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Friends since the age of six, most of the album was written and recorded by the pair when they were nineteen. The songs possess all the singular magic of a duo writing and playing together while sounding like a full, sonically charged band. Their debut E.P. track 'Two Monkeys', included here, has a level of shoegazey dirt that will leave many distortion freaks reeling. `Every Word Said' is prog-pop perfection. The title track is as moody as anything by Flying Saucer Attack. 'Another One Making Clouds' evolves over 35 minutes and doesn't stop elevating and surprising. A founding notion of our label was to release recordings made as the musicians' first intended. No `notes' and no re-recording with a `proper' producer in a `real' studio. A noble preference we saw labels like Rough Trade pursuing with The Strokes, The Smiths, The Fall et al.This album is a proud example. And captures something you can't fake. A young band finding an epic, emotional, cinematic sound in their bedroom. Using it in that peculiarly British way to express the wonder, confusion and heartache of being nineteen. Of wanting to be seen and not seen. It's a kind of British `soul' music with ancestors like The Cure, Echo & The Bunnymen, The Jesus & Mary Chain and the original shoegaze bands. Progressive guitar music, channeling deep emotion, a desire to hear something that sounds like how you feel inside. The stuff nobody talks about. Everything Else.

The extroverted blend of attitude, energy, and ostentatiousness that spills from the New York Dolls’ self-titled debut can be seen in full view on the album cover. Depicting the quintet in its hallmark flash-and-trash apparel and in drag appearance, the 1973 album scared away a considerable amount of potential listeners while capturing the attention of a sizable audience that recognized the band for what it was: zeitgeist pioneers who helped develop the punk and glam rock movements.

Named by Rolling Stone the 301st Greatest Album of All Time and by Mojo the 49th greatest album of all time, New York Dolls receives long-overdue audiophile treatment on Mobile Fidelity’s numbered-edition 180g 45RPM 2LP set. Sourced from the original master tapes, pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing in California, and housed in a Stoughton gatefold jacket, this collectible version marks the first time the group’s career-making statement is available to be experienced in audiophile quality.

Far from harboring the crude elements that became associated with the punk scene, New York Dolls benefits from keen production overseen by none other than Todd Rundgren. Though more accustomed to working far higher-caliber musicians, Rundgren — taken by the New York Dolls’ charisma and cool, if not their instrumental approach — fully understood the ensemble’s aesthetic. He captured what went down at New York City’s Record Plant with an astute blend of live-on-the-floor feel, raw authenticity, and professional acumen.

On Mobile Fidelity’s definitive-sounding reissue, you can hear those facets as well as key details, dynamics, and textures with previously unimaginable insight. Rundgren preserved generous degrees of grit, grime, and grease while bestowing the raucous music with elevated levels of separation, solidity, and impact every landmark recording deserves. His vision extends to introducing choice accents — barroom piano notes, Moog synthesizer passages, Buddy Bowser’s honking saxophones — that add to the songs’ appeal without interfering with the primary architecture.

Afforded extra groove space on this pressing, the tenor, presentation, and attack of both vocalist David Johansen and now-iconic guitarists Johnny Thunders and Sylvain Sylvain come across with stunning vibrancy and vitality. The New York Dolls often seem headed off the rails and into the red, but somehow, the strut, swagger, and sloppiness — and the associated sleaze and scruff, scrape and snarl, frenzy and feverishness those characteristics entail — remain together as a whole that shakes its collective fist at the frustrations, isolation, disarray, and disillusionment of youth chaos and urban decay.

Kicking off its debut with “Personality Crisis,” cited by Rolling Stone as one of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, the band makes obvious its grasp of alienation, deviance, displacement, and suburban disaffection — as well as its capacity to play hanging-by-a-thread boogie, noisy rock ‘n’ roll, and Brill Building-inspired pop. The lipstick-kissed New York Dolls possesses traits many of its harsher predecessors would overlook: joyfulness and melody, topped with a knack for knowing how and where to take a song inside of three-and-a-half minutes.

Dive and dash with the belligerent “Looking for a Kiss”; stomp your feet and clap your hands to the big choruses of “Jet Boy”; surrender to the demands and provocations of the coded “Vietnamese Baby”; decide whether “Bad Girl” yearns to explode or implode. It’s one of several tunes here that allude to the world coming to end. Of course, that doesn’t mean there isn’t time for a fling before everything burns. “There’s no place I gotta go,” yowls Johansen. And he means it.

Adorned with tonal crunch, glitter, and gristle, New York Dolls takes pride in its brashness and brattiness. The rambunctious effort, which earned the band the distinction of being voted both “Best New Group of the Year” and “Worst New Group of the Year” in the pages of Creem, displays knowing reverence for the blues without calling attention to the style. The folk-laden “Lonely Planet Boy” is nothing if not a collision of heart-on-the-sleeve emotions and the desire in the face of challenges to maintain a tough-skinned exterior. An interpretation of Bo Diddley’s “Pills,” complete with shivering harmonica and clattering rhythms, announces there’s no cure for what infects this band. It’s that contagious. And how.

His deliveries gushing with campy fun, playful irreverence, and sheer decadence, Johansen doubles as the equivalent of an open fire hydrant that spouts at will. He’s at once tender and vicious, serious and tongue-in-cheek. On arguably his finest hour on the album, Johansen’s phrasing, passion, and lyrical ambiguity alone turn “Trash” into an insistent glam-rock gem whose echoing harmonies and girl-group references stamp it a pop classic.

Too much, too soon? Only for those averse to some of the finest rock ‘n’ roll ever put on tape.

Bob Marley & The Wailers' Rastaman Vibration Analogue Productions' UHQR, the pinnacle of high-quality vinyl! 45 RPM 2LP Ultra High Quality Record release limited to 4,500 copies Mastered from the original tapes by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound Pressed on 180-gram at Quality Record Pressings using Clarity Vinyl® Includes "12 x 12" 8-page booklet featuring new liner notes by musician and Marley biographer Leroy Jodie Pierson (APO Records Direct-To-Disc AAPO 005), plus exclusive photos by Kim-Gottlieb Walker Purest possible pressing and most visually stunning presentation and packaging!

When Rastaman Vibration was first released in America in 1976 it did what some in the music industry considered nearly impossible at the time. It took Bob Marley into the Top Ten alongside disco records and corporate rock, points out Rolling Stone, which rates the album 4 stars. Despite the good cheer of the title track and the upbeat "Roots, Rock, Reggae," Rastaman Vibration contains some of Marley's most intense images of oppression, paranoia and despair. Tracks such as "Who the Cap Fit," "Crazy Baldhead" and "War" are offered by the Wailers with dire urgency as Marley's brutal visions are echoed by his own church choir, the I-Threes.

More than four decades later, neither Marley's music nor his message has lost its sting. Now, Analogue Productions presents perfection — Rastaman Vibration cut at 45 RPM in UHQR format on 180-gram 2LP Clarity Vinyl. This Ultra High Quality Record release will be limited to 4,500 copies, with gold foil individually numbered jackets. For Bob Marley, 1975 was a triumphant year. The singer's Natty Dread album featured one of his strongest batches of original material (the first compiled after the departure of Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer) and delivered Top 40 hit "No Woman No Cry." The follow-up Live set, a document of Marley's appearance at London's Lyceum, found the singer conquering England as well. Upon completing the tour, Marley and his band returned to Jamaica, laying down the tracks for Rastaman Vibration (1976) at legendary studios run by Harry Johnson and Joe Gibbs.

At the mixing board for the sessions were Sylvan Morris and Errol Thompson, Jamaican engineers of the highest caliber. Of the material on Rastaman Vibration, "War," for one, remains one of the most stunning statements of the singer's career. Though it is essentially a straight reading of one of Haile Selassie's speeches, Marley phrases the text exquisitely to fit a musical setting, a quiet intensity lying just below the surface. Equally strong are the likes of "Rat Race,""'Crazy Baldhead," and "Want More."

These songs are tempered by buoyant, lighthearted material like "Cry to Me," "Night Shift," and "Positive Vibration." Not quite as strong as some of the love songs Marley would score hits with on subsequent albums, "Cry to Me" seems like an obvious choice for a single and remains underrated. This UHQR is remastered at 45 RPM by Sterling Sound's Ryan K. Smith from the original analog master tapes. Each UHQR will be pressed at Acoustic Sounds' industry-leading pressing plant Quality Record Pressings (QRP) using hand-selected Clarity Vinyl® with attention paid to every single detail. These records will feature the same flat profile that helped to make the original UHQR so desirable. From the lead-in groove to the run-out groove, there is no pitch to the profile, allowing the customer's stylus to play truly perpendicular to the grooves from edge to center.

Clarity Vinyl allows for the purest possible pressing and the most visually stunning presentation. Every UHQR will be hand inspected upon pressing completion, and only the truly flawless will be allowed to go to market. Each UHQR will be packaged in a custom clamshell box and will include a booklet detailing the entire process of making a UHQR along with a hand-signed certificate of inspection. This will be a truly deluxe, collectible product. In addition to the UHQR booklet the package will contain a 8-page 12" x 12" booklet containing new liner notes by musican and Marley biographer Leroy Jodie Pierson as well as exclusive photos by Kim-Gottlieb Walker. Pierson is a past performer for Blues Masters at the Crossroads, the two-night historic blues festival at Blue Heaven Studios in Salina, Kansas. He's also recorded a Direct-To-Disc blues album for APO Records. (AAPO 005) Rastaman Vibration — now a landmark production on 180-gram 45 RPM Analogue Productions UHQR Clarity Vinyl!

Wonderful weird manouevres from Thomas Cox's QED, here releasing its first album. Expect dubbed up echofests and reggae sound system sirens ('Crushed By A Speaker Stack'), grungy distorted bassline rumbles ('Riot In The Dancehall') and sparse machine funk ('Spikes & Studs & Chains'). Like the musical lovechild of a leftfield 90s Vienna session a la Mego or Cheap, and a dubby take on the Berlin's Digital Hardcore Recordings sound, those who loved their electronics on the wayward, limit-pushing side, should find this a rather special listen.

Teddy Abrams, the Grammy Award winning conductor, composer, and multi-instrumentalist deemed by the New York Times as a “Maestro of the People,” and named Musical America’s 2022 Conductor of the Year, announces Preludes, an album of solo piano works composed and performed by Abrams and produced by Gabriel Kahane and Casey Foubert, via New Amsterdam Records.

Preludes is a contemplative, personal, and playful set of simple solo piano pieces whose recorded sonic identities were developed in collaboration with Gabriel Kahane and Casey Foubert. Kahane and Foubert “identified the personality of each Prelude and found a sound world for every track to match the intrinsic characteristics of the individual works.” The 16 pieces that make up Preludes take inspiration from the canon of classical piano works such as Bach’s Inventions and Bartok’s Mikrokosmos, yet they are imbued with Abrams’ immaculate compositional language and a depth in production uncommon to “classical” works.

Coming on the tail end of Abram’s Grammy Award Winning Piano Concerto (2023), Abrams explains: “After the crazy, frenetic, joyful energy of my Piano Concerto, I wanted to create a piano work that explored a completely different energy and soundscape. While the Piano Concerto is overtly populist, referencing American genres like jazz, funk, and Gospel music, the Preludes are meant to be introspective, intimate, and simple enough for pianists of many skill levels to play in both performance and home settings.

layered through
soundholes,
feedback moves and
waves
of hisstortion

i've been told
that
skin can fold


Mastered by Miles Whittaker
Visuals by Zurab Babunashvili
Tapes by Tapeline

Froid Dub continues to explore its synth-lined slowed down digi-dub cave flooded with waves of echoes and acid bleeps. From begging to end, bass lines and flanged delays sail over deep waters, seemingly barely disturbed by the minimal pump of the synth-wave track Not Loved.

SASSYHIYA want to take you somewhere. The journey starts in Kathy and Helen's flat in South London. Sit down, close your eyes, and immerse yourself... You are on your way to a musical rainforest a long way from Camberwell. Explore your new surroundings, and you will find beautiful pop blooms like Let's See What We Can Find, as bright and vibrant as The Sundays, thrusting their colourful faces up from the forest floor. You'll find tangles of sharp-edged guitar, as if Swiss she-punks Kleenex had been left to evolve here in the rich fertile soil (I Had A Thought). You'll find dark pools full of lyrical complexity, deceptively deep and immersive, with shimmering reflections of The Go-Betweens (Perennial). And you'll come across delicate love songs, creeping up the trunks and branches of the bass and drums, displaying their fragile beauty (Thank You And Goodbye). And what's that exotic striped animal prowling through the undergrowth? Actually, it's Crayon Potato, Sassyhiya's pet cat, the other resident of their flat in South London, taking up her role as the feline star of a lilting, singalong anthem written in her honour. That's what is so great about this album. You are somehow, simultaneously, exploring the most exotic forest in the world while also sitting in a flat in an ordinary, familiar English street with Sassyhiya and their cat. This album transports you without pretending the real world doesn't exist: it doesn't get all mystical on you (Take You Somewhere is as unlike Enya as anything you've heard). Sometimes you might be reminded of Girls At Our Best, and then Delta 5. You might even, on occasion, think of Echo and the Bunnymen. Sassyhiya (pronounced "Sassy Hiya") were formed when Helen and Kathy, real-life partners and co-songwriters, joined up with Pablo and Neil (drums and guitar). Helen had previously been in Boys Forever and Basic Plumbing, collaborating with much-missed Veronica Falls musician Patrick Doyle. She and Kathy then formed Barry, a stripped-down queercore outfit, with Bart McDonagh (The Male Gays) and Mark Amura (My Executive Dysfunction). Sassyhiya feels like a culmination of all these elements, hitting the sweet spot between post-punk and indie pop. They know their way around a melody but still keep it wonky, with influences ranging from the Breeders and Broadcast to Dolly Parton.

You find yourself two thousand meters below the earth’s surface surrounded by overwhelming darkness. Cold and wet, the path has collapsed behind you. You have nowhere to go, but still you scream. You scream, and scream, echoing into the darkness, dissolving your throat like acid. It’s no use. There’s no way out. You die here. OSSUARY have made this cave for you.
“Abhorrent Worship” is a relentless, pummeling assault: 6 tracks in 37 minutes of cacophonous, suffocating evil punctuated with distorted, droning atmospheres. Hissing and dripping wet with bile, vocals incant beneath monstrous searing, chugging guitars and thunderous, pounding drums & bass at a primordial pace executed with precision and finesse.
Ossuary take their time between releases, which shows, and once again “Abhorrent Worship” is worth the wait. Once you press play there’s no going back, accept your fate happily or not. You die here. (KD)

After years of sonic exploration with guitars and electronics in addition to other projects (Lost Girls, Moon Relay, Jenny Hval), Håvard Volden has returned to his main instrument with renewed curiosity and a new band. On this album, the guitar takes center stage, with alternative tunings and an exploratory approach forming the foundation for a new musical direction. The result is a beautiful album with an honest and organic sound, and the perfect blend of jazz and alternative pop/rock. The music is rooted in jazz but also draws inspiration from early tape music—think Joe Meek, and Luc Ferrari—as well as folk traditions from all over, new age, and the raw energy of experimental rock, likeVelvet Underground. The result is a collection of instrumental compositions where guitar, synthesizers, bass, and drums interweave in dynamic interplay. At times, the pieces are loose and expansive; at others, they are rhythmically precise and compressed—like instrumental pop songs with an open structure. And to add to the pop cultural pallett; the cover photo is taken on tour with Jenny Hval in front of the ”Twin Peaks” mountains. With music that thrives on dynamics and improvisation, most of the album was recorded live in the studio. This album is an exploration of the guitar’s potential, where echoes and tape machines extend the instrument’s rhythm, resonance, and tonality. A playful, dreamlike, and uncompromising record that embraces the power of collaboration.

Dana Schechter: Lap Steel Guitar, Bass, Electronics. - Paul Wallfisch: Piano, Organ, SOMA Pipe, Guitaret. Music from the Vienna Volkstheater production of Wolfram Lotz's play "Die Politiker" directed by Kay Voges; performed live in the theatre, spring 2022. These 2 beautiful exiles travel limbic landscapes and underwater dreams with a map that disintegrates instantly when viewed. Their fractured sounds dissolve and reconfigure endlessly in our cochlea and infest our imaginations with spiked armies of ultra-vivid, sentient and carnivorous coral predators, atavistically intent on devouring the sweet meat hiding deep in the center of the amygdala. Michael Gira (SWANS). Wallfisch has played in bands like Firewater and Little Annie, while Schechter has logged time with American Music Club, Angels of Light and her own Insect Ark, among others; both spent time touring and recording with SWANS. They've been friends since meeting in New York in the 1990s. Years later they forged a stronger connection as bandmates in Botanica. They renewed their artistic partnership in 2021, when Paul invited Dana to Vienna to develop the music for a theatrical spectacle called Die Politiker written by Kleist prize winner Wolfram Lotz. The music from the production provides the foundation for the duo's first album, The Heart of A Whale. Across its six intense tracks one can detect a subtle homage to storied Berlin musical traditions, as the pair puts a raw, often brutal veneer on songs steeped in Weimar cabaret (a la Tom Waits) but updated with a visceral mixture of noise, post-punk, and industrial elements. Performed on a panoply of instruments from bass, organ and lap steel to SOMA Synths, Guitaret, a variety of electronics and a grand piano hammered with a shoe, the music reflects the New York- Berlin nexus they've both been part of for decades. Echoes of Swans, Einstürzende Neubauten and The Birthday Party, but also hints of Throbbing Gristle, Eno and even William Basinski and Michael Gordon. The music can't be contained by any single tradition, with a decidedly experimental bent that ruptures the fixed rhythm of rock for something more theatrical and emotionally harrowing.

Itchy-O is an experiential performance ensemble that has mesmerized audiences across the U.S. and beyond since 2009. The beating heart of this fifty-plus-strong performance troupe is a batterie of percussionists accompanied by an orchestral arsenal of avant-instrumentation. Weaving a synergistic spell, the ensemble dismantles assumptions of traditional performance models to break down the barriers between audience and performer, administering a bombast of ceremonial chaos; baptizing the audience—body, mind, and collective spirit—in an elaborate, pan-sensorial ocean of music, mystery, and transcendental spectacle.
Itchy-O has shared the stage with legends such as David Byrne & St. Vincent, while luminaries like JG Thirwell and Dan Deacon have opened for the humbled brigade. Over the years, they have energized crowds as the opening act for a slew of iconic artists including DEVO, Beats Antique, and Wooden Wisdom (Elijah Wood). Their unforgettable private engagements include a legendary performance at Maynard Keenan’s Merkin Vineyards while delighting festival audiences at Riot Fest, Biennial of the Americas, the Underground Music Showcase, and Tasmania’s world-renowned Dark MOFO with enveloping processionals, pop-up performances, and staged spectacles.
In 2024, itchy-O debuted Söm Sâptâlahn, a sold-out collaboration with the Fiske Planetarium. Named for an epic set of custom-crafted gongs cast from six hundred pounds of reclaimed brass at the School of Mines and tuned to a bespoke seven-tone scale, this project birthed this latest double album. Accessible, mysterious, and meditative, it is a bold addition to the itchy-O catalogue, sure to appeal to connoisseurs of the experimental, the contemplative, and the avant-garde.

Mannequin Records presents Artificial Salvation, the long-awaited next chapter from Taiwan-born, Berlin-based artist Jing. A visceral journey into fragmented identity, post-human desire, and sonic disobedience, the album marks a bold evolution in Jing's unmistakable language—where rhythm is weapon, voice is distortion, and silence is political.

Known for her uncompromising DJ sets and past releases exploring industrial textures, field recordings, and haunting spoken word, Jing now delivers her most narrative-driven and confrontational work to date. Artificial Salvation lives at the intersection of club dystopia and spiritual unease: glitched-out techno structures collide with ghostly chants and collapsing machinery, echoing themes of surveillance, digital exile, and existential displacement.

Crafted between Taipei and Berlin, the album draws from a palette both hyper-modern and deeply ancestral—melding broken beats, noise, and vocal manipulation into an unflinching statement of intent. This is not music for escapism. This is a sonic exorcism.

2025 Repress

Forest Drive West returns to Livity Sound with the 'Dualism' EP, a tour de force of stripped dub aesthetics and swirling psychedelic rhythms.

One of the finest breakthrough UK producers of recent years, in a short space of time Forest Drive West has created an enviable catalogue across labels such as Livity Sound, Rupture, Echocord, Whities and Mantis. This new EP marks some of his best work to date.

The final track on the EP, 'Scorpion', features Melbourne based percussionist Lucky Pereira whose frenetic but tightly locked drums add a fizzing energy to Forest Drive West's deep atmospheric rhythm track.

Livity Sound is a label set up by Peverelist in 2011 as a vehicle for a raw and exploratory strain of UK techno, rooted in the heritage of UK dance music and sound system culture. It has since become one of the UK's foremost protagonists for cutting edge underground electronic music.

Released in 2018, the Original Blunted Breaks Vol.1 compilation was a landmark release in the future jungle revival, collating the sounds of the rapidly emerging underground in long player format and extending the reach of the modern productions beyond the clubs and hardcore vinyl enthusiasts, to the likes of BBC Radio 6, with guest Dead Man’s Chest mix and album feature on Tom Ravenscroft’s show.

In the ensuing years, contemporary jungle music has continued to gain in popularity with a rapidly expanding global influence and reaching younger audiences who’ve adopted it as the sound of now.

In 2025, Western Lore continues its role as a modern tastemaker in both jungle music and the wider electronica scene with Blunted Breaks Vol.3, a 12 track long player featuring a selection of deep and textural future jungle workouts from the freshest rising talent & now established stalwarts of jungle music.

Released on triple heavyweight (180g) black vinyl, shrink-wrapped in full art sleeves & digital.

Emotional Rescue completes the series of non-defined reissues where the label licenses an all-time favourite, remasters and then reappraised with new interpretations by contemporary producers for today’s collectors.

After the series started back in 2019 with Hawkwind’s sprawling psychedelic electronics, featuring deep drone mixes by the esteemed digger Cherrystones (ERC074), the bouncing cosmic-Balearics of Thomas Leer with wonderful reworkings by friend and producer Bullion (ERC075) and then the post punk dubs of The Embrace and Timothy J Faiplay’s brooding italo-dub excursions (ERC076), there was always one artist and producer left out. Finally, then the percussive excursion of the early 80s band The Impossible Dreamers and their cult B side jam, Spin, coming with 9 minutes percussion-dub extravaganza of an extended reversion, plus a dub heavy reprise, by label go-to Dan Tyler (Idjut Boys /Noid), under his NAD moniker.

Started by a group of friends while at Exeter University that centered around Caroline Radcliffe, James Hood, Justin Adams and Nick Waterhouse, their debut 12” record is one of just three on the 100 Things To Do label. The other two releases have already been covered with the Hamburger All Stars ‘Swinging London’ 12” (ERC114) of 2022.

Recorded before the move to West London, ‘Life On Earth’ was a raw post punk vocal pop cut, with influences of dub, funk, hip-hop and African music shining through, there were in their own words, “young music fans starting out, with no agenda”.

However, it was on the B side that things got interesting. Enamored by the growing trend of extended 12” singles, they decided, with the A side wrapped up, to have some studio experimentation by recording a drumming jam, with all the members playing percussion, followed by some overdubbing. Memories are hazy, but at the time the band was an 8-piece, so the results a chaotic explosion, capturing the essence of that time. Featuring Nick and James on 4 hand piano, plus Caroline on Oboe, with some additional hollering and wooping vocals, Spin was a 5-minute burst of energy.

In effect, self-released in 1982, the band didn’t expect much to come of it, but the 12” acted as a calling card leading them to London and later signing for RCA. At the same time, Spin was being discovered in the early eighties alternative club world. On a trip to New York, the track was heard being played Downtown, and on enquiring it was discovered the DJ was playing a 7” that was never an official release but cut in the US solely for the club DJs there.

Its resonance extended further, to Italy and the Cosmic club of the resident, an ever-searching Danielle Baldelli, before being picked up a few years later by a young Andrew Weatherall during his pursuit of an alternative “Balearic” beat during the late eighties Summers of Love and has even recently received the Joe Clausell edit treatment back again in NYC.

For the remake to fit the label series, it was only right to ask label friend Dan Tyler to do what he does so well, putting the original through his array of dub machines and pedals, extending and cutting with aplomb to create an incendiary ‘Reversion’ that will send dancefloors literally in a spin. Teasing the percussion incandescent, looping and teasing, the piano held back before finally releasing in a haze of dub effects.

This is followed by the ‘Riddim Reprise’. Working with London based drummer Matt Bruce (Claptrap), this is the perfect DJ tool, taking the original idea of the band, to just jam see what happens, twisting it full of space echo and reverb, to offer a perfect 12” Extended Mix.

'A Necessary Escape' ist der Soundtrack zum demnächst erscheinenden Film 'Dakar: Race Against The Desert'. Die physischen Formate umfassen CD, Vinyl und eine limitierte Farbvinyl-Edition in Curacao-Blau. Es ist der vierte Album-Soundtrack von M83 und wurde in Frankreich und den USA von M83s Anthony Gonzalez zusammen mit den regelmäßigen M83-Mitwirkenden Joe Berry und Clement Libes aufgenommen. Der Film erscheint am 12. Mai digital bei Universal Pictures und feiert seine weltweite Kinopremiere am 26. Juni in der MK2 Bibliothèque in Paris. Unter der Regie des französischen Schauspielers und Regisseurs Jalil Lespert wird hier die weltberühmte Rallye Dakar begleitet - ein Event, das seit 45 Jahren die ultimative Bewährungsprobe für Belastbarkeit, Können und Ausdauer im Motorsport darstellt. Das 9.000 Kilometer lange Rennen dauert 14 strapaziöse Tage durch raues Wüstengelände. Mit beispiellosem Zugang taucht dieser Film in das härteste Autorennen der Welt ein. Begleitet wird dies von einem wunderbaren Score den Gonzalez perfekt auf den Film zugeschnitten hat. Ambient trifft auf sphärische Klangcollagen und ist damit der perfekte Ausgleich zu den im Film dokumentierten Strapazen um die berühmte Rallye. Nach dem fantastischen 'Fantasy'-Album von 2023 oder dem 2011er Klassiker 'Hurry Up, We're Dreaming' ein weiterer Geniestreich des französischen Sound-Magiers und seinem M83-Projekt!

Berlin’s ZentaSkai continues his slew of limited-run 200-copy vinyl releases via his Mask Records this July, presenting the ‘JIMMY’ EP, and following up last year’s ‘Bob’ EP and two instalments from his Cuddling Monsters project with Laura Merino Allue.

Across the four tracks on ‘JIMMY’, ZentaSkai delves deep, placing mysterious, foreboding synths over crunchy taped drums and exploring a variety of tempos. Dub influences are rife, its elements echoing across carefully laid-out Techno grooves while minimal shifts subtly build the energy. With ‘JIMMY’, ZentaSkai once again offers a journey through sound already supported by Luke Slater, Blasha & Allatt, Truncate, Elisa Bee, and many more. ZentaSkai (aka No Mad Ronin, Matt Nowak, and MASK) is a German DJ and producer active since 1997. Based out of his studio in Berlin, ZentaSkai runs the Zaijenroots label and, since 2017, the Mask sub-label, which houses his stunning 2023 ‘Architecture of the Mind’ LP as well as his Cuddling Monsters alias - with other credits including a release on Jerome Sydenham’s Ibadan Records and support from the likes of Richie Hawtin, Joseph Capriati, Marcel Dettmann, Luke Slater, Laurant Garnier, DVS1, Ben Sims and Radio Slave.

The Sorcerers' latest long player lands in perfect time for the summer, offering a further progression into their unique take on Ethio-inspired jazz. Other Worlds and Habitats is, of course, released on ATA Records and is blessed with the analogue recording and painstakingly loving production we have come to expect from this boutique studio. This, The Sorcerers eagerly anticipated fourth LP, follows on from the success of I Too Am A Stranger, a record which garnered praise from BBC Radio 2’s Jamie Cullum, “I love this, this is so good!”, Ethio-jazz legend Mulatu Astatke, “I like the grooves, and it is good to see The Sorcerers interpret Ethio jazz in their own unique way”, and Nightmares on Wax, “This sounds great! Love the way it's recorded”.

Never ones to stop moving forward, and ever vigilant to avoid the realm of pastiche, The Sorcerers see the Ethiopique sound as a building block for their natural progression as a group, but a block that sits at the base of a much larger, ever expanding, structure, The addition of keyboardist Johnny Richards, whose use of the Jen 73 piano, Mellotron and Farfisa Compact Duo, alongside the core members of the group, has opened some exciting doors for The Sorcerers, fusing the future looking optimism of the late 60s and 70s (when artists began to experiment with the new electronic technology and synthesisers becoming more readily available) and more traditional sounds. Taking inspiration from Ethiopian keyboardist Hailu Mergia and Nigerian musician William Onyeabor, Other Worlds and Habitats, as the name suggests, showcases The Sorcerers' shift to a new, and deeply exciting, musical landscape.

The Sorcerers’ Other Worlds and Habitats is a natural progression in the world they have created for themselves. Richer for shared experiences, and accepting the rise of the machines, they prove that while their journey is always going forward, there are many different paths to take.

Emerging from the Kansai underground with a sense of ritual and restraint, G Version III returns with a slab of meditative pressure, carved for sound systems. Following last year’s cassette release on Digital Sting, the Kyoto-based producer deepens his exploration of experimental steppers and sacred low-end science.

TRK 1 treads heavy—medium-tempo four-to-the-floor steppers, soaked in 80s/90s UK dub DNA and wired with flickers of celestial synth energy, edged with something unknown.

TRK 2 drifts off-grid—a 100bpm oddity conjuring sacred synth rituals and off-beat spatial tension. Droning and eerily weightless, it hangs like a vapor of frozen scent in an echo chamber.

Flip the plate and TRK 3 and 4 ignite—raw, unrelenting steppers built to test the physical limits of the rig. No compromise, no decoration—just ritual voltage for the floor.

Riddim Chango’s 16th release channels something ancient through circuitry, born for the weight.

In 1995, when Cobweb-day was released, Fabrice Laureau was 24, Nicolas Laureau 21, Ludovic Morillon 22, and Quentin Rollet, who had just joined them on this new album, was 21. Prohibition, founded in 1989, had already released two albums: Turtle in 1993 and Nobodinside in 1994, on the Distorsion label. Cobweb-day, literally "Spider-web Day," is poetic, satirical, and libertarian. A title conceived by Nicolas to express all the feelings and themes explored on the album, this neologism also echoes the artwork on the cover. The lyrics describe, in vitriolic poetry and with a touch of self-deprecation, a world based on the powers of commodification and order, on submission to modern Molochs. Thirty years ago, it addressed themes such as the trade in minds and bodies, Kafkaesque justice, state violence, and Western blindness. Is this a coincidence that might raise a smile? Fabrice and Nicolas were both conscientious objectors at the time the album was written. The deceptively childish drawing that adorns the cover was created by Fabrice in 1989. It evokes African art and the skyscraper where the brothers grew up. Its title? "Glances on the Horizon." Yet, in these naive eyes, locked in a rhizomic matrix, there is the disturbing sensation of being observed, scrutinized, or perhaps imprisoned. This is Cobweb-day. During this period, the band spent its entire life touring with the British post-punk trio Headcleaner and the furious Lyon-based Condense. Their correspondence, followed by a meeting in 1994 with Guy Picciotto, singer-guitarist in Fugazi, led to a series of concerts with the Washington, DC quartet, around the time of the album's release in the spring of 1995. Quentin Rollet gradually joined the band, first on stage and then on the records. The concerts of this era often ended with long improvisations featuring saxophone, sitar, bass, and drums. Prohibition had emerged from the shadows, but chose to continue evolving underground, with the Laureau brothers creating their label Prohibited Records. Cobweb-day serves as the first reference. Thirty years ago, then. The album was recorded at Ark Studios near Paris in January 1995, along with eight other previously unreleased tracks. This new mix was created at Black Box Studios by Peter Deimel and Nicolas from 24-track analog tapes in August 1998, shortly before the release of 14 Ups & Downs, Prohibition's fifth and final album, and their US tour. All tracks were remastered by Fabrice and Nicolas Laureau in March/April 2025.

We are pleased to confirm the latest release on the ECHO EDITS label with the third slice of action from THE PREACHER.

Since we first heard these break laden edits earlier this year, we’ve been super excited to unleash these beaty-beauties ASAP

Nicely timed to coincide with LA based - Greg Belson’s current U.K. Tour of clubs, radio stations and slots at Glastonbury - preorders go live now - with an official release date of 4th July 2025

Reissue of in-demand Italo title, with accompanying edits by Hysteric. "For the much-requested 12'' reissue of Roaring Mosquitoes, Best Record followed the hint by a die-hard German researcher and esteemed DJ of 'hidden musical treasures' Frinda Di Lanco. Further enriching this reissue - masterfully remastered by Dom Scuteri - with two of his splendid edits is the Australian DJ-producer George Hysteric, one of the world's leading authorities and a leading figure in Italo Disco. The juxtaposition of the two songs performed with grit and physicality by Agostina Casalino and her cousin Antonietta Casalino (aka Roaring Mosquitoes) highlights two aesthetically and rhythmically similar approaches, albeit with different roots and inspirations. "You Aren't With Me" has the merit of not wanting to reinvent the genre, but exploits the familiarity of pop-dance forms, obtaining an immediate catchiness. The piece stands out for its linearity while reworking melodic mechanisms typical of the 80s new wave: short instrumental intro, well-defined verse-chorus, obsessive repetition of melodic hooks that make it an immediate and "dragging" song on the dance floor. The arrangement focuses on a solid electronic drum groove, sinuous basslines, clean guitar riffs, "cutting" keyboards and the use of the chorus typical of the Italo Disco of those years. Some passages recall the melodic line and rhythmic progression of "Tonight... Crazy Night", an intriguing song that the Canadian artist Dorine Hollier created in 1984 at the Titania Studios in Rome with Pierluigi Giombini. Even with "Ah Ah Ah Ah" which features a vibrant and cheerful sound there's a playful use of citation for some idea that Diego Pepe took from a Micky & Joyce track. It evokes the "space disco" spirit of Jean-Pierre Massiera and the influence of the French scene of 1979: polyphonic synthetic strings, echo effects on electronic hi-hats and a vaguely futuristic atmosphere, but with an even more captivating sound revitalized with more scratchy modern touches and compressed basslines. A mix of vintage and contemporary that enhance its charm."

The Australian master of the dark synth arts is back and – boy – he is out for blood.
We’ve been missing Marc Dwyer solo project Buzz Kull since his latest single Last In The Club from late 2019 and since back then we knew he was up to something. At first glimpse, the minimal wave days of We Were Lovers seem far away now that Marc has gone full Club Body Music with his upcoming new album, but there is a thread that binds Buzz Kull hits from the past such as Into The Void, Avoiding The Light and New Kind Of Cross with these ten new cuts: a thread of darkness proper to the most handsome man in the game and that’s here to stay.

Echoes of 90’s era Front 242 and Front Line Assembly will resonate from tracks like Fascination and Dead Inside; elements of early body music flirting with the dark side of British synthpop will rave from the grooves of Dancing with Machines and Man on the Beat, while late 80’s Belgian new beat cellar-like vibes rise from Do You See and Burn it to the Ground.

But Buzz Kull’s third full-length is not just about music subgenres we all know and love, it’s about a feeling that comes alive only with the dark and drives you through the small hours just to leave you drained and filled at once. The creature of the night is on the loose, the sticky dancefloor its natural habitat, its lust for the upside-down world of the club can’t be cured.

Syz launches his new label Vitalizm with VTLZM001, a 4 track sure-shot from its founder of wily club rhythms mutated anew through adventurous construction and intuitive dancefloor nous.

Club rhythms for the soul; a nourishing manifesto for the rave, and for Syz a vital spark through which energy and groove emanate. A prolific producer with a beloved back catalogue, he is no stranger to the sounds that embody the propulsive nature of UK club rhythms. Vitzalizm though is a new venture, his inaugural label founded on the promise of showcasing new and varied developments along the Syz sonic journey. It’s a wide-ranging ethos informed via a complex web of influences that continue to make afresh of club music, while also paying homage to the culture of yesteryears with small vinyl runs and limited lathe-cut dubplate specials.

On VTLZM001, the label’s inaugural release, its founder gets right to it. Down & Twist steps first with an all-round sexy affair, a 2 step mover that swivels deftly on its latin inclinations while updating the early 00’s garage template with fwd> attitude. Next, Bakayadaskunka writhes as a complex beast, busy through the broken beat while its tactile low end purrs and throbs within. Fidget goes faster, a tribal wonderland that pumps giddy yet nimble across its myriad of basslines. The Lizm sees us off, a supple percussive playground which swings playful and loose amongst a livewire of subs, weightless pads and a faint dub echo.

A succinct dancefloor statement of intent from Syz, and an exhilarating beginning for Vitalizm.

It happens everytime. As soon as we get the news that Lewis Fautzi, label owner, will release with us, his own imprint, the excitement is hard to describe. First of all, his vision makes him one of the most exciting artists in the scene and last but not least, he's always able to surprise us. Leading us through his own landscapes and rythms, Lewis creates a world which is very much of his, with a motion and a pace that are remarkable and hard not to notice. This release he's been preparing for a while is another masterpiece that will echo in our minds for a long time. Through beatless pads or fierceful kicks, the precise cutting edge of his creations are a delight to our ears and makes us all embark in a journey with no limits or boundaries.

ANIMA's Third Adventure - 'ORBIT' is inspired by outer space, star dust and cycles. The trajectory of moons around planets, planets around suns. Creating an eternal cycle. An ethereal dance. Like molecules and atoms spinning endlessly the same way. Beautiful bleeps, polyrhythms, and polymeters were encouraged and delicately disguised within the orbital nature of each track in this galactic release.

Emerging from the fertile chaos of Düsseldorf’s Salon des Amateurs scene, Sequence of Events, the collaborative project of Deniz Saridas and Joshua Gottmanns, presents The Art of Memory, an album that feels both intimate and ungraspable, like recalling a dream that fades upon waking.

Rooted in the post-industrial landscapes of West Germany, The Art of Memory channels the bleak resilience of these environments into its sound. It’s a collage of kraut-infused electronics, shoegaze textures, and industrial pulses, filtered through a lens of introspective psychedelia. “We don’t consciously break down or combine genres,” they explain. “Everything is interwoven, like chemistry. Some reactions happen immediately, others take years under pressure.”

From the opening track TAR, with its stoic vocals and drum-heavy propulsion, to the robotic Meagre Gardens, where autotuned chants coil around unconventional drum programming, the album moves like a fever dream through fragmented memories. Soul Divider unfolds like a cinematic journey through yearning and desire, its repetitive pulses echoing the ache of unfulfilled longing, while Nature Hates Life distills pop music through the eyes of a killjoy: “Kurt Cobain on an AKAI MPC2000,” as the band describes it. Even moments of tenderness, like the drifting Becomings, shimmer with absolute sensuality: a seductive exploration of presence defined by absence. We lift each other up and hold each other down.

The creative process behind The Art of Memory is as fluid as the music itself. Saridas and Gottmanns, both self-taught musicians with backgrounds in fine art, worked intuitively, drawing from a shared pool of samples, text fragments, and images. Operating somewhere in the space between fin de siècle aesthetics and occultism, it’s a dream wedding with a continuous stream of meaningless (moving) images generated by human and non-human entities.

Ultimately, The Art of Memory is not an escape but an immersion. A meditation on the sensory overload of the present and the ghosts it leaves in its wake. In a world where music is often reduced to background noise for consumption, Sequence of Events offers something more elusive: a record that lingers, unsettles, and demands to be remembered.

Underground Pacific is back with a new double vinyl compilation titled ‘The Only Good Wave is a Dead One’ that confirms, once again, its uncompromising taste for bold electronic music, psychedelic textures, and raw, electrified rock ‘n roll. This release brings together a varied group of artists, each of them adding something special to the journey.

The trip begins with “Excursions” by Gregory Moore, a piece that floats into a humid sonic world, between the nostalgic tones of vintage video game soundtracks, the Fourth World atmospheres of Jon Hassell, and the shimmering calm of ’90s Japanese ambient à la Takashi Kokubo.

Next comes Talee, the Rotterdam-based regular of the label, with “Makes Me Wonder”. Here, grunge-soaked vocals meet a tight dark disco groove, pierced by crystalline guitar chords that shimmer at the track’s heart. A song with its soul in the past and its feet in the club.

Label founder Cantor teams up once again with German duo New Hook on “Achtung! Achtung!”, an homage to the eponymous track by Italian producer Black Saagan. Fueled by vintage drum machines, punk-infused vocals, and melodies echoing the krautrock minimalism of Cluster, the track channels pure Cold War disco energy.

On “Scavengers”, Berlin based World Wild Web and Rasp Thorne deliver a pure mix of electro-rock noir – Suicide by way of David Lynch. Picture a never seen before episode of the series where Martin Rev and Alan Vega are playing live at the Roadhouse in Twin Peaks, while Laura Palmer slowly moves her head to the music, with a devilish smile on her face.

All the way from Grenoble to Berlin, H.L.M. deliver a dirty bass-driven anthem called ‘Fronde’. French spoken vocals spitfire over layers of distorted drones and hypnotic rhythms. The result is rough, hypnotic, and brings to mind the grooves of Death in Vegas.

New Hook return, this time solo, with ‘Unity’: a blend of groovy downtempo percussions, melancholic guitar riffs, and their signature brand of spoken word, a style that’s quickly become their sonic fingerprint.

Then it’s the turn of mexican-wave exponents Montessori featuring Vongold on “Ad Libitum”: a techy sunrise piece with soft pads, subtle build-ups, and an ecstatic sense of endlessness. After-party music for vast, open spaces.
Next up are SX2 from Ireland with their ‘Buttons’, offering a rolling tech-house banger laced with desert guitars. Psychedelic FX’s and whispered vocals drenched in delay slow the pace in a breakdown full of tension, preparing the floor to an euphoric release.

A dream from the pandemic era reappears: Cantor’s “Hannett’s Dream”, originally released in 2020 by Modular’s Project’s imprint ‘Nothing Is Real’ together with their own reworked version present also in two very limited vinyl-collector editions released by Underground Pacific. The introspection and hypnotic structure of the original cut here is replaced by a more stripped down arrangement, with a four-to-the-floor groove that is perfectly crafted for peak-time ignition.

Closing out the release is “Carissima” by the man behind iconic label Wonder Stories, Aimes – a Moroder-esque bassline and sensual vocals play on top of a warm groove that suddenly fractures into jazz-tinged, breakbeat mood, in the style of early Warp Records, just in time to get back into its disco-ish swing.

Contrary to what the title of this release might suggest, the wave isn’t dead at all. It’s well alive in the underground, reanimated by labels like Underground Pacific who are always ready to welcome artists who aren’t afraid to crash genres together and, above all, who are driven by the desire to make free-form, inspired pieces of music.

A decade has passed since Infinity Night graced Bordello A Parigi with his wonderful Winter and Summer EPs. After too long a wait, the French producer returns with the aptly titled Le Temps Qui Passe. Six slices of select synthesizer music make up the 12”, tracks lovingly crafted with Frederic Bergamaschi’s trademark analogue warmth. A melancholic melody meanders through brightness in “Tu Ne Me Réponds Pas”, dulcet words hidden under the machine gauze of a vocoder. Skittish percussion gives way to the refrain of “It’s Full of Stars”. Hazy keys appear as an arpeggiator rumbles below a shimmering sky. “Les Souvenirs De Valerie” picks up where its predecessor left off. Astral notes are beamed into the heavens, echoing into the while crisp cymbals tether the piece. Infinity Night has always sought that point of balance in his music, a bittersweetness he accentuates and explores. This is true in the darker shades of “Nymphomania”. Beats are bolstered, key stabs piercing the tenderness of analogue trills. The title track is a rich patchwork. A burbling undercurrent supports forays into diverse tangents with lyrics surfacing through key shifts and sliding scales. Marching to militaristic rhythms, “I Comme Icare” is the curtain call. The stringent drums are broken by sailing synthlines, vocals masked in a familiar mesh to close. Le Temps Qui Passe, well worth the wait.

After several killer EPs and tracks on labels such as Tresor, Multi Culti, Hard Fist, or Playground Records, Antonio De Oto aka A-Tweed finally delivers "Spring Music" his first solo LP via Abstrakce Records, changing perspective on his music and way of producing. A minimal approach, where echoes and reverbs become some of the main characters of the full journey, mixing up weird acid, experimental downbeat, electro, dub, and tribal vibes across a wide range of tempos.

Slow-motion beats pulse beneath swirling acid lines, while dubby echoes and reverberations sculpt a landscape that is both immersive and mysterious. A-Tweed’s meticulous production draws from the label’s tradition of organic textures and ambient vibes, yet carves a distinct path balancing deep bass, shimmering synths, and a subtle sense of psychedelia that lingers long after the needle lifts.

A cohesive journey, crafted for those who seek introspective voyages without giving up new forms of dancefloor communion. A manifesto about the power of slow rhythms, dub sensibilities, and acid-tinged experimentation, out of any hype and trend, aiming for a distinctive sound. An essential addition to the ever-evolving Abstrakce catalogue. The spring has just arrived.

Here we have a new four track EP from ddwy following two acclaimed EPs on Public Possession. ddwy (pronounced d-why) is the Welsh word for “two” — a nod to Naomi and Ronan, the duo behind the project. It’s a four track EP ranging from dancefloor moments such as ‘Beaming Backwards’ and the dubwise ‘Peak Smile’ to the more ethereal ‘Stars Stars’ and the ambient tone of ‘Heuldro’r Haf’. A beautifully rounded EP showing a quiet potential for a broader audience. The echo continues.

"Chasing the funky symphonies that filled my head and my dreams..."

December 25th, 2023 - an Instagram post. Stimulator Jones shared half a dozen FIRE tracks from his beat tape archive. We were immediately drawn to the rough hewn boom bap.

"I'd release that", Rob commented.

Hours of material was shared and the result is this: Cool Green Trees (1999-2005). A collection of beats and loops Stimulator Jones created between the ages of 14-20 at home in his basement, bedroom and computer room in Roanoke, Virginia.

You will not believe the profound soulful genius contained within these naive schoolboy melodies.

December 25th, 1998 - 25 years ago to the day and his much-coveted Yamaha SU10 sampler was finally bestowed upon young Stimmy AKA Sam Lunsford: "I immediately hooked up a CD Walkman to the input jack and looped the beginning two bars of Grover Washington Jr.'s "Mercy Mercy Me". I don't know what exactly was so thrilling about hearing two measures of music repeating over and over but it was so infectious and hypnotizing and enthralling to me. I'll never forget that ecstatic rush of making my first loop - an uncontrollable, gleeful smile plastered all over my face." When you hear the pocket breakbeat symphonies featured here on Cool Green Trees, you'll feel the same sense of frisson.

In the wake of his Stones Throw breakthrough - Exotic Worlds & Master Treasures - Stimulator Jones was pegged by many as a 90s throwback artist. However, he literally IS a 90s artist. He's been recording music most of his life and he's now 40. He created the bulk of Cool Green Trees as a teenager. Everything before 2004 was recorded when Sam was still in school. He was in 8th grade when he made the 1999 tracks - he didn't even have his learner's permit. This album is a snapshot of a young man in a simpler time. Things were still mysterious back then and he was flying blind, relying on his ears and having to figure things out for himself: "I had no road map for becoming a beatmaker. I have been collecting music since I was a kid, I am a lifelong digger and seeker of cool and interesting sounds. I was there in the golden age of Hip Hop, and while I may have been a suburban white kid in Roanoke, Virginia, I was tuned in and I bought so many classic albums when they came out. I was attracted to Hip Hop because of the musical and poetic quality. I was hypnotized by the rhythms, partially because I was a drummer. I didn't brag about collecting my breakbeat records or making beats - it was something I did in isolation. It wasn't something I generally wanted to bring attention to and it didn't really score me any cool points. I certainly wasn't flexing on social media about it."

Hell, he can do that now!

Opener "Pharoah Jones" was inspired by Yesterday's New Quintet and Madlib's ability to capture that classic 70s sound whilst playing all the instruments. Sam created this one stoned afternoon by laying down a 2 bar loop and a shaker loop on his Yamaha SU700 sampler. He hung a microphone from the ceiling and played his Yamaha Stage Custom drum kit over the top before adding ender Rhodes and playing his dad's Selmer tenor sax through an Electro Harmonix Memory Man echo pedal. Yes! Up next, "Ghost Gospel" utilises a dope loop from a gospel record and adds some soul-funk drums overtop, whilst working that filter knob. Says Sam: "The loop reminded me of something Ghostface would rap over. The sample was in 3/4 waltz time but I flipped it for a 4/4 groove, a technique I picked up from RZA. "Ill Feeling" uses sped-up pieces from a dusty old funk record and putting them over a classic NOLA drum loop; gain chopping up a slow, bluesy 3/4 time signature and bending it to a 4/4 groove. Classy shit. "Capital Punishment" features drums tapped in live, inspired by MF Doom's Special Herbs series. "Do Not Adjust" consists loops found on a compilation of 70s French music at Happy's Flea Market, a classic Roanoke digging spot.

The sublime, evocative title track, "Cool Green Trees" was created when Sam was still living at home. He dumped samples off his SU10 into the family desktop and arranged them in a demo version of Pro Tools: "This track was sort of my ode to the DJ Shadow style of sample based production. Super spacey, slow, and moody. The heavily filtered drums were inspired by Alec Empire's 'Low on Ice' album. I later added some scratches and sounds from a Spider Man storybook record." "Chill Scratch" snags the final bit of a bossanova record and pairs it with a drum loop before adding experimental scratching run through an Electro Harmonix Memory Man echo pedal. "Poisonous Fumes" was made using a sampler, mixer and a turntable; a kind of mixtape beat collage with added scratches and sounds from various records. Using dialogue from superhero records was a nod to Madlib. "Welcome Aboard The Starship" is dark, downtempo trip-hop with a spooky bent. Sam paired a slow, hard drum loop with a guitar sample grabbed off a psychedelic rock record. To finish, he added various backwards sounds and weird atmospheric effects and a little scratching. Swoon.

Side B opens with "Keep On Runnin", made on a borrowed Roland SP202 sampler. Having always loved the sound of the Lo-Fi filter on those machines, reminiscent of the Emu SP1200, Sam always imagined Del or another of the Hieroglyphics crew rapping over this beat. You can certainly hear why. "Sounds Impossible" sees Sam experimenting with layering multiple kick samples at different volumes to create patterns similar to those heard by Showbiz and Lord Finesse during their God-level 1995 period. "Painted Faces" was made by chopping up a REDACTED record which he had gotten from Happy's Flea Market and paired it with a REDACTED drum loop. By the time Sam recorded "The Knew Style", he had acquired a shitty old 1960s portable turntable off eBay. It didn't function properly when he bought it but his brother opened it up, cleaned it out and got it working: "I remember he told me that there was a bunch of sand inside of it when he opened it up, as if its previous owner had taken it to the beach. I would take that turntable on my Happy's Flea Market digs so I could preview records...that's how I found this loop."

"Chicken Wing Blues Sauce" loops up a classic blues joint and pairs it with some REDACTED drums. A bit of filtering and arranging et voilà! "Kool Breeze", from 1999, is one of Sam's oldest surviving beats, as is "Sexx Bullets". The Roots sampled the same record, leaving Sam frustrated yet vindicated. "Soul Child" was an early SU10 creation, looping a dusty old Soul Children 45 and pairing it with 70s rock drum loops to great effect. "Take Off Runnin" was another loop found digging with a portable turntable. Paired with some boom bap drums it makes for a hypnotic head-nod groove. "Centurian" was intended to be a little beat interlude a la Pete Rock. The sample is from a sun-dappled soft-psych record and it's paired with a Robin Trower drum loop that just happens to fit perfectly. Sometimes you slap things together kind of haphazardly and magic happens. "Bozack" was the first beat Sam made using Pro Tools, his first foray into using chopped sounds instead of loops, an exciting new world. "Church" is beat interlude using a Phil Upchurch loop with the "Long Red" drums - a favourite break of Dilla et al. Sam was really on a tear in late 2004, probably because he was unemployed and phoneless and able to just make beats all day. He made "Splash One" on a borrowed Yamaha SU700 and again was experimenting with tapping the drums in live with his fingers, instead of using a loop or sequenced pattern. Channeling 9th Wonder, Sam used a water splash sound effect from a Batman record as a percussive element, hence the title (also a 13th Floor Elevators reference). The main loop is a backwards portion of one of his favourite Roy Ayers songs.

"Hank" is another fun little beat interlude thing, created on a borrowed Roland SP202 sampler with the fantastic Lo-Fi effect that resembled the Emu SP1200 at a fraction of the price. "73 goatee", from 99, is another of his oldest surviving beats, created in his bedroom with his Yamaha SU10 and his brother's Vestax MR-300 4-track recorder: "This one will always feel special. I can remember having a feeling all the way back then on the night that I created it that this was a solid beat with a catchy loop. There was something in the Fender Rhodes melody that resonated with me emotionally, and I had never heard a producer sample that portion before. I felt like I had found my own unique sound, my own unique loop. It came from an Ahmad Jamal '73. I actually even recorded myself rapping and scratching over this beat way back then, I still have that version in all its imperfect sloppy glory."

Sam explains just how much these tracks mean to him: "They all have immense historical and sentimental value and I'm proud of them. These beats come from an innocent, simple time when I was just figuring out how to craft these sounds. They're something very personal to me. They are the initial part of a journey that I really was taking *alone*. There was no YouTube. I couldn't Google shit. I didn't even know any other beatmakers, producers or DJs in my town that could teach me anything. It was always just me, alone, in a room with some equipment - chasing the funky symphonies that filled my head and my dreams. What I was doing wasn't cool. Most of my peers thought I was a weirdo and couldn't care less. Creating these sounds was an anti-social endeavour. In a sense, I felt like it was me against the world, and all I had to instruct and assist me were the recordings produced by my heroes - RZA, DJ Premier, Erick Sermon, Beatminerz, Showbiz, Diamond D, Beatnuts, Prince Paul, The Bomb Squad, Pete Rock, Q-Tip, E-Swift, Mista Lawnge, DJ Shadow, Cut Chemist, Peanut Butter Wolf, El-P and so many more...I dedicate this collection to them, and to my older brother Joe who has always been a musical and technical guiding light for me.

This was a time before every kid was a self-described producer and beatmaker, before everyone had a DAW, before Kanye and "chipmunk soul", before Red Bull beat battles, before there was any social media beyond chat rooms and AOL Instant Messenger, before Soundcloud, before SP-404 mania, before lo-fi beats to study to, before Splice, before targeted ads for MIDI chord packs, etc. In 99 when I told people that I had a sampler and made beats I was mostly met with bewildered confusion and indifference. Kids and adults alike would wonder why I got this weird machine for Christmas instead of something worthwhile like a Playstation or a mountain bike or even a guitar for that matter because at least that could be used to make "real music". Back then, sampling was still not widely respected as an art form - it was seen as lazy, talentless and unoriginal at best and outright criminal theft at worst. I had gotten respect for playing drums and guitar and things of that nature but this was a step in the wrong direction in the eyes of many."

The cover photo is a picture of Sam standing on his back porch in the latter part of 1998, just before he got his first sampler. He was 13 years old, in 8th grade. His dad took the picture with his 35mm film camera: "I actually wanted to be pointing my dad's .22 pistol at the camera lens but he wouldn't let me. He gave me an old walking cane to use instead. The Tommy Hilfiger puffer jacket came from the lost and found at William Fleming High School where my mom worked as a secretary. I was thrilled when she brought it home because we never spent money on expensive name brand clothing like that - we were for the most part strictly a sale rack, bargain bin, thrift store, yard sale, flea market kind of family when it came to clothes. My watch is some cheap off-brand fake gold department store watch." Mastering for this vinyl edition was overseen by Be With regular Simon Francis and it was cut by the esteemed Cicely Balston at Abbey Road Studios to be pressed in the Netherlands by Record Industry.

Peach Discs’ first EP of 2025 comes from DJ, producer, curator and all-round doer of great things James Priestley aka Secretsundaze.

The Mordisco EP accumulates inspiration from James' past and present, whether it be echoes of his time as a drum & bass DJ in the late 90s on "Closer," the UK Bass-referencing percussive drive of "Treat That Doll" or the title track's vocal contributions from partner Paula Juana, the result is a personal and true record that always retains the laser-focused dancefloor energy that James is so good at dishing up.

Lead single "Mordisco" serves to highlight both the UK x Colombia connection found in James' relationship to Paula, as well as his love for Latin American music in general. Paula's sultry vocals wrap themselves around tumbling drum fills, arcing synths and an insistent rhodes riff, creating something unclassifiably groovy, riding the line between house and techno while never settling into either. Sansibar takes the baton and runs further into propulsive, progged-out, dubbed-out territory on his remix – the first officially released remix on Peach Discs.

James founded Secretsundaze as a party series in 2002, and since then it's established itself as one of the most reliable names in electronic music, encompassing a record label, festival (Multi Multi), live band (Spirit of Sundaze Ensemble) and production outfit. The four tracks that make up this EP fit neatly into the lineage that James has cultivated over the past 23 years – paying tribute to history while not being beholden to it. Mordisco continues the deep, rhythmically ambiguous approach to house music that Secretsundaze championed since the first EP for Phonica Records in 2018, and continued with stand-out releases for Mule Muziq, Live At Robert Johnson and more recently Warning.

As long-time fans and affiliates of Secretsundaze (Shanti released her Alma EP on the label back in 2015), we're thrilled to be working together again and releasing this record into the world.

Lennart, a Dutch Producer Who Has Called Berlin Home for Several Years, Boasts an Impressive Discography With Releases on Ritmo Fatale, KopjeK Records, Italo Moderni, and Zonefocus. His Latest Creation, the "With Love Ep" Exclusively Crafted for Our Esteemed Label Skylax Records, Stands as a Testament to His Exceptional Talent and Serves as a Captivating Journey for Enthusiasts of Italo Disco, Dark Disco, New Wave, and Proto-House. the Ep Kicks Off With a Bang With the Mesmerizing "With Love," Featuring an Arpeggio That Enthralls the Senses, Reminiscent of the Brilliance Found in Todd Terje's Finest Works. "Traumwelt" Follows With Its Immersive and Ethereal Atmosphere, While "Roffa" Delivers Another Electrifying Banger. on the Flip Side, the Intensity Doesn't Wane. "Chrome" Bursts Onto the Scene With Its Vibrant Energy, "Security" Echoes the Brilliance of Klein & Mbo, and the Ep Concludes With the Enigmatic "One Night at Wetrinsky," a Track That Bears the Unmistakable Mark of Legowelt. in Essence, the "With Love Ep" Is a Stroke of Genius, Showcasing Lennart's Mastery of His Craft and Solidifying His Position as a True Visionary in the Realm of Electronic Music....

Adding to the allure, the artwork has been masterfully designed by the legendary H5 studio, a pillar of the French Touch movement. Known for their work with Daft Punk, Air, Étienne de Crécy, Röyksopp, and Vitalic, as well as for their Oscar-winning short film Logorama, H5 now handles all SKYLAX RECORDS artworks, bringing their signature visual excellence to each release

Glasgow-based Effective Dreaming—the solo project of Scottish artist and musician Iain Ross—unveils Dream Catalogue Vol. 1, arriving June 21st, 2025 (Summer Solstice) via Swedish experimental label Fluere Tapes.

Issued as a limited run of 50 cassettes, each adorned with hand-worked, corroded copper sheet inserts and labels, Dream Catalogue Vol. 1 feels less like a release and more like an unearthed artefact: weathered, humming, quietly alive. The materials echo the music’s exploration of fragile impermanence and erosion: oxidised metal, magnetic tape, hiss, hum. A tactile world where sound wears its decay like a patina.

Across its length, the album unfolds in a series of flickering vignettes—drifting, dissolving, reappearing. Shaped by synths, environmental recordings, tape loops, and soft drones, the pieces move like glints of light on water—never fixed, always in motion. Achingly beautiful melodies rise and vanish, tracing fragile pathways through a landscape of shifting sensations. Some moments glow with a gentle warmth, like sunlit glass or breath on a fogged mirror. Others slip into shadow: slow, submerged passages feel closer to memory than music. The album feels loose and weightless, yet dense with feeling—a presence more sensed than held.

There is no fixed narrative here—only fragments and artefacts, half-remembered places, echoes of dreams. Each track hovers just at the edge of clarity, evoking not specific stories, but moods, textures, and the quiet drift of time. It’s music that feels both intimate and remote, like overhearing a distant signal only you can understand.

The name Effective Dreaming is drawn from Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven, where a dreamer's visions alter the very fabric of reality—past and present reshaped, histories rewritten, unnoticed by all but the dreamer himself. In a similar spirit, Ross’s music inhabits a space where memory, perception, and matter blur—where each sound carries the residue of something once real, now transformed and dissolving as one drifts through the seams of the world.

Dream Catalogue Vol. 1 is a meditation on texture, transience, and the quiet resonance of what slips away.

For listeners of: Wave Temples, Dolphins Into the Future, Guenther Schlienz"

Love in the time of collectively assured techno-capitalist-nuclear holocaust! It’s the endless summer the Brits have been harping on about since they think they won the World Cup. The soundtrack is the debut album of the Content Provider; where Octatrack illbient and industrial chanson mesh in a singed postcard addressed to the UK Border Force and co-signed by aliens plucked from the petri dishes of Young Echo, Cold Light and Avon Terror Corps.
It’s a name she tried to keep anonymous, but Drowned By Locals and Bokeh Versions are breaking contract to reveal that the Content Provider is in fact the shock production alias of DALI DE SAINT PAUL. Patron saint of Bristol’s self-destructive improv idols EP/64 as well as post-feminist chamber collective Viridian Ensemble, avant-terror duo Harrga and constant collaborator with the likes of *breathe* Moor Mother, Valentina Magaletti, Mariam Rezaei, Vincent Moon, Maxwell Sterling, Ossia, Ben Vince.
And isn’t it such a strange release? And won’t people be surprised? Endless Summer is grubby and heartfelt, defiant and hopeful, with flecks of warped reggae on E-System nudging the freeform dream balladry of A Feeling and Sunday Morning, Kode9 & Spaceape-worthy dread poetry of Close Ur Eyes next to anthemic electro-crush of Overdrive. Even to those that know her well, and EVERYONE with their belly in the Bristol underground knows her, Endless Summer is a revelation. Perhaps the apex of the known Dali-verse……where her live gigs have boiled with an experimental volcanic vocal force, Endless Summer is twisted, syrupy, sultry, POP.

Moments of Solace is the introspective new EP from London-based artist, musical director, and producer Amane, released via Música Macondo.
Across six beautifully crafted tracks, Amane distills elements of ambient electronica, IDM, and jazz, creating music that evokes a deeply emotional journey through sound.

From the outset, Moments of Solace is contemplative and hypnotic, weaving together the pulse of electronic percussion, the glow of nocturnal pads, and the calming resonance of synths. Echoes fade and return like tides — forming ecstatic waves of sound that invite the listener into a space of reflection and emotional release.

For Amane, this collection serves as a creative response to a world that feels increasingly chaotic and dark — offering listeners a sonic refuge. The EP channels the ambient excursions of Boards of Canada, the rhythmic urgency of a Floating Points club set, and the cinematic sweep of night drives along the Pacific Coast Highway or meditative rides on Japan’s Shinkansen.

Despite an intense touring schedule, Amane found the time to craft this personal and globally resonant work. Moments of Solace mirrors his life experience as a nonstop traveling artist — soundtracking late nights, contemplative moments, and euphoric dance floors alike.

- Amane combines ambient textures, IDM structures, jazz influences, and club sonics into a cohesive sound.
- Inspired by artists like Boards of Canada and Floating Points.
- Reflects a global journey: from London nightlife to Pacific coastlines to Tokyo train rides.
- Released via Música Macondo, a label known for global, genre-blending innovation.

Amane is an East London-based musician, producer, and musical director whose career spans an eclectic range of genres and high-profile collaborations.

He has served as Musical Director for Little Simz, Jorja Smith, Amaarae, Ego Ella May, and Maverick Sabre; performed alongside global stars such as Ed Sheeran, Elton John, Anne-Marie, Sigrid, Dermot Kennedy, King Krule, and Ata Kak; and was a key member of the acclaimed London ensemble Maisha, whose debut was released via Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood label as part of the landmark We Out Here compilation.

In his solo work, Amane channels his deep musicality into soundscapes that reflect on the state of the world, offering listeners spaces for reflection, calmness, and emotional connection.

Hidden Sequence returns, this time to kick off a new label Magistrate, and hot on the heels of their quick-to-sell out 'Silent Roots' last year. This fresh EP seamlessly bridges classic 70s Jamaican dub with modern, bass-heavy and dubwise delights, starting with 'Isms & Schisms'. The horns are brilliantly inviting as are the low ends which have been well worked on a vast desk and come packed with echo and effects. 'Magistrates Dub' is an immediately infectious skank that shifts into a deep, dub-heavy exploration and unites past and present dub influences.