Suche:too deep

Malmo Traxx is back with a Limited edition solo EP from Malmo legend Somoah. A five-tracker with heavy techno-electro club tools from up North. Wet haunting electro bass lines, atmospheric deep pads and trippy trance textures. 300 copies, no repress. Do not miss!

Some 30 years after first putting on a slab of vinyl in front of an audience Belgian DJ mainstay Red D presents his debut album called ‘Fantasize Then Realize’ under his Red Basics guise. An experienced and versatile DJ if ever there is one, it was logical that his album takes in a wealth of influences from around the house and techno block and features some of his best musical friends and inspirations. From his ‘go to’ singer Lady Linn, to his musical friend and partner in FCL San Soda via Belgian stronghold Lefto, to his Detroit buddy Reggie Dokes: these are the people Red D has been working with and learning from for years on end.

The music ranges from the dreamy beatless title track to the sleazy spoken word ‘Just Like Hercules’ up to the Larry Heard-inspired deepness ‘Compelled’ and including the melancholy of ‘The Larkin’.

Locked down during the first months of the Covid 19 madness Red D had no more ‘I’m too busy to get into the studio’ excuses and all the inspiration gathered during the countless hours of DJ’ing and listening to records in the last 30 years simply poured out. Making track after track was daily (and nightly) business and after a while the idea of a full album simply came naturally. The next lockdowns were spent fine-tuning the tracks, coming up with lyrics and finalizing the tracklist.

The result is ‘Fantasize Then Realize’, Red D’s debut album and a testament to his sound and attitude.



DJ FEEDBACK:

Mousse T:”22 Shoulders, hell yeah!”
Laurent Garnier: “Thanks a lot for these tracks. There’s some lovelyyyyyyy deeeeeepness in there. Love it.”
Levon Vincent: “I gave the LP a listen, nice one! I thought ‘Devious Monday’ was captivating and I liked the work with Classy Lassy as well. Congrats!”
Ka§par:"When a guys knows what he's doing, it sounds like it's real. Great tracks, loving it more and more the further we go."
Roberto Rodriguez: "Classy album! Red D quality!"
Nacho Marco: "Loving it, hard to pick a favorite. Thanks!!"
Kong: "Big up Bart, well done. Belgium = house = Red D!!"
Melon: "House music represent! Love it, feel it & gonna drop it. Great stuff :)"
Simon Caldwell: "Some really special house music on this album. Many thanks!!"
OOFT!: "Yes! This sounds amazing! Authentic underground house music just the way I like it :)"
Massimiliano Pagliara: "Nice tunes!"
Tomaz: "We all knew Bart knows where it's at but this is ridiculously good. Hard to pick a fave. The collabs are great, so are the ‘solo’ tracks. I picked the single with Lien as fave because that'll hopefully draw the deserved attention to the rest of the album. Top marks !"
Juliano: "Congrats for your album Bart ! love the deepness of the tracks and the authenticity you brought. Thank you"
Harri: "Liking these a lot, will play and support."
Alex Barck: "That's a great piece of work"
Quintessentials: "All around fantastic album! Congrats!"
Lauer: "Respect, amigo!"
Darko Esser: "Beautiful album, congrats mate great work!"

Welcome to the third part of the TELE MUSIC saga, the label founded by Roger Tokarz. He deeply marked the era with his audacity and his vision of music on film. This irresistible new selection tells the story from 1968 to 1985 of a prolific label that sometimes produced ten albums a year, and which delighted many French and foreign film directors who, to 'flavour' their films, drew on this sumptuous catalogue.
In this volume 3 TELE MUSIC, we have highlighted legendary artists who have left an indelible mark on the history of the music bookshop and on the history of music in general:

• Janko Nilovic (also known as Yanko Nilovic, Anady Loore, E. Orti or Alan Blackwell),
• Jean-Jacques Debout with his irresistible “Mitsuko” released in 1967 and re-released in 1969 on “Music Bazaar”, • Bernard Lubat, the impressive percussionist, vibraphonist, multi-instrumentalist and very good “scator” (Bernard played in the Doubles Six with Quincy Jones and Eddy Louiss),
• Gabriel Yared, the man with a hundred film scores. Arranger and composer for Johnny Hallyday and Charles Aznavour, among others!
• Hervé Roy conductor and writer for Nancy Holloway,
• George Chatelain, pianist, guitarist, clarinettist, founder of the famous studio “CBE” created in 1966 with his sister Janine Bisson and his high school friend Bernard Estardy.

All these composers were renowned for their acute sense of composition, arrangement, conducting and inter- pretation, and in their own way left their mark on many sound recordings of musical illustration "made in France!
CBE, the Chatelain, Bisson and Estardy studio is located in the 18th arrondissement of Paris. Still in operation and run by Julie Estardy, it has been receiving major artists for over half a century. It is a place of reference. At the time: Johnny Hallyday, Claude François, Sheila, Carlos, Françoise Hardy, Nino Ferrer recorded their hits there.
Now it's the turn of Sebastien Tellier, Bertrand Burgalat, Keziah Jones, Tony Allen, Jeff Miles to name but a few. CBE and its giant Bernard Estardy put TELE MUSIC in the best conditions to produce an atypical and powerful sound.
Bernard Estardy had a custom- built mixing console built by his German friend Gunther Loof, offering the perfect tool for recording 4 and then 32-track Arp 2000, Moog, Korg, Prophet synthesizers and all acoustic instruments. The field of experi- mentation was limitless.
Until now, the titles of this collection were only available in vinyl format, via rare and expensive prints that collectors sell for a high price on dedicated websites. This volume 3 gives you access to the "crème de la crème" of the legendary repertoire made in France!

After releasing their highly anticipated singles "This Is Going South" , "Dive Deep Down" , "The Problem"and "Bad" earlier this year,Stockholm based unit DULL.The Album contains everything the die-hard fans of early 00"s alt rock could ask for - the down strokes, theguitar melodies, the sing-along chorus and an intensity that only keeps on increasing throughout the relativelyshort track.Canan Rosén, guitar and vocals, on their new single:"This track deals with that feeling you get once you see someone for who they really are and realize what a loserthis person is and always has been. There"s too many people who claim to be something they"re not or claim todo something they can"t. Time to come down off your high horse and face reality!"The members of DULL are no strangers to the Swedish rock and punk community. Hailing from acts such as Dead Vibrations, Twin Pigs, Tiger Bell, Mary"s Kids and Boris and The Jeltsins DULL are certain not to be dull at all. DULL consists of: Canan Rosén - Guitar/vocals Max Lindén - Bass Louise Erdman - Guitar/vocals Elias Jonsson - Drums DULL manages to take an uneven combination of alternative combination of alternative rock, punk, and Indie and turn it into something that works. Works pretty damn well. Don"t be dull, enjoy music!

Renaldo Domino
Chicago Soul Legend
Born March 27th 1950) from “The Valley” around 49th & Forestville.
He was nicknamed Domino because his voice was sweet as sugar, Domino being an American sugar brand name.
Renaldo Domino blasted onto the fertile Chicago soul scene of the late 60's with a voice as sweet as sugar and deep grooves that sound just as fresh five decades later. Releasing singles on Mercury subsidiaries Smash and Blue Rock, and later Twinight records, Renaldo’s all-too-brief career has still managed to leave an impact to all those lucky enough to hear it.
He had a relatively short recording career releasing only 7 singles between 1967-1971. His first 45 was recorded whilst he was still attending high school on a tiny label Arnell on a low budget.
The Arnell 45 did well enough for him to get signed to Smash (a Mercury subsidiary) where he released two 45s, re-recording 'I'm Hip To Your Game' for his second Smash single, as it's a different version to the one released on Arnell. His third 45 was released on another Mercury subsidiary, the now revived Blue Rock which had been 'suspended' since 1966 and reacivated in 1968. The records sold reasonably well locally but Dominio left to join Twinight, feeling that his material wasn't being promoted by Mercury, where he released a further three singles between 1969-71. Twinight released him in 1971 and despite trying to get another recording contract he was unsuccessful and left the music business to pursue another career.
He was managed by William Sandy Johnson who also managed LaShawn Collins and Wendy Woods who recorded on Johnson's Sincere label, the only 2 releases on the label. He also wrote Renaldo Domino's first 4 A sides: 'I'm Getting Nearer To Your Love', 'Just Say The Word', 'Not Too Cool To Cry', 'Let Me Come Within'. In addition he wrote 'Do It Now' for Wendy Woods and the flip to LaShawn Collin's classic 'What You Gonna Do Now', 'Girl Chooses The Boy'.
Renaldo returned to the spotlight in 2007 when the Chicago reissue powerhouse Numero Group put him on the cover of their deluxe box set Eccentric Soul: Twinight's Lunar Rotation (which included other greats Syl Johnson, The Notations, and many more). Renaldo’s performing career began to flourish once again with shows around country.
In early 2019 Renaldo teamed up with producer Jeremy Kay and arranger JB Flatt and set out to record new tracks that would live up to Renaldo’s great early records. Assembling a crack team of Brooklyn’s best they pulled out all the stops, creating a mix between the lush arrangements of Chicago’s early soul style and the hard-hitting beat of current Brooklyn soul. The new single “No Laggin’ & Draggin’” / “Give Up The Love”, released Feb 2020, is now available on Colemine Records.
Backed by The Heavy Sounds, Renaldo’s live performances continue to deliver with passion and precision, making new fans young and old.

​

DOUBLE BLACK LP : 2 x 140 G Black Vinyl , Sleeve & 2 x Heavy Weight Printed Inner with UV Gloss Finish

Legendary electronic music duo Orbital return Early 2023 with new album “Optical Delusion”, the Hartnoll brothers first studio album since 2018’s Monster’s Exist. Recorded in Orbital’s Brighton studio, “Optical Delusion” includes contributions from Sleaford Mods, Penelope Isles, Anna B Savage, The Little Pest, Dina Ipavic, Coppe, and perhaps most surprisingly, The Medieval Baebes.
Earlier this year, Orbital celebrated their storied history with “30 Something” which, unlike other Best Of’s, contains reworks, remakes, remixes and re-imaginings of landmark Orbital tracks including “Chime”, “Belfast”, “Halcyon”, “Satan”, and “The Box”

SHORT BIOG:

“A human being experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest of humanity – a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison…”

You many have seen this quote attributed to Albert Einstein on social media, the archetypal Smartest Guy Ever apparently having an out-of-character religious epiphany. It certainly leapt out at Paul Hartnoll of Orbital who spotted it in Michael Pollan’s 2018 book How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression and Transcendence.

“As soon as I saw ‘optical delusion’ I thought Oh hey, that’s the album title,” says Paul. “It just seemed to say so much about how people construct their own realities, how we see patterns that aren’t there, how we see what we want to see.

“But it’s actually a misquote. He never quite said that. In the German original what he’s really saying is that human experience is as relative as physics. Wouldn’t it be good if we could accept that, and find a kind of universal theory of everything for the human race? Then you look at everything from history to art to your Twitter feed and you think yeah, that’s what we’re all trying to do all of the time…”

Hence ‘Optical Delusion’, the tenth original Orbital album and the latest in a burst of renewed post-pandemic creativity for two brothers who’ve stayed at the top of their game longer than anyone from the post-1988 Class of Acid House.

Now with ‘Optical Delusion’ the Hartnolls dig deeper into the unquiet psyche of our increasingly surreal and disordered world. Sketched out partly during lockdown but fully recorded in the uncertain After Times, the album summons up conflicting emotions and sometimes beguiling images from years when the science fiction doomsdays that the Hartnolls watched on TV as kids finally came true. There are mesmeric tracks with names like ‘The New Abnormal’ and ‘Requiem For The Pre-Apocalypse’ and ‘Day One’. But there are also straight-up bangers and ethereal cosmic dreams, abstract sound wars and deeply human songs of separation and loss.

And it all starts with a bang. Lead single ‘Dirty Rat’, an outright Fall-meets-Front-242 class rant with vocals by Sleaford Mods mob orator Jason Williamson, harks right back to the Hartnolls’ days of politicised anarcho-squatpunk. It began as a remix swap (Orbital did the Sleafords’ ‘I Don’t Rate You’) and morphed into a comic, brutal, bass-driven harangue not so much against our rulers but at the petty, mean-spirited, frightened, Mail-reading voters who put them there: the people who are “blaming everyone in hospital/blaming everyone at the bottom of the English Channel/blaming everyone who doesn’t look like a fried animal.”

Also key to the album is opening track ‘Ringa Ringa (The Old Pandemic Folk Song)’ which returns to an Orbital truism, that time always becomes a loop. This chugging, cyclical Orbital groove gives way to an unnerving past-meets-present timeslip fit for ‘Sapphire And Steel’ as goth maenads The Mediaeval Baebes materialise to sing ‘Ring O’Roses’ – the innocent nursery rhyme whose roots are in the Black Death.

“I’ve always liked folk music and mediaeval sounds,” says Paul, himself an occasional Morris dancer. “I had the basis of that track and I wanted to spin it off somehow.” Trawling his archives he stumbled on The Mediaeval Baebes’ version of ‘Ring O’Roses’ “and my hackles just went up. I was like, my God, this is the original pandemic folk song.”

?his being Orbital, there are collaborations galore on the album, the roles once played by Alison Goldfrapp, Lady Leshurr or David Gray now filled by new talents. London singer-songwriter Anna B Savage contributes a compellingly fragile, Anohni-like vocal to ‘Home’, in which nature reclaims the scorched and vacant mega-cities. ‘Day One’ is a pulsing techno track featuring the singer Dina Ipavic. Paul got in touch with her after working on a score for a sculpture show of giant robotic installations by his friend Giles Walker during the pandemic. First Paul cut up his own score and Ipavic’s vocals on the track The Crane, which appears on the deluxe version of the album. Then he thought, Why not work with her for real? The result is school of ‘Belfast’, a bassy dreamscape with vocalised clouds billowing above.

The pensive ‘Are You ?live?’ adds to the Orbital product range of existential questions (‘Are We Here?’, ‘Where Is It Going?’) in collaboration Bella Union signings Penelope Isles, AKA brother and sister act Lily and Jack Wolter. “They’re our studio mates, they work upstairs!” says Paul happily. “And they’ve both got amazing voices.”


But Orbital are Orbital and never far from the dancefloor. “Eventually the more abrasive bits came back into the fold…” ‘You Are The Frequency’, first of two tracks to feature mysterious vocalist The Little Pest, surrounds the listener with warped voices ordering you to the dancefloor (Phil: “we wanted the idea that the music is kind of absorbing you”). And the second, the sinister ‘What A Surprise’, traps you in a paranoid electronic hall of mirrors.

In another nod to Orbital’s resurgent past the cover artwork once again comes from fine art painter John Greenwood, creator of fantastical grotesques for the covers of ‘Snivilisation’, ‘In Sides’ and Orbital’s most recent album, 2018’s ‘Monsters Exist’. Orbital had just had a slick Mark Farrow cover for ‘30 Something’ – this is a return to the overripe and bulbous techno-organic constructions that somehow express Orbital’s own uncontrollably fertile sound.

There are gaps in the future that Orbital are desperate to fill too; there will be tours and festivals and rooms and fields full of people. Those long paralysed months when we had little to look forward to but a Zoom DJ set made Paul and Phil appreciate the things that make life worth living.

2 x Solid White LP, 5mm spine Sleeve UV Gloss Finish, 2x Heavy Weight Printed Inner Sleeve UV Gloss finish, marketing sticker.

Legendary electronic music duo Orbital return Early 2023 with new album “Optical Delusion”, the Hartnoll brothers first studio album since 2018’s Monster’s Exist. Recorded in Orbital’s Brighton studio, “Optical Delusion” includes contributions from Sleaford Mods, Penelope Isles, Anna B Savage, The Little Pest, Dina Ipavic, Coppe, and perhaps most surprisingly, The Medieval Baebes.
Earlier this year, Orbital celebrated their storied history with “30 Something” which, unlike other Best Of’s, contains reworks, remakes, remixes and re-imaginings of landmark Orbital tracks including “Chime”, “Belfast”, “Halcyon”, “Satan”, and “The Box”

SHORT BIOG:

“A human being experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest of humanity – a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison…”

You many have seen this quote attributed to Albert Einstein on social media, the archetypal Smartest Guy Ever apparently having an out-of-character religious epiphany. It certainly leapt out at Paul Hartnoll of Orbital who spotted it in Michael Pollan’s 2018 book How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression and Transcendence.

“As soon as I saw ‘optical delusion’ I thought Oh hey, that’s the album title,” says Paul. “It just seemed to say so much about how people construct their own realities, how we see patterns that aren’t there, how we see what we want to see.

“But it’s actually a misquote. He never quite said that. In the German original what he’s really saying is that human experience is as relative as physics. Wouldn’t it be good if we could accept that, and find a kind of universal theory of everything for the human race? Then you look at everything from history to art to your Twitter feed and you think yeah, that’s what we’re all trying to do all of the time…”

Hence ‘Optical Delusion’, the tenth original Orbital album and the latest in a burst of renewed post-pandemic creativity for two brothers who’ve stayed at the top of their game longer than anyone from the post-1988 Class of Acid House.

Now with ‘Optical Delusion’ the Hartnolls dig deeper into the unquiet psyche of our increasingly surreal and disordered world. Sketched out partly during lockdown but fully recorded in the uncertain After Times, the album summons up conflicting emotions and sometimes beguiling images from years when the science fiction doomsdays that the Hartnolls watched on TV as kids finally came true. There are mesmeric tracks with names like ‘The New Abnormal’ and ‘Requiem For The Pre-Apocalypse’ and ‘Day One’. But there are also straight-up bangers and ethereal cosmic dreams, abstract sound wars and deeply human songs of separation and loss.

And it all starts with a bang. Lead single ‘Dirty Rat’, an outright Fall-meets-Front-242 class rant with vocals by Sleaford Mods mob orator Jason Williamson, harks right back to the Hartnolls’ days of politicised anarcho-squatpunk. It began as a remix swap (Orbital did the Sleafords’ ‘I Don’t Rate You’) and morphed into a comic, brutal, bass-driven harangue not so much against our rulers but at the petty, mean-spirited, frightened, Mail-reading voters who put them there: the people who are “blaming everyone in hospital/blaming everyone at the bottom of the English Channel/blaming everyone who doesn’t look like a fried animal.”

Also key to the album is opening track ‘Ringa Ringa (The Old Pandemic Folk Song)’ which returns to an Orbital truism, that time always becomes a loop. This chugging, cyclical Orbital groove gives way to an unnerving past-meets-present timeslip fit for ‘Sapphire And Steel’ as goth maenads The Mediaeval Baebes materialise to sing ‘Ring O’Roses’ – the innocent nursery rhyme whose roots are in the Black Death.

“I’ve always liked folk music and mediaeval sounds,” says Paul, himself an occasional Morris dancer. “I had the basis of that track and I wanted to spin it off somehow.” Trawling his archives he stumbled on The Mediaeval Baebes’ version of ‘Ring O’Roses’ “and my hackles just went up. I was like, my God, this is the original pandemic folk song.”

?his being Orbital, there are collaborations galore on the album, the roles once played by Alison Goldfrapp, Lady Leshurr or David Gray now filled by new talents. London singer-songwriter Anna B Savage contributes a compellingly fragile, Anohni-like vocal to ‘Home’, in which nature reclaims the scorched and vacant mega-cities. ‘Day One’ is a pulsing techno track featuring the singer Dina Ipavic. Paul got in touch with her after working on a score for a sculpture show of giant robotic installations by his friend Giles Walker during the pandemic. First Paul cut up his own score and Ipavic’s vocals on the track The Crane, which appears on the deluxe version of the album. Then he thought, Why not work with her for real? The result is school of ‘Belfast’, a bassy dreamscape with vocalised clouds billowing above.

The pensive ‘Are You ?live?’ adds to the Orbital product range of existential questions (‘Are We Here?’, ‘Where Is It Going?’) in collaboration Bella Union signings Penelope Isles, AKA brother and sister act Lily and Jack Wolter. “They’re our studio mates, they work upstairs!” says Paul happily. “And they’ve both got amazing voices.”


But Orbital are Orbital and never far from the dancefloor. “Eventually the more abrasive bits came back into the fold…” ‘You Are The Frequency’, first of two tracks to feature mysterious vocalist The Little Pest, surrounds the listener with warped voices ordering you to the dancefloor (Phil: “we wanted the idea that the music is kind of absorbing you”). And the second, the sinister ‘What A Surprise’, traps you in a paranoid electronic hall of mirrors.

In another nod to Orbital’s resurgent past the cover artwork once again comes from fine art painter John Greenwood, creator of fantastical grotesques for the covers of ‘Snivilisation’, ‘In Sides’ and Orbital’s most recent album, 2018’s ‘Monsters Exist’. Orbital had just had a slick Mark Farrow cover for ‘30 Something’ – this is a return to the overripe and bulbous techno-organic constructions that somehow express Orbital’s own uncontrollably fertile sound.

There are gaps in the future that Orbital are desperate to fill too; there will be tours and festivals and rooms and fields full of people. Those long paralysed months when we had little to look forward to but a Zoom DJ set made Paul and Phil appreciate the things that make life worth living.

blue + red + pink vinyl

It's a huge link-up. We proudly present our fifth compilation, celebrating seven years of service. Over the course of the 18 tracks, divided across 3 discs, a whopping 25 individual artists show us what they can do, repping the distinct sound they bring to the label.

On the first disc, techno giant Alan Fitzpatrick teams up with Drumcode affiliate Reset Robot on a big-room techno slammer before Israeli duo Red Axes take us into the big room of our mind with a transcendental techno cut. Laurence Guy guides us in a different direction completely, joining Lis Sarroca, Marc Brauner and Tender Games in creating a groove that you can sit back into, losing yourself amongst Lis' syrup-smooth house, Miller Blue's soul-stroking vocals and MB & TG's piano tickles.

Before you get too comfortable, the Time Is Now lot come through with a suitable dose of ruffage, from Main Phase and Soul Mass Transit System's giddy UKG and speed garage, to the '90s-inspired atmospheric garage house of Borai and Coldpast & Tufftrax.

Closing proceedings are SNF's melody specialists. Ams, Kassian and Kaysoul each offer their take on blissed-out deep house whilst Module One & Soela and Alex Virgo & Benjamin Groove infuse stripped-back garage and breaks instrumentals with contemplative atmosphere.
Order SNFLP013 now

Most Excellent Unlimited teams up with Giant Step Records for this special release of a U.K. jazz-dance classic's Twentieth Anniversary.


Voted Track of the Year at Gilles Peterson’s 2003 Worldwide awards, RSL’s “Wesley Music” was an instant anthem on its release, combining a jazzy sensibility with heavy percussion, catchy brass riffs, and a building, hands-in-the-air chorus hook. The Manchester, UK-based band first released the single on their own label, but as the tune took off it was quickly released in the U.S. by Giant Step Records, long a pipeline for the freshest British new music. Most Excellent Unlimited has collaborated with Giant Step Records for this exclusive re-release to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the original record. The A side swaps out the original mix with a never-released Danny Krivit “Part 1” mix, a slightly more extended and direct to-the-point punch of Latin percussion and chants. The B side features Krivit’s “Part 2” mix that lets the tune unfold in all its building-anticipation glory, gradually elevating to a thunderous pinnacle of an almost spiritual nature.


With RSL recently finding favor in the sets of Chicago deep disco don Rahaan and NYC’s globetrotting Ge-Ology, remaster & pressed on an attention to quality vinyl, ideal to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of this timeless iconic track.

Cat Clyde’s 3rd album Down Rounder is a wonder of deeply felt songwriting, a record that finds the Canadian singer-songwriter marveling at what’s around her while considering her own place within it all. With ten songs on the album, Down Rounder possesses an intimate and personal feel, transporting the listener to the recording studio as Cat performs these hair-raising tunes with confidence and passion. Cat joined producer Tony Berg in Los Angeles’ famed Sound City studios to lay down the entirety of Down Rounder in six days flat. The record sounds both lively and lived-in, with Clyde’s malleable singing voice—spanning an appealing twang to a lovely, plaintive croon and anywhere in between—espousing an essential connection between our spiritual center and the natural world that surrounds us. The album is an exploration and expression of self, patterns in the natural and unnatural world, connecting to nature, the turning wheel of life, shedding old selves, embracing new selves, and the ever changing, expanding and contracting nature of love and life. After racking up millions of streams across multiple platforms with previous releases, Down Rounder sounds like the work of someone who’s found themselves artistically and holistically, while extending a hand to any listener who wants to follow Clyde on her singular and thrilling path.

Alt-rap dissident Jam Baxter announces his newest solo venture, Fetch the Poison. Conceived during a state-wide alcohol ban in Mexico, the album is Baxter’s first to be composed in complete sobriety — though his hallucinatory style of storytelling and cast of monstrous characters make a welcome return. Lyrics on Fetch the Poison meld Baxter’s Latin American experience with visions of a grisly alternate dimension: sun, sea and glittering vistas are sullied by hollow-eyed addicts, shady bar tenders and duplicitous lovers. Amongst deft bars, the rapper includes a number of spoken word pieces that echo the prose in his now sold out book Off-Piste. The album also features Blah Records' Nah Eeto & Black Josh, as well as DJ Sammy B-Side and Jehst, alongside Brazil’s NOG, Black Alien and Xamã. Baxter reunites with frequent collaborator Chemo on production — now under the moniker Forest DLG — for much of the album, with appearances from Jack Danz, Dr Zygote, Wundrop (CMPMD) and Midlands' electronic stalwart Lenkemz. Despite its diverse credits, tracks are connected by icy, spaced-out electronics with beats twisted through tape distortion and anchored by chest- rattling bass. Baxter began writing the album in Mexico just before the pandemic began while holed up in the city of San Cristobal De Las Casas, Chiapas, as the world shut down. “All the streets were eerily empty and it was amazing. I had the city to myself,” he says. “Then suddenly there was a state- wide alcohol ban and I could no longer casually sip tequila as I went about my business. I didn’t really have a choice but to write” With no alcohol to fuel him, and San Cristobal largely silent, the rapper says he was surprised to find himself in a deeply creative — and prolific – state. “I took to it amazingly well, and I wrote this whole album in three months of clear-headed bliss in the same apartment. I would sit and write all day, and occasionally walk up a mountain when I got stuck ... or go and feed the stray dogs at the church on top of the hill. It was weirdly the most fun I’d had in years.” Fetch the Poison is Baxter’s seventh solo album.

repressed !

Okain opens LOCUS’ 2022 schedule as he drops his latest EP, ‘Daddy’s Groove’.

A long-standing figure within Paris and Berlin’s nightlife scenes, Talman Records boss Okain continues to impress as a DJ, producer and label head at the heart of Europe’s house landscape. Whether releasing material via labels such as Infuse, Pleasure Zone, Eastenderz or Constant Sound, or on home turf alongside the likes of Silverlinings, DJOKO, Leo Pol and Per Hammar, the Frenchman’s blend of tough house merging old and new runs deep throughout his DJ sets and productions. Kicking off 2022 in style, mid-January welcomes a label debut on LOCUS as he drops four crisp efforts across his ‘Daddy’s Groove’ EP.

Opening cut ‘Mightnight Feed’ welcomes a slinking track guided by aquatic synths, sweeping electronics and bumping bass, while ‘Tavie One Tooth’ hones in on rich M1 stabs to showcase a bubbling and resonant house affair. On the B-side, ‘Brother Jack’ journeys down a lighter path, combining airy pads with jazzy interludes and subtle yet squelching low-ends, before rounding things out via the slick, classy tones of closing production ‘Green Mousse’.

2023 Repress On Vertigo Days, the first album in seven years for The Notwist, one of Germany’s most iconic independent groups are alive to the possibilities of the moment. Their music has long been open-minded and exploratory, but from its engrossing structure, through its combination of melancholy pop, clangorous electronics, hypnotic Krautrock and driftwork ballads, to its international musical guests, Vertigo Days is both a new step for The Notwist, and a reminder of just how singular they’ve always been. Most importantly, the core trio of Markus and Micha Acher and Cico Beck are reaching out: as Markus reflects, “we wanted to question the concept of a band by adding other voices and ideas, other languages, and also question or blur the idea of national identity.”

It’s been seven years since The Notwist’s last album, Close To The Glass, and in that time the various members of the group have been busy with side projects (Spirit Fest, Hochzeitskapelle, Alien Ensemble, Joasihno), guest appearances, a record label (Alien Transistor), movie scoring, helping organise the Minna Miteru compilation of Japanese indie pop & running a festival (Alien Disko). Those divergent paths feed back into Vertigo Days in surprising ways, from its structure, built from group improvisations, with songs flowing and melting into one another in a collective haze, to its spirit, which feels refreshed and alive. There’s something cinematic about Vertigo Days too, reflective of the group’s time working on soundtracks, and reflected in the rich, moody photographic artwork by Lieko Shiga that adorns the cover.

The first sign of this newfound openness was the album’s lead single, “Ship”, where the group were joined by Saya of Japanese pop duo Tenniscoats, her disarmingly hymnal voice sighing over a propulsive, Krautrocking beat. Elsewhere, American multi-instrumentalist Ben LaMar Gay sings on “Oh Sweet Fire”, also contributing “a love lyric for these times, imagining two lovers in an uprising hand in hand.” American jazz clarinettist and composer Angel Bat Dawid adds clarinet to the spaced-out dream-pop of “Into The Ice Age”, while Argentinian electronica songwriter Juana Molina gifts some gorgeous singing and electronics to “Al Sur”. Saya also reappears as a member of Japanese brass band Zayaendo, who guest on the album. Throughout, The Notwist also capture the openness of their live performances, too, where they mix and link their songs in unexpected ways.

Indeed, what’s most impressive about Vertigo Days is the way it sits together as one long, flowing suite, the album conceptualised as a whole entity – it’s perfect for the long-distance, dedicated listening experience. This is also captured by the album’s lyrics, which Markus states, “feel more like one long poem.” The dimensions of that poem are multi-faceted, something intensified by the geopolitical weirdness of its times: “As the situation changed so dramatically, while we were working on the record, the theme of ‘the impossible can happen anytime,’ more about personal relationships in the beginning, became a global and political story.” But it also works at a level of poetic abstraction, such that each song gestures in multiple directions – the deeply private pans out to the global. The one certainty is that there is no certainty. “It’s maybe mostly about learning and how you never arrive anywhere,” Markus concurs. To sit within uncertainty is brave, but it’s also where we feel most alive, and Vertigo Days is an album that is brimming with life, with enthusiasm and love for music and for community, all wide-eyed and dreaming.

2023 Repress on Yellow Vinyl

On Vertigo Days, the first album in seven years for The Notwist, one of Germany’s most iconic independent groups are alive to the possibilities of the moment. Their music has long been open-minded and exploratory, but from its engrossing structure, through its combination of melancholy pop, clangorous electronics, hypnotic Krautrock and driftwork ballads, to its international musical guests, Vertigo Days is both a new step for The Notwist, and a reminder of just how singular they’ve always been. Most importantly, the core trio of Markus and Micha Acher and Cico Beck are reaching out: as Markus reflects, “we wanted to question the concept of a band by adding other voices and ideas, other languages, and also question or blur the idea of national identity.”

It’s been seven years since The Notwist’s last album, Close To The Glass, and in that time the various members of the group have been busy with side projects (Spirit Fest, Hochzeitskapelle, Alien Ensemble, Joasihno), guest appearances, a record label (Alien Transistor), movie scoring, helping organise the Minna Miteru compilation of Japanese indie pop & running a festival (Alien Disko). Those divergent paths feed back into Vertigo Days in surprising ways, from its structure, built from group improvisations, with songs flowing and melting into one another in a collective haze, to its spirit, which feels refreshed and alive. There’s something cinematic about Vertigo Days too, reflective of the group’s time working on soundtracks, and reflected in the rich, moody photographic artwork by Lieko Shiga that adorns the cover.

The first sign of this newfound openness was the album’s lead single, “Ship”, where the group were joined by Saya of Japanese pop duo Tenniscoats, her disarmingly hymnal voice sighing over a propulsive, Krautrocking beat. Elsewhere, American multi-instrumentalist Ben LaMar Gay sings on “Oh Sweet Fire”, also contributing “a love lyric for these times, imagining two lovers in an uprising hand in hand.” American jazz clarinettist and composer Angel Bat Dawid adds clarinet to the spaced-out dream-pop of “Into The Ice Age”, while Argentinian electronica songwriter Juana Molina gifts some gorgeous singing and electronics to “Al Sur”. Saya also reappears as a member of Japanese brass band Zayaendo, who guest on the album. Throughout, The Notwist also capture the openness of their live performances, too, where they mix and link their songs in unexpected ways.

Indeed, what’s most impressive about Vertigo Days is the way it sits together as one long, flowing suite, the album conceptualised as a whole entity – it’s perfect for the long-distance, dedicated listening experience. This is also captured by the album’s lyrics, which Markus states, “feel more like one long poem.” The dimensions of that poem are multi-faceted, something intensified by the geopolitical weirdness of its times: “As the situation changed so dramatically, while we were working on the record, the theme of ‘the impossible can happen anytime,’ more about personal relationships in the beginning, became a global and political story.” But it also works at a level of poetic abstraction, such that each song gestures in multiple directions – the deeply private pans out to the global. The one certainty is that there is no certainty. “It’s maybe mostly about learning and how you never arrive anywhere,” Markus concurs. To sit within uncertainty is brave, but it’s also where we feel most alive, and Vertigo Days is an album that is brimming with life, with enthusiasm and love for music and for community, all wide-eyed and dreaming.

Formed in 2007 in the Dolomite Alps region of Italy with a deep admiration for their native country’s hardcore punk luminaries in La Quiete and Raein, as well as eighties and nineties cult heroes in Negazione, Wretched and Indigesti. STORMO’s steady rise from unassuming beginnings has been one of consistently stirring song writing. Having amassed over 400 shows across Europe and the UK - including support slots to Converge, Full of Hell and La Dispute, as well as appearances at Fluff Fest - STORMO’s next chapter sees the band fully come of age. Lyrically, Endocannibalismo was written entirely in the band’s native tongue; partly as a byproduct of the albums nocturnal and instinctive writing process and partly in honour of their history as a band. Recorded and mixed by Giulio Favero (Zu) for mixing before being placed in the hands of Giovanni Versari at La Maesta for mastering, Endocannibalismo’s 11 tracks possess a crystalline clarity to service STORMO’s surging blastbeats, spiralling rhythms and noise punk cacophony, whilst staying true to the each songs deep seated primal nature. Seeking to tie together the whole process visually, STORMO took to artificial intelligence when creating Endocannibalismo’s art. Utilising specific prompts, the AI render was put through stages of mutation before culminating in its final form. A haunting graphic representation of living beings in a state of constant death and rebirth.

Renoir Of The Toys is a deep dive into the world of Youri Kun, the nom de plume of Japanese guitarist, singer and songwriter Hiroshi Nar. It follows a similar compilation, Unheld Ball, released in 2022 on Japanese label Inundow; like that album, Renoir Of The Toys draws from the rich catalogue of outsider psych-garage and rock recorded by Youri Kun over the past two decades. Deeply wired into the history of Japanese underground music, Nar was a founding member of legendary ‘70s outfit Datetenryu, and a member of both Brain Police (Zuno Keisatsu) and Les Ralllizes Dénudés (Hadaka No Rallizes), appearing on the latter’s ’77 Live.

After going to ground during the 1980s, Nar started making music with Niplets in the mid-90s, and releasing music at a prolific pace in 2000 – an excellent run of (sometimes archival) CD-Rs on the Hello Goodbye Studio label, both solo, and with his groups Molls, Niplets and Port Cuss; an album on P.S.F. by Jokers, where he was joined by fellow Rallizes member Yokai Takahashi, and drummer Toshiaki Ishizuka (Brain Police, Vajra, Cinorama, etc.); and sixteen albums (and counting) as Youri Kun, for labels Gyunne Cassette, Inundow, and Hören. He’s also fallen in with the Acid Mothers Temple crowd, guesting on a few of their albums, and recording a live set with Kawabata Makoto’s Nishinihon trio.

All Nar’s music shares a deceptive primitivism; it moves with the simplicity of the best 1960s garage punk, but its edges are blurred and stretched, allowing for all kinds of weird, elliptical, and psychedelic moves to happen in its margins. His guitar playing on songs like “Kakunin” (from 2011’s Yamaimo Boogie) shimmies and slurs magnificently; “Kurokami”, from 2012’s Su, has clanking six strings scrawling over loose, spaced-out synth; there are clunky psychobilly moves (“Oshiro no Ninjya”), spirited rave-ups for rattling organ and sputtering guitar (“Totsugeki”), and some lovely, drowsy, melancholy moments (“Sora”).

The constant throughout is Nar’s blues-blurred, drawling voice, as unique a tool as the non-idiomatic speak-sing styles of solo Syd Barrett, Jad Fair, or Dave E. McManus. There are also three Les Rallizes Dénudés covers here, where Nar locates the pop genius at the heart of songs like “Shiroi Yoru” and amplifies this with his simple garage-reverential take on things. Renoir Of The Toys is yet more evidence that Hiroshi Nar was, and is, one of Japan’s musical visionaries, a lonesome voice dedicated to a singular, streamlined vision, one that’s in eternal pursuit of the joy and kicks at the heart of rock’n’roll, and a reminder of what a great, unpretentious rock’n’roller truly should be.

Feral Five’s dazzling debut album ‘Truth Is The New Gold’, is an evocative voyage through a Feraltropolis style future city, and an offering of sonic elixir for heart, feet and mind. Leading us through secret spaces, changing skies, personal truths and revelations, the Ferals glide seamlessly between bold alt pop, experimental electronica, and cinematic landscapes.

With acclaimed singles, EPs, and radio play from BBC 6 Music and Radio X X-Posure under their belt, the Ferals have now signed with independent label Reckless Yes to take us on a deeper emotional journey in ‘Truth Is The New Gold’.

Across this glittering album Feral Five’s multi-layered songs and hook-laden grooves use a unique palette of tools and instruments, both hyper-modern and ancient. From the AI vocals to live coded sounds, strings, and played quartz crystals, to the skillfully interwoven electronics, synths and guitars. Always reinventing their sound, the Ferals have created their own new sonic world, but one that we can all relate to, examining the challenges of living in a 21st Century that you couldn’t make up.

Paul Wise aka Placid is the driving force behind ‘We’re Going Deep’ – a thriving online community and record label that keeps you coming back for more. Born out of a lifelong affair with the many shades of electronic rhythm and an obsession for collecting records since 1988, Paul is known and respected by many in the realms of underground House and Techno. Renowned for making hips and feet move at parties, clubs and fields across the UK and beyond over the last few decades.
As a label owner, his mission couldn’t be clearer - releasing new music for heads of all persuasions. Fresh cuts aimed squarely at the dance floor, front room or even just your headphones. Rather than staying too hung up on the past, he continues to serve up the freshest in Acid, Electro, Techno, Deep House alongside sweet slices of Electronica.
Sticking to the format of 4 superlative cuts from equally talented producers, the quality remains unquestionably consistent on Volume 8 of his various artist series. Kicking off A1 in style with a family affair from Acid House aficionado Affie Yusef and his daughter Leila, ‘Dublovr’ is a Class A slice of pure late night chug that rides clockwork rhythms to a rolling bassline. As dubbed out synths ring out to lift you skywards – eerie sweeping undertones add another dimension. Tried and tested since the summer season, the added layer of a TB-303 brings everything nicely to a head. Not to be outdone, Bristol based Electro emissary Zobol delivers a pure slice of machinist joy on A2 ‘Sense The Consesus’, showing his ability to finesse and balance uplifting melodies with warm synthesis on this finest of jams.
Over on the flipside, Maltese producer Acidulant takes up the reins with the hushed tones of ‘The View of Her Shade’ on B1 – a thoughtful excursion into electro hinterland that’s a textbook lesson in making more with less. Last but not least, mysterious I Love Acid affiliate Type-303 turns out an exquisite IDM inflected serving of woozy broken Electronica on the mysterious ‘Knowhere’. Steeped in rippling melodies and aquatic

Back in 2010 Caribou's Dan Snaith hosted a remix competition for his track 'Sun' from his then-new album Swim. The winner was an unknown producer called altrice.

Hailing from Tucson, Arizona of Iranian/Mexican descent, altrice took the bright euphoric highs of the original and crumbled them into rumbling lows, the crystalline edges becoming rough and undefined. Along with a bursting goody-bag of prizes, Snaith also provided altrice with the stems for the rest of Swim and the offer to remix the whole album track-by-track, creating 'stem'. Aside from a further dream-come-true remix of Radiohead, this is largely the last we heard from altrice in the past 12 years.

A year and a half ago though, having kept up correspondence with Snaith over the years, altrice began sending new material. With encouragement from Snaith he eventually wound up with an EP which has since become essential DJ material for Snaith and the cohort of friends he's shared it with, as well as appearing in Leon Vynehall's Radio 1 Residency, KH (Four Tet)'s recent Essential Mix and more.

With three tracks already released from the EP receiving further DJ support from Avalon Emerson, Floating Points, Yu Su, Sofia Kourtesis, Mano Le Tough and more, today the EP is released in full officially via Snaith's own Jiaolong label. compciter is a collection of music that for the first time is entirely altrice's own sound, alluring and off-kilter, a wealth of sounds and styles that are tied together by an irresistible warmth.

Speaking of the EP, altrice says:

"This EP is the result of allowing my stylistic boundaries to be nudged in a new direction, putting away a self-inflicted notion that I’m only fluent in certain subgenres of electronic music. I made some production choices that, for better or worse, will make this project stand out. I’ve been overwhelmed by the reactions in clubs and at festivals, and individuals reaching out with kind words about the music. It’s surreal."
From the huddled and obscured yet comforting vocal samples - described by Pitchfork as "a beacon of light in an uncertain landscape" - of 'bda creature' to the swinging 90s eurodance drums of 'places faces' and the way the welcoming guitar melody and soulful vocals of 'eyes' gives way to a full on bass pummel, the tracks that have been released so far from the EP are already causing a stir both on and off the dancefloor. Today, the chopped up vocals and vast roomy sound of 'yoni' along with '1609km' - which would almost be straightforward house if it didn't pull the rug out to make way for delicate piano and harmonica flourishes - complete a set that fulfils a promise 12 years in the making..

What is the sound of feeling?
In physics, we conceive of sound as waves. Vibrations, undulations, physical manifestations: heard but not seen. Borne by the body but interpreted in the brain.
Within ourselves, we perceive emotion as waves, too. Rolling in, rolling out: tidal, even. In moments of violet intensity, the depth of our feeling crashes upon us like surf, rip currents on a corporeal beach.
Worlds apart, but waves in kind. For musician and composer Jo Johnson, the veil between is diaphanous indeed. What you hear is what you feel. Listen and uncover.
Jo Johnson has releases on Further Records, Going In (a sub-label of The Bunker), Verdant and Apartment

Doomsday Outlaw return with their third studio album Damaged Goods, set for release on 3rd February 2023 via Republic of Music.

As Doomsday Outlaw began work on this album, they knew they wanted to step up to the next level and deliver on the promise of their previous albums, keeping the heaviness and the soulful vocals, and turbo-charging it all with some retro rock feelgood vibes.

Channelling Skynyrd, Aerosmith and The Faces through their signature heavy blues stomp, the band worked to expand their signature sound.

Working with Chris D’Adda at Vale Studios (Temples, Deaf Havana) and Dave Draper (The Wildhearts), to put them through their paces, the band have pulled together their best work yet.

Lyrically, the album is a very personal insight into vocalist Phil Poole’s life and motivations. Speaking about Damaged Goods, vocalist Phil Poole said: "This album is a continuation of the stories of my life – played out for all to see, filled with heartbreak and redemption. My own version of therapy, Damaged Goods is the latest chapter in my life."

Bassist Indy added: “It’s been a hard slog these last couple of years with Covid cutting short our European adventures, and generally waiting for live music to see the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel, but these new tunes have kept us going. The excellent response we’ve had to playing the songs live has been great to see, and we can’t wait to get everything out there for people to hear.”

Doomsday Outlaw return with their third studio album Damaged Goods, set for release on 3rd February 2023 via Republic of Music.

As Doomsday Outlaw began work on this album, they knew they wanted to step up to the next level and deliver on the promise of their previous albums, keeping the heaviness and the soulful vocals, and turbo-charging it all with some retro rock feelgood vibes.

Channelling Skynyrd, Aerosmith and The Faces through their signature heavy blues stomp, the band worked to expand their signature sound.

Working with Chris D’Adda at Vale Studios (Temples, Deaf Havana) and Dave Draper (The Wildhearts), to put them through their paces, the band have pulled together their best work yet.

Lyrically, the album is a very personal insight into vocalist Phil Poole’s life and motivations. Speaking about Damaged Goods, vocalist Phil Poole said: "This album is a continuation of the stories of my life – played out for all to see, filled with heartbreak and redemption. My own version of therapy, Damaged Goods is the latest chapter in my life."

Bassist Indy added: “It’s been a hard slog these last couple of years with Covid cutting short our European adventures, and generally waiting for live music to see the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel, but these new tunes have kept us going. The excellent response we’ve had to playing the songs live has been great to see, and we can’t wait to get everything out there for people to hear.”

The second instalment from London Odense Ensemble digs deeper into the group's vision of what modern psychedelic jazz should sound like. Cut from the same sessions as Jaiyede Sessions vol. 1, released last summer, vol. 2 presents a more nuanced approach to the material. On this set the ensemble focuses on shorter, layered pieces - travelling from deep spiritual jazz grooves to gorgeous free-flowing minimalism to full-on acid jazz. There's echo-drenched flutes being absorbed into layers of analog synth pads and guitars, bossa beats and double bass sequences merging with electronics. It's an intoxicating mélange of sounds and styles, spanning wide temporal and geographical distances. London Odense Ensemble came together when two of the finest exponents of London's flourishing jazz scene, flautist and saxofonist Tamar Osborn and keyboard specialist Al MacSween, came over to Denmark to explore new sounds with Causa Sui's Jakob Skott and Jonas Munk, as well as local bass player Martin Rude. For two days the group laid down grooves and ideas and experimented in the studio, and later the best segments were edited and mixed by Jonas Munk, who took a somewhat liberal approach to the mixing process, often dyeing the material with external effects and synthesizers. Jaiyede Sessions are the kinds of records that defy genre-terms, yet have its own instantly recognizable fingerprint. It carries a unique shared vision between the players of what modern psychedelic jazz sounds like. bios: Tamar Osborn: Saxophonist, composer and multi-wind instrumentalist is the creative force behind modal jazz ensemble Collocutor (On The Corner Records). She is a member of the Dele Sosimi Afrobeat Orchestra, performs and collaborates regularly with Sarathy Korwar, Jessica Lauren, Emanative, Ill Considered and DJ Khalab. Al MacSween: Keyboard player & founding member of Kefaya. Collaborations include American jazz legend Gary Bartz, Syrian qanun master Maya Youseff, London Community Gospel Choir, Palestinian jazz singer Reem Kelani & kora player Kadialy Kouyate. Martin Rude: Multi-string instrumentalist & lead singer in Sun River & Edena Gardens with members of Papir & Causa Sui. Jakob Skott: Drummer in Causa Sui with a slew of side projects on El Paraiso, including Chicago Odense Ensemble, Jonas Munk: Guitarist in Causa Sui & studio wizard on most releases on El Paraiso.

People often ask why we started Soul Clap Records and I usually answer: “because we were receiving tons of unique demos by creative artists that we had to start a label.” 11 years later and that flowing faucet of incoming music is still the driving force behind the label. Sure, there is the Funk, House, Disco, and multi-cultural influences in all of the music that we release, but it’s always the artists themselves who guide us.” – Eli Goldstein (Soul Clap)

Having nurtured a community, built many a life-long relationship and brought together an extensive musical family over the past 11 years, Soul Clap showcase these deep bonds with their 11th Anniversary Remix Compilation across two 12 inch records in a beautifully designed picture sleeve. A real smorgasbord of flavours and feelings, from beaming boogie and dizzying disco to blissful broken beat, house and downtempo nuggets coming courtesy of a plethora of the finest artists on the planet right now including the likes of Zopelar, XL Middleton, Colleen 'Cosmo' Murphy, FSQ and many more, alongside the mighty Soul Clap themselves. There’s no denying that this compilation is one with community at it’s core.

DJ Feedback:

OSUNLADE / YORUBA
Very funky.

PABLO VALENTINO/ MCDE FACES
Love this comp

CROSSTOWN REBELS/ PAOLO BARTHOLEMEW
Oh yes! Big fan!

FRANCK ROGER/ REAT TONE
Dope compilation.. still in love with life on planets guy :-)

MR V/ SOLE CHANNEL
Dope. Love it.

AROOP ROY
Diggin the remixes from Zeynep, Cosmodelica, Zopelar and Charlie.

PONTCHARTRAIN/ WHISKEY DISCO
OH my, that Afriqua remix is absolute fire! Whole album is hot.

DJ ROCCA
All the remixes are great. Big fan of SC records, of course ;-)

THE SILVER RIDER/ MUSIC IS 4 LOVERS
Holy crap that Zopelar remix is amazing!

DICKY TRISCO
Love the Underground System remix by Zeynep Erbay. Class! Feeling the Mickey Lion too. Lovely.

FISH GO DEEP/ SHANE JOHNSTON
Phenomenal line up here with a great range of music. Standouts for me on first listen are Life on Planets and John Camp ft. Greg but it’s all quality from start to finish.

MARK BROADBENT/ PIKE HOTEL
This s a killer comp. I’ll be playing this for sure.

DAZ-I-KUE/ BUGZ IN THE ATTIC
Love this comp so dope.

WILLI GRAFF/ THE STANDARD IBIZA
What a killer compilation of remixes. Especially feeling the Cosmodelica Mix and Michael The Lion's mix.

‘Living Rooms’ is a full-blooded debut of rich, playful, experimental pop from the artist Fe Salomon – full of unabashedly big songs and sumptuously big sounds. Fe’s soulful and arresting lead vocals weave amongst soaring strings and big band brass sections; clattering percussion and disjunctive rhythms; dirty electro synth and butchered guitar. A collaboration with producer and contemporary classical composer Johnny Parry, ‘Living Rooms’ is a true pop album with a distinct, exuberant and deeply generous sound.

Born in Northampton, Fe moved to London at 18 for a place at Theatre College; but soon left to concentrate on music and songwriting, falling quickly into the Camden music scene, and earning her a prolific career as a singer. Building on her diverse musical background and honing her unusual sonic style, this album has been percolating at the back of Fe’s mind for a long time. The perfect storm of personal and external factors thus created the moment to make it. ‘Living Rooms’ tells stories of multiple lives lived and lost

in the city, of friendships that meant everything and the characters you’ll never meet again, of transience and loneliness, and of getting by and moving on.

At the forefront of the album is an organic and fiercely honest lead vocal performance. However, Fe permits her voice to be twisted and distorted into the fabric of the instrumentation. The un-doctored lead vocals are frequently haunted by angels and demons, created through Fe’s uninhibited willingness to this manipulation, and capturing the more visceral emotions within the expression of the human voice.

‘Living Rooms’ navigates a wide spectrum of sounds and emotions. Take album opener “Polka Dot”, a track that mixes emotive vocals with an avant-garde alt/pop production to conjure a cut as stylish as it is shrouded in shadowy mystique. A track “about mourning innocence, and the darkness that’s picked up along the way, with an ‘up yours’ sarcastic tone, and not wanting to grow old”, it sets the scene for a twisting collection that up-ends expectations at every opportunity.

Elsewhere, the chunky hooks of “Super Human”, the sci-fi/country/big band of “Wired of Caffeine”, or the intimately sung vocals and Vaughan-Williams-esque string sections of “Taxicabs”, all contribute to an album that evolves like a rich and constantly surprising tapestry.

Although the conception of the album was a frenzy of wild experimentation. The album is faithful too, and celebratory of many joyous pop traditions; but searches for ways to reinterpret the familiar. And no less so than on the off-kilter centre-piece “Quintessential England”. Through wry lyricism and vivid imagination, the track paints a lucid, if lonely, depiction of a life lived out in the sticks; one that ultimately arrives at the conclusion that perhaps “the grass isn’t always greener”.

Gifted with the kind of superpowers that have blessed Alison Goldfrapp with her unwavering glam-pop allure and Stevie Nicks with that invincible soul, Fe Salomon’s empowering first release will prove she’s cut from the same cloth and ready to be your newest musical hero.

1000 black vinyl LPs. London-based ‘indie-supergroup’ SUEP announce their long-awaited debut mini-album Shop, a collection of 6 oddball, car-boot-sale pop songs with a sprinkling of theatrical storytelling. Led by Georgie Stott (of Porridge Radio, Garden Centre) and Josh Harvey, SUEP was born out of a near-decade of playing in sheds and barns with like minded personnel, holding a mutual love for Paul McCartney, Jona Lewie, the B-52s, Devo and other performative freaks enjoying themselves. Following a move to London from Brighton, the pair added George Nicholls (The GN Band, Joanna Gruesome, The Tubs), Will William Deacon (PC World, Garden Centre), and Ollie Chapman (Boil King) to the line-up. The 5 piece take turns writing songs and taking the lead vocal duties in a wonderfully playful but coherent collaboration, with their debut being a kaleidoscopic off kilter pop ride, taking the listener through haunted castles, deprived encounters, days lost to the imagination in bed, and through the integral friendships that give SUEP the energy to keep dancing to their own beat. The album was arranged and recorded in the Red Lion Boys Club, an ex-youth centre in which Georgie and Josh both lived. Using equipment collected by Josh in his travels as a bootsale and market trader, the sports hall was transformed into a makeshift studio for a few days, with sessions conducted by producer Matthew Green (Sniffany & The Nits, The Tubs, etc.) Mark Riley (BBC 6 Music) described SUEP’s debut single and album opener, ‘Domesticated Dream’ (2021) as “perfect pop music.” The joyfully kitsch track brims with a 70s Yamaha disco beat, deep bass, nostalgic drum machines, and hooky melodies. Possibly the most psychedelic and infectious track born out of lockdown, it tackles homelife, drinking too much, and making big plans that never come to fruition, but with a big technicoloured positivity for the future of the human-race, with the chorus’ refrain, “the psychedelic 4000s,” predicting the return of the psychedelic Age of Aquarius in a couple of millennia time. The following single ‘Misery’ (2021) is pure cosmic swing-pop wizardry in part inspired by spy music and The Supremes. Ollie, The track’s baritone vocalist, describes it as “A love song disguised as a song about loss. It's about cherishing the things that matter but it’s also about having the courage to say goodbye,” with each line of the song a small story about a different character. Whilst latest Shop taster ‘In Good Health’ is darkly euphoric like a pleasantly strange meeting of Siouxsie Sioux and Jona Lewie. It’s a playfully discombobulating mix of 80s jangly guitar, chirpy keyboard and moody post-punk tackling mental health, drug addiction, and the power of friendship, written after the song’s vocalist Georgie came out of hospital following a mental health crisis. “I wanted to write a song that encapsulated how important my relationships with my friends and boyfriend were at that time” she explains “…and one that also felt dark like I did at the time. I couldn’t go outside due to anxiety surrounding my health so I stayed inside for weeks. People would visit and watch films with me or let me tattoo them or make music with me. My community helped me recover.” Elsewhere on Shop is ‘Just The Job’ fronted by Harvey and described by him as “About the relief of accepting a menial existence, and allowing life to be boring - but (within that) how the small things are the important ones, how pulling a sicky or extra long lunch break are important things to do for yourself. It’s an anthem for working people who’ve had enough - and a crowd favourite at SUEP gigs. The darker undertones and post-punk angles of the Georgie-fronted ‘Onions’ is inspired by the crapness of cliques, with the band calling the song “A cry of welcome to all;” and finally the hooky ‘Friend of Mine,’ described as “A love letter to all the people that come and go throughout your life no matter how long you know them”. SUEP have received coverage in Independent & Clash, (among many others), with big support from Mark Riley and Steve Lamacq (BBC 6 Music) for early singles.

“Avada Kedavra Deluxe,” by Seattle rapper AJ Suede, is a 21-track, self-produced, self-referencing, double-vinyl labyrinth of experimental boom-bap. Building on a signature style that SPIN magazine describes as “stream-of-consciousness rhymes, containing everything from socio-political commentary and blunted cinematic allusions to psychedelic visions,” Suede’s creation is as compelling as it is unclassifiable. On the first LP, Suede demonstrates his substantial skills as a beatmaker and rapper, chopping up what Seattle’s KEXP calls “the smoothest, jazziest, weirdest samples” and overlaying parkour bars about Grunge, success, and social justice. From the first cut, “Nebuchadnezzar,” which New York’s Major Stage describes as a “powerful chant-like hypnotic loop,” these 10 tracks capture an elusive mood of too many hours inside watching YouTube and trying to piece together fractured connections. The album’s title is derived from an Aramaic spell: “Let this thing be destroyed.” On the second LP, Suede invites 13 guests to “destroy” the original songs. This disc of remixes and reworkings showcases underground voices from across the Northwest (Seattle’s Wolftone, Khrist Koopa, Portland’s Fines Double), from across America (New Jersey’s Fatboi Sharif, California’s mudwater, Ohio’s Lord Olo, New York’s Bloodblixing), and around the world (Tel Aviv’s Argov and Japan’s Wazasnics). Seattle rappers Astral Trap, Blake Anthony, Mika’il, and Greg Cypher are featured on a bonus “posse” cut. AJ Suede has been grinding for years in the underground, building a solid, devoted global fanbase. He’s released acclaimed cassettes and CDs through respected labels such as Fake Four Inc., Candy Drips, Chong Wizard, and Blackhouse. In May 2022, a 100-copy vinyl run of his album “Metatron’s Cube” sold out in less than four hours. With “Avada Kedavra Deluxe,” AJ Suede has tapped into the moment, using what Deeply Rooted Hip-Hop calls “a subconscious steeped in the mystical.” As KEXP says: “Quite predictably, the whole album bangs.”

* 2022 Repress ** Profondo Nero compiled by Cinema Royale

Profondo Nero narrates a storyline that goes beyond the borders of Italy’s musical legacy. Cutting across the face of Italo disco’s leftfield musicians between the early and late ‘80s, Profondo Nero champions a multi-faceted sound that nods to the blueprint of Italo disco but tries to dig deeper. The music is unmistakably Italo disco but moves away from the familiar classic sound. Amsterdam based collector Cinema Royale stitches together eleven tracks from 1983 – 1989, celebrating a sound he fittingly describes as ‘leftfield Italo’.

The compilation connects the dots between soulful disco (Louise Freeman – Mirage), synth-pop (Mark – Dreamland), electro-rap (Loukas Thanos – Jazzburger), breaks (Santoro – Lover Message), 80s dub disco (Jet Set – Love Break), Balearic (Isamar & Compañia ‎- No Estas), boogie (Tom Hooker – Talk With Your Body) and proto-house (International Music System - An English ’93).

Profondo Nero’s title salutes the legendary oeuvre of Italian horror director Dario Argento. His Profondo Rosso (1975) is a classic example of exquisite cinematic storytelling, boasting courageous colors, expressionist camera angles and an unforgettable Goblin score forming the ingredients for an intriguing piece of art. Profondo Rosso’s music, created the spark for a new Dekmantel Records endeavor led by Amsterdam based experimental film score connoisseur, record collector and DJ Cinema Royale.

For those in the know of underground Amsterdam music culture, Arne Visser aka Cinema Royale is among the city’s longest standing record collectors. Born to an Italian mother and Dutch father, Arne was brought up on a diet of Italo disco in the 80s. Cinema Royale explains: ‘For Profondo Nero I took a plunge into the lesser known fringes of Italo disco. From there I tried to connect, among others, San Francisco boogie, Balearic, Japanese late era Italo-electro and synth-pop funk. I hope you can hear what I had in mind: an infectious showcase of my take on traditional Italo disco that will hopefully get a lot of listeners itching for a spin. It’s fair to say that lately this particular sound has seen a reappraisal and renewed interest.

As a party-starting collection for entry-level connoisseurs or suave but lazy types, I hope Profondo Nero can be an education. I’m not claiming I’m the first DJ or collector to do so, but I did try do present something special by digging deep.’ It wasn’t my goal to unearth the most obscure tracks, instead I wanted to compose a compilation that takes you on a journey.
‘In my opinion the best DJs create something extraordinary out of illogical selections by combining music against all odds and showing different kind of moods along the way. There’s a certain amount of arrogance involved: you take the music out of its original context. But by doing so in a very conscious way, you might be able to enhance the power of the individual records. Hopefully each song on Profondo Nero provides an intimate and memorable experience.’

Celebrating a momentous five decades in the industry, legendary
musician and songwriter Paul Carrack, who's 'Golden Voice' features on
numerous classic world wide hits such as 'How Long' (ACE') ,
'Tempted' (Squeeze), 'The Living Years', 'Over My Shoulder' ( Mike and the
Mechanics) teams up with the GRAMMY Award-winning SWR Big Band &
Strings on epic new album " Don't Wait Too Long"
The covers album celebrates the pioneering golden era in music from the 50s and
beyond spanning blues, gospel, country and jazz. The first single "Cryin' Won't
Help You" out in Jan 2023 is Paul's tribute to the legendary BB King.Paul has a
deep love of R&B songs from the fifties and beyond. For him, 50s music was filled
with intense emotion, it was wildly kinetic and had a profound impact on his
career. In Paul's mind, it's where all modern pop music began, the sounds were
spectacular and revolutionary. Days when the change from jazz to pop was
stretched via pioneers and great singers like Bobby Bland, Ray Charles, Aretha
Franklin, and Lloyd Price..These artists always resonated as fantastic performers
with stylistic records that had such joy and intensity.
The 50s were not only a time for musical revolution but a social and generational
upheaval of vast and unpredictable scope. The power of this music is as vital
today as it ever was with the power to change lives forever.
After working with the SWR band on a number of projects, Paul and his producers
had the idea to find and record a selection of these time-warped classics, some
well- known, others not so much, and the title track , a modern song that harks
back to those times called 'Don't Wait Too Long'. The result is an impassioned,
compelling album. Honest, epic, touching, the album showcases a great vocalist
who is at home with his art and talent.
NATIONAL TV & RADIO.BBC Breakfast - Will take first week Jan / BBC Radio 2 -
Cerys Matthews - First Week Jan / Talk Radio - 2nd week Jan / Sky News - Beth
Rigby Interview - Second Week Jan / Greatest Hits - First Week Jan / GB News -
Live Interview via Zoom First Week Jan / Talk TV - Live Interview via Zoom first
week Jan / Ch 5 News - TBC week 2 Jan / ITV News - 2nd week Jan

For nearly 60 years, John Cale has been reimagining how his music is made, sounds, and even works. MERCY, Cale’s first full album in a decade, moves through true dark-night-of-the-soul electronic torment toward vulnerable love songs and hopeful considerations for the future with the help of some of music’s most curious young minds. Cale has always searched for new ways to explore old ideas of alienation, hurt, and joy; MERCY is the latest transfixing find of this unsatisfied mind.

John Cale announces MERCY, his first new album of original songs in a decade, out January 20th via Double Six / Domino. For nearly 60 years, or at least since he was a young Welshman who moved to New York and formed The Velvet Underground, Cale has been reinventing his music with dazzling and inspiring regularity. There was the bewitching chamber folk of Paris 1919 followed instantly by the gnarled rock of Fear, the provocative and spare song cycle Music for a New Society followed more than 30 years later by mighty and unabashed electronic updates. Once again, here is Cale, reimagining how his music is made, sounds, and even works. His engrossing 12-track MERCY moves through true dark-night-of-the-soul electronics toward vulnerable love songs and hopeful considerations for the future.

On MERCY, Cale enlists some of music’s most curious young minds: Animal Collective, Sylvan Esso, Laurel Halo, Tei Shi, Actress. They’re only some of the astounding cast here, brilliant musicians who climb inside Cale’s consummate vision of the world and help him redecorate there. Cale turned 80 in March, and he’s watched as many peers have passed away, particularly during the last decade. MERCY is the continuation of a long career’s work with wonder. Cale has always searched for new ways to explore old ideas of alienation, hurt, and joy; MERCY is the latest transfixing find of this unsatisfied mind.



The writings and recordings that shaped MERCY piled up for years, as Cale watched society totter at the brink of dystopia. Trump and Brexit, Covid and climate change, civil rights and right-wing extremism—Cale let the bad news of the day filter into his lines, whether that meant contemplating the sovereignty and legal status of sea ice melting near the poles or the unhinged arming of Americans. Lessons from a life (still being) richly lived floated to the fore, too, nodded to on the previously released “NIGHT CRAWLING.” If we’re always regretting our past, aren’t we conscripting ourselves to permanent disappointment?

During “STORY OF BLOOD,” after the piano prelude gives way to a frame-rattling beat and synthesizers that feel like sunshine splashed across a snowfield, the voices of Cale and Weyes Blood’s Natalie Mering slide past one another, two phantoms trying to find a partner amid the modern din. “Swing your soul,” they both sing in aspiration. In the final verse, Cale remembers this existence is not just about himself. “I’m going back to get them, my friends in the morning. Bring them with me into the light.” The accompanying video by Emmy-winning director Jethro Waters is a mix of disturbing and serene featuring both Cale and Weyes Blood. Its deep tones and religious images emphasize the track’s dark, spiritual mood.

Cale elaborates: “I’d been listening to Weyes Blood’s latest record and remembered Natalie’s puritanical vocals. I thought if I could get her to come and sing with me on the ‘Swing your soul’ section, and a few other harmonies, it would be beautiful. What I got from her was something else! Once I understood the versatility in her voice, it was as if I’d written the song with her in mind all along. Her range and fearless approach to tonality was an unexpected surprise. There’s even a little passage in there where she’s a dead-ringer for Nico.”

THE PLAYGROUND is back in the fold, inviting deep house connoisseur KEZ YM around for a second time. A side features two lush & groovy beatdown tracks that make you lose sense of time. The flip side delivers a funky up-tempo bass heavy banger with a remix by Detroit don RICK WADE.

Red Vinyl

It has been exactly ten years since Finders Keepers first intrepidly entered Andrzej Korzyński’s cavernous musical vault, but it is only today that we are able to proudly announce the safe retrieval on what we consider the true heavy psych holy grail of the Polish composer’s mind-bending oeuvre. By cruel coincidence this welcome event has sadly come during the same year as the composer’s tragic passing. However, in true Korzyński style, alongside his previous Finders Keepers releases, the legacy he has left behind in this one final lost soundtrack project alone has come with musical riches beyond anyone’s wildest expectations.

The comprehensive elusive archive of the deeply psychedelic soundtrack to Andrzej Żuławski’s forbidden film Diabeł (The Devil) is perhaps the most detailed dossier one could wish to find – including audio sketches, rejected proposals and pre-butchered variations that play out like an intense and veritable creative conversation between the director and the maestro, both of whom are widely recognised as true mavericks of socialist-era Poland’s fertile artistic landscape. Never intended for anything as conventional as a straightforward movie tie-in promotional disc (state owned Eastern European record labels rarely did this), the music in this archive has required special forensic inspection. Let’s say the devil is in the detail. The 7” record you are now holding is more than just a companion piece, and it is far from a selection of the (non-existent) poppy title themes to promote a full feature-length album. This standalone release is wholly unique in its own right, giving Finders Keepers listeners a final access all areas snoop into the mind of one of the pillars of our alternative musical community.

As those familiar with Żuławski and Korzyński’s long-running relationship will understand (a methodology best exemplified in the schizoid soundtrack to the film Possession), their exchanges were deeply nuanced and often complicated, with lots of artistic “tennis” thrown into the mix. The key plot in this behind-the-scene fable is that after delivering his original off-kilter psychedelic score to the director, maestro Korzyński was asked to make the music “totally unique, like something from another planet”, to which Korzyński took his tapes, pulled down the vari-speed to a guttural grind and continued to recompose over the top using avant-garde electro-acoustic techniques while deploying psychedelic skills of guitarist Winicjusz Chróst. This limited record release proudly boasts Korzyński’s original uptempo awkward psychedelic pop music prior to the doom laden growls that make the official films soundtrack a true Goliath of Eastern European soundtrack composition. Which, when recontextualised, will stand as a veritable face-melter for stoner rock fans. As one of Finders Keepers deepest conquests, we are delighted to share The Devil Tapes… What is a grail without the wine.

yellow marbled vinyl

Swoose makes his return to Shall Not Fade, joining the new Classic Cuts series, a year after his extremely popular Introspective EP. The Irish producer is known for his explosive nineties influenced style of house; think blissed out vocals over a headsy nightclub ready beat.

Bloom EP starts off with a bang, the title track a percussive trance of arpeggiating synths and a touch of nineties nostalgia with a classic sample. "Algo" is equally hypnotic; floaty melodies that glide across the deep bass edge of this sundowner party track.

"Polypore" hits hard with a purposeful kick drum, driving home the sidewinding acid inflections and making for a glitchy tool for dark club nights. The closing track changes things up; "Allure" takes natural piano loops and organic breaks to create a haunting piece of music which is a peaceful end to the EP, demonstrating Swoose's range and ability to move away from his comfort zone in production.

In 2021, nyMusikk's annual festival of sound, "Only Connect", commissioned an interpretation from I LIKE TO SLEEP of the first movement of Olivier Messiaen’s Turangalila symphony. A project which initially led to a 15-minute piece performed at the festival, with the trio re-writing the music of Messiaen, but also rewriting the music of their own. Messiaen as a reference and compositional tool may be heard in the album for those really listening for references. With “Sleeping Beauty” the trio also explore even heavier riffs than before, seasick grooves and tempi, and deeper ambient soundscapes. Through extensive improvisation, the effects and processing of the sounds are way more extreme than before, almost awakening the sleeping beauty. During the pandemic, the band also had to find new ways to write music without the presence of every member, introducing the vibe-samples from the old Mellotron sound gallery to the band. Quarantillity, one of the themes which appears several times throughout the album - almost used in a similar way as the flower theme in the Turangalila symphony - is a direct result of sitting alone in quarantine, playing the Mellotron while listening to vibraphone extraordinaire Bobby Hutcherson. This theme could also be seen as a continuation of the previous album tracks named Pause I & Pause II from “Bedmonster” (2017) and “Daymare” (2020). Like “Daymare”, “Sleeping Beauty” was recorded in Duper Studio in Bergen, co-produced with the band’s all-time favourite sound wizard Jørgen Træen. It is also mixed and mastered by Træen, making the music sound as brutal, intense and intimate as experiencing I LIKE TO SLEEP in a live setting. “Infernal, scrotum-shrivelling energy sorely missing in today's music” said Jazzwise about their previous album, mentioning King Crimson, Magma, Tony Williams Lifetime, electric Miles and 60s free energy jazz as possible references. But that’s only one side of the story, there are plenty of quieter moments at work here, and the dynamic range is wide. Nicolas and Øyvind first met in high school in Trondheim before they joined up with Amund in a youth big band. It soon became apparent that they shared the same musical background centered around 70s progressive rock, classical music, jazz and improvisation. Taking their name from a Thelonious Monk quote, I LIKE TO SLEEP was formed, first for fun, but soon with higher ambitions, winning the prestigious "Young Jazz Musicians of the Year" award in 2018. Still only in their early 20s and still studying jazz at NTNU in Trondheim, they are also active as composers, freelancers and in other projects and are among the most promising on Norwegian scene. Amund Storløkken Åse – vibraphone and Mellotron Nicolas Leirtrø - baritone guitar, bass-VI and Mellotron Øyvind Leite – drums Tracks

Ahem is a new project from Housecraft Recordings head Jeffry Astin (aka Xiphiidae, Digital Natives) along with co-conspirators J.P. Wright and Brian Kinkade. Recommended for fans of smoked out dub-bient and deep Appalachian drones.


-Cover art by Joe Roberts (LSD Worldpeace)

-Housecraft Recordings has been active as a cult favorite ambient/tape label for ~20 years now.


Quotes and reactions:

-“Jeffry Astin was the Dominique Wilkins of the early 2000s tape scene” -Tabs Out Podcast (episode #92)

-“Honestly too fire” -Ian Kim Judd (Fifth World/NTS)

-“Great record!” -Hank Jackson (Anno Records)

-“Super nice” -Jacob Gorchov (Palto Flats)

-“Massive” -Eli Libman (Quiet Time Tapes)

James Taylor's best-selling record since 1970's hallmark Sweet Baby James, the triple-platinum JT takes its permanent place as one of the singer's most enduring albums — an affair that gorges on country, blues, and rock styles as well as incisive songwriting. As the pre-eminent singer-songwriter's Columbia debut, it catapulted Taylor back into the limelight and re-established his place as the era's leading-edge folk-rock troubadour.

Sourced from the original analog master tapes and pressed at RTI, Mobile Fidelity's numbered-edition 180g LP possesses a warmth, immediacy, and intimacy absent from other pressings. The singer's comforting voice, breath control, and enchanting guitar lines sound as if they pour right out of the studio control room. Similarly, the splendid array of backing instrumentation is balanced, vivid, and dynamic. Taylor should always sound this realistic, warm, and lively.

More than any other of his records, JT features all sides of Taylor's lyrical persona. Optimistic, content material fills half of the 1977 set while Taylor reveals a darker, moodier identity on a number of songs that keep the 12-track set alternating between shade and light, shadow and sun. He turns romantic and blissful on the touching ballad "There We Are," praises the power of love on "Your Smiling Face," and enchants with the graceful "Secret O'Life."

In addition to channeling domestic bliss, Taylor expresses surprise and cynicism on "Honey Don't Leave L.A.," delves into despair on "Another Grey Morning," and invites sardonic tones on "Bartender's Blues." The result is a complete picture of an extraordinary songwriter and an accurate sketch of the mixed emotions many of us feel when it comes to romance. Taylor's ability to capture deep-seated feelings and set them to lyrical and musical poetry explains why we relate to him on such a meta-level. It's also why his music, including JT, remains timeless.

Taylor doesn't do it all alone. JT benefits from an all-star support cast. Carly Simon and Linda Ronstadt supply background vocals, saxophone great David Sanborn plays the horn, Russ Kunkel mans the percussion, and arranger David Campbell oversees the strings and woodwinds. It's no wonder why many fans consider this gorgeous collection of Laurel Canyon pop-rock Taylor's finest.

Whether you've never heard this record or know it inside and out, this reissue will open your ears to previously hidden details ranging from pedal-steel guitar accents to honky-tonk tonalities. Taylor's funky rhythms, too, gain in stature, as does his command of pace and tempo.

Tape

»No Date Tapes 2« is the second official cassette release from Harry Bertoia's tape archive and, like the first cassette, these recordings were chosen from a small collection of tapes in Bertoia's archive missing recording dates.

This cassette is packaged in a metallic shell and produced on super-ferro tape for incredible analog sound.

Bio:

Harry Bertoia first gained some artistic visibility in the early 1940s, then came into prominence with his sculptural, ergonomic chairs, produced by Knoll Furniture beginning in 1952, which quickly became classics of modernist furniture. Inspired by the resonant sounds emanating from metals as he worked them and encouraged by his brother Oreste, whose passion was music, Harry restored a fieldstone "Pennsylvania Dutch" barn as the home for this experiment in sounding sculptures which he had begun in the late 1950s. Bertoia was an obsessive composer and relentless experimenter, often working late into the night and accumulating hundreds of tapes of his best performances; Oreste, too, would explore and record the sculptures' sounds during his annual visits to his brother's home in rural Pennsylvania.

Harry Bertoia's recently dismantled Sonambient barn collection was an attentive listener's paradise full of warm, expressive instruments that were gorgeous visually and audibly. Nothing could prepare you, even on return visits, for the overwhelming experience of entering the spacious wood and plaster interior where gongs, some of them giant, hung among the ranks of standing sculptures of various metals. Over nearly twenty years of adding, culling and rearranging, Bertoia carefully selected nearly 100 harmonious pieces ranging in height from under a foot to more than fifteen feet. He considered this barn a full experience, sights and sounds comprising not a collection of works, but one piece unto itself. It was here, deep in the woods, that his Sonambient recording work took place.

Learning by experimentation was common for Bertoia and he mastered the art of tape recording, turning the Sonambient barn into a sound studio with four overhead microphones hanging from the rafters in a square formation. He would experiment with overdubbing by performing along to previous recordings, sometimes backwards, constantly improving his methods while also honing his performance skills. Bertoia was a careful editor of his own work and only chosen recordings remained, each with a date and carefully considered observations written on a note included with each tape. Through these pieces of paper a the artist's logic can be uncovered, a careful approach to composition, ideas, feelings and forms. The story of Sonambient barn collection will slowly be told through the release of recordings from the archive as well as installations and performances built from Bertoia's own recordings, lectures and a book.

Revered bossman Nonentity takes the Source Material back to its roots with this firing new EP on hand-stamped and numbered 10". 'Denzel' is the visceral opener and one that sounds as if its synths have been fired by the hadron collider they are so fierce and fast. The drums too are hefty and the squelchy bass rounds out this instant electro classic. 'Equilibrium' on the flip takes a deeper tact, with moody chords hinting at unease as the slapping drum funk powers onwards. It's a two-tracker that is well worth adding to your aural assault arsenal.

100% GALCHER was by all accounts a game-changer when it landed in 2013 as an hour of original music from a relatively unknown producer ushered in by the beloved mix series Blowing Up The Workshop. Galcher Lustwerk's signature sound — a smoky stream-of-consciousness baritone shadow-boxing with beats, informed by funk, rap, rhythm, and blues — felt like an epiphany, impossibly hypnotic and complete. Resident Advisor writes, "100% GALCHER laid out a louche, lysergic and resolutely black take on deep house." Pitchfork remembers the music's immediate impact: "It's the sort of gem you felt inclined to pass around” — and by year-end list time, word-of-mouth intensified. It was Resident Advisor and Juno's mix of the year, and earned a top-ten placement in FACT Magazine's albums list, as well as Philip Sherburne's personal rundown for Spin." Since then, select songs from 100% GALCHER have seen small-run pressings, while the album has lived primarily on SoundCloud and YouTube as a low-key cult legend. The gateway into Lustwerk's now well-established catalog, known for its reliability as a late-night listen and its prophetic vision for the near future of underground dance music. RA would later name it a mix of the decade, citing its influence and imagination: “Original in every sense — unknown, unheard and unbelievably good.” In late 2022, marking ten years since he first recorded the material, Lustwerk returns to Ghostly International to release 100% GALCHER as a remastered limited-edition double LP.

Lustwerk is a product of the Midwest. Growing up in Cleveland, he'd tape over his parents’ cassettes and spend hours at his family computer recording loops and designing artwork for the jewel cases of burned CDs. In high school, he turned to Ableton Live and absorbed every electronic music magazine he could find at the local Borders Books store. In excerpts from the 100% GALCHER liner notes, Lustwerk looks back: "My dad drove me to this shop on the westside Bent Crayon, where I would get anything the blogs told you to get + whatever the clerk recommended. CDs stayed in their packaging, there was always an overflow of vinyl stacked on the floor. I was too shy to listen to anything before buying."

As a college student at RISD, he played in noise bands, plugged into Providence's DIY scene via Myspace, and started DJing weeknights at bars downtown. There he connected with Young Male and DJ Richard, who would go on to found White Material Records and offer their third release to Galcher Lustwerk, an alias realized via CAPTCHA test, a perfect artifact of its internet age. By 2012, Lustwerk had drifted to New York City and settled into a graphic design job, quickly growing disenfranchised by office culture. "Some days I felt like a token, other days I felt invisible." At night, he and his friends were carving out their own space

Original cat# GREWCD314 - Recorded in 1981 for Time 1 Productions (Jah Screw) this is one of the 'strictly dub' albums and gets a re-mastered LP vinyl re-release! It's the follow-up to 'Dangerous Dub' and again The Roots Radics (Drums: Lincoln "Style" Scott, Bass: Erroll "Flabba" Holt, Piano: Gladstone "Gladdie" Anderson, Keyboards: Wycliff "Steely" Johnson, Rhythm Guitar: Eric "Bingy Bunny" Lamont, Percussion: Barnabus & Noel "Scully" Sims) at their very best and King Tubbys studio sound and mix. Additional mix by Soldgie and Paul "Jah Screw" Love, tracks laid at Channel One - Killer!

Original Cat# GREL314 / Das Original Album "Dangerous Dub" wurde 1981 veröffentlicht und gehört definitiv zu den "Must Have" Alben des Dub. Nun gibt es eine Fortsetzung dieses Klassikers. "More Dangerous Dub" enthält nicht weniger als 14 unveröffentlichte Tracks der Roots Radics, aufgenommen mit King Tubby in den Channel Studios.

“A rather gorgeous and engrossing collection, that borrows stealthily from a rich history of sound effect and soundtrack to build a tender poem to the night time.” - CLASH
“The plan was to make twenty 90-second tracks designed as TV themes,” says Arab Strap’s Aidan Moffat, of the initial thought behind his new instrumental album as Nyx Nótt “But it wasn't a satisfying listen, it was too gimmicky and silly.”
So instead, Moffat decided to stretch the idea out, plunge deeper, and expand the music into full tracks, “making some of them quite long and dramatic, with the odd swift turn here and there.” In fleshing these tracks out into more fully realised songs he began sourcing samples from professional TV and film music libraries. “The focus then turned to making a proper album out of these modern library sounds,” he says. “I decided to stick with the Themes From title and named the tracks after the sorts of shows they made me think of when I listened back.”
The result is a record that explores genre themes such as: ‘Thriller, ‘Porno’, ‘Caper’ and Swashbuckler’, and acts as an audio equivalent of channel hopping through a unique TV station programmed by Moffat. “I still wasn't sure about all this until I did the album cover, which brought it all together,” he says, of the artwork that places an old smashed TV unit front and centre with a woman perched on top. “It has echoes of old TV compilations but is pretty cheeky and slightly sexy in that old 70s compilation style. I wanted this one to look a bit more fun than the last one, as well as hopefully sound a bit more fun too.”
Aside from being a fun experience, it is also a stirring and immersive listen, one that allows the listener to imagine their own accompanying visual scenarios to each musical theme. The opening ‘Docudrama’ marries a gently creeping beat with strings that glide from tense to sweeping, while ‘Porno’ is all seedy smoky jazz that feels plucked right out of Travis Bickle’s late night trips to porn cinemas in Taxi Driver.
Touches of jazz pop up in other places too, on ‘Hardboiled’ this merges with subtle pulses and gargles of electronics that build to a rousing crescendo of horns and bleeps, and on ‘Caper’ there’s a vivacious full jazz band skip to the lively swinging rhythms. “There's a few more jazzy elements here,” Moffat says. “Although I'm not quite sure where that came from. Although, like everyone else, I've had plenty of time to be introspective recently, so I decided the next Nyx Nótt album should be more upbeat and encourage some occasional foot-tapping.”
However, what becomes apparent, the longer you spend in the world of Themes From, is how singular and unique the tone of each composition is. “Each track has its own individual feel,” says Moffat. “The idea was to sound like a different composer and band throughout.” It’s a stylistic leap that continues Nyx Nótt’s trajectory as one that shares no direct link to Moffat’s other projects. “I approach them in completely different ways and with a different purpose in mind,” says Moffat. “I don't think Nyx has ever heard of Arab Strap, and certainly doesn't own any of their albums.” It’s also a notable shift from the debut album under this moniker, and suitably given the theme, Moffat has created a visual comparison between these two sonic worlds. “If the first Nyx Nótt album was like looking out on dark prairies before dawn, this is more like a walk through a neon Soho after a few cocktails.”

Repress of the 2010 classic “The Jazz Files” by Dexter from the legendary Hi-Hat Club series. Jazz is the subject!

Dexter is taking an new look at the long going love affair between hip-hop and jazz. From Stetsasonic to Gang Starr to Madlib, it is not an easy path to follow, but the 26 year old producer is adding a new and fresh style to it. The sound design of Dexter's "Jazz Files" is dusty but with an unmistakable 2010 twist. As much inspired by Wes Montgomery and Ramsey Lewis as by Sun Ra and Dave Pike, Dexter's tracks are never just "jazzy". They live and breathe jazz by combining the freedom and artisty of jazz with the craft of a free-thinking beatsmith.

And the "Jazz Files" are fun too. By implanting quotes an samples from interviews and tv shows such as the classic NBC program "The Subject Is Jazz", Dexter is telling his own little story of jazz. One that had it's starting point in the massive record collection of his father and grew into shape during a long hot summer blasting nothing but Ahmad Jamal and Sun Ra.

About Dexter: The 26 year old producer, DJ and MC is part of the Wortsport collective from Heilbronn. He has made beats for Morlock Dilemma, Damion Davis, Jaques Shure, Audio 88 & Yassin and Retrogott. He likes Flylo, Madlib and Oh-No as much as libary music, psych rock and Amiga Schlager. Dexter is one of the founding member of the Generation Tapedeck blog and has just started a new project with Suff Daddy.

About the Hi-Hat Club: MPM have teamed up with photographer Robert Winter to take a look behind the beat, into the bedrooms and makeshift studios of today's beat generation. Every Hi-Hat Club volume consits of an LP packaged with Rob's photos and accompanied by more pics on the Hi-Hat Club blog plus additional infos, free beats and drinks. Exhibitions in records stores and galleries are in the making too. Hi-Hat Club parties have been taken place in Cologne and Berlin so far. Watch out for more nights in 2010.

Musically the Hi-Hat Club promotes total artistic freedom. We are not bound to any sound or school. A Hi-Hat Club record can be anything from boom-bap to aqua crunk or whatever is fresh and dope.

Repress 2026

Green Vinyl + Slipmat

100% GALCHER was by all accounts a game-changer when it landed in 2013 as an hour of original music from a relatively unknown producer ushered in by the beloved mix series Blowing Up The Workshop. Galcher Lustwerk's signature sound — a smoky stream-of-consciousness baritone shadow-boxing with beats, informed by funk, rap, rhythm, and blues — felt like an epiphany, impossibly hypnotic and complete. Resident Advisor writes, "100% GALCHER laid out a louche, lysergic and resolutely black take on deep house." Pitchfork remembers the music's immediate impact: "It's the sort of gem you felt inclined to pass around” — and by year-end list time, word-of-mouth intensified. It was Resident Advisor and Juno's mix of the year, and earned a top-ten placement in FACT Magazine's albums list, as well as Philip Sherburne's personal rundown for Spin." Since then, select songs from 100% GALCHER have seen small-run pressings, while the album has lived primarily on SoundCloud and YouTube as a low-key cult legend. The gateway into Lustwerk's now well-established catalog, known for its reliability as a late-night listen and its prophetic vision for the near future of underground dance music. RA would later name it a mix of the decade, citing its influence and imagination: “Original in every sense — unknown, unheard and unbelievably good.” In late 2022, marking ten years since he first recorded the material, Lustwerk returns to Ghostly International to release 100% GALCHER as a remastered limited-edition double LP.

Lustwerk is a product of the Midwest. Growing up in Cleveland, he'd tape over his parents’ cassettes and spend hours at his family computer recording loops and designing artwork for the jewel cases of burned CDs. In high school, he turned to Ableton Live and absorbed every electronic music magazine he could find at the local Borders Books store. In excerpts from the 100% GALCHER liner notes, Lustwerk looks back: "My dad drove me to this shop on the westside Bent Crayon, where I would get anything the blogs told you to get + whatever the clerk recommended. CDs stayed in their packaging, there was always an overflow of vinyl stacked on the floor. I was too shy to listen to anything before buying."

As a college student at RISD, he played in noise bands, plugged into Providence's DIY scene via Myspace, and started DJing weeknights at bars downtown. There he connected with Young Male and DJ Richard, who would go on to found White Material Records and offer their third release to Galcher Lustwerk, an alias realized via CAPTCHA test, a perfect artifact of its internet age. By 2012, Lustwerk had drifted to New York City and settled into a graphic design job, quickly growing disenfranchised by office culture. "Some days I felt like a token, other days I felt invisible." At night, he and his friends were carving out their own space

Comprehensive box of 6 LPs / EPs and the band's first rare 7inch.

Aroma Di Amore is/was Belgian’s premier cult band. Since the early eighties ADA innovatively combined electronics with rock. With a mix of razor-sharp Flemish lyrics and unconventional song structures the group earned a cult status in Belgium and abroad. 40 years later they conclude their career with a few last concerts and a vinyl box set spanning the years 1983-1987.

At the notorious Rock Rally of 1982 Aroma Di Amore stands out with their wonderful handling of the Flemish language, a deep bass, typical cold new wave drums, biting guitar riffs with the occasional flavor of absolute madness. Frontman Jos Verlooy adopts the stage name Elvis Peeters. The explanation for this remarkable pseudonym choice: in 1977 – the period of the singer's musical awakening – one of the two famous rocking Elvises (not Costello, but Presley) succumbs to his pill addiction. So, dixit Verlooy, there is an Elvis vacant. A banal surname belongs next to that exotic first name. A combination that breathes rock 'n' roll, according to the singer.

His companion Gerry Vergult – who very much determines the sound with his metallic riffs, somewhat indebted to Jean-Marie Aerts – adopts the stage name Fred Angst. Completely in line with the depressing zeitgeist of the 1980s. Gerry eats and breathes music. Besides composing most of ADA’s songs, he records & self-produces a few fantastic dark en loner solo minimal wave tracks as Fred Angst. He is still musically active, more towards the electronic leftfield nowadays under the moniker Zool.

It is clear from an early age that companion Elvis Peeters possesses the gift of the word. As an adolescent he published the punkzine “Dus”. The punk spirit stimulates Peeters. He begins to transform the poetry that he has been entrusting to paper for some time into song lyrics. It is on a whim and without any stage experience that punk friends Peeters and Angst register for the Rock Rally as Aroma di Amore. On a bed of post-punk and cold wave (Joy Division, Wire and Sisters of Mercy are the main influences), they initially let out playful, minimalist and nonsensical slogans such as "Doe De Mafia" (1982) and "Gorilla Dans De Samba" (1983). Later on, the tone becomes more serious, although Peeters' choice of words continues to show a penchant for absurdism and sarcasm. No one in Dutch songwriting imitates this verbal elasticity, certainly at that time.

The numerous songs about war are downright horrifying. In the 1980s, an arms race is underway. When the Belgian government decides to install nuclear missiles in 1981, Aroma di Amore asks for one minute of silence in the hall during performances. In "Lauwe Oorlog" (1983), Peeters exposes the core of his unrest: “paraat voor de parade / de vrede wordt begraven / met militaire eer”. To this day, the frontman of AdA still proudly wears his at least 30 year old 'atomic energy, no thanks!' button.

In 1984 Aroma releases Koude Oorlog on the new and independent Brussels label Play It Again Sam. The traditional press and radio ignore the record, but in the alternative circuits the mini-album does not go unnoticed, and the group starts to build a solid fan base, resulting in more and more offers for gigs. There's also interest in the Netherlands, and due to the international contacts of PIAS, the record also ends up in France, Switzerland, Spain and Canada.

Encouraged by this modest success, the group returns to the studio for a 12" single. With new group member Frits De Cauter on sax, they record "Voor De Dood". To this day, Voor De Dood remains the most popular AdA song, as evidenced by the countless compilations on which the song has appeared.

AdA goes to the Netherlands to record their next album “De Sfeer Van Grote Dagen”. The people from Nasmak have built a new studio in Eindhoven and one of the members, Theo Van Eenbergen (later Henry Rollins), will be the producer. “De Sfeer Van Grote Dagen” is the group's most adventurous album, and the reviews are again unanimously favorable. However, sales are disappointing and PIAS proposes to recruit Chris Reed of Red Lorry Yellow Lorry and record a new single with him. "Zonder Omzien" is recorded at the prestigious Pyramid Studio. However, PIAS is waiting to release the album and in the meantime AdA is recording a number of extra tracks with producer Ludo Camberlin, including "Koekoek In De Stad". Towards the end of the year, Lo and Elvis travel to Africa for a few months and as a result the group comes to a standstill. In this period, Zonder Omzien is released.

At the beginning of 1986, Peeters and Meulen return, and Andrea Smits leaves the group. Luc Pillards is hired as a replacement, and when Ludo Camberlin presents himself as a new label boss and producer (Anything But Records), they start recording their first full album for the label. “Harde Feiten" kicks in immediately, and the group is back up to cruising speed. In the first week of release, the record even appears in the bestseller list of the record stores.

At the beginning of 1987 the recordings for the second album start, this time in a production by Peeters and Angst themselves. Shortly after the shooting, AdA goes to Switzerland for a short but successful tour, with Men 2nd and Cas & Organized Crime as support act. "Koudvuur" is published in the autumn and considered to be their strongest record so far by the group, the reactions are rather low. Both the reviews in the press and the sales are disappointing and put a damper on the joy. Nevertheless, the group is invited to perform in Valencia, Spain, where they have an unexpected success.

MUTANT SOUNDS BLOG

Aroma Di Amore have always been outsiders, even within the confinement of the alternative rock circuit. Their peculiar blend of raw guitars, electronics, Dutch lyrics and unconventional song structures was too hybrid for many. Those howewer who, without prejudice, would lend an ear to the band's music, discovered an energetic, authentic and uncompromising collective that stood above all trends. While so many Belgian "connaisseurs" had their doubts about the possibilities of international recognition for a band singing in Dutch, Aroma Di Amore toured France, Switzerland and Spain; their records figured in alternative charts from Poland to Canada.

From beginning to end the nucleus of Aroma Di Amore consisted of Elvis PEETERS, who in a inimitable, possessed way delivered his highly original lyrics, and Fred ANGST, guitarist mastering the heaviest riffs as well as refined tapestries of sound. Furthermore, the line-up varied throughout the band's carreer with:- H.K. (Guitarist from 1982 until 1983)- Andrea SMITS (Organ from 1982 until 1985)- Luc PILLARDS (Synthsizer in 1986)- Jan WANDELAAR (Guitar and synthesizer in 1986)- Pulcherie (Saxophone in 1983)- Wout DOCKX (Bass from 1987 until 1988)and especially- Lo MEULEN (Bass from 1983 until 1987)and the late Frits DE CAUTER (Saxophone from 1984 until 1986) contributing to the music.

Box Set includes: Gorilla Dans De Samba 7" (1983), Voor De Dood 12" (1984), Koude Oorlog LP (1984), De Sfeer Van Grote Dagen 12" (1985), Zonder Omzien 12" (1986), Harde Feiten LP (1986), Koudvuur LP (1987)

First-time reissue of Aroma Di Amore's debut album, originally released in 1984.

Aroma Di Amore is/was Belgian’s premier cult band. Since the early eighties ADA innovatively combined electronics with rock. With a mix of razor-sharp Flemish lyrics and unconventional song structures the group earned a cult status in Belgium and abroad. 40 years later they conclude their career with a few last concerts and a vinyl box set spanning the years 1983-1987.

At the notorious Rock Rally of 1982 Aroma Di Amore stands out with their wonderful handling of the Flemish language, a deep bass, typical cold new wave drums, biting guitar riffs with the occasional flavor of absolute madness. Frontman Jos Verlooy adopts the stage name Elvis Peeters. The explanation for this remarkable pseudonym choice: in 1977 – the period of the singer's musical awakening – one of the two famous rocking Elvises (not Costello, but Presley) succumbs to his pill addiction. So, dixit Verlooy, there is an Elvis vacant. A banal surname belongs next to that exotic first name. A combination that breathes rock 'n' roll, according to the singer.

His companion Gerry Vergult – who very much determines the sound with his metallic riffs, somewhat indebted to Jean-Marie Aerts – adopts the stage name Fred Angst. Completely in line with the depressing zeitgeist of the 1980s. Gerry eats and breathes music. Besides composing most of ADA’s songs, he records & self-produces a few fantastic dark en loner solo minimal wave tracks as Fred Angst. He is still musically active, more towards the electronic leftfield nowadays under the moniker Zool.

It is clear from an early age that companion Elvis Peeters possesses the gift of the word. As an adolescent he published the punkzine “Dus”. The punk spirit stimulates Peeters. He begins to transform the poetry that he has been entrusting to paper for some time into song lyrics. It is on a whim and without any stage experience that punk friends Peeters and Angst register for the Rock Rally as Aroma di Amore. On a bed of post-punk and cold wave (Joy Division, Wire and Sisters of Mercy are the main influences), they initially let out playful, minimalist and nonsensical slogans such as "Doe De Mafia" (1982) and "Gorilla Dans De Samba" (1983). Later on, the tone becomes more serious, although Peeters' choice of words continues to show a penchant for absurdism and sarcasm. No one in Dutch songwriting imitates this verbal elasticity, certainly at that time.

The numerous songs about war are downright horrifying. In the 1980s, an arms race is underway. When the Belgian government decides to install nuclear missiles in 1981, Aroma di Amore asks for one minute of silence in the hall during performances. In "Lauwe Oorlog" (1983), Peeters exposes the core of his unrest: “paraat voor de parade / de vrede wordt begraven / met militaire eer”. To this day, the frontman of AdA still proudly wears his at least 30 year old 'atomic energy, no thanks!' button.

In 1984 Aroma releases Koude Oorlog on the new and independent Brussels label Play It Again Sam. The traditional press and radio ignore the record, but in the alternative circuits the mini-album does not go unnoticed, and the group starts to build a solid fan base, resulting in more and more offers for gigs. There's also interest in the Netherlands, and due to the international contacts of PIAS, the record also ends up in France, Switzerland, Spain and Canada.

Encouraged by this modest success, the group returns to the studio for a 12" single. With new group member Frits De Cauter on sax, they record "Voor De Dood". To this day, Voor De Dood remains the most popular AdA song, as evidenced by the countless compilations on which the song has appeared.

AdA goes to the Netherlands to record their next album “De Sfeer Van Grote Dagen”. The people from Nasmak have built a new studio in Eindhoven and one of the members, Theo Van Eenbergen (later Henry Rollins), will be the producer. “De Sfeer Van Grote Dagen” is the group's most adventurous album, and the reviews are again unanimously favorable. However, sales are disappointing and PIAS proposes to recruit Chris Reed of Red Lorry Yellow Lorry and record a new single with him. "Zonder Omzien" is recorded at the prestigious Pyramid Studio. However, PIAS is waiting to release the album and in the meantime AdA is recording a number of extra tracks with producer Ludo Camberlin, including "Koekoek In De Stad". Towards the end of the year, Lo and Elvis travel to Africa for a few months and as a result the group comes to a standstill. In this period, Zonder Omzien is released.

At the beginning of 1986, Peeters and Meulen return, and Andrea Smits leaves the group. Luc Pillards is hired as a replacement, and when Ludo Camberlin presents himself as a new label boss and producer (Anything But Records), they start recording their first full album for the label. “Harde Feiten" kicks in immediately, and the group is back up to cruising speed. In the first week of release, the record even appears in the bestseller list of the record stores.

At the beginning of 1987 the recordings for the second album start, this time in a production by Peeters and Angst themselves. Shortly after the shooting, AdA goes to Switzerland for a short but successful tour, with Men 2nd and Cas & Organized Crime as support act. "Koudvuur" is published in the autumn and considered to be their strongest record so far by the group, the reactions are rather low. Both the reviews in the press and the sales are disappointing and put a damper on the joy. Nevertheless, the group is invited to perform in Valencia, Spain, where they have an unexpected success.

MUTANT SOUNDS BLOG

Aroma Di Amore have always been outsiders, even within the confinement of the alternative rock circuit. Their peculiar blend of raw guitars, electronics, Dutch lyrics and unconventional song structures was too hybrid for many. Those howewer who, without prejudice, would lend an ear to the band's music, discovered an energetic, authentic and uncompromising collective that stood above all trends. While so many Belgian "connaisseurs" had their doubts about the possibilities of international recognition for a band singing in Dutch, Aroma Di Amore toured France, Switzerland and Spain; their records figured in alternative charts from Poland to Canada.

From beginning to end the nucleus of Aroma Di Amore consisted of Elvis PEETERS, who in a inimitable, possessed way delivered his highly original lyrics, and Fred ANGST, guitarist mastering the heaviest riffs as well as refined tapestries of sound. Furthermore, the line-up varied throughout the band's carreer with:- H.K. (Guitarist from 1982 until 1983)- Andrea SMITS (Organ from 1982 until 1985)- Luc PILLARDS (Synthsizer in 1986)- Jan WANDELAAR (Guitar and synthesizer in 1986)- Pulcherie (Saxophone in 1983)- Wout DOCKX (Bass from 1987 until 1988)and especially- Lo MEULEN (Bass from 1983 until 1987)and the late Frits DE CAUTER (Saxophone from 1984 until 1986)contributing to the music.

First-time reissue of Aroma Di Amore's 2nd album, originally released in 1986.

Aroma Di Amore is/was Belgian’s premier cult band. Since the early eighties ADA innovatively combined electronics with rock. With a mix of razor-sharp Flemish lyrics and unconventional song structures the group earned a cult status in Belgium and abroad. 40 years later they conclude their career with a few last concerts and a vinyl box set spanning the years 1983-1987.

At the notorious Rock Rally of 1982 Aroma Di Amore stands out with their wonderful handling of the Flemish language, a deep bass, typical cold new wave drums, biting guitar riffs with the occasional flavor of absolute madness. Frontman Jos Verlooy adopts the stage name Elvis Peeters. The explanation for this remarkable pseudonym choice: in 1977 – the period of the singer's musical awakening – one of the two famous rocking Elvises (not Costello, but Presley) succumbs to his pill addiction. So, dixit Verlooy, there is an Elvis vacant. A banal surname belongs next to that exotic first name. A combination that breathes rock 'n' roll, according to the singer.

His companion Gerry Vergult – who very much determines the sound with his metallic riffs, somewhat indebted to Jean-Marie Aerts – adopts the stage name Fred Angst. Completely in line with the depressing zeitgeist of the 1980s. Gerry eats and breathes music. Besides composing most of ADA’s songs, he records & self-produces a few fantastic dark en loner solo minimal wave tracks as Fred Angst. He is still musically active, more towards the electronic leftfield nowadays under the moniker Zool.

It is clear from an early age that companion Elvis Peeters possesses the gift of the word. As an adolescent he published the punkzine “Dus”. The punk spirit stimulates Peeters. He begins to transform the poetry that he has been entrusting to paper for some time into song lyrics. It is on a whim and without any stage experience that punk friends Peeters and Angst register for the Rock Rally as Aroma di Amore. On a bed of post-punk and cold wave (Joy Division, Wire and Sisters of Mercy are the main influences), they initially let out playful, minimalist and nonsensical slogans such as "Doe De Mafia" (1982) and "Gorilla Dans De Samba" (1983). Later on, the tone becomes more serious, although Peeters' choice of words continues to show a penchant for absurdism and sarcasm. No one in Dutch songwriting imitates this verbal elasticity, certainly at that time.

The numerous songs about war are downright horrifying. In the 1980s, an arms race is underway. When the Belgian government decides to install nuclear missiles in 1981, Aroma di Amore asks for one minute of silence in the hall during performances. In "Lauwe Oorlog" (1983), Peeters exposes the core of his unrest: “paraat voor de parade / de vrede wordt begraven / met militaire eer”. To this day, the frontman of AdA still proudly wears his at least 30 year old 'atomic energy, no thanks!' button.

In 1984 Aroma releases Koude Oorlog on the new and independent Brussels label Play It Again Sam. The traditional press and radio ignore the record, but in the alternative circuits the mini-album does not go unnoticed, and the group starts to build a solid fan base, resulting in more and more offers for gigs. There's also interest in the Netherlands, and due to the international contacts of PIAS, the record also ends up in France, Switzerland, Spain and Canada.

Encouraged by this modest success, the group returns to the studio for a 12" single. With new group member Frits De Cauter on sax, they record "Voor De Dood". To this day, Voor De Dood remains the most popular AdA song, as evidenced by the countless compilations on which the song has appeared.

AdA goes to the Netherlands to record their next album “De Sfeer Van Grote Dagen”. The people from Nasmak have built a new studio in Eindhoven and one of the members, Theo Van Eenbergen (later Henry Rollins), will be the producer. “De Sfeer Van Grote Dagen” is the group's most adventurous album, and the reviews are again unanimously favorable. However, sales are disappointing and PIAS proposes to recruit Chris Reed of Red Lorry Yellow Lorry and record a new single with him. "Zonder Omzien" is recorded at the prestigious Pyramid Studio. However, PIAS is waiting to release the album and in the meantime AdA is recording a number of extra tracks with producer Ludo Camberlin, including "Koekoek In De Stad". Towards the end of the year, Lo and Elvis travel to Africa for a few months and as a result the group comes to a standstill. In this period, Zonder Omzien is released.

At the beginning of 1986, Peeters and Meulen return, and Andrea Smits leaves the group. Luc Pillards is hired as a replacement, and when Ludo Camberlin presents himself as a new label boss and producer (Anything But Records), they start recording their first full album for the label. “Harde Feiten" kicks in immediately, and the group is back up to cruising speed. In the first week of release, the record even appears in the bestseller list of the record stores.

At the beginning of 1987 the recordings for the second album start, this time in a production by Peeters and Angst themselves. Shortly after the shooting, AdA goes to Switzerland for a short but successful tour, with Men 2nd and Cas & Organized Crime as support act. "Koudvuur" is published in the autumn and considered to be their strongest record so far by the group, the reactions are rather low. Both the reviews in the press and the sales are disappointing and put a damper on the joy. Nevertheless, the group is invited to perform in Valencia, Spain, where they have an unexpected success.

MUTANT SOUNDS BLOG

Aroma Di Amore have always been outsiders, even within the confinement of the alternative rock circuit. Their peculiar blend of raw guitars, electronics, Dutch lyrics and unconventional song structures was too hybrid for many. Those howewer who, without prejudice, would lend an ear to the band's music, discovered an energetic, authentic and uncompromising collective that stood above all trends. While so many Belgian "connaisseurs" had their doubts about the possibilities of international recognition for a band singing in Dutch, Aroma Di Amore toured France, Switzerland and Spain; their records figured in alternative charts from Poland to Canada.

From beginning to end the nucleus of Aroma Di Amore consisted of Elvis PEETERS, who in a inimitable, possessed way delivered his highly original lyrics, and Fred ANGST, guitarist mastering the heaviest riffs as well as refined tapestries of sound. Furthermore, the line-up varied throughout the band's carreer with:- H.K. (Guitarist from 1982 until 1983)- Andrea SMITS (Organ from 1982 until 1985)- Luc PILLARDS (Synthsizer in 1986)- Jan WANDELAAR (Guitar and synthesizer in 1986)- Pulcherie (Saxophone in 1983)- Wout DOCKX (Bass from 1987 until 1988)and especially- Lo MEULEN (Bass from 1983 until 1987)and the late Frits DE CAUTER (Saxophone from 1984 until 1986)contributing to the music.

First-time reissue of Aroma Di Amore's 3rd album, originally released in 1987.

Aroma Di Amore is/was Belgian’s premier cult band. Since the early eighties ADA innovatively combined electronics with rock. With a mix of razor-sharp Flemish lyrics and unconventional song structures the group earned a cult status in Belgium and abroad. 40 years later they conclude their career with a few last concerts and a vinyl box set spanning the years 1983-1987.

At the notorious Rock Rally of 1982 Aroma Di Amore stands out with their wonderful handling of the Flemish language, a deep bass, typical cold new wave drums, biting guitar riffs with the occasional flavor of absolute madness. Frontman Jos Verlooy adopts the stage name Elvis Peeters. The explanation for this remarkable pseudonym choice: in 1977 – the period of the singer's musical awakening – one of the two famous rocking Elvises (not Costello, but Presley) succumbs to his pill addiction. So, dixit Verlooy, there is an Elvis vacant. A banal surname belongs next to that exotic first name. A combination that breathes rock 'n' roll, according to the singer.

His companion Gerry Vergult – who very much determines the sound with his metallic riffs, somewhat indebted to Jean-Marie Aerts – adopts the stage name Fred Angst. Completely in line with the depressing zeitgeist of the 1980s. Gerry eats and breathes music. Besides composing most of ADA’s songs, he records & self-produces a few fantastic dark en loner solo minimal wave tracks as Fred Angst. He is still musically active, more towards the electronic leftfield nowadays under the moniker Zool.

It is clear from an early age that companion Elvis Peeters possesses the gift of the word. As an adolescent he published the punkzine “Dus”. The punk spirit stimulates Peeters. He begins to transform the poetry that he has been entrusting to paper for some time into song lyrics. It is on a whim and without any stage experience that punk friends Peeters and Angst register for the Rock Rally as Aroma di Amore. On a bed of post-punk and cold wave (Joy Division, Wire and Sisters of Mercy are the main influences), they initially let out playful, minimalist and nonsensical slogans such as "Doe De Mafia" (1982) and "Gorilla Dans De Samba" (1983). Later on, the tone becomes more serious, although Peeters' choice of words continues to show a penchant for absurdism and sarcasm. No one in Dutch songwriting imitates this verbal elasticity, certainly at that time.

The numerous songs about war are downright horrifying. In the 1980s, an arms race is underway. When the Belgian government decides to install nuclear missiles in 1981, Aroma di Amore asks for one minute of silence in the hall during performances. In "Lauwe Oorlog" (1983), Peeters exposes the core of his unrest: “paraat voor de parade / de vrede wordt begraven / met militaire eer”. To this day, the frontman of AdA still proudly wears his at least 30 year old 'atomic energy, no thanks!' button.

In 1984 Aroma releases Koude Oorlog on the new and independent Brussels label Play It Again Sam. The traditional press and radio ignore the record, but in the alternative circuits the mini-album does not go unnoticed, and the group starts to build a solid fan base, resulting in more and more offers for gigs. There's also interest in the Netherlands, and due to the international contacts of PIAS, the record also ends up in France, Switzerland, Spain and Canada.

Encouraged by this modest success, the group returns to the studio for a 12" single. With new group member Frits De Cauter on sax, they record "Voor De Dood". To this day, Voor De Dood remains the most popular AdA song, as evidenced by the countless compilations on which the song has appeared.

AdA goes to the Netherlands to record their next album “De Sfeer Van Grote Dagen”. The people from Nasmak have built a new studio in Eindhoven and one of the members, Theo Van Eenbergen (later Henry Rollins), will be the producer. “De Sfeer Van Grote Dagen” is the group's most adventurous album, and the reviews are again unanimously favorable. However, sales are disappointing and PIAS proposes to recruit Chris Reed of Red Lorry Yellow Lorry and record a new single with him. "Zonder Omzien" is recorded at the prestigious Pyramid Studio. However, PIAS is waiting to release the album and in the meantime AdA is recording a number of extra tracks with producer Ludo Camberlin, including "Koekoek In De Stad". Towards the end of the year, Lo and Elvis travel to Africa for a few months and as a result the group comes to a standstill. In this period, Zonder Omzien is released.

At the beginning of 1986, Peeters and Meulen return, and Andrea Smits leaves the group. Luc Pillards is hired as a replacement, and when Ludo Camberlin presents himself as a new label boss and producer (Anything But Records), they start recording their first full album for the label. “Harde Feiten" kicks in immediately, and the group is back up to cruising speed. In the first week of release, the record even appears in the bestseller list of the record stores.

At the beginning of 1987 the recordings for the second album start, this time in a production by Peeters and Angst themselves. Shortly after the shooting, AdA goes to Switzerland for a short but successful tour, with Men 2nd and Cas & Organized Crime as support act. "Koudvuur" is published in the autumn and considered to be their strongest record so far by the group, the reactions are rather low. Both the reviews in the press and the sales are disappointing and put a damper on the joy. Nevertheless, the group is invited to perform in Valencia, Spain, where they have an unexpected success.

MUTANT SOUNDS BLOG

Aroma Di Amore have always been outsiders, even within the confinement of the alternative rock circuit. Their peculiar blend of raw guitars, electronics, Dutch lyrics and unconventional song structures was too hybrid for many. Those howewer who, without prejudice, would lend an ear to the band's music, discovered an energetic, authentic and uncompromising collective that stood above all trends. While so many Belgian "connaisseurs" had their doubts about the possibilities of international recognition for a band singing in Dutch, Aroma Di Amore toured France, Switzerland and Spain; their records figured in alternative charts from Poland to Canada.

From beginning to end the nucleus of Aroma Di Amore consisted of Elvis PEETERS, who in a inimitable, possessed way delivered his highly original lyrics, and Fred ANGST, guitarist mastering the heaviest riffs as well as refined tapestries of sound. Furthermore, the line-up varied throughout the band's carreer with:- H.K. (Guitarist from 1982 until 1983)- Andrea SMITS (Organ from 1982 until 1985)- Luc PILLARDS (Synthsizer in 1986)- Jan WANDELAAR (Guitar and synthesizer in 1986)- Pulcherie (Saxophone in 1983)- Wout DOCKX (Bass from 1987 until 1988)and especially- Lo MEULEN (Bass from 1983 until 1987)and the late Frits DE CAUTER (Saxophone from 1984 until 1986)contributing to the music.

First-time reissue of Aroma Di Amore's 3rd EP, originally released in 1985.

Aroma Di Amore is/was Belgian’s premier cult band. Since the early eighties ADA innovatively combined electronics with rock. With a mix of razor-sharp Flemish lyrics and unconventional song structures the group earned a cult status in Belgium and abroad. 40 years later they conclude their career with a few last concerts and a vinyl box set spanning the years 1983-1987.

At the notorious Rock Rally of 1982 Aroma Di Amore stands out with their wonderful handling of the Flemish language, a deep bass, typical cold new wave drums, biting guitar riffs with the occasional flavor of absolute madness. Frontman Jos Verlooy adopts the stage name Elvis Peeters. The explanation for this remarkable pseudonym choice: in 1977 – the period of the singer's musical awakening – one of the two famous rocking Elvises (not Costello, but Presley) succumbs to his pill addiction. So, dixit Verlooy, there is an Elvis vacant. A banal surname belongs next to that exotic first name. A combination that breathes rock 'n' roll, according to the singer.

His companion Gerry Vergult – who very much determines the sound with his metallic riffs, somewhat indebted to Jean-Marie Aerts – adopts the stage name Fred Angst. Completely in line with the depressing zeitgeist of the 1980s. Gerry eats and breathes music. Besides composing most of ADA’s songs, he records & self-produces a few fantastic dark en loner solo minimal wave tracks as Fred Angst. He is still musically active, more towards the electronic leftfield nowadays under the moniker Zool.

It is clear from an early age that companion Elvis Peeters possesses the gift of the word. As an adolescent he published the punkzine “Dus”. The punk spirit stimulates Peeters. He begins to transform the poetry that he has been entrusting to paper for some time into song lyrics. It is on a whim and without any stage experience that punk friends Peeters and Angst register for the Rock Rally as Aroma di Amore. On a bed of post-punk and cold wave (Joy Division, Wire and Sisters of Mercy are the main influences), they initially let out playful, minimalist and nonsensical slogans such as "Doe De Mafia" (1982) and "Gorilla Dans De Samba" (1983). Later on, the tone becomes more serious, although Peeters' choice of words continues to show a penchant for absurdism and sarcasm. No one in Dutch songwriting imitates this verbal elasticity, certainly at that time.

The numerous songs about war are downright horrifying. In the 1980s, an arms race is underway. When the Belgian government decides to install nuclear missiles in 1981, Aroma di Amore asks for one minute of silence in the hall during performances. In "Lauwe Oorlog" (1983), Peeters exposes the core of his unrest: “paraat voor de parade / de vrede wordt begraven / met militaire eer”. To this day, the frontman of AdA still proudly wears his at least 30 year old 'atomic energy, no thanks!' button.

In 1984 Aroma releases Koude Oorlog on the new and independent Brussels label Play It Again Sam. The traditional press and radio ignore the record, but in the alternative circuits the mini-album does not go unnoticed, and the group starts to build a solid fan base, resulting in more and more offers for gigs. There's also interest in the Netherlands, and due to the international contacts of PIAS, the record also ends up in France, Switzerland, Spain and Canada.

Encouraged by this modest success, the group returns to the studio for a 12" single. With new group member Frits De Cauter on sax, they record "Voor De Dood". To this day, Voor De Dood remains the most popular AdA song, as evidenced by the countless compilations on which the song has appeared.

AdA goes to the Netherlands to record their next album “De Sfeer Van Grote Dagen”. The people from Nasmak have built a new studio in Eindhoven and one of the members, Theo Van Eenbergen (later Henry Rollins), will be the producer. “De Sfeer Van Grote Dagen” is the group's most adventurous album, and the reviews are again unanimously favorable. However, sales are disappointing and PIAS proposes to recruit Chris Reed of Red Lorry Yellow Lorry and record a new single with him. "Zonder Omzien" is recorded at the prestigious Pyramid Studio. However, PIAS is waiting to release the album and in the meantime AdA is recording a number of extra tracks with producer Ludo Camberlin, including "Koekoek In De Stad". Towards the end of the year, Lo and Elvis travel to Africa for a few months and as a result the group comes to a standstill. In this period, Zonder Omzien is released.

At the beginning of 1986, Peeters and Meulen return, and Andrea Smits leaves the group. Luc Pillards is hired as a replacement, and when Ludo Camberlin presents himself as a new label boss and producer (Anything But Records), they start recording their first full album for the label. “Harde Feiten" kicks in immediately, and the group is back up to cruising speed. In the first week of release, the record even appears in the bestseller list of the record stores.

At the beginning of 1987 the recordings for the second album start, this time in a production by Peeters and Angst themselves. Shortly after the shooting, AdA goes to Switzerland for a short but successful tour, with Men 2nd and Cas & Organized Crime as support act. "Koudvuur" is published in the autumn and considered to be their strongest record so far by the group, the reactions are rather low. Both the reviews in the press and the sales are disappointing and put a damper on the joy. Nevertheless, the group is invited to perform in Valencia, Spain, where they have an unexpected success.

MUTANT SOUNDS BLOG

Aroma Di Amore have always been outsiders, even within the confinement of the alternative rock circuit. Their peculiar blend of raw guitars, electronics, Dutch lyrics and unconventional song structures was too hybrid for many. Those howewer who, without prejudice, would lend an ear to the band's music, discovered an energetic, authentic and uncompromising collective that stood above all trends. While so many Belgian "connaisseurs" had their doubts about the possibilities of international recognition for a band singing in Dutch, Aroma Di Amore toured France, Switzerland and Spain; their records figured in alternative charts from Poland to Canada.

From beginning to end the nucleus of Aroma Di Amore consisted of Elvis PEETERS, who in a inimitable, possessed way delivered his highly original lyrics, and Fred ANGST, guitarist mastering the heaviest riffs as well as refined tapestries of sound. Furthermore, the line-up varied throughout the band's carreer with:- H.K. (Guitarist from 1982 until 1983)- Andrea SMITS (Organ from 1982 until 1985)- Luc PILLARDS (Synthsizer in 1986)- Jan WANDELAAR (Guitar and synthesizer in 1986)- Pulcherie (Saxophone in 1983)- Wout DOCKX (Bass from 1987 until 1988)and especially- Lo MEULEN (Bass from 1983 until 1987)and the late Frits DE CAUTER (Saxophone from 1984 until 1986)contributing to the music

First-time reissue of Aroma Di Amore's 4th EP, originally released in 1986.

Aroma Di Amore is/was Belgian’s premier cult band. Since the early eighties ADA innovatively combined electronics with rock. With a mix of razor-sharp Flemish lyrics and unconventional song structures the group earned a cult status in Belgium and abroad. 40 years later they conclude their career with a few last concerts and a vinyl box set spanning the years 1983-1987.

At the notorious Rock Rally of 1982 Aroma Di Amore stands out with their wonderful handling of the Flemish language, a deep bass, typical cold new wave drums, biting guitar riffs with the occasional flavor of absolute madness. Frontman Jos Verlooy adopts the stage name Elvis Peeters. The explanation for this remarkable pseudonym choice: in 1977 – the period of the singer's musical awakening – one of the two famous rocking Elvises (not Costello, but Presley) succumbs to his pill addiction. So, dixit Verlooy, there is an Elvis vacant. A banal surname belongs next to that exotic first name. A combination that breathes rock 'n' roll, according to the singer.

His companion Gerry Vergult – who very much determines the sound with his metallic riffs, somewhat indebted to Jean-Marie Aerts – adopts the stage name Fred Angst. Completely in line with the depressing zeitgeist of the 1980s. Gerry eats and breathes music. Besides composing most of ADA’s songs, he records & self-produces a few fantastic dark en loner solo minimal wave tracks as Fred Angst. He is still musically active, more towards the electronic leftfield nowadays under the moniker Zool.

It is clear from an early age that companion Elvis Peeters possesses the gift of the word. As an adolescent he published the punkzine “Dus”. The punk spirit stimulates Peeters. He begins to transform the poetry that he has been entrusting to paper for some time into song lyrics. It is on a whim and without any stage experience that punk friends Peeters and Angst register for the Rock Rally as Aroma di Amore. On a bed of post-punk and cold wave (Joy Division, Wire and Sisters of Mercy are the main influences), they initially let out playful, minimalist and nonsensical slogans such as "Doe De Mafia" (1982) and "Gorilla Dans De Samba" (1983). Later on, the tone becomes more serious, although Peeters' choice of words continues to show a penchant for absurdism and sarcasm. No one in Dutch songwriting imitates this verbal elasticity, certainly at that time.

The numerous songs about war are downright horrifying. In the 1980s, an arms race is underway. When the Belgian government decides to install nuclear missiles in 1981, Aroma di Amore asks for one minute of silence in the hall during performances. In "Lauwe Oorlog" (1983), Peeters exposes the core of his unrest: “paraat voor de parade / de vrede wordt begraven / met militaire eer”. To this day, the frontman of AdA still proudly wears his at least 30 year old 'atomic energy, no thanks!' button.

In 1984 Aroma releases Koude Oorlog on the new and independent Brussels label Play It Again Sam. The traditional press and radio ignore the record, but in the alternative circuits the mini-album does not go unnoticed, and the group starts to build a solid fan base, resulting in more and more offers for gigs. There's also interest in the Netherlands, and due to the international contacts of PIAS, the record also ends up in France, Switzerland, Spain and Canada.

Encouraged by this modest success, the group returns to the studio for a 12" single. With new group member Frits De Cauter on sax, they record "Voor De Dood". To this day, Voor De Dood remains the most popular AdA song, as evidenced by the countless compilations on which the song has appeared.

AdA goes to the Netherlands to record their next album “De Sfeer Van Grote Dagen”. The people from Nasmak have built a new studio in Eindhoven and one of the members, Theo Van Eenbergen (later Henry Rollins), will be the producer. “De Sfeer Van Grote Dagen” is the group's most adventurous album, and the reviews are again unanimously favorable. However, sales are disappointing and PIAS proposes to recruit Chris Reed of Red Lorry Yellow Lorry and record a new single with him. "Zonder Omzien" is recorded at the prestigious Pyramid Studio. However, PIAS is waiting to release the album and in the meantime AdA is recording a number of extra tracks with producer Ludo Camberlin, including "Koekoek In De Stad". Towards the end of the year, Lo and Elvis travel to Africa for a few months and as a result the group comes to a standstill. In this period, Zonder Omzien is released.

At the beginning of 1986, Peeters and Meulen return, and Andrea Smits leaves the group. Luc Pillards is hired as a replacement, and when Ludo Camberlin presents himself as a new label boss and producer (Anything But Records), they start recording their first full album for the label. “Harde Feiten" kicks in immediately, and the group is back up to cruising speed. In the first week of release, the record even appears in the bestseller list of the record stores.

At the beginning of 1987 the recordings for the second album start, this time in a production by Peeters and Angst themselves. Shortly after the shooting, AdA goes to Switzerland for a short but successful tour, with Men 2nd and Cas & Organized Crime as support act. "Koudvuur" is published in the autumn and considered to be their strongest record so far by the group, the reactions are rather low. Both the reviews in the press and the sales are disappointing and put a damper on the joy. Nevertheless, the group is invited to perform in Valencia, Spain, where they have an unexpected success.

MUTANT SOUNDS BLOG

Aroma Di Amore have always been outsiders, even within the confinement of the alternative rock circuit. Their peculiar blend of raw guitars, electronics, Dutch lyrics and unconventional song structures was too hybrid for many. Those howewer who, without prejudice, would lend an ear to the band's music, discovered an energetic, authentic and uncompromising collective that stood above all trends. While so many Belgian "connaisseurs" had their doubts about the possibilities of international recognition for a band singing in Dutch, Aroma Di Amore toured France, Switzerland and Spain; their records figured in alternative charts from Poland to Canada.

From beginning to end the nucleus of Aroma Di Amore consisted of Elvis PEETERS, who in a inimitable, possessed way delivered his highly original lyrics, and Fred ANGST, guitarist mastering the heaviest riffs as well as refined tapestries of sound. Furthermore, the line-up varied throughout the band's carreer with:- H.K. (Guitarist from 1982 until 1983)- Andrea SMITS (Organ from 1982 until 1985)- Luc PILLARDS (Synthsizer in 1986)- Jan WANDELAAR (Guitar and synthesizer in 1986)- Pulcherie (Saxophone in 1983)- Wout DOCKX (Bass from 1987 until 1988)and especially- Lo MEULEN (Bass from 1983 until 1987)and the late Frits DE CAUTER (Saxophone from 1984 until 1986)contributing to the music.

Upcoming album 'Fruit Of The Void' to be released later this fall.
Kosmo Sound is a perfect balance of tight rhythms and extended melodies, and they constantly strive to push boundaries with their sound. Having worked together with dub legends Daniel Boyle and Alpha & Omega and having played as the support act for Adrian Sherwood, The Twinkle Brothers and Omar Perry, heavily inspired, they took refuge in the studio to record this album full of meditative sounds and dense grooves.

“It's a slow motion dub explosion.” - Woodburner

“As a mixture of Slimmah Sound, El Michels Afffair and Khruangbin in which deep dub basses flirt with thin desert blues guitars, jazzy drum patterns and tufts of saxophone.” - Indiestyle

“The canvas that these six musicians span as Kosmo Sound has a musical breadth that effortlessly ranges from dub over jazz to psych.” - daMusic

"an amalgation of styles that tickle the senses" - ReggaeVibes

“This remarkable debut makes one curious about future releases” – Irie Ites

Joining techno mainstays Spencer Parker, Leo Pol and label boss Mella Dee among others, BLACK GIRL / WHITE GIRL are the latest artists to come to Warehouse Music serving up an EP of mind-expanding techno rollers.

The Holland-based duo have made a name for themselves producing weighty, no-nonsense techno cuts to reputable labels Super Rhythm Trax, Balkan Vinyl, and more recently, their independent Bandcamp series Dancefloor Destroyers which remade old school classics in the image of jack: acidifying everything from Robyn to Donna Summer, these tools show off the pair’s ability to make a club (re)werk.

Now with their ‘Multiverse EP’, BLACK GIRL / WHITE GIRL take their sound to another plane where kick drums slide over spectral voices, bleeps smudge into cosmic fractals, and minimal hi-hats make way for a slinkier, deeper energy than on previous releases—all without spilling a drop of their signature raw power.

Y Bülbül is back on the controls accompanied by Yumurta, a percussionist from Istanbul. Pingipung introduced the London based artist in 2020 with his psychedelic, synth-laden debut “Fever”.

“Not One, Not Two” is based on a one-way transmission of improvised drum recordings from an industrial estate in Maslak, Istanbul to another one in Tottenham, London, where Y Bülbül laid down fragmented layers of bass, synths, guitars and field recordings over Yumurta’s singular drum takes. The result is a free-form deep listening album for fans of dub, ambient and kosmische music, where the groove and harmonies are mystically interwoven, yet somehow manage to stay on the brink of collapse. Although the sessions were non concurrent and scattered over two continents, the collaboration evokes scenes of a telepathic communion where individual perspectives, circumstances and stories are exchanged between the two.

Resembling Moondog, Holy Tongue or Luis Paniagua in the sense that they favor the raw over the polished, holistic presence over conceptual perfection and questions over answers, the duo’s focus on bare sounds and repetition guides the listener throughout the album. The ride cymbal opening the minimalistic “I’m This”, for instance, briskly disarms the listener who might have been looking for more traditional songwriting or production clues. There are plenty of immediately rewarding moments too in “Not One, Not Two,” like the organic acid bassline in “Maurin Quina”, the euphoric drum fills of “Big K” and the intoxicating groove of the hypnotic vibe-setter “Jah Oto”.

Bülbül is Turkish for a singing bird while Yumurta simply means egg. Which one is first? Who is to follow? It’s this enigmatic entanglement between the two artists which creates the lurking tension, emphasized by the Zen Kōan-like title. The beauty in this album is a peculiar one, and it certainly is a rabbit hole too. Dissonance is fluid as everything moves, and whenever two sounds collide, a third one emerges.

Second Editions presents a new collaborative work by Marja Ahti and Judith Hamann.

After their distinguished duet ‘Portals’ for Cafe Oto's Takuroku label, ‘A coincidence is perfect, intimate attunement’ is a wonderful sophomore collaborative work pieced together over two years of changing seasons, ideas, moods, and feelings. The release is formed from a shifting field of sound correspondence that pivots on moments of coincidence, of a tuning in.

What are we opening ourselves to when we tune in to sound? How can one be truly open to a sound? How can the activity of recording move beyond notions of capture and release into more generative frames? Rather than a tool purposed for preservation or ‘conservation’ of memory, of time and place, can recording sound instead form new vibrant or vibratory spaces of attunement?

‘A coincidence..’ is an LP length composition of multiple interlocking parts, created through exchange, alignment, unpredictability: the title borrowed from poet Fanny Howe falling right into place, a flock of birds in flight, pitches matched and moved across different geographies and temporal frames. Marja & Judith have created an intuitive, lyrical longform piece that considers the idea of attunement itself as, in some sense, the smallest form of measure or denominator connecting their respective practices: across field recording, just intonation, electronic sonorities and instrumental bodies. ‘A coincidence..’ reflects a sense of a willingness to tune in to impulses given, or gifted to the other, a position that embraces an intimate synchronicity.

Recordings & correspondances between 2020-2022. Mixed by Marja Ahti & Judith Hamann. Mastered and cut by Anne Taegert at Dubplates & Mastering in Berlin, 2022. Title quotation from Night Philosophy by Fanny Howe, Divided Publishing, 2020. Photogrpahy by Joshua Bonnetta. Thanks to Nino Bulling, Niko-Matti Ahti and leo. The work was supported by Kone Foundation, Akademie Schloss Solitude and NEUSTART KULTUR.

Marja Ahti (b. 1981) is a Swedish-Finnish composer and sound artist based in Turku, Finland. Ahti works with field recordings and other acoustic sound material combined with synthesizers and electronic feedback in order to find the space where these sounds start to communicate. She makes music that rides on waves of slowly warping harmonies and mutating textures – rough edged, yet precise compositions, rich in detail. Ahti has presented her music in many different contexts around Europe, in Japan and the United States. She is currently active in the duo Ahti & Ahti with her partner Niko-Matti Ahti and in the artist/organizer collective Himera.

Judith Hamann is a cellist and performer/composer from Narrm/Melbourne in so-called Australia, currently based in Berlin. Their work encompasses performance, improvisation, electro-acoustic composition, field recording, electronics, site specific generative work, and micro-tonal systems in a deeply considered process based approach to creative practice. Currently Judith’s work is focused on an examination of expressions and manifestations of 'shaking’ in solo performance practice, a collection of works for cello and humming, as well as ongoing research surrounding ‘collapse’ as a generative imaginary surface, and the ‘de-mastering’ of bodies (human and non-human) in European settler-colonial heritage instrumental practice and pedagogy. Judith likes working with and thinking-with other artists which sometimes includes people like Joshua Bonnetta, Dennis Cooper, Charles Curtis, Golden Fur (with James Rushford and Sam Dunscombe), Lori Goldston, the Harmonic Space Orchestra, Sarah Hennies, Yvette Janine Jackson, and Anike Joyce Sadiq.

RELEASE OF THE CLASSIC 1996 SWEDISH BLACKENED DOOM METAL
MASTERPIECE OF MELANCHOLY 'FOR SNOW COVERED THE
NORTHLAND'.The roots of Ancient Wisdom trace back to 1992 when the
project was formed by Marcus E Norman (Throne of Ahaz/Bewitched) in
Ume, Sweden as Pain', then Ancient'
After the release of the first demo 'In The Eye Of The Serpent' in 1993, the name
was updated to Ancient Wisdom' & the recording of the second demo, 'Through
Rivers Of The Eternal Blackness' swiftly followed in December of 1993. On the
back of this, a deal was signed with Italian label Avantgarde Music, leading to the
recording of the full- length debut album,For Snow Covered The Northland'. The
studio sessions took place in December of 1994, though the album did not see
the light of day until 1996.
'For Snow Covered The Northland' was a triumphant journey of atmospheric &
melodic blackened doom metal, with sombre & hypnotic guitar leads permeating
the album to great effect amid the anguished screams. Also utilising acoustic
guitar & piano/keyboard passages, the opus overall exudes an ambience of deep
melancholy & despair. The album was recorded at The Garageland Studio &
produced by Henrik Kjellberg, plus drum programming was made by Fredrik
Thorendal, founding member of Swedish legends, Meshuggah.
' For Snow Covered The Northland' has been remastered for this release &
contains a bonus disc featuring extensive rare material from the early years of the
band, including the 'In The Eyes Of The Serpent' & Through Rivers Of The Eternal
Blackness' demos, plus rare promo & rehearsal tracks.

Broken Bells are back with their third full length album, INTO THE BLUE. Featuring two of the bigger names in indie and alternative music -- the Shins' singer/guitarist James Mercer and producer/multi-instrumentalist Brian Burton, aka Danger Mouse -- Broken Bells combined the pair's greatest strengths. On 2010's Grammy-nominated self-titled debut and 2014's more structured After the Disco, Mercer's gift for indelible, slightly spooky melodies and Burton's atmospheric productions complemented each other perfectly. In the late 2010s, the duo reconvened to release a succession of singles ahead of their third album. Mercer and Burton were inspired to collaborate when they met at 2004's Roskilde music festival in Denmark, where they discovered they were fans of each other's work. However, they didn't start writing and recording together as a band until March 2008, when Mercer holed up in Burton's home studio in Los Angeles. They took a different approach to working together than with their other projects: Burton avoided the sample-heavy style he used on The Grey Album and Beck's Modern Guilt, and played only live instruments; Mercer broadened his vocal style to include falsettos and deeper registers. Mercer and Burton made their official debut as Broken Bells in 2009, releasing their debut single, "The High Road," late that year. Their self-titled debut album came out in March 2010; it reached number seven on the Billboard 200 Albums chart and was nominated for a Best Alternative Album award at the 2011 Grammy Awards.

Arresto Temporaneo was born very spontaneously as the natural continuation of a collaboration that has lasted for over a year with Tamburi Neri, Adiel and Danza Tribale.

It is pure magic when seemingly different worlds meet and create a dialogue which is the foundation of successfully bringing the creation of this record into fruition. The EP functions as the fusion between the past and the present of the musical experiences of all of us.

Arresto Temporaneo was born by cutting a text "Prepariamoci ad un arresto temporaneo" that the artists liked. The sentence is free to interpret as any of the listeners wish, there is a deliberate reason why the subjective interpretation is avoided.

The EP is filled with the voice and lyrics of A.B. The track "Silenzio" symbolises a moment with which all of us, in spite of ourselves, had to deal with, the deafening noise of silence that can sometimes be devastating and for this reason it is important to understand it and not be afraid of it when it resonates within us.

"Nella penombra" refers to something that moves inside us, not too deep but just important enough to understand, with sounds that nature emits at dawn, when the light still reigns in the dim light, we must learn to move with skills and lightness without harming ourselves and especially others.

Revealing a more expansive and reflective dimension to his sound, Tammo Hesselink produces a varied set of deep tools on Blank Mind’s eighteenth release. Tammo’s sound-design is crisp, unique and organic - built with an instinctive sense created from personally recorded percussive recordings.

'Silicon' is a lethal masterstroke in propulsive minimalism, bridging between broken styles and fluid minimalism, and has already featured across clubs and festivals this summer.

Whilst 'BBR', 'Lesssim' and 'First Supposed' are waking-dream like psychedelic trips. The experimentation concludes with blinding down-tempo roller 'There is One Thing'.

TONICO 70'S SOULFUL SIDE SHINES THROUGH IN NEW ALBUM CO-PRODUCED WITH PEPPE MAIELLANO (BANDA MAJE)

The cover of the new album by musician, rapper, DJ/producer and Banda Maje's co-founder Tonico 70 features an honest, unfiltered photo his mother took of him with a disposable camera – a photo that is as blunt and sassy as hip hop, but at the same time filled with the sweetness of soul music. The style of Antonico is all there, in that shot of a nine-year-old kid that was just beginning to discover and love music – a passion that, as he says now, "has been driving me for over thirty years."

Coming after many years of songwriting, beatmaking, MCing, live performances and collaborations, this new album, his first released on Four Flies Records, connects the dots between past, present and future, presenting Tonico 70 as a fully-rounded artist rather than just a rapper, and one aware of his own many facets.

Co-produced with Peppe Maiellano, Banda Maje's other founder, Antonico offers an intimate portrait of Tonico 70, who has put his 'tough-music-smuggler' persona aside to let his soulful side shine through, giving us a warm, funk-inspired and very original take on the so-called 'Napoli power' sound.


Lyrically too, the album takes us deeper into his world. Here, Tonico 70 evaluates his personal history, speaking about his joys and disappointments, his highs and lows, and the friends and lovers who are or were in his life.

Sometimes his flow is confidential and nocturnal – in "Vic'l", for instance, where the sound is smooth and sweet, rife with contrapuntal notes and harmonies that are clearly reminiscent of 70s soul, but also in the bluesy rap of "Doppia Chance" and the prayer-like song "For For". Other times he gets bolder and brasher, like in the reggae-inspired in "Quaqquara Qua", or in "The Revolution Will Not Be Telefonin", which is obviously a (cheeky) tribute to Gil Scott Heron.

A number of tracks feature long-time friends and collaborators: rapper Morfuco in "Italia 90" (a funky uptempo song with powerful gospel vocals in the chorus), the Funky Pushertz crew in "Sai Com'è" and, perhaps most importantly, the Salifornian soul-funk collective Banda Maje, who give new life to three songs from the artist's previous discography: "Vir Buon", "Gente Antica" and "Fantasie".

This album shows that Tonico 70 has reached a stage of maturity in his career, one where his music extends beyond rap and hip-hop to incorporate rich instrumentals and multiple genres that carry the echoes of his experiences and encounters in the lively alleys of Salerno's historic district, and of the people whose lives unfold there, in the heart of the Mediterranean.

Born to a Frafra father and an Akim mother, he grew up in the rainforest of southern Ghana before moving up to the land of the Frafra in the savannah of northern Ghana as a young boy. Growing up in Namoo, his father's village of origin, he was deeply impressed by the glorious moments he experienced during the services at the village's church. All that singing and drumming ensured he was thefirst at church every Sunday, long before the service even started.

His only wish at the time was to be old enough to join the church choir. When he turned thirteen his wish came true and he instantly had hisfirst studio experience, as the choir recorded a series of cassettes on which he performed.

After he hadfinished school he focused on his own career as a Frafra-Gospel artist. In 2007 he released hisfirst album, but it took anotherfive years for him to have his break through as a leading singer. Since the release of his third album in 2012, which contained the original version of "Mam Yinne Wa", he was booked for almost all of the festivals and celebrations in the region and was also invited to almost all of the countless Frafra communities which exist all over Ghana.

In 2013 Max Weissenfeldt visited Bolgatanga, the capital of the Frafra for thefirst time. When he stepped out of the bus at the main market a song by Alogte was playing loudly through some big speakers. He was immediately captured by the music and arranged to meet with Alogte. After a short introduction they both agreed to do some recordings.

Weissenfeldt had some instrumentals with him, so he charged his laptop well, packed his microphone and Alogte drove with him through the savannah into the backcountry of the Frafra land. When they had arrived in Namoo, Max set up his studio and Alogte assembled the Sounds of Joy. The result was "Zota Yinne", which became Oho'sfirst single released on Philophon in 2014. For some reason the song became a hit in Reggae sound system circles and is already a very sought after collectors item.

The same year Weissenfeldt returned to Ghana from Germany with some fellow musicians to play an extended tour through Ghana alongside Alogte Oho & His Sounds of Joy and Kologo master Guy One (Guy One - #1, released on Philophon in 2018). During that tour he learned a dozen songs by Alogte. Following this, 2016 saw the release of the follow up single "Mam Yinne Wa". In the same way as the locally released version pushed Alogte to the top of Frafra- Gospel singers, this newly produced version made him a global player.

Mam Yinne Wa - God, You Love Me So. It looks like that somebody has heard him!

Emanating from a ‘prehistoric’ existence near the end of the last millennium, Andy Votel and his slightly older college mates were once best recognised in Mancunian clubs and bars as teenage vinyl nerds and bum-fluffed battle rappers under the collective name Violators Of The English Language (which in acronymic form explains Andy’s own exotic pen-name).

As steadfast supporters of the 1980s / 90s Brit-core rap scene coming out of London, the multicultural Violators’ Mancunian accents were perhaps a bridge-too-far to secure dream job contracts for humble labels like Kold Sweat and Music Of Life. An unlikely constructive meeting with Gang Starr’s DJ Premier (while Andy helped out at a radio station), plus playing warm up DJ sets for countless US rap heroes might have temporarily added inspirational fuel to the fire, but after an active period combining graffiti, rapping, scratching, obsessive record digging and beat making into their daily operations, adulthood eventually began to rear its unwelcome head.

A decade later, Andy Votel and his digging skills would begin to provide direct sample material for the likes of Madlib, Mos Def, Jay Z, Nas, Dr Dre, Ghostface Killa and Action Bronson, amongst others, and the Violators’ black book of breakbeats and catalogue numbers soon began to feed a same-butdifferent rap beast.

For a project that has taken thirty years, it would be totally inadequate to call the formation of Hypocritical Beatdown Records a lockdown-project. There’s a deep history and psychology in these records by Violators Of The English Language and their spin-off groups Magnets (Rap Group) and ProVerbs, that combines stage-fright, loss, pride, creative-schizophrenia, racial inequality, surrealism, personal politics, brotherhood, artistic-constipation, better judgment, love, anti-love, soul searching and much more.

As well as Andy Votel taking care of both production and part of the microphone duties, some might recognise fellow MC and solo recording artist Figure Of Speech as a prominent voice here. The trio of Magnets (Rap Group) sees Andy also joined by local B-Girl legend Jeni Chan aka Penny Chew, and rapper and DJ Benjamin Hatton who has previously recorded with Kid Acne, The Mongrels and Sheffield’s Invisible Spies’ long-running squadron. Widely respected visual artist Rick Myers (now living in Massachusetts) also contributed scratches for many of these recordings via file sharing and custom dub-plates to keep the Violators’ authentic line-up intact, as well as galvanising the crew’s semi-reluctant art-school roots.

Extra production credits for the label also go to Sean Canty from Demdike Stare, and the late great Dan Dwayre aka Black Lodge (Mo Wax) who sadly passed away during the completion of these recordings. The members of Violators Of The English Language who you’ve not yet heard of will quickly make themselves known as the needle drops on this long-mooted debut vinyl release.

Felix Laband’s The Soft White Hand is the masterwork of an artist who expresses himself through musical and artistic collage acting together to reinterpret his sources and to express significant elements of his own personal story.

Released by Munich-based Compost Records, the 14-track album is Laband’s first full-length offering since the critically acclaimed Deaf Safari in 2015. It is heralded by the single “Derek and Me”, and is being pressed on vinyl for distribution globally.

In The Soft White Hand Laband works with source materials that will be familiar to those who know his previous four records – Thin Shoes in June (2001), 4/4 Down the Stairs (2002), Dark Days Exit (2005) and especially Deaf Safari which reached deep into the South Africa scene and its political culture to inspire its vocal and music sampling. However, the disengagement he felt from his homeland during his latest album’s creation – an abiding sense of untethered-ness to place and space, exquisitely rendered in tracks like “Death of a Migrant” – is perceptible in Laband’s desire to illuminate instead aspects of his own life.

“For this album, my source material became almost autobiographical as opposed to African statements I’ve worked with previously,” says the artist. “I have sampled a lot from documentaries from the 80s crack epidemic in impoverished African American communities and believe my work speaks unapologetically for the lost and marginalised, for those who are the forgotten casualties of the war on drugs. In the past, I have had my issues with substance abuse, and I know first-hand about the nightmares and fears, what it feels like to be isolated and abandoned.”

Few artists have managed to air these intimate aspects of their life so luminously as Laband does in tracks like “5 Seconds Ago”, “They Call Me Shorty” and in the strange and meditative “Dreams of Loneliness”. “I’ve been building this weird, autobiographical story using other people talking. It’s kind of humorous but it is also sad and beautiful,” says Laband.

Yet, as in all of Laband’s recorded output, the delineations between emotions are never starkly drawn and The Soft White Hand is also shot through with beauty. Nature appears in recordings made in his garden in the intimate early morning hours, whether as in the calls of the Hadada Ibis and other birdsong in “Prelude” or of the vertical-tail-cocking bird in “Derek and Me”. The last is a wonderful track with Derek Gripper, the South African experimental classical guitarist of international renown, whose 2020 song “Fanta and Felix” imagines a meeting between Fanta Sacko and Laband.

Laband’s eloquence in reinterpreting classical composers such as Beethoven in “We Know Major Tom’s a Junkie” is another thrilling aspect of the new record. “I’ve been properly exploring classical music on this album,” explains Laband, “taking melodies from classical compositions and reinterpreting them”. A fresh quality comes to his work through this sonic adventuring: the tender manipulation of the mundaneness of the computer’s AI voice to reimagine and reinvent iconic lyrics and melodies in strange and unexpected configurations.

The Soft White Hand is Laband’s most cohesive body of work to date. Yet it remains, in its sheer artistic scope, impossible to describe fully. Darkness abuts the gossamer light. A song that summons the sunrise and all the hope of a new day could also be about the final dipping down of the sun that portends a troubled night ahead. Interludes are invitations to expand outwards or shift inwards. Mistakes and “weird fuckups” in the sound are cherished as convincing statements against what Laband calls the “grossness” of perfect sound in modern music.

For this world-leading electronic artist, the boundaries are unfixed. He is inspired by the German Dada artist, Hannah Höch, who memorably declared: “I wish to blur the firm boundaries which we self-certain people tend to delineate around all we can achieve.” His music consequently reflects a primal artistic impulse that is also visible in Laband’s considerable visual art output as seen recently in several solo exhibitions such as that held in the No End Gallery in Johannesburg in 2019 and in the works he produced during his 2018 Nirox Foundation Artists Residency. “My music is always about collage, as is my art,’’ he affirms. “Everything I do is collage. It is a medium I find very interesting because you are taking history and distorting it and changing its meaning and turning it upside down and back to front.” In her book Recollections of My Non-Existence, Rebecca Solnit calls collage “literally a border art”; it is “an art of what happens when two things confront each other or spill onto each other”.

With The Soft White Hand, Laband is confirming his singular ability to achieve this in both art and music, melting the divisions between the two creative disciplines until they become one. He is also affirming his belief that an album of music should be more than a collection of unrelated tracks, but should unfold a fully integrated, cohesive story as in the song cycles of the great classical composers. In doing so, he claims his position as one of the most significant artists working today.

Artist Statement – Felix Laband – August 2022

When the Khmer Rouge took their captives for processing, they identified their class enemies by looking at their hands. If they were sunburned, rough and calloused, they were those of a peasant, a proletarian to be spared. But if they were soft and white, then they were those of a city-dweller, an intellectual or bourgeois, an adversary to be liquidated.

In calling this album The Soft White Hand, I was reflecting on the Cambodian genocide and how it resonates in contemporary South Africa. The apartheid era is over, and gone with it is white political domination. Yet economic and social privilege is still held in soft white hands. But those who grasp it know just how tenuous is their hold, how it singles them out, and my music reflects their subconscious fears, the stress and guilt of clinging on to what others envy and desire.

The soft white hand of the title suggests to me a further image, one that relates to all of postcolonial Africa. In my mind’s eye, I see the soft, duplicitous handshake of the smooth representatives of the superpowers making deals and promising gifts that benefit only them, and not their African dupes.
Yet, soaring above the wailing of sirens sampled from the first day of the invasion of Ukraine, my music is also about love gained and passion lost. It is about the tender caress of a soft white hand that conducts you into a place of dreams to be enfolded by nocturnal melodies.

The essential series from the ’80s has been rebuilt, remastered, and carefully portioned onto a five disc set of 7-inch singles, including all the classic vocal bits that became iconic samples, and more than a few new additions to bring things up to date.

Where would dance music be without Acapellas Anonymous? Although many records claim to have changed the game, the arrival of the Acapellas Anonymous series in the mid/late ’80s actually did just that. A hugely popular, multi-volume set of vocal tracks sourced from a wide variety of dance classics, AA was used extensively at the dawn of sampled music to provide hooks for numerous hits. “I’ve Got the Power,” “Ride On Time,” multiple Clivillés and Cole tracks, Pal Joey’s “Party Time,” ’90s Italo house and rave cuts, and untold others all found their choruses among the many acapellas collected on the series. As Ultimate Breaks & Beats was for funk and hip-hop sampling, so was AA for dance music, both for producers and as a must-have for the creative DJ. Sure, before these records came along, DJs had their own choice vocal bits that they used in sets or layered into edits. But suddenly, much like Ultimate Breaks, these carefully guarded secret sources were available easily, and in convenient form, for the first time. And the response, from DJs and a new generation of producers, was immediate.

That part of the story is widely known, and indeed, was widely experienced by anyone paying attention to music of the time. But the questions linger: who was it that found these acapellas, many of them only existing on promo singles, or as tiny fragments buried on obscure B-sides? Who edited and put them together? By now, you may have guessed that once again we owe an enormous debt to the maestro of edits and our hometown hero, Danny Krivit. And it’s to him we must tip our collective caps for this latest release, a carefully revised, fully remastered, and immaculately executed update to the series — this time on 7-inch.

All of the classics are here, rinsed but still powerful: “Let No Man Put Asunder,” “Weekend,” “Don’t Make Me Wait,” “You Don’t Know,” and dozens more. New additions make a few clever appearances as well, with Roland Clark’s “I Get Deep” (used for Fatboy Slim’s “Star 69”), and Rickie Lee Jones’s stoned rambling known as “Little Fluffy Clouds” showing up for the first time. This is no nostalgia trip — Acapellas Anonymous was recently tapped for a Cardi B megahit, and naturally you’ll find that source, Frank-Ski’s “Whores In This House,” included. All in all, an astounding 80 high-quality acapellas and vocal hooks are spread across the five 7-inch, 33RPM singles, which have each been sequenced thematically with attention paid to timings and tempos to provide maximum utility for the working DJ. And if the past is any indicator, we will likely see a new crop of tracks spring up as these find their way into the production toolkits of the world’s track-makers.

It’s almost four years since their last opus - two years since the most-recent run
of live shows. Now, Bitchin Bajas return from whatever kind of rare ether they
occupy when they’re at home, bearing the riches of the whole cosmos in their
hands. And strictly OG as well - on cassette only.
 ‘Switched On Ra’ is the outcome of a typical Bajas exercise: pouring some out
for the pioneers that came before (as they’ve done with Bitchitronics and their
participation in the annual Chicago performance of ‘In C’ over the years). It’s a
nice way to get a flow - they play a little of themselves, then some for the
pioneers, then a little more for the band. Before long, they’re playing with the
inspirations twined, as they can only come from within.
 For ‘Switched On Ra’, this meant a deep delve into the song-book of one of their
soul-predecessors, Sun Ra, whose music is literally written in the Bajas DNA.
Digging into this music sounded wild on paper: the drone synth group taking on
the Arkestra harmonies and Ra’s loose grooves? The trick was to get that sense
of rhythm to translate across the spectrum from Ra to Bajas, in a way that
worked for them both.
 Their rearrangements of the tunes went good - up and down the EQ band, they
were finding the round sounds and jagged edges that brought Ra’s music into
their own thing. Then at the last minute, there was another twist - why not pay
tribute to the Queen herself, and think of the arrangements with a Wendy Carlos
vibe? A little side homage? After all, ‘Switched on Bach’ was visionary, bringing
analogue synths from the outside all the way into the mainstream in the late 60s -
and this take on Ra is meant to take him to new ears everywhere.
 Sun Ra of course was his own kind of original keyboard visionary, using electric
keyboards in the late 40s and 50s to fill a role in jazz that had traditionally been
played on acoustic piano only. Once he’d done so, he took his writing in
directions inspired by the electricity, places no one had thought to go before
then.
 Bitchin Bajas have been content to dominate in a microtonal world, usually
without a single chord to be found anywhere. But here, they step up righteously,
their vibe triangulated as they bring Ra’s music forward with some Wendy C
style, making an unexpected space for all to thrive. There’s a real feeling of joy
as these collected signals bounce off the tape and through the speakers into
your space.
 To get this unique colloid exactly right, Bitchin Bajas used nineteen different
keyboards. They abstained from deploying their arsenal of reed and woodwind
instruments: everything had to be on the keys. This meant Yamahas, Rolands,
Korgs, Casios, a MicroMoog and of course their trusty Ace Tone organ. They
even broke out the Crumar DS-2, to have some of Ra’s chosen tone in the mix.
Then Jayve Montgomery added an EWI as a solo voice on a few tunes, just to
get some air-blown signal (and a natural shout out to EWI master Marshall Allen)
in there, after all. It felt like somewhere in the universe, Ra was decreeing it.

Luuk van Dijk has unveiled his hotly-anticipated debut album First Contact, out 11th November on his own Dark Side Of The Sun label. The Dutch DJ and producer’s maiden LP is the end result of a long and intense voyage of discovery.

Years in the making, it’s a project that Luuk can fully stand behind and be proud of. Next to a search for his own identity and his own place in music, it has also become a passage
through time.

By far his largest body of work to date, the 13-track release kicks off with the suitably-titled ‘Cosmiq’, a deep, grooving sonic exploration that immediately sets the tone. “Because of this
track I wanted to make an album to showcase my other kind of music that people won’t maybe expect of me,” Luuk explains.

Next up is the shimmering, ethereal sounds of ‘Love You’, a track that features the irresistible vocals of US singer-songwriter Dawn Richard and will be released as a single in October. “She really brought this track to a whole new level,” says Luuk. “I couldn’t be more happy with the result.”

Further collaborations come in the form of ‘Wolf’, a majestic, strings-led house cut featuring Steve Burton of oneofmanysteves; ‘Master Plug’, a deep, jackin’ number with Chicago artist
Kid Enigma; and the Detroit-indebted ‘Together We Rise’, punctuated by the spiritual vocals of MC Roga. “I tried making a track the way they used to make music,” Luuk says of the latter.

“With as few machines as possible, just a mixer, sampler and some synths.” Additional highlights include the enchanting ‘Let The Bass Kick’, orchestral ‘Lightning
Striking’ and hypnotic ‘Hot Stuff’, before ‘Knowing How To Love’ closes things out on a peculiarly wistful note. “The last track of the album, also a track that started as an interlude and
ended up being a full song,” says Luuk.

“This song basically sums up how I’ve been feeling the years 2020 and 2021, very emotional, sad, but also hopeful. Everything will be alright.”

One of the hottest new names coming out of Amsterdam’s bustling club scene, Luuk van Dijk is currently making waves in international waters with his infectious take on spirited house
music.

He has already released on labels like Hot Creations, Cuttin’ Headz, Solid Grooves Records and Eastenderz have established his name as a house music prodigy.

He launched Dark Side Of The Sun in 2020 with the aim of exploring a broader approach to his signature style.

First Contact represents a vivid sonic snapshot of one of electronic music’s brightest young talents.

Early DJ Support :

Jamie Jones
Marco Faraone
Carl Craig
Yuksek
Sasch BBC
CamelPhat
Paco Osuna
Stacey Pullen
Tocadisco

Spooner Oldham produced six recordings by Barbara Lynn for Atlantic in mid-1968, but session information had previously been scant. Spooner recently confirmed that these tracks were "recorded at American in Memphis" and when the late Red Kelly (Soul Detective) digitised guitarist Reggie Young's session diaries, his endeavours presented further clarity.

Reggie's 1968 diary indicates two American sessions on June 14th and 15th. Four songs were recorded, with "Unloved, Unwanted Me" being shelved. No songwriting credit was documented, but its sorrowful yearning is perfectly executed by Barbara.

A third session the following month yielded two more songs, including the first known recording of "Soul Deep" (its writer Wayne Carson and The Box Tops each recorded the song in 1969). Reggie's diary documents a fortnight's holiday in July, but the distinct lack of guitar and the audible presence of other American Studio musicians further suggests Barbara Lynn's version was possibly recorded in Memphis too.

Both songs make their 7" vinyl debut here. Enjoy!

Means&3rd returns to Unveiled Nuance with 002 following the label's debut 'Thought Contortion'. This time coming armed with 4 tracks providing a more direct club sound and falling in line with NUANCE001's affinity for low-end, tight percussion and underlying tribalism.

‘Aberrance’ opens Side A with a broken rolling kick drum and FM-type polyrhythmic stabs which reach a
kinetic climax with further patterns of distorted FM crunch and propulsive percussion that sit next to alien
sound FX. ‘Life’s Glorious Mosaic’ gives way to a much more mesmerising mood, utilising classic CR-78
percussive shots to provide energy amongst a sea of delicately delayed glassy synth chirps, spacious and
mystic, the perfect hypnotic spell.

‘Kairos’ is the first cut on side B, picking up the pace with deep and dense shamanic formant drones
juxtaposed against ethereal stabs which provide rest bite from the heavy groove, a chance for the ear to get lost in a moment of psychedelia before seeing us out with the return to the solid rhythm. ‘Discordianism’ closes out the EP, anchoring around the repetitive grit of the lead synth, textured stabs unfold next to squeezed shots of phased synth work that subtly lay underneath it, the whole track, reduced in nature,perfect as a layered tool.

Pressed on 140g black Vinyl, reverse board full colour print sleeve with poly-lined inner sleeve.

Produced, Programmed and Mixed by Means&3rd
Mastered by Neel @ Enisslab, Rome
Cut @ Schnittstelle Berlin
Design by Means&3rd
Pressed By Matter Of Fact, Güstrow, Germany
Distributed by Rubadub, Glasgow

Italian The Villains Inc. moves up a gear with its fourth release to date and already the second in less than a year!

Conscious “Time To Go Back EP” introduces the exclusive collaboration between label owner Gab.Gato (Dominance Electricity, Drivecom, SolarOne) and his partner in crime Jack Bags (La Sabbia) from Milan.
Together, they drop an untouchable dancefloor oriented five tracker based upon a terrific concept.
Coming from the year 2106 with a preventive message to save Earth from manhandled destruction, scientist Dr Boomer understands how much it’s too late to prevent the planet from Armageddon.

A side opens with insane “Man Of The Future”: a pure analogical time machine merging whispers a la Egyptian Lover to heading vocoder sequences over a sharp 808 programming.
Luminous and hypnotizing at the same, this oldschool anthem is instantly followed by enthusiastic “No Permission”.

A groovy bassline melt with acidic loops turns the song into a masterpiece enhanced by funny vocal scanding “You Have No Permission To Get Into My Head”.
Top notch! With its fierce rhythm and relentless beats, title track “Time To Go Back” coming next signs an ode to the glorious days of West Coast electro sound.
Vintage sonorities fuse into cutting-edge drums while a funky atmosphere will propel you through time and space. Ace!

The flipside goes deeper into the realm serving up what appears as the climax of the EP. Combining gloomy strings to progressive swirls and ethereal chords, well named “Darkness” delivers a scary yet prophetic message from the future that will spread guilty feelings to any listener: “There Will Be No Light, No Hope…”. You have been warned! Last cut “The Bad Place” concludes the 12” on a soulful note regarding the state of our world controlled by government and technology.
Completed by a fantastic comic style artwork, awaken and despair “Time To Go Back EP” offers an outstanding retrofuturist release from which no one will come out unscathed.

One of the best outings in The Villains Inc. so far, rush on it!

While frontman Tom Greenhouse’s off-kilter observations and bizarro anecdotes remain front and centre, this time round the band up their game with a more vigorous sound that keeps pace with Greenhouse’s wholly distinctive lyrical style. Greenhouse continues to revel in telling increasingly surreal short stories, rejoicing in the power of the deadpan one-liner and bedecking his songs with far-flung cultural references. But now the band employ a variety of techniques with improved pro- duction, from the impulsively bashed keyboards and jubilantly repetitive guitar stabs that have be- come their trademark, to flirtations with–heaven forbid!–melody, chord progressions and arrangements which elevate their tried-and-tested blueprint into a more exciting and cohesive whole.

Opener Musicians is the perfect embodiment of this conscious development. Here, Greenhouse re- counts a sarcastic tale of half-truths that see him galavanting around town trying to put a band to- gether. Sonically, it begins with a caustic callback to the group’s first EP Crap Cardboard Pet and its über-minimalist aesthetic. But by the end of the song a joyous festival of afrobeat-inspired in- struments including samba whistles, bongos and saxophones are added to the mix as the front- man, ironically, fails in his mission to recruit more players.

With Get Unjaded, the band have somehow conjured something close to pop, without abandoning the repetition and wit that’s relished by their early fans. I Lost My Head also adopts a jangle-pop sheen with a luscious synth melody, as the frontman ditches the spoken-word for a surly croon (his first known attempt at actual singing!) that provides a welcome breather from the onslaught of dense recantations that are the band’s bread-and-butter.

While the lyrics here are still often humorous and political, Greenhouse has also notably expanded his interests on this album to include a new host of topics. The influence of extraterrestrials, for ex- ample, infiltrates the subject matter frequently. On The UFOs, the mysterious protagonist Blinkus Booth’s isolationist lifestyle is apparently interrupted by the spectres of otherworldly visitors, while closer The Neoprene Ravine feels like an extract from a deep space rock opera. Here, jaunty and angular instruments pile-on as we are fed images of an interstellar Spinal Tap, the titular fictional band “The Neoprene Ravine” who are “the alien equivalent of the Velvet Underground” and include an alien Lou Reed yelping “too busy sucking on my little green ding dong!”.

Meanwhile, Hard Rock Potato is propelled by a vortex of keys and synths, a real noise-pop gem comprised of real guitar chords (!) and rock-orientated riffs. Here the stream-of-consciousness lyrics take shots at the sinister financial industry, and include one of the many top-tier one-liners on the album: “It’s not gambling if you’re wearing a tie (even if you’ve got no trousers on)”.

On Sod’s Toastie, The Cool Greenhouse have pushed their distinctive flavour of post-punk to the point of perfection – their incongruous riffs, alchemical instrumental chemistry, and irreverent spo- ken-word vocals are a delight throughout. Sod’s Toastie is hilarious at times, and at others just hilariously good – a not-so-difficult second album.

Having torn up raves for well over a decade, the Detroit duo Rickers and Ted Krisko AKA Ataxia present their debut longplayer ‘Out Of Step’. Featuring guest spots from close peers DJ Minx, Andrés and Mr Joshooa, they twist house, techno, electro, breakbeat and rave into revitalized new shapes; embellished with a touch of soul, funk and hip hop. With backgrounds in hardcore and punk, Ataxia’s debut is suffused with that energy, attitude, and approach; this is raw, lean and unashamedly no-nonsense dance floor tackle that goes straight for the jugular. Heavily analogue, the album experiments with tape saturation, which harks back to the duo’s formative years in bands, recording demos to cassettes. These straight-up, in-the-red tracks give preference to overdriven drum machines, rather than generic polished sheen, but conversely, it’s all deceptively well-crafted too; ‘Out Of Step’ is a standout record that’s big in character, bringing to mind the renegade spirit of Underground Resistance, and the bombastic brilliance of The Prodigy and Chemical Brothers.

Defiantly optimistic despite the state of the world, a “life is good” vocal sample meets minor chords sliding over 808 hats on the exemplary house/techno pumper ‘Detroit Gospel’, before a lighter moment on the album, but no less impactful with its hefty low-end thump, is ‘Pine Island’ featuring Motor City hero Andrés. Together they cook up a Motown-inspired house cut awash with horn swells and backup singers, bouncing to wide swung funk bass, in classic 313 style. ‘Language’ turns the club on its head – busting out one of the most distinct basslines in recent times, and bristling with buzzy, undulating chords, whilst ‘Maxia’ features influential Detroit royalty DJ Minx. Inspired by her classic ‘A Walk In The Park’, with a fat distorted kick and stealthy bass groove, this is low-slung, stripped-back, heads-down coolness. The high-tech funk of ‘Spit In Your Percolator’, is laser-guided in its efficiency, with a strobe-like, increasingly intensifying energy, peppered with clever, tripped up vocal chops. With the next cut, conveyor belt noises and fast churning low-end gives way to a dubbed-out breakdown, on the deep breakbeat roller ‘98 Degrees’. Charged with a blistering, rave intensity, ‘Number Streets’, is a futuristic distorted techno workout that booms through the subs, whilst ‘The Formulator’ mixes filtered snippets, abstract synth noises and melodic bleeps with a bassline echoing Paperclip People’s ‘The Floor’. Closer to the UK definition of hardcore, combining 4/4 and breakbeat, ‘The Pusher’ evokes the spirit of late 80s orbital raves, adding a natty keys solo, and deadly bass used sparingly, for even deadlier effect. ‘Feels Like’ sees Rickers and Ted team up their studiomate and fellow TV Lounge resident and club booker, Mister Joshooa. Inspired by Photek but also almost UKG in style, this breakbeat session is stamped with MJ’s signature chopped vocals and intricate rhythmic interplay. The bubbling, wobbly loose swing of ‘WM’ is constructed around a classic chopped-up MTV cribs sample, with a filtered vocal creating a far out psychedelic effect – all of which is propelled apace by a huge bruising LFO. The LP concludes in fine style with ‘Dance The Bridge’, where bouncy beats and wigged-out keys meet bright, gently uplifting synth chords that bring a clear-skied mood; ending the record as it began, on an optimistic note.

‘Out Of Step’ marks another chapter in the ongoing relationship between Life and Death co-founder DJ Tennis and Ataxia. Their connection goes back to the earliest days of the label, where they played gigs together on some of Tennis’ initial visits to Detroit. It’s a friendship that’s blossomed organically over the last decade through their shared love of punk and hardcore, and led to the fruition of one of Ataxia’s most compelling projects to date. Labels to release Ataxia’s output include legendary Detroit techno imprints Planet E and KMS, plus the seminal American house label Nervous Records. Their catalogue also includes music for Visionquest, Leftroom, 20/20 Vision and Seth Troxler’s Play It Say It.

Finnish metalheads have always been puzzled by the question of which is our country's first heavy metal band. Svart Records gives the answer. It's Hard Rock Sallinen, which was founded in 1974, and so far we haven't found an older Finnish metal band. If you have better information, you can contact the history and UFO department of our record company. In any case, the band's founder and bass singer Seppo Sallinen says he is looking into the band's background. -"Even though Hard Rock Sallinen was our country's first heavy band, it wasn't my first band. I already played with my nephew Juke Salline in various gigs in Ostrobothnia, covering Led Zeppelin, Cream and other contemporaries with the band Jew's Harp", When Hard Rock Sallinen was founded, the source of inspiration for the line-up moved to the heavier department, when Rainbow, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, Mountain, Aerosmith and Cactus were selected as influences. The band started with the name Sallinen, but the words hard and rock were soon added to the name. This was simply due to the fact that the band was mistaken for a hit band based on the name at early gigs. After facing an aggressive and drunken crowd, the band changed into Hard Rock Sallis to make a clear difference to the music taste of the trampers. It took a long time before the band signed their first recording contract, when in the early 1980s the Finnish Zero Records signed the band. The debut album Heavy Metal Symphony began to take shape quickly and the album recorded at Esko "Suikki" Jääskä's Botnia Sound Studio still evokes emotions in its creators. -"Contemporary critics and the public liked the record, musically it is on point, but of course the overall sound is a product of its time. Of course, it's great that the album is being re-released after 40 years, because the original edition has become a valuable collector's rarity", Seppo Sallinen says about his feelings. Why then did Hard Rock Sallinen stop already in 1984? The background is a familiar story: the band worked excellently, but in Finland at that time there were no managers, proper gig sellers or really any infrastructure that could have pushed heavy rock forward. The result was only frustration and the band simply disappeared from the world map.

Yellow and black splatter

While frontman Tom Greenhouse’s off-kilter observations and bizarro anecdotes remain front and centre, this time round the band up their game with a more vigorous sound that keeps pace with Greenhouse’s wholly distinctive lyrical style. Greenhouse continues to revel in telling increasingly surreal short stories, rejoicing in the power of the deadpan one-liner and bedecking his songs with far-flung cultural references. But now the band employ a variety of techniques with improved pro- duction, from the impulsively bashed keyboards and jubilantly repetitive guitar stabs that have be- come their trademark, to flirtations with–heaven forbid!–melody, chord progressions and arrangements which elevate their tried-and-tested blueprint into a more exciting and cohesive whole.

Opener Musicians is the perfect embodiment of this conscious development. Here, Greenhouse re- counts a sarcastic tale of half-truths that see him galavanting around town trying to put a band to- gether. Sonically, it begins with a caustic callback to the group’s first EP Crap Cardboard Pet and its über-minimalist aesthetic. But by the end of the song a joyous festival of afrobeat-inspired in- struments including samba whistles, bongos and saxophones are added to the mix as the front- man, ironically, fails in his mission to recruit more players.

With Get Unjaded, the band have somehow conjured something close to pop, without abandoning the repetition and wit that’s relished by their early fans. I Lost My Head also adopts a jangle-pop sheen with a luscious synth melody, as the frontman ditches the spoken-word for a surly croon (his first known attempt at actual singing!) that provides a welcome breather from the onslaught of dense recantations that are the band’s bread-and-butter.

While the lyrics here are still often humorous and political, Greenhouse has also notably expanded his interests on this album to include a new host of topics. The influence of extraterrestrials, for ex- ample, infiltrates the subject matter frequently. On The UFOs, the mysterious protagonist Blinkus Booth’s isolationist lifestyle is apparently interrupted by the spectres of otherworldly visitors, while closer The Neoprene Ravine feels like an extract from a deep space rock opera. Here, jaunty and angular instruments pile-on as we are fed images of an interstellar Spinal Tap, the titular fictional band “The Neoprene Ravine” who are “the alien equivalent of the Velvet Underground” and include an alien Lou Reed yelping “too busy sucking on my little green ding dong!”.

Meanwhile, Hard Rock Potato is propelled by a vortex of keys and synths, a real noise-pop gem comprised of real guitar chords (!) and rock-orientated riffs. Here the stream-of-consciousness lyrics take shots at the sinister financial industry, and include one of the many top-tier one-liners on the album: “It’s not gambling if you’re wearing a tie (even if you’ve got no trousers on)”.

On Sod’s Toastie, The Cool Greenhouse have pushed their distinctive flavour of post-punk to the point of perfection – their incongruous riffs, alchemical instrumental chemistry, and irreverent spo- ken-word vocals are a delight throughout. Sod’s Toastie is hilarious at times, and at others just hilariously good – a not-so-difficult second album.