Buscar:the earl

"It was 30 years ago in 1996 when Antoni Gorgues founded Guerssen Records as a one-man operation.
Those were the times of record lists and mail orders, phone calls and fanzines. Initially, the label focused on current bands within the 60s revival and neo-psych / garage.
Most of the early releases were 45s and then LPs followed. Soon after, the label staff augmented and we started focusing on high quality reissues of rare LPs from the 60s-70s until now.
To celebrate our 30th anniversary we thought it would be fun to remember those early times of the label, so we present the first batch of our special and limited releases, including a collection of cool garage-psych 45s in limited editions that won’t be repressed and reissue of the second album from the Jaybirds, one of our fave bands from the 90s."

Neues Splattered Vinyl-Format des wegweisenden Meisterwerks "Tangerine Dream" der legendären Psych-Rock-Band Kaleidoscope. Remastered von Pete Kember aka Sonic Boom (Spacemen 3) von den Original-1/4"-Mastertapes. Splattered Coloured Vinyl im Gatefold inklusive Bonus-7" mit zwei bislang unveröffentlichten Outtakes aus den Sessions von 1967.

“From Birmingham and centred around the extraordinary songwriting talent of James and Patrick Roberts – initially as The Sea Urchins and since 1993 as Delta – they’ve only just got round to releasing their debut album, Slippin’ Out. It is a work of some beauty”. 9/10 NME ALBUM OF THE MONTH, 2000

“It’s classicist for sure, shot through with the influence of The Beatles, Byrds and Buffalo Springfield. In James’ downright beautiful closing ballad ‘I Want You’ one can also discern the school of ambitious English balladry that peaked in about 1968: The Casuals, Love Affair, Barry Ryan. The impression of accomplished old-schoolery is only furthered by the dizzying string arrangements penned by Louis Clark Jnr, son and namesake of the one-time orchestral chief of Electric Light Orchestra” – Mojo lead review, 2000


Having ended the 90s with the spirited ‘Laughing Mostly’ compilation of singles and demos (Guardian Album Of The Week) Delta finally released their debut studio album of twelve songs in the summer of 2000 on the Dishy Recordings label. Accepting that this might be their sole studio album the band threw everything at these recordings allowing it to exist in its own sphere, unbothered by their contemporary generation and disregarding the idea of even releasing a single.

Recorded at DEP International there was a notable difference to the scruffier, looser charm of their 1990s recordings, a tighter focus developed by having the experienced Lenny Franchi mixing the LP with them. Lenny had been working with a number of Island artists including My Bloody Valentine and Tricky so knew his way around a desk. There was also the question of budget (a few months passed between recording and mixing whilst funds were raised) so every day counted. Ultimately though you can hear the joy in the recordings, even amongst the melancholy and angst. As James recently recalled in an interview in Shindig! Magazine: “It was such a big deal for us. It’s one of my fondest memories doing that record. Everyone was happy. If there’s anything that I’d stand by, I think it would be that”

Louis Clark Jr joined the band towards the end of the ‘90s and brought a classically-trained element to the recordings particularly with his string arrangements. For ‘Cuckoo’, ‘I Want You’ and the prophetic ‘We Come Back’ Louis brought in eight players from the Birmingham Conservatoire; the baroque style is partly why the record often receives comparisons to Love’s ‘Forever Changes’.

On release ‘Slippin’ Out’ was a big favourite with writers at the NME, Mojo and The Guardian again and before long the band were signed to Mercury/Universal for their second studio album ‘Hard Light’, a far more expensive and expansive love affair. It was a temporary palatial home where things quietly fell apart again, but that’s another chapter.

“If long-term memory is nothing more than selective editing and only pop’s most weighty visceral works are built to last then it’s quite possible that in 50 years the Britpop era will be best recollected for the two bands it ostracised. Earlier this year we met Shack and thought their story of mercurial brilliance indicated the biggest music biz oversight of the 90s. We were wrong because we hadn’t met Delta yet. This is richer and more engrossing than anything by Shack” 

This is that absolute stank-face filth: hard, espionage drama-soul and tough, jazzy street-funk. Hogan, The Hawk & Dirty John Crown sounds like the soundtrack of a blaxploitation movie from the early 70s and, packed with funky fusion and smoother orchestral numbers, it is basically that.

Featuring a veritable who's who of killer library break snakes - Alan Parker, Alan Hawkshaw (under sneaky alias William Parrish), Simon Haseley, Reg Tilsley and Gordon Grant - it's not hard to see how this commands over £350 on secondary markets.

This beautifully presented reissue, part of Be With's fresh campaign with the legendary library label Music De Wolfe, is well overdue.

Recorded for De Wolfe in 1972, Hogan, The Hawk, Dirty John Crown is a fantastic start-to-finish listen. The flute-funk of Hawkshaw and Parker's opener "The Hawk" comprises driving, fuzzy, wah-wah-drizzled bell-laced breaks with synths and basslines to murder for. Up next, Haseley's "The Happening" is a carefree, rhythmic builder with strings and horns. Let's face it, it doesn't prepare us for the monster that follows...

Hawkshaw and Parker's amazing "Main Chance" is likely the reason you're here; it's a moody, beaty proto-hip-hop banger; all rolling drums and flute-laced, organ-drenched, synth-funk breaks. Just sensational - you'll want to play it again and again and again.

The cool AF "Hogan Baby" has a soft, rounded, bluesy feel - it's a lighter number and Haseley's work here sounds more than a little indebted to Burt Bacharach. It's melancholic, reflective and contains ace breaks with beautiful flutes and wistful horns. It's just gorgeous. Grant's pounding "Dirty John Crown" brilliantly conjures swirling string-swept serenity atop driving, incisive drama-funk breaks. Sublime. Hawkshaw and Parker come roaring back with the murky, creeping crime-funk of "Swarf" with killer basslines underpinning slow-mo high-class flute-funk.

Reg Tilsley enters the fray with the bright, snappy, carefree "Turnover". It's lightweight but still retains some nice orchestral movements. The brief “Tarantula” gets us back on track - from the pen and chops of Hawkshaw and Parker, are we surprised? - with the driving crime funk breaks, super clean yet brooding. Synths, sax and 'nuff guitars. YES.

Side 2 opens with the car chase swag of Haseley's dramatic, driving "Precinct". Jazzy, instrumental flute funk over great percussive breaks. We love this. Haseley's rolling "Sidewinder Version 1" is robust and exuberant with bouncy horns before a cracking Parker-Hawkshaw one-two featuring the tense "Pressure" and the deeply soulful "Call Me", a relaxed, medium-tempo organ feature. With building piano and strings Gordon Grant's excellently titled "Scorch" is as aggressive and dramatic as you'd hope. Hawkshaw and Parker's furtive flute-funk of "Digger" precede the light, melodic and romantic themes of Tilsley's "Marianne" whilst "Sidewinder Version 2", a faster iteration of Track B2 sees Haseley close out this remarkable set in bouncy, bright fashion.

The audio for Hogan, The Hawk, Dirty John Crown has been meticulously remastered by Be With regular Simon Francis, ensuring this release sounds better than ever. Cicely Balston's expert skills have made sure nothing is lost in the cut whilst the records have been pressed to the highest possible standard at Record Industry in Holland. The original, iconic sleeve has been restored here at Be With HQ as the finishing touch to this long overdue re-issue.

Synthpop, minimal wave, post-punk, goth, new romantic - fans and critics alike have dug deeply into their vintage thesauruses to describe the beguiling work of Nation of Language. And if you can't precisely define the band, that's the point. Frontman Ian Richard Devaney has become prodigious in expanding what synthesizer-driven music can evoke, such that his output is as much an extrasensory journey as it is an all-too-human destination. With that experience in mind, he wrote the band's fourth album - the spectral, spacious Dance Called Memory - in the most humble of ways: chipping away at melancholia by sitting around and strumming his guitar. Nation of Language's first two albums, Introduction, Presence (2020), and A Way Forward (2021), came as pandemic godsends: gorgeous, relatable soundtracks to our collective doldrums. But it was their last LP, Strange Disciple (2023), that catapulted the group from cultural standouts to critical darlings, with the album being named Rough Trade's Album of the Year. With that release, Pitchfork wrote that the band "are learning what it means to get bigger and better." This is Devaney's calling: soulfully translating individual despair into a comforting, collective mourning. The single "Now That You're Gone," which radiates and reverberates with a devastating wistfulness, was inspired by witnessing his godfather's tragic death from ALS, and his parents' role as caretakers for this ailing friend. At its heart, the song is a reflection of how friends can be there for each other, and also highlights a theme throughout the record: the pain and lost promise of friendships that fall apart. On Dance Called Memory, the band once again collaborated with friend and Strange Disciple producer Nick Millhiser (LCD Soundsystem, Holy Ghost!). "What's so great about Nick is his ability to make us feel like we don't need to do what might be expected of us," says synth player Aidan Noell, who, along with bassist Alex MacKay, rounds out the Nation of Language lineup. They imbued Dance Called Memory with a shifted palette - sampling chopped-up drum breaks on "I'm Not Ready for the Change" for a touch of Loveless-era My Bloody Valentine or smashing all of the percussion of "In Another Life" through a synthesizer to cast a shade of early-2000s electronic music. Ultimately, the hope was to weave raw vulnerability and humanity into a synth-heavy album. "There is a dichotomy between the Kraftwerk school of thought and the Brian Eno school of thought, each of which I've been drawn to at different points. I've read about how Kraftwerk wanted to remove all the humanity from their music, but Eno often spoke about wanting to make synthesized music that felt distinctly human," Devaney says. "As much as Kraftwerk is a sonically foundational influence, with this record I leaned much more towards the Eno school of thought. In this era quickly being defined by the rise of AI supplanting human creators I'm focusing more on the human condition, and I need the underlying music to support that_ Instead of hopelessness, I want to leave the listener with a feeling of us really seeing one another, that our individual struggles can actually unite us in empathy."

With `The devil's door' And Also The Trees, one true original Post-Punk/New Wave band, presents a quiet storm of an album. At times filmic, poetic and intense with an undercurrent of dark psychedelia. It completes a trilogy of works `The Bone Carver', `Mother-of-pearl Moon' and now `The devil's door' created by the current line-up. Here there are signature `And also the trees' poetic lyrics, orchestral guitar and soundtrack influenced songs inspired by newsreel, oil paintings and folklore. But with this work we have the addition of some surprising instruments that skew the album towards a world where John Barry meets Bela Bartok. And also the trees (AATT) formed during the original post-punk era in rural Worcestershire, an environment that has provided a constant inspiration to a group whose music has often explored the dark underbelly as well as the beauty of the British countryside. They are renowned for their captivating live performances, a unique style of mandolin-like electric guitar, evocative lyrics and dark jazz rhythms - not to mention a creative independence fiercely preserved for over four decades. Back then AATT immediately caught the attention of Robert Smith of The Cure, who invited them to tour with his group on several occasions. Smith was also involved with their early recordings alongside his bandmate Lol Tolhurst, who produced their first records. This longterm friendship and mutual respect was further solidified when AATT were invited to perform at the Robert Smith curated 2018 Meltdown festival in London. This July AATT appear as The Cure's special guests at the Nimes festival. Founded by singer Simon Jones and his guitarist brother Justin, AATT have maintained a continuous presence on the post-punk, and alternative rock scenes worldwide, with a solid fanbase e.g. in Germany.

The most popular acoustic folk music group of the 1960s, Peter, Paul and Mary mixed great songs with political and social activism. They brought folk music to a new prominence in the post-McCarthy era, putting lyrics about politics and morality on the radio amid the syrupy boy-girl love tunes that dominated the airwaves. Presented here is the trio's debut album, originally issued in 1962, the splendid selftitled Peter, Paul and Mary. It features some of their most popular compositions such as 'Early in the Morning' and 'Cruel War', and great renditions of Hedy West's '500 Miles' and Pete Seeger's 'If I Had a Hammer'.

The bonus tracks were recorded live in San Francisco and Long Beach, California, late 1962: 'One Kind Favor', 'The Times They Are A' Changin', and 'If I Had My Way'. "The debut album by Peter, Paul & Mary is still one of the best albums to come out of the 1960s folk music revival. It's a beautifully harmonized collection of the best songs that the group knew, stirring in its sensibilities and its haunting melodies as it crosses between folk, children's songs, and even gospel. Peter, Paul & Mary, which hit the top spot on the album charts as part of a 185-week run, is the purest of the trio's albums, laced with innocent good spirits and an optimism that remains infectious"






f 6 ONE KIND FAVOR [Live version]






[m] 13 THE TIMES THEY ARE A' CHANGIN' [Live version]
[n] 14 IF I HAD MY WAY [Live version]






[f] 6 ONE KIND FAVOR [Live version]






[m] 13 THE TIMES THEY ARE A' CHANGIN' [Live version]
[n] 14 IF I HAD MY WAY [Live version]

On "Another Year Older," Larry Fleet cements his status as country music’s premier blue-collar soul-singer, delivering a masterclass in honest, salt-of-the-earth storytelling. Shifting his gaze toward the reflective milestones of adulthood, the White Bluff, Tennessee native trades the restless energy of his earlier work for a grounded, hard-won perspective on what truly lasts. The project seamlessly blends the grit of classic 70s country with the soaring, gospel-infused vocal power that has become his trademark, capturing the quiet dignity of the working class and the profound beauty found in the everyday. From the steady wisdom of the title track to the heartfelt odes to faith and family, Fleet treats the passage of time not as a burden, but as a teacher. It is a record for the dreamers and the doers alike—a soulful, unvarnished progress report from a man who has clocked the miles, felt the weight of the world, and realized that getting older is just another word for getting it right.

"Tonight At Noon" compiles tracks from two earlier recordings sessions: one session from 1957 with Jimmy Knepper on the trombone, the drummer Dannie Richmond, Saxophone player Shafi Hadi and the pianist Wade Legge, which were released on the album "The Clown" (Atlantic 1260). The second session took place in 1961 with Booker Ervin and Roland Kirk on the saxophone, Knepper, the bassist Doug Watkins, Mingus at the piano and Richmond on the drums, and was released on "Oh Yeah" (Atlantic SD 1377).

The two sets differ in mood, but this does not mean that it is an album that uses leftovers. While Mingus in the first session strives for European harmonics and melodic approaches with a hard bop tempo (particularly on the title track) in the direction of the blues, the second session with its vespertine elegance and spatial explorations comes over rather as a sort of exercise à la avantgard Ellington with sophisticated harmonies that pave the way for sluggish marches and gospel-like blues. Kirk and Ervin complement one another particularly well, their swing is appararently boundless. Mingus’s piano playing is deeply rooted in the blues, and his sense of tempo and lightness anhances these numbers, particularly in "‘Old’ Blues for Walt’s Torin".

In these compositions one already finds hints of Mingus’s later recordings. The most beautiful number is taken from the 1957 session and concludes the album: "Passions Of A Woman Loved", almost ten minutes in length, feels like an Ellington suite. Although, or maybe simply because several years passed between the two sessions, one cannot deny this album’s magic.

If you know your death metal history, you are then well aware that 'Hating Life' stands for one of GRAVE earliest and gnarliest demo days classics, later on rerecorded on their immortal debut 'Into The Grave', later on once again used as the title of their fourth full-length, back in 1996. So when a brand new entity proudly waving an old-school death metal flag and bearing the same name seemingly creeps out of nowhere, you're entitled to except the same kind of HM-2 drenched, tribute-in-disguise and downtuned death metal innit? Well, for the time being, the answer would be yes. And no at the same time. Not so hidden behind the whole thing is Santi, guitar player and founding member of ATARAXY, one of Spain most respected and relentless old-school death metal outfit since 2008. "The whole process was very spontaneous, the result of me jamming with a Gibson Les Paul and a HM-2 pedal and ending up soon with great riffs, melodies and plenty of ideas. With ATARAXY having now a very specific personality, it felt great to rediscover primitive death metal roots." Describing HATING LIFE overall sound as "putrid and raw", he doesn't deny the obvious GRAVE nod, especially since the opening track/intro of their debut recording is simply called 'Into The Grave'. "You can call it a tribute or a declaration of intent. The first GRAVE material was and remains a clear exponent, among many others, of the kind of death metal that truly motivated me to compose the tracks for this."

Roberto y su Nuevo Montuno recorded their first album, “El Nuevo Montuno Llegó” (1970), when Roberto Berríos was just 22 years old. This was also the debut release on Haddock’s own Uniart label. Berríos remembers that they did the recording in two sessions, splitting it up into four tracks per visit. The engineer was the famed Pedro “Pedrito” Henríquez, who recorded El Gran Combo, Roberto Roena and many others. The band had a mix of tasty, powerful originals, from Tony Cintrón’s title track that announced the band had arrived, ‘El Nuevo Montuno Llegó,’ to Quique Dávila’s mournful ‘Triste Arrabal.’ Then there was the hit Santería themed tune, ‘Llamé a Changó,’ which was a song that Quique Dávila brought to the band, but had been originally composed by Carlos Pinto, though Quique was given the credit. Dávila also composed ‘Me Queda Un Guaguancó,’ which is Roberto’s favorite song on the record (as well as a fan favorite), with Papo sounding like his friend Héctor Lavoe, and Quique Dávila’s proud manifesto declaring that Puerto Rico now had its own son montuno, ‘Oye Tu Son, Borinquen,’ featuring the pianist’s tasty but brief solo. The cover versions came from the group’s earliest period when most of their repertoire consisted of renditions of beloved but lesser known tunes, and include Louie Ramírez’s ‘Balancéate’ (a favorite of Roberto’s from Ray Barretto’s songbook), Bobby Valentín’s ‘Monina y Ramón’ (recorded during his stint with Willie Rosario), and a bolero indelibly sung by Cheo Feliciano when he was with the Joe Cuba Sextet, ‘Dichoso,’ written by Joe Cuba’s talented pianist, Nick Jiménez. Some of the arranging was done by Cintrón and some by Dávila, though Quique had some help from his old friend from El Combo Moderno, Freddie Miranda, who at that time was with Roberto Roena’s Apollo Sound. Roberto says that the arrangements of the cover tunes were made specifically to be different and more contemporary sounding than the originals. “El Nuevo Montuno Llegó” has become a legendary salsa dura classic from Puerto Rico and we are thrilled to present this first legitimately licensed and remastered vinyl reissue. It includes detailed liner notes that reveal the untold story of the band and their debut album, and rare photos.

The buzz about the Crystal Teardrop that has been growing for the past two years looks set to reach fever pitch with the release of their debut album _IS FORMING. Featuring a dozen memorable compositions by the bands Alexandra Rose and Leon Jones, the album more than lives up to the promise of their 2024 single releases and their ecstatic live performances on stages across the UK and Europe. The band formed in Stoke-on-Trent in early 2023, "inspired," explains Alexandra Rose, "by a mutual passion for the sights, sounds and creative experimentation of the late 1960s." In addition to Alexandra on lead vocals on guitar, the band comprises Leon Jones (guitar, sitar), Stuart Gray (keyboards, Mellotron), Ed Quigley (bass, vocals), and Huw Woodward (drums, percussion). Intuitively blending elements of garage rock, folk-rock, power pop and psychedelia, the band have created an appealing concoction infused with their own perspectives and personalities. To best capture their sound, they recorded at an all-analogue facility, Tilehouse studio in North London, working closely with White Stripes producer Liam Watson of Toe Rag Studios fame.

"Western Massachusetts band Landowner play abrasively-clean minimalist punk. Singer Dan Shaw started Landowner in 2016, writing and recording the project's debut Impressive Almanac with a practice amp and a laptop drum machine. Shaw's initial concept was a made-up genre called “weak d-beat”, meant to sound intentionally absurd “as if Antelope were reading the sheet music of Discharge”. When Shaw joined with his current bandmates in 2017, they translated these early experiments in restraint, minimalism, and caricatured hardcore as a live band. This provided Landowner with its own unique set of blueprints: the guitars “slap hard” without using any distortion or effects, the rhythm section is tight, fast, and repetitious, and the song structures make space for lyrics that reflect on the global systems and dark absurdities our lives are tangled in. Comparisons could be made to The Fall, Lungfish, or Uranium Club, but across their five albums, they make it clear: Landowner just sound like Landowner.

Assumption is the band's fifth album. Sonically, it captures the vibrancy and intensity of their live performances. The album title “Assumption” encapsulates the album's multi-layered themes. We make assumptions, taking in information online through an overload of decontextualized snippets and headlines, and then quickly form conclusions, or we allow artificial intelligence to do the thinking for us. Assumption is the sound of a band that established its own musical identity and has reached a place of tightness with an ease gained from years of playing together, sounding mechanically precise and at the same time fully human. It may be the band's most cohesive and fully realized work to date."

I started writing the songs for V at the beginning of 2023, and the demos were finished by the end of that year. While creating this material, I kept returning to one thought: everything we take for granted - everything that feels stable and permanent - is, in reality, incredibly fragile. Nothing lasts forever, and the sense of things slipping away can hit much sooner than we expect. I tried to translate those feelings into sound. At that time, a lot of difficult things were happening in my life, things I didn't know how to cope with. Music became a form of therapy - a way to process emotions I couldn't express in any other way. In early 2024, we began working through the songs together as a full band. After finalizing the arrangements, we spent the rest of the year recording them. The process stretched over many months, split into several sessions across different studios. I didn't want to rush anything. I wanted, as always, to refine every detail the best we possibly could. Soon you'll be able to hear the result for yourselves. For me, this album is something deeply personal. It's an act of opening up to anyone who chooses to listen - a glimpse into things I can't fully describe with words, into what I felt and who I became during that period. I'm incredibly happy that together with my friends from the band, we've created another record. What comes next_ time will tell.

Magenta Vinyl, limited to 450 copies. I started writing the songs for V at the beginning of 2023, and the demos were finished by the end of that year. While creating this material, I kept returning to one thought: everything we take for granted - everything that feels stable and permanent - is, in reality, incredibly fragile. Nothing lasts forever, and the sense of things slipping away can hit much sooner than we expect. I tried to translate those feelings into sound. At that time, a lot of difficult things were happening in my life, things I didn't know how to cope with. Music became a form of therapy - a way to process emotions I couldn't express in any other way. In early 2024, we began working through the songs together as a full band. After finalizing the arrangements, we spent the rest of the year recording them. The process stretched over many months, split into several sessions across different studios. I didn't want to rush anything. I wanted, as always, to refine every detail the best we possibly could. Soon you'll be able to hear the result for yourselves. For me, this album is something deeply personal. It's an act of opening up to anyone who chooses to listen - a glimpse into things I can't fully describe with words, into what I felt and who I became during that period. I'm incredibly happy that together with my friends from the band, we've created another record. What comes next_ time will tell.

This is Jah Wobble"s first post punk LP in recent years following travel and dub records. The brash guitar driven tracks reflect his continuing preoccupation with the declining state of the nation. Driven by his experience working each week at a music based community project in Merton, with Jon Klein, it is reminiscent of Mark Stewart. Angry in an empathetic, constructive way it resolved with the beautiful instrumental "Brockwell Lido". Like much of his work these days, much of the lyrical content comes while traversing London"s transport system. Jah Wobble, is an English bass guitarist and singer. He became known to a wider audience as the original bass player in Public Image Ltd (PiL) in the late 1970s and early 1980s; he left the band after two albums. Following his departure from PiL, he developed a solo career. In 2012, he reunited with fellow PiL guitarist Keith Levene for Metal Box in Dub and the album Yin & Yang. Since 2013, he has been one of the featured pundits on Sunday morning"s The Virtual Jukebox segment of BBC Radio 5 Live"s Up All Night with Dotun Adebayo. His autobiography, Memoirs of a Geezer, was published in 2009. Jon Klein Is an English guitarist and producer, best known for being a member of Siouxsie and the Banshees for seven years, from 1987 until 1994. He also founded Specimen and The Batcave nightclub. Klein has worked for other artists including Talvin Singh and Sinéad O"Connor. More recently he has worked as a co-producer and guitarist with Jah Wobble.

On a Sunday in the early 70s in South LA one could asily find themselves experiencing the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra doing what they do for the community, performing incredible music. "Live at Widney High December 26th, 1971" is a previously unreleased PAPA recording. It finds director Horace Tapscott conducting the band at Widney Career Preparatory & Transition Center, a special-education magnet high school in Los Angeles. The band played shows here between 1970 and "72, often sharing the bill with contemporaries John Carter and Bobby Bradford"s group, and at one point the Sun-Ra Arkestra. These weekend shows were free and meant for the surrounding Black community. On this date the PAPA performed a range of compositions from the Ark"s expansive songbook, including arrangements of tunes by Pharoah Sanders and John Coltrane.

Vic Bang's "Oda" arrives quietly - it was waiting for the right moment. The eight tracks are shaped by listening, by circling around sound instead of chasing it... you can definitely hear patience in the pacing, a willingness to let ideas linger, to let all the small motifs breathe.

The album moves with a softer and more deliberate rhythm than much of Vic's earlier work, as the sound world here feels concentrated and cohesive, built from a limited set of elements that gradually reveal themselves. Melodies unfold without too much fuss, textures repeat and mutate very subtly and the whole record holds together like a single extended thought.

The title Oda - or "ode" in English - hints at devotion, but not in any grand or ceremonial way. These pieces seem devoted to sound itself: to tone, to gesture, to fragile and simple musical forms. There's a gentle melancholy running through the album, but also clarity, even tenderness. Each track is dedicated to something - a timbre, a rhythm, a resonance - living up to the title's etymology.

All Music composed by Victoria Barca in Buenos Aires, Argentina, between 2024 and 2025.

Saxophone (3) by Camila Nebbia
Vocal samples by Catu Hardoy and Nicolás Said
Cello samples by Gabriela Areal

Mastered by Adam Badi Donoval

Front cover relief "Endulzando el oído" by Victoria Barca
Back cover photo by Indira Seoane
Design and layout by Paulina Ufnal and Janek Ufnal

Hailing from the diverse California “DIY” music scene, San Jose's SUPERWORLD (Brandon Holder, Dan Vo, Drew Satterlund, Francisco Duarte, Cameron MacBain) is a hi-energy screamo act whose music is a celebration of friendship, and whose friendship is a celebration of music. Getting together and writing under the radar for some years, the group would play a handful of sets at local house shows before ever deciding to release a song. Performed with a trademark looseness of feel, their tracks bridge maximalist aggression with the low-key and melancholy, somehow collaging the careful intricacy and sentimentality of early 2010's math rock with subtle pop sensibilities of classic guitar-driven music from the latter half of the 20th century. SUPERWORLD's tonal unpredictability is neither forced nor abashed, and remains tightly bound by each member's approach to the arrangements in whole.