Search:was that all it

and Sebastian Kokus and the prolific Ulf Schütte, the Hamburg-based trio has tirelessly expanded upon its sound and extended its musical style. After 2022’s »S/T« documented the results of their first jam sessions as a newly-founded group, »V.A.« started even more modestly and became an even bigger undertaking. Originally conceived as a small one-off release, it grew into a full record which sees the group embracing dub music, collaborating with Peaking Lights’ Aaron Coyes and inviting other artists—No UFO’s, Seekers International, Coco Em—who reworked select tracks in true dub style. »V.A.« is marked by inconsistency, openness, and heterogeneity in the best sense of those words: ever-changing, constantly surprising and consistently in motion.

The starting point for »V.A.« was a Hamburg concert in December 2022 together with Coyes, who played a solo set as Peaking Lights. On the request of the event organiser, Cloud Management teamed up with him for a jam session after the gig, laying the foundation for a track that the group took to the studio before sending it to Coyes to record vocals for it. Another song quickly followed and even though the band initially intended to release »PST« and »0rten Pitch« as standalone 7” single, they soon decided to have others create versions of the two tunes to round them off in the form of a 12” EP. Once more though, one thing led to another and now »V.A.« collects five original pieces by Cloud Management as well as three—four on the digital version—remixes by other artists.

Collaborating with Leipzig-based Canadian producer No UFO’s, the Canadian Seekers International collective, and Kenyan multi-disciplinary artist Coco Em came about organically. As fans of their friend Konrad Jandavs’ work for labels such as Spectrum Spools, Root Strata and his own Nice Up International, Korf, Kokus and Schütte asked him for a remix and granted him full creative freedom for his take on »PST«. Jandavs also connected them with the prolific Richmond-based soundsystem worshippers, who present their take on the same track on this record as well as a version of »Electric CD.« Also this track appears three times on the record, having been re-rubbed by Emma Mbeki Nzioka, who was introduced to the the trio by its label Altin Village & Mine.

There isn’t really a common thread running through the rough digi-dub of No UFO’s take on »PST«, Seekers International’s traditionally-minded yet infinitely playful dub-psychedelia and Coco Em’s bass-heavy, percussive, pulsating take on »Electric CD.« However, as a group dedicated to staying in flux at all times, Cloud Management ended up embracing the creative differences between their own work and those of their respective collaborators. In calling it »V.A.,« they paid tribute to their somewhat loose, but conceptually consistent concept of giving various artists full creative licence over their own work. Neither a true album in the strict sense of the world nor just a compilation, »V.A.« is actually the essential Cloud Management record: ever-changing, constantly surprising, consistently in motion.

Originally released as a hand-numbered CD on New Year's Eve of 2004, Last Light captures Tor Lundvall 's hushed songcraft at its most ghostly and grayscale, stripped bare like branches bracing for winter. Initially conceived of as "a piano album with sparse electronics" (with the working title November), Lundvall's palette steadily expanded, incorporating synthesizer, samples, bass, metronomes, and his signature spectral vocals. A journal entry from the spring of 2002 proved formative to his evolving vision: "I remember watching the blueish-grey light shimmering outside and hearing distant sounds echoing far away, eventually sinking into silence and stillness." The album's 12 tracks are steeped in this sense of autumnal transience, of bearing witness to what fades. The music moves in whispered swells, between dirge, drift, and devotional. Synths chime like slow-tolling bells; percussion shuffles and shivers, icy and isolated; bass traces a low-lidded plod - it's a mode both austere and seductive, lulling the listener into its landscapes of deepening dusk. Lyrically, Lundvall's language skews observational and depressive ("through lace curtains / grey light falls / dark clouds gather / in my soul" ), with each song like a gauzy glimpse into a different tableau framing winter's descent: rust - colored leaves, frozen ponds, cold crescent moons. Lundvall has long considered Last Light a "personal favorite" in his discography, and it's easy to hear why. In texture, finesse, and pacing, it vividly evokes the rare mood of fragile, frosty pastoral noir depicted in his iconic oil paintings. His is an art of the half-seen and half-remembered, of fleeting figures, shapes and shadows, and gathering darkness. Of all that disappears, and the ghosts that never leave: "So I wait / as the years / slowly drain the magic and the light / and the girl / I never loved / haunts me through the dark roads of my life."

A collection of structured piano improvisations and their surrounding sonic environments, an album in four parts: Songs From a Distant Summer | From November For Snow | Together Recorded between 2011-2013, the album was never intended to be a direct response to the seasons. The coincidence of the recordings having been made at points within the seasons was only pointed out at a later date by a friend. Alongside wishing to avoid any parallels or associations being drawn with Vivaldi’s masterpiece, the title - “The Seasons Are Not Four” - a line from a poem by Syrian poet Adonis , appeared to fit perfectly - recognising our relationship to time but also alluding to the impossibility of truly categorising it. Due to label arrangements and complications the majority of these recordings have remained unreleased for a decade. One notable exception being the piece “I Promise”, that went on to amass in excess of 24 million streams - an unfathomable prospect for a piano-less pianist recording a reunion between himself and a piano at a point of not having played one for several months. The Seasons Are Not Four serves as a sonic record of real-time responses to the character of a piano, to transient states of being and to disparate, fleeting moments in time - some will hear Summer in Winter, others- Autumn in Spring; distant conversation beyond the sounds of a hesitant human shuffling fingers against wooden keys, the ticking of a grandfather clock or the song of birds outside masking passing traffic. - ‘The Seasons Are Not Four, a week is not seven days, a year is more than it is, and less’ Adonis

London based multidisciplinary artist and DAYTIMERS internal team member Zar (Arun) is returning once again in 2023, this time on The Tabula Rasa Record Company, to release his second EP: “Unfurl”.

It is the next expression of progression in sound for Zar, a movement further into, above and beyond the foundations laid down from his debut EP “Practice Makes Miracles” - which was listed on Bandcamps’ “Best Electronic Music of March 2023” and described by DJ Mag as “a striking solo debut that sets Zar out as an exciting prospect in the sphere of electronic composition.”

Sitting at that murky midpoint between UK Garage, Tech-House & Bass, the songs literally bloom outwardly, wrapping around the listener leaving trails of familiarity, and feature the tendrils of earworm worthy melodies that strike a balance between serene, uplifting, dense and thoughtful, all whilst resting upon deep thumping drums, clever vocal sampling and unconventional song structures. As a follow up to an already ambitious debut EP, Unfurl is an incredibly full-filling listen.

Having (barely) survived the inaugural vinyl detonation of Powerman 5000’s Tonight the Stars Revolt!,
we’re back with its predecessor, 1997’s Mega!! Kung- Fu Radio. But the blast radius on this one might
even be bigger... after all, the initial title of this record (their first studio album) was The Blood Splat
Rating System. Once that release won awards from the Boston Phoenix Reader’s Poll for Best Metal
Album, Best Rap Album, and Album of the Year, DreamWorks signed PM5K and re-issued Blood
Splat under the Mega!! Kung-Fu Radio title in remixed, remastered, and supercharged form with a
couple of new tracks, the title cut and the great “20 Miles to Texas 25 to Hell.” Just as was the case
when we released Tonight the Stars Revolt, this baby’s never been on vinyl before, and we’re
pressing it in blue with black swirl vinyl complete with a printed inner sleeve. Duck and cover.

TVAM announces ‘Costasol’, his new EP for Invada Records. The 10” EP is pressed on translucent blue vinyl, and housed in a reverse board, spined sleeve.  TVAM returns to the sun lounger to deliver a horizontal view from the pool of self-reflection. Joe Oxley, aka TVAM, offers, “‘Costasol’ began life as two atmospheric interludes that I wrote for my last album, ‘High Art Lite’. Over time these ideas took on a life of their own and demanded that I take another look at them. I slowly began putting the pieces together and ended up with a track which became much more than the sum of its parts.” The resultant ‘Costasol’ is a song about longing, loss and regret wrapped-up in heatwave bass and shimmering guitars, all perfectly enhanced by Mona’s dreamlike vocal.  TVAM self-released his much-acclaimed debut, ‘Psychic Data’, in the Autumn of 2018. Something of a cult-classic, the album joined the dots between Suicide’s deconstructed rock ’n’ roll, Boards of Canada’s irresistible nostalgia and My Bloody Valentine’s infinite noise. ‘High Art Lite’, released in October 2022, took a different tilt to its predecessor by emphasising the immediate and the personal. The colours were blown-out and the brightness was cranked up.  It’s in this world where TVAM’s new ‘Costasol’ EP exists. Full of colour and noise, with a vibrant, distorted palette. Though the title track may find a home at some poolside retreat, the subsequent tracks return to TVAM’s claustrophobic realm. ‘Ephemerol’ evokes its own mutant groove, part ‘Midnite Vultures’ Beck, part ‘Pretty Hate Machine’ Nine Inch Nails, with ‘Heart Attack’ and ‘VHF’ rounding off this bold, bright, brief encounter.  Radio - BBC 6 Music Lauren Laverne, New Music Fix, Emily Pilbeam, Amazing Radio B-List.  Tourdates - October 22 SWN Festival Cardiff, November 11 Hebden Bridge Trades Club, 18 What Music? Liverpool.

With a voice of pure gold and a startling sensitivity for heartfelt pop songwriting, on No Reino Dos Afetos (In the Realm of Affections), Berle firmly embraces earnestness, through starry-eyed Brazilian love songs, ambient vignettes, warm, home-cooked beats and gentle strokes of MPB genius.

Maceió, the capital of Brazil’s Alagoas state on its sprawling east-coast, is home to pastel coloured colonial houses, white sand beaches and a brilliant young composer, poet and multi-instrumentalist named Bruno Berle.
With a voice of pure gold and a startling sensitivity for heartfelt pop songwriting, on No Reino Dos Afetos (In the Realm of Affections), Berle firmly embraces earnestness, through starry-eyed Brazilian love songs, ambient vignettes, warm, home-cooked beats and gentle strokes of MPB genius.

“It’s an album that was built from my desire to find beauty”, Berle explains - his simple, graceful words mirroring the graceful simplicity in his music. But amongst the simplicity, the compositions, arrangements and productions on No Reino Dos Afetos tingle with nuance and detail.

On the contemporary R&B inspired lead single “Quero Dizer” - produced by Berle and longtime friend and collaborator Batata Boy - the swirling, lo-fi, kalimba and guitar-fronted beat is turned into a feel-good hit by the ingenuity of Berle’s honey-soaked vocal melody.

Powerfully intimate, “O Nome Do Meu Amor” (My Love’s Name) is a guaranteed tearjerker, with Berle’s stunning voice soaring over gently plucked acoustic guitar and the textural flutter of soft movement, as if we hear him writing the song in the moment.
Drawing upon a close-knit, collaborative scene of Maceió artists and musicians, (of which Berle and Batata Boy are vital members), Berle also recorded some of his friends songs on the album, including João Menezes’ “Até Meu Violao”, the album’s beautifully laid back sunshine soul opener, which has all the charm of early-70s João Donato.

Having cut his teeth in soft-rock group Troco em Bala, and more recently finding himself embedded in both Rio and Sao Paulo’s contemporary music scenes - collaborating with the likes of Ana Frango Eletrico, who took the photo for the album cover - No Reino Dos Afetos is as musically diverse as Bruno himself. It’s hazy indie rock (“É Preciso Ter Amor”), calming ambient and field recording (“Virginia Talk”) as well as Berle’s own take on West African High Life (“Som Nyame”).

Instantly recognisable as a truly special artist, Berle’s character fills every corner of the sound, which is unsurprising considering he played most of the instruments.

Worthy re-issue of Robert Cotter's second late 70's soul album! Comprising five songs, with four of them being quite lengthy and well-structured for the dance floor, was entirely recorded in the United States by top-notch American musicians. "Timeless", a fresh and lively expression of late 70s soul music, was recorded at the Sundragon Studio in New York. This studio was home to legendary bands such as Talking Heads and Ramones, as well as a few 'disco studio groups' like Andrea True Connection, Tony Valor Sound Orchestra, and Camouflage, who recorded songs that later became considerable hits. For this reason, it's believed that the positive outcome of the album can be partially attributed to Ned Liben, an eclectic New York musician and co-founder of the studio in the Flatiron district of Manhattan, served as an exhaustive interlocutor for any artistic and technical needs. He was also the arranger of "Rock Me With Your Love", the most significant song on the album. Ned's successful mission was to capture the maximum timbral fidelity of Robert Cotter's voice using appropriate recording techniques, assisted by Michael George Ewing, a talented engineer who had previously worked on similar projects with well-known artists like Carol Williams, Maryann Farra & Satin Soul, Touch and Tony Valor. In fact, the piece features original and melodious lines, coupled with an excellent steady rhythm, spanning approximately 8 minutes and 30 seconds - in short, "a delightful sound for every beat." This ensured that the performance of the young singer-songwriter from New Jersey was faithfully reproduced without neglecting the overall musical landscape. The other four songs, arranged by Ben Lazzaroni with the same musicians as the first piece, are no exception. Best Record also delivered on the promise to Robert's older brother, Karl Potter, a powerful percussionist transplanted to Rome, for whom the roman label produced "Sweet & Salty Cha-Cha-Cha" (12", 1986). Robert Cotter, an artist about whom almost nothing has been written, is poised to gain recognition once word spreads about his album, which has been entirely remastered by Dom Scuteri and features a more congenial tracklist. This album is destined to be truly 'timeless', ready to captivate audiences around the world. Even the new cover artwork, created by Nerina Fernandez, pays homage to an artist who, despite expressing himself with elegance and simplicity, radiates energy and exudes love. "Timeless" is an inevitable revelation for anyone who missed it at the time, and for the next 40-plus years, it will remain an absolute must-listen for Robert Cotter's many fans, leaving them all in awe. In addition to the reissue on the classic glossy black vinyl, a strictly limited edition on red vinyl will be released exclusively by Clone Distribution.

Worthy re-issue of Robert Cotter's second late 70's soul album! Comprising five songs, with four of them being quite lengthy and well-structured for the dance floor, was entirely recorded in the United States by top-notch American musicians. "Timeless", a fresh and lively expression of late 70s soul music, was recorded at the Sundragon Studio in New York. This studio was home to legendary bands such as Talking Heads and Ramones, as well as a few 'disco studio groups' like Andrea True Connection, Tony Valor Sound Orchestra, and Camouflage, who recorded songs that later became considerable hits. For this reason, it's believed that the positive outcome of the album can be partially attributed to Ned Liben, an eclectic New York musician and co-founder of the studio in the Flatiron district of Manhattan, served as an exhaustive interlocutor for any artistic and technical needs. He was also the arranger of "Rock Me With Your Love", the most significant song on the album. Ned's successful mission was to capture the maximum timbral fidelity of Robert Cotter's voice using appropriate recording techniques, assisted by Michael George Ewing, a talented engineer who had previously worked on similar projects with well-known artists like Carol Williams, Maryann Farra & Satin Soul, Touch and Tony Valor. In fact, the piece features original and melodious lines, coupled with an excellent steady rhythm, spanning approximately 8 minutes and 30 seconds - in short, "a delightful sound for every beat." This ensured that the performance of the young singer-songwriter from New Jersey was faithfully reproduced without neglecting the overall musical landscape. The other four songs, arranged by Ben Lazzaroni with the same musicians as the first piece, are no exception. Best Record also delivered on the promise to Robert's older brother, Karl Potter, a powerful percussionist transplanted to Rome, for whom the roman label produced "Sweet & Salty Cha-Cha-Cha" (12", 1986). Robert Cotter, an artist about whom almost nothing has been written, is poised to gain recognition once word spreads about his album, which has been entirely remastered by Dom Scuteri and features a more congenial tracklist. This album is destined to be truly 'timeless', ready to captivate audiences around the world. Even the new cover artwork, created by Nerina Fernandez, pays homage to an artist who, despite expressing himself with elegance and simplicity, radiates energy and exudes love. "Timeless" is an inevitable revelation for anyone who missed it at the time, and for the next 40-plus years, it will remain an absolute must-listen for Robert Cotter's many fans, leaving them all in awe.

Malian and French pair Siraba unveil their much-anticipated self-titled debut LP on Damian Lazarus’ Secret Teachings label, a 10-track odyssey fusing Mali’s rich musical traditions with cutting-edge electronic music.

Malian hunter Boubacar Samake and Damien Vandesande, one half of the French electronic band dOP, have won plenty of plaudits for the early singles taken from their debut album as duo Siraba. Those singles, spanning across the summer months, have found the pair bring the traditional sound of the Wassoulou - a river valley of West Africa - to the electronic world after 20 years of friendship. The music comes with an important underlying message of love and respect and results in spellbinding tracks that move heart, body and soul, finding a perfect home on Secret Teachings - a left-of-centre alternative label to Lazarus’ celebrated and often more club- focused Crosstown Rebels. With the arrival of the full album, the pair exhibit and showcase the emotional breadth and depth of their music, with detailed explorations of organic textures and native sounds merged with future-focused ideas and concepts.

The title track opens with an atmospheric mix of spoken words and spine-tingling chords that bring rich Afro flavours, while ‘Dounoiia’ is a languid groove made from hand drums and pixelated synth leads that cast a fine spell. The slow-blooming ‘Bani’ brings rich Malian blues and melancholic horns, while ‘Komafly’ is a rich mix of acoustic strings and broken beats that transports you to a hot and dusty landscape. A vital component of the sounds of the Wassoulou, the indigenous stringed instrument the Ngoni features again on the rousing ‘Nanse’ as spiritual vocals sung in Bambara rouse the soul.

‘Djandjo’ is another rich infusion of Malian culture with simmering electronics to make for something both ancient sounding yet futuristic, and the hypnotic ‘Ngana Fôlly’ with its rich bass is a song ‘dedicated to those who fight for the well-being of their families, for unity... a song for the people who also fight a great disease, between life and death’. The sublime ‘Toro’ is a wavy groove perfect for sundown - a deep and inviting sound rich in soulful vocals and dreamy melodies, while ‘Tolonawoulile’ is driven by the intense strumming of the Ngoni with busy hand claps and hurried drums and last of all ‘Fo Te Mokobana’ sinks into a heart-warming slow groove with sweeping strings and Malian percussion all overlaid with impassioned vocals.

A rich listening experience, Siraba’s debut album is an immersive journey and absorbing dive into the minds of two artists breaking new grounds while spotlighting native traditions and musical techniques spanning hundreds of years.

Following much love for his EPs, remixes and club sets, the virtuosic DJ/producer Simo Cell’s debut album 'Cuspide des Sirènes' doesn’t disappoint. In fact, it takes things to a whole new level.

With a fantastical menagerie of anthropomorphism, sounds create characters and tools; the mermaid-like Sirens, the mind controlling Octopus and the Magic Conch Shell:

“Have you heard of the legend of 'Cuspide des Sirènes'? This is not a simple tale, but an incredible tapestry woven over many years and through countless wondrous adventures. I will recount the legend as it was recorded in the ancient scrolls.

The album’s story explores the themes of magic, enchantment, charm, and allure, but also personal fears. The protagonist (me) embarks on a quest to find the hidden lake and confront his own demons, in order to understand and master his own power.

The protagonist is armed with a powerful conch shell. As he embarks on his journey, he will encounter Sirens who will teach him various chants. These melodies hold unique powers and grant the main character the strength to confront and overcome any danger that may arise.” Simo Cell

Musically, the LP is a continuation of Simo’s journey that began with the ‘YES.DJ’ EP, with a synthesized/modernized take on noughties hip hop, bass music, trap, ghetto house and ghetto tech – but here he broadens the scope, massively.

Exploring new pathways through magical landscapes, via infused melodies, emo and pop, the sensations are bright and addictive, like a sugar and endorphin cocktail. There’s a screen sheen and video game quality too, sounding like the high-octane score to an action flick from the year 3000, with unimaginably wild SFX.

'Cuspide des Sirènes' is the kind of record to stop someone in their tracks, to ask “what IS this?”, provoking bass face, perplexion, fascination and manic glee, all at once. Not so much organised chaos as intricately-crafted-borderline-unhingement, the album is slightly bonkers, in a very good way. There’s a boundless sense of childlike, unencumbered imagination at play, and an abundance of fun, but there are moments of serious-deep-beat-science for the heads, and introspective passages too.

There’s a lot going on, with detail, layers, flourishes, arrangement, melodies and myriad fresh sounds – but it’s never too much; just a really engrossing listen – the kind that that ruins ones appetite for prosaic, vanilla dance music, rendering such 2D pursuits boring and obsolete.

Ideally, the album is meant to be experienced as a seamless narrative from start to finish, so leave any inhibitions or preconceptions at the door, and let the pied piper of electronic futurism lead you way down the rabbit hole.

Confident and deliberate. Lightning in a bottle. The Rapture’s Echoes was and is a clear-eyed kick in the teeth, a band at the peak of their powers and producers with an ambitious vision making. a. point. The whole “indie crowd finally learns to dance” narrative is overwrought and irrelevant in 2023 - perhaps context is no longer king - but what remains clear is that this album, made by a San Diego punk band who had moved to New York via Seattle, and produced by the DFA in their own studio, where time and gear and ideas both good and bad were aplenty, maintains an energy and search for catharsis that could bulldoze even the most uptight. For whatever reason, it’s remained out of print on vinyl since its initial run.

Having toured the world with Mczo and been at the helm of his own studio Pamoja Records since he was just 18, influential Singeli producer Duke, now 25, is one of Tanzania's busiest club alchemists. On his acclaimed solo debut "Uingizaji Hewa" we were introduced to his idiosyncratic "hip-hop Singeli" sound, a slower cousin to the Dar Es Salaam-rooted hard 'n fast club template that takes as much special sauce from Busta Rhymes and Eminem as it does the 200BPM clatter of genre veterans Jay Mitta and Sisso. On September's "Sounds Of Pamoja," we were treated to a closer look into Duke's studio, and specifically at his work with the city's best young MCs like Dogo Kibo, Pirato MC and MC Kuke. "Early Instrumentals" allows us to witness the depth of Duke's evolution with a selection of unearthed genre melting Singeli mutations laid completely bare without vocals. This 11-track set features some of his most arresting hybrid dance music yet, expressing his visionary fusion of contemporary rave sounds, US rap attitude, and Tanzanian dance history. While the roots of Singeli are in taraab, a popular fusion of East African and Middle Eastern traditional dance rhythms and melodies, Duke steers the sound into a synth-led, syncopated firework display that sounds spry and futuristic. Centered arounda bumping staccato melody and urgent synth strings 'Dukelo Fl Sing' echoes the lo-swung swagger of early Dr. Dre productions, but kicks the tempo into overdrive, decorating any gaps with flickering late-nite synths. 'Beat Kali Duke' meanwhile drives carnival trance leads through hard and fast rolls of kick drums, whistles and woodblock cracks. It's not all completely high speed either: 'Duke Selecta' is almost afro-house, with slow, sexy bass and woozy vocal melodies, and 'KKKKKKKKKKKKKKK' absorbs the propulsive spirit of South African gqom. "Early Instrumentals" is the most varied picture we've been presented yet of Duke's rousing dance cocktail. IT's a physical call to action that assures listeners the genre is for movement, not headphone listening

Following on from the warm reception to Hell Yeah and Music Conception reissuing Calm's cult Before album, the labels have come together once more to offer up a reissue of the Japanese master's highly sought-after long player Moonage Electric Ensemble. The hard-to-find original has been given an all-new mixdown from original stem files and then re-mastered by Calm himself, and the double LP will also come with a bonus 12" featuring his very own Daydream Dubs plus an obi-strip and original artwork by FJD.

The blissful yet soul-stirring Moonage Electric Ensemble, which landed first in 1999, was Kiyotaka Fukagawa's stunning sophomore album and the one that kept the bar high following his debut Shadow of the Earth. It investigated all new worlds of future jazz, ambient and downtempo and has since become a cult classic that often fetches three figures on secondhand markets. He has released over 18 albums since including Before which was reissued in 2022, though Moonage Electric Ensemble remains a favourite with those who enjoy the most accomplished and innovative sounds from the first wave of chillout.

This escapist charmer opens with the suspensory synths and piano keys of 'Unseen Small Steps' featuring spoken words from Dan Gamble, then 'Light Year' has gently tumbling rhythms and shimming synth moving about the soothing mix. 'Noon At The Moon' brings gorgeously fizzing future jazz drums and mellifluous piano playing full of subtle joy, and 'The Other Side Of The Moon' then layers up melancholic chords and chunkier rhythms that are detailed with gorgeous persuasive details and mystic flutes. 'Tsukiyo' is a new age charmer with paddy hand drums and romantic interplay between sax and trumpet, 'Between Worlds' is an ambient interlude with distant winds blowing and intimate whispers from Gamble before closer 'Authentic Love Song' rides on dusty trip hop breaks as lazy piano chords melt the heart and Gamble serves up another aloof monologue.

This is another welcome reissue of a sublime album that is not only one of Calm's finest but also a true gem in the wider world of downtempo music.

Prisoners Of Love And Hate' is an offering to community, to desires that imprison and liberate, to people in all their divinity and ugliness. Apostille - aka Night School Records’ captain Michael Kasparis - presents is third album with a bang, a bursting ball of NRG, empathy and bristling living.
Like its predecessor 'Choose Life', 'Prisoners…' was recorded at Full Ashram Celestial Garden in Glasgow with Lewis Cook (Free Love) through 2022. A nine song treatise on pop music, trauma, ecstasy and the mundanities between the extremes, Kasparis takes on classic 80s synth pop, 90s house music, 00s trance, wistful balladry, 70s power pop. The thread that runs through the album is a boundless energy, an openness to the moment, to living
the pains and joys equally, open armed.

This is a place of no judgement, of possibility, challenge and comfort. The nine songs on 'Prisoners…' can be read as separate ruminations on the feelings and desires that imprison our experience. Through it all the narrator struggles against them, transported and fooled by love and longing, peering through the bars of anguish, flailing in a cell of emotions. 'Saturday Night, Still Breathing' breaks the album open with an invigorating scream and pounds into the night with a nod to Whigfield, Kasparis’ punk roots and house music. Over a thumping 909 kick and bassline, Kasparis pens a love letter to being with people, the collective energy of hearts in a room, thrumming together, making it through together. Written as private ritual magic, manifesting community during a time of isolation, it’s as if the party is the most important thing in the world. 'Rely On Me' imagines 80s Mute synth pop, Erasure fronted by Bruce Springsteen, romance doomed and forever perfect in the mind. 'Spit Pit' completes the opening triptych of fast paced rollercoasters, an ode to childhood forged out of change and discomfort told with a bold, epic production by Lewis Cook, AFX breakbeats, 160BPM kicks and a commanding vocal performance.

On 'People Make This City', Kasparis eases off the gas, lets the mist blowing in from the Clyde River blow over his version of Glasgow. A wistful ballad about small town gossip and coming through anger to leaving it all behind, it provides some shadow to the bright light of the vibrancy of the album. 'Natural Angel' owes much to 70s and 80s power pop, guitar melodrama, Thin Lizzy and Rick Springfield through the prism of co-dependence in relationships. It’s a theme that’s picked up in slow burner 'Nothing But Perfect', a hazy synth soul-inflected song about building your own mythology, constructing a dream to hide in, to hold on to. The most surprising track of the album, 'Summer of ’03' re-imagines the trance music of early noughties Europe into a lament for an eternal summer or as a fan once put it, “Meat Loaf with a donk on it.” A recognition that all ecstasy has tragedy laced within it, it’s a theme that is sewn throughout the LP and continued on the final song 'Feel Good (You Can Make Me)'. Referencing Shalamar’s 1982 mega hit by way of N-Trance’s piano riffs, the epic closer is riddled with heartbreak, vulnerability and power. It’s a testament to the new confidence in Kasparis’s songwriting, sure, but also to the enduring power of people to come together in mutual dependence and love. If ecstasy is always laced with tragedy, then 'Prisoners of Love and Hate' can always reach out between the bars to meet in the middle, the eternal now.

Straight Outta Caledonia is the first commercially available “Greatest Hits” of the outsider songwriter Jackie Leven, an artist
who has largely remained in obscurity in his native Scotland despite being one of the greatest wordsmiths – and singers – it ever
produced. A well-travelled musician who began making psychedelic, progressive music in the late 60s before emerging as an
epic storyteller full of pathos, humour and humanity in the 90s, Leven lived and wrote like many of the fragile, gregarious
characters of his songs; large, full of life and empathy. Leven passed away in 2011 after recording 30+ albums under different
guises or with his briefly successful New Wave band Doll by Doll. Straight Outta Caledonia is a compilation collated by Night
School Records on its Archival label School Daze that seeks to introduce Leven’s music to new generations.
In an age of isolation, alienation and loss of visceral experience, Jackie Leven’s music can be massive and welcoming. It feels
connected to some universal humanity and vibrates with vitality. His songs are often full of tragedy and comedy simultaneously,
cutting straight to the heart, often plugging directly into the nervous system of the listener. His lyrics are rich, dense with imagery
that can veer from apocalyptic to the comically banal in a sentence, with a songwriting panache that can be heavy handed to
almost bursting point before skewering the song with a clownish, warm punchline. His productions ranged from Bob Dylan’s
Rolling Thunder Revue style rock band orchestrations with strings and organ as on the epic Ancient Misty Morning or they could
be pared down to the purest form of folk song as on Poortoun: Leven on stage alone with an acoustic guitar, albeit played with a
mastery of the instrument that he often only hinted at. Musically his sound can bend traditional structures or stay completely
confined within them yet still forever push towards an ecstatic release, as on the cinematic Snow In Central Park.
The most exciting, jaw-droppingly effective tool at Leven’s disposal was his voice. A multi-octave instrument that, though
damaged during a savage assault in Fife, he used with flair; he had both a brazen disregard for the rules and a deep humility, all
of which is evidenced with every phrasing. A baritone that could flit up through the register – always touched by his gentle
Kirkcaldy accent – it’s the prime delivery method for his songs. Leven’s voice enabled him to inhabit the characters in his songs to
an uncanny degree, a skill that in turn enables the listener to empathise with them and, subsequently, the singer. It’s most evident
in stand out song The Sexual Loneliness Of Jesus Christ, a breathtaking re-telling of the life of its protagonist, not as a pure,
sinless messiah but as a sexually frustrated, solitary man condemned to an existential loneliness no one else will ever feel. In
many ways the track is the archetypal Jackie Leven song. Produced by Pere Ubu’s David Thomas, what strikes the ear first –
after the samples of unemployed workers in Glasgow following the closing of the Clyde shipyards – is the audacious, rhythmic
tremolo effect Leven employs through the verses before the production opens up to allow Leven’s vocal to lift into a soar, a
freeing glide powered both by the force of the singer’s chutzpah and the inherent, doomed destiny of the protagonist. With any
other singer such subject matter could come across as gauche or worse, pretentiously sonorous, but Jackie Leven’s genius was
such that he could be this cinematic and brazen while touching something elemental and true in the beholder. It’s a skill evident in
every song on Straight Outta Caledonia, the trademark of a songwriter who revelled and excelled in intensity with a lightness of
touch.
In his lifetime, Jackie Leven toured, wrote and recorded at a ferocious rate. He recorded under aliases to avoid record contract
restrictions, played house shows in Europe after or instead of official concerts, events which were often spoken word story telling
masterclasses as well as performances of his often bewilderingly dense songbook. His music has traditionally been catalogued
as “folk” music and has been largely banished to a small, dedicated group of international fans and apostles both private and well
known, like author Ian Rankin or Glenn Matlock. Since his passing in 2011 however, there has been a growing recognition
amongst a newer generation, with artists like James Yorkston or Molly Nilsson publicly stating the influence of the unsung
troubadour on their own craft. Jackie Leven’s fairytales for hard men are often forensic deconstructions of masculinity, sad and
ecstatic, light and shadow, always endlessly rich, a resource as bountiful as Leven himself’s human spirit undoubtedly was.

• Following on from the highly successful first two editions of
Dance Masters featuring the classics mixes from maestros
Shep Pettibone and Arthur Baker, the spotlight turns to
another remix legend, John Luongo.

• Boston born, John is one of the truly legendary DJ's and
remixers of the Disco era. John got his break at Epic by
overdubbing percussion from salt shakers and spoons onto a
promo and then passing them back the tape. This resulted in
him being flown to New York, and put in a studio (of his
choice) to mix and produce Melba Moore`s “You Stepped
Into My Life”. From this point everything he touched was a
hit. He went onto remix Disco classics by Jackie Moore –
“This Time Baby”, Dan Hartman “Vertigo / Relight My Fire”
and Patti Labelle “Music Is My Way Of Life”.

• However, John was not afraid of remixing artists that didn’t
fit into the disco genre and this attitude is borne out by the
tracklisting of this compilation, on which Gladys Knight and
The Pips rub shoulders with Fine Young Cannibals and
Billy Idol, and Baltimora appears alongside Banararama
and Serge Ponsar.

• “…if you played this whole thing, just put it on and didn’t
tell anyone it was me, they’d say ‘boy, what a great group of
songs this is!’” - John Luongo

• This cut down 16 track essential edition in pressed on 140g
black vinyl and features foreword by Arthur Baker and an indepth essay written by Alexis Petridis (Rock and Pop
reviewer for The Guardian).

• All tracks remastered by Nick Robbins at Sound
Mastering

The last twelve months have been a whirlwind for Henry Counsell and Louis Curran, the men who make up Joy (Anonymous). Having established themselves during the Covid-19 era by playing impromptu meet-ups on London’s South Bank, they have graduated to bigger venues, travelled to far-flung locales and recorded their second album, Cult Classics, while maintaining the spontaneous energy and irrepressible joy that made their name. Their music revels in the euphoria of being alive and all the feelings, good or bad, that come with it. It invites us into a community, draws us close and promises the night of our lives.

Recorded over the course of a year, the blueprint for Cult Classics was laid down over a two-week span at Imogen Heap’s Round House in east London. Joy (Anonymous) invited friends old and new to visit - they’d record live instruments in jam sessions upstairs and then retreat to a second room to flip and loop and generally mess with the sounds, moulding them into sizzling dance tracks. “Loads of people were coming up to me like ‘I thought this was going to be a dance record?’” Louis says, remembering the quietly beautiful music they’d be recording. “I’d be like, don’t worry about that, just keep playing.” He’d send it back to people later and they’d be floored - “That was my bit and you’ve made it... jungle!”

It was an organic and creatively fulfilling approach, one that didn’t allow any of the music to get stale or stagnate. As they built the tracks from the sounds they’d collected, Joy (Anonymous) would weave the new songs into their famously improvised live sets, testing them, refining them, taking note of the audiences’ reactions. In a year punctuated by a lot of travel, they’d also incorporate the voices of people they met along the way - “Beazley’s Poem”, which opens the record, features the words of a man who was working security at a Fred Again show at New York’s Terminal Five. “He was basically doing the opposite of his job and being a hype man, climbing on the fence and ramping up the crowd - we ended up hanging out with him - like, who’s this legend?” Louis explains. “He just speaks really amazingly about his life, all these amazing thoughts and opinions - he started jumping on the mic when we were playing, preaching these amazing messages to the crowd, like that we all need to be nicer to each other. The first time we played the record in its entirety, he introduced us and that’s the recording we’ve used.”

Joy (Anonymous) remain dedicated to the spirit of spontaneity. They shut a street down with a surprise waterside party in New York. On a trip to Copenhagen they played an impromptu set in a cafe, which turned into a house party and a night-long good time. In Lithuania, they ended up playing in a decommissioned prison. It’s harder, perhaps, to keep that spirit alive now that they are operating more within the confines of the music industry but they will keep lugging their kit to wherever the party calls for as long as they can. “I think if we lose that, we’ve kind of lost what makes us us,” Henry says.

Bursting with multi-genre reference points and disparate influences, Cult Classics is very much a dance album. The samples we made ourselves or we took from music that is quite different to dance music, but we definitely wanted to shout out a lot of the dance influences that we love,” Henry says. They listened to a lot of Daft Punk and Basement Jaxx as well as The Prodigy (“more rage stuff”), taking songwriting tips from their dance forebears, but also recording bits that felt more like jazz and motown (see: A Place I Belong and the lovely album closer, You’re In Or You’re Out). Emir Taha’s gentle classical guitar runs like a thread throughout Cult Classics, washing into the undertones of the record, tying it all together.

The album follows the beat of a night out, from frenetic, sweaty movement to the gentler winding down as the dawn breaks. At times it is euphoric, celebratory and pure, whirling fun, at others it seeks the joy in the darker emotions that life throws our way. 404 is designed to encapsulate everything about the Joy (Anonymous) journey so far. Skittering beats and ghostly vocals give way to vibrating house chords: sirens blare as we approach a dubstep drop. It’s dramatic and wild, ratcheting up, seeming to settle then hitting you with an intense and frantic breakdown before the ghostly vocal returns to lull us back into the world. It has the feel of a hungry cat playing with a mouse, toying with it before letting it get away.

What sounds like someone playing the spoons on playful, housey How We End Up Here is actually Louis’ restless habit of clicking his rings on everything, one of a myriad of calling cards and easter eggs that day one fans will recognise. They rework Miley Cyrus and Swae Lee’s Party Up The Street into a French-electro-inspired future classic, adding a note of melancholy to a tune that you can imagine hearing blaring from every car on a summer drive. The lyrics on Cult Classic are generally reassuring, inspirational, originally drawn from Henry in stream-of-consciousness freestyles. You’re fine the way you are, they seem to say - the repeated “No need to try” of A Place I Belong, the assurance that “It’s in me all the time” on In Me All The Time. Even the summery but regretful Did You Wrong hints at the growth that is possible from less than ideal behaviour. For Joy (Anonymous), joy isn’t about just being “happy” all the time - it’s about relishing every element of your being.

The name ‘Joy (Anonymous)’ is taken from the work Henry did with Alcoholics Anonymous groups: it is a way to build a community around sharing joy. Their impromptu live sets are known as ‘meetings’; they encourage fans to share moments of joy to their website. They care deeply about the scene they’ve come up in and are determined not to leave it behind. Every show is another chance to reach out and connect with people who love to come together and revel in music as loud as it can go.

Support slots for Fred Again and The Streets, wild B2Bs with Fred and Skrillex, and a set at Four Tet’s Finsbury Park all-dayer this summer have given the duo the opportunity to live out childhood dreams and introduced their infectious live shows to new audiences at huge venues.

With an album as assured and joyful as Cult Classics on the horizon (and a killer collab with The Blessed Madonna coming up), they’re only going to reach higher heights. But the essence of Joy (Anonymous) remains on the South Bank. Between shows at Ally Pally in September, they dragged their camping chairs and gear back down to the banks of the Thames: and it just felt right.

2023 Repress

Reiko Kudo first debuted on the Tokyo underground music scene in 1980 with NOISE, a duo which apart from herself under her then maiden name Reiko Omura on voice, guitar and trumpet featured Tori Kudo on organ. Their only album TENNO (1980 on Engel) is probably one of the most outstanding and uncompromising records of all time.

Like other pioneering female producers from Japan such as NON (of NON BAND), PHEW and HACO, who had all begun their startling careers in the early days of the japanese Punk era, Reiko Kudo can surely be regarded as one of the most unique, uncategorisable and daring voices in the entire field of electronic and experimental music ever.

RICE FIELD SLOWLY RIPING IN THE NIGHT was REIKO KUDO's second album under her own name. It features TORI KUDO (MAHER SHALAL HASH BAZ) and SAYA and TAKASHI UENO (TENNISCOATS) on various instruments. The recordings took place in 2000 at Reiko' s and Tori's house in the rural surroundings of Shikoku island.

All recorded music on this album sounds like it originates in a parallel dimension where time and key signatures simply don't exist, Some might describe this as outsider music, but this doesn't really begin to do justice to the quality of the tracks, there is nothing accidental or forced here, this is simply music created in a very different way. Yet again REIKO KUDO had conceived of something utterly beautiful.

"After producing the album "Souvenir de mauve" with Maher Shalal Hash Baz which we released on our label Majikick, the idea came to us, to release Reiko Kudo's work. For Reiko's work, we brought our recording equipment from Tokyo to Shikoku and recorded the entire album at her house.

The piano was positioned in a room with a high ceiling. We would set up our small recording equipment in the room and started to record. The basic tracks were recorded without any rehearsal and just a few overdubs were added on top of it. To have a distant sound on the recording, Tori played trumpet in the next room. The choir was standing outside the house, singing "Enya-totto, enya-totto" through the open window. It was early spring, I remember that it was still a bit cold and the members of the choir were freezing outside.

Reiko plays only at certain times of the day, so that we were able to complete only two or three recordings a day. Therefore we had plenty of free time. We went to a hot spring, to a cafe, or we tried pottery on a spinning wheel at Tori's workshop. It was a very rewarding time.

When this album was finished, we brought it to her to listen to. She said happily "I think this is the best work I have ever done." We felt that all our efforts were richly rewarded. Secretly, we thought the same, so we are delighted that this album will be re-issued." - Saya and Ueno (Tenniscoats), Tokyo 2018

Originally released on Majikick Records, Japan, 2000 Restauration and mastering by Detlef Funder at Paraschall Mastering, Düsseldorf. Vinylcut at Calyx, Berlin Translation by Miki Yui and Claus Laufenburg. Many thanks to Reiko Kudo, Tori Kudo, Saya and Takashi Ueno, Satoru Higashiseto.

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

Repress of the sold out Record Store Day release, this time on a different colour. Black Spiders – Those trusted and true sons of the north are back. “We knew the new album had to be special. We’ve been away for a while. The first album was a straight shot, the second on the rocks, with this new one we had to kick down the brewery doors!” Pete Spiby. Back in June of 2017, Sheffield rock beasts Black Spiders waved goodbye to an army of loyal fans with some sonically charged shows before retreating into the shadows. And then, in November of last year, with the world in the grips of the Coronavirus pandemic and after a long year of very little fun from out of the silhouettes they returned with ‘Fly In The Soup’, the first new Black Spiders music in 6 years. Exactly the feel-good shot in the arm the world needed, while we await that other vaccine. The seeds of the Black Spider return were actually planted last summer, when singer and guitarist Pete Spiby began taking to guitarist Ozzy Lister to start writing new material and before they knew it, they had amassed the best part of 40 songs in a very short period of time which they whittled down. And then the pandemic hit. “It’s certainly been a strange process, in unfamiliar territory,” explains Pete. “We started to look at how we could do it given the restrictions and not only that, but we had to replace our original drummer too. For us and probably most other bands, we would usually take a riff or song idea to a rehearsal and thrash it out ‘till we either had something or it ended up in the song graveyard! This time around we couldn’t do that, so myself, Ozzy and on occasion Adam Irwin (bass player) started to send ideas back and forth until we had something to work with in GarageBand. We got to a point where we had enough song ideas with basic structure to go into a studio. It was at this point when we had to look for a new drummer.” With former drummer ‘Tiger’ Si Atkinson unavailable to play, with a week or two of grooming, the band took a chance on Planet Rock DJ Wyatt Wendel to occupy the drum stool. “I've never joined or worked with a band in this way EVER,” laughs Wyatt. “2020 certainly made it surreal. “A Pete/Ozzy writing session at the beginning of the year had produced some promising results, but it felt like barriers were popping up everywhere,” explains bassist Adam Irwin. “We started talking about how we could use technology such as GarageBand to help, and slowly but surely the song writing gathered pace. It was time to hook up with our old producer Matt Elliss and try these new songs out in the studio. “Heading into the studio to record songs we’d written but never played together, with a drummer that we’d never met, is one of the stranger experiences I’ve had while being in a band. Thankfully, Wyatt has turned out to be an excellent addition, who despite his faults (loud, southern) has fit right into the band dynamic. Covid has made life really tough for so many of us in our industry. And yet, this new way of song writing has been liberating, this is the most consistent and prolific we’ve ever been, and I am immensely proud of this album.” Against all of the odds, Black Spiders have crafted an album that features 13 tracks of high-energy, feel-good rock n’roll contrasted by demonic doom that despite the disjointed, isolated way it was recorded. It sounds like a band, firing on all cylinders. “We had to dig down deep to pull out some gems and what would we want from Black Spiders,” questions Pete. War, vengeance, mental health, death, conservation & climate change, where are we from? Relationships, friendships, our flaws. Where are we going? Alien life and Mother Earth - some of which made the record.” Kicking off with the aforementioned ‘Fly In The Soup’ single, this 3rd ST long-player wastes no time in grabbing you by the scruff of the neck and dragging you through an album where good times, hooks and riffs are not in short supply, but the doom-drenched likes of ‘Wizard Shall Not Kill Wizard’ and the psychedelic groove of album closer ‘Crooked Black Wings’ give us an album of many moods and dynamics and a reason to be cheerful in 2021. And why does the album have no title? “It wasn’t hard picking a title for the album, as we decided that the focus should be on the band, not the album title, so we decided not to have one. Let the music do the talking....

The Avengers remains one of the great institutions of British television, a landmark series and the epitome of the swinging 60s.

This debut release on vinyl features highlights of music from the Tara King era series of The Avengers by composer Howard Blake,

taken from the CD release (2011). Following on from Johnny Dankworth and Laurie Johnson (whose classic theme opens this release),

Blake delivered his own distinctive musical style to the hippest show on TV. He was awarded the OBE in 1994,

after a music career covering everything from choral works and ballet to film and TV. His music for the Christmas perennial

The Snowman, with its magical Walking in the Air theme has become a seasonal standard.

Foundation Music is proud to present ‘The Flowers EP’ by Foremost Poets aka Johnny Dangerous. Back in the news after being featured on the Grammy winning Alien Superstar from Beyonce’s latest album - but for those that know - he has never gone away as he is always on someone’s dance floor.

Foremost Poets productions and his vocals are simply devastating and label head, Ross Allen, has been a fan since he first heard the Nu Groove classic ‘Reason’s to Be Dismal’ on the reworked Richard Long Edition. It was a record that blew him away then and now, recently played by Pete Tong on Radio One, with Sven Vath including it on his anniversary compilation too. Ross signed this record when he hooked up with Johnny in New York 3 years, but wanted to wait until the time was right. That time is now.

‘Flowers In the Attic’ is no normal dance record, clocking in at thirteen minutes. It’s an epic Johnny D production, falling into that place where funk and house come together in the most magical, danceable way. It’s long but enticing, taking you through different phases and surprises you as it sucks you in, twists you up, and pulls you out.

‘Escape From Dubai’ is almost trance like but with that New York lean that keeps it very much on the right side of the Foundation Music fence. Full of funk, it has a deepness that builds and swells into an epic journey that takes you to another dimension.

The broken beat of ‘Don’t Shut Your Eyes’ closes out and is another piece of New York/ New Jersey up-tempo funk, syncopated and grooving with a repetitive hook, that goes deep via its Hammond organ solo and jazzy vocal.

GREEN AND WHITE MARBLE VINYL.

The Beths occupy a warm, energetic sonic space between joyful hooks, sun-soaked harmonies, and acerbic lyrics. Their debut album Future Me Hates Me, forthcoming on Carpark Records, delivers an astonishment of roadtrip-ready pleasures, each song hitting your ears with an exhilarating endorphin rush like the first time you heard Slanted and Enchanted or 'Cannonball.'

Front and center on these ten infectious tracks is lead singer and primary songwriter Elizabeth Stokes. Stokes has previously worked in other genres within Auckland's rich and varied music scene, recently playing in a folk outfit, but it was in exploring the angst-ridden sounds of her youth that she found her place. 'Fronting this kind of band was a new experience for me,' says Stokes. 'I never thought I had the right voice for it.'

From the irresistible title track to future singles 'Happy Unhappy' and 'You Wouldn't Like Me,' Stokes commands a vocal range that spans from the brash confidence of Joan Jett to the disarming vulnerability of Jenny Lewis. Further honeying Future Me Hates Me's dark lyrics that explore complex topics like being newly alone and the self-defeating anticipation of impending regret, ecstatic vocal harmonies bubble up like in the greatest pop and R+B of the '60s, while inverting the trope of the 'sad dude singer accompanied by a homogenous girl-sound.'

All four members of The Beths studied jazz at university, resulting in a toolkit of deft instrumental chops and tricked-out arrangements that operate on a level rarely found in guitar-pop. Beths guitarist and studio guru Jonathan Pearce (whose other acts as producer include recent Captured Tracks signing Wax Chattels) brings it all home with an approach that's equal parts seasoned perfectionist and D.I.Y.

'There's a lot of sad sincerity in the lyrics,' she continues, 'that relies on the music having a light heart and sense of humor to keep it from being too earnest.' Channeling their stew of personal-canon heroes while drawing inspiration from contemporaries like Alvvays and Courtney Barnett, The Beths serve up deeply emotional lyrics packaged within heavenly sounds that delight in probing the limits of the pop form. 'That's another New Zealand thing,' Stokes concludes with a laugh. 'We're putting our hearts on our sleeves—and then apologizing for it.'

Sven Torstenson's notorious Drugs is a loopdigga's fever dream, bursting with breaks for days and featuring possibly the most iconic cover of all library music's cult classics. First released in 1980, it's now a hyper-rare and seriously sought-after electronic album full of experimental soundscapes and samples just waiting to be flipped. It's both terrifying and terrifyingly good. So much so, it's been brilliantly sampled by Kendrick Lamar and Chance The Rapper.

The sleeve describes Drugs as containing "the newest dimensions of electronic sounds. Dramatic underscores for all problems of today's life and society, at the border between reality and delusion." That's pretty spot-on. The fast moving "Euphoria" is an incredible, unignorable opener. It's loaded with disorientating effects and really needs to be heard to be believed. It's followed by the gorgeous "Soft Hallucinations", containing quiet, meditative and beautiful sounds - as the title suggests. One listen and you'll want to live in the warm embrace of this beatless, harmonic gem. Sinister squelchy synth stabs don't distract from the sheer beauty of the track's main (gentle) thrust. They only serve to elevate its trippy magic.

Next up, "Sky Move"'s agitated and repetitive rhythm makes it an intense listen but with a broad melody that will appeal to many. "Destroyed Dreams" utilises a muffled church organ and it sounds heavenly to begin with but it gradually invites increasingly distorted elements. Yes, you've had trips like this, we're pretty certain. Mental! Talking of bad trips, never have they sounded so good as "Horror Trip"; this fractured drama-synth just needs some some dusty beats to hold it up - get involved.

"Floating Illusions" almost sounds like a beatless Spiritualized bomb from the early-mid 90s; melodic, synthy, church organ-drenched. The mournful, dramatic "Lost Chance" pulses along on a bed of acidy synths whilst "The Morning After" is the sonic equivalent of the extreme fear and doom experienced in the aftermath of the previous night's carnage. Whilst somewhat uncomfortable listening, again, it's pretty compelling thanks to the myriad effects being expertly utilised. Fascinating. The sprawling, fragmented "Random Thoughts" is described as containing "confused melody phrases" - yeah, pretty much sums this one up.

The B-Side is ushered in by "Heroin" and it's as sketchy as you might think, all mysterious minor chords with a dominating - but not overbearing - bass refrain. Next up, the dream-like synthy fanfare of "Night Trip" climaxes after a few minutes of dramatic, ecclesiastical sounds whilst "Day Trip" layers its melody over a repetitive rhythmic base.

Next up, one of the *REAL* highlights makes itself known. Absolutely not to be missed, "Dealer's Corner" is all shifting tenors from quiet to hectic and back around again. The hectic parts are like a totally synthed-out-the-eyeballs jazz-funk collective wigging out with the latest electronic toys from 1980. This one totally SMOKES.

The dramatic "Sad And Hopeless" is appositely replete with dissonant, minor church-organ chords whilst "Riding Pegasus" uses a creepy ostinato bass melody to create irrational bleepy menace that's ripe for sampling. The penultimate track, "Hopeless Chaos" is another disorientating trip, a bleepy confection of sounds and phrases whilst closer "Goin' Mad" is all electronic percussion with an unpleasant rhthymic feel and irritating melody. Music to annoy your partner with!

Established in Munich in 1965 by Gerard and Rotheide Narholz, Sonoton introduced library music to Germany. Initially intended to cater to the country's new TV market, the library also provided an avenue for Gerhard Narholz's astonishing musical prolificacy, and soon became a haven for a wide range of European composers and musicians. In 1969, Sonoton struck a deal with the British label Berry Music for international publishing rights, exposing its catalog to a worldwide audience; when Berry was bought out by EMI in 1973, Sonoton transitioned into a full-fledged international label, with successes in the library and commercial fields and many innovations to its credit. Now a worldwide operation with hundreds of producers and composers under its employ, Sonoton nonetheless remains an independently run business still helmed by its founders - a remarkable achievement in an era when nearly every other major library has been absorbed by a multinational conglomerate.

The audio for Drugs has been remastered by Be With regular Simon Francis, ensuring this release sounds better than ever. Cicely Balston's expert skills have made sure nothing is lost in the cut whilst the original, iconic sleeve has been restored here at Be With HQ as the finishing touch to this long overdue re-issue.

There’s a connection between the musical history of the Mediterranean that can’t be explained through academia alone. It’s an expression of simultaneous grief and celebration that trespasses cultures and generations; and demands to be felt, or even better, danced, to be understood. The same spirit weaves Rebetiko from the ashes of the Ottoman empire to the heavy Hafla soundtracks on the Koliphone label in ‘70s Jaffa, or rebellious Turkish psychedelic music to the first generation of surf guitarist migrants in America. It's an infectious feeling that travelled and evolved wherever it was called, and that passion is embodied in “Back to the Taverna”, the new album by Berlin based bouzouki quintet, Cherry Bandora.

On the milestone of their third release, original members Liad Vanounou (Bouzouki) and Lorena Atrakci (Vocals) have bolstered their sound with longtime friends and collaborators Moshe ‘Moosh’ Lahav on Keyboards and flute, Tamir ‘Hassan’ Chen on Bass and Nimrod Lieberman on Drums to create an album celebrating the ecstasy of being able to drink and perform together again, freed from the anathema of the last years. The band has evolved considerably since their beginnings ten years ago as an Agean-influenced part of the local Balkan Swing scene; the most significant addition being the deployment of “The Hardest Working Man in Tropical Music” Alex Figueira as musical director for this album. His scorched fingerprints are unmissable throughout the extended psychedelic breakdowns and percussive overdubs that make “Back to the Taverna” such a dynamic offering.

Cherry Bandora have always been a very personal band; collecting songs from nearby cultures and history and blending them into their own experience by developing new arrangements or lyrics, just as musicians from those times would have. Lorena delights in expressing herself away from her mother tongue or providing modern lyrics for an updated feeling, as she does to the beloved Turkish standard, “Rampi Rampi”. In this interpretation she uses her native Hebrew in a saucy lockdown-delivery-guy romance... This track also features Baris Öner from local Turkish rock band Kara Delik on his signature flanging Saz.

Singing in Greek, English, Turkish and Hebrew was also a natural choice on the album, representing the “multikulti” area of Berlin that the band lives and records in. These languages would all be heard on the street as they walked to record in the analog Studio Wong in Kreuzberg.

“As descendants of Mizrahi Jews (Jewish migrants from non-European countries), growing up listening both to Beatles and Umm Kulthum, playing in jazz music departments in high school, and now living in Kruezkölln, we basically pay tribute and revive this shared heritage in the context of the global music scene of today” says Lorena.

The opening track, The Sound Of Baglama, is an interpretation of the anthemic Tsitsanis homage to the tavernas and sweethearts of Thessaloniki. It lays the ground for what to expect from Cherry Bandora’s exceptional live performances, featuring effortless switch-ups between surf rock choruses and laid-back verses dipping into Persian disco funk. This song will be accompanied by a tour-collage “found footage” style film clip in production at this
time.

Cherry Bandoras show their dedication to the bit with a rousing English version of the canonical rembetiko tune Dimitroula Mou. This amour song, popular with generations of female singers, is accompanied by real studio plate smashing, a ritual which sealed their final session for the album. 2 bonus tracks are included on the digital release, both a little more raw from the band’s home studio: the reeling dervish Rubi Rubi (which will be released as a second single with a video clip) and the emotionally dense and hypnotic slow burner Esý.

The album will be released digitally and on vinyl as a collaboration between Rebel Up Records (Belgium) and Rumi Sounds (Berlin) on Friday 3 november 2023 and is a prime example of what a raunchy, open minded and tireless bouzouki band can do as they hit their prime.

An extensive highlighted review will appear in Songlines magazine #135 December issue and the track ‘Benimde Canim Var’ will be featured on their free compilation. Also radioplay on Radio Campus France playlist (allover) during November and December.

Cher celebrates 25 years of "Believe" : On November 3, the Grammy Award-winning masterpiece will be released in a new, expanded " BELIEVE (Deluxe Edition) " that adds a whopping 13 remastered remixes to the mega-seller's original track listing (11 million worldwide!). The deluxe edition will be released in 3LP/2CD/Download & stream formats via Warner Records. "Believe" was an album full of dancefloor perennials - a fact that the assembled remixes in the new mastering underline once again.

"Tee's Radio One Instrumental? & "Ray Roc's Latin Soul Instrumental" from "Dov'e l'Amore?" are included here in one package for the first time, for example, along with remixes of the empowerment anthem "Strong Enough," "All or Nothing," "Dov'è l'amore" and the title track "Believe," a worldwide smash hit that sold over 10 million copies and reached #1 in 23 countries, including Germany, where it now has 5x gold status.

Cher is one of the most successful artists in history, selling over 100 million records during her unparalleled career. To date, she is the only artist:in to record a #1 single on the Billboard charts in six consecutive decades.

Here's the thing about ill peach: this band exists because they are too weird to not exist. The seed of ill peach was first planted in the recording studios of New York City where Pat Morrissey and Jess Corazza were working together as professional songwriters, collaborating with artists like Icona Pop, SZA, Weezer, Pharrell, Big Freedia, and others. Then came the day they were offered their own publishing deal. Cool, right? Well, about that: "Everyone kept saying, 'The stuff that you're writing is slightly too left-of-center-weirdo stuff," remembers Morrissey. "Why don't you start your own project?" Thus ill peach, a pop band with a punk streak and a taste for both the rotten and the sweet, with an approach to making music that goes something like: "Do you want to pick up a guitar and do you want to be on this water jug and we'll record it on the iPhone and create some weird drum pattern?" Following a series of well-received EPs on their own Pop Can Records (a record label and artist collective Morrissey and close collaborator Jesse Schuster run with friends), a digital single for Hardly Art's 15th anniversary series, and some colorful music videos that crystallized the band's visual aesthetic along with their sound, ill peach's "weirdo stuff" comes to fruition on first full-length THIS IS NOT AN EXIT: a collection of anthemic songs built out of bright pop and gritty experimental elements (Morrissey names the sculptural use of distortion on the final albums by Low as an inspiration), punctuated with hooky choruses ready to be screamed along to in the safety of your own bedroom or with a bunch of friends at one of ill peach's intense live shows. If ill peach first blossomed in New York, it took quarantine in Los Angeles for the project to ripen. The end of the world turned out to be what ill peach needed to get real with themselves. "It helped us creatively to zone in and removed us from the industry side of things to where we could just be like: this is our new identity, let's jump with both feet." THIS IS NOT AN EXIT's title is a reflection of something Corazza realized during a period of personal and familial crises "I kept walking into buildings and I'd try to exit somewhere and the sign would be like, 'This is not an exit,'" she says. "It just felt like a metaphor for a hopeful thing-don't give up yet." This combination of hope and anxiety is all over THIS IS NOT AN EXIT, reflected in a sonic palette (Alternative! Electronica! Indie! Radio pop! Coldplay!) as eclectic as it is unpretentious. Ultimately, THIS IS NOT AN EXIT is a record about healing, a process often spoken about in New Age-y terms but one that in reality can be really confusing and, yes, weird. But it is the beautiful strangeness of being alive that ill peach capture so well on THIS IS NOT AN EXIT.

Following the release of the shoegaze masterpiece Delaware in 1992, and the intricate experimentations on National Coma in 1993, Drop Nineteens disbanded. They had a great run. Shared stages with Radiohead, Hole, Blur, PJ Harvey. Went from being teenaged kids in Boston to mid twenty somethings with an MTV video under their belt. So when Drop Nineteens ceased to be, Greg Ackell felt content, music was a closed chapter. That was until 2021. For the first time in nearly 30 years, Ackell felt compelled to pick up a guitar. He immediately called up Steve Zimmeran, the band's bassist and fellow guitarist, and the two got writing. It felt effortless for Ackell, like he never stopped writing music. "We were off to the races," he says. "But also the question came up: what does a Drop Nineteens song sound like today? Enter Hard Light, the band's stunning third record. It's the band's proverbial follow up to Delaware, a modern Drop Nineteens record that is completely singular in its sound and vision. The first task making Hard Light, was of course, getting the rest of the band back together. Drop Nineteens is an inherently collaborative project. Ackell's primarily the lyrics writer, and he collaborates with Zimmerman, Paula Kelley, Motohiro Yasue, and Peter Koeplin to create the sonic world. The record came together over the course of a year, recording at a patchwork of studios all around the country. Making music together felt natural, fluid, exciting. The guitar reverb is expansive as ever. Ackell and Kelley's vocals are crystalline. "Scapa Flow," is triumphant. An excellent example of what a modern day Drop Nineteens song sounds like. The guitars glide like clouds on a blue sky day, drums shuffle in the background, searching. Ackell and Kelley's vocals are cool toned and dreamy, bound up in a haze of reverb. It's unquestionably lovely. You could say the same for the whole of the record. Hard Light is so lovely. A portrait of a band 30 years later, as talented and as dedicated to their craft as ever.

LOVE + POP is a snapshot of a moment in not-so-far-away time; something fast, loud, moody and a little dangerous. It is, in some ways, classic Current Joys: full of wild ambition, sneaky hooks, and songs that move from concept to completion with prolific speed. But LOVE + POP also explodes myriad expectations with aggressive, deconstructed production, house music influence, and a guest appearance from Lil Yachty. It is not so much a twist as it is a unique multiverse identity for Current Joys, as Nick Rattigan's set out to "capture this sonic moment and harken back to the way I first released music." The story of LOVE + POP begins with one of those house parties: the kind that bulldozes your home and, in its aftermath, leaves a wreckage that finds you flattened but also ready to be new. In that mess and mayhem, Rattigan watched Everybody's Everything, the documentary of Lil Peep, and recorded a cover of "walk away as the door slams". But the itch wasn't scratched, and what began as a moment of homage morphed into something bigger, deeper and more fundamental, a point where the seemingly haphazard - in his home, in Peep's process - opened Rattigan up to an entire creative space and a new approach to bending or even detonating genre. Crucially, all of this was recorded at home, in what Rattigan calls a "tribute to the process of creating" in a DIY space. And what began as a singular passion project unexpectedly grew into a uniquely collaborative record for Current Joys. "I've set out to make collaborative records before," Rattigan explains, "but they often end up totally me, with just a couple exceptions. But then this record gave me the opportunity to be extremely collaborative, to let other people write instrumental tracks, sending links around for people to mess with and weigh in on. I sat down to do credits and realized here were all these people and styles and they all came together and worked." LOVE + POP's cover art is an airbrush/spraypaint rendition of the Wild Heart album cover, which is itself a photo of Rattigan's grandparents kissing. It is sacred in some ways and shredded in others. This idea - the aggressive reimagining of something timeless into a present, finite style - is LOVE + POP.

LOVE + POP is a snapshot of a moment in not-so-far-away time; something fast, loud, moody and a little dangerous. It is, in some ways, classic Current Joys: full of wild ambition, sneaky hooks, and songs that move from concept to completion with prolific speed. But LOVE + POP also explodes myriad expectations with aggressive, deconstructed production, house music influence, and a guest appearance from Lil Yachty. It is not so much a twist as it is a unique multiverse identity for Current Joys, as Nick Rattigan's set out to "capture this sonic moment and harken back to the way I first released music." The story of LOVE + POP begins with one of those house parties: the kind that bulldozes your home and, in its aftermath, leaves a wreckage that finds you flattened but also ready to be new. In that mess and mayhem, Rattigan watched Everybody's Everything, the documentary of Lil Peep, and recorded a cover of "walk away as the door slams". But the itch wasn't scratched, and what began as a moment of homage morphed into something bigger, deeper and more fundamental, a point where the seemingly haphazard - in his home, in Peep's process - opened Rattigan up to an entire creative space and a new approach to bending or even detonating genre. Crucially, all of this was recorded at home, in what Rattigan calls a "tribute to the process of creating" in a DIY space. And what began as a singular passion project unexpectedly grew into a uniquely collaborative record for Current Joys. "I've set out to make collaborative records before," Rattigan explains, "but they often end up totally me, with just a couple exceptions. But then this record gave me the opportunity to be extremely collaborative, to let other people write instrumental tracks, sending links around for people to mess with and weigh in on. I sat down to do credits and realized here were all these people and styles and they all came together and worked." LOVE + POP's cover art is an airbrush/spraypaint rendition of the Wild Heart album cover, which is itself a photo of Rattigan's grandparents kissing. It is sacred in some ways and shredded in others. This idea - the aggressive reimagining of something timeless into a present, finite style - is LOVE + POP.

LOVE + POP is a snapshot of a moment in not-so-far-away time; something fast, loud, moody and a little dangerous. It is, in some ways, classic Current Joys: full of wild ambition, sneaky hooks, and songs that move from concept to completion with prolific speed. But LOVE + POP also explodes myriad expectations with aggressive, deconstructed production, house music influence, and a guest appearance from Lil Yachty. It is not so much a twist as it is a unique multiverse identity for Current Joys, as Nick Rattigan's set out to "capture this sonic moment and harken back to the way I first released music." The story of LOVE + POP begins with one of those house parties: the kind that bulldozes your home and, in its aftermath, leaves a wreckage that finds you flattened but also ready to be new. In that mess and mayhem, Rattigan watched Everybody's Everything, the documentary of Lil Peep, and recorded a cover of "walk away as the door slams". But the itch wasn't scratched, and what began as a moment of homage morphed into something bigger, deeper and more fundamental, a point where the seemingly haphazard - in his home, in Peep's process - opened Rattigan up to an entire creative space and a new approach to bending or even detonating genre. Crucially, all of this was recorded at home, in what Rattigan calls a "tribute to the process of creating" in a DIY space. And what began as a singular passion project unexpectedly grew into a uniquely collaborative record for Current Joys. "I've set out to make collaborative records before," Rattigan explains, "but they often end up totally me, with just a couple exceptions. But then this record gave me the opportunity to be extremely collaborative, to let other people write instrumental tracks, sending links around for people to mess with and weigh in on. I sat down to do credits and realized here were all these people and styles and they all came together and worked." LOVE + POP's cover art is an airbrush/spraypaint rendition of the Wild Heart album cover, which is itself a photo of Rattigan's grandparents kissing. It is sacred in some ways and shredded in others. This idea - the aggressive reimagining of something timeless into a present, finite style - is LOVE + POP.

The evolution of Swampmeat Family Band continues apace. When the Birmingham outfit released
their incendiary third album, Muck, three years ago, it marked the culmination of the kind of vision that
frontman Dan Finnemore had always had for them; having returned from the U.S. after a spell as a key
member of Philadelphia rockers Low Cut Connie, he was burning with ideas and inspiration,
channeling a renewed creative energy into a new-look version of the garage band he’d formed, as
simply Swampmeat, with drummer T-Bird Jones in 2006. Muck certainly felt like a family affair, one
that saw the group expand to a five-piece and broaden their musical palette, boldening their bolshier
side with brass, lending their forays into country some authenticity with the addition of pedal steel and,
by welcoming vocalist Joni Coyne into the fold, providing Finnemore with a new foil. The new
accoutrements came together to form the basis of Swampmeat 2.0, a slicker, sharper band anchored
by Finnemore’s handsome arrangements and melodic sensibilities. Polish Your Old Halo continues
Finnemore’s hot vein of songwriting form with Muck and capitalises upon that album’s creative
momentum, without being afraid to try new things and remove old ones; the brass and strings that
made it on to Muck have been left to one side, propelling Finnemore’s writing to the fore. The
freewheeling blues rock that came to define their last album is still alive and well. But there’s also
progression, something particularly evident in the album’s bookends; ‘Do It All’ brings the curtain up
with juddering, synth-led punk energy, while closer ‘Plant Your Feet Correctly’ is a swooning acoustic
cut, initially envisioned as having a string section but now presented in vulnerable, bare-bones fashion.

7A Records are proud to announce the release of Micky Dolenz Sings R.E.M., a 4 track EP released
on November 3rd. The EP is comprised of songs R.E.M. wrote throughout their career, all beautifully
reimagined by Dolenz and producer Christian Nesmith. The EP features fresh and completely new
arrangements of some of R.E.M.’s most memorable and catchy songs. As Dolenz says: “Once again,
this EP reaffirms my long-held conviction that a solid recording always begins with solid material. You
don’t get much solid than R.E.M. What a joy to, once again, bring these songs to life”.
R.E.M. Reactions to the EP:
“These songs are ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE. Micky Dolenz covering R.E.M. Monkees style, I have
died and gone to heaven. This is really something. Shiny Happy People sounds INCREDIBLE (never
thought you or I would hear me say that!!!). Give it a spin. It’s wild. And produced by Christian Nesmith
(son of Michael Nesmith), I am finally complete”. Michael Stipe
"That voice---one of the main voices of my musical awakening---singing our songs... It is beyond
awesome. Let's help make this as huge as we possibly can. I am beyond thrilled." Mike Mills
"I've been listening to Micky's singing since I was nine years old. It's unreal to hear that very voice,
adding new depth to songs we've written ourselves, and inhabiting them so completely." Peter Buck
"I am blown away! Micky and Christian just take these tracks to unexpected places”. Scott
McCaughey

It's been a little over ten years since Hailu Mergia reemerged on the international music scene. Following the first in a series of his classic recordings reissued in collaboration with Awesome Tapes From Africa, Mergia assembled a band and began performing live again after many years driving a cab in Washington, DC. His first show back appeared on the front page of the New York Times along with a stellar review and he took off from there performing his flavor of Ethiopian jazz all over the world in the years since, including Radio City Music Hall and Montreal Jazz Festival. Finally, we have a recorded document of the keyboard player's powerful DC-based trio _ which practices each weekend in his basement _ featuring Kenneth Joseph on drums and Alemseged Kebede on bass. Beautifully captured at one of their fiery live shows at the venerable Brooklyn non-profit cultural center Pioneer Works on July 1, 2016, the concert was recorded by PW staff and mixed by Ted Young with mastering by ATFA's expert audio extraction collaborator Jessica Thompson. The performance clarifies what many people across the globe already know: in his fifth decade of music-making Hailu Mergia continues to push the boundaries of his remarkable abilities. Mergia and his veteran band energetically and playfully unpeel layer after layer of harmonic and rhythmic interest out of a spectrum of Ethiopian repertoire. Modern jazz demands constant reinvention and improvisation, night after night creating new works out of known modes and classic standards. This band is unstoppable when it comes to turning age-old melodies (like "Tizita" or "Anchihoye Lene") upside down and inside out until they emerge as molten new works, often spontaneously. Mergia's original compositions (like "Yegle Nesh") shine brighter than ever here as well. Moving from keyboard to organ to accordion to melodica, he deftly switches instruments _ often during the same song. Mergia at 77 years old seems to be working harder than musicians half his age. "Pioneer Works Swing (Live)" brings into focus the kind of onstage group improvisation and deadly solo passages that reach for places Mergia and the band have never gone, on festival and club stages across four continents. Now that Mergia has released two new recordings along with four classic reissues, he is eager to let everyone hear what he's been doing on the road since he re-took the global stage for his victory laps. So much more than an old act from yesteryear, Mergia balances his legendary Ethiopian recordings with good old fashioned sweat-soaked live concert triumphs such as the one we have here.

It's been a little over ten years since Hailu Mergia reemerged on the international music scene. Following the first in a series of his classic recordings reissued in collaboration with Awesome Tapes From Africa, Mergia assembled a band and began performing live again after many years driving a cab in Washington, DC. His first show back appeared on the front page of the New York Times along with a stellar review and he took off from there performing his flavor of Ethiopian jazz all over the world in the years since, including Radio City Music Hall and Montreal Jazz Festival. Finally, we have a recorded document of the keyboard player's powerful DC-based trio _ which practices each weekend in his basement _ featuring Kenneth Joseph on drums and Alemseged Kebede on bass. Beautifully captured at one of their fiery live shows at the venerable Brooklyn non-profit cultural center Pioneer Works on July 1, 2016, the concert was recorded by PW staff and mixed by Ted Young with mastering by ATFA's expert audio extraction collaborator Jessica Thompson. The performance clarifies what many people across the globe already know: in his fifth decade of music-making Hailu Mergia continues to push the boundaries of his remarkable abilities. Mergia and his veteran band energetically and playfully unpeel layer after layer of harmonic and rhythmic interest out of a spectrum of Ethiopian repertoire. Modern jazz demands constant reinvention and improvisation, night after night creating new works out of known modes and classic standards. This band is unstoppable when it comes to turning age-old melodies (like "Tizita" or "Anchihoye Lene") upside down and inside out until they emerge as molten new works, often spontaneously. Mergia's original compositions (like "Yegle Nesh") shine brighter than ever here as well. Moving from keyboard to organ to accordion to melodica, he deftly switches instruments _ often during the same song. Mergia at 77 years old seems to be working harder than musicians half his age. "Pioneer Works Swing (Live)" brings into focus the kind of onstage group improvisation and deadly solo passages that reach for places Mergia and the band have never gone, on festival and club stages across four continents. Now that Mergia has released two new recordings along with four classic reissues, he is eager to let everyone hear what he's been doing on the road since he re-took the global stage for his victory laps. So much more than an old act from yesteryear, Mergia balances his legendary Ethiopian recordings with good old fashioned sweat-soaked live concert triumphs such as the one we have here.

Swiss vocal acrobat Andreas Schaerer and Finnish
guitarist Kalle Kalima have some things in common. As
artists, each is essentially in a category completely of his
own. Both are musicians who can always conjure
something special from their chosen instruments. Both are
known on the international jazz scene for the completely
distinctive and original ways their music constantly crosses
genres.
 Both have played together for several years in the quartet,
A Novel Of Anomaly. And now they have recorded a first
album together in which the focus is on the two of them.
However, for this ‘evolution’ (as the album title has it), they
have also involved - and drawn inspiration from - a
musician whom they both admire, Tim Lefebvre. The
American bassist has worked with many pop and jazz
stars, notably Sting, Elvis Costello, David Bowie, Mark
Guiliana, Wayne Krantz... Lefebvre’s involvement in the
Michael Wollny Trio’s breakthrough was, incidentally,
anything but tangential. In other words, his playing is at
home in practically every context.
 Listeners familiar with Schaerer’s and Kalima’s previous
work may find ‘Evolution’ somewhat surprising. “An album
is such a different platform from playing live on stage,”
explains Schaerer. “Over the course of our many
recordings, we have become increasingly aware quite how
differently one has to play.” That awareness has also
resulted in a particularly careful focus on the postproduction phase of ‘Evolution’.
 With ‘Evolution’, Schaerer, Kalima and Lefebvre have redrawn the roadmap for the production of a jazz album.
New avenues are constantly opening up in these complex
but also catchy songs which are just made for repeated
listening... and, of course, listening to the album is also a
reminder that it will all sound completely different again
when heard live.

It’s been a little over ten years since Hailu Mergia re- emerged on the international music scene. Following the first in a series of his classic recordings reissued in collaboration with Awesome Tapes From Africa, Mergia assembled a band and began performing live again after many years driving a cab in Washington, DC. His first show back appeared on the front page of the

New York Times along with a stellar review and he took off from there performing his flavor of Ethiopian jazz all over the world in the years since, including Radio City Music Hall and Montreal Jazz Festival.

Finally, we have a recorded document of the keyboard player’s powerful DC-based trio—which practices each weekend in his basement—featuring Kenneth Joseph on drums and Alemseged Kebede on bass. Beautifully captured at one of their fiery live shows at the venerable Brooklyn non-profit cultural center Pioneer Works on July 1, 2016, the concert was recorded by PW staff and mixed by Ted Young with mastering by ATFA’s expert audio extraction collaborator Jessica Thompson. The performance clarifies what many people across the globe already know: in his fifth decade of music-making Hailu Mergia continues to push the boundaries of his remarkable abilities.

Mergia and his veteran band energetically and playfully unpeel layer after layer of harmonic and rhythmic interest out of a spectrum of Ethiopian repertoire. Modern jazz demands constant reinvention and improvisation, night after night creating new works out of known modes and classic standards. This band is unstoppable when it comes to turning age-old melodies (like “Tizita” or “Anchihoye Lene”) upside down and inside out until they emerge as molten new works, often spontaneously. Mergia’s original compositions (like “Yegle Nesh”) shine brighter than ever here as well. Moving from keyboard to organ to accordion to melodica, he deftly switches instruments—often during the same song. Mergia at 77 years old seems to be working harder than musicians half his age.

Pioneer Works Swing (Live) brings into focus the kind of onstage group improvisation and deadly solo passages that reach for places Mergia and the band have never gone, on festival and club stages across four continents.

Now that Mergia has released two new recordings along with four classic reissues, he is eager to let everyone hear what he’s been doing on the road since he re-took the global stage for his victory laps. So much more than an old act from yesteryear, Mergia balances his legendary Ethiopian recordings with good old fashioned sweat-soaked live concert triumphs such as the one we have here.

In this accompanying remix set, "Earth 2.23: Special Lower Frequency Mix", the Bug has taken a bit of "Seven Angels" and laced it with feedback and big bass, allowing grime luminary Flowdan to climb atop it with his dark, staccato visions. Responsible for many transformational records himself, Justin K. Broadrick of Jesu and Godflesh crawls inside "Teeth" to lash at it with punishing drum machines and sordid layers of new distortion, building it into some brokedown palace of industrial mayhem. Loop's Robert Hampson makes good on the premise of ambient metal with his 30-minute hypnotic beauty, while longtime Earth cohort and longtime Built to Spill multi-instrumentalist Brett Netson seems to float the sound through a benighted graveyard on his clever "Teeth" revamp. These are not obvious directions for Earth's impact. Again, Earth 2 was never an obvious record. 30 years on, have we yet to grasp the enormity of Earth 2, an album that has continued its slow cycle of influence, uninterrupted? Probably not. Hell, most of us don't even know there are horses on the cover. VERY limited indies only LOSER copies pressed on lovely CURACAO BLUE vinyl!

Album Nr. 4 der "Botschafter der schottischen Düsternis" von 2014 und ihr vielleicht bestes jetzt endlich wieder erhältlich.

Kraftvoll, bissig und breitwandig, stellt Nobody Wants To Be Here And Nobody Wants To Leave - übrigens ein Zitat aus The Road, dem Roman des amerikanischen Schriftstellers Cormac McCarthy - unter Beweis, dass sie in der Lage sind die Kraft ihrer Bühnenshow auch auf Band zu übertragen.

Produziert von Andy MacFarlane und gemischt von Peter Katis (The National, Interpol, Frightened Rabbit), ist Nobody Wants To Be Here And Nobody Wants To Leave so laut wie auch vielschichtig und zutiefst melodisch.