Suche:zea

Harmonies is the new long player from underground super-producer Lord Echo. Hotly anticipated for the last few years by his growing entourage of fans, many were frustrated by his descent into obscurity in the industrial backwaters of New Zealand where he lived alone and went completely insane trying to complete the record.

The new album solidifies his already distinctive mutations of reggae and rock steady with disco, African soul, techno and spiritual jazz. In other words, the Lord has returned from the wilderness with a bounty for his followers. Eat of the bread of life and enjoy access to his crazy World of Sound.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS RELEASE WILL BE DISTRIBUTED IN THE 'US BY FAT BEATS' & 'BENELUX BY V2 RECORDS'. PLEASE EXCLUDE ALL PARTNERS IN THOSE TERRITORIES. NO SALES TO JAPAN

Kraak & Smaak's 6th studio album - 'Pleasure Centre' is the culmination of two years hard work since their critically acclaimed 'Juicy Fruit' LP and their first Kraak & Smaak LP released on their own label – Boogie Angst. As expected it's a glorious record packed with future classics, flitting between funky dancefloor focused jams and more relaxed downtempo affairs.

The album has a definite US West Coast vibe to it and sees them fuse classic 70's and 80's yacht rock, dream pop, and indie influences in with their signature electronic funk sound. And this result is no mere accident or emulation… Working on the demos in their own studio before travelling to LA for a month last year to meet and work with featured artists, they stayed in Echo Park and recorded in local studios and sometimes even in the homes or backyards garages of their collaborators.

Hand- picking the best of the local talent: dance diva - Gavin Turek, indie upstarts - The Palms and dream pop dealer – Satchmode all contribute their talents to the cause.

The Dutchmen have earned a deserved reputation in particular for the A&R side of the industry, with both the discovery and collaboration of new rising acts high on their agenda. Previous successes include working with Parcels, Alxndr London (championed by Annie Mac) Eric Biddines (6Music playlisted) and Cleopold (signed to Nick Murphy fka Chet Faker's own label). And they continue to uncover hidden gems outside of LA on this record too...

Moon Boots collaborator – Nic Hanson, Jalapeno Records' gospel/soul powerhouse - Izo FitzRoy and soul man Wolfgang Valbrun (Ephemerals/Kungs), New Zealand's imugi이무기and previous collaborator and soul songstress - Sanguita are accompanied by regular members of the Kraak & Smaak live band - IVAR and Berenice Van Leer across 15 fantastic new tracks.

'Pleasure Centre' is everything you'd want in an album and everything we've come to expect from these dance stalwarts – innovative, relevant, and modern tracks with great production and exciting guest features that are guaranteed to fire up your own pleasure centre!

The Veils' first three albums are returning to vinyl thanks to Rough Trade Records.

The Runaway Found (2004), Nux Vomica (2006) and 2009's Sun Gangs established the New Zealand band as purveyors of lush, romantic indie, able to sweep through cinematic vistas into intimate emotional corners, via gothic orchestration and atmospheric driving rhythms.

Founded and fronted by singer-songwriter Finn Andrews while still a teenager, over their first three albums, The Veils carved out a musical landscape of their own that was in turn deep and enveloping yet emotionally raw and direct.

Having only enjoyed a limited vinyl run on their releases, due to the format's neglected commercial status during the 2000s, the repressing of The Runaway Found, Nux Vomica and Sun Gangs, offers audiences a fresh opportunity to enjoy these records with the full depth, fidelity and artwork they deserve, and reminding listeners of the musical secrets The Veils revealed to the world.

“It is a sincere joy to see these records that are so important to us and to so many others reissued on vinyl by the label that nurtured us right from the start. I remain hugely grateful to them and to all the songs on these searching, impassioned, and magnificently youthful first attempts.” - Finn Andrews, The Veils

Pioneering Ghanaian musician King Ayisobareturns September 4, 2026 with his forthcoming seventh album Pure Confusion, recorded and produced by On-U-Sound’s Adrian Sherwood.

Ayisoba is one of Ghana’s most distinctive musical voices. The world’s foremost player of the kologo - a homemade two-string lute fashioned from a calabash and covered in goatskin - he delivers fiercely political and socially observant songs using three different voices, including the voice of his grandfather that possessed him as a child. Sherwood meanwhile is the pioneering British producer and founder of On-U Sound whose hugely influential career has connected dub, post-punk, industrial, hip hop and experimental music through collaborations with artists including Lee “Scratch” Perry, Mark Stewart, Horace Andy, Sinéad O’Connor, Nine Inch Nails and Depeche Mode.

Ayisoba and Sherwood first collaborated during a BBC Radio 3 Late Junction session at Maida Vale in 2017, organised by Ayisoba’s long-time collaborator Arnold de Boer/Zea of The Ex. The pair immediately connected, and during the pandemic, when Adrian’s long-time African Head Charge collaborator Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah was in Ghana looking for musicians to collaborate with Sherwood suggested Ayisoba, who eventually featured on two tracks on African Head Charge’s 2023 album A Trip To Bolgatanga (Bolgantanga is the region Ayisoba is from). Ayisoba then returned to the UK in late 2024 and travelled to Sherwood’s Ramsgate studio where the pair laid down the songs that would become Pure Confusion: “All the songs were already in my head,” says Ayisoba. “This album is all recorded live, over one afternoon. Adrian only plays live, and I like that. And he works hard - he doesn’t sleep. I woke up in the night and he was still working.”

“In my role producing it, I just let it roll to make a good vibe,” says Sherwood. “We recorded it completely live, did some programming and processing on some tracks, using dub techniques live on the mixing desk and adding some slick touches. We wanted the colours on the album to swing off what Ayisoba was doing, so we invited some friends to participate. Doug Wimbish (Sugar Hill Gang) arrived from America and lent his services playing bass on a couple of tracks; the wonderful Ivan Hussey (Celloman) played bass, keyboards and cello - cello is not really featured on African recordings so we thought it would be really cool to try it. I'd been working with Alex White (Fat White Family/Primal Scream) on my album (The Collapse of Everything) and so he added sax to a few tracks and I brought Alan Glenn down especially - Alan was in Little Axe but also Nine Below Zero and played in the Yardbirds – to add some mouth organ; Mark Bandola added a bit of flavour with his Juno, Ayisoba’s long-time Ghanian collaborator Ayuune Sule added some percussion and vocals and Matt Smith did some programming.”

“King Ayisoba is quite amazing, so unique,” Sherwood continues. “He’s got his own handmade instrument and three different voices - when you’re listening you think it’s three different people. He’s a breath of fresh air, full of love for the music which he wants to share with everybody. Some tracks we kept very straight and others we experimented with - adding dubby psychedelic little touches to trip you out a bit. The added production we did at On-U has given it a shine while still keeping it vibrant, live and spontaneous. I’m really proud of this record”.

On Pure Confusion, Ayisoba documents the anxieties, contradictions and changing social realities of contemporary Ghana. “Land is a problem for everyone,” says Ayisoba of the opening track “Property”. “If you don’t build on your land they will take it away. Plenty corruption in Ghana, plenty confusion. They sell the land to two, three, four people and then everybody fights.”

Elsewhere Ayisoba explores illness, spirituality and social stigma on “Bemba”, warning against hiding sickness out of shame or fear of “bad juju”: “People hide their sickness and the sickness kills them.” “Tewigiloge” reflects on cultural difference and open-mindedness encountered through world travel: “We will tour the whole world and we will see many things we may not like or understand… your eyes will see, but don’t talk - you have to be open-minded.”

Spirituality runs deeply throughout the album. Ayisoba’s grandfather was a respected spiritual healer whose presence the musician says still guides him today. “The grandparents’ spirits are the ones you can contact,” he explains of the spiritual chant “Nkaase”. “This song talks about the forefathers.” The closing track “Leeda-Mampanga (It’s Not My Strength)” acts as a statement of humility and gratitude: “You have to be humble, even if you have talent. God gives you the power.”

For more than two decades, King Ayisoba has been one of Africa’s most distinctive musical innovators, transforming northern Ghanaian kologo traditions into a bold contemporary sound rooted in hypnotic rhythms, social commentary and spiritual intensity. Since the breakthrough success of 2006’s Modern Ghanaians, Ayisoba has built an international following through acclaimed albums, relentless touring and collaborations with artists including Lee “Scratch” Perry, Orlando Julius and African Head Charge. Performances at Roskilde, WOMAD, Le Guess Who? and the Barbican have further cemented his reputation as a singular live performer and cultural force.

Piano Works 2016-2026 collects fourteen impromptu pieces by composer and producer John Carroll Kirby, written whenever he had the opportunity to sit at a piano while on the road. These mostly solo works for piano were recorded in Los Angeles, Rome, Tokyo, Wollongong (Australia), rural New Zealand and London. Piano Works marks a departure from the full-band sound of recent albums Blowout and Septet, which Kirby has spent the past years performing live around the world. The album is a study in piano repertoire: Baroque, Romantic, Impressionist, jazz, minimalist, atonal, and more. Most of the pieces have an impromptu feel - improvised, or meant to sound improvised, or at least written in one sitting. The collected pieces on Piano Works are a document of Kirby's life as a piano player and touring musician, and "serve as the melodic / harmonic lexicon for what would inform all my other compositions of the past ten years." John Carroll Kirby has scored two feature films, and his solo piano song "Walking Through a House Where a Family Has Lived" formed the score for Oscar-nominated short film Retirement Plan.Fans of John Carroll Kirby's cult favourite solo album Conflict will find plenty to love in Piano Works 2016-2026.

Mara TK, a golden voiced, Maori-Scottish world-wandering citizen of Aotearoa (New Zealand) announces his debut solo album 'Bad Meditation', released 7th May on Extra Soul Perception. Stepping out on his own, Mara TK is the former frontman of the acclaimed Kiwi future soul trio Electric Wire Hustle. Written and produced by Mara himself, 'Bad Meditation' is his 13 track opus, a deeply personal account of heritage, love, loss and healing.

An alumnus of Red Music Academy in Toronto, Mara TK's work beyond Electric Wire Hustle has seen him collaborate with critically lauded names including Om'Mas Keith of Sa-Ra Creative Partners, Detroit producer and J Dilla collaborator Waajeed, and Steve Spacek.

Extra Soul Perception is a collaboration and community music platform that started life between the UK, Kenya and Uganda but is now continuing to grow and connect independent musicians worldwide. Now with Mara TK added to the roster, Extra Soul Perception has released music by Lex Amor, K15, Maxwell Owin, Lynda Dawn, Hibotep, Karun, Labdi, Faizal Mostrixx and more.

*Nb: The solo version of 'Met At The River' is a digital exclusive only.

Roy Montgomery, a key figure in the experimental underground rock scene, lives in Christchurch, New Zealand, just a short drive from the sea. Avant-garde vocalist and songwriter Martha Skye Murphy is based in London. Though geographically worlds apart, the pair inhabit an intimate and almost tactile shared sonic world. Their collaboration feels transformative, like the gradual shifting spell from night to day.

What draws them together is the emotional force of each other’s music. Montgomery’s cyclical, decaying compositions are shaped through intricate guitar and piano work, blending post-rock, folk, and drone. Murphy, meanwhile, possesses a rare gift for transformation, from the intimate cracked whispers of 'At Dawn' to the hypnotic drift of 'The Play of Dark and Light'. On the latter, she evokes old maritime folk tales of fishermen lured into the darkness by the sea’s siren call. The song both seduces and warns, finding something magical and frightening in the temptation of drowning. Though her vocals often resemble fragments of words, consonants, or vowels, they frequently function as pure sound, drawing on glossolalia and prioritising feeling over any ‘learnt’ language.

Emotion and intuition are the driving forces behind Nebular, an album that oscillates between the intimate with the unknown. This spirit is reflected in its artwork. Murphy shared a painting by Irish artist Simon English depicting a solitary house bathed in dusky blue light, and the pair quickly settled on it as the cover image. Both were captivated by its atmosphere. Montgomery related it to the isolated, seemingly uninhabited houses he encounters while travelling through rural New Zealand—places that inspire a desire to knock on the door and discover what lies beyond. “Terra incognita springs to mind. A search into the unknown,” Murphy agrees.

The nocturnal and remote nature of the artwork mirrors the process of making Nebular. With Montgomery in New Zealand and Murphy in London, the album was created entirely through remote correspondence, with stems exchanged via email. Their messages were often written and read at different times of day, and, because of the time difference and the demands of daily life, replies usually were sent late at night and the music too often composed at nocturnal hours. Their exchanges took on the quality of pen pals sending letters across great distances. This suspended sense of time is echoed in Nebular’s sound, with its feeling of temporal drift and timelessness.

On Nebular, Montgomery and Murphy have harnessed raw emotion and launched it into a time capsule bound for the stars. It allows you to drift, to be present, and to feel; creating something timeless.

TRACKLISTING

Macy Gray's debut album On How Life Is was released in 1999 and definitely could be called one of the most impressive R&B/Soul debuts. By selling seven million records worldwide it reached a wide audience and received airplay beyond the genre-specific stations. The single "I Try" became a massive hit and reached the number one spot in Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand.

The album was, besides a commercial success, also very popular among critics. It was mostly praised for its distinctive and outstanding style, which felt like a breath of fresh air in the genre. The song "I Try", eventually won the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 2001.

On How Life Is is available as a limited edition of 3000 individually numbered copies on yellow vinyl and includes an insert.

More than two decades after its original release, "Just the Way You Are" is experiencing a remarkable global resurgence. With over 13 million monthly Spotify listeners for the original recording alone, becoming a radio and stadium anthem in new heights! To celebrate its enduring popularity, the track is returning to vinyl with an exclusive limited-edition tricolour pressing, with the added bonus of 2026 remixes.

Originally released in August 2002. While the track did not chart in the band's native Italy, it became an international hit, reaching No. 8 on the UK Singles Chart and securing Top 30 positions in Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Romania. In the United States, the song made history as the first official No. 1 on Billboard's Dance Radio Airplay chart, having already topped the chart during its unpublished testing phase.

The song's revival gained significant momentum in 2026 following a viral remix by Australian DJ Mall Grab, which introduced the track to a new generation of listeners and sparked widespread streaming growth and social media engagement. The renewed interest was further amplified by a series of high-profile remixes from Australian electronic duo Pnau, Austrian producer Ely Oaks, and French superstar DJ David Guetta. Together, these releases have cemented "Just the Way You Are" as a cross-generational dance anthem, reaffirming its lasting influence and global appeal more than 20 years after its debut.

Originally released in 1987, this album featured the Cramps live on 30 August 1986 at the Galaxy Club, Auckland, New Zealand.
The album catches the lightning-in-a-bottle live magic of Lux Interior (vocals), Poison Ivy (guitar), Candy Del Mar (bass) and Nick Knox (drums).
Ace first reissued the 11-track album in 2013 on our Big Beat imprint on red vinyl. We now put that version back into the market.

Auckland-based indie-pop outfit Borderline officially plant their flag in the New Zealand music scene with their self-titled project, Borderline. Seamlessly blending the nostalgic warmth of classic indie-rock with the polished, infectious hooks of modern pop, the band delivers a sonic snapshot of youth, ambition, and navigating the fine line between late-night euphoria and introspective vulnerability. Driven by shimmering guitar lines, driving bass rhythms, and anthemic vocals, the project feels both intimately local and ready for a global stage.

Borderline serves as a definitive introduction to the band’s signature sound, trading in sun-drenched, feel-good anthems built for summer road trips alongside high-energy tracks that tackle the fast-paced nature of modern relationships. By balancing cinematic storytelling with irresistible hooks, the up-and-coming band crafts a listening experience that is both fresh and deeply relatable, securing their place as a compelling new voice to watch out of New Zealand.

If we're talking about great and underrated pop-rock albums from the 1980s, Different Light by The Bangles is an essential mention!

The all-female power pop group had already attracted quite a lot of attention with their very catchy debut album "All Over the Place". None other than Prince took notice and decided to give them his newly written song "Manic Monday". It became the groups first worldwide hit. Fortunately, the whole album was filled with potential hits, resulting in a multi-platinum status in the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

The 12-track set Different Light spawned five charting singles, including the aforementioned “Manic Monday” and “If She Knew What She Wants”, “Walking Down Your Street”, “Following” and their monster hit “Walk Like An Egyptian”.

Different Light is available on black vinyl and includes an insert.

A catalyst for all sorts of noise-making endeavors, Bob Bellerue embraces chaos as a positive force. As a musician, he harnesses the violent timbres and textures from feedback clashing against piano wires, amplifiers, metal, zithers, electronics etc. He's also been central in harnessing community through his long standing Ende Tymes festival in New York, providing an intersectional platform for all voices to utter their noise. To a polite society, things such as chaos, noise, and anarchy threaten the normative structures that can assert control and maintain power over others. Bellerue qualifies his practice as a form of sonic animism, in which engages with that which is unheard in materials, equipment, and their relationships, developing a process of amplified discovery. The unhinged, the unquantifiable, and the unknowable are all possible outcomes in Bellerue's expansive works.

Chaos Is A Law is a macrotonal album, whose expressive de-centralization originates from rasping noise, intense textural accretions, brutalist drone, and inharmonic ambience. For all of the sustained harmonics and dissonant frequencies, the album is in constant motion, with Bellerue pushing dynamics that build, rupture, collapse and reform with an almost organic morphology. At times, it boils with a feral intensity. At others, its muscularity collapses into peculiar almost half-melodic figures, mutated within all the distortion. One could look to the free noise practitioners from New Zealand (e.g. A Handful Of Dust, Birchville Cat Motel, Surface of the Earth) or to the alchemical dronescaping of Stephen O'Malley and Organum. Yet, Bellerue's work maintains a bespoke tactility that is uniquely his.

In Bellerue's words, "The universe is a feedback loop. Creating and destroying. Growing and decaying. Loving and dying. Expanding and contracting. The big bang is the end result of everything merging together in the biggest black hole ever and then erupting into being over and over again. Praise chaos!"

Ondanaconda does not compose with the jaw harp, but through it. For their self-titled debut album, the quartet turns this lamellophone, often perceived as archaic, into the record"s sole sound source. Found for centuries across continents, from Asia to Europe, the jaw harp is played against the teeth, using the mouth as a resonating chamber, shaping sound through breath and bodily movement. Here, amplified, prepared and sometimes pushed to its limits, it becomes percussion, bass, drone and texture - a true mouth synthesizer with vast possibilities. Between performance and trance, Ondanaconda crafts an unidentified sonic object, somewhere between collective ritual and raw electroacoustic experiment. Each piece emerges from specific combinations of instruments, exploring timbral affinities and rhythmic or harmonic potentials, while leaving room for drift and improvisation. Repetition acts as an unstable engine, bending patterns until they morph into something else. Together, Laurent Bruttin, Antoine Läng, John Menoud and Daniel Zea weave a dense, shifting mass where individual voices dissolve into an organic, almost hallucinatory polyphony. Conceived as a continuum, the album unfolds as a hypnotic flow, a physical and immersive music that moves from mouths to bodies, saturating the surrounding space. A radical UFO, at the crossroads of concert, performance and sound installation.

Arriving just over a year after their last release, Fragile World marks a striking shift in tone and energy for the band. Recorded live to tape in New Zealand by Paddy Hill, with production by Tom Healy (Tiny Ruins, The Chills, Folk Bitch Trio), Fragile World captures The Veils in an urgent and instinctive mode. The album's title is both a reflection of the present moment - a time in which many institutions appear to be crumbling before our eyes - and a metaphor for the act of creation itself. The process of making music, Andrews notes, is a delicate and fragile undertaking where thousands of small decisions gradually coalesce into a finished whole.

Crypt of the Wizard is proud to present Scimitar – Scimitarium I on vinyl and digital formats. Formed in 2024 by veterans of Copenhagen’s underground music scene—including members of Slaegt, Endless Glory, and Shaam Larein—Scimitar arrives as a fully formed force of nature. In their raucous wake lies Scimitarium I, a frenzied, whirling dervish of black occult rock. For those familiar with the members' previous efforts, this should come as no surprise. This piece of musical alchemy is a perfect knife-edge dance, seamlessly blending elements of black metal, post-punk, and occult rock. Dark and serpentine, onyx black, scaled and sacred, Scimitarium I unfurls itself like an endless snake wrapped tight around the world. With a dark heart and a head full of fever dreams, this is an album of breathless intensity. Shaam A.’s constant presence provides an abundance of rich, overflowing lyrics, delivered in her distinctive and haunting voice—written as if hurriedly scrawled in feverish reverie—and reinforced by winding, twisted narratives played out on violent yet harmonic duelling guitars, alongside a rhythm section of unyielding intensity. Scimitar has quickly become an indelible part of the city's fertile and ever-evolving metal scene—a place where stalwarts continue to push boundaries and break moulds with seemingly effortless zeal. This is an album of forged perfection, honed and sharpened like a curved blade—shimmering with lethal precision—driven straight into the heart of all matters

BABY BLUE COLOUR VINYL

The Beths occupy a warm, energetic sonic space between joyful hooks, sun-soaked harmonies, and acerbic lyrics. Their debut album Future Me Hates Me, forthcoming on Carpark Records, delivers an astonishment of roadtrip-ready pleasures, each song hitting your ears with an exhilarating endorphin rush like the first time you heard Slanted and Enchanted or 'Cannonball.'

Front and center on these ten infectious tracks is lead singer and primary songwriter Elizabeth Stokes. Stokes has previously worked in other genres within Auckland's rich and varied music scene, recently playing in a folk outfit, but it was in exploring the angst-ridden sounds of her youth that she found her place. 'Fronting this kind of band was a new experience for me,' says Stokes. 'I never thought I had the right voice for it.'

From the irresistible title track to future singles 'Happy Unhappy' and 'You Wouldn't Like Me,' Stokes commands a vocal range that spans from the brash confidence of Joan Jett to the disarming vulnerability of Jenny Lewis. Further honeying Future Me Hates Me's dark lyrics that explore complex topics like being newly alone and the self-defeating anticipation of impending regret, ecstatic vocal harmonies bubble up like in the greatest pop and R+B of the '60s, while inverting the trope of the 'sad dude singer accompanied by a homogenous girl-sound.'

All four members of The Beths studied jazz at university, resulting in a toolkit of deft instrumental chops and tricked-out arrangements that operate on a level rarely found in guitar-pop. Beths guitarist and studio guru Jonathan Pearce (whose other acts as producer include recent Captured Tracks signing Wax Chattels) brings it all home with an approach that's equal parts seasoned perfectionist and D.I.Y.

'There's a lot of sad sincerity in the lyrics,' she continues, 'that relies on the music having a light heart and sense of humor to keep it from being too earnest.' Channeling their stew of personal-canon heroes while drawing inspiration from contemporaries like Alvvays and Courtney Barnett, The Beths serve up deeply emotional lyrics packaged within heavenly sounds that delight in probing the limits of the pop form. 'That's another New Zealand thing,' Stokes concludes with a laugh. 'We're putting our hearts on our sleeves—and then apologizing for it.'

2025 Repress

“We created a holiday inside our heads.”

A Deeper Life, Chaos In The CBD’s debut album over 10 years in the making, is nostalgic for the duo’s nature-filled youth, exploring the magical coastline and lush rainforest of New Zealand. “The title refers to our childhood, which was idyllic,” says Ben. “It was just the sun, the sand, the sea, waterfalls, birds and fish…” The album’s blissful setting is also depicted on the album cover: a painting, by a childhood friend, of the beach where they grew up in Devonport.

A Deeper Life whirls that profound love of house music and wide-ranging influences – from Brazilian to R&B, ambient to Italo to deep house and downtempo pop – into a serene, cohesive whole with their signature finesse. The result is an international dance sound that feels unmistakably like Chaos and ebbs and flows from the beach party to the club to the afterhours.

On the album they’ve teamed up with a number of US legends and married their vocals with the UK underground: Josh Milan of house pioneers Blaze brings his soulful vocals to the bossa nova beats of ‘I Wanna Tell Somebody,’ a future jazz-dance anthem. Unheralded Chicago house hero and Larry Heard collaborator Lee Pearson Jr. goes deep over ‘More Time’s broken beat flex. And on ‘Maintaining My Peace’, the brothers have matched veteran house singer-songwriter Stephanie Cooke with UK grime MC Novelist, on a slinky LDN interpretation of LA hip-hop and g-funk.

Also featured on the album are New Zealand jazz artist Nathan Haines, frequent collaborator Isaac Asaeili and more.

Amateur forever? Oh yeah! “Amateur Hour” celebrates 15 years of Frank Music - still running on pure DIY energy, with Johannes Albert happily admitting he’s got no master plan, just a deep feel for House Music. And somehow, nearly 80 releases later, that instinct still hits. Volume II dives into the digital archives - bringing these cuts to wax for the very first time. Tom drops the vocal house bomb “Watch Me”; New Zealand's Eden Burns flips “Sounds” into something seriously special, and Claus Casper brings the sunshine with “Piano Italiano” (exactly what you think it is). And then there’s Amount’s “Feel You” - the one that’s been moving bodies since Fusion Festival 2023 and hasn’t really stopped since.
Let's be frank. Once again.

REPRESS ON SILVER VINYL . COMES WITH 24”x24” POSTER + DOWNLOAD CARD + GATEFOLD JACKET.


On The Beths’ album Expert In A Dying Field, Elizabeth Stokes’ songwriting positions her somewhere between being a novelist and a documentarian. The songs collected here are autobiographical, but they’re also character sketches of relationships – platonic, familial, romantic – and more importantly, their aftermaths. The shapes and ghosts left in absences. The question that hangs in the air: what do you do with how intimately versed you’ve become in a person, once they’re gone from your life?

The third LP from the New Zealand quartet houses 12 jewels of tight, guitar-heavy songs that worm their way into your head, an incandescent collision of power-pop and skuzz. With Expert, The Beths wanted to make an album meant to be experienced live, for both the listeners and themselves. They wanted it to be fun -- to hear, to play -- in spite of the prickling anxiety throughout the lyrics, the fear of change and struggle to cope.

Most of Expert was recorded at guitarist Jonathan Pearce’s studio on Karangahape Road in Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa (Auckland, New Zealand) -- and sometimes in the building's cavernous stairwell at 1am -- toward the end of 2021, until they were interrupted by a four-month national lockdown. They traded notes remotely for months, songwriting from afar and fleshing out the arrangements alone, the first time they’d written together in such a way. The following February, The Beths left the country for the first time in more than two years to tour across the US, and simultaneously finish mixing the album on the road. That latter half felt more collaborative, with everyone on-hand to trade notes in real time, until it all culminated in a chaotic three-day studio mad-dash in Los Angeles. There, Expert finally became the record they were hearing in their heads.

Expert is an extension of the same skuzzy palette the band has built across their catalog, pop hooks embedded in incisive indie rock. The album’s title track “Expert In A Dying Field” introduces the thesis for the record: “How does it feel to be an expert in a dying field? How do you know it’s over when you can’t let go?” Stokes asks. “Love is learned over time ‘til you’re an expert in a dying field.”

The rest is a capsule of The Beths’ most electrifying and exciting output, a sonic spectrum: “Your Side” is a forlorn and sincere love song, emotive; while “Silence is Golden,” with its propulsive drum line and stop-start staccato of a guitar line winding up and down, is one of the band’s sharpest and most driving. “When You Know You Know” skews a bit groovier, pure pop and a natural addition to the band’s live set. “Knees Deep” was written last minute, but yields one of the best guitar lines on Expert. There’s a certain chaos across the 12 tracks, the palpable joy of playing music with long-time friends colliding with the raw nerves of pain.

Stokes strings it all together through her singular songwriting lens, earnest and self-effacing, zeroing in on the granules of doubt and how they snowball. Did I do the wrong thing? Or did you? And are we still good people at the end of it? She isn’t interested in villains, but instead interested in just telling the story. That insecurity and thoughtfulness, translated into universality and understanding, has been the guiding light of The Beths’ output since 2016. In the face of pain, there’s no dwelling on internal anguish - instead, through The Beths’ music, our shortcomings are met with acceptance. And Expert In A Dying Field is the most tactile that tenderness has been.

Swan is a warm, melodic, and emotionally direct album, blending guitars, pedal steel, and synths, with wry, heartfelt songwriting reminiscent of MJ Lenderman and David Berman- but with a distinctly antipodean voice. Fazed on a Pony is the alt country/indie rock recording project of New Zealand songwriter Peter McCall. Swan is his second full-length album. On swan McCall sings with emotional immediacy, warmth, and wit about living honestly in the face of inevitable uncertainty and disappointment. McCall's mix of wry humour, sincerity, and melodic instinct has drawn comparisons to MJ Lenderman, David Berman, and Sparklehorse. However, Fazed on a Pony lives within its own antipodean aesthetic and sound. Sonically, swan sees Fazed on a Pony expand from the Pavement-esque tuneful indie rock of previous releases to include pedal steel, fiddle, drum machines, and synthesizers. While there is a diversity of style, the album is rooted in the hallmarks of McCall's music: uplifting and catchy guitar lines that serve the song, paired with arrangements that feel both comfortable and surprising. Where the lyrics tell a sad story, the music betrays that it might just be okay in the end.

"What if, alongside the mainstream history of music, with careers and discographies spanning ten or fifty years from album to album, there was an underground, minority history, that of artists and projects with only one record? A flash, a burst of brilliance, a gem, but no follow-up, no repetitions, no decline.
"This will most likely be the case for this album by Amarante-Cerisier, a duo formed by Mauricio Amarante (RadikalSatan, Équipage, travelling companion of Canan Domurcakli and Austin Townsend) and Marine Debilly Cerisier (dancer, performer, writer, co-founder of alternative cultural venues in Marseille and Brussels), with these eight poetic songs in French having more in common with the visionary essence of certain songs from the early 1970s (Brigitte Fontaine-Areski, for example) than with the post-modernism of the ‘nouvelle chanson française’ of the1990s and 2000s.
"But – and this is undoubtedly no coincidence – this is also the case for two unique albums, which had no immediate follow-ups but which, 50 and 20 years after their release, inspired Mauricio and Marine's album and discreetly found their way into it:
"At the very end of the 1960s, Tchékov Minosa (Marine's grandfather) embarked on a journey to the East with his partner Brigitte de Saint-Preux, during which they were married ten times, in ten different traditions (in Kurdistan, among the Kuchi people of northern Afghanistan, among the Kalash people of north-eastern Pakistan, in Rajasthan,etc.). This three-year journey was documented in numerous articles in the European press, in documentaries, in a book... and on a double LP of traditional music recordings released in 1973 by Le Chant du Monde. And sampled today by Mauricio Amarante at the end of the track ‘Parfois’.
"In the early 2000s, Austin Townsend, a tall, bony figure, washed up on the banks of the Garonne River near Bordeaux, arriving from New Zealand. With a voice that was sometimes very Bob Dylan-esque, at other times buried in the gravelly depths of the low frequencies, he strung together contemporary blues songs on his only album, Introvenus (Potagers natures, 2007), beautifully accompanied in subtle tones on banjo and double bass by Mauricio and Cesar Amarante (alias Radikal Satan). Beyond this unique record, Mauricio played extensively with Austin in concert. And when his friend died in the spring of 2024, he received his guitar, used the instrument for some of the tracks on the upcoming Okraïna record, and decided to dedicate the album to him.
"In our conception of music, fleeting appearances, unexpected reunions, and timeless records outside the dictates of current musical trends thrill us more than overly well-planned career paths."

The 10,000 strong party drew together DJs, fans, listeners, singers, live acts and MCs together to showcase every shade and style encompassing a 174 heartbeat. As the Finsbury Park fun continues and round two promising even bigger stage takeovers and a myriad of artist weaponry, we present an equally bursting drum & bass double disc, the 'Hospitality In The Park 2017' LP. In the same vein as our all- day summer special, this huge 70 track mash- up spans across a full 360' perspective of the genre; representing the established, up and coming, soulful, obscure, liquid, innovative, dark, techy, neuro, jungle style and everything in between.

Included are over 25 brand new exclusives from reputable drum & bass titans Danny Byrd, S.P.Y, Makoto and Keeno, there are VIPs from Metrik and Nu:Logic, remixes from Hugh Hardie, Total science, Camo & Krooked and Calibre, and a 'Bullet Proof' banger from Krakota. Across two mixed CDs we've drawn for this year's surefire summer weapons with Fred V & Grafix, The Prototypes, 1991, High Contrast, The Upbeats, Breakage in the mix. With this year's Incubator stage pulling artists that are rising through the ranks, up and comers' Whiney, Unglued, GLXY and Kyrist bring exciting new offerings to the compilation.

Both fans and artists came together from all over the globe last year and we expect no less in 2017. Equally, this compilation gives an international perspective covering all corners of the globe from Japan's Mountain, the USA's Flite and Ownglow, the Netherlands Black Sun Empire and New Zealand's Shapeshifter. Drum & bass is stronger than ever and it's here to stay. See you at the park!

B*Witched is the self-titled debut studio album by Irish girl group B*Witched, consisting of twin sisters Edele and Keavy Lynch, Lindsay Armaou and Sinéad O’Carroll.

Originally active between 1997 and 2002, B*Witched enjoyed success in both Europe and North America. All four singles from the album performed exceptionally well, all peaking at #1 on the UK Singles Chart. They also had great success in Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. In addition, “C’est La Vie” booked its successes in the United States, peaking at #9 on the Billboard Hot 100.

B*Witched is available as a 25th anniversary edition of 1000 individually numbered copies on blue coloured vinyl and includes an insert with lyrics.

Specs: Wrapped in shrink, DL code, insert with liner notes

"Music in DNA" is an album recorded in the early 1980s in New York City by Yasuhito Ohno, a young Japanese man breaking free from the constraints of his homeland. The album is a naive burst of outsider DIY enthusiasm, inspired by the multiple avant-garde movements of the era, in music, painting and performance, as well as the native energy of 80s NYC. Ohno channeled his youthful “edge” and zeal into open-minded lo-fi musical explorations using a mere two machines: the then-new technological glories of a four-track cassette recorder and that polyphonic synthesizer masterpiece, the Roland Juno-60; on several pieces he vocalizes. These seven tracks have a zestful, innocent, anything-goes charm, free from preciousness and self-consciousness: a raw and youthful human spirit at play in a new world. Ohno was also inspired by the humanistic promise of the general technological developments of the day, including DNA research, personal computing, and early computer graphics, an example of which can be found on the cover. Ohno later returned to Japan, becoming a renowned composer/producer. In an era of jaded cynicism, "Music in DNA" is a welcome taste of big-hearted innocence, a revival of a raw self. Available on CD/LP/Digital, with E/J liner notes.

When you notice the cheerful mystery playing with the synths, the edges of this small world start to look slightly distorted. In any era, someone is always creating mysterious music on their own. (7FO)

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Music in DNA is an album recorded in the early 1980s in New York City by Yasuhito Ohno, a young Japanese man breaking free from the constraints of his homeland. The album is a naive burst of outsider DIY enthusiasm, inspired by the multiple avant-garde movements of the era, in music, painting and performance, as well as the native energy of 80s NYC. Ohno channeled his youthful "edge" and zeal into open-minded lo-fi musical explorations using a mere two machines: the then-new technological glories of a four-track cassette recorder and that polyphonic synthesizer masterpiece, the Roland Juno-60; on several pieces he vocalizes. These seven tracks have a zestful, innocent, anything-goes charm, free from preciousness and self-consciousness: a raw and youthful human spirit at play in a new world. Ohno was also inspired by the humanistic promise of the general technological developments of the day, including DNA research, personal computing, and early computer graphics, an example of which can be found on the cover. Ohno later returned to Japan, becoming a renowned composer/producer. In an era of jaded cynicism, Music in DNA is a welcome taste of big-hearted innocence, a revival of a raw self. Available on CD/LP/Digital, with E/J liner notes.

Ladyhawke is the debut studio album by New Zealand singer-songwriter Pip Brown, originally released in 2008. The album is rooted in synth-pop and new wave, drawing clear influence from 1980s electronic pop through its use of synthesizers, programmed drums, and guitar-driven arrangements.

This re-issue faithfully replicates the original 13 track UK version with its gatefold sleeve and lyric booklet, and is pressed on 180g vinyl

Rather than yielding to despair in these troubled times and offering listeners a rope to hang themselves, Zimmermann (trombonist for Claude Nougaro, Manu Dibango, and Tony Allen) playfully grants them another option - a humorous sarcasm! He mocks the vain shelters of the powerful with the tune "My Little Sweet NZ Bunker", denounces the manufacture of one- track minds with "Les maximiseurs de PI", and escapism with the classic satirical Mose Allison's song "Stop This World (let me off" (translated and sung in French) In more tender moments, he reflects on the intimate consequences of this global unraveling.

Daniel Zimmerman's style, both as a composer and soloist, is that of a melodist above all else; disregarding concepts, he sings and seeks to go straight to the heart. He was voted 'Trombonist of the Year' by Jazz Magazine (Frances most influential jazz publication) in 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024.

Hailed as one of the US's most exciting and provocative new bands, Prostitute's bracing debut Attempted Martyr finally sees its official worldwide release on Mute.?

Emerging out of Dearborn, Michigan, this five-piece deal in pure chaos and catharsis - fiery live shows, razor-sharp intensity, and a sound that's as incendiary as it is brutally tight. Their name reflects their fixation on identity, desperation, and survival under late capitalism.

Attempted Martyr was written in the midst of global and personal turmoil, capturing the zeitgeist of a world unraveling. A loose concept record, it chronicles the rise and fall of a doomed zealot whose pursuit of holy vengeance spirals into a psychotic orgy of violence, greed, and lust. It's dense, turbulent, and charged with blaring Middle Eastern, African and East Asian influences - all scorched into shape by producer Chris Koltay (The Armed, Mdou Moctar).

With mounting online buzz, critical acclaim and a run of sold-out bootleg editions, Prostitute's debut continues to gain momentum - now available on red viny

ZHERAV unleashes hypnotic Middle Eastern grooves on NAJA / BAZAAR 45 for Batov’s highly collectable 45 series.

New Zealand-based producer ZHERAV announces his debut release, NAJA / BAZAAR, a double single and 45 on Batov’s Middle Eastern Grooves series. The record fuses psychedelic rock, hypnotic rhythms, and electronic production influences, creating a sound that moves between swung grooves and cinematic, reverb-soaked textures.

ZHERAV draws from his background in house and techno, layering live guitar, bass, and synths over programmed drums. “I had a production template for house music on Ableton” he explains, “and I thought about how to switch to this Middle Eastern sound using the same format”. Most of ZHERAV’s tracks developed through improvisation - starting with programmed drums, then experimenting around scales on instruments until something works. ZHERAV has already received support from independent radio in Australia and New Zealand, and encouragement from international artists like Ko Shin Moon.

Both tracks explore Middle Eastern scales, bringing a distinct flavour to the grooves, while maintaining ZHERAV’s signature hypnotic layered sound. ZHERAV had something in mind related to snakes and their charmers when creating the A-side, NAJA (“Indian Cobra”). An ominous bassline loops repeatedly over snapping drums and percussion, whilst ZHERAV improvises guitar riffs and effects over the top.

The next chapter in this series, 'Second Thoughts (Expanded Edition)', marks 50 years since Split Enz ventured to London to record with Roxy Music's Phil Manzanera in the producer's chair. This definitive 2LP set pairs the original 1976 mix, remastered from the original tapes, with a companion LP 'Wide Angle Enz' - a treasure trove of live recordings and alternate mixes, including a previously unreleased archival rough mix of '129 (Matinee Idyll)' which is exclusive to this release. Presented in the distinctive Australia/New Zealand sleeve featuring John Prew's band portrait, the album concludes with the hypnotic locked- groove of 'Mental Notes', mirroring the international version's striking finale. Pressed on two 140g vinyl, housed in a wide- spine sleeve with printed inner bags. Remastered from the original tapes by Phil Kinrade and overseen by Eddie Rayner, with lacquers cut by Harry Rudkins at AIR Studios.

Falter is the 5th full-length album from New Zealand-based composer/-multi-instrumentalist Micah Templeton-Wolfe, working under the moniker Stray Theories.

Templeton-Wolfe has consistently woven together the cinematic sweep of ambient music, the refined structures of neoclassical composition, and the emotional cresting arcs of post-rock. With Falter, those intersections are more deeply blurred, yet more boldly explored.

Transparent Red Vinyl.

The title Falter evokes wavering, hesitation, uncertainty of intent and yet the album stands in sharp contrast to that concept: Templeton-Wolfe’s performance here is marked by a quiet but unmistakable confidence.
From the first notes, the listener is immersed in an atmosphere in which the music feels like a cinematic means of passage, a journey toward redemption. Optimism is present, but ever cloaked in doubt; moments of
contemplative solace sit side-by-side with streaks of melancholia. One senses something looming within the sound-world of Falter. As though the heart itself can tell something is coming.

In this respect, Falter may well rank as the most affecting release in Templeton-Wolfe’s canon to date. While his earlier work had always balanced delicate textures and evocative atmosphere, here he pushes into a more expansive emotional terrain. Only the hopeful refrain “Lifelines” brings the album fully into brighter territory , hinting that redemption is possible, that the journey through doubt is not endless.

The original trio featured Liz McClarnon, Natasha Hamilton, and Kerry Katona. Just weeks before the release of their breakout single "Whole Again", Katona departed and was replaced by Jenny Frost, a pivotal change that coincided with the group's meteoric rise. "Whole Again" soared to number one on the UK Singles Chart in 2000 and topped charts in 18 other countries, cementing Atomic Kitten's global appeal. Their follow- up single, "Eternal Flame", cover of The Bangles' 1989, became their second number one in both the UK and New Zealand, with strong international chart performance. Originally released in 2000, their debut album Right Now was partially re-recorded following Frost's arrival. The revamped edition featured three new tracks: "Eternal Flame", "Tomorrow and Tonight", and "You Are". Jenny Frost's vocals were also added to updated versions of "Right Now", "Whole Again", "Hippy", and "Bye Now". Celebrating it's 25th Anniversary, the reimagined album reached number one in the UK, earned double platinum certification in 2001. Right Now is available on vinyl for the first time and includes an insert with credits.

Back in 2002 British producers Fingaz and Skillz teamed up to create a project showcasing the current state of London’s R&B and hip-hop artists. In collaboration with different artists, they produced the compilation Big Brovaz Watching You, which led to the eventual formation of the group Big Brovaz. The group was referred to as a softer version of the So Solid Crew. The group enjoyed huge success, particularly with their debut album, which made big waves in the UK charts, with four singles reaching the Top 10. “Nu Flow”, the debut single, even reached the top 3 in Australia, Belgium, New Zealand, Netherlands, Sweden and Turkey. Similar successes were also achieved by the “Favourite Things” and “Baby Boy”. Big Brovaz became one of the most notable UK R&B / Hip-Hop acts of the early 2000s and are still loved by fans of the genres to this day. Their debut album is now available on vinyl for the first time and features the bonus track "OK (Rock Remix)" and the hidden track "My Favourite Things (Original Version)".Nu Flow is available as a limited edition on translucent green coloured vinyl and includes an insert.

'The World in Air Quotes' is a genre-shifting style-melting kaleidoscope of art-rock, jazz, techno, folk & industrial. The God In Hackney sound like very little else from the early 2020's and whilst 'The World In Air Quotes' innovative progenitors are manifold - Eno, Coil, The Durutti Column, 1980s ECM jazz to name a few - it sounds beholden to none of them.

The God In Hackney's first album 'Cave Moderne' was Andrew Weatherall's album of the year for NTS Radio.

The God In Hackney's second LP, 'Small Country Eclipse', was album of 2020 for critic Sukhdev Sandhu of The Colloquium for Unpopular Culture: "Mordant music: stuttering, dread, black humour. A record that felt truly independent, beholden to no genre, out of step with all centres and signposted nodes."


'The World In Air Quotes' is The God In Hackney's 3rd album and their most musically emotive and lyrically inventive to date. It's an album that resonates with feelings about climate change, isolation, extinction, the social impact of technology, the flattening of history—and illuminates the darkness with imaginative rhythm, melody, noise & poetry. Songs range from widescreen, anthemic rock, to strange intricately arranged jazz-influenced songs, to abstract, textural electronic pieces. There's a strain of dark and surreal comedy too that runs through the lyrics and some of the choices the band makes in their sounds and arrangements.

The core God in Hackney quartet of Andy Cooke, Dan Fox, Ashley Marlowe and Nathaniel Mellors has expanded to include American multi-instrumentalists and composers Eve Essex (Eve Essex & The Fabulous Truth, Das Audit, Peter Gordon & Love of Life Orchestra, Peter Zummo, Liturgy) and Kelly Pratt (Father John Misty, David Byrne/St Vincent, Beirut, and Lonnie Holley among many others), signalling a new and ambitious direction for the band.

The album cover features original artwork by Iranian-American artist Tala Madani, recently the subject of a career survey exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

Advertising:

The Wire, Maggot Brain

Reviews & features:

Maggot Brain - forthcoming feature

Hi-Fi+ Magazine - album review in April 2023 issue

Dereck Higgins (You Tube review)

Sonosphere - interview / feature

Weirdo Shrine - interview

It's Psychedelic Baby - interview

Spettacolo (Italy) - feature.

Ghettoblaster Magtazine (USA) - feature

Airplay:

Gilles Peterson - BBC Radio 6 Music

Steve Lamacq - BBC Radio 6 Music

Dublab - playlisted & featured in Dublab Recommends (Los Angeles)

Cian Ó Cíobháin - RTE Raidió na Gaeltachta (Ireland)

WFMU - playlisted

Resonance FM - The Wire presents Adventures In Sound & Music

Human Pleasure Radio (New Zealand)

Pete Wiggs & James Papademetie - The Seance (Repeater Radio, Sine FM & others)

Peter Hollo's Utility Fog - FBI Radio (Australia)

Jonathan Lethem & Sam Sousa on Radio Free Aftermath (KSP Claremont 88.7)

Life Elsewhere

WRPB Princeton

In Memory of John Peel

Mike Watt's Watt from Pedro Show

An LP compilation of non-album tracks from various other compilations, singles etc. Written & recorded in Aotearoa New Zealand 2006-2022. Mastered by Lawrence English at Negative Space Photography & design by Jon Wozencroft Published by Touch Music / Fairwood Music (UK) Ltd.

After returning from Australia, Brian Baker has wasted no time in making an impact on the NZ scene with much heralded and reviewed singles and film clips, and in particular his solo show which has seen him perform at gigs and Festivals across the country. Now he"s joined two local Whanganui Musicians, Stu Duncan and pro drummer Brad MacMillan, both seasoned performers. The act is called BB and The Bullets and has a focus on the blues, doing tracks by Albert King, BB King, Muddy Waters plus some Stevie Ray Vaughan and other blues classics. They also feature some of Brian"s excellent releases and have a few of their own recorded. These tracks make up their debut LP which will soon be released on vinyl, CD and digital through Nixon Street Recordings, Whanganui"s own international record label. Yes, the guitaring that made Brian"s solo show stand out is heavily on display here, now backed by a tight, live rhythm section. Their shows have been very well received wherever they have performed, getting standing ovations at the recent Bay Of Islands Jazz and Blues Festival where they played six standout shows over three days ! They are drawing crowds wherever they appear, have been invited back to the Capital Blues Inc in Wellington after a knock em dead show there, and were a solid crowd pleaser at Snells Beach this summer for Auckland city council"s Music In Parks series. They are delighting audiences with rock solid, emotive performances of classic blues tracks underlined by undoubtedly one of the finest guitarists New Zealand has produced !

Recloose’s ‘Dust’ returns to the spotlight on The Remedy Project, with the remaster of the original joined by remixes from Natasha Diggs, Aroop Roy and a never before available accapella.

First championed by Gilles Peterson on BBC Radio 1 in the noughties, ‘Dust’ is now a cult favourite as it effortlessly bridged genres and soundtracked dancefloors across the globe. The track’s warm groove, featuring Joe Dukie’s unmistakable vocals and Recloose’s signature production, cemented it as an underground classic; Dallas Tamaira, occasionally releasing under the alias Joe Dukie, is best known as the lead singer of New Zealand band Fat Freddy’s Drop.

A pioneering figure in the Detroit electronic scene, Recloose (aka Matt Chicoine) first broke through in the late 90s with support from techno legend Carl Craig, releasing on Planet E and later building deep ties with New Zealand’s fertile soul and jazz community. His music fuses house, funk, and broken beat with a distinct warmth and musicality that have made him a trusted name across generations of selectors.

To mark its 20th anniversary, ‘Dust’ is renewed with a package of remixes from some of the scene’s finest tastemakers. Natasha Diggs injects her soulful New York finesse, while Aroop Roy brings his global dancefloor touch. With the two new remixes sitting alongside the both the original record and the accapella, ‘Dust’ is ready to gain a new generation of fans.