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Loveface are back once again with four more dancefloor ready edits. Starting things off is a Unique Dancefloor Rework of 80’s Post Punk Classic. Following on from that is a Complete remodel 0f 90’s alternative dance/rock hit. Now flipping over to the B side is a House groove with sensual monologue diva vocal. Last but not least we are treated to an Uplifting 90’s flavoured italo house/garage vibe track.

Quiet, from the Latin quies, evokes a state of being still. In its verb form, quiet means to clear so that something can gradually come into focus. Kind Stranger by Amedeo Cappelletti is where quiet materializes in a more transient, even foreign, way. Each track takes a step back from noise, borne out of a slow return to music, a different pace, and a familiar place left behind for years.

Kind Stranger, released on Aurora Edition on July 24th, is about the strangeness of a return. Cappelletti's melodic scores work their way between faint noise and disquiet, and sonically muse upon the familiar. That is, when given enough time and distance, the familiar can become unrecognizable, demanding stillness to resituate oneself within it.

The album began taking shape when Cappelletti performed at Aurora Edition at Silent Green, just after he had returned to music following a three-year hiatus. In one month, he wrote forty-five minutes of new material from scratch. Then Cappelletti left Berlin after eight years and returned to the Tuscan countryside where he had grown up, back into slowness.

The album develops as an atmosphere in the truest sense. Resampled voices, found sound, and years of sound design practice converge as compositions form by overlapping texture with spatial depth. Kind Stranger cultivates a quietude that envelops the listener.

Vocal recordings made with Matthew Walsh and Sarah McInerney, collaborators Cappelletti met by chance in a Berlin ice cream shop, appear throughout the album like a current, shaped during a residency at MONOM, Berlin's spatial sound institute. Thematically, the record moves through digital addiction, fragmented attention, and the grief of work done in the darkness.

Kind Stranger is an offering to whoever finds themselves here within the quiet, in this particular quality of sound between return and lingering.

Longtime Do It Now favourites Club Squisito are back alongside vocalist Fre Monti for a warm, emotionally-charged deep house cut that will soon worm its way into your affections. The original is an unhurried blues ballad that builds into a thumping groove with Monti's haunting vocal work threading through with real feeling. Emiliano S. remixes it into something jazzier and hard-swinging, complete with a clever half-speed breakdown, while Nutty Nys opens the flip with a tasteful, vocal-led broken-piano hook. Pigsie closes things out with a four-on-the-floor banger that taps into early-2000s deep house energy.

Take a trip back to the golden age of popular music with Golden Oldies, a 2LP collection bringing together 40 timeless favourites from the 1950s and early ’60s. Featuring legendary artists including Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Sam Cooke, The Everly Brothers, Roy Orbison, Chuck Berry, Etta James and Bobby Darin, this hit-packed set captures an unforgettable era of rock ’n’ roll, pop, soul and rhythm & blues. Highlights include Johnny B. Goode, Heartbreak Hotel, The Wanderer, Mack The Knife, Crying and Smoke Gets In Your Eyes – classic recordings that still sound as good today as they ever did.

NYC dance music legend Joey Longo has been a part of the dance music soundscape for those in the know from way back when, his first records surfacing in 1989 under a variety of monikers and on a slew of labels out of NYC.

One of his lesser known aliases was Dreamhouse, which only produced two tracks Jump & Prance and I Can Feel It, both in 1990 and contained here on this official reissue. Special mention to the Dream Mix which has long been sort after by collectors and DJ's worldwide and repressed here for the first time since it's original release in 1990. Finally an opportunity to own a slice of Joey's signature raw New York sound.

Only Music Matters continues its staunchly no-frills approach to releasing music under the eponymous production moniker and with no fancy track titles, but a high-quality and weighty vinyl pressing designed for serious club business. 'AAA001A' is a beefy minimal cut with voices turned into ghostly trails that shimmer amid dusty percussion in a sleek tech groove that dances just above the floor. 'BBB001B' has a bubbly feel thanks to airy pads that gently circle the zoned-out and dubby groove. 'BBB002B' is a more heads-down flip that revels in great snares and funky double kicks.

Nu Vision is a modern salon for visionary leaders, fighting for their art, standing by truths, defending voices, honoring progenitors, whilst pushing forwards towards a new paradigm. The band all have their own stories and extensive discographies, records released on labels you might know, gigs played in places you might have attended but none of that matters. This is a new beginning. A group. A collective.A movement. Nu Vision is a band in the classic do-you-believe-in-alchemy sense. Equal parts rhythm, damage, and deep feeling. Their friends at DFA noted that the album “sounds like Depeche Mode scoring a Michael Mann montage: brooding,motorik, and shot through with black-and-blue beauty.” this idea is taken further in the first video from the album for track one / side one “Time” that launches the project publically along with the albums announcement. The palette of ‘The Seed’ is defined and refined in the best way. It’s an album that opens up many pathways. Brisker, freakier tracks like “Shadow In The Dark,” “R U Serious?” and “Humanity” run towards a softer finish with “Somedays” and the seven-minute, eyeliner-smearing closing ballad, “Lullaby Garden.” These are proper songs made with vintage machines, with a sound that carries obvious influences. ’ The Seed’ pulses forward as the body of the beast is turned inside out, wearing a beating heart on its sleeve, honoring those who left us too soon - DAF’s Gabi Delgado, Nitzer Ebb’s Douglas McCarthy, Depeche Mode’s Andrew Fletcher, and Sandwell District’s Juan Mendez. It’s important to note the emotional core of ‘The Seed’ album is the song ‘Synchronicity’ that is filled with both love and regret, the story of losing a friend without properly making amends. It is unquestionably heartbreaking, but is also delivered with a pang of hope, the feeling that with so many sunrises caught, so many additions and subtractions in life, a perspective has been gained. This is no freshman effort; but rather, a masterclass in continuing sonic education, delivering a unified experience from beginning to end. A New Vision

Two Thou’s Oraculu releases a full length spiritual electronics LP with tubaredefining Theon Cross, homeboy Taymour Khajah, soulful presence of D’Monk and Division81 vibe designer Sonny Daze. The sun-inspired record sets a high energy moment for Oraculu, blurring all the lines between the dancefloor, the horns, Berlin, London, Chicago, and Sardinia. This record is about change. I’ve started to be less interested in the fire of the sun, the explosion, the heat. The consistency, the orbit, the return got my full attention. Until it clicked, that repetition is a fundamental aspect of change.

DJ DIE SOON is the apocalyptic alter-ego Daisuke Imamura, whose performances of masked malice have been a fixture in the Berlin underground for the past decade. His latest record My Brothel The Wind takes inspiration from Sun Ra at his most grotesque, conjuring a distorted phantasmagoria with an eclectic crew of compatriots like Rully Shabara, Sara Persico, and longtime collaborator Kiki Hitomi. Film director Hiroo Tanaka’s visual contributions in the album art, poster, and music video complete the album’s narrative, telling a story not of villainy but of phantom caprice in a dying world.
My Brothel The Wind shows DJ DIE SOON as an alchemist of distortion, transmuting the club-forward beats of his 2020 debut Kappa Slap and the seething horrorscapes of DIEMAJIN, his 2022 collaboration with Tokyo vocalist MA. Imamura’s obsession with noise stems from his upbringing in Tokyo, where he grew up hearing the deafening roar of trains every day. “The buildings were really tall, so the sounds reflected so much and it was so loud that you couldn’t even have a conversation on the phone. Hearing this noise every minute when living in this flat, it became a normal thing,” he says. While most would content themselves with avoiding loudness, DJ DIE SOON seeks to unpack its visceral potential.
DJ DIE SOON’s subterranean productions form a monstrous gestalt with the eclectic contributions of his network of co-conspirators. “Unfinished” and “Directions” are pulsating chimeras that highlight animalistic vocalizations from Hitomi and Shabara; Italian MC Franco Franco’s verses snake underneath the noisy onslaught. The tectonic textures of “Dandelion Crackers” are courtesy of multi-instrumentalist Laure Boer’s handmade stone synth. Sara Persico’s mangled vocables hang as fleshy reminders of human fragility on “SAQ4IME”; in the Hiroo Tanaka-directed music video, the track’s sonic uncanniness is made cinematic, with an ambient dread that references Hiroshi Teshigahara’s 1964 psychological thriller Woman in the Dunes.
While Sun Ra’s intergalactic Moog reached for the stars, DJ DIE SOON plunges into the depths of hell. “Everybody, Shake Your Body, We Chill At Party” feels like the sonic equivalent of a wax museum burning to the ground, rigid smiles melting into the fire. Rather than a vision of the future, My Brothel The Wind is a laugh-cry of despair in the face of a Hadean present. DJ DIE SOON confronts the world with a new hand-made mask, reborn in the ashes.

SIMPLR is a dab hand when it comes to editing, tweaking and touching up classics tracks just enough to make them bang on contemporary flors, but not so much that they lose the essence of what makes them standout in the first place. Already this month he kicked off this label with a doozy rework of a soul great and now offers two more gems - 'Downtown Soul' is steamy and hot house with big trumpets and funky bass loops and 'Those Days' gets deeper, with louche, live-feeling grooves that loop back on themselves and bring the funk.

Wewantsounds is delighted to reissue Brigitte Fontaine’s landmark 1970 Saravah album Comme à la Radio, recorded with Areski Belkacem (who sadly died last June), Wadada Leo Smith and the Art Ensemble of Chicago. This deluxe 2-LP edition pairs the original album with a second LP of rare bonus material. The release is accompanied by a lavish 24-page bilingual booklet featuring an introduction by journalist Andy Beta, essays by Wadada Leo Smith, Brigitte Fontaine biographer Benoît Mouchart and Benjamin Barouh, plus a recent interview with Brigitte Fontaine and the late Areski Belkacem. The booklet also includes complete lyrics and a selection of rare archival photographs by Jean-Pierre Leloir and Philippe Gras. The reissue is announced alongside its companion, the deluxe 2-LP set Comme à la Radio "On Air", featuring previously unreleased ORTF live recordings and additional studio rarities.


Wewantsounds pursues its Brigitte Fontaine reissue program with Comme à la Radio, originally released in 1970 on Pierre Barouh’s cult Saravah label, fusing Fontaine’s radical lyricism with Areski Belkacem’s minimalist compositions and the fearless improvisations of the Art Ensemble of Chicago + Wadada Leo Smith. Its title track has since become a cult classic in jazz and groove circles.
The album has been newly remastered from the original tapes and is reissued in a deluxe 2-LP edition featuring 11 bonus tracks. The first LP presents the original album in restored clarity, while the second gathers rare non-album singles, English-language takes, alternate versions and previously unreleased instrumental recordings showcasing the Art Ensemble's artistry, including the elusive English version of Comme à la Radio, and a striking early version of L’été L’été.
Also included is a 24-page bilingual booklet featuring rare archival photographs by cult photographers Jean-Pierre Leloir and Philippe Gras, complete lyrics, and contributions by Andy Beta, Wadada Leo Smith, Benoît Mouchart and Benjamin Barouh, plus a recent interview with Brigitte Fontaine and the late Areski Belkacem. The reissue is announced alongside its companion Comme à la Radio "On Air", a deluxe 2-LP set presenting previously unreleased ORTF live recordings and additional studio rarities.
Comme à la Radio stands as a visionary landmark of French music and a defining statement in Brigitte Fontaine’s career. This expanded edition confirms its enduring influence more than fifty years after its original release.

a A1. Comme À La Radio 8.03
b A2. Tanka II 2.04
c A3. Le Brouillard [3.24]
[d] A4. J'ai 26 Ans [3.04]
[e] B1. L'été L'été [3.56]
[f] B2. Encore [1.34]
[g] B3. Léo [3.50]
[h] B4. Les Petits Chevaux [0.43]
[i] B5. Tanka I [1.45]
[j] B6. Lettre À Monsieur Le Chef De Gare De La Tour De Carol [6.04]

[l] C1. Comme À La Radio – English Version [8.08]
[m] C2. J’ai 26 Ans – English Version [3.56]
[n] C3. Le Goudron – 7’’ Single [4.12]
[o] C4. Le Noir C'est Mieux Choisi – 7" Single [5.03]
[p] D1. Les Beaux Animaux – 7’’ Single [3.16]
[q] D2. L'été L'été – Early version [4.38]
[r] D3. L'été L'eté – Instrumental Version [4.23]
[s] D4. Tanka I – Instrumental Version [1.47]
[t] D5. Tanka II – Instrumental Version with Flute [1.40]
[u] D6. Le Brouillard – Instrumental Version [3.57]
[v] D7. Lettre À Monsieur Le Chef De Gare – A Cappella English Version [2.46]

[a] A1. Comme À La Radio [8.03]
[b] A2. Tanka II [2.04]
[c] A3. Le Brouillard [3.24]
[d] A4. J'ai 26 Ans [3.04]
[e] B1. L'été L'été [3.56]
[f] B2. Encore [1.34]
[g] B3. Léo [3.50]
[h] B4. Les Petits Chevaux [0.43]
[i] B5. Tanka I [1.45]
[j] B6. Lettre À Monsieur Le Chef De Gare De La Tour De Carol [6.04]

[l] C1. Comme À La Radio – English Version [8.08]
[m] C2. J’ai 26 Ans – English Version [3.56]
[n] C3. Le Goudron – 7’’ Single [4.12]
[o] C4. Le Noir C'est Mieux Choisi – 7" Single [5.03]
[p] D1. Les Beaux Animaux – 7’’ Single [3.16]
[q] D2. L'été L'été – Early version [4.38]
[r] D3. L'été L'eté – Instrumental Version [4.23]
[s] D4. Tanka I – Instrumental Version [1.47]
[t] D5. Tanka II – Instrumental Version with Flute [1.40]
[u] D6. Le Brouillard – Instrumental Version [3.57]
[v] D7. Lettre À Monsieur Le Chef De Gare – A Cappella English Version [2.46]

[a] A1. Comme À La Radio [8.03]
[b] A2. Tanka II [2.04]
[c] A3. Le Brouillard [3.24]
[d] A4. J'ai 26 Ans [3.04]
[e] B1. L'été L'été [3.56]
[f] B2. Encore [1.34]
[g] B3. Léo [3.50]
[h] B4. Les Petits Chevaux [0.43]
[i] B5. Tanka I [1.45]
[j] B6. Lettre À Monsieur Le Chef De Gare De La Tour De Carol [6.04]

[l] C1. Comme À La Radio – English Version [8.08]
[m] C2. J’ai 26 Ans – English Version [3.56]
[n] C3. Le Goudron – 7’’ Single [4.12]
[o] C4. Le Noir C'est Mieux Choisi – 7" Single [5.03]
[p] D1. Les Beaux Animaux – 7’’ Single [3.16]
[q] D2. L'été L'été – Early version [4.38]
[r] D3. L'été L'eté – Instrumental Version [4.23]
[s] D4. Tanka I – Instrumental Version [1.47]
[t] D5. Tanka II – Instrumental Version with Flute [1.40]
[u] D6. Le Brouillard – Instrumental Version [3.57]
[v] D7. Lettre À Monsieur Le Chef De Gare – A Cappella English Version [2.46]

[a] A1. Comme À La Radio [8.03]
[b] A2. Tanka II [2.04]
[c] A3. Le Brouillard [3.24]
[d] A4. J'ai 26 Ans [3.04]
[e] B1. L'été L'été [3.56]
[f] B2. Encore [1.34]
[g] B3. Léo [3.50]
[h] B4. Les Petits Chevaux [0.43]
[i] B5. Tanka I [1.45]
[j] B6. Lettre À Monsieur Le Chef De Gare De La Tour De Carol [6.04]

[l] C1. Comme À La Radio – English Version [8.08]
[m] C2. J’ai 26 Ans – English Version [3.56]
[n] C3. Le Goudron – 7’’ Single [4.12]
[o] C4. Le Noir C'est Mieux Choisi – 7" Single [5.03]
[p] D1. Les Beaux Animaux – 7’’ Single [3.16]
[q] D2. L'été L'été – Early version [4.38]
[r] D3. L'été L'eté – Instrumental Version [4.23]
[s] D4. Tanka I – Instrumental Version [1.47]
[t] D5. Tanka II – Instrumental Version with Flute [1.40]
[u] D6. Le Brouillard – Instrumental Version [3.57]
[v] D7. Lettre À Monsieur Le Chef De Gare – A Cappella English Version [2.46]

[a] A1. Comme À La Radio [8.03]
[b] A2. Tanka II [2.04]
[c] A3. Le Brouillard [3.24]
[d] A4. J'ai 26 Ans [3.04]
[e] B1. L'été L'été [3.56]
[f] B2. Encore [1.34]
[g] B3. Léo [3.50]
[h] B4. Les Petits Chevaux [0.43]
[i] B5. Tanka I [1.45]
[j] B6. Lettre À Monsieur Le Chef De Gare De La Tour De Carol [6.04]

[l] C1. Comme À La Radio – English Version [8.08]
[m] C2. J’ai 26 Ans – English Version [3.56]
[n] C3. Le Goudron – 7’’ Single [4.12]
[o] C4. Le Noir C'est Mieux Choisi – 7" Single [5.03]
[p] D1. Les Beaux Animaux – 7’’ Single [3.16]
[q] D2. L'été L'été – Early version [4.38]
[r] D3. L'été L'eté – Instrumental Version [4.23]
[s] D4. Tanka I – Instrumental Version [1.47]
[t] D5. Tanka II – Instrumental Version with Flute [1.40]
[u] D6. Le Brouillard – Instrumental Version [3.57]
[v] D7. Lettre À Monsieur Le Chef De Gare – A Cappella English Version [2.46]

[a] A1. Comme À La Radio [8.03]
[b] A2. Tanka II [2.04]
[c] A3. Le Brouillard [3.24]
[d] A4. J'ai 26 Ans [3.04]
[e] B1. L'été L'été [3.56]
[f] B2. Encore [1.34]
[g] B3. Léo [3.50]
[h] B4. Les Petits Chevaux [0.43]
[i] B5. Tanka I [1.45]
[j] B6. Lettre À Monsieur Le Chef De Gare De La Tour De Carol [6.04]

[l] C1. Comme À La Radio – English Version [8.08]
[m] C2. J’ai 26 Ans – English Version [3.56]
[n] C3. Le Goudron – 7’’ Single [4.12]
[o] C4. Le Noir C'est Mieux Choisi – 7" Single [5.03]
[p] D1. Les Beaux Animaux – 7’’ Single [3.16]
[q] D2. L'été L'été – Early version [4.38]
[r] D3. L'été L'eté – Instrumental Version [4.23]
[s] D4. Tanka I – Instrumental Version [1.47]
[t] D5. Tanka II – Instrumental Version with Flute [1.40]
[u] D6. Le Brouillard – Instrumental Version [3.57]
[v] D7. Lettre À Monsieur Le Chef De Gare – A Cappella English Version [2.46]

The Monkees – The Monkees (60th Anniversary Edition) (1LP + 3CD Boxet) 60 Jahre Debütalbum: Exklusive Jubiläums-Box für Sammler und Fans. - Limitierte 1LP + 3CD Deluxe-Edition zum Jubiläum - Inklusive TV-Versionen, Demos und unveröffentlichten Alternativ-Takes - Original Monomix erstmals umfassend auf CD remastered

Nach der Veröffentlichung der Lead-Single ,Glowin'" im Jahr 2025 kehrt Mike James Kirkland mit seinem lang erwarteten Album ,The Business" zurück. Begleitet von den Monophonics präsentiert Kirkland eine facettenreiche, von Bläsern geprägte Sammlung, die beschwingten Soul nahtlos mit gefühlvollen Balladen verbindet und damit seinen Platz als eine der beständigen Stimmen des Genres bekräftigt. Das Album beginnt mit dem energiegeladenen ,Ready Or Not", in dem Kirkland selbstbewusst verkündet: ,Baby, I am ready", und damit den Ton für ein triumphales Comeback angibt. Produzent Kelly Finnigan lässt in ,Where Did We Go Wrong" die üppige Raffinesse des Philly-Soul einfließen und unterlegt Kirklands Reflexion über eine Liebe in Aufruhr mit Bläsern, Flöte, Waldhorn und Sitar. Finnigan arrangiert zudem das romantische ,Leading Lady" und begleitet Kirkland beim zarten ,Remembering Our Love" im Hintergrundgesang. Der Midtempo-Titelsong ,The Business" widmet sich sozialen Themen und verbindet fließende Streicherklänge mit Texten, die systemische Ungerechtigkeit und polizeiliche Unterdrückung thematisieren. Im Gegensatz dazu fängt ,Joyriding" die Unbeschwertheit des Sommers mit einem mitreißenden Groove ein, der zu den Höhepunkten des Albums zählt. Die vielbeachtete Single ,Glowin'" bildet den Abschluss des Albums. Inspiriert von der Version der Rationals aus dem Jahr 1969 des von Dr. John komponierten Stücks spiegelt der Song Kirklands beständige Botschaft wider, spirituelles Gleichgewicht und Glück dem materiellen Erfolg vorzuziehen. ,The Business" wurde zwischen Ende 2021 und Mitte 2022 geschrieben und aufgenommen, unter Mitwirkung von Jimmy James (Parlor Greens) und Lou King (Ironsides). Das Album verbindet Kirklands zeitlosen Gesang mit der üppigen Musikalität der Monophonics und markiert damit eine willkommene Rückkehr des legendären Soulsängers.

„Continue Here“ ist das Album, das es bisher noch nicht gab. „Continue Here“ schließt die Lücke zwischen „Begin Here“ und „Odessey & Oracle“ und enthält die bei den Fans beliebten Titel „I Love You“, „Leave Me Be“ und „I Want You Back Again“. Zum ersten Mal auf einem Album vereint, dokumentiert „Continue Here“ alle 18 Nicht-Album-Singles und B-Seiten aus den Jahren 1964 bis 1967 in ihrer ursprünglichen Mono-Mischung. „Continue Here (Mono Remastered)“ ist das nächste Kapitel in der Reihe der Zombies-Neuauflagen über das bandeigene Label Beechwood Park Records, mit demselben Team wie bei „Begin Here“ und „Odessey & Oracle“ – erneut unter der Leitung von Matthew und Jamie White, gemastert von Reuben Cohen bei Lurssen Mastering, mit brandneuem Artwork von Darren Evans und Liner Notes des legendären David Fricke. Die CD enthält einen Bonustrack: „I’m Going Home“.

Black Mekon gelten als Kultfavoriten und verbringen seit mehr als 15 Jahren ihre Zeit damit, rund um den Globus zu touren und eine Reihe hochgelobter Geheimtipp-Alben zu veröffentlichen. Dabei haben sie ihren einzigartigen Mix aus Lo-Fi-Garage-Rock, Punk und Blues stetig perfektioniert und sich eine treue Fangemeinde aufgebaut.Nachdem sie bereits mit Künstlern wie Jon Spencer, Black Lips, Kid Congo und The Scientists die Bühne geteilt haben, wurden sie kürzlich persönlich von Jack White als Support-Act ausgewählt. Dies geschah kurz nach einer weiteren Japan-Tournee gemeinsam mit Guitar Wolf.13 Songs About Monsters hält genau das, was der Titel verspricht: eine Sammlung von Horror-inspirierten Garage-Rock-Hymnen, die pünktlich zu Halloween erscheint und als streng limitierte Glow-in-the-Dark-Vinyl-Edition veröffentlicht wird.

New York-based Japanese jazz and electronic music polymath Takuya Nakamura presents his debut album Shape The Future - almost 35 years into his storied musical journey.

An expansive double album, the album’s first LP documents a spellbinding live performance by Nakamura recorded at fabric. A hybrid set combining DJing, live electronics, vocals, and trumpet, the set also features studio versions of special collaborations with Shigeto, Currency Audio and Tim Reaper. The second LP complements the first by assembling studio recordings of select album tracks. Altogether the two volumes make for a definitive display of Nakamura’s exceptional musicianship across jazz, DnB, jungle, broken beat, deep techno and more.

Across his career, Nakamura has played Brazilian music, merengue, salsa and straight-ahead jazz. He’s opened for Sun Ra Arkestra, performed with David Byrne, Laurie Anderson, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Wu-Tang Clan, and Arto Lindsay, appeared on sessions with Terry Riley, ASAP Rocky, Goldie, and TV On The Radio, and remixed the likes of Quincy Jones, Sun Ra, Billie Holiday, and The Streets. He’s also played under director and playwright Robert Wilson.

Although the musical past and present of the Tokyo-born, New York-based DJ and trumpet player is undoubtedly eclectic, Nakamura is abidingly steeped in the sounds of jazz and jungle. This’ll be obvious to casual observers who may have seen any viral videos of him. But there’s more to this. The depth of Nakamura’s engagement with these kinds of music, the way they’ve made him into the person he is, the decades-long path they’ve taken him on; to now arrive at the summit of a solo album is all truly remarkable. Shape The Future resonates with every chapter in this story.

In high school, Nakamura’s friends started listening to jazz and jazz fusion, which piqued his interest, especially when they started going to clubs to see it live, where they managed to see US legends like Sonny Rollins play. Eventually he began to play jazz every day and his musical skill emerged early. He soon became obsessed with getting closer to the source of this music, which led to his studies at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston with George Russell, an influential figure who had taught Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Nakamura drank it in: not only the technical aspects but the sense of a direct connection to “a music culture where Russell and his friends changed harmony forever. I wanted to know how that was possible!”.

This was a radical experience in itself, but then another revolution happened for Nakamura. He was playing in a venue called The Western Front, near Boston and discovered that the elderly owner had his own soundsystem and was playing what was then - in 1992 - only just becoming known as jungle. This was as freeing a musical revelation as his proximity to the giants of jazz was, and in that instant the two things fused. He understood that using technology to fill a dancehall with sound and a jazz musician’s reflexes are all working to the same ends: “You’re always making decisions,” he says, “but it doesn’t have to be really difficult. It’s the truth of the frequencies, and how they’re affecting people’s minds.”

From that moment on, his life path was set. Moving to New York City, he sought out jungle and its offshoot sounds wherever he could find them, gigging and collaborating relentlessly, and gradually developing his own live and hybrid live/DJ shows. Through regular appearances at New York fixtures Zebulon and CBGBs, and continual shows elsewhere in the city, Nakamura developed his live performance and DJing and it was in these environments that he gradually weaved together his twin loves without compromising either, building an international reputation in the process.

It’s only fitting then that his first album, almost 35 years after he first found his musical direction, should be a live one: a window into this never-ending process. Even here, he had to be persuaded that he should make a record. A member of the fabric team got turned on to his music after their daughter saw him play. Of course, as a jungle lover, Nakamura knew fabric – which has a special place in the history of jungle and drum’n’bass – and “had wanted to play there since I was very young.” You can hear the club in the record: this isn’t just a live show, in keeping with his jungle roots, it’s Nakamura duetting with the soundsystem, and you can feel how the emotions in the room would have ebbed and flowed.

This dynamic translates to a transfixing record. Setting the tone with lushly textured ambient and reverberant jazz, Nakamura segues into cinematic breakbeat and stellar fusion, infusing it all with intoxicating low end and hypnotic rhythms. The LP’s midway point locks into mesmeric percussion heightened by resonant echoes of piano and trumpet. There’s an endless pull to this music. Nakamura adjusts the levels for maximum impact throughout, and the overall effect begins to evoke some harmonious hybrid between a jazz ensemble, a classic Metalheadz 12” and a Theo Parrish DJ set. His electric form continues through surreal jazz, intricate electronics and rolling sub-bass velocity, right up to the subtly devastating final cover of Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush’s ‘Don’t Give Up’, with Nakamura’s fragile vocal sitting in the heart of a huge sound.

From Tokyo jazz nights to formative studies and encounters in Boston to his artistic development in New York, Nakamura reaches another milestone with his monumental debut album. It’s a release that happened just the way a Takuya Nakamura record should. In the same way his instincts led him to musical revelations, taking his own sweet time has led him to make one of the most extraordinary debut albums imaginable, all executed in his own singular style. In Nakamura’s world, the universe finds a way.

Hanne Lippard and Renato Grieco's Today's Special is a suite of language works synthesising melody and diction that integrates the literary and the audible in a repertoire of songs that bask in the melody of voice and the punctuations of structured composition. Working with methods of reduction rather than opulence in both tonal composition and rhetoric, each piece pegs the poetic to the musical with compositional schematics and methods. It is important to state that there is little to none improvisation here, instead, the duo set up matrices, rules and structural links that facilitated meaningful locus of exchange between their two practices. Lippard's texts are a collection of new and previously completed works. In these, as is typical for her work, she enjoys the easy pleasure of wordplay, iterative language, and decontextualised anecdote, as in opener Portrait of a Betrayal, a piece about the loss of a phone and the way it haunted the owner who dropped it, based on a lived experience. Grieco's instrumentation works with Lippard's language art as a form of acoustic typography. "I studied graphic design and I think about how you can express typography through voice," she says. "Renato's use of the viola da gamba becomes like an underline, or a font's brushstrokes, in ways that feel typographical." In this, the classically-trained composer Grieco often finds and echoes the pitch movements of Lippard's voice, intonation mirrored and revealed, linguistic meaning doubled and shadowed by plucked, strummed or bowed strings. His main instrument is the viola da gamba, the instrument considered closest to the human voice for its tonal range and ability to mimic inflections and timbre, and here he brings it even closer to the voice, building systems by which it moves with and around Lippard. He also plays piano and Wurlitzer, and joins her in speaking on Receiver and in conversation for final track The Black Rose. "Hanne's voice is an artist's voice, embodied as the artwork itself," he says. "But where my approach is from the perspective of a composer, hers is around rhetoric and language. We worked towards each other in this sense, Hanne finding a space to welcome my voice, and me designing an acoustic space to enhance her vocal persona." In some tracks the structural connections are obvious - the matched tumbling delivery and stepped pitches of voice and piano in Aficionado sounding like two tipsy friends descending a staircase. In others, like the triptych of tracks Three Rungs Ladder, structured with rules derived from nursery rhymes, or cumulative song (akin to the 12 Days of Christmas). For the Colour 1 and Colour 2 pieces, the duo worked from palettes of colours connected to clusters of harmonies, which underlined the power of the word and its articulation. The absurd Labradorable personifies a people pleaser, A Story About Being Blue is an imagined playful monologue from the Deep Blue supercomputer - requesting in sing-song stop motion to be called Debbie, and Larry - as Grieco echoes in factual reportage. Hurtbeat unpacks and recomposes a tweeted non-apology by a Russian art collector about owning a piece of racist art, Grieco shadowing Lippard's generating a third `drop-shadow' performer from the resonances between the duo, typographic re-articulation of the source material. The Receiver includes lines from Robert Ashley's Improvement (Don Leaves Linda), Ashley existing as a spiritual parent of sorts to the practices contained on Today's Special, and here interpolated as if he is being quoted and written through within the audible world of the piece in a palimpsest of borrowed sentences. Closing track The Black Rose contains its own self-aware comedy, a lightly distorted conversation sourced from a Reddit thread about whether black roses exist, recorded as if it were an internet radio or a low budget podcast, the casual exchange stilted in the delivery of platitudes as scripted speech. Today's Special was developed in person over the course of a series of small residencies - at Deutsche Akademie Rom Villa Massimo, Rome; Fondazione Morra, Napoli; Callie's, Berlin. In these limited periods that rarely stretched beyond a week, Lippard and Grieco developed strategies for the works, keeping tightly locked to musical concepts. This, for Grieco, is about maintaining a solid, meaningful connection within the compositions, and committing to everything having a purpose for existing within the work. Each element pulls its weight; has something to say, literally and metaphorically speaking. In the same way that Lippard's work leaves nowhere for her to hide, he wants the music to exist with its own naked purpose: "It's is about exposing nudity via reduced materials," says Grieco. "This is a form of courage we want to embrace. Once we take off everything, it needs to be extremely precise to maintain a connection with the audience. We have a lot of tools to hide behind now, to protect ourselves and our identities as artists, performers, and in life more generally. It's something I don't want to do. I want extreme reduction: no hiding."

WHIMM formed around the shadowy heart of the Toronto post-punk underground over a decade ago. The partnership between Mounir Al Shami and Andrew Matthews has emitted sporadic musical shards over time, while slowly evolving into something so much bigger than its beginnings. Ideas seep out of every corner of No Promotion, showcasing a burning desire to explore and challenge while delivering very direct sonic offerings. The result is an album that feels as if you took the entire Coil discography and smashed it into pieces, assembling these precious songs from the fragments. Or as if Vangelis beckoned Section 25 to the studio in hopes of recording the score to a seedy film. The resulting LP is in a state of flux – equal parts motion and decay.

Patrick Flegel, of Cindy Lee, welcomed Al Shami and Matthews into REALISTIK Studios in Montreal to engineer half of the tracks for the album, including lending guitar to the opening track "Five in Decline." That influence is evident early on, as the first three songs are taken from those sessions. "Five in Decline" throbs and barks before racing through the hallways closing in around it. "Another Labour" slows to a spidery waltz as anxious melodies call out to one another. "Returnal" pulses, floats through the night sky and haunts you forever. "Rye" carves a percussive pathway toward similar travellers like Terry Riley and Jon Hassell, before the lament of "A Death Remembered" forms the perfect midpoint for the record. A slow build countered by twitching drums and blanketed by organs recorded at Metropolitan United Church in Toronto, it feels like emotion right on the edge of resolve.

"Rhymes of December" screeches through on a solitary train under the towering cityscape as the flickering lights blur past, its doors opening to the candlelit altar of "After the Last Sky" (those beautiful organs again) with an operatic swirl. "K'20" throws you into a claustrophobic and chaotic cab ride (Who is talking? Are those sirens?) until you finally find the quiet of the early morning, waiting at the window for the sun to join you once again as the first notes of "No Promotion" are delicately plucked. The final song from the Flegel sessions, it is over eight minutes of contemplative beauty. A restless heart that is ready to rest. Closing with a final apparition in the key of The Caretaker, "After the Last Sky (Reprise)" is a return to melody when words lose all meaning.

Al Shami and Matthews weave their lyrics throughout, words describing a search for lucidity, and of reactions and reflections. Al Shami – speaking from the Palestinian diaspora – ruminates on displacement, both personal and collective. His journey from having "been without a land and I can still see clearly" in "Rhymes of December" to a more defiant "we will be back again, no matter how it ends or where we've been" in "Returnal" takes a very insular turn on No Promotion. That sense of alienation pulls at the very center of a relationship when land and circumstances separate: "And after our last breath, all that's left in me is our flesh and fears, your last words would swim for years, you'll never find a home in me." Hearts on the outskirts that know the direction.

“Cue Blue”, the latest and fifth studio recording from Australian down under, gritty jazzfunk grooves ensemble Kerbside Collection sees a return to a more classic, stripped back, meat-and-potatoes, home-cooked, quartet formation sound of guitar, bass, drums and brass.


A sound formed on previous, recent recordings (incl. Golden Rules compilation tune “Fleet Streak” etc), seemingly harking back to the approach of the group’s first recordings (2013’s “Mind The Curb”, “Night in Tunisia” etc), whilst embodying inspirations from more ‘true school’, classic, bluesy New Orleans funk and soul groove flavours à la early Meters, Boogaloo Joe Jones, Melvin Sparks, Billy Butler etc. But it’s not all completely ‘retro’ and ‘looking back’, the album definitely taps into some of the current exponents and leaders of the contemporary deep funk sound – The Greyboy Allstars, Eddie Roberts, The New Mastersounds, The Mighty Mocambos, Breakestra and fellow Aussie funksters Cookin’ on 3 Burners, Lance Ferguson and The Bamboos etc.


The lead single and first tune “Shivers” gives us a clear, picture and definitive opening statement to the record with all the characteristics you’ve come to expect from the Kerbside gritty jazzfunk sound: silky guitar line phrasing, rubbery bass-lines, tight crusty drum breaks, and sweet brass arrangements. Then it’s straight into a frenetic, jangly, mod-funk workout complete with Northern Soul & Motown inflections in the surging B sections. “City Park Avenue” conjures up classic New Orleans funk flavours with its strutting brass, slinky guitar and swinging tambourine groove. There’s classic, b-boy funk territory covered in “Coffee Grinder” (a breakdance move) with its razor-sharp drum break groove and chunky riff complete with sizzling trombone solo. Before the pace of the record changes up with the finger-clicken’, hand-clappin’ boogaloo, reminiscent of early 60s Harlem x Puerto Rican Bronx sounds (à la Willie Bobo, Mongo Santamaria, Ray Barretto) loaded with a scintillating baritone sax solo from long standing part of the collection ‘Papa Joe’ Roberts.


“Sittin’ On The Porch” cools the temperature down even more, delving into slight Southern Louisiana Delta blues territory, while suggesting some of the hot and muggy atmosphere and imagery of their home town location in suburban Brisbane Australia, complete with kooky Casio percussion representing familiar yard sounds such as sprinklers (spinning lawn watering devices) and ‘mozzies’ (mosquitos), passing cars indicated by trombone, and guitarist TC Tyler, channelling some bluesy John Lee Hooker, R.L. Burnside guitar flavours - you can almost feel the humidity on your skin.


Then it’s time for a stroll down memory lane, with their version of a People Under The Stairs hip hop classic “San Francisco Knights”, bringing the tune full circle back into band mode, also with another tasty guitar solo. The album then enters its final stages with a mesmerising, soulful, jazz ballad “Shimmer”, complete with Elliott Parker’s sultry upright double bass, and trombone taking the melody for a gentle stroll down the street. The album finally closes and arrives at its title “Cue Blue”, a classic blue-eyed soul number (penned by bassist Parker), emitting the scent of true school, vintage R&B and soul (à la Donny Hathaway, Marvin Gaye).


An album of funky arrangements and refined compositions, mostly penned by recent new-ish member, guitarist Tyler (for fans of Tower of Power & John Scofield guitar playing) taking the ensemble through their paces with all the usual characteristics of the Kerbside sound, on top a groove that will take you round-the-block-and-back :P Gritty jazzfunk and rustic soul grooves with definite bluesy overtones, some classic 60s, 70s flourishes and down-home funk flavours.

The seminal psych-rock classic The Evil One by Roky Erickson And The Aliens is reissued by Fire Records in a deluxe 15-track edition, restoring the original front cover from San Francisco’s 415 Records release for the first time since 1981. Presented across two LPs cut at 45 rpm for maximum sonic depth and clarity, the release brings together the complete recordings from the legendary 1978 and 1979 sessions. The package includes a collector’s booklet with liner notes by acclaimed Austin music journalist Joe Nick Patoski, who attended a recording session for The Evil One in 1979. Alongside rare photographs and archival images from the collection of Roky’s then manager, Craig Luckin.

Following his release from Rusk State Hospital in 1974, Erickson formed The Aliens and channelled his experiences and fascination with horror and science fiction into a singular new sound. Moving beyond the psychedelic garage blues of the 13th Floor Elevators, the band created harder, more ferocious rock built around jagged guitars, strange melodies and a propulsive rhythm section.

Produced by Creedence Clearwater Revival bassist Stu Cook, The Evil One includes some of Erickson’s most celebrated recordings, including ‘Two Headed Dog’, ‘I Walked With A Zombie’ and ‘It’s A Cold Night For Alligators’. Erickson’s unmistakable voice and surreal lyrics, populated by zombies, demons, vampires and atomic monsters, gave the album a character unlike anything else in rock. Both the LP and CD editions feature rare photographs and images from the archive of Erickson’s then manager and the sessions’ executive producer, Craig Luckin.

The Evil One has since become a landmark of cult rock, with its songs covered by generations of artists and its influence extending across punk, alternative and psychedelic music. As Craig Luckin recalls, “Roky considers The Evil One to be his favourite album that he ever recorded. He really loves that album.”

Austin music journalist Joe Nick Patoski, who attended one of the album’s 1979 sessions, contributes a new essay to the LP and CD packaging, exploring Erickson’s extraordinary career, enduring influence and place in Texas rock history.

More than a standalone reissue, this deluxe edition of The Evil One opens an exciting new series honouring Roky Erickson’s extraordinary body of work, with Gremlins Have Pictures and Don’t Slander Me to follow in 2027.