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A tribute to the late Kenny Hawkes, London's dark lord of house music. Lovingly selected and curated by Luke Solomon, Jonny Rock and Leon Oakey.

Running from 1995 to 2002, 'Space' was a Wednesday night founded by Kenny Hawkes and Luke Solomon. It inhabited the underground world of Bar Rumba right in the heart of London's West End and took place each and every week. Kenny and Luke had both been regular fixtures on infamous London Pirate Radio station 'Girls FM', and were seeking a suitable place to play the kind of music they supported on their respective radio shows. They were presented with a weekly opportunity at Bar Rumba and snapped it up.

'Space' was THE place for 7 solid years, hosting local and international guests from the house music community week in week out, to 200+ hardcore and dedicated followers. Regular guest bookings read like a 'who's who' of the music scene with sets from Derrick Carter, Andrew Weatherall, DJ Harvey, Tom Middleton, A Man Called Adam, Ralph Lawson and Huggy, Harri and Domenic, Francois Kevorkian, Salt City Orchestra, Carl Cox, Chez Damier and Ron Trent.... the list goes on and on and on! Music from seminal record labels such as Classic, Prescription, Cajual, Paper, Relief was played on rotation amongst a killer mix of Disco classics, alternative 80s music, left-field B-sides and techno. The night undeniably became a cauldron of amazing music and midweek hedonistic chaos.

As Soho changed beyond recognition and clubbing moved Eastwards, Kenny and Luke decided to call it a day. Sadly, Kenny Hawkes died in 2011, leaving a huge hole in the dance music community. Kenny was a legendary figure with an unmistakable sound and DJ style, he had a warped sense of humour and a huge personality and he continues to be dearly missed by all to this day.

As a tribute to Kenny, his musical partner in crime Luke Solomon alongside 'Space' regular and DJ / Editor supreme Jonny Rock, and former Classic Records label boss Leon Oakey have joined forces to celebrate his life through music. 3 years of tweaking, pooling music and clearing tracks have culminated in 2 very special double albums and a digital compilation. A collection of 'Space' classics, underground jams and the tracks that shook the Shaftesbury Avenue dance floor, shaping one of London's most revered midweek sessions.

All profits from the compilation will be donated to the British Liver Trust.

Repressed again. On the West Coast, gangsta rap held sway in hip-hop as the 21st century began. The alternative and conscious rap music of the early-to-mid-90s had all but faded into the underground. The scene was set for a comeback, perhaps as a backlash to the perceived violence and misogyny of gangsta rap's content. Leading the resurgence of alternative hip-hop were groups like Jurassic 5, and recent signees to Capitol Records; a West coast trio that had been building steam underground since the early 90s called Dilated Peoples. Anticipation was high for the release of the debut album from Evidence, Rakaa, and DJ Babu. (Of the influential turntablist collective Beat Junkies.) When The Platform arrived in May of 2000 it was met with critical and underground acclaim, as well as affording Dilated Peoples their first Billboard chartings. It featured a back-to-basics sound with a heavy debt to the old-school hip-hop ethos, the kind of sound that harkened back to the early days of legends like De La Soul & A Tribe Called Quest. Hits like "No Retreat" and "The Platform" were bolstered by Evidence & Rakaa's subtle, abstract wit, and swift, adroit wordplay, while DJ Babu provided production chops and dextrous scratches. On The Platform the trio were joined by the likes of B-Real, Tha Alkoholiks, Everlast, Planet Asia, and many more providing guest vocals, while boasting guest production from The Alchemist & Kut Masta Kurt, among others. Since its 2000 release this influential record, which heralded the return of alternative hip-hop, has never seen a vinyl reissue. With that, Get On Down-always on top of giving the greatest hip-hop albums their due-is proud to present this re-release of The Platform. The rhymes are still fresh, the production is still pristine, and the album is now back on vinyl for the first time in 17 years.

FUSE welcomes back core family member Rich NxT as he partners with Childe for ‘Brakelights’.

One of the original FUSE residents and a cornerstone of the collective’s ever-evolving sound, Rich NxT remains one of the scene’s favourites as he continues to push his trademark low-end heavy sound and represent his home city on a global level. An ever-present name on the label, delivering a wealth of solo and collaborative EPs alongside artists such as East End Dubs, Seb Zito and head honcho Enzo Siragusa, he returns for his first outing on the label this year - joining with Childe for the hypnotic and heady sonics of ‘Brakelights’.

A trippy cut merging warping vocals with sweeping synths and snaking bass patterns, ‘Brakelight’ showcases a hazy after-hours production as the two artists take things deep into the night. The EP also comes loaded with two further interpretations, with the ‘Dub’ leaning deep into the music and emphasising the track’s wicked acid-flecked baseline, while the ‘Club Mix’ raises the energy levels to harness the hooky vocal snippets and journey to the heart of the dancefloor.

Planet Mu welcomes back Meemo Comma for her third album 'Loverboy'. 'Loverboy' is a shift in gear from Meemo Comma’s previous works, speeding up the tempos and rhythms, it's set in the nineties with trance, breakbeat hardcore and jungle as some of the influences. After playing a club gig in Spain as lockdown rules were loosening, Rix-Martin was reminded of the power music and people coming together creates. ‘Loverboy’ is peppered with influences from friends past and new as well as artists that have transformed the sound of Meemo Comma over the years, including Autechre, Guy Called Gerald, Orbital and Shitmat as well as others. On this journey we follow ‘Loverboy’ through the club as the night builds and different characters are met, from dropping the first pill to a euphoric ‘Cloudscape’ whilst waiting in the queue, to meeting some shady sorts in ‘Loneheath’. The album changes pace throughout with different rooms of the club being explored which add to the brevity of Rix-Martin’s production style on tracks such as 'Kyle' and 'AK47'. What started as a personal joke about Rix-Martin’s background formed a narrative for some darker, cheeky breaks that echo back on title track ‘Loverboy’, a track that Rix-Martin describes as “working class gender euphoria”.Maybe the mask has come off, and the shackles of pseudo-intellectualism have been put to rest for an honest, fun and ‘propa cheeky’ rave album instead.

Serial collaborator and Producer/DJ Regularfantasy rallies long-standing friends Cecile Believe (PC Music) and Priori (NAFF) for a 6-track release on Canada-based imprint Specials.

“As both a collaborator and a solo artist, Regularfantasy has quite the CV, with 12-inches for the likes of Mood Hut and Total Stasis and ongoing collaborations with D. Tiffany as Plush Management Inc and Plush Throw, among other projects. This doesn't even touch on the stream of straight-to-cassette mixtapes she's put out over the years. Still, New Glow feels like a milestone for Regularfantasy, hands down her most accomplished solo release.”

“Cheery house music laced with bona fide vocal hooks for a Vancouver label that focusses on real crossover potential.”

American singer-songwriter, poet, and photographer Thomas Meluch, known musically as Benoît Pioulard, returns with his most structured and vocal release to date. Titled »Eidetic,« a word denoting the ability to recall mental images with extraordinarily rich precision, the album presents unprecedented clarity and vitality for Benoît Pioulard. To access its thematic ground, Meluch looked inward with an affinity towards the people he loves during a period marked by his move from Seattle to Brooklyn in 2019. The resulting work engages with the universe's unflinching mortality and, as he says, »the ways it has modified and improved my relationships, especially with family.« Embodied by the creek, leaves, and ferns of the cover photography — taken in Michigan’s Burchfield Park, where he and his dad used to hike and »muse on existence« — the music glistens and unfurls with the flow of life he’s come to know. »Eidetic« is the culmination of Meluch's craft both as a producer and writer. An evocative sonic vocabulary meets deft lyrical introspection, articulated with the nuance, vulnerability, and confidence of a longtime artist hitting a stride.

Meluch has continually refined, redefined, and adjusted the focus of his gentle pop project over the last 20 years. Recorded primarily with guitar, tapes, and voice — and spanning labels with albums for Kranky, Morr Music, Beacon Sound, and Past Inside the Present — his catalog flows seamlessly between ambient improvisation and pop composition. Much like the analog photos that often accompany his releases, songs can feel dreamily softened and distant, and others beautifully vivid and detailed. 2021 full-length »Bloodless« found Meluch deep in droning decay, expressive yet wordless. With »Eidetic,« he swings back to sharpened forms. Lush banks of treated guitar and synth brush against hushed percussion; there is mist in the distance, but everything up close is intricately constructed and radiant. Meluch's voice is notably forward in the mix — a warm and calming tenor, a harmonic coo more than a whisper — ever-observant and actively processing.

To record much of the album, Meluch filled a cabin in rural Maine with his usual setup of simple percussion, a couple of Fender electrics, and a parlor guitar made by his friend who does bespoke luthier work. The modest utility is what he knows best, and here he pushes the output to its most pristine potential.

»Eidetic« opens in a swirl of familiar haze; »Margaret Murie« eases listeners in, as lush and verdant as the landscapes conserved by its famed namesake. With the setting established, Meluch, the narrator, enters the foreground with »Crux,« a tender piece written about finding new motivations in a new city. »We covet this rare green hue / Here at the farthest point from home,« he sings above a reassuring pattern of strums and percussion. Meluch's prose shines on the swiftly-moving »Nameless,« inspired by the neurological effects that came with the antiquated practice of manufacturing mercury mirrors; »folks would slowly go insane while looking into their own reflections every day,« he adds. The idea informs a series of surreal abstractions before everything drops out in the final minute, and we are left free-floating in eerie nothingness.

Across the album, labyrinthine lyrical ponderings scatter with dazzling imagery, artfully blurring scenes from world history with Meluch's more personal, present-day. The propulsive and earnest »Thursday Night« catches his mind overly active and too stoned, riffing on black holes and songwriting itself. »Halve« references the splitting of the atom, what he considers »the beginning of man's downfall,« and the unrealized initiative proposed by the US government that would have created 'nuclear refuges' in its national parks. Meluch's loved ones weave throughout; »Tet« holds his father's experience in Vietnam and its lasting effects. »Lillian Isola« touches on his maternal grandmother's spinal curvature, and »Pastel Dust« navigates the wake of his cat, who died on New Year's Eve 2020.

At first blush, Meluch's atmospheric and melodic sensibilities resonate purely in their own right. Upon closer meditation, his ability to render stories — many of which surround human tragedy, misfortune, and understanding — through the prism of his poetry makes »Eidetic« even more rewarding.

Dark Green Vinyl

American singer-songwriter, poet, and photographer Thomas Meluch, known musically as Benoît Pioulard, returns with his most structured and vocal release to date. Titled »Eidetic,« a word denoting the ability to recall mental images with extraordinarily rich precision, the album presents unprecedented clarity and vitality for Benoît Pioulard. To access its thematic ground, Meluch looked inward with an affinity towards the people he loves during a period marked by his move from Seattle to Brooklyn in 2019. The resulting work engages with the universe's unflinching mortality and, as he says, »the ways it has modified and improved my relationships, especially with family.« Embodied by the creek, leaves, and ferns of the cover photography — taken in Michigan’s Burchfield Park, where he and his dad used to hike and »muse on existence« — the music glistens and unfurls with the flow of life he’s come to know. »Eidetic« is the culmination of Meluch's craft both as a producer and writer. An evocative sonic vocabulary meets deft lyrical introspection, articulated with the nuance, vulnerability, and confidence of a longtime artist hitting a stride.

Meluch has continually refined, redefined, and adjusted the focus of his gentle pop project over the last 20 years. Recorded primarily with guitar, tapes, and voice — and spanning labels with albums for Kranky, Morr Music, Beacon Sound, and Past Inside the Present — his catalog flows seamlessly between ambient improvisation and pop composition. Much like the analog photos that often accompany his releases, songs can feel dreamily softened and distant, and others beautifully vivid and detailed. 2021 full-length »Bloodless« found Meluch deep in droning decay, expressive yet wordless. With »Eidetic,« he swings back to sharpened forms. Lush banks of treated guitar and synth brush against hushed percussion; there is mist in the distance, but everything up close is intricately constructed and radiant. Meluch's voice is notably forward in the mix — a warm and calming tenor, a harmonic coo more than a whisper — ever-observant and actively processing.

To record much of the album, Meluch filled a cabin in rural Maine with his usual setup of simple percussion, a couple of Fender electrics, and a parlor guitar made by his friend who does bespoke luthier work. The modest utility is what he knows best, and here he pushes the output to its most pristine potential.

»Eidetic« opens in a swirl of familiar haze; »Margaret Murie« eases listeners in, as lush and verdant as the landscapes conserved by its famed namesake. With the setting established, Meluch, the narrator, enters the foreground with »Crux,« a tender piece written about finding new motivations in a new city. »We covet this rare green hue / Here at the farthest point from home,« he sings above a reassuring pattern of strums and percussion. Meluch's prose shines on the swiftly-moving »Nameless,« inspired by the neurological effects that came with the antiquated practice of manufacturing mercury mirrors; »folks would slowly go insane while looking into their own reflections every day,« he adds. The idea informs a series of surreal abstractions before everything drops out in the final minute, and we are left free-floating in eerie nothingness.

Across the album, labyrinthine lyrical ponderings scatter with dazzling imagery, artfully blurring scenes from world history with Meluch's more personal, present-day. The propulsive and earnest »Thursday Night« catches his mind overly active and too stoned, riffing on black holes and songwriting itself. »Halve« references the splitting of the atom, what he considers »the beginning of man's downfall,« and the unrealized initiative proposed by the US government that would have created 'nuclear refuges' in its national parks. Meluch's loved ones weave throughout; »Tet« holds his father's experience in Vietnam and its lasting effects. »Lillian Isola« touches on his maternal grandmother's spinal curvature, and »Pastel Dust« navigates the wake of his cat, who died on New Year's Eve 2020.

At first blush, Meluch's atmospheric and melodic sensibilities resonate purely in their own right. Upon closer meditation, his ability to render stories — many of which surround human tragedy, misfortune, and understanding — through the prism of his poetry makes »Eidetic« even more rewarding.

Kate NV's WOW offers listeners a prismatic shift in perspective and scale, a parallel dimension in which the mundane becomes funny, unfamiliar, and altogether sensational. Turning the contents of her 2020 album Room for the Moon upside down and spilling them across a floor checkered with intrigue and surprise, Kate places sound, object, and ritual under the microscope to magnify the delight hidden in plain sight of everyday life. WOW is Kate Shilonosova's fourth full-length release as Kate NV in six years, and third for RVNG Intl. Her prolific musical output aligns with a highly attuned aesthetic and a deep commitment to visual world building. WOW is one of many of these worlds in which music is fully saturated with color, deeply tactile and textural. Shiny, sproingy, plastic. Where Room for the Moon embraced structure (abstractly speaking) and veered pop, WOW happily abandons conventional song shapes, parsing the experience of musical time into ecstatic fragments. It's difficult to imagine a more fitting album title: pure exclamation, an organic pitch of delight leaving the mouth, with no clear etymological links. On Room for the Moon, Shilonosova's voice was layered and lyrical, with sweeping and urgent melodies. WOW finds her as a peripheral purveyor of high jinks, peeking out from the corners, commenting on her surroundings in non-verbal, and arguably non-human, utterances. Instead of employing lyricism, Shilonosova steps outside of language, and rewards us with a gum ball machine of textures: soda fizz and wind-up teeth and scraps of bubble wrap become comically huge, as if heard from an insect's perspective. Words are tasty plosives, onomatopoeias, percussive chirps and one-liners, and singing serves as another form of what Shilonosova refers to as "funny tiny sounds." WOW skews and skitters, trips over its own feet and laughs about it, plays out of tune on purpose, tilts and leans like a top-heavy flower. Shilonosova is a longtime user of Found Sound Nation's Broken Orchestra sample pack, a sound catalog of over one thousand dilapidated instruments sourced from Philadelphia public schools. These perfectly imperfect instruments are tightly spliced into WOW's patchwork of synthesizer and reworked snippets of Shilonosova's friends playing clarinet, flute, and marimba. It's central to the record's internal logic: a disregard for what is, and isn't, broken, what is, and isn't, a sentence or a song. A commingling of subject and object, with a firmly new wave sensibility. Shilonosova has long had an unusual relationship with inanimate objects (citing her bicycle as her best friend), as if the joys they evoke for her are personality traits of the objects themselves. On WOW, she evinces a kind of inverted anthropomorphism: she shrinks her voice and becomes an object among multitudes, toylike in size and perspective, cohabitating with sedentary, indifferent roommates. This pursuit of childlike perspectives is a thread that runs through much of her catalog, and places her work on a plane with that of her personal hero Nobukazu Takemura, who for decades has treated his music as a portal to childlike curiosity, both in subject matter and tone. With an invitation to pursue this curiosity, WOW further confirms Kate NV's deeply inventive, fluid and technically dizzying artistry. By refusing constraints and rules, Shilonosova embodies a profound freedom, allowing objects, sounds, and processes to unfold organically; or, as she puts it, a commitment to "accepting randomness." She succeeds terrifically at a breed of auditory defamiliarization that is all her own, and the rewards for listeners are many: through her lens, the small becomes monstrous, the abstract becomes sensorial, and the old becomes new. Kate NV's WOW will be released on February 10, 2023 on vinyl and digital formats. On behalf of Kate NV and RVNG, a portion of the proceeds from this release will benefit War Child, an organization that supports children and their families impacted by conflict, and working to build sustainable peace for generations to come.

Yellow Vinyl

Kate NV's WOW offers listeners a prismatic shift in perspective and scale, a parallel dimension in which the mundane becomes funny, unfamiliar, and altogether sensational. Turning the contents of her 2020 album Room for the Moon upside down and spilling them across a floor checkered with intrigue and surprise, Kate places sound, object, and ritual under the microscope to magnify the delight hidden in plain sight of everyday life. WOW is Kate Shilonosova's fourth full-length release as Kate NV in six years, and third for RVNG Intl. Her prolific musical output aligns with a highly attuned aesthetic and a deep commitment to visual world building. WOW is one of many of these worlds in which music is fully saturated with color, deeply tactile and textural. Shiny, sproingy, plastic. Where Room for the Moon embraced structure (abstractly speaking) and veered pop, WOW happily abandons conventional song shapes, parsing the experience of musical time into ecstatic fragments. It's difficult to imagine a more fitting album title: pure exclamation, an organic pitch of delight leaving the mouth, with no clear etymological links. On Room for the Moon, Shilonosova's voice was layered and lyrical, with sweeping and urgent melodies. WOW finds her as a peripheral purveyor of high jinks, peeking out from the corners, commenting on her surroundings in non-verbal, and arguably non-human, utterances. Instead of employing lyricism, Shilonosova steps outside of language, and rewards us with a gum ball machine of textures: soda fizz and wind-up teeth and scraps of bubble wrap become comically huge, as if heard from an insect's perspective. Words are tasty plosives, onomatopoeias, percussive chirps and one-liners, and singing serves as another form of what Shilonosova refers to as "funny tiny sounds." WOW skews and skitters, trips over its own feet and laughs about it, plays out of tune on purpose, tilts and leans like a top-heavy flower. Shilonosova is a longtime user of Found Sound Nation's Broken Orchestra sample pack, a sound catalog of over one thousand dilapidated instruments sourced from Philadelphia public schools. These perfectly imperfect instruments are tightly spliced into WOW's patchwork of synthesizer and reworked snippets of Shilonosova's friends playing clarinet, flute, and marimba. It's central to the record's internal logic: a disregard for what is, and isn't, broken, what is, and isn't, a sentence or a song. A commingling of subject and object, with a firmly new wave sensibility. Shilonosova has long had an unusual relationship with inanimate objects (citing her bicycle as her best friend), as if the joys they evoke for her are personality traits of the objects themselves. On WOW, she evinces a kind of inverted anthropomorphism: she shrinks her voice and becomes an object among multitudes, toylike in size and perspective, cohabitating with sedentary, indifferent roommates. This pursuit of childlike perspectives is a thread that runs through much of her catalog, and places her work on a plane with that of her personal hero Nobukazu Takemura, who for decades has treated his music as a portal to childlike curiosity, both in subject matter and tone. With an invitation to pursue this curiosity, WOW further confirms Kate NV's deeply inventive, fluid and technically dizzying artistry. By refusing constraints and rules, Shilonosova embodies a profound freedom, allowing objects, sounds, and processes to unfold organically; or, as she puts it, a commitment to "accepting randomness." She succeeds terrifically at a breed of auditory defamiliarization that is all her own, and the rewards for listeners are many: through her lens, the small becomes monstrous, the abstract becomes sensorial, and the old becomes new. Kate NV's WOW will be released on February 10, 2023 on vinyl and digital formats. On behalf of Kate NV and RVNG, a portion of the proceeds from this release will benefit War Child, an organization that supports children and their families impacted by conflict, and working to build sustainable peace for generations to come.

HARDT ANTOINE is a London based DJ producer of French and West Indian descent, who continuously combines his hugely colourful and eclectic taste in music. He has also made a name for himself with his Reculture label and club nights.

His KOMPAKT debut clearly shows why he’s one to watch in the years to come. “Nobody’s Watching” is a dark grooving beast with bending synth lines and a haunting vocal; counterbalanced with uplifting Eastern analog pads. It’s from this rare breed of tracks that shine in a frantic peak time set and sexy late night moments alike.

“All We See” follows a similar path. Its mandatory bassline and dark melody evolve into something uplifting, as if to say – ‘We always see light at the end of our tunnel’.

Radial takes a more cinematic approach and largely neglects the dancefloor in a classic KOMPAKT 3-track EP fashion, following a lovely tradition that began with Dettinger’s KOM 2 and later on spawned the Pop Ambient movement.

Hardt Antoine proves himself a jack of all trades… Keep an eye on him!

HARDT ANTOINE ist ein in London ansässiger DJ-Produzent französischer und westindischer Abstammung, der seinen äußerst farbenfrohen und vielseitigen Musikgeschmack kontinuierlich durcheinender wirbelt. Auch mit seinem Label Reculture und Clubnächten hat er sich über London hinaus einen Namen gemacht.

Sein KOMPAKT-Debüt zeigt deutlich, warum man ihn in den kommenden Jahren im Auge behalten sollte. „Nobody’s Watching“ ist ein düsteres, groovendes Biest mit verzerrten Synthielinien und einer eindringlichen Stimme; mit erhebenden östlichen Analog Pads ausbalanciert. Es ist diese seltene Art von Tracks, die in einem hektischen Peak-Time-Set und sexy Late-Night-Momenten gleichermaßen glänzen.

„All We See“ geht einen ähnlichen Weg. Die zwingende Bassline und die dunkle Melodie entwickeln sich zu etwas Erhebendem, als ob sie sagen wollten: „Wir sehen immer Licht am Ende unseres Tunnels“.

Radial verfolgt einen filmischeren Ansatz und vernachlässigt die Tanzfläche weitgehend – in klassischer KOMPAKT-3-Track-EP-Manier, einer schönen Tradition folgend, die mit Dettingers KOM 2 begann und später die Pop-Ambient-Bewegung hervorbrachte.

Hardt Antoine erweist sich als Alleskönner … Behaltet ihn im Auge!

Electronic music legend and head of Editions Mego, Peter Rehberg, teams up with zeitkratzer mastermind Reinhold Friedl. 3 side-long pieces melting electronic / contemporary avantgarde. Uncompromising.

When Peter "Pita" Rehberg and Reinhold Friedl first met each other, they did not like each other "at all," as Friedl emphasises with a hearty laugh. The two would however eventually bond over the years thanks to a mutual respect for each other's music. In the summer of 2021, they entered the studio together for the first time. Their joint album for Berlin's Karlrecords is a faithful document—no editing, no overdubs—of their improvisations during two recording sessions shortly before Rehberg's sudden and untimely passing on July 22nd of that year. The three pieces see Rehberg working with electronics and Friedl with his inside piano, proving that they had indeed managed to find a common ground—up to a point where it at times becomes hard to tell who plays what on this record.

Friedl ran into Rehberg in Zbigniew Karkowski's tiny Tokyo apartment in 1999 while organising the first edition of the Off-ICMC that was set to take place in the following year. "I came uninvited and slept a night at Zbigeniew's before Peter arrived and I had to move out," remembers Friedl, who ended up inviting the Mego founder to perform at the Off-ICMC even though he found it hard to relate to his music. "We had very different backgrounds: he came from industrial and I had roots in classical music and improv, a high-brow prick!" After having met several times at different concerts without ever really speaking to each other in the following years, a concert in Vienna in the late 2010s marked a turning point in their relationship (or lack thereof). Playing their sets back to back and loving every second of what the other was doing, the two finally clicked on musical level. "We met for dinner on each of the three following nights!," remembers Friedl.

The two would go on to become good friends, meeting regularly to discuss music and everything else while both were living in Vienna just a few minutes away from each other. Rehberg put out Friedl's collaboration with Eryck Abecassis, "Animal Électrique" on his Editions Mego label in 2020 and eventually they entered the studio twice for sessions that were completely improvised with no prior preparation. "Caciara," "Chiasso," and "Clamore"—named retrospectively after three Italian words for "noise"—capture the spontaneity of two artists who had always been outliers in their respective fields finding a common ground in sprawling dynamics and sonic intensity as well as enabling each other to expand their individual sound palettes. "Peter gave me cover," explains Friedl. "I had the feeling that I was able to do things I otherwise wouldn't play."

After a devastating opening salvo of 19 modernist rave mutations on a double tape pack for Sneaker Social Club, Minder lands on Hypercolour with another 19 cybernetic fever dreams still reeling from the open season NRG of hardcore.

If you need to understand where Minder wants to take you, strap in for the labyrinth narrative of ‘Knotted’, a smudged, 15-minute breakbeat suite barrelling through lurid dystopian street scenes with only a blown-out bass sprite as a guide. Throughout Sanctuary, bass is the constant when all else is chaos. It comes in thick, warped Reese tones on ‘Simulated Hunt’, gets twisted out through angry filters on ‘Popcorn Lover’, comes on wobbly in true 2-step style underneath grimey garage anti-anthem ‘Ard’.

There’s a lot to take in across the spread of Sanctuary. It’s the sound of every rave genre slowly digested over 30-plus years, until the lactic acid metabolises every snare rush, every searing lead line, every chipmunk vocal lick, and everything gets mashed up and spat back out into a gnarly signal chain at the flash point of inspiration. The time taken is key – this is the sound of a life in front of the speaker stack manifesting in something too wild and weird to be derivative. You’ll hear snatches of familiarity thrown into unfamiliar contexts, but for all the detectable lineage, Minder’s sound is unsettling in its originality.

Dislodged ragga jungle techno, muffled hardcore nightmares, hard n’ haggard acid trance, junked up jump up – you could write an essay on the sounds you can spot and the way they’ve been twisted. Aside from the omnipresent low-end, it’s the unflinching honesty of Korron’s repeat appearances on the mic throughout which bring Minder’s disturbing patchwork into focus. For all the futurism attached to these sounds, it’s also caked in a very human filth which can only come from this earth. The roots run deep, and the fruit is rotten, and isn’t that how it should be?

Rare Groove Collection Explore the fusion of world music with soul, funk and disco through the Rare Groove Collection. With this new volume, discover unique groove tracks straight from Jamaica! Fully remastered original versions African RARE GROOVE A journey at the heart of Nigerian afrobeat from Orlando Julius to the ethnojazz of Alemayèhu Eshèté passing by the High-life of the Ghanaian Ebo Taylor...

Repress

Palms Trax signals the arrival of his new label CWPT with ‘Petu’, a new single featuring South African vocalist, Nonku Phiri. Originally debuting in dub form during the Berlin-based DJ and producer’s set at The Music Locker as part of Grand Theft Auto Online, ‘Petu’ re-emerges here as a soulful collaboration, neatly complimented by a wide-eyed take from Masalo.

Initially written as a slow-heating instrumental to connect the various musical dots across a DJ set, Palms Trax nonetheless had a vocalist in mind throughout, a fresh voice to lend ‘Petu’ universality and energy. Introduced through mutual friend Esa, Johannesburg’s Nonku Phiri draws on her signature style influenced by vintage Afropop styles and folk traditions, delivering a smooth and vulnerable tale of desire. Triumphant brass recorded by instrumental collective Jungle By Night adds to the depth of instrumentation and feeling throughout, each element driven by Palms Trax’s ebullient percussion and an altogether celebratory energy felt across both the original and dub cuts.

Closely associated with Dutch dance music staple Rush Hour Records, Masalo subtly raises the tempo on his high-energy rework of Petu, spinning off the interconnected elements of the original into a memorable and gloriously Italo-tinged house trip.

Established in 2021, CWPT will play home to Palms Trax original productions alongside collaborations, mixtapes, new-generation artists and vital reissues. An online blog will feature interviews, reportage and charts exploring the stories past and present at the fringe of Palms Trax’s wide-reaching record collection.

Dial 303! The new and hopefully also durable sampler series on Running Back is here.

Dedicated to the twang of Roland’s silver baseline box with a varied string of artists: DVS1, Marko East & Jordi Chu (whose collaboration sparked the idea of a whole series), Like A Tim via Prins Thomas, Katerina and I:Cube.

The Parisian put it in a nutshell, too: „Although rinsed to death to the point of becoming a parody of itself, acid will last forever.“ Therefore, his Folie Noire is combining the original recipes with hypnotic European influences, while Marko and Jordi present a rough and direct 303-909 live jam, Prins Thomas puts his wickedest smile on Like A Tim’s Wonderline from 2005 and Katerina sets a lucid dream to sanguine music.

Finally, there is a rare and much desired musical outing by the unique DVS1. A direct ode to Chicago’s acid and beatdown styles and its Midwest companions, it is a heads-down-lights-down late night track made for driving up and down Lower Wacker Drive. Trippy trip artwork by the inimitable Gasius.

Trivia: If the piano is the bread of house music, the acid line is its butter!

Rare Groove Collection Explore the fusion of world music with soul, funk and disco through the Rare Groove Collection. With this new volume, discover unique groove tracks straight from Jamaica! Fully remastered original versions French RARE GROOVE This "French Rare Groove" volume offers us a oneâÇ`way ticket to France from the late 60"s to the early 80"s. From confidential releases to forgotten movie soundtracks, discover the grooviest tracks from the french scene. Have a good trip!

This is the first release from the lost, re-discovered, re-mastered tracks which were originally recorded some 20 years ago. Originally used as a vehicle for Gary "The General" to play unreleased tracks at the now infamous and legendary Manga club night in Edinburgh.

The Stranglers waren in den Siebzigern und Achtzigern
nicht zu stoppen und wurden zu einer der größten
europäischen Bands. Feline erreichte Platz 4 in den
britischen Albumcharts. Die Leadsingle "European
Female" erreichte Platz 9 der Single-Charts und ebnete
den Weg für den Wandel im Sound der Band, die damit
ihren Platz in einer sich ständig verändernden
Klanglandschaft festigte. Anlässlich des 40. Jubiläums von
Feline erscheint das Album als neu als erweiterte
Deluxe-Edition. Diese epische Edition erscheint als CD,
sowie als rote & transparente Marble-Vinyl und wird ein
Sammlerstück für die nächsten Jahre sein

"Bernhard von Siluh Records hat mich gebeten, einen Hype-Text über die neue BAD WEED-Platte zu formulieren, und ich fühlte mich zunächst geschmeichelt, hatte dann aber doch Zweifel... Wie kann ich euch dieses Powerpop-Juwel in wenigen Worten erklären und näher bringen? Es ist nicht nur das übliche Jangle-Pop-Ding oder noch schlimmer, nicht etwas, das man heutzutage "Garage-Punk" nennt, nein, Sir! Es ist echter Powerpop im Stil der 70er Jahre, aber wie mein Chef immer zu sagen pflegt: Man kann den Leuten nicht erzählen, wie großartig eine Powerpop-Platte ist - man muss sie sich anhören, am besten mit einem Getränk der Wahl in der Hand, und bald wird sie ihre Besonderheit enthüllen (oder auch nicht). Was liebe ich an BAD WEED, außer der Tatsache, dass sie die hübschesten Jungs der Welt sind, die - nachdem sie 20 Jahre lang in verschiedenen Bands gespielt haben - endlich gelernt haben, ihre Instrumente zu spielen? Es sind die Songs! Es geht nur um die Songs! Die erste Single aus dem Jahr 2015 war etwas anderes, man kann es sogar Garagenpop nennen, ihr Debütalbum vor ein paar Jahren und etwa 100 Shows später war nur der Anfang, hier ist ihr zweites Album mit dem schlichten Titel "II", das Talent, Songwriting-Fähigkeiten und Pop-Handwerkskunst zeigt! Einige dieser 12 Originalsongs erinnern mich an Alben/Bands, die längst vergessen sind, wie z.B. "If you ever pt. 1" könnte eine frühe THE FRESHIES-Single sein, "Breaking Lines" könnte von einer RUDI-Setlist sein oder "Who's gonna love me" klingt wie einer dieser THE COLD-Ohrwürmer. Die meisten Songs haben diesen 80er-Jahre-UK-Indie-Punk-Vibe, der direkt in mein Gehirn und mein Herz geht! Sie haben sogar die Frechheit, TOWNES VAN ZANDT zu covern - und schaffen es, dass es nicht so deprimierend klingt wie das Original, nur ein bisschen traurig vielleicht. Zu behaupten, dies sei ein Wohlfühlalbum, ist nicht ganz richtig, so einfach ist es nicht. Es ist eine Platte, die Lust macht, die Band in einem kleinen Club live zu sehen, eine Platte, die einen einfach lächeln lässt und an gute Zeiten erinnert. BAD WEED ist eine Band für die Hosentasche, eine Band, die man liebt und von der man Freunden erzählen möchte, aber nicht zu vielen, denn die Band sollte klein und in der Hosentasche bleiben und nicht in den Playlists von jedem Tom, Dick und Harry vorkommen_" (Elmar / Bachelor Records) "Debüt-Scheiblette von Wiens Blitzpopgroup. Mitreißender Powerpop-Punk mit ganz viel early UK- vs semi-modern Texas-Sound in den Venen. Buzzcocks , Exploding Hearts, The Jam, Bad Sports, Marked Men, .... Schweine-tight gespielte, tolle Melodien, die einen sofort abholen, bissi Saxophon hier und Orgel da!! Die Platte strotzt vor Energie und Spielfreude, findet einen steilen Breakeven zwischen Witz, Charme und Klassenbewusstsein. Stark!" (FLIGHT13)

Brandneue Dance-Hits deiner Lieblingskünstler für die intensiven Club-Momente in den frühen Morgenstunden. Zusammengestellt von Denis Stockhausen (KOMPAKT) zum 11-jährigen Jubiläum seiner renommierten Partyreihe "MY DEAR" im Gewölbe, Köln.

"My Dear,

ich möchte mich auf diesem Wege für deinen Besuch und diese unvergessliche Nacht in meinem Lieblingsclub bedanken. Mit Dir zu tanzen und dabei nicht nur das Gefühl für die Zeit, sondern auch alle störenden Gedanken loslassen zu können, war so erfrischend und kostbar für mein Seelenleben! Noch immer trage ich den einen oder anderen Ohrwurm und all die schönen Erinnerungen in meinem Kopf.

Der wilde Höhepunkt der Nacht hat so viel Spaß gemacht, doch je mehr sich das Ende des Raves abzeichnete und der Morgen langsam anbrach, desto wundervoller wurden Musik und Atmosphäre. Alles wirkte auf mich so befreit und wahrhaftig und ich hatte den Eindruck, dass es den Menschen um uns herum genau so ging. Es kam mir vor, als wären wir alle mit unserer Sehnsucht in diesen irren Rausch der Musik eingetaucht, um schließlich bedingungslos darin zu versinken. Selten hatte ich so intensive Glücksmomente auf einer Tanzfläche. Pure Magie!

Gut, dass eine Klubnacht auch ein Ende hat, sonst wäre mein Herz an diesem Morgen wahrscheinlich für immer verloren gegangen. So klingt der Soundtrack meines Lebens und ich brenne darauf, ihn wieder zu hören!

Bis bald und vergiss nicht: After The Rave Comes Sun (and after the sun comes rave again) !

Umarmung aus Köln"

BLUE NOTE TONE POET EDITION: produziert von Joe Harley, komplett analog von Kevin Gray von den Originalbändern gemastert, RTI-Pressung (180g), stabiles Tip-on-Gatefold, wattierte Innenhülle.
Der Pianist und Komponist Andrew Hill gehörte in den 1960er Jahren zu den visionärsten Musikern im Blue-Note-Stall. Tatsächlich waren einige der 12 Alben, die er zwischen ’63 und ’70 für das Label einspielte, ihrer Zeit so weit voraus, dass sie erst Jahrzehnte später veröffentlicht wurden.

So wie das brillante Album “Dance With Death”, das 1968 entstanden war, aber erst 1980 das Licht der Welt erblickte. Zu hören ist Hill hier mit sechs höchst orginellen Eigenkompositionen zwischen Post-Bop, modalem Jazz und Avantgarde.
Exzellente Unterstützung erhielt er bei der Einspielung von gleichgesinnten Modernisten wie Trompeter Charles Tolliver, Saxophonist Joe Farrell, Bassist Victor Sproles und Drummer Bill Higgins.

24 Jahre jung war der Trompeter Carmell Jones, als er 1960 von seiner Geburtsstadt Kansas City nach Los Angeles ging. Schon kurz nach seiner Ankunft erhielt der vielversprechende Youngster, den manche
mit Clifford Brown verglichen, dort einen Plattenvertrag bei Pacific Jazz.

1961 konnte er für das Label sein phänomenales Debüt “The Remarkable Carmell Jones” aufnehmen. Im Zusammenspiel mit Tenorsaxophonist Harold Land, Pianist Frank Strazzeri, Bassist Gary Peacock und Schlagzeuger Leon Pettis präsentierte er auf dem Album eine hochinteressante Mischung aus Cool Jazz und Hardbop.

"Taking Over" wurde ursprünglich 1987 veröffentlicht und
war die erste Veröffentlichung von Overkill auf dem Label
Atlantic Records. Es war außerdem das erste Album von
Overkill, das es in die Billboard Top 200 schaffte. Das
Album enthält die Overkill-Klassiker "In Union We Stand"
und "Wrecking Crew". Jetzt erhältlich als limitierte pinke
und schwarze Marble Vinyl.

BLUE NOTE TONE POET EDITION: produziert von Joe Harley, komplett analog von Kevin Gray von den Originalbändern gemastert, RTI-Pressung (180g), stabiles Tip-on-Gatefold, wattierte Innenhülle.


Der Pianist und Komponist Andrew Hill gehörte in den 1960er Jahren zu den visionärsten Musikern im Blue-Note-Stall. Tatsächlich waren einige der 12 Alben, die er zwischen ’63 und ’70 für das Label einspielte, ihrer Zeit so weit voraus, dass sie erst Jahrzehnte später veröffentlicht wurden.

So wie das brillante Album “Dance With Death”, das 1968 entstanden war, aber erst 1980 das Licht der Welt erblickte. Zu hören ist Hill hier mit sechs höchst orginellen Eigenkompositionen zwischen Post-Bop, modalem Jazz und Avantgarde.
Exzellente Unterstützung erhielt er bei der Einspielung von gleichgesinnten Modernisten wie Trompeter Charles Tolliver, Saxophonist Joe Farrell, Bassist Victor Sproles und Drummer Bill Higgins.

24 Jahre jung war der Trompeter Carmell Jones, als er 1960 von seiner Geburtsstadt Kansas City nach Los Angeles ging. Schon kurz nach seiner Ankunft erhielt der vielversprechende Youngster, den manche
mit Clifford Brown verglichen, dort einen Plattenvertrag bei Pacific Jazz.

1961 konnte er für das Label sein phänomenales Debüt “The Remarkable Carmell Jones” aufnehmen. Im Zusammenspiel mit Tenorsaxophonist Harold Land, Pianist Frank Strazzeri, Bassist Gary Peacock und Schlagzeuger Leon Pettis präsentierte er auf dem Album eine hochinteressante Mischung aus Cool Jazz und Hardbop.

Our next foray into the world of 12” vinyl sees three classic cuts from Tyrome - aka Kris Vanderheyden and Pascal Deneef, remastered for today’s standard and pressed onto glorious wax for that nostalgic feel. Tyrome formed in 1996 and quickly gained a following with their brand of electronic dance music. Their first outings appeared on the famous Bonzai Trance Progressive label where they’d deliver these three top-notch joints before appearing on other labels. Kris is a Belgian techno and electronic music producer who is considered one of the leading pioneers of the Belgian techno scene. He is also known by his stage name Insider, as well as The Assistant and he belonged to a host of groups including Quick Reverse, Cherry Moon Trax and Tripomatic Allstars to name just a few and he contributed heavily to the Bonzai sound of the 90’s. Pascal is also a name synonymous with the 90’s techno sound in Belgium. He worked closely with Kris on several projects including Indicator, Technodrive, Total Remedy and Quick Reverse. His repertoire also includes the monikers Big Jim and Emoryt (Tyrome spelt backwards) and has appeared on a raft of labels over the years.

On the A-side we get a taste of Tyrome’s most famous groove, the 1998 joint ‘Electric Voodoo’, with its instantly recognisable vocal sample. A highly charged and energetic slice of trance with a nice techno edge that always gets the crowd moving. On the flip, the B1 slot holds the much deeper grooves of ‘Noxious’ which saw the light of day in 1996. Dark and mysterious, the beat mesmerizes as a melodic siren fades up to the backdrop of erotic voices. A definite contender at any late-night session to keep the party flowing. Concluding the release in the B2 slot, the 1997 cut ‘Monkey Way’ has the honours. A feisty number with a driving groove thanks to a powerful bassline and rhythmic percussions. The track is laden with stabbing synths and pent-up energy just waiting to be unleashed onto the floors.

Wipe your blade clean. The bloodline of Eastern European kosmische and groundbreaking, grinding cinematic psych rock finally emerges from fifty years of forbidden forestland to fill your thirsty grails. Poland’s prime progressive provocateurs Żuławski and Korzyński finally expose the jagged roots of Possession and The Silver Globe and give the devil his due via this historical vinyl release.

If an opening strapline that reads “Forget everything that you thought you knew about the history of psychedelic rock and horror movies” appeals to you, then further potentially hyperbolic phrases like “Lost Grail” and “Banned Forever” will surely clinch the deal, leaving the hugely significant wider context of this dream come true release surplus to requirement. But as we hope you have come to expect from Finders Keepers releases “The devil is in the detail” and the fact that any mention of the perpetually elusive original master tapes to a 1972 project entitled Diabeł and the phrase “Holy Grail” have become synonymously associated only adds the twisted irony that surrounds this genuine masterpiece of both aforementioned fields.

For those fastidious enough to pursue the hunt, these unearthed recordings represent the crowning glory of the lifelong unison of Maestro Andrzej Żuławski and filmmaker Andrzej Korzyński, two genuine mavericks of Polish experimental cinema who challenged artistic and societal norms, on both sides of a politically restricted regime and on an international artistic stage, without compromise. Friends since childhood, Korzyński and Żuławski may have become divided by limelight and geography (Żuławski the intrepid emigre), but they remained united in their kaleidoscopic creative vision, resulting in a fractured stream of troublesome and mind-bending golden era collaborations such as Possession, The Silver Globe, and Third Part Of The Night. This long-awaited liberation of the psychedelic masterpiece known as Diabeł finally completes the duo’s full vista with what many consider the most vital piece of the prism.

180 GRAM AUDIOPHILE VINYL
PVC PROTECTIVE SLEEVE
GATEFOLD SLEEVE WITH VELVET SPOT VARNISH ON THE OUTSIDE AND IMAGES OF ICONIC MOVIE POSTERS ON THE INSIDE
4-PAGE INSERT
A SELECTION OF DEFINING MORRICONE SONGS, FEATURED IN CLASSIC MOVIES AND SERIES “VERUSCHKA”, “SLALOM”, “ALIBI”, “VIOLENT CITY”, “MACHINE GUN MCCAIN”, AND MANY MORE
LINER NOTES BY CLAUDIO FUIANO
PART OF THE MORRICONE THEMES COLLECTION
THE SPINES OF THE FIVE TITLES FORM ONE IMAGE TOGETHER
MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE SERIES ON MORRICONEONVINYL
BLACK VINYL

Lounge is the third in a series of five double vinyl releases that bring together some of Ennio Morricone’s greatest soundtrack music. Each collection centres on a different movie genre, together they allow the listener to rediscover the unmatched genius of the greatest movie composer of all time. The Maestro. This collection was announced before Ennio Morricone passed away on July 6, 2020. We’ll continue to release the series to honour this great composer.

The term Lounge Music is not one that Ennio Morricone would have heard at the time he was composing these pieces for the movies that they enhanced, but it is one has been retrospectively applied to a certain type of music, and it is a style that Morricone has contributed a great deal towards.

Lounge refers to a type of easy listening music that began to be popular in the 1950s and developed right through the 1960s and into the 1970s. This was sophisticated music for an adult audience. Lounge music combined its American influences with music that was popular outside the USA such as Latin, Hawaiian, Polynesian, French , and many others. This was an era that was inspired by new inventions. Lounge mimicked the space-age sound effects of the time and the advent of stereophonic technology allowed spatial audio techniques to be used to full effect.

This collection is not about a specific genre of music for film, it is a celebration of Lounge style pieces by Morricone that are capable of evoking in the listener thoughts of easy living, sophistication, romantic moods, and the excitement of a 1950s cocktail lounge or a 1960s nightclub.

Starting 70 years ago as an arranger for the piece Mamma Bianca, Ennio Morricone is the emperor of scores and soundtracks. Morricone has always been a huge influence for the likes of Hans Zimmer, Danger Mouse, Muse, Metallica and many more musicians. He was one of the most successful composers of all-time, selling over 70 million records and winning dozens of awards.

Lounge on black vinyl includes a 4-page insert with liner notes written by Claudio Fuiano. The gatefold sleeve contains a velvet spot varnish on the outside and images of iconic movie posters on the inside.

Skins is a producer/DJ based in Leeds with an active history in dance music that goes back over 10 years. He cut his teeth DJing regularly at the legendary former Oxford nightclub The Cellar. He played here as part of the Subverse Radio collective as well as for other favourite local promoters, alongside a regular radio show on the aforementioned station which he co-founded. After moving to Leeds in 2016, Skins focused his attention on music production and self-released a string of white-label techno EPs which garnered support from artists such as Djrum, Jane Fitz and Mike Schommer of Deepchord.

More recently Skins has moved away from the dub techno sound with which he had become associated, with an EP from speed garage newcomers Spin City on heavy rotation with DJs including Evan Baggs, Andrew James Gustav and Sugar Free. His latest explorations have found him returning to the futuristic jungle stylings which originally drew him into the world of electronic music in his teens.

Whether it’s in the studio or behind the decks, Skins draws on a wide range of influences from hip hop, deep house and techno through dubstep and grime to jungle, with a preference for playing vinyl over three turntables. He has performed alongside the likes of Willow, Batu, Answer Code Request, Levon Vincent and Ben UFO.

“Amid a buzzing scene of solo guitarists, Salsburg feels both like a figurehead and one of its most active players, with each new release offering a bright step forward.” – Pitchfork // The third volume of the Landwerk series by guitarist, archivist and 78 collector Nathan Salsburg. After releasing three acclaimed acoustic guitar records from 2011-2018, Salsburg pivoted with the first volume of Landwerk in 2020. Alone on a tree farm in rural Kentucky one winter night, he put on an old 78 by the Jewish cantor Yossele Rosenblatt and was struck by an organ chord. He sampled it, looped it and began playing guitar alongside it. It was like “conversing with a ghost” he told Uncut Magazine in 2021. Landwerk No. 3 contains six new compositions across two LPs. Tracklisting: 1. IX 2. X 3. XI 4. XII 5. XIII 6. XIV

David Walters's new album Soul Tropical on French label Heavenly Sweetness is perfectly titled. It is a lush collection of soul so tropical you feel as if you're dancing deep in a steamy jungle as the music uplifts and truly nourishes. It draws on his family heritage in the West Indies and finds David once again singing about this famous string of sun-kissed islands across 13 joyful cuts. These are tracks with rich arrangements and plenty of world instruments making a fusion of disco, zouk, Caribbean, Afrobeat and funk that make a lasting impression. An essential album as summer approaches.

Throughout her much-lauded career as a DJ and producer, Ciel has worked hard to build community through events and DJ workshops in her home city of Toronto and on a larger scale with podcasts and projects meant to elevate women artists. The title of her latest EP, “All We Have Is Each Other,” reflects her history of mutual support, and in these times when so many of our connections seem broken by the pandemic, it offers a reminder that music still has the power to unite us.

Ciel has never been an artist who lets genres define or constrain her, so it seems only fitting that this release lands on Mister Saturday Night Records, a New York City label with a similar ethos. It’s in this refusal to restrict her sound to narrow definitions that something magical happens.

This 5-track EP spanning dance floor fillers and home listening pieces builds on a frame of tough footwork-paced kick drums, the skip and swing of 2-step garage, broken house, and slow, meditative beats. Woven throughout are hopeful melodies, dappled with sunlight tones and layered with organic percussion. The connective tissue is a deep feeling of joy and hopefulness in the power of music and collective humanity.

When the world goes up in flames, all we have is each other. Music connects us with like-minded communities that both shelter and empower us. With this emotive collection of diverse songs, Ciel reaches out a hand and invites us to be a part of something beautiful and authentic.

Anne's 7th Opus in 13 Years, Containing 6 Fantastic Covers and 6 of Her Own Songs, Recorded in One of the Most Prestigious Studios in Montreal with Her Original Blue Mind Team

Fresh from the success of her single "Killing Me Softly" from her previous album Keys to My Heart, Anne Bisson, singer-songwriter and jazz pianist, decided to perform and record more standards from the American jazz songbook, as well as new arrangements of classic songs that were so much a part of her teenage years.

Be My Lover, Anne's seventh album is, therefore, a savoury feast of original compositions and classic songs in her own bold new arrangements for acoustic trio. While still in the 'Smooth Jazz' genre, the presence of a Fender Rhodes, the legendary '70s keyboard, along with an electric bass, impart the album with quite a unique tone.

After over 18 months of musical experimentation and other creative endeavours, Anne once again brought together master drummer Paul Brochu (Gino Vanelli, Michel Legrand, UZEB) and proficient bassist Jean-Bertrand Carbou from France, for a series of informal sessions to explore the songs that were being considered for this seventh release.

These two musicians have been valuable collaborators for several years now. Paul has been featured on many of Anne's albums, notably Blue Mind, which made a huge splash when it appeared, with over 35,000 hard copies sold, while Jean-Bertrand's playing has also graced several of her albums.

Since 2009, the three have performed at several important venues, including Le Festival International de Jazz de Montréal, as well as other festivals in the United States and Mexico.

What holds them together is an evident complicity which is present from the very first notes. Their musical contributions are precise and deeply heart-felt. Their virtuoso playing greatly enhances these songs without turning them into mere technical exercises.

With precision playing, subtlety and attention to detail, as well as being recorded in impeccable High Definition, these songs will definitely please Anne's audiophile fans, while also appealing to a wider audience.



All About Ultimate High Quality CD (UHQCD)
Many years have passed since the birth of the Audio Compact Disc (CD) back in 1982. By use of High-Quality materials and a totally different manufacturing method, the definitive version of audiophile audio CD was born. Playable on any CD player, the Ultimate High Quality CD greatly surpasses all previous CDs before it!

The Ultimate High Quality CD (UHQCD):
UHQCD is a radical change to the CD manufacturing process itself. The conventional wisdom about CD manufacturing, which had remained largely unchanged across the world for over 30 years, has been exhaustively questioned. Through this effort, the ultimate in quality was attained - a level of quality that is certainly impossible to achieve with existing CD discs.

The Ultimate High Quality CD was developed through an effort to improve audio quality by simply upgrading the materials used in ordinary CDs to higher quality materials. For the substrate a high-transparency and high-fluidity polycarbonate (a type of plastic) of the type used for LCD panels was used, while for the reflective layer, low-cost, common aluminium was replaced with a unique and expensive alloy of high-reflectivity.

Differences in manufacturing methods:
Conventional CDs are produced using the technique of injection moulding to form "pits" of data on polycarbonate material. Metal plate on which "pits" representing audio source data are formed is used as a die. This is called the "stamper." Polycarbonate is melted at high temperature and poured into the die to duplicate the pit patterns on the stamper.

This method is efficient because it enables high-speed production, but it does not enable totally accurate or complete duplication of the pits on the stamper. As a melted plastic, polycarbonate is inevitably viscous, so it cannot penetrate completely into every land and groove of the tiny pits of the stamper.

The Ultimate High Quality CD photopolymer is used instead of polycarbonate to replicate the pits of the stamper. In their normal state, photopolymers are liquids, but one of their characteristic properties is that they harden when exposed to light of certain wavelengths. The advantage of this property, perfect replication of very finely detailed pits was achieved. Photopolymers in the liquid state are able to penetrate into the tiniest corners of pits on the stamper so that the pattern of the pits is reproduced to an extremely high level of accuracy. The Ultimate High Quality CD reproduces audio with greater precision and at a level that is impossible to achieve using conventional CD production technology!

First Word Records is extremely proud to welcome the legendary New Sector Movements to the label, and the first new release from this moniker in 15 years! A 5-track EP for 'These Times', comprised of street soul, hip hop, jazz and bruk-tinged vibes.

Founded, headed and produced by DJ & musician IG Culture (CoOp Presents / LCSM), this all-new quasi-group project also features the vocal talents of Allysha Joy, Mike City and Natalie May with additional accompaniment from Wonky Logic, Wayne Francis, Alex Phountzi and the NSM Fusion Starship!

New Sector Movements (aka NSM) were the first out the gate at the dawn of the original broken beat movement, releasing their first single 'Groove Now / New Goya' on the People label in 1997, then releasing several singles and EPs through to the late noughties, and dropping a classic album on Virgin entitled 'Download This'. The previous incarnation featured several other artists from the bruk foundation era, including Kaidi Tatham, Izzy Dunn, Julie Dexter and Eska Mtungwazi amongst others.

Awarded a 'Lifetime Achievement Award' at the 2019 Worldwide Awards, NSM's IG Culture is a hugely pioneering prolific artist in the UK music scene. His catalogue of releases over the years has seen numerous aliases, collaborations, remixes and productions. Appearing on the scene in 1990 as part of Dodge City Productions, to producing several solo albums throughout the noughties, to recent years with his hugely-acclaimed cosmic jazz outfit LCSM (Likwid Continual Space Motion), additionally to co-running the CoOp Presents label, continuing the legacy of the award-winning club night whilst showcasing new artists, IG Culture has been omnipresent at every corner of British black music for three decades deep, influencing many a sound.

This is all additionally to projects like NameBrandSound, Likwid Biskit, Da One Away and Son of Scientist to name just a few. His work has appeared on releases by Roots Manuva, Young Disciples, Les Nubians and Monday Michiru, while remix work over the years has included Gang Starr, Femi Kuti, José James, Miraa May, Slum Village, Digital Underground, Luniz, Naughty By Nature, Airto Moreira & Flora Purim.

As a DJ, he's shut down dances all over the world, recently at places like Fabric, We Out Here festival and Summer Dance Forever in Amsterdam, as well as regularly rocking the airwaves on Worldwide FM and combining the two at BBC 6 Music's All Points East stage in the Summer. IG Culture also founded Selectors Assemble; a collective of forward thinking DJs and producers.

So, as we head towards Winter 2022, New Sector Movements has returned (but don't call it a comeback!). After a turbulent few years in the world, it seemed a poignant moment to reinvigorate the soul, and reflect upon 'These Times'. Here we have five brand new tracks, each illustrating a pertinent mood and attitude representing the current climate. Allysha Joy leads the vocal on EP opener 'These Times', a sumptuous slice of street soul with a deeply infectious horn hook. 'Stand' is next - uptempo boom bap for the dancers, this one featuring the soulful pipes of Mike City. 'Hope' is a midtempo jazz-funk dub again feature vocal licks from Allysha, and introducing the mysterious NSM Fusion Starship into the fold. 'H.E.A.T.' picks up the pace with some infectious jazz-bruk business, this one lead by Natalie May on the vocals, who explains "heat = movement, motion". And finally 'Bless' with closes the set on a four-four riddim with bruk sensibilites, inviting Mike City back with an uplifting vocal requesting we "bless the people just trying to make it".

An essential EP of cross-genre vibes to resonate cross-generations, New Sector Movements do not ramp. IG Culture and crew proceed to give you what you need for 'These Times'.

'These Times' is released on vinyl and digital worldwide via First Word Records late February 2023.

Light in the Attic’s Pacific Breeze series has supplied the world’s growing legions of Japanese music fans with an expertly curated selection of the most sought-after City Pop recordings—the mesmerizing and nebulous genre of Japanese bubble-era music of the ‘70s-’80s that encompasses AOR, R&B, jazz fusion, funk, boogie and disco. These familiar sounds are spun through the unique lens of optimistic, cosmopolitan fantasy colored by Japan’s affluence at the time. Much of the music has previously been nearly impossible to acquire outside of Japan and continues to captivate listeners with its unique blend of groove-laden escapism, even birthing wholly new genres such as Vaporwave.

Pacific Breeze 3: Japanese City Pop, AOR & Boogie 1975-1987 marks the latest chapter in the famed series and features holy grails plus under-the-radar rarities. The collection bursts at the seams to reveal some of the greatest Japanese tracks ever laid to tape, pushing towards the edge of City Pop to reveal glimmers of the next waves of styles to spring forth from the country’s creative minds. The appearance of Pizzicato Five hint at the emergence of Shibuya-kei while the influence of hip hop and electro as an emerging global trend are also evident here through the prevalence of heavier programmed drum beats on tracks such as “Heartbeat” by Miho Fujiwara.

This volume of Pacific Breeze, like its predecessors, is a female-forward offering with many tracks being voiced by women who would become household names in Japan as actresses and pop idols. Their songs here subvert the norm and brim with an innovative spirit that shatters gender roles in favor of sonic transcendence. Techno-pop classics from Susan, Miharu Koshi and Chiemi Manabe sit alongside sublime funk from Atsuko Nina and Naomi Akimoto while Teresa Noda slides into the mix with a sultry reggae jam. The genre span is stretched wider with hypnotic jazz fusion by Parachute and Hiroyuki Namba, a synthesizer fantasy from Osamu Shoji, and magnetic pop by Makoto Matsushita and Chu Kosaka.

Although not front and center, the visionary members of Yellow Magic Orchestra are still very present on Pacific Breeze 3, with Haruomi Hosono, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Yukihiro Takahashi taking up producer and musician roles on many of these tracks. Pacific Breeze 3 serves up a captivating musical journey that adds an essential chapter to the iconic compilation series.

Tracklist:

Naomi Akimoto - Bewitched (Are You Leaving Soon), Atsuko Nina - Tonkachi, Miho Fujiwara - Heartbeat, Miharu Koshi - Scandal Night, Chu Kosaka - Shirakechimauze, Teresa Noda - Tropical Love, Makoto Matsushita - Business Man Pt. 1, Susan - Ah! Soka, Yukako Hayase - Suiyoubi Madeni Shinitaino, Parachute - Kowloon Daily, Hiroyuki Namba - Tropical Exposition (Who Done It? Version), Pizzicato Five - Boy Meets Girl, Mari Iijima - Love Sick, 1986 Omega Tribe - Cosmic Love, Osamu Shoji - Pub Casablanca, Chiemi Manabe - Untotooku

Ten years after our initial survey of Afro-Latin accented rhythm & blues from the mid-century, Jazzman proudly presents a fourth installment, packed with as many musical surprises as the first. With music plucked from an era spanning the late 1940s into the early 60s, Jukebox Mambo IV highlights yet again the unparalleled musical creativity of the post war era, and shows how the infusion of afro-latin rhythms was key to these revolutions.

Lovingly and painstakingly researched and curated, the album boasts 23 tracks, many previously uncompiled, touching on jazz, blues, doo wop, calypso, rock & roll, gospel and more. Featuring individual track notes for every song along with some never seen before photographs of the artists, Jukebox Mambo Vol IV maintains the same high production values of each previous volume, and indeed the wider Jazzman catalogue.

Tape

The next issue in the on-going Mastermix series features a centerpiece of Frankfurt’s club history: Wild Pitch Club.

A predecessor to the esteemed Robert Johnson and a stepping stone for Panorama Bar’s very own nd_baumecker.

Founded by Playhouse masterminds Ata and the late Heiko M/S/O it was a Thursday club night that heavily featured house music as a prescription to the ongoing techno fever. Enamored with the US-American roots of it and all things deep, it not only presented the right records, but also their creators and protagonists. With a string of guest DJs from Robert Hood and Claude Young to Kerri Chandler and Theo Parrish as well as talent from the UK and Europe, it was one of the culture’s hubs at the time.

Here you have its testimony. Selected and mixed by Ata and nd_baumecker, it’s an authentic snapshot of the club’s vibe and spirit, spread over a collectable tape (download included) and a pleasant streaming version, it’s the full dosage. Like Roach Motel confessed: Wild Pitch, I love you.