Search "the+soul+session+one" 25875 Items

CD | 2022 | EU | Original (Angelica)

Release: 2022 / EU – Original

Genre: Organic Grooves

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This summer sees the return of the unique cross-continental collaboration between Ghanain xylophonist Isaac Birituro and his band of live international musicians, The Rail Abandon. Having created something of a buzz back in 2019 with their debut albumKalba- gaining support along the way fromGilles Peterson,Cerys MatthewsandTom Ravenscroftto name but a few - and after something of a hiatus, the duo teased us earlier this spring with theLapaz EPin preparation for their new LP,Small Small.

Small Smallis a very Ghanaian saying, a direct translation to English, which is used in a wide variety of contexts to mean 'bit by bit,' 'one step at a time' or 'slow and steady'. Vocalist and musician Sonny Johns, from The Rail Abandon, was first introduced to the phrase on his initial trip to Ghana in 2016, when he met Isaac in Kalba, and the phrase has popped up over and over ever since.

"Any second album is a difficult process –how do you make something that follows on from the first but is different enough? It's particularly difficult when your first album was made under the unique conditions of having never played together, in unusual surroundings. It is also difficult when you live on different continents from each other. To add to those difficulties, we had to make a record in the middle of a pandemic. Fortunately, just before the world was locked down, we'd written and recorded the basis of the album over 3 days while on tour in Germany, October 2019. Then Isaac and the Rail Abandon went about adding their own musicians to the recordings in Ghana and the UK respectively, bringing everyone together via the internet instead of physically. Everyone involved had been hit dramatically during this period, some physically, some financially, all emotionally.

The rise of the BLM movement during this period also made a big impact on a project designed to unite people, bring equality and encourage mutual respect. The death of Tony Allen also hit us hard early in this period too -Tony (also of maternal Ghanaian heritage) was a person who united West African and European musics and cultures seamlessly and was instrumental in bringing together (indirectly) the music of Isaac Birituro & The Rail Abandon. So, we finished this albumSmall Smallover the intense year of 2020 influenced by the difficulties that we, and the world, have been through. The album is about loss, frustration and struggle, but it's also about the light at the end of the tunnel; about overcoming difficulties to find a brighter future and no matter what separates us, whether that be language, culture, continents or borders, when we listen to each other and learn from each other, there's really not much that can keep us apart. So from everyone involved, here's to a brighter future." Sonny Johns from The Rail Abandon.

The Rail Abandon is a play on the name Rail band - the short title ofThe Super Rail Band of the Buffet Hotel de la Gare, Bamako -a band from Bamako, Mali including such greats as Salif Keita and the more importantly the guitarist Dejimady Tounkara. Inspired by his playing the group were given the moniker The Rail Abandon as a way to release music without a face, specific name or singer. The line up is different depending on the music. Due to a joint love of African musics from across the continent, the core at the moment is Sonny Johns on vocals and guitar, Raph Clarkson on trombone and keyboards, and Israeli musician Yuval Wetlzer on drums and percussion, but it can incorporate any, all, none or more than these people.

As well as the core group, the album also features a number of special guests, including Ghanaian powerhouse vocalist Wiyaala; UK based Afrobeat Ambassador Dele Sosimi; the incredible Queen Ayesha and South African singer Nosihe.

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Terry Riley

Organum For Stefano

18,89 €* 20,99 € -10%

LP | 2022 | EU | Original (Underdog)

Release: 2022 / EU – Original

Genre: Organic Grooves

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"I was invited to an art gallery in Los Angeles to hear a solo String Bass recital by Stefano. I arrived late and the concert was in progress, I was walking down a series of concrete halls to reach the galley chamber where the music was taking place. In the distance I could hear the sounds of french horns, trombones, strings and brass all mixing in a beautiful modal ensemble, and at the time I thought that Stefano must be playing his bass with a chamber group. I was amazed when I entered the gallery to find Stefano all alone playing his bass ... " - Terry Riley, 1997 Organum for Stefano, the third record that I Dischi di Angelica dedicates to the work of Terry Riley, represents a significant example of “coming full circle”: indeed, in 1997 AngelicA Festival organized a concert in Bologna for Terry Riley and Stefano Scodanibbio – it was their first tour together, and the beginning of a collaboration that would last for years, promoting their first album Lazy Afternoon Among the Crocodiles (aiai 008), recorded in the Shri Moonshine studio in Riley’s home between 1994 and 1995. After his magnificent piano solo at the 2000 edition, AngelicA invited Riley back in 2013 to dedicate a special tribute-portrait to him, presenting his music in a series of concerts held in three different cities (Bologna, Modena, and Lugo), with different line-ups: The 3 Generations Trio (with Tracy Silverman and Gyan Riley, documented on the record IDA 034); the Arte saxophone quartet from Switzerland; and indeed a concert, commissioned as a world premiere, dedicated to Stefano Scodanibbio who had passed away the year before, in January 2012. The venue selected for the concert was the Basilica of Santa Maria dei Servi, hence Riley decided to use its historic Tamburini opus 544 pipe organ for the concert paying homage to the memory of Stefano. The organ was built in 1968 based on a design by Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini, with a total of approximately 5000 pipes divided into 60 registers – incidentally, this is the same instrument used four years later in 2017 by Francesco Filidei in his duet with Roscoe Mitchell, documented on the record Splatter (ida 040), and in 2019 by Hermann Nitsch on the record Orgelkonzert (ida 045). As Riley himself explains in the liner notes: “I arrived in Bologna with no idea of what I would play, only thinking that I would make this concert a reflection on our deep association, friendship, and music adventures together. I was given a few days prior to the concert to rehearse and compose ideas on the ancient organ. These were magical times for me to also imbibe the resonances of the history of the Basilica and its organ as I composed. Stefano and I had a long history of touring and playing concerts together and one of the features of our concerts was always an arrangement of a vocal raga for bass, voice and tamboura. Stefano, although not trained in Indian Classical music, had an uncanny ear for the right choices in pitch and rhythm to accompany my traditional vocal renditions. Two of Stefano’s favourite ragas were Malkauns and Bageshri, late night ragas with deep feelings ideally suited to the profound sounds emanating from his string bass. The concert was completely improvised, introducing the melodies of ragas Malkauns and Bageshri, both vocally and in the harmonized organ passages of an intuitively structured form. The last section is an improvisation upon the passages of my composition Simply M..., a piece I frequently played for Stefano”. The result was a very precious concert – the only official recording of Riley on the pipe organ – which ranges from minimalism to Indian music, grandiose Bachian architectural constructions, even progressive echoes – in a kaleidoscopic flow of ideas which, both spontaneously and with a great clarity of intention, travels through topical moments and reminiscences of the respective musical identities and experiences shared by the two musicians. Organum for Stefano is release n. 50 by the label i dischi di angelica, which celebrates its 30 years of activity in 2022

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Dowdelin

Lanmou Lanmou

LP | 2021 | EU | Original (Iikk)

Release: 2022 / EU – Original

Genre: Organic Grooves

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UK only
UK promo by Ballantyne Communications; tour by Earth Agency.
No spot in music is immovable. No music can sit still but it's hardly ever as true as it is for Dowdelin, a band that can't be tied down to a single geography and genealogy. The creole language, Caribbean rhythms, urban energies, dazzling virtuosity, sensual electro: The group evolves in a unique place where genres and colors, heritage and audacity can merge.

Lanmou lanmou, Dowdelin's second album, muddies the waters, blurs the lines, bewilders. It does everything to assuage naysayers such as the conservatives and the lazies, the defenders of an official form of reggae, the right kind of zouk, the trademarked version of jazz or the historically validated biguine. As with the languages, culture and nations of the Caribbean which are never quite European nor completely African, it would be daunting to try and define where exactly Dowdelin is located on the official landscape of music in a Creole afro-futurism, at the crossroads of the black Atlantic...
The Dowdelin experiment finds its roots in a blend of encounters and loyalties: David Kiledjian AKA Dawatile, producer and multi-instrumentalist composer met Lyon-born singer from Martinique, Olivya. Together, they would jam and write songs in English. But, nothing felt right, until she started singing in Creole. Then everything made sense : the language of the French Antilles in the West Indies deployed its revolutionary universality.

David then got back in touch with Raphaël Philibert, a percussionist, saxophonist and singer who has always been involved in developing the field of gwo ka, the heavily percussion-based traditional music of Guadeloupe, of which his relative, Georges Troupé, is a pioneering defender. All this gave birth to Dowdelin and the obvious is striking.
We're reminded that when the poet and theoretician Édouard Glissant speaks of Creoleness as a whirlwind of unpredictability, he speaks of an adventure that couldn't be foretold in the world's istory : From Europeans and Africans forced into a third continent with an insane dream to build a New World, languages, cultures, music in other words mixed heritages, catharsis, diziness, resiliance were born through the mass crimes of slavery and the dispoilment of Native American populations.

Dowdelin released their debut album, Carnival Odyssey, in 2018.Connoisseurs took an appetite for that music with constantly shifting boundaries and countless relatives. This is confirmation that purity activists will always have problems with mixed identities saying things such as "This isn't jazzy enough for my festival", "It's too much for mine" ... But many concerts were performed mostly in Great Britain and France and quite a buzz among those who love unbound music.
The band then expands with the arrival of Greg Boudras, a drummer who has worked with David on other projects such as Vaudou Game, Fowatile, The Bongo Hop to name a few, in order to bring reinforcement to Dowdelin and he70 craft this second album.
What's the blueprint for it ? "We're not trying to pile up experiences or willfully make a collection of experiences," David sums up. It's more about feelings, about combinations that occur subconsciously. So sometimes we come up with things that surprise even us, like a fragment of an English synth pop hit, that only we recognize. The same recipe's never used twice: it can be a song I made at home with my instruments and my daughter's toys or sound designs to which Raphaël and Greg add rhythmic elements that change everything, or even more collective compositions… "

Then the verses emerge, written in Creole, English or French by David and Raphaël, who also happens to be a trained linguist and knowledgeable in the miscellaneous varieties of Creole. Messages of love and struggle, of brotherhood and memory ... And, from one track to the other, the generous burst of creolization is still at work, biguine blending with hip hop, contemporary jazz mixing with reggae, Creole expressing itself through the vast array of musics to which it is related...

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Gareth Davis

In Vivo

Leaving None But Small Birds Black Vinyl Edition

Release: 2021 / EU – Original

Genre: Electronic & Dance

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"In Vivo" is the result of the photographic work of Klavdij Sluban at the Fleury-Mérogis Young Offender Institution (France) from 1995 to 2016 [Beds] in addition to his work from Izalco prison, located in El Salvador, from 2008 [visiting rooms] connected to the music of Gareth Davis.

Gareth Davis is an artist, composer and musician living in Amsterdam. He plays clarinet(s), the result of a somewhat impulsive purchase whilst window shopping in Covent Garden, London, around ten years before the turn of the century. The serendipitous location of a rather wonderful (and equally important, rather cheap) second hand record shop less than 10m from the bus stop required for seven years of schooling, combined with delivering newspapers on a daily basis, lead to a somewhat eclectic, dusty and generally unclassified taste in music.

The result. Activity covering sonic art and contemporary classical music through rock, improvisation and noise with collaborations that have included the premiering of new written pieces by composers such as Bernhard Lang, Peter Ablinger, Toshio Hosokawa and Jonathan Harvey, soloist with orchestras including the SWR Symphonieorchester, Warsaw Philharmonic and Orquesta de la Comunidad de Madrid, performances with groups and performers ranging from the Neue Vocalsolisten and Arditti Quartet through to improvisers Elliott Sharp and Frances Marie Uitti, electronic artists Robin Rimbaud and Merzbow and multimedia work with artists including Christian Marclay and Peter Greenaway.

"In Vivo" is his second solo release after to have recorded a bunch of collaborative albums with artists such as Scanner, Machinefabriek, Steven R. Smith, Kleefstra Brothers, Frances-Marie Uitti, Merzbow, Adain Baker, Duane Pitre and more...

Klavdij Sluban, winner of the European Publishers Award for Photography 2009, of the Leica Prize (2004) and of the Niépce Prize (2000), main French prize in photography, is a French photographer of Slovenian origin born in Paris in 1963.

He develops a rigorous and coherent body of work, nourished by literature, never inspired by immediate and sensational current affairs, making him one of the most interesting photographers of his generation. The Balkans, the Black Sea, the Baltic Sea, the Caribbean, Central America, Russia, China and the Antarctic (first artistic mission in the Kerguelen islands) can be read as many successive steps of an in-depth study of a patient proximity to the encountered real.

His images have been shown in such leading institutions as the Metropolitan Museum of Photography of Tokyo, the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, the Rencontres d’Arles, the Museum of Photography in Helsinki, the Fine Arts Museum in Canton, the Musée Beaubourg, the Museum of Texas Tech University. His many books include East to East (published simultaneously by Actes Sud, Dewi Lewis, Petliti, Braus, Apeiron & Lunwerg with a text by Erri de Luca), Entre Parenthèses, (Photo Poche, Actes Sud), Transverses, (Maison Européenne de la Photographie) and Balkans -Transit, with a text by François Maspero (Seuil). Since 1995, Sluban has been photographing teenagers in jails. In each prison he organizes workshops with the young offenders to share his passion. First originated in France, in the prison of Fleury-Mérogis with support of Henri Cartier-Bresson during 7 years, as well as Marc Riboud and William Klein punctually. This commitment was pursued in the disciplinary camps of Eastern Europe –Serbia, Slovenia, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldavia, Latvia – and in the disciplinary centres of Moscow and St Petersburg as well as in Ireland. From 2007 to 2012, Sluban has been working in Central America with imprisoned youngsters belonging to maras (gangs) in Guatemala and Salvador. In 2015, he started photographing imprisoned teenagers in Brazil. In 2013, the musée Niépce showed a retrospective of K.Sluban’s work, After Darkness, 1995-2012. In 2015/16, he was awarded the Villa Kujoyama Residence in Kyoto, Japan. K.Sluban is member of national and international jurys, such as prix Niépce, prix de la Jeune Photographie de Niort, prix Leica, All About Photo…

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The Body & Big|Brave

LP | 2021 | US | Original (Thrill Jockey)

LP | 2021 | US | Original (Trouble In Mind)

Release: 2021 / US – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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The Body and Big|brave are bands possessed of an unequaled ability to convey overwhelming weight with simplicity, repetition, and detailed sonic atmospheres; artists who continue to alter the definition of what it means to be a heavy band. The Body are consistently prolific while increasingly ambitious as untethered producers and collaborators. Big|brave shape sound with dense waves of guitar and feedback, minimalist and hypnotic crashes, and emotionally exacting vocal melodies. In collaboration, The Body and Big|brave shift the gravity of their compositions to woven layers of percussion and unspooling guitars that sprawl through stark frameworks of earthy folk. Their debut collaborative album Leaving None But Small Birds distills the two ensembles’ pioneering approach to heavy music into psalms for the forgotten, threnodies of lost love, and odes to vengeance.

Typical to The Body’s creative process, Leaving None But Small Birds was composed almost entirely in the studio at Machine With Magnets with engineer/producer Seth Manchester. The Body and Big|brave aimed to challenge themselves to craft a fully realized and cohesive work that strayed outside the boundaries of the music they make individually. The Body’s Lee Buford set up the initial challenge: collaborating to make an album that evoked the country and folk roots of The Band. Big|brave’s Robin Wattie compiled lyrics and melodic lines from across Appalachian, Canadian, and English hymns and folk songs. Select phrases were then reworked and precisely arranged to center the experiences of marginalized characters, victims of hardship, and those yearning for love within each story. The despair and empowerment of these traditional tunes draw remarkable parallels with each group’s focus on championing people often cast aside in history. Leaving None But Small Birds takes its name from the “Polly Gosford” lyric “He covered her grave / and hastened home / Leaving none but small birds / her fate to bemoan,” an image in traditional songs evoking the alienation and isolation of the persecuted. The Body and Big|brave, following a folk tradition, make each song their own through shifts in perspective and a synthesis of passages from kindred tales.

Leaving None But Small Birds transfigures The Body and Big|brave’s heft into a daring diversity of sounds unbridled and austere. The loping opener “Blackest Crow” implements gusts of violin and harmony against the bedrock of a droning riff and shruti box that subtly shifts timbre. “Hard Times” threads stories of indentured and child factory laborers through cascading trellises of rubato guitar as Wattie’s petitions are swallowed by the swell. The Body and Big|brave’s maximalist rumble looms at the fringes of each song as guitarist Chip King’s (The Body) staggering drones seep into their fabric with resolute percussion from Buford and Big|brave drummer Tasy Hudson punctuating with their steady current. Wattie and fellow Big|brave guitarist Mathieu Ball twirl repeating phrases around one another into restrained meditations that bend and shift incrementally. Hudson joins Wattie in harmonized duets and hockets across the album, enhancing the loneliness of “Once I Had A Sweetheart” and laying bare the raw brilliance of “Black is the Colour.” “Polly Gosford” froths with persistently rising walls of violin, guitar, piano and trudging toms that only capitulate after Wattie spins the tragic song of femicide into ghostly revenge with “She broke him, she tore him / she ripped him in three / because he murdered / her baby and she.”

Big|brave’s roots as a minimalist folk band and The Body’s love of old-time, country blues, and folk music enable the quintet to strike a formidable balance between sorrowful lamentation and uplifting resolve to weighty effect. Leaving None But Small Birds thatches together two monumental innovative forces that render the emotionally profound with lucid, devastating vitality.

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Nightshift

Zoe Black Vinyl Edition

El Mágico Mundo De Daniel Grau

Release: 2021 / US – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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The band that became Nightshift formed in 2019 in the ecosystem of Glasgow's current indie scene. The city's fertile & creative group of musicians have been committed to pushing the boundaries of and blurring the lines between DIY, punk, experimentalism and indie pop for decades now; a home to bands like Shopping, Vital Idles, Current Affairs, Still House Plants, and Happy Meals as well as forebears like Orange Juice, Teenage Fanclub and Yummy Fur. Nightshift slot right in with all mentioned, featuring members from current indie stalwarts Spinning Coin, 2 Ply and Robert Sotelo. Initially formed by guitarist David Campbell and bassist Andrew Doig as a "No Wave/No New York/ early Sonic Youth/This Heat-esque" group, the addition of Eothen Stern (keyboards/vocals) and Chris White (drums) instantaneously transformed their approach (guitarist/vocalist/clarinetist Georgia Harris joined as the band was writing "Zöe"). The band self-released a full-length tape on Cusp Recordings in early 2020, laying the foundation of their sound; hypnotic, melodic, understated indie post-punk with hooks that stick around long after you've heard them. "Zöe" is the band's newest effort, and first for Trouble In Mind. Unlike the band's previous album, the songs on "Zöe" weren't conceived live in the band's practice space, but rather pieced together and recorded remotely during quarantine lockdown, with each member composing or improvising their parts in homes/home studios, layering ideas over loops someone made and passing it on. The isolation actually allowed for an openness and creativity to flow and many of the songs took on radically different forms from when they were originally envisioned. Vocalist & primary lyricist Eothen Stern says "The process of writing these songs separately during lockdown was a kind of exquisite corpse - I liked this gesticulation of reaching out to one another and responding. Building up the next layer and passing it on." Stern says "poetic restraints" to writing & Eno's Oblique Strategies concepts were on their mind when composing the words to the songs on "Zöe" and lists the influence of author Rosi Bradiotti's book "The Posthuman". "Zöe" means "live drive", derived from the word conatus. Bradiotti defines conatus as "an effort or striving, endeavour, impulse, inclination, tendency, undertaking, serving is an innate inclination of a thing to continue to exist and enhance itself." and Stern views it as "...a kind of feminist re-claiming of communal public, anti- privatisation, looking to strive for social and environmental justice. Zöe kind of became a character of striving for me when writing.". "Zöe" kicks off with "Piece Together", a hypnotic song anchored by the band's chanted vocals and serpentine guitar licks. "Spraypaint the Bridge" showcases Harris' clarinet in an unexpected & delightful melodic shift during the song's anti-chorus. Elsewhere tunes like the swooning "Infinity Winner" and "Outta Space"s minimalist, slinky rhythm swirl in a late-night vibe, while "Make Kin" ruminates on "Looking to kinship as a way of engaging with entangled environmental and reproductive issues... how a band is a bond" and lurches forward with kinetic guitar strangling and staccato rhythmic percussion from White and Doig. "Power Cut" is the album's centerpiece, kicking off side two and lures the listener into its world over it's 7-minute runtime. Lulling them into involuntary movement with its waves of melodic harmonies, synth drones and metronomic pulse, until they all come crashing down in the song's dissonant midsection. The band acknowledges the whiffs of nostalgia prevalent in "Zöe"s songs (the title track in particular), and the nature of writing and recording the album is soaked in the self-work, reflection and reevaluations involved not only personally but creatively in each member's lives. Consequently, the album becomes a collection of sketches of hope, growth, awareness of the power of the world and the power of self, kith, kinship, friendship, resistance, and possibility.

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Daniel Grau

LP | 2019 | EU | Original (El Palmas)

Spark Vinyl Me, Please Edition

Release: 2019 / EU – Original

Genre: Electronic & Dance

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A brand new album by Daniel Grau! When Daniel Grau, Venezuelan producer and musician, achieved his first success in 1974 with “Dejando volar el pensamiento” he personally brought the tapes from his home studio to Caracas radio stations. On his own, with all his singles, great legendary songs like “El tren del espacio” (1978), “Atlantis” (1979) and “El León Bailarín” (1980), to name a few, described by many as the “magic sound of Daniel Grau” were made almost artisanal and self-promoted. Through 10 years of productive work from 1974 to 1984, he never imagined the ups and downs ahead of him and much less that his country would suffer a future debacle that would lead it to a downward spiral. His abrupt silence in the mid-80s after 9 magnificent albums is still an enigma. What happened to Daniel Grau? Where is he now? El Palmas Music, a new record label in Barcelona may finally bring the answer to you: Grau has been always there, he’s still alive and running, and never stopped composing in the same home studio where he started 45 years ago.

Having contacted Grau, El Palmas was allowed to access his current work, and finally decided to end with his long silence. In this, his first release as a record label, they bring to life a completely unpublished work of Daniel Grau. “El Mágico Mundo de Daniel Grau” (2019) presents 8 new songs to give him back a voice. This album offers a fusion between Space Disco and Smooth Jazz that connects us directly with his previous work, however, on this basis Grau is building an amalgam of styles resulting from his experience over these years, freeing his work from any classifications. El Mágico Mundo evades the vacuous exactitude and automatism like water to oil, Grau offers a humanized sound from synthesizers and sampling of instruments, music that he has played, sweated and, definitively, lived in the flesh. Different ingredients come and go introducing us to a singular world, the “magical world” where Grau wants to tell us something, we find his old footsteps and his new elements touch us, pop synths are suddenly colored with textures, reminiscent of the disco era piano are wrapped between brushstrokes and ornaments of funk and soft rock. In general, Grau invites us to a sensory reconnection with sounds that he has collected in his head for 30 years, striking elements that we can imagine as a living thing against a world almost numbed by the automation of production tools. The album is released in vinyl LP and has been produced, recorded, mixed and mastered by Daniel Grau under the executive production of Maurice Aymard.
Two singles are extracted from the album whose sounds summarize this proposal immediately. ‘Freedom’, the first cut, is a sensorial journey in smooth jazz where a delicate progression of chords serves as the basis for the succession of different phrases of synthesizers, an almost libertine hedonism from start to finish that features a video made by Grilled Cheese Studio. The second one ‘Dance with me’, opens the doors to a world of disco music, but in the Grau way, oneiric, synthesized, spacey, located in a crack between decades, 80’s and 90’s, synth imaginings of funky brass, pianos and strings apparently made for dance floors that dialogue with reverberant guitars and sampler textures.
El Palmas Music in this inaugural release wants to return Daniel Grau to music, allowing him to continue offering us new sensory experiences, as long as time permits. Although it is his first record after years of silence, Grau shows us that he has never been exactly still, nothing is further from reality, he is active and his challenging personality is intact.

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Whitney

LP | 2022 | US | Original (Vinyl Me, Please)

33,99 €*

Release: 2022 / US – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Why you'll love it...
Julien Ehrlich and Max Kakacek could hear the staggering differences in the songs they were writing for their third album as Whitney, SPARK—the buoyant drum loops, the effortless falsetto hooks, the coruscant keyboard lines. They suddenly sounded like a band reimagined, their once-ramshackle folk-pop now brimming with unprecedented gusto and sheen. But could they see it, too?

So in the ad hoc studio the Chicago duo built in the living room of their rented Portland bungalow, a shared 2020 escape hatch amid breakups and lockdowns, Julien and Max decided to find out. Somewhere between midnight and dawn every night, their brains refracted by the late hour and light psychedelics, they’d play their latest creations while a hardware store disco ball spun overhead and slowed-down music videos from megastars spooled silently on YouTube. Did their own pop songs—so much more immediate and modern than their hazy origins—fit such big-budget reels? “We’d come to the conclusion we weren’t going to be filming Super 8 videos to this stuff anymore,” Julien remembers with a grin. “How about something more hi-fi, cinematic?” When the footage and the tunes linked, Julien and Max knew they had done it, that they’d finally found Whitney’s sound.

SPARK reintroduces Whitney as a contemporary syndicate of classic pop, its dozen imaginative and endearing tracks wrapping fetching melodies around paisley-print Dilla beats and luxuriant electronics. What’s more, Whitney reduces three years of extreme emotional highs and lows into 38 brisk but deep minutes, each of these 12 tracks a singable lesson in what it is they (and, really, we) have all survived. The recalcitrant ennui of opener “NOTHING REMAINS,” the devastating loss of “TERMINAL,” the sun-streaked renewal of “REAL LOVE”: However surprising it may sound, SPARK is less a radical reinvention for Whitney than an honest accounting of how it feels when you move out of your past and into your present, when you take the next steps of your lives and careers at once and without apology. SPARK maintains the warmth and ease of Whitney’s early work; these songs glow with the newness of now.

Listen closely, and you’ll notice frequent references to smoke and fire throughout SPARK, itself a double entendre for inspiring something new or burning down the old. Max and Julien were indeed in Portland for the Fall of 2020, when smoke from nearby fires choked the city at record levels. It was terrifying and tragic, but they pressed on. “We found a way to live while the world was burning/Real life was caving in,” Julien sings almost merrily during “BACK THEN,” an anthem for finding out what’s on the other side of hardship.

In these dire days, scientists speak increasingly of serotiny, an evolutionary miracle that causes some trees to release seeds only amid a season of fire. That is how SPARK often feels—Whitney’s circumstances were so fraught on so many levels that they hung “the past…out to dry” and began again, finding a fresh version of themselves, their relationship, and their band after the blaze. Max and Julien are back in Chicago now, sharing a cozy walkup with a little studio, where they’re already building songs for the next Whitney album. They’re both in happy romances, too. Now that they let the past burn, everything is new for Max and Julien. SPARK is not only Whitney’s best album; it is an inspiring testament to perseverance and renewal, to best friends trusting each another enough to carry one another to the other side of this season of woe.

Limited to 1,000 copies, the VMP exclusive edition of Whitney's SPARK is available on Cloudy Clear & Purple Cornetto vinyl. The record is pressed at GZ Vinyl and will arrive in a single direct-to-board, foil stamped and hand-numbered jacket.

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12" | 2024 | UK | Original (29 Speedway)

29 Speedway: Ultrabody

12" | 2024 | EU | Original (Holuzam)

Release: 2024 / UK – Original

Genre: Electronic & Dance

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29 Speedway is a record label and performance series based in Brooklyn, NY featuring forward-thinking improvisational music and live multimedia. Founded in 2020 by Ben Shirken a.k.a. Ex Wiish (‘Shards Of Axel’, Incienso 2023), 29S serves as a platform for artists exploring the fringes of interdisciplinary art and music. Hosting D.I.Y-guerrilla style sound and performance art concerts at Pioneer Works (nyc), Public Records, and in Europe in partnership with Index Records, they have worked with artists such as James Hoff, J. Albert, Yolabmi, Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, AceMo, Flora Yin Wong, Nexcyia, Young Boy Dancing Group, Umfang, Color Plus, Poncili Creación, Special Guest DJ, Arushi Jain, Drumloop, Isabella Koen, Ben Bondy, Kamran Sadeghi, Yawning Portal, James K., Syndey Spann, Debit, Pent and many others.

Resident Advisor called their most recent compilation record ‘Channel Plus’ “one of the most stunning documents of the ‘modern ambient-techno movement pioneered by labels such as Motion Ward and West Mineral’, with a focus on New York as well as a global outreach that encompasses chilled-out trap, electro, downtempo and even early '00s electroacoustic music”. Their debut solo artist release from J. Albert and Will August Park, entitled “Flat Earth” (2023), was based on free improvisation and ambient jazz, receiving praise from Philip Sherburne, Shawn Reynaldo, and was included in RYMs top EPs of the year. 29S has been written about on ID, Bandcamp Daily: Best Ambient, Boomkat, Paper Mag, Artnet, Dazed, Clot Mag, Nina Protocol, and Document Journal.

The newest release from 29 Speedway, UltraBody, is a compilation record featuring the music of Jake Muir, Pent & Dylan Kerr, Nexcyia & Mu Tate, James K, Flora Yin-Wong, Ex Wiish & Dorothy Carlos, Kamran Sadeghi, Tati au Miel, James Hoff, Eric Frye, Muein and Maxwell Sterling. The record is emblematic of the artists who have performed at 29 Speedway shows in New York and Europe during the past two years, and is the third in a series released by the label.

The record was born out of a desire to investiage how the self, spirituality, and language are intertwined with the intervention of subjectivity by new technologies. With increasingly sophisticated tech, and the supposed ability to remake the world and ourselves, what differentiates our individual discretion from the will imposed upon us by software? Quoting Walter Chaw from his piece on David Cronenberg’s Videodrome, “Decades of rampant, unregulated and ill-considered technological leaps have begun to evolve, to mutate, humans at a biological level”. This haphazard acceleration towards a techno-utopic transformation of humanity has faulted, and as William Gibson put it, is leading us to live in a “half assed singularity”. In this reality, artistic processes are influenced by excessive access to computational tools and assistance, but not utterly controlled.

This in-between state of dominion is explored in 29 Speedway: UltraBody. “Incoherences” samples the utterances of Dylan Kerr’s voice processed between Pent’s percolated glazes, muddying the gulf between vaporous ambient and reflexive sound design. The voice on James Hoff’s “A... ...Cha.... A... I feel l” was created by trying to get voice cloning technology to sing a gps data stream, the music an extrapolation from an earworm he got stuck in his head while shopping in Kyoto. On “Plogue Chain”, Eric Frye’s most speculative sci-fi observations spiral into a glazed pool of digital cacophony, while Kamran Sadeghi’s “Formula Fiction” is an experiment in (un)controlled generativity. Incorporating minimal pings from a 3D simulation scene based on gravitational interaction, cello bits evolve on “Assimilation”, a collaboration between Ex Wiish & Dorothy Carlos.

On UltraBody, sound has no separate existence from space.

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Polido

Hearing Smoke

In Anderem Licht HHV Exclusive Pink Vinyl Edition

Release: 2024 / EU – Original

Genre: Organic Grooves, Electronic & Dance

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Tip!

Polido has been fantasizing with the idea of free music throughout his artistic career. Free from restraints, logos, musical genres, but also from this modern obsession with narratives, plans, business plans, algorithms and bubble wrapped ideas for comfort of those of you that can’t breathe without everything making sense.
“Hearing Smoke” has nothing of that. It has been four years since Holuzam released the double album “A Casa e os Cães / Sabor a Terra” and for four years I have been daydreaming about what would come next. This is it, eleven new pieces about the future of the future of music. It is the result of years of study, research and sound consolidation. Sound as matter, mutating, transforming, absorbing all around, a shapeshifting entity connecting with the principles of freedom.

"Polido has been researching Portuguese contemporary composition, its very own sounds and ideas. Its origins, the web of repression, tension and censorship before the April 25th revolution in 1974; secondly, as an afterthought, freedom, equality and a unique sense of community and belonging screaming through the music. He absorbed those states of mind and made an album that listens to the current world and presents globalization as a mental trap.
If the music that inspired him somehow comes from a post-colonial world, “Hearing Smoke” questions how we can create something new in this permanent state of cultural colonization, where new trends or forms of music only thrive if they are accepted by the dominant cultures. The physical world has been transformed, but ideas like “world music” or “ghetto music” still show that dominance, the Strange can only be accepted if it incorporates the rules and codes of that dominant force. What I am saying is that it is hard for Portuguese musicians to present themselves as original. They will never have that credit unless the music relates to something that exists in another

realm. Never for their benefit, but for the power of association. I may sound arrogant here, but Polido is unique, original, one of a kind (all those words, all those redundant synonyms). I knew it four years ago when I got lost in the way “A Casa e os Cães” is assembled and how he makes something memorable out of the most commonplace conversations. “Hearing Smoke” continues the flow and puts us in the centre of these ever evolving masses of sound.
Somehow his music finds you, it starts speaking with you until it asks you to be a part of it. Polido’s beats and harmonics are combined in such a tender way that you mellow out while listening to these beats - thinking of the brilliant “Saque”. Even when he exposes you to something more harsh - “Canto D’Amorte” or the closing moments of the last track “Custa A Crer” - there’s still a cradle effect.
But what keeps me returning to this album is how it seems to transform in my ears. Not every time I listen to it, but while I am listening to it. The sound seems to move, embracing me and controlling my inner thoughts. These start to move along at the same pace, with the same feeling of cloudiness. Nothing new here, the thing is how it feels different from time to time, how the music, because of something that changes or moves, comes as a catharsis/revelation. It drives me nuts how the beats come and go in tracks like “Fogo Firme (Encomendação)” or “The More I Think, The Less I Can Speak“, leaving everything suspended and, simultaneously, relieved. When dramatic - ”Prova De Existência“ - it is sad af and gorgeously epic.

Trap, bass music, dubstep, ambient, hauntology and contemporary music flow side by side here, no pushing around, free of interpretation, and you are free to feel or listen to whatever you want in “Hearing Smoke”. That’s free music for you. Not a hard concept, something for you to enjoy, feel, reflect about. This is what the future will sound like."

André Santos // Holuzam

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Barbara Morgenstern

2LP | 2024 | EU | Original (Staatsakt)

29,99 €*

Radio Familia (Compiled By Arp Frique)

Release: 2024 / EU – Original

Genre: Pop

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Limited edition, 100 copies. exclusively at HHV

More than five years after "Unschuld & Verwüstung", Barbara Morgenstern returns with a new album in January 2024. It's called "In anderem Licht" and was recorded by Guy Sternberg at the legendary Hansa Studios in Berlin.

The chamber music double album tells of the impending climate catastrophe, the necessity of social transformation processes and the hope of liberation from the state of general paralysis: "Everything can be different", says the album opener "Die Wand" (The Wall) or in the song that gives the album its title: "Everything will hopefully be as it always has been, only in a different light" and finally: "Except the old world!". What reads somewhat didactically on paper is translated into mostly small miniatures on "In anderem Licht", from which Barbara Morgenstern and her ensemble create dramatic arcs of tension and surprising twists and turns. Strings, saxophone, double bass and drums follow Morgenstern's grand piano playing with impressive swarm intelligence. "I look around for alliances", she sings and states - struggling to find the right metaphors: "Time heals more than a thousand words". So she takes all the time in the world in her music, although she is unmistakably aware of the urgency of the questions and paradoxes raised in her songs.

In times of fiercely contested attention economies and clickbait logics that seem to permeate all areas of life, passing and emerging every second, this hour of music spread over 11 tracks is like a balm. A tender manifesto of change.

"Because I don't tell the joke to myself, but to you and me and then we're here", she sings in "Der Witz" and in the loop the music circles, like a bee that wants to settle tenderly on a flower, around a more pleasant now-state of the world, a space of possibility. Before the whole thing flies around our ears in the end and her ensemble makes the melancholy melodic arcs seem bigger and bigger with each round until they appear to us in a completely different light! When Barbara Morgenstern sings "This place will stay when we go, this place will never be the same again" in "Dein Name", it sounds as if she wants to conjure up the world for us. Or free us from a curse. "I always thought connection mattered, love for the cause, for the rest of the world!" she finally sings in "Die Liebe zur Sache", and wonders whether that still counts at all in the world out there. A justified question! Barbara Morgenstern has been one of the most independent musicians in Germany for over 20 years. From the Berlin living room scene of the 90s to the latest award-winning theatre productions with Rimini Protokoll, she has always followed her inner voice in her unbroken belief in the magic of music. John Cale, Mark Hollis, Hans Unstern, Robert Wyatt or Björk come to mind as possible kindred spirits: a certain oddness, paired with great virtuosity and a penchant for a certain minimalism, which can always be big and epic. For the moment. With this wonderfully enraptured, somnambulistic album, we can only wish Barbara Morgenstern and her courageous ensemble that they will play the big stages with it. Because as the song "Zwischen den Stühlen" (Between the Chairs) says so beautifully: "Leave me in peace, it's no use to me. I want to get out of here, between the chairs!". A documentary film by Berlin filmmaker Sabine Herpich, who has accompanied Barbara Morgenstern over the last few years and which traces the story of the creation of this extraordinary album, will also be released in 2024. The video for the first single "In anderem Licht" already shows footage from it, so this is more of a film trailer than a video. Incidentally, the cover motif of the album dates back to 1829 and was painted by Barbara Morgenstern's great-great-great-grandfather Friedrich Preller the Elder.

"In anderem Licht" will be released on 26.01.2024 via Staatsakt on LP/CD/Digital.

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Volume 1

LP | 2023 | EU | Original (Colorful World)

Ross Tregenza / Wes Keltner & Jim Bonney

Release: 2023 / EU – Original

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Four essential cuts from Ghana & Cape Verde, compiled by Arp Frique...

Music is a great connector, bringing people together in many ways. On his journey in music so far, Arp Frique has been fortunate to meet many beautiful artists. The songs on this first edition of "Radio Familia" are deeply connected to the musicians he performs with. Join the music family on a trip through exciting sounds from Ghana and Cape Verde and listen to their story in both words and music.

Arp Frique never played a show without including Americo Brito’s epic song “C’est Dudu”. The song originally appeared on his album “Fidjo Di Mizeria” from 1989 but he had been performing his anthem for years and it came in many shapes and forms. After spending a lot of time in Paris, he (like many others in those days) got inspired by new records from Guadeloupe and Martinique, especially “kadans”. Incorporating latin piano motifs borrowed from salsa and merengue and a bold choice to sing in French, the song and album became an instant success for Americo in and outside the clubscene (note: DJs were not the primary source of dance music in those days, bands played all night to keep the dancers moving). The addition of C’est Dudu to this compilation became especially relevant since Americo recently passed away. Fortunately, his anthem just like all his other music will remain with us for decades to come.

While going through the archives with Americo Brito for the Radio Verde compilation, he introduced Arp Frique to a band called Imilux Star, of course again well connected with Americo. This Cape Verdean band residing in Luxemburg (where there is a substantial Cape Verdean community) definitely added a different flavor to the musical pallet the islands are famous for: heavy syncopated rhythms coming from the drum computer. They released two albums which both became very popular in their scene and the track “Yolanda” from their 1988 album “Jota Dê” got to Arp Frique’s attention too late to add to the Radio Verde comp. The band is still performing to this day in the Luxemburg-Cape Verdean live circuit.

While Arp Frique was on the road with his lead singer Mariseya, they talked much and deep about Ghanaian music (especially highlife) and he learned a lot about the community from Ghana in the Netherlands, mostly in Amsterdam and The Hague. Mariseya’s dad, Nana Adomako Nyamekye, came to see their liveshow while in the UK which was very special to them considering he is one of the highlife artists Arp Frique has grown to be very fond of. His deeply funky and bubbly bass driven song “Obra Twa Owuo” is about life and death, telling us we should all love each other as we still have life to live. Originally released on “Ano Plan” from 1982, the album is filled with philosophical advice. In his own words: “A message to all humans that something awaits us all at the end of life. Let’s live together with love.

Bnnyhunna, from the Ghanaian community in the Netherlands, joined Arp Frique’s live experience several times playing keyboards and synthesizers. His dad Elvis Kwasi Ankomah, just like him, developed a high level of musicianship while performing regularly in church. The song “Fa Wokoma Mame” (give me your heart) from his only studioalbum “Mfa Menko” released in 1995 is about showing his love to a lady but only if she puts her trust in him completely. The album talks about love, pain, relationships and life. Having worked with artists like Daddy Lumba, Nana Ampadu, Amakye Dede and many other hiplife and highlife legends, he still plays in church every week and has been doing so ever since he was 15 years young.

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OST The Texas Chain Saw Massacre / Remains Bundle

2LP | 2023 | US | Original (Waxwork)

55,99 €*

Tattoo - The Unreleased Music From The 1975 John Samson Documentary

Release: 2023 / US – Original

Genre: Soundtracks

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Waxwork Records is thrilled to release THE Texas Chain SAW Massacre Original Game Soundtrack LP by Ross Tregenza and Remains Additional Game Music LP from THE Texas Chain SAW Massacre by Wes Keltner and Jim Bonney!

From Gun Interactive, creators of the global hit Friday THE 13th The Game, comes a terrifying follow up that has been developed by horror fans for horror fans. Take on the role of one of the notorious Slaughter family, or their victims, in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre®, a third-person asymmetrical horror experience based on the groundbreaking and iconic 1974 horror film. Experience the mad and macabre for yourself in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre®.

This very special double album bundle features the complete video game soundtrack music to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre pressed to "Chain Saw Motor Green & Rust" colored vinyl, housed in deluxe heavyweight gatefold packaging with matte satin coating, composer liner notes, and all new artwork. The composers of the game music all have a dedicated love for the original 1974 film. Recordings of sheet metal, spoons, tuning forks, furniture, and the instrument, the Apprehension Engine, were mangled, manipulated, and ran through several vintage reverbs, distortions, tape delays, and other effects to create a haunting, sonic cacophony that envelopes the listener and transports them directly to a killing floor in the sweltering Texas summer heat.

Ross Tregenza Bio: Ross Tregenza is a Bafta nominated Cornish composer, known for his work on video games including The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Deathloop, Forza Horizon 5, Cyberpunk 2077, Wolfenstein: Youngblood, Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot, Team Sonic Racing, Timesplitters 2 & 3, Crysis 1-3, Hotshot Racing, Homefront: The Revolution, Star Citizen, Gears of War, Haze, Star Wars, Aliens Vs Predator and BBC Online.

Jim Bonney Bio: Jim Bonney is a Bafta award-winning composer/music director specializing in interactive music, credited in numerous video games including titles from the Mortal Kombat, Mafia, and BioShock series. Along with his game credits, Jim has also created music for everything from Burger King children's toys, to collaborations with Nasa; and has also scored numerous trailers, short films, documentaries, commercials, and television programs, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Chicago Hope, and The Weekenders. His concert works have been performed in over 25 countries, with ensembles as large as 1,400 musicians, located in venues ranging from New York City's Carnegie Hall to the Great Wall of China.

Wes Keltner Bio: Wes Keltner is the CEO and Studio Director at Gun Interactive. He has been a part of the video game industry since 2005 and consulted on video games including Doom, Splinter Cell, Star Wars, Madden, Skyrim, Ghost Recon and several others. With an inclination towards marketing and advertising his work has appeared in Fast Company, Forbes, The NY Times, Wall Street Journal, and Ad Age. During the pandemic he took it upon himself to learn a new musical instrument that could deliver the sound of Texas Chain Saw Massacre. He found this sound within the Apprehension Engine and he spent countless hours discovering and recording horrifying sounds that ultimately became the soundbed of the game.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre The Game Original Soundtrack Features:

The Complete Soundtrack Game Music by Ross Tregenza Remains LP: Additional Soundtrack Game Music by Wes Keltner & Jim Bonney "Chain Saw Motor Green" Colored Vinyl (tcsm LP) "Rust" Colored Vinyl (Remains LP) Artwork by Jake Kontou Heavyweight Gatefold Jackets with Matte Coating Composer Liner Notes

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Steve Jolliffe

LP | 2023 | UK | Original (Trunk)

Banda Da Capital (Live In Brasília, 1976)

Release: 2023 / UK – Original

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Incredible jazz / prog / folk score to groundbreaking tattoo film by maverick filmmaker. Unreleased until now, so don't go saying it's a reissue because it isn't, but I'm sure some people will because they always do.

John Samson (1946 - 2004) was a truly great documentary maker. He must be as I've been obsessed with his work for many years. Educated first at Glasgow School Of Art (circa 1963) and then finally in the art of film making at The National Film And Television School in Beaconsfield - he headed there in its opening year of 1971 having made a short film that got him a scholarship.

It was at the Nfts that Samson met Mike Wallington, who was to become his right hand man and eventual producer; together as a quite brilliant team they made a handful of inspiring, entertaining and hugely prescient films about important, overlooked, unseen and marginal fringes in society.

Tattoo (1975) Exploring the rather clandestine world of tattooing in the UK. Dressing For Pleasure (1977) Exploring the rather clandestine world of festish in the UK. Brittania (1979) A film about railway enthusiasts and a steam train restoration. Arrows (1979) The life of dart player Eric Bristow. Drag Ball (1981) An unreleased film about the annual Porchester Hall Drag Ball. The Skin Horse (1983) Bafta winning film about The Outsiders Club, a dating agency for disabled people.

The subject matter in all films was always unusual for the time, and Samson managed to navigate his way with compassion, interest and subtlety, immersing himself in the chosen scene and producing moving, fascinating and sometimes darkly amusing situations. His documentaries also do not rely on traditional voiceovers, with stories, facts and narrative threads being dictated by the subjects.

I've tried for a long time to find the music for a couple of his early films (there was actually an original 7” for Arrows) - so far this is the only unreleased soundtrack I have found. This one was written by Steve

Jolliffe, who met Samson at the Nfts. Joliffe was the resident composer and had a room at the college complex where he could work on scores for the fledgling film makers. Jolliffe was and still is a multi-instrumentalist and prolific composer who had met Edgar Froese at the Berlin Konservatorium in the late 1960s and played in an early incarnation of Tangerine Dream. He toured with blues rock outfit Steamhammer, before hanging out at the Nfts, making this recording (and many others) and eventually rejoining Tangerine Dream in the late 1970s. Jolliffe still writes, records and releases today and once i had made contact with him we traced the original Tattoo master tape to a box at his brother's house. Musically it's charming, slightly folky, a touch baroque, there's a whiff of prog too, and it perfectly suited this early documentary about the art and desire of tattoos. I only wish it was longer. But the film is only 16 minutes long. Seek it out if you can. Try and find all the Samson films, they really are a joy.

As well as featuring intimate footage of tattooed people, the film also includes a rare and very early interview with Alan Oversby (better known as Mr Sebastian), a seminal character in the development of tattoos and body modifications worldwide - it was he who eventually was to tattoo and pierce Genesis P-Orridge.

The images for this vinyl release were all found in Mike Wallington's Tattoo documentary research folder from 1974, and were photos sent in to Mike and John by people who wanted to feature in the film. Most answered an advert in Time Out, and others included people from my home town of Aldershot where tattooist Bill Skuse and his wife, Rusty (the most tattooed woman in Britain at the time, and featured in the film) were based. His parlour was situated at the back of the arcade where we all used to lose all our pocket money in the slot machines.

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Som Imaginario

12" | 2023 | EU | Original (Far Out)

LP | 2024 | EU | Original (Escho)

Release: 2023 / EU – Original

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Som Imaginário are the stuff of MPB mythos. Integral to Brazil’s Clube Da Esquina movement in the early 1970s, a heady blend of progressive rock, folk, psychedelia, jazz and traditional Brazilian rhythm flows through the three studio albums the band recorded between ‘70 and ‘73. Flying the countercultural freak-flag amid the context of military dictatorship, the Brazilian prog lords shared much of the sense of experimentation and bountiful fuzz bequeathed by their tropicalismo forbearers. But armed with genius composers, arrangers and stupendously high-level musicianship, Som Imaginário introduced a potent harmonic complexity to Brazilian popular music, which would inspire generations of artists to come.

On 4th October 1976, having finished a spell of recording and touring with Milton Nascimento, Som Imaginário performed a concert in celebration of Nature Day in Brasília. The recordings of the show would become “Banda Da Capital”, which, for the past half century, has laid dormant, waiting for its mystical power to be untapped.

In the band that day were original members Wagner Tiso and Fredera, joined by Nivaldo Ornelas, Paulinho Braga and Jamil Joanes. Operating within such a hugely creative and free-spirited scene meant line-up fluctuations were inevitable and former Som Imaginário members also include Laudir de Oliveira (who left to join Chicago), Nana Vasconcelos (who also moved to work in the US), Zé Rodrix, Robertinho Silva, Novelli and Toninho Horta.

Titled after the Belo Horizonte radio station where they would practice during their youth, the show opens with “Rádio Guarany”, an improvisation led by Paulinho Braga and Nivaldo Ornelas. The track morphs into Nivaldo Ornelas’ composition “Xa Mate”, which also opens Milton Nascimento’s Milagre dos Peixes ao Vivo album, featuring Som Imaginário and a 32 piece orchestra.

Having grown up together in Minas Gerais, composer, arranger and keyboard player Wagner Tiso had been another close musical partner of Milton Nascimento’s. Some of their work together includes many of Bituca’s most beloved albums, including Clube Da Esquina, Milton Nascimento (1970) and Maria Maria / Ultimo Trem, as well as Native Dancer: Nascimento’s album with Wayne Shorter.

Explaining the inspiration behind two of the tracks on Banda Da Capital “Igreja Majestosa” (written with Nivaldo Ornelas) and “Os Cafezais sem fim”, Tiso remincies:

“On Sundays I used to watch the coffee plantation workers entering the church. I´d see them working all week, in their humble, dirty clothes. But I was always enchanted by their immaculate dress on Sundays. Taken from a line in a poem by my father, which became the hymn of the city of Três Pontas, the song “the majestic church and the endless coffee plantations ” became sacred for me, because it came from something joyful, from the workers.”

One of the album's most tender moments is a beautiful rendition of the post-tropicalista folk-rock classic “Sabado”, written by Fredera for Som Imaginiaro’s debut album. The lyrics are typical of the “desbunde”: those on the Brazilian left whose response to authoritarianism was a politics of pacifist, often psychedelic, non-conformity (similar to that of “dropping out” in the US)...

“Eu quero o céu e vou com guizos nos sapatos / Minha roupa em farrapos coloridos vou rasgar / E vou dançar entre os cristais azuis do tempo e esquecer”

“I want the sky and will go with bells on my shoes / I will tear my clothes into colourful rags / And I will dance among the blue crystals of time to forget”.

Jamil Joanes, best known as a member of Banda Black Rio, is another Minas Gerais native. His composition for the album is “Imaginados”, a stunning unplugged guitar and vocal performance, highlighting Som Imaginário’s south-eastern home state’s influence on their sound.

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Fine

Rocky Top Ballds

Chico Mello / Helinho Brandão

Release: 2024 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Writing music, for singer-songwriter and producer Fine, “feels like being entrusted with a secret.” On Rocky Top Ballads, the Copenhagen-based musician’s debut album, these secrets take the form of minimalist compositions that search for glimpses of beauty in the everyday. Recorded, produced, and mixed by Fine, the album is a mystical soundtrack to a captivating songwriter’s explorations of process and intuition.

“The whole album is about the moments when you see a crack in something,” Fine explains, “where you briefly see another side of yourself or of someone you've known forever.”

Fine grew up in Denmark’s rural Northern Jutland; there, her father’s guitar and banjo playing formed the sonic backdrop of her childhood. In the years since, her musical curiosity has led her to work across a range of styles and sounds. In her early twenties, she became part of Danish electronic trio Chinah, which released three albums. You might also have caught her sampled vocals on the joyfully rollicking Two Shell song “Home,” from 2021. Then, last year, she — along with Erika de Casier and Smerz — co-wrote three songs for the massive, critically lauded K-pop group New Jeans. Fine is also a part of Clarissa Connelly Canons group back home in Denmark, and writes music under the moniker Coined with composer and songwriter Astrid Sonne.

But Rocky Top Ballads is a turn back towards a more personal, stream-of-consciousness songwriting style. Fine wrote and recorded these songs sporadically over the course of the last few years. In light of Chinah’s collaborative, piecemeal production style, Fine craved a more organic, intuitive process for these songs. Her work on the record combines sample-based production with the sounds of instruments she and her collaborators could hold in their hands, ones that inspired free-flowing improvisation: electric and acoustic guitar, even the Ensoniq keyboard that was in her childhood home. The resulting songs are equally inspired by the country and folk of her childhood, the hazy beauty of Mazzy Star, the avant-garde pop of Dean Blunt, and the songwriting of ’90s singer-songwriters like Suzanne Vega.

Fine describes her songwriting process as a “magical thinking method”: being in contact with the present moment and pretending as if she already knows the song she’s about to write. Many of the songs on Rocky Top Ballads use the original takes of Fine’s vocals, an attempt to capture a song’s initial essence and avoid disturbing the song’s generative idea as much as possible. You can hear that well-preserved spark on songs like “Losing Tennessee,” a minimalist and wistful reflection on the inherent loss and change of growing older. She wrote other tracks, like the piano-led “Whys” and the woozy “Coasting,” through a process of cutting and layering her improvisations, carefully merging multiple musical snippets into newly seamless compositions. And the stunning closing track “A Star” is the product of a slow process of evolution: beginning as an understated expression of sincerity before dissolving into a rich, distorted guitar-driven exploration.

As a songwriter and producer, Fine’s work often peers into the universes of experience that can be hidden inside a fragmentary moment. Sometimes she explores this literally — as in “Days Incomplete,” which she built off a short sample from “A Star.” This impulse — to zoom in, to recontextualize, to excavate — threads throughout her lyrics, too. What happens, her songs ask, when we pay close attention to those everyday images and physical realities we might otherwise ignore: the sky, the rain, the sun, the sea? On the spacious and swoony “Big Muzzy,” with its gentle sway and Cocteau Twins-inflected vocals, Fine sings about watching the “summer turn blue”; the grooving, propulsive “Remember The Heart” is a love letter to the sea where she grew up. In her airy voice, Fine traces meandering melodies that continually unspool with fresh insights.

A particular mantra guided Fine’s songwriting throughout the creation of Rocky Top Ballads: “Everything has potential.” In these songs, small moments are worthy of deep contemplation, and gentleness can evoke worlds of emotion. The resulting songs offer a gift of momentary pleasure, flowing and unhurried as a gentle breeze.

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LP | 2024 | EU | Original (Black Truffle)

LP | 1970 | EU | Reissue (Be With)

Release: 2024 / EU – Original

Genre: Electronic & Dance

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Black Truffle is thrilled to announce a reissue of Chico Mello and Helinho Brandão’s self-titled release from 1984, the first return to vinyl of this classic of Brazilian experimental music with its original cover art and complete track listing. An under-recognised figure whose work inhabits a singular terrain where radical new music techniques and music theatre meet musica popular brasileira, Mello has lived and worked in Berlin since the late 1980s. A student of Dieter Schnebel, Mello played in the 90s iteration of Arnold Dreyblatt’s Orchestra of Excited Strings alongside compatriot Silvia Ocougne, with whom he produced a radical and hilarious deconstruction of MPB classics on Musica Brasileira De(s)composta (an early and rather atypical release on Edition Wandelweiser).

On this release, his only recording predating his move to Europe, Mello works with the alto saxophonist Helinho Brandão, who appears to be otherwise unknown outside Brazil. The record’s six tracks range from solo saxophone improvisation to densely layered ensemble works bridging minimalism, acoustic sound art and a plaintive melodic sensibility that calls up Edu Lobo or Milton Nascimento. Beginning with a dramatic, dissonant wind and string surge from which emerge ominously pounding piano chords, opener ‘Água’ slowly builds in intensity, a halo of clustered vocal harmonies gradually closing in on Brandão’s squealing sax until the piece opens up to reveal a gorgeous passage of melodic singing. The piano accompaniment reduces to tolling bass notes as the voice begins a repeated incantation, suggesting a ritualistic atmosphere reminiscent of parts of Xenakis’ setting of Oresteia. Dissonant, sawing tremolos on the strings climb to a crescendo before disappearing into the sounds of water being poured and splashed into metal vessels, presented not as a field recording but as a percussive element performed by the ensemble. A child’s voice then appears, singing to piano accompaniment the same melody heard earlier in the piece. After a brief solo alto improvisation from Brandão, working with the guttural pops and fleeting melodic gestures of Braxton or Roscoe Mitchell, the remainder of the first side is dedicated to the leisurely unfolding of ‘Baiando’ over the course of twelve minutes. A trio for Brandão on soprano saxophone, Mello on a very period-appropriate phased nylon string guitar and Edu Dequech on bongos, the performance eases its way hypnotically through subtle variations on a set of rhythmic and melodic patterns, almost derailed at points by Brandão’s wild forays into extended technique but held together by Mello’s droning guitar notes.

The second side opens with another multi-part epic for a larger ensemble, ‘Matraca’, which makes use of strings, electric guitars and a wide range of South American percussion instruments. Rasping violin harmonics hover as drum hits, repeated guitar notes and triangle accompany a slowly descending bass glissando. A sudden change in direction introduces a thrumming, incessantly repeated bowed bass tone, beginning a series of episodes of minimalist phasing and pattern variation, the combinations of electric guitars and orchestral instruments giving the ensemble an ad hoc charm like the early Penguin Café Orchestra but with more percussive drive. Eventually the piece is overrun by a cacophony of the titular matracas (a kind of ratchet/cog rattle). Following a lyrical trio improvisation by Mello, Brandão and Gerson Kornin on bass, the final ‘Danca’ focuses entirely on Mello’s layered acoustic guitars and vocals, using this restricted palette to build up a haunting piece of almost orchestral density, reminiscent of the 70s work of Egberto Gismonti in how it thickens a folkish ambience with harmonic sophistication.

Arriving in a starkly beautiful gatefold sleeve and sounding better than ever in its new remaster, one might call the stunning music contained on Chico Mello/Helinho Brandão ahead of its time. But what (other than some of Mello’s own work) produced in the years since its initial release has really touched the organic fusion of minimalism, free improvisation, radical instrumental technique and popular song achieved here? Forty years after its first release, Chico Mello/Helinho Brandão remains music of the future.

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Nucleus

Elastic Rock

Release: 1970 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Nucleus's Elastic Rock is undisputedly a milestone in Jazz-Rock. A beautiful and vital debut album, it was first released on Vertigo in 1970. Original copies are now very tricky to score and, like all the Nucleus records, it’s aged ridiculously well. This Be With re-issue, re-mastered from the original analogue tapes, shows off just why this deserves to be back in press.

Genius trumpeter and visionary composer Ian Carr was one of the most respected British musicians of his era. He was a true pioneer and saw the potential in fusing the worlds of jazz with rock, just as Miles Davis and The Tony Williams Lifetime did in the US. In late 1969, following the demise of the Rendell-Carr quintet, and tiring of British jazz, Carr assembled the legendary Nucleus. Regarding music as a continuous process, Nucleus refused to “recognise rigid boundaries” and worked on delivering what they saw as a “total musical experience”. We can get behind that.

Under bandleader Carr, Nucleus existed as a fluid line-up of inventive, skilled musicians. This constant evolution and revolution was all part of the continuous musical exploration and discovery that took jazz to new levels. And the music has kept relevant. To steal a line from a review of our re-issue of Roots, when it comes to anything Nucleus “it’s basically already hip-hop”.

The very title Elastic Rock could be regarded as the group's MO, describing a melting point between their rock and jazz impulses. Indeed, housed in a memorable gatefold jacket designed by Roger Dean, the die cut molten teardrop shape on the front sleeve opens to reveal a fiery volcanic crater. On the back, Dean's drawing has Carr with saxophonist Brian Smith, guitarist Chris Spedding, drummer John Marshall, bassist Jeff Clyne and sax, oboe and pianist Karl Jenkins in a circle, the central core of a movement and the basis for its activity.

Recorded over four days in January 1970, Elastic Rock didn't sound like any other British jazz album. Exploding out the gate, "1916" opens with Marshall's frantic pounding before melancholic horns enter. The smooth title track, "Elastic Rock" is just a gorgeous electric blues track. Light drums, gentle melodic horns, piano and a solid bassline serve as the perfect bed for Spedding's graceful bluesy guitar melodies. The serene "Striation", a Clyne and Spedding collaboration, is led by bowed bass and is the epitome of calm before the late night laid back vibe of "Taranaki" breezes along sweetly and smoothly with great trumpet and tenor.

The truly emotional "Twisted Track" is elegant with horns, while guitar is gently played with drums and bass. Initially deeply soothing, it gradually builds with various solos and duets. "Crude Blues (Part 1)" features an excellent oboe part by Jenkins with laconic guitar helping out. "Part 2" is livelier, with a heavy backbeat and great wind parts. "1916 (Battle Of Boogaloo)" features a steady bassline and great call and response parts from the horn section.

The highly-charged centrepiece of the record, the mesmeric epic "Torrid Zone" features an hypnotic bassline and hi-hat with some of the ensemble's best soloing. Brilliantly encapsulating the jazz fusion aesthetic so desired by the group, the rhythm section is rock-influenced but magically retains a laid-back jazz vibe. Just perfection. Spacey jazz in the style of In a Silent Way, the semi-ambient "Stonescape" features smooth, muted brass, warm, smokey keys and a barely-there rhythm section. Heavenly.

The bubbling, fragile restraint of "Earth Mother" partially utilises the "Torrid Zone" bassline but takes the energy in a different direction with Marshall's frenetic drumming and Spedding's unpredictable riffing. Next comes the very idiosyncratic drum solo track by Marshall in the appropriately-titled "Speaking for Myself, Personally, in My Own Opinion, I Think." The album closes with the raucous "Persephones Jive", a track that ends the album frantically, riotously, just as it began.

This Be With edition of Elastic Rock has been re-mastered from the original Vertigo master tapes, Simon Francis’ mastering working together with Cicely Balston's cut at AIR Studios to weave their usual magic with these wonderful recordings. The stunning die-cut gatefold sleeve has been restored in all its molten glory.

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Fusion Global Sounds 1970-1983

CD | 2022 | EU | Original (Favorite)

15,99 €*

Release: 2022 / EU – Original

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Favorite Recordings and Charles Maurice proudly present a brand new compilation series: Fusion Global Sounds. 9 rare and hidden tracks produced between 1970 and 1983 in various parts of the world. As a fine collector of Jazz-Funk and Fusion for many years, Charles Maurice selected some of his favorite forgotten productions, as he previously did for the AOR Global Sounds, French and Brazilian Disco Boogie Sounds compilations series. This time, recordings come from Sweden, Switzerland, South Africa, New Zealand, Uruguay, Spain and France, from artists and bands mostly known in their local scenes. You'll hear here the best elements of the Fusion and Jazz-Funk genre: breezy vocal arrangements reminding Flora Purim in Return To Forever or George Duke's albums, sweet and virtuosic Fender Rhodes (kind of common thread of the comp), melodic spiral-shaped fuzzy synthesizers leads, or irresistible basslines, altogether bringing a unique groove to life. "Buster" is taken from the first and only album of the Swedish band, Sundance. The band from Gothenburg was formed around US trumpet player Stephen Frankevich (notably playing with Mahavishnu Orchestra) after he moved to Sweden. Cosmic, with razor-sharp rhythms, it naturally brings you to the second title, "Hello Mr. Ancuvis" by Renato Anselmi. One of the key players of the Swiss Jazz scene during the sixties and the seventies, Renato also had the chance to play with Harvey Mason or Alphonso Johnson. Funky, jazzy but still a bit breezy, here again sweet vocals nicely blend with uptempo Rhodes part. Also included is another title from Renato Anselmi, "Quiet Fire", a mellow Rhodes-driven ballad with funky accents, wide strings and guitar arrangements. "Tropical Island" by Zane Cronje, a South-African composer and arranger, was initially a track from a music library catalogue: dreamy, soaked in thorough synthesizers, we're only attached to the earth by the Guiro groove. You'll also hear this cosmic vibe in "Astral Dance" by French-American drummer and Jazz musician/composer Daniel Bechet, taken from Songs To My Father LP, dedicated to his father the famous Sax/Clarinet player Sydney Bechet. In this 4 minutes dope jam, keys, guitar and percussion will elevate your mind to another level of consciousness: deep! The 1860 Band was hailing from Wellington, New Zealand, playing mostly in bars, cafes and pubs - their name is taken from a tavern where they had an extended afternoon residency keeping the clients entertained. Their sole LP, now rare and sought-after, was a nice mix of Jazz-Funk and Disco grooves. Their amazing and groovy cover of "Keep That Same Old Feeling" by The Crusaders, brings the best of their playing. Otroshakers was formed around Hugo and Osvaldo Fattoruso, as a tribute project to their former band Los Shakers, some sort of copycat band of The Beatles with great success in Latin America. Listening to "Siempre Tu", you can almost hear The Beatles' psychedelic vocal of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Later joining Ringo Thielmann in the US, they formed the band OPA together, after having recorded for Airto's seminal album Fingers. Blending Jazz, South-American musical elements and Funk, their fusion quickly gained the respect of the NY musical scene. "Despertar" by Spanish drummer, singer and actor Pedro Ruy-Blas, is taken from Luna Llena, his great first Jazz-Funk album. The track is a funky piece with wah-wah expressive Rhodes, ending with a beautiful flute solo. "Prologue" by Dutch-French pianist Majoie Hajary (sometimes called the "Hindu pianist"), can be found on La Passion Selon Judas, a very unique religious album blending her own style with Psych, Funk and Jazz elements. Surely we could continue detailing stories of all these gems, but we guess that the best way to learn more about them, is to listen to Fusion Global Sounds, fully remastered from originals and whether your preference is for vinyl or CD formats.

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Heisei No Oto - Japanese Left-Field Pop From The CD Age 1989-1996 2024 Repress

2LP | 2021 | EU | Reissue (Music From Memory)

Pierre-Alain Dahan & Mat Camison

Release: 2021 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Electronic & Dance

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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.

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Rythmiques

LP | 1973 | Reissue (Be With)

27,99 €*

We'll Talk About It Later

Release: 1973 / Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Part of Tele Music Reissue Campaign, 2023 first time reissue, 140g vinyl

Wow! Pierre-Alain Dahan & Mat Camison's Rythmiques is another iconic release in the hallowed Tele Music catalogue. First appearing in 1973, it features tense funk, blunted jazz and heavy breaks all the way. Considered the rightful sequel to Continental Pop Sound, it's a vital album for producers and DJs; and you can probably guess that RHYTHM is central to the record's presentation. And you can really taste what's rhythm, to borrow a phrase. French drummer, percussionist and composer Pierre-Alain Dahan was a key member of the legendary Arpadys, Disco & Co, Voyage, Tumblack (with Wally Badarou, Mallia et al!) and Jef Gilson Septet whilst his partner here, Mat Camison, was a pioneering synth LORD. So, you know this Be With reissue is absolutely crucial.

The album picks up from where Continental Pop Sound left us, opening with the tense, stabbing thriller-funk of "Rythmiques N° 4". The dubbier "Rythmiques N° 5" is no less electric and definitely has a spacey air of wonky funk about it with the slightly off-kilter rolling piano. "Rythmiques N° 6" is more percussive-focussed with a brilliantly hypnotic opening that really stretches the drama out. “Rythmique N° 7” alternates between fast-paced, skipping drums and slo-mo funk, always with the clavinet high up in the mix. Wicked. The dope jazz of “Rythmique N° 8” truly mesmerises with licks of electric piano, funky bass flourishes and varied percussion. “Rythmique N° 9” has great, sloppy-yet-hard intro drums which sound like something Daft Punk could've pilfered circa Human After All, punctuated by a guitar rock refrain that repeats til the end but is never overdone. The A-Side closes with the beautiful, melancholic "Piano + Piano", a reflective jazzy piano track which could easily open a wide-ranging set this autumn and many after it. Stunning.

Opening Side B, "Auto Rythmiques" is a hectic yet compelling funk workout but it's all about the frankly devastating breakbeats on “Rythmiques N° 10 & N° 11” with effortlessly twisted funk bass lines over open drum breaks and enough tension and rhythmic switch-ups to keep your neck-snapping and your mind lifted. Downright essential. Taking leave from the heavy funk break action, the pastoral "Océan Horizon" is perhaps an unfairly overlooked highlight. A gorgeous, softly-aquatic, ambient gem, it's gently percussive with warm, floaty keys decorating the mellow rhythmic bed. The mercifully brief "Super Carrousel" is harmless fun-fair-funk but perhaps best skipped over whilst the intriguingly titled "Gay Shopping" is another throwaway exercise in inexcusable jaunt whilst. To close out this memorable set, thankfully, we're left with "Suspense N° 1" to get us back on course with its unsurprisingly tense mix of urgent stringed instruments that flirt with rhythm and melody yet the longer the track goes on. Deep.

One of the very best French drummers ever, Pierre-Alain Dahan began his career at the Blue Note in Paris with Sonny Stitt, Dexter Gordon and Daniel Humair. Some start, eh?! He also participated in the recording of Serge Gainsbourg's cult album 'La Ballade de Melody Nelson' before going on to make countless KILLER library funk records and be a key member in the legendary Arpadys, Disco & Co, Voyage, Tumblack (with Wally Badarou, Sauveur Mallia et al), Jef Gilson Septet (alongside Henri Texier) and many more. Some pedigree.

The audio for Rythmiques has been remastered by Be With regular Simon Francis, ensuring this release sounds better than ever. Cicely Balston's expert skills have made sure nothing is lost in the cut whilst the original, iconic Tele Music house sleeve has been restored here at Be With HQ as the finishing touch to this long overdue re-issue.

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Nucleus

LP | 1971 | EU | Reissue (Be With)

12" | 1982 | EU | Reissue (Be With)

Release: 1971 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Their masterpiece? With breaks for dayyyyyys and an almost ambient, heavy jazz atmosphere throughout, *this* is the apex of British jazz-rock fusion. We'll Talk About It Later was first released on Vertigo in 1971 and original copies are now very tricky to score. Like all the Nucleus records, it’s aged ridiculously well and this Be With re-issue, re-mastered from the original analogue tapes, shows off just why this deserves to be back in press.

Genius trumpeter and visionary composer Ian Carr was one of the most respected British musicians of his era. He was a true pioneer and saw the potential in fusing the worlds of jazz with rock, just as Miles Davis and The Tony Williams Lifetime did in the US. In late 1969, following the demise of the Rendell-Carr quintet, and tiring of British jazz, Carr assembled the legendary Nucleus. Regarding music as a continuous process, Nucleus refused to “recognise rigid boundaries” and worked on delivering what they saw as a “total musical experience”. We can get behind that.

Under bandleader Carr, Nucleus existed as a fluid line-up of inventive, skilled musicians. This constant evolution and revolution was all part of the continuous musical exploration and discovery that took jazz to new levels. And the music has kept relevant. To steal a line from a review of our re-issue of Roots, when it comes to anything Nucleus “it’s basically already hip-hop”.

We'll Talk About It Later is arguably Nucleus's best album. Not only that, it's in the top 5 of all fusion albums. By the time Nucleus entered Trident Studios in September 1970 to record Elastic Rock's successor, they had already won a best group award at the Montreux Jazz Festival. Once again presented in a Roger Dean designed die-cut gatefold sleeve it continued to demonstrate the chemistry and interplay that worked so brilliantly on Elastic Rock; Carr's sumptuous trumpet and flügelhorn lines, Karl Jenkins's funk-filled electric keyboards, Chris Spedding's wah-wah guitar, Brian Smith's sax and the rhythmic foundation of drummer John Marshall and bassist Jeff Clyne.

The group work and insane musicianship Nucleus were famed for is in evidence from the off. The intensely funky "Song for the Bearded Lady" is absolute FIRE, blasting out the speakers to leave listeners floored. Counterpoint riffing segues into a spacious groove and a Carr trumpet solo demonstrating the influence of electric Miles from the period. The stop-start funk of "Sun Child" would appeal to Soft Machine devotees whilst the genuinely touching "Lullaby for a Lonely Child" is a lovely downtempo ballad. Featuring an understated, reflective horn line from Carr and Smith and atmospheric, shimmering bouzouki from Spedding, there's an exotic flavour which contributes to the bliss. The ominous, sleazy title track retains a swaggering menace and is not the only track to lend a sort of heavy stoner rock atmosphere. The guitars and bass are deep and low throughout, conjuring heavy psych moments to go with the actual jazz and even funk. To say this album was in conversation with Bitches Brew would not be overstating the sheer brain-frying brilliance.

The Weather Report-adjacent "Oasis" opens Side B, a colossal track featuring nearly 10 minutes of steadily building melodic horns, keys and choppy guitar riffs. So ace, it could easily go on for another 10. Mesmeric. Spedding adds unique vocals to the undeniable groove of "Ballad of Joe Pimp" whilst saxophonist Smith's duet with drummer Marshall at the conclusion of "Easter 1916" - inspired by the Yeats poem about the Irish nationalist uprising in Dublin - adopts the wildness of the most incendiary free jazz.

This Be With edition of We'll Talk About It Later has been re-mastered from the original Vertigo master tapes, Simon Francis’ mastering working together with Cicely Balston's cut at AIR Studios to weave their usual magic with these wonderful recordings. The stunning die-cut sleeve has been restored with the original gatefold window pane depicting the Irish uprising in 1916. Incredible, timeless, guaranteed spine-chills.

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Swamp Children

Taste What's Rhythm

19,99 €*

Eidetic Dark Green Vinyl Edition

Release: 1982 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Manchester's Avant-Jazzy-Funk outfit Swamp Children were enviably eclectic and Taste What's Rhythm is their mini masterpiece. Flitting gracefully through a feast of genres with consummate ease, the band were almost indefinable and, accordingly, nigh-on impossible to market. So whilst this cult EP, originally out in 1982 on Factory Benelux, remains in demand for those in the know, it has also glided under the radar of many otherwise clued-up heads for over 40 years. If you don't know, get to know...

The Taste Whats Rhythm EP was originally released in 1982 on Factory Benelux (an informal partnership between the legendary Manchester-based Factory Records and Belgium-based Les Disques du Crépuscule). With it's kaleidoscopic brightness, silky panache and superb execution, it remains one of the most startling documents of a remarkable time and place.

The EP opens with the oh-so-Balearic title track. "Taste Whats Rhythm" gently unfolds with a Spanish guitar, hazy, drifting vocals and sun-bleached Latin percussion. After this most sumptuous of intros, the tempo is raised, the rhythms grow in complexity as horns jostle amidst the restrained chaos quite wonderfully. And then it winds down again. Proper fluctuating rhythms and tempos throughout. I guess that was the point - taste the variety!

“You’ve Got Me Beat” is a *perfect* piece of post-punk pop-jazz. A mysterious, after dark jazz-dancer, the aching vocals serve as a touching, tender resignation to love. A guitar hook which seems to elegantly reference The Blackbyrds' "Rock Creek Park" and a flowing pulse from New York's No Wave scene. It still sounds so fresh all the years later.

Closing out this most perfect of EPs, the twisted synths and nimble rhythms of bass-heavy roller "Softly Saying Goodbye" combine to create a super-slinky gem; Brit-Funk of the highest order.

Swamp Children formed in Manchester in 1980, around core members Ann Quigley (vocals), Tony Quigley (bass, metalaphone, percussion), John Kirkham (electric & acoustic guitars, metalaphone, percussion), Ceri Evans (keyboards, bass, percussion, background vocals), Cliff Saffer (saxaphone, clarine) and Martin Moscrop (drums, percussion, trumpet). They initially practised at a rehearsal space shared with fellow post-punk funkers A Certain Ratio and Joy Division/New Order. Young and relatively inexperienced upon getting together, the ages of Swamp Children's members ranged from just 16 to 19. Talk about the brilliance of youth.

From the outset, Swamp Children shared DNA with A Certain Ratio. Martin Moscrop was a founder member of Ratio, while Ann provided artwork for them. Although the close association with ACR led some to assume that Swamp Children were simply a splinter group, the new band pursued a more overt latin and jazz tinged direction, at the same time adopting a post-punk attitude towards making music, influenced by the records they were listening to at the time: Miles Davis, Brazilian jazz fusion and heavy funk dancefloor sides.

The band made their live debut at Manchester's infamous Beach Club in May 1980. Thanks to a double-booking blunder another support band turned up and were turned away, having travelled all the way from Dublin for a string of British dates. The name of the unlucky band was U2...

With arrangements that emphasised Tony Quigley’s darkly-coloured basslines (and Ann Quigley’s impressionistic vocals as another instrument in the mix) Swamp Children possessed an easygoing grace and a bubbling energy which indicated that the band's true strength was as an ensemble. The band’s musical sophistication (a fusion of funk, jazz, and bossa nova) would prove to be a strong influence on later UK acts like Sade. Indeed, Swamp Children themselves later mutated into the more known and acclaimed latin jazz outfit Kalima.

Working directly with James Nice, custodian of Factory Benelux, means that the audio for this re-issue of the classic EP comes from the original tapes. Cut at 45 RPM and released in the house Be With disco sleeve, we’ve made sure this record is well up to the job of having a permanent place in every DJ’s bag. As far as we’re concerned, this is essential stuff.

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Benoit Pioulard

LP | 2023 | EU | Original (Morr Music)

Eidetic Black Vinyl Edition

Release: 2023 / EU – Original

Genre: Electronic & Dance

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American singer-songwriter, poet, and photographer Thomas Meluch, known musically as Benoît Pioulard, returns with his most structured and vocal release to date. Titled »Eidetic,« a word denoting the ability to recall mental images with extraordinarily rich precision, the album presents unprecedented clarity and vitality for Benoît Pioulard. To access its thematic ground, Meluch looked inward with an affinity towards the people he loves during a period marked by his move from Seattle to Brooklyn in 2019. The resulting work engages with the universe's unflinching mortality and, as he says, »the ways it has modified and improved my relationships, especially with family.« Embodied by the creek, leaves, and ferns of the cover photography — taken in Michigan’s Burchfield Park, where he and his dad used to hike and »muse on existence« — the music glistens and unfurls with the flow of life he’s come to know. »Eidetic« is the culmination of Meluch's craft both as a producer and writer. An evocative sonic vocabulary meets deft lyrical introspection, articulated with the nuance, vulnerability, and confidence of a longtime artist hitting a stride. Meluch has continually refined, redefined, and adjusted the focus of his gentle pop project over the last 20 years. Recorded primarily with guitar, tapes, and voice — and spanning labels with albums for Kranky, Morr Music, Beacon Sound, and Past Inside the Present — his catalog flows seamlessly between ambient improvisation and pop composition. Much like the analog photos that often accompany his releases, songs can feel dreamily softened and distant, and others beautifully vivid and detailed. 2021 full-length »Bloodless« found Meluch deep in droning decay, expressive yet wordless. With »Eidetic,« he swings back to sharpened forms. Lush banks of treated guitar and synth brush against hushed percussion; there is mist in the distance, but everything up close is intricately constructed and radiant. Meluch's voice is notably forward in the mix — a warm and calming tenor, a harmonic coo more than a whisper — ever-observant and actively processing. To record much of the album, Meluch filled a cabin in rural Maine with his usual setup of simple percussion, a couple of Fender electrics, and a parlor guitar made by his friend who does bespoke luthier work. The modest utility is what he knows best, and here he pushes the output to its most pristine potential. »Eidetic« opens in a swirl of familiar haze; »Margaret Murie« eases listeners in, as lush and verdant as the landscapes conserved by its famed namesake. With the setting established, Meluch, the narrator, enters the foreground with »Crux,« a tender piece written about finding new motivations in a new city. »We covet this rare green hue / Here at the farthest point from home,« he sings above a reassuring pattern of strums and percussion. Meluch's prose shines on the swiftly-moving »Nameless,« inspired by the neurological effects that came with the antiquated practice of manufacturing mercury mirrors; »folks would slowly go insane while looking into their own reflections every day,« he adds. The idea informs a series of surreal abstractions before everything drops out in the final minute, and we are left free-floating in eerie nothingness. Across the album, labyrinthine lyrical ponderings scatter with dazzling imagery, artfully blurring scenes from world history with Meluch's more personal, present-day. The propulsive and earnest »Thursday Night« catches his mind overly active and too stoned, riffing on black holes and songwriting itself. »Halve« references the splitting of the atom, what he considers »the beginning of man's downfall,« and the unrealized initiative proposed by the US government that would have created 'nuclear refuges' in its national parks. Meluch's loved ones weave throughout; »Tet« holds his father's experience in Vietnam and its lasting effects. »Lillian Isola« touches on his maternal grandmother's spinal curvature, and »Pastel Dust« navigates the wake of his cat, who died on New Year's Eve 2020. At first blush, Meluch's atmospheric and melodic sensibilities resonate purely in their own right. Upon closer meditation, his ability to render stories — many of which surround human tragedy, misfortune, and understanding — through the prism of his poetry makes »Eidetic« even more rewarding.

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Benoit Pioulard

LP | 2023 | EU | Original (Morr Music)

LP | 2022 | UK | Original (Hand Mirror)

Release: 2023 / EU – Original

Genre: Electronic & Dance

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Harkin

Honeymoon Suite

20,99 €* 27,99 € -25%

Release: 2022 / UK – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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UK multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Harkin will release her second solo album ‘Honeymoon Suite’ on June 17th. “Body Clock”, the first single from the record, will be streaming on Monday the 21st of March alongside an animated video created by Pastel Castle.

Recorded in a one bedroom flat in the depths of UK lockdowns, the songs on ‘Honeymoon Suite’ are a blend of love, grief, anxiety, resilience, danger, heartbreak and hope. Part pop record, part electronic soundscape, part interior still life, ‘Honeymoon Suite’ will be released on Hand Mirror, the label Harkin founded in 2019 with her wife, the poet Kate Leah Hewett.

Speaking about the video, Harkin said "I was a big fan of Pastel Castle's work and felt like this song would be a perfect fit. I wrote and recorded it during lockdown in a flat with no outdoor space. My brother loaned me a Nintendo Switch and I found solace in games with large maps to explore. Songwriting and gameplay can both have the power to transport and the video Pastel Castle has created takes me on a beautiful and perilous quest."

Adding to this, Pastel Castle commented "The video for 'Body Clock' is a piece of frame-by-frame pixel art animation, which I had the best time making here at my little home studio in Leeds. Many days were focused entirely on tailoring the movement of Katie's Sprite / Avatar to align with the mood of the track. I'm very happy with our collaboration and feel inspired now to go on a bit of an adventure of my own."

The album marks a significant shift for an artist who had previously built a career around collaboration. In addition to her own bands, Harkin has been a touring member of Sleater-Kinney, Wild Beasts, Flock of Dimes, and Kurt Vileand Courtney Barnett’s Sea Lice. She performed backing vocals for Dua Lipa on Saturday Night Live. She dueted with comedian Sarah Silverman on 'Tiny Changes: A Celebration of Frightened Rabbit's The Midnight Organ Fight'. Her studio work includes contributions to Waxahatchee’s 'Out In The Storm'. Outside of the music world, Harkin has composed for Turner Prize-winning artist Helen Marten and British comedian Josie Long. She even has a Saturday Night Live sketch named after her (Fred Armisen’s 2016 ‘Harkin Brothers Band’).

Where her self-titled first record is infused with the expansiveness which birthed it - written and recorded while touring the globe - ‘Honeymoon Suite’ is an entirely different affair. The album was written in the same room in which Harkin and her wife ate all their meals, held their virtual wedding reception and attended a funeral over zoom. As Harkin describes it, ‘Honeymoon Suite’ is “a ship in a bottle of that time”.

The album takes its title from the couple’s affectionate nickname for the flat they found themselves living in after relocating from their then-home in Hudson, New York, where Harkin’s wife was working as a live music promoter until the pandemic was declared. When it became obvious that they would both be out of work indefinitely, they joined many others heeding the call of their home nations to repatriate. In addition to that frenzied move back to the UK, the couple’s planned wedding also took a hard left turn. They had intended to hold a wedding for 150 in September 2020. Instead, they got married in a small, outside ceremony in front of their bubbled parents and siblings. They were married in the Derbyshire village of Eyam, coincidentally famous for quarantining itself during The Bubonic Plague. The flowers in the image on the album’s back cover are their wedding bouquets. “I followed a YouTube tutorial and made our bouquets out of the wedding flowers our friends sent us. We didn’t take a honeymoon and still haven’t. Instead, the flat in Sheffield became our honeymoon suite.”

The album’s DIY ethos continued through its artwork. “Kate took the cover photo and designed the layout. She also designed our original wedding invitations so it felt apt.”

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Fusion Global Sounds 1970-1983

LP | 2022 | EU | Original (Favorite)

Release: 2022 / EU – Original

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Favorite Recordings and Charles Maurice proudly present a brand new compilation series: Fusion Global Sounds.

9 rare and hidden tracks produced between 1970 and 1983 in various parts of the world. As a fine collector of Jazz-Funk and Fusion for many years, Charles Maurice selected some of his favorite forgotten productions, as he previously did for the AOR Global Sounds, French and Brazilian Disco Boogie Sounds compilations series. This time, recordings come from Sweden, Switzerland, South Africa, New Zealand, Uruguay, Spain and France, from artists and bands mostly known in their local scenes. You'll hear here the best elements of the Fusion and Jazz-Funk genre: breezy vocal arrangements reminding Flora Purim in Return To Forever or George Duke's albums, sweet and virtuosic Fender Rhodes (kind of common thread of the comp), melodic spiral-shaped fuzzy synthesizers leads, or irresistible basslines, altogether bringing a unique groove to life. "Buster" is taken from the first and only album of the Swedish band, Sundance. The band from Gothenburg was formed around US trumpet player Stephen Frankevich (notably playing with Mahavishnu Orchestra) after he moved to Sweden. Cosmic, with razor-sharp rhythms, it naturally brings you to the second title, "Hello Mr. Ancuvis" by Renato Anselmi. One of the key players of the Swiss Jazz scene during the sixties and the seventies, Renato also had the chance to play with Harvey Mason or Alphonso Johnson. Funky, jazzy but still a bit breezy, here again sweet vocals nicely blend with uptempo Rhodes part. Also included is another title from Renato Anselmi, "Quiet Fire", a mellow Rhodes-driven ballad with funky accents, wide strings and guitar arrangements. "Tropical Island" by Zane Cronje, a South-African composer and arranger, was initially a track from a music library catalogue: dreamy, soaked in thorough synthesizers, we're only attached to the earth by the Guiro groove. You'll also hear this cosmic vibe in "Astral Dance" by French-American drummer and Jazz musician/composer Daniel Bechet, taken from Songs To My Father LP, dedicated to his father the famous Sax/Clarinet player Sydney Bechet. In this 4 minutes dope jam, keys, guitar and percussion will elevate your mind to another level of consciousness: deep! The 1860 Band was hailing from Wellington, New Zealand, playing mostly in bars, cafes and pubs - their name is taken from a tavern where they had an extended afternoon residency keeping the clients entertained. Their sole LP, now rare and sought-after, was a nice mix of Jazz-Funk and Disco grooves. Their amazing and groovy cover of "Keep That Same Old Feeling" by The Crusaders, brings the best of their playing. Otroshakers was formed around Hugo and Osvaldo Fattoruso, as a tribute project to their former band Los Shakers, some sort of copycat band of The Beatles with great success in Latin America. Listening to "Siempre Tu", you can almost hear The Beatles' psychedelic vocal of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Later joining Ringo Thielmann in the US, they formed the band OPA together, after having recorded for Airto's seminal album Fingers. Blending Jazz, South-American musical elements and Funk, their fusion quickly gained the respect of the NY musical scene. "Despertar" by Spanish drummer, singer and actor Pedro Ruy-Blas, is taken from Luna Llena, his great first Jazz-Funk album. The track is a funky piece with wah-wah expressive Rhodes, ending with a beautiful flute solo. "Prologue" by Dutch-French pianist Majoie Hajary (sometimes called the "Hindu pianist"), can be found on La Passion Selon Judas, a very unique religious album blending her own style with Psych, Funk and Jazz elements. Surely we could continue detailing stories of all these gems, but we guess that the best way to learn more about them, is to listen to Fusion Global Sounds, fully remastered from originals and whether your preference is for vinyl or CD formats.

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2LP | 2021 | EU | Original (New Interplanetary Melodies / Kuro Jam)

Kimera Mendax Volume 2

LP | 2015 | US | Original (NNA Tapes)

Release: 2021 / EU – Original

Genre: Electronic & Dance

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After the success of volume 1 (2020), the label run by Simona Faraone and the Roman collective Kuro Jam relaunch with Kimera Mendax Volume 2 Double EP, a limited edition double colored vinyl (300 copies) that consolidates the “disco-graphic” collaboration between the two realities (nim / Kuro Jam Recordings).

The record accompanies the release of the final chapter of the homonymous cyberpunk comics saga and represents its original soundtrack.

Kimera Mendax is the title of the debut graphic novel of the team Kuro Jam, composed by the artists Enrico Carnevale (Inkiostro, Markosia), Mattia De Iulis (Marvel), Giulia D'Ottavi(Manfont), Stefano Garau (Editions Glénat, Mondadori), and by the screenwriter Gianluca Pernafelli.

The comic tells the story of a group of rebels who, from the underground of an esoteric Rome of the future (2048), struggle to neutralize the KX bio-operative system, a sort of invasive and all-encompassing social network, to which humanity is connected through robotic appendages. Vinyl records are the instrument of struggle for the “disconnected”: they try using music to awaken the natural human vibrations, atrophied by the massive use of technology. The final battle is a spectacular and liberating “sonic tsunami” in the heart of the Eternal City, a journey for the eyes... and the ears!

On the pages of the two volumes, there are tributes and quotes to Gurdjieff, Aphex Twin, Giordano Bruno, Lory D, and the underground rave culture of the early 90s, with a particular reference to the London scene.

In continuity with the EP KM vol.1, eight Italian musicians with different sensibilities were involved to make their interpretation and sound reinforcement of the story. This time the tracklist is truly cinematic, spanning across the four sides of the two colored vinyl records - on the labels, we find the two alchemical principles of Salt and Sulfur, in addition to Mercury that was used for the label of the first EP - flowing in 8 acts without solution of continuity, enriched by a Prelude and 4 Interludes that draw on the noises, music, and voices of the city of Rome.

The A Side begins with the Prelude, where a robotic voice introduces us to the KX bio-operating system, but it's silenced by strange disturbing frequencies: the “antisystem” sonic journey can begin. The first track of the disc is Massimo Amato's rarefied and dreamy “Later That Night”, followed by the dissonant “Antimente” by visual artist Tiziano Lucci, preceded by the screech of seagulls flying over the city of Rome in the first Interlude.

The B Side opens with a track by Milan based producer Giona Vinti (Hyena), inspired by one of the key characters from the comic: “Talamo, o la Memoria”. The second Interlude transports us into the electro-futurist dimension of T / Error with the solid “kx2048”. The third Interlude closes the side with the announcements -partly sampled, partly reconstructed - of the roman subway, imagining that in 2048 there will be alternative routes, passing through the Colosseum station.

The C Side explodes with the massive “Cyb(Moth)er” by Mattia Trani, with his electro-alias 051 Destroyer, who gives us an electro-techno pearl with drexciyane shades inspired by the character of Falena. MA Spaventi dedicates his liquid and melancholic "Tevere (Somewhere in Rome)” to the river, an emblem of the Roman metropolis, which incorporates recordings of the tenuous city watercourse.

In the D Side, we reach the emotional climax of the soundtrack. The brothers Fabrizio and Marco D'Arcangelo, masters of the IDM / Braindance scene, are inspired by the epic and kaleidoscopic battle of the latest comic strips for their glowing "Dive Reverse Universe Edit". The fourth Interlude is dominated by the distant melody of an accordion - the magic touch, here as in the oud of Interlude II, is provided by Greek musician Maria Arampatzi - which anticipates the theme of the only proper "song" of the record, "Orizzonti Perfetti". The song, co-produced with Halfcastle and masterfully interpreted by the powerful and unmistakable voice of NicoNote, lends the definitive missing piece to an articulated, complex, ambitious..., and a little crazy musical and visual project: the first original soundtrack of a graphic novel!

The record is a new, colorful, unmissable collector's art object, made precious by the gatefold cover signed by international star Elena Casagrande, Marvel and DC Comics designer - 2021 Eisner Award winner for her “Black Widow”! - and conceived as a maxi comic composed of boards signed by the artists of the Kuro Jam collective.

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Drainolith

Hysteria

Subklinikal Leukotomy Aphrenia Spasmophilik Lyssophobo Asphyxia Sinister Lethal Anorex Black Vinyl Edition

Release: 2015 / US – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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NNA is very proud to present our second release from Canadian hero Alexander Moskos’ Drainolith project. Following up 2012’s “Fighting!” full length LP (Spectrum Spools), “Hysteria” reaches new levels in the Draino sound world, resulting in his most fully realized record to date. Moskos has spent years marinating solo in the cold Northern underground, cutting his chops as lead axegrinder with Montreal-based noise punks AIDS Wolf, and most recently rolling with North American all-star clan Dan’l Boone. “Hysteria” is the result of nearly two years spent in various studios with producers and fellow ‘Boone brothers Nate Young (Wolf Eyes) and Neil Hagerty (Royal Trux), working diligently together to take a few steps beyond Trip Metal and extract the skeleton out of “rock”, inserting it into a newer, much weirder, humanoid skin. The epicenter of this sound rests humbly on the foundation of guitar and voice, two facets of sound that Moskos has carefully cultivated through years of experimentation and digestion from a wide array of musical influences. The relaxed, loose, and energetically electric technique of guitar playing is reinforced by Drainolith’s unrivaled tone, which has morphed throughout the years but now stands alone atop a mountain of shredders. It is ripe with Bluesy fuzziness and the humanity of Americana, while punctuated by the gritty stab of 80’s death metal, and further rounded out with a sprinkling of EVH-esque chorus zones and free jazz adventurousness. The result is a sound that pre-dates the internet in a fabulous way. Each note seems to leave behind a glistening impression like a spot of grease on a pizza box. A tone as unique as this is only bolstered by the vocal delivery, the literal voice of the Mind of Moskos. This beautifully cold, dripping baritone is unmistakable, it’s fried-yet-poetic articulation recalling a halfway point between a melting Dylan and a blazed Robert Ashley. Over-tired, over-wired, and over it. Moskos lets every word kerplunk into a mesmerizing puddle of observation, giving something as mundane as staring out the window or a Vancouver hotel foyer the poignancy of a published work. With guitar and voice at the core, the additional instrumentation on “Hysteria” is the bizarre glue that binds it all together, using the palette of electronics, keys, and haphazardly triggered beats and percussion in an intensely layered fashion to ensure maximum disorientation. The compositions are fully stacked, allowing little room for sparseness or tender moments. Tracks like “Qix” stagger forward in a deranged manner, it’s elastic percussion hearkening back to purple Nike foot-pounding of 2011’s “Where Are Ye Col. Leslie Groves?” cassette and the “one man band” era, for those of us fortunate enough to witness Drainolith’s live experience. Other tracks like “Joy Road” burn on patiently, disintegrating piece by piece into the ether of time amid a bed of Fender Rhodes eeriness... almost like a rare Canadian B-side to the Lizard King’s “An American Prayer”. Blues notions are confronted by Beastie-esque guitar stabs, smeared together with repetitive, angular riff rotations and flailing synth filigree, creating a densely-layered intensity that feels like the anxiety of standing in a rat’s nest of instrument cables and leaky pipe water in a moist basement. Pleasant melody is of little interest here, instead thriving on dissonance and reminding us of the OGs of post-punk, when rock met experimentation and abstraction head on, shoving a properlygreased square peg into a circular hole. While thematically cryptic, “Hysteria” drops rough clues to the heart of it’s content, filled withtales of Quebec biker wars, sinking into couches, Detroit street hassles, sneaker worship, sidewalk slush, sexual desire and seasonal affect disorder. At it’s heart, “Hysteria” is the product of a musician who has much love for the past, but also little interest in recreating it. It is a song cycle that reflects the complexities of our day to day world through the psyche of the modern jammer, fueled by the quintessentially Moskosian diet of caffeine and nicotine. Someone who isn’t content sitting stagnant in a crowd of tradition, and who acknowledges that radical ideas are necessary to propel things into the future.

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Korpses Katatonik

LP | 1983 | EU | Reissue (Infinite Fog)

29,99 €*

Next Wave Acid Punx Deux - Chapter 2

Release: 1983 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Electronic & Dance

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* First time on vinyl the classic industrial record from 1983 * 40th-anniversary edition * Available on Black Vinyl and CD / Korpses Katatonik was a musical solo project of Zoe DeWitt during the years 1982 and 1983. Unlike DeWitt's later project Zero Kama, the work of Korpses Katatonik remains entirely within the realm of electronic music and shows an uncompromising experimental style comparable to that of other industrial bands like Throbbing Gristle, SPK, or Cabaret Voltaire. Like many other exponents of industrial culture Korpses Katatonik was inspired by dark psychiatry, pathological abnormalism, necrophilia, and other types of paraphilic aberration. These served as a metaphor for the dark side of a dehumanized society that seeks to maintain control by the suppression of anything that could be regarded as dark, sinister, deviant, or unpleasant from the viewpoint of popular mass culture. As a means of escape from this totalita rian pressure - thus a statement by Korpses Katatonik - there remains only self-destruction, murder, or the withdrawal into catatonic schizophrenia. Korpses Katatonik's first release was a Nekrophile Rekords cassette entitled subklinikal leukotomy aphrenia spasmophiik lyssophobo asphyxia sinister lethal anorex. The titles on the album were: shatok, schmertzlabor, enzephallik mortuor, nekom, kcok transzlant, kaltfleisch corporor, skarzisko and okzipital slash. The terminology of psychopathological disorders was used by Korpses Katatonik in a subversive way for its own poetic value and many of the rare vocals and track titles (as for example shatok, enzephallik mortuor and kaltfleisch corporor) were taken from writings of patients of Viennas famous psychiatrist hospital in Ma ria Gugging (dissolved in 2007). The title skarzisko refers to a national socialist concentration camp in the polish town Skarżysko-Kamienna. The upcoming influence of occultism within the postindustrial underground of the 1980s is finally reflected in the last track of Korpses Katatonik, Choronzon, which was published on the Nekrophile cassette compilation The Beast 666. This track, which refers to a ritual performed by Aleister Crowley and Victor Neuburg in the desert Sahara in 1909, anticipates the strong occult implications of Zoe DeWitt's musical follow-up project Zero Kama. In 2012 all recorded tracks by Korpses Katatonik have been released under the title Oeuvres complètes by the Viennese label Klanggalerie. Currently, the remastered album is reissued on IFP on Vinyl, CD, Tape, and ultra-limited collectors box. Recorded in 1982 by Michael Zoe Dewitt (synth, guitar, voice, tape loops) and mixed at the Institute for Composition and Electroacoustics at the University for Music and Performing Arts Vienna (Wiener Konzerthaus studios). First published as audio cassette Nrc01 on Nekrophile Rekords in 1983. Remastered by Zoe Dewitt for Infinite Fog Records in 2022. Millions of dead humanoids walking your streets, remote-controlled Cadaver. The functions of the body, which are considered the highest definition of life, are nothing more than a sign that the totalitarian systems of political control are working as usual. In fact, Death, your own essence of the progress of civilization, came the moment you accepted your terms. Poison injections and 1800-volt circuit, as well as three isolation cell torture chambers are waiting for you if you don't want to. For the glory of Masz Murders and Terror Liaisonz, there can be nothing but bones and skulls. Burnt holes of the psyche and dezpar. In the same way that Corpus Sosial conceives Death, psychic and physical Disorder from the public consciousness, it itself is nothing but the unification of all this. And since the main characteristic of his propaganda bloc is to say the exact opposite of what he really represents, and to use Death, the last argument of all oppression, as an extensive lever, the most effective methods of the operation of expelling the stick will be equally with inverted strategies for choosing the current reality and gathering information to create artificial Malfunctions, as well as to use and fight off Death, multiplying its signs in order to increase the semantic value as an offensive counter-propaganda event. A reverse policy cannot and will not be a policy. Offensive subversion is not so much the destruction of the leading organizations as the actual ignoring of them by organizing one's own body. It's a reversal of your dictated reward/punishment law.

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Curses

2LP | 2023 | EU | Original (Eskimo)

LP | 2023 | EU | Original (Astigmatic)

Release: 2023 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Next Wave Acid Punx Deux is the second compilation for Eskimo Recordings compiled and curated by Berlin-based Musician and DJ Luca Venezia, aka Curses, to explore the darker side of club music. Spread across 3CDs and three 2LPs Next Wave Acid Punx Deux features a mammoth 49 tracks that join the dots between early industrial pioneers Throbbing Gristle, EBM legends like Nitzer Ebb and the post-punk experiments of people like Malcolm McLaren and Big Audio Dynamite with some of the most exciting artists around today, such as Boy Harsher, Nuovo Testamento and Years of Denial.

Where the first Next Wave Acid Punx compilation was a personal journey for Luca, a lockdown inspired exploration of his record collection to find the thread that ran through the music that had soundtracked much of his life, Deux is a celebration of that music let loose on the world, the thrill of music performed live, the smoke and strobe filled clubs you'll hear it in and the artists you'll find on those stages.

"After our enforced break, getting back out there and playing live again really brought home to me so much of what I love about the scene I'm in but also just how important live music has been and is to club culture over the years," Luca explains. "Too often we think of club nights and live gigs as these separate things, but throughout the years it's where the two meet, the friction that can cause, that you'll find the most vibrant scenes."

"There's an energy, an atmosphere that you get with live music, an unpredictability where at any moment something can go wrong or even better right in a way you never expect. I think about a live set we played at a Lebanese festival where our MPC drum machine froze up because of all the dust and sand trapped in the pads. We had to improvise half our set, jamming bass and guitar and pedal FX and vocals, embracing this surreal environment and experience, something that could only happen in the moment."

"With Next Wave Acid Punx Deux I wanted to celebrate those bands and artists, past and present who, to me, represent that spirit. Both full live bands and makeshift electronic duos alike, the kind of acts that you might have found wedged between DJs back in the day at The Hacienda in the 80s, Trash in the 00s or today at nights like Berlin's Milk ME, Exbtn in Paris, Night Terrors + Sc&p in London, New York City's Synthicide or Ukraine's Worn Pop.

So I've put this compilation together much like my favourite kind of night, going out to see some bands play, hitting up a club where live music and DJs blur together, before the serious business of the after party. On Chapter 1 you'll find bands like Vicious Pink, DAF and Cabaret Voltaire, some of these acts are more obscure than others, some flirted with pop and even the charts but they were all embracing new ways of working in the late 70s and 80s that both set them apart and set the scene for much of what we think of as club music.

Chapter 2 moves the night on, and this is the sound of the clubs I love to both play and just hang out in these days, clubs where the people involved put a lot more time into digging through the crates than working on their Instagram Reels. These are places where you're as likely to find a band on stage as you are a DJ, where 80's German electro pop by a band like Boytronic seamlessly flows into tracks like Silent Servant's Non Fiction. Timeless music that can be romantic, dreamlike and ethereal one moment, then veer into dark, industrial sounds the next.

Then finally we get to that part of the night where you probably should go home but if it's too late for good decisions there's still time for good music. Things are a bit wilder here, the drums a bit harder, the synths are more aggressive, tracks like The Hacker's Monopoly, Zanias' Tryptamine Palace or EVA's Industrial Hope that don't let up, don't let you go, just subjugate you to the beat and keep you there till you stumble out blinking into a new day."

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Tomasz Stanko Quintet

Wooden Music I

12" | 2024 | UK | Original (Slacker 85)

Release: 2023 / EU – Original

Genre: Organic Grooves

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It would appear that Polish jazz is a well-known subject through and through. Dozens of outstanding albums, biographies of the masters, hundreds of journal articles. As it turns out, it is still possible to find music that has been waiting for years to be discovered. On the 80th birthday of Tomasz Stańko, Astigmatic Records presents the first part of Wooden Music, a conceptual project created by the maestro and his legendary quintet, which has been stored in the archives of Radio Bremen for 50 years.

Tomasz Stańko was an exceptional Polish jazz trumpeter. He passed away in 2018, leaving behind a legacy of numerous releases, soundtracks, concert recordings and wild stories involving him. Before rising to the top, he honed his craft alongside Krzysztof Komeda and Andrzej Trzaskowski. In the mid-1960s, he appeared on Astigmatic and Polish Jazz Vol. 4 – the albums that were a creative manifesto for Polish jazz of those years. However, all this time he was constantly thinking about starting his own band.

In 1968 he completed the line-up – Janusz Stefański on drums, Bronisław Suchanek on double bass, Janusz Muniak on tenor saxophone and Zbigniew Seifert on alto saxophone, which he soon replaced with the violin. Stańko classified the quintet's output into three periods. The first, composed, is associated with Music for K, Stańko's publishing debut as a leader, which became a permanent entry in the canon of Polish jazz records. The second period is wooden music – it's the free jazz period, the least known in the quintet's history despite the fact that it spanned more than three years. The third and final period is linked to the release of the band's final album, the cult Purple Sun. However, the entire period between Music for K and Purple Sun is shrouded in mystery, as the band was mainly in Western Europe at the time. In the early 1970s, all the musicians take one-year visas. In between tours they live in Germany: first in a hippie commune in Wurtzburg, then in Darmstadt. They play in clubs on a day by day basis. The quintet is said to be distinguished from other bands by their ability to completely "burn" in the fire of improvisation. They lead their lives as a single organism, touring without wives or girlfriends. The compositions are blurred, the fascination with free music prevails. Short pieces and motives are the starting point for further performance. The ensemble does not plan, they just play. On 28 May 1972 they play at the Iserlohn jazz festival. JG Records would release this performance as Jazzmessage from Poland. The very music recorded there represents what the quintet called Wooden Music.

The foundation of wooden music is the sound of the double bass and the violin, but it soon becomes apparent that all instruments except for Tomasz Stańko's trumpet are wooden. A string orchestra is born, over which the metal trumpet can weave all sorts of hues accompanied by the saxophone. What fascinates the quintet in wooden music is the melody, rhythm and timbre - where these are usually just an element, they fill the entire piece in their case. Bronisław Suchanek, the last living member of the quintet, recalls:

"Wooden music is all about total improvisation. We used to arrive at a gig, start playing without really knowing where we were heading. The only thing that guided us was the common and mental compatibility, understanding, friendship and respect along this musical journey. Music was the first most important element to attribute to – it was free jazz in its purest form. If there are any moments that seem orchestrated it is because we played together for several years, evening after evening, going from club to club. We knew each other better than our parents knew us, we had total trust in each other – that's what made this music exist in the way it did."

To celebrate the 80th anniversary of Tomasz Stanko's birthday, Astigmatic Records in cooperation with Tomasz Stańko Foundation and the Adam Mickiewicz Institute will be releasing two parts of Wooden Music: the first on 5th December 2022, and the second in the first half of 2023. Both albums released by Astigmatic Records add to the little-known history of the quintet, the most important episode in their lives, as the band's musicians used to refer to the late 1960s and early 1970s. Wooden Music I will be released via Astigmatic Records in digital, CD and LP versions; what's more, a limited red vinyl edition including a B2 poster designed by Natalia Łabędź will also be available. The pre-order of the LP will be launched on 4th November 2022.

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Tres Mortimer

M1 City

18,99 €*

LP | 1967 | EU | Reissue (Elpalmas Music)

Release: 2024 / UK – Original

Genre: Electronic & Dance

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Kicking off ‘M1 City’ is the simplistic, but refined and booth-rattling ‘Work That Body’. A crisp M1 stab is the main character in this, amplified by thunderous and high energy drums.

Then there’s ‘Secrets’, a house jam inspired by the likes of MK that utilises TR-909 drums, a subtle rolling bassline, intimately whispered and soulfully sung vocal shots, and, of course, classic Korg M1 synth stabs. Together with dramatic contemporary builds, a highly danceable house smasher is formed.

‘No More’ is pure gasoline for the dancefloor. Très pairs another barrage of clean M1 stabs with a rousing vocal sample that leads into, with the help of a rolling snare, another highly effective house drop. Following the extremely saucy ‘Big Daddy’ skit, we’re dropped straight into ‘One Of Those Nights’, a show-stopping track complete with cutting, sharp stabs, a bulging bassy synth and a West Coast-esque synth sound.

‘Bitch I’m From Chicago’ feat. Gleebz is, as the title suggests, a dedication to the city where house music found its name. Batting off all the poser cities like LA and Miami in the sassy lyrics, it embodies the spirit of Chicago with hefty kick drums and weighty chord stabs.

At the tail end of the release, ‘Let Me Go’ and ‘Love’ (featuring vocalist 7000 (7K)), bring things to a rousing emotive close. Both tracks see Très put clean vocals over piano riffs, giving off differing moods – the former is euphoric, the latter melancholic. Synths bubble beneath, and each track funnels their own respective house grooves, resulting in two tracks fit for both the dancefloor and headphones.

Très Mortiner explains: “The M1 sound is classic. It automatically transports you back to those timeless house songs that never get old. For me, house music is all about connection. People experiencing a little moment of euphoria together when they hear a riff that they all know on the dance floor. That’s what it’s all about. With this project I wanted to tap into that 90s rave sound and spirit. I wanted it to sound like the OG Chicago rave scene.”

“M1 City is my first project to be released on vinyl. I think vinyl is very much alive. It’s essentially for music connoisseurs now. I don’t expect people to have a vinyl collection when all music is always available to everyone on their phones. Nevertheless, I love the idea of some random DJ finding this record in a shop in 10 years. Who knows what I’ll be producing then?”

Très Mortimer is a key figure in Chicago's house scene, steadily building a strong following with his no-nonsense, dancefloor-driven sound. Drawing inspiration from his Polish roots, Trés has signed with major labels like Mad Decent, Insomniac’s IN/Rotation, and Ministry of Sound, while also launching his own imprint, Optics Records. He made his mark with a clever rework of Zombies' 1968 hit ‘Time Of The Season’ (1M+ streams). Standout releases include his downtempo collaboration with plumpy, "BAMBU," and his latest single, "At Night I Think Of You," which was recently given a remix makeover by Seth Troxler and Nick Morgan.

Slacker 85, launched in 2023, is the record label behind ‘M1 City’. Founded by Seth Troxler, it aims to give a platform to "oddball, esoteric and diverse sounds," positioning itself as a counter to the polished, refined dance artists dominating the scene. Troxler, upon the label’s launch, declared that he wanted to create something for "the anti-hero, the kids who could have done it but didn’t care to try”—essentially, "the slacker." So far, it’s delivered a range of releases from artists like Jackmaster, Danny Daze, Dan McKie, and Andre Salmon, offering tracks rooted in house music's past but evolving within its present boundaries.

‘M1 City’, this ode to a piece of gear that consistently finds itself at the heart of house music history, highlights Très Mortimer’s respect for and knowledge of the scene and its key gear. Trè combines this admiration and inspiration of house music’s greats with a modern sensibility, resulting in eight tracks worthy of today’s dancefloors and today’s ravers.

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Los Calvos

Estos Son Los Calvos

15,99 €*

Release: 1967 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Few have done as much for salsa in Venezuela as band-leader, composer and pianist Ray Pérez. He burst on to the scene in the mid-60s with his group Los Dementes, creating the blueprint for guaguanco, pachanga and boogaloo in Venezuela. When the name salsa began to be used as something of a catch-all-term he was still at the forefront, recording two hugely-popular salsa albums with Los Dementes in 1967. Remarkably, that very same year, he also recorded two albums with a brand new group, Los Calvos, that showed how as well as being the genre’s most visible band-leader, he was also pushing the nascent genre to its limits. Looking back, revered journalist Alfredo Churion states that Los Calvos were “one of the most innovative experiences in Venezuelan popular music.” Estos Son Los Calvos is the first of the two albums he made with Los Calvos. On it, he made a few alterations to the line-up that may seem minor, but created a completely new sound. For the first time, he recruited a drummer (unprecedented at the time for a salsa ensemble, which always used percussionists), he switched from the trombones of Los Dementes to the much harder, direct sound of trumpets, and he recruited Carlos Yanez, best known as El Negrito Calavén, as singer. Whereas Los Dementes had been aligned with the slightly pop sound of tropical orchestras, Los Calvos took an almost-jazz approach, allowing room for the musicians and vocalists to improvise, and they also took inspiration from the sounds of surf rock swirling around Caracas. The group’s drummer El Pavo amusingly once described the group’s sound as like “wearing a dinner suit with flip-flops”. Opening track “El Kenya” is the clearest example of that surf rock influence; it’s opening lines make clear its intentions: “una linda trigueña que me invitó a bailar el Kenya” (“a beautiful trigueña – tri-ethnic girl – invited me to dance the Kenya”). They are intent on creating their own dance craze, El Kenya. If the group had ever performed live, then maybe it would have taken off, as the song had all the credentials: rollicking montuno piano from Pérez, ingenious scatting and vocal improvs from Calavén, and a middle section where the drums and trumpets battle it out hard, with an audience screaming its appreciation throughout. It’s followed by ‘Mi Salsa Llego’, which Pérez had already recorded with Los Dementes; here, it’s a tougher beast, the sparser hits of the drums and trumpets giving a harder sound evocative of the times, with more and more people moving to the cities, and wanting a grittier, urban soundtrack. The secret weapon in Los Calvos was the fact that this was a group made up of some of Venezuela’s finest musicians, many of which, Pérez included, had working class roots. Music for them was as much a part of their day-to-day lives, as it was a profession, it was what they did. The legendary Frank “El Pavo” Hernandez was on drum kit, with revered names like Alfredo Padilla, Carlos “Nene” Quintero, Pedro García, Miguel Silva, Enrique Vazquez, Rafael Araujo and Luis Lewis, also involved in the group. Their versatility allowed Los Calvos to go from the slower, haunting groove of “Negrito Calavan”, a showcase for their singer to improvise, and on to “Bailemos Kenya”, another attempt by the group to create their own version of “The Twist”! Los Calvos never played live, but that was always the intention. Pérez was in demand by the record labels of the time and his deal with RCA Victor to make two albums as Los Calvos was only ever that. But the spirit of Los Calvos remained when Pérez then formed Los Kenya, whose name came from the opening track of this album, and whose line-up featured the same inventions as Los Calvos, with a drum kit, two trumpets and the same vocalists (for their second album, Carlín Rodríguez joined as a singer, and remained for Las Kenya). For this reason, Los Calvos would never have the same successes as Pérez’s other groups, though even Pérez has revealed in interviews that the two albums he made as Los Calvos are some of the most fun he ever had recording. With the price of originals for both albums ever increasing for vinyl collectors, this is a great chance to get hold of two of the heaviest salsa albums ever issued in the 60s, and an important moment in the life of Venezuela’s salsa king, Ray Pérez.

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Heisei No Oto - Japanese Left-Field Pop From The CD Age (1989-1996)

2CD | 2021 | EU | Original (Music From Memory)

LP | 2024 | Original (Circus Company)

Release: 2021 / EU – Original

Genre: Electronic & Dance

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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. VA - Heisei No Oto - Japanese Left-field Pop From The CD Age (1989-1996) is a 2xLP/2xCD that includes liner notes by Chee Shimizu and artwork by Hagihara Takuya and is released on February 28th.

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Rejoicer

This Is Reasonable

2LP | 2019 | EU | Reissue (Panache)

Release: 2024 / Original

Genre: Electronic & Dance

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Yuval Havkin, also known as Rejoicer, is one of the foremost exponents of downtempo music, inspired by the fusion of jazz and hip-hop. His new album thus draws on his early influences while exploring the world of calm, melodic electronic music that borders on ambient.

This Is Reasonable has a chill-out feel to it, a record filled with melodies and atmospheres that, throughout its eleven tracks, conveys a sense of calm and floating, akin to ambient music. Stripped of the clichés of the genre, the album is built around subtle melodies and rich harmonies from keyboards and synths, which borrow as much from the spirit of jazz as from the inventions of electronica, whilst being supported by a gentle groove. This equilibrium is perfectly captured by Rejoicer's moniker, a term that evokes both the idleness of artificial paradises and a soft, caring form of spirituality.

Musical path
Yuval Havkin was born in Israel in 1985, and grew up in England before returning to his homeland. He began studying classical piano as a child, but was put off by such conservative teaching and turned to hip-hop and beatmaking in his teens. Throughout the 2000s, he learned his skills "on the job", working with musicians he met in Tel Aviv, a local scene that nurtured a sense of community and emulation. Back then, he was particularly impressed by the grooves and electronic inventions of Detroit producer Dabrye, who had a revelatory effect on him, before he discovered legendary musicians Madlib and Jay Dee aka J Dilla, who led him down the path of beatmaking.

Yuval Havkin's music career got off to a more serious start in the late 2000s with the creation of his own label, Raw Tapes, both based in Tel Aviv. Blending jazz, funk and hip hop, whilst still embracing pop influences, the label's productions showcased the richness of the new Israeli scene combining cool, elegance, playfulness, and a degree of research and inventiveness, thanks to the talent of artists and bands such as Duo Brothers, Maya Dunietz, iogi, Nitai Hershkovits, the Buttering Trio and Rejoicer, the artist's most personal project.

In 2018, Rejoicer's warm and engaging sounds caught the attention of the prestigious Los Angeles label Stones Throw, renowned for having signed his idols Madlib and J Dilla, not to mention Aloe Blacc and Peanut Butter Wolf (its founder). Two albums followed, Energy Dreams (2018) and Spiritual Sleaze (2020), both of which demonstrate his instrumental mastery, jazz culture and lush orchestrations. Both albums are on a par with more renown sampling prodigies of the beat scene, and gave him his first international recognition.

Now based between Los Angeles and Savyon, near Tel Aviv, this hyperactive and instinctive artist simultaneously pursues a career as a composer, musician and label owner, member of numerous bands and collective projects (Apifera, PlayDead, collaborations with Jimi Prasad and Avishai Cohen) while also offering his studios and production skills to other artists.

“Fela Kuti meets Aphex Twin”
This new Rejoicer album, which follows three earlier jazz-tinged records, marks a new and more personal musical direction for an artist who previously favored group work and collaborations. Following his meeting with Mathias Duchemin, founder of the Circus Company record label and a keen enthusiast of the new Israeli jazz scene, Yuval chose to delve into a more electronic and sequenced style of music, playing Prophet 6 and 8 synths, a Juno 60, a Minimoog and his Fender Rhodes keyboard, in contrast with the more organic sounds of his previous albums.

While a few tracks on this new album may sound like a laid-back version of some of the Warp label's early electronic classics by Aphex Twin or Boards of Canada, Yuval Havkin claims to have also been inspired by the great Fela Kuti, particularly in his search for harmonies between bass, keyboards and percussion, and by his elder trumpet-playing friend Avishai Cohen, a musician he particularly admires.

Beyond these various influences, This Is Reasonable is an album of compelling and bewitching melodies. The moods, peacefulness and sheer beauty of This Is Reasonable are, indeed, quite paradoxical, in stark contrast to the country's tragedies (the title explicitly refers to recent political disputes in Israel) and the war currently raging less than a hundred miles from his studio. A paradox fully embraced by the artist, who views his music as a response to the violence of our times.

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Peter Cat Recording Co.

Bismillah

2LP | 2024 | Original (Imbalance Computer Music)

Release: 2019 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Electronic & Dance

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New Delhi-based Peter Cat Recording Co. will release their debut album, ‘Bismillah’ on June 14, 2019 via French independent label Panache Records. Debut UK live shows are soon also to be announced by the band.

Peter Cat Recording Co. could almost have a question mark on the end of its name. Not least as founder & frontman Suryakant Sawhney refuses to explain where that name really comes from or what it means (perhaps a reference to the Tokyo jazz club owned by Haruki Murakami), but also since the very existence of the band itself raises a raft of questions. When was the last time we fell for an indie rock band for the right reasons? Not because the band in question nostalgically imitate a perceived ‘golden age’ but because they innately embody the fundamentals of such music: fantasy, sincerity and the freedom to make music without rules or career aspi- rations. And when was the last time this kind of band sounded like Sinatra, Barry White, the sweetest doo-wop, humid fanfares and a psychedelic wedding band, all at once? And all of this coming from India? In truth, the story of Peter Cat Recording Co. was written within the triangle of San Francisco, Delhi and Paris. In the first of these cities, Sawhney (a native of Delhi) pitched up to study film-making. More distracted by the city’s peaking live scene of the early noughties, this is where he started to make music and to sketch out an idea for the band.“ The people I lived with supported my idea of writing music, they introduced me to great mu- sic. There used to be a great garage scene in San Francisco, like The Oh Sees [also Ty Seagall, Mikal Conin], all those bands. This is a world I had never seen in my entire life. A big inspiration from San Francisco was that you could record yourself. You don’t need to be in a studio and spend a lot of money to make an album. You can do it”.

At the end of the 2000s, Suryakant returned home to New Delhi, and started his band for real, more or less the same band that plays today. “I wasn’t so concerned about will we be performing, will we be the greatest band, will we be trendy. I just wanted to make something that was consequential and important for us, I think. Something which would last, something people could listen to and be like « this is life changing ». It was for the sake of beauty”.

For the first few years and in India alone, this is exactly what Peter Cat Recording Co. did, in total indifference to the rest of the world. This was until young Parisian label Panache stumbled across the band online via Vice’s Thump subsidiary, stupefied by the band’s cosmic video for seven-minutes-and-counting track, ‘Love De- mons’. And so in spring of 2018, ‘Portrait Of A Time: 2010-2016’ was released on Panache - making the first international release from Peter Cat Recording Co., bizarrely enough, an anthology of re-mastered, hidden gems from the band’s ramshackle back catalogue, previously recorded in Suryakant’s own living room. With Peter Cat’s off-kilter charm hitherto unheard of beyond the fringes of India, the release provided a gateway op- Whilst the title track found its way onto Tracks Of The Year lists at the Guardian & NME, it was tricky for new Pcrc enthusiasts to get a firm grip on the startling push/pull between the immediate, uncanny music this release gathered, and the cultural backdrop of New Delhi at which it was so startlingly at odds.

Opportunity for a wider fanbase to fall in love with their cloud-like, drunken songs for the first time. If discovering your favourite new band via a ‘Best Of’ feels a curious premise, then ‘Bismillah’ does more than hint towards the promise of Peter Cat Recording Co’s future. Blending gypsy jazz, psychedelic cabaret, space disco, bossa supernova, Bollywood and uneasy listening with kaleidoscopic ease, in many senses, the band’s knack hasn’t altered. Always different, paradoxical, unpredictable yet somehow familiar. The new album opens to the strains of bird chatter, the whisper of a city’s soundscape and the first few notes from an instrument which seem to be calling us to the departure lounge, a fore-shadow of the flight ‘Bismillah’ launches its listener on. Suryakant sings with the detached, rueful elegance of Sinatra marooned on a desert island, whilst his band create small space-time capsules which navigate their way through genres and eras – including the future – and between nostalgia and eccentricity.

Peter Cat recently trailed ‘Bismillah’ with the release of ‘Floated By’, an appositely titled musing on failure & missed opportunities, punctuated by the fulsome brass section which weaves through so much of the album.

The languid, blue quality to the track is offset by the attendant music video, created with footage shot, implau- sibly enough, at Suryakant’s own marriage ceremony (needless to say, the wedding band hired for the day was of course, Peter Cat Recording Co.) Sawhney dryly notes; “Hopefully it’s not a many-a-times-in-a-lifetime event. You can’t fake that set, those people actually having a good time, being really emotional and intense.” ‘Bismillah’’s colour-drenched album cover also captures Suryakant’s father-in-law making his wedding toast on that same day - a nod back towards the cover of ‘Portrait Of A Time’, itself a black & white image taken at the wedding ceremony of Suryakant’s own father.

A stumbling but gracious collection of songs rooted in a kind of drunken soul music, the melancholy nature of some of the songs on ‘Bismillah’ renders them almost liquid, before they develop into more dance-like shapes. Suryakant’s rangy voice swoops from the falsetto glide of ‘I’m This’ to the beat-up baritone blown along by the warm breeze of ‘Soulless Friends’. The elliptical structure of album opener ‘Where The Money Flows’ also al- lows for the use of brief bursts of autotune effect on his vocal without feeling incongruous, whilst the desultory lyrics of ‘Heera’ (a Hindi word for diamond) - sharing something with the Morricone school of grand storytelling - have an emotional weight that would impress even coming from a native English speaker. Perhaps the most gleefully unpredictable moment on ‘Bismillah’ comes with the illusory, vocal loops on the intro to ‘Memory Box’, errupting into 8 exhilarating minutes worth of unbridled, string-backed disco joy. A cat might have nine lives, but on ‘Bismillah’ and beyond, Peter Cat Recording Co. are hinting towards an un- knowable multitude of dimensions. Throw them all together, and it equates less to a listening experience and more to an out-of-body experience.

Peter Cat Recording Co. are: Suryakant Sawhney (vocals/guitar/organ), Dhruv Bhola (bass), Kartik S Pillai (organ/guitar/electronics), Rohit Gupta (horns), Karan Singh (drums)

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Monolake

Studio

33,99 €*

Luminous Rubble HHV Exclusive Blue Vinyl Edition

Release: 2024 / Original

Genre: Electronic & Dance

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My studio is my shelter, I feel comfortable there, surrounded by wonderful inspiring machines. A small cosy room where ideas emerge, mature, morph, and solidify into their final shape. 'Studio' is the result of spending time in that space. The album's intention is simple: Presenting a beautiful personal musical journey. The creative process in itself matters to me, the interaction with my instruments, the accidental discoveries, the successful execution of a vision and anything in between.
Most of the tracks on this album got revised countless times, and then even more, once I knew in which context and order I wanted to arrange them. I have been living with my music for months now, listening, thinking, changing, diving deeper and deeper into each piece.
I love albums, they are a beautiful long-form format where each part has its place, a journey from the start till the end. Each piece has its own story, its own flavour and history.
Some of them have been with me since a while already. There is material which I created years ago for installations and music derived from previous audiovisual works, all completely ripped apart and rearranged multiple times. During their creation my pieces often turn into something completely different, they repeatedly shift from one state to another until they become solid. What I consider a core element at the beginning might be later discarded completely, and a little detail in the background might become the essence.
Many explorations ended in the trash bin before the results had a chance to be part of 'Studio'. Things did not fall into place, did not feel right.
Other compositions had to fill the void instead, some created quickly in a rush of inspiration, some slowly, shy, questioning their significance. This album did not come into existence in a hurry, it took as long as it needed. I used the time to walk around my creations, to listen to them from the distance, physically, mentally, with friends, in all kinds of different contexts. I tried to understand what I just did. I started to see patterns, hidden motifs, things that were buried in between too many layers of sound. What is essential? What is ornament? I reduced, rearranged, added again.
The closer I got to the final state of 'Studio' the more clarity I found. The inherent doubts and the nagging voices from the inside got more quiet, and a sense of achievement started to manifest itself. More and more details just fell into place. And now it is done. After making electronic music since almost thirty years I don't care anymore about genres, about how to label things. It is music, my own personal music, and that's it. Call it electronica if you wish.
Process Notes
The music on this album has been constructed in Ableton Live. Most of the sounds have been created with my collection of beloved hardware synthesisers and effects, often further processed until something completely different did emerge. Sometimes I spend days in the studio just recording sounds or creating new presets, without already having a composition in mind. A few selected musical instruments contributed significantly to the palette of this album; a New England Digital Synclavier II, which also served as inspiration for the artwork, a Sequential Prophet VS, which is present on all Monolake albums since 1996, a Yamaha SY77, Linn Drum, and the Oberheim Xpander. And then there is Operator in Ableton Live, which I developed in 2004 and still love to use, and a lot of the other effects and instruments in the software. And of course my Granulator III instrument, and the PitchLoop89 audio effect. The final sonic world is often the result of radical processing of these elements, via filtering, pitch shifting, time stretching and other types of processing, both in Live and with my hardware. The good old Alesis Quadraverb deserves an honorary mention here, so does the AMS RMX 16.
Artwork
The cover combines a few complex elements. A composition of various lichen photographs, and a computational noise field that cuts rivers into the structure, where the inner artwork of the album shines through: The inside of the CD package and the gatefold vinyl cover shows a non-existing musical instrument, based on the user interface of the Synclavier II. I've always been fond of its futuristic button matrix with red LEDs, which conjures a sense of nostalgia for early computer systems. But I wanted more than just a photograph of it. Instead, I created a collage that not only consists of its existing controls but also integrated additional features it never possessed, though it might have in a subsequent iteration. In essence, I crafted a vision of a future that never materialized.
Geeky detail: When a Synclavier II is turned on, and the connected mainframe computer did not boot yet, the LEDs in the buttons light up in random patterns. The imaginary version of it does the same.

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Blockhead

LP | 2024 | US | Original (Def Presse)

34,99 €*

Release: 2024 / US – Original

Genre: Hip Hop

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Limited to 200 copies.

It’s a producer’s dream: Being given access to a vast library of material to construct something completely new and exciting out of all of it—and when Blockhead’s at the controls, the results are a listener’s paradise, too. The New York City-based hip-hop production legend’s latest album, Luminous Rubble, is also the fifth release in the London-based label Def Pressé’s KPM Crate Diggers series, which hands the keys to the KPM Library’s storied collection—home to over 70 years of music and sound designs made for television, film, and radio—to some of the best behind the boards. The results are like witnessing a kid unleashed in a candy shop, as Blockhead unleashes his boundless creative mind on the KPM Library’s limitless potential—pure inspiration and joy, for your listening pleasure.

Luminous Rubble is the latest missive in a particularly busy period for underground hip-hop veteran Tony Simon, who’s spent the last decades lending his considerable talents to work from artists like Armand Hammer, billy woods, Murs, and Open Mike Eagle; in 2021, he released the critically acclaimed collab LP Garbology with rap legend and longtime collaborator Aesop Rock, just last year he unleashed his twelfth solo album, The Aux. Luminous Rubble had its origins in a chance meeting after a Hamburg show between Simon and a KPM rep, who explained the Crate Diggers conceit to him.

“For me, as a producer who uses samples, there’s nothing better than free rein,” Simon recalls. “I was like, ‘Are there any rules?’ And he said, ‘Just make whatever you want.’ That was so exciting for me. I don’t get that on my own releases, but in this case every sample is cleared and it’s all good.”

As is the case with many sample excavators, Simon already had a deep history with what the KPM library had to offer him as well—to the point where, while digging through the crates in the making of Luminous Rubble, he even came across records he’d sampled from in the past. “Their vault is the one I’m most familiar with,” he says with a laugh. “Back when I used to go record shopping a lot, I would pretty much buy any KPM record on sight. They were always a huge find at record stores. So to be able to tap into these records with no limitations was really nice.”

“The challenge for me was trying to boil down what I wanted to do,” Simon continues while discussing the genesis of Luminous Rubble, which came together over the course of 2022. “I thought about making an album of super-long songs, but it would’ve been a whole different undertaking. So I just went with what I knew, because it’s a foolproof approach to me.” Of course, Simon’s track record as Blockhead meant that the familiar path was tried and true—but as Luminous Rubble’s ten tracks prove, it’s foolish to assume that would mean any laurel-resting on his part.

“My music is always very quirky and melody-driven,” Simon states while talking about how he stretched his creative wings in the studio. “I took chances more than usual when it came to samples and how I used them for foundation.” Indeed, Luminous Rubble finds Simon using the KPM library’s vastness to craft new and engagingly twisted beat-driven shapes; “Dork Crystal” radiates a sinister ominousness, with streaks of strings rubbing against stabbing guitar chords, while a delightfully scuzzy horn line dances around a hi-hat shuffle in “Scumlord.” “There’s something dirty about the horn sample,” Simon explains while discussing the track’s title. “It reminds you of oil-slicked streets in an alley. I wanted to embrace that feeling.”

Glittering bells and a woozy gait to “Serious About My Fitness” makes the tune sound as if you’re sweating it out on the Stairmaster (in a good way), while there’s a distinct thousand-karat shine to “Oh You Fancy,” which nearly resembles a glitzed-out haunted house in its gilded spookiness. “It just sounds like royalty,” Simon exclaims, before going into greater detail about how the creative parameters of the Crate Diggers series proved its own inspiration.

“I’ve always appreciated working within limitations,” he says. “Having no boundaries can be overwhelming when it comes to the creative process. Working with these samples forced me to find middle ground in cases where I’d typically just walk away and look elsewhere.” After hearing Luminous Rubble, you’ll be happy he stuck around.

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Jambú - E Os Míticos Sons Da Amazônia

2LP | 2019 | EU | Original (Analog Africa)

LP | 2021 | US | Original (Lovitt)

Release: 2019 / EU – Original

Genre: Organic Grooves

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The city of Belém, in the Northern state of Pará in Brazil, has long been a hotbed of culture and musical innovation. Enveloped by the mystical wonder of the Amazonian forest and overlooking the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean, Belém consists of a diverse culture as vibrant and broad as the Amazon itself. Amerindians, Europeans, Africans - and the myriad combinations between these people - would mingle, and ingeniously pioneer musical genres such as Carimbó, Samba-De-Cacete, Siriá, Bois-Bumbás and bambiá. Although left in the margins of history, these exotic and mysteriously different sounds would thrive in a parallel universe of their own.

I didn’t even know of the existence of that universe until an Australian DJ and producer by the name of Carlo Xavier dragged me deep into this whole new musical world. Ant it all began in Belém do Pará. Perched on a peninsula between the Bay of Guajará and the Guamá river, sculpted by water into ports, small deltas and peripheral areas, Belém had connected city dwellers with those deeper within the forest providing fertile ground for the development of a popular culture mirroring the mighty waters surrounding it. Through the continuous flow of culture, language and tradition, various rhythms were gathered here and transformed into new musical forms that were simultaneously traditional and modern.

Historically marginalized African religions like Umbanda, Candomblé and the Tambor de Mina, which had reached this side of the Atlantic through slaves from West Africa – especially from the Kingdom of Dahomey, currently the Republic of Benin – left an indelible stamp on the identity of Pará´s music. They would give birth to Lundun, Banguê and Carimbó, styles later modernised by Verequete, Orlando Pereira, Mestre Cupijó and Pinduca to great effect. The success of these pioneers would create a solid foundation for a myriad of modern bands in urban areas.

Known as the “Caribbean Port,” Belem had been receiving signal from radio stations from Colombia, Surinam, Guyana and the Caribbean islands - notably Cuba and the Dominican republic - since the 1940s. By the early 1960s, Disc jockeys breathlessly exchanged Caribbean records to add these frenetic, island sounds to liven up revelers. The competition was fierce as to who would be the first to bring unheard hits from these countries. The craze eventually reached local bands’ repertoires, and Belém’s suburbs got overtaken by merengue, leading to the creation of modern sounds such as Lambada and Guitarrada.

To reach a larger audience, the music needed to be broadcast. Radios began targeting the taste of mainstream audiences and played music known as “music for masses.” As the demand for this music grew, it led to the establishment of recording companies. Belém’s infant recording industry began when Rauland Belém Som Ltd was founded in the 1970s. It boosted a radio station, a recording studio, a music label and had a deep roster of popular artists across the carimbó, siriá, bolero and Brega genres.

Another important aspect in understanding how the musical tradition spread in Belém, are the aparelhagem sonora: the sound system culture of Pará. Beginning as simple gramophones connected to loudspeakers tied to light posts or trees, these sound systems livened up neighbourhood parties and family gatherings. The equipment evolved from amateur models into sophisticated versions, perfected over time through the wisdom of handymen. Today’s aparelhagens draw immense crowds, packing clubs with thousands of revelers in Belém’s peripheral neighbourhoods or inland towns in Pará.

The history of "Jambú e Os Míticos Sons Da Amazônia" is the history of an entire city in its full glory. With bustling night clubs providing the best sound systems and erotic live shows, gossip about the whereabouts of legendary bands, singers turned into movie stars, supreme craftiness, and the creativity of a class of musicians that didn’t hesitate to take a gamble, Jambú is an exhilarating, cinematic ride into the beauty and heart of what makes Pará’s little corner of the Amazon tick. The hip swaying, frantic percussion and big band brass of the mixture of carimbó with siriá, the mystical melodies of Amazonian drums, the hypnotizing cadence of the choirs, and the deep, musical reverence to Afro-Brazilian religions, provided the soundtrack for sweltering nights in the city’s club district.

The music and tales found in Jambú are stories of resilience, triumph against all odds, and, most importantly, of a city in the borders of the Amazon who has always known how to throw a damn good party.

“Jambú is a plant widely used in Amazonian and Paraense cuisine. Known for having an appetitestimulating effect, it is added to various dishes and salads but is most famously one of the main ingredients in Tucupi and Tacacá, two delicacies that have been immortalized in countless Carimbó songs. Chewing the leaves of the Jambú plant will leave a strong sensation of tingling on the tongue and lips. Indigenous communities have relied upon its anaesthetic qualities for centuries as an effective remedy against toothaches and as a cure for mouth and throat infections. A decade ago, a distillery from Belém discovered the euphoric effects of the Jambú plant when combined with distilled sugarcane based spirit - known as cachaça - and created the now legendary “Cachaça de Jambú“.

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Soley

Mother Melancholia

25,99 €*

LP | 2024 | UK | Original (Dell'Orso)

Release: 2021 / US – Original

Genre: Pop

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Known for her delicate compositions, soaked in dream-like surrealism, Icelandic musician Sóley has attracted a huge following since launching her solo career back in 2010. Her 2012 single ‘Pretty Face’ went on to generate an enormous amount of buzz, and quickly became a viral sensation. Now, with three solo LPs under her belt, Sóley is preparing to debut a completely new sound via the release of her new concept album, Mother Melancholia, on October 22nd.

Described by the artist as "Nosferatu meets Thelma and Louise in a vampire church under the watchful eye of David Lynch", Mother Melancholia is the soundtrack to the end of the world as we know it. As a self-confessed news addict, Sóley became obsessed with the idea that the world is ending. Having surrounded herself with real-life stories of global warming and patriarchal politics she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was going to die. This feeling was so all encompassing that it sparked the idea for a new project. Could there be a soundtrack for the last days of humans on earth? How would that sound?

“I read books about possible dystopian worlds and started writing poems about irrational and in love characters who live in gray and cold imaginary loneliness. In each other’s burning arms. Walking in circles with no way out” she explains. “After all, the album reflects our life here and now. Our life and reality is a kind of dystopian world.”

Whilst writing the album, which serves as a tongue-in-cheek eulogy to our planet, Sóley began reading about ecofeminism, a branch of feminism which uses the concept of gender to analyse the relationship between humans and the natural world. Ecofeminism emphasizes that both women and nature must be respected but also separated. Since the beginning of time, the natural world has been synonymous with female identity, phrases like Mother Nature are commonplace. “The patriarchy views women as volatile and hysterical. Earth and women are either our saviours or our destroyers,” explains Sóley. “It’s so easy to abuse the earth, like the patriarchy has abused women since the dawn of time, then ask for forgiveness afterwards and promise they´ll never do it again”.

The new album sees Sóley move away from the indie-pop of her previous releases. She began by experimenting with writing songs on the accordion, allowing her a new sense of freedom in her writing. The process allowed her to broaden her horizons even further and experiment with a whole range of new and exciting sounds. “I bought myself a theremin as I was really excited about the unpitched sound and there is no perfect pitch during the end of days,” she laughs. “I also bought a mellotron, my first moog and a cello and taught myself how to play each of them. All of these new instruments are particularly suitable for the kinds of aesthetic inconveniences which I have learned to embrace.”

Album opener ‘Sunrise Skulls’, one of the most cinematic moments on the album, was inspired by the Me Too and SlutWalk movements and tells the story of a group of women who rise up and fight the patriarchy. ‘Blows Up’, a track that would be at home on any horror soundtrack, is a sarcastic love letter from the Earth to humans. Standout track ‘Desert’ is an incredibly moving song dedicated to the next generation. “It’s about the guilt you feel, as a mother, for having children and leaving them on the frontline. My daughter, for example, will take over this inevitable war” explains Sóley.

In true soundtrack style, the album flows through the end of the world in chronological order, closing with the Earth’s final moments. ‘Sundown’ is a dark piano ballad detailing human kind’s final day on Earth. “And everyday, I dig my own grave, and as I dive in you´ll hold my hand” she sings, over twinkling piano and swirling synths. We then hear the world end on ‘xxx’, a dark and swirling soundscape that swells before fading to silence. On ‘Elegía’ the silence then turns to the sound of the ocean, as we hear the Earth, like a woman finally free from a violent relationship, healing on her own.

Mother Melancholia is the mark of an artist confidently striding into more experimental territory. With a lengthy and successful career behind her, Sóley felt compelled to try something new and express the real her. The music might be shrouded in darkness but it’s a move that fills her with joy and freedom. “I hope that people not only enjoy the new sound, but also that Mother Melancholia might raise some questions in people, particularly women,” she says. “I’m under no illusions that this album will change the world but I hope that people can connect with the idea”.

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Mark Van Hoen

Plan For A Miracle

LP | 2024 | EU | Original (Alien Transistor)

Release: 2024 / UK – Original

Genre: Electronic & Dance

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“I like to work with a variety of instruments and set ups,” says Mark Van Hoen, sometimes known as Locust or Autocreation but here working under his own name on the excellent Plan For A Miracle, his first physical release of solo music since 2018’s Invisible Threads. ”Sometimes it’s literally in my studio, with all the hardware electronics available. Sometimes the laptop, using software instruments. Some of the tracks on this record were recorded in the desert (Joshua Tree) using a 4-track tape machine and small modular synthesiser set up. Each track was recorded in different location using different instruments, which accounts for the distinction between each piece. It’s also about my own reaction to my environment, and what’s going on in my life at the time.”

The Croydon-born Van Hoen started musical life in the early 1990s, signing for R&S records in 1993 but developing his own, myriad and distinctive style across a range of releases on Touch, Editions Mego and other labels, using a battery of instruments, including analogue synthesizers and taking a number of different approaches to recording, rather than ploughing a single sonic furrow. He has worked on a number of collaborations, including with Nick Holton and Neil Halstead of Slowdive, under the moniker of Black Hearted Brother - their Stars Are Our Home was released in 2013. “I have known Neil Halstead since 1992,” says Van Hoen. “He shared a house with me for a couple of years, and the music I was making and listening to along with clubs

I was attending had an influence particularly on Pygmalion, the final Slowdive album on Creation.”

Each track on Plan For A Miracle does indeed sound like a world unto itself, a mini-environment, a weather condition, an ecosystem created for the moment. It’s a collection of tracks recorded over the past few years, released on Bandcamp - despite his apparent absence, Van Hoen works constantly. Opener “Climates”, in its exquisite limpidity, feels like a homage to Brian Eno, one of his most formative influences in his teen years, commencing with Music For Films, which he bought in 1979. “This Is For Them”, feels like a ghostlike throwback to early drum & bass or electronica, reminiscent of his own, earliest outings. “There have been a number of requests from labels to make some more music like my very early releases on R&S,” says Van Hoen. “This is part of ‘letting go ’and realising that there’s nothing less creative about going back to those styles again.”

“Pencil Of Spheres” is something else again, a magnificent, imaginary glass structure, shimmering, refracting, without visible means of suspension, a thing of impossible beauty. “Electric Lights” evokes an abandoned fairground, its lights still pulsating, its music lingering. “The Underpass”, meanwhile, insofar as it reminds of anything at all, is faintly reminiscent of Cluster or Neu’s! West German ambience, the urban mundane rendered magical, the sodium lights, the whitewashed walls. The reverberant, faintly oriental chimes of “Insight” transport us yet again, burgeoning and intensifying.

The landscapes, the skyscapes rendered on Plan For A Miracle feel unpopulated as a rule - but when he does introduce vocal elements, Van Hoen has a history of doing so to spectacular effect - think of “Real Love” from 1998’s Playing With Time, the seductive intonation of its title recurring throughout like a series of massive holograms, echoing, stuttering, breaking up, surging. Here, there are just the faintest of vocals, barely distinct, disquieting. “There’s been a bit of a game changer in recent times,” explains Van Hoen. “AI software that enables you to extract vocals and instrument parts from virtually any recording. That means sampling individual parts from existing sources is no longer limited to the original mix exposing certain parts soloed. The vocal parts I use are from multiple sources and often pitch shifted altered rhythmically and melodically.“ There’s further vocal chatter on “I Really Do”, proceeding at a faster pace as if giving chase, or being pursued - distant, enigmatic. “The Music”, meanwhile, its beat tolling, lost in its own fog of static, features a curious intonation, like the ghost of a lost Walker Brother.

Sadly, the album’s title is in reference to a personal tragedy on Van Hoen’s part - the loss of his wife. Titles such as “I Won’t Give Up”, which faintly reminds of another Eno masterpiece, Another Green World, in its nautical hurly-bury, or the pastoral strains of “Mrs Who”, heavily clouded with sadness, seem to allude to this. “In fact the record was recorded entirely

before she passed away,” says Van Hoen, “most of it before she even became very ill. The title was given to the album when it started to look like she wasn’t going to make it beyond a few months. It was something Osho said - “plan for a miracle” - so it was a statement of hope. Unfortunately it was not to be.” Although the album is non-thematic, non-specific in its atmospheres, sound paintings, elegant structures it most certainly stands as a magnificent monument to Osho’s memory.

-David Stubbs.

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Organi

Babylonia

Too Cute Pink Colored Vinyl Edition

Release: 2024 / EU – Original

Genre: Pop

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Well-versed in vintage vernaculars, Oakland-based producer/musician Mike Walti is about to return with his sophomore offering under the Organi moniker – as new album “Babylonia” follows 2020’s “Parlez-vous Français?,” a landmark in vibe acquisition ever since.

Wyldwood Studios is a portal. It’s a secret gateway to analog spheres. Cross the threshold and you’ll feel the difference: you can pick any ol’ time, any place, any tongue or vibe, in fact. Hit the dancefloor in 1967, feel that plushy loveseat in the early 70s. It’s a welcoming place where better, saner vibes are still within reach. Fueled, at least in part, by those long-classic 12”s on the walls – just imagine the sepia-tinted countenance of Melody Nelson alongside actual Birkin sans wig, right next to Shadow’s immortal crate diggers, forever blurred –, and channeled through ancient time travel devices such as the MCI 416b only to arrive on classic 2-inch tape (mm1000 aka Ol’ Bessy), it’s a haven for all things organic, for all things imbued with that warm élan. Built and run by Oakland’s own Mike Walti, countless artists from many different genres have felt that flair, creating sonic spheres and moving back and forth along the malleable axis that is space-time. Capturing magic.

Emerging from this unique portal back in 2020, Walti’s aka Organi’s first studio album was a stunning answer to its titular question – “Parlez-vous Français?” It was a soothing, somewhat psychedelic trip so magnétique and alluring that it immediately brought back those bits of Franglais you never knew you remembered. Whereas the debut LP indeed felt like a spontané voyage to the French Riviera ca. 1968, its follow-up “Babylonia” is so much more than linguistic confusion and ancient Akkadian Rhythms. Using that hidden portal near Alameda’s finest port to access all kinds of remote regions and sonic spheres, it’s super tight and feels, well, decent, even though, just like the ol’ Babylon, it’s full of surprising tongues and dreams, schemes and melodies.

“Where do we go from here?,” someone asks in opening “Organii-“ – all majestically cinematic boom bap, buoyant bass, sick strings. A fittingly massive opener that feels like cracking open a cold one after long weeks at work (that ecstatic “ahhhh”), it perfectly sets the tone for another half hour of pure time traveling, globe-spanning bliss. Whereas that certain prédilection pour all things French makes “La Rockette” so tempting and tantalizing (think MalMalNonBien), the sophomore album’s Berlin-based guest singer Nana Lacrima soon takes us elsewhere: title track “Babylonia” spins ever so softly, like a magic lantern, with images of dreamier Stones Throw funksters or Savath y Savalas looming over the steady flow of an arrangement that washes you clean like an ancient, unpolluted River Euphrates or Brazil’s actual Amazon. A sexy Portuguese-flavored anthem, occasional guest singer Alix Koliha also enters the scene to add yet another layer of French chic to this Brazilian landscape. Next, we’re back at the Riviera, but the “Italiano” version of it, splendido sunsets and bell towers in the distance, the ragazze laughing and shaking it up, perhaps even some Portofino Gin so you can really feel that “me ne batto il belin,” as your fingers align form some half-serious “ma che vuoi?”

Tim Maia-penned “Padre Cicero” (1970) deals with the stunning transformation of the titular hero – “De reverendo a lutador,” and what a soaring, sensual hook –, and Organi’s take on Elephant Memory’s “Old Man Willow” (now an “Old Man Waltz”) perfectly underlines what Walti’s Wyldwood endeavor is all about: Easy-Going Experimental Dream Pop, fueled by Gainsbourg, Broadcast, Stereolab, etc.

Later on, even though something seems to be tres complique in “Remembering Anna,” it all sounds carefree like a spontaneous Friday afternoon with a bottle of fine wine. Right before the outro, key album guest Yea-Ming Chen (of Yea-Ming & The Rumors) returns to the mic, adding her dark and dusky trademark timbre to melancholy anthem “Pictures Of Your Face”. Reminiscent of Nico and Trish (rip & rip), it’s a track that’s both dark and strangely propelling, hypnotic and hip-shaking.

A third generation Bay Area native, Mike Walti aka Organi has been running Wyldwood Studios in Oakland CA for some 15+ years (recording artists like Tommy Guerrero, Spelling, Why?, Latyrx, Del, Dan The Automator, and Big Freedia, to name but a few). A multi-instrumentalist who’s obviously in love with the 60s/70s, he loves to work with analog equipment (“We just love us some analog!” “Just listen to those relays purr…”). Recorded and mixed by Mike Walti at Wyldwood, “Babylonia” will be released on vinyl/digital by Alien Transistor.

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Beatfoøt

LP | 2024 | Original (Life And Death)

LP | 2022 | CA | Original (Telephone Explosion)

Release: 2024 / Original

Genre: Electronic & Dance

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In a world of division, BEÃTFÓØT’s delayed second album is as an invitation to unite at a utopian celebration of life. Originally scheduled for release in October 2023 but postponed due to the ongoing Israel/Palestine war, the intrinsically-political ‘TOO CUTE’ has taken on more prominence than the Tel Aviv duo of Udi Naor and Adi Bronicki could have imagined.
“It's more urgent than ever for us to share this now, even though the album has been ready for a while,” says producer Naor. “BEÃTFÓØT are against any war, and believe that people should talk and not use violence - never,” he adds vehemently. “We feel the pain of Palestinians and Israeli loss of life, and are devastated by it. We hope the war will be finished soon and that peace and prosperity will come soon for both sides.”
While both Naor and vocalist Bronicki have been active in protests, charity work and community efforts over the past year - explicitly against the current government in Israel - such values of peace, acceptance, coexistence, inclusiveness and anti-hate from all sides are further instilled in the songs that form ‘TOO CUTE’.
“We're really trying to highlight that there are people here working tirelessly for a brighter future for our ill kids and our neighbour’s kids,” adds Naor, who is also co-founder of techno duo Red Axes. Having had to flee the country with his family, it’s through music that Naor and Bronicki have found hope.
In light of such conflict, the multi-layered yet sonically-bonkers record also enables escapism, which is needed more now than ever. Following their self-titled 2021 debut (released on DJ Tennis’ label Life and Death), ‘TOO CUTE’ is a refreshingly-ridiculous dark-rave rollercoaster which careers between hard-dance, big-beat, post-punk, techno, hyperpop, country and everything in between.
Things blast off at breakneck speed with the chaotic title track’s hyperpop snares, instantly-catchy lyrics (which feel ominously striking considering the war) and a stadium-ready chorus that erupts into rolling breakbeats, punishing EDM and even a nod to The Bloodhound Gang’s ‘The Magic Touch’. Somehow, we’re just three minutes into the record.
The tongue-in-cheek ‘HEART OF LEAD (TAKE IT OFF)’ still bangs despite its silliness, like if Kero Kero Bonito got in the studio with will.i.am. Later, ‘LEO’S SONG (THE SOCIAL MEDIA GUY)’s wittily satirical one-liners - “I just wanna get high with AI” - come thick and fast amid a barrage of glitches and guitars. ‘SUKC MY DIKC !!!’, meanwhile, pairs flute with pulsing hardstyle beats.
While their first record’s experimental explosion captured the pure carnage and energy of the BEÃTFÓØT universe in a conceptual fashion (though remaining polished in its own way), album two is primed to connect with a bigger audience thanks to its pop melodies, structures and songwriting.

Much of ‘TOO CUTE’ was written while the duo toured Europe for the first time, with rough sketches of tracks created in the moment during their incendiary live shows, and then recorded in planes and cars.
If their first record was a case of testing the vibes, album two is more assured and confident within their sonic world. “In the first album, we stepped into the club, metaphorically, and started making eye contact with everyone to figure out the energy,” Bronicki says. “But, this time round, I already had an idea of the story that I wanted to tell to these random people.”
And what is that story? “Radical silliness, or radical fun – that’s the essence of BEÃTFÓØT,” Naor confirms. “What we really want to do is goof around and have fun, and that brings out something very profound and honest,” he explains. A sense of nostalgic freedom is also at the album’s core, thanks to the removal of adult predetermined social constructs that decide how people should behave or look. “There’s a very honest and positive energy in holding onto your childlike wonder and trying to explore that with others,” Bronicki suggests, adding that “the adult world can be so wrong and angering”.
She feels this relates to both the album’s lyrics and the artistic state of mind that the duo always work to: “the goal is to feed a really thought-out and profound idea, but through a playful spoon,” she says. With this in mind, the recurring theme of ‘TOO CUTE’ stems from the duo’s “radical and lived experience of existing in a place that holds a lot of guilt and fear – because death is so imminent and prevalent in a very confronting way”. This is clearly represented on ‘FOOTYLICIOU$’, on which Bronicki screams “someone’s gonna die tonight!” before emphatically shouting “NOT ME!”
The album title is BEÃTFÓØT’s response to that: “We want to be a celebration of life, and that applies to all lives, of all backgrounds, including animals… that’s our guiding light,” Bronicki says.
“We create in the context of living in a country where the current government’s anti-democratic measures are limiting who is included in the celebration of life. Because different people are always being pushed out and excluded: whether it’s queers, Palestinians or people from different religions.”
BEÃTFÓØT - who have found a home among the LGBTQIA+ community - are fighting back against oppression. “We want everybody to come to the party and celebrate life together,” says Naor, setting out his and Bronicki’s mission… “and our goal is to widen that party as wide as it can go.”

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Fresh Pepper

33,99 €*

LP | 2001 | EU | Reissue (Be With)

Release: 2022 / CA – Original

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Beyond whatever mood is likely struggling to be sculpted by the house playlist, restaurants are full of their own natural music. Porcelain and cutlery clatter in bus bins like little medieval battlefields; the chatter of patrons smears into a single stormy texture; the kitchen staff hollers and chides as their own chosen music competes for the ear of anyone walking to the restroom; the churning and hissing of the dish steamer leads the assemblage of sounds that leak out from the back of house to and cling to a diner’s subconscious. The fact that restaurants employ so many hustling musicians, whose entire lives are centered around sonic sensitivity and awareness, is either grand irony or total synergy. Toronto outfit Fresh Pepper, led by longtime friends Andre Ethier and Joseph Shabason, playfully navigates the mental and emotional mark left on many musicians by such places. Their self-titled debut is less concerned with their service-industry traumas, doldrums, and setbacks than it is with creating a relatable space for album’s contributors to fully be themselves within the ease and freedom of having similar histories. Shabason, Ethier, and company recount their culinary past lives across eight jazzy and benevolent tracks that exude their authors’ sheer enjoyment of the creation process. Though the mental image of restaurant inner workings might trigger a mix of urgency, weariness, and yearning for a better livelihood, Fresh Pepper recolors these frazzled scenes with fondness and levity, exorcizing past workplace woes through skillful musicianship and an earnest, slightly bizarre sense of humor.

Fresh Pepper was played and assembled in-person during a gap between Covid waves, and the gleeful rarity of the occasion is palpable. Whatever brooding was stereotypical of artists and musicians pre-pandemic was not invited to this reunion. From the very beginning moments of Fresh Pepper, Shabason and Ethier guide their companions (a sort of super group of Toronto musicians from acts like Bernice, Beverly Glenn Copeland, and even Destroyer’s Dan Bejar himself) with breathy, hushed tones via saxophone and vocals respectively, casually traversing their own annexed corridor between smooth jazz, exploratory avant-indie, and subverted adult-contemporary. Mid-performance apologies are left unmuted in the mix, room-tones are evident in spacious moments, and the spirit of close collaboration is omnipresent. After a mini-parade of loose and glassy keys, the pensive funk highlight “Prep Cook in the Weeds” intros with the kind of furrowed-brow noir-smoothness of some yesteryear crime drama, buoyed by Ethier’s gently insightful musings. “Another fly lands on the clock,” he sings in a hushed tone through a half-smile, pointing wryly toward the relationship between wage-workers and timekeeping devices. “Flies on the hands of time,” he continues, resigning his sense of control, “the flies take the wheel.” Ethier’s slice-of-life lyricism and serene baritone delivery find a fitting counterpart in Dan Bejar who appears on “Seahorse Tranquilizer”. Where featured vocalists-- especially those as iconic as Bejar-- would threaten to out-charisma an album’s resident personalities, Ethier and Bejar heighten the charm of each other’s demeanor in a natural and relaxed way, leading to one of the gentlest moments of an already gentle affair.

Conversely, the track “Dishpit” is noticeably the most abstract chapter of the album, reminiscent of the factory-like, thankless, yet oddly contemplative corner of the kitchen after which it is named. The track begins with a toyish, motorik pulse that imparts the fraught motivation of a full sink during lunch rush with still more dishes on the way. Shabason’s saxophone spins in the mist and steam, disoriented but determined, rallying an equally bewildered percussionist behind it. On much of the album, Shabason’s playing assumes more practical form in contrast to the ambient impressionism of his solo output, but here his atonal fourth-world fingerprints are easily visible. Following all this, “Congee Around Me” again finds warmth in the chaos, imparting the same sense of peace within the jumble that characterizes Fresh Pepper. “Mushrooms in the frying pan,” opens Ethier, summarizing the album’s pathos, “throw another in, I’ll see you when I see you.” Album ender “The Worm” - fatigued and victorious, fluttery and decayed, sounds like a memory-rich bygone era that never really existed. Was that 1990-something? Did it really happen that way? Did the sunlight really look like it does through a camcorder, or has sunlight always been the same as it is now? Does it really matter if I couldn’t see it from the kitchen anyway?

It could be argued that the best art frames its subjects without any commentary, leaving as much room for the viewer to fill with their own experiences, shortcomings, and longings as possible. Fresh Pepper provides this kind of framing around a scenario so taken-for-granted that it becomes mythic under the slightest examination. In this sense, like so many projects that Shabason puts his sonic stamp on, Fresh Pepper conjures an unexpected slice of enlightenment from somewhat unnoticed circumstances. True to form, Fresh Pepper assures us not just that we are going to be okay, but that we are okay right here and now, overtired as we are amid the stainless steel, heat lamps, and spattering oil.

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Wally Badarou

Colors Of Silence

27,99 €*

Release: 2001 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Electronic & Dance

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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.

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Crosstown Rebels Presents Cr20 The Album: Unreleased Gems And Remixes

2LP | 2023 | UK | Original (Crosstown Rebels)

37,99 €*

LP | 2022 | EU | Original (Proto)

Release: 2023 / UK – Original

Genre: Electronic & Dance

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Damian Lazarus celebrates 20 Years of his world-renowned Crosstown Rebels imprint with a special album project of unreleased cuts and fresh remixes, featuring material from Black Coﬀee, Maceo Plex, Art Department, Dennis Cruz and many more.

Undeniably one of the most influential record labels within underground dance music, releasing material from Laurent Garnier, Krust and Mathew Jonson to Rósìn Murphy, Deniz Kurtel, Francesca Lombardo and Jennifer Cardini while playing a pivotal part in the careers of artists like Maceo Plex, Jamie Jones, Art Department and Seth Troxler, Crosstown Rebels stands today as a hub and platform for flourishing projects across the electronic spectrum, including via sub-label Rebellion and across a long list of showcases across the globe. More than just your everyday label, the Crosstown Rebels legacy has grown alongside its founder in equal measure, with head honcho Damian Lazarus continually showcasing, championing and spotlighting artists from across the globe who share his radiant, experimental vision for house music and beyond. Ringing in a major milestone in style, 2023 will see the biggest twelve months to date as Lazarus and Crosstown mark the 20th Anniversary of the label with a series of projects set to be unveiled in the lead-up to summer, with ‘cr20 The Album’ set for release on 12th May 2023.

“20 years ago, I dreamed a dream of creating a family of like-minded, crazy individuals from all corners of the planet - releasing music to the world and making people dance. That dream was Crosstown Rebels, and this year we are 20. Over these years, I have forged beautiful friendships, discovered very talented artists and tried my best to help, advise and support some of the most colourful characters in dance music. Crosstown Rebels is more than a record label, it is family. So 2023 will mark the label’s 20th Anniversary. This is an opportunity for the Crosstown Rebels family, a global community of artists, DJs and creatives, and the label’s myriad of followers to celebrate this momentous milestone. There will be parties and events around the world. A killer compilation of exclusives and special remixes, a beautiful coﬀee table book, a short film, and a special launch event are planned to bring together the sights and sounds of the label’s unique and influential history. There’s lots to share, announce and reminisce. 20 years young.” - Damian Lazarus.

Comprised of six stellar, high-profile remixes of releases from the label’s catalogue, alongside two previously unreleased original gems, the eight-track package is a rich and exemplary showcase of the far-reaching corners of the Crosstown Rebels sound and also its globally connected family of artists and close friends.

Opening the package, Lazarus’ own 2020 collaboration ‘Into The Sun’ with regular Crosstown vocalist Jem Cooke is given a cosmic rework by Johannesburg’s Major League DJz, while Jamie Jones’ slick ‘Paradise 2011’ is stripped back and given a new lease of life by the hypnotic and heady sounds of Art Department. Opening the B-Side, Dennis Cruz brings his percussive Latin-infused signature sound palette to Chilean musician and producer Pier Bucci’s ‘Hay Consuelo’, before Audiojack’s ‘Feel Good’, another standout collaboration alongside Cooke, is taken into synth-led territories as Michael Mayer reaches for an evolving bed of captivating tones.

The second half of the project brings more excellently remixed material, both new and old, with GRAMMY-winning DJ/producer Black Coﬀee turning his hand to the label’s first release of 2023 in Made By Pete and Zoe Kypri’s emotive ‘Horizon Red’, unveiling reworked melodies and sparkling keys as he delivers an interpretation of a track which has featured as a staple in his sets. Next, the project welcomes Adam Ten & Yamagucci’s playful yet oﬀ-kilter and wonky ‘The K Dance’ which unveils itself as a production perfect for those late night hours and early afters, before Ellum boss Maceo Plex’s ‘Together (2011 Mix)’ brings another lost production to the mix with a driving and zipping ride through sugary synths and soaring leads. To close, Tibi Dabo turns his attention to Guti & Dubshape’s absorbing ‘Every Cow Has A Bird’, delivering a nimble minimal-led trip through lush pads and crisp percussion to round things out in style.

Alongside the album, the 20 Year celebrations will also welcome a 192-page hardback book, ’20 Years Of Magic, Madness and Music’, with words from renowned journalist and key underground music player Joe Muggs, and a feature-length documentary directed by acclaimed director David Terranova.

Crosstown has become known globally for throwing some of the world’s best parties, from the wondrous cultural journey of Day Zero Tulum to longstanding Music Week marathon Get Lost Miami. This ethos of creating magical dancefloor moments spills into the label’s 20 year celebration with its worldwide Get Lost tour, launched with Get Lost Miami, and followed by Bali, Tokyo, Ibiza, Dubai, Istanbul, Rome, Paris, London, Berlin and more, plus a special to-be-announced London showcase.

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Big Mountain County

Klaus

15,99 €*

Horros Black Vinyl Edition

Release: 2022 / EU – Original

Genre: Rock & Indie

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Two years after the release of their last album Somewhere Else, BIG Mountain County releases a new EP. That's Klaus, the result of an evolution in sound and style that the band has carried out during the long months of forced absence from the scene. Unlike the past, the artistic production was in fact entirely in the hands of BIG Mountain County, which, never as this time, feel perfectly represented their soundscape in the tracks engraved on vinyl, available here from April 22. To open the dances there is (literally) What?, already released digitally last July. It is a song that, despite its attitude rooted in punk, is about artifice, about pushing the sounds to reach new landscapes. The super groovy bass lines, the crunchy drums, the connection between the synths and the vocals, raw, edgy but also refined and elaborate, push the band's style beyond the garage-psych overtones to which they have been associated. The lyrics are about a personal relationship, centered around someone very close who can turn into an unbearable person, leading us to a definitive reaction. But the song is also a vehicle for emotional release, so yell "What?" it becomes an indomitable will to move forward, to go through these absurd times that we are all living, a cry of anger against any kind of impediment. For What? was shot a video, released last July, signed by Paolo Sfirri. It follows the title-track THE Klaus Crossing, the unique track not yet unveiled. It is the track closest to the old production of BIG Mountain County, who speak of it as follows: “In such a "chaotic and fragile" period we need to dream even more strongly. On a heartbeat marked by the arpeggiator, a weave of guitars is being created to send the present to an other side, where we are stripped of material consistency and imagination takes the power. These days are too grey, some relationships are too worn out, there are no expectations, only the prospect of sinking. So we hurry: energies fade, time runs fast, but spring is just around the corner. And to be born it is necessary to die.” Side A is closed by Where ARE YOU?, released as a single in January. Here the contamination of psych sounds, exquisitely analog, with rhythmic and melodic lines with a more synthetic flavor is evident. Over a skeleton of a reiterated rhythm that is not afraid to refer explicitly to the krautrock of Can, we hear guitars and synthetic riffs that remain around Berlin, but look towards California, remembering The Brian Jonestown Massacre. In the middle of this combination, a synthetic arpeggio breaks in, to soon gets stuck in the pressing rhythm, and finally get confused in the closing explosion, BIG Mountain County's trademark. The band's "flirt" with Berlin and California doesn't end with the A-side. Side B, in fact, features the two remixes of Where ARE YOU?, both already released digitally last March. The first one is signed by AL Lover, , cult name of the international psych scene, known for his unique approach to psychedelic and experimental electronic music. Already author of remixes for bands such as Thee Oh Sees and Night Beats, he has collaborated with several labels (Stolen Body Records, The Reverberation Appreciation Society, Fuzz Club Records, Hoga Nord Rekords, Pnkslm Records and Crash Symbols) and artists such as The Brian Jonestown Massacre, White Fence, Goat and Cairo Liberation Front. He has also been the official DJ for festivals such as Levitation and Desert Daze. When Big Mountain County approached the California-based producer about remixing Where ARE YOU?, these were his words: "I really love this track! Been jamming it loud! I love the vibe of the original track and the production value. I tried to preserve some of those elements but with a different twist. I was able to sit down with this over the last few days. Really digging the results, I went with a mix of krautrock / shoegaze / chopped and screwed trip hop vibes." The result doesn't betray his words, but according to the band it goes even further: “The Californian producer Al Lover puts the music of Big Mountain County on film. He projects it on the big screen, cleverly uses photography and rewrites the plot with a very personal editing. Colors of the East, no longer intended as a lysergic space, but as a chaotic traffic of men, vehicles and animals on any given day in the Indian subcontinent (in Mumbai). In this marasmus the echo of what has been, or what could be, is there to re-propose the question that led to writing the screenplay: "Where are you?”. With the second remix, which closes out the EP, Big Mountain County are infected with a tropical disease in this remix masterfully produced by Tropicantesimo, aka UGO Sanchez, metropolitan prophet of slow rhythms and star of nights with no end, if not in hallucinated dawns front of the sea. Big Mountain County talks about it like this: “Here, more than hangover, that's "saudade" . So, the sense of lack becomes a curse - How does it feel to live so far away for me? - to be shouted, shared and cried. But outside, in some crowded city in the South of the world, it's Carnival and Summer is still there to be lived and danced, perhaps at a slower and more rhythmic pace.” An experiment, that of the remix of their songs, long in the band's wish book, finally fulfilled by Hugo Sanchez, cult Rome-based DJ and producer, recently protagonist of the recording declination of Tropicantesimo, a musical ritual dilated in time, through the celebration of sound and dance. This is a party, which over the years has become a real experience of listening, sharing and discovery out of time and space, finding home among the records and recordings of Pescheria, space-studio, but also record project, which sees Hugo Sanchez at the center of a collective of artists of various forms, musical, visual and sound installation. After having premiered two tracks by Klaus at the last Esns in Groningen (nl), Big Mountain County will return to play from April 23rd, in a tour with more than twenty gigs in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, France, Belgium and UK. In July they will be back in Berlin for the Fusion Festival 2022.

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Virta

LP | 2023 | EU | Original (Svart)

LP | 2024 | UK | Original (KingUnderground)

Release: 2023 / EU – Original

Genre: Electronic & Dance

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Horros, the third album by Finnish sonic voyagers Virta, is set to be released on Svart Records on October 6th

With Horros, Virta build on and take into new terrain the questing, jazz-tinged electroacoustic adventures of their last album, December 2016’s Hurmos, and its predecessor, their November 2012 debut Tales From Deep Waters. Still recognisable as who they were, the Virta of 2023 now delves further than ever before into their inner world to craft their most affecting, most atmospheric and most cinematic music to date.

Even so, Horros does not need to be accompanied by images – it envelops so much that signposts are unnecessary. The music itself is the guide through this sound world.

The creators of this environment are Antti Hevosmaa (electronics, flugelhorn, trumpet, vocals), Erik Fräki (electronics, drums, percussion, vocals) and Heikki Selamo (bass, electronics, guitar, lap steel, vocals). Together as Virta – which translates from Finnish as electricity, energy or stream – the trio were acclaimed as a “cornerstone of Finnish experimental music” by Finnish daily by newspaper Savon Sanomat in 2016. Horros will ensure this status becomes the case internationally. Beyond Finland, Virta already have dedicated listeners in Canada, France, Germany, Poland, the United States and the UK.

Reflecting on Horros, Antti says “We’ve always made music we want to listen to ourselves. We’ve asked what is the sound we want to listen to? We are digging deeper now, with new elements – more vocals. Lyrics too, which we haven’t done before.” Without sacrificing who they are, Virta now have a wider scope than ever.

“A key idea with Virta is to make the music you hear in your head and share it with people,” adds Heikki.

“Yes, to share what is in our heads,” agrees Erik. “But also, it becomes live music, that’s the point – to make music we share, to make connections.”

Practically, some things have changed. Erik and Heikki are supplementing their traditional instruments with more electronic gear than before. The band formed in Kuopio and had moved to capital city Helsinki. Nowadays, they are dispersed across Finland. Nonetheless, they remain creatively and spiritually united as Virta.

Coming together on Horros, Antti, Erik and Heikki have fashioned an album with a flow, which, although not explicitly stated, has a narrative drive. “It is as if you are arriving on a strange planet,” explains Erik. “It is quite solitary at first. The opening track ‘Aelita’ feels like entering some kind of unfamiliar atmosphere which you come through to see a landscape. Then, with ‘Tunneli’, exploring begins. It’s quite chaotic, you don’t know where you are. With ‘Sola’, the landscape starts to open up a little. When the album’s second side is reached, the mood is warmer, you understand where you are.” The album’s cover image portrays how the seemingly impenetrable atmosphere appears on reaching this world.

The Finnish-language lyrics and title reflect this voyage of discovery. Horros translates as hibernation – which has two meanings: Virta have reawakened, and the album’s journey is an awakening too. The opening track “Aelita” asks “Ei kai oo valoo ilman varjoo?” – “I guess there’s no light without a shadow?” The album ends with “Aamu”: “Hei aamu, Tummuu, Yön kaipuu” – “Hey morning, Getting dark, Longing for the night.” This place has become somewhere comfort can be found, where the coming of night presents no anxieties.

When they began composing what became Horros in early 2020, Virta already had the rough drafts of some of the building blocks. Elements of “Aelita” had been performed during a live performance film soundtrack project. “Toukokuu” grew from improvisations Erik and Heikki had undertaken in 2018. Virta had performed for weekly live streams in 2019, some themes from which also fed into Horros.

And although Virta did not discuss the music they were currently listening to – in the past, they would say “hey, have you heard this?” to each other – when they began recording at Erik’s summer cottage in the middle of 2020, there were some subliminal, long bedded-in touchstones: the original animé film of Ghost In The Shell and its soundtrack, seminal Finnish cross-genre outfits Nuspirit Helsinki and RinneRadio, the pioneering 3D video game Metroid Prime and the earlier role-playing video game Chrono Trigger. Mostly, the trio talked about immersion in music and sound.

Once they had assembled, they spent two weeks recording Erik’s drums and Heikki’s guitars live. All the while, Antti worked out where to play and sing. Then his contributions were recorded as Erik finished his drum tracks. What was captured was shaped and reshaped – Erik says “we all threw ideas in to help the music find its final form.”

“There were happy accidents which ended up on the album in post-production,” adds Heikki.

Antti stresses that “It’s organic, we wake music together as a band. We started making music in 2011 and we already knew each other before then – the music comes from all three of us, Virta is never the one person.”

Such empathy means that when Horros is played live, room is there for improvisation. “We may expand the sonic palette live, stretch out,” reveals Antti. “We might do some jamming to fit the ambience of the show.” The journey taken by the album is not over.

Horros is more than an album for Virta. It is also an expedition into fresh territory for Antti Hevosmaa, Erik Fräki and Heikki Selamo – creatively, musically and metaphorically. The spell it casts instantly captivates. Once this world is entered, it is not possible to depart.

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Yogi & Woof

Let Tha Dopeness Begin

23,99 €*

LP | 2024 | UK | Original (Drowned By Locals)

Release: 2024 / UK – Original

Genre: Hip Hop

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Yogisoul returns with his first album in 8 years, after breaking through creative blocks and discovering a newfound love for his producing craft rooted in his childhood.

A timeless throwback offering, an instant classic that will leave you wondering if you somehow missed this record reminiscent of 90’s West Coast Rap. It’s that blunt rolling record, with the deep G-Funk grooves, skits, and raps by Woof. A record inspired by the albums Yogisoul grew up listening to. A combination of his imagination of the West Coast California landscape portrayed by 90’s records on Death Row Records, and the real-life experiences of California-based rapper, Woof.

But before Yogi could get started on the project, he had some creative barriers to work through, hurdles that had him wondering if he’d continue making music at all.

“A few years back I became a father, worked as a teacher, and didn't really feel inspired by the music I was making. I was kinda fed up with the lane I was in musically and had doubts about continuing. Which was very strange since I´ve been into music so heavily since I was a kid. Time for music was a bit limited and I just hit a creative stop for a while.”

Sometimes an existential crisis is all you need to unlock the tools to look deep within and take stock of what inspired your love for making music in the first place. For producer Yogisoul, it was thinking about the golden era of hip hop that initially sparked his interest in becoming a producer, and revisiting the albums that remain deep within his canon that inspired the beginnings of his new LP, Let the Dopeness Begin! Yogisoul began an inward journey that found him trying to produce from the perspective of himself as a kid.

“I started listening back to the records I really loved as a young teen. When I listened, I loved and felt very connected to the music, but had no idea of how it was made or what went into the record-making process. I found it very refreshing trying to make music from that perspective of the young mind just feeling the music, not understanding it or breaking it down. I really found my creative output again that way. When I grew up, the rappers and producers I listened to were like superheroes, larger than life.”

As Yogi dove deeper, he was able to move past the self-doubt that had him overanalyzing what he was creating and started producing beats that he felt could set the stage for storytelling. He wanted to make music that made you feel like you were watching a movie or listening to a soundtrack, cruising the streets in a lowrider in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Let The Dopeness Begin, taps into that storytelling not only with Woof’s raps but by offering multiple layers of production and sequencing that leaves room for skits that invite you into the sonic world of the album. When Yogi was trying to find a vocalist to collaborate on the album with, he had a vision for what the right voice would be for the project.

“In the process of finding my sound, I wanted to work with vocalists or artists that tell a story. Not necessarily by storytelling or in the lyrics, but just by hearing their voice you instantly know where they are from, what they represent, and what they are about. Like an outlaw on the prairie with an out-of-tune guitar is more interesting than a studio musician. Woof is that guy! Not on the prairie but in a lowrider under the streetlights sipping on gin & juice. My ability is not in living that life, but in the musical experience of knowing what can facilitate him in the best way sonically. Setting the scene for him with the beats, the talkbox, the scratches, and the skits on the record.” - Yogisoul

Yogi had become aware of Woof’s raps back in 2012, he always felt as if Woof was overlooked or going unnoticed. He made attempts to track him down, but it wasn't until more recently that Woof popped up on a social media page, which allowed Yogi to reach out in regards to the possible collaboration. The two made the record completely remotely, never even having a single conversation on the phone, it was all orchestrated via text. Yogi would send beats and Woof would send raps back, always making the recorded raps work for the beat, no matter the approach. Forcing Yogi to be creative with his production in ways he hadn’t before, testing his abilities to create a polished sonic world to lose yourself in.

“I worked a lot to make his vocals sound as good as they do, and have used a lot of analogue gear and processing to get them sounding the way they do now. The stems he had sent me have felt like a puzzle, and I pieced it together to a record in the end. I think that is what makes the record unique.” - Yogisoul

The first track they worked on was “94 Heavy”, which would become the first single on the album and is first the song on the record, past the album's introduction track. It wastes no time setting a vibe and transporting you back to 1994, the record is not just a record, it’s a time machine. A true representation of the whole record in one track, and a quintessential track within this collaboration of Yogisoul and Woof. It’s an undeniable head nodder, with smooth horns, deep synth bass that will leave no question about the record's low-end power, and a dope drum swing.

Other notable tracks on the record are “Comin Thru”, which is a braggadocious, G-Funk, banger! It contains all the ingredients of classic West Coast Rap albums. A smooth beat for Woof to weave in and out of, talkbox, scratches in the hook, and samples of legendary Los Angeles voices. A track that will make you feel like you should have a forty and a doobie nearby.

The title track, “Let the Dopeness Begin”, the self-titled track on the album is an homage to the West Coast Classics radio station on GTA: San Andreas. A cruise with the windows jam that slaps! “I want people to put this record on when the summer is incoming, when they pull their windows down, when they roll by the old court where they used to play basketball.”
For a record that comes in at just under 30 minutes, it is absolutely packed with material, and opportunities to explore the world created with the production, raps, and skits.
credits
releases August 16, 2024

All songs written by Colin Beverly AKA Woof
All songs produced by Lasse Mandelid Karlsen AKA Yogisoul
Mastered by Christian Øbermayer at Strype Audio
Recorded and mixed by Lasse Mandelid Karlsen
Vinyl lacquered by Shane "The Cutter" at Finyl Tweek
Cover art by Will Child
Art direction by Elliot Baxter

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Rathauz

Ciccio Bomba Cannoniere

13,99 €*