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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 !

Uniquely personal, yet gently relatable…

Istanbul-based drummer and composer Danae Palaka’s first album “Velox” is a retrospective journey into the artist’s own roots.

Born in Athens to a musical family partially hailing from Istanbul, Danae’s relocation to the city of her ancestry in 2021 became a key influence in the creation of Velox.

Produced in a collaborative effort with producer Nikos Dervisis, Velox showcases Danae’s dense and energetic drumming style, influenced by Afrobeat and Anatolian rhythms, contemporary jazz and electronic music.

Developed by Palaka’s necessity to perform solo with a drum-kit and a sampler, the album wraps you with complex rhythms, evolving textures and polyphonies that resemble some vaguely remembered childhood memories, tales told by the elders and Danae’s exploration of her family roots, as well as her own personal experiences with Istanbul’s multi-layered structure intertwining past and present throughout its 8 track course. In Danae’s own words: “This album is built on feelings and thoughts about places, memories, animas and circumstances and aspires to transmit certain feelings to the listener; a superpower I wish I had since I was little. Each song is a small universe of its own but also part of a whole. Velox is a sphere, a glowing warm star that I hold in my palms, whose energy expands when loved and supported.”

Masahiro Sugaya, his name is now known worldwide as one of the leading artists of Japanese ambient, which has been re-evaluated worldwide in recent years. The Long Living Things, the album was released in 1988 by Japanese musician/composer Masahiro Sugaya for performing arts company "Pappa Tarahumara", which he also belonged to, and has long been overlooked by all but a few enthusiastic music lovers. P-vine is honoured to have the honour of reissuing this great work on vinyl for the first time in the world. The second track ‘Umi No Sunatsubu’ was included into the Grammy-nominated album "Kankyo Ongaku" released by Light In The Attic. Minimalistic, interwoven soft sequences give his music a feeling of floating and warming, this sound is representing the very essence of the Japanese ambient. His compilation album "Horizon, Volume 1" was released on the label Empire Of Signs, which produces some Japanese ambient reissues, such as Hiroshi Yoshimura's Music From Nine Postcards and Inoyama Land's Commissions: 1977-2000.　

"orange flavored cigarettes" is a three-piece band from South Korea that creates a chill sound reminiscent of bands like Men I Trust, Crumb, and The Marias. For them, this release marks their first physical format project, having primarily focused on digital platforms until now. This collection includes key tracks from their three years of activity, ranging from their debut song released in 2021 to their latest ep "table #2".

There’s no doubt that their sense of melody is heavily inspired by American indie rock, but the influence of roots music such as R&B and soul is also strongly felt. Vocalist Dani's voice blends perfectly with the band's sound, drawing listeners instantly into the world of orange flavored cigarettes.

The first in a series of compilations by Jura Soundsystem is a blend of Dub, Ambient, Downtempo, Boogie and Proto House with a focus on music never before released on Vinyl, sought after out of print titles and some special versions edited specifically for the album.
The intention with this project was to delve deeper into the reissue pond and unearth some lesser known tracks and artists. Highlights include Smackos (AKA Legowelt) Ambient epic ‘We Can Watch Alf In The Hotel Room’, never before released on Vinyl, the Dub / Psych hybrid of Minus Group’s ‘Black Shadow’, Kash’s sought after ‘Percussion Sundance’ and special edits of Ken Dang and Tabou Combo. The end of the album includes some soothing Ambient tools.

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.

Since joining the label back in 2018, Hear & Now have quickly become one of Claremont 56’s most prolific and consistent acts. The Italian duo impressed with their debut album Aurora Baleare – a drowsy, mood enhancing masterpiece – and then went one better with 2020’s Alba Sol, a seductive and sun-kissed set that incorporated more nods to Hear & Now members Ricky L and Marcoradi’s 1990s deep house roots.

The pair have once more struck sonic gold with their third album, Milvus, a set whose colouful chords, unfurling melodies, warming instrumentation and sun-soaked vibes were mostly laid down during the various pandemic lockdowns of 2020. If it’s vivid, picturesque and immersive musical escapism you’re after, Milvus delivers and then some.

The album’s clear White Isle-friendly intent can be heard on opening track ‘Bassa Marea’, a yearning chunk of horizontal brilliance in which guest musician Marco Evengelista’s emotive flugelhorn sounds spar with slow-motion, eyes-closed electric guitar solos over billowing ambient chords and a tactile, thickset bassline. The pair’s ability to craft high-class, saucer-eyed Balearic soundscapes is a theme that’s returned to several times across the album, with ‘Abisso’– another near beat-free slab of touchy-feely dreaminess – standing out.

Ricky L and Marcoradi’s love of evocative, pitched-down excursions is another recurring theme. For proof, check out the chugging weariness of ‘Zanziblu’, where a lone whistle drifts across waves of heady chords and metronomic beats, the dub-fired Balearic reggae shuffle of ‘Coccobello’ and the bright aural colours of gentle title track ‘Milvus’, whose cascading piano motifs, echoing harmonica motifs and chunky dub disco grooves are as appealing as they are infectious.

While the prevailing mood is perhaps even more horizontal than their previous albums, Hear & Now have not completely abandoned the dancefloor. Two of the set’s standout moments are those where the pair actively explore their early ‘90s Italian dream house roots.

There’s the rolling haziness of ‘Levante’, where more emotion-rich electric guitar solos and ear-catching whistling softly spar with pulsing pads, club-ready house beats and chiming synthesizer motifs, and the breathlessly brilliant ‘Baiadriatica’, whose stirring, sustained opening chords should always be described as “rush-inducing”.

Rich in jangling piano riffs, fluid keys, squelchy bass and glistening guitars, the track is little less than a glorious 21st century update of the dream house sound first made famous by the likes of Sueno Latino and Key-Tronic Ensemble. Like the rest of Hear & Now’s absorbing and emotive third album, it’s a stunning, sunset-ready delight.

You can never really pin down what the excellent Emotional Repose label does and that is exactly the sinking behind the title of its superb All Trades show on NTS. The sheer eclecticism of that show is now reflected in this new two-part compilation, also called All Trades, which offers up little morsels of what they do, something like a sonic tasting menu at a fancy restaurant. There is chugging electronic dub from Apiento & Tepper, industrial clatter from Black Bones, cosmic ambient breakbeat from Paperclip Minimiser and blissed out dub from Yamila & SoFa Elsewhere amongst many more highlights.

GAF are back!!! This time under their Estrella de la Muerte configuration and with a gateway musical behemoth double album into the cosmic unknown.

The prolific project, helmed by local Canarian anchorman Mladen Kurajica, dwells deep into esoteric rock genres and this time, they waste no time in plunging the listener into their brave new type of cosmic rock with a deeply influenced krautrock voyage of 70’s jamming and psychonautic exploration.

Recorded over three days in the cultural space of El Tanque, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, at the height of the covid pandemic of 2020 and during one of the hottest summers to date, the band entered the space with no plan in mind deciding instead to approach the recording sessions without any preconceived ideas or pre-composed songs. Clean out of external influences and ready to experiment they loaded in all their available gear, including an array of modular synths, in order to create a new approach to song writing and flesh out some ideas for a future album in situ. The very process of that search, through pure improvisation and jamming, became the album we’re presenting here.

No overdubs or subsequent edits were done, except for cutting some songs so that they could fit on the album. Almost 5 hours of recordings in total, finally reaching a 7 track, 69-minute double LP. All the reverb heard on the record is the natural reverb of El Tanque, a 16 second tail natural reverb recorded with several room mics at different locations in the venue. Eventually this became the first fully instrumental album by the Estrella de la Muerte configuration, with a line up of 7 musicians (Gaf y Estrella de la Muerte are normally a sextet).

Enter then, this inspired selection of psychedelically damaged tunes, 70’s space rock, psychoacoustics and Kosmishe inspired jamming. This is healing music for your mind altering journeys. The titled Pyramids here serving not only as a gateway to the cosmic unknown but also as an exploratory symbol of the bands willingness to freely embrace their subconscious inner flows into a cosmic collective. Ecstatic music for our times!

Vitesse X’s sophomore album This Infinite is about more than just escape. Vitesse X’s debut, 2022’s Us Ephemeral, was a tribute to the spiritual vibrations of the club, influenced by ‘90s rave, ambient techno, and Kraftwerk’s Tour de France. But before her time exploring the rhythms of nightlife, though, Vitesse X spent years playing in indie bands in her hometown of New York City. This Infinite weaves the slinking energy of her debut with these scrappy, livewire beginnings. The record is an exercise in anti-perfectionism, a sort of musical purging for the artist that she refers to as a “somatic release.” While writing, she pursued ideas without judging herself too harshly, leaving the songs rough around the edges and foregrounding confessional lyrics. This shift in mindset transported Vitesse X into a flow state, resulting in a powerful collection of wistful and sanguine dream-pop songs—always openhearted and forever unraveling. For Vitesse X, the album encourages the listener to free themselves from ego, as she aims to do. “It’s about trusting my gut,” says Vitesse X. “It feels like a weight was lifted. It says what it needs to say.” Pushing past injustice, the oppressiveness of a capitalist society, rage, and heartbreak, the record captures Vitesse X in the midst of release. Through the act of creation, she argues on This Infinite, we can make a change, both in ourselves and in the world.

Still shrink wrapped but opened just to check release color.
Records unplayed. Cover corners slightly dented.

The Other Sound of Music is Edition Hawara’s first compilation of forgotten Austrian treasures from the 1980s. Plucked from dusty basements, flea markets and bespoke stores across the small Alpine country, it features eight quirky and charming pieces that afford a glimpse into largely unknown but surprisingly rich musical subcultures. The lovingly curated selection brings to light early soul, boogie and proto-house productions, as well as some of the most balearic tracks that have ever been made in a landlocked country. Finally giving this music the stage it deserves, The Other Sound of Music is the definitive guide to the outer limits of the Austrian underground.

Mr. Fingers returns on Alleviated Records with a new album!!! Larry Heard (under his most notable monniker) continues on the path he's set with 'Cerebral Hemispheres' in 2018. Encompassing all his influences from Jazz, R&B to Techno and Ambient these lush tracks with a feel that no one else expresses quite like Mr. Fingers. Right from the start with "Around the Sun" the ten track album pulls you in with these lush produced tracks and effortlessly captivates you with the always infectious grooves and perfectly spaced arrangements. No need to further elaborate... This is Larry Heard at his finest.

The Sound Of Love International 004 is a particular poignant collection of rarities, collectables and unearthed gems, pulled together by the Italian DJ and crate digger Budino. For the last two years, the pretty coastal town of Tisno in Croatia has been devoid of the (now) legendary Love International week-long celebration of music, leaving thousands of revellers and regular devotes with only the sounds of Love International to keep the spirits strong until the next time friendships are rekindled and dance resumes under the sun and the stars. Luckily, the fiesta is scheduled for a return to Tisno from 13th – 19th July 2022. Budino, AKA Valentina Bodini, has a lifelong passion for vinyl, amassing an enviable collection of multi-genre LPs and singles via her years spent in Italy and now in Berlin. As resident DJ for Discodromo’s CockTail d’Amore parties, her enthusiasm for music and digging knows no boundaries, and her instalment into the Sound Of Love International series gives us an aural insight into her musical realm. Musically, The Sound Of Love International #004 is a smorgasbord of sound. Opening with the glacial tones of Peter Seiler’s 1986 new-age gem ‘Serengeti’, the twelve track selection glides through proto-house, tribal ambience, industrial EBM, balearic dance and so much more. It’s a testament to the ground- breaking nature of these tracks that most of the music here was originally released some 30-40 years ago. Inclusions from Oliver Leib’s The Ambush project, Vibes Of Rhythm and Scott Edward stem from the post house & techno explosion of the early 90s, whilst the early proto-electronic experiments from the likes of Kirlian Camera, Clock DVA, Bourbonese Qualk and Pyrolator are welcomely revived for a new audience. Interestingly, a flexi-disc only release of ‘Hark’ by William Orbit & Laurie Mayer’s early 80s Torch Song project is also included here, elongated by Budino herself in the edit suite. Two brand new productions from DJ Blasy and Budino & Berko ensure that business is brought bang up to date, offering a unique and modern spin on the sounds of Budino, and her tantalising selection on this compilation.

2022 repress!

Growing Bin burst into 2018 with a bang, crash and symbol splash, uniting a premier pair of percussion obsessives for a supernatural mission into the heart of the rhythm.
Dressed in the pitch black of Dusseldorf stands Wolf Mueller, master of the tropical drums and seven time Salon Des Amateur breakdance champion. Repping Cologne and Berlin is Niklas Wandt, Germany’s funkiest drummer and a mixed musical artist as adept in experimental jazz as demented Eurodance. Standing toe to toe in a no holds barred, no drum unstruck groove contest, these two titans will make you swing your pants like a Crash Bandicoot victory dance... so stretch out and step into ‚Instrumentalmusik von der Mitte der World‘.
Taking to their task with the joyful abandon of two big kids getting creative with the Kindergarten music tray, Müller & Wandt marry dripping electronics, Froesean pads and rubber-limbed basslines with tribal polyrhythms, C2 claps and Indonesian shakers - and that‘s only on the A1. Comprising of three trance-inducing epics, a handful of medium-sized movers and a couple of freeform interludes, this dynamic double pack could almost pass as a lost Library masterpiece; but our mind guides go Furthur, fusing esoteric funk and free-jazz freak-out a truly transportive experience. Prepare to enter a world of techno totems and neon skulls, shades of Yello and excellent birds. Within these grooves lies a transdimensional pathway between the Temple of Doom, the Twilight Zone and De Palma‘s Paradise, brought to life in a shamanic rite.
Forget the healing frequencies of Growing Bin‘s ambient outings, this time we‘re dancing for mental health.

NO OBI VERSION

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.

We are proud to announce that electronic music veterans Nick Höppner and Alex Kassian will launch their collaborative project H.A.N.K. on Second Circle, debuting with an album entitled 'The Big Melt'.

Born out of the unprecedented circumstances of the global pandemic, 'The Big Melt' represents a departure from the duo's typical club-oriented productions, instead exploring their shared passion for Krautrock, ambient, and guitar-driven music. The album showcases a more introspective and experimental side of both artists, blending elements of Fourth World, New Age, and leftfield electronic music.

Höppner and Kassian's creative partnership began in 2018 when Höppner released music from Kassian's project Opal Sunn on his label, Touch From A Distance. Their friendship quickly evolved into musical collaboration, initially focusing on dance music. However, as the pandemic unfolded, their studio sessions took an organic, freeform approach, embracing spontaneity and intuition.

'The Big Melt' features contributions from a diverse array of guest musicians, adding depth and texture to the album with instruments including guitar, clarinet, and the tar, an ancient Persian string instrument. Höppner's newly acquired drumming skills, developed during lockdown, also play a significant role in shaping the album's sound.

The creation of 'The Big Melt' spans several years, with initial jam sessions evolving into carefully crafted compositions through remote collaboration. This extended gestation period has allowed the music to mature, resulting in what Höppner describes as his proudest release to date.

'The Big Melt' stands as a testament to artistic resilience and creativity in the face of global challenges, offering listeners a rich, immersive journey into new sonic territories crafted by two of electronic music's most respected talents.

Sc021 will be released on LP as well as digitally on November 8th 2024. Sleeve art and design by Michael Willis.

2x12" vinyl with printed innersleeves.

"Interstellar Funk has crafted a raw, yet simultaneously hauntingly beautiful and endlessly intricate record. Layers of blended harmonies and melodies form the basis for jettisons into leftfield experimentation, heavily processed drums and oscillating frequencies. The result is as infectious as it is pensive; a transcendental journey into a synth-laden landscape.

A stalwart name on our Dekmantel line-ups and with prior releases on the likes of Rush Hour, Berceuse Heroique and L.I.E.S., Interstellar Funk is synonymous with the more brooding side of Dutch electronica. Akin to his DJ sets, which also glide effortlessly between genre, tempo and sound, Into the Echo is daringly eclectic, combining sung-spoken iterations with hypnotic samples and machinic industrial. The release will be supported by a hardware based live-show tour later in 2022.

Ethereal voices haunt the album, a spectral presence emanating both on the titular track and its eponymous twin, 'Octave Echoes.' The latter is built up around breathy reverberations partnered with steely chords and dissected drumbeats. While 'Crickets at Night,' featuring fellow Amsterdam-based producer Loradeniz, switches pace from ghostly ambient to a pulsating, metronome's tick, clockwork rhythms and eerily looped vocals.

Channelling introspective atmospheres, Into the Echo nevertheless holds steadfast to a club- ready beat and momentous bass. 'Northern Winds,' composed with Jasss, edges along the hardcore continuum, exploding with spiraling percussion and flashes of the pair's shared affinity for electro's gyrating-circuitry and dub's ominous dread. And, ionised by piercing synth and bolts of acid, 'Psycho Panner's occultist refrain climbs to an otherworldly crux.

A homage to the potency of analogue machinery and experimental electronica, Into the Echo fluctuates with organic life, often melding synthetic and acoustic instruments together. Guitar riffs flutter on 'Dreamers' before pattering out into warbling, glacial fragments and 'Last Piece of the Puzzle' features a glockenspiel-esque rhythmic element rising to a harmonic crescendo.

Sleeve Photograpy by Bea1991. "

Mr. Fingers second part of the Around the Sun series of albums!!! Larry Heard's (under his most notable monniker) continuation on the path from last years "Around the Sun part 1". Encompassing all his influences from Jazz, R&B to Techno and Ambient these lush tracks with a feel that no one else expresses quite like him. No need to further elaborate... Larry Heard at his finest.

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.

Synth pioneer and musical polymath, Wally Badarou is a genius. But you know that already. A vinyl version of his majestic Colors Of Silence has been craved by the Balearic cognoscenti ever since its low-key 2001 release. Indeed, when we first started work on Be With, we asked some pals with exquisite taste what their dream release would be. We asked Balearic legend Moonboots and, without hesitation, he said Colors Of Silence by Wally Badarou. We didn't know Wally had made this album. And most still don't. But that's about to change.

Colors Of Silence is ostensibly a new age album. As ever though, Wally's sophisticated synth textures and expressive keyboard runs are so full of character, so full of life, that this work of art transcends any easy genre categorisation. It's simply stunning, throughout. It sounds like A.r.t. Wilson or Suzanne Kraft, with traces of Cfcf and Jonny Nash. But it was made a good decade earlier than the work of these modern giants. Sometimes, it doesn't seem far from some Larry Heard albums.

Island Records founder Chris Blackwell's friend Nathalie Delon asked Wally to provide music for the yoga DVD she was to release. Lack of time on both sides made them agree on using "quality demos" Wally had in his ideas bank. It's understandable why Colors Of Silence remains somewhat of a lost gem. As Wally explains: "Total lack of promotion made it an 'intimate' release, which was exactly what I was looking for: just a buzz-maker and time-buyer that would allow me to concentrate on the real thing as soon as I'd have time, which could also turn into a rare collecting item later, once the final versions made their way to success. You never know."

Over the years, Colors Of Silence has become a true cult record for the ambient/Balearic heads.

The beguiling but brief "Dance In The Dust" is the shuffling, hyper-percussive, hypnotic opener. It gives way to the deep serenity of "Amber Whispers". It's a gliding, divine, mini melodic masterpiece. It'll make you swoon in its extreme beauty. The bright and breezy "Where Were We" follows, a tropical, reggae-tinged bounce through the islands.

The uptempo groove is maintained on the keys-drizzled soca-funk of "The Lights Of Kinshasa" before Side A is rounded out with "Pictures Of You". It starts with stately, melancholic, unadorned piano and this alone would make for a beautiful song. But Wally always gives us that bit extra and he effortlessly introduces warm, dreamy pads and minimal, slo-mo percussion to augment a frankly stunning piece of work.

Ushering in Side B, Wally's mesmeric piano playing is to the fore again, in the intro to uber-chilled "Serendipity For Two". The playing becomes more mellifluous as the track progresses and adds warmth through exotic percussion, woodwind, sweeping synths and digi-drums. It has echoes of, er, Echoes. It segues seamlessly into the more propulsive, wavy "Smiles By The Millions". If you're not nodding and grinning along widely to the gently throbbing bassline underpinning this, we can't help you. The meditative "Higher Still" follows, cinematic in feel and ever so slightly sinister with the strings. It sounds particularly Badalamenti-esque, if you ask us.

That unmistakable, almost peculiar Badarou funk - so lyrical, so texturally rich and so rhythmically spacious - is all over "Oriental". Next up, "Days To Wonder" brings the serenity back, insistent yet melodic keys, as if played in a place of worship, coupled with birdsong, conjure a kind of instant nostalgia for halcyon days of youth. The contemplative "Dawn Of Europa" is a sombre, beatless, ambient journey whilst the glorious, too-brief "Crystal Falls" features soft percussion and sparkle before fully glistening with some gentle head-nod beats. Wally brings this incredible collection to a mellow, tender close with the graceful "Purple Lines".

There can be few artists more under-appreciated given their vast influence than Wally Badarou. His solo work practically defined the sound of the Balearic DJs of the 1980s, and thus the more sophisticated sound of dance culture thereafter. A synth specialist, Badarou was the long-time associate of Level 42. He was one of the Compass Point All Stars (with Sly and Robbie, Barry Reynolds, Mikey Chung and Uziah "Sticky" Thompson), the in-house recording team of Compass Point Studios responsible for a series of albums in the 1980s recorded by Grace Jones, Tom Tom Club, Mick Jagger, Black Uhuru, Gwen Guthrie, Jimmy Cliff and Gregory Isaacs. Badarou's keyboard playing could also be heard on albums by Robert Palmer, Marianne Faithfull, Herbie Hancock, M (Pop Muzik), Talking Heads, Manu Dibango and Miriam Makeba. He also produced Fela Kuti. Phew!

Meticulously remastered and cut by both Simon Francis and Cicely Balston respectively, it has been pressed to the highest possibly quality at Record Industry in Holland. Special thanks must go to Apiento from Test Pressing who first introduced us to Wally and facilitated all those early zoom meetings. It couldn't have happened without his help. Not least on pulling the art together, too, which features striking original photography by Mads Perch. Benji Roebuck of Roebuck Press did his thing brilliantly in art working the whole package to completion. All in all: essential.

Open Space is proud to present our first ever full-length LP by LA’s newest 3-man band, Puli. Some words from our dear friend Matt McDermott below: In recent years, a cadre of musicians from the east side of Los Angeles have reestablished the city of angels as the first city of Balearica. Alex Ho’s “Move Through It” followed in the lumbering footsteps of Project Sandro’s “Blazer.” Now, there’s a new landmark for the floating west coast sound. Swirling, the first album from LA supergroup Puli. If you’ve got your ear to the ground you know the names involved here. Drummer and producer Damon Palermo’s pedigree stretches back a good 15 years or so, starting off with dub punks Mi Ami. Phil Cho is one of the busiest DJs, musicians and advocates for the deep stuff in LA, throwing legendary hillside parties under the Third Place banner. John Jones, the preternaturally talented guitarist and electronic tinkerer, records as AV Moves, is a key member of the Suzanne Kraft and Baba Stiltz live configurations and plays in The Trilogy Tapes-affiliated act Geo Rip. But this listing of personnel and credentials puts too fine a point on it. Puli are three close friends who go to parties, DJ and get tacos together, repairing to their Chinatown studio a few times a week and coming out with remarkably textured, idiosyncratic downtempo jams. Building off the solid foundation of their 7-inch of heavyweight dubs for Melbourne’s Constant Delay, Swirling is an exploration of new horizons in chill out. “Ramona” acts a statement of purpose—with halftime/double-time dub-tinged rhythms, hazy yet bright synth motifs and atmospheric guitar from Jones, not terribly far from the expansive approach of Japanese dub aesthetes Pecker. “Cloudy,” meanwhile, is a sort of deconstructed and bittersweet Balearic pop featuring Cho’s ethereal vocals. “Bongo Springs” is steppers’ house not far from close LA peer Benedek or the Mood Hut crew up north. But what truly sets this record apart is the space and layers in the production—while it’s nominally an electronic record, Puli is a band that has slowly crafted these songs in the rehearsal space. “Havana Jam” cruises along a sliding roundwound bass guitar take with dubby chords and textural guitars. Palermo’s hand drums and live percussion enmesh perfectly with icy pads on “Leech Seed Dub.” Cho is back on the mic for the gorgeous closer, “C.S.B.”, underpinned by breakbeat and trunk-rattling sub bass. Puli doesn’t sound like anyone else, and is ultimately reflective of the city itself. Listening to Swirling feels like navigating a warren of side streets in the eternal sunshine. Take the drive and dive.

Secrets Of Sound sold out their first release in quick fashion and now they return with a second instalment in the Exotic Origins series, designed to take you a million light years away from your current reality and deep into the far depths of space with eight superbly cosmic explorations of ambient and downtempo magic. Italians Do It Better man Johnny Jewel kicks off with some sultry sax-laced sounds, David Lynch's musical partner Dean Hurley crushes on shimmering pads and Pye Corner Audio bring a little intergalactic tension. Elsewhere there are sugary synths from Legowelt, suspensory pads from TM Solver and plenty more to help you escape to another dimension. Add to that the fact it arrives on a random variety of different vinyl colours and comes with a download code, and you've got rather a nice package.

"Offworld"is back after 20 years with a new album called "The Guru Walk" on Tasty Treats Records. This release is a real walk into Offworld music experiences where from the first track to the last one, he works to create a collection of electronic jazz tracks with different influences and moods. A side contains three EDM tracks including the title track "The Guru Walk" that is a real midtempo gem with deep chords,light percussion section and warm ambient pads. On the other side there are the longplay "tought vision" and the acid jazz influenced track "Ruzena". C side contains the hypnotic track "Lagos 3000" with afro influences,warm organ and synths and deep pad. The soulful "Siofra's Star" complete this side with broken vibes and melodies. On D side there are the deep and warm "Wahpanio" that is a dancefloor oriented track with latin influences and last but not least "Holy Portal" a jazzdance track with a groovy and powerful bassline,breakdrum and soulful chords.

Futuro Antico, the mesmerizing collaboration of Riccardo Sinigaglia with Walter Maioli and Gabin Dabirè evoked in its name the uncanniness of simultaneously witnessing past and future. Ambient Music, Riccardo Sinigaglia’s first solo work –recorded in Dec. 1984 and originally out on cassette from ADN Tapes in 1985— ultimately delivers on that idea, embodying different irreconcilable time frames not just in name.
From our vantage point, the sounds of the two performances --“Watertube” and “Ringspiel”-- appear as though they arrive to us from a past which we have great difficulty in recognizing and imagining ourselves coming from while simultaneously working as a projection of a future that is both our contemporaneity yet also surpasses it. It’s this ability that Riccardo Sinigaglia’s work has of being both rooted in its context while instantaneously capable of transcending our own that makes him one of the key figures of that explosion of beauty and creativity that defines the peculiar iteration of radical minimalism that characterized the experimental and avant-garde music scene in Italy, particularly the Milanese one with its rich countercultural scenes crossing over into the long reverberating academic legacy of the Studio di Fonologia Musicale RAI di Milano during a hyperactive decade starting in the late 1970s. An aggressively conquered freedom which resulted in works of an incredible gracefulness aimed towards a future at a moment when both grace and the future had seemingly begun their slow obliteration under the blows of powerful destructive forces.
“Watertube” starts as a synth and magnetic-tape based ambient soundscape that slowly adds what appears to be a prepared piano which eventually competes for audibility with a phrase that evokes the titular watertube, treated, looped and stacked as it phase-shifts producing a busy polyrhythm that asynchronously gurgles and bubbles, approaching but never breaking into chaos. It’s some strange version of Eno’s oblique discreetness ostensibly being overwhelmed by the perversity of a Stevereichian shape-shifting pattern but the moment the former is about to be overwhelmed the composition begins a slow recession back towards the system it originated from.
“Ringspiel” is a more playful yet warped affair, a complex ecology rather than a simple economy of sounds. Opening with a whimsical melody seemingly played on a prepared toy piano this gives way to a tape loop punctuated throughout the rest of the piece by individual sounds whose origins remain uncertain. These produce scattered melodies that underscore an electronic based minimalism with a synthetic heart that nonetheless showcases a pulsating, wet, fibrous core that beats with organic life. It ends not in the opening whimsy but in fragmenting percussive shards of sounds. While it might superficially appear deceitfully familiar and comforting and evoke recognizable pleasures this is neither your father’s ambient nor your mom’s minimalism. And it sure as hell ain’t your older brother’s lame substanceless new age noodling. There’s a dark heart to Sinigaglia’s record – listened to today we are conscious that the future “Watertube” and “Ringspiel” pointed towards never arrived and yet we are aware of nonetheless inhabiting it. That is ultimately the tragedy and the thrill of these compositions. We are told that the future’s been annulled due to a degenerative process that began precisely around the time in which this music was first recorded. And yet. As time folded in on itself and we were made to inhabit the futureless predicament of an eternal present these recordings act as relics from the last possible instance where a future could still stand to be imagined. A little sliver of opportunity. Look into it. It just might give you a peek into tomorrow. The time is out of joint.

The new LP by Krefeld-born, Berlin-based artist Philipp Otterbach entitled 'The Dahlem Diaries'.

Recorded in a little-visited corner of the German capital, 'The Dahlem Diaries' is a convergence of ideas, sketches and tracks, both old and new, most of which were produced between 2020-2022. Whilst eerie atmospheres, electronics and drums have played a pivotal role in Philipp’s earlier releases, his latest is a rather more introspective affair, in which the guitar takes a leading role. A role Otterbach uses to quietly bring light and hope to his music.

Speaking about his writing process, Philipp explains that, based around his original compositions, “Friends were nice enough to contribute additional parts on their instruments which I then reworked, put together and re-contextualized. The recordings encapsulate a very specific moment in time, one that would have sounded perhaps very different the day before or after.”

Combined with a strong use of effects and field recordings, 'The Dahlem Diaries' feels somewhat like a scene or fragment from a story, in which the narrative remains undefined. It is a playful album that is something of a blurred underwater adventure, sounding as bright as it is hazy, even psychedelic at times, yet with an almost melancholic positivity. In Philipp’s own words: “It could be an album about friendship and being at one with myself, whilst at the same time bringing a certain seriousness to my music, but not necessarily to myself; there is also a playful humour hidden in there. ”

Artwork by David McFarline.

Kinzua are Lucas Brell and Marvin Uhde (known as Qnete to some), great live band. “None Of The Above” is their debut album. Powerfully introvert and extrovert at the same time. Songs of glory, decay, rebuilding and hope that found Offen at the right moment. Many moons later the album withstood the test of time and can be enjoyed in its whole glory.

Written & produced in different spheres by Lucas Brell & Marvin Uhde at CSG Studios, Leipzig and M90 Remise, Berlin.

Voice on „The Dancing Snake“ by Giulia Fournier-Mercadante (Gigi FM) with words from „Les Fleurs de Mal“ by Charles Beaudelaire

Mastered by Vril Artwork by Himbeer Pepe Sleeve by Percy

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.

Seven years since releasing two back to back dance floor hits, Jack J returns to the airwaves with this amazing LP on Mood Hut Records. Worth the wait!

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!

It had taken him almost three years to record, but in 1985 Jake Hottell finally finished his debut solo album, Break The Chains. Inspired by his opposition to fracking, anger at government corruption and a series of profound spiritual experiences, a hundred copies of the album were pressed and given away to radio stations, friends and local business interests in Hottell’s home state of New Mexico.

The album would have remained an obscure footnote in musical history had it not been for the efforts of DJs Danny McLewin and Jeremy Spellacey. Between them, they tracked down Hottell to hear his story, offering the former electronics engineer and Nashville-based music producer the chance to get his music to a whole new audience. Now, some 34 years after the private press edition was produced, Spacetalk is giving Break The Chains a full release for the very first time. Hottell began recording the album in 1982 after reading Your Body’s Many Cries For Water, a best-selling book by Dr Fereydoon Batmanghelidj about the health benefits of clean, purified water. Remembering the poisonous, methane-laden water that came out of his mother’s taps in the 1970s – a by-product of extensive fracking activity in the area around the family farm – Hottell wanted to create a set of tracks that registered his concerns, reflected his recent spiritual experiences (many of which he still finds it difficult to discuss today) and offered a meditative listening experience.

The resultant set is suitably cosmic and emotive, with Hottell cannily fusing gentle drum machine rhythms and dreamy synthesizer motifs – influenced, he says, by a love of the contemporaneous new age output of former jazz label Windham Hill Records – with his own glistening guitar passages, which sit somewhere between the homespun riffs of country music and the classical guitar solos that have long been a sonic staple of Spanish styles such as Flamenco. Many of the tracks have stories attached. “Horizon” features a profound spoken word vocal from local man Darald McCabe – whose homemade purified water helped Hottell recover from serious illness – while “El Rio dos les Delores” was composed after discovering that fracking was taking place on a local Native American reservation. “The Truth Is All I Want”, meanwhile, reflects Hottell’s growing exasperation at the extent of corporate greed and government corruption in the United States.

This new edition of Break The Chains has been painstakingly re-mastered from the original master tapes, while extensive new liner notes shed light on the remarkable musical and personal experiences that inspired Hottell to create an obscure, overlooked classic.

Black Vinyl Edition.

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!

Ylia—aka Susana Hernández—had a remarkably productive 2020. In addition to releasing her debut album, Dulce Rendición, on Barcelona’s Paralaxe Editions, she penned compilation tracks for Lapsus Records, Hivern Discs, and Super Utu/Stars on Earth.

But professional success can be deceiving: The following year was, personally speaking, terrible. Her grandfather died. Her father died. Her cat died. And she ended a relationship. “That’s a lot of things all at once, no?” she says.

Her second album, Ame Agaru, is not necessarily a record of that year, but it is, she says, a response to those life events—a record of grief.

The new album is clearly a continuation of the ambient investigations of Ylia’s debut, but it differs in key ways. Where Dulce Rendición was exploratory and faintly cosmic, Ame Agaru—a Japanese phrase meaning, roughly, “the rain lifts”— captures a melancholy sense of stillness. And where her debut was largely electronic, on the new album, Ylia has folded in a number of acoustic elements, even when they are not recognizable as such. Her partner, Alejandro Lévar, lends fingerpicked acoustic guitar to the glowing dronescapes of “Todos los Cuerpos”; multi-instrumentalist and bandleader Tete Leal adds flutes, clarinet, and soprano saxophone to “Ame Agari”—or “after the rain”—which opens the album with a moment of contemplative calm, the kind that follows an extended deluge.

One track, the dub techno-influenced “Flowers in June,” grew out of Ylia’s live sets, but the rest are the fruit of improvisational sessions at home in Málaga, five minutes from the beach—jamming and then refining, searching for the ideal expression of a feeling as it was first captured. Searching for the spontaneity behind the stillness. In places, Ylia even incorporates piano, an instrument she has played since she was 10, yet has never included on one of her recordings before. For the most part on Ame Agaru, she seeks ways to fuse piano with synthesizers and electronic processes. But on the closing track, “El Único Adiós Posible,” she leaves us alone with the instrument in all its stark, unadorned beauty. It is a profoundly moving conclusion to an album defined by its economy of means and purity of expression: a cycle

Splendid deep electronics coming from Niko Tzoukmanis

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.”

Digging deep through old and new, Basso captures arcane woodland fusion, serene electronic suites and wide eyed Balearic bliss on this first Growing Bin compilation. This collection celebrates those precious records which land in your life on their own terms. Even the most advanced digger will admit that chance is the secret ingredient in any successful haul.

Finally, this great record gets a nice re-press!
Restored and re-mastered from the original tapes comes Gigi Masin’s much sought after first album ‘Wind’. Never commercially released the LP was in fact only given away at a number of small concerts, with many of the remaining copies destroyed during floods in the Venice based musician’s house.

One of life's most difficult arts is learning to let go. You can try to cling to control in the face of a turbulent world, but the only constant we can count on is change—the tendrils of cleansing fire wiping away the old, new life springing forth from the dust and ash. So what's the point? Give yourself over to the depths. Surrender to the flow. G.S. Schray's new solo album The Changing Account is an appropriate soundtrack for learning to cope with a world we can't count on. Each piece is full of elliptical melodies that swirl with the unstable logic of dreams. Flurries of piano, guitar lines, and other more alien instrumentation shimmer delicately, but before they coalesce into familiar shapes or rhythms they change, then change, then change again. Listening is a bit like falling asleep on a long road—with each passing song you're waking up somewhere new, trying to get your bearings in another strange world. How did I get here? Where are we going? It doesn't matter. Close your eyes, drift away again.

12th Isle revisit the various artist compilation format first explored with 2019’s ‘Inkosi’ and assemble a veritable mixtape of sorts unfolding across six tracks aimed with the club in mind. Echo Party get things started with a dub heavy, studio alchemy excercise in discipline that appears in an extended mix to the original form on Murray Collier (Dip Friso) & Hannan Jones’s self-released Cd-r. Italian newcomer Guizzi features with a thunderous downtempo excursion with tight conga percussion in a DK/RAMZi vein that feels very at home on the label. Der Opium Queen pulls off a propulsive, video game OST style dancefloor hit that brings to mind that Les Aeroplanes project on Jamal Moss’s Mathematics label from way back when whilst on the Side B a freak-folk skit from Memotone sits next to heads-down motorik from Lo Kindre and a bleep-infused dub techno piece by Toronto via Bangladesh real one Raf Reza. More V/A's to come.

Nico Motte returns to Antinote with his second album ‘The Missing Person’ after his 2015 introductory EP ‘Rheologia’, 2016’s ‘Life Goes On If You Are Lucky’ LP, and 2017’s ‘18 Rays’ EP collaboration with Zaltan and Raphaël Top-Secret. Truly though, Motte never really left, having been the aesthetic eye for each Antinote artwork since day dot. His visual style would prove pivotal to the labels decade long success in the leftfield music underground. But here Motte shows us once again that his skills don’t solely lie in graphic art.

A bandcamp review of Motte’s first LP reads ‘French late seventies synth-laden electronics of avant garde film soundtracks with a touch of early house, minimalism and Balearic…’ ‘The Missing Person’ holds true to that balearic core while adding flavours of lollipop dub, sugary synth and Martin Denny-esque Exotica. Synth-Pop from a tropical island. Perhaps The Missing Person here is the album’s protagonist themself, having sailed away from the trivialities of urban life to lay on a white sand beach somewhere warm, drinking fresh coconut water and not giving a shit. A laissez-faire attitude.

Underneath the cool sonic facade of ‘The Missing Person’ Motte effortlessly meanders through pastel sounds drawn from an extensive collection of vintage synthesisers, drum machines and effects units at Synth City. The result: a smooth textured continuous listen of an ear off to somewhere far… island life perhaps? perhaps urban life in need of reprieve.

Zapatilla, better known as Louis Hackett, is a founding member of Brownswood 's Owiny Sigoma Band and key collaborator on Eska's Mercury nominated debut album, but has a neat side hustle making house music with one foot in the gentle melodies of Balearic beat and another in the irresistible energy of Afrobeat. It's a recipe that he continues over onto this fine four tracker, which opens with the smoothly grooving but lively 'Like Dat' before 'Zimzimmer' builds up around a gently frenetic Afro guitar riff. On the flip, 'Disco Facial' is slower and more retro, with a synth line that could be from a lost John Carpenter soundtrack. 'Self Isolated' completes the package in its most esoteric fashion, another synth work rooted in the past, this time perhaps echoing the approachable experimentalism of Jean Jacques Perry.

Melody As Truth is proud to announce ‘There Up, Behind the Moon’, a collaborative album from Romanian musician Ana Stamp and Jonny Nash. For this collaboration, the pair spent over two years researching, arranging and recording Romanian folklore songs, aiming to give new context to these traditional, forgotten melodies.Throughout the album Ana’s vocals sit in delicate balance with Nash’s signature minimalist arrangements, accompanied with cimbalom, piano, double bass and guitar.

‘Bright Girl’, ‘For You I Am Missing’, ‘On a Mountain Realm’, ‘Sacred Conversations’, ‘Noble Tree’ are arrangements from traditional Romanian “star songs” and carols, usually sung in connection to various rituals that take place throughout the year. ‘Clouds Passing By’ is a cover of a traditional song, covered by Oșoianu Sisters.

In addition the album contains two classical piano compositions by Romanian composer Sigismund Toduță’, ’Upwards’ and ‘There Up, Behind The Moon’ to complete the atmosphere. Ana’s contemplative, thoughtfully paced re-interpretation and performance of these pieces reflects feelings of waiting and longing over time.

In describing her first album ‘There Up, Behind The Moon, Ana says “it represents an important element of my connection with Romanian folklore and the country landscape that encompasses many feelings, ranging from longing to joy or melancholy at times. Rituals and traditions are part of our roots that we take with us wherever we go.”

MAT is proud to announce the forthcoming release of ‘The Side I Never See’, by Hugh Small & Brian Allen Simon. Hugh forms half of Scottish post-punk duo Vazz, whose work was the subject of a recent retrospective by Belgian label Stroom. Brian is known best for his solo project Anenon, under which name he has released four full length albums and multiple remixes for artists including Ryuichi Sakamoto. An improvised recording of Brian playing over the Vazz piece ‘Kazimierz’ catalysed this long-distance collaboration; 2000 feet up a mountain in Andalucia, Hugh heard the recording on a broadcast of Brian’s dublab LA radio show. Immediately taken in by Brian’s playing, the pair soon established contact and began discussing the possibility of working to create something new together. The rest, as they say, is history: the results are fully realised in ‘The Side I Never See’, a shimmering suite of ten compositions for piano, soprano saxophone, synthesizer and guitar. In Hughs words… ‘so, what is it? It’s Ambient-Punk, Abstract-Jazz, Disaffected-Classical, it’s whatever the fuck you want it to be!’ :-) ‘The Side I Never See’ will be released on Melody As Truth in early August 2021, as always on vinyl and digital. Mastered by Stephan Mathieu, Artwork by Michael Willis.

I Love It When A Band Comes Together…The one thing that has kept most artists sane during the pandemic is writing and creating. In an attempt to apply this logic Red Ant Records maestro Pete Bones decided to recruit the talents of a bunch of cool cats he had met whilst traveling the globe and put a band together. Having often wondered after 30 odd years as a DJ/Producer how the band would sound had he not been swept up by Acid House in the late 80s, six months later, plenty of file bouncing and numerous edits, and The Stones Of Convention are ready to wreak havoc; with Jeff Ward on electric guitar, Jeff Richey on saxophone, Pierre Davis on drums, Scott Anderson on slide guitar, Duncan Gray on bass and electric guitar, Sean Q6 on acoustic guitar, and featuring the effervescent vocals of Laura Clarke. Hailing from Galway, Orlando, Pittsburg, St Petersburg, Slough, San Francisco and Glastonbury respectively, band practice might be problematic. The album features 7 original tracks, 2 full vocal cuts, and a cover of the Talking Heads classic Pull Up The Roots

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.

Finally, this great record gets a nice re-press!

Music From Memory’s latest release in their 12” series focuses on the little known UK band The System. A project masterminded by Bob Lamb, a somewhat cult figure in Birmingham's music history; the short lived group released only one album ‘Logic' and a single in 1983 on the somewhat obscure French label ‘Romantic Records’. This distinctively forward thinking new wave/synth pop album met with poor distribution and with almost no promotion to speak of at the time and quickly dwindled into obscurity. The albums sense of technological exploration, outstanding production value coupled with the band’s gift of writing deeply emotive, yearning pop tunes, make it sound though perhaps more relevant today than many other far more successful albums of its time.

To celebrate the launch of Music Website, we decided to put together a label compilation. The tracks already released will be available digitally at the time of purchase, while the blacked out unreleased tracks will be made available over the next few months. It will be awhile before those ship due industry-wide vinyl manufacturing delays. We expect them before June '23. Very limited. Only 300qty. No represses.

Brand new album from Greville on Mad Habitat. Tip for fans of Jon Hassell, Ramzi and 12th Isle