Cerca:the heart

Southern California shoegaze squad Cold Gawd return to Dais for their second and most supreme suite yet of crushing downer bliss: I’ll Drown On This Earth. From the defiant scream that kicks off opening cut “Gorgeous,” the album rips in what singer and principal songwriter Matthew Wainwright describes as “go for it” mode: holding back nothing, wasting no time. Although the bulk of the songs were written in 2022, recording sessions weren’t booked until March of 2024, which allowed ample time to refine and distill the music’s hooks, heaviness, and haze. The result is a perfect storm of distortion and dream pop, cracked love songs cloaked in swooning walls of noise.

Recorded at Paradise Recorders in Anaheim, California with Colin Knight (of post-punk unit Object of Affection), Wainwright tracked the strings while Cameron Fonacier handled drums. The process was efficient and effective, sharpened by years of performance. Anthemic headbangers like “Portland,” “All My Life, My Heart Has Yearned For A Thing I Cannot Name,” and “Malibu Beach House” sound as dynamic as they do dialled-in, soaked into the bones of the players. The lyrics camelast, written by Wainwright a week before recording. Moods of surreality (“I can hear the blood in my fingers / nothing tunes out / the world’s too loud”), infatuation (“I will follow / everywhere you go / any way to feel / how you glow”), and melancholy (“God kept me around / for no good reason”) flicker and fade within a fog of memory and reverb.

Die südkalifornische Shoegaze-Truppe Cold Gawd kehrt zurück zu Dais mit ihrer zweiten und bisher besten Suite von erdrückender Downer-Seligkeit: "I'll Drown On This Earth". Vom trotzigen Schrei, mit dem das Eröffnungsstück "Gorgeous" beginnt, reißt das Album mit, was Sänger und Haupt-Songwriter Matthew Wainwright als "Go for it"-Modus beschreibt: Nichts zurückhalten, keine Zeit verschwenden. Obwohl der Großteil der Songs im Jahr 2022 geschrieben wurde, waren die Aufnahmesessions nicht vor März 2024 gebucht, so dass genügend Zeit zur Verfeinerung und Destillierung der Hooks, die Schwere und den Dunst der Musik war. Das Ergebnis ist ein perfekter Sturm aus Verzerrung und Dream-Pop, zerrissene Liebeslieder, die sich in schwindelerregende Wände aus Lärm legen. Aufgenommen bei Paradise Recorders in Anaheim, Kalifornien, mit Colin Knight (von der Post-Punk-Band Object of Affection), spielte Wainwright die Streicher ein, während Cameron Fonacier das Schlagzeug bediente. Der Prozess war effizient und effektiv, geschärft durch jahrelange Performance. Songs wie "Portland", "All My Life, My Heart Has Yearned For A Thing I Cannot Name" und "Malibu Beach House" klingen dynamisch und gehen den Musikern in Fleisch und Blut über. Die Texte von Wainwright wurden nur eine Woche vor der Aufnahme geschrieben. Stimmungen der Surrealität, Verliebtheit und Melancholie flackern und verblassen in einem Nebel aus Erinnerung und Hall. Wie auf "God Get Me The Fuck Out Of Here" von 2022 manifestiert sich die zeitgemäße Vision des Shoegazevon Cold Gawd auf faszinierende Weise in Momenten, wie der gedämpften, strudelnden Träumerei von "Tappan", oder dem dunstigen, schleppenden Downtempo von ""Nudism"" (mit königlichem Klavier-Outro). Ihre Muse ist so lebendig wie vielfältig, sie reicht von "Loveless" von My Bloody Valentine über Drake, Post-Hardcore und Beach House. "I'll Drown On This Earth" erweitert auf eindrucksvolle Weise den Kanon von Cold Gawd, dicht an Riffs und Entrückung, Flucht und und Offenbarung, kanalisiert durch gestapelte Verstärker und versteckte Kräfte: "Give praise / to whatever / I got time for / hallelujah."

Die südkalifornische Shoegaze-Truppe Cold Gawd kehrt zurück zu Dais mit ihrer zweiten und bisher besten Suite von erdrückender Downer-Seligkeit: "I'll Drown On This Earth". Vom trotzigen Schrei, mit dem das Eröffnungsstück "Gorgeous" beginnt, reißt das Album mit, was Sänger und Haupt-Songwriter Matthew Wainwright als "Go for it"-Modus beschreibt: Nichts zurückhalten, keine Zeit verschwenden. Obwohl der Großteil der Songs im Jahr 2022 geschrieben wurde, waren die Aufnahmesessions nicht vor März 2024 gebucht, so dass genügend Zeit zur Verfeinerung und Destillierung der Hooks, die Schwere und den Dunst der Musik war. Das Ergebnis ist ein perfekter Sturm aus Verzerrung und Dream-Pop, zerrissene Liebeslieder, die sich in schwindelerregende Wände aus Lärm legen. Aufgenommen bei Paradise Recorders in Anaheim, Kalifornien, mit Colin Knight (von der Post-Punk-Band Object of Affection), spielte Wainwright die Streicher ein, während Cameron Fonacier das Schlagzeug bediente. Der Prozess war effizient und effektiv, geschärft durch jahrelange Performance. Songs wie "Portland", "All My Life, My Heart Has Yearned For A Thing I Cannot Name" und "Malibu Beach House" klingen dynamisch und gehen den Musikern in Fleisch und Blut über. Die Texte von Wainwright wurden nur eine Woche vor der Aufnahme geschrieben. Stimmungen der Surrealität, Verliebtheit und Melancholie flackern und verblassen in einem Nebel aus Erinnerung und Hall. Wie auf "God Get Me The Fuck Out Of Here" von 2022 manifestiert sich die zeitgemäße Vision des Shoegazevon Cold Gawd auf faszinierende Weise in Momenten, wie der gedämpften, strudelnden Träumerei von "Tappan", oder dem dunstigen, schleppenden Downtempo von ""Nudism"" (mit königlichem Klavier-Outro). Ihre Muse ist so lebendig wie vielfältig, sie reicht von "Loveless" von My Bloody Valentine über Drake, Post-Hardcore und Beach House. "I'll Drown On This Earth" erweitert auf eindrucksvolle Weise den Kanon von Cold Gawd, dicht an Riffs und Entrückung, Flucht und und Offenbarung, kanalisiert durch gestapelte Verstärker und versteckte Kräfte: "Give praise / to whatever / I got time for / hallelujah."

Formed in 2007, The Boxmasters have recorded an impressive and diverse catalogue of music that touches on their love of a wide array of influences, but most importantly, the rock and roll of the 1960’s. Love & Hate In Desperate Places is their 17th album and the ten songs evince a wry perspective on human nature and love. The lively melodic rock cloaks the wry wit of the lyrics. The album was produced by The Boxmasters, Billy Bob Thornton and J.D. Andrew, who also wrote every song. Listening to The Boxmasters, one can hear obvious odes to the Beatles, Byrds and Beach Boys, but also important to The Boxmasters are The Mothers of Invention, Kris Kristofferson, John Prine and Big Star. Since forming The Boxmasters, several long-time friends have contributed to the sound of the band, but the core of The Boxmasters has always been Andrew and Thornton. As primary songwriters, the sound of the Boxmasters has been an evolution as the duo constantly strive to find new inspiration, new sounds and new ways of expressing what is in their hearts and on their minds. But at the core, there is a backbeat, a lyric with meaning and music played with emotion. As a touring band, The Boxmasters have cultivated a rabid cult fanbase across the United States and Canada. Opening for the likes of ZZ Top, Steve Miller, George Thorogood and Kid Rock The Boxmasters have proven to win over large audiences. As a headliner, frequent stops in Kansas City at “Knuckleheads”, Springfield, Illinois at “Boondocks” and “Merrimack Hall” in Huntsville, Alabama have shown dedicated yet still growing audiences. Two appearances at Levon Helm’s “Midnight Ramble” in Woodstock, New York were highlight performances for the band, as well as the “Ramble at The Ryman” that Levon hosted in 2008. The Boxmasters performed on “The Grand Ole Opry” in 2015, another in a growing resume of must-play venues.

The way you're saying it, "prolific" isn't the right word for The Bug Club. You've got to say it with the trademark Welsh lilt and pay due homage to this inimitable band's origins in the renowned hit factory of Caldicot, South Wales. Do that, and you're about right with how to summarize a group who've released ten singles, two albums, two EPs, three things nobody knew how to describe, and an album under a different band's name, all since 2021, and while playing 200+ gigs a year. Initially comprising the songwriting core of Sam Willmett (vocals/guitar) and Tilly Harris (vocals/bass) with Dan Matthew (drums), The Bug Club started plying their trade in 2016. They were signed by UK label Bingo Records in Autumn of 2020. BBC 6 Music's Marc Riley was an early champion, hammering the single, booking the band in for a session as soon as it was allowed, and rightfully praising songwriters capable of singing the whole alphabet in a two-minute song and making it work. Third LP On The Intricate Inner Workings Of The System - their first for Sub Pop - sees the band serve up a beefy slab of their speciality Modern-Lovers-meets-Nuggets garage rock. There's B-52's call-and-response fun mixed with AC/DC power chord grunt. Leaning towards fast-paced punk, opening double salvo "War Movies" and "Quality Pints" sets out the stall: duel vocal piss-taking, surreal takes on everyday topics that go full circle and become profound, riffs all day long and then all the next day too. "Quality Pints" deals with the pressing concerns of any conscientious touring outfit, taking to heart the rule of the three R's as penned by renowned fellow pints fan Mark E. Smith of The Fall. Repetition, repetition, repetition. If it's that important, which it is, it's worth saying again. "War Movies" dresses distorted chugging with a comprehensive 'best of' list for the genre, with Sam Willmett offering a solo casually chucked out in a way that will make your dad promptly give up any resurgent guitar playing ambitions. And "A Bit Like James Bond" tackles the UK's sleaziest undercover export at the same time as the embarrassing ego problem that besets much of its population - but it's only heavy(ish) in the fun, loads-of-riffs sense. So, that's what they've been finishing up during their massive month-long break from gigs. In a bid to avoid being branded layabouts, The Bug Club will support their upcoming Sub Pop release with a springtime tour of the UK and Europe beginning May 10, before heading out to the US in September.

The records is released in two options. Both hvae 180g vinyl records. The first version has two black vinyls and the second limited edition (numbered 100 pieces) has one turquoise vinyl and the other red.

Over the last three decades, Auckland, New Zealand, has given birth to several generations of musicians, DJs, and producers who operated within the interzone between jazz, blues, soul, funk, Latin music, hip-hop, house, boogie, and broken beat. Across two slow-cooked albums that sit at the intersection of machine funk and vivid live instrumentation, Odyssey (2016) and their forthcoming sophomore release Long Road (2024), After 'Ours - the group project of pianist and composer Michal Martyniuk and drummer, guitarist and producer Nick Williams - have comfortably located themselves within this antipodean tradition.

Born and raised in Auckland, Nick Williams grew up surrounded by music from a young age. At home, his mother, Mary Anne, a record collector and DJ with deep, diverse vinyl crates, kept his ear sharp. By the time he was eight years old, he was regularly joining his musician father on stages across Australia in his blues rock band Slippery Sam. In his early twenties, Nick began leading the eleven-piece Auckland Latin-dub-funk fusion big band Tangent, who performed regularly until the late 2000s.

Michal Martyniuk, on the other hand, grew up on the opposite side of the world in Szczecin, Poland. After playing classical music for twelve years and attending jazz school, he relocated to New Zealand with his family in his teens. While studying at Auckland University Jazz school, Michal came into the orbit of the legendary New Zealand saxophonist, composer, producer, and band leader Nathan Haines, who brought him into the same world as future collaborators like Tama Waipara, Batacada Sound Machine, Sola Rosa and Nick.

Inspired by the rich stories of jazz, neo-soul, electronica, and dance music from both sides of the Atlantic Ocean and the open-eared Auckland scene they emerged from, After 'Ours formed in 2011. Born out of a friendship cultivated through playing together at bars and nightclubs around town and home studio sessions. "Nick had family and work, so I had to wait all day," Michal says. "We'd come to the studio at 10 PM and go till 3 AM. That's how we came up with the name.

Session by session, After 'Ours revealed itself to be a creatively fertile meeting of minds. "We both have our angles, but it works well in the end," Nick reflects. "It takes the music to a place we can't get to by ourselves."

Between 2011 and 2016, they wrote and recorded Odyssey with a cast of musical collaborators that included KP, Sharlene Hector & Kevin Mark Trail (UK), Matt Nanai, Nathan Haines, Jakub Skowronski, Nick's partner Ange Williams (nee Saunders) and British producer Mike Patto from the lauded UK future jazz group Reel People. Influenced by the smooth yacht rock of Steely Dan and Donald Fagan, the warm midtempo bounce of A Tribe Called Quest and J Dilla, and the complex jazz/RnB bop of Robert Glasper, Odyssey was a labour of love that emphasised community, warm-hearted hospitality, and care.

Seven years on, they're finally ready to return with Long Road, an album that contains some of their best work yet. As well as reconnecting with past collaborators Kevin Mark Trail and Ange Williams, Long Road sees After 'Ours calling on assistance from Louis Baker, Jakarta-based saxophone player Kuba Skowroński, bassist Dan Antunovich, Los Angeles-based drummer Chris Bailey and the journeyman British soul artist Omar Lyefook.

Across ten songs that plot a stargazed course through their antipodean spin on UK broken beat, jazz, modern soul, and blues rock, Nick and Michal build on everything they learned while writing and recording Odyssey. In the process, they take their joyful musical visions to sublime new heights.

"Even God Has A Sense Of Humor" is the long-awaited follow up album to Maxo's critically acclaimed 2019 release Lil Big Man. Across the 14-tracks, Even God Has A Sense Of Humor pays tribute to the mercurial nature of life and includes features from Liv.e, keiyaA, LastNameDavid, and Melanie Charles along with the previously released singles "Free!," produced by Dev Morrison and "48," produced by Madlib and featuring Pink Siifu. The FADER recently sat down with Maxo to discuss the album, which they described as having "a defiant glow, like a bronze statue still standing after an intense tornado."

Born Maxamillian Allen, Even God Has A Sense Of Humor finds Maxo earnest, full-hearted, and lyrically agile. His delivery punches as he poetically unpacks the trials and blessings that have marked the last three years since Lil Big Man, his stirring and meditative debut album. “Life is always gonna be life-ing,” Maxo says, speaking to the spiritual lessons that inspired this new project and an album process that has revealed to him the many ways in which he’s divinely protected.

The album’s striking cover features three casted sculptures of Maxo by legendary NYC-based artist artist John Ahearn, photographed by the rapper’s friend Steven Traylor. The image both preceded the music and set the tone for the record’s overall aura. Experiencing the casting process—which required long periods of stillness for form, and breathwork to avoid claustrophobia—became a metaphor about ego death for Maxo. “I had to go to a space where I was just not there,” he says. As the molding was poured over his body and the voices of those in the room became distant, Maxo’s inner world came into focus. “By the time it hardened, it seemed like the sculpture had risen to be 20 feet above where it was first— almost like it grew tall,” he explains. EGHASOH, in its aural ebbs and flows, honest questioning, profound revelations, and elegant verse, is Maxo standing spiritually tall following a period of challenges with family and friends.

Maxo’s writing process has always been rooted in imagery, observation, and capturing moments. Growing up in Southern California, Maxo spent a lot of time combing through old family photo albums, some of whose contents have become the artwork for prior releases. But his fascination with visual memento is less about nostalgia or remembering, and more about exploring concepts of growth, healing, and cycles. His artistry is intentional and deeply sensitive: “If I’m not feeling it, I’m not gonna record.” While his past records openly grappled with emotional turbulence, anger and depression, EGHASOH is Maxo’s acceptance stage: “I can't really judge nothing. I can't sit up and be mad at shit because everything is, everything is kind of coexisting,” he says.

Musically, EGHASOH is an impressive evolution from Maxo’s earlier, unornamented lo-fi projects. With an emphasis on jazzy instrumentalism and soothing, intricate vocals from both the artist and featured chanteueses Liv.e, Melanie Charles, and keiyaA, EGHASOH is a welcome and beautifully complex sonic effort. Its contributors include a range of musicians: Pink Siifu, LastNameDavid, Madlib, GrayMatter, Karriem Riggins, Beat Butcha, Lance Skiiiwalker, and more. The album was executive produced by Mount Kimbie’s Dom Maker.

“Nobody talks about the fact that we’re changing as we get older... Everybody just acts like you supposed to know,” Maxo says on album standout, “Face of Stone”. It's moody bassline meets a cinematic accordion melody that paradoxically both broods and uplifts—a fitting production choice that mirrors the song’s story. “I’m seeing how this world is chipping you and withering your bones,” Maxo says. “I’m talking about myself, talking about my bro. But it’s never nothing you gonna do that’s a one stop shop in this life. You gotta keep staying diligent and consistent.” For Maxo, Even God Has a Sense of Humor is nothing more than another moment on the timeline of his offerings of self-expression as an artist—one whose sole intention is to, in his words, develop as a human being and heal.

Katharine Whalen of Squirrel Nut Zippers fame, makes a triumphant return with her Jazz Squad featuring Austin Riopel on guitar, Danny Grewen on trombone, and the great Griffanzo on pianos. This time the chanteuse delivers an entire album of breezy west coast jazz sounds in the form of a tribute to Chet Baker. It was around 1996 when Katharine Whalen first made her grand entrance onto culture’s collective radar as the sultry, yet effervescent voice of the Squirrel Nut Zippers, where she remained until their initial disbandment around the turn of the century.

In addition to the Zippers putting dixieland jazz on the pop charts in the 1990s, they sneakily introduced an unsuspecting "alternative" crowd to jazz music. Her cultural impact was also felt when she voiced the song "You You You You You" a standout track from Stephin Merritt's (The Magnetic Fields) project titled The 6ths. That song would also find its way into commercials and the film Pieces of April. After recording one solo album for Mammoth Records shortly after leaving the Zippers, Whalen stepped out of the public eye.

However, she’s remained very much in the spotlight of one unique small town; Hillsborough, NC, which has been referred to as Twin Peaks meets Northern Exposure. It’s a surreal literary, liberal Mayberry. If you find yourself in this Southern portal, you can find Katharine Whalen's Jazz Squad playing monthly in a cocktail bar appropriately named Yonder. The album was recorded in an old chapel in Hillsborough by North Carolinian royalty, Jerry Kee (Polvo, Superchunk, The Kingsbury Manx). Each song was recorded with the band all playing together in the same room, the way the old jazz records used to be put to tape.

Steve Moore returns to the library music fold and it's a total doozy: Cursed Objects is truly sensational prog-synth-wave. Featuring epic electronic explorations with chamber music and symphonic flourishes, it's our favourite thing Steve has ever done. In keeping with the horror heat of the music contained within, this vinyl release is frighteningly limited, with just 500 pressed for the world.

New York-based multi-instrumentalist/producer/film composer Steve Moore is probably best known for his synthesizer and bass guitar work as Zombi, together with Anthony Paterra. But he is also part of Miracle and Titan as well as being a prolific solo artist releasing music as Gianni Rossi, Lovelock and under his own name. Steve’s music has found a home across hallowed labels like Future Times, Mexican Summer, LIES, Static Caravan, Kompakt, Death Waltz, Ghost Box and, of course, Be With Records.

Steve released Cursed Objects for fresh library label Fold. Run by ex-KPM head Paul Sandell, it's a library with values we can all get behind. It's the first production music platform working exclusively with independent labels, publishers and artists to create a truly authentic artist-led sound, at production music rates. Here's what Steve had to say: "I had worked with Paul before, at KPM. After he left, he mentioned that he had started a new library - Fold - and I was very interested in being a part. And I happened to be working on a bunch of music at the time that I thought could fit." So here we are!

The LP opens by letting in "The Uninvited One". Calm and relaxed arpeggiated synths build around sweeping strings and plucked harp to create a mystical and hopeful feel. The title track sees dark synths merge and swell with a piano, string and harp melody that is dark, mysterious and brooding. "Evolutionary Steps" is an electro synthwave track that builds with epic strings and beats, offering an expansive and dreamy approach with a mystical and driving rhythm. Next up, "The Icarus Feather" is daring, pulsing and cinematic synthwave that builds with arpeggiated synths to a hopeful end. "Daily Affirmations" offers calm and meditative ambient synths with plucked harp and strings for a reflective, peaceful, daydreamy feel.

“Mesmer's Bauble” ushers in side two, its dark synth backing builds with plucked harp and strings building with a sense of unknown and dread; it's introspective and heartfelt. "Quiet Springs" is all mystical synths, harps and strings, building to an epic panoramic scope with a hopeful and poignant atmosphere. "Festival Of Samhain" presents a dark and brooding piano melody which builds with synths and strings to create a slow and desolate feel. "The Icarus Feather (Revisited)" is epic building synthwave with arpeggiated synths and strings and a driving rhythm - the beat builds with the strings entering a forceful and marching mood. To close, "Shard Of Medusa" rides a serious and dark piano melody and, in concert with harp and strings, it creates a suspenseful and solemn atmosphere.

Steve recorded Cursed Objects, as always, at his home studio in Albany, NY. For synths, he mostly used his trusty Prophet 6, as well as his Moog Minitaur and lots of Korg Polysix too. But he also utilised a lot of virtual instruments - he doesn't have the budget for a full string section, or a harpist, alas.

The album’s cover was designed by Chris Stevenson. The artwork is a nod to first wave cyberpunk and in particular Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash and the idea of mind viruses and cursed data. Mastering for this vinyl edition was overseen by Be With regular Simon Francis, and it was cut by the esteemed Cicely Balston at AIR Studios to be pressed in the Netherlands by Record Industry. Far from being cursed, this is another future classic library LP.

For fans of Mount Kimbie, Damon Albarn, Beach House, King Krule. London based singer-songwriter Rollo Doherty releases his debut EP on Lewis Recordings. Frontman for the indie guitar band ISLAND, his solo work is a radical departure from what fans would previously have known him for. As the title suggests, Rollo began this new DIY project from the tranquility of his own home and drew inspiration from the many small, subtle occurrences happening just on the other side of his bedroom window. 90’s Hip-Hop, Movie Soundtracks and Shoegaze are just a few of several influences explored across this diverse piece of work. ‘Out of My Window’ features some scratching from the infamous DJ Yoda as well as crossing the pond, landing in the hands of Brooklyn based duo The Still Brothers, who provided new life through their brilliant analogue production and arrangements alongside the expertise of producer Mike Hill (Arlo Parks, ISLAND) at Lemontree Studios, L.A. The circle became complete when by chance the LA mastering legends Becker Mastering (Doja Cat, Tyler The Creator, Harry Styles) happened upon the unreleased music when mixing engineer Mike visited their studio and asked to hear his latest work. The EP’s duration serves as a metaphor for a single day, as it spans over approximately the duration of 24 minutes, each representing an hour of the day. Ambient soundscapes are heard in-between each track, all moments captured at corresponding parts of the day on Rollo’s handheld microphone which he poises from his window.

Tuk Smith is the kind of rock'n'roll ambassador you didn't think existed anymore. Punk maverick from rural Georgia, Biters frontman, producer and solo artist, he's seen the best and worst of a music industry in constant flux. By turns it's left him critically acclaimed, poised for stadiums, dropped, burned out, back in the game and beloved by those for whom rock is still everything. Now based in Nashville, and with his own label Gypsy Rose Records, he creates from a more real place than most. The result is Rogue To Redemption, Tuk's second album with solo project The Restless Hearts. The sonic lovechild of Thin Lizzy, 90s power pop and melody-driven punk, it shows an artistic peak born from adversity. The sound of a man bottling a lifetime of experiences, stories and characters from working class America. Produced by Tuk and mixed by Chris Dugan (Green Day, Iggy Pop, U2), Rogue To Redemption was written over the last three years but recorded down to the wire - right up to the summer of 2024. Joined by long-term Restless Hearts compadres, drummer Nigel Dupree and bassist Matthew 'Ponyboy' Curtis, he cut the bulk of it at home. So if any of this resonates with you - if you crave rock'n'roll with substance, an edge, 21st century eyes and an old soul's heart - you've come to the right place.

Tuk Smith is the kind of rock'n'roll ambassador you didn't think existed anymore. Punk maverick from rural Georgia, Biters frontman, producer and solo artist, he's seen the best and worst of a music industry in constant flux. By turns it's left him critically acclaimed, poised for stadiums, dropped, burned out, back in the game and beloved by those for whom rock is still everything. Now based in Nashville, and with his own label Gypsy Rose Records, he creates from a more real place than most. The result is Rogue To Redemption, Tuk's second album with solo project The Restless Hearts. The sonic lovechild of Thin Lizzy, 90s power pop and melody-driven punk, it shows an artistic peak born from adversity. The sound of a man bottling a lifetime of experiences, stories and characters from working class America. Produced by Tuk and mixed by Chris Dugan (Green Day, Iggy Pop, U2), Rogue To Redemption was written over the last three years but recorded down to the wire - right up to the summer of 2024. Joined by long-term Restless Hearts compadres, drummer Nigel Dupree and bassist Matthew 'Ponyboy' Curtis, he cut the bulk of it at home. So if any of this resonates with you - if you crave rock'n'roll with substance, an edge, 21st century eyes and an old soul's heart - you've come to the right place.

Evening Air is the result Loren Connors and David Grubbs’s first trip to the recording studio in the two decades since their first duo album, Arborvitae (Häpna). Arborvitae stood out for its spellbinding, utterly unhurried meshing of electric guitar (Connors) and piano (Grubbs).

With this long-awaited return, Connors and Grubbs take turns trading off on piano and guitar, with Grubbs at the keyboard for the two gently expansive pieces on the first side and Connors taking over the instrument for three gorgeous miniatures on the flip, including an album-closing and perfectly heart-stopping version of Connors’s and Suzanne Langille’s “Child.” The album’s wildcard is “It’s Snowing Onstage,” which finds the two locking horns with two electric guitars before Loren blew the minds of all present in the studio by unexpectedly switching to drums.

Loren Connors is one-of-a-kind, one of a handful of deservedly storied musical greats gracing us with their presence, and with Evening Air David Grubbs again demonstrates that he’s a stellar musician who also ranks among the most simpatico of collaborators.

A cover painting by Connors — another wordless signalling — sets the tone for this most beguiling of seances.

Tuk Smith is the kind of rock'n'roll ambassador you didn't think existed anymore. Punk maverick from rural Georgia, Biters frontman, producer and solo artist, he's seen the best and worst of a music industry in constant flux. By turns it's left him critically acclaimed, poised for stadiums, dropped, burned out, back in the game and beloved by those for whom rock is still everything. Now based in Nashville, and with his own label Gypsy Rose Records, he creates from a more real place than most. The result is Rogue To Redemption, Tuk's second album with solo project The Restless Hearts. The sonic lovechild of Thin Lizzy, 90s power pop and melody-driven punk, it shows an artistic peak born from adversity. The sound of a man bottling a lifetime of experiences, stories and characters from working class America. Produced by Tuk and mixed by Chris Dugan (Green Day, Iggy Pop, U2), Rogue To Redemption was written over the last three years but recorded down to the wire - right up to the summer of 2024. Joined by long-term Restless Hearts compadres, drummer Nigel Dupree and bassist Matthew 'Ponyboy' Curtis, he cut the bulk of it at home. So if any of this resonates with you - if you crave rock'n'roll with substance, an edge, 21st century eyes and an old soul's heart - you've come to the right place.

The music of Will Griffith's The Great Dying is a mix he likes to call dark country. He grew up in Cleveland, Mississippi, where D.I.Y. punk house shows hooked him, and his early bands played The Farmhouse and legendary delta juke joint Po' Monkey's. Songs from The Great Dying's new album, A Constant Goodbye, were born from playing hundreds of shows supporting Bloody Noses & Roses (Dial Back Sound 2018), and it continues where the debut left off. The ballads are still sweet and menaced, the rockers are still hair-raisers, but the new record pushes in new directions, infusing sounds of classic country with faint traces of The Replacements and what was once called "alternative rock." The tracks are layered and varied: wall-of-sound arrangements grind against flange-bass and fiddle, with Griffith's barebones acoustic guitar and vocals at the root, and heartbreak all over. Coming from another artist, this blend of influences would tank, but somehow it suits The Great Dying just fine. Pick any number on the new album-it's a winner.

"The Modulations released their album It's Rough Out Here in 1975. This album featured the singles ""Rough Out Here”, “I Can’t Fight Your Love”, and the title track, along with other soulful tracks that explored similar themes of struggle and resilience. The singles received considerable airplay and managed to chart on Billboard’s R&B single Chart. While the group never achieved great mainstream commercial success, they garnered a dedicated following among soul music enthusiasts for their emotive vocals and heartfelt lyrics. The Modulations recorded extensively with MFSB, the house band of the famed record label Philadelphia International. These sessions yielded to this album It's Rough Out Here, which is considered a gem of 1970s soul music, showcasing The Modulations' talent and ability to capture the essence of everyday life through their music. The group reached the pinnacle of its career with an appearance on Don Cornelius’ popular TV show Soul Train in 1976. It’s Rough Out Here is being reissued for the first time in almost 50 years and is available as a limited edition of 500 copies on yellow coloured vinyl. "

Saxophonist and composer Wayne Escoffery reflects on love, loss, and solitude on his stunning new album, an atmospheric and haunting mood piece, Alone, featuring a remarkable all-star quartet with pianist Gerald Clayton, bassist Ron Carter, and drummer Carl Allen. In the summer of 2023, saxophonist and composer Wayne Escoffery found himself alone in a way that he’d never quite experienced before. He was away from home, on sabbatical in Europe with a month to himself between tours. A long-term relationship had just ended, and he was confronted with the loss of friendships that he’d once valued. Worst of all, he’d suffered a broken finger that left him unable to play the saxophone for the first time since he’d picked up the horn in high school. “Normally, my coping mechanism would be the saxophone,” Escoffery laments. “But even that wasn't available to me for about nine weeks, so I just had to be alone in my thoughts.” He made good use of this alone time, conceptualizing the music that makes up his striking and singular new album. What emerged from that solitude was an extended mood piece, a workunique in Escoffery’s typically wide-ranging catalog for its sustained atmosphere of stark melancholy and searching introspection. Alone was conceived during a time of isolation, heartbreak, regret, and reflection, but the experience of the album is far richer even than that. In the end, “I was forced to reflect on life and what was most important to me,” Escoffery concludes. “The concept of this album grew out of that reflection.”

Southern California shoegaze squad Cold Gawd return to Dais for their second and most supreme suite yet of crushing downer bliss: I’ll Drown On This Earth. From the defiant scream that kicks off opening cut “Gorgeous,” the album rips in what singer and principal songwriter Matthew Wainwright describes as “go for it” mode: holding back nothing, wasting no time. Although the bulk of the songs were written in 2022, recording sessions weren’t booked until March of 2024, which allowed ample time to refine and distill the music’s hooks, heaviness, and haze. The result is a perfect storm of distortion and dream pop, cracked love songs cloaked in swooning walls of noise.

Recorded at Paradise Recorders in Anaheim, California with Colin Knight (of post-punk unit Object of Affection), Wainwright tracked the strings while Cameron Fonacier handled drums. The process was efficient and effective, sharpened by years of performance. Anthemic headbangers like “Portland,” “All My Life, My Heart Has Yearned For A Thing I Cannot Name,” and “Malibu Beach House” sound as dynamic as they do dialled-in, soaked into the bones of the players. The lyrics camelast, written by Wainwright a week before recording. Moods of surreality (“I can hear the blood in my fingers / nothing tunes out / the world’s too loud”), infatuation (“I will follow / everywhere you go / any way to feel / how you glow”), and melancholy (“God kept me around / for no good reason”) flicker and fade within a fog of memory and reverb.

Due to popular demand "Live In London," the highly anticipated release from legendary British Reggae group Aswad is now in physical form! This album marks a new era for the band, their first feature release in over a decade, making it a poignant moment in their storied career. With the passing of the late great Angus "Drummie Zeb" Gaye, this album stands as a powerful tribute to his memory, indomitable spirit and will for the work to continue. Passionately produced by principal members Tony Gad and Soloman, recorded in the heart of London at the iconic Jazz Cafe, this electrifying album captures the essence of the British-born reggae movement at its finest. Mixed by Christian Cowlin of The Wailers and mastered by Mark Gittins at Sensound Studios, each track from "Babylon" to "Just A Little Herb" shines a beacon on the band's unparalleled musicianship and electrifying stage presence. Don't miss your chance to be part of reggae history and experience the power of Aswad like never before! Exclusively from SMC Records, a division of The Spaine Music Company.

We welcome you, Endless Rüttenscheid", sing International Music in the title track of their third studio album, which will be released on 6 September 2024. The album title "Endless Rüttenscheid" is likely to be a real challenge for fans outside the German-speaking world. "Endless", of course, but then: a rolling R followed by an umlaut, a double T and a hard pronounced D at the end: Rüttenscheid. This is the name of the flourishing district of Essen in the centre of Europe, which stands for lucrative growth in the Ruhr region, but also for the well-known problem of gentrification. But as is usual with international music, such socio-political subjects mainly form spaces in which to fall in love, dream and part again, only to meet again one day. "Heart is the trump card", to quote the cult band TRIO, who have more than just the size of their line-up in common with International Music.

The wild greaser with an ever-broken heart, Cong Josie, is back! His
eagerly anticipated sophomore album; Moto Zone, pulls up throbbing,
revving, sweating and grinding hotter than bitumen on a summer day
It is a non- stop EBM'in', synth- punkin', rock 'n' rollin' and doo- woppin' sizzler, in
much the same vein as his 2021 debut Cong!. With this release however, Cong
pushes his own M.O. even deeper. The throbs get bolder, the NRG goes harder,
slow sleaze hip-grinding enters and the dream washes return to envelope all that
hear them like a siren's call. On Moto Zone, Cong conjures the age of rock 'n' roll,
a world of motorcycle gangs and hot rods, leather, chains, backcombing and hair
pomade, with an Aussie twist on greaser 'cool'. Confessional lyrics tell tales of
addiction and mental illness tracing the scars of a troubled past. Cong says the
"Moto Zone" reflects his daily life and mindset. A life of ADHD, burning the
midnight oil, living on black coffee, obsessively creating and revving through
every day. Ultimately Cong is reaching for bliss, feeling connection and a new
world in these songs. Exhilarating? Anxious? Hedonistic? Dangerous? Beautiful?
A lust for life? The record is all of the above.

‘Rick Astley's 1991 album 'FREE' marked a significant departure from his previous pop-driven sound, showcasing a more mature and introspective side. The album, which featured a blend of pop, soul, and R&B influences, and a star-studded list of collaborators, including Elton John, Michael McDonald and Mark King, presented Rick in a new light, exploring themes of love, loss, and personal growth. Singles like ‘Cry for Help’ and ‘Move Right Out’ displayed Astley's emotive vocals and soulful delivery.

'Free' received critical acclaim for its musical diversity and Astley's vocal prowess, earning praise for its mature songwriting and emotional depth. 'Free' remains a standout moment in his career, demonstrating his artistic evolution and versatility as a musician. With its heartfelt lyrics and soulful melodies, 'Free' continues to resonate with listeners, offering a timeless exploration of love, freedom, and self-discovery.

The LP format is available for the first time featuring the full 11-track album (originally released with just 10 tracks) and comes in a highly desirable gold mirrorboard sleeve. The double CD format features 18 bonus tracks, 7 of which are previously unreleased, including studio track ‘Call Me’.

At its best, harmony duo singing can transform simple math into a magic trick. One plus one, instead of equaling two, suddenly yields an unexpected third thing. An upper-case ONE. A universal hum. A deep vibration that encompasses two different points of view. On their latest release, Every Time I Think About You, brothers Page Burkum and Jack Torrey, aka The Cactus Blossoms, once again prove themselves to be among the most adept - and instinctive – modern practitioners of the classic tradition.

All sorts of emotional colors shine through on their new album. “Something's Got A Hold On Me” is pure Saturday night two-steppin' joy, “Keep Walkin'” has a Stones-y swagger and “There She Goes” casts its romantic regret against a danceable bop beat. “Statues” is a gorgeous meditation on the weight of permanent honor, “Is It Any Wonder” weaves its pledge of enduring love through nature images, and the title track is a heart-wrencher about loss and letting go. In all, the ten beautifully open-ended songs here invite listeners in to find their own stories as they revel in the old-school melodies and harmonies.

At its best, harmony duo singing can transform simple math into a magic trick. One plus one, instead of equaling two, suddenly yields an unexpected third thing. An upper-case ONE. A universal hum. A deep vibration that encompasses two different points of view. On their latest release, Every Time I Think About You, brothers Page Burkum and Jack Torrey, aka The Cactus Blossoms, once again prove themselves to be among the most adept - and instinctive – modern practitioners of the classic tradition.

All sorts of emotional colors shine through on their new album. “Something's Got A Hold On Me” is pure Saturday night two-steppin' joy, “Keep Walkin'” has a Stones-y swagger and “There She Goes” casts its romantic regret against a danceable bop beat. “Statues” is a gorgeous meditation on the weight of permanent honor, “Is It Any Wonder” weaves its pledge of enduring love through nature images, and the title track is a heart-wrencher about loss and letting go. In all, the ten beautifully open-ended songs here invite listeners in to find their own stories as they revel in the old-school melodies and harmonies.

Grammy-nominated blues, soul and Americana singer is beloved and honored worldwide for her joyful, defiant music and thrillingly soulful performances. Blame It On Eve is another exhilarating Shemekia Copeland showcase, as her rousing vocals bring the heat to an infectious array of muscular rockers, stomping blues, swampy soul, and heartbreaking ballads. Intense, topical new originals make up most of the tracks and soul-soaked versions of songs by Stevie Wonder and her father, Johnny Copeland, fit right into the mix.

Throughout over three decades in music, Steve Poltz has done it all and
more -- he co-wrote Jewel's Hot 100-topping megahit "You Were Meant
For Me," fronted '90s underground legends The Rugburns and has built a
huge cult following for his solo tours
A gonzo entertainer, storyteller and prolific collaborator (Billy Strings, Molly Tuttle,
to name just two), Poltz, now in Nashville, enlisted members of The Wood
Brothers for STARDUST AND SATELLITES . It's an album dealing with loss (he's
lost both parent's in the past two years), simple joys and childhood memories --
summer baseball games, a stint he did with Up With People, and more. This could
be his best yet! Now available in LIMITED EDITION COKE-BOTTLE COSMIC SWIRL
VINYL
Produced by Oliver Wood and Jano Rix of The Wood Brothers.
LIMITED EDITION COKE-BOTTLE COSMIC SWIRL VINYL

Der Italiener Miko Mission gilt als einer der Vorreiter der Italo
Disco Welle in den 80er Jahren. Mit dem Titel “How Old Are
You“ landete er einen Hit in vielen europäischen Discotheken,
bevor er mit “The World Is You“ auch die Deutschen Single
Charts entern konnte.

Die US-amerikanische Singer-Songwriter-Legende Amy Rigby hat ihr neues Album "Hang In There With Me" zusammen mit Wreckless Eric im gemeinsamen Zuhause des Paares im ländlichen Upstate New York aufgenommen. Die elf aktuellen Songs erlauben einen fesselnden Einblick in ihr Leben der letzten Jahre. Sterblichkeit, Alter und jugendliche Fehltritte werden in Amys einfühlsamen Texten nicht sehnsuchtsvoll, sondern vielmehr entschlossen und triumphierend reflektiert. Rigbys markante Stimme deckt in sehr direkter Weise Themen wie Liebe, Verlust und missglückte DIY-Projekte ab - mit mal aufgedrehten, mal schimmernden Gitarren, einprägsamen Basslinien, einer Vielzahl von Synthesizern, Keyboards, Beatboxen und ab und an begleitet von einem Schlagzeuger, den Amy und Eric in ihre rustikale, mid-century Echokammer eingeladen haben. Auf der Suche nach Inspiration richtet Amy Rigby den Blick auf kreative Vorbilder wie Bob Dylan und Mike Leigh. Sie findet Poesie in allen denkbaren Bereichen des täglichen Lebens. Ihre Musik spiegelt den Alltag von im besten Sinne gewöhnlichen Menschen wider, die versuchen, ihren eigenen Weg zu gehen - ganz ähnlich wie bei den Country-Künstlern, die sie liebt und von denen sie das Songschreiben gelernt hat. Indem sie die Einblicke und den Humor des Country- und Folk-Songwritings mit klassischem Rockhandwerk und dem DIY-Spirit des Punks verbindet, hat sich Amy Rigby als eine von Amerikas beständigsten Underground-, Kult- und Indie-Künstlerinnen etabliert. Sie gründete die Pre-Americana Country-Band "Last Roundup" (Rounder) und Richard Hells Lieblings-Girlgroup "The Shams" (Matador) im New Yorker Underground, bevor sie mit dem klassischen Album "Diary Of A Mod Housewife" in den 90ern ihre Solokarriere startete.

Das mit Spannung erwartete vierte Studioalbum ”Death or Glory” des aus Los Angeles stammenden Trios
Palaye Royale. ”Death or Glory” bietet einen faszinierenden Einblick in eine transformative und grandiose
musikalische Reise. Als Hymne an die Widerstandsfähigkeit und Selbstfindung verkörpert das Album die
künstlerische Entwicklung und das Engagement der Band, die Grenzen von Glam-Rock, Art-Punk und
Brit-Pop zu einem unverwechselbaren Sound zu verschieben.
Nach der Veröffentlichung der Doppel-EPs „Sextape“ und „Songs For Sadness“ und dem Alternative Radio
Smash ”Dead To Me” kehren Palaye Royale mit ihrem brandneuen Studioalbum „Death Or Glory“ zurück,
begleitet von einer weltweiten Headlinertour im Sommer!

Two classically trained musicians from vastly different traditions, MD Pallavi and Andi Otto came together to create a jewel of a record in ’Songs for Broken Ships’ and Multi Culti have whipped up a stunning remix package for it featuring Simone de Kunovich, Auntie Flo, Peter Power, Kaleema and more.

Hailing from Bangalore, trained in Hindustani music and poetry since childhood, MD Pallavi’s beautiful voice makes an elegant companion to cellist / composer / producer Andi Otto’s idiosyncratic and unconventional style. Andi’s music has featured on labels such as Shika Shika and Pingipung (which he co-runs and curates) and, of course, Multi Culti, who released his previous album ‘Bow Wave’ which featured his first collaboration with Pallavi.

While the heart of "Songs for Broken Ships" showcased the duo's unique meld of cross-cultural folktronica and acoustic ballads with MD Pallavi's poetic Kannada verses at the core, "Remixes from the Clouds” reframes these elements for a vast spectrum of electronic listeners and club go-ers.

An ethereal hypnotic techno re-interpretation of ‘Prayer to the Cloud’ from Italian producer Simone de Kunovich. Scottish ambient maestro and mushroom aficionado Auntie Flo's ecstatic reinterpretation of "Clockshop". Multi Culti veteran downtempo wizard Peter Power's organic and earthy rendition of "Prayer to the Cloud." The mystic sounds of Kaleema breathing new percussive life into "Clockshop". The package concludes with a 'prayer-a-pella' version of "Prayer to the Clouds", spotlighting MD Pallavi's vocals in their purest form, for DJs and producers seeking to slather their rhythms with spiritual voice.

The Multi Culti imaginarium also present an expanded digital package that includes mixes from Hannah Lee, Bliz Nochi & Emil Jourjou, Migramara, and Poligra. In the words of Shawn Christopher: "people from all nations, dancing together." Celestial harmony, one 12” at a time.

Introducing ‘Total Blue’, the Los Angeles-based trio of Nicky Benedek, Alex Talan, and Anthony Calonico. Despite collaborating for over a decade, ‘Total Blue’ represents a new chapter in their artistic journey together as a trio.

Embracing chance, inviting the unknown, and guided by a spirit of sheer play and exploration, ‘Total Blue’ was driven by a desire to ‘touch the beyond’ in pursuit of an elusive vibe the three had been chasing for years.

Alex, Nick, and Anthony envision ‘Total Blue’ as the all-encompassing full picture, a place where the real and the imaginary begin to blur; a destination reached not through escapism but by expanding one's perspective; a widened scope of vision where personality both shines and disintegrates.

Across the album, their mission statement is expertly achieved with subtlety and delicate human touch; painting with a lush palette of digital synths, Akai EVI wind synthesizer, fretless bass, and guitar, the trio masterfully balance texture and color, evoking wide expansive vistas that stretch from Los Angeles right out to the furthest reaches of sky and sea. This is ‘Total Blue’ - a place of time and timelessness where echoes of history and tradition merge with rootless inhuman sonics.

Art and design by Michael Willis.

Brand new album from the most profilic italo disco artist. The the 19th album on his solo carreer includes 9 new track + 3 Extended Mixes. Produced by Luis Rodriguez.

Nonesuch Records releases Laurie Anderson’s Amelia, the 2024 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award recipient's first new album since 2018’s Grammy-winning Landfall. The record comprises 22 tracks about renowned female aviator Amelia Earhart’s tragic last flight. Anderson, who Pitchfork says, ‘sees the future, but she starts by paying attention’, wrote the music and lyrics for this subjective narrative piece. On the album, she is joined by the Czech orchestra Filharmonie Brno, conducted by Dennis Russell Davies, and Anohni, Gabriel Cabezas, Rob Moose, Ryan Kelly, Martha Mooke, Marc Ribot, Tony Scherr, Nadia Sirota, and Kenny Wolleson.



Earhart was a passionate pioneer of early aviation, achieving fame as the first woman to cross the Atlantic, in 1932. Five years later, she embarked on a flight around the world. Before she could complete the voyage, her plane disappeared without a trace; it has never been found. “The words used in Amelia are inspired by her pilot diaries, the telegrams she wrote to her husband, and my idea of what a woman flying around the world might think about,” Anderson says. First premiered at Carnegie Hall in 2000, the updated piece was recently performed across Europe.



Laurie Anderson is one of America’s most renowned – and daring – creative pioneers. Her work, which encompasses music, visual art, poetry, film, and photography, has challenged and delighted audiences around the world for more than 40 years. In a recent 60 Minutes profile, Anderson Cooper said she ‘is a pioneer of the avant-garde, but ... that doesn’t begin to describe what she creates. Her work isn’t sold in galleries. It’s experienced by audiences who come to see her perform: singing, telling stories, and playing strange violins of her own invention... she blends the beautiful and the bizarre, challenging audiences with homilies and humor. She blurs boundaries across music, theater, dance, and film.’ The Washington Post has said she ‘doesn’t just tell stories; she draws out every word with a kind of physical pleasure, tasting its flavor as she probes the everyday mysteries of life,’ and the Guardian has called Anderson ‘one of the great popular artists and storytellers of our time.’



Anderson released her first album with Nonesuch Records in 2001, the critically lauded Life on a String. Her subsequent releases on the label include Live in New York (2002), Homeland (2010), the soundtrack to Anderson’s acclaimed film Heart of a Dog (2015), and her Grammy-winning collaboration with Kronos Quartet, Landfall (2018). Additionally, Anderson’s virtual-reality film La Camera Insabbiata, with Hsin-Chien Huang, won the 2017 Venice Film Festival Award for Best VR Experience, and, in 2018, Skira Rizzoli published her book All the Things I Lost in the Flood: Essays on Pictures, Language and Code, the most comprehensive collection of her artwork to date.



Recent exhibitions and installations of Anderson’s work include Habeas Corpus at New York’s Park Avenue Armory; her largest exhibition to date, The Weather, at Washington, DC’s Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum of Modern Art; and Looking into a Mirror Sideways at Stockholm’s Moderna Museet, which was her largest European exhibition to date. Anderson recently toured with Sex Mob, performing her piece Let X=X. Earlier this year, she was awarded the 2024 Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication, along with Christopher Nolan and David Attenborough, and the International Astronomical Union named a minor planet in her honour: Asteroid 270588, Laurieanderson.



Nonesuch released a re-mastered edition of Anderson’s landmark 1982 album Big Science in 2007 for its 25th anniversary, followed by a vinyl LP re-issue in 2021; its beloved single, ‘O Superman’, became a surprise viral hit on TikTok earlier this year.

The records is released in two options. Both hvae 180g vinyl records. The first version has two black vinyls and the second limited edition (numbered 100 pieces) has one turquoise vinyl and the other red.

Over the last three decades, Auckland, New Zealand, has given birth to several generations of musicians, DJs, and producers who operated within the interzone between jazz, blues, soul, funk, Latin music, hip-hop, house, boogie, and broken beat. Across two slow-cooked albums that sit at the intersection of machine funk and vivid live instrumentation, Odyssey (2016) and their forthcoming sophomore release Long Road (2024), After 'Ours - the group project of pianist and composer Michal Martyniuk and drummer, guitarist and producer Nick Williams - have comfortably located themselves within this antipodean tradition.

Born and raised in Auckland, Nick Williams grew up surrounded by music from a young age. At home, his mother, Mary Anne, a record collector and DJ with deep, diverse vinyl crates, kept his ear sharp. By the time he was eight years old, he was regularly joining his musician father on stages across Australia in his blues rock band Slippery Sam. In his early twenties, Nick began leading the eleven-piece Auckland Latin-dub-funk fusion big band Tangent, who performed regularly until the late 2000s.

Michal Martyniuk, on the other hand, grew up on the opposite side of the world in Szczecin, Poland. After playing classical music for twelve years and attending jazz school, he relocated to New Zealand with his family in his teens. While studying at Auckland University Jazz school, Michal came into the orbit of the legendary New Zealand saxophonist, composer, producer, and band leader Nathan Haines, who brought him into the same world as future collaborators like Tama Waipara, Batacada Sound Machine, Sola Rosa and Nick.

Inspired by the rich stories of jazz, neo-soul, electronica, and dance music from both sides of the Atlantic Ocean and the open-eared Auckland scene they emerged from, After 'Ours formed in 2011. Born out of a friendship cultivated through playing together at bars and nightclubs around town and home studio sessions. "Nick had family and work, so I had to wait all day," Michal says. "We'd come to the studio at 10 PM and go till 3 AM. That's how we came up with the name.

Session by session, After 'Ours revealed itself to be a creatively fertile meeting of minds. "We both have our angles, but it works well in the end," Nick reflects. "It takes the music to a place we can't get to by ourselves."

Between 2011 and 2016, they wrote and recorded Odyssey with a cast of musical collaborators that included KP, Sharlene Hector & Kevin Mark Trail (UK), Matt Nanai, Nathan Haines, Jakub Skowronski, Nick's partner Ange Williams (nee Saunders) and British producer Mike Patto from the lauded UK future jazz group Reel People. Influenced by the smooth yacht rock of Steely Dan and Donald Fagan, the warm midtempo bounce of A Tribe Called Quest and J Dilla, and the complex jazz/RnB bop of Robert Glasper, Odyssey was a labour of love that emphasised community, warm-hearted hospitality, and care.

Seven years on, they're finally ready to return with Long Road, an album that contains some of their best work yet. As well as reconnecting with past collaborators Kevin Mark Trail and Ange Williams, Long Road sees After 'Ours calling on assistance from Louis Baker, Jakarta-based saxophone player Kuba Skowroński, bassist Dan Antunovich, Los Angeles-based drummer Chris Bailey and the journeyman British soul artist Omar Lyefook.

Across ten songs that plot a stargazed course through their antipodean spin on UK broken beat, jazz, modern soul, and blues rock, Nick and Michal build on everything they learned while writing and recording Odyssey. In the process, they take their joyful musical visions to sublime new heights.

repressed!

Bedouin return with ‘Make Me Feel’, their first new materialsince their critically-acclaimed ‘Temple Of Dreams’ LP. The mesmerising single, featuring Iveta, arrives via their Human By Default imprint in the heart of Summer!

Miami-based duo Bedouin, aka Rami Abousabe and Tamer Malki, are masters of deep, organic, enchanting house music that draws on their own rich cultural heritage. Last year's debut album project ‘Temple Of Dreams’ proved that, with a great step up in craft that took them to an all-new level. Synonymous with their renowned SAGA party, which will again offer richly immersive soundscapes at Pacha Ibiza all summer long with a tasteful mix of guests from across the electronic spectrum, the Human By Default bosses and versatile, forward-thinking duo dazzle once again with their first material of 2024, ‘Make Me Feel’.

The spellbinding ‘Make Me Feel’ imbues an immediate mark with its pairing of dramatic minor chords and wavy, organic drums. As the groove unfolds, wooden percussion and the gorgeously soulful vocals of Iveta layer in further emotion next to hypnotic daubs of colour. It's a stylish mix of proper songwriting and musicality that will become a sure-fire staple of their SAGA party this summer and beyond.

Die aus Hawthorne, Kalifornien, stammenden Thee Heart Tones setzen mit ihrer Musik sowohl eine Tradition fort als auch neue Grenzen. Leadsängerin Jazmine Alvarado ist gerade mal 19 Jahre alt und das älteste Mitglied der Gruppe, Jorge Rodriguez, ist 21, aber wenn man sich ihre Platte anhört, wird deutlich, dass sie weit über ihr Alter hinaus talentiert sind. Thee Heart Tones, das sind Jazmine (Gesang), Ricky Cerezo (Tasten und Orgel), Jorge (Schlagzeug), Jeffrey Romero (Bass), Peter Chagolla (Leadgitarre) und Walter Morales (Rhythmusgitarre). "Eines Tages bekam ich eine Mail von Ricky Cerezo mit der Frage, ob ich einen Song für seine neue (damals noch namenlose) Band schreiben wolle", erzählt Jazmine. "Ich kannte seinen Schlagzeuger und die anderen Jungs aus der Mittelschule, sie waren also bekannte Gesichter. Sie schickten mir ein mp3 eines Instrumentalstücks, das sie geschrieben hatten, und sagten mir, sie wollten einen Text, also schrieb ich einen und schickte ihn ihnen." Dieser Song wurde schließlich "Don't Take Me as a Fool", eine schwermütige Moll-Ballade, in der Jazmines schwülstiger, perfekter Gesang erklingt, und die nun für ihr Debütalbum bestimmt ist. Ricky ging nach Hause und spielte seinem Vater "Don't Take Me As a Fool" vor, das er als Sprachnotiz auf seinem Telefon aufgenommen hatte. "Ich war zögerlich. Dad kannte diese Musik besser als jeder andere, er ist damit aufgewachsen. Aber er hat sich mein Telefon geschnappt und es an sein Ohr gehalten. Seine Zustimmung bedeutete mir sehr viel. Aber er hatte die gleiche Reaktion wie Jorge und ich, als wir Jazmine zum ersten Mal singen hörten. 'Das wird ein Hit', sagte er mir. Ihr habt hier etwas ganz Besonderes". Es war dieselbe Aufnahme, die Leon Michels und Danny Akalepse von Big Crown Records aufhorchen ließ, die beide sofort das Potenzial der Gruppe erkannten. Nachdem sie bei dem Label unterschrieben hatten, flog Leon nach Los Angeles, um mit Tommy Brenneck in Tommys Diamond West Studio ihr Debütalbum aufzunehmen. In fünf Tagen haben sie 14 Songs aufgenommen, die den Charme des Teenager-Souls einfangen und ihn mit ihren bewährten Produktionsfähigkeiten mischen - das Ergebnis ist ein modernes klassisches Soul-Album. Der Album-Opener und Titeltrack "Forever & Ever" ist ein ansteckender Two-Stepper, der sofort die Stimmung hebt, während schwere B-Seiten-Balladen wie "Should I Call You Tonight", "Cry My Tears Away" und "It's Time" den Klassikern des Genres den Rang ablaufen. Mit "Need Something More" ziehen sie das Tempo an und füllen die Tanzfläche, während Jazmine mit einem Track im Northern-Soul-Stil ganz sachlich die Dinge auf den Punkt bringt. Sie covern den Klassiker "Sabor A Mi" aus der Feder von Alvaro Carrillo mit großem Effekt, werden ihm gerecht und stellen ihre Version auf eine Stufe mit den besten von ihnen. Ein weiterer Höhepunkt ist ihre Version des The Vanguards-Klassikers "Somebody Please", den sie auf eine ganz andere Ebene heben. Die stampfenden Drums von "No Longer Mine" stehen im Kontrast zu Jazmines honigsüßem Gesang und enden mit der düsteren Energie eines Hip-Hop-Samples aus den mittleren 90ern. Forever & Ever ist sowohl ein Beweis für die unverwechselbare musikalische Chemie als auch für das Talent der beiden. Ihre Intentionen als Band sind ein Beweis für ihren kollektiven Charakter. Die Entscheidung, "Sabor A Mi" zu covern, "erlaubt es uns, unser Publikum wissen zu lassen, dass wir zu unseren Wurzeln zurückkehren", sagt Jazmine. "Wenn man in L.A. aufwächst, wird man von der Stadt, den Kunstwerken und der Musik beeinflusst", sagt Ricky. "Dad besaß kein Lowrider-Auto, aber andere Mitglieder unserer Familie schon. Impalas. El Caminos. Wir waren von der Kultur beeinflusst, insbesondere von der Chicano-Kultur. Und Oldies und Soulmusik spielten eine große Rolle." Der Stil. Die Kultur. Die Anspielung auf die Vergangenheit. "Das ist es, was wir anstreben. Wir wollen junge Chicanos mit ihrem Erbe verbinden. Und wir wollen die Menschen vereinen_ alt und jung."

Die aus Hawthorne, Kalifornien, stammenden Thee Heart Tones setzen mit ihrer Musik sowohl eine Tradition fort als auch neue Grenzen. Leadsängerin Jazmine Alvarado ist gerade mal 19 Jahre alt und das älteste Mitglied der Gruppe, Jorge Rodriguez, ist 21, aber wenn man sich ihre Platte anhört, wird deutlich, dass sie weit über ihr Alter hinaus talentiert sind. Thee Heart Tones, das sind Jazmine (Gesang), Ricky Cerezo (Tasten und Orgel), Jorge (Schlagzeug), Jeffrey Romero (Bass), Peter Chagolla (Leadgitarre) und Walter Morales (Rhythmusgitarre). "Eines Tages bekam ich eine Mail von Ricky Cerezo mit der Frage, ob ich einen Song für seine neue (damals noch namenlose) Band schreiben wolle", erzählt Jazmine. "Ich kannte seinen Schlagzeuger und die anderen Jungs aus der Mittelschule, sie waren also bekannte Gesichter. Sie schickten mir ein mp3 eines Instrumentalstücks, das sie geschrieben hatten, und sagten mir, sie wollten einen Text, also schrieb ich einen und schickte ihn ihnen." Dieser Song wurde schließlich "Don't Take Me as a Fool", eine schwermütige Moll-Ballade, in der Jazmines schwülstiger, perfekter Gesang erklingt, und die nun für ihr Debütalbum bestimmt ist. Ricky ging nach Hause und spielte seinem Vater "Don't Take Me As a Fool" vor, das er als Sprachnotiz auf seinem Telefon aufgenommen hatte. "Ich war zögerlich. Dad kannte diese Musik besser als jeder andere, er ist damit aufgewachsen. Aber er hat sich mein Telefon geschnappt und es an sein Ohr gehalten. Seine Zustimmung bedeutete mir sehr viel. Aber er hatte die gleiche Reaktion wie Jorge und ich, als wir Jazmine zum ersten Mal singen hörten. 'Das wird ein Hit', sagte er mir. Ihr habt hier etwas ganz Besonderes". Es war dieselbe Aufnahme, die Leon Michels und Danny Akalepse von Big Crown Records aufhorchen ließ, die beide sofort das Potenzial der Gruppe erkannten. Nachdem sie bei dem Label unterschrieben hatten, flog Leon nach Los Angeles, um mit Tommy Brenneck in Tommys Diamond West Studio ihr Debütalbum aufzunehmen. In fünf Tagen haben sie 14 Songs aufgenommen, die den Charme des Teenager-Souls einfangen und ihn mit ihren bewährten Produktionsfähigkeiten mischen - das Ergebnis ist ein modernes klassisches Soul-Album. Der Album-Opener und Titeltrack "Forever & Ever" ist ein ansteckender Two-Stepper, der sofort die Stimmung hebt, während schwere B-Seiten-Balladen wie "Should I Call You Tonight", "Cry My Tears Away" und "It's Time" den Klassikern des Genres den Rang ablaufen. Mit "Need Something More" ziehen sie das Tempo an und füllen die Tanzfläche, während Jazmine mit einem Track im Northern-Soul-Stil ganz sachlich die Dinge auf den Punkt bringt. Sie covern den Klassiker "Sabor A Mi" aus der Feder von Alvaro Carrillo mit großem Effekt, werden ihm gerecht und stellen ihre Version auf eine Stufe mit den besten von ihnen. Ein weiterer Höhepunkt ist ihre Version des The Vanguards-Klassikers "Somebody Please", den sie auf eine ganz andere Ebene heben. Die stampfenden Drums von "No Longer Mine" stehen im Kontrast zu Jazmines honigsüßem Gesang und enden mit der düsteren Energie eines Hip-Hop-Samples aus den mittleren 90ern. Forever & Ever ist sowohl ein Beweis für die unverwechselbare musikalische Chemie als auch für das Talent der beiden. Ihre Intentionen als Band sind ein Beweis für ihren kollektiven Charakter. Die Entscheidung, "Sabor A Mi" zu covern, "erlaubt es uns, unser Publikum wissen zu lassen, dass wir zu unseren Wurzeln zurückkehren", sagt Jazmine. "Wenn man in L.A. aufwächst, wird man von der Stadt, den Kunstwerken und der Musik beeinflusst", sagt Ricky. "Dad besaß kein Lowrider-Auto, aber andere Mitglieder unserer Familie schon. Impalas. El Caminos. Wir waren von der Kultur beeinflusst, insbesondere von der Chicano-Kultur. Und Oldies und Soulmusik spielten eine große Rolle." Der Stil. Die Kultur. Die Anspielung auf die Vergangenheit. "Das ist es, was wir anstreben. Wir wollen junge Chicanos mit ihrem Erbe verbinden. Und wir wollen die Menschen vereinen_ alt und jung."

Die aus Hawthorne, Kalifornien, stammenden Thee Heart Tones setzen mit ihrer Musik sowohl eine Tradition fort als auch neue Grenzen. Leadsängerin Jazmine Alvarado ist gerade mal 19 Jahre alt und das älteste Mitglied der Gruppe, Jorge Rodriguez, ist 21, aber wenn man sich ihre Platte anhört, wird deutlich, dass sie weit über ihr Alter hinaus talentiert sind. Thee Heart Tones, das sind Jazmine (Gesang), Ricky Cerezo (Tasten und Orgel), Jorge (Schlagzeug), Jeffrey Romero (Bass), Peter Chagolla (Leadgitarre) und Walter Morales (Rhythmusgitarre). "Eines Tages bekam ich eine Mail von Ricky Cerezo mit der Frage, ob ich einen Song für seine neue (damals noch namenlose) Band schreiben wolle", erzählt Jazmine. "Ich kannte seinen Schlagzeuger und die anderen Jungs aus der Mittelschule, sie waren also bekannte Gesichter. Sie schickten mir ein mp3 eines Instrumentalstücks, das sie geschrieben hatten, und sagten mir, sie wollten einen Text, also schrieb ich einen und schickte ihn ihnen." Dieser Song wurde schließlich "Don't Take Me as a Fool", eine schwermütige Moll-Ballade, in der Jazmines schwülstiger, perfekter Gesang erklingt, und die nun für ihr Debütalbum bestimmt ist. Ricky ging nach Hause und spielte seinem Vater "Don't Take Me As a Fool" vor, das er als Sprachnotiz auf seinem Telefon aufgenommen hatte. "Ich war zögerlich. Dad kannte diese Musik besser als jeder andere, er ist damit aufgewachsen. Aber er hat sich mein Telefon geschnappt und es an sein Ohr gehalten. Seine Zustimmung bedeutete mir sehr viel. Aber er hatte die gleiche Reaktion wie Jorge und ich, als wir Jazmine zum ersten Mal singen hörten. 'Das wird ein Hit', sagte er mir. Ihr habt hier etwas ganz Besonderes". Es war dieselbe Aufnahme, die Leon Michels und Danny Akalepse von Big Crown Records aufhorchen ließ, die beide sofort das Potenzial der Gruppe erkannten. Nachdem sie bei dem Label unterschrieben hatten, flog Leon nach Los Angeles, um mit Tommy Brenneck in Tommys Diamond West Studio ihr Debütalbum aufzunehmen. In fünf Tagen haben sie 14 Songs aufgenommen, die den Charme des Teenager-Souls einfangen und ihn mit ihren bewährten Produktionsfähigkeiten mischen - das Ergebnis ist ein modernes klassisches Soul-Album. Der Album-Opener und Titeltrack "Forever & Ever" ist ein ansteckender Two-Stepper, der sofort die Stimmung hebt, während schwere B-Seiten-Balladen wie "Should I Call You Tonight", "Cry My Tears Away" und "It's Time" den Klassikern des Genres den Rang ablaufen. Mit "Need Something More" ziehen sie das Tempo an und füllen die Tanzfläche, während Jazmine mit einem Track im Northern-Soul-Stil ganz sachlich die Dinge auf den Punkt bringt. Sie covern den Klassiker "Sabor A Mi" aus der Feder von Alvaro Carrillo mit großem Effekt, werden ihm gerecht und stellen ihre Version auf eine Stufe mit den besten von ihnen. Ein weiterer Höhepunkt ist ihre Version des The Vanguards-Klassikers "Somebody Please", den sie auf eine ganz andere Ebene heben. Die stampfenden Drums von "No Longer Mine" stehen im Kontrast zu Jazmines honigsüßem Gesang und enden mit der düsteren Energie eines Hip-Hop-Samples aus den mittleren 90ern. Forever & Ever ist sowohl ein Beweis für die unverwechselbare musikalische Chemie als auch für das Talent der beiden. Ihre Intentionen als Band sind ein Beweis für ihren kollektiven Charakter. Die Entscheidung, "Sabor A Mi" zu covern, "erlaubt es uns, unser Publikum wissen zu lassen, dass wir zu unseren Wurzeln zurückkehren", sagt Jazmine. "Wenn man in L.A. aufwächst, wird man von der Stadt, den Kunstwerken und der Musik beeinflusst", sagt Ricky. "Dad besaß kein Lowrider-Auto, aber andere Mitglieder unserer Familie schon. Impalas. El Caminos. Wir waren von der Kultur beeinflusst, insbesondere von der Chicano-Kultur. Und Oldies und Soulmusik spielten eine große Rolle." Der Stil. Die Kultur. Die Anspielung auf die Vergangenheit. "Das ist es, was wir anstreben. Wir wollen junge Chicanos mit ihrem Erbe verbinden. Und wir wollen die Menschen vereinen_ alt und jung."

American English is the second studio album by British new wave band Wax, which consisted of Andrew Gold and 10cc band member Graham Gouldman. The two got together after 10cc split up in 1983 and released a total of three studio albums, including the 1987 American English. The album grew into their most successful effort, largely due to the hit single “Bridge To Your Heart”, which charted in the top 10 in many European countries and remains their biggest hit to-date. The album spawned two more singles; “American English” and “In Some Other World”. The album’s front cover was designed by Storm Thorgerson, who is best known for closely working with Pink Floyd, in addition to Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Def Leppard among others. American English is available as a limited edition of 1500 individually numbered copies on pink & purple marbled vinyl and includes an insert.

The Circus is a place of lights and colors, but also of shadows, even darkness. Admittedly, it delights children and makes adults laugh. But you only need one rainy autumn evening near a circus tent and the smell of fodder to think of the sadness of the clowns, the endless training of the animals and the freaks who are hidden in some caravan... cinema, the essence of the circus – movement, light, danger and burlesque – will have been admirably rendered in Notes on the circus by Jonas Mekas (1966), one of the inventors of the filmed diary. With Cirque, Michèle Bokanowski does similar work, entirely dedicated to spinning, in the musical field.

She distinguished herself in particular in the composition of musique concrète, among others Tabou and Trois chambres d'inquiétudes, after having studied with Pierre Schaeffer and Éliane Radigue. The latter, great lady of drone and minimalism, fell under the spell of Cirque and wrote the booklet for the piece as a poem.

The piece, divided into five movements, is based on the handling and editing of recordings captured within one or more circuses (this is not specified and is of no importance) between 1988 and 1993. The initial allegro reveals the gallop of a horse joined gradually by other images. The idea of the circular space of the circus tent is immediatly and magnificently rendered and will be constantly recalled by an insistent use of the loop technique. Children's laughter, applause and drum rolls are thus sheared, repeated before being brutally interrupted. Accordion interludes and the distortion of sounds create a dreamlike atmosphere. This beautiful nightmare reminds us, to quote Éliane Radigue, the "Magic of childhood still living in the heart of man even beyond its abrupt end."

Words by Alexandre Galand, from the book “Field Recording – L’usage sonore du monde en 100 albums” (ed. Le mot et le reste, 2012)

Major member of the french musique concrète scene, Michèle Bokanowski was born on August 9, 1943 in Cannes, FR, to a musician mother and a writer father. She now lives and works in Paris.
Music lover since adolescence, it was relatively late, at the age of 22, that Michèle Bokanowski decided to study composition. Reading In Search of a Concrete Music by Pierre Schaeffer was decisive. After classical training on harmony, she met Michel Puig, a student of René Leibowitz, who taught her writing and analysis based on the Treatise of Schönberg. In September 1970 she began a two-year internship in the ORTF Research Department under the direction of Pierre Schaeffer. She takes part in the same time in a research group on sound synthesis, studies musical computing at the Faculty of Vincennes and electronic music with Éliane Radigue.
Her main works are intended for concert: Pour un pianiste, Trois chambres d’inquiétude, Tabou, Phone Variations, Cirque, L’étoile Absinthe, Chant d’Ombre, Enfance, Rhapsodia, Cadence, Elsewhere. She has also composed for theater (with Catherine Dasté), dance (with choreographers Hideyuki Yano, Marceline Lartigue, Bernardo Montet) and cinema: music for the short films of Patrick Bokanowski and his two feature films L'Ange ( 1982) and A Solar Dream (2016).

MRAK unveils a six-track collection of new material. “This is a snapshot of my reality. It is a composition, a challenge, that I took not knowing the outcome and its price - the amount of logical mazes I had to overcome and I still am. The biggest honour and most humble experience is the possibility to feel any sparkle of emotion, providing fragments of the music and the reality that I’ve developed as an artist over the years. My imprint soul and commitment to melody are adamant, as is the pledge to deliver and be loyal to this abstract entity called music; that gently accompanies our lives.” MRAK As one of the founders of Afterlife, MRAK is now reshaping the afterlife paradigma. Introducing a sharp and elegant but distinctive musical equation. On The Pledge, he presents six compositions, all bound to the Afterlife ethos. ‘The World‘ featuring vocalist braev. Sombre piano keys and urgent strings accompany energetic synth layers. ‘The Process works from a hypnotic low end, supporting a solid melody that increases in intensity as the track develops. For ‘Their Law ’MRAK teams up with David Lindmer, crafting an undulating track with captivating melodies and harmonies. With ‘Portal ’the realm of consciousness beckons us in, with a female vocal reverberating intermittently, complementing the dark bassline and bright synth lines. Penultimate track ‘The Flame features braev and Canadian vocalist Wasiu for a three-way collaboration steeped in emotion. It utilises a heartfelt vocal alongside a spoken-word segment, striking the balance between emotion and high energy. Lastly, MRAK collaborates with Omnya on the remix of ‘Never Ends’. The main melody provides an uplifting vibration, juxtaposed with the darker elements of this journey to the close of the EP…

‘The Oakland band’s wide-ranging debut is a whirlwind of biting critique, nervy post-punk guitars, and absurdist humor. Rarely does a first record speak with such a trenchant voice.’ 7.5 PITCHFORK
‘Post-punk lovers have a new act to follow" - PASTE
Fake Fruit’s visceral indie rock operates so firmly in the present that it’s transportive and unmooring. The Oakland trio’s songs careen with volatile energy and lead singer Ham D’Amato’s lyrics are enveloped with acerbic humor and resonant perceptiveness. Though their new LP Mucho Mistrust is a sly reference to a beloved Blondie lyric, the title encapsulates both the anxieties of daily life, a bloodless music industry, and global capitalism as well as the clear-eyed skepticism needed to rebel against it. Across 12 propulsively unpredictable tracks, the album is both their most collaborative and most immediate yet.
Following the 2021 release of Fake Fruit’s self-titled debut LP, the band’s personal lives hit a turbulent and transformational period. “There were big life changes and I was so close to boiling over,” says D’Amato. “I left a bad relationship, entered a more stable and loving one, got diagnosed with alopecia, and I'm turning 30 soon too.” This personal upheaval was channeled into the explosive lead single “Mucho Mistrust.” The track is simultaneously disorienting and direct, with clanging guitars from Alex Post, off-kilter drums from Miles MacDiarmid, and D’Amato snarling, “How you gonna blame me / when you could’ve done something about it / it’s not right / How you gonna marinate me / in shitty things overnight.” She explains, “This song was a snapshot of how I got through a difficult year.”
Recorded live at the Bay Area’s Atomic Garden studio with producer Jack Shirley (Deafheaven, Home Is Where), the band’s palpable ferocity shines throughout the record. Single “Más o Menos” is searing punk, with buzzsaw guitars and surging bass. It’s a clenched-fist song, one where D’Amato sings, “I decided to assert myself / After I lost all my sense of self.” Later in the track, D’Amato, who is Chicana, sings in Spanish, “¡No me hables! / ¡No escuchare!” While some of these songs deal in heartbreak, they are charged with way bigger themes. “There's also wanting to break up with capitalism and feeling upset about things politically,” says D’Amato.
For the band, these themes are personal. “I'm managing us while I'm in between changing diapers in my day job as a nanny,” says D’Amato. “Everyone in the band still believes in it and is motivated to keep wading through the bullshit.” On this album, they had no choice but to bet on themselves and each other. No track broadcasts their evolution better than the single “Cause of Death,” which morphs from a gorgeous sax-laden banger to something cathartic and anthemic.
As adventurous and righteous as Mucho Mistrust gets, there’s still an inviting core that never takes itself too seriously. From the ripping “Cause of Death,” which self-deprecatingly takes aim at anxiety and indecision, to the searing title track, Fake Fruit imbue their songs with humor and heart. “Our band is fun,” says D’Amato. “My number one coping mechanism for all of life is to joke about it. Even when the album talks about serious things, I am proud of how funny it can be.”

The latest full-length from Kishi Bashi, Kantos is a work of exquisite duality: a party album about the possible end of humanity as we know it, at turns deeply unsettling and sublimely joyful. In a sonic departure from the symphonic folk of his critically lauded 2019 LP Omoiyari - a career-defining body of work born from his intensive meditation on the mass incarceration of Japanese-Americans during World War II - the Seattle-born singer/songwriter/producer's fifth studio album encompasses everything from Brazilian jazz and '70s funk to orchestral rock and city pop (a Japanese genre that peaked in the mid-'80s). Informed by an equally kaleidoscopic mix of inspirations - the cult-classic sci-fi novel series Hyperion Cantos, the writings of 18th century enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant, a revelatory trip to ancient ruins on the island of Crete - Kantos ultimately serves as an unbridled exaltation of the human spirit and all its wild complexities. During the earliest stages of creating songs for the album, Ishibashi's main intent was to return to his highly eclectic musical roots, in part by tapping into his jazz background and by delving into the dance-rock-leaning sensibilities he previously embraced as co-founder of Brooklyn-bred indie band Jupiter One. But not too long into the songwriting process, he stumbled upon an AI-equipped website capable of composing catchy song hooks based on a prompt - a turn of events that quickly catalyzed the existential inquiry at the heart of Kantos. Although his ruminations on AI, transhumanism, and humanity's troubled fate indelibly guided the making of Kantos, Ishibashi nonetheless views the album as "less of a warning about this kind of hubris but more a celebration of the very characteristics that make us human: desire, passion, empathy, and love." "If there's anything I want people to come away with when they hear this record, it's a feeling of excitement about the possibilities of human-created art," he says. "Even as we're learning more about all the amazing things AI can do, I think humans will always be one step ahead in terms of our creativity and innovation. There's still no limit to what we have to offer."

The year 2020 sure wasn't the most ideal time to form a band, especially for a group of musicians who never played together before. But for New York rock quintet GIFT, this strangest of periods was the auspicious backdrop for a bold new sound - a dizzying blend of early shoegaze, classic `90s alternative rock and even modern pop. Indeed, that GIFT emerged somewhat fully formed on their 2022 debut album Momentary Presence was a testament to the creative possibilities laying deep within. Now, Illuminator, their Aug. 23 debut album for revered New York independent label Captured Tracks, is the long-awaited payoff of GIFT's ever-growing musical and human chemistry. And while nods are apparent to label forerunners such as Beach Fossils, DIIV and Wild Nothing, GIFT are shepherding those elements into wondrous new vessels for the present moment - sleek, often danceable and frequently mesmerizing. GIFT - vocalist/guitarist TJ Freda, multi-instrumentalists Jessica Gurewitz and Justin Hrabovsky, drummer Gabe Camarano and bassist Kallan Campbell - are firmly enmeshed in the New York scene as talent buyers, photographers, DJs, audio engineers, art directors and, in the case of Campbell, an owner of the beloved Brooklyn DIY venue Alphaville. GIFT introduced Illuminator with "Wish Me Away," their first new song in the 18 months since the debut. With its earworm guitar lines, propulsive rhythms, riveting vocals and mind-expanding aural flourishes, "Wish Me Away" is the perfect sonic springboard from Momentary Presence to where GIFT are going next. It's also a potent reminder that you can still preserve that twinkle in your eye even when you feel like everything's slipping away. On songs such as "Light Runner", "Going In Circles" and "Destination Illumination," Freda demonstrates a newfound confidence and versatility, embracing pop music as a vehicle. The relentless, often painful dance of love has never sounded as exhilarating as on "Going in Circles," while the strident tone poem "Water in My Lungs" conjures the unreal feeling of watching a romantic partner both figuratively and literally fade from view. "This album has a lot of themes of going fast, time passing and things changing," Freda says. Throughout, Freda and company thankfully do much of the hard work for us: falling in love, heartbreak. Watching events and moments go by like cars on the highway. People you once knew coming in and out. Grieving the loss of different phases. Watching everything happen simultaneously. For these and many other reasons, Illuminator, friends, will be the soundtrack to the throughline of your life.

In these uncertain times marked by doubt and fear, hope is born in the hearts of those who believe that one day, humanity will resurface from the ashes of history to shed light on the dark territories.

To revive the spirit of resistance through sound, Detroit’s enigmatic SCAN 7 used its rethinkable frequencies to connect with a few chosen producers and craft an antidote to our orchestrated reality.

After months in their lab, SCAN 7 is happy to present Hallowed Ground, a six-track vinyl compilation freshly released on their new SCAN label. The compilation pays tribute to the epicenter of artistic, physical, and intellectual movement: Detroit.

The musical journey features the legendary AUX88, The Man With No Name, eMICee, Inohs Sivad, Charles Prophet Jr., Demiån Monét, Dre Brown, and of course, SCAN 7. This project also includes Scott Avery’s “Low-Key Seduction Mix” of SXERANADE on the digital release.

Hallowed Ground is a testament to the richness and depth of Motor City’s musical background. It encapsulates a diverse range of genres, from the soulful rhythms of Soul and Funk to the pulsating beats of Techno and beyond.

The wild greaser with an ever-broken heart, Cong Josie, is back! His eagerly anticipated sophomore album; Moto Zone, pulls up throbbing, revving, sweating and grinding hotter than bitumen on a summer day. It is a non-stop EBM’in’, synth-punkin’, rock ’n’ rollin’ and doo-woppin’ sizzler, in much the same vein as his 2021 debut Cong!. With this release however, Cong pushes his own M.O. even deeper. The throbs get bolder, the NRG goes harder, slow sleaze hip-grinding enters and the dream washes return to envelope all that hear them like a siren’s call. On Moto Zone, Cong conjures the age of rock ’n’ roll, a world of motorcycle gangs and hot rods, leather, chains, backcombing and hair pomade, with an Aussie twist on greaser ‘cool’. Confessional lyrics tell tales of addiction and mental illness tracing the scars of a troubled past. Cong says the “Moto Zone” reflects his daily life and mindset. A life of ADHD, burning the midnight oil, living on black coffee, obsessively creating and revving through every day. Ultimately Cong is reaching for bliss, feeling connection and a new world in these songs. Exhilarating? Anxious? Hedonistic? Dangerous? Beautiful? A lust for life? The record is all of the above.

Papa Nugs & Suckerpunch return with the second iteration of
the Nug Nation series; Nug Nation Vol. II. A break-neck four
track exploration of club friendly sonics Nug Nation Vol. II
picks off where it’s predecessor left off, borrowing from the
fundamentals of golden era house and progressive through
a modern lens. All composed in the past 6 months, the EP is
an illustration of the current sound of Papa Nugs with the Aside focusing on groove heavy tracks punctuated by diva
and hip house vocals respectively, while the §ip highlights
the more playful, energetic elements of his production aimed
for the peak hours.

Celebrated Norwegian singer and composer Susanna announces her new album, Meditations on Love, out August 23rd via her own label SusannaSonata. Having spent five years writing material, Meditations on Love reflects the complexities and difficulties of maintaining love. So many songs celebrate the giddy joy of a new connection or lick the wounds from a break-up, but Meditations on Love explores what happens in between, examining the work required by a healthy relationship and contemplating the conditions that turn love into something toxic. Susanna's mastery of balladry is well documented, but on Meditations on Love, she introduces a rhythmic presence new to her work. The result is one of Susanna's strongest and most dynamic recordings of her career. The Norwegian artist Susanna has released albums as Susanna and the Magical Orchestra/Susanna/Susanna Wallumrod since 2004 on labels like Rune Grammofon/ECM/Grappa Musikkforlag and since 2011 on her own label SusannaSonata. Critically acclaimed for both her own songs and her highly personal interpretations of other people's songs, she wanders lightly and intented between champer folk, avantgarde, electronica, jazz and independent pop. Highly riyl Joanna Newsom, Sufjan Stevens, Kate Bush

Private Joy?! With a namesake derived from the mighty Prince’s catalogue, and its lustful connotations, Private Joy is the producer of soul band Lovescene and a supreme vocalist of the Manchester scene. With collaborations working with the likes of Ruf Dug, Finn, and Lenzman, a solo EP was inevitable and a statement this is.

Pops Roberts’ first solo EP debuts on Rhythm Section INTL bringing together influences from Streetsoul, 80s ‘babymaker’ RnB records and a slice of 00s soulful house in there for good measure. In just over 18 minutes, Private Joy welcomes you into her world of sensuality and soulful warmth. Musical hugs galore, the production balances synths, harps, saxophones, tight beats and meaningful lyrical content; eschewing millennial whoops for Sade indebted dulcet tones.

Each track draws from personal experience; be it heartbreak or reconnection, an emotional diary
conveying the trials and tribulations of love, loss and ultimately, desire.

“Desire has been the drive and beginning of so many decisions, highs and lows in life...” - Private Joy

'Dream Pictures' ist das brandneue Studioalbum des US-Singer/Songwriter Andrew Combs aus Nashville, Tennessee. Die 12 neuen Songs bewegen sich galant zwischen Americana, Indie-Pop und Country-Folk.

Combs produzierte das Album gemeinsam mit dem Schlagzeuger Dom Billett. Die beiden Musiker begannen 2017 gemeinsam zu touren, und ihre Freundschaft ist auf dem Album fast durchgängig hörbar. Mit Ausnahme des Instrumentalisten Spencer Cullum, der die Pedal Steel beisteuerte, wurde Dream Pictures komplett von Combs und Billett aufgenommen und eingespielt. Die beiden nahmen alle Unvollkommenheiten in Kauf, die mit dem hausgemachten Aufnahmeprozess einhergingen und brachten die Rohheit der Aufnahmen mit der Finesse von Combs Songwriting perfekt in Einklang. Sie nahmen sogar Combs Gesang mit einer Reihe von Live-Auftritten im Studio auf und widerstanden so der Versuchung, verschiedene Takes zusammenzuschneiden, um ein poliertes Album er erhalten.

The UK’s first and only emo band Los Campesinos! return with their highly-anticipated seventh album, All Hell. It is perhaps their most ambitious and assured album yet, whilst simultaneously recalling everything we’ve come to love about LC! over their faultless discography. Recorded between October 2023 and February 2024, it is the first album to be wholly self-produced by band member Tom Bromley (having co-produced previous albums Sick Scenes and NO BLUES). The album is also self-released on the band’s own Heart Swells record label.

In the band’s words All Hell is an album about…

Drinking for fun and drinking for misery // adult acne // adult friendship // football // death and dying // love and sex // late-stage capitalism // Orpheus // day dreaming // night terrors // the heart as an organ and as a burden // suburban boredom // Tears of the Kingdom // the punks on the playlist // increments of time // climate apocalypse // the moon the moon the moon ///

Los Campesinos! have become one of the most important and influential cult acts in the UK since they formed in the mid-2000s. Starting out in the Cardiff indie scene and soundtracking Budweiser adverts, the seven-piece’s musical evolution since then has been slow, steady and remarkable. From the frenzied chaos of debut album Hold On Now, Youngster… (2008) through 2010 breakthrough Romance is Boring and the self-mythologising of latter day highlights NO BLUES (2013) and Sick Scenes (2017), their discography is an interconnected web of niche references, big swings and unflinching honesty.

Making self-professed sleeper hits for weeping dipshits, they’re as influenced by The Beautiful South as they are US emo, with emotional intensity and connection always at the core. Their lyrics are a treasure trove of football references, tales of romantic woe and painfully frank exorcisms, which have been tattooed across hundreds of fans’ bodies and served as comfort and insight during that break-up you had (there’s a reason the band’s tagline is “your ex-girlfriend’s favourite band”).

Now with the release of All Hell, Los Camp! approach their third decade as a band more brilliant, more potent and more vital than ever.

Two great soul vibes from the master of funk, Mr James brown. First up from the There it is LP is one of favs "Never can say goodbye" i just love this groove and bass vibe. killer horn lines - S okin"

on the flip is another soul class from the man. "You took my heart" from the getta up offa that thang lp. it has such a lovely swing to it, loads of movment!!! essenal

x600 copies only

Darren Hayman New Starts are a spikey, fresh sounding band recalling the poppier ends of new wave and angular guitar rock. Their influences include The Cars, Breeders, Bay City Rollers, The Velvet Underground and ZZ Top. Lead singer Darren Hayman has his own long career running from the late 90s with John Peel faves Hefner to his more recent thematic and historical albums dealing with the English Civil War, William Morris and forgotten rural idylls. “I wanted a band again,” says Hayman, “and not a band that just backed me up and played my old songs. When we form our first bands in our teens we just find some friends and work through the musical differences. I usually look for players who play in a way I’m used to. This time I looked for variance and was led by people’s personality.” Guitarist Joely Smith of South London’s noise-pop adults and recently DIY-punks Fresh was recommended by a mutual friend who said, ‘She makes everything better’. Hayman and Smith shared a coffee and agreed on the correct number of guitar pedals and decided to proceed without an audition. “There is a tendency for me to make my chords too pretty. Joely cuts against that and plays in the opposite direction.” Hayman is a fan of rules and constraints and employed a new, oblique strategy on this record. “Even though I wrote all the songs, I wanted the songs to belong to everyone during arrangement. I decided that I would say ‘yes’ to every suggestion from the band, regardless of my instinct.” This made the songs warp and bend into new shapes and ensured that the record was the product of four individuals. Bassist Giles Barrett and drummer Will Connor come from funky afro beat influenced band Tigercats. “Pretty much the only rhythm I use, left to my own devices, is the ‘road runner’ rhythm. Will takes to care to find where the drum beat can be and we always end up somewhere I didn’t expect.” More Break Up Songs is a collection of 12 Break Up songs because Darren broke up with someone. Again. “I suck’, he says, “But it’s never anyone’s fault. It makes me very sad but I do have to work through these things in song and there’s always something to learn. I try to make songs about breakups that could be understood by both parties. I’m not interested in nasty songs.” Opening song ‘Little Stone in my Heart’ blisters along with Joely’s wildest guitars. The protagonist will do anything to make things right, but nothing ever is. ‘Under the Striplights’ has driving, choppy, incessant riffs, and is about the need to be anywhere but somewhere other than here. We could be under the moon or under the strip lights as long as we have each other. Another barely kept rule that Darren instigated on this album was that each song would be a tonal equivalent to one from The Velvet Underground’s third album. To that end ‘Don’t Need Persuading’ is this record’s ‘Pale Blue Eyes’ with the narrator being unable to break free of a vortex, knowing they will stay the night against all better judgment. ‘I’ve had a long standing distrust of the guitar,’ says Darren, ‘despite it being my primary instrument for twenty years. I thought it was time I made a record with two guitars and drums and bass. I wanted it to be bright, immediate and young sounding, despite the fact I’m old. We recorded it in four days and I think this might be the record a lot of my audience has wanted me to make for a long time.’ “bold and unique" The Sunday Times. // “Hayman has hit a creative purple patch… a treat” Mojo // “uniquely intimate and very satisfying”

Since first splashing on to the Southern California circuit in the mid-aughts, Geneva Jacuzzi (née Garvin) quickly cemented herself as the queen of the Los Angeles underground. Her immersive and unhinged multimedia performances are the stuff of legend, a psychotropic gallery of masks, costumes, confrontation, and massive art installations. Jacuzzi’s recordings are equally revered, catchy hooks and cryptic moods dusted in 4-track grit. The arrival of her third official full-length, and Dais Records debut, is cause for such celebration. Triple Fire vividly expands and crystallizes Jacuzzi’s signature fusion of midnight melody and mutant aerobics across a 12-track hit parade of wildcard synth-pop and sly post-apocalyptic camp. Her enthusiasm for the album is as bold as her body of work: “Halfway through, we started calling this the record of the prophecy, the record that’s going to save mankind.”



Opener “Laps of Luxury” sets the template – a strobe-lit dreamer’s delight of swaggering synth bass, Haçienda drum machinery, and sultry vocal spellcasting (“Tragic mysteries I’ve known for centuries / I burned all memories and turned to fantasy”). The collection burns through shades of sardonic strut (“Art Is Dangerous,” “Nu2U,” “Keep It Secret”), coldwave kiss off (“Speed Of Light,” co-produced by Andrew Clinco of Drab Majesty), retro-futurist body music (“Dry,” “Scene Ballerina,” “Bow Tie Eater”), and cheeky glitterball pop (“Take It Or Leave It,” “Heart Full Of Poison” co-produced by Roderick Edens and Andrew Briggs). She likens the eclectic spectrum of moods to the continuum of human emotions: “Funny, sexy, sad, scary, witty, hopeful, menacing. Eventually it deconstructs, turns into a party, and then ends sweet and soft.”



Taken as a whole, Triple Fire comes as close as any document yet to capturing Jacuzzi’s kaleidoscopic alchemy of pop sugar and chaos energy, flickering between icy and ironic, chic and surreal, hungry and heartsick. Hers is a muse as rare as it is regenerative, forever reborn at the precipice of the next chorus: “Someone said that Alcatraz had fallen into the sea / Almost sounded like an angel calling me in a dream / I felt an electric shock when I picked up the microphone.”

From 2019 to 2023 Lindsay Reamer worked as a field scientist. With a guitar and a bag of books in tow, she would leave her home in Philadelphia for the postcard scenes of the American landscape to gather data on visitation in National Parks. She counted cars and RVs, surveyed visitors, and made a temporary home for a few weeks at a time wherever she landed. All the while, she collected her own observations like specimens and slowly weaved the songs that would form her debut full-length, `Natural Science.' Recorded throughout 2023 by Lucas Knapp, `Natural Science' paints with a full spectrum. Humor rubs elbows with heartbreak. Acoustic guitars brush up against synthesizers, cradling Reamer as she sings about the American Chestnut tree extinction, employee gossip at a Day's Inn, fishing beside a power plant, turf grass farms, and waking up next to day-old take-out. The indifferent beauty of nature is held up next to the everyday as Reamer does her very best to find clues for navigating the latter by musing upon both. Following the release of her self-produced EP `Lucky' (Dear Life Records) in 2021, Reamer assembled a band with musicians from Philadelphia's vibrant music community and began working her once solo-acoustic songs into full band arrangements. After a brief flirtation with dance music which led to 2022's viral single "Touch Tank," Reamer settled into a sound that lies somewhere in the folkrock-pop matrix, explored with the humor and lightness of songwriters like Sheryl Crow or Melanie. Reamer reflects: "When I heard the songs with the band, I knew it was time to make the record. It felt like something I had been working towards my whole life. I grew up around musicians but I never thought I was good enough to be in a band or even to make my own music. My grandmother Joan gave me voice lessons after school, my mom was an opera singer, and my dad a guitar player. But it wasn't until a few years ago that I realized I could do it. It didn't matter if I could shred on the guitar or something. It was like some illusion shattered." Reamer is a sincere storyteller. The self-doubt and heartbreak expressed in songs like "Spring Song," "Sugar," or "Red Flowers" give way to the triumphant moments of self-acceptance and love in "Lucky," "Necessary," and "Figs and Peaches." `Natural Science' chronicles a path to confidence, an honest reflection of someone with the capacity to hold a deep well of emotion who also makes sure to not take it all too seriously. "Gardens on the land / Castles on the beaches / I trust my hand and / Pluck my figs and peaches," Reamer sings, as she works to reconcile the strange difficulty we have at finding happiness despite the obvious beauty all around us.

Pirates Press Records is proud to re-release Close My Eyes, the 2002 album by NYC ska-reggae legends The Slackers - a complex and nuanced album that shows the band's versatility and capacity for both commentary and introspection. It is often said - to the point of cliche - that New York City is a "character" in the work of the city's most noted filmmakers. A similar statement could be made about the artistic symbiosis between the city and The Slackers. From the Bronx-born accent of lead vocalist Vic Ruggiero to the band's embrace of cosmopolitan musical traditions from a melting pot of cultural origins, New York defines The Slackers at least as much as the band have contributed to defining the sound of New York for well over 30 years.Therefore, it bears mentioning that - aside from a 2002 collaborative album by "The Slackersand Friends" - Close My Eyesis the band's first proper studio LP released after the traumatic terrorist attacks on their home city in 2001, and the band took enough time to reckon with the global fallout of this tragedy. "So feel free go steal and rob, revolution ain't my job," sings Ruggiero on the title track. "And if I sing your happy song, please don't tell me I am wrong." It is the statement of an artist searching for a way to still sing about joy and life in uncertain times of great upheaval. And ultimately the band must reckon with these times. On "Real War," toaster Marq Lyn takes lead vocals as the band addresses the march to war that was omnipresent in those early days of the 21st century, stating in no uncertain terms that it was "Time to fight the real war_ Against hunger and poverty_ For racial equality." The Slackers make it clear that while the machinations of hawkish politicians grind on, the real needs of people all over the world are left behind. This tension between a dangerous world and the struggles of one's personal life are present throughout the record, and the band weaves stories from the whole spectrum of human emotion, war, heartbreak, joy, and everything in between. Bookended by instrumental tracks, opening with the energetic "Shankbon" and ending with moody dub reggae, these veteran virtuoso players ultimately take listeners on a masterful journey through the human experience.

Luminice Blue Transparent Vinyl. Can you hear the war drums beating? Prepare for battle! Lost In Cult Records, Black Screen Records, Gaziter and Deadpan Games are proud to present Wildfrost: the Original Game Soundtrack. For the first time on vinyl, enjoy the complete and unabridged orchestral score from composer Paul Zimmermann. Rich with folk roots and powerful crescendos, it's the perfect soundscape for your journey through the cold. No Pengoons were harmed in the making of this vinyl. Composer Paul Zimmermann on working on this soundtrack and vinyl: "Writing the music for Wildfrost was a blast. I loved mixing a ton of different instruments from all around the world to bring to life the colourful and unique setting of the game. The gameplay can get very challenging, so I wanted to make sure the music felt playful and uplifting, while also providing those big and heroic moments for our boss fights. I'm super pleased to partner with Lost in Cult and Black Screen Records to bring this soundtrack to vinyl. Seeing the positive response from players has been amazing and I hope this vinyl, with its unique artwork by Nuri Durr and the additional extras, provides fans of the game and its music another great way to connect with the world of the eternal winter!"

Horse Jumper of Love thrive on patient and pummeling songs. Since 2013, the Boston trio of singer-guitarist Dimitri Giannopoulos, bassist John Margaris, and drummer James Doran have slowly stretched the fringes of indie rock across five full-length LPs. Their music unwinds with gutting emotional intensity thanks to Giannopoulos' impressionistic lyrics and how the arrangements violently lurch from delicate to bludgeoning. Disaster Trick, the band's new album out August 16 via Run For Cover, is their most direct and uncompromising LP yet. Its 11 songs tackle self-destructiveness and healing with jolting lucidity. Where the band's last LP 2023's Heartbreak Rules excelled with quiet, bare-bones songwriting, Disaster Trick cranks up the volume and boasts some of the most expansive arrangements of the band's catalog. Recorded at Asheville, North Carolina's Drop of Sun Studios with producer Alex Farrar, the recordings soar with searing guitars and a thunderous rhythm section. "I tried the quiet thing on the last album and I realized there's definitely two parts of me: I like really heavy music, and I like really gentle music," says Giannopoulos. "The two albums I was listening to the most, while we were in the studio were the Leonard Cohen's Songs From a Room and Hum's Downward is Heavenward." Disaster Trick is a dark record but it's never dour. There's a glimmer of hope and humor throughout these 11 songs, written with the grace that only time and growing up can bring. As he sings on "Death Spiral," "I know it sounds dramatic / But I must describe / The way that it felt." There's catharsis when it's needed most. "This album is a reflection on destructive behavior from a lens of more clarity," says Giannopoulos. "A lot of the songs came out of this point where things in my life were going well but I couldn't accept it. I was being a brat. Disaster Trick is me cleaning up my act a bit and reflecting on it."

Horse Jumper of Love thrive on patient and pummeling songs. Since 2013, the Boston trio of singer-guitarist Dimitri Giannopoulos, bassist John Margaris, and drummer James Doran have slowly stretched the fringes of indie rock across five full-length LPs. Their music unwinds with gutting emotional intensity thanks to Giannopoulos' impressionistic lyrics and how the arrangements violently lurch from delicate to bludgeoning. Disaster Trick, the band's new album out August 16 via Run For Cover, is their most direct and uncompromising LP yet. Its 11 songs tackle self-destructiveness and healing with jolting lucidity. Where the band's last LP 2023's Heartbreak Rules excelled with quiet, bare-bones songwriting, Disaster Trick cranks up the volume and boasts some of the most expansive arrangements of the band's catalog. Recorded at Asheville, North Carolina's Drop of Sun Studios with producer Alex Farrar, the recordings soar with searing guitars and a thunderous rhythm section. "I tried the quiet thing on the last album and I realized there's definitely two parts of me: I like really heavy music, and I like really gentle music," says Giannopoulos. "The two albums I was listening to the most, while we were in the studio were the Leonard Cohen's Songs From a Room and Hum's Downward is Heavenward." Disaster Trick is a dark record but it's never dour. There's a glimmer of hope and humor throughout these 11 songs, written with the grace that only time and growing up can bring. As he sings on "Death Spiral," "I know it sounds dramatic / But I must describe / The way that it felt." There's catharsis when it's needed most. "This album is a reflection on destructive behavior from a lens of more clarity," says Giannopoulos. "A lot of the songs came out of this point where things in my life were going well but I couldn't accept it. I was being a brat. Disaster Trick is me cleaning up my act a bit and reflecting on it."

Not everybody has not one, not two, but twelve producers attached to her debut release. Not everybody has her one and only album pranked by British artist Banksy (who substituted a topless photo for the cover). Nope, not everybody is Paris Hilton, who has lived in the public eye since, well, forever. She first announced plans to make an album in 2003, during her run on the reality TV series The Simple Life. Originally entitled Screwed, and then Paris Is Burning, the record—finally simply entitled Paris—came out in 2006. And it was…uh… good? Yeah, for real. This record goes expensively pedicured cuticle to cuticle with anything Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson or any other pop culture chanteuse of the like ever put out, and the Paris the heiress displays some real savvy both in her taste of material and the Madonna-like manipulation of her sex symbol image. And her voice? Definitely respectable despite what the haters said. Indeed, the single “Stars Are Blind” went top 20, and the album itself went all the way up to #6, selling over 600,000 copies worldwide. Since Paris has finally answered the pleas of her fans and made a second album, we thought the time was right for a revival of Paris, so we’ve taken the fetching photos from the CD package and given them plenty of acreage to show their stuff, with a gatefold jacket and 4-color printed inner sleeve. And for this release, we’re pressing Paris’ album in her favorite color, pink…and of course it’s hot! A pop culture keepsake from an enduring pop culture icon!

Beneath the steel strings and steely demeanor exemplifying the spirit of bluegrass lies the heart of a wanderer: the heartbroken rambler looking for the next big break and the next story to tell. The Po’ Rambin’ Boys’ Wanderers Like Me is a quintessential bluegrass record, full of melodies that burst with energy and emotion and music driven by melancholy but refusing to succumb to it. They confront their losses with original songs that resonate poignantly across the hills and hollers where bluegrass was born. For The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys wandering is anything but aimless: they ramble not to escape the past but to experience the future.

The funkiest release on the HDH label and last album from Detroit soul group Chairmen of the Board saw a concerted movement away from harmony soul towards the psychedelic funk-rock sound of Funkadelica.

This record features backing from Parliament-Funkadelic musicians Eddie Hazel (guitar) Bernie Worrell (keyboards and organ), Billy “bass” Nelson (bass) and Tiki Fullwood (drums) who all give the music an enthusiastic funk injection. Reissued on 140g black vinyl with newly mastered audio from Phil Kinrade at AIR Studios, an obi strip and a printed inner featuring a liner note from “Soul Trilogy” author Stuart Cosgrove, enjoy this limited edition 50th anniversary release of Skin I’m In – brought to you with SOUL by Demon Music Group. Get on down with the get down…

"Foster The People melden sich nach drei Jahren mit neuer Musik zurück. Just in time für den Sommer veröffentlicht die dreifach Grammy-nominierte Multiplatin-Band einen Song, der strahlt wie die Sonne oder wahlweise wie ein glitzerndes Disco-Outfit, denn „Lost In
Space“ ist getragen von jeder Menge Late-70s-Großartigkeit. „Floating and drifting and flying through the open sky“, hält es auch Mark Foster in den Lyrics kaum am Boden.

Mit „Lost In Space“ feiern Foster The People ihr Debüt bei Atlantic Records und kündigen gleichzeitig ihr viertes Studioalbum an. Es trägt den Titel „Paradise State of Mind“, erscheint am 16. August und wird sieben Jahre nach dem letzten Longplayer „Sacred Hearts Club“ mit Spannung erwartet."

Poet's Tooth - the band's second album for Kill Rock Stars - steers the duo's whimsical western- tinted quality into fascinating new directions: cinematic- pop balladry on the autoharp- tinged opener "Young & Free," gently clip- clopping Americana-folk on "Hard Hearted Way," and bass-driven funk on the wry "Eggs In One Basket." With help from producer Danny Reisch, Tele Novella have crafted their most genre-rich, poetic, and sincere album yet.

As an extension of his highly successful „Big Beat Manifesto“ series on Public Possession, currently standing at Volume XI, Eden now opens up his garden to invite some friends. The BBM label will host a series of releases that are close to his heart.
Secret D.J. Tools, meditative seances & more. Kicking of the new label is young fellow kiwi Colter Carson, delivering 5 stellar dance songs. Already tested & approved this mix of heavy percussion, quirky baselines and large synths will be just the right treat for all fans of the Big Beats!

Are you a mannequin in the eyes of your beloved? Does your partner compare your relationship to a factory that emits plumes of smoke? Are you in love with a seductive and destructive Credit Default Swap? Someone who sucks you in with skyrocketing short term erotic returns - only to ghost you until you crash so hard that you end up broke(n) in your own bed? Do you pay $300 an hour out of pocket to a psychiatrist who promises to help you strike a deal with a difcult parent - one that will produce more stable long term returns on your psychic investments? If so, then you, my friend, may be drowning in the sea of Love in the Time of Capital. It's where everyone would love to drown. It's a new album from John Davis of The Folk Implosion that fnds him backed with confdence by Eli Moore and Andrew Dorsett of the indie pop band Lake. It was recorded by Nich Wilbur at the Unknown, a cavernous recording studio in Anacortes, WA that has been a favorite destination for indie rockers around the nation. Ben Brodin recorded Megan Siebe playing strings on two tracks at his Hidden Branch studio in Omaha, and the album was mixed by Scott Solter in Durham NC. Arrangements are based on the classic power pop trio of drums, bass and electric guitar. Those elements are tastefully embellished with organs and pianos that call to mind records by classic rock bands like Tom Petty's Heartbreakers. That is, if the Heartbreakers were fltered through the Northwestern International Pop Underground tradition, and cast a critical eye on how commodity culture shapes the way we think of ourselves and our intimate relationships. The album also features four ballads, three drum and electric guitar free, for all you late night introspective heads.

Still Wave was born from the deep outer space, in a future past of void
and broken feelings, to play violently post romantic, epically desperate
swansongs for lovers
Sing along. Hold your heart. And smile while you fall.
Line-up:
Daniele Carlo - Drums, Percussion
Luca Fois - Guitar, Keyboards, Backing Vocals
Tomas Aurizzi - Guitar, Keyboards
Manuel Palombi - Bass, Harsh Vocals
Valerio Granieri - Lead Vocals

Vinyl Packaging: Full color jacket featuring original artwork by Callum Rooney. Can I Communicate With the Unknown? is the new album from Go By Ocean, moniker of Northern California based singer / songwriter / producer Ryan McCaffrey. Co-produced alongside Tim Bluhm (The Mother Hips) and David Glasebrook, the album features contributions from a wide cast of characters, ranging from the tight knit community of Phil Lesh’s much loved Terrapin Crossroads to the wider West Coast indie-rock scene, including members of The Mother Hips, Sugar Candy Mountain, ALO, Tea Leaf Green, and more. Building upon McCaffrey’s catalog of songs, the new album finds inspiration in the down-to-earth music of 1970’s Marin County, when songwriters like Michael Hurley and Jesse Colin Young lived out in Olema and Point Reyes, the kind of places where songs blow in on the breeze from the Pacific Ocean. Lyrically, the album traces a hero’s journey as the narrator struggles with addiction, eventually finding peace and freedom in a tumultuous world, wrestling with metaphysical and spiritual ideas along the way. Highly anticipated new album from Go By Ocean, co-produced by Tim Bluhm of The Mother Hips. Press coverage includes reviews and features in Austin Town Hall, Glide Magazine, Psychedelic Baby Magazine, and more. UK/EU Publicity handled by Chris Carr & Mal Smith. “...washed with breezy beachy vibes…” - Glide Magazine // “...marries the bright guitar arrangement of The Byrds with an updated indie appeal.” - The Wild Is Calling // “...you can almost feel the hope over the hills waiting for you with open arms.” - Austin Town Hall // “‘...satisfyingly artful and I would venture to guess you’ve never heard anything quite like it.” - Ear To the Ground Music // “We will be spinning the hell out of this record for the rest of the summer.” - Up To Hear Music // “...it’s not hard to imagine some of these songs floating in on the coastal fog, ascending ghosts indeed.” - Psychedelic Baby Magazine

2024 Repress

Performed by Nicolas Horvath.


Discover all the beauty of the music from Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata's Studio Ghibli films in this new original production for solo piano!

Based on the official piano scores of the original composer of the Studio Ghibli films, Joe Hisaishi, this album is an initiatory and virtuoso journey into the worlds of Miyazaki and Takahata, performed by pianist Nicolas Horvath, Steinway and Sons Artist, famous for being a first-class interpreter of composers such as Philip Glass, Franz Liszt, Claude Debussy and Eric Satie.

The album contains tracks from all Studio Ghibli films composed by Joe Hisaishi, a complete horizon of the immortal work of the cult animation studio.

The vinyl edition includes 24 tracks on two discs inserted in a sumptuous gatefold sleeve.

Not everybody has not one, not two, but twelve producers attached to her debut release. Not everybody has her one and only album pranked by British artist Banksy (who substituted a topless photo for the cover). Nope, not everybody is Paris Hilton, who has lived in the public eye since, well, forever. She first announced plans to make an album in 2003, during her run on the reality TV series The Simple Life.

Originally entitled Screwed, and then Paris Is Burning, the record—finally simply entitled Paris—came out in 2006. And it was…uh… good? Yeah, for real. This record goes expensively pedicured cuticle to cuticle with anything Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson or any other pop culture chanteuse of the like ever put out, and the Paris the heiress displays some real savvy both in her taste of material and the Madonna-like manipulation of her sex symbol image. And her voice? Definitely respectable despite what the haters said. Indeed, the single “Stars Are Blind” went top 20, and the album itself went all the way up to #6, selling over 600,000 copies worldwide.

Since Paris has finally answered the pleas of her fans and made a second album, we thought the time was right for a revival of Paris, so we’ve taken the fetching photos from the CD package and given them plenty of acreage to show their stuff, with a gatefold jacket and 4-color printed inner sleeve. And for this release, we’re pressing Paris’ album in her favorite color, pink…and of course it’s hot! A pop culture keepsake from an enduring pop culture icon!

80s alt country punk outfit, Lone Justice, with Maria McKee, Ryan Hedgecock, Marvin Etzioni and Don Heffington are in full flight with the release of a brand new 7". Taken from their forthcoming album, Viva Lone Justice, 'Teenage Kicks' is a rambunctious slice of punk angst that sounds like it was recorded in one take. It's a timeless anthem with a joyous riff that explodes into a hail of feedback. A favour returned as Maria McKee, the songwriter of Feargal Sharkey's only solo hit 'A Good Heart', Lone Justice cover The Undertones' Peel-approved favourite with the artwork of the single being a nod to the original. "As much as we loved Merle Haggard, George Jones, and many other authentic hard core Country artists, we were also deeply impacted by Punk; from the Velvet Underground (we were playing "Sweet Jane" live as early as 1983) to the MC5 ("Sister Ann" is on the album "Viva Lone Justice")." Backed with 'Nothing Can Stop My Loving You' that's cut with a wild, squeezebox-powered interpretation of the George Jones and Roger Miller country stomp. "Speaking of George Jones, here's one written by George Jones and Roger Miller. Two of our favorites! We played this song at nearly every show starting in 1983. This ragged and right live recording captures the fire from a sold out show at The Palace in Los Angeles and features Jo-El Sonnier on lead accordion documenting the only time Sonnier played with LJ. "Nothing Can Stop My Loving You" is the only live track on Viva Lone Justice." // "A roots rock band that took Los Angeles by storm in the 80s and developed a smaller but deeply enthusiastic following outside the Golden State

Since surfacing into the Scandinavian synth-pop scene 16 years ago, Nicklas Stenemo and Christian Hutchinson Berg aka KITE have steadily grown from local icons to a global phenomenon, yet until now they've never released a full-length studio album. VII breaks the ice, collecting 14 of the duo's deepest and most dynamic anthems into a stormy saga of immersive, apocalyptic emotion. Sourced from a series of six 7-inch singles released over the past half-decade, the collection persuasively showcases KITE's distinctly cinematic strain of Swedish darkwave in all its glory and desolation. Stenemo and Berg had both logged time in other bands before joining forces in the mid-aughts, although their unique chemistry became apparent immediately. After forming in Malmö, Sweden, they soon relocated to Stockholm, further refining their fusion of brooding synths, booming rhythm, and vocal theatrics over a string of celebrated, numbered EPs (named I through VI). Despite their rising profile, KITE then and now have largely refrained from publicity, allowing their music to speak for itself - which it clearly has, as KITE's live performances have become the stuff of legend, prompting frequent festival invitations, international tours, and limited engagements on prestigious stages (recently at the Royal Swedish Opera, and Dalhalla, the former limestone quarry turned open air amphitheater, to name a few). VII offers a compendium of KITE's potent recent discography, including collaborations with Blanck Mass, Anna von Hausswolff, and Henric de la Cour. From yearning dystopian pop ("Hand Out The Drugs," "Bowie `95"), to widescreen existential balladry ("Tranas Stenslanda," "Glassy Eyes"), and sleek New Romantica ("Remember Me," "Teenage Bliss"), KITE's wavelength is one of soaring heights and abysmal depths, anguish and ecstasy, pouring one's burning, battered heart into the here and now. Their years of visceral commitment and artistic integrity have been hard fought and hard won; it bleeds between the words and melodies in one holy moment after another: "I switch my ways / To seize the day / To face my life / Not fade to gray."