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'Solar Nights' is the long awaited second album from German nu-disco star Tim Bernhardt, aka Satin Jackets. Released on Eskimo Recordings this April, 'Solar Nights' follows on from Bernhardt's critically acclaimed, and Gold certified, debut LP 'Panorama Pacifico' and features 14 tracks of smooth disco and leftfield pop sounds with guest appearances from the likes of Future Classic's Panama, David Harks, Niya Wells, Emma Brammer and Anduze.

The global success of 'Panorama Pacifico' has seen Bernhardt coaxed out from his remote studio in one of Germany's ancient forests to play to fans across the world, from South Korea to Mexico and beyond, experiences that inspired both the album itself and its title, 'Solar Nights'.

"In recent years the world's become smaller, a more inter-connected place. It can be dark and cold here, with snow all around, and the next day I can be playing to people on a beach. Somewhere on the planet it's always daytime or summer, but beyond that day and night just blend into each other these days," Tim explains. "We have daytime discos so you can go and party while the sun is still high in the sky, and you can go and hit the gym at night. Beit day or night, Satin Jackets is your soundtrack."

And what a soundtrack it is, from the first chords of opening 'Welcome Back' it's clear we're in safe hands here, the warm pads, delicate guitars and pianos providing the perfect introduction to the album. Whether it's the slow burning seductive pop of tracks like 'Just Like You', piano led house tracks like 'String It Again', the Balearic haze of 'All For You' or bonafide hits like the Nordic inspired 'Northern Lights' and 'Mirage' that between them have already scored well over 10 million streams across streaming platforms, 'Solar Nights' takes everything we loved from 'Panorama Pacifico' and polishes it to an ultra high sheen.

And in an age when rough and raw production is seen as an easy shorthand for authenticity, Tim's love of über-smooth production has made him an unlikely iconoclast, "I had always been fascinated by how glossy people like Nile Rodgers made their music," he reveals. "It always sounded like the musical equivalent of a fashion magazine's cover. I'd been making more underground music for a while but really wanted to go in totally the other direction and instead create a really smooth, polished sound."

That obsession with sonic fidelity shines through across every track on 'Solar Nights', and the years since his debut was released have been well spent perfecting his craft. "Even in just the last couple of years I've made some big changes in how I produce music. Compared to my debut, everything under the hood has changed here," he explains. "Every day, with every production, I'm learning new things and when I listen to these new tracks, the depth in the mixes, the clarity, I like to think of 'Solar Nights' as Satin Jackets but in 3D."

From wanting to recreate the sound of magazine covers to appearing on them, the past few years has been quite some journey for the still enigmatic producer. The man behind the golden mask may prefer to stay out of sight but 'Solar Nights' reveals him to be fully in control, producing music that reflects the glamour and glitz of 70s Manhattan, artfully updated for the 21st century.

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.

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.

Morningside is the debut album from London five-piece Swimming Tapes, who have garnered comparisons with Real Estate and Belle & Sebastian for their dreamy brand of nostalgic indie. The record arrives following long-term worldwide support across press, radio and streaming services. A headline UK tour in April 2019, as well as sets at tastemaker festivals Live At Leeds and Hit The North come ahead of the greatly anticipated album release.

"Britain wasn’t on its own in having a thoroughly miserable 1973: O Lucky Man! and Badlands both found a great year to premiere, while Watergate brought America to a new low. But America didn’t still have back-to-backs and outside bogs. Tens of thousands of Britons remained housed in wartime pre-fabs and sub-standard dwellings. The bright new colours of the post-war Festival of Britain and Harold Wilson’s talk in the 60s of the “white heat of technology” now seemed very distant as strikes, inflation, and food and oil shortages laid Britain low. What had gone wrong? And what did pop music have to say about it?

With perfect timing this album soundtracks Britain on the brink of chaos. It includes lost masterpieces (Phil Cordell’s ‘Londonderry’), gritty singles by the new names of the early 70s (Mungo Jerry’s ‘Open Up’, David Essex’s ‘Stardust’) and forgotten gems by some of the biggest names of the previous decade, now struggling to make themselves heard (the Kinks’ ‘When Work Is Over’, the Troggs’ ‘I’m On Fire’).

Sometimes the approach was tongue-in-cheek (the Strawbs’ ‘Part Of The Union’), other times it was the sound of sheer frustration (Mike McGear’s ‘Kill’), and occasionally it was angry enough to incur the wrath of special branch (Hawkwind’s banned ‘Urban Guerilla’). Mostly the sound of these records evokes the feeling of nights in with only candles to light the house and TV closing down at 10pm: the empty spaces of Adam Faith’s ‘In Your Life’; the fuzz guitar minimalism of Ricky Wilde’s ‘Hertfordshire Rock’; Climax Chicago’s alternative lifestyle-musing ‘Mole On The Dole’.

Compiled by Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs, “Three Day Week” follows on from their highly acclaimed “English Weather”, “Paris In The Spring” and “State Of The Union” compilations. It amplifies the noise of a country which was still unable to forget the war, even as it watched the progressive post-war consensus disintegrating. We hear shrugs and cynicism, laughter through gritted teeth, melancholy, and a real anger that would rise to the surface with punk a few years later.

This 180g clear vinyl LP with deluxe gatefold sleeve features two extra tracks."

A Day at United. The name practically says it all. An album recorded in a single day. No rehearsals. No second takes. Just Mocky and friends. Some instruments. Some songs Mocky sketched in the week leading up. Oh yeah, and a recording studio. United Recording, in fact.

Compilation of so far digital only/unreleased or japan only tracks by the canadian producer Mocky, who most recently co-produced/co-wrote Feist's „Pleasure“; Joey Dosik's „Inside Voice“ and Kelela's „Take Me Apart“. Featuring guests Jamie Lidell, Chilly Gonzales, Joey Dosik, Pegasus Warning, Moses Sumney.

For the first time on vinyl at album length this is Mocky’s collection of the best of Japan-only/unreleased gems and favorites from his so far digital only mixtape-series "The Moxtapes" Vol. I-IV. The A-Side delves deep into his songwriting/lyrical side and features some of his most intense and touching songs thus far like "The Fortress" (featuring Chilly Gonzales on piano), "Problematic" (which casts Mocky's crooning in a glitched-out new light) and "Exception To The Rule", a radiant track that features breakout artists Joey Dosik on keyboards and Moses Sumney on background vocals. The B-Side showcases Mocky's off the grid soulful groove compositions like "You Can't Rush The Funk", „How It Goes“ or "Keep Feelin This (feat. Jamie Lidell), bringing back memories of their classic work together on Lidell’s “Multiply”.

After his early material revealed an ambitious new sound borne on the forward-thinking experimentalism of influences like Nick Drake, David Byrne and Arthur Russell, Westerman’s single ‘Confirmation’ - available here on 7” - brought his music to new legions of fans, with Pitchfork profiling him in their Rising and Best New Music columns, saying it “captures a promising writer who’s learned how to take good ideas and warp them into stranger, more sublime shapes.” Gorilla Vs Bear placed it at Number 10 in their recent Best Tracks Of The Year (So Far) feature.

The follow-up to 2014’s Singles. The Far Field has string and horn arrangements by Patrick McMinn and is the first Future Islands record to feature live drums from member Michael Lowry. Blondie’s Debbie Harry makes a guest appearance on “Shadows.”

The band began writing the album last January, and later in the year, performed the songs at a series of secret shows under fake names. They recorded the album with producer John Congleton (Sleater-Kinney, David Byrne, St. Vincent, Cloud Nothings) in Los Angeles at Sunset Sound (where artists like the Beach Boys and Prince have recorded).

Goldfrapp follow up 2013’s Top 5 album ‘Tales of Us’ with the deep, dark and electronic musical palette of ‘Silver Eye’, their brand new studio album, made, for the first time, with an eclectic collection of collaborators. John Congleton, Grammy-winning producer of St. Vincent, John Grant and Wild Beasts, electronic composer Bobby Krlic, aka The Haxan Cloak and mix engineer David Wrench (The XX, Caribou, fka Twigs) have helped create an album of stomping underground electronica, sensual ethereal melodies and metal machine pop, that is undeniably Goldfrapp. A passionate and increasingly in-demand photographer, Alison art directed and shot all the images for the album cover and the publicity campaign.

Vinyl with a couple of light scuffs

Records have light scuffs and hairlines, which do not affect play.

“Unapologetic” is the seventh studio album by Barbadian singer Rihanna. It was released on November 2012, by Def Jam Recordings and SRP Records. It was recorded between June and November 2012, during promotion of her sixth album, “Talk That Talk” (2011). As executive producer, Rihanna enlisted previous collaborators The-Dream, David Guetta, Chase & Status, and StarGate to work alongside new collaborators such as Parker Ighile, Mike Will Made-It, and Labrinth. Unapologetic is mainly a pop, dubstep and R&B album that incorporates elements of hip hop, EDM and reggae in its production, similar to the sound of her previous albums “Talk That Talk” and “Rated R” (2009).

The album won a Grammy Award for Best Urban Contemporary Album at the 2014 ceremony. It debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, becoming Rihanna's first number one album on the chart and best-selling debut week of her career. The album also became the singer's third, fourth, and fifth consecutive number one album in the United Kingdom, Norway, and Switzerland, respectively. As of December 2014, “Unapologetic” has sold over four million copies worldwide.