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Hailing from the vermin-saturated remains of upstate South Carolina, SLUGCRUST are preparing to release their debut full length, Ecocide, via Prosthetic Records this summer. Featuring members of WVRM, SLUGCRUST embodies true Southern grind in all its grimy, punishing glory. With two ferocious EPs already under their belts, the breakneck speed with which SLUGCRUST operate gives a fair indicator of their approach. However, their focus isn’t compromised by their accelerated work ethic. Drawing from various literary inspirations the political issues at the heart of SLUGCRUST’s output is given a darkly poetic twist. SLUGCRUST seeks to bring political issues to light in a way that galvanises action and activism. The title derives from the process of destroying environmental structures or ecosystems, either via natural means or - as is more pertinent in the case of this album - deliberate human actions. Depravity is a recurring theme throughout the lyrics; emotional and physical immorality and degeneracy permeates the twelve tracks that make up Ecocide.

The stunning third album from Wyldest - aka London singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Zoe Mead. Taking cues from the vulnerable and honest songwriting of Elliott Smith to the melodic indie-pop of Soccer Mommy and Hovvdy, Feed The Flowers Nightmares is something of a coming of age moment and with co-production from Luciano Rossi (Idlewild, Dama Scout) the LP is set to further establish Wyldest as a quietly prolific, multi-faceted and increasingly assured talent.

don Grammar’s success and longevity as a band has traced the British pop graph for over a decade now. The new album embodies a new clarity of purpose centred around frontwoman Hannah Reid, who crafts a message of femininity and power on the new material. Their debut double platinum selling record 'If You Wait' garnered huge success on its release in 2013, which was followed up by their #1 record 'Truth Is A Beautiful Thing' in 2017. To date the band have sold over 3 million records and 1 million tickets globally, whilst their music has been streamed 1 billion times. Having garnered numerous BRIT nominations and awarded a prestigious Ivor Novello, London Grammar remain rooted as one of the most exceptional and successful artists of a generation.

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»Mediocrity and the Master Narrative« is about coming to terms with having grown up with unrealistic expectations of life. Moose Malloy spent multiple years crafting this many-layered 19 minutes masterpiece by masterfully molding a plethora of reference points and influences. Ranging from minimal music to free-form sampling and the more spiritual kind of Jazz, to geographical influences they never visited (like Mongolia or Mali) and paintings by Lucian Freud or the film Koyaanisqatsi. In a way, this album is not even an album, it's many stories all at once. And they all tell us that our very own life's mediocrity can only be paradoxically dissolved by fully accepting it.

Nachpressung auf weißem Vinyl! Auf ihr Solodebüt "No Time For Sorrows" von 2004 folgend kehrte FABIENNE DELSOL 2007 mit frischem Fleisch für ihre Fans zurück: "Between You And Me". Aufgenommen über drei Jahre hinweg ist "Between You And Me" eine moderne Schatzkiste, die den Pop der Swinging Sixties in ein zeitgenössisches Gewand hüllt und hier und da farbige Akzente mit Songs auf Französisch und der Single "Catch Me A Rat" setzt. Im DELSOL typischen Mix aus Coverversionen und Songs, die von George Miller, Peder Bernhardt und dem Damaged Goods Kollegen PETE MOLINARI, der auch als Gast auftritt, geschrieben wurden, lässt sich so manchem sommerlichen Tagtraum nachhängen. FABIENNE DELSOL stammt ursprünglich aus Frankreich und machte seinerzeit als Frontfrau mit der legendären Londoner Garageband THE BRISTOLS von sich reden. Seitdem lebt sie mit Partner Liam Watson (Produzent, Toe Rag Studios) in London.

,Four" überrascht mit einem nuancierteren und reiferen Psychedelic-Sound, während gleichzeitig der für Fabienne typische zackige French Pop trifft 60's-Garage Stil beibehalten wird. Es gibt eine Vielzahl von Instrumenten, insbesondere das Mellotron funktioniert als willkommene Ergänzung bei vielen Tracks. Die zeitgenössischen Originalkompositionen ,I'll Never Be Lonely Again" und ,See How They Run" sind meisterhaft für Fabiennes unverwechselbare Art kreiert worden, und beide zeichnen sich durch einen starken 60's Groove aus, der mit ihrem charakteristischen Sound in Einklang steht. Wie bei jeder Fabienne Delsol LP werden sorgfältig ausgewählte Cover von Fabiennes zarter Stimme liebevoll interpretiert: ,Follow Me" von Lyme & Cybelle ist ein wunderbarer Garage-Folk-Ausflug und ,Face", der Eröffnungstrack des zweiten Albums von The Human Beinz, kommt als atemberaubende Interpretation. Fabienne einen ,Spare Parts" Album-Track in Angriff nehmen zu hören ist keine Überraschung, immerhin ist sie ein lebenslanger Status Quo Fan und ,When I Awake" als zurückhaltend funkelnde Fassung gibt es so nur von ihr. Der Höhepunkt ist Francoise Hardys schwelender französischer Klassiker ,J'ai Fait Du Lui Un Reve" der hier üppig ätherisch, mit starker Emotion und langsam aufbauenden Tonschichten neu interpretiert wird.

4 LP set is for Indies only until further notice. Unravelled: 1981–2002 shines a loving light on lo-fi pioneers Tall Dwarfs, the prized New Zealand duo of Chris Knox and Alec Bathgate. The collection, available as a 4-LP or 2-CD box set, compiles songs from Tall Dwarfs' two decades of recordings. The vinyl edition includes a 20-page collector's booklet of photos, comics, posters, and other ephemera. The songs on Unravelled: 1981–2002 were curated by Alec Bathgate, who also designed the box set packaging; Chris Knox suffered a debilitating stroke in 2009 just as they had started work on a new album. The collection captures the different sides of the Tall Dwarfs in 55 songs. Though the band was an excuse for two good friends who lived in different cities to get together, drink beer, watch shitty old movies, and do some recording and drawing, Tall Dwarfs created music unlike anyone else. Capturing the initial excitement of creation and taking pride in what they did, Knox and Bathgate showed a whole generation of musicians what could be done at home on a 4-track and what magic could be made if you mixed pop melodies and hooks galore with homemade sounds. After a failed flirtation with success in their previous band Toy Love, Knox and Bathgate formed Tall Dwarfs in 1981, opting to record themselves on a 4-track reel-to-reel. New Zealand’s AudioCulture wrote of the duo’s project: “Early live performances were a ramshackle work in progress. Knox described them in an interview with American magazine Forced Exposure as ‘two minutes of song followed by five minutes of fucking around,’ and they dismayed many Toy Love fans—but the pair had no interest in a career spent in pubs cranking out ‘Pull Down the Shades.’” Tall Dwarfs was meant to be a one-off, but after the founding of their New Zealand label Flying Nun, they continued to record music for the next 21 years, releasing seven EPs and six albums. Their process was spontaneous, with songs being recorded as they were written. Typically, Bathgate would work up something on guitar while Knox provided vocals, lyrics, and tape loops. Then they added any sounds that seemed necessary to finish a song, using whatever was lying around: pans, chairs, baby rattles. Though Tall Dwarfs could be weird, they were never too experimental; Knox and Bathgate both loved melody too much (“Beatlesque” appeared more often than any other adjective in their reviews).

1000 new edition on blue vinyl, the RSD version is long sold out. Packaged in tri-fold sleeve that replicates the original 1971 release and featuring an extra disc of live BBC recordings from the same era. 50-year anniversary vinyl release of the original power trio’s second incarnation, now expanded with BBC In Concert versions of the album’s key tracks. An epic milestone and key prog rock definer, fusing their blues rock roots and their finely honed electric sound of the early ‘70s. This limited release replicated the original 1971 packaging, with a tri-fold sleeve, an absolute essential for fans of this seminal act.

Sympathetic Magic is an ecstatic, delirious, and deeply touching piece of music; a towering new work in Kim Myhr’s increasingly substantial output as an artist and composer. Sympathetic Magic is the follow-up to Kim Myhr’s 2017 album You | me, which was widely praised and received an honorary mention at the 2018 Nordic Music Prize. While the immersive warmth of You | me is still present, Sympathetic Magic is more expansive than its predecessor. A band of eight musicians playing a wide variety of instruments including electric 12-string guitars, drum machines, vocals, synthesizers, organs and lots of drums and percussion, has created a work of a grander scale. The shimmering, oceanic waves of You | me has been traded for cosmic currents in Sympathetic Magic. Put simply, Sympathetic Magic is a collection of song-like structures that has expanded into symphonic proportions. “With You | me, I wanted to create an ocean of sound, where the listener is surrounded by a myriad of elements that has equal importance in the music. I wanted to challenge this a bit, to push certain elements forward. The result is a more song-like kind of music than what I’ve done before.” – Kim Myhr Just before starting working on Sympathetic Magic, Kim bought an old 70s Yamaha organ (the YC45d), after falling in love with the sound of it on different recordings. At first, he thought the organ would be a subtle element on the new record, but it ended up becoming a focal point: “It’s a brilliant in-your-face sound that brought an ecstatic quality to the music. Playing around with this instrument, along with an 80s Roland Juno synth and a new drum machine took the music in new directions.” – Kim Myhr. Thematically, Sympathetic Magic circles around a longing for collectivity and togetherness. While the world was locked down in 2021, thanks to a commission from Oslo Jazz Festival, Kim had the opportunity to delve deeply into this project, working with the members of the band, one at a time: “The music created a situation of unexpected positivity. It felt like a social project even if I spent most of the time on it alone. And all this positive, joyful energy felt quite magical, arriving like out of thin air in this otherwise grim situation. It all felt like a hallucination, which fed back into the music. Sympathetic Magic is like a dream within a dream.” – Kim Myhr The title of the record is a term coined by James Frazer in The Golden Bough. He writes: “things which have once been in contact with each other continue to act on each other at a distance after the physical contact has been severed”. “In a closed down world where all our connections with the outside suddenly are remote or absent, the line between the real and imaginary is blurred. I felt that the term perfectly summed up the thoughts, processes and sentiments that went into the making of this record”, says Myhr. “Kim Myhr is a master of slow-morphing rhythms and sun-dappled textures that seem to glow from the inside”. The Guardian 1/And I Thought These Are My People 2/Gifting Senselessly In Endless Lavishness 3/Move The Rolling Sky 4/Iridescent 5/Up To The Sun Shall Go Your Heartache 6/I Wonder If I Shall Fall Right Through The Earth 7/Heart Streams

Very limited vinyl pressing, 500 copies in a full colour single outer sleeve and full colour printed lyric inner sleeve, housing a 2-colour blue and yellow cosmic swirl vinyl. Full download included as well. Blacklab are back. The self-proclaimed ‘Doom witch duo from Osaka’ are set to drop their 3rd album ‘In A Bizarre Dream’ this summer. Their debut ‘Under the Strawberry Moon 2.0’ saw them taking Sabbath inspired doom, mashing it with a Japanese sensibility and a fuzzed-up groove. It certainly caused a stir, but only hinted at their potential. Album two ‘Abyss’ added to the mix. A Stooges like squalor to the riffs, dollops of lo-fi hardcore punk and loose riffing, pointing the way towards a signature sound. So what of the ‘difficult’ third album? Not so difficult at all it seems. ‘In A Bizarre Dream’ ups the ante considerably, to let rip and define what Blacklab are about. The combined talents of Jun Morino on production and Wayne Adams (Big Lad, Green Lung, Pet Brick, John, Cold In Berlin) on the mix have conspired to produce a towering beast of a record. A real step forward for the ‘Doom Witch Duo’. The drums have a humungous ‘Fugazi’ like welly, and the guitars are a boiling maelstrom of fuzz dense riffola and warped psychedelics, with added synth. Yuko’s throat shredding snarls are as mean as a pissed off Satan, and melodious, often within the same song. This is doom meets hardcore punk, hooky melodies, and killer riffs, all cranked up to the max. Japan has always had a special take on ‘noise’ and ‘heavy’ and with ‘In A Bizarre Dream’ Blacklab add their own spin to that tradition. Gone is the lo-fi approach, here is Blacklab in full effect. ‘Cold Rain’ and ‘Abyss Woods’ (debuted at their storming set at London’s Desert Fest and appearing here in its full version) are two nuggets of epic fuzz heavy doom with added screamo and a neat and canny grasp of melody at its core. Very much a Blacklab trademark. ‘Dark Clouds’ is D-beat fuelled hardcore, fierce and ferocious, with Chia’s rolling thunder drumming underpinning the distorted guitar. It’s pretty exhilarating stuff that shifts the mood perfectly. ‘Evil I’ is just that, a riff as evil as it gets, morphing into a chugging punk wig out. Then followed by ‘Evil II’ a breather, almost mellow, melancholy, with layers of dark overdrive threatening to explode beneath a sweet yet menacing vocal. Then, the mid-point of the album drops a real surprise. Yuko has said before that the band’s name is a combination of her two favourite bands, Black Sabbath and Stereolab. Odd bedfellows to be sure, but if you want to know what that combination might sound like ... here it is. ‘Crows, Sparrows and Cats’ actually features Laetitia Sadier of Stereolab, no less, providing the lead vocal, adding a layer of cool over Blacklab’s Hawkwind meets krautrock sludge. It’s a stoner groove with pop at its heart ...Sludge Pop even, a surprising gem amongst the maelstrom of sound around it. The skewed, sludgecore of ‘Lost’ with its push-pull riffs and rolling thunder drumming, signals that it’s back to business as usual. And after the brief atmospheric instrumental interlude that gives the album its title, comes ‘Monochrome Rainbow’ a huge beast of a track so simple, yet so seductive, from its filtered bass intro to its massive ebb and flow groove and stomping ending. The vocals are all mystery and melody, and the music is kind of a Groundhogs meets Goatsnake ten-ton fuzz-fest, with a singalong, wave your arms in the air chorus. The new Japanese Doom-blues, and what could be the album’s defining moment. ‘In A Bizarre Dream’ closes with ‘Collapse’ verging on noise rock, complete with throat shredding vocals and a crushing wall of guitars, that switch from a stoner groove to full on punk assault, teetering on mayhem before finally ending with the sound of Yuko switching off her fuzz pedal. Perfect. Blacklab have negotiated that ‘difficult’ third album with aplomb and have created a sound that, despite their many influences, is all their own.

The second extended EP by London synth cyberneticians 3 Electro Knights is Rave One, which is human and machine in hot synergy. If Blixa Bargeld played the synthesizer he would probably come up with something like the crazed lead on Rave One. I Move In Another Dimension is a remix of very limited lathe cut single, which Rough Trade shops described as “Electro sqwonk and clatter meet Patti Smith style beat poetry’. This, the “Mandy” remix ups the psychedelic energy, with Mandy referring to the acid drenched Nicholas Cage starring film of the same name. The flip side track, I_tense, is a 14 trip into territory somewhere between Berlin School synth and early Aphex Twin driven by perhaps the greatest synthesizer ever made, the Roland System 100m, and was recorded in one take with no overdubs Very limited copies – 250 only – on white vinyl with orange swirl. The sleeve design is by acclaimed graphic designer Asif Khan. Destroy/Exist wrote of their cassette album Sketches For Another Future: “Through krautrock, psychedelic, synthpunk, and modern electronica passages, 3 Electro Knights fully realize their analog electronic sound, exposing their warm connection with their synths.” 3 Electro Knights are Daren Pickles (Supercharger, bushpilot), Nik Clifford (Jesus Licks, bushpilot) and Ross Holloway (bushpilot).

Hudson Mohawke ist für viele ein Produzent, der neben Leuten wie Flying Lotus und Oneohtrix Point Never die moderne Ära von Warp definiert hat. Seine Talente als Klangkünstler und Clubagitator kommen auf 'Cry Sugar' voll zur Geltung, was sich wie das kompromisslose Hudson Mohawke-Album anfühlt, auf das wir alle gewartet haben, auf dem er seine Faszination der Verschmelzung von Hoch- und Trivialkultur auslebt. Schließlich ist er der Architekt der hochauflösenden Trap-Produktion, die sich in den 2010er Jahren zu einem Stil entwickelt hat, der überall - von mit Bierdosen übersäten College-Partys bis hin zu Arby's-Werbespots - Verwendung findet. Amerikanische Dekadenz wird so zu einer Bühne, auf der seine Musik gedeihen kann - der DJ-Pult wird für ihn zum Komponistenpodium, auf dem er das spannungsgeladene Drama zwischen Ausschweifung und Apokalypse inszeniert, die 'mise-en-scene' der Clubkultur 2022.

823 is a multifaceted Perth-based record label, fashion brand, and artistic community, founded by Australian producer and all-around creative, Ta-ku (846k monthly listeners on Spotify). With an ethos of attention to detail and appreciation for the everyday things in life, 823 doesn’t stick to any particular genre. 823’s releases include Cabu’s (800k Monthly Listeners on Spotify) “So Far To Go” EP, Ta-ku and matt mcwaters’s duo project “Black and White,” which featured Masego collaboration “Flight 99” (14 million streams on Spotify), their debut release with Australian producer and instrumentalist Kuzich, and multiple sold out clothing capsules. “All Things Considered Vol. 1” set off a collaborative series of curated compilations, featuring both budding and well-established artists around the world including Idealism, Wun Two, pastels, SwuM, Jinsang, Saltyyyy V, and more. “All Things Considered Vol. 2” sees the continuation of this project, this time in partnership with fellow Perth-based powerhouse, Butter Goods.

Butter Goods is a Perth clothing brand rooted in skating culture and style, but drawing inspiration from hip-hop, jazz, and music at large. Butter Goods has been featured in major publications, including GQ, Complex, and HYPEBEAST. They’ve collaborated on releases with Peanuts and Puma, and have reached international levels of popularity. Butter Goods co-founder Garth Mariano’s deep love for and eclectic tastes in music drive his creativity, and are front and center in his partnership with Ta-ku and 823 on “All Things Considered Vol 2,” where the two team up to curate a wide-ranging compilation.

Arriving on September 2nd, 2022, “All Things Considered Vol. 2” is an exploration of Ta-ku’s and Mariano’s extensive and often overlapping musical palettes in two parts. The record pays homage to the love of instrumental music and hidden gems of new school jazz and funk that act as a source of inspiration and nostalgia for the both of them. The collaboration brings together over a dozen producers and instrumentalists from Sydney to Chicago, including Jadu Jadu, Gnarly, Tenderlonius, silentjay, and more. Side A is curated by Ta-ku and 823. It’s as much a love letter to the past as it is a nod to the future of beat-making. Featuring sample heavy, drum looped beats, sprinkled with the occasional ear candy for the attentive listener, it presents cruisy soundscapes & easy listening. Side B is curated by Garth and Butter Goods. It’s a raw and eclectic companion to Side A, leaning heavily into the texture and grit of multi-layered jazz and funk-driven beats.

As with any 823 release, the project is as visual as it is sonic. The artwork and visualizers are a celebration of Garth’s love of thrift culture and old nature documentaries, fused with 823’s design aesthetic of bringing everyday inspirations to the forefront. CRT style visuals are paired with 90’s spin, slide and fade away transitions. When partnered with the music, each visualizer could easily work as the intro for an episode of a VHS series of nature docos.

1st single, “senzu bean,” arrives on July 7th and kicks off Side A, showcasing Ta-ku’s hip-hop-centric tastes. Sydney producer Jadu Jadu teams up with UK-based TAMBALA, apltn, and Makzo for a vibrant instrumental. From a head-nodding bassline beneath fuzzy synths, to soft horn licks sprinkled over electronic drums, “senzu bean” is sonically rich and multilayered.

2nd single, “Too Much” by UK producer saaaz arrives July 20th. It’s a moody and low-tempo beat that builds itself up over time, complete with cryptic vocal samples and syrupy drums and bass. Also off of 823’s Side A, “Too Much” maintains a laid-back hip-hop theme but with saaaz’s signature and definitive lo-fi twist.

3rd single, “Goodmorning” from Baro Sura and silentjay of Melbourne arrives August 3rd, kicking off Butter Good’s Side B. The track is bright from start to finish and is a sun-filled track perfect for closing out the summer with. Final single, “Fool’s Gold” by Los Angeles producer L.Dre arrives August 17th. The infinitely creative beatmaker layers soft hums and the sounds of crashing waves over crisp drums and an infectious bassline. Together, it makes for a beat that sounds like it was made outside, under the sun, and is best enjoyed in the same way.

Focus track, “Seventh Wonder” by Tenderlonius, comes off of Side B, and is a window into the ideas and palettes on both sides of the compilation. The beat slowly fades in, one sound at a time, until it reaches a full-fledged groove, soaked in synths, bass, and horns, that’s impossible not to move to.

On the whole, “All Things Considered Vol. 2” is a forward-focused, sonic journey into the minds behind two of today’s great creative brands, and is as artistically eclectic and varied as those minds are, and a proud follow-up to its first volume.

LP contains A2 poster on uncoated stock.

The 16-track album opens with “War & Wonders'' as Smoke begins his journey foreshadowing an upcoming battle featuring impassioned flows and rhymes describing the violent challenges of urban living. The track opens with a storyline of Smoke getting knocked down from his ongoing battles and a woman calling his name to wake up. The narrative then progresses with latest singles “Shame On You” and “Common Sense” featuring SiR commenting on humanity’s unique simplicity and embracing our differences. At the core of the album, “Stay True” featuring John Legend accentuates the meaning of living your best life by staying true to your authentic self regardless of what life throws your way and the hardships you may face. Then “Good Thing” featuring Ty Dolla $ign offers an upbeat, positive track bringing light to companionship and finding joy in life through many avenues. Smoke wraps the project with rhythmic, jazz infused “Free Write” reflecting on the crusade of each track leading to the end of his battles, and bringing awareness to the grieving of his city from politics to systemic racism and his influence on making the situation better for future generations. War & Wonders spotlights poignant themes, necessary social commentary, and the hurdles we overcome in order to appreciate what we have in this life. For Smoke, he showcases Inglewood’s war on losing love, being in love, and battling himself as he is always being led in different directions. It is a continuous journey of learning, growing, self-discovery, and reinventing a better version of himself.

*The very first of it’s kind, My First Book of Drum & Bass is an alphabetical adventure for little ravers and misbehavers! This 32-page illustrated hardback takes readers on an educational journey across airwaves and rumbling dance floors, introducing them to some of the most celebrated artists and icons of the Drum & Bass world along the way. The book features artists such as Andy C, Pendulum, DJ Zinc, Goldie, Calibre, Jenna G, Shy FX, Harriet Jaxxon, and many more. Following the classic ABC format, this hillarious and educational book has had support from many of the biggest artists in the D&B community and has been a huge hit with children and grown ups with a sense of humour alike. It appeals to all ages and to anyone with a love of all things Drum & Bass. The book comes with a variety of free downloads including an Audiobook recorded by award winning MC Harry Shotta.

FEATURES
Andy C, MC Bassman, Brockie, Calibre, Dillinja, MC Eksman, MC Det, MC GQ, Flava D, Goldie, Harriet Jaxxon, Icicle, Jenna G, Kasra, London Elektricity, DJ Marky, Nicky Blackmarket, Optical, Pendulum, The Qemists, Riya, Shy FX, Tali, The upbeats, Voltage, Wilkinson, XOYO, DJ Zinc

It's time to present in Umor Rex a new collaboration between two great exponents of contemporary music who have been part of the electronic and experimental avant-garde for the last three decades. On the one hand, we have the Berlin-based musician, composer, and video artist Frank Bretschneider, recognized for precise sound placement, complex, interwoven rhythm structures, and his minimal, flowing approach. On the other hand, Giorgio Li Calzi, the Italian trumpeter, composer, producer, and performing director based in Turin, whose work is known for electronic/effects improvisation combined with the trumpet.

The creation process of Zero Mambo started when Giorgio and Frank met in Chamois, the Italian Alps, in 2018. A year later, Bretschneider sent to a few drafts in the form of audio files, loops, and sequences, and Li Calzi used this material quasi as a framework to create new compositions on it. At that time, in the pandemic, with the unprecedented intervention in lives and rituals, the situation led to ideal conditions to reflect and produce music, a snapshot of the weird times. Li Calzi and Bretschneider offer in Zero Mambo a fascinating album between electronic and jazz. It is clear that it is elegant, clean, and minimal, but we have to say, Zero Mambo is also exuberant and cheerful. A fantastic Berlin-Turin music connection.

Eric Dolphy's final studio album is hailed as one of the finest examples of mid-'60s post bop. Its reputation is purely one of backwards significance. Dolphy, having recorded the album in February 1964, was in Europe less than six weeks later and his all-too-brief life ended less than two months after that. Though likely he never held a copy in his hands or heard any critical opinion of it, it marked his last flurry of original compositions and is considered his apex. It is fascinating to consider whether he would had moved past or away from the album in 1965, had he lived.

Though Dolphy should not be considered an avant-garde musician by the term's most common definitions, most interpretations of Out To Lunch have been done by players working squarely in that area. So it is with this album, the most ambitious in its recreation of the five-tune disc (with one original added to the final "Straight Up and Down, extending the piece to almost thirty minutes). All five compositions from the original quintet LP are revisited in the same order, the record sleeve even duplicates the old album jacket, down to the typeface and black-and-blue color scheme, although a photo taken by Daidō Moriyama inside Tokyo's massive (and massively busy) Shinjuku railway station replaces the Dolphy's album's enigmatic "Will Be Back" sign, whose clock hands indicated no conventional time of expected return.

Otomo Yoshihide first came to international prominence in the 1990s as the leader of the experimental rock group Ground Zero, and has since worked in a variety of contexts, ranging from free improvisation to noise, jazz, avant-garde and contemporary classical. The always surprising and sometimes confounding turntablist, sound artist, onkyo improviser and now avant jazzer heading up a 15-piece aggregation of Japanese and European experimentalists. Who better to grapple with Dolphy's legacy -- so idiosyncratic in its day and yet so influential to creative improvisers who followed -- than a musician with his own singular take on how sounds can be organized in the jazz realm over 40 years later and half a world away? In other words don't expect the conventional from Otomo any more than you would from Dolphy himself. That's not to say that recognizable themes ("Hat and Beard," "Out to Lunch," "Straight Up and Down") don't appear, or that individual players -- including Alfred Harth on bass clarinet bursting into the mix and leaping across the instrument's tonal range in a way that recalls the master himself -- don't carry forward echoes from the past in the spirit of a sincere and heartfelt homage.

However, a good deal of the time all bets are off; in addition to the usual brass, reeds, bass, and drums (and of course a bit of vibraphone, here played by Takara Kumiko in far less prominent role than that of Bobby Hutcherson) are such sonic paraphernalia as sine waves, contact mike, no-input mixing board, and, of course, "computer." (Otomo himself plays skronky electric guitar.) From composition to composition and even during episodes within compositions, the band takes radically different approaches. There are blasts of free jazz energy not too far removed from the Peter Brötzmann Tentet, an impression reinforced by the presence of spluttering wildman Mats Gustafsson on baritone sax. Not surprisingly and often in contrast with the Dolphy original, the music is dense and filled to overflowing with sounds -- sometimes due to fundamental reworkings in structure rather than just the larger size of the ensemble. The middle section of "Something Sweet, Something Tender" somewhat belies the original's title with elongated howls and cries from the horns over slo-mo bass, drums, and electronic noise poised somewhere between dirge and drone, and the sudden explosion of punk-ish rock energy in the following "Gazzelloni" is a startling contrast.

At times, the feeling is that of listening to the original Out To Lunch while a séance is going on to contact Dolphy's ghost, with supernatural sounds swirling around the stereo. The effect is disconcerting, as is the post-apocalyptic cloud hanging over the arrangements, but it makes the effort more than an unnecessary tribute album. Instead, Dolphy is transported into the 21st Century and allowed to romp through modern developments in music. An inspiring concept and an album that will stretch the boundaries of anyone who comes into contact with it.

Glenn Astro and Hulk Hodn (to some known as mighty Hodini) release their new full-length record “Ghosts” via Kommerz Records on August 26th.
Producers Astro & Hodn‘s first joint album “Turquoise Tortoise” in 2018 combined uptempo beats, hiphop and spaced out lo-fi slow jams effortlessly. On “Ghosts” the duo develops their exploration of new
aesthetics even further through synthesized soundscapes and numerous collaborations with young talent from all over the world. Artists such as Danish neo soul discovery AGGi, King Krule collaborator Gal Go, Kamohelo from Studio Barnhus band Off The Meds, Berlin-based voice experimentalist Yosa Peit and many more deep dived into the collaboration and transformed the album into a sonic multiverse.
New Release Information
Glenn Astro and Hulk Hodn are connected through a long lasting musical friendship. With their Detroitinspired house releases they gained wider recognition by critics and listeners alike. Nevertheless,
they’ve never been one dimensional artists. Berlin-based Glenn Astro‘s diversified approach to production as showcased on labels such as Ninja Tune and Tartelet bridges the gaps between ambient, hip-hop, techno and bass.
Meanwhile Cologne‘s Hulk Hodn gained the status of a German underground hip-hop legend. Through his records and shows with rapper Retrogott he gathered a cult-like following besides dropping high quality projects with other beat makers such as Hubert Daviz and Twit One and rappers such as Eloquent. Most recently he dropped the instrumental LP “Sparklez” on Sichtexot sub Casual Low Grind.

A tumultuous selection of recordings from Black Ark, Perry's legendary studio and hotbed of creation. Rare 12" versions, unreleased mixes and featuring a stellar line-up, including:

Drums: Mikey ‘Boo’ Richards, Lowell ‘Sly’ Dunbar

Bass: Boris Gardiner, Radcliffe ‘Dougie’ Bryan

Guitar: Earl ‘Chinna’ Smith, Ernest Ranglin, Robert ‘Billy’ Johnson, Lynford ‘Hux’ Brown

Keyboards: Winston Wright, Robbie Lynn, Keith Sterling

Percussion: Noel ‘Scully’ Simms, Lee Perry

VINYL REPRESS FINALLY ON THE WAY..

*Since the release of 2011’s award winning debut, 'No Time for Dreaming', Charles Bradley has transformed from a rising star in the Daptone galaxy into a bona-fide headliner, now affectionately known across the globe as "The Screaming Eagle of Soul."

*The popularity of 'No Time For Dreaming' resulted in an appearance on 'Later With Jools Holland' in 2012 and such glowing reviews as:

-LEAD 4/5 BOXED REVIEW IN MOJO : “THE GRIT AND GUSTO OF OTIS REDDING, THE RAW POWER OF JAMES BROWN, THE SMOULDER AND SHUDDER OF JAMES CARR, TOGETHER THEY MAKE AN INTOXICATING SOUND.
-LEAD 4/5 REVIEW IN Q MAGAZINE : “THERE'S A NEW/OLD SOUL MAN ON THE BLOCK. 'NO TIME FOR DREAMING' HAS THE GRITTY FEEL OF THE REAL THING, A MAN WHO HAS KNOWN MOSTLY HARD TIMES AND TELLS IT WITH A PLEADING, THROATY ROAR AND BLOOD-CURDLING SCREAM WORTHY OF JAMES BROWN . A REAL FIND.”

*The raw emotion and soulfulness of Bradley's voice lifts him up among the greats of the golden age of Soul - Otis, JB, Wilson Pickett, and Darrell Banks. Anyone who has had the privilege of hearing him sing has experienced how Bradley can captivate an entire audience with a simple "Ooooo..."

*Bradley and writer/producer/multi-instrumentalist Thomas “TNT” Brenneck returned to Dunham studios and recorded the most exciting Daptone release to date, Victim of Love. On this album, Bradley moves past his "Heartaches and Pain" to the great promise of hope and love. Though quite at home among the music that has affirmed Daptone as the world’s #1 authority on Soul Music, Victim of Love proves to be a genre-bending masterpiece, picking up where the early 70’s Temptations left off and edging boldly forward into psychedelic soul exploration.

Black Truffle is thrilled to announce Drumming Up Trouble, the first release of previously unissued music by Alvin Curran on the label. Collecting works recorded between 2018-2021 and a side-long epic dating back to the early 80s, as the title suggests, Drumming Up Trouble focuses on a hitherto almost unknown aspect of Curran’s encyclopaedic and omnivorous musical world: his experiments with sampled and synthesised percussion. As Curran’s wonderful, wildly sweeping liner notes make clear, his fascination with drumming belongs to the radical investigation of music’s fundamental elements that has marked his output since the beginnings of MEV, who aimed (as he says in a recent interview) to return ‘in some collective way to a non-existent start time in the history of human music’. Whatever kind of music our proto-human ancestors played, he writes, ‘drums were front and centre in the mix. Drums rule!’

In a paradox typical of Curran’s approach, Drumming Up Trouble interrogates this most ancient dimension of music with contemporary technology. On the first side, we hear recent pieces performed using the sampling software and full-size MIDI keyboard setup Curran has refined since the 1980s. Two of them are wild real-time improvisations, primarily utilising an enormous bank of hip-hop samples. Building from polyrhythmic layers of drum machine fragments to wild cacophonies of clashing vocal samples, scratching, and frantic pitch shifting, these energetic and at times hilarious pieces occupy a space somewhere between John Oswald’s Plunderphonics, Pat Thomas and Matt Wand in the Tony Oxley Quartet, and the propulsive Kudoro/Grime fusion of Lisbon’s Príncipe label. They are improvisations are accompanied by two austere, minimal compositions realised in collaboration with Angelo Maria Fallo: ‘End Zone’ for orchestral bass drum and high oscillator, and ‘Rollings’, where a snare roll is gradually stretched and filtered by digital means into ‘floating electronic gossamer’.

The incredible breadth of Curran’s output makes it pretty unlikely that a listener familiar with his work would be surprised to find it branching out in a new direction. But no degree of familiarity with his work can really prepare for side B’s epic and bizarre ‘Field it More’. It’s perhaps best to let the maestro describe this unhinged and infectious offering in his own words: ‘It features an 8 bar funky minimal riff à la James Brown, played on synth and an-out-of-tune piano, synced to a pre-paid patch on the Roland drum machine. Over this is laid a heavily processed track of the voices of dancer Yoshiko Chuma and movie-maker Jacob Burckhardt discussing an upcoming performance of theirs at the Venice film festival, capped by a track of my playing an increasingly out of control blues over the top of all of the above’. Only Pekka Airaksinen’s Buddhas of the Golden Light comes to mind as a reference point that might even vaguely compare to this wild home-brew of drum-machine funk, mad improvisation and squelching electronics, which eventually dissolved into a massive, layered cluster. Ancient and modern, synthetic and human, hysterical and rigorous, Drumming up Trouble is 100% Curran.

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard are repressing their sixteenth album, K.G. n 2010. In the wake of a global pandemic, it’s a collection of songs that saw the six members of the band retreating to their own homes scattered around Melbourne, Australia to compose and record remotely. But have no fear! Not a drop of that unnamed alchemical something that makes this band so special is missing. This is the Gizz firing on all sonic cylinders, for if ever a band were built to swiftly adapt to adverse circumstance then it is them. Hell, on paper Covid-19, with its monstrous yet unseen face, ecological implications and new language, even sounds like an abandoned concept for a King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard album.

Truth be told, the practicalities of the creation of K.G. is a side-issue. It is the contents and the sheer visceral power of music that matters. Music that will live on long after a virus has passed. Back in 2017 the band released Flying Microtonal Banana, now one of their most highly regarded albums. That it was the first of five released by the band that year and was only part the story – a story made all the remarkable by the fact it was recorded using a microtonal musical scale that requires quarter tone tunings, on instruments custom-made for the occasion. It spawned a plethora of live favourites such as ‘Rattlesnake’, ‘Sleep Drifter’, ‘Nuclear Fusion’ and ‘Billabong Valley’ and showed the wider world that the Gizz paint from a palette that extends far beyond the musical colours of western rock. Here were songs in tunings more common in traditional Turkish or Arabic music.

“FMB was one of the purest and most enjoyable recording experiences we’ve had, and the ideas just kept coming” explains de facto band leader and multi-instrumentalist Stu Mackenzie. “But we didn’t think we would play it live as the music dictated a new medium that requires different instruments, new flight cases and so. It was a liberating studio-based experiment which surprisingly translated seamlessly and spawned some of favourite songs to play live.”

So now they return to the microtonal tunings on K.G., an album best described as a pure distillation of the King Gizzard sound, one that cherry picks the best aspects of previous albums and contorts them into new shapes and via defiantly non-Western rock scales. There’s walk-on theme song ‘K.G.L.W’, the celestial disco-funk of ‘Intrasport’, the righteous life-giving staccato rock of ‘Ontology’, epic stoner-sludge closer ‘The Hungry Wolf Of Fate’, which ends the album in abrupt burst of white noise. All come together to represent the next-level of the expanding Gizz sound.

K.G. is both a stand-alone work and also part of a bigger musical picture. More news on that shall be forthcoming – fans of the band know by now that King Gizzard don’t do things by halves. If music were organic matter, then their albums are ever-changing entities: initial highlights are often superseded on further exploration, favourite tracks replaced by less obvious moments, while riffs or bursts of noise from four or five albums back might suddenly rear their heads again.

Ghent based psych jazz collective Compro Oro, are set to release new album 'Buy The Dip' on the 2nd September via the groove-obsessed Sdban Ultra label. Having received critical acclaim for their 2020 album 'Simurg' - a collaboration with Murat Ertel, co-founder and frontman of Istanbul's cult psychedelic folk band BaBa ZuLa and his singer partner Esma Ertel - the band's fifth album is less ethno- and more techno-logy, both on a musical and conceptual level.

With tastemaker fans including BBC 6 Music's Gilles Peterson and Stuart Maconie alongside Jazz FM's Jez Nelson, the band's spontaneous quest for psychedelic sounds and jazz grooves has not stopped expanding since their formation in 2014.

After imaginative musical trips to Havana, Mogadishu and Istanbul for previous releases, Compro Oro went looking for sounds and inspirations from other corners of the globe for 'Buy The Dip'. Synthesizers and electronic effects spice up Compro Oro's distinctive musical marriage of vibraphones, electric guitars, jazzfunk rhythms, exotic percussions and dubby bass patterns. Band leader and composer Wim Segers created these new compositions often on piano or vibes in a more analogue way, leaving enough room for his band mates to colour each track when fine tuning the song.

Segers was inspired by the world of crypto markets and the specific concept of 'buying the dip': bitcoin diggers who play the markets at specific 'low' moments to gain higher profits when prices go up again. Are we all reduced to consuming creatures, seeking for nothing more than the thrill of pointless spending and endless profits? It's a fairly philosophical question - especially for an instrumental album - but it's key for the punchy and eclectic sounds on 'Ben Hur' and 'Bitcoins'.

Apart from those synths and fx, a fair bunch of neo-noir western vibes sprout up on this album as well - think detuned piano's, flamenco-like guitars, rattling snare drums, and imminent whistles. Add to that some laid back sunny pop sounds ('Kayak'), off-hook and swaying Turkish psychedelica ('Karsilama') and even some haunted, kraut-ish vocal parts ('Dungeon'), it's evident Compro Oro has a musical voice without any equal in Belgium and beyond.

Compro Oro released their first album 'Transatlantic' in 2015, an ode to jazz vibraphonist Cal Tjader, an icon of the 1950's Latin jazz movement. The release received critical acclaim back home, lauded in the press as a drunken mix of Buena Vista Social Club and guitarist Marc Ribot's, Cubanos Postizos. Subsequent live shows have been called a celebration for the hips, the ear and the soul.

2017 saw the release of 'Bombarda', a bold EP that sailed South and East of Cuba, incorporating different ethnic rhythms and melodies in elaborate jams. No palm trees and cocktails in Havana this time, but instead dingy basements and LSD in West African cities. The critically acclaimed 'Suburban Exotica' followed in 2019 with 'Simurg', released in 2020, earning the band global success.

Back in soon, note new price. The second Silver Mt Zion album featured an expanded band, with a similarly expanded band name. The addition of cello, second violin and second guitar allowed SMZ to develop richer, denser arrangements while preserving live ensemble playing. The opening instrumental pieces picked up where the debut left off, with found-sound loops and treatments introducing repeated melodic themes that move slowly through various counter-melodies the greater breadth of instrumentation brought extra subtlety, complexity and harmonic range to bear on these neo-classical dirges. Guitars and vocals moved to the fore on the album’s centerpiece tracks. “Take These Hands And Throw Them In The River” is an astounding juxtaposition of rhythmic thrust and ricocheting vocals, driven by a battered lyrical paranoia that conjures equal parts fear and rage. The calm after this storming piece comes by way of another vocal tune, this time fragile and near-whispered, with dual lines that alternately mask and reinforce each other. A piano and cello interlude prefaces the last side of the record, which features two guitar-driven songs, the first a blazing rock piece that builds to an exuberant distorted climax, the second as close to a pop masterpiece as this band is likely to craft, highlighted by a lovely arpeggio guitar riff and the defiant refrain “musicians are cowards”. While remaining anchored in an underlying sadness and mourning over this failed world, this album reveals an angrier, more urgent face as this unique ensemble charted ever-widening sonic and emotional terrain.



[c] B1 . Built Then Burnt [Hurrah! Hurrah!]

The hotly tipped rising producer ED1999 is releasing his fifth 12" on his own label Porpax. On "Body Fluid", the Belgium-based artist unleashes four slices of high octane big room techno. "Indigo Blood", the second track, after the EP's bitter-sweet Carl Craig circa "Landcruising" reminiscent ambient opener "Blurry Blue Eyes", primes you for "Body Fluid"'s overall energy level. Balls-to-the wall techno with more than a hint of ED1999's love for Detroit techno. How deep this influences run in ED1999 is nowhere more audible than in "Abyssal Terror" with its jubilant chords and arpeggios. Another fast-paced whirlwind of a track is "Deep Sea Hunter", which has a loopy vibe to it, that is trance-inducing in the best possible way. The bleepy "Azura Sequence" rounds the EP off with another perfectly balanced execution of tracky forward drive and deepness. Visually, the collaboration with Berlin-based graphic artist Oliver Sperl continues. The cover of "Body Fluid" is one of Sperl's artworks that the Porpax team purchased at an exhibition in Berlin a while back.

Note price increase and cat number change from last time around. In the late 1960s, the American trumpet player and free jazz pioneer Don Cherry (1936-1995) and the Swedish visual artist and designer Moki Cherry (1943-2009) began a collaboration that imagined an alternative space for creative music, most succinctly expressed in Moki's aphorism "the stage is home and home is a stage." By 1972, they had given name to a concept that united Don's music, Moki's art, and their family life in rural Tagårp, Sweden into one holistic entity: Organic Music Theatre. Captured here is the historic first Organic Music Theatre performance from the 1972 Festival de jazz de Chateauvallon in the South of France, mastered from tapes recorded during its original live broadcast on public TV. A life-affirming, multicultural patchwork of borrowed tunes suffused with the hallowed aura of Don's extensive global travels, the performance documents the moment he publicly jettisoned his identity as a jazz musician, and represents the start of his communal "mystical" period, later crystallized in recordings such as Organic Music Society, Relativity Suite, Brown Rice, and the soundtrack for Alejandro Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain. The musicians in Don Cherry's New Researches, hailing from Brazil, Sweden, France, and the US, converged on Chateauvallon from all over Europe. The five-person band Don and Moki Cherry, Christer Bothén, Gérard "Doudou" Gouirand, and Naná Vasconcelos performed in an outdoor amphitheater and were joined onstage by a dozen adults and children, including Swedish friends who tagged along for the trip and Det Lilla Circus (The Little Circus), a Danish puppet troupe based in Christiania, Copenhagen. The platform was lined with Moki's carpets and her handmade, brightly colored tapestries, depicting Indian scales and bearing the words Organic Music Theatre, dressed the stage. As the musicians played, members of Det Lilla, led by Annie Hedvard, danced, sang, and mounted an improvised puppet show on poles high up in the air. The music in the Chateauvallon concert aspired to a universal language that would bring people together through song. In a fairly unprecedented move, Don abandoned his signature pocket trumpet for the piano and harmonium, thereby liberating his voice as an instrument for shamanic guidance. The show opens with him beckoning the audience to clap their hands and sing the Indian theta "Dha Dhin Na, Dha Tin Na," and the set cycles through uplifting and sacred tunes of Malian, South African, Brazilian, and Native American provenance including pieces that would later appear on Don's albums Organic Music Society and Home Boy (Sister Out) all punctuated by outbursts of possessed glossolalia from the puppeteers. "Relativity Suite, Part 1" notably spotlights Bothén on donso ngoni, a Malian hunter's guitar, prior to Vasconcelos taking an extended solo on berimbau. A vortex of wah-like microtonal rattling, Vasconcelos's masterful demonstration of this single-stringed Brazilian instrument is a harbinger of his work to come as a member, with Don, of the acclaimed group Codona. The sounds of children playing on the ensemble's achingly tender rendition of Jim Pepper's oft-covered beacon of spiritual optimism, "Witchi Tai To," lends the proceedings an especially intimate, domestic glow. Given the context of the star-studded international jazz festival, the concert's laid back, communal vibe feels like an attempt by the Cherrys to show Don's jazz audience that he was moving on. At the same time, however, Don was extending a warmhearted invitation for them to come along for the ride. With liner notes by Magnus Nygren. Track list: 1. Intro: Dha Dhin Na, Dha Tin Na 2. Butterfly Friend 3. Elixir 4. Amazwe 5. Interlude with Puppets 6. Ganesh 7. Elixir Reprise / Witchi Tai To 8. Resa 9. Relativity Suite, Part 1 10. Berimbau Solo 11. Interlude / North Brazilian Ceremonial Hymn 12. Elixir Reprise / Ganesh 13. Ntsikana's Bell / Traditional Melody

LP on classic black vinyl. The long-awaited new album from the best pop band in Scotland... The Orchids were making sophisticated pop music right back in the early 1990s when Sarah Records first started. Their songs were as emotionally pure as anything else on that label, but they were always a step ahead of their peers in terms of song arrangements and musical ambition. With a casual, unpretentious air they made writing perfect pop songs seem easy, almost accidental, and several great releases followed. The Orchids gained a passionate following: people knew a good thing when they heard it and they hugged it close. But maybe now it’s time for the rest of the world to be let in on the secret. The songs themselves are a beautiful mix of strength and gentleness. They wrap you in a powerful embrace, making you feel comfortable and secure – and then whisper their insecurities and anxieties into your ear. They say: ‘it’s OK to admit weakness. It’s OK to be fragile. That’s where true strength comes from’. From Glasgow, and proudly Scottish, the band shares a musical lineage with other great groups from that city, from Aztec Camera to Orange Juice, Lloyd Cole to Teenage Fanclub - bands that specialise in song-writing that can tell big stories through small personal fragments, that can make the ordinary extraordinary. Ian Carmichael has helped the band create a perfectly produced masterpiece. He subtly accentuates the drama of the songs, with a sophisticated choreography and gloss that never overwhelms the tenderness of the music. In ‘This Boy Is A Mess’ (the first single from the album), the lyric confesses frailty while the arrangement gets stronger and stronger. It is bittersweet and exhilarating at the same time. ‘I Want You, I Need You’ has harmonies as big as a house – but the yearning message remains intimate and close. ‘I Don’t Mean To Stare’ is an elegant version of the song that first appeared on Skep Wax compilation Under The Bridge. Album opener ‘Didn’t We Love You’ daringly opens up empty spaces where the reverb of the drums is the only thing you can hear... and then floods your ears with a harmonised chorus, sweet guitar melodies and sweeping effects. Even then, the lyrical lament, expressing the desire to live in a better place - a place unspoilt by the greedy phonies who’ve taken over – comes across as clearly as if Hackett were leaning over for a friendly chat in the snug bar of The Orchids’ favourite Glasgow pub. Dreaming Kind will be released as a CD, digital download and vinyl LP.

Deluxe 180gram vinyl edition comes in a foil-embossed and die-cut cardstock jacket with printed inner sleeve and additional 12x12 art cards featuring the collages of Maciek Szczerbowski. All the art interacts with the die-cut jacket framing. Edition of 300. Rooted in a distinct and immediately identifiable sound_with the cello of Rebecca Foon (Saltland, Set Fire To Flames, Thee Silver Mt Zion) and the marimba of ex-Godspeed You! Black Emperor percussionist Bruce Cawdron at its core_Esmerine has long embroidered emotive chamber works using threads of post-classical, post-rock, Minimalism, neo-Baroque, jazz, pop and a wide array of folk traditions. Multi-instrumentalist Brian Sanderson, who joined the group in 2012, has furthered Esmerine's melodic and ethnomusicological sensibility ever since, expanding the ensemble's palette as its third core member with guitars, ngoni, ekonting, hulusi, brass horns of all sorts, and more. Since 2003, six stately and filmic instrumental albums have inscribed compositional landscapes through epigrammatic miniatures, longform multi-movement chronicles, and all manner of evocative musical prosody between. Marked by an inimitably turbid yet tempered pastoralism, alternately lit by dappled dawn and disquieted dusk, Esmerine's musical narratives balance asceticism and romanticism, melancholy and hope, stillness and wanderlust. Esmerine now shares Everything Was Forever Until It Was No More, its seventh full-length album and first in five years. The band surprise-dropped the full album digitally on 06 May 2022, with the CD and Deluxe 180gram LP editions hitting stores on official release date 26 August 2022. Following an acclaimed run of mid-career records on Constellation through the 2010s_the last three of which have all been finalists or winners of Juno Awards for Instrumental Album of the Year and/or Album Packaging of the Year_Esmerine began working on new music at decade's end. Under the auspices of a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts, and a summer 2019 residency at Le Château de Monthelon (an artist commune in France where the band has cherished long-standing spiritual, creative, and personal connections), compositional seeds were planted_and then pandemic rooted everyone in place. In between lockdown waves, at the respective rural Québec homesteads of Cawdron and Foon, longtime co-producer Jace Lasek (The Bernard Lakes) began capturing the band in various stripped-down configurations with spartan remote equipment. More fulsome arrangement and overdub sessions at Foon's converted barn during the summer of 2021 brought the album to full fruition_where a notable increase in the use of acoustic piano also poured forth, with just about every band member having a go. The record also signals the definitive integration of bassist Philippe Charbonneau_having joined Esmerine as a touring member pre-pandemic, he plays throughout the album on upright and electric bass, with turns on piano and synth, as well as sound design contributions via tape echo and other processing. Everything Was Forever Until It Was No More grapples with the existential tensions between atmosphere and airlessness, seclusion and claustrophobia, forbearance and coalescence. In many ways it is one of Esmerine's most restrained records. Only a few passages are driven by full percussion. There is palpably less Sturm and Drang or overt crescendos compared to its recent predecessors. The new album roils with a different sort of dynamic intensity, where instrumental densities ebb and flow within an overtonal centre, melding into each other with gauzy timbral warmth, sometimes tracing fleeting tendrils outwards, but always rotating around a saturnine gravitational force. Everything Was Forever Until It Was No More is like a dark forest lit by a closely-orbiting opalescent planet; it could be the alternate score to Von Trier's Melancholia or Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

Note price increase and cat number change from last time around. In 1968, Don Cherry had already established himself as one of the leading voices of the avant-garde. Having pioneered free jazz as a member of Ornette Coleman's classic quartet, and with a high profile collaboration with John Coltrane under his belt, the globetrotting jazz trumpeter settled in Sweden with his partner Moki and her daughter Neneh. There, he assembled a group of Swedish musicians and led a series of weekly workshops at the ABF, or Workers' Educational Association, from February to April of 1968, with lessons on extended forms of improvisation including breathing, drones, Turkish rhythms, overtones, silence, natural voices, and Indian scales. That summer, saxophonist and recording engineer Göran Freese who later recorded Don's classic Organic Music Society and Eternal Now LPs invited Don, members of his two working bands, and a Turkish drummer to his summer house in Kummelnäs, just outside of Stockholm, for a series of rehearsals and jam sessions that put the prior months' workshops into practice. Long relegated to the status of a mysterious footnote in Don's sessionography, tapes from this session, as well as one professionally mixed tape intended for release, were recently found in the vaults of the Swedish Jazz Archive, and the lost Summer House Sessions are finally available over fifty years after they were recorded. On July 20, the musicians gathered at Freese's summer house included Bernt Rosengren (tenor saxophone, flutes, clarinet), Tommy Koverhult (tenor saxophone, flutes), Leif Wennerström (drums), and Torbjörn Hultcrantz (bass) from Don's Swedish group; Jacques Thollot (drums) and Kent Carter (bass) from his newly formed international band New York Total Music Company; Bülent Ates (hand drum, drums), who was visiting from Turkey; and Don (pocket trumpet, flutes, percussion) himself. Lacking a common language, the players used music as their common means of communication. In this way, these frenetic and freewheeling sessions anticipate Don's turn to more explicitly pan-ethnic expression, preceding his epochal Eternal Rhythm dates by four months. The octet, comprising musicians from America, France, Sweden, and Turkey, was a perfect vehicle for Don's budding pursuit of "collage music," a concept inspired in part by the shortwave radio on which Don listened to sounds from around the world. Using the collage metaphor, Don eliminated solos and the introduction of tunes, transforming a wealth of melodies, sounds, and rhythms into poetic suites of different moods and changing forms. The Summer House Sessions ensemble joyously layers manifold cultural idioms, traversing the airy peaks and serene valleys of Cherry's earthly vision. In the Swedish Jazz Archive quite a few other recordings from the same day were to be found. Some of the highlights are heard as bonus material on the CD edition of this album. The octet is augmented by producer and saxophone player Gunnar Lindqvist, who led the Swedish free jazz orchestra G.L. Unit on the album Orangutang, and drummer Sune Spångberg, who recorded with Albert Ayler in 1962. The bonus CD also includes a track without Cherry featuring Jacques Thollot joined by five Swedes including Lindqvist, Tommy Koverhult, Sune Spångberg, and others. With liner notes by Magnus Nygren and album art featuring a cover painting by Moki Cherry: Untitled, ca. 1967-68. Track list: 1. Summer House Sessions 2. Summer House Sessions.

(Cargo Collective Title) RIYL: Silver Mt Zion, Rachel’s, Grails & Do Make Say Think. 180g LP, custom window-cut letterpress jacket with artworked 300gsm inner + DL. Esmerine presents Everything Was Forever Until It Was No More, its first album in five years, following a celebrated run of Juno Award winning and nominated records throughout the preceding decade. Founded by ex-Godspeed You! Black Emperor percussionist Bruce Cawdron and cellist Rebecca Foon (Saltland, Silver Mt Zion, Set Fire To Flames), the acclaimed instrumental music ensemble and has long embroidered emotive chamber works using threads of post-classical, post-rock, Minimalism, neo-Baroque, jazz, pop and a wide array of folk traditions. Esmerine conjures a distinctive and immediately identifiable sound that consistently defies the trappings of “fusion”, forging emotive cinematic soundtracks under the overriding sonic sensibilities of postpunk grit, Wall-of-Sound, drone and dark ambient. Recorded by longtime co-producer Jace Lasek (The Besnard Lakes), the new album manifestly carries on in this fine tradition. Everything Was Forever Until It Was No More completes Esmerine’s “Anthropocene” triptych: a series of album-length meditations that began in 2015. The album title itself has minor meme status in eco-artistic circles, appropriated from its original context Alex Yurchak’s 2005 book about the collapse of Soviet Russia by several exhibitions and works interrogating artistic production in the age of environmental crisis. (Foon is also well-known for her climate activism as co-founder of Pathway To Paris.) The album grapples with existential tensions between atmosphere and airlessness, seclusion and claustrophobia, forbearance and satiation, scarcity and abundance; it is one of Esmerine’s most restrained and wistful works. Instrumental densities ebb and flow, melding into each other with gauzy timbral warmth, sometimes tracing fleeting tendrils outwards, but always rotating around the saturnine gravitational force of a darkly glowing sonic center. Everything Was Forever Until It Was No More is like a somber forest lit by a closely-orbiting opalescent planet; it could be the alternate score to Von Trier’s Melancholia or Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.Esmerine planted these compositional seeds before pandemic rooted everyone in place, under the auspices of a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts and a 2019 residency at Le Château de Monthelon in France. Lasek then began documenting the band between lockdowns in various stripped-down configurations with spartan remote equipment at the rural Québec homesteads of Cawdron and Foon, culminating in final sessions at Foon’s converted barn in summer/fall 2021, notably with extensive use of the barn’s resonant acoustic piano. Brian Sanderson appears on his fourth Esmerine album since joining in 2012, continuing to expand the ensemble’s ethnomusicological sensibility and melodic sound palette with guitars, ngoni, ekonting, hulusi, and brass horns of all sorts. Everything Was Forever… also signals the full integration of bassist Philippe Charbonneau, who joined Esmerine as a touring member pre-pandemic and plays throughout the new album, along with sound design contributions via synth, tape echo and other processing. Everything Was Forever Until It Was No More features the pandemic collage artwork of Maciek Sczcerbowksi, in a second Esmerine album art collaboration following their Juno award for Album Package of the Year for Lost Voices in 2015.

Following the »Minna Miteru« compilation, released in 2020, Morr Music announces a sequel, dedicated to Japanese indie music, overflowing with surprises and welcome discoveries. Like its predecessor, »Minna Miteru 2« is compiled by Saya of Tenniscoats, with the support of Markus Acher (The Notwist). It’s also another part of the Minna Miteru universe, alongside retrospective albums by The Andersens (»There Is A Sound«, 2020) and yumbo (»The Fruit Of Errata«, 2021). Taken together, these albums suggest a scene in rude health, sharing a unique vibration.

If its predecessor circled around Tenniscoats and their close friends, the second volume, though featuring a collaboration between Tenniscoats and Deerhoof as oneone, reaches far further afield, drawing from music old and new, far and wide. Consistent across »Minna Miteru 2« is a sense of wonder and a cheerful unpredictability: you never quite know what you’ll hear next. There are some gorgeous indie pop songs here, like Yuko Kono’s »Ginger« or HOSE’s »Baseball«, but there are other sounds too, like Kariu Kenji’s blue-hued electro-pop, or the wheezing pipe-organ ambient of FUJI||||||||||TA: »Minna Miteru 2« hints at new kinds of beauty.

Some of the more widely known names here contribute typically gorgeous melodies – Kama Aina’s »Wedding Song«, from 2005’s »Hawaii Hawaii« CD, is a reflective tune that combines a country-ish lilt with hints of slack-key guitar. Shugo Tokumaru’s »5 A.M.« is a delirious psychedelic pop mantra, drawn from his excellent 2005 album, »L.S.T.«. Many of the revelations, though, come from artists and groups relatively unknown outside Japan. The lovely, disorienting glitch-folk of Wasurerogusa features Aki Tsuyuko, perhaps best known for her albums on Thrill Jockey and Jim O’Rourke’s Moikai label, collaborating with psych-folk legends Eddie Marcon.

There’s also the delightful synth-pop of Jonathan Conditioner; the electronic dreamscape of Chaplin, whose opening »Out Cont« runs along several parallel paths at once; the twinkling, acoustic jangle at the heart of mmm’s luscious »Blue«; and a curious collection of miniatures, from acts like tenshinkun, Daisuke Tanabe and NNMIE, that embrace a childlike curiosity, essaying a kind of toytown pop-tronica.

The twenty-six songs on »Minna Miteru 2« repeatedly catch you unawares, upending your expectations and signaling both the breadth and depth of the Japanese indie underground. It’s a compilation of play and pleasure, but also of bold experiment smuggled into the everyday through pop music’s welcoming moods, magically creating a new world for the listener, spun out of the air and woven in between your ears.

Josh Hughes (Cub\cub) returns for his second album of a long hot summer, Radiant Crush. Following the glimmering enchantments of his previous outing, Nothing New Under The Sun, this latest chapter brings things to a dizzying climax. While Josh's palette champions the lo-fi, it's his ability to unveil rich melody, seemingly spilling through ever shifting sliding doors, that leads the listener on a merry dance of intangible delights. As Radiant Crush continues to build, we increasingly discern hazy voices coming through the divide: Through a Narrow Window resonates like a lost gem from This Mortal Coil; until Drift finally breaks through with Louisa Osborn's blissful vocal performance, pulling everything into focus to stand as the album's glorious centre piece. While Radiant Crush is very capable of speaking for itself, when pressed Josh describes his work as "music for an incurably ambiguous world", and we can see how nothing is quite what it seems when he goes on to describe this latest album in similarly evasive terms: "Radiant crush is a series of nebulous concepts designed to make the listener think about the way in which we as human beings can idealise a past that never existed. The album focuses on the fragility of the human brain and the power emotions have over recollection through tracks that leave you with a feeling of longing, for something you can’t quite put your finger on. I think more than any other work I’ve made, this album feels the most human. Vocals feature quite prominently throughout the record, most of them are distorted, veiled or fragmented in keeping with the theme of a loss of connection and meaning. Drift is the only track on the album with intelligible vocals, this was intentional as it honestly and tenderly deals with the theme of living in an incurably ambiguous world." Radiant Crush will be released on 2nd September, via digital platforms and limited edition pressed vinyl. Genre: Electronic / Ambient

2002-2022, that’s 20 years of Pingipung! The German record label celebrates its anniversary with exclusive tracks by a fine selection of artists from the label roster as well as new names. Instead of looking back at the classics, Pingipung chose to compile a kaleidoscopic preview of possible future directions for the label. The line-up features playfully melancholic songs by Museum Of No Art, Peter Power or The Notwist, an excursion to the desert by RVDS or a psychedelic take on Dub in Tolouse Low Trax’ remix for the Ainu singer Umeko Ando. Artists such as Anadol, Y Bülbül, MD Pallavi & Andi Otto, M.RUX, Sven Kacirek, Schlammpeitziger, Peter Presto and F.S.Blumm are already well known to the Pingipung audience. They contribute exclusive new tracks, adding to their existing output on the label.

It’s impossible to file this compilation under a genre, which is exactly the case with Pingipung in general - bull’s eye. The collection of tracks is pressed in the perfect format to match the Pingipung jubilee: A 2x10’’ vinyl in a gatefold sleeve.

Blue Marbled Vinyl

The final chapter in the RATS: INFEST series adds a left-field twist. Mike Parker is one of the most important historical Techno artists for us and has recently released two halftime EPs for Donato Dozzy & Neels Spazio Disponibile label which have been some of our favourite releases by another label in the last few years. Once we heard these EPs, we were on the hunt for some Mike Parker music on Samurai.

Mike Parker creates music live on an all-hardware setup and has done so since the mid-'90s. There is not really anyone that sounds like Mike and we're excited to have him on board at Samurai.

Mike has recalibrated his machines and created an all-new halftime sound specifically for this remix of 'Mainliner' and his upcoming EP for Samurai. Slightly more quirky and less dense than his usual approach, the machine pulses wind around a steadfast step. An unexpected, but perfect mood shift to re-imagine the Mainliner sinisterism.

Baby T makes a welcome return to the label following on from her debut EP Portra. This time the versatility of the Baby T sound is on display with a 140 Breakbeat killer re-sculpture of 'The Spell'. Dealing out euphoric vibe peaks with 4/4 punctuations and Reese/break combinations, this one is a guaranteed peaktime dancefloor weapon. We love Baby T!

Mo Troper is truly one of a kind, and that’s never been more apparent than on his fifth full-length, the winkingly titled MTV. Arriving hot on the heels of his 2021 full-length, Dilettante, the album finds the Portland, OR-based power pop extraordinaire diving further into home-recorded immediacy to make a record that feels like a strikingly direct conduit to the world of Mo–where heartbreak, hilarity, and hooks all go hand-inhand.

MTV hurtles through 15 songs in just 31 minutes, with most of the tracks never even coming close to the three-minute mark. The sequence feels like a combination of a fever dream and a travel diary, intertwining tales of romantic longing with the ups and downs

of cross-country touring. Songs like “Across The USA,” “Royal Jelly,” or “Coke Zero” unravel the headaches and heartbreaks, often alternating between unflinching emotional details and legitimately funny one-liners. “I feel like I’m just in this mode of rebelling against the expectation for artists to be emotionally or aesthetically cohesive,” Troper says. “I think about all my favorite records and songwriters, and they’re often these people who would have really depressing stuff and then insane moments of levity that don’t get talked about as much. I want to make music that’s emotional but also campy or sarcastic or resonates in other ways. I’m like, ‘you know what, it’s all me.’”

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard return with new album K.G., their sixteenth since forming in 2010. In the wake of a global pandemic, it’s a collection of songs composed and recorded remotely after the six members of the band retreated to their own homes scattered around Melbourne, Australia. K.G. is a pure distillation of the King Gizzard sound, one that cherry picks the best aspects of previous albums and contorts them into new shapes via defiantly non-western rock scales.

After Dinner’s Paradise of Replica is a concise nugget of tomfoolery that occupies a whimsical no man’s land between art pop, Japanese folk music and full-assed Art Zoydian avant proggery. Gentle, arcane and covertly sweeping, it typifies that friendly strain of experimentalism that Eastern music seems so predisposed towards and which curious minds find such great delight in.

Assembled by the enigmatic chanteuse and composer known simply as Haco, After Dinner was less a band and more of a loose art collective that utilized a plurality of different musical disciplines stapled together through free improvisation sessions. And some of this does come through on Paradise of Replica—the record is a scrapbook of bells, strings and koto humming under Haco’s ethereal vocals, and the effect, while perfectly tuneful, does come off more as a musical project than a conventional album.

But Paradise of Replica is far from an impenetrable scholastic endeavor—in fact, there’s something of an Elephant 6-like quality in its ability to warp conventions while still coming off more or less like pop music. Counter to the ramshackle hostility of much improvised music, After Dinner’s choices are melodious and feel deliberately sequenced. Even crescendos don’t tend to rise above a murmur, and there are even apparent hooks on tracks like “A Walnut” and “Ironclad Mermaid.”

Ultimately, there’s not much to be said about Paradise of Replica that can elucidate more than actually hearing it will be able to. Proggy, playful and lush, it’s a brief glimpse into something in the vicinity of genius, and just outside the realm of commercial music. It’s a quietly bold project that shows a softer side of the avant-garde, and makes a perfect companion to Stereolab and Magma at once.

Pink Marbled Vinyl

Our next release is a huge project executed by Dubbing Sun. The list of artists involved in making of this 12" is really impressive and it features very talented vocalists as well as instrumentalists from all over the world including Warrior Queen, Lady Skavya, Piya Zawa, Caveman Dub & Khoe Wa. It got pressed on a coloured dirty pink vinyl and is limited to just 400 pcs. Out September the 2nd.