quête:after work

sir Was aka Joel Wästberg the Gothenburg based musician, producer and singer just released his new album "We Can Go Anywhere From Here". Joel started his professional music journey when Jose Gonzalez asked him to join Junip. Encouraged by his friends Little Dragon he began to release his own music and has collaborated with Teleman, Gengahr, Falle Nioke, Caspar Clausen (Efterklang) and Seb Wildblood. After working with several highly respected indie labels including City Slang, Memphis Industries, PRAH and PEOPLE, Joel has decided it his time to create his own label to release this album

Zero One Zero is a no nonsense American Hard Rock Band. There comes a time when enough is enough and you want to take your music back! Rock music has turned into a bland cookie cutter version of its former self. Zero One Zero is going against the norm and providing a valuable service. Delivering a kick ass, grade A, American made product! No phony over produced, auto tuned garbage. This is Retro-Aggressive Hard Rock for the people! The Band is Rob ‘Boots‘ Zawisza – Vocals, James Ferrentino – Guitars, Mark Ahles – Drums, Marc Russell – Bass. The band’s latest release Traces Of Yesterday was produced by Grammy Award winner Paul Nelson (Johnny Winter). As the band explains, “We were approached by Paul in December of 2020 as he wanted to produce a record with us. After hearing our second studio album Full On. We were honoured to have a Grammy Award-winning Producer and talented musician find interest in us. We all met at his studio, The Music Room in February of 2021 and worked out the details of what would become our third studio album, Traces Of Yesterday.” Unfortunately, Paul passed away suddenly in March of 2024 but not without leaving his mark on Traces Of Yesterday. With standout tracks like the first single “You Knock Me Out” and follow up “I Am Calling”. Zero One Zero is now about to take their spot in Hard Rock as a force to be reckoned with.

After the first casual meeting at Lessinia Psych Fest 2014 (Maxigross festival in the Lessini Mountains) Miles managed to come back in Italy during spring 2015 to work with the band. In march 2015 they went together in the studio house of the band in the small mountain village of Vaggimal (Verona) to improvise and record one month straight, interrupting the sessions only for a few shows between Verona and Roma. They put few microphones around a big room in the house to catch the general sound in a Daniel Lanois’s style, and they played in the dark of the night without any light to forget the individual sound of each member, focusing only on the main sound of the Music. Miles brought from LA some recordings he made with drummer Joe Westerlund (Megafaun, Califone…) and, starting from that material, they begin to play on that. After these magical musical encounter they became close friends, sharing an house in Verona (Casa Tega), many albums, shows and life experiences, forgetting about these Vaggimal Sessions, that bring inside of itself the magic and the purity of any first meeting. These naked recordings are the only witness of this session.

RAYE has been on a real journey prior to her stratospheric rise to the top and notching the first #1 UK hit of 2023. Nominated for 7 x Brit Awards (the most by any artist in one year) her long-awaited independent debut album, My 21st Century Blues, made an immediate impact hitting the #2 spot on the UK albums chart. As a welcome result of her self-fulfilling new work, RAYE unknowingly created the song that has become synonymous with 2023 – the chart topping, viral global smash “Escapism” featuring 070 Shake – that earned her first Top 10 slots at US Pop and Rhythm radio and and is the biggest selling single by a Female British artist in the UK in 2023. From the radio to the club, it put RAYE on the map in a whole new way earning the Best Contemporary Song Award at the 2023 Ivors, AIM Best Independent Track and Best Social Trending Song at the Global Awards, as well as contributing to her winning a BRIT Billions Award in recognition of 1 Billion career UK streams (globally, 4.5 Billion cumulative). RAYE also received the Live Nation Best Female Award at the O2 Silver Clefs and was nominated for the Best International Act at the BET Awards. Fresh off sold-out tours with Lewis Capaldi, Kali Uchis, and SZA, she embarked on a mammoth journey of her own. Two headline tours spanning the UK, Europe, and North America saw her energy ignite sold-out crowds every night. Glastonbury's Pyramid Stage felt her command, and the Royal Albert Hall, draped in the magic of her orchestra and choir, witnessed a BBC special for the ages. This year, My 21st Century Symphony arrives at the o2 Arena, then it's on to Coachella. After playing and owning the pop game, RAYE bet on herself and won.

Tracklisting

1. Overture. - RAYE, The Heritage Orchestra 2. Oscar Winning Tears. - RAYE, The Heritage Orchestra 3. Hard Out Here. - RAYE, The Heritage Orchestra 4. The Thrill Is Gone Requiem. - RAYE, The Heritage Orchestra 5. The Thrill Is Gone. - RAYE, The Heritage Orchestra 6. Five Star Hotels. - RAYE, Heritage Orchestra 7. Mary Jane vs Graeme Blevins. - RAYE, The Heritage Orchestra 8. Mary Jane - RAYE, The Heritage Orchestra 9. Environmental Anxiety. - RAYE, The Heritage Orchestra 10. Body Dysmorphia - RAYE, The Heritage Orchestra 11. Ice Cream Man. - RAYE, The Heritage Orchestra 12. Dani's Interlude. - RAYE, The Heritage Orchestra 13. Flip A Switch. - RAYE, The Heritage Orchestra 14. Worth It Prelude. - RAYE, The Heritage Orchestra 15. Worth It. - RAYE, The Heritage Orchestra 16. Black Mascara. - RAYE, The Heritage Orchestra 17. Buss It Down. - RAYE, The Heritage Orchestra 18. Escapism. - RAYE, The Heritage Orchestra



Congratulations to RAYE on her phenomenal night at the Brit Awards.. with a record breaking six wins in one night, including ..

Best British Album

Best Artist

Best Breakthrough Artist

Best Songwriter

Best R&B Act

Plush, the 1982 studio album by the Eighties synth-boogie band Plush, is a standout in the genre. The band, consisting of Siedah Garrett, Tony Phillips, and Ambrose Price, was known for their smooth blend of R&B, funk, and synth-driven melodies. Garrett, who later gained fame as a solo artist and songwriter, brought a distinctive vocal presence to the band. Not long after the band broke up, she was discovered by Michael Jackson, for who she later provided backing vocals and co-wrote ""Man In The Mirror"" with. The album was produced by Bobby Watson, René Moore and Angela Winbush. It features catchy tracks like ""Free and Easy"" and ""We’ve Got the Love,"" showcasing their polished production and soulful harmonies. Despite not achieving major commercial success, Plush has garnered a cult following for its authentic early Eighties sound. It's a significant work within the disco boogie genre, reflecting the transitional period of early Eighties music and is one of the rare and sought-after albums from that era. Plush is available on coloured vinyl for the first time as a limited edition of 500 copies on red coloured vinyl and includes an insert.

You could call Wishy's story a lucky one. After prior monikers and iterations, Wishy was born as a kaleidoscope of alternative music's semi-recent history, with traces of shoegaze, grunge and power-pop swirling together. On Triple Seven, Indiana songwriters Kevin Krauter and Nina Pitchkites' musical synergy proves itself to be a rare one-the kind that sounds like someone striking gold. Part sly wink and part warm gratitude, it's only fitting their much anticipated full length debut is titled Triple Seven, where Wishy's penchant for indelible hooks is couched equally in pillowy atmospherics and scathing distortion. By day Krauter works as a music teacher, giving drum and guitar lessons to students, while Pitchkites is a seamstress by trade and often makes embroidered merch for the band. Coming up in a scene defined by hardcore and emo, Krauter and Pitchkites instead found themselves writing melodies in their heads while driving to work, pulling music from the air and arriving at a blearier, more ethereal interpretation of Midwest expanse. Initially, their music oscillated between hazy dream-pop and heavier alt-rock. The subject of their songs create a loose web of vignettes and snapshots, capturing Krauter and Pitchkites in a whirlwind couple of years _ exiting the pandemic, embarking on an embryonic project, making sense of their musical pasts while forging a musical future alongside one another, each of them on a journey of self-acceptance and self-understanding. Sometimes gorgeous, sometimes festering, and always cathartic, Triple Seven is a vibrant and exhilarating document of self-discovery with the scope and heft of the bygone big-budget rock albums that inspired it.

From 2019 to 2023 Lindsay Reamer worked as a field scientist. With a guitar and a bag of books in tow, she would leave her home in Philadelphia for the postcard scenes of the American landscape to gather data on visitation in National Parks. She counted cars and RVs, surveyed visitors, and made a temporary home for a few weeks at a time wherever she landed. All the while, she collected her own observations like specimens and slowly weaved the songs that would form her debut full-length, `Natural Science.' Recorded throughout 2023 by Lucas Knapp, `Natural Science' paints with a full spectrum. Humor rubs elbows with heartbreak. Acoustic guitars brush up against synthesizers, cradling Reamer as she sings about the American Chestnut tree extinction, employee gossip at a Day's Inn, fishing beside a power plant, turf grass farms, and waking up next to day-old take-out. The indifferent beauty of nature is held up next to the everyday as Reamer does her very best to find clues for navigating the latter by musing upon both. Following the release of her self-produced EP `Lucky' (Dear Life Records) in 2021, Reamer assembled a band with musicians from Philadelphia's vibrant music community and began working her once solo-acoustic songs into full band arrangements. After a brief flirtation with dance music which led to 2022's viral single "Touch Tank," Reamer settled into a sound that lies somewhere in the folkrock-pop matrix, explored with the humor and lightness of songwriters like Sheryl Crow or Melanie. Reamer reflects: "When I heard the songs with the band, I knew it was time to make the record. It felt like something I had been working towards my whole life. I grew up around musicians but I never thought I was good enough to be in a band or even to make my own music. My grandmother Joan gave me voice lessons after school, my mom was an opera singer, and my dad a guitar player. But it wasn't until a few years ago that I realized I could do it. It didn't matter if I could shred on the guitar or something. It was like some illusion shattered." Reamer is a sincere storyteller. The self-doubt and heartbreak expressed in songs like "Spring Song," "Sugar," or "Red Flowers" give way to the triumphant moments of self-acceptance and love in "Lucky," "Necessary," and "Figs and Peaches." `Natural Science' chronicles a path to confidence, an honest reflection of someone with the capacity to hold a deep well of emotion who also makes sure to not take it all too seriously. "Gardens on the land / Castles on the beaches / I trust my hand and / Pluck my figs and peaches," Reamer sings, as she works to reconcile the strange difficulty we have at finding happiness despite the obvious beauty all around us.

Following a stunning introduction to the world with her 'Sometimes I Forget You're Human Too' EP release in early 2021, Bored At My Grandmas House (AKA Amber Strawbridge) is back with the compelling new single Detox.

It's a tale of navigating change with Amber explaining it’s about “feeling alienated, not knowing who you can and can’t trust, and figuring out how to be yourself whilst also discovering who you are”. “The lyrics represent exactly how I felt in that current moment, numb, confused to who I was and overwhelmed by all the changes I was starting to encounter”.

While Detox retains a lot of the indie and shoegaze elements prevalent in Amber's debut EP, it also shows growth and maturity in sound, with more contemplative lyrics asking questions of the listener. It's a stunning synth-laden track which broods and swells.

Lyrically, there is a deep introspection and a philosophical desire to question and understand human nature, culminating in the "I think we need to Detox" hook.

The track will be released on a limited edition 7" vinyl via Clue Records with a bottle green vinyl available from the artist and label and a toxic yellow version available at all good indie record shops. Following the first 2 pressings of Amber's debut EP selling out ahead of release date, these will be highly sought after.

The track was recorded by Amber at home in Cumbria before being sent to Alex Greaves (bdrmm, Working Mens Club) to add some elements and mix the track. Amber and Alex worked closely together on the final revisions.

The origins of 21 year-old Amber Strawbridge's bedroom shoegaze project Bored at My Grandma's House are perhaps unsurprising given the name. Facing an extended stay with relatives after a trip to Cambodia, Amber used the spare time to start making beats on her phone with Garageband. Fast forward to 2022, the home set up's more than evolved, she's released her debut EP 'Sometimes I Forget You're Human Too' to critical acclaim ,and now steps back into the light with new single Detox.

Repress

Songs ’94-’98 is a smart selection of material from The Cat’s Miaow, an Australian indie-pop group that gifted their decade with some of its finest songs. Released on World Of Echo, the album draws from the group’s string of excellent seven-inch singles, a small clutch of compilation contributions, and features one previously unreleased song, “I Take It That We’re Through”, recorded in 1998. Part of the burgeoning international pop underground of the nineties, The Cat’s Miaow’s legend has only built over subsequent decades, as more people discover this most quixotic and curious of groups: a recent appearance on A Colourful Storm’s compilation of Australian indie-pop, I Won’t Have To Think About You, is testament to their enduring influence. In part emulating the selection of tracks on the 1997 CD-only compilation, Songs For Girls To Sing, Songs ’94-’98 is also the group’s first ever full-length 12” vinyl collection. The Cat’s Miaow started out in 1992 as a home-recording duo, Bart Cummings (guitar, bass, vocals) and Andrew Withycombe (bass, guitar) taking time out from duties with Girl Of The World and The Ampersands (respectively), knocking out songs on Withycombe’s four-track. Soon joined by Kerrie Bolton (vocals) and Cam Smith (drums), the quartet spent the next five years quietly, slowly working away in the suburbs of Melbourne, recording gem after gem of independent pop. Like many of their Australian precursors or peers – The Particles, Even As We Speak, The Cannanes – The Cat’s Miaow were more successful overseas, a sadly typical phenomenon within the Australian musical landscape. The Cat’s Miaow were always worldly and stylish, anyway, each seven-inch single a refined artifact, each song a peaceable jewel. You could hear some relationships with other music – someone (if not everyone) in The Cat’s Miaow was a Galaxie 500 fan; there’s a minimalism to the playing and melodies that recalls Young Marble Giants, Marine Girls, Beat Happening – but the spirit in these songs is endearingly individualised, the result of a hermetic vision, an ideal of what a simple, unadorned pop song could be. They had a winning way with simplicity, songs like “Autumn”, “Crying” and “I Can’t Sleep Thinking You Hate Me” passing by in the blink of a moistened eye, and when they stretched out, as on “Firefly”, you can hear hints of the drifting ambience they’d perfect in their other band, Hydroplane. It’s not much of a surprise that The Cat’s Miaow found a receptive audience, and no small amount of support, from the networked communities of indie-pop labels and fanatics that developed in the nineties – they released records on imprints like Drive-In, Darla, Bus Stop and Quiddity, shared a flexi-disc with Stereolab, and appeared on countless compilations over the years. But they also understood the importance of the local: their first few cassettes reached the world’s mail routes via Wayne Davidson’s legendary Melbourne tape label, Toytown; they turned up on a split single with Davidson’s group, Stinky Fire Engine; they appeared on a tribute cassette for one of Australia’s finest, The Sugargliders, and indeed that’s Josh Meadows of said group playing wah guitar on “Stay”. The Cat’s Miaow also rarely played live – one launch gig, for the Munch video compilation, and a few parties – which is a great way to maintain mystique. Cosmopolitan yet homely, dedicated to their craft, The Cat’s Miaow always felt a little like a group moving in slow motion, using that pace and focus fully to embrace the art of the perfectly stated pop song – every element in place, no flash and no fuss, no excess, just the core of the thing. Few managed to tease such fierce poetry from such understated, elegant means. From Australia or anywhere.

You could call Wishy's story a lucky one. After prior monikers and iterations, Wishy was born as a kaleidoscope of alternative music's semi-recent history, with traces of shoegaze, grunge and power-pop swirling together. On Triple Seven, Indiana songwriters Kevin Krauter and Nina Pitchkites' musical synergy proves itself to be a rare one-the kind that sounds like someone striking gold. Part sly wink and part warm gratitude, it's only fitting their much anticipated full length debut is titled Triple Seven, where Wishy's penchant for indelible hooks is couched equally in pillowy atmospherics and scathing distortion. By day Krauter works as a music teacher, giving drum and guitar lessons to students, while Pitchkites is a seamstress by trade and often makes embroidered merch for the band. Coming up in a scene defined by hardcore and emo, Krauter and Pitchkites instead found themselves writing melodies in their heads while driving to work, pulling music from the air and arriving at a blearier, more ethereal interpretation of Midwest expanse. Initially, their music oscillated between hazy dream-pop and heavier alt-rock. The subject of their songs create a loose web of vignettes and snapshots, capturing Krauter and Pitchkites in a whirlwind couple of years _ exiting the pandemic, embarking on an embryonic project, making sense of their musical pasts while forging a musical future alongside one another, each of them on a journey of self-acceptance and self-understanding. Sometimes gorgeous, sometimes festering, and always cathartic, Triple Seven is a vibrant and exhilarating document of self-discovery with the scope and heft of the bygone big-budget rock albums that inspired it.

You could call Wishy's story a lucky one. After prior monikers and iterations, Wishy was born as a kaleidoscope of alternative music's semi-recent history, with traces of shoegaze, grunge and power-pop swirling together. On Triple Seven, Indiana songwriters Kevin Krauter and Nina Pitchkites' musical synergy proves itself to be a rare one-the kind that sounds like someone striking gold. Part sly wink and part warm gratitude, it's only fitting their much anticipated full length debut is titled Triple Seven, where Wishy's penchant for indelible hooks is couched equally in pillowy atmospherics and scathing distortion. By day Krauter works as a music teacher, giving drum and guitar lessons to students, while Pitchkites is a seamstress by trade and often makes embroidered merch for the band. Coming up in a scene defined by hardcore and emo, Krauter and Pitchkites instead found themselves writing melodies in their heads while driving to work, pulling music from the air and arriving at a blearier, more ethereal interpretation of Midwest expanse. Initially, their music oscillated between hazy dream-pop and heavier alt-rock. The subject of their songs create a loose web of vignettes and snapshots, capturing Krauter and Pitchkites in a whirlwind couple of years _ exiting the pandemic, embarking on an embryonic project, making sense of their musical pasts while forging a musical future alongside one another, each of them on a journey of self-acceptance and self-understanding. Sometimes gorgeous, sometimes festering, and always cathartic, Triple Seven is a vibrant and exhilarating document of self-discovery with the scope and heft of the bygone big-budget rock albums that inspired it.

Simple Reality cements the short lived legacy of Coventry DIY group Skeet.

Emerging from a scene of first-generation punks and 2 Tone kids, Skeet was instigated by Gary and Nigel Meffen in 1981, fusing tightrope instrumentals with a Roland CR-8000 under the glow of projected visuals. After a cassette of their debut performance found its way to Kay Booth who worked at Inferno Records, the unsuspecting frontwoman took the liberty of adding her own vocals. Instantly embraced as a permanent member, Booth’s shy delivery and open-diary expressions of social alienation and romantic rejection hovered over the brothers’ scratchy guitar and agitated bass.

Playing as few as 10 shows, their unnerving minimalism was recorded in a suburban home studio, borrowing a reel-to-reel from Toby Lyons (The Colourfield) and a mixer from Jerry Dammers (The Specials). Record labels gestured interest until one day they were no more - no arguments, no official split, just a silent parting of the ways and three people taking journeys in different directions. Unheard and unloved in the vaults for nearly four decades, 'Brief Call' finally resurfaced via the Coventry Music Museum compendium Alternative Sounds Volume 1, followed by a micro pressing of the full suite on Chris Long’s Almost Unknown imprint in 2023.

Simple Reality now offers a definitive snapshot of these must-hear neurotic post-punks. Mastered by Skeet fanatic Mikey Young, newly discovered instrumental multitracks are restored alongside a live recording of their final stand. Performed atop of a trailer in a pub beer garden, the release-worthy desk tape adds three new tracks and a more energised swing at ‘Left On the Shelf’s apathetic techno-pop.

RIYL: Fire Engines, 23 Skidoo, A Certain Ratio, Young Marble Giants, pel mel

Following a string of releases on a who’s who of top labels such as Planet Euphorique, Salt Mines, Haws and Craigie Knowes, prog-trance pioneer Lisene drops a full-length LP on his On Rotation imprint. With 8 hyper-detailed tracks ranging from club-focused techno, progressive and electro to slo-mo downtempo, Lisene brings his A-game to an album sure to cement his place as one of the most exciting producers and DJs in the UK’s underground music scene.

Created over several years with a perfectionist’s attention to detail, “Science Friction” flits between moods and sonic environments with ease while retaining the cohesion of Lisene’s inimitable production style. Despite being an album, this is still very much a record for the DJs, featuring heads-down club tracks and bass-heavy electro crafted with precision and a cinematic sense of scale. For the home listeners, expansive slo-mo soundscapes and cerebral synth odysseys float high above the clouds, with widescreen details revealing themselves ever further with each re-play.

“This album has been 15 years in the making and represents a culmination of everything I’ve worked towards in defining my own sound and style without letting myself be pigeonholed. I’m immensely proud of each track - it really reflects where I was at musically while making this, while giving a glimpse into my future sound. This is a record that deserves to be played on the finest sound systems and hi-fis, and I couldn’t be more happy with how it’s turned out. Dive in and enjoy!”

Combining influences from across the spectrum of dance music with a cinematic sense of psychedelia and his own inimitable production skills, “Science Friction” is sure to see a lot of airtime across the festivals, after-parties and living rooms of the world this summer and beyond.

On Rotation is a Leeds based label, event & mix series run by Chris I’Anson, Lisene & Adam Pits. Artwork illustrated and designed by Patch D Keyes.

During autumn 2018, after moving to Germany, Aron Ottignon met Senegalese musician and percussionist Bakane Seck, founder and leader of the Jeri JeriBand, in his Berlin studio. This first meeting gave rise to a special connection between their instruments and the start of a musical adventurethat transcends borders, an instrumental conversation of profound simplicity nourished by the richness of jazz, electronic music and Wolof tradition. The brainchild of composer and producer Aron Ottignon and percussionist Sabar Bakane Seck, Aron & The Jeri Jeri Band (A&TJJB) was born at the crossroads between Berlin and Dakar and oscillates between the frenetic rhythm of mbalax, the strength of afrobeat, the warmth of afro funk and the eï¬Çervescence of jazz. Born in New Zealand, the pianist released a series of critically acclaimed jazz albums in the 2000s. As a composer, Aron Ottignonhas collaborated with Stromae, toured the world with Woodkid and worked with a host of artists including Electric Wire Hustle, Louane,Broken Back, Empire Of the Sun and Myele Manzanza. Senegalese musician and griot Bakane Seck"s mastery of the Sabar - "percussion instrument" in Wolof - has taken him all over the world alongsideAfrican music icons such asYoussou N"Dour and Baaba Maal.

Pirates Press Records is proud to re-release Close My Eyes, the 2002 album by NYC ska-reggae legends The Slackers - a complex and nuanced album that shows the band's versatility and capacity for both commentary and introspection. It is often said - to the point of cliche - that New York City is a "character" in the work of the city's most noted filmmakers. A similar statement could be made about the artistic symbiosis between the city and The Slackers. From the Bronx-born accent of lead vocalist Vic Ruggiero to the band's embrace of cosmopolitan musical traditions from a melting pot of cultural origins, New York defines The Slackers at least as much as the band have contributed to defining the sound of New York for well over 30 years.Therefore, it bears mentioning that - aside from a 2002 collaborative album by "The Slackersand Friends" - Close My Eyesis the band's first proper studio LP released after the traumatic terrorist attacks on their home city in 2001, and the band took enough time to reckon with the global fallout of this tragedy. "So feel free go steal and rob, revolution ain't my job," sings Ruggiero on the title track. "And if I sing your happy song, please don't tell me I am wrong." It is the statement of an artist searching for a way to still sing about joy and life in uncertain times of great upheaval. And ultimately the band must reckon with these times. On "Real War," toaster Marq Lyn takes lead vocals as the band addresses the march to war that was omnipresent in those early days of the 21st century, stating in no uncertain terms that it was "Time to fight the real war_ Against hunger and poverty_ For racial equality." The Slackers make it clear that while the machinations of hawkish politicians grind on, the real needs of people all over the world are left behind. This tension between a dangerous world and the struggles of one's personal life are present throughout the record, and the band weaves stories from the whole spectrum of human emotion, war, heartbreak, joy, and everything in between. Bookended by instrumental tracks, opening with the energetic "Shankbon" and ending with moody dub reggae, these veteran virtuoso players ultimately take listeners on a masterful journey through the human experience.

Kannon is an album which was composed in the aftershadow of SUNN O)))’s most recent successes in immersive collaboration (the group worked with Scott Walker on Soused, Ulver on Terrestrials in 2013 and 2014) and also from the broad and influential wake of their epitimous Monolith’s & Dimensions . Kannon emerged both independently as a conceptual entity and with roots in the legacies of those projects, yet was fully realised years later, in 2015. The album is 36 minutes in length and consists of three pieces of a triadic whole : Kannon 1, 2 and 3.

The album celebrates many SUNN O))) traditions ; Kannon was recorded and mixed with SUNN O)))’s close colleague and coproducer Randall Dunn in Seattle, in Studio Litho, Aleph and Avast! ; and the LP includes performances by long term allies and collaborators Attila Csihar, Oren Ambarchi, Rex Ritter, Steve Moore and others. And at the core the composition centers around the dynamic and intense guitar and bass interplay of SUNN O)))’s founders : Stephen O’Malley & Greg Anderson.

It’s possibly the most figurative album SUNN O))) has created, which is unusual as they usually dwell in layers of abstraction and subjectivity. On the other hand the album is the most outright “metal” in years, drawing personal associations and memories of cherished albums like Panzerfaust and Twilight of the Gods again to the forefront of consciousness. At the third time it is very close to the cyclical character of mantra which the band has evolved into as a living creature, the enormity of intense sensate detail and manifestation of the live in concert face of SUNN O))), the organism that has flourished, metamorphosed and transcended tremendously over the past ten years.

The literal representation of Kannon is as an aspect of Buddha : specifically “goddess of mercy” or “Perceiving the Sounds (or Cries) of the World”. She is also sometimes commonly known as the Guanyin Bodhisattva (Chinese: 觀音菩薩) amongst a plurality of other forms. There is a rich lineage behind this idea tracing back through many asian belief systems, with as many names and cultural personifications of the idea .

SUNN O))) commissioned critical theorist Aliza Shvartz to write a text / liner notes around these ideas and topics. She also explores the relations and perceptions to their approach to these ideas via the metonym of music and SUNN O)))’s place/approach within the framework of music and metal overall.

SUNN O))) also commissioned Swiss designer/artist Angela LaFont Bollinger to create the cover artwork, an abstracted sculpture of vision of Kannon, and the French photographer Estelle Hanania to capture portraits of the core trio (Csihar, Anderson, O’Malley) in the impressive and obscurant Emanuel Vingeland mausoleum in Oslo.

The LP is packaged in immaculate tip on gatefold sleeve by our long time comrades Stoughton Printing, and pressed at Cascade in Portland, Oregon. CD, download and coloured vinyl versions are also available

Tokyo female group Gallhammer was formed in February 2003 by Vivian Slaughter (bass/vocals), following her passion for the primitive work of Swiss legends Hellhammer & other metal, punk & crust acts. The band's debut studio album, 'Gloomy Lights' swiftly followed the year after, leading to a deal with Peaceville Records for the release of the 'Ill Innocence' (2007) & 'The End' albums, before the band folded.

Having become somewhat of an underground sensation in the years prior, the aptly-titled 2011 release, 'The End', was to become the farewell opus for Gallhammer. The album was recorded at Void)))Lab in Tokyo in mid-October 2010 & evolved further from the foundations of 'Ill Innocence', with an album of disturbing & dark drone music with a hypnotic bass & drum combination mixed with the band's raw black metal & punk origins. To further enhance the Gallhammer sound circa 2011, there was also the introduction of saxophone performed by Vivian, who at the time described the overall album direction as "strange & psychedelic experimental sounds of doom".

This edition of 'The End' is presented on black vinyl & appears on the format for the very first time.

After the success of her breakout EP, 'Water-Based Lullabies', a playful, Zodiac-inspired odyssey through life and love, Mancunian fan favourite Abbie Ozard is back with a bang. The last release hinted at an evolution in sound, and in the soon-to-drop album 'Everything Still Worries Me', we see all that potential realised as Ozard's musical and personal growth is laid bare.

Growing pains and the overwhelm of those first steps into adulthood of stand out as overarching themes in this more serious, introspective body of work, in which Ozard explores beyond her bedroom-pop origins and lays bare the vulnerabilities that will resonate with so many young women becoming adults in a complex, confusing and ever-changing world. Even without the transcendent vocals that could belong to no one else, Ozard is present in every second of this album - from musical performances from close friends to samples of old family videos, she is enshrined in this spellbinding debut that could not be more authentic to its creator.

Since its founding back in 2014, Blume has carved a unique place in cultural landscape, issuing free-standing works, spanning the historical and contemporary, that represent singular gestures of creativity within the field of experimental sound. Joining their broad efforts in building networks of context and understanding that already includes the works by Werner Durand, Sarah Hennies, Bruce Nauman, John Butcher, Jocy de Oliveira, Mary Jane Leach, Valentina Magaletti, Alvin Curran, Julius Eastman, Alvin Lucier, and shortly after returning with the first ever vinyl release to attend to James Tenney’s legendary “Postal Pieces”, the label is now offering a brand new, ambitious work by the American composer Ben Vida, entitled “Vocal Trio”, conceived, performed, and recorded in Bremen, Germany, during the Spring of 2022. A truly stunning work of compositional conceptualism, combining the ideas of systems based synthesis with real-time vocal collaboration - issued in a highly limited vinyl edition of 200 copies mastered by Stephan Mathieu, featuring specially commissioned liner notes by Bradford Bailey and a leporello insert offering the piece visual score - it’s a landmark in contemporary experimental practice and arguably the most forward-thinking and exciting piece by one of the most exciting American artists working today.

Ben Vida first emerged during the mid 1990s within a loose constellation of experimental musicians, centred around a performance series of improvised workshops at the Myopic Bookstore in Chicago, alongside Jim O'Rourke, Kevin Drumm, Chad Taylor, and the other future members of Town and Country - Jim Dorling, Joshua Abrams, and Liz Payne - the band within which he would gain widespread recognition over the following years. Like many other members of that scene, Vida remains a restless product of a fleeting context - Chicago during the 1990s and early 2000s - continuously undermining concrete notions of idiom and signifier within a practice that witnessed him rendering bristling abstractions within Pillow, glacial melodies with Town and Country, the art-rock mayhem of Bird Show Band, and the angular, driving indie rock of Joan of Arc, before becoming immersed in a practice of systems based synthesis, beginning in the 2010s, that guided much of his first decade of output as a solo performer and composer.

As early as 2013, he began to incorporate acoustic sound sources - specifically the human voice - into his work. It was this shift, evolving and refining itself over the last decade, that underscores radically the leap in his practice represented by “Vocal Trio”, a work that encounters Vida composing for the human voice with the ideas that allow for synthesis - transferring the underlying concepts and structures of both subtractive and additive synthesis to the acoustic realm - without using a synthesiser.

During the Spring of 2022 Vida was in Bremen, Germany, collaborating on a dance piece with the choreographer Fay Driscoll, when the production fell into delays. Finding himself with time on his hands, a space at his disposal, and the company of two dancers - Amy Gernux and Lotte Rudhart - who were also singers, the idea for the piece - to utilising the larynx as audio paths (multi-harmonic or harmonically pure) while conceptualising each person’s mouth as a filter to sculpt the timbre and resonance of a given tone - began to take shape in his mind. Considering how typographical scores might be developed into a non-linguistic social framework, Vida drafted a single page of text - what became the score for “Vocal Trio” - accompanied by a set of harmonic suggestion and loose parameters, seeking a core meaning from each word's phonic make-up by each of the three singers (Vida, Gernux and Rudhart) singing as slowly as possible.

At the core of the pulsing vocal drones - intoxicating, harmonically rich long-tones - that make up the duration abstraction of “Vocal Trio”, is Vida’s regard for music as a social space. It is an experiment that seeks liberation through the act of collective music making, by challenging the terms through which the act of composing is perceived and then relinquishing control. The piece’s rehearsals were simply the three performers hanging out, allowing their knowing each other and natural dynamics to contribute to its form as the score, before recording during a single afternoon at the end of a number of days sharing company and space.

Creatively visionary and groundbreaking on numerous terms, as well as being intoxicatingly beautiful and remarkably listenable, Ben Vida’s “Vocal Trio” represents a striking step forward for one of the most ambitious and outstanding sonic artists working in the United States today. Issued by Blume in a highly limited vinyl edition of 200 copies mastered by Stephan Mathieu, featuring specially commissioned liner notes by Bradford Bailey and a leporello insert offering the piece visual score, this is hands down one of the most important contemporary records we’re likely to encounter in 2024.

-3rd album from veteran rap duo Dillon & Batsauce. Dillon on the raps & scratches, Batsauce on the beats. ('On Their Way' - 2018, 'Self Medicated' - 2020).
-Produced entirely by Batsauce, guest features include Grand Puba, Kool Keith, Quelle Chris, Reef the Lost Cauze, Headkrack and Jay Myztroh of Stono Echo.
-Atlanta, GA + Jacksonville, FL album release parties booked for end of July + Northeast Tour Run scheduled for August.
-Batsauce has been producing hip hop and soul for 20+ years with multiple albums on labels BBE (Barely Breaking Even) producing for his wife, soul-singer, Lady Daisey + Galapagos4 where he produced multiple projects for Qwazaar of Typical Cats. He is 1/3 of the group, 'The Smile Rays' (which includes Lady Daisey and Paten Locke). He's also done extensive work with Akrobatik, Mr. Lif and even has multiple songs with George Clinton!
-Dillon is an Atlanta, GA based MC/DJ who has been releasing records for 20 years, 10 of those years was running FULL PLATE, the label he started in 2013 with Paten Locke (RIP). Dillon has worked with many of Hip-Hop's elite from the old school to the true school such as Chuck D, Diamond D, Count Bass D, Kool Keith, Greg Nice, Grand Puba, Homeboy Sandman, J-Live, Quelle Chris, Sadat X, Ras Kass, Stacy Epps, Planet Asia, eLZhi, Slimkid3 of The Pharcyde - and the list goes on!
-Classic black, standard weight vinyl in full-color jacket w/ matte finish. Includes Download Card.
Underground hip-hop veterans, Dillon and Batsauce have been making unorthodox rap music together for nearly 20 years with a simple formula: Batsauce makes the beats, Dillon writes the songs, and whatever happens, happens. After carving out their own lane with a catalog of EPs and LPs over the past 2 decades, the duo has finally slowed down enough to ask themselves, 'What Have We Done'?
Is the title of their latest effort rhetorical or meant to be an actual question? If so, Dillon and Batsauce probably don't want to know the answer. They probably don't want you, the listener, to think too much about it either. Instead, 'What Have We Done' is an invitation to experience the trials and tribulations, the small wins and the big losses of being aging independent artists in an increasingly cut-throat world for music makers.
But Dillon & Batsauce aren't the only ones on this joyride, we also hear from a well-curated crew of characters they've befriended along the way, from bonafide legends like Grand Puba and Kool Keith to modern day rap heroes, Quelle Chris & Reef the Lost Cauze. The end result is a collection of songs that runs the gamut from personal to aspirational to...delusional. Whether it's 'too much' or 'not enough', the answer to the question, 'What Have We Done' remains open to interpretation. Perhaps it’s not a question at all, but merely the naturally visceral reaction when career creators look back at a life lived on the edge.
Track Listing: 1. What Have We Done (Intro) 2. Mind Made 3. Quiet as a Library 4. Eddie Farah 5. Make History 6. Cannonball feat. Grand Puba 7. Banana Peels 8. Accolades feat. Reef the Lost Cauze & Jay Myztroh 9. Wakin' up Hungry feat. Headkrack 10. Goin' Viral 11. Ready on the Left feat. Kool Keith 12. What Are We Doing (Interlude) 13. Watercolors feat. Quelle Chris 14. Speak Easy 15. Isiah Thomas 16. Rock Bottom 17. Yoga Flame

Reheat returns with a second instalment, featuring two close friends from the North of the UK; one name known to many on the scene as DMC, the other a name on the rise under Luke XL. A duo that prides their sound on stepping out from the crowd, and not to conform to normality. Infectious creativity and tireless hours spent within the studio has crafted a style truly labeled as their own.

High riding synth work, stand out percussion and low driving basslines for pre, peak and afters; its infectious, journey telling music for all hours.

Originally part of an exhibition curated by Elysia Borowy last September, Scott Grooves' contribution to After The Dance transcends the dancefloor, exploring experimental expressionism in visual arts and electronic music. Critiquing capitalist culture and drawing from afrofuturism, his work prompts reflection on consumerism and futuristic themes. The CD release features deep ambient pieces that caccaompnied six thought-provoking installations: Sweet Dreams Anakin, Foot Work, Vinyl, For All-Dee People, Yellow Sun Bricks, and Found Sound. It shows another side to the deep house don's work and is just as essential.

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

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

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

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

From listening to pirate radio recordings, putting on illegal parties and working for one of the UK’s original rave promoters, Greg Hepworth, aka Settle Down, has always had roots in the foundations of UK dance music.

Settle Down’s 30 year journey began when the sounds of Fantazia drifted into his childhood bedroom at the age of 10. After wearing out cassettes of pirate radio recordings and immersing himself in a growing culture, what followed was putting on illegal raves across the South Coast and packing tapes for Dreamscape, before crossing over to Creator and releasing for Metalheadz and Reinforced as 'Ulterior Motive' and reinventing himself as 'Settle Down'.

From fan to facilitator to maker. Voyage is a documentation of Settle Down's 30 year journey through UK breakbeat culture. Presented as a recording of a 90’s rave cassette mix, it chronicles the journey through house, breakbeat, hardcore and jungle and the influences that make up these genres, a love letter to the past and an ode to the vibe.

Voyage will be released on a limited edition mixtape cassette, 12” vinyl and digitally mixed and unmixed single tracks alongside some limited edition merchandise.

Fera’s trajectory sticks out like a sore thumb, you need to invest time, carefully divided between body & mind, to truly take a deep dive into his audacious output. After the acclaimed ‘Stupidamutaforma’ and ‘Corpo Senza Carne’, Fera is back with ‘Psiche Liberata’, an oblique, imperfect and broken record, in other words, exactly the type of magical voyage you want to be on. The mind, finally liberated.

Fera is Andrea De Franco, electronic composer from Southern Italy now residing in Bologna, also known for his work as visual artist/designer and member of the Undicesimacasa collective. His musical cosmos is profound and imaginative, intergalactic atmospheres that condense fragmented IDM, scintillating textures, distorted synthscapes, crunchy technoid rhythms and swirling abstractions that weave gently, sometimes moody and stark, more often celestial and awe-inspiring.

Mixed in Berlin by Steve Scanu ‘Psiche Liberata’ encapsulates Fera’s dense and intricate thought process in contrast with his simple and direct approach to writing and recording that finds its more natural output in his rapturous live sets where a mono signal runs through a few analog pedals transforming instantly into menacing alien grooves and fluid ecstasis.

Like ‘Psiche Liberata’s artwork, hand-drawn by Fera, every detailed miniature leads to a single cell of sound, tracks collide against each other in a psychotic kaleidoscope where every safe space is confronted with subsequent noise, alterations or interruptions. The black terror of ‘Celestial Anacusma’ is followed by the space-jazz banquet of ‘Milk Tears In The Hug Chamber’ doped up cyber Sun Ra extravaganza featuring Laura Agnusdei and Luigi Monteanni (Artetetra) on saxophones and flutes; ‘Silenzio Solare’ sprinkles Mille Plateaux era minimalism all over hallucinations, while ‘Diluvia’ crosses industrial acid with perpetual motion; title track ‘Psiche Liberata’ murmurs mechanically, a downtempo drifter for the wide-eyed 7AM comedown: ‘Simulacrima’ melts Boards Of Canada’s mellow pastoralism with dystopian meta-level dreamland and ‘Riposa’ showcases an overwhelming melancholy executed with elegance in a slo-mo world where the ineffable transcends notions of ambient and becomes a warm embrace.

Created on a Monotribe, MS20 & Volca Sample/fm, ‘Psiche Liberata’s velvet heaviness was achieved by re-amping many of the instruments through a Leslie Rotary Speaker and a reel-to-reel Telefunken. Fera’s sonic tapestry is in constant flux, underlying themes of love longing and affection run through the record but in a turbulent, volcanic, unleashed fashion, almost on the brink of utter noise or complete silence, reminding us that this is an artist like no other amidst the ever changing electronic scene. These are transmissions from the gutter, where the inevitable meets the unattainable and collapses.

"Fera’s tarnished materials are destined for ruin; “Stupida,” full of longing and regret, sounds like an elegy for a fallen world." Pitchfork

"A cut of dark magic that fits like a glove to overcast days, wild winds and lashing rains. Insistent, the treacle-thick bassline oozes out, soaking the space between the melancholic synth lines." Inverted Audio

"The songs on Stupidamutaforma feel hypnotizing...it establishes De Franco as a composer who uses space and time to create a set of rich, immersive works." Bandcamp 'Album Of The Day'

When we were offered the most welcome opportunity of choosing another “virgin” (as in never released on vinyl before) volume from the Dick’s Picks catalog, we did our Dead diligence, combing through the many chat rooms online to see which one the fans really wanted to see come out on LP. It will come as no surprise that opinions were varied and vehement…but a consensus emerged that Dick’s Picks Vol. 12—Providence Civic Center 6/26/74 & Boston Garden 6/28/74 was the one. Which is interesting, because that Pick is a little different, combining the second sets of two different nights instead of offering a single show. But it’s the exception that proves the rule—the playing is so extraordinary, and the repertoire so unusual, that one can understand why Dick Latvala played more curator than archivist here. Side A picks up the second set from Providence three songs in, featuring a short jam that leads into what many have labeled the most extraordinary live version of “China Cat Sunflower” ever recorded, complete with a sublime transition (“Mud Love Buddy Jam” a.k.a. “Mind Left Body Jam”) into “I Know You Rider.” The revelatory moments continue throughout the Providence set, highlighted by a dazzling, 15-minute “Spanish Jam.” But the second set of the Boston show—which appears here complete, after a superb encore performance of “Eyes of the World” from Providence—is the one that has passed into legend among Dead fans (a performance of Phil Lesh and Ned Lagin’s electronic music piece “Seastones” provides an appropriately adventurous interlude). The set boasts one of the most renowned live jams of the band’s career, a flawless, 14-minute “Weather Report Suite: Prelude/Pt. 1/Pt. 2-Let It Grow” leading into a 27-minute “Jam” that is simply one of the most far- ranging, telepathic improvisations ever played by, well, anybody. That this set also includes a separation of the “Sunshine Daydream” section from “Sugar Magnolia” for only the second time ever is just gravy. This is, of course, a “Wall of Sound” concert, so we’re working with something of a special audio source to begin with. So, we enlisted Jeffrey Norman to master the release for vinyl from the original tapes (pictured on the enclosed insert), and enlisted Clint Holley and Dave Polster over at Well Made Music to cut the lacquers. Gotta Groove Records, our manufacturer of choice, has pressed the 6 LPs on to 180-gram black vinyl housed inside a two-piece hardshell box, and we have a little stencil surprise for ya on Side L. Limited edition of 3000 hand- numbered copies!

To experience Justin R. Cruz Gallego's pulverizing Sub Pop debut is to get burned down to ashes and burst forth, born anew. Grim Iconic...(Sadistic Mantra), the Tacoma-based artist's second album, is driven by opposing forces: noisy abstractions and tightly structured beats, anguish and dissolution at the outside world and empowerment within, apathy and catharsis. Grim Iconic...(Sadistic Mantra) weds scouring electronics to hooky songs and Gallego's powerful drumming in a way that feels visceral and new. It's his most personal statement to date, at once playful and intent, driven and combustible, total fucking chaos mixed into glints of broken-glass beauty. Born in Tucson, Arizona, Gallego experienced culture shock as a child after relocating to the frigid climes of the Pacific Northwest. He found solace in the Seattle punk scene centered around Iron Lung Records and has since remained a fixture in the underground community. "I see this record as first and foremost a musical statement," Gallego says. "I grew up in punk and DIY subcultures, but before that I had Latin music playing in the background through my childhood and every phase of adolescence. It was surprisingly natural to incorporate. I realized I wanted to go deeper into these rhythms. I wanted to make a record that felt as experimental as much as it felt from the perspective of a Latino. When I got a glimmer of that possibility, it felt exciting." Lead single "Dogear" is a face-melting party starter that sounds like someone forced Talking Heads and Rudimentary Peni to share a practice space. "I wanted a song that felt playful in the way it attempted to be dissonant without taking itself too seriously," Gallego says. "Cholla Beat" is even more ambitious, an anthemic mix of WAR and Wire led by unruly synthesizers spiraling down a labyrinth of production. Gallego's influences for the album are vast, ranging from British documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis to electric Miles Davis to audio miscreants like Demdike Stare and Oneohtrix Point Never. But it's Gallego's assured sonic vision that resounds the loudest. And, while J.R.C.G. is a solo project, conceived and executed primarily in Gallego's home studio, he found strength in opening the project to others, starting with Seth Manchester as co-producer. Manchester's penchant for bone-rattling frequencies, as seen in his production work with The Body, Battles, and Mdou Moctar, made him a natural fit for Gallego. Together, they retained the intimacy of Gallego's home recordings while taking advantage of the hi-fi stylings of his Machines With Magnets Studio in Rhode Island. The closing song, "World i," offers a glimpse into the live experience of Grim Iconic...(Sadistic Mantra), with upwards of seven band members blasting off. The album features a fascinating mix of supporting players, many of whom cycle through J.R.C.G.'s live lineup: Morgan Henderson (The Blood Brothers, Fleet Foxes), Jason Clackley (Dreamdecay, The Exquisites), Jon Scheid (Dreamdecay, U Sco), Erica Miller (Casual Hex, Big Bite), Veronica Dye (Terminator) Phil Cleary (U Sco), and Alex Gaziano (Dreamdecay, Kidcrash, Science Amplification). Taken as a whole, G.I.S.M. is a whirlwind of sound, pummeling, and cleansing. It's a sweaty, thrilling aural adventure and, like a great basement show, it'll leave you breathless, exhausted, and wanting to repeat it all over again. As any good mantra should.

New Orleans Voodoo Psych Fuzz Boogie Blues aus einer finnischen Irrenanstalt in Helsinki, drei Jungs flogen über das Kuckucksnest und machten dieses erstaunlich schräge Album... früher spielten sie in Black Magic Six und Cosmo Jones Beat Machine, für Fans von Captain Beefheart und Chuck E. Weiss oder Dr. John GOBLIN SHARK ist ein Hybrid aus einem finnischen Irrenhaus, einer transsexuellen Göttin und einer verkommenen, dunklen After-Hour-Blues-Rock'n'Roll-Fuzz-Psych-Voodoo-bar in New Orleans. Sie alle treffen sich in Helsinki, Finnland, um ihre Musik zu machen, Taskinen spielt in Bands wie Black Magic Six, Heavy Breathers oder Disgrace, der zweite, noch verrücktere Gitarrist und Meister selbstgebauter Mini-Gefängnisgitarren Pharaoh Pirttikangas veröffentlichte zahlreiche Soloalben und war mit Cosmo Jones Beat Machine unterwegs, Nubialaiset und Astro Can Caravan unterwegs, dann kommt Neuvonen, er ist ein Black-Metal-Schlagzeuger aus Tempere, Jeder liebt den Blues und die verwirrende Seite des Lebens aus finnischer Sicht, wenn Sie wissen, was ich meine. Kann man ihre Musik in Richtung Captain Beefheart und Chuck E. Weiss mit der rohen Kraft der Stooges oder Dr. John einordnen. Ich weiß es nicht. Aber ich habe sie 2023 auf meiner Tour in Helsinki getroffen und war von ihrer Performance, ihrer Musik und dem anschließenden Bier in einem Helsinkier Bierclub so begeistert, dass wir beschlossen, GOBLIN SHARK auf Voodoo Rhythm zu veröffentlichen. Taskinen hatte bereits einen Trip in die Schweiz von Black Magic Six gemacht und Robert Butler (der von den Miracle Workers) getroffen und sind seitdem befreundet, so dass es Sinn machte, dass Robert 'Mr. Butler' das Artwork des Covers für die Band entwarf und es wurde so, wie es sein musste... ein komplette Hirnschmelze , und so sind auch die 10 Songs, die dich wegblasen werden wie nichts anderes - dies ist verwirrter dreckiger Blues Rock'n'Roll der außerirdischten dritten Art. Tiefschwarzes Vinyl, bedruckte Innenhülle, gratis Download Code oder Digisleeve-CD mit Booklet.

Special exclusive 7" from Il Sogno Del Marinaio, the avant-rock trio formed by legendary bassist Mike Watt (Minutemen, Firehose, Stooges), cult Italian experimentalist Stefano Pilia (Massimo Volume, In Zaire, Afterhours, Rokia Traore) and drummer Paolo Mongardi (Zeus, Fuzz Orchestra, Fulkanelli). Directly from fratello Mike Watt's words: "the "wing and a prayer" seven inch on _improved sequence_ was a product of the covid19 sitch around xmas of 2020. it was put together remotely, w/me here in san pedro, california, usa while from Italy stefano pilia (in bologna) and paolo mongardi (in imola) brought what they had from italy ... yes, the internet can be used for more than spreading hate and lies - it can also be used to collaborate in the spirit of artistic expression! cazzo, imagine that? il sogno del marinaio had finished work w/their "terzo" album and I thought a good way to rally the band would be to focus on a smaller release that reflected the current sitch we were in - see, the basic tracks of "terzo" were recorded in eleven months earlier here in my pedro town at _casa hanzo_ (stefano pilia and paolo mongardi traveling here by plane) so we had no idea what was ahead of us concerning the challenges of that fucking virus sitch. now the "terzo" album was not finished w/those basic tracks getting recorded, we had spiel (vocals) to add plus other stuff and of course it had to be mixed (tim in wales did a great job w/this - much respect to him!) so those experiences of those early covid19 times got "superimposed" on the music that was created right before it was on us, very trippy. that was a big reason I brought the three tunes of this "wing and a prayer" seven inch to stefano pilia and paolo mongardi - all they had was my bass but I believed they could "take the ball and run w/it" cuz that's how powerful I believe music to be: it can be able to overcome 'pert-near any hell trying to stomp it down. stefano pilia chose "wing and a prayer" to mix, paolo mongardi chose "tantrum" and I got what was left: "hail mary pass" - oh, I got my buddies stephen perkins to help w/percussion and petra haden to help w/singing, violin and mandolin. so one reality reality is w/these three tunes is that no one is actually playing w/each other in real time on this little record! it's all done by trading files via the internet...the starting for all three tunes being was my bass - ain't that a trip? shows how bass can be that springboard or launch pad I've always known it could be when not aiding and abetting a tune after the fact – both these "roles" for bass have been very interesting to me, going back to my early days as a minutemen and writing tunes for d boon and George hurley and by also bringing bass to their stuff

Comes with insert and download coupon.

Imagine a Latin remake of Back to the Future. The mad scientist is Arsenio Rodriguez (the godfather of salsa) and the young student who travels through time with him is Eblis Alvarez (Meridian Brothers). This album can only be described as the perfect soundtrack for that movie that never was.

After the massive buzz generated by his first solo album, Mentallogenic, Alex Figueira got back in the studio to work in a more collective fashion this time, carefully assembling the second album of his largest project to date, Conjunto Papa Upa; a team of 6 musicians, spanning 3 generations of some of the best talent in the Latin and avant-garde scenes.

In an era where tropical music is dominated by purely electronic and rhythmically uniform sounds, the ten songs encompassed in “Fruta Madura” (“Ripe Fruit”) wander through the most diverse tempos, rhythms, and motifs effortlessly. A real breath of fresh air that gracefully incorporates soul, funk, jazz, psychedelia, and electronics into a solid tropical, irresistibly polyrhythmic foundation, without ever succumbing to the many genre clichés.

The distinctive production and catchy songwriting of Figueira shine in a very distinctive light on this second full-length. Living up to his reputation (Miles Cleret, founder of Soundway Records, called him “one of the scene's truly authentic and eccentric producers”), he takes the opportunity to show he’s not afraid to keep walking his own path.

Taking the band for a wild ride through the traditions of Africa, America, and the Caribbean; contrasting them with a ridiculously wide plethora of vintage, contemporary, and futuristic sounds, and pivoting on the exuberant musicality displayed by his musicians; the result leaves no doubt: this album is destined to be considered a future classic of the exciting tropical psychedelic music of the 21st century.

Addressing the most diverse themes in this new collection of songs, things take on a much more mature tone, as the title clearly suggests.

The opening track “El segundo es más sabroso” (“The second one is tastier”) sets the tone in the most assertive way imaginable, with the band boldly declaring, through multiple metaphorical references (laid upon a crazy mix of Dominican merengue, Detroit techno, classic and free jazz, dub, and electro), that the bar will be set higher with this second album.

The remaining compositions touch upon the most diverse subjects, with a fair dose of humor, sarcasm, and postmodern “magic realism”. “El Algoritmo” (The Algorithm) is a parranda-cumbia hybrid (for lack of a specific term) about the omnipresence of technology in our lives. The sophisticated Latin soul of the titling track “Fruta Madura” makes a case for the beauty of the maturity process. Some key philosophical teachings of Marcus Aurelius (the role of causality, the impositions of “the logos” and the importance of self-control) get a twisted cumbia treatment on “Reos del Deseo” (Prisoners of Desire). “No le pongas Coca-Cola” (“Don’t put Coca Cola in it”) shows us the most satirical side of the band, accusing those who mix Coca Cola with Rum of committing "sacrilege", on a powerful base of Dem Bow (the grandfather of Reggaeton), intertwined with touches of soul, salsa, and Cuban comparsa.

"Háblame Claro" (“Talk to me clearly”) is a story of heartbreak that evokes in its first part the spirit of the erotic salsa of the 80s (a subgenre deeply despised by purists), and after an unexpected samba interlude, leads to the hardest salsa of the 70s (a subgenre adored by purists), to end up in the surprising form of pure Afro-Cuban ceremonial music.

“Tu mamá tenía razón” ("Your Mom Was Right") is an attempt to exalt the spirit of the Latin American soap opera in the key of “acid bachata”, to recount a real-life case, witnessed by the band on countless occasions: the partying woman who arrives at the show accompanied by her bitter husband, who obviously does not like to dance. A very cheeky song to talk about the very serious and pertinent topic of female empowerment.

“La misma vaina” (“The same thing”) with its indescribable blend of bantú, candomblé, and Mozambique rhythms with abstract synthesizers, is an ode to adventure in favor of the aversion to taking risks and seeking predictability.

“Amigas picadas” (“Salty friends”) is another humorous song recounting another real-life case witnessed by the band on countless occasions: a love encounter sabotaged by the girlfriend's friends, who all happen to fancy the same guy. A jazzy take on the ancient Dominican rhythm of pambiche (grandfather of merengue), with generous psychedelic touches, resembling the classy late 60s releases of Guadeloupe's legendary producer / label owner Henri Debs.

“Vinimos a hablar” (“We came to talk”) takes sarcasm to the highest level, to ridicule the absurdity (also experienced by the band firsthand) seen in live music venues where people pay a ticket to go and have conversations that could be carried out much better on any bar, where no band is playing. The music alternates between a delicate melody with loose, sparse percussion and a full-on, pumping Angolan semba, with a techno kick drum included; bringing things to an apotheotic grooving finale, where the peculiar swing of Venezuelan calypso from the Callao region is thrown on top of all the precedent elements; closing the album in the most uplifting, “end of the carnival parade” feel.

The artwork is a delicate and impactful oil painting by Colombian artist Kevin Simón Mancera, who has collaborated many times with the label before (“Maracas, tambourines and other hellish things” tape and the Lola’s Dice LP).

What the experts are saying:

“Alex (Figueira) dove into this work with a brutal cohesion between lyrics and synths. Timbre poetry, sound poetry (you name it). And that, superimposed on his always impeccable percussive base, confirms the title of “avant-garde visionary of our beautiful Latin music”".
EBLIS ALVAREZ (MERIDIAN BROTHERS)
“Papa Upa's infectious quirkiness is a balm against boredom. A mature album, but without an expiration date”.
GLADYS PALMERA

“Here there is a lot of strength, drum, cadence and psychedelia, lost dance rhythms, united in an intercontinental Latin/African/and Caribbean journey, a unique winning combination that we could consider the new “Ritmo Figueira”.
DISCODELIC

Conjunto Papa Upa are: 



Alex Figueira - Timbales, percussion, vocals. 

Gerardo Rosales - Congas, percussion, vocals. 

Ramón Mendeville - Bongos, percussion, vocals. 

Randy Winterdal - Bass.

Andrew Moreno - Guitar.

Nico Chientarolli - Organ, piano, synths.



All songs written by Alex Figueira. 

Arranged and performed by Conjunto Papa Upa. 

Recorded, produced, mixed and mastered by Alex Figueira at Heat Too Hot, Amsterdam.


40th anniversary edition of this seminal work by the multi-talented musician and producer Carlos Perón. After the release of “Impersonator” and the score of the film “Die Schwarze Spinne”, “Nothing Is True; Everything Is Permitted” is his third album released in the beginning of 1984. While still being an active member of Yello, it was around the start of the recording of “You Gotta Say Yes To Another Excess” that Carlos met the American musician Chris Lunch in Hamburg. He invited Chris to Zurich and together played with projects such as Romantic Rubber, Heavymetallen and recorded some sessions that become the basis of “Nothing Is True; Everything Is Permitted”. After the release of “You Gotta Say Yes To Another Excess”, Carlos decided to leave Yello and focused to finish the recording and mixing of his new solo album.

“Nothing Is True; Everything Is Permitted” has gone down in music history as a dark soundtrack without a film, influenced many artists and helped to develop diverse genders of electronic experimental and dance music.

Limited edition of 300 copies including all original tracks and new artwork.

2024 repress.

The 2019 Stroom〰 split EP with Hessel Veldman marked the long-awaited vinyl debut of Enno Velthuys and served as a teaser for a reissue campaign of his work, shared between different labels. Finally!

In 1984 Velthuys released his classic tape ‘A Glimpse of Light’ on EXART, the label of Veldman, who stayed in close contact with Enno after hearing one of his private tapes being played on the radio by Willem de Ridder in 1980. During a live-broadcast event random tapes were played. “From Enno Velthuys, The Hague”, was written on the package. Willem introduced the tape, played it and a serene silence filled the studio. Present was a friend of De Ridder, Rob Smit, who visited Enno and his mother a few weeks later. This eventually resulted in Enno’s first release ‘Ontmoeting’ on KUBUS Kassettes in 1982. In those years, Enno was living a solitary life and rarely left his mother’s apartment. He managed to release 6 tapes of introvert, melancholic music from another dimension. Atmospheric melodies backed with sparse percussion, showing an excellent handling of the synthesizer.

The gifted musician with two souls silently passed away in 2009. Now we present, with involvement of the few once close to him, the first reissue of probably his most beloved work. Using the original master tape from the EXART vaults, carefully transferred, edited and remastered. Just Enno with his stripped-down compositions and fragile ambient sounds. An intimate experience celebrating bedroom-music and the glory days of do-it-yourself counterculture.

Ten bad boy digi riddims from the myspace era by Copenhagen’s Maffi crew, dubbed out into 3D space by disrupt in 2024. Raw, minimalist CyberDancehall at its best, nostalgic and oddly futuristic at the same time, this album is quickly becoming RoboCop’s favorite playlist when going to work.
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Maffi Promotions a.k.a. Maffi Boys come straight outta 1773 Kbh V, Copenhagen, Denmark. Originally founded in 1990 by the two homeboys, lazy body Moog and Junior the Rat, Maffi Promotions have been a steady producer of simple digital riddims for years. Hanging out in the streets of Hummel City Junior & Moog used to entertain their friends with the primitve riddims of the Maffi sound. Not knowing that they would do the exact same thing fifteen years later, they continued to believe that one day they would move up the ladder, break out of the underground and reach for the stars.

Now, after finally adopting a little sense of realism, the two homeboys have realised that stardom is nothing compared to spamming people on myspace. So the two stoners decided to get a couple of friends together and turn up the bass online. Together with their sound crew FIREHOUSE, Maffi deal nuff weed and gyals!

Maffi Boys are very dedicated to the art of playing Sensible World of Soccer, rolling weed joints with Manitou tobacco and keeping it real in a Vesterbro-style. So watch out! And don’t test! We’ll be putting up new riddims on a weekly basis. We have nuff things brewing – including a delicious chicken!
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Growing up in the streets of Hummel City, Vesterbro, MOOG learned the pleasures of sleeping late, playing Sensible World Of Soccer and picking up hot gyals at an early age. He has spent most of his life trying to master these crucial skills. Taking a break from the dog race, Moog is currently focused on reaching a higher understanding of reggae-science and weedology.

JUNIOR experienced the necessity of rolling well-made spliffs at an early age. Incorporating the aestethic heritage of Scandinavian design, he has spent most of his life perfectionizing this old and traditional art form. Junior is currently taking his ph.d. in digital reggae by buying crates of 80’s 7″ and selecting for his sound system Firehouse.

A holy grail for fans of French boogie, early hip hop, Arabic funk and Balearic bops,"Ettika" has been seriously sought after since Vidal Benjamin found it in the 1€ bin back in 2006. Teasing the ears of the underground via Vidal's 'Balearic Nightmare' mix for Noncollective, copies of the original were soon snapped up completely, and the later adopters were sated by a Blackdisco edit from Alexis Le-Tan (himself gifted Vidal's second copy), which is now also rare as hen's teeth. The fervour for the track is easy to understand. Underpinned by an endlessly buoyant bass groove, chanted female vocals dart out the speakers like a post- modern mantra while synth vamps flare in stuttering stereo.

Middle-Eastern motifs add an air of mystery, but this truly belongs in a dance floor utopia. That the track was the product of a 'back-to-work' scheme aimed at unemployed immigrant youth in Rouen only adds to the appeal. Led by teacher Bernard Guégan, a quartet of students delivered lyrics in French and Arabic inspired by their rejection letters, serving a little social commentary and a lot of funk. If you're mad on Ahmed Fakroun and Shams Dinn, or even those folks in the Bush of Ghosts, then this is a must have for you.

Archeology isn't just about excavation, there should be interpretation too, and in this case it comes from Italian duo Hear & Now and Leeds' The Veteran Delinquents. The former furnish the 12" with two radical takes, the dreamy downtempo stroll of their French Remix - all unhurried percussion, Gilmour-riffing and coastal élan - and the peaktime pump of their Arab Remix, which transports the original vocal into a land of desert new beat and Balearic trance with a little space left for some frazzled fretwork. If you've followed their work with Claremont you know the quality on show.

The Veteran Delinquents, the collaborative vehicle of Leeds stalwarts Craig Christon and Tim Hutton, condense a lifetime of club experiences into their remix, establishing the infectious groove of the original before subverting with chugging bass and winking acid, all augmented with their own slick synth work. The original was an all time classic at Craig's Joe's Bakery nights way back when, and this new interpretation is both respectful and revolutionary.

Strut present the first definitive retrospective of an icon of 1970s and ‘80s soul, jazz and disco, Patrice Rushen, covering her peerless 6-year career with Elektra / Asylum from 1978 to 1984. Joining Elektra after three albums with jazz label Prestige, Patrice had shown prodigious talent at an early age and had first broken through after winning a competition to perform at the Monterrey Jazz Festival of 1972. By the time of the recordings on this collection, she had become a prolific and in-demand session musician and arranger on the West coast, appearing on over 80 recordings for other artists. She joined the Elektra / Asylum roster in 1978 as they launched a pop / jazz division alongside visionaries like Donald Byrd and Grover Washington, Jr. “The idea was to create music that was good for commercial radio / R&B,” Patrice explains. “We were all making sophisticated dance music, essentially.”

Drawing on some of the leading musicians in L.A. like saxophonist Gerald Albright, drummer “Ndugu” Chancler and bassman Freddie Washington and keeping an open minded approach from her training in classical, jazz and soundtrack scores, Patrice’s music was a different, more intricate proposition to many of the soul artists of the time. “L.A. musicians were not so locked into tradition,” she continues. “None of us were accustomed to limitation and the record label left us to take our own direction.”

Early classics like ‘Music Of The Earth’ and ‘Let’s Sing A Song Of Love’ were among Patrice’s first as a lead vocalist before her ‘Pizzazz’ album landed in 1979, featuring the unique disco of ‘Haven’t You Heard’ and one of her greatest ballads, ‘Settle For My Love’. “Although ballads make you feel more vulnerable as an artist because they are often personal, I think listeners relate to that sincerity,” she reflects. By now, Patrice’s records were supremely arranged and produced as her confidence as an all-round writer, producer, arranger and performer grew. Slick dancefloor anthem ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ and the ‘Posh’ album in 1980 led to her landmark album ‘Straight From The Heart’ two years later. Receiving little support from her label, Patrice and her production team personally funded a promo campaign for the first single from it, ‘Forget Me Nots’. It went on to peak at no. 23 on the Billboard Hot 100 and the album was later Grammy-nominated, while the track became a timeless anthem and popular sample, inspiring Will Smith’s theme for the film ‘Men In Black’ and George Michael’s ‘Fastlove’.

Patrice’s final album for Elektra, ‘Now’ kept the bar high with sparse, synth-led songs including ‘Feel So Real’ and ‘To Each His Own’. It concluded a golden era creatively for Patrice which remains revered by soul and disco aficionados the world over.

‘Remind Me’ features all of Patrice Rushen’s chart singles, 12” versions and popular sample sources on one album for the first time. Formats included a 3LP set and 1CD fully remastered by The Carvery from the original tapes. Both formats include an exclusive new interview with Patrice Rushen and rare photos.

• First definitive Patrice Rushen compilation released on vinyl since the ‘80s
• Includes all of her chart hits, DJ favourites and sample sources
• Official release featuring full interview with Patrice Rushen about her career and music • Features rare photos from her personal collection + some of the photographers she has worked with during her career
• Fully remastered by The Carvery from the original ¼” tapes
• Start of full Patrice Rushen reissue programme from her Elektra era

Big Yawn - NGB

Research Records welcomes back Melbourne quartet Big Yawn for their fourth full-length offering, "NGBE."

Big Yawn's ability to blend complex rhythm sections with infectious basslines, deep synth work, and tongue-in-cheek sampling remains ever-present, and perhaps is the most advanced we've heard yet.

Sitting in a world of its own, the album—named after the group's beloved and lost warehouse space, National Gallery of Brunswick East (where most of the material was recorded)—features a wide array of soundscapes spanning mutated drum 'n' bass, low-key grime, rap, and dub-wise antics, all laced with a heavy dose of FX.

Equal parts deep and menacing, the nine tracks encapsulate Big Yawn's evolution in the studio and on stage, most notably through their collaboration '2Stroke' with Melbourne-based future rap prodigy Teether and brought to life visually with album artwork by Julian Hocking.

The magic and majesty of Holger Czukay’s late career works for Claremont 56 is being celebrated on a new compilation. The former Can bassist – a musical maverick renowned for his freewheeling approach to composition, recording and promotion – released a string of inspired tracks on Paul Murphy’s label between 2009 and 2012, typically delivering hard-to-pigeonhole workouts, bona-fide epics and radical reinventions of some of his most beloved tracks.

The collection has been a labour of love – fitting given the sonic details and inventive musicality that marked out the late artist’s solo career – for Claremont 56 founder Paul Murphy AKA Mudd, who first reached out to Czukay after witnessing his now legendary live performance at the Roundhouse in 2009. As Murphy details in his introductory liner notes, it led to a productive working relationship between the pair that included collaborative recording sessions with Ben Smith in Czukay’s legendary Innerspace Studio – a former cinema in Cologne in which much of Can’s music was recorded.The impact of that Roundhouse gig on Murphy is reflected in the fact that two of the tracks on the collection are based on that celebrated performance. There’s ‘Ode To Perfume’, a languid and solo-laden version of one of Czukay’s most celebrated solo records that ratchets up the original’s inherent dreaminess, and a jaunty take on quirky kraut-pop number ‘Photosong’ featuring a spoken introduction recorded at the concert in question.

Murphy’s ability to coax Czukay into delving into his archives is evident across the compilation. Opener ‘A Perfect World (Remix)’ is an eccentric, ever-building masterpiece originally recorded in 1984 – but later re-imagined for Claremont 56 – featuring vocalist Sheldon Ancel and former Can band-mates Jaki Leibezeit and Michael Karoli, while ‘Fragrance’ is a subtly re-wired slab of picturesque Balearic kraut-dub which was initially recorded as a coda for ‘Ode To Perfume’ but lay unreleased for decades.

Then there’s ‘Let’s Get Cool’, a bright and breezy, French horn-sporting 2009 take on 1979 avant-disco classic ‘Cool In The Pool’; ‘My Persian Love (Remix)’, a 2010 re-take of one of his earliest solos recordings; and the near 18-minute brilliance of ‘Music Is A Miracle’. Originally recorded for his fans in the 1980s – but only released three decades later – this widescreen epic not only features drums by Jaki Leibezeit and a fine spoken word vocal by Czukay, but also numerous nods to some of his most revered tracks.

It's fitting, too, that two of the most potent cuts feature Czukay’s much-missed wife and musical muse Ursa Major: the dense, trippy and fittingly out-there ambient soundscape ‘In Space’, and the mesmerising ‘Music To be Murdered By’. Partially inspired by hearing painfully out of tune violin practice through his studio windows, the track was originally recorded for an unreleased album but finally found a home on Claremont 56’s 10th anniversary box set ion 2017. A genuinely spaced-out and mind-mangling slab of organic dub in Czukay’s distinctive style, it delivers a fine curtain call to the iconic artist’s endlessly inventive career.

Crack Cloud has always been something beyond a rock band: both profound and grand, vaporous and elusive. The first iteration of Crack Cloud was formed nearly a decade ago as a proxy-rehab outlet on the fringes of Calgary. Over time, two EPs and accompanying visual pieces were produced out of the residence known as Red Mile. By 2017, several members had relocated to Vancouver, working out of harm reduction centers and low-barrier shelters. Sobriety, self-reformation and the idealism of their work further formed an ethos for Crack Cloud. It was during these years that the band produced their astounding 2020 album Pain Olympics. At once, their vision became expansive, cinematic. Now, Red Mile is a bit of a homecoming. Members have returned to Calgary. But Calgary/home has become a liminal space, a place of flux. After a decade of personal and collective growth, what does home even mean? Red Mile is, for them, something like samsara: a return and a rebirth. Red Mile's sound breathes expansive energy into the circuitous, street bound sonics of Crack Cloud's prior material. Fizzling synths intertwine with chiming pianos. Songs layer like Russian nesting dolls; one may find a Ramones chorus set within a desolate Western prog soundtrack only to watch it erupt into a joyous anthem. Real-ass guitars _ alternately lilting, scuzzy and soaring _ ring out across wide sun-bleached spaces. In 2024, the cumulative effect is (in rock instrumentation terms) naturalistic. Any whiff of embalmed nostalgia is absent. Even the close of the album - a winding, almost Jerry Garcia guitar noodle that leads us out of Red Mile - is delivered without sentimentality. Principal songwriter Zach Choy's lyrics are cutting but merciful, with a sharp self-awareness that never slides into self-satisfaction. Crack Cloud as artists are critical _ and ultimately as forgiving _ of themselves as they are the melting world around them. The songs balance an easy charm and cathartic power: affirming life without denying death. Recorded predominantly between the outskirts of Joshua Tree California, and Calgary, Alberta, this record is informed by a bittersweet mélange of old and new. The sprawling, novelistic structures of their previous albums are condensed and sharpened, while maintaining their refusal to delve into superficiality. Through playful melodies and elliptical guitar soliloquy, they deliver a final product of exceptional depth and distinctly unprecious warmth. Crack Cloud have produced a mature, vital work that interrogates the platitudes of the rock-n-roll lifestyle, but ultimately exalts its sacredness. Red Mile's de facto thesis statement "The Medium" is itself a rock song meditation: an ode to the form and its practitioners. This genre that _ typical, repeatable, corporatized as it can be _ somehow still has the power to help us live through life. We see the dusty sentiment of "I love rock and roll" exhumed, taken apart, and stitched back together. It's a song guided by faith _ if the medium helps us proclaim our love today, it's worth protecting from derision tomorrow. We live in an era where music seems to love hitting its head against the wall. Crack Cloud's Red Mile is the sound _ the feeling! _ of the bricks giving way.

Crack Cloud has always been something beyond a rock band: both profound and grand, vaporous and elusive. The first iteration of Crack Cloud was formed nearly a decade ago as a proxy-rehab outlet on the fringes of Calgary. Over time, two EPs and accompanying visual pieces were produced out of the residence known as Red Mile. By 2017, several members had relocated to Vancouver, working out of harm reduction centers and low-barrier shelters. Sobriety, self-reformation and the idealism of their work further formed an ethos for Crack Cloud. It was during these years that the band produced their astounding 2020 album Pain Olympics. At once, their vision became expansive, cinematic. Now, Red Mile is a bit of a homecoming. Members have returned to Calgary. But Calgary/home has become a liminal space, a place of flux. After a decade of personal and collective growth, what does home even mean? Red Mile is, for them, something like samsara: a return and a rebirth. Red Mile's sound breathes expansive energy into the circuitous, street bound sonics of Crack Cloud's prior material. Fizzling synths intertwine with chiming pianos. Songs layer like Russian nesting dolls; one may find a Ramones chorus set within a desolate Western prog soundtrack only to watch it erupt into a joyous anthem. Real-ass guitars _ alternately lilting, scuzzy and soaring _ ring out across wide sun-bleached spaces. In 2024, the cumulative effect is (in rock instrumentation terms) naturalistic. Any whiff of embalmed nostalgia is absent. Even the close of the album - a winding, almost Jerry Garcia guitar noodle that leads us out of Red Mile - is delivered without sentimentality. Principal songwriter Zach Choy's lyrics are cutting but merciful, with a sharp self-awareness that never slides into self-satisfaction. Crack Cloud as artists are critical _ and ultimately as forgiving _ of themselves as they are the melting world around them. The songs balance an easy charm and cathartic power: affirming life without denying death. Recorded predominantly between the outskirts of Joshua Tree California, and Calgary, Alberta, this record is informed by a bittersweet mélange of old and new. The sprawling, novelistic structures of their previous albums are condensed and sharpened, while maintaining their refusal to delve into superficiality. Through playful melodies and elliptical guitar soliloquy, they deliver a final product of exceptional depth and distinctly unprecious warmth. Crack Cloud have produced a mature, vital work that interrogates the platitudes of the rock-n-roll lifestyle, but ultimately exalts its sacredness. Red Mile's de facto thesis statement "The Medium" is itself a rock song meditation: an ode to the form and its practitioners. This genre that _ typical, repeatable, corporatized as it can be _ somehow still has the power to help us live through life. We see the dusty sentiment of "I love rock and roll" exhumed, taken apart, and stitched back together. It's a song guided by faith _ if the medium helps us proclaim our love today, it's worth protecting from derision tomorrow. We live in an era where music seems to love hitting its head against the wall. Crack Cloud's Red Mile is the sound _ the feeling! _ of the bricks giving way.

"Are Possible" is a spark-throwing, undulating fusion of styles played (mainly) on banjo, upright bass and drums, made possible by the individual perspectives of Nathan, double-bassist Casey Toll (Jake Xerxes Fussell, Mt. Moriah) and drummer Rex McMurray (CAVE) work together in an easy-rolling manner, but one that contains an expansive, ass-shaking confabulation of ideas. Music is time in redux: Are Possible"s many moments in time carry details from all over the place. Rex brought a rhythm to the table after drumming on buckets at work, Casey provided a bassline that redirected a previous jam, Nathan brought in a song he"d been fucking with forever and they figured it out together. Their diversity of sources moves easily within the arrangements, rendering a far-ranging set of feels, from transcendental to new country funk to good ol" jazz and the folk-rock, even - all of it drawn out exquisitely when they mixed at Electrical Audio in Chicago with the delicate hands of Cooper Crain upon the faders. The Nathan Bowles Trio have done their due diligence, passing their music through time and space on their way to now.