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For fans of Shirley Collins, Lankum, Arthur Russel and Hiroshi YoshimuraLove comes in many forms and so do love songs. Stream of Forms is a collection of love songs that speak of love in all its guises: newfound and unrequited, sexual, lost and scorned.Taking inspiration from the oral traditions of English and Irish folk music, the tales told on this album speak of emotions, as ancient as the human voice itself. Michael Culme-Seymour aka Marlais positions his vocals amidst traditional instruments, digital choirs and deep, harmonic electronics, inhabiting these songs for no more than a moment. A fleeting moment but one long enough to evoke a vivid, living history of everyday people.Arranged in episodic installments, Stream of Forms is a tale of universal feelings finely balanced by the singularity of its telling. Completed in 2020 and five years in the making, it was during an artist residency in the mountains of Tusheti, Georgia, that the album began to take its definitive form.Embedding himself within the narrative as the story-telling protagonist, allows Marlais to reflect on his own experiences, living, working and performing in Berlin. The immediacy and authenticity of the songs on this album are testament to a life lived outside the typical constraints of modern society. As a result, his voice - as vulnerable as it is enchanting - is soaked in the real-life emotions, of which he sings.

Control Voltage Project is a long running project of Alper Maral and Mert Topel; Alper Maral is one of the most significant sound discoverers around Turkey through auditory and academical researches he has made about experimental electronic music. Mert Topel is a versatile musician, one of the most important keyboardist for many artists in popular music in Turkey. He has released his first solo album “Serendipity” in 2017. Control Voltage Project is named after the electric signals which are used for the interactions between various physical sound layers. Recordings of CVP -first album from the duo- was finished in 2005 and released in 2015 on “Müzik Hayvanı” as free download on web.

There are few musicians whose music has indisputably advanced humanity. Reggae figurehead Bob Marley--a songwriter, poet, activist, and visionary--is one of them. The idea that a single-disc collection could represent the depth, breadth, and power of Marley's achievement is far-fetched, but LEGEND makes an excellent attempt. Every single one of its tracks is outstanding, and the artist's different faces--revolutionary ("Get Up Stand Up"), romantic ("Is This Love"), devout Rastafarian ("Buffalo Soldier"), and prophet ("One Love/People Get Ready") are equally represented.In addition to his moving message of love and unity, Marley is a master songwriter, as the timelessness of songs like "Stir It Up," "I Shot the Sheriff," and the gorgeous, poignant "Redemption Song" proves. Of course, a true sampling of Marley's output would require some early ska material, the Wailer's debut (CATCH A FIRE), the definitive NATTY DREAD, and his later-period opus EXODUS, but LEGEND provides a highly satisfying, if brief, overview of Marley's genius. A record well suited to any location, season, or time of day, it has proven universal in its appeal. The music herein is as essential as air.

Muriel Grossmann’s new album is a great opportunity to experience the energy of a live performance. Union was recorded in early autumn of 2019 during a two-day recording session in Mallorca studio Caja Del Ruido. In the context of this record and the previous ones, we can clearly talk about Muriel Grossmann’s music as a style of music that is distinctive and recognizable from the very first note. This is music performed with a great artistic concentration, integrity and energy. Released on a 12" heavyweight vinyl record in old-style sleeve with spot matte varnish on top of glossy laminate. Includes insert with liner notes and band photos. Edition of 1500 ex.

Cinephonic's sophomore release "Visions" is a baroque funk tour-de-force - an intriguing concept album made up of ancient medieval and baroque themes, refracted through a modern prism of soul, jazz and psychedelia, all performed by a massive fourteen-piece chamber orchestra.

Cinephonic was founded in 2018 by composer / multi-instrumentalist Pierre Chrétien, as an outlet for the new cinematic tunes he had been quietly writing when he wasn't busy leading groups such as The Souljazz Orchestra, Atlantis Jazz Ensemble and Slim Moore & the Mar-Kays.

Drawing inspiration from classic film and library music, Cinephonic expands on the sound with elements of cinematic soul, psychedelic rock, and spiritual jazz, creating a rich, evocative, and complex soundscape that juxtaposes intricate compositions with dark funk backbeats - a kind of epic soundtrack for a film that never existed.

Cinephonic was founded in 2018 by composer / pianist / vibraphonist Pierre Chrétien, as an outlet for the new cinematic tunes he had been quietly writing when he wasn't busy leading larger groups such as The Souljazz Orchestra, Atlantis Jazz Ensemble and Slim Moore & the Mar-Kays.

In the fall of 2020, he releases "Les Paradis artificiels", his first full-length album under the Cinephonic moniker, on which he collaborates with heavyweight hip-hop drummer Robert Biesewig (Wu-Tang Clan, Havoc, Alchemist) and versatile percussionist Marielle Rivard (The Souljazz Orchestra, Slim Moore & the Mar-Kays), while performing all other parts himself on mellotron, piano and vibraphone.

Drawing inspiration from classic French film and library music, Chrétien expands on the sound with elements of orchestral jazz, cinematic soul, and instrumental hip-hop, creating a rich, evocative, and complex soundscape that juxtaposes intricate compositions with dark funk backbeats - a kind of epic soundtrack for a film that never existed.

The Atlantis Jazz Ensemble is on the rise once again with "Celestial Suite", a brilliant set of spiritual soul-jazz, with a righteous energy in the mode of some of the best work on independent labels such as Strata East or Tribe back in the day, though updated with a fresh current vibe. With the blend of electric piano, sax, trumpet, bass and percussion presented here, the quintet has refined the searching, soaring quality of their sound, capturing over the course of two days in the studio an inspired session worthy of the skyward promise of the album’s title.

The set flows seamlessly from track to track. Opener “Breaking Dawn” starts things off gently as in a morning sunrise, before settling into a hypnotic modal groove. “Transcendence” then kicks up the tempo with boisterous Afro-Latin rhythms, before heading into the mystic soul-bossa brew of “Enlightenment”. Side A eases off with the pleading soul-jazz of “Invocation”, before ramping things up again on Side B with the ethereal pharoanic groove of “Oneness”. The tension builds on “Blessings”, with its searching, coltranesque modal quality, before easing into the funky, down-home exultations of “Joyful Noise”. The suite then winds down as calmly as it began with a solemn “Meditation”, closing the arc of this skybound journey.

The Atlantis Jazz Ensemble was first formed by Pierre Chrétien and Zakari Frantz of The Souljazz Orchestra back in 2013, as an outlet for the more modal, esoteric and spiritual compositions they were exploring outside the confines of their original unit. After the addition of trumpeter Ed Lister, bassist Alex Bilodeau and drummer Mike Essoudry, the Atlantis Jazz Ensemble released their maiden voyage "Oceanic Suite" in 2016, a bold first outing that became a bit of an underground classic, capturing the number two spot on the Canadian radio jazz charts that year (just behind BadBadNotGood’s "iv"), and leading Atlantis to open up live for the likes of Kamasi Washington and Anderson Paak.

However, the wind was somewhat taken out of the group’s sails when their original bassist suddenly moved away to Boston to study with Dave Holland, Cecil McBee, and other jazz luminaries. Atlantis sank into hiatus for a few years, until young double bass phenom Chris Pond blew into town from Eastern Canada, and the group rose up once again in 2022. After a fruitful residency in Ottawa’s hip Somerset Village that summer, perfecting the new set of original compositions that were to make up "Celestial Suite", the quintet hit Metropolitan Studios in the fall, and laid down an especially inspired rendition of the suite, captured with all of the analogue warmth the studio is known for.

"Celestial Suite" is the Atlantis Jazz Ensemble’s 2nd album and is released by Marlow Records on LP, CD, and digital / streaming on October 27th 2023. LP format is meticulously pressed in Canada with the new WarmTone fully automatic, modernised vinyl record pressing system, and comes with download card.

A Mesmerising Performance!Christof Kurzmann: Lloopp, Vocalssofia Jernberg: Vocalsmartin Brandlmayr: Drumsjoe Williamson: Double Bassdisquiet Is A Special Quartet That Came Together On The Stage Of The Konfrontationen Festival In 2018. Initially Formed And Lead By Austrian Electronic Musician Christof Kurzmann, The Project Is Reflecting The Difficult Political Situation Of The Refugee Movements To Europe - And How Politicians Deal With It In A Selfish And Unhumanitarian Way. Christof Kurzmann, Sofia Jernberg, Martin Brandlmayr (Radian) And Joe Williamson Reinterpret And Process In Quiet Waves Of Emotions And Thoughtful Lyrics - Concentrated Music Between Serenity And Sheer Beauty, Esp When Kurzmann And Jernberg Sing A Duet With Joe Mcphees Lyrics"A Concert Is Also An Artistic Polyphony Of Voices And Temperaments, And There Is Something Special Going On Here. It Is In The Way These Musicians Balance Abstraction With Direction. It Is In The Way Martin Brandlmayr Carefully Uses Those Thin Sticks And That Extended Drum Kit, And Joe Williamson Thatbow, The Strings And Body Of The Bass, To Create T His Ever Transforming, Detailed Rhythmical And Texturalflow. It Is In The Way Sofia Jernberg Uses Her Voice In The Subtlest Of Ways, Her Breath, Soft Moans And Occasionally Voluminous Siren Call Joining The Four-Way Discussion. Or In The Way Christof Kurzmann Guides This Quartet With His Lloopp Software, A Restless Web Of Textures, Mirror And Echo Effects, Sonar Pulses, Discreet And Alienating Hums. Even In Its Quietest Moments, There Is A Tangible Tension At Work, A Disquiet Perhaps, But One Affected By An Untamable Beauty And Iridescent Poetry." Guy Peters, 2020

Original 12" vinyl LP pressing of the Atlantis Jazz Ensemble's debut album.

In the vast musical archive that is Roman Flügel’s discography, Ro70 holds a special place. Written, performed and produced between January and July 1995, it is his debut album as a full-fledged solo artist. Enquired and inspired by a certain David Moufang from Heidelberg, who used to share a classroom with Jörn Elling Wuttke at the SAE Institute and revealed himself to be an Acid Jesus fan and also of the Roman IV 12“ project, it seemed like a good fit for his (and Jonas Grossmann’s) Source Records label. In the days before file sharing that meant going back and forth with various DATs in his mom’s Volkswagen Polo Fox for actual listening sessions between Darmstadt and Heidelberg. The time was as special and idiosyncratic one as was the sound of Source Records and of course Ro 70 itself. While the rave-olution was ready to eat its kids with the commercial outlook of former underground phenomena looked bright and the scene’s prophecy seemed grim, enterprises like Source and artist like Roman Flügel were defying any competition out of those corners with their own means. Listening back to the ten tracks of Ro 70, it proves them, their taste and artistic vision right. Probably still being put into the ambient, downtempo, electronica or chill out sections of most record shops, this music could have been made, relished and cherished anytime between 1995 and now. Made in Roman’s home studio in his parent’s house or in the Klangfabrik studio in Egelsbach, this was made for before or after the rave – or for people who din’t want to have to do anything with it at all. His signature is all over it. Well balanced soundscapes with an almost uncanny presence and clarity. Bittersweet symphonies that doesn’t seem to be in an inferior position to modern classical or electronic studies. It is also a very personal testament to a time in the artists’s life that was ready to get caught in the maelstrom of the oscillating techno city called Frankfurt am Main and its halcyon days between the Delirium record shop, Sven Väth’s marathon sets, the early days of the label triumvirate Playhouse, Klang & Ongaku. In a musical journal without lyrics, those memories will have to stay pantomimic and private. All for the better, that we can at least still listen to them.

Violist, violinist and singer-songwriter Marla Hansen returns to Karaoke Kalk with "Salt", her second full-length album to date. Building upon the sonic palette the Berlin-based musician established with her debut "Dust" in 2020, "Salt" takes the delicate mixture of acoustic instruments such as viola, violin, piano and guitar combined with subtle electronics to the next level. The new album is both a remarkable departure and at the same time sheds a new yet reassuring light on Hansen's work and creativity. "Salt" features numerous collaborations with like-minded musicians and friends, e. g. producer and composer Simon Goff, The Notwist's drummer Andi Haberl and the renowned artist DM Stith.

The "Dust" has settled. After having recorded her solo debut of that name, in 2020 the world came to a grinding halt, leaving Marla Hansen left to her own devices in her adopted home of Berlin. For Hansen, who previously had lent her talent to many creative minds such as The National, Sufjan Stevens, The Hidden Cameras, Jay-Z and Ravi Coltrane, the collaborative aspect of writing and producing music had always played a crucial part in finding her own path as a solo artist.

Did you know that Judy Freeman and Blackrock cut more songs than the 4 that were put out in 1971? We know of at least one.

"I Know Where You're Coming From" is a 70s funky Northern Soul masterpiece. We've rescued a lost, never heard before, track by the group for the A-Side here. Fans of their music will immediately connect with this blistering anthemic Northern Soul monster. Go ahead and grab the talcum powder, and prepare to dance up a storm to this one.

We've selected the completely unrelated, previously unreleased Marshall Hooks "She Is All I Need" for the B-Side on this one. A relatively straight ahead Otis Redding-styled Soul original that thumps and a nice compliment to the A-Side. If you aren't familiar, Marshall released one LP on Blue Horizon and a monster R&B 7" in 1965 on the Muriel label.

While Chrisman's "Ku Mwezi" ep mostly explored gqom and trap influenced Afrohouse mutations, his debut album heads in a different direction. On "Makila", Chrisman provides an experimental vision of the taraxina sound: a molasses-slow fusion of the Angolan kuduro and kizobma dance templates that dips in-and-out of fuzzy drones and syrupy gqom.On 'Angels of Kivu', he pushes the clicking skeletal rhythm into the background, allowing electrified likembé melodies to take pride of place. It sounds like Congolese legends Konono No.1 shocked into a psychedelic electronic future by way of Durban.'Fatiliya' pushes more solidly into taraxina territory, with familiar saw synths accenting low 'n slow kicks and air blast leads. The backbone is Angolan, but Chrisman approaches his music with a full awareness of Atlanta trap and gqom, never ignoring the gut-rattling pressure of sub bass. That's never more evident than on the title track, where he constructs a haunted atmosphere of bells and drones to sit beneath staccato percussive hits and and winding drill slaps."Makila" is challenging music that takes divergent African forms and melts them together with next level skill and sleight of hand. It's another bold step for East African electronic music that underscores the wild creativity and talent emerging from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Bob Marley was a Jamaican singer and songwriter. He is considered to beone of the pioneers of reggae. Marley began his professional musical career in 1963, after forming Bob Marley & The Wailers. The group attained international success in 1973. Reggae’s most transcendent and iconic figure, Bob Marley was the first Jamaican artist to achieve international superstardom. Including the hits “I Shot The Sheriff”, “No Woman No Cry”, “Is This Love” and more.

An exact repro vinyl reissue of a great 1977 jazz-rock/fusion LP.

Vinyl with heavy foxing

Beat Records is relaunching on CD the classic OST by Ennio Morricone for the Gothic horror film Amanti d'oltretomba (Nightmare castle), directed in 1965 by Mario Caiano, starring Barbara Steele, Rick Battaglia, Paul Müller, Helga Liné, Marino Masè, Giuseppe Addobbati, and Lawrence Clift.For Muriel, Morricone wrote a theme introduced on piano (played by the protagonist in some scenes in the film) and developed for the orchestra, "Amanti D'oltretomba"), then reprised in the finale. A gothic atmosphere is created by the solemnity of a liturgical organ, and the spirits from beyond the grave are represented by music for dissonant strings with trumpet interventions and fragments of the main theme for piano. A theme for Muriel's restless ghost is represented by female voices from the Cantori Moderni, and a magma of experimental sounds creates an infernal atmosphere for the story's damned souls. This CD assembly, with a total duration of 39:24, was derived from the original mono and stereo session tapes and originally approved by Maestro Morricone himself.

Limited Edition. Mono.
OBI not included.
Record is close to VG+.

Japanese pressing with Obi.

Recorded live at the Record Plant Sausalito CA, October 1973. 180gr

Muriel Grossmann's album from 2016 "Natural Time" released for the first time on a black 2LP with a thick old style tip-on gatefold outer sleeve on her own imprint Dreamlandrecords and distributed by RR Gems. This record marked a beginning for her in terms of direction and it includes a bonus composition "Inner Fire '' recorded especially for the vinyl release. Available only in a physical format. "As we began this task, we realised that we would need another song to fit in with the vinyl format. This compelled me to imagine how I could add something worthy to a record that is a complete journey in itself from beginning to end. As it turned out, composing and recording the extra track went as smooth as honey and I hope that you all enjoy this additional piece of music. I believe it adds an interesting twist and perhaps suggests what is yet to come. I am very thankful for this opportunity. I also want to give thanks to all you wonderful listeners and supporters for staying with us all this time. You are the reason we pour our hearts into this music." - Muriel, September 2021, Ibiza. Edition of 1500 ex.

Karen y Los Remedios is the voice of Ana Karen Barajas, an artist and art researcher, the music of Jonathan Muriel (Jiony), a producer from Mexico City, and the guitar of Guillermo Berbeyer (Z.A.M.P.A.). The characteristic sound of the Karen y Los Remedios is cumbia and experimental Latin and electronic rhythms. This Mexican threesome combine this representation of Latin American sounds with downtempo and trip hop influences. Silence means the total absence of sound, abstaining from speaking, where silence is as meaningful as sound. The intention of the silence of this album is to speak about the moments when we pause, to think about ourselves, to see what's really troubling us, what we really want. It's the vulnerability we find when there is no sound in our minds. It's also the title of one of the singles from the album, a song about the weight of life's expectations in people and how we experience that, through the essence of the soul and the body we inhabit, using silence as a pause to be heard. Silence as an album is a compilation of the process of feeling, falling in love, disillusionment and the essence of living. This album includes sounds that come from the street and a nostalgia for Mexico and Latin America. The sounds and harmonies come from Latin rhythms, cumbia, downtempo, trip hop, ballads and cumbiaton. Karen y Los Remedios define a melody that re-thinks rhythms usually present in energetic tones with a danceable melancholy.

Sooner or later it was bound to happen. They are those unforeseen occurrences that suddenly and unexpectedly appear inside your auricle that make the history of Italian music. “History” with an incorruptibly lowercase “h”; because it’s the fact that it’s lowercase that changes our cultural existence. That unanticipated oversight that comes bursting through, that unwanted error that rises up with absolute certainty. The minimum common divisor that becomes huge in the mainstream imagination. Inside or outside. With or without. It is or it isn’t. The philosophical garbage heap for the underclass perpetually suffering from symptoms of withdrawal from everywhere and anyway.
Maurizio Marsico, the magnificent mistake of Italian music. An absolute master at running decades of contemporary music through the spin cycle in the pressure cooker of post-modern madness. Inadvertently. Since the end of the seventies, he has been silently leading the way for Italian cultural processes, giddily masturbating them and tossing them to people who are hungry but have no digestive apparatus, aimlessly displaced in the outskirts of nothingness. From Milan to New York. Almost always with no return.
Then there’s Stefano Di Trapani, the absolute presence of the “other cultures” that have traversed the first twenty years of the 2000s. Without Di Trapani (often masquerading under the pseudonym “Demented Burrocacao”), Rome would have failed to dictate forms and methods within the architecture of international sound. He is an absolute manipulator of compliant thought and a declared destroyer of the planetary rules of sound. He is also a member of the cultural underclass in the wretched realm of absolute certainties. Together they created The Greatest Nots, an encyclopaedic crib sheet of what was, is and will be missing from Italian music. A Hahnemann-esque project where forty years of splinters of Italian music have been diluted and dynamised. A homeopathic process carried out by two alchemists who are totally unaware of the processes that led to the creation of the homunculus, settling for just his hearing apparatus and his hypothalamus. Like modern butchers, they offer us the rotten meat of Italian music, blood and fat to feed the proletariat crushed by contemporary simultaneity. Everything is so that everything returns, in distorted yet fascinating and obsessive forms. Things that make the “newness” we’re drowning in look like the sludge extracted from the sewers of a modern psychiatric facility. Nothing will be as it was before because what there was before never existed.
All this is contained within an eye-catching extendable cover illustrated by Enrico Infidel D’Elia and Simone Tso. Inside you can find a record telling you about everything you’ve missed over these years of pointless sound existence. Amen.

After a successful tour following the release of "Alors quoi!" on Bongo Joe records, accompanied by a drummer/percussionist change, the prospect of what comes next naturally arose. Elements surfaced, including a desire for more low frequencies, a fascination with the marimba/vibraphone, and a liberating indifference to the difference between recorded and live performances. To evolve, the team collaborated with outsider Kwake Bass, known for collaborations with Kae Tempest, Tirzah, Mica Levi, and others. Despite aesthetic differences from Meril Wubslin"s previous albums, this divergence was seen as key-an enriching risk that resulted in a unique blend of influences. The acoustic core of Meril Wubslin now embraces electronic elements, revealing a more powerful and urban dimension. While maintaining a commitment to French lyrics, the themes explore the concrete yet remain grounded in the intimate and the sensitive, avoiding overly clear and univocal messages.

An undeservedly obscure Fruko album from 1973, full to the brim with unrelentingly hard and heavy salsa bangers that never let up (hence the title, "The Violent One"). The record is a pleasing mix of originals and covers and contains the anthems 'Tronco seco', sung by Wilson Saoko, and 'Nadando', a hit for Joe Arroyo. But there's a whole lot more, including hot holiday tunes and the stomping descarga 'Salsa Na' Ma'. This album is "all killer and no filler", designed to set the dance floor ablaze! Details:The 1973 album "El Violento" was the fifth full-length salsa LP led by Julio Ernesto Estrada Rincón, aka Fruko, and the second credited to Fruko Y Sus Tesos. Though it did not contain hits like 'A la memoria del muerto' or 'El Preso', it's a collector's item today in places like the US, Europe and Japan, perhaps precisely because it is obscure yet full to the brim with unrelentingly hard and heavy salsa bangers that never let up from start to finish (hence the title, which translates as "The Violent One"). A mix of originals and interesting covers, the LP is "all killer and no filler", purposely designed to set the dance floor ablaze. It features Fruko's two main vocalists that took over from the first pair of Humberto "Huango" Muriel and "Píper Pimienta" Díaz, namely the beloved duo of Alvaro "Joe" Arroyo and Wilson "Saoko" Manyoma. Los Tesos were a talented "wild bunch" who listened to their fearless leader, with Fruko holding down the bottom end on electric bass, Hernán Gutiérrez in the piano chair, the Villegas brothers on hand percussion (Jesús tickling the bongos and Fernando slapping the congas), augmented by Rafael Benítez on timbales and an ace horn section of Freddy Ferrer and Gonzálo Gómez (trombones) and Jorge Gaviria and Salvador Pasos (trumpets). While "El Violento" may not be as well known as some Fruko records, it certainly deserves a new look and should be assessed on its own merits as a very powerful, confident entry in the historical evolution of Colombi...

Moral LAW is a vegan, straight-edge metalcore band from Denver, Colorado. After some changes in their lineup, the band released their self-titled EP in 2019, followed up by a split release in 2020. Moral LAW draws inspiration from the edge-metal bands of both the ’90s and of recent years. After experimenting with message and approach, the band has crafted their own raw and emotionally complex take on a style that has greatly influenced them all as both individuals and musicians. “Abolitionist is probably our most direct statement about our stance on veganism and the exploitation of animals. Everyone in the band not only believes in the ideals of a vegan lifestyle as an act of liberation, but we also are in full support of militant action for the sake of the animals in harm’s way. The lyrics and video alongside it are our best attempt at making that abundantly clear!” — vocalist Alex Morales

Moral LAW is a vegan, straight-edge metalcore band from Denver, Colorado. After some changes in their lineup, the band released their self-titled EP in 2019, followed up by a split release in 2020. Moral LAW draws inspiration from the edge-metal bands of both the ’90s and of recent years. After experimenting with message and approach, the band has crafted their own raw and emotionally complex take on a style that has greatly influenced them all as both individuals and musicians. “Abolitionist is probably our most direct statement about our stance on veganism and the exploitation of animals. Everyone in the band not only believes in the ideals of a vegan lifestyle as an act of liberation, but we also are in full support of militant action for the sake of the animals in harm’s way. The lyrics and video alongside it are our best attempt at making that abundantly clear!” — vocalist Alex Morales

Solemn Brigham is 1/2 of the group Marlowe. His music has been featured on Gatorade's G is for Greatness ad campaign, 7-Eleven's Harmony Korine (Kids, Gummo, Spring Breakers) directed low rider bike campaign, and NBA2K22. South Sinner Street is his debut solo album coming Sept 24th.

About the Album:
It is no secret that things are getting worse. By virtually any metric––economic or medical, or ones more abstract and spiritual––American society is in decay. The feeling permeates daily life in innumerable ways, giving the present a gnawing, ambient dread.

Solemn Brigham is not content to leave this at a low hum. On his dazzling new album, South Sinner Street, Solemn examines this decay through the prism of his hometown: Albemarle, North Carolina, where the blocks he grew up on are crumbling like everything else. “What was once a vibrant area now survives as a reminder that the only thing eternal is change,” Solemn says when describing the project’s genesis. “Trash and debris flood the streets, relics of the many lives lived––each piece with a story to tell.” South Sinner Street not only traces the degradation of the world around us, but documents the way communities can come together to stave off that slow death, lifting its members up in the process.

Solemn is uniquely equipped to animate the relics of a once-thriving neighborhood with the specificity they deserve. The rapper, whose work with his fellow North Carolinian, L’Orange, as the duo Marlowe has been critically acclaimed, is one of the most vocally acrobatic working today, able to contort himself into a dizzying array of different flows and inflections, accomplishing alone the sort of musical variety that sprawling collectives try and fail to achieve. Take “Couple Towns,” where Solemn moves from a seesaw pocket into a flow that cascades over the ends of bars; contrast this with the bonus track “Relax,” where each bar sounds as if it’s the final thought spilling out of his mind at the end of an impassioned phrase. The end of “Vice North” even recalls the technically stunning runs of One Be Lo, the Michigan rapper who in the 2000s became one of the genre’s chief chroniclers of a similar country-wide disintegration.

But this is not merely a showcase for verbal acrobatics. South Sinner Street is deeply personal, juxtaposing personal growth with the decay that surrounds it. “This is no rags to riches story,” Solemn warns. Of course––it’s more complicated than that. When, on “Vantablack,” of a toddler cradled in his mother’s arms while that mother nurses a cigarette, he is not asking the listener to imagine a tragic end or a harrowing origin story. The point is that we are all, perpetually, the child and the mother: doing our best to cope, even against our better judgment; persevering despite the circumstances that surround us.

And yet South Sinner Street is buoyed by a sense of playfulness that lights up even the pitch-black corners of Albemarle. “Nothing Left” succeeds in turning end-of-your-rope sorry into something like an in joke. When, on “Vice North,” Solemn raps about putting his hands together in prayer only to find “the line still busy,” his voice bakes something amusing in the complaint––maybe the sense that a young man in a small city is irked at God the way he might be at a flaky friend from the gym. And then, speaking of gyms, comes the laugh-out-loud moment on “Dirty Whip,” when Solemn concedes that he didn’t make the basketball team “‘cause I’m me-first.’”

Across its 14 songs, South Sinner Street argues for Solemn Brigham as one of the most exciting artists in underground hip-hop, a technical virtuoso who also happens to be one of the genre’s most surprising, most deeply personal songwriters. The album evokes the feeling of climbing onto a house’s roof to survey the nearly-burning city around you, with all the peril that entails––but also all the possibility.

L'Orange & Solemn Brigham are Marlowe

"An artist afraid to overreach himself is as useless as a general who is afraid to be wrong.”

Over a half-century later, the axiom remains true for hyper-kinetic hip-hop innovators, North Carolina’s L’Orange and Solemn Brigham—the hard-boiled duo behind the fun house fever dream, Marlowe.

Released on Mello Music Group, Marlowe is a triumph of ambition, a rap bricolage blending prohibition and civil rights-era samples with Asian psychedelic rock flourishes. Solemn Brigham controls the microphone like a general who can’t help but be right. His flow is a blitzkrieg. It’s an Olympian sprint, gliding over snares and kick-drums like hurdles. He’s a showman seeking revolution—resolute in his desire to strike equilibrium between awareness and entertainment.

Solemn applies the fictional protagonist’s search for the truth towards different ends. His crimes are existential yet specific, rooted in the injustices of the past and the attempt to redress them in the present. He’s an artist perennially seeking something to fight for, channeling energy from the music of the civic rights era, stealing timeless rhythms and inflection from classic funk and soul. An old soul with original ideas, tapping into the eternal reservoir of Sam Cooke to Ice Cube, Otis Redding to Chuck D, Curtis Mayfield to KRS-One.

Over the course of 17 tracks, Solemn hurls sharp darts at counterfeits trying to crack his religion, the onslaught of time, and prevaricating rappers—all while paying homage to those who paved the road for him. He bounces off the beats like a trampoline placed in a speakeasy, doubling up on the vocals, burrowing into dense cryptic tangles of slang and then stretching them out with melodic ease.

With dazzling cinematic mise en scene, L’Orange crafts a world that sounds like an old-time medicine show dropped into 90s Brooklyn, with Solemn summoning the holy spirit of Big L. Cymbals crash, drums pound, fuzzy guitars ride out, a bronze rain of horns cascade. This is gorgeous celestial dust, high-powered fuel with every syllable meticulously ordained. Marlowe cracked the case, but how they did it can only become clear under deeper investigation.

Limited 180 gram vinyl LP pressing including original artwork. After conquering England on tour, Bob Marley returned to Jamaica to record Rastaman Vibration with his band. The album reached the Top 10 in the U.S. Bob Marley was a Jamaican reggae singer, song writer, musician, and guitarist who achieved international fame and acclaim. His music in the 70s established his worldwide reputation and produced his status as one of the world's best-selling artists of all time, with sales of more than 75 million records.

Limited 180 gram vinyl LP pressing including original artwork. Natty Dread is considered Bob Marley's finest album, the ultimate reggae recording of all time. This was Marley's first album without former band mates Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingston, and the first released as Bob Marley & the Wailers. The material presented here defines what reggae was originally all about, with political and social commentary mixed with religious paeans to Jah. Bob Marley was a Jamaican reggae singer, song writer, musician, and guitarist who achieved international fame and acclaim. His music in the 70s established his worldwide reputation and produced his status as one of the world's best-selling artists of all time, with sales of more than 75 million records.

Limited 180 gram vinyl LP pressing including original artwork. Containing what is considered Marley's most defiant and politically charged statement to date, Survival concerns itself with the expressed solidarity of not only Africa, but of humanity at large. The album was controversial right down to the jacket, which contains a crude schematic of the stowage compartment of a typical transatlantic slave ship. Bob Marley was a Jamaican reggae singer, song writer, musician, and guitarist who achieved international fame and acclaim. His music in the 70s established his worldwide reputation and produced his status as one of the world's best-selling artists of all time, with sales of more than 75 million records.

sferic venture a new set of plasmic ambient entertainment systems by Jonas Wiese’s Tibslc, mining that slender but heady sweetspot between the earliest Vladislav Delay productions for Chain Reaction, Japanese environmental x architectural recordings and the sort of gear you’d hear from Move D & Jonas Grossmann at the late 90’s Source Recordings heyday. sferic pick up the mantle of late ‘90s-into-‘00s ambient with a new variant primed for the times. Following the themes of their ‘Decisive Tongue Shifts - Situation Based Compositions’ album of 2021, Tibslc (The International Billionaire’s Secret Love Child) distills their sferic debut into a crystal clear, hypersensitive set of eight tracks that slip seamlessly into each other’s space, recalling the amorphous end of Jan Jelinek’s ambient shimmers. Where Tibslc’s first album sprawled over two discs, this one relates to the same recording sessions, but glimpsed via more succinct windows of opportunity. In effect they’re like Hitchcockian, voyeurist snapshots of other lives in the urban complex woven into a melting emulation of the city at dusk, replete with infrasonic bass from streets below, and streaked with the wistful dream energy and fizzy optimism of a certain city life. In fleeting rounds of ephemeral shrapnel and synth pad washes, the eight parts evoke a sense of mental discombobulation, lending itself to ruminating on the unbearable lightness of being. Lovers of graphic sound craft, and that turn-of-the-century Ambient signature, this one’s for you.

A download code is included.

Solemn Brigham is 1/2 of the group Marlowe. His music has been featured on Gatorade's G is for Greatness ad campaign, 7-Eleven's Harmony Korine (Kids, Gummo, Spring Breakers) directed low rider bike campaign, and NBA2K22. South Sinner Street is his debut solo album coming Sept 24th.

About the Album:
It is no secret that things are getting worse. By virtually any metric––economic or medical, or ones more abstract and spiritual––American society is in decay. The feeling permeates daily life in innumerable ways, giving the present a gnawing, ambient dread.

Solemn Brigham is not content to leave this at a low hum. On his dazzling new album, South Sinner Street, Solemn examines this decay through the prism of his hometown: Albemarle, North Carolina, where the blocks he grew up on are crumbling like everything else. “What was once a vibrant area now survives as a reminder that the only thing eternal is change,” Solemn says when describing the project’s genesis. “Trash and debris flood the streets, relics of the many lives lived––each piece with a story to tell.” South Sinner Street not only traces the degradation of the world around us, but documents the way communities can come together to stave off that slow death, lifting its members up in the process.

Solemn is uniquely equipped to animate the relics of a once-thriving neighborhood with the specificity they deserve. The rapper, whose work with his fellow North Carolinian, L’Orange, as the duo Marlowe has been critically acclaimed, is one of the most vocally acrobatic working today, able to contort himself into a dizzying array of different flows and inflections, accomplishing alone the sort of musical variety that sprawling collectives try and fail to achieve. Take “Couple Towns,” where Solemn moves from a seesaw pocket into a flow that cascades over the ends of bars; contrast this with the bonus track “Relax,” where each bar sounds as if it’s the final thought spilling out of his mind at the end of an impassioned phrase. The end of “Vice North” even recalls the technically stunning runs of One Be Lo, the Michigan rapper who in the 2000s became one of the genre’s chief chroniclers of a similar country-wide disintegration.

But this is not merely a showcase for verbal acrobatics. South Sinner Street is deeply personal, juxtaposing personal growth with the decay that surrounds it. “This is no rags to riches story,” Solemn warns. Of course––it’s more complicated than that. When, on “Vantablack,” of a toddler cradled in his mother’s arms while that mother nurses a cigarette, he is not asking the listener to imagine a tragic end or a harrowing origin story. The point is that we are all, perpetually, the child and the mother: doing our best to cope, even against our better judgment; persevering despite the circumstances that surround us.

And yet South Sinner Street is buoyed by a sense of playfulness that lights up even the pitch-black corners of Albemarle. “Nothing Left” succeeds in turning end-of-your-rope sorry into something like an in joke. When, on “Vice North,” Solemn raps about putting his hands together in prayer only to find “the line still busy,” his voice bakes something amusing in the complaint––maybe the sense that a young man in a small city is irked at God the way he might be at a flaky friend from the gym. And then, speaking of gyms, comes the laugh-out-loud moment on “Dirty Whip,” when Solemn concedes that he didn’t make the basketball team “‘cause I’m me-first.’”

Across its 14 songs, South Sinner Street argues for Solemn Brigham as one of the most exciting artists in underground hip-hop, a technical virtuoso who also happens to be one of the genre’s most surprising, most deeply personal songwriters. The album evokes the feeling of climbing onto a house’s roof to survey the nearly-burning city around you, with all the peril that entails––but also all the possibility.

Limited to 300 copies.

Vinyl LP pressing. 2020 release. Marlowe is a collaborative alt-rap project from North Carolina-based hip-hop producer L'Orange and rapper Solemn Brigham. Their unique blend of quick-fire vocals and dusty breakbeats is most well-known on tracks such as "Lost Arts" and "Tales From The East." The project came together in 2018 with the intent of marrying Brigham's lyrics concerning social commentary, police brutality, and poverty with L'Orange's thudding beats and crackling vinyl samples to achieve a new, refreshing take on hip-hop in modern times. Marlowe 2 seeks to continue that legacy.

Muriel Grossmann has been living in Ibiza, Spain for about 20 years composing her distinguished brand of soulful spiritual jazz. ‘Universal Code’ is a 80-minute musical journey of modal jazz with influence of African music and soul jazz. It was composed as a natural successor of the 2019 record ‘Reverence’. This album was achieved as a part of Muriel Grossmann’s spiritual and musical explorations.

"This music on Universal Code is long on contemplative, instrumental dexterity, as well as harmonic and rhythmic invention. Its spiritual aspirations are articulated via interrogative melodies, poignant solos, and interwoven grooves that resonate inside the listener's ears, mind, and body… The music follows a
winding aural road from intention to impression to perception, and from awareness to transformation and ultimately, transcendence." - Thom Jurek