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Although never released until recently, Jazz Sabbath's music has been finding its way to millions for over 50 years. Through a vicious cycle of personal tragedy and plagiarism the songs intended to change the jazz world ended up giving birth to a much darker sound. Now a third recording from the Sixties has resurfaced, perhaps their most important one.

In 1968 Jazz Sabbath were an instant hit on the UK jazz scene. It wasn’t long until they were offered a record deal. They spent weeks in the studio recording the tracks that got the heaviest reactions at their shows until they captured their live energy on tape. Unfortunately, the label manager told them the album was far too experimental and there was no hit potential. Ordered to play some of their ‘easier’ tracks instead, they reluctantly gave in.

The 2 albums that followed still are classics in their own right, but they were not mistaken in thinking they had recorded their best work in 1968. Like the tracks from their 2 albums, these tracks were also blatantly presented as 'original songs' by that band from Birmingham a few years later. Whether they copied them from live bootlegs or if they got their hands on the mix, it doesn’t really matter. Their lasting popularity, even in the crude way they were covered, only proves just how monumental these songs were and how record labels are often wrong.

With the truth now finally out there and that Birmingham band exposed as the musical charlatans they are, Jazz Sabbath have finally mastered the 1968 tapes to present their best work to the public.

The Tokyo Blues is an album that reflects Horace Silver's deep musicality, cultural curiosity, and love for the blues

Its combination of relaxed grooves, melodic beauty, and hints of Eastern influence make it a unique and memorable work within Silver's extensive catalog. It's a perfect example of how jazz can both explore new territories and remain grounded in its own traditions, showcasing Silver's versatility as both a pianist and a composer. Released in 1962 it is considered a gem within Horace Silver's prolific career and offers an intriguing combination of Horace Silver's unique jazz language with the subtle influence of his experiences in Japan, producing a warm, thoughtful, and musically rich album. Horace Silver's The Tokyo Blues is the result of his quintet's tour of Japan in 1961, which left a strong impression on him. While on tour, Silver was struck by the culture, atmosphere, and aesthetics of Japan, which he sought to translate into the musical language he was deeply rooted in hard bop. The album, however, doesn't feature overt Japanese musical scales or instrumentation, but rather evokes a mood and a sense of place. Silver's approach was more about integrating his impressions of Japan, its serenity, beauty, and mood of reflection, into the compositions. He did this within the framework of the jazz tradition, creating music that remains unmistakably his own. His quintet was already known for its catchy themes, complex rhythms, and inventive solos, and The Tokyo Blues adds a layer of atmospheric and emotional depth to that established style. In the early 1960s, Horace Silver was at the height of his creative powers. His work was instrumental in shaping the hard bop movement, a style that emphasized blues, gospel, and soul influences over the more intricate, intellectual sounds of bebop. The Tokyo Blues stands as an example of Silver's ability to evolve his sound while staying true to the groove-based essence of hard bop.

Producer, designer, publisher, filmmaker, all-round scene phenom - Lasse Marhaug returns with his first album since relocating from Oslo to the Arctic Circle, surveying his 35-year career for a set of grizzled, doom-pocked rhythms and foghorn drones pulled from the aether. Expansive and hard to categorise, it's a precision-tooled set of ice-cold tonal productions that heavily lean into Mika Vainio’s rhythm experiments, with extra levels of growling bass and curious noises to send us deep into the uncanny.

Lasse Marhaug has put his mark on literally hundreds of albums - working with artists like Jenny Hval, Merzbow, Jim O'Rourke, Kevin Drumm, Hilary Woods - so many others - yet he still regards himself as a primarily visual artist who got diverted into an occasionally different path. If his last album 'Context' was a kiss goodbye to decades of life in Oslo, 'Provoke' turns a new page, but one that draws heavily from memories of the distant past, reflecting on the way the topographies of Norway's frozen north helped shape his creative worldview. Weaving electronics into environmental recordings captured in the bleak Arctic winter, the album was mixed during the Polar night season, when, for two straight months, the sun never rose past the horizon. Somehow, even at its bleakest, Marhaug avoids the usual aesthetic signifiers for this kinda thing, finding elements of queered beauty in all the severity, juxtaposing elements that shine a bright light on all the odd spaces in-between.

A consideration of noise music's place in 2024, and whether it can still be a tool for subversion when its aesthetics have been so commodified, ‘Provoke’ also refernces an experimental '70s Japanese art magazine that attempted to define a new language for photography. Operating somewhere between these two guiding poles, Lasse feels his way through a subtly altered mode of expression, a new approach to familiar concepts. Album opener ‘Plates’, for example, gives it the full Ø treatment, like some exceptional ‘Oleva’-outtake, but , eventually, shards of interference start to exhale like horses blowing, creating uncanny sensations that hit through ambiguous feeling rather than sheer noise terror. Ritualistic, corporeal - hard to know what you’re listening to and why it makes you feel that certain way - so much more than just machine cycles optimised for their ultimately hollow brutalist aesthetic.

Marhaug paints vivid pictures from a carefully chosen palette, drawing us into a soundworld that's rich with contradictions and contrasts. Even the relatively deafening 'New Topographics' offsets its wall of distortion with a muffled, perforating kick drum, cutting into the noise like a knife through butter. And all of this preparation makes the album's lengthy centrepiece 'Monochrome Head' even more impactful; hinging on a Pan Sonic-like alloy of bass and drums, the track snowballs through tempered feedback and improv scrapes and whistles that pick up into an orchestral din. Marhaug accents the bluster with rhythmic hums that gather in momentum until they're almost oppressively heavy, as if everything's about to collapse.

A masterclass in quietly subversive world-building, 'Provoke' invites us to peer at an expansive sonic landscape and marvel at its intricacies, but this time around there's a Lovecraftian behemoth lurking somewhere beneath its icy surface.

This third volume of Universal Synthesizer Interface delves further into early MIDI sequencing software for personal computers, focusing on Intelligent Music Software founded by Joel Chadabe in 1984. In a short period of time (1986-1990) Intelligent Music published a series of MIDI sequencing software titles that would have rippling effects throughout the music world: M, Jam Factory, UpBeat, MidiDraw, Ovaltune, Realtime, as well as an unreleased first version of Miller Puckette’s Max. These programs were a reflection of Chadabe’s desire to create interactive and intelligent algorithmic tools for home computers. Intelligent compositional tools had been floating around for decades in mainframe computer labs, but they had largely only been accessible to people working in academic or corporate laboratories. With the birth of Intelligent Music, these tools became available to anyone with a home studio. As the personal computers of this era had become less expensive and more accessible, they had also grown exponentially in processing power and seeming intelligence. In the music press from this time, we find the same two words used again and again to describe algorithmic computer systems: smart and intelligent. The tone of such articles may seem quaint by today’s standards, when AI and algorithmic control underpin so much of our technology, but the question of machine intelligence remains. Universal Synthesizer Interface VOL III Focuses exclusively on one of the more obscure of Intelligent Music’s software creations - UpBeat: The Intelligent Rhythm Sequencer, released in 1987, and hailed by reviewers of the time as “the world’s best drum machine.”

High Hopes - New album from the Mole.
High Hopes is 17 songs across 40 minutes on one slice of wax that, as advertised, sounds nothing like last month’s Ep, High Dreams. Here, rather than the long form dance form, is a continuation of the beat tape pacing from the last album, a collection of moments posing as ideas posing as a narrative stuffed with oddities and surprises that reward the close listen.
What’s heard on High Hopes is the Mole’s exploration of a love letter, from one person to a family, from the northern Pacific to the southern Atlantic, from a boy to a painted bird. Vancouver Island to Manantiales. The songs range from ambient sound bath and hip hop sludge, up to micro boogie and almost House before tumbling back down and forth again. Bubbling synths, MPCs swung out, samples chopped and chewed, bass and violins from Rick and Sophie, field recordings of birds and frogs and beaches, friends and family and fiestas. Did we mention the love ?! This album has got it all! Original collages from Antonio Carrau envelope this wax: jacket, sleeve and cookie. Antonio’s work is typified by playful combinations and bold statements about living in a embrace of analog and digital health. His co lages marry the corporeal world with an updated, digitalized age of reproduction, inducing feelings of gratitude for the simple everyday scenes we sometimes lose touch with when we forget to slow down. Good living, like breathing, requires inhaling as well as exhaling.
We can’t always produce content, make art, we must also pause, and listen. And enjoy. The Mole is joined by friends and colleagues on several songs included on High Hopes. Rick May plays bass on both Que Rico and album stand out GoinF4er. Sophie Trudeau (Godspeed You Black Emperor) plays and arranges violins on GoinF4er and Danuel Tate (Cobblestone Jazz) and Julz Chaz (Wagon Repair) both play Vibes and Emaxx throughout the album. Working with these incredible talents not only enriched this album, but fulfilled a long standing goal of the Mole’s; to work again with the musicians from whom he learned so much. People who helped inform the shape of Mole to come.
The Mole who was As High As The Sky. The Mole has been ‘recognized’ by the ‘global underground’ since his critically celebrated premiere album, As High As The Sky, but his earlier Eps (Wagon Repair, Philpot, Musique Risquee) got the attention of Top DJs, clubs, and festivals around the world first. His sound remains unique, fresh and deep: enjoying plays in a wide variety of spaces and places.
High Hopes is the Mole’s 5th solo album and his 2nd album for Circus Company (The River Widens) who have also proudly released two eps of Mole magic (Little Sunshine, High Dreams).
*Isn’t that too much time for one record? Short answer - No. Long answer - depends on the material. Due to the many quiet passages in the album, the groove spacing can be modulated and the needle can slow it’s progress towards the center/end resulting in longer sides with continued high gain and low distortion.

High Hopes - New album from the Mole.
High Hopes is 17 songs across 40 minutes on one slice of wax that, as advertised, sounds nothing like last month’s Ep, High Dreams. Here, rather than the long form dance form, is a continuation of the beat tape pacing from the last album, a collection of moments posing as ideas posing as a narrative stuffed with oddities and surprises that reward the close listen.
What’s heard on High Hopes is the Mole’s exploration of a love letter, from one person to a family, from the northern Pacific to the southern Atlantic, from a boy to a painted bird. Vancouver Island to Manantiales. The songs range from ambient sound bath and hip hop sludge, up to micro boogie and almost House before tumbling back down and forth again. Bubbling synths, MPCs swung out, samples chopped and chewed, bass and violins from Rick and Sophie, field recordings of birds and frogs and beaches, friends and family and fiestas. Did we mention the love ?! This album has got it all! Original collages from Antonio Carrau envelope this wax: jacket, sleeve and cookie. Antonio’s work is typified by playful combinations and bold statements about living in a embrace of analog and digital health. His co lages marry the corporeal world with an updated, digitalized age of reproduction, inducing feelings of gratitude for the simple everyday scenes we sometimes lose touch with when we forget to slow down. Good living, like breathing, requires inhaling as well as exhaling.
We can’t always produce content, make art, we must also pause, and listen. And enjoy. The Mole is joined by friends and colleagues on several songs included on High Hopes. Rick May plays bass on both Que Rico and album stand out GoinF4er. Sophie Trudeau (Godspeed You Black Emperor) plays and arranges violins on GoinF4er and Danuel Tate (Cobblestone Jazz) and Julz Chaz (Wagon Repair) both play Vibes and Emaxx throughout the album. Working with these incredible talents not only enriched this album, but fulfilled a long standing goal of the Mole’s; to work again with the musicians from whom he learned so much. People who helped inform the shape of Mole to come.
The Mole who was As High As The Sky. The Mole has been ‘recognized’ by the ‘global underground’ since his critically celebrated premiere album, As High As The Sky, but his earlier Eps (Wagon Repair, Philpot, Musique Risquee) got the attention of Top DJs, clubs, and festivals around the world first. His sound remains unique, fresh and deep: enjoying plays in a wide variety of spaces and places.
High Hopes is the Mole’s 5th solo album and his 2nd album for Circus Company (The River Widens) who have also proudly released two eps of Mole magic (Little Sunshine, High Dreams).
*Isn’t that too much time for one record? Short answer - No. Long answer - depends on the material. Due to the many quiet passages in the album, the groove spacing can be modulated and the needle can slow it’s progress towards the center/end resulting in longer sides with continued high gain and low distortion.

On November 8th, 2Tone Records/Chrysalis Catalogue will release a 40th Anniversary Half-Speed Mastered Edition of The Special AKA 'In The Studio' album. This release has been liaised and approved by the band's founder and main songwriter Jerry Dammers. Formed in Coventry in the mid-1970s, The Specialswas the idea of musician Jerry Dammers, who brought together an eclectic array of individuals to fulfill his vision of a multi-racial band, fusing the energy of punk with the legendary but, at the time, often overlooked, sound of Jamaican ska. The band rose to prominence along with the 2Tone movement, which included two No. 1 singles, Too Much too Young and 1981's Ghost Town, which theme still resonates today before Terry Hall, Lynval Golding and Neville Staple left to form the Fun Boy Three and Roddy Byers left to tour with his band the Tearjerkers. The remaining members, Dammers, Bradbury and Panter, recruited guitarist John Shipley from The Swinging Cats, ex-Bodysnatcher Rhoda Dakar and lead vocalist Stan Campbell,reverting the original band name of The Special AKA and set to work on a new album. Released in 1984, 'In the Studio' was a brave mix of bold and challenging music, with a strong political, social and moral conscience. The album made it into the Top 40, and while it might not have been a huge commercial success, it was, and still is, an astonishingly unique work: a haunting, claustrophobic mix of lounge, soul, reggae, jazz and Arabic rhythms, with uncompromising subject matter. It featured two classic singles: the joyous, yet serious rallying anthem for the then imprisoned South African ANC leader, 'Free Nelson Mandela', and 'What I Like Most About You Is Your Girlfriend'. As time has gone by, the status of 'In The Studio'has grown, and today it is rightly viewed as a genuine lost classic. Like the previous two Specials 40th Anniversary vinyl editions, this has been newly remastered and cut at half-speed by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios, London. Format: Wide spine sleeve, 2LP 180gm Black Vinyl cut at 45rpm with insert inside and OBI.

Multi-talented artist Poppy Ajudha will be announcing her sophomore album, titled ‘Poppy’, which will be released 22nd November 2024. This follows Poppy’s triumphant return to releasing music this year with the release of 'My Future', following a two year hiatus. ‘Poppy’ was created alongside Mike Malchicoff (Kanye West/King Princess) with contributions from the likes of producers Maestro (Rihanna), Fred Ball (Alicia Keys/Raye/Mariah Carey), Grades, (Kali Uchis, Dua Lipa, Britney Spears), and Travis Sayles (Ariana Grande).

Poppy says: “I can’t believe I’m writing this, but my sophomore album is finally coming out! After numerous trips back and forth from London to LA, millions of revisions to perfect each song and a lot of moving the track listing around, I’ve made an album I’m so in love with, with people who I felt truly seen by, who I respected and found a natural synergy with. I really put everything into this album, it is a reflection of my growth over the last 2 years, an outward pouring of my raw vulnerability, the inner workings of my chaotic brain and the deep desire I have to challenge myself with everything I do. I’m really proud of what we made, and I hope that when you hear it, it means something to you too.
Thank so much to all the special people who contributed to the making of this project, the producers, engineers, musicians, visual creatives, the friends who listened to me while I processed my life in order to write it down, I wouldn’t have been able to manifest this dream without you.”

Alongside the announcement of her upcoming album, Poppy has also released new single ‘Lean On Me’, a bold pop banger about the importance of community and showing support for each other even during challenging moments. ‘Lean On Me’ was written by Poppy with production from Wesley Singerman (Kendrick Lamar/Anderson Paak).

On ‘Lean On Me’, Poppy says: “We realise true friendship in the moments we are most vulnerable with each other. When I wrote ‘Lean On Me’ I was going through a breakup and struggling to make sense of my world. My friend who was experiencing their own kind of grieving found the time to give me the advice I needed, and the next day I wrote this song about the power of friendship, community, unconditional love and showing up for each other through our hardest times.”

Opeth are one of the biggest acts in the Prog Metal genre with numerous top 10 albums worldwide, ”The Last Will and Testament” is their new album set for release November 22. Guest vocals by Joey Tempest (Europe), and guest flute by Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull). “A restless musical journey in a way mirroring my own relationship with music as a consumer of it," narrates band leader Mikael Åkerfeldt. "I pick up something here, dismiss something there. I worship and I hate music at the same time. This ambivalence leads me down some type of creative path of my own and then, all of a sudden, a collection of songs has been written. Best case scenario, these songs are good enough to impress the band. Good enough for the ”powers that be” in terms of the industry. Good enough for ”you”?! I love this record. I have to say it (write it). Maybe I’m proud even? There are some familiar ingredients in there I suppose. Most of our music has sprung from the same source, so I guess it’s not much of a shocker if it’s going to sound like ”us”. I’m a bit in awe of what we did with ”The Last Will and Testament”. It feels like a dream. There is some ”coherence" and ” songwriting skills” I hope, but what do I know? I tend to favour the ”strange” over the ”obvious”, but I feel like I’m in the minority, and that’s fine. So…fair warning! Don’t expect an instant rush (as per usual), but if you do ”get it” (have you got it yet?) right away, that’s ok too!"

Even as the obstacles to meaningful connection mount into an Everest-ian hurdle, artists nevertheless find ways to bend the technologies of our days to foster visceral human connection, rather than bereft isolation. Comprised of a West Coast bassist (Kristian Dunn of El Ten Eleven) and an Appalachia-adjacent drummer (Damon Che of Don Caballero), Yesness forges a friendship mediated through the language of collaboration, all formed through emailed song sketches and text exchanges of Van Halen demos. The odd couple of Kristian Dunn (El Ten Eleven) and Damon Che (Don Caballero) was the result of some clever musical matchmaking by Karl Hofstetter, founder and curator of Joyful Noise Recordings. Karl introduced Dunn and Che via email in April 2023 after Dunn's prolific output outgrew the resources and abilities of his instrumental duo El Ten Eleven. Less than a year later, after countless text messages and song sketches were exchanged, and one fateful meeting at a recording studio was organized, their nascent project's debut record, See You at the Solipsist Convention, was complete. "We were ships in the night of the musical variety until Karl found a way to merge our paths," Che said of his introduction to Dunn. "There are very few comparisons in the aesthetic approach to how we created the music. We worked remotely for eight months before physically meeting for the first time at the recording studio." Neck-deep in their own ambitions, Che and Dunn swapped musical ideas and quirky song titles throughout the summer, working at a breakneck pace. Star Wars references were intertwined with walloping bass lines ('If You Say So'); non-sequiturs were punctuated by Che's signature frenetic percussive jabs ('Horror Snuggle'). Scaffolded around eight-string bass, knotty percussion, and intricate syncopation, See You at the Solipsist Convention is a carnival of delights for fans of the post-everything persuasion—uncategorizable yet reverent to the altar of instrumental rock. Tearing through the record's evocative instrumentals is a delightful bolt of strangeness, felt as much as heard in the spontaneous chemistry between Che and Dunn. "Occasional Grape?" dances like a waltz played with a sledgehammer—delicate moments shattered by bursts of aggression, while still embedding a rhythmic earworm deep into your heart. 'Nice Walrus,' a string-studded panorama featuring Kishi Bashi, volleys between nervy hyperactivity and heartfelt grandeur. The album's closing track, "Non-incredible Visitor," contrasts Che's meticulous precision with Dunn's imaginative instrumentation, bonding bass and percussion like nesting dolls. Just as the track seems to settle, it drives off an uncharted auditory cliff—abruptly, without ceremony, leaving the listener grasping for meaning in the murk. Beyond all measure, Yesness stands as a testament to the powerful dividends of friendship and collaboration. We are nothing without each other – our partners, our local record store clerks, our neighbors. Music, too, thrives on our entanglements. With twelve tracks, an upcoming tour, and an unexpected friendship stemming from one email, Yesness underscores the brilliant machinery of human connection.

Late-night jams in their new studio sees Jazzbois return to their beat-tape roots on Still Blunted

Having established themselves as one of the leading live bands in Europe grooving in improvised jazz motifs and hip-hop beats, Budapest trio Jazzbois return with their fourth LP Still Blunted that sees them touch base with their beat-tape roots.

Now situated in the heart of Buda at their new studio above a club, the Hungarian trio of Bencze Molnár (Rhodes/synth), Viktor Sági (bass) and Tamás Czirják (drums) take a more considered approach to Still Blunted and offer a snapshot into the jams, sessions, and shows they have played over the past year. The new album comes after performing at the legendary Montreux Jazz Festival this summer and will be followed by a European tour in October.

Inspired by contemporaries Domi and JD Beck, Kiefer, Nala Sinephro, and the sounds of Radio Juicy, Jazzbois have been more critical of their track selection for the sequel to their Goes Blunt albums. They’ve ripped up their playbook of producing records in a matter of days and took their time to approach the record through reworking their favourite tracks recorded over the past year.

“We’re trying to keep the same formula but there was a lot of thought gone into the process of making an improvised jam sound like a song. It has to be good in the moment, and we chose the ones we felt were expressive and resonated the most with us musically. We focus on our feelings in the moment and have trust in our own taste and music visions.”

The trio’s new studio has offered them the space and time to get the best out of their creativity. “This new spot is a Jazzbois headquarters. It’s above this club, sometimes there's a DJ playing outside on the street – everyday there's something on and lots of people coming and going. We hang out for the whole day and just record anything or edit.”

Jazzbois are a part of the rich, underground jam scene in Budapest, and those improvised-led sessions have fed into Still Blunted. One of their late-night jams turned after-parties produced sketches for tracks they selected for the album.

“It was the end of a wild night celebrating getting the album done. We’re having a jam and we looked around while we were recording and there was twenty people smoking and drinking around us – half of them we didn't even know who they are. It turned into an open after-party where people were coming to ours from the club. It was very spontaneous and unexpectedly, we made five or six new songs we ended up using for the album.”

The ethos of those unplanned, open jams is something they carry through into their live shows, as they never rehearse so their music can develop freely. Their trusted fourth ‘live’ member DomBeats joins them on Still Blunted adding saxophone to some of the psychedelic-tinged beats, such as on singles Shangri La and Chrome. After recently digging back into 70s and 80s jazz, discovering more hip-hop sampled tracks, and absorbing the breaks and high-energy of footwork and juke, these influences come through strong across Still Blunted.

The footwork sound is replicated in the shuffling, busy drums of Shangri La, with the echoing guitar twang reminiscent of a sample you may hear on an MF Doom beat. “Shangri La was a catalyst for the new album. It reflects on our trip to America and SXSW. We played at this venue Shangri La. The Texan air and sun are in that track.”

Chrome takes on a much more furious style of playing that allows for the drums to cascade and flow along with the pulsating, chromatic bass line, with the synths and saxophone spiralling into an engrossing frenzy. The liquidy keys and synths glides over the bass on Flute Thang, creating a 70s jazz-funk vibe that stands out from the rest of the album.

With hundreds of thousands of monthly listeners across Spotify and Apple Music, they have become a playlist staple that has earned them millions of streams since their debut release Jazzbois Goes Blunt in 2019. As more live dates are booked for the Hungarian trio, Jazzbois continue to transform the traditional jazz trio sound into deep, groove-led beats on Still Blunted.

This album took fuckin" forever, even longer than Decline. we started in December of "99 and finished in February "00. Of course we took the holidays off and we went on a three week tour in Jan. We recorded like 22 songs, but we scrapped 8 of them. We"ll finish them some other time. The title track "Pump Up The Valuum" got cut from the album. That"s wierd. we gave it to Epitaph for Punk O Rama 5. There"s another song called "San Francisco Fat" that is gonna go on the next fat comp. I guess a lot of the songs on this record are about drugs. I guess that"s because we like drugs and like singin" about them even more. well our drummer doesn"t like them so much. He did so much of em he had to quit seven years ago. But he"s not writing the lyrics. Am I rambling, I feel like I"m rambling, any way, I like this album. there"s no ska, no reggae, no jazz, just punk and punk and a little polka. I don"t feel the need to ever play a ska song again, but ya never know. Yes, I definitely think I am rambling.

Indignation Meeting are punky rail fans from Leeds. 15-year-old Peter is the driver - he's the drummer and lead singer, writes most of the songs, and also plays bass and trumpet on the album. The rest of the crew is his dad Michael on guitar, Hugo on bass, and with Keith, Heather and Sally often along for the ride when they play out. Here at DGHQ we loved listening to their self-released debut album Trouble In The Shed so much we eventually released it on vinyl for the first time. They now have a second album! Vocalist/drummer Peter very kindly talks us through the (train) tracks_ * "The Trainspotting Song" - Now, as a train geek, I go out filming trains an awful lot, and one thing you can't help noticing whilst out in the wilds of Staffordshire or the moors of Lancashire are a whole load of unnecessary 'Private Land' signs. This song is my response_ * "The Talyllyn Railway" - The history of the Talyllyn Railway is a fascinating one that I've long since wanted to explore, due to its unique nature as the first railway to ever be taken over by volunteers. This is the result! * "The Middleton Railway" - As a volunteer at the Middleton Railway, I had felt that a song needed to be written for quite a while. However, our guitarist Michael, ended up beating me to it! * "A Model World" - It was late one night, and I was lying on my sofa, trying my hardest to gain an ounce of enjoyment from 'Hornby; A Model World.' It was proving quite hard, due to the alarming lack of substance in the programme, so instead I decided that its name was rather good, and could be the basis of a song explaining my 'model world.' And, well, here it is! * "The Fifth Black Five" - This song is dedicated to the railway preservationists of old, who spent countless hours in cold, damp, dreary sidings, all to make sure us future generations would be able to enjoy the smell of a steam train. Thanks guys! * "Case Study" - This song is a commentary on the sensationalisation of disasters, when there's a massive tragedy and people at home just sit in their comfy sofas, watching the news and drinking tea. We know what's going on, but we can just choose to turn off the TV and forget it ever happened and continue with our lives. It also relates to the dehumanisation of those disasters you experience in school, where you have to write essays on someone who's just become homeless. It seems quite heartless sometimes_ * "Loco Motives" - This song is a fictional story of a man's personal struggle with a railway company, and the drastic measures he took to fix them_ * "That Would Never Suit His Grace" - With model railways, you always seem to get a few people who can never be satisfied with a layout or a model - no matter how hard someone's tried, there's always something to improve on, and they're never nice about it either. This song is a reality check for them_ * "Small Black Shunter" - This is our second homage to Zounds - Electrification would never be truly complete without its B-side. And this B-side is the story of a little loco who wanted to see the world. * "Rhydyronen" - Slowly but surely, we're going to pick off all of the stations on the Talyllyn Railway. Starting where Abergynolwyn left off, this is the story of our second favourite station on the TR. * "Typically English Day" - This is an homage to Mark Astronaut, a true punk genius who was gone before his time. Although there were many songs we could've picked to cover, it only seemed right to punk up one of his most popular tracks, and one of the main ones that got me into the Astronauts in the first place - Typically English Day, a heart-wrenching tale of an elderly couple trapped in the middle of a nuclear war, following their last moments before their inevitable demise. * "Just For The Record" - There is too much misinformation in the media these days, and one case I found particularly egregious was the gross misrepresentation of the strikers, who aren't so evil as the media want you to believe_

Souls Of Mischief, the Oakland, CA quartet and members of the mighty Hieroglyphics Crew, are proud to announce the first-ever vinyl release of their fifth album "Montezuma's Revenge." Notably, the album’s striking cover featured a fifth member of the group: the legendarily innovative producer Prince Paul, who executive produced the LP, handling most of the beats and overseeing the musical direction of the album from start to finish.

Emcees A-Plus, Opio, Phesto, and Tajai take turns showing off the multisyllabic flows, witty similes, and smooth lyrics that have made the crew a household name in rap for over 30 years. Souls' trademark juxtaposition of complex, multi-syllabic lyricism against laid-back Cali flow remained as strong as it was in 1993 on “Montezuma’s Revenge,” and Paul’s magic touch on production took the Souls’ sound to a new level.

While the aforementioned and unmistakable SOM sound remains very much intact, Paul's vision and risk-taking come through on the finished product. Tajai was comfortable from the start in working with the visionary producer: ”Paul is a perfectionist and so are we so we took time with the beats and subject matter. This album to me is a great insight into who we are as people and how important it is to progress stylistically, yet it retains a classic, timeless feel."

On this new LP Harry Bertoia shows why he may have been the first industrial musician. Bertoia often referred to his sound sculptures as a "collaboration with industry" and on this LP Bertoia is intentionally creating heavy, rhythmic music he described as "mechanized," "mechanical" and "factory like."

Recorded in 1971, percussion and repetition emulate the pounding rhythms of machinery on this unique pair of conceptual Bertoia compositions. Bertoia utilizes innovative performance techniques to create new sounds unheard in his ouevre. Even in the busy factory of Bertoia's mind, distant stillness rises up as Bertoia exhibits the massive amount of control he possesses over his many looming sculptures.

"Mechanization" is just one of the many sonic directions Bertoia took while composing and recording between the late 1950's and his death in 1978. He documented all of his ideas and directions in notes accompanying the hundreds of tapes discovered in his barn.

Bertoia's recordings are as much a celebration of sustained tones, intervallic relationships, healing vibrations, deep listening and shimmering harmonics as Indian Classical music, singing bowls, The Well Tuned Piano or Benjamin Franklin's glass armonica. Through these rich harmonics and pulsing pure tone, Bertoia was able to more clearly articulate his inner spirit than he could with sculpture alone – a point he made himself many times in interviews.

Harry Bertoia first came into artistic prominence in the late 1930s and his sculptural, ergonomic chairs, produced by Knoll Furniture beginning in 1952, were soon modernist furniture classics. 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 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.

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 greater 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.

Ramkot is a wrecking ball from Ghent, Belgium, playing powerful yet danceable rock music. After two EP’s and building a reputation as one of the most exciting live bands around, the spring of 2023 sees the release of debut album In Between Borderlines, a razor-sharp 25-minute uppercut aiming for both head and hips. They tour extensively, playing a hefty 100 shows in just one year: from steamy venues and sun-drenched festival stages (Pinkpop, Down The Rabbit Hole) to even opening for Metallica in Amsterdam. For their sophomore album, instead of producing it themselves again, Ramkot enlist producer Alain Johannes (QOTSA, Eagles of Death Metal, Them Crooked Vultures), who invites them to the Joshua Tree desert. For three weeks, Ramkot reside in the legendary Rancho De La Luna studio, famous for QOTSA frontman Josh Homme’s The Desert Sessions. ‘We pulled out all the stops, not pushing our foot down on the accelerator all the time, which allows the music to breathe more. There’ll be a couple of softer songs the fans will not be expecting from us.’ But rest assured, every single note still sounds very much like Ramkot. The band will only play a handful of shows this year, including 2000 Trees (UK), Sziget (H), Pukkelpop and Lowlands.

Pile - the trio of Rick Maguire, Kris Kuss, and Alex Molini - found inspiration in the studio while working on their latest LP All Fiction, working tirelessly to record, experiment, manipulate, mutate, and layer the songs with lush orchestration, haunting synths, and abstract textures. Challenging the confines of the standard “rock band,” they took inspiration from artists like Portishead and Aphex Twin, reigniting their passion as they explored their sound in a new realm. The sessions resulted in a flutter of productivity and before the band knew it they had completed well over a dozen songs, stretching far beyond the confines of a single LP’s runtime. After much deliberation, songs were pulled from the record, never a “trimming of the fat” but more of a consideration of which songs were able to stand best on their own. These songs form the Hot Air Balloon EP. Released digitally on January 5th, 2024, and now in LP format for the first time, the EP captures the band experimenting in all directions, from the direct to the further abstract. Following the release of “Scaling Walls,” a song Paste Magazine called “a contemplative slow-burn,” the band introduce the EP with the quasi title track, “The Birds Attacked My Hot Air Balloon,” a song that finds Pile in a more surrealist state, the meditative composition bristling with shuffling rhythms and brilliantly disorienting synths.

Night On Earth records
is an independent structure/label created 20 years ago which deals with
the invisible and the deviant,
the void and the love,
the parallax and the unknown …
we release vinyls and tapes
we organise events
we are you and us
we are nothing and everything
we are oblivion and memory
we are your egotrip’s nightmare
we are your deviancy catharsis
meet us through this double LP which is one cartography of the night on earth vortex across 3 continents and several generations of music freaks and braincrackers

Some Artists missing there (there are too much : RINUS VAN ALEBEEK, SS MYLITTA, SOLAR SKELETONS, THE RADAR THREAT, ÂME DE BOUE, and.. RIPIT !

Recital presents a newly unearthed recording of an interview between Sun Ra and composer Charlie Morrow recorded at his New York studio in 1989. This voice-only recording develops more like a kaleidoscopic sermon than any standard interview.

Charlie Morrow recalls:
My 1989 Summer Solstice Celebration featured Sun Ra and his Arkestra. On March 29, 1989, ahead of this historical performance, Sun Ra came to New York to plan the performance and do an interview with me in the Charles Morrow Associates studio. There were members of the Sun Ra Arkestra, some of my team, and a photographer present. Once in the sound studio, Sun Ra wanted to record the discussion. What he says is so much more than anyone expected. I pushed record on the tape recorder, which quietly took it all in.

What Sun Ra recorded is a breathtaking expression of his feelings and strong convictions, illustrated with personal memories and stories. My few questions to him about the upcoming Solstice and about the sun and his thoughts about a dawn event triggered his mind. He launched into a nonstop journey of ricocheting stories and concepts, climaxing when I started jamming with Sun Ra on conch horn. Our duo drives to a climactic peak with explosive conch breath sounds giving line-by-line affirmations to Sun Ra’s points.

The 1989 Summer Solstice event brought together Sun Ra and his constellation of musicians and fans with my large-scale gatherings and work with the New Wilderness Foundation. Here in 2023 and beyond, the events live again. Sean McCann of Recital was drawn to Sun Ra’s words, which inspired the production of this edition. Sun Ra’s words seem to have an even greater resonance in present time. Ra is calling out the turbulence of the bad actions of the righteous and the good actions that an evil man, as he dubs himself, can perform, all the time believing that music has the possibility to bring all humans to a better place.

Charlie Morrow, 2023 / Helsinki, Finland

One-time pressing of 425 copies, includes 12-page booklet with rare photos and full transcription of interview, 24”x18” poster of Sun Ra 1989 Solstice performance photograph

When Bob Vylan won the first MOBO award for Best Alternative Music Act in 2022, the punk-grime duo took to the stage and used the platform to speak about how they managed to achieve the impossible as independent artists in a genre-defying space. “We released an album this year that we produced entirely, mixed entirely, recorded entirely, all from my bedroom…so everybody that’s here, bigging up Atlantic and bigging up Warner, fuck that, us man did it ourselves”.

It was an acceptance speech that rattled the room and built anticipation for their next projects.

Humble as the Sun, the forthcoming album from Bob Vylan continues with much of the rage and urgency that they have come to be known and loved for, but this latest project shows that they are now stronger and wiser, bolstered by the wins and learnings that they have fought hard for along the way. The resulting tracklist aims to leave the listener feeling power alongside their anger, and brings a fresh and compelling blend of punk, rock, grime and rap together in an experimental way.

Following on from the last album, Bob Vylan Presents the Price of Life, the message woven throughout Humble as the Sun remains dark in places but is high-energy, defiant and unapologetic in its critique of a broken social and political system that so many have fallen victim to, but feel powerless against.

This album is for the underdogs, the ones who come out swinging and those who refuse to be defeated in the face of injustice, and aims to remind listeners that anger is a fire that can be harnessed and put to use. The album creation started from a conversation with the sun, which is, after all, a big ball of fire that sustains life.

From masculinity to myths about the G Spot, the themes and topics explored on Humble As The Sun make for an often humorously empowering celebration of the peoples ability to endure, overcome and bring about change.

The lyricism on this album is even more layered than their previous projects, still darkly humorous, anti-establishment and unforgiving but at times pauses to deliver much-needed words of afrmation to listeners, “You are loved. You are not alone. You are going through hell but keep going.” Bobby assures the listener, ofering an antidote to the state of the world, aiming to give some power and agency to those who hear it. At a time when so little trust or faith exists between the people and the powers that be, Bob Vylan ofers out a hand in the despondent darkness that has overwhelmed so many in the shadow of a burning planet. They guides the listener to a place where they can see some light and feel empowered to do something, to fight back, to continue pushing forwards despite the challenges faced along the way.

Mixing all of the best quintessentially British - and Jamaican - musical elements from punk to drum and bass, grime and rock, Bob Vylan creates a sound that reflects the state of the nation, at once voicing the frustrations that normal people have, while also highlighting one’s ability to persevere, overcome hardship and to change.