Search:x over

repress !

A single sided repress of All I Remember - hand-stamped centre with the Astrophonica Logo.

'I was introduced to Damian’s Ghost by a mutual friend and what struck me immediately was how simple and clean the tracks were. The vibe and intention was clear from the outset and ‘All I Remember’ went straight into my radio show that week. Vangelis meets Jungle. Atmospheric and drawn out but ruff with it. Delicate but weighty. There’s more too so watch this space . . .' All I Remember takes the scenic route and drifts over peaks and valleys before ascending into the stratosphere. A positive outlook for your day and beyond.

Recorded over a four-week period in early 2022, Freedom Lapse is the debut solo release of Australian multi-instrumentalist and composer Adam Halliwell. A versatile improviser and lover of performance, Halliwell has been an active contributor to numerous musical communities in recent years. The release of Freedom Lapse marks an exciting stage in Halliwell’s journey as an artist with the culmination of several important musical facets that are now becoming foundational to his practice.

As Halliwell tells us, Freedom Lapse owes its genesis to an epiphanic moment experienced whilst traversing a mountainous passage in Mexico, a place where ‘the past present and future stretch out in one place’. Entranced by this environment, its colours, the villages and local life, Halliwell listened to music that inspires him (he cites Jon Hassell here). The result: ‘complete aural, visual and spiritual completeness’, a moment of discovery, he explains. Shortly after, the material that now comprises Freedom Lapse was recorded, distilling this powerful sensorial experience into a body of music that he has now invited the world to share with him.

Throughout these recordings restrained improvised phrases and melodic ideas feature, often appearing as long refrains that soar above idiosyncratic beds of fractured percussion and junkyard bass-work. This use of contrast, which is central to the work, allows Freedom Lapse to tap the lucidity-chaos juxtapositional-style that lies at the heart of all good music in the ‘fourth-world’ idiom. Halliwell’s sensitivity to dynamics, form and narrative is potent on these recordings, which allow his winding, free-improvisations the space to unfold and extend patiently. All instruments on Freedom Lapse were written and recorded by Haliwell, with additional trumpet on Cygon Dance supplied by regular-collaborator Reuben Lewis. Freedom Lapse was mixed and produced by Halliwell and Jim Rindfleish.

London-based producer Otik releases his first album 'Cosmosis' on Martyn's label 3024. The 11-track LP signifies the fourth album on the imprint across its ten-year tenure, showcasing a more introspective side to Otik's musical output.

The album leans into delicate melodies, hazy atmospheres and lush analogue sounds, often evoking blissed-out feels and ripples of brilliant colour. Produced three years ago during lockdown, 'Cosmosis' comes after a period of spiritual struggles, where Otik questioned his faith, religious beliefs, and the concepts of right and wrong. While the pandemic allowed ample time for reflection, Otik translated these thoughts into music from his Peckham-based studio, later finding a home on 3024's evolving discography.

Following Otik's EP 'Soulo' in 2021, 'Cosmosis' marks the second release from the Bristol-born DJ and producer on 3024. This time, his sound stems from a broader palette, touching on slower, aerated ambient notes through to rugged D'n'B, displaying the far-reaching breadth, vision and maturity of Otik's aesthetic.

Keen to release a body of work that explores the journey of enlightenment and the struggles to get there, Otik drew inspiration from the luminary filmmaker Terrence Malick and how Malick portrayed ideas and philosophies in films like The Tree of Life and Voyage of Time. As a result, the record conveys a compelling narrative of rebirth, told through exquisite sound design and a push-pull pace that oscillates across the album.

The lead single 'Cosmosis' binds astral breakbeats with a star-lined melody stitched against a spacious backdrop. Sparse, celestial vocals punctuate the soundscape and add a spiritual feel, culminating in a dazzling trip at just over five minutes.

Gudu Records label continues a 2023 for the books with Dream Universe, a new four-track EP by Italian duo Hiver.

Based in Milan, Giuseppe Albrizio and Sergio Caio have spent the last decade honing a very special take on electro and machine funk, driven by the duo’s trademark basslines, glossy strings that drip with emotion and an overall utopian nature.

On Dream Universe, a “tribute to early ‘90s house and trance”, built around trance elements, acid bass and Detroit-inspired rhythms made on iconic synthesizers like the Alpha Juno, Juno 106 and the Roland 303, 909 and D-550, they pack more energy and emotion into their music than ever before, from the high-emotional vocal that defines the EP’s title track, to the raw bass hits that drive ‘Lodash’.

At this point, Hiver’s sound is so distinctive that you know one of their tracks the minute you hear it, but Dream Universe feels like the high water mark of their work to date; a duo in complete control of their craft.

We are thrilled to introduce the world to the innovative sounds of the Japanese improvisational music trio 'I-I'. Composed of three exceptionally talented musicians, Kazuhisa Uchihashi (guitar, daxophone, pedals), Mitsuhisa Sakaguchi (synthesizers, pedals) and Tatsuhisa Yamamoto (percussion). This dynamic ensemble has embarked on a remarkable musical journey with their homonymous debut album.
"There's no inspiration from others. We just played." With this raw and unfiltered approach to music, 'I-I' promises a unique listening experience. The album's overall sound and style can be described as completely improvised, devoid of any predetermined theme or content. Instead, the musicians rely on their deep understanding of each other's musicality to create spontaneous and captivating harmonies. This organic approach results in a tension-filled sound that challenges traditional norms.
In their own words, the musicians stated that there are no particular themes or messages they seek to convey through the songs. Their creative process is one of pure exploration, allowing their musical intuition to guide them.
'I-I' is the trio's debut album, marking the beginning of their musical journey as a collective.
Despite the complexities of spontaneous creation, the trio revealed that they faced no significant challenges during the album's production, making the creative process smooth and seamless."We hope you will listen to this album from the first track to the last track in order, as like 'Album-oriented music.' The trio hopes that listeners will fully immerse themselves in "I-I" by sitting down in front of their audio systems and playing it as loudly as possible. Their goal is to provide a unique and unforgettable musical experience that transcends traditional boundaries.
"I-I" is now available for listeners who crave the thrill of uncharted musical territory. Embrace the unexpected and embark on a sonic adventure with this groundbreaking debut album.

Bringing together over 50 of Jamaica's greatest session musicians, whose work spans from the birth of reggae in the late 1960s until today, Roots Architects is the largest gathering of Jamaican musical talent on one all-instrumental album. Never before have so many veterans, who helped create the immortal rhythms that made reggae internationally successful, been assembled to play on new material without vocals. This project aims to celebrate and pay tribute to the unsung heroes of reggae music: the rhythm builders or Roots Architects.

Before releasing the full album, due out April 2024, this new single gives you a taste of what's coming your way. Legends back together in Kingston studios doing what they do best: creating instrumental music all together! 'Memories of Old' pays tribute to the rocksteady era. You'll be delighted by Ernest Ranglin's guitar solo and Tyrone Downie's organ solo.

Serene, invoking imagery of darkness, sweeping soundscapes tear and twist at
the emotions. The latest album by THE ANSWER LIES IN THE BLACK VOID is a
work of magical beauty. The duo, a collaboration of Martina Horvath from avantgarde metal project Thy Catafalque and Jason Kohnen from Celestial Season,
The Lovecraft Sextet, Bong- Ra, ex- The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble, have
followed up on their 2021 debut "Forlorn" with a haunting sophomore release that
is of exceptionally high quality.
The prevalent element here is doom, but there is so much more buried deep
within the dark vaults of this compelling record. The opening song "Ataraxia" is a
deep, richly layered song, with Horvath demonstrating her stunning vocals over
the complex creativity of Kohnen, the multi- instrumentalist who takes
responsibility for everything instrument- driven here. There are crushing riffs,
harrowing passages which send shivers down the spine, and all the time the
atmosphere builds. Tendrils of darkness curl around the throat on "To Kill The
Father", with Horvath's shimmering vocals duelling with the echoing lead guitar
work.

Ladies and Gentlemen, meet Jogo Duro, a collaboration between Ilhan
Ersahin and some outstanding Sao Paulo musicians Guizado, Ze Nigro,
Samuel Fraga, Chicao & Tony Gordin who also happen to be great friends
These are players who will be familiar to those following the careers of Ceu, Otto,
Curumin, Tulipa Ruiz and the late, great Gal Costa. This record is the result of the
amount of time Ilhan has spent in Sao Paulo over the last decade due to putting
on the Nublu Jazz Fest there every year. With all the contacts, connections and
friendships formed over the course of making an annual music festival happen,
musical cross-pollination (usually simply referred to as "jams") was inevitable but
this time it was decided to do it in a studio with tape rolling rather than on stage,
which is certainly a more productive approach than merely talking about it over
beers at a local bar!
Everything happened fairly spontaneously over three days in the studio,
everybody brought songs, ideas and creative energy and before you know it an
album was born, which will be released in November after three singles come out
over the spring and summer

The Chronicles Of Father Robin ist eine norwegische Prog-Rock-Supergruppe, deren Mitglieder von den norwegischen Symphonie-Prog-Masters Wobbler, den immer undefinierbaren Tusmørke, den erfahrenen Post-Rockern The Samuel Jackson Five und dem schwer fassbaren Prog-Juwel Jordsjø stammen. 'The Songs & Tales Of Airoea', an dem seit 30 Jahren gearbeitet wird, ist ein zusammenhängendes Dreifach-Konzeptalbum mit insgesamt 18 Songs, die über einen Zeitraum von drei Jahrzehnten in einer alternativen archaischen Welt angesiedelt sind. Die erste beiden Alben, 'Book I' & 'Book II', erscheinen nun als CD und LP. Durch lange Jam-Sessions und fein abgestimmte Arrangements entwickelte die Band ein fortlaufendes System, in dem jeder Song mit den anderen verknüpft ist. Ganzheitliche Impulsivität und Ideen, altruistische Freundschaft, Musik, Fantasien und ein schlüssiges Konzept.
Beginnend mit dem sakralen und atmosphärischen Over Westwinds führt 'Book II' weiter auf eine dynamische musikalische Reise durch üppige und abwechslungsreiche Klanglandschaften, die Visionen der goldenen Ära des Progressive Rock hervorrufen. Mit dem geschmackvollen Einsatz verschiedener Instrumente wie Flöte, Mellotron und Glockenspiel und alles verpackt in einer dynamischen und organischen Produktion, sind beide Alben Juwelen, die es für jeden Fan von Progressive Rock zu entdecken gilt.
'Book III' erscheint hoffentlich zeitnah.

The legendary British artist’s first full-length collection in over five years, SHUFFLEMANIA!
has already been hailed on both sides of the Atlantic as one of the finest releases in his
inimitable canon. The album includes such new Hitchcockian favorites as “The Shuffle Man”
and “The Raging Muse,” both joined by official animated videos streaming now at YouTube.
Recorded in locations around the world over the pandemic era, SHUFFLEMANIA! offers up
ten gloriously ingenious new Robyn Hitchcock songs in just under 40 minutes - a “proper
pop album” as nature intended.
“Robyn Hitchcock’s first album since 2017 is thronged with actual humans - among them
Johnny Marr, Soft Boys compadres Kimberley Rew and Morris Windsor, Sean Ono Lennon
and Brendan Benson. None of them crowd out Hitchcock’s distinctive songwriting though,
nor his undimmed ability to reach through the existential murk and grasp a revelation or
two.” – MOJO

The eyes cannot see without varying the perception.

Thought dwells over rapid, constant change.

There is no moment in which any power of the soul remains the same; senses and faculties in their nature instinctively stimulate the alteration of the state.

No simplicity at any given time, nor identity at different times.

Distinct scenes make their appearance, pass and repass, slip and mix with an infinite variety of attitudes and situations: the mind opens the curtain, becoming theatre.

The Fall's fourth studio album Perverted by Language was released in 1983. The album was produced by the band's vocalist and songwriter Mark E. Smith and recorded at various studios in Manchester.

Perverted by Language features some of The Fall's most renowned tracks, including "Garden". The album's sound is characterized by its sharp and angular post-punk guitar riffs, driven by a heavy bass and drums rhythm section, all layered with Mark E. Smith's distinctive vocals.

Lyrically, Perverted by Language deals with themes of alienation, disorder, and the unpredictability of modern life. Smith's idiosyncratic and cryptic wordplay, including his penchant for inventing new words and phrases, adds to the album's overall sense of unease and dislocation.

Despite its challenging sound and lyrics, Perverted by Language is considered by many critics and fans to be one of The Fall's finest albums, showcasing the band at their creative and innovative peak. The album is available as a limited edition of 1500 individually numbered copies on pink coloured vinyl and includes an insert.

When Leo Pesci submitted his outstanding nujazz LP, ‘Impolite’ to Jo at Ramrock Records, there was absolutely no hesitation in saying ‘yes please’ to his refreshing, contemporary collection of tracks which aim to transcend the limitations of genre and speak out on matters that are unpalatable and difficult to swallow. Leo addresses current global issues such as politics and corruption, climate change and overpopulation, capitalism and the misery it brings to society, but also toxic masculinity and relationships.

This is Leo’s first new release since his highly acclaimed EP ‘Community’ in 2021, which featured well-known artists of the London jazz scene like Jas Kayser, Ella Knight, Nicola Guida, Johnny Woodham, Simon JNR and Dani Diodato amongst others. ‘Impolite’ continues


to steer the listener through Jazz, HipHop, Soul, Alternative R&B and Rap with some exceptional collaborations featuring 15 different jazz/hip hop artists including Jackson Mathod, Moeazy, John Swana, Dylan Jones, Jay Phelps and Tendayi to name but a few.

After the fall of the Deep City label, Rocketeers bandleader Frank Williams set up shop under the name of his twin daughters Saadia and Giwada and got to work reinventing the Miami Sound. Tracked between 1968-1970, this LP gathers 15 of Saadia's funkiest and deeply soulful moments, featuring Pearl Dowell, Joey Gilmore, Little Beaver, Frank Williams' Rocketeers, Robert Moore, Brother Williams, and Sam Baker. Your next sample, first dance, workout jam or closing credits is buried in here somewhere.

Super Funky Forest Green and Blue Splatter Vinyl.

After the fall of the Deep City label, Rocketeers bandleader Frank Williams set up shop under the name of his twin daughters Saadia and Giwada and got to work reinventing the Miami Sound. Tracked between 1968-1970, this LP gathers 15 of Saadia's funkiest and deeply soulful moments, featuring Pearl Dowell, Joey Gilmore, Little Beaver, Frank Williams' Rocketeers, Robert Moore, Brother Williams, and Sam Baker. Your next sample, first dance, workout jam or closing credits is buried in here somewhere.

An autumnal treasure, East Village’s Drop Out has spent the past thirty years finding new ears to bewitch and new hearts to melt. The only album from this British four-piece, recorded and released in the early nineties, it’s long been considered one of the hidden jewels of its time, and is talked of with hushed reverence by people who know. Bob Stanley of Saint Etienne once called it “an elegy for a particular brand of eighties guitar music, sweet minor chords and Dylanesque lyrics”, which captures what makes it so special; in summarising its era, though, it also effortlessly transcends it.

Like all great guitar gangs, East Village fell together as a four-piece; having relocated from High Wycombe to London in mid ‘80s, brothers Martin and Paul Kelly on bass and guitar, set on forming a group together, were joined by John Wood (guitar) and Spencer Smith (drums). Wood and the Kellys shared writing and vocal duties; it was an ideal combination, and one of the many charms of East Village is their various song writing voices, a tip of the hat, seemingly, to the 60s folk-rock groups who influenced them.

Originally influenced by garage-rock and freakbeat, the band eventually came through via the same scene as groups like Felt, The Go-Betweens, The Weather Prophets, and Primal Scream. They’d formed as Episode Four, releasing an EP, Strike Up Matches, in 1986, which has gone on to become one of most sought after releases of the C86 era. Their first two singles as East Village, ‘Cubans In The Bluefields’ (1987) and ‘Back Between Places’ (1988), were released on Jeff Barrett’s Sub Aqua label.

When it came time to record Drop Out, East Village found a supporter in Bob Stanley, who bankrolled the album sessions until Barrett re-signed the band to his new imprint Heavenly Recordings in 1990. The album that took shape is dusky, heartfelt, lamplit, full of chiming minor chords, close harmonies, rattling organs, all buoyed by a rhythm section that moves as one, steady and elegant. There’s melancholy here, certainly, on songs like ‘What Kind Of Friend Is This’, but also pleasure and freedom, on ‘When I Wake Tomorrow’ and ‘Silver Train’. The group were obsessed with Dylan’s Eat The Document at the time, and the album’s rich with references to the film; Drop Out’s character is also somehow close to the thin wild mercury sound of Blonde On Blonde, and the lambent light of the Byrds’ Notorious Byrd Brothers.

In one of life’s gentler surprises, ‘Silver Train’ became an unexpected radio hit in Australia when released there as a single in 1993. The story of East Village seems marked by such unexpected turns and surprising events. None was more surprising for their fans at the time, though, than their onstage split in 1991, leaving an unreleased album in the can. Encouraged by Jeff Barrett the band revisited the tapes two years on and while mixing the album for its posthumous release in 1993 invited Debsey Wykes (Dolly Mixture, Coming Up Roses, Saint Etienne, Birdie) to sing the quietly devastating album closer, “Everybody Knows”, a perfect, sad-eyed sign-off.

Listening now to Drop Out, its timelessness is clear. It could have been recorded by young folk-pop hopefuls in the late sixties, taking their shot at the big time; but it could just as easily have been recorded yesterday, by a group that’s both reverent to music’s past, but forward looking in spirit and temperament. It’s that kind of album. Drop Out’s pop poetry is fully formed, with a singular charm that takes in wistfulness, romance, and good times, and a clutch of deeply moving songs that are overflowing with melody and gracefulness. It’s pretty much everything you’d want from a guitar pop record.

It's also an album that’s slowly accrued its own legend. From its stunning cover art, photographed by Juergen Teller originally for a Katherine Hammett campaign, to the ten perfectly formed songs within, Drop Out’s significance in the scheme of things is such that, a decade ago, it was given a rare 10/10 rating in Uncut magazine, who called the album “the lost classic of its era”. Drop Out comes round every decade or so, each edition introducing new fans to its understated beauty, and this latest reissue is its most elegant and deluxe yet.

The 30th anniversary edition of Drop Out lands in two formats: an LP with tip-on style jacket and four-page insert, designed to partner with the 2019 vinyl reissue of their singles and rarities compilation, Hot Rod Hotel; and a double CD, featuring an extra disc compiling the group’s early singles and alternative versions. This CD edition previously has only been available in Japan, though it now features a new, superior mix of their second single, ‘Back Between Places’. Both feature new, typically eloquent liner notes from writer Jon Savage.

The members of East Village have all gone on to do inspired things: Martin Kelly joined Jeff Barrett at Heavenly and has managed label mainstays Saint Etienne since 1993; Paul Kelly formed Birdie with Debsey Wykes, and is now a renowned film director and graphic designer; both Paul and Spencer Smith played in Saint Etienne’s live band; John Wood moved to China to teach, and released a lovely, understated folk album, Quiet Storm, in Japan in 2006. But with the hazy perfection of Drop Out, they’ve all already etched their names in the firmament.

‘Cull Portal’ was an idea that came to life during Sydney’s 2nd lockdown in 2021 when the world was in limbo and time felt like it was standing still.
It’s an exploration of modal harmony and improvisation, extrapolated over the course of the eight tracks. Woozing analog synths, grand piano, live drums and Jeremy Rose’s tenor sax set the tone for this fusion spiritual jazz/ electronic release. Cull Portal definitely nod’s its head to the past while intrinsically pushes the genre forward at the same time.
“I set myself the task of writing something as economical as possible that slowly unfolds into larger, more complex structures. The seed idea started as a solo piano piece, which later formed as ‘Cull pt II’ and from a two chord modal vamp. The rest of the album grew organically from there.
The live instrumentation you hear on this album was recorded remote during lockdown and is a true testament to the abilities of the performers, especially Jeremy Rose who brought so much life to the parts.
I was fortunate enough to record the original Yamaha CS-80 (The synth made famous in the cult classic Bladerunner score by Vangelis) down at MESS in Melbourne for the album, once the borders re-opened and we were allowed to travel again.”

A discreet but essential figure in the field of musical creation, Horacio Vaggione has been crafting an ambitious, precise and highly significant body of work for over the last fifty years, coupled with a demanding research activity. This disc offers four purely electroacoustic pieces which illustrate, each in their own way, this singular and fascinating grammar developed by Horacio Vaggione, a complex but fertile grammar which establishes a very special relationship between structure and texture, between matter and formula, to create a fascinating musical space, made up of polyphonies and metamorphoses. (François Bonnet, Paris, 2022)

--

«Schall» (1994), 07’30

Schall exclusively uses piano sounds sampled and processed with various digital techniques. The sound palette focuses on several shapes of various sizes which reiterate, altered to varying degrees, throughout the process. The granular paradigm is clearly assumed here, as is also that of the interactions between various temporal scales. Basically, there is a concern for the articulation of micro-events. The piece essentially plays with low-intensity frames, composed of various planes and punctuated by stronger objects, in a kind of polyphonic dialogue between proximity and distance. (H. V.)

«Rechant» (1995), 15’51

Initially, a few brief sounds of instrumental origin — percussions, flutes, strings. Processed by means of various digital techniques, projected on various temporal scales, analyzed and re-synthesized, worked in their parts (in their saliences), articulated in their edges as well as in their interactions, these sounds show, as Bachelard would say, «pluralism under identity». I thus tried to compose morphologies by targeting properties contained in the material and by projecting them on temporal perspectives of all sizes. The title, an allusion to the old polyphonic technique, refers to the iterative content of these morphologies as well as to the modalities of their interweaving. (H. V.)

«24 Variations» (2001), 09’50

The word «variations» applies here to the morphological transformations of the material, as well as to the various contexts in which these transformations appear. The result can be heard as a continuous interaction between sound particles of different sizes, composed of several layers, reflecting a preoccupation with detailed articulation spanning different time scales. (H. V.)

«Gymel» (2002), 09’25

In Gymel I tried to compose a space-trajectory using layered sounds, produced by morphological operations (splits, clusterings) that spread out from location to location in variously dense objects. The space was treated through phase-decorrelation, a technique which I use extensively, both to create spaces and to locate sounds and movements within a polyphonic (stratified) context. (H. V.)

In keeping with tradition, the new year brings another offering from Portuguese pianist and composer Tiago Sousa. »Organic Music Tapes Vol. 3,« the third instalment in Tiago’s ongoing series, continues to develop a freeform dual approach to organic and fluid compositions for Piano and Organ - this time adding a real church tube organ to the proceedings.

Evolving from the foundation laid in the first two volumes, Sousa introduces the pipe organ into his signature piano compositions, expanding his sonic palette into an even more otherworldly organic realm.

Much like its predecessors, »Organic Music Tapes Vol.3« immerses listeners in a nebulous sonic landscape, where the compositions exist in a nebulae-like state— eternally floating over stars and planets. The contours of these musical pieces are indefinite and indeterminate, refusing to settle or conform, a testament to Sousa's commitment to pushing the boundaries of traditional minimalism while still paying respect to the American pioneers of the genre, such as Terry Riley and Steve Reich.

Enter then the third volume and be locked in a new theatre of eternal music by an artists that keeps pushing his own style to ebullient highs.

"Over the past five years I’ve seen the darkness and now I’ve come to the light. I’ve learnt wisdom. It’s humbling to see where I’ve come from.”
The past half decade has seen Unknown T establish himself as among the most creative and authentic voices in British Rap. A string of seminal singles and mixtapes have pushed, and then shattered, the musical boundaries of UK Drill, his distinct voice offering stark yet poetic accounts of life in the overlooked corners of London. Now, he is ready to release his debut album Blood Diamond. 13-tracks long, Blood Diamond is a vivid journey into his mind, spirt and history, illuminating on the trials, traumas and triumphs he has met along the way. “It’s not easy to come through what I’ve been through, and making something out of it,” he says, “It’s a good feeling coming out of that environment and seeing what I’ve made possible.”"

* Lou Reed's final solo album finally available again * First time on vinyl * Produced in partnership with Laurie Anderson and the Lou Reed Archive * Booklet features unseen photography by Lou, Q&A with Laurie Anderson & Jonathan Cott, essay by Eddie Stern, and archival interviews with Lou and Hal Willner * Remastered by GRAMMYr-nominated engineer John Baldwin * Package designed by multi-GRAMMYr-winning artist Masaki Koike // "I first composed this music for myself as an adjunct to meditation, Tai Chi, and bodywork, and as music to play in the background of life, to replace the everyday cacophony with new and ordered sounds of an unpredictable nature. New sounds freed from preconception. ...over time, friends who heard the music asked if I could make them copies. I then wrote two more pieces with the same intent: to relax the body, mind, and spirit and facilitate meditation." - Lou Reed Light in the Attic Records in cooperation with Laurie Anderson and the Lou Reed Archive, proudly announces a definitive re-release of Hudson River Wind Meditations, the pioneering artist's final solo album. Originally released in 2007, the deeply personal project combines Reed's love of creating drone music with his passion for Tai Chi, yoga and meditation. The album's ambient soundscapes have been described as a counterpoint to his intense Metal Machine Music album-but they are similar outliers in Reed's 40+ year exploration of drone music and feedback harmonics. The album has been remastered by the GRAMMYr-nominated engineer John Baldwin with vinyl pressed at Record Technology Inc. (RTI). The Double LP set is presented in a gatefold jacket designed by GRAMMYr-winning artist, Masaki Koike and features new liner notes by renowned Yoga instructor and author, Eddie Stern, who guided Reed's practice for years. Also included in the physical editions is a fascinating conversation conducted earlier this year between author/journalist Jonathan Cott (Rolling Stone, The New Yorker) and Reed's wife, artist Laurie Anderson, who discusses the album, as well as her husband's devotion to Tai Chi - one of the album's primary inspirations. Hudson River Wind Meditations marks the latest release in LITA's Lou Reed Archival Series. Launched in 2022 in tandem with the late artist's 80th birthday, the ongoing series has celebrated one of America's most influential songwriters through such acclaimed collections as Words & Music, May 1965 featuring many of Reed's earliest (and previously-unreleased) recordings, including the earliest-known versions of "I'm Waiting for the Man" and "Pale Blue Eyes."

Back in stock - limited numbers. Note new price. As with the second volume, the original of this release suffered from limited distribution and despite the valiant efforts of band members to promote the album, literally travelling around the UK's record shops with boxes of LPs, the original release sold in very limited numbers. It has justifiably become one of the most sought after and expensive British reggae LPs and one where the music more than lives up to expectations. Black Symbol provided other local Handsworth based bands with the opportunity to record their songs properly in the well equipped Outlaw Studio and then gave them the platform of this album with each band getting two tracks to showcase their talent. This album lifts the lid on a scene that was overflowing with talent and yet rarely documented

Who said industrial was dead?

One of the freshest acts to come to light over the last few years.

Praised by Manu Le Malin, supported by many since.

The French prodigy RaBBeAT got to be on our radar ever since Manu told Tripped to check him out back in 2021.

The ultimate result is A 4 track, kick drum heavy EP sounding straight from hell.
Doomy soundscapes, lots of distortion and reverb, including a Tripped remix.

What's not to like?

Happy to be the first ones to press Julien and his signature sound on a 12" record, and he's just getting started.

Of the standards, there are two lengthy versions of Johnny Green's "Body and
Soul", Kenny Dorham's "BlueBossa", Thelonious Monk's "Round Midnight", and
Billy Strayhorn's "Take The A Train". To listeners not that familiar with Henderson's
playing, he brings new life to these often-overplayed jazz standards.

New album by Gonçalo F Cardoso's Hannibal Chew moniker.

Tenerife, 2054: The parrots of a local zoo inexplicably go mad, spreading a deadly virus that only affects humans. Unable to contain the disease, authorities were forced to isolate the island completely, sealing its fate in a perpetual quarantine.

Over time, the island transformed into a sanctuary for wildlife that now roams freely across its territories. Orcas and dolphins claimed the surrounding waters, while gorillas found their home in the mountains around Teide, once a popular tourist destination. The population of parrots and birds multiplied, filling the air with a cacophony of colours and sounds.

The remaining humans on the island adapted to their new reality, living in isolated communities and learning to survive in a world where they are the minority. Meanwhile, the virus continues its advance in the outside world, pushing humanity to the brink of extinction.

Following their contribution to the 2022 International Women’s Day compilation, and a co-production credit on “Dreaming is Essential” by Byron Yeates, Eoin DJ drops their first release on Radiant Records, Total Body. The 4-track EP is replete with mind-bending, lustrous tracks waiting to be spun out to sweatbox dancefloors.

“Total Body” invites movement from its first seconds. Layers and layers of snares, shakers and rhythmic synth stabs build tension before the pulse of a rolling bassline cements the elements into a cohesive hard house groove. Fragments and chops of sensx’s vocals wrap in and around the sonic field, leaving wisps of reverb and echo in their wake before repeating the track’s Total Body mantra in the breakdown. The result is a lushly-scored density of sound, with a relentless stomp that never feels overcrowded or too heavy.

Angel D’lite’s remix takes a more skeletal approach to “Total Body”: a snare and clap march beneath chiming vocal stabs, rumbling low end and rolling breakbeats, flipping the original into a modern bass-heavy hybrid number. The rhythmic synth from the original, reversed and efex’d, ushers us in, and then out of the track, around extra bass stabs and pitch shifted “Total Body” chops.

On the B side, “Ultra Soft” lifts off with a firm kick and a rolling 3-note bassline. Despite the title, the track hits harder than “Total Body” and sings with Eoin DJ signatures: swirling funnels of processed vocals, rich, ear-itching textures, stripped back percussion and rave-ready samples are sprinkled with 303s, to create a track that sits comfortably with both classic trance and techno and contemporary “Progressive” dance music.

The EP’s closer, a remix of “Ultra Soft” by Byron Yeates, compresses the astrally-inclined scale of the original track into shining slices of sound. A playful, chiming melody starts off the track alongside the kick, working through precise grooves, knife-sharp snares, a throbbing bass and chopped-up, smokey vocals. The result: 6 minutes of total embodiment from the Radiant Records boss.

Number 4 in the Bad Timin' series is here, featuring a quartet of shovel-ready tunes perfect for ur club set, radio show or gym session. Let the gains begin... Six months in the making, the "Sound Man" (aka Jex Opolis) spent the extended winter slumped in his studio crafting these tunes... "Pneumatic" builds pressure with crunchy synth riffs, while "Molecools" drops slide guitar over some proggy breaks. Filling out the EP are two mixes of "Catalytic," a tune that came to life after the muffler on Jexy's 2003 Toyota went kaput.

70's Movie Hits Collected is a compilation of Coloured Vinyl, High Quality, Insert 33 pop tracks released as 2-LP on 15 Dec 2023. 70's Movie Hits Collected includes a.o. the following tracks: “Giorgio Moroder - Chase (from "midnight Express")”, “Mick Jagger - Memo From Turner (from "performance")”, “Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells (from "the Exorcist")”, “Isaac Hayes - Theme From "shaft" (from "shaft")” and more.

repress

As EarToGround Records hits its seminal tenth release we have decided to go all out sonically and visually.

As you all know Dax has been a core member of EarToGround right from the beginning. It all began with his and Chris Stanford's jointly produced track 'Programm' on ETG001.

From then on in he has worked tirelessly at his East London studio, climbing through the ranks to become the very respected and some would say inspirational producer he is now. Over the last year he has very much honed in and developed his now unique sound and recently released on much respected, high quality labels such as Deeply Rooted.

You could say his own EP on ETG has been a long time coming but we like to think ETG010 is what he has been building up to, some of his best work to date. We will let you decide

3 new solid, hook heavy, DJ and dancefloor friendly tracks from Dax as well as 2 centralized locked grooves and additional, extremely slick remix work from ARTS label boss 'Emmanuel'...

Black vinyl. Internal textured black inner sleeve. External textured white outer sleeve. 2 ETG Invader Stickers. Again the artwork is Space related. The theme this time pays homage to what can arguably be called one of the best modern SYFY films ever made.

Music For Dreams are proud to announce the release of Jacob Gurevitsch’ new album El Terreno. It is the fourth LP from the Danish guitarist with the Spanish guitar, whose world of misty, Mediterranean romance is charming listeners all over the world.

El Terreno is named after the neighborhood in Palma, Mallorca, in which Gurevitsch wrote it over the past couple of years. The tranquility and beauty of this setting is reflected in the music: eight songs of Gurevitsch’ Spanish guitar meandering through the cobblestone streets, idling on town squares frozen in the afternoon sun, drifting on the perfumed evening air.

Two special guests feature on the album. On ‘For Your Love’ the legendary Cuban jazz trumpetist Arturo Sandoval is invited to play along. And on ‘Santa Teresa’ the esteemed Danish rock singer Annisette lends her characteristic smoky phrases to the drama. Throughout the album, Gurevitsch’ Spanish guitar is accompanied by a band of drums, percussion, bass and keyboards.

Driving weirdo techno, warm melodic acid and daring sound experiments - Killekill welcomes a new duo on board: SKEW & SATIRIST are Max Cooper and Gareth Williams who met in the Not- tingham, UK club scene in the early 00s, living together for a number of years, leading to an effec- tive collaboration.
Max learnt production from sitting and watching Gareth in the studio, Max helped show Gareth the way with his DJing. Both became successful in their solo projects, Max as a regular guest
on stages all over the world, Gareth starting a music technology business with partners such as Richie Hawtin, John Acquaviva or Daniel Miller.
Over the years the musical collaboration between the two friends has continued in the background and they've finally found the time to bring it to fruition and start this project for their darker, more extreme and twisted techno which has been lying dormant over the years.

SPRINTS' debut album ‘Letter to Self' embodies their substantial evolution over the past 3 years. Transforming pain into truth, passion into purpose and perseverance into strength, the Dublin four-piece have steadily grown in stature, releasing two acclaimed EPs and building a fearsome live reputation.

'Letter to Self' is the sound of SPRINTS consolidating and levelling up. Exhibiting their most vulnerable moments and imbuing their visceral garage-punk with a palpable sense of catharsis that we can all benefit from.

Inspired by Savages, their sound matured into energetic and abrasive garage-punk, synthesising influences ranging from early Pixies, Bauhaus, Siouxsie Sioux, IDLES and LCD Soundsystem.

Hailed as "one of the great, overlooked records of 1998," by the new york times, this worldwide debut of the angolan artist waldemar bastos was recorded and produced by arto lindsay and david byrne in new york. Its title, which means "blacklight" in portuguese, is a hint to the powerful sorrow the music holds: pretaluz is an elegiac response to the angolan civil war, drawing on influences near and far like the fado, semba, zouk, and morna, to create indelible songs. "with his dramatic pauses and dynamic vibrato rising above subtle rhythms picked out on nylon-string guitars, everything mr. bastos sings emerges as a lament of enormous sadness," wrote the times. now on vinyl for the very first time, this limited 25th anniversary edition of pretaluz is a contender for the best-sounding record on luaka bop.

Following the release of the first volume of Music 4 Tesla last April, Kaba and Hyas (ex-residents of Le Sucre & Rinse FM) continue their musical exploration between rap and UKG/electronic music, going even further on volume 2.

While the influences already present on the first album are still present: UK Garage, Acid House, Ghetto House and 2step, Kaba and Hyas experiment with new sounds. Incisive flow is joined by more sung, almost r&b vocals (10 Machines, Facts, Coup du sort), new textures with crunchy sounds (Mood 4 A Classic), and sampling (Lick It).

The 7 tracks that make up "Music 4 Tesla Vol.2", including a featuring with Detroit trio HiTech (the latest signing to Omar-S's label), are a blend of pervasive house influences and bouncy basslines borrowed from the sounds of funk. Over the course of 20 minutes, they depict a captivating gradation of festive ambiences, proving once again that the marriage of rap and house is definitely made to last.

After a first festival tour, including a notable appearance at Grünt in September, the Kaba x Hyas duo will be in concert at Point Éphémère on December 16, 2023.

The British progressive rock band Quatermass existed from 1969 until 1971, during those days they released one album, the self-titled Quatermass. The trio, which formed as a power trio with Hammond organ as the main instrument, consisted of bass player and vocalist John Gustafson, keyboardist J. Peter Robinson and Mick Underwood on drums. They keyboard-driven album gained a cult status during the years and received a lot of credits from both critics as prog rock fans. This overlooked masterpiece rocks every moment, sometimes in a funky way and other times in the strength of their heavy sound. The most rock-ish song here is “Black Sheep Of The Family”, later covered by Rainbow on their first album. Progressive parts of the album features surprising time shifts and unique sounds, which gives both lovers of rock as metal the thrills.

Following the release of his Running Wild album, Grieves let loose a flurry of new music, surprising and delighting fans with fresh new singles each week. He was able to express his growth and hunger in this new work, as the content and production ranged from light-hearted and jazzy to intense and introspective. After releasing a string of five standalone singles he compiled them all onto one sensational project with three additional unreleased tracks, and introduced it as The Collections of Mr. Nice Guy.

The Collections of Mr. Nice Guy showcased a wide range of Grieves lyrical expression, as well as his production talents. On “Perspective”, Grieves waxes about the hypocritical standards musicians often face, while “Let The Devil In” addresses the demons he grapples with personally, rapping: “That shadow on my shoulder weighs a ton, y’all pretend like my experi- ence with hell was just for fun (nah).” On the lighter side, Grieves invites Chris Webby to trade bars back & forth on “Man Down”, where the pair go on to skewer less-than-stellar MCs holding space in the industry. Meanwhile, “I’ll Be Better” delivers a melan- choly reflection on the tropes of heartbreak, letting go of the old and making room for the new. At once, The Collections of Mr. Nice Guy stands at the intersection of all things fans that have historically drawn fans to Grieves—truthful and relatable lyricism over soulful synths and drums.

The British progressive rock band Quatermass existed from 1969 until 1971, during those days they released one album, the self-titled Quatermass. The trio, which formed as a power trio with Hammond organ as the main instrument, consisted of bass player and vocalist John Gustafson, keyboardist J. Peter Robinson and Mick Underwood on drums. They keyboard-driven album gained a cult status during the years and received a lot of credits from both critics as prog rock fans. This overlooked masterpiece rocks every moment, sometimes in a funky way and other times in the strength of their heavy sound. The most rock-ish song here is “Black Sheep Of The Family”, later covered by Rainbow on their first album. Progressive parts of the album features surprising time shifts and unique sounds, which gives both lovers of rock as metal the thrills.

Repress

PoleGroup presents the CD mix series Unknown Landscapes: a compilation of unreleased tracks, mixed and compiled by a member of the PoleGroup platform.

To make up the first volume, Oscar Mulero has selected 16 previously unreleased tracks out of over 50 titles by 35 different artists. Besides tracks by Reeko, Spherical Coordinates, Exium, Christian Wunsch and Oscar Mulero, the tracklist includes works by many new faces at the label, such as DVS1, Developer, Pfirter, Jonas Kopp and Spanish talents Tadeo, NX1 and the most recent newcomer to the PoleGroup platform: Kwartz.

With this new mix series, PoleGroup invites you to discover a powerful selection of unreleased tracks from high-quality techno producers, all mixed by Oscar Mulero in an almost 70 minutes long compilation.

An extra feature about this mix series is that the selector chooses a maximum of 4 tracks from the mix CD that will be exclusively released on vinyl.
For this edition Oscar Mulero has chosen tracks from DVS1, Reeko, Adam X and Kwartz.

PoleGroup020CD - Unknown Landscapes/ Mix Vol. 1 is to be released on November 21.
PoleGroup021 - Unknown Landscapes 1 - EP, (vinyl and individual track download) is to be released on December 12.

Buzz Fuzz, a.k.a. Mark Vos, is considered one of the most prominent DJs and producers in the international hardcore scene for over 30 years. He started his deejay career in 1987, mixing hiphop and swingbeat at the Zorba in Amsterdam. In 1991, he became inspired by a live performance of The Prophet and decided to focus solely on hardcore house. Within a few years, Buzz Fuzz became a headliner on festivals like Hellraiser, Thunderdome, Dance Valley and Multigroove.

Together with DJ Dano, The Prophet and DJ Gizmo he formed the infamous “Dreamteam”, and in both 1997 and 1998 he was named
‘Best Hardcore/House Producer.

A selection of his best tunes, including “XTC Love” and “Jealousy Is A MF”, are compiled on the album Hardcore Legends, which is part of the brand-new series by Be Yourself Music, focusing on groundbreaking and essential artists in the Hardcore scene. The album features the brand-new remix of “XTC Love” by Dither, which was presented during Dither’s DJ set at Thunderdome 2022 in Utrecht (NL).

Known for his viral video series Sexta dos Crias, Ramon Sucesso is a virtuosic DJ who crushes, reimagines, and rearranges songs to such a degree that the original tracks become virtually unrecognisable. He has turned his controller into a particle accelerator, creating firework-like bursts of classic funk carioca samples, his own productions, mainstream tracks, nonsense TikTok sound bites, and tons of his trademark beat bolha. All contained within an unparalleled, mischievously non-linear rhythmic flow.

‘Ramon’s social network profiles are as outrageously unpredictable as his mixes. He posts interactive emoji games, bountiful fast-food feasts with his family, comments about the Flamengo football team, and videos of him playing FIFA. He has a prolifically restless mind, constantly riffing and improvising; he does whatever it takes to get by, to navigate the reality of life in Brazil and overcome the daunting challenges of the music industry.

‘Sexta dos Crias is the culmination of Ramon’s DJ work. A LP that embodies the newest in funk carioca, a faithful transposition of the bailes to vinyl. Ramon has unpretentiously ushered in a new age of experimentation for the genre – making a daring and unprecedented foray into a territory where extreme and radical sounds abound.’

Epic, grooving, dazzlingly creative, perfectly attuned blends of complex mbalax drumming, field recordings, thumping kick-drum, and cosmic, bubbling, jamming synths and electronics.

The opening is suitably liminal, haunted by a diachronic sense of times past, present, and to come: ancestral ghosts, scratched playback, scraps of old recordings, voices strangulated or just out of range; puttering drums; futuristic, kosmische keys. Part II picks up the pace; III gives the drummers some, and heightens the atmosphere of enchantment. Jon Hassell’s Fourth World music courses through a kind of Dream Theory In Dakar.

Toco SOS, the second side, is a thumping, throbbing, mesmeric future-classic; perfect for fahr’n fahr’n fahr’n on the Autobahn… in a spacecraft. Expert hand percussion, call-and-response singing, bin-trembling foot-drum, spaceways keys. Sleekly funky as prime Popol Vuh.

Both sides range expansively by way of Berlin, where Lamin resided for a few years: you can hear something of T++’s brilliant, landmark HJ record on the A, and elements of Mark Ernestus’ crucial Ndagga project, on the B.

Half an hour of stunning music; in a beautiful sleeve, with mirror lettering, and an intricate spot-gloss rendition of salt crystals, laid over a photograph of the salt mines at Lac Rose, outside Dakar.

Northern Minimalism 3, the latest album from Mat Handley performing as Pulselovers, is a deeply personal “love letter to South Yorkshire, or at least to Doncaster and Sheffield”, not just the urban environment but the region’s post-punk and electronic-pop legacies.

Inspired by the concept of spreading a project over multiple formats taken from Virgin Prunes’ ‘A New Form of Beauty’, this is the first full album in Pulselovers’ on-going ‘Northern Minimalism’ series following a 7” and 10” release on other labels over the past few years.

Taking a different approach than the rurally-inspired ‘Cotswold Stone’ album, ‘Northern Minimalism 3’ delivers a sprawling, genre-hopping release that is less focused on melody but explores suburban drones and industrial rhythms.

“The term “Northern Minimalism” was coined by Simon Berkovitz of Sensory Leakage, who released my “Live at Doncaster College” tape in 2020,” adds Handley.

“I loved the description and wanted to use it to pay tribute to the early electronic and post-punk sounds I was listening to in the first two or three years of the 1980s, particularly The Human League (mk1), Cabaret Voltaire, John McGeoch (Magazine) and Eric Random.”

Lyra Valenza set the tone for their first full-length album ‘Low Gear No Pressure’ with an idyllic ambience, which then tumbles into feisty, heartfelt dance workouts. Across eight tracks, the Danish duo explore the pixellated euphoria of their previous ‘Scan, Deliver’ and ‘Nightshade Edition’ EPs with a more focused sensitivity. At the start of 2020, Lyra Valenza had been freshly nominated by music platform SHAPE. With the pandemic in hand, however, plans changed: instead of playing a slew of festivals, the duo spent weeks in a summer house in rural Sjælland, right at Denmark’s North Eastern coast, making early versions of the tracks in this album. ‘Low Gear No Pressure’ refers to the unusual calmness of that time, away from music industry stress and burnout; inspired by friendship. More than previous EPs, the album is shaped by the duo’s live set, which they’ve been performing in Denmark and Europe for many years now. The album breezes through different modes with confidence and ease, tracks morphing fluidly into one another to create a cohesive listening experience. A cool, expansive breakbeat on track two, ‘True Computer’, hints at the psychoactive journey to follow. ‘Truthwork’ plays with arps over a half time groove: subtle synths which reach their final form in ‘Joy Divided’. These agile swells and drops recall peers-in-precision Minor Science and 96 Back. On the flip, ‘Gameshow’ looks back over one shoulder to eurodance, while ‘Life on the Line’ goes out to the soulful junglists, but with a touches of trance in the samplework. On ‘Who Might Win’, the album’s ecstatic hyperactiveness melts into a slo-mo heartbeat, reminding us there’s a chillout room somewhere in the building. And just when we think it’s time to go home, the album gifts us with “one more tune”, and the soaring pop vocals of featured artist Saltmother on ‘Stretch Your Arms’.

Melanie Martinez’s debut album “Cry Baby” has remarkably kept growing in stature since its 2015 release, now approaching its high-water mark of 1 BILLION global audio streams for the second consecutive year. The RIAA recently re-certified the record at 2x platinum, in large part due to TikTok trending moments for several of the album’s tracks. These trending moments, occurring over the course of 2020-1, most notably included the digital bonus cut “Play Date,” which became a TikTok phenomenon and is now Melanie’s most popular song with over 700M streams.
On this expanded deluxe edition, “Play Date” and 2 additional digital bonus tracks (“Teddy Bear” and “Cake”) are – for the first time – added to the original, standard vinyl album. These songs were only previously available on vinyl on the now out-of-print, limited edition Extra Clutter EP from 2016.
With an expanded booklet featuring 3 new illustrations for the 3 bonus tracks, this deluxe edition will be the one, primary Cry Baby vinyl product moving forward.

Repress!

For those who know, Bambooman is one of the most sought-after, probing, and distinctive voices in UK electronic music right now.

The Yorkshire-born producer's catalogue builds into an aural mosaic, comprising everything from scrunched up hip-hop to techno deviance, all delivered with an impish sense of individuality.
'Whispers' certainly resonates. It's a lengthy, bucolic work, an album of great breadth but also one of sustained mood – think those hazy summer evenings when shadows stretch out across the road, and autumn lingers around the corner.

This new album has a dusty, organic, and decidedly personal feel, much more at home with Jon Hassel's 'fourth world' aesthetic than the club.

The results are also imbued with an incredible sense of mystery, with Bambooman's productions frequently being shot through with a hallucinatory sense of the uncanny. Entirely self-composed, 'Whispers' utilises "lots of field recordings that I've collected over the last few years, while within the tracks you can find lots of the instruments, percussion, bells and whistles that have been gathered throughout my life."

In certain ways 'Whispers' is entirely autobiographical: Bambooman reaches back to his varied alter egos, to the ambient releases, art commissions, and soundtrack projects that litter his discography. The cover art was even pieced together by Oliver Pitt – of Glasgow group Golden Teacher – who was an early ally in the producer's sonic quest.

Stylistically 'Whispers' veers from avant hip-hop of Flying Lotus to the theoried composition of Terry Riley, from the future-forward percussive energy of Battles to the ever-evolving electronics of Mark Pritchard. It's a record marks by a fiercely independent spirit, but also by a close-knit cast of collaborators.

King Kashmere takes a starring turn, following the pair's collision on the recent 'SUPERGOD' EP.

Each vocal is recorded, chopped up and then spliced across the album, with Elsa Hewitt also making a number of appearances and re-appearances.
credits

Repress.

"Urban Ethiopian music stands out within the African continent thanks to its creativity and originality. Whatever the shade -- pop, blues, jazz or soul -- it comes from a fusion of local musical traditions mixed with an echo of Western music. It bewitched Ethiopia during the Swinging Addis decade before recently winning the favors of a well-informed audience all over the world. This first vinyl volume of Ethiopian Urban Modern Music presents some of the Ethiopian grooves & jewels drawn from the essential CD Ethiopiques series directed by Francis Falceto and published by Buda music;

Telephone Explosion proudly presents the self-titled debut LP from Toronto’s UH HUH, out physically and digitally on April 14, 2023. The album features eight tracks of dub-damaged art rock which conjure a potent vision of spaced-out 1980s post-punks feeding their angular rhythms and bass-heavy grooves through layer upon layer of grime-spattered spring reverb.

There is a palpable sense of discovery and exploration throughout UH HUH’s 37 heady minutes. Elastic basslines and serpentine guitar phrases throb and glide, cutting through dubwise reverberations like hands moving through an opaque cloud of reefer smoke.

Formerly known as Teenanger, the reconfigured (and reinvigorated) group’s newfound sense of sonic identity is put on display the moment the door kicks open. The percolating spaciousness of opener “Somewhere Beyond” is followed by the cyclical grooves of “Redemption Pause.” Vocalists Christopher Swimmings and Melissa Ball each take respective turns at lead vocal duties, showcasing their contrasting yet complimentary styles.

“Babylon”, a slab of overcast, loping funk features both singers on the same track, alternating between Swimmings’ stoned syncopation and Ball’s saccharine melancholy. This juxtaposition leans against a backdrop of reverb-soaked drums, watery guitar chords and rippling trumpet.

The slinking, fractured grooves of “Rain (In The Afternoon)” and “Citrus Song” call to mind the deranged minimal dub-wave of Naffi or Vivien Goldman. Both songs feature lyrical content heavily inspired by the Florida swamplands, although the aural landscape on these tracks is decidedly more brutalist than Boca Raton. Two of the songs included here are reworkings of previously released Teenanger numbers. “Blinds Drawn” is reduced to its core elements of bottom-heavy rhythm, spliced guitar shanks and Swimmings’ murmured ruminations. “Good, You”, on the other hand, is completely re-imagined as a blissed-out melt of opiated bossa nova.

After countless hours of experimentation during the album’s recording sessions at Toronto’s Studio Z, the band decided to send their drum machines, snare drums and percussion through an obscure 1960’s Japanese Guyatone guitar amp with a notoriously ecstatic spring reverb sound. The result was immediately inspiring.

The dank, busted and clanking tones produced by the Guyatone evoke a muggy, humid atmosphere that mimics the photo on UH HUH’s cover. The process of re-amping is literally the means through which UH HUH found the sound of this record. UH HUH is a record that asks more questions than it does provide answers. This is searching music that requires that the listener lean into it, the more time you spend in between the beats, bars, notes contained within, the more vivid the picture becomes.

The iconic baritone country singer Johnny Cash sold over 90 million records, an incredible achievement for one who endured terrible hardship in the Great Depression, picking cotton with his sharecropper family from the age of five. After a spell in the Air Force, Cash settled in Memphis and with guitarist Luther Perkins and bassist Marshall Grant, known as the ‘Tennessee Two,’ Cash pitched up at Sun Records just as Carl Perkins and Elvis were trying their luck, Cash’s brilliant debut With His Hot And Blue Guitar containing all-time anthems like ‘Folsom Prison Blues’ and his perky cut of ‘Rock Island Line’. A must for all Cash fans.

The iconic baritone country singer Johnny Cash sold over 90 million records, an incredible achievement for one who endured terrible hardship in the Great Depression, picking cotton with his sharecropper family from the age of five. After a spell in the Air Force, Cash settled in Memphis and with guitarist Luther Perkins and bassist Marshall Grant, known as the ‘Tennessee Two,’ Cash pitched up at Sun Records just as Carl Perkins and Elvis were trying their luck, Cash’s brilliant debut With His Hot And Blue Guitar containing all-time anthems like ‘Folsom Prison Blues’ and his perky cut of ‘Rock Island Line’. A must for all Cash fans.

The iconic baritone country singer Johnny Cash sold over 90 million records, an incredible achievement for one who endured terrible hardship in the Great Depression, picking cotton with his sharecropper family from the age of five. After a spell in the Air Force, Cash settled in Memphis and with guitarist Luther Perkins and bassist Marshall Grant, known as the ‘Tennessee Two,’ Cash pitched up at Sun Records just as Carl Perkins and Elvis were trying their luck, Cash’s brilliant debut With His Hot And Blue Guitar containing all-time anthems like ‘Folsom Prison Blues’ and his perky cut of ‘Rock Island Line’. A must for all Cash fans.

The iconic baritone country singer Johnny Cash sold over 90 million records, an incredible achievement for one who endured terrible hardship in the Great Depression, picking cotton with his sharecropper family from the age of five. After a spell in the Air Force, Cash settled in Memphis and with guitarist Luther Perkins and bassist Marshall Grant, known as the ‘Tennessee Two,’ Cash pitched up at Sun Records just as Carl Perkins and Elvis were trying their luck, Cash’s brilliant debut With His Hot And Blue Guitar containing all-time anthems like ‘Folsom Prison Blues’ and his perky cut of ‘Rock Island Line’. A must for all Cash fans.

The iconic baritone country singer Johnny Cash sold over 90 million records, an incredible achievement for one who endured terrible hardship in the Great Depression, picking cotton with his sharecropper family from the age of five. After a spell in the Air Force, Cash settled in Memphis and with guitarist Luther Perkins and bassist Marshall Grant, known as the ‘Tennessee Two,’ Cash pitched up at Sun Records just as Carl Perkins and Elvis were trying their luck, Cash’s brilliant debut With His Hot And Blue Guitar containing all-time anthems like ‘Folsom Prison Blues’ and his perky cut of ‘Rock Island Line’. A must for all Cash fans.

1995's 100% Fun is the third leg of Matthew Sweet's Holy Trinity of Power Pop! Produced by Brendan O'Brien, it's a densely-layered production full of grinding guitars, heavy bass lines and BIG drum sounds.

Intervention's 19-track Expanded Edition 2x LP set is the defining presentation of this great album! While the original repertoire's 12 tracks are bigger and better than ever, the 7 Bonus Tracks are on their own 12" 45 RPM 180-gram LP!

100% Fun's album art was lovingly restored by Intervention's Art Director Tom Vadakan, and printed as a gorgeous "Old Style" gatefold by Stoughton printing in LA. It's printed on heavy stock and film-laminated for superior coluor depth, beauty and durability. The center labels are printed by Dorado.



Mastering Notes
100% Fun is 100% Analog Mastered from the Original Master Tapes by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound. The Master Tapes are 30ips 1/2" analogue reels, and the seven bonus tracks are on their own reel. Intervention's cut is big, punchy and dynamic with plenty of producer Brendan O'Brien signature crunch completely intact. Matthew's amazing vocals really shine here amid the layered densities of O'Brien's mix. A big, bold improvement over the 1990s original LP, and so much better than the CD as to make that comparison a total farce.

Announcing the new cassette release from London based solo artist, Bubble People.

Both sides of this tape were recorded in continuous takes over the course of a few days. A mixing session was performed shortly afterwards, in order to preserve the moment that was captured here.

Jasper Sdougos performs using a DSI Prophet 12 and an array of borrowed, vintage drum machines, his melancholic vocals echoing through cascades of drones and synthesis.

Bubble People is a live AV electronica act based in London, UK. Jasper Sdougos performs alongside visual artist Mamoru Watanabe.

50 turquoise cassettes pressed exclusively by Squeeze Trip Records (JP).

This audio was written especially for cassette format.
Includes 2 continuous live recordings, timed to 22.5 minutes in length, for sides A and B.

#40 ON ROLLING STONE'S 500 GREATEST ALBUMS OF ALL TIME: ANTICIPATES LATE 1960S TURBULENCE VIA PROPHETIC SONGS AND DARK THEMES
1/4" / 15 IPS analogue master to DSD 256 to analogue console to lathe



Any discussion about the finest psychedelic rock record ever recorded is incomplete if it doesn't grant consideration to Love's Forever Changes. Ranked by Rolling Stone as the 40th greatest album ever made, and named by Mojo the second-greatest psychedelic set in history, the effort is an internationally recognized seminal work of art. Transcending language and convention, its magnitude and magnificence need to be heard again and again. For here is an effort whose mind-boggling acoustic complexities and kaleidoscopic nuances are tailored for high-fidelity playback.

Nearly unlimited headroom, vast instrumental separation, transparent clarity, artifact-free atmospherics, and faithful balances appear out of jet-black backgrounds. Turn it up as loud as you want; the sole limitation will be your system's potential.

Commercially ignored upon release in November 1967, Forever Changes confronts the alienation, paranoia, violence, and strife that would soon plague the countercultural movement and send the Summer of Love into a tailspin. Apart from its lyrical themes and prescient malaise, the record's enduring nature equally owes to intertwined arrangements sewn together with Latin guitar-picked lines, finessed folk harmonies, mariachi-inspired horn charts, and subdued strings.

The seemingly opposing combination – ominous, dark reflections situated amidst lush, light melodic beds – affords Forever Changes a distinguished tension of claustrophobia and openness, dourness and ecstasy, ugliness and elegance enjoyed by no other record in the rock canon. Much of the contrast owes to leader Arthur Lee's mental state and pertinent observations. Lee, whose suppressed romanticism often surfaces even amidst the blackest shadows and most cynical moments, believed he would soon die, and hence channeled everything from lasting hopes to acid-addled decay to the chilling testimony of a Vietnam veteran in his narratives.

Alternatively sad and beautiful, the album-opening and flamenco-inspired "Alone Again Or" establishes the mood for what follows. Vocals overlap and soar; tempos rise and fall; surrealism trades places with reality.Forever Changes thrives both because of and in spite of a surfeit of labyrinthine chords and difficult notes that never repeat. Its ambitious construction almost forced the already fractured band to cede responsibilities to session musicians, which appear on two tracks. The quintet's resolve to not only complete the album, but to do so with such poignancy and curiosity, further enhances Forever Changes' standing.

No wonder that, in the twilight of his troubled career, Lee performed the record in its entirely during concerts met with overwhelming critical acclaim. It was, and will always be, a personal manifesto of timeless relevance and appeal.

EASYGOING PORTRAIT OF DOWN-HOME SOUL SINGER COMING INTO HIS OWN AND ESTABLISHING AN INDELIBLE BOND BETWEEN PERFORMER AND AUDIENCE
1/4" / 15 IPS / Dolby A analogue master to DSD 64 to analogue console to lathe


On par with the most treasured concert albums of the 60s and 70s, Bill Withers' transformative Live at Carnegie Hall is a forgotten classic – an easygoing portrait of a down-home soul artist coming into his own in front of an audience eager to share every moment of his brilliance. Soothing with subtlety, charming with calmness, and healing with a vocal timbre as relaxing as his grooves, Withers uses the stage to expand the range of favorites and engage in dialog with the crowd. Distinguished with sonics that restore the performances' balance and improve the sound-staging, this reissue takes you inside the venue.

Moreover, aspects that really make this concert document unique – the energetic crowd, Withers and his band's willingness to extend arrangements, and the undeniable communicative bond between the performer and his fans – are brought into fuller relief. While most live albums give you the sense of what transpired, our reissue allows it to seem that what you're hearing and sensing is happening right now, in the moment. You are as much a participant as listener. For this reason and more, Live at Carnegie Hall ranks with James Brown's Live at the Apollo and B.B. King's Live at the Regal. No small claims, but the proof is in the grooves.

The antithesis of the sweaty R&B shouter that prowls the edge of stages, Withers deals in mellowness and vulnerability, qualities that come to fore. The songs here span soul, blues, and folk and often times, contain elements of all three styles. Live at Carnegie Hall also deals with serious subject matter with unflinching honesty and simple directness. Companionship, poverty, war, maturity, family, and love all crop up within Withers' tunes, yet the messages are never overly cumbersome or preachy. Credit goes to his easygoing style and relatable lyrics, not to mention a tight-as-a-vice band that on this night is simply "on."


"One more time?" Withers asks in response to a request for another stanza during "Use Me," and like the snap of fingers, his musicians are right back on cue, the crowd clapping along on every beat. This classic, as well as the instantly familiar "Ain't No Sunshine," poignant "Grandma's Hands," and all-time favorite "Lean On Me" are delivered with utmost soulfulness, passion, and electricity. Few, if any, live albums demonstrate such a bond between the crowd and artist as Live at Carnegie Hall. You'll definitely want to be there.

Seven suites of deep and sprawling sonic meditations built around ‘call and response’ improv sessions between Randy Raine-Reusch and Michael Red.

Slow and tempered recordings of Asian flutes, African harps, temple gongs and a myriad of obscure instruments from Randy Raine-Reusch's deep collection mutate and ebb into swirling gossamers of tone. Sonic incantations stretched and magnified further by Red's Sends. An otherworldly play between light and shadow worlds; at times idyllic and light-filled, at times dark and eerie– all engrossing. Dream-reality reconciliations weave between the spectral world of Michael Red's sound processes and the direct physicality of Raine-Reusch's playing. The tension across the pieces builds between the live playing and processing techniques, dutifully revealing a growing familiarity with collective transcendence through sound (bigger than the sum of its parts). Real-time interactive dream music.

Initially realized over the course of a few days in Randy’s instrument museum in Vancouver BC December, 2014 'ERAS' is made up of processed, and sometimes multi tracked, improvisations between Randy and Michael. Through these sessions Randy would choose instruments he sensed possibilities within, and Michael then revealed and sculpted these possibilities. Both resonating, sensing sonic structures, environmental nuances, and further worlds in each other’s art, all within the moment. Being present for each other, they acted on instinct, trusting a first thought, trusting each other; committing, responding to that commitment, then mutating and letting go. Always moving forward, synthesizing and letting the living moment lead the way.

The recordings were left to distill and mature for many years before the composers felt it was ready. With minimal judicious edits and a very light dusting of FXs, both careful to preserve the direct and intuitive process that permeates the recording, ERAS now emerges.

Analogue Productions (Atlantic 75 Series)
Celebrating the 75th Anniversary of Atlantic Records!
Bad Company's eponymous 1974 debut featuring "Ready for Love"
180-gram 45 RPM double LP
Mastered directly from the original master tape by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound
Pressed at Quality Record Pressings and RTI
Tip-on old style gatefold double pocket jackets with film lamination by Stoughton Printing

From the wreckage of Free came Bad Company, the English hard rock supergroup fronted by singer Paul Rodgers and featuring his drummer bandmate Simon Kirke, Mott the Hoople guitarist Mick Ralphs, and King Crimson bassist Boz Burrell. Peter Grant, who managed the rock band Led Zeppelin, also managed Bad Company until 1982.

The group's eponymous 1974 album debut decidedly proves the band is proudly not progressive — the details make a difference, as do the pastoral acoustics of the closing "Seagull" — reducing their rock 'n' roll to a strong, heavy crunch; compare "Ready for Love," a tune Ralphs brought over from Mott the Hoople, to the original to see how these quartet members keep their heads down as they do their business. Appropriately enough given their name, there's a sense of slow, churning menace to Bad Company, writes AllMusic reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine.

Their first three albums, Bad Company (1974), Straight Shooter (1975), and Run with the Pack (1976), reached the Top Five in the album charts in both the U.K. and the U.S.. Many of their singles and songs, such as "Bad Company," "Can't Get Enough," "Good Lovin' Gone Bad," "Feel Like Makin' Love," "Ready for Love," "Shooting Star," and "Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy," remain staples of classic rock radio. They have sold 20 million RIAA-certified albums in the U.S. and 40 millon worldwide.

The self-titled debut album was recorded at Headley Grange, Hampshire, in Ronnie Lane's Mobile Studio. The album reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in the U.S, and No. 3 on the U.K. Albums Chart, spending 25 weeks on the U.K. charts. The album has been certified five times platinum in the U.S., and became the 46th-best-selling album of the 1970s. The singles "Can't Get Enough" and "Movin' On" reached No. 5 and No. 19 on the Billboard Hot 10.

All the hallmarks of a top-notch Analogue Productions reissue are here for your pleasure: Mastered directly from the original master tape by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound and cut at 45 RPM. Pressed on 180-gram vinyl at Quality Record Pressings and RTI, and housed in tip-on old style gatefold double pocket jackets with film lamination by Stoughton Printing.

This record is massive and amazing. Nowhere To Go But Up is Guided By Voices’ third album of 2023 (and thirtyninth overall) and is a sprawling, wild adventure. With virtually no choruses and just two repeated lyrics in forty minutes, GBV is audacious and unafraid. One of the most fully realized works that Guided By Voices has created, Nowhere To Go But Up showcases an expert rock band at the top of their game. The band is on a roll and unstoppable. Following their monumental 40th Anniversary Celebration in Dayton, Ohio, GBV begins their fifth decade with a bang!

When Billy Eckstine’s band dissolved in the mid-1940s, adventurous drummer Art Blakey spent two years in Africa, where he briefly converted to Islam; back in New York, he gigged with Miles and Monk, before fronting his own Jazz Messengers. 1957’s Orgy In Rhythm drew on the sounds of North Africa and the Middle East, Blakey’s unfettered drumming accompanied by Latin percussionists such as Potato Valdez and Evilio Quintero, with Herbie Mann on flute. The musical arrangement is stunning, at times melodic or primordially rhythmic, but never short of pure brilliance. Overall, an excellent and astounding release!

James Ray kickstarted his career as a teenager in 1959 after he left Washington DC for New York, but debut single ‘Make Her Mine’ flopped. Two years later, songwriter Rudy Clark discovered Ray and got him signed to the Caprice label, the resultant ‘If You Gotta Make A Fool Of Somebody’ a top-30 hit that the Beatles covered in early live sets. Ray’s self-titled debut album had that hit and the equally appealing follow-up, ‘Itty Bitty Pieces,’ as well as ‘I’ve Got My Mind Set On You,’ later successfully covered by George Harrison. An overdose would tragically cut short Ray’s career, this sole LP a testament to his enduring talent.

Following up their debut full-length on Ty Segall’s God? label, Wand presents their second album, Golem, on In The Red. Recording with Chris Woodhouse at his Hanger studio in Sacramento, Wand summons the dark and heavy power of the riff. Back in September 2013, Wand was quietly dismembered and ritually eaten in the hills near Dodger Stadium. Wand was reborn as “Wand”—an obese organ falsely organized as four overjoyous nerds. Four flesh balloons betting on a few aging amplifiers. Rumor has it they listen to Here Come the Warm Jets on loop all day and plot mail fraud. What’s more, they allegedely stole Dale Crover’s car and sacrificed it to the weather near the Los Angeles County Line. A few things, at least, are certain: Wand hears ghosts. Wand prefers serpents. The Sun is the mother of every fiction. All phenomena will be consumed in alphabetical order, but desire will recirculate ad infinitum. If all else fails, Wand will just devour more hands. Wand is coming your way soon. • Sophomore full-length from California four-piece with connections to Ty Segall, Chad and the Meatbodies

Sparky Deathcap AKA Los Campesinos! multi-instrumentalist R N Taylor is the first to admit he’s an unlikely candidate for viral stardom. And yet, almost 15 years on from his final EP, Taylor’s alt-folk solo project is now getting a much-deserved reappraisal, entrancing a whole new generation of listeners. Championed by prominent Twitch streamer/YouTuber Wilbur Soot, his beautifully bruised pocket symphony ‘September’ has racked up over 36m streams on Spotify and soundtracked more than 750,000 creations on TikTok. Now, Los Campesinos!’s own indie imprint Heart Swells are delighted to release a newly mixed edition of its parent EP, Tear Jerky. Musically, you can trace the influence of Phil Elverum’s Microphones, of Magnolia Electric Co and Sufjan Stevens, and of Ys-era Joanna Newsom. From the beautifully lo-fi baroque-pop of ‘Glasgow Is A Punk Rock Town’ to ‘Send It To Oslo’s’ maximalist mix of analogue sounds, these ambitious yet intimate compositions prove the perfect foil for deeply autobiographical tales of heartbreak and recovery.

I see lucid blue flames moving before my eyes.
I hear voices melting. Voices somewhere from within.
Speaking words I do not know but feel connected to, almost as if I have known the meaning once..
Noises that obscures the multiple pictures hidden in these digital compositions.
Iku Sakan have created a set of five tracks that takes the listener on a
trip deep into the human psyché. Emotional flickering movements that twists and turns. The albums have a darker, much more intense feel than some of Ikus earlier magical and often hypnotic music. A myriad of different voices creates pulsing patterns and constantly morphing pictures for my inner eye. It's an album that might work as a hack to our lingual structures, pushing limits, pushing possibilities of meaning.

A pool of over-saturated information boils and out of the vapor new contours take form.
The magical and hypnotic is not gone, I still recognise the softer aspects of Ikus highly detailed hybrid sound design. But I no longer see where it takes me. It excites me. It feels like the world is expanding again, breathing. The sounds on the album asks us questions and points in several directions at once. In the shadows, weeds of lucid dreams grow deeper roots, reaching for my inner ear.

The faint sounds on the track Nature Morte reminds me of expeditions to the local witch house ruins as a child. Something almost not there, something felt. History, Memories and the connection between the two seems to have played a part in these compositions. Emotional reactions that plant reactions in other people, all around creating soft movements on the face of our planet.

Whether our collective psyché is an open field or an impenetrable dark forest, is of less concern with a key like Omnitopoeia, that works like an enhanced mirror, reflecting the dreams of the words we speak everyday, reflecting the emotional charges of significant places. Unrecognisable but still remembered.

For fans of Mountain, Grand Funk Railroad, and Dr. Hook! Kelakos is a seventies rock band with roots in Boston and Upstate New York, known for fusing powerful rock rhythms and guitar leads with strong vocals, catchy songwriting, and rich, varied production. Now forty-four years after their first album, Gone Are the Days, Kelakos returns stronger than ever with a new 12-song album release, Hurtling Towards Extinction. The band consists of its namesake George Kelakos Haberstroh on vocals/guitar, Mark Sisson on rhythm guitar, Linc Bloomfield holding down the bass, who after Kelakos wound up in a high lever career in Washington, and rounded out by Carl Canedy who went to play with The Rods and produce albums by Anthrax, Overkill, Blue Cheer, Exciter, etc… Hurtling Towards Extinction consists of 12 new songs with highlights such as “Livin on the Planet Love” and“Smoke and Mirrors”, while making sure there is something for everyone on this release.

In 2006, THE DRAFT was formed by Hot Water Music members Jason Black, George Rebelo, and Chris Wollard shortly after singer/guitarist Chuck Ragan's departure. The three remaining members of the band wanted to continue making music together but chose not to continue under the Hot Water Music name, opting for a fresh start instead. The initial writing and demo sessions included the legendary punk rock guitarist Brian Baker (known for Minor Threat, Dag Nasty, Bad Religion). However, due to conflicting schedules, Baker couldn't commit as a full-time member, leading fellow Florida resident and former Discount member Todd Rockhill to join the band. After releasing their debut album "In a Million Pieces" (produced by the esteemed Brian McTernan) on Epitaph Records in 2006, the band embarked on extensive tours with acts like Samiam, The Gaslight Anthem, and Paint It Black. They also released several singles on the renowned No Idea Label before disbanding in 2008. With both "In a Million Pieces" and all 7" records being out of print for years, THE DRAFT has now teamed up with End Hits Records and Equal Vision Records to release a deluxe vinyl version on double vinyl. For the first time, you can find every track ever recorded by THE DRAFT: Included are the twelve album tracks, six songs featured on three 7" records, two unreleased demo versions, as well as four songs recorded during a radio session in the UK that have never been released before. Not only were all songs remastered specifically for vinyl by Brian McTernan, and detailed liner notes have been added to tell the band's history from beginning to end, but the packaging has also been completely overhauled. A special feature for collectors: the European and American versions come in different gatefold covers, which together form a complete work of art.

Upstate NY heavyweights 38 Spesh and Conway The Machine have joined forces for a collaboration album fans did not see coming. Having recorded with each other for well over a decade, these two lyrical powerhousesstyles mesh effortlessly on this 10-track offering. The soundbeds for the illustrious affair are provided by Spesh himself with the help of a producer he has championed for years, Jimmy Dukes. Instead of continuing to mine the '90s like their contemporaries, the duo bring a sound that calls back to early '00s Hip-Hop. On top of verses that will etch themselves in your mind courtesy of Spesh and Conway, the project includes standout bars and hooks by the likes Lloyd Banks, Pharoahe Monch, Benny The Butcher, Che Noir, ElCamino, and Emanny.

Upstate NY heavyweights 38 Spesh and Conway The Machine have joined forces for a collaboration album fans did not see coming. Having recorded with each other for well over a decade, these two lyrical powerhousesstyles mesh effortlessly on this 10-track offering. The soundbeds for the illustrious affair are provided by Spesh himself with the help of a producer he has championed for years, Jimmy Dukes. Instead of continuing to mine the '90s like their contemporaries, the duo bring a sound that calls back to early '00s Hip-Hop. On top of verses that will etch themselves in your mind courtesy of Spesh and Conway, the project includes standout bars and hooks by the likes Lloyd Banks, Pharoahe Monch, Benny The Butcher, Che Noir, ElCamino, and Emanny.

Ever wondered what a Brian Wilson solo album
from 1969 would sound like?
Look no further. (No A.I. needed...)
Exquisitely arranged by ex-Animal Vic Briggs and
featuring several Wrecking Crew musicians who
also played on Pet Sounds, MARK ERIC’s A
Midsummer’s Day Dream is a unique blend of
Beach Boys/Four Freshmen sensibilities coupled
with wistful, lush surf psychedelia.
Defiantly soft, the 1969 LP captured the tail end
of L.A.’s pop innocence perfectly, just as it
slipped into infinity. First time on vinyl since its
original release.
Coming this summer! Our 2002 & 2009 CD reissues
of A Midsummer’s Day Dream caught the soft pop
collector’s world entirely off guard: Very few
were aware of the LP’s existence, and the
reaction was united: A masterpiece was
unleashed and a new generation of daydreamers
was born! The result was glowing reviews in MOJO
and UNCUT, a Japanese edition, as well as soaring
prices for the original long out-of-print vinyl
pressing. The full-colour gatefold jacket includes
EXCLUSIVE, rare photos, and UPDATED and
EXPANDED liner notes that feature the
participation of Mark Eric himself. Reissue
produced, annotated, and designed by STEVE
STANLEY.

A real soul gem from 1970 on the James Brown affiliated Deluxe label, the first and only album by this mysterious singer: Marie Queenie Lyons.
It is perhaps apropos that Queenie Marie Lyons’s best known song is titled ‘See And Don’t See.’ For all the acclaim that song has accrued, and all the times it has been compiled, reissued and, yes, bootlegged — for all the times it has been seen — Queenie herself has somehow remained unseen. How did a singer from Ashtabula, Ohio record one of the great female-led soul albums and then simply fall off the map, never to record or perform again? Queenie was a natural performer and a gifted singer. At the age of fifteen, she was doing three shows a week at a local venue. In early 1962, Queenie moved to Queens and was soon playing gigs across the city — an early engagement was with Gene Krupa at the famous Metropole Café in Times Square — as well as touring with established acts like Fats Domino and Ray Charles. The following year, Queenie made her debut recording, for a subsidiary of RCA called Groove, credited to an entirely fictitious “Shelley Shoop and the Shakers.” It remained Queenie’s only presence on wax until early 1968, when a Nashville-based label called Sims gave her her first accurately attributed single, “A Minute Of His Goodtime / Good Soul Lovin’.” Although the 45 is now a highly collectible part of the Northern Soul and Lowrider Oldies pantheons, it made no impact at the time, as Sims was focused on more typical Nashville sounds. A few months later Queenie was back in New York City, performing R&B and pop covers with her band when a man passed her his business card at a performance. The card read James Brown Enterprises. James Brown “was my idol,” she says, and someone whose business acumen and stage presence she strove to emulate. Although Queenie ended up on tour with James Brown for only a month or so, when the group reached Cincinnati in mid-’68 she entered the King Records studio there to record what would become the
album you hold in your hands. The songs were a combination of covers, some of which she’d been doing in her live shows, like ‘Fever’ and ‘Try Me,’ and originals written by producer Henry Glover and pianist Don Pullen, who was the bandleader on the session. The album opener, ‘See And Don’t See,’ was also recorded by the veteran R&B singer Maxine Brown, but Queenie’s version blows hers away. “Soul Fever” is a supremely funky and soulful affair, with Queenie’s powerful and captivating voice magnetically attractive, with an urgency that is impossible to ignore. ‘Your Thing Ain’t No Good Without My Thing,’ ‘Your Key Don’t Fit It Anymore,’ and ‘I Don’t Want Nobody To Have It But You’ are as funky and soulful as the best of Tina Turner and Aretha — a statement not to be made lightly!
The album was critically acclaimed — the October 10, 1970, issue of Billboard listed it as their sole “four star” pick in the Soul category — but perhaps due to the tumult at Starday-King, whose stewardship had turned over several times in only a few years, it never seemed to be able to break through to a larger audience.

Muireann Bradley is a young blues, ragtime, roots and folk guitarist and singer based in Ballybofey in County Donegal Ireland. “This is my first album. Most of these tunes were originally recorded by the great blues men and women who were making records from the 1920s and 1930s right up in some cases to the early 1970s. I have also found inspiration for the renditions recorded here in the playing of some of the musicians who began recording this music in the 1960s and later, and who in some cases learned at the feet of the greats. Many of these guitarists played pivotal roles in the 1960s blues revival and subsequent “rediscovery” of many of the greats of country blues. I grew up steeped in these old blues in the hills overlooking the valley of the River Finn just outside the town of Ballybofey in County Donegal. My father would play this music constantly at home and wherever we went in the car and talk about it endlessly whether anyone was listening or not, telling stories about the lives of these musicians as if they were legend, mythology or the evening news. My father could of course play all this stuff on guitar, I remember watching him when I was very young and thinking “I want to be able to do that”. When I was nine he agreed to teach me and bought me my first little travel guitar. I worked hard to learn how to play but as time wore on I seemed to have less and less time to practice as I became more and more invested in the combat sports I was regularly training and competing in. Then in March 2020 the first Covid lockdowns happened and all contact sports were shut down. I was lost for a while but soon found my way back to the guitar. I was now listening, playing and practicing with a new intensity and focus. In a very serious moment, I wrote out a list of tunes I was going to learn. The first tune on that list was Blind Blake’s “Police Dog Blues”. I’m not sure now how long it took to get that arrangement together but when it was ready we videoed me performing it and posted it on YouTube. It ended up getting a lot of attention, I remember my parents being quite shocked and soon after that Josh Rosenthal got in touch… and here we are! Each individual track on this album was recorded live in the studio and represents one entire take with me singing and backing myself up on guitar simultaneously. Most are either first or second takes. Nothing has been added or taken away, no overdubs or modern recording tricks of any kind have been used at all so at least in some respects this album has been recorded in the same way as those classics of the 1920s and 1930s

Multi-instrumentalist, composer, performer and curator L’Rain (Taja Cheek) returns with her third album I Killed Your Dog. Over-writing themes of grief and identity that informed her previous work, I Killed Your Dog considers what it means to hurt the people you love the most. Multi-layered in subject and form, L’Rain’s sonic explorations interrogate instead how multiplicities of emotion and experience intersect with identity. The experimental and the hyper-commercial; the expectation and the reality; the hope and the despair. “I’m envisioning a world of contradictions, as always,” Cheek explains. “Sensual, maybe even sexy, but terrifying, and strange.” Written amidst heartbreaks from the perspective of an earned maturity, I Killed Your Dog takes the sonic world laid out by L’Rain in 2021’s album Fatigue on a compelling new trajectory. Described by Cheek as an “anti-break-up” record, I Killed Your Dog takes the universal pop theme of love as its starting point – bold, bratty and even a touch diabolical – and inspects it through the form of a conversation with her younger self, untangling her relationship with femininity and the formal musical conventions that others have come to expect of her. Alongside long-time collaborators Andrew Lappin and Ben Chapoteau-Katz, Cheek has developed L’Rain into a shape-shifting entity that blurs the distinction between band and individual

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."

James Ruskin's Blueprint Records welcomes Setaoc Mass to the label's ever-increasing roster of techno artists. As a DJ and producer, Setaoc Mass is part of a select cut of young artists who are absorbing techno's legacy and carrying the torch into tomorrow. Whilst overseeing his own imprints, SK¦eleven and SKX, his releases push a galvanising brand of techno steeped in a sense of urgency, ever-propulsive with acute detailing and nods to a futuristic space-age.

Top-rated West Coast garage sounds from the vaults of maverick genius Gary S Paxton. Acknowledged classics, tantalising obscurities and several previously unheard gems, all from the original master tapes, including tracks by Limey & The Yanks, The Avengers, The Whatt Four, The Buddhas_ among many others. Vintage garage rock is only one of the many tributaries of popular music that the maverick Gary S Paxton recorded and produced in his 1960s heyday, and compared to other genres, the off-kilter genius behind 'Alley Oop' and 'Monster Mash' was hardly prolific with it. But for a producer-engineer of his repute, it was inevitable that Paxton would cross paths with the sudden surge of teenaged rock groups that emerged in the wake of the British Invasion. We've gathered the best of them on "Lost Innocence", and for any aficionado of the genre, a treat is in store. As well as a brace of acknowledged Californian punk classics present and correct for the first time direct from master tape, this rockin' little disc also shares further booty from the Garpax vaults, including some obscurities well worthy of re-appraisal, along with completely unreleased nuggets of note. Counting among the well-known are the Avengers, Bakersfield's top dogs in the punk bracket thanks to snot-nosed missives such as 'I Told You So' and the controversial 'Be A Cave Man'. Ken & the Forth Dimension and Limey & the Yanks serve up the highly regarded items 'See If I Care' and 'Guaranteed Love' respectively, with a trio of ear-opening unissued tracks from the latter as a bonus. Riverside's Whatt Four weigh in with the popular ear-burners 'Our Love Should Last Forever' and 'You're Wishin' I Was Someone Else'. And the Buddhas' title cut is still the most eloquent ode to carnal knowledge in the entire 60s punk pantheon. Compiled by genre expert Alec Palao and originally released by Big Beat/ACE on CD only a few years back, it is now available on vinyl for the first time.

Clear Vinyl

On Rock Island, their second LP, Palm produces evidence of a distinct musical language, developed over time, in isolation, and out of necessity. On the island, melodies are struck on what might be shells or spines. Rhythms are scratched out, swept over, scratched again. Individual instruments, and sometimes entire sections, skip and stutter. There is the sense of a music box with wonky tension or a warped transmission in which all the noise is taken for signal.

Like other groups so acclaimed for their compulsive live show, Palm has been burdened by the constant comparison between their recorded material and their touring set. On Rock Island, they render this tired discussion moot, using the album form to present that which could never be completely live, reserving for performance that which could never be completely reproduced.

Despite appearing behind the instruments typical of rock music, Palm trades in sounds of their own making. On these songs, one of the guitars and the drum kit are used as MIDI triggers, producing an index that can be combed through later and replaced with new information. The percussion is sometimes augmented so as to suggest a multiplication of limbs. The strings are manipulated to choke, crack, and hum like other instruments, or other bodies, might.

Working again with engineer Matt Labozza, the band spent the better part of a month in a rented farmhouse in Upstate New York. With the benefits of time and space, Palm recorded the various elements piecemeal, only rarely playing together in groups larger than two or three. While some members tracked, others holed up in the next room, experimenting with quantization, beat replacement, and other methods borrowed from electronic music. Even accounting for the many labors that brought them to be, these materials seem produced by an organic logic. Their complex friction forms a habit of thought, scores a network of grooves on the floor of the mind.

This is music with dimensionality. Sonic objects are deployed, developed, and dissected in various states of mutation. The listener flits about between the field and the lab. The tone is warm in a way only the sun could make, the pace as forceful and as variable as a gale. Whether one locates Rock Island in a sea or in a refinished attic (as in Greg Burak's album cover), whether one escapes to there or is banished, its psychic environs are charted clearly enough. Only at this remove from the mainland can we sense the conditions necessary for such a strange species of sound.

It would be difficult to find a band that is more self-aware than longtime touring band Lucero. Since forming in Memphis in the late 90's, Lucero’s base musical hallmarks have remained similar to the band’s initial sound established with their first record The Attic Tapes. In the history of their expansive discography, Lucero has evolved and embraced everything from southern rock to Stax-inspired Memphis soul, whilst simultaneously maintaining their distinctive sonic foundations. Years later, dedicated fans of the group still flock to hear the band's punchy driving rhythms, punk-rooted guitar licks, and Iyrics that evoke the whiskey drenched sentimentality of Americana singer-songwriters. For their twelfth record, Should've Learned by Now, Lucero drew on a lot of work from their past. Literally. By adapting songs and guitar parts that had been left over from the group’s previous two albums, Lucero was able to construct one of its most comprehensive works to date. “I had a particular sound | was looking for on each record and there was no room for any goofy tock & roll or cute witticisms or even simply upbeat songs.” Said primary lyricist and frontman, Ben Nichols. “But now finally, it was time to revisit all of that stuff and get it out in the world, That's how we got to the appropriately for-us titled album Should've Learned by Now. The album is basically about how we know we are fuckups and I guess we are ok with that.” Produced by Grammy Award-winning engineer, Matt Ross-Spang, the album is a punchy, rock and roll record that utilizes the more mature production stylings the group developed over time, and combines it with the first-person introspectiveness that the band is known and loved for. From its original Ben Nichols-designed cover art to its credits, the album is a reflection of a band that knows itself, Should've Learned by Now bridges the gap musically between “old Lucero” and “new Lucero” in a manner which affixes the band’s position as the perfect intersection of punk initiative with hard-earned artistry. It's an album that recognizes the past in its sound and content, but leaves the door wide open to the future and for the lessons still in store

Listen Here Limited-edition double green/ red vinyl. 12 tracks spread across three sides and a screen-printed fourth side. We are very pleased to announce a special 10th anniversary vinyl version of this classic Dean Wareham live album, recorded over two nights in London back in December 2013 and featuring a mix of songs by Galaxie 500 and Luna as well as solo material. It is pressed on double red and green vinyl, with the 12 tracks spread across three sides and a screen-printed fourth side. The recordings were mixed by Britta Phillips and have been remastered especially for this release by Mikey Young (of Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Total Control and others). The new artwork by Marc Jones includes a printed insert featuring photos from the shows, which almost didn’t happen at all after Dean and his band got stuck on a train between Manchester and London. “We left Piccadilly Station at 12:15 but stopped rolling after just 20 minutes,” he recalls. “A voice informed us that a tree had fallen on the track somewhere up ahead, and this tree was on fire. We sat there for a couple of hours and started to think about alternate ways to get down to London, someone sent out a plea on Twitter and one kind fan did offer to drive us, if only there was a way to get off the train. But at around 3 o’clock the train lurched forward at last, we made it to Euston and cabbed it straight to St Pancras Old Church. “I’m not a believer but there’s something special about playing in churches, especially one that dates to the 12th century; the cavernous spaces and wooden pews make you speak softly and play quietly too – if you play too loud the sounds will just bounce all over the place. And the engineer doesn’t need to add reverb to your vocals – it is there already. “Nat from Sonic Cathedral promoted the shows and had the presence of mind to record them to multi-tracks, and I’m so glad he did. When we got back to Los Angeles, Britta mixed the live tracks, and the result is this record

We are back with a VA for our 8th release.

The title ‘Hood Classic’ by Lavan is exactly what it is, shuffle, chords and an extremely deep bassline.

‘Work It’ by Aezron has a speed garage theme with a touch of house and a vocal which may sound familiar.

The B-side flip delivers ‘Raw Uncut’ by L&F sampling Mobb Deep over some breaks and bass. Finally ‘Lock’em’ by Xantrax, giving a modern day grime meets UKG vibe.

An ode to nineties trance and the more introspective side of lower-mid tempo music. Drawing inspiration from the external environments that encompass Australia and the vast rural landscapes, Reflex Blue’s double LP is a reflection of migration, introspection and deeper meditative states.

Spanning across nine tracks the LP explores our deeper connection to the outside world.