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Born and raised in Oklahoma City, Jason Scott & The High Heat return with their boldest statement yet on Play Boy, a gritty, swagger-filled collection that pushes the band's signature blend of heartland rock, Americana soul, and country grit into new territory Following the breakout success of American Grin and viral momentum surrounding "Too Good Too Bad," Play Boy captures the chaos, charm, and late-night recklessness that have made the band one of the most exciting rising acts in roots-driven country music. Fueled by razor-sharp songwriting, lived-in storytelling, and the electrifying chemistry that's earned them stages alongside acts like Morgan Wallen, Wyatt Flores, and 49 Winchester, Play Boy leans into the band's wild side without losing the honesty and substance at the core of their music. Equal parts dive-bar confession, desert highway soundtrack, and modern outlaw anthem, the album reflects a band fully embracing who they are: loud, fearless, and impossible to box in.

Oscar Later is the solo project of one half of Once Twice, formerly known as Parallels. The EP takes its premise from the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which ruled that no nation could claim ownership of the Moon or any other celestial body. Across six tracks, that idea of ownership, distance and free imagination runs through the record, which combines breakbeat and shimmering synths with processed vocals and clips from vintage ads and obscure films.

"I wanted the record to feel like public-domain myths, commercial promises and space-age optimism all colliding," Oscar says, "blurring the line between memory and fantasy."

Opener 'Air Time for Andre' channels chopped-up breaks reminiscent of Skee Mask, combined with processed found audio. 'Wenlocked', named after the East London street where it was written, develops from a downtempo sketch into a heavier club track as the bassline builds, inspired by releases on Voam and Floating Points' live sets. 'It Never Made Sense' steps away from the dancefloor, built around a granulated Orion Sun vocal that, as Oscar puts it, "ties the track into quite a surreal space," leaning towards Burial, Overmono and Radiohead.

The title track, 'The Moon Belongs to You', runs a vocoded 90s ad through a detuned one-note synth. It's the track Oscar says "best encapsulates the intention of the EP as a whole: surreal, wacky and clubby." 'Yaya' keeps the energy up as a straight techno cut, its gated bassline locking in around a chopped vocal and pitched samples. Closer 'That's Quite A Lot Of Zeroes!' expands from a stripped-back Buchla line into something huge, driven by chopped samples and inspired by sci-fi scores like Dune and Annihilation.

The cover is designed by art director Will Millner with designer Josh Lowe, a homage to space food and 80s industrial design geared to survive life on the moon. It's available as a limited vacuum-packed 12" record.

The EP launches alongside a music video for 'It Never Made Sense', directed by Louis Mackay, telling the story of a group of kids who steal the moon for themselves.

Frazer Ray lands on Time Is Now with Masha EP. Four tracks of killer, stripped back FWD facing proto/future garage effortlessly pushing the sound into a new direction.

FACTS:

1. Frazer Ray knows how to make a dance. IYKYK…. Recently he’s been shelling Live UKG cooked right in front of you on a custom modular rig. Mad energy. 100% party business.

2. Frazer Ray knows a thing or two about making UK soundsystem music. The artist FKA Soundbwoy Killah is now a decade deep in his discography. And first as ‘Soundbwoy Killah’ and now as ‘Frazer Ray’ he is 2 for 2 with aliases that never miss.

3. New Frazer Ray is always something to get excited about. For 10+ years he’s kept it super tight. Quality over quantity. Always holding dubplates. When releases have landed they drop on only the best labels; including both Rinse and Rinse’s new INGRAM imprint, Ninja Tune’s Technicolour imprint, Sneaker Social Club, Interplanetary Criminal’s Locked On and IPC & Main Phase’s ATW Records. (side note - his Soundbowy Killah - ‘Halcyon Daze’ LP on Sneaker is IMO an all time classic - do not sleep on that one). Aaaannd… if the dubplates got too heavy he’s also occasionally dropped weight on his own U-Phorix label.

Also…..what has always struck me about Frazer’s music is that it’s simultaneously integral in the hardcode continuum while also pushing it forward. It’s always complete. Fully formed. You never bristle. There’s no failed experiments. Just a firm nod to the future for anyone looking.

OK… Run the tracks.

Masha’s vocal licks tell it straight, this one is “Fire”. Proper club business to test the stacks. The drums roll steady in front of a wall of sub bass. A killer mix of post dubstep era goodness, techno sound design and the shuffle & swing of proto dubstep.

Settle Down There’s something 90’s tek step about this one. Dark and moody with a wall of bass. It bristles with texture and atmosphere before – a moment of reprieve in this absolute weapon – Frazer opens up into a dubwise oasis before skittering back into the darkness.

Syren Song is exactly what it says on the tin, alluring Dancehall vocals chatter and roll. Who knew auto-tune and Garage paired so well… Frazer did that’s who.

No Reasons Left is an ethereal closer for the end of the night / start of the morning after. Gliding warm & introspective dubwise breaks with a Reese bassline that hangs in the space between garage and hardcore.

Frazer says…

“This EP feels like I've finally nailed integrating my modular setup (and VCV rack for all you nerds out there) into my productions. I wanted to create deeper production while still ensuring the tracks translate well in the club.”

If this is only the beginning then strap in.

“I like to work with a variety of instruments and set ups,” says Mark Van Hoen, sometimes known as Locust or Autocreation but here working under his own name on the excellent Plan For A Miracle, his first physical release of solo music since 2018’s Invisible Threads. ”Sometimes it’s literally in my studio, with all the hardware electronics available. Sometimes the laptop, using software instruments. Some of the tracks on this record were recorded in the desert (Joshua Tree) using a 4-track tape machine and small modular synthesiser set up. Each track was recorded in different location using different instruments, which accounts for the distinction between each piece. It’s also about my own reaction to my environment, and what’s going on in my life at the time.”

The Croydon-born Van Hoen started musical life in the early 1990s, signing for R&S records in 1993 but developing his own, myriad and distinctive style across a range of releases on Touch, Editions Mego and other labels, using a battery of instruments, including analogue synthesizers and taking a number of different approaches to recording, rather than ploughing a single sonic furrow. He has worked on a number of collaborations, including with Nick Holton and Neil Halstead of Slowdive, under the moniker of Black Hearted Brother - their Stars Are Our Home was released in 2013. “I have known Neil Halstead since 1992,” says Van Hoen. “He shared a house with me for a couple of years, and the music I was making and listening to along with clubs I was attending had an influence particularly on Pygmalion, the final Slowdive album on Creation.”

Each track on Plan For A Miracle does indeed sound like a world unto itself, a mini-environment, a weather condition, an ecosystem created for the moment. It’s a collection of tracks recorded over the past few years, released on Bandcamp - despite his apparent absence, Van Hoen works constantly. Opener “Climates”, in its exquisite limpidity, feels like a homage to Brian Eno, one of his most formative influences in his teen years, commencing with Music For Films, which he bought in 1979. “This Is For Them”, feels like a ghostlike throwback to early drum & bass or electronica, reminiscent of his own, earliest outings. “There have been a number of requests from labels to make some more music like my very early releases on R&S,” says Van Hoen. “This is part of ‘letting go’ and realising that there’s nothing less creative about going back to those styles again.”

“Pencil Of Spheres” is something else again, a magnificent, imaginary glass structure, shimmering, refracting, without visible means of suspension, a thing of impossible beauty. “Electric Lights” evokes an abandoned fairground, its lights still pulsating, its music lingering. “The Underpass”, meanwhile, insofar as it reminds of anything at all, is faintly reminiscent of Cluster or Neu’s! West German ambience, the urban mundane rendered magical, the sodium lights, the whitewashed walls. The reverberant, faintly oriental chimes of “Insight” transport us yet again, burgeoning and intensifying.

The landscapes, the skyscapes rendered on Plan For A Miracle feel unpopulated as a rule - but when he does introduce vocal elements, Van Hoen has a history of doing so to spectacular effect - think of “Real Love” from 1998’s Playing With Time, the seductive intonation of its title recurring throughout like a series of massive holograms, echoing, stuttering, breaking up, surging. Here, there are just the faintest of vocals, barely distinct, disquieting. “There’s been a bit of a game changer in recent times,” explains Van Hoen. “AI software that enables you to extract vocals and instrument parts from virtually any recording. That means sampling individual parts from existing sources is no longer limited to the original mix exposing certain parts soloed. The vocal parts I use are from multiple sources and often pitch shifted altered rhythmically and melodically.“ There’s further vocal chatter on “I Really Do”, proceeding at a faster pace as if giving chase, or being pursued - distant, enigmatic. “The Music”, meanwhile, its beat tolling, lost in its own fog of static, features a curious intonation, like the ghost of a lost Walker Brother.

Sadly, the album’s title is in reference to a personal tragedy on Van Hoen’s part - the loss of his wife. Titles such as “I Won’t Give Up”, which faintly reminds of another Eno masterpiece, Another Green World, in its nautical hurly-bury, or the pastoral strains of “Mrs Who”, heavily clouded with sadness, seem to allude to this. “In fact the record was recorded entirely before she passed away,” says Van Hoen, “most of it before she even became very ill. The title was given to the album when it started to look like she wasn’t going to make it beyond a few months. It was something Osho said - “plan for a miracle” - so it was a statement of hope. Unfortunately it was not to be.” Although the album is non-thematic, non-specific in its atmospheres, sound paintings, elegant structures it most certainly stands as a magnificent monument to Osho’s memory.

-David Stubbs.

There is a pivotal scene in “August in the Water” (dir. Sōgo Ishii, 1995) where the surface of a pool turns into a stone wall. The water that gave the protagonist's life its meaning becomes a threat. As you fall through this stone wall, you appear in a set of underwater coral-reef corridors, and one of the most beautiful musical themes begins to play: Aquatic Ambience, composed by David Wise for Donkey Kong Country (1994). It's a theme that represents the weightless vibe of your new deep-sea life, where you go about your mundane errands, collecting bananas while driving on a swordfish, or, as HerzMayhem put it: "Poor monkey... always swimming, never going anywhere..."

Synthetic Water Music is the second of three compilations, following Synthetic Bird Music and timed to mappa's 10th anniversary. As with the birds, it gathers friends of the label, artists who have released with mappa or played our shows. Most of the music is new, made to measure for this compilation, much of it from Central and Eastern European hands. Birds and water mix well, so please feel invited to play them together, creating your own environments.

Where the birds were in one flock, water is dispersed across four chapters. You live your life as a droppity drop: vapour in the heavens, condensing in clouds, falling into a swamp, trickling into the deepest sea.

Tlālōcān (Cassette 1, Side A)
A place of eternal spring, of aquatic energy that nourishes everything and allows all things to bloom. Bubbly and splishy-sploshy, it is full of dripping sounds and moist caverns (“Emerald Pool” by Pauline Anna Strom), a landscape filled with living fountains (“Oh, to be a Fountain” by Eva Sajanová) and winding streams that flow through the area, forming part of its organic architecture. It is also a paradise reserved for those whose deaths were water-related, where the aquatic and terrestrial beings live in symbiosis and perspectives shift rapidly, from observing a single droplet (Shakali, Lau Nau) to dew (Feronia Wennborg & Lucy Duncombe) and on to flowing currents (Visible Cloaks) that gradually transform into river music (Ursula K. Le Guin & Todd Barton).

Nephelora (Cassette 1, Side B)
A celestial anti-gravity sound world made of evaporation, steam and the formation of clouds, as if looking at “The Sky At The Bottom of the Well” (by Natalia Beylis) or at “The Cloud That Never Rains” (by Henrique Vaz).

If a cloud never rains,
it is not a cloud at all, but a veil that parches the earth with its gaze.
It generates only its own shadow —
a looming mass of suspended longing,
a sky that hoards but never yields,
a reservoir that swallows every river and returns nothing but echoes.

The water in this world is often invisible but sometimes all the more present, as Bint Mbareh describes it: “Recently been obsessed with invisible waters because I come from a place where you have to imagine the water is there even though you cannot see a river, a sea, usually no rain, so water is in the air, the voice and the imaginal realm, drought is imagined to be negotiable.”

Žaboglach Zha-bo-glahch (Cassette 2, Side A)
A fusion of Scottish lochs and Slovak ponds: a misty, foul-smelling, swampy realm, the kind of place that swallowed Artax from The NeverEnding Story. Stagnant waters full of decay become a blooming habitat for sirens (“thereby losing the weightless delight of being swept along with it” by Adam Badí Donoval) and beings straddling the line between fauna and flora, inventing their own communication systems (“Water-lily phase” by Action Pyramid).

R'lyeh (Cassette 2, Side B)
A brooding sunken city at the bottom of the ocean. It’s a journey to get there. Let this chapter guide you, from the shore down to the depths, to the gates of an unexplored world that is inherently dark, unfathomable, and beyond the limits of human perception: starting with seasickness ("Seasick" by Nikolaienko), passing through a classic Poe-esque maelstrom ("Flurry at the Whirl-pull" by Atte Elias Kantonen), a gateway into the darkness and emptiness of the ocean floor, and finally traversing the city itself (“last waves of 2025” by Jules Reidy).
But what is pulling you to a place like this that only a few explore and even fewer leave? Maybe “the darkness that water can contain, the expanse of things we don't know and that can trigger fear instincts even as we try to rationalise them and think we are in control of the rest of nature” (“supercritical fluids” by Diane Barbé).

Dive in and surface wherever you like. Always swimming, never going anywhere. Just don’t forget to take water breaks.

P.S. Birds, then water, can you guess what comes next? Synthetic Soil Music, an elegy for insects and worms? Synthetic Glaciers, or maybe Pollinators? Which sounds would you miss the most if they disappeared? Or what if the third one never comes at all, and somebody, or something, makes Synthetic mappa Music instead. Don't you worry, with the right training data, it can all be replicated, better than the real thing.

Prunk is taking a journey back to where it all began with 'Footprints'. Over the years, he has become known for many things: the driving force behind PIV, a tastemaker with an ear for exceptional new talent, and a respected figure shaping the future of house music. However, beyond the label, showcases, and the artist development lies the foundation of it all, which is Prunk, the artist. This album is a deeply personal statement and a return to his roots. Stripping away expectations and industry roles, 'Footprints' focuses on what has always been at the heart of his career, which is creating authentic house music driven by soul, groove, and emotion. Across the album, Prunk brings together a unique blend of established legends and the next generation of artists, bridging the past, present, and future of house music. The result is a body of work that honors the sounds and influences that shaped him while continuing to push the genre forward with a fresh perspective. 'Footprints' is a tribute to artistic identity. It reflects the path Prunk has traveled, the people who inspired him along the way, and the musical values that remain unchanged. Every track leaves a mark of who he was, who he is, and where he's headed next.

Tommy McCook was not only a founding member of the legendary Jamaican Ska group The Skatalites, but also a brilliant musical arranger. His informed understanding of Jazz, R&B and in fact most music styles would always add another layer to any song put his way. This made him the go to guy for most of the Jamaican producers, who would use his arrangement skills to pepper up their latest tunes.

Tommy McCook, (b1927, Havana, Cuba) came to Jamaica with his mother from Cuba aged 11 and entered renowned Alpha Boys School for underprivileged children, a school that placed great emphasis on musical tuition. At the tender of 14, such was his talent he has left to join Eric Deans Orchestra and took on stints with other bands led by Don Hinchman and Roy Coburn. All the bands played in the Swing and Jazz style of the times. He relocated to the Bahamas in 1954 where he further developed his Jazz technique and upon his return to Jamaica in 1962 began working Coxsone Dodd’s Studio One and became involved in the development of Ska. His knowledge of Jazz, R& B and Jamaican musical forms helped set the tone for the group of musicians he was working with and would name the Skatalites. The group, consisting of Don Drummond (Trombone), Roland Alphonso (Tenor Saxophone), Jackie Mitoo (Piano), Lloyd Brevett (Bass), Lloyd Knibbs (Drums), alongside Tommy himself on Tenor Saxophone. The group would back all the major Ska vocalists pf the day and would also go on to cut a catalogue of instrumental music. The Skatalites split up in 1965 and Tommy McCook moved over to work with Duke Reid’s Treasure Isle Studios where he formed The Supersonics. A set of musicians under his guidance that consisted of Lynn Tait and Ernest Ranglin (Guitar), Neville Hinds and Winston Wright (Organ), Gladstone “Gladdy” Anderson (Piano), Hugh Malcolm and Arkland “Drumbago” Parks (Drums), Clifton “Jackie” Jackson (Bass), and Tommy and Hernon Marquis (Saxophone). The more laid back sounds from 1966-1968 would be given the name Rocksteady of which again McCook was at the forefront. The top producers like Bunny Lee would use the musicianship of Tommy McCook and his arrangement skills to enhance this new sound.

We have compiled a great selection of rhythms that featured McCook blowing over tracks stripped of their vocals and replaced with some fantastic lead lines played by Tommy and some of his fellow horns men.
We hope you agree like we do that they do this in fine style.

Ghetto House music is one of Chicago’s most unapologetic cultural exports. Born from the city’s underground party scenes in the late ’80s and ’90s, it carried a different kind of energy than traditional house music. While Chicago house was known globally for soulful grooves and club elegance, Ghetto House came from the basements, the neighborhood parties, the dance circles, and the DJs who pushed the tempo and the attitude. The sound was simple but powerful—heavy drums, bold chants, and rhythms designed to move bodies instantly. It wasn’t about perfection; it was about impact. The music reflected the creativity and resilience of young people across Chicago who turned turntables, drum machines, and neighborhood culture into a movement. With “Ghetto House Music 3,” DJ Slugo continues that legacy, reminding listeners that this sound isn’t just history—it’s still alive, evolving, and moving the culture forward. credits released April 24, 2026 license all rights reserved

Hearing colours is back! And is pleased to present its fourth reference, by the hand of Ricardo Villalobos and Washington Miranda.
Both tracks were recorded more than a decade ago and are already classics for those who follow and know these legends.
Let yourself be hypnotized by these masterpieces.
Limited copies

Poem by Alea Coble (February 2026) - Written for Andrew Weathers, Chattonooga Recording Project

Listen to my story and everything will come out true. - Bessie Smith

35° 02' 44.27" N -85° 18' 34.85" W:

Howl. Hammer strikes firing pin. Its echo ricochets over river bend. The woodpecker’s syncopated pop-pop-pop clink and thwap in time with cops practicing prayer at the firing range.

Quick. Sketch a few constellations onto a postcard: empty shotgun shells, these pre-forgotten fossils snaking rusted railroad spikes, like snagged rosary, fallen poplar petals draped over cerulean glass ashtray scattered along glittering fractures, ignored like a treaty. Train tracks reverberate necrophilic boomerang-hunger for mountain air without that coal dust. Eat. Eat. Everything is real estate. Even the air is for sale. Buy it cheap while I.C.E. carves through the valley along the Trail of Tears in unmarked SUVs, traffic stops.

Howl. Callback to estranged entanglements oscillating over holler and highway. Meet on the porch. Haint-blue ceiling. Some ghosts can’t get through anyway. They got tied up on the Walnut Street Bridge by a mob of white spit. Howl. The South should scare you.

But the woodpecker is still nesting, hungry, typing uncannied punctuation marks into black oak: a deed. Home? Takes a side-eyed knowing to call by name. The moon sickles in a sweating glass of iced tea.

Speculation cycle: symmetry as ancient as sour-dank betrayal of the tongue, bitter bones binding blood and lead, alchemical forgetting like I found a hairbrush in the yard while planting wild irises, like someone is charging $10 for an old glass Coke bottle, like semicolons itching restless under new sod from no-one-knows-where. Howl. Sing back. History is soil-in-stereo.

How will this line end? Like riverbank? Like atlatl arching hope smash-through a stained glass window? Words fall out of the sky, and 30 American flags snap at attention on the bridge. Howl. A shift in the wind gallops through the streets tossing her head back, laughing.

Tennessee River, who once kissed Pangea, how she softens at the knuckle-suck of it all, that secret-sweet stowed in the feathers of sandhill cranes lifting up on warm summer breeze: slow-shooting stars bending toward unbothered brevitas.

Howl. The red wolf knows her truest kin is always her shadow’s shadow.

This is a concept record that reflects on events that have had a calculable effect on a generation:
‘’By 83 and 84, it felt that nuclear war was going to happen. Not could happen but was going to.’’
Stephen Brotherstone
"What would you do in the event of a Nuclear war?"
I remember having discussions about what we would do when we heard the four minute warning siren. We would raid the sweet shop. I was 8 or 9 years old. The absurdity of this vivid memory encapsulates the concept of the record. It would take at least four minutes to get to the shop!
The record starts with an early memory of circling a church on a Raleigh Budgie (the smaller lesser known iconic Chopper bicycle) in 1981 and ends with staring up at a clear sky on Oldham Lows in 1990.
The record identifies and plays with the effects of an underlying fear of oblivion on a generation of children, but also society as a whole: The pieces take in media and government propaganda. Machinery (nuclear submarines) and buildings (nuclear bunkers) but also everyday activities of the civilian population, activities such as shopping, clubbing and staring at the sky. Thematically, the record is made up of personal memories mixed with historical events.
Instruments are mainly from 1980s. DX7 and 808 feature predominantly. The pieces feature numerous melodic motifs that develop and intertwine underlying ideas of espionage and layers of secret messaging. It also mirrors the ways in which governments and civilians interact. Decisions being made in the name of defence whilst people go about their daily lives. I am exploring the everyday experiences of the masses whilst major political decisions are taking place. For example, shopping on a Saturday afternoon versus heated Cold War tensions in 1983.
Although taking place conceptually in the years 1979-1991, this record mirrors current events. History repeating. It also mirrors the helplessness or maybe some oblivious everyday normality state that we adopt as a community whilst major political decisions are being made.
The idea that life goes on oblivious to larger scale politics, or on the other hand, the idea that we are all very aware but in a state of unreal normality. Adam Curtis goes into great detail about such things in his film 'Hyper Normalisation'.

BUCHLA MEETS ORCHESTRA IN QUADRAPHONIC SPACE ON CIANI/ORKEST

Suzanne Ciani, Metropole Orkest and Simon Dobson release historic immersive performance in multiple immersive formats including quad vinyl.

Silverlake, CA \\ June 4, 2026 – Electronic music pioneer and five-time Grammy nominee Suzanne Ciani joins the internationally acclaimed Metropole Orkest, conducted by Simon Dobson, for the release of CIANI/ORKEST, a landmark live album composed entirely of new work, created specifically for this unprecedented collaboration.

Recorded at Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE) before a rapt audience, CIANI/ORKEST is not a retrospective. It is a bold, immersive meeting of the Buchla electronic instrument and 50-piece orchestral sound. The result is a sweeping sonic landscape, at once intimate and monumental.

Under the direction of the Metropole Orkest, renowned for its genre-defying collaborations with artists from jazz to contemporary classical - strings shimmer, brass swells and woodwinds echo the organic, fluid qualities that have always defined Ciani’s sound. “This project feels like a homecoming,” says Ciani. “The Buchla was always orchestral to me, an instrument capable of infinite color. Hearing those colors unfold through the Metropole Orkest has been profoundly moving.”

At the heart of CIANI/ORKEST lies Ciani’s lifelong commitment to quadraphonic sound. From her early Buchla performances in the late 1960s to her 2018 release LIVE Quadraphonic, Ciani has treated space as a primary compositional parameter. Working alongside immersive producer KamranV, Ciani continues to explore immersive sound as both artistic and human gesture. Kamran’s decades of work in spatial formats, converge here in service of a singular goal: to let sound behave as it does in the physical world. “For both of us, quad is musical,” Kamran notes. “The way Suzanne works, quadraphonic is nested in — not the technology per se — but the intent you bring to the work.”

The recording stands as a meditation on legacy, evolution, and the enduring dialogue between technology and human expression. The live album captures the electricity of performance, the immediacy of touch plates under Ciani’s hands, the collective of musicians responding in real time, and the audience’s shared immersion in quadraphonic-inspired space.

CIANI/ORKEST is released by Atmospheric/AKP Recordings/CyKiK in multiple double-disc quadraphonic 12” Record packages designed by grammy-nominated designer Rebeka Arce. Each pressing is made regionally to minimize carbon emissions and also contributes to nature via Brian Eno's EarthPercent, the music industry's climate and nature foundation.

The release is encoded using the dublab Quadraphonic Universally Accessible Resource Kit (QUARK). QUARK enables binaural listening via standard 2-channel playback or 4-speaker playback via Involve Audio hardware decoders, vintage Regular Matrix quadraphonic receivers, Dolby Pro-Logic II/Dolby Surround Upmixer (DSU) receivers, or any multi-channel audio interface equipped computer. This album is immersive via all formats: digital download, streaming (Qobuz, Spotify, SoundCloud, Bandcamp), radio broadcast, vinyl and high-resolution Dolby Atmos (Apple Music, Tidal, Amazon HD, IIA), Sony 360RA (Nugs, Amazon HD) and Eclipsa Audio (YouTube).

About Suzanne Ciani
Suzanne Ciani is a composer, pianist, sound designer, and electronic music pioneer whose work spans experimental, new age, classical, and cinematic sound. A five-time Grammy nominee and recipient of the Moog Innovation Award, she continues to perform internationally, captivating audiences with immersive modular synthesis performances.

About Metropole Orkest
Based in the Netherlands, the Metropole Orkest is one of the world’s leading genre-crossing orchestras, known for collaborations with artists including Brian Eno, Herbie Hancock, Snarky Puppy, Jacob Collier, and within contemporary classical and electronic spheres.

For the first time ever, Los Campesinos! are proud to offer new pressings of their first three studio albums on their very own record label; Heart Swells.
2026 marks the 20th anniversary of LC!’s formation, and coincides with the band being more popular and relevant than ever before. The 3 albums are available for the first time since 2020, on brand new colour ways, on 12” vinyl and CD, with updated artwork and packaging.

What the press said:

“an absolutely astounding album” 4.5/5 - DIY

“Romance Is Boring is a triumph.” - 8.3/10 - Pitchfork

“The fact that the seven-piece manage to make music that is as orchestrated and coherent as it is invigorating is only one of the few astonishing things about them.” - 9/10 Popmatters

“What primarily sets ‘Romance Is Boring’ up as a significant step forward is that it’s incredibly structurally cohesive, and yet blows anything they’ve previously released out of the water in terms of textural intricacy, technical prowess and general experimentation.” - 4/5 NME

When everything around is racing blindly toward ruin, change direction and spin as fast as you can until you defy gravity and rise above the ground into blissful madness. "K-drone", the debut album by three renegades—Jakub Šimanský, Michal Vaľko, and Ján Podracký—is like a hallucinatory Calvary with five stations. Each station is a time-loop capsule, a tiny utopia sneering at the phantom progress of the world outside.

The opening track, "Speedrone", is pure vertigo; for seven long minutes, there's nothing to hold onto. Šimanský’s banjo cuts through the air, Vaľko’s hurdy-gurdy sounds like someone scraping a rusted sheet of metal with a handful of nails, and Podracký’s bass recorder hums like a slowly intensifying migraine. "Sine" is like a train journey through a barren wasteland, where the images outside the window constantly repeat like a bad trip. "Pro DJ" starts like a gig in a bar at the end of the line—a gig that never actually goes anywhere. It’s as if all three are locked in a spasm, their repeated motifs turning into haunting earworms. "Alien Radigue" shifts into a strange idyll in a clearing in the middle of the forest, where an unknown bird species trills in the background. The end and definitive dissolution come in "Slush", where everything suddenly slows down. Šimanský plucks a simple guitar melody, Podracký’s harmonica drifts from side to side like a boat gently rocking by the shore, and Vaľko’s hurdy-gurdy drones like a drunken mosquito buzzing around.

"K-drone" sounds like an acid anti-western movie recorded in a tucked-away burrow, like smoke-soaked folk and experimental campfire songs echoing through a deep forest. It evokes Third Ear Band's "Alchemy", it screeches and repeats like some of Henry Flynt's experiments, and you could easily imagine hearing it drifting from one of the windows on the cover of Hala Strana's eponymous album.

Jakub Šimanský is the bard of Czechoslovak guitar primitivism, an earthy folk sommelier whose fingerpicking you may also know from the duo Šimanský Niesner. Michal Vaľko, aka Line Gate, needs no introduction to fans. He has released three albums on mappa, and his hurdy-gurdy meditations hold an important place in the drone and minimalist music scene. "Den", "Apex", and "Trap" have become essential listening. Ján Podracký is a self-taught composer and musician whom you might know from various participatory music projects, such as an orchestra where all the players play diatonic harmonicas. Besides harmonicas, he has long explored a wide range of flutes. In short, a pied piper who will guide you through other worlds.

Brennan Wedl"s self-titled album is a testament to collaboration, with old selves, the selves yet-to-be and the friends helping you along the way. It"s an anthology of spiritual awakening that sizes up the road ahead, encapsulating the messes and triumphs when leaving a traditional path for something less steady. Wedl is already a prolific artist, releasing solo music since 2012, and co-founding the queercore outfit Dazey & The Scouts in 2015. On her debut album for ANTI-, she shakes off the prying eyes of expectation, leaving behind the anxiety of forming yourself for others and welcoming in the delight of finally being exactly who you are. Wedl enlisted Katie Crutchfield (Waxahatchee) and Brad Cook (Bon Iver, Hurray for the Riff Raff) to co-produce and play on the album, with instrumentalists Colin Croom, Lindsey Jordan and Matt McCaughan also sprinkled throughout. Together, they formed a middle ground between punk, grunge and Americana - "grungetry" as they affectionately call it - capturing all tracks within a 10 day stay at Cook"s studio in Durham, NC.

In 2023 we began our hugely successful 80s 12” series on CD – a year-by-year journey through the greatest 12” singles from the decade, and in 2024 we presented a selection of tracks from 1980-1982 as the first volume in our collectible vinyl boxset series, followed by Volume Two celebrating 1983-1984 in 2025.

This year, Now Music is proud to announce the third instalment in this essential collection, NOW Presents…12" 80s: Volume Three: 1985-1986, as a stunning 5-LP boxset. A limited edition and numbered set with each of the 5-LPs pressed on a different colour vinyl – red, yellow, blue, hot pink and lime green – to be released on July 17th, 2026, and for many of these tracks this marks the first time back on vinyl since their original 12” release!

Opening with one of the decade’s most powerful rock anthems, Queen’s ‘One Vision’ appears in its Extended Version, ahead of Eurythmics’ euphoric ‘There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart)’ in the Special Dance Mix and Dead Or Alive’s irresistible ‘You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)’. Side A closes with Frankie Goes To Hollywood and the epic ‘Welcome To The Pleasuredome (An Alternative To Reality)’. Flip the LP over for more iconic 12” versions from 1985, beginning with Tears For Fears and the UK Extended Version of ‘Shout’, alongside Go West’s ‘We Close Our Eyes (The Total Overhang Mix)’, the massive soundtrack hit ‘Don’t You (Forget About Me)’ from Simple Minds and Arcadia’s sophisticated ‘Election Day (Consensus Mix)’.

LP2 opens with four defining tracks that perfectly capture the electronic and cinematic sound of the mid-80s. Paul Hardcastle’s groundbreaking hit ‘19 (The Destruction Mix)’ leads into two instrumental classics: Harold Faltermeyer’s ‘Axel F’ and Jan Hammer’s ‘Miami Vice Theme’, both featured in their Extended Versions, before Propaganda’s peerless ‘Duel (Bitter-Sweet)’ closes the side. Side B showcases some of the era’s biggest dancefloor favourites, from Mel & Kim’s ‘Showing Out (Get Fresh At The Weekend)’ and Gwen Guthrie’s enduring club anthem ‘Ain’t Nothin’ Goin’ On But The Rent’, to Aretha Franklin’s ‘Who’s Zoomin’ Who?’ in its Dance Mix and the soul-pop brilliance of Loose Ends’ ‘Hangin’ On A String (Extended Dance Mix)’.

LP3 brings together some of the decade’s most beloved pop and rock crossover hits. Side A opens with the powerhouse pairing of Philip Bailey and Phil Collins on ‘Easy Lover (Extended Dance Remix)’, followed by Bonnie Tyler’s dramatic ‘Holding Out For A Hero (Club Mix)’ and Pat Benatar’s classic ‘Love Is A Battlefield (Extended Version)’. Stephen Duffy’s infectious ‘Kiss Me (Mixe Plural)’ precedes The Human League’s U.S. #1 ‘Human (Extended Version)’. Over on Side B, Duran Duran lead with the ‘Extended Mix’ of ‘Notorious’ before a run of timeless dance-pop including Sly Fox’s ‘Let’s Go All The Way’, Jellybean’s ‘Sidewalk Talk’ and Maria Vidal’s ‘Body Rock’, culminating with Ashford & Simpson’s club classic ear-worm ‘Solid (Special Club Mix)’.

LP4 opens with huge examples of sophisticated synth-pop and dance-floor innovation from 1986. Pet Shop Boys’ era-defining ‘West End Girls (Dance Mix)’ is joined by New Order’s influential ‘Bizarre Love Triangle (Extended Dance Mix)’. Up next, Red Box’s pure-pop of ‘For America (Bazooka Mix)’ and Nick Kamen’s breakthrough hit ‘Each Time You Break My Heart (Extended Version)’. The reverse side celebrates some of the biggest floor-fillers of 1986 – all in their 12” Versions, beginning with The Communards with Sarah Jane Morris and their unforgettable #1 version of ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’, alongside Bronski Beat’s ‘Hit That Perfect Beat’, Bananarama’s global smash ‘Venus’ and Five Star’s ‘Can’t Wait Another Minute’ in its ‘M&M New York Remix’ form.

The final LP opens with a side packed with some of the most enduring dance-pop and of the era. Whitney Houston’s ‘How Will I Know (Dance Remix)’ is followed by Steve Winwood’s uplifting ‘Remix’ of his massive hit ‘Higher Love’, the celebrated ‘Shep Pettibone Remix’ of Level 42’s ‘Lessons In Love’ and Bryan Ferry’s elegant and atmospheric ‘Slave To Love (12" Remix)’, whilst over on the final side some of the years’ most distinctive and innovative sounds are showcased: Big Audio Dynamite’s genre-blending ‘E=MC2 (12 Inch Remix)’ and Furniture’s cult classic ‘Brilliant Mind (12" Mix)’ feature alongside Talk Talk’s majestic ‘Extended Mix’ of ‘Life’s What You Make It’, and to close this superb collection, the full ‘Extended Version’ of Spandau Ballet’s powerful ‘Through The Barricades’ provides a fitting finale, bringing together 42 essential 12” versions from 1985 and 1986 across five superb LPs.

There's a confidence in calling something 'cheesy' before anyone else gets the chance to. The Lazy Eyes lean into it, they have an understanding that sincerity, when left out in the open long enough, will always risks ridicule. But what's remarkable on Cheesy Love Songs is how little they flinch for a young band dropping a sophomore album.
This is a record that understands its inheritance. You can hear the ghosts of bedroom psych, of records made by young people who discovered that distortion could double as a shield, that reverb could make even the most fragile confession feel infinite. But Cheesy Love Songs doesn't hide inside those textures, it lets them bloom until they almost overwhelm the room, like a feeling you tried to downplay that instead insists on becoming the only thing you can hear.

The kaleidoscopic guitars, the melodies that feel like they've been unearthed rather than written, the way it treats love as both spectacle and small disaster. These are songs that circle the same emotional drain: wanting too much, too quickly, and then sitting in the quiet aftermath of having said it out loud. The band doesn't pretend that intensity is sustainable; instead, they document the crash with the same care as the ascent.

In that way, Cheesy Love Songs feels like a document of early belief — the kind that arrives before irony calcifies, before restraint feels like wisdom. It's a record made by a band still willing to risk the embarrassment of being 'cheesy' in pursuit of something louder, brighter, and more honest than cool. And maybe that's what makes it an iconic modern Australian sophomore album: not just that it captures a moment in time for the band, but that it refuses to outgrow it.

It’s no disrespect to the man to not believe, in part or in whole, every word that Ray Wylie Hubbard writes, sings, or speaks — and frankly, he’d probably respect you a little less if you did. As celebrated songwriters of the outlaw poet/down-home-country-blues persuasion go, Hubbard’s credibility is unimpeachable. And to be fair, even as a somewhat notorious raconteur, his overall truthiness is a lot more bankable than your average politician or fundamentalist grifter.

But fold your cards every time he goes all in across a table from you, or swallow as fact every nugget of wisdom he sharpens into verse or stretches into a yarn without catching the gleam in his eye or wry tell between the lines, and odds are you’ve been played. But honestly, that’s all just part of what makes Hubbard so damn fun. “You know, a lot of artists when they put out a record, they go, ‘This is the best record I’ve done up to this point,’” the Americana legend considers sagely after a pause when asked how to best sum up Reel 2 Reel 4 Real, his 20th album in a recording career stretching back to the mid-70s. “But I’m not going to say this is the best record I’ve done. I’ll say it’s the best record I’ve ever heard.” No matter how many awards and Hall of Fame inductions others might honor him with (he’s a member of both the Austin Music HOF and the Texas Heritage Songwriters HOF), Hubbard never swaggers or sings his own praises without keeping his tongue planted firmly in cheek.

But after brushing aside his bluff with a chuckle, Hubbard gets real. “I am very proud of it,” he answers sincerely. “Everybody that played on it put a lot of work into it, and it just felt right doing it. I’m very grateful.” Set for release August 21, 2026 (with the first taste, “Cassette Mix Tape,” dropping May 29, followed later this summer by a second single, “Dog or Wolf”), Reel 2 Reel 4 Real marks Hubbard’s return after a two-album major-label joyride on Nashville’s Big Machine Records. “They treated me great, and did everything they could,” he says, “but it was kind of limited because I’m an old guy. I’m no longer a country hunk, you know?”

Brennan Wedl"s self-titled album is a testament to collaboration, with old selves, the selves yet-to-be and the friends helping you along the way. It"s an anthology of spiritual awakening that sizes up the road ahead, encapsulating the messes and triumphs when leaving a traditional path for something less steady. Wedl is already a prolific artist, releasing solo music since 2012, and co-founding the queercore outfit Dazey & The Scouts in 2015. On her debut album for ANTI-, she shakes off the prying eyes of expectation, leaving behind the anxiety of forming yourself for others and welcoming in the delight of finally being exactly who you are. Wedl enlisted Katie Crutchfield (Waxahatchee) and Brad Cook (Bon Iver, Hurray for the Riff Raff) to co-produce and play on the album, with instrumentalists Colin Croom, Lindsey Jordan and Matt McCaughan also sprinkled throughout. Together, they formed a middle ground between punk, grunge and Americana - "grungetry" as they affectionately call it - capturing all tracks within a 10 day stay at Cook"s studio in Durham, NC.

London's Spearmint follow-up their acclaimed 2023 record `This Candle Is For You' with the ambitious new concept album `Chase Me' New single "1986" evokes a time when the world wasn't connected by technology, but there was still a strong connection across the globe: music. Specifically in the song, it's folk in Newcastle and Madrid who are dancing to the same music. The vinyl version also features an exclusive track "Is It Just Nostalgia?" which sees the band time-travelling past `The Tube' and `Soul Train` to Friday nights of the past. Standby for the follow-up single in July_ Spearmint have been making great records since debut `A Week Away' in 1999 (`Sweeping The Nation', `A Trip Into Space', `We're Going Out'). Still the same line-up: Shirley Lee (singing, guitar), Simon Calnan (singing, keyboards), James Parsons (guitar) and Ronan Larvor (drums). This will be their eleventh album proper and the 65th release on their own hitBACK label. Re-united with producer Rhodri Marsden (Scritti Politti, Cardiacs), the `Chase Me' album tells a story of success, disillusionment, disconnection, peril, and resurrection. Anchored by three chases across a city at night, book-ended by two out-of-body experiences, and working towards a suite of uplifting love songs, it's a thriller, it's a horror, it's an allegory. Song-writer Shirley explains "The story would make a good movie I think_ but we don't know how to do that, so we did this." `Chase Me' will be available digitally, and on limited edition CD and vinyl. The vinyl version will be released on WIAIWYA records, and will include an exclusive 24 page full-colour lyric book, including photos and illustrations. Spearmint will premiere songs from the album alongside tracks from their catalogue that haven't been played for years, or ever in one instance, live at Colours in Hoxton, London, on Tuesday 29th September 2026.

There is a kinetic energy that binds drummer and producer Karriem Riggins and singer-songwriter, rapper, and producer Liv.e, the spark that happens when instinct meets flow and spirit finds rhythm.

Their collaborative debut as GENA (short for “God Energy, Naturally Amazing,” and loosely inspired by Gina from Martin), The Pleasure Is Yours feels like a playful, soulful conversation between two kindred improvisers: Liv.e’s smoky, unpolished vocals glide through Riggins’ warm, percussive universe. Rooted in jazz, soul, and hip-hop, Liv.e brings a raw, experimental approach to R&B, while Riggins known for his work with Common, Erykah Badu, The Roots, Madlib, and his close kinship with J Dilla, extends his lifelong dialogue between jazz improvisation and beat science.

Together they create a world that’s analog and ethereal, percussive and poetic, bridging eras without settling in one, the sound of two artists finding a new shared language rooted in rhythm, vulnerability, and exuberance.

Pressed on 180g vinyl, the album comes in an embossed sleeve and is avaible in red and black splatter.

There is an ecstatic melancholy in Dent May’s music. The bedroom pop auteur’s songs are both bittersweet and exuberant, breaking your heart while you can’t help but sing along.

Over six albums, May has built a wildly diverse discography spanning 17 years. He has typically worked alone, assembling perfect pop gems on his laptop, playing nearly every instrument himself. But when he began preparations for his new album, May’s tried and true process suddenly felt stale.

The Big One brings together both the scrappy DIY ethos of Elephant 6 Collective and early The Magnetic Fields with May’s lifelong affinity for the great ’70s singer-songwriters like Harry Nilsson and Ram-era Paul McCartney. The songs balance a clear-eyed view of the world with a cautious optimism, looking at the everyday experiences of disappointment and heartbreak with a sense of possibility for the good that may still come. Things might seem bleak, May tells us, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be thankful for our brief time here on Planet Earth.

The title track is the beating heart of the record. Over a steady drumbeat, piano, and accordion, a melancholy May sings, “The big one’s coming, the big one’s on its way,” promising disaster. But May won’t wallow in the misery: “Thank the Lord for all my friends/We can make it ’til the end/No we can’t stop now/Who knows? Tomorrow it all could turn around.” For May, hope comes in the form of others.

It’s with this joyful melancholy Dent May draws in the world. Everything might be ending, the planet could be careening off into chaos, but tonight there’s a party down the block and you’re invited. Be sure and bring your friends.

The neo-soul movement of the late 1990s, which fused classic soul sounds with contemporary elements, heralded the arrival of some of the greatest R&B recordings of the decade. Albums like Lauryn Hill's The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill, D'Angelo's Brown Sugar, and Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite were all born of this trend, while artists such as Mos Def, The Roots, and Common whole-heartedly embraced the sound, creating some of their most timeless material in the process. These are some of neo-soul's great successes, but a slew of underground acts were what set the initial blueprint for their more pop-friendly acquaintances to follow. Acts such as R&B duo Groove Theory. The New York pair, consisting of singer/songwriter Amel Larrieux, and producer Bryce Wilson, (A veteran of the legendary 80s electronic group Mantronix) helped set the tone for neo-soul via their lone studio release, the self-titled Groove Theory. The nearly hour-long record features 14 tracks of Wilson's smooth soul arrangements and atmospherics merged with golden era boom-bap beats, and Larrieux's siren-quality vocals, inspired equally by a combination of Native Tongues, peak Marvin Gaye, Joan Armatrading, Soul II Soul, as well as elements of breakbeat, jazz fusion, and even trip hop. It's a definitive, but often overlooked classic of the 1990s, which helped expand contemporary R&B's sound, render Billboard hits out the tracks "Tell Me", "Keep Tryin'", and "Baby Luv", and even found the time for a Todd Rundgren cover. On the cusp of Groove Theory's 25th anniversary, Get On Down is proud to bring you this vinyl reissue of an underrated 90s gem. The original record has never been re-released on wax since its 1995 debut, but is now presented here with fully remastered audio, and bundled in a full-color insert sleeve with complete lyrics and liner notes.

Fresh from the critically embraced full-length LP/CD, Downward Staircase now arrives in a special remix release - answering the persistent calls from supporters of Joaquin "Joe" Claussell who have been demanding a 12" single. The wait is over.

Downward Staircase is an Afro-Jazz House composition crafted in a way only Joaquin himself can manifest. Layered with masterful percussion from a host of renowned players, the groove is both infectious and deeply rooted. The rhythm section drives with purpose, creating the perfect foundation for the stunning piano work of Joaquin's longtime production partner and favored pianist. The result is a powerful Afro-dance journey - spiritual, percussive, and built to ignite dance floors wherever it's played.

But that's not all.

Also featured on this EP is another Joaquin Joe Claussell remix titled Kwelo, featuring Afro-dance originator Mr. Jephte Guillaume. A collaboration rich in heritage and forward motion, it further expands the sonic landscape of this release.

This project has been over a year in the making - a true labor of dedication and persistence. We're incredibly excited for its release, and we know our loyal following shares that excitement. In many ways, it was your continued support that helped bring this record into existence.

Don't sleep.
.
Enjoy the Journey

In the early 1960s, beat groups from the Dutch Randstad dominated the national charts. Yet far from the big cities, in the clubs of Drenthe, one band was already being billed as “Beatgroup Number One”: Cuby + Blizzards. But frontman Harry Muskee never embraced that label. Raised on broadcasts from The Voice of America, he possessed a deeper understanding of the blues than most of his contemporaries. Muskee didn’t want to sing ‘songs,’ as he called them, he wanted to sing the blues, raw and unfiltered, in the tradition of Howlin’ Wolf, John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters.

Their debut single “Stumble & Fall” was recorded in the Bavohuis, a simple gym hall in Amsterdam, with Addy Kleingeld as producer. But the debut album Desolation marked a turning point, recorded at the Phonogram Studios in Hilversum with renowned blues producer Tony Vos, it captured the band exactly as Muskee intended.

The resulting album became a jewel of Dutch music history. Never before had the Netherlands heard a blues singer who poured his emotions into a recording with such conviction and authenticity. Muskee even outshone his British peers. Eric Burdon (The Animals), Paul Jones (Manfred Mann), Mick Jagger (The Rolling Stones) and Van Morrison (Them).

At the 1968 Grand Gala du Disque (the Dutch equivalent of the Grammys), Muskee received an Edison Award for Desolation, handed to him by cabaret artist Wim Sonneveld, whose lukewarm speech couldn’t diminish the significance of the moment.

Sixty years later, the legacy of this groundbreaking album still resonates, an essential document of European blues and a defining moment in the story of Cuby + Blizzards.

This 60th anniversary edition of Desolation is now available as an expanded 2LP-set including the original 1966 album plus fifteen bonus tracks. The gatefold version features songs “Things I Remember”, “Stumble & Fall”, “L.S.D. (Got A Million Dollars)”, is a limited edition on blue vinyl and includes new liner notes by Dutch Blues authority Johan Derksen.

Within the broad church of metal and its many offshoots – rock, doom, stoner and all the rest – it remains a minor thrill to stumble across a group who seem to exist at a slight tangent to everything else. Crumbling Ghost is one such anomaly. Crumbling Ghost are not newcomers. They've been operating for some time, releasing records sporadically, Four' is in fact their fourth release. Along the way they've accumulated a fervent coterie of followers, not to mention the occasional nod of approval from tastemakers such as Stuart Maconie, Stewart Lee and Tom Ravenscroft. And though they've appeared at Roadburn, shared stages with Hawkwind and even Damo Suzuki, they remain (possibly by design) curiously under the radar.
The group's core idea is deceptively simple: traditional folk material refracted through the haze and heft of heavy, fuzzy stoner rock with a chunk of psyche and a smattering of doom. But crucially, this is done without the costumery and theatrical tics that often accompany such collisions. No mock pagan pageantry, no graveyard cosplay, no cartoon Satanism.
What Crumbling Ghost latch onto is not folk as a museum piece, but as a lived experience, the dramas rooted in the culture, stories, and daily lives of ordinary people, the folklore, the tales of love and death, murder and adultery, freedom and oppression. Singer Katie Harnett says. "Doting mothers, possessive, violent partners, vulnerable women, seasonal workers and Royal scandals this album is our representation of the trials and tribulations of human existence and universal experiences that still feel relevant today.

Guitarist John adds. "Themes of murder, betrayal, loss, jealousy, and love are found across the record. In particular, the songs of Martin Carthy have been a particular source of inspiration".
The result is a set of murder ballads, supernatural reckonings and cautionary tales, all wrapped in slabs of heavy, thumping fuzz and atmospheric sonics. Harnett's voice sits at the centre: unmistakably folk rooted, but shorn of prettification, melodic yet capable of real bite.

The album opener 'Bows Of London' is a murder ballad of sisterly hatred and grim sibling rivalry, centred on a haunted fiddle fashioned from a dead sister's bones. The loping relentless, hypnotic backing chillingly and perfectly accompanies the narrative. Of course, the story doesn't end well. 'Bill Norrie' follows, a hooky melody propelled by an insistent bassline and a haunting psych tinged haze punctured with sheets of noise.. The story of young Bill Norrie who sends a token to a married woman, whose jealous husband beheads him, without knowing he was his wife's son from an earlier affair. An instrumental palate cleanser arrives in the shape of 'Valtz Efter Tor Lohne' a Norwegian traditional the band jokingly describe as a "banger".
Then we have 'Lovely Joan' which offers a rare note of sly triumph: a quick witted woman outmanoeuvres a predatory nobleman, escaping with his ring and his horse. Muscular riffs give this tale of empowerment a welcome sense of teeth. 'Gower Wassail' is a traditional Welsh folk tune that captures the raucous spirit of communal ritual, noise making and drink fuelled hope for a good harvest. Captured perfectly here by CG complete with wah wah guitar and a drunken groove catching the song's celebratory chaos. Then we have a little gem in 'Last Of All Sleep' , an original band composition and a genuine highlight: a heavy lidded, shoegaze tinged folk reverie, equal parts distortion and delicacy. It's a drop-dead gorgeous shoegaze-tastic psychedelic grunge mini epic. The album closer 'The Unquiet Grave' is a very apt place to finish. It's about a young man whose constant grief at the death of his true love disturbs her eternal sleep so she cannot rest. Even though the playout on this track, complete with a demonic repeated riff and feedback feels suitably bleak, even this song allows a glimmer of release ... we think.
And there we have it, 7 songs, 7 worlds, all honed to perfection by producer Wayne Adams (Green Lung/Big Lad) that will reward every repeated listen.

Folk and metal/heavy rock do have a connection of course, just look at Green Lung and their 'folk horror' infused musical universe, but Crumbling Ghost are a very different beast.
'Four' amply and beautifully demonstrates that when it comes to 'folk horror' there's nothing quite as horrible as folk ... Here, the horror such as it is, and it must be said, the moments of light, comes not from theatrics, but from the songs themselves – which, after all, is where it's always lived.
Crumbling Ghost are John Mosley – Guitar / Donny Hopkins – Guitar / Ruth O’Loughlin – Bass / Katie Harnett – Vocals / Matthew Atkins- Drums.

This limited vinyl edition of Brain Invaders offers another chance to experience the album in
its most iconic format. Faithful to the original release, it features high-quality pressing andpackaging, making it a must-have for collectors and fans alike. Part of Be the Change, a project conceived and developed by Rude Cares to raise awareness about climate change and environmental sustainability within the music
community, this exclusive eco-friendly variant is more than just a vinyl release. Created in collaboration with artists who share this vision, each edition supports a more sustainable future: a donation is made to Green Future Project for every release, and 100 new trees are planted to fully offset the project's residual environmental footprint. A timeless album with the same energy and impact that made it a fan favorite, Brain
Invaders remains an essential addition to any punk rock vinyl collection—now with a positive
impact beyond the music.

Soul Music legend Candi Staton returns to her down-home Alabama roots on her 32nd album, Back to My Roots. The twelve-track Americana set features an array of Staton-penned originals and some well-chosen covers.

"These songs represent my roots," Staton adds as she reflects on her many trials and triumphs. "Even the new songs on some level represent something I've experienced and that's what real soul music is about." Back to My Roots was produced by Staton with her second eldest son, Marcus Williams, a professional drummer who has toured with the likes of Peabo Bryson, Isaac Hayes, and Tyler Perry. They brought in Mark Nevers of Lambchop fame, who produced three of Staton’s prior Americana albums for Honest Jon’s and Thirty Tigers, to sweeten certain tracks. “Some of the first songs I ever heard were songs like `Peace in the Valley’ and `It’s Gonna Rain,’” says Staton. “The new songs or cover songs are tracks that remind me of that era when I was growing up as a child and evolving as a young woman. That’s why I named the album Back to My Roots because I’m going back to the roots that made me who I am.”

Staton received the Americana Music Association UK’s highest honour, the International Lifetime Achievement Award, at the UK Americana Music Awards ceremony at Hackney Church in London last year for her southern soul work that stretches from her 1969 Muscle Shoals hits to her more recent collaborations with the likes of Americana kings Jason Isbell and John Paul White.
The album opens with a mid-tempo Bonnie Raitt-styled contemporary blues “I Missed the Target Again” that finds Harry Connick Jr.’s longtime guitarist Jonathan DuBose Jr. (aka the Prophesying Guitarist) showing off his skills that set the tone for the song and the album.

Staton’s older sister, Maggie Staton Peebles (who alongside Staton was a member of the Jewel Gospel Trio in the 1950s), joins her for two duets. The first, “It’s Gonna Rain,” features just a drum, steel guitar and vocals. “My mother used to sing that song to us all the time when I was a child,” Staton recalls. “It’s a really soulful kind of song I wanted to revisit.” They then take turns leading Thomas Dorsey 1939 gem “There Will Be Peace in the Valley” that Elvis Presley popularized in the 1950s.

“Hang on in There” is a new, mid-tempo song that has an old school gospel flavour and features vocals from veteran bluesman, Larry McCray.
While in Europe in 2023 for her farewell concert tour that took her to the Glastonbury Festival and Love Supreme, Staton and her British band, PUSH, went into a London studio to record a new version of The Rolling Stones’ 1972 gem, “Shine A Light.” “I love the way that came out,” Staton says. “We put a big choir on it and put our own twist on it.”
From there, Staton revives another Thomas Dorsey classic, “The Lord Will Make a Way Somehow,” with a bluesy vibe. When Al Green started recording gospel in the early 1980s, he re-introduced this song into the culture.

“God’s Gonna Use Me Anyway” is a new mid-tempo blues with subtle Caribbean influences.

The mood takes a turn on “1963.” It’s a poignant, spoken-word reflection on September 15, 1963, when four black girls were killed in the Birmingham Church bombing. “I was in the city that day and I remember the chaos and horror after the bombing,” Staton recalls. “Just thinking of how racism and hatred caused those men to kill those girls was so emotional for me that I could only do it in one take.”

It's a perfect segue into "Reach Down and Touch Heaven," a haunting, plea for divine intervention into the affairs of mankind. "That's straight Baptist," she says. "I used to be a church pianist back in the 1960s. I've never played piano on one of my records before so that's a unique song for me because I’m finally playing on one of my records. The message of that song is about the homeless. It came to me when a homeless person on the street asked me for $5. When God touches your heart to help somebody else that’s heaven to God’s hears. So, when we reach into our purse or wallet to help someone, we’re touching heaven."

Staton offers love as an antidote to hate on the bouncy, Motown-styled, “Love Breakthrough.”

Her publicist brought Aaron Frazer & the Flying Stars of Brooklyn NY’s 2017 cut “My God Has a Telephone” to Staton’s attention. She shifts the track from a retro 1960s groove to more of a 1980s Malaco Records arrangement, a subtle but distinct variation. Staton brought in her longtime friend and STAX Records legend, William Bell (“I Forgot to Be Your Lover” and “Trying to Love Two”), to add raspy seasoning to the track.

The album closes with the wistful, “In God’s Hands We Rest Untroubled,” that was originally written and recorded by the late country star, Lari White, who died in 2017 at the age of 52. “Lari sent me that song to consider at least ten years ago and I always loved it,” Staton says. “The record label didn’t want it on the album or something, so I just held it.”
Staton says, “I grew up hearing a lot of these old songs when they were new songs. I toured with the Jewel Gospel Trio in the 1950s and we got to know people like Mahalia Jackson, Sam Cooke and others who sang these types of songs. So, I’m sort of paying tribute to them and the influence they had on me by refreshing these songs and making new songs in the old style.”’

Feel the poison in your veins… “The Venom In The Mouth Of God” is Combichrist at their most expansive and most honest, a record that tears open the gap between who we are and who we perform ourselves to be, and leaves it bleeding. Andy LaPlegua has been one of industrial metal's defining forces since the early 2000s, fusing EBM brutality with hard rock muscle in a way few acts have managed to replicate. This new album plays like a descent and a reckoning in one. The opening run from "ODR" through "Born Deströyer" lands like a controlled demolition: dense, mechanized, merciless. Mid-album the mood shifts and stretches, with "Each Scar A Vision" and "The Way We Want To Be Seen" pulling at something more psychological - the masks we wear, the versions of ourselves we construct for others. "Demons Wanna Be Summoned" features King 810, the Michigan-bred rap-metal outfit known for their confrontational intensity - a collaboration that fits the album's relentless atmosphere like a blade in a wound.

Feel the poison in your veins… “The Venom In The Mouth Of God” is Combichrist at their most expansive and most honest, a record that tears open the gap between who we are and who we perform ourselves to be, and leaves it bleeding. Andy LaPlegua has been one of industrial metal's defining forces since the early 2000s, fusing EBM brutality with hard rock muscle in a way few acts have managed to replicate. This new album plays like a descent and a reckoning in one. The opening run from "ODR" through "Born Deströyer" lands like a controlled demolition: dense, mechanized, merciless. Mid-album the mood shifts and stretches, with "Each Scar A Vision" and "The Way We Want To Be Seen" pulling at something more psychological - the masks we wear, the versions of ourselves we construct for others. "Demons Wanna Be Summoned" features King 810, the Michigan-bred rap-metal outfit known for their confrontational intensity - a collaboration that fits the album's relentless atmosphere like a blade in a wound.

To mark its 10th Anniversary,
discover Awa Ly's Album "Five And A Feather" (Including one previously unreleased track) On Vinyl For The First Time !

One night, Awa had a dream.

The atmosphere was enchanted, almost mystical, enveloped in a setting that summoned the moon, the Earth, and the elements. An ancestral blend of Native American and African cultures, a shamanic being was there, speaking in an unknown language, narrating stories both real and imagined. She received these tales from others, made them her own, absorbed them, shared their joy, and soothed their harbored pain or sadness.

Upon waking, the shamanic narrator had vanished, but her presence was still palpable; Awa made her the storyteller of this new album: Five and a Feather.

Five, like all things counted by fives: the senses, the oceans, the lines of a musical staff, the fingers on a hand. And feather, the magical element that connects them-the very one Awa used to write and compose the ten tracks of this new album where, under the brush of SainaSix, she becomes the first Black woman immortalized in Mucha's Art Nouveau aesthetic.

Ballaké Sissoko's kora, Paco Sery's senza, Greg Cohen's double bass, Faada Freddy's vocals, the steel guitar, or the erhu (Chinese violin) are all elements that illuminate the shamanic storyteller's tales.

Produced alongside the duo Jean Lamoot and Pascal Danae (winners of the 2015 Victoires de la Musique in the World Music category with their band Rivière Noire), Five and a Feather faithfully captures the warm atmosphere of live-recorded sessions where instruments answer and interlock with one another, creating the perfect showcase for the album's principal instrument: Awa's voice.
Words that she delicately places or lets fall onto the notes like tears of joy or sadness, flowing from that source called love.

An album written, composed, and recorded like fine lace, starry with details that only reveal themselves to those who know how to seek them out.

or the first time ever, Los Campesinos! are proud to offer new pressings of their first three studio albums on their very own record label; Heart Swells.
2026 marks the 20th anniversary of LC!’s formation, and coincides with the band being more popular and relevant than ever before. The 3 albums are available for the first time since 2020, on brand new colour ways, on 12” vinyl and CD, with updated artwork and packaging.

What the press said:

“an absolutely astounding album” 4.5/5 - DIY

“Romance Is Boring is a triumph.” - 8.3/10 - Pitchfork

“The fact that the seven-piece manage to make music that is as orchestrated and coherent as it is invigorating is only one of the few astonishing things about them.” - 9/10 Popmatters

“What primarily sets ‘Romance Is Boring’ up as a significant step forward is that it’s incredibly structurally cohesive, and yet blows anything they’ve previously released out of the water in terms of textural intricacy, technical prowess and general experimentation.” - 4/5 NME

'As I Slip Into the Sky reflects a particularly small sliver of time compared to Where the Smoke Goes, with recordings taking place in early 2025, while Johnny was bed-bound in an assisted living facility with multiple sclerosis. Alabama born, Portland based artist Joel Nelson helms the nearly entirely electronic backdrop, posing a new canvas for Johnny, with Buchla Music Easel bubbling up between Johnny’s lines. This album captures Johnny in a remarkably tender and emotive form. Love and all its permutations. The tangled, but caring nature of familial love, (“But you and me, we can talk on the phone every day. I would never leave you behind”), to the anguish and euphoria of romantic connection. Johnny has a remarkable ability to pose questions, ("What is real love like?), and provide answers that reflect the truest of realities, absent cliche ("I don't know. His curly hair, short on his head, his smile, his smile, his smile...that is what real love is like").
'Joel Nelson's nimble work across a small array of analog synthesizers creates a flowing backdrop to Johnny's stream of consciousness. At times, Broadcast's fuzzed out ballads come to mind, while at others, early Oneohtrix Point Never's gauzy, distant drones anchor beneath Johnny's slippery syntax.
'Johnny recorded his poems while confined to a hospital bed, through an iPhone laid gently on his chest. Assisted by the caring presence of friends John Albea and Lauren Jones, we can hear through these recordings Johnny immersed in his world of words, taking in the world of sounds Joel had provided for him. We hear his breath, at times we hear the harsh sibilance captured by the iPhone microphone, but more than anything, we hear the tenderness and poetic resolve of his caring soul. He was incredibly grateful for the past years of connecting with the small cohort of Birmingham-affiliated musicians and artists who upheld him as the unofficial poet laureate of "The Magic City", Birmingham, AL. Perhaps most appropriately, Johnny closes the album out in a state of gratitude:'

"My funeral was perfect
I was buried wearing a very charming jacket
A very charming jacket I just happened to have on when i died
He was always the lucky one, Mary-Ellen said
I've been looking for a nice casual jacket like that I could wear to casual little outdoor parties and to my funeral all my life
But Johnny just had one
Probably someone left it in his car
He was so lucky
It doesn't even make sense
But its true
He really was that lucky"

Ras Michael's Dadawah. The Singing Drummer, a devout Rastafarian musician. Dadawah brought Ras Michael together with veteran studio hands: bassist Lloyd Parks, drummer Paul Williams, guitarist Willie Lindo, and last but not least pianist/organist Lloyd Charmers, who also produced.

The resulting album Peace & Love is a work of faith. Although not a concept album in the strict sense of the term, it thematically evokes the Biblical final days. "Run Come Rally" calls together the world's righteous in preparation for the upcoming battle with evil. Having gathered together the brethren from "Seventy Two Nations," all bow before Jah in a celebration of His greatness, then give voice to their desire to return to "Zion Land." The set concludes with "Know How You Stand"'s call for freedom, and with it the ability to fulfill Jah's plan.

The extraordinary power of the set's themes is echoed by the equally phenomenal backings, all conjuring up the most haunting of atmospheres. While the hand drums give the album a grounation feel, Parks and Williams simultaneously ground the numbers deep in roots. Intriguingly, though, there's no reggae guitar, just Lindo's sublime riffs and licks that flick into the rock realm, while constantly sliding back into blues. Charmers' piano and organ occasionally take over the reggae guitar role, but mostly his keys intertwine around Lindo's leads, accentuating melodies, scattering elegant flourishes here and there, and subtly building up the atmospheres. Charmers' production is superb, the musicians inspired, and Ras Michael's power undeniable. An astounding album that's lost none of its potency over the years.

Evolution can be ugly and beautiful, painful and euphoric. An Undying Love For A Burning World is the first new release from Neurosis in a decade, and a potent statement of intent and rebirth - one that marks the first new steps of resolve and resilience.

An Undying Love For A Burning World is an epic album of colossal hypnotism - beautiful, fearsome and utterly compelling in a way that only Neurosis can be. Aaron Turner (Sumac, Isis) joins the band on vocals and guitar, a name whose legacy is intertwined with the band’s own and a true kindred spirit.

“From the moment I first heard Neurosis over 30 years ago, I felt this was the music my heart and mind had been seeking but not yet heard. Now after many years travelling along various musical paths of my own, the singular sound and spirit embodied by Neurosis continues to speak to the depths of my being. It is an honor and a true pleasure to have been welcomed so warmly into a band that not only shaped my perspective on the limitless possibilities of music - but has lived and exemplified the necessity of upholding creative integrity and camaraderie above all else.” - AARON TURNER

Neurosis have never been afraid of change, and here they embrace endless regeneration, surrendering to the emotional exorcism through heaviness and distortion that their music incites. Just as the universe tends towards balance, Neurosis’cacophony of noise, rhythm and dissonance always resolves towards moments of beauty. The addition of Turner's powerful vocals and wildly creative and unhinged approach to guitar proves to be a vital force as Neurosis find themselves again at the mercy of evolution and expression.

On every song in the band’s history, Neurosis shifts restlessly between tension and relief, invoking a feeling both feral and transcendent in listeners. The band describe their songwriting process as an inescapable impulse to create with each other - a need rather than a choice. Indeed, the band insist that their return is “not a reunion - we never broke up.”

The album was recorded by Scott Evans (Kowloon Walled City, Sumac, and Great Falls) at Studio Litho in Seattle during three weekends this winter, and mixed in three days just six weeks before release at Evan's Antisleep Audio in Oakland.

Neurosis will play their first show in seven years on the traditional lands of the Blackfeet Nation in Montana as part of Fire in the Mountains festival by special invitation of Firekeeper Alliance, a non-profit dedicated to reducing youth suicide in Indian Country.

FITM, is a unique festival known for bringing epic music to epic landscapes with the intent of reconnecting and immersing oneself with the natural world, and strengthening our ancestral roots as human beings - an aim which aligns directly with Neurosis’ deep-rooted power.

Deluxe 12" Tip-On (pasted card) Gatefold Edition (Limited Edition)

A new solo album from Seu Jorge reveals his 'other side' on this new solo album featuring Beck and Maria Rita. Produced by Mario Caldato Jr. (Beastie Boys), the album moves between jazz and bossa nova and is the result of a 16-year musical journey.
Seu Jorge is ready to present to the world the most ambitious project of his international career. After 16 years in the making, “The Other Side” finally arrives on streaming platforms in May. A departure from the soul and samba that defined his solo career, the new album is a sophisticated orchestral celebration of Brazilian music, moving between jazz and bossa nova.

The seed for this meeting between the Brazilian soul and orchestral sophistication was planted by a longtime friend and admirer: the legendary producer Mario Caldato Jr., known for his work with the Beastie Boys and Jack Johnson. The partnership, however, goes back further. “It’s not often that you find a voice and talent as vibrant and powerful as Seu Jorge’s. That’s what I felt in 1999, when I met him in Los Angeles,” recalls Caldato. “Since then, our friendship and admiration have only grown, allowing us to create music together with total freedom.”

The spark for “The Other Side” came from a moment of pure sensitivity. “This album was born when I recorded Jorge playing a simple version of ‘Girl You Move Me,’ by the band Cane and Able, on a nylon-string guitar. The performance was very sensitive and dynamic, which moved me deeply,” says the producer.

It was then that Caldato had the idea to invite multi-instrumentalist and arranger Miguel Atwood-Ferguson to orchestrate that demo. The partnership, which began in 2009, blossomed organically. “I shared some ideas with Miguel, and he understood perfectly, creating a beautiful arrangement that elevated the song to a much more luxurious and sophisticated dimension. That experience planted the seed for this orchestral adventure. "

With his characteristically deep, velvety voice, Seu Jorge guides the listener through a repertoire that revives gems of MPB. The artist cites as references the catalog of the German label ECM Records and the arrangements of Claus Ogerman, a conductor who worked with Tom Jobim and João Gilberto.

Recorded in stages between 2009 and 2018, the album is a true work of musical
craftsmanship, created with calm and friendship. The live rhythmic foundations were
provided by Seu Jorge’s band. “Jorge has a lot of confidence in and pride for his musicians, allowing them to express themselves freely. Each one brings a special flavor to every song; this was their album too, ” notes Caldato Jr.

“It was a week of pure joy for me and for all of us, recording and capturing that magical spirit and vibe,” adds the producer, who saw the work come together with arrangements by Miguel Atwood-Ferguson. “When it came time for mixing, everything felt very natural. The album revealed itself and came together magnificently. For me, it’s a timeless album.”

The album features covers of songs such as “Crença” by Milton Nascimento (from his 1969 debut album); “Caboclo” by Arthur Verocai, in a version with psychedelic guitars; and, of course, “Girl You Move Me” by the Canadian band Cane & Able, which inspired the project. Among the tracks featuring guest artists, “Vento de Maio” by Márcio Borges (a hit with Lô Borges and Elis Regina) features an intense duet with Maria Rita. Another major collaboration is with American singer Beck, a self-proclaimed fan of Brazilian music and Grammy winner. Together, they perform “River Man” by the revered British singer Nick Drake.

For the first release of Les Enfants Black Series, we have the pleasure of welcoming Villaça, a Brazilian native now based in Barcelona.

For this release, he brings us a selection of deep cuts created for his live act between 2023 and 2024, featured in the tracks “A1. You Don’t Know”, “B1. Energy!” and “B2. A Moment of Reflection”, alongside the more uplifting “A2. Ready” that was made specifically the day after his first time in the club, with final touches and musical direction tips from Francesco Carvetta.

Expect an emotional and powerful journey from an artist who is constantly evolving, and keep an eye on the upcoming material on the Les Enfants Black Series, this is just the beginning.

The second Jai Alai album takes its name from a track on Winners (1979) by New York band Kleeer, who evolved from Pipeline via The Universal Robot Band before becoming a major force on the soul and boogie scene; their full-length “Open Your Mind” is simply sublime.

Two originally unreleased tracks will delight completists of Aretha Franklin and Dionne Warwick. Aretha co-produced “The Boy From Bombay” with Quincy Jones — perhaps a little too quirky at the time — while Warwick’s Ashford & Simpson-produced “Someone Else Gets The Price” has all the hallmarks of a missed hit.

Philadelphia’s Pieces Of A Dream, discovered by Grover Washington Jr., were fêted across Europe throughout the 80s. Their Elektra album Imagine This (1983) yielded the wonderfully moody “It’s Time For Love”. Further mining of the Elektra vaults yields a highly collectable Phat Phili Mix of Teddy’s “Believe In Love”, alongside a jewel from Leon Ware’s Rockin’ You Eternally (1981). I was lucky to know this genius, still underappreciated as a master of sensuous soul; “Got To Be Loved” ranks among his finest.

There’s not enough space here to fully cover Gerald Levert’s “What About Me”, but my liner notes to the Jai Alai release JAR14 “Top Of My Head” detail just how talented he was — and this is further proof.

The two least-known artists make a strong impression. Andy Bey’s “I Know This Love Can’t Be Wrong” recalls Jon Lucien at his best, while Phajja — a promising Warner Bros. signing in 1997 — disappeared after just two albums; their Cutfather & Joe production here is as polished as The Emotions.
By the time Etta James recorded “Evening Of Love”, she was four decades into her career, delivering this beautiful ballad with total assurance. Truly epic Southern soul.

The Dark is the second album by American heavy metal giants Metal Church and was released in 1986. Since their inception, Metal Church have released 13 albums so far and are still going strong.

The Dark is considered an essential album by thrash metal afficionados worldwide. It was dedicated to the late Metallica bassist Cliff Burton, who sadly passed away nine days prior to release of The Dark.

The album itself talks of somber themes like assassination, death, and the struggles of life. It was produced by Mark Dodson, who is best known for producing albums by Anthrax and Suicidal Tendencies. it features fan favourites “Ton Of Bricks” and “Over My Dead Body”.

The Dark is available on black vinyl and includes an insert.