Cerca:vinyl life

Re-issue of a soul masterpiece from 1974, 'I Love You More and More' by Tom Brock was Tom's only solo album release, but what a beautiful classic it is. For some, it is up there in the pantheon alongside their all-time treasured soul favourites such as Marvin Gaye's 'What's Going On'.

Produced by the legend Barry White and released on 20th Century Records in 1974, it features the lush hallmark orchestration, heartfelt songs, and funky yet slick playing you’d expect from a White production. Like a dusting of sugar onto the top of the cake, the record also features the stunning arrangements of the great pianist, arranger, composer, and producer Gene Page, whose musical career left an impressive and prolific legacy.

'I Love You More and More' received another lease of life when it was resurrected for a new audience after having been sampled by Jay-Z, Mos Def, C.L. Smooth, and others. The record is solid throughout, but the song 'There's Nothing in This World That Can Stop Me From Loving You’ proved to be an extra-bright star in the sky and it formed the base to Jay-Z's 2001 hit 'Girls, Girls, Girls'. The sampling of Tom’s work triggered the collectors, diggers and DJs to explore his record and to transfer their passion for it onto their followers too.

Tom Brock passed away in 2002, but left behind his sensational soulful voice on a handful of amazing dusty 7" singles, several assorted productions recorded by other artists, and this absolute winner of an album, which will be cherished for years to come.

• Half-speed vinyl cut at Abbey Road Studios

• Sampled by Jay-Z, Mos Def, C.L. Smooth…

• Produced by Barry White, arranged by Gene Page.

Calgary songwriter Chad VanGaalen’s new album, ‘World’s Most Stressed Out
Gardener’, is a psychedelic bumper crop. A collection of tunes that does away with
obsessiveness, the anxiety of perfectionism, in favour of freshness and immediacy -
capturing the world as it was met while recording alone at home over a period of
years. “Don’t overthink it,” VanGaalen told himself again and again, despite the
push/pull love/hate of his relationship with songwriting. “I’m always trying to get
outside of the song - but then I realize I love the song.”
This is a record that gleams with VanGaalen’s musical signatures: found sound,
reverb, polychromatic folk music that is by turns cartoonish and hyperphysical - like
ultra-magnified footage of a virus or a leaf. Apparently, the album began life as a
“pretty minimal” flute record. (There’s only a vestige now, on ‘Flute Peace’, one of
three instrumentals.) Later it became an electronic record “for a while” and finally,
“right at the last second,” it “turned into a pile of garbage.” The good kind of
garbage: glinting, useful, free. Music as compost - leaves and branches ready to be
re-ingested by the earth, turned into a flower.
Throughout these 40 minutes, VanGaalen floats from mania to solace to oblivion,
searching for zen in all the wrong places. “Turn up the radio / I think we’re dead,”
he sings on ‘Nothing Is Strange’; or, on the inside-out rocker ‘Nightmare Scenario’:
“You’re stressed out when you should be feeling very well.” The singer’s mental
landscape is rotting and redemptive, beautiful in spite of itself - and his soundscapes
reflect this fertile decay.
He has been influenced by his instrumental work on TV scores (Dream Corp’s third
season began this fall) but still “nothing can really replace the human voice,” he
admits. Like Arthur Russell or Syd Barrett, it’s VanGaalen’s vocals that shine a path
through the swampland - from the cello-lashed ‘Water Brother’ to ‘Starlight’’s
krautrock pipe-dream.
These days, VanGaalen cherishes the privacy of the studio, the capacity to wander
around, get distracted, and “move at the speed of life.” Whereas once he would
obsess over mic techniques, now he puts the microphone in the same place every
time - trying to capture a song quickly, the idea at its heart. He’ll act on his
infatuations - for the flute, a squeaky clarinet, his basement’s copper plumbing
(remade into xylophones for ‘Samurai Sword’) - and then he’ll try to get out, “veering
away from responsibility,” before he overdoes his stay.
In the end, it’s like gardening. You have to live with your horrible decision-making;
the weather’s going to mess with you if it wants to; and if you plant a hundred
heads of broccoli, “now you gotta eat a hundred heads of broccoli - or watch them
go to seed.” But mostly VanGaalen just tries to be a deer: “I remember seeing some
deer come out in the Okanagan Valley once,” he says, “watching them wait for a
sunbeam to hit a perfect bunch of grapes - and then eating them right out of the
sunbeam. I’d recommend that.”
Initial LP copies pressed on clear with gold, red and blue high melt coloured vinyl.

Limited edition vinyl re-press. Hand-numbered gatefold sleeve with updated liner notes. Pressed to blue vinyl. Limited to 500. 4**** The Times 4**** MOJO ”Songs as gloriously haunted as the land that spawned them” – Q 4**** The Magnetic North is made up of Erland Cooper, Hannah Peel and Simon Tong.

Der legendäre Italo Boot Mix ist zurück !!
ZYX Italo Disco Boot Mix Vol. 1 knüpft an die großen Zeiten dieser Kult-Serie an. Zuerst gibt es die beiden Mixe als CD, einige Wochen später veröffentlichen wir die Boot-Mixe für alle Vinyl-Liebhaber als LP.
Auf Vol. 1 vertreten sind P. Lion, Duke Lake, Koto, Valerie Dore, Radiorama uvm.

*Repress*


The iconic album series Back to Mine returns in 2019, to mark it's 20th anniversary, with the indomitable Nightmares on Wax, to share his personal collection of music for after hours grooving. The series was renowned for its eclectic selection and selectors which includes some of the biggest names in electronic and pop music, from the likes of Faithless to Pet Shop Boys, Groove Armada to New Order.

Building on Back To Mine's heritage for quality this edition comes as limited edition heavyweight vinyl and extra thick cardboard sleeve with full coloured bespoke artwork, commissioned from illustrator Rich Fairhead, depicting the artist's influences along side personal sleeve notes form Nightmares On Wax.

The collection includes three exclusive tracks, one new track from Nightmares on Wax, along with a remix from the man himself of seminal band Fat Freddy's Drop and brand new project Creative Principle. The album is impeccably mixed and blended, as you'd expect from a DJ and collector of George's pedigree. His selection includes a strong representation from his roots in Northern England. Opening with respected Manchester soul duo Children of Zeus, Hull's Steve Cobby provides his own 'Lefthanded Books' featuring Crazy P's Danielle Moore and also introduces his chuggy-disco project Chieftain. There's also room for the recent Nightmares on Wax recent single 'Look Up'. Moving internationally; there's Greek producer Dim Zach who doffs a cap to Imagination on the synth-heavy 'Innocence', US-born/Colombian based Afro/Latin/disco/funk producer Bosq, Italy's Massimo Vanoni with the slo-mo funk 'Exciting Groove', the deep and jazzy 'Gotta Have It' by Berlin's SoulPhiction side project SBM and two tracks by New Zealander Ladi6.

This first re-instalment of Back to Mine is a triumphant return for the iconic and music loved series. Nightmares on Wax delivers an incredible selection of tracks that gives the listener a real insight into the artists personal and extensive taste. To coincide with the series release, Nightmares on Wax will embark on extensive Back to Mine worldwide DJ tour which sees the producer touch down in various cities across Europe and USA, including six dates in the UK.

'I always hoped that when the time was right I would be asked to do a Back To Mine release and so when the call came there was absolutely no hesitation'. - Nightmares on Wax.

Mouse on Mars, the Berlin-based duo of Jan St. Werner and Andi Toma, approach electronic music with an inexhaustible curiosity and unparalleled ingenuity. ‘AAI’ (Anarchic Artificial Intelligence) takes their fascination with technology and undogmatic exploration a quantum leap further.
Emerging from a primordial ooze of rolling bass and skittering electronics, hypnotic polyrhythms and pulsing synthesizers propel the listener across the
record’s expanse. Hidden in the duo’s hyper-detailed productions is a kind of meta-narrative.
Working with AI tech collective Birds on Mars and former Soundcloud
programmers Ranny Keddo and Derrek Kindle, the duo collaborated on the creation of bespoke software capable of modelling speech; text and voice from writer and scholar of African Studies Louis Chude-Sokei and DJ/producer Yağmur Uçkunkaya were fed into the software as a model, allowing Toma and Werner to control parameters like speed or mood, thereby creating a kind of speech
instrument they could control and play as they would a synthesizer.
The album’s narrative is quite literally mirrored in the music - the sound of an artificial intelligence growing, learning and speaking. This exploration of artificial intelligence as both a narrative framework and compositional tool, allowing the duo to summon their most explicitly science-fiction work to date. Original artwork by Casey Reas, inventor of the computer graphics language Processing.
Recently, Mouse on Mars received the 2020 Holger Czukay Prize for Pop Music.
Mouse on Mars have been regularly streaming performances throughout 2020, partnering with organizations like Goethe-Institut, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Conditions of a Necessity and others and will continue these in 2021.
‘AAI’ is available on grey or black double LP packaged in a single sleeve with full colour insert / lyrics. CD comes with 8-panel poster booklet.
“Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner continue to create soundscapes that blur the line between programming and live musicianship, and sometimes between Earth and outer space.” - AV Club
“Enthralling and impossible to categorize.” - Pitchfork
“Sustained and ephemeral electronic sounds conjure unearthly open spaces… It’s not a song; it’s sound as a temporal phenomenon, a few minutes of sculpted attention.” - The New York Times

White Vinyl

They Say: “New directions in contemporary scoring”.

We say: Contempo is one of the best full album listens in the KPM 1000 library. Succinct smoking soul, super tight breaks and string-drenched sleaze composed by the library master, Keith Mansfield.

The creator of the romping tunes that became the iconic themes to the BBC’s Grandstand programme and their televised Wimbledon Tennis Championship coverage, Keith Mansfield was perhaps KPM’s most prolific artist from the mid 1960s right the way through the 1980s. As well as the sort of pop orchestral sound that is all over these classic library records, he could also turn his hand to raw, edgy rock and funk. Quentin Tarantino is a big fan, going as far as including some of Keith’s work on the soundtracks to Kill Bill and Grindhouse.

Many library records are a game of two halves and Contempo is certainly one of those. The first side cooks on a high funk breaks flame whilst the flip is something altogether more tranquil, yet no less groovy. It lays back with dreamier, post-coital grooves.

Rugged funk opener “The Fix” confidently displays its low slung languid grooves with heavy drums, horns and bass. Smokin’ in slow motion. The punchy “What’s Cooking” follows and has a lighter, more whimsical touch. But the drums still roll and the clavs wiggle in fascinating opposition to those horns. The dark and moody intro to “Cut To Music” gives way to a more inclusive, relaxed funk that’s all irresistible bass and stabbing horns. The mid-tempo “Man Alive” signals the time to really get down. A percussive monster jam. If you can’t strut to this then we really can’t help you! Closing out the A side, fresh guitar licks drip all over the slick drums of “Funky Footage”, with a New Orleans piano vibe coming on to really light a fire.

Whilst the dramatic crime funk of the A side is enough on its own to have earned this record its place in the great library record canon, it’s undoubtedly the more smoothed out B side for which Contempo is rightfully adored and celebrated. It’s so chilled and mellow, with beautifully arranged, sweeping strings, sax solos aplenty and a real 70s soundtrack feel. Think Love Boat, CTI label, Bob James, Grover Washington Jr.-type jams.

The super sleek and sexy jazz funk of “Breezin’” is as light and magical as you’d hope. An open-air masterpiece, its indulgent sound is just a taster of the sophisticated funk to follow. The elegant, romantic feels of “Good Vibrations” (used brilliantly by Odd Future’s Mike G for “Swiss Army”) is a string-drenched, wah-wah fuelled ode to living your best life. Nonchalantly. Whilst it keeps a very West Coast feel, the blaxploitation strut is certainly more Blackbyrds than Brian Wilson. “Sun Goddess” will blow your mind with the sensuous sound of glorious horns and beautiful keys. The luxurious “Love De Luxe” and its horizontal grooves have been much sampled, but here it proves that it doesn’t need any help to get you in an intimate mood. Closer “Snake Hips” is a cool mid-pace slouch. Just divine.

Originally released in 1976 but, like the very best KPM records, wonderfully timeless, Contempo is also no mere LP-length collection of loosely related tracks. This is a rare example of a library record that is a genuinely great listen from start to finish.

As with all of our KPM re-issues, the audio for Contempo comes from the original analogue tapes and has been remastered for vinyl by Be With regular Simon Francis. And as usual, the sleeve reproduction duties were handed over to Richard Robinson, the current custodian of KPM’s brand identity.
: Contempo (KPM) (LP)

Daniel Szlajnda (aka Daniel Drumz) and Piotr Kalinski (aka Hatti Vatti) are one of the most famouse and experienced Polish producers and this album is another step forward for them.

It started with the EP "Krzyżacy", which was released exactly two years ago. Two well-known producers - Daniel Drumz & Hatti Vatti - joined their forces to release an EP, which later on was appreciated by the worldwide listeners, journalists and festival audience. JANKA, which I am talking about, hit the stages of the best Polish festivals such as Opener, Spring Break, Tauron, Slovenian MENT and Moscow Music Week. But that happened in 2019.

On March 8th 2021 the duo's debut album, "MIDI Life Crisis" will be released. Daniel Szlajnda and Piotr Kaliński once again prove that there is much more than just musical chemistry between them. What we can hear there are fascinations from dubby minimalism and IDM to jungle and rave - it's hard to label this unique mature album which should be a pleasant surprise for people open to electronic music. "Modern vintage" might be a good description of what we experience there, music is pressed on modular and analog synths and unusual sampling is drowned in delays and reverbs. However it's not from the late '90s, nothing is typical or obvious, the sound and the style of JANKA are unique.

On the album, you hear two guest voices - Sujka (i.e. Iwona Król - known from the projects Kobieta z Wydm, Lauda, and Król) and Kacha Kowalczyk (i.e. the voice of Coals), the album was mastered by Kwazar. The unique graphic was designed and created by Zosia Paśnik on the analogue gear (as a diploma at the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice). The album is released in analog form in two color versions, the 180-gram vinyl edition also includes three inserts with Zosia's graphics.

Daniel Szlajnda (aka Daniel Drumz) and Piotr Kalinski (aka Hatti Vatti) are one of the most famouse and experienced Polish producers and this album is another step forward for them.

It started with the EP "Krzyżacy", which was released exactly two years ago. Two well-known producers - Daniel Drumz & Hatti Vatti - joined their forces to release an EP, which later on was appreciated by the worldwide listeners, journalists and festival audience. JANKA, which I am talking about, hit the stages of the best Polish festivals such as Opener, Spring Break, Tauron, Slovenian MENT and Moscow Music Week. But that happened in 2019.

On March 8th 2021 the duo's debut album, "MIDI Life Crisis" will be released. Daniel Szlajnda and Piotr Kaliński once again prove that there is much more than just musical chemistry between them. What we can hear there are fascinations from dubby minimalism and IDM to jungle and rave - it's hard to label this unique mature album which should be a pleasant surprise for people open to electronic music. "Modern vintage" might be a good description of what we experience there, music is pressed on modular and analog synths and unusual sampling is drowned in delays and reverbs. However it's not from the late '90s, nothing is typical or obvious, the sound and the style of JANKA are unique.

On the album, you hear two guest voices - Sujka (i.e. Iwona Król - known from the projects Kobieta z Wydm, Lauda, and Król) and Kacha Kowalczyk (i.e. the voice of Coals), the album was mastered by Kwazar. The unique graphic was designed and created by Zosia Paśnik on the analogue gear (as a diploma at the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice). The album is released in analog form in two color versions, the 180-gram vinyl edition also includes three inserts with Zosia's graphics.

The debut mixtape from Bad Boy Chiller Crew, includes the hits ‘450’, ‘Guns Up’ and ‘German Engineering’.
The debut mixtape from Bradford’s Bad Boy Chiller Crew (BBCC). With over 150 million+ organic streams on their own channels, a feature-length fly-onthe-wall VICE documentary and broadsheet tips for 2020 stardom, the group already have a formidable fanbase and infamy to be reckoned with. In fact, they’re already a fully-fledged organic phenomenon.
MCs Kane, GK, Clive are deeply influenced by the ‘bassline house’ clubbing heritage they grew up around in the North of England as well as emergent UK and US rap. The boys’ have created something of their own new sound, lacing pacey 4x4 bass-quakes with a frantic lyrical fire that veers from infectious
ear-worm hooks to wry observational punchlines. Think The Streets meet T2’s ‘Heartbroken’.
Embracing the term ‘charva’ as a way-of-life, together they channel the nuances and absurdities of northern street life into hugely addictive tunes. These lifelong friends are already celebrities around their Yorkshire locale, with a rabid social media following that devours both their singular brand of bassline-rap bangers.
12-inch gatefold LP on heavyweight 180-gram vinyl. Includes BBCC kingsize rolling papers. A2 fold out poster. Full lyrics and unseen images

The Crown is a drama television series, created and written by Peter Morgan and produced by Left Bank Pictures and Sony Pictures Television for Netflix Original. The show tells the biographical story about the early reign of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. The fourth season features Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth, as the story traces her life from her wedding 1947 to the present day. The main cast is further completed by Emma Corin as Lady Diana Spencer, Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher, Helena Bonham Carter and Tobias Menzies as Prince Philip, and many more. Martin Phipps once again composed the haunting minimalistic soundtrack for this Golden Globe Award winning drama series. It is pressed on ‘royal’ purple marbled vinyl as a limited edition of 750 individually numbered copies and the package includes a 4-page booklet.

First pressing of 400 units comes as yellow vinyl! "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.

Iconic debut studio album, originally released in April 1994 on Columbia Records. A 10 song album, reissued here on limited ultra clear transparent vinyl (with download code insert) as part of the 'Clear Classics' range. Marketing.

Back in October 2009, Strut’s Inspiration Information series was in full swing. Following an acclaimed collaboration between Mulatu Astatke and The Heliocentrics, Finnish maverick Jimi Tenor hit the studio for a mouth-watering head to head with Afrobeat drumming legend, Tony Allen.

Tenor had already built a reputation as a fascinating enigma in modern day music. Consistently one of the most inspired and unpredictable live artists around, his work since his breakthrough album ‘Intervision’ (Warp, 1997) had involved open-minded projects ranging from live film soundtracks and orchestral pieces to a series of Afro-based albums with his band Kabu Kabu. Enjoying a burgeoning revival, Tony Allen had continued to attract new fans. Celebrated as the creator of the Afrobeat rhythm and a lynchpin of Fela Kuti’s Africa 70 band, his work at the time of this recording had included the first album as The Good, The Bad & The Queen with Damon Albarn and his debut recording for World Circuit Records, ‘Secret Agent’.

Recorded at Lovelite Studios in Berlin during November 2008 ith further sessions in Finland and Paris, the Tenor / Allen collaboration whipped up a raw, heavy analogue sound mixing the full range of Allen’s Afrobeat repertoire with Tenor’s off-kilter brew of dark humour, tongue-in-cheek lyrics and tight, firing musicianship. The sessions involved key members of Tenor’s Kabu Kabu band and Berlin-based guest MC Allonymous with tracks evolving naturally from jamming ideas together over five intense days of recording, fuelled by plenty of African food and whisky. Tenor’s trademark range of home-made instruments rubbed shoulders with vintage keyboards and traditional African percussion.

The resulting set became one of the best recordings that both artists produced during this period. Tracks range from Jimi’s S&M tableau, ‘Darker Side of Night’ to the apocalyptic commentary on our times, ‘Path To Wisdom’ and the hilarious lampooning of the UK immigration system, ‘Mama England’, composed on the Tenor tour bus. The album also featured fusions based around more traditional low-slung Afrobeat structures (‘Sinuhe’, ‘Got My Egusi’) and ended with the epic freestyle juggernaut, ‘Three Continents’, a life affirming, mesmeric groove built around another rough-as-nails Allenko rhythm base. 'Inspiration Information: Jimi Tenor / Tony Allen' is re-released on 22nd February 2021 and is dedicated to the memory of the great, incomparable Tony Allen.

First reissue of long out-of-print and sought after release from 2009
Unique fusion of Afrobeat drumming and psychedelic Jazz
Vinyl cut from original sessions

“Our first ever show in the UK was the opening slot at Brixton Academy so this is just totally emblematic of the support that has grown overseas we are ever grateful for. It’s still the greatest show we have ever played and we will never forget that night. See you all soon! Stay safe.” DMA’S
On March 6th, 2020 a sold-out audience filled the O2 Academy Brixton’s cavernous space from wall-to-wall. The band played the biggest headline show of their career to date half a planet away from home, yet the show conjured the atmosphere of an intimate homecoming celebration.
The O2 Academy Brixton show was immediately hailed as one of the highlights of the band’s career so far, and it has taken on whole new significance given the events that have followed. For many fans it was their final show before live music events were halted.
From early favourites ‘In The Air’ and ‘Lay Down’ to new material such as ‘Silver’ and ‘Life Is A Game Of Changing’ from ‘THE GLOW’ The show is documented in the ‘Live at Brixton’ album, which will be released almost a year to the day later on March 5th. ‘Live at Brixton’ will be released on a striking smoke-effect pink/orange limited edition double vinyl. Its design was inspired by a flare that was set off during the show. The album offers a chance to reminiscence on the life-affirming power of live shows, and also an inspiring reminder of what we’re all looking forward to returning to.

William The Conqueror have paid their damn dues.
Like the sportsman cutting chipped teeth in the
lower leagues before shooting to the very top, this
band have lugged all the amps, placated the inhouse sound guy for an easier life, their nails dirty,
their hair unkempt. Enough.
Except it’s never enough, because despite their
slinky, swampy, razor-sharp, blues-drenched, guitar
thrashed alt. rock songs that form new album
‘Maverick Thinker’ and suggest that the door is
opening for bigger rooms and broader audiences,
it’s those sticky basement bar stages where the
songs have always shed a skin and come alive.
The record put the three piece behind the glass at
Sound City Studios in LA, treading the same carpet
as the likes of Nirvana, Johnny Cash, Neil Young,
and Fleetwood Mac and they might well have
inhaled the spirit of them all.
William The Conqueror’s protagonist is Ruarri
Joseph who knows his way around a melody and a
verse. Joseph’s wryness suggests life just ain’t
plain sailin’ and he fizzes that sigh and lament into
something that breathes heavy with heart and with
soul.
Vinyl format comes in a gatefold sleeve with
printed inner sleeve and digital download card.

In between acting as Producer on all of the Black Jazz label releases, keyboardist Gene Russell also cut two fine albums for the imprint, of which this is the second, released in 1973. Judging by the quality of their respective solo outings for the label, the fact that Russell’s band includes bassist Henry Franklin and guitarist Calvin Keys bodes very, very well for the quality of this record. And indeed, Talk to My Lady represents a sterling stylistic leap for Russell from his New Direction album, which was the first release issued on Black Jazz; here, he’s leading an electric band instead of the basic piano trio format found on the former record, and playing a number of original, soul jazz compositions like “Get Down” and the title tune. As for the covers, both “Me and Mrs. Jones” and “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” are heartfelt renditions given a little extra bounce by Russell’s ivory tickling and Franklin’s expressive bass playing in particular, while the version of “My Favorite Things” goes way out beyond what John Coltrane played on his original Atlantic studio version. It’s hard to go wrong with a Black Jazz album and you won’t on this one from the label’s creative helm. First-ever LP reissue!

Clock, featuring two extraordinary songs written and performed by Arden herself. A vinyl-only edition of 250 copies, with fold-out poster and insert containing sleevenotes by Jack Bond, Sam Dunn, Charlotte Procter and Sebastian Saville. Arden and Bond’s collaborative career gave Britain some of the most extraordinary films it ever produced. Their filmography is woefully short - but it’s full to the brim of incredible, daring ideas and completely unfettered imagination. It’s packed, too, with pain and a disconcerting honesty about the human condition; challenging commonly-held ideas about madness and positing ideas which are far less easy to categorise or control. Anti-Clock, their final work together - Arden took her own life three years after its release - is a complex, contemplative piece, and Arden’s apparently comforting delivery of her self-penned songs and the see-saw flow of Mihai Dragutescu’s delicate instrumentation act only as a means to lure us in; to begin the de-programming. In Arden's book You Don’t Know What You Want, Do You?, the basis for the network of ideas at play in Anti-Clock – the motif of the rat is used as a metaphor for the rational mind. The lyrics to ‘Sleepwalking’ (living in a daze, wandering in a maze) also conjure up images of lab rats, of unthinking beings adhering to rules and systems, never questioning what is beyond what they think they know to be true. At the close of Anti-Clock, the central character, Sapha, simply says, ‘It has been my whole life's will to decode this puzzle, as though inside the answer to this equation was the insurance of that peace of mind that had eluded me. But there is no puzzle. And the mind is never peaceful. And dawn’s already here as the stars appear.’

In early 2018, Nathan Jenkins returned from the coast of Arrábida to his new home studio in a cottage tucked behind the grand hotel setting of Wim Wenders’ Lisbon Story. Breaking for lunches under a Datura tree in the garden and a far cry from the Finsbury Park basement flat he rented the previous year, a set of recordings followed that galvanised into an EP - ‘We Had A Good Time’. Music informed by out-of-town trips in a 1987 Renault 9 Super, Pitchfork attributed “remarkable healing powers” to lead song ‘Hula’.

After leaving London for a spell in Portugal, Nathan lost his taste for the night life and drew a line under a long-running NTS radio show. Much of the time spent abroad was dedicated to a longstanding collaboration with Westerman, whose album they recorded in a remote part of the Algarve countryside in 2019. Nathan’s own discography opened in 2007 with ‘Pet Sounds: In The Key Of Dee’, before pivoting in a more electronic direction via ‘Get Familiar’ and ‘Young Heartache’. From the sampledelia of 2011’s ‘Too Right’, the new wave and rave of ‘Say Arr Ee’ to the Robert Wyatt-influenced ‘Love Me Oh Please Love Me’, he’s mapped a deliberately peculiar path. 2015’s ‘Rooster’ was Eno & Byrne’s ‘Bush Of Ghosts’ given a shangaan-electro lick and clip. While Nathan’s partnership with fellow out-there pop auteur Jesse Hackett, as Blludd Relations, staggered like a half-cut Prince.

Collaged, rhythmic alternatives. Syncopated avant-garde sambas. Off kilter Sci-Fi jazz. Think Asha Putli in the spot at the Star Wars cantina. Arty, angular. Rich, but uncluttered. Frenetic, electric, blurring the boundaries between what is sampled, what is played. Nathan’s is a wilfully weird Pop, showcased in 2016 on his album ‘Loop The Loop’. Wayward but woven with hooks that come out of nowhere. Lyrical, often beautiful, solos on violin, oboe and desiccated guitars. Songs that demonstrate a nose-thumbing playfulness, a refusal to sit still. Where there’s always the urge to interrupt a carnival beat with a burst of galloping horse hooves. Or juxtapose ambient chords with a kazoo.

A roll call of Nathan’s broader musical adventures encompasses work with Paul Epworth, Sampha, Westerman and Nilüfer Yanya. Commissioned remixes reach from Dita Von Teese to Model 500, Tricky, Todd Terje and Lee “Scratch” Perry. Solo efforts gracing labels Honest Jon’s, R&S, Young Turks, Whities and The Trilogy Tapes. ‘Blue Pedro’, on the latter, making it into Crack Mag’s Top 100 Tracks Of The Decade.

In 2012 Nathan started his own label, DEEK Recordings, assuming the role of inhouse producer to collaborators. The imprint’s tagline and aesthetic - Pop, not slop! - is illustrated by an ongoing playlist of the same name and further explored in a series of compilations where Nathan and friends cover and reinterpret unsung ‘unclassics’ from alt. country to obscure 80s European arthouse scores, bouncing between Captain Beefheart, The Pixies, Sade and Mazzy Starr. DEEK’s roster is equally eccentric, non-linear and pop-literate. Laura Groves and Nautic - the realization and crystallization of a shared love for the Cocteau Twins.

12” pressed on crystal clear vinyl.