Cerca:the friend

Live-Album des legendären Singer/Songwriters Steve Earle:
Steve Earle ist einer der renommiertesten Singer-Songwriter seiner Generation. Als Schützling der legendären Songwriter Townes Van Zandt und Guy
Clark wurde er schnell zu einem meisterhaften Geschichtenerzähler, und seine Songs wurden von Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Joan Baez, Emmylou
Harris, The Pretenders und unzähligen anderen aufgenommen. 1986 erschien sein Album Guitar Town, das bis auf Platz eins der Country-Charts
schoss und heute als Klassiker des Americana-Genres gilt. Zuletzt wurde Earles Hit Copperhead Road aus dem Jahr 1988 zum offiziellen Song des
Bundesstaates Tennessee im Jahr 2023 ernannt. Nachfolgende Veröffentlichungen wie The Revolution Starts...Now (2004), Washington Square
Serenade (2007) und TOWNES (2009) wurden mit aufeinanderfolgenden GRAMMY® Awards ausgezeichnet. Sein jüngstes Album Jerry Jeff (2022)
besteht aus Earles Versionen von Songs, die Jerry Jeff Walker, einer seiner Mentoren, geschrieben hat.
Earle hat sowohl ein Buch als auch eine Sammlung von Kurzgeschichten veröffentlicht. Earle produzierte Alben für andere Künstler wie Joan Baez (Day
After Tomorrow) und Lucinda Williams (Car Wheels on A Gravel Road).Als Schauspieler hat Earle in mehreren Filmen mitgewirkt und hatte
wiederkehrende Rollen in den HBO-Serien The Wire und Tremé. 2009 spielte Earle in dem Off-Broadway-Stück Samara mit, für das er auch die Musik
schrieb, die die New York Times als „exquisit unterschwellig“ bezeichnete. Im Jahr 2020 wurde Earle in die Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame
aufgenommen.

a The Devil's Right Hand (Acoustic[Live])
[b] My Old Friend The Blues (Acoustic[Live])
[c] Someday (Acoustic [Live])
[d] Guitar Town (Acoustic [Live])
[e] I Ain't Ever Satisfied (Acoustic[Live])
[f] Now She's Gone (Acoustic [Live])
[g] Goodbye (Acoustic [Live])

[i] South Nashville Blues (Acoustic[Live])
[j] CCKMP (Acoustic [Live])
[k] Transcendental Blues (Acoustic[Live])
[l] It's About Blood (Acoustic [Live])
[m] Dominick St. (Acoustic [Live])
[n] The Galway Girl (Acoustic [Live])
[o] Copperhead Road (Acoustic [Live])

On his latest full-length, Low End Activist swerves towards weightless grime and suspended hardcore miniatures to tell a very personal story. The UK-rooted producer continues his habit of zeroing in on a distinct approach for each release, leaving a logical breadcrumb trail of soundsystem science in his wake as he channels decades of bass absorption into 14 atmospheric cuts that prize patience and precision over obvious club functionality.

Municipal Dreams plays out as a semi-autobiographical tour through the Blackbird Leys estate that the Activist grew up on. It’s a lived reflection on inequality and the ripple effect it has in working class communities, using the sonic palette to set the mood and scattering pointed samples throughout to spell out the story.

In sampling the exhaust of a stolen Subaru Impreza, ‘TWOC’ looks back to the recreational car theft which was standard entertainment for the kids in his community. There’s an underlying idea that this ‘council estate sport’ wouldn’t have been so prevalent if there were public services and opportunities presented to the scores of disaffected youth looking for somewhere to direct their energy and frustration.

In ‘Just A Number (Institutionalised)’ LEA alludes to the shattered juvenile detention system, growing up seeing friends and family members locked up at ease with little to no support on being released back into society, just meant that the same cycles of behaviour would play out over and over.

‘Violence’ samples from a short film shot by the drama division of the Blackbird Leys Youth Club to evoke the physical threat which formed a background hum to life on the estate. The industrial mechanics of the local car factory, which served an integral role as a workplace for many in the community, gets sampled in ‘They Only Come Out At Night’ while the ‘Everyone I look up to are either junkies or criminals’ sample in ‘Broke’ looks to a lack of positive role models.

Municipal Dreams isn’t a one-note indictment of life on the estate, ‘Innocence’ captures the simplicity of a child at birth before their environment has time to shape them. The Hope interludes cut through the grim honesty of the longer tracks while a subtle thread of wry humour finds its way into some of the talking heads cutting through the signature LEA murk.

But honesty is the operative word here, and the message feels all the more meaningful at a time when the UK’s social divisions are laid bare in the wake of a devastating stretch of austerity. Returning to Blackbird Leys to shoot images for the photo-zine and album cover, the Activist found the local community centre being demolished. The local pub stands derelict, its faded Welcome sign a grimly ironic portent of the options facing children of the estate in the wider world.

Funnelling his memories, hopes and fears into a singular twist on the bass weight tradition, LEA captures evocative scenes that land somewhere between kitchen sink realism and rave futurism.

12” paddling pool blue vinyl, is an edition of 500. CD Digifile. Following the runaway success of their critically acclaimed 2021 second album Contender, the question for fast-rising London four-piece Fightmilk was always going to be “what next?” With a tight indie-pop sound that defined their early recordings, the answer was obvious to a band who seem hellbent on the notion of evolve or die… The band originally formed in 2015 in a Brixton pub garden by Lily and Alex, who had both, separately, just been dumped and thought being in an angry punk band would cheer them up. Then they found Nick and Healey to hold the rhythm down and make them sound good. With three albums under their belt, they’ve perfected their chaotic, melodic brand of joy and rage-filled pop with full-throated yelling and sparkling guitar riffs as their trademark. They’ve graduated from angsty whippersnappers in their mid-twenties to overgrown teenage 30-somethings with mild ongoing back and shoulder pain. Their previous 2 albums Not With That Attitude (2018) & Contender (2021) marked them out as an ambitious and rising prospect, and now on their forthcoming new album No Souvenirs the band eschew their former Britpop ties and edge further into DIY punk and heavier rock influences to reveal a leaner, meaner, more abrasive side to their cathartic lo-fi anthems. Whilst collectively diving into their passion for Jimmy Eat World, frontwoman Lily Rae made a conscious decision to strengthen her “big loud yell” with influence from Alicia Bognanno (Bully), Nat Foster (Press Club), and Missy Dabice (Mannequin Pussy). “My voice is the biggest it’s ever been and I’m constantly thrilled when people are surprised at how loud I am, considering I’m so small in stature,” she grins. “Lyrically I always look to Bruce Springsteen for inspiration but I also really enjoyed the angsty candour of Sour by Olivia Rodrigo, and Kacey Musgraves’ impeccable one-liners.” There are a few genre experiments on the record—Yo La Tengo in ‘Paddling Pool’, ‘Canines’ is part The Strokes and part Neu!, and ‘Back From Tour’ was heavily influenced by long term friends Johnny Foreigner. “You could probably make a case for ‘Inferno’ having a bit of Counting Crows to it, but we were never writing to emulate,” explains guitarist Alex. “The references and touchstones just happened along the way. As far as we’re concerned, they just sound like Fightmilk - and that’s a really nice place to be nearly a decade in.” “That said, we’ve also been REALLY picky with the songs that made it onto the album - there’s probably an-other album’s worth of songs that didn’t feel right, even if we loved them. We got really good at finding the “magic thing” in each song that made it work.” Spilling over with candid lyrics about death, doomed love, and dog bites, framed by endless punk energy and the kind of full-throated riff-rock that sounds just at home in a giant stadium as it does in a sticky-floored toilet bar, No Souvenirs is a triumphant return from the band, who are equally enthused by the album. “I only realised after we put the songs together how personal to me this album was,” explains Lily. “Not just because I’m writing about extremely specific sitcom episodes in my life (getting fired from bridesmaid duty, being bitten on the arse by a dog, being relentlessly asked when I’m going to have kids), but because whilst we were making it, I turned 30. It’s a significant age for women, especially in music, because aside from being something called a ‘geriatric millennial’, there’s an unspoken rule that there’s a cut-off point for you to have ‘made it’ and after that you have to settle down and be normal.” For Lily, writing for the album also aligned with the 10th anniversary of the death of a close friend, with the resulting track ‘No Souvenirs’ lending its title to the album as a whole. “It had taken me that long to write about it in a way I felt ok with. But I realised that I couldn’t have written it before,” she explains. “I needed that distance, and that maturity, to be able to articulate those feelings. It feels to me now like the album is about scorched earth, moving on, taking nothing with you for the next ‘thing’ - and realising that getting older is a privilege.” Bringing a huge amount of energy and joy with them whenever and wherever they hit a stage, interacting with the audience is a vital part of the Fightmilk live experience. “Without people singing and dancing at us we wouldn’t have gigs at all, so we want everyone to get involved!” says Lily of the band’s future tour plans

Ava Mendoza has never made an album quite as personal as her second solo full-length, The Circular Train. Through her decades of collaborations with Nels Cline, Carla Bozulich, William Parker, Fred Frith, Matana Roberts, and Mick Barr—plus years leading her power trio Unnatural Ways and playing in Bill Orcutt’s quartet—the guitarist’s name has become synonymous with virtuoso technique, raw passion, and visceral resonance, a player pushing the edges of the guitar’s possibilities. Along the way, from 2007 to 2023, Mendoza was writing these slow-burning, incandescent songs. The Circular Train is comprised solely of her single-tracked guitar playing and, on two songs, her corporeal singing. Her first solo LP of original material since relocating from California to New York City a decade ago, much of The Circular Train was honed amid pandemic years that clarified the virtues of slowing down. This expressive avant-rock is a definitive introduction to one of the most uncompromising and inquisitive visions in creative music. Mendoza’s thrilling melange of free jazz, blues, noise, classical training, and blazing experimental rock’n’roll all coheres with ecstatic feedback, with picking and solos that crest with shimmer. Sometimes she sounds like a one-woman Sonic Youth with guttural and poised vocals that equally evoke Patti Smith and blues greats like Jessie Mae Hemphill. Conceptually, The Circular Train is presented as a psychogeographical train ride through certain of Mendoza’s musical homelands. The songs draw on ancestral and recent familial memories, notably of her parents’ roots in mining towns—in her father’s home country of Bolivia and mother’s hometown of Butte, Montana, each country with its own history of colonialism, racism, forced labor, the eradication of culture and the subsequent excavation of it. These adventurous songs were composed in cars and planes, in the heart of the Mississippi Delta, in Los Angeles and upstate New York—which is to say in motion. “Ride to Cerro Rico,” named for the mountain and silver mine at the center of Potosi, Bolivia, was inspired by Mendoza’s great grandmother’s life there in a Quechua mining family. “Dust From the Mines” drew from that history as well as Mendoza’s familial lineage of miners in Montana, building up to stunning swaths of shredded iridescence. “Pink River Dolphins” was inspired by a visit to the Amazon rainforest, swimming with dolphins alongside her father—the pink bufeos that inhabit both Bolivia and Columbia—and the song is dedicated to the memory of Mendoza’s late friend, the Colombian-American trumpeter jaimie branch. They shared a fascination with those intelligent and agile creatures who often communicate by echolocation. “Make a sound, it comes back around,” Mendoza sings, and later, “Echo, echo/The answer in a sound,” evoking what branch knew well: through music we navigate life. The Circular Train contains one cover, “Irene, Goodnight,” composed by Gussie Lord Davis and popularized by Leadbelly; Mendoza has been performing it for over 20 years. Almost as deeply embedded in her repertoire is the penultimate track, “The Shadow Song.” “Treat your shadow kind and it might treat you good,” Mendoza sings on this song that she’s been reworking for over a decade, an emblem of devotion. “Treat your shadow kind and it might treat you right,” she repeats, becoming a blues mantra. What is a shadow self if not one’s secret world, which, once laid bare, awaits an echo, a return?

Esteemed US musician Mike Viola is bringing his new album Rock Of Boston to our shores with a handful of shows in November, forming a special pick-up band with members of The Zutons and The La’s for the tour. Mike Viola is a producer, musician, songwriter and singer best known for his work with Panic! at the Disco, Andrew Bird, Dawes, Ryan Adams and Jenny Lewis. However his solo career stands on its own, starting with a number of acclaimed records as the leader of New York based cult favourite Candy Butchers and 8 critically adored solo records. His original music has been featured on soundtracks for movies such as That Thing You Do!, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story and Get Him to the Greek. Rock Of Boston was recorded over the winter of 2023 on 8 track ½” tape at Barebones, Viola’s home studio in Los Angeles. Once again joined by his friends Jake Sinclair (Weezer, Sia, Panic! at the Disco) on bass and Brendon Urie (Panic! At The Disco) on drums. For UK shows Mike has roped in Sean Payne (The Zutons) and Jay Lewis (The La's, Cast) to join Jake Sinclair and himself on the road. Viola says, “I’m always writing songs, or pieces of songs, or riffs. My writing process changes every song, so I never get trapped in a method. I let the song lead me. While I was on a world tour playing guitar for Panic at The Disco, I wrote the bulk of this record on the bus between soundcheck and showtime. On the days off, I’d find a recording studio wherever we were and I’d book studio time to sneak away to lay down a few ideas. When the tour finished, Jake and Brendon came home to LA and we never stopped playing music together. We just switched from touring with Panic! to recording Rock Of Boston pretty seamlessly without a break. Maybe that’s why the riffs seem bigger on this record, we had spent all those months in hockey arenas around the world playing big music.”

Blake Lee has always been fascinated by the unknown, and space, in its isolating, mysterious vastness, embodies this theme immaculately. The open void, captured so memorably by Stanley Kubrick in '2001: A Space Odyssey', is Blake's far-reaching canvas on 'No Sound In Space', a cinematic meditation on the cosmos that's painted in nuanced, emotionally sincere colors. The Los Angeles-based composer has been contemplating his full-length debut since 2021, using his guitar as a sonic paintbrush rather than find himself snared in its traditional aesthetic constraints. Transforming its characteristics with effects and subtle processes, he layers sustained tones and intimate improvisations, creating richly visual polychromatic utopias teeming with unknown life.

Since 2011, Blake has been most known for being the guitarist and a music director for Lana Del Rey, notching up three songwriting credits on her acclaimed ‘Ultraviolence’ full length. He sees his solo work is a form of escapism, a place where he can experiment and find comfort and catharsis outside of expectations and formal structure. The album was written instinctively, and Blake made sure he didn't force anything, letting go and getting out of his own way, listening intently as sounds and textures materialized organically. "I didn't want to ruin it by being a perfectionist," he laughs. And his collaboration with Kenyan sound artist KMRU, who runs the OFNOT label and contributes to two of the tracks on the album, occurred similarly organically.

Blake was moved to reach out to KMRU when he caught a performance of 'Natur' at Los Angeles' Zebulon in 2022, leading to a prolonged back-and-forth. They didn't meet in person until earlier this year, by which time they'd become firm friends, continuously sharing music and conversation. KMRU had lent a valuable ear to Blake, who sent early playlists of 'NSIS' that, over the months, slowly evolved into the finished album. It's the first release on OFNOT that's not by KMRU himself; the label emerged last year with the release of KMRU's own 'Dissolution Grip', and Blake's debut immediately expands its sonic universe. Alongside the playlists, Blake also provided KMRU with the tracks' raw stems, which KMRU began to edit and expand in his Berlin studio. 'Miura' and 'Waiting' are the result of this process, two sublime abstractions that augment Blake's dreamlike, euphoric tones with KMRU's pebbly distortions and booming low-end rumbles. And this same playful sense of freeness seeps into Blake's other compositions.

On the misty 'In A Cloud', he surrounds cascading string tones with soft-focus pads that swell until they're like crashing waves, and on the two 'Echoplexx' pieces, he uses delay and reverb to smudge his sounds until they're viscous residue, the harmonies obscured by whooshes of white noise and distant chimes. The mood is quieted somewhat on 'Moving Air', as Blake's swirling tones form half-heard lullabies, coalescing into a dense, melancholy crescendo, and he fills out the sound with reverberant airport recordings on 'Pan Am', letting pitchy My Bloody Valentine-esque drones warble beneath the transitory chatter. Each track melts into the next, forming a billowing, cryptic narrative that leaves more questions than answers. Blake is constantly searching, and fills his unoccupied space with warmth, perception and sensitivity.

Blake Lee has always been fascinated by the unknown, and space, in its isolating, mysterious vastness, embodies this theme immaculately. The open void, captured so memorably by Stanley Kubrick in '2001: A Space Odyssey', is Blake's far-reaching canvas on 'No Sound In Space', a cinematic meditation on the cosmos that's painted in nuanced, emotionally sincere colors. The Los Angeles-based composer has been contemplating his full-length debut since 2021, using his guitar as a sonic paintbrush rather than find himself snared in its traditional aesthetic constraints. Transforming its characteristics with effects and subtle processes, he layers sustained tones and intimate improvisations, creating richly visual polychromatic utopias teeming with unknown life.

Since 2011, Blake has been most known for being the guitarist and a music director for Lana Del Rey, notching up three songwriting credits on her acclaimed ‘Ultraviolence’ full length. He sees his solo work is a form of escapism, a place where he can experiment and find comfort and catharsis outside of expectations and formal structure. The album was written instinctively, and Blake made sure he didn't force anything, letting go and getting out of his own way, listening intently as sounds and textures materialized organically. "I didn't want to ruin it by being a perfectionist," he laughs. And his collaboration with Kenyan sound artist KMRU, who runs the OFNOT label and contributes to two of the tracks on the album, occurred similarly organically.

Blake was moved to reach out to KMRU when he caught a performance of 'Natur' at Los Angeles' Zebulon in 2022, leading to a prolonged back-and-forth. They didn't meet in person until earlier this year, by which time they'd become firm friends, continuously sharing music and conversation. KMRU had lent a valuable ear to Blake, who sent early playlists of 'NSIS' that, over the months, slowly evolved into the finished album. It's the first release on OFNOT that's not by KMRU himself; the label emerged last year with the release of KMRU's own 'Dissolution Grip', and Blake's debut immediately expands its sonic universe. Alongside the playlists, Blake also provided KMRU with the tracks' raw stems, which KMRU began to edit and expand in his Berlin studio. 'Miura' and 'Waiting' are the result of this process, two sublime abstractions that augment Blake's dreamlike, euphoric tones with KMRU's pebbly distortions and booming low-end rumbles. And this same playful sense of freeness seeps into Blake's other compositions.

On the misty 'In A Cloud', he surrounds cascading string tones with soft-focus pads that swell until they're like crashing waves, and on the two 'Echoplexx' pieces, he uses delay and reverb to smudge his sounds until they're viscous residue, the harmonies obscured by whooshes of white noise and distant chimes. The mood is quieted somewhat on 'Moving Air', as Blake's swirling tones form half-heard lullabies, coalescing into a dense, melancholy crescendo, and he fills out the sound with reverberant airport recordings on 'Pan Am', letting pitchy My Bloody Valentine-esque drones warble beneath the transitory chatter. Each track melts into the next, forming a billowing, cryptic narrative that leaves more questions than answers. Blake is constantly searching, and fills his unoccupied space with warmth, perception and sensitivity.

Lily Seabird is a perceptive songwriter who can channel moments when everything feels raw and overwhelming into something healing and galvanizing. With Alas, the Burlington, VT-based artist's sophomore album, she confronts grief with palpable clarity on tracks that careen from delicate folk to blistering indie rock. While it's her second LP, it serves as a proper introduction to an undeniable and idiosyncratic voice. "Alas, sounds way more like me," she says. "This is the album I wanted to make in the first place." Though Seabird is now known as a solo artist and collaborator in Burlington's vibrant music community as the bassist for Greg Freeman and other acts, her journey started in Pennsylvania when she picked up the saxophone as a kid. At 14, she learned guitar and started performing as Lily Seabird. After a brief stint in New York City playing in bands, she moved to Vermont, which has been her home since 2018. "When I came to Vermont, I was playing solo a lot but then I started a band with Greg Freeman," she says. "Since 2018, it's been me and Greg and a bunch of different casts of characters have been in the band since then it's an ever-evolving thing. It's just us playing my songs."The songs on Alas, came from a particularly unmoored period for Seabird. "I wrote this album in 2021 and 2022 on the road, trying to figure out who I am," she says. "A lot of them also deal with the time when my close friend passed away. The title Alas, meant a lot to her." Even if the songs don't always directly tackle this specific loss, there's a sense of mourning in how relationships change and dissolve. Take "Grace," a reflection on female friendship, which features the lines, "I hope she's happy now she should be 25 / She taught me something that I thought I'd always hide." Elsewhere, the knotty and unpredictable "Dirge" finds her singing, "I don't know if I believe in god / I don't know if I know how to go on." Seabird and Benny Yurco produced Alas, which was recorded at Burlington's Little Jamaica Studios with Freeman and drummer Zack James (Benny Yurco). It's a quietly expansive album full of subdued, organic textures and moods. Songs like "Cavity" are lush and inviting with silky guitar and Seabird's expressive saxophone playing. The 10 songs on Alas, stretch out and leave space for introspection and deep listening with some tracks taking nearly seven minutes to mesmerizingly unfold. It's a remarkably assured and vital statement from one of the most promising new songwriters alongside peers Merce Lemon, Squirrel Flower, and Allegra Krieger."The album is about loss, coming of age, and sadness but there are also all these moments where happiness takes over," says Seabird. "It can be two things at once: life isn't just pain and sadness, there's also joy. They can all exist at the same time. Alas, is an expression of grief but it's also for letting go."

"Perhaps best known for his long association with the legendary Muddy Waters, Otis Spann is largely recognized as one of the greatest blues pianists of all time, if not the greatest.

Although Spann made a name for himself in Chicago by the mid 1940s, it wasn’t until 1960 that he got the opportunity to record an album of his own. The sessions Spann did with Candid Records co-founder Nat Hentoff that year resulted in the legendary album Otis Spann Is The Blues. (Incidentally, this was also the first album ever recorded for the fledgling New York City based label.)

The tracks on Walking The Blues were recorded during those same sessions in August of 1960 in New York City.

Left on the cutting room floor, they would not be officially released until 1972, two years after Spann’s untimely death.

Robert Lockwood Jr., also from Muddy Water’s group, accompanies Spann on guitar here as he does on the Is The Blues album. But Walking The Blues also features Spann’s close friend, veteran singer and composer James Oden, better known to blues fans as St. Louis Jimmy.

Stripped down to just the these musicians, this magnificently performed and produced set showcases Spann’s voice as well as piano. Spann stretches out with his pulsing two-handed rhythmic attack, and brings the barrelhouse piano style of his youth in line with the modern Chicago style he embodied."

LINKIN PARK—Mike Shinoda, Brad Delson, Phoenix, Joe Hahn, alongside new members Emily Armstrong of critically acclaimed band Dead Sara as co-vocalist and Colin Brittain songwriter/producer for G Flip, Illenium, One OK Rock as drummer—share their first brand new music in seven years.

The iconic band shared a new single “The Emptiness Machine,” which is also the herald for the arrival of LINKIN PARK’s first album since 2017, FROM ZERO, on November 15.

About the new era, Shinoda stated, “Before LINKIN PARK, our first band name was Xero. This album title refers to both this humble beginning and the journey we’re currently undertaking. Sonically and emotionally, it is about past, present, and future—embracing our signature sound, but new and full of life. It was made with a deep appreciation for our new and longtime bandmates, our friends, our family, and our fans. We are proud of what LINKIN PARK has become over the years, and excited about the journey ahead.”

Right out of the gate, “The Emptiness Machine” channels the DNA of LINKIN PARK, harnessing the band’s explosive energy and retaining the hallmarks of their instantly identifiable and inimitable sound. A chameleonic and catchy anthem, Shinoda’s hypnotic melodies hand off to Armstrong’s blistering chorus, over distorted riffs and head-nodding drums.

Ultimately, with FROM ZERO, the band is looking to harness the purest energy of their past, present, and future. The new era has officially begun.

The members of the Peruvian psychedelic folk-pop band
Kanaku y el Tigre never thought that what started as a fun
project among friends would become one of the most
acclaimed bands in Latin America. Their first single,
"Bicicleta", was made without the pressure of trying to fit
into the local scene. This attitude fueled the creativity with
which they managed to create an important space for
themselves in the local music scene. "Bicicleta" is the city
of Lima, the constant search for an identity, the illusion,
the monsters, the carbon monoxide, the belonging and the
absence.

The indie folk and experimental pop group Kanaku y el
Tigre has a 15-year artistic career and is considered one of
the most influential contemporary bands in the Latin
American music scene.

The band has been part of festivals such as Rock al Parque
and Estéreo Picnic in Colombia, Vive Latino in Mexico, Río
Babel in Madrid, Primavera Sound in Barcelona, and has
toured in other countries such as Argentina, France, and
Chile.

Additionally, they have shared the stage with
Aterciopelados and collaborated with Jorge Drexler, Kevin
Johansen, Miki Gonzáles, Leonor Watling, among other
renowned musicians from Latin America.

Mint Condition - A record label focused on excavating the outer fringes of classic House and Techno. Unreleased mixes, classics, overlooked gems and never heard before material, mined from the last 30+ years of contemporary dance music are the order of the day. From Chicago, Detroit and New York to London, Nottingham and beyond. Mint Condition have got their digging hats on to bring you exclusive heat and those rarer than rare jams that have been in your wants list for years. Dig in!

Forged in the fertile acid house scene of the late 80s, A Trifle Too Far comprises childhood friends Simon Ward and Tony Grimley from Hornchurch, on London's outer fringes in Essex. Their insatiable thirst for seeking out new sounds led them to countless shindigs, parties and raves, eventually inspiring them to craft their own music based on their adventures on the dancefloor.

Their studio collaboration culminated in the creation of the remarkable record you currently hold in your hands: 'Catch Your Ear / Meringueatang'. This two-track release, recorded in 1992, offers forward-thinking and fresh prog-house cuts, as rare as hen's teeth and as exhilarating as they were upon their original release over three decades ago. Catch Your Ear was expertly engineered by Evren Omer, boss of Essex-based techno bunker Strategy Records, while Meringueatang was helmed by Matt Clayden, one half of M&M and Acorn Arts and the proprietor of X-Gate Records, another stalwart in Essex's underground dance scene.

'Catch Your Ear / Meringueatang' remains the only musical collaboration between the duo. When Mint Condition approached them to reissue this highly sought-after EP, both Simon and Tony were surprised and delighted in equal measure by the proposition. Now, a few months down the line, we find ourselves with yet another top-tier addition to the MC reissue catalogue, fully licensed from the artists, mastered and cut by Keith Tenniswood at Curve Pusher, and available once again for purchase. Do not resist the beat!

"Sympathy Pain is an unusual animal, as their collective backgrounds come from hardcore, drone, and experimental pop in Salt Lake City, Utah. Sympathy Pain began as Skyler Hitchcox’s gloomy drone project which was later joined by Casey Hansen (of Cult Leader) to explore and expand the sullen space that the project initially carved out. Sympathy Pain is rounded out by Chaz Prymek (Lake Mary) and Nora Price. The deep connections to Salt Lake City’s underground well of experimental music have deep entanglements. Sympathy Pain has emerged from those entanglements with a clear eyed thesis, transmuting the often oppressive cultural climate of Utah through a personal veil of heavy sorrow.

Swan Dive is the product of years of excavating that space into a cavern, yielding their self-described “emo)))” (a nod to the preeminent doom/drone band Sunn) while still holding onto the submerged soundscapes that began as the core of the project. The album is expansive — a winding ride that travels from minimalism, to claustrophobic ambient, to triumphant passages that all underscore its forlorn undercurrent.

Originally released in January of 2024 as a CD by The Ghost is Clear and cassette by Diabolical Records, Swan Dive finally finds a new life on vinyl - reissued by the Cincinnati, OH record label Whited Sepulchre Records.

Tracked with Wes Johnson at Archive Recordings in SLC, UT and mixed/mastered by longtime friend and co-conspirator Ben Young, the album features a haunting guest spot by Madeline Johnston of Midwife on “Heaven + Hell” to close out the album."

Equal parts soft and sorrowful, Myriam Gendron’s stunning Not So Deep As A Well LP became something of a sleeper hit upon its initial release back in 2014. Her debut album shone a warm lamp-light glow upon a curious and captivating new voice in the Quebecois folk world.
Nearly ten years on from its release in her native Canada and America, Not So Deep As A Well gets a European release for the first time this autumn, with a new pressing on the Basin Rock label (Julie Byrne, Aoife Nessa Frances, Trevor Beales, Juni Habel) which features two tracks not included on the original release - ‘Bric-à-brac’ and ‘The Small Hours’ - both written and recorded in the early days of 2014.
Recorded alone in her apartment, with no knowledge of sound engineering, it could almost be a lost artefact, a dust-lined document of a forgotten time and place. Taking the poems of Dorothy Parker, whose work Gendron stumbled upon by chance in a Montreal bookstore, she imbues the words with a graceful, gentle expression, a lingering sense of sorrow always present.
A stark, spellbinding collection, Not So Deep As A Well is raw and unyielding in so many ways we no longer expect to hear. As if sitting in the room with her, Gendron’s voice is cracked and unadorned, quietly forced into a push and pull between

History brackets Jan and Dean with friends the Beach Boys as
stereotypical young Californians – all-American surfers with bikiniclad girls on their arm. Yet they had a history before they fell in with
the Wilson brothers, beating Brian and company to the charts by a
matter of four years. Their success also helped Los Angeles emerge
as a musical centre of the United States. The major labels of the
time were based in New York and Chicago, and the city’s major
leisure industries were television and cinema. This album focuses
on the early years, including a couple of the rare Jan and Arnie
songs, to give the fullest possible background to a classic pop
partnership.

Closely following the release of the last Borderland single, the focus returns on Transport, the last collaborative album by Juan Atkins and Moritz von Oswald.
Long time friend and studio partner of Moritz von Oswald, Carl Craig provides a new take on 'Transport'. Extending and stripping the original sequence to its bone, the illustrious Planet E president and illustrious Detroit proponent also summons a stepping drum sequence and a swaying array of moving delays.
This 12' edit is cut on the A-side. The full version of Carl Craig's remix clocks just above 20 minutes and is available digitally. Both are available to anyone who purchases the record, through the enclosed download card.

On the flip, DJ Deep & Roman Poncet rework Carl Craig's remix, adding their signature grooves and myriad of tough drums, to full effect.

Christmas is the most wonderful moments of the year, when we meet with family and friends,

and when we really want to have a nice time. Of course, music is essential to achieve this ambience. Christmas:

The Complete Songbook in vinyl format is an album ideal to liven up that special moment,

since it is an completely different album from those currently available. With an fantastic selection of artists,

ranging from Frank Sinatra and Louis Armstrong, to Belinda Carlisle, Gilbert O’Sullivan and Patti Austin,

they all delight us with fantastic versions of Christmas’ classics.

With an elaborate and eye-catching artwork and specially remastered sound for vinyl format,

this is a fundamental album for the upcoming Holiday season.

Crypt of the Wizard is proud to present With Hope or Without, a new mini-LP from Riders of Rohan, available now on vinyl and digital formats.

The singing Rohirrim hath returned on their continued quest through the nooks and crannies of Middle Earth to tell more tales of love, longing and derring-do. This time our heroes even hark back to an era far beyond the Third Age and the War of the Ring on occasion, delving into territory lesser known to the fairweather Tolkienistas. That is not to say we won’t run into some friendly faces. Indeed one familiar friend is well-met wandering free out on the borderlands in Ranger Song yearning for yesteryear, and for lost love with a great destiny ahead of him.

Transcendental poetry meets Southern Nightmare Jazz on the third album by Alabama-based artist Johnny Coley Mister Sweet Whisper is the meeting of poet & artist Johnny Coley and the band Worst Spills, led by guitarist & arranger Joel Nelson. (Imagine "King Tubbys Meets Rockers Uptown," but more like "William Burroughs Meets Lounge Lizards in Ghost Swamp"). Joined by vibraphone player and recordist of the group, Jasper Lee, Mister Sweet Whisper centers Coley as a gifted writer and unique elder voice, supported by an eclectic cast of friends & collaborators. Tapping into French surrealism and transgressive American poets such as John Ashbery, the songs in Mister Sweet Whisper evolve, cinema-like, with Coley as an uninhibited, almost mystical, narrator. Textural, jazz-like playing complements Coley's decadent landscapes, which glide by like cigarette-inspired invocations. Echoing, and at times, dissonant notes of saxophone, crystalline tones of vibraphone, and jagged guitar arrangements punctuate Coley's dreamlike visions, populated by ballet dancers, haunting nightclubs, and ghostly car drivers. Wistful and expansive, the songs in Mister Sweet Whisper speak of Coley's talent and natural ability to channel his poetic world into songs. A remarkable follow-up to Coley's first two albums_Antique Sadness, from 2021, and Landscape Man, from 2022_which were praised as "exquisitely haunting, sublime, hilarious" and falling "somewhere between Robert Ashley, David Wojnarowicz, and Intersystems," Mister Sweet Whisper arrives in full form: unpredictable and brilliant. LP comes with a 4-page booklet featuring artwork and writing by Johnny. Pressed in black vinyl.

Stu Marshall will mit seiner Band EMPIRES OF EDEN die Konventionen des Metal auf den Kopf stellen! Einige der beeindruckendsten Musiker des Metal-Genres haben sich auf "Guardians Of Time" zusammengetan, um gemeinsam die und die Zukunft des Genres zu prägen.

Dieses Album, das Genres wie Power Metal, AOR und Thrash-Elemente miteinander verbindet, zeugt von einem tiefgreifenden kreativen Input einer breiten Palette von Metal-Talenten.
Es ist ein klares Statement von einigen der angesehensten Namen im Metal. Hier geht es nicht um Nostalgie, sondern um Innovation und die Zukunft des Metal Genres als kreative Kraft.