Das Wiener Kollektiv TAKESHI'S CASHEW präsentiert sein neues, drittes Album "Planet Odyssey 64". Nach weltweiten Tourneen mit ihren ersten beiden Alben, gönnte sich die Band eine kreative Pause und kehrt nun mit neuem Sound zurück. Der bisherige analoge Cosmofunk der Band wurde um Electro-Einflüsse erweitert. Die sechs Musiker experimentierten mit alten Synthesizern, ließen sich von vintage Computerspielen inspirieren und schufen so ein neuartiges Klanguniversum. Ihre besondere Spielfreude brachte die Idee für eine Art Konzeptalbum namens "Planet Odyssey 64" hervor. Zahlreiche Bands kreisen nach ihrem zweiten oder dritten Album um Fragen der Standortbestimmung - auch Takeshi's Cashew mussten eine Weiche stellen bzw. wollten ein Konzept: nun treffen - back to the 90s - Mittelalterwelten auf Game Boy & Nintendo 64. Wie die loopbasierten Klangwelten der ersten Konsolen oder die höfischen Tanzmusiken, arbeiten Takeshi's Cashew auf Planet Odyssey 64 ebenfalls mit zyklischen Figuren. Nicht nur 8-Bit-Games erzeugten ihre Atmosphären mit reduzierten Mitteln - auch die Wiener Instrumentalisten haben ihre Werkzeugkiste im Vergleich zum bisherigen Ouvre komprimiert. Di verwendeten Leitmelodien und Chiptunesounds gedenken Videospielikonen wie "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time" oder "Pokémon Saphir Edition". Das rhythmische Amalgam hingegen formt ein Hybrid aus synthetischen Elementen und organischen Bausteinen. Präsent im Klangraum steht ein vorwärts kippendes Krautrock-Gerüst samt E-Bass und Schlagzeug. Die zweite Säule übernimmt ein monophoner Bass-Synthesizer namens Roland SH-101. Völlig verabschiedet haben sich Takeshi's Cashew trotzdem nicht von ihrer originären Herangehensweise, dem Jam. So entstand z.B. binnen eines Tages der vibrierende "Operator" auf dem alten Moog-Synthesizer eines Familienmitgliedes. Im Kern dient diese Musik als Transzendenzapparat, die Hörer*innen kehren mit heiterer Verwandlung von dieser Odyssey zu sich selbst zurück. Möglich auf klarem Vinyl, als analoges Tape, auf CD im Digi-Sleeve oder als Album Digital.
(limited red vinyl, including poster / lyric sheet) 'The Way You Talk Reminds Me Of Home' is the second album by Belgian indie band BLUAI. Two years after their warmly received debut 'Save It For Later' and an extensive run of shows across some of Europe's biggest festivals and venues, the three-piece return with their most ambitious and immediate record yet.
Across eleven songs, BLUAI explore what it means to live somewhere between past and present. Conversations with family, friends, partners and people who resurface after years away become starting points for songs about childhood, love, grief, responsibility and the uncertainty of approaching thirty. Rather than a traditional coming-of-age record, 'The Way You Talk Reminds Me Of Home' is about figuring things out while you are already in the middle of them.
Produced by Isabel Gracefield (Adele, Dua Lipa, PJ Harvey, Radiohead...) and recorded at London's legendary RAK Studios, the album was made with a deliberately instinctive approach.
BLUAI much as they sound on stage: raw, direct and closely connected.
'Palle Mikkelborg (b. 1941) - a spiritual jazz legend, acclaimed composer, trumpet player and electronic music pioneer - is back in the studio recording his first solo album in more than 25 years. Working with him as a producer is Jakob Bro, with whom he has recorded the great ECM albums Returnings with Jon Christensen and Thomas Morgan, and Strands with Marilyn Mazur.
'"When Palle decided to stop touring and performing live, I suggested that we sit down together and listen through the many MiniDiscs and DAT tapes he had tucked away, hoping we might find a new direction for making music together. We went through everything - recordings of orchestras and choirs, soundscapes, and so on - material he had worked on throughout his career,” says Jakob Bro. “I can still remember the first time we said it out loud. Suddenly, it made perfect sense in my mind: a solo album. An album devoted entirely to Palle - his sound, his vision, his voice. It felt like something the world truly needed.”
'This final opus sees Palle Mikkelborg re-interpret and record his own orchestral works and two pieces by Per Nørgaard and Thomas Laub as 'meditations' on solo piano, trumpet and flugelhorn mixed with soundscapes and guest performances by longtime collaborators Helen Davis, Jakob Bro and Thomas Li.
'As a soloist his sound on trumpet and flugelhorn is both much loved and familiar after decades at the forefront of Nordic Music, but on Light one is struck by the weight Palle Mikkelborg has given his soundscapes and the grand piano. Forever curious on what's ahead, the album underlines his spiritual and ever-seeking approach to free improvisation, classical composition, choral works and experimental sound landcapes.'
SOULMEEX record label reaches its tenth release in less than two years with Bleib Yummy, the new EP by Nürnberg-based artist Schmidt in Rio.
Martin Schmidt develops a distinctive sound rooted in the spirit of electronic music’s golden era, blending italo, disco and house with a playful and unmistakably personal touch. His productions combine analogue textures, infectious grooves and a healthy dose of eccentricity, creating music that feels both familiar and unexpected.
With Bleib Yummy, Martin delivers a four-track EP that fits naturally into the SOULMEEX universe: raw but refined, playful but never superficial, and driven by the timeless energy of the dance floor.
More than five decades into one of Brazilian music's most remarkable careers, Joyce Moreno returns with a new collection of songs that reflect the warmth, lyrical sophistication and innovation that have made her one of Brazil's most defining musical voices.
Produced by Joyce Moreno alongside her husband and longtime collaborator Tutty Moreno, the album finds the Rio-born singer, guitarist and composer at her most reflective. Across nine beautifully crafted songs, Joyce pairs intricate guitar work, lyrical intimacy and effortless swing with the musical curiosity that has defined her work for more than half a century.
Invited into the studio by Roberto Menescal at just sixteen years old, Joyce emerged during a transformative period for Brazilian music, releasing her self-titled debut in 1968. She soon established herself as one of Brazil's pioneering female songwriters, writing unapologetically from a woman's perspective at a time when few women were afforded that voice. Her song “Me Disseram” sparked national debate, while later works including “Feminina” cemented her reputation as an artist unafraid to challenge convention.
While some of her politically charged songs were censored during Brazil's military dictatorship, Joyce continued to write with honesty and independence. After studying journalism in the late 1960s, her gift for observation and storytelling became an even more defining feature of her songwriting. Over the following decades she released a succession of acclaimed albums, including the now-classic Feminina and Água e Luz, earning widespread recognition both in Brazil and internationally. Antônio Carlos Jobim would later describe her as "one of the greatest singers", while generations of musicians have drawn inspiration from her fearless artistry and enduring originality.
That same artistic fearlessness remains at the heart of her latest work. The album brings together an exceptional ensemble of Brazilian musicians. Tutty Moreno's expressive drumming underpins Joyce's vocals and guitar throughout, while Jorge Helder's bass, Lula Galvão's guitar and Marcos Nimrichter's warm Fender Rhodes create a sound that is both intimate and expansive. Contributions also come from the legendary Toninho Horta, alongside José Arimatéa, Teco Cardoso, Nailor Proveta, Josué dos Santos and Raphael Sampaio, whose additions add colour and texture without overshadowing Joyce's understated brilliance.
Throughout the album, Joyce balances quiet reflection with effortless rhythmic vitality. “Chovendo na Horta” serves as both a heartfelt dedication and a celebration of Joyce's enduring musical connections, featuring the unmistakable guitar of Toninho Horta. Elsewhere, “Aldeia de Ogum” receives a fresh new arrangement by Nailor Proveta, revisiting one of Joyce's most beloved compositions. Originally released in 1980, the track has enjoyed a remarkable resurgence in recent years, embraced by a new generation of listeners and became an underground favourite among DJs including Floating Points, Four Tet and Danilo Plessow. Now a staple of Joyce's live performances, this reimagined version brings renewed energy to a song that continues to transcend generations.
At seventy-eight, Joyce Moreno continues to write with the same curiosity, generosity and quiet innovation that have defined her career from the very beginning. "For me, it's never too soon to try something new, either in music or in life," she reflects - a philosophy that gives both the album and its title their enduring sense of optimism. This latest album is neither a retrospective nor a reinvention, but the work of an artist who continues to refine her voice with remarkable grace, proving that her most compelling music remains firmly rooted in the present.
Following the album's release, Joyce Moreno will embark on a European tour this November, bringing her celebrated live show to audiences across the UK and Europe. A rare opportunity to experience one of Brazil's most influential and enduring artists in concert, the tour showcases a songwriter whose voice, virtuosity and musical vision remain as compelling today as ever.
TRjj is made up of several people that meet regularly since 2016. It is practiced collectively with interchanging names and roles, so the full control about disguised authorship would be guaranteed. Everyone involved was set to meet half way. TRjj is a filter for the kinship of many. Its the freedom attained, once you have gotten rid of yourself. This heteronomic practice would be ideal to advocate against reasons which are claimed, biographies that are scripted, economies that are fueled and histories that are written to be recognized as something apparently truly valid and fully finnished.
It’s that time of year again! Are your copies of “Now! That’s What I Ca l Christmas” and “A Motown Christmas” finaly feeling worn out? Strut has the ideal antidote this year, as we dive into the world of festive records made by African artists spanning the late 1960s to the 1980s with our new Krismasi: Christmas Sounds From Africa compilation.
Taking in music from across the continent from Nigeria and Ghana to South Africa and Zimbabwe, Krismasi draws from a wide range of sounds from fun novelty records and spur-of-the-moment jams to spiritual and gospel favourites. Featured artists include Ghanian great Kwadwo Donkoh with a meditative highlife praise song from his much-loved Christmas Africana album. Elsewhere, pop star turned pastor, Jerry Boifraind, has some fun with a song celebrating seeing friends at Christmas and Nigerian pop favourite Martha Ulaeto features with the lilting lead track from her own Christmas Africana release. We pick out some choice Central and East African sounds with Kakai Kilonzo’s bri liant Kilimambogo Brothers Band and Congolese legend Baba Gaston’s Orchestra Baba National capturing the joy of the festive season. We stop off in Zim for a rare Dorothy Masuka acoustic piece and one of the country’s great musicians post-independence, Paul “Dr. Love” Matavire with ‘Christmas Yaswedera’ (‘Christmas Is Near’). Township jazz star Reggie Msomi appears with a joyous township instrumental and, fina ly, we couldn’t release a Christmas co lection without some carols. Here we include here a great version of ‘Mary’s Boy Child’ by UK-based Nigerian highlife musician Flash Dominci and a hi-octane funky medley of favourite festive hymns by Ghana’s Oscar Suley.
The compilation is the first in-depth co lection of rare African Christmas recordings, uncovering a rich and often overlooked chapter of the continent's musical history. Krismasi is available on Red & White Inkplosion Vinyl LP and CD. Vinyl restoration is by Colin Young at See Why Audio, mastering is by Frank Merritt at The Carvery, and the album features striking new artwork by Liam Large.
“Cue Blue”, the latest and fifth studio recording from Australian down under, gritty jazzfunk grooves ensemble Kerbside Collection sees a return to a more classic, stripped back, meat-and-potatoes, home-cooked, quartet formation sound of guitar, bass, drums and brass.
A sound formed on previous, recent recordings (incl. Golden Rules compilation tune “Fleet Streak” etc), seemingly harking back to the approach of the group’s first recordings (2013’s “Mind The Curb”, “Night in Tunisia” etc), whilst embodying inspirations from more ‘true school’, classic, bluesy New Orleans funk and soul groove flavours à la early Meters, Boogaloo Joe Jones, Melvin Sparks, Billy Butler etc. But it’s not all completely ‘retro’ and ‘looking back’, the album definitely taps into some of the current exponents and leaders of the contemporary deep funk sound – The Greyboy Allstars, Eddie Roberts, The New Mastersounds, The Mighty Mocambos, Breakestra and fellow Aussie funksters Cookin’ on 3 Burners, Lance Ferguson and The Bamboos etc.
The lead single and first tune “Shivers” gives us a clear, picture and definitive opening statement to the record with all the characteristics you’ve come to expect from the Kerbside gritty jazzfunk sound: silky guitar line phrasing, rubbery bass-lines, tight crusty drum breaks, and sweet brass arrangements. Then it’s straight into a frenetic, jangly, mod-funk workout complete with Northern Soul & Motown inflections in the surging B sections. “City Park Avenue” conjures up classic New Orleans funk flavours with its strutting brass, slinky guitar and swinging tambourine groove. There’s classic, b-boy funk territory covered in “Coffee Grinder” (a breakdance move) with its razor-sharp drum break groove and chunky riff complete with sizzling trombone solo. Before the pace of the record changes up with the finger-clicken’, hand-clappin’ boogaloo, reminiscent of early 60s Harlem x Puerto Rican Bronx sounds (à la Willie Bobo, Mongo Santamaria, Ray Barretto) loaded with a scintillating baritone sax solo from long standing part of the collection ‘Papa Joe’ Roberts.
“Sittin’ On The Porch” cools the temperature down even more, delving into slight Southern Louisiana Delta blues territory, while suggesting some of the hot and muggy atmosphere and imagery of their home town location in suburban Brisbane Australia, complete with kooky Casio percussion representing familiar yard sounds such as sprinklers (spinning lawn watering devices) and ‘mozzies’ (mosquitos), passing cars indicated by trombone, and guitarist TC Tyler, channelling some bluesy John Lee Hooker, R.L. Burnside guitar flavours - you can almost feel the humidity on your skin.
Then it’s time for a stroll down memory lane, with their version of a People Under The Stairs hip hop classic “San Francisco Knights”, bringing the tune full circle back into band mode, also with another tasty guitar solo. The album then enters its final stages with a mesmerising, soulful, jazz ballad “Shimmer”, complete with Elliott Parker’s sultry upright double bass, and trombone taking the melody for a gentle stroll down the street. The album finally closes and arrives at its title “Cue Blue”, a classic blue-eyed soul number (penned by bassist Parker), emitting the scent of true school, vintage R&B and soul (à la Donny Hathaway, Marvin Gaye).
An album of funky arrangements and refined compositions, mostly penned by recent new-ish member, guitarist Tyler (for fans of Tower of Power & John Scofield guitar playing) taking the ensemble through their paces with all the usual characteristics of the Kerbside sound, on top a groove that will take you round-the-block-and-back :P Gritty jazzfunk and rustic soul grooves with definite bluesy overtones, some classic 60s, 70s flourishes and down-home funk flavours.
First run of limited black and white vinyl versions of this huge cold war themed classic. Includes Devil's Dancers amongst other tracks. Huge!!
Minimal Wave proudly presents a newly remastered deluxe double album of archival material by pioneering 80s minimal electronic duo Oppenheimer Analysis. Oppenheimer Analysis formed in London, England in 1982 by Andy Oppenheimer and Martin Lloyd. Their first meeting though was at the 1979 World Science Fiction Convention in Brighton. They quickly became good friends, sharing an interest in the work of David Bowie, electronic music and early synthesizer bands such as the Human League and Soft Cell. They also shared a love of old science fiction movies, 1950s graphics and comic book imagery and a fascination with post-World War II propaganda, the politics and aesthetics of the Cold War, and the social impact of the atomic bomb. Over the next few years Andy and Martin frequented the growing club scene, including Studio 21 on Oxford Street, and became involved in the developing Futurist and New Romantic style sub-cultures. During this period Martin recorded as Analysis, both alone and with David Rome of Drinking Electricity. They released their first single, 'Surface Tension/Connections' on David's Survival label in 1981. In 1982, Oppenheimer Analysis began writing and recording together at Feedback Studio in Battersea, and performed several times at The Bell, Islington, the 1983 World David Bowie Convention in Hammersmith, the Starzone Birthday Party at Camden Palace, the 1984 European Science Fiction Convention in Brighton and other live venues. Their first demo tape and twelve song 'New Mexico' cassette were sold at gigs and by mail-order, and were reviewed in Melody Maker, Sounds and Soundmaker.
For the years to follow, Oppenheimer Analysis became recognized among electro-music aficionados as a pioneering duo who influenced countless other bands during the club and home-recording era of the early 1980s and beyond. Their cassettes became massively collectible. In 2005 they re-formed with the release of a self-titled four song 12' EP of selections from the New Mexico cassette, including 'Cold War' and 'The Devil's Dancers'. This marked the first release on Minimal Wave. Now in 2015, we're happy to present the entire New Mexico collection, newly remastered and cut to vinyl for the first time ever, to celebrate our 10 year anniversary. This first edition of 1000 copies is pressed on deluxe 'nuclear' style black and white 160 gram vinyl, housed in a glossy gatefold silver and black printed sleeve, featuring all the song lyrics on the inside of the sleeve. Release date: May 16th, 2015. This quintessential reissue has been produced in loving memory of Martin Lloyd.
Freerange is delighted to announce the 20th Anniversary Edition of Jimpster’s seminal Amour — remastered and available on vinyl for the first time.
Originally released in 2006, Amour arrived at a pivotal moment in Jimpster’s evolution, as Jamie Odell moved further into electronic and house territory while retaining the lush, downtempo, and eclectic character of his earlier work. Two decades on, Amour remains a beautifully understated record, full of warmth, musicality, and late-night appeal.
„No Tourists“ wurde von Liam Howlett in seinem Studio in London-Kings Cross geschrieben, produziert
und abgemischt – auch wenn es sich, wie Liam betont, „durch und durch um ein Band-Album“ handelt.
Maxim und Keef Flint sind voll und ganz mit von der Partie und steuern ihre legendären Vocals zu diesem
siebten Studioalbum der Formation aus Essex bei. Zwar gibt es vereinzelt Gastbeiträge, doch im Kern
ist dies der Sound des Prodigy-Kerntrios, das sein explosives Klanggewand sowohl altem als auch neuem
Publikum präsentiert – fast drei Jahrzehnte, nachdem die Band mit dem epochalen Album „The Fat Of
The Land“ das Gesicht und den Sound der elektronischen Musik nachhaltig verändert hat.
Larry Thompson and Rick Lenoir AKA LNR were early house pioneers who dropped seminal cuts from the late 80s onwards, but few had the impact of their debut, ‘Work It To The Bone’.
The darkly alluring anthem mixed tribal percussion with a minimal groove that went deep and soon became a dance floor classic, spawning a thousand copycats. It has remained an evergreen favourite across the years and now gets covered by New York’s long-time house heavyweight and Grammy-winning producer, remixer and Elements Of Life founder Louie Vega under his Funki Cadets alias. He hooks up with Chicago mainstay Mike Dunn and go-to contemporary house producer Wade Teo for a new version that beefs up the original for modern dance floors.
The opening Louie Vega Mix dials into the original’s tribal energy with a chunky, bouncing groove and hard-hitting percussion, then layers in more synths, effects, and drama to the full-fat sound. It’s a sweaty, steamy affair with a constant sense of momentum as the arrangement evolves, different hooks take the lead, and the pressure stays high. In addition to a DJ Tool Acapella and Louie Vega Beats mix, Wade Teo remixes the track with a deeper groove and dusty drums. It’s a more subtle, heads-down sound but packed with the same edge and rawness that made the original so standout.
A State Of—Trance 25 Years - The Official Anthem Collection celebrates a quarter century of one of electronic music’s most influential movements, curated and driven by Armin van Buuren.
As the visionary behind A State Of Trance, Armin has shaped the global trance community through his radio show, events, and unmistakable sound. This definitive collection brings together, for the first time, the best of the official ASOT anthems, tracks personally championed on the world’s biggest stages and synonymous with unforgettable festival moments. From euphoric climaxes to deeply emotional journeys, these anthems trace both the evolution of trance and Armin van Buuren’s enduring influence.
More than a compilation, this release is a tribute to 25 years of leadership, passion, and connection on dancefloors worldwide.
For twenty-five years, A State Of—Trance has united trance lovers around the world, evolving from a radio show into a global movement and one of the most influential brands in electronic music.
To celebrate this remarkable milestone, Armin van Buuren presents A State Of—Trance 25 Years - Selected Highlights, a special mix featuring a personally curated selection of ASOT tracks that highlight some of the biggest moments, memories, and milestones from the past quarter century.
Bringing together timeless classics, scene-defining anthems, and exclusive new interpretations, the mix also includes brand-new remixes of beloved ASOT favorites by some of today’s most exciting trance artists, including Andrew Rayel, ReOrder, Matt Fax, and Dan Harrison.
Honoring the past while embracing the future, A State Of—Trance 25 Years - Selected Highlights is a celebration of the music, artists, and global community that have shaped the journey—twenty-five years together, all united by one sound: A State Of—Trance.
Berlin-based trio Roomer weave noise, melody, and memory into expansive guitar-driven songs. Formed by long-time friends and collaborators Ronja Schößler, Ludwig Wandinger, and Luka Aron, the band brings together distinct voices from across Europe's avant-garde, folk, and electronic scenes, folding these lineages into a sound that moves between shoegaze density, diaristic songwriting, and sonic exploration. Their music often holds opposites in suspension: clarity and blur, structure and drift, intimacy and collapse.
Their debut album Leaving It All to Chance (2025,) introduced this language in full, pairing emotionally direct songs with shifting textures and dense layers of distortion. With Staircase Made of Rope, their second album on Squama, Roomer widen the frame further. Built largely from improvisations and first takes, the record embraces instability as method, moving between density and silence while allowing melodies to surface and dissolve in unexpected ways.
With one foot in the Mexican underground rock scene and the other one in the global tape trading circuit, Las Ánimas del Cuarto Obscuro found themselves in the middle of a crossroad after their first LP. México wasn´t the same country as when the band first started. Even though access to non-commercial music still was a difficult task in the late eighties, the fringes of culture had way more resources thanks to the stubbornness of certain anonymous heroes: dwellers of El Tianguis Cultural del Chopo, niche record stores, illegal underground parties and hosts of late night Mexican public radio shows.
Ubiquitous social unrest expressed itself in every way possible. The aftermaths of the 1985 earthquake weren’t the only matters on the table. Protests erupted after a rigged presidential election and a student strike hit Mexico’s biggest public university. This was just the tip of the iceberg of issues PRI’s perfect dictatorship was or wasn’t addressing. The clash of the authoritarian regime against new and fresh ideas.
If the first record was about the loneliness of self-destructive youth and it’s urban phantasmagories, LACO’s second LP dealt with change as the axis of human existence. Las Ánimas is just the beginning of the sonic metamorphosis Toño Sánchez went through until this very moment.
The departure of former bandmembers set a different approach towards more experimental and atmospheric sounds. As the project’s only member, Toño Sanchez took an alchemical trip aiming for more mysterious horizons.
Despite the fact that we can still find conventional dark pop and catchy songwriting, the record rests on sound landscapes closer to Jorge Reyes or Tuxedomoon and This Heat than the orthodox ways of so called post-punk, seasoned of course with the lack of music gear and the economic reality prevalent in Mexico of those convulsed times.
Las Ánimas is a goodbye letter to underground but not because the next move is the mainstream. Far away from it, it’s a farewell to traditional rock and a the first steps down into the depths. From now on, Toño Sánchez will dedicate his musical efforts to weirder sounds and scarcer audiences in the search of the arcane, possessed by a mania of constant change that infects the soul after crossing the black door’s threshold.
Los Angeles-based producer, composer and multi-instrumentalist Dexter Story returns with his sixth album, T'som (pronounced sawm), a deeply personal work inspired by the spiritual practice of fasting. Meaning "fasting" in the Afro-Semitic languages Tigrinya and Amharic, as well as in Arabic, Tsom represents a time of prayer, reflection and discipline across northeast Africa. Guided by this tradition, Story draws on the musical heritage of the Horn of Africa and musical traditions of the Middle East to create a spiritual jazz album that reflects on devotion, transformation and the power of letting go. Working with frequent collaborators Carlos Nino, Sudan Archives, Kamasi Washington, Jimetta Rose and Kibrom Birhane, the album touches on themes of reflection, inner poise and a quest for deeper connections, bound by explorations of traditional rhythms from the Horn of Africa. Named after jazz saxophone legend Dexter Gordon, Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger, music director and producer Dexter Story is one of the key figures in the city's vibrant creative music scene. Renowned for his genre-defying approach, he has collaborated with an extraordinary range of artists, including Carlos Nino, Madlib, Kamasi Washington, Build An Ark and Gaslamp Killer. His acclaimed solo albums Wondem and Bahir, released by Soundway, established him as a distinctive voice at the intersection of jazz, African music and contemporary production. Most recently, Story produced Mulatu Astatke's acclaimed studio album Mulatu Plays Mulatu, further cementing his reputation as one of today's most sought-after creative producers and musical collaborators.
Los Angeles-based producer, composer and multi-instrumentalist Dexter Story returns with his sixth album, T'som (pronounced sawm), a deeply personal work inspired by the spiritual practice of fasting. Meaning "fasting" in the Afro-Semitic languages Tigrinya and Amharic, as well as in Arabic, Tsom represents a time of prayer, reflection and discipline across northeast Africa. Guided by this tradition, Story draws on the musical heritage of the Horn of Africa and musical traditions of the Middle East to create a spiritual jazz album that reflects on devotion, transformation and the power of letting go.
Working with frequent collaborators Carlos Niño, Sudan Archives, Kamasi Washington, Jimetta Rose and Kibrom Birhane, the album touches on themes of reflection, inner poise and a quest for deeper connections, bound by explorations of traditional rhythms from the Horn of Africa.
Named after jazz saxophone legend Dexter Gordon, Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger, music director and producer Dexter Story is one of the key figures in the city's vibrant creative music scene. Renowned for his genre-defying approach, he has collaborated with an extraordinary range of artists, including Carlos Niño, Madlib, Kamasi Washington, Build An Ark and Gaslamp Killer. His acclaimed solo albums Wondem and Bahir, released by Soundway, established him as a distinctive voice at the intersection of jazz, African music and contemporary production. Most recently, Story produced Mulatu Astatke's acclaimed studio album Mulatu Plays Mulatu, further cementing his reputation as one of today's most sought-after creative producers and musical collaborators
SELN Recordings is proud to present Sillons, the debut release from French musician Pierre François.
Straight from Nantes with love and sadness; Sillons is the soundtrack to being shut inside and sheltered from all the dread beyond your bedroom door. What may at first appear as a collection of abstract loops unravels into something much greater throughout its entirety.
Underneath a thick atmosphere of tape hiss and crackle, minimal synth explorations emerge and float away while the occasional guitar-esq riff ebbs in and out of the foreground like waves at the shore. Percussive refrains come through with perfect timing, their occasional rudimentary timbre all in the spirit of ‘do it yourself magique’.
Picture the following: it’s been decades and you’ve forgotten how to communicate with the world outside, all you have left are message-songs which leave behind a story of what it was like to be separated from everything you’d ever known during an existential sabbatical. This is very near to the audio experience that Sillons gives and thus makes it so real. On this merit alone François deserves his flowers.
Even the shortest of songs manage to conjure up visceral imagery. For example ‘Abouile’, with an impressive runtime of 51 seconds, dives straight into the eeriest corners of a Cold-War era ‘Numbers Broadcast’ being sent out from malfunctioning military personnel venturing off into the depths of their consciousness.
All in all there is something distinctly ambitious and positive within Francois’ work. It takes you to a place where little else matters except the mood and feeling the music provides, a hopeful and emotive landscape.
After inaugurating Saibai with the Samurai Music sub label's first release in 2025, Brendon Moeller returns with a new six-track excursion into the realm of splintered dubwise electronics. 侍栽培六 arrives alongside a partner release on Samurai Music, offering a subtle distinction of expressive, internal reflections that widen the landscape of Moeller's unique, prolific take on experimental soundsystem music. There are codes of classic dub that creep through the moody hinterland shaped out across these new works, and they inject warmth into the relatively forbidding atmospheres Moeller shapes out with eerie drones and chasmic reverb decays. The bassline on 'Disintegration Suite' has a steppas-like propulsion begging out for a mammoth rig loaded with heavyweight subs, while 'Fate's Rhythm' bristles with skeletal percussion rattling in the middle distance. 'Signal Path's synthetic murmurs of melodica and liberal spring reverb come straight from the Perry-Tubby school of sound sorcery. Of course, these ancient inflections are only part of the picture. Moeller's affinity for head-nodding half-time immersion and tense scene-setting define 'Dislocation' while his techno instincts guide the psychoactive arps modulating through 'Magnetic Sleep'. Every track has its own nuanced complexities, reference points and alchemical fusions bedded into a cohesive, brooding universe of sound that exponentially expands around his studio. Alongside the steely structures of Codebreaker, 侍栽培六 adeptly pushes at the observable edge as he leads us into unexplored space.
'Hive Mind are excited to have worked with Rio de Janeiro based label QTV, to bring you this retrospective from the cosmic joker of contemporary Brazilian music, Negro Leo.
'The music on this retrospective, which draws together songs from his 14 albums, EPs and singles released since 2012, ranges widely and wildly across genres and styles, from the urgent and angular no-wave inspired punk-funk of Niños Heroes or Ilhas de Calor, through the psychedelic hoedown of Noite Invertida or the beautiful and delicate Esferas and on to the maximalist hyperpop of more recent works like RELA or Desejo de Lacrar. Negro Leo consistently confounds, confuses, disturbs and provokes.
'His music is explicitly and fiercely Brazilian and draws on the history of black Brazilian music for inspiration - Gilberto Gil and Tropicalism, Itamar Assumpção and the Vanguard Paulista, Funk Carioca, the Boi's rhythm from the northern carnivals, the samba of the streets and the country - it's all thrown into the mix, along with free-jazz, noise and various chunks of non-Brazilian pop. Leo's music and songs serve as an essential documentation of the country's rapidly shifting social fabric in the digital age, a time in which the country and its people feel lost in a "jungle of pixels".
'Some of these surreal songs can feel overwhelming at times, like a wall of noise full of unfamiliar sounds and rhythms, but there's an unapologetic punk spirit behind it all, alongside a genius composer. It's worth pushing through the that sense of overwhelm to the place where the beauty and complexity of the composition and songwriting shines.'
It's hard to pin down the age of chest's music, as it seems to be in a state of constantflux - a fusion of spontaneous energy and timeless electricity. The band didn't choose this name by chance: for years, its members have been breathing music through every pore of their bodies; they bonded amidst the darkness and vibrations of Supersonic, the heart of the independent music scene in Paris, where they met and have all worked. Even before releasing a single record,chest. were spotted by NME,which ranked them among the 100 to follow last year in 2025. A debut EP in February 2025, All Good Things End (Howlin Banana), further boosted the band's credibility and international popularity at breakneck speed. chest. opened for DITZ, Jehnny Beth, Heavy Lungs and KNIVES, who welcomed them with open arms onto a bustling Anglo-Saxon music scene. They're spotted at La Maroquinerie, Rock en Seine, ESNS and across the UK. chest. come of age without ever going through adolescence. In autumn 2025, chest. began recording their debut album at La Frette studio, known for having hosted sessions by Nick Cave and the Arctic Monkeys. The band, with a line-up featuring three sound engineers, self-produced the album there and opened themselves up to new inspirations without, however, straying from the powerful and melodic noise rock of their early days. Their sound becomes even more complex and personalised, revealing perfectly assimilated influences from industrial, techno and shoegaze. chest. embodies the future figurehead of a French rock scene that is no longer afraid of anything. A band capable of bringing people together without compromising their artistic standards.
"Baby put that cheecky dress on_get your feet on the ground, shake your hips to the sound! We're dancing to the music!"_of THE MODBIRDS! Ladies & Gentleman, die Tanzfläche ist freigegeben! Spotlights an, Boxen auf Anschlag aufgedreht bis die rotierende Discokugel in 1000 Scherben zersplittert - hier kommt "Shards", der erste Longplayer der Modbirds. Einen berauschenderen Cocktail mit allerfeinsten musikalischen Zutaten wirst Du an keiner Theke finden! Der abwechslungsreiche Mix aus Ska, Soul, Reggae, Rocksteady, einer kleinen Prise Punk bis hin zu Swing und klassischen Big Band Elementen macht süchtig und vereint alles was Birdies, Rudeboys und sonstige Nachtschwärmer lieben werden. Nach ihrer Mini-LP "Spin it to win it" hat die 7-köpfige Big Band mit u.a. ehemaligen Mitglieder von The Porters und Los Placebos im Music Area Studio bei ihrem ehemaligen Bandkollegen Beagle 12 neue Songs aufgenommen und all ihre musikalischen Einflüsse und Vorlieben darin einfließen lassen. Ob Jamaica-Roots, Ausflüge in verschiedenen Waves of Ska-Äras, den typischen UK-2 Tone Sound nach Art von Madness bis Buster Shuffle oder eine einfach nur Spaß machende Reminiszenz an all die deutschen Ska-Bands von El Bosso bis Frau Doktor (mit dem einzig deutschsprachigen Song "Jogger"): Mit jeder Note und Takt merkt man diesem Album an: Die Modbirds leben und lieben diese Subkultur seit Jahrzehnten und kreieren daraus ihren eigenen Sound! Die 180g Vinyl-Edition kommt im Gatefold in klassisch schwarz oder silber mit mehrfarbigem Splatter. Limitiert auf insgesamt nur 300 Exemplare!
"Baby put that cheecky dress on_get your feet on the ground, shake your hips to the sound! We're dancing to the music!"_of THE MODBIRDS! Ladies & Gentleman, die Tanzfläche ist freigegeben! Spotlights an, Boxen auf Anschlag aufgedreht bis die rotierende Discokugel in 1000 Scherben zersplittert - hier kommt "Shards", der erste Longplayer der Modbirds. Einen berauschenderen Cocktail mit allerfeinsten musikalischen Zutaten wirst Du an keiner Theke finden! Der abwechslungsreiche Mix aus Ska, Soul, Reggae, Rocksteady, einer kleinen Prise Punk bis hin zu Swing und klassischen Big Band Elementen macht süchtig und vereint alles was Birdies, Rudeboys und sonstige Nachtschwärmer lieben werden. Nach ihrer Mini-LP "Spin it to win it" hat die 7-köpfige Big Band mit u.a. ehemaligen Mitglieder von The Porters und Los Placebos im Music Area Studio bei ihrem ehemaligen Bandkollegen Beagle 12 neue Songs aufgenommen und all ihre musikalischen Einflüsse und Vorlieben darin einfließen lassen. Ob Jamaica-Roots, Ausflüge in verschiedenen Waves of Ska-Äras, den typischen UK-2 Tone Sound nach Art von Madness bis Buster Shuffle oder eine einfach nur Spaß machende Reminiszenz an all die deutschen Ska-Bands von El Bosso bis Frau Doktor (mit dem einzig deutschsprachigen Song "Jogger"): Mit jeder Note und Takt merkt man diesem Album an: Die Modbirds leben und lieben diese Subkultur seit Jahrzehnten und kreieren daraus ihren eigenen Sound! Die 180g Vinyl-Edition kommt im Gatefold in klassisch schwarz oder silber mit mehrfarbigem Splatter. Limitiert auf insgesamt nur 300 Exemplare!
Bruce Ivery returns to Stilove4music, and we couldn't be happier to welcome him back. A true master of his craft, Bruce has delivered some of the label's most celebrated releases, each one leaving a lasting mark on dancefloors around the world.
Born and raised in Chicago and a key member of the legendary Chuck Brothers collective. Bruce's reputation as both a producer and editor speaks for itself. His latest work, a release on Ryan Elliott's Faith Beat, is further proof of his talent. This new drop is no exception—it will have you questioning your own sanity.
It's disco time once again, and it's Bruce Ivery time on Stilove4music. We're beyond excited to share these tracks, designed to create mayhem on discerning dancefloors.
Curses' dark, romantic take on electronic music is often linked to EBM, new beat, synth-pop, and the offshoots in between - but, as the artist states, it's feelings, not genres, that motivate his music. Especially the underground and its niche sounds, brimming with collective energy, drive and passion, make for a major impetus. It's no coincidence that he's drawn to the era when man turned to the machine, as a collaborative force, and a new kind of liveliness, timelessness, emerged. In Curses' practice, this synergy translates into an enticing mix of synthesisers and voices, electronic drums and guitars. Nostalgia operates as an influence rather than a motive, though: despite its affinities with the past, his music is stridently contemporary and idiosyncratic. On the "Perfect High" EP, this approach is rendered in a resolutely dancefloor-oriented selection. It's rich in detail and constantly evolving; each time a new element appears, it's treated with such delight and care that you could imagine the track to flit off and turn it into the main theme. This doesn't happen, however, as the sense of cohesion and momentum is paramount: there's a relentless forward drive that keeps engagement tight from start to finish. The detuned, chorus-heavy leads of title track "Perfect High" and the clockwork-tinged percussion of "Weapon Of Time" jell with lustrous hooks. The ominous choirs on "Dare To Dream" and the proto rolling-and-scratching squelches of "Killer Instinct" similarly fall into place. Bravado never stands in the way of flow. Everything is kept in check by gated R-50 rhythms, and in the vocal department, Curses finds the sweet spot between his own voice and a slew of off-kilter samples. On closer "Blasted" NYC royalty Andi joins for a slab of synth-driven groove. It's shiny and sensuous, like patent leather - a perfect distillation of club music channeled through pop aesthetics, and thus a right coda for ALT028.
Italian duo Ivan Iacobucci & Stella Fiore, now based in Berlin, make their debut on Griffé with the captivating "Ode Al Sole" EP. Following two acclaimed releases on the legendary Perlon and their own imprint, Klopfgeist Records, the pair return after a two-year hiatus.
Inspired by the many journeys Ivan and Stella have taken across the globe over the past two years, Ode Al Sole reflects a rich fusion of influences from Latin America and Africa, seamlessly intertwined with raw, forward-thinking electronic sounds of our times.
The EP is infused with hypnotic vocal elements that create a deep, trippy atmosphere, making each track both immersive and emotionally resonant.
Do Da Doo' Returns with New Life on Definitive Recordings
SPECIAL VINYL ONLY RELEASE
Definitive Recordings revisits one of its most iconic releases with a fresh reissue of Robotman feat. Marshall Jefferson - 'Do Da Doo', originally released in 1992. A cornerstone of the label's early catalogue, the track returns with newly re-recorded vocals by house legend Marshall Jefferson, bringing renewed energy to a timeless classic.
Robotman, a moniker of Richie Hawtin (aka Plastikman), represents an essential chapter in the evolution of house and techno. As one of the most influential figures in electronic music, Hawtin helped shape the sound of acid and minimal techno while co-founding the legendary Plus 8 label alongside John Acquaviva. His forward-thinking productions and groundbreaking DJ sets have defined generations of dance music culture.
On this release, the original Plastikman Acid House Mix stands as a true highlight. Spanning 12 minutes, it delivers a deep and hypnotic acid journey driven by classic TR-909 drums and a signature TB-303 bassline. The instantly recognizable vocal 'Got the Do Da Doo' sits prominently within the groove, creating a powerful and timeless club moment that defined an era.
On the flipside, Detroit's DJ Minx brings a fresh perspective with a groove-heavy house interpretation. Known as the 'First Lady of Wax' and a key figure in Detroit's scene, Minx reshapes the vocal into a rhythmic element, layering it into a shuffling and classic house framework. Her version adds warmth and swing while staying rooted in the track's original spirit.
With this reissue, Definitive Recordings celebrates a landmark release that continues to resonate across generations, combining legendary artists, timeless production, and the enduring energy of house music.
We are so excited to welcome back Tigerskin with a brand-new Album. This 12” is the vinyl version
showcasing six deep, euphoric and banging tracks taken from the full album.
The digital album features twelve brand new tunes by Alex Krüger and delivers his 3rd studio album as Tigerskin.
“Image” not only continues his search for the ultimate dance floor deepness, and contrary to just imitating his own “best selling” club grooves, it rather displays his ongoing artistic progress as a producer and composer of electronic music.
Opposed to his 2013 album “All Those Goodbyes”, which musically rooted in the early 90s and included a ton of collaborations with friends and long time partners, “Image” focuses more on Alex’s general musical roots and shows his compositional preferences. Apart from a few samples, this time around it doesn’t feature any co-productions at all nor did Alex use crazy or special gear to create the tunes. Many sounds are coming from natural and acoustic sources. Expect 80s New Wave references or spooky Wagner-esque bits to pop up next to dusty downbeat interludes. Euphoria next to relaxation. Tigerskin’s journey leads him from ironic comments on the present times via deep, occasionally melancholic or dark and hypnotic material up to the final tune, a homage to the infamous German brothers, Thomas and Klaus.
Tigerskin’s love for experimentation and cross-genre diversity on “Images” is more tangible than ever before.
San Francisco’s 21 st century take on disco has long tended towards the cosmic and
psychedelic, a reflection of the Bay Area’s long association with trippy, mind-altering music.
Over the years, Leng Records has periodically dived into these fertile waters, delivering
inspired slabs of cosmic-minded and dub-flecked excellence from 40 Thieves and, more
recently, Marshall Watson and Cole Odin.
It’s to Watson, a long-serving producer and sound designer whose work has previously
appeared on labels including Sprechen, Shades of Sound, Seven Villas, Italians Do It Better, Highpoint Lowlife and NuNorthern Soul, that Leng has turned this time around. It marks his first solo appearance on the imprint and lands two years on from his inspired Odin collaboration, Voyager. ‘Little Monster’ is Watson at his most potent, club-focused best. Built around rock-solid
disco drums and a deliciously dubby, low-slung bassline, the track slowly builds via waves of intergalactic electronics, spaced-out and echoing vocal samples, audible nods to cosmic rock and bursts of starry synth melodies. Thickening and increasing in effects-laden intoxication as it progresses, ‘Little Monster’ not only lives up to its name but also cements Watson’s growing reputation as one of 21st century cosmic disco’s most distinctive talents.
Fittingly, the accompanying remix comes from Leng regulars and fellow San Francisco
residents 40 Thieves. Delivering a genuinely epic, near nine-minute excursion, the veteran
collective drag Watson’s inspired original mix further towards Daniele Baldelli style dub
disco-meets-Afro-cosmic territory. Expect bolder, funkier bass, echoing synth motifs, eyes-
closed electric guitar solos, echoing synth snippets and wild, sustained organ chords. It’s
cosmic disco in dub… and the perfect accompaniment to Watson’s future cosmic disco
classic.
Jonah Ellis came to the Drifters as a guitarist but was soon singing with the group and acting as their musical director.
This multitalented musician/ songwriter hailed from DC where he was born on 25 August 1947 and grew up to graduate from Springarn, Senior High in Washington.
He went on to study further at Morris Town Junior College in Morris Town, Tennessee.
Then he received a BA degree in Music from Knoxville College in Knoxville, Tennessee, and a Master of Arts in Music from Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan.
His first move into recording came with his group Jonah and the Whales and ‘Savannah Sun’ which sold well locally by didn’t chart nationally.
Jonah’s second single ‘I Get Hot/ Popcorn Cellar’ on Viking Records in 1970 had similar results but he was writing great songs and creating a lot of interest. In addition to penning Yarbrough and Peoples big hit ‘Don’t Stop The Music’ in 1980 which hit platinum.
Jonah was writer/ producer at Total Experience Records where he found time to cut a single under his own name ‘Christmas Won’t Be Christmas Without My Baby’ and also wrote hits for the Gap Band the biggest hit being ‘Desire’. Jonah only stayed a Drifter for about a year between 1986-87.
A short time later he joined the Temptations as their lead guitarist but didn’t stop writing songs for other artists (sometimes in his pen name Lonnie Simmons) like Alicia Keys ‘Gangsta Lovin’, Puff Daddy ‘Soul Food’, Evelyn ‘Champagne’ King ‘Shame’, Billy Paul ‘Fire In Her Love’and so many more including Aretha and sister Carolyn Franklin, Esther Phillips, Rose Royce and Burt Bacharach.
Jonah continued to write and perform internationally until his untimely death from a stroke on 22 February 2010.
It’s been 10 years since ‘Love Over Will’. In that time I have been experimenting with music outside of the purely electronic, working with musicians, other tuning systems and the role of sound in healthcare, amongst other things.
Is With Us is a return to what I love most about electronic music: the combination of sound design, rhythm and emotion. It doesn’t fall into any specific category but is rather a reflection on those elements I find interesting within the context of beats-led music.
Where ‘Love Over Will’ was slightly brooding, ‘Is With Us’ strikes a more positive note, something which wasn’t a conscious decision. It is just a moment in time.
The annual Bonkers Music compilation is back with another dose of high-energy bangers. For its seventh anniversary, the series takes a fresh step forward, exploring a slightly evolved musical direction while keeping the distinctive sound that defines it. “Year VII” lands on 12” vinyl.
A1 David Meyer & Ludviq – Mandanga 2.0 (Feat Nick Hanzo)
The collaboration between Ludviq and David Meyer strikes a compelling balance between tension and movement. Drawing from underground electronic influences, Mandanga 2.0 evolves through hypnotic layers, acid-driven momentum, and a powerful groove, resulting in a distinctive cut that feels both immersive and uncompromising. Mandanga 2.0 is a dark, hypnotic electronic track built around squelching acid sequences, deep rolling grooves, and haunting vocal elements from Nick Hanzo. Atmospheric textures and a relentless rhythmic drive create a tense, immersive journey through shadowy soundscapes, blending raw energy with a refined sense of space.
A2 Neskeh – Liquid Sky
A raw trip built entirely around samples from Liquid Sky, Neskeh’s one of all-time favorite films. Crunchy saturated highs, basement-shaking low end, heroin-soaked wonky vocals, and freaky alien leads drifting through the mix. A warped tribute to an iconic soundtrack. Welcome to the space trippy club
A3 Your Reference – Afterparty
Julia Konor aka “Your Reference” one of the hidden gems of Barcelona’s underground scene, lands for the first time on the label with “Afterparty”
”Afterparty” draws inspiration from abandoned industrial spaces, empty warehouses, and nights where the only thing that mattered was the music. No rules, no expectations. Just raw energy, dusty air, concrete, and people completely immersed in the moment. The track is a personal postcard from that world.
B1 Lebollet & Mar Bravo – Aleta
“Aleta” is one of those Colombian words that somehow made its way into our shared language. We use it for raw, intense, dark tracks. Hard to translate. Makes sense when you feel it.
B2 Funboys – Skin In The Game
“Against the persistent ebb and flow of a breaking heart’s pulse, echoes of half-faded memories tease your attention… On the edge of forgetting, you can almost remember. And then it hits you – the coalescence of feeling into colour and form, warm in its familiarity, powerful in its simplicity. Uncanny, because it was right there all along. Don’t hold your breath… Listen!”
B3 Milla Campollo – Brote Psicodélico
“Brote Psicodélico” emerges from a hypnotic intersection of acid rhythms, psychedelic textures and raw downtempo energy. The track slowly unfolds through repetition and movement, creating a constantly evolving state between tension and release. Dark, trippy and physical, it is built around a groove that pulls you deeper with every layer. Distorted elements and acidic patterns weave in and out of the rhythm, giving the track an organic yet alien character. A journey designed for listening, less about following a linear narrative and more about entering a state of mind, where the boundaries between rhythm, body and psychedelia begin to blur.
Mysticisms’ explores the previously unknown Dub House, Digidub and electronic Street Soul of Manchester émigré Andrew Fitzgerald aka Atone on a 6 track EP, shape shifting from dark basements to summer fields, the music is wide-screen dreams, mixing psychedelic temperaments with ecstatic memories.
Dub Dats is a compendium of a life around or making music, beats, dubs; menageries of sound that encompass a love of reggae mixed with the influences of youth. Growing up in Thatcher’s then declining Manchester housing estates, Fitzgerald found escape first as a young roadie, just aged 15, sorting ‘cigarettes and alcohol’ for visiting bands. Rubbing shoulders with the likes of The Buzzcocks, Ian Dury and The Slits, was a great way to learn the ropes, while avoiding becoming another juvenile delinquent.
A love of Bowie, Kraftwerk, Motown, film scores and the emerging electronic and industrial bands like Throbbing Gristle led to a first studio, featuring the unique and faithful DR-55 Dr. Rhythm, soon followed by Sequential Circuits Pro One, Juno 60, Roland 303 (x 2), Roland 808 and Space Echo.
Working on music solidly, a release finally appearing on Robs Records, before losing all the equipment in a robbery. Manchester was shifting, gangs and “Gunchester” meant it was time to move on and when ‘an out’ appeared, Fitzgerald was landing in Sydney and settling into a new life.
Hooking up with Ali Omar, who he’d met while doing a stint in Brixton, London; the two worked solidly on music, gigging continuously, hanging with the likes Severed Heads and living a good life of that post acid-house party era. The loss of Ali to cancer, still young, hit hard and period “quite liked the madness” ensued. Rehab and starting again, Atone has been gaining some interest.
With 2 EPs of early works recently released on Tonal Oceans, Dub Dats looks deeper, with the dubbed house grooves of title cut, Dats and, the intriguingly named, Somewhere In France With Eric Random. Complimented by the electronic dub of Keep On, the soulful, slow breaks torch song, I Be There, the sample heavy Sound Of Soul and closing, trippy Unlike You, this is a multi-genre producer of considerable capability and talents.
Finally getting his due, Dub Dats perfectly fits the Dubplate Series, broadening its soundscape, while also standing out as its own, sonic release.
Xistence Records reaches its eighth release with what may be its most important record so far, bringing together four artists whose music carries the spirit and evolution of Detroit techno. With selections reaching back three decades alongside new material, the EP connects different eras of tracks that exemplify the raw soul, machinery and futuristic thinking at the style's core. Sean Deason opens with 'Time Warp', originally appearing on his Matrix label in 1996 and finally receiving its first vinyl release. Thirty years later, its dramatic entrance and surging rhythm have aged perfectly. Energy is matched by genuine depth and soul, with its futuristic energy at the heart of it all. Label owner Arbilla follows with 'Electric Storm', harnessing the power of a great techno groove creates a blend of infections elements working in harmony. The second side reaches back to 1998 for a previously unreleased DX-9 production. A pounding Chicago warehouse beat meets the mechanical precision of Detroit, while a heavily over-arching acid line fuses the marriage these two deep-rooted cities. Legendary producer, Orlando Voorn closes proceedings under his Basic Bastard alias with 'Alone Together'. Perhaps the sickest groove of the EP. opens up a spacious atmosphere that gives the track an almost celestial quality. Inspired by Detroit techno’s evolution and its key figures, Xistence continues to show why it has become one of the rare trusted homes for proper techno.”
In collaborating with iconic vocalists Matthew K. Heafy (Trivium), Josh Middleton (Sylosis) and Anthony Lucero (Cult Leader), Burner take a striking step forward to claim new territory while consolidating their extreme and unique sound into the heaviest and bleakest incarnation of their craft yet. Vocalist Harry Nott elaborates on the themes behind the new album: "If It All Returns To Nothing looked outwards to the world's chaos throughout history, No One Is Coming To Save Us instead looks inwards at its proposed cause; humanity's violent, animalistic nature, begging us for change. This is an album about human behaviour: that people create endless cycles of violence by repeating the mistakes of the past, forging a brutal history that we fail to learn from. But, at the same time, the album is about questioning whether we can ever get past those sins and repetitions. This is a record that is mournful as much as it is angry and engaged. It longs to bitterly recall the moments of greatness and sacrifice in our shared history that created the better world we currently destroy. It longs to look back at these moments for inspiration and optimism, at a time where it feels like hope is running thin. The album is also a struggle for hope, not just that humanity can overcome hatred and violence, but that we can look back on our greatest moments and take courage to build a better world. No One Is Coming To Save Us reflects this duality in its title: that no one will come to save us from the violence and tragedy we create as part of our humanity. But it also proposes that it's up to us to change - to overcome a violent human nature and usher in a better tomorrow."
“When the flesh gets cut off the soul, it’s not the end.”
More than forty years after hardCORPS emerged from a Brixton basement, ‘Metal & Flesh’ returns in a new expanded edition on double vinyl and CD, newly remastered with the full involvement of surviving members Rob Doran and Clive Pierce. Born from the collision of punk, analogue synthesisers, sequencers, disco, reggae and experimental studio techniques, hardCORPS created electronic music that was as physical and emotional as it was mechanical. The arrival of French vocalist Regine Fetet gave the group its defining identity, placing her raw, uncompromising voice against the dense machinery of Hugh Ashton, Clive Pierce and Rob Doran. Working mainly with a Roland System 100, several Roland MC4 sequencers and later an additional MC500 and Atari ST 1040 computers, etc. pp., hardCORPS always transformed limitations, accidents, distortion and human imperfection into part of the music itself. Although rooted in the early 1980s, ‘Metal & Flesh’ refuses easy nostalgia, retaining the tension, space and character that made hardCORPS unlike their contemporaries. Yet, shall we eventually mention Kraftwerk, maybe let’s quote Ian Shirley from Record Collector magazine: „’Je Suis Passée‘ was not only a love letter to Kraftwerk but penned with such verve, passion and precision that Ralf and Florian probably would have accepted a blind date at a Düsseldorf cocktail bar (…).“ And as Martin Rushent famously said in 1990: “Hard Corps were ignored in their time. Perhaps it is the burden of the adventurous and the innovative to be ignored in their time, which is sad. Don’t ignore them now.”
This new edition has been carefully remastered to preserve that character and dynamics rather than simply making the recordings louder or more ‘modern’, while the artwork has likewise been developed to reflect the band’s original identity. Metal & Flesh’ is not merely an artefact of the 1980s, but a rare and fiercely individual document of four people discovering what happens when human instinct and machines collide.
Remastered by Martin Bowes. Graphic design by hard CORPS and Steve Lippert.
Gatefold sleeve gloss lamination, printed inner sleeves with lyrics, two double-sided hand-numbered.
Electronic music legends Soft Cell release ‘Out Come The Freaks’, the very first single from singer Marc Almond and multi-instrumentalist and producer Dave Ball’s final album ‘Danceteria’. Download and stream the track, featuring vocals from the late Dave Ball and special guest vocals from Nona Hendryx.
‘Out Come The Freaks’ is a cover of Was (Not Was)’s mutant disco classic and sends Soft Cell into prime disco territory, conjuring the hedonist spirit of early 80s Manhattan and a Danceteria floor filler spun by DJ Mark Kamins. There couldn’t be a more fitting alternative disco banger to pull back the curtain with and beckon you into the world of ‘Danceteria’. The final album is a homage to the legendary nightclub where young Marc and Dave would party until the small hours after the recording sessions for their seminal 1981 debut ‘Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret’. The final flourish of glitter to Soft Cell’s ‘Out Come The Freaks’ comes courtesy of guest vocals from Nona Hendryx, the iconic singer, one third of Labelle of ‘Lady Marmalade’ fame, and producer of Lisa Lisa and Bush Tetras.
This is the very first material to be released from ‘Danceteria’, Soft Cell’s forthcoming sixth and final album. It is also the first time new music has been released since the sad, untimely passing of Dave Ball in October 2025. Almond led the tributes, describing Ball as a “brilliant musical genius” and the world’s media hailing Dave as an electronic music pioneer. Dave finished ‘Danceteria’ very close to his passing and it is in full tribute to him that the album release goes ahead as planned. More details are to follow very soon about the release date.
Jos & Eli debut on HABITAT with the I Can See EP, led by “Refraction”—a cinematic, peak-time melodic house & techno weapon blending hard kicks, shimmering pads, and euphoric breakdowns.
With a decade-long track record on Diynamic, Stil vor Talent, and Watergate Records, and support from Mind Against and Adriatique, the duo delivers a confident, club-ready statement built for both emotion and impact.
Riva Starr teams up with Australian duo Close Counters for a sun-soaked debut on Heist.
What do you get when you put an Italian house legend in the studio with 2 of the most talented artists from Melbourne? Have a listen to the newest release on Heist and you’ll find out. On their ‘Push your luck’ EP, Riva Starr, Close Counters and UK soul singer Andre Espeut bring a heavy dose of jazz & soul and most of all, upbeat dancefloor energy. Whether it’s the deep soulful vibe of the title track or the house meets jazz-funk energy of ‘Gearbox’, this EP brings together everything we love about house music.
‘Push your luck’ comes right in the middle of Close Counters’ world tour, just after Riva Starr’s album ‘Keep me on the dancefloor’ and is the follow up to their recent collab ‘Jinga’ on Riva Starr’s own Snatch Records. We all know Riva Starr from his 2013 Fatboy Slim collab ‘Eat sleep rave repeat’, his work with Groove Armada, and more recently his collab with Prunk on his PIV records debut album. Close Counters have already worked with Heist mainstays Fouk and had their breakthrough moment with their 2023 album ‘Soulacousta II’, which got wide support ranging from Gilles Peterson to Jyoto and Folamour.
Their ‘Push your luck’ EP kicks off with the title track featuring the silky vocals of Andre Espeut. When we first heard this song, we immediately got transported to the soulful sound of the mid 2000s led by Recloose’s unique track ‘Dust’ with Fat Freddy’s Drop singer Joe Dukie. It’s moody, stripped back, and bouncy at the same time. The lush chords, disco bassline, and vocal harmonies all make for a track that goes beyond genres and trends. This is a future classic.
‘Gearbox’ is a disco-tinged piano jam full of live elements, rolling congas and disco bleeps, where the musicality of the Close Counters boys comes in at full speed. This song takes its inspiration from the Brazilian jazz-funk of legends Marcos Valle and Azymuth, with a clear sense of modern-day dancefloors and a love for electronic noise. Also; 10/10 for creatively naming the track after the glitchy electronic sound that freaks & funks throughout the track.
On the flip, ‘Dizzy’ sees the trio go more into disco-house territory, again teaming up with Andre Espeut for a track that blends catchy vocal loops with a tight groove and lush chords. The EP finishes with a club dub of ‘Push your luck’ for those in favor of more groove and less vocals.
We’ve had Riva Starr and the Close Counters boys on our radar for a while, and they landed on Heist with the perfect combination of musicality and dancefloor power. We hope you like this release as much as we do!
Deluxe LP features 140g virgin vinyl; heavy-duty board jacket, artwork by Art Rosenbaum + DL. RIYL: Bob Dylan, John Prine, Townes Van Zandt, Ry Cooder, Michael Chapman, Michael Hurley, The Youngbloods & Bonnie “Prince” Billy. Jake Xerxes Fussell’s 4th album finds the acclaimed folksong interpreter, guitarist, and singer navigating fresh sonic and compositional landscapes on the most conceptually focused, breathtakingly rendered, and enigmatically poignant record of his wondrous catalog. Produced by James Elkington and featuring formidable players both familiar (Casey Toll, Libby Rodenbough) and new (Joe Westerlund, Bonnie “Prince” Billy), it includes Jake’s first original compositions; atmospheric arrangements with pedal steel, horns, and strings. One of the most striking and strangely moving moments on Jake Xerxes Fussell’s gorgeous Good and Green Again an album, his fourth and most recent, replete with such dazzling moments arrives at its very end, with the brief words to the final song “Washington.” “General Washington/Noblest of men/His house, his horse, his cherry tree, and him,” Fussell sings, after a hushed introductory passage in which his trademark percussively fingerpicked Telecaster converses lacily with James Elkington’s parlor piano. That’s the entire lyrical content of the song, which proceeds to float away on orchestral clouds of French horn, trumpet, and strings, until it simply stops, suddenly evaporating, vanishing with no fade or trace, no resolution to its sorrowful minor-key chord progression, just silence and stillness and stark presidential absence. It feels like the end of a film, or the cold departure of a ghost, and is unlike anything else Jake has recorded. In all his work Jake humanizes his material with his own profound curatorial and interpretive gifts, unmooring stories and melodies from their specific eras and origins and setting them adrift in our own waterways. The robust burr of his voice, which periodically melts and catches at a particularly tender turn of phrase, and the swung rhythmic undertow of exquisite, seemingly effortless guitar-playing here he plays more acoustic than ever before pull new valences of meaning from ostensibly antique songs and subjects. On Good and Green Again, Jake not only ventures beyond his established mastery of songcatching and songmaking into songwriting, but likewise navigates fresh sonic and compositional landscapes, going green with lusher, more atmospheric and ambitious arrangements. The result is the most conceptually focused, breathtakingly rendered, and enigmatically poignant record of his wondrous catalog. It’s also his most deliberately premeditated album, representing his fruitful return to a producer partnership after two self-produced projects, What in the Natural World (2017) and Out of Sight (2019) (William Tyler produced his friend’s self-titled 2015 debut.) This time James Elkington produced and played a panoply of instruments, bringing to Jake’s arcane song choices his own peerless sense of harmony and orchestration, balance and dramatic tension. The pair enlisted a group of formidable players including regular bandmembers Casey Toll (Mt. Moriah, Nathan Bowles) on upright bass, Libby Rodenbough (Mipso) on strings, and Nathan Golub on pedal steel. They were joined by welcome newcomers Joe Westerlund (Megafaun, Califone) on drums, Joseph Decosimo on fiddle, Anna Jacobson on brass, and veteran collaborator and avowed Fussell fan Bonnie “Prince” Billy, who contributes additional vocals. Album opener “Love Farewell” (featuring some beautiful singing by Bonnie “Prince” Billy), an elliptical tale of the folly of war, set to the world’s most heartbreaking goodbye march for a lover left behind. “Carriebelle” and “Breast of Glass” each similarly concerns, in its own way, romantic love and leavings. All three songs highlight Jacobson’s diaphanous, understated brass parts, tying them together in a true lover’s knot. “Rolling Mills Are Burning Down,” with its distant keening strings and capacious sense of space, observes and mourns the loss of work and community in the wake of elemental disaster. Nine-minute tour de force “The Golden Willow Tree,” the sole explicitly narrative song herein, is a hypnotic, minimalist rendering of a tragic maritime ballad about scuttling an enemy ship in exchange for wealth and glory and a captain’s inevitable betrayal. “Fussell is creating his own legacy within the long lineage of traditional folk musicians and storytellers that have come before him.” The New York Times // “So elegant … It’s relaxing in the way that pondering a Zen koan is relaxing, and sweet in the way that the wounded, honey-voiced blues of Mississippi John Hurt are sweet.” Pitchfork // “Music that resides at the seams of Appalachia and the cosmos.”
Gilles Peterson: "Fascinating… love this. Thoroughly recommended"
The Observer: "The focus is on great grooves and fine playing. A band to seek out."
The Guardian: "Delightfully quirky album of folk songs reimagined from Afrobeat to reggae"
The Times: "Minyo Crusaders sound like nothing else lurking on your Spotify playlist"
(PRESS FOR PREVIOUS ALBUM)
Minyo Crusaders return with theiir highly anticipated sophomore album TOUR OF JAPAN following on from their debut that has sold 4k on vinyl since release and their runaway single smash 'Cumbia Del Monte Fuji' that has almost hit 5million streams on Spotify.
Since the release of their debut in 2019 the band have toured Europe four times playing major European festivals such as Roskilde, Best Kept Secret, Green Man Festival, WOMAD, Fusion, Les Escales, Lowlands and many, many more, succesfully road-testing the songs from this album.
On this new album which has been mixed by Mario from Frente Cumbiero, Minyo have finessed their winning formula of adapting ancient Japanese folk somgs to global rhythms with influences this time from Ethiopia, boogaloo, salsa, West Africa and jazz. Says band-leader Katsumi: "The concept of this album is the sea with various expressions".
2027 marks two decades since musician and producer Paul ‘Mudd’ Murphy struck out on his own and launched Claremont 56, a label initially dedicated to “music by Mudd and friends” and named after the house he grew up in. To celebrate its 20th anniversary, Murphy has assembled the label’s first ever decades-spanning vinyl retrospective: a six-LP re-mastered collection bringing together key cuts, cult classics, personal favourites, hard-to-find gems and inspired remixes from across the catalogue.
Unlike the label’s previous 10th anniversary box set, which focused on unreleased material and never-before-heard remixes, 20 Years of Claremont 56 traces the musical story of the imprint to date. Across six records, it showcases the distinctive Claremont 56 sound in all its many forms: acoustic, electric and electronic instrumentation, Balearic sunshine, krautrock grooves, folk-inflected psychedelia, slow-burning chuggers and deeply considered dancefloor music.
The set comes housed in a custom box featuring cover art by long-term label illustrator Mark Warrington. Inside are six slabs of vinyl across three gatefold sleeves, accompanied by liner notes from music journalist and author Matt Anniss, Murphy himself, and many of the artists whose music features in the collection.
The journey begins with a selection of formative late-noughties releases, including Mudd & Pollard’s chugging, picturesque ‘Villa Stavros’, the folksy beauty of Smith & Mudd’s ‘Shulme’ and Murphy’s exotic reworking of Ahmed Fakroun’s ‘Drago’. From there, the collection moves freely through deep cuts, overlooked gems, album highlights and some of the most inspired remixes in the label’s catalogue.
Among those remixes is Murphy’s own über-Balearic rework of Zee Erf’s cover of ‘Southern Freeez’, a mix dedicated to his partner Emma; an extraordinary 22-minute, Manuel Göttsching-meets-ambient-dub revision of Smith & Mudd’s ‘Vegetable Square’ by friends-of-the-family Idjut Boys; Larry Heard’s typically deep and immersive house treatment of Jack Cutter’s ‘Serpent Strut’; and Quiet Village’s ambient-house ‘deep space dub’ of Mudd’s ‘Spielplatz’. Also included are lesser-celebrated but no less rewarding reworks by Recloose, Jex Opolis, Felix Dickinson and Deep88.
The collection represents every corner of Claremont 56’s self-contained musical universe, from the Murphy-assembled in-house collectives Hillside, Paqua and Bison - whose members famously included the late Holger Czukay and his life partner Ursula, to long-serving label artists such as Almunia and Hear & Now, as well as later additions and artists who took some of their first steps on the label through its much-loved Claremont Editions compilations.
That means the deeply cosmic krautrock of Bambi Davidson, the folk-meets-Americana of Torn Sail and the samba-electrofunk of Jpye sit alongside baggy Balearic sing-alongs such as Bel’s ‘Ready To Die’ and Sillyboy’s Ghost Relatives’ ‘In a Small Place’, recent high-profile guest releases such as Chaz Jankel’s ‘Rhumba Jam’, and string-laden ambient pieces such as Four Hands’ wonderful ‘Hizou’.
Packed with classic cuts, formative gems and overlooked treats, 20 Years of Claremont 56 is not only a fabulous label retrospective, but also an essential collection of timeless music from a label whose output has remained distinctive and unique for two decades.
When the first JIM album Love Makes Magic was released in 2023, it was the end product of an experiment that had begun during the strange days of the pandemic. Cooped up in his studio, James Baron started fiddling about with an as-yet unnamed new album idea. It became Vicious Charm’s first LP release. Labelled variously as Balearic, folktronica, blue-eyed soul and Laurel Canyon, Love Makes Magic was perhaps all and none of those things: a record rooted less in Californian mythology than in Baron’s own musical world, somewhere between Sherwood, Nottingham, classic songwriting, electronic soul and the no-nonsense good times that have long run through his work under his other monikers (principally the anagrammatic Ron Basejam and, of course, Crazy P) One thing was indisputable, it connected with people... and still does.
The album was a minor hit, appearing in many a Best of 2023 chart and voted Album of the Year in Bill Brewster’s Furtive 50. A tour and a few memorable festival appearances – his 2024 We Out Here Festival being one of those wonderfully timed ‘moments’ - perfectly captured the horizontal vibes on the album, while injecting some live energy into its delivery. While there was a follow-up remix album for Love Makes Magic, JIM was already preparing a sophomore LP: “I wrote the majority of The Curious Case Of Existence in a couple of months at the beginning of 2024, then it was just a case of making the record over the next couple of years in between everything else.”
Papooz & Friends ! is a collaborative album where French duo Papooz gather a constellation of kindred artists, including Molly Lewis, Erlend Øye (Kings of Convenience / Whitest Boy Alive), Arto Lindsay, Oracle Sisters, Sacha Got (La Femme), Zé Ibarra and Hugo Hamlet, to create original songs born from true artistic encounters.
Blending elegant indie pop, modern folk and sun-soaked experimentation, the project unfolds as a collective musical journey celebrating friendship and creative dialogue.
A DJ, producer and significant figure in contemporary electronic music, Marcel Dettmann steps forward to contribute to Running Back’s ongoing Mastermix series. Whereas previous editions of Mastermix have taken an ear to the sound of lapsed, legendary clubs such as Wild Pitch and Front, Dettmann’s curation deftly captures the man himself in ongoing perpetual motion, raiding the vault for his own precision-tooled edits, long-employed on dancefloors to devastating effect. Alongside a continuous mix, this release arrives as a 3LP gatefold, and as a limited edition cassette.
Closely associated with Berlin’s techno landscape, Dettmann was born and raised in the former GDR, then later immersed in the bleary-eyed counter cultural landscape of post-unification Berlin. Initially oriented by post-punk, industrial and new-wave music, Dettmann has been DJing since 1993, always expanding and perfecting his repertoire. He later began working behind the counter at the city’s tastemaking rave boutique Hard Wax, and a decade after he first dropped a needle, became (and remains) resident at notable local nightspot Berghain/Panorama Bar, where his instincts have helped sculpt the signature sound of both main dancefloors.
Of course, you’re probably not asking, “Who is Marcel Dettmann?” More importantly, you might want to know; just what treats has he gifted us here? The trip begins with a simple pitch-shift skywards, transforming Identified Patient’s creeping ‘The Female Medical College of Pennsylvania’ into a peak-time freakout, before an alternate take on Toctronic’s ‘Bis uns das Licht vertreibt’ emerges from the vaults for the first time. Dating from 1995, and one of Dettmann’s all-time favourites, Cristian Vogel’s ‘Untitled’ clambers back into the box with respectable cuts, while John Bender’s ‘Victims of A Victimless Crime’ kicks off the flip sporting a new arrangement, transporting us back to the foundations of a confident, stripped-back sound.
A few subtle edits to Clark’s perilously funky ‘Dirty Pixie’ takes us to Dettmann’s remix of Junior Boys. Produced in 2010, it transposes the Canadian duo’s sophisticated pop with our curator in his minimal prime, and has since become an irresistible prize for high-minded diggers. The same can be said for Experimental Products’ explosive proto-electro anthem ‘Who Is Kip Jones?’, empowered from pricey Discogs purgatory with just the slightest of tweaks. It’s deservedly sandwiched between the guiding influences of Chicago and Detroit in the form of Mutant Beat Dance’s raw ‘The Human Factor’ and a shimmering new version of previous solo production ‘Water’, featuring close friend and Ostgut Ton ally, Ryan Elliot.
The second half of the Mastermix seamlessly connects the mechanical past and digital present of EBM and industrial in the dance, with Dettmann’s instincts as a guiding hand. Severed Heads’ iconic ‘We Have Come To Bless This House’ emerges with mere nips and tucks, while Nitzer Ebb’s ‘Shame’ is significantly reimagined as a highwire act of rhythm and tension, setting up a sensual second take on a 2017 remix of ‘Limbo’ from Swiss synth heroes, Yello.
Core musical memories are shaken and stirred with a context-shifting take on Frank Duval’s emotional classic ‘Ogon’, while Ian North’s ‘Sex Lust You’ and Ford Proco’s notable Coil collaboration ‘Expansion Naranja’ effectively throb with only minor adjustments, respectfully imagined as “shadow versions”. Meanwhile, a simple breakbeat lifts Albert Kuningas’s ‘Astraalprojektio’ in the direction of wide-eyed dancefloors, while a fresh take on K-Alexi Shelby’s ‘Season of The Real’ inexplicably emerges somehow even funkier than before.
The conclusion of the compilation leads back to Das Tier from the prolific experimentalist Conrad Schnitzler, whose swirling synths and hypnotic vocals are duly tightened by Dettmann, but only as he puts it, “in conversation with the original.” Concluding three discs and thirty years of commitment to the dancefloor, this Mastermix not only offers us the opportunity to eavesdrop on this endless exchange, but to gain some sought-after material for our own record collections.
Available in the following Territories: Wordwide minus Japan & Korea
NOTON is pleased to announce12 Conversations, a collaborative album by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto to be released on 18 September 2026.
The partnership between the legendary musician and composer Ryuichi Sakamoto and the German artist Carsten Nicolai (aka Alva Noto) has produced some of the most distinctive and enduring works in contemporary electroacoustic music. Beginning with Vrioon in 2002, the artists spent more than two decades fusing and expanding their disciplines, with Sakamoto's evocative, sustain-drenched piano compositions finding their counterpart in Nicolai's skilful and sensitive electronic detailing.
Each successive project further deepened their artistic dialogue: from the five studio albums of the V.I.R.U.S. series (Vrioon, Insen, Revep, Utp_ with Ensemble Modern, and Summvs), to their score for Alejandro G. Iñárritu's The Revenant; Glass (2017), a wholly improvised performance inside Philip Johnson's iconic Connecticut landmark, in which the pair fixed contact microphones to the glass walls, playing the architecture itself as an instrument; and Two (2019), a document of their live performance at the Sydney Opera House.
Across these works, their distinct approaches achieved a rare synthesis, a brilliantly sustained dialogue between piano and electronics, Sakamoto's warmth and melodic finesse meeting Nicolai's abstract electronic formalism to invoke a mesmeric quietude as deeply satisfying in its melodic resolutions as in the merger of its filmic romanticism and meditative subtlety.
12 Conversations brings together musical exchanges recorded in November and December 2022. Rooted in the same creative period that gave rise to Sakamoto's final solo album 12, these recordings were not originally intended as a standalone release. It was only after the completion of 12 that Sakamoto and Nicolai decided to present these exchanges as a work in their own right.
The album reflects the vitality and curiosity that defined more than two decades of shared inspiration: fluid, exploratory, and forward-looking. Created with openness and trust, it captures a creative process in constant transformation - sounds expanding, altering, and evolving through attentive listening.
Conceived as the continuation of an artistic dialogue extending beyond the physical, 12 Conversations honours Sakamoto's wish that these encounters should exist beyond the archive, offering an enduring testament to one of contemporary music's most revered collaborations.
Carsten Nicolai writes:
"A heavy breath can be heard in the recordings. Yet this work is not about remembrance but continuation, vitality, curiosity, and the spirit of experimentation that shaped an artistic relationship over decades.
The twelve pieces we exchanged in November and December 2022 possess extraordinary density: sounds expanded, altered, recontextualized. Initially, every intervention felt almost inappropriate. Yet this was part of our openness and trust: adding, shifting and radically yet softly transforming.
Even in these final exchanges, plans for future projects continued to take shape, mindful of finite yet firmly believing in the power of new ideas. We chose the name Conversations, which has become a space of memory and vision, where past, present and future intertwine.
For a long time, releasing this music seemed impossible. The loss felt too sudden, and the emotional connection too profound. As time passed, it became clear that these twelve musical encounters should have life outside the archive. To honor Ryuichi's wish, these pieces are now being released as the continuation of a dialogue that extends beyond the physical."
The first single, Conversation 3, will be released on Tuesday, July 14, 2026. The second single, Conversation 6, will be be released on Wednesday, August 26, 2026.
12 Conversations will be available worldwide on vinyl, CD and digitally. A Japanese edition will be available on Ryuichi Sakamoto's commons.
Forty years of cassette releases, pressed for the first time on vinyl
First of two instalments exploring the previously unreleased sonic archives of one of Poland’s most enigmatic
living artists - with its first volume focused on his deep listening practice and spiritual reverie (recorded 1990–2013)
The last time Andrzej Dudek-Dürer took a banknote bearing the face of the Polish anarchist Jarosław Dąbrowski from his pocket to trade it for a pair of shoes was in 1969. He bought them for 120zł - the equivalent of 100€ today - and never replaced them since then. Only rebuilt them, year after year, drawing a needle and thread through the leather each time it split, closing one wound before the next one opened. It became a ritual of precision, stitching a record of another year into their soles.
That same year, in Wrocław, he arrived at a conclusion that would recalibrate everything that followed. Convinced he was the reincarnation of Albrecht Dürer, he adopted the surname Dudek-Dürer, stopped cutting his hair and began wearing the same garments every day. It was the first ritual of many, though he wouldn't have called it that yet. Look closely enough, over the decades, and it is always the same gesture, returning in different material: hair growing in a single unbroken strand, a needle drawing thread through leather, sitar strings pulled taut across a neck he built with his own hands and magnetic tape spooling forward inside the cassette boxes stacked against his walls.
None of this began in a vacuum. Dudek-Dürer emerged from the Wrocław neo-avant-garde, in a Polish art world where an exhibition could be cancelled overnight by the stroke of a censor's pen. In 1973, his exhibition Auto-crucifixion was shut down by the state, and for a time he found himself blocked from exhibiting his own art at all - the one force in his life that ever came close to cutting the thread.
He seemed to experience it differently. In 1974, after long, patient research into sitar craftsmanship, he built his first prototype with his brother, a knowledgeable luthier. In 1978, in a smoked-out jazz club, he took his first steps into sound recording with the unreleased album Jazz From Underground with his first band. By 1979, recognition started to travel further than he could.
Turning toward Far-Eastern philosophy, meditation and the idea of reincarnation was another language of freedom for him. It was a way of claiming an inner territory the state could not reach, a border it could not close. Mail Art served a parallel function, reaching further out: in a country that restricted travel and expression, sending and receiving art through the postal system became an act of quiet rebellion.
The body, in his understanding, is only an envelope readied for constant transformation. From this came Metaphysical Telepathy: during the years he could not leave Poland, he treated that confinement as a rehearsal room, sending his mind out ahead on the same thread his body would later follow. Living Sculpture grew from the same root with performances of stillness beside static art objects, until the boundary between the object and the man beside it simply dissolved. Camera Meditation extended the same instinct into photography: a shutter click flattening three dimensions into two so that a single instant could be held forever. Inspired by the pioneers of self-portrait photography like Robert Cornelius, he used it to document time itself, and kept explaining to me: "You know. This is not about vanity. This is about observing time passing.”
The isolation did not end suddenly. It ended the way his own philosophy had already predicted it would, from the inside first. Mail Art quietly solved the problem politics couldn't. Correspondence built during years of confinement slowly worked its way through doors the state itself had kept locked. Contacts made through folded paper and stamps became invitations. Ultimately, invitations became passports.
In 1983 he made his first trip outside Poland, to Germany, in search of the audio technology he couldn’t get his hands on before. In 1985, he was invited by the Indian embassy in Poland to give a sitar concert on an instrument he had spent a decade patiently stringing together - half sitar, half tanpura, built from patience and determination. After the collapse of the People's Republic of Poland, the travels kept unspooling: South Korea, then Mexico, then Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, Japan and the United States - each stop leaving behind its own small knot of tape, tied off and carried home.
In the decades since, recognition arrived at the same unhurried pace: he conducted workshops at UC Berkeley, served as vice-president for artistic affairs of the Union of Polish Art Photographers and the Union of Polish Visual Artists between 2010 and 2014 and received the Bronze Medal for Merit to Culture - Gloria Artis. His visual work gradually entered collections including the National Museums of Warsaw, the Stedelijk Museum, Tate Modern, MoMA and the Venice Biennale. His musical practice, by contrast, never found that kind of room - left to circulate quietly, sharing his cassette tapes directly, waiting for someone willing to follow it further.
It took months before I could find a way to reach Andrzej Dudek-Dürer - his presence online is very close to nonexistent. Surprisingly, LinkedIn turned out to be the only door still open, a faintly absurd irony given everything else about him. I packed the strict minimum for a three-day trip and an empty notebook and made my way to Wrocław. His headquarters sits in the neighbourhood of Grabyszyn: a two-storey pre-war house that has belonged to his family for generations. The man who opened the door was long-haired, long-bearded, in his trademark leather shoes and patched jeans. We sat in his living room, in front of a computer where decades of recordings sat organised in cryptically named files, surrounded by books and objects that had arrived one layer at a time, leaving room for only two chairs in the middle. His shoes sat by the door, rebuilt so many times they had become their own quiet sculpture. Cassette tapes filled boxes against the walls, almost unlabelled, each one a spool of thread holding decades of sound that had never once been asked for, until now.
I listened for hours: meditating in front of strangers on the porch of a Seoul temple until the tourists stopped taking photos and simply waited with him; a stand-off with border guards at the US–Mexico crossing over an instrument they couldn't identify and didn't trust; a session with the Stockhausen family that he still, decades later, describes like it happened last week. All of it interrupted, occasionally, by the smell of soup boiling and fresh bread warming on the ceramic stove. After two days, it felt like being handed the end of a very long thread and asked, gently, to keep following it. I left with a USB drive holding his full discography, signed with his unmistakable signature.
Astral Meditations From A Living Statue is a length of that thread, drawn out from the boxes stacked against his walls - recordings gathered from different rooms, different countries, different decades. This first record breathes slowly: incense-thick, meditative, built for stillness. A cutting-edge séance in outer space where machines learn how to dream.
It begins with the neo-classical improvisations of Andrzej, space-delayed, recorded at Klub Muzyki i Literatury in Wrocław in 2002. 'When..So' opens the curtains with a deep-rooted meditation accompanied by slow-decaying piano figures illuminated by a candle-lit spirit gathering.
Los Angeles, 1990: a dormant villa, a grand piano, the voice of Bonnie Barnett. 'Exception' is captured in a single room, in a single afternoon - voice and keys circling each other, neither one leading, until the silence between the notes starts to feel like the instrument.
'The Meta...' and 'Tired Of...', recorded at Studio Morandi in Ponte Nossa, Italy, in 1992, settle into a sitar drone built entirely from patience - overtones stacking and beating against each other, strung by a man who never once set foot in India. 'Mastery Of...' follows, recorded the same year at Studio Suski in Łomianki, pushing that same hum further still, until pitch dissolves into a spectral reverie. 'Transcendental Sound', from 2000, closes the first record in a slow bath of celestial frequency - better heard beside the shores of the Odra river.
More than fifty years after deciding that a life could become an artwork, Andrzej Dudek-Dürer continues to inhabit that decision. His shoes keep wearing thin against the earth's crust. His hair keeps growing, one strand at a time. His cassette tapes keep spooling in the dark of their boxes.
Now the thread finds its last shape: a single unbroken groove, spiralling inward from the outer edge to the label at the centre. Never cut - the way nothing else in his life ever was. Drop the needle and it will find that groove and follow it, the same way a needle once followed leather, once followed a border it couldn't cross, once followed string into an instrument that didn't exist until he built it. This record is the other end of a thread that has been travelling for fifty years. For the length of both sides, it rests here, in your hands. This is a timeless proof that the Lord of the New Age was never lost."
The wait is over, Return To The 37th Chamber is El Michels Affair's highly anticipated follow up to 2009's underground cult classic Enter the 37th Chamber. Churning out classic records since then for the likes of Lee Fields, The Arcs, The Shacks, and tons more, it is clear that EMA's signature sound is stronger & sharper than ever. This time, in addition to re-interpreting the Wu compositions for a live band, EMA pays homage to the production and sonic fog that makes a RZA beat so recognizable. Producer and bandleader Leon Michels recorded the album completely analog, sometimes hitting 6 generations of tape before it was ready for mixing, giving the Return to The 37th Chamber it's own hazy sound. Adding to the unique fidelity, the record is laced with psychedelic flourishes, John Carpenter' synths, heavy metal guitars, triumpha0nt horns, and traditional Chinese instruments that make up for the lack of the Wu's superlative vocals. From start to finish it's a dark trip that walks the line between RZA's timeless hip-hop aesthetic and the cinematic soul EMA has become known for. El Michels Affair tackles some classics like 4th Chamber and Wu Tang Aint Nuthin to Fuck Wit, as well as some deeper cuts like Ol Dirty Bastard's Snakes, Raekwon's Verbal Intercourse, and Shaolin Brew, Wu-Tang's contribution to the St. Ide's Hip Hop endorsement campaign from 1994. This time El Michels brings some of the Big Crown family along for the ride. Lee Fields handles vocal duties on Snakes and is joined by Shannon Wise of The Shacks for their version of Tearz, which pays as much homage to the Wendy Rene sample as it does to the Wu-Tang Clan. Lady Wray makes an appearance on the cover of Method Man's hit, All I Need, lending her vocal prowess to what gave the Wu one of their biggest hits of all time. Interspersed throughout the record are some original interludes that are like the rug that ties the room together,' giving Return To The 37th Chamber a cinematic narrative that makes it a proper El Michels Affair record and not just a collection of covers. From the music to the presentation, this album is a perfect example of what can only be achieved through diversity. The end result is as much a kaleidoscope of influences and multiculturalism as the city it was recorded in. El Michels Affair is once again, sounding out the city' that raised them, pulling elements of art and culture from across the country and around the globe to create an album truly unique in it's own right.
Over 10 years ago, Leon Michels released his first full length record, Sounding Out The City. It was Michels' first full length record under the moniker El Michels Affair. At the time, the budding retro soul scene consisted of mostly organ quartets a la The Meters and of course, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings were in the early days of their ascent to world domination. Leon Michels, who was 18 when recording Sounding Out The City began, had just released Thunder Chicken, the first record by his high school band The Mighty Imperials. At the time of SOTC, Michels was just discovering early rocksteady, afrobeat, and 60's garage rock, which inevitably crept its way into the songwriting. He purchased a Tascam 388, an 80's 1/4" reel to reel 8 track intended for home recordings, and began recording music in a 10x10 box with no windows that also doubled as his childhood bedroom. Along with fellow Mighty Imperials Nick Movshon, Homer Steinweiss, and Sean Solomon, and Michael Leonhart, Thomas Brenneck, and some of the musicians from The Dap Kings, Michels recorded the LP over a two year period. Upon it's release, it received some rave reviews and the small deep funk community ate it up, but due to the lack luster promotion and distribution the rest of the world was slow to catch on to the instrumental gems featured on SOTC, which Michels appropriately labelled as "cinematic soul". However, in 2005 it found it's way into the hands of the people who were organizing a series of concerts for Scion that paired bands with MC's. El Michels Affair was contacted about playing one show with Raekwon The Chef of Wu Tang Clan fame. The show was such a success it led to a tour, and then to another set of concerts that featured multiple members of the Wu-Tang Clan. This eventually led to the release of El Michels Affair's second record, "Enter the 37th Chamber" which introduced them to a much larger audience and has been their most successful release to date. Michels has since gone on to produce and co-produce numerous records for powerhouse soul artists like Lee Fields. He shares songwriting credits with Adele, Jay-Z, Ghostface Killah, Aloe Blacc, and has played on records by Ray LaMontagne, Lana Del Rey, The Black Keys and Dr. John.
When Swingrowers released their debut in Sept 2012, electro swing was a bubbling cultural zeitgeist. This Italian band were among the earliest pioneers who helped shape the sound of the vintage-influenced genre. Their debut 12 track collection paved the way for the brilliant albums that followed and indeed for the ongoing popularity of the genre. A little rougher around the edges but with all the early promise on show, this album completes a 4 piece set for fans and collectors.
Swingrowers went on to release a further 3 studio albums, toured internationally, playing major festivals includingMontreux Jazz Festival, Glastonbury, Boomtown and Tokyo’s Blue Note Festival. Their music has to date amassedmore than 100 million streams worldwide on Spotify alonewith videos clocking up many millions more.
Pronounceditself is a revelation. It stood the test of time as one of the earliest complete and fully-realised Electro Swing albums that seamlessly blend 20’s and 30’s influences - violin, gypsy jazz guitar, saxophones and swing music - with polished contemporary production. Here, superb musicianship meets great songwriting meets a unique modern sound from Swing Hop to Drum n Bass with jazz-inflected vocals in English and Italian.
As we approach the 15 year anniversary, Pronounced is being released on wax for the first time.
This releasecompletes Swingrowers’ entire album discography on vinyl, joining existing editions of Remote, Outsidein and Hybrid.
For long-time fans, collectors and anyone who discovered electro swing through artists such as Caravan Palace and Parov Stelar, Pronounced is a chance to finally own the sound of a young band (and indeed an up-start young genre) at the very start of their career.
A soaring new chapter unfolds from the forthcoming Elements Of Life album with the release of “Soar,” an uplifting and deeply moving collaboration featuring the incomparable Lisa Fischer. Written by Josh Milan and Louie Vega and produced by 2SoulFusion—Louie Vega and Josh Milan—the song is a powerful testament to resilience, transformation, and the limitless possibilities that emerge when spirit, soul, and music unite.
Built upon a rich tapestry of live musicianship, “Soar” embodies the signature sound that has made Elements Of Life a beloved musical movement around the world. At its core is Lisa Fischer’s breathtaking vocal performance, delivering a message of hope, elevation, and self-discovery with the emotional depth and conviction that have made her one of the most revered voices of her generation.
At the heart of “Soar” is a message of encouragement, resilience, and unconditional support. Through its uplifting lyrics and soaring melody, the song speaks to anyone navigating life's uncertainties while striving to become their fullest self. Lines such as “Clouds hang low, but the sky's still wide” acknowledge the challenges we all face, while the recurring refrain, “I just want you to soar,” serves as a powerful affirmation of faith in another person's journey. Equally moving is the song's central sentiment, “The more you do for you, the better I feel,” expressing a selfless form of love that celebrates growth, healing, and personal fulfillment. Universal in its message yet deeply personal in its spirit, “Soar” reminds us that one of the greatest gifts we can offer is the encouragement to rise, evolve, and embrace our own potential.
The production blends organic instrumentation with sophisticated arrangements, creating a timeless soundscape that feels both expansive and intimate. Multi Grammy Award-winning bassist Christian McBride anchors the composition with his masterful upright bass work, while Josh Milan's lush keyboards, piano, organ, clavinet, and atmospheric textures provide the song's harmonic foundation. Live drums from Tony Cintron and vibrant percussion from Luisito Quintero infuse the track with an irresistible pulse, while Ivan Renta's expressive soprano saxophone solo adds another layer of emotional richness, and a tasteful guitar groove by Sherrod Barnes.
The song's message is elevated further through a powerful vocal ensemble featuring background vocals from Lisa Fischer, Dawn Tallman, Ramona Dunlap, and Lea Lorien, creating moments of communion and uplift that echo the song's central theme of hope, growth, and believing in the possibilities that lie ahead. For Louie Vega and Josh Milan, “Soar” represents another defining moment in their longstanding creative partnership. Through Elements Of Life, they have continually blurred the boundaries between house music, soul, jazz, Latin rhythms, gospel, and global influences, creating music that resonates as deeply on the dance floor as it does in the heart. “Soar” continues that tradition, offering listeners a song that inspires movement, reflection, and renewal.
Recorded at Honeycomb Studios in Pennsylvania and Manhattan Center Studios in New York City, and mixed at Daddy's Workshop in New Jersey, the production benefits from the expertise of recording engineers Yas Inoue & Josh Milan, with final mastering by the Maestro of mastering Herb “Pump” Powers for PM Mastering.
As anticipation builds for the forthcoming Elements Of Life album slated for February 2027, “Soar” offers a powerful glimpse into the project's next evolution— a celebration of musical excellence, spiritual connection, and the enduring power of song to lift us higher.
Twenty-five years after its original release, Markus Guentner's debut album In Moll returns in a special anniversary reissue on Black Knoll Editions, reaffirming its place as one of the defining ambient recordings of the early 21st century.
Released in 2001 during the formative years of Kompakt's influential Pop Ambient series, In Moll emerged from a period of rapid transformation in electronic music. New technologies, expanding digital networks, and shifting creative possibilities allowed artists to imagine entirely new sonic worlds. Amid this fertile landscape, Guentner's music stood apart. Combining delicate melodic fragments, slow-moving harmonies, and a remarkable sense of spatial depth, In Moll introduced a distinct artistic voice whose impact can still be felt a quarter-century later.
The album arrived shortly after Guentner's contributions to the inaugural Pop Ambient compilation, including the now-beloved "Regensburg 1," named after his Bavarian hometown. Those early recordings immediately captured the attention of Kompakt founders Michael Mayer and Wolfgang Voigt. Recalling his first encounter with the music, Mayer describes listening to a demo CDR with Voigt while wandering through Cologne late into the night, replaying the tracks for hours. "We knew that we had found something outrageously beautiful and we wanted the whole world to listen."
Across its running time, In Moll unfolds like a series of dreamlike landscapes, inviting the listener into a world that feels both familiar and strangely other. Bells, hisses, distant textures, and slow-moving bass tones drift through vast expanses of atmosphere while luminous synthesizer washes seem to blur the horizon in a fine digital mist. The album's transportive qualities are matched by a remarkable sense of compositional discipline. Every gesture feels deliberate, every texture carefully placed. Balancing warmth and melancholy with restraint, Guentner created a body of work that rewards both close listening and complete surrender.
Reflecting on the album twenty-five years later, Wolfgang Voigt describes Guentner as "one of the first, but also one of the most important ambient artists" associated with Kompakt, calling his music "an integral, timeless part of the long history of pop ambient." Music critic and former Pitchfork Editor-in-Chief Mark Richardson, who reviewed In Moll upon its original release, similarly noted that the album "marked the arrival of an important new voice," and today regards it as "one of the finest ambient releases of the decade."
The album's influence continues to extend far beyond its original audience. For many listeners, In Moll served as an entry point into a new understanding of what ambient music could be. Black Knoll boss Rafael Anton Irisarri first encountered the album shortly after its release in 2001. "It immediately opened a door to a world of music I didn't know existed," he recalls. "At a time when I was still discovering my own creative voice, Markus showed me entirely new possibilities for what electronic music could communicate." Simply put, "The Sight Below would not have existed without In Moll paving the way."
Far from a historical curiosity, In Moll continues to feel strikingly contemporary. What once sounded futuristic now feels timeless, its patient pacing, attention to detail, and sense of wonder remaining entirely intact. The album's enduring power lies not only in its influence, but in the curiosity it continues to inspire, inviting listeners to step inside its world and lose themselves within it.
To mark its twenty-fifth anniversary, Black Knoll Editions presents the most complete edition of In Moll to date. Newly remastered in full analog by Rafael Anton Irisarri, this expanded release pairs the original album with a newly reworked interpretation by Markus Guentner himself, revisiting the material through the lens of twenty-five years of artistic development. The anniversary edition also features a new visual presentation designed by Guentner, offering a visual counterpart to the album's continued evolution. Together, these recordings and visuals celebrate both the enduring legacy of In Moll and its ability to reveal new dimensions twenty-five years later.
This 25th Anniversary Edition on Black Knoll Editions celebrates a recording whose quiet impact has only grown with time, preserving a work that remains as evocative, singular, and essential today as it was in 2001.
Twenty-five years after its original release, Markus Guentner's debut album In Moll returns in a special anniversary reissue on Black Knoll Editions, reaffirming its place as one of the defining ambient recordings of the early 21st century.
Released in 2001 during the formative years of Kompakt's influential Pop Ambient series, In Moll emerged from a period of rapid transformation in electronic music. New technologies, expanding digital networks, and shifting creative possibilities allowed artists to imagine entirely new sonic worlds. Amid this fertile landscape, Guentner's music stood apart. Combining delicate melodic fragments, slow-moving harmonies, and a remarkable sense of spatial depth, In Moll introduced a distinct artistic voice whose impact can still be felt a quarter-century later.
The album arrived shortly after Guentner's contributions to the inaugural Pop Ambient compilation, including the now-beloved "Regensburg 1," named after his Bavarian hometown. Those early recordings immediately captured the attention of Kompakt founders Michael Mayer and Wolfgang Voigt. Recalling his first encounter with the music, Mayer describes listening to a demo CDR with Voigt while wandering through Cologne late into the night, replaying the tracks for hours. "We knew that we had found something outrageously beautiful and we wanted the whole world to listen."
Across its running time, In Moll unfolds like a series of dreamlike landscapes, inviting the listener into a world that feels both familiar and strangely other. Bells, hisses, distant textures, and slow-moving bass tones drift through vast expanses of atmosphere while luminous synthesizer washes seem to blur the horizon in a fine digital mist. The album's transportive qualities are matched by a remarkable sense of compositional discipline. Every gesture feels deliberate, every texture carefully placed. Balancing warmth and melancholy with restraint, Guentner created a body of work that rewards both close listening and complete surrender.
Reflecting on the album twenty-five years later, Wolfgang Voigt describes Guentner as "one of the first, but also one of the most important ambient artists" associated with Kompakt, calling his music "an integral, timeless part of the long history of pop ambient." Music critic and former Pitchfork Editor-in-Chief Mark Richardson, who reviewed In Moll upon its original release, similarly noted that the album "marked the arrival of an important new voice," and today regards it as "one of the finest ambient releases of the decade."
The album's influence continues to extend far beyond its original audience. For many listeners, In Moll served as an entry point into a new understanding of what ambient music could be. Black Knoll boss Rafael Anton Irisarri first encountered the album shortly after its release in 2001. "It immediately opened a door to a world of music I didn't know existed," he recalls. "At a time when I was still discovering my own creative voice, Markus showed me entirely new possibilities for what electronic music could communicate." Simply put, "The Sight Below would not have existed without In Moll paving the way."
Far from a historical curiosity, In Moll continues to feel strikingly contemporary. What once sounded futuristic now feels timeless, its patient pacing, attention to detail, and sense of wonder remaining entirely intact. The album's enduring power lies not only in its influence, but in the curiosity it continues to inspire, inviting listeners to step inside its world and lose themselves within it.
To mark its twenty-fifth anniversary, Black Knoll Editions presents the most complete edition of In Moll to date. Newly remastered in full analog by Rafael Anton Irisarri, this expanded release pairs the original album with a newly reworked interpretation by Markus Guentner himself, revisiting the material through the lens of twenty-five years of artistic development. The anniversary edition also features a new visual presentation designed by Guentner, offering a visual counterpart to the album's continued evolution. Together, these recordings and visuals celebrate both the enduring legacy of In Moll and its ability to reveal new dimensions twenty-five years later.
This 25th Anniversary Edition on Black Knoll Editions celebrates a recording whose quiet impact has only grown with time, preserving a work that remains as evocative, singular, and essential today as it was in 2001.
A legendary figure of the Belgian electronic scene and one of the iconic DJs of the famous Lagoa, DJ HS returns to Ghoststyle with Booty Shake EP, a four-track release showcasing the sound that has made him a favourite among clubbers for decades.
Featuring Booty Shake, Spectrum, Shut Up and Acid Twist, the EP delivers four driving cuts packed with infectious grooves, pounding rhythms and unmistakable acid flavours. Staying true to DJ HS's signature style, each track is built for maximum dancefloor impact while preserving the raw spirit of authentic underground electronic music.
Whether you're looking for energetic peak-time weapons or timeless club grooves, Booty Shake EP is a solid addition to any DJ bag and vinyl collection.
Français
DJ HS présente "Booty Shake EP" sur Ghoststyle
Figure emblématique de la scène électronique belge et DJ incontournable du mythique Lagoa, DJ HS signe son retour sur Ghoststyle avec Booty Shake EP, un EP de quatre titres qui reflète parfaitement le son qui fait vibrer les clubs depuis des décennies.
Composé de Booty Shake, Spectrum, Shut Up et Acid Twist, cet EP rassemble quatre productions percutantes mêlant grooves entraînants, rythmiques puissantes et touches acid irrésistibles. Fidèle à l'univers musical de DJ HS, chaque morceau est pensé pour offrir un impact maximal sur le dancefloor tout en conservant l'esprit brut de la musique électronique underground.
Que ce soit pour les DJs à la recherche d'armes redoutables pour le peak time ou les amateurs de vinyles électroniques authentiques, Booty Shake EP trouvera naturellement sa place dans toute collection.
Faitiche presents the debut solo album by cellist, sound artist, and composer Topu Lyo: “quiet scenes from tokyo” brings together sixteen miniatures for solo cello and tape echo that oscillate between abstracts drones and rhythmic pizzicato sketches – all recorded at Topu’s Tokyo apartment. The constant traffic noise from a nearby highway has become an accompanying soundtrack for his compositions and can be heard on the recordings. Topu’s playing is marked by a distinctive idiom oriented more towards abstract electronic studio effects than classical technique.
The artist spoke to Jan Jelinek about his work:
JJ: A solo cello album may seem like an odd fit for a label that has to date released only music that is electronic in the broadest sense. But I think “quiet scenes from tokyo” complements the Faitiche repertoire exceptionally well. Its sixteen miniatures showcase the cello in all its complexity: the bowed passages sometimes recall a tape feedback drone; the pizzicato playing conjures up the percussion recordings of Moondog; and the abstract textures might be mistaken for the product of a granular sampler rather than rapid finger work on the cello. I’m constantly surprised by just how rich and varied this album is – without ever losing the charm of its sketch-like quality. Could you say a few words about the making of your album – first of all, from a rather technical perspective: what production tools did you use, and why?
TL: My production tools were very sparse. Just a solo cello and my Roland 301 Space Echo, which I only used at the end, running everything through it during mixing, tape only. After years of working with electronics, pedals, and synthesizers, moving to Tokyo pushed me toward minimizing my setup. But my aesthetics shifted too, toward simplicity. I wanted to strip everything back to just the acoustic cello and see how far I could push it — replicating some of my favorite electronic effects through extended technique: slow portamento, LFOs, filters, detune, noise. I’d also been listening to a cassette of ocean sounds for years. When I moved to Tokyo I was horrified to find myself living directly across from a freeway. Eventually the freeway started sounding almost identical to the ocean — and that ended up playing a prominent part in the recording.
JJ: That’s super interesting: mimicking electronic production as a compositional idea for the cello! You say the sound of the freeway is crucial to the album: I, too, tend to interpret steady traffic noise as a positive soundscape – do we hear the freeway on the album? I can also hear other field recordings, for example on “a street car with announcements”. Can you say a bit about how these field recordings influence your playing?
TL: Yes, you can hear the freeway on the album! The freeway is most prominent in “old trees in lonely spring”, “yuyake koyake”, and “the moon” (you can clearly hear individual cars). When I first began recording I had my balcony door shut tightly, but after a while I began leaning into the highway sound and slowly opening the door little by little to control the amount of noise. “streetcar with announcements” was a moment I was recording and a car passed by making announcements in the background. I loved how it sounded! Same thing with “yuyake koyake”, and later I realized that every day at 5pm the same song plays to mark sunset, telling children it’s time to go home. Having this bedrock of sound puts less pressure on me to put music on top or to play more notes.
JJ: It’s astonishing how much this differs from what I’d imagined: I’d been picturing peaceful landscape recordings, but had never thought of a freeway. Which goes to show how open to interpretation traffic noises are. So the room by the freeway had a major influence on the album – how are you going to perform it live?
TL: The contrast between the freeway and the beautiful landscape in my head couldn’t have been starker. I too was imagining a beautiful landscape in which to create the album, but somehow it still worked out. I've been going back and forth a lot on live shows and I think the most honest way is to have it the most stripped down. I was thinking of using traffic samples etc., but I think the duet really comes from the background sounds from every unique venue/environment. So as it stands, I’ll just be doing acoustic solo cello.
Colorful, powerful and elegant. A watershed masterpiece that embraces before then and after that by Kiyoshi Sugimoto, the master of the era.
Since turning professional in 1960, Kiyoshi Sugimoto has been active in many sessions and recordings. From the latter half of the 1960s, he joined groups such as Hideo Shiraki, Akira Ishikawa, and Terumasa Hino, gaining attention and solidifying his position with leader works such as “Country Dream” and “Babylonia Wind.” This work was recorded with Akira Ishikawa, Hiromasa Suzuki, Takao Uematsu and others right after studying in America for about a year. Starting with the groovy and luscious “Our Time” and “Marmalade Sky”, the dubious keyboards of “Jones Street”, and the melancholic and beautiful “Quiet Pulse”, it can be said to be a gap between jazz rock and fusion. There are attractive songs. This work represents Sugimoto’s work in the mid-1970s.
Chicago-based duo DRASII (Lisa Armstrong & Chris Kalis) return with The Seeker, the follow-up EP to 2024's Spirito Celeste. Co-released on ETC and Shmee Records, it continues their trek through a paranormal sonic landscape. Using vintage analogue and FM hardware synths, the five-track release runs through Deep House, Acid, Electro, Balearic and Post-Industrial.
The opening track, "Daydream," features celestial, wispy vocals, deep bass and sparkling synth melodies. It leads into "Vertigo," which follows with a shifting drone over repetitive Juno 60 notes channelling Chris & Cosey or Adrian Sherwood. This is what Sarah and John Connor would have in the tape deck while barrelling down the freeway in a stolen police cruiser.
On the reverse side, "Tiger's Eye" leads with SH-101 bass that moves around a swinging 909 beat, creating a downtempo feel that mixes inspiration from Larry Heard and Ibiza in the 90s. From there, "Hycean" propels forward with 707 drums and acid bass before breaking into a syncopated polyrhythm accented by witchy vocal samples. "Sorcerer" closes on an upbeat, electro feel, centered around a dark metallic bass blended with 6/8 time arpeggio melodies.
The Seeker is a lucid dream, a spell, and a stirring of the subconscious: five transmissions from somewhere just beyond the void.
A torrent of brilliance released from the fingertips. The art of the piano trio by a giant of arrangement.
In 1968, Norio Maeda, the genius arranger once described as being able to “write different scores with his right and left hands at the same time,” welcomed his close musical allies Takeshi Inomata and Tatsuro Takimoto and took on the piano head-on in his first piano trio work as a pianist. This album brings together the refined melodies of the new mainstream style that led the jazz scene at the time, experimental elements using prepared piano, and even a strikingly inventive recording approach in which as many as seven microphones were placed inside the piano. With the outstanding structural power of a composer and arranger and the sharp instincts of a performer woven together at a high level, this is an important work that deserves to be engraved in the history of Japanese jazz.
Ramjac Corporation, aka Paul Chivers, emerged from the UK's late-'80s rave underground, performing live at parties like Sunrise, Energy, Back to the Future, Fun-da-Mental and Synergy. Building tracks with an Atari computer and an E-MU 12-bit sampler, turning severe technical limitations into raw, elastic club music, 88-92: It is What it Was gathers music born in bedrooms then tested in front of crowds at warehouse raves, while the culture was still inventing itself without boundaries, completelyfree.
Ramjac was the original artist on Irdial Discs, following label founder Akin Fernandez's Aqua Regia, and introduced Lee Purkis' In Sync and Neuropolitique to the label, shaping the singular catalogue of that extraordinary imprint alongside Luke Slater's Morganistic, Thee J Johanz and Anthony Manning.
That legacy is now revisited by Musique Pour La Danse, with the release of a limited edition vinyl and digital edition featuring extended liner notes by Nick Halkes of XL Recordings, Positiva and Kicks Like A Mule fame, who witnessed the early Ramjac period first-hand. The release is illustrated by Grant Fulton, who created the visual identity for The Shamen's Synergy events and Orbital albums.
This album presents music written exclusively between 1988-92 and forms the foundation of Ramjac Corporation's ongoing live performances. Restored from the original floppy discs, the recordings preserve the uniquerelationship between early digital technology, sampling culture and live improvisation that defines the Ramjac approach.
Mixed for release for the first time by Trevor Lancaster-Smith, whose 90s engineering work encompassed Leftfield, Faithless and Roni Size, the album brings these compositions into sharp focus while preserving the character of the original instruments and performances. Not just a historical document, 88-92: It is What it Was is a living body of work: music created then, realised now, and continuing to surprise and evolve.
We are finally ready to unveil one of the most exciting projects we have worked on in our label's history: a new release by legendary disco project Hudson People, best remembered for their essential classic "Trip to Your Mind" - which just received its anniversary issue on our label!
Now it's time for "Hold On" - a brand-new single featuring several mixes based on an original recording from the late 1980s, with the completely unheard yet incredibly soulful voice of singer Rickey Owens, whom composer and producer Reginald Hudson worked with at the time.
When we first got in touch with Reg Hudson several years ago, we were originally interested in releasing his "Shake It - Make It Loose" album, which he recorded with John Davis (later known as one of the real voices behind Milli Vanilli). While talking about John Davis (RIP) and other great GI singers such as Karl Keaton, Reginald Hudson immediately mentioned Rickey Owens as one of the best singers he had ever worked with.
Of course, we had never heard of him, as none of his music had ever been released. But when Hudson showed us some old demos and sent us the original DAT recordings, we were immediately hooked.
"Hold On" was recorded in or around 1988 with a simple drum machine and keyboard accompaniment - essentially a demo intended to be recorded properly in a better studio. But the vocal performance was simply stunning, complete with beautifully recorded ad-libs. Owens had a truly remarkable, clear voice with an incredible amount of soul. Luckily, Hudson had his old DAT tapes digitized several years ago, so the acapella recordings survived in excellent shape.
We immediately reached out to several producers to create reworks of the track. The 12" EP compiles some of the most club-friendly of these new mixes - but there is more to come…
First up is Thomas Redfern, a senior producer, professional studio musician and keyboardist from London, UK. His version is a catchy, funky yet deep House track that could easily become a favourite on dancefloors around the globe. Redfern also blessed us with a dub mix that takes things even deeper.
But it gets even catchier on side B of the vinyl. Tom Quick sped up the tempo, added filters and delivered a rework that could make fans of Chromeo, Daft Punk, Stardust and any late-'90s French House afficionado go completely nuts. Yes, we mean it! With a fresh twist on the original, the track has a massive club appeal that we hope both DJs and dancers will dig.
The vinyl single is completed by a mix from German legend DJ Friction, whose version is based on synth layers from the Tom Quick mix. Friction added new drums and bass, giving the track the distinctive modern electro boogie funk vibe he is known for. His mix brings to mind classics such as Shannon's "Let the Music Play" and works of Freestyle's Tony Butler.
The vinyl 12" with 4 mixes is released on The Outer Edge's brand-new sublabel, 1st Floor Records, which focuses on more dancefloor-oriented material. More mixes are available digitally and should not be missed.
PR Feedback:
„Killer“ – Gilles Peterson
„Disco, deep house and boogie all in there! Superb!“ – Groove City Radio
„Dope!!“ – DJ Craze
„The boogie mixes are so good!“ – Selvagem
„Awesome and Huge Package“ - Leon El Ray
„Wow, Trip to Your Mind is so good and this is a real grower“ - Ibiza Sonica
„Really liking the Balearic & Redfern Mix, thanks!“ – Mystic Bill
„Both Thomas Redfern mixes are ace!“ – Deeper Shades of House
,Manifold of Partially Actualized Realities" ist das neue Album bei Kou Records von Randall Dunn - Produzent, Komponist und einer der markantesten Gestalter von Low-End- und räumlichen Klängen in der zeitgenössischen Musik, bekannt für seine Arbeit mit Sunn O))), Oneohtrix Point Never, David Torn und unzähligen anderen aus den Bereichen Heavy-, Experimental- und Avantgarde-Musik. Das Album ist eine Meditation über zerbrochene Realitäten, Zeit und Sterblichkeit - ein Spiegel, der sich auf sich selbst zurückfaltet und darüber, wie zukünftige Ereignisse die Vergangenheit beeinflussen. Sein tragender Geist ist Philip K. Dicks ,Pink Light Experience" von 1974, in der der Autor berichtete, eine Übertragung von einer gewaltigen, außerirdischen Intelligenz empfangen zu haben: informationsreich, uralt und überwältigend. Dunn nähert sich dem sowohl als Konzept als auch als kompositorische Logik - Musik, die in Schichten auftaucht, zusammenbricht, sich neu formiert und sich einer Auflösung verweigert.? In vier Stücken setzt Dunn ein ganzes Arsenal an Vintage-Synthesizern ein - Korg MonoPoly, Korg MS-20, PPG Wave, CS-80, Juno-60, Waldorf Strings, Fizmo - neben einer außergewöhnlichen Ensemblebesetzung. Spoken-Word-Beiträge von Jim Jarmusch (basierend auf PKDs Prosa) und Laima Leyton (basierend auf Robert Graves' ,Time") verankern zwei der vier Stücke in Sprache, ohne sie zu erklären. Das Album bewegt sich von orchestraler Kammermusik über elektroakustische Abstraktion hin zu einem abschließenden Stück - ,Ayn" -, das sich zu ekstatischem Jazz entfaltet, mit Cyro Baptista, Briggan Krauss, Henry Fraser, Charmaine Lee und Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe. Wahre elektroakustische Komposition im vollsten Sinne: spektral, körperlich und weit offen. Produziert und gemischt von Randall Dunn bei Circular Ruin, April 2026. Aufgenommen und gemastert von Ben Greenberg. Dolby-Atmos-Mischungen von Ben Greenberg. Lackschnitt von Paul Gold bei Salt Mastering. Cover- und Rückseitengestaltung von Steve Rude.
Although nearly two decades after its release the legendary album Eksel by D'Arcangelo has achieved cult status, it is worth remembering that it all started in the early 90s in Rome. The twin brothers Fabrizio and Marco D'Arcangelo sculpted this electronic IDM treasure with a minimalist arsenal of hardware and analog synthesizers, achieving a raw though sophisticated sound that immediately caught the attention of Aphex Twin & Grant Wilson Claridge, Rephlex record label heads themselves.
While in 1993 and 1994 a large part of the European scene was carried away by the faster, more commercial rhythms of hardcore or eurodance, the D'Arcangelo brothers preferred to look toward the mental landscapes and abstract textures coming out of Detroit and Warp Records. By fusing the machine-like coldness of electro with melancholic melodies and complex rhythm structures, the Italian duo became one of the undisputed pioneers of braindance music in Mediterranean Europe.
Looking back, Eksel—released on Rephlex in 2007—stood as a challenge to the listening habits of its time. Positioned between mental experimentation and dancefloor functionality, the album moves effortlessly between hypnotic club contexts and intimate, detail-rich home listening. Now twenty years later, its legacy continues to resonate among collectors and lovers of analog sound. Eksel stands as proof that electronic innovation extended far beyond the major hubs of London or Berlin, strengthening the dialogue between British IDM and the Italian school, and establishing D'Arcangelo as architects of a distinctive sound.
Marco D'Arcangelo looks back on the album's origins with characteristic wit: "Eksel was conceived to celebrate our 40th Birthday. At Rephlex, they thought we should include a Roman attribute, just to remind people of our so-called 'ancestry'—which isn't really anything, but being born in Rome did sound cool. The XL in Roman numerals is 40, spelled 'Eksel'. And funnily enough, this year we are turning 60 (oh my god!), and 60 in Roman numerals is LX, spelled 'Leks'."
For this release, the partnership brings together a range of elements into a cohesive and refined sonic language. D'Arcangelo seamlessly blend leftfield electronica, avant-garde techno, and glitch, shaping a forward-thinking sound. Vintage synthesizers intertwine with crisp programmed percussion, while melodic structures interact with classic 808 rhythms. This deluxe reissue also exclusively includes RFLX1902 and Electronic Lounge, two tracks from the same era never before pressed on vinyl. The result is a warm and reflective body of work, deeply rooted in electro's legacy, yet unmistakably oriented toward the future.
Coming from deep within the city that brought us Master P’s legendary No Limit Dynasty and Lil Boosie comes an artist who uniquely encapsulates the crossing point between lowslung Hip Hop and forward thinking, emotive electronic music. 22-year-old New Orlean’s based Suicideyear AKA James Prudhomme brings his own Southern Gothic perspective to the table with new album ‘Color The Weather,’ set for release on July 6th via LuckyMe. Although not his debut album per se - 2015’s ‘Japan’ on OneOhTrix Point Never's Software label was a collection of previously released beats – ‘Color The Weather’ represents the first time Suicideyear has specifically sought to create a complete body of work, further developing different textures and sounds that were hinted on last year’s critically acclaimed ‘Hate Songs’ EP. Within these tracks lie the ghosts of Prudhomme’s past - a difficult childhood truncated in his teens by his family home burning down. When he left Baton Rouge for his new home in New Orleans he found himself further entrenched in the Southern Rap scene whilst he soaked up the avant-garde electronic music he found online. Balancing his tender instrumentation alongside some of the tightest drum programming in the game - these tracks twist and turn - new elements are built and destroyed constantly encompassing a huge emotional range. On the records’ two vocal features he expounds on this innovative and ambitious duality – Domino Records own Georgia filling the track with longing and hope whilst Prudhomme deconstructs the track around her. The Casey MQ featured ‘Said and Done’ goes further - the last third of the track slowing to a codeine induced haze paying a nod to the Chopped and Screwed sound of James youth. “Color The Weather is about the ability to build or form security after trauma/betrayal & building personal coping mechanisms to get through said traumas. Doing what it takes to control your life when powers are working against it. The total resilience of the human spirit.” James Prudhomme
»Breathing Soil« is the third full-length album by Swiss musician and performance artist Elischa Heller. As a member of groups such as Film 2, Beurre, or 222Rn as well as in his live practice as a solo artist and his performances, notions of physical and temporal presence have always informed his multi-genre approach. These two side-long compositions centre around drone music and are both intended as an invitation to listen deeply as they are a product of deep listening itself. Drawing on Heller’s live practice, which aims to create shared social experiences, this music mediates between matter and metaphysics.
»If we recognise that we and the world around us are nothing but vibrations and oscillations, drone music can get in touch with a profound aspect of our ways of being,« says Heller. »It enables us to get in tune with our surroundings and each other.« Hence, resonance serves as the guiding principle of his work. As Heller explains, the title »Breathing Soil« can be read in two ways: As a description of how one breathes in the soil and gets in touch with the Earth through the sound, or that it is the soil itself that resonance, with sound serving as the connective tissue between different forms of being.
»Breathing Soil« relies on radical forms of reduction that treat sound as raw form—as vibrations and oscillations whose subtle acceleration and deceleration can have wide-reaching consequences. Meant to be played on speakers, the subtle shifts in dynamics, timbre, and volume of these two pieces are supposed to resonate with the rooms in which they are played. This music aims to make the things sing.
- 2026 Edition, gepresst auf apricotfarbenem Vinyl - Erweitertes Gatefold-Cover - Enthält ein 20-seitiges Booklet mit seltenen Fotos und Liner Notes von Lenny Kaye sowie Beiträgen von Nick Cave und Devendra Banhart. Karen Daltons Album ,In My Own Time" aus dem Jahr 1971 gilt als wahres Meisterwerk einer der geheimnisvollsten, rätselhaftesten und nachhaltig einflussreichsten Künstlerinnen der Musikgeschichte. Das neu erweiterte, 20-seitige LP-Booklet mit selten gezeigten Fotos, Liner Notes des Musikers und Autors Lenny Kaye sowie Beiträgen von Nick Cave und Devendra Banhart rundet das Paket ab. Die in Oklahoma aufgewachsene Karen Dalton (1937-1993) brachte eine Vielzahl von Einflüssen in ihr Werk ein. Wie Lenny Kaye in den Liner Notes schreibt, hört man den Jazz von Ella Fitzgerald und Billie Holiday, die Intensität von Nina Simone, den Appalachen-Gesang von Jean Ritchie sowie den R&B und Country, die auf ihrem Weg nach New York unweigerlich in ihre Musik einflossen. Ausgestattet mit einem Langhalsbanjo und einer 12-saitigen Gitarre hob sich Dalton durch ihren unverwechselbaren, lebensmüden Gesang von ihren Kollegen ab. In den frühen 60er Jahren wurde sie zu einer festen Größe in der Folk-Szene von Greenwich Village, wo sie traditionelles Material, Blues-Standards und die Songs ihrer Zeitgenossen interpretierte, darunter Tim Hardin, Fred Neil und Richard Tucker, den sie später heiratete. Bob Dylan war unterdessen sofort von ihrer Kunst begeistert. ,Meine Lieblingssängerin dort war Karen Dalton", erinnerte er sich in *Chronicles: Volume One* (Simon & Schuster, 2004). ,Karen hatte eine Stimme wie Billie Holiday und spielte Gitarre wie Jimmy Reed." Wer Dalton kannte, wusste, dass sie kein Interesse daran hatte, sich den Launen der Plattenindustrie zu beugen. Auf der Bühne interagierte sie kaum mit dem Publikum. Im Studio fühlte sie sich beim Aufnahmeprozess ebenso unwohl. Ihr Debütalbum von 1969, *It's So Hard to Tell Who's Going To Love You The Best*, das 2009 von Light in the Attic neu aufgelegt wurde, entstand heimlich, als Dalton dachte, sie würde nur Songs proben. Als Michael Lang, Mitveranstalter von Woodstock, Dalton ansprach, ob sie ein Folgealbum für sein neues Label ,Just Sunshine" aufnehmen wolle, war sie, gelinde gesagt, skeptisch. Das Album musste nach ihren eigenen Bedingungen und in ihrem eigenen Tempo entstehen. Daraus wurde ein sechsmonatiger Aufenthalt in den Bearsville Studios in Woodstock, New York. Produziert wurde das Album von dem Bassisten Harvey Brooks, der bereits auf ,It's So Hard to Tell Who's Going To Love You The Best" an Daltons Seite gespielt hatte. Brooks, der stolz darauf war, unkompliziert, zuverlässig und unterstützend zu sein, verstand Daltons Arbeitsweise, war aber auch bereit, sie sanft zu ermutigen und die Künstlerin dazu herauszufordern, ihre kreativen Grenzen zu erweitern. ,Ich habe versucht, ihr einen flexiblen Rahmen zu bieten", erzählte er Kaye. ,Ich habe die Entscheidungen ihr überlassen - das Tempo, das Feeling festzulegen." Sie war sehr zurückhaltend, und ich habe ihr alles vorgelegt; wenn sie mehr brauchte, habe ich ihr Optionen angeboten. Alle gingen einfühlsam auf sie ein. Sie war die Anführerin. Dalton, die selten ihre eigenen Kompositionen aufführte, wählte eine Reihe von Stücken zur Interpretation aus - von traditionellen Liedern wie ,Katie Cruel" und ,Same Old Man" bis hin zu Paul Butterfields ,In My Own Dream" und Richard Tuckers ,Are You Leaving For The Country". Außerdem erweiterte sie ihr übliches Repertoire und fügte R&B-Hits wie ,When a Man Loves a Woman" und ,How Sweet It Is" hinzu. Im Gegensatz zu ihrer vorherigen LP bot Daltons neue Aufnahme vollere, poporientiertere Arrangements, an denen eine ganze Reihe talentierter Studiomusiker mitwirkte. Auch wenn das Publikum der 70er Jahre vielleicht noch nicht bereit für Daltons Musik war, stand eine neue Generation kurz davor, ihr Werk zu entdecken. In den Jahrzehnten nach ihrem Tod nannten viele Künstler Karen Dalton als Einfluss, darunter Lucinda Williams, Joanna Newsom, Nick Cave, Angel Olsen, Devendra Banhart, Sharon Van Etten, Courtney Barnett und Adele. In dem kürzlich gefeierten Dokumentarfilm ,Karen Dalton: In My Own Time" sinniert Cave über Daltons einzigartige Anziehungskraft: ,Es wird eine Art Anspruch an den Zuhörer gestellt", erklärt er. Ob man es mag oder nicht, man muss in ihre Welt eintauchen. Und es ist eine Welt voller Verzweiflung. Peter Walker, der ebenfalls im Film zu sehen ist, führt diesen Gedanken weiter aus: ,Wenn sie in ihrer Musik ein bestimmtes Gefühl empfinden und es so rüberbringen kann, dass man dieses Gefühl auch spürt, dann ist das wirklich das Magischste, was man tun kann." Er fügt hinzu: ,Sie hatte eine tiefe, tiefgründige und liebevolle Seele - das hört man in ihrer Musik."
A love letter to Canada sees Adams explore new musical territory, drawing on country, folk and rock while telling stories inspired by the people, places and history of home. How's It Goin' could be the most Canadian album ever written! Inspired by the landscapes, characters, stories and current affairs that are all part of Canada's ongoing history, How's It Goin' sees Adams explore a different musical landscape of his own. Alongside the unmistakable songwriting and voice that have been at the heart of his music, the album introduces elements of country and folk, giving the record a warm, roots-y character. Among the songs are "Diesel and Dirt," "How's It Goin'," "Iron Ribbon" and "The Battle of Lundy's Lane". "The idea was simply to make a record about Canada," says Adams. "It started with writing the song for the documentary, 'Canada's Wild Eastern Edge' and after doing so much research, I was inspired to start writing more songs about Canada. Musically it took me somewhere a little different too, which made the whole thing exciting." One of the album's most poignant moments is "The Ballad of Terry Fox," Adams' tribute to one of Canada's most inspirational figures.The song will also be featured in the forthcoming new documentary film about Terry Fox, entitled "Run Terry Run". How's It Goin' acknowledges Adams' roots and delivers an album that is at times personal, cinematic and, occasionally, reflective but always unmistakably Adams.
A love letter to Canada sees Adams explore new musical territory, drawing on country, folk and rock while telling stories inspired by the people, places and history of home. How's It Goin' could be the most Canadian album ever written! Inspired by the landscapes, characters, stories and current affairs that are all part of Canada's ongoing history, How's It Goin' sees Adams explore a different musical landscape of his own. Alongside the unmistakable songwriting and voice that have been at the heart of his music, the album introduces elements of country and folk, giving the record a warm, roots-y character. Among the songs are "Diesel and Dirt," "How's It Goin'," "Iron Ribbon" and "The Battle of Lundy's Lane". "The idea was simply to make a record about Canada," says Adams. "It started with writing the song for the documentary, 'Canada's Wild Eastern Edge' and after doing so much research, I was inspired to start writing more songs about Canada. Musically it took me somewhere a little different too, which made the whole thing exciting." One of the album's most poignant moments is "The Ballad of Terry Fox," Adams' tribute to one of Canada's most inspirational figures.The song will also be featured in the forthcoming new documentary film about Terry Fox, entitled "Run Terry Run". How's It Goin' acknowledges Adams' roots and delivers an album that is at times personal, cinematic and, occasionally, reflective but always unmistakably Adams.
A quiet intensity permeates Chantal Michelle’s music, like a veiled flame. Even at its most spare and delicate, an undulating tension unsettles the ear through wavering microtonal interference and uncanny spatial juxtaposition. She takes seriously the mandate of the composer to foster new relationships between various types of sounds, bringing together disparate field recordings, instrumental stems, and the sounds of circuitry in unheard configurations. Resolution is elusive, in its place a sense of oblong cyclicality and prickly uncertainty. When the veil is pulled back, we find more depth, more complexity, and more mystery.
Unit of Heart, Michelle’s second album of 2026, presents two interrelated pieces that highlight diverging compositional modes. Here she brings in two key collaborators: Patrick Shiroishi, who contributes flutes and saxophones throughout, and poet Funto Omojola, whose words and voice bookend the title composition. Both compositions unfold gradually, but where the album’s a-side “Sudden Oceans” presents a minimal tonal palette focused entirely on the subtle grain of wind instruments, “Unit of Heart” proceeds linearly, moving through passages of synthesizer, environmental recordings, and full-cheeked wails of saxophone. Both encourage a state of focused listening as the scope of the music deepens and widens.
“Sudden Oceans” allows the listener to hover in rippling currents of air, breath overlapping breath in a shimmering patchwork. All flutes and saxophones on the piece are played by Shiroishi, which are molded by Michelle into a pattern that resembles the flow of tidal waters, surging and receding moment to moment as the tonal density increases. Expansive and recursive, it reflects both the restorative awe and eerie disquiet of encountering the sublime. The first and last sounds we hear are the gentle rush of unmediated breath as Shiroishi connects and disconnects from his flute.
Michelle’s skill at presenting the familiar as preternatural comes to the fore on “Unit of Heart, ” one of her most ambitious works. Omojola’s voice begins with a melody that could be a lullaby, but as it’s bounced around the stereo field it takes on a haunted quality. Their poem, reprinted on the LP’s inner sleeve, hints at a similar type of transformation: “I mean this is where our mouth turns saliva into spears only a throat can recognize. ” Pads of downy synthesizer billow and are subsumed by a discordant ringing. The climactic section features atonal electronics and field recordings, first of water and then the evening call of insects, processed in such a way to transform them into pulsating bursts of noise. What we think we know about the world, what is elemental, can change with even the slightest adjustment of the lens.
Alek Lee and vocalist Margeeah come together for a boutique 7″ pressing limited to 200 copies, featuring two tracks blending soul, reggae, disco and dub. Lee, whose catalogue includes releases on Antinote and Isle of Jura, brings his background in slower, dub oriented productions to a collaboration built around Margeeah’s vocals and live instrumentation. The sound sits somewhere between Massive Attack’s Blue Lines and Grace Jones.
Margeeah comes from the Israelite community, whose musical history includes The Soul Messengers. Her debut album, Looking for Love, was recorded in 1983 with Kingdom Sounds, originally issued as a private press LP and reissued by Frederiksberg Records in 2025. Its musicians included Abshalom Ben Shlomo, associated with Sun Ra. Her vocal style spans soul, jazz, funk and reggae, with reference points including Roberta Flack and Doug & Jean Carn.
For this release, Lee records his own live drums and percussion for the first time, alongside his signature smoky melodica lines. The production develops the reggae elements of Margeeah’s singing, combining bass driven arrangements with live rhythms, spacious guitar lines and dubby approach.
On the A side, “The Music Inside”, Margeeah effortlessly projects Lee’s lyrics about optimism and the desire for inner and outer freedom. Built around a recurring vocal refrain, the track places her voice over a rooted reggae arrangement.
The B side, “Can You Feel It?”, moves seductively towards a slower disc-dub sound. Bass and drums provide the foundation, with the percussion developing from a restrained groove into a fuller live kit arrangement. Melodica and guitar weave around Margeeah’s lead vocal and the hypnotizing title phrase.
In August 2022, Australia-based, French born fourth-world music legend Ariel Kalma was invited to participate in BBC Radio 3"s Late Junction series of special collaborations. The program pairs artists that have not previously collaborated to create new music together. Kalma was quick to suggest working together with two musicians whom he has never met - the International Anthem recording artists Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer, whose critically-acclaimed duo debut Recordings from the Âland Islands had been released just a few months earlier. Kalma sent an invitation to Chiu and Honer, which was received with great enthusiasm. Chiu had been a fan of Kalma"s work for a long time, even citing him as a major influence on his approach to electronic music composition. After meeting their goal of 20 minutes worth of music for the program (which was four pieces total), the three musicians were satisfied in what they would present, and sent along their work to the producers of Late Junction; but simultaneously they felt like there was much more to be said, more work to be done. There were several pieces that they had nearly completed that weren"t sent for inclusion in the radio program, and there were many ideas for refining those that had. The three musicians collectively agreed that they would continue work together and try to push the music further. The Closest Thing to Silence is the result of their efforts to take the collaboration further.
Celestial Echo Records presents Nathaniel Best – Set Your House In Order, an incredible gospel soul LP from 1986, finally back in circulation.
Originally released on Spirit Records of Nevada, the album is very much of its time in the best way — gospel music with drum machines, warm synths and basslines that push it right into modern soul and boogie territory. Nathaniel Best’s voice carries the whole record with real conviction, joined by group vocals and arrangements that give the album that rich, uplifting 80s gospel soul sound.
For us, the standouts are clear. “Call Him” is the boogie dancer — bright, driving and full of movement, the kind of gospel cut that sits perfectly in a modern soul or boogie set. The title track, “Set Your House In Order”, is something else entirely: a beautiful downtempo soul glider, deep and heartfelt, with that slow-burning quality that makes the whole LP feel so special.
Those two tracks tell the story, but the magic runs through the whole record. Scattered across the album are these amazing slower gospel soul moments, balanced with enough groove and lift to keep it moving. It’s not just a one-tracker, it’s a proper LP with feeling, range and a sound that collectors have been chasing for years.
Best’s musical story runs deep. He grew up around gospel, recorded from a young age, played piano in church, sang with the Love Center Choir under Bishop Walter Hawkins, and later worked with names including The O’Jays and The Fairfield Four.
Original copies have always been hard to come by, and the album has built a serious reputation with gospel, soul and boogie collectors over the years.
Celestial Echo Records presents Nathaniel Best – Set Your House In Order, an incredible gospel soul LP from 1986, finally back in circulation.
Originally released on Spirit Records of Nevada, the album is very much of its time in the best way — gospel music with drum machines, warm synths and basslines that push it right into modern soul and boogie territory. Nathaniel Best’s voice carries the whole record with real conviction, joined by group vocals and arrangements that give the album that rich, uplifting 80s gospel soul sound.
For us, the standouts are clear. “Call Him” is the boogie dancer — bright, driving and full of movement, the kind of gospel cut that sits perfectly in a modern soul or boogie set. The title track, “Set Your House In Order”, is something else entirely: a beautiful downtempo soul glider, deep and heartfelt, with that slow-burning quality that makes the whole LP feel so special.
Those two tracks tell the story, but the magic runs through the whole record. Scattered across the album are these amazing slower gospel soul moments, balanced with enough groove and lift to keep it moving. It’s not just a one-tracker, it’s a proper LP with feeling, range and a sound that collectors have been chasing for years.
Best’s musical story runs deep. He grew up around gospel, recorded from a young age, played piano in church, sang with the Love Center Choir under Bishop Walter Hawkins, and later worked with names including The O’Jays and The Fairfield Four.
Original copies have always been hard to come by, and the album has built a serious reputation with gospel, soul and boogie collectors over the years.
With the stunning Planes In Reverse, Sascha Funke, the Berlin-born producer and DJ, and long-time member of the Kompakt family, releases his first album in almost a decade, since 2017’s Lotos Land. It’s a welcome return for one of the most eloquent and elegant producers in electronic and dance music, someone who’s always been able to say more with less, and the ten tracks here, moving effortlessly between techno, house, minimalism, disco house, and home listening tunes, are all gorgeously sculpted miniatures. With guest appearances from partner Julienne Dessagne (Fantastic Twins), with whom Funke has also worked in Saschienne, there’s something homely and family about it, too; a family of sounds, a home of tone. There’s also something consummate about Planes In Reverse, as though Sascha Funke has perfected the album format. There’s no flab here, no excess – it plays out like a perfectly designed experience, ten tracks, coming in under fifty minutes, an album where every moment matters.
It’s full of variety, but everything has the unmistakable Funke thumbprint, one that was developed during the late ‘90s / early ‘00s minimal techno and microhouse moment, but which was always open to other ideas and other sounds, too. Planes In Reverse came together quickly for Funke: “Last winter, I had two or three new tracks, which gave me a core feeling: ‘Ah, this could be the direction of something like an album.’ Sometimes it can be very easy that you wrap it up and then it becomes something coherent and solid. This happened within two or three months; it was very fast and direct.” Everything fell into place – the ten tracks revealed themselves, the album sat together as a whole, and the final piece of the puzzle was returning home again to Kompakt, who have supported Sascha Funke from the very start, releasing his first single, “Campus”, back in 1999.
Planes In Reverse opens stealthily with “What You See”, where rhythms percolate and bass prowls while gaseous textures fill the sonic spectrum. It’s also the first appearance of Fantastic Twins on the album; here, she speaks a hypnotic mantra, a prelude to the title track, where Dessagne has a pure pop moment, her voice ecstatic and vibrant. Indeed, Planes In Reverse plays out like thesis and antithesis ending in synthesis, the tracks nestling next to each other even as they shuttle between sounds, genres, perspectives. There are some beautiful moments dropped throughout Planes In Reverse – the heavenly textures that make the title track feel so cloud-bound; the glassy and orbital tones that drop from the skies through the disco house inspired “Karat”; the clamour and clatter of hyper-edited voices shuffling through “Splitter”; or the field recordings of Sascha’s son football training session that drop “Zockers” into a different place and space, slowly giving way to a beautifully paced electro-pop mantra. “In Germany,when the kids play a computer game, or when they play football, we describe it as zocken. They’re the players, they’re the Zockers.“ Funke explains.
Planes In Reverse winds down with the beautiful “Kruso”, where ticklish, loving arpeggios careen around the room, and drift-work chords shimmer and shuttle between your ears. It’s a perfect comedown to an album that feels breathes in and out at an organic pace, nothing above 130 BPM, everything sitting together just so. Indeed, that’s the feeling you take away from Planes In Reverse; it sums up the spirit of Sascha Funke productions perfectly, while also existing beautifully as its own world dreamt unto itself. It’s Sascha Funke down to the very essence. Nothing unnecessary, nothing extraneous: Pure Funke.
DJ Support: Vladimir Ivkovic, Calm, LefTo, Dawn Again, Dream Chimney, Alexis Le-Tan, Afterlife, Sofa Elsewhere, Kreggo, Froid Dub, Johan Blende, Sean Johnston, Fabio De Luca, Dr. Rob, Leo Mas, Mark Broadbent, Patch, Stefano Tucci, DJ Nova
Three years after dropping Rapido Super studio on Hell Yeah, Caramel 3000 has slowed things down even further for his new eight-track LP, Super Tempra. This playful work gets stranger but even more inviting than ever with his signature OB-6 synth and the Eurorack modular, oodles of springy reverb, delayed balafon and scattered spoken-words. Caramel 3000 splits his time between the muddy waters of the Barene, south of the Venice Lagoon, and the dim light of a studio in Anderlecht. When not cruising in his sun-bleached wooden boat, he cherishes in the little light that reaches him at his shelter in Anderlecht. Renata and Piero, the couple on the artwork, once passed through that studio. This irregular sonic fusion of this EP came out of that visit. It's a fantastical collage that dissolves the boundaries between devotion and daydream with syrupy choir voices and fragments of Nancy Fraser lectures drifting in and out like the plot of a half- remembered hallucination. Quotes from legendary Italian singer Ornella Vanoni, children’s percussion and mystic melodies are looped and modulated into slow-burning psych - outs.
After the ancient sci-fi dub of the opener, 'Corsa Nudi' pairs the occult with the primitive, 'Arena Deriva' melts to watery droplets and glacial waves, and 'Acqua Tofana' is polyrhythmic tribalism from another dimension. 'Lente Virtus' marries melodic innocence to trippy humid density and 'Soft-shell Crab' is a woozy kaleidoscope with the happy accidents left in. 'Cacciatore di Frodo' is a haunting apparition from the deep and 'Vittoria Foresta' suspends you between the earthly and the otherworldly. Super Tempra is half the speed but twice the depth and full of wonder.
Other Plans is the fifth full-length album by Swedish composer, producer, and vocalist Daniella Ljungsberg, and her third release on ORTHODOX. Returning to her early training in Baroque and Renaissance music, Ljungsberg reimagines these formative influences through the electroacoustic language she has developed over the years. Across seven tracks, harpsichord, double bass, bassoon, and trombone intertwine with modular synthesis, field recordings, and digital processing, moving between intimate songwriting and minimalist composition. Swedish folk echoes, Baroque sensibilities, and meticulous sound design dissolve into a singular musical landscape shaped by memory, nostalgia, and imagination. Created in a time of uncertainty and disorientation, Other Plans carries a delicate tension between melancholy and hope, transforming the act of looking back into a means of moving forward.
Physically tethered to this reality, yet creatively unmoored from any earthly restraints, Holy Fawn freely slip in and out of metal, shoegaze, electronic, alternative, and rock as if inhabiting multiple states of sonic existence all at once. Blazing new trails both seen and unseen as well as heard and unheard (but always felt), the Arizona quartet—Ryan Osterman, Evan Phelps, Alexander Rieth, and Austin Reinholz—continue to cover uncharted territory on their second full-length offering, Dimensional Bleed.
The group emerged in 2018 as a critical and fan favorite with their debut LP, Death Spells. Stereogum said the music is “all so beautiful,” while Heavy Blog Is Heavy went as far as to christen it “a landmark.” Thrice and Deafheaven each invited the band on tour, and Lamb of God’s Randy Blythe was effusive in his praise.
In 2020, Holy Fawn shared The Black Moon EP, which the Phoenix New Times hailed as “a ferocious slab of twilight guitar crunch.” In the midst of the Global Pandemic, Holy Fawn carefully assembled what would become Dimensional Bleed. Due to the closure of their practice space and de facto headquarters, the bulk of creation and recording happened remotely. Ryan performed vocals and electronics at home, while Austin and Evan tracked and mixed out of Evan’s studio. This time around, they enlisted Mike Watts The Dillinger Escape Plan, Glassjaw, The Dear Hunter for mixing and additional production and Mike Kalajian for mastering.
12 Inch Lovers - Celebrating 15 Years of Vinyl Culture!
Belgian vinyl-only event concept 12 Inch Lovers celebrates its 15th anniversary with two new additions to its established sampler series. Now entering its seventh year, the series reflects the music and atmosphere of the events, combining dancefloor favourites with carefully selected discoveries.
Samplers 13 & 14 bring together sought-after classics, hard-to-find gems and selected tracks and versions making their vinyl debut. Each volume features nine full-length tracks across two 12-inch records, making both releases essential additions for DJs and collectors alike.
Sampler 13 includes Sorry I Am Late by Kollektiv Turmstrasse, Marea (We've Lost Dancing) by Fred again.. & The Blessed Madonna, and Lifetimes by Slam feat. Tyrone Palmer. Further highlights include Tocadisco's Morumbi and the Martijn ten Velden Remix of Guitarra G.
Sampler 14 features Dreams by Deep Dish feat. Stevie Nicks, All That Matters by Kölsch feat. Troels Abrahamsen, and the NiCe7 Remix of It's Yours by Jon Cutler feat. E-Man. Belgian favourites Decoy & Roy with Inner Life and The Mackenzie with Higher In The Sky add to the selection.
Rooted in 15 years of vinyl-only events, these two compilations capture the distinctive sound of 12 Inch Lovers, offering lasting appeal for long-time fans, record collectors and DJs looking tobring proven classics back to the dancefloor.
Nothing But (Future) Classix, Straight From Vinyl!
Sampler 14 opens with Jon Cutler feat. E-Man - It's Yours (NiCe7 Remix). This remix pairs the recognisable vocal with a punchy house groove. A fresh take on a familiar classic that sets the tone straight away. Next comes Sterac Electronics - Destination Reached, with Steve Rachmad
showcasing his feel for electronic funk. Tight rhythms and an infectious groove make this a record with lasting appeal.
Side B features Swen Weber - Maya (Rerub), a powerful club track whose build and driving rhythm keep the dancefloor moving. Deep Dish feat. Stevie Nicks - Dreams then delivers a familiar moment. Stevie Nicks' distinctive voice and Deep Dish's warm, immersive house sound
give this well-known song a character all of its own.
Side C brings Kölsch feat. Troels Abrahamsen - All That Matters, a melodic track in which the vocaland gradual build complement each other beautifully. The kind of record that feels equally at home deep into a club night or under the first rays of sunshine at a festival. Next is Chew Fu feat. Steve Clisby - Purple Rain (Mousse T.'s Home A Lone Mix). Mousse T. gives this interpretation of the Prince classic a warm, soulful house groove, leaving plenty of room for Steve Clisby's voice to shine.
On side D, Jürgen Paape - We Love takes over. Playful, melodic and full of character, it adds a different flavour to the selection. Decoy & Roy - Inner Life follows with a generous dose of nostalgia and a sound that perfectly reflects a love for Belgian club classics. Closing the sampler is The Mackenzie - Higher In The Sky, whose dreamy melodies and uplifting energy provide a fitting finale.
Nine tracks across two 12-inch records, each in its full-length version. Much-loved classics, inspired remixes and lesser-known gems, brought together withthe same love for music that has driven 12 Inch Lovers' events for 15 years.
