Suche:digi

A new EP by The Untouchables is always a treat to be savoured, but the opening track of their latest for DNO is so deliciously tense, so foaming at the mouth with anticipation, that it’s hard not to gulp down the whole release in one go. A minute and a half of sinister notes trying to jab their way through a thick filter and there’s no doubting ‘Emu’ is gonna be one hell of a ride — and it doesn’t disappoint, revealing the stabs in all their gritty darkcore glory, and unleashing a torrent of system-shaking subs.

As per, the Belgian duo present a masterclass in merging dub’s unparalleled spaciousness with techno’s unrelenting drive, and delivering it all at a drum & bass tempo.
On ‘Punjab Chant’, a South Asian vocal call and various wind and percussive instrumentation from the region are pulled apart, lashed with delay, and layered over rubbery subs, resulting in an intense intercontinental dubwise belter.

‘Ragga Ting’ goes full digi dancehall, maintaining pace while employing sultry dembow-style syncopation and a hefty droning bassline that seems to loop ad infinitum. It’s an innovative move and one that’s sure to get hips swinging in the dance.

And the final track on wax, ‘86 Dread’, is pure bass weight, its boxy drums almost swallowed up by the sullen low-end, with only crisp shakers and the odd sonic squiggle poking above the gloom.

Digital bonus track ‘Planetarium Space’ brings the tempo down, but fills the mix with the hurried tick of hi-hats and pattering congas, dollops of reverse bass that add slippery off-kilter movement, and a rogues’ gallery of ghostly organ and other haunted samples and synths that wouldn’t feel out of place in an ‘80s horror flick.

Always taking a leftfield route to rattle your ribcage, The Untouchables and DNO once again prove they’re a perfect pairing. Yum, yum.

Rhythms of postmodern realism at the very bottom of the DNO.

The invasion from outer space continues! Timothy J. Fairplay plays regular live shows at festivals like Digital Tsunami’s Camp DT or the Intergalactic FM Festival in The Hague. His new EP Why Are They Here? is the follow-up to Chariots In The Sky on Archaic Future Sounds that was supported by Lauer, Jennifer Cardini and Curses! Cosmic and cinematic Acid House produced only with synthesizers and drum machines. Analog mastering by Grey People.

A label sampler showcasing the best of Winspear’s releases from its early days to the present day. The sampler features cuts from Barrie, Divino Niño, Slow Pulp, Video Age, and more. Digital download included with the LP includes never before heard b-sides and rarities from across the label roster. Winspear Volume 01 is a label sampler from Winspear. It’s a collection of standout songs from the label’s catalog, spanning from their early years to the present day. Featuring tracks by Barrie, Divino Niño, Slow Pulp, Video Age, and more. The digital version of the label sampler (including the digital download that comes with each physical album purchase), will include never before heard demos, b-sides, and rarities from across the label roster. The release of the sampler will be celebrated at a label showcase at Thalia Hall in Chicago. The event, Winspear Review, is happening for the 4th time in the label’s history

King Krule, Interpol, Alex G, Orion Sun, Snail Mail, Toro Y Moi, Unknown Mortal Orchestra. “Transparent Yellow” Indie Store Colour. (LPC1) available while stocks last. For Lutalo, creating music is an act of hope in and of itself. Throughout their meticulously crafted folk, rock, and soul, on which they sing and play all the instruments, the Twin Cities-raised, Vermont-based musician embeds golden lines of poetry that inspire curiosity about the world and empathy for everyone searching for a way through it. After releasing their 2022 debut EP, Once Now, Then Again, Lutalo emerged as a rising talent in the indie world, catching the attention of Fleet Foxes’ Robin Pecknold and Big Thief’s Adrianne Lenker, who invited the young musician on tour. Following a vinyl release with that breakthrough project, they are releasing its companion EP, AGAIN, on August 25 via Winspear. On the ambitious AGAIN, a collection of kinetic indie rock tracks, Lutalo makes bold critiques of systemic oppression, capitalism, and the digital attention economy. Though these topics are heady, their writing always sits at an accessible place of personal introspection. Like on the arresting single “Push Back Baby,” whose fuzzy electric guitar lines twist and unfurl in intricate patterns, Lutalo paints a complex portrait of our current reality that’s “rooted in the greed or narcissism of capitalists,” they explain. “I’m analyzing those systems and patterns, and also asking, ‘Can we continue to not perpetuate this?’ Because it’s hurt a lot of people historically. I’m just asking people to question it.” Through their music, but also through their lifestyle that’s alternative to America’s economic and political systems, Lutalo asks listeners to imagine new possibilities. “I want to help people question the way they’re living,” they say, “so we can create a better reality for us to exist in together.”

King Krule, Interpol, Alex G, Orion Sun, Snail Mail, Toro Y Moi, Unknown Mortal Orchestra. “Transparent Yellow” Indie Store Colour. (LPC1) available while stocks last. For Lutalo, creating music is an act of hope in and of itself. Throughout their meticulously crafted folk, rock, and soul, on which they sing and play all the instruments, the Twin Cities-raised, Vermont-based musician embeds golden lines of poetry that inspire curiosity about the world and empathy for everyone searching for a way through it. After releasing their 2022 debut EP, Once Now, Then Again, Lutalo emerged as a rising talent in the indie world, catching the attention of Fleet Foxes’ Robin Pecknold and Big Thief’s Adrianne Lenker, who invited the young musician on tour. Following a vinyl release with that breakthrough project, they are releasing its companion EP, AGAIN, on August 25 via Winspear. On the ambitious AGAIN, a collection of kinetic indie rock tracks, Lutalo makes bold critiques of systemic oppression, capitalism, and the digital attention economy. Though these topics are heady, their writing always sits at an accessible place of personal introspection. Like on the arresting single “Push Back Baby,” whose fuzzy electric guitar lines twist and unfurl in intricate patterns, Lutalo paints a complex portrait of our current reality that’s “rooted in the greed or narcissism of capitalists,” they explain. “I’m analyzing those systems and patterns, and also asking, ‘Can we continue to not perpetuate this?’ Because it’s hurt a lot of people historically. I’m just asking people to question it.” Through their music, but also through their lifestyle that’s alternative to America’s economic and political systems, Lutalo asks listeners to imagine new possibilities. “I want to help people question the way they’re living,” they say, “so we can create a better reality for us to exist in together.”

NOTE. WITH THE PURCHASE OF THE VINYL YOU WILL ALSO RECEIVE THE TRACKS OF THE TOTAL 23 DIGITAL VERSION AS A DIGITAL DOWNLOAD. THE DOWNLOAD CODE CARD CONTAINS ALSO ALL TRACKS OF THE CD.

Okay, you’re listening to the 23rd edition of Kompakt’s annual compilation series TOTAL… hold on… 23??? It’s impossible to look at this number without thinking of William S. Burrough’s Captain Clark anecdote, the Illuminatus trilogy and the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu. But don’t you worry, we’re not giving in to eikositriophobia. We’re enlighted folks, after all.

Total 23 kicks off in a disco mood with a well tempered double punch from label co-founders Michael Mayer and Jürgen Paape. Jörg Burger calls out a trippy new genre named Cinematic Dance before C.A.R. and Patrice Bäumel resurface with a club mix of their early 2023 single ‘Four Down’. Sofia Kourtesis’ sultry remix of Perel ‘Matrix’ finally gets a well deserved vinyl release. ‘Ice Cream Cake’ by Cologne’s newcomer M.A.P.E. helps cooling things down a bit before another debutante, Argia from Madrid makes her first entry to the Kompakt catalogue. Gui Boratto’s recent single ‘Drink In Paris’ raises the energy levels just in time for Reinhard Voigt’s ruthless closing track ‘Endlich XXL’, an ode to some of the best things in this world: Beer and techno.

Okay, du hörst die 23. Ausgabe der jährlichen Kompilationsreihe TOTAL von Kompakt. Moment mal… 23??? Man kann diese Zahl unmöglich betrachten, ohne an William S. Burroughs’ Anekdote über Captain Clark, die Illuminatus-Trilogie und die Justified Ancients of Mu Mu zu denken. Aber keine Sorge, wir erliegen nicht der Eikositriophobie. Immerhin sind wir aufgeklärte Leute.

Total 23 beginnt in Discostimmung und einem wohltemperierten Doppelschlag von den Mitbegründern des Labels, Michael Mayer und Jürgen Paape. Jörg Burger ruft ein psychedelisches neues Genre namens Cinematic Dance aus, bevor C.A.R. und Patrice Bäumel mit einem Club-Mix ihrer Single ‘Four Down’ aus dem Frühjahr 2023 wieder auftauchen. Der tropisch-schwüle Sofia Kourtesis Remix von Perels ‘Matrix’ erhält endlich eine verdiente Vinyl-Veröffentlichung. ‘Ice Cream Cake’ von M.A.P.E., einem Newcomer aus Köln, sorgt für etwas Abkühlung, bevor mit Argia aus Madrid eine weitere Debütantin ihre ersten Spuren im Kompakt Katalog hinterlässt. Gui Borattos aktuelle Single ‘Drink In Paris’ steigert rechtzeitig das Energielevel für Reinhard Voigts gnadenlosen Schlusstrack ‘Endlich XXL’, eine feierliche Ode an einige der besten Dinge dieser Welt: Bier und Techno.

2023 Repress Blue Vinyl

- Eagerly anticipated follow up to 2014 debut - number 7 in Mojo's best albums of the year.
- LP jacket is gloss laminate with front & back folds on the outside.The back panel is uncoated/matt varnish - 300 gsm card and 180g vinyl. Digital Download included.
- EU tour coming in April with Summer festivals later in 2017.

Sometimes it can take years to find your calling. Not so, for wanderer Julie Byrne, whose power of lyrical expression and melodic nous seems inborn. But often, what comes naturally demonstrates against speed. Julie's second album Not Even Happiness has taken time to evolve, but as it spans recollections of bustling roadside diners, the stars over the high desert, the aching weariness of change, the wildflowers on the coast of California and the irresolvable mysteries of love. Her new album archives a vivid world that would've otherwise been lost to the road and in doing so, Byrne exhibits her extraordinarily innate musicality.

In fact, some of the album's songs took two years of fine tuning to get where they needed to be. And if you were to ask her why the follow up to 2014's Rooms With Walls And Windows has taken so long, you'd only be greeted with a bemused smile as though it's the strangest question she's ever been asked, Writing comes from a natural process of change and growth. It took me up to this point to have the capacity to express my experience of the time in my life that these songs came from.'

Having counted Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Northampton, Massachusetts, Chicago, Illinois, Seattle, New Orleans as her home in recent years. For now, Julie has settled in New York City where she moonlights as a seasonal urban park ranger in Manhattan. Whether witnessing the Pacific Northwest for the first time ('Melting Grid'), the morning sky in Colorado after staying up through the night at a house party in the mountains of Boulder ('Natural Blue'), recording the passage of freight trains on the outskirts of Buffalo, New York ('Interlude'), or a journey fragrant with rose water, reading Frank O'Hara aloud from the passengers seat during a drive through the desert of Utah into the rainforest of Washington State ('All The Land Glimmered Beneath'), Not Even Happiness is Julie's beguilingly ode to the fringes of life.

Self-taught on the guitar after picking it up when her father became ill and could no longer play the instrument himself, Julie readily admits she can't read music and doesn't even listen to it all that much - the first vinyl she owned was indeed, her own. Recorded with producer Eric Littmann (Phantom Posse), Julie laid down the new album in her childhood home in western New York state and offers an altogether bigger picture to its predecessor through a wider, yet subtle, exploration of instruments and atmospherics, Not Even Happiness reveals an artist who has grown in confidence over time.

Byrne's debut album was released back in January 2014 on Chicago based DIY label Orindal after initially being as two separate cassettes releases. Rooms With Walls and Windows went onto become a true modern-day word of mouth success story (it would have to be for an artist who shuns all forms of social media) and ended the year being voted number 7 in Mojo magazine's best albums of the year, with the Huffington Post calling it "2014's Great American Album". A collection of hushed intimate front porch psych-folk songs, that unknowingly recalled the greats, but felt very much for our time. It saw her travel to Europe over two summers playing the Green Man festival and End Of The Road, as well as lesser trodden tour paths around Europe.

Julie Byrne will take the songs from Not Even Happiness (the first release on a new record label Basin Rock, based in the Lancashire / Yorkshire border town of Todmorden) on the road throughout 2017.

Factory Benelux presents a special 35th anniversary edition of Here Comes Everybody, the highly-regarded second album by Scottish group The Wake, originally released by Factory Records in 1985. Just 800 copies will be made available for Record Store Day on 18 April 2020, pressed in crystal clear vinyl with a bonus 7-inch single + digital copy.

The Wake formed in Glasgow in 1981 after singer/guitarist Caesar left Altered Images. Joining Factory the following year, the group toured with New Order and released popular mini-album Harmony. Trailed by sprightly single Talk About the Past in 1984, second album Here Comes Everybody was eventually recorded as a trio, combining dreampop melodies and wistful lyricism typified by standout track O Pamela (later interpreted by artful French new wave covers project Nouvelle Vague).

Praise for Here Comes Everybody: “Holds up as a touchstone for aching, atmospheric synth-pop, all slinky guitars, crispy percussion, textured keyboards and limber bass" (Pitchfork); “The album stands as a pillar of moody synth pop, still bearing passing resemblance to New Order while retaining the bounce of the Postcard label bands and the cavernous production of Closer-era Joy Division, covering it all in some of the heaviest synth wash this side of Klaus Schulze" (Dusted)

Newly re-mastered for this special 35th anniversary edition, the original 8 track album is now augmented by companion singles Talk About the Past and Of the Matter, pressed on a bonus 7-inch single in a picture sleeve. Here Comes Everybody itself is pressed on clear vinyl, housed in a white reverse board sleeve with printed inner bag containing lyrics, images and liner notes by band members Carolyn Allen and Caesar.

Bridge to Quiet ist eine EP von Animal Collective, die ursprünglich im Juli 2020 digital veröffentlicht wurde und nun auf Vinyl erhältlich ist. Die Band hatte zu ihrer ursprünglichen Veröffentlichung Folgendes zu sagen:
"Im April und Mai haben wir uns einige unserer Improvisationen aus 2019 und Anfang 2020 angeschaut. Wir haben sie neu abgemischt, collagiert und in Songs eingebaut und so unseren Weg zu Bridge to Quiet gefunden. Wir hoffen, dass es Ihnen gefällt!" - Animal Collective

'Brexit Music' ist kein politisches Album. Aber im Titel, der dem Künstler lange nach der Idee des Repertoires in den Sinn kam, steckt eine Vorliebe für britischen Spott: Am Ende soll die Kunst alle gesellschaftlichen Modeerscheinungen überleben. Der französische Pianist und sein Akustik Jazz-Trio wollten einen frischen, verspielten Sound, Groove und ein bisschen Humor. Ein beliebtes Lied zu covern ist für Jazzmusiker gängige Praxis, dennoch war die Idee eines ganzen Albums, das sich ausschließlich um britische Popmusik dreht, nicht selbstverständlich: Es war eine Herausforderung, ohne die Texte lebendig zu bleiben. So blieb oft das schlichte Material dieser Songs, auch wenn die meisten davon ein aufregender und freudiger Teil von Trotignon's Teenagerjahre waren. CD-Digipak und 180Gr. Doppel-LP mit vier Bonustracks!

Baptiste Trotignon - Piano, arrangements
Greg Hutchinson - Drums
Matt Penman - Upright bass

Ocela can be a dance album if you want it to be, but above that, it is an album about dancing. The second instalment in a planned trilogy, it regards dance as a form of pathmaking, a physical chronology of a journey. Its voyager is the eponymous Ocela // an invented feminine form of the word steel // who wields both strength and brittleness. While the first album (Spojky Čiary) focused on Ocela's inception and youth, here she is mature // on a resolute trajectory between birth and passing away.

Ocela is not a concept album // unless you want it to be // but it is an album built around beats. While there is a loose precedent for rhythms in the two-piece project Jamka, the trilogy also marks Daniel Kordik's solo return to melodical composition. On this record, Ocela dances on her orbits in patterns that are harmonious but always slightly elliptic. Each song on the album travels with its own varying velocity, before it abruptly finds itself at the subjective beginning. Then it goes through further revolutions, with determination bordering on a lack of choice.

Recorded live onto a 4-track before mixing, Ocela is unlike its predecessor in that it shuns any form of field recording, and was instead made using only hardware (Elektron Octatrack MK1, Elektron Digitone, Jomox Mbase01).

Daniel Kordik, also known as Iskra, is one half of Jamka, member of the Urbsounds Collective, co-founder of Earshots Recordings and Ocela is his second release on the melodramatic label Weltschmerzen.

Es ist 5 Jahre her, aber das Warten hat sich gelohnt! "Memento Mori", das Nachfolgealbum von "Viktoria" ist MARDUK pur, von Anfang bis Ende! Zehn Tracks unerbittlicher, kompromissloser, düsterer und harter schwedischer Black Metal! "Memento Mori" ist erhältlich als Deluxe Gatefold LP (mit alternativem Cover-Artwork, transparent-schwarzem extra dickem Splatter-Vinyl, 8-seitigem Booklet in DIN A4 Format, DIN A2 Poster, Kunstdruck - limitiert auf 2000 Einheiten weltweit und nicht in jedem Land erhältlich), sowie als reguläre Gatefold LP (180g Vinyl, Lyric Sheet), Ltd. CD Mediabook und digitales Album.

Es ist 5 Jahre her, aber das Warten hat sich gelohnt! "Memento Mori", das Nachfolgealbum von "Viktoria" ist MARDUK pur, von Anfang bis Ende! Zehn Tracks unerbittlicher, kompromissloser, düsterer und harter schwedischer Black Metal! "Memento Mori" ist erhältlich als Deluxe Gatefold LP (mit alternativem Cover-Artwork, transparent-schwarzem extra dickem Splatter-Vinyl, 8-seitigem Booklet in DIN A4 Format, DIN A2 Poster, Kunstdruck - limitiert auf 2000 Einheiten weltweit und nicht in jedem Land erhältlich), sowie als reguläre Gatefold LP (180g Vinyl, Lyric Sheet), Ltd. CD Mediabook und digitales Album.

In 1972, a foursome of design students set out to make a record. This was, in many ways, a strictly creative endeavor. The quartet — composed of Dave Pescod, Alan Lewis, Phil Rawle, and Ted Rockley — were all trained, not as musicians, but as creatives. Art school heavyweights, the four were well-versed in the methodology of intentional experimentation, in the delicate balance of pushing the limits without completely unmooring oneself from a guiding creative intention. Emboldened by a high-brow familiarity with thoughtful experimentation and all the non-conviction of non-musicians, Bowes Road Band’s stint in the world of popular music yielded a record that is as much mind-melting as it is a direct product of its time. Their sprawling LP “Back in the HCA” embodies the exigence “art for art’s sake,” but it is for art’s sake that this record, however off the deep end it seems to travel (hear: “Doctor, Doctor”), remains a unified, and stunning, body of work. The LP’s do-ityourself garage rock noisemaking meets highfalutin creative processes. “Back in the HCA” is warbling psychedelic freakout (“Two Fingers,” “Doctor, Doctor”), Donovan-esque English countryside folk stylings (“Inside My Head,” “Goodbye to Rosie”), and avant-garde jazz improvisions (“Grass is Grass,” “Tomorrow’s Truth”) in one luminous release.

Originally an 9-track LP, Jakarta, Uno Loop, and Bowes Road Band decided to mine the six most cohesive tracks for the reissue, though the extras may be released somewhere down the line. Cohesion efforts aside, “Back in the HCA” stands alone in its singular conception of a genre-bending continuum — it evades definition. That said, the LP can easily be situated in the sonic environment in which it was conceived. By the end of the 60s, England was crawling with blues-based rock outfits that were starting to venture into prog rock territory. You can hear this popular dint cast over the folkier side of the LP. But Bowes Road Band was armed with their non-musicianship: they existed completely liberated from the motivating yet ultimately paralyzing lust for stardom. Enjoying this liberation, Bowes Road Band was utterly free to make noise. This freedom meant drawn out sax interludes amidst sweetly folk stylings (“Grass is Grass”) and Shaggs-like fuzzed-out freakouts that spiral into a void (Doctor, Doctor). This freedom also meant straight-forward tuneful cuts like “Goodbye Rosie” that conspicuously introduce heavily distorted auto-organ accompaniment mid-track amidst poignant lyricism. Bowes Road Band crafts a unified sound and then cracks it open.

With a completely off-the-radar status, Bowes Road Band could only press 50 copies of the record — 10 for each of them and 10 for the school. The band’s lifespan was to end there, or so they thought. “Back in the HCA” was the accidental fruit of a Berlin flea market treasure hunt by Jannis Stürtz, DJ and co-founder of Habibi Funk and Jakarta Records. After finding and sharing the LP with a few colleagues, Stürtz managed to get in touch with the band, get ahold of the master tapes collecting dust in Ted Rockley’s attic, and start the reissuing process. The record is still adorned with its original cover art designed by Alan Pescod, both reminiscent of bygone school days and the Zoom calls of yesterday — in short, reunion. Its re-discovery was happenstance and ought to be listened to as such. That is, “Back in the HCA” was not made to be listened to on a broad scale, or, at least, was not made with this goal in mind; it is neither in its time nor of its time. Of course, the group explicitly cites the folk tunes of the English countryside, the distorted rock groups that reigned during the record’s conception, and the fringes of psychedelic music that only the uber-underground might recognize (e.g., “Dreaming of Alice”). Yet still with these obvious influences, “Back in the HCA” always existed beyond the domain of both traditional musicianship and conventional commodification. Bowes Road Band’s DIY musicality beams through in technicolor across “Back in the HCA.” The vinyl includes an 8-page booklet detailing the albums creation and interviews with the band.

Lead single “Grass is Grass,” out July 14 along with album pre-order, encapsulates the record’s range: the track unfurls into a sprawling sax-driven trip following a sundrenched, Donovan-esque intro w/ lyrics “naively about parks and gardens, not marijuana!” The keyed-down folk cut “Goodbye to Rosie” is single 2 and elevates stripped-down acoustics with golden tinges, out August 4th. Focus track “Tomorrow’s Truth” constructs the fuzzed-out underbelly of acid folk. Listen for echoes of late Beatles, Mark Fry, and Donovan (if they were armed by an unshakabele willful naiveté). Like Sgt. Pepper’s on a shoestring budget—take a trip to the underground with LP “Back in the HCA,” available everywhere physically and digitally on September 1st via Jakarta Records and Uno Loop.

Besides online promotion from label profiles, the album will be further promoted by external agencies within the UK and US.

Als nächstes erscheint bei BPitch eine neue 4-Track EP mit ungefiltertem Techno und tadellosem Sounddesign des Turiner Duos Boston 168. Nach drei Veröffentlichungen auf dem Label und einem Beitrag auf dem vielversprechenden Sublabel UFO Inc im Jahr 2019 begibt sich das Duo mit der EP Gigantia, die am 14.07.23 digital veröffentlicht wird, in industrielle Gefilde und in lebhafte psychedelische Trips. Sergio Pace und Vincenzo Ferramosca, die seit 2014 gemeinsam Musik produzieren, haben sich mit einer besonders räumlichen Form von Techno einen Namen gemacht, der ihnen bis heute eine illustre Karriere beschert hat. Auf "Gigantia" greift das Duo auf die industriellen Wurzeln ihrer Heimatstadt zurück und verschmilzt eine Reihe von Einflüssen mit einer ausgesprochen melodischen Version von Acid Techno.

Paul Hillery's third compilation in this series of rare and hard to find grooves is as much a geographical journey as it is a musical one. With acts, artists and tracks linked to London, Florida, Atlanta, the Netherlands, Switzerland, California, India and Germany and more this compilation is very much proof of the global language that is music. With many of the recordings only previously existing on sold out and obscure private pressings and small runs on indie labels this collection of tracks really is a must have. Complementing the previous two albums curated by Paul Hillery we really do get to see and hear the history of studio recordings from a plethora of touring and travelling troubadours, jobbing composers and song-writers, session musicians, producers and engineers. Again, as with the previous two volumes in the 'Children of the Sun' series, this is an eclectic gathering of styles and genres that have been curated into an accessible fusion of Jazz, Rock, AOR and Folk tinged grooves that all have soul. With many tracks getting a first time digital release this 3 LP album sits nicely alongside the previous albums in the series and rates as an essential compilation for any serious lover and collector of music. In Paul Hillery's words: "Let us gather one more time on another journey through the rhythmic sands of time, traversing continents and genres one track at a time. Taking in joyful places and wide-open spaces while dropping out to the musical pulse that unites us all An album to remind us that we are all made of stardust with more to connect than drive us apart, for . . . We Are The Children of the Setting Sun"

Black cloud is descending – Black Magic Six set to release their fifth album in September, new single Blood of Babylon out now The title of Black Magic Six’s upcoming album Black Cloud Descending really sums up the mood and thoughts of its creators during the album making process. It tells stories of constant escaping, accepting defeat, destinies of outcasts, failures, and drunks. Tales of the wiser, exaggerated lies, vague rumours, fuzzy states of mind and suspicious circumstances – even the thought in the back of your head about the possibility of redemption while standing on the edge of the cliff right before falling in; it’s all there. The album’s first single Blood of Babylon is a garage rocking song about Sam Berkowitz’s relationship with Sam Carr’s speaking dog. Lyrical themes of the upcoming album are moving between reality and the imaginary world; remembering the moments at Belo Horizonte, how to use the powder that protects you from the evil eye, how it felt to wonder in the same alleyways with the werewolf of Istanbul or diving to safety to the bottom of a pond in Northern Savo. Listen Blood of Babylon here: https://youtu.be/S7mEujUIlrw Musically the album is on a narrow path. All the sounds heard on Black Cloud Descending are produced by Taskinen and Motherfuckin’ Japa. Sure, there are two exceptions; the gong heard in the end of Werewolf of Istanbul was recorded by Sakke Koivula at his home and the church bells in the outro of Full House Blues are ringed by unknown. Previous albums of BM6 had lots of guests playing guitar, percussions, harmonica, and visiting singers. People that one could call actual musicians. These past albums have had a softer, more versatile, and maybe even a livelier touch to them. This time around there’s only the core; the percussionist and the singing guitar player. The result is more raw, rugged, and rougher than before. Black Cloud Descending is out on September 1st on vinyl, CD, and digital platforms. The album was produced, recorded, and mixed by Mitro Kylliäinen at Kung Fu Audio along with BM6 during 2022-2023. Original art used for the album cover was made by Greger Grönholm. The band will play selected live shows to celebrate the new album in Finland, Germany, Denmark, and Spain. Dates of these gigs will be announced closer to the release date of the album.

Ende der 1990er Jahre lernte der österreichische Musiker und Schriftsteller Hans Platzgumer den halbjapanischen Sänger Carl Tokujirô Mirwald auf einer Aftershow-Party in München kennen. Bei seinem spontanen Auftritt hatte Carl den unwiderstehlichen Sound eines japanischen Tom Waits, der traditionelle Gesangstechniken des Nô-Theaters mit westlichen Einflüssen mischte. Die beiden gründeten das Elektro-Duo Shinto und brachten mehrere Platten heraus, mit denen sie eine eingefleischte Fangemeinde anzogen und mehrfach durch Japan und Europa tourten. Als jedoch die Fukushima-Katastrophe 2011 nicht nur ihre japanischen Labelbüros zerstörte, sondern sie auch zwang, anstehende Tourneen abzusagen, legten sie die Band auf Eis. Dennoch blieb ihre euro-asiatische Zusammenarbeit bestehen. 2015 begann das Duo, sich mit der Taishô-Ära zu beschäftigen, einer Periode in der japanischen Geschichte vor genau hundert Jahren, die eine Fülle von neuen demokratischen und anarchischen Bewegungen mit zahlreichen gegensätzlichen Protagonisten hervorbrachte. Jetzt, 8 Jahre später, ist Hans' Roman Großes Spiel über diese historischen Kämpfe erschienen (Zsolnay/Hanser), gleichzeitig mit einer Sammlung von 10 neuen Liedern. Taishô Romantica vertont japanische Texte aus dem frühen 20. Jahrhundert, die die Nähe von Leben, Tod und ideologischem Glauben in den dramatischen Taishô-Jahren schildern, mit einer extravaganten Partitur, die Muzak und Electronica mit theatralischen Elementen und Kammermusik mischt. Die aktuelle CD/LP/digital "Taishô Romantica" wird am 1. September 2023 über Noise Appeal Records veröffentlicht.

RAWAX proudly welcomes Mr. Brian Garrett aka Javonnte to the artist family!

Javonntte is the second artist after Los Hermanos aka Mr. Gerald Mitchell, with his own series on the RAWAX MOTOR CITY EDITION.

Selected Songs 1997-2003 compiles some of the finest moments in the recording history of Hydroplane, the Melbourne-based indie-pop three-piece that operated alongside The Cat’s Miaow through the second half of the nineties. It’s the third release in what feels, now, like a loosely planned series by World Of Echo, documenting the music made by this group of friends in Melbourne sharehouses (The Cat’s Miaow’s Songs ’94-’98, 2022), or in the case of The Shapiros (Gone By Fall, 2023), while traversing the International Pop Underground.

Hydroplane would be familiar to anyone already following these breadcrumb trails – Andrew Withycombe, Bart Cummings and Kerrie Bolton were the group’s core, all members of The Cat’s Miaow. With Cat’s Miaow drummer Cameron Smith itinerant, having moved to London, the trio used this opportunity to expand their music. It’s a subtle, but important shift. If The Cat’s Miaow was about the perfect, minimalist, two-minute pop song, Hydroplane’s music was far more open-ended, embracing the loops and drones, sampled house-y shuffle beats, the burbling of a Roland Jupiter-4 synth, all of which the trio joined, effortlessly, to their endless capacity for moving, elegant melodicism.

They may have only planned to release one seven-inch single, but the sound Hydroplane created was so bewitching, so compelling, that the project’s lifespan ran for around half a decade, and they ended up releasing three albums, including a self-titled debut recently reissued by Efficient Space, and seven singles. There are all kinds of compelling things happening in the music compiled here – the hazy repetition of the gentler side of Krautrock is in here, somewhere, which also suggests Stereolab at their most intimate and disarmed; the gently drifting guitars, gauzy and oneiric, set the songs adrift and floating, each one lost in its own imagined, distracted world. Songs like “The Love You Bring” set indistinct tonal floats across dance rhythms, in a way not quite heard since My Bloody Valentine’s “Instrumental” – but with the added gift of Bolton’s gorgeous voice.

This loose coalition with dance music, and the quiet experimentalism at the heart of Hydroplane, also gestures towards peers like Hood, Acetate Zero and Other People’s Children, and releases on renegade labels like Wurlitzer Jukebox and Enraptured. Like those groups and labels, The Cat’s Miaow were reconciling independent pop music’s past – sweet melody and melancholy, chiming and droning guitars – with the futures promised by DIY electronics and nascent digitalia, the interface of indie and IDM that led to some of the underground’s most blissful, texturally swoonsome music. All that is here, but also, the poise of the melodies is pure Cat’s Miaow, though, with Bolton’s voice sailing, pacifically, over some of the most pared-down, gorgeous music made during their decade.

It was a time, too, when such music could make waves – “We Crossed The Atlantic”, one of their early singles, was picked up by John Peel, who played it repeatedly on his legendary radio show, the song reaching #13 on his 1997 Festive 50. That the song itself was a cover of a tune by 1960s Australian beatnik-pop-poet Pip Proud felt even more perfect – a group of outsiders paying tribute to another outsider, played on the radio one of the few broadcasters brave and human enough to take a chance on this music. But it was a time where everything was up for grabs, and genres were flowing into each other: folk songs went drone; indie re-discovered noise; ambient pop floated, again, out onto the dancefloor. And while they may have been sequestered away in Melbourne, Australia, Hydroplane felt core to that scene, a quietly driving force.

Compiling material from across their brief but mercurial career, this double album perfectly captures the magic and mystery of Hydroplane’s dreamlike, perfect pop songs.

On its’ release in November 2022, Daniel Stenger’s debut mini-album as Flashbaxx, Take Care My Friend, won plenty of plaudits for its’ enticing blend of jazz-funk instrumentation, audible warmth, effortless musicality, and memorable, sun-soaked songs. Now the set returns in remixed and reworked form, with a sextet of artists taking it in turns to put a new spin on the German producer’s carefully crafted and immaculately executed tracks.

The six-cut vinyl version boasts two revisions that have already made waves on digital download: a genuinely life-affirming hip-hop-soul take on ‘Strangers’ courtesy of East Midlands’ maestro Atjazz, where Katherine Kempf’s smouldering lead vocals rise above head-nodding beats, woozy electric piano chords, yearning horn arrangements and smooth bass guitar, and a sublime Moods mix of ‘Love Boat’ that re-frames the track as a languid, groove-fired shuffle through Balearic jazz-funk territory.

The other four reworks, which are exclusive to this EP, are similarly inspired. Chris Pookah collaboration ‘City Lights’ is given the remix treatment not once, but twice. First NuNorthern Soul regulars Mike Salta and Mortale re-imagine the track as a gently breezy, dusk-ready blend of bouncy, samba-influenced grooves and colourful Balearic nu-disco, before BJ Smith – the first artist to release music on Phil Cooper’s imprint way back in 2012 – takes the track into semi-acoustic, blue-eyed-soul-meets-Balearic jazz-funk territory. Gentle, tactile, and vibrant, it’s a stunning, soul-stirring revision.

To round off the EP, two producers renowned for creating atmospheric, sunrise-ready soundscapes deliver their versions of Stenger’s kaleidoscopic, musically rich aural visions. Marshall Watson handles ‘Alright’, smothering a languid, slow-motion drum machine beat in jazzy double bass, delay-laden electric piano motifs, lazy jazz guitars, rising synth strings and the dreamiest of pads.

Then, to round things off in considerable style, Tambores En Benirras reworks title track ‘Take Care My Friend’, teasing out the track’s inherent musical colour and warmth whilst adding his own distinctive spin. Pleasingly hard to pigeonhole, his remix makes extensive use of deep, dubby bass, Latin-style percussion, leisurely beats, blossoming synth sounds and all manner of effects-laden instrumental flourishes – including guitar solos that recall some of Dave Gilmour’s most laidback, eyes-closed moments. It provides a genuinely brilliant conclusion to an effortlessly impressive set of remixes.

Akumandra’s newest release, DIGITAL WATER by German producer, Coss, offers a neat, rhythmically fluid sound that, like water, is both dreamy and soothing as well as energetic. In the first of the EP’s four tracks, ENTRY POINT OBSCURING, a syncopated beat exudes rhythmic energy as watersounding synths plunge us into the track’s intricacies, opening the possibility for rapturous introspection.


Track number 2, ESCAPE FROM PELOG SELISIR, contrasts a deep bass with modulated synth-progressions, to deliver a sound that calls for motion as well as reflection. LOVE LETTER FOR YOU emphasizes bright, upbeat progressions to maximize the ecstatic energy built up
throughout the track.

The currents of emotions stirred by the EP culminate with TWOWORLDS, the smoothest track in the EP. A hi hat groove sustains the rhythm as a bassy synth gives amplitude to the track, creating a subaquatic feeling of depth and wonder.

The tone always makes the music. But only those who actually make the sound An ancient-house-avantgarde dream has always been there since the legendary -Warehouse- days of Ron Hardy, to bring more sounds and tones constantly to an independent, repetitive development. And thus beyond the limits of an executive creative artist on the otherwise purely commercial sense what we call in common -beyond imagination-. -Raw Footage-, the latest album concoction of Chicago house legend Ron Trent (Prescription) on his new imprint -Electric Blue- works in the best sense of Stanislav Lem heroes Trurl & Klapauciusals, cruising like those two metal brains frantically invented by the universe of 4/4-Sounds to get insane tracks out of the new material matter located there, and put them together to brand new ones. This trackwerk varies as well as of course between classical Chi-Town to the context of contemporary, epic house dubs and lives in a perfidious manner from the interaction of various computer
modules that constantly spits out new and exciting interactions. In the end, the software sings only as digital output of great analog sounds, which may well be understood as a mocking voice to the majority of contemporary Homeboy wackiness formats.-Unpredictable- and less -cryptic- might fit here as a keyword excellent, where you kick out of the rough house plant a significant entertainment value must, without the need to posess necessarily the same nerves of steel. Anyone who has ever really wondered what House sound could be appropriate for a journey through the vastness of the universe is, gets there now at this point completely to his fullest expense. Trent 2012 and its tracks on this album reflect a lot about the revolutionary founder of -Spirit of music- from the mid-80s, who is recorded then as now but with inadequate slogans such as -light years ahead of its time-. For as
Trents body of work -Raw Footage- is also particularly scary genius material, although still of totally solid stress field and background from the musical spectrum between the Windy City and the Motor City engine bridled her.-But heres to the Future- For Sir Trent more than twenty years after -Altered States- and the relevant follow-ups, thats not really a problem!
Der Ton Macht immer die Musik. Nur wer macht eigentlich den Ton Ein uralter-House-Avantgarde-Traum war und ist es seit den legendären
:Warehouse: Tagen eines Ron Hardy, Sounds und Töne immer ständig neu zur selbstständigen, repetitiven Entfaltung zu bringen und somit die kreativen Grenzen des exekutiven Künstlers über die sonst im rein kommerziellen Sinne gängige Vorstellungskraft hinaus zu sprengen.
:Raw Footage:, das neueste Album-Machwerk von Chicago House-Legende Ron Trent (Prescription) auf seinem neuen Imprint :Electric Blue: kommt im besten Sinne der Stanislav Lem Heroen Trurl & Klapauciusals, und cruiost wie jene beiden Metallgehirne wie wahnsinnig durch das All der 4/4-Sounds, um aus dem dort befindlichen Materiematerial neue, wahnsinnige Tracks zu erfinden und zusammenzustellen. Dieses Trackwerk variert denn auch wie selbstverständlich zwischen dem klassischen Chi-Town-Kontext bis zu kontemporären, epischen House-Dubs, und lebt auf perfide Art
und Weise aus der Interaktion verschiedenster Computermodule, die dabei ständig neue aufregende Interaktionen ausspuckt. Am Ende singt eine digitale Software nur noch als Output großer analoger Sounds, die durchaus als Spottgesang auf den Großteil eitgenössischer Homeboy-Frickelei Formate verstanden werden dürfen.:Unberechenbar: und weniger kryptisch mag hier als Schlagwort vortrefflich passen, wo man dem rohen Housewerk ganz erheblichen Unterhaltungswert abgewinnen muss, ohne das man dazu unbedingt gleich Nerven wie Drahtseile benötigt. Wer sich je
eigentlich gefragt hat , welcher House-Sound so für eine Reise durch die endlosen Weiten des Universums angemessen sein könnte, kommt an dieser Stelle jetzt völlig(st) auf seine Kosten. Trent 2012 und seine Tracks reflektieren mit diesem Album zwar viel von dem revolutionären Gründerspirit einer Musik aus der Mitte der 80er-Jahre, die damals wie heute dennoch nur unzureichend mit Slogans wie ihrer Zeit um Lichtjahre voraus zu erfassen ist. Denn wie Trents Gesamtwerk ist eben auch :Raw Footage: insbesondere furchteinflößend genialer Stoff, wenngleich auch immer noch vom ganz und gar soliden Spannungsfeld und Background des musikalischen Spektrums zwischen der Windy und der Motor City her aufgezäumt. :But here's to the future: - Für Trent auch mehr als zwanzig Jahre nach :Altered States: und den einschlägigen follow-ups nicht wirklich ein Problem!

Described as a ‘minor classic’ by Luke Haines.
Available on vinyl for the first time in 36 years. and CD for the first time in 30 years.
12-Track LP compilation pressed on Clear Vinyl with printed innersleeve.
CD in digipack with 8 page booklet. Sleeve notes by Luke Haines.
Band features Luke Haines, Martyn Casey (The Triffids/Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds ) & Alsy Macdonald (The Triffids).
Includes: DW’s ‘Westlake’ album from 1987; BBC session recorded with members of The Go-Betweens plus two studio demos of unused songs.
David Westlake’s first album finally gets a new day in the sun in the wake of his brilliant current LP ‘My Beautiful England’. 36 years after it first appeared in 1987 on Creation Records
David Westlake formed The Servants in 1985, who released 2 excellent singles and appeared on the NME compiled C86 LP.
Searching for a stable Servants line-up to release an album he recruited Luke Haines (The Auteurs/Black Box Recorder) via an NME advert , who came on board, and stayed for five years. After failing to find a committed rhythm section, he enlisted the help of Martyn Casey (The Triffids/Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds ) & Alsy Macdonald (The Triffids)and recorded the 1987 ‘Westlake’ album for Creation. Overlooked at the time, the record was later described as a minor classic by Luke Haines himself. It is included here on Side One of the album, available on vinyl for the first time in 36 years. and CD for the first time in 30 years
Side Two contains the previously unreleased Janice Long BBC session recorded in the summer of 1987 featuring Go Betweens members Robert Forster, Amanda Brown & Robert Vickers
As chronicled in an interview in US music magazine The Big Takeover (issue 53, 2004), Belle and Sebastian frontman Stuart Murdoch was a huge Westlake fan and tried to locate him in the early 1990s in hope of forming a band with him, before launching Belle and Sebastian in his school class instead

clear rose pink vinyl

Following a string of beautiful digital albums and cassette titles. We get our first Glo Phase long player on vinyl. “Soft Gems” captures Joseph’s up-tempo arrangements for fans long pining to see and hear more of his sound presented on wax. Your record collection will immediately thank you.

Gatefold / Printed Inner Sleeves / Aqua Vinyl

Das 10. Album von ASKING ALEXANDRIA erscheint im Jahr ihres 15. jährigen Bandjubiläums. Es ist eine Art Retrospektive, bei der die Band ihre früheren Veröffentlichungen wieder aufgreift und sich von den beliebtesten und erfolgreichsten Songs ihrer Diskografie inspirieren lässt. "WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?" enthält einige der härtesten und lautesten Songs, die die britische Hard-Rock Band im Laufe ihrer Karriere veröffentlicht hat. Im Rahmen der Albumkampagne werden drei Tracks inkl. der neuen Radio Single "Psycho" vorab veröffentlicht, während die Band in Großbritannien, Europa und USA auf Tour sein wird. Mit über 2 Mio. Spotify-Followern, 4 RIAA Gold-zertifizierten Singles, 6 Alben in den Billboard Top200 Charts (davon zwei #1 Alben) und den jüngsten Erfolgen am Radio ("Alone Again" war die erste #1 Rock-Radio-Single der Band) sind ASKING ALEXANDRIA für eine weitere erfolgreiche Kampagne im Jahr 2023 gerüstet. "WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?" erscheint am 25. August und wird Digital, als farbiges Vinyl, auf CD und auf Kassette erhältlich sein.

Translucent blue Cassette

Das 10. Album von ASKING ALEXANDRIA erscheint im Jahr ihres 15. jährigen Bandjubiläums. Es ist eine Art Retrospektive, bei der die Band ihre früheren Veröffentlichungen wieder aufgreift und sich von den beliebtesten und erfolgreichsten Songs ihrer Diskografie inspirieren lässt. "WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?" enthält einige der härtesten und lautesten Songs, die die britische Hard-Rock Band im Laufe ihrer Karriere veröffentlicht hat. Im Rahmen der Albumkampagne werden drei Tracks inkl. der neuen Radio Single "Psycho" vorab veröffentlicht, während die Band in Großbritannien, Europa und USA auf Tour sein wird. Mit über 2 Mio. Spotify-Followern, 4 RIAA Gold-zertifizierten Singles, 6 Alben in den Billboard Top200 Charts (davon zwei #1 Alben) und den jüngsten Erfolgen am Radio ("Alone Again" war die erste #1 Rock-Radio-Single der Band) sind ASKING ALEXANDRIA für eine weitere erfolgreiche Kampagne im Jahr 2023 gerüstet. "WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?" erscheint am 25. August und wird Digital, als farbiges Vinyl, auf CD und auf Kassette erhältlich sein.

Die norwegischen Avantgarde-Black-Metal-Pioniere und -Innovatoren BORKNAGAR veröffentlichen eine Sonderedition ihres 8. Studioalbums aus dem Jahr 2010, "Universal", das weltweit zum ersten Mal über den langjährigen Labelpartner der Band, Century Media Records, veröffentlicht wird. Das Album, das in der illustren Besetzung von Mastermind Øystein G. Brun (Gitarre), Andreas "Vintersorg" Hedlund (Gesang), Lars "Lazare" Nedland (Keyboard, Backing Vocals), Jens F. Ryland (Gitarre), Jan Erik Tiwaz (Bass) und David Kinkade (Schlagzeug) erschienen ist, enthält alle 10 Tracks der Albumsession, die von Dan Swanö / Unisound (Opeth, Katatonia, Dissection, Asphyx, etc.) neu gemastert wurden. "Universal (Re-issue 2023)" wird als Jewelcase CD, Digitales Album und als transparente sonnengelbe 180g 2LP im Gatefold-Cover erhältlich sein. Haltet Ausschau nach weiteren BORKNAGAR Frontline-Aktivitäten und Live-Auftritten, die bald angekündigt werden...

Zumindest äußerlich scheint The Grape in Ventura, Kalifornien, nur ein weiteres anonymes Gebäude in einer Reihe von Restaurants und Geschäften zu sein. Doch im Sommer 2022 sollte dieser einnehmende Veranstaltungsort das lang erwartete Live-Debüt einer der beeindruckendsten Partnerschaften in der Welt des progressiven Metals und der Jazz-Fusion beherbergen. Auf der rechten Seite der Bühne stand Derek Sherinian, der seine betörenden Keyboard-Parts mit eleganter Souveränität vortrug und dabei in gefühlvoller Konzentration versunken war. Links auf der Bühne, fast verloren hinter seinem Schlagzeug, saß der renommierte Schlagzeuger Simon Phillips, dessen hypnotisierende, fliegende Drumsticks gelegentlich zwischen Becken und Toms zu sehen waren. Diese tadellose Partnerschaft wurde durch den ausgefeilten Bass von Ric Fierabracci unterstützt, wobei die unerbittliche, verspielte Double-Neck-Gitarre von Ron 'Bumblefoot' Thal ein weiteres melodisches Furnier hinzufügte. Vor 500 dankbaren Fans aufgeführt, hätte der Uneingeweihte, der am Veranstaltungsort vorbeikommt, nicht ahnen können, dass dies eine musikalische Live-Vereinigung war, die zwei Jahrzehnte lang in der Entwicklung war. Sherinian hatte seinen Ruf durch Auftritte mit Bands wie Kiss und Alice Cooper sowie durch seine Zeit bei den Progressive-Metal-Giganten Dream Theater gefestigt. Phillips' Liste der Credits war immens und umfasste die Zusammenarbeit mit Jeff Beck, Gary Moore, Joe Satriani und The Who. Das Live-Album ist erhältlich als schwarzes 180g schweres Vinyl inklusive 2-seitigem Einleger sowie als Ltd. CD Digipak mit 26-seitigem Booklet.

In 2023, Kurt Vile is making numbers count. Just last month, Matador Records presented the iconic Philadelphia songwriter with a (vegan) cheesesteak trophy to commemorate the 100-millionth stream of "Pretty Pimpin" on Spotify. Today, though, we"d like to draw your attention to another significant KV digit: The 10th anniversary of his fifth full-length and first 2xLP, "Wakin on a Pretty Daze" (2013). To celebrate this milestone, we"ve brought the record back as a blue + yellow vinyl split available via KV and Matador webstores. This limited pressing will also include a reproduction of the "make your own cover" ESPO sticker sheet that accompanied the original 2013 special-edition. A yellow vinyl version of the record will be made available everywhere. Where previous albums alternated between gorgeous fingerpicking and heavy guitar workouts, "Wakin" blended the two into dreamy and expansive songs that frequently stretched well out beyond the five-minute mark. Back then we said: "It"s a record that would have sounded great 30 years ago, sounds great today, and will still sound great 30 years from now." Ten years down the line, we"re still confident that "Wakin" will deliver the goods - yesterday, today, and in 2043. The reissue serves as the latest entry in Matador Records" Revisionist History series, our ongoing campaign to jog the record-buying (and streaming!) public"s memory about our many catalog items now poised to celebrate a significant anniversary. Matador will mark these anniversaries with new reissues and re-pressings. So far, the Revisionist History class of 2023 has highlighted Bettie Serveert"s Palomine and Lucy Dacus"s Historian.

In the late 2000s a sprawling catalog of what is now genre-defining music was emanating from an unlikely place. Cleveland, Ohio has a broad reputation for many things, but in the aughts, psyche-expanding Kosmische wasn’t necessarily Cleveland’s calling card… until Emeralds. The trio of John Elliott, Steve Hauschildt, and Mark McGuire had released a profusion of limited-run cassettes, CD-Rs, and vinyl titles that had been passed around basement shows and then migrated to niche music communities online, creating a unique kind of murmur, even in the height of the DIY blog era. Three kids from the rust belt were crafting a distinctive and truly far-out strain of music on their own terms in the Midwest. They were flipping lids in wood-paneled basements and circulating around the underground with soaring sounds stylistically indebted to deep German electronic music pioneers and released with the ethos and twisted fervor of renegade Midwestern noise freaks. After several releases garnered a die-hard fandom in niche circles of internet/music culture, and then catching the attention of the late Peter Rehberg, the renowned artist and curator of the Editions Mego label, an expectation was set that the next Emeralds record was going to be a big one. And in 2010, Does it Look Like I’m Here? was it.

mp3s of this album; they can finally get a fresh copy on vinyl. Does It Look Like I’m Here? became a hallmark that would carve a path for an entire scene. Ghostly International is thrilled to reissue the album, remastered by Heba Kadry, including 7 bonus tracks exclusive to the digital album and CD. The limited edition 2xLP includes extensive liner notes by Chris Madak (Bee Mask).

In the late 2000s a sprawling catalog of what is now genre-defining music was emanating from an unlikely place. Cleveland, Ohio has a broad reputation for many things, but in the aughts, psyche-expanding Kosmische wasn’t necessarily Cleveland’s calling card… until Emeralds. The trio of John Elliott, Steve Hauschildt, and Mark McGuire had released a profusion of limited-run cassettes, CD-Rs, and vinyl titles that had been passed around basement shows and then migrated to niche music communities online, creating a unique kind of murmur, even in the height of the DIY blog era. Three kids from the rust belt were crafting a distinctive and truly far-out strain of music on their own terms in the Midwest. They were flipping lids in wood-paneled basements and circulating around the underground with soaring sounds stylistically indebted to deep German electronic music pioneers and released with the ethos and twisted fervor of renegade Midwestern noise freaks. After several releases garnered a die-hard fandom in niche circles of internet/music culture, and then catching the attention of the late Peter Rehberg, the renowned artist and curator of the Editions Mego label, an expectation was set that the next Emeralds record was going to be a big one. And in 2010, Does it Look Like I’m Here? was it.

mp3s of this album; they can finally get a fresh copy on vinyl. Does It Look Like I’m Here? became a hallmark that would carve a path for an entire scene. Ghostly International is thrilled to reissue the album, remastered by Heba Kadry, including 7 bonus tracks exclusive to the digital album and CD. The limited edition 2xLP includes extensive liner notes by Chris Madak (Bee Mask).

Die norwegischen Avantgarde-Black-Metal-Pioniere und -Innovatoren BORKNAGAR veröffentlichen eine Sonderedition ihres 8. Studioalbums aus dem Jahr 2010, "Universal", das weltweit zum ersten Mal über den langjährigen Labelpartner der Band, Century Media Records, veröffentlicht wird. Das Album, das in der illustren Besetzung von Mastermind Øystein G. Brun (Gitarre), Andreas "Vintersorg" Hedlund (Gesang), Lars "Lazare" Nedland (Keyboard, Backing Vocals), Jens F. Ryland (Gitarre), Jan Erik Tiwaz (Bass) und David Kinkade (Schlagzeug) erschienen ist, enthält alle 10 Tracks der Albumsession, die von Dan Swanö / Unisound (Opeth, Katatonia, Dissection, Asphyx, etc.) neu gemastert wurden. "Universal (Re-issue 2023)" wird als Jewelcase CD, Digitales Album und als transparente sonnengelbe 180g 2LP im Gatefold-Cover erhältlich sein. Haltet Ausschau nach weiteren BORKNAGAR Frontline-Aktivitäten und Live-Auftritten, die bald angekündigt werden...

In 2023, Kurt Vile is making numbers count. Just last month, Matador Records presented the iconic Philadelphia songwriter with a (vegan) cheesesteak trophy to commemorate the 100-millionth stream of "Pretty Pimpin" on Spotify. Today, though, we"d like to draw your attention to another significant KV digit: The 10th anniversary of his fifth full-length and first 2xLP, "Wakin on a Pretty Daze" (2013). To celebrate this milestone, we"ve brought the record back as a blue + yellow vinyl split available via KV and Matador webstores. This limited pressing will also include a reproduction of the "make your own cover" ESPO sticker sheet that accompanied the original 2013 special-edition. A yellow vinyl version of the record will be made available everywhere. Where previous albums alternated between gorgeous fingerpicking and heavy guitar workouts, "Wakin" blended the two into dreamy and expansive songs that frequently stretched well out beyond the five-minute mark. Back then we said: "It"s a record that would have sounded great 30 years ago, sounds great today, and will still sound great 30 years from now." Ten years down the line, we"re still confident that "Wakin" will deliver the goods - yesterday, today, and in 2043. The reissue serves as the latest entry in Matador Records" Revisionist History series, our ongoing campaign to jog the record-buying (and streaming!) public"s memory about our many catalog items now poised to celebrate a significant anniversary. Matador will mark these anniversaries with new reissues and re-pressings. So far, the Revisionist History class of 2023 has highlighted Bettie Serveert"s Palomine and Lucy Dacus"s Historian.

Unhuman & Petra Flurr is the collaborative synthpunk-technoid project of BITE label stalwart, Berlin-based Greek artist Unhuman and legendary queer wave figure Petra Flurr. 'Mala Vida' is their debut album on BITE that further evolves their sound beyond genre borders. The duo deliver an 8-track LP consisting of punk body music exhibiting the team's mastery on production, their androgynous vision and diverse influences. Petra Flurr's staggered, often effected, vocals cruise over pounding beats, bold iconic hooks and psychedelic atmospheres. His lyrics reference the seedy underbelly of Berlin's sex underground. Meanwhile, Unhuman's productions broadly range from the post-punk references of 'Labyrinth' to the new beat grooves of 'Short Life' featuring Ukrainian duo Garden Krist to the melodic orchestrations of 'Rush'. All this is reinterpreted by techno duo New Frames on a digital remix of 'Unzivilisiert'. 'Mala Vida' is a direct inspiration from their debut performance at Berghain for last year's BITE label night. After which, they swiftly retreated to the studio to compose, still in their platform heels. The two paint a coat of neon red over their preexisting batcave of sound. While the artwork by Liam Noonan compliments the gender fluidness of the album, distorting and digitally manipulating images of the creators themselves. Using heavy rhythmics, wavy mandates, an androgynous stare and unavoidable sexuality, Unhuman & Petra Flurr introduce us to their culled brand of queer death techno. Always with a wink.

The sublime music of Kaoro Inoue is the subject of this essential new compilation on Mysticisms. Inoue describes himself as an "extreme music lover" and has been for more than 30 years. His Chari Chari alias is all about self-expression and the music here has previously only been available digitally. It fuses ambient, house and techno soundscapes across four sides of vinyl with a deeply spiritual outlook and soul-soothing sound. Organic percussion, traditional instruments and new age moods all colour the deeply enticing grooves.

Sababa 5, Tel Aviv’s funkiest export, upgrade their signature Middle Eastern psychedelic funk with the addition of Hoodna Orchestra’s dynamic brass section, another essential 45 from Batov Records’ Middle Eastern Groove series.

Labeled by the likes of Truth & Lies as a “serious contender in the world of instrumental funk”, Sababa 5 have created a modern sound, fusing funk, disco, and psychedelic rock with a wide range of Middle Eastern influences, culminating in last year’s acclaimed self-titled debut album, Named after their new studio address on the border of Jaffa and Tel Aviv, “Eilat 22” & “Elifelet 23” spring from the same sessions that delivered us the enormous ‘Funk #1 / Funk #2’ 45, as championed by the Nostalgia King, Skeme Richards, BBC Radio 6 Music host, Huey Morgan, and influential music portal, Music Is My Sanctuary.

Sababa 5’s tight-as-ever instrumental grooves are enriched by the bright bass sounds of The Hoodna Orchestra brass section, comprising Bar Ashkenazi on trumpet, Eylon Tushiner on tenor, and Elad Gelert on baritone saxophone. Hoodna are renown for their energetic take on Afrobeat, and have been touring and recording recently with Ethio jazz legend Mulatu Astatke, and here they supply a touch of JB’s meets Africa ‘70 energy.


On the flip “Eiffelet 23” grooves along like a Dap Kings funk nugget, except in this case there’s room for Eitan to improvise across the jam with a microtonal organ sound reminiscent of legendary Egyptian musician Magdi el- Husseini.
Due for full release on vinyl and digital on 2 June, “Eilat 22” & “Elifelet 23” open another page in Sababa 5’s rapidly diverse and ever-engaging discography, with two songs destined to head light up dancefloors over the coming months.

Austudy Records is proud to present the debut vinyl release from the Andrew Gurruwiwi Band with their modern-classic slice of Yolngnu-Funk 'Gatjumak'. Originally released digitally last year with an accompanying video clip 'Gatjumak' captures the unique dance sound and energy of East Arnhem Land's deadliest recent export at their funkiest and is presented on 7" vinyl with an unreleased, poly-rhythmic remix from Brisbane producers Walrii and RU! of the Dank Morass/Dub Temple crews.

Neurotwin is a Trilogy:

Part I
In the fight against Alzheimer's, epilepsy, schizophrenia and other diseases characterized by an imbalance in neuronal activity, there are chemical weapons, such as those that try to prevent the protein fragments known as beta-amyloid plaques from developing in the cerebral cortex , and physical, such as electrical stimulation that allow to restore the functionality of brain cells. This last resort, which has already been shown to be effective in modifying the activity of the cerebral cortex, is today a weapon of general intervention. Converting it to precision requires the development of individualized and predictive brain models that allow identifying where and how much to stimulate each patient. To achieve this, an international European team is working on the creation of virtual replicas of the most unknown organ in the body: the Neurotwin project.

According to recent research, the decrease in power in the neuronal oscillations of the gamma band of the cerebral cortex (a pattern whose frequency ranges between 20 and 50 Hertz) favors the development of protein fragments related to Alzheimer's.

Transcranial application of weak electrical currents has proven to be an effective and painless way to modulate brain activity without side effects.

The objective is to create complete computational models of the brain with real data of living beings (human patients) and that allow to anticipate and specify the effects of non-invasive stimulation techniques on neurological mechanisms.

"Never turn your back on a friend."
- Alfred Hitchcock

Part II
The Neurotwin project is the successor to an initiative that encompasses many projects called Virtual Physiological Human, which was based on the idea of creating a complete model of a human being on a computer, to perform non-invasive tests at the computational level. Now the concept has been derived to "Digital Twin", which seeks not only to have an equal computational model for everyone, but to create "twin" digital models of each patient in order to be able to make personalized medicine from the genome of each individual. Specifically, in our project, we have focused on digital twin brains, which would be representations of patient brains created from data extracted with current neuroimaging and brain activity monitoring techniques.

"Mirrors are used to see the face, Art to see the soul."
- George Bernard Shaw

Part III
A digital twin is a computer system programmed in such a way that, receiving the same inputs as the physical object or process it is a twin of, it provides the same outputs.

Characteristics of digital twin technology
1 Connectivity
2 Homogenization
3 Reprogrammable and intelligent
4 Digital traces

"There is no light without shadows and no fullness of mind without imperfections. Life requires for its realization, not perfection, but fullness. Without imperfection, there is no progress or growth."
- Carl Gustav Young