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The hypnagogic haze of purling, refractive dub is strong on Sleepdial’s debut for West Mineral, introducing a crafty new name to the scene after a teasing preview on that Peak Oil x NWAQ radio show, delivering a heavy-lidded dose of tattered ambient dub inversions.

Sleepdial chases a frayed thread of thought thru the fractal echo chambers of ‘RV Lights’, only their 2nd full-length under this alias, and first on vinyl. The 9-part album is optimised for getting smudged on sunny daze with its pursuit of elusive dub sprites that connote subaquatic or vaporous etheric themes in their elemental diffusions and world-building ecologies.

In equilibrium of ambient and dub-as-method, they tenderly tease the senses with a fine grasp of deferred gratification, oscillating abstract spatial navigations and ephemeral moments of heart-in-mouth euphoria. Where sometimes this stuff can err to a pleasant mess, the dub ballast here anchors proceedings in a rugged groove that really pushes the right buttons and elevates the whole thing in its own air.

Blessed with a compelling sensuality, tracks follow a course from the compressed contrails of ‘Purview’ to the helical shapes of ‘Dovetailing’ and thru beautifully pill-bellied sensations on ‘Icarus Rising’, into ruggeder, insectoid dub in ‘Blue August’ to short circuit agitated and soothing feels. That fractured sort of duality manifests at its most anxious yet enchanted in the unpicked strings and astral scree of ‘Lightplay’, and in the title and feel of ‘Lean Angst’, gently keeping heads on toes into the swirling pressure system of album sign-off ‘Airtank’.

LONG AWAITED DEBUT ALBUM PRODUCED BY LIAM WATSON (THE WHITE STRIPES) AT TOE RAG STUDIOS
A RECORD WITH NO DOWNTIME BETWEEN BLUES PULSATIONS, SUNNY MELODIES AND FUZZ GUITARS

Welcome to this wild ride of cheese, wooden shoes, green gold and a whole lotta Dutch rock 'n roll attitude! This album is a high-octane compilation where today's garage, beat and rock'n'roll artists pay tribute to the rich history of Nederbeat and pop Each covering a classic Dutch tune with their own twist, companied with their own original. Think of it as a musical time machine with a detour through the gritty, reverbing walls of Studio Teepdek, guided under strict supervision by studio guru Arjan Spies and released by Soundflat Records / Topsy Turvy Records; home of the best contemporary Dutch artists. Buckle up, because you're about to hear the Netherlands' musical past and present collide in a glorious explosion of sound with a shot of cheap adrenaline.Enjoy the ride and to turn it up to 11.

The Krontjong Devils:The Greatest thing to come out of Holland since the Dutch Treat! Playing Surfmusic since 1991 and still going strong! Mooon: This young power trio consists of brothers Tom and Gijs and their cousin Timo. These cats take you to the Golden Age of pop music: the psychedelic boom of the 60's and 70's. The Kryng:Three jinxed no-good guys with an insatiable appetite for great popsongs. Their ace in the hole is singer/ guitarist/ cult- hero Mark ten Hoor, an extraordinary craftsman //when it comes to writing catchy and powerful songs. Fleur:She has the looks, the moves and a voice that sounds like a cool breeze on a hot summer day. The Heck:High pace, hectic, energetic and wild 60's garagepunk outfit all the way from Klazinaveen. Feel free to place them somewhere in between The Sonics and Reigning Sound. Frankie:The young and aspiring talent Frankie from the Eindhoven writes double edged songs like a head in the clouds and roots from your feet. Written like a dream but grounded in reality. Les Robots: Mechanical men from outer space, stationed in Rotterdam, presumably programmed by legendary producer Joe Meek to make astonishing instrumental music.

Carwyn Ellis & Rio 18 release their new album "Fontana Rosa". Possibly the world's only musical group to fuse Latin music of all kinds with the Welsh language, this time Rio 18 draw inspiration from slightly different musical corners, including Chicano Soul, Nuyorican pop, and Salsoul disco plus Latin sounds filtered through the cultural spectrum of the USA.

Most significantly though, the album was among the last ever to be recorded by the acclaimed producer Liam Watson at his legendary studio and shrine to all things analogue, Toerag Studios - a huge inspiration and influence on Rio 18's Carwyn Ellis. The "Fontana Rosa" sessions saw Ellis draw together an all-star band at the fabled studio which is perhaps best known through its place in the White Stripes history.

Talking about the story and gestation of the album, Carwyn said:

"I was in Mexico City with Baldo Verdú when I heard that Toerag Studios in London was going to close. It came as a shock - Toerag and Liam Watson, its owner and resident producer had been a massive influence on me. Liam, along with Edwyn Collins, had taught me much of what I know about recording, had hired me as an instrumentalist on countless sessions and had helped me to get started when I began my own solo career. And over the years, I'd still go in to record with Liam whenever the opportunity arose. When I heard that Liam was shutting up shop, I took it upon myself to try and ensure he went out with a musical bang. I rounded up the best band I could get: the aforementioned Venezuelan percussion wiz and singer, Baldo Verdú: American drummer, multi-instrumentalist and producer Shawn Lee: the Isle of Wight's finest drum and percussion master, producer and composer Rupert Brown (whom I'd originally met at Toerag many moons ago): Elan Rhys, one of Wales's finest voices and long term collaborator with Rio 18, as well as being one third of the wonderful folk group, Plu: and Kassin - my Brazilian brother from Rio de Janeiro, bassist and producer with artists such as Jorge Ben, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil and a multitude of others, including Carwyn Ellis & Rio 18.

So this was my dream team, assembled to make beautiful music one more time at Toerag (I have to add at this point that Shawn and Rupert hit it off so well at our sessions that they booked their own session shortly afterwards! Look out for the brilliant Shawn Lee's Toerag Orchestra 'Percussion Discussion' album). Toerag, if you're not familiar with the place, made its name as London's foremost analogue studio for some 30 years, recording directly to tape which in essence means musicians playing live, together in a room until they get it right. And the sound? Oh the SOUND!! And this is all Liam Watson's doing, his sonic aesthetic - a real master engineer. The studio is perhaps best known as the place where the White Stripes recorded their monster hit album 'Elephant' but for me it's where I got to record with James Hunter, Lay Low (from Iceland), Quruli (from Japan), Fabienne Delsol (from France) and made many lasting friendships, learnt a great deal about popular music, as well as making a bunch of my own best recordings with Colorama.

Over the course of five days we laid down as much music as we could. We had some visitors too: guitar slinger Little Barrie (Primal Scream, The The and Liam Gallagher among other things, but also my dear bandmate in Edwyn Collins's band): sax and flute maestro Jim Hunt (Amy Winehouse, Primal Scream, Duffy and very many others): and Diego Laverde Rojas, the Colombian Latin harp virtuoso.

This time the music had a slightly different edge - although we still maintained our Brazilian/Welsh connection on 'Deffro'r Dydd' (written with and sung by Elan Rhys), our Cumbia vibe and some Merengue ('Mariposa' and 'Te Adoro', sung by Baldo Verdú) and even a traditional Afro-Venezuelan tune ('La Quichimba', again sung by Baldo) - the main influence for me this time was Latin music as recorded in the USA, both new and old. 'No More Secrets' is a straight up slice of Salsoul disco, while 'Hei Ti' is a punky funky but of Nu Yorican pop somewhere between ESG and the Beastie Boys. But one of my main influences in the last couple of years has been the current wave of Chicano Soul coming from California, particularly via the Penrose and Big Crown labels. I was turned on to this music when I was in Japan in early 2023 - Takashi-san at Pleased To Meet Me Records in Nara played me the Altons' 'Float' and I was hooked!

And that music has a similar aesthetic to Toerag: music recorded live to tape by excellent engineers, performed by fine musicians and singers. So our songs 'Impossible', 'Heartbreaker' and 'Lovesick' are very much in this vein. And that just leaves the title track, 'Fontana Rosa'."

New Generation Carnival Riddims from St. Lucia and Dominica A hurricane of turbo-charged, body-buzzing tracks collide on Road Fever, a compilation of razor-produced, road-tested instrumental riddims from St. Lucia, Dominica & Guadeloupe that showcases the producers forging the future of Caribbean music in 2025. Road Fever draws together instrumental Dennery Segment and Bouyon riddims originally made for vocalists, presented for the first time as stand alone pieces of music. Distilling carnival riddims down to the bare bones, producers push minimal 150+bpms, FL-percussion packs, DJ/vox samples & synth riffs, bridging trap, drill, dancehall, sped-up Haitian konpa & Angolan kuduro. Ricocheting at the intersection of TikTok culture, best heard blasted through walls of speakers travelled by stage-sized carnival trucks or via bluetooth car speakers, St.Lucia"s "Dennery Segment" sound, (as iconic producer, G6 described in an interview), "sparks your inside; a sound you can"t hear and not move". Amsterdam-based, Curaçao-raised compiler Rozaly echoes G6: "Once you hear it, you can"t unhear or unfeel it. This is a musical movement with an entire history with so many relevant reasons why it still exists, and why it exists the way it exists right now". Rozaly concludes, "there is nothing more simple, let the artists speak."

The world of item expands. Small or significant, material, immaterial, items define much of our daily life. We are in the era of itemisation.

Itemise yourself

The first item in the catalogue, hardware evangelist and live performer Otis.

Presenting sounds for the higher self: Red Flags written and produced by Otis. Built for dark rooms and soggy limbs. A devout purveyor of hardware and analogue, Otis’ revered live performances are greedy with drive and dance. Machine-led but felt in toes and gut. His live act craft can be traced through this EP garnering influence from industrial, early 2000s electro and progressive trance. Sweat as currency the common thread.

This, another item for your dance directory. Trinket thing piece music. A keepsake.

Proudly presenting our reissue of the sought-after 1978 album 'Ritmo Y Sabor' from Cuban, master bongo player, Manteca. A deep, hypnotic, sonic excursion of Afro-Cuban/mambo rhythms to get lost within. Released in 1978, there are a number of different pressings of the album coming out on labels including GRC, Desca Records and Sound Triangle Records. Stripped-back and low-fi, this is a pulsating hit of instrumental Latin-jazz dance magic.

Predominantly made up of just percussion and bass, the album comes courtesy of Carlos "Rico" Ramirez on bass, Carlos Patato on congas, timbales by Nelson Padron and Lazaro Pla aka Manteca as band leader. A Cuban legend, Manteca rose to fame playing with Ernesto Lecuona and the Cuban Boys. Although he featured on numerous recordings in his home of Cuba, only a handful exist of his as featured soloist or band leader.

A whirlwind of percussive brilliance, ‘Ritmo Y Sabor’ is brimming with energy regardless of the tempo of the track. An instantaneous ability to make you move, the grooves come alive with each new rhythm introduced. Take for instance, the track 'Afro Funky' that more than lives up to its name. A breakbeat Latin-funk workout, with a mighty fine walking bass line that provides the basis for the drummers to vibe off. Elsewhere, 'Rumbon En Casa De Cando' is fast and furious perfect for the jazz dance specialist, whilst 'Sabor A Mantecado' keeps you on your toes with its trance-like repetitive bassline and percussive interplay. 'Cosa De Manteca' is another heavy-Latin funk gem with a rough and raw feeling of relentless yet groove-driven percussion.

A must-have Afro-Cuban, rhythmic funk triumph, that shows Manteca and his band in full flight

Speedcore gabba Breakcore punxxx, Extreme shit ! LP feat. many crazy tracks !!

Crazy streched breakcore hardcore and speedcore ! 2 LP one 7 inch... The absolute collector !! TIP !!!

Following the epic and potent album 'Blood' recently released on Infinite Machine; Shanghai-based producer Laughing Ears alights on Hemlock with a killer three track EP.

Losing Track
Dense with pin-sharp atmospherics and gentle intertwined melodies, this lush piece evokes 90's IDM breakbeat and trance and propels them into far away realms.

Bite the Bullet
Bleeps and homespun breakbeats dance into the night on this quirky workout, keeping us on our toes with unhinged edits and a twisted breakdown.

Breakaway The rudest cut on the EP, Breakaway lamps up the pressure for a full sub bass rinse out riding on loose but fully loaded drums.

File under: IDM, grime, breakbeat
RIYL: rRoxymore, Autechre, Dj Crystl, Bruce, Musical Mob

Tuneful, feedback- slathered surges like "Half Way Fine" and "Spright" feel as
comfortable as a beaten-up pair of Chuck Taylors, introducing dramatic dynamic
shifts and savvy melodic change- ups to keep you on your toes. You may not
always be able to make out Hartlett's lyrics amid the cyclonic fuzz, but the
despondence and disillusionment in his voice always cut through loud and clear.
And when he can't quite find the right words, he and fellow guitarist Morgan Luzzi
unleash that simmering angst through nonverbal means, like the roiling guitar
tsunami that brings the hazy-headed "Baby Alligator" to a cataclysmic close.
Stuart Berman, Pitchfork

Vinyl-Reissue des Sex-Organs Debut! Mit DLC und Insert! PURE & DIRTY SEX'N'ROLL + DIRTY GARAGE FROM OUTER SPACE GESPIELT VON ZWEI GENITALIEN! THIS IS NOT ONLY A RECORD - IT'S A WHOLE RADIO PLAY !!! THE SEX ORGANS durchquerten mutig und zielorientiert zigtausend Lichtjahre, um als intergalaktische Sex-Touristen auf unserem Planeten Erde zu landen und ihre Mission SEX & ROLL unter die Menschen zu bringen! Primitive anarchische Schlagzeug-Beats gepaart mit schreienden verzerrten Gitarren und schamlosen Texten! Dafür haben sie sich als erstes mit ihrem Raumschiff nach Italien ins OUTSIDE INSIDE Studio gebeamt und kurzerhand den famosen Produzenten Matt Bordin genötigt ein Meisterwerk aufzunehmen. Um die Weltherrschaft zu erlangen sind sie damit sogleich in die Schweiz ins VOODOO RHYTHM RECORDS Headquarter gepilgert, wo sie Beat- Man verführt und entführt haben, damit dieser mit seinen internationalen Vertriebszweigen den ganzen Globus mit diesem musikalischen Höhepunkt infiziert. Ein bekannter Journalist, der lieber nicht genannt werden wiil, hat dieses XXL-Genitalien-Duo auf einer ihrer orgastischen Welt-Tourneen begleitet und auf Tonband festgehalten, was die Welt zu dieser Sex-Invasion zu sagen hat... zu hören auf diesem Album! Futuristic Primitive Rock n' Roll Trash Garage Science Mono as Fuck !!!

Leng Records’ first album of the year release comes courtesy of two contrasting legends of Italian dance music, Afro-Cosmic pioneer Danielle Baldelli and sometime FPI Project member Marco Fratty (real name Marco Frattini).

Both producers have a wealth of experience. Baldelli first to rose to fame as resident DJ at the near mythical Cosmic Club in the early 1980's, before moving into music production two decades ago. Since then, he’s collaborated with heaps of producers – most notably DJ Rocca, Marco Dionigi and Dario Piana – but “Oil Painting” marks his first collaboration with Frattini, an experienced producer whose bustling discography stretches right back to the Italian house explosion of the late 1980's and early ’90s.

The pair’s debut collaborative release is bold, bubbly, vibrant and funky, with the storied Italian veterans making extensive use of live instrumentation, vintage synthesizers and chugging, floor-friendly grooves. As you’d expect from a Baldelli-related project, the influences are obvious – think funk, dub-disco, cosmic rock, Italo-disco and nu-disco – but the resulting colourful cuts refuse to settle on one specific style.

Firmly focused on the dancefloor, “Oil Painting” is a gleeful, celebratory and excitable as anything either producer has released to date. For proof, check the surging arpeggio style synth-bass, kaleidoscopic synthesizer lines and eyes-closed rock guitar solos of “Automatic Amplitude”, the flute-laden dub disco shuffle of “Jasmine Flavour”, the organ-laden cosmic funk chug of “Oil Painting” and the lolloping disco-funk exuberance of “Steam Engine”, where crunchy guitar licks and Meters style organ stabs wrap themselves around a vintage disco bassline and head-nodding, toe-tapping drums.

The highlights don’t step there, either. Check the percussion and delay-laden Afro-Cosmic funk fusion of “Slinky Funk”, a veritably tropical excursion that repurposes the bassline and incessant cowbells from Cymande classic “Bra”, and the Clavinet-heavy stomp of “Positive Flow”, whose snaking, constantly-changing saxophone solo and flash-fried guitar riffs help create a thrillingly excitable mood.

From start to finish, “Oil Painting” is an album full to bursting with musical joy and umpteen giddy calls towards the dancefloor. From producers of Baledlli and Frattini’s experience, we’d expect nothing less.

Burnski's high-quality Constant Black is back with more essential club-ready sounds. Donnie Cosmo and Pascal Benjamin step up for one side of action each. Cosmo's 'Holo Glitch' is first and pairs balmy synth work that is colourful and silky with some punchy tech drums and rolling bass that pulls you in deep. 'Echo Drift' is another lithe and lively one to get you on your toes while the groove flows and 'Airplane Mode' is another stylish mix of lush synth design and great rhythm. Benjamin's trio on the flip is a little more gritty with industrial-space-tech many the most fitting way to describe these curious cosmic cuts.

Das fünfte Album der Newcastler Riffzauberer Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs (aka PIGSx7) ist geprägt von kalkulierter Aggression und selbstzerfrleichenden Texten. Zu den verblüffenden Boni gehören verspielte Synthesizer-Arbeiten und der Auftritt eines Hip-Hop-Masters. Mit seinem Titel, der Absurdität und Ernsthaftigkeit einander gegenüberstellt, ist dies Death Hilarious. Während Land Of Sleeper von 2023 als immersives Kopfhörer-Erlebnis konzipiert war, strebten Pigs dieses Mal nach etwas direkterem, böseren. ,Wir wollten, dass es ein Schlag ins Gesicht ist", grinst Produzent und Gitarrist Sam Grant. Dieses Ziel kam zum Teil dadurch zustande, dass die Band in den letzten Jahren sooooo viele Gigs gespielt hat. Die Band fühlte sich gut geölt und reif dafür, den Zuhörern zu Hause die Art von Prügel zu verpassen, die ihr Publikum von der Bühne aus erhält. Death Hilarious bietet einige Überraschungen, vor allem der Track 'Glib Tongued', bei dem El-P von Run The Jewels als Gastmusiker mitwirkt. Als Bassist John-Michael Hedley unwissentlich das schrieb, was seine Bandkollegen als ihr Äquivalent zu einer Hip-Hop-Nummer betrachteten, setzten die Pigs ihre Ziele hoch an und sicherten sich einen fulminanten Beitrag von einem der größten Rapper der Welt. Das soll nicht heißen, dass Pigs zum Nu-Metal übergegangen sind. Death Hilarious ist eine abwechslungsreiches, straffes Album, das sich zwischen sabbathianischem Doom, grotesk minimalistischem Noise Rock und zyklischen Post-Metal-Fortissimos bewegt. Auch die Pigs treiben sich selbst weiter an. Unpassende Synthesizer-Soli tauchen dort auf, wo normalerweise Gitarren-Histrionik Platz hätte. Klaviertracks lauern im Mix und verleihen dem Klangstrudeln eine fast unterschwellige Tiefe. Stitches" ist wie Motörhead, die versuchen, Glamrock mit einem beschwipsten Keyboarder zu spielen. Und dann ist da noch das 100-Meilen-Tempo des Cosmic-Thrash-Openers ,Blockage". Verzerrte Licks fliegen aus den Verstärkern von Grant und Lead-Gitarrist Adam Ian Sykes, während die Rhythmusgruppe dahinter brutzelt. Mit all dieser Power, die durch die Adern fließt, wird Death Hilarious mit Leichtigkeit eines der besten Rockalben des Jahres 2025 sein... und das ist kein Witz!

TYRON is a tale of two halves exposing human complexity. Just as with the narrative of his own life, there are always two sides to every story. Side one re-introduces us to the classic hubris, machismo, and braggadocio typical of rap music. Side two takes what you thought you knew about slowthai and flips on its head. ‘feel away’ and ‘nhs’ go some way to dip a toe inside the complexities of his mind but delve deeper and you’ll be left with a clearer understanding of who he truly is. Honesty is paramount as ultimately Ty wants listeners to know that “it’s ok to be yourself”.

TYRON was formed against the backdrop of an unforgiving climate where judgement, shaming and underdeveloped and simplistic conceptions of other people are fashionable. Instead of succumbing to such simplicity, TYRON presents an artist who is unabashedly complicated and willing to explore themes of loneliness, identity, self-acceptance, and the difficulties in becoming an individual. Unlike the political overtone of slowthai’s debut album ‘Nothing Great About Britain’ which took listeners on a journey through slowthai’s turbulent upbringing and his stance on British life – this self-titled follow up, TYRON is a melodic dive through the expansive landscape of his feelings. His ability to bear his imperfections and contradictions makes TYRON an album that is the antithesis of a culture of purity. A resistance to the rising tide of moral one-upmanship and the pervasive self-righteousness that blinds us to our own fallibility.

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

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

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

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

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

A new pressing of last years, end of year poll favourite album THE COURETTES `The Soul Of_' LP on ORANGE VINYL! "Ultra-catchy. A wicked side of garage soul" - CLASH // "One of their catchiest pieces yet, Sassy, groovy, toe-tapping" - CLASSIC ROCK // "A giddying rush of noise" - MOJO // "The real sound of now busting through my door, new songs that keep kicking the history forward. I can't imagine my turntable without The Courettes" - David Fricke, ROLLING STONE // And features SHINDIG MAGAZINES Single of the year 2024 `Keep Dancin'.

Standard weight white vinyl remastered from the original tapes, restoring the original album on vinyl for the first time since 1995, including its original artwork. Includes download code.

In 1991, four kids from the suburbs of Chicago, IL formed Cap’n Jazz, arguably one of the most influential rock bands of the last 30 years. Those kids, brothers Tim & Mike Kinsella, Victor Villarreal, and Sam Zurick, were joined by Davey von Bohlen in 1994 and recorded their only full-length album before calling it quits - Burritos, Inspiration Point, Fork Balloon Sports, Cards in the Spokes, Automatic Biographies, Kites, Kung Fu, Trophies, Banana Peels We’ve Slipped on, and Egg Shells We’ve Tippy Toed Over - often referred to as Shmap’n Shmazz. Originally released on the Man With Gun label, the album quickly fell out of print after the band’s breakup, with the songs eventually making their way to the Analphabetapolothology compilation, released in 1998 via Jade Tree Records.

As a testament to this legendary debut, Polyvinyl is thrilled to announce the vinyl reissue of Shmap’n Shmazz, which has been remastered from the original tapes - restoring the original album on vinyl for the first time since 1995, including its original artwork. With the unmatched intensity heard in the opening track, “Little League,” coupled with eccentrically poetic lyrics, this iconic album has influenced countless artists since its release and unintentionally sparked a new genre. Pitchfork calls the album “a touchstone of Midwestern emo,” while Vulture placed “Little League” at #3 on their 100 Greatest Emo Songs of All Time list. Musician Devendra Banhart has also expressed his love for the band in a 2017 Joan of Arc documentary, describing Tim’s powerfully striking vocals like "going to the zoo on quaaludes, but all the other animals are on speed."

In addition to the band’s influential legacy, Cap’n Jazz was the catalyst to the formation of other notable bands featuring the original members, including American Football, Joan of Arc, The Promise Ring, Owls, Owen, Make Believe, Ghosts and Vodka and many more.

Hardly Cricket sees the band truly lean into their rock tendencies. Those who have enjoyed their past forays into 70s style dual guitar leads will find much to latch onto here. Explosive, high energy tunes like “New Music” and “Sacred Heart” are instantly infectious and truly set the tone with high flying guitar action from all the players. However, as always, Shirese keeps it varied. With songwriting duties being more evenly spread throughout the group this time around, listeners will find 60s garage, country, and even doo-wop inflected songs as well. Matt Paolilo’s ever present vocals and tongue-and-cheek lyrics keep listeners on their toes. While the occasional descent into tape spliced experimental madness still finds its place in the grooves. Shirese continues to evolve as their lineup continues to cement. Gone are the days of a revolving cast of characters, and in its place we find a group of friends who mesh tightly, pushing beyond their perceived limits to true rock’n’roll glory! A Grapefruit Records and C/Site Recordings co-release. Limited to 300 copies.

Orange/rot/schwarzes Vinyl, limitiert auf 300 Exemplare. Mit SOUNDS OF NEW SOMA erleben wir Neo-Krautrock in einer Form, die zugleich vertraut und völlig neuartig ist. Auf dem neuen Album nimmt uns das das Duo mit auf die unbestimmte Reise des Wissenschaftlers Sam Buckett in die unendlichen Weiten des Kosmos - sowohl des äußeren als auch des inneren. Thematisiert wird die Geschichte von Sam Buckett, einem US-Wissenschaftler, der bereits in den 1920er Jahren an der Möglichkeit der bemannten Raumfahrt forschte. THE STORY OF SAM BUCKETT geht dabeiüber die üblichen Genre- Grenzen hinaus: Ihre Musik ist eine Hommage an die Wegbereiter des Krautrocks, wie Neu!, Can und Tangerine Dream, und gleichzeitig ein Ausblick in die Zukunft des Genres. In ihrer klanglichen Alchemie verschmelzen Einflüsse aus Psychedelic, Ambient und Space-Rock zu einem einzigartigen Sound, der tief in die Sinne eindringt und eine nahezu tranceartige Atmosphäre erzeugt.

Texture returns for its second release with debut EP by Detroit-based STS. ‘Swallowed by a Whale’, dips a toe into the deep ocean of a swirling mind, notated with captivating rhythms and intense, otherworldly sounds. Danny Daze and Jonny from Space turn 'Souvlaki Man' on its head, highlighting the Miami-Detroit psychedelic sonic connection. On the Bside, Lyon's Warzou thickens 'Boot Stuck in the Swamp' to a sludgy lowend workout.

Repress!

Fresh off the back of his Glitterbox remix of CamelPhat & Elderbrook's hit 'Cola', Mousse T. drops his first original release on the Glitterbox label, showing off the depth of his production skills in this sparkling genre-binding track 'Rock The Mic'.
Mousse T. enlists the help of artist TAZ, the man who became the first UK rapper to sign to hip hop mecca Def Jam, also earning a prestigious Ivor Novello award nomination for his writing skills. 'Rock The Mic' reunites Mousse with American song writer Inaya Day, best known for her unforgettable vocals on the German producer's biggest record, 'Horny'.
The catchy hook and toe-tapping groove of intertwine perfectly over smooth strings to make this an irresistible record. The killer collaboration combines hip hop with disco, giving us the best of both worlds. 'Rock The Mic' lives up to the hype, delivering six minutes of bliss alongside a percussive remix courtesy of Kon. Kon's Accapella and Instrumental versions round off this full rocking package.

Impex has always had a special place in their hearts for Shoji Yokouchi’s Greensleeves. Standards, original tunes, and traditional pieces (like the title track), are interpreted in unexpectedly funky, soulful ways. The master guitarist is given immeasurable support by organist Yuri Tashiro. Her playing is alternately moody and spry, fiery and funky. Impex’s vinyl reissue preserves the original’s clear, exacting sound (check out the bass on Tashiro’s organ!) while improving surface noise and presentation. This rare gem of Tee Fujii’s repertoire is yet another entertaining listen for Three Blind Mice fans from their friends at Impex Records!



"I cannot understand how Chris Bellman got 100% of the dynamics, power, subterranean deep powerful bass, delicate guitar, bass riffs, and drums all on a 33 RPM release without the instruments colliding into one another. I am shocked by the RTI pressing of such utter quiet and explosive punch... harmonics and layered realistic textures lived in the room as the needle found its groove. Imaging is pin-point stable and precise, and dynamics never overload."

"If this is not the ultimate audiophile demonstration LP released this year, then none will be released. I dare you to stop listening to this LP once the first cut has commenced! With mostly standards jazzed up for the brilliant musicians to love to play, I was constantly tapping my toes and reminiscing on when I first heard a certain melody. What great fun!"

" ...Packaged by Impex in slick classy gloss and full color, Greensleeves is a high-quality production for a top jazz collection. Prediction: this release will triple in price! For those smart enough to buy multiple copies and put extras away, a bonus awaits them! This is the best audiophile system demonstration LP I have heard in ages, and a must-own. Thank you Impex! Greensleeves receives my highest BUY recommendation!" - Robert H. Levi

‘Dynamic Movements - Music for Exercise & Relaxation’ is the new album by the Swedish electronic music producer/remix duo of Johan Agebjörn and Mikael Ögren, lovingly released on Ltd. cassette via Lo Recordings.

Back in the 1980’s there was an exercise craze, people wore lycra bodysuits and headbands. All over the world people were making ‘Dynamic Movements’, determined to change the flow, turn their lives around and step into a bright new future. At the same time the New Age movement was blossoming and meditation was the way forward. Meditation and deep relaxation with maybe some crystals and Unicorns, just for fun.

Inspired by these exercise tapes of the 70s/80s and in tribute to those times and movements, Johan and Mikael worked with producers from around the world to create an album of diverse interpretations, bringing us an album of deep sonic nourishment. Sometimes throbbing and at other times gently lapping at your toes, the result is a lavish cassette contrasting ‘music for exercise’ on side A and ‘music for relaxation’ on side B.

Kicking off side one is the duo’s own ‘Dynamo Dance’, a resonant, pulsating slice of electronic pleasure, which gives way to tracks by acclaimed collaborators like the crisp, cruise control groove of Causeway, the dub chug delight of Jarle Brathen and the irrepressible majesty of ‘Lovelock’ (Steve Moore), before Johan and Mikael return with a tribute to the late great Florian Schneider of Kraftwerk.

Side two’s sumptuous drift into a world of soft pads, rippling arpeggios and sultry saxophone (all the saxophone on the album is by the aforementioned Steve Moore) is initiated by Seahawks, with their lysergic ‘Phase Induction’ leading to the extended Cafe Del Mar beach bar ambience of the legendary Fax records maestro Dr Atmo, continuing with the impossibly lush shimmer of Mary Yalex, the gravity defying drift of One Million Eyes and the divine dream world of Patricia Wolf.

It's fair to say this label, this producer has had more than their fair share of hits over the years.
Hitting you straight in the heart (and hips) sometimes and occasionally (and that's all your own fault) going over-your-head.

Regardless.
Whether rummaging around the sonic fringes or incanting pure dancefloor moments like this, Bitter End always, always deliver.
Adjustment->Love is the best thing we've heard this year.
The rest of the EP 'filler' is also better than anything else you're likely to encounter on a 12" this side of 2025.
Don't be an idiot - while everyone else if toeing the line, try your best to colour outside of it.

Celebrating 55 years in the music business! Swami John Reis is back with his second LP in eight months. Time To Let You Down is a savage blast of junk shoppe punk that kicks you in the ding ding. This eleven track LP is chock full of fist pumpers, head bumpers, stinky dumpers, meaty thumpers and toe stumpers. The tempos are often breakneck and the dense arrangements tumble like bricks into hot cheese. The undeniable sonic girth barges at will into lathered ear tubes allowing these barbaric anthems to echo in hollow domes. Feel the whip crack break skin on the acne scarred backs of our cultural oppressors. The sound is tough. The songs are a bitch. Incite your expectations with the single “Fed To The Dogs” or the title track. Salty leather and wobbly chain link fences can’t contain its rebel intent. These recordings took place Oct. 2024 and features Swami John Reis on guitar and vocals with contributions from Jason Sinclair (Hot Snakes), Joey Guevara (Swami and the Bed Of Nails), Jacob Turnbloom (Mrs. Magician) and Glen Galloway (Truman’s Water). The record was produced by John Reis, engineered and mixed by Ben Moore and mastered by Dave Gardner. Time To Let You Down is pressed on virgin, Egyptian pellets and available in limited, colorful vinyl that have been hand-swirled. You’ll not only clearly hear the difference, you will see it as well.

“Hailing from Castlewood, VA in the heart of Appalachia, the five-piece 49 Winchester serves it up greasy, whether it’s Southern fried rock, honky tonk country, sentimental moments tickling the fringes of Americana, or a version of soul that takes all of those influences and stews them. It’s always Southern, but the variety of flavors you’re served keeps you on your toes for 10 tracks. And eventually an album you start off thinking might be good for a quick hoot turns out running through a range of emotions you may have not been ready for, though you sure do appreciate the ride afterwards.” - Saving Country Music Now, for the first time on vinyl, 49 Winchesters third album is available on standard black vinyl. ”…Country Music’s Buzziest of Buzz Bands”

After the hit making debut EP from Harri Pierson sold out in under a week, he returns with the modestly titled 'The Most Balearic Record In The World'.

The international jet-set raconteur lands on the mythical White Isle with such bravado he must have the "Grandi Palle !!" and it is testifiable that Harri is not without merit.

The song comes in vocal and cheeky instrumental version for the truly adventurous. A simple 80's break beat, claps, groovy bass and then the magic begins. The lyrics are what you make of them. Tongue firmly in cheek.

All is forgiven though when the record is so catchy and cool. You can feel the sand under your toes, the sound of the waves calling, the blue, blue sky overhead.

You and me...and her?

Peter Brötzmann: tarogato, contra-alto clarinet, bass saxophone Paal Nilssen-Love: drums, gongs, percussion 2nd Volume of the perfect pairing Brötzmann & Nilssen-Love, recorded at Zuiderpershuis in Antwerp, August 2015. The music is less frenzied and aggressive than we're used to, as the musicians shared their exploration of new tools with a more contemplative approach. To be sure, both Brötzmann and Nilssen-Love summon the usual energy here and there, but it's a genuine revelation to hear them feel out new sounds in real-time, whether it's the former caressing the rheumy nasality of the contra-alto clarinet, or the latter reveling in the sustained resonance of his new gongs. Still, even if they were trying out new tools, their rapport and level of engagement was just as strong and deep as ever. Colliding schedules prevented them from ever wrapping up the production on the album, but they began planningfor it during the pandemic. Sadly, it fell to Nilssen-Love to shepherd the project at home, but it was worth the wait. This duo album represents a major statement from both musicians. Artwork by Brötzmann, design by Lasse Marhaug. Liner notes-transcription of an interview with Peter Brötzmann.

• Originally released in 1971

• Pressed on clear purple vinyl

• Includes newly enhanced version of the original poster

Indulge in the allure of Reiko Ike, Japan's first adult film star, with the 1971 release, "Koukotsu no seka", now reissued on stunning clear purple vinyl.

This iconic Japanese "sexy jacket" album features a captivating photo from the Toei film "Gendai Poruno-den: Senten-sei Inpu.

"Included is a meticulously recreated poster, a coveted collectible that can fetch tens of thousands of yen in its original form.

Na de comeback plaat van 2021 'Is er iets?', is Madou terug met de EP, 'Engel', net op het moment dat Vera Coomans 75 jaar wordt.
De afgelopen 3 jaar speelde Madou op vele mooie plekken en is de band ook uitgebreid: Mattijs Vanderleen (Marble Sounds, Tommigun) op drums en Marc De Maeseneer (Lady Linn etc...) maken nu ook deel uit van de band.
Hoogtepunten waren Dranouter in 2022 en de uitverkochte AB 'Rewind' show in september 2022 met de re-release na 40 jaar van de eerste Madou plaat op vinyl.

Al die concerten gaven goesting en Vera begon Wiet en Thomas naar nieuwe songs te vragen.
Die nieuwe melodieën leidden tot nieuwe verhalen die nieuwe liedjes werden. Een beetje zoals Randy Newman deed op 'Little Criminals'. Filmische verhalen, muzikale kortfilms, als je wil, een beetje zoals Randy Newman deed op 'Little Criminals'. Maar hier heeft elke song een verhaal met een vrouw als hoofdpersonage.

In november 2023 kreeg Vera telefoon van Gorik van Oudheusden, aka Zwangere Guy.
Hij was op zoek naar muziek voor de TV-serie, 'Putain' waaraan hij werkte, en hij vroeg ons of hij wat nieuw materiaal kon horen. Vera en Thomas speelden in de ICP studio in Brussel een akoestische versie van 'Engel' voor Zwangere Guy en Chuki Beats en die reageerden meteen enthousiast. 'Engel' staat ook op de soundtrack van 'Putain' in een prachtig strijkersarrangement van Wiet Van De Leest.

In mei 2024 trok Madou een paar dagen naar de Jet studio in Brussel en namen ze de EP 'Engel' op onder leiding van Peter Van Laerhoven.

De EP:

Engel:
Gaat over de onvermijdelijkheid van de dood. Vera Coomans:' Als je 75 bent, dan probeer je je in verloren uren wel eens 'de overkant' voor te stellen en wie je op een dag zal komen halen. Of je hem zal herkennen ook. En of het spannend wordt.

Waar het beter was:
Een vrouw wordt wakker uit een nachtmerrie in een nog bangelijkere realiteit.

Koude Voeten:
Waar maanziek zijn toe leiden kan, of hoe je verloren kunt lopen in je eigen hoofd.

Myanmar:
Hoe troostend en het kan zijn om verloren te lopen in je eigen hoofd.

Mooie Dag:
Een mooie dag maar met weerhaken.

Gebroken Glas:
Wat eerst 'Bovary' als titel had, werd uiteindelijk 'Gebroken Glas'.

Madou:
Vera Coomans: zang
Wiet Van De Leest: piano, viool, altviool
Thomas Devos: gitaar, bas, zang
Louis Van De Leest: keyboards, synths, beats
Mattijs Vanderleen: drums, percussie, beats
Marc De Maeseneer: saxofoon

Madou speelt ook live:

"Run the Jewels - Hip-hop's preeminent collaboration between veteran rhyme-slayers El-P and Killer Mike —have gone from a whim-driven underground rap project to a worldwide sensation since the release of their 2013 debut Run The Jewels. Mixing the industrial grime of New York City with the vibrant bounce of the dirty South, they forge hip-hop's future while adhering to the core tenets of its bedrock: gymnastic displays of skills, incendiary political rhetoric, merciless braggadocio, battle-honed assholery, R-rated punchlines and a back-and-forth that brings the interplay of the shell-toe Adidas era screaming into our contemporary nightmare.

Tearing up the music industry rulebook, their self-titled 2013 debut was originally released through a series of website-crashing free album downloads. Featuring Outkast's Big Boi on Banana Clipper and Prince Paul on Twin Hype Back, it's a "rough and rabid ride"; a "swaggering victory lap for two artists at the peak of their creativity"; and been dubbed "one of the best hip-hop records of 2013"."

Who better to help you celebrate that most wonderful time of the year than holiday favorites Bad Religion? Tackling eight chestnuts in their classic punk rock style. From "White Christmas" with its nod to pioneers The Ramones, to the glorious choirboy intro to "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing," Christmas Songs is the record you need to get your holiday household"s toes tapping.

A Universe of Pop: Fleetwood Mac’s Tango in the Night Features Meticulous Production, Includes the Hits “Big Love,” “Everywhere,” “Seven Wonders,” and “Little Lies”

Experience the 1987 Album in Audiophile Sound for the First Time:

Mobile Fidelity’s Numbered-Edition 180g 45RPM 2LP Set Captures the Perfectionist Details

1/2" / 30 IPS analogue master to DSD 256 to analogue console to lathe

The perfectionism involved in crafting Fleetwood Mac’s Tango in the Night reached a level of intensity experienced by few artists before or since. Commercially and creatively, the painstaking efforts paid off. Recorded over the span of 18 months, the triple-platinum album spawned four hit singles and put Fleetwood Mac back at the center of mainstream conversation. Its demands also ultimately forced its primary architect, guitarist-singer Lindsey Buckingham, to leave the group shortly after its completion. Was it all worth it? A thousand times “yes.”

Sourced from the original master tapes, pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing, and housed in a Stoughton jacket, Mobile Fidelity’s numbered-edition 180g 45RPM 2LP set of Tango in the Night presents the 1987 record in audiophile sound for the first time. Everything co-producers Buckingham and Richard Dashut sought to instill in the music — the exacting tones, gauzy textures, plush atmospherics, shifted harmonics, unique pitches, pristine acoustics, biting rhythms — can now be heard with elevated accuracy, range, depth, and detail.

Made under challenging circumstances, Tango in the Night is as much a universe of sound as it is an album. This reissue conveys that sonic spectrum in exhaustive manners that go beyond prior editions by playing with a combination of transparency, imaging, openness, and dynamics that provides uncanny insight into the meticulously layered vocal and instrumental tracks. Equally important, it also amplifies your connection to the elaborate melodies, contagious hooks, and airy highs that account for the album’s ageless pop brilliance.

As for the wondrous array of percussive accents, synthesizer elements, interlaced guitars, and lush choruses — all seemingly occupying the exact right place amid the soundstages and taking on shapes and forms that lend them a living, breathing quality? If your audio system is up to the task, the realism, presence, and warmth of Mobile Fidelity’s collectible edition will have you considering Tango in the Night from a new perspective — one that puts its lavish, gorgeous creations on a par with those from Rumours and Tusk.

Unlike those records, Tango in the Night began from a more individualistic perspective in that it sprang from what originally was intended to become a Buckingham solo effort. Instead, it remains the final album credited to the peak Fleetwood Mac lineup involving Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, Christine McVie, Mick Fleetwood, and John McVie. Though the participation of all the members varies from track to track, the cohesive arrangements and alchemic production on Tango in the Night suggest a unity that remains on a par with the band’s other landmark works.

Largely constructed from laborious methods that involved recording at half speed to achieve the desired sonics and tonal nuances, piecing together verses and choruses to attain seamless synchronicity, and Buckingham using a Fairlight CMI synthesizer/workstation in visionary ways, the songs pair electronic and acoustic elements to radiant effect. Tango in the Night also possesses light dance structures that resulted in several tunes being recast as dance mixes on extended-play singles. Above all, however, this is music that appears to float and cast dreamy spells.

Surrender to the frisky interplay of the opening “Big Love,” big pop punctuated with Buckingham’s back-and-forth “oh-ah” sighs that ping the Top 5 smash with innocuous sensuality and toe-tapping momentum. Delight amid the shimmering lights of “Seven Wonders,” whose shades and shadows shift amid Nicks’ raspy vocals and a large group chorus. Wrap yourself in the warmth of the weightless “Everywhere,” a flawless slice of hummable pop that topped with Adult Contemporary charts for three weeks and towers as an ode to the love everyone desires. Stare into the mysterious landscape of the title track (and dig the synthesized harp) just before it explodes, briefly ceding to a terse riff and locked-in grooves.

Tango in the Night teems with delightful surprises and well-honed specifics, especially when Buckingham and Christine McVie team together. In addition to the aforementioned “Everywhere,” the singer born Christine Anne Perfect plays a major role on four more cuts — all highlights — from the breathy, head-over-heels emotionalism of “Mystified” to the sweet, sweeping escapism of “Little Lies,” a cover-up of romantic despair aided by Nicks’ irreplaceable background vocals.

“If I see you again/Will it be the same,” asks Buckingham on “When I See You Again,” finishing up a song a longing-sounding Nicks had started while voicing words that many likely knew would resonate far beyond the confines of the heartfelt song — a goodbye wearing a faint disguise. Though Fleetwood Mac would never again reach the heights maintained throughout Tango in the Night, and members would go their own way, the album towers as a paean to what’s possible in the fields of pop, rock, and studio wizardry.

Repress!

"Without pausing for breath and hot on the heels of their exhilarating debut album 5, the elusive Sault return with their sophomore full length titled 7. The signature hybrid of funk, dance, post-punk, soul and disco is front and centre once again, confidently delivered with their typical fearless nature. If 5 had you out of your seat, 7 will have you dancing in the streets....Spread the word, Sault are back at it!"

Dean Josiah Cover aka Inflo has been composing for Michael Kiwanuka, The Kooks, Tom Odell, The Jungle and Little Simz

Following his debut on Planet E Communications last year to release Art-O-Fact, New Jersey-born and-based house music legend Junior Sanchez now teams up with longtime friend, label boss and techno icon Carl Craig for a brand new Remix EP. “Art-O-Fact (Detroit Remix)” injects the futuristic sound of Carl’s hometown, the EP also includes a ‘Beatless’ mix and a ‘Bass’ mix, which split the new Detroit Mix directly in half, with one focused on melody and the other on rhythm.

Sanchez initially brought “Art-O-Fact” to Planet E with Detroit in mind. “I loved so many records by Carl Craig, Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson, and Juan Atkins,” he says. “I let my inspiration guide me, and I thought about that city—what it meant to me and what techno meant to my heart.” To fully connect the dots, Carl Craig has hopped on the remix, reinforcing the eclectic synth work with a heavy new groove, a gritty bass line, and subtle, shadowy synth melodies. The result is a fortified connection between two scenes and eras that sonically toes the line.

Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers are a powerhouse, celebrated for their raw emotion and incisive social observations. Their talent has earned them nominations for Best Independent Punk Album or EP at the AIR Awards, Emerging Songwriter of the Year and Song of the Year at the APRA Awards, along with nods from the J Awards and Rolling Stone Awards. Recognised as Spotify's RADAR Artist, their rising global influence is undeniable. Following their award winning 2022 EP, Pretty Good For A Girl Band, their debut album I Love You charted at number 6 on the ARIA Albums Chart, marking a significant milestone.

The accompanying tour saw them sell out iconic venues like 170 Russell in Melbourne, the Metro Theatre in Sydney, and The Triffid in Brisbane. They capped off the year supporting the Foo Fighters at AAMI Park in Melbourne and launched into 2024 by supporting The Vaccines across the EU/UK. I Love You showcases the bands growth, with each member contributing to songwriting. It stands as a definitive statement of their sound—joy, rage, and euphoria, delivered with precision and heart. Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers continue to make waves, solidifying their place in the music industry.

Een Leven Lang Youp by Youp Van 't Hek, released 25 October 2024, includes the following tracks: "Burgerlijk gedrag", "Niet helemaal goed", "Staartje & Baardje", "Buurt Is Tegen" and more.

This version of Een Leven Lang Youp comes as a 2xLP in a(n) Gatefold Sleeve packaging. This release comes with (a) LP-Booklet.

Ren Schofield’s long running electronic project Container returns with his first release since the Creamer EP in 2021. Rolling straight out of the pandemic Schofield has since played a large number of live shows all over the planet, rilling up audiences with a heady mix of method and mania. Now is the time to unleash a new studio offering.

Yacker presents what is undoubtedly an electronic record but one imbued with a spirit more aligned with rock music. Always hijacking the electronic music scene for his own unique and twisted path here we see a further extrapolation on his original blueprint for DIY noise techno adding a more physical and muscular edge to the standard hysterical proceedings. The drums retain an almost human, somewhat muscular feel with a sweaty and suggestive ‘real drums’ feeling.

Schofield cites inspiration on Yacker as the Nirvana song ‘Oh, The Guilt’, the Mindflayer album ‘It’s Always 1999’, and the Rah Bras song ‘Sooop Toe Pump Girls’. Container has always danced the absurd space between serious and stupid, with Yacker all elements are turned up to eleven as he delivers a pristine field guide to furious frenzied fun.

Yacker strikes an even balance between heavy, relentless, joyful, silly, and sloppy. Think Lollapalooza 1996 held at Berghain 2006 and you are somewhere on the way to formulating this fresh new insanity from one of the contemporary electronic music scene's more playful pioneers

"Blue Garden", das fünfte Album der britischen Math-Rock-Band Delta Sleep, wurde in zweieinhalb Wochen in den belgischen Daft Studios geschrieben und mit Produzent Mark Roberts (Black Peaks, Toska, The Physics House Band) aufgenommen, während die Band die Gelegenheit nutzte, mit dem vorhandenen Equipment wie elektronische Sampler und Synthesizer ihren Sound zu bereichern. Inhaltlich ist das Album eine Art Katharsis in den jetzigen dunklen Zeiten und wirft die Frage auf, wie man mit traumatischen Momenten ausserhalb der eigenen persönlichen Sphäre klarkommt, die einen machtlos und verzweifelt zurücklassen.

Amputechture Beneath the technical flash, the fury, the fearless creative brinkmanship of the first two Mars Volta albums lay a potent seam of the blues, an existential vexation that powered every twist and turn of Omar and Cedric’s imaginations. That mournful vibe would come to the surface of the group’s third full-length Amputechture, a simmering/blistering set that was unquestionably the group’s darkest yet. There was no overarching theme here, no interlinking concept binding the songs together, though Cedric concedes that, lyrically, the album was influenced “by a lot of stuff I was going through, a really bad break-up and a lot of other crazy stuff, and trying to put that feeling into the record.” But Amputechture – its name another of the late Jeremy Michael Ward’s invented words – was no downbeat bummer. Opener Vicarious Atonement might’ve been a deliciously gloomy, slow-burning thing, capturing Cedric in delirious duet with Omar’s swooning guitar lines, accompanied by squalling saxophone by Adrian Terrazas-Gonzales and dream-frequency fuckery by the group’s new sonic manipulator, former At The Drive- In member Paul Hinojos. But second track Tetragrammaton swiftly set pulses racing, an epic-in-miniature and containing more ideas within its 16 minutes than most bands manage over an entire career, its proggy, complex guitar figures tessellating in infinite configurations and converging as if conforming to mathematical formulae from another reality. The raw material Amputechture was hewn from started life on the road. Omar now travelled with his own mobile recording studio – a little Neve ten-channel tape recorder and an array of microphones – and was able to work on new ideas on tourbuses, in hotel rooms and during soundcheck (and, occasionally, after the show was done). After touring for Frances The Mute was complete, Omar relocated to Amsterdam, staying with his photographer friend Danielle Van Ark and her partner, Nils Post. It’s here that he demoed Amputechture, flying in engineer Jon DeBaun, drummer Jon Theodore and his brother, Chino, to work on these raw sketches. He later returned to Los Angeles, where the album was finally recorded. Omar ceded guitar duties to his dear friend and kindred spirit John Frusciante, instead assuming the role of musical director. “I wanted to hear the sound of the band,” he says. “I thought, I’ll be able to sit at the console, feel the air of the speakers moving, the unified sound of everything, and not feel distant from it. It was fun, but it was also challenging.” Part of Omar’s new method was to teach the musicians their parts only moments before the tapes rolled. “To keep things fresh, and to keep everyone on edge,” he says, before chuckling. “No, not on edge – on their toes. Amputechture would prove The Mars Volta’s most diverse set yet, drawing into the group’s tornado of influences moments of fiery jazz spirituality and esoteric folk introspection, finding space for passages of devastating subtlety and also their most fierce and full-on moments to date. The aforementioned Vicarious Atonement found its meditative mood echoed by Asilos Magdalena, an intimate, acoustic piece that invoked traditional Latin folk music, as Cedric sang in Spanish a sorrowful tale of a lost soul’s quest for sanctuary within a Magdalen Asylum, a refuge set up by the Catholic church for “fallen women”. The shadowy, sinister closer El Ciervo Vulnerado, meanwhile, tapped into the darker side of spiritual jazz to further explore the album’s themes of redemption and religious myth and magick. Elsewhere, the interplay between guitar and clarinet on Viscera Eyes created complex, unsettling counter-melodies, while the coiling, ornate Meccamputechture – Cedric’s wild fusion of sacred texts, occultism and dystopian science fiction – proved a great showcase for Ikey Owens’ swarming, infernal organ runs, in concert with Frusciante’s arcane guitar-play. But it was Day Of The Baphomets that would prove Amputechture’s most ambitious and most defining epic. Cedric’s lyrics tore into the hypocrisy of religious cant and myths of sin and punishment. “I wanted to make a song that was like the movie The Believers, where this cabal stole kids and did some occult shit with them,” he explains. “But I wanted it to be like, ‘What if the people you hire to do jobs you don’t wanna do rise up one day and then pull some shit like that?’ Like it was the guerrilla warfare, them taking over – wouldn’t that be some fucked up shit? And the music just lent itself to that – the big intro, the bass solo, and all of the ruckus that occurs.” That ruckus was some of the most thrilling Mars Volta music yet, as Omar directed his musicians to rumble through fiery modes of wild tribal groove, ransack-the-palaces riot- rock and supreme progressive experimentalism. Amputechture, then, is the sound of The Mars Volta in imperial mode: fearless, insatiable, unstoppable.

Twelve (plus one hidden bonustrack) irresistible and completely stubborn punk rock gems:
melodic and furious but also idiosyncratic and full of swagger and bravado. Plus the anthem
'Altied Kwoad' with Heideroosjes singer Marco Roelofs.

Twelve (plus one hidden bonustrack) irresistible and completely stubborn punk rock gems:
melodic and furious but also idiosyncratic and full of swagger and bravado. Plus the anthem
'Altied Kwoad' with Heideroosjes singer Marco Roelofs.

"A group of tried-and-true musicians got together and found the sort of camaraderie and kinship you typically only find once in a lifetime. They didn’t overthink it. They didn’t waste a second. They simply left their blood, sweat, and tears on tape—like they’ve always done. For as much as Better Lovers represents the union of former Every Time I Die members Jordan Buckley guitar,Steve Micciche [bass], and Clayton “Goose” Holyoak [drums] with The Dillinger Escape Plan and Killer Be Killed frontman Greg Puciato [vocals],and musician (Fit For An Autopsy/END) and GRAMMY® Award-winning producer, Will Putney [guitar], it really cements the bond of five friends around a shared vision. That vision is as uncompromising, unapologetic, and undeniable as anything they’ve individually done, yet it’s refined by experience and a commitment to a future together. They’re in it for the long haul... “To me, this band is refreshing,” exclaims Jordan. “Looking back, I’m so happy everything got me to where I am. The pandemic and the last few years made me hungrier and more grateful. This isn’t a hobby. This isn’t temporary. This is the next evolution for each of us. Greg and Will rejuvenated me and made me even more confident.



Now, everybody needs to know we’re a wild animal that just broke out of the zoo—there’s no trying to put it back in the cage.” “Better Lovers definitely feels like its own thing,” states Greg. “I’m in so many lanes right now, so it was important that one lane didn’t step on another. However, nothing I’m doing is this vicious. This is full-on scathing. It’s been really fun. I forgot how much I liked that.” As the story goes, Jordan ended up back in Buffalo, NY, jamming in a basement rehearsal spot with Steve and Goose during the winter of 2022. After working with Will on the last two Every Time I Die records, they shared a handful of early demos with him to produce. As the year progressed, Jordan caught Greg on the road with Jerry Cantrell in Las Vegas, mentioning the new music. Once ideas solidified, he shared them with the vocalist who replied at 3am one night in December. “The text said, ‘Let’s give these motherfuckers what they want’,”chuckles Jordan. “I went to bed smiling and laughing. There is no one like Greg on stage, off stage, or over text. Once I told Will, he was like, ‘Can I play?’ We said, ‘Of course!’ That’s how it was born.” “Once I pick up the scent, I’ll go for the kill,” smiles Greg. “We’ve all hung out, gotten to know each other, and it’s all fire now. Everyone has already been through shit. You know yourself better. Your ego isn’t as big as it used to be. You can share your opinions. It’s a cool dynamic.” Fittingly, they introduce this era with the single “30 Under 13.” A seasick guitar groove bleeds into an incisive riff punctuated by Greg’s vitriolic and venomous screams, “Hold onto me, try to let go of me, let go of what you’ll never be. ”This barrage unpredictably subsides on a haunting clean vocal, only to ramp back up into a pit-splitting thrash crescendo and rapid-fire solo played at warp speed. “We always try to up our game,” notes Jordan. “This is the next step for all of us. There’s just constant forward motion, and we don’t want to compromise that. We want to keep going. We’re doing a lot of shit we haven’t done before in Better Lovers. I’m not going to spoil it for you, but get ready.” “For some reason, this song got me,” recalls Greg. “Once that happens, you have the toe of the dinosaur skeleton in the dirt. You start brushing it away, and soon you have a fucking T-Rex.” The name might give you a hint of what’s coming—or it might not. So, what does the future hold for Better Lovers? Well, it’s entirely in their control. Expect a lot of touring. Expect more music. Expect these five guys to leave a trail of destruction in their wake—really would you want anything less? “We feel like we’re going to explode if we sit around any longer,” Jordan leaves off. “This is my life’s work. I learned all of my lessons, passed all of the tests, and took all of the right turns and the wrong turns. It turns out what I thought were wrong turns got me here, and that’s all that matters. I have no regrets. I know this is what I’m supposed to be doing.” “I just want you to view this on its own merits,” Greg concludes. “I hope it reaches some new people. For me, the enjoyment is making the music and putting it out. The second it’s released, I don’t look back. You drop the bomb and keep flying the plane. You don’t circle back to see how much destruction you cause. You keep moving, which is what we’re going to do.” "

As many artists before them (Gainsbourg, Snoop Dogg, Lavilliers, Sinead O'Connor…), DA BREAK embarques us to revisit their best tracks “Inna Reggae Vibe”, and invites us listeners to rediscover their repertoire with a more than ever “Roots” sound. An enchanted break that will seduce the early fans as well as reggae connoisseurs; A suspended moment with a band on their new musical quest, assuming a different side of their DNA.

The idea of an “old school reggae auto remix” had bloomed for quite a long time, with the will to dive into the 60s & 70s sound esthetics and to pay tribute to this reggae culture - this unique cultural temple they love and respect so much.
DA BREAK concerts are always rich and intense musical moments, thanks to a crew of solid musicians, so the choice to record LIVE, all in the same room, was quite obvious; with “vintage” instruments and microphones, to enjoy this warm and authentic sonic texture. The result is a “Roots & Rock Steady” album without electronics, leaning towards sweaty and rough Jazz, tropical Soul or even Gospel with sand between the toes… definitely Reggae!
DA BREAK remains DA BREAK, with its inner light, this time looking towards the Caribbean musical culture.

Given the historical influence of Jamaican Sound Systems on the American Block Parties, it seemed logical for DA BREAK to pay tribute to the artists that influenced them since day one, and still do today: Bob Marley & the Wailers, Jimmy Cliff. Culture, Toots & the Maytals, Burning Spears, The Gladiators, YellowMan, Israel Vibrations, LKJ & Mad Professor, UB40, Shaka Demus, Peter Tosh... Just to name a few.

Tijs Vanneste, succesvol muzikant én tv-maker, komt met zijn eerste eigen plaat 'Over De Helft'.

Als deel van het iconische duo 'Van Echelpoel' werd het hoog tijd voor Vanneste om zijn eigen muzikale pad te bewandelen.

Tijs scoorde al eerder met albums in functie van zijn televisiewerk: 'Hier Is Het Goed' en 'Wildgroei' maakten deel uit van zijn gelauwerde televisieprogramma 'De Kempen' op VRT1. Dit nieuwe project wordt gedreven door zijn persoonlijke passie en mag gelabeld worden zoals iedereen in deze woelige tijden dat zelf wilt: een daad van egoïsme, nakend narcisme of gewoon een uiterst hoge nood aan een eigen creatieve uitlaatklep.

'Over De Helft' is geen toevallige schepping, integendeel, het is een belichaming van elementen die voor Tijs van onschatbare waarde zijn: humor, diepgang en plezier doordrenkt met wereldwijde muzikale invloeden zoals Reggae, Dub en Slavische klanken.

Zoals we van Vanneste gewoon zijn wordt dit alles op zijn eigen hardnekkige en eigenwijze manier van uitdrukken gepresenteerd: het authentieke en ondertussen tot wereldtaal verheven Kempense dialect.

De titel van dit zelfverklaard meesterwerk is treffend: 'Over De Helft'. Want laat dat nu de plek zijn waar Tijs zich bevindt: bijna 45 jaar oud en vooral erg blij met waar hij nu voor en in het leven staat: eerlijk en rechtdoorzee. Nummers als 'Talent' en 'De Kempen' vertellen over vroeger, nu en... later.

In het allerbeste geval is 'Over De Helft' een stimulans voor zowel lichaam als geest of op zijn minst een plaat die je doet dansen, lachen en verlangen naar een eeuwigdurende zomer.

Balancing glitch-pop and contemporary piano, the Belgian pianist explores the edges of her voice, language and twisted electronica



The Belgian pianist and producer maya dhondt releases a new album titled 'wow, x', marking her debut solo album under her own name. Navigating between bedroom glitch-pop and contemporary piano, she presents sounds of alienating beauty.



The album ‘wow, x’ will be released on September 13 on vinyl and all digital platforms via VIERNULVIER Records.



“I find beauty in the uncomfortable and disorienting" - maya dhont



The first single, 'desire,' is a mutated synth-pop track that gets under the skin. The song centralizes longing for something you don't know (yet). Perhaps it's the smell of damp earth, which can be both pleasant and unsettling? The single is now available on all streaming platforms and comes with a schizophrenic video by Sakis Brönnimann.



The first release show is scheduled for Saturday, October 5, at De Koer, Ghent.

More shows will be announced soon.



A postmodern cramp, that's how one could describe the music of pianist and producer maya dhondt. Her music is an intuitive and a never ending exploration that has the potential to be and become a multitude of things at once.



On her first solo album under her own name, 'wow, x,' she presents 10 varied tracks in which she creates equally idiosyncratic sound worlds. She takes the liberty to endlessly experiment with vocals, piano, and a mix of distorted lo-fi electronic sounds with an open mind. The result is sometimes synthetic and weird, sometimes compellingly beautiful, and always captivating, drawing you into its underlying melody. These intelligently crafted productions are connected by a penchant for alienating beauty: like a warm, but damp cave where it’s pleasant to linger just a little longer. Her original sound moves within a sonic spectrum reminiscent of contemporary artists such as Lolina, Astrid Sonne, claire rousay, aya or Carla Dal Forno.



"What I create never stands alone, it can be many things at once"



If the world were a sculpture garden, maya dhondt eagerly picks from it to draw inspiration from both visual and literary passages as well as personal experiences. Her highly personal bedroom productions are grounded firmly in the world due to philosophical references and politically charged messages. And the world she lives in is being questioned on 'wow, x', as the title refers to "What Or Why?". This is evident in the single 'desire': "What is the thing that matters / to exist / or to know you’re existing?" What does one choose in life: to live in the moment or to live to remember that moment?



In the lyrics on 'wow, x', maya dhondt plays - at times childishly - with language and its boundaries. On 'tip toe tip,' banal wordplay leads to an unexpected confession, and the seemingly simple phrases in 'untitled' conceal hidden life lessons. dhondt's world of words is multilayered and multilingual: Dutch ('kleine cijfers, groot verlies'), English ('desire'), and French ('untitled') are at her disposal. And on the fierce track that is 'minimalinvasiv,' not only she turns to hardstyle, but also to German - a language dear to her due to her Swiss heritage.

The true test of originality for any musician comes when you hear an instrument being played and you instantly know who’s playing it. For electric guitarists, certainly Hendrix qualifies; Page and Clapton, too. Maybe Eddie Van Halen before the legion of imitators. You probably have your own list, but to us, standing toe-to-toe (or pick-to-pick) with those legends is Television guitarist and solo artist Tom Verlaine. His self-taught, jazz-influenced style, largely devoid of effects, and vibrato tone (oh, that tone!) makes any Verlaine solo unmistakably a Verlaine solo. That he was quite an accomplished, idiosyncratic songwriter is just a bonus. Real Gone Music is very, very proud to announce that we have arranged with the Verlaine estate to release Tom’s last three solo albums on LP; Songs and Other Things was the last record he released, in the same year (2006) as the all-instrumental Around. As the title indicates, this was indeed a return to lyrics and vocals, the first record with “songs” since 1990’s The Wonder (although the first track, “A Parade in Littleton”—one of the “Other Things”—is a low-key, funky instrumental that would have been home on a late Talking Heads album). The time off clearly allowed Verlaine to build up a strong cache of compositions, with “Nice Actress” and “The Earth Is in the Sky” among the highlights. The record also marks a welcome return of Verlaine’s enigmatic lyrics, which as always prompt head scratching while somehow making intuitive sense. But in the end, it’s the amazing guitar work—ably supported by Fred Smith of Television fame and Jay Dee Daugherty of The Patti Smith Group among others—that elevates Songs and Other Things to essential status, worthy of its exalted position as the final release of Tom Verlaine’s career. Bassist and original engineer Patrick Derivaz has mastered the album for its vinyl debut; Verlaine’s long-time partner Jutta Koether contributes notes. Teal vinyl pressing!

repress !

If one band could be cited for the emergence of Ska music, that band would be the Skatalites.

Formed around June 1965 and built around the many musicians that had honed their craft at the Alpha Boys School in Kingston, Jamaica. The early line up consisted of Don Drummond (Trombone), Roland Alphonso (Tenor Saxophone), Tommy McCook (Tenor Saxophone), Johnny ’Dizzy’ Moore (Trumpet), Lester Sterling (Alto Saxophone), Jerome ’Jah Jerry’ Hines (Guitar), Jackie Mittoo (Piano), Llyod Brevett (Bass) and Llyod Knibbs (Drums).

Named originally The Satellites after the big news of the day, the Soviet space satellite. They became The Skatalites when band member Tommy McCook introduced a play on the characteristic ‘Ska’ sound, made by the guitar when following the’ after beat’ of the music.The group had already cut its musical teeth by playing under various guises around the Jamaican island in numerous ‘hotel bands’. When the big Sound System operators Sir Coxsane Dodd, Duke Reid and King Edwards needed new material to play out with and their usual source of the material, American R & B records were drying up. They turned to this pool of musicians to back up their main singers of the day. Delroy Wilson, Alton Ellis and Lord Creator to name but a few. Also to cut the many instrumental tracks they needed usually under the tutor ledge of Don Drummond, official band leader and main musical director. Their knowledge of the old mento tunes and an understanding of Jazz and R&B music somehow blended to make this musical sound that was to dominate the island from the early 60’s up until around 1966 when the sound would slow down to what we now know as Rocksteady.

The time span of the Skatalites career considering their output of litually 100’s of sides of music, was a relatively short one of just over two years. We have delved into the vaults of Wirl Records and have selected some tunes that show the dexterity of the band and what great sounds this group of musicians were capable of producing and the high quality they maintained. They recorded before they were named as a collective The Skatalites, when personal and financial problems became an issue the band split into two halves. Jackie Mittoo and Roland Alfonso going on to form The Soul Brothers band for Coxsone Dodd. Tommy McCook moving over to work with Duke Reid as musical director. Sadly, Don Drummond suffering for years from depression would see his career cut short ending in Belle Vue hospital in 1969.

But while together they cut some of the finest Ska Sounds to be found on record. We hope you enjoy this set as much as we have in putting it together.
So, stand Up, Listen Hard and do the Ska……

Eight no-nonsense tracks, straight to the point. Moroka delivers the goods in this raw, unpolished gem of a release. Constructed in a week at home in Loughborough Junction after a conversation with FG boss Alex - these cuts are all about the energy, no time wasted on refinement. The drums rumble and shuffle, crashing into each other with an unpredictable rhythm that keeps you on your toes. The narrative here is simple: Mo, his neighbourhood, and his gear.

Early support and plays from Shy One, Scratcha DVA, D Bridge & Mr Beatnick.

Photography by Charlie Birch, design by Alex Horne, tape covers riso printed at Terry Bleu, Amsterdam.

Formed in Montreal, eight-piece funk band Cane and Abel melded Caribbean elements with soul, blues and psych, frontman Frenchie Thompson holding plenty of bite and the full horn section including former Dragonaires trumpeter Norris Ridguard. After early singles on GRT, the group signed to Epic and relocated to the US but made their biggest splash in France, where they cut two LPs in 1972; this self-titled rarity has Thompson’s ‘Girl You Move Me,’ percussionist Blinky Bostic’s ‘Who’s Gonna Take The Weight,’ and likeable takes of Wilson Picket’s ‘Don’t Knock My Love,’ ‘Green Grass’ and ‘Toe Hold.’ A lost funk classic!

The Fire is the fourth studio album by the American post-hardcore band Senses Fail. Widely looked on by fans and critics alike as one of the band's finest studio album, the record features singles including title track 'The Fire, 'New Years Eve' and 'Lifeboats'. Originally released on October 26th 2010, this new pressing is the first since it's original release, packaged in a hand-numbered sleeve with accompanying lyric insert, and comes complete with bonus track 'Ghost Town'. Released via Hassle Records for the UK/EU in conjunction with Vagrant Records to celebrate their 25th Anniversary. "The Fire showcases an immense growth in both the band's songwriting and arrangements, proving that these scenes stalwarts are not about to rest on their laurels." Revolver "The Fire is proof that Senses Fail consistently toe the line between singing and screaming better than most of their peers." Alternative Press

Warehouse Find!

Avision storms into 2020 in fine fashion with his first EP for Maceo Plex's Ellum Audio label.

Playing the decks since just 12 years of age, this American artist grew up in the musically rich New York City scene and is now at the sharp end of it with his own new school techno sound. He has released on key labels like Ben Sims’ Hardgroove, Mark Broom’s Beardman and Teksupport, and is someone that icons like Adam Beyer and Chris Liebing often reach for in their own sets.

He starts off his latest offering with 'Innocence', a bustling techno track with bulky drum programming that is brilliantly loose. It jostles you into action as dark vocals add intensity and makes for a perfectly physical dance floor workout.

Keeping up the pressure is 'Time Lapse', with big hi hats and a driving bassline all interwoven with thundering kick drums that will get the whole club up on its toes. A rising synth in the background adds an air of cosmic exploration and means this tasteful techno trip is enthralling from start to finish.

These are two superbly stylish and high powered techno cuts from this contemporary tastemaker.

"Sun Racket" is the brand new album from legendary Boston trio Throwing Muses, consisting of Kristin Hersh, David Narcizo and Bernard Georges. The follow up to 2013's 'Purgatory/Paradise' is an outpouring of modal guitars, reverbed shapes, echoey drums and driving bass set behind Kristen Hersh's well-thumbed notebook of storylines. A ten-song opus of suitably wrought tales set against a wall of sound that's at once calm and ethereal before building into glorious cacophonous crescendos.

When Throwing Muses wrote their last album, they were shattered. Pieces were coming and going, elements repeating and charging the whole. "It sounded beautiful jumping around like that". Two-minute songs reappearing as twisted instrumentals or another song's bridge.

They mimicked the effect live which kept them on their toes. Whatever was happening was already over in other words. 'Sun Racket' is the opposite. It refused to do anything but sit still. It says, "sit here and deal". "All it asked of us was to comingle two completely disparate sonic vocabularies: one heavy noise, the other delicate music box.

Turns out we didn't have to do much. Sun Racket knew what it was doing and pushed us aside, which is always best. After thirty years of playing together, we trust each other implicitly but we trust the music more" - Kristin Hersh And so, they continue. Business unusual.

"A ground-breaking band who changed the face of alternative music rather than follow the rule book." MXDWN "Pioneers of the 80'/early 90's college rock sound" Pitchfork "One of America's finest guitar bands" - The Quietus.

Habibi Funk is thrilled to share a second collection of deep grooves and unreleased songs from Algeria's Ahmed Malek, often compared to Italian heavyweight Ennio Morricone. Malek’s music effortlessly switches between thematic jazz, funk, reggae and Algerian folk – creating indelible soundscapes that intersect the musical innovations made in African jazz by Mulatu Astatke, Bembeya Jazz National along with some of Europe’s finest experimental composers like Piero Piccioni and Janko Nilovic. “Musique Originale de Films, Volume Deux” is out June 28th, 2024 via Habibi Funk.

Whenever an interview asks about a “memorable moment” in Habibi Funk label history, one we always reference is how we got in touch Ahmed Malek’s (22K Spotify Followers, 285K Spotify Monthly Listeners) music and subsequently his family. It all started with us coming across Ahmed Malek’s music on YouTube in 2012. We were mesmerized by how effortlessly the music would switch between jazz, funk and Algerian folk while counterweighting it with an undertone of melancholia. Musical perception is different for every person, but there is a chance that his music will touch you in one way or another. At the time, we had just started the Habibi Funk label and we felt Ahmed’s music might be a good fit for the sound we were trying to highlight. Fast forward three years: we had become captivated with the idea of reissuing some of Ahmed Malek’s music. We knew some people had tried to locate his family but, but with no success. In the end it was an incredible amount of luck that made it possible for you to read these words and listen to Ahmed’s music. We were on a DJ gig in Beirut playing old Arabic records and we mentioned our passion for Ahmed Malek’s music to a friend. She said she knew one person in Algier, and as much as it would be a shot in the dark, she could ask her if she had an idea of how to find Malek’s family. Two weeks went by before we heard back, and what we got was incredibly good news - her Algerian friend was the neighbor of Ahmed Malek’s daughter! We’re not spiritual people, but it felt like the universe wanted to see the release happen. We started to speak with Henya, Ahmed Malek’s daughter and she was more than happy with our idea. She assured us that her father would have loved the plan as well. She provided us with tons of awesome material, from great photos, to unseen video footage and unreleased tracks. Eventually we visited Henya in Algeria and we licensed some of her father’s music, first for one (Habibi 003), then for another (Habibi 005), then we eventually organized an exhibition in June/July 2019 – Planète Malek – Une Rétrospective – at the Musée Public National D’Art Moderne & Contemporain in Algiers, focusing on Ahmed Malek’s artistic life. We also produced a small movie about him that our friend Paloma Colombe shot and directed. “Musique Originale de Films, Volume Deux” is a deep collection of unreleased songs and stemmed grooves from the Algerian master, from jazz, funk, psych to reggae rhythms and Latin flavors, all under the sonic umbrella of “Planète Malek;” and to quote the maestro, “I didn’t choose music, music chose me.” Lead single is the subtlety funky “Thème Rythme Léger,” out May 3rd along with LP Pre-Order (coincided with Bandcamp Friday for a larger impact) a delicate sonic dance between flute, piano and Spanish guitar with a Bossainfluenced groove. The steady, swingin’ drum groove is cloudlike - definitely toe-tapping friendly so just grab a partner to feel the Rhythme Léger. Second single out May 17th is the reggae-infused “L’Empire Des Rêves” – a sultry sax melody weaves through a prismatic rocksteady thematic groove. 3rd and final single “Thème Djalti feat. Aïda Guéchoud” – is a true Western-inspired ode to his Italian counterpart Ennio Morricone. “Thème Djalti” features the haunting vocals of Aïda Guéchoud, and combines elements of baroque and Bossa-jazz in a timelessly thematic way that seems grandiose yet remains uniquely personal to your ears. Swelling strings, trumpet, fem vox, flute, and plucked guitar expertly arranged, feels like you’re riding a horse into the sunset. Focus track “La La La” is fiery afro-arab-funk of the highest order! Put on your dancing shoes as Ahmed cuts the rug and gets us grooving along. Sonically the cut sounds like if Ahmed ran into The JB’s and Fela Kuti at a Cymande concert. Driving guitar and organ solos vie over pulsating bass riffs and afro-funk drumming that’ll have you out on the dance floor in no time. As always, both vinyl and CD come with an extensive booklet featuring background and interviews with Ahmed compiled through found newspaper clippings and newsreels, also including unseen photos, scans and more. “Ahmed Malek: Musique Originale de Films, Volume Deux” will be out everywhere June 28th.

Before Uriah Heep there was Fat Toe, and before Fat Toe there was The Gods, who recorded this risqué hard prog album, Orgasm, as Head Machine. Singer/keyboardist/guitarist Ken Hensley takes centre stage under the alias Ken Leslie, his lyrics alluding to the undeniable allure of human coitus and aspects of its management, the climax eventually coming in audible groans, though the guitar really drives most of the songs forward, with stereo panning. Produced by David Paramour, who had worked with Garnett Mimms and The Nocturnes, it was recorded in late 1969 and released in small number by Major Minor; this reissue spins at 45 RPM for improved fidelity.

Sunk in quicksand, doused in prosecco and soundwaves of glitches and Croatian choons, Bolka

is stuck in the raw state of desire. This love came into being under the sad ceilings, bearing traces
of fantastically naive melodies shredded by claws of intruding noises of the artist's debut EP.
And yet, radical sensitivity and optimism on the new EP do not remain just on the beach.
Žiadzasamy (loosely translated as Yearningforus) include love songs about love read in cards,
about overcoming insecurity, about scratching up the slippery walls of reality towards the dream
source of warmth that only SHE possesses.
Syrupy pop tunes in "nech sa ti páčim" ("i hope you like me") are led by a nursery rhyme about
the complex embrace of infatuation, from the head down to the shoulders, knees and toes of the
desired person. The sound wizard of peculiarities goes by the motto "let anything I wish for
come true", whether it's his white buttocks shining in the dark sea or him sweeping past barefoot
in search of seafood delicacies, and the same is heard in his music where euphoric and childish
moods sink arbitrarily to the depths of corroded and distorted rhythms of anxiety. "A smutek
utek" ("and the sadness is gone"), though, sets a new direction for the Bolka's musical piece;
after a slow mo deflation of the balloon of hopes, after wallowing in oozy and sticky blend of
delirious melodies, Bolka gets to spin the wheel of the real Balkan soap opera.

"More, mám ťa veľmi rád" ("sea/man, i like you very much") is the pinnacle of absolute
infiltration and absorption with infatuation and suddenly, the amusing nods to stereotypical
Croatian hits make it clear that all the joy and high spirits do not stem from holiday idleness. In
žiadzasamy, Bolka indulges in the ideal notion of love that is closer to reality with each passing
kilometer, impatiently speeding up the Latin tempo in the hyper-pop escalation in order to
venture into the most radical decision – that all will end well.
Žiadzasamy is hedonism injected right into one's vein, an ashtray always aglow with a lit
cigarette and a musical burst of new-born love that sets the Bolka's sound world on a single
course: from siesta to fiesta, and so on and on.




[d] 04: Žiadzasamy (Remix) [feat. Viktor Jenčuš]

Laguna vinyl. New pressing of Hot Mulligan's most recent album, Why Would I Watch, featuring hit songs Shhh! Golf Is On and No Shoes in the Coffeeshop (Or Socks). Laguna vinyl. New pressing of Hot Mulligan's most recent album, Why Would I Watch, featuring hit songs Shhh! Golf Is On and No Shoes in the Coffeeshop (Or Socks). Since forming in Lansing, Michigan, in 2014, the college friends – vocalist Tades Sanville, guitarists Chris Freeman and Ryan Malicsi and drummer Brandon Blakeley – have ascended from basements to buzz band on the back of two beloved albums, 2018’s Pilot and 2020’s you’ll be fine. Now, bolstered by hundreds of millions of Spotify streams, the band’s third LP, Why Would I Watch, cements their evolution as one the most versatile and profoundly moving bands in the underground.

"Lady Lake is the second studio album of the British progressive rock band Gnidrolog. The album was recorded in the London Morgan Studios in 1972 and released that same year. The songs in the album deal with a variety of concepts varying from pacifism in ""I Could Never Be a Soldier"", to pilgrimage in ""Ship"", and Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake in the title track, ""Lady Lake"". Gnidrolog was originally formed in 1969 and signed to RCA Records in 1971. Following on the heels of the album in spite of Harry's Toenail, Lady Lake featured a lineup of Colin Goldring, Stewart Goldring, Peter Mars Cowling, and Nigel Pegrum. The album saw Gnidrolog continue to develop their unique form of progressive rock, which had critics compare the band to cohorts such as Gentle Giant and Van Der Graaf Generator. Lady Lake is available as a limited edition of 500 numbered copies on translucent yellow coloured vinyl and includes an insert.

Tangential Music is pleased to present the new album from veteran Spanish DJ and producer, Dj Toner (aka Antonio Herrera). Alongside his co-writer/arranger Daniel Molina and with guests that include the legendary Blue Note Records innovator Erik Truffaz and Grammy winning flautist and saxophonist Jorge Pardo, he has created a 10 track collection of slow-burning instrumentals that straddle the worlds of hip hop, jazz and electronica.

With a personal, precision tooled approach to his craft, the Andalusian has offered up an album of finely modelled downbeat moods.

At first glance, ‘Out Side’ is made up of recognisably superior hip hop instrumentals but if you listen carefully, and with patience, one can hear a craftsman at work. A wooden box is just a box until you look closer. The hidden joints, the perfect lining up of the grain, the years of artisanal graft and laser-focussed attention to detail that go into making something that has nothing present, that doesn’t deserve to be there. This is how Dj Toner operates.

The two singles that preempt the album’s release reveal different sides of his craft. ‘Camina’ struts with tough intentions. Soundtrack-y in an exploitation police drama manner, the get-out-of-my-way drum break and tension-filled chords suggest the bad cop, Erik Truffaz’s piercing lyrical trumpet lines, the good. The Afro-jazz horns led second release ‘Surprise’ is an altogether more playful, sunbaked affair. Sensual and slow-burning, there’s still an edge but it’s too hot to quarrel.

Dj Toner’s minimalist attitude to creation is shared with his co-composer Molina - an individual’s contribution may be cut to the bone, leaving just its aura or tone. The echo of a piano, a single blast of tuneful wind from a flute, a perfectly positioned drum hit.

Since the Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA began applying his beatmaking prowess to movie soundtracks, the hip hop instrumental has been acknowledged as something to listen to, as much as being used as a DJ tool or backing for an MC. Dj Toner’s instrumentals can, therefore, be seen as soundtracks. Soundtracks to his life and craft, vignettes of his environment in both the urban sprawl and the wider and slower spaces of “el campo”.

The sweet-tempered jazz-blues of ‘La Rimosa’ is a gentle welcome to the album. A simple, laid back groove with the most romantic of piano hooks that one could imagine Common dropping rhymes on. You’re kept on your toes with the odd purposeful moment of discordant interruption but the tender heart of the composition is never far away.

‘O’Beat’ hints at John Coltrane with the sparse but full-sounding upright bass before a head-snap break leads into a curious piano groove, a vintage organ swirls into a psychedelic fractal, whilst the bluesy female vocal snippets add the spice, that zing in the Granadan gazpacho.

The flamenco guitar driven ‘Flama’ is an excellent example of intricate sample placement and musicality. Old school (school yard) scratch interludes, sweet piano hooks, a minimalist but knife sharp flute contribution from Jorge Pardo, and the crunchiest of drums taking us for an intriguing walk round the corner.

We’ve mentioned them before but it’s on ‘Sweetband’ that we can feel that Wu-Tang dread hanging off its shoulders. A brooding orchestral number with powerful horns and a cavernous piano hit. The title of the piece is in stark contrast to the dark shadows of the tune.

Erik Truffaz returns in fine form on the super lethargic jazz-funk-hop of ‘The Day’. His instantly identifiable muted trumpet sound paints dazzling colours over the more earthy tones of the filtered down keys as a rubbery upright bass keeps the forward momentum. Dj Toner’s ‘Blessed Are The Weird People’ album, was rated in Jazz Magazine as one of the 20 jazz albums of 2021, so he isn’t some dilettante when it comes to playing with the complex hues of jazz but he does like to strip it to its bare essentials.

‘Fanega’ sees a gorgeous flute contribution from Jorge Pardo. An eerie boom-bap groove with sprinkles of electronic pulses and washed out chords is the canvas on which the award-winning multi-instrumentalist evokes the heat shimmer of the savannah.


‘Esperanza’ translates as ‘hope’ in English and this lovely slow, swinging jazzy groove really does provoke feelings of positivity and belief. Sublime vibraphone and another stunning trumpet offering from Erik Truffaz, take us on a journey of warm days and possibilities, the shuffling drums and sweet chord patterns are nicely finished off by a tranquil horn chorus towards its unhurried end.

‘Under Beat’ ends on a beefy boom-bap groove with a liquid funk bassline, elegant synth strings and old school scratching. Again, there’s that undisputable soundtrack edge, action and motion, the smell of the city.

There you have it, 10 tracks that go beyond the surface, deep into the dedicated craft of Dj Toner. Decades of experience and collaboration purified and refined into beat-heavy emotions, listen closely or crank it up, it’s down to you!

Big Vern, also known as DJ Vern was a resident DJ on Weekend Rush, a pirate radio that broadcast out of the Nightingale Estate in Hackney. To be precise, it broadcast out of the Embley Point high rise, the same tower that Kool FM as also broadcasting out of at the same time. It was here that Vern met DJ Ash, a resident of Kool FM and the two of them joined forces for their release on Tearin Vinyl in 1994.

Around the same time as the two of them teamed up, Vern was also running his own label, World Bass Records. It was on this label that Vern formulated his own distinctive East London sound of Jungle. His debut release on the label in 1994 – The V Experience EP, was a 3 tracker that received a lot of rotation back in the day. This release was followed a 12” in 1995 which had one of Vern’s tracks on there – ‘Vision’.

Fast forward 27 years to 2022 and Vinyl Fanatiks have repressed all 4 of those tracks on one EP titled ‘Vision Of Experience’, an EP that showcases the raucous sound of Vern and his integrate and rambunctious skill and ability to manipulate a sampler to create some of the heaviest jungle of the era.

Both of the original releases are highly collectable and withstand the elements of time and capable of going toe to toe with any recent jungle output from the 21st century.

Support the architects…

(Jam El Mar Remix) DJ Ghost and Robert Armani resurrect their hugely popular turn-of-the-millennium collaboration with the superb ‘Hit Hard Baby (WTF)



DJ Ghost and Robert Armani resurrect their hugely popular turn-of-the-millennium collaboration with the superb ‘Hit Hard Baby (WTF)’. A formidable duo when it comes to churning out mind bending techno and hard-edged grooves, these guys first got together in 2001 delivering the bouncy vibes of ‘Hard One’ followed by ‘Airport’ and ‘Funk That’, all of which got included on a raft of compilations and enjoyed by many around the world. Individually they are accomplished in their own right. Ghost is an iconic figure in Belgium and a stalwart within the Bonzai family. Robert Armani needs no introduction, ‘Circus Bells’, ‘Ambulance’, ‘Hit Hard’ anyone? Since the mid-eighties he’s been right up there with DJ greats, and in 1992 he started releasing his own brand of house, acid house and techno. Legend is an understatement when it comes to both these guys and we’re delighted to see them back at it in the studio once again.



The release opens with ‘Hit Hard Baby (WTF)’, introing with dark kick drums and raspy hi hats. Classic techno percussions weave intricate patterns as tension mounts, taking us to the break where hypnotic notes build alongside a snare roll to the drop and back to full-on dark mode for the duration. ‘The Underground’ is up next, combining sick techno grooves with massive rave stabs and murky acid lines. Powered by a solid drum arrangement that packs a punch, this one is destined for peak time greatness. The first of two versions of ‘H.O.H’ begins with the Original Mix. Keeping with darker tones of the release, this one goes straight for the jugular as chunky kicks and pulsating, mesmeric basses combine along with clangy percussions and a classic vocal hook that will destroy the dancefloor. Another legend joins us to round out the release with Jam El Mar stepping up for remix duties on ‘H.O.H’. Hailed as a pioneer of trance alongside the late great Mark Spoon, Jam El Mar remains a much-revered name on the scene and we know amazing things happen when he’s let loose in the studio. Ramping up the energy on this one Jame El Mar whips up a frenzy to get the crowd moving. Heavy hitting kicks with layers of rhythmic percussions get the toes tapping while gnarly techno basses and electrifying synths combine alongside that instantly recognisable vocal. A monster tune that is not to be missed.

ohann Wolfgang von Goethe is always a reliable source for a good quote: "We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise, we harden." Sure as death, there is an excerpt of his that states the opposite. In the case of Robert Dietz, it holds true. Since his first appearance on Running Back in 2009 (Forward Snipping), he did a marvelous job staying on his toes as a producer and DJ.
Rejuve-Nation showcases his talent in various alleys of electronic (dance) music with Crane Song being the prime cut here. You will get exposed to proggy house with an intelligent brush in two slightly different mixes. Imagine if Euro dance went to get a college degree or a bumper car floor and you are almost there: an almost irresistible sing a long without lyrics.
If you need help afterwards, Deranged Self Therapy is exactly what you need. IDM meets new wave drums, poignant synths mix with an upbeat hook to create a ballet piece for lovesick robots.
Centro Di Gravita reconnects those qualities with the aforementioned Crane Song ones, while giving it an acid spin, before the ambient salts of Any Plan(t)s This Weekend closes the EP off like a confident sketch for the end of a beautiful summer. A bouquet of bangers for different needs.

Short: One Rejuve-Nation EP under a groove with Robert Dietz' return on Running Back. Proggy meets acid house, IDM leanings mix with stylistic devices of new wave and extra special ambient aerobatics round out the EP. Special attention goes to Crane Song and its peak time perfection. A bouquet of bangers for different needs.

As mui zyu, Hong Kong British artist Eva Liu searches for a portal, wandering between nothing and everything in her pursuit of peace. On her second full-length album nothing or something to die for she looks outward, embracing the chaos with each tentative step. mui zyu's debut album Rotten Bun for an Eggless Century saw her explore her heritage, as she dived inward to find acceptance and healing. Now, instead of searching for answers from the inside, Liu raises her head to look at the world around her. As she attempts to understand the complexities and significance of human existence, she observes apathy alongside overwhelming chaos; the technological advancements of connection with the lack of meaningful bonds and the frustrations of upholding standards set by others. nothing or something to die for tries to decipher these juxtaposing truths, holding both the weight of those trying to destroy the world with the utter futility of it all. Working with co-producer and fellow Dama Scout band member Luciano Rossi, the sonic world of nothing or something to die for encapsulates both the fleeting tranquility of serenity and the dissonance in chasing it. After all, our reality can change in an instant. Like the psychedelic tones of Ryuichi Sakamoto's Thousand Knives, the urgent techno-pop of Miharu Koshis Parallelisme or the eerie wanderings of Angelo Badalamenti's work for Twin Peaks, nothing or something to die for expertly toes the line between disorder and clarity

An enormous production with musicians of the highest calibre combine to create a bombastic spectacle. The show's infrequencies make it evermore unique. In September 2023, Arjen Lucassen sold out five performances of '01011001 - Live Beneath the Waves' at the Poppodium 013 in Tilburg, The Netherlands. Talking about the show Arjen Lucassen says: "When I wrote the 01011001 album back in 2007, it was never meant to be played live.

So I could make it as complicated as I wanted with countless instrumentalists and no less than 17 singers!" Ayreon mastermind Arjen Lucassen and keyboardist Joost van den Broek managed to gather a large number of the original cast of the 01011001 album and many special guests, including Simone Simons (Epica), Damian Wilson (Threshold), Anneke van Giersbergen, Jonas Renkse (Katatonia), Tom Englund (Evergrey), Daniel Gildenlow (Pain of Salvation), Marcela Bovio (MaYan), Brittney Slayes (Unleash the Archers), Hansi Kursch (Blind Guardian), John Jaycee Cuijpers (Praying Mantis). Maggy Luyten (Beautiful Sin), Michael Mills (Toehider) and Wudstik are among other incredible musicians.

UK jazz ensemble The Jazz Defenders release their third album "Memory In Motion" in April on Haggis Records (home of The Haggis Horns and Malcolm Strachan). The Bristol jazz boppers deliver another quality release of original material that takes in their usual diverse mix of influences and genres, from timeless acoustic jazz referencing the classic sounds of Blue Note Records, to a more contemporary fusion where jazz meets soul, funk and hip-hop.

Although they love to mix things up, their roots are in the classic acoustic jazz quintet sound of the late 1950s/early 1960s, back when hard bop and modal jazz ruled. They have already explored this musical path well on their previous albums but they still deliver a couple of classic inspired jazz cuts here. "Chasing Fantasies" and "Fuffle Kerfuffle" both give the band some space to cut loose on solos over swing jazz beats that will keep their original jazz audience happy. The latter bubbles away with a jazz shuffle beat that would make drum legend Art Blakey smile.

"Meanderthal" and "Snakebite Playfight" bring soul to this jazz party. Exactly like jazz legends Lee Morgan/Herbie Hancock/Freddie Hubbard etc did back in the early-mid 1960s. The first is a feel-good, toe-tapping gem that's heavy on the backbeat and short and snappy on the solos, the exact reasons that made it the perfect opening single from the album. "Snakebite Playfight" comes with a jaunty New Orleans shuffle before transforming into a heavy psychedelic soul jazz burner, flipping back with ease to the NOLA shuffle for the Mardi Gras meets bebop piano solo by band leader George Cooper.

"Rolling On A High" is a hip-hop/jazz banger that sees the band continue their collaborations with UK rapper Doc Brown, a perfect combination that began on their second album "King Phoenix''. This time, the Doc spits some old-school block party-style bars over a bouncy uptempo funky beat with the band cooking up some soul stew behind him. Definitely dancefloor material.

Another uptempo jam is the heavy jazz fusion jam "Net Zero". It kicks off with some live broken beat kit playing and piano/bass staccato vamping before taking off into Headhunters territory on the solos, sounding both contemporary and classic at the same time. This is The Jazz Defenders at their fiercest and toughest and delivering a track that will have jazz dancers worldwide in an utter frenzy.

It's not all uptempo numbers or dancefloor-oriented compositions on this album. Two tracks take the musical dynamics right down to give a temporary break from the high-energy numbers. "Take A Minute" has a rolling double bass line locked into the groove while the horns play a lazy and laid-back theme with vibes embellishment, sounding like some trippy independent film soundtrack. Another recurring musical reference point for this band over the years.

The album finishes on a poignant and introspective note with a beautiful piano and double bass feature for George Cooper and bassist Will Harris. It's called "Enigma", it was recorded live in Paris and it closes the album on a peaceful note evoking the music and playing of Bill Evans. The perfect way to close this brilliant third album from The Jazz Defenders.

With Memory In Motion, pianist George Cooper and his band undoubtedly pay great homage to a golden era of jazz music that they love, but also elaborate on this influence with a wealth of modern musical experience, to create their own raw and vibrant compositions. The result is an enthrallingly unique sound that is as danceable as it is listenable.

The female-led discodelic soul band Say She She, named as a silent nod to NileRodgers (C'est chi-chi!: It's Chic!"), release their sophomore album `Silver' on theheels of an epic break-out year that grows brighter by the day. The three strong voices of Piya Malik (El Michels Affair staple feature, and formerbacking singer for Chicano Batman), Sabrina Mileo Cunningham and Nya GazelleBrown front the band. This harmonizing trio was formed in a classic New York taleof friends that met by following the music: the downtown dancefloors, through theLower East Side floorboards and up to the rooftops of Harlem. `Silver' was entirely written and recorded live to tape at Killion Sound studio inNorth Hollywood earlier this year and produced by Sergio Rios (of Orgone). Whilethese analog recording techniques help root Say She She's sound in a bedrock oftonal warmth that only tape can achieve, it is also their process of cutting the trackin the moment and capturing the magic of communal creativity that has seen theirsound described as "a glorious overload of joyful elation and spiritualelevation" (MOJO) and "infused with the wonky post-disco spirit of early'80s NYC" (The Guardian). Silver, the element, is known as the metal of self-confidence and the mirror of thesoul. With that, the 16-song double-LP projects not only their growth in writingwith confidence, but also reflects a deeper exploration into their punk-chic, femme-forward sensibility. Ultimately, `Silver' oozes with quirk and adventure and embraces themultifaceted nature of what it means to be a modern femme. The She She'sfully embrace their role as beauticians, actively reminding people of the inherentbeauty in the world. They skillfully employ double entendres and humor toencourage open dialogue and fearlessly address important matters that demandattention.

Career trajectories are rarely linear or make logical sense. Life is always unpredictable so all you can do is put in good work and keep at it. Joh Chase is a testament to this. Over the past two decades, the Seattle-raised, Los Angeles-based artist has persistently honed their songwriting and toured, opening for acts like Noah Gunderson and David Bazan. This dedication comes out entirely in their songs, which are so timeless, confident, and inviting they can only come from someone who’s devoted their whole life to their craft. Chase’s new album SOLO feels like a turning point for them: it’s the culmination of a lifetime of writing, losing, loving, and doing it all yourself. The LP adventurously toes the line between genres and sensibilities but it’s all filtered through Chase’s charming and fully-formed vision. SOLO is a testament to Chase’s do-it-yourself ethos throughout their entire career—they chipped away, self-funded tours, and crowdfunded this LP. But by finding their voice, they now no longer feel alone. “This is the most support I've ever had in my life,” says Chase. “I do not feel alone at all. There’s so much energy and generosity here around these songs.” Though it’s not their debut, SOLO feels like a reinvention for an artist: a daring reintroduction for a timeless talent. “I spent my life making music and trying to do it about 10 different ways,” says Chase. “Now this one feels like it. This album feels like a leveling-up of my music in general. When I look at it now, I realize this is the first record that's really me.” “Mesmerizing, infectious, joyful, and heartbreaking; this is the best new album I've heard in a decade. Joh Chase has arrived

Repress

CRG020V1 and CRG020V2 are the vinyl samplers of the mix Cleric made for its 20th release.

To celebrate hitting their 20th release, Cleric's imprint pulls together 23 talents for a various artist mix compilation including tracks from the likes of Rebekah, Cleric, Stef Mendesidis, Remco Beekwilder & Stranger, Endlec, Kwartz, Setaoc Mass, Roman Poncet, Slam and many more.

Clergy has become synonymous with a balance of atmospheric and hard hitting brand of techno ever since 2014. The boss's own music has been key to that, with carefully curated releases from guests such as Dax J, Kwartz, Reflec and Cleric himself. Helping to make the label an underground favourite. "Clergy Visions 01" sees Cleric invite an array on techno heavyweights to contribute to this compilation that's mixed by the label boss himself.

The mix opens up with the bleak ambience and fizzing electric cables of Jokasti & Nek's "Grained" then Sept's "Artifical" lays down a tunnelling techno groove that immediately locks you in. The mysterious alias, Reizemann heads off to a cosmic realm with its deep space pads slowly building the momentum throughout the drums. The energy levels then stay high throughout tracks from Roman Poncet, Kwartz and Setaoc Mass, then leading onto the groove of Stef Mendesidis.

Testament to Cleric's skills as a DJ and sequencer is the fact this journey is constantly evolving while remaining coherent. A mid-section featuring the likes of Endlec, Sleeparchive and EAS keeps you on your toes with perfectly stripped back but hard dynamic drum programming and intense melody work. Remco Beekwilder & Stranger bring a more hard hitting and industrial style before Slam calm the fires once more allowing you to sink into a smooth, elongated roller. It's left to the dystopian darkness of Rebekah and atmospheric techno brilliance of Lerias to close out this most adventurous mix in real style

2024 Repress

CRG020V1 and CRG020V2 are the vinyl samplers of the mix Cleric made for its 20th release.

To celebrate hitting their 20th release, Cleric's imprint pulls together 23 talents for a various artist mix compilation including tracks from the likes of Rebekah, Cleric, Stef Mendesidis, Remco Beekwilder & Stranger, Endlec, Kwartz, Setaoc Mass, Roman Poncet, Slam and many more.

Clergy has become synonymous with a balance of atmospheric and hard hitting brand of techno ever since 2014. The boss's own music has been key to that, with carefully curated releases from guests such as Dax J, Kwartz, Reflec and Cleric himself. Helping to make the label an underground favourite. "Clergy Visions 01" sees Cleric invite an array on techno heavyweights to contribute to this compilation that's mixed by the label boss himself.

The mix opens up with the bleak ambience and fizzing electric cables of Jokasti & Nek's "Grained" then Sept's "Artifical" lays down a tunnelling techno groove that immediately locks you in. The mysterious alias, Reizemann heads off to a cosmic realm with its deep space pads slowly building the momentum throughout the drums. The energy levels then stay high throughout tracks from Roman Poncet, Kwartz and Setaoc Mass, then leading onto the groove of Stef Mendesidis.

Testament to Cleric's skills as a DJ and sequencer is the fact this journey is constantly evolving while remaining coherent. A mid-section featuring the likes of Endlec, Sleeparchive and EAS keeps you on your toes with perfectly stripped back but hard dynamic drum programming and intense melody work. Remco Beekwilder & Stranger bring a more hard hitting and industrial style before Slam calm the fires once more allowing you to sink into a smooth, elongated roller. It's left to the dystopian darkness of Rebekah and atmospheric techno brilliance of Lerias to close out this most adventurous mix in real style.

The Morning Papers Have Given Us the Vapours was made with the black watch bandmates and producers/engineers Rob Campanella (Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Tyde, The Warlocks) and Andy Creighton (The World Record, Parson Red Heads). Ben Eshbach, formerly of The Sugarplastic, arranged the strings. Kesha Rose guests on lead vocals on the second single, Oh Do Shut Up. And the great Lindsay Murray once again lends her beautiful backing vox to a number of tracks.

the black watch songwriter/frontman John Andrew Fredrick wrote the ten songs on this, his Los Angeles-based band's latest album, entirely unselfconsciously, with no set goal in mind other than to revel in the joy of songwriting, and, eventually, the luxury of recording his music with his more-than-accomplished band. The Morning Papers Have Given Us the Vapours, produced separately and together by Rob Campanella and Andy Creighton evinces the black watch's often stunning ability to, as Andy Gill once observed in The Independent, "find chaos in the calm, melody in the miasma."

Fredrick, who has also published four comedic novels and a book on the early films of Wes Anderson, jovially describes himself as "a recovering Anglophile--one who'll never, one hopes, fully recover." From his home studio in the Angeleno Heights district of L.A., he waxes eloquent about how being branded, as it were, as a too-ardent lover of British music, film, and literature has left him as bemused as has the tag "prolific" that is often affixed to reviews of his work.

"I just don't think it's all that interesting to note that we've made so many records. Looked at one way, it's a sort of deflection from talking about the timbre if not the quality of the individual songs. Though I know it can be intimidating for fans who've just discovered us--a sort of 'My goodness, where do I start with this band that has put out LPs since 1988?' I get it. I do. I picture someone standing at our slot at a bin at a record store becoming overwhelmed at the prospect of picking the 'wrong' title. And then walking away and not picking up anything from us!" Fredrick laughs. "What can you do indeed?"

He started his career as a songwriter as a result of an American Football injury that left him bedridden in the home he grew up in in Santa Barbara, California. The year The Beatles immortal double-album came out at Christmastime he broke his leg so badly that he had to be home-schooled for an entire year. His parents, ex-teachers themselves, refused to let him watch telly for more than an hour a day. He propped a Silvertone acoustic on top of the massive cast that screamed all the way up to his thigh from his toes, and began to write little melodies and lyrics that, doubtless, did not in the least mask his love for the Fabs, The White Album in especial.

And he read and read and read--histories of the American Revolution and Civil War, mostly, and as many Dickens novels as his mum and dad could bring him. "That year," Fredrick observes, "surely made me who I am today. Proof that intensely unfortunate-seeming events can prove most fortunate. As a sport-mad kid, it made me absolutely mental that I was exiled from the activities I loved most and the school teams I played on. What a blessing undisguised that injury was! Not that I'd like to experience anything like it ever again, mind you."

Fredrick can even recall a few of the melodies he wrote as boy ("Utterly trite, of course, completely jejune"); and in a way, The Morning Papers Have Given Us the Vapours showcases a kind of get-back-to-where-you-once-belonged sensibility. "I didn't intend, this time, to make an album per se. I write both songs and fiction in order to find out what happens, to find out what I might want to say," he notes. "Rob often asks me what a particular song is about; and I often reply that I either don't know, or would prefer that others say. Same thing goes for when people ask me where they should start with our discography. I never know what to say. Our LP from 2011, Led Zeppelin Five (remastered in 2021 for its tenth anniversary), has been our best seller, I think--but that may be because some stoned Zepheads thought their gods had perhaps put out a record they'd missed!"

Despite being deadly serious about music-making, TBW's been known to either whimsically or perversely title their albums. Examples: Jiggery-Pokery (an allusion to John Lennon assessing George Martin's productions), After the Gold Room (a pun on the Neil Young classic plus a local eastside L.A. watering hole), Sugarplum Fairy, Sugarplum Fairy (echoing Lennon's famous count-off to A Day in the Life), Fromthing Somethat (a garbled spoonerism/lyric while doing a vocal), Brilliant Failures (the 2020 release that, along with Fromthing Somethat, was named Album of the Year by venerable indie rock magazine The Big Takeover), and the aforementioned LZ5.

For the new LP, the band recruited longtime friends and allies Ben Eshbach (the Emmy-Award-winning frontman of The Sugarplastic) and Lindsay Murray (Gretchens Wheel) to compose and arrange strings and sing heaps of lovely backing vocals, respectively.

And the result? A collection of songs that Fredrick, in his quite-but-not-quite self-deprecatory way, might call another set of brilliant failures. "Every song, every LP we do, is a failure of sorts--no matter how powerful or beautiful or pleasing-to-us it turns out," John concludes. "I have often said that my aim is to write songs as good as anything on The Beatles... and I will never achieve my goal. And thus I'll have to keep at it, keep trying. And chin-chin to that!"

And now your attention's been brought to a band (or you've heard of them or heard a track or two down the years) that has been pegged by The L.A. Weekly as "a national treasure" as well as "the most criminally-neglected indie pop group imaginable."

So here's to the prospect of that ostensible neglect becoming as much of a thing of the past as John Andrew Fredrick's year-long stint in bed.

Advitam Aeternamour, Cléa Vincent's third album, will be released on 29 March 2024 by Midnight Special.

If the 90s gave us “French touch,” then the 2010s ushered in “French pop,” and it was in the midst of this revival that Cléa began her artistic journey. As early as the music video for

“Achète-le-moi” from her debut LP Retiens mon désir (2016), we witness the singer striking selfie-like poses with her French pop comrades (La Femme, Bertrand Burgalat), appearing pell-mell on screen in the form of their vinyl records. Since then, whether singing with Philippe Katerine or co-producing (and composing) Jeanne Balibar's D'ici là tout l'été (2023), Cléa Vincent has effortlessly carved out a niche for herself in the French pop scene. The advantage of being a “jack-of-all-trades” — Cléa is a writer, composer, and producer — is that her music casts a wide net. Both highly acclaimed in the indie circuit and “as seen on TV” (on Quotidien, among others), she has also enjoyed a stint as the host for web-TV show Sooo Pop, for which she regularly interviewed a plethora of French artists. Beyond France, the singer tours extensively. After a run of concerts in Europe, Asia, North and South America, it was her visit to Latin and Central America that inspired Tropi-cléa (2017-2020-2022). The three EPs bathed in a tropicalist glow do more than just dip their toes in the water; they mark a deep desire to escape in a post-lockdown world.

In between these projects emerged Cléa’s LP Nuits sans sommeil (2019). The album quickly became an instant classic and lives up to its name, since Clea never seems to stop — writing, composing, singing, or dancing. Mixed by Stephane ALF Briat, who has lent his magic touch to records by Phoenix, Bonnie Banane, Air, and Flavien Berger, Cléa Vincent's third LP Advitam Aeternamour proves once again that her music is in perpetual renewal. The artist takes risks both in her pursuit for innovative sounds and in the themes she tackles: coming out, incest, grief...and of course, she will always be a true romantic at heart; there’s no need to be ashamed of loving love. Cléa’s songs are full of “explicit lyrics,” but not in the typical sense: rather than ringing harsh and raw, her words are tinged with sweetness and melancholy, at the risk of shocking less sentimental listeners.

Written hand-in-hand with Raphaël Léger, her creative soulmate for the last ten years who also recorded and produced the album, Advitam Aeternamour features lyrics charged with Epinal and equinox imagery. On the poignantly sober title track, sudden flashes of light are padded by tinkling synthesizers swathed in the voices of an angelic choir, as also heard on “Nuit de Yalda.” Cléa offers a modern take on 90s house music (“C'est Ok”) and 2-step garage (“Free Demain”). Particularly influenced by The Beloved, she is not above dipping pop songs into the electronic melting pot to get them through the club door (“État Second,” where we “turn up the BPM”). And whether on “Shut down ma tête,” or “Douce Chavirée,” Cléa pushes the champagne cork down even further so that the party never stops. The bass gets louder, the rhythm intensifies — the melodies of these eternal hits are an invitation onto the dance floor, lit up by her smile.

As depicted in the soothing embrace that appears on the album artwork, the bright psychedelic hues are the perfect complement to her therapeutically inclined synthetic pop. Even if they tackle themes such as breakups, Cléa's songs, which are vitamin-packed and deep on the surface, are intended to heal and repair. “Se laisser partir,” with its light vocoder echoes, emulating the vocal shadow of a loved one, is an optimistic breakup song. Advitam Æternamour gives us life, from birth to grief — and in the middle, wild, beating passion. If her songs resonate with us, it's because Cléa speaks to us in her songs, as heard on the girl power anthem “Free demain,” where she addresses the listener as a friend (“put the pedal to the metal and you’ll take off for the stars”). When she shares the microphone with Jacques on “État Second,” enveloped by the sounds of unidentified musical objects, the complementary nature of the two artists is evident. The album is as much a tribute to the healing virtues of music as it is a self-portrait of Cléa inhabited by her art. Ad vitam æternam and with love.

Did you know that for decades, record collectors across the Dutch-speaking region have overlooked a significant portion of their own musical heritage while avidly searching for rare grooves and breaks in bins filled with more exotic music? It's a fact! And that's where Harde Smart comes in. After delving deep into dusty crates of Belgian and Dutch music, Harde Smart's inaugural compilation in 2019, dedicated to music from the 1970s, brought to light a selection of smooth, jazzy, funky, and soulful gems from Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) and Holland. In addition to exquisite grooves and hard-pounding drums, these songs shared Dutch lyrics, offering a unique compilation of lyric-driven Flemish and Dutch music from back in the days.

Yet, nothing is as certain as the unexpected. This compilation marked the first time a Dutch album uncovered the authentic Afro-American funk and soul vibe, which, albeit sporadically, influenced the work of both popular and lesser-known singers and musicians in this corner of the world during the 1970s. Undoubtedly, influences also stemmed from French chanson and rock music of the era. This 21-trackalbum shattered all musical predictability, taking listeners on a strange and nostalgic journey, offering a revised collection of "essential homegrown classics" for local listeners while also captivating non-Dutch-speaking audiences.

With the second compilation, Harde Smart shifts its focus from the 1970s sound to explore the next decade, the 1980s. Vinyl aficionados No Sleep Richy and Micha Marva joined forces with Sjefke De Kok, one of Holland's premier crate diggers, to continue their musical odyssey. Digging even deeper into dusty bins filled with Dutch and Flemish records once again unearthed an exquisite selection of tracks-too weird to play, too rare to ignore. From butt-shaking boogie to weird disco adventures on wax, this album encapsulates all the good stuff of the 1980s: smooth and seductive alongside dark and wavy. Get ready for an atypical introduction into the Dutch lyric-driven music from the 1980's.