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The Croatian production powerhouse and disco boogie impresario steps up to International Feel, and takes a left turn into deep space with a new six track LP Pulsar Diaries.

Ilija’s discography stretches back to 2003, and over those 20 years he’s packed it full with albums, versions, remixes and singles. His releases are often perfectly-penned love letters to ‘80s boogie, electro and disco, and like postcards from an old flame, they’ve landed in an array of record label catalogs, from Bear Funk, Rong, and Electric Minds, to Is It Balearic? as well as his own Red Music and Imogen Recordings. He’s long-been an active voice on the underground club scene, and if you’ve been out dancing in Zagreb, Berlin or even Tisno beach, chances are you’ve gotten down to one of his beautifully blended sets of cosmic-tinged electro funk and disco dubs.

On Pulsar Diaries, Ilija delivers a panoramic collection of spaced-out synths and drum machine grooves, dedicated to the planet and our place in the universe. The A side opens up with the blissful, weightless pads of the title track, before it breaks out into filtered stabs over a minimal b-boy bounce. Delphic Expanse ebbs and flows like a lunar eclipse, sounding like a futuristic version of Key-Matic’s Breaking In Space, all uprock rhythms and syrupy synth horns as it spins off beyond the asteroid belt. Side A closes out with Blackburn Tales, a suspenseful and spacious electro rhythm packed with strings and 303 squelch, which you might call anti-gravity acid, if you were so inclined.

Side B picks up the tempo with Fourth Amendment, perfect for the space station discotheque with its sweeping bass filters and ice-cold synth melodies hovering in orbit. Farewell Theme takes an introspective moment, slowing the pace to a cosmic 90 bpm and inviting a certain cinematic feel to proceedings. This feeling applies not just to the vivid landscapes we travel through, but also wider thoughts about humankind: as we pause for a breath and look around, we find ourselves in Ilija’s space, considering human motivations, like the pursuit of happiness, or the eternal struggle with the self.

Every journey begins with a goodbye, and so the last track of the album feels like the arrival at a new destination: Ursa Major is ablaze with cascading drum fills, bubble-wrapped bass riffs and bright synth chords that sparkle like city lights underneath a re-orbiting satellite.

With Pulsar Diaries, Ilija Rudman has created a rare artifact: an album that straddles several worlds at once. Part soundtrack to space travel, part meditation on the human condition, part deep-burning dancefloor dynamo - whether in the club surrounded by friends or at home by yourself, this is a record that expands the mind and lets the imagination soar.

The "Weimar EP" from singer/songwriter Albyrd is not only his ¦rst release under a new moniker; as his ¦rst selfproduced record, it also marks one of many new beginnings.

The end of the pandemic, the blossoming and withering of relationships - and of course, a tribute to his time in the city and how life's perspectives change. In 8 songs, Albyrd shows not only the range of his magni¦cent voice, but also how well soul and RnB can be interwoven with electronic music.
With a feature from Miles Bonny, Mr. Lumberjack Soul himself, this tape is de¦nitely one for the shelf. Artwork by Nänni Pää Mastering by Herb LF

Murmer is the long-standing project for Estonian field recordist and composer Patrick McGinley, and in Tether, The Helen Scarsdale Agency welcomes Murmer back to our roster, over a decade since he graced us with his last production for the Agency. His field recordings often center upon the amplification and activation of resonance from a particular space, landscape, or object. Such sounds emerge from a condition as begin fleeting, inconsequential, or ephemeral and explode into that which alien, sublime, and profound. Here lies the tremendous prowess of the contact microphone, as wielded by an accomplished musician! The source material cited by McGinley includes cables, fences, wires, and vents.

There is a heft to many of these sounds as heard throughout all of "Taevast" with deep throbbing pulsations from arctic wind generating subharmonic patterns upon thick high-tension wires. Elsewhere the subtle dissonance from a rasping cooling fan blooms into a brooding ambience that is sublimely rich in its metallic timbres and complex reverberations. McGingley has long been an exemplary artist in the field of phonography even as he is less prolific than others. On Tether, he has produced a majestic if occasionally foreboding work on par with the mythic wire recordings of Alan Lamb, Jacob Kirkegaard's haunted resonance from Chernobyl, and much of the Touch catalogue for that matter!

Patrick McGingley on Tether:

In 2006, I made a collection of recordings at a mobile phone mast in Mooste, southeast Estonia. It is a guyed tower, 80 meters tall, affixed to 3 support points with heavy cables. I attached my self-made contact microphones to these cables with poster tack, and spent many hours over several weeks recording the various wind and weather variances (it was summer), and the birds that passed or settled on the tower or cables. This was one of my first visits to estonia, where i now live, and one of the things that marked me about that experience was the access: the tower had no fences or protections around it (I have not been back there recently to answer my own question of whether or not this is still the case); it stands in the middle of a field of tall grass along a dirt road in the countryside, just out of view of the few nearby houses, and during all the hours I spent there I was never disturbed or shooed away.

For more than 16 years, I have been thinking about this location and these recordings, and have made several attempts to work with them. I have used the sounds in installations a handful of times, and uploaded one short edit to the Aporee soundmaps, but have never managed to use them in any composed work. They always seemed too big for any structure I could provide them, whether I left them on their own, or partnered them with other sounds. Finally, in 2019, after putting them down and picking them up again repeatedly over so many years, they seemed to allow me in, although it took me another few years before they were happy with what I could offer. They stand now not quite alone - the majority of the layered sounds in the piece come from various edits of those cable recordings, but I added two other contrasting sounds, related to one another: one is snowflakes landing delicately on a plastic cakebox with microphones inside it, and the other is a frosted field of grass thawing on a lightly warming autumn morning (both these recordings can also be heard on their own on the Aporee maps).

Coming back to those cables brought to mind so many other wind-driven sounds that I had spent time with and recorded, but never returned to, that I began digging through my archives looking for them. I ended up with a pool of sounds from resonant wires, cables, fences, poles, fans, and vents, which became the basis for the 2nd work on this release. One of these sounds is among the first sounds I ever recorded, possibly within a month or so of buying my first microphone and minidisc recorder: the rhythmic fan of a beer cooler in a pub where I worked in North London in 1999. Other sounds in the piece include another phone tower, recorded on the northern coast of France in 2008, a telephone pole recorded in the Beaujolais region in 2010, the drone of ventilator fans at a factory in Tezno, Slovenia in 2012, an electric sheep fence in the Scottish borders in 2013, a hanging wire in a storage space in Rovaniemi, Finland in 2016, and, with no relation to cables or wind at all, calcium deposits being cleaned from the inside of an electric kettle here in Estonia in 2019.

I offer these two new pieces as my first solo publication since 2018, the first release on a physical medium since 2016. No one has ever accused me of working too fast, or being too prolific. I have a need, it seems, to leave a physical space of time around my work, before I can consider it 'finished'. Perhaps it is a simple need to forget how I did something, or that I did something; perhaps I have a need to be able to hear a work as a first-time listener would, before I can consider it ready for such an encounter. In some part of my mind I have to forget it before I can let it go. Well, I've just about forgotten that London beer cooler now, and that walk in the Beaujolais (with my father, who has since passed away), and that sheep fence next to our campsite in the borders, and that kettle that is now leaky. So I guess it's time.

Wieder lieferbar ist ein Klassiker des Dub-Reggae, von Kevin Metcalfe re-mastered und auf dem VP Records Sublabel 17 North Parade wiederveröffentlicht. Im Original erschien der Longplayer erstmalig 1977 auf Joe Gibbs' Record Globe Label und wurde mit seiner Studioband The Professionals eingespielt. Laut Originalcover waren das George "Fully" Fulwood, Carlton "Santa" Davis, Tony Chin, Richard "Dirty Harry" Hall, Tommy McCook, Bobby Ellis und Leroy "Horsemouth" Wallace. Am Mischpult saß Errol Thompson. Hier finden sich 12 exzellente Dubversionen von Riddims aus der Treasure Isle und Studio One Rocksteady-Ära, und zu "Hypocrites" von Bob Marley & The Wailers sowie zu"Uptown Top Ranking" von Althea & Donna!

Sustained exercises in tension. Personal healing. Dischord Records. The Unit Ama make music that explodes outward: dense but soothing metronomic pulses morph into a wild fracturing of the traditional rock trio. The Unit Ama take their time. They act on their own terms. This applies to their music and their work-rate. Two albums and a handful of singles in twenty years. Sporadic gigs. No endless Bandcamp messages or weekly mailing list updates. Rare missions outside their native north-east. And then… Toward is their second studio album and their second Gringo release. It’s not their ‘pandemic’ album but does see the band considering the important things: post-traumatic growth, insight through experience. Utilising the past to navigate towards a meaningful future. Toward was self-produced and will probably get tagged as post-hardcore which is fair enough. But it’s also informed by post-punk, jazz and folk, and by working closely together for two decades. The Unit Ama play in other incarnations that inform their music and the way they dismantle expectations of the rock trio. There’s as much Richard Thompson as Minutemen. Toward takes the exploratory, explosive sound of their debut and adds twenty years of living and listening. Toward is eight tracks that are thoughtful and intricate without losing any impact. This is gut music as much as it is head music. The Unit Ama never let their abilities get in the way of their instincts and Toward is full of surging urgency and roaring anxiety. But there are moments of brooding calm too, and a song – Mary – that could be stripped down and sold as a folk ballad. The trio also play variously as The Long Lonesome Go, Archipelago, The Horse Loom and more. They have supported everyone from Fugazi to Lungfish, Lightning Bolt to Sunburned Hand of the Man

Head of the Lo-Fi movement with the SP-404
-In 2006 he dropped the first SP404 kung fu inspired beat tape under the alias 5 ELEMENT NINJA Beatjitzu vol 1. Since then he has garnered a cult following of SP404 kung fu inspired producers and sparked a genre. He is the forefather of said style and has numerous beat tapes under various aliases such as 5 Element Ninja, Lords of da LO FI, GODZ of WuTang, MAZINGA Z, JIM KELLY and of course Bruce Li. -He has worked with Killarmy featuring Cappadonna of the WU TANG CLAN and others. He has complete production credit on albums with LONE NINJA, Recognize Ali and Verbal Kent(Dueling Experts) and lastly CLEVER 1 of DA BUZE BRUVAZ. -Also he has appeared on albums with credits alongside Hop hop royalty RZA, True Master, 4th Disciple and legendary PETE ROCK. Lord Beatjitzu presents 420, a densely packed album that captures the same sense of euphoria and paranoia one can gain from an extensive and smoky 4/20 celebration. He has crafted a soundtrack with loops upon loops of smoked-out loops. Sort of like the smoke rings that used to emanate from Cheech and Chong having one of their notorious sessions. Adding on to his varied discography, this fits more in line with the varied sample chops of his celebrated Mazinga moniker. Intricately woven to provide the perfect soundtrack for 4/20 and any other day or night that you have a moment to kick back and enter another zone. Lord Beatjitzu is a beatmaker originally from Mexico City D.F. who stays studying and constantly honing his craft. Extremely reclusive and low key, he is known strictly through sparse collaborations and various beat tapes which he has put out starting in 2006. He has put out over 100 beat tapes and collaborations under an innumerable amount of known and unknown aliases.

An unmissable pairing of Texan-born soul queens! Ruby Wilson was Memphis based for most of her life whilst Emily spent her formative years in Houston before relocating to Stockton, CA, to raise her family. Both were signed to Malaco Records in Jackson, MS, where these two timeless example of Southern Soul were recorded nearly 30 years apart and now appear on 7” vinyl for the first time.
Ruby Wilson first came to our attention in the mid-70s with two singles on T.K. subsidiary Glades, with Number One In Your Heart and the funkier Sky High both still sounding good today. She signed to Malaco during their most fruitful period, and her self-titled album in 1981, from which this classy below-midpaced selection comes, despite being a typically polished affair never reached the highs with the label that Jewel Bass, Fern Kinney, and of course Dorothy Moore had set over the previous few years. It remained her only outing with them, but she went on to make a further three albums in the late 80s with the Hot Cotton Jazz Band, one with the Climax Jazz Band, and finally back on her own A Song For You (2000 Cadre Ent.) and Show You A Good Time (2005 Unkut Music). She became an accomplished actress and was also known as the Queen Of Beale Street for her many club performances in Memphis. Sadly, Ruby died in 2016, but hopefully this release on Jai Alai will help us remember what a talent she really was.
Not only is Emily David an extraordinary talent, she is a remarkable woman too. Her only album Queen Emily was a direct result of her finishing as a semi-finalist of America’s Got Talent in 2008 at the tender age of 40. She was no stranger to talent shows having won a Sammy Davis Jr award in 1999, but back then, as a single-mother decided to put her singing career on hold to bring up her two daughters. One day her troubled sister arrived to stay but left without taking her two boys with her, so Emily felt she had to bring up her nephews as well. Her dreams of a musical career had evaporated but years later her daughters encouraged her to try once again.
It was almost a year after America’s Got Talent that Malaco boss Tommy Couch Jr. called out of the blue and offered her a contract without meeting her. As Queen Emily, a digital 4-track EP was released in the US, but her eponymous CD album, bizarrely released by Malaco in the UK before the US, is one of the best examples of 21st century Southern Soul, steeped with the label’s trademark live instrumentation by the Muscle Shoals Horns Rhythm Section and contains a number of polished standards such as Use Me, Angel In Your Arms, I Betcha Didn’t Know That and Going Crazy. However, it is the George Jackson-penned ballad Throw Away Me that really stands out and deservedly received critical acclaim in the UK at the time. It now gets a very welcome vinyl debut on Jai Alai and makes for a fabulous pairing.

Show Me The Body ist ein in New York City ansässiges Hardcore-Trio, bestehend aus Julian Cashwan Pratt (Gründer; Banjo und Gesang), Harlan Steed (Gründer; Bass) und Jackie McDermott (derzeitiger
Schlagzeuger). Die Band organisiert seit 2015 nicht-traditionelle DIY-Räume für Jugendliche in New York und hat diese Arbeit seither durch ihre zeremoniellen Live-Shows, die Punk-/Hip-Hop-Mischtouren und
ihre CORPUS NYC-Plattform auf eine globale Bekanntheit ausgeweitet. ”Trouble the Water” ist der Höhepunkt von fast einem Jahrzehnt des Kampfes gegen die Gleichgültigkeit von New York City; zugleich eine Aufforderung an eine gleichgesinnte globale Gemeinschaft, die Alchemie der Familienbildung zu fördern.
Trouble The Water wurde komplett in den CORPUS Studios in Long Island City mit dem Metal-Veteranen Arthur Rizk (Code Orange, Power Trip, Ghostemane, Turnstile, Candy, Xibalba, Pissed Jeans) aufgenommen und von Studio-Mitbegründer Aidan Bradley mitproduziert.

Album features legendary AC/DC frontman BON SCOTT on lead vocals.His work with FRATERNITY put Scott on the radar of George Young, AC/DC co-producer and older brother of Angus and Malcolm, eventually leading to Scott replacing then frontman Dave Evans in 1974

For the first time since its initial release in 1972, the sophomore album by Australian psych band FRATERNITY is released again on vinyl, fully sanctioned by the surviving band members and their management since the album’s original release in 1972

Collection includes the original 10-track album plus a bonus second disc featuring three rare maxi-single tracks and two obscure live tracks making their debut vinyl appearance, all newly remastered.

Deluxe package includes gatefold jacket packed with original press clippings and previously unpublished period band photos plus extensive liner notes by original band co-manager Victor Marshall.

First release of this label featuring Gehlektek, Pozek and SPK

A1 "Gruntler" from Gehlektek with a long 9 minutes track at 45rpm, mega bomb at 150 bpm! Super HQ sound, stompy kick, melodic themes and delicious ear candy. Proper crowd control tool !

B1 "MR.Kubickeh" is a track from the super talented Pozek 33rpm this side with a very easy but super effective Acidcore tune at 150 bpm! Clean mix and driving atmosphere with a very important kick! The track was composed to support the victims of Redon party in 2021, parts of the revenues will go to the crews involved in that party. Massive support to Pozek for this pearl track!

B2 "We Are The Resistance" is a driving nu school Tribecore banger! It starts with a long monologue with a very well done crescendo bringing to a massive sentimental and impressing drop. Synths arrangements drive you dancing crazy with a very persistent, solid distorted kick. 165 bpm. Amazing production from the notoriously skilled SPK.

First release of this label featuring Gehlektek, Pozek and SPK

A1 "Gruntler" from Gehlektek with a long 9 minutes track at 45rpm, mega bomb at 150 bpm! Super HQ sound, stompy kick, melodic themes and delicious ear candy. Proper crowd control tool !

B1 "MR.Kubickeh" is a track from the super talented Pozek 33rpm this side with a very easy but super effective Acidcore tune at 150 bpm! Clean mix and driving atmosphere with a very important kick! The track was composed to support the victims of Redon party in 2021, parts of the revenues will go to the crews involved in that party. Massive support to Pozek for this pearl track!

B2 "We Are The Resistance" is a driving nu school Tribecore banger! It starts with a long monologue with a very well done crescendo bringing to a massive sentimental and impressing drop. Synths arrangements drive you dancing crazy with a very persistent, solid distorted kick. 165 bpm. Amazing production from the notoriously skilled SPK.

New Parisian label, Disques Messager, presents its first release and not the least. As its name suggests, the label has a simple leitmotiv: to place itself among the best messengers for rarities and sought-after gems of the international rare groove. A mission which begins rather well, with the official reissue of these two stirring titles by Brazilian singer and composer Cristina Camargo.

Native of Rio De Janeiro, Cristina Camargo had quite a short career, releasing only 2 albums in 1980 and 1981, but still enough to collaborate with some of the best composers, musicians and producers at that time. Her first self-titled album was therefore produced by Robson Jorge & Lincoln Oliveti and recorded with some of the finest musicians.

“Moral Tem Hora” comes from this same LP and is a perfect example of the unique alchemy that emerged when the Disco and Boogie invaded the Brazilian music scene. A quite hard to find Boogie killer, composed by famous brothers, Marcos and Paulo Sérgio Valle.

On B side comes “Minas Do Rei Salomão”, a more chilled-out title extracted from Cristina’s 2nd album, Santa Maravilha. With its funky slapped bass, airy keyboards and the sweet vocals of Cristina, the song seems made to sip a nice cocktail at Ipanema.

Limited edition 180g vinyl reissue of ‘Workin’ With The Miles Davis
Quintet’ on blue vinyl. Classic Miles Davis Quintet studio session from
1956 (released Jan. 1960) produced by Bob Weinstock for Prestige Records.
“This is the sort of thing that is going to be owned and played and dug and redug for all time. Few bands in the history of jazz have had the quality of this group. The whole LP is a gas. I don’t see how anyone can do without it.” - Ralph J. Gleason, DownBeat

A compilation of Minimal Wave from around the world ‘79-‘85. »The Hidden Tapes« features rare, unreleased, and licensed tracks from as far as Japan and the former Yugoslavia. Most of the bands on this compilation recorded on 4-track tape in their bedroom studios while two of them went further to collaborate by sending tapes through the mail. The sounds on this record range from raw proto-industrial to naive danceable Belgradian new wave, to filmic synthesizer music to more complex, vocal-driven melodic synthpop.

Arovane's acclaimed 2004 album »Lilies« has been out of print on vinyl for nearly 2 decades now. It finally gets a well-deserved reissue through the Berlin based Keplar label. The new version has been remastered by Kassian Troyer at Dubplates & Mastering and comes with a brand new cover artwork.

»Lilies« was a follow-up to »Tides« in every sense, exploring a trip to Japan and drawing on shimmering textures and the sort of melodies that you might need some time to recover from. There's a hugely evocative sense to these tracks, emotionally driven, free of complexity or conceit, piano melodies providing the central focus for a twilight cascade of light that seems perfect for the Tokyo skyline - just as the sun sets. It's an album that radiates warmth and vulnerability, fusing the technological might at the heart of each track (and at the heart of the city) with an age-old understanding that certain echoes of sound, small melodic changes and cushioned lullabies can imprint sounds on your mind like childhood memories - remembered forever. Like a dreamlike score, or maybe even an alternate soundtrack to »Lost in Translation« - the sort of music that intertwines with images and stays in your mind indefinately.

After coming back from Tokyo and completing the production of »Lilies«, Uwe Zahn disassembled his studio in the big flat in an old building in Berlin's Prenzlauerberg district and stored it away in boxes. He needed a break from making music. »Lilies« was the last album prior to a nine-year hiatus for Arovane, ending in 2013 with the release of »Ve Palor«.

Ancient A&O is a selection of unreleased tracks and dubs we like from our old DAT tapes all created during our early years between 1989 and 1993. It includes Here For A Reason, a rare unreleased track featuring Nishka. We're very pleased the great Lantern Rec are releasing the vinyl and we hope you like it, many thanks... A&O"

Following in the footsteps of 'L'Espròva', a record released in 2018 by and 'Mantras', a body of long instrumental pieces, Ernest Bergez joins Jacques Puech, Elisa Trebouville and Loup Uberto to explore the possibilities of a collective energy. L'Herbe De Détourne achieved to catch the vivid energy of the band playing live and combined it with all the sonic explorations the musicians had in mind for a long time, in a completly free state of mind. Themes and songs are wound up in complex rhythmic gears and follow one another in a continuous momentum. Freely digested, the traditional repertoire from the Massif Central mutates and hybridises with invented forms, inspired by traditional Greek, Persian and North African music... The result is music that is as much for the ears, the feet, as for the guts and perhaps the heart.
It can be a ball, a concert, or a spontaneous ceremony. The Occitan language takes a central place, both as musical material and as a poetic and emotional springboard. Inspired by traditional canvases, a poetic form emerges and makes its way through the old words, passed from mouth to mouth.

Irish-born, Manchester-based Kerrie is a multi-disciplinary artist, incorporating live sets, DJing, producing and running her label Dark Machine Funk across her repertoire of work. Now, Kerrie follows up last year's 'Raw Regimen' (BP063) with a second EP for James Ruskin's seminal Blueprint Records.

Having garnered a rich musical education through working at and holding a DJ residency for one of the UK's most respected record shops Eastern Bloc, Kerrie's in-depth knowledge and unwavering dedication to music shines through her notable back catalogue and bolshy, unforgiving DJ and Live sets. Honing her craft for over a decade, Kerrie has played worldwide in celebrated venues such as Tresor, Berghain, fabric, FOLD, Elsewhere NYC and festivals including Freedom Medellin, Freerotation, Drift and Basilar.

First learning to mix via her brother's turntables in the early 2000s, it wasn't until 2009 that Kerrie invested in her own set-up and built an extensive record collection, covering everything from ambient, electronic, house, EBM, acid, electro, and her go-to genre, techno. Kerrie delivers tough moods from the turntables, as conveyed in her mixes for Reclaim Your City, Bassiani, SLAM and Crack, where she carefully blended high-energy styles of UK, Detroit, and European techno, many of which stem from the 90s and the 00s. It's frequent to hear Kerrie weave broken elements into her mixes too, chopping up the 4/4 groove at just the right moment to keep things propulsive. Kerrie's Live sets are fast becoming renowned for their trippy motifs and high impact on the dancefloor, applauded by Berlin's long-running club Tresor, where she made several appearances with her Elektron machines. Kerrie's Live set at Freerotation in 2019 was one of the festival's most talked-about debuts, and this year, Kerrie will return to and debut at multiple festivals and clubs across Europe and the Americas.

Following well-received releases on labels such as Don't Be Afraid, Cultivated Electronics, I Love Acid and Symbolism, Kerrie launched her imprint Dark Machine Funk DMF in 2020. The label homes her distinctly raw aesthetic and honours her love for dark, gritty, metallic and industrial sounds melded with elements of funk, heavily influenced by second-wave Detroit artists, UK techno and music by some of her favourite artists; James Ruskin, Blawan and Surgeon. Kerrie's first release on DMF, 'Inner Space PT1', was praised by Resident Advisor, who credited her ability to make "lean, fierce techno that knows how to groove."

2022 was a watershed year for Kerrie's productions. She debuted on the monumental UK techno label Blueprint with her EP 'Raw Regimen', which landed acclaimed reviews. Truly welcomed to the Blueprint family, Kerrie shares her second EP on the label in May and joins the crew at Blueprint showcases around the globe. This year marks the release of Kerrie's 10th EP on vinyl, and considering her consistent output on DMF, Blueprint and many more labels, the producer shows no sign of slowing down.

Coming to international prominence in more recent years, regardless of her decade-long tenure in Manchester's vibrant scene, Kerrie is deeply invested in the culture of electronic music, starting from her teenage era as a raver in Ireland up to her innovative projects today. In 2017, she founded Eastern Bloc's in-house event space to nurture local talent, which remains at the heart of Manchester's music community. Having ended her 11-year stint at the shop in 2023 to fully commit to the studio and accommodate her increasingly busy tour schedule, Kerrie is forging a long-lasting path fuelled by drive, passion, authenticity and a community-first way of thinking.

Introducing ‘Duality’, the new double album from Andrew Bayer. Two musical threads weave through the collected works of Andrew Bayer. One thread gave us the downtempo masterclass of 2013’s ‘If It Were You We’d Never Leave’ and the brilliant 'In My Last Life' LP. The other thread produced arena-sized anthems like 2014’s ‘Once Lydian’, his epic 'Super Human' with Asbjørn and the club remix project 'In My Next Life'. From the introspective to the explosive, these records are our community’s shared soundtrack: we’ve all got a favourite Andrew Bayer record. But they have come in so many forms and styles. It leaves us asking the question, who exactly is Andrew Bayer? It’s a question he’s asked himself. “Since day one, I have always struggled with how to present myself. I love making these experimental home listening albums of electronica and indie sounds, but I also love DJing and making trance bangers. On my last album I had to remix the album in full after it was released to make the worlds fit. This time around I wanted to capture all the breadth, depth and tension within that duality under one single project” - Andrew Bayer ‘Duality’ brings these two creative threads together under one album for the first time since his debut album 'It's Artificial'. Crafted over three years, Bayer is joined by an eclectic cast of collaborators old and new. ‘Duality’ pt. 1 explores Bayer’s passion for downtempo and indie-pop, while ‘Duality’ pt. 2 takes on his forward-thinking trance and progressive sond. Both are tied by Bayer's unique vision, a shared sensibility and same group of collaborators. Today, you can hear a sample from each side: ‘Equal’ (with Asbjørn), and ‘Midnight’ (with Alison May). ‘Duality’ is the true follow up to my first album ‘It’s Artificial’. It is by far my most raw and honest work, and I can’t wait to celebrate the album around the world with you all on tour” - Andrew Bayer

Repress!

From its creation in the late 90s until its closure in 2009, the Toytronic label witnessed a digital revolution that transformed the record industry, turning glitch into a production tool for a whole generation heir to the of bleep ‘n’ bass sound. Thanks to their impeccable A&R credentials, its head honchos, Martin Haidinger and Chris Cunningham, created an incredible IDM label catalogue, as well as producing their own material under pseudonym Abfahrt Hinwil. Their only album to date ‘Links Berge Rechts Seen’ Toytronic, 2002 was released as a compilation featuring tracks from their brief career that over the years has become a benchmark for the Toytronic sound. This album included their first –and only– three releases signed to Expending Records and Toytronic, and also included two previously unreleased songs: ‘Planquadrat’ and a hidden track at the end of the CD version. Lapsus proudly presents ‘Links Berge Rechts Seen’, which will be released on vinyl for the first time as part of its'Perennial Series'. The collector’s format marbled 2LP is accompanied by a double-sided lithographic print, which includes a unique and exclusive interview from Martin and Chris, talking to prestigious electronic music journalist Philip Sherburne.

Great retrospective on this Brazilian artists work!

A fifteen track survey of Maia's 1970s recordings, completely remastered, commemorating what would have been the Brazilian musical legend's 70th birthday on September 28. The release is the fourth in the label's World Psychedelic Classics series, known for unearthing long neglected masterworks by Os Mutantes, Shuggie Otis, and one of the first compilations of African psychedelia and funk

Essential UK experimental composer Richard Skelton returns to Phantom Limb for new album selenodesy, interweaving his newfound love of electronics and synthesis with mastery of gritty organic texture.

Skelton’s music has always been rooted in landscape, in the loam and grit of the earth: from his 2009 Pennine Moors-inspired modern classic Landings to his more recent Moraine Sequence of geological excavations, his work has been bound inexorably with the stark and untended wilderness of northern landscapes. With this new album, however, Skelton shifts his gaze skyward — in part the result of a move in 2017 to the countryside near the Kielder Observatory, and to a so-called ‘dark sky’ region of the UK. In this remote landscape, light pollution is minimal, allowing the austere majesty of the night sky to be seen with greater clarity.

The resulting album, selenodesy, reveals a new, reverberant spaciousness to Skelton’s use of electronics. It marries the twin worlds of his previous Phantom Limb release - 2020’s These Charms May Be Sung Over A Wound, and its abandoned-factory threnody - with the landscape-revering arcana of his earlier work, which saw him bury instruments in the soil to return months later to recover and record with them, newly imbued with the land they occupied. selenodesy was prefigured by a period of insomnia and the relief found

in stargazing, during which Skelton tried to transcribe his hypnagogic visions: “much of this music came to me in the early hours, in that nowhere state between dreaming and waking. I’d look out the window and the night sky would be swirling with stars. Mars or Venus would be hovering in the corner of the room. I’d lie there and watch the Aurora Borealis dance across the ceiling.”

In selenodesy, we find the lingering, distorted sine waves of album opener “Albedo” that thrum and fizz with an icy, foreboding moonlight, rays of subtle movement that illuminate and darken alternately. Next follows lead single “The Plot of Lunar Phases”, whose passive shrieks echo about a cold, yawning space, reaching an ecstatic crescendo of hissing sonics and swirling celestial drone. Its dynamic range acts like the light of a lunar passage, from utmost darkness to radiant luminosity. Elsewhere, the pulsing, precessional bass of “Faint Ray Systems” gradually opens to reveal mournful, elegiac synthesis that reaches high into the night sky with an unearthly beauty. It is as if, during those long months of lockdown in the Scottish countryside, Skelton tapped into a series of sidereal electromagnetic transmissions, and transposed them into musical form.

Tom Trago returns to Rush Hour after 10 years with a wonderfully accomplished mini-album, tip!

During the years he spent living in Amsterdam, when his DJ career seemed to become an unstoppable juggernaut, Tom Trago was a regular visitor to Deco Sauna, a local institution that helped him “decompress” and de-toxify his body. Eventually, a more extended period of “decompression” was needed, with Trago moving to the coast to reassess his priorities and spend more time with his young family.

‘Deco’, his sixth album and first for Rush Hour in a decade, was recorded following an extended absence from club dancefloors, as Trago cut back on DJ commitments to prioritise family life. When he returned to the studio, often with his daughter by his side, Trago initially struggled to get back into the groove. The desire to make dancefloor-focused music had – temporarily, at least – deserted him; instead, he found himself drawn towards a desire to create “electronic lullabies” and music that reflected his more pastoral environment (his home backs on to a patch of woodland in which he would walk every day).

Returning to his most familiar synthesisers – and specifically the first synthesiser he bought, on credit, as a young DJ and wannabe producer – Trago set about navigating different musical routes without the straight-jacket of club-focused dancefloors. Occasionally, old friends from Amsterdam would join him in the studio – Tracey and Maxi Mill, both of whom are part of his Voyage Direct label roster, contributed to tracks on the album – but for the most part the production process was a solo endeavour: musical therapy for an artist determined to do things differently after years spent making club hits and sweat-soaked peak-time workouts.

The results are rarely less than spellbinding. Trago sets his stall out with opener ‘Dark Oak’, a gorgeous, colourful, sun-bright scene-setter co-produced by Tracey that layers tumbling lead lines, chiming melodic motifs and kaleidoscopic chords atop the gentlest of bubbly beat patterns. Maxi Mill lends a hand on ‘Central Park’, a deep and hypnotic excursion marked out by rhythmic bleeps, minimalistic beats and layered melodies, and the summer sun-down rush of ‘Never Peace a Puzzle’, where kaleidoscopic synth sounds, meandering solos and looped electronic stabs rush towards a dancefloor of the mind.

Trago’s desire to create “electronic lullabies” for his young daughter comes to the fore on ‘To Be Left Unlocked’, a hypnotising fusion of spacey electronic motifs, Steve Reich style (synth) marimba melodies and slowly building musical intensity, while the echoing Fender Rhodes riffs, squelchy synth-bass, glistening guitar notes and sparse, snappy post hip-hop beats of ‘When The Sky Is Watching Us’ doff a cap to the producer’s roots as a bedroom beat-maker.

Given the project’s genesis, it’s perhaps fitting that Trago chose to conclude proceedings with ‘It Might Be Forever’ and the digital only ‘Blue Dope’, the album’s most rejuvenating, immersive, and vibrant moments. Both feature sustained chords painted with vivid aural brush strokes and come blessed with the merest hint of a rhythmic pulse – a thread that subtly runs throughout Trago’s most mature and musically rich album to date.

Matt Anniss

Are you ready to embark on a wild ride through the sonic wonderland of ‚Life Of Phoroma‘? This isn‘t your average V/A extended player compilation – it‘s a pulse-pounding journey through chaos, confusion, and pure eclecticism that‘ll take you beyond just dancing.

Terra Magica Rec. sixth release is a passionate ode to the fusion of EBM and psychedelic, perfectly blending lightning-fast new age and tribal hypnotic soundscapes with 1980s synth atmospheres high on Trance.

It’s Electronic Disco gone Techno gone HiNRG gone wrong folks! Enjoy. The SH-101‘s aggressive cuts, the Sequential Circuits‘ mesmerizing melodies, and the heavily processed Neumann TLM 193 vocals seamlessly weave in and out of acid-ish and electro breakbeat grooves, „Why am I suddenly standing at Tokyo Teleport Station? What happend to my last week?“ Welcome to relaxed Rave-basslines and lo-fi rhythms that will intoxicate your senses.

Get loose and fall into your next portal of unexpected spiritual flows. Catch your six unique tracks for a highly eclectic journey through mysterious and magical moments. So strap in and become one with the sound, because ‚Life Of Phoroma‘ is your roller coaster ride to unforgettable sonic adventures.

Originally released as a digital single only available through Jungle Fire's Bandcamp page in the summer of 2020, their version of the Ray Barretto Latin Funk classic "Together" was put out in support of Black Lives Matter and acknowledgment that African culture has been the backbone, soul and spirit of societal fabric since the dawn of humanity. A song whose message and spirit always united and ignited the audience, it was a much-needed offering to fans at a time of escalated urgency in the sociopolitical climate. Now in 2023, F-Spot Records is proud to announce its official vinyl release alongside a previously unreleased track, "Movin' On" (originally recorded by Ray Camacho), on the flip. Often performing "Together" during their live shows as an instrumental interlude, it was only right to do the song justice by inviting long-time collaborator and frequent F-Spot featured singer Jamie Allensworth to join on lead vocals. Performing as a guest with the band numerous times and being a part of So-Cal's funk and soul community ranging from Orgone, Night Owls, and Mestizo Beat, Allensworth delivers a high-energy performance that keeps up with Jungle Fire's signature sound of blazing percussion, heavy beats, and fuzzed out guitars. On side B Allensworth is featured again, stepping up the energy even more into the full-on Latin Funk party, "Movin' On." Cut at a faster tempo and more drive than the original, Jungle Fire is the only group we can think of that can deliver this kind of performance, matched with Allensworth's gritty yet soulful lead, to bring you two sides of serious heat that the band has consistently brought over the past decade.

The official reissue of Adelhard Roidinger’s contemporary jazz/fusion masterpiece.

An extremely talented and eclectic musician, Adelhard Roidinger’s creativity couldn’t be contained by the walls of music. His compositions for computers, graphic designs and geometric studies are a testament to his wide array of interests and artistic expressions. This fascination for computers is in full display in Computer & Jazz Project I. Adelhard believed that machines are vital tools for the development of humans. By using the machines, one can refine his own self, absorbing into their mind the possibilities that such tools unlock. It’s with this belief that Computer & Jazz Project I was created: fusing acoustic instruments, that Adelhard had mastered through his career, with new machines and computers. A timeless masterpiece that unleashes the artist’s creativity, enhanced by the machines of which he is now enamoured.

Today sees Belgian-Caribbean provocateur Charlotte Adigéry and her long-term musical partner, Bolis Pupul announce their debut album Topical Dancer, due for release on March 4 2022 via Soulwax’s iconic label DEEWEE.
Cultural appropriation. Misogyny and racism. Social media vanity. Post-colonialism and political correctness. These are not talking points that you’d ordinarily hear on the dancefloor but Charlotte Adigéry and Bolis Pupul are ripping up the rulebook with their debut album Topical Dancer. The Ghent-based duo, who broke out with their 2019 Zandoli EP, are rare storytellers in electronic music: they take the temperature of the time and funnel them into their playful synth concoctions – never didactic and always with a knowing wink.

Their debut studio record – which cements them as a duo under both their names for the first time and is co-written and co-produced by Soulwax – is both a triumph of kaleidoscopic electro-pop and “a snapshot of how we think about pop culture in the 2020s.” It captures Charlotte and Bolis’s essence as musical collaborators and the conversations they’ve had over the past two years on tour, as well as their perspectives as Belgians with an immigrant background, Charlotte with Guadeloupean and French-Martinique ancestry and Bolis being of Chinese descent.

Beyond the album’s thematic heft, Topical Dancer reflects Charlotte and Bolis’s idiosyncratic sound: it’s thoughtful but it bangs. Their take on familiar genres is always off-kilter; songs sound undone or a little wonky; but these are nocturnal heaters to make the club throb. “We like to fuck things up a bit,” laughs Bolis. “We cringe when we feel like we're making something that already exists, so we're always looking for things to combine to make it sound not like a pop song, not like an R&B song, not a techno song. We’re always putting different worlds together. Charlotte and I get bored when things get too predictable.”

Topical Dancer is fizzing with ideas – there’s certainly no filler among its 13 tracks. But above all, perhaps, it has a restlessness, a desire not to be boxed in and to escape others’ narrow perceptions of who they are. It’s summarised by the refrain of their new single, ‘Blenda’: “Don’t sound like what I look like / Don’t look like what I sound like.” “One thing that always comes up,” says Bolis, “is that people perceive me as the producer, and Charlotte as just a singer. Or that being a Black artist means you should be making ‘urban’ music. Those kinds of boxes don’t feel good to us.”

‘Blenda’ in particular references how “I am a product of colonialism,” says Charlotte, “and I feel guilty for taking up space in a white country.” The song was inspired in part by Reni Eddo-Lodge’s book Why I’m Not Longer Talking To White People About Race. “It talks about the colonial past and post-colonial present in the UK,” Charlotte continues, “but that isn’t merely a British or American problem, Belgium is part of that as well.” She says that her home country is likewise “oblivious to a big part of its history” which “results in general ignorance and a lack of understanding and empathy towards Belgian inhabitants of immigrant descent.”

On Topical Dancer, it’s less about finger pointing or being dogmatic about all the things they speak about. It’s about emancipation through humour. “I don’t want to feel this heaviness on me,” says Charlotte. “These aren’t my crosses to bear. Topical Dancer is my way of freeing myself of these issues. And of having fun.”

Scanone is a producer who has proven his versatility and so it's no wonder he's been tapped up for some killer tunes by the Reposition label. This blistering electro EP features three originals that mix up industrial textures with caustic drums and star-gazing synth work. 'Vivre' is an eye-watering opener with sheet metal sounds and frosty pads, 'Kraft' is then a slower more pensive electro soundscape and 'Vertabre' has a truly brutal groove that will rattle the walls of any club space, as well as dislodge brain cells. Sync 24 rounds things out with a remix of the same cut that becomes a sonic blizzard.

Brooklyn-based Malik Hendricks does a fine line in raw, deep but visceral house sounds that cannot fail to make an impact both physically and emotionally. He has done so on the likes of Bliss Point, Coloring Lessons and Darker Than Wax before now and here arrives on People Of Earth with more compelling cuts. 'Move On Up' is a steamy and sweaty house thumper with impassioned vocal swirls, 'All Mine' layers in some heavenly melodies that manage to uplift the mood in a subtle fashion and 'Feeling Like Larry' references the great Mr Heard, surely, with its balmy cosmic pads and spiritual house depths. 'The Way' (feat Tane) is licked with acoustic guitar riffs that bring to mind open-air dancing by the Med.

London based label Natural Selection present their 4th release in the form of a 4-track physical and digital Techno EP courtesy of Rommek, entitled "Devil's Playground EP". Cut by Simon at The Exchange Vinyl and mastered by Dadub Studios, Berlin.

Based in London, Rommek has seen his music released by the heaviest of renowned labels such as MORD, ARTS & James Ruskin's Blueprint Records. Rommek returns to Natural Selection after releasing with the label via their widely acclaimed VA compilation fundraiser "In Aid Of Ukraine" in 2022, with his track "All Blood Is Red", which has gained support by some of the most respected DJ's worldwide.

Since his debut release in 2014, Rommek has creatively expanded his own sound and has firmly established himself within the global techno and experimental scene. His extensive interest in sound design is crafted within the dense atmospheres, heavy broken drums and dynamic tones found within his productions. After various releases that grounded him within the Blueprint family, Rommek then completed his most established work to date, the 'Set In Stone Trilogy' in 2018. The three part release compromises of 12 tracks, original and remixes from key members of the Blueprint team; James Ruskin, O/V/R (James Ruskin & Regis), Broken English Club and Makaton.

After releasing over 15 solo EP's, Rommek has gained a wide range of noteworthy support, from being played on BBC Radio 1, to features and reviews in Mixmag, The Wire and The Quietus magazines. In 2018 he was featured within the top 100 globally charted artists on Resident Advisor. From this, it is clear that Rommek is driven to continue expanding his capabilities and keep excelling forward. After forming a close connection to Natural Selection in recent years, he has now cemented himself as one of the main front-line artists and residents within the London based imprint.

Natural Selection are well known for bridging the heavier spectrum of Techno, Electro, IDM, Acid, etc. with new, experimental style and form. One can always expect cutting-edge, hard-hitting, underground electronics from Natural Selection, with extreme diversity in sound.

Limited one time pressing of 1000. Raising the bar yet again, Night Owls' first single of 2023 lays yet another set of classic soul songs on you, flipped into the band's signature style. On Side A we find The Flamingo's beloved Doo-Wop/soul hit from 1959, "I Only Have Eyes For You," re-imagined to wind your waistline with Night Owls' longtime friend and collaborator - the one-and-only Chris Dowd from Los Angeles' legendary Fishbone on vocals. Known for tunes like "Pouring Rain" and "Everyday Sunshine" Dowd brings his signature soul drenched delivery with a hint of rude boy grit to match the rhythmic and tonal stylings of the group. Wanting to take things to the next level, producer Dan Ubick called in veteran underground Jamaican legend Tippa Lee (Stones Throw, Dub Club, Jammy's, Greensleeves, etc.) to sprinkle his magic rasta dust on top and deejay/toast on the track and the results are burning hot.
But wait, that's not all!! On Side B we find the beloved beat diggers classic "Live And Let Live," originally performed by Jimmy Jones in 1970 on Deke Records out of Chicago. For the Fender Rhodes-driven reggaefied version here, Night Owls roped in another longtime friend - Los Angeles kingpin and mover ’n' shaker, "Music Man" Miles Tackett to add his soulful vocals to the track and it's as buttery as cornbread from Cracker Barrel! Tackett is the mastermind behind globe-trotting funk/soul collective Breakestra (of which Night Owl Dan Ubick was a member) and legendary weekly L.A. dance parties like Funky Sole, Root Down and The Breaks. This side also includes Destani Wolf, who many will remember was featured on Night Owls’ version of “Let’s Stay Together”, providing the beautiful ‘verbed out backing vocals

It’s back to the heart of disco with the next release — our sixtieth! — in Most Excellent Unlimited’s long-running series of collaborations with master editor Danny Krivit, this installment on long-play 12-inch vinyl.

Our A-side features the work of Euro-disco maestro Alec Constandinos, whose symphonic suites and long form arrangements for stars like Cerrone and Don Ray made him an essential ingredient on many a glittering dancefloor in the late ’70s. Love & Kisses was one of his earliest disco projects, and one of his most popular. Their song (the “band” was a studio fabrication of Constandinos) “I Found Love” stretches across the entire side of an LP in its original form, but for discerning disc jockeys who leaned towards the funkier side of the spectrum, the percussion and bass breakdown is where it’s at. And if you are a long-time follower of Mr. K, it will come as no surprise that it is here that he focuses his metaphoric razor on the iconic breakdown, and we are left with a tough, driving track that will suit throwback sets as well as slot nicely into modern uptempo programming. As an added bonus, stick around to the very end when Krivit lets the song’s memorable acapella sample (“And I suppose you thought it was all over??”) finish it out.

It simply does not get much bigger than Donna Summer in the world of disco. Her song “Heaven Knows,” a duet with Brooklyn Dreams singer “Bean” Esposito, is one of the many gems in her catalog, and one that still evokes powerful reactions in heads, both old and new. Produced by the dream team of Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, the power and groove are propulsive and indisputable. Krivit begins with an extended "Mac Arthur Park" horn crescendo that teases the emotion before introducing a newly stripped down singalong verses and chorus of “Heaven Knows”. As the song progresses, a fabulous building effect until the end, a six-minute run through the clouds, enveloped in the ecstasy of that same horn crescendo. A sudden finale, fading into the ether, takes us out and leaves the listener (and DJ) with an open path of which musical road to take next, a master’s touch from an editor who excels at his craft.

Jossy Mitsu returns to Astral Black with ‘Planet J 2’, follow up to her 2021 debut ‘Planet J’. Since then, the Rinse-FM resident’s star has continued to rise, having curated takeovers at Fabric, b2b’s with the likes of Joy Orbison, guest mixes for Benji B, delivering hand picked for the likes of Hessle Audio & Four tet and show stealing appearances at Dekmantel, Outlook & Dour Festivals to name a few.

With consistent support from the likes of Resident Advisor, DJ Mag, Mixmag and Crack Magazine. The level up in production values across ‘Planet J 2’ looks set to increase Jossy’s notoriety as not only of the UK’s most forward thinking DJs but also as a go to unique, bass heavy, club tools.

DJ support from Sherelle, Ben UFO, Floating Points and Jamz Supernova.

Sampled Funk : all the pearls of the Groove, sampled by the greatest hip-hop and R&B DJs and producers. From the first block parties of the 1970s to the digital revolution, the organic rhythms of the funk, disco, and soul music craftsmen have provided the DNA for countless rap classics. The new volume of the Give Me The Funk series explores the groove treasures sampled by hip-hop and R&B"s greatest DJs, producers, and other " creative diggers ". Cramp your style, here come the hotsteppers! From Johnny Guitar Watson to Instant Funk to B.T. Express and Clarence Reid, Sampled Funk goes back to the source of must-have tracks from Eric B & Rakim, Kanye West, Beastie Boys, De La Soul, Cypress Hill, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and many more.

There are only 130 copies in stock

Junior Cat is one of reggae music's most prolific artists. An icon, Junior Cat"The Wild Indian," is known by reggae and hip hop fans across the globe for his dapper Bad Azz style that made the fellas crave and adoring ladies rave over his delivery of edgy lyrics that ricocheted through dancehalls and stages in the 90s with hit classics like “Iron Gloves”; “Top Dog”; “Anorexal Body”; and as featured in the mega-hit movie “Shottas”, “woulda let you go”. Junior Cat is the Don that lesser deejays imitate but never duplicate.

Terry Callier was an American soul, blues, folk and jazz guitarist, and singer songwriter born in Chicago. His debut album was recorded in
1964 but due to problems it was eventually released in 1968 as The New Folk Sound of Terry Callier. His soul, jazz, folk influences were prominently featured on the albums in the following years, which were released on different major labels. Callier continued to perform and tour until 1983, when he gained custody of his daughter and retired from recording music, working for the University of Chicago and obtained a degree in sociology. In the late 1980s British DJ’s discovered his old recordings and the famous rare-groove/jazz label Acid Jazz released his unknown track “I Don’t Want To See Myself (Without You)” in 1983. Timepeace was recorded in 1998 after a 15 year long career break and won the United Nations’s Time For Peace award for outstanding artistic achievement contributing to world peace.
The album features “People Get Ready/Brotherly Love” composed by Curtis Mayfield, the title song “Timepeace” featuring Pharoah Sanders on tenor-saxophone and 7 more tracks.

At only 19 years old, Dar Es Salaam's DJ Travella represents a new wave of singeli producers who are driving Tanzania's breakneck dance sound into fresh, innovative spaces. Unaffiliated with any of the well-known studios like Sisso and Pamoja, Hamadi Hassani's music points singeli's fusion of taraab and techno towards the stars, locating a cyber-singeli style that's dense, kinetic and unashamedly sexy. Hassani started producing at 15, and a few years later his debut is a jagged set of hi-nrg dance music that pulls influence from across the globe, folding together elements of dembow, rave, R&B, and trap. But nothing's straightforward: opening track 'Crazy Beat Music Umeme 2' juxtaposes grinding 200bpm rhythmic intensity with urgent plucked strings, sounding like Timbaland conjuring a Thunderdome soundtrack for a Tanzanian street party. 'Crazy Beat Music Umeme 4' is even more barbed, with neon rave synths and hand-jammed percussion that's one part 808 Mafia and one part DJ Diaki. On 'London Bandcamp', Travella meshes hi-speed singeli backbeats with downtempo dembow kicks, squeezing out unexpected sleaze in the process, while on 'London Uwoteeee' there's an almost romantic sparkle, with ethereal vocals draped across woodblock cracks and whistles. But Travella sounds most nimble when giving the nod to Atlanta, and his merging of earworm synth hooks and neck-snapping East African rhythms on tracks like 'London Jomon Beat' will leave no doubt that the young producer is capable of bending singeli completely to his will.

Ed Sheeran is set to release his new album ‘-‘ (Subtract) - the last in his decade-spanning mathematical album era - on 5 May 2023 through Asylum/Atlantic on vinyl, cassette and CD. An album that revisits Ed’s singer/songwriter roots, and one that was written against a backdrop of personal grief and hope, ‘-’ (Subtract) presents one of the biggest stars on the planet at his most vulnerable and honest.
In Ed’s own words - “I had been working on Subtract for a decade, trying to sculpt the perfect acoustic album, writing and recording hundreds of songs with a clear vision of what I thought it should be. Then at the start of 2022, a series of events changed my life, my mental health, and ultimately the way I viewed music and art.
Writing songs is my therapy. It helps me make sense of my feelings. I wrote without thought of what the songs would be, I just wrote whatever tumbled out. And in just over a week, I replaced a decade’s worth of work with my deepest darkest thoughts.

Within the space of a month, my pregnant wife got told she had a tumour, with no route to treatment until after the birth. My best friend Jamal, a brother to me, died suddenly and I found myself standing in court defending my integrity and career as a songwriter. I was spiralling through fear, depression and anxiety.
I felt like I was drowning, head below the surface, looking up but not being able to break through for air.

As an artist I didn’t feel like I could credibly put a body of work into the world that didn’t accurately represent where I am and how I need to express myself at this point in my life. This album is purely that. It’s opening the trapdoor into my soul. For the first time I’m not trying to craft an album people will like, I’m merely putting something out that’s honest and true to where I am in my adult life.

This is last February’s diary entry and my way of making sense of it. This is Subtract.”
Since he first learnt ‘Layla’ by Eric Clapton on guitar at the age of 12-years-old, Sheeran’s love of the singer/songwriter began. Growing up with the likes of Damian Rice, Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan playing on repeat in his parents’ house – artists that his dad, John, introduced him to – ‘-‘was always on Ed’s horizon. Yet as the songs and writing process took on a whole new meaning and direction after a series of hard-hitting events impacted Ed’s world in 2022, one thing that remained untouched was his strong desire to make a record anchored in his love of singer/songwriter compositions. And now, as he gears-up for the release of his most soul-baring work to date, ‘-‘ serves as a timely reminder for why Sheeran remains one of the most gifted lyricists of his generation; an artist who breaks down his own experiences for fans to seek comfort and belonging.
‘-‘ is the result of Sheeran pushing the boundaries of his songcraft, as he delivers the most profound songwriting of his career. Teaming-up with Aaron Dessner (The National) on writing and production after the pair joined forces following an introduction from mutual friend Taylor Swift, Ed and Aaron began crafting the album in February last year. Writing over 30 songs during their month-long studio stint, the album’s fourteen tracks are seamlessly tied together by exquisite production from paired back, folk-leaning textures to bolder, full-band/orchestral arrangements.
Ed Sheeran burst onto the UK music scene in 2011 with his debut album ‘+’. Rapidly establishing himself as a history-making artist, he followed with ‘x’, ‘÷’, ‘No.6 Collaborations Project’ and ‘=’ - a catalogue that has seen Sheeran become one of the world’s biggest musical success stories of the 21st century.