quête:wall of sound

Soul Jazz Records celebrate 25 years of working in partnership with Studio One with brand new editions of FIVE of their bestselling CLASSIC Studio One collections all released on limitededition one-off pressing coloured double vinyl. Also available in new limited-edition card wallet CD editions. The new edition featured albums are Studio One Funk, Studio One Dub, Studio One Ska, Studio One Roots and Studio One Classics. Studio One Roots set the standard for Soul Jazz Records’ long-standing series and features many of the classic artists from Clement 'Sir Coxsone’ Dodd’s mighty roster of reggae. This album includes Freddie McGregor, Willie Williams, Cornell Campbell, Alton Ellis, Devon Russell alongside some of the defining in-house groups of Jamaican reggae history - The Sound Dimension, Brentford All-Stars, The Skatalites, New Establishment and more. The album is filled with a mixture of seminal cuts and super-rarities from the vast vaults of 13 Brentford Road.

Stand-out tracks include Alton Ellis’s ‘Blackish White’, a surreal and powerful Afro-centric dream, Count Ossie’s Rastafarian drummers’ genre-defying interpretation of Booker T and The MGs ‘Meditation’, Willie Williams aweinspiring versioning of the Skatalites' seminal Rastafari anthem ‘Addis Ababa’ and many, many more. Original sleevenotes by Lloyd Bradley (author of When Reggae Was King), compiled by Mark Ainley (Honest Jons), high-quality Soul Jazz mastering, wicked images of Count Ossie and the Mystic Revelation of Rastafari on the cover, and a rare image of Clement Dodd and musicians inside the studio at Studio One on the full colour inner sleeves. “There isn't a weak number across these 16 tracks, from the Gaylads’ ode to ‘Africa’ and Devon Russell's version of the heavyweight ‘Drum Song’ rhythm, to stunning instrumentals such as Jackie Mittoo and the Cyclones with nyahbinghi drummer Count Ossie on ‘Meditation’, Lenny Hibbert’s sparkling vibe work over Mittoo's ‘Ghetto Organ’ and The Sound Dimension’s ‘Congo Rock.” Pitchfork “The music of this compilation is of a rare, rare beauty and is essential to anyone's reggae collection.” All Music

Soul Jazz Records’ long out of print classic ‘Studio One Funk’ collection is being re-released in three new one-off limited-edition coloured pressing 18th anniversary format editions!
Firstly, a heavyweight special limited edition one-pressing only red 2xLP vinyl + download. Secondly, there is also a new special limited-edition one-off pressing edition red-pressed CD enclosed in jewel case and slipcase. And thirdly there is a very limited unique new one-off pressing red-cased cassette format (200 copies only)! 18 years on from its original release Studio One Funk remains one of our Studio One releases most in-demand titles and like all our earlier special coloured editions is sure to sell out fast!
Studio One Funk is made up of rare and unreleased Reggae Funk from the vaults of Studio One. Ever since the birth of Funk in America, the sound has been an ever-present ingredient in the melting pot of Studio One’s musical output.
The music on this release is a combination of originals, US covers and versions of existing Studio One cuts. Jackie Mittoo shows his appreciation for Booker T and The MGs, the studio group at Memphis’ famous Stax Records with ‘Hang Em High’, itself a cover of a film soundtrack by Dominic Frontiere. Incredibly this version has never before been released. Booker T’s super-funky ‘Melting Pot’ is also covered by the little-known Underground Vegetables.
Other versions include Isaac Hayes’ classic Blaxploitation soundtrack ‘Shaft’ again by Cedric Im Brooks track - another unreleased gem, straight from the tape master. Motown gets a look in with Alton’s stripped-down version of the Spinners classic ‘It’s A Shame’, written by Stevie Wonder and Syreeta.
James Brown is apparent in spirit with the JBs-inspired groove on the super rare cut “Now” by Lee Arab. Lloyd Williams similarly does a fine Kingston-style version of the hardest-working man in showbusiness on ‘Reggae Feet’.
Version-wise, we have ‘Idleberg’, Cedric Im Brooks tough instrumental cut on Horace Andy’s seminal ‘Skylarking’. The little-known Prince Moonie gives us a rare DJ cut of another Horace Andy classic, ‘See A Man’s Face’.
Pablove Black’s cut of Sidewalk Doctor (A/K/A Poco Tempo) is one of a handful of Studio One releases featuring Augustus Pablo’s trademark instrument, the melodica, played by Black himself.
Add to these original cuts from Studio One’s heavyweight session players including Leroy Sibbles, Jackie Mittoo, Leroy Sibbles, Eric Frater, Leroy ‘Horsemouth’ Wallace, Richard Ace, Vin Gordon and more and you have one of the finest selections of reggae and funk you will ever hear.







"This collection goes deep into the Brentford Road vaults and unearths a rake of previously unreleased gems alongside hard to find classics. Heavy and inspirational, totally unique and essentially timeless." Straight No Chaser
"An absolute treasure trove for the collector as well as being great for the ears and feet. Jackie Mittoo's 'Hang Em High' is worth the price of the album on its own." Echoes
"A superb collection that shows how much many Jamaican musicians were influenced by the heavy funk belting out of American studios from the early seventies onwards.” Touch
"The most satisfying listening experience so far in the Studio One series." The Wire
"Rare and unreleased grooves from Jamaica's house of excellence." Mojo

Ital Tek's new album 'Mind Abandon' takes a different direction from his recent run of releases, embracing a more human touch in contrast to the dense, world-building drone of his previous albums and film work. This time, he set out to compose away from the computer as much as possible _ working more instinctively and allowing himself to get lost in the music. Alan found the most natural starting point was his own voice, processing vocals into shifting pads and textures. His guitar sits at the centre of much of the record, joined by live, hand-played percussion and effects, often captured in quick, spontaneous performances. The result is an album of spacious, contrasting dynamics, with textures pressing against each other and rhythmic elements fighting to surface from glutinous, layered sound. "It feels like a very introspective record for me," Alan says. "Losing my sense of identity/self as part of the process - the increasing effort to calm my mind and embrace humanity/imperfection in the music. This path made sense as a jumping off point for a lot of the music to be vocal or guitar experiments - singing in ideas and then processing to become less identifiable." The album feels carved and three-dimensional, weaving industrial and shoegaze influences with the darker edges of post-rock. Subtly embedded in its architecture are traces of dubstep dynamics _ a sound that remains part of Alan's DNA. Opening track "The Ice Is Thin" is driven almost entirely by live guitar and keyboard, awash in reverb. On "A Hidden Path," everything apart from the drums stems from processed vocals and guitar, with a fleeting appearance from his daughter's toy ukulele. It unfolds like the beginning of a journey _ vast and cinematic _ nodding to the widescreen tension of Ennio Morricone before building into a towering wall of noise. "Killswitch" disorients with pounding kick drums crafted from twanging acoustic guitar, pushing through layers of static-charged chords. "Undertow" spirals outward on looping guitar figures set against a pulsing Rhodes. "Misted," built around a rare four-to-the-floor beat, uses guitar as a driving rhythmic device, opening with a bassline that wouldn't feel out of place on a The Cure record. "Imagined Landscape" introduces icy keyboard textures that foreshadow the dark closer, "The Pull," where an arpeggiated bassline reminiscent of DAF underpins unnerving, internalised sound design that feels as though it's scratching from within. Mind Abandon closes on a heavy, stalking note _ fresh sounds drawn from the body and the heart.

Spiritual World presents: Ashleigh Ball — Center of the Universe, a transcendental flute journey from the singer and flutist of Teal. Center of the Universe is a 32-minute improvisational odyssey recorded inside the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory (DAO), a National Historic Site on Vancouver Island, in British Columbia Canada..

Inspired by the pioneering work of Paul Horn and his Inside series, the recording channels a similar spirit of reverent exploration within a space rich in history and resonance. Completed in 1918, the observatory is home to the Plaskett Telescope - once among the largest and most powerful in the world - playing a key role in mapping the Milky Way.

Following months of coordination, three hours of private access were granted on the morning of August 25, 2025. Beneath the observatory’s towering telescope, Ball performed a wordless meditation, moving between alto flute and soprano concert flute, allowing each note to merge with the chamber’s vast natural reverb. Tones bloom, linger, and return, carried along the massive curved steel walls.

Captured using a minimalist recording approach, Center of the Universe preserves the purity of the moment—its warmth, stillness, and the architecture’s subtle mechanical resonance. Here, the observatory itself becomes an instrument, shaping the sound into something elemental, timeless, and deeply human. Center of the Universe will be released as a limited-edition vinyl LP (300 copies) with a printed insert on May 15, 2026, via Rubadub, Forced Exposure, and HiFi in Sheep’s Clothing.

Pressed on sunburst orange/yellow vinyl This long-awaited 2LP repress restores the album's immense sonic scope on vinyl, allowing its dense layers of distortion, atmosphere and emotional weight to unfold with full analogue depth. A landmark of atmospheric doom and experimental metal, Weighing Souls With Sand remains one of the most haunting and emotionally overwhelming heavy records of the 2000s. Originally released in 2007, the album captures The Angelic Process at their most immersive and devastating. The duo of Kris Angylus and Monica Dragynfly forged a sound where crushing doom metal weight collides with vast shoegaze textures and towering walls of distorted ambience. Massive low-end drones, blurred melodies and suffocating distortion drift between moments of fragile calm, creating an experience that is both devastatingly heavy and strangely beautiful. The result is a deeply cathartic record that pushes doom, drone and shoegaze into a singular and transcendent form.

A unique collaboration between Industrial Breakbeat pioneers Meat Beat Manifesto (Jack Dangers) and the undisputed king of Japanese noise, Merzbow (Masami Akita). "We may not speak the same language, but in the vortex of sound, there's a raw, primal understanding that transcends words. Noise can be art, a visual representation could maybe be Jackson Pollock's No 5, a plexus of chaos redefining what music can and could be. Pushing boundaries with Masami wasn't just a musical adventure, it was a masterclass in sonic anarchy"
(Jack Dangers, January 2024). 'Extinct' sees the duo take listeners on a transcendental journey, focusing on the dismantling of beat and structure and recycling the result through layers of beautifully crafted noise and feedback loops, giving birth to new rhythms buried deep in the dirt. The 20 minute opener 'FLAKKA' takes constantly evolving breakbeats which are gradually broken down over time, driven through a filter of harsh noise, destroying the old to give birth to the new. Raw and unforgiving, the track is a behemoth that blends mutant forms of broken beats and hints of dub, creating rhythmic noise of the highest calibre in the process. 'Burner' takes the record to its ultimate conclusion, the initial drum beat broken down so that it is barely recognisable. Pulsating distortion and high end audio fragments bleed into each other as the track lumbers forth and destroys everything in its path before slowly unravelling, degrading and falling apart. A harrowing yet somewhat cathartic trip through walls of harsh industrial noise and audio degradation, 'Extinct' is a masterful pairing of artists who have delivered something truly unique yet totally relevant. Don't sleep on this one! (Todd Robinson / Subunit) Composed, recorded and produced November 2023 - January 2024 by Jack Dangers and Masami Akita.

Between Bodies als Geheimtipp der europäischen Punk/Indie-Szene zu bezeichnen, ist mittlerweile ein großes Understatement. Nach ihrem Debütalbum, "Electric Sleep" von 2022, war die Band in aller Munde derer, die ein Herz für melodischen, treibenden, emotionalen Punkrock mit DIY Spirit haben. Spätestens über das Jahr 2025, als die Band aus Köln, Toronto und Paderborn, etablierte Acts wie Touché Amore, The Get Up Kids, The Hotelier oder Captain Planet in ausverkauften Clubs supportet hat, auf zahlreichen Szene-Festivals zu sehen war und seine Hörer*innenschaft noch einmal deutlich erweitern konnte, sind Between Bodies zu einer der spannendsten up-and-coming Punk-Bands hierzulande geworden. Die Songs und Texte der Ende 2019 gegründeten Band haben - wird oft behauptet, hier stimmt es einmal - internationales Format und erinnern an Lieblinge wie Joyce Manor, The Menzingers oder Tigers Jaw. Ihr Sound lässt ebenso an 90er Jahre Emo-Punk Klassiker denken, zeigt sich beeinflusst von 00er Jahre Post-Punk/Indie und verfügt dabei über reichlich Charakter und ein Ideenreichtum, der Between Bodies schlicht zu einer außergewöhnlichen Band macht.

Time To Get On Board A New Black Universal Express.

With each new recording Anthony Joseph presents an imaginative, personal vision of contemporary black culture, and The Ark is yet another compelling album by the award-winning Trinidadian poet and musician. This second part of a sequence of two albums launched with last year’s Rowing Up River To Get Our Names Back, finds Joseph giving full vent to his desire to explore many thought-provoking themes. However, there is a specific thread running through the glorious offering of sounds.

”I was especially interested in the idea of using Afrofuturism as a means of using the future in order to correct the wrongs of the past,” explains Joseph. “And so a lot of lyrics reimage or imagine an alternate black history. At the same time there are elements of autobiography.” The aforesaid cultural phenomenon, a view of the black experience through the prism of science fiction and ancient Egypt and Africa, as mapped out by visionaries from music and literature such as Sun Ra, Parliament-Funkadelic and Octavia E. Butler, has previously inspired Joseph. His 2006 novel The African Origins Of UFOs was a multi-hued work, and the new music shows how Joseph

has, much like all significant artists, gone on to broaden his conceptual palette, creating beguiling new stories and images set to startling rhythms and tones. Tracks such as ‘James’, with its taut, crisp bass and dubbed-up brass, and ‘Transposition Of Space (Glissant)’, a potent evocation of the influential Martiniquan theorist set in a haze of jazz guitar and ambient synthesizers, are marvels of text-sound painting.

As for ‘Baron Samedi’, shaped by a languid, almost wounded guitar line and slow rise of horns that frame Joseph’s journey to the ‘mountain of fire, almost touching the sky’ it is an epic blend of commanding vocal delivery and dramatic sonic tapestry.

Joseph led the Spasm band in the early 2000s and recorded well-received albums such as Bird Head Son and Time, in which songs were largely based on spirituals or chants enhanced by improvisation. But his musical curiosity has naturally led to collaborations, and the new work is produced by Dave Okumu, the prodigiously talented guitarist-vocalist-composer known as the leader of Mercury Music Prize-nominated The Invisible, and who was also a member of the seminal band Jade Fox.

Having first performed together at a show curated by influential saxophonist-flautist Shabaka Hutchings at the storied Total Refreshment Centre In London during lockdown, Joseph and Okumu struck up a rapport that further developed when the former guested on he latter’s album. With the connection made Joseph knew Okumu was the ideal producer for this latest project, which has a freewheeling, almost black psychedelic thing. After sifting through demos and loops the guitarist made on pro-tools the poet started to live with the music. Many months later words began to take shape. Joseph then went into the studio with Okumu’s band and set about creating a magnum opus. Boasting a stellar cast such as vocalist Eska Mtungwazi, trumpeter Byron Wallen and keyboardist Nick Ramm, The Ark is a highly intricate musical mosaic framed by simmering funk grooves, wily jazz improvisation and haunting dub effects. Through the use of many genres the music has simply become its own genre.

The Ark can be perceived as a vessel or means of transport to new worlds, along the lines of Sun Ra’s Ark or Funkadelic’s Mothership, and the material it contains is a unique blend of who Anthony Joseph is and how he sees the world and society in these stimulating, challenging times. “It balances the personal with the universal in a much more vulnerable, accessible way than on previous albums,” Joseph explains.

“It has become less about a personal experience and more about a collective, communal experience in which the artist is conduit, messenger, urban griot.”

2026 Repress

Cirkle returns to Sublunar, Sciahri's label, following the success of Sonic Surge, with a new EP that showcases both refinement and immense talent. This release encapsulates Cirkles distinct sound and artistic evolution, offering a rich and immersive sonic journey.

The EP opens with Shadows of the Past, a track driven by a pulsating, groovy synth line and dynamic drum patterns that propel the rhythm forward. It seamlessly transitions into Beaten, a dark, hypnotic piece that envelops the listener in a shadowy atmosphere.
The B-side begins with Shamanic, a track that pays homage to a more classic techno sound while maintaining an irresistible, steady groove. Following this, The Wall That We Build offers a more delicate and minimalistic approach, balancing precision and subtlety. The journey concludes with Tears of Light, an epic and transcendental piece that takes the listener to another dimension.

Douglas Robinson and Sal Mignano (both of The Sleeping) and Josh Eppard (co-founding member of Coheed And Cambria) share passions for authentic expression and genuine creativity. Held. isn’t so much a beginning as it is a culmination. The post-hardcore trio’s debut album, GREY, arrives fully realized, not as the tentative first step of newcomers, but as the collective fire of seasoned lifers discovering a new language together. It’s the sound of raw instinct coalescing with earned wisdom. GREY doesn’t announce itself so much as it emerges, inevitable and undeniable, like thunder rolling across a dark horizon.

It’s a force that feels eternal. Held.’s music feels elemental, evoking storms crashing against jagged cliffs or burning embers kindling, ready to reignite at any moment. It’s urgent and relentless, yet also spacious, textured, and deeply human. There’s gravity in every note, the kind that comes from survival turned into strength. Their sound is born of paradox: fiercely old-school in its emphasis on live performance and feel, but modern in its production and scope. Each song sounds both timeless and timely. Held. is less a band than a force: fierce yet vulnerable, raw yet refined. They play as if the walls themselves are trembling, channeling a purity that feels rare in an age of algorithmic noise. Listening isn’t consumption—it’s recognition, like rediscovering something thats always been within you. Held. carve out a place that feels both unshakably grounded and dangerously alive. Its more than music—its an invocation, a reminder of the raw pulse that connects struggle to transcendence. For those who find themselves in the storm, Held. offer not escape, but resonance: proof that inevitability can sound like liberation.

Noko is a Gda?sk-based (Poland) band operating at the intersection of jazz, electronics, and club music. Their sound grows out of improvisation, but instead of following a traditional jazz narrative, it focuses on trance, repetition, and the physicality of rhythm. The band's sound is built on a fusion of acoustic instruments-trumpet, saxophone, double bass, and drums-with electronics and synthesizers. The result is a dynamic structure that works just as well at jazz festivals as it does in a club setting. ?oko's second album is a sonic residue suspended somewhere between a jazz festival and a Berlin techno club. KO is a form of recycled jazz and electronics that opens up wide, cinematic landscapes for the listener. It's deeply physical music, driven by a trip-hop groove that keeps things grounded while allowing the mind to drift into less obvious territories. For this release, ?oko invited two outstanding artists who add a unique character to the whole. Novika brings her signature dreamlike calm, while the voice of Maciej ?winiarski appears in a song about death, closing the band's improvised journeys. This is a personal record the band wants to share with you.

With Grammy award-winning sound engineer Katie May (MPG Sound Engineer of the Year, 2025) once again at the faders, Blank Arcades sees the same team (David Perry on guitars & church organ, Cameron Saint on double bass and Louis Spanton on percussion) reunite in atmospheric Yatesbury Church, close to the Avebury stone circle, to perform sixteen new songs on a single summer's day. A year on from its predecessor, Collodion ("hushed, haunted and shiver- inducing" wrote Alexis Petridis in The Guardian) Blank Arcades draws on themes of impeded progress and the 'entrances to nowhere' implied by the album title, a nod to Andrew's interest in ancient churches. "When you sing in a place like this, the walls join in."

Genre Is Death is an uncompromising noise duo made up of Ty V (guitar, vox) and Tayler Lee (bass, vox). Their sound is abrasive yet melodic, using heavy distortion, dissonant riffs, and reverberating vocals to create a wave of boldly hypnotic noise. The duo have been compared to the likes of Sonic Youth and Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, yet have managed to create a sound that is distinctly their own, avoiding mimicking the zeitgeist of decades before. Beyond the integrity of their music, Tayler’s intimidating glare, or Ty’s staggering gait, the duo share something truly inimitable— the overwhelming feeling that their music is a byproduct of the high esteem they hold of each other. The duo moved to NYC in August of 2023 looking for something more than their mundane suburban lifestyle of day drinking and playing doom metal in friends' basements…their move to NYC coupled with their desire to express something, anything, led to the inception of Genre is Death. The pair hit the ground running, playing anywhere and everywhere they could… however, it was only after a chance encounter with 80s noise forerunners Live Skull that the pair was introduced to the strange underbelly of NYC noise and began playing regular gigs with The Art Gray Noizz Quintet and Lydia Lunch. In 2025 the pair played New Colossus Festival, toured with Gogol Bordello, embarked on their first East Coast tour, and played gigs with Cherubs, Bush Tetras, and Jon Spencer. Their upcoming record was recorded with legendary sound engineer Martin Bisi (Sonic Youth, Swans).

Aspen is very proud to introduce ‘Non Sonett’ by the Christian Wallumrød Ensemble. This ensemble is a pioneering Norwegian chamber group whose work on ECM and Hubro has redefined the boundaries between jazz, contemporary composition and folk music.Across seven albums, the ensemble has developed a highly distinctive l anguage built on restraint, timbral nuance and collective interplay, placing it among the most influential European ensembles of the 21st century.

Bringing together some of the finest musicians in Norway, the ensemble draws on a rare collective sensitivity, where each player contributes to a deeply integrated and texturally rich sound world.

With Non Sonett, the Christian Wallumrød Ensemble opens a new chapter that grows directly out of recent years of work in more solitary and cross-disciplinary contexts. In this period, Wallumrød has developed material for solo performance as well as for dance, allowing ideas to take shape in more fluid and exploratory formats. Some of this material now finds its way into the ensemble, where it is met by the possibilities offered by instrumentation, collective playing, and the distinct voices of the musicians. At the same time, older pieces—originating in entirely different settings— re-emerge here in new forms, reshaped by the ensemble context.

A defining aspect of Non Sonett is the way many of the pieces function less as fully determined compositions and more as open frameworks: starting points, suggestions, or “springboards” for music. These structures invite response rather than prescribe outcome, relying on the ensemble’s inherent sensitivity and capacity to realize and transform the material in performance. The result is music that feels both precise and fluid, shaped in equal measure by composition and by the interpretative presence of the players.

Central to this album is a continued deepening of Wallumrød’s long-standing interest in ambiguity and in dissolving boundaries between different musical elements and expressive worlds. By placing contrasting materials and associations side by side—sometimes subtly, sometimes more overtly—the music opens up spaces where meanings remain fluid and interconnected. On Non Sonett, this approach is taken a step further, allowing these juxtapositions to play an even more active role in shaping the music’s character and flow.

This approach connects closely with the ensemble’s broader artistic trajectory. Over time, the Christian Wallumrød Ensemble has developed a language that is immediately recognizable—marked by reduction, clarity and a deep attention to sonic detail. While each release has its own character, the underlying aesthetic remains consistent: a focus on the inner life of sound itself. Rather than foregrounding gesture or virtuosity, the music draws the listener toward the smallest elements, where meaning emerges gradually through texture, spacing and timbre.

The listening experience becomes one of concentration and proximity, where each sound carries weight, and the accumulation of detail forms a larger whole. References may be sensed—to early polyphonic music, Norwegian folk traditions, or more recent experimental practices—but these are absorbed into a singular musical language that resists categorization.

As with the ensemble’s recent work, Non Sonett also continues the integration of electronics as a fundamental part of the sound world. Each musician engages with electronic elements alongside their acoustic instruments, creating a layered and dynamic sonic environment. At times, this leads into extended, exploratory passages reminiscent of analogue musique concrète; at others, electronics operate almost imperceptibly, subtly altering and extending the acoustic textures in real time.

Aspen is very proud to introduce ‘Non Sonett’ by the Christian Wallumrød Ensemble. This ensemble is a pioneering Norwegian chamber group whose work on ECM and Hubro has redefined the boundaries between jazz, contemporary composition and folk music.Across seven albums, the ensemble has developed a highly distinctive l anguage built on restraint, timbral nuance and collective interplay, placing it among the most influential European ensembles of the 21st century.

Bringing together some of the finest musicians in Norway, the ensemble draws on a rare collective sensitivity, where each player contributes to a deeply integrated and texturally rich sound world.

With Non Sonett, the Christian Wallumrød Ensemble opens a new chapter that grows directly out of recent years of work in more solitary and cross-disciplinary contexts. In this period, Wallumrød has developed material for solo performance as well as for dance, allowing ideas to take shape in more fluid and exploratory formats. Some of this material now finds its way into the ensemble, where it is met by the possibilities offered by instrumentation, collective playing, and the distinct voices of the musicians. At the same time, older pieces—originating in entirely different settings— re-emerge here in new forms, reshaped by the ensemble context.

A defining aspect of Non Sonett is the way many of the pieces function less as fully determined compositions and more as open frameworks: starting points, suggestions, or “springboards” for music. These structures invite response rather than prescribe outcome, relying on the ensemble’s inherent sensitivity and capacity to realize and transform the material in performance. The result is music that feels both precise and fluid, shaped in equal measure by composition and by the interpretative presence of the players.

Central to this album is a continued deepening of Wallumrød’s long-standing interest in ambiguity and in dissolving boundaries between different musical elements and expressive worlds. By placing contrasting materials and associations side by side—sometimes subtly, sometimes more overtly—the music opens up spaces where meanings remain fluid and interconnected. On Non Sonett, this approach is taken a step further, allowing these juxtapositions to play an even more active role in shaping the music’s character and flow.

This approach connects closely with the ensemble’s broader artistic trajectory. Over time, the Christian Wallumrød Ensemble has developed a language that is immediately recognizable—marked by reduction, clarity and a deep attention to sonic detail. While each release has its own character, the underlying aesthetic remains consistent: a focus on the inner life of sound itself. Rather than foregrounding gesture or virtuosity, the music draws the listener toward the smallest elements, where meaning emerges gradually through texture, spacing and timbre.

The listening experience becomes one of concentration and proximity, where each sound carries weight, and the accumulation of detail forms a larger whole. References may be sensed—to early polyphonic music, Norwegian folk traditions, or more recent experimental practices—but these are absorbed into a singular musical language that resists categorization.

As with the ensemble’s recent work, Non Sonett also continues the integration of electronics as a fundamental part of the sound world. Each musician engages with electronic elements alongside their acoustic instruments, creating a layered and dynamic sonic environment. At times, this leads into extended, exploratory passages reminiscent of analogue musique concrète; at others, electronics operate almost imperceptibly, subtly altering and extending the acoustic textures in real time.

Killer Groove Records proudly presents the self-titled debut album by Italian cinematic funk trio Atabasca. A sonic journey where funk, psychedelia and desert groove merge into a timeless narrative suspended between rhythm and vision.


"Atabasca" marks the debut release from the cinematic funk trio, dropping March 27th on limited edition LP, CD digipack and digital formats, the latter featuring an exclusive bonus track. This is a project built on evocative imagery: each song unfolds as an open scene, an emotional landscape where listeners can step inside and write their own ending.

Lap steel, kalimba, percussion and guitars interweave with bass and drums, striking an original balance between tradition and experimentation that evokes unwritten soundtracks for worlds at once distant and familiar. The record navigates between melancholy and irony, tension and release, with a sharp focus on dynamics and sonic narrative.


Deserts, seas, imaginary villages, getaways, pursuits and collective rituals: "Atabasca" emerges as a collection of musical landscapes that unfolds through vivid, evocative imagery.

Jazz-funk, world music, afrobeat, psychedelia and the Italian Golden Age of movie soundtracks merge into a singular emotional geography: warm, analog and deeply human.

The musical journey opens with "Dune", a melancholic statement that leaves room for imagination, before igniting with "Kundela Mawedi" and its cascading lap steel over haunting vocal chants. "Paco" tips its hat to classic westerns, tracing a bandit's trajectory, while "Cameo" drifts back to childhood through minimal rumba and shimmering kalimba. The cinematic imagery continues in "Cacopoulos", a nod to Spaghetti westerns and Eli Wallach, built on raw drum patterns and distorted guitars. Intensity builds in "Khettara", where afrobeat rhythms and Middle Eastern textures intertwine, before "Hell Dorado" tears off in pursuit of the American dream's funk-fueled mirage. "Papambra" weaves hypnotic polyrhythms between kalimba and lap steel, while "Porpora" delivers a sensual, visceral tango of passion and tension. The digital edition closes with "Reprise", a sequel that stretches the album's central theme into an expansive, meditative interpretation.

The tracks were recorded in single takes, capturing the raw energy and natural atmosphere of the performance. Artistic production was handled by the trio alongside Andrea Fabrizii (digger, musician, producer and catalogue curator for CAM Sugar), while Riccardo Ricci mastered the album at Velvet Room Mastering Studio in Brighton.

Like a desert blooming within the evergreen forests of the planet's far north, a unique, alien, disruptive environment. This is the vision behind Atabasca, the project of Luca Mongia (guitars, lap steel, keyboards, vocals), Paolo Mazziotti (bass, keyboards, vocals) and Valerio Pompei (drums, percussion, vocals).

Individually active for over twenty years on both the national and international scenes, the three Italian musicians came together in 2023 to create a project that merges experience, experimentation and creative freedom. Their music is imaginative and at times dreamlike, blending the classic concept of the instrumental trio with the worlds of film scoring and sound design.

Atabasca's sound moves through jazz-funk, world and cinematic territories, weaving together afrobeat, desert and psychedelic influences into a personal and timeless language. Each piece is a scene; each sound, a fragment of a world, a journey between reality and imagination where groove, texture and organic timbre merge into a singular sonic ecosystem: a perpetually shifting balance that generates new inner landscapes.


For fans of Khruangbin, Surprise Chef and instrumental psych-funk!

On his fourth solo album, and debut work for Nick Klein's Psychic Liberation imprint, Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø presents »Faint Light Blackens«, a negotiation between the atomized instrumentation of the solo trombone is pushed towards a full range wall of sound over the concise sprawl of seven distinct acts on two sides of a vinyl record.

The seven acts that make up the album were developed specifically for recording within Emanuel Vigeland’s »Tomba Emmanuelle«. The fresco within the mausoleum anchors themes of existential weight, ripe with weighted imagery of love, birth, and death. The solemn space is a cavernous acoustic terrain wherein reverberant reverie makes it almost impossible to speak aloud, let alone sing through horn and electronics. This chamber's expanse is baked into the compositional directions employed on »Faint Light Blackens«.

Experientially, the record was produced in a long form performance gesture, with no overdubs. While edited to fit the record format, no additional post production coloring took place. Here Nørstebø shines as an instrumentalist, wherein the symbiosis of the site specific architecture and his sound sources are synced. At once musing and brooding, the gamut of emotive sonic landscapes is at play for a fully dynamic listening experience. The territory in Nørstebø’s vocabulary through interplay with the mausoleum is not vaulted , unlike Vigeland’s urn’ed ashes. On »Faint Light Blackens«, the spirit takes bound beyond the cavern and reanimates the listeners stereo alters for a holistic listening experience of perfectly challenging electroacoustic endeavors.

Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø – acoustic & amplified trombone, monotron, feedback, sound files.
Recorded by Espen Reinertsen October 10. and 11. 2023 in Tomba Emmanuelle, Oslo Norway.
Cover Photos and mix by Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø
Mastered by Helge Sten (Deathprod) at Audio Virus Lab

Intimacy is manifested in every moment of Radiator, the debut album from Philadelphia's Sadurn. This feeling of closeness, of being able to lend your every sense to one's confessions of internal conflict, is due in large part to the circumstances under which this album was created. Much of the world fell apart in 2020, but Sadurn tucked themselves away in a Pocono's cabin, creating and recording what would become their first full-length. Within the confines of their close quarters, passing animals as the only auditory witness to a makeshift recording studio created by moving furniture, Sadurn created an album that will break your heart and then slowly piece it back together.Sadurn started as the solo project of Genevieve ??DeGroot. Picking up guitar in 2015, DeGroot started writing songs, eventually playing DIY shows throughout the city of Philadelphia. With time, the direction, sound, and members of Sadurn changed. The beginning of 2020 was meant to serve as their debut as a four member band (Jon Cox on guitar/tenor guitar, Tabita Ahnert on bass, and Amelia Swan on drums), but the world had other plans and the group adapted.Taking influence from artists like Gillian Welch, Alex G, and Jason Molina, Sadurn's emotive indie rock explores the struggles and eventual beauty of grappling with multiple emotional realities, particularly when it comes to relationships. That conflict, the idea of being forced to choose, even when terrified, is present on singles like "Radiator" and "Golden Arm." The latter is an unhurried ballad that shows its truest colors with time, eventually blossoming with unexpected admissions of desire and uncertainty. Indecision, heartbreak, and attempting to live out your days against the actual backdrop of a gradually worsening hellscape is a shared commonality among us all, but on Radiator Sadurn breaks down walls that others so often put up. It's a fleeting, impactful glimpse at one's whole heart, and its sweeping, special nature is evident from the moment the album opens.

Tha God Fahim's timeless creative instincts have been evident from the moment his art began to circulate. Emerging unexpectedly from the epicenter of trap music, the Atlanta emcee quickly distinguished himself with sharp wordplay and atmospheric production that couldn't be further from the monotonous sounds echoing Around Him. With Just A Few Projects To His Name, Tha God Fahim Was Still A Hungry Young Talent On The Rise when he unleashed Tha Dark Shogunn Saga in late 2016. Among his most memorable early releases, the album kicked off an unprecedented creative explosion, as Fahim cemented his status with more than 50 projects released over the next two years. Followed by an equally compelling sequel released just a few
months later, the overall saga became an important moment in Tha God Fahim's rise, evoking shadowy street corners and smoke-filled hallways. Nearly a decade later, Fahim is expanding this series into a full trilogy with Tha Dark Shogunn Saga, Vol. 3. Reviving the unmistakable vibe of the original projects, the new collection finds our hero back in warrior mode, sharpening his lyrical blade over rich production from Cookin Soul, Nicholas Craven, Fortes, and Fahim himself.

Continuing Blueprint's 30th anniversary celebrations, James Ruskin welcomes the return of Oliver Ho, whose relationship with the label is deep-rooted.

Oliver Ho has spent the last 30 years devoting his life to creating some of the most intense and compelling electronic music out there. Debuting his signature raw sound in 1996 on Blueprint Records, he cemented himself in the underground of the '90s UK techno scene. With a plethora of aliases, he has navigated his way through many different genres. From the frenetic tribal sounds of his own Meta imprint, the off the wall house music made as Birdland and Raudive, the grinding industrial of Broken English Club and the heavily textured ambient of his Slow White Fall and Zov Zov projects. While pushing and pulling at the fringes of electronic music, at the very centre has always been the beating heart of hypnotic techno, an art form that is both brutal and bewitching; techno as ritual magic. Oliver's live shows and DJ sets showcase this expression of music as shamanic experience, metallic and relentless, pure and direct.

An integral figure in shaping Blueprint's early sound, Oliver Ho returned in 2016 for their 20th anniversary with the "Burning Heretics EP", which was followed by a remastered reissue of 1999's "Awakening The Sentient". So it's fitting that he's now back for this latest milestone with a new EP, "Our Secret Religion" dropping in May.

On Layaway Plot, Pretty Baby weaves elements from turn of the century Dischord bands, the emotive Richmond punk scene, the cerebral experimental rock of Olympia, and angular post-punk revival. Piercing guitars, frenetic bass and chaotic drums pulse under layered unsettling synth pads and desperate, throaty vocals. At their apex, distorted walls of sound finally crash and from the dust emerge plaintive and melancholy instrumental sections.The resulting sound pays homage to the progenitors of post-hardcore while resisting the traps of nostalgia. Layaway Plot finds the band vulnerable, angry, sardonic, and at times defeated. But never without hope. Now fully realized, Pretty Baby is a band equally at home in art galleries, basements, and punk clubs alike.

There comes a point in every bands life when originality stops being a virtue and honesty takes the wheel. On their 11th long-playing record: Forgeries (72-84)-(16)- return to the impulse that first dragged them into loud rooms and bad ideas: the urge to steal what we love and make it semi-unrecognizable through devotion. We have partnered with Heavy Psych Sounds Records to release a collection of covers that function less as homage and more as a possession to be given away. The artworkrendered by the ever-amazing Maraldcompletes the ritualiconicunsettlingand unafraid. Weve always believed that a great cover is not mimicry but revelation. Its finding a song that's already lived inside you since youth and letting it crawl outbruised and changed. From the early 90s onward-(16)- have treated covers as translations rather than as replicasacts of tribute and emulationfiltered through distortionfatigueand lived experience. These are songs that taught us how to standhow to falland how to keep going. In our collective headthis album exists because these songs demanded it. Because they screamed copy meand we listened. In the endForgeries (72-84) stands as both a thank you note and a thefta reminder that all music worth a damn is borrowedbrokenand passed on between friends. The selections on Forgeries 72-84 span eras and attitudesunified not by genre but by necessity. Each track is a document of obsessionof influence absorbed and re-expressed without permission.

There comes a point in every bands life when originality stops being a virtue and honesty takes the wheel. On their 11th long-playing record: Forgeries (72-84)-(16)- return to the impulse that first dragged them into loud rooms and bad ideas: the urge to steal what we love and make it semi-unrecognizable through devotion. We have partnered with Heavy Psych Sounds Records to release a collection of covers that function less as homage and more as a possession to be given away. The artworkrendered by the ever-amazing Maraldcompletes the ritualiconicunsettlingand unafraid. Weve always believed that a great cover is not mimicry but revelation. Its finding a song that's already lived inside you since youth and letting it crawl outbruised and changed. From the early 90s onward-(16)- have treated covers as translations rather than as replicasacts of tribute and emulationfiltered through distortionfatigueand lived experience. These are songs that taught us how to standhow to falland how to keep going. In our collective headthis album exists because these songs demanded it. Because they screamed copy meand we listened. In the endForgeries (72-84) stands as both a thank you note and a thefta reminder that all music worth a damn is borrowedbrokenand passed on between friends. The selections on Forgeries 72-84 span eras and attitudesunified not by genre but by necessity. Each track is a document of obsessionof influence absorbed and re-expressed without permission.

8 years after their last LP Kites, Submotion Orchestra return with their long awaited sixth studio album, the remarkable Passed Me By. A deeply personal journey into memory, creativity, and the passing of time, it shows the band continuing to push their signature electronic sound forward, and the result is some of the boldest and most emotional territory of their storied career. 

The album sees the band dive further into the synth-led, minimalist electronic textures and driving beats explored on the 'Five Points' EP, creating hypnotic analogue patterns alongside the post-dub spaciousness and celestial effects of their earliest work. With Ruby Wood's always-emotional vocals soaring over the top, the tracks effortlessly glide through genre and mood, resulting in the widest range of expression and emotion found in a Submotion album yet. 

The second season of the funny and heartfelt fiction series by Flo Van Deuren and Kato De Boeck takes us along as Bibi and Ama move on to the next chapter of their lives and into their new, unexpected home: an old daycare building. With school no longer providing structure and their wallets running on empty, they dive headfirst into adulthood.

This results in eight new episodes that, like the main characters, have grown up, yet remain just as hilarious and moving as ever.

With the second season of Roomies, the show’s award-winning music makes its return. This time with a powerful soundtrack featuring Eefje de Visser, Ategha (Ahlaam Teghadouini) & Mickael Karkousse (Goose), Maria Iskariot, and Porcelain ID.

“(Tijdbom) Tikkend” is a dark, electronic track that feels like a constant run: sometimes away from the other, sometimes right toward them. It captures the feeling of running out of time, losing each other, and wanting to reconnect. That push-and-pull dynamic felt like a perfect fit for Roomies, where relationships, drama, and fun are always intertwined. - Eefje de Visser

“Whatever Happens” came together in a very organic way, and you can hear that in the track. Raw, genuine, and effortless. What’s unique is that we hadn’t even met until a few days before. Ahlaam walked into the studio and said, “I’ve prepared something.” That opening line alone was fantastic and immediately showed confidence and courage. “Perfect,” I thought. Then we turned the volume up to maximum, and I listened as Ahlaam sang right by my ear. Instant goosebumps! - Mickael Karkousse

Risk/Reward’s third installment comes from Brooklyn-based California native Chuwee, a rising star with records in the bags of the scenes most discerning selectors. Teaming up with homies Sasta, Seb Hall and Gaspar Muniz to form the Wizards on Waverly, they deliver a wildly creative and versatile collection of funk-drenched floor fillers.

On the a side: 4TJADEN combines crunchy electro house drums with a twisting, monstrous analog bass lead and 80s synth pop strings, before euphoric chords and a killer acid line send this one in to the cosmos!

Let’s Talk About Sex is a big, bad, booty bouncing slice of West Coast electro funk. An ultra groovy and addictive bass line, naughty vocals, spooky synth lines and rays of acid sunshine straight from California, make for an infectious party cut that gets the floor rocking every time.

On to the b-side: Slippy Jim’s is a laid back, dubwise, chugger, perfect for warming up, day time sessions or late in the afters. Crunchy analog drums patter over a warm, playful bass groove, speckled with dubby stabs, an imposing synth lead and vintage Jamaican spoken word vocals transport you to Kingston after party where the rum and vibes flow in equal measure.

Pioneer of the dub tech house sound Grant Dell delivers a gargantuan remix, with enough weight to break even the sturdiest of scales. Chunky yet detailed drums, a sub-heavy & driving bass line, acid squelchs and dubbed out stabs create an absolute weapon of a track, with a truly epic breakdown featuring a legendary vocal that gets right under your skin and stays there.

Heavy support from Enzo Siragusa, Harry McCanna, Bushwacka!, Dyed Soundorom, Anna Wall, CHKLTE and more.

Schatterau’s third album, »Wir gingen durch leere Stunden« (We went through empty hours), sees the German duo blossoms with beauty and sophistication through a broad creative language.

This opus, presented in the form of vivid auditory tableaux vivants, explores the topography of memory as a landscape in constant motion – full of loops, feedbacks, and mirage-like distortions. Sounds climbing like vines over old walls, concealing details only to reveal new ones. Some pieces feel like fragments of a dream whose origin has vanished, others like displaced echoes of a day long gone.

Memories create paths that only become visible in retrospect – detours that somehow always lead back to oneself. Each track draws the listener into a different recollection, as if opening an old door. Inside, time behaves strangely: it jumps, stretches, and repeats.

»Wir gingen durch leere Stunden« ultimately presents Schatterau at their most experimental, complex and measured extremes, channelling ambiguous human emotional resonance ranging from melancholy to pure ecstasy.

Onna Last Live 1983 includes the final performance by the original line-up of Onna, the psych-rock project of revered Japanese manga artist, Keizo Miyanishi. Onna’s legend has largely rested, until now, on one self-released and self-titled seven-inch from 1983. Reissued by Holy Mountain in 2009, its rediscovery, along with several archival live and studio sets that leaked out across the 2000s, signalled to a wider audience the power of Miyanishi’s strikingly hypnotic songwriting. With Onna Last Live 1983, though, we hear the group’s perfect line-up performing at its peak.

While Miyanishi was the core member and conceptualist of Onna, the other members of the group would also go on to make significant contributions to the Japanese underground. Guitarist Michio Kurihara would eventually be known for his membership of YBO2, Ghost and White Heaven, and collaborations with the likes of Boris and Damon & Naomi. Drummer Ken Matsutani formed Marble Sheep & The Run-Down Sun’s Children and The Mickey Guitar Band, while also running the Captain Trip label. Joined by the late bass player Yasui Yutaka, to whom the album is dedicated, this quartet only performed live in 1983; the live set here was recorded at Silver Elephant.

It’s a different line-up to the Onna duo that’s documented on their single. After Miyanishi and fellow manga artist Mafuyu Hiroki recorded that material, Miyanishi decided he wanted to start playing gigs; Hiroki left, and Kurihara, Matsutani and Yutaka joined soon after. This line-up allowed Miyanishi to significantly expand Onna’s powers, leading to a sound that Kurihara once described to Ptolemaic Terrascope magazine as “repetitive and heavy, yet quite orthodox.”

The songs here are simple yet deeply effective in their repetitive power, generally revolving around two or three simply strummed chords for guitar. Bass and drums repeatedly lock into mantra-like grooves as Kurihara’s guitar scales the walls, with Miyanishi’s consumptive moans and sighs sent torquing through FX. The cumulative effect of the seven songs here is very heavy indeed; if the prologue “Always…” drifts beautifully through five minutes of placid, beseeching melancholy, the epilogue, “Never Seen A Light Like This”, spirals out into sixteen minutes of glazed-over psych-rock, completely monomaniacal and thrilling in its slow-motion tumult.

Throughout, you can hear Miyanishi and co. reaching for something ineffable, something beyond and between the notes. It’s a phenomenal performance; it’s also no surprise that the group disintegrated after this show, given its intensity. Matsutani and Yutaka left after the Silver Elephant show, with Miyanishi and Kurihara continuing through the first half of 1984 firstly as a duo, and then a trio with new drummer Yoshiki Ueonyama. Kurihara left soon after. But Onna Last Live 1983 is proof plenty of the powers of the original Onna quartet, sending their Rallizes/Velvets dream-mantras off into darkened, stormy skies.

Le Futur c’est la drogue, which should here be translated as The Future Is the Drug, is not to be read as a promise, but as a statement of fact. The present is no longer an experience, but pure consumption. Life itself has taken the form of a dependency.

With this sixth album, Christophe Clébard goes straight to the point, driven by a free and repetitive form of writing, stripped of any syntactic rigidity. Words strike like balls against a wall, revealing darker zones of his mind where guilt, fear, and existential anxiety coexist.

The sound composition, equally minimal, sustains a dense and obsessive mental space, a vortex in which trance appears as the only escape. Driving drum machines, relentlessly hammered electronic loops, and a battered synthesizer, his music unfolds within a physical, strangely hypnotic synth-punk aesthetic that hits viscerally.

The Future Is the Drug is his sixth album.

Swiss powerhouse The 18th Parallel presents another slice of fine modern roots reggae! All Fruits Ripe is a heavyweight showcase album rooted in the foundations of reggae while firmly anchored in the present. Recorded between 2015 and 2025, the project brings together a powerful lineup of Jamaican vocalists — Micah Shemaiah, Keith Rowe (from rocksteady duet Keith & Tex), Rod Taylor, Var (Inna De Yard, Pentateuch), Hezron, and Itral Ites — each representing a different generation of conscious reggae music.

The album features six vocal cuts and five dub versions, highlighting both lyrical strength and sound system culture. Carefully mixed by master engineer Roberto Sánchez, All Fruits Ripe stands as a transnational reggae statement: Jamaican voices carried by a European band deeply connected to the roots with a profound respect for the culture that gave birth to reggae and dub. It features legendary guest Jamaican musicians Leroy ‘Horsemouth’ Wallace, Scully Simms, Dalton Browne, or Errol ‘Blacksteel’ Nicholson.

A mature and carefully crafted release where every track feels essential — like fruit finally ready to be harvested.

April Records proudly presents the new album from Danish trombonist and composer Lis Wessberg. Her most personal album to date, In The Wake of Blue is a song-driven work exploring transience, love, and transformation. Expanding her writing while remaining rooted in her distinctive instrumental voice, Wessberg creates an intimate musical landscape where lyric, melody, and texture carry equal weight. Wessberg has established herself as a leading voice on the European jazz scene through her band Yellow Map and a series of acclaimed releases on April Records. Her previous album, Twain Walking (2024), marked her first step into English-language songwriting and earned a Danish Music Award nomination in 2025 for the track Behind the Walls. In The Wake of Blue develops this direction further. The album draws on images from nature - sea, tides, clouds, mist, and birds - used as emotional anchors rather than abstractions. These elements frame songs that move from uncertainty and loss toward openness, connection, and renewal. The title reflects this arc: "blue" as melancholy, depth, and memory, and what emerges in its wake. Vocalist Veronika Rud is central to the album"s sound, bringing vulnerability and clarity to the songs. Rather than a traditional singer-led project, the music unfolds as a dialogue between voice and trombone, with Wessberg"s warm, airy tone mirroring and extending each song"s emotional core. At times the two move in close unison; elsewhere, they diverge and reconnect. The core ensemble - Steen Rasmussen (piano and keys), Lennart Ginman (bass), and Jeppe Gram (drums) - provides a responsive, understated foundation, while string quartet Live Strings appear on two tracks, expanding the ensemble"s depth and resonce. In The Wake of Blue offers a quietly assured statement from an artist continuing to refine a voice that speaks as clearly through brass as it does through words.

Baby Rollén and Wilba (Fraise), embark on their new collaborative project Heartbreak Hombres. Straight ahead dancefloor house cuts and no nonsense!

Already drawing support from a diverse spread of DJs including Raresh, Ben UFO, Dr Banana, Eris Drew, Chris Stussy, Wallace, Louise Chen (NTS) and more - the Heartbreak sound is designed for the DJ; a selectors handy weapon at the ready!

»Music for Shared Rooms« is B. Fleischmann’s eleventh solo album and his first since 2018. It is also not an album, or at least not in the conventional sense of the word. These 16 instrumental pieces provide a kaleidoscopic glimpse of a forward-thinking musician at home in many different musical worlds, including experimental and abstract music, pop and more classically-minded compositional forms. These pieces were culled from an archive of roughly 600 compositions for theatre pieces and films written throughout the past twelve years. The Österreichischer Filmpreis-awarded composer, however, aimed for more than simply documenting his extensive work in and with different media. To do so, he edited and re-mixed the individual recordings for this release, taking them out of their contexts and reworking them for an audience who can experience them in a different setting. »Music for Shared Rooms« makes it possible for its listeners to engage with the sounds and to fill the spaces they open up with their own imagination.

Roughly speaking, music for theatre or film can serve two functions: it either takes the lead, or underscores what is happening on stage or screen. The marvelous thing about these pieces is that they manage to do both. Fleischmann’s work as a prolific producer has always drawn on contrasts, at times combining pop sentiment with rigid experimentation, the seemingly naive with the intricate and complex. This approach also marks the tracks collected here: bringing together acoustic elements and electronic sounds, at times working with conventional structures but always de- and re-contextualising them, Fleischmann constructs a vivid dramaturgy out of discrete singular compositions, letting them interact across the record.

Take, for example, the opener »Träumerei« and the following »Brenne«: after the soothing acoustic sounds of the former, the latter quickly picks up speed with hard-hitting drum machine rhythms. It’s a stark contrast sonically and stylistically, however both tracks are tied together by a certain harmonic sensibility. This sort of dramaturgical interconnectedness of varied musical materials is the thread that runs through »Music for Shared Rooms«. A droney piece for string instruments like »Sehnsucht« is followed by a trip-hop beat, before »Schock« lives up to its title with skittering beats and piercing high frequencies. The differences between the pieces may be striking, but the progression from one to the other is subtle. It goes on like this through different moods and tempos. There’s soothing-yet-eerie piano pieces like the »Für Elise«-inspired »Der Lärmkrieg«, gentle house grooves, joyful synthesizer excursions and, finally, »Die Erde ist mir fremd geworden«, a collage of abstract textures and concrete sounds.

All these pieces create distinct situations through the juxtaposition of diverse musical elements, but are also bound together by a single vision. Writing music for theatre pieces or film requires a composer and his pieces to engage with people and their movements in space, which is exactly what Fleischmann offers on this record. He breaks down the fourth wall and invites his listeners into his world, a wide-ranging musical panorama. »Music for Shared Rooms« is indeed not an album in the conventional sense of the word, but more like a photo album in which each page opens up a new space to get lost in; recreates different scenes in which you can immerse yourself. These are shared rooms indeed.

In 2005, Andrew Bird was a previously unimaginable combination of virtuoso violinist, singer-songwriter, guitarist, and whistler. With that year’s album The Mysterious Production of Eggs, Bird minted a new sound that continues to be imitated today.
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of The Mysterious Production of Eggs, Andrew Bird is releasing a very special boxset featuring a 54 page book including photographs, special surprises, and two essays: one written by Andrew himself, and another by Anders Lindall examining the circuitous and fascinating process Andrew and collaborators took to record the album.
The boxset also includes the original release of the album, alongside two LPs of never before released material, on black vinyl. On one LP, a one-to-one playthrough of the album but of demos, live cuts, and alternate versions. The third LP includes more never released rarities on Side A, and a selection of songs from the original album performed by Andrew with the Nu Deco Ensemble. The original cover artist has created all-new artwork for the anniversary piece.

The album presents a distinctive artistic statement built around song, texture and collective exploration. Opening tracks such as 'Fair Weather' and 'The Big Flood' draw on the oblique lyricism of Henry Cow and the surreal songcraft of Robert Wyatt, with Beraha's voice at the centre of a sound world shaped by analogue radio collage and drifting, delayed saxophone lines. Punk-inflected rhythms emerge on 'Modern Times', while the reflective 'Into the Woods' blends lyrical song with collective improvisation, highlighting the ensemble's dynamic range. Across the album, tightly composed material sits alongside free improvisation, cinematic writing and storytelling. Tracks including 'February' and 'I the King' explore contemporary jazz, humour and surreal narrative, while groove- led pieces such as 'Dorian Gray's Bathroom Cabinet' and Morricone- inspired 'Same Time Next Week' showcase rhythmic drive and playfulness. The album closes with 'Strangers on a Train', where scripted text gives way to improvised spoken dialogue over a relentless pulse, uniting the record's themes of collaboration, narrative and spontaneity. Reflecting on the recording process, Kevin Figes describes Wallpaper Music III as "a joy to make", marking a return to Rockfield Studios and a collaborative experience with musicians whose sensitivity, imagination and improvisational skill shaped the music at every stage

Some years ago, Kjell Bjørgeengen and Keith Rowe attempted to convert video signals into sound by setting up Rowe’s pickups next to an old CRT monitor, turning its magnetic field into a sound generator. Rowe further developed the system with David Jones at Alfred University, slimming down the setup using a copper coil, a circuit board, a video input, and a telephone pickup. Jones named it the »Flood Coil«, and it’s that instrument you can see on the album’s front cover and that lies at the core of these recordings, made without any physical live input from the artists themselves. In essence, it’s generative music in its purest form.

Bjørgeengen’s video feed is generated by oscillators, then routed into Marhaug’s pedals and then back into the Flood Coil, so any visual shifts alter the sound, and any modification to the sound changes the video. The duo have played this setup live many times, but for this studio version they left the system to do its thing without any intervention for two minutes at a time before moving onto the next idea. They recorded hours and hours using this process and then selected 18 highlights for this album, extracting harsh noise, power electronics, lulling feedback drone, and peculiar rhythmic snippets to show the scope of their technique.

A wall of growling, hi-octane Pulse Demon-style noise opens the set, gradually exposing us to more asymmetric textures, shifting through unstable repetitions that transform Merzbow’s metal-inspired screams into »Aaltopiiri«-era rhythmic noise. It’s remarkable, actually, how much Marhaug and Bjørgeengen can squeeze from the system, chancing on shivering, lower-case chugs and pops, galloping drums, soundsystem subs, and grinding blast beats that sound like Napalm Death’s »Scum« piped through a broken amp stack. It ain’t pretty, but noise/industrial freaks will revel in the fierce delights inside.

Carlos Giffoni reconnects with Thurston Moore for two sides of loose-limbed axe noise, oscillator worship and hard-phased, Spacemen 3-style feedback.

Giffoni’s been on a roll recently. Since the No Fun founder returned to the scene with »Vain¡, a genius set of synth mutations that appeared in iDEAL back in 2018, he’s been slowly ramping up the activity, dropping the celestial »Dream Walker« on Stephen O’Malley’s Ideologic Organ in 2024 and following it with »Pendulum«, a bumper compendium of collaborations, just a few weeks back. For those who remember Giffoni’s first trip round the block, he was always able to hold his own chopping it up in person, not just by mail.

Just scrub through his early catalog and you’ll see collabs with Nels Cline and Chris Corsano, Merzbow, Jim O’Rourke and Lasse Marhaug, and of course, Thurston Moore. The two rekindle their thing on »IGUANA’« picking up where 2001’s fabled »4 Guitars Live« performance left off. Here, Giffoni straddles a tabletop synth and FX while Moore attacks his signature Jazzmaster with a drumstick and a screwdriver – vibes fully intact.

Moore is on blistering form, sounding as if he’s taken a step back to refresh his approach since the early ‘00s when he could be spotted moonlighting on any number of basement-adjacent noise sides. Sawing at his strings and turning the guitar into a shrieking resonator, he leaves only faint vapours of the classic Sonic Youth sound as opiating accents on his animalistic wails and rumbles. On the opening half, his whammy – assisted shreds are balanced out by Giffoni’s off-world whirrs and airlocked vibrations, building a dense wall of noise towards an unexpectedly elegiac conclusion. At some point, Giffoni’s rasping churr transforms into a simmering shudder and Moore’s into hymnal drones – squint a bit and you could almost call it pretty.

Of course, they ramp things up on the flip, dissolving the melancholia with smokey white noise and twangy, post-Derek Bailey chimes that Giffoni accompanies with aggy oscillations. Like every great taped noise set, the recording quality is crucial - »IGUANA« was captured from the pit by Guillermo Hernandez Avendano, the dad of Lia Miranda who provides the cover photo. It’s that kinda show.

Defying labels across the board, and turning old-style ancestral narratives into brutal and harrowing portraits of life on the edge of nowhere, the Fibbers wrap each of Lost Somewhere Between the Earth and My Home\'s 12 songs into a ball of fury and toss it against the wall of tradition, just to see what happens. Chaotic noise breakdowns give way to melodic singalongs, songs twist and turn through several side paths before reaching their destination, and everything sounds as if total annihilation is imminent. Scary, thoughtful and highly inventive, Lost is the sound of country gone to hell.

Defying labels across the board, and turning old-style ancestral narratives into brutal and harrowing portraits of life on the edge of nowhere, the Fibbers wrap each of Lost Somewhere Between the Earth and My Home\'s 12 songs into a ball of fury and toss it against the wall of tradition, just to see what happens. Chaotic noise breakdowns give way to melodic singalongs, songs twist and turn through several side paths before reaching their destination, and everything sounds as if total annihilation is imminent. Scary, thoughtful and highly inventive, Lost is the sound of country gone to hell.

The album opens with the ominous guitar-driven Hollow Sky, accompanied by its haunting music video's verdant vistas. The song, with Iceglass ghostly vocals, shimmers with that sounds like an Omnichord flittering like sonic firefly lights and brooding bass. This perfectly scores the less traveled wanderings through the dark wooden path of Dante's perdition, leading to the titular well that graces the album cover. The Crater opens with an unsettling riff and bass, with low, repetitive frequencies on the synth create a sense of unease. Here, Iceglass recounts a fatalistic requiem for the king of romance that is cataclysmic and leaves a scar upon the earth. With Fall Industrial Wall, once again, Iceglass channels a silky and Nico-like emotive deadpan; against a dirgelike melody backed by minimal synth, bass, and drum. Almost medieval and plaintive, with its folk droning horns, deep and shallow in their resonance. This song is anachronistic, setting the scene of ruins centuries-old with crumbling edifices strewn about like memories lost in time. With the poetic lyrics of The Chamber do we find the eponymous abyss. Here, dualities are laid bare; besides love, there is heartbreak, and without this sorrow, what meaning would there be to love if one knows not what it is to lose? This song encapsulates the idea that love is heartbreak, and love lost is reaching the deepest chamber of the heart. This is carried through a sombre horn, minimalist drum machine, and deliberate bassline overlaid with Iceglass german and english lyrics. The Well is led in with a softly distorted bassline overlaid with eerie banshee howls give way to Iceglass otherworld vocal refrain, echoing through time as if emanating from a hole in the ground, and encircling that hole is a garden of woe and despair. The sinfully seductive song The Moor features a captivating SAX SOLO courtesy of Perseas; a welcome shift in tone, juxtaposed well with the intensity of Iceglass tenebrous vocal purr. This hitherto unexplored foray into dark sensuality takes the song into sordid mid 80s territory, bringing to mind a dusky drive along a serpentine road, with equally haunting instrumentations straddling time with icy fire. Broken Characters is an acoustic folk interlude featuring Selofan's Dimitris Pavlidis on guitar. Here we find a more gentle approach with its earnest and romantic lyrics. The song's melodic hook is a soft caress along with the forlorn horn elements highlighting Iceglass at her most Nico-sounding vocal yet, singing the sorrowful truth that most artists are indeed broken characters. Chimerical opens with dirgelike synth organs. The chill of winter has befallen the lamentations sung by Iceglass carried by haunting chord progressions and minimal percussion, plaintively beseeching the song's subject to remain elusive, idealistic, and a dreamer. After an album highlighting more Jill than Jack, our male protagonist finally makes his ascent in the sonorous and breathtaking Dark Hill, a masterful march of sweeping synth horns, and trepidatious drum machine with William Maybelline's bellowing voice cracking like thunder, rattling the atmosphere like his heart against his ribs. Spirals swirls in a cautionary knell of cathedral-esque droning synth dirge, with Icarian lyrics shining like a sombre ray of hope; like the sun's rays creeping into the darkest of places. The song, minimalist in its tight percussion, echoes with the solace of Larissa Iceglass vocal litany; invoking elements of the supernatural, almost like a Casio preset sequenced to the beating of an angel's wings.