quête:the s o s band

Altan is arguably the most iconic band working in traditional Irish music today. For the past 35 years, they have brought the music of their native County Donegal to the world stage. The band's newest album, aptly titled Donegal , pays homage to County Donegal's rich musical heritage, breathtaking landscapes, and vibrant culture. The music's authenticity and allure transport listeners to a bygone era in rural Ireland while forging a connection between the past and the present.

Featuring co- founder, lead vocalist, and fiddler Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh ; newest member Clare Friel on vocals and fiddle; accordionist Martin Tourish; guitarists Daithi Sproule and Mark Kelly; and Ciaran Curran on bouzouki and mandolin. With Jim Higgins (percussion), Steve Cooney (bass), and Graham Henderson (keyboards). Recorded by Manus Lunny at Seafront Studio in County Donegal, Ireland.

Caligula's Horse is a progressive metal band from Brisbane, Australia, and named after the trusted steed of the assassinated Roman emperor Caligula. This band should surely be on the radar of any Opeth, Karnivool and Haken fan.

The Tide, The Thief & River's End is their second record, originally from 2013, and contains everything you'd want of a progressive metal album: heavy riffs, melodic hooks and of course unbelievable technical prowess. The album once again proves that the prog scene down under is a force to be reckoned with.

The Tide, the Thief & River's End is available as a limited edition on blue vinyl and includes a 4-page booklet.

The small print:
• Due to rights restrictions, this item is only available in the EU.

With Late Bloomer, Belgian-Cameroonian rapper, composer and multi-instrumentalist Kunde delivers a work that is both deeply personal and socially charged. The album forms a diptych with his previous release, Dandelion(2024). In Late Bloomer, Kunde pays tribute to his mother, who largely raised him and his sister on her own, using pivotal personal moments as a mirror through which he reveals the world from his perspective.

Composed and arranged entirely by Kunde and brought to life by his live band, Late Bloomer unfolds as a rich, layered universe where jazz, R&B, hip-hop, samba and touches of psychedelic rock intersect. Whereas his first album emerged mostly from the home studio, the new work is driven by live energy, collective interplay and a broader sonic scope. The album is further enriched by guest contributions from Helena Casella, Fred Gata, Okon and Tennishu (US), frontman of the Anderson .Paak-supported jazz-fusion band Butcher Brown.

Late Bloomer cements Kunde's reputation as a storyteller, composer and musical director. The album is both intimate and expansive, rooted in personal history while offering incisive reflections on the human condition. Like his inspirations, ranging from Coltrane and J Dilla to D'Angelo, Don Blackman and Arthur Verocai Kunde crafts a distinctive sound that is at once deeply personal and universally resonant.

‘Shaking Hips and Crashing Cars’ is the debut album from Wrexham band The Royston Club. The album was recently recorded at the famous Chapel Studios in Lincolnshire, where the band spent two weeks with fast-rising producer Alex Quinn. The album was mixed by Tom Longworth and mastered by Robin Schmidt and released on June 2nd, 2023, due to high demand from our fans we have decided to do a limited edition clear vinyl.

Diagonale des Yeux is the new band formed by two of France’s admired and adventurous artists. Laurène Exposito, we know as EYE, our longest regular contributor to the label — and friend Théo Delaunay, member and producer of Parasite Jazz, panoptique, De Klok & Violent Quand On Aime.

In Knekelhuis we have a particular fondness for artistic outputs that resist easy categorisation, and Diagonale des Yeux inhabits precisely that kind of territory.

Every aspect of the project is DIY/homemade. Their world drifts along the fringes of cabaret, strange 1980s French underground pop music to contemporary lo-fi scene — evoking the spirit of Nini Raviolette and The Residents — while delivering beautifully written songs that lodge themselves in your head almost immediately like a Cindy Lee ballad.

The tracks on Madeleine squeak and creak, wobbling on fragile hinges before suddenly opening onto moments of pure beauty.

Drums and guitars follow up synths and electronic percussions captured on tape between living rooms, studios and a concert space.

The band has a kink for choirs and playfully uses diverse languages. Their lyrics emerge through a homemade, patented four-hands cadavre exquis (Exquisite Corpse) process, where chance and dialogue shape meaning as much as intention.

Diagonale des Yeux is a singular project — equally strange and irresistibly pop-leaning. Music like weeds pushing through pavement cracks and, against all odds, turning into flowers.

Ohne Frage zählen Kerrigan zu den vielversprechendsten deutschen Newcomern im Bereich des traditionellen Heavy Metal. Im Jahre 2019 in Freiburg von Bruno Schotten (Gitarre, Bass) und Jonas Weber (Gitarre, Gesang) gegründet, spielte man ein Jahr später ein Demo mit den eigenen Stücken „Intruders“, „Force And Will“ und „Heavy Metal 2020“ sowie eine Coverversion von „Rest In Peace“ des NWOBHM-Geheimtipps Wolf ein. Als »Heavy Metal 2020« wurden die Aufnahmen über Fucking Kill Records als Tape und Vinyl veröffentlicht (später noch einmal von High Roller Records). Für ihr Debütalbum »Bloodmoon« (2023) holte man sich als Session-Schlagzeuger den befreundeten Jonathan Döring ins Line-up (der mittlerweile neben dem neu hinzugestoßenen Jakob am Bass zur festen Besetzung gehört). Die Scheibe erhielt in der Fachpresse nahezu überall außergewöhnlich gute Reaktionen. Jetzt, drei Jahre später, ist es Zeit für mehr… Als kleinen Vorgeschmack auf das neue Album hat sich die Band dazu entschieden, eine limitierte 7“-Single zu veröffentlichen. Die A-Seite „The Ice Witch“ ist eine der eingängigsten Nummern des Albums während die exklusive B-Seite „You Just Haven’t Earned It Yet Baby“, eine atemberaubende Coverversion der britischen Indie-Band The Smiths um den charismatischen Sänger Morrissey, den ikonischen 80s Sound mit melodischem Heavy Metal verschmelzt.

Very limited numbers, orders will need to be confirmed.

For his new album, Irreparable Parables, Andrew Wasylyk felt a strong desire to write a set of songs featuring an element hitherto rare in his work: the human voice. Equally strong was the conviction that he did not want to sing them himself.

The Scottish multi-instrumentalist and composer set about assembling a group of guest singers, sending out the songs to wherever they were in the world. The vocals were recorded remotely and then, like migrating birds, winged their way back to Scotland. The result is an album of great beauty which, perhaps preeminently in Wasylyk’s work, expresses the vulnerability and resilience of the human spirit.

Six singers appear on the record, represented by six songbirds illustrated on the sleeve by Clay Pipe Music’s Frances Castle. The cuckoo is a nod to Belle and Sebastian’s 2004 single ‘I’m A Cuckoo’, that band’s Stuart Murdoch being the first voice you hear on the new album. When the vocal for ‘Private Symphony #2’ arrived, says Wasylyk, “it was everything that I was looking for and more. But this is Stuart Murdoch. Of course he’s going to make something incredibly beautiful and thoughtful.”

The song lyrics were, for the most part, written by the singers. The music is Wasylyk’s creation. He navigates a sound world that lies somewhere beyond the borders of classical and jazz, ambient and abstract. It is difficult to describe, but easy to understand, which is to say to feel. That is the way Wasylyk’s work is experienced: as a feeling. It takes you back to childhood, perhaps, to feelings of comfort and safety, or to memories of walks at sunrise and sunset, or to the way a shadow falls on a particular field in a particular place at a particular time in your life. This is consoling music. That is why, though pretty, it is not merely pretty. These are songs to shore up the soul.

Wasylyk writes in a room, in his native Dundee, full of “half broken” instruments. He picks these up, plays a little, seeking an idea, a feeling, a door that lies ajar. The musical palette of Irreparable Parables includes brass and woodwind, a six-piece string section, guitar, bass, drums, vibraphone, Mellotron, Fender Rhodes, tape loops, synthesisers and percussion. The strings were arranged by the cellist Pete Harvey, a long-term collaborator.

Among the other guest vocalists are Gruff Rhys of the Super Furry Animals, Saya Ueno from Japan’s Tenniscoats and Peter Brewis from Field Music. Wasylyk himself takes the lead vocal on the title track, though a throat infection and touch of pitch-shifting have altered his singing in a way that even he, having fallen out of love with his own voice, finds acceptable.

The heart of the record can, arguably, be found in two tracks, ‘Love Is A Life That Lasts Forever’ and ‘Spectators In The Absence of God’, sung respectively by Molly Linen and Kathryn Joseph. The former, bright with trumpets, was inspired by the writing of Derek Jarman. “I was feeling deeply upset about the world and wanted to try and write some- thing that was obviously hopeful,” Wasylyk says.

‘Spectators …’ offers an emotional counterpoint. It is an “apocalyptic hymn” that seems to grapple with watching human suffering from afar, too distant to be at physical risk, but experiencing the psychological wounding, and feelings of helplessness, even complicity, that come with constant awareness of other people’s pain. “Kathryn’s a pal, I love her dearly, and she’s a brilliant artist who really feels what she writes,” Wasylyk says. “The cracked tenderness of her voice is spellbinding.”

The album closes with an instrumental piece, ‘Soul Enters The Ocean Sun Climbs Out Of The Sea’, all piano and strings, that offers a sense of resolution and ascension. A good moment, too, for Wasylyk to reflect upon the artistic companionship that he enjoyed while making this record – the songbirds that answered his call: “These humans are incredible at what they do. I’m deeply grateful and feel so lucky. It blows my mind.”

The Delines were finishing the "Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom" sessions when Willy brought in a tune called "Walking With His Sleeves Down". Vocalist Amy Boone learned it on piano and the Band recorded it live. The take was stunning but the song didn"t quite fit the record so they set it aside along with "The Reckless Life", "Dilaudid Diane" (featured in their recent encores) and "Jumping off in Madras". The song worked sonically but again didn"t feel quite right lyrically and when they finished the record Willy couldn"t stop writing songs for it. The US opioid epidemic with thousands of young people rattled with addiction and living in tents and on the streets and in old cars and RVs, influenced "Luck and Doom" but even more so with The Set Up. Their stalwart producer, John Morgan Askew, was at the helm again and he"s the king of building atmospheric worlds. You can really feel it on this one. By the time we finished they realized "The Set Up" was the wayward, misguided, and lonely sister to "Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom". More ragged and undone but all CinemaScope Delines.

In the pantheon of classic free jazz, Noah Howard's The Black Ark looms large. Recorded at Bell Sound Studios in New York City in 1969 – just prior to the alto saxophonist's relocation to Europe – the album was eventually released in 1972.

The Black Ark exhibits not only the power and imagination of Howard's playing, but also his breadth as a composer and bandleader. Listeners expecting unrelenting blasts of "energy music" might be surprised to find a cohesion atypical of free jazz; amidst the wild, impassioned solos, Howard weaves in Latin rhythms and fat-bottomed grooves.

The first side, consisting of "Domiabra" and “Ole Negro,” sets the album's tone. Both tracks sound as if they could have appeared on some of Blue Note's proto-spiritual jazz, groove-heavy releases – evoking the likes of Lou Donaldson or Horace Silver – before ceding the floor to the horn players' anarchic firepower.

As John Corbett writes in the liner notes, "Two players stand out. Bassist Norris Jones – who would soon consolidate his name into a one-word reversed amalgamation/permutation of the two, Sirone – is given ample room, largely unaccompanied; his corporal approach foreshadows later work with the Revolutionary Ensemble. But the secret weapon on The Black Ark is Arthur Doyle. Straight from basement rehearsal sessions with Milford Graves, whose ensemble he had joined and who remained a favorite of the drummer for decades, Doyle is a human flamethrower."

Trumpeter Earl Cross' guttural, vocal effects complement Doyle's take-no-prisoners approach, while the estimable combination of Muhammad Ali (Rashied's brother) on drums and Juma Sultan on congas adds an ever-shifting propulsion. The septet is rounded out by the enigmatic pianist Leslie Waldron, who anchors the group with imaginative accompaniment and occasional boppish flourishes.

Every bit worthy of its reputation as an "out-jazz" holy grail, The Black Ark only sounds better with age. It remains the ideal record to convert the remaining free-jazz skeptics.

‘Under The Sun’ is the new album from The Wanton Bishops, a band by every definition of the word, but primarily the vision of one eclectic man – Nader Mansour. The album is an exploration of identity and ultimately a love letter to his hometown Beirut, capturing Nader’s kaleidoscopic life journey through a melting pot of musical influence; primarily gutsy blues-rock but with tinges of psychedelia, surf-rock, dance, as well as the Lebanese influences of Nadar’s hometown. “It’s Lebanese Rock”, adds Nader, “a new genre, a blueprint for future music. It’s not fusion, it’s confusion, it’s not world music, it’s rock music from the world, for the world”.

Following the release of The Wanton Bishops’ debut album ‘Sleep With The Lights On’, a Delta blues record inspired by the likes of RL Burnside and Muddy Waters, Nader journeyed to America’s deep south to experience the roots of Mississippi blues. The experience spawned a musical epiphany for Nader, as he returned home to Lebanon a changed man with a newly inspired musical vision. Nader’s music slowly emerged from the Delta swamps into the Lebanese mountains, and the music of The Wanton Bishops began to reflect Nader’s homeland, his people, and his personal journey. To quote Nader, "I’m finally getting to the core of the music I want to create, and that core is scarily confused, yet uniquely special, much like our own identity as Lebanese people living in Beirut, that eternal cultural crossroad."

On his new album, the Ivorian balafon virtuoso Aly Keïta explores new horizons for his instrument in improvised music. Together with his Berlin-based trio, he conquers the peaks of balafon possibilities one by one, wandering between groovy African rhythms, spectacular polyphony and elements of jazz, and combining them into a fusion that is both futuristic and deeply in roots. In Balafon Evolution, Keïta establishes a new level of balafon artistry, creating universal, contemporary soundscapes that transcend cultural boundaries. The Aly Keïta Trio embodies the pulsating spirit of the Berlin jazz scene. Coming from different cultural backgrounds, the three musicians found a common language on stage as they explored the metropole, one of the most active, buzzing jazz hubs of Europe. Aly Keïta and the Dutch drummer Marcel van Cleef, began playing together in 2008, forming the core of the trio"s future "groove machine". As a part of the "Aly Keïta and Magic Balafon" formation, they shared a prize of the Global music contest "Creole" in 2009. Recognised as one of the most intriguing and innovative bass players among the new generation, the Italian bass player Roberto Badoglio, joined trio in 2014, becoming a true "fusion reactor" of the band.

Our well received series of Golden Earring remastered and expanded editions continue with On The Double. The Red Bullet archive was turned inside out again by Wouter Bessels and he found the original first-generation quarter inch master tapes of this classic 1969 album. These particular tapes have never been used for any release before, as in the analogue days of mixing and mastering it was customary to run off a set of equalized tape copies - with compression and sometimes reverb added - for release on vinyl and cassette. Also, genuine stereo mixes of both ‘Dong-Dong-Di-Ki-Di-Gi-Dong’ and its B-side ‘Wake Up-Breakfast!’ were found.

As the On The Double album was mixed in glorious stereo, we've included these never-before released stereo mixes (instead of the original 1968 mono mixes), alongside the original stereo mixes of ‘Where Would I Be’/’It’s Alright, But I Admit It Could Be Better’, the single that came out after On The Double. All in all, this expanded release of On The Double contains everything released by Golden Earrings between the albums Miracle Mirror and Eight Miles High and, as it features all original stereo mixes, fills another important hole in the reissue programme of the band. On The Double (remastered and expanded) is now available as a individually numbered edition of 1000 copies on crystal clear vinyl. It contains an insert, printed inner sleeves with liner notes by acclaimed Golden Earring biographer & archivist Jeroen Ras and additional remastering notes and comes in a gatefold sleeve.

Return To Forever is often cited as one of the core groups of the jazz-fusion movement of the 1970s. The final album by the longest-lasting "classic" lineup of the group (which consisted of Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, Lenny White and Al DiMeola) was Romantic Warrior, on which they continued their experiments in the realms of jazz-rock and related music genres, and was lauded by critics for both the technically demanding style of its compositions as well as for its accomplished musicianship.

The album is more avant-garde and less funky than the band's previous album, No Mystery. It would go on to become the best selling of all Return to Forever's efforts, eventually reaching gold disc status in the US.

Romantic Warrior is available as a 50th anniversary edition of 1500 individually numbered copies on blue vinyl and includes an insert.

Taupe’s latest album release, waxing | waning delivers jazz experimentalism, ‘skronk’, avant-rock, and electronics, by the Glasgow-based trio, due out via Minority Records. Across its seven tracks, waxing | waning captures Taupe’s approach – bold and boundary pushing – shaped by a fresh shift in the band’s dynamic and compositional approach.

Taupe’s waxing | waning, co-composed and realised by its players in a studio that was once an undertaker’s premises in Glasgow, is an absolutely affirmative album, an act of cultural defiance in desperate times.

Comprising Mike Parr-Burman (guitar, bass guitar, electronics), Jamie Stockbridge (alto and baritone saxophones) and Alex Palmer (drum kit, percussion), Taupe work up a storm of skronk, free jazz and harmolodic frenzy whose closest relations include Zu, Melt Banana and John Zorn. However, waxing | waning is from its opening, stuttering blasts, an exercise in seeking out and claiming new territory, finding unique and novel permutations in which jazz, rock, electronics interbreed at breakneck pace. Here is a group determined to say and do things they don’t get to say and do elsewhere in their musical lives.

‘Lemonade Tycoon’ hits the ground skronking. It’s cubistic jazz, cumulative in its impact, avoiding the white lines of the conventional freeway, bridling, bustling, coming at you from all angles – a three way conversation of astonishing rapidity, fast track, telepathic communication – everyone from James Chance to Albert Ayler coming at you at once, before morphing in to a spidery scrawl of electronics and furious percussion. ‘Anti-Bird-Spike BirdNest’s‘ title somehow sums up the sort of mental images evoked by the music – its sheer creative disobedience, as if being chased in vain, like a delivery rider evading capture by ICE agents -– shapeshifting, assuming different shades, sprouting metal quills and, in its midsection, seeming almost to swallow itself alive, before regurgitating itself in a sublime mess.

‘Interlude (Stride)’ is not exactly ambient, more a horizontal enmeshment of percussion, drones, reverberant noise, electronics, a sonic mulch. ‘allcapsallbold' reminds of early Aksak Maboul, in its playfulness, a haywire series of short phrases, subject to mechanical interference, a complex weave of irregular rhythms, increasingly eloquent sax phraseology and caustic guitars, which land heavier and heavier. ‘Pet Boss' is the new jazz equivalent of a highly evolved, mature conversation among brilliant equals, sharp, empathetic, complementary, rising to a collective, joyful noise. On the title track, electronics descend like a shower of bright particles, intensifying in their luminosity, whitening the skies, as sax and drums kick up a tempestuous, spontaneously sculpted noise that summons the ghosts of the great free jazz players, before a dark calm descends slowly. Finally, ‘Turn Push Kick’, a burgeoning chatterstorm of electronics, before the group kicks in, at angles to one another, led by abrasive guitars, reminiscent of Sunn O))) in their ritualistic concussion, riffing, digging deep amid squealing sax and piledriving percussion.

Blood continues to flow. The third statement of Qwälen. Rottenness of our human reality, the abolition of our kings and gods, the normatively sinister path of brotherly violence. For Qwälen all of them mean nothing and yet all are everything. With the very idea of black metal in its core, the band continues breaking free from the narrow-minded boundaries of the genre. Glorify no one but thyself. Raise no one on a pedestal but thyself and borders can only be drawn by the ones within. Gods are only alive if we let them. Death is the final insult. The final middle finger when all is reduced to rocks and bones. The black serpent from within. The black flame of rebellion. Hail Satan. Blood continues to flow.

Ltd. green vinyl. Blood continues to flow. The third statement of Qwälen. Rottenness of our human reality, the abolition of our kings and gods, the normatively sinister path of brotherly violence. For Qwälen all of them mean nothing and yet all are everything. With the very idea of black metal in its core, the band continues breaking free from the narrow-minded boundaries of the genre. Glorify no one but thyself. Raise no one on a pedestal but thyself and borders can only be drawn by the ones within. Gods are only alive if we let them. Death is the final insult. The final middle finger when all is reduced to rocks and bones. The black serpent from within. The black flame of rebellion. Hail Satan. Blood continues to flow.

Ltd. marbled vinyl. Blood continues to flow. The third statement of Qwälen. Rottenness of our human reality, the abolition of our kings and gods, the normatively sinister path of brotherly violence. For Qwälen all of them mean nothing and yet all are everything. With the very idea of black metal in its core, the band continues breaking free from the narrow-minded boundaries of the genre. Glorify no one but thyself. Raise no one on a pedestal but thyself and borders can only be drawn by the ones within. Gods are only alive if we let them. Death is the final insult. The final middle finger when all is reduced to rocks and bones. The black serpent from within. The black flame of rebellion. Hail Satan. Blood continues to flow.

Enabilizer is the second full-length album from The Albinos. It’s a focused and emotionally direct record that examines the space between belief and doubt—what it means to hold on to ideals in a world that often doesn’t reflect them. The songs explore themes of connection, disillusionment, and the fragile narratives people use to make sense of things. Sonically, the album moves fluidly between stripped-down garage rock and layered psychedelic arrangements. Built on live, organic instrumentation and a minimal production approach, the sound is raw but intentional—combining driving rhythms, textured guitars, and unpolished vocal performances to create something that feels both grounded and expansive. Formed in Houston, The Albinos have spent the past few years refining their sound, drawing on psych and garage traditions while keeping their songwriting emotionally grounded. Enabilizer marks a step forward for the band—more confident, more cohesive, and more willing to lean into discomfort in search of something honest.

NYZ (David Burraston) presents this collection of generative music pieces carefully extracted from a PreenFM2 gifted to him by Aphex Twin. PRN2_M15t is being released at the same time as an LP titled Stria from Dr. John Chowning who invented the original FM synthesis algorithms which were sold to Yamaha and used in the creation of the DX series of keyboards. An interview with Chowning, conducted by David Burraston, will be published at the same time.

David Burraston is an award winning artist/scientist working in the areas of technology and electronic music, operating Noyzelab as an independent art/science music studio since 1981. Numerous research publications include a 2006 PhD thesis Generative Music & Cellular Automata, which developed and applied fundamental new concepts from generative music practice to a key problem in complex systems theory.

His experimental arts practice encompasses field recording, landscape-scale sound art, chaos/complexity, practice-based research, sound synthesis and electronic music. He performs, lectures, conducts workshops and creates art installations in Regional NSW and around the world. David also designs and builds sound synthesizers based on his theories of chaos/complexity science. He was recently interviewed by Bandcamp Daily and The Wire Magazine.

David has worked with many diverse collaborators such as Aphex Twin, Chris Watson, Doug Quin, Russell Haswell, Robin Fox, Oren Ambarchi, Sarah Last, Cat Hope, Garry Bradbury, William Barton, Alan Lamb, MIT Media Lab and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. In 2014 he independently published the legendary "SYROBONKERS!", the most technical and in-depth interview ever given by Aphex Twin.