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Stefan Kozalla's Amygdala featuring contributions from Caribou, Matthew Dear, and more, is uncommonly engrossing for a techno record. Blessed with the carefree spirit of lounge music and Quiet Storm, and dressed up in tiedye, the music on Amygdala glows with an easy confidence.

Received a 8.6 and Best New Music rating from Pitchfork.

Still shrink wrapped but opened.
Records are close to VG+

Eight years after his first record, Super Discount, a milestone for the French Touch scene, Etienne de Crécy, accompanied by his old accomplices (Zdar, Boombass...) revived the project with Super Discount 2 (2004), a second part exalting the festive spirit of sleepless nights through warm and colorful house music. Étienne de Crécy is a vital player on the international electronic music scene. In twenty years of a constantly evolving career, the French producer has delivered some of the world"s major electronic albums: Pansoul (with Philippe Zdar under the name Motorbass), Super Discount, Tempovision, Super Discount 2 & 3. He also fathered thirty EPs and has produced some forty remixes for artists such as Kraftwerk, Air, Moby, and Lil" Louis. Renowned for his eclectic and efficient productions, Etienne de Crécy is also a passionate DJ.

Her new album "Keys" shows Berlin-based musician Masha Qrella elegantly fusing disco-pop and songwriting. Written and produced by Qrella in her studio within one year, the album’s eleven songs feature well-known elements of fragility, perfection and understatement, while walking a fine line between laconic coolness and passionate uptempo melancholia.

This is a 180g LP. The new album form Irish Star recorded at its most raw, one instrument, one voice, performed live, mastered for vinyl at Abbey Road by Miles Showell. It features exclusive artwork by the famed painter Chris Gollon.

Powerhouse vocalist Alanna Royale and her band
bring some sides that burn like a piece of that
famous Nashville hot chicken. A-side 'Go' will light up
the output meters on many a DJ mixer, from the
opening hits to the sinewy bass line snaking around a
rhythm section that is bound to make a body move.
B-sides are ever so often the hidden gems, and on
this 45, 'I Know' is bound to have a big share in the
fans of this release. Foreshadowing the forthcoming
groove, the Motown-esque entrance drum fill opens
the door and then the horns step in and never leave
the room. Produced by Kelly Finnigan and mixed by
the team at Transistor Sound we are pleased to have
this release join a growing list of fine recordings from
the Transistor Sound label.

Her second full-length album, Look Up Sharp , on her own Kallista records. Look Up Sharp is an evolutionary leap from the thick fog and pastoral stillness of her Blackest Ever Black missives, You Know What It's Like (2016) and The Garden EP (2017). Three years since her plain-speaking debut album, the Melbourne-via-Berlin artist finds herself absorbed in London's sprawling mess. The small-town dreams and inertia that preoccupied dal Forno's first album have dissolved into the chaotic city, its shifting identities, far-flung surroundings and blank faces. Look Up Sharp is the story of this life in flux, longing for intimacy, falling short and embracing the unfamiliar. Dal Forno connects with kindred spirits and finds refuge in darkened alleys, secret gardens and wherever else she dares to look. In her own territory between plaintive pop, folk and post-punk dal Forno conjures the ghosts of AC Marias, Virginia Astley and Broadcast through her brushwork of art-damaged fx and spectral atmospheres. The first half of the record is filled with dubbed-out humid bass lines, which tether stoned hazes of psychedelic synth work as on 'Took A Long Time' and 'No Trace.' These contrast with songs like 'I'm Conscious and 'So Much better' that channel the lilting power of YMG and are clear sequels-in-waiting to dead-eyed classics like 'Fast Moving Cars.' The B-side begins with the feverish bass and meandering melody of 'Don't Follow Me,' which takes The Cure's 'A Forest' as its conceptual springboard. It's the clearest lyrical example since 'The Garden' of dal Forno's unmatched ability to unpick the masculine void of post-punk and new wave nostalgia to reflect contemporary nuance. Look Up Sharp reaches its satisfying conclusion with 'Push On' - dal Forno's most explicit foray into an undiscovered trip hop universe between Massive Attack and Tracey Thorn. The album's last gasp finds personal validation in fragility: 'I push on / I'm the Place I'm Going,' a self discovery lifted by reverberant broken beats and glass-blown...

Dark Entries celebrates its 15th anniversary with legendary synth-punk deviants Crash Course in Science. Dale Feliciello, Mallory Yago, and Michael Zodorozny formed Ccis in 1979 after meeting at art school in Philadelphia. As a gesture born of equal parts punk irreverence and brute necessity, the band incorporated toy instruments and kitchen appliances into their aggressive, angular sound. Their anthems “Cardboard Lamb” and “Flying Turns” from 1981’s Signals From Pier Thirteen EP have been staples in adventurous DJ sets for over 40 years - yet some of their finest work is to be found on Near Marineland, a full-length LP recorded in 1981 but remained unreleased in its time. Near Marineland shows the band moving into more diverse and polished territory (although it’s still as abrasive as sandpaper). Tracks like “No More Hollow Doors” and “Jump Over Barrels” highlight Ccis’s singular knack for embedding infectiously monotone hooks in their stiff-yet-funky grooves. Elsewhere we see Ccis going fully unhinged, like on the searing “Someone Reads” or the demented “Pompeii Spared”, where a spray of honks is barely glued together by a frantic synthetic pulse. While this masterwork of malfunctioning analog electronics has surfaced on a few occasions - this first time stand alone remaster includes four never-before-released bonus tracks and includes a lyric sheet. Near Marineland is crucial listening for all devotees of synth-punk and minimal electronics.

Cryosleep is the debut album from Null + Void, the alias of prolific New York producer Kurt Uenala. It's an album of contrasts and tension, where darkness is pierced by blinding light, and where moody new wave bleeds into stark electronics. In one moment, joyful memories give way to isolation and regret, and in the next, Cryosleep explores the catharsis of crowded dancefloors. Throughout the record, Uenala matches his dynamic production with incredible vocalists-from Depeche Mode's Dave Gahan and the inimitable Shannon Funchess, to Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and The Big Pink. Null + Void's take on dark pop meshes with his love for Detroit electro, poignant synth melodies, and cold atmospheres. With the cinematic opener "Falling Down" and brooding instrumentals like "Come To Me", Cryosleep can feel like the soundtrack to a lost space epic. No doubt, the album evokes Blade Runner, dystopian landscapes, and the splendor of far-off galaxies. As Uenala puts it, Cryosleep is inspired by "classic sci-fi stuff," images of futuristic machines sustaining humans frozen in a dreamstate. The melancholy "Foreverness" explores what they might be thinking: "A collection of fragments, memories of a life lived-preserved, but incomplete and jumbled." Meanwhile, "Into The Void" paints a peaceful, otherworldly picture, "like soaring towards a white light."

With absolute devotion Shook has created an exceptional listening experience in which timeless influences of Hiroshi Yoshimura, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Steve Reich and Erik Satie are honored and thoughtfully integrated in his modern, energetic sound. Shook merges Japanese ambient and Indonesian gamelan with an uplifting mixture of electronic pop, jazz and funk. Inspired by city pop, techno pop and ambient Music for City and Nature spreads a new light on the contrasting balance between what we make and what we are. Shook: “In my 5th album I tried to document my emotional and mental state at this point in my career. It is inspired by the conflict between the energetic and busy city life and the calm, warmth and peace that nature gives. It isn’t a city ‘versus’ nature album though, it is about daily life existing in a gray area in between. I try to find a balance by connecting both sides. We can build a future in the city, but we must not forget that nature is our future.”

Alone in the world, we find ourselves. Inside ourselves, we find something to share with the world.

The Essential John Moods, a solo album in all senses of the word, is what Jonathan Jarzyna of Fenster found in himself during a summer spent hiking along the Iberian coast, and he now wants to share it with you. A mini-guitar on his back and a copy of GarageBand on his phone allowed Jarzyna to record songs each evening as he arrived in a new town after a long day traveling by foot. (He did, admittedly, add live drum tracks and some additional instrumentation back in Berlin.) The album preserves this peripatetic feeling, each song relating to the next as one city or village relates to its neighbor, its unique situation contrasting with the shared architectural vernacular. Blipping instrumental interludes (“Trainride,” “Pontevedra,” “Coastal Way”) even capture the disordered, delirious feeling of transit hubs and the sleep-bleared mystery of waking on an unfamiliar road.

“I just came alive completely” are the first words Jarzyna murmurs on “New Spring,” invoking the spirit of the album. He speaks not of the liveliness of manic activity, but the heightened, tender sensitivity of presence. It’s a fullness of living captured by the transition from the lush, jangling groove of “The Weight” to the spacious contemplation of “Pawns.” The dreamy echo of the 60s’ and 70s’ soft rock and folk troubadours suffuses the album, and the organ-soaked “Where In The World” even has a psychedelic tinge. But the overall effect is quite contemporary, from the back-of-the-nightbus lounge funk of “Take It Home” (featuring an amazing turn from arch-crooner Sean Nicholas Savage) to the mournful cupboard jazz of “Almost Gone.” “Dark Wall” sounds like a honkytonk ramble alongside a robot tentatively learning to play lap steel. “Leap of Love,” an early album highlight, passes over the listener in shimmering waves, a love song which remains a mystery even to its creator.

In the meditation tape coda “Relax Your Foot,” Jarzyna selects the perfect sample to encapsulate The Essential John Moods’ hopeful receptivity: the late Professor Carl Sagan reminding us that “despite our limitations and fallibilities, we humans are capable of greatness.”

It would be fair to say that Leng co-founder Paul “Mudd” Murphy is a born collaborator. Since first donning the Mudd alias at the dawn of the century, Murphy has released numerous collaborative albums and singles with regular collaborators Ben Smith (as Smith & Mudd) and Kevin Pollard (Mudd & Pollard), as well as playing a key role in “super-groups” Paqua and Bison. “Susta”, which marks his first single on Leng since 2009, sees Murphy add some new names to his growing list of collaborators. It was made in cahoots with singer/songwriter David Harks, a regular Satin Jackets collaborator who also appeared on Jack Cutter’s superb “Serpent Strut” cut on Murphy’s Claremont 56 label.

“Susta” is a bubbly, evocative and ear-pleasing chunk of mid-tempo nu-disco pop featuring lead vocals from Jaanika Leino AKA JaneLy – a former X-Factor Finland contestant whose sultry and evocative voice simply soars above Murphy and Harks’ sparkling, life-affirming instrumentation. Rich in twinkling synth solos, rich Clavinet lines, chugging arpeggio lines and eyes-closed piano, “Susta” is a strong song that will squat inside your head and stay there for days. Our advice is to welcome it in – it’s as joyous and life-affirming a track as Leng has ever released. It’s accompanied by a predictably strong remix by British electronic music veteran Andrew Meecham (Bizarre Inc, Chicken Lips etc.), who dons the now familiar Emperor Machine alias to deliver a dub for the ages. Combining his own analogue and modular electronics with snippets of Leino’s vocal and some of the warmest instrumentation from Murphy and Harks’ original mix (think Clavinet and Rhodes for starters), Meecham offers up an epic slice of electronic dub disco that bubbles away for ten mesmerizing minutes. It’s a superb interpretation of a high quality cut.

Two years after ".... and The Casiotone Orchestra", Odessey & Oracle continue their speculative and colorful explorations through an adventurous sonic quest, mixing acoustic sonorities and classical instruments, using a pallet of analog specimens dating back to the 60s and 70s.

Retro-futuristic music with sophisticated arrangements underlines unbridled songwriting with heterogenous influences (Brian Wilson, Caetano Veloso, White Noise, JS Bach, Moondog, Robert Wyatt...).
The lyrics, in French, both surreal and utopian, serve as witness to the contradictions of our times and invite the listener to imagine a revolutionary love.

Two years after ".... and The Casiotone Orchestra", Odessey & Oracle continue their speculative and colorful explorations through an adventurous sonic quest, mixing acoustic sonorities and classical instruments, using a pallet of analog specimens dating back to the 60s and 70s.

Retro-futuristic music with sophisticated arrangements underlines unbridled songwriting with heterogenous influences (Brian Wilson, Caetano Veloso, White Noise, JS Bach, Moondog, Robert Wyatt...).
The lyrics, in French, both surreal and utopian, serve as witness to the contradictions of our times and invite the listener to imagine a revolutionary love.

Cold Beat is a San Francisco-based quartet fronted by Hannah Lew (synths, vocals) with Kyle King (synths, guitar), Luciano Talpini Aita (synths) and Sean Monaghan (guitar). Formed in 2013 the band has released three albums and two EPs. A Simple Reflection is a 7-song collection of Eurythmics covers, yet feels just as personal as any of their original material. While digging through a collection of 12"s for her record shop Contact Records, Lew stumbled across the earliest Eurythmics B-sides and was floored. This lead to the discovery of their debut album In The Garden. Annie Lennox’s abstract and poetic lyrics really struck a chord with Hannah. What had started out as a single cover quickly snowballed into a full blown obsession. The synth and drum programming resonated with her songwriting process, so reimagining them was very creatively fulfilling. The covers on this EP are simultaneously dynamic and atmospheric post-punk that plays to Lew's ethereal vocals and King’s crystalline guitar. All songs have been mixed by Mikey Young (Total Control) and mastered by George Horn at Fantasy Studios. The record is housed in a jacket designed by Eloise Leigh, which features pink and purple clouds that evoke a dreamy softness and DIY playfulness and photos Lew in her best Lennox-inspired drag. Each copy includes a postcard with photos and notes.

Jatinder Singh Durhailay and David Edren released Tea Notes as a cassette back in April of 2018. London-based Jatinder Singh Durhailay is a painter and student of Indian Classical music. He has trained in both the sitar and the Hindi singing technique, Dhrupad. He also plays two traditional Sikh instruments; the bowed, stringed Dilruba and Taus. Poetic Pastel Press issued his solo debut, The Last Ballad Of Mardana, in 2017. David Edren`s expertise lies with machines and modular synthesis. His Kosmische and New Age-Inspired electronics have featured on numerous cassettes, and compilations, produced for imprints from the current Belgian underground, such as Jj Funhouse, Social Harmony, and Ultra Eczema. These recordings appearing, since the turn of the millennium, either under his own name, or the moniker DSR Lines. Jatinder and David’s collaboration, Tea Notes, is a celebration, a meditation, on both the beverage, and the communal time shared imbibing. The coming together to partake in its ritual. Each of the six tracks represents a different infusion. The opening piece is a tribute to semi-oxidised Oolong, from China`s Wuyi Mountains, with hammered dulcimer-like glissando. Gongs shimmering, gently crashing, as if signaling a change in the weather. A calm of thin, stretched synths and Ai angels introduces Tulsi from India. The Holy Basil of Hinduism, used in the worship of Vishnu, Krishna, and Rama. A traditional herb of Ayurveda and Siddha medicine. Automated arpeggiated sequences raising a vibrating wall of hallucinatory sound. Pairing swooning strings with a racing robot heart. Ceylon is a modern twist on the classical raga. Serving to tell the story of a tea smuggled into Sri Lanka in the 19th century. Plants stolen from South West China, where the brew had been enjoyed since the days of the Shang Dynasty (1766 to 1122 BC). The contraband founding fresh industry in its new home when the indigenous coffee crops failed. Muted organ and sleepy, treated sine wave microtones describe Kava, the Polynesian fireweed root, whose extract serves as both sedative and euphoriant.Shincha are the first young leaves of the season. Picked in Southern Japan and steamed to prevent oxidization, retain their flavour and green / gold colour. Their musical counterpart finds Edren establishing an ecclesiastical drone, while Durhailay`s strings chart an ancient romantic ache. Sonic stars shine. Singing out to the infinite, the universe, before dissolving into knots of Radiophonic Workshop noise.Melodies treated with subtle sustain and delay denote Pu-Ehr, from the Yunnan province. The only truly fermented black tea - made distinctive by the action of bacteria, moulds, and yeasts. Its musical themes hovering in the vapour trails, the atmospheres, they themselves create. Spiraling, soaring, reaching for the heavens, while pretty music box glitches - tiny chimes turned in on themselves. Catching, reflecting, like light at play on fresh running water. (words: Robert Harris)

Recorded january to march 2018 in Antwerpen and London. Mixed and edited by David Edren at ll150.
Mastered & cut by Anne Taegert at Dubplates & Mastering Berlin. Artwork by Victor Robyn.