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Limited version 2LP on red vinyl in gatefold sleeve. An outstanding new collection of musical gems from Belgium's thriving jazz scene, compiled by Belgian DJ and eclectic connoisseur, Lefto.

The groove-obsessed Sdban Ultra label are pleased to present an outstanding new collection of musical gems from Belgium's thriving jazz scene, compiled by Belgian DJ and eclectic connoisseur, Lefto.



'Lefto presents Jazz Cats volume 2', released 24th June, features a balance of known and obscure artists. From the thrilling frenetic grooves and innovative soundscapes of Bandler Ching and the electronic influenced Stellar Legions (Andrew Claes from (STUFF.), to the jazz fusion collective L?p?GangGang and weaving musical odyssey that is M.CHUZI, 'Lefto presents Jazz Cats volume 2' is a melting pot of the best musical talent coming out one of the smallest countries in Europe. In addition, there's the beautiful unease of One Frame Movement, the laidback 'acoustic electronica' of Boombox Experiments, the classic funky jazz stylings of Cargo Mas and the cinematic The Brums, making 'Lefto presents Jazz Cats volume 2' an essential release for any jazzhead with a passion for new sounds.



"By collecting all the music for 'Jazz Cats volume 2', I come to the conclusion that we are living in an era of very talented individuals and collectives. Even more so than 4 years ago. I have the impression that the Belgian jazz sound is more diverse, with more influences and more creativity. There was a time that jazz would be the starting sample to create a beat for rappers, today it is electronica, rap or afrobeat that influences our youth to create a sound or style that suits their vision of what jazz sounds like in 2022. So, once again it is with extreme pleasure that I present to you some of the best present and next generation of jazz cats this little country has to offer."



2018's 'Lefto presents Jazz Cats' included tracks from some of Belgium's biggest hitters including Black Flower, STUFF., and Glass Museum who have all gone on to receive global acclaim. The album was given the accolade of 'Album of the Week' on Worldwide FM and also received further radio support from Jazz FM in addition to numerous glowing reviews.



Tastemaker, selector, curator, DJ and producer, Lefto is one of the most important and respected tastemakers around the world with a record collection of over 15,000 records. Cutting his teeth on jazz and new beat, a genre that moulded the shape of electronic music in 80s Belgium, Lefto formed his early tastemaker know-how via his dad's record collection.



Creating his fine ear for music and the cutting edge at Belgium's legendary Music Mania record store in his hometown Brussels, he has been a resident on Belgium's leading radio station Studio Brussel and currently hosts a show on Kiosk Radio (BE) and The Lot Radio (US). He also curates his own stage at the Dour Festival and hosts his own nights in Gent. World renowned, he regularly blesses sound systems from Tokyo to Seoul, Singapore to Manila, Kazakhstan to Germany, San Francisco and Los Angeles, with residencies in Amsterdam and New York.

On Origin , celebrated pianist, bandleader, and three-time Grammy
nominee Joey Alexander has written the next chapter of his career:
composer
His longstanding trio featuring Larry Grenadier and Kendrick Scott is the
backbone of his creative freedom, with Chris Potter (a previous collaborator) and
Gilad Hekselman joining the fray to bring to life the spectacular vision of
Alexander's first full length release of all original music and debut with Mack
Avenue Records.Over the course of his astonishing career, Steinway Artist
Alexander has performed with Wayne Shorter and Esperanza Spalding at the
Obama White House, for President Bill Clinton at the Arthur Ashe Learning Center
Gala, at the Grand Ole Opry, the Apollo Theater, Carnegie Hall and at major jazz
festivals and night clubs around the world. He has also been the subject of
profiles on 60 Minutes and The New York Times.
Joey Alexander, now 18, is stepping out as a composer and bandleader as well as
a virtuoso pianist. "These past years have been especially trying for everyone,
including those of us who didn't know when we would ever perform for live
audiences again," Alexander said. "Origin represents a turning point for me — the
time when I decided to turn frustration into an opportunity to truly express myself
and to rise above the circumstances."

Since slipping out a decade ago, Fürsattl’s sole 12” on Claremont 56 has become an in-demand item, thanks to a mixture of its’ undeniable quality and the patronage of several high-profile, well-regarded DJs. Because of this, the label has responded to demand for a reissue of those two tracks and announced the release of a double-album of the krautrock-inspired trio’s works for the label.

Presented in a gatefold sleeve sporting Mark Warrington’s original 2012 artwork and limited to 400 copies, the 2022 album edition of Rheinlust not only tells the tale of the band’s now decade-long association with Claremont 56, but also features a previously unreleased track from the archives, ‘Für Paul’. Tucked away at the end of the LP, the track is amongst the most atmospheric in their catalogue – a slowly building number in which celestial synthesizer chords, ambient textures, echo-laden electric piano chords and lilting synth strings rise above a rubbery bassline and Jaki Liebezeit style drums.

It provides a superb conclusion to a genuinely evocative album of music you can get lost in, but it’s by no means the only highlight. Fittingly, the album’s first slab of wax boasts both tracks from Fürsattl’s hard-to-find debut 12”: title track ‘Rheinlust’, a driving but deep and hypnotic krautrock masterpiece full of elongated chords, restless bass, twinkling motifs and cascading electronic melodies, and the wonderfully epic ‘Links Der Pegnitz’. Clocking in at just under 15 minutes, this sublime excursion features band members trading glistening guitar and colourful synthesizer solos over a funky but laidback groove that sits somewhere between krautrock and cosmic funk.

The album’s second slab of wax showcases Fürsattl’s lesser-known tracks for Claremont 56, alongside the previously mentioned unreleased cut. These two workouts were originally featured on the label’s Claremont Editions compilations and further expand on their now trademark krautrock sound. There’s ‘Leerlauf’, a breathlessly up-tempo, weighty and immersive chunk of low-slung dancefloor creepiness that you’ll want to get lost in time and again, and the twangy and buzzing ‘Haru’, a birdsong-splattered affair that sounds like their tribute to krautrock originals Neu! and Harmonium. Like the rest of the album, these are seriously seductive outings that slowly build towards impactful, emotive conclusions.

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.

Repress !

Expectations is an extended player from minimalist disco outfit Harvey Sutherland and Bermuda. The second release for Sutherland's own Clarity Recordings brings his Bermuda project into sharp focus - six tracks spanning Harvey's influences from the West Coast to West End Records.
Recorded with bandmates Graeme Pogson (drums) and Tamil Rogeon (electric strings), Expectations follows last year's stomping label debut single Priestess/Bravado.
The EP includes a long-awaited studio version of live favourite Clarity, uptempo burner Coast 2 Coast and a moment of spiritual introspection with Spiders. The title track offers glimmers of the Doobies and the 'Dan a sign of things to come from the Melbourne producer and his unique trio.
Expectations 12 and digital will be released worldwide 24 March 2017, via Clarity Recordings. Distributed by Monocarpic (AUS/NZ) and Above Board Distribution (ROW).

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

The only album by Austrian trio Cultural Noise is a an electronic marvel. Band members were Gerhard Lisy, Walter Heinisch and Karl Kronfeld, and instruments used included an ARP Sequencer, an ARP 2600, a VCS 3, an EMS Digital Sequencer, a Mellotron M400, a Micro Moog, a Roland Studiosystem 700, a Roland Analogue Sequenzer and an electric guitar. With these weapons and a strong influence from the Berlin school Cultural Noise created a rich electronic tapestry which expanded through the two pieces of this record, one per side, being compared by reviewers to works by Zanov or Anna Själv Tredge. Mentions of Tangerine Dream are also present on reviews, although Cultural Noise have a pretty unique personality on their own and besides sharing the use of Mellotron, sequencers and analog synths we have a totally personal concept here which sets them aside from all TD impersonators of the era.



The album was originally released in 1980 on CBS and later repressed in 1981 which came in a B&W version of the sleeve that some sources list as a self release private pressing done by the band themselves - this has been denied by members of Cultural Noise.



500 copies only reissue, housed in its original full colour version artwork.

Wir sind happy euch hier das lang ersehnte Debüt Mini-Album der Norditalienischen Band DEAD CHASM anzukündigen. An der Spitze der Band steht die zierliche Frontfrau Lorenza, die neben den höllischen Vokillz auch den Gitarrenpart übernimmt. Gigi am Bass und Dave am Schlagzeug komplettieren das Trio.
2021 enterten DEAD CHASM die ADSR DECIBEL Studios, um das selbstbetitelte 4-Song Mini-Album einzuspielen. Euch erwartet extrem morbider Death Metal mit Doom Einschlag.
Ihr mögt Cruciamentum, Krypts, Grave Miasma oder Asphyx...dann sind DEAD CHASM ein absolutes MUSS !
Limitiertes, schwarzes Vinyl!

‘Mehldau can truly translate his thoughts and feelings into complex and lasting music. He is one of those people whose brain and fingers and musical ability is all one beautiful entity.’ – Jamie Cullum

Nonesuch Records releases Brad Mehldau’s Jacob’s Ladder on 2 x 140g black vinyl on June 17th . The album features new music that reflects on scripture and the search for God through music inspired by the prog rock Mehldau loved as a young adolescent, which was his gateway to the fusion that eventually led to his discovery of jazz. Featured musicians on the album include Mehldau’s label mates Chris Thile and Cécile McLorin Salvant, as well as Mark Guiliana, Becca Stevens, Joel Frahm, and others. The album’s first single, ‘maybe as his skies are wide’, builds off an interpolation of one portion of Rush’s classic ‘Tom Sawyer’.

Mehldau explains, “We are born close to God, and as we mature, we invariably move further and further away from Him on account of our ego. Jacob’s Ladder begins at that place closer to God with the voice of child, and then moves into the world of action. God is always there, but in our discovery and conquest, and all the joys and sorrows they bring, we may lose sight of him. He sets a ladder before us though, like in Jacob’s dream, and we climb towards him, to find reconciliation with ourselves, to stitch up all those worldly wounds and finally heal. The record ends with my vision of heaven – once again as a child, His child, in eternal grace, in ecstasy.

“The musical conduit on the record is prog,” Mehldau continues. “Prog – progressive rock – was the music of my childhood, before I discovered jazz. It matched the fantasy and science fiction books I read from C.S. Lewis, Madeleine L’Engle and others at that time, aged ten through twelve. It was my gateway to the fusion of Miles Davis, Weather Report, Mahavishnu Orchestra and other groups, which in turn was the gateway to more jazz. Jazz shared with prog a broader expressive scope and larger-scale ambitions than the rock music I had known already.

“The prog from Rush, Gentle Giant, and Emerson, Lake and Palmer here only hints at the genre’s conceptual, compositional and emotional range. These bands and others have continued to influence newer groups that bring prog impulses into the arena of hard rock and screaming math metal, like Periphery, whose music is included here, and also inspired the screaming vocals on ‘Herr und Knecht.’ I tried to avoid a direct tribute approach to all the songs, and opted in some cases for excerpts, or reworking of themes.”

Although Brad Mehldau is best known as a jazz composer and improviser, he has made several albums that fall outside of the mainstream jazz genre, including his 2001 Largo, produced by Jon Brion. Wide-ranging in texture and big in scale, it features woodwind or brass ensembles are on several tracks, as well as a heavy emphasis on powerful drums. In 2010, Nonesuch released his second collaboration with Brion, Highway Rider, which includes performances by Mehldau’s trio – drummer Jeff Ballard and bassist Larry Grenadier – as well as drummer Matt Chamberlain, saxophonist Joshua Redman, and a chamber orchestra led by Dan Coleman. Mehldau also orchestrated and arranged the album’s fifteen pieces for the ensemble.

Mehldau’s 2014 collaboration with Mark Guiliana, Mehliana: Taming the Dragon featured Mehldau on Fender Rhodes and synthesizers and Guiliana on drums and effects, playing twelve original tunes – six by the duo and six by Mehldau. His 2019 album Finding Gabriel featured performances by him on piano, synthesizers, percussion, and Fender Rhodes, as well as vocals. Guest musicians included Ambrose Akinmusire, Sara Caswell, Kurt Elling, Joel Frahm, Mark Guiliana, Gabriel Kahane, and Becca Stevens, among others.

The music world is most fortunate that the past two decades have witnessed the rediscovery of mind-opening music that went under-recognized when originally released, and the wellspring of musical content produced by a generation of brilliant musicians. One such musician was the late great drummer Steve Reid, whose reissued eclectic recordings on his own Mustevic Sound label gave his career a second wind.

Though teased on a well-received compilation, one Mustevic release never saw reissue: New Life Trio’s Visions Of The Third Eye, a tremendous collaborative effort between Reid, guitarist Brandon Ross and bassist David Wertman.

Due to overwhelming demand, Early Future Records and Finders Keepers Records are proud to announce a second limited edition pressing of the classic and final Mustevic recording. The release also includes a 20-page written zine featuring an in-depth testimonial and interview with Brandon Ross, and an explorative essay by Finders Keepers’ Andy Votel, as well as a wealth of archival photos, scores and reviews.

Reid’s long and varied career began in his native New York City, where he was involved early on as a member of the Apollo Theater House Band and the R&B scene of the 1960s, including recordings with Martha Reeves and James Brown. In the late 1960s, Reid spent three years in West Africa absorbing musical traditions and experimenting with artists such as Fela Kuti, Guy Warren and Randy Weston. After a stint in prison for dodging the draft as a conscientious objector, the drummer came out swinging in the 1970s. He worked regularly as a session and Broadway musician even while immersing himself into the jazz world, from the straight-ahead styles of Freddie Hubbard and Horace Silver to the otherworldly sounds of Sun Ra and Charles Tyler.

The do-it-yourself ethos of the New York Loft Scene inspired Reid to create his own label, Mustevic Sound, on which he began releasing his own recordings and those of a couple of friends. One of these trusted friends was David Wertman, a young bassist from New York who released his own Kara Suite on Mustevic in 1976.

New Life Trio’s story began when Wertman moved from New York to the more sedate but creatively vibrant town of Northampton, Massachusetts. Here Wertman met Brandon Ross, a young guitarist from New Jersey who had relocated there with his brother to join a coterie of New York expats who had found a comfortable, collaborative environment amidst the liberal college towns in the area, including avant-garde legends Archie Shepp and Marion Brown. Wertman and Ross became friends and began to perform together regularly, both formally and informally.

A string trio of Wertman, Ross and violinist Terry Jenoure was set to record, but Jenoure dropped out just prior to the date. This led Wertman to call his friend Steve Reid to come join the two at the Tin Pan Hollow Studios in Vermont to record what would become Visions Of The Third Eye on December 6, 1978. Originally conceived as an all-acoustic date, the recording would morph slightly when Ross added electric guitar muscle on a number of pieces. Reid would then take the helm and release the recording in 1980, giving a very auspicious birth to what has now become a classic spiritual jazz recording.

Fast forward to 1995…..New Life Trio gets a belated second wind from Stuart Baker’s inclusion of the Ross-voiced “Empty Streets” on his Universal Sounds of America compilation. The brief, haunting lead track just hinted at what the full Visions Of The Third Eye album had to offer. Audience awareness resulted in the pursuit of out-of-print original LPs, thus the rarity of Visions Of The Third Eye led to it becoming a kind of “holy grail” record for collectors of jazz and creative music. The album’s cover image was even incorporated into the cover of Freedom, Rhythm & Sound (SJB, 2009), a wonderful coffee table book presenting album covers from those revolutionary decades in Black creative music. The recording’s legend was cemented.

New Life Trio’s legend continues to grow partly due to the brevity of its existence. The triumvirate of Reid, Ross and Wertman would never work together again. Each member would continue along his own path, finding success in numerous projects. Reid’s career was reinvigorated with the reissue of the bulk of his Mustevic Sound recordings in the early 2000s, which led him to a rewarding partnership with Four Tet’s Kieran Hebden until Reid’s untimely passing in 2010. Wertman balanced life between Florida and Massachusetts as a regular in the local jazz scene, recording numerous projects with his wife, Lynne Meryl, before passing away in 2013. The fantastically creative Ross has remained active in the New York creative music scene with a number of projects, most notably with Henry Threadgill, Cassandra Wilson and Harriet Tubman, a wildly eclectic co-led band with underpinnings of rock, dub and free jazz.

HEAVY TEMPLE donnern mit ihrem Debütalbum wie ein röhrendes Mastodon über die Prärie. "Lupi Amoris" hat das Zeug zum Meilenstein: So progressiv, aber unbefangener als BARONESS, und so heavy, aber draufgängerischer als FU MANCHU, setzt das Trio aus Philadelphia alle Hebel der metallischen Riff-Maschine in Bewegung. "Lupi Amoris" ist ein One-Way-Trip durch die amerikanische Weite und tiefe Wälder. HEAVY TEMPLE wurden zur Wintersonnenwende 2012 aus purem Spaß an der Heavy-Musik ins Leben gerufen, was sich in den Pseudonymen der Gründungsmitglieder widerspiegelt: High Priestess Nighthawk, Rattlesnake und Bearadactyl. Zunächst spielte die Band nur lokale Shows in Philadelphia, was dem Trio schnell einen exzellenten Ruf einbrachte und zu Einladungen auf Touren mit RUBY THE HATCHET, MOTHERSHIP, ROYAL THUNDER und CORROSION OF CONFORMITY führte. Auch namhafte Festivals klopften an die Tür, wie neben vielen anderen das Maryland Doom Fest, Psycho Las Vegas und Decibel Metal & Beer. Es spricht Bände über das Riesentalent von HEAVY TEMPLE und ihre packenden Live-Shows, dass die Angebote weiter eintrudelten, ohne dass bisher ein Album vorlag. Obwohl HEAVY TEMPLE alle Merkmale des traditionell männlich orientierten Heavy Metal anhaften (bis zu dem Punkt, dass ihr Sound einen stolzen Vollbart tragen könnte), bringt die kraftvolle Präsenz von Frontfrau und einzig verbliebenem Gründungsmitglied High Priestess Nighthawk weibliche Stärke ein. Ihre lyrischen Konzepte erreichen literarisches Niveau. "Lupi Amoris" bedeutet "Wölfe der Liebe" in Latein und handelt davon, dass sich die Band aus Philadelphia mit Rotkäppchen verbündet, das sich von den traditionellen Fesseln und der Erwartungshaltung an Frauen befreit hat. HEAVY TEMPLE demonstrieren mit "Lupi Amoris" eindrucksvoll, dass es durchaus möglich ist, titanischen Stoner-Doom mit den Realitäten des Lebens zu verbinden, statt im Eskapismus zu verharren. Bei dieser Lautstärke kann die Welt gar nicht anders als zuzuhören.

Fuchs is a band that never was. It vanished as quickly as it appeared in the picture, much like the animal that can be seen on this album and after whom it was named. In 2005, Kante singer and guitarist Peter Thiessen travelled to Weilheim to visit Markus and Micha Acher in their studio, where they were joined, among others, by Notwist-affiliated musicians like Cico Beck, Robert Klinger, Carl Oesterhelt and Stefan Schreiber. Spirits were high, but schedules were full: after a week of improvised sessions, everyone went their own way. The recordings gathered dust until Markus Acher found them again in 2021 while cleaning out his studio. After carefully re-evaluating the rough mixes, the musicians decided to finally release them. The resulting album comprises six tracks that musically draw on jazz, aesthetically lean on dub techniques and ideologically pick up on krautrock: there’s no solos to be heard on this record, just a few equally skilled and open-minded musicians listening to each other carefully, providing each other with space in which to unfold. »Fuchs« is a document of egos dissolving in a collective spirit.

Thiessen and the Acher brothers met in the 1990s and bonded not only over their shared background in hardcore music and the DIY ethos in which it was rooted, but also over their love for jazz. »If you look at those two things combined, you will eventually become convinced that you don’t have to be formally trained to make music that at least resembles jazz«, says Thiessen today. He invited Micha Acher to join his band Kante on flügelhorn in 2004 for a tour that saw the expanded group play unusual encores after the official concert was over. »Micha had taught us some dixie pieces, so night after night we would play a freestyle dixieland ska set in front of the remaining audience!« Naturally, the Acher brothers didn’t have to ask twice when they invited him for a visit in Weilheim to further explore their mutual interests in a studio setting. »I got on my way immediately and took two or three loose ideas, a tape echo and a guitar on whose headplate you could create fantastic sounds with me«, says Thiessen.

Between immersing themselves in books by the photographer Leonore Mau, cooking together and drinking the occasional fruit schnapps, the trio went into the studio. Says Thiessen, »Micha brought his flügelhorn and some wonderful ideas with him, Markus an Indian harmonium and a plan, Carl Oesterhelt came with a glockenspiel and a Chinese zither and a bunch of amazing jazz musicians joined in, too.« He considers the resulting recording sessions to be a kind of attempt at musically translating their conversations during those days. They discussed different approaches to jazz, whether sampling and musical miscitations can unlock ecstatic potentials and the possible parallels between syncretistic religions and pop music. »There’s traces of glossolalia, it's like a blurry séance«, adds Thiessen in regard to the sessions.

It is especially this spirit that managed to live on even though the recordings themselves were abandoned. »What we all liked most when listening back to the recordings is probably their marginal and fragmentary character, the empty spaces—the moments in which the virtuoso solo never comes, in which the centre remains empty.« The six pieces on »Fuchs« are chock-full of exactly these moments. When at one instant, the players seem to disperse and improvise freely, they always meet again on common ground a short time later, continuing on their way together. There are no conventions or even previous agreements that guide them, just a shared will to explore a vast range of curious sounds and unusual rhythms together as a truly unified constellation of very different musicians. Fuchs is a band that never was. Its ideas still reverberate vividly even 17 years later.

Now available at a much cheaper price. SOS JFK, the one and only album from folk two-piece The Children’s Hour, which featured Josephine Foster and Andy Bar. Initially released in 2003, the album introduced audiences to Foster’s enchanting vocals and poetic folk, which would be developed to staggering effect in her later solo recordings, such as the recently released critically acclaimed album Blood Rushing (Fire Records). The Children’s Hour were an acoustic duo comprised of members Andy Bar and Josephine Foster. The two friends first connected in 2000 in a short-lived rock trio called Golden Egg, and then on a lark formed the pop song-writing duo oriented toward more naïve themes. Foster was a recent opera school dropout and the band became a vehicle for her to explore singing in a non-operatic manner into a microphone and learn to play the guitar. Bar was finishing studies at the Art Institute of Chicago and was honing a personal and highly melodic fingerpicking style inspired by bossa nova in particular. They were heard performing in a Chicago dive bar and given a surprise invitation to make a studio recording (SOS JFK), which both found to be an extremely nerve-wrecking learning experience. Meanwhile fans of their music rose up from unexpected corners, even invited by the band Zwan to open all the shows of both bands´ maiden tour. Initially conceived of as a modest front porch collaboration and side project, the band did not withstand all the attention long. Bar and Foster took meandering paths in diverse directions, although the two remain stalwart pals and both continue to dedicate themselves to the muses.

Go Sailor were a great, short-lived band from the mid-90s who represent
a key link in the US indie music chain
Featuring Rose Melberg (Tiger Trap, The Softies, Gaze, Brave Irene, Knife Pleats),
Linton (Henry's Dress, The Aislers Set) and Paul Curran (Take A Day fanzine,
Crimpshrine, Monsula), they released three great singles and a few compilation
tracks, and then went their separate ways. But what records they are! Basic and
lovely in their song- writing, they're perfect snapshots of where indie- pop was
during that last burst of pre- internet indie activity. Touching on time- honored
themes of friendship and love (lost and found), they resonate with honesty and
purity of intention. The trio reunited in the early 2010s to play to enraptured
crowds at the NYC and Athens Popfests, and their appearance at the Slumberland
20th Anniversary show was the stuff of legend. This album compiles all three of
their 7" singles (for Slumberland, Yoyo and Lookout!) and compilation tracks and
was first released on vinyl in 2011. Due to pressing plant issues it quickly went
out of print, so we are very happy to bring you this new edition, back on vinyl
where it belongs with a new insert featuring liner notes and lots of cool band
pictures and ephemera. Pressed on Watery Blue Color Vinyl.

Man muss sich nur kurz mit dem Indie-Rock-Trio unterhalten, um die innige Wärme ihrer starken Verbundenheit zu spüren, die drei jungen Musikerinnen sind beste Freunde. Diese persönliche Nähe schimmert auch auf ihrem Debütalbum "Versions of Modern Performance" durch. Penelope Lowenstein (Gitarre, Gesang), Nora Cheng (Gitarre, Gesang) und Gigi Reece (Schlagzeug) machen alles gemeinsam, vom Songwriting über den wechselnden Gesang und den Tausch von Instrumenten bis hin zum Sound- und Visual Art-Design. "Versions of Modern Performance" wurde mit John Agnello (Kurt Vile, The Breeders, Dinosaur Jr.) im Electrical Audio-Studio aufgenommen. "Es ist unser erstes Album. Wir hatten bei Agnello sofort das Gefühl, dass er wirklich respektiert, was wir zu tun versuchten", sagt die Band. Horsegirl spielen auf dem Album gekonnt mit Texturen, Formen und Schattierungen und zeigen ihre Vorliebe für Improvisationen und Experimente. Der Opener "Anti-glory" ist schillernder Post-Punk-Song. "Dirtbag Transformation (Still Dirty)" und "World of Pots and Pans" haben einen rauen Pop-Charme. "The Fall of Horsegirl" besticht wiederum durch seine scharfen Konturen und einem kantigen Sound. Man kann in ihrer Musik Elemente der Independent-Musik der 80er und 90er Jahre hören, die Sounds die Horsegirl so sehr lieben - die schraddelige Melodik dessen, was man früher "College-Rock" nannte, den kühlen und sprudelnden Space-Age-Glanz der 90er-Jahre, das laute Dröhnen von Shoegaze, die sparsamen Hooks und Rhythmen von Post-Punk. Sogar ein bisschen No-Wave ist mit dabei. Horsegirl vermischen die Einflüsse zu einem Sound einer neuen Generation, für die die 90er-Jahre Lichtjahre entfernt zurückliegen und gleichzeitig doch so nah sind.

Man muss sich nur kurz mit dem Indie-Rock-Trio unterhalten, um die innige Wärme ihrer starken Verbundenheit zu spüren, die drei jungen Musikerinnen sind beste Freunde. Diese persönliche Nähe schimmert auch auf ihrem Debütalbum "Versions of Modern Performance" durch. Penelope Lowenstein (Gitarre, Gesang), Nora Cheng (Gitarre, Gesang) und Gigi Reece (Schlagzeug) machen alles gemeinsam, vom Songwriting über den wechselnden Gesang und den Tausch von Instrumenten bis hin zum Sound- und Visual Art-Design. "Versions of Modern Performance" wurde mit John Agnello (Kurt Vile, The Breeders, Dinosaur Jr.) im Electrical Audio-Studio aufgenommen. "Es ist unser erstes Album. Wir hatten bei Agnello sofort das Gefühl, dass er wirklich respektiert, was wir zu tun versuchten", sagt die Band. Horsegirl spielen auf dem Album gekonnt mit Texturen, Formen und Schattierungen und zeigen ihre Vorliebe für Improvisationen und Experimente. Der Opener "Anti-glory" ist schillernder Post-Punk-Song. "Dirtbag Transformation (Still Dirty)" und "World of Pots and Pans" haben einen rauen Pop-Charme. "The Fall of Horsegirl" besticht wiederum durch seine scharfen Konturen und einem kantigen Sound. Man kann in ihrer Musik Elemente der Independent-Musik der 80er und 90er Jahre hören, die Sounds die Horsegirl so sehr lieben - die schraddelige Melodik dessen, was man früher "College-Rock" nannte, den kühlen und sprudelnden Space-Age-Glanz der 90er-Jahre, das laute Dröhnen von Shoegaze, die sparsamen Hooks und Rhythmen von Post-Punk. Sogar ein bisschen No-Wave ist mit dabei. Horsegirl vermischen die Einflüsse zu einem Sound einer neuen Generation, für die die 90er-Jahre Lichtjahre entfernt zurückliegen und gleichzeitig doch so nah sind.

Dama Scout's first full-length sees the London/Glasgow trio stretch their creative muscles, further building upon their unique, individual tastes to bring together a world that’s ever-changing, infectious and brilliantly fresh. By pushing through the barriers of genre, Dama Scout’s constantly curious dive into contrasting sonic landscapes allows them to craft new terrain that takes its cues from East Asian pop and film. Mimicking the unpredictability of playing live shows, the tension between audience and artist and the push-and-pull of creative collaboration, 'gen wo lai (come with me)' ushers in an authoritative new era for the band. Here, jolting nightmares and reality-bending dreams exist side-by-side, and Dama Scout are our guides for every unnerving, enchanting moment.

3rd album by Have You Ever Seen the Jane Fonda Aerobic VHS? Artist: Have You Ever Seen the Jane Fonda Aerobic VHS? Genre: Garage pop Formats: Digital + vinyl (Black Vinyl + Ltd Edition Yellow Vinyl) Finnish“flower-garage”3-pieceHave You Ever Seen the Jane Fonda Aerobic VHS? have carved out a unique sound for themselves, opting to use keyboards instead of guitars. This is after songwriter Ekku Lintunen and drummer Janne-Petteri Pitkälä, on seeing the film Drive, instantly decided to form an 80ssynth-pop band as a side project to the garage-rock act they were in at the time. When Susse Stemma-Sihvolacame in on vocals, bringing her scuzzed out bass tones with her, it ended up being garage-rock with a twist. They are further shaped by the aesthetic and sonics of the underground cassette culture punkbands in their small town of Kouvolarely on, as well as the thread of styles that have tied the towns musical history together through the decades. Amish-mash of 60s girl-groups, punk, glam, grunge and NYC/Manchester indie coming together generates their electrifying style that has given rise to one of the most exciting and infectious bands to come out of the Nordics in recent years. Lintunen likens his songwriting to crafting surreal movies. Starting with a picture in his mind, he throws out lyrical phrases to create this image for the listener. Enough is held back though that there are more questions than answers. Like all great films, the listener interprets as they do. After their debut album Teenage Sweetheartwas released in autumn 2015and following with their sophomore album Jazzbelle 1984 / 1988the trio have been praised in the international music media, and gathered fans around the world.

3rd album by Have You Ever Seen the Jane Fonda Aerobic VHS? Artist: Have You Ever Seen the Jane Fonda Aerobic VHS? Genre: Garage pop Formats: Digital + vinyl (Black Vinyl + Ltd Edition Yellow Vinyl) Finnish“flower-garage”3-pieceHave You Ever Seen the Jane Fonda Aerobic VHS? have carved out a unique sound for themselves, opting to use keyboards instead of guitars. This is after songwriter Ekku Lintunen and drummer Janne-Petteri Pitkälä, on seeing the film Drive, instantly decided to form an 80ssynth-pop band as a side project to the garage-rock act they were in at the time. When Susse Stemma-Sihvolacame in on vocals, bringing her scuzzed out bass tones with her, it ended up being garage-rock with a twist. They are further shaped by the aesthetic and sonics of the underground cassette culture punkbands in their small town of Kouvolarely on, as well as the thread of styles that have tied the towns musical history together through the decades. Amish-mash of 60s girl-groups, punk, glam, grunge and NYC/Manchester indie coming together generates their electrifying style that has given rise to one of the most exciting and infectious bands to come out of the Nordics in recent years. Lintunen likens his songwriting to crafting surreal movies. Starting with a picture in his mind, he throws out lyrical phrases to create this image for the listener. Enough is held back though that there are more questions than answers. Like all great films, the listener interprets as they do. After their debut album Teenage Sweetheartwas released in autumn 2015and following with their sophomore album Jazzbelle 1984 / 1988the trio have been praised in the international music media, and gathered fans around the world.

Ltd to 100 copies

Melancholic energy blast from Gran Canaria’s cult trio, MINIATURa, helmed by Eduardo Briganty.

Formed in Las Palmas in 2007 and with three records under their belt, Music Box (2007), La Huida Concéntrica (2012) and Estrategias de Perdición (2015) the trio now unleashes its fourth album with a distillation of Briganty's musical and artistic references, coming like a cross of concept album and an unintentional imaginary soundtrack to a David Lynch flick – an island version of a depressed or irate David Lynch.

Featuring deep rock workouts to somnambulant ballads, Geometría Prohibida (Keroxen, 2022) presents itself like a statement from the band, a crystallization of the bands intentions with a concise and precise 26mins of masterfully produced music showcasing the kind of restrain you’d expect from past giants like Joy Division, Neu! or Scott Walker.

The hallmarks of krautrock and shoegazing/dream pop haunt this record like a benevolent force, another unique reference of music made through an insular lens of remoteness that Keroxen drives to showcase to the world.

MORE unobvious Island music to the outer world.

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

'É O Que Ela Quer' is a groovy Brazilian version of The Zombies' classic 'She's Not There' recorded by the obscure Mini Trio in 1970 and released as a 7" only that should be in every DJ record box. First time reissue. Although the appeal of the post-Hair/Beatlesque hippie hook of 'Hare Krishna' on the A side of this rare single, the real gold lies on the flipside. 'É O Que Ela Quer' is a groovy Brazilian version of The Zombies' classic 'She's Not There' recorded by the obscure Mini Trio in 1970 and released as a 7" only. The band was most likely a studio group recording international hits for the local Brazilian market and their take on the 1964 classic adds a terrific dancefloor potential to the Zombies song. Very hard to find, especially in good condition, this record now gets a proper reissue for the first time.

2022 Repress On Elephantine, Cairo-based Maurice Louca guides a 12-piece ensemble through a 38-minute masterwork that might best be described as panoramic. Elements of free improvisation, Sun Ra's cosmic jazz, gorgeous Arabic melody, trancelike African and Yemeni music and minimalism meet in his wholly unique compositional vision. Louca also makes vital contributions on guitar and piano, and inspires stirring performances from a global lineup.

One of the most gifted, prolific and adventurous figures on Egypt's thriving experimental arts scene, Louca has in recent years garnered a global reputation through two previous solo albums and an expanding, evolving lineup of genre-defying collaborations. The Wire called his 2014 sophomore solo effort, Salute the Parrot, "remarkable music-dense, driven and splashed with colour." In 2017, the self-titled debut by Lekhfa, the trio of Louca and vocalists Maryam Saleh and Tamer Abu Ghazaleh, was praised as an "edgy triumph" in The Guardian and picked by BBC Radio 3's Late Junction as one of the very best 12 albums of 2017.

For Louca, 36, Elephantine serves as both the pinnacle of his wide-ranging experience and a bold next step in his development as a composer, arranger and bandleader. The celebrated Egyptian visual artist Maha Maamoun has created the album cover art, following her contribution to Salute the Parrot. "There was a blessed thing about the process of making this record," Louca says of the sessions, held last year in Stockholm and featuring the leader on guitar and piano. "The dynamic between us musically but also as people ...What these musicians delivered was really more than I could ask for, Everyone played their hearts out on this record."

The music-from its pensive lulls through its stretches of hard-grooving hypnosis and moments of avant-jazz catharsis-testifies to that rapport. Best absorbed as a continuous performance, Elephantine's six individually named tracks nonetheless present striking self-contained landscapes. "The Leper" entrances through a deft use of repetition that Louca gleaned from cosmic jazz, African and Yemeni music and other transcendental modal traditions. (Those who've followed Louca's work might be reminded of the Dwarfs of East Agouza, his mesmeric unit with Shalabi and Sun City Girls' Alan Bishop.)

"Laika" manages to evoke the minimalists, though on the combustible terms of '60s and '70s free jazz; "One More for the Gutter," on which Louca ingeniously pits one half of his ensemble against the other, albeit in a synergistic way, mines similarly fiery terrain. "The Palm of a Ghost" distills the band to a Cairo-rooted core, featuring stirring spontaneous melodies from oud player Natik Awayez, violinist Ayman Asfour and vocalist Nadah El Shazly. The album's title track follows, and it too blurs the border between composition and improvisation with gorgeously atmospheric results. "Al Khawaga," with its colossal ensemble riffs, beautifully dirty swing and impassioned blowing, is an ideal finale.

A new 6-track mini album from a musician with a long list of credits including South African trumpet legend Hugh Masekela, afrobeat co-creator Tony Allen and Ethiopian jazz originator Mulatu Astatke as well as many Brit-jazz and international roots artists. "It's Time" blends spiritual Afro-jazz groove with free improv, spoken poetry and other-worldly atmosphere, with lyrics and titles hinting at unorthodox takes on reality and the times we live in.

Phil Dawson is a top London guitarist who has worked and schooled himself extensively in many different African, Latin and Brazilian music traditions together with styles that more typically cross the radar of someone with a similar British background: roots reggae, punk rock, blues, soul, R'n'B, jazz and funk. As a sideman, he's played with a host of living legends of Afro-fusion music including South African jazz trumpet giant Hugh Masekela, Nigerian afrobeat co-creator Tony Allen, Ethiojazz pioneer Mulatu Astatke, the Algerian "king of rai" Khaled, and London based Ghanaian afro-rock dons Osibisa. Heavy company for sure.

Now he's releasing a new mini 6 track album of original compositions under his own name and band - Phil Dawson ٤-tet - and he's joined by a stellar cast of London's finest players who include Rowland Sutherland (flutes - Airto Moreira, David Murray, Carla Bley), Khadijatou Doyneh (spoken word - The Heliocentrics, Danny Keane), Gaspar Sena (drums - Alfa Mist, Maria Chiara Argiro), Marius Rodrigues (drums - Oriole, Hermeto Hermeto Hermeto), Lekan Babalola (percussion - Cassandra Wilson, Ali Farka Toure) and Matheus Nova (bass - Antonio Forcione, Ed Motta, Jazzinho). Phil himself features on guitars, Fender Rhodes and piano.

'This is great' - Gilles Peterson, BBC Radio 6 (on 'It's Time)

'Beautiful' - Kassin (producer Caetano Veloso, Sonzeira etc) (on 'It's

Time')

'Rapid-fire guitar work with variety and energy' – The Guardian, UK

'A great guitarist' – Tony Allen

'An absolute killer - irresistible' - Snowboy (on 'Gnostic Hilife')

'Phil Dawson and his (quintet) are really smoking at the mo. No wonder the London jazz young guns are ripping it up with bands

like this leading the way. Miss them at your peril' – Russ Jones (Future World Funk)

Jazzwise Review

The British guitarist Phil Dawson is a fixture of a plethora of Brit-jazz bands and international roots outfits; his nuanced stylings have graced the work of A-listers from Ethio-jazz guru Mulatu Astatke to such late African greats as Tony Allen and Hugh Masekela. Like any an in-demand session player worth his chops Dawson also fronts his own trio/quartet/quintet, all of which allow him to stretch out and do his own thing, which – with his quintet - he does to pleasing effect here.

Buoyed by flute, bass and percussion, It's Time is a six-track brew combining free improv and spoken word with Afro-spiritual groove and a far-out esotericism befitting these strangest of times. Opener 'It's Time (Radio Edit)' is a psychedelic romp through a beneficent cosmos where ringing chords and woodwind trills underpin Khaditjatou Doyneh's pathos-laden musings on love and the universe and one of three variations on a theme. Over three minutes longer at 9:34, 'It's Time (aka Ougama)' is a freewheeling instrumental made dazzling by Dawson's silver-fingered guitar work; Doyneh resumes her pronouncing on the more dissonant but equally mind expanding 'It's Time (Fully Spoken)'. Then there's 'Gnostic Hilife', whose three interpretations each juxtapose the structures of this West African lingua franca in ways tight, spacious and inventive

Created in the middle of the pandemic this album celebrates the magic that happens when 4 very uniquely gifted, but very complementary, instrumentalists come together for a jam session. From hazy guitars & warm keys over to funky beats & psychedelic grooves to ease you into an album that circumnavigates 360 degrees of soulful music.
Adding some garnish to this rhythmic stew are an impressive
collection of special guests: Olivier St. Louis, Nneka, Lui Hill,
J.Lamotta, Bowie & Flo Mega.

The KBCS represent the musical coming together of four very uniquely gifted, but very complementary, instrumentalists from Hamburg, Germany. Color Box, their sophomore LP, happened almost by accident, born as it was out of a series of freestyle jams.
The album kicks off with three instrumental openers - the first of which, Popsicles, is best described by the band them- selves as “a late summer teenage adventure”. Hazy guitars and warm keys playfully amuse each other over a solid, funky beat on what is an evocative and vivid introduction to this talented foursome. It’s followed by Whistleblowers, a sweet and somewhat whimsical piece where another sturdy bottom end allows keys and strings to enjoy some lively interplay, and Jolly Tumbleweed which, with its optimistic yet melancholic feel, completes the trio of warm, hazy psychedelic grooves to ease you into an album that circumnavigates 360
degrees of soulful music.
Adding some garnish to this rhythmic stew are an impressive collection of special guests. Berlin based, and internationally adored vocalist Olivier St.
Louis sprinkles a little Cali sweetness with the head nodding Pockets - one of the most immediate and soulful cuts on the album. A guaranteed ear worm, bringing a little sunshine to the winter months to come.
Elsewhere, multi-talented Nigerian singer Nneka lends her distinctive voice to the very succinct but powerful Afro-soul of Ndidi; the enigmatic Lui Hill lays his soul bare with honesty and candor on the alluring Albatross; Tel Aviv born J. Lamotta gives The Center a somewhat delicate and fragile dimension that plays perfectly alongside graceful guitars and contrasts with a sturdy backbeat of bass and drum; and Viviane Ann, AKA Bowie, smooths out the rough edges on the very radio friendly Wasting All Your Lovin’.
This is indeed music from the heart; a document of their coming together; and music that needs to be heard live!

Mit ihrem neuen Album „3“ öffnen die belgischen Krautrocker MOTOR!K ein neues Kapitel ihrer musikalischen Bandgeschichte. Während die Schlüsselelemente ihrer vorherigen Alben „MOTOR!K“ und „2“ (hypnotisierende Basslines, hämmernde Drums und sich repetetiven Gitarrenlinien) auch im neuen Album wiederzukennen sind, unterscheidet sich dieses Album dennoch von seinen Vorgängern.

Von Tracks mit minimalen Techno-Grooves, ambientartiger Gitarren- und Elektronik-Tracks, "Vintage" MOTOR!K Songs bis hin zu Post-Rock Feelings und psychedelischen Gitarren & Synthesizern. Delay-Gitarrenspiel und spacige Elektronik bauen hier neue Horizonte auf und zollen damit den Klängen der späten 70er Jahre ihren Respekt.
Motor!k 3 - ein Album dass geradezu danach schreit, in einer schweißtreibenden Konzertumgebung live gehört zu werden.
Das Belgische Trio bestehend aus Gitarrist/Synthesist & Motor!k Songkomponist Joeri Dobbeleir, Dirk Ivens - Guitar / FX (The Klinik/ Dive) und Drummer Dries D'Hollander, hält den instrumentalen Krautrock Vibe aufrecht & lebendig, sowohl auf Platte als auch live auf der Bühne.

THE LONG AWAITED AND CONSTANTLY DELAYED LP VERSIONS ARE FINALLY AVAILABLE-

want to take you on a journey. Not to their Russian homeland, but beyond that, to a place not on any map where the trio’s dreamy “celestial blackgaze” can properly get beneath your skin and into your mind. With their fourth album, Istok, their first for Candlelight Records, they’re pushing even further into the unknown. The band formed in 2013 in Saint Petersburg, following the breakup of similarly blissful-minded outfit, Princ Persii. Though not wanting to limit themselves to a genre, the “celestial blackgaze” fit so well that it stuck – descriptive enough to catch their vibe, loose enough to have no walls. Available across 5 physical formats: CD / double transparent grey vinyl / double metallic ice vinyl / double baby blue vinyl / double black vinyl.

THE LONG AWAITED AND CONSTANTLY DELAYED LP VERSIONS ARE FINALLY AVAILABLE-

want to take you on a journey. Not to their Russian homeland, but beyond that, to a place not on any map where the trio’s dreamy “celestial blackgaze” can properly get beneath your skin and into your mind. With their fourth album, Istok, their first for Candlelight Records, they’re pushing even further into the unknown. The band formed in 2013 in Saint Petersburg, following the breakup of similarly blissful-minded outfit, Princ Persii. Though not wanting to limit themselves to a genre, the “celestial blackgaze” fit so well that it stuck – descriptive enough to catch their vibe, loose enough to have no walls. Available across 5 physical formats: CD / double transparent grey vinyl / double metallic ice vinyl / double baby blue vinyl / double black vinyl.

THE LONG AWAITED AND CONSTANTLY DELAYED LP VERSIONS ARE FINALLY AVAILABLE-

want to take you on a journey. Not to their Russian homeland, but beyond that, to a place not on any map where the trio’s dreamy “celestial blackgaze” can properly get beneath your skin and into your mind. With their fourth album, Istok, their first for Candlelight Records, they’re pushing even further into the unknown. The band formed in 2013 in Saint Petersburg, following the breakup of similarly blissful-minded outfit, Princ Persii. Though not wanting to limit themselves to a genre, the “celestial blackgaze” fit so well that it stuck – descriptive enough to catch their vibe, loose enough to have no walls. Available across 5 physical formats: CD / double transparent grey vinyl / double metallic ice vinyl / double baby blue vinyl / double black vinyl.

Famed free jazz concert registration of an early New Direction for the Art performance. Recorded in 1971. Old-style Gatefold LP, with rare photographs & extensive liner notes by Alan Cummings.

The performance by Takayanagi Masayuki New Direction for the Art at the Gen’yasai festival on August 14, 1971 was an intense, bruising collision between the radical, anti-establishment politics of the period in Japan and the febrile avant-garde music that had begun to emerge a few years before. The ferocious performance that you can hear here was received with outright hostility by the audience, who responded first with catcalls and later with showers of debris that were hurled at the performers. Takayanagi though described the group’s performance to jazz magazine Swing Journal as a success, “an authentic and realistic depiction of the situation”.

In 1962, Takayanagi, bassist Kanai Hideto and painter Kageyama Isamu went on to form an AACM-style musicians’ collective called the New Century Music Research Institute. Every Friday, members gathered at Gin-Paris, a chanson bar in the fashionable Ginza district of Tokyo, to push the outer limits of jazz creativity.

But the pivotal moment for his music was the creation a new trio version of his New Directions group in August 1969, with the free bassist Yoshizawa Motoharu and a young drummer Toyozumi (Sabu) Yoshisaburō. Experiments eventually led to the creation of two basic frameworks for improvisation that Takayagi referred to as Mass Projection and Gradually Projection.

“La Grima” (tears), the piece that was played at the Gen’yasai festival, is a mass projection and listening to it, you can get a clear sense of what Takayanagi was aiming at. Mass projection involves a dense, speedy and chaotic colouring in of space that destroys the listener’s perception of time, and thus of musical development.

The ferocity of the performance of “La Grima” at the Gen’yasai Festival in Sanrizuka on August 14, 1971 was consciously grounded by Takayanagi in a particular historical moment, ripe with conflict and violence. A month after the festival, on September 16, three policemen would die during struggles at the site. This was the context that the three-day Gen’yasai Festival existed within. The line-up reflected the radical politics of the movement, with leading free jazz musicians like Takayanagi, Abe Kaoru, and Takagi Mototeru appearing alongside radical ur-punkers Zuno Keisatsu, heavy electric blues bands like Blues Creation, and Haino Keiji’s scream-jazz unit Lost Aaraaff.

New Direction for the Arts trio topped the bill on the opening day, playing an aggressive, uncompromising “mass projection” set of polyphonic improvisation. Alongside drummer Hiroshi Yamazaki and saxophonist Kenji Mori, Takayanagi soloed hard and continuously for forty minutes. This was performance as precisely calibrated metaphor: three musicians responding to the demands of the moment with instinctive force and fury, untethered by rules, leaderless yet not rudderless (the direction part of the group’s name was no accident). The piece was entitled La Grima – tears - and the fusion between the palpable anger of the performance and hopeless sadness of its title were also perfectly apt for the situation. This was a fight that the state was always going to win. Yet, by all accounts, the band’s set went down like a fart at a funeral. The band were showered with catcalls and debris throughout, and by chants of “go home” when the music finally came to an end.

However, looking back at the event in the year-end issue of Japan’s leading jazz magazine, Swing Journal, Takayanagi was surprisingly upbeat: New Directions brought a solid political consciousness to our performance and succeeded in an authentic and realistic depiction of the situation. But journalism revealed its superficiality in its inability to penetrate the core of the music. I don’t know much about anyone else, but we at least left behind a competent record.

It’s a fascinating statement in many ways. Perhaps on one-hand it can be read as stubborn, solipsistic and self-justifying, yet in conjunction with his statement in 1971 there are points that guide us towards an understanding of just what Takayanagi intended with his performance at the festival. As Kitazato Yoshiyuki has argued, it becomes an almost religious act, directed at the earth deities of the land. A union of anger, sorrow and malevolence that can be placed nowhere effective, all it can do is find expression and channeling. The forcible land seizures at Narita, the eviction of farmers from land that had been in families for generations, the destruction of communities: none of this can be prevented, not least by an artistic action. All that can be done is an attempt to mark the land itself, to soak it with the combined force of emotions and the volume of the performances, to bury something there that cannot be drowned out, even by the coming roar of jet engines.

Nach einer ersten BBC-Livesession für Marc Riley veröffentlicht das Indie-Pop-Trio PEANESS aus Chester sein Debütalbum 'World Full Of Worry' über das bandeigene Label Totally Snick Records. PEANESS haben sich mit ihrem zuckersüssen, melancholischen Indie-Pop in den letzten sechs Jahre eine fanatische Anhängerschaft im Untergrund und bei der Musikpresse aufgebaut und sind mit BC Camplight und Maximo Park auf Tour gegangen.

- 'Sunshine-laden indie-pop to brighten the short autumn days and darker nights.' - Louder Than War
- 'A deliriously fun piece of guitar pop racket…addictive, funny, and charming as hell.' – CLASH
- 'Whip-smart songwriting…kick-ass indie punk.' – Kerrang! Magazine

Nach einer ersten BBC-Livesession für Marc Riley veröffentlicht das Indie-Pop-Trio PEANESS aus Chester sein Debütalbum 'World Full Of Worry' über das bandeigene Label Totally Snick Records. PEANESS haben sich mit ihrem zuckersüssen, melancholischen Indie-Pop in den letzten sechs Jahre eine fanatische Anhängerschaft im Untergrund und bei der Musikpresse aufgebaut und sind mit BC Camplight und Maximo Park auf Tour gegangen.

- 'Sunshine-laden indie-pop to brighten the short autumn days and darker nights.' - Louder Than War
- 'A deliriously fun piece of guitar pop racket…addictive, funny, and charming as hell.' – CLASH
- 'Whip-smart songwriting…kick-ass indie punk.' – Kerrang! Magazine

A survey of the modern jazz & hard-bop scenes that emerged in the new cultural melting pot of post war London, with recordings from the end of the 1940s through to the early 1960s.

Featuring representations from players whose roots lay in the East-End's jewish community, such as Ronnie Scott, Vic Ash & Harry Klein, alongside a wealth of talent of Caribbean and African descent playing and recording in post war London during this period, incl. Dizzy Reece, Wilton Gaynair, Joe Harriott, Shake Keane & Ginger Johnson.

Made in partnership with the Barbican to coincide with the exhibition Postwar Modern: New Art in Britain 1945-1965.

To celebrate the 45th anniversary of iconic Dutch jazz label Timeless Records, Music On Vinyl is releasing a series that features albums that are part of the Timeless Records legacy and will be released mainly throughout 2022.

To this day, jazz pianists are influenced by Bill Evans by his use of impressionist harmony, interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, and his trademark rhythmically independent, “singing” melodic lines. Evans gained his first spotlight when joining Miles Davis’ sextet during the time Kind of Blue was recorded. After leaving the sextet, Evans began his career as bandleader. As trio with Marc Johnson on bass and Joe LaBarbera on drums, they recorded The Brilliant in 1980, just before Evans’ passing.

The Brilliant is pressed on coloured vinyl for the first time and available as a limited edition of 750 individually numbered copies on gold coloured vinyl. The package includes an insert with other titles from the Timeless Records 45th Anniversary Jazz Series

To celebrate the 45th anniversary of iconic Dutch jazz label Timeless Records, Music On Vinyl is releasing a series that features albums that are part of the Timeless Records legacy and will be released mainly throughout 2022.

To this day, jazz pianists are influenced by Bill Evans by his use of impressionist harmony, interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, and his trademark rhythmically independent, “singing” melodic lines. Evans gained his first spotlight when joining Miles Davis’ sextet during the time Kind of Blue was recorded. After leaving the sextet, Evans began his career as bandleader. As trio with Marc Johnson on bass and Joe LaBarbera on drums, they recorded The Brilliant in 1980, just before Evans’ passing.

The Brilliant is pressed on coloured vinyl for the first time and available as a limited edition of 750 individually numbered copies on gold coloured vinyl. The package includes an insert with other titles from the Timeless Records 45th Anniversary Jazz Series

Rare 1966 Brazilian album with a jazz/bossa nova take on songs by the Beatles, all served up with plenty of great keyboard work from the legendary Manfredo Fest who would later become member of the Sergio Mendes band. The songs are all played with imaginative scents that really take them from their roots as pop songs and open them up as groovers filled with keyboard improvisations. First time vinyl reissue. DESCRIPTION Rare 1966 Brazilian LP with a jazz/bossa nova take on songs by the Beatles performed by the very talented Manfredo Fest and his trio. It was originally released right after their classic 1965 RGE album and has a very similar jazz-based sound. Manfredo Fest was part of the gathering of Brazilian musicians of the late-'50s who were developing the bossa nova movement, and he made a number of trio recordings in that vein from 1961 to 1966. After emigrating to Minneapolis in 1967, Fest moved to Los Angeles where he served as keyboardist and arranger for Bossa Rio and toured with Sergio Mendes. This recording is all instrumental, strongly jazz-based, with piano as the main solo instrument, soaring over the top of some tight, crackling rhythms! The songs are all played with imaginative scents that really take them from their roots as pop songs and open them up as groovers filled with keyboard improvisations. A nice slice of how the bossa nova sound was evolving in its homeland as well as the international impact the Beatles were having on countries outside of the U.S., England, Japan, and Germany. First time vinyl reissue.

Italy’s up and coming power rock trio Cripta Blue were
formed in 2019 by members of bands like Desert
Wizard, Rising Dark and Talismanstone.

 Being no strangers to the heavy music scene, the trio
skilfully play an enthralling and vibrant blend of dark
though funky and fuzzy psych rock, jamming heavy
power blues and a remarkable primordial sound of
NWOBHM doom.

 Cripta Blues‘ debut full-album has the psychedelic
mood you can’t help but to dive into, with gloomy lyrics
and the hint of a cult horror classic. The baritone
vocals of frontman and bassist Andrea Giuliani are
shrouded by acid and fuzz rock soundscapes, full of
power blues and with the soul of doom.
 Andrea Giuliani says: “Our dark creature is finally
alive. Our personal blend of doom and psych rock
looks back on the past. On the exciting wild end 60’s
and the dark early 70’s with their proto type of heavy
rock and doom metal. We use no occult lyrics, but
instead distorted and horrible metaphors of what it
means to taste life and to live it sinking deep,
surrounded by the living dead.”

 ‘Tombstone’ features Witchwood-vocalist Ricky Dal
Pane.

 For fans of Blue Cheer, Witchfinder General, Budgie,
Cream, The Stooges, Saint Vitus, Black Sabbath,
MC5, Iron Claw, Motorhead, Vanilla Fudge, May Blitz,
Mountain, Pentagram, The Obsessed.

 LP pressed on red vinyl

Das Debütalbum 'This Is Not A Record' des norwegischen 'Hardcore Power Violence'-Trio Rat Lord. Bestehend aus Mitgliedern der Band Blood Command, besitzt ihre Musik die Lizenz zum Töten.

From the mountains of Utah to the trenches of Vimy Ridge, Elliott Brood's songs have travelled the gore and glory of history in equal measure for nearly a decade. With the stomp and thrash of their early albums, Elliott Brood carved their niche drawing from history and memory. As heavy and harrowing the past can be, for Elliott Brood, it is also a generous companion, giving the gift of appreciation for times of peace and grace. With Keeper, Elliott Brood's seventh album, the trio deals with the past in more personal terms. The title, which speaks to loyalty and longevity, sets the tone for an album that explores the strength of conviction, and how that strength is tested, again and again, over time. Thoughts of worthiness and dedication, and their emotional flip sides, inform a collection that sees the band exploring those battlefields much closer to home.

Honey for Petzi sind zurück! Heute feiern wir, (etwas) mehr als ein Jahrzehnt nach dem letzten Album (General Thoughts and Tastes, 2011), eine neue Veröffentlichung des Trios aus der Westschweiz
'Observations + Descriptions' durch Two Gentlemen! Auf dem neuen Album finden sich zwölf Tracks voller offener, agiler und sich entwickelnder Emotionen - wie mit einem scharfen und subtilen Messer geschnitten.
Das Trio, bestehend aus Sami Benhadj Djilali (Gitarre und Gesang), Philippe Oberson (Bass und Gesang) und Christian Pahud (Schlagzeug und Gesang), entstand Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts in Lausanne. Als damals die Post-Rock-Szene aufblühte krönten Honey For Petzi diesen Prozess mit ihren packenden Rhytmen, schwachen Beats, Fallen und Synkopen. Diese Ästhetik hat im Laufe der Jahre über die herausragenden Alben der Band - insbesondere Heal All Monsters (produziert von Steve Albini) und Nicholson (2003), beide auf Two Gentlemen - mehrere Mutationen erfahren.
Ende 2021 veröffentlichten Honey for Petzi mit 'Écoute' ein neues Stück: Die ungeraden Taktarten, die das bisherige Schaffen des Trios kennzeichneten, sind zwar vorhanden, werden aber durch eine einen befreienden Impuls ergänzt, den man so noch nicht gehört hatte. Grammatikalisch gesehen könnte 'Écoute' in zwei Kategorien eingeordnet werden: als Substantiv (die Handlung des Zuhörens), aber vielleicht auch als Imperativ. Dies impliziert: alles ist möglich.
Und in der Tat: Dieser Track ist sowohl ein Vorspann als auch eine Einladung, das gesamte Album 'Observations + Descriptions' zu entdecken, das heute veröffentlicht wird. Die Band erklärt gemeinsam die Entstehung des Al bums wie folgt: 'Es war Ende 2018, als wir auf die Idee kamen, wieder zusammen zu spielen. Nach ein paar gemeinsamen Tagen wurde 'Observations + Descriptions' 2019 und 2020 geschrieben. Anfang 2021 reichten wir die neuen Songs bei unserem Label ein, welches begeistert und interessiert war, das Album zu veröffentlichen.'
Verständlich! Diese Platte enthält ein ganzes Arsenal an Waffen. Treibende Steigerungen: Apnée (welcher Ende 2021 auch als Single veröffentlicht wurde), Island oder Géométrie zeichnen sich durch eine polyrhythmische Raserei aus, die den Weg für verrückte Tänze ebnet. Echorec geht sogar noch einen Schritt weiter: ein wuchtiger Bass, eine vielschichtige Gitarre: ein reines Meisterwerk an Energie und Seltsamkeit - wie Kawasaki und sein parodistischer und trockener Humor, inspiriert
von dem Paar Bardot/Gainsbourg.
Lasst es uns noch einmal von der Band selbst hören: 'Wir haben da weitergemacht, wo wir mit 'General Thoughts and Tastes' aufgehört haben. Es war ein Album, das bereits mehr ‘Pop’-Formate enthielt, als wir zuvor gemacht hatten.' Die ätherische Subtilität anderer Tracks auf 'Observations + Descriptions' (wie Infini oder Dog even) mit ihren herzzerreissenden Akkorden zeugt von einer Wende, die zudem mit einer grösseren Risikobereitschaft einhergeht: 'Neu an diesem Album ist
die (signifikante) Präsenz von Titeln, die auf Französisch gesungen werden. Dies ist ein fruchtbarer Schritt, der uns direkt in die Poesie von Benhadj Djilali, Oberson und Pahud führt: etwas, das gleichzeitig eine Form der Detailgenauigkeit, des halbautomatischen Schreibens und der Melancholie, manchmal sogar der elegischen Ekstase ist.'
'Observations + Descriptions', und das ist seine tour de force, schafft es, diese Wege, von denen man annehmen könnte, dass sie parallel verlaufen oder sich gar kreuzen, zu einer mehr als kohärenten Einheit zu verbinden. Vielleicht ist es ganz einfach eine Definition von Identität: die Aufrechterhaltung eines starken Herzens unter der Vielfalt seiner Bewegungen.