Search:time to express

Montréal-based sound artist Steve Bates expands his strategies and stylistic influences on An Infinite Antenna, his second solo album for Constellation, giving freer reign to melodic components and textural dynamics: leftfield synth work, deconstructed drum machine, pointillist electric guitar, and radiostatic blur are all part of the new brew swirling around his bruitist signal-bending and field-recording sensibility. Arguably a more ambient album than his acclaimed 2022 Constellation debut, An Infinite Antenna is at the same time more densely packed with ideas, dynamics, evocations and earworms. Coming out of the anarcho-punk scene of the Canadian Prairies in the 1990s, Bates founded Winnipeg's experimental sound festival Send + Receive in 1998 before moving to Montréal to become Sound Coordinator at Hexagram (Concordia University), delving further into sonic research and theory, tape-based composition, and installation work. Alongside the curatorial arc of his own sound art label The Dim Coast, Bates released several solo and collaborative albums on ORAL_records leading up to All The Things That Happen, the 2022 Constellation debut praised by Boomkat for its "grittily iridescent ambient billow rendering maximalist panoramas" and by Backseat Mafia as "extraordinary soundscapes of unstable, destructive cacophony and tender calm, echoes of the threat of power." Where that album was noisier and single-minded, made with the self-imposed limit of a Casio SK-1, Bates plays more widely with instrumentation and atmospheres on An Infinite Antenna, also drawing on his post-hardcore roots in seeking a sort of track-by-track concision nonetheless driven by the album's coherence as a seamless work. "I was trying to set durations I associate with punk rather than the longer, sprawling music coming from more ambient styles (that I very much love), and while I wasn't able to quite pare it down to Minutemen durations, I had that reduction to essential elements as a sort of whisper over my shoulder." Incorporating source recordings made throughout 2023-2025, including at artist residencies and site-specific sound installation visits in Bosnia and Herzegovina (the album's cover photo was taken in Sarajevo), Austria, Greece, and Saskatchewan, An Infinite Antenna combines Bates' "idea of slowly scanning a radio dial" with a soundworld of recurring timbral and textural touchstones that forge an integrated whole. The album's 12 tracks work effectively as stand-alone pieces, replete with shifting undercurrents, buried melody, and stuttering kinetics, and as a sequential flow where the brief interstitial silences between them are like short pauses to flip the next page in a sketchbook of perspectival studies of a wide but singular tableau. The glistening atonal synth expressionism of opener 'Pink pink pink pink_pink pink' drifts gently toward submerged ambience, darkened by the noised rumble and static interference of 'Green as a ghost', which introduces broken beats and piano chords in its denouement. Tracks like 'Battles and sieges and street trees' and 'Easier sad than done' work the foundations of low-end field-recording resonance, but dappled with lovely melodic droplets of treated guitar and synth. 'Waste, songs of the world' and 'Disaster loans' are among the album's most explicit stylistic references to posthardcore, with distorted ambient bass and gently abrasive drum sampling. Closing track 'Swamps and factories,' the album's longest piece, is perhaps most reminiscent of Bates' previous record with its sustained dissonant glimmer-drone, but the journey An Infinite Antenna traces to get there is Bates at his most dynamic, diverse, distinctive, and engaging. Thanks for listening

Trá Pháidín are a mutable collective of musicians who are geographically, culturally and mentally torn between Conamara Theas, Cathair Chorcaí, Ciarraí, Uíbh Fhailí, Sligeach and Port Láirge, active in one form or another since 2019. The music they make, which to date has mostly been self-released, is of an ambitious breadth, embracing traditional Irish absurdity, jazz, folk and krautrock influences, whilst remaining tantalisingly beyond any one specific understanding of either the world around them or even themselves. More defined however, is their overall conceptual approach, focusing upon original Gaelic music and what lies beyond simply “conas atá tú?”.

Cloch ‘s Claí (trans. Stone & Wall), their first record to be released by World of Echo, develops their established interests into more adventurous waters (and walls!) than ever. Based on the historical significance embedded into dry-stone walls, the album presents a satirical view of Éire’s relationship with her native tongue and the Gaeltacht (regions where Gaeilge - Irish Gaelic - remains the primary language). Constructed of ten tracks, each representative of a stone in a metaphorical stone-wall, Cloch ‘s Claí draws from styles of improvisation in Irish traditional music, exploring avenues of ornamentation and accompaniment in the tradition. As such, the arrangement changes in every performance, a new stone-wall articulated each time - the recording on this album represents just one such arrangement in one such performance. Inspired by Myles na gCopaleen’s An Béal Bocht, the wall comes to embody a variety of themes scattered across the landscape and psyche of na Gaeltachtaí - tokenism, housing, gentry politics, ribbon developments and so on. The result is a music expressive of regional styles in traditional music, krautrock, free jazz, post-rock, minimalism and drone presented in a way that feels instinctively fluid and reflective of a hushed existentialism from the west of Ireland.

On Cloch ‘s Claí, Trá Pháidín are: Conal Ó hAinmhuighe, Ultan Ó Labhradha, Peadar-Tom Mercier, Micheál Fitzgerald, Pól Ó Lionáird, Ruairí De Búrca. Cloch ‘s Claí will be released digitally and as a limited edition LP on 25th September via World of Echo. This record was created through the support of the DEIS Recording Grant & Ealaín na Gaeltachta.

Japanese crossover and fusion are hot again now. As either an outgrowth of, or a spin-off phenomenon from, the global reappraisal of city pop,
Japanese fusion has been rapidly rising since around last year.
This was the second release on AURA, the band’s own label established under Polydor, and their 13th studio album overall.
Because they had continued recording overseas for some time, they chose not to bring in guest musicians for this album, instead settling into their
home base at STUDIO JIVE and creating it solely with the band members.
As a result, the album offers a fresh and lively sound that returns to the group’s roots.
Alongside the live staple "SUPER SONIC MOVEMENT," it is also packed with new attempts, including the Japanese-flavored "Old Times," the technodriven big band-style jazz track "SOLID SWING," and the high-speed Latin funk number "RED ZONE."
This also became the final CASIOPEA album for the duo of Tetsuo Sakurai and Akira Jimbo.

2026 RE-Release
Beat machine freak duo Bill Converse and Patricia (Max Ravitz) present 380/750, a new EP on Acid Test that blends the two producers’ singular styles to form an emotive “introspection on the dance floor” experience over the course of 4 tracks.

Recorded at Ravitz’s Brooklyn studio over the course of two days, 380/750 features raw, no-multitrack, no-edit live recordings that showcase the duo’s intuition for expressive rhythm tracks. Considering Converse’s roots in the 90’s Michigan rave scene, and Ravitz’s Chicago upbringing, the midwestern strains really shine through. With rhythm-composer mutations, acid dripping over atmospheric synth textures, and the ever-present jack throughout, 380/750 offers a deep sound to get lost in that feels both new and classic at the same time.

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

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

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

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

»Cosmogonical Ears« is Amosphère's first album for Hallow Ground. Following her contribution to the Swiss label’s »Epiphanies« compilation and her 2021 full-length debut »More Die of Heartbreak« on 33-33, it features three expansive pieces. The Paris-based composer and multidisciplinary artist delves deeper into themes of time, space, cosmology, human perception, and psycho-physical effects, crafting profound sonic meditations. Drawing on a minimalist approach while blending electronic and acoustic elements, Amosphère’s long-form compositions are living, breathing entities whose sonic richness and evocative power unfold gradually over time, putting »Cosmogonical Ears« in direct kinship with previous Hallow Ground releases by artists such as Kali Malone and FUJI|||||||||||TA.

The album opens with its longest piece, »Land of eternal delight,« composed for the Buddha10 exhibition at the Museo d'Arte Orientale in Turin. Written during three years of isolation—a period in which Amosphère explored meditation practices and diverse belief systems—it merges mythology with personal transcendental experiences, reflecting on a challenging time for humanity. »By blending Buddhist philosophy and sculpture with my own meditation practices, I sought to explore a way for people to transcend the boundaries of space and time—not as a believer, but as an observer,« she explains. Featuring handmade ceramic instruments and recorded by Thomas Lefevre, the piece combines Amosphère’s electronic organ with Marc Lochner’s flute contributions, creating a sound that is simultaneously minimalist and expansive.

The concept of teleportation and how it challenges traditional notions of time and space serves as the foundation for the second piece. »Recent advances in quantum physics suggest that teleportation might be possible through quantum entanglement,« Amosphère notes. »What if science fiction is becoming reality—or has already existed in ancient times?« Drawing inspiration from theories proposed by physicists such as Roger Penrose, Amosphère again worked together with flutist Lochner, this time using her VCS 3 synthesizer. »Teleportation« weaves single notes into intricate, non-linear patterns that defy conventional logic, creating a complex auditory tapestry. The last piece »Black hole in, white hole out« was recorded on Corsica and features Miao Zhao’s bass clarinet drones alongside Amosphère’s church organ. It imagines the possible sound of crossing a black hole while also suggesting the study of its theoretical exit and its potential applications for large-scale time and space travel.

The questions posed by »Cosmogonical Ears« do not yield straightforward answers. Instead, Amosphère’s restrained yet intricately layered compositions require full immersion and concentration from the listener. As expressed by the album’s title—which envisions the birth of a new universe through listening—»Cosmogonical Ears« offers an experimental approach to auditory perception as a tool for seeking truth, freedom, and harmony between the outer world and the inner self.

In the ever-evolving landscape of the underground music scene, few bands have made an impact quite like Selofan, an immensely talented duo of Joanna Pavlidou and Dimitris Pavlidis, has carved a niche for themselves within the international pantheon of darkwave, post-punk, and '80s synthpop, blending these influences to create a sound uniquely their own. Their journey, marked by a commitment to artistic integrity and evolution, has taken them from the cozy confines of local venues to the grand stages of international festivals, earning them a dedicated following and critical acclaim along the way. Their sixth album, Partners in Hell, released in October 2020, navigated the band through unprecedented times, testing their adaptability and resilience. Despite the hurdles to performing live and the global pandemic's challenges, Selofan emerged stronger, embarking on international tours with a newfound appreciation and connection with their global audience, during this period of introspection and isolation, Joanna Pavlidou embarked on a new venture, GIOVANNA, released under Selofan’s house label, Fabrika Records. GIOVANNA, which places Pavlidou at the helm of vocal and lyrical composition, represents a full on foray into synth-pop. showcasing a different facet of her artistic identity, with lyrics entirely in Greek. In 2023, Selofan hit the circuit hard, lighting up revered festivals with their presence. They stood shoulder to shoulder with heavy hitters like Molchat Doma and Lebanon Hanover at Grey Scale and performed with with the likes of The Sisters of Mercy, VNV Nation, and She Past Away at the Death Disco fest in their hometown of Athens. With each album they have released Selofan made significant strides in their evolution, deepening their engagement with their art. And their forthcoming seventh full length studio release, Animal Mentality, is poised to be their most compelling work yet. Animal Mentality unfolds as a labyrinthine journey through the elemental aspects of human emotion and experience, set against the backdrop of Selofan's signature darkwave sound. Each track on the album delves into different facets of the human condition, from the depths of desire to the pangs of isolation, encapsulating the duo's profound understanding of the intricate spectrum of human emotion and subjective experiences. The album kicks off with "Sticky Fingers," a track that melds cinematic scope with a haunting storyline, reminiscent of Jean-Michel Jarre's icy synths and a lyrical nod to Joy Division. This opening salvo revisits the tragic allure of classic car accident songs, weaving a tale of joy turned to sorrow amidst the snowy Alps. "Love's Secret Game" delves into the depths of forbidden desire, with vocals that echo the melancholy timbre of Xmal Deutschland, Lebanon Hanover, and Nico. It's a tale of passion and ephemeral connection, promising an enduring presence despite the inevitable fracture of time and distance. In "Lucille," sung by Dimitris Pavlidis, the plot is ensnared in the machinations of a tempestuous affair, with gothic undertones evoking the dramatic soundscapes of Ultravox and Clan of Xymox. The lyrics are steeped in danger and desire - a dance with the shadows. "Sacrifice Me" plunges into the abyss of despair, driven by a Bauhaus-esque bassline. It's a plea for release from the chains of alienation, a yearning for a final gesture of solace in the face of overwhelming darkness. "Bluebirds" offers a poignant reflection on solitude, with the fleeting imagery of bluebirds symbolizing the elusive quest for happiness. The song serves as a meditation on the internal struggle to maintain hope in a world shaded by sorrow. The narrative shifts with "Glassplitter," where German lyrics paint a portrait of deceptive allure and toxic entanglement. We are confronted with irresistible danger, masked by a veneer of beauty. "Ignoranz" continues the exploration in German, pondering the universality of misunderstanding. It's a reflection on the subjective nature of truth and the shared human experience of ignorance. "Behind My Eyelids" closes the odyssey, a contemplation on melancholy and metamorphosis. The phoenix rises from the ashes of betrayal to the brighter realm of renewal - a beautiful homage to the resilience of the human spirit amidst the often harrowing cycles of life. More than just an album, Animal Mentality is a milestone in Selofan's career, marking a decade of musical innovation and growth. It's a testament to their enduring spirit and a bold step into new realms of artistic expression. As Selofan continues to evolve, they remain at the forefront of their genre, pushing boundaries and exploring the depths of the human psyche through their haunting melodies and poignant lyrics.

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


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


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


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


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


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

Geoff Kirkwood (Man Power)

I’dgained some notoriety as a music producer and DJ but I hit a horrible case of writers block around 2018.

The problem I was finding was that I was trying to shoe horn every smart arsed clever dick musical reference I had into the music I was making, but the function of dance music is to make people dance, not to show people who broad your musical references are, so I was making pretty shitty music that landed in the middle and didn’t achieve either aim.

To tackle this I ended up committing to just trying to make the most expressive and wanky experimental stuff I could. I was immersed in club culture at the time so the whole enterprise started as a joke, hence the name “Bed Wetter”. However when I fully submitted to just naked exploration the really unexpected thing that happened was that I found myself unavoidably having to deal with a lot of my own bullshit. That bullshit turned into the “Billy Mill is Dead” album, which was essentially the sound of me excavating my own life and looking at how I felt about where I was from, where I was headed, my family, my history, my region and all of the things i have conflicting feelings about.

It was partially catharsis and also a bit of deprogramming around being able to call myself an artist after being raised to believe that wasn’t an option for me.

I self released Billy Mill is Dead in the months before the pandemic and it found it’s fair share of love in the places I hoped would connect with it, and just the right amount of being ignored by people who I’m pleased didn’t feel it. This all lead to me being emboldened enough to apply for an artist in residence position at a big regional opera house months later in the middle of lockdown.

My feeling was that if my DJ career was potentially over for the remainder of my lifetime then there was no harm in exploring this alternative method of expression to see where it could take me.

I submitted a ridiculously ambitious plan for what I would like to do as a project, and to my absolute shock I was selected for the position.

I was 40 years old and from a scarcity background so I had a potentially unique response to that kind of validation for the first time and what followed next was a process of me just coming back with bigger and more ridiculous ideas just to find out at whatstage they’d tell me to stop.

The thing is, nobody did. I got as far as suggesting writing a full symphony to be performed by an orchestra before my own nerve gave out and I decided that was probably as far as I should push things.

The problem with people giving you permission to do things is that you then need to go out and figure out how to do those things.

The biggest issue for me, beyond raising the money to pay for everything, was how does a person actually write a symphony?

I was introduced to Fiona Brice, a multi instrumentalist and orchestral arranger. She’s also a recording artist who releases on Bella Union. On top of that she’s a violinist who used to be part of the band Placebo and who used to appear regularly playing for other bands on things like Top of the Pops.

Not only was Fiona uniquely placed to not look down on the strange provenance of someone from an Acid House background wanting to write a symphony, but more to the point we really hit it off from day one.

Fiona coached me in the essentials of writing for an Orchestra, and then I went off and wrote the 8 movements.

I’d love to say I laboured for years over this bit, but it took about 2 weeks in total. I’d also love to say what I wrote was a complete symphony, but the version of this which is solely me feels like looking at something without your glasses on. The shape,feel and borders were all there, but the definition was absent. Fiona taught me the broad language of a symphony, but without her it would have lacked all intonation, nuance and detail. Where I had shaped ideas with a hammer, she brought out my meaning with precision using a scalpel.

I think the prodigiously quick turnaround for the music is as much proof of how conceptually and musically aligned Fiona and I are. I know we’re both incredibly proud of what we’ve created.

It took nearly 2 more years to stage the debut performance in what was potentially the most traumatic period of my life which saw me embroiled in an international crisis with my own family and the death of my father, all with the backdrop of COVID.

The work itself is inspired by the working class experience, but it’s also a comment on how we get to decide what we are and how we’re defined, and we get to choose what we do to prove these things.

The original recording was contractually impossible to ever share again, so we re-recorded it in a working men’s club with jobbing (albeit world class) players. In many ways it’s a record that feels like it shouldn’t exist, which is why we’re all so happy that it does.

Spiral code is the second album released on An’archives by the Japanese trio archeus, after 2023’s Kusōzu: Nine Death Stages, and their seventh release altogether. It’s also the most staggering evidence yet of the single-minded pursuit of group-sound explored by Keiko Higuchi (voice, drums, percussion, trombone), Shizuo Uchida (4 strings), and TOMO (hurdy gurdy). For two tracks, “awakening, beyond recurrence” and “where points and lines intersect”, they’re joined by Kiyotaka Moriuchi, an improviser who’s played with the likes of Shoko Numao and Ensemble Shippolly, on percussion and darbuka (a goblet-shaped drum played widely across South East Asia).

Always able to scour magic from both their relationships with their instruments, and their non-idiomatic interplay, on spiral code they’ve widened their net further; the results oscillate from humid and claustrophobic blocks of noise to rivulets of tone coursing across post-volcanic landscapes, and on into simple gestures suspended in arctic space. Spiral code was recorded in a single day, on March 20 th 2025, at a studio in Koenji, Tokyo, the morning session with the original trio, and afternoon and evening session with Moriuchi – the first time archeus have played with a guest musician.

When asked about the music archeus makes together, TOMO is quick to isolate the singular characteristics of their collaboration: “we are trying to explore some new, unknown musical vocabulary every time we play. And what we are trying to achieve from every session is something unique, an interesting chemistry or, I should say, alchemical reaction among the three of us.” You can certainly hear that alchemy in the dynamic arc of their performances, the way they seem to be able to switch on a dime and push the music into unexpected terrain, all while sounding intimately archeus. “We have been playing for many years,” TOMO continues, “so I think that among three of us, we can telepathically sense, feel and understand what each of us is trying to express while we are playing.” It’s telling that guest musician Moriuchi fits so effortlessly into the archeus soundworld, able to hitch a ride on the intimate telepathy of Higuchi, Shizuo and TOMO; “I think he gave us some fresh air to our music,” the latter smiles. But that telepathy extends, even, to the name of the album itself, with all members pointing toward spiral imagery when naming the title track, whether TOMO’s evocation of Kundalini serpent imagery and Caduceus, to the spiral shape of DNA, what TOMO calls “the code of life.” It’s certainly deeply entwined music: spiral code is a helix of sound, a cylindrical coiling of possibility.

"Emergence of Shadow" (Mint Condition Records / Self Distribuzione)—the new album by Davide
Ghidoni, produced by Gianluca Pighi—is arriving: its digital release is set for Friday, September 11,
while the vinyl will be available starting Friday, September 18.
A trumpeter with a career marked by international collaborations, Ghidoni here signs his most
personal project to date. It is a predominantly instrumental record in which the trumpet becomes a
voice, a narrative, and an emotion. The only vocal track is "Come On Closer," performed by Heidi
Vogel (The Cinematic Orchestra), creating a moment of suspension and intensity within the project.
Davide Ghidoni’s passion for music and the trumpet was born in his childhood around the age of ten,
fueled also by Western films and Ennio Morricone’s soundtracks: those melodies, where the trumpet
played a central role in the duels of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, deeply shaped the artist's
imagination and sound.
Ghidoni has always maintained an open and curious approach, letting himself be inspired by different
genres, artists, and musical cultures. His projects naturally coexist with influences ranging from rock
to soul, jazz to blues, and other languages that have left a mark on his path. Rather than identifying
with a single genre, he prefers to view music as a guiding thread capable of uniting different styles
through emotion, sensitivity, and respect for artistic identity.
"Emergence of Shadow" represents a new chapter in his journey. After numerous collaborations with
various artists, the musician felt the urge to undertake a completely his own project, giving shape to
ideas he had nurtured for a long time.
The record is inspired by the 1970s soul, rock, and blues sounds, but the goal is not to faithfully
reproduce or imitate those genres: the atmospheres, themes, and arrangements recall that sonic
world, yet are reinterpreted through a personal and original sensibility. The trumpet remains the
primary narrative element, supported by meticulous arrangements and a solid rhythm section that
enhance its character and expressive intensity.
Alongside the sounds that distinguish his path, the album also explores deeper emotional
dimensions. Some tracks are fluid and atmospheric, born from the desire to recount vibrations
without rigid schemes, letting melodies and dynamics guide the listener on an inner journey. The aim
is to offer an engaging listening experience in which music communicates directly, beyond words.
The album encapsulates everything Davide Ghidoni wanted to express and fully represents his
artistic identity: a timeless instrument to communicate emotions and engage in dialogue with different
musical traditions, always keeping the pursuit of musical quality and sharing with the public at its
core.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pressure Chords is the first joint album by composer-performer John McCowen, trombonist Weston Olencki and cellist Lucy Railton. McCowen’s composition is based on the spectral analysis of contrabass clarinet multiphonics, and the tuning system corresponds with the overtone spectrum of McCowen’s instrument. The trio adaptation of Pressure Chords presents itself as an exercise in both patience and intensity, slowly building towards an expressive finale. Across its 34-minute runtime, restrained minimalism slowly gives way to maximally affective sonic force.McCowen, Olencki and Railton first shared the stage for an improvised session at Berlin’s KM28. McCowen realised that he found two capable partners for creating orchestrations of his works for the contrabass clarinet. Olencki, who also contributes field recordings to the album, has worked across different genres and traditions, while Railton has made a name for herself as a composer and improviser as well as a performer of Just Intonation music. Weston and Lucy both have immense experience performing and composing music outside of equal temperament, so it seemed like a perfect situation, McCowen says. The trio first presented Pressure Chords live at Berlin’s Morphine Raum in 2023 before recording a studio version with Adam Asnan in the following year. The recording—mixed and mastered by Albert Finnbogasson in Reykjavík—elegantly captures the multi-layered tonal and sonic qualities that the musicians so carefully explore. As a result, their performance doesn’t so much invite but necessitate deep listening—time passes differently on and with Pressure Chords.

"Formed in 1967 as a psychedelic electronic duo featuring Dan Taylor on drums and Simeon on a homemade synthesizer consisting of 12 oscillators (and an assortment of sound filters, telegraph keys, radio parts, lab gear and a variety of second hand electronic junk), Silver Apples quickly gained a reputation as New York's leading underground musical expression. Their pulsating rhythmic beats with the use of electronics laid the groundwork for what would become 'Krautrock'. Silver Apples was released in 1968 and still remains an innovative and revolutionary album. Their highly influential sound has influenced countless bands from Stereolab, Beastie Boys, Blur and more. 'Silver Apples... a beautiful and mysterious artifact.' - New York Times.



Sales points
- New 24 bit /96 kHz transfer taken from the original master tapes.



- Limited Blue Sky Colored Vinyl



- First Reissue from Original Tapes



- Currently Touring in the US and Europe



- 'Oscillations' featured in Pitchforks Top 200 songs from the 60's.

The compositions recorded here are a product of work with computers in synthetic speech, song and vocal sounds and were created between 1972 and 1975. The music was realized on two different computer music systems and takes advantage of, and attempts to extend and explore their features. The system employed to realize speech songs was created at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for research in synthetic speech and speech communication. Since the system was not designed for musical purposes, its limitations were severe and its musical use a great (and often rewarding) challenge. The system used for In Celebration and The Story of Our Lives was designed with the expressed purpose of creating synthetic musical voices, and was therefore much better suited to the task at hand. As with any high technology project, there was extensive collaboration in the production of the works.

The works on this disk are called computer music because the sounds were created numerically in a computer before reaching magnetic tape and loudspeakers. The computer did not compose the music. However, it was only used as a sound synthesis and analysis medium. In order to hear the sounds which are represented in the computer as successions of numbers it was necessary to attach a digital-to-analogue converter to the computer. The converter transformed the succession of numbers into a fluctuating voltage which was recorded directly on to audio tape.

The technique used to create the synthetic voices is called speech synthesis-by-analysis. For this method of speech synthesis, only those words, phrases and sentences which have been spoken into the computer previously (via an analogue-to-digital converter) may be synthesized. First the digitally-recorded speech is analyzed by programs which extract the attributes (parameters) of the speech for short time segments (.01 sec.). From these parameters the speech may be recreated in a form which resembles the original recording very closely. But for musical purposes the parameters are most often altered before synthesis. It is possible, for example, to change the natural pitch contour of the speech into a melodic line or to change the speech speed without altering the natural pitch level.

The variety of musical patterns which may be created from the analytic parameters is limited only by the composer's imagination. Most of the speech sounds on the recording were created by changing the pitch and duration attributes of the original on resynthesis, but for a few, the resonances (the formants) of the speech were altered as well. The voice of the book in The Story of Our Lives was created by replacing the program which simulates the sound of the human vocal cords with one consisting of 64 sine tones glissandoing at different rates. All the textures in which more than one voice is heard were obtained by mixing the synthetic voices together digitally.

Silver Vinyl
Simon Popp is back on Squama with his fourth album Trio.
At its heart, Trio is a work about collaboration, playfulness and unification. It is music as a means of coming together, a sonic equivalent to the Japanese philosophy of Kintsugi, in which broken ceramics are repaired with a visible golden lacquer. Rather than hiding the breaks, Kintsugi embraces them, making them part of the story, a form of delicate transformation. Popp and his collaborators Flurin Mück and Sebastian Wolfgruber take a similar approach: three distinct drummers, three different temperaments, three personal styles. Fused together into a single expressive instrument.
The album is a celebration of timbre, texture, and touch, its sound palette drawn from across continents and traditions. Human beings at all points of time, across all cultures and continents have used music to celebrate, mourn, worship and bond. Along with our voices, creating rhythm with our bodies. Clapping, stomping, hitting with sticks. A celebration of rhythm as both a shared human memory and an audible expression of close bonds.
Trio is a reflection of the beauty of imperfection and the timeless pull of rhythm as a shared human force. The cracks are not hidden. They are filled with gold.

A beautifully observed baroque masterpiece, part dream pop, part futuristic psych-folk with ambient synths and Josephine Foster’s plaintive guitar. Godmother is a slowly unfolding song cycle that marries a myriad of previous musical escapades with electronic experiments. Exploring new horizons on this record, it sees Foster at her most expressive and hypnotic. Now back home in the mountains of Colorado, Josephine’s 20-year journey to this new nirvana becomes enthralled further with a symphony of synths that sound like they are played in some neighbouring netherworld, through cotton gauze. It’s music that’s devotional, spiritual, a fitting soundtrack for any journey within or without, a means to experience places and vibrations beyond the boundary of time and space. Discussing the record, Josephine explains “You may notice me travelling a bit further sonically from our precious earth, aspiring to rise into broader astral perspective, to contemplate the light and origins of it all, as I do believe there is a grand source that is the sum of it all, us all. Performing all the parts on this recording, you may sense me focussing gestures of my singing into the instrumentation, which is a very great relief indeed, as the voice has such grand dreams to be set free.” “With her haunted, theatrical delivery, Foster cuts an arresting figure.” Pitchfork // “Out of time yet timeless” The Wire

When Drop Nineteens disbanded in the mid-'90s, singer Greg Ackell decided he would never make music again. He wouldn't noodle around on a guitar in his basement. He wouldn't get a group of friends together just to jam. He was done with music entirely. Following the release of the shoegaze masterpiece Delaware in 1992, and the intricate experimentations on National Coma in 1993, the group disbanded. They shared stages with Radiohead, Hole, Blur, PJ Harvey and Smashing Pumpkins. They went from being teenagers in Boston to mid-twenty-somethings with a few MTV videos, a couple BBC sessions and numerous festival appearances under their belt. So when Drop Nineteens ceased to be, Ackell felt content. He had the rest of his life in front of him to figure out what he wanted to do. Music was a closed chapter.That was until 2021, when a friend from the band's early days got Greg on the phone to suggest making some music together, just to see how it felt. Instead of shutting it down like he had been doing over the years, he decided to entertain the prospect. For the first time in nearly 30 years, he picked up a guitar with intent. He immediately called up Steve Zimmerman, the band's bassist and fellow guitarist, and the two got writing. It felt effortless for Ackell, like he never stopped writing music. "We were off to the races," he says, "But also the question came up: what does a Drop Nineteens song sound like today?" Enter Hard Light, the band's stunning third record. It's the band's proverbial follow up to Delaware, a modern Drop Nineteens record that is completely singular in its sound and vision. The first task making Hard Light was, of course, getting the rest of the band back together. Drop Nineteens is an inherently collaborative project. Ackell writes the lyrics, and he works with band members Steve Zimmerman, Paula Kelley, Motohiro Yasue, and Peter Koeplin to create the sonic world. The record came together over the course of a year, recording at a patchwork of studios all around the country: Boston, Brooklyn, San Francisco, Los Angeles. When Kelley and Ackell first heard their vocals recorded together on the opus album closer "T", the chemistry was undeniable. Making music together felt natural, fluid, exciting.Hard Light is a romantic record in the literary sense. Beauty from longing; longing from beauty. You put the album on and want to be clad in a velvet dress sprawled across a fainting couch. You want to be holding someone's hand while you sit back in the tall grass. The guitars are expansive and expressive as ever. Ackell and Kelley's vocals are cool, crystalline, and luminous. "Gal" comes on like a dream. The vocals pour in when you least expect them, once in the middle, where Ackell delivers one of the strangest (and best) lyrics on the record, "And there were snakes/with cats at the wheel." Hard Light's first single, "Scapa Flow" is triumphant and an excellent example of what a modern day Drop Nineteens song sounds like. The guitars glide cloud-like, floor toms shuffle and rumble in the background, searching. Ackell and Kelley's vocals are as toned as they are bound. Hard Light is every bit the ride that Delaware was, diverse in its sounds, with surprises at every turn. Drop Nineteens have brought clarity and cool in 2023 to the genre they helped create. A portrait of a band 30 years later, as talented and dedicated to their craft as ever. To put it more bluntly, they're at the top of their game.

Across two song cycles separated by nearly four decades – Richard Wagner’s »Fünf Gedichte für eine Frauenstimme« (the »Wesendonck Lieder«) and Johannes Brahms’ late »Vier ernste Gesänge« (»Four Serious Songs«) – Wagner’s songs, written under the spell of his relationship with Mathilde Wesendonck and already pointing towards »Tristan und Isolde«, and Brahms’ final composition, which gives the album its name and was shaped by grief, illness, and meditations on biblical texts, circle the same existential questions.

Desire and mortality, ecstasy and resignation appear less as opposites than as mirrored states. The voices of Wesendonck’s poetry seem to answer the solemn reflections of Ecclesiastes and Corinthians, revealing an unexpected dialogue across time.

Without seeking historical authenticity or revisionist spectacle, »Serious Songs« listens for what still resonates beneath these works: the suspended moment where love, loss, and transcendence become indistinguishable. The harp assumes the role of the piano as the foundation, pulse, and emotional compass. The vocal line, liberated from classical convention, inhabits a contemporary expressive space without severing its bond to the original scores. It is Romantic music viewed through the acoustics of the present. The project emerged from a moment of professional disillusionment familiar to many classically trained musicians. This led to a confrontation with some of classical music’s traditional flaws that became an invitation to reimagine it.

Sissi Rada approaches the spinal properties of the Romantic Lieder, fragile enough to transform and resilient enough to survive. Intimate, lucid, and quietly radical.

The most beautiful thing we’ve ever released?

It is virtually impossible to describe with mere words how emotionally powerful this work of art is. Just listen. Listen, listen, listen...

A blissed-out 80-minute epic, Hatchback's Phaser For The Ocean, Chorus For The Moon is his magnum opus, a sprawling masterwork that encompasses ambient, new age and environmental music to wondrous effect. Moving, hypnotic and deeply meditative, it's FFO Mike Brooks, Deuter, Klaus Weiss, Innovative Communication, Harmonia, Cluster, Ashra's New Age of Earth, Stomu Yamashta, Haruka Nakamura, Yoshimura, Hosono, the works.

A record truly deserving of the deluxe Be With treatment, the vinyl was specially cut at Abbey Road Studios whilst the original stunning artwork has been pleasingly expanded. Now, an eye-catching holographic-foil layer moon is set against the original tones, wrapped up in a sumptuous double-gatefold jacket.

Soaked in Californian consciousness and limited to a run of just 500 copies for the world, this release is a treasured balm like no other for these troubled times.

Hatchback is the atmospheric, melodious ambient alias of California-based artist Samuel Milton Grawe. Sam creates music that sings of the Cosmos, full of deep resonant tones, glistening arpeggios, lush pads and harmonic motifs.

"When I first was getting into the creative side of music making in my teens, I was heavily influenced by concept albums like Quadrophenia and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, as well as epic pieces that took up an entire side of a record: Pink Floyd’s Echoes, Yes’ Close To The Edge, Klaus Schulze’s Nowhere Now Here, Miles Davis' Shhh/Peaceful and He Loved Him Madly. In the extreme, these ideas coalesced in double albums where each side of each record is occupied by a single title - Yes’ Tales From Topographic Oceans and Tangerine Dream’s Zeit being primary examples. When I returned to making music after moving back to Northern California in 2020, the first piece I recorded landed around the 20-minute mark, and the idea of creating three other long pieces to realize a full album felt like a natural - if indulgent - goal. From there, each new piece followed sequentially. Four songs. My fourth album." - Sam Grawe

Phaser For The Ocean Chorus For The Moon is a pure expression, informed by a lifetime of deep listening unbound by algorithms or AI. These are songs for the sunrise and the sunset - and every colour in between.

Kitsune No Yomeiri, which translates to the fox’s wedding, is an endearing expression used to describe sunshowers. Dawson returned home from a recent tour of Japan with a collection of field recordings documenting the spring rain he encountered throughout his travels. These curious sounds, stretching from peaceful shrines to clattering city streets, underpin the material.

Dawson also credits the wonderful folks he met on that tour with profoundly shaping the direction of the album. After each show he found himself immersed in inspiring conversations about the guitar. Through navigating the language barrier, he discovered he was communicating with an immense sincerity that he would ordinarily avoid at all costs. “I’ve always just made records at home in a vortex, but this time it felt like those conversations were there with me in the studio.”

Musically the album has a slight western slant. It’s not country, but it does see Dawson lean softly into his prairie past. Constellations of stray notes and rusted tones form nostalgic melodies, like chance encounters between old friends. Dawson allows phrases and gestures to repeat across the record, resulting in a collection that’s more akin to turning the pages of a novel than a series of vignettes vying for attention.

Mikkel Rev returns to A Strangely Isolated Place with Evocation, his third full-length album shaped deep within the forests of Norway. 
Since Mikkel’s debut, The Art of Levitation first arrived on ASIP in 2023, Mikkel has been quietly building his own corner of the label’s catalog. Last year's Journey Beyond expanded that vision further, revealing an artist increasingly comfortable balancing the emotional pull of early trance with a more reflective, ambient-leaning approach. While his work elsewhere naturally gravitates towards the dance floor through his own collective, Ute Recordings and other club-focused outlets, his ASIP releases have always evolved differently. Beginning with a larger body of material that’s gradually shaped together, each album seeks to find a narrative without a dancefloor in place; one that moves naturally between momentum and stillness, carrying something of the spirit found in those early-'90s records that drifted effortlessly between peak-time energy and the quiet hours in room two. 
Long-form compositions like "Step Inside" and "MRI" favor gradual development over immediate impact, while "Dream Sand" introduces shimmering rhythms that subtly shift the album's momentum and pace. The piano-led "The Infinite" offers a definitive nod to the enduring emotional pull of classic trance before "Sanitorium" closes the record with one of Mikkel's most restrained and affecting pieces to date.
Evocation continues Mikkel Rev's remarkable run on ASIP, extending a catalog where echoes of trance's formative years find new expression through the communal energy and natural surroundings of the Nordic forest gatherings that have become an integral part of his world.
Ventral Is Golden returns on artwork duties, with Lupo handling the mastering and cut. Released on August 28th as a gatefold double LP on dusty purple smoke and digital.

Brixton Heights Records proudly presents the brand new single “Sweet Things”, a radiant lovers reggae release that blends classic roots, soulful warmth and contemporary finesse into a timeless feel‑good anthem.

Fronted by the legendary Keith Coley from The Silvertones, this masterfully crafted track features a heavyweight lineup of musicians and producers: Mafia & Fluxy on drums and bass, The Ital Horns on brass, Gavin Tate-Lovery on Saxophone and Gaudi on Piano and backing vocals, co-production and mixing. The track delivers a smooth, romantic groove rooted in classic Jamaican sound while feeling fresh and modern, making it equally at home on sound systems, radio playlists and summer sessions.

The Silvertones’ vocals remain rich, melodic and instantly recognisable, carrying the emotional warmth that has long defined their sound. The arrangement is layered with a bubbling organ, deep bass and tasteful percussions, guitars and keyboard, making The Brixton Heights Orchestra come together to create an irresistible groove.

Mixed and co‑produced by Gaudi at Metatron Studio in London (UK) and mastered at Anchor Studios in Kingston, Jamaica, “Sweet Things” is a celebration of romance, rhythm and authenticity.

In the B‑side the Brixton Heights Orchestra shines through in a full instrumental version of “Sweet Things”. The brass section takes centre stage throughout, weaving into the fabric of the song soaring trumpet lines, expressive saxophone melodies and rich trombone passages.

With the vocal removed, Gaudi shifts the focus on brass work, rhythm section and layered instrumentation, creating a continuum of different phrases, solos and riffs, carefully carved together into a reggae-jazz theme that executes in a cohesive and coherent way.

Fresh off of their 2020 offering Adult Themes, El Michels Affair is back with a new full-length release. Titled Yeti Season, this newest album has everything we've come to expect from EMA's patented cinematic style of instrumental soul music. Where Adult Themes inspired a soundtrack to an imaginary film, Yeti Season brings us to a different place in time_with new inspirations. Taken with Turkish-styled funk and an almost Mumbai-esque take on soul, El Michels Affair offers us a different kind of drama and imagination with Yeti Season. If you've been following along, this shouldn't be viewed as too far a departure for El Michels Affair. The first single off of Yeti Season showed their hand back in 2018. A double-sided banger, that release brought the musical textures to the fore that dominate this record. The first song, titled "Unathi," is fully realized with the beautifully haunting-yet-hopeful vocals of Piya Malik, formally of 79.5_another Big Crown artist. Singing in Hindi, Piya's ethereal voice is telling us to work and strive together toward progress. Even if you don't understand her language, you can still hear the urgency of purpose, creating a lasting vibe that sits on top of it all. Leon Michels explains that Piya had a vital influence on this record: "When Piya started singing in Hindi, she had a different voice, a different tone. I knew we had to do something together." And so Piya appears on three other songs on Yeti Season: "Zaharila," "Murkit Gem," and "Dhuaan." Each providing particular signatures to the album. "Zaharila" is a building and changing love song punctuated by blaring trumpets, driving drums, and Piya's pleading lyrics. While the more upbeat "Murkit Gem" opens with a fuzzed out, Wu-Tang-esque baseline that buoys Piya's stylings. The psychedelic guitar and Piya's changing tones and textures singing about an all-consuming love are what pushed "Dhuaan" on to the second single from Yeti Season. There is also a vocal appearance from Shannon Wise of The Shacks, yet another Big Crown artist. Her song called "Sha Na Na," lies more in the familiar EMA vein: melodic, hypnotic, soulfully visual. But between Shannon's airy singing, the jumpy baseline, moody vibes, the active drum lines, it sounds like a pensive walk home after a strangely dramatic night. So what is Yeti Season? It could be more of a feeling than an actual place or time of year. It's a heavy album_as evidenced by the signature musicianship and dramatic vocal expressions. But it's also a hopeful record, with phrasings, textures, and chord changes that hint at something better_or fuller_coming our way. You hear it in songs like "Ala Vida," with its stabby, pulsing chords laying a bedrock for EMA's bright, atmospheric horn lines. Or even in "Fazed Out," which leaves you with a feeling of determination, a striving for resolution even though the driving, march-like song structure should accompany some conquering army. This persistence has to come from the fact that Leon Michels and company finished this record during the lockdown. It was a tough and troublesome time. But look at what has come of it: Yeti Season_a record of high and heavy drama, but also one of hope and promise. It may take a year like 2020 behind us to find hope in a winter big footed creature like a Yeti, but that's where we are.

BUCHLA MEETS ORCHESTRA IN QUADRAPHONIC SPACE ON CIANI/ORKEST

Suzanne Ciani, Metropole Orkest and Simon Dobson release historic immersive performance in multiple immersive formats including quad vinyl.

Silverlake, CA \\ June 4, 2026 – Electronic music pioneer and five-time Grammy nominee Suzanne Ciani joins the internationally acclaimed Metropole Orkest, conducted by Simon Dobson, for the release of CIANI/ORKEST, a landmark live album composed entirely of new work, created specifically for this unprecedented collaboration.

Recorded at Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE) before a rapt audience, CIANI/ORKEST is not a retrospective. It is a bold, immersive meeting of the Buchla electronic instrument and 50-piece orchestral sound. The result is a sweeping sonic landscape, at once intimate and monumental.

Under the direction of the Metropole Orkest, renowned for its genre-defying collaborations with artists from jazz to contemporary classical - strings shimmer, brass swells and woodwinds echo the organic, fluid qualities that have always defined Ciani’s sound. “This project feels like a homecoming,” says Ciani. “The Buchla was always orchestral to me, an instrument capable of infinite color. Hearing those colors unfold through the Metropole Orkest has been profoundly moving.”

At the heart of CIANI/ORKEST lies Ciani’s lifelong commitment to quadraphonic sound. From her early Buchla performances in the late 1960s to her 2018 release LIVE Quadraphonic, Ciani has treated space as a primary compositional parameter. Working alongside immersive producer KamranV, Ciani continues to explore immersive sound as both artistic and human gesture. Kamran’s decades of work in spatial formats, converge here in service of a singular goal: to let sound behave as it does in the physical world. “For both of us, quad is musical,” Kamran notes. “The way Suzanne works, quadraphonic is nested in — not the technology per se — but the intent you bring to the work.”

The recording stands as a meditation on legacy, evolution, and the enduring dialogue between technology and human expression. The live album captures the electricity of performance, the immediacy of touch plates under Ciani’s hands, the collective of musicians responding in real time, and the audience’s shared immersion in quadraphonic-inspired space.

CIANI/ORKEST is released by Atmospheric/AKP Recordings/CyKiK in multiple double-disc quadraphonic 12” Record packages designed by grammy-nominated designer Rebeka Arce. Each pressing is made regionally to minimize carbon emissions and also contributes to nature via Brian Eno's EarthPercent, the music industry's climate and nature foundation.

The release is encoded using the dublab Quadraphonic Universally Accessible Resource Kit (QUARK). QUARK enables binaural listening via standard 2-channel playback or 4-speaker playback via Involve Audio hardware decoders, vintage Regular Matrix quadraphonic receivers, Dolby Pro-Logic II/Dolby Surround Upmixer (DSU) receivers, or any multi-channel audio interface equipped computer. This album is immersive via all formats: digital download, streaming (Qobuz, Spotify, SoundCloud, Bandcamp), radio broadcast, vinyl and high-resolution Dolby Atmos (Apple Music, Tidal, Amazon HD, IIA), Sony 360RA (Nugs, Amazon HD) and Eclipsa Audio (YouTube).

About Suzanne Ciani
Suzanne Ciani is a composer, pianist, sound designer, and electronic music pioneer whose work spans experimental, new age, classical, and cinematic sound. A five-time Grammy nominee and recipient of the Moog Innovation Award, she continues to perform internationally, captivating audiences with immersive modular synthesis performances.

About Metropole Orkest
Based in the Netherlands, the Metropole Orkest is one of the world’s leading genre-crossing orchestras, known for collaborations with artists including Brian Eno, Herbie Hancock, Snarky Puppy, Jacob Collier, and within contemporary classical and electronic spheres.

The compositions recorded here are a product of work with computers in synthetic speech, song and vocal sounds and were created between 1972 and 1975. The music was realized on two different computer music systems and takes advantage of, and attempts to extend and explore their features. The system employed to realize speech songs was created at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for research in synthetic speech and speech communication. Since the system was not designed for musical purposes, its limitations were severe and its musical use a great (and often rewarding) challenge. The system used for In Celebration and The Story of Our Lives was designed with the expressed purpose of creating synthetic musical voices, and was therefore much better suited to the task at hand. As with any high technology project, there was extensive collaboration in the production of the works.

The works on this disk are called computer music because the sounds were created numerically in a computer before reaching magnetic tape and loudspeakers. The computer did not compose the music. However, it was only used as a sound synthesis and analysis medium. In order to hear the sounds which are represented in the computer as successions of numbers it was necessary to attach a digital-to-analogue converter to the computer. The converter transformed the succession of numbers into a fluctuating voltage which was recorded directly on to audio tape.

The technique used to create the synthetic voices is called speech synthesis-by-analysis. For this method of speech synthesis, only those words, phrases and sentences which have been spoken into the computer previously (via an analogue-to-digital converter) may be synthesized. First the digitally-recorded speech is analyzed by programs which extract the attributes (parameters) of the speech for short time segments (.01 sec.). From these parameters the speech may be recreated in a form which resembles the original recording very closely. But for musical purposes the parameters are most often altered before synthesis. It is possible, for example, to change the natural pitch contour of the speech into a melodic line or to change the speech speed without altering the natural pitch level.

The variety of musical patterns which may be created from the analytic parameters is limited only by the composer's imagination. Most of the speech sounds on the recording were created by changing the pitch and duration attributes of the original on resynthesis, but for a few, the resonances (the formants) of the speech were altered as well. The voice of the book in The Story of Our Lives was created by replacing the program which simulates the sound of the human vocal cords with one consisting of 64 sine tones glissandoing at different rates. All the textures in which more than one voice is heard were obtained by mixing the synthetic voices together digitally.

American experimental composer Stephen O’Malley releases Avaeken, two sides of immense, immersive, self-annihilating music via Dais Records.

The record preserves site-specific work: O’Malley installed Avaeken as part of Wish You Were Here, the exhibition by renowned American artist Banks Violette, underscoring the tension between presence and absence, life and loss.

O’Malley and Violette have developed a distinct language of sound, space, and sculpture over the past two decades, reverberating through the walls of world-class institutions from The Guggenheim and Centre Pompidou to prominent galleries such as Maureen Paley in London, Gladstone Gallery in NYC, and Antwerp’s TICK TACK, the brutalist space where Wish You Were Here unfolded in early 2026.

Emerging now as an LP, Avaeken presents power and phenomena: low-frequency vibrations, deep oscillations, and phase cancellations that translate as innately effective in any environment. Violette’s visual expression — the impossibility of locating yourself within the loss of a friend and the broader decay of culture — now fills the LP sleeve and feels inextricable from O’Malley’s sound, both still without resolution.

“Natural harmonic tone coloured by the valves of the amplification is the one desired characteristic,” reads the initial notes.

“At first I asked, why would I write for another guitar player?” he says. “I realized how amazing it is to be a listener on the other side of the music; together we were able to try all these precisions with intonation, harmonics, specific microtonal ideas.”

The quartet performed Avaeken several times before O’Malley joined them for a recording session at Muziekcentrum De Bijloke, a 13th-century former hospital with modern acoustics in Ghent.

Matrix Music Arhiv (MMA) are proud to announce a re-issue of the highly sought-after album 'Resistance' by the seminal Yugoslavian electronic rock band Borghesia, originally released in 1989 on Play It Again Sam/PIAS (Europe), Wax Trax (USA) and Jugoton (former Yugoslavia). Available on 2Lp, 2CD & 1MC (MC original album only). The re-issue features a carefully remastered edition along with the exclusive bonus live album "Dal Vivo A El Paso", recorded in December 1988 during their performance in Torino, Italy, on one of their European tours. This recording features very different, raw and at times 'dubbed up' versions of their early tracks such as 'Naked, Uniformed, Dead', Am I? and Him (On). The historical perfectly captures the atmosphere and energy of their live appearances at the time. Borghesia (Italian for 'bourgeoisie'), who were formed in Ljubljana (Slovenia) in 1982, had always considered its art to be far broader than just sonic. Borghesia's transgressive, transdisciplinary alloy of film expression, distinctively physical performative practices, usage of new technology and conveniently abrasive EBM (electronic body music) musical production hasn't only been ground-breaking in terms of the holistic, visual/sonic presence of an art collective, but had a rather decisive influence on the general aesthetics of the immensely important Yugoslav subcultural landscape of the 1980s. Borghesia was one of the first bands from the East of the Iron Curtain who used the VHS video medium to distribute their art and was also one of few projects from socialist Yugoslavia to successfully penetrate the curtain itself, reaching international audiences. A series of their releases in the fruitful period between the years 1987 and 1991, including the Resistance album itself, was released by the legendary Belgian label Play It Again Sam (PIAS). The band dissolved in the mid-1990s and then continued their work in 2014. In line with Borghesia's unique social engagement, progressiveness and political criticism, Resistance is one of their most powerful statements. It's the ultimate fight the power manifesto, which makes punk and hip-hop albums of the time sound like children's songs. This is not music for nodding your head to; it's tactical broadcast for the nocturnal resistance to this very day. Borghesia didn't address control only - they sampled the political top, the secret police and explicitly connected authority with dominance. The production of the album isn't clean or polished. On the contrary - Resistance sounds like it was created in a bunker, using stolen military equipment and synthesisers. Borghesia's genius lies in their understanding that the relentless, mechanical EBM beat was the sound of the State - and by hijacking it, turning the system's own rhythm against itself they created the most powerful form of sonic insurgency. And since history repeats itself while the little man learns slowly, the re-release of 'Resistance' comes at the right time. The dark clouds of violence are already looming over Europe, they've never really left the Middle East, and the levers of power and capital ever so louder, not even covertly at all incite: war, war, war! In these times the only appropriate answer is: revolt, rebel, Resistance!

Matrix Music Arhiv (MMA) are proud to announce a re-issue of the highly sought-after album 'Resistance' by the seminal Yugoslavian electronic rock band Borghesia, originally released in 1989 on Play It Again Sam/PIAS (Europe), Wax Trax (USA) and Jugoton (former Yugoslavia). Available on 2Lp, 2CD & 1MC (MC original album only). The re-issue features a carefully remastered edition along with the exclusive bonus live album "Dal Vivo A El Paso", recorded in December 1988 during their performance in Torino, Italy, on one of their European tours. This recording features very different, raw and at times 'dubbed up' versions of their early tracks such as 'Naked, Uniformed, Dead', Am I? and Him (On). The historical perfectly captures the atmosphere and energy of their live appearances at the time. Borghesia (Italian for 'bourgeoisie'), who were formed in Ljubljana (Slovenia) in 1982, had always considered its art to be far broader than just sonic. Borghesia's transgressive, transdisciplinary alloy of film expression, distinctively physical performative practices, usage of new technology and conveniently abrasive EBM (electronic body music) musical production hasn't only been ground-breaking in terms of the holistic, visual/sonic presence of an art collective, but had a rather decisive influence on the general aesthetics of the immensely important Yugoslav subcultural landscape of the 1980s. Borghesia was one of the first bands from the East of the Iron Curtain who used the VHS video medium to distribute their art and was also one of few projects from socialist Yugoslavia to successfully penetrate the curtain itself, reaching international audiences. A series of their releases in the fruitful period between the years 1987 and 1991, including the Resistance album itself, was released by the legendary Belgian label Play It Again Sam (PIAS). The band dissolved in the mid-1990s and then continued their work in 2014. In line with Borghesia's unique social engagement, progressiveness and political criticism, Resistance is one of their most powerful statements. It's the ultimate fight the power manifesto, which makes punk and hip-hop albums of the time sound like children's songs. This is not music for nodding your head to; it's tactical broadcast for the nocturnal resistance to this very day. Borghesia didn't address control only - they sampled the political top, the secret police and explicitly connected authority with dominance. The production of the album isn't clean or polished. On the contrary - Resistance sounds like it was created in a bunker, using stolen military equipment and synthesisers. Borghesia's genius lies in their understanding that the relentless, mechanical EBM beat was the sound of the State - and by hijacking it, turning the system's own rhythm against itself they created the most powerful form of sonic insurgency. And since history repeats itself while the little man learns slowly, the re-release of 'Resistance' comes at the right time. The dark clouds of violence are already looming over Europe, they've never really left the Middle East, and the levers of power and capital ever so louder, not even covertly at all incite: war, war, war! In these times the only appropriate answer is: revolt, rebel, Resistance!

Matrix Music Arhiv (MMA) are proud to announce a re-issue of the highly sought-after album 'Resistance' by the seminal Yugoslavian electronic rock band Borghesia, originally released in 1989 on Play It Again Sam/PIAS (Europe), Wax Trax (USA) and Jugoton (former Yugoslavia). Available on 2Lp, 2CD & 1MC (MC original album only). The re-issue features a carefully remastered edition along with the exclusive bonus live album "Dal Vivo A El Paso", recorded in December 1988 during their performance in Torino, Italy, on one of their European tours. This recording features very different, raw and at times 'dubbed up' versions of their early tracks such as 'Naked, Uniformed, Dead', Am I? and Him (On). The historical perfectly captures the atmosphere and energy of their live appearances at the time. Borghesia (Italian for 'bourgeoisie'), who were formed in Ljubljana (Slovenia) in 1982, had always considered its art to be far broader than just sonic. Borghesia's transgressive, transdisciplinary alloy of film expression, distinctively physical performative practices, usage of new technology and conveniently abrasive EBM (electronic body music) musical production hasn't only been ground-breaking in terms of the holistic, visual/sonic presence of an art collective, but had a rather decisive influence on the general aesthetics of the immensely important Yugoslav subcultural landscape of the 1980s. Borghesia was one of the first bands from the East of the Iron Curtain who used the VHS video medium to distribute their art and was also one of few projects from socialist Yugoslavia to successfully penetrate the curtain itself, reaching international audiences. A series of their releases in the fruitful period between the years 1987 and 1991, including the Resistance album itself, was released by the legendary Belgian label Play It Again Sam (PIAS). The band dissolved in the mid-1990s and then continued their work in 2014. In line with Borghesia's unique social engagement, progressiveness and political criticism, Resistance is one of their most powerful statements. It's the ultimate fight the power manifesto, which makes punk and hip-hop albums of the time sound like children's songs. This is not music for nodding your head to; it's tactical broadcast for the nocturnal resistance to this very day. Borghesia didn't address control only - they sampled the political top, the secret police and explicitly connected authority with dominance. The production of the album isn't clean or polished. On the contrary - Resistance sounds like it was created in a bunker, using stolen military equipment and synthesisers. Borghesia's genius lies in their understanding that the relentless, mechanical EBM beat was the sound of the State - and by hijacking it, turning the system's own rhythm against itself they created the most powerful form of sonic insurgency. And since history repeats itself while the little man learns slowly, the re-release of 'Resistance' comes at the right time. The dark clouds of violence are already looming over Europe, they've never really left the Middle East, and the levers of power and capital ever so louder, not even covertly at all incite: war, war, war! In these times the only appropriate answer is: revolt, rebel, Resistance!

"Nido de Espinas" is the fourteenth studio album by Buitres. Uruguayan Punk Rock band formed in 1989, heirs to the legacy of the iconic Post Punk band "Los Estómagos" It began to be composed in 2022 and was recorded in early 2024. The texts are inspired by the Diary of a Desperate Heart, an arbitrary overflow of feelings written disorderedly with an improvised rein, which demanded exhaustive work from the band to reach maximum expression in each track. Artistic production was handled by Ale Vázquez (Spinetta, Intoxicados and more) and Sebastián Teysera (La Vela Puerca), who landed the runaway chariot set on fire. buitres formed in late 1989, following the dissolution of the group Los Estómagos, a band that sparked a new era of Uruguayan rock in 1983. José "Pepe" Rambao, a close friend since childhood, joined the Parodi-Peluffo duo. Buitres has toured extensively throughout the entire Uruguayan territory and has participated in massive international shows both in Uruguay and abroad. Additionally, they have completed six tours across Spain, where the album En la Vuelta (CD and DVD) was released. Their discography features 14 studio albums. They have released three live albums, two documentary DVDs, and three live DVDs. Three books have been published about the band. The band has received numerous acolytes and awards, but most importantly, after more than thirty years, they continue to maintain a close and emotional relationship with their audience - one that has endured throughout their history and grows over time. For this reason, the band dedicates their absolute best effort to every new work and every performance. "Nido de Espinas" is their new Studio album. These are wild and excessive times. Perhaps this statement applies to our life history just as it did to ordinary people in bygone eras. However, we assimilate the changes, adapt, and move forward. Nothing new under the sun. We grew up assuming static realities without trying to understand that they were newborn and would not last forever. The "forever" was declining into premature obsolescence. Every accessory is fleeting in the dizzying change of language.

Hatchback is the alias of Samuel Milton Grawe. Sam creates music that sings of the Cosmos, full of deep resonant tones, glistening arpeggios, lush pads and harmonic motifs. ‘Phaser For The Ocean, Chorus For The Moon’ is his magnum opus, a sprawling masterwork that encompasses ambient, new age and environmental music to wondrous effect. Soaked in Californian consciousness, the album is a balm like no other for these troubled times.

When I first was getting into the creative side of music making in my teens, I was heavily influenced by concept albums like ‘Quadrophenia’ and ‘The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway’, as well as epic pieces that took up an entire side of a record: Pink Floyd’s ‘Echoes’, Yes’ ‘Close To The Edge’, Klaus Schulze’s ‘Nowhere Now Here’, Miles Davis' ‘Shhh/Peaceful’ and ‘He Loved Him Madly’. In the extreme, these ideas coalesced in double albums where each side of each record is occupied by a single title - Yes’ ‘Tales From Topographic Oceans’, and Tangerine Dream’s ‘Zeit’ being primary examples. When I returned to making music after moving back to Northern California in 2020, the first piece I recorded landed around the 20-minute mark, and the idea of creating three other long pieces to realize a full album felt like a natural - if indulgent - goal. From there, each new piece followed sequentially. Four songs. My fourth album. - Sam Grawe

‘Phaser For The Ocean Chorus For The Moon’ is a pure expression, informed by a lifetime of deep listening unbound by algorithms or AI.
These are songs for the sunrise and the sunset - and every colour in between.

a 01. And The Walls Became The World All Around [18:53]
[b] 02. Phaser For The Ocean, Chorus For The Moon [21:48]
[c] 03. Other Desert Cities [20:19]
[d] 04. Friendship Fountain [18.33]

2026 Repress

The latest album in the series of "Beats and Knowledge" from Marc Mac. This episode focusing on the thousands of Black soldiers who fought in the Second World War, their efforts and stories hidden and forgotten for a lifetime. Marc's style of soulful Hip Hop beats are woven through the dialogue setting the scene for this mixtape style long player. Part six in the series of albums and limited to 400 vinyl copies worldwide.

The fourth chapter of The Third Room's curator-led series is shaped by Freddy K, one of techno's most enduring and uncompromising voices. Through decades behind the decks, an unwavering commitment to vinyl culture and his work with Key Vinyl, he has helped shape a generation of artists rooted in functionality, precision and a direct connection to the dancefloor. For his curation, the focus lies on alignment. The selection brings together artists who reflect that same discipline: a reduced but expressive approach, stripped to essentials yet rich in detail. With contributions from Toobris and Sons of Hidden, both previously featured on Key Vinyl, the release also reflects the long-standing artistic relationships behind his vision. Bat by Toobris opens the record with a powerful, straightforward statement. Driven by a steady pulse and minimal elements, the track feels alive through its control - direct, efficient and highly expressive without excess. Before Mirrors by Sons of Hidden continues this direction while expanding into a more spheric space. Tension is held consistently, with subtle accents carefully placed to shift the energy and draw the listener deeper into the track. On the B-side, Clouds Cream by Quelza stands out as a more intricate and exploratory piece. Deep and immersive, it unfolds through detailed sound design and evolving structures. Rather than relying on repetition alone, the track develops its own internal logic - balancing complexity with clarity, and allowing each element the space to contribute to a larger whole. Closing the record, Swing of Time by Jin Synth shifts into a rougher, more moody territory. Subtle pitch modulation and shifting textures create a sense of instability, giving the track a distinctive edge while maintaining its functionality. Across all four tracks, the release remains focused and cohesive - built on reduction, tension and control, but carried by small, defining moments that shape its movement. A1 Written and Produced by Lennard Miessner | A2 Written and Produced by Sons Of Hidden | B1 Written and Produced by Leo Na?t A?ssa | B2 Written and Produced by Jin Synth Mastered by Ahmet Sisman (The Third Room Studios) Artwork by Charlotte Ernst Design by Daniel Bornmann (STUEDIO.XYZ) Distribution by Clone Pressing by Matter Of Fact

15 pop songs about animals by 15 of the best indiepop bands in the world: Pets Sounds is as simple as that. Ranging from the playful (Sassyhiya, Gay Skeleton Club) to the heartbreaking (Caleb Nichols, Jetstream Pony) to the enigmatic (Railcard, Oh Hippo) to the satiric (The Magnetic Fields, Brian Bilston and The Catenary Wires), there's more diversity on this album than you can shake a stick at. Or throw a bone at. The LP comes with a full colour insert and the CD comes with a booklet featuring artwork by Elodie Ginsbourg. Musicians spend a lot of time working at home, with their pets for company. The pets sit around, happy in their own worlds, sublimely indifferent to their humans' endeavours. As familiar as family members, but as unknowable as aliens, pets are the perfect muse. They can be treated as objects of adoration - `Rufus' by Tugboat Captain is an expression of pure joy - or they can be treated as metaphors. More reliable than lovers but less dangerous than heroin, pets are a great vehicle for singing obliquely about something else. Swansea Sound's `I Don't Like Men In Uniform' is about an ageing, irascible terrier, but it's also about men striving to maintain their potency as territorial aggressors. The Magnetic Fields' `Fido, Your Leash Is too Long' is a libidinous and unreliable partner, as well as a dog that likes sniffing other dogs' private parts. For the most part, animals come off better than humans on this album. In `Kings Of The Animal Kingdom', The Burning Hell dramatise our indulgent love of pets in order to expose our cruelty to other human beings. In `Bo's New Haircut', The Cords express the injustice and unfairness of an innocent animal having to submit to human demands. In `Crayon Potato' by Sassyhiya, the magnificent Crayon contemptuously rejects the gifts offered by her besotted human owners. In `Lola', the opening track, Lande Hekt tries to put this enigmatic human-animal relationship into words. And concludes that however much we love our animals, and no matter how much we manage to communicate with them, we can never really know them. A melancholy conclusion maybe, but the music - as with all the songs on this album - is expressive of the wonderment and the joy that comes from sharing your life with a member of another species. The tracks by Brian Bilston and The Catenary Wires, Jetstream Pony and Railcard are previously unreleased. These three bands are also playing a launch show at The Water Rats, London, on 9th July 2026.

Longform: Across two decades, the California-born hardcore outfit CEREMONY has earned its standing as one of punk’s most adaptable and unflinching bands, always ready to meet the moment without surrendering its principles. True to form, CEREMONY's seventh album, Tell Me Your Dream pushes the group’s punk-forged intensity all the way to the fore, capturing the quintet at its most expressive, expansive, and timely. “We’re living in an era of mass uncertainty,” says CEREMONY vocalist Ross Farrar. “In punk, I don’t see how you can’t respond. It’s taken over our lives in so many different ways — economically, politically, spiritually. We want people to wake up and get into what’s happening.”  Ferociously alert, Tell Me Your Dream reunites CEREMONY — Farrar, guitarist-keyboardist Anthony Anzaldo, guitarist Andy Nelson, bassist Justin Davis and drummer Jake Casarotti — with producer John Reis for ten songs of searing breadth. That means everything from bristling hardcore to moody post-punk — all while taking fundamental inspiration from Discharge, Crass, and other anarcho-punk troupes that first helped certain members of CEREMONY find their own political voices back when they were teenagers. The result is a culmination of the band’s 21 years together, if not some kind of riddle: CEREMONY knows how to make a return-to-form sound like evolution — and vice versa.

In a world currently defined by unrest, uncertainty, and cultural fracture, acclaimed saxophonist, composer, and bandleader Isaiah Collier returns with Joy, a 5-track EP that reframes one of humanity’s most nuanced emotions both as a devotional grounding and political act.

Collier’s deeply personal compositions present joy as an act that isn’t rooted in escapism or abstraction, but rather, as something hard-won rooted in lived experience, shaped by transformation, and sustained through connection. Throughout the album’s five compositions, Collier positions joy as a guiding light during challenging times, an expression of challenging yourself to utilize your gifts, an affirmation of love and discovery, and as an affirmative source of reassurance.

“We are in a paradoxical time, where so much is being revealed to us,” Collier shares. “Everything feels political from every scope… our collective hearts feel the heaviness in the air. Yet I say to you all—don’t despair. For right now, the most political thing we can do is share joy.”

That ethos is made clear in the opening title track and lead single “Joy.” A pulsing rhythmic motif anchors the melody with a sense of both searching and certainty. Collier conceived the piece around 3 years ago reflecting on a time where many people in his life were experiencing loss of family and friends and experiencing profound life transitions. “Everything just felt like it was falling apart with no aim in sight,” he reflects. “Yet, there is a light at the end of it all.”

As he played the chords with a sense of urgency, he could feel the vibration of yellow in the piece. That initial triplet motif serves as the guiding light on the piano and the only word Collier could hear was Joy. In addition to Collier at the helm singing and playing piano and tenor sax on the track, it features an expansive 11-piece ensemble with a full horn and string section allowing Collier’s propensity for composition and arrangement to shine with an eclectic sonic palette.

“Landscape of Dreams” finds Collier serendipitously leaning into utilizing his gifts as a multi-instrumentalist. While he had a sketch of the piece going into the studio, a traffic delay caused musicians to be late arriving at the studio. Never one to waste time in the studio environment, Collier stepped into new creative territory and took up the challenge of executing playing all instruments himself as an act of trust and experimentation. “I’ve never done this before, and so it was a leap of faith for me,” he asserts. “I always dream of doing stuff like this, and being part of the small percentage of people who can do it like Prince, Steve Lacy, Frank Zappa, and Stevie Wonder. The end result finds Collier immersed in a hypnotic soundscape playing layered flutes, drums, Metatron, Wurlitzer, and auxiliary percussion.

Another layer of joy is revealed in “Where I’m Loved” that serves as a love letter and leaning into the process of stepping into the willingness to explore life and love with a partner. On the intimate meditation of vulnerability and connection, Collier's vocal prowess is on full display, exerting effortless falsetto reminiscent of D’Angelo over soulful Wurlitzer and guitar as he crosses over into more R&B-inspired realms. “I believe everyone deserves this feeling or to honor the memories of it. Furthermore, I believe you should also go where you’re celebrated and not tolerated.”

“When the Dust Settles” captures the electricity of live collaboration and Collier further steps out of being confined to any specific genre. He had just gotten a microKORG keyboard from co-producer Sonny Daze and was exploring the vast array of sounds on the instrument. Collier plays synth bass on the microKORG joined by the electrifying improvisation of Cole Runge on guitar and the combustible rhythm of his brother Jeremiah Collier on drums with additional post-production work from Sonny Daze.

The album’s final track “God’s By Your Side” reflects on perseverance and artistic legacy, directly inspired from the passing of D’Angelo, whose life’s work was a huge part of Collier’s childhood growing up in the late 90s and early 00s. With gospel flavor and direct influence both from D’Angelo’s vocal and instrumental arrangements, the track speaks to resilience and persistence in the face of obstacles—an affirmation of source and reassurance. “And what’s better than having God by your side, right?” asserts Collier.

Joy is a through-and-through expression of the arc of joy in its truest form. Joy transcends fleeting happiness and is conscious gratitude shaped by taking chances, leaning into your gifts, fostering community, and lived experiences.

“Joy is partially happiness,” Collier explains. “But to me it means happily being grateful for family, friends, lovers, teachers, and good times. These are the things that anchor us.”

The release of Joy comes off the heels of significant momentum for Collier, whose work continues to garner accolades and resonate across cultural spheres. He was featured on the cover of DownBeat’s April 2025 issue, where he was named “The Next Sax Giant,” and profiled on NPR’s Jazz Night in America for his ambitious 13-movement interdisciplinary suite The Story of 400 Years, that traces 400 years of Black American History. He released two full-length albums in 2024 with The World Is on Fire highlighted in The New York Times’ Fall Arts Preview and The Almighty named among the publication’s Best Jazz Albums of the year.

Beyond performance and recoding, Collier’s influence is recognized in broader cultural and intellectual spaces as he was the recipient of the Jazz Journalists Association’s 2025 Up and Coming Artist of the Year Award, the 2024 Chicagoan of the Year in Jazz, and was named a Steve Jobs Archive Fellow joining an elite cohort of the next generation of artistic visionaries through a yearlong program.

In addition to the release of Joy, Collier is touring his “Collier Plays Coltrane” program throughout 2026 in honor of John Coltrane’s centennial. Rather than presenting Coltrane’s expansive catalog as repertory, Collier approaches this music as something living, reshaping it in real-time with a sense of space and improvisational dialog reflecting both reverence to the past and present times.

Time stands stunningly still on The Final Painting, the dreamy, elegiac final album from legendary underground singer-songwriter/poet/painter Ed Askew. The Final Painting not only defies the curse of sequels and the ten-year gap between the two DeCicca/Askew productions, it"s also a wonderous variation on the intimacy of the self-portrait, an expression from the twilight of one of the most unique artists to emerge in last half of the 20th century. The Final Painting reinvites For the World contributors Sharon Van Etten, Eve Searls, and Canaan Faulkner and new guests Bill Callahan, William Tyler, Ryan Jewell, Dustin Laurenzi, and Fulvio Sigurta. In their last conversation, just days before Ed passed in January 2025, he and Jerry agreed to: a) use the painting left on the easel of Ed"s now-empty apartment and b) call the album The Final Painting.

FLO are leading the modern revival of the British girl group — and doing so at a scale not seen in over two decades. With over half a billion global streams, the trio have delivered the highest-selling tour by a British girl group in more than 20 years, becoming the first since the Spice Girls to reach that milestone. They are also the first British girl group to receive a Grammy nomination in two decades, alongside three MOBO nominations in 2026, cementing their status as both a commercial and cultural force. Rather than simply revisiting the past, FLO are reshaping the possibilities for what a contemporary girl group can be.

Comprised of Renée Downer, Stella Quaresma and Jorja Douglas, FLO’s story is one of intention, craft and deep-rooted connection. The trio had long been aware of one another through theatre school circles, social media and shared creative worlds before coming together as a group in 2019. That early familiarity quickly grew into a sisterhood, shaped behind the scenes through years of studio work, vocal development and trust. Raised by strong single mothers and immersed in performance from a young age, each member brings resilience, emotional intelligence and discipline into the group — qualities that underpin both their sound and their dynamic.

Individually, FLO’s balance comes from contrast. Renée is the group’s compass: composed, business-minded and creatively precise, grounding the trio with clarity and vision. Stella is the spark and the glue — sociable, emotionally intuitive and collaborative — shaped by a childhood between England and Mozambique where music was communal, expressive and felt. Jorja is the fire: outspoken, instinctive and vocally commanding, with a natural ear for harmony and arrangement. Their roles shift and evolve, but together they form a unit built on mutual respect, honesty and shared authorship.

That chemistry is central to FLO’s music. Drawing from classic R&B and soul while pushing it forward through modern production, their sound centres vocal harmony, emotional nuance and storytelling that reflects the realities of young womanhood. FLO reject the idea that strength requires emotional distance; instead, they explore power through vulnerability, confidence and control. From independence and self-worth to intimacy and desire, their writing is direct and unapologetically theirs. As Jorja puts it, FLO are “the brains, the heart and the soul” behind everything they do.

The success of their debut album marked a defining moment — not only for FLO, but for British pop more broadly. It confirmed the appetite for harmony-led, female-fronted groups operating with creative agency, and propelled FLO onto global stages, from sold-out headline tours to major festivals and international television. Along the way they have earned respect from R&B legends and peers alike, performing during Grammy Week for icons including Mariah Carey, Brandy and Chaka Khan, and showcasing their vocal chemistry on NPR’s Tiny Desk — a moment that further underlined the trio’s technical precision and emotional depth.

With their next chapter, Therapy At The Club, FLO expand this emotional honesty into a fully realised creative universe. The concept reimagines the club not just as a place of nightlife, but as a site of release, confession and self-possession — encompassing the moments before, during and after the night out. From mirror affirmations and pre-game chaos, to late-night Uber conversations, dance-floor catharsis and the clarity of the morning after, Therapy At The Club captures how women process desire, heartbreak, confidence and healing in real time, together. It is both fantasy and reality: cinematic, fashion-led and emotionally raw, grounded in sisterhood as a form of survival.

Sonically, the new music leans into dark, euphoric R&B and pop with sharper edges, built on vocal mastery and diaristic storytelling. Lead single “Leak It” sets the tone for the era — playful, charged and unapologetically self-aware — exploring what happens when desire spills over, secrets surface and control is reclaimed. Across the new songs, FLO move fluidly between intimacy and euphoria, turning the club into a space where vulnerability is power and feeling everything is the point.

As a trio built on discipline, joy and deep creative trust, FLO represent a new model for the British girl group: one rooted in authorship, harmony and cultural impact. Balancing softness with strength and ambition with authenticity, they are shaping the future of R&B and pop on their own terms. FLO are not looking backwards — they are setting the standard for what comes next.

Susan Cadogan is a Reggae & Rocksteady singer from Kingston, Jamaica. With a delicate voice that shimmers between childlike innocence and smoldering sexuality, Susan Cadogan’s vocals were the perfect expression of lovers rock.

Susan Cadogan's singing talents led to her recording her first single, "Love My Life" for Jamaican Broadcasting Corporation (JBC radio) DJ Jerry Lewis. Lee "Scratch" Perry was in the recording studio at the time, and was impressed by Cadogan's voice enough to record an album's worth of material with her, also renaming her Susan.

One of her first recordings for Perry, a cover of Millie Jackson's soul hit, "Hurt So Good" (featuring bassist Boris Gardiner), was released was released in the UK by Dennis Harris' DIP International label, and topped the UK reggae chart and went on to reach No. 4 in the UK Singles Chart which resulted in Cadogan flying to London to promote the single, including many television appearances on the BBC's Top of the Pops. Other singles ("Nice & easy", "Fever", "In the Ghetto") were released but none of these charted. "Hurt So Good" was subsequently certified silver in the United Kingdom and gold in South Africa after a few weeks and became one of the top selling singles of 1975 in the UK.

This is the album she recorded for Trojan Records and it was produced by the legendary Lee Perry, Susan Cadogan is available as a limited numbered edition of 750 copies on orange vinyl.