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RSD album now available at a slightly cheaper price. Double Transparent Violet Coloured vinyl & DL card. 1000 copies pressed. Fist time on vinyl. Double debut from Howe Gelb’s one-off project that features members or Arcade Fire, Grandaddy, Scout Niblett and M Ward among others. Featuring extensive notes and interviews with the collaborators, exploring how the whole thing was put together.

Record Kicks drops "Solid Ground", the explosive debut album by US band The Grease Traps, recorded at Kelly Finnigan' Transistor Sounds and mixed by Orgone's Sergio Rios.

Recorded between Kelly Finningn's Transistor Sound in San Francisco and Fifty Filth Studio in Oakland and mixed by Orgone' producer Sergio Rios and Kevin O' Dea, Record Kicks is proud to finally present Solid Ground, the long-awaited debut album by US very finest deep funk & soul outfit The Grease Traps. The album is set for worldwide release on November 5 on vinyl, CD and digital format. The band, based in Oakland, CA, is the latest addition to Milan-based Record Kicks roster. Active since 2002, with a 45 released on well-respected funk/soul label, Colemine Records, now, after six years spent working on the album's recording and mixing, they are ready to present their first full-length release Solid Ground on Record Kicks. The album is anticipated by the two killer funk singles "Bird of Paradise" and "More and More" on limited edition 45 vinyl.

As avid record collectors and fans of that old school analog sound, Solid Ground was recorded straight to 8-track tape on a Tascam 388, which also graces the cover art. Half of the tracks were recorded live at Transistor Sound Studio by soul crooner, Kelly Finnigan, and Ian McDonald where both Kelly and their band, Monophonics, have recorded their last few albums. The other half of the tunes were recorded by Kevin and Aaron at Fifty Filth Studio in Oakland, CA where the band also rehearses and mixed by analog-obsessive Orgone producer Sergio Rios. The album's original tunes draw from the Traps' various soul influences ranging from gritty funk ("Bird of Paradise" and "Hungry") to fuzzed-out psychedelic ("Residue") to sweet lowrider soul ("More and More"). The lyrics by lead singer The Gata also don't shy away from pressing issues of the day such as racism in America ("Roots") and finding hope in a world that seems pitted against you (the JB's style "Solid Ground"). The rare funk covers from the album provide a taste of the raw energy one would experience at a Grease Traps live show. The Traps also supplemented their sound with special guests including the Monophonics horns, background vocals from seasoned Bay Area vocalists, Sally Green and Bryan Dyer, as well as strings organized by Kansas City master viola player, Alyssa Bell.

The seed of The Grease Traps formed back in 2000 when keyboardist, Aaron Julin, answered an ad put out by guitarist, Kevin O'Dea, searching for players who were hip to the rare grooves laid down by Blue Note artists such as Grant Green and Lou Donaldson. They quickly formed Groovement, covering those same artists along with other jazz-funk staples. When their sax player and frontman moved away, they switched gears to form the band, Brown Baggin, getting into the harder funk of the JB's, the Meters, Kool & the Gang, and lesser known acts such as Mickey & the Soul Generation. They also started digging into the rare funk compilations put out by Keb Darge, Jazzman Gerald,and labels like Harmless, Ubiquity, Soul Jazz, and Now-Again. Modern day soul and funk outfits such as Breakestra, the Whitefield Brothers, and the Daptone/Soul Fire crews provided additional inspiration.

In 2005, while still playing with Brown Baggin yet fed up with juggling the schedules of seven band members, Aaron and Kevin put out an ad to find a bassist and drummer to jam with as a quartet. The first two cats to show up were bassist, Goopy Rossi, and drummer, Dave Brick. It was clear from the get-go that this rhythm section had great chemistry. Originally intended as a fun side project, the Traps quickly took priority as Brown Baggin dissolved. Performing as an instrumental quartet for a number of years, they eventually expanded their repertoire to include horns as well as that sharp-dressing soul brother, The Gata, on lead vocals. Over the years, they've shared the stage with acts such as Shuggie Otis, Robert Walter, Durand Jones, Monophonics, Neal Francis, and Jungle Fire.

LTD. COLORED VINYL

Somewhere Between: Mutant Pop, Electronic Minimalism & Shadow Sounds of Japan 1980–1988 hovers vibe–wise between two distinct poles within Light In The Attic’s acclaimed Japan Archival Series—Kankyō Ongaku: Japanese Ambient, Environmental & New Age Music 1980–1990 and Pacific Breeze: Japanese City Pop, AOR & Boogie 1976–1986. All three albums showcase recordings produced during Japan’s soaring bubble economy of the 1980s, an era in which aesthetic visions and consumerism merged. Music echoed the nation’s prosperity and with financial abundance came the luxury to dream.

Sonically, Somewhere Between mines the midpoint between Kankyō Ongaku’s sparkling atmospherics and Pacific Breeze’s metropolitan boogie. The compilation encompasses ambient pop, underground electronics, liminal minimalism and shadow sounds—all descriptors emphasizing the hazy nature of the nebula. Out–of–focus rhythms wear ethereal accoutrements, ballads are shrouded in static, and angular drums snake skyward on transcendent tones. From the Avant–minimalism of Mkwaju Ensemble and Yoshio Ojima, to the leftfield techno-pop of Mishio Ogawa and Noriko Miyamoto (featuring members of YMO), and highlights from the groundbreaking Osaka underground label Vanity Records, these are blurry constellations defying collective categorization.

These tracks also exist in a space of transition when the major label grip on the Japanese recording market began to give way to the escalation of independents. Thanks to the idyllic economic climate and innovations in domestically–manufactured music gear, creators on the edges were empowered to focus on satisfying their artistic visions in the open headspace of home studios. While labels like Warner Music and Nippon Columbia explored new sounds through traditional channels, it was possible for Vanity, Balcony and other indie labels, not to mention self–released artists like Ojima and Naoki Asai, to publish their work via affordable media such as cassettes, 7" vinyl, and flexi–discs.

Expertly curated by Yosuke Kitazawa and Mark “Frosty” McNeill (dublab), Somewhere Between is a collection of music, much of it released for the first time outside Japan, that is bound more by energetic vibration than shared history, genre or scene. They are the sounds of transition and searching—a celebration of the freedom found in floating.

Note: The track “Days Man” by Yoshio Ojima is only available on the LP and Cassette versions.

Lucid Express is five young dreamers who create a stunning airy blend of shoegaze and indie pop amongst the skyscrapers, mountains, and packed alleyways of Hong Kong. The name itself a modest mission statement of the band's intent: lucid in the poetic sense of something bright and radiant. The group formed as teens in the winter of 2014 in the turbulent weeks just prior to the Umbrella Movement. Vocalist/synth player Kim says "at that time it felt like we have a need to hold on to something more beautiful than before. Like close friendships, the band, our creation." Listening to their blissful, dreamy compositions, it may come as no surprise that these songs carry the mood of their times of inception. With all members of the band working late-night shifts, this led to a rehearsal and recording schedule that found the band playing between midnight and 4am and then crashing together on the studio floor before returning to work early in the AM. Debut album Lucid Express was given an extra sparkle thanks to the creative mixing of Max Bloom (Yuck), operates as the service to take the listener on a journey through the band's color-soaked sounds.

It's back-to-back hits with the return of the Names You Can Trust split single series featuring two new emerging artists and record debuts.

After years on the local New York scene as DJs, collaborators and permanent fixtures amongst the brightest of musicians and artists, Raspadura has spent a long time brewing behind the curtain, tucked away in the musical minds of real life partners Josue Granados (Sonidero Mixteco, Los Taxis) and Dayan Silva (Dayansiiita). Their coming out party as recording artists is a perfect encapsulation of the duo's raucous but delightful energy. "Pa Que Gocen" is pure punkera, but seasoned with a deep musical appreciation that abounds in the timeless tropical music universe, and surely a precursor to further recording adventures, as this debut should warrant. The appeal is obvious as soon as the needle drops. Silva's enchanting vocals grab you immediately, with tales of sweets upon sweets. Pure visions of dulce, panela and miel are chanted over the rhythm of Granados' low down ska-beat and hypnotizing tres cubano. For Raspadura, dessert is first!

Come fly with Grupo Pernil in this ode to the timeless vibes of gypsy rumba, merengue and guaracha. Featuring an international all-star cast of musicians from travelling adventures and collaborations of recent years, "Danza de la Cabra" was originally conceived at home in the NYCT studio, and later brought to life with additional sessions inside Amsterdam's Heat Too Hot and Barcelona's Nación Funk studios. This one-off instrumental recording turned into a case of severe psicodelica, under the influence and improvisation of the group's talented players and percussion professionals, then amped and electrified for maximum effect with a touch of studio magic and a taste for local iberico. Featuring members of Greenwood Rhythm Coalition, Conjunto Papa Upa, Fundación Tony Manero and Los Fulanos.

The Fabulous Counts were originally a teenage instrumental group of five musicians, Mose Davis (Organ and Piano), Demetrius ‘Demo’ Gates (Alto Saxophone and vocals), Jim White (Tenor Sax), Andrew T. Gibson (Drums) and Raoul Keith Mangrum (Percussion and Flute) who were later joined by the older, more experience Leroy Emanuel (Guitar and vocals). Emmanuel was invited into the group as it’s band leader by the groups manager Fred McClure, a former Detroit boxing champion who also happened to be the manager of another popular Detroit group the singing Metro’s of the hit recording “Sweetest One” fame and their subsequent respected RCA album of the same name. The Fabulous Counts would often perform at shows as the Metro’s backing band.

The Fabulous Counts first big break came after knocking several Detroit Record labels doors. They were eventually invited in by Ollie McLaughlin’s Moira studio to record, under the tutelage of Popcorn Wylie the one take hit “Jan, Jan (Moira-103). A further two Moira 45’s followed of which “Get Down People/Lunar Funk “(Moira-108) also scored high on the R&B charts. Through a deal arranged by McLaughlin The Counts released their respected “Jan, Jan” album on the Atlantic distributed Cotillion label in 1969. Moving on to Armen Boladian’s Westbound label, during 1970 the group simply changed their name to The Counts and charted with their 1971 “What’s Up Front” Westbound album, also releasing a solitary 45 “Thinking Single/Why Not Start All Over Again”. In 1972 while still part of the Westbound set up The Counts recorded two major label 45’s under the pseudonyms of Bad Smoke “Crawl Ya’ll Part 1&2” (Chess-2124) and Lunar Funk “Mr Penguin Part 1&2” (Bell 45-172), the latter being thier biggest hit. A subsequent move to Atlanta, GA saw The Counts sign with Michael Thevis’s Aware records where they recorded a further two successful albums “Love Sign” (1973) and “Funk Pump” (1975), plus a string of 45’s. In 1976 although officially never breaking up The Counts members went their separate ways to explore different life opportunity’s.



During 1978 and while still in Atlanta Leroy Emanuel borrowed money from his family and reuniting with his fellow Counts, Mose, Demo, and Jimmy Jackson Jr, they, accompanied by a local strings section recorded a session of material that spawned two songs “What’s It All About” and “Motorcity”. Which Leroy later made a deal with Terry Mendelson to release on a 45 on his TM label. The Counts had previously known Mendelson through his brother Bernie at Westbound. The TM 45 made very little noise with many of the copies having mispressed labels. Although later reissued and mistakenly credited as two previously unissued Westbound recordings on several latter Cd compilations it came to light that quite a few avid European soul collectors actually owned copies of this high quality, very elusive and desirable 45! With demand still seemingly high it seems a good time for Soul Junction to reissue it. The A-side, “What’s It All About” features its composer Leroy Emanuel on lead vocals with the other Counts adding to the backing chorus. The flipside of this 45 from the same session is the previously unreleased Mose Davis penned “Watch The Clock” which is more in keeping with the Counts traditional funk groove, enjoy.

ORDER was founded in 2013 by Anders Odden, Rene Jansen, Kjetil Manheim and Billy Messiah, the group respectively responsible for early-stage Norwegian death metal (Cadaver) and the origin of the Norwegian Black metal (Mayhem). In 2014, Jansen sadly passed away, leaving the project unrealized. The remaining members decided to move forward despite the setback. In 2015 Stu Manx (f. Gluecifer) joined the band and set the band back on its quest to make unpolished raw black metal for the 21st century. To honor Jansen the band released the demo tape ‘Folly Grandeur’ - with rehearsal recordings the following year - and the debut album ‘Lex Amentiae’.
It has been four long years since then, and they are now finally ready to release their long-awaited second studio album, ‘The Gospel’. This time showing the world what strong recipe the current lineup represent. While the band was very satisfied with their debut album, according to the band The Gospel is on a totally different level. “This time we have arrived at a place where the creative flow truly feels unique and to the core of ORDER”, Kjetil Manheim says and continues. “In The Gospel you will meet us on a very personal level. In this record we open ourselves and invite you into our innermost, both musically and through the lyrics. If you ever wondered who we are, and where we come from musically this album is an answer.” Together again they made music that brought to life sounds from the early days, and with ‘The Gospel’ they have arrived in the energy field that fueled the early era where they first met; The Deathcrush era.

Cardinal Fuzz and Feeding Tube Records are at long last ecstatic to bring to you for your listening pleasure “Nudity - Is God’s Creation” 2xLP . A retrospective release of recordings dating from 2005 to 2010 of orgasmic interstellar mayhem . Reissued and for the first time available domestically in the USA

In 2004, a commune named NUDITY, formed by four travellers from the astral plane, appeared in Olympia, Washington. The founding members were Dave HARVEY (guitar) and Jon Quitty QUITTNER (bass - though Josh Haynes of the mighty guitar fuzz scorchers Feral Ohms plays bass on the majority of the tracks featured here), both of whom were former guitarists of Tight Bros From Way Back When and Eryn ROSS (drums) from Growling, A couple of self-distributed Cdrs and a 12” on Discourage were a visual akin to coloured liquid sloshing around on a transparency machine and were a pure drip feed for psych /kraut and Jap Rock fiends around the world as Julian Cope and Terrascope raved about them. Alas for whatever reason no full length LP arrived from the original line up - something that at last has been rectified as now all these tracks have been brought together (along with some unreleased gems and a couple of live bonus download tracks). The sonic ear candy contained within the 4 sides of vinyl presented here go From Detroit fuzz blazing face melters to acid trippin' head swirling raga’s via The Flower Travelin’ Band and Hawkwind. Nudity were the masters and for those that missed out the first time this double album was released - Don't make the same mistake a second time.

Terrascope gushed about Nudity - "This is seriously fucking good; one of those quite literally extra-ordinary LPs that come along every once in a while which you just know instinctively are going to be dug out and played, sniffed and caressed for years"

Founded in 2014 in Berlin by The Oath front woman Johanna Sadonis, the group first consisted of Cathedral, Angel Witch and Ladytron members. The debut album “Lucifer I”, penned by Johanna and Cathedra’s Garry Jennings and released by British label Rise Above Records, brought LUCIFER international recognition. With a shift of constellation within the band in 2016 and Johanna Sadonis’ move from Berlin to Stockholm, LUCIFER were ready for chapter two. In Nicke Andersson, notable for his groups The Hellacopters, Entombed, Imperial State Electric, Death Breath among others, Johanna found a new renowned writing partner. Relentless touring and recording have turned LUCIFER into an explosive live beast and a reliable source of timeless rock and roll.
LUCIFER wasted no time and used the pandemic to record yet another long player that rings in a new chapter and dives even further into the grande realms of colossal old fashioned rock, with a severe morbid twist. For this opus they entered guitarist Linus Björklund’s Studio Ryssviken for an even more heart pounding drum sound while continuing their work at The Honk Palace. They expanded their song writing partnership within the band and Johanna has not only penned the new material with Nicke but also with guitarist Linus, as well as guitarist Martin Nordin contributing. With “Lucifer IV” the group is proving furthermore to be steadily building their very own pillar of rock history, brick by brick. The first single to give you a glimpse of what’s to come is “Wild Hearses” - buckle up for a deliciously morbid sweet and heavy ride past tombs and churches!
“Lucifer IV” is available as Ltd. 180g Gatefold LP + CD (in deluxe hardcover gatefold sleeve), Ltd. CD Digipak and Digital Album

ASESINO (Spanish for "assassin" or "murderer") is an American deathgrind supergroup and a side project of Fear Factory guitarist Dino Cazares. The band has featured members of Brujeria, Fear Factory, Sepultura, Sadistic Intent, Possessed, Ministry, and Static-X. ASESINO sometimes play Slayer covers live, most notably "Angel of Death" and "Raining Blood". As with Brujeria, the lyrics are sung entirely in Spanish and with the same subject matter of death, violence and perversion. Guitarist Asesino describes the band as "the new Brujeria." Asesino also has the tendency of making satirical comments during the show, and when playing Brujeria songs, change the original lyrics to something more fitting. ASESINO made a guest appearance as a group of Mexican doctors in episode 57 of ‘Metalocalypse' on 'Adult Swim'. ASESINO : ‘Cristo Satanico’ is the band most incisive, uncompromisingly horrific piece of work, now available with plenty of Exclusive studio and live bonus tracks. The band has been working on a new album for a 2022 release date.

This career-spanning 3CD & 4LP collection (1970-1998), showcases the immense musical talents of Keith Emerson, Greg Lake and Carl Palmer.

The Anthology was produced in association with all three band members and the booklet contains extensive liner notes with new band interviews by legendary rock journalist Chris Welch.

The audio was mastered by world renowned rock studio engineer Andy Pearce.

Featuring tracks from all of their original albums: Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Pictures At An Exhibition, Tarkus, Trilogy, Brain Salad Surgery, Welcome Back My Friends To The Show That Never Ends, Works Volume 1, Works Volume 2, Works Live, Love Beach, Live At Nassau Coliseum ‘78, Black Moon, In The Hot Seat, Live At The Royal Albert Hall, Then & Now. Includes their global hit singles ‘Fanfare For The Common Man’ and ‘Lucky Man’.

In 2012, Snarky Puppy booked their first European tour through Facebook posts, begging people to help find a bar they could play in. Years later, on November 14th, 2019, Snarky Puppy recorded their sold-out show from the iconic Royal Albert Hall in London, which will be their first official live release in almost 4 years. Featuring an extended line-up of 15 out of their 18 regular members, the record includes many tracks from their recent studio album, "Immigrance." "Live at the Royal Albert Hall" captures an interesting mix of new and old songs, illustrating their musical and artistic progression over the years. This record will be released digitally, along with a double CD and triple colored vinyl (band webstore only).

Our second LP this month is an unreleased magical modern soul LP from the band Coast To Coast, the full story below by band leader Mark Beiner...


I met Ben iverson in 1976 when I was 17 years old. I was a junior at Newtown High School in Elmhurst, Queens. At that time, I took a part time job as a Produce Clerk at Walbaum's Supermarket on Northern Boulevard in Jackson Heights, Queens, where I met Ben Iverson who was the "Frozen Food Manager." In between the music, this job was steady income, and he and his Wife, Diane, started a family and raised two Daughters, Tonia and Cytherea, whom I am still in contact with today.

Back then, I remember going to work early just to talk to him about his musical background and his time spent in the 50's and 60's with the Ohio Doo Wop Group, "The Hornets", or better known as, "Ben Iverson and The Hornets." However, Ben was somewhat quiet and at a loss for words when I questioned him with regard to "Ben Iverson and the Nue Dey Express", as well as his short career as Manager and Songwriter for Brooklyn's own, "Crown Heights Affair" in the early 70's.

Between the 50's and 60's, "Ben Iverson and The Hornets" shared billing at music events with recording artists such as, The Drifter's, Bill Haley and The Comets, Pat Boone, Etta James, Mary Wells, Nancy Wilson, Jackie Wilson, Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin, Lloyd Price and Al Green. Many of these names got their start in the 50's, which Ben met at music concert events hosted by Radio Disc Jockey, Alan Freed. Alan was truly the first Concert Promoter for Doo Wop, Rhythm & Blues, and early Rock & Roll.

In 1978 after Ben and I discussed getting together and composing music, I started writing poetry and expressing in writing my break up with my college girl friend, Paula Vasta. Paula's middle name was Marie, so in kidding around, I would call her "Paula Marie." Ben thought my lyrics were "powerful" and wanted to put them in music. Thus our first recorded 45 rpm record called "Paula Marie", backed with "I Want You Dear." This launched our musical partnership and within a year, the Coast to Coast Band was formed. Ben and I went on to writing two albums worth of material, which in turn gave us a lot of time and presence on stage at our live gigs.

The regular Coast to Coast Band members consisted of Ben Iverson on Lead Vocals, Rhythm Guitarist and Co-Executive Producer, Joe Crowley, who is known today as "New York Congressman Joe Crowley." Carl (Woody Wood) Morton on Bass Guitar, Jimmy Johnson on Keyboards. Woody and Jimmy used to hang and play rap in its early days with "Run DMC" in St. Albans, Queens. Lead Guitarist, Lou Jimenez, currently owns his own recording studio, Music Labs in Elmont, Long Island. On Drums, Eddie Byam, on Alto Sax, Jay Cohen, who in the 70's used to record for "Gary U.S. Bonds." Gary Pevols on Trumpet. On Bone, Scott Burrows, Trumpet player, Steve Becker, whom we lost to Testicular Cancer at the age of 25, along side Neil Levine, Stan Stockley, Tom Russo and additional members that came and went that we used for live gigs and studio recordings.

In addition, special recognition goes out to our Producer, Recording Engineer and Multi-sound Recording Studio, Owner, Dave Weiner and staff. Dave and I launched Multi-Sound Records under the Multi-Sound label in 1980.

Last, of course myself, Mark Beiner, where I served as Executive Producer, Songwriter, Business/Marketing Manager, and background vocals.

Unfortunately, Ben Iverson passed away on March 21, 2008, and cannot be here to share this with us, but his music and voice still lives on!

5 tracks of pure heat of various styles from members of The Black Lodge global family. A1 is entitled "Atmospheres" from the ever-talented Michigan producer JTC aka Tadd Mullinix Bopside/Nation/Ghostly. A2, entitled "Arreskni" comes from newer Chilean artists MU-GA, a track we released in digital format last year from their debut EP. Finishing off the A-side is Italian super-duo SONS OF TRADERS SOT/Frigio/Black Lodge aka Tans X Mike Tansella Jr. with the acidic cut "Indianapolis" also released last year by BL on tape and digitally from their first full length album entitled "Crollo Nervoso". Side B blasts off with the early Chicago house inspired track "Passion" by prolific Dresden producer SNEAKER Uncanny Valley/Rat Life/Frigio. Closing off the comp is a dirty warehouse banger/burner by e-spirit, a new alias from LA producer DELIVERY LA Club Resource/Valcrond Video.

M_SESSIONS - THE PROCESS

"M_Sessions" is offering a contemporary version of Mania D., Malaria and Matador’s music for the 40th anniversary plus the rare originals. Bringing the past into the now and into the future.
Monika Werkstatt seemed the perfect choice for new interpretations. Founded in 2015, comprising female electronic musicians and producers from the entourage of Monika Enterprise and Moabit Musik. The loose collective played dozens of improvised concerts around Europe and released a studio album and live recordings in everchanging artist constellations.

The M_Sessions involved Pilocka Krach, Beate Bartel, Midori Hirano, Mommo G, Lucrecia Dalt, Antye Greie-Ripatti, Natalie Beridze, Annika Henderson and myself. Here the form of interpretation is focussing on keeping the freedom of their improvised work and adapting it to the collective appropriation of songs. I cannot imagine a better reinterpretation of the material with its real life ups and downs and with its enthusiasm.
The original core team of Beate Bartel, Bettina Köster, Manon P. Duursma and myself selected "Rare Originals" from the repertoire of the 3 bands where we saw special relevance and beauty - these tracks are on LP2. We rediscovered live tracks, living room recordings and demo versions from our times long gone. (G.Gut)

M_DOKUMENTE // THE BOOK - THE RECORDS - THE EXHIBITION

The project M_Dokumente focuses on the All Female bands Mania D., Malaria! and Matador in the West Berlin music and art scene of the late 1970s and 1980s. We celebrate this 40 years retrospetive with a big festival weekend from 21.-24.10.2021 at Silent Green from a explicitly female perspective.
The three bands around their members Beate Bartel, Bettina Köster and Gudrun Gut played concerts in different formations from 1979 on, released records and toured around the world. The self-determined appearance of the musicians was new, raised some eyebrows and was reflected both in the music and the lyrics, but also in their unique style and the genre-crossing approach of "more art in the music, more music in the art". To this day, the bands are considered visionary, they shaped a new image of women in pop culture and are pioneers and role models for the still important and necessary emancipatory movement in the music industry. Far beyond the borders of Berlin.

3Ms

The three, reunited: Malaria, Matador and Mania D, unter einem Dach, but gutted, replaced with electronic hearts, new beats, new beasts, the time has changed, yet the politics, the problems, the heartache remains the same. 2021 sees the anniversary of the 3 M’s and therewith the production of an album of songs, covering a selection of the bands’ finest output, this time assembled by a new set of feminist misfits; producers, fangirls, instrumentalists, under the strict guidance of original members Gudrun Gut and Beate Bartel. M-Sessions features: AGF, Lucrecia Dalt, Sonae, Midori Hirano, Islaja, Natalie Beridze, Pilocka Krach, Annika Henderson (Anika), Lupe, Gudrun Gut and Beate Bartel. Beginning in West Berlin, in 1979, with the inception of Mania D, spawning Malaria! and later Matador; in a time when music was essential to movement, to escape, to space, to the scene and to the rebellion of the people; three bands stood for trial and error, trial and terror, anti- conformity, and anti-consumerism, for girl power and sticking it to the man, and for just doing whatever the hell they wanted. The three, their existence slightly staggered, with different members, different grudges, different heartbreaks, different instrumental expressions, were joined by a string of barbed wire, piecing pigeon hearts, within the playground that was the desolate ex-capital, now again capital, Berlin; a place where artists and freaks could run free amongst the wrinklies and army dodgers; no microscopes, no rules, no property developers. (ANNIKA HENDERSON)

Heavy South African cut, unearthed by Dene from LCT, All about the massive title track ''Got My Magic Working''... Phat bassline, machinegun claps dipped in acid!

The origins of Amajika is a tale of two worlds colliding at the perfect moment and begin in KwaMushu Township outside Durban. Here would be where a young Tu Nokwe would set up a school to help teach other aspiring youngsters like herself in music, dance and acting. This would become known as the Amajika Youth and Children’s Art Project and would be run from the Nokwe home, a common hangout for artists at the time. Some boast 2000+ pupils going through this program while others claim it wasn’t more than a backyard dance group, but for the lucky group of kids that were members in the mid 80s it would be their chance at stardom.

It was during these years that a young aspiring playwright and musician Mbongeni Ngema had come across Tu and her group of gifted youngsters at the Nokwe family home. Although he was touring extensively at the time with the plays Woza Albert and Asinamali, the latter which eventually ended up on broadway, he would spend any time off from the tour with Tu and her dance troop. After being inspired by the American group New Edition, Mbongeni envisioned Amajika as the South African answer and decided to bankroll a studio session.

The session would take place in a private studio in Durban.The release of the first single would follow very shortly. The lead track, Tomati-So is a fun swinging groove over some basic programmed drums. The song is dedicated to Tu Nokwe sings of her unique style and kind heart. On his next tour Mbongeni would take the remaining masters with him to the US and had the track remixed. Although it never materialized in a release States side he did return with the remixed tape and release it in South Africa the following year. Much like Tomato So the song was an ode and would be dedicated to the man who was making all their dreams come true. Got My Magic Working sings of going overseas and being a star on Broadway and TV and the man who is making it all happen. All these true predictions are sung on top of a groovy acid bass by a clearly matured troop of artists.

During these years of working with Amajika, Mbongeni became very impressed with the exceeding talent of one of the members and decided to cast her in his upcoming musical Sarafina. The other children also wanted to be a part of the Broadway show but not everyone would get a role. This would be the end of Amajika as the next years would be dedicated to creating success on the musical stage. The growing kids that formed Amajika became young adults and pursued their own careers after the fact. Tu Nokwe would leave the country to return years later as the wife of Shaka Zulu on the big screen. To this day she is still very active both on stage and screen while Mbongeni is still writing and adding to the South African Musical Theatre catalog.

Fast forward 30 years from the original release to a smokey club where ESA hears Got My Magic Working played by Rush Hours Store’s own Bonnefooi. Instantly he inquires about the track from his homeland and feels it a perfect addition the repertoire of the Afro Synth band he is quietly cooking up. The band’s instrumental take ended up as the B side on a mysterious and limited white label released by Rush Hour in early 2020 but quickly sold out.

Here you have compiled the two title tracks from original Amajika singles along with the instrumental version by ESA’s Afro Synth Band for The complete Amajika experience, past to present.

The legendary session from members of The Outsiders, The Sound and Honolulu Mountain Daffodils. released for the very first time.
Overseen by Adrian Janes and remastered by Nick Robbins with sleeve design and artwork by Bi Marshall.
PRESSED ON ‘SPECIAL’ COLOUR VINYL.
In December 1978 Pete Williams, later to achieve cult infamy as Lord Sulaco of the Honolulu Mountain Daffodils, decided to realise a notion which he’d long kicked around with some of his musician friends. This was to record some original songs for which he - who had never been in a studio in his life – would provide the lyrics and sing. These friends were the Outsiders, at that time consisting of Adrian Borland (guitar, vocals), Graham Bailey (bass) and Adrian Janes (drums), plus an increasingly regular guest player in Bi Marshall (clarinet). (A year later, Janes having left, the Outsiders became the Sound.)
With no prior preparation other than Williams writing a set of lyrics (reputedly all based on newspaper stories), he then hired Elephant Studio in London for a day’s session. This was engineered by Nick Robbins, later to produce The Sound among others, but at that point at the very start of his career. This was no bad thing, since he was as open to the bizarre working methods of the Crazies (named after the George Romero sci-fi horror film) as they were innocent of their strangeness:improvise a song during one run-through, record it, and then move on to the next one, each to be created in the same way.
This extremely efficient method left enough studio time after recording six songs for the rest to head off for something to eat, while Williams scribbled lyrics for a final composition, ‘When We’re Dead’, which was recorded upon their return.
The surviving members (Bailey, Marshall and Janes) all recall this as one of the most enjoyable and relaxed sessions they were ever part of. The same experimental freedom and warped humour can also be heard in the albums Williams and Borland made as the Honolulu Mountain Daffodils a decade later.
Cassette copies of the resulting album were produced for all concerned, and it seems that there was an idea of making it more widely available in this format, but this was never to occur. It is only now that, with the original tape rediscovered, that the Crazies’ ‘A Simple Vision’, mastered by Nick Robbins, can at last be perceived by the wider world.

After the demise of the Ooga Boogas in the Before Time,
the four band members went their very separate ways. Being
in that band was such an intense high pressure experience,
some chillax time was well-deserved.
Leon Stackpole aka Stacky recorded under the name
Leon, Per Byström joined Voice Imitator, Mikey Young
recorded with The Green Child and Richard Stanley
played in Drug Sweat. All quite deserving projects, but it
was Stackpole’s solo outing that garnered the most interest
from public and industry alike. The demand for live shows
led him to recruit Byström from Ooga Boogas and a guy
named Brad into his touring lineup.
The trio was red hot, but inevitably the venues they
filled required a fuller sound so Stackpole recruited Young
as well on second guitar. The gruelling touring schedule
became too much for family-man Brad, so Stanley jumped
in to fill his size 11s and off they went for another lap of
regional Victoria.
Eventually the question presented itself to this freshlyminted
foursome: should they continue as Stackpole’s
backing band or strike out anew with a fresh identity? The
answer came in a moniker too electrifying to resist; a name
as clever, enigmatic and indeed, as powerful as the band
itself: Power Supply.
Back in the shed, jams became songs, jokes became
lyrics and long afternoons spent together became this record—
listen though, and one will hear life through the lens
of Stackpole and the tactile tentacles of his pals. In The
Time Of The Sabre-toothed Tiger contains ten songs that
listen so easy, one will barely notice when they’re gone.

Written, programmed, recorded and produced throughout 2019/20 by Ed Wynne in ‘Blue Bubble Studios’ by the sea, this exploratory and diverse musical adventure comprises seven new tracks spanning 45 minutes.

Inspired by the Scottish hills, valleys and beaches surrounding his studio, Wynne feels that lockdown in a strange kind of way has provided ‘Space For The Earth’ to breathe for a while and for people to rediscover its resonant healing frequency. ‘This is space music for people from the Earth to enjoy’.

Ozrics’ synth player Silas Neptune and drummer Bal zs Szende join forces again with Wynne on the album which also features special guest appearances from former members synth player Joie Hinton, drummer Nick Van Gelder, flautist Champignon and percussionist Paul Hankin. Psychedelic voyager Gracerooms also contributes additional synth layers.

The album ebbs and flows through blissed-out soundscapes featuring incendiary guitar solos, space grooves and ambient atmospheres. Wynne plays his recently revived Ibanez Jem, a new 8-string guitar, all kinds of synths and bass. Van Gelder uses the original snare he played on the first six cassette albums and early live Ozric performances. One tune features Champignon playing kaval, a traditional wooden Balkan flute.

The album artwork was inspired directly by these seven tracks and realised by arboreal artist Kitty (Twisty-Trees) with help from Ed and cosmic artist Ivy.

One of the most influential bands to emerge from the UK’s festival scene, Ozric Tentacles formed during the solstice at Stonehenge Free Festival 1983 going on to become psychedelic staples at Glastonbury and other festivals. The creative vision of multi-instrumentalist Ed Wynne, the Ozrics’ uniquely trippy soundscapes connect fans of progressive rock, psychedelia and dance music culture.
‘Space For The Earth’ represents the next harmonic step in the unfolding Ozric
journey.

First new release from Lizard Music in over two decades Since their hiatus, band members have joined Wilco, become the musical director for Cat Power, been a featured guest on RuPaul’s Drag Race, and worked with artists including Lana Del Rey, Brian Wilson, The Monkees, and more! Available on CD, Digital, and double-LP What Lizard Music says about Arizone! This collection of buzzy, whirly pop songs from a parallel dimension is a testament to Martin Short, Martin Sheen, Sheena Easton, Tina Turner, and Tiny Tim. Arizone! is better than discovering never-before seen discs for a View-Master. Arizone! is the sound of four old friends who spent their formative years playing music, traveling, and learning about the world, reuniting after a 25 year hiatus to compare notes and wound up with a one-way ticket to Arizone! Lizard Music began in Atlantic Highlands, NJ in 1989 when high school friends Mikael Jorgensen and Erik Paparozzi started learning and writing songs with a four-track. They pillaged their parents' record collections and discovered the musical universes of The Beatles, Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, XTC, James Brown and The Meters. In the fall of 1990, Lizard Music (named after the book by Daniel Pinkwater) was hired to be the backing band for David Peel and The Lower East Side at the recently-closed Brighton Bar in Long Branch, NJ, which would serve as the unofficial home base for the band for the next five years.

Live at The Troubadour is a live album by James Taylor and Carole King, originally released in 2010. In November of 1970, the two rising stars first performed together at The Troubadour in West Hollywood, California. Thirty-six years later, James Taylor, Carole King and members of their renowned original band “The Section” (featuring guitarist Danny Kortchmar, bassist Leland Sklar and drummer Russell Kunkel) returned to the Troubadour for a three-night, six-show run to celebrate the venue’s 50th anniversary. These historic moments are documented in Live at The Troubadour. The remarkable recording features 15 songs and 75 minutes of stunning performances of their collective biggest hits including “You’ve Got A Friend,” “Fire and Rain,” “I Feel The Earth Move” and more.

Love Wash opens with “Across the Flats” and closes with its title track, both upbeat ballads that build from scorched drones into momentous sprawling pop songs that help ease in and out of the album, which features contributions from co-PC Worship collaborators (LEYA’s Adam Markiewicz on violin and NYC drum shredder Greg Fox).
The second and third tracks “Drive” and “Saints” carry the subtle intensity that opens the album, with unpredictable instrumentation, chord changes and arrangements. This vibe is revisited later in the album on “Dune House” and “Hidden Away”, all of which are sonically rich, unraveling, dark, introspective and powerfully optimistic.
The rest of Love Wash is comprised of catchy, borderline alt-country hits with a twisted Nashville tele vibe (“December Sun”, “New Thing” & “East Side Walk”), featuring pedal steel and vocal contributions from fellow Dougie Poole band members Tristan Shepherd and Francesca Caruso. Love Wash has a natural flow throughout, however the one real outlier is the well placed and hyper paced middle child of the album “Dredging Up Old Blues,” a schitzo-synth-pop Mountain Dew Rock jam that feels like buying trucker speed at a digital gas station in Middle-America.

Love Wash has echoes of a post-Beatles solo record, recorded in the Northwest in the mid-90s; transient in its influences yet tied together with the aesthetic of its approach. Sequenced like the best, most damaged early K / Kill Rock Stars records and driven by fingerpicked acoustic guitar, sweeping drones, euphoric synths, lush vocals and soaring Dead Man leads, Love Wash is a beautifully rich pop record at its core and an ambitious journey of an album that started as bedroom demos and evolved into a layered studio exploration.
-- Justin Frye (PC Worship

Kylesa is an American heavy metal band that was formed in Savannah, Georgia. Their music incorporates experimentalism with heavy riffs, drop-tuned guitars and elements of psychedelic rock. The group was established in 2001 by the former members of Damad, with the addition of guitar player Laura Pleasants who is from North Carolina. The band has since undergone line up changes; the remaining original members are Phillip Cope and Laura Pleasants. In 2006, the band added two drummers (Carl McGinley of Unpersons, from Savannah, and Jeff Porter). Eric Hernandez (of Capsule, from Miami) joined in 2008 to replace Porter. The dual drum tracks are often panned strongly to the right and left.

THE CHARLATANS proudly announce their (Covid) delayed release of their 30th Anniversary tour and a career spanning best of entitled “A Head Full of Ideas’ Released on Then Recordings through Republic Of Music. ‘A Head Full of Ideas’ sums up their remarkable progress from 1990 Manchester scene hopefuls to one of the UK’s most enduring and best-loved bands. The accompanying tour begins at Belfast, Limelight 22/11/21 and finishes in Aberdeen on 20/12/21.

The band have notched up 13 Top 40 studio albums - three of them number ones - alongside 22 hit singles, four of them top 10. The rollercoaster highs have been accompanied by some shattering lows, any which one of them could have felled a less resilient band, from nervous breakdowns to near bankruptcy and the deaths of two founder members.

Somehow, they have not just carried on but adapted and transformed. The classic Charlatans sound - driving Hammond organ, Northern Soul and house-influenced rhythms, swaggering guitars and Tim Burgess’s sunny yet somehow yearning vocal - is instantly recognisable. And in spite of everything they have been through their music is now more relevant than ever, The Guardian described their last album, Different Days as “one of their best ever”.

As well as a very limited 6 Vinyl box set, there will also be Limited Coloured Triple vinyl LP version and 2CD deluxe of the box set featuring the hits albums plus a bonus live album ‘Trust is For Believers’, and finally a CD or Double LP Vinyl of just the hits albums.

On the fringe of the indie Rust Belt scene since the 1990s,
Moviola has quietly forged a low-key career of high-quality
recorded output over twenty-five years, issuing ten (!) records
and countless 7-inch singles (including splits with Cobra Verde,
Hiss Golden Messenger, Handsome Family and many others).
In this artistic continuum, the band has evolved from everything
from 4-track fuzz to hi-fi country soul. Today, the band steps
forward with Broken Rainbows, its strongest collection of songs
to date, written, recorded, and mixed inside the group’s HQ in
Columbus.
Jake Housh started Moviola in 1993 as a student at “The”
Ohio State University as a noisy, fuzzed out lo-fi noisemakers.
Over the years, the band has morphed into a unique DIY
music and art-making collective with five distinct singers and
songwriters, recalling the creatively democratic lineage of The
Mekons, The Band, Pink Floyd, many others. Moviola is Jake
Housh, Ted Hattemer (Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments),
Scotty Tabachnick, Greg Bonnell, and Jerry Dannemiller.
Broken Rainbows is a milestone release, showcasing a band
newly energized and assured in its artistry, and supportive of its
members’ songcraft. The eleven-song album hovers over a plot
of ground that’s optimistic in its despair. Album topics range
from the personal to the political, showcasing each member’s
unique songwriting within an overall cohesive band aesthetic.
“Moviola was one of those groups I met early on back in the day
that showed me how to do it. Broken Rainbows is a highlight—
pastoral thumpers, fuzzy indie radness, hooks to spare, pretty
much all the good stuff. Feels like a glorious drive from one
disparate end of Ohio to another. I love this band.”
—Eric Johnson (Fruit Bats)

THE CHARLATANS proudly announce their (Covid) delayed release of their 30th Anniversary tour and a career spanning best of entitled “A Head Full of Ideas’ Released on Then Recordings through Republic Of Music. ‘A Head Full of Ideas’ sums up their remarkable progress from 1990 Manchester scene hopefuls to one of the UK’s most enduring and best-loved bands. The accompanying tour begins at Belfast, Limelight 22/11/21 and finishes in Aberdeen on 20/12/21.

The band have notched up 13 Top 40 studio albums - three of them number ones - alongside 22 hit singles, four of them top 10. The rollercoaster highs have been accompanied by some shattering lows, any which one of them could have felled a less resilient band, from nervous breakdowns to near bankruptcy and the deaths of two founder members.

Somehow, they have not just carried on but adapted and transformed. The classic Charlatans sound - driving Hammond organ, Northern Soul and house-influenced rhythms, swaggering guitars and Tim Burgess’s sunny yet somehow yearning vocal - is instantly recognisable. And in spite of everything they have been through their music is now more relevant than ever, The Guardian described their last album, Different Days as “one of their best ever”.

As well as a very limited 6 Vinyl box set, there will also be Limited Coloured Triple vinyl LP version and 2CD deluxe of the box set featuring the hits albums plus a bonus live album ‘Trust is For Believers’, and finally a CD or Double LP Vinyl of just the hits albums.

THE CHARLATANS proudly announce their (Covid) delayed release of their 30th Anniversary tour and a career spanning best of entitled “A Head Full of Ideas’ Released on Then Recordings through Republic Of Music. ‘A Head Full of Ideas’ sums up their remarkable progress from 1990 Manchester scene hopefuls to one of the UK’s most enduring and best-loved bands. The accompanying tour begins at Belfast, Limelight 22/11/21 and finishes in Aberdeen on 20/12/21.

The band have notched up 13 Top 40 studio albums - three of them number ones - alongside 22 hit singles, four of them top 10. The rollercoaster highs have been accompanied by some shattering lows, any which one of them could have felled a less resilient band, from nervous breakdowns to near bankruptcy and the deaths of two founder members.

Somehow, they have not just carried on but adapted and transformed. The classic Charlatans sound - driving Hammond organ, Northern Soul and house-influenced rhythms, swaggering guitars and Tim Burgess’s sunny yet somehow yearning vocal - is instantly recognisable. And in spite of everything they have been through their music is now more relevant than ever, The Guardian described their last album, Different Days as “one of their best ever”.

As well as a very limited 6 Vinyl box set, there will also be Limited Coloured Triple vinyl LP version and 2CD deluxe of the box set featuring the hits albums plus a bonus live album ‘Trust is For Believers’, and finally a CD or Double LP Vinyl of just the hits albums.

In creating Our Beautiful Baby World (May 2021), the pacing of Izzy True’s
songwriting process has slowed down since their prior Don Giovanni
releases -- Sadbad (2018) and Nope (2016).
Arranging with Curtis and Sam, Reidy says they’ve grown as musicians together, and their songs were given space to grow, too. OBBW exhibits eleven rock
songs of melded collaboration, expressing the deepness of acceptance. These
are the band’s most dynamic compositions to date. The result is, Reidy hopes,
to ‘sound like a bad drawing of a rock record.’
The inspiration for the soft-hard dynamics of OBBW may have come from Reidy
listening to Thin Lizzy, along with the bleeding of the band members’ strengths
and histories: Curtis as a courageous experimental musician in the DIY circuit,
Sam’s expertise as a hardcore drummer, one Halloween cover-set of System
of A Down in a Chicago basement from another world, and Reidy’s childhood
growing up listening to old love songs and country music.
OBBW was recorded in Rock Island, IL at Rozz-Tox, a well-loved bar and music
venue in the humble Midwest. Recorded and mixed by Ian Harris on reel-toreel, Izzy True’s tunes returned to tape after Sadbad, which was digitally produced.
The record utilizes the talents of Chicago music friends Jess Shoman (Tenci)
on backup vocals and Andrew Clinkman (Spirits Having Fun) on lead guitar on
‘Four Good Ponies’. OBBW was recorded in the months before the pandemic,
January and February 2020, which can feel obvious (‘I don’t wanna hang out
for a thousand years’) and subtle. The authentic limitations of reel-to-reel tape
recordings give this project the aura of a time when live music was possible.

2021 marks the 50th Anniversary of the legendary record Fela Kuti made
with Ginger Baker of Cream.
 This Anniversary edition features a newly unearthed second drum solo
from Tony Allen and Ginger Baker, taken from Afrika 70’s performance
at the 1978 Berlin Jazz Festival. Part I has never appeared on vinyl and
this second part has never been heard - until now.
 1978’s Berlin Jazz Festival marked Afrika 70’s final live performance with
Fela. In the Spring of 1979, several members of Afrika 70, including
Allen, would leave the band. Allen had been with Fela since 1964. 1980
saw the birth of Egypt 80, with Baritone saxophonist Lekan Animashaun,
who had been with Fela since 1965, as its founding bandleader.
 Reissued with Abbey Road mastered audio.
 Red double vinyl with collector's 50th Anniversary gold foil obi strip.
 Bespoke etching of album artwork on Side D.
 Fela’s legacy spans decades and genres, touching on jazz, pop, funk,
hip-hop, rock and beyond. While he never achieved true icon status
during his lifetime, the last (roughly) decade has seen a broad
resurgence in his popularity and a critical reevaluation of his life, music
and influence. In 2008, the biographical musical ‘Fela!’ (co-produced by
Jay-Z and Will Smith) became a surprise hit off-Broadway and then
Broadway itself. Since then, Beyoncé performed Fela’s ‘Zombie’ at
Coachella, he’s been called out as an influence by everyone from Paul
McCartney to Questlove and sampled by Missy Elliott, Kendrick Lamar,
J. Cole, Nas, and more. Vice President Kamala Harris even used Fela’s
music at her and President Biden's first joint event together.
 ‘Let’s Start’ features prominently in the trailer and the soundtrack for the
new Western, ‘The Harder They Fall’, staring Idris Elba and Regina King.
 Fela features prominently in an episode of Hulu’s docuseries ‘McCartney
3, 2, 1’, where Paul McCartney cites Fela as one of his important
influences.
 This past spring Fela came in second place, behind Tina Turner, for the
fan vote for the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame nominations and received
great press coverage in NY Times, Rolling Stone, MOJO, Record
Collector and more.

Barenaked Ladies return with their first new album in four years, ‘Detour de Force’. The 14-track effort is the result of both pre- and post-lockdown recording sessions. The band spent five weeks at vocalist/guitarists Ed Robertson’s cabin outside Toronto pre pandemic writing and recording in a makeshift studio. During pandemic lockdown, they decided they wanted to polish things up a bit. They returned to a Toronto studio when the lockdown lifted to rework the tracks resulting in ‘Detour de Force’. The Barenaked Ladies are Ed Robertson: Guitar, Vocals Jim Creeggan: Bass, Vocals Kevin Hearn: Keyboards, Guitar, Vocals Tyler Stewart: Drums, Vocals Over the course of their remarkable career, Barenaked Ladies have sold over 15 million albums, written multiple top 20 hits (including radio staples “One Week,” “Pinch Me,” “If I Had $1,000,000”), garnered 2 GRAMMY nominations, won 8 JUNO Awards, had Ben & Jerry’s name an ice cream after them (“If I Had 1,000,000 Flavours”), participated in the first-ever “space-to-earth musical collaboration” with astronaut Chris Hadfield, and garnered an international fan base whose members number in the millions. In 2018, the band were inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and Toronto Mayor John Tory declared October 1st “Barenaked Ladies Day.”

Omara Portuondo, the leading lady of the Buena Vista Social Club, is one of Cuba’s most celebrated voices.
The album ‘Buena Vista Social Club Presents Omara Portuondo’ was released in 2000 in the wake of the phenomenal reception of the original Buena Vista Social Club album, and was remastered from the analogue tapes for its 2019 LP reissue. Omara is backed by a dream band formed of many of the original Buena Vista Social Club members including Ibrahim Ferrer (vocals), Rubén González (piano), Compay Segundo (guitar) and Orlando ‘Cachaito’ Lopez (bass).

To celebrate the “Women In Music” theme of this year’s National Album Day, this classic album will be pressed on limited edition purple colour vinyl.

An energetic blend of NEW WAVE and HEAVY PROGRESSIVE ROCK, Four Stroke Baron aspires to bring forth a lively and refreshing new voice to the music scene. The group manages to craft massive and immersive soundscapes juxtaposed over catchy, pop-like song structures. It is this penchant for blending familiar sounds and styles into something altogether new that has allowed the band to undergo a dramatic metamorphosis from its founding members improvising in a shed outside of Reno, Nevada, to preparing for the debut of their second full-length album, “Planet Silver Screen,” on Prosthetic Records.

7 piece instrumental soul group from Melbourne, Australia featuring members from Karate Boogaloo, Surprise Chef and Saskwatch.
Produced by Henry Jenkins (Karate Boogaloo, Mo'Ju), the recording mind behind Surprise Chef and Karate Boogaloo, Waiting Room moves deftly through moments of fuzzed-out psychedelia, dusty deep soul backbeat and incendiary minor key funk.

Nantais by adoption, the Australian Will Guthrie is a discreet star of the international scene of free, experimental and improvised music; over the past fteen years, he has developed an open and personal approach to drums and percussion, skillfully blurring the lines between his brilliant jazz upbringing, his passion for traditional musics, and his inexhaustible interest in experimental and noise creation, with a pronounced taste for a physical and raw approach to sound. With thousands of performances and some fty albums to his credit, the Australian regularly dispenses his vibratory art solo or alongside the best of improvisation; From Oren Ambarchi to Roscoe Mitchell via Jérôme Noetinger, Anthony Pateras, David Maranha, Ava Mendoza, Jean-Luc Guionnet, Keith Rowe or even Mark Fell. In recent months Guthrie has performed with Tunisian singer Ghassen Chiba, toured as part of “All Around”, a performance with Danish dancer choreographer Mette Ingvarsten and founded the Ensemble Nist-Nah, a gamelan orchestra, in the company of eight other percussionists, out of which Black Truf e published an album, with a second on the way. He also found the time to put in shape a second volume of “People Pleaser”, a discographic act between an autographical assessment, the parenthesis and the musical UFO. A singular exercise in Guthrie's discography, “People Pleaser”, a series initiated in 2017, sees the Australian partially put down his drumsticks and wear a producer cap for a result offering a resolutely singular perspective of / on his work with a very personal dimension. On the rst volume, with a cover signed Stephen O'Malley sets the tone by diverting the chamaré Warhol infulenced visual of the album “Unit Structures” by Cecil Taylor. The portrait of the free jazz pianist has been replaced by passport photos of Guthrie. The result is a diversion into a fairly “Pop” aesthetic whose musical content works in a fairly similar way. Four years later, the cover art's undertones are slightly darker and Guthrie hasn't aged a bit on his new passport photo. The twelve tracks of this second “People Pleaser” combine and arrange eld recordings, heady loops, twists, musical quotes stuck on bedside records, recorded moments captured during travels, ghosty voices from low- lands, a police interview tape and imagined exotic sounds ... Guthrie could walk us for hours on his hard drive like looking at a photo album but he chose to build pieces based on this very personal sound material, much like a mixtape, with special care given to how sounds articulate, overlap and collide. He thus invites his heroes and his friends to join him in skilfully chiseled and nely edited imaginary jams. The rst to take pleasure in this “People Pleaser” is undoubtedly its author as some of his nds are enjoyably playful; we are there embarked in an addictive sound patchwork at high speed where a Balinese Squarepusher is propelled via a defective cathode ray tube in a temple where the happy marriage of the saxophone and the gong is celebrated before this too short respite is interrupted by a sustained hip hop rhythm. The multiplicity and variety of sources give the whole a very pop format and the way in which Guthrie combines sounds, textures, rhythms and vocal elements quickly takes on a narrative dimension and poses this exercise between hip hop and a very personal plunderphonic, evoking as much J Dilla or RZA as the irreverent inventiveness of People Like Us or Wobbly. Will Guthrie has never been in as good company as on a solo album, he also lists on the cover the list of friends, heroes, members of his family and countries who inspired him and to whom he pays homage / collage on this new disc; An aesthetic exercise apart in his discography, both in nitely personal and self-centered and resolutely turned towards what animates him, the aptly named “People Pleaser” reveals the music DNA of the Australian and can be listened to on repeat.

Featuring an impressive list of collaborators, including Ty Segall and
members of Woods, Cibo Matto, Sharon Van Etten’s band, Wand,
Heatwarmer, Mega Bog and Bonnie “Prince” Billy, ‘Geist’ is the
follow-up to Shannon Lay’s 2019 Sub Pop debut, ‘August’, which
featured friends and collaborators Ty Segal (whose band Shannon
played in) and Mikal Cronin.

‘Geist’ feels like a window - or a mirror - into possibilities of the self
and beyond. Shannon Lay’s new album is tender intensity, placeless
and ethereal. It exists in the chasms of the present -- a world
populated by shadow selves, spiritual awakenings, déjà vu and past
lives. “Something sleeps inside us,” Lay insists on the opening track,
and that’s the guiding philosophy throughout. A winding, golden,
delicate thread of intuition that explores the unknown, the possibility.
Its title, ‘Geist’, the German word for spirit, is rife with an otherworldly
presence, the suggestion of another. The promise that you are never
alone.

Lay tracked vocals and guitar at Jarvis Tavinere of Woods’ studio,
then sent the songs out to multi-instrumentalists Ben Boye (Bonnie
“Prince” Billy, Ty Segall) in Los Angeles and Devin Hoff (Sharon Van
Etten, Cibo Matto) in New York; trusting their musical instincts and
intuition. She then sent those recordings to Sofia Arreguin (Wand)
and Aaron Otheim (Heatwarmer, Mega Bog) for additional keys, while
Ty Segall contributed a guitar solo on ‘Shores’.

As a whole, ‘Geist’ is both esoteric and accessible. Songs range from
a concise, pared-back cover of Syd Barrett’s tilt-a-whirl-esque ‘Late
Night’, to the meditative, Dune-inspired ‘Rare to Wake’, to the mostly
a-cappella ‘Awaken and Allow’, which channels Lay’s deep Irish
roots, a moment of reflection, before a drop happens - its intensity
mirroring the anticipation and anxiety that come with taking the first
step to accepting change for yourself. And the title track ‘Geist’, a
song about the power living in all of us, is a love song to the
possibility of healing, an ode to falling into the arms of what you’re
becoming. It’s a glimpse into the parts of yourself you have yet to
meet.

Initial copies of the LP pressed on Sun Yellow coloured vinyl.

Crepuscule presents a brand new collaborative project by Julie Campbell (aka LoneLady), Stephen Mallinder (Wrangler, Cabaret Voltaire) and Benge (Wrangler, John Foxx). Titled Clinker, the first 800 copies of the 6 track mini album have been pressed in turquoise vinyl.

‘The project began a couple of years ago,’ explains Julie. ‘Benge had these great sketches that were beats and synth patterns, so those were the starting point. I really went to town adding lots of guitar layers and experimenting with different sounds. On some tracks the guitar is deft and rhythmic, as if mimicking sequencer patterns. On others it’s a deconstructed noise-based approach - scratching strings, making fitful, heavy chunks, howls and scrapings of noise and texture.’

Due to competing solo commitments for all 3 members the tracks disappeared into hard drive exile for a couple of years. Julie continues: ‘Last year we revisited the mixes and Stephen added his trademark mysterious and menacing vocals. Now we find ourselves with a finished piece of work. I thought of the name Clinker as I love its meaning: 'stony residue from burnt coal'. This seemed liked an apt description of both industrial and creative processes, and a nice nod to the industrial North of England.’

Stand-out tracks include Camouflage and Condition Collapsing. ‘I’d forgotten how liberating it is to play bass guitar on something,’ enthuses Mal. ‘It compliments Julie’s beautifully angular guitar, and Benge and me ripping up live percussion onto the sound of machines… As a collection of tracks these benefited from a lengthy gestation, as they follow no particular trend and were allowed to twist and turn to develop a life of their own. After successive cycles we suddenly drew it all together so the tracks have a sense of completion and identity.’

‘The real fun for me was during the mixing process when Mal and I looked at each other as the rawness of the tracks hit us on the big studio monitors,’ adds Benge. ‘We knew we had something untameable, and wanted to preserve that feeling of edgy rawness in the mixes.’

The cover image is by Julie Campbell, with overall design by Twilight. The vinyl edition comes with a digital copy (MP3).

She Drew The Gun are today announcing their return with new album Behave Myself. The follow-up to the critically acclaimed Revolution Of Mind, which was named among BBC 6 Music’s Albums Of The Year, is produced by Ross Orton (Arctic Monkeys, The Fall, The Kills, Working Men’s Club). The first music from the record is confirmed to arrive next month.

Under the moniker She Drew The Gun, songwriter Louisa Roach began by playing solo gigs around Liverpool, she quickly caught the attention of The Coral’s James Skelly who she began working with at Skeleton Key Records, recruiting band members along the way.

At first glance Roach’s fuzzy psych-pop may suggest that the Wirral born songwriter is another ‘Cosmic Scouser’ but then you’re drawn into the spirit of rebellion, songs that rally against injustice and food banks and celebrate outsiderdom.

She Drew The Gun are today announcing their return with new album Behave Myself. The follow-up to the critically acclaimed Revolution Of Mind, which was named among BBC 6 Music’s Albums Of The Year, is produced by Ross Orton (Arctic Monkeys, The Fall, The Kills, Working Men’s Club). The first music from the record is confirmed to arrive next month.

Under the moniker She Drew The Gun, songwriter Louisa Roach began by playing solo gigs around Liverpool, she quickly caught the attention of The Coral’s James Skelly who she began working with at Skeleton Key Records, recruiting band members along the way.

At first glance Roach’s fuzzy psych-pop may suggest that the Wirral born songwriter is another ‘Cosmic Scouser’ but then you’re drawn into the spirit of rebellion, songs that rally against injustice and food banks and celebrate outsiderdom.

* In 1980 Gerald Moore - of G.T. Moore and the Reggae Guitars and Heron fame - was in Kingston, Jamaica working with Lee Perry on the `Return of Pipecock Jackxon’ LP. Gerald went into Harry J’s studio with James Lascelles (Global Village Trucking Company, The Breakfast Band) and Bud Beadle (Ginger Baker & Salt) alongside members of Zap Pow: Don Grant, Cornell Marshall and Dwight Pinkney.
* `Jerusalem’, a meditative and reflective track was one of four tunes recorded.
* Previously released on the `Harry J Sessions’ on Partial Records (PRTLLP001/CD001), this is the first time this cut of `Jerusalem’ appears on 45. Backed with a previously unreleased dub version, mixed by Dougie Wardrop direct from the master tapes.

Asleep At The Wheel is celebrating their 50th Anniversary with the release of Half A Hundred Years. The nineteen tracks feature original band members, current band members and guest artists. The special guest artists are Lyle Lovett, George Strait, Lee Ann Womack, Willie Nelson, and Emmylou Harris.
Tracks 1 - 11 are new songs featuring the original band members. Tracks 12 -16 are old songs featuring the current band members and Asleep At The Wheel alumni. Tracks 17 - 19 are songs from the vaults that have never been released and track 14 features the current and the two previous female band members.