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John Bence can be described as a Savant in the world of Avant-Garde classical composition, and puts his mastery on full display in his newest release with Thrill Jockey. Archangels is a deep dive into the world and soundscape that Bence carefully crafts to offer a glimpse of the divine. Raised in Bristol"s burgeoning underground electronic music scene and a graduate of the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, John Bence manages to employ compositional complexity to manifest potent emotions. Bence"s acclaimed early works focused on the human experience, charting the composer"s own experiences with addiction and alcoholism in both stark minimalism and caustic noise eruptions. Having written Archangels two years into his recovery, Bence deftly threads together gauzy electronic atmospheres, brooding orchestral passages, and minimalist piano meditations Throughout his work, he manages to finely sew together Gregorian chant, orchestral arrangements, rippling synthesizers, and field recordings to reveal new surprises at every turn. Archangels is a compelling addition to contemporary composition by an artist unbound by classical traditions.

repressed !

From samba and bossa nova through to baile funk, with carioca expressions of jazz, rock and hip hop in between, the sound of Rio de Janeiro, while continually evolving, has always held an unnameable quality which reflects the magic and mystique of the city itself. Multi-instrumentalist and arranger Antonio Neves is the city’s newest trailblazer: the enfant-terrible of Rio’s music scene, leading a vital and diverse constellation of both emerging and well-known artists advancing the city’s musical legacy.

“It all started one sleepless night, after watching a Quincy Jones documentary”. Inspired by the legendary music magnate, Neves began writing a list of artists residing in Rio de Janeiro “people that I admire, that I consider geniuses of their instruments, who share with me affinities, anxieties and projects.” The list included some of Brazil’s most revered living musicians who Neves has worked with in recent years: Hamilton de Holanda, Leo Gandelman and Dorival Caymmi. Neves also called on some of Brazil's most exciting emerging talents including Alice Cayymii and Ana Frango Eletrico.

A Pegada Agora É Essa (The Sway Now) is Neves’ second album: a vibrant portrait of the current Brazilian music scene. From the regional to universal, popular to erudite, samba to rap, Latin rhythms to jazz, MPB and pop to good old rock'n'roll, Neves walks with fluency and mastery amongst all the musical genres that Brazil has to offer.

“My offer to the musicians was complete freedom to express themselves through the songs I proposed – classics like “Summertime”, “Luz Negra” and “Noite de Temporal”, and compositions of my own – creating a space of authorship for the band and the guests. A space for inventions, purges, delusions, laughter. The idea was to bring the freedom of jazz crossed by Brazilian rhythms, such as the traditionals Partido Alto (A Pegada Agora É Essa) and Jongo (Jongo no Feudo and Luz Negra); rhythms of African-Brazilian religions like Candomblé (Noite de Temporal) and Umbanda (Forte Apache); and a tribute to newest Rio de Janeiro’s contribution to Brazilian music, the Funk Carioca (Simba)”.

Coming from a musical family, Antonio’s father, Eduardo Neves, was a renowned conductor and a professor at Juilliard School of Music and the California Jazz Conservatory. In the bohemian neighbourhood of Lapa, aged 14, Antonio began his career as a drummer, before experimenting with brass. He would soon become a skilled trombonist and arranger achieving the recognition of his teachers and peers. It wasn’t long before he would be playing with some of the biggest names in Brazilian music, such as Hamilton de Holanda, Leo Gandelman, Moreno Veloso, Kassin and Elza Soares.

His debut album as a trombonist was PA7 (2017, Rock It), released at the same time he was travelling the world playing with artists like Moreno Veloso, Kassin and Leo Gandelman, and recording the albums Jobim, Orquestra e Convidados (2017, Biscoito Fino), with Mário Adnet and Paulo Jobim; and Elza Soares Canta e Chora Lupi (2017, Coqueiro Verde Records). More recently, Neves was the arranger for the acclaimed Little Electric Chicken Heart album, by Ana Frango Elétrico, which has been nominated for a Latin Grammy and voted 2019’s ‘Brazilian Music Revelation’ by The Art Critics Association of São Paulo.

In 1975, under the oppressive air of military dictatorship in Brazil, brothers Lelo and Zé Eduardo Nazario invited bassist Zeca Assumpção to join their musical experiments in a basement under Sao Paulo’s Teodoro Sampaio Street. As teenagers, the trio had already been playing together in Hermeto Pascoal’s Grupo, alongside guitarist Toninho Horta and saxophonist Nivaldo Ornelas, and it was while working together under Hermeto’s direction that the Paulista rhythm section (as they were then known) began to realise their own potential.

With many nightclubs and venues closed in the mid-70s and government censors dictating the output of radio, TV and art galleries, many Brazilian artists fled during the years of dictatorship. But underground, Grupo Um were fusing avant garde ideals with contemporary jazz and Afro Brazilian rhythm; making phenomenally free and expressive music - in stark contrast to the sterile, conservative conditions being imposed above ground.

Just like Hermeto Pascoal’s Viajando Com O Som from the following year, Starting Point was recorded over two days at Vice-Versa Studios, by revered engineer Renato Viola. The studio was one of the best in Sao Paulo and musicians communicated with engineers through cameras and a monitor, allowing the group complete immersion in the process. They also made use of the studio’s hemispherical tiled room, which served as an acoustic reverberation chamber.

The album begins with Zé Eduardo Nazario’s thunderous drum solo on “Porão da Teodoro”, before clearing the clouds with the lone Berimbau which opens “Onze Por Oito”. Built around a hypnotic electric bass line, heady Fender Rhodes improvisations, and more rip-roaring drums, it’s a rapturous, electrifying freak-jam in 11/8.

Like some invertebrate deep-sea curiosity, the free-form “Organica” is made up of Lelo Nazario’s playfully eerie prepared piano, with Zé Eduardo’s percussion flurries darting around Assumpçao’s double bass. The equally non-conformist, percussion-only piece “Jardim Candida” features many of Zé Eduardo’s home-made instruments, including a long saw blade played with vibraphone sticks and violin bow. While working with Hermeto, Zé Eduardo famously built his own all-in-one percussion set-up known as the “Barraca de Percussão” (Percussion Tent) - the first of its kind in Brazil, which he would also use on Hermeto Pascoal’s Viajando Com O Som and throughout his career.

“Suite Orquidea Negra'' (Black Orchid Suite) was written by Lelo Nazario as the score for an imaginary movie - the story of a rare, black orchid which produced a substance meant to cure all diseases, but which had mysteriously disappeared from the laboratory… “As a screenplay it’s not very good” reflects Lelo in jest, “but the music ended up being very interesting, the way its parts are chained to one another carries a little of the mystery I imagined for the movie.”

The album closes with the triumphant “Cortejo dos Reis Negros” (Procession of Black Kings) - a groovy variation on the Maracatu rhythm, with a two-note bassline underpinning piano improvisations, exultant wordless vocals, cuicas, slide-whistles and a very special guest appearance from Zé’s dog Bolinha.

Starting Point was to mark the inception of one of Brazil’s most daring instrumental groups. Their debut now sits in the lofty echelon of otherworldly 70s Brazilian music, alongside the likes of Marcos Resende & Index’s self-titled debut, Cesar Mariano & Cia’s Sao Paulo Brasil, Azymuth’s debut and indeed Hermeto Pascoal’s Viajando Com O Som. But just like all of those titles, which were either shelved or largely ignored at the time, Grupo Um - so radically ahead of their time - struggled to find a label to release their debut album. So Lelo kept the tapes safe in his archives, which is where they sat for almost half a century. Finally, almost fifty years later, this mesmerising piece of history is here, and it was only the beginning...

Grupo Um’s Starting Point will be released by Far Out Recordings, on vinyl LP, with an insert featuring unseen photos and liner notes by the Nazario brothers, as well as a CD on 17th February 2023.

The next transmission from planet BRUK comes courtesy of Lårry, an enigmatic artist ploughing an individualist furrow through various fields of electronic expression, one hand tweaking the tiller and the other casually dismissing the rules of rave. You might have caught their sharply-pointed sound on Super Hexagon or Awkwardly Social, or perhaps stumbled across their fabled 2021 live performance from Fitzroy in Berlin, or even unconsciously swayed to something spun in a set any time over the past five years. Lårry's discography is modest but mighty, and How Was That For You builds into that idea with four
precise tools for forward-leaning soundsystem communion. From the fractalised barbs of electronica stepper 'In Water' to patiently dread-eyed wobbler 'Angela's Knife', 'Uniform Uninform's icy incisions to the snaking spiral staircase of 'Yargachin', this is brain fodder first and foremost, with bassweight impact threaded through as an added bonus. Keeping fine company amongst the other oddities inhabiting the Bruk mandate, Lårry continues to keep us on our toes, literally and figuratively.

The very first initial Minimum Success Records release features the legacy of some finest mix of breakbeat, gabber & hardcore influenced tracks with some ghetto touch produced in the studio sessions between 1993-1997 by the duo Amalgam 5 at West 20 Studio in Turku, Finland. Well after a decade being buried in the deepest master tapes archives these tracks are finally seeing a daylight and becoming available on a beautifully designed vinyl release by Bank™.

Featuring music from a lost tape of devotional keyboard jams, field recordings of migrating birds, mysterious bells, meditative noise and crooked new beat/EBM, made god-knows-when and subsequently discovered in a Thessaloniki charity shop years later. It now somehow finds its way to vinyl, newly mastered by Rashad Becker, and sounding like a lost Hype Williams x Muslimgauze madness.

Originally discovered in a musty charity shop by Live Adult Entertainment, and issued in minuscule numbers on CD in ’21, Christian Love Forum’s raverential debut ‘Naked Light’ documents the fraternal post-church jams of siblings, Scott, Kiro and N•X, plus their mate Steve, who would regularly channel the light and pain of Sunday mass sermons into their ecclesiastic crud.

As previously heard on their blink ’n miss ‘Unconditional Love’ tape, the trio express their higher purpose thru ribboning microtonal keyboard jams that sound like Gurdjieff with a Casio and a knackered drum machine after too much sacramental wine. They hit the strangest, most affective seam of religious cinematic epic soundtracks, gnarled noise and clandestine Belgian new beat that seriously pushes our buttons, sounding quite unlike anything in the contemporary sphere, but eerily also echoing sentiments explored on record by James Leyland Kirby or Bryn Jones.

Now reshuffled and clad in custom artwork, ‘Naked Light’ is unveiled to believers and skeptics as a definitive article of faith. The lord works in mysterious ways within, manifest in stages of sun-bleached post-church field recordings, whirligig melodies, blown-out bouzouki and choral tape howls and a Béla Tarr soundtrack-like campanology on the A-side, before letting their passions flow in ‘Wicked City (Parts I-IV)’; a spellbinding side-long collage of slurred synths, neo-noir hardbeat rhythms and speaking-in-tongues vox recalling V/Vm’s new beat apocrypha as much as bits from Hype Williams’ hypnagogic ‘One Nation’, thee dustiest gooches of Dirk Desaever’s archive, or even aspects of Rat Heart at his cruddiest.

‘Naked Light’ rarely fails to induce uncontrolled eye movement in susceptible skulls, destined to become an occult hit with lapsed churchgoers, new beat fiends and anyone missing the enigma and ineffable flavour of ‘00s underground noise tapes in this auspicious year of AD2023.

Hot on the heels of this year’s ‘Dyslexia Sound System’ album, Touch Sensitive is thrilled to share a three-track companion piece from Autumns - 'DSS Dubplate'. Autumns is the solo project of Derry’s Christian Donaghey. With a relentless release rate that mirrors the energy and intensity of his live shows, Donaghey has submitted a selection of skewed star turns for the likes of iDEAL, Death & Leisure, and Opal Tapes since his debut on Regis' Downwards label in 2014. Much like it's companion LP, 'DSS Dubplate' is heavily inspired by the On-U Sound label, the productions of Adrian Sherwood, and that cultural and musical sweet spot when the rockers met the post-punk crowd. Donaghey’s whip-crack beats, heavily effected vocals, shredded no-wave guitar, and clarinet squalls are shaped and shifted further into the endless expanse by his dubwise techniques on the board. As always with Donaghey's productions - these rhythms grip tight and don't let loose until the needle is on the run-out groove. Full-throttle! Autumns non-stop!

Gayance joins forces with Rhythm Section for her debut album ‘Mascarade’ - a swaying dance that moves between poetic, soulful odes to the past, accounts of the Afro-diasporic feminine experience and playfully energetic dance floor grooves.

Mascarade is a collection of dancey, broken rhythms, interwoven with heartfelt stories and bright, unapologetic outpours of joy. In her own words, “It's the story of my 20's. I wanted to pay homage to this kid everybody knew, but not deeply. It's about taking back a power that is mine and was always in my hands...It's about making peace with the past and moving forward”.

Gayance (real name Aïsha Vertus) takes her alias from the Haitian creole word for joyfulness.Based in Amsterdam, born and raised in Montreal-Nord, she started as a DJ in 2013, and has toured the world with shows in Paris, Brooklyn, Marrakech, Berlin, Sao Paulo and more, bringing electrifying and contagious energy wherever she goes.

Her own production is influenced by underground UKG and the respective house scenes of Detroit and New York, with nods to the vivid, sun-soaked colours of Latin America. Shades of blues, jazz and gospel can also be heard in her newest project, pulling together styles from each corner of the world. Following her catalog of entirely self-released projects, Gayance announces her full-length debut album on Rhythm Section, bringing some fellow Montrealers along for the ride.

On the heels of their monolithic collaborative LP Mental Wounds Not Healing, the collaboration between industrial-noise post-everything bands Uniform & The Body returns with a second entry, Everything That Dies Someday Comes Back. Comprised of an amalgam of abrasive influence that spans Swans-y dirge and purge, Whitehouse’s clenched-jaw noise, middle-period Ministry’s penchant for metallic post-industrial everything, New Order’s nose for melodic emotionality, and Juicy J-inspired beats, Uniform & The Body’s approach delves deeper down the rabbit hole than before, igniting a sonic world of terror and bliss poised to grip the throats of fans yet again. Prepare for a record that the band self-describes as “the middle ground between Robyn and Corrupted, but weirder.”

Much like the collective’s bombastic debut, Everything was built over a series of collaborative sessions with Seth Manchester at Machines with Magnets in Rhode Island, mixing industrial-influenced synths, squalls of harsh noise, manipulated guitar, oodles of samples along with hard rock-inspired riffs, saccharine pop, and the alternately antagonistic and harrowing vocals of Michael Berdan

In order to celebrate the disco legend, Editions Miliani presents a
magnificent double album of remastered tracks by performer and
songwriter David Christie.

David Christie, a.k.a Jacques Pepino, passed away 25 years ago and for the anniversary of his death, Editions Miliani has compiled these tracks to bring to life timeless music that continues to make people dance! Carefully selected, the tracks include the "Saddle Up" version by Bon Entendeur.

David Christie has composed for artists such as Sylvie Vartan, Joe Dassin, Demis Roussos, Morris Albert, Gloria Gaynor, Jimmy James, Grace Jones and Tina Charles, for whom Christie wrote the 1976 hit "I Love to Love" that topped the UK charts. The album pays tribute to the career of this musical genius.

Last year the Atlanta artist releaed her debut EP Swan, made with producer Marshall Vore who is known for his work with folk dynamo Phoebe Bridgers. The five song col¬lection found a supportive home with Royal Mountain Re¬cords, and drew remarkable acclaim for a debut EP, earning praise from outlets like NPR, FADER, Nylon, Paste, Under The Radar, Coup De Main and Line of Best Fit among many others.
When I’m Alone is the debut album from Girlpuppy. Across the record, Harvey weaves in several cinematic allusions: a Keanu Reeves look alike pops up in “Teenage Dream,” named for the alternate title of an ‘80s movie he stars in;

Wax Tailor announces the release of his new album "Fishing For Accidents" on February 10th, 2023, accompanied by a new international tour.

"The starting point of this record is a quote from the film director Orson Welles, which evokes the notion of accident in the creative process. I always thought that accidents were an integral part of creation and the job of a film or music director is also to know how to capture them in order to make the accident an artistic intention. I decided not to follow a well established concept but this more instinctive guideline and to go fishing for accidents".

In this new opus, Wax Tailor explores with his sampler a world of vinyls and cinematographic references, brandishing as a flag a stamped musical culture and multiplying references to the 7th art in a music written in 33 rpm and 24 images seconds. After the dark "The Shadow Of Their Suns" released in 2021, Wax Tailor takes us with "Fishing For Accidents", on a brighter and more colorful side without ever betraying his universe and his convictions.

A multi-recidivist talent scout, he gathers around him a prestigious cast ranging from hip hop (Mick Jenkins, Mr. Lif, Kuf Knotz, Lojii, Napoleon Da Legend, Ill Conscious, Voice Monet, David Bars, Mattic) to the indie rock scene (Jennifer Charles, singer of the legendary band Elysian Fields and Victoria Bigelow).

With one eye on the past and the other on the horizon, Wax Tailor instills the incandescence of an organic sound and distills his art of sound anachronism in a wide gap between nostalgia and modernity that has made him one of the leaders of the international electro hip hop scene for over 20 years.

COLLECTION OF SIGH'S EARLY DEMOS, EP & RARITIES ON VINYL -
INCLUDES AN INTERVIEW & LINER NOTES COURTESY OF MAINMAN
MIRAI KAWASHIMA ON THE FORMATIVE YEARS OF THE JAPANESE
LEGENDS.
Cult Japanese black metal legends Sigh formed in 1989/90, featuring
mainman Mirai Kawashima, Satoshi Fujinami & Kazuki Ozeki
Following initial demos, Shinichi Ishikawa was brought into the band. It was following this shift that the band set about recording the masterpiece debut 'Scorn Defeat' for Euronymous' Deathlike Silence Productions, going on to become one of the country's greatest & most revered metal exports. With a journey through the strange & the psychedelic, incorporating a whole eclectic mix of genre styles & experimentation throughout their career, Sigh has remained a
vital creative force in the avantgarde field. However, at its core, Sigh has always remained true to its roots of old school metal.
'Eastern Darkness' contains a collection of Sigh's early rare works showing their swift musical evolution as well as the strong utilisation of keyboards in their compositional process throughout. The collection includes the band's legendary demo tapes, 'Desolation' & 'Tragedies', plus their 'Requiem For Fools' EP, along with the 'Far East Gate In Inferno' version of 'The Zombie Terror'. 'Eastern Darkness' is presented on the vinyl format & includes an interview with Mirai Kawashima about the early years of the band, along with his recollections of the origins of each title contained within the release, three decades on from Sigh's formation.

It could only have happened in Detroit. It was in the ashes of this Detroit, that Tribe Records was born - a community-led platform where artists took control of marketing, promoting, and releasing their own music. Two original founding members, saxophonist Wendell Harrison and trombonist Phil Ranelin, are still active in the Detroit jazz community, and act as global ambassadors for the Tribe legacy. In the years that have followed, the path Tribe blazed has become the blueprint for generations of independent artists. With the upcoming release of Ranelin and Harrison"s joint entry in the Jazz Is Dead series, they continue the mission of Tribe to provide "a new dimension in cultural awareness".

Purgate is Frederic Arbour’s latest project and although new to metaphysik, Purgate needs no introduction. Having previously released as one half of Stärker (Zhark Recordings, Hospital Productions) and Visions (Cyclic Law), Purgate presents Hæresis, part three of the Trinitas split, and captivates with a set of flawless yet reflective tracks.

SHIFTING - The brandnew album by FRANK POPP ENSEMBLE, the first since 2005! It has been quiet during the last years, apart from an album as „Frank Popp“ called „Receiver“ in 2009 on his own label TV Eye Records. Frank Popp was always busy tho, working as a producer for other bands (Odd Couple, Sun And The Wolf, etc), designing hundreds of posters and booking top notch concerts in Berlin (The Jesus And Mary Chain, Billy Childish or 60s legends The Pretty Things, just to name a few. Once a month Mr. Popp runs several dance partys since many years. Now he is back at his desk for his own musical project FRANK POPP ENSEMBLE! And again he got help from many wonderful special guests lending this project their voices, such as Jesper Munk, Aydo Abay, Lucy Kruger, Kat Ott from 24/7 Diva Heaven, Anna Glahn and classic FPE singer Sam Leigh-Brown. Mr. Popp wrote, recorded, produced and mixed „Shifting" in Spain between january and march 2021, accompanied by Jascha Kreft (Odd Couple) for the songwriting sessions. The 16-song heavyweight takes us on a colourful journey through vintage soul scorchers, psychedelic soundtrack scapes, spector-esque sound walls, bootboy glamrock and even a riviera space-disco tune can be found on the new longplayer. Of course lotsa things changed in that many years. Many lyrics are written by Popp himself, out for trouble in impertinent phrasing here and there. The music has become mature and deeper and his voice can be heard on two songs, the first time ever. It sure is a remarkable piece of high quality music, that’s been delivered here. Watch out, world!