Suche:the scene

Eight months after the release of Wake Of The Flood, the GRATEFUL DEAD followed up that masterpiece with the second album on their Grateful Dead Records label, From The Mars Hotel. To this day, most of the songs on From The Mars Hotel are played frequently by the band members as they continue to bring the music to the people, and during the GRATEFUL DEAD’S touring career, more than half of the songs were important parts of their live repertoire. “Scarlet Begonias,” “Ship Of Fools,” and “U.S Blues” arrived on the scene in 1974, with “China Doll” and “Loose Lucy” coming a year earlier, and they all quickly became staples of GRATEFUL DEAD live sets for decades, although “Loose Lucy” had a 15 year hiatus 1975-1989. Phil's two songs on the album are often played live these days when Phil performs with his rotating cast of Friends, and these songs, “Pride Of Cucamonga” and “Unbroken Chain” are elicit ecstatic responses. These would be the final two Phil-sung songs on a GRATEFUL DEAD studio album. Peaking at #16 on the Billboard Top 200 chart in 1974, the album's terrific batch of new songs and exceptional production had Dead Heads scooping up the album 50 years ago upon its release.

Eight months after the release of Wake Of The Flood, the GRATEFUL DEAD followed up that masterpiece with the second album on their Grateful Dead Records label, From The Mars Hotel. To this day, most of the songs on From The Mars Hotel are played frequently by the band members as they continue to bring the music to the people, and during the GRATEFUL DEAD’S touring career, more than half of the songs were important parts of their live repertoire. “Scarlet Begonias,” “Ship Of Fools,” and “U.S Blues” arrived on the scene in 1974, with “China Doll” and “Loose Lucy” coming a year earlier, and they all quickly became staples of GRATEFUL DEAD live sets for decades, although “Loose Lucy” had a 15 year hiatus 1975-1989. Phil's two songs on the album are often played live these days when Phil performs with his rotating cast of Friends, and these songs, “Pride Of Cucamonga” and “Unbroken Chain” are elicit ecstatic responses. These would be the final two Phil-sung songs on a GRATEFUL DEAD studio album. Peaking at #16 on the Billboard Top 200 chart in 1974, the album's terrific batch of new songs and exceptional production had Dead Heads scooping up the album 50 years ago upon its release.

Initially formed in southeast London in the mid-1960s as the Coloured Raisins, obscure black rock quartet Black Velvet infused their sound with soul and reggae undercurrents, a testament to the Caribbean origins of the group members, and the pervasive styles inspiring the black communities that inhabited London’s marginal outskirts. Produced by Don Lawson for the Beacon label, which was launched by the Antiguan businessman and future politician Milton Samuel, Black Velvet’s powerful debut is a snapshot in time of London’s black underground that will appeal to anyone interested in the black British music scene of the early 1970s.

In 1967, the English poet George Duffell, alias Jorgy Porgy, decided to set his verses to music, birthing J.P. Sunshine with guitarist/vocalist Rod Goodway of pop act the Pack (later with the Crazy World of Arthur Brown), the line-up expanding with a bassist and bongo player, Duffell’s girlfriend on percussion, and former Pack guitarist Andy Rickell on electric lead. These resultant recordings, cut on basic gear in Duffell’s flat, evidence an individual psychedelic sound, marked by the incestuous claustrophobia of the group’s romantic rivalries, the meandering lyrics and disjointed melodies pointing to the pervasive drug use that ultimately squashed the project. This is psych with a difference: rare, rough, and freaky!

English blues outfit Tramp had a fleeting existence in the late 60s and early 70s—here today, gone tomorrow. Based around former John Dummer Blues Band vocalist/ guitarist Dave Kelly and sister Jo Ann on harmonies and occasional lead, the group got a boost from Fleetwood Mac mainstays Mick Fleetwood, Danny Kirwan, and Bob Brunning, as well as former Savoy Blues keyboardist, Bob Hall. If not quite as compelling as their 1969 debut, this 1974 LP has the hallmark touches that made the Mac leaders of the British blues scene. Fleetwood Mac devotees and British blues lover, get stuck in!

English blues outfit Tramp was a fleeting affair, active in the late 1960s and early 1970s on an on again, off again basis. Centred on former John Dummer Blues Band guitarist/vocalist Dave Kelly and his singing sister Jo Ann, the group benefitted from Fleetwood Mac mainstays Mick Fleetwood, Danny Kirwan, Bob Brunning and former Savoy Blues Band keyboardist, Bob Hall. Produced for Spark in 1969 by Donovan’s manager, Peter Eden, their sole LP featured tough blues originals, written by members of the group. This is a must-have for all Fleetwood Mac devotees, andfor lovers of British blues albums.

"Tales" is back in action with the third volume...this time we pass through Naples, a city that has made a strong contribution to the electronic music scene, with tales from Marsupials, The Mechanical Man feat. Melloghetto, MAN-D.A. and L.D.F.

Nanga Boko Records is very proud to present you "Njitna !" ("I'm Coming" in Bamoun
vernacular langage of Cameroun), the official compilation of the finest early recordings (1979/1980) of the Cameroonian composer & musician Théodore Mounta, known on scene as "Ometh".

Deluxe hand-numbered edition, limited to 500, includes a bonus track never released on vinyl before!

Each record comes with an insert that includes exclusive pictures and very detailed biographies in both English and French languages and an HQ Digital Download Card.

Approved by the artist himself, 100 % legit, all 8 tracks are under exclusive license of Nanga Boko Records

Much appreciated reissue of R.N.A. Organism’s ‘R.N.A.O Meets P.O.P.O’ (first released by legendary Osaka label Vanity Records in 1980). A key document of the late ’70s experimental music scene in Kansai, Japan, R.N.A.O Meets P.O.P.O is a hallucinatory trip of dubby bass, churning guitars, sputtering rhythm boxes, twisted vocals and unidentifiable sound effects.

Carefully remastered by Stephan Mathieu from the original tapes, cut by Josh Bonati, pressed by RTI, and housed in a hefty Stoughton tip-on sleeve. This oedition also includes an expanded insert with an illuminating essay by R.N.A. Organism producer Kaoru Sato.

"I wish I could turn or turn back" "Sometimes it’s hard to resist the feeling that there was a crucial turn in life out of which everything else flowed. Maybe in our more reasonable frames of mind we can dismiss that thought and take our plans and intentions very seriously. But, there’s often a lurking conviction that, like the oak from the acorn or the movie from its opening scene, it is already all there. In the first moment of Relics of Our Life, anything could happen, anything could come next. But as the suspense is broken with the first notes, the world of the record springs up as both an internal experience and a landscape of which we will learn something, but definitely not everything. The songs induce a swimming sense of cycling repetition and variation where shifting details tilt the ground under us. The round and round doesn’t make us dizzy; like breathing the right way, it makes us both heavier and higher. "Pawliczek’s songs can be located in the company of the greats of Flying Nun Records – maybe the delicacy of The Great Unwashed with the heavy heart of The Verlaines and smartness of The Chills. But, ultimately, his interests are elsewhere – a heart-break song over an earthly lover feels like only the tipping point for longing and devotion that outstrips the personal. In this sense, Popul Vuh for their hymnal geometry and switched-on Palestrina, and Terry Riley for cosmic elation come to mind. The songs have sweeping and cinematic proportions and depths of field constrained by a pop economy love of leanness. "But who’s supplicating whom here? The songs’ devotional quality is not upward to the sacred or even outward to the profane. It’s more like a magnetism between its elements – sounds, voices and rhythms. The track No Talk intones “why don’t you talk to me?” over a driving guitar and one feels visited by some kind of archaic god on whom the tables have been turned, finding himself jealous of our thousand little thoughts. The record finishes with his distorted lilting dance, trying to seduce us with some red red wine that is no one’s blood, but everyone’s favorite drug." -- Karina Gill (Cindy, Flowertown) 2024

"The wash of flangers & shimmery reverb have been the foundation in Cali psych ever since the Byrds went electric. And while that sound might've dropped off occasionally, it never dropped out. The Velvets minimalist stylings were infused into the mix by The Dream Syndicate in the early 80's & thus a game changer was born. Clay Allison, Opal, Green On Red all took their charge from that current. Then the Shoegaze scene of the 90's looked at those bands as vectors, things got a little more drenched, so yet more seeds were sown into the fertile terroir. Cut to current climes & the bay area is teeming with the latest iterations: Children Maybe Later, Now, & Cindy easily come to mind. But curiously the band most steeped in the mohair constitution is April Magazine, who (thus far) have been content in the shadows. Up till now they've seemed like characters plucked out of a Kazuo Ishiguo novel-mysterious & ethereal-but perhaps this pressing of last year's cassette only release will flush them out. 'Wesley's Convertible Tape For The South' shows the band defly balancing all those that have come before them while also incorporating flourishes of Les Rallizes DeNudes, Hallelujahs & Nagisa Ni Te into the pageantry . So in a way, April Magazine is transforming the landscape yet again; denser, fuzzier, lush & wistfully challenging. 'Wesley's Convertible Tape For The South' is the band's 1st vinyl release stateside (an LP of older tracks was released last year via a UK only label) so no import tariffs! What were once whispers are now proclamations. Just because you don't know them doesn't mean you can't love them. So grab a copy & hug it out amongst yourselves." -- Tom Lax (Siltbreeze Records)

Repress!


THE KING CASUALS – were originally named The King Kasuals and were founded in 1962 by the late great Jimi Hendrix. Little wonder that in the late Sixties Jimi’s replacemet, Johnny Jones, would lead the band in a raucous, stomping interpretation of the Hendrix classic. It had everything necessary to propel you to the dance floor and it certainly lit the Torch in Stoke-on-Trent, shook the floor at Wigan Casino and wobbled the pier at Cleethorpes. This outrageous powerhouse has grown in stature over the years and sounds every bit as a weird and wonderful as it did over 50 years ago.
GENE CHANDLER – needs no introduction to the UK Northern Soul scene thanks to his numerous floorfillers and UK appearances. As with our flip-side, “Purple Haze”, “There Was A Time” is a definitive ‘soul’ cover-version of an R&B original, in this case by the “Godfather” James Brown. This stomping, adrenalin-fueled dance cover was propelled to classic status in Mr M’s at Wigan Casino and cemented Gene “Big Shot” Chandler’s place in the Northern Soul Hall of Fame.

The music industry, once revered as a realm of artistic expression and creativity, has gradually transformed into a breeding ground for commercial nonsense. The rampant commercialization of music has resulted in an environment where genuine talent often takes a backseat to profit-driven motives. It’s high time we unmask and challenge the prevailing commercial bullshit that plagues the music scene today.

In the midst of all this commercial nonsense, it’s essential to recognize that there is a thriving underground and independent music scene where authenticity and creativity still flourish. Listeners can play a vital role in reshaping the music industry by supporting independent artists, seeking out diverse sounds, and rejecting the homogenized offerings of major labels.

To combat the commercial bullshit in the music scene, we must prioritize artistry over profit, diversity over uniformity, and creativity over conformity. Only by championing these values can we hope to revive the music industry as a bastion of authentic expression and genuine talent, free from the shackles of commercial exploitation.

Through the folded sky to America

Ten albums in three years. That's still the cosmic mission of the Berlin post-kraut trio YELKA with Daniel Meteo, Christian Obermaier, and the namesake Yelka Wehmeier.

With the album "For," there was a Label change. After releasing three albums in 2023 with Maurice Summen, head of Fun In The Church they passed the label responsibilities to Karaoke Kalk. Karaoke Kalk is a friendly label founded in Cologne known for establishing the Berlin post-wende scene (fall of the wall scene).

The trio's fourth album was also created with Arne Berger at Popschutz Studio, and the team is definitely well-rehearsed. Instead of recording the planned tracks, the band decided to improvise the session, and all tracks, except for the krauty Doors cover "The Crystal Ship," were created in 5 days in the studio, mostly on the first or second take, but with significantly more overdubs - keyboards, backing vocals, second and third guitars, percussion, and piano. The sound of "For" has become warmer, and the album begins with a kind of 60s-Kinks feeling. Overall, the current record has become much more exuberant - like Alice in Wonderland, YELKA seem to want to restore innocence to things in the opener "Smile (Into Skies)," resulting in an uplifting hiking song for experimental outdoor bohemians.

The follow-up piece "The Boar" speaks to everyone from the north, south, west, and east and here YELKA encounter a horde of wild boars on their travels, before the vocals become hardly understandable and ghostly spooled in reverse, suddenly sounding like Damo Suzuki from CAN at the height of Tago-Mago times.

Finally, YELKA‘s "Crystal Ship," simply sails away with the wild boars into remote 4D worlds between the Cocteau Twins and X-Mal Deutschland.

In the first instrumental of the album "Is this enough?", the band reverse tracks like Jimi Hendrix in his Electric Ladyland, and we dive deeper and deeper into the endless sky until YELKA finally arrive on newly trodden sound paths with "MM" to their beginnings on their debut album "Nowhere Jive." At the popular intersection of post-rock and jazz, where guest singer Bela Hagel also likes to linger for a moment: "Sie wissen" (They know), he knows that too! Surely Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser would have had a lot of fun with his shamanistic singing on his "Kosmische Kuriere" label. The guitars sound like a desert, and the reverb reminds us of the expansive space in the opening track "Skies."

Finally, we land in Amerika, or rather, YELKA ponder the melancholic question of whether anyone still wants to travel to America with them, to the land of unlimited possibilities, the haven for artist souls all over the world. "Do you wanna dance?" Yelka Wehmeier finally asks, while a chorus in the best Sun Ra manner mantra-like repeats "Cold dogs, cool cats." The whole band sings. Everything sounds good.

We're excited to unveil our inaugural vinyl release, introducing the first Neptune ‘Disc’ to the world. Trance-inducing progressive genres, which dive into the magnetic allure of '90s progressive sounds with a distinct tilt towards the club scene. Four tracks resonating through the depths of a festival ambiance, enveloped in an enigmatic mist and bathed under shimmering purple strobes.

A1 introduces Cybernet, an emerging force hailing from the vibrant scene of Aus. Delving beyond the sounds of the '90s Cybernet brings forth a distinctive sonic narrative, intertwining intricate vocal hooks before unleashing the pulsating acid-line. An instant classic unfolds, resonating with the essence of the dance-floor.

Glen S swiftly becomes a Neptune Disc regular with "Uh!" on A2. Tailored for the club, he infuses his signature alien scattered pulses and a rolling bassline. With a deft touch, he creates a surge of energy by cutting off all elements on the drop, leaving only the bass and kicks. Expertly crafted.
Aiden's "Fanks" on the B-side boasts a mesmerising appeal, again reminiscent of the 90s-2000s era, with its pulsating bassline and entrancing soundscape. It delves into the realm of trance, offering a hypnotic journey that echoes the allure of that bygone era. With its captivating blend of trippy elements, the track creates a nostalgic yet timeless vortex of sound, drawing listeners into an otherworldly experience that resonates with the spirit of classic electronic music.

B2 showcases Tourman's prowess as a versatile producer, seamlessly delving into different genres. Overflowing with progressive energy and adorned with scattered UFO sounds, this track stands as a testament to Tourman's evolving artistry—a dynamic force ready to command diverse sonic landscapes. An ideal opener for peak-time set.

Two years after the release of the Polarius EP Inner Voices Of A Clown, Danny Wolfers returns to Altered Circuits, this time under his best-known alias Legowelt, for Ruins Of Cracktopolis: a collection of "hymns to survive the dystopian circus of today's techno scene" in the artist's own words. On Do You Know Who You Never Be, a short staccato lead and dark chords revolve around a monolithic kick drum pattern that takes care of the cadence and bass. A mysterious vocoder and a laser sequence that gets torn and twisted to the max join, but the track never loses its steady pace - it gets help from shakers so much mixed to the front they could be lifted from a B'more track.

Amidst the effervescing 303 lines and bold drum sequences of In A Trance Dance All Night" Wolfers finds a canvas for a stretched synthesizer jam with eighties breaking allure. This melody, together with the pads and vocal, are drenched in reverb - they float like mist ascending from the The Hague dunes. Throughout Ruins Of Cracktopolis, more vintage Dutch West Coast, the hiss-laden broken beat that guides the bass sequences and ominous blippy synth patterns switches to a 4/4 structure and back. These make for captivating shifts in pace while the minor progressions continue unfolding. Like Twin Peaks targets prime energy once the arpeggiator sequence present from the start lowers an octave. The track runs smooth like a pomade slick-back; it's only tempered slightly when the crunchy kick and tom change place for a moody chord sequence break. Even if these four tracks target the club, they are equally suited for - quoting Wolfers again - "leisurely home listening". Their greatest strengths are, as so often, their melodic aspects.

The artist is known to be a synthesizer aficionado, but his unique personal touch immediately shines through no matter which gear he works with. The machines never seem to dominate the composing process; quite the opposite: it's as if he isn't programming or registering as much as trying to teach them his take on electronic music.

Mika Miko were a band from Los Angeles from 2003-2010 playing a mix of danceable, post punk and late 70's style power pop and street punk. Formed by sisters Jennifer and Jessie Clavin (who would later form Bleached) with high school friends Michelle Suarez, Jenna Thornhill and drummer Jon Erik Edrosa. After a 7" EP in 2004 (PPM) they signed to Kill Rock Stars in 2006 with new drummer Kate Hall to release "C.Y.S.L.A.B.F." which would see them tour throughout the US, Europe and Japan. Returning to PPM in 2007 to release their "666" EP, and their second and final LP (with another new drummer, Seth Densham) "We Be XUXA" in 2009, they disbanded in 2010. Mika Miko were highly influential and integral to the LA scene in the early and mid aughts surrounding the all ages club The Smell. This limited edition of 300, silk screened cover + poster LP is a "Best Of" compilation of their previous work compiled by the band.

Fourteen new and previously unreleased tracks from some of the most exciting current bands from Seattle, Washington's vibrant alternative-rock underworld.
Continuing in the spirit of regional compilation albums like 1988's Sub Pop 200, "From Far It All Seems Small" serves as a snapshot of the contemporary Seattle scene.

"From Far It All Seems Small" jumps off the speakers with an onslaught of fuzz and an abundance of hooks. You might find yourself flipping the sleeve over, expecting to see a release date from the 1990's, but no, these are Seattle's finest here and now! - Jackson Long (KEXP, HMS Studio)

A wonderful document of the current moment of Seattle indie. - Ole Johnson (Painter Man Records)

A collection of songs that will get stuck in your head by Seattle's best alt-rockers. - Ellen Rumel (PNW music photographer)"