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The 2 Tone sound was a great period in the aftermath of Punk and included influences taken from Jamaican Ska.

Mal-One had already worked on some Two Tone collages and had them put aside for some future project. He thought it would be fun to record some tracks related to these images and sounds. The first track he recorded was an instrumental track in the style of Harry J All Stars ‘Liquidator’ which he called ‘Rude Boy Shuffle’. Initially to be put out as a stand alone track on some reggae label of some sort. He had a poem already which he called ‘Two Tone Story’, so put that on top of the ‘Ska Train Is Back In Town’ rhythm which he had put together for another song of that name. Finally ‘Rude Boys and Rude Girls Listen Up! ‘came together.

Adding to this a couple of dub mixes and we have a 6 track 12”. Mal-One thought the artwork worked better on a 12” format.

Hope you enjoy the outcome.

Apollo / R&S are delighted to welcome back The Primitive Painter, aka the duo of Roman Flügel and Jörn Elling Wuttke for a timely reissue of their 1994 lost classic self-titled album of sonorous IDM.

Growing up in Frankfurt, in the 80s and 90s the duo met at an indie rock club in their home town of Darmstadt, bonding over their shared obsession with the first wave of acid, Chicago house and early Detroit techno as well as their patronage of now iconic Frankfurt club nights like The Omen or Dorian Gray or the infamous Delirium Record shop run by scene stalwarts Ata (Robert Johnson) and Heiko MSO (Playhouse).

Taking inspiration from the likes of The Black Dog and Transmat as well as seminal compilations such as Planet E’s Intergalactic Beats and Warp’s Artificial intelligence compilation the duo honed their inventive take on the Detroit techno blueprint under the monicker Acid Jesus, debuting on their freshly minted Klang Elektronik label. The label was started in conjunction with Ata and Heiko after Fluegel & Wuttke (regular patrons of the Delirium store) pressed a demo on them, muttering the immortal line; “Please listen to the tape, we are big Mr. Fingers fans.”

Through the mid ’90s the project flourished giving rise to a classic album and a brace of singles that number amongst the best of the era’s techno, winning them a influential fans most notably Sven Väth, David Holmes and Andrew Weatherall who invited them to play live at one of the legendary Sabresonic parties in London.

Alongside the success of the Acid Jesus project, the duo found great inspiration in outside of the club, including an ambient happening when the KLF came to play Frankfurt; “There were live sheep eating grass on stage while they played at Mark Spoon’s club XS”, as well as cinematic influence from the likes of Jim Jarmush and Wim Wenders. It was however the euphonic IDM grandeur of Apollo Recordings self titled compilation of 1993 that really got their creative juices flowing: “It was a ten track compilation with artists like David Morley, Model 500, Aphex Twin which still sounds so good today,” Jörn enthuses. “ It was really the trigger to go away from the Detroit sound and more towards the big melodies of B12 etc.”

Deciding to make their tribute to this style of music the duo turned out 10 tracks of gauzy, melodious electronica in a white hot fever, one after another over the ensuing months. Settling on a name for the new project they picked ‘The Primitive Painters’ taking inspiration from the band Felt. “We are both children of the C86 movement,” explains Jörn. “this attitude of noisy art school influenced rock like Primal Scream, MBV, The Jesus & Mary Chain really inspired us to take a DIY approach to our music.”

They sent the resulting demo cassette to Renaat at R&S / Apollo. “We really had no expectations,” Jörn explains. “So we were shocked and delighted when we received a fax saying that he wanted to release it”.

The resulting release was bungled by an R&S mix up that attributed the album to the duo’s own Klang Elektronik label which confused both fans and distributors alike, denying the release the critical boost and attention that it so richly deserved. Accordingly the release slipped out without much fanfare, with a chastened Fluegel & Wuttke returning to their Acid Jesus activities which would eventually lead to their blockbusting success as Alter Ego.

Over the ensuing years the reputation of The Primitive Painter album has only grown, with second hand copies (only 500 vinyl were pressed) changing hands for exorbitant amounts on Discogs, leading us to this opportune moment of a richly deserved ‘first’ release on the label for which the project was started, Apollo / R&S.

“This really brings us full circle,” says Jörn. “Apollo / R&S meant and means so much to us as artists and so it was bittersweet to not have the official release - to put that right all these years later feels really good.”

This new vinyl release comes in re-created original gatefold artwork and includes all original 10 tracks (Stoned Soul Picnic was previously on the CD only).

For the past couple of years, Sam Akpro has been rising as one of the brightest talents coming from the thriving UK alternative scene. Hailing from Peckham, South London, he incorporates elements of post-punk, wave, dub, jazz and trip-hop, fueled by a fascinating range of influences (from Joy Division to SAULT, through Miles Davis, Talking Heads, Cocteau Twins, Dean Blunt, Fela Kuti, Frank Ocean). Fuzzy, moody and dreamy at times, "Evenfall" paints a refreshing picture of life in the London suburbs in your twenties. It"s the light, the darkness and the slow passing of time in an accomplished, genre-defying art form. With this beautiful debut, Sam Akpro is destined to break through in 2025.

Stone Foundation return with their 11th studio album. Collaborative as ever, the band's first LP in 3 years boats appearances from a diverse range of soul artists from Omar and Laville to J.P. Bimeni and regular collaborator Mick Talbot (The Style Council). Following a year celebrating their 25th anniversary as a band with a major compilation release alongside a summer touring with Grace Jones and Paul Weller, Stone Foundation's sights are now firmly fixed on the future. Join them as the sound of small town soul transforms itself once again.

Stone Foundation return with their 11th studio album. Collaborative as ever, the band's first LP in 3 years boats appearances from a diverse range of soul artists from Omar and Laville to J.P. Bimeni and regular collaborator Mick Talbot (The Style Council). Following a year celebrating their 25th anniversary as a band with a major compilation release alongside a summer touring with Grace Jones and Paul Weller, Stone Foundation's sights are now firmly fixed on the future. Join them as the sound of small town soul transforms itself once again.

Stone Foundation return with their 11th studio album. Collaborative as ever, the band's first LP in 3 years boats appearances from a diverse range of soul artists from Omar and Laville to J.P. Bimeni and regular collaborator Mick Talbot (The Style Council). Following a year celebrating their 25th anniversary as a band with a major compilation release alongside a summer touring with Grace Jones and Paul Weller, Stone Foundation's sights are now firmly fixed on the future. Join them as the sound of small town soul transforms itself once again.

Captures Blaze Foley and his working band-the Beaver Valley Boys-on their first Texas studio recordings dating from 1979 and 1980. Blaze and the band-anchored by the reknowned Gurf Morlix-are at the top of their form. Cold, Cold World includes 17 Foley songs from his well-known classics to six songs that appear on a Foley recording for the first time.

The Quireboys trafen 2022 auf ein kleines Orchester! Ein Abend, an dem klassischer Rock auf klassische Musik unter dem Dach des legendären O2 Forum Kentish Town traf. Bei diesem Meilenstein in der Geschichte der Quireboys wurde die Band von einem Streichquartett und einem Bläsertrio begleitet, die dem bewährten Sound der Gruppe eine neue Dimension verliehen. Gemeinsam interpretierte das erweiterte Ensemble der Quireboys Stücke aus dem umfangreichen Backkatalog der Band neu. Ein ziemlich einzigartiger Abend. Zum Glück haben The Quireboys die Erinnerung an dieses einzigartige Live-Erlebnis in ihrem neuen Konzertalbum mit dem Titel ,Orchestral Quireboys Live" festgehalten. Auf dem Album mit sechzehn Titeln spielt die fünfköpfige Band live Fan-Favoriten wie ,There She Goes Again", ,I Don't Love You Anymore" und ,7 O'Clock", aber auch versteckte Perlen aus dem Repertoire der Gruppe. Jeder der dargebotenen Songs wurde dank der Streicher und Bläser zu neuem Leben erweckt. Orchestral Quireboys Live funktioniert. 10-Song-Vinyl-LP & 14-Song-CD mit 16-Song DVD!

Fourteen records in eight years. Side-projects records, experimental EPs, a double album of B-sides, splits and collections of demos: in just a few years, Bordeaux-born Thoineau Palis has built up a discography as fascinating as it is plethoric, in which he pays tribute in his own way to the heroes of a rock pantheon all his own, populated by lofi geeks and beautiful losers of all kinds.

Negative Freaks, TH da Freak's fifteenth album, sets the record straight in a way, since it's the first album by TH da Freak "the band", a collective incarnation hitherto reserved for the stage. This first album, composed entirely by the five of them, breaks a pattern established several years ago, with Thoineau contributing finished compositions that were then reworked collectively for live performance. The 5 Bordelais impose on themselves the use of what they call the "negative scale", dissonant and disturbing sonorities that they apply to compositions initially structured as pop tracks. This approach, combined with the casual, surreal lyrics written by Palis (influenced by intensive listening to the likes of Oingo Boingo, Devo and P-Model), lends an unprecedented coherence to the tracks on the album. Negative Freaks sounds like a massive grunge monolith, driven by a collective, radical vision that is assertive from start to finish. Impressive for a debut album

On their most explicit venture into music for moving image, Miles Whittaker & Sean Canty rudely fracture piano and vocal recordings by US filmmaker-musician Kristen Pilon in a short-circuiting of style and pattern.

Shredding up definitions of electro-acoustic opera, spectralist chamber musique and concrète rave, Demdike hit square between the eyes/ears of film music vernaculars on a startlingly strong addition to their unique oeuvre, now in its 16th year of elusive psychoacoustic strafes and jump-cuts across putative borders. The 13-part, hour-long album dislodges source material made for the experimental film ‘To Cut and Shoot’, by Kristen Pilon, an NYC-based musician and filmmaker, to farther refract the film’s themes of serendipity and the nature of ghosts and dreams with a flickering flux of sound-imagery and aleatoric weirdness appropriate to her original meditations, but also freely messing with their forms.

Situated just a few miles north of Houston, Cut and Shoot is a relatively insignificant Texas town with an unforgettably bizarre name. Pilon grew up not far from Cut and Shoot, and it's there where she ran into 65-year-old machinist and motorcyclist Robert Lewis Stevenson, better known as Bobbo, who's pictured on the album's cover. The meeting occurred a few months after Pilon recorded her improvisations on piano, strings and voice in the basement cellar of the Halle in Manchester, with Bobbo providing the necessary narrative heft the trio needed to inspire an experimental film and its accompanying soundtrack.

Responding to Kristen’s initial piano and operatic vocal recordings, Demdike return a volley of discrete parts tilting from typically cantankerous mayhem to quieter, more clandestine buzzes sliced with crazed interstices of the imagination, all marbled with the plasmic contrails of the paranormal which have long been peculiar to their work. With a poetic flair reflecting Pilon’s own phrasing and melding of mediums, Demdike unfold and expand her melodic fragments into temporal mazes, variously resembling the most messed-up ends of The Caretaker in ‘A Grave Fall (January)’, but also liable to skew into buckshot club turbulence, as with ‘Belly Up’, or the bittersweet bruk contortions of ‘Twist’.

The storyline wickedly frays and loops into itself with a non-linearity that recalls the mid-to-latter stages of Lynch’s ‘Mulholland Drive’ or waking from a sweaty fever dream only to pitch back into its thorny bush of ghosts, often within the space of one track. It’s testament to the ever-tighter binds of Demdike’s symbiotic vision that the results nevertheless hold a thread of logic that weaves in everything from their Jon Collin jams to reams of mixes and Gruppo edits with an unresolved, open-ended quality that still keeps us on our toes, perhaps more so than ever here.

Five for Fighting achieved a hit record with "Superman (It's Not Easy)" in 2001 leading to his America Town album going Platinum.

For the follow-up, The Battle Of Everything, John Ondrasik went into the studio with Bill Bottrell, best known for his production work with Sheryl Crow.

On the influences behind Battle and its recording, Ondrasik said, "When I was a kid I could put on Dark Side of the Moon, turn up the sound in my headphones, lie down in the dark, and go away. I wanted that experience again, and so Bill and I were ambitious to the point of absurdity. If we wanted drama, we'd get a thirty-piece orchestra. If we wanted a rock edge, we went after it with reckless abandonment. It was like doing my own private Quadrophenia."

The Battle for Everything was released in 2004. The first single, "100 Years" was a top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The album itself was certified Platinum in 2009. and is now finally available on vinyl for the first time.

This is a limited edition of 500 individually numbered copies on gold coloured vinyl. The LP contains a 4-page booklet with lyrics and pictures.

Following the Nairobi Sisters 45 in 2023 and Revolutionaries LP in 2024, 333 is back for 2025 with another rare mid-1970s cut out of Winston Jones' Flatbush-based Flames label catalogue.

It is issued here under license from Jones, aka the original singer and composer of Stop That Train with the Spanish Town Skabeats aka The Spanishtonians. Making the move from JA to NYC in the early 1970s he established and ran the state-side Flames label, nursing it into a key imprint in Brooklyn's reggae scene from the mid-1970s until the early 1990s. This in-demand roots cut features a stellar horn section in combination with urgent, soul-inflected vocals from Glen Hutchinson. Backed with a killer stripped-back dub.

A 1985 live performance from the Velvet Underground’s cult icon!

Nico’s doom-laden contralto voice, the bizarre choice of a harmonium for accompaniment, and the sheer eeriness and other-worldliness of her repertoire mark Nico as one of the most extraordinarily original performers of the rock era.

Haken-Gitarrist Charlie Griffiths kehrt mit einem Nachfolger zu seinem Soloalbum von 2022 zurück. Diesmal wählt Charlie Grif-fiths den Künstlernamen "Tiktaalika" und präsentiert "Gods of Pangaea". Das Album knüpft dort an, wo das Vorgängeralbum auf-gehört hat und erzählt von einer uralten, vergessenen Welt, die mit dem heutigen, von Menschen bewohnten Planeten kollidiert. Musikalisch ist das Album eine Hommage an die Kunst der Gitarrenriffs, deren DNA bis in die goldene Ära des Metal zurück-reicht, mit Einflüssen von Mercyful Fate, Judas Priest, Megadeth und Metallica. Charlie wird wieder von dem hervorragenden Schlagzeuger Darby Todd (Devin Townsend) unterstützt, und die Bassfrequenzen werden diesmal von Haken-Bandkollege Conner Green beigesteuert. An den Vocals wird Charlie von einigen der Besten im Geschäft unterstützt: Tommy Rogers (Between The Buried & Me), Daniël de Jongh (Textures) und Vladimir Lalić (Organised Chaos) sind alle wieder mit von der Partie und Rody Walker (Protest The Hero) steuert seine Vocals zu einem Track bei. Erhältlich als limitierte CD & Gatefold transparent-magenta LP-Edition (beide mit Bonustrack) sowie digital.

Blend Mishkin & Soul Sugar - Theory of Mind
Cultural Collaboration Sparks New Sound:
Athens and Paris Unite for Soulful Jazz-Reggae Fusion Album.

A collaboration between two creative musical minds, Blend Mishkin from Athens meets Parisian Soul Sugar to co-create a genre-bending album titled “Theory of Mind”
This album features nine compositions which uniquely fuse vibes of jazz, soul, reggae, afro-beat and even some 70’s b-movie soundtrack all brought to life through the warm tones of vintage keyboard instruments such as the Hammond Organ, Clavinet and Fender Rhodes electric piano, played by virtuoso keyboardist Soul Sugar aka Guillaume Metenier paired with flawless orchestration, arrangements and production by Blend Mishkin.

Soul Sugar, a disciple of jazz master Dr. Lonnie Smith on the Hammond organ, known for his
intricate reggae-jazz masterful improvisation, brings a distinctive mellowness and complexity to the album. His use of the Hammond organ, Clavinet and Fender Rhodes electric piano adds a layer of depth and authenticity that transports listeners back to the golden age of soul and reggae. Blend Mishkin, a versatile artist, who has mixed and moved across reggae, dub, soul, as well as world music, introduces elements of funk and reggae rhythms to the mix. His production techniques, combined with the rich, analog sound of the vintage instruments, creates a sonic landscape that is both timeless and inspired.

Guest vocalists are featured in four out of nine tracks. Greek-French funk powerhouse Georges Perin delivers a heavy soul tune called “I Miss Those Days” , Fae Simon from London lays a velvety vocal on an old school steppers groove, Thaliah from Athens brings her smokey jazz flavour with “Moonlit Letter” and Jeffrey Diop from Senegal adds the perfect chant in “Big Boss in a Small Town”.

The recording sessions, split between Athens and Paris, were as much about cultural exchange as they were about musical experimentation. The result is a collection of tracks that resonate with the energy of live performance, while also echoing the rich musical background of both artists.
"We wanted to create something that felt organic and real," says Guillaume. "Using these incredible vintage instruments allowed us to tap into a sound that feels both timeless and brand new."
Blend adds, "This album is about mixing our roots, our sounds, and our experiences. It's a celebrationof music that transcends borders and eras."

“Theory of Mind” it's a cross-cultural journey. The project emerges from the vibrant, sun-soaked melodies of Athens with the sophisticated, urban grooves of Paris, resulting in a sound that is both nostalgic and refreshingly modern.

Introducing the ultimate Rock and Power Ballads collection - NOW That’s What I Call Rock Anthems – Out 31st May! Get ready to crank up the volume and let the music take you on a journey through 79 epic hits, spread across 4 CDs.and with 45 epic hits on 3-LP’s pressed in stunning Neon Violet Vinyl

AIR 's Jean-Benoît Dunckel & Jonathan Fitoussi have joined forces to release Mirages II, a sonic exploration of analogue synthesis, moving from the minimal to the cinematic.

"After their first album as a duo, released in 2019, JB & Jonathan have gone back together to build another work, in which their two personalities unfold even more surreptitiously, always very attentive to each other.

At their heart, an electronic spirit, anchored to a very mineral rhythm.

There are glimpses and echoes of the great German musicians of the 70s, with their infallible metronome.
There are also ghosts of Detroit's hypnotic machines.

Above all, this album moves forward as if it were running slowly, its rhythms giving a cadence that calms and radiates, in sparkling harmony...

These mirages, second chapter of that name, are at their zenith."

J. Ghosn

The third internatonal release by the legendary Malian singer and guitarist is many fan's favourite. 'The Source' established Ali Farka Touré on the internatonal stage and paved the way for his legendary collaboraton with Ry Cooder on the GRAMMY award winning album 'Talking Timbuktu'.
Available for the frst tme on vinyl, the album has been re-mixed from the original master tapes and includes a previously unreleased track from the same sessions.
The album is presented in a gatefold sleeve containing double 180g vinyl and large format 28 page booklet with lyrics.
'The Source' features Farka Touré's frst recordings with his home town band Group Asco, with vocalist Afel Bocoum and percussionists Hamma Sankare (calabash) and Oumar Touré (congas). Touré's trademark acoustc and electric guitar (as well his njarka violin) playing are highlighted on some of his best loved and most sophistcated compositons.
The father of the desert blues unleashes a set of driving small group performances, intmate love songs, mesmerising guitar solos and two unique duets with the great American bluesman Taj Mahal.

For this special release, we’re excited to unveil something brand new: a triple vinyl, perfect for casting a spell on your Halloween night

Witches brew and cauldrons bubble, as Halloween stirs up an eerie trouble! Step into the world of spooky beats with Lofi Girl's 'Halloween 2024' compilation. Featuring talented artists from around the world, this potion of ghostly rhythms and haunting melodies sets the mood for a night of chills and thrills. Whether you're conjuring up potions or unwinding under the moonlit sky, let the witchy magic of these chilling beats take over your Halloween night!

Fust--the lyrical powerhouse Southern rock band from Durham, North Carolina--announce their new album Big Ugly, out March 7th on Dear Life Records, the record label that launched the careers of MJ Lenderman and Florry and that has become a haven for contemporary songwriters. Big Ugly arrives after the release of 2024's Songs of the Rail--"one of the best alt-country compilations_in a long, long time" (Paste) -- and 2023's standout Genevieve, which unassumingly introduced new listeners to Fust's unmistakable blend of "small-town poetry" (Mojo) with a familiar yet probing "country-tinged folk-rock" (KEXP) that made it "one of the most fun rock records of the year" (Pitchfork). Genevieve was their studio debut, recorded with producer Alex Farrar (Manning Fireworks, Rat Saw God, Tomorrow's Fire) in Asheville, North Carolina. The reception was far better than the band expected, stirring them to immediately start working on Big Ugly, their second collaboration with Farrar. Recorded over ten days in June of 2024, Big Ugly is the explosive sound of Fust uncovering a freedom within their sincere form of loose and fried guitar rock, realizing more than ever before an intimacy within bigness. The members -- Aaron Dowdy, Avery Sullivan, Frank Meadows, John Wallace, Justin Morris, Libby Rodenbough, Oliver Child-Lanning--weave their voices alongside guests like Merce Lemon, Dave Hartley (The War on Drugs), and John James Tourville (The Deslondes) to form a music that sounds like a conversation between old friends. And that's exactly what it is. At its heart, Big Ugly is a story cycle, following tough-skinned characters who seem to inhabit a shared and fictional small town--Big Ugly--that in reality gets its name from a lowly populated and unincorporated area in southern West Virginia around where Dowdy's family has deep roots. The album cover_a mural from the Big Ugly Community Center just off the Big Ugly Creek--was painted by locals for a 2004 play performed by the children that interpreted their elders' stories. In a way, Fust's Big Ugly does something similar as it takes the same area as its backdrop and reimagines a life depicted in the mural between the bars, gas stations, general stores, and double-wides. Throughout the album, we join the characters in finding history and meaning in the banal theater of their own private jerkwater.The songs on Big Ugly are hearteningly varied, moving from beer-fisted radio country to elegiac drones to deconstructed ballads. Songs like "Spangled" take up the theme of past traumas and present desensitizations colliding, of the small and cosmic coinciding in the life of a heedless protagonist. "Bleached" finds the soul-searching narrator recalling the feeling of inner vacancy in their childhood: thoughtless, speechless, herded around like cattle in backseats. And "Mountain Language" laments the poverties of Southern life at the same time that it promotes a higher poverty, a country utopia that's just out of grasp, where we could live if we could only "make it up the mountain again." The mystical hermeticism and the dime-store everyday are two sides of every insignificant thing in the town of Big Ugly.

Tobacco City is a Chicago-based band that blends cosmic country with a mix of psychedelic rock and honky-tonk soul. Their sound captures the essence of small-town nostalgia while embracing modern-day themes, exploring heartache, longing, and the bittersweet nature of life. With their uplifting energy and authentic songwriting, Tobacco City continues to carve out a unique space in the countrytinged Americana scene. On Horses, the highly anticipated follow-up to their critically acclaimed debut, Tobacco City, USA, the band takes listeners on a nostalgic journey through the haze of youth, where time feels suspended and plans are nonexistent. The album’s lyrics conjure vivid images of small-town life—smoking schwag behind the grocery store, drinking cream from a gas station with your first love—capturing that carefree, uncertain time when the future felt distant. The music channels the spirit of ’70s country with influences from legends like Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris, bringing a timeless, uplifting energy to each track. At the same time, the lyrics intersect with modern-day themes, blending the beauty and innocence of youth with the harsh realities of life. Horses feels like a contemporary take on classic country, merging a nostalgic past with the complex world of today, all while remaining undeniably authentic and heartfelt. This follow-up to Tobacco City, USA—which received high praise from NPR and Rolling Stone— cements the band’s place at the forefront of a new wave of countrytinged Americana. “...Like the Chicago band’s namesake, a slow smoke hangs in the air, heavy with heartbreak and feather-blue eyeshadow, but puts a brave face on. Lexi Goddard sings with a far-away look over a pedal-steel cry, a melody that sways to country songs on jukeboxes of yore...” —NPR “Chicago’s Tobacco City do more with less... spacious grooves as pedal steel wafts through like a gentle breeze. Vocalist Lexi Goddard and Chris Coleslaw sounds simultaneously wistful and playful throughout...” —Rolling Stone

The follow-up to their eponymous 2022 debut album, ‘What Is Your Definition Of Happiness?’ finds Dubinski broadening their sonic palette with the help of Grammy award winning producers Mike Horner (Franz Ferdinand, Placebo, Hot Chip) and Robbie Nelson (Beck, Royal Blood, The Kooks). Across an album themed around the concept of happiness you’ll find tales of crushed dreams, doomed romance and the perils of trying to survive as a DIY live band, all set to a compelling suite of bulletproof melodies which fuse elements of Franz Ferdinand, Parquet Courts, The Clash, Maximo Park, and even Paul Simon.

“A lot of these songs have something bittersweet to them,” says vocalist Eugene. “It’s a record of love, happiness, pain, sorrow, grief, healing, growth and acceptance. We wanted to tell a story with this album, and it flows similar to the way the seasons change.”

"I imagine that one of the first things I heard in the world was the
explosion of a Russian ammunitions factory on the outskirts of my
hometown. It blew up the night I was born a new GDR-citizen. I´m not
sure I heard a noise when the Wall came down, but it still echoes in my
body. The echo contains many frequencies. Some of them sound like Gabber
playing in my childhood room over the speakers my grandfather once stole
from a Leipzig radio station. Some of them sound like me and my friends
running through the streets. They sound like my mother laughing and
consoling women in the women´s shelter where she worked in 1992. They
sound like birds: my father swears after the Reunification the great
crested grebes on the town lakes lost all fear of humans. Some of them
sound like these recordings."

Formed in the anonymous town of Watford, northwest of London, in 1980, atmospheric quintet Sad Lovers and Giants was part of the bourgeoning post-punk scene. With a barely perceptible undercurrent of paisley psychedelia, the group’s jangling guitars, eerie keyboards, subdued beats, and brooding vocals put them somewhere between the Chameleons, Echo and the Bunnymen and early Cure. Epic Garden Music was the debut release on Nick Ralph’s Midnight Music label and this expanded edition comes with five bonus tracks taken from their first three singles – a must for all SLG fans and post-punk devotees.

2022 Repress

Tapper Zukie's 'Black Man' album originally came out in 1978 as a Jamaican only release on Tapper's' Stars imprint. Long deleted it has become a classic in Mr Zukie's vast cannon of musical biscuits and is well overdue this worldwide release for the first time.
Tapper Zukie (b1956. David Sinclair, Kingston, Jamaica) was raised in the rough and tough West Kingston area of Jamaica, between the districts of Trench Town and Greenwich Farm. Living pretty much on the streets from an early age, the youths including the young Tapper had no choice but to fall into the hands of the Political Parties that controlled various ghetto areas of the town. Music seemed like the only way out of a life of crime and gang culture. A path that Tapper Zukie found by the mid 1970's was establishing himself as a named star on the DJ Roots circuit. Back home in Jamaica he was also getting a name for his production work for other local singers such as Prince Allah and the group Knowledge. To release these productions and his own material in Jamaica, Tapper started up his own label called Stars. It's this label that saw the initial release of this album 'Black Man'. A great collection of Tapper tunes such as his biblical cut 'My God Is Real', 'Revolution' and the tile track of this collection 'Black Man' and some work overs of some of his felloe Jamaican Artists like 'Poor Man Problem' a work over of Johnny Clarke's ' Blood Dunza' and also Mr Clarke's Leggo Violence'. 'Yaga Yaga' re working Horace Andy's and Tapper's big hit 'Natty Dread ah She Want'. 'Gather Them' a reworking of Knowledge's tune of the same name with the help from bands like Jah Wisdom and Delroy Fielding. A great collection of tunes and reworkings that we hope will find a wider audience with this release.
For the CD issue of this release we had added Tapper's 'Liberation Struggle', 'Get Ready', 'Prophesy' and 'Fire Bun' tracks from Tapper Zukie's back catalogue that seem to sit well and follow the theme and meanings of the 'Black Man' album.

Reissue des Debütalbums der Emo-Punker Free Throw aus Nashville, "Those Days Are Gone" aus 2014, das bis heute das beliebteste Album bei den Fans ist. Neue Auflage auf Black Cherry Eco Mix Vinyl, bei dem jedes Exemplar ein Unikat ist.

Muireann Bradley is a young blues, ragtime, roots and folk guitarist and singer based in Ballybofey in County Donegal Ireland. “This is my first album. Most of these tunes were originally recorded by the great blues men and women who were making records from the 1920s and 1930s right up in some cases to the early 1970s. I have also found inspiration for the renditions recorded here in the playing of some of the musicians who began recording this music in the 1960s and later, and who in some cases learned at the feet of the greats. Many of these guitarists played pivotal roles in the 1960s blues revival and subsequent “rediscovery” of many of the greats of country blues. I grew up steeped in these old blues in the hills overlooking the valley of the River Finn just outside the town of Ballybofey in County Donegal. My father would play this music constantly at home and wherever we went in the car and talk about it endlessly whether anyone was listening or not, telling stories about the lives of these musicians as if they were legend, mythology or the evening news. My father could of course play all this stuff on guitar, I remember watching him when I was very young and thinking “I want to be able to do that”. When I was nine he agreed to teach me and bought me my first little travel guitar. I worked hard to learn how to play but as time wore on I seemed to have less and less time to practice as I became more and more invested in the combat sports I was regularly training and competing in. Then in March 2020 the first Covid lockdowns happened and all contact sports were shut down. I was lost for a while but soon found my way back to the guitar. I was now listening, playing and practicing with a new intensity and focus. In a very serious moment, I wrote out a list of tunes I was going to learn. The first tune on that list was Blind Blake’s “Police Dog Blues”. I’m not sure now how long it took to get that arrangement together but when it was ready we videoed me performing it and posted it on YouTube. It ended up getting a lot of attention, I remember my parents being quite shocked and soon after that Josh Rosenthal got in touch… and here we are! Each individual track on this album was recorded live in the studio and represents one entire take with me singing and backing myself up on guitar simultaneously. Most are either first or second takes. Nothing has been added or taken away, no overdubs or modern recording tricks of any kind have been used at all so at least in some respects this album has been recorded in the same way as those classics of the 1920s and 1930s

Behind Pumuky are brothers Jaír and Noé Ramírez, originally from Icod de los Vinos, a small town in northern Tenerife, in the Canary Islands.

For two decades, despite a tumultuous journey with multiple lineup changes and the challenges of island life, they have managed to build an extensive and highly personal discography with labels such as Jabalina, WeAreWolves, as well as Keroxen. In 2025, they release a new chapter in their story: their 5th album titled No sueltes lo Efímero (Don't Let Go of the Ephemeral).

It has been 10 years since they released a full-length album, though they were never idle during this time. In this interim, they released an EP titled Castillo Interior (Keroxen 2020), which Bandcamp described as "In intricately sculpted songs that are utterly hypnotising, the Ramírez brothers explore the border of dreams & reality" Bandcamp / New & Notable Oct 19, 2020. The EP was later remixed by artists like Xiu Xiu and Dntel (Jimmy Tamborello of The Postal Service). During this period, they also collaborated with Elinor Almenara of VVV Trippin'you on the single Metahackeo (Keroxen 2022), part of the new wave of dark music that emerged after the pandemic years.

Pumuky also have an extensive live history, having played in Europe and Latin America, with appearances at major festivals such as Primavera Sound, WOMAD, and the Mexican NRMAL.

No sueltes lo efímero will be released on February 28 through Keroxen, a collective that, in addition to being a platform and label for the best of the Canary Islands' underground scene, organises a small, unique music festival inside a giant abandoned kerosene tank in Santa Cruz de Tenerife—an event that has already garnered praise worldwide.

The album was recorded at La Mina Studios (Granada, Spain) with Raúl Pérez, one of the most respected producers in the Spanish music scene, and then mastered by Rafal Anton Irisarri, a key figure in the ambient world who also appreciates the power of guitars.

In No sueltes lo efímero, Pumuky return to their signature sound, although they have never completely abandoned it: an abrasive slowcore with controlled crescendos and raw, unfiltered lyrics, sometimes bordering on the intensity of dirty shoegaze, at other times leaning into dream-pop passages, but always with the unique stamp that has characterised them from the start.

A rare breed, difficult to categorise, Pumuky write songs as if performing escape tricks.

Where to begin with a figure like Simon Fisher Turner? From teenage stage and screen star to illustrious recording artist for Creation and Mute and score composer of Caravaggio, Blue and The Epic of Everest - via a stint with The The and collaborations with Derek Jarman, David Lynch and Tilda Swinton - Turner embodies a distinctly British sensibility and boundless curiosity for sound. For A Colourful Storm, discovering Deux Filles, his mysterious project with Colin Lloyd-Tucker that has since been reissued by Dark Entries, was a significant moment in shaping their identity.

In August 2023, A Colourful Storm presented Simon Fisher Turner and Time is Away at Spanners, London. Performed at the tail end of Blue Now, a series of events celebrating Derek Jarman's last feature film, Blue, the recording reveals a lifetime of significant events and influences. Terre Thaemlitz's remix of Turner's Shishapangma (Comatonse Recordings, 2015) is reworked and appears on vinyl only, Jarman is privately recorded reading White Lies, Bertrand Russell is sampled, and Turner records his brother practising the Great Rissington organ for their father's funeral.

"My wife and I lived in Brixton, near the venue, on Coldharbour Lane, 20 years ago. We were above a takeaway shop. The air extractor was a nightmare and the flat smelled of grease. The market was a great place to buy fish. We adopted a giant snail, who we called Ayrton. I used to take him all over town and he loved lettuce and tomatoes. There was a wonderful small pizza shop too, which was so delicious. But back to the music. Brixton is music and I'm a lucky man."

Dear Life Records is proud to present the physical reissue of the self titled debut of MJ Lenderman. MJ Lenderman is a songwriter born and raised in Asheville, North Carolina. The anatomy of an MJ record might go something like this: warped pedal steels and skuzzed out guitar; a voice reminiscent of the high-lonesome warble of a choirboy; the keen observations and reflections of a front stoop philosopher. Songs snake their way from a lo-fi home recording to something glossier made with longtime friends at Asheville's Drop of Sun studios, but the recording setting doesn't seem to matter much - at its core, a Lenderman song rings true. "MJ Lenderman" was recorded, mixed and mastered for digital in 2019 by Colin Miller in Asheville NC, and was self-released online to quiet but firm acclaim. Now available as a Double LP and remastered for vinyl by Heather Jones, it offers a glimpse into the formative steps of a style; focused and precise, yet expansive and rough around the edges, that remains consistent across MJ's catalogue to date (see also 2021's `Ghost of Your Guitar Solo' (DLR 016) and 2022's `Boat Songs' (DLR 031)). Looking as firmly to the legacy of 90s slowcore as it does to the tenor of Magnolia Electric Co. and sound wall of Neil Young and Crazy Horse, these 9 songs clock in at just over an hour and offer warm, patient worlds of heavy color that blow by breezily. These are songs that wrap mysterious and urgent feeling in layers of patience and clarity that unfold anew with each timeless listen.

"Get nostalgic with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Back from the Sewers Vinyl Soundtrack, the fifth release in a series of shellacious Turtles tunes.

Stop Shredder From Zapping the World Famous Sewer Stars Into Pet Store Pebble Pushers! Shredder's got his criminal mind back in the gutter and has joined forces with fellow hero-hater Krang to pulverize the pizza freaks once and for all. They've shanghaied newswoman of the nineties April O'Neil as a decoy, so the boys from below must rescue her, without losing their shells.

South African Modern Soul/Jazz-Funk - Originally released in 1979, Cape Town – Re-mastered by Simbad

First time re-issued on vinyl, “Expressions” is the 3rd album from one of the greatest South African bands ever, I named Pacific Express. Now think Stevie Wonder and Weather Report, then take a serious established local band, and you have here a “Cape Town version” with their own talents. Between Modern soul and Jazz-Funk, no doubts, this record is a gem!!! Fred Spider*

“This name evokes awe and admiration in equal measure among musicians across the country. They became a crucible where budding local musicians built their reputations before going on to become recording artists, band leaders, and musical legends (like Jonathan Butler did on Expressions*).
The greatest Pacific Express legacy, apart from the memorable music they made and recorded, was their role in helping establish the distinctive sounds of South African music generally and Cape Town jazz in particular. When Producer Tully McCully wanted straight, solid drumming for the Expressions album, Momple delivered the groove, swing, and drive for a funky album.” Michael Britton

Artwork by Fred Spider – Graphist designer by Graeme Arendse
Vocals, Guitar: Jonathan Butler, Bass: Paul Abrahams
Drums, Percussion: Jack Momple, Vocals, Percussion: Zayn Adams, Keyboards, Trumpet, Arranged By String: Tony Cedras, Guest, Saxophone: Barney Rachabaney, Guest, Trumpet: Stompie Manana,
Executive-Producer: Paddy Lee Thorp, Producer: Tully McCully

Music is like literature: getting through a second novel or second album is often a perilous exercise. Spatsz and Mona Soyoc, propelled into the limelight by their explosive Try Out, headed off to New York to record a follow-up to this fabulous debut. By Pass (1983) follows in the musical and sonic footsteps of its predecessor. The same sticky synth layers, the same flayed vocals capable of voluptuous flights, KaS Product still navigates the murky waters of a nervous, unhealthy cold wave, somewhere between the gall of Suicide and the gothic melodies of Siouxsie. And the melodies are always there, as on the stunning "Tina Town" and "T.M.T", two of the most successful tracks on an album that holds up remarkably well, and also deserves a closer look at its detours, such as "Taking Shape" or "Tape" at the end of the disc.

Independent and Double Platinum ARIA-certified artist Ziggy Alberts' eagerly anticipated seventh studio record, New Love, set for release in February 2025, captures the essence of personal growth, reflection and adventure in a year defined by Alberts' return to the road. Written during his 2023 Rewind World Tour and completed in the beautiful Australian town of the Northern Rivers, this album is a return to simplicity, embracing magic and adventure amid life's chaos. With anthemic songs made for the stage and a deep, cohesive narrative, New Love stands as a spiritual sequel to Albert's 2018 album, Laps Around The Sun. Co-produced with Garrett Kato, the new record embraces the warmth of acoustic folk on Side A and the raw energy of rock and country on Side B. New Love is a testament to growth and resilience, choosing joy and doing good, and letting life's journey guide you back to the simple, meaningful moments. As part of the Artists’ commitment to sustainability, all physical albums are produced on 100% Recycled Stock. Main/Standard LPs use Eco-Mix Coloured Vinyls - which are created using recycled offcuts and colours from previous records. Where possible with manufacturers, environmentally conscious alternatives to plastic shrink-wrap will be used. A comprehensive global marketing campaign is in place to drive awareness from its announcement, on the 18th of September.

Nachdem er Mick Jones und Joe Idles als Support bei der Debüt-LP "Sikh Punk" (2020) holte, übernimmt Symren Gharial AKA Primitive Ignorant (ex-Bassist bei Piano Wire und Eighties Matchbox) beim "Psychic Cinema" den Grossteil der Vocals selbst. Auch verzichtet er auf Gitarren und gibt mit dem Bass das Tempo vor, untermalt von schmutzigen Samples und sparsamer Futurepop-Produktion, während der Sound um Ambient-, Hip-Hop- und kolossale Rockelemente angereichert wird. Zu den Einflüssen zählen Young Fathers, Yves Tumor, Nadine Shah, Ghostpoet, Ghost Town, Weatherall, Ashnikko, Warmduscher und Viagra Boys, und wie immer "Sandinista" und Iggy Pop (der als Inspiration für das Cover-Snap diente). Linker, basszentrierter Alt-Pop.

A nugget of rare South African groove originally issued alongside Bra Sello on the Soweto label in Johannesburg in 1976. A self-titled offering and the group's only album, Themba delivers the quintessential blend of sophisticated jazz improvisation over hip-swinging township pop that gives South African jazz from the 1970s its timeless appeal.

Themba features a skilled ensemble led by Baba "Themba" Mokoena, who appeared on Dick Khoza's landmark Chapita album in 1975 and has gone on to earn a reputation (over the course of a career that spans into the 2020s) as one of the legendary guitarists of his generation. Reissued for the very first time on the cusp of its 50th anniversary, this edition of Themba is sourced from the original master tape under license from from As-Shams Archive.

Recorded at Satbel Recording Studios

Produced by Greg Siphi Ngcobo

Engineered by Paul Dobbe

Originally issued on the Soweto label

Under license from As-Shams Archive

What started as an idea to update mixes turned into an unexpected family collaboration.

Berlin to Lisbon via Cork, Big Town Boy Small City Dreams released in 2018 on Dutch label XXX gets remixed and reimagined for 2024.

Debut record release, K.P. Ring blends a tapestry of lyrics into a hooky club tune with flair.

Cult Producer Bangkok Impact returns to the label and reaches for the Italo stars with a distinctive chugging rendition adding additional vocoder effects along the way.

Blue Valentine Vinyl. Sometime in 2005, a lone box of master tapes escaped an estate sale and made its way through a network of collectors, record dealers, and "junkers" into the hands of leading Ohio soul expert Dante Carfagna, who linked them to Columbus, Ohio's mysterious Prix label (See: Eccentric Soul: The Prix Label). A bit of research turned up Prix proprietor George Beter, who identified most of the unlabeled material. All it took was an endless series of phone calls and letters and two fields trips in Columbus. But one complete mystery wended its way onto our final Prix compilation. "You and Me," a simple but irrepressible demo credited only to Penny & the Quarters, was found tacked onto a mixed studio reel. Our survey of every willing lifer left on the Columbus soul scene, including retired DJs, producers, and important local artists, produced not so much as a glimmer of recognition at the name Penny & the Quarters. Though we loved the song from the first play, it may've ended up a bit buried on our original compilation, as #18 of 19 tracks.Four years later, Eccentric Soul: The Prix Label hadn't exactly become a huge seller, although listeners had repeatedly told us that the unfiltered studio demos that fill out the record's back half were true diamonds in the rough. But neither Penny nor her Quarters had appeared to claim credit for their efforts. Then, completely out of left field, we heard from respected screen actor and avowed Numero fan Ryan Gosling that Penny's piercing bit of stripped down doo-wop was being considered for inclusion in Derek Cianfrance's indie-weeper film Blue Valentine. What we didn't know was that "You and Me" had won a major role in what became an indie circuit hit, and that Penny & the Quarters would instantly assume the role of world's most famous unknown doo-wop group.Every week is a slow news week in Columbus, Ohio, and early January 2011 found the city recovering from the thrill of elevating Ted Williams_the formerly homeless guy with the awesome voice for radio_into a national news sensation. But both major daily newspapers in town, as well as the city's alternative weekly, also ran stories about how a lost and unknown Columbus soul group had become the musical centerpiece of a film already garnering Oscar buzz. That mainstream spotlight aimed at Blue Valentine and Penny & the Quarters did the trick: we finally made contact with the widow of Jay Robinson, lead Quarters' singer and songwriter. Robinson, it turned out, had also been the leader of Columbus doo-wop pioneers The Supremes (later known as "The Columbus Supremes," for reasons which should be obvious). Jay Robinson never did give up on the dream of writing a hit record; even so, the posthumous realization of his dream is cold comfort for his widow and daughter. With their blessings, we returned to those estate sale masters and pulled down another neglected track ("You Are Giving Me Some Other Love") from the still-unknown Penny and her now-partly-known Quarters. "You and Me" is a song that could not be suppressed: not when Prix failed to release it; not when Penny & the Quarters were forgotten; not when Numero stuck it at the bitter end of a much overlooked compilation. Its evolution from estate sale trash to silver-screen gold has finally returned it to big-hole 45, where it probably should have lived all along.

The hornsman instrumental has a long legacy in the realms of reggae music. Don Drummond, Tommy McCook, Vin Gordon, Rico Rodriguez, Eddie Tan Tan. The list players behind this tradition could go on and on. The notes they played across eras from ska to rock steady to the deepest dubwise steppers bellow through the wind and the wire like a Warrior Charge ….

…It is within this tradition that Ital Counselor’s next weighty contribution to the musical world of QUALITY reggae fits…

…From the very first sonorous note emanating from the mighty Soothsayer’s Horn Section the listener can tell the Dub Organiser means business. That’s right. Once again, the Ital Counselor teams up with Chris Lane of Fashion Records for a cantankerous churning steppers meant to burn out all weak heart sound who try come test.

As evidenced from this 12”s namesake, the humble Soul Dragon Temple of Tone Sound System and IC partners in crime out of Philadelphia, USA, the Soul Dragon Anthem breaths some serious fire. The hard hard rhythm churns relentlessly while the bassline rolls like Dragon’s breath calling all in the dance to spring heel skank straight through all four cuts.

The Dub Organiser stirs a cauldron of dense dub at points conjuring aspects of Lee Perry’s classic Black Ark sound while maintaining his own distinctive spin on the mystical mixing arts. Shards of sound echo and delay. Mr. Lane takes the bassline to aquatic depths as the DRAGON DIVES DEEP……Cut 1…Cut 2…Cut 3…Cut 4…

This one is dedicated to all home town hi-fi’s forwarding reggae and sound system culture outernationally. So without further ado, all soundman and woman worth your salt it is time to DROP the needle on this track. Watch the Dragon FLY and let the Dub Organiser and the Soothsayer Horn’s “Soul Dragon Anthem” BREATH FIRE through your SPEAKER BOX!!!!!!