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Written with a libidinal urgency that has come to characterize Kool Keith’s legendary lyricism, “Keith’s Salon” explores our current obsessions with luxury, beauty, and notoriety. But rather than fetishize the beautiful dum-dums who walk red carpets in black Prada gowns,

Kool Keith's most recent studio album shifts our attention to the work and workers that underpin our fantasies of American excess and the good life.

As such, the album is also a timely meditation, during quarantine, on the economic precarity many of us now find ourselves in. Having doubled-up with Triple Parked, the production team of avant-techno maven Bruno Pronsato and Benjamin Jay, “Keith’s Salon” moves between halcyon sonics and atonal warlord dystopia, while keeping beats minimal for Kool Keith to spread extra ketchup on the hamburger. An album at once topical and futuristic, lush and bizarre, "Keith's Salon" is about the business of making people beautiful. It's time to work.

A tender and sweeping story about what roots us, Minari follows a Korean- American family that moves to a tiny Arkansas farm in search of their own American Dream. The family home changes completely with the arrival of their sly, foul-mouthed, but incredibly loving grandmother. Amidst the instability and challenges of this new life in the rugged Ozarks, Minari shows the undeniable resilience of family and what really makes a home.

Minari already won several awards at Sundance Film Festival, Alliance of Women Film Journalists, Boston Society of Film Critics, Denver Film Festival, Florida Film Critics Circle, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, North Carolina Film Critics Association and appeared on over 30 critics’ year-end top-ten lists, including first place on two lists and second place on four.

Emile Mosseri is an American composer, pianist, singer and producer based in Los Angeles. He has scored films and series including The Last Black Man In San Francisco, Kajillionaire, HBO’s Random Acts of Flyness and Season 2 of Amazon’s Homecoming. Emile is a member of the indie-rock band The Dig.

Originally released on CD in 2012, Chapter's landmark compilation of 70s gay musical pioneers gets a vinyl release for the first time ever - and on limited baby pink vinyl to boot! Strong Love explores the first wave of openly gay songwriting, emerging after New York's Stonewall Riots kickstarted the modern gay rights movement in 1969. It took just a few years for the defiant chanting and interlocked arms of early 70s pride marches to reverberate onto record, and Strong Love begins with the earliest known example, 1972's A Gay Song by London hippie collective Everyone Involved. Across 15 tracks, the compilation takes in disarmingly personal folk, uplifting soul, outsider country and dark synth-rock. But tellingly, none of its songs could be considered well-known. New York's Steven Grossman released the first major label album by an openly gay artist in 1974, and Tom Robinson hit the UK Top 20 with the fiery Glad To Be Gay in 1978, but these are the exceptions. The coy ambivalence of Lou Reed and David Bowie was about as sexually adventurous as the 1970s music industry got, and most Strong Love artists released their own self-funded recordings in very limited numbers. Unlike their lesbian counterparts, who joined forces to create long-lasting record labels, strong distribution networks and considerable sales figures, gay male musicians in the 1970s existed largely in solitary bubbles. Which doesn't mean they didn't carve out niches of their own. Chris Robison played with the New York Dolls and Elephant's Memory, while LA glam seducer Smokey saw members of the Stooges and Quiet Riot pass through his backing band. Steven Grossman was covered by Twiggy and Scrumbly & Martin are infamous for their work with San Francisco drag hippies the Cockettes. Strong Love illustrate the vision, talent and raw courage that drove 1970s songwriters to sacrifice popular careers for the sake of honesty and selfexpression. Compiled by Chapter Music's Guy Blackman, with an evocative introduction from drummer RIchard Dworkin (who played with Blackberri and Buena Vista), the album is a powerful tribute to pioneering artists whose music has been neglected for too long.

- The complete film music available for the first time on vinyl - 180 Gram "Satanic Rite" Colored Vinyl - Exclusive liner notes by Rob Zombie - 16 Page Booklet featuring unreleased photography - Bonus Black Metal live album by Count Corgan pressed to 180 gram black vinyl with B-Side etching // Waxwork Records is proud to present Rob Zombie's THE LORDS OF SALEM Original Motion Picture Soundtrack. Available for the very first time on vinyl and pressed to 180 gram "Satanic Rite" colored vinyl, the music of THE LORDS OF SALEM features The Velvet Underground, Rick James, Rush, Leviathan the Fleeing Serpent, John 5, and more. THE LORDS OF SALEM is a 2012 American supernatural horror film written, produced, and directed by Rob Zombie. The film stars Sheri Moon Zombie (The Firefly Trilogy), Meg Foster (They Live), Bruce Davison (X-Men), Dee Wallace (E.T., The Hills Have Eyes), and Patricia Quinn (The Rocky Horror Picture Show). The plot focuses on a troubled female disc jockey, Heidi (Sheri Moon Zombie), who is a recovering drug addict living in Salem, Massachusetts. Her life becomes entangled with a coven of ancient Satan-worshipping women after receiving a strange wooden box and listening to the album inside it by a band named "The Lords". The soundtrack features classic songs by The Velvet Underground, Lou Reed, Manfred Mann's Earth Band, and several more. The score features original cues by John 5 and Griffin Boice. In line with other Zombie soundtracks, the album features intermittent dialogue tracks from the movie. Waxwork is thrilled to present the debut vinyl release of THE LORDS OF SALEM as a deluxe album package featuring 180 gram "Satan Rite" colored vinyl (Blood Red and Blue Butterfly effect with White Splatter), exclusive liner notes by Rob Zombie, new and original art by Robert Sammelin, a 12"x12" 16-page booklet including unreleased set photography from Zombie's personal archive, a heavyweight art print, printed inner sleeves, and old-style tip-on gatefold jackets with satin coating. Also included is a bonus black metal album by Count Gorgann entitled Corpse Eater: Satanic Misery Live for the Dead. This bonus album features a 2015 live recording at Black Forest Discothek and is pressed to 180-gram black vinyl with an etched B-Side.

Green yellow red splatter vinyl
Into the Future’ is the ninth studio album by the American hardcore punk band Bad Brains, which was originally released on November 20, 2012 on Megaforce Records.
t is a tribute dedication to Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys, a longtime friend of he band who died of cancer six months before its release, and produced their previous album ‘Build a Nation’
This “Into The Future’ vinyl reissue is on green, yellow and red splatter vinyl in gatefold packaging featuring cover art by Shepard Fairey, a street artist who became widely known with his Barrack Obama “Hope” poster used in his 2008 campaign. His work has been included in many contemporary art museums luding the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Returning with their first new music in 8 years, Stubborn Heart have announced their anticipated new album 'Made Of Static'. Luca Santucci and Ben Fitzgerald, who have spent the last few years developing the ten brooding electro-soul tracks that make up the successor to their lauded 2012 self-titled debut, have once again struck a fine balance between ominous synth-soundscapes and introspective songwriting. Balance is the key theme here. With Fitzgerald leading the production and manning the machines, the sound is rawer than on their previous album. Left-field pop with dark, icy edges, it finds a home somewhere in between r&b and cold wave. Santucci brings the heart and with it his aching, obsessive lyrics and a desire for something grittier in its presentation. The duo's talents complement each other perfectly throughout. Santucci has amassed an impressive list of writing and vocal credits in his time, with the likes of XL and Warp signee Leila Arab, Plaid, Riton and Soulwax amongst them. Fitzgerald has also been hard at work at his home studio programming various styles of music for artists and producers from around the world. As Stubborn Heart, they come armed with some serious experience and a wealth of influences. There's an honest simplicity in the way they create, with lyrics written in an immediate, direct fashion with the aim to catch a feeling rather than emulate one. On their first album Stubborn Heart garnered praise from the likes of Pitchfork, NME and the UK broadsheets. It was named album of 2012 at Gilles Peterson's Worldwide Awards and Rough Trade placed it in their top 20 best albums the same year. However, it's now that we're presented with an album they feel better represents their dynamic - an album born from the duos combined creative static - as such, 'Made Of Static' is the first fruit of their reunion, aiming to step on from where they left off, and with the promise of much more to follow.

Leo Ceccanti should be a familiar name to all followers of the Claremont 56 label. Alongside sometime studio partner Gianluca Salvadori, he was responsible for two delightfully distinctive Almunia albums released on the label, 2011’s New Moon and 2013’s Pulsar. Both sets were filled with golden, sun-kissed sounds, psychedelic grooves and immersive, life-affirming soundscapes.

Now he’s decided to go it alone as Leo Almunia, delivering a debut album for Claremont 56 that’s every bit as alluring, wide-eyed and evocative as those he made with Salvadori. In keeping with his previous work, the album blends layered acoustic and electric guitars with toasty bass, dreamy synthesizers and grooves that variously touch on hypnotic house, chugging mid-tempo disco, sunset-ready Balearic beats and, on the glistening, life-affirming album highlight ‘Wishing Star’, loose-limbed jazz breaks.

What’s most significant about Ceccanti’s personal musical style is not the blend of stylistic influences he draws on – think psychedelic rock, progressive rock, jazz-rock, new age ambient and slow-motion disco – but rather the way he uses it to paint vivid aural images that genuinely linger long in the memory.

After opening with the duelling guitars and chunky dub disco grooves of ‘Sinking Fields’, Ceccanti sashays between magical moments of rush-inducing positivity, heart-tugging poignance and heady nostalgia.

Along the way, you’ll find numerous sonic highlights. On the intoxicating 21st century psychedelia of ‘Panerea’, jangling chords and eyes-closed psych-rock guitar solos ride a chugging, thickset electronic bassline, while ‘Il Cormorano’ is a metronomic, flash-fried workout rich in fuzz-tone guitar motifs, bluesy riffs and echoing instrumental touches.

He cannily joins the dots between Mid-West Americana and throbbing, psychedelic disco-chug on ‘Loveblind’, while ‘Minor Circle’ sits somewhere between Santana, the Pat Metheny Band and sunrise-ready Balearic blues. Arguably even better is the saucer-eyed brilliance of ‘Brillo De Luna’, where a dubbed-out electronic beat becomes enveloped in life-affirming acoustic guitar chords, exotic slide guitar motifs and string-bending solos. If John Lennon had ingested MDMA rather than LSD before writing ‘Across The Universe’, it would probably sound like this.

Then there’s the album’s crowning moment, closer ‘Can’t Hold a Lover’. A heart-aching, largely ambient instrumental that channels the loneliness and anguish felt by many of those separated from their nearest and dearest during the pandemic, it sees Ceccanti brilliantly wrap a variety of sun-bright guitar textures and solos around some of the loveliest synthesizer chords you’re every likely to hear. On an album packed with effervescent, mood-enhancing musical highs, it’s a rare moment of bittersweet bliss.

Ulf Lohmann, the newcomer of the year. From the deepest suburbs of Cologne, he spreads his musical message around The world. Resistance is futile. His music disarms even the unarmed. Innocence has become sound - unswervingly pure and beautiful. Like the electronic immaculate conception Truthful as love itself . So, leave the container and enter into the paradise of active oblivion. Shut up, you real world! Here comes Ulf Lohmann, here comes Pop Ambient 2001.
STERBENS-SCHÖNER POP AMBIENT & EIN KLEINER MINIMAL HIT MACHEN ULF ZUR ECHTEN ENTDECKUNG. HAMMER !

Brand new Barcelona imprint Balearic Ensemble hit the ground running with their premier plastic disc drop, BE001. We’re over (and under, and around) the moon to present the Painting Of The Day EP, the first i n a series of extended plays l ined up from the baddest crew of balearic samurais for your aural i ndulgence. Leading the charge i s the one and only Max Essa, a man some may know as botanist-in-chief at the sublime Jardin Jansen l abel, others as the shadow behind a string of l ush productions sounded out by the l ikes of the Guv’nor Andrew Weatherall or a one David Mancuso. Painting Of The Day i s the l atest i n Max’s deeply inventive output, with Joe Morris, Lukkas and Ibicenco duo Reisdentes Balearicos serving up three wondrously lush revamps for the heads . First up i s ‘ Matinee’, which takes that l aid-back 80s sound and washes i t through reverb racks and cascading arpeggiatic tones. Soft, subtle and brilliant, the result i s an emotional Essa performance, akin to a soft caress of the waves, or a brush stroke on a canvas i n the afternoon sun. ‘Tempo Babadoh’ i s another massive balearic number, promenading and pirouetting i ts way across a vista of club congas, wah guitar and deluxe synth sounds. Sliding nylon strings evoke memories of a l ate-night Mandy Smith anthem as agogo bells i nterweave among the flora and fauna of Max Essa’s balearic vision. A l ofty, virtuosic affair that’s sure to be a staple when the good times come. On the flip we have Joe Morris’s ‘ Paraiso’ version of Tempo Badaboh. It’s a(n) NY hymn, a dusty psalm, a stellar reimagining of the original which brings an 80s Chicago feel with all the savoir faire and finesse that the Clandestino man has come to be revered for. Sizzling b l ines, crickets at dusk and time-tested balearic motifs presented i n a new, slightly angular l ight. Over on B2 (?) we get Lukkas’ Club Mix of Matinee, a dangerous dance weapon with a dose of l ow frequencies bubbling through the sp

One Pure jewel of a Reggae and its version ! Beauty !

Following the success of the limited edition of 700 copies for the Record Store Day, we're offering you the chance to pre-order a new unnumbered edition of this unique project. Hot release alert! An unpublished version of Amsterdam, discovered in the archives of French radio. Recorded in front of an audience at «La Maison de la radio» for the show «Jam Sessions» in July 1965, this version offers a new arrangement: without accordion, only accompanied by Gérard Jouannest (piano) and Pierre Sim (double bass), Jacques Brel interprets Amsterdam with deep emotion.
Notice to collectors!

Also on the program that night: Ne me quitte pas, Au suivant and Le Plat Pays.

Louisahhh releases her debut LP The Practice of Freedom, via HE.SHE.THEY. The Practice of Freedom heralds the evolution of Louisahhh as she delivers her most exposing work yet, conceived as an exploration of the unorthodox archetype of “feminist submissive,” based on the mantra “sin is not being true to yourself.” Like her uncompromising musical heroes Karen O, Siouxsie Sioux and Shirley Manson before her, Louisahhh’s bold, raw, anti-establishment message on The Practice of Freedom will mark her as punk’s essential new heroine at the forefront of the new dawn of musical feminism.

The Practice of Freedom was born from experiences of loss and love, told through a journey of brutally beautiful electronics, electro and techno colliding with industrial, rock and alternative sounds. On the polysexual polymath label HE.SHE.THEY.’s inaugural album release, Louisahhh captures a record of our times, covering themes ranging from eroticism and empowerment to addiction and apocalypse, and influences ranging from Nine Inch Nails to Patti Smith to Judith Butler. The album, produced by American musician, music video director and photographer Vice Cooler, hears ideas and lyrics by Louisahhh re-contextualised into revolutionary experimental sounds, formed through the pair’s shared love of American alternative rock. Louisahhh’s music fights for and provides a voice for others, rooted equally in the intensity of the dancefloor and the mosh pit.

Brace! Brace! That record is a bouncing riddim, and we never know where it's gonna land: here noise or miami bass, there dark disco and then Balearic. What could be an easy puzzle for diggers always feels true though. Sincere, like the 14-year-old DJ F16 Falcon, going nuts on some American nu hardcore - the back of the record are actual screenshots testifying of that moment. A life ago, DJ F16 Falcon used to be a part of the noise music scene in Paris, releasing music under the Roger mpr moniker. He dropped the complicated stuff for dance music but kept the industrial touch. We all need some dance. And we all need a Sugar Dada.

When most musicians reach a career milestone they take it on tour. Texas, whose debut album turned 30 last year, had bigger ambitions. Rather than simply perform their old songs, the Scots set out to meet their old selves – the wide-eyed kids who made Southside, their two million-selling, Top 3 debut, and the band who bounced back eight years later with the six times platinum White On Blonde.
The vaults at Universal were raided for recording sessions for both albums, stored on tape and DAT and never digitised. Top of Texas’ list was their first, failed attempt at I Don’t Want A Lover, scuppered by Chic bassist Bernard Edwards.
“Just after we signed, we were in the studio with Bernard and Chic’s drummer Tony Thompson,” recalls guitarist Johnny McElhone. “Bernard got coked up and ended up running away to Mexico before Sharleen even started her vocals. But that’s a whole other story.”
Late in 2018, the aborted version was found, alongside several songs recorded during different sessions which didn’t make their debut. The biggest revelation, however, was a 15-strong batch of tracks from the White On Blonde sessions which both Johnny and Sharleen Spiteri had forgotten existed.
“When we made that album, no one in Britain gave a shit about Texas,” says Sharleen. “We were still doing really well in Europe, but here we couldn’t get arrested.
“No one at our label was asking to hear any music or pushing us, so we just kept writing and recording and trying out new stuff until we felt the record was ready. Hence we ended up with a lot more material than usual.”
So good were the songs that Texas initially planned to release them as a ‘lost’ album, possibly to be called Blonde On White. But working with their old recordings inspired them to start writing new songs.
“Tweaking the old stuff was so much fun,” says Sharleen. “It felt like us, now, collaborating with ourselves of 25 years ago. It was amazing to go back there – my voice was so young! – and to hear how much energy and passion we had. We were fighting for our careers at the time, trying to prove that Texas were still relevant.
“Our excitement at finding this treasure trove of songs collided with our excitement from back then and, unplanned, new songs started coming. You could say we were inspired by ourselves, if that didn’t make us sound insanely big-headed.”
Hi, Texas’ tenth album, is the result of that bonkers journey back but has its eyes firmly fixed on the future. The title track and sensational first single aptly fuses the two. A brand new collaboration with Wu Tang Clan, it finds a soulful Sharleen nestled next to boisterous raps from RZA and Ghostface Killah over a cinematic backdrop of lush beats and acoustic guitar.

After decades on the road and the never-ending hustle of life as an artist, Lou Barlow has tapped into a new confidence in the chaos. In 2021, the concept of balance feels particularly intimidating. Now more than ever, it's clear life isn't just leveling out a pair of responsibilities. Instead, we're chasing after a flock of different ideals with a butterfly net. On Barlow's new solo album, Reason to Live, he has come to an understanding of that swirl rather than trying to contain it. As a long-time indie legend, Barlow has found a life akin to a middle-class musician. In recent years, he's moved from Los Angeles back to Massachusetts, where he lives with his wife and three kids. And yet rather than settle into a comfortable malaise or yearn for the open road, Barlow's strengthened urgency finds a way to merge the two instincts. Reason to Live is shambolic and grand yet intimate and doting, warmly acoustic and crackling with grit. "I had been struggling for a way to connect both my home life and my recorded life, but this record is the first time I've integrated that," Barlow says. By folding the many facets of his life into one package, Reason to Live radiates with a renewed balance and calm. That comfort in complexity shines through even in the recording process, with select songs having origins in decades past and others written in the early stages of 2020. The multitude of whirring messages of Reason to Live are united by Barlow's roiling multilayered arrangements and the understanding that change is inevitable - and that it can bring you a new reason to live in the darkest times. "This album is me really opening up, and the album follows that through its many different themes," he says. "Some of my other work could be almost claustrophobic in its insistence on being all tied together but there's space for people to live inside these songs." After albums with Sebadoh, Dinosaur Jr., Folk Implosion, and under his own name, listeners may have felt they knew the construction of a Barlow song, even that they knew Barlow himself. "People have this vision of me as this heartbroken, depressed guy, but this record feels so true to who I am, to this rich life I now have full of people I love," he says. "The songs culminated over the last five years to show that music has returned to its central comforting role in my life. Now I'm home."

“The Hunt for the Gingerbread Man 2: Get the Dough” embraces the juxtaposition between a fantastical world made of candy and pastries, and the dark and unforgiving lifestyle of the veteran emcee. Sonically immersive, and nostalgic of an era in hip hop that celebrates pain and hardship through whimsical storytelling, this album reaches deep into the life of the protagonist “Mr. Ginjy Breadman” aka “The Gingerbread Man” - and doesn’t let go until you’ve become fully invested in his tumultuous life journey in the “United Cakes of America.”

Thirteen years after the studio release of “The Hunt for the Gingerbread Man,” this sequel album is a testament to MF Grimm’s vivid imagination and innate ability to create stories that transport you beyond our earthly realm. Anthropomorphic cookies, pastries, and gingerbread men are the primary characters in MF Grimm’s tales of violence, crime, drugs, and love, in the ghetto known as “Candyland.”

Perhaps the most compelling aspect of the twenty-one-track album is its unrelenting dedication to both the authenticity of MF Grimm’s infamous life story, and the innocent and irreverent nature of the characters themselves.

The album is produced, mixed, and mastered by Darko the Super.

Buried amongst the gems on the second Claremont Editions compilation was ‘Oui Non’, a collaborative cut that marked the first label appearance of Jpye (real name Jean-Philippe Altier), a French multi-instrumentalist, DJ and producer best known for his work as part of Twonk alongside Leonidas and percussionist/vocalist/guitarist Renato Tonini.

Here Jpye and Tonini join forces once more for their first single on Claremont 56 – a sensual and seductive slab of slow-motion, sun-soaked synth-pop that features more than a few subtle nods to classic Italian Balearic disco cuts such as Radio Band’s ‘Radio Rap’ and Tullio de Piscopo’s ‘Stop Bajon (Primavera)’.
Built around squelchy synth bass and a shuffling drum machine rhythm, ‘Cosa Ti Va’ is marked out by glistening, jazz-fired guitar solos, vibrant synthesizer squiggles, rich electric piano chords and echoing, dubbed-out electronics. It’s a pin-sharp but effortlessly laidback number that’s as tactile and loved-up as it as lazy and horizontal.
‘Cosa Ti Va’ is presented in two complimentary versions. On the A-side of the vinyl version you’ll find the full vocal, which boasts Tonini rapping in his native tongue in the manner of Italo-disco’s most eccentric and atmospheric vocalists. With his deep, rich tone and fluid flow, it’s hard not to fall in love with Tonini’s previously unheard rapping. Rounding off the single is the pair’s vocal-free instrumental take, in which Jpye’s stunning guitar motifs and tactile, soft-touch production can be savoured in full.

Canadian born and Naarm (Melbourne) based Jennifer Loveless returns one year on from her debut releaseHard/Soft(Pure Space Records) withWater, a 12" EP presented by Butter Sessions. Bestowing us with five tracks of dystopian dance-floor thump,Wateris a bustling showcase of Jenn's breadth as an artist. Reflecting on the contrast ofWaterwith her first EP, Loveless comments "I wanted a hard contrast to theHard/Softrelease. I always had a plan to release an energetic frivolous fun type EP afterHard/Soft. I had a feeling people might see me as an ambient producer (although I wouldn't really categoriseHard/Softas that), and I guess this EP,Water, is my response".

At its core,Wateris a hyper-charged cetacean maelstrom of electronic music, sampling weddell seals, humpback whales, pacific walruses and water itself.Waterkicks off with the rumbling patter ofOut/Underbefore moving into the unabatingSyzygy(Scissor Me).Jenn stamps a joyful yet skittish imprint ontoECC,while fly on the wallBackroll Buddysits on a sound bed of audio Jenn recorded at parties, capturing friends chattering and an edit of a Whitney Houston earworm she heard a DJ playing, paying ode to a night out.B L U YOUis a charming endnote; a fusion of fluorescent pop and a catchy bassline. The verdict here is thatWaterallows Jennifer Loveless to prove herself truly as a jack of all trades.Watertakes shape as an engrossing palette of bold dance music.

81355 (pronounced `bless') is a meeting of the minds between three pillars of the Indianapolis music scene; Sirius Blvck, Oreo Jones, and Sedcairn Archives. While the three have worked together in the past, this is their first start-to-finish collaboration, and the result is the stunning and distinctive debut Time I'll Be of Use. Simultaneously mystical and stark, somber and danceable, the project grapples with hard-wired truths and imagines alternate realities with better futures. These lucid wanderings amongst the street fires sound like a cross between the ghost of progressive electronic music of the 70s with its innovative eccentricities, and acrobatic wordplay delivered with sharp resolve. While surrealist in its metaphors and abstraction, it doesn't betray a present awareness. Reflecting on Black struggle in the pandemicridden and democracy faltering landscape of 2020, each member arrived from a synchronistic space, and the recording process ended up being largely intuitive. On "Capstone," the opening track on the album, Sirius Blvck offers a look from inside his space, "This is what we've come to. Generational curses I still can't undo. Just taught my lil girl to tie her shoes now she running to. Holy smokes lungs made of leather like it's comfortable. Climbing up this infinite ladder to get a better view." These three musical vagabonds have met up to find even themselves surprised with the results. Drawing inspiration from the likes of biting poetic commentary of the late Naptown residents, Etheridge Knight and Kurt Vonnegut, OJ summons a golden-era flow and paints a picture of the group's influences, surroundings, and trajectory in one fell swoop in "Thumbs Up." "Alright, in my feelings tonight, Honda Civic overturned as it burns through the night. Bone Thugs in these streets no Surender in sight. I'm writing poems from a jail cell, Etheridge Knight. I throw a fit when I flip it, it's all vintage. A pearl white Bronco like OJ you done did it. The sunshine shatters the rock painted so vivid. Two-hundred fifty pounds of gifted we so lifted_ wassup?" Sirius, with poetry present even in his speaking voice, adds, "It's a way to carve our story in the sky before we're gone. This is us choosing to believe that this time, things will be different. It is an affirmation to the universe. This time I'll see the whole blessing. This time I'll be of use."

Moving into 2021 Pure Space is excited to deliver another year of Australian electronic music. Lately we’ve found therapy through regular body movement to help us see that better days are ahead. We hope you feel this too with this new release…

For our first release of the year, Melbourne’s Third Space captures his most club-focussed exploration to date. It offers a broad path which melts genres, instead showing us an alternate domain.

Having started his own label ‘Nice Setting’ in 2020 and self-releasing an album and an EP, Third Space has established his sound of complex undulating rhythms. For his release on Pure Space, ‘Pattern of Spring’ continues this exploration of dramatic structures with continually shifting timbres - morphing them as they progress through energies, rumbles, and struck surfaces.

The two A-side tracks are powerful displays of organic instrumentation with fluttering pads and subtle resonations. An upbeat tempo and abright atmosphere underpins the opening side, anchored by dnb leaning programming and off-kilter polymetric rhythms.

‘170 Shitshow’ showcases complex percussion underwritten by a formidable resonating karplus-strong section throughout the track. Whilst ‘Pulsing Delay Mod’ builds upon this notion of polymetric rhythms continually at play with one another, it offers a crisp and menacing drum pattern pulsating amongst metallic timbres.

Flipping to the B-sides; ‘Cyclical Pan Workout’ reflects an unruly and evolving atmosphere, anchored by a wonderfully cerebral drum pattern and delicate pad toward the close.

The final track ‘Nonlinear (For Pillows)’ offers re-contextualised melodies and percussion, providing a sense of closure and sonic bookending by linking tones and timbres referenced throughout the EP into a pillow like state.

For our 7th release we are delighted to be reissuing a single that has brought us a lot of joy in recent times. We first came to hear Delores Fuller’s beautiful single One More Chance Lord in the same way we have heard a lot of new music over the last year and a half – through a friend’s lockdown recommendation. Ever since, the single has been a staple in our collection and permanently on our turntable.Perfectly transcending the genres of gospel, modern soul and disco. One More Chance Lord kicks it off with a piano riff that’ll be stuck in your head for days, building to a soaring chorus with lyrics that would fit any uplifting category. My Greatest Desire on the flip, is a ballad reflecting Delores’ vocal talents. Stripped back with only the piano for accompaniment. Delores singing about values of life - “not searching for riches, not hungry for fame”. Perhaps inadvertently explaining why this single has never had the prominence it so deserves.

The single was originally released in 1983 on Intro Records, a US based label predominately active throughout the 1980s. After a little diggin’ we reached out to Dwain Jones who duly licensed us the both sides and informed us that the single features a truly amazing arrange of musicians. Stanley Banks; bassist on classics albums such as George Benson’s Breezin’, Jonathan DuBose, guitarist with renowned gospel group The Clark Sisters and not to mention Pee Wee Ellis; James Browns band leader in the late 1960s who’s sax can be found peppered throughout Delores’ album God’s Love.Remastered and now available again on the teal green label of Miles Away. Limited 500 pressing and set for release on 21st May. Get one quick!

The Boy With No Name - angelehnt an den kurzzeitigen Spitznamen des Sohnes von Travis’ Frontmann
Fran Healy - wird zum ersten Mal in seiner ursprünglichen Form auf Vinyl wiederveröffentlicht.
2007, zehn Jahre nach der Veröffentlichung ihres Debütalbums hatten sich Travis auf ihrem 5. Studioalbum
der Welt der Beziehungen zugewandt, wobei sich insbesondere ”My Eyes” auf Fran Healy’s neugeborenen
Sohn bezog. Das von Nigel Godrich (Radiohead, Beck, Paul McCartney) und Brian Eno produzierte Album
bezeichnete Fran später als ”our most eclectic album”. Es enthielt den UK Top 10 Hit ”Closer” und schaffte
es in die Top 5 der UK-Charts. Von der BBC wurde es als das Werk einer Band gelobt, die es sich leisten
kann, Risiken einzugehen”.
Das Album erscheint als 2LP mit Gatefold-Hülle, bedruckter Innenhülle und Bonus 7”.

‘Bad Time’ is the new EP from Peeping Drexels. The London based 5-piece, who have been together since they were sixteen, have to date released a series of singles on the Permanent Creeps and Fierce Panda labels. This is their first release on BY Records. They've previously received support from the likes of Steve Lamacq, DIY, So Young among others. They've also performed live with artists such as Shame, Goat Girl and Public Practice.

First single, High Heels, sees Peeping Drexels eulogise about white pills and night thrills - anxious overtones abound until the crescendo of guttural angst takes over. "High Heels is a dimly lit journey through the narrow corridors and backrooms of a twisted underground club, all whilst under the influence of an unknown substance. The song is the first taste of Peeping Drexels rebirth; experimental new sounds, broader instrumentation, yet pop music to the bone. A never ending loop of bad-trip fuelled excess, and there is no way to escape."

Prior to lockdown, Peeping Drexels played a Sold Out Parallel Lines headline show at London’s Bermondsey Social Club and ended it with a sold out main support slot for Fat White Family at EartH (Evolutionary Arts Hackney).

The project takes influences from a broad musical spectrum, from the dance vibes of Gary Numan and Mr. Fingers to the intensity of Tyler The Creators' synth-heavy Cherry Bomb and the maximalist work of Kanye West.

If you collect vintage 70's soul-jazz vinyl, there is a good chance that you already own a record that features the amazing vocal talents of Dee Dee Bridgewater. Whether it be Roy Ayers, Norman Connors, Billy Parker or Carlos Garnett - Dee Dee is the glue that fuses these artists together. Although best known for her jazz work, Dee Dee has had a wonderfully rich and varied career encompassing soul, musicals, gospel, and underground disco from the 70's to the present day. She is still active as a vocalist, composer, and producer and remains one of our favourite vocalists at Mr Bongo HQ. We take things back to the early years of Dee Dee's career with her debut album 'Afro Blue'. Recorded in Tokyo in 1974, the album was released exclusively in Japan via two different Japanese labels (Trio Records in 1974 and All Art in 1985 respectively). Each release had unique cover art and we have opted to present the album in its original 1974 form.

'Afro Blue' features an exquisite collaboration of American and Japanese musicians, such as Cecil & Ron Bridgewater, Motohiko Hino and producer Takao Ishizuka. The result is a sublime deep soul-jazz masterpiece with timeless versions of 'People Make The World Go Round', 'Love From The Sun', and 'Afro Blue'. It is arguably one of the finest albums in its genre. This record has long been a sought-after item for DJs and collectors alike, so we are delighted to finally make this wonderful music from an understated great available to all.

While the powerhouses of the loose Native Tongue collective were undoubtedly De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest and the Jungle Brothers, the wider family threw up some intriguing groups and unforgettable records.

Black Sheep – the duo of Dres and Mr Lawnge – were a natural fit for the Native Tongue vibe, displaying the same kind of wit and humour as their counterparts, with an off-kilter approach that helped them stand out.

While they only released one truly amazing album – their debut ‘A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing’ was a standout in 1991, one of hip-hop’s best years for LP’s – it spawned five unique singles, with this the first one that really garnered any attention.

While it wasn’t a smash hit outside of hip-hop circles, it showcased their approach perfectly – sinuous rhymes, clever wordplay and a hint of flirtation. If the drums sound familiar, it’s because it’s the same Joe Farrell break – the intro to 1974’s ‘Upon This Rock’ – that Kanye West later used for ‘Gone’. Add in some horns from Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass and you’ve got a funky little earworm.

They return to the same Joe Farrell well for the flip, ‘Butt… In the Meantime’, because if the break isn’t broke, don’t fix it. Previously unavailable on 7”, this brace of 1991 sureshots is the perfect introduction to the idiosyncrasies of the Native Tongue era.

Repress!

"The latest release on Textasy's Berlin-based imprint further mines the interface between electro and jungle. DJ DR-660's EP is, as the name suggests, dedicated to carnal pleasures, whether it's cleverly flipping a familiar spoken word sample into speedy bass-heavy beats and slow jam smoothness on 'Talk 2 Me (Consent)' or combining Miami bass style lewdness and rolling breaks on 'Fuk Me From The Back (Da Bomb Edit)' The latter is especially good, fluidly alternating between rhythms and hip hop samples in a way that will excite dancefloors. Elsewhere, 'Rhodes Rec' has the kind of smokey keys you could expect in an ambient d&b number, but riding speedy juke/ghettotech drums and another rude vocal. The whole EP is fire. 9/10' - DJ MAG (words by Ben Murphy)

After severals EPs on labels such as Lumière Noir, Kill the DJs or Bahnsteig 23, here is the first album of french duo Il Est Vilaine, infused with a "Yellow Magic Orchestra-ish" touch, rooted in the french musical landscape.

A road trip in Brittany as a red thread, the two hooligans of Il Est Vilaine revisit Kawaii pop, crazy rock like DEVO and Detroit techno with a surprising coherence. An album long matured and awaited by the band's fans.

Il Est Vilaine aren’t Bretons, but they sure are tricksters. The Francophiles among you might have caught on to the corny pun in their name (beating a certain presidential candidate to the punch all while turning the name of the pastoral Ille-et-Vilaine region into, literally, “he’s a nasty woman,”) but the real takeaway is that these born-and-bred Parisians don’t take themselves too seriously – especially in an era in which there is much too much of that happening.
It was in 2014 (and on Dialect Recordings) that Florent and Simon tossed their debut 12” into the ring, the rightfully named Scandale – a tight little bombshell released that roused the electronic music scene out of its complacent little catnap.
So there we had it, two outcasts refusing to eat at the same table as the tech-house scene queens, serving up three whiplash-on-the-dancefloor cuts drenched in sweaty hedonistic disco and wrapped in a battered motorcycle jacket (with a gooey post-punk-pop core for good measure.) A clear mission statement right out of the gates, watermarked with mystical incantations and throbbing with rock ’n’ roll’s primitive drive. Everything and the kitchen sink, and a bag of chips – an invitation to just let lose that’s even better than the sum of its parts.

Chronos is the new album by Rostock´s composer Johann Pätzold aka Secret of Elements - a heartfelt, richly visual journey through which the German composer channels personal struggles alongside the social upheavals to which he has dedicated himself as a 'music activist'.

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Chronos charts an eventful period during which Pätzold learned to deal with mental illness, travelled to the Mediterranean to save lives during the refugee crisis, fell in love and lost love - ten years is a long time. The album tells of people, moments or phases from the musician's life. It opens with the ominous melodies and immersive choral ambience of 'Grace', which reflects on a friend's suicide attempt, before riding the euphoria of Pätzold's wedding and the birth of his children in 'A Last Waltz.'

Third track 'Memento' narrates the epic journey of a refugee Syrian mother whom Pätzold accompanied from Greece to Germany, its emotive swells and subtle crescendo evoking simultaneously the dawning of a new world and the melancholy of what has been left behind. 'Vinculum', built around an Indian mantra, also dates from the same period and was written as a last tribute to a small child who drowned in the Mediterranean. The piece combines church organ - renown as part of Christian music, and indeed recorded in the Marienkirche in Gnoien on an original 18th century Lütkemüller organ - with a mantra, seeking to unite various religious symbols in an attempt at reconciliation in the face of unimaginable tragedy.

Propelled by mechanical percussion, 'Rage' uses the Shepard scale, a musical phenomenon in which two cyclically rising octaves are played on top of each other in a staggered fashion to create the illusion of an infinitely swelling scale, perfectly mirroring the image of blind spiralling, hysterical anger. When we arrive at 'Aurora, we feel Pätzold musing about the end of the world, but also the end of the self. What remains when humanity is wiped out by a pandemic or something similar? In Johann Pätzold's case, what remains is, among other things, a monumental album, a musical chronicle of his life: Chronos.

The new album American Quilt from Paula Cole. American Quilt, out May 21st, is the fondue of Cole’s melting pot, blending a variety of genres that include jazz, folk, and country. Cole takes on classics like “Black Mountain Blues,” “Nobody Knows You (When You’re Down and Out),” and “What a Wonderful World,” creating a patchwork of American music. The album also includes one original song, “Hidden in Plain Sight,” which is about quilts women made that provided clues to slaves in the Underground Railroad.

Hella Love, the Hardly Art debut from Marinero, is an album about closing a chapter. It’s Jess Sylvester’s grand farewell, and love letter to his hometown and the place he grew up, The San Francisco Bay Area, before relocating to Los Angeles after finishing his debut release. Using the moniker Marinero (which means “sailor” in Spanish), Jess Sylvester was drawn to this name as a means to honor his parent’s stories -- his father, a sailor, and mother, a Mexican-American who grew up in San Francisco. This record blends many worlds from beginning to end, and as you go deeper it hits harder. It’s his goodbye to The Bay. Pulling sonic influences from classic Latin American groups and international composers from the 60’s & 70’s: Los Terricolas, Ennio Morricone, Esquivel, Carole King and, Serge Gainsbourg Hella Love finds Sylvester fusing classical arrangements with a variety of different genres, evoking a sonic nostalgia blended with other contemporary artists like Chicano Batman, Connan Mockasin, and Chris Cohen. The album was written, played, and produced by Jess Sylvester with help from Bay Area engineer Jason Kick (Mild High Club’s Skiptracing) at Tunnel Vision and Santo Recording in Oakland, California. On the standout single “Nuestra Victoria,” Sylvester shares “It’s my way of talking about gentrification in SF, or specifically the Mission where my mom and family grew up. The song is about a bakery, or panaderia called La Victoria, and was a place where my mother and tias went growing up, a place I also went to that is no longer there.” It was one of the oldest Mexican-American businesses in SF and I wanted to honor it”. “Through the Fog” highlights Sylvester’s exploration of his influences from the Tropicalia movement, weaving bossa rhythms with lush percussion and orchestration. Using SF’s infamous fog as a metaphor for “tough times”, Sylvester expands that it is a dedication to his friends and family who have helped him get through substance abuse issues, heartbreak, and other painful experiences. “There are a few easter eggs in the lyrics for Bay Area folks or people who have followed my music in the past but it’s mostly about getting through something difficult with the love and support from the homies and fam.” The album’s title track, “Hella Love,” summarizes both of his parent’s stories of how they ended up in the bay. The first verse is about his father’s voyage out west as a sailor during the late ’60s while the second verse follows his mother’s experience moving to The Mission District when she was a young girl.


It’s difficult to classify or generalize about Marinero’s music or identity. To him, it’s important to let his music do the talking. “I’m Chicanx, a bay native, biracial, and I’ve luckily gotten to travel and spend time in Mexico and I feel like my personality and specific musical tastes come through on this album. More than these generalizations we often make, I’m just a human who can both fear and love, and I’m just hoping to connect with others to share optimism and experience joy and laughter, even if for a moment.” Lean your ear to the ground because Jess Sylvester has been many things and will continue to share his journey. It is clear this gifted creator has more to say.
-Luz Elena Mendoza

If there’s ever been a way to describe David Allan Coe, it’s got to be his ability to defy categorization. With over six decades of following his musical muse wherever it’s led, this craggy voiced outlaw has crossed the panorama of American roots music. As well as being a singer, guitarist, songwriter, David is also a magician and a ventriloquist, deep sea treasure hunter, and movie star. His movies included Stagecoach, The Last Days Of Frank and Jesse James, Lady Grey, Buckstone County Prison, Take This Job and Shove It, to mention a few. David signed with Sun Records in 1968 and recorded his first album Penitentiary Blues, all songs that David had written in prison. In 1973, Columbia Records bought David’s contract from Sun Records and he recorded his first Columbia album, titled “The Mysterious Rhinestone Cowboy”, several years before Glen Campbell had a hit with the song, “Rhinestone Cowboy.” Much has been written about David’s past and his lifestyle, but not much about his achievements over the years. From performing on Farm Aid to touring with Neil Young, Kid Rock and Willie Nelson. David’s song, “Take This Job and Shove It” has received multi-million airplays certificate from BMI. His “Greatest Hits” album is multi-platinum and his “First Ten Years” album is gold. David has had sixty three songs on the Billboard Singles Charts, including, “Mona Lisa Lost Her Smile”, “The Ride”, “Please Come To Boston”, “Willie, Waylon and Me”, “Jack Daniels If You Please” and “You Never Even Called Me By My Name” to name a few. David has written songs for Johnny Paycheck, Tanya Tucker, George Jones, Willie Nelson, Leon Russell, Charlie Louvin, Del Reeves, Tamy Wynette, Melba Montgomery, Stoney Edwards, The Oak Ridge Boys and Kid Rock. Both “Would You Lay With Me” and “Take This Job and Shove It” are multi- million seller songs penned by David. Johnny Cash has also recorded David’s songs including “Would You Lay With Me” on his chart topping album entitled, Cash. David has been through a lot in his life but has managed to put his past behind him and move forward with his life. This album was recorded in 2001 live from the Iron Horse Saloon in Daytona, Beach Florida and includes the only recorded version of, I’m An Ohio Boy.

Danish-Swedish quartet VOLA are back with a new studio album featuring their iconic blend of futuristic progressive rock, electronica and modern metal, topped off with clear, beautiful vocal lines. Their third studio album 'Witness' will be released on 21st May via Mascot Records.
Bringing on board Grammy award-nominated Jacob Hansen (Volbeat, Amaranthe, Delain) early on in the process with his hi-fi approach to mixing, this inspired VOLA to push their versatile capabilities into the direction of creating a very contemporary album & atmosphere.
There is always an underlining cinematic aesthetic to VOLA that explodes in front of you upon listening to them. But it then entices you deeper within the rabbit hole, following their story further until you are taken in by its hold.
'Witness' invites you on a journey that pursues characters being held witness to major changes in their lives.

Never underestimate the power of a woman with her back to the wall. In March 2020, as Covid blew across the planet, the shutters came down on live venues and recording studios, and the music scene fell suddenly silent, Ghalia Volt faced the same dilemma as every other artist.
What now? The answer was One Woman Band. Having joined with the cream of the US roots scene for two acclaimed albums, 2017’s Let The Demons Out and 2019’s Mississppi Blend, Volt’s rebirth as a solo performer wasn’t a decision made lightly. But if an apprenticeship busking in her native Brussels taught Volt anything, it’s that she already had everything she needed to make magic.
“In March, I started playing on a real drum set,” she recalls.
“Playing a kick, snare and hi-hat plus a tambourine with my two feet, while playing slide/guitar and singing at the same time.” After road-testing the new format at shows across Mississippi, Volt realised that one was the magic number.
In August, she committed to the project, embarking on a month-long Amtrak train trip that became an intensive writing session, the shifting landscapes beyond the window inspiring her pen to scratch as never before. Tracked live in November at Memphis’s legendary Royal Sound Studios, One
Woman Band is Volt’s most lyrically honest and groove-driven material to date.
You can feel the turn of those train wheels in the addictive stomp of songs like
Reap What You Sow, while the rattle-and-shiver slide guitar of Espiritu Papago
evokes the scream of a locomotive whistle.
“Imagine John Lee Hooker on mushrooms, lost in the desert of Arizona, on a hot
summer day,” says Volt. “That’s the vibe of that song.” The Covid-19 pandemic
is an unprecedented chapter of human history, with no clear end in sight.
But Ghalia Volt has given us the soundtrack to better times ahead, and the
songs we’ll still be singing when we meet on the other side. This might be a
One Woman Band - but you’re always welcome to ride shotgun.

Joviale is a multidisciplinary artist from North London making otherworldly, immersive music that plays with “minimal textures, killer interjections and vocals that are equal parts restraint and rage.” (The Times) Looping these high vocals with heady, emotional chords, they weave a screen around the listener, pulling them into chaptered, strangely sweet variations of the artist, divided out across albums, and designed to generate a performative atmosphere, both on stage and through the recording.

For their forthcoming EP Hurricane Belle NEVER SEVEN, spring 2021, Joviale combines warm sensual exposure with a flash of teeth, as the fictional Hurricane Belle whirls onto the scene, an embodiment of the “sense of electric and spiralised chaos” erupting from the artist’s centre. Hurricane Belle is a Champion that was inspired by Peter Shenai’s “Hurricane Bell” experiment, in which he cast brass bells modelled on the five stages of Hurricane Katrina. Industrial, insatiable and metallic, Hurricane Belle is embedded in the album not only through sound, but also through sight; the first single of the project, Blow, will be accompanied by a self-directed video, reflecting Joviale’s increased interest in the visual arts, and in building multisensory experiences. As written in the accompanying prose for the album, “Let yourselves into my breath, my rhythm and my core. Take pleasure in the whiplash of this collection.”

2019 saw the release of the artist’s debut EP Crisis, in which Joviale wielded narrative and storytelling to build a dreamy, silk-wrapped universe across songs such as Dreamboat, and Taste of the Heavens. As with Hurricane Belle, Crisis was created in collaboration with the producer Bullion, and it has been widely supported by press, including interviews in The Face and Coeval, and features in Dazed, Line of Best Fit, Guardian, The Times, Fader, Crack and Clash, among others. The EP also merited radio support from Huw Stephens on BBC Radio 1, Jamz Supernova on BBC 1xtra, Selector FM, Matt Wilkinson on Beats 1, Tom Ravenscroft, Tom Robinson on BBC 6 Music, Dan Alani on Reprezent, and Worldwide FM, among others.
Joviale belongs to a generation of artists with a strong sense of collaborative, interdisciplinary practice. The artist leans into this skill-sharing, research-led community, valuing project-based work that allows for the development of concepts related to visual and sound culture. This is reflected in them having recently directed a video for Laura Groves, as well as running a bi-monthly radio show on NTS over a period of twelve months. They carry a deep interest in the connection between the arts, ecological sciences, and semi-fictive encounters, as well as the wider London scene. In 2019, The Face described Joviale’s sound and aesthetic as “building the London artist a loyal fan base”, an effect that encompasses their involvement in the city’s music circuit; Joviale built a reputation for their live shows before releasing any official music. They have played support shows for artists that include Celeste, Zsela, Kate Tempest, Nilufer Yanya, Babeheaven, Kindness, and Westerman, and, in 2019, Joviale sold out their first headline show at Folklore, Hackney.

Here's another unearthed gem from the late sixties American Jazzy Pop scene. Terri Rae was a quiet and yet creative girl from Ohio, and this is her first and definitive classic album. Backed from a fine orchestra arranged and directed by pianist Sammy Beskin, Rae's fresh voice interprets a superb selection of little known but excellent songs. The perfect record to bring the sunshine on a rainy day.

Debut solo album by the Red River Dialect songwriter. Recorded at the Hotel2Tango, Montreal, by Howard Bilerman. Featuring Thor Harris (Swans, Thor & Friends, Shearwater) on drums and Thierry Amar (GYBE!, ASMZ) on bass, with guest appearances from Tom Relleen (RIP) (Tomaga, Melos Kalpa), Catrin Vincent (Another Sky) and Coral Rose (The Silver Field, Red River Dialect).
David has written five critically acclaimed collections of songs under the Red River Dialect name. The last two albums (released by Paradise of Bachelors) achieved a glowing Pitchfork review and a Folk Album of the Month award from the Guardian. Selected press below.
“Folk Album of the Month. Alert, anti-colonialist folk. Songwriter David Morris brings alternate seduction and disquiet on this worldly album steeped in the British landscape... a wide-eyed, curious creature, willingly alert to the world.” – 4/5 The Guardian
“Animated with a new intensity, the Cornwall band’s fifth album may be its most ingenious and immersive mix of folk and rock yet. It’s also Morris’ most compelling set of songs. He invests small sensations with outsize power, finding joy in sensory pleasures as well as in the mystical inquests that music allows. Even as the record is steeped in the long history of British folk music, that balance of the tactile and the spiritual anchors these songs in the present moment.” – Pitchfork
“The most underrated folk-rock band in Britain. The idea of them as a Cornish-born, Buddhist-inclined Waterboys is more potent than ever. Their fifth album of elementally-battered, rueful and rousing folk-rock ... is as stirringly anthemic as they've managed thus far.” – MOJO
“A beguilingly atmospheric record… imagine Steve Gunn transplanted to Kernow.” – Clash
“Gorgeous and moving, anchored by the heft of the physical but reaching for more. The epic spareness, the way it manages to be both still and an enveloping swirl, reminds me most of Talk Talk. There’s a prayerful intensity to the quiet bits, a listening, wondering awe, that makes the rock payoffs more powerful. The album works as a restless, searching, gorgeous whole. Morris and his band have never been better.” – Dusted
“It’s not often that a band comes along and over the course of nine songs both plays to the tradition and stands it on its ear. RRD has taken the challenge of playing with reckless abandon to heart, generating an album that stands on the shoulder of giants showing no fear.” Folk Radio

Monastic Love Songs continues the tradition that David has established over the course of five albums with Red River Dialect: using a song cycle to articulate a relationship with inner and outer landscapes, inspired by the Taoist approach of observing the movement of the heavens in order to understand the cosmos within, and vice versa. The joyful closing track Inner Smile was initially written as a poem of thanks to his Tai Chi teacher Hollis and takes its name from a Taoist practice.
The songs were written during the final weeks of a nine-month retreat at Gampo Abbey, a Buddhist monastery in Nova Scotia where David took ordination as Buddhist monk. The album title is sincere, with a little tongue-in-cheek. The songs mostly explore human relationships within the community, with outliers: Gone Beyond shimmers with cosmic devotion, in Rhododendron a reverie grows from the shadow of a flower. Steadfast concerns the love to be found beyond the urge to like and be liked, when you can’t avoid that difficult person. Leonard Cohen, on his six years living in a monastery:
“You know, there’s a Zen saying: ‘Like pebbles in a bag, the monks polish one another.’
David considers this album to be a follow up to 2015’s Tender Gold and Gentle Blue. The cover of that lp featured an image of him on top of Skellig Michael, in the years before the island was made famous as the home of the Jedi. He considers the visit to that abandoned Celtic monastic site to be one of the influences that stirred up his motivation. Skeleton Key speaks of what was given up to go, and what he was giving up to leave, referencing the Tibetan concept of the ‘bardo of becoming’.
The album came about through a series of fortunate encounters. David’s friend Tom Relleen visited him at the Abbey in May 2019, mentioning a postponed plan to visit the Hotel2Tango. A spark was sown: this studio had long figured in David’s imagination. Many of the releases on Constellation Records, which he had become a die-hard fan of in his teens, were recorded there. Tom contributed some Buchla synthesizer to the opener New Safe, which concerns healing in emptiness and light.
In May David was given permission by the senior monastics to acquire a guitar, which was swiftly baptised as “Malibu Barbie”. Having let the identity of being a songwriter loosen up, not playing an instrument in six months, he was unsure what would happen. In the single hour he was permitted to practice each day, songs began to cascade. The first, Purple Gold, concerns a reacquaintance with first love. David wrote to the Hotel2Tango asking if they had any days available in mid-July?
Engineer and studio co-owner Howard Bilerman replied that they did, and a date was set. Did Howard know any local drummers or bass players who might do a session? He did, too many to choose from, what kind of style? David decided to ask for his ideal: did Thierry from Godspeed ever do sessions? Howard sent him the demos. Thierry was up for it. On the day he went deep into the cover of traditional song Rosemary Lane, his double bass singing on this and on Circus Wagon.
David asked if there were any local drummers he would recommend? Thierry said “many, what style?” David tried his luck again, “two of my favourite drummers are Thor Harris and Jim White.” Thierry said let’s invite them. Thor, having met David a decade earlier, flew from Austin to Montreal for that July day in the studio. Nine months of watching thoughts come and go in meditation helped David recognise this as an opportunity to practice enjoying the day without expectations.
He is, however, grateful that this album came out the way it did, channelling some of what it was like to live those nine months in a monastery overlooking the Gulf of St Lawrence, frozen and flowing.

Mixed by Jimmy Robertson at SNAFU, London, mastered by DenisBlackham.

Domino are immensely proud to announce the signing of my bloody
valentine, with new physical editions of the band’s seminal catalogue
being made available. ‘Isn’t Anything’ and ‘loveless’ have been
mastered fully analogue for deluxe LPs and also mastered from new
hi-res uncompressed digital sources for standard LPs, with each
being made available widely for the first time ever. Fully analogue
cuts of ‘m b v’ will also be available on deluxe and standard LPs
globally for the first time.
my bloody valentine, the quartet of Bilinda Butcher, Kevin Shields,
Deb Googe and Colm Ó Cíosóig, are widely revered as one of the
most ground-breaking and influential groups of the past forty years.
During an era in which guitar bands denoted, at best, a retroclassicism, not only did my bloody valentine sound unlike any of their
contemporaries, the band achieved the rare feat of sounding like the
future.
Re-emerging in 2013, after two full decades in relative hiding, my
bloody valentine’s third album, ‘m b v’, is by turns their most
experimental record but also their most melodic and immediate; proof
real of their unerring desire for re-invention. Continuing to push
boundaries of both music and genre, ‘m b v’ is an album of
astonishing music, some of which could lay claim to being of a type
never been made before. Otherworldly, intimate and a visceral listen,
‘m b v’ is a startling and beautiful metamorphosis of what was known
of the my bloody valentine sound, pushing the boundaries of genre
unlike any other band. The album’s closer, ‘wonder 2’, is an example
of this, seeing Shields meld hypnotic guitar with drum & bass to
astonishing result.

Nashville underground trio YAUTJA make their Relapse Records debut with their highly anticipated new album, "The Lurch". YAUTJA's new album amalgamates metal, punk and noise rock into a ferocious hybrid that has propelled them from the obscurity of the American South onto the international stage. Recorded by Scott Evans at the legendary Steve Albini's Electrical Audio studio in Chicago, "The Lurch" marks another step forward for the innovative band. From the opening roar of “A Killing Joke” and the ominous noise waves of “Undesirables” to the churning cannonade of “Before the Foal,” "The Lurch" conveys the personal frustrations and sociopolitical observations of its creators. “We’ve got our bubble of friends and artists and businesses, but you drive 30 minutes out of town and you see rebel flags or people wearing t-shirts that say, ‘Redneck Lives Matter,’” bassist/vocalist Kayhan Vaziri explains. “So there’s a lot of frustration there, and the lyrics pertain to that.” Elsewhere on the album, tracks such as "Tethered" and "Wired Depths," discuss the various technologies and systems in place befalling the great populace. Rampant displacement of local communities fuels Vaziri's opening screams in the track aptly titled “Catastrophic” - “Forced under society!” Featuring members of several other musical projects including Thou, Coliseum, Mutilation Rites and more, YAUTJA's collective experiences across the underground and experimental subgenres drive their unique sound. The band's palpable malaise, malcontent, and sharpened edges are matched by the album's production - the attack of noisy, whirring guitars constantly veering on dissonance are met with a destructive, mangled low end, as they march on to some of the most creative drumming in the genre. "The Lurch" showcases a band that is daring, experimental, and unrelenting.

In the midst of a global pandemic John Hiatt
walked into Historic RCA Studio B and opened up
a lifetime full of leftover feelings. A half-century
ago, Hiatt lived in a ratty, $15-a-week room on
Nashville’s 16th Avenue, less than a mile away
from the RCA and Columbia studios that were the
heartbeat of what had come to be known as ‘Music
Row’. In the ensuing 50 years, he went from a
scuffling young buck to a celebrated grand master
of song.
With ‘Leftover Feelings, Hiatt teamed up with multiGrammy winning artist and producer Jerry Douglas
and his band, The Jerry Douglas Band. There’s no
drummer, yet these grooves are deep and true.
And while the up-tempo songs are, as ever, filled
with delightful internal rhyme and sly aggression,
the Jerry Douglas Band’s empathetic musicianship
nudges Hiatt to performances that are startlingly
vulnerable.
In life, leftover feelings can remain unresolved, no
matter how often explored. Explicated in a place of
history, a place of comfort. A sacred place, if you
believe the documentation of human expression to
be a holy thing. Here then, with this album, there is
a meeting of bruised and triumphant American
giants. Here are Hiatt and Douglas, creating the
meant-to-be: Love songs and road songs, sly
songs and hurt songs. Their songs and now our
songs. Leftover feelings that edify and sustain.