fluid and boundless, and music exists as an endless conversation with their past and present selves. Adopting what the band describe as a “sketchbook” approach to writing, White Flowers is the product of a decade’s worth of recordings - snippets nestled away on hard drives, only to truly make sense years later.
On Dreams For Somebody Else, the band expand upon the dark-hued dream pop of their debut, channeling the catharsis of dance music via repetitive structures and “sad, euphoric sounds”. Working alongside LCD Soundsystem and Hot Chip’s Al Doyle on production, the album maps out a mosaic of soaring choruses that swirl around imposing arrays of synths, guitars, and percussion.
Through this new lens, the band explore themes of isolation, dissociation and identity - drawing inspiration from Annie Ernaux’s The Years. “Whilst recording the songs for ‘Dreams For Somebody Else’, we really connected with the concept of Annie Ernaux’s book, ‘The Years’ - a ‘collective autobiography’ pieced together from mismatched fragments from her past, conjuring the effect that she’s merely an observer of her own life. This concept merges into the White Flowers world, where time, rather than being restrictive, is fluid and boundless, with our music existing as an endless conversation with versions of ourselves at different stages of our lives.”
“The album has that same feeling of disassociating from your own life, because you’re just blending into everyone else”, the band explains. “There’s a sadness there, because it’s as if you’re looking back on things that happened to you, and they feel like they don’t belong to you anymore”. It’s the dull ache of nostalgia intertwined with a sense of wonder at what could lie ahead - the hopeful optimism and endless loss that defines the human experience. “It’s this idea of identity not being a fixed thing, but something that’s always changing. It’s a fluid thing, similar to time. Things aren’t really fixed, but rather in a constant state of change. It’s important to remember that we’re all going through that.”

Out now via 7 Mater, in collaboration with The Circle Music for worldwide distribution, this special edition of Stolen Season Pt. I captures both the essence of the project and the spirit of the upcoming full-length Stolen Season Pt. I. This first pressing is destined to become a collector's item: numbered and limited to 250 black vinyl copies and 250 gold vinyl copies, each edition comes housed in a deluxe sleeve with an exclusive 30x30 insert that perfectly frames the visual world of the band. It is a striking presentation that mirrors the richness of the music contained within. The creative force behind From The Land is Anatoly Pakhalenko, best known as the frontman of the acclaimed dark folk ensemble Nytt Land.

Conceived in 2025, this new project serves as an alter ego for Pakhalenko, allowing him to explore the darker edges of country, blues, and folk traditions while weaving them into a world described as "a black and white landscape, tired of all this s**t that's going on around and gradually sinking into an endless sleep". Together with Aleksandr Rosliakov, Pakhalenko composed Stolen Season Pt. I between January and May 2025 at Nytt Land Studio, handling recording, mixing, and production duties himself. The result is an album that resonates with uncompromising artistic vision and raw emotional depth. From The Land 's universe draws inspiration from the haunting literary realms of H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe, as well as the surreal, unsettling imagery of David Lynch. This heady mixture of influences creates a soundscape that is equally cinematic and visceral, where ritual meets ruin, and folk traditions dissolve into the smoke of blues and country noir.

3rd full length album fron the UK's heaviest band. This is an accolade not thrown around lightly. BOUND IN FEAR have been crafting their sound over the years, honing it into an undisputed heavyweight bomber. 'A MIND TOO SICK TO HEAL is a hellish journey into the darkest side of the human mind, Smashing out of the gates with 'SENTENCED' & 'CHASM', the first stand alone singles to be lifted from the forthcoming album, BIF roar a statement of intent that ups the heat ever so slightly from their usual downtempo delivery, before returning to the familiar crushing slabs of concrete the band are revered for. 'THREE KNEE DEEP' & 'DARKNESS REDEFINED' follow as the spotlight cuts for what is unquestionable one of the heaviest albums to ever emerge out of the United Kingdom.

This is the age of post-factual lies, which is reflected in MESH's album title "The Truth Doesn't Matter" and a dark undertone that occasionally seeps into their new songs. What remains entirely true is the fact that the UK duo has a nearly uncanny knack for writing electronic hits that are as elegant as they are captivating. "The Truth Doesn't Matter" bursts out like a sparkling firework while subtly referencing three decades of electronic music spanning from GIORGIO MORODER, YAZOO, and DEPECHE MODE via GARBAGE and MASSIVE ATTACK to more contemporary artists. At the same time, MESH always maintain their easily recognisable and unique musical identity as well as the trademark sounds that they have cultivated since their beginnings in the early nineties. With "The Truth Doesn't Matter", MESH climb yet another rung on the ladder leading to electronic music heaven. Each song wriggles its way happily into the brain and sticks around leading to spontaneous whistling of melodies and the public singing of extremely catchy chorus lines. You have been warned: "The Truth Doesn't Matter" is highly infectious and leads to a happier life!"

The second season of the funny and heartfelt fiction series by Flo Van Deuren and Kato De Boeck takes us along as Bibi and Ama move on to the next chapter of their lives and into their new, unexpected home: an old daycare building. With school no longer providing structure and their wallets running on empty, they dive headfirst into adulthood.

This results in eight new episodes that, like the main characters, have grown up, yet remain just as hilarious and moving as ever.

With the second season of Roomies, the show’s award-winning music makes its return. This time with a powerful soundtrack featuring Eefje de Visser, Ategha (Ahlaam Teghadouini) & Mickael Karkousse (Goose), Maria Iskariot, and Porcelain ID.

“(Tijdbom) Tikkend” is a dark, electronic track that feels like a constant run: sometimes away from the other, sometimes right toward them. It captures the feeling of running out of time, losing each other, and wanting to reconnect. That push-and-pull dynamic felt like a perfect fit for Roomies, where relationships, drama, and fun are always intertwined. - Eefje de Visser

“Whatever Happens” came together in a very organic way, and you can hear that in the track. Raw, genuine, and effortless. What’s unique is that we hadn’t even met until a few days before. Ahlaam walked into the studio and said, “I’ve prepared something.” That opening line alone was fantastic and immediately showed confidence and courage. “Perfect,” I thought. Then we turned the volume up to maximum, and I listened as Ahlaam sang right by my ear. Instant goosebumps! - Mickael Karkousse

Brooklyn-based techno experimentalist and filmmaker Michelle Roginsky (aka mother) joins Delusional Records with her first-ever musical offering, a cinematic concept EP that weaves medical anxieties into a thematic tapestry of arresting club sonics.

In A Simple Procedure, Roginsky evokes the bleak and euphoric duality of femme embodiment; the soundtrack to an unreleased body horror film narrated by ethereal ambience and driving dancefloor grooves. The title track begins with sweeping, densely-textured synths disintegrating into a foreboding bassline, humming steadily alongside tidal waves of ominous arpeggios and plodding drums reminiscent of 90s trip-hop. In Sublingual, body-shaking club drums become a vessel for distorted vocals and granulated textures as they pass through thick membranes of saliva-drenched bass. Metamorpher follows with a hypnotic 4x4 trip that metabolizes deep anxious grooves into a rave-ready wiggler, while Angel Gossip keeps the blood flowing with a pounding peak-time techno roller guaranteed to keep the floor locked. Finally, There Are Two Rooms sends us off with a pensive meditation of wailing synths and dark, Lynchian atmosphere... the final scene of a dream half-remembered upon waking from anaesthesia.

NYC's Laenz delivers the epilogue with a shaking, subterranean remix of A Simple Procedure, injecting the opening track's textures into the fissures of deep and trembling grooves.

With its darkly seductive moods and high-concept execution, A Simple Procedure is a perfect addition to Delusional's genre-ambiguous catalog of queer and femme-forward sonic offerings.

Extremely Rotten Productions and M.N.B. Records resurrects the corpse of FUNEREAL and presents for the first time on vinyl the 1994 album “The Misery Season”.
From the remains of Chicago death metal demo legends, CONTAGION, rose the even gloomier and dark death metal band FUNEREAL and their sole album testaments to misery and heaviness that was created within their short 2 year existence and are perfectly encapsulated on this majestic recording. Complete with amazing cover art by Greek artist Dimitri Patelis.

More than half a century into its existence, heavy metal still prowls as a living force in the dark, and Vancouver's SPELL summon that spirit with defiant conviction on their fifth album, 'Wretched Heart'. Rejecting the safety of nostalgia, the band; Cam Mesmer, Al Lester, Gabriel Tenebrae and Jeff Black, step beyond retro homage into shadowy new terrain, where harmony guitars blaze like torches against the night and gothic atmospheres coil around songs pulsing with desperation, longing, and wild exaltation. Forged through the fire of the stage and shaped by trusted collaborators, this is SPELL at their most potent: dramatic, vulnerable, and unafraid of excess. From existential laments to bittersweet anthems that shimmer with both steel and sorrow, 'Wretched Heart' beats with a fiercely human pulse. In SPELL's hands, heavy metal is no museum relic but a darkly romantic covenant-restless, cathartic, and forever reaching beyond the veil.

More than half a century into its existence, heavy metal still prowls as a living force in the dark, and Vancouver's SPELL summon that spirit with defiant conviction on their fifth album, 'Wretched Heart'. Rejecting the safety of nostalgia, the band; Cam Mesmer, Al Lester, Gabriel Tenebrae and Jeff Black, step beyond retro homage into shadowy new terrain, where harmony guitars blaze like torches against the night and gothic atmospheres coil around songs pulsing with desperation, longing, and wild exaltation. Forged through the fire of the stage and shaped by trusted collaborators, this is SPELL at their most potent: dramatic, vulnerable, and unafraid of excess. From existential laments to bittersweet anthems that shimmer with both steel and sorrow, 'Wretched Heart' beats with a fiercely human pulse. In SPELL's hands, heavy metal is no museum relic but a darkly romantic covenant-restless, cathartic, and forever reaching beyond the veil.