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Theo Nasa makes his debut on Rekids this December with ‘Worldwide Ravers EP’.

The Alien Sound Trax boss, who has previously appeared on the likes of World Unknown, Suara, and UNCAGE, makes his mark on Radio Slave’s imprint with the hard-hitting and distinct ‘Worldwide Ravers EP’.

Deeply infused with the unmistakable sound of the UK, Nasa draws from his broad range of influences for his EP, distilling elements of Jungle, Rave, and Hardcore into his own brand of meticulously crafted, difficult-to-pigeonhole techno. Opener ‘Dubska’, clocking in at over ten minutes long, is a relentless and fast-paced affair, bubbling along at breakneck speed with the help of classic vocal samples, while ‘World Dance (Rinse Out Mix)’ fuses breakbeats and droning bass to create a high energy track that twists and turns at 140bpm. Field recordings of birds in ‘Summertime Raving In London’ sit alongside classic drum kits and emotive chords while living up to its titular character.

After a well received and enjoyed first joint on this freshly founded co-founded music label joining Kalakuta Soul Records with the neighboring Bahlo Records Store, Kalakuta Soul Bahlo Records is more than happy to re-issue a Disco gem that has been enjoyed in several occasions in the past years but seldom was easy to find.
On a working trip to Italy the salesmen Mohmed Fersi, Lotfi Ferjani, Smir Almia, Mohsen Matri and Nejib Toukabri used their stopover in Italy for a recording session guided by the owner of Phono Sound Dischi Francesco Ammaturo and that resulted in the release of „Dance“ and „Can’t You See Me“ in 1980.
Almost 40 years later, KABA’s half Guy Dermosessian got invited by the mighty Najib Ben Belgacem for a memorable party he organized together with Tunis’ mighty „Downtown Vibes“ Family at Wax Bar followed by a live stream for downtown based and freshly found record label „Eddisco“. Why we’re telling you that? Well, odds are it
turned out that one of Downtown Vibes’ Baba and Eddisco’s Mama was the amazing selector and DJ Hamdi Toukabri, nephew of Nejib Toukabri, Corniche Band’s Keyboard maestro. And the rest is history as you can imagine.
We are more than pleased to have had the chance to re-issue this amazing record we hereby would like to dedicate to the shortly deceased Mohmed „Momo“ Fersi and his family. May his soul rest in peace. We would also like to thank Hamdi Toukabri and Nejib Toukabri for making this happen and possible as well as our brother Najib
Ben Belgacem for bringing us all together in the first place.
Corniche Band comes in its original Cover design and with the same tracklist.
Stay tuned for an exclusive and lovely Edit of „Dance“ by Downtown Vibes’ super amore Hamdi Ryder hitting the digital shelves upon release of this record.

A year before Wild Pitch Records properly introduced us to the trio of Queens native Large Professor and Toronto’s Sir Scratch and K-Cut, the soon-to-be-legendary group self-released their own debut single. Dropping on Actual Records, the 12” of ‘Think’ and ‘Atom’ was soon a sought after rarity, with scarce originals still fetching upwards of three figures.

On it, they only hint at the greatness to come, while simultaneously showing that they’d already mastered the three-minute rap single – this is concise brilliance with no flab whatsoever.

Engineered by the late, esteemed Paul C, ‘Think’ is a study in how to turn well-worn samples into something new. The combination of several James Brown snatches, along with bits lifted from Lyn Collins and Jimmy Castor Bunch, could have been tired and almost parodic by 1989, but instead the group weave something interesting from old fabric.

‘Atom’ is arguably even better, built around a brace of elements from Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell’s 1967 duet ‘Little Ole Boy, Little Ole Girl’. On it, Large Pro gives the first real hints that he’ll not just be a super-producer, but a committed MC to watch. Mixing threats with humour, positivity with braggadocio, it’s a calling card performance on a track that could have still sat comfortably on 1991’s ‘Breaking Atoms’ album.

Heavily bootlegged, this is the first official double-sided 7” release bringing together both these foundational cuts.

Conjunto Papa Upa returns with “Todo Parao” (“Total Shutdown”), another boundary pushing tropical smasher. Bringing you the ultimate (humourous) hymn to the pandemic over an exquisite blend of highly danceable Caribbean rhythms (zouk, cadence, kompás, guaracha) and classic synths. Backed by a deep sea dub on the flip, complete with resplendent cowbell(!), timbales and Wurlitzer solos. Another stepping stone that showcases yet another angle of the unique and radical production style of Alex Figueira. Drop this 45 at your next virtual party and watch everybody leave their computers in a desperate search of a dancing partner.

Conjunto Papa Upa is the Afro Caribbean centered solo project of Figueira, backed live bysome of the best musicians from Amsterdam’s Latin and free jazz scenes. Their debut LP was recently released on legendary American indie label Names You Can Trust. Figueira is also known for his percussive work on tropical psych power trio Fumaça Preta or his regular live incursions with Amsterdam’s turkish psych folk powerhouse, Altin Gun.

Having spent the whole night working on the melodic structure of the song, Figueira took a break to take advantage of the different time zones and check on his dad in Venezuela, and ask how the pandemic was unfolding there. His answer: “Todo Parao” (“Total Shutdown”). The same two words he had used multiple times before, this time pronounced in a hilarious Rum-infused way, giving Alex an unexpected flush of inspiration in the form of an instant infectious chorus. He excused himself and immediately got locked back in the studio. The result is this incredibly catchy tune, displaying the optimistic approach of a boyfriend to the chaos, uncertainty and worrying of his girlfriend about the pandemic, presenting her with his own lascivious lockdown plan for the two, declaring at a certain moment: “while everyone is lamenting, you and I are going to enjoy”.

In the musical side, rhythms from Haiti, Guadaloupe, Martinique, Puerto Rico and Cuba are unscrupulously mixed with the most diverse and strikking elements: strident cowbells that evoke the toughest salsa of 70's New York, harmonized guitars evidencing the inconfesable influence of 80’s heavy metal, a delicate Wurlitzer piano reminiscent of Black America’s greatest Soul ballads, Casio keyboards rescued from a child’s toy cabinet and a whole plethora of half-broken classic Synths, to create an equally irresistible and unclassifiable hybrid.

On the flip side, Part 2 opens with a prominent dose of the lead guitar that appeared briefly on the A side, working as a preamble to an instrumentalist frenzy that is not concerned about displaying technique. Its mere intention is to tell you the rest of the story without using words. A few bars into the song, the first gear shifts with a monumental solo given by the least probable of all “soloist” instruments: the cowbell (!). After it, a crispy Timbal crashes the party, making a statement out of its only appearance in the entire recording. Finally, the longed-for turn of the melodious Wurlitzer, who left everybody craving for more on the other side of the record, giving the modest keyboard skills of Figueira an imposing pentatonic virtue.

Big Crown Records is proud to present Ekundayo, Liam Bailey’s debut record on the label. This album is a long time in the making, and after listening, clearly worth the wait. It didn’t take a long time to record, but it did take years for all the stars to line up.

Bailey, born and raised in Nottingham, England, the son of an English mother and Jamaican father got his early influences from his mom’s record collection. Bob Marley and Dillinger, Stevie Wonder and The Supremes, The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix would eventually shape the singer/songwriter we know today.
Fast-forward to 2005, Liam is in London and doing the whatever-gig-you-can-get musician hustle with hopes of landing a record deal. And it was through this time that Liam first teamed up with Leon Michels, musician / producer luminary, and the co-founder of Brooklyn's own Big Crown Records. Liam flew out to New York and those first sessions together produced the now classic tunes “When Will They Learn” and “I’m Gonna Miss You” which still get spins at reggae spots around the globe. That trip helped kick off what was to follow next for Liam: a slew of record releases, label deals, and working with some wildly-notable mainstream producers. Even a just-famous Amy Winehouse heard one of Liam's apartment-made, lo-fi recordings through a friend and liked what she heard. Regardless of the audio quality, Liam's particular sound shone through—all guitar, warm-rough and genuine soul. She signed him to her label shortly after.

But, as the story can go with major labels, they already had an idea of the Liam they wanted to make, promote, and push. With the typical pay-day enticement, Liam did his best to fit into whatever shape they put him to. "'Maybe I can make it work,' that's what you're thinking," Liam remembers, "but, you quickly find out that you can't."

While Liam’s career went through a bunch of record industry twists and turns he and Michels stayed in touch and would regularly connect and collaborate. Finally, in 2019, the time was right to do a full-length album together. And this time, it would be free of any restricting major label presumptions and opinions. "This is the record we always wanted to make," says Michels. Set to release in November 2020, the album is called Ekundayo. And the word's meaning may be all you need to know to get to the essence of this project. It means "sorrow becomes joy" in Yoruba, a language spoken mostly in Western Africa. On the surface, Ekundayo is a weighty Reggae record, full of new and old textured riddims. But listen more in-depth, and you'll find subject matter that's more recognizable from a modern-day R&B record. An example of the former is the first single off the album. Sung to the most beautiful woman at the nightspot, "Champion" is a joyous anthem powered by a silly-thick Juno-bass throb and 808-proof drums. In short, "Champion" is dancehall-ready. But then there's a song like "Don't Blame NY." Moody and sparse with a somber drive, you might have to resist the urge to compare it to a Frank Ocean-ish type vibe. Liam's voice is in a different but fitting element here, showing stripped-back emotion and soulful restraint. Anyone who has lived and tried to thrive in New York won't have a hard time relating to the lyrics but they may join the masses who blame the city, while Liam points the finger at himself and sings praises to The Big Apple.

Credit to Leon's hand, elements of Jamaican production are everywhere, peppered throughout the record. Like the pitch-perfect organ stabs that push through the authentically positive "White Light," or the muted, percussive guitar strums that chug along in the back of "Fight." In the same vein of any fantastic singer/songwriter album, Ekundayo is a reflection of who Liam Bailey is, taking on topics and approaches he never would think of just a few years ago. Some evidence: "Ugly Truth" is about reconnecting with his biological father, a subject he once thought would be too personal to address. The journey from conforming to major labels to this latest record has been a long one for Liam, and a bit of a struggle. But struggle may be the only way we truly grow and evolve. With a new clarity of purpose, sound, and life, Liam has found joy out of those struggles. And it's called Ekundayo.

The 4th release on Sofia by KiNK is all about warmth. The harmonies are deep, the instruments are muffled, the rhythms are humanised. Even when some of the tracks are getting a bit aggressive, they are not hurting, but giving the right amount of energy and surprise. This record is built from some of the live streams Strahil was doing during the pandemic lockdown in April. "101 Reasons" is a track with disco epic-ness and techno attitude. It captures KiNK's dream of being on the sweaty floor again, surrounded by dancers, one big family, like it used to be. "Dreamer" is low key house music, with melodies, leaking between the notes and the rhythms are somehow derailing, but instead of chaos, you get that dreamy feeling like if you watch a ribbon in the sky. The phenomenal Dutch artist Frits Wentink delivers a tighter version of the track with his unique swing on the drums and extra chords, which uplift the track with new energy. The closing song "Set The Mood Right" is recorded with his usual collaborator Rachel Row on the vocals. It's a very relaxed downtempo track, which takes an unexpected turn and it's a perfect open end for the record. A warm record for the cold days.

It’s 2020, the year Pop Ambient turns twenty-one years old, a spritely young adult waltzing out of its teenage joys and tears. Pop Ambient has always stood for a certain classicism and elegance, a kind of beatless music that’s diaphanous and hazy, gossamer and glittering. It’s a music that’s no less inviting for its slow pace and becalmed nature, with a different kind of tension bubbling under the surface. For twenty-one years, KOMPAKT co-founder Wolfgang Voigt has curated a series of peerless compilations that repeatedly find refreshing answers to a simple question – What happens when the dancefloor is empty, and everyone’s home to drift away?

As with many other Pop Ambient compilations, Pop Ambient 2021 offers a welcome platform to contributions from both old friends and new faces. It opens with the gorgeous, slo-mo drift of “Of A Vessel”, from new Kompakt signings Blank Gloss. Sending their music out into the world from their home in Sacramento, this duo makes music that’s featherlight and luscious, the muted chime of a guitar over here, the steady hum of a halatial drone over there; everything in its right place, and nothing overdone. The poise is all. Neozaïre (Tobias Sawitzki aka Noorden) and Seventh World (Juho Hietala aka Blamstrain) are our other two new voices, the latter closing (the CD version of) Pop Ambient 2021 with a long, lambent dreamsong, Neozaïre offering us two gaseous, morphing driftworks, “Vor den Toren Europas” and “In Verschwenderischer Fülle” (CD only), etched across with bell-like arpeggios.

Pop Ambient has always felt like a field for play for the KOMPAKT cognoscenti, and 2021 is no different, with Joachim Spieth collaborating with Pepo Galán on the sidereal visions of “Libration”, while Leandro Fresco teams up with Thore Pfeiffer on the lovely “Abejorro”. Pfeiffer also contributes two lovely solo miniatures of abstract longing. Yui Onodera calls in again, long distance, for their fourth Pop Ambient running, with the refracted, glinting lightscapes of “Cromo 5” and “Monochrome”, while there are also star turns from Max Würden, both solo and in Reich & Würden (with Luis Reichard), and Morgen Wurde, who drops by with the ‘ethereal drama’ of “Mittsommer”.

Pop Ambient gets the balance right: visions and soundscapes, long-distance communications and intimate asides, sweetness and light, drama and dreaming, all wrapped up in floral abstractions – a most beautiful distraction.

Wir schreiben das Jahr 2020, das Jahr, in dem Pop Ambient einundzwanzig Jahre alt wird – das entspricht etwa einem lebenshungrigen jungen Erwachsenen, der gerade aus den letzten Teenager-Freuden und Leiden herausgewachsen ist. Pop Ambient steht seit jeher für eine gewisse Klassik und Eleganz, beatfreie Musik, die, transparent und leicht verschwommen, zart und glitzernd leuchtet. Musik, die trotz ihrer Langsamkeit und ihrer sanften Natur unter Spannung steht, weil hier immer etwas unter der scheinbar ruhigen Oberfläche brodelt.

Einundzwanzig Jahre lang hat KOMPAKT-Mitbegründer Wolfgang Voigt diese einzigartige Compilation-Reihe kuratiert, die immer wieder neue Antworten auf eine einfache Frage findet: Wie füllt man die Leere nach dem Club?

Wie viele andere Pop Ambient-Compilations bietet auch Pop Ambient 2021 eine Plattform für die musikalischen Beiträge von alten Freunden und einigen neuen Gesichtern. Es beginnt mit dem wunderbaren Slo-Mo-Drift von "Of A Vessel" von Blank Gloss, einem neuen Kompakt Signing. Das Duo stammt aus Sacramento in Kalifornien und sendet von dort seine überaus leichte und sinnliche Musik in die Welt hinaus – ein zartes Zupfen an einer Gitarresaite hier, das gleichmäßige Dröhnen eines prunkvollen Soundscapes hier; alles ist hier am richtigen Platz und passiert ohne übertriebene Betonung. Gelassenheit ist alles. Neozaïre und Seventh World sind zwei weitere Neuzugänge. Hinter Seventh World steckt der finnische Produzent Juho Hietala aka Blamstrain, der (die CD Version von) Pop Ambient 2021 mit einem epischen, flackernden Traum names “Light The Waves Before Dawn“ beschließt, während Neozaïre, ein Seitenprojekt von Tobias Sawitzki aka Noorden, zwei gasförmige, sich immer wieder morphende und abdriftende Tracks abliefert: "In Verschwenderischer Fülle" (CD only) mit seinen glockenartigen Arpeggios und “Vor Den Toren Europas“.

Pop Ambient fühlte sich immer schon an wie ein Experimentierfeld für eingefleischte KOMPAKT-Künstler, und auch 2021 ist das nicht anders: zum Beispiel Joachim Spieth’s Kooperation mit Pepo Galán ("Libration") oder Leandro Fresco, der mit Thore Pfeiffer das liebevolle "Abejorro" produzierte. Pfeiffer steuert mit “Grape“ und “Center“ zwei weitere Solo-Miniaturen voller abstrakter Sehnsucht bei. Der japanische Klangkünstler Yui Onodera meldet sich mit den gebrochen-glitzernden Lichtlandschaften von "Cromo 5" und "Monochrome" bereits zum vierten Mal auf Pop Ambient zu Wort, während Max Würden sowohl solo, als auch als Teil von Reich & Würden (mit Luis Reichard) ebenso wie Morgen Wurde schon zu den Stars dieser Compilation gehört.

After selling out on every batch of the limited runs of 300 Donuts 7” releases dropped throughout 2020, Bristol’s 45 connoisseur Boca 45 AKA Scott Hendy offers them up here for the first time ever as a complete collection. 12 of the freshest, hip-hop, funk, soul & breaks sprinkled tracks featuring some choice collaborations with some of the finest artists in the scene.

Collating the exclusive vinyl-only releases since January, as well as some brand-new, never-before-heard singles, Boca is providing a full-on masterclass of production, grooves, song writing and endless talent from an array of artists that tick just about every musical box and smash genre boundaries straight through the middle.

Trouble, the aptly named new album on Goner Records, is a confident and joy-filled statement delivering the good-news gospel message unapologetically through music influenced by Ray Charles, Junior Kimbrough, Bill Withers and of course, his father.

Recorded at legendary Royal Studios in Memphis by Lawrence “Boo” Mitchell (Al Green, Solomon Burke, John Mayer, Buddy Guy, Mark Ronson & Bruno Mars, North Mississippi Allstars), Trouble is the culmination of everything in Rev. Wilkins’s remarkable life, his regional history, his family music history. And in a world once again riven with discord and division, like the Memphis of Wilkins’ youth in the 1960’s, Trouble delivers passionate and confident musical performances with a message of hope that meets our present moment equal to the best music from that earlier era.

To call the Reverend John Wilkins a national treasure would not be an overstatement. He is the son of pre-war blues/folk-revival legend Reverend Robert Wilkins and he leads one of the most exciting and uplifting musical acts on the blues and gospel circuit today. His multiracial, multi-generational band blends soul, southern gospel and hill country rhythm, into a sound that has the infectious drive of hill country blues with the emotional heights of a summer tent revival.

Following in the footsteps of his famous father Rev. Robert Wilkins, a blues-singer turned preacher who went from the juke joint to the pulpit, the life of Rev. John Wilkins took a similar path, echoing the story of the elder Wilkins’ most famous song, “Prodigal Son.”

But in 2020 John Wilkins’ life has been closer to a different iconic bible character, Lazarus, as he has miraculously risen after surviving a month-long stay in intensive care battling Covid19 in a Memphis hospital. As Rev. Wilkins sings on the closing track of his forthcoming album, “I’ve come through the storm and rain, I’ve come through the storm and rain, and I made it!”

Big Crown Records is proud to present Ekundayo, Liam Bailey’s debut record on the label. This album is a long time in the making, and after listening, clearly worth the wait. It didn’t take a long time to record, but it did take years for all the stars to line up.

Bailey, born and raised in Nottingham, England, the son of an English mother and Jamaican father got his early influences from his mom’s record collection. Bob Marley and Dillinger, Stevie Wonder and The Supremes, The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix would eventually shape the singer/songwriter we know today.
Fast-forward to 2005, Liam is in London and doing the whatever-gig-you-can-get musician hustle with hopes of landing a record deal. And it was through this time that Liam first teamed up with Leon Michels, musician / producer luminary, and the co-founder of Brooklyn's own Big Crown Records. Liam flew out to New York and those first sessions together produced the now classic tunes “When Will They Learn” and “I’m Gonna Miss You” which still get spins at reggae spots around the globe. That trip helped kick off what was to follow next for Liam: a slew of record releases, label deals, and working with some wildly-notable mainstream producers. Even a just-famous Amy Winehouse heard one of Liam's apartment-made, lo-fi recordings through a friend and liked what she heard. Regardless of the audio quality, Liam's particular sound shone through—all guitar, warm-rough and genuine soul. She signed him to her label shortly after.

But, as the story can go with major labels, they already had an idea of the Liam they wanted to make, promote, and push. With the typical pay-day enticement, Liam did his best to fit into whatever shape they put him to. "'Maybe I can make it work,' that's what you're thinking," Liam remembers, "but, you quickly find out that you can't."

While Liam’s career went through a bunch of record industry twists and turns he and Michels stayed in touch and would regularly connect and collaborate. Finally, in 2019, the time was right to do a full-length album together. And this time, it would be free of any restricting major label presumptions and opinions. "This is the record we always wanted to make," says Michels. Set to release in November 2020, the album is called Ekundayo. And the word's meaning may be all you need to know to get to the essence of this project. It means "sorrow becomes joy" in Yoruba, a language spoken mostly in Western Africa. On the surface, Ekundayo is a weighty Reggae record, full of new and old textured riddims. But listen more in-depth, and you'll find subject matter that's more recognizable from a modern-day R&B record. An example of the former is the first single off the album. Sung to the most beautiful woman at the nightspot, "Champion" is a joyous anthem powered by a silly-thick Juno-bass throb and 808-proof drums. In short, "Champion" is dancehall-ready. But then there's a song like "Don't Blame NY." Moody and sparse with a somber drive, you might have to resist the urge to compare it to a Frank Ocean-ish type vibe. Liam's voice is in a different but fitting element here, showing stripped-back emotion and soulful restraint. Anyone who has lived and tried to thrive in New York won't have a hard time relating to the lyrics but they may join the masses who blame the city, while Liam points the finger at himself and sings praises to The Big Apple.

Credit to Leon's hand, elements of Jamaican production are everywhere, peppered throughout the record. Like the pitch-perfect organ stabs that push through the authentically positive "White Light," or the muted, percussive guitar strums that chug along in the back of "Fight." In the same vein of any fantastic singer/songwriter album, Ekundayo is a reflection of who Liam Bailey is, taking on topics and approaches he never would think of just a few years ago. Some evidence: "Ugly Truth" is about reconnecting with his biological father, a subject he once thought would be too personal to address. The journey from conforming to major labels to this latest record has been a long one for Liam, and a bit of a struggle. But struggle may be the only way we truly grow and evolve. With a new clarity of purpose, sound, and life, Liam has found joy out of those struggles. And it's called Ekundayo.

Black vinyl editions of four 'Elephant' era singles ('Seven Nation Army', 'I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself, The Hardest Button to Button' and There's No Home For You Here). Featuring badass non-album b-sides, 3 of which are covers of songs from some of Detroits turn-of-the-millenium best and brightest (Brendan Benson, Jason Falkner, Dan Miller (Blanche), Soledad Brothers), and one of which is a live White Stripes medley of "I Fought Piranhas" and "Let's Build a Home," recorded at New York's legendary Electric Lady Studios. Most of these tracks have been remastered from the original analog sources, and the artwork on all the singles has been improved upon by the Third Man Creative Hive. "There's No Home For You Here", which was originally coupled with a generic company sleeve, now has stunning new artwork. It looks electrifying! On top of looking good, these sleeves are soft as a baby, printed with an aqueous coating, so they feel like a cross between rubber and lambskin. It's nice.

Black vinyl editions of four ‘Elephant’ era singles. The four singles ("Seven Nation Army," "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself," The Hardest Button to Button," and "There's No Home For You Here") feature badass non-album b-sides, 3 of which are covers of songs from some of Detroit's turn-of-the-millenium best and brightest (Brendan Benson, Jason Falkner, Dan Miller (Blanche), Soledad Brothers), and one of which is a live White Stripes medley of "I Fought Piranhas" and "Let's Build a Home," recorded at New York's legendary Electric Lady Studios.

Most of these tracks have been remastered from the original analog sources, and the artwork on all the singles has been improved upon by the Third Man Creative Hive. "There's No Home For You Here", which was originally coupled with a generic company sleeve, now has stunning new artwork. It looks electrifying! On top of looking good, these sleeves are soft as a baby, printed with an aqueous coating, so they feel like a cross between rubber and lambskin. It's nice.

Take Five is probably one of the jazz titles that is best-known to a mass audience. It was composed by Paul Desmond and it appeared on the album Time Out by the Dave Brubeck Quartet.

Pianist Brubeck had studied veterinary medicine before turning to music, and in 1949 he formed an octet, and then in 1951 his famous quartet with Paul Desmond playing saxophone. He signed with Columbia in 1954 and built up an excellent reputation, but in 1959 he became famous around the globe thanks to two titles, Take Five and Blue Rondo à la Turk.

In France, the singer Claude Nougaro made the quartet’s work popular when he wrote the French lyrics for versions of Three to get ready (adapted as Le jazz et la Java) and Blue Rondo a la Turk (with the title A bout de souffle). Dave Brubeck was “quiet man”, far from the legends and excess often linked with jazz: he would spend six decades in a world where life, and jazz, was “cool.”

CoOp Presents an all-new double-album compilation entitled 'Plug One'. It features a plethora of global talent from in & around the world of bruk and beyond - some already well-established in the field, some very much on the come-up and some brand new artists - this compilation is an acknowledgment of a continually evolving sound from the label formed by IG Culture & Alex Phountzi a few years ago. 'Plug One' affirms this electric movement, with a deeply fluid current running throughout, with tracks ranging from the cosmic psych jazz of LCSM, to the classic UKG tweaks of Groove Chronicles, to the thought-provoking vibes of Reginald Omas Mamaode IV, to a veritable who's who of 2020 bruk talent including Xtra Brux, Sivey, EVM128, Cengiz, Wonky Logic & many more.

From its beginnings as a classic club night and label in the early 2000's, CoOp always carried an undefinable and potent creative energy. A sense of freedom and uninhibited exploration was positioned at the core of CoOp's sprawling community and consciousness, communicated via movement and sound. From this seed and throughout the years that followed, this same energy permeated the worldwide underground music ecosystem. As CoOp's legacy continued to influence new generations of music makers far and wide. The syncopated rhythms, soulful keys and infectious grooves synonymous with the broken beat sound, now known simply as Bruk, became entwined with new concepts and progressions, leading to new movements carrying on the essence of the bruk energy.

IG Culture and Alex Phountzi took the helm of their CoOp Presents label in 2018, with the vision of championing these new waves of emerging artists, continuing the all-important exchange of energy at the heart of the original CoOp movement, but also giving room for the music to be pushed into new and uncharted territories. With burgeoning producers from around the globe being drawn to the explorative and expressive nature of the project, an incubator was created, providing a space and platform for these ideals to take on new shapes and sounds. Just as every generation must rewrite its own history books, CoOp Presents was born from a combination of influences, ideas and personalities, and in turn is now encouraging the next generation to do some re-writing of its own.

'Plug One' will be released on vinyl & digital on CoOp Presents in November 2020.

Tramp Records continues their pilgrimage to the soulful fringes of spiritual jazz and progressive rock and funk with their 3rd and 4th volumes of their "Peace Chant, Raw, Deep and Spiritual Jazz" series, and the world could not be more ready.

As we turn together on this tiny blue ball hanging lonely in space, and as we together face existential threats ranging from climate catastrophe, the rise of brutal authoritarian regimes, the breaking of the industrial storm and the imminent collapse of empire, not to mention the raging covid-19 crisis and the continuing racial and social struggles across the globe, we are thrust into a society-wide grand awakening that has been in the making for a very long time. Of course, our musical teachers have trod this path before us, and have worked out solutions to these problems, the songs of the Peace Chant series ring out loud and clear as our ancestors' proof of concept. They say history repeats herself, maybe it's because we weren't listening the first time. Thanks to Tramp Records, we have been granted another opportunity.

Today, the musical and spiritual truths enshrined within the spiritual jazz diaspora seem to be more and more sought-after, and crucial at a time when we as a society seek higher and farther for those bold truths. With each generation, that truth doesn't change, and the artists featured in the series speak those truths along a continuum that ranges from the late-60s up to the present day.

Volume 4, the second LP opens with a gorgeous and lush Wurlitzer-oriented big band piece that among its many treasures also features the 17-year-old visionary-saxophonist-to-be, Steve Coleman in his alleged first recording! The contributions of Brother Yusuf Salim and Bus Brown, figures who should be very familiar to Tramp Records aficionados, are consecrated here with a live recording of Freedom from one of Brother Yu's last public performances. One of the two European contributions to the comp, Attitude, by Organic Pulse 'onesemble', reads like a double entendre, the word "attitude" meaning simultaneously one's disposition or state of mind, and also one's orientation relative to the horizon. The Peace Chant series continues to touch all the sacred meridians: more devotional music with James Scales & All Stars' Ser-Vi-Tude, trance music of non-dominant traditions with Donn Preston Group's Ghana-Cha!, a modal and blue organ trio offering from Tommy Jones, and closing with a rich and righteous ballad, Quernemoen, from the Wayne Powell Octet.

Peace Chant is the center of the mandala, representing the nucleus of the post-bop, modal jazz, avant-garde, transcendental, spiritual, ethnic, and freedom music universe without necessarily suggesting anything immediately identifiable as any of the above. This is the soundtrack to the raising of human consciousness and the salvation of society's very soul.

We give thanks to Tramp Records for leading our thirsty hearts to this rich fountain.

“Easy rider, come and take me higher”. When the world seemingly crumbles around, music can provide an escape few other mediums can. For their debut self-titled LP, Velour effortlessly levitate you above the madness below, each track taking a new turn, cruising over hazy flecked skylines, bustling walkways and bleary eyed bedlam. A trajectory that takes in all of jazz’s vibrancies, blending elements of neo soul, broken beat and hip hop coupled with a much-needed sense of hope across nine deep, soul-searching tracks released via WOLF Music Recordings.

A style and sound taking influence from genres and moods, environments and experiences, Essen-based Velour stretch their legs for this, their first full length album. From the off, they nestle you under their wing with the rustling sax washes of opener ‘CLP’ before diving into an epic slo-mo burner, swooping down into the chaos as singer, Eva Czaya, wistfully narrates the scenes beneath.

Unafraid to shift pace within songs, the likes of ‘Pose’, sauntering from soulful summer groove into woozy late night affair, and ‘Tom's Garage’, that progresses from roadside recounting to grungy basement blowout, finished with a sample of jazz-tinged dusty beats, show that accomplished and adept heads rest on the shoulders of these relative newcomers.

WOLF Music mainstay Mr Fries continues to head up production for Velour, his trademark touch capturing the intimacy of Velour’s sound presenting it in a way that’s considered yet raw - nothing feeling rushed, nor cluttered. A separation and space that gives each element the room it deserves to breathe, with short interludes and skits providing the perfect bridge between tracks, guiding you through smokey jazz bars and twilight whisperings.

Moving through the album, Czaya at points wanders in a serene spoken dialogue, at others letting her voice loose, but always with an ethereal demeanour that comes off with natural ease. One of many highlights, ‘Anthony Davis’ shows off this celestial prowess whilst perfectly embodying Velour’s dream-like escapism. A pent up release of creativity, as moody bass tones mix with deft keys, rolling snares sit behind swirling saxophones.

The journey ends with ‘Luminate’, a transcendent closer laced with space-echoed vocals that reverberate around over-driven Rhodes and feverish drums. Cymbals crash, as modulated synths rise, building and building before easing you off into the night and on your way to a parallel universe.

As a body of work, ‘Velour’ is a shining example of the freedom, energy and enthusiasm of the new school of jazz that’s been captivating minds the world over. An instant on repeat staple - let go, feel the flow, it’s what we need in a time like this.

Wah Wah 45s are proud to present a unique collaboration between the U.K.'s very own Afrobeat Ambassador, Dele Sosimi, and a producer who's been at the forefront of the South London electronic music scene for a decade now, Medlar.

The pair first joined forces five years ago, when Medlar was asked by Dele's label to remix the title track from his last album,You No Fit Touch Am. The result was possibly one of the most popular and cherished remixes to appear on the imprint. The producer's respect for the history of Afrobeat shined through in the mix of course, but it was his ability to finely balance that with his house music instincts whilst adding an infectious groove and classic 80s analogue synths that really stood out.

The track was an instant classic, and it soon became clear that the Afrobeat Ambassador and Peckham producer needed to make some music together. Having never actually met during the remix process, the dating began, and luckily the two were clearly a perfect match.

After some weeks of pinging ideas back and forth, and spending time in the studio together, it became obvious that this project was also something they could take out live. As so it has been, from their modest debut performance in East London last spring, to playing festivals across the UK and beyond. Never the same show twice, their shows are based around a bank of rhythms on MPC which come alive when combined with Dele's vocals and improvisational keyboard explorations, all of which are dubbed out live by Medlar. Their musical journey is always unpredictable, vibrant and often quite surprising!

With this in mind, when picking tracks they'd developed on the road over the last year to take into the studio,Full Moonevolved into what might be best described as a bossa nova meets country & western lounge track, suitable for sipping cocktails to on a beach, or perhaps in your back garden in the current situation!

"This is really great this track. Really great!" Gilles Peterson

The original version of the song dropped earlier this summer and has been championed by both Gilles Peterson and Moses Boyd on BBC 6Music. When it came to remix duties, there was only one production outfit who fitted the bill, and one who the label had been trying to coax a remix out of for a couple of years.

Lars Dales and Maarten Smeets, otherwise known as Detroit Swindle, have been turning out musical, soulful, tropical and always party starting house music for almost a decade now. Wah Wah label boss Dom Servini hooked up with the pair at a European festival a couple of years ago, and ever since has been waiting for the right project to come along that would spark their imagination.

"When we heard the original of 'Full Moon' for the first time, we really felt the retro style with the cr78 drum, the dreamy pads and that almost overly simple synth flute. For us, that really defined the direction of the remix and we looked for a hook that could make those elements pop in a more energetic way. The vocal is also super laid back so we chopped it up a bit to give it some more spice. I think it was when we wrote the chords for our remix that the dubbed out 80's synth vibe really started to take form. It turned out to be a really nice remix for this time of year and hopefully it'll warm some hearts when people hear it." Detroit Swindle

The follow up single,Gúdú Gúdú Kan,in turn received support from Tom Ravenscroft and Gideon Coe on BBC 6Music. It's Dele and Medlar's own take on an Afro-disco stomper. The title refers to the role the snare drum plays and its relationship with Ìyá Ìlù kan, or the kick drum. It's a simple but very effective metaphor for this unique musical collaboration where once again the pair forged a sound that's all their own.

Taking things back to The Shrine by way of a little Bugz style bruk magic, Daz-I-Kue's remix ofGúdú Gúdú Kanrestructures the tune more in the style of a Fela classic, albeit with a broken flavour and layers upon layers of keys galore! In doing so, Daz creates what we think is a sure fire future club classic.

For the first time you can enjoy the full length versions of both of these top class remixes on a single slab of gorgeous wax!

Fischgeist was recorded in a former water tank in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg in August 2019. The nineteenth-century brick building consists of five layered circles, with a spiral staircase in the middle leading up to an exit to a hilltop. Inside, it’s humid and cold, the temperature always around 8–10 C°. The building’s acoustics produce a long reverberation that lasts up to 20 seconds.

‘One day between recording sessions, a man, a passerby, wanted to look inside the building. He told me that it used to be full of fish. For a second I imagined a huge round aquarium with loads of fish swimming around in circles. Then I realized that he meant dead fish were kept there, to be sold on markets during the GDR era. But the image of fish swimming in the space stayed with me.’

In conversation with the space of the water tank, Tomoko Sauvage searches beyond the limits of her self-invented ‘natural synthesizers’: porcelain and glass bowls, filled with water and amplified with hydrophones.

While she continues to develop some of the classic techniques heard on her previous album Musique Hydromantique (Shelter Press, 2017) – hydrophonic feedback (Kinetosis Study) and ‘fortune biscuits’ (porous pieces of terracotta that emit tiny singing bubbles) (Deluge) – here new elements are combined with delicate gestures to make curious noises: stroking bowls’ surfaces to imitate the voices of sea mammals (Metamorphosis), drawing dots and circles by rubbing stones against stones underwater (Exit) … The underwater amplification of quasi-inaudible sound is even more magnified in the air by the echo of the water tank. Not only tiny bubbles, but also micro-movements of the bones and veins of the hand holding the sonorous objects in the water, are intensely amplified – sounding like a tempest on the opening Deluge. Sauvage’s longtime research into hydrophonic feedback develops with her new obsession with natural harmonics and sympathetic resonance. In Flying Vessels, the percussive notes of struck bowls resonate and turn into feedback loops before decaying, fueled by electric signal gain. Kinetosis Study is a sonic etude on fluid dynamics – the flow velocity, pressure and density of manually shaped water waves directly controlling the aquatic synthesizer’s parameters.

August, when the mid-summer Ghost Festival is held, is traditionally known as the Ghost Month throughout East Asia. The spirits of the dead visit their living families, who welcome them with feasts, dancing and music. Miniature lantern-laden boats are released in rivers, to help lost ghosts find their way home.

Animated by formless matter – water, electricity, sound – Fischgeist celebrates a phantasmagoric journey, as the souls of aquatic lifeforms find their way out of the labyrinth of the water tank.

Credits
Composed, performed and mixed by Tomoko Sauvage
Recorded and produced by bohemian drips prior to ‘Speicher’ festival in Berlin, August 2019 (binaural recording with a KU-100 dummy head microphone)
Mastered by Andreas Kauffelt in Berlin
Cover drawings by Baien Mōri (1798-1851)
© Tomoko Sauvage and bohemian drips – all rights reserved

One of the most expensive records in the world. The only available copy on Discogs is a mere £4,000!

This was Willie Tee returning to his '60s anthem "Teasing You" but updating it with a beautiful 1972 New Orleans production turning it into a Modern Soul anthem. It's a work of sublime genius and the fully remastered 7" reissue will have replica artwork of the original Gatur label. You have just been spoilt, again.

The second volume brings sublime crossings of gospel with the soul, funk and jazz of the Black Power era. Twenty rapturous cuts dot dazzlingly between Muscle Shoals soul, screwed breakbeat, Mizells-style fusion, disco and proto-house. Triumphant re-workings of Sly Stone, Donny Hathaway and Herbie Hancock’s Head Hunters will have listeners throwing their pew cushions into the air.

Full-size booklet; beautifully designed, with stunning, rare photographs and original Savoy artwork.

Multi Natural is a new example of Christina’s organic chamber music. We enter nine composed chambers. Nine rooms to inhabit, constructed out of elements that are slowly fusing. The album is a string of semi constant metamorphosis. A gesture appears, is elaborated upon—or is halted and replaced by a new gesture. Multi Natural has multi focal points, quite dissimilar to Christina’s other works that tend to have a more linear path.

Within this album lives a composer who is not afraid to let the content take over. In this, obviously composed work, there is still a large space for all those sounds to act freely. It is almost like Christina is waiting for the music to compose itself. This technique speaks of respect and trust for the listener, since it gives thelistener freedom to personally connect the lines.

When you put the needle on this record, everything turns to stone. The music flows and nurtures. Sounds that come from various realities—molded into a mutual understanding. With each spin, new events catch the ears. Like looking at alandscape, perceiving new details close and far with every gaze.

When Christina warps both time and space for you, it comes to you as a gift.

Today internationally renowned composer, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and visual artist Tim Koh announces the release of his debut solo album ‘In Your Dreams’, set for release on 18 September via Tim Burgess’ O Genesis Recordings. The announce follows the release of recent single ‘Fall Into Your Dream’ in May.

In Your Dreams is Tim’s most straightforward and accessible release to date, and an exciting addition to his body of solo work, which hitherto can broadly be described as experimental noise. The poignant song collection tackles core themes of life’s calamities, broken love, and transitory relationships, yet counterbalances its essential melancholy with a whimsical, upbeat, and playful spirit throughout. While not strictly autobiographical, the songs draw from Tim’s recent personal experiences during his two-year isolation from friends and family, and create a compelling narrative of alienation, loss, and love.

Tim wrote In Your Dreams in Amsterdam, L.A., and London in-between his time touring with Ariel Pink, and subsequently recorded the songs at home in Amsterdam while recovering from a near-fatal 2018 accident. The recurring hospitalizations that Tim has endured in recent years subtly find their way into the album through phone recordings from Tim’s actual hospital stints, underscoring the album’s themes on this highly personal work. In Your Dreams deftly juxtaposes lush, densely layered sounds with stark simplicity through a series of quick turnarounds, creating the captivating feeling of tension and release that characterizes this remarkable song collection.

Guest musicians on In Your Dreams include Chris Cohen on guitar, and drum help from Jay Watson (Tame Impala, Gum) and Josh da Costa (CMON). Adding to the family feel of the album, longtime Ariel Pink and Tim Koh collaborator Jorge Elbrecht performed mixing duties along with mastering by Heba Kadry.

In the horror genre, sequels are perfunctory. As the insufferable film bro Randy explains in Scream 2, "There are certain rules that one must abide by in order to create a successful sequel. Number one: the body count is always bigger. Number two: the death scenes are always much more elaborate-more blood, more gore. Carnage candy. And number three: never, ever, under any circumstances, assume the killer is dead." Last Halloween, Los Angeles experimental rap mainstays Clipping ended their three-year silence with the horrorcore-inspired album There Existed an Addiction to Blood. This October, rapper Daveed Diggs, and producers Jonathan Snipes and William Hutson return with an even higher body count, more elaborate kills, and monsters that just won't stay dead. Visions of Bodies Being Burned is less a sequel than it is the second half of a planned diptych. It turns out, Clipping took to the thematic material of horrorcore like vampires to grave soil. Before the release of There Existed an Addiction to Blood, Clipping and Sub Pop Records divided the material up into two albums, designed to be released only months apart. However, a global pandemic and multiple cancelled tours pushed the release of the project's "part two" until the following Halloween season. Visions of Bodies Being Burned contains sixteen more scary stories disguised as rap songs, incorporating as much influence from Ernest Dickerson, Clive Barker, and Shirley Jackson as it does from Three 6 Mafia, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, and Brotha Lynch Hung. Clipping's angular, shattered interpretations of existing musical styles are always deferential, driven by fandom for the object of study rather than disdain for it. Clipping reimagine horrorcore-the purposely absurdist hip-hop subgenre that flourished in the 1990s-the way Jordan Peele does horror cinema: by twisting beloved tropes to make explicit their own radical politics of monstrosity, fear, and the uncanny. The album features a host of collaborators: Inglewood's Cam & China, fellow noise-rap pioneers Ho99o9, Tortoise guitar genius Jeff Parker, and experimental LA drummer Ted Byrnes. The final track, "Secret Piece," is a performance of a Yoko Ono text score from 1953 that instructs the players to "Decide on one note that you want to play/Play it with the following accompaniment: the woods from 5am to 8am in summer," and features nearly all of the musicians who appeared on both albums. Since their last album, Daveed Diggs-the group's Tony and Grammy Award-winning rapper-has starred in the TNT science fiction series, Snowpiercer, voiced a character in Pixar's Soul, and portrayed Frederick Douglass in Showtime's The Good Lord Bird. Writer Rivers Solomon's novella based on Clipping's Hugo-nominated song "The Deep" has been nominated for the Nebula, Hugo, and Locus Awards, and won the Lambda Literary Award for best LGBTQ SF/Fantasy/Horror novel. Clipping's song "Chapter 319"-a tribute to George Floyd (AKA Big Floyd) the former DJ-Screw affiliated rapper who was murdered by police officers in May of 2020-was released on Bandcamp on June 19th and raised over $20,000 for racial justice charities. A clip of the song also became a popular meme on TikTok, generating over 50,000 videos in which teenagers rapped the song's lyrics ("Donald Trump is a white supremacist, full stop_") directly into the frowning faces of their conservative parents. The band also contributed a Skinny Puppy-esque rework of J-Kwon's "Tipsy" to Save Stereogum: An '00s Covers Comp.

From 1963 to 2014: "Peace Chant - raw deep and spiritual jazz" exhibits 51 years of music. A well matched anthology with sounds to dive into, hard rhythms to dance to and vocals to meditate on.

The Tramp Records crew has compiled 8 tracks in nice order and dramaturgy. Some tunes you might have never heard before unless you own one of the rare original vintage vinyl records. Peace Chant is released on two separate LPs with own catalogue numbers and on one CD. Some songs I can't get out of my mind.

These days Mabon Dawud Quintet from Ethiopia is on the trail of Mulatu Astatke. Tramp Records provides the first release of "Abeba" - a funky and stoic track in Amharic mother tongue sung by a high male lamenting voice.

Even more haunting is "Ain't Gonna Wait Too Long" by Thomas Meloncon. The self-taught guitar player recorded this protest song at the age of 20. Voice, guitar, congas and double bass are plenty enough for a heavily pushing song complaining that black man's slavery isn't gone after 400 years. Artist, poet and civil right activist Meloncon (alias Muntu Mwaminifu) wrote and directed theatre and radio plays. His works are collected at Texas Southern University in Houston. "Ain't gonna wait too long" probably is his earliest artistic outing, he just had left school in 1968.

The compilation concludes with a song by Now, a band no one outside Munich might know. "Easy Tune for Dancing" can be found on a record of cultural and concert location Feierwerk form 1990. It really was a surprise to hear the quintet of trumpeter Konstantin Kern and Klaus Pfister on sax playing Afro-Cuban jazz that easily and nonchalant. If Dizzy Gillespie turned up with his bent trumpet and Lalo Schifrin sat in like he did on "Gillespiana Suite" I wouldn't be astonished!

Videosphere, the debut album by Kompakt’s latest signing, the London-based artist Lake Turner (aka Andrew Halford), swoons into focus with “The Sunbird”, a teasing drift of lilting, ambient tones, riding out a submerged piston-pulse rhythm. Across its brief 109 seconds, it manages to traverse evocative terrain – something mythopoetic, something both humble and grandiose, a glimpse of the other behind the sky’s curtain. “I wanted to conjure up something resembling an ancient ceremony or death procession,” Turner nods. “Like a hymn to the surroundings of a faraway hill.” It’s both sky-bound and earthen, a ritual incantation to call in the music of the spheres.

Turner was introduced to the Kompakt family by his sometime collaborator Yannis Philippakis of Foals. He’d previously made music in post-punk and indie groups Great Eskimo Hoax and Trophy Wife, but Videosphere is the first time he’s fully articulated his own vision of electronic music, aside from one limited lathe-cut 12”, 2018’s Prime Mover EP, on Algebra. The lush ambient-disco-techno dreams of Videosphere were constructed and completed in his London studio and at his parents’ arable and sheep farm in Worcestershire, which might help explain the hazy, unhurried pastoralism of the album.

“There was a slight bittersweetness in finishing the record (in Worcestershire) as my parents were in the middle of selling my childhood home,” he sighs, before quipping, “on the plus, I ended up shearing a lot of sheep over the summer.” A student of archaeology and ancient history, Turner is no doubt carefully attuned to the twisting cogs of history and memory, and it’s no surprise that Videosphere has a nostalgic, melancholic cast; much of its beauty rests in the way it tugs, gently, at the heart strings – see the tear-stained cheeks of the lush, dappled “Honeycomb”, or the sweetly sad electro-roundelay of “No Way Back Forever.”

It’s not all drift-dream hypnosis, though – Videosphere is very much grounded in the now. ““No Way Back Forever” is a nod to the linear nature of time,” Turner explains by way of example, “and the tipping point of the world climate crisis that scientists have now declared.” Jayne Powell’s vocals are sent spinning through the song, wound like candyfloss; she takes centre stage on the techno hymnal title track, too. Throughout, there’s a sense of forward movement, despite the life stasis we find ourselves collectively bound by in mid-2020; there’s also a yearning for the communal, for community, that’s captured in the album title, a nod to an object Turner encountered at London’s Geoffrey Museum, “a television set in the shape of a spaceman’s helmet from the 1970s.”

“The vision I loosely had was to make an electronic record that had a communal warmth and almost ceremonial or ritual feel. I wanted to examine the relationship of our archaic minds in the trappings of the modern world,” Turner concludes. “What the Videosphere also symbolizes for me is the oneness of humanity and community, prevailing.”
Eröffnet wird "Videosphere", das Debütalbum von Kompakts jüngstem Signing, dem in London ansässigen Künstler Lake Turner (alias Andrew Halford), mit "The Sunbird" - einem herausfordernden Strom aus Ambient Sounds, die zu schweben scheinen, um sich dann in einen subtilen, maschinellen Rhythmus zu verwandeln. In gerade mal 109 Sekunden gelingt es dem Stück, ein gewaltiges Terrain abzuschreiten - etwas Mythopoetisches, bescheiden und grandios zugleich, gibt uns eine Ahnung davon, was sich hinter dem Himmel verbirgt. "Ich wollte etwas heraufbeschwören, das einer alten Zeremonie oder Totenprozession ähnelt", sagt Turner, "wie eine Hymne an die Umgebung eines weit entfernten Hügels." Himmlisch und irdisch zugleich, eine rituelle Beschwörung von Sphärenmusik.

Der Kompakt Label-Familie wurde Turner von dessen zeitweiligen Mitarbeiter Yannis Philippakis (Foals) vorgestellt. Zuvor hatte er in den Post Punk- und Indie-Bands Great Eskimo Hoax und Trophy Wife gespielt. Bis auf eine limitierte lathe-cut 12", der "Prime Mover EP" auf Algebra von 2018, artikuliert Turner mit "Videosphere" zum ersten Mal seine eigene Vision von elektronischer Musik.

Die üppigen Ambient-Disco-Techno-Träume von "Videosphere" hat Turner in seinem Londoner Studio und auf der Schaffarm seiner Eltern in Worcestershire produziert, was den nebulösen, gemächlichen und beinahe pastoralen Charakter des Albums erklären könnte.

"Es gab einen bittersüßen Moment als ich mit der Platte (in Worcestershire) fertig geworden war, da meine Eltern gerade dabei waren, das Haus meiner Kindheit zu verkaufen", seufzt er, bevor er witzelt, "das Positive war, dass ich im Laufe des Sommers eine Menge Schafe geschoren habe". Als Student der Archäologie und der Geschichte des Altertums ist Turner zweifellos mit den sich unaufhörlich drehenden Rädern der Geschichte und der daran geknüpften Erinnerungen vertraut, und es ist keine Überraschung, dass "Videosphere" einen nostalgischen, melancholischen Einschlag hat; viel von seiner Schönheit liegt in der Art und Weise, wie es einem sanft ans Herz geht - die Tränen benetzten Wangen von "Honeycomb" oder der ambivalente Elektro-Reigen von "No Way Back Forever".

Trotz allem hypnotischen Driften und Träumen - Videosphere ist sehr stark im Jetzt verankert. "`No Way Back Forever`ist eine Anspielung auf die lineare Natur der Zeit", erklärt Turner beispielhaft, "und auf den Wendepunkt der globalen Klimakrise, den Wissenschaftler gerade ausgerufen haben". Jayne Powells Gesang wirbelt dabei wie Zuckerwatte durch den Song und steht auch im Mittelpunkt des technoid hymnischen Titelstücks. Überall ist ein Gefühl der Vorwärtsbewegung zu spüren, trotz der Stagnation, in der wir uns Mitte 2020 kollektiv befinden; trotzdem existiert eine Sehnsucht nach dem Gemeinsamen, nach Gemeinschaft, die im Albumtitel eingefangen ist - eine Referenz an ein Objekt, dem Turner im Londoner Geoffrey-Museum begegnete, "ein Fernsehgerät in Form eines Raumfahrerhelms aus den 1970er Jahren".

„Die lose Vision, die ich hatte, bestand darin, eine elektronische Platte zu machen, die eine soziale Wärme und eine fast zeremonielle oder rituelle Atmosphäre ausstrahlt. Ich wollte die Beziehung unseres archaischen Geistes in den Fallstricken der modernen Welt untersuchen", so Turner abschließend. "Was `Videosphere` für mich auch symbolisiert, ist die Einheit von Menschlichkeit und Gemeinschaft, die am Ende obsiegt".

Omena hits release no.30 and celebrates by bringing in Twovi aka Vito Loperfido to the family.

Vito released his first track, 'Giango' on Bosconi Records back in 2017 and followed up with 'In Memory of Love', on Chez Damier's Inner Balance, a release that showcased his talent for blending classic house with a fresh approach.
Fast forward 2020 and we got a new release 'Panama' ready.
These four tracks show why Vito is leading the wave of musical talent coming from Italy and he's not afraid of using inspiration from different sources.

The opening track Panama is an ode to a jazzy KDJ breeze while Santiago is a clever broken beat track with a few latin vibes sprinkled on top.

On the flip, Manchester producer Contours continue to turn music into gold with a singular remake of Panama.
It's a deep and rich version with his signature percussions included.
Last but not least Lima ends this fine EP, a track which takes us back to the golden days of Nuphonic.

In the horror genre, sequels are perfunctory. As the insufferable film bro Randy explains in Scream 2, "There are certain rules that one must abide by in order to create a successful sequel. Number one: the body count is always bigger. Number two: the death scenes are always much more elaborate-more blood, more gore. Carnage candy. And number three: never, ever, under any circumstances, assume the killer is dead." Last Halloween, Los Angeles experimental rap mainstays Clipping ended their three-year silence with the horrorcore-inspired album There Existed an Addiction to Blood. This October, rapper Daveed Diggs, and producers Jonathan Snipes and William Hutson return with an even higher body count, more elaborate kills, and monsters that just won't stay dead. Visions of Bodies Being Burned is less a sequel than it is the second half of a planned diptych. It turns out, Clipping took to the thematic material of horrorcore like vampires to grave soil. Before the release of There Existed an Addiction to Blood, Clipping and Sub Pop Records divided the material up into two albums, designed to be released only months apart. However, a global pandemic and multiple cancelled tours pushed the release of the project's "part two" until the following Halloween season. Visions of Bodies Being Burned contains sixteen more scary stories disguised as rap songs, incorporating as much influence from Ernest Dickerson, Clive Barker, and Shirley Jackson as it does from Three 6 Mafia, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, and Brotha Lynch Hung. Clipping's angular, shattered interpretations of existing musical styles are always deferential, driven by fandom for the object of study rather than disdain for it. Clipping reimagine horrorcore-the purposely absurdist hip-hop subgenre that flourished in the 1990s-the way Jordan Peele does horror cinema: by twisting beloved tropes to make explicit their own radical politics of monstrosity, fear, and the uncanny. The album features a host of collaborators: Inglewood's Cam & China, fellow noise-rap pioneers Ho99o9, Tortoise guitar genius Jeff Parker, and experimental LA drummer Ted Byrnes. The final track, "Secret Piece," is a performance of a Yoko Ono text score from 1953 that instructs the players to "Decide on one note that you want to play/Play it with the following accompaniment: the woods from 5am to 8am in summer," and features nearly all of the musicians who appeared on both albums. Since their last album, Daveed Diggs-the group's Tony and Grammy Award-winning rapper-has starred in the TNT science fiction series, Snowpiercer, voiced a character in Pixar's Soul, and portrayed Frederick Douglass in Showtime's The Good Lord Bird. Writer Rivers Solomon's novella based on Clipping's Hugo-nominated song "The Deep" has been nominated for the Nebula, Hugo, and Locus Awards, and won the Lambda Literary Award for best LGBTQ SF/Fantasy/Horror novel. Clipping's song "Chapter 319"-a tribute to George Floyd (AKA Big Floyd) the former DJ-Screw affiliated rapper who was murdered by police officers in May of 2020-was released on Bandcamp on June 19th and raised over $20,000 for racial justice charities. A clip of the song also became a popular meme on TikTok, generating over 50,000 videos in which teenagers rapped the song's lyrics ("Donald Trump is a white supremacist, full stop_") directly into the frowning faces of their conservative parents. The band also contributed a Skinny Puppy-esque rework of J-Kwon's "Tipsy" to Save Stereogum: An '00s Covers Comp.

Five years after his critically acclaimed debut album Throwback, Glenn Astro returns with his deeply personal album Homespun.

Marking a change in course from his first release on Tartelet Records, Glenn Astro is set to showcase his sophomore album Homespun, a testament to a visionary artist who has come into his own. Made up of ten tracks spanning 45 minutes, the record twists and turns between electronic meditations, soulful vocals by Ajnascnet, and futuristic electro, carving out a world of spacey eclecticism that is as nostalgic as it is experimental.

“This album is in all facets different from the first one, which was a deliberate decision. No vintage sounds and references, no sampling, combined with futuristic sound design and song structures.I tried to keep it as current and intuitive as possible,” he says.

Known for his chunky beats and fuzzy textures, Glenn Astro has released on labels such as Ninja Tune and Apollo, leaving a distinctive signature on everything he touches.

But Glenn Astro has quietly been crafting a new sound for himself. Sometimes taking detours – morphing into his dark alter ego and experimenting with artist collaborations.

The sound of Homespun is a culmination of several years of reflection and artistic development – however, the album itself was produced in less than three months. “I set myself an ultimatum to finish the album within three months. If I didn’t make it, I’d
have to rethink my career path and keep music as a hobby, he says.

On the introspective first single and album title track “Homespun,” Ajnascent’s vocals lend a sincerity to the melancholic production. “It’s about the regret of not taking chances and giving in too much, but also about taking responsibility and being honest with yourself. Homespun is a nod to nostalgia and a desire for simplicity and prudence, being equally the culprit and the cure,” elaborates Ajnascent.

On “The Yancey,” an homage to J Dilla, Glenn Astro paints his vision of contemporary dance music with shimmering melodies, deep ambient soundscapes, and advanced drum programming. “Moreira” and “Look at You” feel like spaced-out electronic funk hybrids, while “Taking Care of Business” goes back to the future with Glenn Astro’s take on jungle. Other tracks such as “Mezzanine,” “Slow Poke Flange,” and “Viktor’s Meditation” provide the finest dubby electronics.

Nas has had a career of generally consistent excellence, punctuated with a few lulls. He’s an incredibly skilled rapper sometimes accused of having a tin ear when it comes to choosing beats – especially on albums (and the entirety of ‘Illmatic’ aside, obviously).

‘Made You Look’ was a shot in the arm for Nas at a time when he’d shed some of his core, street fanbase. After the unfocussed ‘Nastradamus’ and ‘I Am…’ albums he’d had a return to some kind of form with ‘Stillmatic’, but many felt he came off second best in the ensuing battle with Jay-Z.

This single, a club and street classic almost from the moment it dropped, is exactly what he needed to reconnect with his fans and to show he could still throw down. Lyrically, it’s hardcore bragging 101, delivered with panache and numerous quotables that themselves would go on to be sampled.

Key to it all, however, is that beat. Salaam Remi was no stranger to resurrections, having almost single-handedly turned The Fugees from forgettable also-rans to major-players. The beat here is deceptively simple, one of hundreds of records to chop up Incredible Bongo Band’s ‘Apache’ but doing so in a way that felt instantly fresh. Nearly 20 years later it still has the power to get a stationary crowd moving, an empty dancefloor to fill, a still head to nod.

This original version has never been on 7” before. It’s presented with full artwork.

Tape / Cassette

As one half of Phantom Horse, his long-serving electronic duo with Ulf Schütte, Niklas Dommaschk co-produces beautifully muted, Kraut-inspired jams that seem to soundtrack fictitious TV ads for wondrous imaginary household appliances, e.g. a calmly efficient, if slightly unsettling kitchen robot with an integrated lava lamp feature.

In contrast, Shapes cuts tracks down to size – nothing here is longer than five-and-a-half minutes. Also, Dommaschk has turned up the treble, the prominence of the higher frequency spectrum adding bite and menace to these deceptively simple synth polyrhythms.
Whereas opening track “Benzin” (German for “Petrol”) manages to conjure the paradoxical image of something or someone meandering with urgency, “Einzeller” (German for “single-celled organism”) channels a John-Carpenter-style pulse, complete with horror sound effects. “Interference” is a truly effective representation of the term, with piercing, but quiet tinnitus frequencies set above a beat as sparse as it is crunchy. “Two Stones”, by contrast, offers a kind of robotic wistfulness whereas closing piece “Energies of the mind” fizzes out like a jumble of toy keyboards attempting to score a science programme - and failing, but instead revealing some much grander emotional truth.

This is the sound of breaking some kind of inner lockdown, of turning inwards and then projecting parts of murky inner shadows outward, as well-defined and sometimes lurid shapes, individually clear, but still in the process of becoming organized into a complete whole. The unfinished is what excites us the most. May the shapes never find their slot in the jigsaw puzzle.

All songs by Niklas Dommaschk
Recorded between 2017 and 2020 in Berlin and Nijmegen
Mastering by Edgar Medina
Artwork by Daniel Castrejón

Reissue of this long lost funky Afrobeat/Reggae classic from 1978
For fans of Fela Kuti, Peter Tosh, Bob Marley, Segun Bucknor

The year is 1978 and one hot thing from the musical underground is Reggae music from Jamaica, the USA or the UK, where most of the acts had musicians of Caribbean descent. Reggae had the groove, the rebel spirit, and the relaxed attitude all in one, to enchant a big part of the world’s inhabitants. And while at least Jamaica as a relatively poor and so-called "Third World“ country proved to spawn Reggae acts of the highest quality, literally nobody dared to look further and dig deeper into the underground except of a few maniacs who were not satisfied with spinning Marley over and over again. And maybe they stumbled over the 1970s Afro Beat sound from countries like Zambia or Nigeria and then got interested. What did they find in the simmering metropolises of this still mysterious continent? Somewhere in Nigeria, they would have certainly caught a glimpse of mind-blowing performances of The Sea Lions, a six-piece group mixing the then hip Reggae and Afro Beat styles to generate fresh and furious music with a hypnotizing atmosphere.



Polyrhythmic beat patterns build the foundation, the utterly fruitful soil for the heartwarming melodies wailed out by the guitars and the commanding vocals with their conjuring charm. Great organ work builds the link between the groove section and the melody instruments. You can imagine what a pleasant experience this band might have been live back in 1978 when their sole album "Free The People“ got released. And this album, of which copies in only good conditions already fetch prices of $450, while nice clean pieces might go up to $1200, lives up to the expectations one might have from watching a live show by the Sea Lions. The sound is vivid, transparent, powerful, and clean enough to make the music a real pleasure listening to, but earthy enough to present nothing but the band going wild here. The songs all have a similar pace, not too fast, but swinging and pulsating to spread their energy to and among the listeners. The melodies are simple but come from the depth of the heart. This feels typical for African 70s music and despite being kind of reduced, these melodies keep haunting you still even hours after the record been taken off the turntable and put back into its sleeve. They bring images of an ever pulsating city by night, warm climate, palm trees, people at the bar, a witches cauldron of sounds, smells, voice, and pictures. And you feel the magic floating through the air while this groove will not let you go so easily.

You can either dance your soul out to this ultimate reissue or you can sit down, listen and let the music tell you a story of the dark corners of the big city, the narrow alleys that lead you into a boiling labyrinth of mystical dreams. And in songs like "You Can Make It If You Try“ you will find the whole magic of the African world, a world so fascinating for us Europeans but still so unapproachable in some ways and dangerous for the weak. Do not try to resist, this is your pleasure. Grab a copy and the Sea Lions will carry you off to their place. I haven’t heard such a killer Afro Beat and Reggae album with songs this exciting and wild in a long time. If you equally love Peter Tosh, Bob Marley, Segun Bucknor, and Fela Kuti, look no further. Here is the spiritual essence of all these great artists merged into one giant act.

Meda Fury is so gassed to welcome Silvestre back for a virtual hug and a 5 track EP of new jams and remix fire! The Lisbon boy done good has been enjoying some well earned praise for his last few releases - his '...is boss EP' on Secretsundaze, 'Girar' on Diskotopia, and 'Yeah' via yours truly. Gigs in Amsterdam, Bristol, Porto, London and Lisbon followed - including his debut on Boiler Room. For this new EP we are served 3 brand new Silvestre tracks and 2 huge remixes from one of the most respected labels in Lisbon - Príncipe! 'Todos Bem' starts as an organ led scratch-fest, with a tight auto-tune vocal from Silvestre himself, before mutating into an anthemic/hedonistic 303 acid and whistle banger! This euphoric string-laden track equally at home in Ibiza or Notting Hill Carnival! 'Paga O Que Deves' is up next; Joao's love of grime and UK bass culture is evident from the drop, twisted synths and breaks recall everyone from Eastman to Wiley. On the flip we find serious remix pressure from Silvestre's friends and contemporaries - the Lisbon crew of Príncipe! DJ Firmeza is up first, pushing the tempo way up on 'Yeah', turning it into a banging kuduro rave monster, propulsive batida drums upping the temperature. DJ Lilocox follows with an intense remix of 'Demónios Na Cabeça', converting it into a percussive trancey big-room bomb. Layers of mixed afro/gqom drums follow a strict samba-like rhythm forcing hands and possibly the ceiling higher.

Good Vids, Vile Times is the second album by Ant Antic. Its central themes are the never-ending flood of information and its effects on us. The Berlin-based singer and producer Tobias Koett wraps serious questions into radiant pop songs. What does constant bombardment of information do to us? What's lost along the way?

On his new album, Ant Antic observes the emotional power of media and information. The helplessness we feel in the face of predominantly bad news and the growing inability to take pleasure in good news. The way an overload of junk information leaves no mental capacity for real social connections. As a child of the first globally connected generation, he witnesses geographical boundaries dissolve and people consider humanity as one. At the same time, everyone seems to struggle to come to terms with a reality overflowing with possibilities. Slowly, we collectively turn into superficial nihilists.

"When I wrote my first album Wealth I looked inward to examine my own emotions, asking myself "How do I really feel?". For Good Vids, Vile Times I was focusing less on the how and more on the question of why. "Why do I feel that way?"", Tobias explains the creative writing process behind his second album as Ant Antic.

"I'm a bag of hot air / Push me up density / Feel like a millionaire / Don't bring me down gravity", he admits on the single Yellow Press. Referencing the album's cover artwork by Austrian photographer Erli Grünzweil, Tobias describes how it feels to advertise his own life to other people - when behind the meticulously crafted presentation, there's sometimes nothing left but emptiness and anxiety.

Good Vids, Vile Times is an album rich in variety, ranging from indie-pop to contemporary R&B. In stark contrast to the somber tone of the lyrics, the songs radiate a cheerful liveliness. Fueled by analog synthesizers and an electric guitar often not discernible as such, the record builds on Ant Antic's signature sound. It's all Tobias on Good Vids, Vile Times - writing songs, recording vocals, guitars and synths, all the way to production and mixing. Essential elements and ideas are put into focus by getting rid of everything else. At the same time, the new album sees singer and producer Tobias openly flirting with pop, exploring new sounds and aesthetics, and maturing musically and lyrically. No song is alike, each one tells an honest and relatable story - all held together by the magic glue that is Tobias' distinctive voice, which might stay with you forever.

Demon Records presents Distortion: 1989-1995, the first in a series of four expansive vinyl box sets chronicling the solo career of legendary American musician Bob Mould. Bob Mould’s career began in 1979 with the iconic underground punk group Hüsker Dü before forming the beloved alternative rock band Sugar and releasing numerous critically acclaimed solo albums. Volume one in this new series covers 1989 to 1995, beginning with Mould’s first post Hüsker Dü album Workbook and continuing through to Sugar’s final studio album File Under: Easy Listening.

Each album is presented with brand new artwork designed by illustrator Simon Marchner and pressed on 140g clear vinyl with unique splatter effects.

Includes a 28-page companion booklet featuring: liner notes by journalist Keith Cameron; a foreword by writer and actor Fred Armisen; a tribute from Richard Thompson; lyrics and memorabilia.

Mastered by Jeff Lipton and Maria Rice at Peerless Mastering in Boston.

Featuring an array of bonus tracks including Sugar’s 1995 collection of Bsides and non-album tracks Besides, along with Distortion Plus: 1989-1995 a new and exclusive collection of rarities and collaborations (pressed on clear vinyl).

Trouble, the aptly named new album on Goner Records, is a confident and joy-filled statement delivering the good-news gospel message unapologetically through music influenced by Ray Charles, Junior Kimbrough, Bill Withers and of course, his father.

Recorded at legendary Royal Studios in Memphis by Lawrence “Boo” Mitchell (Al Green, Solomon Burke, John Mayer, Buddy Guy, Mark Ronson & Bruno Mars, North Mississippi Allstars), Trouble is the culmination of everything in Rev. Wilkins’s remarkable life, his regional history, his family music history. And in a world once again riven with discord and division, like the Memphis of Wilkins’ youth in the 1960’s, Trouble delivers passionate and confident musical performances with a message of hope that meets our present moment equal to the best music from that earlier era.

To call the Reverend John Wilkins a national treasure would not be an overstatement.  He is the son of pre-war blues/folk-revival legend Reverend Robert Wilkins and he leads one of the most exciting and uplifting musical acts on the blues and gospel circuit today. His multiracial, multi-generational band blends soul, southern gospel and hill country rhythm, into a sound that has the infectious drive of hill country blues with the emotional heights of a summer tent revival.

Following in the footsteps of his famous father Rev. Robert Wilkins, a blues-singer turned preacher who went from the juke joint to the pulpit, the life of Rev. John Wilkins took a similar path, echoing the story of the elder Wilkins’ most famous song, “Prodigal Son.”

But in 2020 John Wilkins’ life has been closer to a different iconic bible character, Lazarus, as he has miraculously risen after surviving a month-long stay in intensive care battling Covid19 in a Memphis hospital. As Rev. Wilkins sings on the closing track of his forthcoming album, “I’ve come through the storm and rain, I’ve come through the storm and rain, and I made it!”

And there is much to celebrate with this resurrection.

From Mille Plateaux to Leaf, Staubgold and Raster-Noton, ~scape, or on his own label Ripatti, the Finnish artist Sasu Ripatti aka Vladislav Delay has been exploring various iterations of the dub culture vs. electronica, since 1997. His sonic crafts and unique signature sound has been sought after by an eclectic range of bands and artists, ranging from Massive Attack, Hauschka, Black Dice, Autopoieses, Animal Collective or AGF.

Somewhere between the old-school electronica culture, the soundscaping, the experimental paths of Lee Perry and Adrian Sherwood, ghostly clubbing anthems, minimalism, pop, jazz, without being, influenced, Vladislav Delay is building a drifting and coherent sound enigma.

Vladislav Delay met Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare (the most prolific Jamaican rhythm section and production duo) thanks to a series of jam sessions. Trumpet player Nils-Petter Molvaer had been asked by the Jamaicans to join them and he invited Delay alongside guitar player Eivind Aarset to tag along, which eventually turned into the Nordub project.

The result of these jam sessions turned into an album, mixed and mostly produced by Vladislav Delay, released on the label Okeh. It was also followed by an extensive series of live dates. This one-shot reunion was the beginning of another story: a trio composed by Delay, Dunbar and Shakespeare.

In January 2019, Vladislav Delay went to Kingston and spent some days at The Anchor studios, to record drums and bass with S&R, some voice takes and a series of atmospheric field recordings. Back to Finland, Delay started to experiment with this precious material, mixing and overdubbing, in the comfort and quiet of his studio, based on the island of Hailuoto, Baltic Sea, Northern Finland, giving another feeling to the Jamaican trip.

This became a tribute to the 'dub spirit', but in a very personal way, far beyond any influence or "the obvious". 500-PUSH-UP is two worlds collapsing, merging, also showing some intriguing approach of the Jamaican groove, used as a filigree, like the echo or the ghost of reggae, converging and conversing with a post-industrial and experimental approach. To file beside experiments - for instance - such as Lee Perry's 'Scientist Rids The World Of The Evil Curse Of The Vampires' or the On U-Sound productions.

Following a stellar run of recent releases including best-of-year EPs from the likes of DJ Plead and DJ JM, Nervous Horizon are back with their first record of 2020 — a unique new collaborative EP by object blue and label co-head, TSVI. Out on September 25th, ‘Hyperaesthesia’ details four sweltering new club tracks — described by the pair as “body music” — that mesh together object blue’s widescreen, experimental club tones and TSVI’s borderless percussive styles. “I was curious to see how TSVI and I could merge our sounds, whether we could supplement each other without eclipsing one another, and I'm so happy with the result”, explains object blue. “I never thought I could write with somebody else but this happened so easily. It's been a liberating process, just a pure pursuit of fun, yelling in our chairs when we dropped the beat.” Inspired by ‘ever-present conversations about machines and sentience’, the EP’s mechanical crux plays out in the narrative of the tracks too; from a sense of machines ‘waking up’ on near 8-minute opener ‘Thought Experiment’ to the frantic, processing energy of ‘Turing Machine’. The record also comes complete with a special remix by Loraine James and vinyl-only bonus track, ‘Syntax’. ‘Hyperaesthesia’ follows a fruitful 12 months for both object blue and TSVI: Following the release of her breakthrough debut EP, ‘Do You Plan To End A Siege?’, for Tobago Tracks back in 2018, object blue has since become one of dance music’s most crucial new artists. As well as releasing her third, critically acclaimed EP last summer (‘FIGURE BESIDE ME’), she’s turned in remixes for everyone from Murlo to Seb Wildblood, been invited to record a BBC R1 guest mix for Benji B and performed live at Paris Fashion Week, after composing the music for Andreas Kronthaler for Vivienne Westwood SS20. object blue was also announced a SHAPE artist for 2020 earlier this year, alongside artists like Afrodeutsche, Rian Treanor, Jay Glass Dubs, Oli XL and more. TSVI’s upward trajectory shows no sign of slowing down either. From the release of his enchanting debut album ‘Inner Worlds’ in 2018, he’s since gone on to put out a series of game-changing records under his Anunaku moniker for both Nic Tasker’s AD93 label and Martyn’s 3024 imprint, including July’s ‘032’ — a joint EP written with DJ Plead. Alongside fellow co-heads Wallwork and Federico Ciampolini, he’s also overseen the rise of Nervous Horizon since the label’s inception in 2015, moulding it into of the UK’s trailblazing new-school dance labels.

Introducing the first release on MARICAS Records from the Barcelona queer collective. After three years of living the Maricas techno-pervy-loving lifestyle and spreading their message of freedom and love in their hometown and beyond, it was time to share the music they love and live by. With their very own imprint, they strive to lift up and showcase their family of queer artists and spread their sound to parties and after parties all around the world.

The first EP is delivered by none other than resident and co-founders ISAbella. She makes her debut with a solid five tracker, which bounces between house and breaks, all with a touch of old school. Hard-hitting drums and crispy perc are blended with just the right amount of dirty Rave and Electro flavours.

The A side kicks off with the dance-floor-banger Extrema, a driving house weapon rich in synth textures and stabs. Each layer takes its turn to be heard over the fat bass line, before combining into a dense melodic texture at the climax. This is sure to crush any dance floor.

Side B features Contacto, which perfectly encapsulates the Maricas sound. Deep, dreamy layers of atmosphere and the ethereal, euphoric melodies floating above are driven forward by a crunchy breaks riff and an airy but tough four to the floor kick.

Nick Pride & The Pimptones from Newcastle/UK are back with "Don't Turn Me Loose", a Northern Soul stomper and the first single from their new album "Ideology" coming out in September 2020.

The song captures classic soul vibes while driving home heavy beats, anthemic horn arrangements, screaming Hammond organ and a full-throttle gang vocal chorus. Nick Pride says "I had fun with the lyrics of this one. It's that moment in a relationship when you realise what an idiot you're being. The message is: 'Please bear with me, I'll be myself again soon'!" A tender love song of apology and reconciliation, wrapped up in three minutes.

In "Four Leaf Clover"the Pimptones showcase their pop sensibilities with a punchy slice of disco soul. This Chic inspired cut is made for the dancefloor, harmonically sophisticated without straying too far from the familiar.

Nick Pride explains the story told in the song: "The lyrics are inspired by how the overly filtered world of social media effects our expectations of love. We're chasing a dream, believing it's real, hoping we'll find someone measuring up to ideal. This time though the story has a happy ending, our hero finds her four leaf clover!"

FAR are excited to bring Chris Coco and DJ Rocca to the label for this release. Both artists need no introduction to Balearic /House and Disco aficionados, the pair have both notched up stunning solo musical releases.

Meeting at La Casella festival in Italy in the summer of 2019, the duo decided to team up in the studio resulting in the ''Discoteca'' EP, a shimmering slice of Balearic, Disco House containing all the right ingredients and forward motion required for maximum sunshine or nightime connection.

On A1 Discoteca (The Heavy Fun Dub Mix), they manage to create a heady cocktail of synth riffs, ARhodes and Guitars all underpinned by a solid bass line, nodding to the Jazz funk of Atmosphere with the edge of Dinosaur L recording in Italy circa 1982. AAntonio prosper turns up on vocals, whispering, and chanting, evoking imagery of a night out in the mid-summer heat somewhere in southern Europe.