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After receiving ecstatic reviews from all over the world for their 2023 debut „To The Gods We Swear“, Norwegian heavy metal warriors ROZARIO return with a vengeance. Their new album, „Northern Crusaders, is not just a follow-up — it’s a statement of intent. This is a band on their own Northern Crusades“, carrying the flag for classic, melodic heavy metal into a new era. The new album is an explosive collection of 12 powerful tracks that blend soaring, epic melodies with hard-hitting rockers — all packed with massive sing-along choruses, fierce conviction, and unstoppable energy. Behind the wall of sound lies an impressively crafted production, driven by massive drums, thunderous bass, blazing guitars and a powerful, commanding vocal performance. Every riff hits hard, every chorus soars high, and every note bleeds passion and conviction. ROZARIO have added fresh firepower to the lineup with the incredible young guitarist Taran Lister, whose talent brings an extra edge and intensity to the band’s signature sound. „Northern Crusaders“ was recorded at Holter Studio, once again with the amazing Trond Holter (Jorn, Wig Wam) at the helm — the band’s trusted producer and unofficial sixth member — ensuring a sound that’s as grand and powerful as the band’s vision itself. 1. Fire And Ice 2. We Are One 3. Down Low 4. Free…Forever 5. Crusader 6. Coming Home 7. Die Like Warriors 8. Until The Gods Are Calling 9. Sleepless 10. The Warning 11. Haunted By The Past 12. Betrayed Black Vinyl

GRAMMY-prämierte Rap-Ikone Nas und DJ Premier – zwei der einflussreichsten und angesehensten Persönlichkeiten der Hip-Hop-Geschichte – veröffentlichten ihr mit Spannung erwartetes Kollaborationsalbum „Light-Years“ am 12. Dezember digital über Mass Appeal Nach den limitierten Day Ones Editionen gibt es nun die regulären Editionen mit Artwork, ab 20. Februar 2026.

Nach jahrzehntelanger Vorfreude ist „Light-Years“ die Wiedergeburt einer 30-jährigen Zusammenarbeit. Die Partnerschaft von Nas und DJ Premier ist tief in der DNA des Hip-Hop verwurzelt. Ihre Geschichte begann 1994 mit „Illmatic“, das Hits wie „N.Y. State Of Mind“, „Memory Lane“ und „Represent“ hervorbrachte. „Illmatic“ etablierte Nas als Ausnahmetalent und festigte Premiers damals aufstrebende Karriere. Ihre musikalische Chemie vertiefte sich im Laufe des folgenden Jahrzehnts durch Klassiker wie „I Gave You Power“, „2nd Childhood“, „Nas Is Like“ und „N.Y. State Of Mind Pt. II“.

Angeführt von Mass Appeals bahnbrechender Reihe „Legend Has It…“, die einige der wichtigsten und einflussreichsten Hip-Hop-Künstler aller Zeiten feiert und ins Rampenlicht rückt, präsentierte die Reihe ein ganzes Jahr lang historische Veröffentlichungen von Kultur prägenden Künstlern wie Slick Rick, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Mobb Deep, Big L und De La Soul. Mit „Light-Years“ liefern Nas und DJ Premier den krönenden Abschluss dieser legendären Reihe, in der ihre unbestreitbare Synergie nach wie vor einzigartig ist.

2006 zierten Nas und DJ Premier das Cover des Scratch Magazine und kündigten ein gemeinsames Projekt an, das die Begeisterung der Fans erneut entfachte und die zwei Jahrzehnte währende Vorfreude beflügelte. Letztes Jahr taten sich Nas und Premier zusammen, um das 30-jährige Jubiläum von „Illmatic“ mit der Veröffentlichung des neuen Tracks „Define My Name“ zu feiern, mit dem sie erstmals ihr wegweisendes Kollaborationsalbum ankündigten.

„Light-Years“ ist ein wahrer Beweis für den Einfluss beider Künstler, ihr Vermächtnis und die Zeitlosigkeit ihrer gemeinsamen Musik.

Pem is a multidisciplinary artist, songwriter, and gardener whose work fuses organic and stylized elements. Her music is rooted in nature, shaped by long days tending gardens and observing seasonal cycles. Initial ideas emerge as “pocket sketches” — spontaneous melodies recorded while gardening — later evolving into full compositions.
Her EP other ways of landing emphasizes textural depth, world-building, and her distinctive vocal agility. Themes of belonging and rootlessness permeate her work, inspired by her transient lifestyle and connection to gardens.
Pem’s sound blends ethereal alt-balladry with soul and folk influences, underpinned by raw singer-songwriter foundations. Her hypnotic tremolo vocal technique adds an uncanny, esoteric quality. Live, she delivers arresting performances marked by stylized detachment and emotional tension, complemented by self-made costumes and lyrical motifs of fabric and fragility.

Influences range from Nick Drake and Vashti Bunyan to Cocteau Twins, Mazzy Star, and Björk. Her music explores cyclicism, mythology, and planetary themes, merging her real-world gardening experience with mystical undertones.

Whilst remaining leftfield in spirit, there is a musical vulnerability to the latest iteration of Legss, and a newfound pop sensibility to their writing, which reflects a move to a more accessible sound. There is a security in inaccessibility, and shedding this cloak opens the band up to an earnestness at once exciting and nerve-wracking. Twinned with their signature world-building aesthetic, the new direction is reflected sonically by drummer Louis Grace, who co-produced the album with Balazs Altsach (Ugly, Katy J Pearson, Broadside Hacks) - set to be distributed by The state51 Conspiracy.

On the announcement of their debut album, Unreal, the band say:
“Unreal feels like the work of a lifetime. We can’t believe we’re still here to see it through, but we are and we couldn’t be prouder. The album is about miscommunication and feelings of unreality/the uncanny in everyday life; the tragic and the comic.”

ABOUT LEGSS
Merging intricate guitars, disquieting monologues and a rhythm section both technical and unruly, London’s Legss create a wholly unique sound.
After meeting and forming in London, Legss released their experimental, darkly satirical debut EP Writhing Comedy in 2019, which received heavy airplay on BBC 6 Music. A year later the band’s much-anticipated, genre-bending sophomore EP Doomswayers was released in the shadow of the pandemic, championed by BBC Radio 1’s Jack Saunders and BBC 6 Music’s Steve Lamacq.

After the release of their single ‘Hollywood’, Legss signed to The state51 Conspiracy and released their third EP Fester in 2023, recorded at The Church, which saw critical acclaim from the likes of the Sunday Times, Quietus, Independent, Line of Best Fit, So Young Magazine, DORK, L&Q, and DIY.

In 2024 the band were included by Simon Reynolds in the afterword to a republished edition of Mark Fisher’s seminal Ghosts of My Life (Zero Books).

Legss are Louis Grace (drums, synth), Ned Green (vocals, guitar), Jake Martin (bass) and Max Oliver (guitar)

Multiplatin-Superstar Hilary Duff kündigt ihr erstes Album seit mehr als zehn Jahren an. luck…or something erscheint am 20. Februar 2026 über Atlantic Records. HIER kann man das Album ab sofort vorbestellen/vorab speichern. „Oft werde ich gefragt, wie ich nach all den Jahren in dieser Branche noch mit einem halbwegs klarem Kopf durchs Leben gehe“, sagt Hilary. Es ist Glück – aber in dem ‚…or something‘ steckt auch eine Menge Gewicht. Vieles, was ich erlebt habe, steckt darin, und genau das hat mich zu der gemacht, die ich bin.“ Im Januar bringt Hilary ihr neues Album mit der „Small Rooms, Big Nerves“-Tour auf die Bühne – eine Serie intimer Konzerte, die innerhalb kürzester Zeit ausverkauft war. Die ersten Headliner-Shows seit über zehn Jahren starten am 19. Januar 2026 im historischen O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire in London. Es folgen Toronto (HISTORY, 24. Januar), New York (Brooklyn Paramount, 27. Januar) und Los Angeles (The Wiltern, 29. Januar). Nachdem die Shows so schnell ausverkauft waren, bedankte sich Hilary bei ihren Fans mit einer persönlichen Instagram-Nachricht hier ansehen. Das sechste Studioalbum luck…or something enthält unter anderem die gefeierte Single „Mature“, die bereits überall verfügbar ist. Duff schrieb den Track zusammen mit ihrem Ehemann, dem Grammy-ausgezeichnten Songwriter und Produzenten Matthew Koma (Britney Spears, P!nk) sowie der Hitmakerin Madison Love (Halsey, Ava Max). Der sarkastische, autobiografisch gefärbte Track kombiniert Erinnerungen an romantische Missgeschicke in der Jugend mit einer schillernden Produktion – genau jene Mischung aus Witz und Verletzlichkeit, die Duff seit jeher auszeichnet. Nur eine Woche nach Veröffentlichung hatte „Mature“ bereits über 5 Millionen Streams, dazu kommen über 2,5 Millionen Views des Musikvideos bei YouTube. Hier kann man den Clip ansehen, bei dem Lauren Dunn (Olivia Rodrigo, Dove Cameron, Saweetie) Regie führte. Anfang der Woche veröffentlichte Hilary zudem ein „Behind the Scenes“-Video vom Dreh – hier ansehen.

It’s been decades since New Found Glory were etched onto pop-punk’s Mount Rushmore, but as the Coral Springs, Florida, quartet approach their 30th anniversary, they’ve proven with their 11th studio album Listen Up! - and first for Pure Noise Records - that they still have plenty to say. Shaped by guitarist Chad Gilbert’s battle with metastatic cancer and the enduring bond with bandmates Jordan Pundik, Ian Grushka, and Cyrus Bolooki, the record captures resilience and gratitude in tightly wound riffs and sing-along hooks reminiscent of their early 2000s classics. Written face-to-face in Gilbert’s Nashville home with a riff-first mentality, the album recalls Sticks and Stones and Catalyst while pushing forward with songs like first single “100%,” road-tested alongside The Offspring and Jimmy Eat World. Produced by Steve Evetts with contributions from Dan O’Connor of Four Year Strong, Listen Up! balances nostalgia with urgency, embodying the band’s mission to inspire a new generation of fans while offering longtime listeners a renewed sense of strength, positivity, and joy—because, as Pundik sings on “Beer And Blood Stains,” at the end of the day, “it’s good to be alive.”

Political thriller Je Suis Karl, produced by German director Christian Schwochow, has a strong Czech connection. The soundtrack has been created by Czech musician and composer Tomáš Dvořák, a.k.a. Floex, who joined forces with British composer and pianist Tom Hodge. The soundtrack for Je Suis Karl will be released on September 16, 2021.
"In this project, Tom and I built on music that we wrote together three years ago for the album A Portrait Of John Doe. While this was the first feature film for me, Tom has extensive experience with composing music for movies and series," commented Dvořák.
Co-produced by the Czech company Negativ and filmed in part in the Czech Republic, the movie features characters played by Czech actresses Anna Fialová and Elizaveta Maximová. The picture makes use of the story of a young German girl, Maxi, and her family to draw attention to rising extremism among right-wing nationalists. Je Suis Karl was premiered during this year's Berlinale film festival in the Berlinale Special section.
At the director's initiative, music for Je Suis Karl was composed based on the script before the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. “Christian Schwochow asked for a demo, but when Tom and I set to work in Prague, we came up with a huge amount of inspired stuff within a short time, and the music became the foundation of the soundtrack. Because of the pandemic, the music itself was created on a long-distance basis. It was a game of ping pong of sorts," Dvořák added.
The soundtrack for Je Suis Karl features a unique timbre, far from the traditional symphonic sound. Instead, the sonic design relies on a fusion of dark, discordant, dirty sounds that present the symphony orchestra in a novel fashion.
Floex and Hodge created a database of loops, sounds, soundscapes, and sonic experiments with no specific compositional context. In composing music for individual scenes, they used this musical database, remixed themes and versions of compositions, and worked with vintage equipment, such as the Yamaha MT4X cassette player. Considering the large quantity of music recorded, the album contains 14 compositions from the movie itself, plus bonus tracks that did not make it into the film.
Tomáš Dvořák, a.k.a. Floex, is a Czech clarinetist, composer, producer, and multimedia artist, the recipient of multiple Anděl Music Awards. His discography includes two long-play records, Pocustone and Zorya, soundtracks for the games Samorost 2, Machinarium, Samorost 3, Pilgrims, and Papetura, remix albums, and extended-play records. In 2018, he joined forces with Tom Hodge to release the album A Portrait Of John Doe.
British composer, pianist, and clarinetist Tom Hodge challenges the boundaries of contemporary experimental music. He composes music for film, series, documentaries, advertising, and ballet. His most recent projects include the soundtrack for Je Suis Karl and music for the movie The Mauritanian filmed by director Kevin Macdonald. He has released several solo albums, including Piano Interrupted and Second Moon of Winter, and has pursued a long-term collaborative partnership with musician Max Cooper.

Back on vinyl for the first time since 2015! New remastered version with alternative cover art. Unlike all DJ Yoda’s artist albums, ‘Breakfast Of Champions’ features the same collaborators on every track effectively putting together a band. The genesis of the project was in Manchester, where the legendary Band On The Wall venue asked him to host an artistic residency. He put a call out for local musicians, did auditions, and selected three rappers. Two were local to Manchester - Truthos Mufasa and Sparkz. They were local legends making up parts of The Mouse Outfit and LVLZ. And the third was Rex Domino from down south, who was a British MC who Yoda thought would gel well with the other guys. They wrote, rehearsed and recorded intensively in Manchester - performed a memorable series of live shows (including an epic Glastonbury show), and Yoda put the finishing touches to the album back in London after the fact. “It was such an enjoyable experience” says Yoda. “Lifelong friendships were made, and most excitingly two of the band members got together (James Breen, drummer, and Claire Northey, violinist) and had two kids! So there are Breakfast of Champions humans out there too!”

This new pressing features alternative artwork that was never used at the time of the album’s original release.

‘Moonlight Concessions’ goes back to basics, a return for Throwing Muses to their esoteric off-kilter best courtesy of Kristin’s pin-sharp sketches and their suitably abrasive musical arrangements. The album follows their acclaimed ‘Sun Racket’ from 2020, a heady set filled with tough and tender tales spiked with surreal imagery. Produced by Kristin Hersh at Steve Rizzo's Stable Sound Studio in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, ‘Moonlight Concessions’ is a collection of snippets from everyday life writ large - think Raymond Carver Short Cuts, overheard conversations, recounted happenings and telling one-liners, all sewed together to illustrate the times as they slowly mature, fully peppered with original Muses’ vim and vigour. ‘Drugstore Drastic’ is a kerbside soliloquy caught en route to a more alluring rendezvous. Built on a brisk acoustic strum with a guitar sub-melody underpinning proceedings, it’s an unfolding tale of social awareness from a blurred sub-conscious. ‘Summer Of Love’ began as a bet with a guy for a dollar that revolved around the idea that the seasons don’t change us. The album opener, it’s a haunting baroque overture, bowed and brooding. ‘Libretto’s strings offset the acoustic ambience, the hot and cold of longing at the very heart of it, a thematic driver filed with warmth in a safe haven lubricated by tequila. Written in the differing South Coast environs of The Gulf Of Mexico and Southern California, ‘Moonlight Concessions’ pulls from the star clusters that light both, generating optimism and hope in varying degrees. Hersh explains, “In New Orleans the stars look greenish-blue, as it’s below sea level and swamp-lit. But on Moonlight Beach, they glow icy white. All these songs were written in these two glowy places, which helped our sonic technique find itself.”

Includes demos of every track from the original album, stripped back to (mainly) guitar and voice. Originally a Norman Records exclusive, these are the last few copies available from a limited pressing of just 300. Mark Fry is a France- based, English singer- songwriter/ artist whose debut album, 'Dreaming With Alice,' released in Italy in 1971, became a much-bootlegged "acid-folk" classic three decades later. Fry returned to recording in 2008 and has since released 4 more acclaimed studio albums. These days, far less "acid" than in his youth, Fry still knows his way around a beautiful melody. This album of sketches is resplendent with love songs, the beauty of nature and the passing of time Fry is certainly no stranger to the preparatory sketch. An artist in the truest sense of the word, renowned equally for his decades- long career as a painter of vibrant abstracts and as a cult psychedelic minstrel turned intimate, evocative singersongwriter, his atelier, housed in a converted stable building at his Normandy home, literally doubles as his music studio. It was in this space that Mark's fifth solo album, 'Not On The Radar,' released back in May, was recorded in the summer of 2024, with the singer pushing back his easels to accommodate a four-piece live band and vanloads of miscellaneous accompanying paraphernalia.

Before that, the studio had been a considerably emptier space in which working versions of the album's ten languidly bucolic compositions were first demoed by the solitary songwriter (although some emergent tracks were also captured at Balintore - the home studio of Mark's regular guitarist, Iain Ross, housed on the latter's London-moored canal barge). With those sketches presented here in the same running order as on the mothership longplayer, this new album stands as a document of process - offering the opportunity for track- by- track comparison for those already familiar with Not On The Radar. Crucially, it also makes for a very fine standalone album in its own right, which, if nothing else, bears testament to the inherent robustness of Mark Fry's songwriting.

Based on an unbelievable true story, Roofman follows Jeffrey Manchester (Tatum), an Army veteran and struggling father who turns to robbing McDonald's restaurants by cutting holes in their roofs, earning him the nickname: Roofman. The film's score was composed by Grizzly Bear multi-instrumentalist Christopher Bear, with contributions from The War on Drugs' Jon Natchez. Christopher Bear is a drummer and multi- instrumentalist member of the Brooklynbased indie-rock group Grizzly Bear. He continues developing his independent career, most recently working on arranging soundtracks for the HBO series High Maintenance, and scoring the 2023 film Past Lives alongside his bandmate Daniel Rossen.

Auf dem komplett unübersichtlichen Markt der Vinyl-Wiederveröffentlichungen rarer Aufnahmen aus dem im weitesten Sinne Rock & Roll/Rhythm & Blues/Popcorn-Umfeld hat sich die Serie DOWN AT THE UGLY MEN’S LOUNGE mit einer komplett eigenständigen konzeptionellen Farbe etabliert. Das authentische 10“-Format und die Covergestaltung mit obskuren und anonymen Musikerfotos der ersten fünfzig Jahre des 20. Jahrhunderts sind gleichermaßen unverkennbar wie unwiderstehlich.
Das stilistische Spektrum der neuen Auswahl rarer und rarster Trouvaillen aus dem legendären Archiv von Prof. Bop bleibt dem Ursprungskonzept treu: Zwischen Boogie und Mambo, zwischen Blues und Bop, zwischen Exotica und Egozentrik...weniger amateurhaft gespielter Teenager-Rockabilly, eher Rock & Roll etc. von musikalisch versierten und Jazz-geschulten Vollprofis. Allesamt Aufnahmen der goldenen Epoche 1950 – 1962.

Proud to present the second edition of Urban Garden On WAX. Starting with deep house to listen to in your living room and ending with three classic bombs for the dance floor.

Finlay Shakespeare is an electronic musician working from the UK and across Europe. A childhood obsession with his parents’ record collection led him to both create his own music and build his own synthesizer equipment throughout his teenage years. After studying audio engineering, he was invited to become in-house engineer for the Moog Sound Lab UK, leading to collaborations with acts as diverse as Suicide, Charlemagne Palestine, The Grid and Mica Levi & Eliza McCarthy, both in live and studio environments. In 2017, Finlay began recording a series of monthly “Housediet'' releases - all improvised and captured at home utilising drum machines, modular synthesis and processed vocals. After several encounters with Peter Rehberg of Editions Mego, a compilation of the Housediet tracks was drawn up by Rehberg and Shakespeare, culminating in the release of “Domestic Economy” in early 2019. “Solemnities' ', a second album for Editions Mego appeared the following year. In the period since Rehberg’s untimely passing, Finlay has recorded for Superpang, Modulisme and his own GOTO Records imprint. “Illusion + Memory”, meanwhile, continues on from where “Solemnities” left off, with Finlay once again aiming to work at the fringes of electronic pop. Alter is proud to present “Illusion + Memory”, the third full length physical LP of Shakespeare’s utterly unique and sophisticated output. Shakespeare’s obsession and knowledge of late 70’s and early 80’s electronic pop music is once again at the forefront of this intense and dynamic release. Alas, this is not some retro throwback. Shakespeare’s deep understanding of his machines breathes new life into a genre of music once defunct. Supporting the likes of Blancmange bolstered his reputation for sublime synth hooks and dark lyrical content. Building on his previous work in the field “Illusion + Memory” is an unabashed pop record, as joyous as it is intense, moving from the brooding opening ballad “Your Side of the River” through the punchy “Theresa” which could be read as a love song to Throbbing Gristle’s United. Elsewhere “Climb” unleashes the opportunity to the dancefloor as wild electronics snake into all manner of schizophrenic shapes. There is a romantic side to this music. In its homage to electronic pop of the late 70’s and early 80’s but also in the emotional punch Shakespeare injects into every second of every track. Shakespeare’s reboot of these musical forms is technically impressive, one rich in feeling and deep in emotion, atmospherically and vocally. The two come together to create a unique visceral sonic experience… today!

At the start of this summer, following a three-year hiatus for Daphni (punctuated only by his first ever collaborative Daphni track ‘Unidos’ alongside Sofia Kourtesis), he dropped ‘Sad Piano House’. The track represented something of a continuation in the Daphni catalogue, its roots growing from Cherry’s ‘Cloudy’ and its subsequent Kelbin remix, something in that song’s makeup having a profound effect when played on dancefloors by Snaith and countless others. ‘Sad Piano House’ deployed more intangibly irresistible bendy piano to equally satisfying effect and continues to achieve similarly rhapsodic dancefloor saturation.
Though a sizeable gap for Daphni releases, between Cherry and Butterfly however of course sits Honey, the latest Caribou album and one that saw the more instantaneous and dancefloor leaning traits of Daphni peaking through the cracks more than ever before. This blurring of the lines leads to an intriguing collaboration in Butterfly’s lead single ‘Waiting So Long (feat. Caribou)’. An unlikely duo - in that both artists are the same man, Dan Snaith - ‘Waiting So Long’ is not so much an identity crisis, ego trip, or the result of a chemical spill in the Snaith laboratory. It’s simply a track that Snaith felt for the first time belongs to both aliases, and might appeal to fans of both. He has never sung on a Daphni track before, and did not set out with the intention to do so this time, and yet this strange billing was born.

Daphni music has always been Snaith’s way of hitting directly to the core of the dancefloors he spends so much of his time playing to, and those dancefloors have been steadily expanding as his name grows, with the music following suit. This album however also draws from further back with a definite kinship to the very first Daphni album, the invigorating bag of ideas that was Jiaolong.
Butterfly is a showcase of the wonderful variety and surprising twists and turns that made that album such an exciting new prospect and that still to this day make Snaith such an intriguing DJ. There are more heavy hitters here, tracks that fill those dancefloors better than anyone, like ‘Clap Your Hands’ which picks up the energy of ‘Sad Piano House’ and flips it, exposing the gritty and intoxicating underbelly of Snaith’s hitmaking side, while retaining the playful urgency that runs through all of his work of late. Meanwhile ‘Hang’’s comic-strip horns are unpinned by gleeful force, unrelenting and thrillingly unshakeable. Elsewhere though comes a clutch of other tunes that might creep out somewhere more off the beaten path, a path Snaith has never stopped seeking in amongst his larger billings. ‘Lucky’ is squirmy and elusively intoxicating, ‘Invention’ skitters down meandering, inviting corridors, ‘Talk To Me’ grumbles and broods in the murk, and ‘Miles Smiles’ could roll on endlessly, so confident in its groove. There are no obvious peaks in these tracks or unifying moments, in fact many of them really have no business being on the dancefloor at all, and yet in the right setting, they could be the most fun to be had all night.

One such club is a good microcosm for the ethos of Butterfly as a whole. “Around the time I was finishing up this album I played a long set in a club called Open Ground in Wuppertal, Germany.” Snaith recalls, “It’s kind of, in one sense, the platonic ideal of the kind of club I’d want to play in. Every single decision has been taken, at great expense, with the aim of making the perfect sounding medium sized club room. But on top of it being the perfect acoustic environment it also is run by an amazing collection of people in a way that gives it a sense of community that dance music at its best provides. It is an absolute pleasure to play in that room to a crowd of people who come from all over. Playing in there you feel like you can play anything, and I played works in progress of pretty much every track on this album in my set there. Don’t get me wrong, I love playing a short set at a festival or in a more raw warehouse kind of club where you bang it out and only really functional music works but on record I guess the point of these Daphni records is to keep in mind a more expansive idea of dance music where the parameters are broad and the church is broad. I think that actually, putting really functional stuff next to weirder tracks (both on an album and in a dj set) might be the thing that’s still most interesting to me.”
This is the feeling that’s most palpable on Butterfly, and in every single time you see Snaith DJ. Right from the inception of the Daphni alias - and even before that – the thrill of trying stuff out, pushing at the boundaries has always been there and on Butterfly is present in all its twists and turns. It leaps all over the place and yet it hangs together, never feeling like a grab bag of dancefloor utilities but rather a distillation of all the strings to Snaith’s bow, exhilaratingly human and unified by one singular concept – simple and joyful exploration.

Intricate structures with an intertwining of spontaneity and randomness, meeting the diverse genre influences of the band members from mediaeval music to shoegaze to noise. That is Unravel, the new album, and first in six years, from Czech band Manon Meurt.
"Unravel reflects the different stages of dissociation, a person's thoughts, observations - whether of the environment or of oneself - and admiration for the beauty and cruelty that nature mirrors," multi-instrumentalist and lyricist Kateřina Elznicová says of the album.
Produced by Eddie Stevens (Freakpower, Zero 7, Moloko, Roisin Murphy) the album was pieced together from recorded fragments, meticulously pieced together. The title Unravel refers to the development of the band, unravelling what they are to find the full potential of their music as well as uncovering the layered nature of the songs and emotions.
"Eddie Stevens’ approach to recording was a big surprise. We understood that there was no one right version of the songs. Each of our themes carries a certain energy that can manifest and blossom in many ways. Compared to previous records, the vision of each member was much more evident, while we learned not to cling to our individual ideas of a signifying break or a nu-metal bounce at the end of an ambient song. The main thing was a common concept," adds keyboardist David Tichý on creating the seven songs on the record.
Abum producer Eddie Stevens describes the collaboration, “Each album is an adventure. You do some preparation, check the route over and over, prepare for any eventuality that your packing space and imagination will allow, plan some places to stop and rest en route, places to eat, sleep, then consider the challenges - the ice wall, the summit, even just finding your way in foreign land. But despite all that planning, you can never really say for sure what’s going to happen, what unexpected path you might take, what strangers might invite you in for a cup of tea and to what ends. So it was making Unravel with Manon Meurt and engineer and studio owner Lukas Martinek at Svárov studios and of course back home in the relative safety of my studio. Musicians who quickly became friends showed me more than I showed them, people with ideas, with creativity seeping from their pores. Music making the right way: no blinkers, no walls, no preconceptions, no barriers, no rules. What a pleasure, and what a magical, technicoloured,
kaleidoscopic album we’ve made together, “
The combination of industrial material with plant motifs in the work Untitled_1 by Ukrainian artist Liza Libenko, which adorns the cover of Unravel, strongly attracted the band. After all, floral motifs have always been close to Manon Meurt's music. Libenko, a student of the Academy of Fine Arts and a finalist of the prestigious Austrian Strabag Artaward International Prize, has recently been working on overcoming the narrative boundaries of the canvas, the paintings "attack"the viewer. Sunflowers are a powerful symbol of life and the sun; in Libenko's paintings they are black and burnt, serving as an allegory for contemporary conditions. The work was photographed by photographer and artist Marcel Rozhoň, and the final processing of the Unravel album was done by graphic artist Zuzana Malá.

Malena Zavala is an Argentinian-born, London-based artist, producer, and filmmaker, known for crafting ethereal, genre-blending music that navigates the space between her Latin heritage and her British upbringing. With the forthcoming album If This Life Could Start Again set for release on 30 January 2026 on Paraná Records, Zavala presents her most intimate, cohesive, and accomplished work to date, marking a significant evolution in her artistic journey.
With her new album, Malena creates an atmospheric dream pop world, weaving singer-songwriter intimacy with synth pop, Argentine folk, indiepop, rock and experimental music, threaded together by her blissful vocals and dreamy guitar work. Gorgeously warm and vivid, If This Life Could Start Again charts the journey from pain to acceptance, mapping out the non-linear nature of healing through a sonic landscape. Each song embodies a distinct emotion within that journey, from grief and chaos to feeling lost, seeking refuge, finding confidence, and finally acceptance and letting go. Drawing on her Argentinian roots, Malena uses the Andes mountains as both a visual and thematic anchor – the difficult climb towards higher ground becomes a metaphor for healing, whilst being lost at rock bottom reflects the darkest moments of the journey. 
Completely composed and performed by Malena herself, the album was recorded in Girona’s L’Empordà countryside in Spain with producer Luke Smith. As a professional producer and audio engineer, this was Malena’s first time relinquishing production control – an intimate creative shift that allowed their shared vision to shape the album’s rich, enveloping sound. 
However, Zavala’s career to date has been a testament to self-sufficient artistry. Her critically acclaimed debut, Aliso (2018), was written, recorded, and produced alone in her parents’ garage, which honed her dreamy bedroom pop sound. The album, praised by The Guardian for its “gently warped and beguilingly melancholy guitar pop,” ****, immediately catapulted her from DIY beginnings to prestigious stages, supporting acts like Lord Huron at London’s Roundhouse and Men I Trust at Village Underground and subsequently continuing on their UK/EU tours. Later with standout performances at Latitude, Green Man, and All Points East. Her consistent radio support from key influencers including BBC Radio 6 Music, BBC Radio 1's Huw Stephens, and Steve Lamacq has solidified her presence on the airwaves.
Her second album, La Yarará (2020), saw Zavala delve deeper into her roots, exploring Latin traditions like Cumbia and Bolero. This exploration of identity continues powerfully on the new album, but with a newfound lyrical depth and sonic confidence. The new album, If This Life Could Start Again, is a raw and transformative eight-track journey that maps the emotional landscape of healing. Written after a period of personal upheaval, the album traverses themes of grief, hereditary trauma, and self-discovery. The record’s narrative is structured like a mountain ascent. A challenging climb through varied emotional terrain, posing the central question: “Will you join the journey?” Sonically, this journey mirrors the non-linear path to acceptance, evolving from acoustic folk and synth-pop to funk-infused rhythms and rock anthems.
As a formidable live performer, Zavala has built a robust touring profile across the UK and Europe. She will embark on an extensive tour in February and March 2026 to support the album, with dates spanning major cities from London and Glasgow to Berlin, Paris, and Barcelona.
With If This Life Could Start Again, Malena Zavala fully realizes her artistic vision as a self-taught producer to an autonomous artist commanding her career through Paraná Records whilst reflecting the vast landscapes of her heritage and affirming her place as a compelling and evolving voice in contemporary music.

The funky, atmospheric, evocative and sometimes downright weird output of companies such as DeWolfe, Cavendish, Burton and the ubiquitous KPM have always been a guiding inspiration for ATA Records, as evidenced in the spooky soundtrack works of The Sorcerers, the big band brass of The Yorkshire Film & Television Orchestra and even in the soul-jazz of The Lewis Express ('Theme From The Watcher).

Everything released on ATA is written and guided by the label heads Neil Innes and Pete Williams, who frequently dip their toes in the Library pond while working on other projects. These occasional one-off tracks have accumulated over the past few years and have now found a home on the first volume of an ongoing series : The Library Archive

Recorded using the same techniques and equipment used to create the now legendary catalogues of music sold to the film and television industry of the 60's & 70's, The Library Archive could easily sit alongside the plain minimalist covers of KPM or Telesound.

The fierce Brass of 'Whack, Slap & Blow' and 'Kaye Okay' could both be a Keith Mansfield cut, acting as a theme tune to a glamorous saturday night tv show circa 1972. 'Duck Strut' is a cheeky slice of Bass driven Brit-funk, Muted horns and flute adding an element of Quincy Jones amongst the grooving drums and percussion. 'The Needle Nose', 'Midnight Heist' and 'Wiretap' are amongst the more cinematic tracks on the album. Moody and atmospheric, they conjure up images of dark alleys, shadowy figures and dead letter drops. 'Wigged out' channels the wonky organ weirdness of Italian library legends I Marc 4 while 'Nuclear Wind I & II' use Moog and Mellotron as electronic counterpoint to ethereal voices. 'Siren's sea's' acoustic interlude conjures up images of distant clifftops, gossamer vocals enticing you onto the rocks before album closer 'Planet Nine' traverses the cosmos.

Inspired by the soundtrack from the motion picture American Graffiti, this 3LP collection captures the sound of late night cruising, jukebox romance and early rock ’n’ roll rebellion. Spanning doo wop, rockabilly and classic pop, the set brings together era defining hits from the mid 1950s to early 1960s, featuring timeless favourites by Chuck Berry, The Beach Boys, Dion, Little Richard, Sam Cooke, The Platters and many more. Pressed across three vividly coloured vinyl records, red, blue and yellow, this set is both a nostalgic listening experience and a striking collector’s piece, celebrating the golden age of American rock and pop in authentic style.

You don’t need to be Freud to regard teeth as a delicate issue. They can make joy look joyous and pain look painful, and on the cover of the new múm album they do both at the same time. As »Yesterday Was Dramatic – Today Is Okay« (2001), »Finally We Are No One« (2002) and »Sing Along To Songs You Don’t Know« (2009) »Smilewound« is another example of the band’s art of juxtaposing two conflicting meanings and taking advantage of the energy created through the tension between both.

Sparser in sound than many of its predecessors, »Smilewound« is an airy, relaxed record. The múm-core-duo of Örvar and Gunni doesn’t make you laugh out loud (except maybe for the quirky vintage Arcade-sound-start of »When Girls Collide«), but it will make you smile often - despite the heavenly voices singing about violence in one form or another in most songs. Musically, múm’s capability to build playful electronic sound-ornaments around simple melodies is in full bloom. And these days they know that trimming the ornamentation can strengthen the melody. Take »The Colorful Stabwound«: an aguish drum’n’bass piece and »Smilewound« gets close to a straight pop-song. Even that isn’t very close, but it combines its rhythmic strength with a simple yet effective piano-line and the soothing lushness of a female voice to something compelling that follows you like the smell of a delicate eau de toilette. Or »Candlestick« which started out as a little ditty strummed on an acoustic guitar many years ago and has grown into this bouncy piece of synth-pop that changes its musical colours every couple of beats until you feel comfortably dizzy. Perfect pop in very fancy clothes. No wonder that antipodean pop-princess Kylie Minogue wanted to collaborate with múm on the »Whistle«, the main song in 2012-movie »Jack & Diane«.

Recorded in, among other places, the band’s practice-space, an old baltic farmhouse and on the kitchen-table after dinner, the album was produced by múm themselves. And being the revolving collective they are, it comes as no surprise that we see the return of former member Gyda. Defining satellites as part of the core fits nicely with the band’s penchant for ambivalence - in fact that's part of the album's charm.

cLOUDDEAD's debut album, compiling six 10" EPs that appeared between 2000-2001, is aurally dense and obscured. A sprawling mass of miniature beat-suites and Dadaist lyrics, this strange and beautiful 3xLP would influence a myriad of sub-genres (cloud rap, hauntology, lo-fi hip-hop, etc.) in the two decades since its initial release.

Only the three members of cLOUDDEAD – Why?, Doseone and Odd Nosdam – can speak to the group's origins, but in the context of underground hip-hop towards the end of the 20th century, their arrival makes perfect sense. Cincinnati had a vital scene; home to Scribble Jam, an annual confluence of MCs, DJs, B-boys and graffiti artists. While the trio soon relocated to the Bay Area where they co-founded the Anticon collective, their Midwestern roots – in ramshackle basements of off-campus hovels, as the "cerberus of Southern Ohio" – would remain the atomic heart of their early recordings.

As Chris Martins writes in the liner notes, "The only reason we know their names today is because of how loudly and curiously they aired their insularity. They rewrote the entire world as they knew it through their own fucked perspective, and when those mysterious 10-inches started popping up in record shops, it wasn't just a puzzle to investigate: there seemed to be a whole cosmology hidden in those grooves."

Each side of the album represents one of those elusive 10-inches, each embodying a universe unto itself. Opening salvo "Apt. A" and "And All You Can Do Is Laugh" are perhaps most emblematic of the cLOUDDEAD experience. Why? and Dose create a new language through boundless non-sequiturs, sing-song non-choruses and call-and-response hooks, while Nosdam's dexterous production shifts from crackling ambience of Flying Saucer Attack to tight Ohio Players drum breaks and oblique film samples.

Taken all together, cLOUDDEAD is an original interpretation of hip-hop in the surreal Y2K glow – a bizarre meeting point between William Basinski's Disintegration Loops and MF DOOM's Operation: Doomsday. All it took was a Dr. Sample SP-202, Tascam cassette eight-track and cheap RadioShack mic. There's truly nothing like it.

This edition has been faithfully restored by Nosdam. European exclusive version comes on clear vinyl, incl. fold-out poster and liner notes insert.

Born to Dominican and Brazilian parents, xavi grew up bouncing from place to place, picking up inspiration wherever he landed. His first love was baile funk, but he was raised on classic hip-hop, eventually notching up production and songwriting credits for Vince Staples, Demi Lovato and Ariana Grande. But the major label life wasn’t giving; sick of the industry, he headed back to São Paulo to soak up the atmosphere and connect with artists on the ground. Before long, he started uploading quickfire bangers to SoundCloud – at this point there are over 350 of them on his feed – an »evolutionary playlist« in his own words, bursting with ideas.

»balança e paixão« is his debut release, proper, a 12-cut snapshot of chaotic, trailblazing, turbulent genius – bending thrashed rhythms into relentless vocal chops from a laundry list of young brazillian MCs. Built on ear-zizzing »tuin« hits and razor’s edge cuts, he creates hypnotic ripples that wedge themselves between São Paulo’s weirdo fringe (artists like JLZ and Iguana) and the percussive, MC-heavy sound of funk ritmado, one of the contemporary scene’s most vital and recognisable strains. Crucially, you can hear a Photek-like approach to space in his productions too, filling the gaps with metallic clangs to lend his rhythms their own unique dimension. The flipside takes it slower, deeper. On »sei q tu gosta« (I know you like it), DJ Leal Original and MC Vuk Vuk’s voices are transformed into ghosted sibilances next to xavi’s sonar pings and woodblock hits with an almost avant-dancehall slant, like some choice Equiknoxx dub, while on »cuidado bandida« (be careful bandit), he deploys bone-rattling trills that bite down on atmospherics that wouldn’t be out of place on Akira Yamaoka’s »Silent Hill« OST.

Repress!

4 To The Floor is committed to delivering seminal house music to wax, making sought after heritage tracks readily available on vinyl for crate diggers to add to their collections. The fourth edition of the series pays homage to one of the most loved names in house music – Sandy Rivera. Known for his soulful dancefloor cuts he has produced timeless classics, with his long-lasting career and multitude of aliases captured by this 12” release. Opening the A-side is the Moodymann Edit of Kings of Tomorrow’s ‘Fall For You’, featuring the stunning vocals of long-time collaborator April Morgan, followed by Sandy’s grooving ‘Come Into My Room’ which features LT Brown. On the flip is Soul Vision’s ‘Don’t Stop’ with its atmospheric strings and gospel vocal. The release is closed with Kings Of Tomorrow featuring Elzi Hall ‘Show Me’, an atmospheric club cut that shows the versatility of this house legend.

Allowing yourself to find meaning or beauty in the mundane is an act of generosity, Whether it’s seeing a smiling face in an electrical outlet socket, or discerning cosmic design amidst the forest floor detritus, it comes from a place of kindness to yourself and senses – and openness to hidden spirit of the world. These tracks came together during a period of intense personal change for adaa, rooted in a fruitful reflection on the connections between spirit and body, “feeling my flesh so I can feel and understand my spirit,” as adaa puts it. The sense of a crossover and clash of multiple connected realities – on-screens, on-line, on-earth, off-world, after-life – unites adaa’s multifaceted productions.

Ostensibly an assemblage of found sounds. scribbled thoughts and poems from diaries, and musial snippets, the album's scattered production reflects adaa’s own many mirror worlds. Field recording sit behind most tracks, alongside VST synths, guitars, and a variety of voices, from adaa’s own mangled vox to EVP samples taken from YouTube (recorded sounds believed to be spirits or paranormal activity), all processed to varying degrees.

While the music was mostly produced either in adaa’s studio in Providence, Rhode Island, or in bed, the field recordings bring the outside world in. The result of walks in the woods, hum of roads and highways, hiss of beaches, warmth of walks with friends and past lovers “around the East Coast”. It sits behind tracks like ‘sight’ where a lilting piano lin bobs atop a pond of rustling and distant whistles. Is that birdsong? Or ghosts? Saccharine hyperpop arpeggiation crossfades sharply into noise guitar squall. Angelic demon voices yawn into a hefty crescendo. Pure drones duet with gales of undefinable field sounds.

“Sometimes I feel like a seed in frosted soil,” says adaa. “If i choose to be optimistic.”

Inspired by witnessing the broken tension and renewed possibilities of a laptop breaking down at a gig – not to mention the void left behind by the sudden end of a relationship – Pentu’s latest release is a jump-cut menagerie of musical moments. Sewn together into ‘And I Saw My Devil And I Saw My Deep Blue Sea’, these fifteen tracks continue the London-based producer’s active departure from the soundscapes and song structures that dominated their previous writing style. These disparate pieces slice themselves off into sudden silence, or veer into unpredictable sidebars, hopping from hyperactive instrumentals to beautifully deconstructed YouTube samples. Described by Pentu as “emotionally intuitive to write”, this is music by and for the endlessly scrolling modern mind – “navigating the world alongside the splintered, interruptive emotional hyper realities of social media.”

The sudden silences, drones, and interruptions are perhaps less surprising than the guitar-based textures of metal & shoegaze woven into several vital passages by Pentu. The result is a collage that encapsulates the erratic feeling, not only of a relationship’s end, but simply of navigating online mediascapes.”I found myself realising that my phone, the constant interrupter of nothingness and silence, was both a cause of depression (reliving memories, dating apps) and a relief from it (creating new friendships, distractions, also dating apps)”, says Pentu.

Pentu’s attempt to overcome content overload by actively curbing his setup of laptop-guitar--synth does little to reduce the scope of this album’s sonic palette. YouTube vlog samples (from videos with next-to-no views) are an attempt to recontextualise and dramatise material that “would have otherwise been throwaway moments lost in the internet”, adding staccato moments of reality to Pentu’s beautiful and jarring album-length paean to overstimulation.

When you listen to birds, they usually talk about food, sex/family, or anxiety. If they knew about the true nature of humanity's cruel and exploitative relationship with birds, they would be discussing rebellion. Humanity's current trajectory about birds is to cause the extinction of one-third of all bird species by the end of this century.

This record crystallises the borders between memory, beauty, and anxiety. At the core is an amalgam of all the birds we have met and heard, their sounds synthesised from a blend of memories. Esthetically it simulates the qualities of bird sounds, hitting similar frequential sweet spots. There is a great variety of birds captured here, from high to low frequencies, from solo voices to groups, from birds standing on their own to complex world-building, where the bird voices are part of an ecosystem, becoming one of the instruments.

You could stop there, enjoying this record on a musical level, but it invites us to do one step further, to consider reconfiguring our relationship with the Earth and its inhabitants. To question our impact, and to ask why we need synthetic bird music. Is it just a visionary endeavour or is it because we are failing at fostering a world in which organic birds and other creatures can thrive?

32 artists from the whole world, including our favourite artists from Eastern Europe, have contributed to this compilation both with new and previously released music. Their music is ordered from dawn to dusk and into the night. For many of the artists it's their first time on mappa, but some have previously released an album with us.

blickwinkel releases WILDERNESS, the fifth instalment in Ameel Brecht’s cassette series exploring the theme of sleep. This closing volume delves into the world of dreaming and what it does to our minds, and for the first time in Brecht’s oeuvre features newly composed parts for (bass) clarinet.

"Sleeping and dreaming in your childhood: the first dreams you remember, the whole wildness of it;
dreams of flying, and of disappearing,
the strangeness of blue twilight,
worrying about the nightmares of a sibling, listening to the dreams of your parents,
struggling with falling asleep,
writing dreams on postcards
dreams that feel so true they linger for days -
sleep is wilderness."

Editions Mego welcomes KMRU back to the fold. Kin is Kenyan born, Berlin based, sonic wizard Joseph Kamaru’s second release on Editions Mego, following on from the classic 2020 release Peel. Since the release and subsequent praise for Peel, the artist has been a staple on the electronic scene performing on numerous stages and festivals worldwide in tandem with a flood of media recognition. Kin could be construed as the second child following Peel. The project came out of initial discussions with Peter Rehberg about what a Peel sequel would sound like. Kamaru is quick to clarify that Kin is not that record; “I'll know when that record will come and when I'll make it. It's already happening... or maybe it lives within both of these Mego records”.

It is this deft ambiguity and vague tiptoeing around the concrete that encapsulates the ambiguous sound world of Kamaru’s vision.

Kin was started early 2021 in Nairobi with Kamaru exploring his noisier palette of sounds encompassing distortions reminiscent of the sounds he would muster from in his youth when playing guitar. He paused making this record for a year as soon as Peter died, then slowly returned to it through 2022 resulting in the immense new work we have here.

The charms within Kin lay as Easter eggs revealing the true identity behind the colourful sonics only after multiple deep listens. With Trees Where We Can See sets the tone by way of a warm swaying melody inviting the listener in for further investigation. In 2022 KMRU and Mego stalwart Fennesz toured the USA together resulting in a strong friendship and also, the second track here, Blurred. A neat Mego/Editions Mego loop as such. Blurred arranges twangy guitar strums alongside glistening glaciers of shimmering drones. They Are Here represents a darker hue as melancholic clouds of shadowy noir tap directly into the listener's nerve stream. Maybe takes a detour into a bristling euphoric electronic storm whilst We Are screeches in a pattern formation not unlike a highly abstracted Aphex Twin forcing its way out of a hard drive. By Absence concludes proceedings, operating as both exit music and a portal to further sonic investigation with acoustic bellowing residing amongst a kaleidoscopic backdrop.

Kin is a trip that rewards close repeated listens as all the colours and textures, nuance and narratives unveil themselves. This isn’t a record to be glossed over, magic rewards concentration.

Kin is a record to be Played slow and LOUD.

For Pita.

All tracks written, produced, mixed by Joseph Kamaru
Blurred co-written & produced with Christian Fennesz
Mastered by Stephan Mathieu at Schwebung Mastering
Photography: Joseph Kamaru
Layout & Design: Nik Void
Cut by Andreas Kauffelt at Schnittstelle, Berlin

Melbourne / Naarm stronghold Butter Sessionsclock 15 years in the game with a trilogy of 12"s, sustaining their uncompromising streak of peak-form electronics. The family-style V/A binds friends, collaborators, former studio neighbours and DJ booth allies, capturing a label that exists as community as much as catalogue.

Disc Two lifts off with recurring contributor Rory McPike's first label outing as Rings Around Saturn, a blissed-out cosmic floater skimming the periphery. Booked in the early days of the label's formative Mania residency, Japanese don Gonno twists freestyle, techno and breaks into pure ecstasy, before the unerringly bold Jennifer Loveless spikes the punch with a hallucinatory mix of drums, disembodied voice and jazz club keys.

On the flip, Boorloo's Guy Contact rolls out Dance In The Grey, a shadowy prog churn pitched between new-romantic vocal sheen and EBM muscle, with Kate Miller completely rewiring the script on Sub Series E - a masterfully minimal, double-time meditation. suki presents his Sniper1 alias to close with a demonic body-jacking groove loaded for the system.

Whether taken alone or folded into the three-disc triptych, each instalment stands as a bag-ready constant, charged with Butter Sessions' curatorial finesse.

A house is something that is so deeply temporary, yet it can hold so much energy. How do we carry or leave behind those energies while transitioning into new spaces? How does each space we occupy for some time shape us and how do we tear ourselves away from it and its influence once it’s time to go? These are some of the core questions behind CC Sorensen’s new album for mappa, ‘Phantom Rooms’ – it’s a record about movement, change, transformation, family, juxtapositions… but most of all, home.

CC Sorensen was reflecting a lot on their childhood home in rural Kansas, USA while working on this music. The album could be characterised by a familial, chamber feel and both of CC Sorensen’s brothers, Ryan and Nyal Ruehlen, make an appearance on ‘Phantom Rooms’, among other instrumentalists. Using a wide palette of sounds – CC Sorensen alone in charge of keyboards, software instruments, voice, electronics, percussion, trumpet, guitar and field recordings, in addition to guests on pedal steel, voice, chimes, saxophone and drumset – the American musician crafts music as mysterious as it is inviting. The idea behind it would be almost surrealist – ghostly rooms in houses where we live – if we all didn’t know exactly what CC Sorensen means. Home isn’t something concrete, but it’s also not just an abstract concept. It’s a space beyond space; home in itself is a phantom room we enter. And what enables us to enter is the object of exploration here.

CC Sorensen’s approach is playful – tracks like “Beat Bot” and “Plastic Portals” are almost fun – but also contemplative. They make thoughtful, meandering chamber music intertwined with field recordings and electronics. Reeds, strings and percussion often set the atmosphere – sometimes airy, gentle, at other points more insistent – as the music grapples with departure, instability, deep reflection and imagined future spaces. Especially in the closing “Bexar” there’s a tangible yearning for a stable home, a longing to rekindle and keep ablaze this beautiful familial connection to a physical place. It’s both music that invites to reflect and music that in itself reflects; desires, hopes and dreams.

The Coasters were, in the opinion of noted rock writer Dave
Marsh, ‘the funniest group in rock’n’roll history’, while author and
historian Arnold Shaw described their music as ‘ebullient,
energising, entertaining, expressive and danceable.’ High praise
indeed - and as this album confirms, well deserved. the
Coasters’ songs are more famous than the group themselves.
Their music will endure forever, a fact underlined by the
Broadway-staged musical revue Smokey Joe's Café that
received seven Tony nominations and won a Grammy Award.
The Coasters’ hits were a large part of the score.

Above The Clouds I Finally Found Peace, the latest work from French artist Quelza (Leo Naït Aïssa) on Ostgut Ton, feels like a homecoming.

A testament to introspection and self-awareness.
Rather than adhering strictly to a club-focused approach, the EP marks a step forward in freedom of expression, breaking away from a purely club-based format and instead leading into a broader listening territory. It unfolds as a personal musical journal shaped by perception, memory, and emotion.

As its title suggests, the record carries a spiritual undercurrent. It stands as a sincere sonic statement from a young artist, driven by a clear intention: to express vulnerability and honesty through sound.

The EP invites the listener to let go of expectations formed by previous releases, while preserving the emotional intensity and distinctive sonic identity that have come to define this work in recent years.

„Above The Clouds I Finally Found Peace“, das neueste Werk des französischen Künstlers Quelza (Leo Naït Aïssa) auf Ostgut Ton, fühlt sich wie eine Heimkehr an.

Ein Zeugnis der Selbstreflexion und Selbstwahrnehmung. Anstatt sich strikt an einen cluborientierten Ansatz zu halten, markiert die EP einen Schritt vorwärts in Richtung Ausdrucksfreiheit, bricht mit einem rein clubbasierten Format und führt stattdessen in ein breiteres Hörgebiet. Sie entfaltet sich wie ein persönliches musikalisches Tagebuch, geprägt von Wahrnehmung, Erinnerung und Emotion.

Wie der Titel schon andeutet, hat die Platte eine spirituelle Unterströmung. Sie ist ein aufrichtiges klangliches Statement eines jungen Künstlers, der von einer klaren Absicht getrieben ist: Verletzlichkeit und Ehrlichkeit durch Klang auszudrücken.

Die EP lädt den Hörer dazu ein, die Erwartungen, die durch frühere Veröffentlichungen entstanden sind, loszulassen, während sie gleichzeitig die emotionale Intensität und die unverwechselbare klangliche Identität bewahrt, die dieses Werk in den letzten Jahren geprägt haben.“

This is a super limited double vinyl only press.

Twelve Il Bosco edits of new wave bangers tried and tested down in the Manctalo Disko at The White Hotel and beyond...

No digital will be sold. Again as we said plenty of times before the reason we don't sell the digital tracks is out of respect for the original artists. We make no money on pressing vinyl.

It's expensive. time consuming and nobody fukin buys it anymore.
We do it because we love this shit and the chance to share our discoveries with ya'll.
We hope our compilations serve as an advert for the original artists.
You fall in love with a track, find out who it is and then go and discover more about them.

Shouts here to Hysteric (Mothball Records) for track 3 and Kelvin Andrews & Balearic Mike (Down To The Sea And Back) for putting me onto Car Crash Set leading me to discover track 1.

Quite out-of-the-blue, a stunning debut album from Movement And Soul's Nonna Fab...
An exceptional musicality permeates the cuts here, from Claussell / Trent style Deep House meditations, to tripped-out Jazz influenced electronica akin to Mills' recent Spiral Deluxe output.
We're also immersed in Minimal Vision type early 90's dream-House vibes, a dash of Broken Beat and a beautiful beatless piece to wrap it all up.
Incredibly accomplished work from this young new talent !!

We couldn’t start the new year in a better way than sharing with you our upcoming release.

We are glad and proud to have on board Mr. Pauli. Ingmar needs no introduction, his unique style has been an inspiration for a long time with remarkable releases on Clone, Viewlexx and Bordello A Parigi just to name a few.
After 9 years from his last vinyl appearance, Mr. Pauli is back with a 3 tracker EP showcasing his melodic and emotional side. A release devoted to the Italo-Disco and Synth Pop sound, with an electro touch here and there, that will bring you to another deep dimension towards your inner self.

If there is a year zero for the introduction of reggae music to Japan, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was 1979 when Bob Marley and the Wailers toured the country, trailed by an entourage of journalists, photographers and fans ready to spread the message of the music into all corners of Japanese society.

But the story of Japanese reggae is not a linear one, and the music that is collected on Tokyo Riddim 1976-1985 captures the moment J-reggae entered the broader public consciousness, merging commercial city pop style with an infectious backbeat, that has drawn comparisons with the emergence of Lovers Rock in the UK.

Rather than look directly to Jamaica, many producers and artists in Japan were inspired instead by the more approachable sounds of The Police and UB40, their reggae fix arriving pre-filtered through the lens of new wave pop from the UK. Playful and groovy, these album deep cuts have been overlooked for too long.

Among them are Miki Hirayama, the idol singer who borrowed the bassline from Bob Marley’s Natural Mystic on ‘Denshi Lenzi’, Chu Kosaka, who headed to Hawaii to cut the Jimmy Cliff-inspired ‘Music’ and Marlene, the Philippine songstress whose cover of Roberta Flack’s ‘Hittin’ Me Wear It Hurts’ owed much to her producer’s obsession with Sly & Robbie’s Compass Point sound.

Then there was Izumi “Mimi” Kobayashi, who enlisted the Babylon Warriors to perform on a dubbed-out version of her own track ‘Lazy Love’, the city pop-meets-new wave reggae sound of Miharu Koshi’s ‘Coffee Break’, Junko Yagami’s anti-apartheid deep cut ‘Johannesburg’ and Lily, whose ‘Tenkini Naare’ was produced by Ryuichi Sakamoto and closes out the compilation with a flourish.

While these stories may not always conform to neat narratives, they do provide a more accurate reflection of the indirect ways in which styles infiltrate one another and, in their naivety, have the potential to create something beautifully strange and entirely new. Previously only available in Japan, the tracks on this compilation are a testament to that curious alchemy.

Tokyo Riddim 1976-1985 is released on vinyl and as a full album download (no streaming), featuring original artwork by Japanese Fukuoka-based artist Noncheleee, whose cover pays homage to the iconic dancehall album art of Wilfred Limonious.

Released on 1st September, Tokyo Riddim 1976-1985 is part of Time Capsule's Nippon Series, a loose series of compilations exploring different musical scenes from Japan between the 1960s and 2010s.

With their upcoming sixth studio album, “What A Time To Be Alive” , The Lone Bellow embarks on a bold new chapter while honoring the deep bonds that have defined their journey. Written collaboratively for the first time with their full touring band—founding members Zach Williams, Brian Elmquist, and Kanene Pipkin joined by drummer Julian Dorio and multi-instrumentalist Tyler Geertsma—the album channels the raw, ecstatic energy of the band’s live show into a dynamic collection of songs that pulse with warmth, honesty, and human connection. Recorded live in Muscle Shoals, AL, after a writing retreat in a converted Kentucky firehouse, the album is both a celebration and a reckoning: of friendship, loss, love, and resilience. From the gritty, Stones-tinged opener “After The Rain” to the soul-stirring closer “What A Time To Be Alive,” the record captures the joy and vulnerability that have long defined The Lone Bellow’s sound—lush harmonies, heartfelt lyrics, and genre-blurring arrangements steeped in folk, rock, and gospel. The album’s creation was marked by setbacks, including the theft of early recordings, but the outpouring of support from their fanbase reaffirmed what the band has always known: their music is a shared experience. That spirit echoes throughout the album, whether in anthems like “Common Folk” and “I’m Here For You,” or in intimate reflections like “You Were Leaving” and “Night Goes Black.” Since their acclaimed 2013 debut, The Lone Bellow has appeared on The Tonight Show, Austin City Limits, and The Late Show, topped Americana charts, and headlined storied venues from Carnegie Hall to the Ryman Auditorium. But with their next album, they reaffirm their commitment not just to making music, but to building community—on stage, in song, and around the table.