Suche:the living

Gordon Koang is a fountain of warmth and joy, immediately accepting any stranger who strays into his presence. With a beaming smile that is unfettered by blindness, a condition he has lived with since birth, Gordon welcomes any and all around him, encouraging them to sit for a while and chat, maybe even to share a song.

Originating from the Nile Valley in what is now South Sudan, Koang was born blind and began playing music from an early age, busking on the streets of Juba and producing his own self-released CD-R’s and cassettes, before becoming a crowd favourite and recording a series of singles and music videos celebrating South Sudan’s cultural wealth. His music went viral, spreading throughout the country, and Koang was invited to perform at everything from weddings and political rallies to church meetings and parties alike. His reputation quickly grew as the poet and homegrown hero of the Nuer people, sometimes called the ‘Michael Jackson of South Sudan’.

In 2013, while Koang was performing to expatriate Nuer communities in Australia, renewed conflict broke out at home. He made a difficult and heartbreaking decision to not return to Sudan, applying to the Australian government for humanitarian protection. After six long years of waiting, living in a foreign country far away from his family, he now proudly calls himself an ‘Australian’, and eagerly awaits the day he will rejoin his wife and children in safety.

Unity is, remarkably, Gordon’s eleventh full-length album, and his first since coming to Australia. It is his only recorded output in a painstakingly long six years of living as an asylum seeker, mostly recorded in the last winter months of 2019, when Gordon began performing with local musicians through the Music in Exile label. The album was completed just weeks before Gordon was awarded his permanent residency. He could have had no way of knowing, and yet there is no frustration in the songs, not a shred of impatience or anger - only Gordon’s unending positivity, his love of all people and of the world he has never seen.

Karsten PflumReal Name:Jacob Helverskov MadsenIDM legend hailing from Denmark now living in Berlin germany
been making music since 2002 been on many labels such as Hymen Records, Mindwaves Music, Touched Music, Touched Revolutions

Wenn es um deutschen Speed- und Thrash Metal geht, dann
dauert es nicht lange bis der Name Living Death fällt. Alte
Fans reagieren ebenso euphorisch wie die junge Generation,
die die Band vielleicht erst durch Wiederveröffentlichungen,
sicher aber durch das Internet kennengelernt haben. Die
ersten beiden Alben sind dem frühen Speed Metal zuzuordnen
und bieten eine ebenso hohe Dosis an traditionellem Heavy
Metal. Die folgende EP und das Album „Protected From
Reality“ zeigen die Band im Thrash Metal verwurzelt,
was auch durch den von Violent Force zu Living Death
gewechselten Drummer Atomic Steif möglich war. „Worlds
Neuroses“ war dann die letzte Scheibe mit Sänger Toto und
wurde bei Veröffentlichung 1989 nicht flächendeckend positiv
aufgenommen. Ein Phänomen, denn im Grunde bündelt diese
Platte die besten Eigenschaften der genannten Phasen der
Band und bietet zudem eine wesentlich abwechslungsreichere
Gesangsarbeit. Schon wenige Monate später änderte sich das
Gesicht des Heavy Metal ganz empfindlich, doch in veränderter
Besetzung gibt es 1991 doch noch ein letztes Album. Über
die Jahre hat sich gezeigt, dass „Worlds Neuroses“ trotz klar
strukturierter Songs einfach etwas länger gebraucht hat, um
sich einen gewissen Status in der deutschen Metalhistorie
zu erarbeiten und dass die Scheibe mehr zu bieten hat als
die beiden Thrash-Leckerbissen „Last Birthday“ und den
Titelsong. Intelligent arrangierte, sehr kraftvolle Metalstücke
wie „The Testament Of Mr. George“ bieten zudem auch noch
unterhaltsame Geschichten als Lyrics. Dazu handelt es sich
ganz klar um die bestklingendste LP/CD von Living Death.
Die längst überfällige Vinyl-Wiederveröffentlichung kommt
mit einer Bonus CD (anstatt einem Download-Code) und
mit einem bedruckten Inlay. LP und CD bekamen ein jeweils
separates Remastering.

Die Wiederveröffentlichung des achten PJ Harvey Studioalbums „Let England Shake“, sowie die Sammlung
unveröffentlichter Demos „Let England Shake (Demos)“ erscheinen am 28.01.2022.
„Let England Shake“ wurde von PJ Harvey, Flood und John Parish produziert und ursprünglich im Februar
2011 veröffentlicht. Das Album enthält die Singles „The Words That Maketh Murder“ und „The Glorious
Land“ und war das zweite Album der Künstlerin, welches den britischen Mercury Music Prize gewann.
„Let England Shake (Demos)“ enthält eine Sammlung unveröffentlichter Demos von Stücken, die für das
achte PJ Harvey-Studioalbum „Let England Shake“ geschrieben wurden, darunter Demos von „The Words
That Maketh Murder”, „The Glorious Land” und „The Last Living Rose”. Das Album enthält unter anderem ein brandneues Artwork und bisher unveröffentlichte Fotos von Seamus Murphy. Beide Alben wurden
dabei von Jason Mitchell unter der Leitung des ursprünglichen Co-Produzenten John Parish geschnitten.
„Let England Shake (Demos)“ und „Let England Shake“ erscheinen beide als 1LP und „Let England
Shake (Demos“ zusätzlich noch als 1CD.

As funny as it may sound, Anaïs Mitchell has spent the past 15 years in some kind of hell. OK, not actual hell, but the multi-faceted world of Hadestown, a musical project she began in Vermont in 2006 that has grown into a Tony®- and Grammy®-award-winning Broadway phenomenon with touring editions now delighting audiences as far away as South Korea.

“I experienced so much joy working on Hadestown, but it just kept ramping up and up and requiring more and more attention,” Mitchell admits. “I had to become so single-minded and really put blinders on to my other creative life.” As it did for many artists, the COVID-19 pandemic unexpectedly offered Mitchell a blank slate to reconnect with her own music. The result is a new self-titled album made with close collaborators from Bon Iver, The National and her own band Bonny Light Horseman, Mitchell’s first collection of all-new material under her own name since 2012’s Young Man in America.

“I was nine months pregnant when the pandemic reached New York, so we made an 11th hour decision to leave and have the baby in Vermont,” Mitchell recalls. “We left the city and had the baby a week later, and then like everyone, we were in the midst of this unprecedented stillness. It felt like I could see behind me: oh, there’s New York City. There’s Hadestown. There’s my life with just one kid. A certain kind of stress and expectations. In Vermont, we moved onto my family farm and lived in my grandparents’ old house, with a new baby. I’d look at pictures on my phone from a few months earlier and wonder, whose life was that? This record, and the songs that are on it, came out of that time. I got into a flow again that I hadn’t felt in a really long time.”

Dubbed by NPR as “one of the greatest songwriters of her generation,” Mitchell is a master of the worlds of narrative folksong, poetry and balladry. Those talents are evident from the first moments of the new album, as Mitchell narrates what she calls “an unbearably romantic” trip over the Brooklyn Bridge colored by Bon Iver member Michael Lewis’ heartstring-tugging saxophone accompaniment. “Having left New York, I was able to write a love letter to it in a way I never could when I was living there,” she says. “It was like, fuck it. This is how I feel. There is nothing more beautiful than riding over one of the New York bridges at night next to someone who inspires you.”

Produced by Mitchell’s Bonny Light Horseman bandmate Josh Kaufman, the album proceeds to chronicle Mitchell’s reconnection with the Vermont roots that have been so formative in her life and music. “Bright Star” finds her making peace with the idea of being at peace in the familiar setting of her grandparents’ house, while “Revenant” was inspired by paging through a box of journals and letters belonging to herself and her grandmother — “a very pandemic activity,” she says. “That house is literally my happy place. I can picture myself as a kid, in this house, laying on the carpet with a sunbeam coming through the sliding glass door. There’s something about it that is really connected in my mind to my childhood and a very free, imaginative, creative time. “Revenant” has a lot to do with that house and reconnecting with my childhood self.”

Mitchell concedes that she tends “to be someone who thinks it has to be hard in order for it to be good or beautiful,” but that feeling has changed, partly thanks to her deep connection with musicians she’s met through the 37d03d collective established by The National’s Aaron and Bryce Dessner and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. During the pandemic, some of those artists participated in a “song a day” writing group — an idea Mitchell says is usually “totally opposite of how I roll. But it really helped me to gain access to some kind of trust and intuition and flow. I began a bunch of these songs while doing that.”

“It unlocked something that allowed me to finish a bunch of songs I’d been sitting on, and feeling a bit paralyzed about how to finish them,” she continues. “Because no one was touring, it’s not like I was playing them for anyone before we were in the studio. In other times, I’ve trotted things out in advance. Here, it was like, here’s all these brand new songs. Let’s discover what they can be. That was really exciting.”

That discovery process took flight at Dreamland Recording Studios outside Woodstock, N.Y., which Mitchell describes as “this weird, janky, beautiful church - it’s my favorite studio in the world.” Kaufman, Lewis and Big Red Machine drummer JT Bates formed a core band around Mitchell, while Aaron Dessner and Thomas Bartlett joined the sessions mid-week on guitar and piano, respectively.

After the appropriate COVID tests came back negative, “it was a pretty extraordinary feeling to hug, kiss and share the same space playing together,” Mitchell says. “We went into that world for a week and didn’t leave the studio for any reason. I felt very safe with all those guys. It was warm and joyful.”

Mitchell says this environment brought out unexpected details in the material, which was recorded almost entirely live together in the room. “Sometimes we tried separating things out, like vocals, but we always ended up back in the room together,” she says. Indeed, after spending the better part of a day recording overdubbed versions of “Little Big Girl” that nobody loved, the musicians gave up and tracked it again live. “We got so frustrated that we went in and I was like, I’m just going to sing this as hard as I fucking can. It felt like that’s what the song wanted to be,” Mitchell says. “It felt like all those songs wanted to be recorded as live as possible.” The exception to the rule was Nico Muhly's arrangements for strings and flute, which were added from New York City afterward.

Mitchell will debut the new material during various headline tours in the U.S. and Europe in 2022, at which she’ll be accompanied by players from the album. On stage, she can’t wait to further hone the sights, sounds and scenes that bring the songs to such vivid life. “I’ve spent a lot of time trying to write in the voice of other characters, especially with Hadestown. It’s fun for me, but these songs are not that,” she says. “Weirdly, they’re all me. The narrator is me. That’s why it felt right to self-title the album. It felt like after so many years of working on telling other stories, now here are some of mine.”

As funny as it may sound, Anaïs Mitchell has spent the past 15 years in some kind of hell. OK, not actual hell, but the multi-faceted world of Hadestown, a musical project she began in Vermont in 2006 that has grown into a Tony®- and Grammy®-award-winning Broadway phenomenon with touring editions now delighting audiences as far away as South Korea.

“I experienced so much joy working on Hadestown, but it just kept ramping up and up and requiring more and more attention,” Mitchell admits. “I had to become so single-minded and really put blinders on to my other creative life.” As it did for many artists, the COVID-19 pandemic unexpectedly offered Mitchell a blank slate to reconnect with her own music. The result is a new self-titled album made with close collaborators from Bon Iver, The National and her own band Bonny Light Horseman, Mitchell’s first collection of all-new material under her own name since 2012’s Young Man in America.

“I was nine months pregnant when the pandemic reached New York, so we made an 11th hour decision to leave and have the baby in Vermont,” Mitchell recalls. “We left the city and had the baby a week later, and then like everyone, we were in the midst of this unprecedented stillness. It felt like I could see behind me: oh, there’s New York City. There’s Hadestown. There’s my life with just one kid. A certain kind of stress and expectations. In Vermont, we moved onto my family farm and lived in my grandparents’ old house, with a new baby. I’d look at pictures on my phone from a few months earlier and wonder, whose life was that? This record, and the songs that are on it, came out of that time. I got into a flow again that I hadn’t felt in a really long time.”

Dubbed by NPR as “one of the greatest songwriters of her generation,” Mitchell is a master of the worlds of narrative folksong, poetry and balladry. Those talents are evident from the first moments of the new album, as Mitchell narrates what she calls “an unbearably romantic” trip over the Brooklyn Bridge colored by Bon Iver member Michael Lewis’ heartstring-tugging saxophone accompaniment. “Having left New York, I was able to write a love letter to it in a way I never could when I was living there,” she says. “It was like, fuck it. This is how I feel. There is nothing more beautiful than riding over one of the New York bridges at night next to someone who inspires you.”

Produced by Mitchell’s Bonny Light Horseman bandmate Josh Kaufman, the album proceeds to chronicle Mitchell’s reconnection with the Vermont roots that have been so formative in her life and music. “Bright Star” finds her making peace with the idea of being at peace in the familiar setting of her grandparents’ house, while “Revenant” was inspired by paging through a box of journals and letters belonging to herself and her grandmother — “a very pandemic activity,” she says. “That house is literally my happy place. I can picture myself as a kid, in this house, laying on the carpet with a sunbeam coming through the sliding glass door. There’s something about it that is really connected in my mind to my childhood and a very free, imaginative, creative time. “Revenant” has a lot to do with that house and reconnecting with my childhood self.”

Mitchell concedes that she tends “to be someone who thinks it has to be hard in order for it to be good or beautiful,” but that feeling has changed, partly thanks to her deep connection with musicians she’s met through the 37d03d collective established by The National’s Aaron and Bryce Dessner and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. During the pandemic, some of those artists participated in a “song a day” writing group — an idea Mitchell says is usually “totally opposite of how I roll. But it really helped me to gain access to some kind of trust and intuition and flow. I began a bunch of these songs while doing that.”

“It unlocked something that allowed me to finish a bunch of songs I’d been sitting on, and feeling a bit paralyzed about how to finish them,” she continues. “Because no one was touring, it’s not like I was playing them for anyone before we were in the studio. In other times, I’ve trotted things out in advance. Here, it was like, here’s all these brand new songs. Let’s discover what they can be. That was really exciting.”

That discovery process took flight at Dreamland Recording Studios outside Woodstock, N.Y., which Mitchell describes as “this weird, janky, beautiful church - it’s my favorite studio in the world.” Kaufman, Lewis and Big Red Machine drummer JT Bates formed a core band around Mitchell, while Aaron Dessner and Thomas Bartlett joined the sessions mid-week on guitar and piano, respectively.

After the appropriate COVID tests came back negative, “it was a pretty extraordinary feeling to hug, kiss and share the same space playing together,” Mitchell says. “We went into that world for a week and didn’t leave the studio for any reason. I felt very safe with all those guys. It was warm and joyful.”

Mitchell says this environment brought out unexpected details in the material, which was recorded almost entirely live together in the room. “Sometimes we tried separating things out, like vocals, but we always ended up back in the room together,” she says. Indeed, after spending the better part of a day recording overdubbed versions of “Little Big Girl” that nobody loved, the musicians gave up and tracked it again live. “We got so frustrated that we went in and I was like, I’m just going to sing this as hard as I fucking can. It felt like that’s what the song wanted to be,” Mitchell says. “It felt like all those songs wanted to be recorded as live as possible.” The exception to the rule was Nico Muhly's arrangements for strings and flute, which were added from New York City afterward.

Mitchell will debut the new material during various headline tours in the U.S. and Europe in 2022, at which she’ll be accompanied by players from the album. On stage, she can’t wait to further hone the sights, sounds and scenes that bring the songs to such vivid life. “I’ve spent a lot of time trying to write in the voice of other characters, especially with Hadestown. It’s fun for me, but these songs are not that,” she says. “Weirdly, they’re all me. The narrator is me. That’s why it felt right to self-title the album. It felt like after so many years of working on telling other stories, now here are some of mine.”

There’s an ancient Japanese legend in which a horde of demons, ghosts and other terrifying ghouls descend upon the sleeping villages once a year. Known as Hyakki Yagyō, or the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons, one version of the tale states that anyone who witnesses this otherworldly procession will die instantly—or be carried off by the creatures of the night. As a result, the villagers hide in their homes, lest they become victims of these supernatural invaders.

Such is the inspiration for the latest album from EARTHLESS. “My son is really into mythical creatures and old folk stories about monsters and ghosts,” bassist Mike Eginton explains. “We came across the ‘Night Parade of One Hundred Demons’ in a book of traditional Japanese ghost stories. I like the idea of people hiding and being able to hear the madness but not see it. It’s the fear of the unknown.”

Whereas 2018’s Black Heaven featured shorter songs and vocals from guitarist Isaiah Mitchell on much of the album—an unprecedented move for the San Diego power trio—their latest is a return to the epic instrumentals EARTHLESS made their unmistakable name on. Night Parade Of One Hundred Demons is comprised of two monster songs—the 41-minute, two-part title track and the 20-minute “Death To The Red Sun.”

The scenario that allowed for this kind of exploration was a stark contrast to that of Black Heaven. At that point, Mitchell was living in the Bay Area, which made it difficult for the band to get together and work on the type of long instrumental pieces they’re known for. But in March 2020, the guitarist moved back to San Diego. More specifically, he moved back the night the pandemic lockdown kicked in. Bad timing, perhaps—or maybe perfect timing.

Plus, they were all on the same page about not wanting to do another record with vocals. “In a way, I think this album was a reaction to our last record,” Eginton says. “Black Heaven was outside our comfort zone. I think it was a good record, but it was challenging to write songs in a more traditional verse-chorus-verse format. This one was more enjoyable. I’m sure we’ll do more vocal tracks in the future, but for the time being I see that album as a one-off.”

Given the record’s inspiration, it should come as no surprise that Night Parade of One Hundred Demons strikes a more sinister tone than the rest of the band’s catalogue. “It definitely has a darker, almost evil kind of vibe compared to stuff we’ve done in the past,” Rubalcaba says. “There’s more paranoia and noise, and some of Isaiah’s whammy-bar stuff kind of reminds me of these Jeff Hanneman moments in Reign In Blood, where it just seems like everything is going to hell. It’s pretty fun.”

Night Parade of One Hundred Demons was recorded in San Diego with Rubalcaba’s childhood friend Ben Moore, who’s worked with everyone from DIAMANDA GALAS and BURT BACHARACH to CEREMONY and HOT SNAKES. When Eginton wasn’t tracking his bass parts, he worked on the album’s incredible sleeve art. “He really dedicated himself to the project,” Rubalcaba says. “He’d be drawing in the studio with, like, a coal-miner’s lamp on his head while we were doing overdubs. He really knocked it out of the park.”

All told, Night Parade of One Hundred Demons isn’t just a return to the band’s traditional format—it’s a return to their very beginnings. “This album actually has the very first Earthless riff in it,” Eginton reveals. “We just recorded it 20 years after we wrote it. But we’re really happy with how this record came out. We feel it might be our finest to date.”

Take the freaked-out punked up soul of The Stooges and MC5 mix that with 60s garage trash, blend in Sabbath, AC/DC and heavy rock n roll and then hot wire that sound to a handful of freaks located in Fredericton, New Brunswick. Here it is that The Angered Wrecks were located - in an old Victorian style house in downtown Fredericton. It was here they set up a permanent rehearsal space on the main floor taking up the dining room and living room area with a full P.A. system and the long parties would begin as the Angered Wrecks cranked out an unholy primal serving of mind-numbing, eyeball-popping guttural pure rock and roll.

Lucky for us the Angered Wrecks had a primitive DIY recording set up as they recorded live off the floor with one cardioid mic taped to the ceiling to capture the entire room sound and straight into a cheap Alpine cassette deck. The results of these previously unheard recordings capture the essence of trashy rock’n roll at it’s finest, delivered with pure dereliction, and always a side of extra sleaze.
Keeping warm in the winter at another old salt box style house they would later rehearse and play gigs in, a large circle was cut in the floor so that the rising heat from the pottery kiln downstairs would (along with the right mixture of beer and ‘Purple Jesus’, weed and often speed and hot dogs) keep these boys fuelled long enough in sub zero temperatures to keep pumping out the rock’n roll savagery.
The last show they played was in the fall of ’81 at the Bug Shack after the household was served an eviction noticed with the house to be entirely demolished (just like Stooge Manor aka The Fun House).

They got a gig together the weekend before demolition, packed the bottom floor and played a blazing set. At the very end, walls were kicked apart, old cans of paint strewn about, general wanton destruction to furniture, doors, windows etc…insane. The bug shack had come to an end and shortly thereafter, The Angered Wrecks.
That these tapes have survived to this day is all thanks to John Westhaver’s archival hoarding (even though the loss of a 90 minute session of the Angered Wrecks still haunts John to this day).
So CRANK these tracks as loud as you can – these audio tapes are not for the faint of heart

Following the already classic Wamono A to Z trilogy, 180g presents an exceptional collection of jazz funk / rare groove tunes recorded in the mid-seventies at the Nippon Columbia studios by three giants of Japanese music: arranger Kiyoshi Yamaya, koto legend Toshiko Yonekawa and shakuhachi master Kifu Mitsuhashi.

- 180g heavy vinyl pressing, reverse board jacket

- Fully licensed Nippon Columbia masters available for the first time outside of Japan

- Mastering and lacquer cut by Jukka Sarapää at Timmion Cutting Lab, Helsinki, Finland

- Artwork by Nker

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Born in 1932 in Tokyo, Kiyoshi Yamaya started his musical career in 1953 when he played in various jazz bands in town. In 1957, Yamaya joined Nobuo Hara's famous jazz big band Sharps & Flats as a baritone saxophone player and started composing, arranging, and recording for them and other big bands. He became a key jazz figure in Japan in the sixties together with Norio Maeda and Keitaro Miho, both jazz pianists, composers and arrangers, by forming the Modern Jazz Three Association – which aimed at improving the level of Japanese jazz composition and arrangement. In the mid-seventies, his Contemporary Sound Orchestra explored jazz funk fusions with traditional Japanese melodies and instruments such as the shakuhachi, koto, biwa, and shamisen. These works were recorded for a series of panoramic Japanese albums released domestically on Denon and Nippon Columbia, from which the tracks on this compilation are taken from.

Toshiko Yonekawa, born 1913 in the city of Himeji, not so far from Osaka, is the eldest daughter of koto and shamisen master Kin'o Yonekawa. She started studying both instruments with her talented father from the age of 3, played in her first concert at 8, and was only 12 years old when she first appeared on national radio. Her unique style of koto playing is widely recognized due to the extreme accuracy of the intonation and rhythm, as well as the unequaled beauty of the instrument's sonority. After a life decorated with awards and prizes, Toshiko Yonekawa was named a Living National Treasure in 1996.

Born in Tokyo in 1950, Kifu Mitsuhashi is a great master of Koto style shakuhachi. After completing the NHK Hōgaku Training Program in 1972, Mitsuhashi became a member of Pro Musica Nipponia, a group of leading composers and top-ranking musicians devoted to performing a wide-ranging repertoire of classical and contemporary compositions from both Japan and the West – in which all music is performed by traditional Japanese musical instruments. Mitsuhashi has toured the world for hundreds of recitals, also as a soloist, and has performed his art with the greatest ensembles such as the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Berliner Philharmoniker. In 2020, Kifu Mitsuhashi was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun.

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All tracks selected and compiled by Greg Gouty and Maxime Brottes, with the assistance of Ryohei "Nitchiku-kun" Tanaka.

All tracks licensed by Nippon Columbia, Japan.

Mastering and lacquer cut by Jukka Sarapää at Timmion Cutting Lab, Helsinki, Finland.

Artwork by Nicolas Kerembellec (Nker.fr).

Proofreading by Brian Durr (Diskotopia).

Executive producers: Greg Gouty and Maxime Brottes.

180GWALP04 - Manufactured and distributed by 180g.

Grammy-nominated band TRIVIUM — Matt Heafy vocals, guitar, Corey Beaulieu [guitar], Paolo Gregoletto [bass], and Alex Bent [drums] — has announced that it will release its latest tenth album, In The Court of The Dragon, on vinyl on 28th January via longtime label Roadrunner Records. The album will be available on 2LP Transparent Yellow Vinyl. The record was produced and mixed by Josh Wilbur and recorded in the Fall of 2020 at Full Sail University in Orlando.

The album cover is an original oil painting by French artist Mathieu Nozieres (@mathieunozieres on Instagram)

"While the music of In The Court Of The Dragon was taking shape, we knew we needed epic artwork of the type that you might see on the wall of an important museum from a long dead renaissance master," says Heafy. "After extensive research, we found one of the few living artists who is capable of creating artwork like Caravaggio and Gentileschi — painter Mathieu Nozieres. Mathieu took our song title and created an original oil painting on canvas unlike anything we could have ever imagined. It's so staggeringly breathtaking and epic and it looks like what the song and album sounds like."

Scott Lavene is set to release ‘Broke’ on 7th June 2019, an album that is drenched in living in the gutter but staring at the stars.

Lavene has the lyrical smarts and the fairground bark of an Ian Dury, the incisive wordplay of a Costello and the deadpan pop of Madness in his creative DNA, along with the street poetry of an Essex boy version of Lou Reed, the dislocated funk of Talking Heads, the jellied eel lyrical bounce of Chas and Dave, and the inventive surreal see-saw of a Tom Waits, and many other nonconformists.

It’s an intoxicating brew that he makes his own in this collection of wonderful quirky songs that make up ‘Broke’.

These are songs that are full of detail and a life lived in scuffed shoes, rainy towns and the magic of the everyday. Songs about small talk, being skint, doomed affairs and the sweetness of falling in love over a cup of tea.

Creating unconventional backdrops for his street tales Scott builds up shapeshifting rhymes and looping grooves.

On his 2000 debut, Da Abtomatic Meisterzinger Mambo Chic, Megira channels the optimism of post-war America, narcoleptic surf, and the Twin Peaks soundtrack into a lo-fi masterpiece all his own. Sung in both Hebrew and English, Mambo Chic moves at a deliberate pace, unconcerned by the traffic of the modern world and wrapped in a blanket of Tascam 4-track hiss. On “Tomorrow’s Gone” Megira
achieves the feat of being so far back in time that he’s somehow living in the future and waiting for the rest of us to arrive.

On his 2000 debut, Da Abtomatic Meisterzinger Mambo Chic, Megira channels the optimism of post-war America, narcoleptic surf, and the Twin Peaks soundtrack into a lo-fi masterpiece all his own. Sung in both Hebrew and English, Mambo Chic moves at a deliberate pace, unconcerned by the traffic of the modern world and wrapped in a blanket of Tascam 4-track hiss. On “Tomorrow’s Gone” Megira
achieves the feat of being so far back in time that he’s somehow living in the future and waiting for the rest of us to arrive.

EELS release their fourteenth studio album, ‘Extreme
Witchcraft’, via PIAS and the band’s own E Works
Records.
 EELS leader Mark Oliver Everett, aka E, co-produced the
record with PJ Harvey producer and guitarist John Parish,
marking the first time the two have recorded together since
2001’s ‘Souljacker’ album.
 EELS have had one of the most consistently acclaimed
careers in music. The ever-changing project of principal
singer / songwriter E (Mark Oliver Everett), EELS have
released 13 studio albums since their 1996 debut,
‘Beautiful Freak’. In 2008, E published his highly acclaimed
book ‘Things the Grandchildren Should Know’ and starred
in the award-winning ‘Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives’
documentary about the search to understand his quantum
physicist father, Hugh Everett III. 2020’s ‘Earth To Dora’
album, received extensive critical praise, and was
described as “their sweetest natured album ever” by The
Independent and awarded four stars in MOJO and NME.
 Deluxe box set features 45rpm 180g translucent yellow
double vinyl LP in heavy cardboard packaging, lenticular
print, custom EELS Ouija board, CD with booklet and an
A5 sticker sheet.
 Single LP format pressed on 180g vinyl with screen printed
poster and digital download.
 Tourdates - March 11 Telegraph Building Belfast, 12 Olympia
Theatre Dublin, 14 Roundhouse London, 15 Albert Hall
Manchester, 16 Barrowland Glasgow, 17 Rock City Nottingham,
18 O2 Guildhall Southampton.

Highly innovative outsider folk-horror score by John Mehrmann receives lush vinyl and CD treatment from Svart Records. Honeydew is a rural cinematic scare written and directed by Devereux Milburn and stars Sawyer Spielberg, Malin Barr and Barbara Kingsley. Described by writer/director Milburn as a “modern-day Hansel and Gretel narrative,” Honeydew follows Rylie (Malin Barr) and Sam (Sawyer Spielberg) on a camping-trip-gone-wrong. Mehrmann’s soundtrack to this underground horror feast is an eerie organic assembly of human and animal groans, mumbles, vocals, meat and metal percussion. Mehrmann’s (Maine, USA) online biography lists him as a composer for choirs, movies, orchestras, soloists, kids’ shows, commercials, and churches; a pianist, singer, conductor, percussionist, and accordionist; the music director at Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish in Auburn, Maine; a member of the Bangor Symphony percussion section; and a teacher, at Bay Chamber Music School in Rockport, Maine, and at the University of Maine at Augusta. In the score’s accompanying notes Mehrmann explains: “When I started to write the soundtrack for Honeydew, my first few tracks were for fairly traditional instruments, but the director made it clear that he didn’t want that, and he encouraged me to get weirder and weirder. I recorded the entire album with a single mic in my living room, using whatever sounds were at hand namely, my voice, my body, long kitchen knives, glasses filled with water, little percussion instruments and sound effects.

An outstanding raga-like drone lp with a distinctive cosmic vibe, Futuro Antico was a short living collaboration between the two italian Walter Maioli (Aktuala), Riccardo Sinigaglia and Gabin Dabiré (from Burkina Faso). The synthesis between ancient, ethnic and analog electronic music is just perfect, the minimalist repetition with slight changes gives associations of a slow growth; cyclic repetition gives the listener an opportunity to discover the sounds, to meditate, to go into the music, join the same journey trough ancient, primitive cultures and modern electronic soundscapes.Originally released in 1980, the sound is completly analog and warm, this reissue maintain the first tape artwork + info and photos.

Press confirmed to run on this includes a lead full page review in Uncut and a boxed out review in MOJO. The Guardian are also running a feature with interview & much more tbc. Optimism is the debut album from Jana Horn of Austin, Texas. Originally self-released in a small vinyl edition, now widely available. Horn says the LP, "seemed to come about indirectly, almost in passing, a feeling of being in-between things. I was really mobile at that time, living wherever... I had just discovered, late, Raymond Carver Broadcast, Sybil Baier, Annette Peacock, Richard & Linda Thompson, a short story called “Car Crash While Hitchhiking” by Denis Johnson. I had “Heart Needs a Home” in mind, “The Great Valerio;” I was just really moving through the world, hanging in the shadows of the people I wanted to be. Hoping, looking out, this is Optimism. I was looking for anything."

Nervous Records, the iconic label synonymous with the rise of house from the streets of New York City, will mark 30 years in the music industry by releasing the celebratory compilation LP ‘Nervous Records: 30 Years’ on October 1st (Part 1) and October 15th (Part 2).

Featuring original mixes of the label’s biggest tracks, plus remixes by some of its most celebrated acts, ‘Nervous Records: 30 Years’ is both a celebration of the past and of the future. Featuring a who’s who of electronic dance music, the long player sees names including Louie Vega, David Morales Darius Syrossian, Tensnake, Monki, Franky Rizardo, Danny Howard and more take on iconic Nervous cuts: ‘You Make Me Feel Mighty Real’, ‘Treat Me Right’, ‘Future Groove’, ‘Feel Like Singing’, ‘Get Up Everybody’, ‘Break You’, ‘Hot’, ‘End This Hate’, ‘Unspeakable Joy’, ‘Can Ya Tell Me’, ‘Jerk It’, ‘The Anthem’, ‘It Makes A Difference’, ‘Learn 2 Luv’ and ‘Don’t You Ever Give Up’.

The album marks one of the most enduring, extraordinary legacies to grace America’s illustrious music history, not just in electronica but far beyond. Founded in 1991 by Michael and his father Sam Weiss, and recognizable immediately by its distinctive character logo, the label grew rapidly, in no small part due to Michael Weiss’ practically unmatched passion for discovering new music.

“Louie Vega and Kenny Dope woke me at 4am on Tuesday night, Wednesday morning from their studio telling me they had something really different that I needed to hear,” Michael recollects. “I asked if they could play it over the phone. They said if I wanted to hear it I had to come to the studio. So of course I got myself up, got dressed and went there. That “really different track” ended up being ‘The Nervous Track’, a tune that became our signature release and was also highly instrumental in the emergency of London’s ‘Broken Beat’ movement.”

The label’s willingness to take chances on fresh sounds and innovative concepts rising up from the melting pot sidewalks of NYC ensured a body of work that has become a living musical history of the city. House cuts ‘Unspeakable Joy’ and ‘Nitelife’ (Kim English), ‘Get Up (Everybody)’ (Byron Stingily) and ‘Feel Like Singing’ (Sandy B) bump up against hip-hop anthems like ‘Who Got Da Props’ (Black Moon) and “Bucktown” (Smif-n-Wessun) and reggae cut ‘Take It Easy’ (Mad Lion); soulful flows from Mood II Swing (Kim English ‘Learn 2 Luv’, Loni Clark “Rushing”), Armand Van Helden (‘The Anthem’) and Nuyorican Soul (‘Mind Fluid’) sit alongside seminal techno singles like Winx’ ‘Don’t Laugh’. The young artists and producers who joined the Nervous Records’ family have gone on to become some of the most hallowed and celebrated dance acts of all time: Louie Vega, Kenny Dope, David Morales, Tony Humphries, Roger Sanchez, Armand Van Helden, Kerri Chandler, Kim English, Byron Stingily, Josh Wink, to name just a handful.

“We did a release with Josh Wink under his Winx alias entitled ‘Nervous Build-Up’,” Michael said. “It did well and it was obvious how talented Josh was. Subsequent to that release I was pretty persistent in asking him to continue to play me his new demos. During one phone conversation he said, “Mike I’m gonna play you something over the phone but don’t laugh when you hear it.” That demo ended up being ‘Don’t Laugh’, which became one of our biggest international hits and still to this day is one of America’s earliest and most impactful techno hits.”

As much a celebration of the label’s future as it is of their past, Nervous Records: 30 Years is but a marker in the imprints’ history, a clear sign of where they’ve been and also where they’re going. With 30 years behind them, the label’s determination to unearth new raw diamonds in the rough is as unwavering as ever.

“I’ve always been one to look at what others are doing (the industry at large) and think, “ok, are they doing this specific thing for a reason, or doing it because everyone else is doing the same thing” and make my decision based on that,” says Nervous Records’ General Manager Andrew Salsano. “In an age where data metrics and analytics reign supreme, I remain steadfast that they should be complementary to your decision and not the sole indicator to make one. So many songs today are written with 15 second hooks in mind for social media, and while there’s nothing wrong with that business model you will always be chasing the wave instead of carving out your own path and identity.

“My primary focus for the sound of the label has and will continue to revolve around signing good songs and music that has the ability to react at the street level first. The best results come from artists that are firstly given a bit of local love that grows into a global impact. Fresh ideas that express child-like curiosity and artists showing vulnerability in their music are also something I look for, artists and producers that are not making music with certain markets in mind, but rather their own style and signature that is unique but able to straddle the fine line of underground and overground.”

Still as raw, as underground and as finely tuned to the dance floor as they ever have been, perhaps the secret to the success - and the longevity - of Nervous Records has something to do with that hard, dogged, no-holds-barred NYC edge that runs through the veins of the label. With the next generation of producers rising from the clubs of New York, one thing is certain; Nervous Records will be there to find them, nurture them and bring them to the world at large, over the next decade and beyond.