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Outernational Sounds very proudly Presents The Mallory-Hall Band "Song of Soweto" & "The Last Special".
Limited, fully licensed digital and vinyl reissues of two crucial South African sessions led by Charles Mallory and Al Hall, Jnr., featuring Kirk Lightsey, Marshall Royal, Rudolph Johnson, Billy Brooks and more! Essential companion pieces to Kirk Lightsey’s legendary ‘Habiba’.
Featuring tracks:
Song Of Soweto: Side A – ‘Song of Soweto’, ‘Hamba Samba’; Side B – ‘Cape Town Blues’, ‘Moroka Rock’, ‘The African Night’
The Last Special: Side A - ‘The Last Special’, ‘Princess of Joh’Burg’; Side B - ‘Amafu (Clouds)’, ‘Blue Mabone’
Never released outside South Africa, and out of print since 1974, Outernational Sounds presents two long-lost Johannesburg sessions from the Mallory-Hall Band – an all-star review of West Coast jazz stars who toured apartheid South Africa in the mid-1970s.
Sanifu Al Hall, Jnr. is a musician’s musician. During a storied career stretching across six decades, Hall has recorded with the greats of the music including Freddie Hubbard, Doug Carn, and Johnny Hammond, and leads his own Cosmos Dwellerz Arkestra. But until recent years, the only records on which he had appeared as leader were a brace of rich, funky LPs, Song Of Soweto and The Last Special, issued only in South Africa under the moniker of The Mallory-Hall Band (named for Hall and his co-leader, guitarist Charles Mallory – musical director for Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, Mallory was conductor for Dusty Springfield touring bands, and had worked with John Lee Hooker, Stevie Wonder, and many others). Neither LP had any wider release, and both have remained out of print since 1974. How did a young stalwart of the Los Angeles jazz scene end up in a recording studio in apartheid South Africa?
Al Hall, Jnr. and Charles Mallory had arrived in South Africa as part of the touring band for the singer Lovelace Watkins. Sometimes billed as ‘the Black Sinatra’, the Detroit-born Watkins sang standards and ballroom classics on the Las Vegas circuit. He never made it big in the US, but in his 1970s heyday he was a huge star in southern Africa, and 1974 he hired a jazz big band to accompany him on a tour of South Africa – Hall and Mallory were part of the line-up, alongside Mastersounds bassist Monk Montgomery, pianist Kirk Lightsey, tenorist Rudolph Johnson, drummer Billy Brooks, and Marshall Royal, musical director of the Count Basie band. The tour was a huge success, and during downtime from performing, members of the group managed to independently record no fewer than three albums. Lightsey and Johnson’s stunning Habiba was the first (reissued as Outernational Sounds OTR.013), and it was followed by two crucial sessions led by Hall and Mallory – Song of Soweto and The Last Special, issued on the local IRC imprint.
Visiting apartheid South Africa in 1974 was a controversial choice for any artist. Numerous artistic and cultural bodies around the world had already announced that their members would boycott the country in solidarity with the struggle against apartheid, and working in South Africa was severely frowned on by anti-apartheid activists everywhere. For a Black band, touring the country to play to mostly white audiences could have been seen by many both inside and outside South Africa as a questionable decision. ‘It was a batch of mixed reactions when I choose to visit South Africa whilst apartheid policies were in place,’ Hall recalls. ‘To me the choice was a simple one – “I wanna see for myself!” I also wanted to be a part of breaking down racial barriers, having been down some of the same roads in my own country.’
The albums were recorded by a twelve-piece band at Johannesburg’s Video Sounds Studios in December 1974, and feature the legendary pianist Kirk Lightsey, Black Jazz recording artist Rudolph Johnson, and the rest of the touring band. Both records are superbly arranged slabs of peak 1970s funky big band soul jazz, with tasteful Latin inflections and more than a nod to South Africa’s upful township jazz sound. They are the sonic traces left by a seasoned African American band who were touring South Africa in the depths of the apartheid era, and who immediately moved beyond the segregated hotels and ballrooms to build links with local South African players and audiences.
Never previously available outside South Africa, Outernational Sounds’ new editions of Song of Soweto and The Last Special (alongside our edition of Kirk Lightsey’s Habiba) represents the first time these albums have been in print for nearly fifty years. Fully licensed from Gallo Records and pressed at Pallas in Germany from Gallo’s original masters, they feature new sleeve notes from Francis Gooding (The Wire) based on interviews with Al Hall, Jnr., and a reminiscence from pianist Kirk Lightsey.

There is nothing quite like an evening under the rhythmic spell of the legendary David Morales. Stepping on the dancefloor while he's behind the decks requires full trust and surrender. You agree to hand the reins of your mind, body, and spirit to his intuition and ability to guide you to where you need to be at all times. It will occasionally be cathartic and intense. It will often make the hairs on your body stand on end, and make you sweat more than you ever have before. The endorphin release will be powerful. You will feel like you can touch joy and euphoria it in the air around you. As he gently brings you back down to reality, you will feel renewed and ready for anything life brings your way. This is more than a night of dancing. This is an experience at the hands of a magical maestro of music. How is this possible from a night on the dancefloor? Well, it begins with the brilliant mind of an artist at the peak of his creative power, imbued with the empathy necessary to connect with what has become a global legion of fans. "If there is any secret, it's really simple: I love what I do with all of my heart," Morales says. "I'm a DJ first. I thrive on human interaction. I am always adjusting my sets based on what the people in the room need. Each night, we form an emotional connection that inspires the music as it comes."

For Morales, "working in the studio is important, but it exists as a way of supporting the DJing experience. It's all to inform how it will work on the dancefloor."

To that end, you're reading these words as you dive into a new collection of Morales classics. Ever the collaborator, he has enlisted the input of a wide range of voices and talent. There is the diva power of fellow legend Ultra Nate, who brings her signature sass to "I Can Dream," while Michele Perera's explosive chemistry with David is all over the inspiring "Life is a Song" and "Never Give Up", as well as the impassioned "Addicted."

Morales reminds the listener of his ever-evolving musical scope in collaborations with blondewearingblack ("What Can I Do"), Lea Lorien ("Never Looking Back"), and Blakkat ("Can't Get Enough"). There's the clubland supergroup of David with Mr. V, Scotty P. and DJ Rae on "The Feels." Rounding out the set is a reunion with longtime muses Elle Cato ("I Feel Love") and British soul icon Joe Roberts ("Easy"). Just be sure to listen closely, because there's bound to be a surprise tucked between these grooves to tickle your ears and move your body.

The beauty of this sparkling new foray into electronic music is the heightened intimacy between Morales and the music. What you are hearing here is almost exclusively from the man's own fingertips. "The technology has evolved in the most extraordinary and liberating ways," he says, adding that he is now able to be far more directly hands-on during the building of each track. "Back in the '90s, I had to have more people involved, With the changes and growth in technology, I can now do it, myself. I don't even have to be in the studio anymore. It's smart, financially, but it's also way more fun and creative."

David adds, "I don't have to wait to manifest an idea anymore. I can just build my ideas as they come to me." In fact, he reveals that many of these new tracks were born in unique places, like planes, cars, his bedroom, and a host of other settings. "Music is always spinning around my mind. I no longer worry about losing an idea."

Surviving the highs and lows of an ever-changing world has also brought Morales back to the basic essentials of life and music. "The pandemic has brought things full circle for me," he says. "I love what I do and I still have the passion of a kid who is just getting started"

Yet, we know that Morales has been in the game for longer than a minute. He's a Grammy award-winning producer, remixer, and songwriter. He has lent his skill to countless of records by icons that include Mariah Carey, Madonna, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Aretha Franklin, Donna Summer, Seal, and Jamiroquai. As a turntable artist originally from New York City, he earned his bones of credibility back in the '80s and '90s in clubs like the Paradise Garage, Red Zone, Tunnel, and Club USA. He initiated the concept of DJs touring beyond their hometowns with countless, wildly successful treks that have taken him the farthest-reaching corners of the world. As electronic music thrives on pop radium, David tops the list of every young artist and DJ as a primary influence.

Even with such a staggering legacy, Morales never looks over his shoulder.

"That is how you stumble and fall," he says. "If you get all caught up in the past, you're going to lose sight of what is right in front of you. You lose the excitement of discovery. That is what gets me off; taking what I know and combining it with what I don't know as I learn it. There is nothing better than experiencing how it all comes together. It's different every time."

And that is the ultimate secret to that extraordinary spell that David Morales casts over us all every single time.

Black Flower is a vibrant, hypnotic mix of Ethio jazz, afrobeat, psychedelia and oriental influences, inspired by Mulatu Astatke, Fela Kuti and varied western musical traditions.

Limited version on smokey coloured vinyl.Black Flower is a vibrant, hypnotic mix of Ethio jazz, afrobeat, psychedelia and oriental influences, inspired by Mulatu Astatke, Fela Kuti and varied western musical traditions.

There’s an ancient Japanese legend in which a horde of demons, ghosts and other terrifying ghouls descend upon the sleeping villages once a year. Known as Hyakki Yagyō, or the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons, one version of the tale states that anyone who witnesses this otherworldly procession will die instantly—or be carried off by the creatures of the night. As a result, the villagers hide in their homes, lest they become victims of these supernatural invaders.

Such is the inspiration for the latest album from EARTHLESS. “My son is really into mythical creatures and old folk stories about monsters and ghosts,” bassist Mike Eginton explains. “We came across the ‘Night Parade of One Hundred Demons’ in a book of traditional Japanese ghost stories. I like the idea of people hiding and being able to hear the madness but not see it. It’s the fear of the unknown.”

Whereas 2018’s Black Heaven featured shorter songs and vocals from guitarist Isaiah Mitchell on much of the album—an unprecedented move for the San Diego power trio—their latest is a return to the epic instrumentals EARTHLESS made their unmistakable name on. Night Parade Of One Hundred Demons is comprised of two monster songs—the 41-minute, two-part title track and the 20-minute “Death To The Red Sun.”

The scenario that allowed for this kind of exploration was a stark contrast to that of Black Heaven. At that point, Mitchell was living in the Bay Area, which made it difficult for the band to get together and work on the type of long instrumental pieces they’re known for. But in March 2020, the guitarist moved back to San Diego. More specifically, he moved back the night the pandemic lockdown kicked in. Bad timing, perhaps—or maybe perfect timing.

Plus, they were all on the same page about not wanting to do another record with vocals. “In a way, I think this album was a reaction to our last record,” Eginton says. “Black Heaven was outside our comfort zone. I think it was a good record, but it was challenging to write songs in a more traditional verse-chorus-verse format. This one was more enjoyable. I’m sure we’ll do more vocal tracks in the future, but for the time being I see that album as a one-off.”

Given the record’s inspiration, it should come as no surprise that Night Parade of One Hundred Demons strikes a more sinister tone than the rest of the band’s catalogue. “It definitely has a darker, almost evil kind of vibe compared to stuff we’ve done in the past,” Rubalcaba says. “There’s more paranoia and noise, and some of Isaiah’s whammy-bar stuff kind of reminds me of these Jeff Hanneman moments in Reign In Blood, where it just seems like everything is going to hell. It’s pretty fun.”

Night Parade of One Hundred Demons was recorded in San Diego with Rubalcaba’s childhood friend Ben Moore, who’s worked with everyone from DIAMANDA GALAS and BURT BACHARACH to CEREMONY and HOT SNAKES. When Eginton wasn’t tracking his bass parts, he worked on the album’s incredible sleeve art. “He really dedicated himself to the project,” Rubalcaba says. “He’d be drawing in the studio with, like, a coal-miner’s lamp on his head while we were doing overdubs. He really knocked it out of the park.”

All told, Night Parade of One Hundred Demons isn’t just a return to the band’s traditional format—it’s a return to their very beginnings. “This album actually has the very first Earthless riff in it,” Eginton reveals. “We just recorded it 20 years after we wrote it. But we’re really happy with how this record came out. We feel it might be our finest to date.”

‘The Afro Modern Seventies Sounds of Soweto’s First Nightclub

• Over ten years in the making, this is the first compilation from South African vinyl re-issue specialists Matsuli Music

• Ten track double gatefold album journey through jazz, funk, fusion and disco, detailing the incredible story and sounds behind the Soweto nightclub during the height of apartheid

• Uniquely South African take on the trans-Atlantic sounds of Philadelphia, Detroit and New York City

• Cover artwork by Zulu Bidi (of Batsumi fame) with unseen photographs, and liner notes by Kwanele Sosibo featuring interviews with key musicians, players and a former president of South Africa

• Audio mastered and cut for vinyl by Frank Merritt at The Carvery with heavyweight 180g vinyl pressed at Pallas in Germany

A night-time haunt in the backstreets of Soweto run by a well-known bootlegger should have been a prime zone for nefarious underworld activities. Instead, it nurtured an underground of a different kind. Soon after its opening in 1973, Club Pelican became a spot where musicians steeped in the tradition of South African jazz began to cook up experimental sounds inspired by communion, competition and the movements in funk and soul blowing in from the West. Located in an industrial park on the western edge of Orlando East, Soweto, Club Pelican was off the beaten track, among a matrix of railway and industrial infrastructure. In a different time and place, this would have been a prototypical nightclub location, except there was no local precedent to follow. This was Soweto’s first night club.
In the intervening years, this location has served to heighten the now-defunct spot’s legendary status as a singular venue, one that ruled the night in the Seventies. Initially called Lucky’s and established in 1973, the Pelican’s impact on the Soweto cultural landscape was immediate. Lorded over by a charismatic figure known as Lucky Michaels, the club became the jewel in a nondescript collection of family businesses. It boasted a diverse pool of talent in its succession of house bands and an A-list of ghetto-fabulous singers as

its cabaret stars. Its VIP section was a veritable who’s who of Soweto society and its stage, hosting a mix of the day’s pop culture infused with the creativity and individual histories of the musicians, the Pelican filled a live music vacuum.
One Night in Pelican captures the halcyon seventies period with a single nightclub embodying an indomitable spirit of its troubadour players. While schooled and rooted in “standards” and local forms, the music could take any direction, at a moment’s notice. This compilation features all the key groups and players of the time: Abacothozi, Almon Memela’s Soweto, The Black Pages, Dick Khoza and the Afro Pedlars, The Drive, Ensemble of Rhythm and Art , The Headquarters, Makhona Zonke Band, the Shyannes and Spirits Rejoice.’

'Salisbury’ by Uriah Heep, Picture Disc Vinyl, Limited Edition, Official Collectors Release, The sophomore album which helped pioneer the heavy metal genre. LP set on heavyweight vinyl.

BMG are jubilant to announce the release of ‘Salisbury’, the sophomore studio album from Uriah Heep, on an Official Picture Disc LP for the very first time. Containing the original audio recorded in Lansdowne Studios, this new pressing of the album contains the hits ‘High Priestess’, ‘Lady in Black’ and more.

This incredible album was first released in June 1971.

Uriah Heep continue to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the formation of Uriah Heep with the release of the sophomore album’s first official picture disc LP. This LP is contained within a series of collector picture discs releases from the Uriah Heep catalogue.

Sarcasm has had a storied career. Originally formed in Sweden in 1987, Sarcasm would release blistering Death Metal throughout the early and mid-90’s. After a short-lived reunion in 1997, they would come back into the fold in 2015 with a new re-designed version of their lineup. Now they return with their new full-length album “Stellar Stream Obscured”. A concept-based album that is a journey. Managing to sound like their old selves, the bands launches a fine assault here featuring plenty of furious melodic rhythms alongside their traditional leanings. Although, they clearly have their ties in being an older Death Metal band, their sound still brings with it the youthful exuberance of newer Death Metal bands. They have this almost blackened style of Death Metal that cuts like a knife. The impressive guitar work is highlighted by the brutal blast beats and vile vocals emanating in every track. A surprising factor to their music is the slowing down of the tempo to offer up a more melodic sound. A lot of times the old school Death Metal bands seem to be stuck in their ways, but Sarcasm has implemented the more melodic sound to their brutal repertoire. One should appreciate the vile black metal styled vocals on the album, as they work so well together with the professional sounding musicianship. Take Black Metal, melodies, and Death Metal and blend it all up then you’ll have “Stellar Stream Obscured”. The music is beautiful, vile, and brutal all in the same. “Stellar Streams Obscured” is a triumphantly diverse Death Metal album that brings a complete and competent sound. Sarcasm deliver on every facet musically.

Formed in 1983, Hallows Eve was a thrash metal band hailing from Atlanta, GA, whose first brush with notoriety came via the inclusion of their song Metal Merchants” in the Metal Massacre, Vol. 6 compilation two years later. Duly signed by the collection’s parent label, Metal Blade, the group, comprised of vocalist Stacy Anderson, guitarists David Stuart and Steve “Skullator” Shoemaker, bassist Tommy Stewart, and drummer Ronny Appoldt, released their debut album, Tales of Terror, later the same year and then followed it with two more discs (1986′s Death & Insanity and 1988′s Monument).

Formed in 1983, Hallows Eve was a thrash metal band hailing from Atlanta, GA, whose first brush with notoriety came via the inclusion of their song Metal Merchants" in the Metal Massacre, Vol. 6 compilation two years later. Duly signed by the collection's parent label, Metal Blade, the group, comprised of vocalist Stacy Anderson, guitarists David Stuart and Steve "Skullator" Shoemaker, bassist Tommy Stewart, and drummer Ronny Appoldt, released their debut album, Tales of Terror, later the same year and then followed it with two more discs (1986's Death & Insanity and 1988's Monument). By 1989, the band had folded but eventually re-formed in 2004 with plans to record a new, as yet unreleased, effort. - Eduardo Rivadavia (All Music Guide)

Pressing Info: 180g black vinyl, standard sleeve, printed inner sleeve. Arriving right off the back of their second album 'El Refugio' which was released in November 2021 via Fuzz Club Records, Mexican post-punk/krautrock group Sei Still are back with a 'Fuzz Club Session' LP that's due out January 21st 2022. Having upped sticks from Mexico City to Berlin, Sei Still's Fuzz Club Session was recorded live at Berlin's Monoton Studio back in October 2020 and is comprised of five tracks from the newly-released 'El Refugio' LP: 'Esperando' (later titled 'Saldados Caidos' on 'El Refugio'), 'Hombre Animal', 'Las Puertas De La Noche', 'Me Persigue' and 'Se Asoma el Sol' (later 'Solsticio'). 'El Refugio' and the session LP set to be released in support capture a new era for Sei Still. The expansive Krautrock jams heard on their 2020 self-titled debut have evolved into a dark, motorik post-punk sound that owes far more to 70s punk, goth-rock and Spanish New Wave than any kosmische travellers. The session is released on 180g black or white vinyl with a printed inner sleeve and is accompanied by a series of videos recorded during the session.

Repress of the RSD LP, this time on Black vinyl. Soundtrack to David Lynch’s 1984 cult film. Composed by TOTO and Brian Eno. Sourced from the original mastertapes. Audiophile Pressing at RTI.

Beyond their highly sought after 1978 album Festa Para Um Novo Rei­ - home to the mystical jazz-funk classic ‘Vidigal’ and released on Philips’ iconic Musica Popular Brasileira Contemporanea series (MPBC) - little is known about Marcos Resende & Index, even to aficionados of obscure Brazilian music. Far Out Recordings is immensely proud to present their previously unreleased self-titled debut album from 1976, contributing a crucial missing work from the glory days of progressive Brazilian instrumental music.

Born in Cachoeiro de Itapemirim, Brazil in 1947, Marcos Resende was a prodigious child who learned to play the accordion at the age of two, and the piano aged six. In spite of his immense musical potential, he travelled to Lisbon in the 60s to study medicine. Yet continuing to explore his musical passion on the side, he formed a trio which went on to open for Dexter Gordon at the Cascais Jazz Festival in 1971. From here he formed the electronic oriented prog-jazz group Status, who opened shows for the likes of Elton John, Phil Woods, Stan Getz, Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, but in spite of their relative live success they have no known recordings.

Now established as a highly regarded keyboardist, composer, and innovative electronic musician, Resende returned home to Brazil following Portugal’s Revolução dos Cravos in 1974. Inspired by US jazz and British progressive rock he’d experienced while residing in Europe, Resende went all out acquiring a keyboard arsenal to be reckoned with, which included the Prophet 5, Yamaha CP-708 and Mini Moog. Determined to integrate his newfound inspirations with Brazilian rhythms and jazz traditions, he formed a new quartet with Rubão Sabino (bass), Claudio Caribé (drums) and the late great Oberdan Magalhães, of Banda Black Rio and Cry Babies fame. Marcos Resende & Index recorded their self-titled debut at Sonoviso Studios with the legendary sound engineer Toninho Barbosa, known as the ‘Brazilian Rudy Van Gelder’ whose impressive resumé includes the era defining classics Light As A Feather by Azymuth, Previsão Do Tempo by Marcos Valle, and Quem É Quem by João Donato. Marcos Resende & Index fits perfectly amongst these masterpieces, sharing both the timeless ethereal qualities as well as the progressive and futuristic ideals of Light As A Feather in particular.

Introducing Jackson + Sellers and their debut album Breaking Point, on ANTI records. Jade Jackson and Aubrie Sellers, two rising stars who aligned during the pandemic to write one of the most compelling duo albums of the last decade. Drawn together by instant chemistry, cosmic forces and their ability to write intuitive romantic breakup songs for each other, their album is a window into the dissolution of two different relationships and the formation of another: a perfect, platonic, creative union. United in their desire to write a record that reflected their expansive musical interest from 70s rock to raucous roots to indie pop, their LA written, Nashville recorded album is a masterclass in unexpected vocal har?monic convergence. With Breaking Point, Jackson + Sellers will establish themselves as two individual artists who together, share a deep friendship, musical kinship and the ability to craft tight singular pop rock songs that will embed themselves in your ears for the rest of time.

Noah Gundersen returns with his much anticipated new album, 'A Pillar of Salt' ahead of a US headline tour. The project is a return to form for Gundersen, coupling heartfelt lyrics with his signature understated vocal performance. With over 100 Million career streams and 100k album sales, this album is sure to take Noah's career to the next level. Featuring singles "Sleepless in Seattle" and "Atlantis," a stunning duet with Phoebe Bridgers, fans old and new will be celebrating this triumphant piece of art. CLEAR VINYL LP

On his aptly-titled Mascot Records’ debut, What Happens Next, roots singer-songwriter and guitarist Davy Knowles boldly steps forward with timeless and cohesive songwriting; sleek modern production; and a lyrical, play-for-the-song guitar approach informed from soul, folk, rock, and blues. The 12-song album is just as influenced by The Black Keys, Fantastic Negrito, Gary Clark Jr., as it is Muddy Waters, Junior Kimbrough, and R.L. Burnside. It is a cohesive body of work rather than a collection of disparate songs. On What Happens Next, Knowles’s poetic songwriting, and his soulfully emotive singing steal the show. The 12-song body of work offers forth a peaks-and-valleys album experience winding through brawny riffs, jazzy blues balladry, and vintage soul before concluding with one of Knowles’s most personal songs released to date. Throughout it all, his guitar playing is brilliantly understated, his rhythm work is deft and dynamic—beefy on the rockers, and subtly supportive on the slower tunes—and his leads are economical but feature juicy blues bends and thick as molasses lead guitar tones."What Happens Next" is released on CD and digitally on October 22, 2021 and on vinyl on December 3, 2021 via Mascot Label Group/Provogue Records.

Recorded in 2012 following their breakthrough LPs for Freestyle Records - and stored in The Apples vault maturing ever since!
It seemed like the band were a ways past due a return to the label, and what better way could there be than to release this powerful, uplifting & headbanging Blur cover.

Wherever you are and whoever you're with, whenever you feel like screaming on the edge of a cliff or to simply dance like the end of the world is coming (all imminently possible!) this one is for you. Backed up with the irresistible klezmer-funk energy of The Apples' 2009's take on The Power, because we just couldn't resist giving it another blast on wax.

Produced By Yonadav Halevy
Recorded, Mixed & Mastered By Uri "MIXMONSTER" Wertheim
Executive Producer: Erez Todres
Arthur Krasnobaev – Trumpet
Yaron Ouzana – Trombone
Oleg Naiman – Tenor & Soprano Saxophones
Yakir Sasson – Baritone Saxophone
Erez Todres – Turntables
Ofer Tal – Turntables
Alon Carmely – Double Bass
Yonadav Halevy – Drums
Uri "MIXMONSTER" Wertheim – Sound Console, Tapes, Effects
Recorded At Luna Studios, Tel Aviv With Roy Nadel, 2012.
Art by The Bitterman Sisters. Thanks To Fada Zach Bar.

Al Doum and the Faryds continue their journey toward a New Direction. Now, they live in a futuristic Garden of Delights, inhabited by strange bright bubbles, golden wheels, water secrets and mysterious plants. From their home of Love & Nature, they set out to travel the Universe to forge a new Being together. Their typical blend of Spiritual-Jazz, Psychedelia and Afro-Latin Rock remains on the same wave, accentuating the collective rite of liberation and expansion of the spirit. There's certainly a greater lightness and airiness, expecially in the most immediate and direct arrangements to convey the message of brotherhood; because the absolute weapon lies in female voices and choirs. These chants are incisive gospel and soul sermons and their narration magically permeates throughout the album. Everything is always supported by the balance between robust and biting guitar riffs, raga-rock incursions, tribal rhythm sections and impregnable and captivating sax drifts; and echoes of the soft lysergic sound of the 60s cannot be missing. This is music of multiple forces, a sacred harmony to overcome barriers, which sees no enemies and breaks down egos. It's the playfulness and the power in making music together, the true magic recipe of these Freaky People: we are what the Universe wants!

What is this? Who are them? Free jazz? Psychedelic? This mysterious album has been recorded by jooking faryds folks that came up in the middle of June 2015 at the space-time door Guscio Studio, Milan. At the very beginning there was no plan to release this jamming jam until a birthday present changed their minds.

An outstanding raga-like drone lp with a distinctive cosmic vibe, Futuro Antico was a short living collaboration between the two italian Walter Maioli (Aktuala), Riccardo Sinigaglia and Gabin Dabiré (from Burkina Faso). The synthesis between ancient, ethnic and analog electronic music is just perfect, the minimalist repetition with slight changes gives associations of a slow growth; cyclic repetition gives the listener an opportunity to discover the sounds, to meditate, to go into the music, join the same journey trough ancient, primitive cultures and modern electronic soundscapes.Originally released in 1980, the sound is completly analog and warm, this reissue maintain the first tape artwork + info and photos.

Futuro Antico, released just on tape in 1980, this record contains the hypnotic session of Walter Maioli (Aktuala) and Riccardo Sinigaglia. Analog and warm sounds, a perfect mix of drone synth and ancient flutes (found in oriental countries) gives you the idea to fly on a spaceship towards some exotic sites. This records terribly remember the astonishing live Köln jam of Terry Riley and Don Cherry, the comparison fits!This reissue maintains the first tape artwork + info and photos in the innerfolder.

• This slice of Louisiana deep Southern soul has taken on a life of its own since Dave Godin included it on his first “Deep Soul Treasures” CD, and the single has shot up to well over three figures in value.

• In 2021 the song is the subject of a cover version by the-name-to-drop Lady Blackbird and we felt it was about time that it was reissued in its original format.

he British singer Paul Young gained his highest level of commercial success with his second album The Secret Of Association, which featured several hit singles. The album was originally released in 1985 and was certified gold in the US and platinum in the UK, reaching #1 in the UK album charts. The album’s most notable single was his cover of Daryl Hall’s “Every Time You Go Away”, which hit #1 on the US single charts and
#4 in the UK. In addition, the album features “I’m Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down”, “Everything Must Change” and “Tomb of Memories”, which all charted well.

The Secret Of Association is available as an expanded edition and includes various mixes of the singles, B-sides “Give Me My Freedom” and “Man In The Iron Mask”, and also live versions of “No Parlez” and “Bite The Hand That Feeds”. The album is available as a 2LP limited edition of 2000 individually numbered copies on gold & black marbled vinyl.

Black Vinyl Version Of Angel Dream (Songs From The Motion Picture ‘She’s The One’ previously only available as RSD Release.

Original album sales notes:
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the film She’s The One, 2nd July will see the release of Angel Dream (Songs From The Motion Picture ‘She’s The One’), a remixed, remastered and re-imagined version of the soundtrack. The original album included several songs that were left off the original Wildflowers album (recently included as the All The Rest disc in the Wildflowers & All The Rest re-issue), so this re-release is an appropriate ending to the campaign celebrating the Wildflowers-era.

Ryan Ulyate (Tom’s long time engineer and producer) has remixed the audio, and the song selection is designed to work as a TPHB album, rather than a soundtrack album. Four unreleased tracks have been added; the rocker “105 Degrees” (written by Petty), a cover of JJ Cale’s “13 Days”, “One of Life’s Little Mysteries” (another Petty original), and an instrumental (“French Disconnection”) in the same vein as the instrumentals on the original album. An extended version of “Supernatural Radio” is also included. The new title is a reference to one of the stand out tracks on the album. The new album will have brand new artwork.

Reykjavik-born producer Volruptus, kown for several crazy bombs on трип, bbbbb or Sweaty Records (with Jensen Interceptor), is back with a 4-tracks EP that is made with hypnotic elektro, brutal braindance, and many explosives substances. Ignite your senses ! Feed the fire burning within! Blaze through explosive soundscapes where the heat is blistering ! Detonate into a feverous rage! Get engulfed in it's flames!

"Reissue on vinyl of the eighth PJ Harvey studio album Let England Shake. The album was produced by PJ Harvey, Flood and John Parish and originally released in Feburary 2011. Let England Shake features the singles ‘The Words That Maketh Murder’ and 'The Glorious Land' and was the second album in the catalogue to win the UK’s Mercury Music Prize. Reissue is faithful to the original recording and package, cutting by Jason Mitchell at Loud Mastering under the guidance of original co-producer John Parish.
LP Info
• 1LP, 180gsm black vinyl
• Full colour outer sleeve, with printed inner sleeve
• Download card"

Heir Corpse One is one of the latest projects of
multi-shredder / vocalist Rogga Johansson
(Paganizer, Stygian Dark, Massacre, Blood Gut,
Dead Sun, Megascavenger, Ribspreader,
Putrevore, Revolting).
 For this zombie horror-themed album he teamed
up with some friends from the Swedish death
metal scene: Kjetil Lynghaug (Mordenial,
Paganizer), Peter Svensson (Furnace Moon) and
Marcus Rosenkvist (Assasins Blade, Void Moon).
 ‘Fly The Fiendish Skies’ is a concept story about a
zombie apocalypse that starts after a plane cockpit
crew crashes and dives in a zombie filled swamp.
Expect dirty old school Swedish death metal as
only the Swedes can produce.
 For fans of Unleashed, Grave, Entrails, Bloodbath,
(old) Entombed

Hamburg-based sludge metal act High Fighter are
gearing up for release of their first live album ever.
 Soon after their sophomore album, the critically
acclaimed ‘Champain’ in 2019, the band were
forced to stop promoting the record live due to
obvious reasons, when they got invited by German
tv and iconic live format WDR Rockpalast to be
part of a special Offstage series.
 Filmed in August 2020 at an industrial, breathtaking setting of the Landschaftspark DuisburgNord, Germany, High Fighter’s only show since the
beginning of the pandemic, without a crowd, was
aired on national television.
 This live album was recorded by Dominik Schenke
with a pre-mix by Christoph Scheidel at 79 Sound
Studio, while Jan Oberg (Earth Ship / Grin) added
the final mix and mastering at Hidden Planet
Studio in Berlin.
 With their vibrant blend of sludge metal, doom and
stoner blues, High Fighter‘s ‘Live At WDR
Rockpalast’ features a heavy set and collection of
songs taken from the band’s first three records: the
rough and raw 2014-debut EP ‘The Goat Ritual’,
their first full-length album ‘Scars & Crosses’
(2016, Svart Records) and the latest, fast-paced
and brutal sludge juggernaut ‘Champain’, released
in 2019, also on Argonauta Records.
 White coloured vinyl.

‘In Free Fall’ is composer and electronic musician Maya
Shendfeld’s debut album. Guests include James Ginzburg
(Emptyset), Kelly Odonighue and The Bethenian youth
Choir.
 Berlin composer Maya Shenfeld’s music is as powerfully
evocative as it is strikingly intimate. Through a mastery of
sound sculpting and visionary approach to composition,
Shenfeld has established herself as one of the most vital
voices in Berlin’s New Music scene. Her work exists in
liminal spaces, collapsing the boundaries between
electronic synthesis and organic sound as it draws equally
from classical tradition and underground experimentalism.
 Shenfeld is also in demand for her technical knowledge,
working with electronic music innovators Ableton in music
education and research.
 Shenfeld is a rising star in the active Berlin music scene.
Her numerous commissions range from largescale
orchestral to site-specific sound installations, performing in
venues such as the KW Berlin, in collaboration with Berlinbased artist Richard Frater, leading a performance of
Julius Eastman’s ‘Gay Guerrila’ by an ensemble of sixteen
women playing bass and guitar for the opening event of
the Disappearing Berlin festival or writing for the Bethanien
youth choir, who performed at Baerwald bad, an
abandoned 1902 swimming pool in the heart of Berlin.
 Deluxe LP package artwork is designed by fashion
designer, and Maya’s sister, Gal Shenfeld. LP includes
digital download card.
 Mastered by Rashad Becker (Matmos, Laurie Spiegel,
Black To Comm, Clipping., Alvin Lucier, Félicia Atkinson).

Lu's Jukebox is a six-volume series of mostly full-band performances recorded live at Ray Kennedy's Room & Board Studio in Nashville, TN. Each volume features a themed set of songs by other artists curated by the multi-Grammy award winner, Lucinda Williams. The series aired as ticketed shows through Mandolin in late 2020 with a portion of ticket sales benefitting independent music venues struggling to get by through the pandemic. Like thousands of artists, Williams cut her teeth and developed her craft by playing in small, medium and large clubs throughout the country, and the world. These venues are vital to the development of artists and their music. Williams has never forgotten her roots, and often performs special shows in some of her favorite halls. This year, the Lu's Jukebox series will be made widely available on vinyl and CD. Volume 2, Southern Soul: From Memphis to Muscle Shoals, features covers of Al Green, Percy Sledge, Bobbie Gentry, Ann Peebles, Tony Joe White & more. It is scheduled for a July 9th, 2021 release.

The career defining 5th album from South African Slam juggernauts VULVODYNIA. Featuring a slew of guest performances and production from Christian Donaldson. Looking in a medical textbook will tell you the following: Vulvodynia is a chronic, severe vaginal pain with no identifiable cause. While the severe part is dead on, what a medical textbook won’t tell you is that Vulvodynia is also the pioneer in what is rapidly becoming South Africa’s most eviscerating export: Technical Slamming Brutal Deathcore. With lobotomizing, lurid riffs, skin-shredding blast beats and slams gruesome and filthy enough to induce septic shock, Vulvodynia are a lethal plague, spreading throughout the flesh of today’s heavy music scene—infecting one set of ears at a time, and leaving no survivors. Vulvodynia have toured Europe, USA, Australia, New Zealand, and played numerous festivals worldwide.

The career defining 5th album from South African Slam juggernauts VULVODYNIA. Featuring a slew of guest performances and production from Christian Donaldson. Looking in a medical textbook will tell you the following: Vulvodynia is a chronic, severe vaginal pain with no identifiable cause. While the severe part is dead on, what a medical textbook won’t tell you is that Vulvodynia is also the pioneer in what is rapidly becoming South Africa’s most eviscerating export: Technical Slamming Brutal Deathcore. With lobotomizing, lurid riffs, skin-shredding blast beats and slams gruesome and filthy enough to induce septic shock, Vulvodynia are a lethal plague, spreading throughout the flesh of today’s heavy music scene—infecting one set of ears at a time, and leaving no survivors. Vulvodynia have toured Europe, USA, Australia, New Zealand, and played numerous festivals worldwide.

The career defining 5th album from South African Slam juggernauts VULVODYNIA. Featuring a slew of guest performances and production from Christian Donaldson. Looking in a medical textbook will tell you the following: Vulvodynia is a chronic, severe vaginal pain with no identifiable cause. While the severe part is dead on, what a medical textbook won’t tell you is that Vulvodynia is also the pioneer in what is rapidly becoming South Africa’s most eviscerating export: Technical Slamming Brutal Deathcore. With lobotomizing, lurid riffs, skin-shredding blast beats and slams gruesome and filthy enough to induce septic shock, Vulvodynia are a lethal plague, spreading throughout the flesh of today’s heavy music scene—infecting one set of ears at a time, and leaving no survivors. Vulvodynia have toured Europe, USA, Australia, New Zealand, and played numerous festivals worldwide.

As funny as it may sound, Anaïs Mitchell has spent the past 15 years in some kind of hell. OK, not actual hell, but the multi-faceted world of Hadestown, a musical project she began in Vermont in 2006 that has grown into a Tony®- and Grammy®-award-winning Broadway phenomenon with touring editions now delighting audiences as far away as South Korea.

“I experienced so much joy working on Hadestown, but it just kept ramping up and up and requiring more and more attention,” Mitchell admits. “I had to become so single-minded and really put blinders on to my other creative life.” As it did for many artists, the COVID-19 pandemic unexpectedly offered Mitchell a blank slate to reconnect with her own music. The result is a new self-titled album made with close collaborators from Bon Iver, The National and her own band Bonny Light Horseman, Mitchell’s first collection of all-new material under her own name since 2012’s Young Man in America.

“I was nine months pregnant when the pandemic reached New York, so we made an 11th hour decision to leave and have the baby in Vermont,” Mitchell recalls. “We left the city and had the baby a week later, and then like everyone, we were in the midst of this unprecedented stillness. It felt like I could see behind me: oh, there’s New York City. There’s Hadestown. There’s my life with just one kid. A certain kind of stress and expectations. In Vermont, we moved onto my family farm and lived in my grandparents’ old house, with a new baby. I’d look at pictures on my phone from a few months earlier and wonder, whose life was that? This record, and the songs that are on it, came out of that time. I got into a flow again that I hadn’t felt in a really long time.”

Dubbed by NPR as “one of the greatest songwriters of her generation,” Mitchell is a master of the worlds of narrative folksong, poetry and balladry. Those talents are evident from the first moments of the new album, as Mitchell narrates what she calls “an unbearably romantic” trip over the Brooklyn Bridge colored by Bon Iver member Michael Lewis’ heartstring-tugging saxophone accompaniment. “Having left New York, I was able to write a love letter to it in a way I never could when I was living there,” she says. “It was like, fuck it. This is how I feel. There is nothing more beautiful than riding over one of the New York bridges at night next to someone who inspires you.”

Produced by Mitchell’s Bonny Light Horseman bandmate Josh Kaufman, the album proceeds to chronicle Mitchell’s reconnection with the Vermont roots that have been so formative in her life and music. “Bright Star” finds her making peace with the idea of being at peace in the familiar setting of her grandparents’ house, while “Revenant” was inspired by paging through a box of journals and letters belonging to herself and her grandmother — “a very pandemic activity,” she says. “That house is literally my happy place. I can picture myself as a kid, in this house, laying on the carpet with a sunbeam coming through the sliding glass door. There’s something about it that is really connected in my mind to my childhood and a very free, imaginative, creative time. “Revenant” has a lot to do with that house and reconnecting with my childhood self.”

Mitchell concedes that she tends “to be someone who thinks it has to be hard in order for it to be good or beautiful,” but that feeling has changed, partly thanks to her deep connection with musicians she’s met through the 37d03d collective established by The National’s Aaron and Bryce Dessner and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. During the pandemic, some of those artists participated in a “song a day” writing group — an idea Mitchell says is usually “totally opposite of how I roll. But it really helped me to gain access to some kind of trust and intuition and flow. I began a bunch of these songs while doing that.”

“It unlocked something that allowed me to finish a bunch of songs I’d been sitting on, and feeling a bit paralyzed about how to finish them,” she continues. “Because no one was touring, it’s not like I was playing them for anyone before we were in the studio. In other times, I’ve trotted things out in advance. Here, it was like, here’s all these brand new songs. Let’s discover what they can be. That was really exciting.”

That discovery process took flight at Dreamland Recording Studios outside Woodstock, N.Y., which Mitchell describes as “this weird, janky, beautiful church - it’s my favorite studio in the world.” Kaufman, Lewis and Big Red Machine drummer JT Bates formed a core band around Mitchell, while Aaron Dessner and Thomas Bartlett joined the sessions mid-week on guitar and piano, respectively.

After the appropriate COVID tests came back negative, “it was a pretty extraordinary feeling to hug, kiss and share the same space playing together,” Mitchell says. “We went into that world for a week and didn’t leave the studio for any reason. I felt very safe with all those guys. It was warm and joyful.”

Mitchell says this environment brought out unexpected details in the material, which was recorded almost entirely live together in the room. “Sometimes we tried separating things out, like vocals, but we always ended up back in the room together,” she says. Indeed, after spending the better part of a day recording overdubbed versions of “Little Big Girl” that nobody loved, the musicians gave up and tracked it again live. “We got so frustrated that we went in and I was like, I’m just going to sing this as hard as I fucking can. It felt like that’s what the song wanted to be,” Mitchell says. “It felt like all those songs wanted to be recorded as live as possible.” The exception to the rule was Nico Muhly's arrangements for strings and flute, which were added from New York City afterward.

Mitchell will debut the new material during various headline tours in the U.S. and Europe in 2022, at which she’ll be accompanied by players from the album. On stage, she can’t wait to further hone the sights, sounds and scenes that bring the songs to such vivid life. “I’ve spent a lot of time trying to write in the voice of other characters, especially with Hadestown. It’s fun for me, but these songs are not that,” she says. “Weirdly, they’re all me. The narrator is me. That’s why it felt right to self-title the album. It felt like after so many years of working on telling other stories, now here are some of mine.”

As funny as it may sound, Anaïs Mitchell has spent the past 15 years in some kind of hell. OK, not actual hell, but the multi-faceted world of Hadestown, a musical project she began in Vermont in 2006 that has grown into a Tony®- and Grammy®-award-winning Broadway phenomenon with touring editions now delighting audiences as far away as South Korea.

“I experienced so much joy working on Hadestown, but it just kept ramping up and up and requiring more and more attention,” Mitchell admits. “I had to become so single-minded and really put blinders on to my other creative life.” As it did for many artists, the COVID-19 pandemic unexpectedly offered Mitchell a blank slate to reconnect with her own music. The result is a new self-titled album made with close collaborators from Bon Iver, The National and her own band Bonny Light Horseman, Mitchell’s first collection of all-new material under her own name since 2012’s Young Man in America.

“I was nine months pregnant when the pandemic reached New York, so we made an 11th hour decision to leave and have the baby in Vermont,” Mitchell recalls. “We left the city and had the baby a week later, and then like everyone, we were in the midst of this unprecedented stillness. It felt like I could see behind me: oh, there’s New York City. There’s Hadestown. There’s my life with just one kid. A certain kind of stress and expectations. In Vermont, we moved onto my family farm and lived in my grandparents’ old house, with a new baby. I’d look at pictures on my phone from a few months earlier and wonder, whose life was that? This record, and the songs that are on it, came out of that time. I got into a flow again that I hadn’t felt in a really long time.”

Dubbed by NPR as “one of the greatest songwriters of her generation,” Mitchell is a master of the worlds of narrative folksong, poetry and balladry. Those talents are evident from the first moments of the new album, as Mitchell narrates what she calls “an unbearably romantic” trip over the Brooklyn Bridge colored by Bon Iver member Michael Lewis’ heartstring-tugging saxophone accompaniment. “Having left New York, I was able to write a love letter to it in a way I never could when I was living there,” she says. “It was like, fuck it. This is how I feel. There is nothing more beautiful than riding over one of the New York bridges at night next to someone who inspires you.”

Produced by Mitchell’s Bonny Light Horseman bandmate Josh Kaufman, the album proceeds to chronicle Mitchell’s reconnection with the Vermont roots that have been so formative in her life and music. “Bright Star” finds her making peace with the idea of being at peace in the familiar setting of her grandparents’ house, while “Revenant” was inspired by paging through a box of journals and letters belonging to herself and her grandmother — “a very pandemic activity,” she says. “That house is literally my happy place. I can picture myself as a kid, in this house, laying on the carpet with a sunbeam coming through the sliding glass door. There’s something about it that is really connected in my mind to my childhood and a very free, imaginative, creative time. “Revenant” has a lot to do with that house and reconnecting with my childhood self.”

Mitchell concedes that she tends “to be someone who thinks it has to be hard in order for it to be good or beautiful,” but that feeling has changed, partly thanks to her deep connection with musicians she’s met through the 37d03d collective established by The National’s Aaron and Bryce Dessner and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. During the pandemic, some of those artists participated in a “song a day” writing group — an idea Mitchell says is usually “totally opposite of how I roll. But it really helped me to gain access to some kind of trust and intuition and flow. I began a bunch of these songs while doing that.”

“It unlocked something that allowed me to finish a bunch of songs I’d been sitting on, and feeling a bit paralyzed about how to finish them,” she continues. “Because no one was touring, it’s not like I was playing them for anyone before we were in the studio. In other times, I’ve trotted things out in advance. Here, it was like, here’s all these brand new songs. Let’s discover what they can be. That was really exciting.”

That discovery process took flight at Dreamland Recording Studios outside Woodstock, N.Y., which Mitchell describes as “this weird, janky, beautiful church - it’s my favorite studio in the world.” Kaufman, Lewis and Big Red Machine drummer JT Bates formed a core band around Mitchell, while Aaron Dessner and Thomas Bartlett joined the sessions mid-week on guitar and piano, respectively.

After the appropriate COVID tests came back negative, “it was a pretty extraordinary feeling to hug, kiss and share the same space playing together,” Mitchell says. “We went into that world for a week and didn’t leave the studio for any reason. I felt very safe with all those guys. It was warm and joyful.”

Mitchell says this environment brought out unexpected details in the material, which was recorded almost entirely live together in the room. “Sometimes we tried separating things out, like vocals, but we always ended up back in the room together,” she says. Indeed, after spending the better part of a day recording overdubbed versions of “Little Big Girl” that nobody loved, the musicians gave up and tracked it again live. “We got so frustrated that we went in and I was like, I’m just going to sing this as hard as I fucking can. It felt like that’s what the song wanted to be,” Mitchell says. “It felt like all those songs wanted to be recorded as live as possible.” The exception to the rule was Nico Muhly's arrangements for strings and flute, which were added from New York City afterward.

Mitchell will debut the new material during various headline tours in the U.S. and Europe in 2022, at which she’ll be accompanied by players from the album. On stage, she can’t wait to further hone the sights, sounds and scenes that bring the songs to such vivid life. “I’ve spent a lot of time trying to write in the voice of other characters, especially with Hadestown. It’s fun for me, but these songs are not that,” she says. “Weirdly, they’re all me. The narrator is me. That’s why it felt right to self-title the album. It felt like after so many years of working on telling other stories, now here are some of mine.”

CELESTE have been breaking the outer boundaries of heavy music for over fifteen years. When they first evolved from the Lyon hardcore punk scene, they were absolutely brutal and entirely unique, delivering extremity on their own terms that they pushed further and further with each successive album. “We just wanted to get darker and more violent,” says drummer Antoine Royer, until 2017’s Infidèle(s) saw the incorporation of a more melodic streak. Their most focussed record yet, it was tremendously received, critically adored, and backed with the band’s biggest shows to date.

Its follow-up was always going to be something radical. Even by their own inordinately high standards, however, new record Assassine(s) is one hell of a step forward. Even if this album still contains cyclonic walls of guitar, of battering rhythm, and passages of blissful, rushing release. it’s unlike anything the band have ever released; embracing a modern and forward-thinking production, they're just as complex but more direct, diverse and accessible than before. “Our leitmotif here was to open our minds,” says guitarist Sébastien Ducotté. “We made a real effort to think outside of our box.”

During lockdown CELESTE’s members were forced to each write individually. “We each went further into our personal, inner views of what the songs were,” says bassist and vocalist Johan Girardeau. When eventually they began sessions under producer Chris Edrich, it was gruelling. “We ended up exhausted, physically and mentally” says Johan. “There was no break in two weeks. We didn’t see the sun at all during that time. Every night we were so tired that we didn’t enjoy being together as much as we’re used to.” Nevertheless, in the same way the hardships of isolation led to richer and more complex songwriting, it’s that relentlessness that led to the record’s razor-sharp edges.

Above all else, CELESTE are innovators. Whether by pioneering French avant-garde metal when they formed at the turn of the millennium, by making their boldest leaps despite being seven albums deep into their career, or using two years away from live shows to tightly finetune their stagecraft, they refuse at all costs to rest on their laurels. There can be consequences to this instinct – fans of the band’s older work might be thrown off by their constant shifts of pace – but they’re throwing caution to the wind. A bit of backlash “would be a good thing, because it would mean that we’ve really changed,” says Guillaume . “It's not disrespectful, it's just that we never made music to please people, but just to enjoy what we're doing.” In the end, CELESTE are a band so forward-thinking that they can only be judged on the strength of their latest work. And when it comes to a record as bold as Assassine(s), they’ve hit a whole new peak entirely.

On his 2000 debut, Da Abtomatic Meisterzinger Mambo Chic, Megira channels the optimism of post-war America, narcoleptic surf, and the Twin Peaks soundtrack into a lo-fi masterpiece all his own. Sung in both Hebrew and English, Mambo Chic moves at a deliberate pace, unconcerned by the traffic of the modern world and wrapped in a blanket of Tascam 4-track hiss. On “Tomorrow’s Gone” Megira
achieves the feat of being so far back in time that he’s somehow living in the future and waiting for the rest of us to arrive.

On his 2000 debut, Da Abtomatic Meisterzinger Mambo Chic, Megira channels the optimism of post-war America, narcoleptic surf, and the Twin Peaks soundtrack into a lo-fi masterpiece all his own. Sung in both Hebrew and English, Mambo Chic moves at a deliberate pace, unconcerned by the traffic of the modern world and wrapped in a blanket of Tascam 4-track hiss. On “Tomorrow’s Gone” Megira
achieves the feat of being so far back in time that he’s somehow living in the future and waiting for the rest of us to arrive.

Bad Suns sound – dreamy '80s pastiche fanked by Stratocasters through
cranked Vox amps, pulsing synths, and palpable rhythmic energy – that
endeared listeners to the band in the frst place, and their fourth LP,
Apocalypse Whenever, uses that musical foundation as the jumping-off
point for their next evolution
Conceived as "the soundtrack to a movie that doesn't yet exist," the 13- track
album, helmed by longtime producer Eric Palmquist (MUTEMATH, Thrice) at his
Palmquist Studios and the band's North Hollywood rehearsal spot, is more
conceptually rigorous than anything they've ever attempted – but no less
compelling or accessible. "We also knew we wanted the album to have a throughline, a story from beginning to end,"frontman Christo Bowman explains, so the
band did what any good directors would: They assembled a mood board, fltering
their neo-noir version of Los Angeles through the dreamlike haziness of author
Haruki Murakami, the futuristic fair of Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Blade
Runner, and the lifted cinematography of Spike Jonze's HER.
These disparate infuences don't just offer Apocalypse Whenever an expanded
palette of sonic choices to color Bad Suns' airtight hooks – they help give the
songs an emotional complexity that works on a multitude of levels depending on
how listeners choose to receive them.

When the world shut down in March 2020, Charlotte Cornfeld was in the
middle of an artist residency in the Rocky Mountains, hunkered down in a
hut with a baby grand piano, sketching ideas for a followup album to her
Polaris-Longlisted 2019 LP The Shape of Your Name - In a matter of
hours, she found herself back home in Toronto with months of touring
cancelled and a wide swath of time ahead of her
She began to write feverishly, mining her memories and dreams and recounting
them with vivid detail. When the songs were fnished, she headed to Montreal to
record with producer/ engineer Howard Bilerman (Arcade Fire, Leonard Cohen),
drummer Liam O'Neill (Suuns), bassist Alexandra Levy (Ada Lea), and guitarist
Sam Gleason (Tim Baker). The group tracked the album in 5 days, mostly live off
the foor, seeking to capture the raw emotion of the songs. The result is Highs in
the Minuses, a memoir in fragments. Here Cornfeld fully embraces the role of
narrator, moving from one vignette to another in a colourful collage. We see her at
21, heartbroken and lost, carrying a friend's 3-legged cat back to her apartment in
a box; then as a teenager, playing a new song for a group of friends on a
trampoline. She sings of a magical frst date, an ex with a mean streak, two
skateboarders gliding in a lakeside parking lot. The brutal honesty in her lyrics
brings to mind writers like David Berman and Adrianne Lenker, while musically
she conjures a Zuma-era Neil Young, leaping from crunchy guitar rock to piano
ballads with effortless grace. Highs in the Minuses is Charlotte Cornfeld's
strongest offering to date, each song a gem in and of itself.