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Sasu Ripatti presents the third volume in his "Dancefloor Classics" series with five 10" releases coming throughout 2023. Music for imaginary dancefloors, released on Ripatti's own label "Rajaton".

--
”Look up, into the light” she said, while the camera shutter clicked. ”Like this? Does it look holy?” His neck felt stiff. Her reply: ”Yes, just like that. What do you mean holy? Like religious? ”No, more like trying to look very far, somewhere beyond what we can see.” ”Okay, stand still, I’m going to come close to you now. The light hits your face great.” click, click, click.

He noticed her fingernails. They were not polished. Natural. Even somewhat rugged, as if something wore out the fingers slightly. What had these hands held besides the camera? What made the edges of her fingernails drift off?

He thought it’s weird to look straight into the camera. The photographer had closed her left eye, the one not looking into the lens. Then it opened, she looked up, perusing the surroundings, then she closed her eye again, then looked up, closed, looking up, very quickly. It all seemed very professional. Maybe she calculated the light, making sure it’s close to perfect. ”What will these photos look like?” – the thought popped into his head briefly. It was liberating to think it wouldn’t matter.

”What’s that song playing?” he asked. ”Wait a sec, Ol’ Dirty Bastard?” she replied. ”Oh yeah, right. But the sample?” ”Hey, could you look up again, like that. No, lower.”

New directions: ”Look out from the window, turn left.” ”My left or yours?” ”Yours, I always try to think from the direction of my model.” How professional! This is a good shoot, so natural. Should I worry about how the photos look like? No, I don’t want to. His thoughts bounced around. What would the story be like? It’s a big newspaper, everyone will read it. Maybe someone drinks coffee and eats a stroopwafel while they do it. Will they place the waffle on top of the mug for a brief while, so that it gets hot and the syrup melts a little? Then it feels wet, and you can bend the cookie.

She broke his train of thought off midway through: ”Now turn right, but look left, and slightly up, but don’t turn your face right.” ”Umm, like this? Sounds like a set of pilates instructions.” she laughed ”You do pilates?” ”Yeah, it’s hard sometimes. Have you tried?” ”No”, she said. ”I’m not good for sports that are done in groups.” ”Yeah, but in pilates you can just be inside your mind, drowning in your private thoughts.”

”What are you thinking in pilates?” she asked, taking more photos. ”Well, mostly just which way is right. And which left.” click, click.

--

Back in 2019, Leng Records offered a debut to a previously unheralded producer, Takovoi. Three years on, the Russian nu-disco specialist returns to the label with a five-track EP that displays the depth and quality of his rapidly evolving trademark sound.

The Perfect Match EP delivers a range of grooves and stylistic approaches while showcasing the producer’s love of dreamy Balearic chords, soft-touch synth sounds and colourful melodies.

He sets the tone with the EP-opening title track, ‘Perfect Match’ where sustained, sun-down chords, yearning lead lines, cascading piano motifs and twinkling electronics ride a shuffling, post-electro beat and a warm, undulating bassline. ‘Homesickness’ sees Takovoi wrap waves of rising and falling synth sounds and melancholic melodies around a deep, hypnotic nu-disco groove, while the slow-motion sensation that is ‘Dreams’ brings throbbing analogue bass, sustained piano chords, sparkling electronics and the gentlest of beats.

Takovoi’s dancefloor credentials come to the fore with ‘Bubbles’, a slowly building Balearic nu-disco gem that layers up echo-laden percussion hits, eyes-closed melodies, and drowsy synth sounds over a bustling beat that sits somewhere between deep house and TR-808-driven broken beat.

This off-kilter approach to beat programming continues on the EP’s inspired closing cut, ‘Another The Same’, where hazy female vocal samples, immersive chords and reverb-heavy musical motifs gingerly dance on a bouncy and densely layered 4/4 beat. When the main melody makes its presence felt midway through, the track is elevated to a whole new level altogether. It’s a fittingly impressive end to Takovoi’s new EP for Leng.

After more than a decade of non-stop touring, acclaimed Austin songwriting duo, Kelsey Wilson and Alexander Beggins, quietly stopped touring as Wild Child. Headed in different sonic directions, the pair didn't know if they would ever make another Wild Child record. Then, what felt like the "end of the world" brought them back together. Pandemic lockdowns closed stages and drained bank accounts. As artists from all backgrounds took their shows to the internet, Wild Child was no different. Wilson and Beggins got together to practice for a series of online performances for devout fans, and within 30 minutes they wrote the first single for what would accidentally become Wild Child's fifth album, End of the World. Mixed by Matt Pence (Jason Isbell, Elle King) and including contributions from guitarist Charlie Wiles (Paul Cauthen, John Moreland, Orville Peck), End of The World sees the pair find catharsis in art amid compound disasters. As Wilson describes it, "I just started signing about things that were freaking me out. Wearing a mask for a year. Global warming. There's no heat, no water. It was like a dirge to begin with. But by the end we were all screaming and laughing that, yes, this might be the end of the world, but we're all together right now, making music in my living room by candlelight. It's all OK."

Eine streng limitierte Neuauflage von "Day To Day" auf marmoriertem Vinyl. Das Debütalbum von Sarathy Korwar wurde ursprünglich 2016 in Zusammenarbeit mit der Steve Reid Foundation veröffentlicht und verbindet traditionelle Volksmusik der Sidi-Gemeinschaft in Indien (mit ostafrikanischen, Sufi- und indischen Einflüssen) mit Jazz und Elektronik.

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.

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.

Harmony Rec. has closed one chapter and is boldly opening another with its next release, HARMONY011. This latest offering not only presents a fresh redesign of their upcoming vinyl releases with an added screen-printed PVC sleeve but also introduces a new artist hailing from the collective's hometown of Prague.

Trevor Linde (@trvlnd), a member of the Polygon crew responsible for some of the most vibrant events in Prague from 2013 to 2016, has honed his sound design skills and perfected heart-stopping live performances ranging from cinematic ambient to techno. His latest EP, "Whispering Thru The Mask," showcases three indisputable techno compositions with characteristic rigidity and tripping percussions that will make your head spin.

In addition to Linde's tracks, two of the EP's offerings have been expertly revised by Harmony's own Shoal. These versions submerge the listener into an even deeper mood than the original mixes.

»Techno is a genre of electronic dance music (EDM) which is generally produced for use in a continuous DJ set, with tempo often varying between 120 and 150 beats per minute (bpm). The central rhythm is typically in common time (4/4) and often characterized by a repetitive four on the floor beat.«

Well, that's what Wikipedia says about »techno« - but can Laura BCR's music simply be called »techno«? We say it's much more than that. The French DJ and On Board Music label founder who took her name from the much-loved and now closed, Berlin record store, Bass Cadet Records, started to produce her very own music in 2020. Music which could easily fit in her transportive, deep techno and dubby ambient DJ sets. Sets that have brought her to some of Europe’s finest venues.

After her releases on SoHaSo, Semantica, Paloma, RDV Music, Technologia Organica or Sublunar we're happy to present to you her latest work for Live At Robert Johnson: »Human Behavior«.

The four tracks all share a deepness which is typical for a lot of her productions so far. This is repetitive music, yes - but also very atmospheric music. Whether it's the helicopter sound in first track »Farewell« which Laura put on top of layers of whirring synths sounds or the swelling and decaying sounds of »Long Wait«. Sounds which swallow you deep into their core and make you forget about the here and now. Yes, Laura's music is hypnotizing - and it has a certain psychedelic quality attached to it as well. This aspect of her music can be heard quite good in »Post Dynamic« with its electronic blowing wind sounds galore. Or in »Human Behavior«, the title track of Laura BCR's LARJ debut. Yet Laura never forgets the importance (and the power) of the bass drum and its four on the floor beat.

A beat that is the heartbeat of techno. And a beat that defines Laura BCR as well.

Now all hail the bass drum and all hail Laura BCR!

Gary Holldman is quick to return back to the International Day Off Odyssey.
The four tracks comprise a mix of techno, space electro, and include a little
trip for closed eyes at the end. The Vril remix is the cherry on top.
This is a truly diverse EP with many unexpected moments and flavors.

All the best music has a community underneath it. The extended family around London’s Total Refreshment Centre (TRC) connects continents and generations, creating the rich relationships in full effect on Transmissions From Total Refreshment Centre. It’s an eclectic and electric collection that draws from new school jazz, hip hop, dub, soul, funk, and drill: sounds you’ll hear trailing out of cars as they spin up the Kingsland Road or spiraling out of doorways like so much smoke. Turn it up loud to hear the widescreen young cousins of Guru’s landmark Jazzmatazz in full effect: top players from London, Chicago, and Melbourne seeking out new collaborations, new ways of working, or just new tunes, always coming back to that central truth – that we all need each other.

Sunergy brings together synthesists Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and Suzanne Ciani for the thirteenth installment of FRKWYS, RVNG Intl.'s intergenerational collaboration series. For this edition, a panorama of the Pacific Coast provides the place and head space for a musical appreciation and consideration of a life-giving form vast and volatile with change. Fortuitously (as is the freaky way), Smith and Ciani were discovered to be neighbors in the small coastal community of Bolinas, California. The two had become close friends, bonding over their experience as woman musicians and, more unusually, their shared passion for the Buchla synthesizer. The music of Sunergy embraces this kinship, with Ciani and Smith respectively performing on the Buchla 200 E and the Buchla Music Easel, two modern configurations of the innovative instrument developed in the '60s by Don Buchla.
Sunergy was recorded in the Bolinas home where Ciani has lived for the last twenty-four years. Her living room overlooks the Pacific Ocean from a cliffside perch, creating an idyllic, inspired setting for music making. Setting up their synths side-by-side, Ciani and Smith took turns keeping time and freely improvising for the album sessions. As a complete piece, Sunergy is shaped by slow, pulsing forms and sinuous, melodic sequences that conjure both an oceanic world and the unlimited sound made possible by modular processing.For her part, Ciani has long been a Buchla voyager. Suzanne proselytized the potential of Don's synthesizer instruments in the '60s and '70s, performing her own compositions before introducing synthesized jingles and sound effects to household audiences. Ciani then achieved wide recognition for her debut album Seven Waves, a collection of colorful, classical song-like melodies fluidly working with harmonic textures and sounds of the ocean shore. Since its 1982 release, Seven Waves has become an important chapter of the ambient canon within which contemporary artists like Smith have developed their own synth syntax. Smith was born just a few years after the appearance of Seven Waves, growing up in Orcas Island, Washington. A place of profound natural beauty, the islands would inform Tides, her first instrumental collection from 2014. Smith composed Tides as an accompaniment for Yoga classes, ultimately freeing her from conventional songwriting into the exploratory, synth-based compositions demonstrated in ecstatic variety on 2016's Ears. Despite the serene setting where Sunergy was realized, the album does not romanticize a complete oneness with nature. Smith and Ciani use their collaborative ground to reflect on the unstable forces at play across the Bolinas horizon. Sunergy takes stock of Bolinas in the 21st century, a once-thriving artist's refuge now vulnerable to real estate pressure extending from affluent San Francisco, and more irreparably, the specter of climate change erasing its many waterfront habitats.
A diametric dynamic is present in Sunergy, a somber meditation amidst the intense cultural and solar forces transforming the landscape, and a hopeful assertion of the surviving creative culture of Bolinas. Far from rehashing the gentle grace of the artists' seminal works, Sunergy instead seeks to awaken and bear witness, employing the Buchla waveforms to mirror the infinite rhythms of the ocean and our essential relationship to it.
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and Suzanne Ciani's Sunergy will be released on September 16, 2016 on LP, CD, and digital formats. An accompanying documentary by Sean Hellfritsch will be offered in tandem.

Third Pressing of Gilroy Mere's Adlestrop on blue vinyl with a blue cover.

Adlestrop is inspired by the remains of the rural railway stations, that were closed in the wake of the 1963 Beeching Report.

“This record started with Edward Thomas’s poem Adlestrop and a chance visit to the village that it takes its title from. I wanted to see the station, but found it was no longer there, all that remains is the old platform sign Adlestrop, now part of a local bus shelter. However as I walked around the village I was struck that; “all the birds of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire” were still singing away - like ghosts from Thomas’ verse.

Visiting Adlestrop spurred me to get hold of a copy of the Beeching Report which, in Appendix 2, lists all the services and stations recommended for closure in the 1960s. The names read like an epic British poem, from halts to branch-line stops and stations and singular terminals for public schools, mines, ferries and even an asylum. There’s Ravenscar where a resort was planned but got no further in its construction than the station, and a hotel - the grid marked out for the roads never laid. Bethesda, a short branch line from Bangor up towards Snowdonia, was used for slate and passengers and is now just a quiet green valley, Christ’s Hospital on the old Cranleigh Line, opened with seven platforms to cope with the daily flood of pupils attending the famous school nearby which never came as it was a boarding school. Many of the stations have vanished, with just fields and car parks left in their place, some are repurposed as houses, or shops, or abandoned as artefacts of a lone-gone industrial past.

Armed with a digital recorder, and with a copy of Beechings Report as my guidebook I made notes and recordings on my travels around the country, and used them as the starting point for a set of pieces that try to capture the fading layers of history, in the areas where the stations had once stood making sure each track retains something of the real place within them. Back in my studio I reacted, improvised, and crafted musical responses to each station, trying to capture the ghosts and former lives of the stations and their imprint on the present.”

Gilroy Mere is Oliver Cherer who trading as Dollboy, Rhododendron, and Australian Testing Labs as well as his own name has meandered his way through the backwaters of left of centre English folk, ambient and electronic music, issuing numerous albums of original music to much critical acclaim via highly regarded boutique labels such as Static Caravan, Second Language, Deep Distance, Polytechnic Youth, and Awkward Formats.

Xenochrony is a various, literally everything : artists, styles, spaces and times. It consists of four new tunes deftly produced between 1999 and today, and you’ll definitely find your cup of tee among.

The opening cut “ Juno ” says it all, a classy House beat rich of riffs and Fx from the good old 106. Following, “ Lost In Schiller, its percussions sit over a hammering bass line making it feel like the early Minimal. We then flip the side to enjoy “ UFO” , what a progressive Techno beauty ! The Ep is closed by the delicious “ Annaeric ”, an emotional standard D&B, containing all that Nostalgia and bringing back the past.

"In the closed circuit screen glow with the hand scripting the events of two people staring from a long distance for a matter of moments that seemed endless, vast, the pen takes to paper and senses apprehension in the author. Leaving things out from the self, the self knows the truth is well-guarded, security and a large key ring with one thumb-drive filled with secrets carefully placed beneath a granite prism, buried in brain cells and matter. Everything left unsaid is sacred and that sacrament is gold-leafed and stoic, crackling voicemail recording leaves out details, nearly telegrammed, a post-it's worth of vital information. We keep secrets to ourselves so tightly that we hide the secret from the self. Speak the truth, the closed circuit surveillance will manage the details."

A year and a half ago, THE MFA returned to the fore once more, when we released their "Oranges and Lemons EP".

Their new album, “Lights Out”, which could be described as a long time coming, is definitely THE MFA’s most ambitious work to date.

As they put it in their own words: “The album is very special to us. It’s a long ambition brought to fruition. It’s an album that is at home on the dancefloor or at home. We’ve always been influenced by 90s rave culture and the club scene of that era and the explosion of creative freedom through electronic music that happened back then.”

The album sums up what THE MFA stands for; their love of electronic music intertwined their love of songs and melody, sometimes banging, sometimes pensive, sometimes longing, occasionally up-beat and happy. Melodic techno-pop-rave then.

The album opener "My Desire" pins down the essence of the album, showing some pop sensibility and a healthy dose of that early 90s spirit with longing vocals by Rhys Evans. The track shows from many angles of the intensity of what club culture was about. The track has, for sure, that pop quality which sets it apart - it is a very complete and rounded and in the true sense, a hit.

"Identify This" kicks off with blissed-out sci-fi sounds but commences with 90s rave chords that gets under your skin and creates a fantastic kaleidoscopic picture of moody UK rave with these spurts of emotional uplifting moments which are worth every penny.

"Bear Likes To Rave" takes us back to the warehouse days and reminds us of the acid warehouse parties with fanned stroboscope beams and dry ice cannons. It’s like looking down on a rave party happening from above, from a bird's eye view, which is in full swing where the euphoria spills over into the audience. "Girl Ahead" is a vocal track exclusively on the digital version of the album, again with Rhys Evans on vocal duties. Here they ponder all the possibilities of the future and the mistakes of the past. Features space toms and grand piano rave chords to evoke a housy feel within.

With "Freedom24" a Hi-NRG melody meets nightcrawler sounds ala "Klang De Familie". This is a soundtrack for the night.

"Lammas Day" has the chilling exotic quality of 808 State "Pacific State" if you grant us this comparison, paired with some phantastic Dr Who sensibilities! This track is quite a voyage!

"Warehouse"... Make Some F-...ing Noise... A TV presenter speaks about Acid house...... This is a wild mash up of impressions which nicely go together due to the melodic string composition and the 303 sequences.

"The Snapping Branch" starts with a mash up of sounds and then dives into an episodic snapshot of "happiness" when the serotonin shoots in (just before it drops). Experiencing a perfect flow that does not want to end. Every clubber knows that feeling.

"You Make Me Smile" is the third vocal track on the album featuring Rhys Evans on vocals. It has fantastic radical stark mood changes and blatant shifts, therefore throws the listener from one corner to the other. Just like the contrast of day and night. Bits here and there might conjure a Radiohead spirit, but really this is all MFA.

"Lights Out” certainly puts across the feeling you get at the end of the night - the club has closed; you are walking home. These are the sounds and feelings in your memories as you chase the vibe that is dwindling as the club becomes ever further away.

After a stay on the Côte d'Azur, Claude François moved to Paris in 1961. Determined to take the Capital, the young performer recorded new songs for the Fontana label. A few months later, the stunning success of “Belles! Belles! Belles! is soon followed by that of “Si j’avais un marteau”, an adaptation by folk songwriter Pete Seeger. At the dawn of the 1960s, Claude François joined the closed circle of yé-yés idols. Appeared under the pen of the sociologist Edgar Morin, the name "yéyé" designated a generational movement inspired by Anglo-Saxon pop culture. Adored by post-war baby boomers, his protagonists caused a veritable popular tidal wave and shake up the charts. Here starts the yé-yé revolution, and the legend of Claude Francois Ads –London Macadam Reviews –London Macadam, R2

Bllack Vinyl Version / 2x12'' / mokum printed sleeve.

Uncomon Mokum sound ?
oh no...
this is the original start again vibe.
Limited 150 Autoprod.

For the second release on Lord Of The Isles’s Dusk Delay imprint we see the Kimochi Sound and Hanagasumi regular, Shine Grooves deliver one of his best organic electronic odysseys to date. Spanning 6 tracks; it masterfully traverses an exciting intergalactic sonic landscape. Aptly titled ‘Pictures Of Mood’, the EP conjures vivid imagery through evocative deep experimental introspection, soul enhancing optimism and eyes-closed dancefloor dreaming.

Limited vinyl run with Riso print.

”Look up, into the light” she said, while the camera shutter clicked. ”Like this? Does it look holy?” His neck felt stiff. Her reply: ”Yes, just like that. What do you mean holy? Like religious? ”No, more like trying to look very far, somewhere beyond what we can see.” ”Okay, stand still, I’m going to come close to you now. The light hits your face great.” *click, click, click.

He noticed her fingernails. They were not polished. Natural. Even somewhat rugged, as if something wore out the fingers slightly. What had these hands held besides the camera? What made the edges of her fingernails drift off?

He thought it’s weird to look straight into the camera. The photographer had closed her left eye, the one not looking into the lens. Then it opened, she looked up, perusing the surroundings, then she closed her eye again, then looked up, closed, looking up, very quickly. It all seemed very professional. Maybe she calculated the light, making sure it’s close to perfect. ”What will these photos look like?” – the thought popped into his head briefly. It was liberating to think it wouldn’t matter.

”What’s that song playing?” he asked. ”Wait a sec, Ol’ Dirty Bastard?” she replied. ”Oh yeah, right. But the sample?” ”Hey, could you look up again, like that. No, lower.”

New directions: ”Look out from the window, turn left.” ”My left or yours?” ”Yours, I always try to think from the direction of my model.” How professional! This is a good shoot, so natural. Should I worry about how the photos look like? No, I don’t want to. His thoughts bounced around. What would the story be like? It’s a big newspaper, everyone will read it. Maybe someone drinks coffee and eats a stroopwafel while they do it. Will they place the waffle on top of the mug for a brief while, so that it gets hot and the syrup melts a little? Then it feels wet, and you can bend the cookie.

She broke his train of thought off midway through: ”Now turn right, but look left, and slightly up, but don’t turn your face right.” ”Umm, like this? Sounds like a set of pilates instructions.” she laughed ”You do pilates?” ”Yeah, it’s hard sometimes. Have you tried?” ”No”, she said. ”I’m not good for sports that are done in groups.” ”Yeah, but in pilates you can just be inside your mind, drowning in your private thoughts.”

”What are you thinking in pilates?” she asked, taking more photos. ”Well, mostly just which way is right. And which left.” *click, click.

2023 Repress

Shpongle came to light 20 years ago, emerging from the burgeoning Trance music scene. Simon Posford aka Hallucinogen and Raja Ram aka The Infinity Project were already leading lights on the pioneering new sonic realms of Trance music.

The Shpongle sound was formed out of the desire to share another side of the psychedelic spectrum of music and in doing so established themselves as important innovators and arguably, inventors of genres we now know as PsyChill, Psybient, Psydub or Psybreaks.

Are you Shpongled? contains 7 tracks of epic audio adventure. Each one taking the listener on a journey, with sensurround sounds emerging from the caves of tribal reality. Across the globe, both seasoned aficionados and new sonic surfers alike take delight in the original worlds of sound explored by these visionary pioneers on their debut album which still takes pride of place in many collections.

The Shpongle sound planted sonic seeds in fertile imaginations across the world and over the past 2 decades their fanbase has grown exponentially, creating an unforgettable impression on the minds ear of all who listen. With a full live band to compliment their studio origins, Shpongle have been headlining large scale concerts and festivals across the globe, most notably two sell out shows at The Roundhouse London in 2009 and more recently their legendary performance at Red Rocks in Colorado where Shpongle performed to a sell out crowd of 1000. They have also completed numerous tours of the USA with stateside crowds showing huge love for the band and establishing a loyal following. 

A matter of pace, an analog memory…
Feel safe: like newborn, take your first careful steps on a clean slate while Maayan is your supervisor. Naïve and happy, you leave carbonbon footprints on your way into the positives. Then a faster pace: some tribal folk music from a tiny world, where people dance around an LED fire, commands a gallop to the one and ollam. Latinfection guaranteed.
Your nonplus motion interferes with environmental geometry. A memory from an analog past flashes like a daydream. Upward and rising, your smile workout succeeds while scintillating waves say “hello!”. Having grown up to a motorik being, the determined goal however never appears. The journey into a perfect storm is the reward. Maayan sends you some motivating words.
Then have a break and jump on the light train of thoughts to enjoy blurred reflections: on the water and in your mind. Sing your body beautiful and free. Words come in bubbles, a heart-throb away from a light tower. Feel like stumbling into new adventures on a pathless terrain.
Slowly and cautious, the novemberme, which is the one that approaches dawn, celebrates tristesse with a funny accent. Kick the blues with a beat. Somewhere lost but regenerated, find sisyphos’ generator of vitality. A nascent religious mood at the Autobahn service station fades into the fog.
Finally, the circle of pace is almost closed. After laughter of amazement, Maayan leaves you with a soothing mantra of confidence: an everyday ritual fun you should indulge yourself in. It comes in waves.

Sisters Eleanor and Bonnie Whitmore, two of roots music's most
accomplished songwriter/instrumentalist/vocalists, released their first
album together as The Whitmore Sisters in 2022
Titled 'Ghost Stories', inspired by the loss of family, friends, ex-boyfriends and - on
the title track- people who died by police violence. These ghosts chose to appear
right as Covid became entrenched -when live music evaporated, and people were
isolated from each other.
Bonnie, whose four solo albums are all state- of- a- real- woman's- heart jewels,
decided to join sister Eleanor and her husband Chris Masterson in their Los
Angeles closed circle for a break. Chris, who's recorded four albums with his wife
as The Mastersons, saw the visit as an opportunity to issue a mandate: If Bonnie
was coming, it was time for the sisters to make a record.
Not just an album, but "the album" - the musical inevitability that's been
simmering since a 22-year-old Eleanor was protecting her curly-headed 15-yearold sister at gigs in local bars. The Whitmore Sisters' original songs, along with
two covers - a song by their pal Aaron Lee Tasjan ("Big Heart Sick Mind" and "On
the Wings of a Nightingale" (written by Paul McCartney for iconic siblings The
Everly Brothers) - was produced by Chris Masterson and completes 'Ghost
Stories'.

NuNorthern Soul may be Ibiza-based, but the label’s connections with Nottingham run deep. Over the years, Phil Cooper’s imprint has offered up countless releases and remixes from some of the East Midlands’ city’s most Balearic-minded residents, including Crazy P’s Jim Baron, Is It Balearic? chiefs Coyote and, most recently, Constellations Workshop associates Brown Fang.

You can also add to that list Torn Sail, a collaboration between Brown Fang members Jon Thompson and Henry Scott, and another Notts-based NuNorthern Soul contributor, Huw Costin. The trio’s mesmerising ‘Disconnected’ recently featured on the label’s deluxe 10th anniversary vinyl box set and now they return with a single credited to both Brown Fang and Torn Sail – the first such occurrence of that happening.

Those who heard Brown Fang’s brilliant mini-album, Sherwood Pines, will immediately feel at home. Both ‘Exit’ and ‘Endless’, the two tracks showcased on this fine single release, feature the same gorgeous, slowly shifting fusion of sun-kissed electric guitar textures, ambient atmospherics and immersive, sunset-friendly sound design.

First up is ‘Exit’, an undulating, slow burning delight where rising and falling electronic melodies and yearning, gently jazzy electric guitar motifs rise above a sparse, shuffling, subtly Latin-tinged drum machine rhythm and warming bass. Endearing, enveloping and endlessly attractive, the track seemingly blossoms in slow motion throughout its’ three-and-a-half-minute duration, with additional musical elements presenting themselves as it progresses. Even by the trio’s high standards, it’s a magical composition.

On ‘Endless’, the long-time collaborators explore their love of mind-soothing ambient soundscapes. Doffing a cap to the 1970s new age ambience of Steve Hillage – whose distinctively languid, stretched out, effects-laden electric guitar solos were undoubtedly an inspiration –Thompson, Scott and Costin deliver a becalmed and brilliant dream-scape full of hazy aural textures, drifting chords and gentle, eyes-closed vocalisations. It feels like a loved-up, smile-inducing evocation of the most visually stunning dawn you’ve ever ushered in after a night dancing under the stars.

Studio One was founded by Clement "Coxsone" Dodd1 in 1954, and the first recordings were cut in 1963 on Brentford Road in Kingston.12 Amongst its earliest records were "Easy Snappin" by Theophilus Beckford, backed by Clue J & His Blues Blasters, and "This Man is Back" by trombonist Don Drummond. Dodd had previously issued music on a series of other labels, including World Disc, and had run Sir Coxsone the Downbeat, one of the largest and most reputable sound systems in the Kingston ghettos.
In the early 1960s, the house band providing backing for the vocalists were the Skatalites[3] (1964–65), whose members (including Roland Alphonso, Don Drummond, Tommy McCook, Jackie Mittoo, Lester Sterling and Lloyd Brevett) were recruited from the Kingston jazz scene by Dodd. The Skatalites split up in 1965 after Drummond was jailed for murder, and Dodd formed new house band the Soul Brothers (1965–66), later named the Soul Vendors (1967) and Sound Dimension (1967-). From 1965 to 1968 they played 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., 5 days a week, 12 rhythms a day (about 60 rhythms a week) with Jackie Mittoo as music director, Brian Atkinson (1965–1968) on bass, Hux Brown on guitar, Harry Haughton (guitar), Joe Isaacs on drums (1966–1968), Denzel Laing on percussion, and on horns (some initially and some throughout): Roland Alphonso, Dennis 'Ska' Campbell, Bobby Ellis, Lester Sterling, among others on horns during the era of Rock Steady. Headley Bennett, Ernest Ranglin, Vin Gordon and Leroy Sibbles were included among a fluid line-up, to record tracks directed by Jackie Mittoo at Studio One from 1966-1968.
During the night hours at Studio One from 1965-1968, singers like Bob Marley, Burning Spear, The Heptones, The Ethiopians, Ken Boothe, Rita Marley, Marcia Griffiths, Judy Mowatt, Alton Ellis, Delroy Wilson, Bunny Wailer[4] and Johnny Nash, among others, would put on headphones to sing lyrics to original tracks recorded by the Soul Brothers earlier each day. These seminal recordings included "Real Rock" (by Sound Dimension), "Heavy Rock", "Jamaica Underground", "Wakie Wakie", "Lemon Tree", "Hot Shot", "I'm Still In Love With You", "Dancing Mood", and "Creation Rebel".
Jackie Mittoo, Joe Isaacs, and Brian Atkinson left Studio One in 1968, recorded drums and bass for Desmond Dekker's and Toots' biggest hits at other Kingston studios, then moved to Canada. Hux Brown stayed in Jamaica to record on the soundtrack The Harder They Come, The Harder They Fall, and toured in Nigeria with Toots and the Maytals and Fela Kuti. The Soul Brothers (a.k.a. Sound Dimension) formed the basis of reggae music in the late 1960s, being versioned and re-versioned time after time over decades by musicians like Shaggy, Sean Paul, Snoop Lion, The Clash, String Cheese Incident, UB40, Sublime, and countless other Billboard originals and remakes trying to emulate their original Rock Steady sound at Coxsone's Studio One.
The label and studio were closed when Dodd relocated to New York City in the 1980s.

1987 in Umeå, Schweden, gegründet, wurden
MESHUGGAH vom Rolling Stone als "eine der zehn
wichtigsten Hard? und Heavy?Bands" bezeichnet und
haben sich den Respekt und die Bewunderung von Fans
und Musikern gleichermaßen verdient.
Im Jahr 2023 wird das Meisterwerk "Nothing" in
atemberaubenden neuen Vinylfarben wiederveröffentlicht
(weltweit auf 500 Stück pro Farbe limitiert), um den
Traum eines jeden Sammlers zu erfüllen.

Unreleased before music by Otto Sidharta, pioneer of Indonesian electronic music. Inspired by Indonesia's multifarious styles of traditional music, that he tries to preserve, the four pieces on Kajang express a contemplation of the self.

Otto Sidharta loves to travel, everywhere within Indonesia, in order to collect almost any environmental tones and harmonies he can gather, as an endless source of composition. He is also deeply inspired by Indonesia's multifarious styles of traditional music, that he tries to preserve, as in some remote places, they keep their own tradition very strongly.

What really interests Sidharta is musicians not interacting with other kinds of music, as in those deep villages, where one might find sounds that feel like very "natural". It results in works expressing Sidharta's personal impression from their music: "I just use my own feeling, with no calculation", not using the tribals motif or style.

Kajang is the name of a tribal people living in the south of Sulawesi, a giant island in eastern Indonesia, a closed community, that Sidharta visited twice: "They cut off their communication with the outside world. They live in a very traditional way and try to avoid any new development in culture that might impact their way of life."

Sidharta's previous album collected early pieces under the title Indonesian Electronic Music 1979-92, released on Sub Rosa in 2017. Kajang gathers a quartet of compositions from 2015 to 2020.

Otto Sidharta is born in Bandung, Indonesia November 6, 1955. In the late 1970' he studied first in Jakarta, under guidance of Slamet Abdul Sjukur, later at the Sweelinck Conservatorium in Holland. In 2015 he accomplished his doctoral study at Institute Seni Indonesia Surakarta and finished in 2016. For years he felt isolated as a composer, not only because of living in Indonesia, but because the nature of his music lay outside the mainstream of electronic composition. Until 2019 he taught for many years in the music departments of several Indonesian universities. He also managed an Indonesian symphony orchestra for five years, a job that included setting up a tour of Japan.

Infinite Machine is proving again it's a label that refuses to sonically sit still. Having released everything from code-based compositions to bass-heavy techno in 2022, the imprint is readying the release of the black metal-tinged Ehkta by BOLT RUIN later this month. A musician whose work has been described as 'apocalyptic' more than once, on this new mini-album, the Belgian producer blends field recordings, twisted samples and rave signifiers with an eerie tonality born out of his nocturnal production sessions and time spent absorbing the silence of his studio garden.

Bridging the gap from his previous record to this one, 'Sktone' is a cinematic opener that unfolds like a bad dream in slow motion. Warped samples of Bulgarian choirs glide over synths wired in closed-circuit loops which feed back on themselves, degrading for infinity. Texture and space is added via field recordings of waves crashing over the ruins of Brighton West Pier. This track exemplifies the unexpected influence BOLT RUIN took from the wildlife he witnessed in the garden of his urban studio when working on Ehkta. Adapting to the material at their disposal, weasels and blackbirds create nests from organic waste and human trash - an astute metaphor for the Belgian producer's compositional approach.

Next up, BOLT RUIN drives up the tempo with the rave-ready 'Nehng', where a frenzy of trance arpeggios and frantic drum programming builds and intensifies over its 5-minute duration. Inspired by Yves Klein's 'Leap Into a Void', 'Nehng' definitely evokes that bodily rush of freefalling into the unknown. 'Nehng''s driving rhythm is switched out for the brooding 'Tzarhk' - an ode to the soundtracks of B-movies composed on a vintage Roland SH-2 (a prominent character of the Stranger Things soundtrack). BOLT RUIN runs thick, syrupy synth slabs and punishing drum patterns through a rain-soaked limiter the producer found lying on the street by chance.

Another master-class in self-destructive arrangements comes in the form of 'Rfohmdrá' as delicate pianos and synth tones atrophy through daisy chained pedals which erode the signal. Valgeir Sigurðsson's mastering skills shines through here, taking BOLT RUIN's sci-fi-meets-metal sonics and amping them up to a scale on par with the Björk or Ben Frost records he's previously worked on.

Conceived of as the mirror reflection of the LP's opener, 'Maevr' pushes the approach of 'Sktone' to an even more nightmarish extreme. Embracing chance, the clattering layers of beats are sampled of a knocked mic on a window as BOLT RUIN attempted to capture a recording of rain from his studio. A happy and very effective accident for the foreboding mood of the track!

BOLT RUIN rounds off Ehkta with 'Ekztamnh'; an ode to that specific sensation of entering through a corridor to a rave and hearing the rumble of a soundsystem from afar. Snarling melodies are run through a reverse granular delay effect which fragments the signal, reverses it and plays them back in irregular order; much like the shattered memories of a late night in a warehouse.

A musical magpie who finds inspiration in the most unlikely of sources, Ehkta is a restless exploration of salvage-punk aesthetics where doom-laden black metal melodies, amen breaks and an experimental approach to sound design sit in an irregular and uneven musical apocalypse. For fans of Blanck Mass or Caterina Barbieri - this is a must-listen material from a fresh producer establishing himself with a singular musical voice.

Those lockdown silver linings continue to reveal themselves when we least expect it... As proved, once again, by the inimitable Amsterdam techno HQ Deeptrax as they present this stunning analog exploration from scene stalwart Mark Peeters AKA Caim.? Inspired, created and sculpted during those strange times when none of us could rave, Caim simply describes the moment by saying the 'clubs were closed, but creativity kept on floating'... Now that floatation is bequeathed to us through these warm, rolling and wide-armed frequencies. Tapping into a spirit that goes right back to Detroit and Chicago, there's an understated groovemanship at play as Calm jams out on the same instruments house and techno forefathers used to sculpt this culture.? Music to get lost inside of, music to take away the stresses of the day, music that's a joy to mix, weave and tell stories with... Caim has created another timeless collection of grooves that could resonate with or relate to any period in the last 35 years of dance music culture.? From the warm, opening rumbles of 'Nepi' to closing rippling dubwise echoes of 'Kapura', very few stones are left unturned as Caim tells a tale of the ages that we can all float to. Here's to silver linings. ?

Twisting and contorting the English language to fit the meter and his every whim, Lupe Fiasco uses his superb lyrical skill to process the changing world in which he lives. Drawing connections between the concrete and spiritual in his hometown of Chicago, Lupe announces DRILL MUSIC IN ZION, his next album. The product of a burst of thoughtful spontaneity, Lupe created the new album over a short period, diving into a folder of beats sent by his longtime producer Soundtrakk and emerging with a fully-realized album in just three days. “Soundtrakk is the swordmaker, I’m the samurai," says Lupe. "He’s the mechanic, and I’m the driver.” Armed with Soundtrakk's soulful sounds, Lupe creates a focused statement that reflects on the past and paves a way forward, preaching strength through mindfulness and self-sustaining community. DRILL MUSIC IN ZION arrives digitally on June 24th via 1st & 15th/Thirty Tigers. The physical release is set for August 26 (CD, Black Vinyl, and Indie-retail exclusive blue vinyl). His first new album since 2018's DROGAS WAVE, DRILL MUSIC IN ZION marks the start of another chapter in Lupe's illustrious career. The proud Chicago native has already had a busy 2022, marked with sold out shows, new music, and much more. Lupe recently closed out his "Food & Liquor Tour," a series of performances in which he plays his debut album in full. He paid tribute to his hometown in the reflective, self-produced "100 Chicagos," and dug into the archives to share "Hustlaz," a previously-unreleased song originally recorded before the release of the now-classic debut album Food & Liquor. Beyond music, Lupe continues to focus on the community organizations he founded, including We Are M.U.R.A.L, The Neighborhood Start-Up Fund, Society of Spoken Art, and his cross-cultural content venture, Studio SV.

After Prette (pronounced as ‘pret’ which means fun in Dutch) successfully launched a stage to perform art, it only felt natural to also launch a platform to release art.

Prettemusic is an independent imprint that releases limited vinyl records.

Prettemusic hits the ground running with its first release – a stunning four-track debut EP from head honcho Koperblond. Koperblond (real name Wouter Beek) delivers a mix of Arabic hip-shaking and emotional trance euphoria to evoke intense dance floor ecstasy.

The opening track is ‘Kunti’, an Italo disco destroyer with a bold Bollywood spirit that will lure you in and awaken those hips. Next up is a remake of the brave starter – this new cocktail with hints of the original track has a high-energy zap-crazed feel and a groovy-moving non-stop sound. Two 100% floor fillers, guaranteed to raise the roof of your nearest discotheque!

On the flip side ‘I Want Your Love’ – an emotional love story with a journey through the track that feels like a taste of real love. From happiness and grief to hope and hopelessness, it bursts loudly and with great force. It is a true reminder that love will save the day. Multi-instrumentalist DJ and producer Rose Ringed reinterprets this ode to love using his typical sound palette. The result is a big room banger ready to be served alongside fireworks and CO2 cannons. It is Rose Ringed’s first vinyl outing following releases on his label, Closed Eyes Records, and Solomun’s world-famous Diynamic.

This Prettemusic release comes on exclusive Koperblond-coloured (copper blond in Dutch) vinyl alongside a unique two-front artwork from abstract painter Harry Markusse and fine-art photographer Pieter Bas Bouwman.

Introducing the debut EP from a brand new supergroup of producers under the pseudonym of KALOA. Following on from ‘Eye’s Closed’ —their first (massive) feature on the imprint alongside Tatora; expect high-grade, cutting-edge liquid production infused with future soul. An amalgamation of tribal influences, dreamy vocals, slick beats, heavy bass; dancefloor ready.

Mark your calendars now with xx December as the official launch of Kaloa’s ENSO. Launching across all major digital and streaming platforms with a limited run of full art vinyl.

Ellen Allien and the We Are Not Alone collective are back with a second edition of the We Are Not Alone series. A 36-track compilation split into 3 parts, each consisting of 12 cuts, dedicated to the infamous We Are Not Alone event series and the best of Berlin’s underground techno talent.

Ellen Allien's innovative party series We Are Not Alone was launched in 2016 and remains committed to inviting an exciting crew of artists to perform at the 36 hour events, now in a new home at RSO.BERLIN, where they returned with bang over 36 hours and 3 floors in May.

Some dreams take longer to come true. For many years we trusted in Orka's musical talent and were hoping that one day we will spin the turntable and listen with our eyes closed. That moment is now at your fingertips.

Strictly limited 100 copies made for absolute musical joy. Seven tracks including three awesome remixes which warp classical music to electronic universe. Superb cover by Silvie and Marika. Shines in your collection like a pearl.

Repress of Kaitlyn's solo debut Euclid (primarily written on a Buchla Music Easel synthesizer), it was inspired by her love of mbira music, early electronic music pioneers like Laurie Spiegel, Oskar Sala, and Terry Riley, and euclidian geometry. Each of the first six songs on Euclid were initially structured using euclidian geometry, an idea which Smith explored while attending a class at the San Francisco Conservatory. As Smith explains, "We each chose a 3D shape and assigned our own guidelines to the different components that make up the shape. For example each point of the shape represents a different time signature, each line between the points represents a pitch, each shape within the closed lines represents a scale, etc. And then you play the shape." Despite their heady geometric origins, the songs have a playfulness and warmth that makes them inviting and memorable. In addition to the buoyant grooves of Smith's synthesizers, some of the songs feature wordless vocals, which energize the otherworldly songs, while grounding them with Smith's earthly presence. She slows things down for the second half of the record, which features a collection of twelve short pieces, Labyrinths I-XII. Originally composed as new soundtracks to old silent films she found online, Smith says the tranquil Labyrinth pieces are "intended to feel like one is walking through a holographic labyrinth and encountering different experiences such as hang gliding, viewing microbes under a microscope, ice fishing in Alaska, and watching glaciers collapse." Despite their brevity, most of these songs feel like mini odysseys, effortlessly casting a cinematic hue on the the listener's world. Throughout Euclid Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith consistently delivers sonic puzzles draped in a warm Pacific mist. At times these songs feel so alive like the musical analog to roots growing deeper and stronger, leaves on branches bending towards the light, or the sun peeking over the horizon, briefly igniting the air with a primordial swirl of warm and cool colors.

Check point Catherine

“In the afternoon we performed in a rather austere theatre in East Berlin. Then I remember we crossed Checkpoint Charlie that evening to play in a club in West Berlin. The atmosphere was completely different. I felt as though we were living in a black and white spy movie.” Nicolas Fiszman recalls that chaotic day of 13 June 1982. Two outstanding guitarists, Philip Catherine and Nicolas Fiszman, who at the time was only seventeen years old, were taken from one side of Berlin to the other in pouring rain to perform to unlikely audiences. At both concerts, they played the same programme of seven pieces written by Philip, with the exception of “Crystal Bells”, composed by Charlie Mariano. The pair were not master and student. Rather, Philip remembers Nicolas like a young brother he might have taken to the beach. After the 1960s, Philip became a major figure on the jazz scene, working with the greatest: Charles Mingus, Chet Baker, Stéphane Grapelli, Dexter Gordon, to name only a few. Nicolas has played with Charles Aznavour, Vanessa Paradis, Francis Cabrel and Eric Serra, and travels the world with Sting.

On that gloomy afternoon, the two guitarists, alone on stage, decided to brighten up the morosity that reigned. The pieces they played bore titles such as “Janet”, “Babel” and “Petit Nicolas”. It is hard to believe that this varied, well-constructed, polyphonic music was not entirely written down on paper. Philip says, “Nothing is written from beginning to end. I compose the themes and some harmonic bridges. Then we have a chord chart … and that’s it.” The foundations are written; inspiration, taste, fantasy and friendship do the rest. We feel as though we are taking a nonchalant walk through Rio or Miami. The concert is punctuated by thunderous applause.

For these brief minutes in that year 1982, the East Berliners were able to fly over their tightly closed borders.

We are privileged to have unearthed this unique concert where two outstanding artists bring together two cultures to create an intense blaze of happiness.

Philip Catherine, Guitar
Nicolas Fiszman, Guitar & Bass
With the kind authorization of the Artists

Jackson Ryland comes in focused and ecstatic with his first vinyl release under his technoid alias JR2K. Jackson is based in Washington DC as one-half of both Superabundance and Rush Plus. He’s recently released on Peach Discs and Pleasant Life, showcasing his knack for presenting energy as a delicacy. JR2K “Walking Backward” is another illustrious highlight in the savvy DC producer’s already-accomplished underground career. Played on Hör Radio by Kush Jones and supported by Peach, Ciel, Clarisa Kimskii, Ryan Elliott, CMD, Davis Galvin, livwutang, Furtive, Golden Medusa, Lychee, Miley Serious, and Jialing!

The A side opens up whooshy and hard with “ExoGeni Approach”. This illustrates perfectly what I love about Jackson’s style(s)...it sounds like the sickest mid-90s techno track, full of energy and movement while taking in the atmosphere with repose. After the rollercoaster intro, the acidic up-ticks, lush synth layering, and perfectly crunchy closed-hats sink your ass straight through the dance-floor to tumbling free-for-all in the green-screen collage of your daydreams. Wake up…A2 “Call Back” splashes you with a glass of refreshing water…you still got hours at the party, and you’re coming up on some healthE shit…time to get back to that business of dancing your soles and soul away to this driving monorail of euphoric acidic techno. Choo choo choose your own dance destiny, baby!

Amsterdam based DJ and producer Mayo joins the Fides family with her Frenemies EP marking the 15th release of Fides Records.

Mayo showcases 5 cuts of finely crafted electro and EBM-influenced Techno, it's impossible not to be drawn by her distorted voice that defines each track.

Unrelenting grooves and a deeper look into her analog sound design flair, these tracks are timeless in sound and production quality.

“Tell me how you die” kicks it off as the A1 with stomping analog kick and drums, a dark jumping bassline pushing the groove with ethereal synths.

“Not your shadow” as the A2 strips it back into a 303Acidbass-based track marked by singular industrial sounds and Vocal Shots that are lost in the groove carried by a background synth sequence that follows throughout the track.

The last track of the A Side is “Frenemies” a pulsing, meditative composition featuring label owner and Tresor resident Z.I.P.P.O, who added to Mayo's energetic, analog and eventually dark sense, a more mental, deep and intense face typical of the Italian artist. The B Side starts with Miami Legend Danny Daze’s Hell Mix of “Frenemies” in which he exhibits his unique sound design techniques, combining tribal-tinged rhythm, sharp FX that pops up from the corners of the soundscape with stretched vocals in order to highlight the track's protagonist: a modulated brass bass.

Mary Lake’s Remix of “Tell Me How you Die” closes the EP with a deep kick drum driven forward with rolling and modulated closed hats that run through the track while atmospheric sounds carry the filtered Brass before dissolving into the end of the track.

If you've been in the club scene for many years like David Dorad, you will one day face the big, essential, serious questions that each of us will ask ourselves sooner or later:

Are marmots pack animals?
Can marmots sign language?
Do marmots plan their lives according to European or Chinese zodiac signs?
Do marmots need a special passport, after all they don't have a thumb to turn the pages?
What happens when a marmot eats Coke and Mentos at the same time?

And with all those questions whistling, hissing and muttering in his head, David grabbed piano, baton and BioBassline to crochet his new EP.
This is called "Marble" and offers 6 different approaches to solve these big questions.
As a source of ideas, he has competent partners at his side in Roman Flügel, Mira, Christopher Schwarzwälder, Canson and Sascha Cawa.


A1 -
Murmeli - original
The marmot tribe awakens. Get up to brush your teeth. Gets your toes tapping. Makes you snap your fingers. Dare to roll your hips. Later rhythmically to turn. To look elegant at the same time. Eyes closed - eyes open.
Murmeli, the regular leader, sits at the piano.
Everyone is dancing, toothpaste in the corners of their mouths and a smile that takes the toothpaste by the hand.
A normal morning in marmot houses.

B1 -
Murmeli - Mira & Christoph Schwarzwald RMX
Mira and Christoph Schwarzwalder take over from Murmeli. They vary, combine and subtract. The first marmots raise their thumbless fists in the air - showing their passports, ready to take off.

B2 -
Murmeli - Canson RMX
Canson also sits next to Murmeli. Caress the theme, tickle the groove.
Murmeli has the best ideas early on: "Boy, let's try Mentos with Cola, we'll definitely take off."
Canon is in!


C1 -
Murmelot - Original
The sun goes down in Murmelhausen too. Then Murmelot is ready. Gives his advanced Pilates class, which the whole tribe takes. The village wants to remain mobile.
Murmelot's motto is "Why not stretch while walking?"
And so shall it be. He sets the rhythm on his wooden Fairtrade 303 and our furry friends shave shaky and obscene messages down each other's backs while impatiently hopping for the drop.

D1 -
Murmelot - Roman Flügel Remix
Roman Flügel and Murmelot are old buddies. Struck while carving the 303.
Roman happily takes over the Pilates class, the dancing crowd. Enchanted until the razor's batteries are empty and only dancing remains, only dancing is important.

D2 -
Murmelot - Sascha Cawa RMX
Sascha Cawa takes his trunk by the hand, wants to motivate her again shortly before the second sunset of the day. Whispers little obscene Pilates positions in their ears. That motivates. Murmelot switched from piano to percussion.
The marmots' sweat feeds the golden orchids in the clearing for the next six months.