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Strut present the 4CD edition of Sun Ra's 'Egypt 1971' along with the original albums 'Dark Myth Equation Visitation', 'Nidhamu' and 'Horizon' released as individual LPs, documenting Sun Ra's first trip to Egypt with his Arkestra in December 1971. In the years leading up to 1971, Sun Ra wrote many compositions and poems specifically inspired by the ancient African Kingdoms and many others with associated mythological and heliocentric connotations. As such, a visit to Egypt and the opportunity for the Arkestra to play there was a matter of necessity. Ra's first ever concerts outside of the US had occurred in late summer and autumn of 1970 with performances in France, Germany and the UK and a second European tour was arranged for late 1971. At the end of that second tour, Ra caught wind of cheap flights from Denmark to Cairo. This release comprises recordings made by Arkestra member Thomas "Bugs" Hunter made in December 1971 in the streets around the Mena House Hotel, Giza, from a concert held at the house of Goethe Institute ex-pat Hartmut Geerken in Heliopolis, from a live Cairo TV channel broadcast and a concert at the Ballon Theatre in Cairo. The impact and significance of these few weeks upon Sun Ra can be measured by the growth and development of his output over the next few years; the immediate post-Egypt period included new studio and live recordings on the Saturn, Blue Thumb, Atlantic and Impulse labels and the 'Space Is The Place' movie. Ra also edited the three LPs of the 'Live In Egypt' series which were subsequently released on his Saturn record label and its affiliated twin, Thoth Intergalactic: 'Dark Myth Equation Visitation', 'Nidhamu' and 'Horizon'. These three albums are now reissued as single LP editions in their original artwork. The 4CD set features these albums alongside previously unreleased material from the December 1971 recordings. All tracks are remastered from the original tapes and the CD set also features a 24-page booklet featuring new sleeve notes and rare photos by Hartmut Geerken and background information on the recordings by Paul Griffiths.

In the late-1970s Athens, Georgia was buzzing with a raw but sophisticated music scene. Traditional Southern rock had been the Georgia musical export for years before but the turn of the decade began producing new sounds from bands like the B-52’s, REM and Alt Rock luminaires Pylon.
 Before they were a band, Pylon were art-school students at the University of Georgia: four kids invigorated by big ideas about art and creativity and society. However, Pylon were less of a band and more of an art project, which meant they had very specific goals in mind, as well as an expiration date.
 While their time together as a band was short lived (1979-1983), Pylon had a lasting influence on the history of rock and roll. Throughout their brief history, they were able to create influential work that would help foster the post-punk and art-rock scene of the early 80s. Artists like R.E.M., Gang of Four, Sonic Youth, Sleater-Kinney, Interpol, Deerhunter and many more claim inspiration from the band.
 Their 1979 single ‘Cool’ / ‘Dub’ reached legendary status, with Rolling Stone titling it one of the 100 Greatest Debut Singles Of All Time.
 In 1980 the band released their first record, ‘Gyrate’, and began touring across the country in support of the release. The band would soon develop a following across the country and specifically in the bustling music scene in New York City. One of their earliest gigs was opening for the Gang of Four in the Big Apple.
 Following the critical acclaim of their debut release, Pylon went back into the studio. They gleefully pulled their songs apart and put them back together in new shapes, revealing a band of self proclaimed nonmusicians who had transformed gradually but noticeably into real musicians. The resulting album, ‘Chomp’, was barely off the press when Pylon were booked to open a run of dates for a hot new Irish band called U2 (after previously playing two arena shows with them in the month leading to the album release). Most bands would have jumped at the opportunity but Pylon were sceptical. At a critical point in the life of Pylon, they opted to become a cult band rather than stretch their defining philosophy too far.
 “We fully intended Pylon to be an almost seasonal thing that we were gonna do for a minute and then get on with our lives,” says Curtis Crowe, drummer for the band. “But it just never went away. It still doesn’t go away. There’s a new subterranean class of kids that are coming into this kind of music, and they’re just now discovering Pylon. That blows my mind. We didn’t see that coming.”
 New West Records are proud to partner with Pylon to reissue ‘Chomp’ and ‘Gyrate’ back into the masses. Beautifully remastered from the original audio sources and pressed on vinyl (140g) for the first time in over 30 years.
 New West Records also present ‘Pylon Box’, a comprehensive look at the band that features the remastered studio LPs ‘Gyrate’ and ‘Chomp’, the 11-song collection ‘Extra’ - which includes rarities and previously unreleased studio and live recordings - and ‘Razz Tape’, Pylon’s first ever recording: a 13-song unreleased session that pre-dates the band’s seminal ‘Cool’ / ‘Dub’ debut.
 ‘Pylon Box’ also includes a hardbound 200-page full colour book featuring pieces written by the members of R.E.M., Gang of Four, Steve Albini, Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney, Sonic Youth, Interpol, B-52’s, Bradford Cox of Deerhunter, Mission of Burma, Calvin Johnson of Beat Happening and K Records, Anthony DeCurtis, Chris Stamey of the dB’s, Steve Wynn of the Dream Syndicate and many more. Features an extensive essay chronicling the band’s history, with interviews with the surviving members of the band as well as members of R.E.M., B-52’s, Gang of Four, Method Actors and more. It also features never before seen images and artifacts from both the band’s personal archives as well as items now housed at the Special Collections Library at the University of Georgia and the Georgia Museum of Art, UGA.

Don’t you realise that it’s getting warmer and warmer by the minute, that DJ JA’s “Warm”EP for hundert is just the beginning of something new while things continue to heat up?
Just think about hearing it on the news, that feeling of your skin crawling, shrivelling, theshrill alarm sounds ringing inside your head and you trying to keep your cool while theheat is rising. Just relax though, consider the Y2K panic – how everyone breathed a
breath of relief on the 1st of January once the clock had struck midnight and everything just stayed the same. After all, that’s maybe what we really need to be doing instead: wait for things and nature and this planet to settle this on their own terms. Wasn’t it all just a
hazy craze back then, and isn’t the same happening now? Aren’t we all susceptible for either apathy or paranoia, that bittersweet ambivalence also at the core of this EP, which navigates between harsh and nervous sounds, providing both heat and the (figurative and literal) chilling cool that we so desperately long for? Remember to stay calm when you can and that nature couldn’t give a fuck about whether or not we start acting only when it’s far too late; just consider your own insignificance while the melodies stretch out beyond the horizon and into the aether. May we suggest however that you wake up, take the first letter of each sentence, put them all together in order to see through the heat of the moment and the chilling anxiety in order to feel what’s true, real, and present?

Automatic Tasty (Jonny Dillon) has been away from Central Processing Unit for five years now, releasing on labels such as AC Records and Furthur Electronix in the intervening time. However, new EP The Future Is Not What It Used To Be shows that the chemistry between label and artist is still in good nick by offering up four tracks of contemplative electro-boogie.

While the preceding CPU/Automatic Tasty drop may be 2015's The Life Parochial, The Future Is Not What It Used To Be actually has more in common with Sentimentalist's Choice, Automatic Tasty's CPU debut which came out back in 2013. This is not due to a huge stylistic shift - all three records bring together classic electro, techno and boogie sounds to create charming and melodious tracks - but more to do with the tone of the record. You see, while The Life Parochial was a squelchy machine-funk delight, The Future Is Not What It Used To Be is a more pensive affair befitting its title.

This isn't to say that The Future Is Not What It Used To Be is a muted EP. Far from it - this record contains some of the most gorgeous electro joints you'll hear all year. The vibe is established on its eponymous opening jam, a vocoder-laced production pitched somewhere between the more ruminative tunes on Posthuman's 2018 LP Mutant City Acid and contemporary boogie acts such as Funkineven/Steven Julien and Galaxians. The track is made by the beautiful, bittersweet timbre of its synths, and these are maintained on following number 'Romance In The Old Country'. Given the offbeat skip in its groove and sunset-glow ruefulness of the keys, 'Romance In The Old Country' is a cut which invokes the instrumentals of Jessy Lanza LPs - and even (whisper it) a little Sade.

The Future Is Not What It Used To Be is an EP of evocative track titles, but there may be none more accurate than first B-side 'Rising Sun'. Here, Automatic Tasty tweaks the wistfulness of the A-side cuts into something more uplifting. While a thoughtful quality remains in 'Rising Sun's soft synths and skittering 808s, the track is driven by the exuberant energy of the 'Woo! Yeah!' drum break to become the sort of tune you drop as dawn begins to break over the rave. 'Rising Sun's afterglow falls over the closing track 'Adventures In The World Of Becoming', a steady IDM-electro pulse that channels the spirit of Aphex Twin's seminal Selected Ambient Works 85-92.

'The future is not what it used to be - no past, no memory'. With this robo-voiced intonation, Automatic Tasty returns to Sheffield's Central Processing Unit with four moving, poignant machine-funk tracks.

Fischgeist was recorded in a former water tank in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg in August 2019. The nineteenth-century brick building consists of five layered circles, with a spiral staircase in the middle leading up to an exit to a hilltop. Inside, it’s humid and cold, the temperature always around 8–10 C°. The building’s acoustics produce a long reverberation that lasts up to 20 seconds.

‘One day between recording sessions, a man, a passerby, wanted to look inside the building. He told me that it used to be full of fish. For a second I imagined a huge round aquarium with loads of fish swimming around in circles. Then I realized that he meant dead fish were kept there, to be sold on markets during the GDR era. But the image of fish swimming in the space stayed with me.’

In conversation with the space of the water tank, Tomoko Sauvage searches beyond the limits of her self-invented ‘natural synthesizers’: porcelain and glass bowls, filled with water and amplified with hydrophones.

While she continues to develop some of the classic techniques heard on her previous album Musique Hydromantique (Shelter Press, 2017) – hydrophonic feedback (Kinetosis Study) and ‘fortune biscuits’ (porous pieces of terracotta that emit tiny singing bubbles) (Deluge) – here new elements are combined with delicate gestures to make curious noises: stroking bowls’ surfaces to imitate the voices of sea mammals (Metamorphosis), drawing dots and circles by rubbing stones against stones underwater (Exit) … The underwater amplification of quasi-inaudible sound is even more magnified in the air by the echo of the water tank. Not only tiny bubbles, but also micro-movements of the bones and veins of the hand holding the sonorous objects in the water, are intensely amplified – sounding like a tempest on the opening Deluge. Sauvage’s longtime research into hydrophonic feedback develops with her new obsession with natural harmonics and sympathetic resonance. In Flying Vessels, the percussive notes of struck bowls resonate and turn into feedback loops before decaying, fueled by electric signal gain. Kinetosis Study is a sonic etude on fluid dynamics – the flow velocity, pressure and density of manually shaped water waves directly controlling the aquatic synthesizer’s parameters.

August, when the mid-summer Ghost Festival is held, is traditionally known as the Ghost Month throughout East Asia. The spirits of the dead visit their living families, who welcome them with feasts, dancing and music. Miniature lantern-laden boats are released in rivers, to help lost ghosts find their way home.

Animated by formless matter – water, electricity, sound – Fischgeist celebrates a phantasmagoric journey, as the souls of aquatic lifeforms find their way out of the labyrinth of the water tank.

Credits
Composed, performed and mixed by Tomoko Sauvage
Recorded and produced by bohemian drips prior to ‘Speicher’ festival in Berlin, August 2019 (binaural recording with a KU-100 dummy head microphone)
Mastered by Andreas Kauffelt in Berlin
Cover drawings by Baien Mōri (1798-1851)
© Tomoko Sauvage and bohemian drips – all rights reserved

Giallo is the fourth in a series of five double vinyl releases that bring together some of Ennio Morricone’s greatest soundtrack music. Each collection centres on a different movie genre, together they allow the listener to rediscover the unmatched genius of the greatest movie composer of all time. The Maestro. This collection was announced before Ennio Morricone passed away on July 6, 2020. We’ll continue to release the series to honour this great composer.

When we think of 1960’s Italian pulp cinema, the spaghetti western is the genre that comes to mind. However, Italy was responsible for another classic cinematic exploitation movement around the same time, one that is equally as compelling, but less widely recognised. Giallo…

Giallo, meaning ‘yellow’, is the Italian term for crime fiction, it was named after the bright yellow colours of early pulp fiction paperbacks. Film audiences adopted it as the name for a peculiarly Italian sub-genre of thriller cinema that had its heyday in the 1970’s - just as the Spaghetti Western movement was waning. The Giallo can be difficult to define, but essentially it is an Italian crime film that draws from a pool of common themes: stylized murders, amateur sleuths, sleazy glamour, psychological crimes, enigmatic titles and all these themes are underpinned by creepily atmospheric Ennio Morricone music scores. Starting 70 years ago as an arranger for the piece Mamma Bianca, Ennio Morricone is the emperor of scores and soundtracks. Morricone has always been a huge influence for the likes of Hans Zimmer, Danger Mouse, Muse, Metallica and many more musicians. He was one of the most successful composers of all-time, selling over 70 million records and winning dozens of awards.

Giallo is available as a limited edition of 3000 individually numbered copies on “giallo and black marbled” (clear, yellow and black mixed) vinyl. The package includes a 4-page insert with liner notes written by Claudio Fuiano. The gatefold sleeve contains a silver foil spot varnish on the outside and images of iconic movie posters on the inside.

The first of three volumes: stomping, rollicking gospel music, intermingling with raw soul, searing blues, hard-rocking doo-wop and jazz, and storming r&b.

Infused and incandescent with the hurting, surging indignation of the Civil Rights movement, here are twenty-four precious scorchers by giants like the Staple Singers and Jimmy Scott, alongside devastating sides by less celebrated names like the Harmonising Five of Burlington, North Carolina, and teen-group the North Philadelphia Juniors, culminating triumphantly with slamming, sanctified versions of Hit The Road Jack and Wade In The Water.

Gatefold sleeve, with full-size booklet; beautifully designed, with stunning, rare photographs and original Savoy artwork.

November 2020 sees the 50th Anniversary of the release of David Bowie’s The Man Who Sold The World in North America. The album marks the beginning of a collaboration with guitarist Mick Ronson that would last through classic works including Hunky Dory, Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane—as well as the first in a 10-year series of indispensable albums stretching through 1980’s Scary Monsters…

Originally titled Metrobolist, the album's name was changed at the last minute to The Man Who Sold The World. The 2020 re-release of the album under its Metrobolist moniker has been remixed by original producer Tony Visconti, with the exception of the track ‘After All’ which Tony considered perfect as is, and is featured in its 2015 remaster incarnation.

The Metrobolist 50th anniversary artwork has been created by Mike Weller who was behind the historically controversial “dress” cover which Mercury Records refused to release.

As with the Space Oddity 50th anniversary vinyl, as well as a 180g black vinyl edition, it will come in 2020 limited edition handwritten numbered copies on gold vinyl (# 1971 - 2020) and on white vinyl (# 1 - 1970) all randomly distributed.

The second volume brings sublime crossings of gospel with the soul, funk and jazz of the Black Power era. Twenty rapturous cuts dot dazzlingly between Muscle Shoals soul, screwed breakbeat, Mizells-style fusion, disco and proto-house. Triumphant re-workings of Sly Stone, Donny Hathaway and Herbie Hancock’s Head Hunters will have listeners throwing their pew cushions into the air.

Full-size booklet; beautifully designed, with stunning, rare photographs and original Savoy artwork.

Thaba is a collaboration between South African singer/
songwriter Khusi Seremane and American producer/musician
Gabriel Cyr. Tragically in July 2020, while the two were
working with Soundway to prepare the release of their first
record, Seremane died a few days past his 41st birthday, after
battling health issues for several years.
The particular Thaba sound reflects a sonic duality drawing
on a double pop heritage of Mbaqanga and Bubblegum artists
like The Soul Brothers, Paul Ndlovu and Pat Shange alongside
traces of Roxy Music, Grace Jones, Sade, and Talk Talk that’s
wrapped up in a modern, electronic, layered, introspective
and at times jazz-tinged production style.
Brought together by a shared love of kwaito, 90’s R&B and
classic downtempo, Seremane and Cyr collaborated for a
decade after meeting online in the halcyon days of Myspace
Music. While the pair initially planned for Seremane to guest
on a Teleseen track, their ideas eventually evolved into an
entire record. Their debut, Eyes Rest Their Feet, was created
remotely over the course of several years, with the core
recorded during a 2016 studio session in Cape Town.
After returning to New York, Cyr honed these recordings with
several Brooklyn-based musicians, calling upon members
of Antibalas, Underground System, Midnight Magic, Loboko
and others. Eyes Rest Their Feet spans genres as well as
geography, touching on elements of soul, reggae, synth-pop
and beyond, with lyrical themes that explore loneliness and
the challenges of human relationships.
Eyes Rest Their Feet not only represents the apex of
Seremane’s work as an artist but also a meditation on the
transformative power of love and the impermanence of all
things.

So here we are with another first – the next vinyl debut on Cheezy Crust Records as well as thefirst ever release for the two-piece project that is CVSO which is their „Basic Cuts EP“.
Comprised of Mainz / Germany-based producers Mint Huus who made his solo debut on Cheezy Crust in 2019 and Get In Touch head honcho Willberg their joint venture project CVSO caters a total of four tracks on limited to 200 copies 12“ vinyl, all aptly named after their individual
placement and position on the actual record itself.
Mastered by electronic music legend and pioneer Thomas P. Heckmann the trademark sound of CVSO presented on this EP is informed by classic early to mid-90s Techno and Intelligent Techno vibes with its ever evolving flow and stripped down aesthetic which fuses subtle harmonic changes, spatial meanderings within the stereo field as well as a hypnotic, time-dissolving attitude for heavy dancefloor abuse.
This said, CVSO are aiming for nothing less than their introduction to the ivy league of Techno with these „Basic Cuts“, providing classy, absolutely timeless and expertly assembled DJ tools which are aiming to perfectly blend in with and match the vibe of all those now classic tunes that have never left a DJs bag for a quarter of a century or more, even though CVSO are tackling their sound design and production approach with a modern contemporary twist.

Historic Recordings Vol.1

Rare recordings of legendary blues guitarist Eric Clapton.

Features performances with The Yardbirds, Jimmy Page and Sonny Boy Williamson.

FANTASTIC 140 GRAM VINYL.
LIMITED EDITION
Full servicing to all relevant media
Extensive print & internet advertising

Beyonce's sixth album Lemonade (when life serves you lemons, make lemonade) is an album that follows a clear story, the discovery of your partner cheating, the anger which is followed by her leaving him, reconciling, and ending with the beginning of a fresh start together. The music has a very Southern Blues feel to it overall (harking back to Beyonce's childhood and the roots of her parents), but also has a couple of the Beyonce-standard piano lead slower numbers, and a few feisty hip-hop leaning grooves that are a bit similar to the BEYONCE era tracks. Telling such a painful and personal story through the songs gives Beyonce's vocals amazing depth and power, from her vulnerability in Pray You Catch Me, the anger in Don't Hurt Yourself, defiance in Sorry, the sadness behind Sandcastles, acceptance in Freedom, to the hope tinged delivery of All Night - Lemonade delivers it all.

The hour-long film is composed of the music videos for every song strung together to form the visual story of the potential destruction of a relationship, the journey of emotions and self-discovery the wronged party goes through, and finding forgiveness. Beyonce did the 'visual' concept for the deluxe edition of B'Day and for BEYONCE, but Lemonade is heads and shoulders above them - the videos here aren't about Beyonce looking pretty, rather adding to the emotive tale of the songs.

- 12 TRACKS
- HEAVYWEIGHT VINYL
- FULL COLOR LABELS + PICTURE SLEEVE

Repress

Carthago: Rare Tunisian Disco Including Unreleased Instrumentals And Eight Page Booklet When we first decided to start Habibi Funk, a label dedicated to re-releasing "funky" Arabic music from the 1960s to 1980s, a band called Dalton was the first release we worked on. Dalton was a band from the Tunisian capital of Tunis and they played a unique mix of soul & funk with an Arabic DNA. We licensed the release from the band's composer Fawzi Chekili, and when we spoke to him on the phone in preparation of the release he mentioned another band he was part of, called Carthago. Our work with Habibi Funk is like a big treasure hunt. There are too many great bands that fully vanished into obscurity and didn't leave any traces in the digital sphere yet. We are so used to the internet providing all informations we might be looking for, but Carthago was one of those bands where the internet largely failed to provide any infos despite the fact that Carthago created some incredible music in the form of an highly infectious Tunisian take on disco music. Luckily most of the members of the 1970s musical scene of Tunis are still around to tell their story.

Carthago was founded in the late 1970s as a fusion of Dalton and a second band called Marhaba Band. Both bands frequently played at hotels and night clubs in Tunis and Sousse. They had similar musical influences and despite the fact that they were competition for the most part, they came up with the idea to join forces for a new band. Musically Carthago kept on walking on the musical path of Dalton and Marhaba but incorporated disco music, a new style that was making its way to North Africa from Europe and North America. The band had quite some success on local radio and played a number of big shows with thousands of people showing up. The band's concerts were a mixture of their own compositions as well as cover versions of the hits of the time from Stevie Wonder to Chicago. At the end of the 70s they went to Paris to record their only, self titled album. For our reissue we picked out two of our favorite tracks: "Hanen" and the outstanding disco version of the Dalton track "Alech" which has proved to work on every dance floor we played over the last two years.

When I came to Tunis for the first time after the Dalton reissue I met Fawzi in person. He still lives in Tunis and still works as a full time musician though his focus has shifted more towards Jazz over the years. Luckily he did not only keep a spotless copy of the Carthago album but he also kept the master tape of the instrumental versions of the album which to this day were unreleased. Being able to add exclusive content to a reissue is something that is rare and we feel highly privileged to be able to do so. Futher more we are so happy that we will be able to add something new to the bands legacy not only musically but also visually: One day I realized that most of the releases from Tunisia I liked, be it from Dalton, Carthago or Marhaba Band had the same photographer credit.Hassen Turki started taking photos at a young age and when he was 18 he started going to the gigs of the bands of the time that were playing in the Marhaba Hotel which was managed by his father at the time. He became friends with the bands and ended up being the person to be asked when it came to shooting the photos for the covers of the records. After some research I managed to get in touch with Hassen and met him in his hometown Sousse. Luckily he kept most of the negatives of the photos he took so we're more than happy to be able to share these unseen photos with whoever is interested.

In the late-1970s Athens, Georgia was buzzing with a raw but sophisticated music scene. Traditional Southern rock had been the Georgia musical export for years before but the turn of the decade began producing new sounds from bands like the B-52’s, REM and Alt Rock luminaires Pylon.
 Before they were a band, Pylon were art-school students at the University of Georgia: four kids invigorated by big ideas about art and creativity and society. However, Pylon were less of a band and more of an art project, which meant they had very specific goals in mind, as well as an expiration date.
 While their time together as a band was short lived (1979-1983), Pylon had a lasting influence on the history of rock and roll. Throughout their brief history, they were able to create influential work that would help foster the post-punk and art-rock scene of the early 80s. Artists like R.E.M., Gang of Four, Sonic Youth, Sleater-Kinney, Interpol, Deerhunter and many more claim inspiration from the band.
 Their 1979 single ‘Cool’ / ‘Dub’ reached legendary status, with Rolling Stone titling it one of the 100 Greatest Debut Singles Of All Time.
 In 1980 the band released their first record, ‘Gyrate’, and began touring across the country in support of the release. The band would soon develop a following across the country and specifically in the bustling music scene in New York City. One of their earliest gigs was opening for the Gang of Four in the Big Apple.
 Following the critical acclaim of their debut release, Pylon went back into the studio. They gleefully pulled their songs apart and put them back together in new shapes, revealing a band of self proclaimed nonmusicians who had transformed gradually but noticeably into real musicians. The resulting album, ‘Chomp’, was barely off the press when Pylon were booked to open a run of dates for a hot new Irish band called U2 (after previously playing two arena shows with them in the month leading to the album release). Most bands would have jumped at the opportunity but Pylon were sceptical. At a critical point in the life of Pylon, they opted to become a cult band rather than stretch their defining philosophy too far.
 “We fully intended Pylon to be an almost seasonal thing that we were gonna do for a minute and then get on with our lives,” says Curtis Crowe, drummer for the band. “But it just never went away. It still doesn’t go away. There’s a new subterranean class of kids that are coming into this kind of music, and they’re just now discovering Pylon. That blows my mind. We didn’t see that coming.”
 New West Records are proud to partner with Pylon to reissue ‘Chomp’ and ‘Gyrate’ back into the masses. Beautifully remastered from the original audio sources and pressed on vinyl (140g) for the first time in over 30 years.
 New West Records also present ‘Pylon Box’, a comprehensive look at the band that features the remastered studio LPs ‘Gyrate’ and ‘Chomp’, the 11-song collection ‘Extra’ - which includes rarities and previously unreleased studio and live recordings - and ‘Razz Tape’, Pylon’s first ever recording: a 13-song unreleased session that pre-dates the band’s seminal ‘Cool’ / ‘Dub’ debut.
 ‘Pylon Box’ also includes a hardbound 200-page full colour book featuring pieces written by the members of R.E.M., Gang of Four, Steve Albini, Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney, Sonic Youth, Interpol, B-52’s, Bradford Cox of Deerhunter, Mission of Burma, Calvin Johnson of Beat Happening and K Records, Anthony DeCurtis, Chris Stamey of the dB’s, Steve Wynn of the Dream Syndicate and many more. Features an extensive essay chronicling the band’s history, with interviews with the surviving members of the band as well as members of R.E.M., B-52’s, Gang of Four, Method Actors and more. It also features never before seen images and artifacts from both the band’s personal archives as well as items now housed at the Special Collections Library at the University of Georgia and the Georgia Museum of Art, UGA.

Demon Records presents the first ever vinyl pressing of The Durutti Column’s 2003 studio album “Someone Else’s Party”.

Formed in Manchester in 1978, The Durutti Column were one of the first acts signed to the iconic Factory Records by Tony Wilson. Primarily the project of guitarist and vocalist Vini Reilly, the group have a cult following with notable fans including Brian Eno and John Frusciante.

Recorded after the passing of Reilly’s mother, the melancholic “Someone Else’s Party” explores themes of loss and reflection. Highlights include the trip-hop influenced ‘Vigil’, and ‘Spanish Lament’ which weaves together Reilly’s signature shimmering guitar sounds with a sample from David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive.

Pressed on two 140g clear vinyl, housed in printed inner sleeves.

Following on from the success of Demon Records’ sold out ‘Special Stuff’ box set, we present the three anniversary specials from 2017, pressed on 3 sides of 180g “Snowglobe” vinyl, with the
fourth side an etching of Tubs and Edward trapped forever in a ‘Phantom Zone’ like state. The Anniversary specials tell the story of Benjamin discovering that his late Uncle Harvey is far
from dead and buried, Tubbs and Edward setting up shop in a derelict block of flats, Pauline reliving her past with her jobseekers and the continued woes of Geoff Tipps. Starring Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, and featuring gatefold artwork
from horror maestro Graham Humphreys

Shining a light on women's role in the late 70's and 80's Hard Rock scene in Spain, "Ellas son Eléctricas" comes filled to the rafters with kick ass Spanish Metal, Hard Rock, AOR or Thrash, reviewing the story of unfairly ignored ladies of Spanish Metal. Most of these songs see a vinyl release for the very first time (only Malena y Belcebu's song had previously been released), coming straight from obscure demos. Comes with an extensive 32 pages booklet with plenty of photos, reviews, bios and other awesome shit. TRACKLIST SIDE A A1 MALENA Y BELCEBU - Destruccion (1982) A2 HURACAN - Huracan (1983) A3 NEUROSIS - Sobredosis (1983) A4 CASANDRA - Dejadle Ser Libre (1990) A5 AMNESIA - Wild Side (1991) SIDE 2 B1 MOLE - Alta Sociedad (1984) B2 PLEYADE - Reacciona (1985) B3 LAZY - Twice the Speed of Light (1989) B4 YIN YANG - Shout loud (1988) B5 WAR - Sin Acción (1989) B6 VIUDA NEGRA - Mis Noches Tienen R'n'R (1983)

Berlin techno bastion Jamaica Suk’s generous ‘Uncertain Landscape’ series continues with the third part of this weighty 17-track release serving up another quartet of rugged grooves.

early 2000s techno, he brings it up to date with pummeling bass and kicks and taut percussive loops

Surface’ chugging along at an unhurried pace. Resonant metallic sounds chime over the stuttering overdriven edges emerge, gentle screeches and hisses forced into existence.

Techno royalty Oliver Deutschmann pitches in next with the pacey contrast of ‘Hunting’. Its manic tempo is contrasted by its comparative lightness of touch, with the acidic theme continuing. The

Parallax Records boss and Berghain and Concrete guests Pharaoh and Yogg provide the closing salvo, an experimental cut by the name of ‘Betelgeuse’. Broken beats underpin glitchy textures and

We’re proud to welcome Robert Owens and Queer On Acid to Takeout, who present a ‘double-A side’ release. 2 sublime pieces of vocal-house and techno which will make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck.

Robert’s hypnotic vocals weave between QoA’s beautiful production with both tracks enticing remixes from none other than in demand Fear-E, Polymod and MASC (Mark Archer & Shadow Child).

The music does the talking here, and with a limited vinyl run (which excludes the MASC remix) to support a huge digital package, we’re excited to have such quality on the new label.

Enjoy !

From the mind of VernoN comes the first release of Eupasia, a label that tells the story of a mythic world built under the ground by some undead worms that have gained human characteristics. This first EP evokes gloomy and misty ambiences, followed by electro rhythms and rough basses, creating tension and resembling claustrophobia feelings.

IV Horsemen joins the Fleisch family with a six track EP of crushing distortions and metallic body fury, lashed with escalating unease as demonic vocals swirl through the grinding abyss.

Red Marbled Vinyl

IV Horsemen joins the Fleisch family with a six track EP of crushing distortions and metallic body fury, lashed with escalating unease as demonic vocals swirl through the grinding abyss.

DOWNFALL is the first album under the name SAITO created by Lena Saito, aka Galcid, and produced by accomplished analog synthesizer guru, Hisashi Saito, aka Lena’s husband. Having descended from a long line of Japanese sword-smiths, the industrial sound of smashing steel is embedded in Lena’s DNA and reflected in her music, however there are also refined, hypnotic tones showing a side with more finesse. The music itself is not scored and is predominantly improvised. Words and vocals are ad libbed as well. Sometimes the machines respond as if through telekinesis, altogether emitting a sound which can be categorized somewhere in the range between modern experimental dance music and something possibly making more sense to enlightened minds a thousand years in the future.




There is a new addition to the forge of talents of Mille Plateaux, a Japanese musician by the name of Saito whose album has been released on the label under the title of Downfall. After a whole series of releases under the signature tag clicks & cuts, there comes out a work, much more suited for a dance hall, that is different in terms of the genre from everything that has been published so far.
Like a bucket of ice-cold water poured over the head, erratic agressive hardcore rhythms pour all over the audience in the first track, interrupted only by grinding noises and minimalistic technogenic clicks.
Downfall won't fail to infect even the most experienced music connaisseur with its out-of-control energy, while offering a wide range of techniques: at times, robotic voices, one second long fragments of looped melodies and many other audio gimmicks.
Lena Saito (that is the author's name) is not afraid of conducting experiments in her chemical laboratory, freely mixing sound reagents without taking any precautions. It feels like, this new chemical substance, that she has been working on so thoroughly, contains quite a long list of ingredients, although its main component is the various rhythm breaks.
The synthesizer part of Red Hammer sounds in the best traditions of the acid style, and the rhythm section is akin to African tribal dances of the future. Downfall is absolutely unrelenting in its concept.
The melody of the composition Nucleosome is a little bit like the melancholic IDM of the 00s, finding itself secondary to the dominating, yet again convoluted rhythmical web meticulously woven by Saito.
This album can be definitely named as a big contender aspiring to start a new golden era of Mille Plateaux, and Saito as the hidden treasure of the label that can challenge even the veterans for the right to be the headliner.

East London-born music legend and all round boundary-breaking innovator, Dizzee Rascal, today announces the release of his 7th studio album, entitled ‘E3 AF’ and new single ‘L.L.L.L (Love Life Live Large)’, out via Island Records.

This new release marks the genesis of a new era for Dizzee and is the first album wholly written, recorded and produced in the UK in over a decade. ‘E3 AF’ is a 10-track layered, purposeful statement of intent, rooted in Dizzee’s inedible ties to both east London and Black British music’s legacy. He sound is sharper, stronger and more self-assured than ever, and it is obvious that he has poured the creative energy of the past few years into ‘E3 AF’ as a body of work. First single, L.L.L.L (Love Life Live Large), features Tottenham born MC Chip and kicks open the door with the force of a steel toe capped boot. Chip, adds another thwack of bravado to the rumbling, Dizzee-produced beat. ‘E3 AF’ confirms Dizzee’s status as an artist still very much in his prime, sonically it draws on the infectious pace of grime and resolutely forward-thinking UK rap. From one song to the next, you are taken on a journey through Black British musical excellence. Ice-cold UK drill drips on Smoke Boys-featuring ‘Act Like You Know’ (produced by MK the Plug) and Eastside pulses with pure grime courtesy of Chubby Dreadz and Platinum 45. Self-produced opener ‘God Knows’ (featuring P Money) and high-octane ‘You Don’t Know’ pull from dubstep, grime and drum ‘n’ bass while threatening to wreak havoc with your speakers. By the time Alicai Harley’s warm up vocals float over sunny syths on the deeply personal ‘Energies + Powers’ (produced by Steel Banglez), the album practically radiates heat. Dizzee Rascal is a unique artist that has inspired many for multiple generations. From his 2003 debut album release, the Mercury Prize-winning ‘Boy In The Corner’ to date, Dizzee has continued to push expectations and boundaries. He is British musical royalty. Every album that followed stacked up another marker of success. Between 2004 and 2017 all album releases blasted firmly into the Top 10 Official album chart, won awards, critical acclaim and amassed Dizzee a huge following of devoted fans. ‘E3 AF’ is set to confirm Dizzee Rascal’s status as the master at the top of his game.

With current album ‘Automatic’, Mildlife have made a step-change from their debut. It’s more disciplined, directional and more danceable. As on ‘Phase’, they are unafraid to let a track luxuriate in length without ever succumbing to self-indulgence. The arrangements, tightly structured thanks to Tom Shanahan (bass) and Jim Rindfleish’s fatback drumming, permit space for the others to add spice to the stew, topped off with Kevin McDowell’s ethereal vocals as Mildlife effortlessly glide between live performance and studio
songwriting.

The two remixers tackling ‘Automatic’ track ‘Vapour’ here need little introduction. JD Twitch, one half of Glasgow’s Optimo Espacio and discerning curator of all things Caledonian and beyond, takes the reins for remix two, adding some clattering post-punk energy to the rhythm, turning ‘Vapour’ into something approaching a take-no-prisoners anthem.

Cosmodelica is the remix handle for Colleen Murphy (aka DJ Cosmo), the hostess of the hugely popular Classic Album Sundays series. She is fresh off the back of a superb Róisín Murphy reworking and her offering here is simultaneously faithful to the original while lending it some serious dancefloor power.

The Great Dismal, NOTHING’s new full-length album explores existentialist themes of isolation, extinction, and human behavior in the face of 2020’s vast wasteland. Closing in on the band’s ten-year mark, frontman Domenic Palermo finds himself stringing together songs of misanthropic tales of Philadelphia with a refined and refreshed take on NOTHING's classic sound. “The Great Dismal refers to a swamp, a brilliant natural trap where survival is custom fit to its inhabitants,” Palermo states. “The nature of its beautiful, but taxing environment and harsh conditions can’t ever really be shaken or forgotten too easily.” The ever progressive NOTHING keep true to their chaotic outlook on life, keeping a keen eye to avoid repetition. With a radical cast of talented contributors such as harpist Mary Lattimore, classical musician Shelley Weiss, and singer/songwriter/producer Alex G., The Great Dismal showcases yet another essential side of the band’s trademark American Post-Shoegaze.

London duo Andy Clutterbuck and James Hatcher – better known as HONNE – have cultivated a huge and fiercely dedicated global fan base since the release of their critically-acclaimed debut LP, ‘Warm on a Cold Night’, in 2016. Boasting over 150 sold-out shows outside of the UK, collaborations with everyone from Tom Misch to BTS and over 1.4 billion global streams, their music is deeply emotive; from the glistening, sugar-coated highs of international hit ‘Day 1’, to the heartache and angst played out on ‘Sometimes’ – both standout cuts from 2018’s sophomore record, ‘Love Me / Love Me Not’. Laying themselves bare in their songs, HONNE are hyper-connected with fans both in the UK and all over the world – in 2018 alone, they played a sold-out Brixton Academy for the first time, embarked on an extensive, 26-date US headline tour and saw ‘Warm on a Cold Night’ officially certified as 6x Platinum in South Korea.

Veteran NYC based Scottish electronic musician Drew McDowall's latest work is his loftiest, most liturgical, and least industrial outing to date —and potentially the apex of his recent discography.Named after an ancient Greek word for votive offering, Agalmaexudes a hooded, devotional aura, creaking and keeling under vast rafters of stone, stained glass, and shredded wires. It's a music of majesty and mystery but also modernity, McDowall's refined modular system shape-shifting strings, piano, pipe organ, and choral masses into disorienting synthetic mirages of the sacred. He cites the intersection of “joy, terror, and the elegiac” as a centering inspiration –or, phrased more bluntly, “that 'what the fuck is going on' feeling.”



As a career collaborator himself, with stints in Coil, Psychic TV, and countless other shorter-lived partnerships, it's telling that McDowall chose this project to gather such an impressive spectrum of peers. Italian synthesist Caterina Barbieri, American drone organist Kali Malone, prolific multi-instrumentalistRobert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, operatic Humanbeast vocalist Maralie Armstrong-Rial, Saudi producer MSYLMA, and warped futurist beat-makers Bashar Suleiman and Elvin Brandhi cameo across the album's 42 minutes, contouring McDowall's nuanced negative spaces with shudders, shadows, and shivering flickers of serenity. Each of them shines in their spotlight, elevating these elusive alchemical states into surreal revelations of texture and transcendence.



McDowall's original working title for the record is revealing: Ritual Music.He speaks of his creative practice in ceremonial terms, negating binaries by seeking the middle path to anuminousequilibrium that erases the distinction between the inner and outer worlds.These compositions feel similarly processional and intuitive, at the crossroads of holiness and hallucination, the sacred vertigo of yawning naves rising into untouchable night skies. It's a vision of industrial music as enigma and invocation, cryptic hymnals of shroudedbeautysummoned in catacombs and crumbling cathedrals.



Despite its depths, Agalmais also an album of immediacy and emotion. Celestial laments of and for times of unrest and suffering. McDowall characterizes his initial intention for this music as an to attempt to convey experiences he felt incapable of putting into words: “To try and approach sublimity, or at least acknowledge it in some way.”Agalmamore than acknowledges the ineffable –it embodies it.

In the horror genre, sequels are perfunctory. As the insufferable film bro Randy explains in Scream 2, "There are certain rules that one must abide by in order to create a successful sequel. Number one: the body count is always bigger. Number two: the death scenes are always much more elaborate-more blood, more gore. Carnage candy. And number three: never, ever, under any circumstances, assume the killer is dead." Last Halloween, Los Angeles experimental rap mainstays Clipping ended their three-year silence with the horrorcore-inspired album There Existed an Addiction to Blood. This October, rapper Daveed Diggs, and producers Jonathan Snipes and William Hutson return with an even higher body count, more elaborate kills, and monsters that just won't stay dead. Visions of Bodies Being Burned is less a sequel than it is the second half of a planned diptych. It turns out, Clipping took to the thematic material of horrorcore like vampires to grave soil. Before the release of There Existed an Addiction to Blood, Clipping and Sub Pop Records divided the material up into two albums, designed to be released only months apart. However, a global pandemic and multiple cancelled tours pushed the release of the project's "part two" until the following Halloween season. Visions of Bodies Being Burned contains sixteen more scary stories disguised as rap songs, incorporating as much influence from Ernest Dickerson, Clive Barker, and Shirley Jackson as it does from Three 6 Mafia, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, and Brotha Lynch Hung. Clipping's angular, shattered interpretations of existing musical styles are always deferential, driven by fandom for the object of study rather than disdain for it. Clipping reimagine horrorcore-the purposely absurdist hip-hop subgenre that flourished in the 1990s-the way Jordan Peele does horror cinema: by twisting beloved tropes to make explicit their own radical politics of monstrosity, fear, and the uncanny. The album features a host of collaborators: Inglewood's Cam & China, fellow noise-rap pioneers Ho99o9, Tortoise guitar genius Jeff Parker, and experimental LA drummer Ted Byrnes. The final track, "Secret Piece," is a performance of a Yoko Ono text score from 1953 that instructs the players to "Decide on one note that you want to play/Play it with the following accompaniment: the woods from 5am to 8am in summer," and features nearly all of the musicians who appeared on both albums. Since their last album, Daveed Diggs-the group's Tony and Grammy Award-winning rapper-has starred in the TNT science fiction series, Snowpiercer, voiced a character in Pixar's Soul, and portrayed Frederick Douglass in Showtime's The Good Lord Bird. Writer Rivers Solomon's novella based on Clipping's Hugo-nominated song "The Deep" has been nominated for the Nebula, Hugo, and Locus Awards, and won the Lambda Literary Award for best LGBTQ SF/Fantasy/Horror novel. Clipping's song "Chapter 319"-a tribute to George Floyd (AKA Big Floyd) the former DJ-Screw affiliated rapper who was murdered by police officers in May of 2020-was released on Bandcamp on June 19th and raised over $20,000 for racial justice charities. A clip of the song also became a popular meme on TikTok, generating over 50,000 videos in which teenagers rapped the song's lyrics ("Donald Trump is a white supremacist, full stop_") directly into the frowning faces of their conservative parents. The band also contributed a Skinny Puppy-esque rework of J-Kwon's "Tipsy" to Save Stereogum: An '00s Covers Comp.

Marian Himburg, the artist known as Causa, believes that less is more, both in his productions and his release schedule. With a lean and heavy catalogue built from releases on labels like Crucial Recordings, Infernal Sounds, and Artikal Music UK, Causa is as focused on producing quality dubplate ammo as he is with proper releases. His second chapter for ZamZam is exactly what you’d hope: heavy 140 wares for dark dances- soon may they return!!

"Hiss" is nothing if not cinematic: a queasy melody circling in a dying orbit until it crashes into its first monstrous drop. Led by a squelching, lumbering single-note bassline that crushes like an unstoppable beast freed from its chains, no-nonsense kick-snare power and a steadily rising hum increase our fight-or-flight response until the very end.

Causa says the tune was created after “re-listening to my very first couple of beats and getting inspired by how little I cared about certain placements and how I worked drums at that time… I didn’t follow any rules - because I didn’t know any back then."

“Palms” is the perfect companion, another 140 stormer with drums seemingly built from white noise and distortion, funked-up by syncopated brush hats & an utterly swarming bassline. Add paranoid textures and a bizarre monosyllabic vocal pitched this way and that, and you have another dystopian side to fall in love with in the bunker or the ball.

After a first track very Third Mvt style you'll get a harder tune. defenitly speed for the label...
The flip is Mid-*Tempo dark doomed souning... in the vein of the label !

Between Christmas 2000 and New Year 2001 producers Ekkehard Ehlers and Stephan Mathieu recorded an album of warm, soft, delicately crackling electronic music in the space of that week. It was christened with the ambivalent title "Heroin" and was released on CD via the label Brombron in 2001 and later in 2003 re-issued on Kit Clayton's Orthlorng Musork on double-LP with remixes the pair had commissioned as expansions.

17 years later Heroin sees its first vinyl release to include all 13 tracks from the original CD track-list on this LP + 12“ set. The centerpiece "Herz" finally receives its long deserved vinyl treatment (side C, at 45rpm) and on the flip side Thomas Brinkmann contributes a mirror in a magnificent remix of that very piece on side D.

Ehlers and Mathieu were both highly prolific solo artists during the period 2000-2004, and in just two years after the initial release of "Heroin" each had produced over half a dozen new solo recordings: among them the serial masterpiece Ehlers' "Plays" (Cornelius Cardew, Hurbert Fichte, John Cassavetes, Albert Ayler, Robert Johnson) released as 5 stunning LPs in a series on Staubgold, while Mathieu's 'Full Swing Edits' spread over five 10" records plus his album 'FrequencyLib' on Mille Plateaux, 'Die Entdeckung des Wetters' on Lucky Kitchen and ‘The Sad Mac’ on Atsushi Sasaki’s Headz label were greeted to critical acclaim.

Both artists were expanding their conceptual sonic approaches in the glow of developing laptop technologies which would to these times in 2020 seem quite primitive, but these two in that period used the state-of-the-art to aid and abet their conceptual visions, while at times the duo used unorthodox experimentation - yet always had a distinctively melodic and musical form at its heart and soul.

Ehlers can be seen as a conceptualist, as a meta-musician who interrogates the mediums and methods of sound production - reflecting on the conditions and possibilities of improvisation (e.g. "Plays Albert Ayler") and exploits ideas of mutation and distortion of popular aesthetics played out within a ghostly form of divine pop beauty in his project März.

Mathieu, originally a drummer and co-founder of what has come to be known as the Berlin 'Echtzeitmusik' scene. His approach could be similarly described as working a critical analyst and researcher: Subtly and precisely working in the realm of processing as a method of intervening in melodious/harmonic analog sound sources.

Ehlers and Mathieu may not think too much about their singular productions and publications outcomes, but instead concentrate on the process and musical personality that characterizes their gesture- style itself stays in the background - and they usher a music from small minimal sound sources coaching a patient music of slow intervention - much like a refraction of light than a concrete painting or a blurred photograph - beatus accident.

And indeed, "Heroin" is an album that embraces the happy accident being made up of reduced, often very catchy and very direct micro hooks which seem laser-guided into a space accepting obvious melodic beauty in what feels like an observation of musics unfolding and revealing it's DNA, embed with for a kind of yearning for innocence and naiveté - as if Satie were on the jukebox in "The Crying of Lot 49". Not to say the music is "reduced", but rather: 'restricted' and born from acceptance of limitations, and the artists allowing the sounds to just "be.." with some incremental degrees of coercion.

The album not only sounds like that of 2 producers who are both dreamers and scientists, but that Ehlers and Mathieu chose to work with these means in a dialogue together to reduce pop music to its musical/tonal core, it is not Pop music anymore, rather a ghostly pointilistic itteration of song. "Heroin" is located at this transition, around that point at which tracks, that were or could have become pop compositions, irrevocably slip into a static harmonic nirvana. We are invited to follow the arch of Heroin in a slow-motion morphine musical haze.

Heroin sounded timeless when originally released and proof is that it remains so, one wishes that Ehlers and Mathieu would convene again for a week, a month or an entire year to continue this process of slow rumination, picking affectionately over the sounds they both love - and then maybe when everything is condensed, evaporated they would write more songs with those sonic refractive elements that remain.

180g black vinyl Star Birth and downloadcode for "Star Birth" and "Star Death". Gatefold.

'Star Birth' is a flung fisherman's net, mighty in scope, irrevocable as looking up from the stone floor of a cathedral – there is space, yet there is profound intimacy from the immediacy of the lyrics, our thoughts rattling around like panicky goldfish. Race has taken aspects of areas
previously explored, and made a quantum leap into the unknowable. With opening track Can't Make This Up, the gauntlet is flung down – 'what is need, what is greed / it's a new crush, the brain trust/ hive mind rewrite rewind/ falsehood streaming'

'Star Birth' is international maverick and music icon Hugo Race's 15th album with his band of True Spirits. It's a double album and the twin album's name is 'Star Death'. Star Birth was recorded during Australia's bushfire summer apocalypse of 2019 and mixed as the 2020 covid-19 pandemic hit. When the stars align it all makes sense, Hugo explains, adding that one oceanic evening while writing the album a bright star exploded right before his eyes, the sign of a sudden end and a new beginning...

Hugo's writes of trials, tribulations, hopes, fears, heartaches, loves, losses, highs and lows – 'everyday I die a little bit more, in a thousand ways I fight my little wars – and he sings with exquisite pathos and depth, like he's singing just for you about the times in which we live –
political disasters, our planet, the absence and the presence of spiritual values, broken promises, cracked hearts and if any of it really matters anyway. With hell raising lyrics like,Expendable, you'd have to wonder if anyone of us will make it through alive – 'hey sister, are
we all expendable? nobody wins, but so many of you think they do / don't try to fool yourself people, deep down you know the truth - everybody gets their one hot shot but no one's bullet proof'. But then The Rapture reminds us that there will always be stars dying in the glory of
new life – 'give us this day comfort and bread / implant in us the living word / empower us with divine love and deliver us from evil / for you are the one true light / the power and the glory / forever /amen'

Hugo's True Spirit deliver a lush, sonic love letter of rock, electronica and dramatic orchestration, based in blues, hypnotic repetition and sonic exhilaration. Michelangelo Russo is a huge part of this atmosphere; his approach to music is that of an artist with a palette of
mysterious implements and machinery, but the entire band and production is incredible from start to finish. Star Birth is 48 minutes of mind expanding, mind blowing, heel tapping tunes, with its sister album 'Star Death', a dub version of remixes that will send you searching for
your own exploding star somewhere in the sky…

From the fertile electronic, post-folk depths of Colombian music, the tasty "Colombian Singles series" has emerged to cast light on a blooming, rapidly expanding scene. The series is envisioned as a showcase for the country’s growing number of producers who, drawing upon their Indigenous, African and European roots and cultures, are creating new approaches to electronic dance music. Hailing from the countryside near Bogotá, where the huge city reaches down into its more tropical surroundings, Los Bulldozer is the perfect combo to inaugurate this new musical adventure. Led by the unearthly guitarist Fabian Morales and his mind-bending experiments, Los Bulldozer have their own particular way of bringing international influences like Soukous, West-African blues and post-punk to the already exquisite musical diversity of key Colombian styles such as Currulao, Champeta, and Reggaeton. Partly produced by the German godfather of global beats Daniel Haaksman, highlights on this first volume include the heavy indie dance cut ‘Pepa’, emotive Pacific blues guitars and eerie haze of ‘Currulaomali’, and the industrial reggaeton ‘Commin Down’. And there’s (a lot) more... Not your usual sun-kissed summer vibe, but a deeper, moody interpretation of the dualities felt under equatorial latitudes.

Cosmic dance and spatial atmospherics are at the very centre of Zakmina’s productions, as the Lithuanian producer readies an appetizing EP for Dave Harvey’s Futureboogie, backed with a remix from the always on-point Gnork.

With releases already wetting our ears on Critical Monday, XXX and Roam Recordings, Zakmina spreads his wings across three new cuts. ‘Church Of Madness’ pumps with oodles of new beat drums and soaring synths, anchored by a fat arpeggiated bassline, whilst ‘Déjà vu’ is a first class chugger, its drums as big as 80’s shoulder pads, with glacial keys and breezy vocals comprising the seductive sensations on offer here.

The Balearic synth-pop vibes of ‘Running Amore’ complete the trio of originals from Zakmina, whilst Gnork lays down the lino and tweaks ‘Church Of Madness’ into a solid 808 drum driven ‘Ezoteric Breakdance’ Remix. The Hungarian producer, responsible for some killer releases on Lone’s Magicwire label, Unknown To The Unknown, as well as his own Earth Plates imprint, delivers a futuristic b-boy re-working that’s heady and exhilarating right off the bat.

You have reached the Infolines. Tonight, we send you on a journey packin’ east to play in the magnificent halls where thespians and rock & roll once played. ‘The Theatre’ features a compilation of cuts that inspire those who listen to sweat in the soon to be humid weather of Detroit.

Bendersnatch is back again, this time with their funky groove ‘Vice Versa’, tooled as a call to the dance floor with a kick that cuts, and bleeps reminiscent of the second wave of techno. Remote Viewing Party brings us a break beat rhythm joined by instrumentalists Ezuch & Bcota with ‘Outpost’. The duo brings shows us their depth creating an atmosphere that will bring you chills, and tears that you will probably think is sweat running down your face. Newcomer Dev-Lish is joined by Maxlow with their head banger ‘Faith In The Machine, in a collaboration inspired by the Detroit birthed genre ‘sludge’. Evil grinding tones with huge bass and dark vocals will make you want to breath. Last, but not certainly least is Francois Dillinger. This artist has been churning out his art and making waves in the electro and techno communities. He brings to the table ‘Lost Loops’ with nothing short of huge bass, large spatial tones designed to hit all frequency ranges leaving room for the crowd to breath while being taken on a journey.

As always, keep an eye on this space and be sure to call in for the waypoint to the party.

2xLP: Gatefold, pressed on Gold Nugget vinyl


“I wanna thank me,” Snoop Dogg said as he accepted his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, “I wanna thank me for believing in me. I wanna thank me for doing all this hard work. I wanna thank me for having no days off.”

An Entertainment Icon, Snoop Dogg has reigned for more than two decades as an unparalleled force who has raised the bar as an entertainer and globally recognized innovator.  Snoop has released 19 studio albums, sold over 40-million albums worldwide, reached No. 1 countless times on Billboard charts internationally and received 20 GRAMMY® nominations. Snoop Dogg most recently released his highly praised and award-winning Gospel album, Bible of Love. He is currently working on his next studio album, I Wanna Thank Me, releasing this summer through EMPIRE.

In addition to his extensive work in music, Snoop Dogg has made his mark in the television and film space, including an Emmy Award nomination for his role as Executive Producer and Co-host of VH1’s hit show, Martha & Snoop’s Potluck Dinner, Executive Producer of MTV’s Mary + Jane, Executive Producer and Host of TNT’s game show, Joker’s Wild and Executive Producer of acclaimed Netflix’s show, Coach Snoop.

Soulful selector and skateboarder extraordinaire Hugh Hardie is back with his latest EP, ‘Learning To Fly’, consisting of four sublime cuts, hot on the heels of his recent‘7 Tunes In 7 Days’ lockdown project. Produced from his home studio in Bristol, Hugh’s new release features collaborations with DJ Marky and singer/songwriter Cimone.

Named after the Indian mountain city in West Bengal, opening track ‘Darjeeling’ is a faultless embodiment of Hugh’s trademark jazz-inspired groove. Filled with transcendent piano chord progressions, rolling breaks and an enchanting upright bassline, ‘Darjeeling’ is a classic example of the soulful liquid beats the Bristol-based DJ has become known for.

‘Said & Done’ sees the commanding vocal talents of Cimone take the lead as Hugh Hardie and DJ Marky team up on the buttons to create a smile-inducing bouncer drenched in feel-good summer vibrations. Infectious descending bass wobbles lay the foundations below swinging piano licks and sharp-edged, shuffling percussions. With DJ Marky being an avid supporter of Hugh and Cimone’s initial link up on ‘Raindrops’, it only made sense for the trio to jump on a track together.

‘Learning To Fly’ with graceful strings and arpeggiated plucks, leads seamlessly into a crisp drum track and driving bassline. Hugh’s delicate yet powerful and uplifting pieces of music explore a broad range of emotions, taking the listener on a stimulating musical journey.

Drawing for original jungle sounds whilst staying true to his soul-heavy style, ‘Late Night Harp’ does exactly what it says on the tin as captivating harp melodies and acoustic guitar riffs are infused with fizzing sub-heavy basslines and steamrolling breakbeats generating a no-holds-barred banger.

His ‘Learning To Fly’ EP is the second project to emerge from Hugh Hardie in the 2020 lockdown. His previous ‘7 Tunes In 7 Days’ extended EP saw him create a track from scratch every day over the course of a week, and received support from DJs across the board including the legendary LTJ Bukem. With the success of both his ‘Shadows & Silhouettes’ and ‘Colourspace’ LPs under his belt, Hugh’s dedication to ensuring that soul remains the main ingredient in his productions is cementing him as a staple figure in the world of liquid drum & bass.

Videosphere, the debut album by Kompakt’s latest signing, the London-based artist Lake Turner (aka Andrew Halford), swoons into focus with “The Sunbird”, a teasing drift of lilting, ambient tones, riding out a submerged piston-pulse rhythm. Across its brief 109 seconds, it manages to traverse evocative terrain – something mythopoetic, something both humble and grandiose, a glimpse of the other behind the sky’s curtain. “I wanted to conjure up something resembling an ancient ceremony or death procession,” Turner nods. “Like a hymn to the surroundings of a faraway hill.” It’s both sky-bound and earthen, a ritual incantation to call in the music of the spheres.

Turner was introduced to the Kompakt family by his sometime collaborator Yannis Philippakis of Foals. He’d previously made music in post-punk and indie groups Great Eskimo Hoax and Trophy Wife, but Videosphere is the first time he’s fully articulated his own vision of electronic music, aside from one limited lathe-cut 12”, 2018’s Prime Mover EP, on Algebra. The lush ambient-disco-techno dreams of Videosphere were constructed and completed in his London studio and at his parents’ arable and sheep farm in Worcestershire, which might help explain the hazy, unhurried pastoralism of the album.

“There was a slight bittersweetness in finishing the record (in Worcestershire) as my parents were in the middle of selling my childhood home,” he sighs, before quipping, “on the plus, I ended up shearing a lot of sheep over the summer.” A student of archaeology and ancient history, Turner is no doubt carefully attuned to the twisting cogs of history and memory, and it’s no surprise that Videosphere has a nostalgic, melancholic cast; much of its beauty rests in the way it tugs, gently, at the heart strings – see the tear-stained cheeks of the lush, dappled “Honeycomb”, or the sweetly sad electro-roundelay of “No Way Back Forever.”

It’s not all drift-dream hypnosis, though – Videosphere is very much grounded in the now. ““No Way Back Forever” is a nod to the linear nature of time,” Turner explains by way of example, “and the tipping point of the world climate crisis that scientists have now declared.” Jayne Powell’s vocals are sent spinning through the song, wound like candyfloss; she takes centre stage on the techno hymnal title track, too. Throughout, there’s a sense of forward movement, despite the life stasis we find ourselves collectively bound by in mid-2020; there’s also a yearning for the communal, for community, that’s captured in the album title, a nod to an object Turner encountered at London’s Geoffrey Museum, “a television set in the shape of a spaceman’s helmet from the 1970s.”

“The vision I loosely had was to make an electronic record that had a communal warmth and almost ceremonial or ritual feel. I wanted to examine the relationship of our archaic minds in the trappings of the modern world,” Turner concludes. “What the Videosphere also symbolizes for me is the oneness of humanity and community, prevailing.”
Eröffnet wird "Videosphere", das Debütalbum von Kompakts jüngstem Signing, dem in London ansässigen Künstler Lake Turner (alias Andrew Halford), mit "The Sunbird" - einem herausfordernden Strom aus Ambient Sounds, die zu schweben scheinen, um sich dann in einen subtilen, maschinellen Rhythmus zu verwandeln. In gerade mal 109 Sekunden gelingt es dem Stück, ein gewaltiges Terrain abzuschreiten - etwas Mythopoetisches, bescheiden und grandios zugleich, gibt uns eine Ahnung davon, was sich hinter dem Himmel verbirgt. "Ich wollte etwas heraufbeschwören, das einer alten Zeremonie oder Totenprozession ähnelt", sagt Turner, "wie eine Hymne an die Umgebung eines weit entfernten Hügels." Himmlisch und irdisch zugleich, eine rituelle Beschwörung von Sphärenmusik.

Der Kompakt Label-Familie wurde Turner von dessen zeitweiligen Mitarbeiter Yannis Philippakis (Foals) vorgestellt. Zuvor hatte er in den Post Punk- und Indie-Bands Great Eskimo Hoax und Trophy Wife gespielt. Bis auf eine limitierte lathe-cut 12", der "Prime Mover EP" auf Algebra von 2018, artikuliert Turner mit "Videosphere" zum ersten Mal seine eigene Vision von elektronischer Musik.

Die üppigen Ambient-Disco-Techno-Träume von "Videosphere" hat Turner in seinem Londoner Studio und auf der Schaffarm seiner Eltern in Worcestershire produziert, was den nebulösen, gemächlichen und beinahe pastoralen Charakter des Albums erklären könnte.

"Es gab einen bittersüßen Moment als ich mit der Platte (in Worcestershire) fertig geworden war, da meine Eltern gerade dabei waren, das Haus meiner Kindheit zu verkaufen", seufzt er, bevor er witzelt, "das Positive war, dass ich im Laufe des Sommers eine Menge Schafe geschoren habe". Als Student der Archäologie und der Geschichte des Altertums ist Turner zweifellos mit den sich unaufhörlich drehenden Rädern der Geschichte und der daran geknüpften Erinnerungen vertraut, und es ist keine Überraschung, dass "Videosphere" einen nostalgischen, melancholischen Einschlag hat; viel von seiner Schönheit liegt in der Art und Weise, wie es einem sanft ans Herz geht - die Tränen benetzten Wangen von "Honeycomb" oder der ambivalente Elektro-Reigen von "No Way Back Forever".

Trotz allem hypnotischen Driften und Träumen - Videosphere ist sehr stark im Jetzt verankert. "`No Way Back Forever`ist eine Anspielung auf die lineare Natur der Zeit", erklärt Turner beispielhaft, "und auf den Wendepunkt der globalen Klimakrise, den Wissenschaftler gerade ausgerufen haben". Jayne Powells Gesang wirbelt dabei wie Zuckerwatte durch den Song und steht auch im Mittelpunkt des technoid hymnischen Titelstücks. Überall ist ein Gefühl der Vorwärtsbewegung zu spüren, trotz der Stagnation, in der wir uns Mitte 2020 kollektiv befinden; trotzdem existiert eine Sehnsucht nach dem Gemeinsamen, nach Gemeinschaft, die im Albumtitel eingefangen ist - eine Referenz an ein Objekt, dem Turner im Londoner Geoffrey-Museum begegnete, "ein Fernsehgerät in Form eines Raumfahrerhelms aus den 1970er Jahren".

„Die lose Vision, die ich hatte, bestand darin, eine elektronische Platte zu machen, die eine soziale Wärme und eine fast zeremonielle oder rituelle Atmosphäre ausstrahlt. Ich wollte die Beziehung unseres archaischen Geistes in den Fallstricken der modernen Welt untersuchen", so Turner abschließend. "Was `Videosphere` für mich auch symbolisiert, ist die Einheit von Menschlichkeit und Gemeinschaft, die am Ende obsiegt".