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Laufey’s deluxe album, A Matter of Time: The Final Hour, is the closing chapter of her beautiful, critically acclaimed, and GRAMMY® Award-winning third album, A Matter of Time.
With four new songs, this 19-track deluxe album is an introspection about learning to live with one’s anxieties — embracing uncertainty, accepting the passage of time, and finding calm after the storm.

JAPAN & PORCUPINE TREE SYNTHESIST RICHARD BARBIERI RETURNS WITH NEW STUDIO ALBUM 'HAUNTINGS' GATEFOLD 2LP EDITION, PRESSED ON CLASSIC BLACK VINYL. Richard Barbieri remains one of contemporary music's most distinctive voices. Emerging as a key architect of the late '70s/'80s synthesiser revolution with David Sylvian's art-rock ensemble Japan, his visionary synthesiser programming expanded the horizons of electronic music & left a lasting mark on artists from The Human League & Duran Duran to Gary Numan & Talk Talk. His subsequent & ongoing tenure with Steven Wilson's legendary progressive outfit Porcupine Tree across albums such as 'In Absentia' (2002), 'Fear Of A Blank Planet' (2007) &, most recently, 'Closure/Continuation' (2022) further affirmed his status as one of the most intuitive & unique musicians of his generation.

'Hauntings' is Barbieri's first studio album since 2021's 'Under A Spell', deepening the pensive, dark instrumental aesthetic of its predecessor. A diverse collection of immersive sound worlds, both dark & uplifting in equal measure, 'Hauntings' is influenced by a nostalgia for the past & future, & for things that didn't happen yet still manage to haunt the mind & soul. What is real & what is simulation? The album finds Barbieri at the height of his powers, his deft keyboard & sonic architecture conjuring a shadowy, creeping Lovecraftian atmosphere. The music wanders through the streets of a gloomy lamp-lit Victorian London & drifts into grain-speckled snapshots of Belle Époque Paris. These journeys into the past are contrasted with nihilistic but euphoric forays into the future, "Traveler" & "A New Simulation" bristling with the itchy modern anxiety that often runs through his best work. Contrasting the sound designs & electronics of Barbieri, the album features performances from renowned musicians Morgan Agren (drums & percussion), Percy Jones (bass guitar) & Luca Calabrese (trumpet). This 2LP 45 RPM edition of 'Hauntings' is presented in gatefold packaging & pressed on classic black vinyl.

Portrait in Jazz was Bill Evans' third album as a leader and his first LP with the talented bassist Scott LaFaro. The Evans-LaFaro collaboration would reach a climax with their June 1961 club recordings at the Village Vanguard in New York. Portrait in Jazz is made up of eight popular standards plus a couple of original compositions; Evan's 'Peri's Scope', and 'Blue in Green, co- composed by Evans and Miles Davis and first taped in March of 1959 by the two musicians in Miles' sextet that produced the perennial classic, Kind of Blue. This special edition features exclusive photographs by famous French jazz photographer Jean-Pierre Leloir. Includes the bonus track 'Autumn Leaves' (Mono take) from the same session but not on the original LP.










[j] Autumn Leaves [mono Take]

Born into a musical family Al Manfredi started writing songs when he was child. As a teenager in 1965, he formed the Nuts & Bolts in the small beach town of San Clemente, California. Inspired by the Kinks, the Beatles and the Byrds, the group separated themselves from the pack by also performing original material written by Manfredi and band mate Mike Ingram. In late 1966 they changed their name to the Lost & Found and relocated to Phoenix, Arizona, where they cut a rare single, “Don’t Move Girl” b/w “To Catch the Sun,” which now commands high coin from ‘60s garage collectors. When they returned to San Clemente in early 1967 their music had taken a more psychedelic direction. The Lost & Found were riding high that year, until tragedy struck. Ingram was found hanged under suspicious circumstances and soon after Lost & Found drummer Mike Ryer died of cancer at the age of 19. Heartbroken, Manfredi gave up on the band scene completely and moved to Garden Grove to teach at his family’s music store. But alone, behind closed doors, he kept writing songs and working on his music, recording hours of tapes, often tracking all the instruments himself. In 1973 he chose six of his best songs, some of them written back in the Lost & Found days, and had them custom-pressed as an LP. Only a handful of copies were pressed, and most of these were sent out to various record companies in the hope of landing a deal. Despite the outstanding quality of the music, there were no takers. But decades later, collectors discovered the Al Manfredi album and hailed it a West Coast rock masterpiece. In his Acid Archives book, Patrick Lundborg called its discovery a deus ex machina and compared it to David Crosby’s first solo album and Hawaii-era Merrell Fankhauser, “not just the acutely captured mellowness, but the self-confidence and the talent.”This little-known West Coast rock masterpiece was rediscovered and celebrated by Acid Archives founder Patrick Lundborg and others around the time that Manfredi died in 1995. This version of the album, overseen by Manfredi’s son Exile, and with Manfredi’s story told by Ugly Things’ founder Mike Stax, presents the complete package of an incredible lost and found artist. Contains the album, as originally issued, on side A with unreleased music on side B.

The Brian Jonestown Massacre is a psychedelic rock band originally from San Francisco, California, led by guitarist/singer Anton Newcombe. Since 1995 The Brian Jonestown Massacre has released numerous albums, first for Bomp! Records, the label which gave them their start, and later for TVT and Tee Pee. BJM has been essential in the development of the modern U.S. garage scene, and many LA and SF musicians got their start playing with Newcombe, including Peter Hayes of The Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.

Carlos Giffoni reconnects with Thurston Moore for two sides of loose-limbed axe noise, oscillator worship and hard-phased, Spacemen 3-style feedback.

Giffoni’s been on a roll recently. Since the No Fun founder returned to the scene with »Vain¡, a genius set of synth mutations that appeared in iDEAL back in 2018, he’s been slowly ramping up the activity, dropping the celestial »Dream Walker« on Stephen O’Malley’s Ideologic Organ in 2024 and following it with »Pendulum«, a bumper compendium of collaborations, just a few weeks back. For those who remember Giffoni’s first trip round the block, he was always able to hold his own chopping it up in person, not just by mail.

Just scrub through his early catalog and you’ll see collabs with Nels Cline and Chris Corsano, Merzbow, Jim O’Rourke and Lasse Marhaug, and of course, Thurston Moore. The two rekindle their thing on »IGUANA’« picking up where 2001’s fabled »4 Guitars Live« performance left off. Here, Giffoni straddles a tabletop synth and FX while Moore attacks his signature Jazzmaster with a drumstick and a screwdriver – vibes fully intact.

Moore is on blistering form, sounding as if he’s taken a step back to refresh his approach since the early ‘00s when he could be spotted moonlighting on any number of basement-adjacent noise sides. Sawing at his strings and turning the guitar into a shrieking resonator, he leaves only faint vapours of the classic Sonic Youth sound as opiating accents on his animalistic wails and rumbles. On the opening half, his whammy – assisted shreds are balanced out by Giffoni’s off-world whirrs and airlocked vibrations, building a dense wall of noise towards an unexpectedly elegiac conclusion. At some point, Giffoni’s rasping churr transforms into a simmering shudder and Moore’s into hymnal drones – squint a bit and you could almost call it pretty.

Of course, they ramp things up on the flip, dissolving the melancholia with smokey white noise and twangy, post-Derek Bailey chimes that Giffoni accompanies with aggy oscillations. Like every great taped noise set, the recording quality is crucial - »IGUANA« was captured from the pit by Guillermo Hernandez Avendano, the dad of Lia Miranda who provides the cover photo. It’s that kinda show.

Volume 1 of 3 vinyls containing all the extended mixes on Claude VonStroke’s 5th original artist album, “Wrong Number.” This first record is deep, patient, and deliberately restrained. Claude VonStroke re-calibrates his career for real people who enjoy music. The big room house machine is out of control and Claude has stopped answering the phone.

“I’m sorry you have reached the wrong number. Claude is no longer available…

As Nathan Fake rises from the nocturnal subterranea and rave catharsis of his previous records, on Evaporator, he resurfaces into the domain of daylight, bringing a tangible sense of air rushing against your face, of big skies, and endless landscapes.

The idea of pop accessibility that trickled into 2023’s Crystal Vision is refracted here through the prism of sweeping ambient, deep electronica, and trance uplift. Evaporator is Fake’s idea of “airy daytime music”, with each track a different barometer reading across the album’s varying atmospheres, which range from vibrant sunbursts, bracing rainscapes, and fine mists of clement melodics. “It’s not overtly confrontational electronic club music,” states Fake. “It’s quite pleasant, it’s accessible. As I was progressing through making the tracklist, I called it a daytime album. It doesn’t feel like an afterparty album.” For the past decade Fake has been gingerly introducing collaborations with heroes and friends alike into his lone, idiosyncratic working process.

Border Community alumni Dextro AKA Ewan Mackenzie transmutes his ferocious drumming for Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs into the blurred choral thump of ‘Baltasound’. ‘Orbiting Meadows’, meanwhile, is his second collaboration with Clark, an eerily idyllic duet where microtonal 18EDO piano clangs slowly twirl around wailing pads. Evaporator marks the junction point of old technology and ever fresh creativity for Nathan. The trusty “dinosaur” age software, particularly Cubase VST5, that has powered two decades of music is rarely updated. “I used to sort of feel a bit ashamed of using such old software, and then I kind of had an epiphany – that’s just how I work”, comments Fake. “That’s just how I play. I’m very fond of these old tools, and I get the most joy out of them, but now I’ve incorporated new technology too.” When an artist accumulates so much synergy with their instrument, music making becomes instinctual. By Fake’s account, much of Evaporator just fell into place. The album title arrived randomly in his head (“it felt completely perfect. Airy.”), ideas looped and developed until things locked into place and just felt right. ‘The Ice House’ is a fleeting glimpse of the sonic world he taps into in this creative state, its glassy FM synths built around a counterpoint between rough-hewn crystalline arpeggios and sparse yet gravitas-bearing bass. “That riff I just wrote out on the keyboard, I just played it forever and ever and ever.

The original track ended up being really short. Here you go, and it’s gone!” These unplanned channellings of sound call forth records from Fake’s past while he looks ahead, perhaps getting at the very essence of his musicianship. The opener ‘Aiwa’ (“the breeziest,” he muses) reminds of the introspection that characterised Providence, excited by the fire and grit of Steam Days’ textural experiments, its chunky slams and clatters surging into a flood of harmonic buzzing as they reach out for old wisdom. ‘Hypercube’ stampedes in a similar chronological confluence, infusing an incessant synth line reminiscent of the golden age of rave with the crackling, ecstatic energy of modern festival anthems. Like the vaporisation of liquid to particles, everything that Evaporator presents has a mutant desire to be amorphous. Sounds rarely settle; the irradiated garage beat of ‘Bialystok’ is pitched downwards to driving, rebounding effect, while ‘You’ll Find a Way’ warps static into shivering energy, cinematic synth strings building anticipation into a gradual gush of chords. This translates into a more expansive stereo field than Fake has explored before.


‘Slow Yamaha’ saves the wildest, most kinetic transformations for last with a cornucopia of crispy melodies and fried drums; a sibilance of cymbals on the left, a susurrus of shakers on the right, and kaleidoscopic lasers pulsing and fizzing all around. Evaporation culminating in pure excited atoms.

‘Soul Psychédélique’, released on Two-Piers, takes you on a journey into the world of Psychedelic Soul & Funk, from its early beginnings in the 1960s and 1970s to the current crop of artists championing the more Psychedelic, Trippy end of the Soul sound today.

‘Soul Psychédélique’ brings together legends of the Soul Psych scene, such as Curtis Mayfield, The Chambers Brothers, Marlena Shaw, The Temptations, and the brilliant ‘Sugar Man’ by Rodriguez. Place alongside Soul Titans like Isaac Hayes, Bobby Womack, Chairman of the Board, Terry Callier all delivering stunning Psychedelic Nuggets for your Listening pleasure. Throw in some covers like ‘Dear Prudence’ by The Five Stairsteps, ‘Hard to Handle’ by Patti Drew and ‘California Dreamin’’ Bobby Womack and finish with some brilliant modern-day exponents of the scene like Khruangbin, Gabriels and Michael Kiwanuka. The result is a crazy ride through the world of Psychedelic Soul and Funk. If you ain’t dancing and smiling by the end - what the hell is wrong with you!

‘Soul Psychédélique (The Best of Lounge & Exotica 1954-2022)’ is the fourth instalment in the ‘Psychédélique’ Compilation series on Two-Piers, following the critically acclaimed ‘Pop Psychédélique (The Best of French Psychedelic Pop 1964-2019)’, ‘Garage Psychédélique (The Best of Garage Psych and Pzyk Rock 1965-2019)’ and ‘Lounge Psychédélique (The Best of Lounge & Exotica 1954-2022)’ and is available on 2LP Coloured Vinyl

Xylitol, aka producer and DJ Catherine Backhouse, shifts up the refinement and musical breadth for her second album Blumenfantasie, the follow-up to her Planet Mu debut Anemones.
With Blumenfantasie, Xylitol wanted “to make space and for the music to float and propel at once”, finding routes through the pointillistic figures, cascading synths and the meditative stillness of kosmische musik and bolder breakbeat programming. She reaches this delicate balance through careful subtraction, hoping “to convey a sense of intimacy and sadness but without sentimentality” which she manages with a feel and sound that's raw and intuitive.

Blumenfantasie rolls through detailed jungle workouts that flutter and bleep, through beatless ambience, taking a rare dip below 160 bpm for the elegiac Mirjana, the album’s most explicit nod to Krautrock with a drum break chopped up from Amon Duul II’s anthemic ‘Archangel’s Thunderbird’, through to Halo, a bare bones grime rhythm that calls to mind the missing link between industrial pioneers Nurse With Wound and Wiley's Eskibeat.

Catherine cast her net to draw in experimental audiovisual duo Sculpture and Reading based post-rock band The Leaf Library as collaborators, pulling the former’s whirling eddies of musique concrète into a slice of sublime aquatic jungle, and the latter’s radiophonic folksong into a dark and disorientating breakbeat workout equally indebted to Source Direct as to Broadcast.
Blumenfantasie moves with a confident, self-effacing fluidity which has been informed by DJ Bunnyhausen’s more regular DJ gigs. She speculates ‘if this album feels more cohesive than its predecessor it's likely because I've been DJing a lot more, with Worthing Techno Militia, with central and eastern european electronica collective Slav to the Rhythm, as well as being part of Italo Disco crew Flex. Moving between these zones seemed to open up hidden pathways between the disparate musical trajectories they represent.'
While Anemones contrasted the rough and the delicate, its successor is an album built for the head, hips and heart, with painterly sounds and a sense of intimacy that encourages deep listening while keeping its eyes on the strobelight and its feet on the dancefloor.

The 10,000 strong party drew together DJs, fans, listeners, singers, live acts and MCs together to showcase every shade and style encompassing a 174 heartbeat. As the Finsbury Park fun continues and round two promising even bigger stage takeovers and a myriad of artist weaponry, we present an equally bursting drum & bass double disc, the 'Hospitality In The Park 2017' LP. In the same vein as our all- day summer special, this huge 70 track mash- up spans across a full 360' perspective of the genre; representing the established, up and coming, soulful, obscure, liquid, innovative, dark, techy, neuro, jungle style and everything in between.

Included are over 25 brand new exclusives from reputable drum & bass titans Danny Byrd, S.P.Y, Makoto and Keeno, there are VIPs from Metrik and Nu:Logic, remixes from Hugh Hardie, Total science, Camo & Krooked and Calibre, and a 'Bullet Proof' banger from Krakota. Across two mixed CDs we've drawn for this year's surefire summer weapons with Fred V & Grafix, The Prototypes, 1991, High Contrast, The Upbeats, Breakage in the mix. With this year's Incubator stage pulling artists that are rising through the ranks, up and comers' Whiney, Unglued, GLXY and Kyrist bring exciting new offerings to the compilation.

Both fans and artists came together from all over the globe last year and we expect no less in 2017. Equally, this compilation gives an international perspective covering all corners of the globe from Japan's Mountain, the USA's Flite and Ownglow, the Netherlands Black Sun Empire and New Zealand's Shapeshifter. Drum & bass is stronger than ever and it's here to stay. See you at the park!

This album brings together some of the finest music ever released on Black Jazz Records which in its short four-year history, between 1971 and 1975, released over 20 superlative albums which all successfully blending spiritual jazz, funk and soul jazz of the highest calibre. Similar to other independent jazz labels at the time, including Strata-East Records and Tribe Records, Black Jazz focussed on a number of key artists, most of whom first established their career during this period, and all of whom are featured here. Featuring The Awakening, Doug Carn, Walter Bishop, Chester Thompson, Kellee Patterson and more. Black Jazz Records was founded in Oakland, California, by pianist Gene Russell and percussionist Dick Schory.

The label released twenty albums between 1971 and 1975. Artists who recorded for Black Jazz Records included Cleveland Eaton (bassist for Ramsey Lewis), keyboardists Doug Carn and Chester Thompson, vocalist Kellee Patterson, saxophonist Rudolph Johnson, bassist Henry Franklin, and spiritual fusion group The Awakening. The label was distributed and financed by Ovation Records, based in Chicago. Schory founded Ovation in 1969, shortly after leaving RCA. Schory was a Grammy-nominated percussionist who was also known for his development of the stereo recording techniques including Dynagroove and RCA Victor’s Stereo Action. Schory also pioneered quadrophonic sound, and a number of Black Jazz Records were in quadrophonic and other formats such as ¼” tape and 8-track.

Black Jazz launched in 1971 with Gene Russell’s ‘New Direction’. Russell was the creative force behind the label, acting as producer, engineer and A&R and focussed on developing new solo artists. The most successful of these was Doug Carn, who released four albums featuring his wife, Jean Carn, as vocalist. She later changed her name to Jean Carne and became a successful soul singer signed to Gamble and Huff’s Philadelphia International empire.

Ok Leute, die fünf legendären Thrasher aus Antwerpen kommen mit einem dicken Moshbrett zurück auf das europäische Crossover-Parkett! Glatte 9 Jahre nach 20 Last Century brettert "Future Is Calling" straighter und direkter, aggressiver als je gehört - I know, das liest man bei jeder neuen Platte, aber hier stimmt es ausnahmsweise mal. Im Ernst, das neue Zeug klingt in keinster Weise angestaubt oder so, als wäre es schon das 100. Mal wieder aufgewärmt - im Gegenteil: Toxic Shock hat die kleine Pause der letzten Jahre offensichtlich gutgetan und ordentlich Fuel in den Motor geschüttet. Hier passt alles - die Gitarren sind super aufeinander abgestimmt, das Drumming ist tight und vor allem Wally, der Sänger, hat einen fetten Sprung in die A-Liga der Shouter geschafft. Aber klar - Toxic Shock erfinden das Crossover-Thrash-Game nicht neu, im Gegenteil, sie zollen den Großen des Genres Tribut! Klar, Excel, Suicidal Tendencies, Testament - das sind die Referenzen. Gleichzeitig merkt man die Hardcore/Punk-Wurzeln der fünf - nicht zuletzt durch das überaus passende und gelungene Cover von The Gun Club. Und fun fact - bei dem Gun Club-Song klingen Toxic Shock stellenweise wie Lee Hollis zu seinen besten Spermbirds-Zeiten! Was "Future Is Calling" aber wirklich auszeichnet, ist diese rohe, ungebremste Energie, die trotzdem nie ins Chaos kippt. Die Songs sind kompakt, kommen schnell auf den Punkt und haben trotzdem genug Hooks, um im Ohr zu bleiben. Kein unnötiger Schnickschnack, kein selbstverliebtes Gefrickel - einfach ehrlicher, wuchtiger Crossover mit Haltung. Genau so muss das 2020er-Thrash-Revival klingen. Moshpit-Garantie inklusive.

Heavyweight psychedelic improvisers EarthBall are back with their third and most monstrous record to date: ‘Outside Over There’, released on Upset The Rhythm (Nov 7th). Born from the haunted basements of Nanaimo, Canada, the quintet thrives on spontaneity, shaping improvisation into jagged hallucinations and ecstatic eruptions.
Recorded live-off-the-floor in 2024 in Jeremy, Izzy, and Kellen’s basement, and mixed by drummer John Brennan, ‘Outside Over There’ is an album that feels both summoned and inevitable. Each track lands with uncanny purpose, as if uncovered rather than written.
The opener, 100%, features a cameo from comedian and English icon Stewart Lee, who lent his blessing for the band to use a fragment of his stand-up. The album was mastered by John Dieterich (Deerhoof), with liner text contributed by longtime comrade John Olson (Wolf Eyes). Olson describes the album in his unmistakable style:
“This eight-track odyssey unfolds like a dreamscape, where whispered incantations brush against the shadowy fringes of the cosmos, and wild, Cézanne-inspired rock anthems erupt like geysers of color in the midst of a western warm and wet rain storm… culminating in the sprawling eleven minute masterpiece, ‘And The Music Shall Untune The Sky,’ aptly dubbed the Earth Crusher. A creation so utterly deconstructed and intertwined with the pulse of nature itself that if AI was called upon to conceive ‘Outside Over There’ anew, it would just spit back, “F.U. in Tree Font”. An enchanting invitation for even the flat-earthers to join the circle, if only just a little.”
EarthBall’s trajectory has been relentless. Their 2024 album ‘It’s Yours’ was praised by The Quietus as “fully aggressive and fully life-affirming,” and by The Wire as "a boisterous mind-melting album”. The band’s live double set LP ‘Actual Earth Music Vol. 1 & 2’ (2025) captured blistering performances: a performance opening for Wolf Eyes at the Fox Cabaret, and a Café OTO improvised throw-down featuring Chris Corsano and Steve Beresford. These releases on their own confirm them as one of Canada’s most vital experimental exports, not to mention the impressive self-released discography on their Bandcamp. The band’s reach has stretched far beyond their west coast roots with a UK tour May 2024, plus this past June, EarthBall closed Montreal’s Suoni Per Il Popolo Festival alongside Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Raven Chacon. This November they will perform at Le Guess Who? Festival in Utrecht, with a European tour to follow (tour dates below). Outside of EarthBall, each member carries their own torch. Jeremy Van Wyck, founding member of the legendary Shearing Pinx, has toured extensively, released over 100 records, and has been a vital force in the Vancouver and West Coast underground for the past 25 years. He and Isabel Ford (Izzy) play together not only in EarthBall, but also in Psychedelic Dirt, Shearing Pinx, Behaviours, and Crotch.
John Brennan collaborates widely, including recently with Endlings (Raven Chacon and John Dieterich), Evichen (Victoria Shen), Francesco Fonassi, Plan Your Future (with Greg Saunier of Deerhoof), Brennan/Corsano duo and Physics with John Dieterich. Kellen Maclaughlin performs with KVMP and Ora Corgan, while saxophonist Liam Murphy is a west coast staple, playing with the best across Vancouver Island and the mainland. On three of the tracks of ‘Outside Over There’, the band is joined by their comrade Justin Patterson, who also plays with Brennan in the duo Modale. This cross-pollination fuels EarthBall’s sound - a collective improvisation, psychically overdriven, and grinding into bloom.
Outside Over There’ is more than an album though, it is a ritual, a gathering of sound at the forest’s edge; where feedback, saxophone screams, and ecstatic vocals dissolve the boundary between chaos and clarity. EarthBall invite you into their circle, to share in the joyful terror of spontaneous creation. ‘Outside Over There’ will be released on November 7th through Upset The Rhythm digitally and as a limited blue-in-black vinyl LP.

‘Distracted’ is Thundercat’s fifth studio album, featuring contributions from an incredible cast of friends including A$AP Rocky, WILLOW, Tame Impala, Lil Yachty, Channel Tres, and a long awaited collaboration with the dearly departed Mac Miller. The record was primarily created in close collaboration with a new creative partner – the super-producer Greg Kurstin – plus Flying Lotus, Kenny Beats (Kenneth Blume) and The Lemon Twigs. In the six years since his GRAMMY-winning album ‘It Is What It Is’, Thundercat’s star has risen: playing stadiums worldwide with Red Hot Chilli Peppers with Flea naming Thundercat “the best bass player on the planet”; performing live with A$AP Rocky, Steve Lacy, Tame Impala, Gorillaz, Silk Sonic, Erykah Badu, Spinal Tap, Yo Gabba Gabba; collaborating with Haim, Smino, Kaytranada, Kamasi Washington and Justice. He also branched out into acting with a role in Star Wars: The Book of Boba Fett. His warm, playful presence is never too far away, and life’s all the more enlivened by it.

Green Sleeve 2026 Repress

The earliest musical memories of young Prince Istari are of his mother beautifying the home with her piano playing. She would repeatedly play the tranquil pieces of Erik Satie. Skipping school and sitting in the sun, young Prince would listen to these catchy, calm compositions.

In the first week of 2024, the older Prince Istari rediscovered himself and found a box containing his mother's old sheet music. He transferred them to his computer and began spinning dub versions from them. It became a tapestry. As his mother used to say: "To weave a net, one must first spin." The form of the pieces dictated the direction each would take. The heavy dub transforms here into a light weightiness until it dissolves into a pure piano piece accompanied by a synthesizer. However, the last piece is much older, from the time when Prince was still known as Istari Lasterfahrer. The ending includes a distorted recording of Huberta, Prince's mother, playing a Gnossienne by Satie. At the end, she turns the sheet music, and the record can be turned back to the beginning.

In the essence of its material, this record rejects the Loudness War. The originality of the compositions guided the dub within their tracks, thereby imparting to each a form descriptive of its essence.

Jnbo ist der Künstlername von Henry Jenkins, einem Komponisten, Produzenten/Toningenieur und Bassisten aus Melbourne/Naarm. Jenkins ist den meisten als Produzent/Toningenieur hinter Surprise Chef, Karate Boogaloo und der für den Grammy nominierten Frollen Music Library bekannt. Als hauseigener Toningenieur für Aufnahmen und Abmischungen bei College In-House-Aufnahme- und Mix-Ingenieur bei Knowledge Records hat Jenkins die klangliche Grundlage für die instrumentale Cinematic-Soul-Bewegung von Melbourne/Naarm geschaffen. Auf ,& Friends" setzt Jenkins seine Fähigkeiten für seine eigenen brillanten Kompositionen ein. Das Album umfasst 12 introspektive Instrumentalstücke - tiefe, cineastische Odysseen, die von Romantik und Aufrichtigkeit durchdrungen sind und jenen unverkennbaren ,Freak Funk Bump" haben. Jenkins erklärt die Konzeption von ,& Friends": ,Ich wollte ein Album schreiben, auf dessen Aufnahme ich mich mit meinen Freunden freuen würde. Die Musik, die ich schrieb, hatte eine Funk-Sensibilität in Bass und Schlagzeug, kontrastiert durch einen eher cineastischen Ansatz in Bezug auf Harmonie und Melodie, mit Gitarren, die sich dazwischen schlängeln und gleiten. Ich habe versucht, diesen Kontrast zum Charakter des Albums zu machen. Ich fand, dass jeder Song die gleiche Instrumentierung und die gleichen Musiker haben sollte. Das wurde zu einer angenehmen kreativen Herausforderung: Wie viel Variation konnte ich im Laufe des Albums aus denselben acht Instrumenten herausholen? Ich wollte innerhalb dieser engen Grenzen so viel Vielfalt wie möglich finden." Jenkins hat diese Prinzipien bei den Aufnahmen zu ,& Friends" angewendet und langjährige Musikpartner wie Hudson Whitlock, Darvid Thor und Callum Riley (Karate Boogaloo), Lachlan Stuckey und Jethro Curtin (Surprise Chef), Lewis Coleman und Lena Douglas (The Cactus Channel) zusammen, um unkonventionelle Arrangements für drei Gitarren, Klavier, Streichersynthesizer, Hammondorgel, Schlagzeug und Bass zu verwirklichen, wobei Jenkins selbst den Bass und die Produktion übernahm. Das Ergebnis ist ein auffallend einzigartiges Album: Mal gibt's malerische Stimmungen, mal funkige Rhythmen, die zum Mitwippen einladen, wobei die drei Gitarren und drei Keyboards genau im Stereofeld angeordnet sind. Das Album zeigt die Einflüsse des Filmkomponisten Bernard Herrmann, des Lounge-Pioniers Les Baxter und Lamont Dozier von Motown, zusammen mit den exzentrischen Eigenheiten von JNBO. Für Fans von Surprise Chef, El Michels Affair, Menahan Street Band, Les Baxter, Bernard Herrmann.

1 Umbrella represents a watershed moment for modern Bay Area hip-hop, effectively serving as the region’s "Avengers" assembly designed to consolidate the Northern California sound. For years, the local scene has been bisected by the distinct "mob music" bounce of Oakland and the melodic, trauma-drenched "pain music" of San Francisco; this collective is the first major commercial force to deliberately fuse these competing energies into a single, dominant infrastructure. The roster is a calculated cross-Bay alliance that balances opposing sonic weights: Lil Bean and Lil Yee anchor the group with the emotive, auto-tune-heavy melodies that define the current SF landscape, while Zaybang cuts through that introspection with his signature high-octane aggression.

Balancing the scales are ALLBLACK and 22nd Jim, who inject the classic East Bay attitude—ALLBLACK delivering the motivational, sports-heavy "player" lineage of the region, contrasted against Jim’s nonchalant, rhythmic flow. Backed by the powerhouse infrastructure of EMPIRE and united under tracks like "Baller Blockin" and the unification anthem "The Blueprint," the group is attempting to solve the fragmentation that has historically plagued the Bay’s independent market. By synchronizing their movement with the arrival of Super Bowl LX, 1 Umbrella is positioning itself not merely as a rap group, but as the official cultural ambassadors for the region, betting that a unified front can finally command the national spotlight that often eludes the West Coast’s independent giants.

Embrace The Abandon is the new project by THE MON, the solo vision of Urlo, vocalist, bassist, and founding member of the Italian heavy-psych veterans Ufomammut.
Structured in two complementary chapters - Songs of Abandon (November 7th, 2025) and Songs of Embrace (March 6th, 2026) - the project tells a journey of duality: loss and surrender on one side, acceptance and rebirth on the other.
“
Songs Of Embrace” is the second chapter of “Embrace The Abandon”, expanding its emotional landscape rather than closing it.
Where the first part explored abandonment and loss, “Songs Of Embrace” focuses on presence, proximity, and the physical act of staying.
It is the answering breath, the inner voice.

The album avoids resolution and comfort, embracing slowness, repetition, and bodily tension.
It is not just music, it is a stream of consciousness, an inner search, a way of inhabiting what weighs without letting go.
While “Songs Of Abandon” is a collection of songs, nine tracks written in nine days, Songs Of Embrace is a continuous musical flow.
It is a movement that changes, grows, erupts, slows down, settles, and rises again.

It feels like the sea: calm and still one moment, then moved by a simple breath of wind, suddenly breaking into a storm.
“Songs Of Embrace” was conceived more like a ritual, a work of classical music, a suite.

Different parts unfolding one into the next, each a continuation of the previous one, finding meaning only as a whole.
The pieces are deeply interconnected, like embraces: some bring comfort, others carry pain.
These are compositions meant to be listened to in one continuous breath, allowing yourself to be held, rocked, and sometimes pushed away, just like in an embrace.

Ransom and V Don connect on their highly anticipated collaborative album, "Chaos Is My Ladder", and just as expected, Jersey City's emcee technical bars perfectly fit V Don's cinematic soundscape. Alongside guest appearances by Lloyd Banks, 38 Spesh, Eto, J. Arrr, Mad Squablz and Crystal Caines, the two have crafted a perfect record for their already incredible catalogues, with Ransom coming on the heels of "This Life Made Me" and his "No Rest For The Wicked", and V Don’s most recent collaboration "Deutsche Marks 3" with Willie The Kid.

Real Bad Man and YUNGMORPHEUS are excited to announce their new album The Chalice & The Blade is out now. The album features Boldy James, Kool Keith, Grip, Blu, Fatboi Sharif, and more.

YUNGMORPHEUS is a highly innovative rapper that consistently endeavors to redefine the boundaries of originality and elevate the art of lyricism. Earlier this year, YUNGMORPHEUS dropped his critically acclaimed album “From Whence It Came” which received praise from The FADER, NPR, SPIN, and was hailed by QUIP Mag as “Everything you need from a hip-hop record.”

Since 2020, Prolific LA-based producer and designer Adam Weissman (Real Bad Man) has been on a sensational run releasing albums with Boldy James, Smoke DZA, and Pink Siifu. The Chalice & The Blade will be Real Bad Man’s third album of the year following his remarkable collaborations with Blu (“Bad News”) and Kool Keith (“Serpent”).

The Chalice & The Blade showcases a unique ambiance marked by a stoney and atmospheric quality, interspersed with elements of funk. Real Bad Man explains the album making process, "I always tailor the music to the artist I’m collaborating with. I sent Morpheus a bunch of beats that he’d sound good over and once he started picking them, that set the path. We’d record and I’d make more beats, and move stuff around, get rid of some songs and record new ones. It was a good process. I like being able to adjust as we go, I think that makes for a good album. We left some songs on the cutting room floor. Cream rises."

YUNGMORPHEUS discussing the new album, “‘The Chalice & The Blade’ is an album primarily rooted in dichotomies; contemplation of action vs action itself, inner locus vs outer locus, pursuit for self vs pursuit for others. Honesty is always the centerpiece. Play if you want cause I’m not!”

On The Chalice & The Blade, the seamless synergy between Real Bad Man and YUNGMORPHEUS takes center stage, showcasing an extraordinary chemistry that elevates every track to new heights of musical innovation.

Released in November 2023, "Piranha" is the electrifying collaboration album between Brooklyn's own CJ Fly, the lyri-cal virtuoso of Pro Era fame, and masterful producer Stoic. Dive deep into the sonic depths of this mesmerizing pro-ject as CJ Fly's razor-sharp lyricism cuts through the beats crafted by Stoic with surgical precision for a sonic feast that devours everything in its path.

With guest appearances including the likes of Mick Jenkins, Nyck Caution, Lord Apex, Blvck Svm and AMARAH, as well as young legend Lord Sko on one of the bonus tracks featured on this deluxe edition, each track on "Piranha" is a testament to the raw talent and creativity of its collaborators.

With Stoic's immersive production providing the perfect backdrop for CJ Fly's impassioned delivery, "Piranha" is an album that demands your attention from start to finish, a tidal wave sure to leave a lasting impression on hip-hop heads everywhere.

Talulah’s Tape is the debut offering from magnetic Midwest-jangle collective Good Flying Birds. Across a patchwork mixtape of stripped-down home recordings that span the independent-guitar spectrum, the band delivers colorful, intricate pop songs perched between the immediacy of DIY punk and the intimate sweetness of twee. Breakbeats, memes, and noise glue everything together, making the album feel as chronically online as it is timeless.

Originally released on cassette in January 2025 by Midwest-punk legend Martin Meyers’s Rotten Apple label, the tape sold more than 300 copies in under a month and quickly became an out-of-print and coveted item. Meyers called it “certified catnip for popheads.” Now, with a refined track list and a fresh master from Greg Obis, Talulah’s Tape returns on LP and CD via Carpark and Smoking Room in October 2025.

While production and approach vary, a through-line of sensitive self-contemplation rests on bright, scrappy guitars and hyperactive melodic bass. Opener “Down on Me” rides a buoyant bass line while jangling guitars frame reflections on overcoming trauma: “I see you in the mirror every time I cry / I hear your voice every time I try.” Next, the guitars trade twinkling counter-melodies on “I Care for You,” pairing sugary, lovestruck lyrics with effervescent strums: “You catch me when I fall / You build me up so tall.”

The rosy grin occasionally twists into a wicked smirk. “Dynamic” warns, “You used to paint the face, but now you’re just the clown,” while “Glass” asks, “Is it lonely at the top when everyone follows the trend, and you hold the pen?” Both tracks brim with sparkling guitar interplay. By the closing, nearly five-minute “Last Straw,” Good Flying Birds stand far beyond conventional indie-pop or 4-track punk, unveiling a roller-coaster of unpredictable changes, vocal harmonies, and instrumental cross-talk.

Altogether, Talulah’s Tape is a pastel-yellow, candy-coated shell filled with thoughtful juxtapositions and melodic experiments. Standing on the same ground as idiosyncratic songwriters like Connie Converse and Daniel Johnston, Good Flying Birds find sweetness in sadness, tear stains on a colorful flower-print couch. Simultaneously, it’s packed with the scratchy guitars and vibrant rhythms of Scottish guitar groups like The Pastels, Orange Juice, and Josef K. It’s a tremendous opening statement from a band just getting started.

Crave Tapes is thrilled to announce the first vinyl release on the label which will be the second album from Frankfurt's underground post-punk/dark wave band Babes of Enola Grey, Krieg und Wohlstand.
Krieg und Wohlstand sees Babes of Enola Grey follow the path of their 2021 debut, Anfang vom Ende, and take a step further into the realm of melancholic and disillusioned soundscapes. While keeping a certain retro character to the songs, Deborah Vision, Salvador Islero and Fabian van Castorp focus on quite contemporary themes, which some might call the most German obsessions:
War and prosperity.
But this is not the only reference to the band's heritage. Sometimes more, sometimes less, there are musical allusions to various German influences and contributions to (modern) music and music history. While Doppelt Frei is a nod to EBM and bands like DAF or the early Die Krupps and Wie auf Schienen as well as Die Heuschrecken pay homage to German düster punk bands like Fliehende Stürme or EA80, Panik and the title track Krieg und Wohlstand refer to the romantic German art song tradition of the 19th century (not to mention the obvious hint at a certain successful German Schlager in Die Kugeln und das Herz).
This makes Krieg und Wohlstand not only a worthy epigone of the band's debut, but also takes the album and the artistic approach to another level.
Commenting on the chosen format (12" vinyl), the band members said: "It was clear to us that we wanted to release this album on vinyl. When you look atGerman history, war and prosperity have to be seen as two sides of the same medal, or in this case of a record".

There’s an alternate reality where everyone makes a living wage and the cleanest buses you’ve ever seen arrive every other minute. Where the most intense songs are about confessing your love to a crush at the apple orchard, and where gentle feelings and chaotic energy are inseparable best friends. This is the timeline where Cootie Catcher is right at home. This Toronto based four-piece exudes both vulnerability and unbridled excitement, creating a sound that hypercharges the open-hearted tenderness of twee pop with spiraling synths and giddy electronics. New album Something We All Got is the clearest and most vibrant reading of Cootie Catcher’s vision yet, with songs of sweetness, nervousness, and expectancy that beam out unguarded.
After releasing music made primarily in basement recording environments, Something We All Got is the band’s first flirtation with studio recording. The edges are still sharp, however, with some parts assembled from time-honored lo-fi methods and fun, personally-sourced samples seeping into the production. The sound is explosive and upbeat, with euphoric guitars, bubbly synth lines, speedy drums both played and programmed, and all other manner of sound constantly colliding. Cootie Catcher has three songwriters, Sophia Chavez, Anita Fowl, and Nolan Jakupovski, all of whom have distinctive voices but still manage to overlap in their writing on shared concerns like navigating the lines of romantic and platonic relationships, their city’s social scenes, and struggles in both the microcosmic experience of playing in a band and the zoomed-out challenges of living through late-stage capitalism.
Joy still touches every surface of Something We All Got. “Quarter Note Rock” bounces around the room in a fit of jangling guitar chords, scratched samples, and interplay between breakbeat loops and somersaulting live drums. It’s a blast of positivity even with lyrics about how disappointing it can be to meet your heroes. A smiling electro pop instrumental supports lyrics about having to step painfully away from an almost realized love on “Gingham Dress,” a song that subverts themes of domesticity as a backdrop for the dashed wilt of hopeless devotion.
Cootie Catcher rolls down hills and jumps through flaming hoops throughout Something We All Got without ever dumbing down the visceral emotions that drive these songs. There’s a palpable tension between the band’s exhilarating sonics and the raw, often uneasy sentiments expressed, but it’s an integral part of what makes them unique. Rather than hide behind the kind of calculated vagueness that plagues so much of the indie rock landscape in the time of cursed algorithms, Cootie Catcher runs full-speed toward every confusion and excitement, fearlessly direct and embracing the reality they’re in.

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

I wrote this album in prison. I went to the music room every week to play on their keyboards. I studied different styles of beat patterns and sound recording to be a recording engineer. I wanted to create this new sound, so I took go-go, hip-hop, house, and drum and bass to blend up a new pattern of beats with a DJ sway. So I rapped on it. I need a perfect mix sound so I used a reverb gate, small room because I was in a small room. I used my moms blankets to trap the sound waves in the room. I use a digital mic from radio shack and was rapping with a blanket over my head to trap the sound waves. I played my keys in F flat to deepen the tone. I put tom toms on it to fill the spaces with handclaps to have that snap. Then I put a reverb gate on every instrument to get the lo-fi audio sound. I mastered it with all knobs on zero. Equalizer on zero. I mastered my own sound by tweeking and listening with cheap headphones. So that's why I call myself Mix-0-Rap because I master my mix and DJ rap style with a touch go-go rapping. Thank you for supporting me and my music, I hope you enjoy this.

Pleasure, shame, and survival often arrive tangled together, indistinguishable in the moment. Camgirl, from Crippling Alcoholism, takes that entanglement as its starting point. Rather than separating desire from damage, the record allows them to coexist, tracing a path through obsession, performance, and persistence without offering clean resolution.
Camgirl is the 2025 breakthrough album from Boston’s Crippling Alcoholism, a record that frames pop immediacy against obsession, endurance, and collapse. Built from ear-wormy hooks and abrasive noise rock textures, the album smuggles grotesque and confrontational subject matter into songs that remain deliberately melodic. Pleasure and revulsion blend throughout, with choruses that linger even as the lyrics refuse comfort.

Released on September 12, 2025, Camgirl follows a loose narrative centered on a sex worker moving through cycles of exploitation and survival, treating intimacy as spectacle and visibility as threat. Songs flicker between desire and despair, confession and performance, flooded with artificial light. Despite its subject matter, the record resists nihilism. Its closing moments arrive quietly triumphant, not through escape or redemption, but through persistence itself.
Originally released on vinyl by Portrayal of Guilt Records, the first pressing of Camgirl sold out quickly. The Flenser reissue makes the album widely available for the first time, reaffirming it as a defining statement from a band operating at the intersection of pop form, noise, and lived experience.
Press Quotes

Camgirl proves that Crippling Alcoholism can evolve without losing their edge, and this record is a dark, irresistible bop. - Lambgoat
Elements of goth rock and melancholic vocals call back to loud rock while blending with an overall instrumental field brimming with energy. - Outside noise
Blurring the lines between outsider noise rock and dark glamorous synth-laden pop under a deceptively alluring glow… compulsively, squirmingly catchy. - The Progressive

Pleasure, shame, and survival often arrive tangled together, indistinguishable in the moment. Camgirl, from Crippling Alcoholism, takes that entanglement as its starting point. Rather than separating desire from damage, the record allows them to coexist, tracing a path through obsession, performance, and persistence without offering clean resolution.
Camgirl is the 2025 breakthrough album from Boston’s Crippling Alcoholism, a record that frames pop immediacy against obsession, endurance, and collapse. Built from ear-wormy hooks and abrasive noise rock textures, the album smuggles grotesque and confrontational subject matter into songs that remain deliberately melodic. Pleasure and revulsion blend throughout, with choruses that linger even as the lyrics refuse comfort.

Released on September 12, 2025, Camgirl follows a loose narrative centered on a sex worker moving through cycles of exploitation and survival, treating intimacy as spectacle and visibility as threat. Songs flicker between desire and despair, confession and performance, flooded with artificial light. Despite its subject matter, the record resists nihilism. Its closing moments arrive quietly triumphant, not through escape or redemption, but through persistence itself.
Originally released on vinyl by Portrayal of Guilt Records, the first pressing of Camgirl sold out quickly. The Flenser reissue makes the album widely available for the first time, reaffirming it as a defining statement from a band operating at the intersection of pop form, noise, and lived experience.
Press Quotes

Camgirl proves that Crippling Alcoholism can evolve without losing their edge, and this record is a dark, irresistible bop. - Lambgoat
Elements of goth rock and melancholic vocals call back to loud rock while blending with an overall instrumental field brimming with energy. - Outside noise
Blurring the lines between outsider noise rock and dark glamorous synth-laden pop under a deceptively alluring glow… compulsively, squirmingly catchy. - The Progressive

Pleasure, shame, and survival often arrive tangled together, indistinguishable in the moment. Camgirl, from Crippling Alcoholism, takes that entanglement as its starting point. Rather than separating desire from damage, the record allows them to coexist, tracing a path through obsession, performance, and persistence without offering clean resolution.
Camgirl is the 2025 breakthrough album from Boston’s Crippling Alcoholism, a record that frames pop immediacy against obsession, endurance, and collapse. Built from ear-wormy hooks and abrasive noise rock textures, the album smuggles grotesque and confrontational subject matter into songs that remain deliberately melodic. Pleasure and revulsion blend throughout, with choruses that linger even as the lyrics refuse comfort.

Released on September 12, 2025, Camgirl follows a loose narrative centered on a sex worker moving through cycles of exploitation and survival, treating intimacy as spectacle and visibility as threat. Songs flicker between desire and despair, confession and performance, flooded with artificial light. Despite its subject matter, the record resists nihilism. Its closing moments arrive quietly triumphant, not through escape or redemption, but through persistence itself.
Originally released on vinyl by Portrayal of Guilt Records, the first pressing of Camgirl sold out quickly. The Flenser reissue makes the album widely available for the first time, reaffirming it as a defining statement from a band operating at the intersection of pop form, noise, and lived experience.
Press Quotes

Camgirl proves that Crippling Alcoholism can evolve without losing their edge, and this record is a dark, irresistible bop. - Lambgoat
Elements of goth rock and melancholic vocals call back to loud rock while blending with an overall instrumental field brimming with energy. - Outside noise
Blurring the lines between outsider noise rock and dark glamorous synth-laden pop under a deceptively alluring glow… compulsively, squirmingly catchy. - The Progressive

"BLUNTS ROLLED" GSF13 the first posthumous release of unheard music by RAS-G'. Eighteen raw transmissions: unreleased beats, remixes, loops & smoky spacecraft meditations arranged in true mixtape spirit exactly as RAS envisioned them. This isn’t a vault dump, it's RAS_G in full form - unfiltered, joyful, psychedelic & rooted in the low end theory.
"BLUNTS ROLLED" continues the ASP mission: connecting hood to heaven, ancient to future, earthly to astral. These sounds crackle with cosmic dust & Cali sunshine - grounded in LA soil, projected into Saturn’s rings. Featuring transmissions from ASP family Kahil Sadiq, The Koreatown Oddity, Zeroh, and even G himself... voices and energies orbiting each other in intimate, galaxy-folding, head-nodding, fronto-scented universes.

The Expanders began playing reggae music together in the summer of 2003, and today are one of the hardest working reggae bands in Southern California. They have come to be known for their vintage style of reggae, played in the tradition of classic 1970s Jamaican groups like The Ethiopians, The Gladiators and The Mighty Diamonds. Their music is centered in three- part vocal harmonies and strong song writing, with lyrics that range from socially heavy to playful and upbeat. The music on the self- titled debut album (2011) was recorded between 2006 and 2010. The band took the time to develop this recording with the goal that the music have an authentic vintage Jamaican sound. To achieve this type of recording, they enlisted the mixing skills of engineer Jay Bonner, original bass player for The Aggrollites, who now runs the JanDisc record label. The initial tracks were all laid down to analog tape at the famous Killion Studios, owned and operated by engineer Sergio Rios, himself an in-demand musician (most notably as guitarist for Orgone, The Lions, and Breakestra)

From the quiet desolation of earlier Iterum Nata now rises something heavier – more aggressive and defiant. With “Heartwood”, Finnish multi-instrumentalist Jesse Heikkinen (The Abbey, Henget, ex-Hexvessel) reshapes his progressive rock and neo-folk foundations through the crucible of metal, layering doom-laden riffs and blackened textures upon the project’s introspective core.

To give this vision its pulse, Heikkinen enlisted Ukrainian drummer Yurii Ciel (Stoned Jesus, Cailleach Calling, ex-White Ward), whose expressive performance transforms “Heartwood” into the most visceral Iterum Nata release to date. Together they carve a sound both expansive and immediate: progressive journeys steeped in folk atmosphere, driven by the weight and force of metal.

The record also features rare guest appearances: King Dude lends his commanding voice to “Forgiveness Undone”, Alexander Kuoppala (ex-Children of Bodom) unleashes a searing solo in “I Have Been Sacrificed”, and Sami Hynninen (Reverend Bizarre) delivers an unearthly vocal in “Only Ash and Bones Remain”.

“Heartwood” is an album hewn from fury yet tempered by revelation. Where past Iterum Nata releases drew from solitude and sorrow, here the wellspring is anger – but anger that points beyond itself, toward beauty, hope, and transcendence. It is a meditation on the spiritual war within the collective unconscious, channelled through music that flows between Anathema and My Dying Bride, Opeth and In the Woods…, Pink Floyd and Green Carnation.

Rolling Stone calls award-winning Florida musician Selwyn Birchwood “a remarkable, contemporary bluesman…a powerhouse young guitarist and soulful vocalist.” Now, this mesmerizing guitarist, lap steel master and cinematic songwriter unleashes the powerful new album Electric Swamp Funkin’ Blues, further blazing his own musical trail.

Birchwood’s sound is an intoxicating mix of deep blues, blistering, psychedelic-tinged rock, booty-shaking funk and sweet Southern soul, played and sung with true blues passion. From an emotionally devastating whisper to a soul-baring scream, Birchwood’s vocals command attention. Schooled in the blues' storied traditions (he toured with and was mentored by the famed Sonny Rhodes), Birchwood maps out a dazzling future for the blues with his visionary music.

Selwyn Birchwood is one of the hardest-touring artists on the Alligator roster, and will support the new release with shows throughout the U.S. He's no stranger to European stages either, with plenty of tours there under his belt, and having just completed over a month's worth of European dates, 27 shows in all, with 24 taking place in France, three in Belgium and one in Czechia.

One of the first punk bands to set up an "indie" label, they were also pioneers of "alternative" music, mixing punk with experimental sounds. Swell Maps released four singles and two albums in a brief but eventful career, in partnership with Rough Trade, topping UK indie charts and influencing acts including Sonic Youth, Nirvana, Stereolab, and Blur. The original line-up split in 1980, but still their studio albums, A Trip to Marineville and Jane From Occupied Europe, attract new generations of enthusiasts. In 2021, Jowe organised performances
with ten musicians to play a diverse selection of Maps material over two consecutive nights at London's Cafe Oto, and did it again at the Rough Trade launch for Jowe's book on Swell Maps in 2022. Concerts followed across the UK and Europe, with more planned. This ongoing project has resulted in a new studio album, C21, released through Tiny Global Productions. The material was composed at various times between 1979 and the present, including older songs never recorded professionally, a remake of Soundtracks' astonishing Jelly Babies and plenty of surprises. C21 offers memorable melodies, wild riffs with super hooks, yet never veers from their adventurous spirit, radical ideas and eccentric musical shapes. The current collective of musicians features: Jowe Head, David Callahan of Wolfhounds / Moonshake / solo fame, Jeff Bloom out from Television Personalities, Alternative TV's Lee McFadden, Lucie Rejchrtova (Crazy World Of Arthur Brown), Chloe Herington from chamber rock faves Chrome Hoof, and Luke Haines, who led Auteurs and Black Box Recorder and plays with REM's Peter Buck. SWELL MAPS will be performing throughout 2026 across the UK and Europe and are proud to present this stellar document, which maintains the group's devotion to D-I-Y ideals and impulses. The vinyl album covers were hand-screened and stamped by a feminist cooperative in Valencia, Spain and are offered in three randomly picked variants. The Guardian is going to run a 1400-word piece on the release.