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Punctual like a Swiss watch, Driftmachine presents a new album that once again astounds and delights. We know their trademark: solid mechanical percussions, forceful bass and melodies systematically built around circular patterns. "Spume & Recollection" is the sixth Umor Rex album by the Berlin duo, and what better way to celebrate the label's 15th anniversary than with a new record from the masters of labyrinthine cables and patches. Regarding "Nocturnes" (UR 2014), their debut album, we described their sound as precise and symmetrical, identical concrete blocks mounted and articulated in a random order. Their already obsessive style continued to evolve with their third record, "Colliding Contours" (UR 2016), now pushing further into abstract dub, ultra-tense grooves, and even more kinetic loops, moving further away from conventional musical structures. Between these two albums they released the remarkable "Eis Heauton" (UR 2015), a kind of hypnotic experiment informed by shadowy atmospheres, chance, and an intuitive dialogue with their musical machines, a unique situation in which they acted as bemused observers in hunt for epiphanies, resulting in an exquisite amalgamation of lucid dream-logic and mechanical precision. A one-of-a-kind soundtrack for minute and wordless scenes unfolding in pitch-black back alleys and hidden, alchemical basements. A similar map was explored with "Shunter" (UR 2018), a superb secret meeting between avant-garde phantasmagoria and concrete experimentation. "Radiations" (UR 2017) offered B-sides and bonus tracks, in addition to collaborations with Shackleton and The Sight Below, a kind of preamble that united Driftmachine’s different expressions and leanings.

When Andreas Gerth and Florian Zimmer come up with new material, one listens with high expectation. Looking back on their discography, one could safely anticipate a high quality album densely layered with their familiar leitmotifs. And yet, "Spume & Recollection" takes us by surprise and finds a new way to transfix. Fresh methods and ideas are introduced to their dynamics and formula. Yes, of course, you can still expect a healthy dose of kosmische, which is one of the dominant features in Driftmachine’s DNA; but this is now entwined with novel materials, semi-material patterns of alien code stretching over exhilaratingly tense and detailed grooves, clouds of gas shifting on top of deep dub architecture and blocking out the sun for prismatic effect. Even more of a surprise is the immediate, streamlined nature of these tracks, making "Spume & Recollection" their most accessible record and, perhaps, the most addictive (and this without sacrificing the essential mystery and strangeness at the core of Driftmachine’s sound).

We have previously described their work as post-industrial-dub; right now, we might just call it hypno-music for man and machine to dance and dream together. "Spume & Recollection" takes this concept as far as it can go without breaking, and finds some strange new feelings, and weirdly danceable grooves, to shed some light on this dark and dazzling ride.

All songs written & produced by Andreas Gerth & Florian Zimmer in Berlin Mastered by John Tejada Artwork & Photos by Daniel Castrejón

Extended Instrumental tracks from the nocturnal studio session of director and musician Jim Jarmusch, Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo, Balázs Pándi (Keiji Haino, Venetian Snares, Merzbow) and producer Marc Urselli (John Zorn, Mike Patton, Laurie Anderson a.o). All was recorded live and analog, and in the moment. Mixed, mastered, recorded and produced by Marc Urselli at EastSide Sound Studios, NYC, 2019. Artwork by Italian artist Sara D'Uva.

press quotes from the debut album (TR181)

Lee Ranaldo/Jim Jarmusch/ Marc Urselli/ Balázs Pándi is an egoless collection of ideas from four musicians who sound like they've been working together for an eternity - Daniel Sylvester, Exclaim! 2019
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It’s exactly this unpredictability that makes the quartet’s evocative sounds thoroughly captivating - Poscic, The Quietus
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A magical, hypnotic and somehow frightening album – Jazzthing 2019

This journey, this slowly drifting sonic meditation, is an 'inner soundscape', a dialogue between the senses, the conscience and the world, inside / outside, interconnected. Like waking up from a long dream, and being stuck into its echo. The April Sessions immerges the listener into a drone-ish universe, full of random acousmatic events, inner monologues and a vast and unwritten subjective map to be drawn.

The April Sessions has been living in a seedy hotel in Brussels for a few months. She listens to the sparse traffic outside her window, locked in and locked down. 'Everything is constructed', she says to herself, 'even the sound of a solitary aircraft at 25,000 feet traverses the sky no further out than the inside of my skull'. Other weird sonic phenomena criss-cross the inner cosmos of her brain and streak across her private sky like comets. And then there is the unshakeable presence of that inner monologue, known to her variously as the Tacit Dictator, the Subvocaliser and, nightmarishly enough, the voice of the Merlucid Hake. (Anthony Moore, St Leonards, 10th of March 2021)

Anthony Moore, Dirk Specht and Tobias Grewenig have known each other and worked together since the early 2000s. They have collectively participated in a number of projects including live performances and recordings. In 2016, as part of The Missing Present Band, they released the live LP 'The Present Is Missing' on A-Musik. The following year they released 'Ore Talks', a double LP, realised in collaboration with Therapeutische Hörgruppe Köln.

Anthony Moore was born in 1948, founded the band Slapp Happy (circa 1972) with Peter Blegvad and Dagmar Krause, then worked alongside a.o. Fred Frith and Tim Hodgkinson in the unclassifiable band Henry Cow. He released several solo albums, composed soundtracks for experimental movies. His path also crossed Kevin Ayers's, Pink Floyd's, Richard Wright's. He was appointed professor for research into sound and music in the context of new media at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne, Germany. He still continues to write and perform.

Dirk Specht is a sound artist, musician and curator. He studied architecture and media art and is active in the fields of sound works for choreography, radio drama, sound art, film and video art soundtracks. He published releases with several bands and projects. He has been an assistant for research into sound from 2011 to 2016 at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne, and is a founding member of Therapeutische Hörgruppe Köln.

Tobias Grewenig studied at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne. He primarily deals with non-linearity in his audiovisual installative works and performances, including projects with the artist group 'Therapeutische Hörgruppe Köln', the ensemble 'The Knob, The Finger & The It' and the improvisation collective "Frequenzwechsel". The conception and development of electronic instruments and code is a key component of his artistic work. He lives and works in Cologne.

Almost all records are a snapshot, a musical ribbon bow that documents a very specific moment in time or simply ties-off everything up to that point. Indigo De Souza’s I Love My Mom, her debut LP initially released in 2018, was the latter; a collection of the best songs she’d written in the few years that preceded it, recorded quickly and breathlessly and thrown out into the world.

Consisting of ten songs, I Love My Mom feels both raw and unabashed. Indigo pulled a band together for the first time, and was quickly encouraged to commit her songs to tape. Recorded at her friend’s house, they played almost everything live in just a few days, and released the record naturally, with little fanfare. That the record quickly took on a life of its own, deeply resonating with those who heard it, is a testament to Indigo’s songwriting which took inspiration from the unique worlds created by Arthur Russel, Sparklehorse, The Microphones, as well as contemporaries such as LVL UP and Happyness.

Two of the songs have racked up more than a million streams each on Spotify: “Take O Ur Pants” and “How I Get Myself Killed.” The former balances an often breezy lead vocal with gnarly undercurrents of guitar before the whole thing lets rip in its punchy chorus, while the latter, the album’s opening track, finds a different mood entirely, a slacker rock gem that repeats its chorus as a chest-beating mantra. Elsewhere, “Good Heart” furthers the dichotomy which sits at the record’s core, each moment of quiet introspection soon met by a cacophonous burst of energy.

遠き火、遠き雲 (Tōki Hi, Tōki Kumo / A Distant Fire, A Distant Cloud) is the second collaboration by Tomoyoshi Date and Stijn Hüwels. The album was commissioned by Laaps.

Tomoyoshi Date and Stijn Hüwels met for the first time in 2015 in Tokyo, being introduced to each other by Chihei Hatakeyama. That same evening, they recorded what would later become Hochu-Ekki-Tou, their first album, released on Home Normal in 2019. For "Tōki hi, tōki kumo", they teamed up again to create a slow and bright album, using field recordings, processed guitar, piano and synth. The title refers to a poem by Tadahito Ichinoseko, recited by the poet on the album as well.

Tomoyoshi Date creates acoustic and organic sounds with a little touch of digital processing. He began to create electronic music in 1998. In 2003, he forms the group Opitope with Chihei Hatakeyama (released by SPEKK), in 2012 the group ILLUHA with Corey Fuller (released by 12k), and the group Melodia with Federico Durand (Home Normal). His solo albums were released from Flyrec (2009, Japan) and Own Records (2011, Luxembourg). Also he worked as emergency doctor until 2014, and started his ambient oriental medical clinic "Tsuyukusa Clinic" in Tokyo since 2014. Tomoyoshi currently resides in Narita, close to Tokyo.

Stijn Hüwels has a profound fascination for minimalism. He's using mainly layers of processed guitar and field recordings. He released on Dauw, mAtter, Eilean Rec., Home Normal, White Paddy Mountain and Slowcraft/Lifelines. He released albums in collaboration with Chihei Hatakeyama, Norihito Suda, An Moku and Ian Hawgood. Together with James Murray he forms Silent Vigils. Stijn lives and works in Leuven and Brussels, Belgium. He's also curating Slaapwel Records since 2014, a label dedicated to music to fall asleep with.

Suburban Base and Marvellous Cain assemble once again to bring a huge 4 track EP of Original Jungle material.
Marvellous Cain, a producer synonymous with Jungle/DnB and best known for the massive tunes 'The Hitman' and 'Dub Plate Style' has remained a staple in every Junglist DJ's box for over 25 years. His legendary guest appearances on Kool London and his live shows at Boomtown Festival and the Kingston Carnival brought him enough attention to warrant a remix of Bob Marley's 'Jammin' alongside General Levy.

Now Suburban Base is proud to present 'The Dubplate EP', which brings four of the most requested and rarest unreleased Marvellous Cain ‘dubplate only’ tracks together in a single release.

Opening with the never before released VIP remix of 'Dubplate Style' which has only appeared in certain A-List DJ's sets, the EP brings absolute heat from start to finish.

The super rare unreleased gem 'Snapper' brings more fire, with chopped Amen's and deep subs. Only ever promo’d and withdrawn means that its one of the most sought after tracks in Drum & Bass and Jungle, and where those handful of copies have resurfaced they’ve traded for up to £150 on discogs

'Killer' with its familiar ragga influences was again never given a full release only appearing as an album exclusive on the 1995 Telepathy Dub Plate Special project.
And completing the package is 'Giness Punch' which only appeared as bonus tracks of the CD version of Marvellous Cains 1994 album and never got released on the vinyl format of that album.

All of these tracks remained on dubplate and despite the huge demand for a full release remained exclusive to their project usages. None of these mythical tracks have ever had a digital release or full vinyl release… until now… from the vaults of Suburban Base we bring them all together on this killer EP from Marvellous Cain

Marvellous Cain's 'Dubplate EP' will be released on vinyl & digital formats on the 21st May 21 .

Premieres from Data Transmission and Bolting Bits. Early support from Hospital, Huey Morgan, Rupture, Fanu, Rob Luis, Anthony Kasper (Fokuz), Red Rack'em, Bandcamp Weekly, etc.

150 copies pressed on 180 gram vinyl. Picture shows the HF021VFELT edition which comes with 'Nuthin' But a Jungle Thang' die-cut felt sleeve insert (in assorted colours), with Heard and Felt embroidered fabric tag. HF021V edition is the same 180g vinyl without the felt sleeve insert.

With music from Jonny Faith's recent Night Lights EP appearing in Grand Theft Auto and best of 2020 lists including Gilles Peterson's, you might think Jonny would continue to mine his take on hip hop and broken beat. Well, all in good time. He's been ready to enter the jungle for 20 years, and he's not waiting any longer.

Now based in Melbourne, Jonny first got involved in music in Edinburgh as a DJ and turntablist in the 90s, getting hooked on jungle, drum & bass, hip hop and the hybrids of these championed by the Mo'Wax label. Formative experiences included hearing DJ Hype spinning in Newcastle, seeing the Roni Size/Reprazent live show with two drummers and hanging out at cult Edinburgh club night Manga, where residents G-Mac and DJ Kid hosted the likes of Marky, Grooverider and J Majik.

Jonny was keen to start making his own sounds, signing up for an electronic music production course. But it wasn't quite what he was after.

'The course turned out to be more house-oriented,' Jonny recalls. 'Sampling wasn't on the curriculum, and the students weren't allowed to touch the Akai S900, the sampler used in lots of the early jungle classics.'

When Jonny did start releasing his own productions a few years later, he was starting to explore the experimental beat scene around the time Flying Lotus and Hudson Mohawke (another Scottish turntablist) were starting to make their mark.

Jonny continued to widen his sonic palette, adding elements of dub, jazz, funk, electronica and broken beat, and picking up fans like Radio Nova Paris, KCRW, Vice and Clash Magazine along the way. But he's never been more than one degree of separation from his jungle/D&B roots. He continued to buy and play the music, did the odd D&B remix and snuck sonic elements and techniques into his tracks at various tempos. Over the years his releases have shared labels with the likes of Peshay, Om Unit, Drumagick, Reso, Kid Drama and Danny Scrilla.

Now, more than 20 years after those early experiences in Edinburgh, Jonny unveils his first jungle/D&B EP, On Lock. And it sounds like he's been making this music the whole time. In a way, he has.

The single 'Open My Eyes' bursts out the gate, chopping not only the breaks and the soul for a tune that sounds like Amerie's '1 Thing', or some Just Blaze chipmunk soul, reimagined for the 174 BPM crew. Jonny started this one as a hip hop beat for a live routine on his MPC, but it only really came together when he reframed the groove around a D&B rhythm. Next up, Jonny tries a similar trick on his own boom bap tune 'Stay in Your Lane' from the 'Night Lights' EP. His new Step Off Mix totally recontextualises US MC Lady K's slinky soulful rap and hooks with a tough and funky junglist groove. One for fans of the old Roni Size/Bahamadia collab. 'Create' then spaces things out just a touch, with atmospheric but propulsive drumfunk. Vinyl bonus track 'Nuthin' But a Jungle Thang' layers cascading amen breaks, timestretched vocals and a massive double bass-line over the wah guitars and synth whistling of a G-funk era classic.

With early support for Jonny Faith's take on jungle/D&B coming from Hospital Records, Rupture (Rinse FM) and Fanu (Metalheadz), Jonny is ready to be welcomed (back) into the scene.


b A2: Stay in Your Lane (Jonny Faith Step Off Mix) feat. Lady K

“The term ‘Front Porch Singin’’ may actually be a metaphor for
many creative and conceptual musical ideas. But, for us, this title
has become more of an attitude than anything else. What if the
four of us were sitting on a porch together and someone begins to
sing a favorite old Gospel song, like ‘Swing Down Chariot’, or a
country and Western standard like ‘Red River Valley’, and
everyone else just joined in?
“That is what happened at RCA Studio A. But, as usual under
producer Dave Cobb’s leadership, this album turned into so much
more. The Front Porch Singin’ attitude remained prevalent
throughout, as songwriters, musicians, Dave and all four of us
kept coming to the table with terrific creative ideas to enhance our
Front Porch experience.
“This project is quite honestly one of the most heartfelt albums we
have ever recorded. Perhaps it is because we recorded these
songs in the middle of a raging pandemic that changed the face of
America and obviously took a huge toll on those of us in the music
business. It was a bit strange to social-distance from each other in
the studio, but we believe it drew us all closer and, in doing so, we
may have inadvertently recorded the perfect project for this time
period. These songs, whether new or old, reflect a certain
optimism and a deep-seated faith that God will work all of this out
as we move forward. ‘Life is beautiful’, as one song says. We must
embrace it and celebrate it with all of our being.
“Join us on The Front Porch and, if it is God’s will… Let’s keep on
SINGIN’.” - The Oak Ridge Boys
Produced by six-time Grammy award-winning producer Dave
Cobb (John Prine, Brandi Carlile, Chris Stapleton, Sturgill
Simpson, Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit), who also co-wrote several
of the songs on the album.
The Oak Ridge Boys are members of the Country Music Hall of
Fame and The Grand Ole Opry. They are Grammy, ACM, CMA
and Billboard Award winners. They have had 12 gold, three
platinum and one double platinum album, more than a dozen
national Number One singles and over 30 Top Ten hits.

Penrose Records is proud to introduce the newest members of the family, the Inland Empire's own Vicky Tafoya and the Big Beat. Born in Santa Ana and currently residing in Colton, Vicky started singing a capella doo wop in the late 80s for the So. Cal. Doo Wop Society and went on to co-found the Big Beat in 2001. Their debut single on Penrose is a moody minor chord ballad featuring a reverb laden guitar solo and beautiful girl group harmonies behind Vicky's effortless yet haunting vocal about two people longing to be together… Forever.

High Pulp returns with a brand new instalment of covers, on Mutual Attraction Vol 2. A spiritual jazz journey, interpreting arrangements by Arthur Verocai, Cortex and Casiopea. The 8-piece fusion band pays homage to tracks and artists that have woven themselves into the DNA of their band.

The Mutual Attraction series is about paying homage and looking back to influences that have paved the way for informing the band’s sound. It was important to the band to find 3 different significant spaces to record each volume. MA Vol. 2 was recorded at a house that the group’s drummer, Bobby Granfelt holds many fond childhood memories. It is the house that his father grew up in, and a house that his grandfather built. A house that would eventually become Granfelt’s current residence and also is the band’s homebase for rehearsing and hanging out. It is a reflection of the past and the present, as are these interpretations of songs. Rich textures and cinematic grooves alongside trippy guitars, lush Rhodes keys, and soulful horns. Covering tunes that may have flown under the radar, but have impacted the group immensely.

High Pulp are an 8-piece band that emerged from the Royal Room, a legendary Seattle Jazz club where they held “Funk Church” jam sessions in 2017. Their signature sound is a Psychedelic fusion of Hip-Hop, Funk, Jazz, and Soul which come together with complex, well thought out arrangements and progressive style. After successful sessions and premieres with prestigious station KEXP, and being at the forefront of the Seattle music scene, they are now branching out and taking their sound worldwide.

Play On Records is proud to present Flashed Glass, a full length LP from electronic duo Sleep D and mixed chamber ensemble Ad Lib Collective. Culminating from a two-year project borne out of a live collaboration in a Melbourne underground carpark, the LP marries the euphoria of the concert hall and the club, presenting a rich sonic universe for the listener to discover.

Having first been introduced at rehearsals for Play On's 6th series in late 2018, the two groups hit it off, opting to perform a semi-improvised set together, rather than two separate sets as originally planned. They soon realised their pairing could unlock sounds they wouldn't have otherwise found on their own, and their idea for further collaboration was born.

In March 2020, the two groups recorded at Head Gap studios in Preston — layering sounds, building melodies, and striking out what didn't work — until the COVID-19 pandemic cut things short, twice, due to Melbourne's dual lockdowns. This resulted in an accidental hybrid work, finishing as a mix of live professional recordings, and DIY home-recorded samples, with the latter including crushed plastic and pulverised sea shells.

Listening to Græns album ”Musique Pour L’Esprit En Expansion” is an awakening experience. This record pours new poison over rock music, a genre which the bands founder Axel (Graveyard, Big Kiss etc) has a lot of experience from and, in his own words “a love/hate relation to”. That objective and sober perspective on the genre may be the main reason for the loosely assembled set of influences, put together by Axel, Lisen Rylander Löve (Midarcondo, Union Carbide Productions, Amason etc) and Rickard “Bobban” Johansson (Den Stora Vilan, Hills etc.), three experienced and wide eared musicians with a fearless approach to their main instruments and music in general.

With song titles like “Björkarnas Sus” (Whiz of the Birch trees) and “Commodification blues”, ”Musique Pour L’Esprit En Expansion” mixes nature romanticism with raw political comments about consumption. The sound moves from Stooges La Blues-land to Swedish progg with each instrumentalists shining through in grand style! Axel describes the less song-oriented tracks as “directed improvisation” – it’s loose but not eclectic.

Whatever sense you are using to catch this music, Græns message of cosmic unity and creative freedom will carry through to you!

Athlete Whippet join the Toy Tonics family! The London/Berlin-based duo make a sound that is based on futuristic breakbeats combined with deep, jazz chord progressions and a kind of funk that sounds more like it was made in 2100 then in a year behind us. Definitely not a retro record the Vesta EP is further proof that the connection between London and Berlin that has been build by several Toy Tonics artists (Cody Currie the latest in the gang) is becoming a strong one. The combination of the Berlin dancefloor sound and the UK jazz fusion soul is changing the scene and creating new moods. Neo soul and house, broken beats and disco.. there are lot of things happening in that new world and Athlete Whippet could be a strong player in that new sound.

The 2 guys already achieved great support by UK radio DJs such as Annie Mac and Jamz Supernova for their their first collaborative EP Touch (with Metronomy’s Olugbenga), followed by their 2020 solo EP 'Your Love Is Lifting Me', an ode to compassion and solidarity, and remixes for labels including Rhythm Section.

‘Vesta’ is not just the title track of the EP but also the name of the South London Road where they shared an apartment, built a studio in their living room, and put together the first ideas for this EP.

Both Robin and Avi come from a live performance background, played in bands since their early teenage years before they met studying music at Goldsmiths in London. You can hear a playful live quality throughout the EP. It’s not your average house productions with the usual formalistic patterns, but a very original, very fresh style - hard to copy (but easy to dance to).

Now based between Berlin and London, they collaborate with their friend, Athens-born, Berlin-based artist Aphty Khéa on Yesterday and Can’t Make My Mind Up.

Avi and Robin their label squareglass and a London-residency inviting guests such as Seb Wildblood, Will Saul, Asquith, Anu and also have a monthly show on Rinse FM.

Everything has its right moment in space and time. And Rhode & Brown’s debut album “Everything in Motion” is no exception to this rule.

But first things first:
Hailing from Munich, Germany, Friedrich Trede and Stephan Braun are the DJ and producer duo Rhode & Brown. Growing up in two neighbouring villages near Munich both of them had been music enthusiasts since their early childhood. Friedrich played drums in punk bands at school and recorded rap songs in his bedroom, while Stephan, as childhood friend of Harold Faltermeyer's son, had the chance to experiment in the impressive studio of the legendary Donna Summer producer in his early teens.

By the late 2000s older friends started supplying them with DJ mixtapes and helped them sneak into clubs they weren’t allowed to visit, yet – cultivating their love for electronic music and club culture. And, of course, the Internet was their go-to source for finding the latest blog house tunes back then, too.

It wasn’t until October 2009 that their paths would cross for the very first (but almost last) time when introduced by a mutual friend: Back then Stephan was selling his old CDJ-player and Friedrich, who wanted to hone his DJ skills, ended up buying it: „When I got home and unpacked the player I realized that it was the wrong model. I thought Stephan was trying to rip me off - so I called him in a rage and demanded my money back.“ Friedrich laughs. To cut a long story short, the two met again the same evening, money and CD-players were exchanged, but luckily so was their passion for house and disco music. It was at that very moment that Rhode & Brown was born.

A lot has happened since the two played their first gigs together and made baby steps in music production. In the past 10 years they established themselves as one of the most reliable house producers around with rock solid releases on Toy Tonics, Shall Not Fade, Public Possession or their own Slam City Jams imprint. As well as becoming a household name in the DJ world, sharing the booth with the likes of Palms Trax, Dam Swindle, Jamie Tiller or Octo Octa - spreading their infectious "Dancing Deejays" vibes around the globe.

Following the great reception of last years „Aku Aku“ EP, June 2021 will see the release of Rhode & Brown’s debut album on Permanent Vacation. A record that showcases their open minded approach to making music and a passion for the nuances between genres - „We found inspiration for this album in all corners of our record collection. That means we are as much influenced by disco or 80s synth-pop as by house and techno of the last decades or the latest viral trap hit on Spotify“, the guys say.

On "Everything In Motion" you'll hear piano house / Italo disco hybrids alongside dreamy Balearic soundscapes and '90s-infused acid breakbeats flawlessly accompanying '80s synth pop anthems. Always infused with that signature Rhode & Brown magic. The album also finds them collaborating with some of the finest vocalists of the moment: Peaking Lights' own Indra Dunis is lending her voice to the title track for this special laid back California vibe, while Berlin's hottest export DJ City evokes a neon light romance affair on "Memory Palace", with a longing poem that makes you wander the rainy streets at night with your walkman on.

At a time when suddenly everything seems to be standing still, Rhode & Brown undeterred moving forward... true to their LP’s title.

Hildegard is the new project from experimental singer-songwriter
Helena Deland and multi-instrumentalist and producer Ouri (Ourielle
Auvé). On their self-titled debut album, Deland’s folk background
balances against Ouri’s world of electronic and dance music. Over
eight days in a studio, the Montreal-based musicians discovered an
innate creative connection, building and bouncing ideas off of one
another, developing an intuitive approach to composition and sound.
The resulting record, ‘Hildegard’, is wholly its own. Eight tracks fuse
together into a sonic sphere, named for the eight days spent together.
Deland and Ouri invoke Hildegard as a carrier of the magic they felt
working with each other, the separate entity that was born as they
blended together. Artist Melissa Matos developed a visual language
for the project that reflects this melding and switching of identities,
imagining Hildegard as both a contemporary and historic presence.
‘Hildegard’ is released on section1, the new label started earlier this
year in partnership with Partisan Records.
Deluxe LP box featuring debossed Hildegard symbol; clear vinyl,
printed vellum inner sleeve, fold-out booklet, three 300mm x 300mm
inserts featuring single artwork for ‘Jour 1’, ‘Jour 2’, ‘Jour 3’. Single
sleeve jacket featuring debossed Hildegard symbol; clear vinyl,
printed vellum inner sleeve and fold-out booklet.
Also available in a single sleeve jacket featuring debossed Hildegard
symbol; clear vinyl, printed vellum inner sleeve and fold-out booklet.
“Enrapturing... sounds like a billion tiny particles assembling
something greater than the sum of its parts” - The FADER
“Sounds like a floor-filler for the world's most haunted nightclub” -
Stereogum
“Hildegard brings the world back to life” - Les Inrockuptibles

Hildegard is the new project from experimental singer-songwriter
Helena Deland and multi-instrumentalist and producer Ouri (Ourielle
Auvé). On their self-titled debut album, Deland’s folk background
balances against Ouri’s world of electronic and dance music. Over
eight days in a studio, the Montreal-based musicians discovered an
innate creative connection, building and bouncing ideas off of one
another, developing an intuitive approach to composition and sound.
The resulting record, ‘Hildegard’, is wholly its own. Eight tracks fuse
together into a sonic sphere, named for the eight days spent together.
Deland and Ouri invoke Hildegard as a carrier of the magic they felt
working with each other, the separate entity that was born as they
blended together. Artist Melissa Matos developed a visual language
for the project that reflects this melding and switching of identities,
imagining Hildegard as both a contemporary and historic presence.
‘Hildegard’ is released on section1, the new label started earlier this
year in partnership with Partisan Records.
Deluxe LP box featuring debossed Hildegard symbol; clear vinyl,
printed vellum inner sleeve, fold-out booklet, three 300mm x 300mm
inserts featuring single artwork for ‘Jour 1’, ‘Jour 2’, ‘Jour 3’. Single
sleeve jacket featuring debossed Hildegard symbol; clear vinyl,
printed vellum inner sleeve and fold-out booklet.
Also available in a single sleeve jacket featuring debossed Hildegard
symbol; clear vinyl, printed vellum inner sleeve and fold-out booklet.
“Enrapturing... sounds like a billion tiny particles assembling
something greater than the sum of its parts” - The FADER
“Sounds like a floor-filler for the world's most haunted nightclub” -
Stereogum
“Hildegard brings the world back to life” - Les Inrockuptibles

Based in Berlin via rural Israel, RAS are comprised of of multi-instrumentalists and producers Dekel Adin, Eden Leshem, and Guy Gefen. They came together as RAS in 2018; a deep appreciation of international sounds that cross common ley lines has resulted in a melting pot of influences. Armed with vintage drum machines, guitars, synths, bongos and a Tascam Portastudio 424 tape machine, they quietly released this eponymous debut album in early 2019.

RAS’ creative palette is relatively minimal, opting to work with a toolkit of analogue instruments and improvisational recording styles. Mixing surrealism, in-jokes and nonsensical word patterns, their lyrics are sung in Hebrew. The vocals are there to support the music, acting as another instrument in the overall sound.

Dekel, Eden and Guy managed to create an intricate balance between lofi soul and brighter mediterranean leaning club-jams, ending up with a record we might mistake as a lost treasure of the early 90’s.??A record that perhaps has an unconscious connection to the past, but more importantly to an onward looking story of friendship and a musical journey which has spanned many continents throughout the last ten years.

Polish House Music veteran Aphreme is back on vinyl,
this time on his own label Octave Moods. He serves up a heartfelt warm analog vocal house track with a punchy moogish bassline and leads, & soothing chords, with American Vocalist Genevieve performing her engaging and sensual vocals. remixed by Chicago's very own, legendary House Music Composer, Glenn Underground who takes it to the next level with his beautiful interpretation featuring euphoric moog and piano solos, blended together with mysterious atmospheric chords.

Cardinal Fuzz (Europe) and Feeding Tube Records (N.America) present to you - A vinyl issue of the killer CD comp that SS Records released way back in 2004 with a couple of added treats. Brace yourself for some steller hair singeing full throttle wipe outs across 4 slabs of heavy black vinyl. Comes with a folded A3 double sided insert.

Monoshock was one of THE best bands of the 90s and if they were from Seattle and not Illa Vista & Oakland, California you would already know that. During their six years they released a handful of 7"s, served as a backing band for Von Lmo, and created one of the classic psych albums of all time, Walk to the Fire. In the last few years they received praise from around the globe, raved up by Julian Cope as one of the great unknown bands of the 90s and cited as an influence by current heavy faves, Comets on Fire, as well as a whole slew of Japanese psych bands. Monoshock is fuzz-fuel, wah-wah damaged, riff-crazed punk rock which draws in Hawkwind, the Stooges, Simply Saucer, and other psych-punk gods. This double LP collects all their 7"s and comp tracks together with 7 previously unreleased tunes and two songs from their ultra-rare 1989 demo tape and 2 added digi bonus Live tracks from their reunion shows. Fans will be overjoyed. Virgins will become fans.
The band's stellar Walk to the Fire has been acknowledged as one of the classic psych albums of all time.

Newly awarded Dub Artist of the Year 2020 by the specialized website Reggae.fr, Manudigital presents the second volume of his famous "Digital Kingston Session" on vinyl, three years after the release of volume 1 in 2018! These videos filmed in the streets of Kingston, in which the producer invites Jamaican singers from the golden age of digital Reggae to perform their classics in one take on riddims that he plays with the legendary Casio MT40 or "Sleng Teng Keyboard ”, have become a real institution! With more than 100,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel, Manudigital continues to bring together an ever larger and more international audience.

In this volume 2 of the “Digital Kingston Session”, Manudigital gather a five-star cast with the legendary Capleton, the essential Junior Cat and more underground but no less talented artists such as Devon Morgan, Peter Metro, Jigsy King or Bunny General. As on the first volume, two bonus sessions recorded outside Jamaica complete the tracklisting: one in Brooklyn with Red Fox, the most New Yorker of Jamaican deejays, and the other in Paris with the spectacular English MC Deemas J, who has been accompanying Manudigital on stage since 2018.

A second volume of the "Digital Kingston Session" on vinyl which should delight the public, while waiting to get back to live music and sound systems!

Magda Drozd is deeply concerned with listening in her artistic practice. Her second album, 18 Floors, Drozd focused on the apartment building she called home for several years, compiling a corpus of field recordings in and of the building, which she approached as a living organism rather than static material. The result challenges current assumptions about living together in urban settings. The field recordings were woven into eleven speculative tracks consisting of sounds including violins, guitars, synthesizers, drum machines, and Drozd’s voice. The music moves between sound art, ambient, indie rock, and R&B.
18 Floors presciently emphasizes the importance of the home, which has become glaringly obvious in the age of Corona. Her foresight constitutes her avant-gardism as much as her preference for documenting what might be over what actually is. The result is an album that creates a space for what is transient, uncertain, and unstable. And it creates a space for opportunities, which we need now more than ever.

Ulna’s OEA is a “bar-rock getting sober record.“ The first full length solo record of Ulna, aka Adam Schubert of Cafe Racer, OEA is an ode to reinvention. Along with the release comes a rebranding--formerly Ruins, Schubert’s new pseudonym ULNA is a reference to a pivotal moment in his childhood. At the age of 14, Schubert shattered the bone on the inside of his forearm in a skating accident, and took up the guitar. “That’s what made me serious about playing music,” says Schubert.

This name change also accompanied Schubert’s shift towards sobriety--OEA was created right as Schubert reconfigured his life without drugs or alcohol. With the exception of the final track, “Dead Friends,” the whole album was written while in a recovery program. “You have to reinvent your whole personality, you have to be a different person,” says Schubert.”Who am I if I’m not the crazy drunk dude who’s doing drugs in the bathroom?”

OEA is an intensely personal record, in subject matter but also quite literally--Schubert plays every instrument, though the record feels far from a home-demo, recorded and mastered by Robby Hanes at Strange Magic Recording in Chicago’s Logan Square. Schubert’s songs are ambling and full of picked guitar and retro harmonies, a stylistic sensibility he attributes to a love for the Beatles and “acoustic rock with a weird punk edge,” a-la Big Thief and Kurt Vile. Though instrumentally sunny, his vocals hint at something else - there’s an underlying ache. OEA is an easy listen, but with a depth of emotion that demands listeners’ attention.

OEA explores the range of emotions experienced in the transition to sobriety, from fear to backslide to self doubt. At first listen, “Turn The Record On” feels almost like a love song, with a chorus of “turn the record on/ you’re my favorite song,” but in actuality the song is the story of an empty encounter rather than romance. “It’s kind of about this sad hookup with someone else who is equal in your addiction, you’re just using each other because you don’t want to be alone in your using,” says Schubert. “We both have this problem and we can have fun in it together because we both understand. They know the score.”

While “Turn The Record On” speaks to a moment of shared addiction, other tracks examine what comes after sobriety. “And I took the pill like I should / and I stayed clean just like I said I would,” begins “Last Song,” which Schubert cites as one of the hardest tracks to write. “I got sober and I take medication and - I’m doing all this stuff now but nothing’s changed,” says Schubert. “ I think that’s pretty common in people who get sober. I did all this stuff and now what?”

The penultimate track on the album, “Last Song” fades into a noisy interlude that gives listeners the feeling of motion, like entering a tunnel and emerging into a quieter, lo-fi recording, the closing track “Dead Friends.” The only non-studio track, “Dead Friends” was recorded in Schubert’s home, and carries with it a warm intimacy. “I wanted it to sound like you’re outside somewhere, you're walking, and you step inside somewhere that feels safe,” says Schubert.

This closing track embodies the mood of OEA- warm but with a melancholy edge, like coming in from the cold but still feeling a lingering chill. It’s an album that feels comfortable and cohesive--though individual tracks stand alone, OEA works best when listened through start to finish. It’s a record to put on while cooking dinner and let sink in.

For fans of AMON DÜÜL, CAN, FAUST, NEUBAUTEN, BRIAN ENO, CLUSTER, CULT OF LUNA, NINE INCH NAILS, MASSIVE ATTACK OR - Norwegian for "dizzy, confusing" - is the third album from Italian avant-rock trio OSLO TAPES, and the album keeps what the word promises: a dizzying ride through a feverish dreamscape of imaginary Norwegian highlands painted in cubistic shapes. Hypnotic basslines, repetitive drum patterns, new wave synths and psychedelic guitar textures covering the full width of the stereo room, all seamlessly woven into a gloomy Kraut - tapestry which sounds refreshingly_ modern, while paying tribute to the aged genre. Marco Campitelli, born and raised in Lanciano on the Southern Adriatic coast of Italy, founded OSLO TAPES in the early 2010s after a trip to the Norwegian Capital left him deeply impressed. Under the influence of this infatuation, he composed and produced OSLO TAPES' first record "OT (un cuore in pasto a pesci con teste di cane)" within a week in 2013. Supervised and supported by friend Amaury Cambuzat (faUSt / Ulan Bator), Campitelli's first attempt to capture the mystical vibe of Norway was released on DeAmbula Records (Ulan Bator, The Marigold, 7C). In 2015 he was joined by Mauro Spada and Federico Sergente (Zippo) and together they recorded OSLO TAPES' sophomore album "Tango Kalashnikov", also released on DeAmbula Records. "OR" is a much more collaborative effort for OSLO TAPES than the first two records. Next to Campitelli, the album was co-produced by Amaury Cambuzat (Ulan Bator) and James Aparicio (house engineer for Mute Records and mixing and mastering engineer for Depeche Mode, Mogwai, Nick Cave). During production, Campitelli became friends with Emil Nikolaisen of Serena Maneesh w h o guided him "through the Norwegian imagination". As a result, the record's title is also courtesy of Nikolaisen. During this journey spanning over eight songs, OSLO TAPES, completed by Mauro Spada (bass) and Davide Di Virgilio (drums and percussions) construct a dense and ever so dark atmosphere that is captivating, brooding and imaginative. After a spiraling takeoff with "Space is the place", we find ourselves floating weightlessly above the nocturnal Norwegian highlands through "Zenith" and "Kosmik Feels", an airy circulation of jazzy drums, pulsating bass lines and shimmering guitar clouds. We saddle up, gallop across the sky on "Bodo Dakar" and drift back into the night on "Cosmonaut". The trifecta of "Norwegian Dream", "Exotic Dreams" and "Obession Is The Mother of All" conclude this agitated fever dream journey. There is a sense of solitude in OSLO TAPES' compositions which makes it easy to imagine them as interstellar jam sessions between cosmonauts, each in their own isolated space capsule. Every spin of "OR" brings new discoveries: sometimes it is a noise that we did not notice before, sometimes a slight change in the drum groove, sometimes just a piece of the lyrics, meandering through our mental space. "OR" is a vertiginious journey to be remembered - and repeated. "The focus of Oslo Tapes is to harmonize the noise" says Marco Campitelli.

“In some respects, Trust is a simultaneous documentation of progression and regression. A homecoming of sorts, influenced by the interim where we developed our skills as producers and our skills as artists. Armlock, as a vehicle, seems like returning full circle to where we started.”

Trust, out June 2, 2021, is the debut release of Australian duo, Armlock. It’s a nuanced record that explores trials felt in personal growth, from resentment to submission to complacency. A quiet, thrashing gem of songcraft, the record makes as much use of the intimate, empty space as it does of its layered, heavy instrumentals. Each one of these songs conjures a summer storm of internal conflict, with the angst and uncertainty that comes with realizing that you’re finished growing, and rather than feeling a sense of ease you’re left restless and discontented.

Multi-instrumentalists Simon Lam and Hamish Mitchell met studying jazz together at Monash University in Melbourne. While rehearsing standards for a small ensemble in 2010, the two discovered their mutual hatred of the genre, opting to explore experimental, song-based electronic music. Alongside Solitaire Recordings owner, Dan Rutman, they went on to form the group I’lls, releasing four records in five years, and, later, the two went on to form Couture. Simultaneously, Lam (along with his cousin Chloe Kaul) found success with the synthpop group Kllo, amassing over 100 million streams on Spotify and critical acclaim from Pitchfork, The Guardian, GQ, NME, NYLON, and Stereogum. Lam’s solo project Nearly Oratorio (also on Solitaire Recordings) has achieved acclaim in its own right, as has Mitchell’s work as a producer and designer for artists like Jack Grace.

With their first release as Armlock, the duo maintains the depths of I’lls’ electronic soundscapes but brings the warmth of analogue instruments with Lam’s clear, disillusioned singing up front. He sounds both heartfelt and dejected in equal measure, with a dispassionate coolness that synergizes with the vulnerability of his lyrics. Live, the duo are backed by a reel-to-reel tape, with Mitchell on guitar and Lam singing, bridging their electronic past and indie present.

Shura announces a deluxe version of her acclaimed 2019 album
‘forevher’, released via Secretly Canadian.
‘forevher: Deluxe Edition’ is released on cassette and features the
eleven original album tracks with nine extras. These include acoustic
versions of five album tracks recorded and produced with Sam Evian
and featuring Hannah Cohen on backing vocals, previous Bandcamp
single ‘magazine launch (demo)’, last year’s collaborative single
‘elevator girl’ featuring Ivy Sole and two unreleased tracks including
‘obsession’.
On ‘obsession’, Shura explains: “‘obsession’ was one of the songs I
wrote whilst I was writing ‘forevher’. I always wanted it to be a duet
between two women but it never came to fruition during the recording
process. Then, when I toured ‘forevher’ in Europe, Rosie Lowe came
with us and we’d always spoken about wanting to collaborate on
something together and I suddenly remembered this song, which I loved
but had somehow never finished. I sent the track across to Ro and when
she sent back her rough take I was like ‘YES. this is it.’”
With ‘forevher’, Shura’s immediately identifiable way with love, touch and
how we talk about it reached even greater creative heights. Having
moved from West London to New York following her adored 2016 debut,
,Nothing’s Real,, it’s all mirrored in a lyrical journey from rejection and
loss to desire, long-distance love and the prospect of how we make
something real actually work.
In 2020, Shura emerged as one of contemporary pop’s accidental
trailblazers. A frank, funny voice in the LGBTQ+ community whose
contribution to the paradigm-shift in the cultural landscape cannot be
underestimated.
Written primarily about Shura’s relationship with her girlfriend and their
long-distance conception, ‘forevher’ traces everything from the initial pull
of desire to that first real life meeting (‘the stage’), before recognising
when the connection develops into something scarily meaningful. It’s a
classic NYC-to-London love story but one told through the totally modern
filter of dating apps, unanswered texts, Skype chats and MUNA gigs.
And whilst how to live - and love - as a queer woman has always been
integral to Shura, it’s remarkable to hear these stories twisted through
such a gorgeous amalgam of influences: Joni Mitchell and Minnie
Riperton, Bon Iver and Frank Ocean, Prince and Ariel Pink. Through
these inspirations, Shura’s own modern, outlier perspective found a
newer, more daring approach to sound and song.

Green yellow red splatter vinyl
Into the Future’ is the ninth studio album by the American hardcore punk band Bad Brains, which was originally released on November 20, 2012 on Megaforce Records.
t is a tribute dedication to Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys, a longtime friend of he band who died of cancer six months before its release, and produced their previous album ‘Build a Nation’
This “Into The Future’ vinyl reissue is on green, yellow and red splatter vinyl in gatefold packaging featuring cover art by Shepard Fairey, a street artist who became widely known with his Barrack Obama “Hope” poster used in his 2008 campaign. His work has been included in many contemporary art museums luding the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Demon Records presents the narrated TV soundtrack of a partially ‘lost’ six-part adventure set in a
future Ice Age, starring Patrick Troughton as the Doctor.
The Doctor and his friends land on Earth in the future, and find it in the grip of a new Ice Age.
They join a team of scientists struggling to hold back the huge glaciers that threaten all human
life. A giant creature is discovered inside the ice and quickly comes to monstrous life – it’s an Ice
Warriors from Mars! It intends to find its crashed spaceship, where a whole crew of Warriors is
waiting to be revived…
Presented across a trio of 140g Molten Ice vinyl discs, this 1967 TV soundtrack – only four
episodes of which survive as film recordings - is narrated by Frazer Hines, who co-stars as the
Doctor’s companion Jamie, with Deborah Watling as Victoria. The guest cast includes Bernard
Bresslaw as the Ice Warrior Varga, Peter Barkworth as Leader Clent, and Peter Sallis as Penley.
Incidental music is by Dudley Simpson, and the familiar strains of the Doctor Who theme are
courtesy of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
The coloured LPs are presented in fully illustrated sleeves which, when assembled together, form
the cover image. Original episode billings, and full cast and credits, are included.
Dummedy-dum, Dummedy-dum, Dummedy-dum, Dum-dum…

LP edition of the sold out CD/Pamphlet from 2016. The score by Schmid, reading by Landry, and edited/produced by McCann. Includes a big poster of The St. Francis List.

Emily Martin and Derek Baron on St. Francis (Feb. 2021):

What does it mean to pray? To address someone, to plead for something, to welcome humiliation and failure: Please, let me forget about the China Chalet parties, please let there be no countries and no war, please let me love you. Is prayer iteration, or just repetition: My god, my god, my god, my god… To know spleen you just have to be down to be humiliated. But do we know for sure that we are miserable? How do we know?

This is how it has to go. We listened to this for the first time together in May 2017, while driving from Chicago to New York along the I-80 in Pennsylvania, stopping at the rest area that I later mistook for the famous picture of American “culture.” We stayed at a hotel and may have ordered a pizza. Content first, then, content again. Went inside and drank wine in relative silence, burping. Recognizing the sacredness in the plot of Friends. A choral melisma representative of holy Joy.

The dreams of moving through a convoluted space of passages, staircases, open courtyards, rooms just glimpsed past a door. It doesn’t seem possible that you can get from one place to the next but according to the logic of the dream you do. I think this has to do with how each little unit of ‘content’ happens at a different distance from your ear. The holiness of the periphery. That you can catch a shard of history if you only find the right distance to stand from the painting.

But prayer is also like the magic language we were talking about — faith that words do something more than just mean — they have the capacity to effect change in the world, and not just in the like, “words change ppl’s minds” kind of way, but in that the words themselves actually have agency. Form: sing-along.

Psionic is pleased to present a true pioneer of NYC’s underground, Reade Truth. True to his name and true to the game, he delivers “Very Likely (U Will Like Me),” three emotively expressive cuts expertly revealing the artist at his fundamental core. “Close Call, Unknown Bass,” ushers in a myriad of tough, analog percussion, pacey bass, and plenty of modulated acid to set the floor ablaze. “Very Likely (U Will Like Me)” is refreshingly assertive with its impenitent bass, overdriven percussion, and unrelenting synths. “Unknown Tomb, Ancient Race,” adopts a more cerebral approach, opting for mechanical bass, mind-bending synths, and stripped-back percussion. Together, they form an uncompromised creation without reservation, an embodiment of what Truth does best.

Cousins Gilberto and Karin Rodriguez have been steadily synthesizing a unique type of musical and cultural fusion together as Almas Fronterizas. Blending their lived experiences in Mexico City, Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area with a musical lineage paying homage to their Indigenous roots, they've created a representative musical offering, a modern day psychedelic sonic painting of analog blues, rock, and brown-eyed soul.

The group's first several releases, via their own imprint Discos Pistolas y Saguaros, solidified their space in a wide encompassing and constant changing West Coast music scene, yet stood out with an experimental freedom and independent hustle that found kindred spirits in New York City record label Names You Can Trust.

Now, after a suitable time marinating together with NYCT, a natural continuation of the group's ethos is presented in the form of two new songs on 7-inch vinyl. Featuring a third cousin in Carlos Rodriguez on trumpet, plus percussive powerhouse Ahkeel Mestayer on timbales, conga and maracas, Brian Tuley on flute, Devin Hollister on bass and horn arrangements by La Doña's Cecilia Peña-Govea, the tracks were recorded in Berkeley by Mike Walti and mixed down in Brooklyn for a true coast to coast collaboration. Out in the front, Gilberto's vocals drive drop-top down, wide open and honest in melancholic blue notes, whether he's motoring down the highway over northern soul-with-a-hook A-side, "Cruel Desperation," or cruising on the avenue in the slow-motion B-side ballad burner, "Linda Morenita," it's another showcase of the tremendous range of style and engaging expression that this group can hit.

Ahemaa Nwomkro, which means queens of Nwomkro, are Victoria Osei and Theresa Owusuaa. Nwomkro is an old Ashanti musical style, which played an influential role in the origin of the typical more roots-like Highlife style of Kumasi, the cultural capital of Ghana in the middle of the jungle.

On this release the two singers have teamed up with the young generation of Highlife muicians of Kumasi. On guitar is Akule Pepe, who served for years in the group of Highlife legend Alex Konadu, the most on demand band in its time. The two songs are a rare example of how good pure Nwomkro gets together with typical Highlife.

The idea for the album came in summer 2020. At first I only played around on my piano for myself. More and more ideas came up and I started to take recordings. After producing electronic music for more than 20 years and publishing it under different names, the corona pandemic slowed life down. No more gigs, clubs closed, festivals
canceled. For me the chance to try new things and find a new way to make music.

Without the club context, I was free in my mind. Making music right out of myself was a liberating feeling. I could do what had been dormant in me for a long time. There were attempts now and then, but in the end I couldn't get rid of the feeling of always
doing techno. Nice too, but not everything for me.
Many inspirations of my music come from artists such as Nils Frahm, Ólafur Arnalds, Yann Tiersen, Martin Kohlstedt, Poppy Ackroyd and many others, as well as nature, forest and city noises. And often from the instruments themselves.

I switched my setup in the studio from the electronic to a minimalist instrument setup, just piano, double bass and a Moog synthesizer. I also like the background noise that comes from an instrument, like the hammers and dampers on the piano, the fingerboard and bow noises of the double bass. So I tried a lot of recording
techniques and microphones until I found the sound I was looking for.

After a few recordings, a number of pieces came together that went well together. I decided to finish it as an album. Some of them are one-takes with the associated imperfections, others are recorded and arranged layer by layer in the studio. I also used field recordings. A warm summer rain was the starting point for "Rain".
The album will be released in May 2021 as a limited vinyl edition and digitally on my newly founded label "Feldeffekt".

Bachelor, the new project from Melina Duterte (Jay Som) and Ellen Kempner (Palehound), is not a band, it’s a friend-ship. After being mutual fans for years, they finally met when sharing the bill at a show in Sacramento in 2017. Keeping in touch over text and Instagram posts, Duterte and Kempner started recording together for fun in 2018, resulting with what would become "Sand Angel", the seductive slow-burner that convinced the pair to write an album together.

Reconvening in January 2020, the duo packed the entirety of Duterte’s recording equipment into two cars and headed to a rental house in Topanga, CA. In this space Kempner and Duterte hybridized their individual song-writing talents, producing a collection that slips between moods with ease and showcases their lyrical prowess. Arriving with almost no songs written and no solid plan, they

finished the 10 songs that make up Doomin’ Sun after two short weeks. That much work in so little time may sound exhausting, but it wasn’t, it was blissful and freeing.

There was a lot of pain that went into the record, especially around themes of queerness and climate change inspired by the red skies and wildfires subsuming Australia at the time. However, when the duo did shed tears during the creative process, they weren’t tears of sadness, they were tears of laughter. When Kempner and Duterte look back on those weeks, what they remember first is shortness of breath and the inability to track vocal takes without falling to the floor howling. They couldn’t remember a time they’d ever been so delirious with creativity, so overwhelmed with joy.

The trio of fiddle player Erlend Apneseth with guitarist Stephan Meidell and drummer Oyvind Hegg-Lunde follows up their Nordic Prize-nominated album of 2019, ‘Salika, Molika’, with a remarkable suite of tunes inspired by the rhythms and physicality of the human body in motion.
Originally commissioned by FRIKAR Dance Company to accompany the performance of a new work, ‘Skaut’, dealing with the covering of the body in different cultures, the music of ‘Lokk’ takes the trio further than ever before into completely fresh areas of electro-acoustic improvisation.
The sounds of their original instruments are integrated with electronic beats and treated textures to form a kind of enhanced digital-folk style whose influences stretch from traditional south Asian ragas to contemporary dance culture from around the globe.
The result is intense, and intensely rhythmic, music where the normally separate realms of the cerebral and the corporeal can appear to fuse into one irresistible groove.
As the trio rocks on - in a dream of perfect interplay between instruments and players, soloists and ensemble - deep, trembling sub-bass intersects with ethereal ambient soundscapes. Elsewhere, the twittering of birdsong - from both real bird-calls and the uncanny imitation of them by Apneseth’s Hardanger fiddle - meets archival recordings of Norwegian herdswomen.
“Our musical idea for this project was to unite different extremes, connections that felt “forbidden” in one form or another”, says Stephan Meidell. “For example, by using the sampled recording of traditional herd-calling, blended together with aesthetics from more contemporary music styles. This exploration has led us further into a rhythmic and danceable landscape than in previous releases. We also wanted to use this opportunity to deliberately make more dance-related music. As regards the original commission, were pretty free to do what we wanted, but there was one specific dance in mind, ‘Valdresspringar’, for which Erlend wrote the melody. It’s a traditional, asymmetrical dance and has a very particular form. The melody is on the track called ‘Springar’, which we then messed around with.”
This “messing around with” element is key to the sound of ‘Lokk’, whose playful experimentation over the nine separate tracks creates a beguiling, constantly surprising sense of adventure and intrigue that both draws the listener in, and then keeps them on their toes as to where the next stage of the journey will take them. It also becomes inescapably obvious that this is a group of three equals.
The contributions of Stephan Meidell and Oyvind Hegg-Lunde, as musicians, co-composers and producers, appear every bit as important as that of Erlend Apneseth, who performs superbly throughout. “Even though the trio carries Erlend’s name, it’s a band in every sense of the word”, says Stephan Meidell. “We make the music together, where everyone brings their ideas and we build on each other’s input and output. This is not our “coming out” as a band, but the group is sometimes interpreted as having a hierarchical structure, as a soloist and accompaniment.”
As is evident from the trio’s live performances, where each member seamlessly integrates the acoustic and the electronic elements in their respective sounds through constant monitoring and tweaking, Apneseth, Meidell and Hegg-Lunde are also pioneers,
creating real-time effects that in the past were only available through post-production or the intervention of a sympathetic engineer and a truck-load of kit. ‘Lokk’ translates this fleet-footed improvisational approach, and the players’ lightning-speed reaction times, back into the environment of the recording studio, where the music composed for the original FRIKAR dance piece was further embellished and adapted. Played live, it will continue to change again, as improvised music always does.

A fresh and open music, delicate and space-conscious, is shaped as
drummer Thomas Stronen and Ayumi Tanaka, previously heard in the
ensemble Time Is A Blind Guide on ‘Lucus’, resurface in a new trio with clarinettist/singer/percussionist Marthe Lea.
The group first came together at Oslo’s Royal Academy of Music, where for two years the players would meet each week for exploratory music making.
Stronen: “We always played freely- drifting between elements of contemporary classical music, folk music, jazz, whatever we were inspired by. Sometimes the music was very quiet and minimalistic: playing together generated some special experiences.”
The spontaneous spirit of the music is reflected in the trio’s debut recording, which was made at the Lugano radio studio and produced by Manfred Eicher.
With the exception of the title piece, based on a traditional Norwegian tune, the music on Bayou was collectively created in the moment.

Offering a multi-faceted LGBT+ experience, this stellar 1LP, pressed onto rose coloured vinyl, brings together old and new for the most fabulous musical accompaniment to your 2021 summer. £1 from each unit sold, will be donated to Stonewall in support of their work towards LGBT+ equality.

Side A, entitled ‘Queer Club Classics’, provides the perfect throwback snapshot of all your favourite queer tracks, including worldwide hits such as Cher’s “Believe” and Chaka Khan’s “I’m Every Woman”.

Whilst Side B, entitled ‘New Age Anthems’, is an assortment of the best music from more recent years. This collection combines tracks from LGBTQ+ artists such as the indie-legends Tegan and Sara, and pop pioneer L Devine, as well as popular songs within the LGBTQ+ community such as Lizzo’s charismatic feel-good bop, ‘Juice’.

After missing out on Pride celebrations in 2020 and with the summer of 2021 set to be the start of a long-awaited celebration of freedom, this vinyl release is a surefire way to keep up your spirits right the way through to summer 2022.

81355 (pronounced `bless') is a meeting of the minds between three pillars of the Indianapolis music scene; Sirius Blvck, Oreo Jones, and Sedcairn Archives. While the three have worked together in the past, this is their first start-to-finish collaboration, and the result is the stunning and distinctive debut Time I'll Be of Use. Simultaneously mystical and stark, somber and danceable, the project grapples with hard-wired truths and imagines alternate realities with better futures. These lucid wanderings amongst the street fires sound like a cross between the ghost of progressive electronic music of the 70s with its innovative eccentricities, and acrobatic wordplay delivered with sharp resolve. While surrealist in its metaphors and abstraction, it doesn't betray a present awareness. Reflecting on Black struggle in the pandemicridden and democracy faltering landscape of 2020, each member arrived from a synchronistic space, and the recording process ended up being largely intuitive. On "Capstone," the opening track on the album, Sirius Blvck offers a look from inside his space, "This is what we've come to. Generational curses I still can't undo. Just taught my lil girl to tie her shoes now she running to. Holy smokes lungs made of leather like it's comfortable. Climbing up this infinite ladder to get a better view." These three musical vagabonds have met up to find even themselves surprised with the results. Drawing inspiration from the likes of biting poetic commentary of the late Naptown residents, Etheridge Knight and Kurt Vonnegut, OJ summons a golden-era flow and paints a picture of the group's influences, surroundings, and trajectory in one fell swoop in "Thumbs Up." "Alright, in my feelings tonight, Honda Civic overturned as it burns through the night. Bone Thugs in these streets no Surender in sight. I'm writing poems from a jail cell, Etheridge Knight. I throw a fit when I flip it, it's all vintage. A pearl white Bronco like OJ you done did it. The sunshine shatters the rock painted so vivid. Two-hundred fifty pounds of gifted we so lifted_ wassup?" Sirius, with poetry present even in his speaking voice, adds, "It's a way to carve our story in the sky before we're gone. This is us choosing to believe that this time, things will be different. It is an affirmation to the universe. This time I'll see the whole blessing. This time I'll be of use."

‘Bad Time’ is the new EP from Peeping Drexels. The London based 5-piece, who have been together since they were sixteen, have to date released a series of singles on the Permanent Creeps and Fierce Panda labels. This is their first release on BY Records. They've previously received support from the likes of Steve Lamacq, DIY, So Young among others. They've also performed live with artists such as Shame, Goat Girl and Public Practice.

First single, High Heels, sees Peeping Drexels eulogise about white pills and night thrills - anxious overtones abound until the crescendo of guttural angst takes over. "High Heels is a dimly lit journey through the narrow corridors and backrooms of a twisted underground club, all whilst under the influence of an unknown substance. The song is the first taste of Peeping Drexels rebirth; experimental new sounds, broader instrumentation, yet pop music to the bone. A never ending loop of bad-trip fuelled excess, and there is no way to escape."

Prior to lockdown, Peeping Drexels played a Sold Out Parallel Lines headline show at London’s Bermondsey Social Club and ended it with a sold out main support slot for Fat White Family at EartH (Evolutionary Arts Hackney).

The project takes influences from a broad musical spectrum, from the dance vibes of Gary Numan and Mr. Fingers to the intensity of Tyler The Creators' synth-heavy Cherry Bomb and the maximalist work of Kanye West.