Search:back 2 back

Endlessly sampled, covered, quoted and requoted, this may well be one of the most influential hip-hop singles ever released. But, in many ways, its importance goes beyond its sheer classic status as a single in its own right.

In retrospect, it shows the duo of Erick Sermon and Parrish Smith as pioneers in production, creating a funk-based sound that helped to provide a blueprint for artists on the other side of the country. In 1987/88, most West Coast rap still adhered to an East Coast audio blueprint. By 1989, they were leaning as heavily on Zapp and Roger Troutman samples as EPMD were on this single.

The foundations of the track are interesting, with a snatch of Juice’s much-plundered ‘Catch a Groove’ (which has popped up everywhere from The Beastie Boys to Kings of Pressure) overlaid with big chunks of Kool & The Gang’s ‘Jungle Boogie’ and Zapp’s irrepressible ‘More Bounce to the Ounce’. Vocodered funk was a rarity in New York hip-hop until this song, but it’s the West Coast G-Funk artists who really ran with it.

Its popularity spanned the country (and the globe, to be fair), with EPMD performing numerous shows in California on the basis of the sound, moving away from their James Brown-obsessed peers to display their own musical tastes. That said, the flipside – here presented on 7” and, indeed, on any single, for the first time – takes it back to that JB-era. ‘(It’s Not the Express), It’s the JB’s Monaurail by The JB’s is woven with Otis Redding and Beastie Boys to create a mid-tempo headnodder par excellence. It was always too good not to be a single.

A year after its first edition, the Open Space series returns in order to keep exploring what ambient music might mean nowadays.

A breadth of fresh artists, some new to the label and others renowned for their more dance-centric works, the compilation aims to give each individual artist their creative freedom to explore the space.

Techno producers such as Arthur Robert or label head Len Faki himself keep the beats present but this time focus on evoking states of introspection rather than the shuffle of dancefloors.
On the other end of the spectrum, we find seasoned multi-instrumentalist Laraaji, who has been crafting deeply meditative soundscapes since the 80’s. Using the special opportunity, the label reaches outside its usual sphere, inviting artists like the modular synth expert Jeremy Wentorth or Jimmy LaValle’s band project The Album Leaf. All while still featuring some well known veteran producers the likes of John Beltran or Exos.

No matter their respective scene or background, all artists are using their unique approach to display something deeply emotive. Be it the warm, expansive electro of Future Beat Alliance or a bubbly cosmic arpride by Hamburg Duo Can Love Be Synth.

Truly living up to its name, the Open Space series aims to open up possibilities for artists to freely pursue their creativity in a completely undefined area, a space for exploration and connection.

Radiation Roots continues its exploration of Jah Thomas' Midnight Rock label with the releases of this sought after and rare early dancehall album. Recorded at the legendary Channel One Studio, Osbourne and Palmer are two sublime vocalists and they are backed here by The Roots Radics, with Scientist on the mix.

After their first album “Vertigo” (2018), the Paris-based musicians making up BLOW are back with the indie-pop album “Shake the Disease”. Produced by Crayon, this surprising new chapter is a collec- tion of purer, more organic sounds with a somewhat 70’s/80’s tilt. A return to basics, one that doesn’t turn its back on reality.

The changes are radical as the need was strong to surprise people including themselves, to think outside the box. They went for radical changes: a new method of song writing, a new musical genre, a new way of working, ... But the group’s fans should be reassured: even if the electronics have given way to a more rock-inspired sound, and the chords are a bit richer, and even if the bass, the driving element of each song, is stronger than ever, “Shake the Disease” is pure BLOW.

In terms of the lyrics, a common thread appears: duality. Without ever giving way to schizophrenia, this duality of “what I’d like to be” versus “what I really am” stands at the center of the chessboard. Legitimate and healthy questions give rise to life changes that almost all of us ask ourselves when en- tering into our thirties, just like the members of BLOW. Coming to terms with all this mentally without losing our instincts or our spontaneity, is the guiding idea behind this second album.
Coming back strong, BLOW started dropping uplifting single and live session «Full Delight» and more recently «One Life», both supported in France and abroad by Greenroom, Tsugi radio, The Inde-pendent, Ones to Watch, Hotmix, Brain, Vanyaland, Kulturnews, Laut.de, DetektorFM...
This third extract is «Shake The Disease», a laid back single coming along with a COLORS session including breathtaking performances from Quentin (singer of BLOW) and the only featuring of the album, praised female songwriter and singer Anna Majidson from French duo HAUTE (also featured on COLORS a few years back).

This is the repress of celebrated American rock band Against Me!'s album 'Shape Shift With Me' on blue double vinyl. Originally released back in 2016, it has been out of stock on vinyl since 2018. It is the follow up album to the band’s critically acclaimed studio album, Transgender Dysphoria Blues, and came out at the same time as frontwoman Laura Jane Grace announced her memoir titled TRANNY: Confessions of Punk Rock’s Most Infamous Anarchist Sellout. Recorded, mixed and engineered by Marc Jacob Hudson (Taking Back Sunday, Saves The Day) at Rancho Recordo, ‘Shape Shift With Me’, Against Me!’s seventh full length album, has the distinction of the first album frontwoman Laura Jane Grace has written truly from the heart, with no metaphorical cloaks cast over the lyrics. It’s an album about love, that deceptively complex emotion we all struggle with yet has somehow eluded most of Grace’s songwriting for the past 20 years. In a career already full of classic punk records, Shape Shift With Me feels like the definitive Against Me! album—it’s poppy and catchy (“Rebecca,” “Suicide Bomber”), aggressive and in-your-face (“ProVision L-3,” “Dead Rats”), sentimental and longing Crash,” “All This (And More”). Moreover, it’s the culmination of four years of existence as Laura Jane Grace—there’s no going back now, so she might as well embrace it.

It is with undoubted excitement that Stroboscopic Artefacts can present the new release from Irish duo Lakker as SA019.




This comes hot on the heels of Lakker's recent work for the label through the dark trappings of Monad XIV. 'Harbour' could imagine a vessel out to sea, battling a tempest. Heavily distorted rhythms build like the swirl of a storm, a distress signal popping on, radio distortion. As implosion seems near a moment of calm sets in and a less maniacal beat assumes control. But the unpredictable hammers resume once more, thumping above a sheet of glinting and sharp precipitation. The storm eventually ceases, abruptly, and the 'Harbour' is left still. 'eeAea' is a different experience. It is based on surer footing, concrete beneath the limbs. A thump, incessant, pounds in the background, giving clarity to a winding sigh and dissonant percussion. Yet there remains melody in the madness, with beautiful hi ends peeking through the atmosphere and a strut which surges towards conclusion. The conclusion ends (unresolved) at 'Valentina Lane'. It is a street of mystery, set upon a gas of syncopated flashes and airy scrapes. An uncomfortable synthesiser hums in the background, darting high and interjecting low. And it meanders thence, pausing for the odd moment of reflection. It is as deliberate as 'Harbour' is chaotic; it is a tight, cogent finale.

After years spent living on opposite sides of the Atlantic world events threw Laura Mary Carter and Steven Ansell of Blood Red Shoes back together into what has become the must fruitful era of their 17 years together.

“It’s been a loooong time since we both lived in the same city”, explains Steven. “I mean we actually wrote this album in LA at Laura’s place, then came to the UK to record it…and then everything went nuts”.

Realising very quickly that they wouldn’t be able to release the album or tour until the world returned to some kind of normality, the band found their energies quickly spilled over into other projects. Laura-Mary started a podcast, Never Meet Your Idols, with her best friend in LA, interviewing everyone from Zack Snyder to Mark Lanegan to CHVRCHES. It is now about to start its third season. Steven started applying his love of electronic music by writing and producing other alternative artists like Circe, ARXX, Aiko and XCerts, racking up millions of streams in the process.

Having worked together on Laura–Mary’s forthcoming solo mini album Town Called Nothing and restless from the lack of touring, the duo started jamming out in rehearsal rooms, which led to the light-speed writing, recording and release of the impossibly-titled Ø EP in the summer of 2021. Which concludes what the band call an “off year”.

And that brings us back to GHOST ON TAPE. It appears that like David Lynch’s The Lost Highway, nothing is linear in the world of Blood Red Shoes. Written and recorded before their most recent EP, GHOSTS ON TAPE is a huge jump into new terrain for the band. Musically and emotionally their most mature work, it is a complex, imaginative, and very gothic development on their sound. Musically, it leaves almost no trace of their former selves.

On January 31st of 2020, the accomplished songwriter turned songstress released her debut EP "Sis.", a 7-track EP produced by Homer Steinweiss and The Menahan Street Band of Amy Winehouse's famous album "Back To Black". With this project the rising, Memphis-bred artist introduced her own take on modern soul, using live instrumentation and melodic prowess to blend contemporary and nostalgia. The project was met with widespread acclaim, earning her a spot on NPR's Tiny Desk 6/11, three separate usages in this season of HBO's series 'Insecure', and over 20 million streams across streaming platforms.

KIRBY is a soul singer from Memphis, Tennessee. She is the talented writer behind “FourFiveSeconds” by Rihanna, Kanye West, and Paul McCartney, “Tell Me You Love Me” by Demi Lovato, “Die With You” by Beyoncé, “Only One” by Kanye West and Paul McCartney, “Break Your Heart Right Back” by Ariana Grande, and more.

Fickle Friends are an English indie pop band from Brighton, East Sussex, England. Natti (Natassja) met Sam at Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts and met Harry and Jack the following year in BIMM Brighton. Natassja (Natti) Shiner – vocals, keyboard Jack Wilson – keyboard, guitar, backing vocals, samples, programming Jack 'Harry' Herrington – bass guitar, backing vocals Sam Morris – drums, percussion After two years touring the UK and Europe without a label or publisher and playing 53 festivals across 2 years, Fickle Friends signed to Polydor Records. The band recorded their debut album in Los Angeles with Mike Crossey and it was released on 16 March 2018 entering the UK Albums Chart at No. 9.

Having already proven that he is capable of maintaining sonic quality and distinction over the course of a full original program, Chevel (a.k.a. Dario Tronchin) now makes his LP debut for Stroboscopic Artefacts. His other S.A. contributions (including the inaugural entry in the label's singular Monad series, the "One Month Off" EP, his participation to the label's five-year retrospective series) have already hinted that a more complete exposition of his unique inner world would surface, and here it is at last.

Over the course of his young career, Chevel has gained a mastery over several compositional elements: Polaroid-like slow melodic fades, sharp ricocheting beats, and simply making one's headphones feel like a viable means of physical transportation. All of these elements come into play shortly after the needle hits the grooves of (Track A1), a euphoric introductory track marked by a spectral panning sequence and by beats chopped with a culinary expert's sense of elegance. The drum kit sounds that feature throughout are used sparely but - either because of this or in spite of this - provide maximum impact upon the listener's nervous system. The almost 'far Eastern' use of 'block' percussion on (Tracks A2 and B1) perfectly complements the synthetic sheen produced by fuzz distortion, radio static and bandpass-filtered sound bites, taking us to a terrain where a palette of decay effects provides just as much aesthetic inspiration as the presence of technological advancement.

There is more than enough humor and playfulness at work here, too, helping to once again banish the persistent stereotype of the modern techno producer as a sterile technician: the queasy melody line, sliced-and-diced whistling and gelatinous bounce of (Track D2) evoke a child's wonderment at playtime more than they do the rarefied rigour of the laboratory. The less pulsating numbers like (Track C3) and the closing (Track D3) will engage the listener as well, being like short audio films of abiogenesis (i.e. spontaneous generation of life from 'non-living' material) taking place. These tracks are not so much 'interludes' or contemplative retreats from the action as they are enhancers of it, utilizing fluttering cycles of melody to engage in a kind of conversation with the more driving tracks. As to the 'driving' tracks themselves: the places that they drive the listener to are satisfyingly beyond customary experience.

In other words, despite Chevel's keeping the sonic toolkit and overall atmosphere consistent from track to track, there is a rich variety in the emotional affectivity on display here. The net effect is like a dream state that leaves strong impressions even though one can't pinpoint exactly why they are doing so (and which leaves one wanting to dive back into the dream pool and experience something similar again.) This is a talent that unifies the diverse constellation of Stroboscopic Artefacts producers, and one that makes Chevel in particular one to continue watching, listening to, and experiencing.
Wire (USA/Germany/UK) - ''Very intriguing, can/'t wait to dive in.''
Pitchfork (USA) - "Nice use of space, though do find the atmosphere a little one-note. Percussion really pops."
RBMA - "Thanks for reaching out. Having a listen now and the album sounds really good. Happy to give it a shout on RBMA Twitter whenever is best for you."
Paramount Artists (UK) - "20/10 top effort!"
NTS Radio (UK) - ''Nice IDM music with fine textures and bass frequencies..''
Groove (Germany) - ''Very interesting delicate structures. Suggested for review in Groove.''
Exclaim! (Canada) - "I like this. I'll float it to my team and I'll let you know if anyone's interested in covering it."
Big Up Magazine (USA) - "Absolutely epic album."
Vicious Magazine (Spain) - "Great sounds, for our september issue, thx a lot!"
Little White Earbuds (USA) - ''Fantastic album from Chevel. I have unfortunately been at work today without my usual headphones but even listening on very poor quality ones, the rich sonic mastery comes through. Can't wait to get home and listen to this properly.''
Cone Magazine (UK) - "Thanks for sending this through. Looks great, and always interested about a new Stroboscopic release. I'll let you know when something goes up."

The third entry in Lucy's trio of adventurous full-lengths is visually introduced by artwork of a pearl-bearing shell, designed by Stroboscopic Artefacts' resident visual artist (and Lucy's brother) Ignazio Mortellaro. This drops a subtle hint as to the nature of its contents: just as a pearl slowly forms within its enclosing body in response to organic challenges, Lucy's work is also a kind of crystallization of memory and experience into an artifact of great value.

Listeners to this album will be struck immediately by how different it sounds from past Lucy productions, while still retaining the feel of relentless questing that defined his previous two solo LPs Wordplay for Working Bees and Churches, Schools, and Guns (or, as Lucy himself defines the feeling, the equal valuation of precision and exploration'). Initially feeling like Lucy is guiding his listeners on a slow and slightly apprehensive down-river trip through the Amazon, or some similarly thriving but as-of-yet undiscovered terrain, the album is enriched by several layers of ambience and by the wordless, improvisational (yet still somehow narrative) vocals and flute of Jon Jacobs. Without a doubt, it's an album with an initiatory' atmosphere that listeners should commit themselves to hearing in one sitting, with as little interruption as possible. However, unlike many initiatory rites, this is no arduous ordeal at all: great care has gone into connecting each chapter of the album with the same silver thread of entrancing story-telling. On standout pieces like She-Wolf Night Mourning,' electronic arpeggiation and persistent synthetic flutters perfectly merge with the unique tone colors of resonant acoustic percussion and pensive woodwind. Elsewhere, pieces like A Selfless Act' reconcile technoid pulses with melancholic, yet intoxicating echoes of Mediterranean musical traditions.

Interestingly, many of the tracks on Self-Mythology refer to old legends and well-known fairytales (e.g. the opening track which references Baba Yaga's magical hut), or to more broadly defined states of consciousness ( Samsara,' which features an especially strong, sustained choral interplay between glassy synth sequences and earthy flute sonorities). This is where the album is truly unique and relevant in its ambition. The interplay between the graphic design, the vocal and flute performances of Jacobs, and the sound design chosen by Lucy aims to be an intimate audio autobiography of its creators while also referring back to the stories that have shaped human destiny for millennia. This work is a meditation upon the reciprocity between personal hopes and fears and collective dreams and nightmares, an exploration of the endless interplay between the universal and the deeply individual. It is the tale of that uncanny process by which our own conscious experience draws from the pool of archetypal information, while also contributing to it.

The Israeli producer Yotam Avni, though not one of the main players in the Stroboscopic Artefacts story to date, nevertheless shows that he is definitely here for a reason: having contributed with an entry in the Monad series back in July, he returns with a new set of tracks that fit perfectly into the label's overall aesthetic of evolving hyper-reality, while also being a strong personal statement. With both his S.A. debut and this new offering, Avni shows himself to be a truly 'progressive' musician: a creator whose musical techniques are informed by his creative disposition and not the other way around, an individual who seems to be using the richness and differentiation of human experience in order to let yet more of it arise.

The new record begins with the galloping rhythm of "Tehillim", bringing a whole inventory of struck wood and metal elements into play, and leading listeners on an adventurous voyage through liturgical chanting and volcanic eruptions of synthesizer magma, all the while being accented with nimble percussive fills that convey the improvisational feel of classic bebop drummers. The following "Orma," while more stripped down in terms of individual elements, continues down the same path with clever spatial arrangements, and with tonal and percussive elements that seem snatched out of their buys urban environments and placed under austere laboratory investigation: this holds true for the isolated bits of sax and vaguely middle-Eastern percussive accents that the improvisational feel of classic bebop drummers. The following "Orma," while more stripped down in terms of individual elements, continues down the same path with clever spatial arrangements, and with tonal and percussive elements that seem snatched out of their buys urban environments and placed under austere laboratory investigation: this holds true for the isolated bits of sax and vaguely middle-Eastern percussive accents that distinguish this track, and which leap out mischievously from their carefully controlled setting.

"Shlok" begins with a deep subterranean kick pattern and percolating bell tones that, while first bringing to mind recent efforts from Planetary Assault Systems, soon transform into something much unique to Avni's imagination - smooth arcing vocals and contrasting shades of nocturnal ambience turn this into a very sinuous and sultry piece of rhythmic music. Once the listener has been lured in by this siren song, the closer "Even" brings the EP's most forceful and demanding beat - though its heavy punch is tempered with a sense of contemplative sophistication. Once the insistent beat is overlaid by a shimmering latticework of piano, breezelike pads, and concentrated string plucks, it testifies to Avni's ability to create tracks that are loaded with emotional nuance and defy easy description.

The second release to be pressed into Totem's slabs of 10-inch vinyl is from techno impresario Luke Slater's L.B. Dub Corp moniker. Slater has been operating as a pioneer, with a full deck of aliases, throughout the genre's many corners since the days when techno was a newborn phenomenon. The stripped back sounds of L.B. Dub Corp's last releases on the imprint have resounded naturally within the psychotropic space carved out by Stroboscopic Artefacts.

Six years on since his latest appearance on the label's main series, Stroboscopic Artefacts boss Luca Mortellaro, aka Lucy, returns with 'Dyscamupia' - an introspective, multisensory techno triptych revolving around the core sequence of Albert Camus' classic existentialist novel, 'The Stranger'. Also known as the 'killing of an arab', this pivotal moment in Camus' seminal book - which also inspired The Cure their song 'Killing An Arab' back in the day, is here evoked through three variedly intense, deep and hypnotic techno variations - flexing from 120 to 130, onto 140 BPM - each of them translating a particular step in the author's minute, focal-shifting depiction of the unknown man's murder on the beach.

Embodying Meursault for a minute, Jason Snell lends his voice to the narrator and his inner demons, casting a strange, ominous spell on the club and its crowd. Willing to explore and dig up further into the textural wealth and crucial warmth of organic sounds and synthetic treatments, Lucy made wise use of the binaural microphones technology during the vocals recording process, greatly enhancing the immersive force of his compositions to create thoughtful, dystopic narrative bubbles that stand in their own right.
The first number, ' Dyscamupia (Forward)', happens before and right until the actual killing - hence time flowing at a metronomic, heartbeat-like tempo; the second cut 'Dyscamupia (Pause)' takes place right after the nameless man's death, when the narrator enters a kind of existential 'pause' and a whole new flow of consciousness begins; the third sequence, 'Dyscamupia (Backward)', plumbs the depths of the action itself as played backwards, like an equally hazed-out and dizzying reminiscence of the sad encounter's mechanism. Don't let its seemingly conceptual framework fool you though, like most of his past output 'Dyscamupia' also aims to bring dancefloors to a steady simmer, whilst maintaining Lucy's ascending momentum towards an all-round genre-busting, thought-provoking apex.

Hot on the heels of his preliminary EP on Stroboscopic Artefacts, Embryo, which paved the way to the present album, and two years after the landing of his 2016-released inaugural LP, Montagne Trasparenti, Mannequin helmsman Alessandro Adriani returns with his highly anticipated full-length debut for SA, Morphic Dreams. Throughout eleven cuts painstakingly executed but lacking not an iota of the fresh, spontaneous oomph that made his sound stand out of the crowd of techno producers to have emerged over the past decade, Adriani lays the foundations to a suspended sound imaginarium, governed by its own rules and principles of gravity. Revolving around the notions of sublimation and quest for inner balance, Morphic Dreams is comprised of four distinct sequences, conceived and designed as reflections of four mental states, each of them linked to the four alchemical elements i.e. Water, Earth, Air and Fire here represented by the A, B, C and D-sides. Fluid and enveloping, the A-side bathes the listener in some zero-G uterine vortex, pitching and rolling from the slo-burning exotic sensuality and tribal spell of The Tropical Year to the trunk-bending, arpeggiated fast-track pulse of Storm Trees, through Raindances feverish electro swing. Entering a further abrasive, minerally rich phase, the B-side unleashes Adrianis dark side with optimum conviction. Deeply anchored in earthly materiality, this new evolution stage starts off to the frantic Italo bass of Dissolving Images, rushing headlong into a kaleidoscopic maelstrom of fractured reflections and nasty Giallo-like ambience. The delirious body stretch sequence then rather abruptly swerves onto a calmer flux with Dust/Mist, a much enticingly hip-swaying collaboration with Simon Crab, ex-member of the seminal 80s UK industrial-experimental band Bourbonese Qualk, before Casting The Runes engulfs us into a tormented world of swollen eeriness and disquieting esoterism. Back to a widescreen showcase of droney distortions, nasty acid swashes and other quirky drum programming, Hors De Combat opens a new chapter, shortly followed by the playful bass intricacies and modular jeu-de-piste of Invisible Seekers, featuring Avian affiliate and longtime friend Shawn OSullivan. A further mind-expanding piece, C-side closer Crow deploys its blackened wings wide and high as a chaos of martial percussions and liquefying synths slivers crash past the red-hot skyline. A fluttering melodic interlude, Things About To Disappear blazes a clean trail for Make Words Split And Crack to flourish, slowly but surely blooming into a nonstop grandiose twelve minute-shy finale geared up with the stirring cacophonic force of a Ligetian symphony and something of an epic-scale Kubrickian soundtrack.

Repress

Following his highly praised Defining Persuasion EP in 2019, rising French producer Hadone presents on Taapion his very first LP "And Then You Were None".

Navigating effortlessly between hard floor techno, IDM, ambient & jungle, the album expresses Hadone's sonic interpretation & perception of time, reflecting on how we use and consume it through our existence. Thanks to this long-playing format, the artist can finally unveil his full potential and delivers a wonderfully mature journey across 2 records.

Hector Oaks and Coco-Paloma bring forth a unique collaboration. Different backgrounds but a shared love for electronic music. With the help of CLUBQU, an innovative Label born in Berlin during the first lockdown, their paths crossed at a music studio in what once was Berlins airport.

As the daughter of an opera singer Coco-Paloma grew up internationally, amidst chaos and music. Her lyrics reflect existentialism and a bittersweet melancholy. Dramatic, yet always a hint of hope.

Defiant of any genre, Hector Oaks daring production breaks boundaries. Showcasing a variety of rhythms, tempos and intensities that converges with Coco-Paloma's poetry, into the future without forgetting lessons of the past.

If there is no tomorrow, why would you act the same?

Repress

It's a big pleasure for us to welcome back Mario to the label after a long while. He delivers four raw cuts of harsh techno, crude, direct to the bone but always with a wise use of the elements to make things intelligent and intrincated.

First cut "Pattern execution" proves all this as a statement. Obsessive sequences, distorted groove elements, tension all over an ever changing arrangement.

"Path of authority" reminds the early Birmingham days, again using distortion as weapon. Bringing the heritage of the best records from the nineties to this dystopian present we live in.

"Balance of power" runs over similar parameters than the previous two, increasing the BPM rate and delivering more intricate sequence lines and paranoia.

"Frontline" closes this crude exercise, still fast, still hard but yet mental and futuristic.

Credit 00 links back up with Mechatronica, this time in their White series, to manifest a lawless mirage of digital dread, paranoid energy and hallucinatory desire. Limited to 500 copies, no repress.

Next up on FT, young sound-king Nick León with an incredible 5 track EP. Miami-based León forms his massive world of sound production and design into Future Times shapes. The EP follows up releases on labels like NAAFI and Tra Tra Trax (and more) with a planet of sounds and modes, crossing back and forth into techno and his polyrhythmatic styles. The A-Side plays like a scene, all three tracks connected and growing, meshing classic synth pop hooks and serious percussion dexterity in "Blue Data" and "Scavenger Hunt", along with a stripped down pearl to start things off with in "Igneous Drums". B-Side sees the anthemic, levitating techno of "Gum Tree" and a collaboration with Miami's Greg Beto (NI UN PERO, LIES) in the tunnel-driving, splacked electro cut "Sewer System" - TIP!

Home to Cuca Records and hundreds of Nashville-fantasizing pluckers and singers, Wisconsin’s Driftless region was a hotbed of country music in the 1960s. Influenced by old-timey ethnic songs, Bakersfield outlaws, countrypolitan rainbows, and the lonesome twang of every rural route roadhouse, these 17 Driftless Dreamers washed up at Jim Kirchstein’s Sauk City record plant with little more than $100 and a longing. Collected here are the fruits of Cuca’s documentary approach to record making, capturing the voices and stories of a culture and glacier in abatement.

“Thunderous, and yet somehow also reflective, this album offers a haunting dialogue between the musicians. Betamax drives the music with motoric rhythm, while Bell is seemingly searching for something more sophisticated.”

London’s avant-garde, attempted to master in his youth the delicate art of the Shakuhachi - the infamously difficult-to-play bamboo flute that whiffs of a certain Japanese Zen aroma. After many years of travelling south east Asia in the 70s, seeking out the teachings of many flute and reed traditions, Clive Bell eventually gave up his quest and returned to London exhausted and confused. Horrified by the omnipresent egos of popular music, he was drawn back towards the dark currents of London’s free-improv gutter, where upon he was encouraged by his peers to live in a squat, and participate in abrasive noise experiments typical of the London improvising epidemic that persisted throughout the 80s.

Whilst immersed by this subculture, Bell was to bear his only child that we know of to this day - Maxwell Hallett, later to be known as ‘Betamax’. Bell immediately refused to teach any music to Betamax, hoping greater things and opportunities might lead Max away to a more financially comfortable and spiritually rewarding occupation. Alas Clive was unable to protect his son from the strong seductive forces of London’s prevalent musical subcultures.

”Brightside” heißt das 4. Album von Wesley Schultz und Jeremiah Fraites, alias The Lumineers. Produziert wurde es von den längjährigen Partnern in Crime Simone Felice (The Felice Brothers) und David
Baron, der auch für Engeneering und Mixing zuständig war. Das Album präsentiert die erste neue Musik
der Lumineers nach mehr als 2 Jahren. Nach dem sehr düsteren und sehr konzeptionellen Vorgängeralbum
wird schon durch den Titel klar, dass es sich hier um ein sehr frohes und spontanes Album handelt. Die 9
Songs-Collection spielten Schultz und Fraites zusammen mit Baron in dessen Studio in New York ein und
wurden dabei u.a. bei den Backing Vocals von Simone Felices’ Tourmitgliedern Byron Isaacs und Lauren
Jacobson, Cindy Mizelle (Bruce Springsteen, Dave Matthews Band), James Felice (The Felice Brothers)
und Singer-Songwriter Diana DeMuth unterstützt.

Grace Cummings is an actor and musician from Melbourne, Australia. Grace
learned piano as a child and took up the guitar as a young adult, but only
began to write and perform music in 2018. She went from a debut gig at
Melbourne’s Old Bar to a breakthrough performance at Boogie Festival in the
space of six months, picking up support slots with J Mascis and Evan Dando
along the way.
 With buzz building around her powerhouse live show, Grace grabbed the
attention of Flightless Records (King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard), who
released her debut album, ‘Refuge Cove’, in late 2019. Refuge Cove won
praise from publications around the world, including Pitchfork and All Music,
and Grace was tapped for support slots with Weyes Blood, Cash Savage,
Teskey Brothers and Allah-Lahs.
 In 2020, Grace recorded the single ‘Sweet Matilda’ for Mexican Summer’s
‘Through the Looking Glass’ series before landing a worldwide deal with
indie powerhouse ATO Records (Alabama Shakes, My Morning Jacket, King
Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard). Her sophomore album, ‘Storm Queen’, is
now set for release.
 Available on CD and opaque white vinyl. (Once the coloured vinyl format has
sold out, a standard vinyl format - ATO0589LP - will be made available.)
 A graduate of the drama program at the Victorian College of the Arts, Grace
appeared in Elbow Room’s award-winning production ‘Prehistoric’, which
played to packed houses and widespread critical acclaim at the 2018
Edinburgh Fringe. In 2021, she made her debut with the Melbourne Theatre
Company in 2021, in Joanna Murray-Smith’s ‘Berlin’.
 “Cummings isn’t content to merely sing along to her melodies. She tears her
low, surging voice to shreds, braying like she’s beckoning you from the
opposite end of a crowded room. It adds an eerie, intense quality to her
music - a desperation behind the calm of her arrangements.” - Pitchfork
 “One of Melbourne’s hottest new talents... filled with raw power.” - Beat
Magazine
 “Cummings has a voice that demands to be heard, while her lyrics cut
through to the heart, leaving listeners gasping for air.” - Folk Radio UK
 “Like a combination of Sandy Denny, Odetta, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen
and Marianne Faithfull... as the last piano chord ends, you are left wanting
more.” - Your Music Radar
 “There’s a striking androgyny in her tone, it brings the power needed for
these songs to make you stop and listen...Her wit is very sharp and it bites
back with cunning rhetoric.” - Stomp and Stammer
 “Take notice of Cummings as a fresh new Australian talent.” - X-Press Mag

Remastered 15 year Anniversary edition of Jenny
Lewis’s first solo album from 2006. The album
comes with all-new gatefold packaging featuring
never-before-seen photos by Autumn de Wilde.
 Known and loved by many as the frontwoman of
Rilo Kiley, Jenny’s vocal and songwriting gifts have
continued to blossom at a rapid rate since that
band’s first album in 2000. This may be her solo
debut but there’s nothing virginal about it.
 The album was lovingly crafted together during
short spurts of recording activity in the San
Fernando valley, Portland, Oregon and Lincoln,
Nebraska - due to the shared production duties of
celebrated finger-picking guitar prodigy M. Ward
and Nebraska’s resident production genius Mike
Mogis.
 The magnificent backing vocals come courtesy of
gospel singers Chandra and Leigh Watson (the
Watson Twins). Talented friends were roped in
between tours and recording sessions and standout track a cover of the Travelling Wilbury’s ‘handle
with care’ - with its phenomenal sing-a-long
crescendo features vocals shared equally by
Jenny, M. Ward, Conor Oberst and Ben Gibbard.

UK label Wisdom Teeth closes out 2021 with a synchronised double drop from label heads Facta and K-LONE.

Having retreated to more low-lit, pensive territories on his debut LP, Blush, In Bloom marks Facta’s headlong return to the dancefloor. At its core, In Bloom is a house record, albeit one bearing all the usual eccentricities of a Facta release: bleeping off-kilter melodies, glitching FX, warped subs and fizzing neon synths. Up top, C Sequence follows on from 2019’s Doves in exploring a future-facing and experimental take on mutant tech-house. Centred around a writhing, modulating FM bassline, the track undulates and builds gradually to a soaring mid-section before collapsing back in on itself. On the flip, In Bloom drops the tempo to a dubby stomp, with a reversed synth hook playing out over ricocheting chords and a phasing, blown-out sub line.

"Everyone has their own memories and associations with the great songs of the classic films of the 80s and 90s! AT THE MOVIES put the Corona-related time in quarantine to good use and put their soft spot into action, creating unique new interpretations of these classic Soundtrack hymns. The initial spark for this project was ignited by Chris Laney (PRETTY MAIDS), who chatted about the idea with his musician colleagues Allan Sørensen (PRETTY MAIDS, ROYAL HUNT) and Morten Sandager (PRETTY MAIDS, MERCENARY) as well as Björn ""Speed"" Strid (THE NIGHT FLIGHT ORCHESTRA, SOILWORK) and AT THE MOVIES was born. Metal-Heavyweights such as Pontus Norgren (HAMERFALL), Pontus Egberg (KING DIAMOND, WOLF) and Linnéa Vikström Egg (KAMELOT, THERION) as well as illustrious guests such as Ronnie Atkins (PRETTY MAIDS), Jacob Hansen (producer of VOLBEAT, PRIMAL FEAR) and Bruce Kulick (ex-KISS) completed the project, from which the albums ""The Soundtrack Of Your Life"" with Vol.1 (eighties) and Vol.2 (nineties) emerged. Featured are evergreens such “No Easy Way Out”, “Maniac”, “St. Elmo's Fire "", ""The Power Of Love "", ""The Heat Is On"", ""The Neverending Story"", ""The One And Only "", ""(I Just) Died In Your Arms"", ""(You Drive Me) Crazy"", ""Heaven Is A Place On Earth "", ""Crush "", ""I've Been Thinking About You"" and ""Venus""- all catchy tunes that you know and love, in a new, exciting and fascinating metal outfit. "

Written and produced by Curtis Mayfield, Sparkle is the soundtrack album for the 1976 Warner Bros. motion picture starring Irene Cara.

The songs on the soundtrack feature the instrumental tracks and backing vocals from the film versions, with Aretha Franklin's voice taking the place of the original lead vocalists.

In 1972, Australia’s Albert Falzon made a film that would forever change the way the world thought about surfing. The film was Morning of the Earth. For many people it was the very first time they came to recognise surfing as a complete lifestyle. This recognition, coupled with mind-blowing, innovative surfing made the film a classic that has remained vital for over 50 years. Albe’s portrayal of all things pure and simple influenced generations, and passed on an enduring sprit to our Australian culture, our music, and our lifestyle.

Morning Of The Earth’s ethos of soul and spirit in surfing representing surfing as a lifestyle rather than a commercial entity. Not only did it show that these opportunities were open to everybody on their own doorstep, but it also showed for the first time the new exotic frontiers of Indonesia and Hawaii, in which you could further your adventures that encompassed the realm of spirituality and soulfulness.

Morning of the Earth took a unique approach to music. G Wayne Thomas’s selection of performers, songs and songwriters along with his own writing and performance created a warm blend of country soul and pop that helps carry the film to an esoteric level. For the first time, music was not treated as a background or incidental to the vision on the screen. The music was the narrator, with each track played in its entirety. The original soundtrack produced the Australian #1 single Open Up Your Heart and was the first Australian soundtrack to achieve gold sales. It was also recently included in the 100 Best Australian Albums.

The movie and the soundtrack have gone on to become legendary within the Australian surf history so we will be re-issuing the original 12 track soundtrack on black vinyl to commemorate the 50th Anniversary.

Akira Ifukube Returns! It's 1996 AD and Toho decide to freeze their Godzilla franchise, so what better way to go out with than a nuclear meltdown, which happens in GODZILLA VS. DESTOROYAH. Directed by Takao Okawara, the epic kaiju flick has Godzilla deadlier than ever before, with the absorption of uranium sending the temperature of his nuclear reactor heart soaring, which will ignite Earth's atmosphere and kill everybody when it explodes. Oh, and there's also another kaiju on the loose, the prehistoric mutation Destoroyah. It never rains but it pours!

Returning to score GODZILLA VS. DESTOROYAH was Akira Ifukube, the man who created the Big G's sound in 1954. Fittingly, for his final film, he got to lay Godzilla to rest once again, but first brought back several of his older pieces for the mayhem, including the original Godzilla theme, with another repurposed for the amazing new Super-X3. Destoroyah also receives a terrifying theme with powerful brass, but even his strength isn't enough for Godzilla's awesome force. But with that comes the death of the Big G, and Ifukube composes a beautiful requiem for his final scene. The king is dead. Long live the king! (Charlie Brigden)

Composed by Akira Ifukube
Artwork by Wes Benscoter
Manufactured in Czech Republic

As the world circles the abyss at gathering speed, WIEGEDOOD have returned to provide a perfectly vicious soundtrack. Formed in 2014, the Belgian trio have built an unassailable reputation as purveyors of visceral and bleak black metal in its purest and most destructive form. Since unveiling their debut album “De Doden Hebben Het Goed” in 2015, WIEGEDOOD have blazed an unending trail for musical darkness, bolstering their burgeoning notoriety with some of the most apocalyptic live performances in recent memory, and producing two subsequent albums – “De Doden Hebben Het Goed II” and “III”, released in 2017 and 2018 respectively – which hammered home the band’s unique creative powers. Emerging once more, this time from the involuntary solitude of a plague-bound world, WIEGEDOOD are back with their fourth studio album, “There’s Always Blood At The End Of The Road”. A ferocious tour-de-force, born of frustration and the ever-burning flame of hatred for the modern world, the new record marks a significant departure for this most ruthlessly singular of modern metal bands. “Musically I think we’ve made our most uncomfortable record so far. It’s once again faster than anything we’ve done before, and more unforgiving than the whole trilogy combined”, says vocalist/guitarist Levy Seynaeve. “To me, it feels like a soundtrack, for a movie yet to be made. A movie about the filthiest and most disgusting parts of human nature and society, and about the struggle we lead within, trying to overcome the fact we are all made from that same filth.” “There’s Always Blood At The End Of The Road” is available as: Ltd. CD Edition, 2x 180g LP (with etching on side D) that come in a Wide Spined Sleeve and 2 printed Discobags, Digital Album.

It’s a sign of definite quality when a band can look back at a career which started as early as 1972 (!) and are still capable of thoroughly awing their fans with every new album. Magnum deliver this kind of quality on a regular basis and are set to prove their outstanding position once again with their latest studio offering ‘The Monster Roars’. Even after difficult months marked by pandemic-related concert cancellations, contact restrictions and uncertain perspectives for the whole music industry, the English rock act have succeeded in creating a vibrant, homogeneous work that impresses its listeners from the first to the last note and includes a number of surprises.

It’s a sign of definite quality when a band can look back at a career which started as early as 1972 (!) and are still capable of thoroughly awing their fans with every new album. Magnum deliver this kind of quality on a regular basis and are set to prove their outstanding position once again with their latest studio offering ‘The Monster Roars’. Even after difficult months marked by pandemic-related concert cancellations, contact restrictions and uncertain perspectives for the whole music industry, the English rock act have succeeded in creating a vibrant, homogeneous work that impresses its listeners from the first to the last note and includes a number of surprises.

Copenhagen based label Escho release “Escho 15 år: Burgers for my new life” - an extensive compilation of exclusive material for their 15th anniversary (2005-2020). The compilation gathers music by all the currently active artists of Escho - both Danish and international - 27 artists in total. Contributing artists for the compilation are (in alphabetical order): Anders P Jensen, August Rosenbaum, Astrid Sonne, Baby In Vain, BishBusch, The Bleeder Group, Bona Fide, Collider, Dane TS Hawk, Eric Copeland, Excepter, First Hate, Gullo Gullo, Homies, iB101, Iceage, Joanne Robertson, Kh Marie, Liss, Puyain Sanati, Small White Man, Smerz, Søren Kjærgaard, Thulebasen, Varnrable, Yangze and Ydegirl. About Escho and the compilation: The Escho sound was born 15 years ago in small apartments around Enghave Plads, a slightly run-down square at the west end of Vesterbro, Copenhagen, past the kebab shops and the porno shops and the drunks. A few years earlier, as teenagers, several members of the Escho crew had made extremely strange, crisp metal in a very popular band. Escho was a promoter and booking agent as much as it was a label in the early days. They put on small shows to foster and hype the local scene and they brought important performers from all over the world to Copenhagen for the first time. Black Dice, Gang Gang Dance, White Magic, Excepter, Hype Williams, Boredoms, Charles Hayward, they rippled through Copenhagen after they came. Eric Copeland stayed for months. Lorenzo Senni, now well known as a vanguard dance producer, brought his high-school hardcore band to Copenhagen. Escho found and asked these artists to play. And Escho played their humble part in giving sound back to the world. Iceage, Posh Isolation and the Mayhem scene went global. Escho is a lot about being in Denmark, what that sounds like, and projecting it for anyone to hear. Across its releases, Escho’s aesthetic has allowed for the amateurish and the obsessive, the soft and the hard. Escho is about the power of shared experimental experience. Escho has been going for such a long time that the kids who started it are now twice as old as they were when they came up with the name, the idea, the desire to start something. Much younger people, generations younger, work at the label. The world has transformed since then. Escho was born in a period of time where alternative and underground music existed on a private, separate plane to mass culture, and it now finds itself in a time where mass culture and the underground are porous. Tribalism and niche knowledge has been blended by the internet, erasing the border between mainstream and underground modes. Alternative thinking takes many forms now, and new artists continue to expand and interpret the sound of Escho, carrying with them the same curiosity that lit the first Escho sparks 15 years ago. As a whole, this compilation — it is important to note — is jagged in form and tone. It is not even close to a conventional scene compilation, where the sound of a clan flows together. This record doesn’t flow like that. And this, fittingly, makes this anniversary album a ‘classic’ Escho release, because conventions about form and presentation are thrown out the window and new conventions proposed. It is a reminder that Escho quietly remains an ongoing art project as much as anything else. More than its form and tone, however, this compilation is jagged because it is a document of today. It is not final, or conclusive in any way, because the contours of contemporary music are boundless. It’s jagged because Escho has been to a million shows, and put on a million shows, and still loves going to shows. It is a picture of pluralism, discovery and openness. It makes a case for having ears, and making art, and propagating this so that successive generations of young people do it too. This is exactly as it was in the beginning






















[v] 22 First Hate – Vampire Boy ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ [2020 Demo]

From its earliest utterances, experimental music has been particularly disposed to transnational and cross-cultural collaboration. Seeking the answer for a fundamental problem - how to transcend the boundaries of difference, distance, and time - it presents a means to find common ground and communicate through the elemental form of sound. Over the last 5 years, this precisely what the duo of Félicia Atkinson & Jefre Cantu-Ledesma has achieved, intertwining sublime sonorities across the geographic expanses between their respective homes in France and the United States. Their third album for Shelter Press, ‘Un hiver en plein été’ (‘A winter in the middle of summer’) - the first to have been largely recorded by Atkinson and Cantu-Ledesma together in the same space - distills a mesmerizing pallet of acoustic and electronic sources into an open discourse of radically poetic forms, offering glimpses of warmth and intimacy waiting in the post-covid world to come.

Both veteran experimentalists with celebrated bodies of solo work behind them - each traversing the challenges of electroacoustic practice in their own singular ways - prior to their first recorded outing in 2016, Félicia Atkinson and Jefre Cantu-Ledesma had only crossed paths in person once, initially meeting in San Fransisco during 2009. The mutual bond formed during that brief encounter flowered into their first LP, ‘Comme Un Seul Narcisse’, followed two years later by 2018’s ‘Limpid As The Solitudes’. Both recorded remotely - sending files back and forth, fortified by conversations on a vast range of subjects - these two albums were guided by impassioned conceptual nods to Guy Debord, Baudelaire, Brion Gysin and Sylvia Plath, while seeking resolutions for the challenges and unique possibilities that working at a distance provoked.

Where the triumphs of its predecessors rose from the bridging of disparate moments and divergent spaces, ‘Un hiver en plein été’ culminates as a celebration of closeness, a result of Atkinson and Cantu-Ledesma working together in the studio, responsively in real time, for the first time. Recorded in Brooklyn during August of 2019 - a handful of months before the pandemic would impose chasmic distances across the globe - its six discrete works, carefully crafted and finalized over the ensuing year, evolve seamlessly across the album’s two sides, weaving a sprawling tapestry of sonority, within which both artists retaining their own voices and visions, while drawing each other towards uncharted ground.

Atkinson likens the recording of ‘Un hiver en plein été’ to have been akin to “a playground”, each artist “hungry for each sound, a bit like the rush in the Louvre in Godard’s Bande à part”, to which Cantu-Ledesma adds that the process seemed to have had “a mind of its own”, with both “along for the ride”. This organic sense of entropy and enthusiasm - a joyous exploration of the unknown - guides the momentum of the album’s evolving arc, as unfolding chasms of ambient space ripple with humanity, life, and fleeting glimpses of the actions that led to its material core.

Crafted from deconstructed melodic elements and drifting long-tones - laden with subtle nods to Indian classical ragas and free jazz - searching patterns of speech, textural elements captured within the studio and the outside world, and searching tonal and percussive interventions, ‘Un hiver en plein été’ coheres as a multi-faceted series of electroacoustic dialogues; nesting conversations between two artists working at the juncture of abstraction and narration, field recording and harmony, and the philosophical and phenomenological, in search for the meaning of friendship, and its manifestation in pure sound.

The words legendary, seminal, and classic get thrown around at will these days, but Rudimentary Peni’s debut album is all of them. Recorded over two days at Southern Studios by John Loder and originally released in 1983 by CRASS off-shoot label Corpus Christi, “Death Church” showed a band moving away from the urgency of their two early 7”s and into their own realm. Creating a template that bands have been trying to replicate ever since, while ticking all the boxes to become a genre-defining album. Iconic artwork, a unique sound and their own lyrical universe. All merging seamlessly. Sonically the album is full of Nick Blinko’s extraordinary vocals and equally remarkable guitar, Grant Matthews’ big meandering driving basslines and Jon Greville's tight and relentless drum work which together made something intricate and hard hitting, with a sequence that makes the 21 songs on the album flow perfectly. Visually, the album is every outsider art lover’s wet dream. A six-panel poster sleeve with every inch covered in Nick Blinko’s claustrophobic black and white line drawings, while lyrically the songs deal with madness, religion, death, and questioning humankind from a dark poetic place rarely found in any art form. Remastered from the original master tapes by Arthur Rizk and housed in a replica poster sleeve, including the original insert, “Death Church” is back in print in LP, CD and cassette after nearly a decade of no official reissues.

In 2020 Brooklyn's Holy Hive introduced us all to something we didn't know we needed. Homer Steinweiss' thickly pocketed drumming paired with Paul Spring's floaty falsetto vocal produces a sound that's like a salve. It's been dubbed Folk Soul and Holy Hive not only expertly overlay the more apparent musical aspects of folk and soul-but they also draw from the more profound: being able to pull traditions from the past and make them their own. When Homer wasn't playing drums for Lady Gaga or Adele or Bruno Mars, he'd produce Paul's solo folk records. Along with original bassist and frequent collaborator Joe Harrison, these sessions proved to be Holy Hive's foundation. And their fi rst record, Float Back to You, expertly combined what each musician does best: Paul's heady, reflective approach to folk with Homer's universal classic soul sound. With their new record released on Big Crown, Holy Hive's beautifully simple-and-sparse Folk Soul sound is back-but updated. With new influences and the challenge of creating and capturing music during a global pandemic, this new self-titled album, is more personal, more reflective. They describe three distinct phases when piecing together Holy Hive: this first stage was pre-pandemic in California while traveling as a group, then-like the rest of us-they were separated, creating together but apart, and lastly an explosion of output once they reunited in New York. There is a natural but subtle evolution for Holy Hive on this record. Homer and Paul drew from new and maybe more obscure-yet-honest influences. It's still very much Folk Soul-how could it not be. But, like all artists, they've taken in what they've made and how they've made it, only to push it into new places. We know of Holy Hive's ability to lyrically convey the abstract and complex in poetic and palatable ways. But where the first record was soulfully silver-tongued with chill songs about love and affection, Holy Hive widens the lens with these novel influences, reflecting the points both Homer and Paul are in their own lives.

LTD. CLEAR PINK & BLUE SPLATTER VINYL

In 2020 Brooklyn's Holy Hive introduced us all to something we didn't know we needed. Homer Steinweiss' thickly pocketed drumming paired with Paul Spring's floaty falsetto vocal produces a sound that's like a salve. It's been dubbed Folk Soul and Holy Hive not only expertly overlay the more apparent musical aspects of folk and soul-but they also draw from the more profound: being able to pull traditions from the past and make them their own. When Homer wasn't playing drums for Lady Gaga or Adele or Bruno Mars, he'd produce Paul's solo folk records. Along with original bassist and frequent collaborator Joe Harrison, these sessions proved to be Holy Hive's foundation. And their fi rst record, Float Back to You, expertly combined what each musician does best: Paul's heady, reflective approach to folk with Homer's universal classic soul sound. With their new record released on Big Crown, Holy Hive's beautifully simple-and-sparse Folk Soul sound is back-but updated. With new influences and the challenge of creating and capturing music during a global pandemic, this new self-titled album, is more personal, more reflective. They describe three distinct phases when piecing together Holy Hive: this first stage was pre-pandemic in California while traveling as a group, then-like the rest of us-they were separated, creating together but apart, and lastly an explosion of output once they reunited in New York. There is a natural but subtle evolution for Holy Hive on this record. Homer and Paul drew from new and maybe more obscure-yet-honest influences. It's still very much Folk Soul-how could it not be. But, like all artists, they've taken in what they've made and how they've made it, only to push it into new places. We know of Holy Hive's ability to lyrically convey the abstract and complex in poetic and palatable ways. But where the first record was soulfully silver-tongued with chill songs about love and affection, Holy Hive widens the lens with these novel influences, reflecting the points both Homer and Paul are in their own lives.

Sudi Wachspress returns to Tartelet Records with Dance Planet, a third LP of emotionally-charged house music to welcome us back to the dancefloor. The spirit of true house runs deep in the sound of Space Ghost. Oakland native Sudi Wachspress is intuitively plugged into the romantic, mystical energy of 4/4 club music as a unifying force of empowerment and liberation, carrying the torch from vital forebears like Larry Heard, Alton Miller, and Blaze.

His new album, Dance Planet, carries a greater responsibility to spread spiritual affirmations. As the global dancefloor community emerges from a mentally-taxing recess and confronts their social self like it’s the first day of school, Space Ghost’s message couldn’t be more supportive.

“Don’t be afraid to be yourself, don’t be afraid to let go,” he intones on “Be Yourself.” More than just a beat and a hook, his music is pointedly created to heal and energize. “I’m a big fan of old-school house vocals that have a positive message,” says Space Ghost, “tracks that can perhaps enhance your mood or strengthen your confidence in yourself.”

Wachspress has always represented a beacon of musical uplift, both on his previous Endless Light and Aquarium Nightclub LPs for Tartelet and on his swathes of self-released music and last year’s Free 2 B on Apron. Compared to most house-oriented artists, he places emphasis on the long-player format to create an encircling experience for the listener, smoothing out psychic wrinkles and massaging areas of tension for a fully holistic hit.

For RE:WARM 007 We present Lucky Mereki - You Got Me Dancing. Originally released on Accord Music back in 1991 officially licenced via Gallo Music, remastered & presented in its original sleeve design for RE:WARM records.

Now here’s a record we felt had been criminally overlooked until now, despite Lucky still being an active musician of over 30 years and still producing music in his home country of South Africa. This is sadly so often the case for many artists of the time. Thankfully the resurgence in Bubblegum Pop, Afro Boogie, Kwaito, House & Pantsula over the last decade or so has given a new lease of life to some overlooked music from the late 80s & 90s Township subcultures from S.A. We think this one fits that Pre-Kwaito bill nicely, the genre that led a township subculture into the mainstream. Its sweet, its sensitive, its hopeful with very infectious rhythms and synth lines throughout, reflecting better times ahead as a new future starts to emerge from a post-apartheid South Africa.