Buscar:the moth

ASA 808's new album Boy, crush is a very personal inner journey as well as a call to fight and free ourselves from toxic masculinity. In eight tracks that subtly merge electronica, ambient, breakbeat and house, the Berlin-based artist process their own quest for gender identity. Out on vinyl and digital via the TOYS Berlin imprint, the album proposes new, softer and more diverse forms of gender fluidity.

ASA 808 invites listeners to expand their views of the gender spectrum. The title Boy, crush plays with the term "boy crush" and is meant as an encouragement for all men to "collectively crush manhood" with all its toxic traits and consequences:

"Toxic masculinity has kept our grandmothers and mothers small and brought deviant boys into line. It took me a long time to unlearn so much sexism and queerphobia and find my inner queer child again to let it grow, bloom and shine. I dream of a world in which men emasculate themselves. In which masculinity (if we feel it's still needed) will embrace softness, weakness, vulnerability, solidarity, consideration, mindfulness, self-reflectiveness and nonviolence", explains the non-binary producer and DJ who discovered their gender-nonconforming side already at an early age.

Experimental post-punk outfit GIRLS IN SYNTHESIS are set to release the eagerly anticipated follow-up to 2020’s incendiary debut, ‘Now Here’s An Echo From Your Future’. Entitled ‘The Rest Is Distraction’ and available this coming October 14th via the band’s own label Own It/Cargo Records, its mix of fractured guitar, crushing drums and bass, intense vocals and lyrical content - create as challenging a record as you will hear this year. Formed in 2016, GIRLS IN SYNTHESIS are John Linger (bass / vocals), Jim Cubitt (guitar / keys) and Nicole Pinto (drums). The trio’s double a-sided debut single ‘The Mound’/’Disappear’ came out in the early part of 2017, and since then they have established themselves as the most forward thinking, viscerally challenging band around with unmissable live shows that continue to excite and astound in equal measure. Recorded last year amidst the uncertainty of continuous lockdowns as a result of the global Covid-19 pandemic, ‘The Rest Is Distraction’ is far darker in content than its predecessor. Mainly exploring internal and mental struggles as opposed to external current affairs, it focuses on the claustrophobia of emotional anguish and continues to bravely delve into previously un-ventured topics. Featuring frequent collaborators funkcutter and Stanley Bad on horns and violin, respectively, two songs also see Eleni Poulou, ex-The Fall, on keyboards. The album was mixed by long-term collaborator Max Walker and features stunning landscape photography by Bea Dewhurst. The album was mastered in France by Ayumu Matsuo. Sonically atramentous and less one dimensional than the band’s debut, ‘The Rest Is Distraction’ takes its cues from ‘Join Hands’ era Siouxsie & The Banshees, Brainiac and Crass’ ‘Christ The Album’, among others. From the first crackle of electricity on the opening track, to the heart wrenching taped voice-recording on the final outro, this LP triumphantly retains every ounce of intensity and vitality that makes Girls In Synthesis the most captivating band to emerge from the UK DIY underground in recent years. Listeners will find ‘The Rest Is Distraction’ a challenging, yet ultimately cathartic listen. Prepare yourselves for a sonic cleansing, Girls In Synthesis style. Side A 1- It’s All Beginning To Change 2- Watch With Mother 3- Total Control 4- Swallowed Pill 5- Screaming
6- My Husband Side B 1- Cottage Industry 2- Not As I Do 3- Lacking Bite 4- Your Prayers Have Changed 5- To A Fault

Experimental post-punk outfit GIRLS IN SYNTHESIS are set to release the eagerly anticipated follow-up to 2020’s incendiary debut, ‘Now Here’s An Echo From Your Future’. Entitled ‘The Rest Is Distraction’ and available this coming October 14th via the band’s own label Own It/Cargo Records, its mix of fractured guitar, crushing drums and bass, intense vocals and lyrical content - create as challenging a record as you will hear this year. Formed in 2016, GIRLS IN SYNTHESIS are John Linger (bass / vocals), Jim Cubitt (guitar / keys) and Nicole Pinto (drums). The trio’s double a-sided debut single ‘The Mound’/’Disappear’ came out in the early part of 2017, and since then they have established themselves as the most forward thinking, viscerally challenging band around with unmissable live shows that continue to excite and astound in equal measure. Recorded last year amidst the uncertainty of continuous lockdowns as a result of the global Covid-19 pandemic, ‘The Rest Is Distraction’ is far darker in content than its predecessor. Mainly exploring internal and mental struggles as opposed to external current affairs, it focuses on the claustrophobia of emotional anguish and continues to bravely delve into previously un-ventured topics. Featuring frequent collaborators funkcutter and Stanley Bad on horns and violin, respectively, two songs also see Eleni Poulou, ex-The Fall, on keyboards. The album was mixed by long-term collaborator Max Walker and features stunning landscape photography by Bea Dewhurst. The album was mastered in France by Ayumu Matsuo. Sonically atramentous and less one dimensional than the band’s debut, ‘The Rest Is Distraction’ takes its cues from ‘Join Hands’ era Siouxsie & The Banshees, Brainiac and Crass’ ‘Christ The Album’, among others. From the first crackle of electricity on the opening track, to the heart wrenching taped voice-recording on the final outro, this LP triumphantly retains every ounce of intensity and vitality that makes Girls In Synthesis the most captivating band to emerge from the UK DIY underground in recent years. Listeners will find ‘The Rest Is Distraction’ a challenging, yet ultimately cathartic listen. Prepare yourselves for a sonic cleansing, Girls In Synthesis style. Side A 1- It’s All Beginning To Change 2- Watch With Mother 3- Total Control 4- Swallowed Pill 5- Screaming
6- My Husband Side B 1- Cottage Industry 2- Not As I Do 3- Lacking Bite 4- Your Prayers Have Changed 5- To A Fault

While she might be best known as an improviser (most notably in the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, the Feminist Improvising Group and more recently with the likes of Les Diaboliques), Maggie Nicols’ talents stretch into song, dance, poetry, performance and composition. When Cafe OTO was shut over lockdown we invited her to follow up the wonderful solo ‘Creative Contradiction’ with some time spent singing alone at the piano. ‘Are You Ready?’ comprises an LP of songs and a 2CD edition which includes a companion disk of freely improvised meditations entitled, ‘Whatever Arises.’ Songs - seemingly contradictory to the practices of free improvisation - have been a vital part in Nicols’ relationship to music. It was singing bebop with pianist Dennis Rose which nurtured and challenged Nicols, allowing her to develop her own skills and sound amongst a repertoire of standards sung in clubs and pubs. Singing alongside Julie Tippetts in Centipede showed her how heady experimentation could be woven into composition, and a more recent gig with pianist Steve Lodder played out ‘The Maggie Nicols Songbook.’ Are You Ready? recalls Nicols’ own compositions from memory, working out tunes and turning them over. New routes down old paths form in moments of improvisation and all wrong turns are played out with joyous discovery. What John Stevens dubbed Maggie's “ability to find the ‘rhythmelodic’” meets a willingness to be understood and to understand. Solo at the piano, Nicols is still firmly rooted in the collective however - “Sans Papiers” sets the words of poet Vicky Scrivener to tune; a story of migration and struggle which is as important to Nicols as the songs her mother wrote. Such an intimate recording of her own compositions came with a certain amount of reflection and anxiety - best confronted with time spent freely improvising. ‘Whatever Arises’ - a companion disk to the ‘Songs’ - is a meditation of sorts, a process of ‘following the energy’ which has its roots in John Stevens’ work. “Improvisation gives the confidence to compose,” Nicols told us in an interview about some of her archival tapes, and here the two are as important as each other. Beginning with breath and repetition, ‘Whatever Arises’ allows Nicols’ to find new voices, accompanied by the piano and over dubbings of her tap shoes on the concrete floor. Brilliantly she is able to share her moments of discovery with the listener, finding comfort in vulnerability. Whilst rooted in Stevens’ work, Nicols’ improvisational techniques also remind us of Pauline Oliveros’ Sonic Meditations. They are what has allowed Nicols to find her own sound, to ‘teach herself to fly.’ They have allowed Nicols to grow and share and to be able to keep close the songs that mean so much to her, now shared with us. Recorded at Cafe OTO on July 15th, 16th and 17th 2021 by Shaun Crook. Mixed by Shaun Crook. Mastered by Sean McCann. Artwork by Annalisa Colombara. Lettering by Rosella Garavaglia. Layout by Maja Larrson. ‘Slow Within The Urgency’ inspired by mindfulness teacher Jeff Warren. Original poem ‘Sans Papiers’ by Vicky Scrivener. Original poem ‘You Darkness’ by Rainer Maria Rilke. Music and lyrics to ‘Music Is The Healing Force of The Universe’ by Mary Maria Parks.

For Fans Of: J. Tillman, Phosphorescent, Low, Damien Jurado, Bill Callhan. “It’s going to be hard to talk about this when it’s done.” So begins A Mold For The Bell, the new album from Colorado singer-songwriter and producer Logan Farmer. What follows that enigmatic lyric is a collection of stark and ambient folk songs, tethered solely by Farmer’s unadorned vocals, acoustic guitar, and moving embellishments from contributors, including saxophonist Joseph Shabason (who also mixed the album) and renowned harpist Mary Lattimore. With the help of Grammy-nominated producer Andrew Berlin (Gregory Alan Isakov), Farmer tracked all of the vocal and guitar parts over two days in the early months of 2021. The tracks were recorded quickly, live in the studio to capture the raw intimacy and immediacy of Farmer’s live performances. The rest of the album’s creation occurred remotely, over texts, phone calls, and emails with Shabason and a handful of other musicians, as wildfires, insurrections and the pandemic raged around them. “I was working at a bookstore that winter,” Farmer explains, “and I’d walk to my shift every day, obsessing over lyrics and early mixes in a cheap pair of earbuds.” These daily walks would take him past a church, where he’d often stop on the sidewalk and listen to the bells at the top of the hour. “I’ve always loved the sound of church bells, but as the situation worsened, what began as a comfort began to feel ominous, almost threatening.” This experience, alongside influences as disparate as Tarkovsky’s film Andrei Rublev and the novels of Olga Tokarczuk, led to a collection of songs that are similarly foreboding, expanding upon the stark and spacious universe of Farmer’s last album (2020’s Still No Mother) to reveal an atmosphere that’s even more oppressively still, like an abandoned Victorian home. Tracks: 01 Silence or Swell 02 Cue Sunday Bells 03 Horsehair (feat. Mary Lattimore) 04 Crooked Lines 05 William 06 The Moment 07 Renegade 08 South Vienna

A band that broke before it really got started. With a rotating cast of musicians centred around a now sober ex-gold prospector Drew Thomson, Single Mothers has evolved into an art project and collective rather than a typical band with 20+ members in and out. Now with a new offering, Everything You Need, Thomson once again shows us why he is one of Canada's most talented songwriters and lyricists. Reinventing the band on nearly every record, the new album shows Thomson’s growth as a songwriter and ability to consistently create records that never lull and keep you on the edge of your seat and wanting more after every listen.

Produced by Laurel Halo and released via Norway's respected Smalltown Supersound label, Anja Lauvdal's first solo release, From a Story Now Lost, is a gorgeous musical essay reflecting on time, its perception, and lost histories rediscovered. Finally exploring her own voice after more than a decade of collaborative improvisational playing - starting at her time in jazz conservatory in Trondheim - the album is a jewel of subtle beauty and innovative detail. A freeform musician on piano, synthesizers, and electronics, Lauvdal's discography stretches back to 2013 and includes her participation in a myriad of ensembles and collaborations exploring the limits of sound and music in many forms, including noise, jazz, and more. Following her move to Oslo after graduation, she became deeply embedded in the music community there, touring with Jenny Hval as well as playing on her records. When pandemic hit and isolation was the norm, Lauvdal began working on her own, recording her improvisations in an attempt to capture something new for herself. Connecting to Laurel Halo via Smalltown's founder Joakim Haugland, the acclaimed American artist agreed to work with Lauvdal in shaping her solo record, becoming integral to its creation through all of its stages. Lauvdal credits Halo as a deep listener and gentle "thought-provoker", who contributed ideas as well as helping to shape the finished versions (Halo also worked alongside Rashad Becker on the final mix of the album). Together, they found a method of recording Lauvdal's improvisations, making small loops from those, feeding them back into the synthesizers, and making synthesizers out of the improvisations, which Lauvdal would then re-improvise with. She describes the end result, "like seeing different pieces of time around in the universe." While the record is based on Lauvdal's improvisations, some tracks were inspired Agathe Backer Grondahl, a Norwegian classical pianist and composer from the latter half of the 19th century. Lauvdal notes that Grondahl is not widely known, although her best friend Edvard Grieg is still considered Norway's most famous composer. Yet now, partly through Lauvdal, her story resurfaces and persists. "From a Story Now Lost means the story is still there," Lauvdal explains. "It hasn't gone anywhere even though nobody heard it, or maybe you're hearing it for the first time. And actually it was told a long time ago - maybe you weren't ready to hear that story at the time." This hints at the limitless nature of her music, as well as its new emotional texture. Direct in its vulnerability, immediate in its tenderness, From a Story Now Lost is a sophisticated evocation over restrained artistry spilling over with meaning.

Patricia Barber's 6th studio album is a fascinating collection of classic cover songs shaped by her inimitable downtempo intimacy into startlingly affective journeys through the human condition. Working with her band of the time (bassist Michael Arnopol and drummer Adam Cruz, augmented by star turns from guitarist Charlie Hunter, bassist Marc Johnson, and drummer Adam Nussbaum), Barber creates an atmosphere of austere trepidation that allows her long-time engineer Jim Anderson to hang her haunted vocals directly over top. Like all great jazz albums, Nightclub puts the highlighted artist front and center while carving out plenty of space for the supporting players to give emphatic support.

Impex's 1STEP process provides the perfect showcase for Anderson's peerless audio immersions. Nightclub was originally digitally recorded on a Sony 3348 multi-track and mixed through a Neve analog console to both digital and analogue mix-down masters. Bernie Grundman used the analogue mix-down tapes to assemble a new analogue cutting master exclusively for our 1STEP. Coupled with the incredibly detailed VR-900 vinyl formula, there is instrument detailing to spare, a Mariana Trench noise floor, and incredibly-focused low end. There is simply no better way to enjoy Barber's cool renditions of timeless classics than this one (including the exclusive, never-before-released bonus track "Wild Is the Wind"). Limited to 7,500 pressings!

The 1STEP Process:
The Impex 1STEP process relies on short, tightly-controlled runs that require a new lacquer after each 500 pressings. This unforgiving format has the lacquer skipping the regular father-mother process, going right to a single convert and then pressing. Though this dramatically increases mastering and production costs, it also assures each run is more consistent from disc to disc, with less noise, clearer details and deeper bass.

Reducing production complexity to just a single "convert" disc between the lacquer and the press greatly improves groove integrity, diminishes non-fill anomalies and increases signal integrity from the master tape to your system.

Mastered by Bernie Grundman from the Original Mix-Down Analogue Master Tapes
Pressed on VR-900 Super Vinyl for Incredible Detailing, an Epic Soundstage & Near-Silent Surfaces
Exclusive Ultra-Luxe Impex 1STEP Packaging
Deluxe 12-Page Booklet within a Three-Sleeve Monster Pack Jacket
Colour-Matched Slip Case
Never-Before-Released Studio Session Track "Wild Is the Wind"

As Anomalie, the shape- shifting production project he unveiled in 2016, Dupuis has channeled his musical upbringing (his mother, a piano teacher; his father, a host on Radio- Canada), formal schooling, and stage- seasoned chops into two companion EPs — Metropole and Metropole II — the Chromeo collaboration Bend the Rules, and a series of singles lighting a pathway to his upcoming long-form debut, Galerie.
Galerie’s forward-facing approach may call to mind a timeless phrase familiar to any jazzhead: The Shape of Jazz to Come. Ornette Coleman’s 1959 opus reconfigured traditional notions of harmonic structure, its title and content serving as both a blueprint and open question for progressive music’s future. With Dupuis’ reverent but revolutionary project, that answer is no longer in the past or on the horizon; it’s here.

Ekkehard Ehlers' seminal plays series was originally released on three 12inches (Staubgold) and two 7inches (Bottrop-Boy) in very limited runs. The entire series was previously only available as a CD compilation or digitally. Keplar finally presents it on double vinyl for the first time, featuring a new cover artwork.

Domestic ethnology: Ekkehard Ehlers plays.

‘Play’ is a word in English with many meanings attached. Each one sends you down a different cognitive pathway. When I think of ‘playing’, in the sense of a game, I think of an activity involving more than one person. When Ekkehard Ehlers plays, he is very much on his own. Or, at least, alone but at the same time keeping intimate company with the artistic innovators named in his titles. Robert Johnson. John Cassavetes. Albert Ayler. Cornelius Cardew. Hubert Fichte. Is he playing with them, against them, about them, for them, to them? This can never be known.

It is certainly a mistake to try to hear the ‘work’ of these originals in the sounds played by Ekkehard. They’re not cover versions. They’re hardly tributes in the conventional sense. Cassavetes and Fichte are not even musicians, although music played an important part in both their careers. Sure, there are little nods and flashes of recognition – tiny guitar licks among the minimal beats of ‘Robert Johnson 2’; rich bowed instruments in ‘Albert Ayler’, recalling the violin, cello and double bass arrangements on Ayler’s 1967 Live in Greenwich Village LP; the elongated organ lines of ‘Cornelius Cardew 1’ gesturing towards passages in Paragraph 1 of the British composer’s 1971 Marxist monolith, The Great Learning. Ekkehard is not so much playing these figures as allowing himself to be played by them.

Playing as an activity also suggests freedom. Maybe the only thing all five named persons have in common is that they were all quiet radicals. In music, literature and cinema, they all stepped, without self-promotion or fanfare, into unmapped territories. Once there they found it necessary to invent new languages in order to survive. Necessity was the mother of their inventiveness. They were also uncomfortable avant gardists. Lonely types, fighting their corners out on the margins, with little reward, often misunderstood, ridiculed or ignored.

All died unfairly young. Fichte a victim of HIV/AIDS, Cassavetes of cirrhosis of the liver. (‘Cassavetes 2’ sounds like a tender farewell played across the 59 year old alcoholic director’s death bed.) The deaths of Johnson, Ayler and Cardew have never been satisfactorily explained, and remain shrouded in myths and conspiracy theories. The pioneering expeditions of all five began in that spirit of playful freedom, but inexorably drew them towards the heart of darkness.

So these ‘plays’ are micro-dramas, sonic soliloquies, monolog-ins to the private accounts of various geniuses in Ekkehard’s ‘follow’ list. Hacked sensibilities. Artistic manifestos boiled down and distilled, skinned and dried in the digital smokehouse. (Ekkehard Ehlers Flays.) Each of these plays was originally floated out into the world alone on its own disc. The collected works play well as a team – a tranquil, introspective experience where each artist has his own identifiably unique sound character. As an album, Plays is a ‘Plattenragout’ – a ‘record stew’ – which was the title of Hubert Fichte’s LP review column in the leftist culture magazine konkret in the 1960s. The novelist’s work investigating the cultures of South America and the Caribbean islands has been called ‘domestic ethnology’. The writer himself referred to his ‘ethnopoesie’. Ekkehard Ehlers’s intuitive electronic portraits are a form of domestic ethnology in themselves. Invoking another of Ekkehard’s musical aliases, they are portraits of cultural ‘autopoiesies’ – creators whose works were strong enough to have their own self-regenerating life force. (by Rob Young)

All tracks written and produced by Ekkehard Ehlers.
Featuring Stephan Mathieu, Joseph Suchy, Anka Hirsch.
Tracks A1 to C2 originally released on three 12inches via Staubgold.
Tracks D1 to D4 originally released on two 7inches via Bottrop-Boy.
Plays originally released as CD compilation in 2002 by Staubgold.
Mastered by Rashad Becker.
Cut to vinyl by Lupo, Berlin, 2022.
Redesigned by Sandra Kastl, 2022.
Photos by Ludger Blanke

As a duo they embrace both sides of the coin, drums and guitar, chaos and order, male and female, ying and yang, the angel and the devil. They are more than the sum of both counterparts though, making for a maximalist auditory experience. PIKA brings her skills of mystifying performance to the table, all free-drum bluster and vocals veering between shrine maiden and wild spirit. Kawabata's guitar-work moves from a roar to a whisper, a yell to a sob, he's working on the same canvas of extremes. The aim of their unity is to write truly celestial hymns for the outer world and odes of love for the inner cosmic context.
 
No strangers to one another, the pair have not only gigged together with their respective bands but also recorded together, when these two outfits temporarily fused in 2005 to become Acid Mothers Afrirampo (releasing an album of the same name). Two years later they distilled their collaboration, all other players being stripped away to leave the core of Pikacyu's manic drums and pop vocal, and Makoto's schizoid guitar conjurings. In 2011 they spent five weeks touring the US and their first album, 'OM Sweet Home: We Are Shining Stars From Darkside', which was released by the esteemed UK label of all things heavy and brilliant, Riot Season. Last year they spent two weeks touring through Europe whilst writing a new album suffused with the outreaching sound and message of their impulsive live performances. This new album is entitled 'Galaxilympics' and will be released by Upset The Rhythm on August 4th on LP and CD.
'Galaxilympics' is an album of contrasts, so much colour, so much shade! 'Space Sumo' kicks off the record in explosive style. Pikacyu's drums jitter, crash and stumble, but steadfastly refuse to groove. Makoto attacks his guitar, cloaking himself in reverb to produce a wall-of-sound, alternating between melody and noise. 'Funifunikonefuni' follows with it's frenzied take on pop music, bubbling with energy and PIKA's multiple vocal layers. 'I'll Forgive' is chant-like in its devotion to following the tumbling melody line of the song even to absurd and unpredictable dimensions. 'Pika Mako Hall' is a more serene affair, with whispered echoes and guitar drones swirling amongst bursts of rapid sequencer ambience. 'Castle Of Sand' picks up on this more spacious approach with slowly developing programmed electronics, before the title track erupts with gurgling synths, soaring guitar trails and PIKA's most searching vocal yet.
 
The album concludes in reflective manner with the suitably titled 'Sayonownara', a song as much in the present as it is in the act of saying farewell. It's positively elegiac with washes of cymbal and deep acres of guitar drone for the first five minutes before PIKA's drums take things up a gear and into more psychedelic out-rock terrain. This insurgence eventually peaks and the album melts away to silence. PIKACYU-MAKOTO have made an album that takes you on a trip into your very soul before emerging once more at the edge of another galaxy. 'Galaxilympics' is a triumph of opposites united, it enjoys walking out into the unknown, but it's also a portal into the very real world of two musicians who find peace and semblance through their interaction. Hymns and odes to one side, this is a giant album of future-facing song and noise, where better to find harmony enthroned

The Discomfort Of Evening is the incredible and original soundtrack by prolific Belgian composer Michiel de Malsche to 2020 International Booker Prize winner The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld. Visceral and virtuosic, Rijneveld's novel follows Jas, a girl growing up in a devout Christian family that runs a Dutch dairy farm, whose brother dies in an accident after she wishes he would die instead of her rabbit. Lost in grief, her family falls apart as she becomes consumed by increasingly dangerous fantasies.

Michiel de Malsche has captured the atmosphere and spirit of Rijneveld's book perfectly, moving through moments of confrontation and introspection, sinking into spirals of despair, stasis and subtle hope and change. Brooding ambient basslines, driven by droning murmurs, are offset with melismatic electro-acoustic pieces that embody the novel's haunting and dissonant world, whilst also incorporating manipulated field recordings such as animal sounds and a church service, allowing for a full manifestation of Jas’s world in a completely new way.

De Malsche achieves this by rallying an unusual combination of acoustic instruments (16 in total) played by top-of-their-field musicians, creating a truly unique sound world and tonal palette, including an Ondes Martenot, a 7-stringed Chinese instrument called a guqin, a marimba, a string 6-tet, a toy piano and a bass flute.

De Malsche always confronts all emotional levels of his source material head-on, making his soundtrack into much more than just a fever dream. It is a precise description of, and accompaniment to, a devastatingly impactful book.
Michiel De Malsche is a Belgian composer, multi-instrumentalist and sound designer. He studied classical composition at the conservatories of Rotterdam and Ghent. His music has been performed all over the world and he has composed and produced dozens of soundtracks for contemporary dance, theatre, movies and documentaries.

Besides his work as a contemporary classical composer, he is active as a studio musician and producer in the world of electronic music.

The Locked Room imagines a protagonist who experiences the outside world as an endless escape room, a place where, in the early hours, every passing tail-light, train in the distance, hunched bike rider or crying bird might be a possible riddle, leading to a passage or the discovery of a key.

Once opened, however, a room locked from the other side could just be the same room as the one you're in - only slightly different. And maybe the person wanting to break free is not you at all, but the sum or remnant of all of your online actions and conversations, a locked-in avatar whose consciousness wants to experience the real world, and real emotion with it.

"This album is about a struggle with the experience of reality, and about the places and zones where you cross over into a different territory. I tried to address these fixations on steel mandolin and gut-string violone."

Clues and conclusions, finding your way like a kid in the dark, virtual illusions and contemporary gaming culture all have their place on The Locked Room, an album of minimal, kosmische mandolin and violone music that documents the elegant collapse of our 21st-Century grip on reality.

All music written and performed by Ameel Brecht on steel mandolin, violone and electric piano.

Stellar Legions is four experienced space cadets from the Antwerp interstellar legion, led by Captain Andrew Claes (STUFF., BRZZVLL, Internal Sun). With a sound rooted in jazz, improv, hip-hop, dub and electronic music, brace yourself for an intergalactic trip through colourful musical worlds and allow yourself to be carried away to indefinable, otherworldly but always hospitable beacons.

Alongside Claes, the delegates on duty are all heroes from the Allied star: Bram Weijters (Raymond Van Het Groenewoud, Crazy Men), Klaas De Somer (Tourist Lemc, Selah Sue) and Fre Madou (ex-DAAU, Namid). With them, come stories and artifacts from the multidimensional cosmos to our beloved mother planet Earth and this autumn, they passionately present their first omnibus 'Stellar Legions', released 21st October via the groove-obssessed Sdban Ultra label.

The album consists of eight tracks recorded in the studio and live, resulting in one big cosmic experience that exhilarates down to every last arrangement. From Claes' twisted sax on the semi-electronic ecstatic dream world that is an 'An Arp in Tunisia' to the jazzy snatches of 'Wessel' where De Somer's hurried drum patterns and Weijters frenzied keyboard solos catch light, Stellar Legions unites the adventure and improvisation of jazz with contemporary sounds.

At the core of the Stellar Legions sound is a rhythm section Sly & Robbie would have approved of: loose and sticky, grinding and unwinding: De Somer's drums fizz with expectation while the relentless bass strokes from Madou provide the beating pulse. It's fresh, it's raw and it keeps us listening, grooving and wanting more. Elsewhere, 'Odyssey' is a cataclysmic mix of feverish sounds and melodies that take you to an extra-terrestrial place, while the live recording of 'Alcyone', basks in a spatial mix of futuristic grooves and ethereal soundscapes before album closer 'Covix', results in a spacious and wonderfully atmospheric affair.

Electronics wizard Andrew Claes has recorded music in a wide range of styles ranging from free jazz outfit Chaos of the Haunted Spire (duo with Teun Verbruggen) to techno icon Marco Bailey and New Wave hero, Marcel Vanthilt. In addition, he has collaborated with Zach Danziger, Zap Mama, Brussels Jazz Orchestra, Hermes Ensemble, Mauro Pawlowski, Josse De Pauw and many others and released music with the electro-jazz collective AAN/EOP and his solo project, Internal Sun.

Claes is also a teacher of 'Live Electronics' at the Conservatory of Antwerp and a doctorate in the arts, where he is currently investigating the possibilities of an electro-acoustic saxophone. He also regularly gives workshops on the Belgian synthesizer microcontroller platform, Axoloti. His latest achievement is AI-driven robot-jazz project 'BotBop' with Dago Sondervan and Kasper Jordaens, which explores the possibilities and limits of 'computer aided music performance'. Their latest project 'Integers & Strings' premiered at the Sònar festival in Barcelona in November 2021.

TOHO, the creators of GODZILLA, unleash SPACE AMOEBA aka Gezora-Ganime-Kameba: Kessen! Nankai No Daikaijû! A space probe is lost while on its way to the planet Jupiter but returns to Earth after being overtaken by a deadly and dastardly single-celled organism.

The organism then mutates into giant kaiju that mimic a cuttlefish, a stone crab, and a matamata turtle, and uses these destructive forms in their plan to take over the planet. The only thing that stands between humanity and the insidious invertebrates is a group of photographers doing recon for a tourism company!

Directing, of course, is the legendary Ishirō Honda (MOTHRA, RODAN) alongside producer Tomoyuki Tanaka, with the dreamy Akira Kubo (DESTROY ALL MONSTERS) as photographer Kudo. As with GODZILLA, Honda recruited the great Akira Ifukube to compose the thrilling score, and Ifukube brought his trademark innovation and dramatic grandeur.

The title theme is beautifully distinctive, mixing thick brass and low piano to match the destruction of the kaiju with higher horns and trumpet, providing a lighter contrast. Ifukube scores action and horror with his iconic lumbering colours but provides suspense with piano and otherworldly strings, with a unique slithering theme for the evil amoeba. Another Ifukube triumph! (Charlie Brigden)

Composed by Akira Ifukube
Artwork by Matt Taylor
Manufactured in Czech Republic

Freedom – the debut album from Leah Weller – a modern soul soundtrack to her head spinning twenties turning into empowered, contented thirties. Completed last year, Weller’s first complete album follows a decade-long career on catwalks, in front of cameras and making dancefloors shake, constantly on the move and with music as a constant companion. Finding the escape route out of anxiety-inducing mix-and-match career moves with the stability of love, the slowdown of repeated lockdowns and, finally, motherhood, Weller’s race is now to be run at her own pace with a collection of songs set perfectly to her flow.



Gathering nine, finely-tailored songs together with a drum beat of support from producer and collaborator, Steve Craddock, the collection speaks, much rather than screams, of finding the sweet spot between the need for hope, however naïve, and the truths that only experience can spell out.

Freedom – the debut album from Leah Weller – a modern soul soundtrack to her head spinning twenties turning into empowered, contented thirties. Completed last year, Weller’s first complete album follows a decade-long career on catwalks, in front of cameras and making dancefloors shake, constantly on the move and with music as a constant companion. Finding the escape route out of anxiety-inducing mix-and-match career moves with the stability of love, the slowdown of repeated lockdowns and, finally, motherhood, Weller’s race is now to be run at her own pace with a collection of songs set perfectly to her flow.



Gathering nine, finely-tailored songs together with a drum beat of support from producer and collaborator, Steve Craddock, the collection speaks, much rather than screams, of finding the sweet spot between the need for hope, however naïve, and the truths that only experience can spell out.

Das siebte Studioalbum der ehrwürdigen Rock-Institution Titus Andronicus wurde produziert von Titus Andronicus Singer-Songwriter Patrick Stickles und dem preisgekrönten kanadischen Produzenten Howard Bilerman (ARCADE FIRE, LEONARD COHEN, THE WHOLE NINE YARDS) in dessen hotel2tango Aufnahmestudio in Montreal. Mit "The Will To Live" laden Titus Andronicus den Hörer auf eine Reise von der Angst zum Glauben, von der Wut zur Akzeptanz, von der Trauer zur Dankbarkeit ein, immer auf der Suche nach dem mythischen Ideal des ultimativen Rock. In Anlehnung an maximalistische Rock-Epen von "Who's Next" bis "Hysteria" hat die Band ihr bisher reichhaltigstes, dichtestes und härtestes Album geschaffen, das die Weite und den Umfang ihres meist gefeierten Werks erreicht und gleichzeitig ihren ehrgeizigen Angriff effektiver als je zuvor gestaltet. "It may strike some as ironic we had to go to Canada to record our equivalent to "Born In The USA," sagt Stickles, "but the pursuit of Ultimate Rock knows no borders." Titus Andronicus kehrten im November 2021 auf die Bühne zurück, um den Jahrestag ihres bahnbrechenden zweiten Albums "The Monitor" von 2010 zu feiern. Die Tatsache, dass sie dieses Material vor einem ekstatischen Publikum spielten, ließ Stickles entschlossen zurück, ein Album abzuliefern, das dieselben Höhen erreichen würde, wobei sie sich diesmal weniger auf das unbekümmerte Feuer der Jugend verließen, sondern mehr auf die Erfahrung und die Perspektive, zu der eine Band erst mit tausend Shows im Gepäck gelangt. Um diesen Grad an Konzentration und Klarheit zu erreichen, musste Stickles an der Schnittstelle zwischen Triumph und Tragödie stehen. Er schreibt seine neu gefundene häusliche Glückseligkeit und seine unerschütterliche mentale Gesundheit für seine persönliche Stabilität in letzter Zeit ebenso zu wie die Ausdauer der mittlerweile am längsten bestehenden Besetzung von Titus Andronicus - Liam Betson an der Gitarre, R.J. Gordon am Bass und Chris Wilson am Schlagzeug - die alle auf dem 2018er Album "A Productive Cough" und dem 2019er Album "An Obelisk" vertreten sind. Auf der grausameren Seite der Medaille entstand "The Will To Live" zum großen Teil als Versuch, den vorzeitigen Tod von Matt "Money" Miller, dem Gründungs-Keyboarder der Band und Stickles' engstem Cousin, im Jahr 2021 zu verarbeiten. Das Ergebnis erweist sich als Meilenstein für Titus Andronicus, ein ehrgeiziges, nach vorne gerichtetes Werk, das an der Schnittstelle von Triumph und Tragödie steht, angetrieben von neu gefundenem Fokus und Klarheit, und das eine einzigartig begabte Rock'n'Roll-Band auf dem Höhepunkt ihrer kreativen Kräfte zeigt.

Das siebte Studioalbum der ehrwürdigen Rock-Institution Titus Andronicus wurde produziert von Titus Andronicus Singer-Songwriter Patrick Stickles und dem preisgekrönten kanadischen Produzenten Howard Bilerman (ARCADE FIRE, LEONARD COHEN, THE WHOLE NINE YARDS) in dessen hotel2tango Aufnahmestudio in Montreal. Mit "The Will To Live" laden Titus Andronicus den Hörer auf eine Reise von der Angst zum Glauben, von der Wut zur Akzeptanz, von der Trauer zur Dankbarkeit ein, immer auf der Suche nach dem mythischen Ideal des ultimativen Rock. In Anlehnung an maximalistische Rock-Epen von "Who's Next" bis "Hysteria" hat die Band ihr bisher reichhaltigstes, dichtestes und härtestes Album geschaffen, das die Weite und den Umfang ihres meist gefeierten Werks erreicht und gleichzeitig ihren ehrgeizigen Angriff effektiver als je zuvor gestaltet. "It may strike some as ironic we had to go to Canada to record our equivalent to "Born In The USA," sagt Stickles, "but the pursuit of Ultimate Rock knows no borders." Titus Andronicus kehrten im November 2021 auf die Bühne zurück, um den Jahrestag ihres bahnbrechenden zweiten Albums "The Monitor" von 2010 zu feiern. Die Tatsache, dass sie dieses Material vor einem ekstatischen Publikum spielten, ließ Stickles entschlossen zurück, ein Album abzuliefern, das dieselben Höhen erreichen würde, wobei sie sich diesmal weniger auf das unbekümmerte Feuer der Jugend verließen, sondern mehr auf die Erfahrung und die Perspektive, zu der eine Band erst mit tausend Shows im Gepäck gelangt. Um diesen Grad an Konzentration und Klarheit zu erreichen, musste Stickles an der Schnittstelle zwischen Triumph und Tragödie stehen. Er schreibt seine neu gefundene häusliche Glückseligkeit und seine unerschütterliche mentale Gesundheit für seine persönliche Stabilität in letzter Zeit ebenso zu wie die Ausdauer der mittlerweile am längsten bestehenden Besetzung von Titus Andronicus - Liam Betson an der Gitarre, R.J. Gordon am Bass und Chris Wilson am Schlagzeug - die alle auf dem 2018er Album "A Productive Cough" und dem 2019er Album "An Obelisk" vertreten sind. Auf der grausameren Seite der Medaille entstand "The Will To Live" zum großen Teil als Versuch, den vorzeitigen Tod von Matt "Money" Miller, dem Gründungs-Keyboarder der Band und Stickles' engstem Cousin, im Jahr 2021 zu verarbeiten. Das Ergebnis erweist sich als Meilenstein für Titus Andronicus, ein ehrgeiziges, nach vorne gerichtetes Werk, das an der Schnittstelle von Triumph und Tragödie steht, angetrieben von neu gefundenem Fokus und Klarheit, und das eine einzigartig begabte Rock'n'Roll-Band auf dem Höhepunkt ihrer kreativen Kräfte zeigt.

Die Female Fronted Swedish Doom Metal Band AVATARIUM wurde 2013 gegründet und entwickelte sich im Laufe der Zeit zu einem großen Namen in der Szene. Die Beweise liefern Charterfolge wie Platz 36 in Deutschland und Platz 29 in der Schweiz. Mit den talentierten Musikern von Edling (Bass), Marcus Jidell (Gitarre), Lars Sköld (Schlagzeug), Carl Westholm (Keyboard) und Jennie-Ann Smith (Gesang) sowie nach mehr als 3 Millionen Streams gesammelten Streams, veröffentlichen sie am 21. Oktober 2022 ihr schweres und düsteres Album "Death, Where Is Your Sting". Mit diesem Album beweisen AVATARIUM einmal mehr, dass sie Doom Metal mit klassischem und hartem Rock der 1970er Jahre so perfekt verbinden wie keine andere Band zuvor.
Ltd. 500 Einheiten, aufwändige UV-Spot-Lackierung, inkl. A2-Poster