quête:the loft

Two seminal 12" mixes of a pair of Michael Wycoff heavy hitters from 1982. One a two-step favourite and one a Loft classic, these sought-after versions have never been paired on the same record.

Side A features the smooth-gliding anthem "Looking Up To You". The unmistakable snap of that sighing intro is unlike anything else. As such, it's no surprise that Leon Ware, celebrated master of the unexpected chord, has his fingerprints all over the track. Co-written with Zane Grey, "Looking Up To You" stands among the very best of Leon's staggering bank of compositions, both solo and with Michael Jackson, Minnie Riperton and Marvin Gaye. It's such an influential track, serving as the sample foundation of a massive top five R&B hit for Zhane in 1993, but it has never been bettered upon. Original 12" copies - if you can find them - go for over £50 today, making this side worth the price of admission alone.

If that wasn't enough, it's arguable that the B-Side wins again. A staple of David Mancuso's New York Loft parties, the Tee Scott mix of uplifting boogie gem "Diamond Real" is on another level entirely. A DJ legend of infamous clubs Better Days and Zanzibar and a trailblazing innovator, Tee Scott mastered the art of the reconstructive club mix.

For maximum destruction of discerning dancers, we've opted for here for his heavenly dub. 7 minutes of devastatingly slick dance floor dynamite, at once polished and dilapidated, its ecstatic charm is universal.

Devout lovers of modern soul have long worshipped the rapturous, sophisticated funk of Michael Wycoff. In combining that richly elegant voice, redolent of Donny Hathaway, with the production of keyboardist and arranger Webster Lewis, it's no surprise that both of these tracks became vital club classics of the early 80s R&B scene. Clear, full-bodied and bright - the 12" versions of these tracks are notoriously punchier than those featured on Wycoff's LP, and feature boomin' low end and neck-snapping drums. Buy on sight.

September 23rd ist die erste Veröffentlichung in William Basinskis neuer Arcadia Archive-Serie. September 23rd wurde im September 1982 in seinem ersten Loft im vormodernen DUMBO-Viertel in Brooklyn, New York, aufgenommen und ist ein erst kürzlich wiederentdeckter früher Eintrag in seinem inzwischen äußerst inspirierenden und einflussreichen Katalog. Ausgehend von einem Klavierstück, das Basinski Mitte der 1970er Jahre in der High School komponierte, entwickelte sich September 23rd schnell zu einem ganz anderen Werk. Wie Basinski erklärt: ,The original piano recordings were made on on a piano belonging to my downstairs neighbor, John Epperson - later known more famously as world-renowned drag artist, Lypsinka - at 351 Jay Street aka Casa Degli Artisti, our first loft in New York. It was recoded with a little portable (probably Radio Shack) cassette deck sitting on the piano as I improvised a piece I had been working on since high school. It was pretty terrible, but when I did the John Giorno/William Burroughs cut-up technique, suddenly I had something to put through the Frippertronics loop and feedback loop tape delay system - and boy did I get results. A very prolific time for a young, wacked-out queen in NYC."

September 23rd ist die erste Veröffentlichung in William Basinskis neuer Arcadia Archive-Serie. September 23rd wurde im September 1982 in seinem ersten Loft im vormodernen DUMBO-Viertel in Brooklyn, New York, aufgenommen und ist ein erst kürzlich wiederentdeckter früher Eintrag in seinem inzwischen äußerst inspirierenden und einflussreichen Katalog. Ausgehend von einem Klavierstück, das Basinski Mitte der 1970er Jahre in der High School komponierte, entwickelte sich September 23rd schnell zu einem ganz anderen Werk. Wie Basinski erklärt: ,The original piano recordings were made on on a piano belonging to my downstairs neighbor, John Epperson - later known more famously as world-renowned drag artist, Lypsinka - at 351 Jay Street aka Casa Degli Artisti, our first loft in New York. It was recoded with a little portable (probably Radio Shack) cassette deck sitting on the piano as I improvised a piece I had been working on since high school. It was pretty terrible, but when I did the John Giorno/William Burroughs cut-up technique, suddenly I had something to put through the Frippertronics loop and feedback loop tape delay system - and boy did I get results. A very prolific time for a young, wacked-out queen in NYC."

"Here is what 2014 felt like: The cold, rushed walk from the Montrose Avenue L to the downstairs entrance of 20 Meadow Street, an address you could never quite remember. The careful steep climb to the top of the nondescript building, where Titus Andronicus’s Patrick Stickles was waiting to take your balled-up cash and stamp the inside of your wrist. Standing beneath that jagged cardboard punk bunting, draped with tangled twinkle lights, while Joe Galarraga, frontman of Big Ups, slowly, menacingly, wound a microphone cable around his fist. Then a barbed F-sharp sprang forward from Amar Lal’s guitar, shaking the entirety of Shea Stadium to life.

For much of that time period, ten years now behind us, it would be easy to say, man, you just had to be there. You had to be there when Death By Audio closed. You had to be there when the Apple store opened on Bedford Ave. If you weren’t there when a small, specific subculture of New York City took over its abandoned lofts and grimy basements and squatted itself into community, that’s okay — it might be too clunky and myopic to explain now. Released in January 2014 to Dead Labour in the US and Tough Love Records in the UK, Eighteen Hours of Static stands even now as a triumphant representation of what Big Ups did so well over the course of their nine-year run as a band. Now, with the re-release of Big Ups’ killer debut full-length, those who didn’t get to experience all this the first time around will get a shot at living as if it’s the glory days again."

Carving an unlikely and elaborate niche in the stoney academic landscape
which she once shared with the likes of Phill Niblock, John Cage and Sorel
Hayes, the excitable proto-punk poèmes sonores of the linguistic loose
cannon known as Beth Anderson first rolled through New York in the mid-
1970s (from Kentucky via San Francisco) like a jumbled tumbleweed of lost
Letterism, face paint and threadbare drummy funk to astonish gallery floors,
lecture theatres and loft apartment stages.
One thousand leagues under the radar of the commercial music industry,
with a sense of humour that elevated way above her highbrow peer group,
the music of Beth Anderson has successfully evaded the pressing plant for
most of her creative career, and not unlike fellow New York gallery actionist
Suzanne Ciani, it has taken decades to successfully collect and contextualise
these early recordings - expanding her elusive discography beyond the rare
and mysterious solo single entry in the process.
When uttered amongst the type of vinyl vampires that haplessly gravitate
between both art school vintage vanity pressings and family funded plunder
funk, there’s an outside chance that the name Beth Anderson might muster
some vague recognition on account of her one and only solo wax sojourn
into the expansive DIY market. In 1980 the 45rpm single, ‘I Can’t Stand It’,
combusted into the consciousness of adventurous participants with its deep
rhythmic backbeat (courtesy of future Sonic Youth / Dinosaur Jr producer
Wharton Tiers, member of the new wave band Theoretical Girls), climaxing
with two colourful and commanding linguistic tantrums before disappearing in
a puff of smoke leaving would-be fans dumbstruck without so much as a
label name or distribution contact to explain what they had just heard.
For those who have spent the subsequent years on the edge of that same
seat, it might come as some comfort knowing that somewhere out there,
there is also a contrasting world of gallery patrons and experimental sound
poetry enthusiasts that similarly didn’t know that their regular performance
poet Beth Anderson even made the ambitious pop record. For the uninitiated,
the enigmatic Beth Anderson has straddled both sides of the art / rock fence
placed between two equally niche pastures.
Hopefully this first ever vinyl compendium will succeed in joining the dots,
loops, yelps, squeaks, beats and repeats. Let us follow Beth’s lineage, along
her magnetic tape highways crossing multiple boundaries in a hope to bridge
unlikely anti-genres like ‘yoga punk’, ‘ramble rap’, ‘combustion pop’ and
‘formroom funk’… all of which were officially neatly bracketed under the
curious Text-Sound movement where Beth garnered utmost respect as a key
practitioner.

The world is a firework of overstimulation - and Future Palace have dedicated an album to this feeling of overwhelm. On the new record "Distortion", the Berlin post-hardcore trio deals with an almost oppressing mass of mental illnesses and problems. In doing so they create music that - appropriate to this topic - hits more hooks than ever before from one moment to the next, from the quietest depths to the loftiest heights. While the band had already leaned more towards musical extremes on their previous album, "Run", "Distortion" is the ultimate culmination of all the tones that Future Palace have absorbed on their Europe-wide journey as one of the most exciting acts in alternative guitar music: the most powerful metalcore breakdowns meet trembling darkwave beats, anthemic emocore refrains a la Bad Omens are contrasted with sacred choirs, the coldness of industrial encounters the powerful emotionality of Sleep Token. An album like a manifesto.

The world is a firework of overstimulation - and Future Palace have dedicated an album to this feeling of overwhelm. On the new record "Distortion", the Berlin post-hardcore trio deals with an almost oppressing mass of mental illnesses and problems. In doing so they create music that - appropriate to this topic - hits more hooks than ever before from one moment to the next, from the quietest depths to the loftiest heights. While the band had already leaned more towards musical extremes on their previous album, "Run", "Distortion" is the ultimate culmination of all the tones that Future Palace have absorbed on their Europe-wide journey as one of the most exciting acts in alternative guitar music: the most powerful metalcore breakdowns meet trembling darkwave beats, anthemic emocore refrains a la Bad Omens are contrasted with sacred choirs, the coldness of industrial encounters the powerful emotionality of Sleep Token. An album like a manifesto.

Gregory T.S. Walker’s Minstrels & Minimoogs was self-published by a young, nomadic composer and virtuoso in 1988 to accompany an immersive multimedia performance at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Fiske Planetarium. Created with this outer, and other, world setting in mind, the four tracks find Walker stretching toward an ancient-to-future vision where Egyptian myths and Hieronymus Bosch-ian tableaus are rendered in a screaming three dimensional circuitry of electronic drums, synth guitars, and, of course, Minimoog. Given the musical terrains and outmoded topics traversed, and that this entirely DIY effort was originally released as a micro one-sided 12” edition, Minstrels & Minimoogs is as perplexing and euphoric a document lost-to-time as it is now found.

Born in 1961 into an intensely musical family spanning four generations, Gregory’s mother Helen Walker-Hill was a noted musicologist specializing in the rediscovery and work of historical Black female composers, while his father, George Walker, was the first African American composer to win the Pulitzer Prize for music. Both parents studied with the famed (and famously strict) Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1950s, and held to lofty aesthetic standards in their home life. Walker began studying the violin as a child, but when a burgeoning interest in the electric guitar and rock music as a teen manifested, it was largely verboten in the household. The rule was that the music played in the home was to be acoustic and classical. Although the elder Walkers eventually relented and allowed Gregory’s guitar to be plugged in for a brief interval on the weekends, the remaining days he settled for strumming it sans amplification.

Gregory, conditioned and eager for a life in music but looking to get out from under the influence and yoke of his famous composer father, ultimately chose to study computer music at the University of California at San Diego, where he earned a Master of Arts. This was followed by another MA in electronic music composition at that hotbed of West Coast experimental music, Mills College. Intermedia and multimedia in the arts was the rage in the 1980s, and Mills was one of the centers for it; audacious spectacle meeting visionary performance, such as one of the realizations for Anthony Braxton’s music for multiple orchestras a young Gregory performed in with his violin.

After a series of solo synthesizer concerts around California, Gregory followed a girlfriend on a mid-country move to Boulder, Colorado. After picking up yet another composition degree at University of Colorado Boulder, his life as a composer really started, writing a piece for extended technique for guitar, a passacaglia for vocoder and orchestra, as well as Minstrels & Minimoogs.

Envisioned as a multimedia performance such as the kind he’d experienced at Mills (which was all but unknown in Boulder at the time), Gregory roped in a number of college going or aged friends of varying skill levels and musical sympathies to accompany him with distorted sax or oblique spoken interludes. Confronted with a lack of finances, but driven to get his ideas captured in a complete musical package, the album was recorded in his brother’s apartment. If not every player assembled was on Gregory’s virtuosic level, so be it; it was more about capturing the spirit of his intentions and embracing the serendipity of mistakes.

An inspired attempt at world building, Minstrels & Minimoogs draws on the deep well of musical knowledge Gregory gathered from his parents and teachers, but all the while subverting that historical basis by incorporating mutant strains of prog and pop music. The work accumulated is not unlike the playful 1980s work of Gregorio Paniagua, where medieval estampies and rondeaus are wrenched into an anachronistic present where Hildegard Von Bingen and Kate Bush are contemporaries. Ars nova, new art, a 20th century minimalist jester and troubadour.

A one sided LP was the cheapest option Gregory found to have Minstrels & Minimoogs memorialized on vinyl, so somewhere between 50 to 100 copies were pressed. There was no distribution, outside of copies that were handed out to friends or sold at the performances at the planetarium. Gregory T.S. Walker’s cosmic-futuristic forays into oblique pop and baroque subversion could forever reside perfectly in both the domed simulacrum of our universe for which it was composed, in the formats it is being reintoduced now, and our own biblical firmament. For in the words of Gregory, straight from the original liner notes: “God Is A Minimoog”

Gregory T.S. Walker’s Minstrels & Minimoogs arrives again August 23, 2024 on vinyl and digitally as part of uncommon¢ (“uncommon sense”), an open-ended, serialized endeavor from Freedom to Spend that provides new meaning for rarefied recordings from music's outermost fringe.

Guided by San Francisco musician Andy Pastalaniec, Chime School pays homage to the formative jangle of The Byrds by way of early Primal Scream and The Springfields; the production and pop sensibility of Biff Bang Pow! and The Razorcuts; and the spirit of great singles labels like Creation, Postcard and Sarah. Although it would have fit with any of those labels, Chime School found a natural home with Bay Area indie stalwart Slumberland Records, releasing a self-titled debut in 2021, and a follow-up 7” single in 2023, to broad acclaim.

The anticipated follow-up LP "The Boy Who Ran The Paisley Hotel" is as stellar as we could have hoped for — deeper, richer and evolved in every way. While still joyfully packed with janglepop gems, "Paisley Hotel" takes a turn toward the winsome melancholy of groups like East Village, The Go-Betweens, and The Loft, and represents a leap forward in production, composition and arrangement. "The first record was a bit manic. I was trying to stuff so many years of influences into thirty brisk minutes. With 'Paisley Hotel' I chose a more condensed palette, and I feel I'm getting closer to the sonic vision I had from the beginning."

From the furnaces of Stoke-On-Trent comes the super-limited debut EP from Formal Sppeedwear, a wonky new wave teacup ready to be sipped.

Taking creative cues from Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies and Conny Plank’s experimental recording techniques to flesh out synthpop-oriented melodies, the EP stomps along with Scary Monsters-era Bowie guitar lines, early 80s Numan basslines and surreal lyrics - “Ready, set on my mark: Tesco Extra, Marks and Sparks” cries Clewlow on 6 Lofty Ash. There’s a versatility to the tracks; with the jolting staccato of The Line counter punched by EP closer and highlight Dismount’s soaring synth slow burn.

Defying the seas of young musicians moving to London and Manchester to find their path, Beck Clewlow (Bass, Vocals, Synthesisers) Charlie Ball (Guitar, synthesisers), and Connor Wells (Drums, Guitar, Synthesisers) stuck it out in Stoke, using the city as a blank canvas - devoting their spare time to writing and experimenting, building their own studio out of charity shop finds and cash-converter synths and recording equipment.

Out in the creative wilderness of Staffordshire there’s a healthy DIY scene brewing with bands waiting to make their mark; fly posting their own shows, making one-off merch for each gig, sharing lineups with one another. “There is no sense of geographical confinement here, there’s a wealth of talent who act indifferently to their surroundings. It’s particularly nice that some of our friends from here are starting to receive attention from elsewhere” say the band. As fellow locals University and Christian Music start to garner attention from the rest of the UK, it’s time for Formal Sppeedwear to follow suit.

Stoke-on-Trent might not be the first place you’d look to find your favourite new band - The Bootleg Beatles are one of its finest exports if you ask Google - but Formal Sppeedwear are here to show you the kilns are alright.

2024 Repress

Finders Keepers invite you to witness the incredible first ever Buchla synthesiser concerts/demonstrations providing a distinctive feminine alternative to The Silver Apples Of The Moon if they had ever been presented in phonographic form. This is history in the remaking.

This spring Finders Keepers Records are proud to release an archival project that not only redefines musical history but boasts genuine claim to the overused buzzwords such as pioneering, maverick, experimental, groundbreaking and esoteric, while questioning social politics and the evolution of music technology as we've come to understand it. To describe this records as a game-changer is an understatement. This record represents a musical revolution, a scientific benchmark and a trophy in the cabinet of counter culture creativity. This record is a triumphant yardstick in the synthesiser space race and the untold story of the first woman on the proverbial moon. While pondering the early accolades of this record it's daunting to learn that this record was in fact not a record at all... It was a manifesto and a gateway to a new world, that somehow never quite opened. If the unfamiliar, modernistic, melodic, pulses, tones and harmonics found on this 1975 live presentation/grant application/educational demonstration had been placed in a phonographic context alongside the promoted work of Morton Subotnick, Walter Carlos or Tomita then the name Suzanne Ciani and her influence would have already radically changed the shape, sound and gender of our record collections. Hopefully there is still chance.

In short, Suzanne was a self-imposed twenty-year-old employee of the Buchla modular synthesiser company, San Francisco's neck and neck contender to New York's Moog. Buchla was run by a community of festival freaks and academic acid eaters whose roots in new age lifestyles and the reinvention of art and music replaced the business acumen enjoyed by its likeminded East Coasters. In the eyes of the consumer the creative refusal to adopt rudimentary facets like a piano keyboard controller rendered the Buchla synthesiser the more obscure stubborn sister of the synth marathon, steering these incredible units away from the mainstream into the homes and studios of free music aficionados, art house composers and die-hard revolutionaries. Championed and semi-showcased by composer Morton Subotnick on his albums The Bull and Silver Apples Of The Moon, Buchla's versatility began to open the minds of a new generation, but the high-end design features and no-compromise modus operandi was often confused with incompatibility and, in the pulsating shadow of Moog's marketing, the revolution would not be televised nor patronised. Suzanne Ciani, as one of the very few female composers on the frontline (and also providing the back line) did not lose faith.

These concerts' are the epitome of rare music technology historic documents, performed by a real musician whose skills and academic education in classical composition already outweighed her male synthesiser contemporaries of twice her age. At the very start of her fragile career these recordings are nothing short of sacrificial ode to her mentor and machine, sonic pickets of the revolution and love letters to an absolutely genuine vision of and 'alternative' musical future. In denouncing her own precocious polymathmatic past in a bid to persuade the world to sing from a new hymn sheet, Suzanne Ciani created a bi-product of never before heard music that would render the pigeon holes ambient' and futuristic' utterly inadequate. Providing nothing short of an entirely different feminine take on the experimental records' of Morton Subotnick and proving to a small, judgmental audience and jury the true versatility of one of the most radical and idiosyncratic musical instruments of the 20th century. These recordings have not been heard since then.

The importance of these genuinely lost pieces of electronic musics puzzle almost eclipses the glaring detail of Suzanne's gender as a distinct minority in an almost exclusively male dominated, faceless, coldly scientific landscape. Those familiar with Suzanne's work, a vast vault of previously unpublished non-records', will already know how the creative politics in her art of being' simultaneously reshaped the worlds of synth design, advertising and film composition before anyone had even dropped a stylus in her groove. Needless to say this record, finally commanding the archival format of choice, courtesy of the Ciani and Finders Keepers longstanding unison, was not the last first' with which this hugely important composer would gift society, and the future of a wide range of exciting evolving creative disciplines.

You have found a holy grail of electronic music and a female musical pioneer who was too proactive to take the trophies. With the light of Buchla and Ciani's initial flame Finders Keepers continues to take a torch through the vaults of this lesser-celebrated music legacy shining a beam on these non-records' that evaded the limelight for almost half a century. You can't write history when you are too busy making it. With fresh ink in the bottomless well, let's start at the beginning. Again. You, are invited!

Over atmospheric instrumentation expanded by cinematic structure and pacing, Pearlty presents Knifeplay somewhere between dream-pop influenced shoegaze and lofty slowcore, never fully committing to one or the other in its insistence on creating an immersive, organic world.

Originally released in 2019, Knifeplay’s vivid debut Pearlty documents songwriter Tj Strohmer’s expressions of early adulthood in what he describes as “the journey from innocence to experience.”

Written during a time of immense inspiration, Strohmer was able to peel himself away from detached nihilism, uncovering the physicality and therapeutic powers of songwriting. Newly emboldened by this discovery and the talented community surrounding him, Strohmer channeled this revelation into his work, taking Knifeplay from a bedroom experiment that merely wrote songs to a more substantial project with a purpose.

After exiting Buster Summers Express, Leeds-based songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Derek Noy formed Jan Dukes De Grey with woodwinds player, Michael Bairstow, soon opening for Pink Floyd and the Who, though LPs Sorcerer and acid folk masterpiece Mice And Rats In The Loft sold poorly. After line-up changes, in 1977, Noy assembled a new crew for Strange Terrain, cut at Brittania Row with Roger Waters co-producing, but the album’s curious mix of post-prog, acid rock and punk was deemed unsuitable for release until 2010! This edition comprises the complete original LP, just as delivered at its time of recording. Essential!

“Joe McPhee’s first international release, Black Magic Man, was issued on the newly formed Hat Hut imprint in 1975. It was a watershed moment for the 35-year-old musician. Based in Poughkeepsie, New York, he was too far away from Manhattan to have participated extensively in the Loft Jazz happenings of the decade. European exposure, however, would give McPhee an alternative circuit, something of an escape route from the trappings of American cultural myopia. “In support of the new record for this Swiss label, McPhee invited John Snyder on a European tour in October 1975. Snyder was a synthesizer player with whom McPhee had made the duet LP Pieces Of Light, released a year earlier on CjR. The two musicians developed an extensive repertoire, playing diverse spaces in the Hudson Valley. Geographically close gigs were a plus, since it took extra energy to hoist Snyder’s ARP 2600. “McPhee and Snyder were invited to play at the Willisau Jazz Festival in Switzerland. If you compare this live record with Pieces Of Light, a studio effort, it’s considerably more open. South African drummer Makaya Ntshoko is rolling thunder on the choral ‘Voices,’ shuffling under Snyder’s bubbly beat on ‘Bahamian Folksong.’ It is quite a special combination, enough so that Hat Hut chose to release it as their next LP, Hat Hut B in their alphabetical series. The Willisau Concert represents the sound of Joe McPhee opening up, opening out, expanding his field of operations to include new figures, fresh experiences, new continents of sound.” —John Corbett (excerpt from the liner notes)

The new album from Lebanese-American musician Solpara, Melancholy Sabotage, marks his full length debut and return to Nicolas Jaar's Other People label. While it was recorded over Covid lockdowns, Jaar had been talking about wanting to back a Solpara full-length since he put out Swing. The album came to life while Solpara was living alone in a Brooklyn loft, collecting unemployment checks and viewing ample free time as the artist residency he'd dreamed of; he'd previously been forced to make music in odd windows between numerous jobs and the unmerciful pace of city life. Free from obligations, he would wake up early to take Arabic lessons online, read Tracey Thorn's autobiography, and skateboard the deserted streets, then come home and design sounds until he had a track that felt like it needed to be released. While this easy going lifestyle was peaceful in many ways, Solpara found more complex inspiration in the emotion that stemmed from participation in Black Lives Matter protests and the 2020 Beirut Port explosion, which rocked all of his extended family members in Lebanon.

Melancholy Sabotage explores the theme of sabotaging melancholy. Echoing sounds from the post-punk, trip-hop, and ambient genres, it is about sabotaging the cycle of melancholy and looking at this process without ignoring the sources that put it into motion. It may be compared to a rattling breaking free from retention, reaching states of dreamy euphoria while simultaneously acknowledging the sources of retention, viewed from above. The sources can be personal, political, or socio-economic. They are to be apprehended post-melancholy, after the sabotaging of the initial cycle of melancholy. In other words, it is about transcending melancholy and understanding where it came from with some distance. It may be beautiful and healthy to feel for a while, but how may one sabotage this cycle when it becomes paralyzing? Ultimately, this album is about feeling melancholy but also resisting it and naming the sources that initiated it.

"Time To Hold Better" points to neglect on both personal and group levels. "This Time Last Year" is a personal time capsule. "We Keep Us Safe" is about solidarity, autonomy, and care witnessed within protest groups. "Melancholy Sabotage" is a sonic exploration of the album concept illustrating anger and sadness, but finally, resistance and liberation from these feelings. "Measures" is a more fluid exploration of the latter after the initial storm has passed. "We Don't Owe" points to bigger bodies inflicting harm on populations that we owe nothing to. "Breaking Points" harkens the times that we may lose focus while pushing to transcend melancholy. "Eviction" is about being pushed out of a space unwillingly while simultaneously being forced to move forward.

Melancholy Sabotage pulls from a range of genres, uniting electronic sounds under the same post-punky glow. It pulls from complex, heavy themes including damage and injustice, presenting Solpara's most moving body of work to date. It highlights the poignance that has always been at the heart of his fluid sound, which caters to dancefloors and avant-garde spaces in equal measure. Working with a mix of dissonant guitars, distorted drum machines, and distant, reverb-washed vocals, Melancholy Sabotage is Solpara's uneasiest outing to date. The record pinpoints the duality at the heart of Solpara's sound, which is as plaintive as it is searing.

Lenticular Sleeve / White Vinyl. When Jack Tatum began work on Life of Pause, his third full-length to date, he had lofty ambitions: Don't just write another album; create another world. One with enough detail and texture and dimension that a listener could step inside, explore, and inhabit it as they see fit. "I desperately wanted for this to be the kind of record that would displace me," he says. "I'm terrified by the idea of being any one thing, or being of any one genre. And whether or not I accomplish that, I know that my only hope of getting there is to constantly reinvent. That reinvention doesn't need to be drastic, but every new record has to have its own identity, and it has to have a separate set of goals from what came before." What came before: a rightfully acclaimed, much beloved display of singular pop craftsmanship. Tatum's dreamy, unexpected 2010 debut, Gemini, was written while he was still a student at Virginia Tech University. Its equally disarming follow-up, 2012's Nocturne, marked the first time he'd been able to bring his bedroom recordings into a studio, to be performed and fully realized with the help of other musicians. There has been a set of wonderfully expansive EPs in between_each hinting at new directions and punctuating previous ideas_but with Life of Pause, Tatum delivers what he describes as his most "honest" and "mature" work yet, an exquisitely arranged and beautifully recorded collection of songs that marry the immediate with the indefinable. "I allowed myself to go down every route I could imagine even if it ended up not working for me," he says. "I owe it to myself to take as many risks as possible. Songs are songs and you have to allow yourself to be open to everything." After a prolonged period of writing and experimentation, recording took place over several weeks in both Los Angeles and Stockholm, with producer Thom Monahan (Devendra Banhart, Beachwood Sparks) helping Tatum in his search for a more natural and organically textured sound. In Sweden, in a studio once owned by ABBA, they enlisted Peter, Bjorn and John drummer John Ericsson and fellow Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra veteran Pelle Jacobsson, to contribute drums and marimba. In California, at Monahan's home, Tatum collaborated with Medicine guitarist Brad Laner and a crew of saxophonists. From the hypnotic polyrhythms of "Reichpop" to the sugary howl of "Japanese Alice" to the hallucinogenic R&B of "A Woman's Wisdom," the result is a complete, fully immersive listening environment. "I just kept things really simple, writing as ideas came to me," he says. "There's definitely a different kind of `self' in the picture this time around. There's no real love lost, it's much more a record of coming to terms and defining what it is that you have_your place, your relationships. I view every record as an opportunity to write better songs. At the end of the day it still sounds like me, just new."

2024 Reissue

Baricentro is an Italian funk-rock band founded in 1976 by two brothers Francesco and Vanni Boccuzzi; after the release of two albums in mid seventies (Sconcerto and Trusciant) for the major record company EMI; they recorded in 1983 the single "Tittle Tattle" representing a clear innovation in sound from their past, without believing that would receive a positive response in the New York City underground music scene and soon becoming a Paradise Garage and Loft classic. Best Record Italy today came out with this special reissue-project as a Limited Edition Ep, remastered from the original master tapes and containing for the first time all the versions from 1983 and 84 including the unreleased dub that was previously available as an acetate cut only for deejay play.

BGP are excited to launch their new 7s at 33 series which aims to deliver classic album length tracks in their full length on 7-inch singles.

Although a new series, we have experimented with this before, releasing Tom Moulton’s extended version of Patti Jo’s ‘Make Me Believe In You’ in 2016 to an ecstatic response and great sales.

‘Leaving This Planet’ was the title track of Charles Earland’s 1974 album of the same name: one of the finest jazz albums of the 70s. This Track was played at the Loft and other New York dance clubs in the 70s.

Here it is coupled with ‘Murilley’, an organ led vocal number that was a massive jazz dancer at the Wag Club, Dingwalls and beyond in the 80s.

Not God is the new album from Chicago's beloved two-headed monster, Finom (fka Ohmme). You can ask them to go into more detail about the boring reasons why they changed their name, but for now, the answer is going to be polite refusal. No. Co-fronted by Sima Cunningham and Macie Stewart, Finom's influences run vast and varied, and they put a premium on change. Produced by Jeff Tweedy in the Wilco Loft, Not God is a marvel of growth, a progression from the roots of this collaborative band whose history can be traced back to its improvised conception. This is owed in no small part to their hometown of Chicago, the life raft to so many persisters in musical adventurosity. That energy combined with Finom's dramatic vocal and musical gifts puts them in the peripheries of the legacies cemented by The Roches, Roxy Music, the B52s, Kate Bush, Cate Le Bon, and Wilco. Cunningham and Stewart are brilliant harmonizers, but harmony doesn't equate to a utopia. In Finom's maws harmony can also be a fight, holding the line until the volcano erupts. This realistic depiction of a creative relationship jolts throughout the songs of Not God, and brings the whole damn thing to life. Finom are more than one person with more than one dream. But still, they grow together, harnessed by their shared love of pop songwriting, control, chaos, and being generally freaky-deaky. Freaky in that way that is only really fun when you're doing it with a friend. As the globe spins and advancements advance, it can feel essential to return to relationships that make us feel whole, that generate energy of strength and relief. Which puts double the weight on the reality that Sima and Macie continue to pledge allegiance to each other, at the base of the volcano, in the front seat of the car as it pulls off the highway.

BANGER MAKE MY BODY SHAKE MAKE THE SPEAKERS SHAKE

It was two and a half years ago when a conversation took place between Sal Carmona and Dj Producer Jovonn Armstrong; talks of which planted a seed in Sal Carmona's ear, which years later would manifest what was once a dream into a reality. No stranger, nor a newcomer in the world of dance music, Sal's experience in the club scene goes way back to the days when his sisters, to whom he credits for helping shape the person he is today, took him to Dave Mancuso's The Loft. An experience that he recalls being nothing short of magical. It was a spiritual encounter that immediately took over thus steering him towards the direction of clubs such as The Paradise Garage, Bentley's, Underground, Red Parrot, Latin Quarters, Roseland, Studio 54, just to name a few. Years later, Sal decided to take on the role, of which he became quite successful at, of promoting his own events in New York City; throwing regular parties at venues such as Park Circle & USA roller skating rinks, Red Parrot, The Palladium, The Copacabana and many others, soon becoming one of the premier go to promoters in NYC. Taking a long and well-deserved hiatus from the club scene, in 2012 Sal decided to make his return back to what he loves. It was around this time that he began thinking what it would be like to venture into creating his very own record label. Envisioning his first release being a bona fide House Music Album, one that would include some of his favorite producers. Not one to let dreams drift into the ether, while recollecting on that conversation with Jovan way back, Sal set out to make that vision manifest into a reality and thus emerged this dope compilation titled Banger "Make My Body Shake" "Make the Speakers Shake"

A great idea which brings together an interesting mix that includes highly sought out and respected veteran producers in the scene, such as Timmy Regisford, Ron Trent, Dj Jovonn, and Joe Claussell. Alongside with up and coming DJ producers who are garnering their own adulation of fans, in the likes of Vick Lavender, Mark Francis, Conway Kasey, and DJ Punch. With valuable directional contributions from friend Joe Claussell, this, to say the least, has become far more than just a seriously dope compilation that consists of a unique coming together of serious dance music. More than the aforementioned, Sal Carmona has manifested a dream into a game changing music scripture that is one of a kind, especially in this day and age where it seems where things are thrown together hoping for something to stick. On the contrary, this is well planned and thought out dopeness at A higher level consisting of all new house music that hasn't been brought together like this in a very long time and probably not for a while afterwards.

Thin Lizzy’s iconic album Shades Of A Blue Orphanage is a staple for any rock enthusiasts collection. Pressed on Black vinyl and Deluxe CD. Thin Lizzy are one of rocks most famous and influential bands, formed in Ireland and led by the power of Phil Lynott, the band went on to reach lofty heights with singles ‘Whiskey In The Jar’, ‘The Boys Are Back In Town’ and ‘Jailbreak’ to mention a few. Thin Lizzy have inspired the liked of Metallica, U2, Guns N’ Roses and many more.

INNERMOODS is proud to present a newly discovered extended mix of the 2001 landmark collaboration between Paradise Garage/Loft Disco icon D.C. LARUE and NYC nightlife legend ADAM GOLDSTONE (1969-2006).

Maurice Fulton's outrageous remix of "The Fall" by Rhye has been cherished as a stone-cold masterpiece for the past decade. Out of print almost immediately, its legend has only grown and for too long it's been impossible to find a copy without parting with considerable cash. We've wanted to remedy this situation for years so we're delighted to announce that we've finally given it the Be With treatment.

The word ‘genius’ is bandied about liberally but it's fair to anoint Maurice Fulton with such lofty praise. Sheffield’s king of oddball disco, Fulton is one of our favourite artists, an outerspace-minded producer with roots in Baltimore club music who has no problem injecting dank interplanetary funk into the smoothest of acts. And so it goes with his remix of "The Fall". Rich and typically off-kilter, this is spellbinding disco par excellance. Fulton arms the track with a juddering electro-funk synth-bassline before shifting to a twanging disco reverb and conga-led, crash-cymbal-elevated groove.

Essential doesn't even cover it; it's just astonishingly good.

The gorgeous original, situated here on the flip, is a sublime serenade, all twinkling strings and sweet, sumptuous vocals over smooth, jazzy piano styles. It earned comparisons to Sade, Air and the xx upon initial release and it's still easy to understand why; it's warm and buoyant yet deeply melancholy. Elegantly downlifting, you could say.

Simon Francis remastered the original audio for both tracks and Cicely Balston's precise cut for Alchemy at AIR Studios ensures this 12" well and truly slaps. The immaculate Record Industry pressing will ensure this incredibly sought-after masterpiece finds a home in many more DJ boxes this and every year.

Total Reality is the sound of a group in constant forward motion, finding new sounds and new ways to express their joy and catharsis in making music together. On album opener 'Slug' the band sing ‘I’m feeling like a slug so I gotta visit the doctor’, and though reliably tongue-in-cheek you get the feeling they mean it - the members using Dr Sure’s Unusual Practice as a vessel to lift each other up while unpacking the collective fatigue of life in late-capitalist society. “A mood like that, you're apt to stay in it, not dial your way out. Despair like that, about total reality, is self-perpetuating." - Philip K Dick On their third LP Total Reality - a title ripped from the classic sci-fi novel ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’ - Dr Sure's Unusual Practice tackle lofty issues through a hopeful lense, avoiding the often cynical pastiche of modern punk music. Total Reality touches on varied influences - proto-punk to post-punk, new wave to no wave, krautrock to trip-hop - to concieve something fresh and inspired. Beginning in 2018 as a solo project, here Dougal Shaw is joined by an ever-expanding collective. In addition to a core band (Jake Suriano, Miranda Holt, Tali Harding-Hone, Mathias Dowle) the new record features contributions from Jack McCullagh (Cracodile), Stu Patterson (The Empty Threats/Placement), Alannah Sawyer (Babyccino/Mouseatouille), as well as Shaw’s partner Alivia Lester, and baby Blue - who also adorns the album cover. An almost polar approach to the band’s acclaimed second LP ‘Remember The Future? Vol. 2 & 1’, which was tracked live in a recording studio, Shaw refers to Total Reality as a ‘collage album’. There are pieces of pandemic-era demo’s; drum machines coexisting with a live-tracked rhythm section; fresh collaborations; layers of guitars, synths, horns and percussion; collected field recordings and samples - all cut and glued in Shaw’s home studio to realise an expansive and colourful record.

Samosa Records roars into 2024 with a sublime four-tracker, the curiously titled ‘(Re)-Funk+Head EP'.

All four tracks have been carefully sized, selected and re-edited by De Gama himself. For those not in the know, Re-Funking is serious business and you can tell De Gama’s laboratory was in full flow in bringing these tracks even closer to the dance floor!

First up on the A-Side are Samosa favourites Dirtyelements & Drunkdrivers with the hypnotic, smokey dim lit club thumper ‘Keep It Coming’. Coming in at a deceptive 115bpm, the bass massages your brain whilst the keys, vocal sample and beats tickle your toes. A deliciously salty and sweet re-edit.

Sneaking up on you is A2 and a track from label boss De Gama himself – the flutey, tootie late night funk bomb that is ‘Some More’. Be warned - this dirty birdie stirs up primordial feelings that are probably illegal in some countries. It’s not an overstatement to say that ‘Some More’ is the definition of pure, adult-orientated funking. Saddle up, put out the camp fire and ride it into town.

A quick flip to the B-side and you’ll find Paul Older’s Sax Francisco (B1) parading down the street in all its splendid glory. Mr Older sure knows how to cook - and served on his sombrero-shaped sun terrace is this fantastic tropical sorbet of a tune. The production is assured and so warm that you lose yourself for the entire 6 mins and 26 seconds in its spell. Expect this to be packed in your summer 2024 suitcase with your Factor 50.

Closing the EP off is the super-talented MB Edit and his deadly groover ‘Got The Feeling’. The serious business of Re-Funking is on full display here – stompy, squeaky clean four-to-the-floor drumbeats, twisted riffs and subtle piano prepare you for the soaring horns, heavenly strings and disco-fied vocal breakdown that used to make lofts bounce and dark clubs heave. A dreamy, relentless journey into the disco ball for those lucky enough to jump in.

(Re)-Funk+Head is another exceptional EP from the Samosa stables and pushes the ever-expanding sonic boundaries with seriously solid production, stone cold grooves and a roster of amazing talent on one EP. A must, must, must have for the record box!!

Ste Hendry Black Light Disco

- The second album of hypnotic primordial music from Berlin-based harper/multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Andy Aquarius that explores the mystical fringes of ambient, folk, and classical music. Hush Hush is honoured to welcome back Berlin-based harper, multi-instrumentalist, and vocalist Andy Aquarius to the label to help present 'Golla Gorroppu,' his second album of hypnotic primordial music that explores the mystical fringes of ambient, folk, and classical music. A follow-up to his acclaimed 2021 debut album 'Chapel,' 'Golla Gorrupu' leans into the emotional natural sentiments of European Romanticism and American Transcendentalism and reveals itself as an animist take on an internal expedition of a mythological mountain range. The album’s title, 'Golla Gorroppu,' is a phrase coined by Andy that stems from his meditations on the Sardinian Gorropu mountain range, a territory he explored in between the autumn of 2020 and spring of 2021. His personal translation of the title is "The Throat of the Mountain.” With this transformative experience as his foundation, Andy found meaning in his latest work. He shares: “At the heart of the mountain range lies a massive gorge (Gola/Goia) which is said to house various creatures of the night, amongst them trolls, the 'mother of Goroppu' and the devil himself. The first half of the record is tuning into the moving forces of the mountain - first the Rains, Groundwaters and Rivers, then the animal kingdom, represented by the goat and inspired by a remarkable meeting with a Sardinian mouflon (a wild sheep) during a solitary hike.
The second half of the record channels the kingdom of rocks - moving from the mountains' murky intestines towards their loftiest peaks, covering all the mossy mysticism and crystalline vistas that lie in between.” Sounding as indomitable and spirited as the landscape it portrays, 'Golla Goroppu' is a wayward epic that cries for you to become the mountain goat you always dreamt to be. Through his lyrical harp expressions and gentle vocal accents, Andy Aquarius’ latest statement traverses a magical terrain full of intrigue, nuance, and beauty.

Africamore: The Afro-Funk Side of Italy (1973-1978)

Continuing Four Flies' dedication to delving into lesser-explored periods of Italian music, Africamore takes us on a captivating journey into the intersection of Afro-funk and the Italian soundscape during the six years between 1973 and 1978 - a time when disco was looming on the horizon and the nightclub market was rapidly expanding.

Before reaching Italian shores, the infectious sound originating from African and Afro-Caribbean roots traversed both the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, landing on New York dancefloors, where DJ Dave Mancuso discovered "Soul Makossa" by Manu Dibango. In 1973, from Mancuso's Loft parties, the song's hypnotic groove spread to the rest of the globe, including in Italy, where it sparked a wave of imitations and variations.


Tribal influences thus found their way into Italian soul-funk and early-disco productions released between 1973 and 1978 – from psychedelic-tinged tunes like Jean Paul & Angelique's "Africa Sound" to the Afrobeat-inspired club banger "Kumbayero" by composer/producer Albert Verrecchia (aka Weyman Corporation); and from groundbreaking Afro-cosmic songs like Chrisma's "Amore", co-written by Vangelis and featuring the rhythms of Ghanaian-British Afro-rock band Osibisa, to mind-blowing floor-fillers like Beryl Cunningham's "Why O", a re-write of Nat King Cole's "Calypso Blues" arranged by Paolo Ormi, with percussion breaks that sound pretty much like what would later become known as techno.


Combining feel-good vibes with driving rhythms, world-style percussion, and even synths, all these productions pushed the boundaries of dance music at a time when disco had not yet taken over. In doing so, they sowed many of the seeds of the later Italian cosmic scene and its unique mixture of African elements, disco-funk and electronic music.

This was a brief but nuanced period in Italian music history, one that deserves to be rediscovered, with love.

Africamore is due out on March 22nd and will be available as a gatefold 2LP and digipak CD. Both formats come with stunning artwork by Kathrin Remest and liner notes by Pierpaolo De Sanctis and Elena Miraglia.

For a few years Leo Robinson was the sort of hidden secret you sometimes come across in local music scenes. First in Manchester and now in Glasgow, he’d pop up regularly on DIY bills or as local support to a touring act, quietly blowing them off stage with his rich baritone vocal and homespun lo-fi tales of folklore and animism. With The Temple – his debut on PRAH Recordings – he looks set to cross over from being a cult concern.

“There's a spectrum within the album between fully mythologising or symbolising my lived experience, and just stating it in very matter of fact terms - that push and pull between the need to abstract and the need to break through the abstraction and have an honest moment with oneself” he explains. “This is one of the themes of the album as well as part of the process. The aim was to take all these anecdotal or symbolic elements and merge them into one narrative and one world, in a way that you can find your way through the record as if it were a landscape or language with its own logic.”

The record takes on a pastoral, slightly baroque nature that Robinson partly attributes to a friend screening a lot of ‘70s BBC material in his book shop that they used to hang out at. There are also elements of jazz, flickering to life in “The Spring”’s piano-led finale and coda.

Thematically, Robinson likens it to a Jungian ‘Hero's Journey’, his voice possessing a character who goes through several defined stages of consciousness. From conception and the beginning of an earthly life, the first half of the album recognises the development of the protagonist’s narrative and identity, before “The Pink Light”’s freeform departure from the hitherto more song-based suite devastatingly shatters this. The second half of the album then sees the protagonist witness “the uncontainable” water; learning that true divinity lies not in the individual self or lofty notions of gods and temples, but in the unremarkable nettles, insects and dogs on the roadside riverbank - referenced on tracks “The Cormorant” and “The Spring”.

Although now residing north of the border, The Temple was written while Robinson was finding his feet in Manchester, having moved there to go to art school as a teenager (as a visual artist, he has exhibited at the Tiwani Contemporary in London and Cardiff’s Chapter Arts Centre). As a result, many of the tracks bear out the shadows of his experiences in the northern city – at their most visible and explicit on the beautifully fragile storytelling of “The Pavement”. Written the day after the Manchester Arena Bombings, it recalls Robinson waking up to go to work on a hot summer’s day to discover that his street had been blocked off for terrorism investigations; it then progresses through the rest of his day, amidst the grimly surreal aftermath of the previous night.

Having written the chords, melodies and lyrics to the album, Robinson fleshed out the tunes by scoring out parts for the additional instrumentation, but it was only when a friend sent a demo to PRAH that he was able to fund its full recording. Guitars, vocals, piano and French Horn (the latter recorded by Lauren Reeve-Rawlings) were put down at Green Door Studios in Glasgow. Microphones were placed around the room and the sound of the musicians stepping on creaky floorboards and opening creaky doors were left audible to further the record’s live feel. The harpsichord heard on “The Serpent”, meanwhile, came from University of Glasgow lecturer David McGuinness. Strings were then recorded at PRAH Studios by Francesca Ter-Berg and Raven Bush, the Social Singing Choir adding their choral vocals to “Temple II”.

The result is an album that feels both luscious and yet intimately raw; as grand as Richard Dawson at his most panoramic but containing the rough edges and skeletal looseness of a Calvin Johnson work. At times Robinson lyrically moves towards the surreal, but ultimately this is a record grounded in reality; a true showcase of Robinson’s skill as a lyricist and songwriter.

Over atmospheric instrumentation expanded by cinematic structure and pacing, Pearlty presents Knifeplay somewhere between dream-pop influenced shoegaze and lofty slowcore, never fully committing to one or the other in its insistence on creating an immersive, organic world. Originally released in 2019, Knifeplay’s vivid debut Pearlty documents songwriter Tj Strohmer’s expressions of early adulthood in what he describes as “the journey from innocence to experience.” Written during a time of immense inspiration, Strohmer was able to peel himself away from detached nihilism, uncovering the physicality and therapeutic powers of songwriting. Newly emboldened by this discovery and the talented community surrounding him, Strohmer channeled this revelation into his work, taking Knifeplay from a bedroom experiment that merely wrote songs to a more substantial project with a purpose. Pearlty’s various climactic passages, like those heard on the impressionist album opener “Tears”, envelop listeners in textured walls of distorted guitar and noisy breakdowns, a distinct hallmark of shoegaze – but Knifeplay’s compositions go far beyond such conventions. Also featured are downtempo compositions – such as the tribute track “Angel” – that call on a range of influences, from grunge to lofi pop, all the way back to slowcore. Layers of Strohmer’s falsetto lilt adorn the songs with another dimension of sentimentality, while rounding out the sonic vastness of the group’s emotionally enrapturing style, lending impressive depth to the band’s debut full-length.

The vinyl is pressed in pink.

Ltd. Pink Coloured 180g Vinyl ( )

Over atmospheric instrumentation expanded by cinematic structure and pacing, Pearlty presents Knifeplay somewhere between dream-pop influenced shoegaze and lofty slowcore, never fully committing to one or the other in its insistence on creating an immersive, organic world. Originally released in 2019, Knifeplay’s vivid debut Pearlty documents songwriter Tj Strohmer’s expressions of early adulthood in what he describes as “the journey from innocence to experience.” Written during a time of immense inspiration, Strohmer was able to peel himself away from detached nihilism, uncovering the physicality and therapeutic powers of songwriting. Newly emboldened by this discovery and the talented community surrounding him, Strohmer channeled this revelation into his work, taking Knifeplay from a bedroom experiment that merely wrote songs to a more substantial project with a purpose. Pearlty’s various climactic passages, like those heard on the impressionist album opener “Tears”, envelop listeners in textured walls of distorted guitar and noisy breakdowns, a distinct hallmark of shoegaze – but Knifeplay’s compositions go far beyond such conventions. Also featured are downtempo compositions – such as the tribute track “Angel” – that call on a range of influences, from grunge to lofi pop, all the way back to slowcore. Layers of Strohmer’s falsetto lilt adorn the songs with another dimension of sentimentality, while rounding out the sonic vastness of the group’s emotionally enrapturing style, lending impressive depth to the band’s debut full-length.

"Pearlty" by Knifeplay includes the following tracks: "Feel U", "Mirage", "Held My Hand", "Lemonhead" and more.

If there ever was a monicker apt for describing an artist’s behavior, that is Ghost Lemurs. Manifesting spottily in compilations and limited edition tapes, then returning to the shadows without much fanfare, the project has indeed demonstrated a ghostly behavior and a nature as puzzling as the animal it takes its name from. Wombs And Alien Spirits represents now their most public outing, one in which the duo of visual artist / producer Kareem Lofty and Daniele Guerrini (better known as Heith and as Haunter’s co-founder) are happy to showcase all the discoveries in a process of musical and spiritual research begun in 2019. Described by the artists themselves as an experiment in mediterranean psi-trance, the album makes use of an incredibly diverse number of traditions, sonic sources and techniques of musical experimentation, keeping its psychedelic intentions central to the whole creative endeavor. Moments of meditative relaxation are brought to unsettling new levels by cavernous basses and spaced out drones, while tight polyrhythms bring beautiful granular melodies to a sidereal ceremonial dance. As beautiful and captivating as it is, Wombs And Alien Spirits remains as chimeric and unrestrained as any previous effort by the two artists. It’s a type of folk music devoid of a specific homeland, but resulting from the authors’ heritages, simultaneously divided and united by the mediterranean sea, injected with all the trajectories of their personal journeys. It ends up sounding profoundly human and uncannily inhuman, tapping into the undiscovered alien element at the beginning of the experience of life. Genre: Electronic / Experimental Listen:

2024 Repress

Limited edition remastered reissue of an obsure Italian Balearic Disco song produced and arranged by Victorio Pezzolla the same man behind the project "ASSO - Don't Stop" that was a big hit during early 80s in the N.Y.C. underground clubs, regularly played by Larry Levan at Paradise Garage and by David Mancuso at Loft. The plus on this limited edition reissue is that the production is directly handled by the former producer to obtain a more accurate sound compared from the first release.

Doug Liman’s breakthrough film Swingers showed he had a real ear for music; for his next film, 1999’s Go, he traded neo swing nostalgia for rave culture, but the beats-heavy score still took center stage. Its tale of a drug deal gone wrong dismissed by some as a Pulp Fiction rip-off when originally released, Go has become a bona-fide cult classic over the years, and its kinetic soundtrack—composed of the most au courant artists and tracks (including the first new single in two years from No Doubt)—has always enjoyed a lofty reputation among film score cognoscenti. For this 25th anniversary release, we’ve fashioned a gatefold jacket festooned with stills from the film to hold the two LPs, which we’ve pressed in “Blue Smoke” vinyl limited to 750 copies!

ALWAYS + FOREVER is the first compilation to be released on Do You Have Peace? collecting unreleased tracks from both new and existing artists on the label. Featuring Time Cow, YL Hooi, Teresa Winter, Jonnine, Guest, Static Cleaner Lost Reward, Hermeneia, Zaumne, Birthmark, Silzedrek, Laughter of Saints, Vessel & Rakhi Singh. Originally imagined as a project to link together the dream pop related leanings of a disparate group of artists, as the project grew it became more amorphous but still kept a strange and half awake quality throughout. The pop leanings are still there, although often buried under slabs of reverb, but there are also less heavy lidded bedroom confessionals, as well as DIY chamber pieces and teary eyed instrumental passages. Most of the vocal-led tracks are in the first half of the album, leaving the second section to drift fully into hypnagogic sedative territory. Where vocals do come in they are more like half remembered fragments of dream speech than any kind of traditional narrative. The voices eventually leave us completely, drifting through 3 chamber pieces, reclaiming the classical arrangements of strings / piano / etc from the lofty heights of concert halls and scores to something more intimate and familiar, a box room in a flat, or a bedroom, a memory of lying awake staring at the ceiling and trying to go to sleep again.

What I can say about TORRES is I think the music comes from a convicted place. Not convicted meaning a person is narrowly and foolishly committed to an ideal, or unshakably convinced of themselves, or a zealot, or stubborn. I mean dedicated, I mean: If TORRES' music gets weird, gets brainy, gets funny, gets defiant, provokes, deliberately scandalizes, employs the crass to undermine the austere, courts lofty philosophical truth-it's all done with the conviction of an artist with the (essential) belief in the worth of their task. I think you can hear it in the songs, someone reaching, leaning over the boundary between known and not, probing the almighty. After a decade and six studio albums and however many one-offs and tours and articles read and conversations had, the parts of this pursuit I've been able to observe are all marked by a dedication to creation that treats the act-ongoing-with as much preciousness as the evidence of the act that is left in a record. The modes of being are different: heartbroken, broke, furious (right- and unrighteously), awestruck by love, compelled by desire. sometimes resigned to death, sometimes fascinated by and reverent of the future. Sometimes viscerally present, other times suspended in heady awareness, poised on a fulcrum of observation and participation in the phenomenon that aliveness is. The tools are the same: instruments that growl and shriek and moan, a lyrical voice shouting, swooning, chuckling, snarling as the moment commands. TORRES' music-making is conducted in a melodic vocabulary unique to itself-methods, equipment, circumstances shifting around the impulse to affirm the self within the world, to make art that bears all these little artifacts of the divine and of the real and show it to people and know it is valuable. I think that's what Mackenzie's music does. And I think it's just incredibly good music to listen to. -Julien Baker TORRES is the pseudonym of Mackenzie Scott. She was born January 23, 1991, and lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her wife Jenna, stepson Silas, and puppy Sylvia. She has been releasing albums and performing as TORRES since 2013. What an enormous room is TORRES' sixth studio album (her third with Merge). It was recorded in September and October 2022 at Stadium Heights Sound in Durham, North Carolina. It was engineered by Ryan Pickett, produced by Mackenzie Scott and Sarah Jaffe, mixed by TJ Allen in Bristol, UK, and mastered by Heba Kadry in NYC. The album contains 10 songs. Mackenzie wrote all of them. Sarah played bass guitar, synths, drums, organ, and piano. Mackenzie sang vocals, played guitar, bass, synths, organ, piano, and programmed drums. Additional synth bass, tambourine, and shakers were played by TJ Allen.

What I can say about TORRES is I think the music comes from a convicted place. Not convicted meaning a person is narrowly and foolishly committed to an ideal, or unshakably convinced of themselves, or a zealot, or stubborn. I mean dedicated, I mean: If TORRES' music gets weird, gets brainy, gets funny, gets defiant, provokes, deliberately scandalizes, employs the crass to undermine the austere, courts lofty philosophical truth-it's all done with the conviction of an artist with the (essential) belief in the worth of their task. I think you can hear it in the songs, someone reaching, leaning over the boundary between known and not, probing the almighty. After a decade and six studio albums and however many one-offs and tours and articles read and conversations had, the parts of this pursuit I've been able to observe are all marked by a dedication to creation that treats the act-ongoing-with as much preciousness as the evidence of the act that is left in a record. The modes of being are different: heartbroken, broke, furious (right- and unrighteously), awestruck by love, compelled by desire. sometimes resigned to death, sometimes fascinated by and reverent of the future. Sometimes viscerally present, other times suspended in heady awareness, poised on a fulcrum of observation and participation in the phenomenon that aliveness is. The tools are the same: instruments that growl and shriek and moan, a lyrical voice shouting, swooning, chuckling, snarling as the moment commands. TORRES' music-making is conducted in a melodic vocabulary unique to itself-methods, equipment, circumstances shifting around the impulse to affirm the self within the world, to make art that bears all these little artifacts of the divine and of the real and show it to people and know it is valuable. I think that's what Mackenzie's music does. And I think it's just incredibly good music to listen to. -Julien Baker TORRES is the pseudonym of Mackenzie Scott. She was born January 23, 1991, and lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her wife Jenna, stepson Silas, and puppy Sylvia. She has been releasing albums and performing as TORRES since 2013. What an enormous room is TORRES' sixth studio album (her third with Merge). It was recorded in September and October 2022 at Stadium Heights Sound in Durham, North Carolina. It was engineered by Ryan Pickett, produced by Mackenzie Scott and Sarah Jaffe, mixed by TJ Allen in Bristol, UK, and mastered by Heba Kadry in NYC. The album contains 10 songs. Mackenzie wrote all of them. Sarah played bass guitar, synths, drums, organ, and piano. Mackenzie sang vocals, played guitar, bass, synths, organ, piano, and programmed drums. Additional synth bass, tambourine, and shakers were played by TJ Allen.

DJ Monchan returns with a killer two track EP.

The sound experience is similar to his previous releases and continues to explore the void between old-school 80's house and 70's disco.

'Love Me' has that 80's house backbone but loops and filters the disco samples into a real journey...proper Loft biz if you ask us.
'U&Me' is a serious boogie stepper that is as bumpy as it gets and together with the smooth vocals this will sound ace at any disco jam :)

LP reissue of Collective Calls, the first duo LP from Evan Parker and percussionist Paul Lytton. Mythically alluded to as ‘An Improvised Urban Psychodrama In Eight Parts”, Collective Calls utilises electronics, pre-records and homemade instruments to wryly in/act self investigation. Having just recorded the cliff jumping Music Improvisation Company with Derek Bailey, Christine Jeffrey, Hugh Davies and Jamie Muir, Parker was at the point where he was thinking, ‘what’s the next thing?’ On Collective Calls, only the 5th release to appear on the newly minted Incus label, percussionist Paul Lytton arrives with an arsenal of sound making sources to push Parker into ever new territory. Recorded in the loft of The Standard Essenco Co on Southwark Street by Bob Woolford (Topography of the Lungs, AMM The Crypt), Collective Calls has more in common with noise or music concrete than with jazz; sitting comfortably alongside Italian messrs Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza or the husband-wife duo of Anima Sound. According to Martin Davidson, it was a Folkways record that Lytton was obsessed with around the time of this release - Sounds of the Junkyard - its track titles like “Steel Saw Cutting Channel Iron in Two Places” working to give you a good idea of the atmosphere of Collective Calls. Paul Lytton had encountered the use of electronics in music in 1968 when he was invited to play drums on the recording of An Electric Storm by White Noise (along with David Vorhaus, Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson). He had seen Hugh Davies using contact mics in the Music Improvisation Company, and soon set about assembling a Dexion frame akin to drummer John Stevens’, except that his own was armed with several single-coil electric guitar pickups, long wires and strings with connected foot-pedals to modulate pitch. Influenced as much by Stockhausen, Cage and David Tudor as he was by Max Roach and Milford Graves, Lytton’s percussion is abstract, expressionist and at times totally mutant. Sometimes rolling extremely fast, then screeching almost backwards over feedback, Lytton gives Parker room to play some of his weirdest work. Parker is listed as performing both saxophones, but also his own home made assemblages, including one dubbed the ‘Dopplerphone’ - a length of soft rubber tubing (activated by a saxophone mouthpiece and manipulated to alter the rate of airflow) attached to a longer length of clear plastic tubing (whirled around the head whilst being played) ending in a plastic funnel. Thickening the brew even more, Parker would also add a cassette recorder, on which he would play back collected sounds and previous recordings of the duo. Imagining the set up in a 70s loft, it’s an assemblage more akin to what today's free ears might see at a Sholto Dobie show, spread out on the floor of the Hundred Years Gallery, the shadow of Penultimate Press lurking in the corner. It’s a testament to Parker’s shape shifting sound - the ever present link to birdsong being at its most warped here - terrifically free and unfussy, wild and loose from any of the dogma that might come in later Brit-prov years

Late Night Tales reissues the classic and hard-to-find
‘Late Night Tales: Jamiroquai’, compiled by none other
than Jay Kay himself. The 10th edition of what is now
a classic series of compilations was originally released
20 years ago, and hasn’t been available on vinyl for
over 15 years. A blissful collection of soul, disco, jazz,
rare groove, and funk, this collection is an electrifying
journey through the aural influences of one of the UK’s
most seminal jazz bands.
Jay Kay showcases a wealth and breadth of inspiration
that wouldn’t be amiss on the late-night dancefloors
of the Loft (or Giant Steps, for that matter). From The
Pointer Sisters’ uplifting and soulful ‘Happiness’ and
jazz funk legend Johnny ‘Smith’ Hammond’s ‘Fantasy’
to the anthemic ‘Stay Free’ by Ashford & Simpson and
mellifluous ‘Music Of The Earth' by Patrice Rushen,
these two discs form a rite of passage into the creative
mind of a true musical legend.