Search:tradition

"I was trying to find where I fit musically again. I wasn’t really sure if it was Americana or if it was Country or if it was Rock – I was all over the place with my songwriting and my career. Ironically enough, COVID really gave me a chance to just turn my brain off a little bit and stop thinking. When I came out on the other side I found not only a renewed sense of my music and wanting to get out and play again, but I found a renewed sense of self. I really felt I found who I wanted to be as a writer, as a singer, as an artist. I hate to just say Country music or more Country-oriented but that’s really what it came down to and the simplicity of it. I really wanted the simplicity of the songs to carry themselves and carry the album and lead us all the way through the live show; where the simplicity creates these big, massive sounding songs and that’s what I feel like we got from this record. I’m just trying to put my own personal spin on what I think is great about Country music. I’m not reinventing the wheel here, I’m writing about things that have been written about a million times; you just try to put your own spin on things and I really feel like that’s what this album’s strength is: it’s traditional Country roots but it has a vintage Wade Bowen feel to it lyrically and sonically." - Wade Bowen

Ignite’s sound is hard to pin down, as their music contains elements of punk, hardcore, alternative, and even heavy metal. Their 30 year career has produced several albums, one o the most successful being their 2006 debut for Century Media, Our Darkest Days. The authorised Svart Records repress of this modern genre-defining classic comes in a gatefold jacket with all lyrics.

Turquoise Vinyl
Ignite’s sound is hard to pin down, as their music contains elements of punk, hardcore, alternative, and even heavy metal. Their 30 year career has produced several albums, one o the most successful being their 2006 debut for Century Media, Our Darkest Days. The authorised Svart Records repress of this modern genre-defining classic comes in a gatefold jacket with all lyrics.

Mit der Veröffentlichung von "Godslastering: Hymns of a Forlorn Peasantry" machte Hulder deutlich, dass trotz traditioneller Ausrichtung früherer Veröffentlichungen Black Metal dennoch detailreich, kreativ und frisch klingen kann. Ein triumphales Debüt, das bereits viel mehr erahnen ließ.

Auf der neuen Mini-LP "The Eternal Fanfare" erweitert Hulder die Bandbreite des Debüts. Die druckvolle Produktion eröffnet neue Dimensionen an Tiefgang und kraftvoller Resonanz, während das Songwriting eindrucksvoll den Zusammenfluss ihrer disparaten Einflüsse, wie z.B. bei den cineastisch ausladenden 'Burden of Flesh and Bone' und 'Sylvan Awakening' sowie die kalte, sturmgepeitschte Wildheit des Titeltracks präsentiert. Der Opener 'Curse From Beyond' ist ein außerweltliches, atmosphärisches Stück, das an Dead Can Dance in ihren mysteriösesten Momenten erinnert; während das nachdenkliche Lamento des Schlussstücks "A Perilous Journey" die klangliche Reise mit einer Aura melancholischer Endgültigkeit abschließt.

"The Eternal Fanfare" stellt ein starkes Zwischenspiel zwischen dem "Godslastering..."-Album und dem bevorstehenden zweiten Album dar. Aber auch für sich genommen ist es ein kraftvoller, nicht zu ignorierender Anspruch auf einen rechtmäßig zustehenden Platz in der Oberliga des Genres - erhebend, jedoch gleichermaßen gnadenlos in den Abgrund reißend.

Blue Note Re:imagined returns this year with a new 16-track compilation featuring fresh takes on music from the illustrious Blue Note vaults recorded by a heavyweight line-up of the UK jazz, soul and R&B scene’s most hotly-tipped rising stars. This 7” single features two covers from the upcoming album, from Ego Ella May and Theon Cross. Arriving off the back of the widespread international success of the first volume, which topped jazz charts around the globe, Blue Note Re:imagined II once again infuses the spirit of the new UK jazz generation into the legendary label’s iconic catalogue, balancing the genre’s tradition with its future and reflecting the melting pot of talent and diversity within the current scene.

The Konduko 7" series ends with the 4th and possibly best single with Noel Williams aka King Sporty's cover version of Bob Marley's Them Belly Full, here released as Dance To The Music.

First released on the Natty Dread album of 1974, it was Marley's first album working away from Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer and was a spiritually charged political and social statement, also featuring classics No Women, No Cry, Lively Up Yourself and Rebel Music.

As an associate and friend from their Studio One days, William's version makes sense, in the tradition of covers throughout reggae's history. Appearing a year late, the 1975 single came in Jamaican and US pressings, a nod to Konduko's roots, having started in Kingston before the move to Miami in the earlier part of the decade.

A warning against allowing the poor to go hungry, with the prophetic "a hungry mob is an angry mob", the cover includes a lot of the Miami feel Sporty was incorporating. With instrumentation again from the Ocean Liners KC And Sunshine backing band), the horns and guitar raise the soul, with counter keys, Part 1 is a straight vocal, while Part 2 is close to a Version but more than an instrumental and in its title, shows its funk and soul background too. A perfect end to the series, the uplifting tracking belies the powerful message, bringing the Miami swing to the JA groove once more.

*Gatefold sleeve - black vinyl**

In many ways Kumoyo Island represents the culmination of a journey for Kikagaku Moyo. While their decade-long career can be summarized as a series of kaleidoscopic explorations through lands and dimensions far and near, there’s a strong intention in each of their works to take the listener to a particular place, however real or abstract they may be. In that sense, the title and cover art for the band’s fifth and final album draws you into a magical mass of land surrounded by water—but the couch suggests that Kumoyo Island may not be a fleeting stop, but rather a place of respite, where one could pause and take it all in.

Reconvening at Tsubame Studios in Asakusabashi, Tokyo, where their earliest material had been recorded, the five members of Kikagaku Moyo found new inspiration in a familiar and comfortable environment. With their adopted homebase of Amsterdam under lockdown and their touring activities halted due to the pandemic, the band felt a renewed sense of freedom being back in shitamachi, or the old downtown area of their hometown. With unrestricted time in the studio, they began to build upon the demos and song fragments they’d amassed since their last tour. In the 1.5 months spent in Tokyo, everything started to come together.

“Monaka”, its name taken from a type of Japanese wafer sweets, takes melodic inspiration from traditional minyo folk styles, while “Yayoi Iyayoi” is a rare instance of the band singing in their native tongue, its evocative lyrics utilizing archaic words taken from old poetry and nature books found in one of the many secondhand bookstores of Tokyo. For “Meu Mar”, an Erasmos Carlos cover, the original Portuguese lyrics were translated into English, then to Japanese. Strangely enough, the words seem to conjure an image of the protagonist floating among the clouds, looking down upon Tokyo Bay.

In fact, it may be possible to draw a parallel between the topography of the band’s home country—an island nation, surrounded by bodies of water—and the mysterious isle of Kumoyo. Are they one and the same? Has the band finally made it back home? It’s up to the listener to decide.

Dewa Alit, Bali’s master of contemporary Gamelan composition, returns to Black Truffle with Chasing the Phantom, presenting two recent works played by the composer’s Gamelan Salukat, a large ensemble that performs on instruments specially built to his designs, using a unique tuning system that combines notes from two traditional Balinese Gamelan scales. Alit explains that the ensemble’s name suggests “a place to fuse creative ideas to generate new, innovative works” and both compositions demonstrate the composer’s ability to wring stunning new possibilities from variations on the traditional Gamelan ensemble. While using familiar elements of Balinese Gamelan music, such as unison scalar melodies and stop-start dynamics, Alit’s music is overflowing with harmonic, rhythmic, and timbral inventions, the latter often facilitated by unorthodox playing techniques.

“Ngejuk Memedi”, an English translation of which gives the LP its title, results from Alit’s reflection on the complex relationship between tradition and modernity in Balinese culture, particularly in the way that belief in the phantoms or spirits known as ‘memedi’ are shared through social media using digital technologies. Embodying this uncanny co-existence, the opening passages of the piece are at once immediately recognisable in their use of the metallophones of the Gamelan ensemble and strikingly reminiscent of electronics in their timbre and movement. At points, what we hear seems to have been fragmented with digital tools, or even to originate in some incessantly glitching DX7. Short melodic figures loop irregularly, with the ensemble splintering into polyrhythmic shards before unexpectedly recombining for intricate unison passages. After several minutes of this manically tinkling metallic sound world, the metallophones are joined by drums for a meditative passage of lower dynamics, as the uniformly high pitch range explored in the opening sections gradually opens up to include resonant low gong hits. Recovering some of the manic energy of the opening, but now enhanced with the full range of percussion, the piece weaves through a series of tempo changes to a stunning passage of rapid-fire melodies and ringing chords that sweep across the metallophones, their unorthodox tuning creating complex clouds of wavering harmonies.

“Likad”, written during Covid-19 lockdowns, channels anxiety and uncertainty into musical form, resulting in a piece that, even by Alit’s standards, is stunning in its complexity and the virtuosity it demands of Gamelan Salukat. Its opening section is perhaps most remarkable for its mastery of texture, with rapid transitions between dry, muted strikes and metallic shimmers calling to mind the use of filters in electronic music. At points, the complex irregular repetitions of short melodic patterns, where the music seems to get stuck or be suddenly interrupted by a skip, recall the mad sampler works of Alvin Curran or the skittering surface of prime period Oval more than anything familiar from acoustic percussion music. Moving through a dizzying series of twists and turns, the piece ends with a majestic sequence of chords possessing an almost hieratic power. A major statement from a radical contemporary composer, one cannot help but agree with Alit when he sees Chasing the Phantom as an answer to the “question of the future of Gamelan music”.

In der Tradition klassischer Metal-Trios wie Venom, Motörhead und Raven, machen diese Jungs aus Chicago mehr Lärm als doppelt so große Bands und entfesseln einen Song nach dem anderen mit unerbittlicher Wut. Es ist Musik, die auch im goldenen Thrash-Zeitalter von 1986 entstanden sein könnte, als Bands wie Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Dark Angel und Sodom die entscheidenden Platten ablieferten. Und doch ist MISFIRE zukunftsorientiert, indem sie moderne Metal-Meisterschaft in ihr Gebräu für einen kraftvollen, zeitlosen Sound.

Vinyl Version des aktuellen Albums der britischen Heavy-Metal-Band Toledo Steel! 'Heading for the Fire' ist der Nachfolger von 'No Quarter' aus dem Jahr 2018, einer Veröffentlichung, die begeisterte Kritiken einbrachte.

Live-Termine sind für Oktober gebucht, um das neue Album mit den Labelkollegen Seven Sisters zu unterstützen
Die Band tourte zuvor ausgiebig mit RAM und High Spirits und spielte auf mehreren Festivals, darunter HRH NWOBHM (UK), Brofest (UK), Trveheim (Norwegen), Metal Magic (Dänemark) und Power of the Night (Zypern).

Toledo Steel aus Southampton erobern seit 2011 die Bühnen in ganz GB und Europa mit ihrem eigenen Stil des von den 80ern beeinflussten High-Energy-Heavy Metals, und haben sich als eine der führenden Kräfte Großbritanniens in der New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal erwiesen.
Limited Red Vinyl!

John Moreland doesn’t have the answers, and he’s not sure anyone does. But he’s still curious, basking in the comfort of a question, and along the way, those of us listening feel moved to ask our own. “I don’t ever want to sound like I have answers, because I don’t,” he says. “These songs are all questions. Everything I write is just trying to figure stuff out.” Moreland is discussing his new album Birds in the Ceiling, a nine-song collection that offers the most comprehensive insight into the thoughts and sounds swimming around in his head to date. A compelling blend of acoustic folk and avant-garde pop playfulness, Birds in the Ceiling lives confidently in a space of its own, enriched by tradition but never encumbered by it. The songwriting that has stunned fans and critics alike since 2015’s High on Tulsa Heat remains potent, while the sonic evolution that unfolds on the record feels like a natural expansion of 2020’s acclaimed LP5. The New Yorker, Pitchfork, Fresh Air, Paste, GQ, and others have embraced Moreland’s meditative songs, while performances on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, CBS This Morning, NPR Tiny Desk Concert, and more have introduced Moreland to millions. And yet, while the Tulsa-based Moreland is grateful for the respect and musical conversation he’s now having with people around the world, he is also more focused on the idea of just talking to one person––or even himself. “Through the years, I’ve felt like I’m increasingly talking to myself in my songs, more and more,” he says. “Maybe in the past, I wasn’t aware of it, but now, I am. I think doing that has helped me be less hard on myself, which makes you more generous and compassionate in general.” That helps explain why even if Moreland is reaching out to someone else, there is no judgment. “I’m in the same boat with whoever I’m talking to,” Moreland says. Moreland’s songs do feel intimate––like overheard conversations or solitary meditations. “I want to talk one-on-one to someone in a song,” he says. “I don’t want to address a group, really, because I think that’s when it’s easy to start pontificating––and it gets less honest.” Letting things just be what they are is a powerful guiding force for Moreland, determining not just how he interacts with others, but how he treats himself. “When you remove boundaries and instead of holding back parts of yourself––when you say, ‘Okay, I’m going to put all of me into this,’” Moreland says, "You end up making music that nobody else could make.”

MISADVENTURES OF DOOMSCROLLER wurde von Jonathan Wilson (Billy Strings, Father John Misty, Angel Olsen) produziert und stellt eine neue, abenteuerliche Richtung für Dawes dar, die einen ehrgeizigeren und experimentelleren Ansatz bei den Aufnahmen zeigt als je zuvor.

”Wir waren schon immer stolz darauf, Minimalisten zu sein. Mit dieser Platte haben wir uns vorgenommen, MAXIMALISTEN zu sein”, sagt Goldsmith. ”Immer noch ein Quartett. Die Songs sollen sich nicht
hinter irgendwelchen Tricks oder Effekten verstecken. Aber wir lassen die Songs wirklich atmen und sich ausdehnen und leben, wie sie es wollen. Wir haben beschlossen, keine Rücksicht mehr auf kurze Aufmerksamkeitsspannen zu nehmen. Unsere Ambitionen gehen dabei über das Musikalische hinaus. ”Wir wollten auch die traditionelle Länge einer Schallplatte - 40-45 Minuten - respektieren, aber keine Rücksicht auf die Anzahl der Tracks nehmen. So wie es Miles oder Herbie oft getan haben. Die Songs zu dokumentieren ist nur die eine Hälfte des Bildes. Für diese Platte sind sie auch die Plattform, von der aus wir abspringen und uns darin verlieren können. Ich glaube, ich kann es am besten so ausdrücken: Wir wollten, dass diese Platte weniger eine Sammlung von Songs als vielmehr eine Sammlung von Musik ist.”

Bloodywood from India are the hottest new band in the Metal-genre. Millions of followers online and a growing fanbase! The self-released debut “Rakshak” finally released as a proper vinyl edition!

Formed in 2016 as a fun band, Bloodywood from New Delhi, India are the hottest metal band right now! They bring everything you need in 2022: aggression, global ideas, visionary views, politically correct behavior and standing up for minorities from all walks of life. The band around the three heads Jayant Bhadula, Karan Katijar and Raoul Kerr managed to break into the international charts on their own and gathered an incomparable fan following. What started out six years ago with Bollywood and Linkin Park-covers has grown to a size that's expanding by the day. Bloodywood fans can now be found all over the world, millions of people have heard their songs and watched their videos, the wave can no longer be stopped. Now the debut “Rakshak”, which the band self-released in early 2022, is finally out on vinyl! In the summer of 2022 they will storm the European festivals, make their point in the USA in September and return to play their long-awaited clubtour through Europe, which was postponed due to the pandemic, at the beginning of 2023. Tickets are already running low. In a year at the latest everyone will know who Bloodywood is. Tom Morello (Rage Against The Machine) already knows it and has drawn his fans' attention to the Indian metallers with a tweet: "Rocking!" he calls the Indian sensation. Among other things, the musicians are involved in animal welfare and social projects and use traditional Indian instruments such as the tabla, dhol or bamboo flute. They mix it with rough thrash metal, urban rap vocals (English/Hindi/Punjabi) and rock-hard grooves. That creates a lot of uproar, at times sounds like open street fighting and, despite the regional references, has an absolutely international level. Especially since moderate sounds also find their place on “Rakshak” (Hindi for “protector”), as can be heard from the tracks 'Zanjeero Se' and 'Jee Veerey'. Bloodywood definitely deliver Linkin Park-standards here and even open themselves up to target groups that are less metal-savvy. The majority of this album rages like an unleashed tropical storm ('Dana-Dan', 'Chakh Le') is decked out with an impressively rabid force and hardly allows the listener any breaks. This mix is what makes it so successful: the album entered the Billboard charts, making them the first Indian metal band to do so.“Rakshak“ was also successful on Bandcamp, where it topped the platform's album sales upon release and was ranked as the 22nd best-selling new release of all time (as of March 2022) and the 3rd best-selling metal release. Rock for a rebellion that will be unstoppable!

Bloodywood from India are the hottest new band in the Metal-genre. Millions of followers online and a growing fanbase! The self-released debut “Rakshak” finally released as a proper vinyl edition!

Formed in 2016 as a fun band, Bloodywood from New Delhi, India are the hottest metal band right now! They bring everything you need in 2022: aggression, global ideas, visionary views, politically correct behavior and standing up for minorities from all walks of life. The band around the three heads Jayant Bhadula, Karan Katijar and Raoul Kerr managed to break into the international charts on their own and gathered an incomparable fan following. What started out six years ago with Bollywood and Linkin Park-covers has grown to a size that's expanding by the day. Bloodywood fans can now be found all over the world, millions of people have heard their songs and watched their videos, the wave can no longer be stopped. Now the debut “Rakshak”, which the band self-released in early 2022, is finally out on vinyl! In the summer of 2022 they will storm the European festivals, make their point in the USA in September and return to play their long-awaited clubtour through Europe, which was postponed due to the pandemic, at the beginning of 2023. Tickets are already running low. In a year at the latest everyone will know who Bloodywood is. Tom Morello (Rage Against The Machine) already knows it and has drawn his fans' attention to the Indian metallers with a tweet: "Rocking!" he calls the Indian sensation. Among other things, the musicians are involved in animal welfare and social projects and use traditional Indian instruments such as the tabla, dhol or bamboo flute. They mix it with rough thrash metal, urban rap vocals (English/Hindi/Punjabi) and rock-hard grooves. That creates a lot of uproar, at times sounds like open street fighting and, despite the regional references, has an absolutely international level. Especially since moderate sounds also find their place on “Rakshak” (Hindi for “protector”), as can be heard from the tracks 'Zanjeero Se' and 'Jee Veerey'. Bloodywood definitely deliver Linkin Park-standards here and even open themselves up to target groups that are less metal-savvy. The majority of this album rages like an unleashed tropical storm ('Dana-Dan', 'Chakh Le') is decked out with an impressively rabid force and hardly allows the listener any breaks. This mix is what makes it so successful: the album entered the Billboard charts, making them the first Indian metal band to do so.“Rakshak“ was also successful on Bandcamp, where it topped the platform's album sales upon release and was ranked as the 22nd best-selling new release of all time (as of March 2022) and the 3rd best-selling metal release. Rock for a rebellion that will be unstoppable!

Very limited pressing of 300 units only. Following on from the two sold out records together, Freschard and Stanley Brinks come together for 12 brand new tracks. Lion Heart is an irresistibly charming collection of late night tales, woozy ballads and uptempo sing-alongs. Clemence Freschard’s beautiful vocal tones lend this a rich, French indiepop/chanteuse vibe, complemented by Stan’s wistful timbre and characteristic warm instrumentation. Stanley Brinks is renowned for his unique anti-folk style: both playful and suggestive, insightful and entertaining. Brinks was born in Paris, France, in 1973. He studied a bit of biology and worked as a nurse for a while. Half Swedish, half Moroccan, strongly inclined to travel the world, he soon began spending most of his life on the road and developed a strong relationship with New York. By the late 90s he’d become a full time singer-songwriter – André Herman Düne – as part of three piece indie-rock band, Herman Düne. Several albums and Peel sessions later and after a decade of touring Europe, mostly with American songwriters such as Jeffrey Lewis, Calvin Johnson and early Arcade Fire he settled in Berlin. The early carnival music of Trinidad became a passion, and in the early 21st century he became the unquestioned master of European calypso, changing his name to Stanley Brinks. Under this moniker he has recorded more than 100 albums, collaborated with the New York Antifolk scene on several occasions, recorded and toured with traditional Norwegian musicians, and played a lot with The Wave Pictures. Freschard grew up in a farm in French Burgundy. Aged 18 she moved to Paris, where she baked pies and cakes in a cafe. There, a local musician and regular customer called Stanley Brinks wrote a few songs for her to sing. Homeless in Paris, she saved up just enough money to get herself a ticket to New York. There she found an old electric guitar and started writing her own songs. In 2004 she moved to Berlin, where she recorded her first LP, "Alien Duck". Her second album, "Click Click", recorded in 2006, features electric guitar by Stanley Brinks. On her third album, she plays the drums herself. On her fourth “Shh...” she also plays the flute, and she breaks out the washboard on her fifth “Boom Biddy Boom”. On Midnight Tequila, Freschard brings it back to just drums and vocals // “an absolute joy.” Q // “...a set that’s as wistful and charming as it is playful and self-concious.” Uncut // “quietly charming” Pitchfork

An album of incredible music inspired by endangered birdsong
This is the third album from The Birdsong Project that challenges ten artists from
a certain region to make an original track using and inspired by the song of a
threatened bird. 100% of the profits from the project go to bird conservation
NGOs working on the ground. Following South America and Mexico, Central
America, & the Caribbean, this album moves to Western Africa. The album mixes
well- known names from the World or traditional music scene like Vieux Farka
Touré, alongside electronic music producers like Buruntuma. This record is also
pressed on the greenest record available via Green Vinyl Records with 100% PVCfree, 100% recycled cardboard and 70% less CO2 emissions.

Auf 'Third' hebt Jitwam seine Fähigkeiten als Beatmaker und Produzent auf ein neues Niveau, verschmilzt Live-Musik mit Samples und Edits, garniert sie mit Features von Melanie Charles und Akhtari und weckt Erinnerungen an die Suche nach Frieden im Chaos des täglichen Lebens. Inspiriert von seiner Zeit in NYC kombiniert Jitwam mit trunkener Unbekümmertheit Einflüsse aus Latin, Soul, Punk und einer Menge Disco zu einem einzigartigen, reichhaltigen Sound. Die 10 ansteckenden Songs aus moduliertem Gesang und traditioneller Instrumentierung vermengen sich mit dem Schwung von Soul-House und Jazz. Entsprechend erhält Jitwam Support von Gilles Peterson, Moodymann und Matthewdavid.

Pye Corner Audio releases a new album, Let’s Emerge!, for Sonic Cathedral. It’s his first studio outing for the label following the acclaimed live recording Social Dissonance, which came out earlier this year, and it features Ride guitarist Andy Bell playing on five of its ten tracks. From the first glimpse of the artwork to the first note of the music it’s a marked deviation from Pye Corner Audio’s more traditional shadowy sounds. Whereas his last outing for Ghost Box (2021’s Entangled Routes) was inspired by the underground fungal pathways through which plants communicate, this one is very much above ground, bathed in sunlight and acid-bright psychedelia.

“This is a departure to sunnier climes, but a departure nonetheless,” says Pye Corner Audio, aka Martin Jenkins. “It’s something that I’d been thinking about for a while. I try to tailor my work slightly differently for the various labels that I work with, and this seems to fit nicely with Sonic Cathedral’s ethos.” Designer Marc Jones’ bold and ultra vivid artwork consciously references the likes of LFO, Spacemen 3 and the early output of Stereolab. “I think it mixes together many of my earliest influences,” explains Martin. “I’ve been a long-time fan of Spacemen 3 and Stereolab.

Their moments of repetition and drone have always seeped into what I’ve tried to create.

“I was living in a small apartment and I’d stripped down my studio set-up when I was recording this album. This enabled me to focus on a few key pieces of equipment and explore them fully.” The recordings were fleshed out by Andy Bell, who Martin first met at the Sonic Cathedral 15th birthday party at The Social in London back in 2019 – the same show that became the live album Social Dissonance.

“New alliances were formed and friendships made in that basement in Little Portland Street,” recalls Martin. “When I met Andy, we agreed that we needed to work together in some way. After I’d remixed a few tracks from his album The View From Halfway Down, he kindly repaid the favour.” The end results – mastered in New York by acclaimed engineer Heba Kadry – are incredible, from the first stirrings of opener ‘De-Hibernate’, via the glorious ‘Haze Loops’ and ‘Saturation Point’, the album slowly but surely awakens, blinking and feeling its way into the light. It all culminates in the epic closing track ‘Warmth Of The Sun’ which, with its vocal harmonies and acid breakdown, is seven and a half minutes of pure release.

“That one’s about life’s simple pleasures,” concludes Martin. “The Beach Boys, tremolo guitars, infinite drones, Spacemen 3. Let’s emerge from this darkened era and feel the ‘Warmth Of The Sun’. “The last few years have seen huge changes, both personally and in a wider perspective. The album title is a reaction to this, a collective (tentative) sigh of relief. Here’s to new beginnings and a sense of hope.”

Hypnagogia remains one of the most mysterious and haunting daily states of mind. Moments of revelation are wont to traditionally hit us particularly in the hinterland between dream and waking, It’s this particular headspace that’s very much the world of ‘Pö om pö’, the second Rocket Recordings released full-length record from Sweden’s equally mysterious OCH. Pö om pö (meaning ‘little by little’) is a journey further into inner space from ‘II’, the previous Rocket outing (which followed a 2014 cassette only release) What’s mapped out here is a trajectory on the kosmische continuum that touches on the terrain of late-‘70s Sky records style ambience, the more overgrown quarters of Swedish experimental prog and the sun-baked lo-fi DIY cassette culture of the US early ‘00s.Dwelling in a smoke-clouded glow that’s equal parts sunset gold and effects pedal red, OCH have here transcended all influences to creating a tapestry of potent psychotropic sound. A record in which new horizons open up beyond the small hours, and where primeval wah-wah-abetted skronk and mantric folk tinged repetition can collude to reveal new third-eye perceptions. Little By Little, Pö om pö , these forty minutes are here to bridge the chasms between conscious and subconscious, and in style.

Die britische Band Fellowship wird mit ihrem Debütalbum die Power-Metal-Szene mit eingängigen Melodien, rasanten Gitarren und lebensbejahender Lyrik aufmischen! “The Saberlight Chronicles" steht in der magischen Tradition von Twilight Force, Rhapsody und Majestica und hebt die Emotionen des Genres auf ein neues Niveau. “The Saberlight Chronicles" ist zu gleichen Teilen ein erzählerisches High-Fantasy-Konzeptalbum und eine gefühlvolle Sammlung von absoluten Knallern... zumindest sagen sie das so - sie sind schließlich Briten! Das Album greift das Thema psychische Gesundheit in einer Zeit auf, in der wir alle eine Aufmunterung brauchen, und erzählt eine mythische Geschichte über Selbstwert, Selbstfindung und die Suche nach Mut; Und dies alles in Songs, die so eingängig sind, dass man schon beim ersten Hören mitsingt. Metal hat sich noch nie so gut angefühlt!

* Comes with the original 1985 artworks & obi strip. * All-star line-up featuring Herbie Hancock, Mory Kante & Bernie Worrell. * 180g blue Vinyl repress. Manu Dibango needs little introduction, born in Cameroon in 1933, Manu developed a musical style fusing jazz, funk, and traditional Cameroonian music. He's definitely among the best known African artists outside of Africa. Collaborations were numerous and include top acts like Fela Kuti, Herbie Hancock, Bill Laswell, Sly & Robbie, Don Cherry and Bernie Worrell. In addition to selling hundreds of thousands of copies of the albums he recorded, he played such huge venues as Yankee Stadium and Madison Square Garden. In 1972, at 40 years of age, Manu Dibango did something almost unheard of for an African artist - he had a pop hit. His song "Soul Makossa" became an enormous hit which influenced popular music for decades to follow. First picked up by David Mancuso (The Loft), "Soul Makossa" took New York dance floors by storm & in July 1973 it became the first disco record to enter the Billboard Top 40_an early instance of Western pop experiencing a paradigm shift thanks to Africa. The song's chant of "ma-mako ma-ma-sa mako-mako sa" echoes through the greatest-selling pop album of all-time, Michael Jackson's Thriller, and it's in the DNA of the music of Kanye West, Rihanna, A Tribe Called Quest, Akon and The Fugees. By 1985, Dibango was back in Paris, one of the most successful African artists in the world, to start on the recordings for the Electric Africa album. This album hooked Manu and the Soul Makossa Gang up with New York avant garde producer Bill Laswell, jazz pianist Herbie Hancock, Parliament-Funkadelic keyboard player Bernie Worrell, Pan African synthesist Wally Badarou, New York guitarist Nicky Scopelitis, African drummer Aiyb Dieng and Malian kora virtuoso Mory Kante. This means of working gave Manu and Laswell license to fuse synthesizers and kora, talking drums and samples, ngoni and electric guitar. What it all boils down to is world beat in its truest sense. Electric Africa remains one of Manu's strongest albums. His deep growl of a honey and sandpaper voice and the energetic honk of his saxophone merge with the seamless samples and the myriad hand percussion and overt funkiness of his band. Herbie Hancock plays on three tracks, contributing an amazing electric piano solo on the title track and interacting with Manu's sax while weaving to the warp of Mory Kante's kora during "L'arbre a Palabres." Similarly but more subtly, Laswell, Badarou and Worrell play dueling synthesizers in and around the band throughout "Pata Piya." All of this makes the album an hypnotic & upbeat Afro-Funk classic that will rock every part your body (and mind). Now finally back available as a limited vinyl edition (Blue vinyl, limited to 500 copies) for the first time since 1985.

• Ghost of Tsushima: Music from Iki Island and Legends builds on the groundbreaking soundtrack to Ghost of Tsushima, the third-person adventure game by Sucker Punch Productions and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Featuring music by Chad Cannon and Bill Hemstapat, it includes selections from Ghost of Tsushima’s popular Iki Island and Legends expansions.

• The 2020 award-winning open-world video game, Ghost of Tsushima, follows the samurai Jin Sakai, who must protect Tsushima Island from invasion, defeat the ruthless Mongol invaders and protect what’s left of his home and people. As he embarks on an epic adventure for the freedom of Tsushima, he is forced to set aside samurai traditions and become a new kind of warrior.


• This vinyl release from composers Chad Cannon and Bill Hemstapat features 45 minutes of all new music written for the Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut. It contains 15 tracks, of which 10 are from Iki Island and 5 are from Legends.

• This release includes a black LP housed in a beautiful gatefold jacket with a folded insert.

• Chad Cannon has worked with several of the world’s best-loved film composers as arranger and orchestrator. As chief arranger for Studio Ghibli composer Joe Hisaishi since 2017, Chad has created large symphonic suites for Kiki’s Delivery Service, Castle in the Sky, and Spirited Away. His score to the Academy Award- winning Netflix documentary American Factory has been called “stirring” (NY Times) and “graceful” (Washington Post) and was nominated for a Cinema Eye Honors Award for Outstanding Original Score. The film is the first release by Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground Productions.
• Originally from Thailand, Bill Piyatut Hemstapat is a composer and record producer based in LA whose works have been featured in Video Games, TV and cinemas all over the world. Bill’s passion for video games music has led him to working at Sony PlayStation’s music department. Along with his most recent work re-imagining Shunsuke Kida’s iconic music of Demon’s Souls for the PS5 remake, he also contributed additional music and arrangements for Ghost of Tsushima as well as music editing for God of War, Days Gone and Hideo Kojima’s critically acclaimed Death Stranding.

The seductive first full-length from electronic composer and multi-disciplinary visual artist Amosphère. Born in China, partly educated in Japan and now residing in Paris, her work came to the attention of a wider circle of listeners when she was invited by Laurel Halo to perform as part of a 10-hour durational ambient concert at London's Mode Exchange in 2019. Amosphère uses a careful selection of vintage electronics, sophisticated harmonic sense, and keen compositional intelligence to invite listeners into a meditative sonic space. Time expands and contracts, simplicity reveals complexity, and repetition becomes patient transformation. Spreading out over six expansive yet self-contained tracks, more die of heartbreak serves as a perfect introduction to Amosphère's warmly enveloping approach to analogue sound. Developed from scores (contained in the accompanying booklet) using techniques from concrete poetry and graphic notation as well as fragments of traditionally notated material, these six pieces take in a broad sweep of moods and approaches, from the gently burbling layered monophonic patterns of the opening 'circuit of unconsciousness', reminiscent of the sun-drenched synth figures of 70s Alvin Curran, to the haunted gliding tones and reverberating pops of the closing 'melting a piece of cadmium'. At times starkly minimal and making bold use of the stereo field, Amosphère's production approach keeps the grit and grain of her analogue gear intact, at times calling to mind the work of pioneers like Delia Derbyshire and Eliane Radigue.

Mother Naomi and daughter Wynonna enjoyed an astounding run of 14
number one singles from 1984 to 1989, ranking them as one of the most
popular country acts of the '80s
Their music combined elements of traditional country harmony singing,
bluegrass, and Appalachian folk with pop, rock, and polished contemporary
production. Moreover, Wynonna's powerful, bluesy, often sexy lead vocals
established her as one of the finest female country singers of her era. But even
more important than their widely accessible sound -- or their considerable visual
appeal -- was their sympathetic understanding of working-class and small-town
women, earned through a long, hard struggle of their own.

Tinges of Americana stand side-by-side with the ghosts of Eastern
European fiddle tunes and ancient a cappella ballad singing, melding into
an unusually accessible dark-folk sound on Mama's Broke 'Narrow Line',
now available on vinyl
Canadian folk duo Mama's Broke has spent the past seven years in a nearconstant state of transience, pounding the transatlantic tour trail. They've brought
their dark, fiery folk- without- borders sound to major festivals and DIY punk
houses alike, absorbing traditions from their maritime home in Eastern Canada,
all the way to Ireland and Indonesia along the way. Nowhere is the duo's art-inmotion approach more apparent than on their long- awaited sophomore record
'Narrow Line'; it's the sound of nowhere in particular, yet woven with a rich
synthesis of influences that knows no borders. The eleven songs on 'Narrow Line'
burrow deeply, with close harmony duets, commanding vocals, and poignant
contemplations on cycles of life, including birth and death. A careful listen of
'Narrow Line' invokes an ephemeral sense of place—whether real or imagined—
inviting us to take comfort in the infinite possibilities of life, whether or not we
ever choose to settle down.

Tape

On her second album (first one on Umor Rex), the Minsk born / Paris based artist Lina Filipovich continues her experiments on deconstruction and re-appropriation of classical pieces. BFHC includes seven electronic interpretations of the works of Baroque composers such as Bach, Handel, Frescobaldi, Carleton and Couperin. Inspired by memories of her experience of interpreting Bach's pieces in early childhood, Filipovich explores the desire to push the limits of performing classical music in the traditional way. Her baroque compositions are manipulated, modified, transformed into loops, cut, slowed down and recycled like any content could be, becoming a raw material for new compositions accompanied by electronic sequences, rhythms and basslines. Through the recycling, sampling and reassembly, Lina creates new listening experiences. And if BFHC can be interpreted as a tribute to baroque music, it can also be understood as a call to action to the work of contemporary artists like Oval, and to all the boom of clicks and cuts at the beginning of this millennium.

Mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri
Artwork by Daniel Castrejón

The Meltdown present their second LP ‘It’s A Long Road’, a wistful and uplifting journey through dusty, countrified soul music and tender, reflective songwriting. Led by vocalist, keyboard player and producer Simon Burke, the band is understated but deft throughout, letting the songs and Simon’s golden voice do the heavy lifting. The band stick to a sonic palette reminiscent of golden era Southern soul studios from Memphis to Muscle Shoals and in that tradition there’s as much as country-soul and blues in the mix as there is soul and funk. Of particular interest to fans of Durand Jones and the Indications, Lee Fields and Tedeschi Trucks, The album starts on the cruisy but quietly anthemic Tell You Not To Worry and picks up for the rolling triplet feel of River, featuring a blazing saxophone solo from Meltdown co-founder Lachlan McLean. Standout guest slots from Emma Donovan on the title track and Liz Stringer on Not The Only Love give the album additional emotional and musical depth. There’s a broad range of vocal and instrumental stylings, but always within the boundaries of tasteful understatement with subtle-yet-lush production that straddles the line of soul, blues and country-soul. Simon’s voice ranges from falsetto to full voiced occasionally touching that gritty goodness and guitarist Tom Martin (The Putbacks) gets crunchy but never screamy. It’s a deceptively simple record, beautifully put together by a very experienced band and the quality shines through. sou

Artificial Countrysides is Athens, Ga - based Elf Power's 14th album and
first for Yep Roc Records
The band expand their sound on this record to glorious effect, adding marimba,
harpsichord, synth bass, distorted drum machine loops, and mellotron to their
time tested mix of fuzz guitars, moog keyboards, pummeling drums, and layered
acoustic guitars, achieving a satisfying and unique synthesis of traditional and
futuristic sounds. Lyrically the album mirrors this approach by discussing the
difficulties and advantages of dealing with modern life's digital and artificial
landscape, balanced with the natural world. Elf Power formed in Athens, GA in
1994 and have released 14 albums, two eps, and a handful of singles, while
touring North America, Europe, and Japan many times playing alongside acts like
R.E.M., Flaming Lips, Dinosaur Jr., Neutral Milk Hotel, Guided by Voices, Arcade
Fire and many more. Albums such as 1998's Dave Fridmann-produced "A Dream
In Sound" and 2008's collaboration with the late folk rock icon Vic Chesnutt, "Dark
Developments", have cemented the bands' reputation as the finest purveyors of
modern melodic psychedelic folk rock around. The band became known as a
member of the much heralded Elephant 6 Collective, which includes their friends
and collaborators Neutral Milk Hotel, Apples in Stereo, Olivia Tremor Control, Of
Montreal, and many more.

The second part in a collection of stunning Persian-tuned piano pieces, cut from Iranian national radio broadcasts made for the Golha programmes between 1956 & 1965.

Morteza Mahjubi (1900-1965) was a Iranian pianist & composer who developed a unique tuning system for the piano which enabled the instrument to be played in all the different modes and dastgahs of traditional Persian art music. Known as Piano-ye Sonnati, this technique allowed Mahjubi to express the unique ornamental and monophonic nature of Persian classical music on this western instrument - mimicking the tar, setar & santur and extracting sounds from the piano which are still unprecedented to this day.

An active performer and composer from a young age, Mahjubi made his most notable mark as key contributor and soloist for the Golha (Flowers of Persian Song and Poetry) radio programmes. These seminal broadcasts platformed an encyclopaedic wealth of traditional Persian classical music and poetry on Iranian national radio between 1956 until the revolution in 1979.

Presented here is a collection of Morteza Mahjubi's stunningly virtuosic improvised pieces broadcast on Golha between the programme's inception until Mahjubi's death in 1965 - mostly solo, though at times peppered with tombak, violin & some segments of poetry & song.

The vast collection of Golha radio programmes was put together thanks to the incredible work of Jane Lewisohn & the Golha Project as part of the British Library's Endangered Archives programme, comprising 1,578 radio programs consisting of approximately 847 hours of broadcasts.









i 09: Improvisation & Avaz in Isfahan (Golha-ye Rangarang #254) feat. Marzieh




feat. Abdolvahab Shahidi

Motorik, Techno, Lo-fi, Primal and monotonous are words to describe Black Bones unique take on afro and post punk. This 7” is their first on Höga Nord Rekords and contains two tracks showing depth in musical creativity and record collections.

Black Bones use familiar components in surprising ways: electronics and loops swirl over sequenced pounding backbeats, but when the aggressive stereo bass kicks in on “Nairobi Night Train”, Kenya’s border stretches all the way up to the British Isles and a huge savannah opens its horizons just south of Belfast.

This is an unusual mix of European and African music tradition - a meeting of genres so seamless it’s hard labelling it crossover. It’s just an explosive potion mixed for dancing!

"It's a wonderfully uplifting album
As invigorating as a cold, sunny, Swedish morning, Kolonien have the freshness
of The Cardigans' early albums while at the same time sounding something like a
Nordic Fleet Foxes." - SonglinesKolonien is a four- member family band from
Sweden that has been one of the leading voices of the Swedish folk revival for
over a decade. With a sound that blends acoustic roots music with anthemic,
sing- along pop, Kolonien has a fresh, appealing sound that brings multiple
musical worlds together.Kolonien's lush vocal harmonies are reminiscent of Fleet
Foxes, their Nordic folk-pop sound might remind some listeners of Of Monsters
and Men, and their hipsters with strings vibe makes them Sweden's answer to
Mumford & Sons. At the same time, Kolonien's music and inspirations are deeply
rooted in the Swedish folk tradition as well as the natural environment and
progressive philosophies of the alternative-lifestyle community where they were
raised.Kolonien is made up of brothers Erik and Arvid Rask, their cousin Anna
Möller and their childhood neighbor, and "brother from another mother," Mischa
Grind. The members of the band were raised in and around Järna, a community
south of Stockholm that is known as a back-to-the-land destination for hippies,
progressives and people seeking an alternative lifestyle. While they had been
making music together since childhood, the band formally came together during
a music festival in Tanzania in 2010. Since then, they have toured extensively
across the world and released a number of well-received albums and EPs.

The multiple award winning action-adventure game God Of War was first released in 2005, but became such an instant hit, that Santa Monica Studio created seven more versions of the game. The most recent one, released in 2018 for the PlayStation 4, focusses on main character Kratos' journey in the Greek world together with his son Atreus, following a path of vengeance as a result of being tricked into killing his family by Olympian gods.

God of War received universal acclaim for its story, design, graphics, combat system, characters and music. It was awarded 'Game of the Year' by numerous media outlets and award shows. God Of War (2018) performed well commercially, selling over five million copies within a month of its release. It became one of the best-selling PlayStation 4 games.

The official soundtrack won a BAFTA Award and is composed by Bear McCreary. It is set up around themes he created around primary characters in the game. Inspired by Viking folk music, McCreary used exotic instrumentation and languages from various Northern European folk traditions. It resulted in a score featuring deep choirs, pounding drums, shrieking brass and features Faroese singer-songwriter Eivør (Pálsdóttir). The American composer Bear McCreary is best known for his work on TV shows like Battlestar Galactica, Outlander, The Walking Dead and won an Emmy Award for the main title of Da Vinci's Demons.

WRWTFWW Records and MEG Museum (Geneva) are honored to present the first new solo album by renowned Japanese percussionist Midori Takada (Through The Looking Glass) in 23 years, Cutting Branches From A Temporary Shelter, available on vinyl LP, housed in a 350gsm sleeve, with OBI, and liner notes, as well as on digipack CD.

Recorded in a live setting and played with instruments conserved in the collections of the MEG Museum, Cutting Branches For A Temporary Shelter is Midori Takada’s very own rendition of "Nhemamusasa", a traditional work emblematic of the musical repertoire for mbira of the Shona of Zimbabwe, well known worldwide, thanks notably to its version by Paul F. Berliner included on the famed 1973 album The Soul of Mbira.

The choice of this title by Midori Takada evokes the links between traditional African and contemporary music which are the foundation of this work, and it also translates the resolutely multicultural vision of the artist.

Midori Takada explains: "African music is remarkable for its polyrhythms. Not only are there simultaneously several rhythmic motifs, sometimes as many as ten, but furthermore it may be that the part played by each musician has its own starting point and its own pace, all combining to form a cycle. All the cycles progress at the same time according to a single metrical structure which functions as a reference point, but which is not played by any one person from beginning to end. The structure emerges out of the multi-level parts, all different. With the Shona, the musical system is based on the polymelody: one performs simultaneously several melodic lines which are superimposed, each having its own rhythmic organization. It is truly captivating. In Western classical music, one four-beat rhythm induces some precise temporal framework and regular reference points, which come on the strong beats 1 and 3. But in the logic of the Shona musical system, and in other African music, the melody can begin in the very middle of the cycle and be continued up to some other place in an autonomous manner, as if it had its own personality. It’s very rich."

The album comes with in-depth liner notes that include an interview by Midori Takada, a point of view by Zimbabwean scholar, musician and activist Forward Mazuruse, and background information on the project by Isabel Garcia Gomez and Madeleine Leclair from MEG Museum.

The sleeve features an artwork by celebrated Zimbabwean painter Portia Zvavahera.

Part of the budget for the album was donated to Forward Mazuruse’s Music For Development Foundation whose aim is to identify, nurture, and record young but underprivileged musicians in Zimbabwe.

The album is released in conjunction with Midori Takada and Shomyo of Koya-san's You Who Are Leaving To Nirvana, also available on LP and CD on WRWTFWW Records.

Group Theory: Black Music is a stunning new statement from South African drummer and composer Tumi Mogorosi who is one of the foremost drummers working anywhere in the world, with a flexible, powerful style that brings a distinctive South African inflection to the polyrhythmic tradition of Elvin Jones, Max Roach and Art Blakey.

‘Raiz’, the first release on the OITO//OITO Discos label, draws the musical focus towards the sound archives of Michel Giacometti, a French ethnomusicologist who dedicated his life to studying the oral traditions of Portugal which had become either lost or forgotten, with his collections still exhibited today in the Museum of Portuguese Music in Estoril. As with their previous releases, the duo carefully manage the source material and interweave it with their Acid House undertones, with both the original cuts ‘Ceifeiras’ and ‘A Poda’ doing a beautiful job at merging the powerful vocals with driving bass lines and rhythms. The opener in particular has a deep mysticism to it, the vocals leading the line as razor sharp pads craft a pulse alongside a steady but powerful drum structure. ‘A Poda’ takes things in a trippy-er direction, with the vocals stretched out in that prog house style that keeps the mind ticking over and the body left to its own devices. The breakdowns in this track are very effective, and really portray the soul of the original vocal performance and allow for the listener to connect with the wider feeling being conveyed. On the flip, the duo asked producers Switchdance and Terra Chã to put their spin on ‘Ceifeiras’, and the results only add to the atmosphere. Switchdance takes things down into murky depths, with a low slung beat expertly interspersed with driving bass notes, as sweeping chordal lines meander up above, giving a whole new angle to the original and winning over our hearts. Terra Chã’s version injects some swing into proceedings, with looping chordal stabs pulsating through the middle along with some beautiful melodic additions that exalt and inspire in equal measure.
Balanced, referential, blissful, dynamic. All this, and more, feature heavily on the first edition of OITO//OITO Discos, so why not come along and meander through time and space – it’s worth the trip…

The trance blues stylings of Otha Turner and his Rising
Star Fife And Drum Band should be a music classification
unto itself, a whole new primitive take on drum and
bass. This music is the oldest still-practiced post-colonial
American music, and Turner was one of its greatest artists
of the 20th century. Blowing the cane fife with a band
of drummers as back up, The Rising Star Fife And Drum
band was legendary in the hills of Tate County, Mississippi,
where they would perform during the yearly goat picnics
on Turner’s farm. These tracks were recorded by Luther
Dickinson during such picnics and released when Turner
was ninety years old. Everybody Hollerin’ Goat shows
first hand the hypnotic and rhythmic style of fife and drum
music at its best—raw and beautiful.
It is every bit as essential a document of America’s folkmusic
heritage as anything Harry Smith or Alan Lomax ever
offered up for posterity. Turner’s band included some of his
children and grandchildren that have gone on to continue
the fife and drum tradition since his death in 2003.
This first ever vinyl release of Everybody Hollerin’ Goat
contains a whole side of unreleased recordings from one
night of the picnic and is intended to bring the experience
of hollerin’ for goat in Senatobia, Mississippi to the living
room. Dancing around the plants is recommended (but
don’t eat the pickled eggs). The entire album is remastered
by legend Gary Hobish.

Following the precursor singles of 2021, Formality Jerne-Site’s unveiling is finally cast upon her already-growing fanbase. Trained classically as a composer and completing a masters at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Jura introduces a highly-anticipated playground of carefully sculpted characters, plots and lessons - sometimes charming, sometimes nefarious, always absolute and sincere. A fictional land opens its doors and roof to us. A trio of trans kids run amok in rural suburbia. Various sorcerers of the wild future enter the scene on some songs; on others, the mind is cast to sun-drenched drives and journeys of yesteryear. At the heart is a pop sensibility: yearning, reflections, vanity, guesswork, hope. Jura is adamant about practice and precision. Dead seriously she offers, about making music: ‘Nothing should be half-hearted or an accident.’ There’s a maturity and elegance to her compositions, arrangements that - although at first sound seem abstract - lean away from experimental, somehow. She sing-speaks in English, and somehow not typically theatrically for such a play of a record. The theatrics are all real. It’s a fantasy land for sure, but it's based on hard facts. Like academia subdivided into poetry. It’s that weird-ass specificity she mentioned. Opener ‘Someone’s Lifework’ introduces less a choir of voices, than a choir of personalities. The art of storytelling is at the center of the musical expression. A protagonist relinquishes control of chaos that’s bigger than them on a perilous journey on some vessel: they comfort their co-passengers. There’s a sense that the hero - or anti-hero - might be more canny and cunning than the sweetness they first sell to fellow players. 'Is this our getaway chance?’ sings fellow Copenhagener Ydegirl amongst swelling synths and reverb that become so definitely Jerne-Site as the quest continues. The search? For intimacy, perhaps. ‘Same late Age (dIcK bIfFeReNcE)’ imbibes at once, some further disorientation, perhaps a little hallucinatory feeling which may come over the listener. Through a synthesizing of political themes that work across time ‘Same Late Age (dIcK bIfFeReNcE)’ bears reminiscences of the musical expressions of anti-capitalism in the 1980es, although in a new body and context. “I have a feeling that music reconjures societal morals and ideas from the time in which it was written when we press play or hear a live performance. From the moment at a concert when the symphonic orchestra starts tuning in, the time traveling begins. So I imagined how it would be to be trans sitting there playing the first violin, having the job of producing that first tone that all the other musicians around me tune in ona, ” Jura explains. The listener yearns for more; and subsequent tracks deliver. On ‘How Intimate It Gets,’ Jura meditates on the futility of closeness, begging the audience to enter the blood and guts of their own entanglements, the blueprints of focusing entering. Jura sings richly about fingers being lines, pointing or bending, and we’re reminded of their own wicked ways we can’t control. A history of singing in choirs informs the harmony of myriad inner voices heard across the album. At once prophetic and enigmatic, some of the songs rearrange historical events out of pop musical language. The enormously entertaining ‘Pinot-Botticelli Toast to European Users’ conjures scenes of Cold-War world leaders stuck on a cruise in the Transatlantic vacuum, and the protagonist watches a devastating heartbreaker careen on into the picture, led by his own hips on ‘The Lasceaux Associate’. Finally, on title track ‘Formality Jerne-Site’, American English rises to the occasion like a verdict around the narrative of three trans teenagers in rural Colorado: language turns into something sensual and haptic, playing with the snare and sizzle of syllables. The words twist and bend, while the music follows its own synaesthetic logic: “around us pop culture made a vow to a normative desire, drawing in like water color percussion”. Anyines is a site of play and documentation, with a canon so far quite nice. Their future is one that envisions supporting the galaxies their dear friends embody, be it music, performance, video games or beyond. Highlights from their discerning back catalogue include myriad formats: live and digital, plus releases binded to physical artefacts that enhance the live experience such as sculptures and scents. Their history also includes disappearing time-sensitive shadow-tracked material and cross-disciplinary opportunities that reflect deep professionalism and a totally non-schooled semblance of sound and drama. Recent releases include a dance-theatre soundtrack, a traditional shiny pop record, and the acclaimed ML Buch sophomore, Skinned.

As the daughter of a blues musician, Chastity Brown was born with an
innate ability to channel complex circumstances into beautiful, uplifting
songs
But after surviving the isolation of the early pandemic and witnessing the global
racial reckoning that manifested itself in the riots mere blocks from her South
Minneapolis home, even she is surprised to hear the way her new album 'Sing To
The Walls' turned out. "It's a love album, in a way I didn't plan on," Chastity says.
Like so many artists who endured the uncertainty of the 2020 lockdown,
Chastity's instinct was to turn inward, at first out of self- preservation, and then
because the new songs kept coming and coming. Since finishing her last album,
2017's 'Silhouette Of Sirens', she estimates she's written nearly 100 new songs,
10 of which found their way onto 'Sing To The Walls'. Produced by Brady Blades,
'Sing To The Walls' is a sonically expansive album; it mines the roots of
Americana, folk, and soul music, but Chastity's stories are delivered in a style that
feels remarkably timely, modern, and forward-thinking. "I celebrate the emotional
richness in the tradition, but in my music I've committed myself to moving
forward and reflecting the experiences of those overlooked by tradition."
Chastity Brown has been praised by NPR, CMT, American Songwriter, the London
Times, Paste Magazine, and The Independent, among many others, and appeared
on the U.K.'s Later… with Jools Holland. She tours nationally and internationally,
having shared the stage and supported artists such as the Indigo Girls, Ani Di
Franco, Andrea Gibson, Jayhawks, The National, and Micheal Kiwanuka.

Repress!

Leeward, released in 1978 on Union record, is the second album by tenor and soprano saxophonist Mabumi Yamaguchi. Here the quartet comprises of Ikuo Sakurai on bass, Hideo Sekine on drums and Ichiro Doi on piano and electric piano.

Leeward opens with “Dawn” a long and slow piece led by a Fender Rhodes played in flanger mode, on which Mabumi Yamaguchi expresses a certain melancholy, which we also find on “Dewdrop”, a duet piece with Ichiro Doi at the piano. The rhythm picks up on “Distant thunder”, a kind of jazz-funk samba in which Mabumi Yamaguchi lets each of his musicians take a long chorus before ending by taking up the haunting theme of this superb piece.
The beautiful “Leeward” closes the album in a slightly more traditional but equally mastered style. It is not known if the cover of this album contributed to its lack of success when it was released, but it is almost impossible today to find an original pressing of this record.

It should be noted that Mabumi Yamaguchi is still active and that he continues to release records and perform in concert in Tokyo (dates to be found on his website mabumi).

Petter Eldh's explosive ensemble Koma Saxo continues their adventures with a new album "Koma West", out on We Jazz Records, 18 March 2022. The album sees Koma Saxo expand on their previous sound with the addition of vocalist Sofia Jernberg and a strong cast of featured artists, including cellist Lucy Railton, violinist Maria Reich, pianist Kit Downes and accordionist Kiki Eldh (Petter's mom!). The hard-hitting key quintet remains, including Eldh on bass and assorted instruments, Christian Lillinger on drums, plus saxophonists Otis Sandsjö (of Y-OTIS), Jonas Kullhammar and Mikko Innanen bringing the SAXO to the KOMA operation.

At 14 tracks, "Koma West" is a full menu of monumental compositional ideas that could spawn entire albums. True to his chop & go production style, Eldh relies on continuous movement while presenting another all killer no filler program taking Koma Saxo on a sonic outing not quite like anything that had previously appeared under the band's name. That being said, there's very much the Petter Eldh touch here, one which might be hard to pinpoint and verbalise, but nevertheless a recognisable style of composing, producing and arranging.

Thematically, the album is rooted in the West Coast of Sweden, where Eldh grew up – he's from a tiny town called Lysekil. There's a thread of Swedish folk song tradition that has been part of the Koma Saxo DNA from the get-go and you can hear that here as well, especially on cuts such as "Närhet", beautifully sung by Sofia Jernberg.

Petter Eldh says:

"In a way, it's a concept album and a celebration of the Swedish West Coast. The first single is called 'Koma Kaprifol', and kaprifol is the landscape flower of Bohuslän on the West coast, where I grew up. I'm not too wild about attaching strong narratives to my music but there's no way around it this time. The oysters, a common snack around the coast, are a strong conceptual presence here. Anyway, they seem to pop up here and there quite often already thus far in the Koma Saxo narrative, even though it's not always so obvious. Koma Vocals! Koma Strings! I love the presence of Sofia Jernberg here and I love writing string arrangements, too, although I never thought I would do it for Koma, but of course, Koma should have some strings, why not?. Koma Saxo should and can become anything."

»Sull’Accordo Mimetico (On the Mimetic Chord)« dates back to the end of the 80’s. It was commissioned by the artistic director of the ParcoScenico Festival, held in Treviso, Italy. Since the area where artists and the public gathered after the Festival was located to a very busy street, Marco asked me for a sound installation that could work as some sort of a defensive barrier for the street noise. I suggested that my work, rather than hiding the noise, should aim to harmonize the disturbances coming from the street within musical structures and forms, without burdening or saturating too much the acoustic spectrum of the place. In this way, I thought about sonic veils, consisting of repetitive – but also light and discreet – harmonic-rhythmic structures. Since the Festival took place in a beautiful centenary park, I also integrated the music with natural sounds and animal calls, always as an attempt to bridge these sound events and the other materials that made up the composition. The human voice constitutes a central element in this musique d'ameublement project, as a constant source of memory of places and times – here with many references to traditional music for children.

A pearl of ambient electro-acoustic mimimalism with field recordings components in which the nostalgia of Maestro Tiziano Popoli shines through in painting landscapes that slowly change to be seen with the ears. Nocturnal, emblematic, Lynchian.

Coming hot on the heels of his debut on Distant Horizons, London breaks-master Yosh joins the core label family with a killer 4-tracker on Lobster Theremin.

As one of the most recognisable names from the emerging UKG re-rise (it never went away, y’know), Yosh has developed a reputation for dutty 2-steppers and screw-face breakbeats designed to delight and devastate the rave.

‘My Fire’ is a jungle-influenced cut of broken breaks - malfunctioning, soulful and electric - the perfect accompaniment as day turns to night, the atmosphere loosening as it does. A sun-setting stepper brimming with v i b e s.

‘Hold On’ sees Yosh venture towards his traditional garage territory - low-swung percussion, wubby stabs and ambient dreamscape aesthetics spraying contemplative thought patterns into the air as we sway from side-to-side, before ‘I Feel’ reignites the junglist inspiration with its rumbling bassline, bouncing breaks and underground energy.

We reach our climax with the most ‘heads down’ cut on the record; ‘Outa Sight’ maintains that light and dark sensibility that has become such a staple of Yosh’s productions, simultaneously taking us from moments of sweaty intenseness to moments of blissed-out ecstasy.

White Vinyl

Remastered reissue of Het Zweet's 1987 self-titled LP + a bonus LP, consisting of previously unreleased material.

Marien Van Oers work under the name Het Zweet (“The Sweat” in English) originally came out in the 1980s (specifically 1983-1988), but listening to the new reissue of this self-titled album from 1987 can feel like one is listening to something that’s both much more current and also much, much older than that. Van Oers, who passed away in 2013, made music that tended to get classed as “industrial”, and tracks here like the steady, clanging churn of “From the Lowland” or “On Earth” show why, but he was as or more inspired by tribal music intended to produce trance-like effects via rhythm and (percussive and vocal) repetition. Using instruments made by himself out of anything from shopping carts to cardboard tubes, the music of Het Zweet locks into grooves that somehow feel more elemental and physical than many of his contemporaries. It never quite feels like Van Oers is emulating or echoing the music of any particular region or tradition so much as trying to synthesize all the ones he’s heard into some sort of ur-pulse, an overtone so powerful as to compel the “Massive Trance” the title of the last song on the record evokes.

While the 1987 Het Zweet has four track titles per side, and on listening you can discern some segues and places where it feels like new movements do shift into place, it’s fitting to have this record on vinyl where the listener is encouraged to experience each side as one uninterrupted piece. The bonus material included on this reissue expands Het Zweet from one LP to two, the second LP consisting entirely of previously unreleased material. This bonus LP is sequenced similarly, with three untitled tracks and two live excerpts presented as side-long experiences that belie their disparate origins with a unity of sound and purpose. Van Oers’ percussive nous and distantly yelled chants certainly sound capable of working up a sweat in both the performer and any movement- minded listeners, but maybe the most striking thing about Het Zweet is how vital it still sounds, despite its age and relative obscurity.

The Silvertones were steeped in the grand tradition of Jamaican vocal trios along with other greats such as The Heptones, The Abyssinians and The Kingstonians. Formed in 1964 by Delroy Denton, Keith Coley and Gilmore Grant, the group recorded under a variety of names in the ska and rocksteady era for Duke Reid’s Treasure Isle and Coxsone Dodd’s Studio One, before hooking up with producer Lee “Scratch” Perry.

Originally released in 1973, The Silvertones’ debut Silver Bullets was recorded at Perry’s Black Ark studio with vocal tracks captured at King Tubby’s Dromilly Avenue studio in a marathon, all-night session. While firmly planted in roots reggae, Silver Bullets’ dense harmonies and relaxed vibe harken back to rocksteady. The album marks an interesting point in Jamaican music where the past and the future are visible in the grooves of a single LP—from classic rocksteady-tinged love songs like “That’s When It Hurts” and “Rock Me In Your Soul” to the Rasta anthem “Rejoice Jah Jah Children.”

Antarctica Starts Here presents the first widely available domestic release of Silver Bullets. This reissue is part of an archival series that focuses on Trojan’s essential ’60s and ’70s catalogue. Liner notes by JR Gonne.

Robin Pecknold brings light to the bleakest of winters with Fleet Foxes' 'A Very Lonely Solstice,' a 13-track career spanning collection recorded in December 2020, at Brooklyn, NY's St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church. Now being released for the first time on vinyl, CD and digital formats, 'A Very Lonely Solstice' captures a poignant moment in time. The recording was originally broadcasted as a live-stream event on the winter solstice of 2020, just days after New York declared a state of emergency tightening restrictions again in response to increasing COVID-19 cases. Pecknold describes the set as "me by myself on the longest night of the year... honoring the loneliness of 2020 with a nylon string and some songs new and old." Fans worldwide tuned in while quarantined at home, finding solace and a sense of community in a period of extreme isolation. Much of 'A Very Lonely Solstice' showcases a solo focus on Pecknold who offers up acoustic arrangements of fan-favorite songs spanning Fleet Foxes' catalog. Selections cover all four of the band's studio albums, including their 2008 self-titled debut album ("Tiger Mountain Peasant Song") to 2011's Helplessness Blues ("Blue Spotted Tail") and 2017's Crack-Up ("If You Need To, Keep Time On Me"), all the way to their latest release, Shore. Resistance Revival Chorus joins Pecknold on Shore tracks "Wading In Waist-High Water" and "Can I Believe You." Also featured: a cover of Nina Simone's "In The Morning" and a rearrangement of the traditional "Silver Dagger."

Robin Pecknold brings light to the bleakest of winters with Fleet Foxes' 'A Very Lonely Solstice,' a 13-track career spanning collection recorded in December 2020, at Brooklyn, NY's St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church. Now being released for the first time on vinyl, CD and digital formats, 'A Very Lonely Solstice' captures a poignant moment in time. The recording was originally broadcasted as a live-stream event on the winter solstice of 2020, just days after New York declared a state of emergency tightening restrictions again in response to increasing COVID-19 cases. Pecknold describes the set as "me by myself on the longest night of the year... honoring the loneliness of 2020 with a nylon string and some songs new and old." Fans worldwide tuned in while quarantined at home, finding solace and a sense of community in a period of extreme isolation. Much of 'A Very Lonely Solstice' showcases a solo focus on Pecknold who offers up acoustic arrangements of fan-favorite songs spanning Fleet Foxes' catalog. Selections cover all four of the band's studio albums, including their 2008 self-titled debut album ("Tiger Mountain Peasant Song") to 2011's Helplessness Blues ("Blue Spotted Tail") and 2017's Crack-Up ("If You Need To, Keep Time On Me"), all the way to their latest release, Shore. Resistance Revival Chorus joins Pecknold on Shore tracks "Wading In Waist-High Water" and "Can I Believe You." Also featured: a cover of Nina Simone's "In The Morning" and a rearrangement of the traditional "Silver Dagger."

"Rob wollte, dass sich die Welt von The Northman rau und ungemütlich anfühlt, als wäre es mit Schlamm und getrocknetem Blut bedeckt, also war es wichtig, dass die Musik dies widerspiegelt." Die Komponisten Robin Carolan (Tri-Angle Records) und Sebastian Gainsborough (Vessel) wurden vor eine Aufgabe epischen Ausmaßes gestellt, als Regisseur Rob Eggers (The VVitch, The Lighthouse) sie bat, die Filmmusik für seinen ehrgeizigen Film The Northman zu schreiben. Sie mussten eine Filmmusik schaffen, die sowohl die immensen Recherchen zur Authentizität dieses historischen Stücks aus der Wikingerzeit würdigte; als auch den filmischen Maximalismus des Films für ein modernes Publikum ergänzte. Die Künstler gingen bis an die Grenzen ihrer Kreativität und das Ergebnis ist ein wunderschönes Klangbild, das den Hörer mitten in den Film versetzt. Beim Arrangieren der Partitur zogen die Komponisten den Musiker und Ethnographen Poul Hoxbro zu Rate, um sich inspirieren zu lassen und einen Einblick in die Geschichte der Wikingermusik zu erhalten. Da Robin und Sebastian aus dem Bereich der elektronischen Musik kommen, waren sie keinerlei Beschränkung auf eine kleine Auswahl von Musikinstrumenten unterworfen, nutzten diese aber als Ausgangsbasis. "Elektronische Musik hat ein fast grenzenloses Potenzial, wenn es darum geht, Klänge zu erzeugen, und das ist natürlich eine unglaubliche Sache, aber man kann auch in ein Wurmloch geraten und sich darin manchmal verlieren. Diese Gefahr besteht nicht, wenn man nur ein paar Hauptinstrumente hat, auf die man zurückgreifen kann" so Robin Carolan. Sie benutzten traditionelle Instrumente wie die Tagelharpa, die Langspil, die Kravik-Lyra und die Säckpip, um die filmische Welt von The Northman zu erschaffen, aber sie nahmen sich auch kreative Freiheiten, indem sie Instrumente wie Trommeln hinzufügten, von denen einige Wissenschaftler glauben, dass sie in der Musikkultur der Wikinger keine große Rolle gespielt hätten, einfach weil es keine archäologischen Beweise für echte Trommeln gibt. "Eines der Stücke sollte den Klang eines Bullroarers nachahmen; ein uraltes Instrument, das in heiligen Ritualen oder in der Schlacht zur Einschüchterung von Feinden eingesetzt wird. Es erzeugt einen wirklich verwirrenden, röhrenden Vibrato-Sound und tiefe Frequenzen, die wahnsinnige Entfernungen zurücklegen können." sagt Robin auf die Frage nach einem der einzigartigeren Aspekte der Partitur. Alle Beteiligten haben so viel Mühe in ihre Recherchen und ihre Kreativität gesteckt, und dieser Reichtum ist in jedem Stück offensichtlich. Das Album als Ganzes ist ein cineastisches Meisterwerk aus Klang und Atmosphäre, wunderschön und verstörend zugleich, genau wie der Film, den es so wunderbar begleitet.

"Rob wollte, dass sich die Welt von The Northman rau und ungemütlich anfühlt, als wäre es mit Schlamm und getrocknetem Blut bedeckt, also war es wichtig, dass die Musik dies widerspiegelt." Die Komponisten Robin Carolan (Tri-Angle Records) und Sebastian Gainsborough (Vessel) wurden vor eine Aufgabe epischen Ausmaßes gestellt, als Regisseur Rob Eggers (The VVitch, The Lighthouse) sie bat, die Filmmusik für seinen ehrgeizigen Film The Northman zu schreiben. Sie mussten eine Filmmusik schaffen, die sowohl die immensen Recherchen zur Authentizität dieses historischen Stücks aus der Wikingerzeit würdigte; als auch den filmischen Maximalismus des Films für ein modernes Publikum ergänzte. Die Künstler gingen bis an die Grenzen ihrer Kreativität und das Ergebnis ist ein wunderschönes Klangbild, das den Hörer mitten in den Film versetzt. Beim Arrangieren der Partitur zogen die Komponisten den Musiker und Ethnographen Poul Hoxbro zu Rate, um sich inspirieren zu lassen und einen Einblick in die Geschichte der Wikingermusik zu erhalten. Da Robin und Sebastian aus dem Bereich der elektronischen Musik kommen, waren sie keinerlei Beschränkung auf eine kleine Auswahl von Musikinstrumenten unterworfen, nutzten diese aber als Ausgangsbasis. "Elektronische Musik hat ein fast grenzenloses Potenzial, wenn es darum geht, Klänge zu erzeugen, und das ist natürlich eine unglaubliche Sache, aber man kann auch in ein Wurmloch geraten und sich darin manchmal verlieren. Diese Gefahr besteht nicht, wenn man nur ein paar Hauptinstrumente hat, auf die man zurückgreifen kann" so Robin Carolan. Sie benutzten traditionelle Instrumente wie die Tagelharpa, die Langspil, die Kravik-Lyra und die Säckpip, um die filmische Welt von The Northman zu erschaffen, aber sie nahmen sich auch kreative Freiheiten, indem sie Instrumente wie Trommeln hinzufügten, von denen einige Wissenschaftler glauben, dass sie in der Musikkultur der Wikinger keine große Rolle gespielt hätten, einfach weil es keine archäologischen Beweise für echte Trommeln gibt. "Eines der Stücke sollte den Klang eines Bullroarers nachahmen; ein uraltes Instrument, das in heiligen Ritualen oder in der Schlacht zur Einschüchterung von Feinden eingesetzt wird. Es erzeugt einen wirklich verwirrenden, röhrenden Vibrato-Sound und tiefe Frequenzen, die wahnsinnige Entfernungen zurücklegen können." sagt Robin auf die Frage nach einem der einzigartigeren Aspekte der Partitur. Alle Beteiligten haben so viel Mühe in ihre Recherchen und ihre Kreativität gesteckt, und dieser Reichtum ist in jedem Stück offensichtlich. Das Album als Ganzes ist ein cineastisches Meisterwerk aus Klang und Atmosphäre, wunderschön und verstörend zugleich, genau wie der Film, den es so wunderbar begleitet.

"Rob wollte, dass sich die Welt von The Northman rau und ungemütlich anfühlt, als wäre es mit Schlamm und getrocknetem Blut bedeckt, also war es wichtig, dass die Musik dies widerspiegelt." Die Komponisten Robin Carolan (Tri-Angle Records) und Sebastian Gainsborough (Vessel) wurden vor eine Aufgabe epischen Ausmaßes gestellt, als Regisseur Rob Eggers (The VVitch, The Lighthouse) sie bat, die Filmmusik für seinen ehrgeizigen Film The Northman zu schreiben. Sie mussten eine Filmmusik schaffen, die sowohl die immensen Recherchen zur Authentizität dieses historischen Stücks aus der Wikingerzeit würdigte; als auch den filmischen Maximalismus des Films für ein modernes Publikum ergänzte. Die Künstler gingen bis an die Grenzen ihrer Kreativität und das Ergebnis ist ein wunderschönes Klangbild, das den Hörer mitten in den Film versetzt. Beim Arrangieren der Partitur zogen die Komponisten den Musiker und Ethnographen Poul Hoxbro zu Rate, um sich inspirieren zu lassen und einen Einblick in die Geschichte der Wikingermusik zu erhalten. Da Robin und Sebastian aus dem Bereich der elektronischen Musik kommen, waren sie keinerlei Beschränkung auf eine kleine Auswahl von Musikinstrumenten unterworfen, nutzten diese aber als Ausgangsbasis. "Elektronische Musik hat ein fast grenzenloses Potenzial, wenn es darum geht, Klänge zu erzeugen, und das ist natürlich eine unglaubliche Sache, aber man kann auch in ein Wurmloch geraten und sich darin manchmal verlieren. Diese Gefahr besteht nicht, wenn man nur ein paar Hauptinstrumente hat, auf die man zurückgreifen kann" so Robin Carolan. Sie benutzten traditionelle Instrumente wie die Tagelharpa, die Langspil, die Kravik-Lyra und die Säckpip, um die filmische Welt von The Northman zu erschaffen, aber sie nahmen sich auch kreative Freiheiten, indem sie Instrumente wie Trommeln hinzufügten, von denen einige Wissenschaftler glauben, dass sie in der Musikkultur der Wikinger keine große Rolle gespielt hätten, einfach weil es keine archäologischen Beweise für echte Trommeln gibt. "Eines der Stücke sollte den Klang eines Bullroarers nachahmen; ein uraltes Instrument, das in heiligen Ritualen oder in der Schlacht zur Einschüchterung von Feinden eingesetzt wird. Es erzeugt einen wirklich verwirrenden, röhrenden Vibrato-Sound und tiefe Frequenzen, die wahnsinnige Entfernungen zurücklegen können." sagt Robin auf die Frage nach einem der einzigartigeren Aspekte der Partitur. Alle Beteiligten haben so viel Mühe in ihre Recherchen und ihre Kreativität gesteckt, und dieser Reichtum ist in jedem Stück offensichtlich. Das Album als Ganzes ist ein cineastisches Meisterwerk aus Klang und Atmosphäre, wunderschön und verstörend zugleich, genau wie der Film, den es so wunderbar begleitet.

The roots of Naima Bock’s music are far reaching. Born in
Glastonbury to a Brazilian father and a Greek mother, Naima spent
her early childhood in Brazil before eventually returning to England
and various homes in South East London. This heritage combines
with more recent pursuits in Naima’s music. From the Brazilian
standards that the family listened to while driving to the beach, to the
European folk traditions she tapped into on her own, and the pursuits
that interest her today - studies in archaeology, work as a gardener,
and walking the world’s great trails - Naima’s music draws from
family, the earth and music handed down through generations.
 Naima’s debut album, ‘Giant Palm’, is undoubtedly infused with the
Brazilian music of her youth and regular family visits. She found
inspiration in “the percussion, the melodies, chords - and particularly
the poetic juxtaposition of tragedy and beauty held within the lyrics.”
 By the age of 15, Naima was embedded in the music scene of SouthEast London, eventually forming Goat Girl with school friends and
touring the world. After six years playing bass in Goat Girl, Naima left
the band to try something new. She set up a gardening company and
started a degree at University College London in archaeology
because, as she jokes, “I liked being near the ground.” During this
time, she wrote music, played guitar, learned violin, worked with evershifting South-London collective Broadside Hacks, and met producer
and arranger Joel Burton through Memorials of Distinction labelhead
Josh Cohen. Joel’s burgeoning interest in Western classical music,
global folk music, and experience in large scale arrangement and
orchestration informed the collaborative process that eventually
culminated in ‘Giant Palm’.
 Recorded with the help of over 30 musicians (including Josh Cohen
on synth / electronics) by Dan Carey of Speedy Wunderground at his
studio space in Streatham, South-East London, and engineered by
Syd Kemp, the songs on ‘Giant Palm’ represent a snapshot of a
specific feeling, of brief moments in Naima’s life that make up a larger
whole.
 The expansive yet delicate arrangements highlight Naima’s love for
the collectivist values of traditional folk music, in which songs belong
to everyone, and singing can take on countless forms without the
need to exactly replicate something. “All the other representations
that I’d had of singing felt so unattainable,” she recalls. ‘Giant Palm’
finds Naima bucking these expectations to let her unique voice and
sense of communal creativity flourish.

Midland are an American country music trio. Having released an EP last summer en route, Midland’s Cameron Duddy, Mark Wystrach and Jess Carson are on the verge of arriving at their ultimate destination with The Last Resort: Greetings From on May 6 via Big Machine Records. The trio spent the pandemic exploring their creative depths, from progressive Country that grew out of “Urban Cowboy” through Dwight Yoakam’s post-traditionalism and arrive with their third studio album. As Midland’s “Sunrise Tells The Story” rises at Country radio, the two-time GRAMMY® nominees dial in their Laurel Canyon-cum-Bakersfield sound for a tension that also promises release. Falling harder than the singer imagined throughout the spicy hook-up song, melting harmonies lean into a more erotically charged proposition. RADIO: BBC Radio 2, BBC local stations (session on BBC Radio Ulster), CountryLine's 'Artist Of The Month', Absolute Radio Country, Downtown Country, Smooth Country PRESS: Entertainment Focus (5* review), Building Our Own Nashville (5* review), Maverick, Americana UK, RNR Magazine, SW London Magazine, country specialist outlets Socials: TW: 62.3K, FB: 307.9K, IG: 276K, TikTok: 91.5K

The second single from the Nicole Willis album Happiness in Every Style opens up the promised spectrum of joy into new ecstatic states. One In A Million is an unapologetic love song, which while connecting to this most traditional mode in soul music, also makes it correct for the dancefloor. Connoisseur terms such as 'crossover' or 'modern soul' might prove to be accurate here, but a membership in the soul scene is not mandatory to get down.

The main thing is that this up-tempo horn-driven groover, propelled by The Soul Investigators (as the usual suspects), should make things move inside, tickling nerves in scenesters as well as the layman, as their breakthrough hit If This Ain't Love did back in the day.

The world and the music business is different for Nicole Willis and the boys from up north. Nevertheless, One In A Million might be the underground hit that nobody saw coming. Or it just as well might not, but this is no excuse for not making quality music. This and more can be anticipated from the new album, dropping on Timmion Records in autumn 2015.

Our story begins in Jerusalem 1980 – Zadik Zecharia – a folk musician whose speciality is the Zorna – a traditional kurdish woodwind instrument – recorded a cassette of kurdish melodies played on Zorna and Dola, a kurdish drum.

The tape was released independently and distributed mainly around the kurdish-jewish community in Israel. Zadik mostly performed at weddings and ha as / celebrations and was also known by the nickname “Iron Lungs”, because of his ability to take only a few pauses for breath during his long gigs.

In 2005, one tape found its way to “Something on the Road” – an underground CD-r Jerusalem based label which reissued the music on CD-r. Overnight, these intense melodies became a cult phenomena in the hipster-ish circles of Jerusalem and beyond. The kurdish melodies could suddenly be heard during dj sets, topping electronic beats, or adding drones to heavy experimental sessions. which later led “Something on the Road’s” founder to initiate a remix compilation with Jerusalem’s nest producers. One of them is your truly, Mule Driver. The remix has became a cult by its own.

Fast forward to present time, a conversation with Legowelt about folk music led Mule Driver to dig an unreleased longer version of this techno remix. As well as ask the mighty Legowelt for his interpretation, that turned out as a killer acid track followed by an EBM – electro belter by Juju (Juju and Jordash) and PRZ (Clone).

Oslo-based American-Norwegian trio Buster Sledge releases their first
studio album Call Home in May 2022, following up on their self-recorded
and self-released debut Spirit (2020)
Fiddle, banjo, guitar and three voices are the vehicle for lyrical storytelling against
an orchestral background anchored in the acoustic music traditions of the United
States. Hailing from northern California, lead vocalist and songwriter Michael
Barrett Donovan mixes themes from personal experience with folk and country
music archetypes to breathe new life into time-tested song structures. Banjoist
Mikael Jonassen and guitarist Jakob Folke Ossum both share a thorough
appreciation for the fundamentals of bluegrass music, clear melodies and
harmony- singing through the lens of being trained jazz musicians. In eleven
tracks, Call Home tips its hat to artists such as Norman Blake, The Punch
Brothers, Tim O'Brien and John Hartford. Buster Sledge was the first group to
record in the recently relocated Globus Studio of Sjur Lyseid (Little Hands of
Asphalt) and his influence from behind the mixing board pushed the band into a
slightly-augmented acoustic sound with more streamlined arrangements which is
a suiting duet with the album art by William Hay that realizes a scene of a rider
overlooking a large river-valley in impressionistic swaths of color.
Banjoist Mikael Jonassen, from Bodo in the far north, is Norway's first and only
higher-education certified banjo player. Despite beginning with an electric banjo
and playing exclusively fusion jazz, Jonassen currently focuses his efforts on
Scrugg's style acoustic banjo and the playing of Bela Fleck and has taken several
trips to the US to learn from the masters. Jakob Folke Ossum, jazz- guitarist
turned flat- picking aficionado, discovered the sound of acoustic flat- picking
through Tony Rice and Bryan Sutton and meticulously taught himself from
records and videos. Fiddler Michael Barrett Donovan made a living as a musician
in New York City doing a master's in classical composition while touring with a
Grateful Dead tribute band. The three met in a comment section on a bluegrass
forum after Donovan moved to Norway in 2019. The rest of the story you'll have
to ask them at a show sometime. Buster Sledge has been on stage in many small
venues in southern Norway, don't miss them the next time they come to town!

Mekons + Freakwater = FREAKONS.Freakwater and the Mekons have
joined forces to sing songs about coal mining
FREAKONS, the eponymously-titled album on Fluff & Gravy Records , is the first
fruit of this visionary musical union.The Mekons and Freakwater have been
friends for decades, forged in the punk rock/ art school crucibles of late '70s
Leeds and mid '80s Louisville respectively. Both bands mined British folk and
American classic country music for three- chord songs whose lyrics fit the
nihilism or political rage or outlandish joy of the moment. Many of these songs
were about coal mining. Traditional songs about heroic union organizers, deadly
mine disasters, wailing orphans, or mining's grim history of economic and
ecological devastation fit seamlessly alongside each band's original material.
And so it is with FREAKONS.
Deep pit mines, strip mines, mountaintop removal, collapsing slag heaps. Deadly
work, poisoned water, and fantastic songs. Always fantastic songs. This is where
the FREAKONS were born, from the very bowels of the earth.
The Mekons' Jon Langford & Sally Timms and Freakwater's Janet Bean &
Catherine Irwin are joined here by the stellar string and vocal harmonies of Jean
Cook (Ida, Tara Jane O'Neil, Skull Orchard) and Anna Krippenstapel (The Other
Years, Joan Shelley, Freakwater), along with special guest, the beloved guitar
genius Jim Elkington (Jeff Tweedy, Richard Thompson, Eleventh Dream Day,
Horse's Ha, Skull Orchard, Freakwater, The Zincs).
Belgian painter Jo Clauwaert created the album's intricate gatefold cover. Images
from song lyrics and related history emerge and recede again in this gorgeously
illustrated artistic fever dream.The story of coal mining is one of ongoing pillage
and ecological devastation. It is also a story of heroic workers, struggling in
blighted circumstances to feed their families. The songs and the culture that have
risen from the mines deserve our attention. A portion of the profits from the
FREAKONS record will go to Kentuckians For The Commonwealth, a grassroots
organization dedicated to creating a better future for the Appalachian region.
Kentuckians For The Commonwealth (KFTC.ORG) works to end mountaintopremoval coal mining, and to promote political candidates who care about social,
environmental and economic justice and the transition to clean, renewable
resources

This is his second solo album, and has the same sole ingredient of just
bass guitar as his first release
The album is named after Eivind Grovens tune from 1924, and consists of
traditional tunes from Telemark/Setesdal, original compositions by Kleppen, and
a Miles Davies cover. The music is groovy, melodic, melancholic and suggestive.
Recorded live in the studio with no overdubs and produced by Olav Torget.
Kleppens first album was given fantastic reviews and won the prestigious
Folkelarm Prize in 2018.

On 'Hurricane Clarice' stringband revolutionaries Allison de Groot &
Tatiana Hargreaves infuse centuries of matrilineal folk wisdom into a
soundtrack to environmental disaster
Produced by indie folk visionary Phil Cook, the duo's energetic sophomore album
features nine pieces, including two epic medleys (carefully selected from their
archival deep dives) as well as a few transcendent instrumental originals.
Recorded during an apocalyptic heat wave in Portland, OR, the album is a
testimony to the relation of community and climate in a dying world. The
Hargreaves- penned title track delves into the surreal world of Brazilian author
Clarice Lespector while the Canadian ballad "The Banks of the Miramichi"
references the "before times" of a polluted river used as a case study in the
environmentalist classic 'Silent Spring'. We turn inward in times of global or
personal crisis, seeking the wisdom of those before us — a human instinct
manifested literally on this record through the recorded voices of the duo's
grandmothers. Any artist unearthing old sounds takes traditional elements and
exaggerates here or there to fit a personal aesthetic or style–there is no authentic
rendition. With 'Hurricane Clarice', Allison and Tatiana propose a third way beyond
tradition and progress. Community might just save us all.

Joona Toivanen Trio makes their We Jazz Records debut with their new album "Both Only", out 25 Feb 2022. A landmark work for the long standing group, the album showcases a new sound for the band, trekking deep into new ideas for an acoustic jazz piano trio. Since their formation as teenagers in mid-1990's, the trio of pianist Joona Toivanen, bassist Tapani Toivanen and drummer Olavi Louhivuori (of Superposition, Ilmiliekki Quartet and Linda Fredriksson "Juniper") has developed their remarkably coherent band sound step by step, touring the world over. Nowadays, the trio is geographically split between Gothenburg, Sweden (Joona), Copenhagen, Denmark (Tapani), and Helsinki, Finland (Olavi), but the unit has never sounded so together as one, and as adventurous as on "Both Only".

"Both Only" by Joona Toivanen Trio is a cocoon, a welcoming shelter of sound that opens up naturally for the listener to inhabit. The album is moody and introspective, even dark at times, but by the time you get to the closing track, "This and This", you'll likely notice something hopeful brewing up. This is not music dealing with nostalgia or a world lost. Instead, it's a body of work with delicate dynamics, taking a minute just to listen and to look inwards to learn something, to move forward.

The first single "Enlightened" is perhaps the most traditional piece on the album, yet it flows like a vessel beyond genre, conveying a mood, a feeling and an idea. Listen to how the piano, bass and drums discuss, how the groove moves with the instruments having their clear roles but also supporting each other and documenting a musical aging process exactly as that of a quality bottle of red wine. As a song like "Direction" proves, the melody is there all the way, yet there is nothing obvious about how it's carried by the trio. Things remain surprising, fresh and moving at all times. "Except For" keeps its intensity, while nearly erupting into a full on 4-to-the-floor banger. Nearly! The key here is how the energy sustains itself, building the intensity within the music.

"Both Only" is a powerful statement from a band ready to renew itself time and again, and one willing to do it slowly, outside of the hype. This process makes the impact enduring, nuanced and lovely.

WJLP37 Joona Toivanen Trio "Both Only" is available on vinyl as a black vinyl edition and as a LP+7" bundle also including WJ0716 "Except For (7" Edit)" / "Keyboard Study No. 2".

“More excellent poetic soundscapes from We Jazz! Love the flow through the tracks here – textural pieces moving into more rhythmic jazz abstractions. Beautifully recorded too.”
Quinton Scott — Worldwide FM

“Following on from the excellent Linda Fredriksson album We Jazz extend the journey with this innovative Joona Toivanen Trio set.”
Paul Bradshaw — Straight No Chaser

“You’ll look in vain here for extravagant splashes of color or bright swathes of sound, but what you will discover are a finely-chiselled set of compositions that make the most of the trio’s limited palette: flint-sharp melodies hewn from the ice, crisp and crackling rhythms.”
Cal Gibson — Ban Ban Ton Ton

“Incredible album from Joona Toivanen Trio and a strong start to the new year from We Jazz.”
Kerem Gokmen — Dubmission

“Encapsulating a new movement in jazz.”
Jay Scarlett — Sounds Supreme

“Interesting listen on the shortest day of the year. They have a very definite and saturated style.”
John Chacona — All About Jazz

“Airplayed the track”
Tom Ravenscroft — BBC6 Music

“Jazz album of the year released already in February?”
Ralf Sandell — Hufvudstadsbladet

“★★★★★”
Iida Simes — Voima Magazine

“I’m closing a chapter in my life,” Barbie Bertisch says to me from a park bench in Greenpoint, “I spent the last four years working towards gaining confidence around my ideas and my creative perspective. This feels like a culmination of that process” The “this,” in question is Bertisch’s debut record Prelude, a collection of eleven songs that chronicle 5 years of Bertisch’s life. The legendary musician Anna Domino describes the record best: “Prelude is a record of layers and depths. The melting phases and soaring distances.”


Raised in Buenos Aires and Miami, Bertisch has called New York home for most of her adult life. When she started piecing together Prelude, she was in her Brooklyn kitchen. It was early quarantine. Stuck at home instead of DJing at clubs, she found the space to parse through the archives. What she previously considered unworthy of attention in the era of distractions, finally made sense as a whole once all the noise was turned down. Compiling a list of songs in various states of completion, Bertisch dreamed up an album, a chronicle in growth and healing frustrations of the past, an honest account of someone trying to find her own voice. That in and of itself was a journey. It took years for Bertisch to accept that she was an artist. “I felt like I was surrounded by men who ruled every space. I constantly felt like I had to ask permission to enter, always around bands but never the girl in the band” she says.


Prelude is an introspective record. It explores all of the valences of being and feeling. Some songs are chaotic and choppy. Others are soft and searching. There is rage and innocence, and moments of forced stillness, like capturing the aftermath of panic attacks, as in “After The Storm”. Bertisch also focuses on rhythm, bass guitar being her main instrument, and no stranger to the power of the beat. The record also draws on influences as varied as Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Cocteau Twins, Berlin School, and pioneering producer François Kevorkian. Both sonically and conceptually, Prelude is a portrait of who Bertisch is as a person.“Is This What You Wanted?” is fiery, a pointed provocation to domineering figures from her past. It’s full of strobing, strident synths, and heady lines of bass. It gives off the same vibe as a fire alarm, as a big room dance track that subverts your expectations of what it means to dance in a sea of bodies. “28,” the record’s opening track is more peaceful. It’s all languid keyboard arpeggios with the occasional flourish of a cascading synth effect.


Since most of the songs already existed in some form or another, Bertisch’s job on Prelude was to refine and reimagine music that had previously been private. She spent time rearranging, rewriting, adding elements newly available to her, such as the saxophone, and pushing the limits of the rough mixes to mold the universe she envisioned. Along the way, Bertisch grew more excited about her abilities as a musician. The resulting record is one that is inherently confident.


Prelude is also a homespun release. It’s coming out on Bertisch’s own label, Love Injection Records, which she runs with her partner Paul Raffaele. The two also DJ and make zines under the name, which started in 2015. Love Injection is a love letter to New York. Prelude is a word of encouragement to those struggling with self-actualization. The record was mixed by Justin Van Der Volgen and mastered by Walter Coelho. Love Injection Records holds the remix tradition in high regard, and they’ve enlisted reworks by some of Barbie’s favorite producers. It’s all a labor of love for Bertisch. Prelude is her: Barbie the musician.
©℗ Love Injection Records 2022

"Emotional Rescue continues its 10th anniversary by again presenting Jorge Reyes’ collaborative album with Antonio Zepeda – a masterpiece and therefore, worthy of the time and effort to share.

From cult artist to becoming an essential musical discovery, Jorge Reyes is an example that no one discovered or owns the music beyond the writer and creator.

Growing up in Mexico’s 2nd City, he spent much of his life dedicated to travelling and learning music traditions and instruments. While at University to study Flute, he was involved in several influential bands of the era before going on to travel the world to further his learning, before returning to found the seminal Chac Mool group.

By the early 80s he went solo, exploring an increasing interest in the use of Prehispanic instruments mixed with electronics. In the opening songs, I-Cana and A La Izquiedra Del Colibri, the interplay between flute, guitar and vocals with TR-700, Poly 800 and DX7, all fuse his vision perfectly.

The additional contribution of Antonio Zepeda’s percussion creates a timeless mystique to the album, taking you on a journey deep in the mind of one of Mexico’s most important experimental artists.

Passing away at just 56, Jorge Reyes work was cut short, however he has left over a dozen albums to be explored. While critics increasingly question the valedictory of reissues, the premise on whether something should be heard is if it’s good. Therefore, let A La Izquierda Del Colibri be heard."

"The past 5 years we have taken our music all over the world: Europe, Asia, Africa besides our homeland Denmark, and even though we cannot speak with many of the people we meet, our music is a universal language that transcends borders. The meetings we have had (and continue to have) all over inspire us to create new music. But of course we are the composers of the music, so this is our representation of those meetings.

Our 3rd album is called AFROTROPISM. Tropism is a biological phenomenon that indicates growth of a plant in response to the environment; so when you see a plant turning for the sunlight, this is tropism. In other words, this is not so much about the plant's roots but more about how it reacts when it touches the air, feels sunlight or rain - in other words the outside world. So AFROTROPISM refers to the fact that we are drawn towards the African traditions, but we are "growing" our own music.

On our first two albums we have recorded extensively with African musicians, and AFROTROPISM is centered around The KutiMangoes (TKM) as a band. We are developing our artistic direction by going more in depth with how we can mix our inspirations with our own musical heritage. Our musical mission is (and has always been) to mix cultures and create our own sound.

With our background in jazz music, TKM counts virtuoso instrumentalists with a heartfelt intent and sound innovators with our horns, effect pedals, synthesizers, drums and percussion from all over the world. AFROTROPISM is a further and deeper development of our trademark bold sound that experiments with synthesizers, soundscapes and a bit of electronic effects without losing it's focus on groove, melody, atmosphere and musicianship."

The KutiMangoes, July 2019


About each track:

STRETCH TOWARDS THE SUN
This track opens up with a synthesizer groove that is inspired by the polyrhythmic grooves played by the balafon (a predecessor of the piano) from West Africa. Our rolling sequence could not be played on the balafon because of the key changes, but the basic idea comes from that instrument. Quick and light, we wanted to write a song where you can feel the sun coming out and feel the energy it's rays give. The combination of the programmed groove, the horn-arrangement, the huge percussion section and the live instruments makes for a sound that we have not heard before, and it illustrates what this album is all about (and what the track's title refers to): that we stretch towards the things that give us energy – and that although our roots are in Denmark, when we encounter a musical tradition as rich as in West Africa, it changes us and our music.

A SNAKE IS JUST A STRING
The first time we saw Mali-bluesman extraordinaire Vieux Farka Touré on stage was just after we had played at a huge festival in Burkina Faso, and we almost literally caught on fire. Their groove was so strong and insistent that we were mesmerized, and it inspired us to come up with the opening guitar part of this song. Basically a bluesy tune with some unusual chord changes and a crazy synthesizer solo by Johannes Buhl Andresen reminiscent of that fuzzy guitar-sound we love so much in the Mali blues. The title is an homage to the Nigerian writer Chinua Acheba, who in his masterpiece novel "Things Fall Apart" tells that in the village during the night, to ward off the fear of darkness, people would call dangerous animals by a different name: don't be afraid, a snake is just a string.

KEEP YOU SAFE
It is a basic human necessity to have a place where you can feel safe. But there are far too many people in our world that fear for their safety, their livelihood, their children, their relatives – and this is surely not a feeling that helps us to flourish as humans. With this song we are saying that we all need to make it a priority to help our fellow humans to feel safe. And of course, if our song can offer a feeling of safety and comfort for a short time to those who listen, we are truly thankful.

MONEY IS THE CURSE
This track is directly inspired by Fela Kuti's ability to create music that is both physical and political. Dance music with a serious message about our times. For the solo part we wanted a more melancholy, pensive feel (than the full-on baritone-trombone melody) and also wanted to experiment with some choppy, stuttering effects to make the horns sound desperate. Money is the curse because it can become the objective of our life; money is the curse because it changes the relationships we have with our fellow humans. Money is the curse.

THORNS TO FRUIT
This melody is inspired by the scales and developments of a traditional Bambara folk-song. We love the way these melodies constantly evolve with small developments and changes. We felt like an accompaniment that is really dry, sparse and earthy would fit well and then made a contrasting solo part. As a group we are interested in how to develop our improvisations together and create sonic landscapes that evoke a distinctive atmosphere – so here, we have no soloist, but a collection of synthesizer parts, saxophone lines and guitar-sounds that together create a dreamy and lush ambience.

SAND TO SOIL
We started out with a short ngoni riff played by our good friend and master musician Aboubacar Konaté. We then sampled it, built soundscapes and our own both meditative and pumping groove around it. We created a melody with both melancholy and joy, with afterthought and impulse and then the brilliant Aske Drasbæk added an emotive and blistering saxophone solo. The title refers to the contrasts in our humanism. As part of our human nature, we have a dark side that drives us (and each other) towards destruction – making the fertile soil into barren sand. The title is an encouragement to emphasize the opposite movement in our nature: to create life and help it flourish. We keep ourselves human by insisting that we must never forget this side of our nature no matter how tough, tiresome or trying it might be. Let's keep our focus on the light, the warmth, the positive energy – that can turn the cold stone into fertile ground.

After the blackest night comes the most radiant dawn; the spark of life illuminates all that which was swallowed by shadows. "Fäghring" bears the gift of rebirth - both in nature and for Swedish folk metal band Bhleg. The fourth and closing part of the album tetralogy "Ár" is the most ambitious Bhleg recording to date. Its metal parts are saturated with both primal ferocity and majestic atmosphere. The ambient interludes from their early works are still here, but now conveyed mostly through analogue recordings.

The sweeping, dreamy soundscapes are enhanced by a slew of unorthodox instruments, courtesy of S - who performs not only guitars and bass, but also lyre, hurdy-gurdy, mouth harp, keyboards, bullroarer, birch trumpet, as well as percussion such as frame drums, birch sticks, and stones. Besides the characteristic voice of Bhleg vocalist and lyricist L, "Fäghring" features various guest appearances with a range of singing styles rooted in Scandinavian folk-tradition such as Andreas Pettersson from Saiva, Êlea of Noêta, and Swedish author Lars Magnar Enoksen.

"Fäghring" will be released by Nordvis Produktion on April 1, 2022. Tracked and mixed using the band's own recording setup, Studio Asu. Mastered by Tore Stjerna at Necromorbus Studios. Both the CD and LP booklets have received a lot of attention, consisting entirely of custom photography and illustrations.

Sound Like: Grift, Ulver (early), Burzum, Panphage, Fluisteraars, Djevel, Skogen

Diabolical Death Metal titans BELPHEGOR unleash their twelfth studio album!

With “The Devils”, long-running Diabolical Death Metal titans BELPHEGOR unleash their twelfth studio album upon the masses, which proves to be one of the strongest and most elaborate records in the group’s career. Produced at renowned Fascination Studios with Jens Bogren (Kreator, Rotting Christ, At The Gates), “The Devils” sounds absolutely crushing and dynamic, sonically pushing the immense variety of the eight tracks to new heights. Blending German and English lyrics, lead single ‘Totentanz – Dance Macabre’ is as ferocious as it gets with its insane barrage of blast beats, spiteful lyrics, and sinister guitar melodies. ‘Glorifizierung des Teufels’ (= ‘Glorification of the Devil’) and ‘Virtus Asinaria – Prayer’ offer epic, mid-paced grandeur and chanted vocals and choirs adding new shades of black to their stylistic palette. The title-track or ‘Damnation – Höllensturz’ prove to be more complex pieces, shifting moods and tempos with ease and expanding BELPHEGOR’s blasphemous onslaught with fascinating twists and turns. Rounded off by impressive artwork created by Seth Siro Anton (Septicflesh, Nile, Paradise Lost), “The Devils” marks the band’s third collaboration with one of metal’s most prolific designers. Ultimately, “The Devils” is an album that musically builds upon BELPHEGOR’s trademark sound, in essence a combination of traditional death and black metal, deeply rooted in the 90’s, yet boasts with intricate compositions and detailed arrangements underlining their outstanding position within the international extreme metal circuit. Known as tirelessly touring band, BELPHEGOR currently presents a few of the new songs during an European tour with I Am Morbid and Hate before hitting South America in May/June 2022, and an intense festival season including Wacken Open Air, Bloodstock, Sweden Rock and many more.
Mix and mastering by Jens Bogren at Fascination Street Studios Örebro, Sweden. Drum engineering by David Castillo at Fascination Street Studios in Stockholm.
Guitars, Bass and Vocals recorded by Jakob Klingsbigl at Studio Mischmaschine Oberalm, Austria.
Artwork by Seth Siro Anton

After her stunning collaboration with Jim O’Rourke (Le Piano Englouti, BT055), Brunhild Ferrari returns to Black Truffle with Stürmische Ruhe, her first duo with Christoph Heemann. A legendary figure in underground music, Heemann has quietly produced a unique body of work since his beginnings with the absurdist cutups of H.N.A.S. in the mid-1980, including collaborations with Merzbow, Organum and Nurse With Wound, the eerie psychedelia of Mirror (with Andrew Chalk), In Camera (with Timo van Lujik) and Plastic Palace People (with Jim O’Rourke), and the precise cinema pour l’oreille constructions of his solo works. Created together in Ferrari’s Parisian studio (once shared with Luc) between 2011 and 2014, Stürmische Ruhe is a single half-hour piece that folds rain and storm recordings into a intricately woven fabric of haunted electronics, unexpected edits and disorienting processing. Banging with the jarring thump of a slamming door (an element that will reappear periodically throughout the piece as a kind of punctuation mark), it is immediately obvious that concrete sound is used here in a free, poetic way outside of the strict confines of documentary field recording. The wind captured by Ferrari’s microphone roars and whistles, accompanied by thick clusters of wavering tones whose unpredictable rises and falls in volumes are synchronised with the bumping and thudding of windows and doors. At some points the microphone sound melts into a wavering low-bit digital smear before fanning out into broad, atmospheric depths. The cinema for the ear constructed here suggests not linear narrative or documentary, but an organic flow of cross-fades, double-exposures and abrupt cuts, a free-associative dream in which wind and water take on mythical characteristics. Throughout the piece's second half, layers of synthetic floating tones and pinging upward glissandi negotiate a constantly shifting balance with wind-borne whispers and rustles, at times dropping to silence, at others rising up with elemental force. As Ferrari explains in her liner notes, Stürmische Ruhe is a meeting of ‘completely opposite sound worlds’ in which ‘almost-violence’ is joined with a ‘reconciling harmony’. Reaffirming the infinite possibilities of the musique concrète tradition while avoiding its academic tropes, Stürmische Ruhe is accompanied by tri-lingual liner notes from Brunhild Ferrari and arrives in a sleeve graced with the beautiful art informel paintings of her father, Wolfgang Meyer Tomin. Cut at 45rpm for maximum fidelity.

8 years after the release of his critically acclaimed latest album 'Bambi Galaxy', Florent Marchet is back. Since his debut, Florent Marchet has continued to produce and create for cinema, theater, literature... and to tour with multiple projects and original creations. He has become in the space of a few years one of the finest feathers of French song, and one of the most productive and singular artists of his generation. With this new album, the first on Labréa / Wagram, Florent Marchet reconnects with tradition and modernity. This album is a real journey. Composed of 13 tracks exclusively recorded in his own studio with sound engineer Loris Bernot. He has a duet with the artist PR2B.

Das schwedische Quartett UNLEASHED gehört schon seit Ewigkeiten zu einer der agilsten und gleichzeitig
besten Bands der weltweiten Death Metal-Szene. Keine andere Band haut in regelmäßigen Abständen
so unberechenbare Todesblei-Longplayer unters Volk, und versteht es dabei, sich von Album zu Album
zu steigern. Hammer Battalion aus dem Jahr 2009 war ein weiterer Geniestreich aus dem Hause UNLEASHED und steht hochkarätigen Vorgängern in nichts nach. Noch heute gehört dieser Kracher zu
den besten Longplayern der Schweden-Combo. UNLEASHED liefern haargenau das ab, was die Fans von
ihnen erwarten. Hier gibt es reihenweise Elchtod-Granaten am Fließband !!! Gradlinige Songs wie ”Midsummer solstice” , ”Home of the brave”, ”Entering the hall of slain” oder ”Warriors of midgard” stehen
in allerbester Stockholm-Tradition, und lassen dabei andere Death Metal Bands locker im Regen stehen.
Hammer Battalion gibt es nun als LP in strikt limitierter Auflage!

World renowned extreme Metal titans KREATOR are back. 5 Years after their incredibly successful “Gods Of Violence” album (2107, #1 in the German album charts, #4 in Austria, #7 in Czech Republic and Finland + chart entries in numerous other territories), the genre-defining band presents their most political effort to date. “Hate Über Alles” (in tradition of US punk icons DEAD KENNEDYS’ “California Über Alles”) is a bold statement against hate and the division of society in today’s world. While perfecting their signature sound of thrash metal that inspired countless other bands over the past 4 decades, KREATOR have managed to close the gap between the old and new school, still reaching new audiences, playing sold out shows to even bigger crowds as they move on. “

Hate Über Alles” features 11 tracks that once again show who’s boss in this game that many begin but only few ultimately last in. The crushing frenzy of the title track, the pounding “Strongest Of The Strong” featuring world famous vegan strongman Patrik Baboumian, the nostalgia of “Become Immortal” or the extravaganza of “Midnight Sun” make the band’s 14th album their most diverse and thrilling so far. “Hate Über Alles” will be accompanied by massive online and out-of-home campaigns, leading up to the band’s European co-headlining tour with Grammy-nominated US powerhouse LAMB OF GOD in November/December 2022. The album is available in various lavish vinyl editions featuring a beautiful, yet grim trifold artwork by famous artist Eliran Kantor (TESTAMENT, SOULFLY, HELLOWEEN, HEAVEN SHALL BURN, HATEBREED among others) as well as in a noble CD Digibook and bold box set including an extended Making-Of Book, a live album of the band’s 2021 Bloodstock Open Air appearance, an art print of the cover and a pin of the band’s iconic logo.

An absolutely legendary album from Lebanon by Issam Hajali’s group Ferkat Al Ard, “Oghneya” stands out as one of the great musical gems of the Arab world. A groundbreaking release from 1978 that represents the meeting point of Arab, jazz, folk and Brazilian styles with the talent of Ziad Rahbani, who did the albums arrangements. Filled with a variety of sounds and genres, from Baroque Pop to Psych-Folk to flashes of Bossa Nova, Tropicalia and MPB, “Oghneya” is like if Arthur Verocai took a trip to Beirut in the 70’s to record an album.

In 2015 we heard Ferkat Al Ard’s music for the first time, a Lebanese trio compromised of Issam Hajali, Toufic Farroukh and Elia Saba. It was a stunningly unique release that blends traditional Arabic elements, jazz and Brazilian rhythms hand in hand with poetic-yet-politically engaged lyrics. The band was active in the left-wing movement of Lebanon of the time and they communicated their political ideas candidly through their songwriting.

In our mind the idea was to see whether Issam was interested in re-releasing “Oghneya.” He was not opposed to it, but also made it clear that it was not his priority for a first project. He suggested we start with his first album, before Ferkat Al Ard was formed, “Mouasalat Ila Jacad El Ard,” which was recorded in 1977 in Paris together with his friend Roger Fakhr (whose work we have been privileged to re-release in the meantime as well.) “Mouasalat Ila Jacad El Ard” is melancholic, stripped-down, guitar-based folk intertwined with jazz-fused breaks, and the unique sound of the santour glistens through. While the music is very accessible, some song structures are rather atypical, neglecting common patterns of verse, hook, verse, hook. The lyrics mostly trace back to the poetic work of Palestinian author Samih El Kasem, with one song also written by Issam, who composed the music for the whole album.

We re-released Issam’s “Mouasalat Ila Jacad El Ard” in 2019 to a great reception, with positive reviews all over the place and an ongoing appreciation for the album. This meant it was time for us to undertake an “Oghneya” re-release again!

If you compare “Mouasalat Ila Jacad El Ard” and “Oghneya,” one apparent distinction is the strong Brazilian influence in the music. Issam Hajali explained that you can already hear traces of this influence on his debut, but it’s “Oghneya” where this musical relationship really peaks. Lebanon and Brazil have had a strong connection for nearly a century due to the continuous flow of immigrants from one country to the other. Today, Brazil has the largest Lebanese diaspora in the world, the “Brasilibanês”. The migratory route was not a one-way street, however, and some Lebanese returned to their home country, taking recordings of the music they learned to love in Brazil with them. They were followed by Brazilian musicians who visited primarily Beirut during the 1960’s and the first half of the 1970’s, just like many other musicians from around the world. In these years between the independence and the beginning of the civil war, Beirut became even more of a cultural center and regional hub than it already was.

Bossa Nova, at that time, was one of the defining sounds of Brazilian popular music. Issam Hajali remembers hearing it at a bar in Beirut’s Hamra district in 1974, which hosted musicians from Brazil playing the occasional gig. When Issam had returned from Paris in 1976 he got to know Ziad Rahbani, son of Fairouz, who had a shared passion with Issam for a lot of things, among them Brazilian music. Issam showed him some of the tracks he was working on, and Ziad agreed to help with arranging. The music that evolved from this cooperation between Ferkat Al Ard and Ziad Rahbani’s arrangement is, to put it lightly, outstanding. Issam’s singing is embedded into the uniquely beautiful string arrangements backed by the band’s poignant, swinging groove. The lyrics of the songs on “Oghneya” are based on poems by Mahmoud Darwish, Samih Al Qasem and Tawfiq Ziad, three pillars of Palestinian poetry within the last century, and their influence on “Oghneya” was itself a strong political statement during the Lebanese war.

“Oghneya” was eventually released in 1978 by the band themselves on cassette tapes. Finding a blank tape that fit the playing time proved to be impossible during the war so they needed to open up the case of each cassette to physically cut down the tape and customize it to the playing time. The album was well received, though some cultural critics deemed it too “occidental” in its sound. While the cassette was circulating, Ziad Rahbani started a label called Zida, together with Khatchik Mardirian. They decided to help the band with a re-release on vinyl in 1979, a year after “Oghneya” was originally released on cassette.

Sadly, there are two tracks from the original release of “Oghneya” that did not make it onto the reissue. “Ghfyara Ghaza” was replaced by the song “Juma’a 6 Hziran.” while “Huloul” was taken off without a replacement. This happened as a precondition from the band for this reissue to happen. We would have loved to include all tracks, but the decision ranged between having either a reissue like the one we put out or no reissue at all. Thus, an easy choice for us.

As always both vinyl and CD come with an extensive booklet with an interview with Issam as well as unseen photos from the recording sessions.

Between the late 70s and the early 80s, pop music was in a transitional phase. After a return to the roots of punk, rock was morphing into new wave, while disco was rapidly declining and the electronic revolution, already on the rise, was ushering in the transition from analog to digital. This period also saw the emergence and relatively brief flowering of a commercially dominant style that mixed soul influences (especially Stevie Wonder and Ear th Wind & Fi re) , folk/pop songwriting and jazz sensibilities in equal measure, creating a hybrid easy on the ears but also emotionally and musically rich. It was the style represented by artists like Christopher Cross, Michael McDonald, Gino Vannelli and Kenny Loggins, who were all influenced by black music. They belonged to a larger trend that took place in all major music producing countries, including Italy where, like so many other things, the style was not merely imported or copied, but reshaped into a specifically local version based on the nation's tastes and cultural traditions. In Italy, a soulful and sophisticated approach to pop music was embraced not only by established names like Mina, Alan Sorrenti and Loredana Berté, but also, and perhaps most importantly, by an entire generation of writers, arrangers and musicians who had grown up listening to early fusion, to Steely Dan's refined recordings, and to Quincy Jones's productions. So, with this compilation we hope to give new exposure to artists and songs that, despite having moderate or little success when first released, must be regarded as among the creative peaks of Italian pop music. "Paisà Got Soul" features pop veterans Peppino Di Capri, Mario Lavezzi and Alberto Radius alongside atypical singer-songwriters (Enzo Carella, Enzo Cervo, Gino D'Eliso), Italo-disco heroes (Stefano Pulga), international hit composers (Beppe Cantarelli, who has co-written for Aretha Franklin and Mariah Carey), Brazilian-born naturalized Italians (Jim Porto) and complete unknowns (Franco Camassa, I Ricci, Massimo Stella).It brings together little gems that in most cases are no longer available on the market, or only available in their original and now very rare vinyl format. We believe they all deserve to be rediscovered today, partly because of the recently renewed interest in "yacht rock", as this music style has been retrospectively named, and partly because they provide further evidence that Italian artists rework international music styles in creative and original ways.

Compiled and conceived by David Nerattini partnered by Pierpaolo De Sanctis

Four killer tracks of high grade electronic soul from James Baker AKA REKAB. A fantastic EP showing both breadth of style and respect for the roots and traditions of the music from this artist.The first, Locked on Dodge, is a driving deep Detroit techno track with a hypnotic arpeggiated lead and filtered atmospherics to lose yourself inside. Don’t get too comfortable though, it’s capped with a surprise electro switch in the breakdown to keep the floor on their toes! The second track, We Need to Care, delivers a cool clear synth sound design over Chicago influenced house tempo beats and lush pads. Simultaneously groovy and comforting, this is a track for those special moments. Jacking with your eyes closed and a big grin on your face.
Third we have a clear tribute to Drexciya with In Search of the Deep Sea Dweller. Tough 808 beats and laser zaps punch through a bed of evocative strings whilst a filtered single note loop rises and falls like the tide. An abstract robotic voice presides over the track, adding atmosphere whilst giving it a sense of mysterious machine driven intelligence.
Lastly, Too Much Time gets its space boogie on. Electro funk beats jump round staccato synth chords and a simple but effective Moog-like bass line. Once the scene is set, a writhing 303 joins the proceedings accompanied soaring pads and beautiful melodic leads that make you feel like you’re being lifted into the cosmos.
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ReKab aka James Baker from the UK started Djing in the early 90’s. Later on he started playing around with music. Finally the ReKab sound was established in 2019 with his first release on Where We Met records. Other releases followed soon on Móatún, Withhold, Intellitronic Bubble, We’re Going Deep and Fourier Transform.
His music is very deep and full of emotions and influenced by his love for Detroit.

Stix Records, a sub-label of Favorite Recordings, proudly presents the long awaited reissue of Version Excursions, first album by The Dynamics. Originally released in 2007 and highly hard to find today, it could be considered as a modern reggae classic.

The band composed of Bruno “Patchwork” Hovart (production & programming), Eric “Flab” True (programming) and a vocal trio made of Mr Day, Sandra “Mounam” and Stevie Levi, quickly became famous with a 7inch single series, displaying their unique recipe of covers from classic hits by Madonna, Curtis Mayfield or The White Stripes to name just a few. True to Rocksteady and Reggae’s timeless tradition, everything from Pop, Roots, Disco, Soul & Rock is distilled through their fuzzy hypnotic filters to create amazing cover versions.

Originally hailing from the villages of Cameroon, the halls of Harvard, the palaces of Versailles, the boweries of Bristol, or the squares of Provence, it’s then in Lyon that The Dynamics united and created their timeless music, both vintage and fresh. 15 years after its release, the album’s still a real success, with more than 350k listeners on Spotify every month. An achievement easily explained by the quality of the tracks gathered, which also brought the original release to become quite rare years after years, now selling for crazy prices on the second-hand market.

"Whole Lotta Love" (Led Zeppelin), "Fever" (Peggy Lee), "The Creator Has A Master Plan" (Pharoah Sanders), "Lay Lady Lay" (Bob Dylan), these are only a few of the Rock, Pop, Soul and Jazz most famous hits reimagined by The Dynamics. In addition to the original tracklisting, you'll find on our 2022 remastered edition their cover of "Music" by Madonna, previously only available as 7inch.

The Hamadcha of Fez are dervishes belonging to the very old (XVII) Moroccan Sufi brotherhood Hamdouchiyia. Its members are mystics who sing and dance to trance in honor of the holy founder, the miracle worker Sidi Ali Ben Hamdouch.
During a performance their amazing spiritual and artistic practices transmit to those who approach them their “baraka”, a divine grace.
The audience vibrates and moves to the rhythms of the dervishes songs, tempos, stories and fascinating dances.
Dj Click puts down his suitcases in the heart of the old city. He goes in search of atypical sounds coming from the heart of the streets, soaks up the atmospheres, then offering us a sound postcards where tradition alongside modernity.
He is the first producer to be accepted into their brotherhood for a such meeting!

Written and recorded during the pandemic, Aaron Watson's 'Unwanted Man' takes the listener on a full circle journey from isolation and despair to loving redemption. Aaron wrote or co-wrote all eleven songs on 'Unwanted Man,' showcasing both his trademark love songs in “When I See You” and “Nothing On You” as well as his popular classic uptempo romps with “Cheap Seats” and “Heck Of A Song”. 'Unwanted Man' is Aaron’s 14th studio album and his 18th album overall. Every album Aaron has released since 2010 has landed firmly in the Top 10 on the Billboard Country Album Chart with three debuting in the Top 5. For the past 20+ years, Watson has achieved success on his own terms, hand-building a lauded career through songwriting, relentless touring and nearly twenty self-released albums. His independent Texas spirit and strong work ethic are emblematic of the western lifestyle; virtues which have taken him from humble honky-tonks of Texas to multiple sold-out tours around the world. Rolling Stone calls him "Texas country's reigning indie underdog" and The Boot remarks that Aaron is "a pure expression of his traditional country ethos.” His 2015 album 'The Underdog' was the first independent album in the history of country music to top the Billboard Country Album Chart. Aaron Watson’s career is perhaps summed up best by Forbes, who says he’s "one of country music’s biggest DIY success stories." A self-made businessman, chart-topper, and road warrior whose authenticity has made him a country music staple, Aaron Watson is here to stay.

Das Trio "Girls In Synthesis" wurde treffend als "eher eine Terrorzelle als eine Rockgruppe" beschrieben. Textlich befassen sie sich mit den Erfahrungen der Arbeiterklasse in Bezug auf fragile geistige Gesundheit, soziale Unbeweglichkeit, Gefühle der Machtlosigkeit, Unsicherheit, Angst und die zersetzenden Auswirkungen einer feindseligen Gesellschaft. John Linger bringt es auf den Punkt, wenn er "I've seen a glimpse of the future" in sein Mikrofon bellt. Das Londoner Trio "Girls In Synthesis" ist eine Band, die sich einer Kategorisierung entzieht. Seit ihrer Gründung hat die Band Anarcho-Punk, Noise-Rock, Post-Punk und elektronische Einflüsse aufgenommen, ohne in einem dieser Genres zu verweilen. Der definitive GIS-Sound ist mehr als die Summe dieser Teile. Die Band ist eher ein Kollektiv als eine traditionelle Musikgruppe, da alles (Aufnahmen, Artwork, Fotos und Videos) intern mit den Mitgliedern der Band und ihren Verbündeten kreiert wird. Mit einer unvergleichlichen Live-Show hat sich die Band durch ihre kultige Hingabe an ihre Kunst eine treue Fangemeinde in Großbritannien erspielt, von denen viele die Band auf ihren Tourneen durch das ganze Land begleiten. Ihre neue Veröffentlichung "Konsumrausch", ein exklusives, eigenständiges Mini-Album für das deutsche Label Hound Gawd!, erkundet verschiedene klangliche Territorien und erweitert die bisherigen Veröffentlichungen der Gruppe um weitere Experimente.

- Format: Schwarze 140G Vinyl

Born and raised in the deep outskirts of Mexico City, the Gama brothers are keeping alive the rich legacy of marimba music running through their family with their latest project, Son Rompe Pera. While firmly rooted in the tradition of this historic instrument, their fresh take on the folk icon challenges its limits as never before, moving it into the garage/punk world of urban misfits and firmly planting it in the 21st century.

Propulsive tabla percussion and meditative drones collide in deep instrumental conversation on Shruti Dances, the debut collaborative album between UK heavyweights Auntie Flo and Sarathy Korwar, forthcoming on the newly relaunched, Make Music imprint.

Across six exchanges of dynamic electronic production and richly layered Indian classical percussion, Shruti Dances discovers two architects of rhythm and movement on an explorative journey through South Asian tonality and diasporic identity.

One an elemental force on drums, the other on the decks, London-based, Indian-raised drummer/composer, Sarathy Korwar and Scottish-Goan producer/DJ, Auntie Flo first connected back in 2019, unaware both were navigating opposite ends of the beat equilibrium. Where Auntie Flo (aka Brian D’Souza) was new to Korwar’s reimagining of jazz, Indian classical music, electronics and spoken word, Korwar was already a big admirer of Auntie Flo’s intl-facing club output, having first discovered D’Souza’s Rainfall On Red Earth off his Soniferous Garden 12” and 2019 SAY award-winning (Scottish Album of The Year), Radio Highlife. Once properly acquainted, Korwar invited Auntie Flo to remix a track off his landmark 2019 album, More Arriving, described by The Guardian as “a stylistic leap from jazz to hip-hop to spoken word…a protest record encompassing the breadth of immigrant experiences”.

The seeds of an unlikely yet powerful musical bond had been sown and when mutual friend, co-founder of Mixcloud, and Make Music label organiser, Nikhil Shah, asked the duo to inaugurate the label’s new live/electronic direction (previously home to Leon Vynehall, U and George Fitzgerald), Korwar and D’Souza hit the studio. Expanding on early conversations around traditional Indian instrumentation, practicing meditation and improvisation, Shruti Dances (a riff on free dance movement, Ecstatic Dance) was born. Meaning 'that which is heard' in Sanskrit, shruti refers to a note in musical terms, but in this case also references the album’s most prominent influence and instrument, the shruti box.

“The shruti box formed the basis of the sound of the project. It’s a drone instrument, similar to a harmonium, and it makes an amazing sound. I’ve spent the last two years studying sound therapy, and immersing myself in ambient and drone through the Ambient Flo project, and am particularly interested in how they can induce meditative states of consciousness. I was really excited to hear what the Shruti box could do with this EP.” Auntie Flo

Across six tracks, (each named after 6 of the 7 main musical notes in the Indian solfege system), Shruti Dances draws on a celestial mix of traditional percussion and processed digital effects. On opening track Dha, Korwar’s sparse tabla rhythms hop across D’Souza’s scattered, arpeggiated synths, where as on Pa, a Balearic shuffle channels Moroccan Gnawa music and Senegalese sabar meets Mark Ernestus’s Ndagga Rhythm Force. Harmonic speed tabla and roaming drones provide a sense of the ethereal and fourth-worldly on Ma, a track that’s resplendent, curious atmosphere would fit snug into the deep listening-focused programming of Auntie Flo’s Ambient Flo online radio station, a curatorial platform and avenue exploring his interest/promotion of mental health, launched over the UK’s first lockdown. Ni sees Korwar pick up the sticks, thrashing toms in a spirited frenzy, whilst downtempo album closer Sa offers some room for reflection, its slow, swirling chords cloud our focus, leaving us with all but the distant sound of birdsong.

**180g heavyweight vinyl** Les Racines is the latest solo album from the eminent guitarist and songwriter Vieux Farka Touré, and his first for World Circuit Records. Known as the ‘Hendrix of the Sahara’, Vieux has released 4 critically acclaimed solo albums to date, extending the boundaries of traditional West African music into new and uncharted territory. He has also released audacious collaborations with the likes of Dave Matthews and jazz guitarist John Scofield, and albums with American singer-songwriter Julia Easterlin and Israeli singer-songwriter Idan Raichel. With Les Racines, which translates as ‘the roots’, Vieux documents a deep reconnection with the traditional Songhai music of northern Mali which is one of the traditions that has come to be known in the West as ‘Desert Blues’. Vieux’s roots run deeper than deep – he is the son of Ali Farka Touré, widely acclaimed as the finest guitarist Africa has ever produced. Recorded in Bamako in Vieux’s home studio, the timeless grooves of the album are steeped in the traditional music of West Africa. But the fire of Vieux’s guitar playing and the urgency of the messages in his songs add an entirely contemporary relevance. “We are nothing if we abandon respect for the past,” Vieux says. The resulting album, the most profound statement of his career to date, marks out Vieux as the great Ali Farka Touré’s rightful heir and a major artist in his own right. “Early in my career people asked why I wasn’t just following my father. But it was important for me to establish my own identity,” Vieux says. “Now people know what I can do, I can return to those roots with pride and I hope a certain authority.”