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This is the first ever archival collection of material from the Italian Minimalist Tiziano Popoli, featuring fourteen previously unreleased recordings for installations, theater, and radio broadcasts spanning from 1983 to 1989. Featuring extensive use of the Yamaha DX7 synthesizer, TR909 drum machine, and early sampling techniques, these recordings trace the organic, hybridized elements of Italian experimental music as it convened in the hands of Tiziano Popoli and his friends, uniting elements of pop music, minimalism, and manipulations of found sound. Popoli's first album, Scorie, recorded with Marco Dalpane, is a highly sought after LP, and was finally repressed in 2018 by Italian label Soave. "Burn the Night / Bruciare la Notte: Original Recordings, 1983-1989" is a joint release between RVNG Intl. and Freedom To Spend, and was compiled from hours of material unearthed by Tiziano Popoli from his archives, and then meticulously remastered from original sources by Rashad Becker. The 2xLP and CD include printed inner sleeves and booklets with extensive liner notes written by Bradford Bailey, archival photographs, and ephemeral enrichment. RIYL: Philip Glass, Franco Battiato, Lino Capra Vaccina, Oren Ambarchi, RAMZi, Roberto Musci, Faust, CAN, Art of Noise, Durutti Column, Roberto Cacciapaglia.

33 1/3 years after its first release Piranha Records reissues the groundbreaking Stella Chiweshe international debut Ambuya! on quality 180g vinyl, remastered from analog tapes, together with a bonus John Peel session from 1988. Stella Chiweshe stands as one of the most enduring and successful women activists in African music. She started playing the Mbira and performing in her motherland Zimbabwe despite all kinds of racial and male dominant mentalities of that time, setting a spectacular example of how music can cross all kinds of borders, a message that is perfectly aligned with our core values as a record label. With her album Ambuya? the Mbira finally went electric and combined the spiritual with the popular in a creative exchange with British world indie legend 3 Mustaphas 3. Thrilled to have, and still be, teamed up with such a pioneering artist, we feel like time spins like an album: our mbira-meetstapha kick-off of 1987 still lives and rotates with Piranha Records in 2021. Ambuya? Ambuya!

Calypso Drip FM is a journey of styles & influences that formed the varied musical landscape of its creator. Only known by the moniker of Gryff, the author wanted a project that reminded listeners of radio stations of decades past. Particularly the type you would have on GTA: Vice City.

Gryff is a 90s kid, but the track list of his debut album plays like a greatest hits of a much mature songwriter and producer.
Almost exclusively written by himself, requesting the help from Andrew Threlfo in production for 'Do You Feel Like This?', and with NY songstress Primo The Alien as guest and co-writer for Reverse, his undeniable talent is showing in spades.

This incredible debut album is going to make waves in the scene and turn the young musician into a big player.

Brilliant ISotonic Ci=urves are back with a new EP !

Superb killaz from Outtaspace...

ENJOY !

L’istruttoria E’Chiusa Dimentichi (internationally released as The Case Is Closed, Forget It) is a 1971 Italian crime drama film directed by Damiano Damiani. It is based on the novel Tante Sbarre (Many Bars), written by Leros Pitton and was awarded at the Tehran Film Festival. The film centres around the architect Vanzi, whom ends up in prison and ends up involved in a plot against an inconvenient witness to organised crime, passed off as a suicide, with the complicity of the security guards. Renowned composer Ennio Morricone created an obscure, yet globally beloved, score to the thriller. Tracks B2 and B3 (“Disordini (Titoli Versione Film)” and “Ordini (Versione Alternativa)” were part of the original recordings but not used for the movie final cut. Available as a limited edition of 1000 individually numbered copies on orange marbled vinyl.

DJ tool of a Hardtek tribe minimal sound !

Galcid - Hope and Fear is the long awaited sophomore album of Japanese techno-artist galcid. Although completed in 2019, the release date of the album was delayed by COVID-19. This was due to both practical and artistic reasons—the titles and identity of each composition reflect various ways in which galcid reflected upon the pandemic.

Music is by galcid
Produced by Hisashi Saito

In the 4 years that have passed since galcid’s debut album hertz (2016), galcid worked on various EPs and albums as SAITO. Juxtaposed to the black and white minimalism of hertz, the palate of Hope and Fear is decidedly more colourful, laden with emotional undertones. The depth of the sound created by galcid’s exclusive reliance on analogue machines invites the listener to follow their own journey along the resulting soundscape

NOTON signs Italian-born, Bern-based sound-artist and producer Saele Valese.
In ‘IVIC’, his debut LP, Saele Valese, distills hauntological noise, droning tonal experiments and minimalist rhythms into a series of electro-acoustic-wave ventures written over five years in Berlin, Saas-Fee and Thun.
Drawing influences from the psychoacoustic properties of the live album format, IVIC’s 11 tracks were mixed and recorded live on DAT cassettes and through DAW experimentation, without the possibility to revise the final recordings. Valese adopted this approach to conceptually propose reconciliations between the irreversibility of the
past, and acceptance of its residuals in the present. The track titles themselves follow this pathos, citing the works of the American photographer Francesca Woodman and the poet Sylvia Plath. The inclusion of passages incorporating live sonics and throes of industrialismnso,ton.info contributes to the images of gravity, intimacy and spatiality that the music presented here invokes.
In keeping with this imagery, the music possesses a dilated, shuffling rhythmic base, much like the firm traversal of a tanker against a storm of jangling components, and still moments of gloomy sonics
alternating with more ravenous upheavals of power electronics.
If the track divisions do not pass by unheeded, they are consistently assembled to sonically accompaign the emotional charges and momentum of an imaginary cinematic experience; the beats caves in
for instants of relief, only to recoil in a cognated tempo but rearranged structurally. In another gesture of cogitated stride, the portentous waves of the record progressively rage into a turmoil in its third quarter during 'Horse The Color Of Rust'. The album reaches its closure fluctuating through microtonal oscillations to slowly eclipse into silence.
´In Your Rosary ì and Yì ou Cannot See Me From Where I Look At Myself ì were previously released on vinyl via Saele Valese’s own imprint, JSMË.
The track ‘You Cannot See Me From Where I Look At Myself’ 4 - is dedicated to the memory of Marco Bacher.
Artwork designed by Carsten Nicolai. Mastering by Matt Colton (Metropolis Studios, London).

It was a solid bet that Skratchorama Records would release a 7” DJ tool specifically crafted for the international portable turntable scene. DJ Chmielix is known as a perfectionist when it comes to music production, turntable music, DJ battles and a rubix cube… he’s as hard on the cut as they come and the Mighty Wicked 7” embodies these vibrations.

The A & B side of this record both include 6 original skipless acapella scratch loops with a variety of laser samples, aaaahhhs and fressshhhhes. Side A has 4 tracks arranged in 100BPM and 2 tracks in 133.33BPM. Side B is all arranged at 83.33 BPM for use at regular speed on a turntable. This offers the ideal track size for a 7” battle record. The tracks are large enough to easily cue the needed loop on the fly, and small enough that the maximum amount of samples can be put on the record… needle dropping made easy! Each side’s tracks are separated by hidden samples which inject creativity into performances using this record. At the end of each side a single rotation of each skipless loop has been arranged twice back to back giving DJ’s two full sample banks to get dirty on the cut with.

The record has a secret theme, but we’ll leave it to you to figure it out!

Pressed on blue vinyl, artwork by Maciej Kwietnicki, and mastered by the legendary D. Perez, you are in for one of 2020’s finest scratch records… it’s time to take it to the next level!!

At Cloud’s Length is a collaborative compilation of musical works from artists on Melbourne/Naarm based collective WAT artists, using the vehicle of music as the driving force of connection.

While the opportunities to gather have been put on hold, this compilation is a collaborative release rising from a challenge set to the WAT artists roster to connect and create using isolation as a creative parameter from which to generate new music, resulting in surprising and powerful musical cross-pollination.

At Cloud’s Length - an ode to the use of cloud storage as the last front of musical collaboration during lockdown - reaches through the veil of isolation, passing overland, gathering energy and offering a release saturated with creativity and collaboration from afar.
This compilation is both a confluence of unique and diverse creative minds and a narrative of humanity's desire for deeper meaning and connection.

Music contributors:

30/70, Adam Halliwell (Mildlife), Alex Albrecht, Barney McCall, Bell Towers, Big Yawn,
Edd Fisher, Fantastic Man, IN2STELLAR, Kris Baha, Loure, Mike Callander, Morgan Wright, Michael Ozone, Rings Around Saturn, Sleep D, Sui Zhen, Toni Yotzi, ZFEX

Main Source’s paean to the simple pleasures of relaxing with friends is built over two tried-and-tested samples. The dreamy, swoony sounds of Vanessa Kendrick’s timeless ‘90% of Me is You’ is ever-present during this stone-cold classic, while Sister Nancy’s unmistakeable ‘Bam Bam’ lends several elements to the mix. Throw in some Skull Snaps and Sweet Charles and you’ve got the perfect soundtrack for a roll call of Large Professor’s nearest and dearest.

There are plenty of reasons why so many regard ‘Breaking Atoms’ as an all-time classic album, and the sheer variety of singles lifted from it is chief among them. Large Professor was happy to roam over varied topics at a time when many rappers had a manic focus on one thing.

And where better to hang out with friends than at a barbecue? ‘Live at the Barbecue’ is rightly regarded as one of the best posse cuts of all time, and famous for showcasing the debut of one Nasty Nas. While he delivers a dope verse full of quotables over drums from Bob James’ oft-plundered ‘Nautilus’, credit is also due to the other guests. Fatal and Akinyele aren’t disgraced in this company, and Large Professor tops it off with a rare verse of pure brag-rap.

An undisputed entry in the pantheon of head-nod hip-hop, this is its first official UK release, and another debut on 7”.

• Samples Sister Nancy’s unmistakeable ‘Bam Bam’

• Taken from the all-time classic album ‘Breaking Atoms’

• Features the debut of Nas

• Limited Edition Purple vinyl

Somewhere Between: Mutant Pop, Electronic Minimalism & Shadow Sounds of Japan 1980–1988 hovers vibe–wise between two distinct poles within Light In The Attic’s acclaimed Japan Archival Series—Kankyō Ongaku: Japanese Ambient, Environmental & New Age Music 1980–1990 and Pacific Breeze: Japanese City Pop, AOR & Boogie 1976–1986. All three albums showcase recordings produced during Japan’s soaring bubble economy of the 1980s, an era in which aesthetic visions and consumerism merged. Music echoed the nation’s prosperity and with financial abundance came the luxury to dream.

Sonically, Somewhere Between mines the midpoint between Kankyō Ongaku’s sparkling atmospherics and Pacific Breeze’s metropolitan boogie. The compilation encompasses ambient pop, underground electronics, liminal minimalism and shadow sounds—all descriptors emphasizing the hazy nature of the nebula. Out–of–focus rhythms wear ethereal accoutrements, ballads are shrouded in static, and angular drums snake skyward on transcendent tones. From the Avant–minimalism of Mkwaju Ensemble and Yoshio Ojima, to the leftfield techno-pop of Mishio Ogawa and Noriko Miyamoto (featuring members of YMO), and highlights from the groundbreaking Osaka underground label Vanity Records, these are blurry constellations defying collective categorization.

These tracks also exist in a space of transition when the major label grip on the Japanese recording market began to give way to the escalation of independents. Thanks to the idyllic economic climate and innovations in domestically–manufactured music gear, creators on the edges were empowered to focus on satisfying their artistic visions in the open headspace of home studios. While labels like Warner Music and Nippon Columbia explored new sounds through traditional channels, it was possible for Vanity, Balcony and other indie labels, not to mention self–released artists like Ojima and Naoki Asai, to publish their work via affordable media such as cassettes, 7" vinyl, and flexi–discs.

Expertly curated by Yosuke Kitazawa and Mark “Frosty” McNeill (dublab), Somewhere Between is a collection of music, much of it released for the first time outside Japan, that is bound more by energetic vibration than shared history, genre or scene. They are the sounds of transition and searching—a celebration of the freedom found in floating.

Note: The track “Days Man” by Yoshio Ojima is only available on the LP and Cassette versions.

EMS Hallucinations was crafted as two magnetic side-long compositions
that gurgle, hiss, bounce, and invite - the first consists of Buchla 200
recordings, and the second the Buchla in conjunction
with the Serge Modular.
Following Naucke’s tracking, he painstakingly arranged stems in his home studio across seven months. Within the side-long tracks are shorter songs that
transform into each other. For album teasers, Naucke edited two sections from
side one into singles - kinetic electronic nuggets that suggest trance, house, and
other forms of floor-ready music, while showcasing cascading synth lines and
rich analog tones.

'IDMEMO' would not pretend to be a representative compendium of 90’s-00’s Intelligent Dance Music. It was not Vladimir Ivkovic & Ivan Smagghe’s point when they decided on the project. It is a very personal snapshot of a moment in time, when both of them were working in record shops, when they were listening to indie and electronic music. One can not stress enough the importance of this crossing of roads, pop kids getting through to the dancefloor via Aphex Twin and nerdy house heads dissolving their four to the floor into the futuristic world of Warp compilations.

The compilation unfolds in the loosest, the best way to make some kind of sense. There are some classics (Black Dog’s lysergic 'Psyl-Cosin'), there are some rarities (that Zugzwang track), some tested late night floor melters (Reload remixing Slowdive) and some personal outlandish choices that strangely take their place (Spiritualized’s 'Anyway That You want Me-remix 3').

All in all, This is an anti-archive, a choice of tracks primarily lead by emotion, more pads than glitches,”intelligent” music depraved by that last half-pill at 6am rather than high-brow destructurations, Ivkovic & Smagghe hitting, as ever, at their own margins.

'IDMEMO' is a collaborative project between Above Board Projects, Offen Music and Les Disques De La Mort. Selected and sequenced by Vladimir Ivkovic and Ivan Smagghe. Art and design by Atelier Superplus. Mastering courtesy of Keith Tenniswood @ Curved. Manufacture and worldwide distribution by Above Board, 2020.

Much has changed in the musical life of renowned composer and director John Carpenter since 2016's Lost Themes II. Following the release of that album, he went on his first-ever concert tour, performing material from the Lost Themes albums, as well as music from his classic film scores. He re-recorded many of those classic movie themes for 2017's Anthology album, working alongside son Cody Carpenter and godson Daniel Davies. The following year, he was asked to executive produce and compose the music for the new Halloween movie directed by David Gordon Green, which promptly became the highest-grossing installment in the series. Now, he returns with his first album of non-soundtrack music in nearly five years, Lost Themes III: Alive After Death. Underpinning Carpenter's renaissance as a musician has been his collaboration with Cody Carpenter and Daniel Davies. They've composed and performed as a trio throughout this entire run, on studio albums, on soundtracks, and onstage. Here, the trio reaches a new level of creative mind meld. Richly rendered worlds are built in the interplay between Davies's guitar and the dueling synthesizers played by the Carpenters. "We begin with a theme, a bass line, a pad, something that sounds good and will lead us to the next layer," John says of the trio's process. "We then just keep adding on from there. We understand each other's strengths and weaknesses, how to communicate without words, and the process is easier now than it was in the beginning. We've matured." Whereas the original Lost Themes album came as a pleasant surprise after years of relative silence from Carpenter, the third installment sees him in the midst of a resurgent moment as a cultural force. The 2018 Halloween score gave his music its biggest audience in decades, and the world he releases his new album into is one that has, at long last, given him the credit he deserves as a founding father of modern electronic music.

Much has changed in the musical life of renowned composer and director John Carpenter since 2016's Lost Themes II. Following the release of that album, he went on his first-ever concert tour, performing material from the Lost Themes albums, as well as music from his classic film scores. He re-recorded many of those classic movie themes for 2017's Anthology album, working alongside son Cody Carpenter and godson Daniel Davies. The following year, he was asked to executive produce and compose the music for the new Halloween movie directed by David Gordon Green, which promptly became the highest-grossing installment in the series. Now, he returns with his first album of non-soundtrack music in nearly five years, Lost Themes III: Alive After Death. Underpinning Carpenter's renaissance as a musician has been his collaboration with Cody Carpenter and Daniel Davies. They've composed and performed as a trio throughout this entire run, on studio albums, on soundtracks, and onstage. Here, the trio reaches a new level of creative mind meld. Richly rendered worlds are built in the interplay between Davies's guitar and the dueling synthesizers played by the Carpenters. "We begin with a theme, a bass line, a pad, something that sounds good and will lead us to the next layer," John says of the trio's process. "We then just keep adding on from there. We understand each other's strengths and weaknesses, how to communicate without words, and the process is easier now than it was in the beginning. We've matured." Whereas the original Lost Themes album came as a pleasant surprise after years of relative silence from Carpenter, the third installment sees him in the midst of a resurgent moment as a cultural force. The 2018 Halloween score gave his music its biggest audience in decades, and the world he releases his new album into is one that has, at long last, given him the credit he deserves as a founding father of modern electronic music.

You could think of the collection of tracks here as a library record of sorts, and each track inhabits its own universe. Tropical fits various moods and situations, and it could soundtrack any number of activities at home or on a dancefloor - whether real, imaginary, or hallucinated. Strangely enough, it sounds like it could have been constructed from obscure Italian library breaks, when instead every instrument has been played and panned, several times over, across magnetic tape.

The genesis of many of these tracks began when CV Vision moved to Berlin in 2014. His flat had a small chamber where he could fit a drum set, so he treated the walls with foam, and in true DIY style, dived headfirst into recording these tracks. It was the natural next step on an audio adventure that first began when CV Vision picked up the guitar in his teens, and a couple years later started recording with friends in his home town of Bayreuth. Fast forward ten years and here is his debut - a culmination of practising chops and learning instruments, mastering recording techniques and fine-tuning the CV Vision sound.

It’s a sound that condenses elements of acid rock, psych soul, library funk and new wave oddities into a movie soundtrack for your mind. It’s a journey from ‘60s west coast LSD-drenched excursions to ‘80s synth and post-punk mutations. Tropical is a plunge into another time, another music you can simply swim around in and explore.

Side A opens up with Tropical Tune In, which rides in on a clave and a warm wind, blowing a distinctly herbal aroma and recalling exotica dons like Les Baxter and Martin Denny. Following on with the aural equivalent of a sea breeze through your mind, Spaziergang am Meer blows away the cobwebs and conjures some nice library moments like Stringtronics or F eelings . Next, Ba_c_k(Lava) bounces out of a cold wave post-punk melting pot and crashes through the speakers like a blazed Zebedee, with some sweet eastern synths for added flavour, before the rolling bass licks of Der Böse Schamane take us into another dimension, landing somewhere between a psych rock freak out and a Black Ark dub session. Mr Maze channels the arpeggiators of synth outsiders like Mort Garson and Bruce Haack, creating a glorious interlock of robotic electronics and freakbeat vocals. The side comes to a close with the guitars of Der Strand (außer Rand und Band) letting loose like syrupy springs, and setting a languid mood like the bedroom scene in Bedazzled (1967 version). Side B kicks off with Parallel Universum, which comes through like a woozy krautrock workout, all ducking synths with big chord shifts to create an epic deranged beehive of a soundtrack. Im Land der Ameisen evokes the spirit if not the sound of White Rabbit, when logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead, before waking up and wandering through the side alleys of Marrakech with the West Coast Pop Art Ensemble and the Electric Prunes, as Ritual (No. 4) blares out the speakers of passing tuk tuks. Ein Wasserfall plumbs the deep synth depths, like Raymond Scott in scuba gear, modular rack strapped to his back delivering oxygen as he swims between connector cables and seaweed forests through a watery underworld. Banana King sounds like a lost soundtrack to Donkey Kong or Mario Cart, if the cart radio was tuned into a synth

documentary hosted by James Pants, while Das Kloster am Berg takes the baton from Brenda Ray and her Naffi cohorts, all dubbed-out niceness and post punk swagger. The LP closes out with Tropical Drop Out, a dreamscape rather than a wake up call, coaxing you deeper into the trek across the desert of your mind.

And that’s Tropical in its essence: capsules from another time, snapshots of another sound, messages from another mind - all in the service of inducing the visions in your head.

written by Max Cole

Harry Bertoia's Glowing Sounds LP contains three versions of the same composition, each transferred at different tape speeds in accordance with the artist's instructions. This is the third LP to be released from Bertoia's extensive tape archive and it's the first, of many, to be released using instructions left behind by the artist himself.

Bertoia wrote the concept for this Glowing Sounds LP on a note in 1975 and slipped it into the master tape case where it sat unread for 45 years. The idea was simple, transfer the original recording at its original speed and two slower speeds. Bertoia noticed that the results, however, were profound.

Recorded on January 20, 1975 using two large gongs, Glowing Sounds is one of the most powerfully minimal recordings yet discovered in Bertoia's collection. The artist's note left with the tape indicated that it was recorded at a speed of 15 IPS (inches per second) but slowing it down to speeds of 7.5 IPS and 3.25 IPS were quite effective for enhanced playback. Side A features the original 15 IPS recording and the 50% slower 7.5 IPS recording. Side B features a 20 minute, ultra-slow version at 3.25 IPS.

Long, deep drones and powerful overtones define the sound of this recording. Comparison of the three speeds provides a revealing magnification of Bertoia's gongs, overtones and the artist's inventive approach to performance, composition and recording.

Bio:
Harry Bertoia first gained some artistic visibility in the early 1940s, then came into prominence with his sculptural, ergonomic chairs, produced by Knoll Furniture beginning in 1952, which quickly became classics of modernist furniture. Inspired by the resonant sounds emanating from metals as he worked them and encouraged by his brother Oreste, whose passion was music, Harry restored a fieldstone "Pennsylvania Dutch" barn as the home for this experiment in sounding sculptures which he had begun in the late 1950s. Bertoia was an obsessive composer and relentless experimenter, often working late into the night and accumulating hundreds of tapes of his best performances; Oreste, too, would explore and record the sculptures' sounds during his annual visits to his brother's home in rural Pennsylvania.

Harry Bertoia's recently dismantled Sonambient barn collection was an attentive listener's paradise full of warm, expressive instruments that were gorgeous visually and audibly. Nothing could prepare you, even on return visits, for the overwhelming experience of entering the spacious wood and plaster interior where gongs, some of them giant, hung among the ranks of standing sculptures of various metals. Over nearly twenty years of adding, culling and rearranging, Bertoia carefully selected nearly 100 harmonious pieces ranging in height from under a foot to more than fifteen feet. He considered this barn a full experience, sights and sounds comprising not a collection of works, but one piece unto itself. It was here, deep in the woods, that his Sonambient recording work took place.

Learning by experimentation was common for Bertoia and he mastered the art of tape recording, turning the Sonambient barn into a sound studio with four overhead microphones hanging from the rafters in a square formation. He would experiment with overdubbing by performing along to previous recordings, sometimes backwards, constantly improving his methods while also honing his performance skills. Bertoia was a careful editor of his own work and only chosen recordings remained, each with a date and carefully considered observations written on a note included with each tape. Through these pieces of paper a the artist's logic can be uncovered, a careful approach to composition, ideas, feelings and forms. The story of Sonambient barn collection will slowly be told through the release of recordings from the archive as well as installations and performances built from Bertoia's own recordings, lectures and a book.

The five members of Sun June spent their early years spread out across the United States, from the boonies of the Hudson Valley to the sprawling outskirts of LA. Having spent their college years within the gloomy, cold winters of the North East, Laura Colwell and Stephen Salisbury found themselves in the vibrant melting-pot of inspiration that is Austin, Texas. Meeting each other while working on Terrence Malick's 'Song to Song', the pair were immediately taken by the city's bustling small clubs and honky-tonk scene, and the fact that there was always an instrument within reach, always someone to play alongside. Coming alive in this newly discovered landscape, Colwell and Salisbury formed Sun June alongside Michael Bain on lead guitar, Sarah Schultz on drums, and Justin Harris on bass and recorded their debut album live to tape, releasing it via the city's esteemed Keeled Scales label in 2018. The band coined the term 'regret pop' to describe the music they made on the 'Years' LP. Though somewhat tongue in cheek, it made perfect sense ~ the gentle sway of their country leaning pop songs seeped in melancholy, as if each subtle turn of phrase was always grasping for something just out of reach. Sun June returns with Somewhere, a brand new album, out February 2021. It's a record that feels distinctly more present than its predecessor. In the time since, Colwell and Salisbury have become a couple, and it's had a profound effect on their work; if Years was about how loss evolves, Somewhere is about how love evolves. "We explore a lot of the same themes across it," Colwell says, "but I think there's a lot more love here." Somewhere is Sun June at their most decadent, a richly diverse album which sees them exploring bright new corners with full hearts and wide eyes. Embracing a more pop-oriented sound the album consists of eleven beautiful new songs and is deliberately more collaborative and fully arranged: Laura played guitar for the first time; band members swapped instruments, and producer Danny Reisch helped flesh out layers of synth and percussion that provides a sweeping undercurrent to the whole thing. Throughout Somewhere you can hear Sun June blossom into a living-and-breathing five-piece, the album formed from an exploratory track building process which results in a more formidable version of the band we once knew. 'Real Thing' is most indicative of this, a fully collaborative effort which encompasses all of the nuances that come to define the album. "Are you the real thing?" Laura Colwell questions in the song's repeated refrain. "Honey I'm the real thing," she answers back. They've called this one their 'prom' record; a sincere, alive-in-the-moment snapshot of the heady rush of love. "The prom idea started as a mood for us to arrange and shape the music to, which we hadn't done before," the band explains. " Prom isn't all rosy and perfect. The songs show you the crying in the bathroom,, the fear of dancing, the joy of a kiss - all the highs and all the lows." It's in both those highs and lows where Somewhere comes alive. Laura Colwell's voice is mesmerising throughout, and while the record is a document of falling in love, there's still room for her to wilt and linger, the vibrancy of the production creating beautiful contrasts for her voice to pull us through. Opening track 'Bad With Time' sets this tone from the outset, both dark and mysterious, sad and sultry as it fascinatingly unrolls. "I didn't mean what I said," Colwell sings. "But I wanted you to think I did." Somewhere showcases a gentle but eminently pronounced maturation of Sun June's sound, a second record full of quiet revelation, eleven songs that bristle with love and longing. It finds a band at the height of their collective potency, a marked stride forward from the band that created that debut record, but also one that once again is able to transport the listener into a fascinating new landscape, one that lies somewhere between the town and the city, between the head and the heart; neither here nor there, but certainly somewhere.

Small Town Dubz bringing their dub sounds to vinyl featuring Razaman on vocals and Vale on trumpet. The B-side features a Frenk Dublin remix of 'Soundman a Play' with Rumble B on vocals.

Reymour packed their bags in the pre-Alps of Switzerland and left to start a new life in Bruxelles. This debut album finds originates in this transition, again in a bilingual environment, by now a Knekelhuis theme. Leviosa documents the emergence of a kind of dance built from chansons, synthpop and cute minimal wave. Luc Bersier’s wide musical spectrum reaches great heights while staying small. He creates the musical bedrock on which Reymour’s cabinet of musical curiosities rests, allowing us to drift away on the unctuous fumes of Lou’s vocals. On these tracks she covers a wide array of feelings, of doubt, sexual orientation, play and melancholia. And it all comes together in the reflection of life. Close friend and family guy Low Bat contributes vocals and gameplay on 2 of the album’s tracks.

In 2019, the power-acoustic musician Francisco Meirino presented A New Instability a commission for the venerable Ina-GRM in paris. Of course, this institution is the pre-eminent center for the research and study of electro-acoustic music dating back to founding of Groupe de Recherches Musicales in 1958 by Pierre Schaeffer. To this day, Ina-GRM continues to be at the vangarde of the electro-acoustic composition, and it is quite an accomplishment and very appropriate for Meirino to receive such a commission.

This recording for A New Instability condenses the 32-channel original piece down to a still very active stereo version. here, Meirino continues to amplify and refine his compositions that walk a fine tightrope between raw expressivity of brutalist noise and conceptual rigor of more academic pursuits. Such a work ranks him in with the likes of Zbigniew Karkowski, Dave Phillips, Puce Mary, and Illusion Of Safety.

Field recordings from a kendo dojo in his hometown of Lausanne, Switzerland cast a pugilistic, combative arch to these recordings which snap, burst, explode, and erupt with utterances of men and women engaged in hand-to-hand combat. Searing frequencies build, swarm, and amass out of these episodes rise to psychologically tense crescendo that rupture at their heights, quickly turning attention towards a violence that originates from within. It is as if the objective observations of those martial arts recordings are sublimated within a subjective experience of psychic unease, disquiet, and imbalance.

A New Instability is another magnificent chapter in the ongoing body of work for this accomplished composer of electro-acoustic noise.

Alkisah is the new album by Indonesian duo Senyawa. Alkisah is co-released by a multitude of independent record labels from all over the globe each with different packaging and design, with multiple version of remixes by various artists.

Senyawa is an experimental music duo made up of Rully Shabara (extended vocal technique) and Wukir Suryadi (homemade instrument). The music that they create is a combination of extended vocal technique and a homemade instrument. The instrument was handcrafted by master instrument builder Wukir out of one long piece of bamboo, it is a string instrument with guitar pick-ups—it is amplified and processed through several effects pedals but at times is played as an acoustic instrument, percussion and string instrument.

They are located in the ancient city of Jogjakarta, Central Java, Indonesia and their music is a reflection of their traditional Javanese heritage filtered through a framework of contemporary experimental music practices. Senyawa try to push the boundaries of both traditions in an attempt to mix the musics’ of the east and the west to create a new sound.

As a duo they have been performing and playing together extensively for the last 3 years and we have toured Indonesia several times over. Last year they were invited to perform internationally for the first time at the Melbourne International Jazz Festival sharing the stage with many great musicians such as Faust, Yoshida Tatsuya, Tony Conrad and Charlemagne Palestine.

Masked Techno assassin Buried Secrets returns to Soma with a massive new release featuring his signature hard and distorted Techno with the Destiny Defeated EP. With several Soma releases under his belt including 2020's huge "Of Lost Things EP", Buried Secrets continues his assault with this massive new EP.

Ubuntu Music is excited to announce the signing of Skeltr for the worldwide release of their album, ‘Dorje’. Skeltr began as a late night, post-gig session between Sam Healey (keys) and Craig Hanson (drums) in the dusty old cotton mills of Manchester. Forging a shared connection inspired by Post-bop and Modern groove, the pair developed a tightly knit, highly musical duo. Their first UK gig in 2017 at the Manchester Jazz Festival saw the duo sell all of their physical records of their debut release in one day. Within a few months of this auspicious start, the lads found themselves supporting L.A sensation KNOWER on UK tour, appearing on JazzFM, Worldwide FM, listed as ‘ones to watch’ in Jazzwise Magazine as well as performing across European jazz festivals, including Reykjavik Jazz Festival, InJazz, Rotterdam and the famous Osloscene Club in Norway. A tragic accident saw hard times fall upon the Duo as Sam suffered a serious hand injury. However, after operations and months of rehabilitation, Sam was able to return to his saxophone and continue playing music again. Having had chance to compose during rehab, the Duo immediately hit the studio and recorded their second album, named after Sam’s new-born son, Dorje. A nucleus of Saxophone and Drums set to scapes of synths, vocals and guest features, Skeltr's second album, 'Dorje', combines heartfelt statements of sensitive, illuminating, incensed improvisation which stem from ardent and fluent melodies. Craig ondrums is as much an expressive protagonist of the music as he is a foundation with deep roots, leading to intricate interplay between the Duo. Themes include understanding the nature of happiness, self-examination and acceptance in aquest to achieve a positive mental state. Ultimately, ‘Dorje’ seeks to provide the listener with a space in which to explore their own relativities with guidance, inspiration and accompaniment. Sam describes the project, saying, “What a wonderful experience it has been to create this album. We look forward to spreading the music far and wide with positive intentions. The sounds are crafted with a passionate energy in our hearts and I hope otherswill be able to feel and hear that.” Concerning Skeltr’s new relationship with Ubuntu Music, Healey continues, “It has been a three-year journey to bring this album to fruition and we’re so happy to have met Martin (Hummel) and Ubuntu Music as the album was coming to completion. This auspicious timing makes the new relationship all the more rewarding. The Ubuntu Music team’s knowledge, experience and phenomenal work ethic are vastly inspiring and will help Skeltr to reach a much wider audience across the world. We look forward to a close relationship with theLabel as we strive to bring great musical offerings to many people.” Martin Hummel, Director of Ubuntu Music, said, “These guys have breath-taking talent. I first came in touch with Sam on New Year’s Day (probably not the best day to do so) and told him what I thought of their music. It’s deep. It’s spiritual. And it shakes your senses, inside out and to your very core. Sam is meticulous in everything he does, and you can hear this in the recording. If you want to feed your soul with the best musical vibes, check this out.”

**400 ONLY REPRESS PHOTOLUMINESCENT COLOUR VINYL///!! 200 FOR EUROPE** “I was guzzling wine at my favorite bar in San Francisco, the Rite Spot, and the entertainment that night was some local opera singers singing along with a big video screen showing a collage of various operatic moments with subtitles. One particular subtitle, ‘Ah!-(etc)’ made me laugh, I thought it was a perfect description of life - the joy of existence against the etcetera of it all, the struggle. With a heavy head of rose’ it seemed like ecstatic poetry! I scribbled it on a napkin and thought it might make a good title for something” And so the mystery behind the title of Kelley Stoltz new record is solved. Less of a mystery is the quality contained therein… after 12 self-titled releases and a several more under pseudonyms, Stoltz is the word for “one-man-band-home-recording-pop-songs of idiosyncratic character.” A quick follow up to his more power pop and pub rock LP only “Hard Feelings” offering in the summer, “Ah-(etc)” finds Stoltz returning to his sweet spot, writing songs that never were, but should have been in the 60’s and 80’s.

As with other LPs Stoltz makes virtually every noise on the album which was written and recorded in 2019 at his Electric Duck Studio in. San Francisco. A few friends popped in to play along… Stoltz former bandmate, Echo & the Bunnymen’s Will Sergeant adds electric guitar to “The Quiet Ones” a sort of Scott Walker lyrical take on strangers and neighbors. Karina Denike formerly of Dance Hall Crashers adds gorgeous vocals on the bossanova groover “Moon Shy”, where Sergeant pops up again in a spoken word role on the outro. Allyson Baker of SF’s Dirty Ghosts sings on “She Like Noise”, a song Stoltz wrote for her in celebration of her love of seeing live bands.

The album was mastered by Mikey Young in Australia.

Talking about the foundation of Jamaican music, the Alpha Boys School in Kingston can be considered as one of the places where it all began! Back in the day, under the direction of Sister Mary Ignatius, the school was the place where young boys from the poor neighborhoods in Kingston could embrace an instrument (mostly brass and drums). Then history tells us that some of these kids became among the most influential musicians in the history of Jamaican Jazz, Ska, and Reggae. Joe Harriott, Dizzy Reece, Tommy McCook, Don Drummond, Cedric Brooks, Rico Rodriguez, Johnny Osbourne, Leroy Smart and Yellowman are just some of the fruits of such a great community art project. Now this compilation contains some rare gems produced between 1959 and 1962 by Jamaican Jazz heavyweights such as Tommy Mc Cook, Don Drummond, Ernest Rangling, Lennie Hiibert, Cecil Lloyd and others. This is highly swinging music inspired by the Black American tradition with a unique and inevitable Caribbean flavour. Don't miss it!!!

Though synthesizers are the backbone of Shen’s music, while performing live, she plays self-made synths, invented instruments, and even acoustic objects like a bull whip.
Her live show vacillates between moments of restraint and swells of frenetic and confrontational movement. Her sound is dynamic with a sensitivity to texture and structure throughout. This sensitivity is maintained in her debut LP
Hair Birth, the result of several weekends locked in a studio creating cacophonous, wondrous synth noise with Harvard’s Buchla 100 and Serge modular systems.
She tracked hours of stems before cloistering herself in a painstaking editing process. Songs like ‘Under The Stall Door’ sound like a cybernetic rollercoaster with rumbles and shrieks that hurtle the listener through virtual space. Others, like ‘Bolete,’ are tense, dense mood pieces that move from the queasy to the tranquil to the surreal.

From co-founder of the Lumineers, Jeremiah Fraites, Piano Piano is a collection of songs that’s been in the works for the better part of a decade, featuring gorgeous, intimate piano-centric instrumental songs capturing Fraites’ reflective moments from his Denver home. Piano Piano is an achingly gorgeous set of songs, emotionally direct yet profoundly revealing. Fraites’ songwriting reaches into deeply personal spaces with moving grace and stark elegance, retaining the folk-inspired melodicism so familiar from his work in The Lumineers, transported into a more classically sophisticated setting. In addition to piano, Fraites plays nearly every instrument on the album, including guitar, drums, synths, and programming. It was co-produced and engineered by David Baron (Jade Bird, Vance Joy, Shawn Mendes) and features other collaborators such as The Lumineers’ violinist Lauren Jacobson, cellists Rubin Kodheli and Alex Waterman, and Macedonia’s 40-piece FAME’S Orchestra.

Nonesuch releases a remastered, special edition of the 2005 record Our New Orleans for the first time on vinyl. The two-LP set, also available digitally, includes five previously unreleased tracks: ‘Do You Know What It Means’, by Davell Crawford; ‘Let's Work Together’, by Buckwheat Zydeco and Ry Cooder; ‘Crescent City Serenade’, by Dr. Michael White; ‘Walking By the River’, by Dr. John; and ‘Do You Know What It Means’, by The Wardell Quezergue Orchestra featuring Donald Harrison.

The $1.5 million raised from the 2005 release went toward providing housing in partnership with low-income musicians and others through the New Orleans Habitat Musicians’ Village, a concept that was developed by New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity, working with Branford Marsalis and Harry Connick, Jr. Habitat–built homes in the village now provide musicians and others of modest means the opportunity to buy decent, affordable housing. The centerpiece of the village is the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music, dedicated to celebrating the music and musicians of New Orleans and to the education and development of homeowners and others who live nearby.

For Our New Orleans, many of the Crescent City’s best-known musicians recorded songs that are integral to their lives and that express their feelings about the city and the trauma of Katrina. The album was made swiftly and simply, over the course of a month, in one-day sessions across the country. Nick Spitzer, host of public radio’s New Orleans–based American Routes, contributed liner notes to the record, as did Pulitzer Prize–winning author Richard Ford, also a Crescent City resident. Other producers who made enormous contributions include Mark Bingham, Ry Cooder, Joel and Adam Dorn, Steve Epstein, Joe Henry, Doug Petty, Matt Sakakeeny, and Hal Willner.

Nonesuch’s parent company – Warner Records, part of the Warner Music Group – donated all production costs for Our New Orleans as part of the Group’s larger efforts on behalf of hurricane victims on the Gulf Coast. Many others involved in creating the album also generously donated their time and services.

Nonesuch President David Bither recalls, “What was most remarkable to me was the immediate response of the musicians. Many were in New Orleans when Katrina struck. Many lost everything they owned including even the musical instruments that are their livelihood. Yet they responded within days to the question of whether they might participate in this project. The emotion and the power of Our New Orleans come both from their anguish and from their incredible generosity.”

And the label’s Chairman Emeritus Bob Hurwitz said, “When we pick up a CD booklet, we usually skip over the page that says, ‘Special thanks to…’, but in the case of Our New Orleans, it is, after the listing of the musician’s names, the most important part of this package. Everyone wanted to help – studios that insisted on contributing free time, caterers, photographers and videographers, instrument rentals, producers, engineers – every step down the line, people gave, not only their profits, but absorbed all of their costs. It was an incredible outpouring of generosity.”

“Our New Orleans is a testament to the power of music to heal and provide a sense of community,” said Marguerite Oestreicher, Executive Director of New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity. “Musicians helped the city heal after Hurricane Katrina, and Musicians’ Village helped them come home. We’re grateful to Nonesuch and everyone who worked on this album. This year has brought new challenges to everyone, but especially to our culture-bearers. This re-release could not be more timely.”

2020 Repress!

Allen Saei, also known as Aubrey, has the experience of a record shop owner mixed to the one of a warned label manager. His music tastes are very varied. With his first love of Hip Hop as a teenager moving quickly onto the emerging Acid House scene from Chicago, then to Detroit Techno and New York House, his music productions testify the perfect knowledge of all three genres.
First taste of this record is Pleased to meet you, an original track from the Texture 005 released in 1997. As his fellows, all songs on this wax, except the most recent one but non-the less, Air Strike, were recorded on Digital Audio Tape format and come out of analog machines.
A2 - Taken Away is a dance floor killer. Recorded in 1996 this theme follows a straight but efficient techno rhythm that reminds the French Touch at the same period of time in Paris, kind of a darker British Knight Club' song.
The vernal Equinox is the last piece of this EP, recorded in 1998 but never released, it is more techno and rave oriented than the others.
Discret for a long time and with recent releases on Syncrophone, Komplex de Deep, and Ferox Records, Allen delivers a wide retrospective of his work and surely gives some perspective for the future.

Malian music is arguably deeper, more sophisticated and lyrical than any other form of African music. Those of us deeply entranced by Malian culture, and, in particular, the immense hypnotic beauty of Malian music, have put together a selection of songs from across the country.

Compiled by Vik Sohonie & Dave 'Mr Bongo’ Buttle, the story of this release began in 2015 when Dave happened upon the Soul Bonanza blog. A treasure chest of rare finds from around the world! One mix in particular stood out and totally enthralled Dave - le monde à change: a tribute to mali 1970 - 1991. He already knew of Malian legends such as the Rail Band, Salif Keita, & Les Ambassadeurs du Motel de Bamako, but this mix was something else! Deep & culled from the collections of some of the heaviest African music collectors in the world; legends like Vik Sohonie, Hidehito Morimoto, Philippe Noel, Gregoire Villanova, and Rickard Masip. Dave immediately contacted Vik and a journey of discovery tracking down the rights-holders began. He also turned to the font of Malian music knowledge; Florent Mazzoleni. Florent has written the definitive book about Malian music – 'Musiques modernes et traditionnelles du Mali’. He proposed some incredible tracks to include and provided the back bone of the sleeve notes and photos that are used in the album. No Malian album would be complete without a striking front cover photo, and ours is sourced from the late great Malian photographer Malick Sidibé.

On this album you will find well-known artists sitting next to rarer discoveries. The Rail Band, who are one of the best known of all the big bands in Mali, gave us the stars Mory Kanté and Salif Keita. Les Amabassedeurs du Motel de Bamako were another big act that had Idrissa Soumaoro, Kanté Manfila, and for a while Salif Keita in their ranks. Sometimes Salif would play in both bands in one night, quite a feat considering the bands were fierce rivals. As an albino Salif has had to face considerable prejudice from society, focusing on his musical career to help overcome this.

A major discovery on the album has been Idrissa Soumaoro et L'Eclipse de L’Ija. L'Eclipse de l'Institut des Jeunes Aveugles was a Blind teenagers institute and their record was produced by the German association that took care of blind Malian teenagers in Bamako. It was never properly released commercially and was the first recordings by the legends of Malian music Idrissa Soumaoro, Amadou Bagayoko and Mariam Doumbia. Amadou & Mariam later got married and became household stars, including making an album with Manu Chao.

This album is a concerted global effort to showcase the most vital cornerstone of Malian culture in an attempt to preserve its reputation in the face of its current, grim reality. We hope our highlights of Mali's rich history of musical innovation will serve as a starting point for reclaiming an image tainted by unnecessary conflict. May peace and music return to Mali soon.

Monster grooves, driven by a perfect symbiosis of fiery oriental rhythms and the deep, relaxed heartbeat of the bass line, with virtuosic, intoxicating solos on bouzoukis, Farfisa organs, clarinets and violins. This is the sound of laika, Greek-oriental pop music from the 60s and early 70s that sets every dance floor on fire!

These 20 carefully selected songs serve as an introduction to this mind-blowing music for the non-aficionado, as it is the first album of its kind to be released outside of Greece or the Greek migrant communities. The extended and illustrated liner notes take you back to the heyday of Greek pop music and put this cultural movement into an historical perspective.

IZIPHO SOUL RECORDS are thrilled to collaborate once again with Sound Of Superbad. If you thought ‘I Want ‘Cha’ was great, the bar has well and truly been raised with ‘Vibration’!

We are honoured to welcome Chicago-based singer extraordinaire Robert IMtume Owens. Robert’s rich and mellifluous voice, layered over Sound Of Superbad’s sophisticated production values are a match made in musical heaven.

On the B Side we present the ’S.O.S. Vibe Mix’, which is heavier on the percussion, with extra strings and synths; all are fuelled by Robert’s trademark soaring vocals.

Krijn Moons aka Alchi emerges as a new voice in instrumental electronic music with his debut 'Full of It' released with Mylja.
Inspired by artists such as Nicolás Jaar, Boards of Canada, Sigur Rós and James Holden, Alchi produces and performs music that is rooted in experiment rather than a single genre, flowing between and weaving through alternative dance, instrumental electronic postrock and neoclassical influences. Playing with imperfections and disarray, Alchi’s work honours emotional ambiguity, cultivating a sound that can be equally euphoric as it can be melancholic, a feeling that words cannot - and do not have to - articulate.
This is also the approach to composition and production for ‘Full of It’, Alchi explains. “More than the sum of its parts, the sound of a song creates a space that it starts to exist in, an intangible context shaped by the details that come from zoomed-in sound design and
production or even working with old or broken instruments. At a certain point, in this space that feels somewhat unknown and familiar at the same time, everything comes to life.”
Within this ambiguity, Alchi finds a place to liberate himself from instrumental boundaries, creating landscapes that value coincidence, playful sound choices and a little bit of chaos.
'Full of It' portrays an uncommon kind of music that, in its abstraction, layers and linear structures, will balance both the familiar and the surreal.

Nahawa Doumbia's new album Kanawa concisely captures this current moment in Malian history. The singer, whose storied career spans more than four decades, reflects on the immigration crisis from the Malian perspective in the title of her new album Kanawa. Across eight songs recorded in Bamako with a band including traditional and modern instruments, Doumbia merges her early work that relied on a spare expression of her trademark didadi rhythm with the bombastic range of contemporary Malian pop. The beautifully complex musical accompaniment that results is courtesy of the large ensemble she pulled together with producer and arranger (and day one collaborator) N'gou Bagayoko. The band features two highly expressive Malian string instruments, the ngoni and the slightly smaller kamalé ngoni, as well as a variety of percussion, drum programming, karignan (a metal scraper) and acoustic and electric guitars. Doumbia's daughter, a celebrated singer with her own group and busy concert schedule, Doussou Bagayoko sings on "Adjorobena," a song about patience, tolerance and living in peace. Doumbia weaves together a roadmap of her psyche when it comes to the good and bad life has to offer. She talks about marriage and women leaving home to join another through the metaphor of a tree in the garden; she includes gunshot samples in the song "Foliwilen" to honor the bravery of hunters, soldiers and other courageous people; she uses a bird in "Djougoh" to talk about lazy people; and, in "Ndiagneko" she advises people to ignore critics, just do you. Mali has gone through an intense period of regional strife and terrorist incidents over the last ten years and Doumbia roots the album in tragic local concerns with deep global implications. "The meaning of Kanawa is so simple. We see our children trying to cross the ocean all the time. I said that many of our children die in the ocean and some of them die while crossing the Sahara. But I ask them why do they leave their country? They said that they leave because of the family situation or problems like poverty and unemployment. I ask them to stay and work in their country. I call on the UN and African leaders so that we can coordinate our efforts to find a solution, to create jobs for them so that young people stop leaving. That's why I chose it as the title of my album so that everybody can learn from it and also so that there is a reduction in the number of people emigrating. So that some will hear the message and stay home and grow the land. Leaving is not the only solution. My message is to help the youth find jobs."

Herman Saiz debuts on Aprapta Music with his latest creation, Time To Choose LP - 12 Original Tracks spread across 2x12inch.

The NZ based producer's latest project, born out of the volatility of 2020, merges various styles of electronic music, to offer a thought-provoking album, challenging the heavy main stream programming of this generation.

Each tracks aim to dissolve the illusionary forces holding us to meaningless narratives and diluted culture.

From downtempo, hip hop, minimal, house and experimental electronica, the album is an invitation to choose your own preferred timelines, switching off auto pilot, and harnessing the power of being present in the now.

Through interweaving deep truths with electronic pulses, this is a clear offering to choose sovereignty and an awakened future.