Search:treat

From the moment she began writing her new album, Japanese
Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner knew that she wanted to call it
‘Jubilee’. After all, a jubilee is a celebration of the passage of time
- a festival to usher in the hope of a new era in brilliant technicolor.
Zauner’s first two albums garnered acclaim for the way they
grappled with anguish; ‘Psychopomp’ was written as her mother
underwent cancer treatment, while ‘Soft Sounds From Another
Planet’ took the grief she held from her mother’s death and used it
as a conduit to explore the cosmos.
Now, at the start of a new decade, Japanese Breakfast is ready to
fight for happiness, an all-too-scarce resource in our seemingly
crumbling world.
‘Jubilee’ finds Michelle Zauner embracing ambition and, with it, her
boldest ideas and songs yet. Inspired by records like Bjork’s
‘Homogenic’, Zauner delivers bigness throughout - big ideas, big
textures, colours, sounds and feelings. At a time when virtually
everything feels extreme, ‘Jubilee’ sets its sights on maximal joy,
imagination and exhilaration. It is, in Michelle Zauner’s words, “a
record about fighting to feel. I wanted to re-experience the pure,
unadulterated joy of creation… The songs are about recalling the
optimism of youth and applying it to adulthood. They’re about
making difficult choices, fighting ignominious impulses and
honoring commitments, confronting the constant struggle we have
with ourselves to be better people.”
Throughout ‘Jubilee’, Zauner pours her own life into the universe
of each song to tell real stories and allowing those universes, in
turn, to fill in the details. Joy, change, evolution - these things take
real time and real effort. And Japanese Breakfast is here for it.
Available on clear with yellow swirl coloured vinyl.

'Sugar Free' by Afrodisia is often regarded as soul connoisseurs as being one of the finest songs to come out of Europe in the 1980s, which has only ever been available on the Afrodisia album 'Elephant Sunrise.' That is until now when 'Sugar Free' is available on 7" vinyl. On the flip side we're treated to a uptempo fusion jam called 'Malcolm X' which is previously un-issued.

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

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

"Cande Y Paulo’s debut album, recorded and produced in LA alongside multi-Grammy award winning Larry Klein (Joni Mitchell, Herbie Hancock), is a beautiful collection of re-worked songs including, ‘I Fall In Love Too Easily’, ‘Summertime’, ‘Treaty’ ‘The Thrill Is Gone’, ‘Sugar Mountain’, ‘Tuyo’ and of course, the song that started it all for the duo, ‘Barro Tal Vez’. Media: Clash video premiere, El Dia feature, VENTS magazine feature, Mahogany Sessions (live session), BBCR6 play (Guy Garvey), Tiny Desk, Spindle Magazine. ""The Argentinian duo have a spellbinding approach”
- CLASH. “expect big things from this duo“ – Gregory Porter."

Marc Barreca's 1986 album "The Sleeper Wakes". Originally released on cassette by the Seattle electronic ambient label, Intrepid.

Marc Barreca has been creating and performing electronic music since the mid-1970s. His 1980 album, Twilight, reissued on vinyl in 2016, was one of the earliest releases on Palace Of Lights. Recent releases include Shadow Aesthetics (2018) and three collaborations with K. Leimer. Previous reissues include work on the acclaimed VOD box set American Cassette Culture, the Cherry Red compilation of seminal U.S. electronic music and the 1983 cassette, Music Works For Industry. His work is also included in the collection of The British Library."

The Sleeper Wakes has been out of print for many years and we are very happy to remaster and reissue this great work that was ahead of it's time, employing analog treatments of sampled sounds arranged in a very interesting and intuitive way.

For the inaugural release on DSO, shrouded in mystery, two of the most revered female voices in recent memory get the rework treatment from the shadows, resulting in a double dose of low-slung, deftly sampled, house heaters.

talian pianist, performer and composer Giovanni Di Domenico presents 4 new pieces in collaboration with Eiko Ishibashi, Jim O'Rourke, Joe Talia and Tatsuhisa Yamamoto.

Side A: The Walk (with Eiko Ishibashi: flute, electronics, synth and field recordings) 23:56
Side B: Peach Rino (with Jim O'Rourke: electronics) 25:11
Side C: Manyfold (with Joe Talia: drums) 22:35
Side D: Jaws Of Life (with Tatsuhisa Yamamoto: synth, electronics, sound processing) 22:39

Music in Exile announce their forthcoming remix EP, featuring reworkings of Music Yared by Melbourne cult hero, Mikey Young (Total Control, Eddy Current Suppression Ring, The Green Child). SINDAYO - MIKEY YOUNG REMIXES features remixes of an original track from Music Yared’s self titled debut EP, released last year through Music in Exile. In addition to today’s announcement, we’re delighted to also share the first single, Sindayo (Mikey Young’s Masinko Remix - Radio Edit), out March 26 via Music in Exile.

Mikey Young’s legacy is well known throughout the Australian music scene, most notably as part of garage punk band Eddy Current Suppression Ring, and synth-driven outfit, Total Control. However, the talents of Young extend well beyond the performance setting to the world of engineering and mastering with his name appearing in the liner notes of an incredible number of releases, becoming something of a trademark of quality. In this release, Young showcases his skill and nuance, creating a remix where tradition and sonic exploration co-exist.

Anbessa Gebrehiwot and Haftu Reda are masterful players of krar and masinko, traditional string instruments from Eritrea and Ethiopia. Now based in Melbourne, Australia, the pair collaborate with multi-instrumentalist Dale Gorfinkel to create an innovative ensemble sound that celebrates their East African culture. The band's seemingly endless repertoire ranges from modern takes on folk songs to new, original compositions with Anbessa’s strong vocal presence a perfect match to Haftu’s sweet lyrical modesty.

Music Yared’s compositions are inspired by traditional Etheopian and Eritrean folk songs and they sing about love, distance, separation and culture. Their songs also feature virtuosic mastery of traditional instruments - the krar, (a 5 string lyre style instrument), and the masinko (a single string violin-like instrument that is played using a bow.) Although inspired by tradition, Music Yared’s compositions embrace the notion that music is always developing and changing with the times. Taking influence from traditional folk songs, Music Yared finds newness and originality through their personal approach to their lyrics, their treatment of rhythm, and the creation of new beats. This change and openness to new sounds is also apparent in their instrumentation, as they pair their traditional instruments with drums, as well as samples of bass lines and percussion.

Given their openness to new musical approaches and experimentation, it only seems fitting for the songs of Music Yared to be remixed, allowing further exploration of their inherent musical attitudes towards change and development. The first single from the EP, Sindayo (Mikey Young’s Masinko Remix - Radio Edit) traverses new sonic territory, pairing the traditional character of Music Yared with contrasting ideas from different sonic landscapes. Beginning with a musical acknowledgement to the original song, Young’s remix then changes direction into a new sonic world; synth pads and melodies swell and intertwine, samples interject, whilst grooving electronic beats underpin a new approach to texture and song structure.

Recorded by Dale Gorfinkel in Thornbury. Mixed and mastered by John Lee at Phaedra Studios.
Remixed & additional production by Mikey Young in Rye.

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

In 1970 Barney Wilen assembled a team of filmmakers, technicians and musicians to travel to Africa for the purpose of recordi ng the music of the native pygmy tribes. Upon returning to Paris two years later, he created Moshi, a dark, eccentric effort fusing avantjazz sensibilities with African rhythms, ambient sound effects and melodies rootedin American blues traditions. Cut withFrench and African players including guitarist Pierre Chaze, pianist Michel Graillier and percussionist Didier Leon , this is music with few precedents or followers, spanning from extraterrestrial dissonance to earthbound, streetlegal funk. Wilen pays little heed to conventional structure, assembling tracks like "Afrika Freak Out" and "Zombizar" from spare parts of inde terminate origins. (Jason Ankeny, AMG)

Revelatory reissue of Barney Wilen’s ambitious jazz-fusion journey, Moshi (1972), presenting the legendary French jazzman and Miles Davis-sideman’s wildly ambitious effort fusing recordings of Pygmy tribes with African rhythms and stellar avantjazz leanings, sounding little like anything before or since its release. (boomkat)

Super rare and long out of print, the ground-breaking 1972 album from saxophonist Barney Wilen receives a reissue treatment of the highest order. Complete with a 20-page booklet and a never before seen DVD chronicling Wilen’s trip to Africa, this one is sure to be a delight for fans old and new. The deepest spiritual jazz grooves meet field recordings from the Upper Volta and b eyond, whilst psych rock influences collide with hypnotic and shamanistic percussion work. Truly one of the most out -there jazz records we’ve stocked for a long time! (bleep)

Originally issued by the seminal imprint Saravah in 1972, and among the most uncategorizable and sought after artefacts of the French avant-garde, Barney Wilen’s Moshi is nothing short of a masterpiece - long holding a coveted spot in the hearts of adventurous listeners and record collectors alike. A wild unkept cultural collage. A series of sonic experiments. A spiritual, psychedelic pilgrimage into the unknown - darting from one continent to the next, each of its tangents building toward a more optimist world view through ordered sound. Its scope remains as difficult to understand today as it was when it was released. Now brought back into the light by Souffle Continu, this is a moment to be celebrated far and wide. (Soundohm)

Deluxe reissue with additional artwork & remastered audio. 20-page booklet including rare pictures, sheet music & original liner notes. Bonus DVD with exclusive artwork of Caroline de Bendern’s movie « à l’intention de Mlle Issoufou à Bilma » documenting this incredible african journey.

‘Sharecropper’s Son’ is a soulful masterpiece and career-defining album
from Robert Finley, “the greatest living soul singer”, written by Finley and
co-written and produced by Dan Auerbach.
With songwriting by Finley, Auerbach, Bobby Wood, and contributions from respected country songwriter Pat McLaughlin, ‘Sharecropper’s Son’ also features
an all-star band, who have worked with everyone from Elvis to Wilson Pickett,
including guitar expertise from Auerbach himself.
Recorded at Easy Eye Sound studio in Nashville, Finley’s formidable vocals and
lyrical stylings take centre stage, sharing personal stories inspired by his Louisiana country childhood during the Jim Crow era south. His tales of pain and joy
uplift as Finley reflects on his belief that you are never too young to dream and
never too old to live.
The fire behind the conflagrant performances on ‘Sharecropper’s Son’ is ignited by 67 year old Finley, who has cited a range of vocal influences, including
Al Green, Jimi Hendrix, Ray Charles, Elvis, James Brown and The Beatles, all
inspiring his genre diverse approach. Finley stated, “I want people to understand that I can’t be kept in a box. I like to do all kinds of music - everything that
means anything to me, from gospel to blues to soul to country to rock ‘n’ roll.”
“A blind carpenter and army vet is revealed, belatedly, to be a herculean soulman.” – UNCUT

In 1970 Barney Wilen assembled a team of filmmakers, technicians and musicians to travel to Africa for the purpose of recordi ng the music of the native pygmy tribes. Upon returning to Paris two years later, he created Moshi, a dark, eccentric effort fusing avantjazz sensibilities with African rhythms, ambient sound effects and melodies rootedin American blues traditions. Cut withFrench and African players including guitarist Pierre Chaze, pianist Michel Graillier and percussionist Didier Leon , this is music with few precedents or followers, spanning from extraterrestrial dissonance to earthbound, streetlegal funk. Wilen pays little heed to conventional structure, assembling tracks like "Afrika Freak Out" and "Zombizar" from spare parts of inde terminate origins. (Jason Ankeny, AMG)

Revelatory reissue of Barney Wilen’s ambitious jazz-fusion journey, Moshi (1972), presenting the legendary French jazzman and Miles Davis-sideman’s wildly ambitious effort fusing recordings of Pygmy tribes with African rhythms and stellar avantjazz leanings, sounding little like anything before or since its release. (boomkat)

Super rare and long out of print, the ground-breaking 1972 album from saxophonist Barney Wilen receives a reissue treatment of the highest order. Complete with a 20-page booklet and a never before seen DVD chronicling Wilen’s trip to Africa, this one is sure to be a delight for fans old and new. The deepest spiritual jazz grooves meet field recordings from the Upper Volta and b eyond, whilst psych rock influences collide with hypnotic and shamanistic percussion work. Truly one of the most out -there jazz records we’ve stocked for a long time! (bleep)

Originally issued by the seminal imprint Saravah in 1972, and among the most uncategorizable and sought after artefacts of the French avant-garde, Barney Wilen’s Moshi is nothing short of a masterpiece - long holding a coveted spot in the hearts of adventurous listeners and record collectors alike. A wild unkept cultural collage. A series of sonic experiments. A spiritual, psychedelic pilgrimage into the unknown - darting from one continent to the next, each of its tangents building toward a more optimist world view through ordered sound. Its scope remains as difficult to understand today as it was when it was released. Now brought back into the light by Souffle Continu, this is a moment to be celebrated far and wide. (Soundohm)

Deluxe reissue with additional artwork & remastered audio. 20-page booklet including rare pictures, sheet music & original liner notes. Bonus DVD with exclusive artwork of Caroline de Bendern’s movie « à l’intention de Mlle Issoufou à Bilma » documenting this incredible african journey.

Orange and black. Fire and ebony. Fury and pride. Wearing its signature colors proudly and raising its exclamation point high, Impulse! Records was the go-to label for music that harnessed the searching and political stand-taking of the Sixties. Launched in 1961, Impulse grew to become an inherent part of the era’s velocity as well as its volume, pulling jazz into the age of Black Power, Afrocentricity, and Spiritual Expansion. In its balance of tradition and transition, it bridged the golden age of jazz, that brief window from the late Fifties to the Seventies when players representing every jazz era were alive and active—from Louis Armstrong to Albert Ayler, from the legends of lore to a new generation of energy players. Impulse treated all its musicians as innovators, revolutionaries even—from swing and bebop, to free and Afrofuturist. The performances on Impulse Records: Music, Message and the Moment draw their staying power from a wide embrace of styles and sounds, as well as a tight focus on a historic moment when the promise of change was in the air and the message of racial harmony was in the music. Today that music has lost none of its relevance: the promise still deferred, the message still on time.

AL presents the first musical collaboration between Hamburg based Asmus Tietchens and Japanese artist Miki Yui, operating out of Düsseldorf for almost 20 years now. Highly respected and hugely influential artist Asmus Tietchens first made his mark on the electronic music scene in the late 1970s, whereas Miki Yui debuted her sonic settings in1999.

Their first joint album NEUES BOOT envelops the listener with a poetic sound sensibility and a conceptual clarity which was processed and passed back and forth between their individual studios in Hamburg and Düsseldorf.

Asmus Tietchens: After Stefan Schneider suggested to release a Yui-Tietchens album on his TAL imprint Miki and I quickly developed some ideas towards our eventual collaboration. We agreed upon an ongoing mutual exchange of material. We have both been very familiar with each other's music for a long time and we found our individual approach towards sound design to be uniquely compatible. We do not use our electronic tools in order to merely achieve the maximum of technical possibilities, but to illustrate aesthetic necessities. This entails a deliberate reduction and refined perception of the sonic characteristics of the material. Only this approach enabled us to fully realise the complete spectrum of the sounds and noises we were working with in order to construct this New Boat. Each and everyone of my treatments is e x c l u s i v e l y based on a track supplied by Miki. I added no new sound sources. Naturally the spatial and temporal dimensions of the source material were thus altered. These transformations are exactly what makes our collaboration special and unique. Very early on we had agreed on New Boat as a working title and a guiding light . Of course in the beginning we had no idea where this New Boat might take us. Now we do know. After several months of ship-building the boat has now set sails for new sonic horizons. Ahoi!

Miki Yui: The title of the album as well as the individual tracks have been inspired by conversations with Asmus. When we had a chat after one of his concerts, he told me about Kōdō, the Art or the Way of the Scent. It is a 8th century Japanese incense ceremony. Very frequently the names of Japanese incense sticks are derived from natural themes, e.g. Bairin is the plum grove, the scent of the first blossom heralding the end of winter. This poetry, the ephemeral nature of the world reminded me of Kigo, words from a Haiku (a form of Japanese poetry), which reference a particular season or a natural phenomenon. So I chose the names of the individual pieces from Kigo as if The Boat was exploring nature whilst sailing through the seasons. Only in retrospect I realised that the titles combined create this poem:

Early spring a hazy view in the night (Oboro)
Plum groves (Bairin)
Over a Dayfly (Kagerou)
A Milkyway (Amanogawa)
Dawn (Akatsuki)
Art of fragrance (Kōdō)
On fragile thin ice (Usurai)

The third installment of Numero’s ode to lowrider souldies, Rust Side Story compiles highly sought after sweet soul singles from the Buck Eye State. Prepare for a low and slow ride from Youngstown to Dayton, Cleveland to Columbus, Toledo to Cincinnati, all soundtracked with silky falsettos and dreamy harmonies

2012 von den Balfour Brüdern in Belfast Nord Irland gegründet, konnte sich MAVERICK schnell in der Szene etablieren. Mit ihrem ersten Album„Quid Pro Quo“ waren sie bereits mit den schwedischen Hardrock Stars THE POODLES auf Tour. Das von Presse und Fans überschwänglich gefeierte zweite Album „Big Red“ brachte sie wieder zurück auf die Bühnen, diese Mal mit den schwedischen Superstars TREAT. Außerdem waren sie Gast auf vielen Festivals wie z.B. das H.E.A.T FESTIVAL (D), ICEROCK und ROCKNACHT TENNWIL (CH), WILDFEST (BE) und dem ROCKINGHAM in England, was ihnen half ihre schon große Fanbase noch weiter zu vergrößern. Ihr nächstes Album »Cold Star Dancer« aus dem Jahr 2018 bekam beste Kritiken in der internationalen Presse und die Band spielte ihre erste Headliner Tour in Europa gefolgt von einer Tour mit den schwedischen Glam Rockern CRASHDIET. Außerdem spielten sie das das schweizer ROCK
THE RING Festival zusammen mit WHITESNAKE, TESLA und DEF LEPPARD. Die Tour wurde wieder mit Gitarrist Ric gespielt, der die Band wegen persönlicher Gründe verlassen hatte. Sein Ersatz Steve Moore kehrte zu seiner Band STORMZONE zurück. Ihr H.E.A.T FESTIVAL Auftritt im Dezember 2019 war die letzte Show für ihren Drummer Jonny Millar. Für ihn konnte mit Jason-Steve Mageney,
einem guten Freund der Band aus Wuppertal, ein mehr als adäquater Ersatz am Schlagzeug gefunden werden. Die Aufnahmen für das Album begannen Ende 2019 aber Covid-19 geschuldet, dauerte alles länger als erwartet. Durch den Lockdown in der UK war es lange Zeit unmöglich Jason für die Schlagzeugaufnahmen einzufliegen. Dies gelang dann endlich im Sommer 2020. Mit »Ethereality« ist der Band ein Album gelungen, welches alle MAVERICK Trademarks enthält. So findet man catchy, Hookline-orientiertes Songwriting von »Big Red« kombiniert mit etwas härteren Einflüssen von »Cold Star Dancer«. Man muss nur die Songs «Switchblade Sister”, «Bells Of Stygian”, «Falling” oder die Fast-Ballade »The Last One« anhören, um zu wissen, dass »Ethereality« ihr bisher bestes Album ist. Denn
so muss Heavy Rock klingen!

Tape

The arcane enigma from the caucasian mountains that is Natalie Beridze, treats us with a reflective concept album, her 9th solo album, focussing on buried chapters in her own work history.

“I sought after material, piled up on my old hard drives; - various sound debris, recorded and produced in the past. I recycled them beyond recognition and fudged them together into new samples to compose this album.

Mapping Debris is a term used during an investigation of a plane crash.
Special agency collects millions of infinite small pieces of shattered metal and wiring from the crash site. They later try to reconstruct an original fuselage of the plane from assembled debris, in order to recreate its story and reveal the reason that lead up to the catastrophe.



Mapping Debris is a manifestation of dematerialization in physical domain and time: shedding skin turning into dust, decaying objects, corrosion, atrophy, rot, nonsense and factual forgetfulness, which mirrors chilling fear of perishing, losing integrity, memory of events, images, smells and sensation of touch of those, who have already perished in their earthly archetype.
Yet in the aftermath of realization, one no longer dwells in colossal dead weight of inevitability of the end. The pattern perishing has a golden thread on one end - the one that makes us dwell in ceaseless possibility of rebirth, translation and remembrance.

This album is a continuation of series of works I have dedicated to my parents lives, as well as their death...”

It is an intricate poetic net one enters while surrendering to Natalies music. The spiky grit and her heartwarming, harmonic swashes that touch you like a hug, belong inseparably together and spread that multilayerd consolation, manifesting the force of music in its most glistening form. (Thomas Fehlmann/ Natalie Beridze)

Mother Freedom Band’s Cutting The Chord is a funky modern soul classic. It’s both a criminally under-appreciated album and a hard-to-find record so we’re delighted to be giving this sweet disco-funk groover the reissue treatment it deserves.

Produced by the great Al Goodman from The Moments and originally released in 1977, Cutting The Chord seems to be one of the lesser known releases on the curious, and often great “All Platinum” label. Other than a 7" of a couple of these tracks, the only thing that the band seem to have released is this album, and what an album it is. Unbeatable soul-funk of the highest quality.

The album bursts open with “Love Will Stay In Your Corner”. It’s a soulful dancer that reliably slays any funk set you care to drop it in. It’s followed by the lithe disco funk “Flick Of The Wrist” that’s all bubbling baselines and elegant horns. The groovy, horn-enhanced sweet soul of “Gotta Get It Back” is equal parts heartbreaker/hip-shaker and the acidic organs on “Mr Brother” are an experiment in synth soul.

Perhaps the group’s best known track, “Beautiful Summer’s Day” might well be worth the price of an original copy alone. It’s pure piano-driven paradise soul. A tropical birdsong intro sets the scene of a warm, perfect sunshine day and the lead vocal soars over the lush, clean production. The tempo oscillates between contemplative and stomping. Essential.

The brilliantly-named “(Assistants Rag) When You’re Hot, You’re Hot” opens side two. Another huge highlight, its title refrain repeated over this laid-back, power-funk workout. It still sounds incredibly modern, like something off the last D’Angelo record, and if Public Enemy and Diamond D both sampled it you know it knocks hard.

The horn-heavy, clav-stabbing-stomper “We Like To Boogie” keeps things fast and funky before the airy, heavenly harmony soul of “Come On Home” mellows us all out. Things pick up again with “Touch Me”, and you might recognise its addictive elements sampled in Jay-Z’s Kanye West-produced “A Star Was Born”. The magical, reggae-tinged, gospel-influenced “Sweet Love” closes out this assured, classy set.

We dare to say that Cutting The Chord is a rare example of a funk-soul LP which is killer from start-to-finish. Sure, there are the stand-out bombs, but the whole thing is a complete and varied album of feel-good vibes held together by its fluid horns, tight, tight rhythm section and beautiful vocals.

Mastered for vinyl from the original analogue tapes by Simon Francis, cut by Pete Norman and artwork restored at Be With HQ, this new edition should hopefully stop this album slipping any further into obscurity. It’s just too good to be forgotten.

Duke Ellington once said that there are 2 kinds of music: the good one and the bad one. With the compilation series “Shaolin Soul” we are always certain to be on the right side of the line since its 1st episode released in 1998 and which compiled two dozens of tracks sampled by RZA and the Wu-Tang Clan. Following a second episode in 2001 and a third one in 2014, the famous curator Uncle O is back to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Shaolin Soul series with a fourth episode compiling 22 tracks among the rarest and finest treats of soul music, because “everybody’s talking about the good ol’ days !”.

Black Truffle is delighted to offer up a rare serving of unheard works by legendary Swiss artist Anton Bruhin. Active as a visual artist, poet, and musician since the 1960s, Bruhin has created important work in forms as varied as concrete poetry and landscape painting, imbuing everything he does with wit, humility, and absurdist humour. A recognised master of the jew’s harp (or Trümpi, as this ancient folk instrument is known in Swiss German), Bruhin’s sound work also encompasses tape collage, sound poetry, and manipulated bird song. On Speech Poems/Fruity Music we are treated to 26 short pieces made between 2006 and 2008 using the audio software Fruity Loops. These pieces carry on Bruhin’s long-running project of exploring the creative use and misuse of cheap, accessible technologies. In many of his analogue works, Bruhin explored the possibilities of simple cassette equipment. He invented DIY approaches to layering sounds by using multiple tape machines, experimented with distortion and tape speed, or, in his classic Inout (1981) created a maniacally single-minded audio monument to the pause button. Like the computer pixel drawings the artist produced around the same time as these recordings, Speech Poems/Fruity Music extends this approach to consumer software, presenting two parallel sequences of works that make use of Fruity Loops’ inbuilt synthetic instruments and its speech synthesis function. The instrumental works play like a twisted take on the aesthetics of 1980s video game soundtracks, using synthetic accordion and harpsichord sounds to realise jaunty little ditties that exploit their machine-realisation by making use of improbable pitch-bends and humanly impossible tempos and articulations. Between these samples of Fruity Music, we are treated to the Speech Poems, a series of recitations by a lone computer-generated voice. Many of them are in fact songs, as the synthetic voice crudely and hilariously changes pitch as it moves through its fragmented syllables and odes to cream in coffee. Carrying on Bruhin’s interest in the creative misuse of technology, many of the Speech Poems attempt to force Fruity Loops’ voice synthesis, designed only to speak English, to speak German. By entering phonetic text into the program, Bruhin gets it to produce a passable German alphabet and a series of approximations to a proper pronunciation of his name. Hilarious while strangely austere, entertaining but bizarre, Speech Poems/Fruity Music is classic Anton Bruhin, arriving in a beautiful mosaic cover by the artist, with the text of the ‘abc für anglophone’ on the back cover.

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga is a 2020 American musical comedy film directed by David Dobkin and written by Will Ferrell and Andrew Steele. The film follows Icelandic singers Lars Erickssong and Sigrit Ericksdóttir (Ferrell and Rachel McAdams) as they are given the chance to represent their country at the Eurovision Song Contest. Pierce Brosnan, Dan Stevens, and Demi Lovato also star.

“Volcano Man” was the first song released from the album and features vocals from Will Ferrell and Swedish singer Molly Sandén (credited as My Marianne). Towards the middle of the film, as the characters of Lars and Sigrit get fully immersed in the Eurovision magic, the audience is treated to a “Song-A-Long”: producers mash-up iconic pop classics into a celebratory party anthem. Cher transitions into Madonna, which transitions into homages to the aforementioned ABBA and Celine Dion, capped off with a little bit of The Black Eyed Peas. The cherries on top are vocal cameos from former Eurovision champions: Conchita Wurst, Netta, Jamala, Loreen, and Alexander Rybak. The album also features the cult hit “Jaja Ding Dong”, also performed by Ferrell and Sandén.

The band's third studio album, 'T(h)reats', takes inspiration from a series of explosive live shows in 2019 and is a reaction to the current situation we find ourselves in; art and music can be a treat in these strange and uncertain times

Part of Ernesto Chahoud’s ‘Middle Eastern Heavens’ album series, BBE Music reissues Lebanese composer Ihsan Al-Munzer’s 1985 masterpiece ‘Sonatina for Maria’. Al-Munzer’s sixth solo release, the first entirely composed of his own original works, ‘Sonatina for Maria’ takes a step away from the sound of his earlier ‘Belly Dance Disco’ album (reissued by BBE in 2020). This innovative library album features eight synth-driven instrumentals that effortlessly flow through psychedelic pop, cinematic soundtracks and disco music. Taking in a range of styles, the album illustrates Al-Munzer’s skill in composition and arrangement that saw him become one of the busiest arrangers of Lebanon’s 1980s pop scene. The record goes deeper into the Western rhythm Al-Munzer explored at the beginning of his career and brought to his Middle Eastern fusion productions, with the synthesizer still taking centre stage, and the electric guitar, bass and drums ever more present. When Al-Munzer entered Copenhagen’s Sun Studio in 1985 to record ‘Sonatina for Maria’, the composer thought it would be his last ever album. Diagnosed with mouth cancer, he had travelled to Denmark for treatment and decided to make one final work while awaiting his operation. The composer wrote the record during a particularly challenging period in Lebanon too – the country was buckling at its knees: destroyed, bankrupt and beaten after 10 years of civil war. “When I made the album, I had a sad feeling because of the war in Lebanon and it was hard for me to be away from my country at that time” reflects Al-Munzer. Hence, the album has a particular originality and energy across its eight tracks, wrapped up in melancholy and nostalgia for a troubled homeland, as well as showing a lust for life. Dedicated to his then five-year old daughter, title track ‘Sonatina for Maria’ is an up-tempo disco instrumental with a classical theme. Several pop ballads feature on the album, as well as trippy 1980s TV-style soundtrack ‘Dindolo’ and Arabic disco instrumental ‘Mishwar’ (Picnic), revolving around a punchy Middle Eastern melody. The album includes the main theme from the 1983 Lebanese film ‘Al Makhtouf’, one of three films for which Al-Munzer wrote the soundtrack. Directed by Clauda Akl, the film starred iconic Lebanese singer and actress Sabah. ‘Streets of Beirut’ captures the atmosphere of the Lebanese capital’s deserted streets in wartime and the album closes on fast-paced Euro-disco instrumental ‘Gipsy Nights’. Al-Munzer’s five releases from the 1970s and 1980s are part of BBE Music’s Middle Eastern Heavens reissue series, a collection of ground-breaking productions from Lebanon, curated by Lebanese DJ, compiler and music researcher Ernesto Chahoud. Notes by Natalie Shooter, edited by Will Sumsuch.

black vinyl in mirrorboard gatefold jacket with die-cut! Much like the New Orleans-born artist who created it, Second Line is an unapologetic genre bender that pushes boundaries, expands possibilities, and shatters expectations. It's more than just an album: Second Line is a cohesive sensory experience that questions traditional ideas of sound, production, and visual aesthetics as they relate to music. Its interlocking parts tell an epic story about the quest for artistic expression, with Dawn describing her project as "a movement to bring pioneering Black women in electronic music to the forefront." She elaborates: "You never see women appreciated as producers and artists alike _ especially Black women in the electronic space. The time is now for us to start recognizing their talent, not only in electronic music but in all genres. I wanna be the reason why a young Black girl from the South can be whoever she wants to be musically, visually, and artistically." Second Line cuts to the chase with its opening suite of dancefloor bangers, immediately displaying Dawn's mastery of layered production and melodic hooks. Second Line treats Louisiana Creole culture, New Orleans bounce, and Southern Swag as elemental, allowing Dawn to weave in and out of house, footwork, R&B, and more. As she says, "I am the genre." The story of Second Line centers on Dawn's persona King Creole, assassin of stereotypes, a Black girl from the South at a crossroads in her artistic career. To move forward, she decides to look back, but where previous album New Breed took influence from her father, Second Line is illuminated by Dawn's mother. Her proud repeated proclamation of "I'm a Creole Girl" introduces the ecstatic dancehall pop of "Jacuzzi," and later, on the cinematic album centerpiece "Mornin | Streetlights," she answers Dawn's question of how many times she has been in love. Intimate conversations like this between the two are interlaced throughout Second Line, giving credence to how the protagonist came to be, and direction to build a lane forward. It's no surprise that King Creole's story parallels Dawn Richard's. As a founding member of Danity Kane, and later with Diddy's Dirty Money, Dawn was able to explore the ins and outs of commercial pop music. As a solo artist, she opted to selfrelease her music. Over the span of five critically acclaimed full-length albums, Dawn has made the message clear that she will not bow down or bend to industry norms. All the while, she's built her resume with enough extracurriculars to make your head spin: Cheerleader for the New Orleans Hornets? Check. Animator for Adult Swim? Check. Owner-operator of a vegan pop-up food truck? Check. Martial arts expert? Check! Second Line embodies the heritage of soul music and the roots of New Orleans, all surrounded by the influences of electronic futurism. "The definition of a Second Line in New Orleans is a celebration of someone's homecoming," says Dawn. "In death and in life, we celebrate the impact of a person's legacy through dance and music. I'm celebrating the death of old views in the industry. The death of boxes and limits. I'm celebrating the homecoming of the Future. The homecoming to the new wave of artists. The emergence of all the King Creoles to come." Dawn Richard is bold, confident, purposeful, and a King throughout Second Line. Are you ready to dance?

It is with great joy that we present the Mr Bongo edition of Marcos Valle's 1983 self-titled masterpiece. A pure vintage that features the ultimate Brazilian-boogie cult-classic ‘Estrelar’ and iconic 80s cover art that sees a gloriously sun-drenched Marcos dressed in a pink v-neck t-shirt surrounded by a generous selection of deadly-looking neon cocktails.

The album was produced by the legendary Lincoln Olivetti and Marcos' brother Paulo Sérgio Valle. It showcases a real who's who of Brazilian music at the time, with stellar performances from vocalists and musicians such as Rosana, Serginho Do Trombone, Robson Jorge and Oberdan Magalhães to name but a few. This was Marcos’ second album, after having moved back to Brazil from his time living in Los Angeles, and that US influence is evident through its prominent boogie, soul and funk sounds. It also features collaborations with the US singer-songwriter, composer, pianist, keyboardist, and record producer, Leon Ware, who co-penned three tracks including 'Estrelar'. To complete the album there are tracks such as 'Fogo Do Sol', which is pure AOR / Balaeric vibes, and tracks that are more MPB and pop-inspired, making a well-balanced track list for both home-listening pleasure and dancefloor business.

What could we do to give one of Marcos' most celebrated albums the treatment it deserved and produce the most definitive re-issue possible? The answer was to enlist the services of Miles Showell, Abbey Road Studios Mastering and lacquer-cutting engineer and all-around audio-magician, to cut a special half-speed master edition. Miles had previously worked his half-speed magic on our Arthur Verocai album re-issue, and once again we are totally blown away by the richness which Miles has brought out in his mastering technique. He has enhanced the listening experience and taken this wonderful album to another level.

To celebrate the release we have pressed up several vinyl versions; both standard master, and Miles' half-speed mastering editions on Black vinyl, alongside special limited edition Rose and Mint-Green coloured vinyl variants that were inspired by the audacious-looking cocktails on the cover - sheer 80s excess!

Ryley Walker currently resides in New York City. But his latest LP is a Chicago record in spirit. The masterful Course In Fable, the songwriter’s fi@h solo effort,
draws from the deep well of that city’s ferCle 1990s scene, when bands like Tortoise, The Sea and Cake and Gastr del Sol were reshaping the underground,
mixing and matching indie rock, jazz, prog and beyond.
Walker spent his formaCve years in Chicago, absorbing those heady sounds and finding ways to make them his own. Even though he emerged at first in folkrock
troubadour mode, it makes sense that he’s arrived at this point; each LP has grown more intricate and assured, his influences disClling into something
original and unusual. To put it simply: Course In Fable is Walker’s best record yet, full of acCve imaginaCon and endless possibiliCes.
Last October, Ryley went straight to one of the primary architects of the Chicago sound to make the LP. John McEn:re, Course In Fable’s producer/engineer/
mixer, can rightly be called a legend for his work with Tortoise, Stereolab, The Red Krayola, Jim O’Rourke and countless others over a prolific career that now
spans more than three decades. Seeing his name in an album’s liners is preVy much a trademark of quality.
Another Windy City exile, McEnCre is based on the west coast these days, working out of the Portland, OR studio he’s dubbed Soma West. On the seven songs
here, he delivers the signature shimmering and prisCne sonics he’s become known for over the years. But McEnCre was also inCmately involved with Course
In Fable’s overall creaCve process. “I told him to take the mixes and have at it,” Walker says.
The result is a rich, immersive affair — a headphones record if ever there was one. Course In Fable’s songs are twisty, labyrinthine things, stuffed full of ideas
(Walker half-jokingly calls it his “prog record”). But no maVer how complex it gets, the album is never overwhelmingly busy. Wiry guitars melt into gorgeous
string secCons (arranged by Douglas Jenkins of the Portland Cello Project). Tricky Cme signatures abound but feel as natural as can be. Melodies o@en dri@ in
unexpected direcCons but remain downright hummable. Like Walker’s beloved Genesis, the pop element is never too far from the surface even when shit
gets weird. (And speaking of weird, Ryley says that in addiCon to Genesis, much of the album’s inspiraCon comes from “Australian extreme scooter riders on
YouTube and balding gear heads on Craigslist.” Go figure.)
To help put together these various puzzle pieces, Ryley assembled a band made up of several longCme collaborators. Bill MacKay (another Chicago mainstay)
and Walker have made two excellent instrumental duo records of interlocking guitars and warm give-and-take — a rapport very much in evidence
throughout Course In Fable. The freakishly talented drummer Ryan Jewell has performed with Walker for years now in a variety of seangs, from
straighborward song-centric sets to blown-out improv extravaganzas. Bassist Andrew ScoJ Young (Tiger Hatchery, Health&Beauty) has logged many miles on
tour with Walker; he and Jewell are frequently astonishing, a buoyant-but-always-locked-in rhythm secCon, able to navigate someCmes dizzying turnarounds
with apparent ease. Listening to the interplay between Walker and these musicians and you might be fooled into thinking they’d spent a year roadtesCng
Course In Fable’s songs. But it all came together relaCvely fast, thanks to demos, rehearsals and the kind of musical empathy that comes from years of
playing together.
Beneath the wondrous interplay, you’ll find some of Walker’s most personal – if sCll typically crypCc — lyrics, hinCng at some of the trials the songwriter has
been dealing with in recent years. Balanced with necessary doses of dark humor and oddball poetry, Course In Fable feels most of all like a life-affirming
record, fresh air in the lungs, sun on your skin. “Fuck me, I’m alive,” Ryley sings at one point, a moment of both disbelief and pure joy.
Walker has released his albums on a who’s-who of independent labels over the past decade — Tompkins Square, Dead Oceans, Thrill Jockey and Drag City
among them. This Cme around, he’s doing it DIY-style, puang Course In Fable out on his own Husky Pants imprint. You’re in good hands. This is an album that
sounds great (mastered by Greg Calbi), looks great (artwork by Jenny Nelson and design by Michael Vallera). It probably even smells great. Whether you’ve
been onboard since the beginning or are new to the Ryley Walker universe, you’re in for a treat.

• When Lonnie Mack’s treatment of Chuck Berry’s ‘Memphis’ broke into the US Hot 100 on 8 June 1963 and peaked at #5 during its 13-week stay, he was initially pigeonholed as an instrumental artist. This perception was heightened by ‘Down In The Dumps’ on the flip, and furthered by his double-sided instrumental follow-up whose topside, ‘Wham!’, reached #28.

• Six months later the other side of Lonnie was revealed with his first vocal 45. The topside was a dynamic re-vamp of Jimmy Reed’s ‘Baby, What’s Wrong’, backed with a version of the gospel classic ‘Where There’s A Will’. Here you could hear him emoting in a way white singers never did – hollering, pleading and screaming in the very finest gospel tradition. The track was even picked up by some black radio stations in the south, but quietly dropped once it was realised that Lonnie was white.

• ‘Memphis’ was recorded at King Records Studio in Cincinnati on 12 March 1963. Carl Edmondson had been booked to produce a split session for Max Falcon, Kenny Smith and the Charmaines, but Edmondson’s band had recently broken up, so Lonnie and his crew were drafted in. With some time left at the end of the session, Lonnie was asked if he had anything he might like to record. ‘Memphis’ was the result. Edmondson thought the track had potential and suggested to Fraternity Records boss, Harry Carlson, that he should put it out. Within weeks it was climbing the charts, launching Lonnie’s long career.

• Post-Fraternity releases on Elektra, Capitol, Epic and Alligator cemented his reputation as the man who brought gospel, soul, blues, country and rock’n’roll together. He was one of the creators of blue-eyed soul, as well as the leading light for the legion of blues-based rock guitarists who plied their trade from the 60s onwards. It has to be said, though, that the bedrock of his legend rests on his Fraternity recordings, which highlighted both sides of Lonnie Mack – the vocalist and the guitarist.

This little beauty comes from Greymatter and Black Fan, two long-term friends and ex-studio partners.
Greymatter aka Graham Luckhurst continues to steadily release his unique blend of dance & electronics on labels including Toolroom, Future Disco, WOLF Music, Brownswood and more. His track “Tesla” treated by Black Fan (Local Talk, WOLF Music) in a Soundfactory way: powerful and reduced House music! Black Fan’s “Cuttlefish” on the flipside is this groovy, dreamy electronic music – was that once called “intelligent techno”? Anyway, just a pure bliss! More to come from Black Fan on Quintessentials soon! Ah yeah, this 7” is limited to 111 copies, so better be fast.

"We want to make people feel good about things that we feel terrible about." says David Brewis, who has co-led the band Field Music with his brother Peter since 2004. It's a statement which seems particularly fitting to their latest album, Flat White Moon released on 23 April via Memphis Industries. Sporadic sessions for the album began in late 2019 at the pair's studio in Sunderland, slotted between rehearsals and touring. The initial recordings pushed a looser performance aspect to the fore, inspired by some of their very first musical loves; Free, Fleetwood Mac, Led Zeppelin and The Beatles; old tapes and LPs pilfered from their parents' shelves. But a balance between performance and construction has always been an essential part of Field Music. By March 2020, recording had already begun for most of the album's tracks and, with touring for Making A New World winding down, Peter and David were ready to plough on and finish the record. The playfulness that's evident in much of Flat White Moon's music became a way to offset the darkness and the sadness of many of the lyrics. Much of the album is plainly about loss and grief, and also about the guilt and isolation which comes with that. Those personal upheavals are apparent on songs like Out of the Frame, where the loss of a loved one is felt more deeply because they can't be found in photographs and compounded by the suspicion that you caused their absence, or on When You Last Heard From a Linda, which details the confusion of being unable to penetrate a best friend's loneliness in the darkest of circumstances. Some songs are more impressionistic. Orion From The Streets combines Studio Ghibli, a documentary about Cary Grant and an excess of wine to become a hallucinogenic treatise on memory and guilt.. Others, such as Not When You're In Love, are more descriptive. Here, the narrator guides us through slide-projected scenes, questioning the ideas and semantics of 'love' as well the reliability of his own memory. The result is a generous record of bounteous musical ideas, in many ways Field Music's most immediately gratifying to date.

LTD EDITION TRANSPARENT VINYL

"We want to make people feel good about things that we feel terrible about." says David Brewis, who has co-led the band Field Music with his brother Peter since 2004. It's a statement which seems particularly fitting to their latest album, Flat White Moon released on 23 April via Memphis Industries. Sporadic sessions for the album began in late 2019 at the pair's studio in Sunderland, slotted between rehearsals and touring. The initial recordings pushed a looser performance aspect to the fore, inspired by some of their very first musical loves; Free, Fleetwood Mac, Led Zeppelin and The Beatles; old tapes and LPs pilfered from their parents' shelves. But a balance between performance and construction has always been an essential part of Field Music. By March 2020, recording had already begun for most of the album's tracks and, with touring for Making A New World winding down, Peter and David were ready to plough on and finish the record. The playfulness that's evident in much of Flat White Moon's music became a way to offset the darkness and the sadness of many of the lyrics. Much of the album is plainly about loss and grief, and also about the guilt and isolation which comes with that. Those personal upheavals are apparent on songs like Out of the Frame, where the loss of a loved one is felt more deeply because they can't be found in photographs and compounded by the suspicion that you caused their absence, or on When You Last Heard From a Linda, which details the confusion of being unable to penetrate a best friend's loneliness in the darkest of circumstances. Some songs are more impressionistic. Orion From The Streets combines Studio Ghibli, a documentary about Cary Grant and an excess of wine to become a hallucinogenic treatise on memory and guilt.. Others, such as Not When You're In Love, are more descriptive. Here, the narrator guides us through slide-projected scenes, questioning the ideas and semantics of 'love' as well the reliability of his own memory. The result is a generous record of bounteous musical ideas, in many ways Field Music's most immediately gratifying to date.

Songwriter and fingerstyle guitarist, Jason McNiff releases his 7th full length album, Dust Of Yesterday, on April 16th. Produced and engineered by Roger Askew (Joe Strummer, Wilko Johnson, Christy Moore) the album was recorded throughout the summer and autumn of 2020 in Roger's home studio in Eastbourne, UK. It features McNiff's signature acoustic guitar work throughout with significant contributions from Beth Porter (of Eliza Carthy's band) on cello and Basia Bartz (most London based folk bands) on violin. 
 
His first album since leaving London - McNiff is now based in Hastings - Dust of Yesterday is an elegy on moving away from a beloved place and a lament for lost youth. We are treated to a musical tour of McNiff's life to date, from his 8-year residency as a Flamenco guitarist in a Spanish bar in Waterloo (Damaged Woman) to hopping the northbound train from King's Cross, hiding in the lavatory up to Nottingham (A Load Along). All the songs on Dust of Yesterday, in one way or another, speak of the past. But it is not bleary-eyed nostalgia. 

"I read somewhere that it is possible to literally change the past and I became very interested in this idea. It so happened around the same time that I discovered the Greek/Egyptian poet, Cavafy. In his poems he would talk about the past, but the memory is not a thing of the past, but something that is still part of him in the present. I could relate to that. "

Musically, Jason is influenced by the British acoustic guitarists (Jansch, Graham, Wizz Jones) and the great folk/rock troubadours of the 60s and 70s. He loves Mark Knopfler in the early days; the English teacher turned reluctant rock star, singing about Leeds and Newcastle and sounding like JJ Cale. For McNiff, the lyrics are central, and he has been especially captivated by those considered poets and writers as well as musicians. He loves literature and cites Hemingway, Chekhov and the aforementioned Cavafy, as major influences in his work. ( He has 'translated' Hemingway's 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' into a song on a previous album, 'Nobody's Son')
 
 
Jason McNiff was born in Bradford, Yorkshire in 1974 to an Irish father and Polish mother. Academically gifted, he did well at school and went to the University of Nottingham to study French and Russian. He fell in with the Folk & Blues scene in that city before moving to London in the mid-nineties to do another degree in English Lit. He was just in time to catch the Bert Jansch residency at the 12 Bar club. For 6 months, every Wednesday night, McNiff would be in the front row of Soho's tiny club learning fingerstyle from the master. He would later sign his first record deal with Snowstorm Records, a label run by Bert's brother-in-law and found himself opening for Bert on numerous occasions. 
There followed a string of albums on various labels, including 2003's Nobody's Son (Americana UK album of the year) and 2011's April Cruel (nominated for best alt-country album at the Independent Music Awards in the US.)

Far Out Recordings is delighted to present Mora!, and for the first time ever on vinyl Mora! II. Mexican-American percussionist and former member of the Sun Ra Arkestra, Francisco Mora Catlett originally recorded and released his debut solo LP as a private press in 1987, but the sequel he recorded over the course of the next few years with an expanded Detroit jazz brass section was shelved for decades to follow. A pan-American melting pot of hypnotic afro-cuban rhythms, frenetic batucadas and fiery sambas, Mora I & II are holy grails of latin jazz, masterminded by an unsung hero of the genre.

Born in Washington DC, 1947, Francisco Mora Jr is the eldest child of two highly prominent Mexican artists, Francisco Mora Sr and Elizabeth Catlett, to whom this project was dedicated. Being born into a mixed heritage bohemian family provided Mora Jr with what he called a “creative, progressive, and healthy arts environment”, building the foundations for a fascinating career journey ahead. Mora grew up in Mexico City where he began working as a session musician for Capitol Records in 1968, before moving to study at Berklee Music College in Boston, MA in 1970. Once he’d completed his studies in 1973, he very briefly returned to Mexico City with the best intentions of cultivating an avant-garde movement in the city, but when the Sun Ra Arkestra came to perform, Mora ended up leaving with the band to tour the world for the next seven years, a decent innings within a group famous for its constantly evolving line up.

Settling in Detroit after his years with the Arkestra, Francisco set to work on his self-titled debut, gathering an ensemble of musicians that included keyboardist Kenny Cox, founder of the legendary Strata Records, esteemed bassist Rodney Whitaker of the Roy Hargrove Quintet and percussionists Jerome Le Duff, Alberto Nacif, and Emile Borde. The album openly embraces and unites the broad spectrum of improvisation, rhythm, and jazz that has thrived throughout the American continents for centuries. In Mora’s own words the album intended to “manifest the African heritage presence in the American continent.” Epitomising this outlook, album opener ‘Afra Jum’ deploys a melody based on Haitian, African and Native American motifs, which is expanded upon by the soulful excellence of the Detroit veterans Cox and Whitaker, amidst a backdrop of afro-cuban inspired percussion.

The sequel Mora II was recorded shortly after with an expanded line up that included trumpet legend Marcus Belgrave, famed for his work with Ray Charles, Charles Mingus, Hank Crawford, Eddie Russ and Wendell Harrison. Continuing the concept of the first album, the follow up moves deeper into South America with the samba jazz dance belter ‘Amazona’, led by the rich vocals of Francisco’s wife Teresa Mora. The ‘Afra Jum’ concept is further explored, with the original motifs beefed up by the additional horns, and interspersions of Sun Ra inspired rumbling free improvisations. This follow up album remained shelved until 2005, when Mora put it out as a now obscure CD titled River Drum, but only now has it been given the high quality vinyl treatment it so deserves, presented as the sequel to Mora! as originally intended.

Through the 90s and into the the 21st century Mora would continue his Pan-American explorations, moving toward a more electronic afro-futurist direction as part of Detroit techno pioneer Carl Craig’s Innerzone Orchestra. Mora also worked with Carl Craig, moog synth wizard Craig Taborn, and his former Arkestra colleague, the legendary Marshall Allen, to form the Innerzone Orchestra spin-off Outerzone, released in 2007 on Premier Cru Records. Mora I & II will be out as two vinyl LPs, CD and digitally 16th April 2021.

Melvin Ukachi needs little introduction, the Lagos (Nigeria) based vocalist and bandleader is a living legend. Melvin is known for his fantastic solo albums, his vocals for the afrobeat star-groups M.F.B. and Ozzobia_but his biggest legacy is without a doubt him being the singer and bandleader of Ofege. Melvin formed Ofege in the early 1970s (when he and the other band members were all still a bunch of teenagers). Due to their vibrant combo of sweet harmonies, hooks & fuzz, Ofege would become one of the most legendary Nigerian groups of all time, with expressive sales and national stardom to follow. At the turn of the century (and because of tracks appearing on various compilations) Ofege would receive international acknowledgment for being the first of their kind and THE ultimate West-African psychedelic funk band! Melvin Ukachi recorded four milestone albums with Ofege: 'Try and Love' (1973) 'The Last of The Origins' (1976), 'Higher Plane Breeze' (1977) and 'How Do You Feel' (1978). When the Ofege story came to an end, Melvin recorded two astonishing solo albums: 'Evolution-Bring Back The Ofege Beat' (1981) and 'I am Ok' (1985). Both of his solo recordings have now become much sought-after holy grails for collectors and fans alike. On the album, we are presenting you today (Evolution-Bring Back The Ofege Beat) the listener is treated to the trademark Ofege sound (as the title of the record obviously suggests). Next to the rootsy and raw Ofege sound, we're shown a perfect glimpse of the late '70s afrobeat works combining soul, jazzy rhythms, William Onyeabor style synths & fluid boogie-danceability Expect some serious 'all-star' guest musicians as well_featured on the album are Chyke Madu (The Funkees) on drums, Berkley Jones (Ofege) on guitar_and many other local legends. To top things off the tracks were recorded and mixed at the legendary Abbey Road Studios in London_all slickly engineered by Rafiu Ayoade (The Apostles) and produced by the president of sound himself Odion Iruoje (known for his work with Manu Dibango, Fela Kuti_and many others). 'Evolution-Bring Back The Ofege Beat' was released on EMI Nigeria in 1981 and is a total Afro-psych-funk classic that begs for a special place in your record collection. It's tight, funky and Melvin's soulful vocals are to die for. This record is a monster! Tidal Waves Music now proudly presents the first-ever reissue (supervised by Melvin Ukachi himself) of this amazing Nigerian Afrobeat album. This RARE classic (original copies tend to go for large amounts on the secondary market) is now finally back available as a limited 180g vinyl edition (500 copies) complete with the original artwork made at Grafikad (who were responsible for designing landmark sleeves for renowned artists such as Fela Kuti).

- Rare 1987 Detroit experimental Funk/Soul album - Solo album by Tony Newton (Motown, Funk Brothers) - First ever vinyl reissue - 180g Black Vinyl Edition - Limited to 500 copies // Antonio L. Newton AKA Tony Newton (born 1948) is a multi-instrumentalist from Detroit, MI who began his professional career at the age of thirteen, playing bass guitar with blues legends like John Lee Hooker and T-Bone Walker. Discovered by Motown executive Hank Cosby while playing the Detroit blues circuit at the age of 18, he became the touring bassist with Smokey Robinson and the Miracles on the famed 1965 European 'Motown Review' tour. Within two years, Newton became the Miracles' musical director. Tony Newton also toured and recorded with other Motown artists such as The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, The Jackson 5_and countless others. Earning the nickname "the Baby Funk Brother" he left his trademark of solid, hard-driving and deftly clever grooves on such timeless hits as "Where Did Our Love Go," "Baby Love," "Stop In The Name Of Love," "Nowhere to Run," "ABC," "Never Can Say Goodbye," "Don't Leave Me This Way," and many others. Next to his impressive body of work for Motown, Newton can be heard on several hit singles from labels like Invictus-Hotwax and Stax. Later, Newton gained recognition as a member of both the acclaimed jazz-rock fusion group: The New Tony Williams Lifetime (headed by Miles Davis' drummer Tony Williams) and the British hard rock group: G-Force (with veteran guitarist Gary Moore). Tony Newton also recorded several solo albums during his impressive career, including the two total classics: 'Mysticism & Romance' (1978) and 'Novaphonia' (1987). On the album, we are presenting you today (Novaphonia from 1987) the listener is treated to something UNIQUE (and this is not an overstatement). Newton really puts the 'multi' into multi-instrumentalist, playing the synthesizers, the electric bass and the drum machine. Experimental is the keyword here, sounds vary from psych/trance (almost like a soundtrack from a space movie), to funk, fusion, rock, R&B, soul and jazz. Novaphonia has both elements of Tony Newton's impressive musical past and his vision for the future. Spacious synths, unusual instruments and an all-around cosmic approach make this an 'out of this world' and VERY intriguing album. Resonant, sonically rich, sonorous, colorful, mind-expanding sounds are what one should expect from the 20th century Novaphonic sound developed to its greatest extent. These harmonies are innately pleasing to the human ear, mind and nervous system.

Antonio L. Newton AKA Tony Newton (born 1948) is a multi-instrumentalist from Detroit, MI who began his professional career at the age of thirteen, playing bass guitar with blues legends like John Lee Hooker and T-Bone Walker. Discovered by Motown executive Hank Cosby while playing the Detroit blues circuit at the age of 18, he became the touring bassist with Smokey Robinson and the Miracles on the famed 1965 European ‘Motown Review’ tour. Within two years, Newton became the Miracles’ musical director.

Tony Newton also toured and recorded with other Motown artists such as The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, The Jackson 5…and countless others. Earning the nickname “the Baby Funk Brother” he left his trademark of solid, hard-driving and deftly clever grooves on such timeless hits as “Where Did Our Love Go,” “Baby Love,” “Stop In The Name Of Love,” “Nowhere to Run,” “ABC,” “Never Can Say Goodbye,” “Don’t Leave Me This Way,” and many others. Next to his impressive body of work for Motown, Newton can be heard on several hit singles from labels like Invictus-Hotwax and Stax. Later, Newton gained recognition as a member of both the acclaimed jazz-rock fusion group: The New Tony Williams Lifetime (headed by Miles Davis’ drummer Tony Williams) and the British hard rock group: G-Force (with veteran guitarist Gary Moore).

Tony Newton also recorded several solo albums during his impressive career, including the two total classics: ‘Mysticism & Romance’ (1978) and ‘Novaphonia’ (1987).

On the album, we are presenting you today (Novaphonia from 1987) the listener is treated to something UNIQUE (and this is not an overstatement). Newton really puts the ‘multi’ into multi-instrumentalist, playing the synthesizers, the electric bass and the drum machine. Experimental is the keyword here, sounds vary from psych/trance (almost like a soundtrack from a space movie), to funk, fusion, rock, R&B, soul and jazz. Novaphonia has both elements of Tony Newton’s impressive musical past and his vision for the future.

Spacious synths, unusual instruments and an all-around cosmic approach make this an ‘out of this world’ and VERY intriguing album. Resonant, sonically rich, sonorous, colorful, mind-expanding sounds are what one should expect from the 20th century Novaphonic sound developed to its greatest extent. These harmonies are innately pleasing to the human ear, mind and nervous system.

Explore new musical frontiers intended to catapult the listener towards new dimensions…this is an album that just begs for a special place in your record collection!

Tidal Waves Music now proudly presents the first-ever vinyl reissue of ‘Novaphonia’ since its release in 1987. This rare & private-pressed album (original copies tend to go for large amounts on the secondary market) is now finally back available as a limited 180g vinyl edition (500 copies) complete with the original artwork.

Shapes of Rhythm welcomes Emanative to the label for his first vinyl project following contributions to its Isolation Compilation and an Awkward Corners EP both earlier in 2020. Known for his love of collaboration, Emanative connected remotely with Bex Burch during the global lockdown. Disrupt #4 is the result of a meeting of two percussive minds in the midst of a pandemic, and like all good things it started with a groove. Nick initially provided Bex with a hazy, electrified afrobeat sketch. What followed was a musical dialogue which quickly gained momentum. A punk-esque vocal mantra was added, reflecting the here and now of 2020 to drive the track forward. Bex's trademark Ghanaian Gyil xylophone is the conversation with the groove throughout the track. Hector Plimmer also joins the collaboration, seasoning the mix with synthesizers and fx.

Following his stunning Dislocation Songs LP, the label drafted in Awkward Corners AKA Paradise Bangkok's Chris Menist for a remix on the flip that heads towards the club (remember clubs?). Adding 808s, his own conga recordings, synth lines, a sprinkle of acid and a warped vocal treatment, this is classic Awkward Corners: pumped with feeling and rhythm. If Andrew Weatherall was still with us today he'd be digging this take on the a-side.

· First release of the Jagjaguwar 25th anniversary celebration happening in 2021. · Features production and composition accompaniment from Bon Iver, Mary Lattimore, Angel Bat Dawid, Gia Margaret, and Sam Gendel. · Limited edition Opaque Green vinyl. Over the last 12 years, Ross Gay's poems have given us indelible images and phrases of radical empathy and unabated gratitude; about community, collaboration, connectedness and hard work. They have crept into our hearts and made a home of all of us. And so we are launching our 25th Anniversary celebration with `Dilate Your Heart', our first spoken word album since titan Robert Creeley's self-titled release twenty years ago. "Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude" is given a gorgeous, slowly creeping bed of vines by Bon Iver, as Gay's unadorned voices speaks a lifetimes of Thank You's. On "Burial," harpist and composer Mary Lattimore's lunar landscape follows Gay's voice into space, telling of our endless energy exchange with nature. Chicago's Angel Bat Dawid dances with the frenetic, joyous scene Gay leads us through on "To the Fig Tree on 9th and Christian," in which a group of Philadelphia strangers scramble together to harvest the fruit of the titular urban fig tree. Songwriter Gia Margaret provides a mystical, amniotic environment for Gay's "Poem To My Child If Ever You Shall Be," a love letter to an imagined future child, treating Gay's voice like a message in a bottle to a far off idea made only of love and potential. Sam Gendel, a secret weapon collaborator, affects Gay's voice on "Sorrow Is Not My Name" to something glassy and almost singsongy. Throughout, Gay recites his poems with bright aliveness, his voice as warm and easy when he speaks about death as when he speaks about mercy, or love.

Bill MacKay and Nathan Bowles’ debut is well titled: keys are what they play
and keys unlock things too. Their trad bonafides are balanced with
inquisitive playing that adds surprise as a formal songwriting and arranging
tool. Spirited 21st Century folk music made of equal parts bluegrass,
classical, country, gospel and improv.
‘Keys’ is, on first blush, a collection of guitar and banjo duets - but from the
opening moment, it is clear that Bill and Nathan’s agreed-upon duo is a
living organism, growing as it goes. Behind the stately figures of ‘Idumea’, a
19th Century southern hymnal played out on their stringed instruments, a
low organ drone hums persistently, signalling that this music, while coming
from traditional places, is asking more of itself, seeking sparks of inspiration
to light the path forward.
Bill and Nathan met a few years back, if time has any meaning. It didn’t
seem to at the time - after the first night they hung out, it seemed as if
they’d known each other for a while already. A year later, in 2018, they
were booked as a duo at Cropped Out. Preparing for the show involved a
correspondence exchanging lots of provisional ideas, thoughts and music
back and forth from Chicago to Durham NC, then dashing through the ideas
again on the festival grounds an hour before the show. From this seemingly
hectic preparation, their playing that night was remarkably serene, a
spiritual treatise clothed in the casual and natural manner of the proverbial
porch, or in this case, riverside-jam, as the stage literally straddled the edge
of the Ohio River. It was a stellar, simpatico first moment that asked for
more moments like it.
After several more sets the following year, they felt ready to roll tape (as the
saying goes) and chose to do so in Chicago, with Nick Broste at The Shape
Shoppe. Again, an easy rapport prevailed, allowing them to work through
their collected ideas quickly and freely, with the moments of spontaneous
decision that can come only with comfort and trust in each other’s presence.
Throughout ‘Keys’, Bill and Nathan propel their power-folk engine with intent
and feeling, joy and solemnity, as images of wariness, wonder, anger,
deliberation, forgiveness, trust and devotion rise up from the music and roll
it forward into the unknown, a place we can sense both players are happy
to go.
Eight of the ten songs featured are originals, with the other two coming
from different centuries to this one. The diversity of song is matched by the
instrumentation: in addition to Bill’s guitar and Nathan’s banjo, they add
voice, piano, percussion, pump organ, requinto and electric organ to the
richness and rusticity, the traditionalism and open space of the
compositions.

“Maestro melodist Christophe Petchanatz (aka Klimperei) and all around music fanatic David Fenech engage remotely in a repetitive exchange of recordings and overdubs on their debut album titled ‘Rainbow de Nuit’, sporadically spanning over the last decade. Evocations of experimental and improvised jazz, chansonesque songs, bluesy folk, and outsider music undulate harmoniously across the record. From music boxes and walkie-talkies down to plastic straws, plucking various stringed instruments such as the charrango and banjo, kazoos and snake-charmer ocarina and flutes, all the way through the sweet accordion and melodica, found and traditional tuned percussion - there is far from a shortage of sound sources on this freakishly inviting record. What germinates as an imaginative and emotional chord progression played by Klimperei, evolves with Fenech layering additional recordings, which would then find their way back home to Klimperei yet again, and so on, and so forth. This recursive compositional and improvisational loop, combined with Fenech’s musique-concrete-like mixing and editing techniques, transforms the acoustic recordings by way of compression, saturation, and reverberation or simple pitch changes - resulting in the duo’s recordings seemingly sound like they may very well be an octet in real time. While the majority of the recordings have been ping-ponged remotely, David and Christophe unite under one roof to record the closing track of the album.

The pieces presented on ‘Rainbow de Nuit’ treat the ears to a carousel ride waltzing through a multiverse made up of surrealist puppet theaters, dramatic film noir act changes, and a mosaic of polyphonic instruments and toys alike. In other words, a score to a fable brought to life with haunting yet charming melodies and occasional hallucinatory voices reminiscent of laughter and infantile epiphanies which we hear on Tarzan en Tasmanie and Madrigal for Lola. This is taken a step further by Fenech, to a brief libretto of incomprehensible tongues on Pocarina. Amid the mysterious and dark (Septième Ciel and Rugit Le Coeur) also lies tender and simple compositions (Rainbow de Nuit and Chevalier Gambette), murky suspenseful melancholy (Levy Attend and Eno Ennio), and casually slipping into pensive psychedelic backdrops (Un Cercueil à Deux Places) - forming a colorful blend of sounds. A world of echoes. A tale of tales. One persistent earworm that you’ll likely be whistling and humming along to on a first listen.”

The highlights from NINA's classic albumSynthian, reimagined by some of the hottest names in Synthwave like Robert Parker, Das Mörtal, Highway Superstar, Sung and Maethelvin as well as Aztec's very own Zenith Volt and Ends 84.

The opening track deserves special attention since it gets a very rocky treatment from Ricky Wilde and features the legendary Kim Wilde on additional vocals.

a A1. The Wire (feat. Kim Wilde & LAU) [Ricky Wilde Remix]
[b] A2. Unnoticed [Robert Parker Remix]
[c] A3. Synthian (feat. LAU) [Das Mörtal Remix]
[d] A4. Synthian (feat. LAU) [Ends 84 Remix]
[e] B1. Synthian (feat. LAU) [Maethelvin Remix]
[f] B2. Synthian (feat. LAU) [Sung Remix]
[g] B3. Synthian (feat. LAU) [Sung Remix]
[h] B4. Synthian (feat. LAU) [Zenith Volt Remix]