quête:2 mad

Drawn from three sessions in 1958–59 that featured The Incredible Jimmy Smith in a quartet with tenor saxophonist Percy France, guitarist Kenny Burrell, and drummer Donald Bailey, Home Cookin’ stands as one of the most deeply soulful albums the Hammond B3 organ virtuoso ever made. The band gives a soul jazz symposium that covers tunes by Ma Rainey, Ray Charles, and Jimmy McGriff along with originals by Smith and Burrell. This Blue Note Classic Vinyl Edition is all-analog, mastered by Kevin Gray from the original master tapes, and pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal.

It is recognized today that these tutelary pieces for four pianos are among the most powerful in contemporary music,their impact is almost unparalleled. After the historical version recorded forty years ago, this one, featuring four of the greatest European performers, is now regaining its full power. High level recordings too.

There was some for John Cage, then came Christian Wolff, and finally Morton Feldman, from this school in New York. Only Julius Eastman remained outside the game, the last figure, the most solitary and enigmatic - undoubtedly also one of the most powerful, and it is this power that is revealed through these recordings. In the 1970s and 1980s, Eastman was one of the very few African-Americans to gain recognition in the New York avant-garde music scene. He was politically committed, a figure of queer culture and a solar and solitary poet whose melancholy influenced his genius as well as his tragic destiny : suffering from various addictions, declared missing, actually homeless. During Winter of 1981-82, he got deported from his apartment by the police, who destroyed most of what he owned - including scores and recordings. He was found dead in 1990, on the streets of Buffalo, after years of vagrancy.

The Performers Nicolas Horvath, pianist and electroacoustic composer Nicolas Horvath is known for his boundariesless musical explorations - he has collaborated with leading contemporary composers from around the world, including Alvin Lucier, Alvin Curran and Valentyn Silvestrov - the recordings of his complete works for piano by Phil Glass made a lasting impression. He has collaborated recently with Lustmord on the Deconstruction of November by Dennis Johnson (Sub Rosa SR502: The Fall).

Melaine Dalibert, a French composer and pianist, fascinated by natural phenomena which are both expected and unpredictable, Dalibert has developed his own algorithmic procedures of composition which contain the notion of stretched time evoking Morton Feldman, minimal and introspective, adopting a unique concept of fractal series.

Stephane Ginsburgh, a tireless surveyor of the repertoire but also explorer of new music, collaborated with composers such as Philippe Boesmans, Jean-Luc Fafchamps, Stefan Prins, Frederic Rzewski and Matthew Shlomowitz of whom he premiered works, as well as with choreographers such as Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker (Rosas) and recorded Feldman, Duchamp and Satie for Sub Rosa and the complete set of Prokofiev piano sonatas for Cypres. Wilhem Latchoumia, he embraces both new music and the classical repertoire with success and charisma. His two last recordings for La Dolce Volta (Prokofiev and de Falla) have been highly acclaimed by critics with a FFFF in Télérama. Winner of the Hewlett-Packard Foundation and the Montsalvatge International Piano Competition, he brilliantly won the First Prize in the 2006 Orléans International Piano Competition.

Déjà vu is translated as “already seen” but for South California native Ben Schwab, his discovery in a small Ohio town 2000 miles from home led to an epiphany of creating the “already heard.” Unearthing a box of 1975 cassette tapes of his father’s old band, the recordings or “Sylvies” as Ben would affectionately call them later became the imprint for a familiar feeling he would end up chasing. The songs were timeless, effortless, and soulful.

Awakening senses to the eternal quality of hidden or lost music, Sylvie fully encompasses that very same musical lineage and spirit living in those lost yet beloved time capsules. Recorded years before by Ben’s father, John Schwab and his own band Mad Anthony in a Southern California barn, those reels spoke of a common narrative at the time; a band close to a record deal which never came, so the tapes were boxed up and stored in a closet for years to come. “Dad’s songs are straight from the heart and really shaped my taste and imagination for songwriting in a permanent way,” Ben reveals. Taking the name from one of those early recordings an obscure cover of a 70s track by Ian Matthews ‘Sylvie’ would inspire his project’s namesake and feature as the album’s only cover. “It’s an incredible song from the past but for whatever reason, is basically unknown,” Ben offers by way of an explanation.

For this uniquely personal retrospective spread over twelve vinyl discs, Sven Väth takes us back to the early days of his DJ career. On What I Used To Play we meet great pioneers of electronic music, gifted percussionists, obscure wave bands, and innovative producers of a bygone 'new electronic' era. Rough beats and irresistible grooves from the identification stage of house, techno, and acid remind us not just how far electronic music has evolved over the past four decades, but how great it was to dance to EBM, techno, and house for the very first time.

If there is one protagonist of the electronic music scene who has remained curious, innovative and at the very cutting edge of music for over four decades, it's Sven Väth. His multi-layered artist albums and Sound of the Season mix compilations have been defining the genre for over two decades, and even today, he is constantly on the lookout for the next top tune to add to the highlights of his next set. At least, that's the case when he's not producing them himself as an artist or remixer. "Actually, it's always been part of my DNA to think ahead," and nothing had been further from his mind than looking back at his past, but when in spring of 2020 the international DJ circuit had to be scaled down to virtually zero, the 'restless traveler' suddenly had time. Time to stop and reflect on "how it actually was back then, at the very beginning of my career..."

"It was a great trip and with every track, beautiful memories came flooding back".
In the London apartment, he had just moved into, Sven has set up a "little music room", where he cocooned himself for several days, "to look way back for the first time and review my musical journey through the eighties, so to speak."

The interim result was six thematically oriented playlists with a grand total of 120 tracks from 'early 80s' to 'Balearic late 80s', together with excursions into afrobeat, European new wave, and EBM sounds and a few epochal techno/house tracks from the USA in between. From these 'Best of Sven Väth's favorites', the project What I Used To Play crystallized. Sven remembers how the Cocoon team reacted to his proposal: "They found the idea of making a compilation out of it MEGA from the beginning and everyone said 'Sven, go for it', but then, of course, the work really started, namely, to clear the rights and to get clean sounding masters of the up to 40-year-old tracks. There was also disappointment, of course. We couldn't clear certain titles because the rights holders in the USA had fallen out with each other or simply disappeared from the scene. In short, it wasn't easy, but now I can safely say we got the most important tracks."

Finally, after two years of research, curation, design, and administrative fine-tuning, the "little retrospective" from 1981 to 1990 is available. The exquisitely packaged, and three-kilo heavy box set is not only physically impressive, WIUTP is also the definitive record of Sven Väth's musical development. On each of the twenty-four sides of vinyl, you can trace track by track, what influenced him during which phase, and how he took off as a DJ from his parents' Queen's Pub straight into the spotlight at Dorian Gray. There and at Vogue (later OMEN), Sven became the style-defining player in the DJ booth that he still is today.




1981 - 1990: Future Sounds of Now

In the early eighties, the crowd in clubs like Vogue and Dorian Gray danced to what nowadays we call 'dance classics' - mainly disco, funk, soul, and chart pop. It was up to a new generation of DJs, including Sven Väth, the youngest protagonist in the Rhine-Main area at the time, to create their own club-ready music mix. Good new tracks and potential floor-fillers were rarities that had to be sought out and found, in order to prove oneself worthy.
Without MP3s, internet streaming, or other digital download possibilities, music didn't just gravitate to the DJ, instead, it had to be tracked down. In well-stocked record stores in Frankfurt and Wiesbaden or even in Amsterdam, London, or New York, Sven and friends sourced the material for countless magical nights. On WIUTP we can follow Sven's very personal journey through this wild, innovative era in which synth-pop, funk, hip-hop, and disco were successively replaced as 'club music' by house, techno, acid, and breakbeat. By the end of the decade, it was clear to see that these once exotic 'fringe' phenomena would soon become 'mass' phenomena.



Early 80s

Dirty Talk by the Italian-American duo Klein & M.B.O. represents the most innovative phase of the Italo-disco genre in the early eighties like no other track. Mario Boncaldo (I) and Tony Carrasco relied entirely on the original synthetic drum and percussion sounds of the Roland TR-808, coupled with the raunchy vocals of Rossana Casale and guitar accents of Davide Piatto. Of course, other tracks from this period were also influential in style, most notably Unit by Logic System, which worked as the perfect soundtrack to the laser lighting system at the legendary Dorian Gray club. With stomping beats and robotic rap interludes, Bostich by Yello also belongs on Sven's eternal playlist - after all, it caught the attention of Afrikaa Bambaataa, who invited the Swiss duo to perform at the Roxy in New York in 1983.



EBM Wave - Mid 80s

From today's point of view, the almost ten-minute-long, downtempo track Giant by Matt Johnson's band project The The, would probably not be considered an obvious club classic. However, a closer (re)listen reveals the rhythmic intricacies of the percussion overdubs by JG Thirlwell (aka Foetus) on Johnson's composition, and it becomes clear why this exceptional piece of music is one of Sven's absolute favorites. Other classics from this phase include Kaw-Liga by the mysterious The Residents, the hypnotic-synthetic Our Darkness by Anne Clark (and David Harrow), and last but not least, the somber, monotonous anthem Where Are You? by 16Bit, one of Sven Väth's projects together with Michael Münzing, Luca Anzilotti from 1986.



US House - Late 80s

You certainly can't talk about Chicago house without mentioning Frankie Knuckles. The resident DJ at the Warehouse not only gave the name to an entire genre, but also produced epochal floor fillers on the Trax label like the timeless Your Love, sung (and moaned) by Jamie Principle. Acid house protagonists Phuture also hail from Chicago, and on We Are Phuture (also released on Trax) we hear the chirping acid sounds of the legendary Roland TB-303 in full effect. Another featured classic is No UFO's by Detroit's Model 500 aka Juan Atkins, who is rightly considered the 'Godfather of Techno' even if the genre-defining track from 1985 still breathes with the spirit of hip-hop and electro from the first breakdance era.





Afrobeat

Le Serpent, by Algerian-born Abdelmadjid Guemguem, is a track that sounds completely different from everything else on WIUTP. Made in 1978, it's a monumental, rousing groove created without bass or synths, just with five congas! Even though Guem sadly passed away in 2021, his immortal, acoustic beats are understood all over the world and will continue to enrich many thousands of DJ sets for years to come. Another classic that not only Sven appreciates beyond measure is Hugh Masekela's Don't Go Lose it, Baby. In addition to being one of the most important jazz pioneers, the trumpeter and freedom fighter from Johannesburg was very experimental, integrating electronic sounds into his music in later years, in a similar vein to Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock. Dutch jazz pianist Jasper van't Hof's afrobeat project Pili Pili has also aged well. The trance-like, almost sixteen-minute-long track of the same name, manages to fill a whole side on the seventh of twelve vinyl discs in the WIUTP box.



UK-US-Euro - Late 80s

Time for a change of scene, in the truest sense of the word, and from a musical perspective, this section is like landing on another planet. First up is Andrew Weatherall's classic remix of Primal Scream's Loaded, featuring the iconic Peter Fonda sample (lifted from the 1966 biker film Wild Angels) that came to personify the mood triggered by the British Second Summer of Love in the late eighties: "We wanna be free to do what we wanna do, and we wanna get loaded...". This period also saw the emergence of M/A/R/R/S whose only single, 1987's Pump Up The Volume, became a club classic with support from DJ legend CJ Mackintosh. In this most eclectic of sections, we also encounter New York house and reggae producer Bobby Konders and his seminal Nervous Acid.



Balearic - Late 80s

Those who know him, know that Sven had already lost his heart to the 'magic island' of Ibiza as a teenager, so with that in mind, the WIUTP project couldn't end without a Balearic chapter. Inspired by Manuel Göttsching's E2-E4, the immortal, eponymously titled Sueño Latino belongs in there without question. Equally popular on the island was, and still is Break 4 Love by Raze, which thinking about it, would also fit perfectly into the house chapter. Last, but not least, there's an overdue reunion with Sven Väth himself, in his role as frontman of the successful Frankfurt trio OFF. Together with Michael Münzing and Luca Anzilotti (later of Snap!) this 'Organization For Fun' created the off-the-wall club hit Electric Salsa in 1986 which incidentally turned into an international chart smash, putting Sven in the enviable position of having to decide between pop stardom and a DJ career. Well, we all know how that decision turned out and the rest, as they say, is history. A not insignificant part of his story is What I Used To Play. Enjoy!

Time to Play Records strikes back with a new 4 tracks ep, late night club-ready, with heavy bass-kicks tracks straight to your chest.

Filippo Tazzer, label manager and executive producer, continues in his search, musical sensitivity and evident production skills. After having entrusted the baptism of the label to Reekee and Colosimo, the moment is propitious to introduce another Italian Producer:
Phonorem, fresh with a new album called “Algorythm”.

Phonorem production skills in those 4 tracks embrace different styles forged by his 90’s hip-hop and drum and bass roots, by mixing synthetizers and drum machines with samples.

SEAMLESS, the track that gives the EP its title, is a deep-house track with double bass – bassline and atmospheric scenarios by manipulating old Italian movie soundtracks samples.

PREE, is a downbeat track which made homage to DJ Premier beats, with some melodies created with a Chinese hammered dulcimer.

FLIP DOWN gives a high contrast experience: fusing a raw drum machine rhytm with dreamy pads and a mysterious vocal.

LOW FAT is a heavy bass kick track with some sythetizers-melodies with a story to tell. With a happy end :)

Deadpool 2 is a 2018 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character Deadpool. It is the sequel to Deadpool (2016) and the eleventh installment overall in the X-Men film series. The film was directed by David Leitch and written by Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, and Ryan Reynolds, who stars in the title role alongside Josh Brolin, Morena Baccarin, Julian Dennison, Zazie Beetz, T.J. Miller, Brianna Hildebrand, and Jack Kesy. In the film, Deadpool forms the X-Force to protect a young mutant from the time-traveling soldier Cable.

Bates approached the score with a slight rock sensibility and created an “obvious superhero theme” that he felt fit within the established X-Men franchise. He attempted to write music that stayed out of the way of the film’s comedy and complemented its dialogue, which was a challenge due to the constant changes being made to the film throughout the post-production process. For the score, Bates used a distorted guitar run through a wah-wah pedal, microsynths to add “unique colors”, and a choir.

Deadpool 2 is available as a limited edition of 1000 individually numbered copies on transparent pink coloured vinyl. It is housed in a high-quality sleeve with silverfoil and spot-varnish with embossing on the front cover. Additionally, this release includes a 4-page booklet and fridge magnet of the film’s logo.

atomTM’s new four tracker »nacht« contains some highlights as well as some unreleased titles from the »neuer mensch« album. both »nacht« and »geometrische einheit« are previously unreleased compositions, while »sprechender raum« and »selbst« appear on the previously mentioned album, yet are presented as alternative versions here. the EP’s track selection was made having the emerging meta-techno dancefloor in mind and will be available as 12 inch vinyl through kompakt distribution or digitally via raster.

Taking over stages around the world, RUSSKAJA made a name for itself as a unique, diverse formation that moves crowds wherever they go. "Russki Style" is RUSSKAJA in their purest form - balancing catchy heavy riffs, ska, polka and punk while maintaining a blood pumping tempo! With well over 20 million streams on Spotify alone and touring relentlessly while still rocking stages on TV as the house band on the prestigious "Willkommen Österreich" – RUSSKAJA’s Turbo Ska Punk is unstoppable! 2nd SINGLE : Kings & queens of Turbo Polka, RUSSKAJA, bring you a jolly good Christmas time! Brass and violins come together on this ska-infused Christmas classic; with this unique parody version of WHAM’s smash hit "Last Christmas", RUSSKAJA are guaranteed to spice up your holiday season – russki style! With over 20 million streams on Spotify alone and relentless touring while still rocking as the house band on prestigious TV show "Willkommen Österreich" – RUSSKAJA’s Turbo Ska Punk is unstoppable!

In November of 1982, I went into the studio with Government Issue to record what was to be their first full-length album. Up until that time, they had only released the Legless Bull 7”EP, and the tape they recorded early 1982 would take over a year and a half to be released as the Make An Effort 7”EP. The members of G.I. excelled at driving each other crazy and there was a lot of arguing, but still we had a great session at Inner Ear and we managed to track 20 songs in one day. From the beginning the band had been divided on what to record, and it was only after much debate that they decided to leave off the material they had recorded with the earlier line-ups and only put out 10 new songs.

In early 1983 Dischord was strapped for cash, meaning that we could only work on one release at a time. Since all of our money was tied up with the manufacturing of Minor Threat’s Out of Step 12” EP, the G.I. record would have to wait. A new DC label, Fountain of Youth, expressed an interest in releasing Boycott Stabb, so it was decided to do a ‘split-label’ record. In this case, Fountain of Youth put up the money and we let them use the Dischord Records name to help with context and distribution. It has since been reissued on a number of different labels and formats, but after coming across the master tapes and hearing the songs that had been left off, we thought it would be cool to release the complete session, and to finally release the record on Dischord proper.

In going through the tapes, I discovered that most of the outtake songs were never mixed, so earlier this year I took the recordings back into the studio. Hearing the separated tracks amazed me. Such great playing and songs! With the technological advances in the recording world made multi-tracking and overdubbing so common, it’s easy to forget that studios could also be used as something more akin to a photo-booth, capturing what was happening at that very moment. Most of the early Dischord sessions were essentially ‘live’ recordings, so the bands had to be able to play, and because the budgets were minuscule, they had to get the songs down in short order. G.I. stepped up on both counts. -Ian MacKaye, August 2010

 After two fiery albums, ‘Silence Slowly And Madly Shines’
in 2017 (Alter K), and ‘Private Meaning First’ in 2019
(Vicious Circle / FatCat Records), The Psychotic Monks
have never ceased to impress with their maturity and
determination to offer a singular stage and discographic
presence.
 Although radical, ‘Pink Colour Surgery’ is truly accessible
to those who immerse themselves in its in depth. One is
unceasingly hypnotised, shaken as their soul flirts
dangerously with a furious and oppressive trance. Then
the journey becomes addictive, letting yourself slide from
one track to another, sometimes struck, sometimes set
ablaze with an unexpected epiphany, because its light
irradiates us.
 Live, their music is an intimate, sensory experience, the
effects of which continue to be felt for a long time
afterwards.
 Recorded and produced by Daniel Fox of Gilla Band, ‘Pink
Colour Surgery’ is composed, in part, of improvisations,
and is presented as an act of resistance to the ambient
violence. Disconcerting at first sight, this new opus
operates in the dark, a surgery of ethics which is fleshed
out of pink for a staggering metamorphosis. Its very
structure takes the listener on an initiatory trip full of secret
corners, provided they are prepared to dive into it, to
plunge into it.
 ‘Pink Colour Surgery’ is like a hidden room in a house that
we have never entered before, and the possibility of
feeling good there is not excluded.
 Support from KEXP, Northern Transmissions, Kerrang,
Loud & Quiet.
 UK and EU tour dates to be announced for early 2023.

In 2002, Dong Hyek Lim arrived on the scene at just 18 years old ‘in a blaze of pianistic glory’ (Gramophone) with a debut album championed by his mentor Martha Argerich, which was awarded the prestigious Diapason d’Or in France. The South Korean virtuoso went on to take third prize in the 15th International Chopin Piano Competition, and recorded a remarkable Chopin album in 2004 including the 3rd Piano Sonata and some Mazurkas. In 2008 followed an album of Bach’s Goldberg Variations coupled with the Bach-Busoni Chaconne. The French magazine Le Monde de la Musique awarded it a ‘Choc’, while Gramophone wrote that: “There’s no question that he’s a very impressive pianist … who gives the sense of profound pleasure in the music … And he’s not afraid to experiment with what he can do in this music … An artist to watch.”
Seven years later, in 2015, following studies with Emmanuel Ax at the Juilliard School in New York, Lim’s artistry had matured and deepened for a long-awaited recital of the 24 Preludes and other works by Chopin – a composer who remains especially close to his heart. This album is now made available on vinyl for the first time.

In 2019, Dong Hyek released a Rachmaninov album with the 2nd Piano Concerto, and the Symphonic Dances in the arrangement for 2 pianos version with Martha Argerich. He also recently recorded 2 piano sonatas by Schubert.

SZNZ: Spring is the first of four in the SZNZ series of EPs by Weezer and is now available on Black and Glow In The Dark Vinyl. The EP was produced by Weezer’s frequent collaborators Jake Sinclair and Suzy Shinn, as well as new collaborator Ethan Gruska.

Each EP offers its own palette of colors, creatures, and emotions to explore. Created in real time, made in tandem with the season themselves, the EPs form an incredible collection of some of Weezer's best songs yet, which is no small feat for a band that never leaves the Zeitgeist.

Weezer is Brian Bell (backing vocals, guitar), Rivers Cuomo (vocals, guitar, piano), Scott Shriner (backing vocals, bass), and Pat Wilson (drums).

**Vinyl Only

Sharing the spotlight along with the label owner Umwelt on this brand new split EP, Zeta Reticula the Slovenian born artist delivers two tracks of high intensity with distinct energy! Melodic "The Fate Of The Ship Unknown" opens A side with a pure robotic mayhem based upon synthetic strings, rushing leads and frantic arpeggiator flights over seductive vocals. Hostile and heading at the same. Progressive "Documented Contact", coming next, signs an intricate yet groovy electro sci-fi masterpiece made of rolling bassline, moody atmosphere and pounding beats. This is Zeta Reticula at its finest!

The Lord of Darkness treats the flipside with a more aggressive sound. As its title suggests, "Hyperspace" propels the listener at light speed through the depths of the universe thanks to a dystopian machinefunk atmosphere where hammering drums fuse with cold layers in Umwelt's typical trademark. Classical electro shaker "Earth To Unknown" concludes this uncompromising 12" with a luminous structure enhanced with a deeper and soulful approach.

Sharp, underground and always dancefloor oriented, this limited release comes packed in a colorful urban picture disc designed by the great CN6 aka Nexus 6!

SZNZ: Spring is the first of four in the SZNZ series of EPs by Weezer and is now available on Black and Glow In The Dark Vinyl. The EP was produced by Weezer’s frequent collaborators Jake Sinclair and Suzy Shinn, as well as new collaborator Ethan Gruska.

Each EP offers its own palette of colors, creatures, and emotions to explore. Created in real time, made in tandem with the season themselves, the EPs form an incredible collection of some of Weezer's best songs yet, which is no small feat for a band that never leaves the Zeitgeist.

Weezer is Brian Bell (backing vocals, guitar), Rivers Cuomo (vocals, guitar, piano), Scott Shriner (backing vocals, bass), and Pat Wilson (drums).

**Vinyl Only

In November of 1982, I went into the studio with Government Issue to record what was to be their first full-length album. Up until that time, they had only released the Legless Bull 7”EP, and the tape they recorded early 1982 would take over a year and a half to be released as the Make An Effort 7”EP. The members of G.I. excelled at driving each other crazy and there was a lot of arguing, but still we had a great session at Inner Ear and we managed to track 20 songs in one day. From the beginning the band had been divided on what to record, and it was only after much debate that they decided to leave off the material they had recorded with the earlier line-ups and only put out 10 new songs.

In early 1983 Dischord was strapped for cash, meaning that we could only work on one release at a time. Since all of our money was tied up with the manufacturing of Minor Threat’s Out of Step 12” EP, the G.I. record would have to wait. A new DC label, Fountain of Youth, expressed an interest in releasing Boycott Stabb, so it was decided to do a ‘split-label’ record. In this case, Fountain of Youth put up the money and we let them use the Dischord Records name to help with context and distribution. It has since been reissued on a number of different labels and formats, but after coming across the master tapes and hearing the songs that had been left off, we thought it would be cool to release the complete session, and to finally release the record on Dischord proper.

In going through the tapes, I discovered that most of the outtake songs were never mixed, so earlier this year I took the recordings back into the studio. Hearing the separated tracks amazed me. Such great playing and songs! With the technological advances in the recording world made multi-tracking and overdubbing so common, it’s easy to forget that studios could also be used as something more akin to a photo-booth, capturing what was happening at that very moment. Most of the early Dischord sessions were essentially ‘live’ recordings, so the bands had to be able to play, and because the budgets were minuscule, they had to get the songs down in short order. G.I. stepped up on both counts. -Ian MacKaye, August 2010

Entering Heaven Alive is the fifth studio album from Jack White, founding member of The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, and The Dead Weather. True to his DIY roots, this record was recorded at White's Third Man Studio throughout 2021, mastered by Third Man Mastering, and released by Third Man Records.

Originally released in 1997—Salsoul Jam 2000 was Grandmaster Flash’s first album in nine years. A testament to his power as a DJ, the record was produced & segued together as one continuous mix in front of a live audience.
This is the first re-release of the album in two decades and it’s first repressing on vinyl since the original ‘97 release.
Salsoul Jam 2000 is a perfect introduction to the deep bench of talent on the Salsoul Records roster— featuring hits like “Let No Man Put Asunder”, “Love Sensation” & “Ten Percent”—while continuing to connect dots on the family tree from disco to hip-hop.

Radio Slave teams up with Nez for all-new versions of the club smash, ‘Wait a Minute’.

The first single from Radio Slave’s forthcoming 2023 LP, ‘Wait a Minute’ sees the UK legend pair with grammy nominated multi-hyphenate Nez for a hard-hitting, rap-infused house track that has become a staple of the handful of DJs who had upfront versions this summer.

Initially meeting via Radio Slave’s incendiary remix of the FELIX DA HOUSECAT co-produced ‘Lift Off’ released via Three Six Zero/Sony in 2021, LA’s Nez and Berlin-based Radio Slave made plans to work together as soon as possible, and a new version of 2020’s ‘Wait A Minute’ is the result. Featuring remixes from Rekids’ own Mark Broom and coming complete with an instrumental version, Radio Slave feat. Nez ‘Wait A Minute’ is released through Rekids on 26th August 2022.

Radio Slave, aka Matt Edwards, is responsible for some of the most recognisable underground dance tracks of the past 20 years, including ‘Grindhouse’, ‘Don’t Stop No Sleep’, ‘Another Club’, and many other timeless cuts. His collaboration work with Joel Martin as Quiet Village and solo work as Rekid has received critical acclaim, and he remains one of the most in-demand and consistent remixers around.

Nez has worked with the likes of Chance The Rapper, A$AP Rocky, Tinashe, ScHoolboy Q, and many more before dropping the dancefloor focussed ‘Midnight Music’ EP in 2021. Growing up in Chicago, Nez absorbed the rich musical lineage of the Windy City, and now distils these into his own unique creations and collaborations.

Brainwave research center is a new project from NYC-based house/techno producer, Chase Smith (W.T. Records, Apartment, is/Was), & documentary filmmaker, Christa Majoras (School of Visual Arts).

Conceived together over two years as musical thought experiments, brainwave research center’s debut album, figure 1, contains a genre-bending distillation of influences from experimental music (Steve Reich, Laurie Spiegel, Black Dice), 1990s ambient techno (The Orb, Pete Namlook/Fax Records), and Motorik/Kosmiche/Krautrock (Kraftwerk, Suicide, Manual Gottsching).

The songs embrace a raw, naive approach to sound design, instrumentation, and technical production to capture the feeling of experimentation of the works they are inspired by. Described by listeners as a mixture of Electronic, ambient, and kosmische/krautrock.

Recorded and produced in Greenpoint, Brooklyn in the back of Smith’s synthesizer/electronic repair shop, Specs Sales & Repair, Figure 1 is the first in a sequence of 4 works to be released.

Made primarily with TR-606, OB8, SH-101, MS-20, Fizmo, H3000, SDE-3000

Arkada records is excited to announce our 4th release - forthcoming split vinyl EP featuring the sounds of ADJ & Adrien d’Elzius.

We are very happy to present the first part of the EP with the unique sounds of one of the pioneering artists in the UK underground Electro scene, the label owner of Pyramid Transmissions - ADJ

ADJ originates from and is based in London. He has been playing Underground Electronic Music for over 35 years as a DJ, starting in the days of Early Electro and Hip Hop. He has also been producing and releasing music for 25 years, releasing over 200 tracks in this time on a plethora of labels including Touchin Bass,For Those That Knoe, Another Perspective, Ai, Outside, Cultivated Electronics,Yellow Machines, Crobot Muzik, Diffuse Reality, Netlabel ,Digital Distortions and more...has done remixes for Flint Kids, Scanone, LASynthesis, Carl Finlow, Fleck Esc, Arsonist Recorder , Paul Hierophant to name a few.

He has run the Pyramid Transmissions Record label with label partner Pathic for 20 years and also ran the Analogique record label for 5 years from 1995-2000 releasing Techno, Electro and Electronica as 3 Elements.
ADJ also performed his first LIVE set in a few years in March 2020 MUTABOR in Moscow.

As a DJ, he has played at many festivals including a BLOC residency, Glastonbury For BLOC, Bestival, Shambala, Infiltrate at WMC Miami. 2019 saw another tour of the US with Silicon Scally,Ben Milstein, EVAC, Ion Driver and 214. He also runs the Dodo Club and Frequency Resonate(with Errorbeauty) nights in London and Berlin aswell as playing in Lille, Kiev, Moscow, St Petersburg Berlin,Zagreb,Athens, Napoli, Brussels, Budapest, Vienna, Valencia, Sofia, Paris and many more..

Second part of our EP presents the futuristic glitched-out sounds of the one of a kind Belgium producer Adrien d’Elzius also known under his allies HosmOz.

Adrien d’Elzius was born in the gloomy south of Belgium spending his youth hanging around in a camping and listening to Hip Hop, he started his life in a mess of paradox. At 10, he learned to play drums under his punk’s brother regard, and experimented different kind of rock until 18. That’s where someone showed him a track of Aphex Twin, who blew his mind and made him believe he had finally found the music that suited him. From there, he compulsively spend hours playing around with his computer and slowly made himself a place in the very small community of underground music lover of Brussels under the nickname hosmOz after winning a contest. From his melodic and acidic drill’n’bass beginning, his sound slowed down and got darker, challenging himself to try to create something he couldn’t before. He recently re-released his Lp on Diffuse Reality that make it available on physical form and also his debut album on Burial Soil with remixes by Umwelt and Lloyd Stellar.

The masters of the release are kindly made by Thomas Dunstan. Artwork made by our amazing designer Lawrence Cli

This is what you get when Gary Superfly’s razor sharp and funky beats meet Other Lands skillful keys and synths. Verona’s young talent collaborate with Scotland’s keyboard wizard and Firecracker regular artist Gavin Sutherland for this fierce seven inch. The result is a match made in heaven..pure space funk for the next generation!

No way to avoid the one !

Once upon a time Mr. Cauliflower made his way to Amsterdam and met his friend Jo Bissa (one half of the electronic duo Umoja).
Mr. Cauliflower dropped an Lp on the turntable and played "Casa da Arvore" from Nomade Orquestra. The sound was deep and went direct to Jo's heart.
It sounded like gipsy music, but had a funky feeling; it had some reggae elements, but with a latin heart. That's the mixture of styles that better represent the Nomade Orquestra's signature sound.
A quartet that has since swollen into a decet from their beginnings in 2012, Brazilian band Nomade Orquestra musicians pride themselves on stretching far and beyond their jazz roots to create a sound that's hard to pinpoint, but inclusive of various cultures across the world.
While listening to the song Jo Bissa knew immediately how to twist it with a remix, and created an electro cumbia dancefloor killer!

The result is a tasty 7" inches called "Veggie Tales Vol. 5"!!
We hope you'll enjoy as much as we did.
Buon appetito!

White Vinyl Only
Once upon a time Mr. Cauliflower made his way to Amsterdam and met his friend Jo Bissa (one half of the electronic duo Umoja).
Mr. Cauliflower dropped an Lp on the turntable and played "Casa da Arvore" from Nomade Orquestra. The sound was deep and went direct to Jo's heart.
It sounded like gipsy music, but had a funky feeling; it had some reggae elements, but with a latin heart. That's the mixture of styles that better represent the Nomade Orquestra's signature sound.
A quartet that has since swollen into a decet from their beginnings in 2012, Brazilian band Nomade Orquestra musicians pride themselves on stretching far and beyond their jazz roots to create a sound that's hard to pinpoint, but inclusive of various cultures across the world.
While listening to the song Jo Bissa knew immediately how to twist it with a remix, and created an electro cumbia dancefloor killer!

The result is a tasty 7" inches called "Veggie Tales Vol. 5"!!
We hope you'll enjoy as much as we did.
Buon appetito!

After more than 45 years forgotten in the personal archives of Jean Schwarz, Transversales Disques is very happy to release this previously unpublished recording which brings together the great Don Cherry and his friend, composer Jean Schwarz, pioneer in electro-acoustic music and member of G.R.M.
This concert was recorded in 1977 at the Paris MIX festival (Théatre Récamier) organised by G.R.M and hosted by director François Bayle. An elegant mix of spiritual jazz and electronic sounds around this astounding quintet made up of JF Jenny Clark, Nana Vasconcelos and Michel Portal.
Remastered from the original master tapes. Exclusive pictures and liner notes

With their head-bopping, hip-thrusting, zalghouta-inducing tunes, Restless Leg Syndrome have tastefully-crafted a mélange of global references and in their work. The Vienna-based group is made up of longtime DJ and producer d.b.h and turntable maestros Chrisfader and Testa.
Over the course of 2021, RLS dropped four eclectic EPs that seamlessly fuse long-forgotten tunes with foot-stomping breaks

We've selected two hits from "Totem" and crafted this delicious 7" inches!
Side A sees the standout track "Represent the Fucking Planet", that really underscores the trios' appreciation for drums that knock.
On the B side we take a deep dive into our most hidden inner-self with the hypnotic "Spirit".

Orange Vinyl

With their head-bopping, hip-thrusting, zalghouta-inducing tunes, Restless Leg Syndrome have tastefully-crafted a mélange of global references and in their work. The Vienna-based group is made up of longtime DJ and producer d.b.h and turntable maestros Chrisfader and Testa.
Over the course of 2021, RLS dropped four eclectic EPs that seamlessly fuse long-forgotten tunes with foot-stomping breaks

We've selected two hits from "Totem" and crafted this delicious 7" inches!
Side A sees the standout track "Represent the Fucking Planet", that really underscores the trios' appreciation for drums that knock.
On the B side we take a deep dive into our most hidden inner-self with the hypnotic "Spirit".

Enter The Decagon assembles friends of the label - near and far - for further excursions into the abyss of industrial, folk, jazz and ambient music.

From Copenhagen hails Kristi Brud (Bride of Christ) extending us with a shimmering violin contemplation initially made for the short art film piece "The Abduction of Europa", absorbing a modal ambiance of harmonics rooted in central European renaissance. Recorded in Svalöv in rural Skåne comes a hillbilly folk jazz piece constructed by Joel and Ivar on equal parts violin, flute, upright bass and percussion, recorded somewhere in the misty era of of 2012-2015. Then, an interlude follows, reconstructed from the very early live sets of the label's own Inre Kretsen Grupp, laden with tuned metallic percussions and synthesized bow sounds. Following up, the idiosyncratic local talent Fai Ling offers a piece of Basinski/Hassel-esque horn repetitions in full deterioration. Concluding the A-side of the compilation is the band that never was - the only released material of Prins Emanuel and Golden Ivy's Börringe Kloster project - encapsulating their minimal maximal approach of low quality sound samples turned in to a wall of sound of rhythm of sorts.

The B-side picks up on different musings in the form of ambient cadence and carefully sculpted soundscapes signed Phillipp Otterbach, who gives us an unraveling journey into kalimba-hampered harmonies carried through a bed of industrial, synthesized sounds. Moonilena follows up with an eerie yet beautiful minimal composition of radio disturbances and repetitive, ear catching melodies.
Breaking the barrier of stillness, local producer and Catholic chant music fiend Digge Shim performs a rhytmical, tongue-in-cheek number that pulls widely from both the hymnal traditions of medieval Europe as well as the zonked out ambient trance sounds you'd meet in a mid nineties Goa chill-out room.
Near the tip of the decagon, we find the Cypriot producer, singer and lyricist Spivak presenting us with a feeling of the-familiar-but-never-heard in the form of an ambient pop breakbeat number with carefully crafted choirs oscillating on top - hauntingly beautiful and equally danceable.
Ending in the best of styles, well-mannered umarel and purveyor of drum-smitten metallic sounds shows us what Moisture is really about - the mental image of finding your true self dancing in purgatory in a never-released Kenneth Anger film set, encumbered with red lights and occult paraphernalia.

The Art and Soul of Network is well and truly captured on this beautiful collection.

Fittingly for a remix selection, Network’s iconic artwork is reconstructed by Trevor Jackson, the designer of those original graphics. He has lovingly reworked the maverick indie house label’s distinctive branding for this 2 x 12 double album selection which rewinds to some of Network’s finest moments.

Network was based in Birmingham but as this release demonstrates had an international outlook and an alchemist touch for joining together disparate talents which lent itself well to the world of remixology.

Dave Lee’s remix,when he was working under his Joey Negro pseudonym, of The Reese Project’s awesome Direct Me is arguably his finest ever work. The original track fused Detroit electronica with the Motor City’s ever present Soul Music stirrings. Dave simply made the superlative perfect . The result was not only an iconic Network release but one of House Music’s greatest recordings.

There was possibly no better example of Network’s deft touch when it came to selecting unlikely combinations of people to work together than Day By Day. . Andrew Pearce, a raw but incredibly gifted 18 years gospel singer, was plucked of the streets of Wolverhampton and promptly despatched to Detroit where producer Kevin Saunderson and songwriter Ann Saunderson gave him the complete Reese Project template on the mesmerising Day By Day. Then Chez Damier & Ron Trent were drafted in to create their Urban Sound Gallery masterpiece of a remix. It truly is a gem.

Ann Saunderson is also central to Surreal’s hypnotic Happiness, not only as songwriter but as the vocalist too. Network then did their “let’s try this” thing by letting loose Italian house godfathers The Fathers Of Sound on the track parts. They threw down and created a progressive (but dreamy) house anthem that is to this day massively in demand.

Slo Moshun’s game changer (House slows down into Hip Hop then ramps up back into House) Bells Of New York was produced by Mark Archer & Danny Taurus.It became huge literally overnight. Various attempts to remix it were tried but in the end it was back to Mark who demonstrated that sometimes the original creator of a track is best able to re-imagine it by coming up with his much loved Beefy Bells remix.

Inner City’s stark and brutal Ahnonghay saw Kevin Saunderson going back to his Detroit Techno roots. Fittingly it was one of the UK’s disciples of that innovative Belleville Three era,Dave Clarke, who supplied the awesome remix contained here.

Rhythmatic’s Mark Gamble created a British Bleep House anthem with the sledgehammer Demonz. The original won the support of John Peel with repeated BBC Radio plays underlining incessant club plays. Again it’s the original artist who does that remix thing best with Mark’s Sequel mix managing to improv his classic original.

Neal Howard’s Indulge was the debut Network release. His music sounded like it was from another planet and he was hailed as Chicago’s answer to Detroit genius Derrick May..Here we present Derrick’s Mayday remix of To Be Or Not To Be which was the flip to Indulge. This was Network’s debut release, and it is hard to imagine a label having a more euphoric greeting card.

The album concludes with a remix of a track recorded at a live concert in 1989.. To be clear THE TRACK that defined that year’s Acid House cultural revolution. Derrick May brought along Carl Craig to perform with him as Rhythim Is Rhyhim when invited to support Inner City at London’s Town And Country Club . Luckily Kool Kat - the predecessor to Network - recorded for posterity an historic rendition of Strings Of Life. Roll on a few years and Network went into the vaults and asked Ashley Beedle to work on the tape. He completely remoulded it and conjured up a new incarnation of Strings Of Life.

Network - we coninue…

zake's fruitful contributions as an artist to his own Past Inside The Present label continues on this new album Deep Into The Unknown We Shall Endlessly Roam. It is an assemblage of arrangements made using archaic tape machines such as a Sony M-570V microcassette voice recorder and obsolete VSC Soundpacer, all on analogue tape. Of course that lends the music a misty, grainy quality that defines much of zake's ambient. Here his loops and found sounds meld and melt to create vast open spaces that are pregnant with emotion and tension. It's another magical work of ambient art that, says the artist, "is dedicated to those who continue to yearn for greater understanding."

green vinyl / printed sleeve / 180 grams
Hadone's nine-track LP shares a first glimpse of his immersive 'Things We Never Did' concept.

November 2022 sees the inception of not only Hadone's first ever feature LP but also his artistically driven and expansive label project 'Things We Never Did'. Marking the first release on the imprint, 'What I Was Running From' spans nine individually unique records, including a special collaboration with friend and fellow French producer Askkin. One of the standout breaks tracks on the LP, it was the first track they made together.

A culmination of all things influential in modern underground techno, blending 4x4 raw techno tracks with more spirited melodic pieces, Hadone's debut LP is a telling celebration of several immersive sub-genres combined with his renowned sonic despondency. The result: a careful balance of richly electronic emotional cuts and racy industrialised techno with a gritty minimalist feel. "Not only the music is destined to evolve, but the whole environment that goes with it will be rethought on a recurring basis" adds Jeremy.

Title track 'What I Was Running From' was made after he finally found inspiration after the pandemic and was written in an hour. "I think my best tracks are made fast, as they don't reply in any intention but feelings only, therefore they are natural and reflect my true style" adds Jeremy.

Its fast paced bassline and jittery stabs, give the track a choppy break beat influenced vibe opening the album with true intent. 'What I Was Running from' offers a transcendental eye through the looking glass at a project that incorporates music, a digital interactive universe, a fashion collaboration with precocious
Parisian footwear brand Phileo. A creative collaboration which has resulted in a limited collection of 2 styles, available on both TWND's digital universe and Phileo direct.

For the 1st year designs, graphism by Raphael Clerget "leverages the power of art to underline the importance of saving our relation to time and improve focus." Raphael brings his vision of complexity and darkness through refined aesthetics carried out for the digital universe, label and merchandise.

On Seeds, Georgia Muldrow takes a step back and leaves the beatmaking to Otis Jackson Jr., aka Madlib. As producers, Muldrow and Jackson are not worlds apart, so the switch requires no adjustment on the part of the listener. That said, this is one dense and tight set, barely over half-an-hour in length, and it's definitely in contention for Muldrow's most focused, funkiest, and (somewhat ironically) personal release to date. Throughout the record, the emphasis remains heavily fixated on her family as a unit of salvation and purpose. The most direct track of the lot is "Husfriend," where she honors her relationship with Dudley Perkins (a/k/a Declaime, who appears on “The Few”). Muldrow can't quite divorce the planetary and personal issues, heard vividly on "Best Love," which sounds just like a simple, sweet, straight-ahead love song until she starts asking her other half for money to build water wells on three continents ("We can make a difference if we try now"). Overall, Seeds is another left-field deviation in Muldrow's career: it's one of her most captivating and immediate front-to-back statements of purpose as a singer, but it's also the first album where she's handed over all the production duties to somebody else. In celebration of this album’s decenary run, Someothaship Connect is pleased to reintroduce an anniversary edition repress of this captivating release in partnership with Fat Beats. "Seeds strikes the perfect balance, as Madlib's thickly layered funk and soul samples and cabinet rocking beats pair with Muldrow's gloriously off-kilter vocals and free-form song structures to make this her most satisfying release to date." – Exclaim!

"We Belong Together" is one of the most iconic soul albums of all time, primarily thanks to the endurance of the timeless rare groove classic "Give Me The Sunshine". That song was composed by Johnny Simone at the time he was working with Stevie Wonder at Motown. Others in the group were Johnny Simone and Alvin Few, this trio all born under the Leo star sign. Kenny worked as a songwriter at Motown and lived in the same house as Marvin Gaye at the same time as "What's Going On". He co-wrote "Inner City Blues" but was only given a credit by Marvin some years later. Johnny Simone passed away before the album was fully complete which is why it's a mixture of fewer tracks but with additional versions. Alvin Few instigated the original released on Lyon's Records in 1978, the album later acquired by Expansion but not repressed for over a decade. This release restores the original label and is repressed on limited edition,

• “Guerrilla Girls!”, Ace Records’ much-anticipated first release of 2023, takes us on a thrilling ride from punk’s mid-70s origins, via the left-field post-punk groups, jangly female combos, grunge bands and vigilante Riot Grrrls of the 80s and 90s, to the she-punk bands of recent years – a five-decade alternative to the macho hegemony of rock.

• The collection highlights songs that emerged out of a dynamic underculture of female creative expression. What unites the featured artists is a healthy disregard for the way the music industry ties up its female performers into pretty, neo-liberal packages. From Patti Smith, universal mother of the punk movement, to the Bags, Bikini Kill and Skinny Girl Diet, this music is anti-A&R. Including lesser-known names such as San Francisco street punk Mary Monday and London-based experimentalists pragVec, it shows that, rather than being a few novelty bands existing on the margins, these performers represent a stronger, more three-dimensional version of the female experience.

• Glorious resistance was on display in the first wave of UK female-fronted punk bands. Poly Styrene’s charged vocals on X-Ray Spex’s ‘Iama Poseur’, for instance, were a deliberate refusal to be a pretty punkette. With 15 year-old Lora Logic on saxophone, X-Ray Spex epitomised a fearless, self-defined agency that was at odds with the pastel shades and flowery, submissive Laura Ashley version of 1970s girlhood. By the early 80s, there was a hugely vibrant scene propelled by the diverse rhythms and voices of post-punk feminism. Lora Logic had left X-Ray Spex to form the interweaving textures of Essential Logic, the Mo-dettes mangled ska and off-kilter pop, and Birmingham band Au Pairs sliced political rigour into their lyrics and funky guitar work.

• Some female artists took that elemental energy into pop, creating pop-punk with a twist. We’ve Got A Fuzzbox And We’re Gonna Use It!! made a statement on music technology and female power with a cheeky play on words. Their song ‘Rules And Regulations’ shows that what Guerrilla Girls do well is debunking – taking genres of popular song and turning them inside out – like the way the Pandoras and the Pussywillows would amp up the driving beat and high vocals of the 60s girl group style, and subvert it with a DIY garage element.

• In its fanzine culture, use of montage and DIY music, 90s Riot Grrrl bands such as Bikini Kill and Bratmobile drew direct inspiration from 70s punk, articulated through the prism of Third Wave feminism. Too often, Riot Grrrl gigs were invaded by men intent on heckling “the enemy”. Liz Naylor, manager of British Riot Grrrl band Huggy Bear, says that their concerts became war zones. From the US grunge and Riot Grrrl scenes emerged more female instrumentalists, with bands such as L7 and Babes In Toyland proving that it was possible to recruit cutting-edge drummers, bass players and guitarists. Lori Barbero, whose relentless power drumming is a major element of Babes In Toyland, took the one instrument that has been a staple of male rock’n’roll and made it her muse.

• In the 2000s a new generation of girl-punk bands drew on the Riot Grrrl underculture to form their own sound. London trio the Tuts refashioned C86, Riot Grrrl and lush dream pop on songs like the ironically titled ‘Let Go Of The Past’, while the Regrettes injected shots of ska and doo wop into their explosive West Coast pop-punk. What began with Patti Smith and 70s punk has grown into a vast, spikey infrastructure of girl music. Many take inspiration from their foremothers, like Skinny Girl Diet whose vigilante feminism and punk distortion has been championed in return by Viv Albertine of the Slits. As long as these female artists stay aware of their musical vision and what they are trying to express – in a sense, A&R themselves – the underculture will continue to grow and flower. And this “Guerrilla Girls!” compilation is a celebration of that power.


• The back sleeve of the release features a scene-setting introductory essay by Lucy O’Brien (author of She Bop: The Definitive History Of Women In Popular Music). Each of the two discs come in a swanky inner bag containing a track commentary by compiler Mick Patrick (Ace Records’ long-serving champion of female artists of all persuasions) and exclusive interviews with many of the featured artists by Vim Renault and Lene Cortina (founders of the Punk Girl Diaries webzine).

Newly mastered to vinyl from original BYG tapes. Lacquers cut by Alchemy Mastering at AIR STUDIOS. Insert with exclusive liner notes by author, journalist and BYG-authority Kevin Le Gendre. CD: Original 1969 BYG album. Digitally mastered from original BYG tapes by Nick Robbins. 16-pages booklet with photos & exclusive liner notes by author and journalist Kevin Le Gendre. *** Florida-born saxophonist, composer, poet, actor and playwright Archie Shepp was one of the most articulate exponents of politicized black culture in the late ‘60s, a time of enormous upheaval and radical thought. Relocating to Paris he made a number of highly influential albums, such as Blasé, that broached the essential themes of freedom and racial equality, and tapped into the bedrock of African-American music. Gospel and blues were a major part of the work, which also had a strong avant-garde sensibility. The band featured stellar vocalist Jeanne Lee and members of Art Ensemble Of Chicago. These trailblazing artists who combined jazz, poetry and radical politics made a definitive musical statement. “This re-mastered version of a seminal album still has great musical and emotional power... “ Kevin Le Gendre, 2022

Meg Baird’s songs are rarely made up of tidy stories. In fact, for Meg, mystery itself is often the
medium. With ‘Furling’, Meg’s fourth album under her own name, she explores the breadth of
her musical fascinations and the environments around them - the edges of memory,
daydreams spanning years, loose ends, loss, divergent paths, and secret conversations under
stars. ‘Furling’ moves through these varied spaces with the slippery, misty cohesiveness of a
dream - guided by an ageless, stirring voice that remains singular and unmistakable.
Since co-founding the beguiling and beautiful Espers in the mid-aughts amid Philadelphia’s
fertile underground music community, Meg’s solo recordings have constituted just a fraction of
her work.
Her first solo LP, the disarmingly out-of-time ‘Dear Companion’ (2007), saw her carve a quiet,
sunlit space away from the flickering swirl of Espers. Since her last solo releases, ‘Seasons on
Earth’ (2011) and ‘Don’t Weigh Down the Light’ (2015), Meg has lent thunderous drumming,
lead vocal, and poetry to Heron Oblivion (Sub Pop) on an album that garnered praise from the
New York Times and made Mojo’s Top Ten Albums Of 2016 list. She collaborated with harpist
Mary Lattimore on the mesmerizingly hazy ‘Ghost Forests’ (2018). She’s played drums with
Philadelphia scuzz-punks Watery Love (In The Red, Richie Records) and explored her deep
familial folk roots in the Baird Sisters (Grapefruit Records). She also contributed her vocal
arrangements to albums from Sharon Van Etten, Kurt Vile, Will Oldham and Steve Gunn, and
toured with Angel Olson, Dinosaur Jr., Bill Callahan, Thurston Moore and Bert Jansch, among
others.
Yet ‘Furling’ is the album that most irreverently explores the span of her work and musical
touchstones. It showcases her natural tether to 1960s English folk traditions. But it also reveals
her deep love for soul balladry, the solitary musings of Flying Saucer Attack and Neil Young
shackled to his piano deep in the foggy pre-dawn, dubby Bristol atmospherics, the melancholy
memory collage of DJ Shadow’s ‘Endtroducing’, and the delicious, Saturday night promise of
St. Etienne.
‘Furling’ was primarily recorded at Louder Studios by Tim Green (Bikini Kill, Nation of Ulysses,
Melvins, Wooden Shjips). Additional piano and vocal recording were captured at Panoramic
Studios in Stinson Beach, CA with Jason Quever (Papercuts). It was mastered in Brooklyn by
Heba Kadry, who mixed Bjork’s ‘Utopia’ and mastered albums for Slowdive, Cass McCombs
and Beach House.
For all its adornments, ‘Furling’ remains deeply intimate. The entire album was performed by
Meg and her long-time collaborator, partner, and Heron Oblivion bandmate Charlie Saufley.
While her prior solo work hinted at more expansive horizons, ‘Furling’ explores the idea of Meg
Baird as a band much more freely. Venturing beyond the musical confines of fingerstyle guitar,
she plays drums, mellotron, organs, synths, and vibraphone over her piano and guitar
foundations. Her distinctive, simultaneously elegiac and uplifting vocals, meanwhile, connect
surreal dream montages, graft sunshine sonics to swooning mediations on romantic solidarity
in trying times, and weave odes to the simple gestures of friendship - and the loss of family and
friends.
This rich sound world makes the songs a varied bunch: ‘Twelve Saints’ mates Pacific sunset
ambience and Pink Floyd pastoral to a meditation on mortality and escape. The infectious and
kinetic ‘Will You Follow Me Home’ contemplates hope and longing through the looking glass of
a Jimmy Miller-era-Stones strut. And in the closing piece, ‘Wreathing Days’, language
disintegrates over tone clusters that feel somewhere between falling and flying.
‘Wreathing Days’ also reveals much about Meg’s mastery of contrast - situating the dear and
delicate adjacent to chaos. And while it’s true that some songs on ‘Furling’ grapple with
humanity’s existential unknowns in stark terms, they primarily revel in the mysteries that hide in
nature and humanity at their most ordinary. ‘Furling’ lives in the notion that whole universes of
experience, enlightenment, elation and ecstasy can bloom in these corners.

BABILBON is the fusion between Babylon and Bilbo. A collective of musicians with experience in other bands from Bilbao with the idea of bringing a modern twist to the old Jamaican rhythms, fusing them with dancehall and hip-hop rhythms without any pretension of sounding purist, and also lending the microphone to 10 artists from Bilbo and "surroundings": Bite Akatz, Suprah, Mad Muasel, Xatiro, Belardi Rockers, Gatom, Ras Reguilón & Daka, Fundación de Raperos Atípicos de Cádiz, Inés Pardo and Priteo. Their eponymous debut album (called 10 Beats and Riddims Basque Label) was recorded at Mamba Beltza studios in the Iturralde neighborhood of Bilbao, with the aim of thundering in all the sound-systems of the great Babylon. For the purpose, the band gives the microphone to 10 vocalists from Bilbo and "surroundings" to the delight of locals and strangers. The selection is of bells and whistles, but behind the rhythmic recitation of rhymes, puns, breaks and Jamaican riddims, there is a solid and versatile band that, adapting to the guests, builds a homogeneous sound around the Babylonian assortment of languages, dialects, accents, textures, styles, personalities, moods, cultures and subcultures.