Cosmic | Balearic 63 Items

Temples Of Jura is a new offshoot catering for original artist material from a variety of genres. The first release is a split Dub 12” featuring Melbourne’s Len Leise and Adelaide’s Jura Soundsystem. As the title suggests Len’s track is a homage to the legendary Dub pioneer Adrian Sherwood whilst Jura Soundsystem debut with a more Rootsy excursion across 3 mixes.

Azzurro is the soundtrack of a summer vacation in Italy of the Hungarian dj/producer duo "Pleasure Voyage". The label Quattro Bambole continues on his Adriatic Funk series blessing a new summer with the rightest vibes. Available on vinyl and on all digital stores. The concept of the record was like a week-long vacation in Italy. It starts with jazzy, slower sessions and progresses to an italo-jazzy-house gem, Summer Voyage. Passionate vocals with smooth Rhodes solo and licks on this track. Following some clubby tunes Electromarea and Dolphine Dance as a nightlife hangout, and a remix by the label founder Francesco FIsotti with cool vocals follows. Finally, with the last tune, you can feel the bittersweet emotions when you are on your way to the airport to leave this magical country, but you have some souvenirs on your skin that they call “Ambraskin” (tanned skin) and the visual memories of the crystal clear sea they often call Mare Azzurro.

Double Geography drops heavyweight 7" on IIB. Beautiful synth patterns and melodies drifting over a shuffling drum pattern. Like a long lost Maxi 12 dub mix from the 80s. Just lovely.Flip it over for the boss that is Ruf Dug's rework. Buzzing flies and slight de tuned stabs create a slightly moody eastern super dub chug bomb.Do not miss this

Record Store Day 2021 Release. Cacao is an instrumental duo ,electric guitar and bass, based in Ravenna ,in the north-east coast of Italy, and here for RSD only they announce their take on 2 extremely different versions of 90's classic dance tunes, Robert Miles 'Children', and wedding and Euro family holiday, 'Lambada'. Think Nouvelle Vague in a Cantina on Acid. LTD Edition blue vinyl in picture sleeve.

Our secret agent in Oslo returns with another essential communique in the Norsk Tripping series. Six more tracks selected from a private vault of dance floor dynamite & super rarities, which takes in Italo, Dutch new wave, Space Rock & Balearic obscurities. All given the sonic once-over for maximum playability. As always, a Very limited run.

Mr Bongo is proud to present three unique reworks of Kit Sebastian. Each of the producers featured in this package created their own interpretation of the 'lo-fi-hi-fi’ originals and have taken the duo’s sound into bold new directions. When it came to choosing who should remix Kit Sebastian, Natureboy Flako (Flako / Dario Rojo Guerra) was a producer at the top of our list. Keeping true to the original, whilst leaving his own stamp on the track, his mix adds break-beat drums and middle-Eastern guitar riffs that transform the track into a more cinematic piece. It sounds to us like the music from an exotica dive-bar scene in a David Lynch film - which of course, is a very good thing.
Producer and DJ Baris K, who was behind the awesome 'İstanbul 70' series (re-edits of classic Turkish gems), takes ‘Durma’ in a very different direction. Totally reconstructing the track, his remix has flipped the original and totally run wild. The results are an epic left-field electronic workout. By bringing the spoken-word vocals to the forefront and giving the track a darker industrial vibe, it wouldn't sound out of place bouncing around the walls of a Berlin basement club at 5am on a Sunday morning. The pairing of Kit Sebastian and Halal Cool J grew after DJing together at the alternative Great Escape party at the Mr Bongo HQ in May 2019. They share a love for dusty old psychedelic Turkish records. Halal Cool J (aka Aly Jamal / Don Leisure) has released records on First World and is a co-member of Darkhouse Family with Earl Jeffers. For his interpretation he has delivered a mix-tape-collage with a hip-hop aesthetic, and rather than focusing on remixing a specific song, he has cut and paste his favourite elements of tracks taken off the band’s 'Mantra Moderne’ album. Available in 2 limited-edition, hand-numbered sleeve designs.

Alelah records presents the debut album from Polow – ‘In Da Diggalow’, recorded at Hilbert’s Grand Hotel with tracks produced between 2017 and 2019.
Dusty instrumental beats, hazy jazz loops and MPC-styled hip hop treats across two sides of a lovingly created cassette tape. A pure unadulterated listening experience that deserves the time and space that a tape can offer.
Kick back, light up that incense and lose yourself in this one.

La Musica' is a dreamy track for the perfect Balearic experience. Written by the 'Balearicos' it comes with two great remixes, one from the chillout legend Cris Coco and another one from Rudy's Midnight Machine. Residentes Balearicos are a duo from Ibiza, consisting of Luca Averna and Alessandro Doretto. Luca is a DJ and works mainly with his friend Camilo Miranda at the legendary Pikes Hotel. Echoes and synthetic pads build up the atmosphere across the original version's intro taking you to a heavenly happy place until the beloved classic combo of a Tr909 and Korg M1 piano send us all straight back to a '90s open air dance floor in Ibiza. This is where the journey starts, accompanied by the piano chords and Brazilian sounding voices washing over you with calls of 'La Musica'. Perfect for a set on the beach, soft sand under foot or as a warmup record in the club, it will fit perfectly in your Balearic session. Rudy's Midnight Machine takes the elements written by R.B. and shakes everything into a disco dimension. All the elements for the perfect track are in place: funky bassline, open hi hats and muted guitar plus an exploding chorus with a great melodic hook. This is a must have tune if you are into disco with a classy and modern feel. Chris Coco's remix is a classic take made with great taste. He keeps the harmonic elements as well as the bass line almost intact, playing around with the vocals and adding melodic touches that give a tropical feeling to proceedings. Don't be fooled by the soft intro because the rhythm will soon take you dancing with a smile spread across your face.

Quiroga is back on Really Swing providing an extensive set of tracks in his typical style, a breezy and ear pleasing affair with his longtime friend and collaborator Dario Bass. “Dabbler in Love” is a sunrise-ready boogie affair with stunning chords and bass progression summed by a twinkling Rhodes solo; “Kundabuffer” drives into more jazzy territory delivering throbbing basslines over a 4/4 latin beat while “Villa Lysis” is a laidback piano soundscape over a lately bassline on a Capri sunset. On the flipside “Snaporaz” named after the Marcello Mastroianni’s character draws a housey jazz atmosphere with an astonishing bassline reminding of Kaytranada’s groove. “Drum’n’Bass for Papa” closes out the release - an homage to Plug/Luke vibert where chord progressions fuse onto a Squarepusher-Pastorious esque bass lead. Rock on!

Hot off the press, Okinawa Delays' lay down their second single of 2020, Just A Little Lovin', an ethereal cover of Dusty Springfield’s classic that’s nestled within her many Balearic wonders. Drinking in all the essence from Dusty’s original, Satoko Ishimine channels that pureness through her breathtaking vocals on the lead track. Sweeping, soulful and with a summer haze weaved into it’s very makeup, it’s that warm embrace you’ve been pining for all year. Ibiza legend DJ Pippi and Ibiza-born talent Willie Graff then step up to provide a laid-back dance remix as the sun sets on the beach club. Rounding off the EP captains of the Balearic waves, Seahawks, provide a sublime psychedelic chill-out mix that's ready-made to lose yourself in as you stare across the glistening horizon.

While the ongoing global pandemic means our chances to gather and dance beneath deep blue skies are likely to be limited, there’s never been a greater need for warm, positive and life-affirming music. NuNorthern Soul has decided to do its bit by offering up a brand new 'Summer Selections' sampler that’s packed to the rafters with magical musical treats lifted from some of the label’s most potent forthcoming releases. The EP begins with something rather special from Canadian producer Igor B: a gentle, sunrise-ready soundscape rich in languid hand percussion, bubbly synthesizer lines and glistening guitars. Entitled 'Deep Breath', the track is just one of the many highlights you’ll find on his forthcoming debut album, “Stranded Seaside”. There’s a similarly tactile and immersive feel to 'Early Morning Ferry' by George Koutalieris, a Greek producer whose debut album 'Stop, Look, Listen' will be released by NuNorthern Soul later in the year. On his contribution to 'Summer Selections Two', Koutalieris wraps lilting, sun-soaked guitar solos and soft-touch electronics around a chunky groove that doffs a cap to the more laidback end of the 1970s West Coast rock spectrum. Next up, long-time friend of the family Chris Coco delivers a stunning interpretation of 'Dinum', an overlooked neo-classical/ambient fusion track by Faroe Islands-based producer Kristian Blak’s Yggdrasil project. Coco’s simmering, string-drenched re-imagining is featured here as a teaser of NuNorthern Soul’s reissue of the 2014 track in the autumn, which will also feature a mind-blowing 10-minute rework by Mike Salta – an artist who is also featured on 'Summer Selections Two'. This time round you’ll find Salta collaborating with Mortale on the starry, EP-ending ambient bliss of 'Bells of Burgibba', a deliciously drowsy mixture of twinkling electric piano motifs, chiming lead lines and woozy pads taken from the forthcoming “Celestial Hike EP”. It paddles in similar sonic waters to label boss Phil Cooper’s stretched-out, slo-mo Balearic dub of new signing Faint Waves’ 'Aphrodesia', a teaser of the artist’s “Islands In Time EP” which can be found elsewhere on 'Summer Selections Two'. No NuNorthern Soul label sampler would be complete without a contribution from BJ Smith, an artist who has been with the imprint from its earliest days. Smith returns to the imprint with another reminder of his uncanny ability to deliver ear-catching cover versions that re-cast classic cuts as loved-up rays of Balearic sunshine. This time round Smith takes us on a huggable shuffle through Prefab Sprout’s 'All the World Loves Lovers', re-imagining it as a future Balearic anthem and a summer 2020 sing-along. It’s not only a sneak peak of what we can expect from 'Dedication to the Greats Volume 3', his first covers collection for nigh on six years, but also a life-affirming highlight of an EP that oozes musical positivity from start to finish.

Smooth Swede Sune’s follow-up to the beloved Butter Love EP is equal parts bright and bittersweet. Elevator Connoisseur boasts the producer’s knack for sampling and crafty layering in unison with his trademark dusty drums.

Born out of a desire to share a selection of personal DJ focused, dancefloor edits, that have been exclusively test run and hammered by DJ Harvey and Lovebirds for the past few months, SIRS kicks off this new label offshoot with four, slick, sweltering and powerful reworks that ooze class.
Secret weapons of the highest order, each edit reimagines it’s original from the mind of the DJ – anticipating the moves of the club and harnessing the power that deft touches, reshaped structures and expressive effects can make to the force and energy of a record.
As appropriate soundtracking the crescendo of a club night, as they would be scoring the backdrop to a hazy sunset these edits are a must have in any DJs record bag.

Soundway presents the unique results of a one-off 2018 meeting in Marrakech between Belgrade-based tribal/techno/industrial outfit Tapan and the nomadic Touareg electrified desert-blues group Generation Taragalte.
Tapan is not an ordinary “techno” project, rather it escapes easy categorization. It is the Belgradebased production duo of 20/44 club resident Nebojša Bogdanović (Schwabe), and Goran Simonoski, a producer behind music projects such as Belgradeyard
Sound System, Piece of Shh and more. Both have been active in the Belgrade music and nightlife scenes since the 1990s, and since 2015 have brought together their diverse musical experience under the collaborative moniker of Tapan.
While performing at the Atlas Electronic festival in Morocco in 2018, they encountered Generation Taragalte of southern Morocco, and recorded the initial music for the Atlas EP in an improvised studio on the festival grounds, followed by final production
on returning to Belgrade. The result was the 4-track EP “Atlas”, a dark, desolate and potent collision of the electronic drone-jazz of Belgrade and the windswept, desiccated psych-guitar riffs of the Moroccan Sahara.

Meo, pseudonym of Daniele Mei, is a cosmic dj from Rimini, Italy. Fine Corsa was his first record, released in 1985. In those days Meo was active in what was later considered to be the most famous Afro Dance Club in Italy: Melody Mecca. This release is an intensely creative hybrid of many styles and many colors. Even up until the present day this record continues to be very important in some preeminent European clubs

Fernando makes his debut IIB release with the 3 track Shining EP.
Side A is the home of the truly epic title track Shining. An 11 min super mellow hypnotic trip.
Driven by rolling bongos and bassline some funky guitar and delay soaked effects.
A real gem.
The b side Fernando pitches up the tempo. Horizonte Rojo is a cruising deep balearic house groove with the same dubby feel as Shining.
The final track is karmic a soulful disco tinged after hours house groove. Island music for day and night. Dive in.

After "Il Mare Di Fronte", Flankup Recordings returns with its second album release “Sidi Bou Said” which presents another substantial 5-track EP composed and produced by Paolo Russi (Discojuice) and Marco Lanfranchi (Indy). Harnessing both disco and Afro Balearic beats, the record will be released both on vinyl and in digital versions and will feature a dynamic remix of the track El Haouharia by none other than Byron The Aquarius titled “Late nite Dub”.

Limited edition pressed on white vinyl.

Precious gems mined from a wall of vinyl. Cut, polished and mounted for maximum love.

Dario Aiello’s first EP for NuNorthern Soul as My Friend Dario, Cosmic Sailing, was one of the label’s most inspired releases of 2020 – a six-track musical voyage into the unknown that cannily combined elements of Balearic disco, ambient, turn-of-the-90s Italian dream house, horizontal jazz-funk and colourful synth-boogie.

With such strong musical motifs and instrumentation to work with, NuNorthern Soul boss Phil Cooper decided to ask some well-established producers and friends-of-the family to put their own spin on the Sicilian producer’s EP. The result is Cosmic Sailing Remixed, a four-track set of reworks that takes Aiello’s mesmerising, atmospheric and enveloping cuts to whole new musical places.

Crazy P’s Chris Todd dons his now familiar Hot Toddy guise for an EP-opening revision of ‘Neve Su Acireale’. Todd makes the most of Aiello’s Pat Metheny style jazz guitar motifs, teasing the track in via an ambient intro that recalls both the Orb’s earliest singles and Steve Reich classic ‘Electric Counterpoint’. After building tension through loose-limbed, progressively more intense drum fills, Todd unleashes a glorious Balearic disco groove that carries the track forwards towards a blissful conclusion.

Sometime Music For Dreams, Hell Yeah recordings and Leng contributor Willie Graff steps up next, brilliantly re-imagining ‘Fenice’ as a hypnotic and bass-heavy chunk of Balearic dub disco rich in layered, samba-style percussion, glistening electric guitar motifs and fluid synthesizer flourishes. Later in the track, Graff introduces more elements from Aiello’s original track – twinkling pianos and dream house style aural textures for starters – before adding touches of tape delay to emphasize the track’s dubby dancefloor mood.

Those seeking extremely immersive, mood-enhancing music will be thrilled by Blair French’s tactile, sunrise-ready take on ‘Malvisa’. The Detroit-based musician and soundtrack composer draws heavily on the kaleidoscopic but mellow synthesizer textures of Aiello’s original version while continually adding new layers of percussion and electronic melodies. The result is a swirling, calming remix that should delight home listeners and slow-motion dancers alike.

To round off the EP, Balearic synth-pop specialist James Bright puts his creative stamp on ‘Storm’. In keeping with the warm, tactile and synthesizer-heavy sound of his superb debut album on !K7, Headroom, Bright re-frames the most atmospheric cut on Aiello’s EP and a yearning, heart-aching journey through slow-motion acid lines, twinkling pianos, huggable synth-pop grooves and the kind of sustained chords that feel like they’re wrapping your body in a toasty blanket made of the finest cashmere. It provides a poignant, jaw-dropping conclusion to a high-quality set of imaginative and kaleidoscopic remixes.

Vinyl closer to NM. Cover with seam split on spine, closer to VG+. Original inner sleeve with seam splits

Simple Symmetry are back on Calypso for a second offering but this time around it's in a different format. They've enlisted remixes of tracks from their Sorry We Did Something Wrong album which first landed back in 2021 as a self-released project, which won over many fans with a sound that went way beyond the club and now gets repurposed for the dancefloor with extended and club versions. The Horsemen Of Housing & Commercial Services rework of 'Che Che' is a dark disco classic, Smaghhe & Cross rework 'Rounded With A Sleep' into something taught and trippy and INigo Vontier layers in plenty of darkness, grit and grime to his take on 'I Must Not Fear'.

Bianca Binky only ever made a handful of records, the majority of which have long been forgotten by all but the most dedicated fans of late-‘80s European synth-pop and crossover house. ‘Tabu’, her final solo single from 1990, is different: a gorgeous, tactile chunk of piano-sporting Balearic house from the time when dancing under the stars at Amnesia was a rite of passage for clubbers from all over Europe, has undoubtedly stood the test of time. Something of a sought-after classic, with keen collectors willing to spend hundreds of Euros on an original 12” single, ‘Tabu’ remains a loved-up, life-affirming dance-floor gem.

It also happens to be a firm favourite of NuNorthern Soul founder Phil Cooper, who has gone to great lengths to produce a deluxe reissue of the hard-to-find Balearic anthem. Original producer Felix B Mangione, head of Blanco Y Negro Records, had long since lost the original master tapes, so Cooper flew from Ibiza to Barcelona to pick up one of the only mint copies still available, before forwarding high-quality digital transfers on to Robin Lee for remastering.

The results speak for themselves. The original mix, a breezy, sun-soaked fusion of synthesised marimba melodies, spine-tingling piano riffs, dreamy chords, Chicago-style Tb-303 bass and Binky’s sensual spoken word vocals, naturally opens proceedings, and is joined on the A-side of the 12” by the original, alternative ‘House Mix’ - more club friendly version that beefs up the beats, emphasises the undulating bassline and offers occasional blasts of spacey synth.

This reissue edition also includes an exclusive, never-before-heard re-edit of the legendary ‘Caribbean Dub’ – first featured on the flip-side of the original release - from Manchester’s finest, Ruf Dug. Tough, effects-laden, bass-heavy and positively epic, Ruffy’s version is arguably the ultimate version of a piano-laden, Tb-303 driven Balearic house classic: ten minutes of rising and falling, saucer-eyed dance-floor bliss that’s surely destined to be one of the most-played tracks of summer 2022.

M.A.D have rounded up some friends new and old to bring you this stomping VA.

JKriv’s long out-of-press Bukom Mashie Rework gets a king-size reboot in this tasty 7 Inch package with a fresh new acid dub! J’s original 8 min opus is nipped and tucked in all the right places to make for a streamlined A-side stomper, and a brand new version on the flip, with a tastefully reimagined arrangement, punctuated with spicy 303 acid lines and live flute performed by the inimitable Domenica (of Underground System). Big summer banger alert!

Played on 6Music by Tom Ravenscroft & Deb Grant.

Undercover Lovers AKA Psychemagik's spectacular cover version excursion returns ! Ultra-Limited pressing on this one…

Melbourne's Sgt Slick returns with another 4 supreb re-edits for his Recuts imprint. 20 years deep in the game, accolades aplenty, collabs with some the finest out there and a serious string of his own productions, Sgt Slick knows what works on the dancefloor and these edits showcase that to a T. Some out and out classics, reworked with the club clearly in mind.

Buy or Cry.

Lntg brings another batch of supremely executed edits to the table, timeless tracks from the vaults given a fresh feel, extended, reworked and reloved direct from the Stems.

A side features Disco Funk royalty reworked to perfection. On the flip we have 2 classic party anthems.

Lntg at his best!

Emotional Rescue finally gets around to reissuing some House music with the start of a 3 x 12" series from Miami's Dancefloor Records. Covering House and Freestyle, this is music as worthy as any other explored to date.

Founded by British ex-pat Jeffery Collins in 1983, Dancefloor Records was the culmination of a music industry journeyman's long career from swinging sixties London to bohemian seventies NYC before relocating to the sunnier climbs of Miami.

Taking in the City's unique mix of American, Latin and Caribbean sounds, Dancefloors early success came via a long association with reggae turned disco star King Sporty. While his legacy will be looked at in future, this series concentrates on Dancefloor's shift to the growing club sounds emanating from Chicago and NYC.

First is the little is known Eighth Ray. As often the case, a project by a group of musician friends who went on to release under various pseudonyms. From the opening spoken word intro of Axis Of Love, the spaced-out 4/4 and spiritual, pulsing arps, this could be mistaken for the then in-vogue 'Italian House'. With Rimini in its sights, the vocals are the journey, underpinned by simple, up'n'back bass and Mateo and Matos style keys, pure 6am sunrise.

Backed with the deeper 8th Ray, the EP eschews the bumpin' House then coming from NYC and looks to the sound system vibes out across the Atlantic. Deep House before the term had grabbed hold, been twisted and contorted and donned head-to-toe in black. Simply, real House music.

30/70 and Rhythm Section team up once more to deliver their most ambitious remix package to date. Call outs to friends and family of the label and collective offered up a selection of some of the most exciting electronic music producers in the scene and the fruits of the collaboration have arrived.

The remix package continues 30/70’s practise of rebirthing their music in a contemporary club sound but this time takes that intention a step further, veering into unexpected and more experimental territory for the band, calling in a new era for their musical endeavours.

The record opens with a duo that need no introduction, label legends Chaos In The CBD work their magic on TLF, playing on Josh Kelly’s drawn out noir-esque sax notes and Allysha’s whispering tones to create a sultry and sophisticated house number in their typically infectious style.

Next up Utrecht native Carista enters with the sound of the Netherlands for a new wave electro trip fresh off her BBC Radio 1 residency.

Tornado Wallace takes us straight to a hot pink sunset on the long lost festival floor with his Red Face Mix of Tastes Like Freedom.

Closing out are the cerebral and ethereal sounds of Yu Su’s Midnight Blossom Remix, where the Kaifeng-born composer, DJ and sound artist continues her exploration of ‘fourth world’ ambience and left-field dance music.

Over the last few years, 30/70 have become something of a supergroup: with Allysha Joy, Ziggy Zeitgeist, Josh Kelly and Matthew Hayes all soaring as solo artists and band leaders. Individual talents aside, there’s nothing quite like the 30/70 collective united as one unstoppable force; and the synergy is palpable in this tantalising tour-de force.

The people at Antinote are always excited to introduce new names to its roster and Sign Libra, its latest addition, makes no exception to the rule.
Released under the moniker Sign Libra, Closer to the Equator is the work of Latvian artist and composer Agata Melnikova. Composed for a contemporary ballet at Latvian National Opera in Riga, the music on this record strongly relies on Melnikova’s appreciation of BBC-produced nature documentaries. Projecting the life of each creature that inhabits the British TV-program into her very personal and highly synthetized world, Sign Libra lends these microscopic beings her own voice. Each song works like a musical “tableau” in which the main protagonists – plants and animals – come on stage to play their part in a ballet carefully choreographed by the Latvian artist.
Sign Libra’s mental and musical incarnations of the microcosm of the rainforest have something to do with Software’s album populated by exotic insects and crawling plants, a “Carnaval des Animaux” released on Sky by a MIDI-addicted Hector Berlioz. These microscopic beings incarnate themselves in resonated melodies that echo through a technicolour rainforest, while winds blow through holographic ferns, vines and palms.
Closer To The Equator synthesizes visions panning treetops as the sun’s rays pierce through clouds nearby. Sign Libra takes you into a harmonic world that shines brightly wherever you stand, and offers a genuine synesthetic experience.

Pinchy & friends is delighted to present the latest offering from Kaifeng-born and raised, Vancouver-based musician Yu Su. In her first major release of original music since 2021’s acclaimed “Yellow River Blue” LP, Yu Su says elements for the EP began to form during time spent in the deserts of Ojai, California and the fertile coastal areas around her home in British Columbia. Of the new release, Yu Su says the ideas are thanks to “the objects around (colors, reflections of light, wood burning in the fireplace, and material rhyme with the sounds in the room) the desert and valley plants, the ground where citrus grows, and the flood a rainstorm created.” She notes that “the golden earth is the changing point of the matter, earth centers, stabilizes, and conserves, nurtures, and seeks to draw all things together with itself.” Likewise, the four varied pieces of the EP match four very different landscapes: Earth-of-water (Wet/Cold Earth) Earth-of-Fire (Arid/Hot Earth) Earth-of-Metal (Dry/Hard Earth) Earth-of-Wood (Loose-Fertile/Warm Earth). Additional guitar and bass were provided by Scott Johnson Gailey and Aiden Ayers - who also play in Yu Su’s live band. The vinyl release comes on 180g vinyl in a full-colour sleeve by Seoul based Lobde Kim, with OBI Strip.

The Wrekin Crew is back for a seance outing on the peerless Is It Balearic? This new offering rather continues where the first one left off with two tracks of immersive sonics for sunny days. First up is 'Vapour Trails' which melds lush Italo disco melodies and nice emotinoal pop of the sort you would expect to hear in this duo's DJ sets. Goldsuite also step up with a remix to smooth the edges and lay down moon-lit Balearica then closer 'Broken Wings' has more meaningful vocals but this time over grooves more suited to a late-night setting. Cosmic arps finish it in style with plenty of dubby undercurrents.

Following hot on the heels of his recent mini-album for Elephant Gait, Italian producer Joseph Tagliabue is back with a full-length album on Glasgow's Invisible, Inc. With Un' Altra Forma Di Vibrazioni Tagliabue continues to expand on the cosmic foundations laid by such pioneering experimental forefathers as Franco Battiato and his ground-breaking abstract ambient work of the '70s and Klaus Schultze whose legendary Innovative Communications label birthed the “Berlin school” sound at the start of the '80s, then tracing a path toward later luminaries like Boards of Canada and Plaid. There's a personal, emotive and ethereal quality also present here conjuring feelings of 4AD's glory years and the likes of This Mortal Coil and Dead Can Dance. However, backwards-looking music this is not. It's fair to say the Milan-based producer is developing his very own distinct sound as he matures from one release to the next and regardless of his wide range of influences, it's Tagliabue's firm grasp of sound design and audio engineering that takes this album far beyond the realm of just “electronica” or “psychedelia” and plants it firmly into a distinctly forward-looking contemporary space of its very own that's as much music for the heart as it is music for the head. Tagliabue provides some insight: “Un' Altra Forma Di Vibrazioni (meaning Another Form Of Vibration in Italian) is a concept album inspired by one of the most sensational scientific discoveries of recent years, namely evidence of the existence of the "Cosmic Web". The album is comprised of ten tracks, each linked to one another, much like the various forms of matter in the cosmic web, and whose meaning can only be understood by listening to them as a collective whole, rather than as separate pieces of music. The album therefore is a well constructed sonic experience fusing elements of ambient, psych, rock, experimental and trance and is designed to be listened to continuously from start to finish; the album's journey through the universal elements is reflected in each track, whose rhythms resonate in harmony with the phenomena they represent, whilst a backdrop of drones and mesmeric grooves contribute to an atmosphere of otherworldly mechanical oneirism."

The Mushroom House compilation is a collection of balearic, afro and cosmic tracks that have been released on Toy Tonics EPs over the last 5 years. Original tracks and remixes by friends of the label: Auntie Flo, Rebolledo, Hyenah, Daniel Avery, WhoMadeWho & DJ Koze, Munk … and there is also legendary italian cosmic DJ Baldelli featured. All these tracks are exclusively produced for Toy Tonics. A few had been already released before on Gomma records. The now sleeping indie-electronica label that was the „mother“ of Toy Tonics. It’s fun to see that these tracks seem not to get old. They sound still fresh and ace. Like the DJ Koze remix of WhoMadeWho or Munk’s Nigerian Jam. Now they all come together on double vinyl. Vinyl comes Including the new 60 page TOY Tonics Magazine no 1.

Invisible Inc is back with another remarkable release, this time diving even further into ambient, spiritual and folk-infused psychedelia.

“Mondo Organico”, as the name suggests, is a concept compilation that captures the “organic” side of Invisible Inc. The use of non-electronic instrumentation is a familiar theme explored by the label previously with the likes of Komodo Kolektif, Immaculate Rivombo and Peter Power...but this time the instruments and voices, tranquil and meditatively hypnotic in places, display an even deeper spirituality. Featuring the talents of Andi Otto and his fello (electronic cello), Anna vs June's ethereal vocals, Tyler Ov Gaia's zoned-out mantra rhythms, Pieter Kock's 8-minute bass and guitar psych odyssey, as well as label favourites Sordid Sound System and Puma & The Dolphin, the record is enthralling and mesmerizing from start to finish - and yet another notch in Invisible Inc's rather idiosyncratic belt.

This record was pressed on eco vinyl. Everything from the sleeve to the inks are recycled too, in an attempt to address some the environmental issues we face today, albeit fractionally. “Mondo Organico” is the future.

Here is another mystery from the universe comming straight out from London! Popping up from nowhere, don’t expect any infos about the person behind, it’s a very well kept secret… actually Tutu Ta reached us by telepathy to propose this sensationnal album for Macadam Mambo. A concentrate of punkish dubby tunes combining ruffness, deepness, darkness, light, humour and serious vocals on very heavy beats and supa loud basslines. It’s raw but so gracefull in the meantime, 12 tracks, 47 min of pure bliss that won’t leave you on your knees, grab it fast it’s high demands style of music 

Following on from his previous debut album Tape 1/Tape 2 on Soundway, Felbm delivers Tape 3/Tape 4 : an intimate, emotional, lilting and melodic solo project. These 14 lo-fi, instrumental, jazz-infused sketches were written on guitar, with cascading keyboards, vibraphone and drum machine. Possessing a restorative and soothing quality, it goes some way to balancing out a chaotic year for the world at large. With echoes of the dreamier end of 1980s English indie-pop, minimal ambient music and Brazilian bossa-nova, Topper’s musical storybook includes touches of The Durutti Column, hints of Antônio Carlos Jobim and Baden Powell, whilst all set firmly in the summer fields of Germany and the Netherlands. The recording method used for the creation and recording of Tape 3 and Tape 4 follows the same as his previous release: all sketches were initially recorded onto cassette on a 4-track tape machine. Most notably a vibraphone finds its way onto almost every track fitting Topper’s sound-palette perfectly: warm yet distinctive, a percussive as well as sustaining sound that evokes some melancholy and a certain timeless nostalgia. Features that most certainly also apply to the other ‘new’ instrument on the tapes: mellotron flutes. Tape 3/Tape 4 navigates the space between quiet, open, meditative tunes and more solid instrumental works, reflecting his constant search for an optimal balance between stillness and movement.

The much-talked-about cover of Yoshitaka Minami's "Yakanhikou" is now available on 7inch release! From Yoshitaka Minami's 70's urban pop sound masterpiece album "south OF THE Border", for which Ryuichi Sakamoto wrote all the songs, Halfby has produced a superb cover of the famous song "Yakanhikou", which has a brilliant Brazilian essence of samba and bossa nova, with Keiichi Sokabe on guest vocals.

The Kempe Stone Portal is the long awaited debut album from long time musical adventurer The Vendetta Suite. It arrives on Hell Yeah Recordings on June 18th, and spans over 20 years of diverse musical experiments. In the words of label boss Marco, 'it's a nice ride.' Gary Irwin started dancing in 1990, when he was drawn to the dubbed out and psychedelic sounds of Andrew Weatherall and The Orb, at the same time falling for the forward looking house and techno played by David Holmes and Iain McCready at their regular nights at Belfast's Art College. After studying music technology and performing arts, Irwin gave Holmes a cassette of bedroom produced techno and it started a long and fruitful relationship that has continued to this day. In the intervening years, Irwin has been the in-house engineer at Holmes' Exploding Plastic Inevitable studio and label, has engineered and remixed with him, released on his labels and written music for his Holy Pictures album, all while picking up credits on labels like NovaMute, Sabrettes, 13Amp and many more. As time passed, Irwin explored non-dance sounds such as krautrock, library music, synth and 80s b-sides before more recently circling back to acid house, downtempo and Balearic. All of this and more informs this panoramic 12 track album, which is a testament to a life spent submerged in many different sound worlds. The Kempe Stone Portal opens on the ‘Neon Secrets’, which along with tracks like ‘Morning Star’ and ‘I Am The Ghost In My House’ betray Irwin’s love of wonky, shimmering experimental synth-pop musik. They are glistening tracks with heavenly harmonies that are truly life-affirming in their richness. Elsewhere, ‘Purple Haze, Yellow Sunrise’ is an homage to his early experiences of Balearic acid house music from the late eighties and early nineties with a not too subtle reference to the narcotics of the time. ‘Who Do You Love’ was Irwin’s first non-dance music production in 1998, a cover of The Jesus and Mary Chain's version of the Bo Diddly classic, with guitar feedback and distortion drawing you into a murky world of fuzzy sonics. 'Della Notte’ came 10 years after, with rumbling toms, bubbling synths and phased Rhodes making for a psyched-out post punk dub. Seasonal sleigh bells and obvious krautrock influences abound on ‘Christmas in Cologne’ while ‘Maybe Tomorrow’ is Air meets Phil Spector on a beach at sunset. ‘Warehouse Rock’ is a dubby acid track that follows on from where 2017 track ‘Shut Up Ya Dub!’ left off, but with a more experimental approach that found the artist limiting himself to a 303, drum machine, dub effects and samples. If King Tubby were to release on Acid Trax, this is how it would sound. Shorter tracks ‘Spring Blues’ and ‘The Adult Section’ were originally made for a modern library music side project and are brilliantly suspensory pieces of lush electronics, yawning chords and gentle rhythms that empty your mind of any tension. This is a storied album that traverses different musical worlds with style and skill. Some are old, some are new, but they add up to a long player that is both fascinating and timeless.

Following on from Los Rayos Del Sol (2021) & the follow up Los Rayos In Dub (2022) NuNorthern Soul presents ‘Moonbeams’ by Ibiza based producer, per-cussionist and sunset selector, George Solar.

Inspired by nocturnal moods and illuminated by the moon in all its phases, this collection follows the vibrations of 'Los Rayos Del Sol.' It's a journey into night-time peace and harmony, embracing the moonlit atmosphere.

On his third album Blizz Munich-based drummer and producer Simon Popp further blurs the line between electronic and organic sounds. In carefully crafted, slow-growing tracks tuned metal percussions cut through searing synth pads, sucking the listener into a sonic vortex. Informed by personal and spiritual themes, Popp's debut album Laya, as well as his 2021 follow-up Devi make use of rhythms as storytelling mechanisms. Contrasting light and dark, organic and synthetic sounds, his compositions engage in a dance of subtle complexities, enticing the listener into the practice of close listening. Throughout Blizz, a panopticon of metallophones takes flight, floating freely over earth-bound counter rhythms, conjuring up call and response techniques inherent in polyrhythmic music. This technique favors experimentation over perfectionism, leaving space for happy accidents to unlock new melodic possibilities. According to Popp, "it's much more interesting to try to push the boundaries of an instrument to see what's possible."

Hidden Gem' is the Zenmenn's first full album produced together with songwriter and vocalist John Moods and follows their much-loved debut record, 'Enter The Zenmenn'. Named after a country song that didn't quite make it to the final selection, 'Hidden Gem' is the result of an extended jam session at a friend’s studio, in a field of mystical meadows somewhere south of Hamburg, in which the band would experience a series of inexplicable phenomena.

It was their earlier collaboration on the future classic, 'Homage To A Friend' that kickstarted their idea to team up with John Moods again, and in the late summer of 2021 the band set to work on a full album of material together. Using The Zenmenn's trusted drum kit, good old DX7, an unusual Ukrainian bass and an almost discarded pedal steel guitar, combined with Moods’ uniquely fragile voice, the outcome resulted in six timeless songs. The resulting harmonic sound is, as the band put it, “something like Adult Oriented Rock with a teaspoon of Celtic sentimentalism, a pinch of big city Country wrapped in a late night '70s style jam”.

'Hidden Gem’, much like their previous LP, was recorded without pre-arranged songs or any fixed musical concept. Instead, it captures fleeting moments of creativity and reflects the joint musical sentiments of the band members at the time. “Some artists are amazing at vision and curating, our work-flow is opposite to that. We are pretty messy and all over the place in our creation, as in life. It has its advantages and disadvantages, but hopefully it comes out all right in the end.”

Welcome to Nicolini’s wonderful world of surprise - Penni’s Palace. Here you will find zebra-chairs and matchbox countachs, colourful tv-screens and Penni the cat presiding over proceedings. You will also find Nicolini, hunched over his MPC or Casio keyboards, sweeping the EQs to make the sounds move, jamming out his songs in heavy microdoses. They are the sounds of machines and the city - Amsterdam centre to be precise - brought to life with volts of electricity.

These songs started out as a live show on the terrace of Garage Noord nightclub, and over the following months Nicolini tweaked and re-recorded them into the collection of tracks you have before you. Bristling with energy, these live jams have a loose, almost mystical feeling - you never know quite what’s around the corner. Sounds jump out of the speakers at you, from car engines to reverb crashes. Opposites face off against each other - the mechanical meets the organic, and the cold emptiness of the city contrasts with the warm timbres of tropical climes.

Nicolini is quite used to combining disparate elements, particularly as a member of the re-configured Zamrock band Witch. As pioneers of some of the heaviest space fuzz back in the ‘70s, Witch combined garage-psych guitars with Zambian dialects and culture to create a wildly unique sound. Nicolini joined the band during their resurgence over the last few years, as they toured far-flung corners of the world. It’s an experience that undoubtedly helped Nicolini hone one skill set in particular - combining unexpected sounds together in unusual ways - and it’s on full display across these nine tracks.

Daniel Ögren is one of the key artists in Sweden’s contemporary, underground music scene. He has already accrued quite the back catalogue, both as a member of the sensational quartet Dina Ögon and also as a solo artist with eight albums already under his belt. ‘Fastingen-92’ was originally released as a limited-edition vinyl pressing in 2020 on the independent label Sing A Song Fighter Records (the same label that first introduced us to Dina Ögon's music). The album came to our attention after hearing Daniels' solo band performing live at the Stockholm Jazz Club, Fasching. The band featured Love Örsan and Christopher Cantillo of Dina Ögon fame (who also records with the incredible Sven Wunder), and their sensational genre-busting set blew us away. It convinced us that this now out-of-print album needed to reach a wider audience.
‘Fastingen-92’ doesn't sit in one genre, it draws from Daniels's love of South American folk music, soul, Nordic folk music and film soundtracks, resulting in something unique, dreamlike and transformational.

It features 'Idag’, an epic, beautiful, cinematic song that introduces the ethereal vocalist Anna Ahnlund. ‘Idag’ has gained a cult following and Daniel has stated that it was the spark that started the Dina Ögon project. Tracks like 'Annalena' and 'Kristinehamn by Night (for Christopher)' sound like a new club sound that hasn't yet been invented (which Nicola Cruz would spin in his DJ sets), mysterious, hypnotic, and engaging. Other songs like 'Maj (for Tintin)' and 'Picasso' venture into blissed-out Scando-Balearic realms. Daniel's love of nature and the inspiration he draws from the geographic environment of the Swedish countryside can be felt in these tracks, they take you to other places and times and are simultaneously familiar, ancient and alien.

Alongside the collaborations with Anna and Christoper, the album features Josefin Runsteen playing the drums on 'Idag' and Swedish musicians Edvin Nahlin and Ulrik Ordin. The majority of the album was played, recorded and mixed by Daniel. For the Mr Bongo edition, we have added the bonus track 'April’, which was previously only available digitally. ‘Fastingen - 92’ is a truly remarkable record that gets into your soul, so please delve in!

Stacks is the Belgian duo of Jan and Sis Matthé. These Antwerp residents build and undress different timbres and textures into vocal-hooked songs, flouting the rules of pop in the process. We at Knekelhuis appreciate this immensely and are delighted to work with them. ‘Love and Language’ is a romantic, moody pop-not-pop record in which everything falls perfectly into place.

Mori Ra with the fastest diggers trigger in all the land completes a set of dancefloor ready edits of Japanese electronic & city-pop songs culled from his well-known Japanese Breeze mix series that he does with the Rotating Souls record label. Some of the tunes are familiar and some rare and unknown but Mori puts his own touch that can only come from years of experience and an extreme relationship to the originals. This record is a joint release between both Rotating Souls & Forest Jams.

Viscardi & Il Duo Magnetico is the collaborative project between italo-swiss DJ, producer and singer Pascal Viscardi, Yavor Lilov and Alain Sandri, respectively drummer and percussionist of the swiss cult band L’Éclair. The three musicians joined forces in Geneva and worked in the studio for the past two years with Viscardi as the main vocalist, Lilov producing the tracks and playing drums, bass and keys, and Sandri on guitar, percussions, and backing vocals. The result is a unique and contemporary version of italian pop, peppered with new-wave, boogie, disco and world music references.

After the release of the first two singles, Sale Sole & Jamba Club in June 2023, Cosmic Romance is proud to present their first full-length effort: Elka Mare.

Like a mystical portal that opens on a digital journey through sunny Boogie and Mellow Reggae, Art Pop and Ambient New Age, the eight songs that make up the album draw on a vocabulary composed of fragmentary images, unusual verses and original assonances, where maritime themes mix with the gray of the city and the Neapolitan dialect sparsely appears; witness to a paternal emigration. The journey sounds like dreaming of Campania beaches in the midst of Geneva traffic, or fantasizing about speeding motorboats and Balearic bonfires while listening to Enzo Carella on the sixth floor of a council building. And then dance until the sun rises on the last slow song of the night.

Since he made his debut three years ago with sun-soaked first album Warm Nights, Reuben Vaun Smith has grown and evolved as an artist. His aims, objectives and musical output have changed, too – something that’s evident from the opening bars of his third full-length, Da Cuckoo Ya Ya, which also marks his first appearance on Californian institution Ubiquity Records. Whereas the summery and colourful Warm Nights was the result of time spent teaching himself music and production, not to mention over a year of daily recording, Da Cuckoo Ya Ya was recorded in less than two months. It not only showcases Smith’s sharpened musicianship and his growing love of Eastern exoticism and wide-eyed psychedelia, but also features guest spots from friends (and fellow Leeds locals) Sakura Murakami (a guitarist who also featured on 2021’s Sounds From The Workshop album), bassist Nial Deravairere (on deliciously dubbed-out and hazy closing cut ‘Beams’) and vocalist Lucy Saddler. While it shares some sonic similarities with its predecessors – not least a greater reliance on live instrumentation and plenty of audible nods towards Malian musical culture – Smith’s new set is his most confident and dynamic yet, with the Leeds-based producer consciously moving closer to the dancefloor whilst polishing his productions further and showcasing all he’s learned to date.

The Cosmic Disco Machine series volume three is finally out. This release compared to previous volumes is even more electronic and sinth pop and confirms its "alternativity", with masterpieces by Klaus Schulze , Asmus Tietchens ,Conrad Schnitzler, Klaus Kruger , Axxess and many more. The careful and never banal selection of rare lost and professionally remastered gems will certainly not disappoint you. Exclusive red vinyl printed in very limited edition. So don’t miss the third chapter and be ready for the coming fourth

The title of guitarist Barry Cleveland’s 1986 album - Stones of Precious Water - conjures images of incandescent gems, harvested from hallowed streams and held aloft to glimmer and catch the light in their many facets. And perhaps this is the truest analogue for the music contained therein. Recorded between 1981 and 1983, in mostly improvised recording sessions, the disparate nature of Stones’ creation is alluded to only by the breadth and variety of sounds it encompasses. Stones of Precious Water is a revelatory collection that maps its way through textural fourthworld ambience, shimmering New Age, gently propulsive kosmiche, and jazzinflected prog. These sounds are sewn together with a deftness of performance and sonic character which reveals them as branches of the same tree, or perhaps more appropriately, a handful of glittering stones. Six of the ten tracks contain contributions from Kat Epple and her late husband Bob Stohl (a.k.a the epoch-defining New Age duo, Emerald Web), adding flute, synthesizers, and bells. Between the years of 1981 and 1983, Cleveland worked with this duo and alone, allowing serendipity to play a significant creative role in their music. Many of the pieces began as improvisations, or simple structures that served as springboards for deeper exploration. Making his first forays into multi-track recording, Cleveland used a basic Teac 4-track cassette recorder, and this rudimentary piece of equipment proved to be a useful tool for compositional exploration. By flipping and reversing the tape, slowing the pitch, and altering and layering different performances, Cleveland stretched the sound of his guitar across the expanse of the tonal canvas. Stones of Precious Water stands as a remarkable document of experimental selfrecording, improvisational collaboration, and restless creative expression. Morning Trip is exceedingly happy to release it on Vinyl LP for the first time.

Young Marco mines deep into the 90s era Italian house underground and strikes absolute gold... Part 2 of 2..

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This spring, Safe Trip will release Welcome To Paradiso, an expansive retrospective of the Italian dream house sound co-compiled by label founder Young Marco.

At the tail end of the 1980s, a new take on deep house began to emerge from Italian studios. 'Dream house' drew inspiration from key U.S deep house records of the period – the spacey melodiousness of Larry Heard's productions, and the rich jazziness of tracks originating in New Jersey in particular – but sounded distinctly different. Its' 'head-in-the-clouds' feel – all rich chords, tactile basslines, fluid piano lines and starry electronics – made 'dream house' a uniquely Italian proposition.

First and foremost, the style echoed the wavy, glassy-eyed positivity of the period more than any other. While music in the UK and the low countries was getting faster and heavier, Italy's 'dream house' producers continued to create music shot through with warmth and colourful musicality until 1993. While few 'dream house' records were made after then, its' sounds and loose aesthetic influenced subsequent styles such as trance and progressive house.

During its' peak, dream house – or, as it was tagged by leading Italian label DFC, 'ambient house' (echoing the similarly minded work of UK pioneers such as The Orb and The KLF) – could be heard blaring from club sound systems across Europe. The style's popularity was fuelled, in part at least, by the runaway international success of "Sueno Latino".

Welcome To Paradiso gathers together some of the finest examples of the style for the first time since the turn of the 90s. It includes a smattering of scene anthems – Key Tronics Ensemble's peerless "Calypso of House", Morenas's "Sonnambulism", the ambient mix of Last Rhythm's Italo-house classic "Last Rhythm" – alongside a swathe of hard-to-find, in-demand and forgotten gems.

There are cuts from key players in the movement – the likes of Don Pablos Animals, Sasha (later to find fame with a strong of bouncy, piano-heavy Italo-house cuts), and Dreamatic – plus a string of lesser-known names whose contribution to the evolution of the sound should not be overlooked. Young Marco has also found space for Leo Anibaldi's "Elements", a rare deep house outing from a producer who later helped define the sound of Roman techno.

Over the course of two double-vinyl compilations (and one extended digital download package), Welcome To Paradiso celebrates one of the most evocative and imaginative musical styles of electronic music's golden era. Kick off your shoes, turn your gaze skywards, and immerse yourself in the music.

Red hot Italian DJ and production collective Aura Safari is back with a second full-length album, Island Dreams. It lands on Hell Yeah Recordings on September 15th and is another live and sun-kissed odyssey through balmy Mediterranean evenings, gorgeous sundown sessions and funky analogue grooves.

Andrea Moretti, Lorenzo Lavoratori, Daniele Melloni, Nicholas Iammatteo, Lorenzo Francioli, Ruggero Bonucci and Nicola Pitassio are Aura Safari, and between them they play drums, percussion, bass, keys, and guitar. They contributed to the first volume of the Buena Onda compilation in 2020 on this label, a year after serving up a debut album on London's Church Records. Since then they have become ever more entrenched in their local scene in Perugia, playing summer sets at the Umbria Jazz Festival, winter warmers at the legendary Red Zone Club and host their own Tropical Climax parties each month in the town centre.

Aura Safari are also deep-digging music collectors who have extensive and far-reaching tastes. When cooking up their sounds they draw on everything from Afro to Italo, house to disco, 80s boogie to world music, jazz and Balearic beats. This new album shows that once more across four sides of vinyl that sweep you up and transport you to somewhere idyllic.

The title track kicks off with steamy Mediterranean grooves embellished with lush Rhodes chords and sprinkles of cosmic magic. 'Sur Mon Balconnet' then slips into dubbed-out disco territory with 80s synths and leggy drums while 'Riserva Naturale' is a new-age jazz house sound with majestic lead synths and heart-melting chords that speak of a sunset dance on the beach. 'Onda' has squelchy boogie bass with hip-swinging drums, 'Wave Riding' is a lo-fi funk excursion with hints of West Coast Californian swagger and 'Magic Malbe' is loose-limbed Balearica with clear blue skies and blissed-out chords.

'Dancing in the Moonlight' feat. Zeke Manyika has all the vibrant feelings of bubblegum pop with Afro vocals and steel drum sounds next to rich xylophone sounds. There is plenty of heat and exotic charm to the proto-Afro house of 'Tropical Climax' and as well as dub versions of 'Sur Mon Balconnet' and 'Dancing in the Moonlight' come the scuffed-up Dam-Funk style beats and boogie of 'Disco Mantra' before closer 'Patagonia' shuts down with elastic drums and bass and playful synth leads that send you home wanting more.

Island Dreams is a tropical escape to a rich world of fusion sounds that look back to go forwards. It's a feel-good record to accompany hot nights and lazy afternoons, cocktails at dusk and dancing till dawn.

First release in 5years by Snaker, and the catalog counts 10th. The first full length album by Odopt, the duo being releasing their signature hypnotic, freaky feeling sound from labels like [Emotional] Especial、Hivern Discs、Born Free and so on. And they prepared a “contemporary library sound” for Snaker. Not quite for dance floor or not exactly for home listening, but definitely a unique cinematic sound scape is compiled for a new special experience. Artwork by Masato Mori.

Who is Harvey Couture? Some say he’s a survivor of French pop music’s sun-soaked synth-pop era of the early 1980s, others that he’s a more suave and stylish Serge Gainsbourg for the nu-Balearic era. There were even rumours circulating that he’s a musical mobster from the Cote D’Azure: a shadowy member of the mafia who deals in synths, drum machines and fretless bass guitars rather than guns, money and drugs.

In truth, not even Leng Records knows much about the man behind the moniker, though his vividly kaleidoscopic, retro-futurist debut album, Scellé En Cristal, does offer a number of crafty clues. Whether listeners will make the necessary deductions to solve the mystery remains to be seen; regardless, it’s the music that matters, and on that score Scellé En Cristal simply cannot be faulted.

Rich in humid, afternoon-bright musical delights, the set sees our publicity-shy hero mix and mangle a multitude of musical influences – think proto-Balearic European synth-pop, Prince style purple funk, immersive ambient, early INXS style synth-rock, the electronic end of zouk and much more besides – with constantly colourful and imaginative results.

Couture is most at home adding his variously seductive, sexy and sleazy vocals to bubbly, upbeat and mid-tempo numbers that combine delay-laden drum machine beats with surging synths, fluid bass, stylish guitars, lashings of leftfield pop nouse and plenty of tongue-in-cheek Gallic flair.

For proof, check the throbbing, off-kilter alien-funk throb of ‘Les Portes De La Perception’, the bustling, percussion-laden cheeriness of ‘Crème Solaire’ and the loose-limbed, toe-tapping brilliance of ‘Je Ne Peux Pas’, where chiming, steel pan style melodies and pots-and-pans percussion hits jostle for position with sliding fretless bass notes and flash-fried guitars. Check to ‘Passion’, a swaggering slab of bustling electrofunk/synth-rock fusion rich in ‘Rockit’-style scratches and restless synth-bass.

The influence of languid, sunset-ready European pop records of the 1980s – those cuts that would later become sought-after amongst dusty-fingered collectors of Mediterranean music – is another recurring feature of Couture’s cultured but joyous debut album. It can be heard amongst the drowsy guitars, yawning bass and tumbling lead lines of ‘Look Within’, the pleasingly laidback ‘Invincible Line’, the elastic bass, fluorescent synth sounds and stuttering machine drums of ‘Marche’.

Yet Couture is no one-trick pony. Horizontal and loved-up moments of a more downtempo hue can be found scattered across the album, with the enveloping ambient awe of ‘Les Portes’ – all swelling chords, gentle melodies and atmospheric field recordings – and slowly unfurling ‘Whale Song’ both lingering long in the memory.

Harvey Couture may not be ready to step out of the shadows just yet, but his music most certainly is. We have a feeling that Scellé En Cristal is just the start of the mystery monsieur’s musical journey.

Should you find yourself taking a Thames-side stroll in the shadow of the City of London, keep an eye out for the headphone-clad figure of Ilan Pdahtzur. While be-suited bankers and frustrated office workers scurry home to their families, Ilan can frequently be found casting admiring glances towards the blinking lights of towering skyscrapers while filling his ears with the synthesizer-driven sounds of lesser-known 1980s dance music. Ilan, an avid but little-known record collector best known for sharing the artwork of obscure and under-appreciated early-to-mid ’80s club cuts on his popular Instagram feed, has been digging for vibrant, kaleidoscopic records since his teens. Now, thanks to Spacetalk, he’s been given a chance to offer a glimpse into his neon-lit nocturnal musical world. The result is Night City Life, a killer collection of 1980s synthesizer songs inspired by Ilan’s admiration for the glow of London’s late night skyline. Over the course of 13 essential tunes, Ilan escorts us on a vibrant sprint through rare Italo-disco, steamy South African synth-boogie, fizzing American freestyle, oddball Austrian electrofunk and so much more.
There are naturally a fair few sought-after cuts present, but also a fine selection of under-appreciated gems that for one reason or other have been all but ignored since they were released three and a half decades ago. In fact, some selections are so obscure that barely any information exists about them online. Check for example Preludio’s “Mysterious Nights”, an evocative fusion of slow electronic grooves, dreamy chords and twinkling piano motifs previously buried on a lesser-known album of unremarkable German synth-pop, or the dollar-bin brilliance of Fragile’s sweet synth-pop gem “We’ve Got Tonight, Boy”, a cut that Ilan says is capable of “wrapping itself like tendrils around your soul”. He’s not wrong.
At the other end of the scale you’ll find the ultra-rare Italo-disco breeziness of Friend of Mine’s incredible “Just Your Pride” and Mac & Monica’s soulful 1986 South African synth-boogie cut “You’re So Good To Me”, copies of which regularly change hands for hundreds of pounds online. Ilan originally reached out to the men behind the record last year to tell them how one of their other forgotten gems had been played on a Boiler Room session; naturally, they were thrilled. There’s plenty to admire elsewhere on the compilation, too, from the waves of analogue synths, bubbly melodies and bobbing beats of the instrumental dub version of Brian Tatcher’s “Hot Love” – a cold-war era cut inspired by the idea of love blossoming in the midst of a nuclear meltdown – to the Bobby Orlando-esque freestyle bustle of Janelle’s “Don’t Be Shy (Dub)” and the sparkling post-boogie brilliance of Jarmaz’s “Night City Life (Disco Remix)”, a track Ilan has listened to countless times while admiring the midnight skyline of his home city.

Music From Memory is excited to announce a special compilation that they’ve been working on for some time now; Mfm053 – VA – Heisei No Oto – Japanese Left-field Pop From The CD Age (1989-1996). Compiled by long-time friends of the label, Eiji Taniguchi and Norio Sato, Heisei No Oto delves into a world of music released almost exclusively on CD and brings together a fascinating selection of discoveries from a little known and overlooked part of Japan’s musical history. The last ten or so years have seen a global wave of interest in Japanese music encompassing ambient, jazz, new wave and pop records from the 1980s, some of which is increasingly considered the most innovative and visionary music of that time. Although some music from this period, in the form of ‘City Pop’ or ‘rare groove’ records, had been coveted by collectors and DJs for a number of years, most Japanese music from the time was little known outside and often even within Japan. Sometime around the mid 2000s, two Osaka record store owners, Eiji Taniguchi of Revelation Time and Norio Sato of Rare Groove, along with a handful of deep Japanese diggers such as Chee Shimizu of Organic Music records in Tokyo, began to explore beyond the typical ‘grooves’ or ‘breaks’. Much like their counterparts in Europe and the US, they began delving into home-grown ambient, jazz, new wave and pop records, discovering visionary music, often driven by synthesizers or drum computers, that broke beyond the typical confines of their genres. Spending tireless hours in local record stores and embarking on digging trips across the country, Eiji Taniguchi and Norio Sato, much like Chee Shimizu, have been at the forefront of unearthing and introducing many of the very Japanese records now loved and sought after around the world. Yet as YouTube algorithms and vinyl reissues would transport such music into the global consciousness and demand and therefore scarcity intensified for such records, so Eiji and Norio have recently begun to turn their attention to CDs. The title of the compilation Heisei No Oto refers to the sound of the Heisei era, which began in 1989 and corresponds to the reign of Emperor Akihito until his abdication in 2019. Marking the culmination of one of the most rapid economic growths in Japanese history, 1989 also coincided with the music industry’s final shift away from vinyl in favour of CDs. And, although compact discs were first introduced seven years earlier it wasn’t until late into the ‘80s that, beyond dance music labels, CDs became the exclusive format for major and independent labels in Japan and throughout the world. This however didn’t signal the end of the innovation in Japan. Many of those same musicians who have become known for their work in the ‘80s would continue to produce outstanding music well into the mid ‘90s, as greater innovation and advances in musical equipment allowed Japanese musicians and producers to refine and explore new sounds. While musicians such as the seminal Haruomi Hosono, whose productions feature on a number of tracks, would continue to push the boundaries of these new technologies, these technological advances also meant less established musicians were able to make use of increasingly affordable but state-of-the-art equipment. Including music by Haruomi Hosono as well as Yasuaki Shimizu, Toshifumi Hinata and Ichiko Hashimoto who have become known and loved around the world in recent years, Hesei No Oto also features Japanese pop star Yosui Inoue, producers Jun Sato and Keisuke Kikuchi in aaddition to less established artists from the contemporary, jazz, new wave, pop and dance music scenes. Bringing together a selection of tracks that seem to define these specific genres and in fact move fluidly between a number of them, the music on the compilation is again underscored by experimentations with synthesizers and drum computers though with something of a gentle Pop sensibility. Reimagined here then under the encompassing term ‘Left-field Pop’, this is an exciting chapter in Japanese musical history that has only just begun to be fully explored.

More astonishing new music from Jason Boardman's BiD imprint. KlangKollektor is a solo project by Lars Fischer (the drummer with the Psychedelic Cumbia band Trak Trak from Nurnberg.) The clips here only tell half the story, these are meticulously evolving and utterly absorbing pieces. A stellar collection of seven dubwise tracks over 4 sides with a Techno and Balearic influence.

Jean-Philippe Altier’s first full-length excursion as Jpye, 2021’s Samba With You, was heralded a contemporary Balearic pop gem – a superbly summery, sun-kissed set full of atmospheric instrumentation, colourful synth sounds, strong songs and star turns from a wide variety of musical friends and guest performers.

Bleu Your Mind, his hotly anticipated follow-up, takes a similar sonic approach to its predecessor, with Altier being joined in the studio by friends old (vocalist e11e, keyboardist Michael T and fellow Twonk members Leonidas and Renato Tonini all reprise their roles from ‘Samba With You’) and new (Da Roc and Iamrobd) on a set that effortlessly mixes and matches elements of nu-disco, jazz-funk, laidback synth-pop, Italo-disco and Balearic beats. Those who savoured ‘Samba With You’ will feel at home right away, as e11e sings softly and sweetly atop the gentle Latin infused shuffle, dusk-ready instrumentation and chiming vibraphone solos of ‘Freedom Ain’t Free’. French composer and keyboardist Da Roc make’s his first appearance on the following track, the duelling electric pianos and synths of sun-splashed instrumental Balearic pop gem ‘You Freak Out’, before e11e returns on the throbbing and suspenseful ‘Shiver’– a re-imagined and genuinely glassy-eyed cover of Marie Laure Sachs’ sleazy 1978 Italian disco jam of the same name. So, it continues, with Altier and his collaborators painting scintillating sonic pictures in kaleidoscopic colours. Impeccable arrangements and pin-sharp instrumentation work in perfect harmony with seductive grooves that pack plenty of subtle swing. Even more impressively, ‘Bleu Your Mind’ is an album that genuinely rewards repeat listens, with each successive spin revealing more musical touches and cannily crafted melodic motifs. As a result, highlights come thick and fast throughout, from the delay-laden jazz-funk-goes-electrofunk fizz of ‘Xcuse My French’ (with Da Roc), and the humid afternoon heat of ‘Va Là-Bas’ – a gorgeous and immersive, sunset-ready affair produced alongside Renato and featuring dazzling kets from Michael T) – to the slow-motion Gallic/Italian reggae-pop of ‘Tutto OK’ (a nod to the tropical-tinged reggae sounds created in France during the 1980s), and the slap-bass sporting, smoothed-out (but low-down) grooves of Renato hook-up ‘Take Off’.

As ‘Bleu Your Mind’ progresses, the musical details become more refined, the grooves drowsier and the mood more horizontal. This subtle shift can be heard in Leonidas co-production ‘Lazyjack’ – all chiming lead lines, languid bass guitar, snappy drum machine beats and glistening guitar motifs – the vocoder-sporting stoner funk of ‘Spinnaker’, and the yearning brilliance of ‘Fingers Crossed’. The album’s most emotive and immersive moment by some distance, ‘Fingers Crossed’ sees Altier and collaborator Iamrobd (also a fellow Twonk member) tease out a slow-motion groove in combination with lilting Spanish guitar solos, ultra-dreamy chords, twinkling pianos and delay-laden drum machine hits. Bittersweet and brilliant, it’s a track guaranteed to send shivers down your spine. By the time it fades out, via a sustained piano chord, you’ll be sat or stood in wide-eyed, open-mouthed wonder.

This one has been in the works for quite some time. A statement compilation showing what Full Circle is about, paying homage to the very roots of psychedelic dance music. A little town in India, which was a haven to a bunch of hippie outcasts, was throwing freeform outdoor parties since the day those freaks put their flag down. What was once a gathering around live music blew up into a rave as electronic music started to appear, paving the way to what would eventually become Goa Trance.

Full Circle, the duo project of Alexis Le-Tan and Joakim, started 10 years ago when Alexis accidentally discovered that some of his old Goa Trance records he was about to sell sounded great when played at the wrong speed : 33rpm instead of 45rpm. He called his long-time friend and collaborator Joakim to work on edits of those tracks that became the sound signature of this DJ duo : a slow, heavy and trippy sound that would eventually infiltrate the fringes of the underground club scene via like-minded DJs such as Vladimir Ivkovic, Jane Fitz, Ivan Smagghe and many more.

10 years later and a bunch of releases and remixes behind them, Full Circle decided to tell the story of how this Goa sound came to life. At a time when Trance has made a major

comeback and infiltrated pretty much all the sub-genres of club music, it felt right to look back at where it all started - going full circle, when Trance was not Trance, Goa was not Goa but the seeds of tripped out dance music were being sown.

After all, there are countless compilations about Balearism, the Italian Cosmic scene,The Loft, The Paradise Garage etc but none about the roots of this Goa sound.

This is a compilation of the best tunes played by the pioneer Goa DJs like Laurent, Goa Gil, Mike Maguire amongst others, between the late 80s and early 90s. Proto House, New Beat, early Techno, Industrial, with a distinct psychedelic tone, a few arpeggios here and there, acid lines, chopped up vocals, all elements of what would later constitute a genre of its own.

This beautifully packaged compilation includes liner notes by Tom Colebrooke and excerpts from Tom and Alexis’ interview of Mike Maguire of Juno Reactor fame, one of the pioneers of Goa Trance.

Check the liner notes for more info about the early Goa history !