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Kumachan Seal: solo project of Japanese vocalist / songwriter / producer Sairi Ojima, who has been playing in numerous indie bands, including Neco Nemuru, since her teens. She began her solo career in 2013, and released her first cassette in 2017. This EM Records release is her first CD/LP album, with all compositions by Ojima, who co-produced the album. Each of the eleven songs reveals beguiling layers of detailed and surprising sounds, with Ojima's DIY sonic core embroidered by vibrant and colorful beats and guitar from EM artist Le Makeup and the quintessential ambient-pop synths and keyboards of fellow EM-er Takao. Le Makeup mixed ten of the eleven songs, with Takao mixing "China Sandwich". The heart of Ojima's musical identity is her clear, aque- ous voice; apart from one instrumental, all the tracks here feature that mellifluous voice, but in an interesting twist, only half the songs have lyrics, with the remainder employing her wordless voice as melodic and textural elements. Although Kumachan Seal can be heard as a sort of bedroom pop filtered through ambient music and the new-age revival, listeners will note that the final two songs, "Atsumono" and "Tiny Cell", are respectively a slightly skewed four-on-the-floor track and a lightly skanking Doo-wop- flavored confection, slightly reminiscent of the UK's Brenda Ray. This album, full of Ojima's calm and cool observation of the world, is available on CD, LP and DL, and includes an English lyric sheet.

Sassy J’s acclaimed A Sanctuary tape mix arrives as a double vinyl release, featuring 18 of the 22 original tracks. All exclusive and previously unreleased music by 17 contemporary artists including Molinaro, Carlos Niño & Friends, K15, Kaidi Tatham, Legowelt, Afrikan Sciences, AsheTreJenkins, 2000Black and many more. A journey through sounds, spheres, moods and dynamics dedicated to the unity and empowerment of the independent artists.

Rave At Your Fictional Borders is not beyond borders. The band simply denies any notion thereof. Driven by a sense of community, it defines human existence as one bio-organism with planet Earth. Now comprising members Dave De Rose, Marius Mathiszik, and Salim Akki, this incarnation of Rave At Your Fictional Borders first released the 'Entanglement' and 'Utopia' tracks in March 2025. Analogue Nomadism is the project's first album release. Recorded in Morocco and then co-produced and mixed by Dan Nicholls, it is an album of dizzying, trance-inducing scope. Rave music stripped of all external signifiers. Repetition, noise, krautrock, avant-garde sensibilities. This is a search for a groove that both connects and interlocks. The soul of improvisation and exploration runs through all seven pieces on Analogue Nomadism. Genres are referenced and transcended. The open-ended is perpetually embraced.

It is neither night nor day, but there is a half-light all the time. What used to be disconcerting is now not alien anymore. The sky boasts a faint light. Certain shapes are laid out, but get changed through communal ritual. Analogue Nomadism is the music of a feeling of community. It builds and breaks down. It is accepting of the psychedelic standards of the groove. Transportative and vertiginous. Endless.

OOIOO and Lightning Bolt are both bands whose music is wholly unique and whose creators" influence would be impossible to overstate. YoshimiO, OOIOO"s founder and bandleader, has been a guiding force in uncompromising art across the continuum of rock and improvised music for four decades, from her work in UFO or Die to The Boredoms to SAICOBAB and beyond. OOIOO serves as a core outlet for melding freeform experimentalism with hypnotic rock pulses, defying boundaries with her acrobatic voice, electronics, trumpet and gamelan. Lightning Bolt"s Brian Chippendale and Brian Gibson have remained unparalleled in their ability to transmute frenetic whirls of percussion, gargantuan fuzz and dizzying melody into monolithic vistas. THE HORIZON SPIRALS / THE HORIZON VIRAL is a split that captures the parallels in ethos between these two ensembles, their sense of gleeful abandon and freight train momentum, in inspiring detail.

Saxophonist, producer and composer Brian Allen Simon explores darker hues, transposing waking and altered states under his studio veil Anenon. On the deeply evocative new album 'Dream Temperature', he shifts electronic processing to the foreground, introducing digitized wind instruments and unworldly atmospherics, not heard since his innovating mid-late 2010s output.

A longtime Los Angeles resident, born and raised, Brian Allen Simon has expressively operated under the moniker Anenon, releasing the highly revered 'Petrol' (2016), 'Tongue' (2018) and the viscerally beautiful 'Moons Melt Milk Light' (2023), in a line of unwavering musical dialogues. While the penultimate album was a deliberate, reductive, entirely acoustic detour that was born out of a want to unplug, 'Dream Temperature' sees Brian primed with a newly discovered wind synthesizer as his central compositional tool, alongside acoustic piano and tenor saxophone. The entirety of the album's electronics are triggered by Brian's lungs, generating otherworldly synths modulated by expressive breath control, channelled through the laptop as the core processing chamber for added textural components and field recordings.

A free floating and heavy emotional resonance marks 'Dream Temperature' from beginning to end, invoking the feeling of waking up, still heavy from a night of half-remembered dreams, and continuing one's day in this state. Simon maps out the album's spatial voice early on the statement title track, a deep, yet compact cut, generated from digital saxophone rasps that whistle by in close proximity, along with haze filled textures and sub bass. There is a sonic oscillation of urban grit and pastoral drift throughout as tracks pass by like introspective thoughts, fueling both a tense and ethereal quality that underpins the album. Interluding solo and part-solo piano improvisations 'Last Sun 1' and '2' are positioned adjacent to the buffering digital soundscapes. Their softer, still processed timbres pierce the melancholic exterior, offering a contrasting tenderness that could echo the grace of Ry?ichi Sakamoto, the spiritualist rigor of ECM's Keith Jarrett and a touch akin to Aphex Twin's piano miniatures. 'Nulle Part 1+2' signals the first appearance of an acoustic wind instrument, as tenor saxophone flourishes are juxtaposed against noisy drones, all shouting at the void, with notes resurfacing like lost digital data.

The album was recorded at home during either sunset or nocturnal hours between September of 2024 and October of 2025, a period in which Brian found himself craving more lengthy and intimate studio time as he searched for more pronounced textural qualities amidst his new sonic ambitions. 'When The Light Appears, Boy' shows further evidence of this deeper universe, revealing a grittier edge as the album's essential blueprint is sonically inked. A sprawling expanse of wind synths rhythmically encircle the listener before a dreamy, ghostly ambience blankets 'Toyama'. The sound is evocative of the productions of post dubstep era luminaries such as Burial or the productions of HTRK's Nigel Yang. More isolating and enveloping than the previous all acoustic record, this is music both disorienting and yet warmly inviting all at once. A sonic diarist at heart, personal field recordings were also taken from Sardinia, Japan, Big Sur and LA which intersect at unexpected moments throughout the album's 31-minute play time.

'Dream Temperature' is a vital coalescence of both Simon's electronic and acoustic practices with repositioned electronics akin to earlier works, both haunting and elegant, yet still profoundly personal. Simon continuously resonates as an experimental outlier treading an enthralling, non-linear musical path. This music resolutely glows with an unknowing aura, like an untapped energy source waiting to be discharged.

Music To Watch Seeds Grow By continues its second season with Seoul-based left of centre ambient duo Salamanda - Uman Therma (Sala) and Yetsuby (Manda) - and their meditation on the inner life of a basil plant. Seeds 008 is an ambient composition born from quiet domestic observation: a single basil on a windowsill, its days shaped by light, warmth, and the slow passage of time.

The album moves through a full day in the plant's life opening with ‘introduce my atom which is my favorite one’, an act of quiet self-declaration in morning light, before settling into the unhurried rhythmic pulse of ‘to to ki toki tok’- the drip of water, the tick of a clock, the slow beat of photosynthesis. ‘allez, pousse!’ - one of the standouts in this journey - carries the basil's gentle will to grow, to push, to tilt toward the sun, while ‘hungry snail’ captures a moment of creaturely encounter on the glass: an uninvited visitor, moving slowly, wanting. As the afternoon deepens, 'Basil's Ritual' traces the daily ceremony of light and warmth, repeated with calm devotion from root to leaf. Night falls across 'Basil's Dream', and in the stillness something like sleep arrives - the plant resting, imagining tomorrow's sun. The album closes with ‘the blue wine’, a final mysterious reverie in which the basil seems to contemplate its own fate, somewhere between acceptance and wonder.

XKatedral Anthology Series II (An Anthology Of Slowly Evolving Timbral Music), featuring exclusive music from Kali Malone, Jessica Ekomane, Mats Erlandsson, Theodor Kentros, Wilma Hultén, and Maria W Horn.

"XKatedral Anthology II is the second instalment in a series of archival releases dedicated to presenting music by composers affiliated with XKatedral working within the realm of slowly evolving harmonic and timbral music. This double-vinyl set contains an array of pieces dating from 2018 - 2020. This collection of pieces focuses on the use of synthetic sound and algorithmic composition languages as tools for precise work within the realm of spectral exploration. In addition to this, the electronic instrumentation in many of the pieces is augmented by acoustic instruments.

The first piece on side A is Kali Malone’s Music for Low Quartet. This piece is an adaptation of the composition “Rose Wreath Crown” originally released on The Sacrificial Code in 2019. In this iteration, the music is scored for two double basses played by Vilhelm Bromander and Zach Rowden, and sine tone electronics performed by Malone herself. The recording of this piece was made at EMS in 2019.

Closing side A is Jessica Ekomane’s ‘First Light’. This computer music piece focuses exclusively on digital sound, layering razor sharp synthetic textures into an otherworldly dynamic weave. The music heard here is a reworked version of a piece originally commissioned by Semibreve in 2020.

Side B contains the work ‘Hands Melt In The Sun’ by Mats Erlandsson. This composition is built from electronically processed tuned zithers and synthetically generated tones arranged in a series of chordal inversions over a sustained fundamental tone. This music, written as a love-letter to the localized drone tradition of Stockholm in the years 2008-2012, was composed and recorded in seven days while in residence at Ställbergs Gruva in Bergslagen, in the summer of 2018.

Opening the second half of the collection is Rough Draft v.7 by Theodor Kentros. Kentros’ compositional practice usually combines acoustic and electronic source material and in this piece he molds the sound of the Buchla 200 and a collection of recorded wind instruments into a molten mass of sound. In its original form, this music was presented as a multichannel immersive work and even in the current stereo configuration it retains some of that enveloping sense of depth.

The second piece on side B, Inertia, is by Wilma Hultén, who makes her debut on record here. An exclusively synthetic piece, Inertia utilizes internal digital feedback in a sealed synthetic system to manifest a harmonic field that swells and abates throughout the length of the piece, interspersed by small gestural elements.

Closing Anthology II is Maria W Horn's work ‘Dies Irae’ for female vocal quartet, pitched glass and synthesis. ‘Dies Irae’ uses a modified form of traditional tonal harmonic language to invoke an uncanny and restless middle ground between the classical western polyphonic vocal tradition and contemporary electronic music. The version heard here is a live recording from Eric Ericssonhallen in Stockholm on May 30th 2020. Performing the piece here are the vocalists Katarina Henryson, Lisa Holmgren, Vilma Ogenblad and Paula Wegmann, as well as Maria herself on glass and electronics."

Michael Nau und Whitney McGraw haben große, fragende Herzen voller Musik, die Elemente aus Soul, Rock und Gospel in einen weichen Kokon aus Kleinstadtsound einhüllt. Das begann vor einigen Jahren als BASKET RIDE und wurde ganz zufällig zu COTTON JONES. Ein neuer Name verspricht neue Flexibilität. Nau schreibt nun ganz andere Musik, als er das für PAGE FRANCE tat; die ursprüngliche Paranoia, die ihn trieb, hat er abgeschüttelt. "Paranoid Cocoon" ist das Debüt für Suicide Squeeze, das in seiner ruhigen, holzigen Psychedelia die Suche des Duos nach Trost und Freiheit unter den Bergen von Maryland widerspiegelt. Zwischen der einsamen Dunkelheit des Waldes und dem Licht des roten Mondes versammeln COTTON JONES Songs des Verlassens und guten und schlechten Träumen, die sich aus der Umgebung speisen, in der beide ihren Ursprung haben. In "By Morning Light" ziehen sich die Stimmen der beiden gegenseitig aus ihrer Melancholie in einen Zustand erstaunter Genugtuung. Die Musik auf "Paranoid Cocoon" glitzert. Die Snaredrum und der sanfte Anschlag der Gitarre erreichen den himmlischen Eindruck von YO LA TENGOs "And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out". Einfache, bescheidene Perfektion.

Renowned for his astonishing fingerstyle technique, melodic sophistication, and fearless improvisa- tion, Mancuso has earned praise from legends including Joe Bonamassa, Tosin Abasi, and Al Di Meola, who described his playing as "light years ahead." Now, with his second solo album Route 96, Mancuso delivers a more confident, expansive statement-- showcasing a mature, forward- thinking artist redefining modern guitar virtuosity.

Around 1983 it looked as if Tokyo Blade were destined to become the next Iron Maiden. But somehow it wasn’t to be – history was not kind to them! In the end Tokyo Blade never became the next superstars of the glorious New Wave Of British Heavy Metal movement. “Night Of The Blade” was the follow-up to Tokyo Blade's extremely successful self-titled debut album. The band's second record was originally released in 1984 on the English Powerstation label and contained classic Tokyo Blade songs such as “Lightning Strikes”, “Unleash The Beast” or the title track. On the other hand, Tokyo Blade presented some more melodic numbers such as “Someone To Love” or “Rock Me To The Limit”. This slight alteration of the band's musical direction was partly due to the change of the vocalist (Alan Marsh was substituted by Vicki Wright). Guitarist Andy Boulton comments on the differences between Marsh and Wright: “Vic was a different person to Alan, but Alan had been a friend I had known for quite a long time and was a key figure in the band's early success, it was a sad day when we parted ways. Alan was just different from Vic and he had his own distinct sound. I don't want to talk about who was better or whatever, it's for the fans to decide. The material on 'Night Of The Blade' was all brand new, no leftovers from from Killer or Genghis Khan.” Tokyo Blade's debut (1983) and “Night Of The Blade” (1984) are two of the best albums of the entire New Wave Of British Heavy Metal period. “Night Of The Blade” was recorded by Vicki James Wright (vocals), Andy Boulton (guitar), John Wiggins (guitar), Andy Wrighton (bass) and Steve Pierce (drums). High Roller Records is proud to re-issue this long-deleted classic once again on glorious vinyl.

Wondrous ethereal folk songs by a reclusive pen pal of Maxine Funke, first introduced to A Colourful Storm by Funke while sharing music and ideas during her Australian tour. Ghost faced pansies. A moth coloured cat. Cauliflowers, cabbages undying. I hear the spine of the dictionary crack. Is what they call a creature who only wakes at dusk. And turning backs. My afternoon has turned pitch black. For a trace. For a shape. I wipe the steam from the window like the bloom on a grape. Ghost faced pansies. A moth coloured cat. Light of stars long since died.

Das vierte Album von Big Harp, "Runs To Blue", kommt mit Songs über Fernweh und Verlust, Liebe zu den eigenen Kindern und zum Partner, der Akzeptanz des Älterwerdens und der gleichzeitigen Wehmut darüber, dass wir nie wieder so sein können wie früher, genau zum richtigen Zeitpunkt. Es ist, als würde man Stefanie Drootin und Chris Senseney eines Abends zu Hause besuchen und ihnen zuhören, wie sie lachend und weinend Geschichten aus ihrer Vergangenheit erzählen und Hoffnungen für die Zukunft schmieden. Nur Akustikgitarre, Bass und zwei Stimmen, die sich blind verstehen: "Runs To Blue" ist das schlichteste Album von Big Harp. Gleichzeitig ist es aber das emotional komplexeste – zwei lange verbundene Leben, verdichtet zu zehn offenen und berührenden Songs. Eine Momentaufnahme im Leben eines Paares, dessen Beziehung mit Musik begann und ihr bis heute treu bleibt. Es klingt nach Folkmusik, weil es genau das ist: eine ehrliche Sammlung von Erlebnissen, vertont mit schlichten Melodien, die man mitsingen und immer bei sich tragen kann – kleine Erinnerungen an die Vergangenheit, die den Weg ins Unbekannte weisen.

"Big Harp war schon immer eine der besten und am meisten unterschätzten Bands unter meinen vielen talentierten Freunden aus dem Umfeld von Saddle Creek. Ihre Musik verbindet authentische Americana mit dem rebellischen Punk-Ethos, mit dem wir alle aufgewachsen sind. Chris und Stef sind für mich Helden." – Conor Oberst

Just when you thought you had heard it all.... Evil Grave were an exceptionally unique underground rock band from Malta that shook the islands with uncompromising attitude and dark imagery. In the early 1970s they ruled the Maltese scene and were voted best band in national polls. Heavily influenced by Black Sabbath and early progressive rock with a traditional Maltese flavour, Evil Grave never released any material during their existence. Several low budget demos were recorded at the time but, over the following years, the name Evil Grave simply vanished into obscurity. Until now! During a recent vacation to the islands, label owner Lee Dorrian became aware of the band and has spent the past three years tracking down as much information about them as he possibly could. With the blessing of original guitarist/songwriter John E Zammit Pace, we are excited to release this ungodly artefact upon the work for the very first time. Death From Malta, gathers together all known existing material from the band, the sound quality of which is decidedly lo-fi but, if anything, this only adds to the mysterious vibe of this simply enigmatic band.

Das erste Album mit Originalmusik von den englischen Künstlern Flying Mojito Bros., die total auf Americana und Dance-Musik stehen. FMB hat dank seines einzigartigen Stils, der als Desert Disco und Outlaw House bezeichnet wird - ein neu definierter Americana-Sound, der von Poolside-Vibes bis zur Tanzfläche reicht -, eine wachsende Fangemeinde in den USA gewonnen. Das Album bietet eine hochkarätige Besetzung mit Künstlern wie Scott Hirsch, Will Worden und Rob Chaney (weitere werden noch bekannt gegeben!) und hat die Unterstützung von einflussreichen Persönlichkeiten wie Diplo, Phish, Pretty Lights, BBC 6 Music und KEXP erhalten. Just Passing Through zeigt die Entwicklung von FMB und kombiniert ihre charakteristischen Re-Edits und Remixe mit Live-Band-Aufnahmen. Es ist ein mutiger Schritt in ihrer Karriere, bei dem sie von den 1970er Jahren inspirierten Rock und elektronische Rhythmen mit Kollaborationen von Top-Musikern wie Shawn Lee (Young Gun Silver Fox), Joe Harvey-Whyte (The Hanging Stars) und Joe Stoddart (ABBA Voyage) verbinden. Dieses Album markiert ein neues Kapitel in der kreativen Reise von FMB und fängt ihre Erkundung der neu definierten Americana und den interkulturellen Rock-Austausch zwischen den USA und Großbritannien ein.

File under Boy Harsher Jae Matthews lends her unmistakable voice to a striking reinterpretation of Buzz Kull’s cult classic “Man On The Beat.” Built for midnight drives and neon-lit highways, Matthews’ version transforms the track into a dark, hypnotic pulse of tension and atmosphere, carried by her haunting, commanding vocal. Released as a special limited-edition 12" by Heartworm Press, the single reimagines the underground favorite with a colder, more cinematic edge.

On the B-side, Los Angeles duo Spike Hellis deliver an extended remix, stretching the track into a dancefloor-ready transmission of ecstatic synth and rhythm. Matthews is widely known as the vocalist of the dark electronic project Boy Harsher, but here she steps into a different light, channeling the nocturnal spirit of the original while making the song unmistakably her own.

Nevertheless, the latest album from Hammock, exists in a state of awakening. Across 11 ambient guitar string, and piano works, ethereal light crests and contrasts with darkness, giving shape to physical forms and feelings. Amidst sorrow and grief, melodic motifs and refrains echo from the past to reanimate dreams and faded memories. As Nevertheless asks questions of permanence and purpose, beauty takes shape in the intangible_the traceless connections that gave, and give, meaning. "Nevertheless has been one of those words that has outlasted my upbringing," says Hammock's Marc Byrd. "Being from the deep South, I most often heard it said or read at funeral services. It's meant to imply a type of sacred pause . . . a space of in between. Between the grief of being broken by the world and the impossibility of moving into a future that feels more like empty space and less like solid ground. This album is for a friend who lost a daughter and a son to addiction within a couple of years of each other. Requiem for Johan sets up the context for what is to follow throughout the rest of the album. . . a passage through the aftermath of devastation. Unfortunately, and fortunately, these seasons of loss are what we all share in common. Nevertheless . . . we limp on."

Im Winter 2008/2009 veröffentlichten MINUS THE BEAR eine EP namens "Acoustics", die neu aufgenommene Akustikversionen von Lieblingssongs aus der fruchtbaren Karriere des Quintetts versammelte und mit einem brandneuen Track angereichert wurde. Seinerzeit limitiert auf 5000 Vinyle ist ,Acoustic" schon lange ausverkauft. Mit ,Acoustics 2" folgt nun der zweite Teil der Akustik Serie und kommt als komplette LP mit acht neu aufgenommenen und neu interpretierten Tracks und mit sage und schreibe zwei neuen Songs: ,The Storm" und ,Riddles". ,Acoustic 2" wird langjährige Fans erfreuen und der anerkannten Rockband neue Zugänge in der Fangemeinde bescheren.

On their seventh studio album, Lost Cause Lover Fool (due April 24th on Far Cry/Thirty Tigers), The Milk Carton Kids deliver 9 songs that, more than ever, invite listeners to lean in close and hover in the small moments the album magnifies. Much has changed since The Milk Carton Kids — Los Angeles-based singer-songwriters Kenneth Pattengale and Joey Ryan — burst on the Folk scene in 2011. And The Milk Carton Kids have changed too. But at least one constant remains. Pattengale and Ryan continue to make music that entices us turn down the volume on a chaotic world and dwell as long as possible on what matters most. With rootsy arrangements, Lost Cause Lover Fool expands on the duo’s signature minimalist sound their fans love while also, somehow, making it even smaller. Lost Cause Lover Fool begins with the lonesome pluck and strum of the banjo on “Blue Water.”

Often employed either for lightning-speed or rhythm, here the banjo is handled carefully, with reticence, so that it feels more like light cast across a stretch of grass than a whole bluegrass instrument. Lyrically, this album-opener zooms in on a snapshot of a man walking along a riverside, remembering the child that used to lay on his chest who has now grown to share his worried mind. It’s a moment so small it might easily have been dismissed, except that it holds an emotion as universal as it is fleeting. Lost Cause Lover Fool magnifies many such small moments, turns them into mesmerizing worlds, and reminds us — pleads with us — to pay attention to them as they go by.

Lo Recordings is proud to present a brand new compilation by Russian electronic producer/composer OID, spanning 25 years of music that blends in and out of focus, inhabiting styles from dub techno to ambient, vaporwave, space gamelan, electronica and beyond. The album is both a retrospective and a celebration, a journey into a singular world that exists only in OID’s imagination, available digitally and on Ltd cassette from 24th April 2026.

“I first met OID in an illicit ‘Sky High’ bar in Moscow. It was a club for people who liked to jump from high buildings. OID played the piano whilst a tea ceremony took place. It was all like some kind of strange dream. The music he creates sounds like that kind of dream. Some of the tracks are reminiscent of the music released by ALEXANDROID on the ‘False Starts’ album way back in 2003 - a legendary album, in our minds at least. Alex tragically passed away in 2009, leaving only OID.

The music on this album is a testament to the beauty of friendship, the everlasting meaning of music and the light that shines forever.” -
Jon Tye, Lo Recordings