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We’re starved for two-sided 12”s in the world of ambient music, but Chris Madak aka. Bee Mask has refreshingly graced us with one this week.

It should be said that there’s Skee Mask and then there’s Bee Mask; the latter is far more unsung, undeservingly so. Madak’s music is abstract and cerebral enough to have lent him credo enough to have released on the likes of Weird Forest, Spectrum Spools and Room40.

But this latest reissue, ‘Versailles Is Not Too Large Or Infinity Too Long’, hears him plunge the aethereal heights for the US label Unifactor. Originally released on cassette on Chondritic Sound in 2008, these pieces deserve the renewed attention and the fresh laying to wax, since they’re not “regular ole” ambient cuts in the slightest.

Unafraid of indulging the high end freqs, Bee Mask fleshes out a mood of uncertain, urgent bliss - sizzling, crunching and soaring the drone, as if its maker were a modern Icarus flying too close to the sun.

DJ DIE SOON is the apocalyptic alter-ego Daisuke Imamura, whose performances of masked malice have been a fixture in the Berlin underground for the past decade. His latest record My Brothel The Wind takes inspiration from Sun Ra at his most grotesque, conjuring a distorted phantasmagoria with an eclectic crew of compatriots like Rully Shabara, Sara Persico, and longtime collaborator Kiki Hitomi. Film director Hiroo Tanaka’s visual contributions in the album art, poster, and music video complete the album’s narrative, telling a story not of villainy but of phantom caprice in a dying world.
My Brothel The Wind shows DJ DIE SOON as an alchemist of distortion, transmuting the club-forward beats of his 2020 debut Kappa Slap and the seething horrorscapes of DIEMAJIN, his 2022 collaboration with Tokyo vocalist MA. Imamura’s obsession with noise stems from his upbringing in Tokyo, where he grew up hearing the deafening roar of trains every day. “The buildings were really tall, so the sounds reflected so much and it was so loud that you couldn’t even have a conversation on the phone. Hearing this noise every minute when living in this flat, it became a normal thing,” he says. While most would content themselves with avoiding loudness, DJ DIE SOON seeks to unpack its visceral potential.
DJ DIE SOON’s subterranean productions form a monstrous gestalt with the eclectic contributions of his network of co-conspirators. “Unfinished” and “Directions” are pulsating chimeras that highlight animalistic vocalizations from Hitomi and Shabara; Italian MC Franco Franco’s verses snake underneath the noisy onslaught. The tectonic textures of “Dandelion Crackers” are courtesy of multi-instrumentalist Laure Boer’s handmade stone synth. Sara Persico’s mangled vocables hang as fleshy reminders of human fragility on “SAQ4IME”; in the Hiroo Tanaka-directed music video, the track’s sonic uncanniness is made cinematic, with an ambient dread that references Hiroshi Teshigahara’s 1964 psychological thriller Woman in the Dunes.
While Sun Ra’s intergalactic Moog reached for the stars, DJ DIE SOON plunges into the depths of hell. “Everybody, Shake Your Body, We Chill At Party” feels like the sonic equivalent of a wax museum burning to the ground, rigid smiles melting into the fire. Rather than a vision of the future, My Brothel The Wind is a laugh-cry of despair in the face of a Hadean present. DJ DIE SOON confronts the world with a new hand-made mask, reborn in the ashes.

Fila Brazillia is the name of the decidedly singular collaboration between Steve Cobby and David McSherry, born in the coastal town of Hull in the UK. Bending—and often outright breaking—more or less every rule in the book, they've been effortlessly blending deep house, downtempo, breaks, ambient, and wry humour, sampling anything they can get their hands on. Their first outing was the 1990 single-sided white label 12" Mermaids, an airy deep house tune featuring a cheeky sample taken from the theme from Robison Crusoe. Since then, they've released a boat load of singles, seven highly regarded full-lengths, and more than 60 remixes for artists such as Radiohead, Busta Rhymes, and Lamb.

Black Market Gardening is their third full-length and marks a creative high-point for the duo. Over nine tracks, Fila Brazillia guides you through hazy, bass-heavy trip hop, cosmic synth lines, brisk breakbeats, funky guitar riffs, and even touch of drum 'n bass (it's the mid-1990s after all...). There's just so much to take in, leaving the listener wondering where the samples end and the live instrumentation begins. Yes, Fila Brazillia's output fits squarely within the chill-out tradition prevalent in the UK at that point in time, but their unmatched creativity and boundless approach to the studio process makes their music truly timeless.

Black Market Gardening is available as a 30th anniversary edition for the first time since 2001.

2027 Repress

With Panorama, Frank Maston pays homage to the classic era of library records and Italian soundtracks of the 70s. A blissed-out, grooving collection of filmic cues, it continues the unique brilliance of Tulips and Darkland. Elegant and easy, subtle and stylish, breezy and beautiful; this is his Maston-piece. Commissioned by legendary label KPM, Panorama cements Maston as a master of modern classics and the most mesmeric of contemporary composers.

In early 2020, Be With suggested to Frank that he should make a KPM record. He wasn't aware that they were still putting out new library records - but he was super keen: "It was completely surreal and it still hasn't fully sank in that I have a record in that catalog, sitting alongside those incredible albums that were so influential to me."

Frank was visiting family in his hometown of LA in March 2020 when the world ground to a halt so the KPM project arrived at a fortuitous moment. Having fantasised about committing to a record with no distractions, with a proper budget, access to his gear and space to work in - to really dig in and try to write and arrange the best work he could possibly make - it was a real "be careful what you wish for" moment. But, as Frank explained, "it completely saved my year and sanity to have something to focus on and get excited about. It was my lifeline." He spent seven months on it, working almost every day.

Maston had already been making library-influenced music so when KPM outlined the criteria for the tracks it was exactly what he had been doing all along. He thought the best approach would be to make a follow-up to Tulips that had a parallel life as a KPM record. Enjoying complete creative freedom, “gave me the drive to power through and dig in deep. I'm not sure if I could have kept myself on such a rigorous recording schedule under my own steam, and I think the momentum I had writing and recording it is part of the strength of this record."

Maston’s sleek retro-groove instrumentals emulate the classic KPM “Greensleeve” reel-to-reel recordings that provided mood-setting music for mid-century cinema, television, and radio programs. Apparently in close conversation with the John Cameron-Keith Mansfield KPM pastoral masterclass Voices In Harmony, Maston's Panorama could be heard as that record's funky follow-up. Yes, it's *that good*. Another reference point from the hallowed library would be Francis Coppieter's wonderful Piano Viberations.

Opener "First Class" is a blissed-out groove, featuring the soothing vocals of Molly Lewis and a glistening harp over drums, a two-note bass motif (from Eli Ghersinu of L'Eclair) and an assemblage of guitars, synths, French horn and glowing vibraphone. Acid Lounge, anyone? The irresistibly funky "Easy Money" is a gorgeous cut led by more of Molly's vocals, pastoral flute and Rhodes, underpinned by drums and percussion, grooving bass, chilled guitars and synth strings. Kicking the tempo up, the percussive "Storm" is a vibin' filmic-fusion jam where psychedelic guitars (courtesy of Pedrum of Allah Las/Paint) organ, jazzy flute, Rhodes and vibes all compete for a place in the sun, over drums and walking bassline.

The heavenly "You Shouldn't Have" is a delicate, melancholic wonder; a dreamy instrumental where the melody is shared by a whistle, harpsichord and celeste, over a cyclical piano chord sequence and bass, synths, guitars, organ and distant French horn. The tempo rises again with the passionate, sticky "Fling", a summery, nostalgic groove with skipping drums and percussion, warm bass and electric guitar, yearning flute and synth strings. The brilliantly titled "Fool Moon" has that Voices In Harmony sound down pat. A romantic slow-mo dreamscape of Rhodes and harpsichord, piano, light drums and softly strummed acoustic guitar.

Side B opens with "Medusa", a hopeful, mellowed-out track with shuffling drums, feel-good flute, muted horns, glowing Rhodes and synth strings. The soft and gentle "Morning Paper" is an elegant way to start the day; a beatless blend of flute, guitar, percussion, ambient synths and vibes. The upbeat head-nod jam "Scenic" has that widescreen car-chase feel, uptempo drums and percussion, grooving bass, piano, synths and ambient electric guitar. "Adieu" is a smooth summer vibe, relaxing with brushed drums, Rhodes, flutes and horns. Molly Lewis's gorgeous vocals steal the show, alongside vibes, jamming organ and synth strings.

"Hydra" is another laid-back 70s-sounding retro cinema cue with light drums and percussion, walking bass, spacey synths, clavinet, glowing vibraphone, vintage organ and electric guitar. Closer "Jet Lag" is a laconic bow out; bass-driven drum machine soul, featuring hand percussion, Rhodes, vibes, synths and organ.

Multi-instrumentalist Frank played a bit of everything across Panorama. Yet, humble as ever, he believes the time, energy, and enthusiasm of all of the musicians invited to the sessions helped him realise his vision: "There were two Italian flautists who really understood what I was going for. Two french horn players, cor anglais, a vibraphonist and a flügel horn player. I've never involved this many people in my projects before, and yet the result is the most "me" record I've ever made."

Musically, a strong Italian theme runs through the record. Frank is fascinated by ancient Rome and both his parents are Italian (Maston was originally Mastrantonio before anglicisation). So, it felt natural to fully embrace these strands and tie everything together with the striking artwork. The Romans were influenced by Greek culture, emulating their art and architecture, which, in turn, influenced Renaissance era artists. Frank acknowledged this tradition when reflecting on his place in the lineage of library and soundtrack composers. He then asked his friend Mattea Perrotta, a painter and sculptor, for some sketches. What he received was exactly what he had in mind: "Especially the theater mask, which really captures the range of moods on the album". Frank arranged them as per the cover and it soon felt right: "I wanted to make a cover that was reminiscent of the classic KPM albums without making it too pastiche - so it has its own identity and looks at home alongside other library records, while still fitting in nicely in the KPM catalogue." The last step was for us to introduce Frank to Be With-KPM’s Rich Robinson, who helped put together the back and centre labels and align it all within the KPM standard.

Panorama is a perfect title for the album. With no opportunity to travel for tours or recording projects, Frank arranged postcards from his collection on his desk with beautiful views of the mediterranean coast, the Roman Colosseum and Cinque Terre. These also served as visual prompts: "That was part of the sonic concept - imagining myself driving down the mediterranean coast with this music on, with the top down." Additionally, the range of moods and vibes - "I tried to make each song very different from the previous one in terms of tempo and arrangement and feeling" - speaks to the idea of a Panorama of music and sounds and emotions. The last track was originally called Panorama, but KPM already had that title in their catalogue so it was changed to "Jet Lag", which, as Frank notes, "is perhaps even more fitting, since the trip is over".

In the late 2000s a sprawling catalog of what is now genre-defining music was emanating from an unlikely place. Cleveland, Ohio has a broad reputation for many things, but in the aughts, psyche-expanding Kosmische wasn’t necessarily Cleveland’s calling card… until Emeralds. The trio of John Elliott, Steve Hauschildt, and Mark McGuire had released a profusion of limited-run cassettes, CD-Rs, and vinyl titles that had been passed around basement shows and then migrated to niche music communities online, creating a unique kind of murmur, even in the height of the DIY blog era. Three kids from the rust belt were crafting a distinctive and truly far-out strain of music on their own terms in the Midwest. They were flipping lids in wood-paneled basements and circulating around the underground with soaring sounds stylistically indebted to deep German electronic music pioneers and released with the ethos and twisted fervor of renegade Midwestern noise freaks. After several releases garnered a die-hard fandom in niche circles of internet/music culture, and then catching the attention of the late Peter Rehberg, the renowned artist and curator of the Editions Mego label, an expectation was set that the next Emeralds record was going to be a big one. And in 2010, Does it Look Like I’m Here? was it.

mp3s of this album; they can finally get a fresh copy on vinyl. Does It Look Like I’m Here? became a hallmark that would carve a path for an entire scene. Ghostly International is thrilled to reissue the album, remastered by Heba Kadry, including 7 bonus tracks exclusive to the digital album and CD. The limited edition 2xLP includes extensive liner notes by Chris Madak (Bee Mask).

It's been more than ten years since Rolando debuted with his sought after self-titled EP on 030303 and it is thrilling to see the producer - who has always managed to remain a sort of best kept secret, admired only by the heads - still surf those high waves of creativity. Lifephorce is bound to be an instant classic, leaving instant marks on the listener's soul with unsettling yet mesmerising chord changes, a heavy throbbing bassline and generally a deep, introspective outlook on the dancefloor. Sterilize the Club brings back memories of face masks (thank you Rolando), but soundwise this is face to the ground stomping braindance material. Just as driving but more melancholic are Dot Zoner and Exit Your Own Realm. Classic Rolando Simmons, this one. If you know you know...

Since last year's EP “rhyme09,” a quiet storm has been brewing around the label. This release is not only long overdue, but Vienna is also home to numerous new talents as DJs and producers. The label boss makes the selection here and kicks off this release with a completely crazy track that is unlike anything else out there. There is virtually nothing else like it, making this track unique with its bassline, offset kick drum, and acid grooves. The second tune on the A Side comes from Fabiano Jose’, a well-known DJ in Vienna who, with his brand “Merkwürdig” has been an important player in the local party scene for several years. A catchy tech house tune, “step in” if you can!

The first tune on the B Side is a collaboration between ZentaSkai, well known for his label MASK Berlin, and Thomas Grün, also a long-time DJ and producer in Vienna who releases house and tech house tunes also on his own label “Untitled100 records”.

With Manu Script on B2, we have a debut here. With his great taste as a DJ and producer, he delivers a powerful groove. Another true Party stepper! Be ready...

Bringing together the elder statesman of the Zulu guitar Madala Kunene and internationally acclaimed Sibusile Xaba, kwaNTU pulls two generations of South African guitar mastery into a single point of focus. Under-represented on recordings outside of South Africa, Madala Kunene (b. 1951), the ‘King of the Zulu Guitar’, is revered as the greatest living master of the Zulu guitar tradition. Sibusile Xaba, whose collaboration with Mushroom Hour Half Hour reaches back to his first recording in 2017 (Open Letter To Adoniah/Unlearning), has garnered international acclaim for his unique voice and virtuoso guitar stylings, which bring together multiple South African guitar lineages in an original, spiritualised fusion. Collaborating with Mushroom Hour and New Soil for kwaNTU, the two players come together to weave a filigree sonic fabric which reaches down to the heartwood of Zulu guitar music but moves resolutely outward, building on the past to create a deeply rooted statement about present conditions and future travels. kwaNTU – which can be roughly translated ‘the place of the life-spirit’ – is also conclave of teacher and student, as Xaba has been taught by Kunene for the last decade. Meditative, rich and sonically sui generis, kwaNTU finds these two musicians linking up within the inimitable space of sound and spirit that they share through Kunene’s teaching.

The great masters of South African music have not all had equal exposure. For many years the generation of musicians who were exiled during apartheid took centre stage, as the regime made it very difficult for those at home to be heard. More recently, a new cohort of important voices, especially in jazz, has broken through to international consciousness. But for the generation of musicians in between – those who shone like beacons in the most difficult final years of apartheid and immediately afterward – international recognition has been slow in coming.

Madala Kunene, ‘the King of the Zulu Guitar’, is among this number. A revered figure for current generations of South African musicians, Kunene began his recording career in 1990, at the bitter end of apartheid, with a now classic self-titled LP for David Marks’ storied Third Ear imprint. Born in 1951 in Cato Manor, near Durban, he had determined to be a musician from early childhood, and by the time he first entered a recording studio he had already had a long career as a popular performer. His virtuoso absorption and transformation of the venerable Zulu maskanda guitar tradition and his richly spiritualised approach to music immediately marked him out as someone special, and in the years that followed, Kunene cemented his position as one of South Africa’s musical elders. He is without doubt the grand master of the Zulu guitar tradition, but his sound and sensibility ranges far beyond it into varied sonic terrain, and he has collaborated with a wide range of musicians both at home and abroad. Now in his mid-seventies, he remains a shining light for those that are making music in contemporary South Africa.

‘He is really an amazing person,’ says the guitarist Sibusile Xaba, who has been mentored by Kunene for over a decade, and now invites a collaboration with him on kwaNTU. ‘As a mentor, he's really powerful in showing us the way. For us to have this opportunity to make music together and have a project together is really a blessing to me.’

Xaba himself grew up in Newcastle, KwaZulu-Natal, where his mother had been in a band and his father sang in a church choir, and from early childhood Xaba played homemade tin guitars. He only later realised that music was his calling. ‘I just loved music. I was fortunate. My parents loved music. And when it was time for me to leave home and go to study outside Newcastle, I knew that music was what I wanted to do. There was no second option. It was just music.’ Moving to Pretoria to study music formally, Xaba committed himself to his craft, developing a unique style that draws on both US jazz masters such as Wes Montgomery and Jim Hall, and the rich and varied heritage of the South African guitar, from inspirational jazz players such as Allen Kwela and Enoch Mthalane, to the music of the Malombo groups and Dr. Philip Tabane (Xaba has previously collaborated with Dr. Tabane’s late son, Thabang), and the Zulu guitar tradition embodied by Kunene.

‘I was really in love with the jazz guitar, I really admired it, and I was digging a lot in that direction,’ says Xaba, recalling his first encounter with Kunene’s music, over a decade ago. ‘And then one day on my timeline, Kunene popped up, and I was like – “What's this sound?” I was so connected to it. It really touched me deep. I started checking out his records, and then I found out he's from the same region as I am, which is Zululand.’ After Kunene played a show at the Afrikan Freedom Station in Johannesburg, Xaba make contact with him, and visited him at home in Durban. They struck up a friendship, and Xaba became the elder’s student, as Kunene began to pass on his knowledge and his inimitable way of playing.

kwaNTU is a tribute to this relationship and the deep learning that has defined it. The album was recorded in Zululand in the town of Utrecht, at a cultural centre called Kwantu Village, which gives its name to the album. ‘It's such a broad word,’ Xaba says, ‘but the elders teach us that Ntu is basically an energy, almost chi, an energy, a force that all living beings have within them. It's a living energy, so kwaNTU is like, almost the place of this energy.’ The two men sequestered themselves for five days of jamming, improvising and planning, and then the session was recorded in one take over a single night, with Gontse Makhene joining on percussion and backing vocals and Fakazile on vocals. Other voices and overdubs were later added in the studio in Johannesburg.

The result is a rich and meditative recording that finds two generations in a deeply engaged dialogue. Teaching and passing on his knowledge, the elder Kunene has brought Xaba into a space of sound and knowledge that they now share; Xaba’s own practice of deep communion with nature and his dedication to his musical craft make him the perfect interlocutor for Kunene. The result is an album that foregrounds the two musicians engaged at the highest levels of responsive listening, sympathetic unity, and collaborative concentration. Bringing an elder statesman of South African music to an international listening audience for the first time in decades by pairing him with one of South Africa’s most important new voices, kwaNTU is a meeting of generations and a powerful demonstration of musical lineage and continuity.

‘Before music, there is sound,’ Xaba observes, speaking of Kunene’s unique approach to music. ‘And sound is like a common compartment…it's not restricted to particular people or particular geographic places, you know what I mean? It's sound. Everybody can hear it. So when he constructs that sound into music, I think everybody resonates with the energy behind his construction of sound into song. Here at home, we really love him for preserving our history through the guitar, through his stories as well the music, the songs that he writes. We really, really admire him.’

naemi follows last year’s excellent Erika de Casier-starring »Dust Devil« with a genius new album of ultra-catchy, perfectly executed shoegaze diamonds, powered by Ulla on drums and additional vox, flutes and extra vocals by Baptist Goth, and fuzz guitar by Kouhei.

»Breathless Shorn« is the Berlin-based Kansas-born producer's most compelling move thus far, featuring 11 perfectly fuzzed songs that almost completely shake off any electronic remnants in favour of a light-touched act of MBV worship. naemi has long nurtured an obsession with vintage dreampop and shoegaze, but until now they mostly blurred those influences with dubby ambience and delicate, heart-slicing production. On »Breathless Shorn« they completely re-draw their outlines, bristling with a much looser energy in a mode that feels like a big step up - more impactful, full of easy swagger and a bona fide emotional resonance.

Distorted, tremolo-bent guitars, boxy drums, electric bass and delirious multi-tracked vocals are the backbone here, mostly sounding like they could have been lifted off Kevin Shields' »Ecstasy and Wine« sessions. naemi's attention to detail is remarkable; no longer leaning on electronic masking or the influence of '90s British slacker rawk or twee pop, instead deploying the genuine article, with ambient music left as just a faint note wafting in the background.

3volution in the recent past, Divide is like a bridge between old generations and new ones. Its sounds range from Sci-Fi techno to 90's techno, characterized by minimal sequences, heavy drum patterns, and an accurate sound design.
Third and last chapter for the VA vinyl trilogy on R3volution Records called

This edition includes exclusive tracks by the following artists:

- UVALL, from Tbilisi, Georgia. Born there and at the age of 23, he is no longer at the beginning of his musical journey and the refinement of his taste and style. Always on the cutting edge, he has been impressing with productions and releases on labels such as Semantica, WSNWG with Rohad, Float Records, Hayes, MALoR, and many many more. Already well known in our roster thanks to a previous collaboration for a remix, the talented young music producer delivers deep, muscular rhythms in his portfolio and translates this energy into a raw, dancefloor oriented session.

- Operator, there is no need to spend many words to describe one of the most talented and innovative British artists on the scene for a long time, recently appearing on

- Divide co-owner of EvodMusic and South Berlin Studio, with recent appearances on all the top labels on the planet (WarmUp, Semantica, MindTrip, Tremsix, Hayes, to name a few), and several collaborations and remixes for

- PTTRNRCRRNT aka Dave Brody from Antwerpen - Belgium. Characterized by efficiently percussion tunnelling through juggled textures, PTTRNRCRRNT's technical know-how and conceptual intentions can be masked by the efficiency and singularity of his music. Taking techno's tendency to constantly reinvent itself as a priority and researches between experimentalism and futurism. He is one of the artists with the most collaborations within our roster (some of his remixes are memorable), he alternates his productions on our label with frequent appearances on highly referenced labels in the scene, such as Soma, Materia and Devotion among others.

Red Pig Flower brings you her sensational debut album Practice Love, available on Sound Of Vast from 10th April. Her unique sound sits upon the apex of a three-sided pyramid. With Berlin, Tokyo and Seoul as the base, Red is a third culture kid, greater than the sum of her parts. The centre is filled with her incredible appreciation and knowledge of house and electronic music from every pin drop through history.

So taken with Red Pig Flower’s sound, Honey Dijon invited Red to her Southbank Centre show to play alongside her. Moxie loves her that much, that she invited Red to record a mix and to guest on her NTS show. Alan Fitzpatrick, and Just Her are amongst Red’s growing posse of followers.

Practice Love is a culmination of all of Red Pig Flower’s life experiences, brimming with her positive energy and an outlook on life of pure love. Red has collaborated with like-minded artists at every level: the music, the cover art and video all produced with talented friends, who get Red as the wonderful person she is and understand her vision. Her label partner and good friend, Knock in particular helped make Practice Love the incredible album it is. So intuitive is their musical symbiosis, they made 20 tracks and carefully curated and ordered nine of these, making an album of tracks that stand out on their own, yet flow perfectly as an album. Practice Love will make you feel joyous when you play it. By the end, you will feel like you know Red like a friend.

Practice Love kicks off with I don’t care, it makes you feel good: a dreamy, tribal mantra of a track that does exactly what it says on the tin. Next up is I Love To Dance. Red’s beautiful soft vocal is sweet yet poignant, leaving you in no doubt of her sincerity. Thirdly comes Feel Good Music. Are you getting a feel from the track names yet that this is an album of warmth and positivity? You can imagine this one at a Café Del Mar sunset, where those who get the spirituality of Ibiza come together, in the moment to appreciate the beauty of a sunset and understand that no matter how many you see, each is magical and unique.

The three tracks so far have taken you to twilight. The titular Practice Love takes you by the hand onto the dancefloor. There is a double meaning to ‘Practice Love’- The first is to make love your practice. The second is that you need to practice love to be able to become a practitioner of love. The video, shot by her friend Jelly, features Red Pig Flower in Brick Lane, London, wearing a little piggy mask and offering free hugs. The first passersby ignore her sign, but Red isn’t disheartened, spreading the right message, dancing with joy. Her optimism is rewarded, making peoples day better on a cold English afternoon.

Fifth track Sax and Drugs takes things a little sleazier, the beat is filthy and the synths are sexy. Your body starts to move to this one before your brain even realises. The incredible Declan McDermott joins on saxophone, the funkiest synths and Red’s sultry vocal washing your soul with Laurent Garnier inspired sunlight. On Thisiz House Music, again featuring Declan, Red takes you even further back. About Frankie Knuckles O’Clock, with a portal straight to 2025.

By now, you will agree with me that Practice Love flows so, so well. I Wanna Meet Somebody follows incredibly, continuing the feeling that if you close your eyes, you’re dancing with David Mancuso at the Loft. No Money completes this EP-within-an-album. Perfect vocal samples, valve synth riff and 808 drum patterns showing that producers as good as Red Pig Flower make it sound effortless. The best albums finish memorably and No Genre is one of those perfect finishers. Think Andrew Wetherall’s production on Screamadelica. The lights are up in the club, nobody wants to go home, arms in the air wanting more.

Red Pig Flower explains: Practice Love resonates deeply with me because house music has always been a sanctuary—a place for unity, joy, and self-expression. As a nomad and outsider, club culture and house music became my shelter. The cities I’ve lived in—Seoul, Tokyo, Berlin, and London and more—nurtured me and shaped who I am today. That’s why the cover, by the incredible Carlos Sulpizio features their skylines, and the album is multilingual, representing the diverse influences in my life.

Practice Love is like a meal that has been prepared lovingly. They always taste better. And there’s plenty more to come from Red Pig Flower. How was your appetizer?

We’re teaming up with ELUCID and Fat Possum for a limited edition of 300 copies of a Rush Hour black ice coloured edition.

E L U C I D, one half of the illustrious duo Armand Hammer, is here with the full-length follow-up to 'I Told Bessie'. Further experiments in the sonic, expanding on the 'live' side of music paired with the embracing of chaos. Something you haven't heard, or not so for a very long time. E L U C I D is here to reveal the bleakness of reality.



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''There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now.''
James Baldwin

A raw, crackling urgency runs through rapper-producer ELUCID’s new album REVELATOR like an underground power line. There is no space here for sepia-toned reminiscences or indulgent self-mythologizing. Intellectual rabbit holes have been filled in with concrete and rebar ; there is nowhere to hide and no off ramp from the audio Autobahn that ELUCID has fashioned—a renegade Robert Moses with gold fronts, bulldozing the homes of the powerful and the complicit. REVELATOR brims with the energy of now, with a refusal to look away. Carpe diem in a murder one mask.

Born in Jamaica, Queens, ELUCID has been on the cutting edge of New York’s underground scene since the mid-2000s. From the beginning, he has defied both convention and expectation. He ran with Okayplayer darlings Tanya Morgan, but his own music eschewed their throwback charm for glitchy noise experiments and bass-swamped culture jamming. His 2016 debut studio project Save Yourself (re-released in a deluxe edition last year) announced him in earnest. But in recent years, his Armand Hammer releases with partner-in-crime billy woods have received significant attention and acclaim. Serving as a followup to his last solo album—2022’s comparatively balmy I Told Bessie—ELUCID hoped to “re-distinguish” himself with REVELATOR, setting himself apart amidst the increasing attention around the music he and his friends are making together.

For ELUCID, this meant setting bold new challenges for himself. One of these was diving further into live instrumentation than ever before—”getting my Quincy Jones on,” as he puts it. The testing ground for this approach was Armand Hammer’s most recent project, 2023’s We Buy Diabetic Test Strips’ Möbius strip soundscapes, warmed with instrumental flourishes and skin-shedding beat progressions. With REVELATOR, though, ELUCID strove to create an atmosphere of chaos, embracing experimental electronics and atonal sample bursts. He worked on much of the album with co-producer Jon Nellen, who comes from a background in avant-garde and Indian classical music. “I wanted to get as freaky as I could at this moment. I wanted people to hear things, maybe for the first time, or in a way they haven’t for a long while,” the rapper explains.

ELUCID arrived at the studio with a collection of noise sources: non-referential samples, glitches and noises. Together he, Nellen, and others created forms out of them and, as ELUCID recalls, “just started playing drums with it.” Their fried, distorted sound was directly inspired by Miles Davis at his most uncompromising—specifically, the tone-clustering funk track “Rated X” from his 1974 double LP Get Up With It. At times, the pairing of rap with avant-fusion sounds also brings Emergency! from The Tony Williams Lifetime to mind, perhaps in an alternate timeline where the late drummer was listening to Ice Cube’s AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted.

“The World is Dog,” REVELATOR’s lead single, functions as the album’s aesthetic thesis statement. Like the Davis track, the textures are punishing, the tonality is in free-fall, and the driving breakbeat of a groove cuts in and out unceremoniously. Avant-jazz bassist Luke Stewart, who appears throughout the record, holds the whole thing together just long enough for ELUCID to tightwalk over the beat. This tension is exactly where REVELATOR sets itself apart; in a time of drumless loops, and safe soul samples, this is a high-wire act with no safety net. Similarly, the song announces the themes of the album within just a few phrases, evoking the way societies accept and adjust to new levels of debasement and brutality while suffocating under the weight of history: “Can’t clock the kill, all a mystery/Forced past will eating everyone eventually/The world is dog.”

Many of the songs on REVELATOR grapple obliquely with dissolution and disenfranchisement in America and across the world—the grim realities of our domestic sociopolitical climate and our involvement in foreign conflicts. “Much of my artistic and political sensibility comes from the Black arts movement here in New York,” ELUCID explains. “Recognizing the interconnected global struggles against oppression, artists and thinkers created works and actions in solidarity with freedom movements in South Africa and Palestine.” ELUCID cites intellectuals like Amiri Baraka, Kwame Nkrumah, Audre Lorde, Sonia Sanchez, and Nikki Giovanni among his heroes. (One track on the album is specifically inspired by Lorde’s work, “SKP,” citing the scholar’s paper “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic As Power.”) Songs like REVELATOR’s insistent closer “ZIGZAGZIG,” find ELUCID applying up-to-the-minute messaging, making explicit reference to the conflict in Gaza: “Feed a war machine…from river to sea, in lieu of peace.”

Despite ELUCID’s preference for cacophonous system overload here, the rapper also provides moments of respite. Recorded at The Alchemist’s Los Angeles studio, the laid-back, wheezing “INSTANT TRANSFER” is a collaboration with billy woods, which crystallizes their shared sense of creative determination. “With much momentum behind us and even more on the horizon, I knew a purpose, and that every step was ordered to that purpose,” ELUCID said of the experience. Meanwhile, the jittery “HUSHPUPPIES” is a playful anomaly on the track list, providing a snapshot of ELUCID watching his grandparents in the kitchen while preparing for Friday night fish fry dinners.

“Love still rules over on this side,” ELUCID says. ”I’m raising a family. We are making meaning and finding joy in the midst of all the fucked up-ness of everything around us because the alternative is cowardice and slow death. We remain rooted. We celebrate our people and our wins. Struggle is necessary.”

“IKEBANA” is one of ELUCID’s strongest statements of purpose on the record, blending the record’s heaviest themes with its most hopeful sentiments. supported by a shoutalong refrain and an urgent prog-funk groove. Breaking away from images of dissolution and crumbling societal systems that populate REVELATOR, ELUCID notes that the only way to navigate life’s bleakest landscapes is to cling to love and believe in those around you—to look forward toward something better that may or may not be possible. For the rapper, one of the album’s most trenchant lines comes during a centerpiece of a beat drop: “Being alive/I must look up.”

“The lyric ‘being alive I must look up’ is important especially in the context of this album. Much of the album imagery is harsh and reflects the actual doom some of us experience. But still I/we exist,” ELUCID explains.

Every artist is, in one way or another, the product of their time, bound by life’s leaden gravity to operate within the space of that which is already known. But there are some who are able to shake free of these ties, to shape the culture as it unfolds, to make the present their own.
Revelation, as a concept, points to the scales falling from people’s eyes—something that has been hiding in plain sight becoming clear. “The revelator relates to things that have been talked about, things that have been forecasted,” ELUCID adds. “And now they’re really here, and everyone sees it. And there’s no escaping.” REVELATOR plays out with the unmitigated power of those storms, laying waste to any genre conventions in pursuit of a certain physicality. Here, ELUCID develops a wholly distinctive musical language to explore our fractured modernity.

REVELATOR's packaging was designed by longtime Armand Hammer / Backwoodz art director, Alexander Richter.

Fuelled by the Berlin-based duo's love of club music in all its forms ''FJAAK THE SYSTEM'' is FJAAK's most definitive album to date, a winding sonic odyssey that surveys the rave landscape, dipping between frantic euphoria and deep contemplation. Featuring sizzling collaborations with Modeselektor, Skee Mask, Red Eye and J.Manuel, the album draws a bold line under FJAAK's 15 years of mischief and mayhem, pulling together 23 tracks (culled from over 300, no less) that truly reflect the duo's boundless enthusiasm for the dancefloor. Grazing UK breakbeat, techno, 2-step, d'n'b, jungle, trip-hop and ambient, these elasticated, hybrid bangers paint a vivid picture of FJAAK's utopian club ideal, a place where genre boundaries evaporate and only the groove remains. Since graduating in audio engineering in the early 2010s, FJAAK have been challenging the logic of a maddeningly conservative club scene with their hardware only live shows, DJ sets a myriad of record releases. In 2019 they launched the label and platform Spandau20 with a steady flow of records and a mixtape series featuring new talent and established artists. With their rebellious attitude and notoriously energetic live sets, the duo have brought back a crucial lost ingredient to the rave: playfulness. And if their well-loved albums 'FJAAK', released on Modeselektor's Monkeytown imprint, and 'Havel' set the scene, 'FJAAK THE SYSTEM' rises above and beyond expectations, creating a new benchmark. It's not just blood, sweat and tears either, FJAAK's advanced technical knowhow and love of synthesizers and drum machines helps them formulate a sound that's conscious of dance music history, but focused on a brighter, more equitable future. Their second single 'And You Feel' is an emotional rollercoaster combining UK breakbeat with a dubstep-influenced bassline wobler and alluring vocals, emulating the moment the mind becomes a tranquil void through the crescendo of adrenaline like a strain of physical exertion. This is reflected on their new music video which shows an unexpected ''rage room'' scene.

In the late 2000s a sprawling catalog of what is now genre-defining music was emanating from an unlikely place. Cleveland, Ohio has a broad reputation for many things, but in the aughts, psyche-expanding Kosmische wasn’t necessarily Cleveland’s calling card… until Emeralds. The trio of John Elliott, Steve Hauschildt, and Mark McGuire had released a profusion of limited-run cassettes, CD-Rs, and vinyl titles that had been passed around basement shows and then migrated to niche music communities online, creating a unique kind of murmur, even in the height of the DIY blog era. Three kids from the rust belt were crafting a distinctive and truly far-out strain of music on their own terms in the Midwest. They were flipping lids in wood-paneled basements and circulating around the underground with soaring sounds stylistically indebted to deep German electronic music pioneers and released with the ethos and twisted fervor of renegade Midwestern noise freaks. After several releases garnered a die-hard fandom in niche circles of internet/music culture, and then catching the attention of the late Peter Rehberg, the renowned artist and curator of the Editions Mego label, an expectation was set that the next Emeralds record was going to be a big one. And in 2010, Does it Look Like I’m Here? was it.

mp3s of this album; they can finally get a fresh copy on vinyl. Does It Look Like I’m Here? became a hallmark that would carve a path for an entire scene. Ghostly International is thrilled to reissue the album, remastered by Heba Kadry, including 7 bonus tracks exclusive to the digital album and CD. The limited edition 2xLP includes extensive liner notes by Chris Madak (Bee Mask).

EXTREME return in 2023 with their brand new studio album “SIX”. The multi-million selling hard rockers present 12 tracks ranging from funk-tinged bangers to soaring ballads as only EXTREME can deliver. Spearheaded by the songwriting team of vocalist Gary Cherone and guitarist Nuno Bettencourt (who blessed the world with chart toppers like “More Than Words” and “Hole Hearted”), “SIX“ is an essential addition to EXTREME’s discography. The album opener and first single “RISE” will immediately fire up legions of anxious fans with its signature riff. Elsewhere, “OTHER SIDE OF THE RAINBOW” showcases EXTREME’s gift for passionate acoustic magic. EXTREME are back with “SIX“ – everything the fans have been waiting for. Formats; CD, 2LP Black, 2LP Ltd Transparent, 2LP Ltd Red & Black Marble.

After their monumental rise from mask-sporting weirdos to forefathers of a new generation of mainstream metal, many wondered how or if Slipknot would manage to top their blistering self-titled debut, and its malevolent follow-up, 'Iowa.'

Hindsight paints doubts in curious colours, as 'Vol 3: The Subliminal Verses' is now regarded as one of the nine's most expansive, dynamic, and universally acclaimed works.

From the caustic anthem, 'Duality' to the surprisingly accessible 'Before I Forget', the collective managed the impressive feat of honing their craft to appeal to a wider audience while sacrificing little of the unbridled angst of their earlier projects.

Hearing frontman Corey Taylor let his guard down for gentle and hypnotic cuts like 'Circle' and 'Vermillion, Pt. 2', offered entirely new insights into a group known for their brutal intensity and little else. There's still plenty of that on display, with the venomous ode to their fanbase, 'Pulse Of The Maggots', ringing true with its abrasive composition.

Finally reissued alongside its predecessors, there's never been a more ideal time to finally lock down this seminal trilogy that would introduce, shock and cement Slipknot as legends of their own kind for decades to come.

Repress

Just a continuation of things that have been done before and that will be done in the future. The plan is that there is no plan and the story goes on! 18 tracks about distinct moods, patterns and the pure joy of creation itself.

Mastered by the Zenker Brothers & Klaus Arnold.
Artwork photos by Lara Köcke.

Der Mann hinter der Maske, Jonathan Bree, kehrt mit seinem sechsten Studioalbum "Don't Call It Love" zurück. "Don't Call It Love" kommt als Doppelalbum mit 17 Songs und ist ein erotisches Konzeptalbum, das sich mit Sexualität auseinandersetzt und Kollaborationen mit Frauen aus den Bereichen Musik, Film, Fotografie und Tanz enthält. "Don't Call It Love" klingt wie der düstere Soundtrack zu einer versteckten, mit Samt ausgekleideten Bar in einem schummrigen Keller - mal verspielt und verführerisch, mal beunruhigend und provokativ. Brees neue Songs setzen sich mit dem gesamten Spektrum der Sexualität und ihrer emotionalen Last auseinander - ein Album, das sich weigert, wegzuschauen, und sein Herz buchstäblich auf der Zunge trägt. Fans haben diesen neuen Sound bereits mit den düster-nostalgischen Klängen von New Order und Siouxsie & The Banshees verglichen, wobei Brees musikalische Entwicklung über die Jahrzehnte hinweg endlich ihr von den 80ern durchtränktes, melancholisches Ziel erreicht hat: ein melodramatisches Meisterwerk raffinierter Sleaze-Musik. Jonathans charakteristische Orchesterarrangements sind nach wie vor vorhanden und verbinden diesmal eine karge, düster angehauchte Noir-Ästhetik mit filmischer Instrumentierung und seinem grüblerischen Bariton. "Don't Call It Love ist zudem Jonathans bisher kollaborativstes Album, auf dem eine außergewöhnliche internationale Riege von Frauen einige der entscheidenden Momente des Albums mit ihren einzigartigen Stimmen bereichert. Die bei den Fans beliebte Princess Chelsea kehrt für drei beeindruckende Songs zurück ("Live To Dance", "Part Time Love", "Slow"); Neuseelands bestgehütetes Musikgeheimnis Rachel Clarke bewegt sich bei "Savour My Love" von intimer Zurückhaltung zu schwindelerregender Intensität; die französische Fotografin und Künstlerin Eloïse Labarbe-Lafon liefert auf "Chameleon" eine charaktervolle Gesangsdarbietung, die an die Tradition von Jane Birkin anknüpft; während die französische Musikerin und Schauspielerin Adah Dylan auf dem Titeltrack zu hören ist und den Leadgesang mit direkter, schnörkelloser Klarheit trägt: "don't call it love_ when we fuck." Für einen Künstler, der bereits sechs Alben veröffentlicht hat, gibt es hier eine Reihe von Premieren - sein erstes Doppelalbum, sein gitarrenlastigstes Album, sein kollaborativstes und sein bisher kompromisslosestes konzeptionelles Werk. Es wird nicht jedem gefallen, und es ist klar, dass Bree kein Interesse daran hat, es abzuschwächen. Wie er es ausdrückt: "Als ich meiner Mutter davon erzählte, schlug ich ihr vor, dieses Album vielleicht lieber auszulassen."

2026 Sakura Pink coloured vinyl, 2022 Abbey Road remaster, cut-out artwork! When the mysterious masked collective calling themselves Goat first emerged in 2012, armed with an incendiary debut album 'World Music' - there was, and there still isn't, anyone else on earth quite like them. With their enticing mythology, music full of sinuous grooves and manic explosions of fuzz, Goat were outliers from the very beginning. 'World Music', received an avalanche of acclaim with critics, psych heads, outernational crate diggers etc, all left enraptured by its thunderous intensity, conjured from a singular mix of sounds from across the globe. 'World Music' is brimming with tracks now seen as 'classic' Goat live favourites. Tracks that have been wowing audiences all over the world; the afrobeat stomp of 'Disco Fever', the fuzz abuse of 'Goathead', the post-punk groove of 'Let it Bleed', the sing-along repetitive pop of 'Run to your Mama'... From the first note to the last, 'World Music' oozes with a sonic confidence rarely seen on a debut album. What Goat have is unique - they've managed to create a sound unrestrained by genre or any other boundaries. So if you haven't done so already, then it is now time you joined the Goat commune. 300 ww copies only!

Feel the poison in your veins… “The Venom In The Mouth Of God” is Combichrist at their most expansive and most honest, a record that tears open the gap between who we are and who we perform ourselves to be, and leaves it bleeding. Andy LaPlegua has been one of industrial metal's defining forces since the early 2000s, fusing EBM brutality with hard rock muscle in a way few acts have managed to replicate. This new album plays like a descent and a reckoning in one. The opening run from "ODR" through "Born Deströyer" lands like a controlled demolition: dense, mechanized, merciless. Mid-album the mood shifts and stretches, with "Each Scar A Vision" and "The Way We Want To Be Seen" pulling at something more psychological - the masks we wear, the versions of ourselves we construct for others. "Demons Wanna Be Summoned" features King 810, the Michigan-bred rap-metal outfit known for their confrontational intensity - a collaboration that fits the album's relentless atmosphere like a blade in a wound.

Feel the poison in your veins… “The Venom In The Mouth Of God” is Combichrist at their most expansive and most honest, a record that tears open the gap between who we are and who we perform ourselves to be, and leaves it bleeding. Andy LaPlegua has been one of industrial metal's defining forces since the early 2000s, fusing EBM brutality with hard rock muscle in a way few acts have managed to replicate. This new album plays like a descent and a reckoning in one. The opening run from "ODR" through "Born Deströyer" lands like a controlled demolition: dense, mechanized, merciless. Mid-album the mood shifts and stretches, with "Each Scar A Vision" and "The Way We Want To Be Seen" pulling at something more psychological - the masks we wear, the versions of ourselves we construct for others. "Demons Wanna Be Summoned" features King 810, the Michigan-bred rap-metal outfit known for their confrontational intensity - a collaboration that fits the album's relentless atmosphere like a blade in a wound.

Nachpressung! Sub Pop und die Noise-Rock-Größen Chat Pile aus Oklahoma City bringen eine limitierte 7"-Single raus, auf der zwei Studiotracks drauf sind: ein brandneuer Song und eine coole Neuinterpretation des frühen Nirvana-Songs ,Sifting". Die zweite Pressung der Single kommt auf "BLUE MARBLE" Vinyl, solange der Vorrat reicht. Sub Pop ist total begeistert, dass Chat Pile uns mit diesen beiden großartigen Songs beehrt hat, und wir könnten nicht glücklicher sein, sie in die Liste der Größen aufzunehmen, die eine Sub Pop 7"-Single veröffentlicht haben. Die Band hat uns freundlicherweise ihre Sichtweise zu dieser Veröffentlichung mitgeteilt, also lassen wir sie selbst weiter ausführen! ,Es ist ein wahr gewordener Traum, eine Single bei Sub Pop zu veröffentlichen, und unser neuer Song ,Masks" wird hoffentlich dem Geist der mythischen, manchmal mystischen Stadt Seattle gerecht. Zum Teil dank des Films Hype sind wir schon lange von Seattle, der amerikanischen Underground-Szene der späten 80er Jahre, Sub Pop und ihren Werkzeugen zur Weltherrschaft fasziniert. Alles, was wir über das Packaging von Chat Pile gelernt haben, haben wir von den Sub Pop-Gründern Jonathan Poneman und Bruce Pavitt gelernt. Wir wollten einen Song aus der frühen Sub-Pop-Ära covern, und etwas aus Bleach schien die naheliegende Wahl zu sein. Songs wie ,Paper Cuts", ,Negative Creep" und vor allem ,Sifting" sind ziemlich ähnlich zu dem Sound, den wir mit Chat Pile machen. (Vielleicht nehmen wir uns das nächste Mal einen Song von TAD vor!) P.S. - Fuck ICE."

The 2015 debut album from female punk super-group back in print on new burgundy colour vinyl! NOT SORRY is the first full-length album from all female super-group BAD COP BAD COP. Aptly titled, NOT SORRY brazenly blasts out some of the most vibrant pop-punk around today. Laden with catchy hooks, three-part harmonies that'd make The Beach Boys jealous, and tons of attitude, all 13 tracks showcase BAD COP BAD COP's uncanny ability to blend aggressive instrumentation with polished vocals. A quick glance at the band's collective resume (Compton SF, The Radio Sweetheart, The D'Maggs, The City, Angry Amputees, and Cunt Sparrer) will disabuse any doubters of the notion that BCBC can't hand with the boys. From front to back, NOT SORRY brings the rock. Tracks like "Old Dogs", "Nightmare", & "Support", display the bands' hard playing style and strong sense of melody. One listen to NOT SORRY and you'll know why BAD COP BAD COP have generated so much buzz! "This badass bunch of melodic punk rock ladies have been releasing infectious 7" records for a couple years that just play too damn quickly... The album dashes by like a vacation_over sooner than you'd like." _New Noise Magazine "California's Bad Cop Bad Cop lay down the law with an incredible authority: the tunes are concise and compact melodic punk blazers, filled with equal amounts of bite and sugar-sweet harmony." _Alternative Press "These songs are full of three-part harmonies that can make Bad Religion's Greg Graffin and Brett Gurewitz retroactively jealous, and they're catchy enough that they could easily fit onto any of the early Fat Music comps." _Dying Scene Produced by Fat Mike (NOFX) & Davey Warsop (Suedehead) For Fans of: NOFX, Dance Hall Crashers, Masked Intruder Ongoing social media push via artist and label channels Social Media and Digital marketing campaign See Bad Cop Bad Cop on tour in Europe

In ,Library Copy Do Not Remove" präsentiert JJ Weihl von Discovery Zone eine digitale Verzauberung der Realität, in der er das Materielle und das Immaterielle miteinander verwebt, um zu zeigen, dass es sich dabei tatsächlich um zwei Aspekte ein und desselben handelt. In Weihls Welt sind Natur und Technologie keine Feinde, sondern erschaffen sich gegenseitig in einem unendlichen Tanz aus Bedeutung und Reflexion. Ursprünglich als Raumsound für das Zeiss-Groß-Planetarium in Berlin geschaffen, ist ,Library Copy Do Not Remove" eine Schöpfungsmythologie für das simulierte Universum. Dabei handelt es sich jedoch nicht um eine trockene, bostromische, maskuline Fantasie einer digitalen Realität, der die Geheimnisse der Natur fehlen. Stattdessen fordert Weihl den Zuhörer auf, im Rahmen einer Simulation Raum für die beeindruckende Realität der natürlichen Welt zu lassen. Wenn unsere Welt simuliert ist, dann muss die Simulation in der Lage sein, die Schönheit und Pracht der Natur zu erschaffen. Auf diese Weise betreibt Weihl eine ambient-artige Alchemie, die eine große Versöhnung von Natur und Technologie fordert, während sie uns auffordert, darüber nachzudenken, wie und wo die Erfahrung transzendenten menschlichen Bewusstseins zwischen ihnen existieren könnte. Die Songs auf ,Library Copy Do Not Remove" entstanden, während Weihl gleichzeitig ihr zweites Album ,Quantum Web" fertigstellte, und spiegeln einen weitreichenden, inspirierenden Zustand aus Aufregung und Angst wider, der mit der Aufgabe einherging, Musik für einen so einzigartigen Raum zu komponieren. Die Songs selbst wurden durch Ambisonics geformt, ein spezielles Format für räumliches Audio, das direktional ist, anstatt auf Kanälen zu basieren (wie Stereo), und wurden über ein Mosaik aus 49 Lautsprechern übertragen. Da es für Live-Auftritte geschrieben wurde, war ,Library Copy Do Not Remove" nie als Album im eigentlichen Sinne gedacht, sondern als dreidimensionales Ereignis. Auf diese Weise spiegelte die Klanginszenierung wider, wie wir Klang in unserem Alltag wahrnehmen: uns aus allen Richtungen umgebend. Für diese Albumveröffentlichung hat Weihl alle Songs gemeinsam mit ihrem langjährigen Produzenten E/T von Grund auf neu abgemischt und die Konstellation der Tracks für ein Stereoerlebnis neu konzipiert und überarbeitet. Inspiriert von den Werken von James Gleick, LD Deutsch, Johannes Kepler und Jorge Luis Borges, erforscht ,Library Copy Do Not Remove" die kreative Spannung zwischen Realität und Wahrnehmung, Information und Mythologie, Harmonie und Unordnung. Im gesamten Album fragt Weihl, wie wir als Menschen das Universum um uns herum und den zugrunde liegenden Code, der es belebt, verstehen lernen. Was dabei entsteht, ist ein klanglicher Mythos, der von spiralförmigen digitalen Universen erzählt, die ineinander verschachtelt sind und in denen jeder teilnehmende Akteur gleichzeitig sowohl Teil als auch das Ganze der Realität ist. Auf diese Weise ist ,Library Copy Do Not Remove" ein cyber-Ausdruck zeitloser Weisheit: Anstelle von ,wie oben, so unten" könnte Weihl vorschlagen: ,wie der Input, so der Output".

Somewhere between krautrock, noise rock, decaying psychedelia, and pagan proto-punk, Dééfait makes music like one performs a ritual: in trance, on repeat, and without a safety net. From the chaotic arteries of Mexico City to the basement venues of the Paris suburbs, Dééfait sculpts noise rock in apnea. Their self-titled debut EP is a noise rite: a wall of guitars, incantatory percussion, and possessed voices. With Dééfait, sound twists, repeats, stretches, until exhaustion and ecstasy. Formed in 2023, Dééfait brings together the Valero brothers (Lucas on guitar / Pablo, ex-Pays P, on drums), Enir Da (bass - Temir Alcy, Dali Muru & the Polyphonic Swarm), Grégoire Couvert (guitar), and Riki Lara, a Mexican-born vocalist and performer whose lyrics _ chanted, whispered, shouted _ alternate in three languages: English, Spanish, and French. Active on the Paris underground scene since 2024 (La Mécanique Ondulatoire, Le Cirque Électrique, Nouveaux Sauvages_), Dééfait imposes a ritual tension, physical, almost hallucinatory. No choruses to hum along to, no comforting melodies _ just a dense sonic flow that seeps and vibrates. This debut EP, set for release in December 2025 on Ici, d'ailleurs (Zëro, Matt Elliott, Bruit Noir_), lines up six long tracks resembling pagan litanies. Six extended pieces forming a possessed monologue, as if a camera had been slipped inside a burning body. Everything pants. Everything overflows. From We Love Each Other So Much That We Won't Belong To Any Species Anymore, love exceeds expected forms and becomes an organic pact, a ritual of species departure: "Cut me like you want, in bloom your fire," "We scratch consanguinity / We don't belong to any species anymore." It quickly suggests a call to ecstasy, to trance. The EP as a whole navigates unstable zones where desire, sacrifice, and alienation entwine like serpents on acid. Molokh 8 chants an offering to a carnivorous deity, between severed tongue and chemical body. In Bondbondbond, voices entangle, seek each other in a delirious, sensual chiaroscuro where pleasure derails into compulsion. It's a dogma-free ceremony, a game of inverted masks. Alether _ a live-explosive track and perhaps the most powerful of this first project _ shatters frameworks: convulsive dancing, possessed rhythms drowned by waves of guitar. Finally, Ferreri, cook for us closes the EP as a dark farce: a deviant homage to Italian filmmaker Marco Ferreri, the track chews and regurgitates words as if digesting an overfed world. Recorded in the chaos of DIY and mixed as a raw work, the record captures Dééfait's electric discharge in its purest state. The sound is dirty, visceral, possessed. Think Terminal Cheesecake, Boredoms, Nick Cave-era Birthday Party on acid, but also CAN impaled on an autopsy table, or a Giallo under a strobe light_ Yet it emerges as a singular work.

Futurismo are proud to present DEVO’s NITROUS NIGHTMARE, Halloween Live ‘75. Never before released, or heard in it’s entirety, this legendary live performance is presented here in it’s full chaotic glory on limited edition 2xLP and 2xCD. The live release all hardcore Devo fans have been waiting for, Nitrous Nightmare demonstrates a band harnessing their artistic greatness in the purest of forms. This mythic performance captures Devo perfecting some of their most iconic concepts in the raw. Expertly restored, this live recording makes for a thrilling experience, it also captures Devo as a lightening rod for hostility. On Halloween 1975, Devo took the stage at the WHK Auditorium in Cleveland, in a supporting capacity for jazz legend Sun Ra, to perform for a raucous crowd dressed in the finest of Halloween cliché. Already riding high on Nitrous Oxide and booze supplied by the sponsoring radio station, this unaware horde was expecting to see a slick cover band churning out renditions of Bad Company hits, only to be subjected to an act of subversive performance art that would send the growingly aggravated crowd into eventual meltdown. Physical threats ensued, but Devo played on. Acting as a live companion release to Futurismo’s much lauded Art Devo, the tracklist featured here showcases the origins of de-evolution theory in a live setting. These songs would become some of their most famous material, with this recording believed to be the very first time ‘Jocko Homo’ was performed in front of a live audience; the full 12 minute version documented here is sure to please fans, even if it displeased the urban hippies and horror masked onlookers that evening. Whilst Devo may have felt they were trapped inside a negative energy vortex during that era, it is clear in retrospect that the band was using this energy to carve out the genesis of a sonic and visual art that has truly stood the test of time. The music performed that evening would mutate culture for decades to come, long after the denizens of the auditorium packed away their cheap vampire costumes and returned to their day jobs. Spanning 2xLP’s of unreleased live material, most of which has never been heard before, this wondrous performance draws purely from that integral early history. Mixed and mastered directly from recordings kept in the bands personal vaults, this live collection showcases why Devo was, and still is, one of the most important bands in American history. De-evolution is real. The art of DEVO is real. Here is the evidence. This 2xLP is housed in a gloss laminated wide spined sleeve. It has a tracklist that has been sourced directly from the archives, and contains colour inner sleeves and a fold-out containing archival imagery and liner notes by Gerald V Casale.

2026 Repress

In March 2023, Tresor Records will release "Crash Recoil", a new album by Surgeon. It marks Anthony Child's first techno LP in five years, following a period in which he felt uncertainty in his role as a techno producer and found it tough to locate inspiration. This new album encounters him drawing on spontaneous techniques to arrive at unchartered topographies.
"Crash Recoil" originates from Surgeon's recent live sets, where he experimented with constraints in performing and embracing the twists, turns and paradoxes that arrive from this. Each fresh iteration on consistent MIDI sequences and hardware reconfigured tracks into dierent constellations, creating an inspiring vortex of unpredicted events where ideas could flourish. This new approach allowed him to capture the spontaneous energy of his live shows in a way he had never done before. "This is not a live album, since it has not been recorded in one go during a live performance. In the same way that bands tour songs before going into the studio to record an album, I was able to explore these songs and hone their eectiveness during my live performances before creating a studio version."
The result is eight tracks that emphasise a new techno sound for Surgeon, drawing in references from across the musical spectrum. "I can hear Coil, King Tubby, Detroit Techno and The Cure all wrapped up with 30 years of DJing," Surgeon says of the album. Melancholic hum-like ambiences smudge around unadorned, near-droning basslines, crunching rhythm and percolating arpeggiations. The tracks carry unique and potent locomotion, with a low-slung grind through toughened terrains, breathing with a free spirit, untethered by a studio-based perspective. We hear manifestations of the same raw material across the album, like a textural motif, carving new variants and creating a cohesive work full of recollection.

In ,Library Copy Do Not Remove" präsentiert JJ Weihl von Discovery Zone eine digitale Verzauberung der Realität, in der er das Materielle und das Immaterielle miteinander verwebt, um zu zeigen, dass es sich dabei tatsächlich um zwei Aspekte ein und desselben handelt. In Weihls Welt sind Natur und Technologie keine Feinde, sondern erschaffen sich gegenseitig in einem unendlichen Tanz aus Bedeutung und Reflexion. Ursprünglich als Raumsound für das Zeiss-Groß-Planetarium in Berlin geschaffen, ist ,Library Copy Do Not Remove" eine Schöpfungsmythologie für das simulierte Universum. Dabei handelt es sich jedoch nicht um eine trockene, bostromische, maskuline Fantasie einer digitalen Realität, der die Geheimnisse der Natur fehlen. Stattdessen fordert Weihl den Zuhörer auf, im Rahmen einer Simulation Raum für die beeindruckende Realität der natürlichen Welt zu lassen. Wenn unsere Welt simuliert ist, dann muss die Simulation in der Lage sein, die Schönheit und Pracht der Natur zu erschaffen. Auf diese Weise betreibt Weihl eine ambient-artige Alchemie, die eine große Versöhnung von Natur und Technologie fordert, während sie uns auffordert, darüber nachzudenken, wie und wo die Erfahrung transzendenten menschlichen Bewusstseins zwischen ihnen existieren könnte. Die Songs auf ,Library Copy Do Not Remove" entstanden, während Weihl gleichzeitig ihr zweites Album ,Quantum Web" fertigstellte, und spiegeln einen weitreichenden, inspirierenden Zustand aus Aufregung und Angst wider, der mit der Aufgabe einherging, Musik für einen so einzigartigen Raum zu komponieren. Die Songs selbst wurden durch Ambisonics geformt, ein spezielles Format für räumliches Audio, das direktional ist, anstatt auf Kanälen zu basieren (wie Stereo), und wurden über ein Mosaik aus 49 Lautsprechern übertragen. Da es für Live-Auftritte geschrieben wurde, war ,Library Copy Do Not Remove" nie als Album im eigentlichen Sinne gedacht, sondern als dreidimensionales Ereignis. Auf diese Weise spiegelte die Klanginszenierung wider, wie wir Klang in unserem Alltag wahrnehmen: uns aus allen Richtungen umgebend. Für diese Albumveröffentlichung hat Weihl alle Songs gemeinsam mit ihrem langjährigen Produzenten E/T von Grund auf neu abgemischt und die Konstellation der Tracks für ein Stereoerlebnis neu konzipiert und überarbeitet. Inspiriert von den Werken von James Gleick, LD Deutsch, Johannes Kepler und Jorge Luis Borges, erforscht ,Library Copy Do Not Remove" die kreative Spannung zwischen Realität und Wahrnehmung, Information und Mythologie, Harmonie und Unordnung. Im gesamten Album fragt Weihl, wie wir als Menschen das Universum um uns herum und den zugrunde liegenden Code, der es belebt, verstehen lernen. Was dabei entsteht, ist ein klanglicher Mythos, der von spiralförmigen digitalen Universen erzählt, die ineinander verschachtelt sind und in denen jeder teilnehmende Akteur gleichzeitig sowohl Teil als auch das Ganze der Realität ist. Auf diese Weise ist ,Library Copy Do Not Remove" ein cyber-Ausdruck zeitloser Weisheit: Anstelle von ,wie oben, so unten" könnte Weihl vorschlagen: ,wie der Input, so der Output".

With multiple bass players (at one point eight of them) and an array of rubber masks that give both children and adults sleepless nights, somehow, against all the odds, Evil Blizzard are set to release their fifth studio album of nightmare inducing noise and visuals. Titled, the new album sees Evil Blizzard pushing the boundaries further afield from their early sound of 'multiple bass psych', seeing elements of dub, krautrock and goth to provide a much more Post Punk vibe than previous work. Reference points were 'Metal Box', 'Ritual De Lo Habitual', Can and Discharge (whose singer JJ joins the band on the track 'Wake The Dead In Bedlam') as well as the omnipresent Hawkwind, Stooges and Sabbath vibes. By far the band's most stylistically varied and challenging album and yet their most cohesive body of work since their critically acclaimed second album 'Everybody Come To Church'. As well as their trademark 'multi bass onslaught', this album sees sequencing, sampling and even the use of string instruments made from bone.

Recorded between September and November 2025 at Rock Hard Studios, Blackpool, improvised sessions were edited down into more 'song' structures, then reworked into the final pieces. "Recording this was the hardest work we've done," claims Filthydirty. "Previously, we'd just turn up, turn up louder, press record and sieve through the debris and call it 'an album'. On this album we only had two, maybe three tracks that were finished when we went in, and the rest were worked out in reverse; ploughing through improvisations and jams and seeing what actually had any bones or gristle to work with. “Consequently, we had the time and focus to reappraise what we'd done in the past, highlight what we'd done right and realise where perhaps self-indulgence or lack of focus were overlooked instead of time or budget restraints, he continues. “The result is an album that reflects all our record collections. Lyrically it's been impossible to not absorb the chaos and anger transmitting on every news channel recently, and while we'd never write specifically about a certain issue or matter, the shitshow that is the 2020's definitely made its mark or our thinking.

The second album from Big Owl, Bird T, Rusty Take-Off & Deformed Wing has been repressed on an all new 2 x 12” ‘Mask’ colourway (never to be repressed in this colourway).

Home to classics including ‘Assassination’ feat. Dirty Dike, ‘Old Earth’ and the legendary ‘Think Twice’ produced by DJ Premier, the 16-track album changed the game for the Owls and is a certified High Focus classic.

Limited edition pressing of 500 copies.

HYPER GAL are restless. Since 2019, Kansai’s minimalist duo has been in persistent, perpetual motion.

In January of 2024, SKiN GRAFT Records introduced HYPER GAL to western audiences, giving the previously self-released album “Pure” a worldwide release. It was followed by “After Image”; a new full-length record; in September of that same year. In short order HYPER GAL left Japan to embark on a month-long European tour, performing at festivals such as Left of the Dial in Rotterdam and Le Guess Who? in Utrecht.

Consisting of Koharu Ishida (vocals) and Kurumi Kadoya (drums), HYPER GAL craft a sound all their own, characterized by avant-garde rhythms, looping landscapes, and hypnotic vocals. Their music resists traditional genre boundaries to carve out a truly singular sonic space.

With their fourth album “Our Hyper”, HYPER GAL thrust their sound into a deeper, harder core. Songs unfold into surprising shapes, embracing shadowy turns emboldened by a heavier low-end, while unearthing sharp takes on Japan’s harsh noise roots. The drums have grown even more acrobatic and unorthodox, while the vocals take on new colors, shifting from mesmerizing repetition to melodic, pop-tinged expression.

The album’s artwork is no less adventurous and features masks created by contemporary artist Tokiyoshi Akina and photographed in the band’s own hands, signaling resistance to the performative dualities of social media and a commitment to authenticity.
Despite the lean, unadorned two-piece setup, HYPER GAL’s music attains an intense and unmistakable presence - an unwavering momentum driven by an unrelenting intent. “Our Hyper” is HYPER GAL amplified.

"With each release they appear as mirage sculptors, using simple tools (drums, keyboards, vocals) in craft of multi-genre spanning work which only becomes more captivating the simpler their execution becomes...”
– MYSTIFICATION

DOODSESKADER clearly haven’t had enough of redefining boundaries – they’ve only just gotten started. Tim De Gieter and Sigfried Burroughs return on April 3rd, 2026 with their third full-length album, The Change Is Me, a rollercoaster that can only be described as the unstable lovechild between witch house, hip-hop, industrial dream pop, and stadium rock that can’t decide if it wants to watch the world burn or shout from the rooftops that we need to save it. Their combination of grungy 90s melodies with distorted synths, sludgy bass, hard tuned vocals, rapping, singing, and explosions of undiluted rage at the current state of the world leave you wondering just exactly what it was you smoked last night, and if it was too much or not enough. The Change Is Me is an album that grabs you by the arm and asks if you’re ready to go on a grand adventure, then pulls you into its chaos before you can say “yes” or “no.”

Tim and Sigfried aren’t just breaking the boundaries between genres; they’re breaking out of their own Year cycle, a path they had laid out for themselves at the band’s inception in 2020. Up until now, the duo had set out to document their “journey to getting better” through writing one album each year: Year Zero (2020), Year One (2022), and most recently Year Two (2024). After spending eight months throughout 2024 and 2025 writing, recording, producing and mixing Year Three, the band scrapped the finished record entirely. Playing shows while simultaneously navigating the process of mixing Year Three created a sort of disconnect – the people that they were when they wrote that record and the people that playing shows made them become were no longer one and the same. “We’re people with faults and strengths, and we realized we needed to accept it. That’s equal parts bleak and liberating. If you’re so focused on self-improvement, you can’t even applaud yourself for how far you’ve come,” the band explains. “This project is meant to be a document of us and of the human condition, not a self-improvement handbook designed to keep us all stuck on what may or may not have happened to us or because of us in the past.”

DOODSESKADER chose instead to embark anew on a week-long creative journey in Tim’s own Much Luv Studio with one goal in mind: to make an album that captures who they are right now. Finally writing everything together in the same room for the first time in years, the process of bringing "The Change Is Me" to life was captured by Diana Lungu in their latest documentary, "Now I Know You See Me", out December 2nd, 2025.

"The Change Is Me" marks the beginning of DOODSESKADER’s shift into a more positive era, both musically and conceptually. Over the course of the 40-minute record we hear the two friends unite in a fight against a world that grows more and more disappointing, a concept made crystal clear in tracks like “Celebrity Culture Simp Farm,” “It Keeps On Stinging,” and of course the album’s epic closer “Suffering In Technicolor.” While their previous albums saw them trying to outrun their pasts and arrive at a better version of themselves, here the search for some external or internal revelation that will “make them better” is no more. It’s been replaced by the realization that change isn’t something we force: it’s gradual, and more importantly, it’s something that’s already there – we just need to reach out and accept it.

The band’s live appearances over the last several years have been instrumental in shaping their ideology. On stage is where the duo find connection; not only with the audience, but also with each other. Their sold-out release shows at Ancienne Belgique (2022) and VierNulVier (2024) have proven that they are one of Belgium’s must-see acts. Abroad, their energy has translated into a month-long EU/UK tour with French band Alcest in 2024, as well as appearances at festivals such as Roadburn Festival (NL), Eurosonic (NL), Hellfest (FR), Mystic Fest (PL), Jera On Air (NL), ArcTanGent (UK), Fluff Fest (CZ) and more.

"The Change Is Me" is out April 3rd, 2026 on DOODSESKADER’s own label, 45 Records.

2026 black vinyl, 2022 Abbey Road remaster, original 2012 artwork! When the mysterious masked collective calling themselves Goat first emerged in 2012, armed with an incendiary debut album 'World Music' - there was, and there still isn't, anyone else on earth quite like them. With their enticing mythology, music full of sinuous grooves and manic explosions of fuzz, Goat were outliers from the very beginning. 'World Music', received an avalanche of acclaim with critics, psych heads, outernational crate diggers etc, all left enraptured by its thunderous intensity, conjured from a singular mix of sounds from across the globe. 'World Music' is brimming with tracks now seen as 'classic' Goat live favourites. Tracks that have been wowing audiences all over the world; the afrobeat stomp of 'Disco Fever', the fuzz abuse of 'Goathead', the post-punk groove of 'Let it Bleed', the sing-along repetitive pop of 'Run to your Mama'... From the first note to the last, 'World Music' oozes with a sonic confidence rarely seen on a debut album. What Goat have is unique - they've managed to create a sound unrestrained by genre or any other boundaries. So if you haven't done so already, then it is now time you joined the Goat commune.

Repress auf Ice Blue Vinyl. Die schwedischen Riffgötter von GRAND MAGUS blasen mit "Iron Will" zum Metalangriff. ,Iron Will" beendet die Reise, die die Band auf dem Vorgänger von 2005, ,Wolf's Return" antrat und bringt sie zu ihrem unausweichlichen finalen Höhepunkt, auf dem alles in Schutt und Asche gelegt wird. Die Energie zu diesem furiosen Schlusspunkt der Reise ziehen GRAND MAGUS aus der bodenständigen Erhabenheit der NWOBHM und der inspirierenden Mythologie ihrer Vorgänger. GRAND MAGUS haben die vorchristlichen Geschichten von Sieg, Rache, Betrug, Romanzen und Tod in sich aufgesogen, so dass ihr Sound das Produkt eines düsteren, fruchtbaren Ortes ist, an dem Rock und Heavy Metal eine Symbiose der pursten Art eingehen. Die neun Songs auf ,Iron Will" sind das Manifest zeitloser, maskuliner Würde, die mit Leichtigkeit Plastikschwerte entzwei bricht, Idioten mitten ins Gesicht tritt und das wahre Schwert des klassischen Metal mit Stolz in die Höhe hält.

Sugaring a Strawberry, the sophomore record from Julia, Julia, is a study in coming undone—on purpose. Recorded at COMA, Julia Kugel's home studio, and mixed through a custom Flickenger clone, the album drifts in and out of clarity like memory itself. It's emotionally retrospective, creatively unvarnished, and deeply human. You can hear it in the hiss, the warmth, in the vocals so raw they're like an open window. These songs weren't engineered for perfection. They were built to breathe. Her long-time collaborator and husband, Scott Montoya, mixes it all so loosely that you can hear the air between tracks— a space that makes the music feel inhabited rather than recorded.


"Bound" opens the album like a secret passed between sisters, solemn and unspeakably close. It begins with the softest of touches: hushed guitar, a near- whispered delivery that carries the intimacy of someone singing only for one other person. It's a love song, but not romantic, more ancestral in the way long bonds can be. All glow and undercurrent, "I Know," is like hearing someone hum through a wound. The track arrives as if it had been waiting, coiled and complete, to be sung. Its pulse is slow but insistent, anchored on a hypnotic loop and a vocal that's half-incantation, half-confession. One of the most outward-facing songs on the record, "Feeling Lucky," opens like a cigarette flicked in the dark– smoky and a little bit slick. Built on a skeletal beat and a nearly detached vocal, it leans into a sarcastic swagger that barely masks the ache beneath. The delivery is droll and glazed, the instrumentation is sparse and a little woozy, leaving space for her voice to sway—a shrug of a song, stylish in its sadness. "A Love That Hurts" drifts in on soft, fingerpicked guitar and a dry, close-mic vocal that feels both haunted and immediate. The mix is stripped down and analog-warm, letting tape hum and silence frame the emotion. Julia sings like she's remembering something she doesn't want to, each line a slight unraveling. Like the rest of the album, "A Love That Hurts" doesn't push toward resolution. It sits in the ache, sifts through it, makes it beautiful.

Sugaring a Strawberry doesn't seek catharsis so much as stumbles into it. There's a quiet volatility to these songs like they might fall apart if you press too hard. It moves in shadow and softness, asking questions it doesn't answer. It doesn’t end with closure. It ends with truth.

Berlin’s ZentaSkai returns to his Mask Records with the ‘Billie’ EP, collaborating with Palawan, Jeremy Reinhard, and Thomas Grün for release on vinyl only, 2nd November 2025. He kicks off with the solo cut 'A1', which is quick, sophisticated, raw House with a funky clip to the beats that diffuses heat in the grainy sustained pads. It brings serene emotional release through stylish hypnosis and gorgeous vocals that blend seamlessly into the mix. Next, ZentaSkai collaborates with the mysterious Palawan, as he did on one track of his 2023 album The Architecture Of The Mind, on 'A2.' This one suspends you in backlit synth glows while rounded drums and funky claps tap out the supple rhythm. Cautious hope comes from the quiet chord stabs and soft focus melodies in what is a masterclass in deep Techno minimalism. 'B1' reunites ZentaSkai with Cologne's Jeremy Reinhard following previous cuts on that same 2023 album. Reinhard has long been a pillar of his local Berlin scene as a resident DJ, but also the wider underground with his own label Lekker Record. Their track taps into dub depths but ups the pace and allows radiant synths to piece the surface next to muttered spoken word that keep it intimate and perfectly seductive for body and mind. Last of all is a collab with Austrian Thomas Grün, who has been shaping deep and Tech House with his immaculate grooves for decades. Their 'B2' brings US garage snares to buoyant drums and douses them in layers of fuzzy synth warmth. It's meditative yet direct with an ever-rising sense of hope that makes it all the more indelible. ZentaSkai (aka No Mad Ronin, Matt Nowak, and MASK) is a German DJ and producer active since 1997. Based out of his studio in Berlin, ZentaSkai runs the Zaijenroots label and, since 2017, the Mask sub-label, which houses his stunning 2023 ‘Architecture of the Mind’ LP as well as his Cuddling Monsters project with Laura Merino Allue, who has been significantly involved in the label's work since 2023. - with other credits including a release on Jerome Sydenham’s Ibadan Records and support from the likes of Richie Hawtin, Joseph Capriati, Marcel Dettmann, Luke Slater, Laurent Garnier, DVS1, Ben Sims, and Radio Slave.

For more than thirty years, Arnaud Fournier has been shaping the landscape of the French expe-rimental scene. First within the duo HINT, a singular fusion of experimental, noise and indie music, he released three studio albums in the late 1990s and has continued to perform regularly ever since, including a live album with EZ3kiel in 2009. With La Phaze (1999), Dead Hippies (2013) and later Atonalist (2017), he has always instinctively sought to cross genres and stage dialogues bet-ween extremes. In 2025, with 100% Black Puzzle, he delivers his very first album under his own name, a work where saturated guitars, saxophones, trumpet, hypnotic loops and vast layers of drone meet. Mixed and mastered by Olivier "Cali" Fournier at Studioscope in Angers, 100% Black Puzzle gathers familiar faces around it. Its title resonates as an intentional echo, directly referencing 100% White Puzzle, HINT's debut album. Thirty years on, Arnaud Fournier rediscovers the same spirit of absolute freedom across these five tracks: no format constraints, no compromise on length. The title track, an eight-minute instrumental, sets the tone - a raw, urgent gesture, cap-tured in the moment. In his own words, it was about "finding myself once more in that first-song state of mind, without any confinement." With 100% Black Puzzle, Arnaud Fournier fully embraces signing the work under his own name. No pseudonym, no mask, but an unveiling: a profoundly intimate record, steeped in family and friendship, where noise and beauty constantly collide and entwine. Thirty years after shaking up the French indie scene with HINT, he delivers a body of work that is at once retrospective and forward-looking - a black puzzle that resounds like a rebirth. And what better way to "close the circle" than by heading back on tour?

- 29 Tracks aus dem Open-World-RPG-Actionspiel von 2025
- Artwork von Ubisoft

Ubisoft und Laced Records haben ihre Zusammenarbeit erneuert, um die Musik von Assassin's Creed Shadows auf Vinyl zu veröffentlichen.

"Assassin's Creed Shadows" entführt die Spieler:innen in die reiche Kulisse des feudalen Japans und wird von einem Soundtrack untermalt, der traditionelle Instrumente mit verspielten, modernen Techniken verbindet.

Das Komponistenduo The Flight (Joe Henson und Alexis Smith) kehrt zur Assassin's-Creed-Reihe zurück und liefert einen Soundtrack, der traditionelle Instrumente mit zeitgenössischen orchestralen und elektronischen Elementen verbindet. So entsteht ein unverwechselbares Gefühl für Zeit und Ort, während spielerisch auf die Science-Fiction-Themen der Serie angespielt wird.

Die beiden Protagonisten von "Assassin's Creed Shadows" werden mit unterschiedlichen Instrumenten und musikalischen Ansätzen dargestellt: Die verstohlene Shinobi-Adeptin Naoe wird mit dem Instrument ihrer Wahl, der Tonflöte (Tsuchibue), und dem körperlosen Flüstern während der Stealth-Momente dargestellt. Der legendäre Samurai Yasuke wird mit den schärferen Klängen der Shamisen und rhythmischer Intensität dargestellt.

Für die Darbietung der japanischen Instrumente hat The Flight auf Meisterspieler wie Keiko Kitamura (Koto) und Hibiki Ichikawa (Shamisen) zurückgegriffen. Weitere Interpreten sind die Sängerin Akari Mochizuki, die Flötisten Kristin Naigus, Oriol Singh und Andy Findon sowie Michael Georgiades, der musikalische Mitarbeiter von The Flight bei Assassin's Creed Odyssey.