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Previously unreleased jazz funk from Suriname, recorded in 1981 by keyboardist Sonny Khoeblal and his band Thalamus.

The music of Thalamus is a time capsule and the best kept secret of post-independent Suriname. During this turbulent time, the band used the language of jazz to express their desire for unity and freedom.

The generation of Thalamus envisioned a future beyond the ethnic divide their parents knew as social barriers. After independence, young people met at work or in universities and shared principles of unity and international solidarity. Jazz played an important role in translating tensions and experimenting with a sound of the future.

The band members of Thalamus shared interests in jazz-fusion from Weather Report, Chick Corea, Bob James and Carlos Santana. Compared to contemporaries with more pop appeal, their sound remained obscure in Suriname. Still, people listened to them bending conventional rules of jazz, pop, latin, rock and funk. This fusion reflected the band, its diverse members and their country: Suriname is a multi-ethnic country by colonial force. If diamonds are formed under pressure, love and solidarity emerge under oppression.

Thalamus is a unique recording of this revolutionary period, with new people finding each other based on a universal language: jazz-fusion. It culminated in six songs, two of which are 'Summer of Love and Music' and 'Lady Amazone'. This 7" vinyl brings you their story, their experimentation with jazz-fusion and tells the parallel history of Suriname.

South African multi-instrumentalist Mpumi Dhlamini’s Nebula Nomad explores themes of deep inner reflection and cosmic wonder. The EP puts three tracks from the 2024 album on vinyl for the first time: two reimagined versions of earlier compositions ‘The Higher Being’ and ‘Sibusise Nkosi’, along with ‘Culmination’. Dhlamini writes, produces and performs all vocals and instruments, with contributions from Mzizi, Tendai 'Shoxx' Shoko, Ayo Solanke, Sibusiso Mkhize, Zoe The Seed and Sphelelo Mazibuko. A brief introduction to a remarkable talent at the vanguard of South African spiritual jazz who has battled adversity and come out stronger, with something important to say.

With Where We’re At, Tonique & Man deliver a warm and vibrant second album blending indie pop, soul and soft disco. Staying true to the groove that has become the duo’s signature, the record reveals a more mature and personal side of Jean Tonique and Mi Man.


Both recently becoming fathers, the two musicians are entering a new chapter in their lives, one that naturally shapes the album’s songwriting: a more intimate reflection on how far they’ve come, what they’ve built, and what continues to drive them to create.


Recorded at the legendary Studio Ferber in Paris, Where We’re At also features collaborations with Girl Ultra and Rejjie Snow, bringing new textures to the duo’s sound. An elegant and generous album where pop immediacy meets more intimate songwriting, opening a new chapter for Tonique & Man.

The unconscious element to the conscious process.

The practice of dub techno and its tendrils is a fundamental for me, both aesthetically and from an engineering perspective.

I start every recording session with a dub inspired jam, the first piece I ever recorded in 1996 was an effort to recreate Phylyps Trak with only a Korg X3 and an Ibanez PUE5 (borrowed from Gary Howell). It was an awesome introduction to jamming, and the footing stones of noise, delay and saturation were explored with my foot hard on the enthusiasm pedal.

These practice jams are in some sense cathartic, the first step taken again & again, which helps me move forwards each session and additionally helps to 'warm the circuits' both of myself and the machines.

After realising the genius of Basic Channel is akin to the genius of peasant food, using every ingredient with nothing left to waste, (up to and including the oft maligned working noise of the machines themselves), this was a watershed moment for my own subjective progression. No longer tied to just emulation of something inspiring, but taking these learned tools into other areas of music helped to break free from a strong current of influence and also to progress into other areas with the new toolbox.

Dub:

The importance of the dub pioneers should never be understated, in modern music and my own practice. Yet with my initial inspiration being two german dudes issuing extreme techno variants with obscured label designs, who then signposted their listeners to their own inspirations (via their Wackies re-issues or nodded to on their Rhythm & Sound/Burial Mix sub-labels), meant that I started late and travelled backwards.

Learning to notice the live mixing of Mikey Dread or Lee Perry when the faders are bleeding through even when turned down, (echoed in BC's Quadrant Dub), or the brash send effects literally thrown into the mix also taught me that 'rough' mixing can inject a recording with life, uniqueness and the most right wrongness. Looking back Basic Channels very few elements helped me realise that the rules to be understood, are also the best ones to be broken.

Push the mixer into the red.

Amp that noise up from the tape delay cos it sounds sick.

Pseudo side-chain effects cos the kicks are way too loud and the mixer can't sum it nicely.

Spam the send knob into the delay units now, now and now.

Carelessness.

Noise:

Once I wrapped my head around the intrinsic 'noise' element that set those records apart, this became a torchlight into the alt noise movements which I was tentatively exploring at the time, and also is evidently a connection or thread into them.

Whether the Industrial/Post Punk UK scene (This Heat, TG, A Tent, F.E.) or the prolific output of the US Noise scene (Wolf Eyes, Live & Shave in LA, and subsequently following the lineage all the way back to Chrome's Alien Soundtracks), I had finally discovered a connection from techno to this 'free for all' corner of music.

This input from the Noise arena of sound is, in my experience, an all important step for a sonic artist, taking it's roots and extending out from Stockhausen/Pierre Henry and utilised/warped/mangled by thousands of adventurous pioneers ever since, I now see the line separating the high brow and the low brow is actually an artery carrying information from the head to the heart.

Vault is a selection of these jams that precede each of my solo recording sessions, for 30 years I've recorded hundreds of these 'workouts'. They are never intended as serious statements, just moments of naive enjoyment, yet most importantly they are time & space captured as practice.

The objective is always a warm up exercise, but sometimes those exercises turn a different corner, with a certain focus or direction dependent on what random samples are left in my machines from the previous session, instead of conscious choices, these unconscious elements can facilitate those 'positive mistakes' that make a piece of sound retain a different feel or colour and thus become special, or at least special to the creator.

I am quite conscious that the 'record everything' aspect of my ethos has been invaluable in cataloguing and saving these jams, while the attitude of carelessness during this process (after all, it's only a warm up jam) invites more enjoyment than seriousness ever could. Even if you don't feel the piece at the time, record it, because some years later it may well fit, or become relevant in a way you never intended.

-Miles

likethis have been doing fine work reissuing Eddie Richards gems from his peerless vaults and he often gives them a fresh lick of paint for the occasion, as he did with these two tunes, which came out back in January but soon disappeared. Thankfully, we're treated to a repress on 180 gram vinyl. 'Be Still' (revisit) is first and is one of those grooves you lean back for - the drums are seductive and persuasive rather than overly forceful and are laced with pads that only heighten the breezy effect. 'AbsurED' is tougher, with swinging 909s that are deep but jacked and brought to life with spoken words and blasts of bold bass.

Two more sure fire party starters on the RnB tip from Home Hitters - knocking them out of the park again!

»Pipe Dreams II & III« presents two new, side-long organ works by Mary Jane Leach, extending the sonic investigations of her 1989 landmark »Pipe Dreams«. Recorded in Ghent and Cologne, the two side-long pieces use shifting stops, resonance and beating tones to turn the pipe organ into a vivid, physical field of sound.

When »Pipe Dreams« was issued on vinyl for the first time by Blume in 2017, it was effectively the first time many of us encountered Mary Jane Leach’s music, finally placing her work in its proper historical context amid the searching Downtown milieu of Julius Eastman, Arthur Russell, Arnold Dreyblatt, Ellen Fullman, Philip Corner, Daniel Goode, and Peter Zummo. Leach collaborated with most of these artists at one point or another, either in Downtown Ensemble or as a guest on their records.

Now »Pipe Dreams II« and »Pipe Dreams III« arrive, recorded in 2023 and 2024 at Miry Concertzaal in Ghent, Belgium, and Kunst-Station Sankt Peter in Cologne, respectively.

»When I was a young child, my family lived next door to a church, where my mother was the organist. I spent many hours lying on the floor of the sanctuary listening to the music, letting the sound of the organ envelop me. I also liked to play the piano loudly with the pedal down, producing clouds of sound, much to my family’s annoyance. These two organ pieces explore some of my earliest musical interests and aesthetics.

In 1989, I lived in a tower attached to St Peter’s Church in Cologne, where I had access to its organ. It had two sets of pipes, front and back, which could create antiphonal effects. I spent countless hours exploring the possibilities of all the permutations of notes, space, and the resulting sound phenomena. I wrote »Pipe Dreams« for that organ. Fast forward to 2023, when I was asked to create a piece for organ for a concert at the Miry Concertzaal in Ghent, Belgium: »Pipe Dreams II«. I had a few days to familiarise myself with the organ, its available stops, and the layout of the console. I choreographed stop changes for a volunteer, as I couldn’t reach them myself. Some amazing sounds began to happen, and at one point the sound was so visceral that I felt as though I were taming a wild beast.

»Pipe Dreams III« was performed in 2024 on the organ that I had spent so much time playing in 1989–90. One big difference, though, was that the console was totally new and computerised. Having access to the organ for only a few hours before the concert, I decided that I did not have enough time to feel comfortable with the console and should not attempt to recreate the piece I had written in 1989. I would instead use the same sequence of stops and perform an improvised piece. I loved the sounds that were being created, and I was having so much fun that at one point I even started to laugh quietly. I began to visualise the beating notes as if they were atoms, opening them up to expose their innards, with the beating, higher-pitched notes — neutrons and protons — shimmering at the top, and the lower notes — the electrons — throbbing away at the bottom. I was playing notes not so much for their pitch value, but for how they affected the notes and sound phenomena already being played. Instead of a time signature, I timed the entries by listening to the beating patterns, waiting for the right moment to enter. And no, I wasn’t hallucinating.«

Mary Jane Leach, 2026

The Yummy Fur’s first album of new material in over 25 years is seductive and ambiguous; a fast-paced flip through scenes from art, myth, life and fantasy; a witty whole made from glittering scraps. The band’s original incarnation – fronted by singer, songwriter and guitarist John McKeown from 1992 to 1999 – morphed from making quick-hit cartoon-art songs to Eno and Cale-influenced creepers, populated by characters from McKeown’s life in Glasgow and the films, books and poetry that he lived a parallel life through. Everybody Talks About The Weather delights in using every past iteration of the band as potent collage material: a melee of sounds and ideas existing at once, revealing themselves then dipping back into hiding.
Recorded by the original core trio of McKeown, Brian MacDougall (guitar) and Paul Thomson (drums), Everybody Talks About The Weather comes 17 years after the band reformed for sporadic live shows, and seven years after the release of their sorta-greatest hits compilation Piggy Wings (Rock Action). Ten tracks long with nothing to spare, it is as condensed and vital as their best songs, with a new clarity of sound that allows their ambiguities to come into the light.
The album begins with “Cogs”, a taunting inquisition from within. As McKeown stages a fight between his id and ego, the tension heats up between conversational guitar lines and minimalist repetition; threatening sing-song melody and real, palpable menace. The band members are forced in tandem only to break apart, sustaining a genuine sense of just-hidden danger throughout the whole record – except, arguably, “Headphones”, a looser moment which sees McKeown make an existential something out of nothing while waiting for someone in the car (“I should have brought a book.../My ears are bleeding from the compression on your album”)
The songs are riots of reference: “Unity Over Europe” is a slyly complex two act play about the Mitford sisters – Diana, Unity, and Nancy, in a wink to the YF canon – smashing tragic biographical detail together with allusions to Thomas Pynchon and Francis Bacon. Pynchon is also lifted to serve “Blue Sunshine”, a collision of school shooters, serial killers and fictional fuck-ups (“Fast forward to Compton/Fast forward to Pynchon/Fast forward to Columbine'”) whose buzzy guitar lines are taunting and confrontational like a smarmy teenager. The innocuous title of “My Lasagne” belies a song that exists in several time periods at once: a visit to see Guernica, 50 people with their backs to the portrait of Dora Maar; the time that Picasso painted from; the Reina Sofia and the dirty streets of the Malasaña; myth-making musicians and the myths they’re riffing off overlapping and leering at each other.
All this could be laboured in lesser hands, but cultural verbosity is second nature to The Yummy Fur, who transform all this source material into songs that are weird, sexy, funny and absurd. Meaning is not happily understood or flattened. Susan Sontag's essay Against Interpretation accompanied McKeown as he wrote this album, and she’s paraphrased in “Semolina Ballerina”, the album’s justification of artistic ambiguity. Thomson’s motorik beat leads a gathering of back-and-forth instrumental phrases – including a wiry contribution on saxophone – embodying the futility of trying to parse something definitive from repeated action. “Listen to the very first thing that’s in your head,” Sontag-via-McKeown commands directly, then slinks sideways: “Interpretation is a conversation in an unmade bed”
The album features two more focused portraits, or at least The Yummy Fur’s version of such a thing. “Wanda” merges the life of filmmaker Barbara Loden and the title character of her semi-autobiographical 1970 feature film, with Loden’s then-husband Elia Kazan joining the fray of no-good men in her film. It’s a mix of adaptation and avant-criticism, with McKeown’s wordplay and mannered pronunciation mirroring the way that non-fiction and fiction twist around each other in the song. The title track is a series of vignettes and impressions from the lives of the band’s ‘90s inner circle, positing painter Mac McNaughton as a kind of Falstaffian ringleader. As with Piggy Wings and the recent single “New T-Shirt”, McNaughton painted the cover of Everybody Talks About The Weather – like the album’s music, the image of a coy girl in a white dress is an uncanny amalgamation of styles, suggestions and references just out of reach, as though seen in an art museum in a dream.
The album ends with two reads of the same frustration. “King of Nothing” is the closest The Yummy Fur will ever get to sludge-rock: the band melts together into a dusty, dreary haze as McKeown drowns in a drudgery of personal struggle (“Two jumpers on in Babylon/And only cats to talk to”) and the rhythmic toppling of heroes (Rowlands, Duvall, Munro). The majority of visible dirt is cleaned off for “Say Hello”, an uncharacteristic depiction of throwing the windows open after a dark night of the soul. Here, the situation is still cold and hard (“When the sun burns gold, but the heat never reaches your fingertips”) but it feels surmountable. Everybody Talks About The Weather is an unpredictable album from an unpredictable group, but ending on a moment of almost uncomplicated light is maybe its biggest surprise. - Claire Biddles (2026)

The Yummy Fur’s first album of new material in over 25 years is seductive and ambiguous; a fast-paced flip through scenes from art, myth, life and fantasy; a witty whole made from glittering scraps. The band’s original incarnation – fronted by singer, songwriter and guitarist John McKeown from 1992 to 1999 – morphed from making quick-hit cartoon-art songs to Eno and Cale-influenced creepers, populated by characters from McKeown’s life in Glasgow and the films, books and poetry that he lived a parallel life through. Everybody Talks About The Weather delights in using every past iteration of the band as potent collage material: a melee of sounds and ideas existing at once, revealing themselves then dipping back into hiding.
Recorded by the original core trio of McKeown, Brian MacDougall (guitar) and Paul Thomson (drums), Everybody Talks About The Weather comes 17 years after the band reformed for sporadic live shows, and seven years after the release of their sorta-greatest hits compilation Piggy Wings (Rock Action). Ten tracks long with nothing to spare, it is as condensed and vital as their best songs, with a new clarity of sound that allows their ambiguities to come into the light.
The album begins with “Cogs”, a taunting inquisition from within. As McKeown stages a fight between his id and ego, the tension heats up between conversational guitar lines and minimalist repetition; threatening sing-song melody and real, palpable menace. The band members are forced in tandem only to break apart, sustaining a genuine sense of just-hidden danger throughout the whole record – except, arguably, “Headphones”, a looser moment which sees McKeown make an existential something out of nothing while waiting for someone in the car (“I should have brought a book.../My ears are bleeding from the compression on your album”)
The songs are riots of reference: “Unity Over Europe” is a slyly complex two act play about the Mitford sisters – Diana, Unity, and Nancy, in a wink to the YF canon – smashing tragic biographical detail together with allusions to Thomas Pynchon and Francis Bacon. Pynchon is also lifted to serve “Blue Sunshine”, a collision of school shooters, serial killers and fictional fuck-ups (“Fast forward to Compton/Fast forward to Pynchon/Fast forward to Columbine'”) whose buzzy guitar lines are taunting and confrontational like a smarmy teenager. The innocuous title of “My Lasagne” belies a song that exists in several time periods at once: a visit to see Guernica, 50 people with their backs to the portrait of Dora Maar; the time that Picasso painted from; the Reina Sofia and the dirty streets of the Malasaña; myth-making musicians and the myths they’re riffing off overlapping and leering at each other.
All this could be laboured in lesser hands, but cultural verbosity is second nature to The Yummy Fur, who transform all this source material into songs that are weird, sexy, funny and absurd. Meaning is not happily understood or flattened. Susan Sontag's essay Against Interpretation accompanied McKeown as he wrote this album, and she’s paraphrased in “Semolina Ballerina”, the album’s justification of artistic ambiguity. Thomson’s motorik beat leads a gathering of back-and-forth instrumental phrases – including a wiry contribution on saxophone – embodying the futility of trying to parse something definitive from repeated action. “Listen to the very first thing that’s in your head,” Sontag-via-McKeown commands directly, then slinks sideways: “Interpretation is a conversation in an unmade bed”
The album features two more focused portraits, or at least The Yummy Fur’s version of such a thing. “Wanda” merges the life of filmmaker Barbara Loden and the title character of her semi-autobiographical 1970 feature film, with Loden’s then-husband Elia Kazan joining the fray of no-good men in her film. It’s a mix of adaptation and avant-criticism, with McKeown’s wordplay and mannered pronunciation mirroring the way that non-fiction and fiction twist around each other in the song. The title track is a series of vignettes and impressions from the lives of the band’s ‘90s inner circle, positing painter Mac McNaughton as a kind of Falstaffian ringleader. As with Piggy Wings and the recent single “New T-Shirt”, McNaughton painted the cover of Everybody Talks About The Weather – like the album’s music, the image of a coy girl in a white dress is an uncanny amalgamation of styles, suggestions and references just out of reach, as though seen in an art museum in a dream.
The album ends with two reads of the same frustration. “King of Nothing” is the closest The Yummy Fur will ever get to sludge-rock: the band melts together into a dusty, dreary haze as McKeown drowns in a drudgery of personal struggle (“Two jumpers on in Babylon/And only cats to talk to”) and the rhythmic toppling of heroes (Rowlands, Duvall, Munro). The majority of visible dirt is cleaned off for “Say Hello”, an uncharacteristic depiction of throwing the windows open after a dark night of the soul. Here, the situation is still cold and hard (“When the sun burns gold, but the heat never reaches your fingertips”) but it feels surmountable. Everybody Talks About The Weather is an unpredictable album from an unpredictable group, but ending on a moment of almost uncomplicated light is maybe its biggest surprise. - Claire Biddles (2026)

Following the much-loved Library Music: Volume One (2022), and hot on the heels of this year’s critically acclaimed ‘After The Rain, Strange Seeds’ (9/10 - Uncut) , London group The Leaf Library return with a second journey through the margins of their catalogue. Gathering together rare recordings, compilation tracks, limited edition releases, collaborations and hidden gems from their ever-expanding musical world, Library Music: Volume Two is another vibrant and varied collection of electronic indie pop, in all its guises.

Far from a conventional odds and ends collection, the double LP compilation reveals another side of a band who have always treated the spaces between albums as places to explore. These are the moments where ideas stretch out; there are hypnotic drones, motorik rhythms, glowing analogue textures, pastoral electronics and the warm, melodic melancholy that has become unmistakably The Leaf Library. There is the electro-pop of Flowers At The Border, the psych rock-adjacent Building Better Worlds, and the gentle chamber shuffle of Kendrick Road. Tracks range from the 22 minute folk kosmiche epic Versatile Clouds to the 59 seconds, record skip punctuation mark of Harmonic Runout, with a whole array of trips, ideas and experiments in between.

Since forming in a pre-Ghost Box, Castles in Space and Clay Pipe world, The Leaf Library have carved out a unique place somewhere between dream pop, kosmische repetition and experimental songcraft — drawing comparisons to Stereolab, Broadcast, Yo La Tengo and the outer edges of library music, while creating a sound entirely their own.

“We’ve always loved making things outside the pressure of a ‘proper’ album,” says singer/guitarist Matt Ashton. “Singles, collaborations and compilation tracks give you permission to follow an idea wherever it wants to go. Looking back, those pieces tell their own story.”

Where their studio albums have shown the group carefully building immersive worlds, the Library Music series maps the pathways between them — the sketches, diversions and unexpected discoveries that often reveal the most about a band.

Across a lucky thirteen tracks, Library Music: volume two is a reminder that some of the best discoveries are found on the shelves you forgot to check.

[a] Flowers At The Border [4.21]
[b] The Long Dead King [7.16]
[c] Bowed Clusters [4.00]
[d] I Learned To Swim Under Water [4.32]
[e] Building Better Worlds [11.59]
[f] Harmonic Runout [0.59]
[g] Kendrick Road [3.36]
[h] Sailing Day (Wintergreen Remix) [3.59]
[i] Versatile Clouds [22.00]
[j] Bells and Thread [2.54]
[k] No Memories, No Plans [4.33]
[l] Everyone I Met Today [1.00]
[m] Tired Ghost In Orbit [9.19]

In 2024, Audrey Powne emerged as a compelling new voice in contemporary jazz with the release of her acclaimed debut album From the Fire; a self-produced and self-composed work celebrated for its lush string arrangements, soaring trumpet performances, and emotionally rich songwriting. Now, two years later, Powne returns with Bodies of Water, a bold and deeply introspective follow-up that continues her elemental exploration: from fire to water. An exploration of what it means to exist alongside others in an increasingly unstable world, Bodies of Water reflects on vulnerability, responsibility, and human interconnectedness. The album’s title and conceptual foundation were inspired by a passage from Caleb Azumah Nelson’s novel Small Worlds: “...to make himself a body, like water, a still surface, but beneath this, a ripple, and beneath this, an ebbing tide, and beneath that, a violent, constant tow…” Throughout the record, lyrics ruminate on the idea that like all bodies of water, we are vulnerable to disruption and catastrophe. Unlike inanimate bodies of water, however, we are conscious participants in both the damage and the repair. That tension between what we are made of and what we are responsible for became a grounding and harmonious thought. This album is a meditation on that idea, both in my personal life and in a broader, collective sense. Swollen, Broken Record, and Karma, reflect on moments of cruelty and error including her own that felt unbearable. Viewing them instead as forces moving through the landscape of a life, violent but temporary to survive their immediate impact. More socially conscious tracks Stay Awake, Creeds, RYV, and Two Sides confront frustration with political polarisation and the emptiness of language unaccompanied by action. The title and final track Bodies of Water brings these ideas together, reimagining both personal and societal upheaval as events shaped by bodies of water moving through the world destructive at times, transformative at others, and always in motion. Blending traditional jazz with Afrobeat rhythms, Dilla-inspired grooves, ambient textures, and expansive arrangements, Bodies of Water reveals the breadth of Powne’s artistic vision. The record moves fluidly between spiritual jazz, warped soul and rhythm-driven experimentation, while layered interludes and meticulous production thread its disparate influences into a unified and immersive sonic world.

Radically exploratory, Raphael Loher’s Figuren is an album shaped by process and experimentation. Guided by intuition, listening, and a deliberate distancing from his primary instrument—the piano—, the LP marks a decisive step in the Swiss pianist and composer’s artistic development, expanding his sonic vocabulary while maintaining a distinct and personal language.

Figuren draws on ten intimate concert recordings from Keemuun—Loher’s debut for Three:four Records—created during the pandemic and performed in his studio for just one or two listeners. This source material was subsequently developed during a residency in the Blenio Valley, where Loher deconstructed melodic elements, isolated individual tones, and extracted resonances, reassembling them into new configurations. The process generated around 30 initial pieces and also informed his sophomore album, Hug of Gravity, released by Hallow Ground in 2025.

In a further stage of transformation, Loher processed these fragments through a Revox B77 tape machine, subtly altering their pitch before digitizing and reshaping them once again. This iterative cycle of manipulation and recombination forms the core of Figuren’s sonic language.

Departing from the more structured frameworks of his earlier work, Figuren foregrounds experimentation as both method and aesthetic. The compositions range from finely layered rhythmic microstructures to sparse, evolving melodic fragments, each unfolding with a precise sense of restraint.

A powerful new track arrives on 7-inch, marking a collaboration between MAJOR FORCE PRODUCTIONS and DJ KRUSH, featuring the gentle, soothing vocals of guest singer Kyoko Koizumi.

This joint production by MAJOR FORCE PRODUCTIONS-comprised of K.U.D.O and Kan Takagi, two key figures who have helped shape Japan’s music scene-and the internationally acclaimed DJ KRUSH results in a single that vividly captures everyday scenes and the deeper layers of human emotion through diverse beats and floating electronic textures.

Conceived as a sequel to Kan Takagi’s 1997 release “LOVE THEME,” the track unfolds with a memorable melody expressing a sincere longing for love and freedom. Refined yet warm, it stands as a timeless piece of electric folk blues.

For this 7-inch edition, the track has been given a single edit, making it a special and essential release.

Courant Zéro is the new moniker of Montréal multi-media installation artist and Kohlenstoff label co-founder Maxime Corbeil-Perron, signalling his return to purely recording-based electronic music production following several years focused on award-winning experimental film and audio-visual works. Solari channels his cinematic sensibility and decade-long exploration of sound art and electroacoustic counterpoint into deep cuts of maximalist ambient electronica. Drawing on his early background as a pianist and jazz drummer, Corbeil-Perron weaves a fabric of melodic and rhythmic vectors with his unique timbral palette, intersecting modern composition, IDM, ambient, glitch, and noise on a debut album brimming with sonic detail and emotive resonance. A fixture of Montréal's sound art community as both creator and curator since the early 2010s, Corbeil-Perron's work has ranged from "hypnotic A/V onslaught" (FACT Magazine) to the "richly nuanced acousmatic journey" of his 2018 EP Polychrome (Bandcamp Best Contemporary Classical Of The Month), with earlier electronic and techno-adjacent projects like Political Ritual, Dresden, and Le poisson d'argent garnering accolades from avant-music outlets A Closer Listen, Silence and Sound, and Musicworks, among others. Courant Zéro mobilizes this cumulative wealth of explorative sonic experience in the service of distinctive compositional architectures and electronic music pathways that fans of Floating Points, Jan Jelinek, Squarepusher, Tim Hecker, and Oneohtrix Point Never should find compelling. Title track "Solari" opens the album with a cavernous ambient glitch-drone soundscape that envelops ever-shifting timbres of modular arpeggiation, serving as introduction to the clarion call of "En deçà du réel", an homage to video artist Manon Labrecque, where layers of interweaving melodic counterpoint played on Buchla and other synths slowly build to widescreen immersive intensities; "I have this vision of Labreque vibrating eternally between two frames of magnetic VHS tape_ the slow pace of the piece also inspired by Tarkovsky's approach to scenography" says Corbeil-Perron. "Strange Aorta" is ectoplasmic ambient with wistful melody lines transmuting along a central filament, awash in shifting waves of low-end and ricocheting tonal glitch, the title a reference to "the thumping rhythm beating around the main melody_and the heavy remnants of grief related to my father's passing and a brutal confrontation with my own mortality a few years back." Tracks like "La peau des dents" and "Eroding Us" are more firmly rooted in electroacoustic and aleatory systems music, where colliding loops are shaped into unstable flows of deconstructed slippage and reconvergence. Those two pieces bookend the album's pivotal center: the gorgeous piano digitalia of "Horizon n'arrête" and the skittering electronica of 9-minute opus "Unyeldd", its loping broken beat and cascading melodic glitter like a cluster of wind-up music boxes in a dappled forest _ and for Corbeil- Perron also partly inspired by now fellow Constellation labelmates Do Make Say Think: "I spent a lot of time rediscovering their records after seeing them last September 2024 which definitely influenced this piece." Courant Zéro's debut is a vibrant sonic rebus at the junction of electronic, electroacoustic, noise and ambient music that resists easy categorisation. Solari strikes a compelling balance of unsettled disorientation and hospitable warmth, teeming with real feeling throughout. The album's cover art painting Cryptography I by Yen-Chao Lin represents this prevailing sensibility, its mazelike circuitry distinctly carved and crisply rendered, while filigreed with handmade detail and artisanal patina. Thanks for listening.

The hardest part of ending is starting again.

After a seven-year hiatus following the devastating loss of their beloved bandmate, LINKIN PARK’S remaining members struggle to find their way forward. Their shared history and enduring friendship, combined with the fresh perspective of two new band members spark a renewed creative energy that leads them on a transformative journey of artistic reinvention.

Following the band from intimate 2022 studio sessions through their explosive November 15, 2024 FROM ZERO album release and concert in São Paulo, the film UNSHATTER weaves together rare vault footage, electrifying performances from sold-out shows, and candid interviews with band members and fans—capturing the raw, honest story of what it means to start over.

This accompanying Film Soundtrack (Live in São Paulo) features transcendent performances of songs spanning their entire career, including exclusive recordings not experienced in the film.

Baltimore's End It is telling it like it is on their debut album, Wrong Side Of Heaven, set for release this summer. The hardcore band has built a reputation through being unapologetically outspoken, playing fast, ripping songs, and putting on an electrifying live show. Now they're ready to enter their next era. Formed in 2017, the band consists of vocalist Akil Godsey, drummer Chris Gonzalez, guitarist Ray Lee, and bassist Patrick Martin. Signed to Flatspot Records, End It came out strong with the release of their self-titled EP the same year they started, and followed it up with 2020's One Way Track EP. In the summer of 2022, the band took the hardcore world by storm with their Unpleasant Living EP, solidifying the Baltimore outfit as one of the most exciting acts in the genre. Following the release, End It embarked on a packed touring and festival schedule across North America and Europe, playing alongside No Warning, Terror, Cold World, Drain, Speed, Angel Du$t, Scowl, and many more. The band's reach goes even farther with breakout single "New Age Slavery" featured on the soundtrack for Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 + 4. No matter where they are and what they're doing, End It is true to keeping things authentically them and that shines through on the forthcoming Wrong Side Of Heaven. Entering Salad Days Studio with renowned producer Brian McTernan (Turnstile, Snapcase, Hot Water Music) the band came in with a few demos and wrote the majority of the album during the two month recording process in early 2025. Taking direction from classic hardcore, thrash, and soul music, End It has crafted a 15 song magnum opus centered on "Spreading awareness of the change that's coming to Americans, personal growth, and maintaining the ethics and integrity of hardcore."

Although Shoot Your Shot sits slightly under the radar compared to Divine’s signature anthems such as You Think You’re A Man, I’m So Beautiful, Walk Like A Man and Native Love, this remix stands proudly alongside them. Liebrand injects the track with a driving Hi-NRG pulse, unmistakable Italo-disco flourishes and a powerful club groove, while Divine’s larger-than-life vocal performance and the unforgettable spoken-word alphabet breakdown remain front and centre.

On the flip, Liebrand delivers an inspired bonus, seamlessly blending the music from Divine’s worldwide club classic Native Love with the vocals from Shoot Your Shot, one of the artist’s biggest European hits. The result is a brilliantly executed hybrid that captures the excitement and creativity of the late-’80s remix scene while celebrating two of Divine’s most enduring recordings.

A rare glimpse into a golden era of European dance music and a testament to Ben Liebrand’s reputation as one of the most innovative remixers of his generation.

Named after a now-shuttered nightspot that overlooked the beach on Italy's picturesque Tuscan coast, Maxime Denuc's 'Club Imperiale' is a work of speculative historical fiction, a record that imagines a point of creative symbiosis between the Catholic church and the ecstatic dancefloors of the early '90s.
Using a MIDI-controlled pipe organ, Denuc creates dense clouds of impossible-to-play notes that ricochet backwards and forwards through history, from Rome's reverberant cathedrals to the white, sandy beaches of the Balearic Islands.
Two years ago, the Brussels-based French composer was forwarded a surprising video by a Belgian fan. It was shot during a Wedding at a church in Menorca, where the organist was playing 'Infinite End', the lead track from 2022's 'Nachthorn'. Immediately, Denuc knew that this was the thematic backdrop he'd been waiting for; he imagined the aftermath of the event, wandering through small villages and teetering on a cliff's edge, finding a provincial nightclub and retracing his steps back to the beach to witness the
sunrise.

With Flow Tide, Artefakt returns to their trusted Delsin homebase and continues where they left off with their last Brain Dripper EP from 2022; a flawless fusion of melancholic electronica and impeccable techno grooves. The A-Side emphasizes organic and mysterious atmospheres, strengthened by the rippling rhythms of the sea. The B-Side picks up the pace and presents two excellent, reverberating techno trips. It's a well-rounded package from Artefakt, as we know it, comprising many moods and sounds, molding them into its own unique universe. Flow Tide also also marks a significant change in their long-standing recording career. Having produced and performed as a duo since 2012, this is the first EP produced solely by Nick Lapien, marking a new chapter for the project as he continues Artefakt's live performances as a solo artist.

Two of the most prolific remixers in the world of Disco,Dave 'Love' Lee and John Moraleshave teamed up for one of their biggest projects to date - 'Mixed To The Maxxx'. After gaining access from the legendary original artists, the pair take the multi-track tapes of many classic Disco, Funk & Soul tracks and re-work them...to the Maxxx!

Where Remixed With Love stands as Dave Lee's own gold-standard body of work, Mixed To The Maxxx sets that legacy alongside Morales' own decades-deep M+M body of work: Lee brings his musically dense, groove-first touch to the likes of Harold Melvin, Syreeta, Lenny Williams and The Brand New Heavies, while Morales applies his extended, dancefloor-built M+M treatment and crushes the likes of Barry White, The Temptations and Loleatta Holloway, plus Dennis Coffey's breakbeat classic "Scorpio" for the DJs and collectors alike. Both work from original tapes, surfacing parts barely audible or entirely unheard in the source mixes, and both know when to let a classic breathe rather than bury it under modern production. It's a pairing a long time in the making. Lee and Morales first talked about working together around a decade ago, and getting Mixed To The Maxxx off the ground took five years of patient work: tracking down usable stems, securing approvals, and navigating a licensing landscape where much of the best material is now tied up with major labels increasingly cautious about clearing remixes. What's landed here is the product of that graft as much as the pair's shared ear for a great record, the sound of two people who know exactly what they're looking for and are willing to put in the time to find it.

A double 12" sampler in summer 2025 previewed the record's range. A bass-driven overhaul ofThe Brothers Johnson's "The Real Thing" and an extended mix of Philly legends Bell & James' "Livin' It Up (Friday Night)" showcased Lee's side, while an anthemic take on Inner Life's "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" and a tempo-lifted Light Of The World"London Town" flew the flag for Morales. Both drew strong early support ahead of the full LP.

Two of the most prolific remixers in the world of Disco,Dave 'Love' Lee and John Moraleshave teamed up for one of their biggest projects to date - 'Mixed To The Maxxx'. After gaining access from the legendary original artists, the pair take the multi-track tapes of many classic Disco, Funk & Soul tracks and re-work them...to the Maxxx!

Where Remixed With Love stands as Dave Lee's own gold-standard body of work, Mixed To The Maxxx sets that legacy alongside Morales' own decades-deep M+M body of work: Lee brings his musically dense, groove-first touch to the likes of Harold Melvin, Syreeta, Lenny Williams and The Brand New Heavies, while Morales applies his extended, dancefloor-built M+M treatment and crushes the likes of Barry White, The Temptations and Loleatta Holloway, plus Dennis Coffey's breakbeat classic "Scorpio" for the DJs and collectors alike. Both work from original tapes, surfacing parts barely audible or entirely unheard in the source mixes, and both know when to let a classic breathe rather than bury it under modern production. It's a pairing a long time in the making. Lee and Morales first talked about working together around a decade ago, and getting Mixed To The Maxxx off the ground took five years of patient work: tracking down usable stems, securing approvals, and navigating a licensing landscape where much of the best material is now tied up with major labels increasingly cautious about clearing remixes. What's landed here is the product of that graft as much as the pair's shared ear for a great record, the sound of two people who know exactly what they're looking for and are willing to put in the time to find it.

A double 12" sampler in summer 2025 previewed the record's range. A bass-driven overhaul ofThe Brothers Johnson's "The Real Thing" and an extended mix of Philly legends Bell & James' "Livin' It Up (Friday Night)" showcased Lee's side, while an anthemic take on Inner Life's "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" and a tempo-lifted Light Of The World"London Town" flew the flag for Morales. Both drew strong early support ahead of the full LP.

For over 11 years, Nowadays Records has been shaping the French electronic music scene with boundless energy and total artistic freedom. Much more than a label, Nowadays is a big musical family where every release, meeting and event becomes a real celebration. With over a hundred albums and nearly a thousand titles to its credit, Nowadays Records embodies musical diversity across a variety of genres: abstract hip-hop, house, electronica and alternative pop.



It's in this festive spirit that the Club Nowadays project is born, a true embodiment of the collective's vision. Through its club compilations and evenings featuring label artists and outside guests.



Today, the label continues to chart its course with the release of Club Nowadays Vol. 6, a new opus in its series of compilations, which fully embodies its vision of club music. This sixth volume brings together emblematic figures of the label and emerging artists around the following dance tracks.



Don't Lie, the first single from the compilation, is a heartfelt track born of a broken heart, but turned towards the light. Mira Ló composed this track as an act of resilience, following a break-up in love. She transforms her pain into positive energy, hoping that everyone can recognize themselves in it and find a little sweetness to soothe their own grief.



R1D1 brings together his groovy house and garage influences to create the track Marsupilami around a hand-crafted synth, sharp drums and deep bass. Influenced by hip-hop beatmaking, he incorporates vocals from radio and interviews, transformed into rhythmic elements. The name, a nod to the famous character, comes naturally through the sampled “houba houba”. Between offbeat textures and assertive groove, the track embodies R1D1's singular, hybrid universe.



OOGO & Blanka, two pioneers of the label, offer us Phô Real, a hybrid track between soulful deep house and hip-hop groove, mixing organic and digital textures. A track to get the dancefloor moving, with a delicious nod to La Fine Équipe's culinary universe.



With Tracksuit & Loafers, Yambow creates a bridge between groovy French Touch elegance and the effervescent energy of UK house, in the tradition of producers like Salute and Oppidan. The track is conceived like an acid cocktail: funky, euphoric and dancefloor-friendly. The title is a nod to cultural contrasts - between English tracksuits and French loafers - which translate into a musical interplay between sophistication and fervor.



Finally, Laaanky, the Parisian producer, breaks codes and gives free rein to his passion for raw sound, efficiency and groove on the track Bloom. Between textured house, dub echoes and Afro-tinged post-dubstep rhythms, he explores a danceable, minimalist and percussive electronica. Less is more.

There was an immediate buzz surrounding This Is What I Know About Being Gigantic, the 2001 debut EP by Seattle indie phenomenon Minus the Bear. It wasn’t the kind of viral interest that translated into a string of sold-out tour dates, but it meant that the tuned-in crowd eagerly anticipated their next move. To help stir up the excitement for their first proper full-length, the band followed up Gigantic with a promo CD featuring two tracks from their upcoming album, a short instrumental interlude, an exclusive new song, and a demo version of another album track. Packaged in a cardboard slipcase, it was the kind of cheaply manufactured promotional item that could be handed out for free at shows or thrown in as a bonus in online orders—a relic of the final years of the CD age before the advent of the iPod and mp3. The sampler CD was christened Bands Like It When You Yell “YAR!” At Them in a nod to the upcoming album Highly Refined Pirates.

While these kinds of promotional items typically had an ephemeral existence, filed away in some neglected binder of CDs or tossed out during one of the many apartment-to-apartment moves of the band’s principal demographic of urban twentysomethings, Bands Like It When You Yell “YAR!” At Them had a curiously persistent presence. Perhaps it was because it was packaged more like a proper EP than a sampler. It certainly helped that it was a free release, meaning anyone who came to a show likely walked away from the evening with the cardboard slipcase tucked in their jacket pocket. It’s also noteworthy that the EP showcased three songs from the back half of Highly Refined Pirates rather than the album’s live staples and fan favorites from side A. Whatever the combination of factors at play, “YAR!” took on a life of its own and was ultimately re-packaged in a jewel case and sold as a proper EP in 2004 in the wake of Highly Refined Pirates’ success. And now in 2026, it’s getting its first proper release on vinyl.

Opening with the driving beat, chirping guitars, and funky low-end of “Spritz!!! Spritz!!!,” Bands Like It When You Yell “YAR!” At Them quickly cements Minus the Bear’s foundation of sophisticated revelry, a spirit further emphasized in the Highly Refined Pirates title choice. Part of the Bear’s lore involves them playing their first show three days after 9/11, and just as New York City’s indie rock scene took a sharp turn towards nightclub debauchery and a rejection of ‘90s rock’s dour fatalism in the wake of the World Trade Center tragedy, so did the Bear turn away from the Seattle’s scene’s penchant for gloom and angst towards a cerebral after-hours pop sound. The inclusion of “Women We Haven’t Met Yet” helped elevate what could have otherwise been seen as an album deep cut into a lead track. The fact that these first two songs essentially served as preview singles over future Pirates hits like “Monkey!!!Knife!!!Fight!!!” and “Absinthe Party At The Fly Honey Warehouse” speaks to the high quality of every song the band cranked out in their early years. The EP’s exclusive track “Drop It Like It’s Hot” presaged Snoop Dogg’s mega-hit single of the same name by two years, but whereas Snoop leaned into restrained minimalism, the Bear unleashes some of their fiercest work here, building off of interwoven riffs and electronic layers to a climax of stabbing guitars and hollered vocals. Much like Nirvana’s Hormoaning EP, Minus the Bear’s Bands Like It When You Yell “YAR!” At Them was initially more of a marketing gimmick than a proper release, but given the popularity of the pivotal studio albums that stemmed from the same recording sessions, these extended plays serve as compelling companion pieces that have earned a special spot in their respective fanbases’ hearts. Suicide Squeeze is proud to offer Bands Like It When You Yell “YAR!” At Them on vinyl on September 18, 2026, nearly 25 years after the band’s first show.

Remastered for vinyl by Bernie Grundman with lacquers cut at 45rpm, this limited edition pressing of 1000 copies on Puget Sound-colored vinyl helps document and preserve the exciting early years of one of American indie rock’s most beloved acts.

Whirr and Luster have been orbiting each other for years, bound by a shared language of glide guitar, buried vocals, and volume as emotion. A through line that’s only deepened by Nick Bassett’s hand in producing and mixing the majority of Luster’s previously recorded output. The Whirr & Luster Split pairs one of American shoegaze's most storied bands with one of its most vital new voices across four new songs. Out on 12" EP, CD EP, and digital via Freewhirl Records. Splits are sacred territory for Whirr. More than a decade after the band helped define the modern heavy-shoegaze landscape, the Bay Area five-piece returns with its first new material in years. “Spiral Again” opens the record in classic Whirr fashion: an avalanche of guitar wrapped around a lyric about losing yourself in someone else’s gravity — spiraling, intertwining, coming down together. “Wish I Could Give You The World” follows, one of the most openly romantic songs the band has ever recorded, all wildfire imagery and dizzy devotion, desire rendered at full volume. Produced by Whirr and Zac Montez, both tracks find the band in signature form: enormous yet tender. On the flip side, Los Angeles' Luster continue their run as the standouts of the new shoegaze generation. Formed with the intent of pushing the genre forward rather than reenacting it, Luster fold electronic pulse and '90s texture into walls of glider guitar, and the two contributions here find the band in peak form. "Against the World" is a love song as a locked door — it's you and me, us against the world — claustrophobic and comforting in the same breath. "Forever" closes the record in a haze of doomed-romance repetition, a mantra of do you feel it now dissolving into the knowledge that nothing lasts. Also produced with Zac Montez, the songs make the case plainly: Luster aren't students of the form. They're peers. Taken together, the four songs read like a conversation. About distance, obsession, and the ache of never being able to give someone enough — carried across two coasts and two generations of a genre that refuses to fade. Loud, longing, and gone too soon: the Whirr & Luster Split, out September 18th. Whirr and Luster celebrate the release and cement the collaboration with two shows — the only U.S. Whirr performances of 2026, with no shows planned beyond them. Each night features a unique set built from rarities and live debuts, alongside exclusive vinyl variants and merchandise available only in that room, on that night: 9/18 — Los Angeles, CA @ The Wiltern 9/20 — New York, NY @ Brooklyn Paramount Two nights, two coasts, and no telling if there’s a next time — for the songs, the pairing, or the band itself.

You have to wonder why Railcard took so long to be born: their debut album feels like it should have been in your collection for years.


But it wasn’t until 2025 that Rachel Love (Dolly Mixture), Ian Button and Peter Momtchiloff (both Heavenly) met at a gig, realised that they were exactly the same age, and decided that this was an excellent reason to form a new band. The shared history, the same pop references, the parallel lives… Railcard had to happen, and there was no time to lose. Two Steps At A Time - the album title and theme song - express exactly how quickly Railcard have worked since then - jumping over pavement cracks and whistling past graveyards to get these songs written, recorded and released while they are still sweet and fresh.


The band released three digital EPs in early 2026, which were then gathered onto a CD and released by Skep Wax and Slumberland. They sold out very quickly. The critical response to a mail-order-only CD was far greater than anyone expected.


Railcard made their live debut in December 2025 and had by then recruited their fourth member: Allison Thomson (Trash Can Sinatras, The Love Band), whose flawless trumpet and swirly keyboard-playing complete the Railcard sound, allowing the band to fulfil the significant ambition and range of the songs, which are mostly co-written and often co-sung by Love and Button. “Flannelette” and “Sunday Sun”, delicate and swoony, could almost be Slapp Happy at their most Bacharach. “Foxy”, mysterious and charming, has more than a hint of Kate Bush December magic. The raucous duet “I’m A Disaster” is The Kinks meets deadpan Shangri-Las. The title track could have been an alternative theme tune for Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads. “Runaround” is like a school choir doing The Raincoats. “Unstable Neighbour” is mesmerising and insistent: it might make you think of Stereolab; we might imagine an indiepop Hawkwind. Peter Momtchiloff also contributes two wonderful songs on the album: the fragile and hallucinatory “Paper Thin” and the Love-meets-Undertones rush of “Hillman Minx”.


As with the first EPs, Railcard enlisted the sonic services of Medway psych expert Allan Crockford (of The Prisoners, James Taylor Quartet and many more) who has delivered mixes that pump with vintage valve energy and reverby depth.


Railcard have a string of UK dates through the summer and Autumn.

Pioneering Ghanaian musician King Ayisobareturns September 4, 2026 with his forthcoming seventh album Pure Confusion, recorded and produced by On-U-Sound’s Adrian Sherwood.

Ayisoba is one of Ghana’s most distinctive musical voices. The world’s foremost player of the kologo - a homemade two-string lute fashioned from a calabash and covered in goatskin - he delivers fiercely political and socially observant songs using three different voices, including the voice of his grandfather that possessed him as a child. Sherwood meanwhile is the pioneering British producer and founder of On-U Sound whose hugely influential career has connected dub, post-punk, industrial, hip hop and experimental music through collaborations with artists including Lee “Scratch” Perry, Mark Stewart, Horace Andy, Sinéad O’Connor, Nine Inch Nails and Depeche Mode.

Ayisoba and Sherwood first collaborated during a BBC Radio 3 Late Junction session at Maida Vale in 2017, organised by Ayisoba’s long-time collaborator Arnold de Boer/Zea of The Ex. The pair immediately connected, and during the pandemic, when Adrian’s long-time African Head Charge collaborator Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah was in Ghana looking for musicians to collaborate with Sherwood suggested Ayisoba, who eventually featured on two tracks on African Head Charge’s 2023 album A Trip To Bolgatanga (Bolgantanga is the region Ayisoba is from). Ayisoba then returned to the UK in late 2024 and travelled to Sherwood’s Ramsgate studio where the pair laid down the songs that would become Pure Confusion: “All the songs were already in my head,” says Ayisoba. “This album is all recorded live, over one afternoon. Adrian only plays live, and I like that. And he works hard - he doesn’t sleep. I woke up in the night and he was still working.”

“In my role producing it, I just let it roll to make a good vibe,” says Sherwood. “We recorded it completely live, did some programming and processing on some tracks, using dub techniques live on the mixing desk and adding some slick touches. We wanted the colours on the album to swing off what Ayisoba was doing, so we invited some friends to participate. Doug Wimbish (Sugar Hill Gang) arrived from America and lent his services playing bass on a couple of tracks; the wonderful Ivan Hussey (Celloman) played bass, keyboards and cello - cello is not really featured on African recordings so we thought it would be really cool to try it. I'd been working with Alex White (Fat White Family/Primal Scream) on my album (The Collapse of Everything) and so he added sax to a few tracks and I brought Alan Glenn down especially - Alan was in Little Axe but also Nine Below Zero and played in the Yardbirds – to add some mouth organ; Mark Bandola added a bit of flavour with his Juno, Ayisoba’s long-time Ghanian collaborator Ayuune Sule added some percussion and vocals and Matt Smith did some programming.”

“King Ayisoba is quite amazing, so unique,” Sherwood continues. “He’s got his own handmade instrument and three different voices - when you’re listening you think it’s three different people. He’s a breath of fresh air, full of love for the music which he wants to share with everybody. Some tracks we kept very straight and others we experimented with - adding dubby psychedelic little touches to trip you out a bit. The added production we did at On-U has given it a shine while still keeping it vibrant, live and spontaneous. I’m really proud of this record”.

On Pure Confusion, Ayisoba documents the anxieties, contradictions and changing social realities of contemporary Ghana. “Land is a problem for everyone,” says Ayisoba of the opening track “Property”. “If you don’t build on your land they will take it away. Plenty corruption in Ghana, plenty confusion. They sell the land to two, three, four people and then everybody fights.”

Elsewhere Ayisoba explores illness, spirituality and social stigma on “Bemba”, warning against hiding sickness out of shame or fear of “bad juju”: “People hide their sickness and the sickness kills them.” “Tewigiloge” reflects on cultural difference and open-mindedness encountered through world travel: “We will tour the whole world and we will see many things we may not like or understand… your eyes will see, but don’t talk - you have to be open-minded.”

Spirituality runs deeply throughout the album. Ayisoba’s grandfather was a respected spiritual healer whose presence the musician says still guides him today. “The grandparents’ spirits are the ones you can contact,” he explains of the spiritual chant “Nkaase”. “This song talks about the forefathers.” The closing track “Leeda-Mampanga (It’s Not My Strength)” acts as a statement of humility and gratitude: “You have to be humble, even if you have talent. God gives you the power.”

For more than two decades, King Ayisoba has been one of Africa’s most distinctive musical innovators, transforming northern Ghanaian kologo traditions into a bold contemporary sound rooted in hypnotic rhythms, social commentary and spiritual intensity. Since the breakthrough success of 2006’s Modern Ghanaians, Ayisoba has built an international following through acclaimed albums, relentless touring and collaborations with artists including Lee “Scratch” Perry, Orlando Julius and African Head Charge. Performances at Roskilde, WOMAD, Le Guess Who? and the Barbican have further cemented his reputation as a singular live performer and cultural force.

From Berlin to Lagos: Jembaa Groove expand their sound on "Be A Lover"

Berlin-based outfit Jembaa Groove return with "Be A Lover", a four-track EP set for full release on 18 September via global soul imprint Agogo Records. Following two critically acclaimed albums and an intensive period of touring across Europe and the US — including a SXSW showcase and a widely acclaimed KEXP session — this latest release marks a new chapter in the band’s trajectory. Built around highlife rhythms and shaped by Afro-jazz and the more organic edges of Afrobeats, "Be A Lover" unfolds with a warm, languid and deeply soulful feel, capturing different strands of today’s multifaceted Afrofusion scene.

Here, the band strips back from a seven-piece ensemble to its two founding members, while at the same time opening outward into a deeply collaborative space. At its centre is a close creative partnership with celebrated Nigerian highlife revivalists The Cavemen., alongside contributions from London-based, Nigerian born soul artist Azekel, Lagos vocalist Tim Lyre, and Malian icon Fatoumata Diawara.

“This record has a different flavour,” says Owusu. “It’s really about collaboration — different feelings, different thoughts, different energies coming together.” While centred around the Lagos contemporary scene, the record is shaped by a wider diasporic network stretching across London, Lagos, Berlin and Amsterdam, cities producer and bass player Yannick Nolting describes as “the pillars where everything that is happening in today’s highlife and Afro-fusion scene.”

Formed in Berlin in 2020, Jembaa Groove began after a chance meeting between bassist, producer and composer Yannick Nolting and percussionist, vocalist and songwriter Eric Owusu. Drawing on their respective musical journeys — Nolting’s years working with Lusophone artists in Lisbon and Owusu’s deep roots in Ghana’s highlife tradition, including work with Pat Thomas and late highlife legend Ebo Taylor — the project quickly took shape: their debut album Susuma established a powerful, poly-rhythmic sound grounded in highlife, jazz and soul, while 2024’s "Ye Ankasa | We Ourselves" expanded that vision through collaborations with artists across Ghana and its diaspora, including UK based Ghanaian singer, rapper, percussionist, and arranger K.O.G and legendary Ghanaian highlife musician Gyedu-Blay Ambolley.

The collaborative spirit continues on "Be A Lover", most of which grew out of a meeting with sibling duo The Cavemen. at Supersonic Jazz Festival in Amsterdam in 2023, leading to a sustained exchange of ideas between Berlin and Lagos. With two acclaimed albums behind them, The Cavemen. have emerged as central figures in both Lagos’ alternative music scene and the wider contemporary highlife revival, bringing the genre to a new generation through a stripped-back, melody-driven sound. “There was some kind of magnetism towards Lagos,” says Nolting; for Owusu, who is Ghanaian but spent much of his life in Nigeria, the connection runs even deeper. “I feel lucky to be able to bring different cultures together and make something really beautiful,” he says. A key part of that process was a close working exchange between Nolting and The Cavemen.’s Kingsley Okorie, who effectively stepped into a co-producing role on three out of four of the tracks.

The one exception is opener No Pain No Gain, which features Nigerian-born, East London-based Azekel, whose smooth, R&B-leaning vocal moves through a slow-burning arrangement of bright keys, gently rising horns and atmospheric synths, anchored by Owusu’s organic percussion.

The title track Be A Lover, featuring Afro-fusion Lagos artist Tim Lyre, distills the EP’s central message into its most immediate form. Backed by syncopated percussion and a gently smouldering arrangement, Lyre’s voice moves with a laid-back, melodic ease, delivering a simple refrain: “be a lover, not a fighter.” “It’s a very simple message,” says Nolting, “It’s about showing more love, on a personal level but also more broadly… just show love.” That same sense of warmth runs throughout the record, reflecting its core idea.

On Obi, The Cavemen. take centre stage, with Kingsley Okorie leading through melancholic, plaintive vocals rooted in classic highlife. In contrast, his brother Benjamin James punctuates the track with high-pitched vocal interjections, heightening the emotional tension against a backdrop of slow, restrained instrumentation.

Waka follows with a more melodic, hook-led refrain from Eric Owusu, whose loose, almost conversational delivery creates a striking contrast with Fatoumata Diawara’s unmistakably powerful, raspy vocal. The collaboration grew out of a chance meeting while Owusu was on tour, with ideas exchanged quickly and Diawara returning a finished vocal within days. “We are so proud to have her. It’s a privilege” says Owusu. "Be A Lover" is a record shaped by connections like these — between people, scenes, and cities. “It was partly intention, partly destiny,” says Nolting. “We met these people along the way, and somehow Lagos was meant to come into our path.”

Shaped in the shadows and sounds of the legendary Topanga Canyon, California. The debut album from Biita Houdei is buoyed by a magic that feels wildly and beautifully untamed; wild-hearted sentiments that are shaped by the world around it, fascinated by the enchantment of it all, and delivered via a collective (harmony layered) voice that understands the complex nature of what it means to be alive in the here and now.

Produced by Haley Heynderickx, 'This Bed Was Made For Me' is a striking collection of stirring, signature folk songs animated by subtle instrumentation and orchestral flourishes. It feels lived in: vocals weave together in a beautiful harmonic dance, seasons shift, sunshine appears and bold psychedelic colours warm the horizon.

In the early stages of making her debut album, Biita Houdei knew two things: that she wanted the recordings to feel distinctly and palpably warm, and that she would sew a unique patch for every song on the album. The first of those things is subjective, though brightness pours in from all corners of This Bed Was Made For Me. The second became a laborious task she undertook throughout the process, the completion of which is testament to the slow process of it all, to the physical commitment and patience required to make a full work of art.

The patches she crafted during the making of This Bed Was Made For Me became a full quilt, one that now adorns the album’s front cover. Beneath it sits a striking collection of Houdei’s stirring, signature folk songs, brought into fruition with the help of fellow songwriter Haley Heynderickx, in her first lead production role, and the album’s producer/engineer Sahil Ansari. It’s also the first release Biita (pronounced “bee-tah”) is releasing under her newly-taken name, one that was gifted to her by her auntie and means "unique" in the Farsi language. “I proudly take this name,” Biita says of the change. “It makes me feel that much closer to my Persian heritage.”

Recorded across ten back-to-back and full days, the album touches on themes of love and heritage, of taking chances, the preciousness of time and the impact we all have on the world around us. A number of the songs were written in Topanga, California, while Biita settled into a new home as wild fires raged, and as she adjusted to a life which no longer held distinct seasonal changes, far from the Ozark Mountain home she felt so attached to. Such themes reveal themselves in a variety of ways across the album’s fourteen songs, that key sense of warmth retained in the bones of the album whether they are stepping into darkness or seeking out light.

The album feels lived in and alive; dust swirls, seasons shift, sunshine appears and is held. Biita calls it ‘psychedelic’ and there is indeed a sense of that in the world building, in the way the bold colours are always shifting. Formed of fourteen songs, and filling nearly forty-five minutes, This Bed Was Made For Me not only builds a whole world for listeners to inhabit but also implores you to stay a while. This was deliberate, indeed it’s Biita’s wish that listeners give the album dedicated time; to learn its shape, to explore it fully, away from the instant grab of playlists and skewed algorithms.

“Many of my favourite albums didn’t reveal themselves instantly to me,” Biita, now based in the Catskill Mountains of New York, explains. “Some did, of course, but I had to work to understand the full scope of the piece as a whole. I encourage people to dive deeper into everything that they choose to consume. It is not my intention to sound pretentious, but instead, I am trying harder to explain the gratitude I have for being able to craft every part of this album— using my hands, my brain, my voice, my visions. To me, it is an all encompassing work of art,” she continues. “Making the quilt was laborious. Taking the cover photo was laborious. No shortcuts, but rather a manual and tangible approach. I am thankful for the time it took.”

Formed in New York City in 1993 around singer, guitarist and songwriter Chris Leo, the band emerged from the same fertile underground scene that gave rise to many of the most influential post-hardcore, indie rock and emo acts of the decade. Yet while many of their contemporaries went on to achieve wider recognition, The Van Pelt chose a different path: one built on artistic independence, restless experimentation and a stubborn refusal to fit comfortably into any scene or trend.
Across two landmark albums — Stealing From Our Favorite Thieves (1996) and Sultans Of Sentiment (1997) — The Van Pelt developed a singular language that combined intricate guitar interplay, spoken-word intensity, literary lyrics and emotional depth. Their music occupied a unique space between post-hardcore urgency, indie rock invention and the introspective sensibility that would later become associated with emo, influencing generations of musicians while remaining largely outside the spotlight.
After disbanding in 1997, the band's reputation continued to grow. What began as a well-kept secret among underground music fans gradually became a touchstone for listeners searching beyond the obvious narratives of 1990s alternative rock. Reunions in 2009 and 2014, the release of the long-lost Imaginary Third, and a series of acclaimed live performances introduced their music to a new audience while reaffirming their enduring relevance.
In 2023, The Van Pelt returned with Artisans & Merchants, their first collection of new material in more than twenty-five years. Rather than revisiting old formulas, the album expanded the band's sonic vocabulary while preserving the qualities that made them unique: curiosity, intelligence, vulnerability and an unwavering commitment to following their own instincts.
Now, more than three decades after their formation, The Van Pelt are set to return in 2026 with Remain Obscure, their fifth studio album. Continuing their tradition of defying expectations, the record pushes beyond the familiar boundaries of the band's sound while embracing the same spirit that has defined them from the beginning. A band whose influence has consistently exceeded its visibility, The Van Pelt remain one of independent music's most enduring and rewarding secrets.

Remastered limited edition double vinyl with double-sided screenprinted poster-cover (sleeve folds out to be one huge poster). A real collectors item!

When Off Off came out around June 1984, one couldn’t speak of an independent music scene in Portugal. Warm Records’ vague existence didn’t have any impact and Dansa do Som’s inaugural release appeared only in December. 10 years after the revolution, after two IMF interventions, a lot of political instability (not to say turmoil, in the first couple of years) and the natural excesses of a sudden burst of freedom, the Portuguese consumer had more choices but a generally poor standard of living. There was no entrepreneurial culture and serious second thoughts about investing private money in risky ventures.

After many complaints about the whole music scene (institutions, critics and record label executives, popular and classical music alike), something that would continue well beyond the end of the decade, Telectu decided to finance, record, produce, release and sell an album with complete independence from outside structures. Their karmic reward was profit. According to Vítor Rua, Off Off was the only album fully payed by the duo and the only one that really payed off. Not an easy accomplishment for a double LP housed in a large (also double-sided) screenprint with complicated cuts and folds. The artwork was conceived by António Palolo, a friend and multidisciplinary artist. It was based on a collage of heavily saturated and xeroxed polaroids framed in shocking pink and green. Palolo was considered the third member of Telectu, regularly producing slides, video and other visual support for their shows. The inspiration for the type of cover came from GRM’s Gramme series.

Off Off is divided in four distinct sides, each one corresponding to a “theme” or “function” related to Telectu’s manifold artistic interests and interactions. The titles are also gateways to influences and a small portion of Portuguese cultural life:

- Side 1 / “Diagonale” is dedicated to Egídio Álvaro, art critic and gallery director (he opened Diagonale in Paris). Performance art was arguably his main artistic concern over the years, so the music on this side is suggested for use by one or more performers in live or playback situations. The three tracks segue into each other, linked by a synth arpeggio much in the same way as Telectu’s previous “Belzebu” álbum (1983);

- Side 2 / “Anarké” is dedicated to the composer Filipe Pires, one of Jorge Lima Barreto’s recurring invocations when asked about worthwhile contemporary music in Portugal. It is subtitled “concert music”, proposing «a new form of listening». Three tracks also, and these are separated by “clap interludes”, which basically consisted in the following: JLB and VR each had a pair of headphones on, and they clapped their hands according to the rhythm of the music each one was listening. Both musicians were interacting with a different Steve Reich piece: Vítor with “Music for Mallet Instruments”, Jorge with “Six Pianos”. The result is disjointed clapping, an awkwardly deliberate celebration of their own music. Telectu applauded themselves.

- Side 3 / “Cornucópia” is subtitled “music for theatre” and dedicated to Luís Miguel Cintra and Luís Lima Barreto (JLB’s brother), both connected to the Cornucópia theatre company. The side consists of several short pieces previously used as interludes in the Cornucópia staging of “Mariana Espera Casamento” (1983). Field recordings, mood pieces, ambience and a numeric poem (“Soneto Soma 14x”, by E.M. de Melo e Castro) read by João Perry, a quite well-known stage actor. His voice is treated with a flanger effect;

- Side 4 / “Palolo” is “video music”. It’s a one-take mix recorded from cassette sources (Telectu studio experiences) and done live while watching António Palolo’s Om film (1978) projected on the living room wall. It’s a deep, immersive, quasi-mystical 20-minute piece perfectly suiting the meditative, abstract, fluid images created by Palolo by mixing paint and water inside a bathtub. One imagines the Cosmos, hardly suspecting the technique. The film is 90 minutes long, so the music on the LP is of course edited.

The six titles on sides 1 and 2 evoke demons, all of them with conflicting symbolism, since it varies from culture to culture, religion to religion. No explanation is given and Vítor Rua has no idea where this imagery comes from. During virtually the whole stretch of the 1980s, Jorge was the one in charge of titles and concepts, and Vítor didn’t bother too much even reading the liner notes :) In any case, when you synchronize the listening experience with the imagery, a powerful impression emerges, a feeling of being in the presence of these entities while placing yourself inside the sonic narrative.

Off Off is undoubtedly a seminal album in the history of electronic music, as much Heldon as Fripp & Eno, jazz and American minimalism, cosmic out-thereness, mantric miniatures. Telectu at the height of their powers, still very early on, delivering an album-manifesto advocating intermedia art and the fierce independence of Portuguese musicians «from the scum of capitalist music industry monopolies. It’s a path to follow, albeit one that requires enduring hardships and retaliation from music industry gangsters.» Despite a few journalists deemed «capable of being free», the media are «enslaved by the dominant and fascist imbecility of the speculators of light music.» Off Off is addressed to those journalists «and to an audience angry at the cultural misery imposed upon us ..., certain that this music will open new horizons of musical pleasure in the conception of Portuguese avant-garde music, and in the open consciousness of us all. OFF OFF repeats Freedom.»

Those two words are a direct lift from Alberto Arbasino’s 1968 book Off Off, the basis of which is a critical analysis of Theodor Adorno’s and Dwight MacDonald’s ideas concerning the stratification of culture in different levels (high, mid and low) and the pervasiveness of mass culture in the form of a culture industry. In very simplistic terms, and that is precisely the point that inspired Jorge, Arbasino argued that it was possible and desirable to effect a revolution from below, cultivating alternative circuits completely cut-off from what he termed the in-in reality. Telectu’s record was a deliberate demonstration that it could be done, displaying Freedom in the face of all the gatekeepers and other human obstacles.

Dublin-born, thirty years an immigrant. That's the spine of henryohenry's debut, Apocrypha, not as a concept but as a condition. He's spent three decades in the United States working in the trades, absorbing the country's mythologies and building what he calls "an idiosyncratic American language" out of them, something closer to Whitman's vision than what he found. He is, by his own account, "formally and informally not a musician" — all but two of the songs were written on a $6 charity-shop guitar with a repaired headstock and strings that distorted unpredictably. It doesn't appear on the record. Produced by filmmaker Rick Alverson, the album is anchored by guitarist Eamon O'Leary and his son Ned Steves, recording together for the first time, without rehearsal. Erik Hall mixed and contributed overdubs; Emilie Rex of Lean Year lends harmonies to three songs; poet Callie Garnett appears on another. Album standout "There" captures something harder to name: how powerful feelings drive you to the page, and how the thing you make can outlast the feelings that made it. "It feels like a triumph over something," he says, "even if you're a bit embarrassed by some of the sentiment."


Apocrypha arrives as a debut but carries the patience of a life lived in full. For fans of John Cale, Nick Drake, Leonard Cohen.

Two years after his breakthrough debut Drifter established him as one of the most authentic new voices in modern blues, Jovin Webb returns with Son of a Sinner, a raw and powerful follow-up on Blind Pig Records. Produced once again by multi-Grammy winner Tom Hambridge and recorded in Nashville, the 11-track collection finds the Baton Rouge native digging deeper into his Southern roots, where swampy blues, gospel fire, and gritty Southern rock collide. Across songs of temptation, consequence, and hard-won redemption, Webb confronts his past, owns his vices, and reaches for salvation even when he knows he might fall short—capturing the tension between Saturday night and Sunday morning. Son of a Sinner is Jovin Webb at his most revealing: blues music that doesn’t just tell the stories, but lives them.

Seasick Steve returns with the last season of America. In 2024, Steve and his wife Elisabeth took a road trip across America where he witnessed the poverty and divisiveness in the context of the upcoming election. They were in a New Orleans club where a house band leader welcomed two Belgian musicians on stage by saying "welcome to the last season of America." This became the theme for the rest of their road trip and led to him writing the title track to the new album. A deeply personal, heartfelt reflection on the state of his home nation, The Last Season of America is a protest record in the truest sense.

"One of Britain's most beloved alt-rock acts returns. Twilight is the eighth studio album from Jesus Jones, and their most anticipated release in years, their first new record in eight years.
Since forming in 1988, Jesus Jones have sold over two million albums worldwide, scored eight UK Top 40 singles, and delivered one of the defining anthems of a generation. ""Right Here, Right Now"" topped the US charts in 1991 and remains a global radio staple to this day.
Twilight finds the five-piece, led by singer-songwriter Mike Edwards, venturing boldly beyond their comfort zone, while honouring the restless spirit that has always defined them: the collision of rock dynamics with the experimental freedom of dance music.
It's the sound of a band who know exactly who they are, and are thrilled to prove it all over again."

For any collaborative project to succeed, the artists involved need a creative unifier – a meeting point, if you will, of their disparate interests and experiences. In the case of Mondo Love & Betrayal, the joint project of Nottingham musical mainstays Neil ‘Nail’ Tolliday and Henry Claude Scott, there were two creative unifiers: a mutual love of classic 1980s synth-pop, as well as shared admiration for each other’s work.

Even so, such shared interests and respect for prior mutual endeavours is no guarantee of success. Yet as their eponymous debut album emphatically proves, the duo’s disparate experiences, characteristics and musical strengths have not only dovetailed beautifully, but also resulted in serious sonic gold. Put simply, Mondo Love & Betrayal is a stunning debut album rich in emotive songs, colourful melodies, atmospheric chord progressions and infectious grooves. Throw in the sun-splashed warmth and saucer-eyed, loved-up tactility of late 80s dance beats, and you have a breakthrough album whose timelessness is evident from start to finish.

The project’s roots lie in Tolliday’s desire to work with Scott, a virtuoso guitarist, talented producer and secret songwriter best-known for his work alongside Huw Costin as Torn Sail, and John ‘Ming’ Thompson as Brown Fang – both projects known for prioritising organic instrumentation and sunset-ready soundscapes over dancefloor-rooted beats.

Tolliday, of course, is one of British electronic music’s true polymaths – a long-serving house producer best-known for his long-running Bent project alongside fellow Nottingham resident Simon Mills. He initially approached Scott with the idea of providing vocals on a house track he was working on, but quickly suggested something else: an exploration of a classic synth-pop sound inspired by his love of Pet Shop Boys, New Order, Depeche Mode and the producers who worked with them – the likes of Martin Hannett, Arthur Baker, Stephen Hague and John Robie.

Scott accepted the invitation, seeing it as an opportunity to explore a different side of his musical personality. Their first recording session resulted in the ear-catching and memorable brilliance of ‘Correspondence’ – a tongue-in-cheek breakup song inspired by the death of landlines and the rise of mobile communications – and soon they were working on their debut album.

The resultant 10-track set is simply sublime, with Scott’s expressive delivery of his own lyrics on life, love, heartache and rejection working in perfect union with Tolliday’s kaleidoscopic and pleasingly authentic backing tracks – gorgeous and beautifully rendered instrumentals rich in memorable melodies, bittersweet chords, and subtle nods to ‘80s and early ‘90s dance-pop culture, from Shep Pettibone style remixes and Bernard Sumner guitar licks, to Beloved-esque piano parts and Chris Lowe chord progressions. Some listeners may also draw favourable comparisons with 21st century synth-pop practitioners, particularly Parcels, Private Agenda and the deeply emotive songs showcased by Junior Boys.

For proof, wrap your ears around such album highlights as opener ‘Boo Boo’, where Scott warns that “love and betrayal will haunt you” atop sparkling synths and Vince Clarke style grooves, the Behaviour-era PSB melancholy of recent single ‘Your Latest’, the mid-tempo dreaminess of ‘Beyond The Rainy City’, the early Depeche Mode chug of ‘Whatever Happened To Me’ and the tactile warmth of ‘Across The Plane’.

We could go on. In truth, the whole album is – in Scott’s words – “magical musical alchemy”. Wherever they choose to go next, Mondo Love & Betrayal is a seriously good sonic statement of intent.

2026 Repress

Deadbeat & Tikiman's occasional collaborative performances have since blown the minds of many audiences

Deadbeat. Tikiman. Infinity. Dub. A quadrangle of such obvious statement and perfect musical inference may very well never have been uttered for those of the wholly weeded out persuasion. Indeed, when the great book of Dub music is written the names Scott Monteith and Paul St Hilaire will undoubtedly figure highly in its chapters devoted to recent years. Monteith, the last great prodigal son of the doctrine handed down from the Blue Mount of Lord Scratch and King Tubby, St Hilaire the undisputed voice of a generation, those fanatical warrior monks, followers of the most Holy House of Ernestus and Von Oswald incarnate.

Having developed a fast friendship from their very first meeting in Montreal at the premier Micro Mutek event a decade ago, Deadbeat and Tikiman's occasional collaborative performances have since blown the minds of audiences from Berlin to Tokyo and many points in between. No great surprise then that their first album length venture is a Tour de Force of Dub music of the highest order.

Nearly a year in the making, the genetic code of Deadbeat's Infinity Dubs series gets shot through with a Dreader than Dread Kingstonian logic, hi hats dropping back from the three to the one, Tikiman at his most militant, poetic, fierce, and flowing. These are the recordings of two lions uncaged, and none who bare witness shall escape their fiery judgement.

If music is truly eternal, here be two voices which shall echo in infinity with all the weight, reverence, and dire power unleashed with every tectonic bass hit, and every whimsical turn of phrase. And if these eight burnt offerings are any indication of what happens when these two sit down for a session of smoke and reasoning, here's hoping they choose to do it frequently. Dub without end. Ad Infinitum.

Friends of Jesse Malin: I Would Do It For You – Vol. 1 brings together musicians from the worlds of rock, punk, Americana, and the underground to celebrate one of modern rock's most respected songwriters. "I've been a fan of Jesse Malin for decades now so I was thrilled when Valley Lodge was asked to be a part of the tribute album,”says Dave Hill. The song originally appeared on D Generation’s 1996 album, No Lunch. "'Too Loose' has always been one of my favorites—a great and timeless rock song that we had a blast re-interpreting." Produced by Lyle Hysen, Friends of Jesse Malin: I Would Do It For You Vol 1. is the first in a two-volume series of nearly 80 songs (!) recorded by Jesse’s friends and community. Proceeds from the album will benefit Malin’s healthcare as he recovers from a paralyzing spinal stroke. Vol. 2 will feature Thurston Moore, Willie Nile, and many more. "Friends, collaborators, and artists from every corner of Jesse's world wanted to be involved," says Hysen. "The songs just kept coming. What started as a single collection quickly grew into something much bigger, encompassing almost the entire Malinverse. We're excited that this is only the first chapter." The compilation features contributions from Amanda Cross, Bebe Buell, Trapper Schoepp, Valley Lodge, Danny Sage, James Maddock, Gogol Bordello, Ursa Minor, Sami Yaffa, Prima Donna, Das Damen, Rene & Grace Mata, Dead Milkmen, Cat Popper & Sasha Dobson, Robinlee Garber, The Seashore Sharks featuring Jesse and Alexei Sanoff, Derek Cruz, Jill Fiore, Matt Madly & Co., Davey La, American Dream, Joe McGinty, Randy Schrager, Stephen Chopek, Ben Foley, and Kelley Swindall. Friends of Jesse Malin: I Would Do It For You – Vol. 1 will be available digitally, on vinyl, and as a deluxe double-CD edition. The vinyl release features twelve tracks across two sides and includes a download code for the complete digital collection, while the CD edition presents all 26 songs across two discs.

A brainchild of YAKO440 & GODBODY108, 'Dub In Full' began with a series of studio visits between two artist-musicians who saw themselves reflected in each other's work. From those early conversations came an idea rooted in instinct and a shared reverence for musical innovation: a mighty dub reinterpretation of golden-era hip hop classics.

Texas trio Riley! channel the restless energy of Midwest emo into something raw, chaotic, and unmistakably their own on TO LIVE AND DIE IN THE AMERICAN SOUTH, their debut release for Pure Noise Records. Built on twinkly guitars, explosive hooks, and deeply personal songwriting, the EP captures the feeling of growing up isolated while searching for connection and belonging. Featuring guest appearances from Tades Sanville of Hot Mulligan, Eric Egan of Heart Attack Man, and Gabe Wood of Saturdays at Your Place, Riley! deliver a fearless and emotionally charged collection that positions them as one of emo’s most exciting new voices.