Search:the whole world

The Chills reissue their celebrated early singles compilation, this 24-track expanded version of Kaleidoscope World gathers together tracks from the ‘Dunedin Double’ compilation, live recordings, Doledrums’ single and the band’s seminal ‘Pink Frost’. The collection also contains ‘The Lost EP’, with early takes on their groundbreaking ‘Submarine Bells’ album, alongside the aching ‘I Love My Leather Jacket’, perfectly illustrating the rollercoaster ride of Martin Phillipps and The Chills as portrayed in the award film The Triumph And The Tragedy Of Martin Phillipps. “Singer/guitarist Martin Phillipps’ group was at the forefront of the extraordinary little guitar-pop scene in New Zealand in the early ’80s.. Kaleidoscope World is the major document of their early era.” Pitchfork. Part of the 80’s extraordinarily vibrant and innovative independent music scene in New Zealand, The Chills became flag bearers, taking the Dunedin sound, as championed by the Flying Nun label, to the world. Long recognised as one of New Zealand's most influential bands, Kaleidoscope World is a definitive artifact from Martin Phillipps’ groundbreaking project.

country songwriter from Brooklyn's indie underground, Dougie Poole blurs the lines between genre and generation on his third solo album, The Rainbow Wheel of Death. Rooted in sharp songwritingvand the organic sounds of a live-in-the-studio band, it's a classic-sounding record for the modern world. The Rainbow Wheel of Death's title nods to the colorful pinwheel that appears onscreen whenever a computer's application stalls. For Poole _ who found himself working as a freelance computer programmer once the pandemic brought his touring schedule to a temporary halt in 2020 _ it's also a reference to the holding pattern that's left much of society feeling stuck, unable to move ahead in an uncertain world. That feeling was pervasive when he in his New York City bedroom and wrapping up the songwriting process in the recording studio itself. Once hailed as the "patron saint of millennial malaise" for his sardonic wit and topical, tongue-in-cheek songwriting, Poole broadens his reach here. "High School Gym" builds a bridge between 2020s lo-fi textures and 1980s pop vibes, while "Must Be In Here Somewhere" _ whose narrator sits at a lap top, searching through "every server burning in North Carolina" for a digital souvenir of a long-lost relationship _ mixes modern concerns with classic country instrumentation. If records like 2017's Wideass Highway and 2020's breakthrough release The Freelancer's Blues told stories about uninspired Millennials languishing in dead-end jobs and no-good relationships, then The Rainbow Wheel of Death focuses on more universal issues like mortality, love, and the passing of the time. With The Rainbow Wheel of Death, Dougie Poole breathes new life into country music, retaining the acclaimed elements of his previous work _ drum machines, synthesizers, and his deep-set voice _ while pushing toward something warm, organic, and prismatic.

country songwriter from Brooklyn's indie underground, Dougie Poole blurs the lines between genre and generation on his third solo album, The Rainbow Wheel of Death. Rooted in sharp songwritingvand the organic sounds of a live-in-the-studio band, it's a classic-sounding record for the modern world. The Rainbow Wheel of Death's title nods to the colorful pinwheel that appears onscreen whenever a computer's application stalls. For Poole _ who found himself working as a freelance computer programmer once the pandemic brought his touring schedule to a temporary halt in 2020 _ it's also a reference to the holding pattern that's left much of society feeling stuck, unable to move ahead in an uncertain world. That feeling was pervasive when he in his New York City bedroom and wrapping up the songwriting process in the recording studio itself. Once hailed as the "patron saint of millennial malaise" for his sardonic wit and topical, tongue-in-cheek songwriting, Poole broadens his reach here. "High School Gym" builds a bridge between 2020s lo-fi textures and 1980s pop vibes, while "Must Be In Here Somewhere" _ whose narrator sits at a lap top, searching through "every server burning in North Carolina" for a digital souvenir of a long-lost relationship _ mixes modern concerns with classic country instrumentation. If records like 2017's Wideass Highway and 2020's breakthrough release The Freelancer's Blues told stories about uninspired Millennials languishing in dead-end jobs and no-good relationships, then The Rainbow Wheel of Death focuses on more universal issues like mortality, love, and the passing of the time. With The Rainbow Wheel of Death, Dougie Poole breathes new life into country music, retaining the acclaimed elements of his previous work _ drum machines, synthesizers, and his deep-set voice _ while pushing toward something warm, organic, and prismatic.

German jazz singer with Belgian roots Sophie Tassignon has built up a solid reputation in Germany. She has a whole series of well-received records to her credit, which not only showcase her musical versatility but also demonstrate what an incredible vocalist and composer she is. Sophie is a musical chameleon, constantly seeking to challenge and renew herself.


When the refugee crisis erupted and millions of Syrian refugees flocked to continental Europe in search of a better life and safety, it resulted in a lot of fear and opposition from the European population. The perception on refugees is often very negative and creates divisions on the political field.


When a shelter was started up two blocks from Sophie's home in Berlin, she decided to help and take care of some refugees. To get a better understanding on the culture and stories of those people and to bridge with our culture, she decided to study Arabic. Meanwhile, we are more than five years on, and not only is she proficient in Arabic, but she has also gained a better understanding of the culture and customs of the Arab community. Friendships for life were formed.
She decided to incorporate Arabic into her own musical language - jazz - fusing two worlds. From this was born the project and the eponymous record "Khyal. The word refers to the imagination and is literally translated as "remembering and/or longing for something from the (distant) past." With this project, Sophie especially wants to encourage tolerance and acceptance towards people regardless of their cultural background or religion and show how intercultural interaction can lead to very beautiful and artistic results.artwork &

TaxiCab Verses, Is What You Make It, is a project that was created by Athens musician, Jim Wilson. It’s an international collaborative project between TaxiCab Verses (a name inspired by the phrases
covering the backs of taxis Jim observed during his travels in Ghana) and Ghana’s Kofi Atentenben and the Warriors. The 10-track album is named Is What You Make It, and according to Flagpole Magazine it's "aggressive and propulsive, even on tracks lesser musicians would let devolve into simple swing patterns (like the darkly jazz-tinged “Step By Step”)...my only regret is that I didn’t write about it the moment it came out. It’s righteously excellent." Overall, 22 musicians contributed to this between Athens and West Africa. TaxiCab Verses was originally released on CD only in 2012 and became a sort of hidden gem of Athens. The album was mastered by Greg Calbi (Bob Dylan, Drive-By Truckers, Paul Simon, The National) and was produced by Drew Vandenberg (Faye Webster, S.G. Goodman).

Patterson Hood of the Drive-By Truckers also had a big role in the creation of this album. He says that he is "so filled with love and pride for what Jim, Drew and all of those amazing musicians from two continents have created. Kudos to George Fontaine and the Strolling Bones Records folks for spotlighting this amazing chapter of Athens music history (and beyond) and finally making this record available for the whole world to hear."

Singer-songwriter Dora Morelenbaum is one of the stunning voices at the forefront of Brazil’s exciting new musical wave. Her sublime 'Vento De Beirada' EP takes you on a trip into the sensuous sounds of Dora's world. On first hearing her music, we were reminded of the transformational moment when we first discovered the Brazilian singer-songwriter, Joyce. The music is completely new to you, yet instantly familiar, like rediscovering a past love.

Dora is a member of the Brazilian Latin-Grammy-winning superstar quartet Bala Desejo; a trailblazing light opening up Brazilian music to a whole new audience outside of the country. 'Vento De Beirada' EP showcases a different sound to the riotous, joyful, avant-garde Tropicália sound of Bala Desejo. This solo set takes a more dream-like, downbeat, MPB stance. It is firmly contemporary, yet you can also trace the lines of influence back to idols such as Gal Costa and Maria Bethânia.

The EP is comprised of four tracks that have already garnered critical acclaim following their digital release. It starts with the tender and gentle 'Japão', which was inspired by the melodies of the legendary Japanese composer, Ryuichi Sakamoto. Sakamoto once collaborated with Dora's musician parents, Paula and Jaques Morelenbaum, when she was young. 'Dó a Dó' is drenched in lush, sweeping strings that were arranged by her father himself, and is co-written by Dora and Tom Veloso of the band, Dônica. There’s further collaboration on the EP, including production from one of the lynchpins and stars of the current Rio scene, Ana Frango Elétrico. Fellow Bala Desejo band member, Lucas Nunes, contributes towards the production, writing, and guitar with Guilherme Lírio also on production, guitar, and bass. Whilst Bala Desejo’s Zé Ibarra penned the song 'Vento De Beirada' with Lucas and Victor Vasconcellos.

The four-track EP has been cut to 12" and mastered for vinyl by Joker (Liam McLean). With crystalline beauty and a breezy sense of ease and serenity, sounding classic yet contemporary. This release serves as the perfect introduction to an extraordinary talent.

If you were to ask for a defining Habibi Funk track, there are a few that come to mind: from Fadoul’s “Sid Redad,” Dalton’s “Soul Brother” to Ahmed Malek’s “Omar Gatlato.” However, none are as widely connected with us at this point as Hamid Al Shaeri’s “Ayonha.” We heard the track for the first time when we were working on selecting tracks for your first compilation and we instantly loved it. We obviously had heard of Hamid El Shaeri’s music before, but only material from his Al Jeel phase when he was already the full-blown
superstar he is now.

Listening to his releases from the early 1980’s opened a whole new door for us. At the time, Hamid had just left Libya to pursue his career in Egypt via a detour in London, where he recorded his first album. Hamid’s distinct sound of the sound is quintessentially reliant on heavy synths and so it was particularly important to purchase these synths in a timely manner. “Whenever a new one synthesizer would come out, we would have to buy it immediately, otherwise someone else would get their hands on that sound.” London also played an important role for Hamid as a musical epicenter.

He fondly reminisces about the many live shows he attended there, including some of the biggest international musicians like Freddie Mercury and Michael Jackson. After returning to Cairo where he also recorded his following albums, he connected with SLAM! for the
release of his debut, laying the foundation of a collaboration that lasted for 5 albums. Luckily, we were able to connect with Hamid through our friend Youssra El Hawary, whose extensive network has opened many doors for us within the Egyptian music scene. We met Hamid for the first time probably in 2016 at his office / rehearsal studio in the outskirts Cairo. We were expecting a larger-than-life
character in-line with his status as a certified superstar, yet the actual person turned out to be very approachable and super easy to connect with. He liked the idea of an effort to amplify his early works again,
which, when originally released, were far from an economic success.

While he was down to assist with an interview and his blessing for the project he also told us that for any license we needed to speak with the original label SLAM! who released these songs, still held the rights and also remained in business over the decades though they didn’t actively release any new music. Hany Sabet had started SLAM! records in the early 1980s and focused on cassette tape releases, the
format that expedited the success of a new generation of record labels in Egypt. By the mid 1980’s, SLAM! had become one of the most successful and economically dominant record labels in Egypt, with Hamid El Shaeri being just one of their key artists, alongside Mohamed Mounir, Hanan, Hakim, Mustafa Amar and many more. Luckily, Hany Sabet turned out to be a friend of our colleague Malak Makar’s father, which probably helped to warm him to the idea of licen- sing “Ayonha” to this - in the scale of his world - tiny label
from Germany. Eventually “Ayonha” ended up becoming a widely successful release and either Hany or we brought up the idea of a full album dedicated to Hamid El Shaeri’s work on SLAM!.


"Maktoub Aleina” is the first single and will be released January 14th. Following the massive success of "Ayonha,” “Maktoub Aleina” is another mid-tempo groover with a beautiful, synth-forward melody, that brings together a lovely combination of soul, disco and Arabic pop music of the highest order, giving a taste of full album. The second single, “Yekfini Nesma Sotak” will be released January 28th and combines Hamid’s unique formula of soul and pop, held together by a catchy synth melody. “Yekfini Nesma Sotak” picks up the
pace a bit, making the uplifting mood of the track even more powerful. Third single, arriving February 11th, is “Dari Demou’ek,” one of the stand out tracks of Hamid’s early recordings done for SLAM! in the early 1980s. Dominated by a disco infused bassline, the track offers a lot of space of the funky production to shine while Hamid inserts his vocals at all the right moments. A masterpiece of disco touched by Arabic pop music.

Full album arrives February 25th. This release is dedicated to Hany Sabet, the founder of SLAM! and his wife Rosemary Jane Sabet (who
took the photos we used for the cover and the booklet), who sadly passed away during the time it took us to prepare the release.
Vinyl comes with an extensive booklet with an interview with Hamid as well as unseen photos

Banana Club is without doubt one of the top new labels on the Breakbeat scene today. Led by the young and highly prolific Cadiz artist, FM-3, it was set up in 2020 with a strong identity and powerful, effective dancefloor grooves inspired by English bassline and 2step/garage and a touch of funk.

On this first vinyl release by the label, entitled Funky Beats, FM-3 kicks off his musical discourse with One for Me, a track which showcases the characteristic quality and forcefulness of his groove. This is followed by the album eponymous track Funky Beats, a collaboration with the multiple Spanish and World Scratching Champion, Jose Rodriguez, who dazzles with a number of superb passages in which improvisation and funk come to the fore.

The B-side opens with Panorama, featuring Orak. This fascinating, highly-experimental track offers a fusion of breaks and tech house and an elegant acid line which acts as a common thread and brings cohesion to the whole idea. The record closes, as you would expect, with a collaboration with Bowser, another of the label regular artists, entitled Bubbling.

A classic bassline dancefloor filler, it will take you back to the best tracks of the late nineties and early noughties. The classic black 12", mastered and cut by Simon, a veteran sound engineer at the Exchange Vinyl in London, has achieved a sound which is quite simply brutal.

Some info on the background for the upcoming album, "Police Deranged For Orchestra"."Copeland explains that the “derangement” of The Police’s music “began as the score for a movie I made out of Super8 footage of the band that I had shot during our rise to glory. Film puts capricious demands on music, so I had to carve up the songs to serve the scenes in the movie, and once the scalpel was out, a whole new frenzy of inspiration from Police music began.” He shares that “delving into the multi-tracks of our original recordings and live performances revealed lost guitar solos, bass lines, and vocal improvisations that were just too cool to leave in obscurity... this discovery is what brings us to this performance: Sting’s songs, Andy’s inventions, and my impunity; all on the page for a wild ride with orchestra and unique musicians from around the world to adapt some of the most loved The Police hits for old and new audiences alike.

Hans Hulbækmo, a driving force in the groups Moskus, Skadedyr, Flukten and Reolo, and a prominent member of bands like Atomic, Hanna Paulsberg Concept, Broen and Hulbækmo & Jacobsen Familieorkester, is now ready with his first solo album - "Tilfeldig Næpe".Hulbækmo was born into a musical family, where both his mother Tone Hulbækmo, and father Hans Fredrik Jacobsen, were active musicians within Norwegian Folk Music. Hans and his brother Alf were taken on tours around the world from an early age. His upbringing has shaped his identity as a musician and has made music a natural part of everyday life. His versatile musicality makes it as natural for him to express himself through the drum set as through other instruments. On "Tilfeldig Næpe" he explores a variety of instruments that form an "expanded drum kit".Throughout the album, the listener is introduced to Hulbækmo's passion for Dadaism and European improvisational music, while also finding inspiration in the everyday and in Norwegian traditional and functional music. Each track is improvised and showcases his unique musicality, strongly characteristic playing style, and ability for spontaneous composition. The love for interaction, communal improvisation, and the social aspect of music has always been essential to Hulbækmo. On his first solo album, he has found ways to play with or against himself, both in the spontaneous creation and in the process of putting the album together as a whole. At times, he plays several different instruments simultaneously. This framework creates both opportunities and limitations. "Tilfeldig Næpe" draws the listener into Hans Hulbækmo's creative world, a world full of coincidences and exciting compositions

If you were to ask for a defining Habibi Funk track, there are a few that come to mind: from Fadoul’s “Sid Redad,” Dalton’s “Soul Brother” to Ahmed Malek’s “Omar Gatlato.” However, none are as widely connected with us at this point as Hamid Al Shaeri’s “Ayonha.” We heard the track for the first time when we were working on selecting tracks for your first compilation and we instantly loved it. We obviously had heard of Hamid El Shaeri’s music before, but only material from his Al Jeel phase when he was already the full-blown
superstar he is now.

Listening to his releases from the early 1980’s opened a whole new door for us. At the time, Hamid had just left Libya to pursue his career in Egypt via a detour in London, where he recorded his
first album. Hamid’s distinct sound of the sound is quintessentially reliant on heavy synths and so it was particularly important to purchase these synths in a timely manner. “Whenever a new one synthesizer would come out, we would have to buy it immediately, otherwise someone else would get their hands on that sound.” London also played an important role for Hamid as a musical epicenter.

He fondly reminisces about the many live shows he attended there, including some of the biggest international musicians like Freddie Mercury and Michael Jackson. After returning to Cairo where he also recorded his following albums, he connected with SLAM! for the
release of his debut, laying the foundation of a collaboration that lasted for 5 albums. Luckily, we were able to connect with Hamid through our friend Youssra El Hawary, whose extensive network has opened many doors for us within the Egyptian music scene. We met Hamid for the first time probably in 2016 at his office / rehearsal studio in the outskirts Cairo. We were expecting a larger-than-life
character in-line with his status as a certified superstar, yet the actual person turned out to be very approachable and super easy to connect with. He liked the idea of an effort to amplify his early works again,
which, when originally released, were far from an economic success.

While he was down to assist with an interview and his blessing for the project he also told us that for any license we needed to speak with the original label SLAM! who released these songs, still held the rights and also remained in business over the decades though they didn’t actively release any new music. Hany Sabet had started SLAM! records in the early 1980s and focused on cassette tape releases, the
format that expedited the success of a new generation of record labels in Egypt. By the mid 1980’s, SLAM! had become one of the most successful and economically dominant record labels in Egypt, with Hamid El Shaeri being just one of their key artists, alongside Mohamed Mounir, Hanan, Hakim, Mustafa Amar and many more. Luckily, Hany Sabet turned out to be a friend of our colleague Malak Makar’s father, which probably helped to warm him to the idea of licen- sing “Ayonha” to this - in the scale of his world - tiny label
from Germany. Eventually “Ayonha” ended up becoming a widely successful release and either Hany or we brought up the idea of a full album dedicated to Hamid El Shaeri’s work on SLAM!.


"Maktoub Aleina” is the first single and will be released January 14th. Following the massive success of "Ayonha,” “Maktoub Aleina” is another mid-tempo groover with a beautiful, synth-forward melody, that brings together a lovely combination of soul, disco and Arabic pop music of the highest order, giving a taste of full album. The second single, “Yekfini Nesma Sotak” will be released January 28th and combines Hamid’s unique formula of soul and pop, held together by a catchy synth melody. “Yekfini Nesma Sotak” picks up the
pace a bit, making the uplifting mood of the track even more powerful. Third single, arriving February 11th, is “Dari Demou’ek,” one of the stand out tracks of Hamid’s early recordings done for SLAM! in the early 1980s. Dominated by a disco infused bassline, the track offers a lot of space of the funky production to shine while Hamid inserts his vocals at all the right moments. A masterpiece of disco touched by Arabic pop music.

Full album arrives February 25th. This release is dedicated to Hany Sabet, the founder of SLAM! and his wife Rosemary Jane Sabet (who
took the photos we used for the cover and the booklet), who sadly passed away during the time it took us to prepare the release.
Vinyl comes with an extensive booklet with an interview with Hamid as well as unseen photos

To celebrate the 50th Anniversary year of ‘The Dark Side Of The Moon’, Roger Waters announces the release of his homage to the original, ‘The Dark Side Of The Moon Redux’ Waters says ‘when we recorded the stripped down songs for the Lockdown Sessions, the 50th anniversary of the release of The Dark Side Of The Moon was looming on the horizon. It occurred to to me that The Dark Side Of The Moon could well be a suitable candidate for a similar re-working, partly as a tribute to the original work, but also to re-address the political and emotional message of the whole album. I discussed it with Gus and Sean, and when we’d stopped giggling and shouting ‘You must be ****ing mad’ at one another we decided to take it on. It’s turned out really great and I’m excited for everyone to hear it. It’s not a replacement for the original which, obviously, is irreplaceable. But it is a way for the seventy nine year old man to look back across the intervening fifty years into the eyes of the twenty nine year old and say, to quote a poem of mine about my Father, “We did our best, we kept his trust, our Dad would have been proud of us”. And also it is a way for me to honor a recording that Nick and Rick and Dave and I have every right to be very proud of.’ As founding member, lyricist, and principal composer of Pink Floyd during the band’s most influential and creative period, Roger Waters has achieved global success and global renown. Waters co-founded Pink Floyd in the mid-1960s. Under Waters’ guidance, Pink Floyd made a series of best-selling albums during the 1970s, of which the most successful and iconic were The Dark Side Of The Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals and The Wall. Roger Waters left Pink Floyd in 1985 and is now one of the most successful solo artists in the world.

The Mapendo album of the Mighty Cavaliers, up to today, has been shrouded in mystery. If you look at the original cover of this very rare Kenyan funk-infused album all you will find are the names of the engineer and the producer, as EMI Kenya omitted the names of the musicians and the songwriters. Digging deeper a rather sinister story of deceit develops whereby Mapendo becomes symbolic for all what was wrong about the Kenyan record industry in the 1970s, and the music industry in Africa as a whole. As this maltreatment of artists proved endemic throughout the continent, although little talked about.

One of the three surviving members of the Mighty Cavaliers, bass player Bonnie Wanda - who started his career in 1971 with Gloria Africana - vividly remembers participating in the recording of the two albums the band made in 1976 and 1977 - Fisherman and Mapendo - and how they, especially on the last album, got short-changed by shrewd record label executives. In the 1960s it was mostly Indian and European record bosses that called the shots and usually gave musicians the chance of a one-off payment for their session time and recorded songs or wait for - hopefully - a generous royalty check. In most cases records didn't sell more than a thousand copies with an occasional hit selling in the tens of thousands, so musicians were reluctant to register themselves with the Music Copyright Society of Kenya. Although without doing so one couldn't receive royalties.

'For two years the Mighty Cavaliers performed five nights a week at the Starlight Club for five hour sets.

The re-release of Mapendo, the first of the German Want Some Records label, is another exciting puzzle piece in the tapestry of groovy Kenyan music. It proves that there are still great gems out there to be re-discovered for audiences worldwide.

Text written by Michiel van Oosterhout

This Album is dedicated to the musicians
Bonnie Wanda, Rashid Salim, Vuli Yeni, Juma Waweru Njuguna and Athmani 'guitar boy'."

Limited Loser Edition on Mustard Yellow vinyl. In 1988 Mudhoney released their debut 7" single, "Touch Me I'm Sick," and it rapidly became the defining anthem of the Seattle scene that, shortly thereafter, took the world by storm. Punk? Garage? G****e? Who cares when it rips this much! The B side, "Sweet Young Thing Ain't Sweet No More," ain't no slouch, either. Later in 1988, the band followed up with Superfuzz Bigmuff, a six-song EP so overflowing with chaotic rock energy it warped thousands of minds, and inspired countless guitarists to immediately search for the titular fuzz pedals. In the words of Dynamite Hemmorage's Jay Hinman: "My feeling - and I know I'm not alone in this one - is that for all the play and worldwide attention several Seattle-area bands got during the 1988-92 period, at the end of the day (and even at the time), there was Mudhoney - and then there was everybody else. To me, you, and most everyone who was paying close attention to underground rock music during those years, Mudhoney still sound like the undisputed kingpins of roaring, surging, fuzzed-out, punk rock music. These first recordings were so life-affirming upon their release, connecting everything great about the sixties (biker movies, fuzzboxes, old guitars, three-minute songs) with the frothing, punk rock of the early 80s, that a whole new style of music was born. They called it grunge, but to me it was amped-up, clear-the-room, ramalama rock that exploded like Nagasaki live, and it was about as joyous and as fun a noise as anyone'd heard in years." These 2023 colored-vinyl editions of the two releases celebrate the 35th anniversary of Mudhoney's opening salvos, and we couldn't be more excited to have them back in print.

Classic Soul album! If this 1972 record for the Paula Records was the sum total of Dallas, Texas soul man, Bobby Patterson’s career, then he would still be a cult figure among R&B fans.

This is a stone soul masterpiece, full of grit and groove with a breathtaking stylistic breadth from funky soul to romantic soul balladry.

Re-issued for the first time on virgin black vinyl

Every soul-searcher needs this one.

The inaugural release on KMRU's own fledgling OFNOT imprint, 'Dissolution Grip' is an ambitious project that emerged from his studies at Berlin's prestigious UDK. The Kenyan composer and sound artist is best known for his field recording work, and as he traveled across Europe and the wider world for regular live performances, he made a point to snapshot each city. But the more he studied and the more he examined his practice, the more KMRU began to wonder what the purpose of these recordings were, and what bearing they might actually have on his self-expression. Simultaneously, he'd begun to dive more wholeheartedly into the world of synthesis. In a way, synthesis is the most basic form of sound, and KMRU started to wonder not just how he could harness these sounds but how he might be able to more dynamically combine them with field recordings.

Guided by Jasmine Guffond at Berlin's Universität der Künste (better known as UDK), KMRU looked at waveforms - the visual representation of sound itself - and embarked on a process where he would write scores from the shapes, gradually turning the scores into raw synth sounds. Considering the spaces he was inspired by and shuttled through, KMRU decided that instead of using environmental recordings as an aesthetic marker, he would use these captured moments to guide the waveforms. So each sound is birthed from a field recording, but none of those recordings are audible in their original form. For example, on the digital bonus track 'Along A Wall', KMRU recorded in an old shack on his family's compound in Nairobi, where wind was shaking the building to its foundations. Listening to the finished piece, we can hear subtle electronic tones that rub and vibrate against each other, slowly saturating and mimicking the erratic motion of the wind. The original recording has been removed, but the feeling remains.

The album's opening side 'Till Hurricane Bisect' is a 15-minute epic that evolves at its own glacial pace, carefully transforming blustering wind sounds into gasping drones, glassy oscillations and choked distortion. Cosmic and meditative, it's a testament to KMRU's skill as a sound engineer and patience as a composer, combining the gentle world building of his acclaimed Editions Mego album 'Peel' with the rumbling energy of 'Limen', last year's collaboration with Aho Ssan. On the title track, KMRU takes the opportunity to flex his orchestral muscle, conducting a cast of warbling synth tones into a durational symphony. Starting as quietly as a whisper, 'Dissolution Grip' expands at its own pace until it's a dense wall of harmony, powerful but never completely overwhelming. It's music embedded with a rich sense of place that informs us of KMRU's past and present, and signals where his musical philosophy might take us in the future.

As every year anniversary, Bonkers has the tradition of the special annual compilation, bringing a bunch of new extraordinary artists to the label. This VA is the sound that Bonkers represents, a sound to trip, to listen, to dance and to enjoy, now for year IV we have on board: Sobek, Colossio Feat Animales Nocturnos, Ludviq & Radial Gaze, Moisees & ZEA, ID_UA and Oblako Maranta.

For the first track of the VA, debuting on the label, the Hungarian producer Sobek ,named after the Egyptian crocodile god, resident of Aether club, with releases on TAU, Get Physical, Borders of Light, and owner of Complaint Kulture.“Conscious Raveness” is a harsh and enjoyable journey, with a rough bass and drilling mind synths, his sound simple has no boundaries.

Talking about sick collabs, “Retaliation” definitely is one of them, also is the first collab between the head of the label, Luis(Ludviq) and Andrey (Radial Gaze), this track has a great power in it, with a lot of trippy Fx, home-made recorded percs, mind-blowing leads and a massive bass line. Just listen and enjoy the ride.

Igor Dyeyev mostly known as ID_UA, is an Ukrainian producer, with releases on labels like Calypso and Duro, now debuting on the label with “Crucial Moment”.

This track was made during the escalation of tension on the borders of Ukraine, what happened next is known to the whole world.

With releases on Exit Strategy, Duro and Scatcity Fernando Luna aka Colossio, presents his track “Reflejos” featuring Animales Nocturnos, is inspired by the Spanish electro-trash scene where the beat and the lyrics evoke the most hidden and dark feelings that spring up at night, inviting you to enter the trance that provokes the dance.

For the first time have the pleasure to have one of the Duro Label bosses Moisees, joining forces with ZEA with “Recuerdo Futuro” is a flash of the forgotten rave parties of the nineties, the nostalgia of a past that was not lived.

To close this VA we have the honor to have, a new fresh and visionary project called Oblako Maranta, is the fusion project between the Italian Producer A-Tweed and the Russian producer Radial Gaze. “Viper Attack” is special track ,weird, slow and raver, with psychedelic nuances, definitely a trippy journey.

A 1968 British psychological horror film from the Boulting Brothers, ‘Twisted Nerve’ starred Hywel Bennett, Hayley Mills and Billie Whitelaw. The film itself has little to offer, however its soundtrack remains one of Herrmann's finest and, alongside the film, would have probably languished in obscurity but for the intervention of Quentin Tarantino who revived its main whistle theme for his 2002 film ‘Kill Bill: Vol. 1’, bringing Herrmann's music to a whole new audience. At long last, the soundtrack to Elle Driver’s infamous hospital scene in ‘Kill Bill: Vol. 1’ and the inspiration for countless ringtones and samples the world over comes to record stores in 2015 - when ‘Twisted Nerve’ is released in a Super-Deluxe soundtrack package by Stylotone working closely with the composer’s family, The Bernard Herrmann Estate and with a little help from director Quentin Tarantino. The complete Original Motion Picture Soundtrack composed and conducted by Bernard Herrmann for the Boulting Brothers’ Production of ‘Twisted Nerve’ has been Assembled, Mastered and Cut at London’s world famous Abbey Road Studios to produce a stunning Master

Repress!

'What The World Needs Now...', released September 4th 2015, is the 10th studio album from legends Public Image Ltd (PiL).

Released on CD, double vinyl and digital download, the 11-track album follows the huge critical success of 2012's 'This is PiL', the band's first album in 17 years. In winter 2014 PiL returned to Steve Winwood's Wincraft studio in the Cotswolds' to record the new album 'What The World Needs Now...' . Commenting on the album, John Lydon says, "Buy now while stocks last." PiL will be on tour in UK/Europe/North America from September 2015. What The World Needs Now...', is self-funded by PiL and released on their own label 'PiL Official' via Cargo UK Distribution. The artwork for the album, partly inspired by Native American Hopi characters, was designed and painted by John Lydon.

Return of the B-Boy

Listening back to the “I Phantom” album as a whole re-connects me to the fact that “Return of the B-Boy” really was designed to be the crown jewel of the album. I wanted to create a song that was a feat in storytelling and in verbal dexterity. The slower tempo of Part 1 of the song gave me a chance to paint a clear view of the scenario in which the protagonist is brought back to life by music to save culture of a genre. The relentless tempo of Part 2 was one of the largest challenges I had faced as an MC at that point in my career but I did not want to earn style points at the cost of clear storytelling.

I remember that night so clearly; being in El-P‘s basement studio with the album due the next day and “Return of the B-Boy pt 2” being the only part of the album that wasn’t finished. In sports what happened that night would probably be the equivalent of somebody hitting a half court shot at the buzzer to win a championship. We were all there; myself, El-P, DJ Abilities, & Nasa (El-P’s studio engineer). We all knew the song had to be completed before sunrise, we all knew the importance of the song, and we all knew we had to do our best work. This was the scene; El-P searching for the perfect drum break, Nasa mixing everything on the fly as it was recorded, DJ Abilities searching for the perfect cuts to accentuate the song, and me making sure that every single line of my verse was exactly what I wanted it to be.

I’m glad I at least remember these elements of the process clearly because the rest of it really is a blur. I’m just glad that we managed to finish the song on time & get it out into the world. I truly am honored that our efforts back then led to the creation of a piece of music that is still resonating with people today.

There are only a few figures in music whose work influences and
shapes a genre as a whole. This is undoubtedly true of the Swede
Esbjörn Svensson. With his trio e.s.t., the pianist and composer
wowed audiences beyond age and genre affiliations. And his
influence on jazz as a whole reverberates to this day and already
within the second and third generation of musicians worldwide.
‘HOME.S.’ is Esbjörn Svensson’s only solo album and the sheer
existence of such a recording and its completely unexpected
discovery over a decade after its creation are nothing less than a
sensation: Since the early 1990s, Svensson focused almost his entire
creative energy and recording activities on his work with e.s.t.. Thus,
these new recordings are not only the first, but practically the only
ones that show Svensson in a setting other than that of the trio:
Intimate, concentrated and completely one with himself. The
recordings for ‘HOME.S.’ were made only a few weeks before
Esbjörn Svensson’s sudden death on June 14, 2008. Svensson
recorded the music in his Swedish home.
For almost ten years afterwards, the album rested untouched in his
wife Eva Svensson’s personal archive. Here, she tells the story
behind the discovery of the album and the music: “After Esbjörn’s
passing, I made sure all the contents of his computer were saved to
backup hard drives. And then I basically left them untouched for the
next ten years. At the point where I eventually felt ready to look into
the material, I soon realised that there was something I wanted to
look into.
“I took the hard drive and went to Gothenburg to meet with Åke
Linton, the sound engineer who had worked on all e.s.t. albums as
well as on their live shows. He was also the one who had helped me
to save the material from Esbjörn’s computer in the first place. So he
probably already knew that there was something hidden in there. But
nobody had listened to it.
“We went to his studio. And we pressed the start button. Then there
was a total silence and we couldn't speak for the entire time the music
was playing. After it finished, at first we were not able to say anything,
because we were both so touched and surprised that it was all there,
and that it was so beautiful. The tracks seemed to follow one another
like pearls on a string. After we just had sat there for a while we
agreed: This is really good. Musically, but also from a sound
perspective.”

ENG The new Will Toledo from Austria? - LAUNDROMAT CHICKS is the music project of TOBIAS HAMMERMÜLLER, who just turned 18 and still goes to school. He recorded most of the songs from his debut on Siluh Records by himself. Live he performs them with his band featuring Lena Pöttinger (drums), Theresa Strohmer (guitar, vocals) and Felix Schnabl (bass). Felix Schnabel, on the other hand, has his own garage punk project called SALAMIRECORDER, with Tobias playing bass. Musically, the whole thing sounds like an exquisite jingle-jangle indie/twee-pop sound. It almost seems like a lost album from early influential labels like Flying Nun, Cherry Red, Postcard Records. The songs from "Trouble" were mostly written at home, in the bedroom, in front of the TV and at his favorite spot at the movies. The basic mood of the songs is mostly melancholic, though that you can still cook or dance to, or listen to on the bus when you're on your way to going out with your friends. Tobias Hammermüller took inspiration from the indie rock sound of the 2010s (Snail Mail, Chastity Belt, The Babies, Best Coast, The Drums) and from many new wave hits (Aztec Camera, Psychedelic Furs, Echo and the Bunnymen, Prefab Sprout). The lines of text are largely based on quotes from films. He is particularly fond of the old strips by Éric Rohmer and Wim Wenders, and from New Hollywood/Nouvelle Vague movies, because they often deal with identity crises and escapism, just like his songs.

The influence that 80s gay nightlife had on electronic music, pop music in general and the evolution of clubbing for
subsequent generations is pretty much incalculable. In spite of the shadow of AIDs and reactionary political and media
forces both at home and in the USA, the period 1980 – 1990 bore witness to a dazzling explosion of dance music that
artfully drew a line from the peak of late-70s disco to the emergence of house and its 90s glory days. The art of the
12” single, the thrill of the remix, the rise of the superclub, the electronic spark of chart pop, the challenging of gender
barriers… all had their origin in the gay clubs. It’s not unreasonable to make the claim that by the end of the 80s,
virtually ALL chart pop music sounded like it had its origins on the dancefloors of Heaven nightclub!
Over 4LPs and 24 tracks, ‘Box Of Sin’ strives to tell the story of that decade, and to tease apart the strands of 80s gay
clubbing to show a period of unrivalled creativity and disco diversity. Via the box’s themed discs it shows how highenergy became house, how gender-bending synth bands took over the pop charts, how pop stars the whole world
over found a route to fame via the gay clubs, and how the era’s biggest producers aimed their masterworks purely at
the dancefloor. High energy, deep house, Eurobeat, synthpop, divas, acid house… all combine to paint a picture of a
rich and vibrant lifestyle. Along the way, ‘Box Of Sin’ unearths some overlooked gems rarely compiled today:
meanwhile some of the decade’s biggest names in club music gather to get into the picture – from Whitney Houston
to Dead Or Alive, Bananarama to Bronski Beat, Aretha Franklin to Inner City.
Based on the actual club charts at the time and with a stunning design package inspired by the small ads section of
80s gay press, ‘ Box Of Sin’ comes fully annotated and with an introduction by renowned gay author Paul Burston.
Throughout, it’s illustrated with photography documenting 80s gay clubbers in action, provided for Demon by The
Bishopsgate Institute, the UK’s LGBTQ+ archive. The project also resurrects the much-loved brand ‘Disco Discharge’, a
recognisable hallmark of quality among collectors and aficionados of club music heritage.

“It was a rainy day at the recycling centre in Leitrim. There, amongst the tangle of discarded kettles and broken-down toasters, I first laid eyes on her…” A few years after her stand-out contribution to our ‘Wacker That’ compilation and following a bunch of purple patch releases for Nyahh Records, TakuRoko, Fort Evil Fruit and Eiderdown Records, Natalia Beylis graces Touch Sensitive with a true landmark album for the label – ‘Mermaids. Recorded both at home in Leitrim and at neighbour Mat Warren’s studio (Studio Moo Moo – a converted cow shed), ‘Mermaids’ was inspired by two salvaged items: a CRB Elettronica Ancona - Model: Diamond 708 E electric keyboard from the local tip and a photo taken by her father found in a pile of old family scraps. Smuggled home in the back of the van and ridded of the nine purple crayons lodged inside, the keyboard sounded perfect to Natalia; “The sounds that come from her when I play always move me like water; swimming in rivers and floating in the murk beneath the surface.” The striking image which would become the cover art features Natalia’s mother and two friends during a dip in the ocean. We see three women hanging out on a large rock – their bad-ass hairdos and poses perfectly framed and saturated in sepia. “There are complete siren vibes coming from the rock. Three women, three girls, three witches, three mermaids. I wish I was one of them. Or friends with them.’ After testing compositions and recordings for months on the rescued keys, the discovery of her father’s image formed the final work: “A confluence of the sounds and the image charged through me, and the album began to flicker into being.” Much like the push and pull of the River Shannon, Natalia’s own local swimming spot, ‘Mermaids’ flow is both organic but unstoppable. Anchored around the album’s hypnotic 17-minute title track, we are fully immersed within this subaquatic suite from the first splash. Alongside the keyboard’s glistening tone, field recordings from Natalia’s expansive archive bring us back up for air; taking stops to check in with the chittering chickens and ducks of Athlone. In keeping with her back catalogue and extensive body of work, ‘Mermaids’ exists within its own imagined universe. This is truly singular work that continues to underline Natalia as one of the finest underground artists of her time. We wholeheartedly encourage you to take a forty-minute sonic dip into a deep, murky, watery world of her own creation.

Brand new album from GRAMMY-nominated, critically acclaimed singer/songwriter Brent Cobb. The American south isn't just Brent Cobb's home. It's his muse, too. A Georgia native, he fills his Grammy-nominated songwriting with the sounds and stories of an area that's been home to southern rockers, soul singers, country legends, and bluesmen. Cobb has a name for that rich tapestry of music — "southern eclectic" — and he offers up his own version of it with his newest album, Southern Star. "Down here, there's a lot going on and there's nothing going on at the same time," he says. "You've got all these different cultures in the south, and everything is mixed in together. Otis Redding and Little Richard were from the same town in Georgia. So were the Allman Brothers. James Brown and Ray Charles grew up right down the road. All these sounds reflect the South itself, and that music has influenced the whole world. It's definitely influenced mine." Filled with country-soul songwriting, laid back grooves, and classic storytelling, Southern Star distills the best parts of southern culture into 10 of the strongest songs in Cobb's catalog.

RYUICHI SAKAMOTO'S LANDMARK 1981 ALBUM REISSUED FOR THE FIRST TIME IN DECADES OUTSIDE OF JAPAN. THE ALBUM WILL BE REISSUED IN ITS RARE JAPANESE EDITION TOGETHER WITH A 2-LP LIMITED EDITION FEATURING THE ALBUM PLUS A 2ND LP FEATURING ITS NEVER-RELEASED FULL INSTRUMENTAL MIX, ALL REMASTERED BY BERNIE GRUNDMAN.

Wewantsounds is proud to announce the reissue of Ryuichi Sakamoto's third solo album "Hidari Ude No Yume" (Left Handed Dream), originally released in 1981 on the Alfa label. Save for a small-scale Dutch vinyl release in 1981, it is the first time the album's original Japanese edition is released outside of Japan (the European release on Epic Records included significantly different tracks and mixes). Newly remastered from the original tapes by renowned engineer Bernie Grundman, this LP edition comes with original artwork featuring a striking cover shot by famous photographer Masayoshi Sukita (sourced from the original negative), OBI strip and 4-page insert with new introduction by journalist Anton Spice. The album will also be released as a 2-LP limited edition gatefold including the album's full instrumental mix.
Ryuichi Sakamoto's third album, "Hidari Ude No Yume" was recorded at the legendary Alfa Studio 'A' in Tokyo during the Summer of 1981. it came after "B-2 Unit" in 1980 and his debut album "Thousand Knives Of" in 1978, the very year Sakamoto was invited by Haruomi Hosono to join Yellow Magic Orchestra alongside Yukihiro Takahashi. In the process, they became global stars as the group rewrote the rules of electronic pop and toured around the world, yet Sakamoto was keen to remain active as a solo artist.
?In 1981, the musician decided to record an album rooted in Pop, following "B-2 Unit" which had a more of an experimental edge and his landmark electro debut from 1978. For this new album entitled "Hidari Ude No Yume," Sakamoto invited British producer Robin Scott, who had had huge hit with 'Pop Muzik,' to co-produce. They entered the Alfa studio in July 1981, accompanied by a handful of musicians. These included his fellow YMO musicians Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi, keyboard programmer extraordinaire Hideki Matsutake who'd been on Sakamoto's first two albums and became YMO's unofficial fourth member, violinist Kaoru Sato, saxophonist Satoshi Nakamura and American guitarist Adrian Belew who'd played with David Bowie, The Talking Heads' "Remain In Light" and more recently, Tom Tom Club’s debut (co-writing 'Genius Of Love').
?Together, they created a fascinating mix of pop, ambient and electronic music with elements of avant garde and traditional Japanese music, the whole firmly rooted in a solid groove. Sakamoto wanted to give the album a spontaneous feel and decided to let ideas flow and evolve organically during the sessions as musicians would develop them together. From the funk of 'Relâché' to the new wave feel of 'Venezia' and the ambient minimalism of 'Slat Dance,' the album is remarkably consistent while displaying a wealth of global influences as shown by the diversity of instruments featured on the credits: Marimba, didgeridu, traditional Japanese instruments such as the Sho and Hichiriki flutes.
?The album was released in Japan in 1981 and Epic Records picked it up for Europe a year later but decided to release it in a significantly altered version. The sequencing was completely reshuffled and two tracks, 'Saru No Ie' and 'Living In The Dark' were completely dropped while three others, ‘Relâché’, ‘Tell 'em To Me’, ‘Venezia’ were heavily remodelled with english lyrics and became 'Just About Enough', 'Once In A Lifetime' and 'The Left Bank'. Last but not least, a new English-sung track, 'The Arrangement,' was added, making the album nine tracks instead of ten for the Japanese edition.
Altogether this International version called "Left-Handed Dream" was a very different album from the Japanese one and although both were successful at the time and further established Ryuichi Sakamoto as a global solo artist, the Japanese edition of "Hidari Ude No Yume" remains largely unknown to international ears.
Wewantsounds is now delighted to release this original Japanese edition for the first time in decades as a single LP together with a 2-LP limited-edition set adding, as a bonus, its fascinating instrumental mix, discovered in the label's vaults a few years ago (Note that 'The Garden Of Poppies', 'Slat Dance' and 'Saru No Ie' are instrumentals but for the consistency of the album we kept them on the Instrumental Mix). "Hidari Ude No Yume" is an essential album in Ryuichi Sakamoto's rich discography. It is now available in its purest original Japanese form.

Nonesuch releases Sorry I Haven’t Called, the new album by Vagabon, the moniker of Lætitia Tamko. Co-produced by Tamko and Rostam (Vampire Weekend, Haim, Clairo), it finds Tamko reinventing herself once again and features the most playful and adventurous music of her career, as evidenced by its lead track and opening song ‘Can I Talk My Shit?’. Vagabon has also announced an autumn tour that includes a headline run in the US, as well as European dates with Weyes Blood.



“I didn’t feel like being introspective,” says Tamko of her new album. “I just wanted to have fun.” Following her intimate 2017 debut Infinite Worlds, the New York artist favoured expansive and evocative electronic textures in her breakthrough 2019 self-titled follow-up. But her latest album feels like a wholly new era for Tamko, one that’s transformational and uncompromising. Across 12 vibrant tracks she wrote and produced primarily in Germany, she channels dance music and effervescent pop through her own confident sensibilities. These conversational songs are alive and unselfconscious, a document of an artist fully embracing her vision and reclaiming her joy.



The first words she sings on the album are, “Can I talk my shit? / I got way too high for this.” It’s a statement of purpose for the rest of the album that this is an unapologetic artist. “This whole record is how I talk to my friends and how to talk to my lovers,” says Tamko. “I think honesty and conversational songwriting can become poetry. There’s beauty in plainly speaking without metaphors and without flowery imagery.”



The story of Sorry I Haven’t Called started in grief after Tamko’s best friend died in 2021. This devastating and unexpected loss unmoored Tamko but also gave her a newfound clarity. “The things that I thought I cared about, I no longer cared about,” she says. “I had a realization that I need to make sure to feel everything that comes my way.” She decided to sell her things and move to a small lakeside village a few hours north of Hamburg in northern Germany to process everything. “There's no linear path to grief, and everyone handles it differently, but uprooting my life just felt like exactly what I had to do,” says Tamko. “I needed a place to think and go through my discomfort privately but to also explore the newness and urgency I was feeling in my life.” In the village, her phone didn’t work and there were no close grocery stores or restaurants, so she spent her time alone working on music.



Despite the palpable absence in her life, her new songs were her most disarming and ebullient yet. The first one she wrote was ‘Carpenter’, a mesmerizing track anchored by a tangible bass groove, where she sings, “I wasn’t ready to move on out / but I'm more ready now.” It’s a fully-realised track and feels like the culmination of her catalogue so far. “A lot of the music that I was making there had nothing to do with my grief at all,” says Tamko. “Once I gave myself permission to make a record that's full of life and energy, I realized that’s the point of this album. In the midst of going through all of these tough things, it became a record because of the vitality that these songs had.” For Tamko, there’s power in pursuing happiness.



While writing in Germany, Tamko nurtured her love for dance music and let it seep into her new songs. “The only things that were giving me access to a feeling were dance music and going to a rave in an extremely dark club where if I wanted to cry, I could do it and be around other people,” she says.



After a few months in Germany that included marathon writing sessions and a whirlwind romance, Tamko decided to stay with friends in Los Angeles and finish her record. She enlisted co-producer Rostam to help her unify her vision.



Sorry I Haven’t Called is a warm and resilient album about embracing the ecstatic moments wherever you can by knowing how you love and how you mourn. It’s an album born of both communal dancefloor revelations and the clarifying peace from solitude, an emotional rebirth as well as an artistic one. “This record feels like what I've been working towards,” says Tamko. “When I think of this album, I think of playfulness. It's completely euphoric. It's because things were dark that this record is so full of life and energy. It’s a reaction to what I was experiencing at the time, not a document of it.”

Piotr Kurek’s new album “Smartwoods” is a sprawling root system of tiny melodic phrases that loop and curl around subtly evolving instrumental thickets. The Warsaw-based producer and composer takes his cues from early music, baroque music and experimental jazz, entangling his influences with filigree traces of contemporary computer music and fueling it with sonic vapors from the near future.

Made up of seven distinct segments, the album blurs its acoustic and electronic elements into an illusory hedge of abstract sound. Harp, saxophone, clarinet, double bass, voices and guitar twist into computerized processes and synthesizer chirps, creating an uncanny dreamworld where the real isn’t always what it seems. Each player is entwined with the other to create a living, breathing whole.

Like Kurek’s painterly 2021 album “World Speaks”, “Smartwoods” is also inspired by visual art - particularly the whimsical work of Algerian-French graphic designer Jean Sariano. The album cover features artwork by Polish painter Tomasz Kowalski, whose shapeshifting creatures and miniature stories aptly reflect the music’s wild fantasy. The first manifestation of “Smartwoods” – a live show at Unsound in Kraków in 2022 – featured animations by Italian artist Francesco Marrello, who put together a visual treatment for the single “Harps”.

Music composed, arranged and produced by Piotr Kurek
Anna Pašic - harp
Tomasz Duda - clarinets, saxophone, flute
Wojtek Traczyk - double bass, electric bass
Piotr Kurek - keyboards, MIDI wind controller, electric guitar
Recorded in June and November 2022 by Piotr Kurek, Piotr Zabrodzki (Studio Pasterka) and Tomasz Duda

The latest full-length from Larkin Poe, Blood Harmony is a whole-hearted invitation into a world they know intimately, a Southern landscape so precisely conjured you can feel the sticky humidity of the warm summer air. In bringing their homeland to such rich and dazzling life, Georgia-bred multi-instrumentalist sisters Rebecca and Megan Lovell fortify their storytelling with a rock and blues-heavy sound that hits right in the heart, at turns stormy and sorrowful and wildly exhilarating.

DLMZ is HMS’s third full-length album, and is written from the perspective of a gang of wholesome country boys and girls who suddenly find themselves having to navigate a world of Dollar Lizards (obscene cult-leadery economic monsters) and Money Zombies (grey- skinned brain-dead consumers).

Dollar Lizard Money Zombie was recorded at Sail Loft studios, St Peter’s and The Unit, all in Cardiff, with the final track recorded live at Cadeirlan Llanelwy. It was engineered by Gareth Bodman, produced by Llion Robertson, and mastered by Charlie Francis.

The house of Sakskøbing is witnessing a spawn of a sub label with the catalogue code RVZ. This is a coastal part of the main city, with abundance of nature & clear water, the rhythms in Zealand as one may say. The number one comes together as a four track Various Artists and consists of long-term friends of Sakskøbing as well new faces welcomed to the label.

The side A comes from a hardware live project Cattle Freq consistent of three musicians SIL, Keroz and BRTS. The trio have launched the project called Cattle Freq with performance of all original material recorded & rehearsed in the outskirts of their hometown in the end of 2021. Following up is the close friend of the label the Tommy Vicari Jnr, an artist highly praised not only in his native city Sheffield but is consistently played by hard working dj’s in the whole world. With “No matter what” the gentleman returns to label for the second time since 2016 which marks for a special date.

The last time Canadian underground techno tastemaker Rennie Foster had a record on a French label it was the historic F-Communications. Back then Rennie’s penchant for bringing warehouse nostalgia together with hi-tech futurism was a consistent theme and in 2023 this fusion based musical concept is realized further toward the future through a new EP release, Cryptic Layers on Parisian imprint Skylax Records.


The record opens with Let It Go, a simple title for a complex and dreamy piece of lo-fi rave house featuring clattering breaks, ear worm vocals and a drastic bassline driving the whole custom vehicle. Then the similarly, simply titled Just Do It explodes into action with an inspired mix of Detroit inspired dub techno chords, fierce amen breaks and a hip-house energy akin to both current urban style and authentic musical roots. These tracks sound like they could have been released at any time during the past decades but still sound current, or even futuristic. Apparent is craft, design and an understanding of dance music from the perspective of obsession, experience and passion.



The remixes come from absolute legends in the world of techno, representing Rennie’s other home-base territories, the techno cities Detroit and Tokyo. Japanese electronic music icon Ken Ishii provides a storming acid remix of Just Do It with liquid 303 bass, anxious and trip vocal snips, and punchy drums that will sound absolutely ace in a club. Detroit third wave pioneer Sean Deason closes out the record with a crisp dose of hi-tech funk that is sure to be a DJ weapon with it’s hypnotic energy and timeless production style.



The digital only portion of Cryptic Layers begins with a second version from Ken Ishii, this time sans vocals leaving the acid stripped down and bare. Two more original tracks by Rennie Foster are also on offer. Sadlands is an organ laden deep house, synth-wave, contrasting piece of melancholic dream dance while I Say Peace signs off the project in a layered classic house style with early rave stabs and grooving after-hours appeal.

repressed !

- Two previously unreleased tracks from the outsider disco outfit - Strange

Christopher Spraggins & The Strange Band out of Rochester, N.Y released a total of one record. . A spaced out druggy disco band that had a hint of Rick James with a deeper trippier vibe that's truly unique, reproduced for you here for the first time since 1978. The band was introduced to the world by Cleveland Unlimited Records who still exist to this day, unfortunately as these things go, the record failed to gain sales needed to justify further but a whole LP was recorded, here we bring you the best tracks from that unreleased LP on your favourite format

After the A/V performance at Up To Date Festival back in 2022, Claudio PRC’s “Unda” project is going to be released as LP on vinyl and digital next September 2023.

Claudio PRC’s upcoming ambient album is a sonic journey through ethereal landscapes and intimate atmospheres. Drawing inspiration from the waves and their movement, “Unda” (in Sardinian native tongue “wave”) evokes a sense of calmness and introspection. Throughout the whole piece, Claudio PRC creates a blend of meticulously crafted organic and synthetic elements that seamlessly integrates together, showcasing his versatility as an artist and his commitment to exploring all facets of electronic music. With its textured layers, this work offers a soothing and reflective musical experience, inviting the listener to escape into a world of contemplation and meditation.

Boundless was recorded at Silver Bullet Studios in Burlington, CT, which is run by longtime friend of the band Greg Thomas (Misery Signals, Shai Hulud, The Risk Taken) and Chris Teti from The World Is A Beautiful Place And I Am No Longer Afraid To Die, and while With Honor managed to bottle all that energy they’d re-found playing live again, it’s interesting to note that the band took their time doing so. It might sound like one frenzied burst of energy, but the writing process was more considered—With Honor wanted it to sound organic and natural—in other words, true to who both who they are and who they were—rather than forced and contrived. “We named the record after it was all done,” Mackey says. “The whole idea that there’s no limit just resonates all the way through this record. There’s a lot of observing nature healing itself and then believing in that for yourself—and as a result you’re kind of unlimited in that way. And so having the title Boundless just felt the way we wanted it to feel, which, in so many ways, is what this record is all about.”

Curated by Reference Point residents Mark GV Taylor and George Arthur, this 15 track
compilation album features tracks the pair have played at their peripatetic, Europe wide
events since 2012.
Stretching from the 1970s to the present day the Reference Point compilation spans a whole
range of genres, tempos, languages and grooves where the quality of music is paramount
whether $1.00 bin records or $1000 rarities.
Reference Point, 'a place to hear the music', is a truly trans-global album with music from
Argentina, Brazil, Oakland, Detroit, Texas, London and more, including tracks from private
press albums, from artists who have played at Reference Point events and from current
artists such as MF Robots and Caixa Cubo.
Releasing as a CD, digital and a double LP, Reference Point is another essential compilation
from BBE Music and one that belongs in the collection of all collectors and lovers of great
music

On the 25th August, Burna Boy will release his brand-new album ‘I Told Them…’. It will be available to stream everywhere as well as on CD & Vinyl. The Pre-order will go live alongside the album announce on the 28th July. ‘I Told Them…’ features Burna’s newest hit singles ‘Sittin’ On Top Of The World (feat. 21 Savage)’, ‘Talibans II’ & ‘Big 7’ as well as a whole host of album features.



Burna Boy was born Damini Ogulu in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria, in 1991 and began making music at just ten years old. As a teenager he honed his craft on Nigeria’s southern coast, delving into dancehall, reggae and Afrobeat’s. In the early 2010s Burna Boy emerged as one of Nigeria’s fastest-rising stars, combining influences from his Nigerian heritage with hook-filled pop stylings to create unforgettable tracks. His 2012 single ‘Like to Party’ broke into the global mainstream and paved the way for his full-length debut L.I.F.E, a year later.



Over the next five years, Burna Boy released two more albums and collaborated with a long list of high-profile artists including J Hus, Skales, Fall Out Boy and Lily Allen. African Giant was released in 2019 followed by his fifth album Twice as Tall in 2020 (which featured collabs with Chris Martin and Youssou N'Dour), both charted in several countries across the globe andgarnered worldwide acclamation, with the latter winning a Grammy Award for ‘Best Global Music Album’. Breaking cultural boundaries, he became the first Nigerian to headline a show at New York’s Madison Square Garden, he released his sixth album, Love, Damini, last year (featuring collabs with the likes of Ed Sheeran and Khalid). It deservedly became the highest-charting Nigerian album in history and currently holds the record for the only African artist to earn a no. 1 on iTunes in 16 countries worldwide.

This release heralds the launch of a new 7” series from Mr Bongo. In partnership with London-based DJ and digger, Miche, the series will feature his latest discoveries, as well as choice cuts, taken from his 'With Love' compilations. For the inaugural offering, we take a trip to hazy San Francisco, California, in 1977. Smoke, Inc. were an emerging band in the Greater San Francisco Bay area and a regular fixture in the buzzing live music scene. They had a strong following and were in rotation in most of the Bay area clubs, as well as opening for numerous prestigious acts such as Sly & The Family Stone, Taj Mahal, The Pointer Sisters and Toots and The Maytals. Members of the group worked with Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Wonder, Frank Zappa, Martha Reeves & The Vandellas, and many others considered the cream of the crop of the music world.

Smoke, Inc. featured Roy Schmall on keyboards and vocals, Stan Terry on lead vocals and harmonica, Michael 'Ollie' Schotka, on bass and vocals, Keith Stafford on drums and vocals, and Archie Williams Jr on guitar. They went on to release one 12" EP and two 7" singles. One of those 7’s included 'Waitin' For Love’. It was first released in 1977 and came out on the band's own self-titled imprint. It has gone on to become their rarest and most sought-after recording, now fetching up to an astonishing £2,500 on Discogs. It is a breezy, feel-good, modern/crossover soul beauty, with an infectious sing-along chorus, floaty flute solo, and packed with pure, uplifting dancefloor energy. The B-side features a cover version of the Holland Dozier & Holland-penned classic 'It's the Same Old Song’, made famous by the Four Tops.

Miche enthuses, “I included this gem on my first ‘With Love’ compilation and knew that it deserved its own dedicated reissue complete with original artwork. I’m delighted to get the chance to make that happen for this incredible, soulful AOR glide from a band that is well due another round of appreciation. It’s very rare, and consequently very expensive, so here it is for you all to spin and add to your record collections.”

46 years since its original release, it is our privilege to help Roy and the gang’s light shine once again and let a whole new audience relish the beautiful sounds of 'Waitin' For Love'.