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"As Bill Orcutt’s most mature and exhilarating LP to date, Music for Four Guitars was a slab of undeniable Apollonian beauty. Its approachability and obvious novelty landed it not only on the year- end lists of every key-pushing codger in the underground in 2022, but also on NPR in the form of the Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet, an ensemble assembled to perform this music and featuring Wendy Eisenberg, Ava Mendoza, and Shane Parish in addition to Orcutt. But while their Tiny Desk Concert gave a whiff of the quartet’s easy intimacy, the sterile confines of the virtual recital medium still left a puzzle unsolved: how might these brutally mannered bricks of minimalist counterpoint sound on a stage in front of actual breathing bodies?" "This was the question foremost in my mind when I first saw the quartet in San Francisco a few months before this double live LP was recorded. I was already familiar with the prowess of Eisenberg and Mendoza, two of the most technically intimidating shredders to blast out of the noise/improv underground, and knew Parish as the mastermind behind the epic translation of Orcutt's quartet recordings into a fully notated score. I was ready to be 'blown away'—and I most assuredly was. The quartet navigated Orcutt's jaggedly spiraling right angles into the shining core of the compositions with joyous ease, faithful to the originals in nearly every way (though their tempos were slightly ramped up, Blakey style, to communicate their breathless rush). The renditions were flawless, stellar and inspiring. I had expected nothing less." "Which leads us to this album, Four Guitars Live, recorded in November of 2023 at Le Guess Who? festival during the quartet’s first European tour. The true essence of this set is not simply in its faithfulness to the source compositions, but in the group's easy familiarity (no doubt the result of weeks on the road) and the generosity of their improvisations, both collective and solo. Orcutt, clearly cognizant of both the caliber of his collaborators and the singularity of their voices, has given everyone room to stretch out, and all have delivered some of their most moving passages to date." "One of this record's great thrills for me is imagining a listener, perhaps unfamiliar with the outer limits of contemporary guitar improvisation (or the Tzadik catalog), slammed into catatonia by Mendoza's liquefying lines on Out of the corner of the eye, then revived and healed by the languid, breathy lines of Parish's unaccompanied, spaced-out breakdown of the track's main theme, finally only to be crushed by Eisenberg’s staggering extended solo on Only at dusk (somehow channeling both Eugene Chadbourne and Buck Dharma)." "There's another peak, which begins at the end of side B, in Orcutt's own languid solo, encapsulating the flowing focus of his recent solo LPs, and serving as an introduction to the next side's ensemble tour de force, the psychic heart of the album, On the horizon: its melodic core passing first to Orcutt, launching into a sublime solo turn by Eisenberg, a duo of Parish and Mendoza, before parachuting back into the ensemble for a smashup rendition of Barely visible and Glimpsed while driving (renamed Barely driving) knitted together with an softly bubbling ensemble improvisation. The transfer is orchestrated yet seamless, its tonal form undeniable even in the presence of obvious dissonance." "The breadth of Four Guitars Live gives lie to the false notion that agile, polytonal improv is necessarily without soul, is necessarily inaccessible. Rather, Four Guitars posits a human avant-garde music that the most conservative will recognize as virtuosic and revel in its classic intervals, boiling counterpoint, and precisely- layered facets. Even the rockers in your life might dig it, so why not pass it on?"—Tom Carter

The third album by RICO FRIEBE is a clearance, an outcry, an universe within itself, a hope and a message at once – sending out ANTHEMS FOR A LOST GENERATION!

After his preceding albums of intimacy WORD VALUE and FACES MEET, based on personal tragedies and the accompanying struggles, RICO FRIEBE has something to tell to a whole generation and delivers ten radiant and distinct top-notch productions that find a most modern and futuristic sound within different styles of pop music while his soft and emotive voice is hovering above all.

Originally, ANTHEMS FOR A LOST GENERATION has been recorded as an acoustic double-album, but RICO FRIEBE threw it all out, wrote new songs and found a truly more fitting sound after he realised that there could only be one musical outcome to tell these stories: Songs like BAD SEED, I LIKE MEMES, REDO, GAMES or LAZY, BORED AND SAD are milestones of capturing a complete zeitgeist and beyond. Each line within the lyrics is taken from close and personal experiences and interactions that made him undergo a whole spectrum of emotions, creating deep worries and sadness, but also a far hope.

Feel lost? Be found! With ANTHEMS OF A LOST GENERATION...

Audiophile reviews rave about saxophone master John Coltrane's immortal Impulse! records, A Love Supreme (1964) and Ballads (1963). Ballads is an album that will never go out of style and never be unwelcome on any jazz lover's turntable.

You're about to experience Ballads at its peak of vinyl perfection — in UHQR format on Clarity Vinyl, with the added bonus of a double 45 RPM cut by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound. Ryan's cut has his characteristic clarity and transparency all set against Quality Record Pressing's usual noiseless backgrounds on 200-gram flawless records. Each UHQR will be packaged in a deluxe box and will include a booklet detailing the entire process of making a UHQR along with a hand-signed certificate of inspection. This will be a truly deluxe, collectible product.

For this 45 RPM 2LP edition you'll also receive a !2" x 12" 12-page booklet featuring liner notes by Ashley Kahn and recording session images by Jim Marshall.

The intense passionate Coltrane interpretation of standards such as "All Or Nothing At All," "What's New," "It's Easy To Remember" and the Sinatra classic "Nancy (With The Laughing Face)" are the essence of Ballads. When asked why attempt such an undertaking, Coltrane replied "Variety."

While it may have been a short detour by Trane before he exploded off into the nether regions of jazz music a few years later, it is still a fantastic document of one of the premier jazz groups of the 1960s.

Recorded December 21, 1961 and September 18 & November 13, 1962 at Rudy Van Gelder Studios.

"It's impossible to sleepwalk through tracks like "You Don't Know What Love Is" and "I Wish I Knew" and impart them with even a fraction of the emotional heft that the Quartet achieves. This is the type of jazz album in which the music just washes over the listener with it's restrained grace and beauty, and while it may not have the adventurousness that some listeners think Trane should have had each and every time he recorded, I'd say it shows off a side of him that only makes us appreciate his more bold and daring albums even more." — The Jazz Record

One of Europe's most popular alternative / dark wave bands. Lebanon Hanover have over one million monthly listeners on Spotify. Following their first US tour in over a decade, Lebanon Hanover returns with a soul-stirring double A-side single release, marking their first new material since the captivating 2020 album, 'Sci-Fi Sky.' Now, the enigmatic duo of William Maybelline and Larissa Iceglass beckons listeners into unventured sonic domains, intricately weaving folk-driven acoustic dream pop with the vulnerable essence of post-punk in a contemplative exploration of life's ephemeral yet profound nature. Embarking on a Cure-like sonic voyage reminiscent of the 'Head on the Door' and the 'Kiss Me' era, title track 'Better Than Going Under' manifests as a romantic, sombre daydream. William Maybelline's brooding baritone intertwines with sighing back vocals, narrating an ode to life's fleeting yet boundless vistas. The acoustic strums initiate a folk-driven narrative which, when coupled with a celestial choir, crafts a contemplative soundscape of cautious optimism, reminiscent of Echo and the Bunnymen or The Church.. KYIV: Bearing the name of Ukraine's capital, 'KYIV,' voiced by Larissa Iceglass, delves into a narrative reflective of the sorrow and despair entwined within war-torn regions like Ukraine and beyond. The acoustic guitar and drum machine create a Cocteau Twins' 'Treasure'-esque soundscape, evoking a melancholic yet beautiful auditory journey. Iceglass's voice, transitioning from her husky baritone to a more resigned lament, embodies a poignant reflection on the harsh realities faced by those embroiled in conflict-ridden landscap

Penelope Scott is a songwriter and producer who absorbs the mania and magnificence of Gen Z life in her expansive, entrancing, and extreme musical vision equally steeped in tender acoustic balladry and hyperpop paroxysms. Gathering hundreds of millions of streams and receiving widespread acclaim from Billboard and more, she showcases both sides of her sound on the 2023

double-EP, Girls Night and Mysteries for Rats.. “When I was making the project, I realized there was a split down the middle,” she reveals. “Half of the songs are in the more acoustic folky style, and the other half are computerized synth sounds. So, I decided to do multiple EPs. It gives people different options and flavors already sorted out for them.” Penelope explores every facet of who she is on the double-EP and appeals to a myriad of emotions in the process as just “a singer-songwriter, aspiring music software knower.”

PHILIPP ROLLER produced his album, "Sommer 97," back in 1996 during his student days in his small home studio. Drawing inspiration from acts like Kraftwerk, Orbital, various artists on Warp Records, and computer game music, Roller crafted a unique sonic experience. Initially released on cassette, the album was unveiled to an intimate audience at Künstlerhaus Stuttgart in February 1997. Following the initial release, Roller had the opportunity to sign with a small British label. Unfortunately, circumstances led to the label's dissolution before the record could see the light of day. Despite efforts to secure a new label, "Sommer 97" remained confined to DAT tapes and hard drives for years. Fast forward to 2020 when Michael Kübler and Daniel Varga (Rework) joined forces to establish EXLOVE Records. Recognizing the album's potential, they decided to bring "Sommer 97" out of obscurity and into the world. Philipp Roller, now residing in Berlin and working as a freelance interface designer for music software, has had an illustrious past creating a lot of music not only on his own but even for fashion shows, art and image films, and contributing ideas to Rework's debut track "Anyway I Know You" on Playhouse. In August 2021, Roller released his first single, "Kiss & Tell / Roller Disco," on Exlove Records. Finally, after a remarkable 26-year journey, Roller's legendary "Sommer 97" tape is set to be released as a double album on vinyl.

This past year marked the 25th Anniversary of Big Pun's debut Capital Punishment. Big Pun was truly larger than life and sadly passed away at the age of 28, only two months before the release of his sophomore studio album Yeeeah Baby. Yeeeah Baby was released on April 4, 2000, excecutive produced by Fat Joe and a roster of producers including Just Blaze, L.E.S., Buckwild, Younglord, and Sean C among others. The album which would be Big Pun's final release was certifed Gold after three months off the strength of the first two singles "It's So Hard" and "100%" and eventually certified Platinum. Get On Down is proud to present and honor the legacy of Big Pun with a limited edition vinyl reissue pressed on double A-Side/B-Side colored vinyl and stamped numbered OBI limited to 2000 copies.

Analogue Productions (Atlantic 75 Series)
Celebrating the 75th Anniversary of Atlantic Records!
Hello, I Must Be Going! — Phil Collins' second solo studio album
Featuring "You Can't Hurry Love" and "I Cannot Believe It's True"
180-gram 45 RPM double LP release
Mastered by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering and cut to lacquer from a 1/4" EQ'd Dolby tape copy of the original master tape
Pressed at Quality Record Pressings and RTI
Tip-on old style gatefold double pocket jackets with film lamination by Stoughton Printing



On his first solo album, 1981's Face Value, Genesis drummer-singer Phil Collins showed that he wasn't about to be left behind in the mire of classical-rock sludge. That LP boasted shorter songs and demonstrated that Collins had a true pop sensibility. Hello, I Must Be Going! continues that trend, with some familiar patterns emerging, wrote Rolling Stone's John Milward.

"First, there are the dramatic rock dirges that use drums as a lead instrument; 'I Don't Care Anymore,' with Collins' one-man band playing alongside Daryl Stuermer's atmospheric guitars, wins in this category. Then there are the buttery ballads, of which "Don't Let Him Steal Your Heart Away" is the best by virtue of a Beatles-like melody that buoys Collins' anonymously sweet voice. Both of these styles were already Genesis staples; it was Collins' uptempo soul tunes on Face Value and Genesis' Abacab that surprised old fans and found new ones. 'I Cannot Believe It's True,' with Earth, Wind and Fire's Phoenix Horns casting out clean lines, clobbers the other soul contenders on Hello, I Must Be Going!, especially his remake of the Supremes' 'You Can't Hurry Love.' Collins took the golden-oldie route on that song and the result isn't soulful, it's superfluous. Despite its trend-bucking boast of an 8-track recording, the album's rich luster is of the old classical-rock school. In fact, the LP sounds like stripped-down Genesis, ornamental but not too ostentatious. — John Milward, Rolling Stone (3 Stars)."

This Analogue Productions (Atlantic Series) reissue of Hello, I Must Be Going! has the essential elements that make it a standout for your collection. First, we turned to Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering to cut lacquers from a 1/4" EQ'd Dolby tape copy of the original master. Pressing on 180-gram vinyl is by Quality Record Pressings and RTI, and the album is housed in tip-on old style gatefold double pocket jackets with film lamination by Stoughton Printing.

Hello, I Must Be Going! was a triple-platinum-selling hit in the U.S. for Collins in the 1980s and it stayed on the U.K. album charts for more than a year, peaking at No. 2. For the fans it is a drummer's album, a record that expresses rage and desperation as well as loneliness and longing. Not an album for every day, but one that really speaks to you when you need it, wrote Martin Klinkhardt, in a review for genesis

Me Neither is a 29 track double album of instrumental guitar music. While juggling a number of other projects James Elkington began writing "music for which there was no purpose." It became a new way of working for him - waking up each morning and improvising and recording the first thing that came into his head. "The only rules I gave myself were that I should make most of the sounds with a guitar, changing the speed or processing the recordings afterwards to get the effect I was looking for." Before long he had an albums worth of material. About mid-way through the second album Elkington had a liberating thought: he was making his own version of library music "if you're writing library music, you don't have to know what it's for - that can be someone else's job."

Renowned Berlin-based music discovery platform COLORSxSTUDIOS will release their new vinyl compilation album, ‘MOVE:FEEL1’, just in time for the holidays.

The limited-edition double disc gatefold vinyl will feature 16 beloved A COLORS SHOW tracks, both recent and from the archive, including London-based rapper Kwengface’s ‘Freedom’ that was released earlier this year, critically-acclaimed Malian artist Fatoumata Diawara’s ‘Nterini’ from 2019, and Dominican-Italian star YEИDRY’s breakout 2020 hit ‘Nena’.

The album is truly international—it will feature songs sung in six different languages (including English, Swedish, German, Bambara, French, Vietnamese, and Spanish) and represent artists from 15 different countries across the world.

‘MOVE:FEEL1’ reflects and celebrates the launch of COLORS’ new ‘MOVE’ and ‘FEEL’ playlists that are now available across all DSPs. Updated monthly, these playlists will curate COLORS’ genre fluid output into cohesive listening experiences that cater for varying emotional states.

The songs on the ‘MOVE’ playlist—and hence on the ‘MOVE’ sides of the vinyl—are uptempo, bold, sexy and energetic, and aim to set the tone for daring and unapologetic enjoyment. In contrast, the tracks on the ‘FEEL’ playlist and discs are downtempo and emotive. They are for relaxation, and to help listeners contemplate their internal and external environments

Designed by COLORS’ in-house creative team, the vinyl cover is mirrored, meaning its appearance adapts depending on the light and colors it reflects. This was an important decision to ensure the cover represents all of the featured artists, who all performed their A COLORS SHOWS against different colored backdrops. The mirrored material also enables the audience to literally (and hopefully metaphorically) see themselves in the album.

Each side of the mirrored cover is adorned differently: while the “MOVE” side features embossed lines, stripes and slashes indicative of motion, the more introverted “FEEL” side is debossed with goosebump-like grooves. Even with their eyes closed, people will be able to feel which side of the album is which, adding an extra sensory layer to the listening experience.
MOVE:FEEL1’s design also prioritizes sustainability, using no single-use plastics for its packaging.

A sonic snapshot of America's steel capital, developed in the prosperous cavern between the departure of the Jackson 5 to Motown and the collapse of U.S. Steel, Skyway Soul is a love letter to Gary, Indiana. Featuring The New Day, El Anthony, Nate Evans, Sky's The Limit, Wilton Crump, Lost Weekend, General Lee, Krash Band, Billy Foster & Audio, I.N.D., and Junei, this double album collects 21 lost songs from the southern-most tip of Lake Michigan. Housed in a deluxe tip-on gatefold jacket, with a 16-page booklet crammed with photos, ephemera, and an indepth essay from Jake Austen, Skyway Soul connects the dots between The Spaniels, Michael Jackson, and Freddie Gibbs. Don't forget to pay the toll

A sonic snapshot of America's steel capital, developed in the prosperous cavern between the departure of the Jackson 5 to Motown and the collapse of U.S. Steel, Skyway Soul is a love letter to Gary, Indiana. Featuring The New Day, El Anthony, Nate Evans, Sky's The Limit, Wilton Crump, Lost Weekend, General Lee, Krash Band, Billy Foster & Audio, I.N.D., and Junei, this double album collects 21 lost songs from the southern-most tip of Lake Michigan. Housed in a deluxe tip-on gatefold jacket, with a 16-page booklet crammed with photos, ephemera, and an indepth essay from Jake Austen, Skyway Soul connects the dots between The Spaniels, Michael Jackson, and Freddie Gibbs. Don't forget to pay the toll

Renowned for his effective ability to de-wrinkle even the stiffest of faces in a crowd, Pat Kalla is recognised as a natural propagator of potent and highly positive vibrations Alongside his faithful band The Super Mojo, they now reveal their new and unsuspecting powerhouse of an album 'Belle Terre'. * The return of PAT KALLA & LE SUPER MOJO, with an album that mixes AFROGROOVE & CHANSON FRANCAISE, PRODUCED BY GUTS ! * PAT KALLA, the successful voice of VOILAAA, a well-established name on the French groove and tropical scene * A true " SUPERVITAMINE" album, a real remedy to the ambient gloom! * Prestigious French Featuring: Bonbon Vodou (Heavenly Sweetness), Dowdelin (Underdog Records), Kolinga... * Deluxe packaging: Gatefold Double Vinyl (printed sleeves) and digipack CD

On his album NEGRO DELUXE Siifu trades in soulful rap for punk, fueled by the Black experience in America followed by spiritual jazz and poetry. A beautiful chaotic collage of sounds that reflect the black man’s thoughts on the day-to-day. It doesn’t take long to reach the heart of NEGRO, Pink Siifu’s new album. It’s an aggressive collection of hardcore punk and free jazz, with bold lyrics that encourage shooting back at trigger-happy law enforcement. This album profoundly communicated the anger of an African-American community beset by police violence a month before the murder of George Floyd lit the streets on fire. In April 2021, he revisited the project with NEGRO DELUXE, which doubled the length of the original.

Pink Siifu tells Bomb Magazine “after we were done mastering and mixing, Zeroh was like, “Yo, NEGRO is like fire, and NEGRO DELUXE is like smoke….So I would characterize NEGRO DELUXE as, like, after you’re angry, after you’ve punched a wall, after you beat somebody up, whatever, how do I channel that into something else? How do I just let it go? I feel like NEGRO DELUXE is that, for real, in a nutshell. It’s like the chaos calmed down after all the fire’s gone and the smoke is in the air.”

It isn’t anything like ensley, Siifu’s breakthrough 2018 LP. Where that record used mid-tempo soul and hip-hop to score his upbringing, NEGRO is a riotous mix calling for Black revolution. It’s also the most fearless project in his growing discography. NEGRO harkens back to 1992, to Ice-T’s thrash metal band Body Count, song “Cop Killer”.

This album is meant to remind us of Rodney King, Racist Cops, The Black Panther Party, and Christopher Dorner, the ex-L.A. police officer who, in 2013, went on a violent shooting spree against his former colleagues and their family members due to seeing his own policeman violate the people there supposed to be protecting. “It’s about America, It’s about the trauma that comes from the flag. It’s about understanding that it’s okay to be angry.”

In the album, originally titled ‘To Be Angry’, Siifu started crafting NEGRO after listening to old Afrocentric jazz and watching clips of novelist and poet Amiri Baraka and civil rights activist Stokely Carmichael, reading Sun Ra’s sci-fi poetry book, The Planet Is Doomed, and started studying Bad Brains, June Tyson, Death, Ras G, and many others.

New one-off press limited edition silver coloured double vinyl edition of Soul Jazz Records long unavailable 'Jamaica Soul Shake' collection of tracks from The Sound Dimension, probably the funkiest reggae groups to ever to exist on the planet! Features classic tracks recorded at Studio One.

This is the first ever collection of the music of The Sound Dimension - a mixture of classic tracks alongside super-rare singles only ever released in Jamaica. Alongside The Skatalites, The Sound Dimension were perhaps the most important group in the history of reggae music. That they remain relatively unknown is explained by the fact that they mostly functioned as the in-house studio group at Studio One Records performing anonymously behind the stars of the day - the reggae equivalent of Motown’s Funk Brothers.

'Debut album from the 2006 X-Factor winner. The album is a mixture of pop ballads and soulful R&B tracks and includes her first single 'A Moment Like This', the international hit single 'Bleeding Love' and 'Better in Time'. A double, Gold coloured LP Vinyl package. Promo & marketing activity.

Mit einem Engelsgesicht und einer Stimme mit vier Oktaven Umfang ausgestattet, eroberte sich die Siegerin der britischen Erfolgs-TV-Show "The X-Factor" innerhalb von nur zwei Jahren ihren Spitzenplatz im Pop-Olymp. Sowohl ihre Debütsingle "Bleeding Love" als auch ihr erstes Album "Spirit" erreichten Platz eins der Schweizer Charts. Jetzt gibt es die Deluxe Edition mit DVD und drei neuen Songs (incl. "Run" und "Forgive Me")

Rico Friebe is back with the album "Faces Meet" after his recent debut "Word Value" and delivers his personal "deer in the headlight"-moment. What once appeared sparely uncertain and questioning, equalling the fragile try to overcome a state of darkness and forsakenness, now forms into a frenzy of confrontational flashes on "Faces Meet".

Like reflecting on the uncertainties presented on "Word Value", "Faces Meet" reveals some genuinely harrowing findings, creating a wholesome musical moment in time that might never happen like this again.
Besides the uncompromising statements as to find in the opener "Look At Me", refined perceptions in "Nowhere To Run" or "Fifty-One", open-hearted calls in "Do More" and "Let Go", Rico's pivotal confrontation with the irrevocable truth and emotional dissection peaks in his heartbreaking story on "The Best Talk" which marks the crucial lynchpin of the whole album.

Like faces (and therefore people) are constantly meeting everywhere, being faced with the decision how honest and open to meet at all, "Faces Meet" happens to be an even more involved metaphor about surrendering to your true inner self in a mirror-like situation.
Deeply rooted in the seeds of his debut album "Word Value", Rico follows a highly natural and severely plain musical language while implementing new and further ideas and elements throughout his sonic landscape.

"Faces Meet" is an album of insight and self-awareness and the inevitably necessary foundation for his third double LP and magnum opus "Anthems For A Lost Generation" (set to be released in Spring 2024), accelerating a lately unstoppable story into unforeseeable pathways.

Rico Friebe is back with the album "Faces Meet" after his recent debut "Word Value" and delivers his personal "deer in the headlight"-moment. What once appeared sparely uncertain and questioning, equalling the fragile try to overcome a state of darkness and forsakenness, now forms into a frenzy of confrontational flashes on "Faces Meet".

Like reflecting on the uncertainties presented on "Word Value", "Faces Meet" reveals some genuinely harrowing findings, creating a wholesome musical moment in time that might never happen like this again.
Besides the uncompromising statements as to find in the opener "Look At Me", refined perceptions in "Nowhere To Run" or "Fifty-One", open-hearted calls in "Do More" and "Let Go", Rico's pivotal confrontation with the irrevocable truth and emotional dissection peaks in his heartbreaking story on "The Best Talk" which marks the crucial lynchpin of the whole album.

Like faces (and therefore people) are constantly meeting everywhere, being faced with the decision how honest and open to meet at all, "Faces Meet" happens to be an even more involved metaphor about surrendering to your true inner self in a mirror-like situation.
Deeply rooted in the seeds of his debut album "Word Value", Rico follows a highly natural and severely plain musical language while implementing new and further ideas and elements throughout his sonic landscape.

"Faces Meet" is an album of insight and self-awareness and the inevitably necessary foundation for his third double LP and magnum opus "Anthems For A Lost Generation" (set to be released in Spring 2024), accelerating a lately unstoppable story into unforeseeable pathways.

Rico Friebe is back with the album "Faces Meet" after his recent debut "Word Value" and delivers his personal "deer in the headlight"-moment. What once appeared sparely uncertain and questioning, equalling the fragile try to overcome a state of darkness and forsakenness, now forms into a frenzy of confrontational flashes on "Faces Meet".

Like reflecting on the uncertainties presented on "Word Value", "Faces Meet" reveals some genuinely harrowing findings, creating a wholesome musical moment in time that might never happen like this again.
Besides the uncompromising statements as to find in the opener "Look At Me", refined perceptions in "Nowhere To Run" or "Fifty-One", open-hearted calls in "Do More" and "Let Go", Rico's pivotal confrontation with the irrevocable truth and emotional dissection peaks in his heartbreaking story on "The Best Talk" which marks the crucial lynchpin of the whole album.

Like faces (and therefore people) are constantly meeting everywhere, being faced with the decision how honest and open to meet at all, "Faces Meet" happens to be an even more involved metaphor about surrendering to your true inner self in a mirror-like situation.
Deeply rooted in the seeds of his debut album "Word Value", Rico follows a highly natural and severely plain musical language while implementing new and further ideas and elements throughout his sonic landscape.

"Faces Meet" is an album of insight and self-awareness and the inevitably necessary foundation for his third double LP and magnum opus "Anthems For A Lost Generation" (set to be released in Spring 2024), accelerating a lately unstoppable story into unforeseeable pathways.

The Chills reissue their celebrated early singles compilation, this 24-track expanded version of Kaleidoscope World gathers together tracks from the ‘Dunedin Double’ compilation, live recordings, Doledrums’ single and the band’s seminal ‘Pink Frost’. The collection also contains ‘The Lost EP’, with early takes on their groundbreaking ‘Submarine Bells’ album, alongside the aching ‘I Love My Leather Jacket’, perfectly illustrating the rollercoaster ride of Martin Phillipps and The Chills as portrayed in the award film The Triumph And The Tragedy Of Martin Phillipps. “Singer/guitarist Martin Phillipps’ group was at the forefront of the extraordinary little guitar-pop scene in New Zealand in the early ’80s.. Kaleidoscope World is the major document of their early era.” Pitchfork. Part of the 80’s extraordinarily vibrant and innovative independent music scene in New Zealand, The Chills became flag bearers, taking the Dunedin sound, as championed by the Flying Nun label, to the world. Long recognised as one of New Zealand's most influential bands, Kaleidoscope World is a definitive artifact from Martin Phillipps’ groundbreaking project.

Soul Jazz Records’ Holy Church of the Ecstatic Soul: Gospel, Funk and Soul at the Crossroads 1971-83 draws upon the extensive links between black American gospel music and soul music, showing how the sensibilities of gospel artists such as Shirley Caeser, Dorothy Norwood, Andrae Crouch and others crossed over into secular soul music during this period.

The album was first available as a (sold out) ltd.edn. coloured vinyl for RSD23 and is now available as a black double vinyl + download edition and also for the first time on CD.

Many of the most successful soul artists - from Aretha Franklin to Al Green, The Staple Singers to Sam Cooke - all drew upon their upbringing in the church for their musical inspiration. This album discusses how important the links between the black church and soul music were in creating soul music and spotlights some of the many important (and also little-known) gospel artists who walked this line between sacred music and soul, funk and disco in the 1970s and early 1980s.

Holy Church of the Ecstatic Soul shows how sacred gospel music was at home with Stevie Wonder, Blaxploitation-style funk and produced music celebrated both in New York’s underground discos (The Paradise Garage, Studio 54, etc) and later sampled by the likes of Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg and Mary J Bilge.

Having been deck slaying as near their London headquarters as Germany and as far as Canada, goth techno prodigy Lesser Of is steadily approaching double digit release count. With an established residence at queer x trans focused, revolutionary event series Subverted, their efforts have been welcomed to a formidable list of industrial electronic labels and remixed by a tidy sum of high profile scene icons.

Here at Depth.Request our sonars are attuned to emanant potential, and so we conscript Lesser Of to hammer out our fourth acetate offering to date. To this, harsh noise and drone music inspirations are declared, alongside an artistic secret of the trade: lights-off sessions in live room of a recording studio vibrating with the pulse of a bass guitar ran through a freeze pedal were what begot the tracks, and they are well intent on assaulting your headphones with noise. Reeko on the remix - yes, this record fucks.

Prolonged, ominous intro? Nah. Have a face full of Crude Manifestation Of Power instead, as an insatiable, 10-minute long opener braces your ears for a week of ringing with a sonic equivalent of metallic thrashing one could expect from being a sinful, rave-lusting scoundrel. On title-diverting continuation Within My Fragility the words "strength in fragility" are truly alliterated as the pace, abrasiveness and intensity of pummelling are all ramped up fiercely, with linear open hats thrown against them from time to time for good measure. Having reached 140 BPM and concrete mean, Masked proceeds in a well anticipated ra(n)ge: infernal atmosphere, sandy hats and layered tectonic tremors achieved with increasingly undefined low end consisting of a rumble line and rolling kick morphing into abrasive haze. Winding the tempo back a notch, a halftimearranged contemplation Our Descent grows in direct, hyperborean vector: glassy drones and sharp syncopulsation first - atonal reverberations, distorted arpeggios and punchy stabs endwise. Reeko's analog reinvention of Masked convolves the drum structure by borrowing from breakbeat narratives and authorizes the dystopian ambiance to rise and fall on more gradual, panning, confined terms; adding, however, more disorder to the mix with spectrum slicing, high-range chaos.

As you would have learned to expect from Depth.Request, Within My Fragility EP is not an easy listening five-tracker. If by the end of it you find yourself feeling as if you just stepped out of a pounding warehouse at 3AM and you don't know what day it is, you wouldn't have been experiencing this mindspace alone.

For this album Ghetto Kumbé has enlisted an all-star roster of artists from four different continents, they’ve put together a fresh version of their debut album that’s been specifically geared to the world’s diverse slate of dancefloors, whether at home or in the club, this double 12” 45 RPM is the perfect format to experience this music. There's no denying the power of the drum. It's primal, it cuts across borders and most importantly, it makes you want to move. Ghetto Kumbé don't just understand that they celebrate it, and it's why the tambor was at the heart of the Bogotá-based trio's 2020 self-titled debut album. Rooted in mysticism and the Afro-Caribbean rhythms they'd grown up with all their lives, the critically acclaimed LP thrillingly updated the traditional Latin template, folding in elements of modern hip-hop, house and bass music while also delivering a transportive Afro-futurist vision. On Clubbing Remixes, that vision has been further amplified, as Ghetto Kumbé who were already one of Colombia's most prominent alternative acts have now gone fully global; enlisting an all-star roster of artists from four different continents, they've put together a fresh version of their debut album that's been specifically geared to the world's diverse slate of dancefloors. As the title implies, the new LP is meant for the club, which is why Ghetto Kumbé have turned to Latin music heavyweights like Trooka a multiple Grammy winner whose resume includes work with Lin-Manuel Miranda and Residente and Monte (a.k.a. Bomba Estéreo founder Simón Mejía), along with top-shelf DJs like Nickodemus and Uproot Andy, two NYC artists who've spent decades championing Afro-Latin rhythms. True to the LP's global spirit, the record also includes reworks from batida maestro DJ Firmeza, fellow Afro-Portuguese outfit Studio Bros and Parisian house groovers Les Enfants Sauvages, plus genre-blurring remixes from sonically adventurous Colombians Montoya (himself another ZZK artist) and Cero39. Even the artwork on Clubbing Remixes is a remix, as Ghetto Kumbé have tapped Uganda's Denzel Muhumuza to transform the cover of their debut album into a new, explicitly Afro-futuristic illustration. Depicting a strong Black face and glowing neon fauna beneath a sparkling moonlit sky, the fantastical image speaks to both the ritual magic and Afro-indebted heritage of Ghetto Kumbé's music, and thanks to Clubbing Remixes, the group's passionate, drum-fueled sounds will soon be blasting out of soundsystems around the globe.a

Cypress Hill’s self-titled debut album was hard as nails, with very few pop concessions. There was humor, but it was laced by cackling, homicidal sneering. Not well known outside of the hardcore hip-hop scene at first, faces of the three group members weren’t usually shown clearly in press photos; they preferred the shadows. As their first singles began hitting the airwaves and record racks, the press and music fans started to take notice.


From the opening notes of the group’s first single, “The Phuncky Feel One,” to deeper album cuts like “Stoned Is The Way Of The Walk” and “Tres Equis,” it was clear that Cypress Hill was something different. And very, very dope. The world Cypress Hill espoused was gang-ridden and far from cheery, but they managed to laugh through the pain. Lead rapper B-Real took each fuzzed-out, rock-hard DJ Muggs beat as a challenge, jumping around it like a spark off a joint as it makes its way to the concrete. MC Sen Dog always had B-Real’s back, to bring intensity and a no-bullshit gruffness that made the group both menacing and unpredictable.


When they introduced percussionist Eric Bobo to the mix in the early 90s, it brought new dimension to the band, making their live performances one of the most unique and accomplished shows in hip-hop. Journalist and author Chris Faraone highlights the group’s relationship in the reissue’s liner notes (which is included only in limited edition Skull) saying, “By the late ‘80s the undisputed Cypress unit finally formed. B and Sen realized that their diametric styles - the latter’s deep wrangle, the former’s inimitable high notes - complemented one another righteously. By then Muggs had bangers in the bag, as well as industry experience from a jaunt with the New York duo 7A3. B and Sen waited while Muggs messed with 7A3, and in that time began to build the blueprint for their raucous and weeded no-holds-barred style. Besides getting schooled on industry pitfalls, Muggs had also grown into hip-hop’s most formidable young producer, while straddling the bi-coastal gap.”

Cypress Hill’s debut went gold by the end of 1991 and has since pushed past double platinum status, making it the first album for a Latino-American hip hop group to do so. The album received raves from the likes of Rolling Stone and the Los Angeles Times, saw a #1 Hot Rap Single with the release of “The Phuncky One” and helped the band win Artist Of The Year at the 1992 Source Awards. After 25 years, it should come as no surprise that Cypress Hill is a cornerstone of the group’s live set to this day.

Der aus Seattle stammende Produzent Jeff McIlwain, alias Lusine, kehrt mit seinem 9. Album Long Light zurück und feiert damit sein zwanzigjähriges Bestehen bei Ghostly International. Lusine, der als Einfluss für unzählige elektronische Künstler wie die Londoner Loraine James und andere gilt, ist bekannt für viszerale, kinetisch neugierige Musik, die Techno, Pop und experimentelle Kompositionen miteinander verbindet. In den letzten Jahren hat McIlwain sein Handwerk mit mehr kollaborativer, songorientierter Arbeit in die Höhe getrieben. Long Light" zeigt die durchgehende Linie; seine charakteristischen Looping-Muster und Texturen sind dynamisch und dennoch minimalistisch wie immer. Strukturell geradlinig, straff und hell, strahlt das Material als das direkteste in seinem Katalog, mit Gesangsbeiträgen von Asy Saavedra, Sarah Jaffe und den Sensorimotor-Kollegen Vilja Larjosto und Benoît Pioulard. Lusine hat seinen Sound schon früh gefunden, aber er hat nie aufgehört, an seinem Potenzial zu feilen, geduldig die Ablenkungen zu dekonstruieren und die Rätsel zu lösen. Mit Long Light erreicht ein prozessgeleiteter Künstler ein außergewöhnlich erfreuliches Niveau an Klarheit und Unmittelbarkeit. McIlwain sieht den Titel, der der lyrischen Phrase "long light signaling the fall again" entnommen ist, die Benoît Pioulard für das spätere Titelstück geschrieben hat, als einen Leitfaden, der mehrere Bedeutungen widerspiegelt. "Es gibt diese Art von Paranoia, bei der man nicht weiß, was real ist, es ist ein Zeitalter der großen Angst und es gibt all diese Ablenkungen", erklärt McIlwain. "Es ist wie ein Spiegelkabinett." Dem langen Licht zu folgen ist der einzig wahre Weg, und diese Metapher wendet er auf die Aufnahmen des Albums an, die ebenfalls einen zyklischen Charakter haben, ähnlich wie die Jahreszeiten. Wie der Beginn des Herbstes schließt das Album eine Periode der Kultivierung ab; "Musikmachen ist ein Kampf und man muss eine Menge Geduld haben." Long Light ist der Beweis dafür, dass das, was jenseits des Lärms, am Ende des figurativen Tunnels liegt, all die Arbeit wert ist, die man auf dem Weg dorthin geleistet hat. In der gesamten Sammlung identifiziert McIlwain das zentrale Klangelement, einen Gesangsausschnitt oder eine einfache Beatsequenz, auf dem alles andere aufbaut. Auf dem Opener Come And Go" vervielfältigt er eine Gesangseinlage seiner langjährigen Mitarbeiterin Vilja Larjosto zu einem himmlischen Chor, der an den Sensorimotor-Hit Just A Cloud" erinnert. Es ist die Bass-Hook auf der Single "Zero to Sixty", die sich um die Stimme von Sarah Jaffe windet, deren geschmeidiger Tonumfang und coole Darbietung die Quelle für Lusines unverwechselbares Mapping ist.

Der aus Seattle stammende Produzent Jeff McIlwain, alias Lusine, kehrt mit seinem 9. Album Long Light zurück und feiert damit sein zwanzigjähriges Bestehen bei Ghostly International. Lusine, der als Einfluss für unzählige elektronische Künstler wie die Londoner Loraine James und andere gilt, ist bekannt für viszerale, kinetisch neugierige Musik, die Techno, Pop und experimentelle Kompositionen miteinander verbindet. In den letzten Jahren hat McIlwain sein Handwerk mit mehr kollaborativer, songorientierter Arbeit in die Höhe getrieben. Long Light" zeigt die durchgehende Linie; seine charakteristischen Looping-Muster und Texturen sind dynamisch und dennoch minimalistisch wie immer. Strukturell geradlinig, straff und hell, strahlt das Material als das direkteste in seinem Katalog, mit Gesangsbeiträgen von Asy Saavedra, Sarah Jaffe und den Sensorimotor-Kollegen Vilja Larjosto und Benoît Pioulard. Lusine hat seinen Sound schon früh gefunden, aber er hat nie aufgehört, an seinem Potenzial zu feilen, geduldig die Ablenkungen zu dekonstruieren und die Rätsel zu lösen. Mit Long Light erreicht ein prozessgeleiteter Künstler ein außergewöhnlich erfreuliches Niveau an Klarheit und Unmittelbarkeit. McIlwain sieht den Titel, der der lyrischen Phrase "long light signaling the fall again" entnommen ist, die Benoît Pioulard für das spätere Titelstück geschrieben hat, als einen Leitfaden, der mehrere Bedeutungen widerspiegelt. "Es gibt diese Art von Paranoia, bei der man nicht weiß, was real ist, es ist ein Zeitalter der großen Angst und es gibt all diese Ablenkungen", erklärt McIlwain. "Es ist wie ein Spiegelkabinett." Dem langen Licht zu folgen ist der einzig wahre Weg, und diese Metapher wendet er auf die Aufnahmen des Albums an, die ebenfalls einen zyklischen Charakter haben, ähnlich wie die Jahreszeiten. Wie der Beginn des Herbstes schließt das Album eine Periode der Kultivierung ab; "Musikmachen ist ein Kampf und man muss eine Menge Geduld haben." Long Light ist der Beweis dafür, dass das, was jenseits des Lärms, am Ende des figurativen Tunnels liegt, all die Arbeit wert ist, die man auf dem Weg dorthin geleistet hat. In der gesamten Sammlung identifiziert McIlwain das zentrale Klangelement, einen Gesangsausschnitt oder eine einfache Beatsequenz, auf dem alles andere aufbaut. Auf dem Opener Come And Go" vervielfältigt er eine Gesangseinlage seiner langjährigen Mitarbeiterin Vilja Larjosto zu einem himmlischen Chor, der an den Sensorimotor-Hit Just A Cloud" erinnert. Es ist die Bass-Hook auf der Single "Zero to Sixty", die sich um die Stimme von Sarah Jaffe windet, deren geschmeidiger Tonumfang und coole Darbietung die Quelle für Lusines unverwechselbares Mapping ist.

Voyager Gold Vinyl

On Jupiter, Brooklyn trio Upper Wilds voyage deeper into the cosmos, mapping out the overwhelming enormity of the universe in soaring hooks and blistering noise. The third installment in the trio"s exploration of our solar system looks to its largest planet for a daring exploration of scale and perspective. New York underground mainstay Dan Friel"s melodic gifts and wry lyricism are magnified and propelled ever outwards by the thundering rhythm section of bassist Jason Binnick and drummer Jeff Ottenbacher, all immersed in rippling fuzz. Just like its namesake, Jupiter stands as Upper Wilds most colossal offering in their catalog. The raw power of their music is amplified to titanic proportions, sky-clawing riffs invoking the sheer awe that the heavens inspire. More than any Upper Wilds album before it, Jupiter makes humanity"s endeavors in space exploration an inseparable part of its sonic DNA . Recorded with Travis Harrison at his studio Serious Business in Brooklyn (Guided By Voices, Dope Body, The Men), the trio"s live recordings are inspired by the Voyager Golden Record - a double LP launched with the 1977 Voyager probe spanning field recordings to compositions by J.S. Bach and Laurie Spiegel. While the Voyager Golden Record"s intended audience may have originally been the extra-terrestrial beings that might encounter the probe, Upper Wilds bring cosmos-seeking sounds back to earth with a record made for and about humanity. Jupiter finds comfort in space"s unending expanse. Far from feeling defeated by the smallness of our existence in the face of an uncaring universe and ever-expanding infinite, Upper Wilds capture the power of creativity to extend our lifespans far beyond our limited time on earth

New double LP by new face Mandrake on ever-reliable Bunker. Emotive & gloomy synth-scapes that sound like a score to a movie that never was nor will be.

New double LP by new face Mandrake on ever-reliable Bunker. Emotive & gloomy synth-scapes that sound like a score to a movie that never was nor will be.

RNT welcomes Amy Douglas to their ever-growing lineup of illustrious talent with a double A-side 7" of pulsating, Rough-N-Tumble NYC Disco.

Known to the heads as a voice and pen behind Horse Meat Disco, Roisín Murphy, and as the face of HARD FEELINGS (her project with Hot Chip’s Joe Goddard), Amy’s distinctive vocal swagger and songwriting talent are on full display on this EP. Co-written with and produced by RNT co-honcho JKriv, both tracks are bass heavy instant earworms, and wickedly naughty party starters.

Grab this pair of future modern disco classics, conceived by a pair of experienced dance-floor auteurs.

From Alehouse to Playhouse Bjarte Eike and his barnstorming Barokksolistene capture the vital spark of Restoration London’s entertainment scene with a captivating new recording for Rubicon Classics! The Playhouse Sessions will be released on 23 September 2022 to coincide with Barokksolistene’s concert double-bill at London’s Southbank Centre.

‘A smattering of Purcell, dances from Playford’s Dancing Master, shanties, reels and ballads succumb to a nine-piece ensemble drawing on Baroque, jazz and folk styles for a no holds barred hooley of riotous improvisatory give and take,’ (BBC Music Magazine review of The Alehouse Sessions, August 2019)

London’s musicians, pushed in the 1650s, to the margins of society by order of Oliver Cromwell, found room for new forms of entertainment in city-centre taverns and alehouses. They remained there long after the restoration of the monarchy, performing sets of dances, theatre songs and bawdy ballads to audiences glad to be free from Puritan constraints on pleasure.

Norwegian violinist Bjarte Eike and his Barokksolistene have restored the spirit and substance of those long-forgotten performances with their Alehouse Sessions, hailed by The Times as ‘irresistible’ and ‘fabulously unrestrained’ by The Guardian. Five years ago the Norwegian violinist and his band scored a best-selling album with The Alehouse Sessions on Rubicon Classics. They return to the label with another compelling collection of music and words of the kind on offer more than three centuries ago at Henry Purcell’s favourite Westminster watering holes. The Playhouse Sessions, set for release on Rubicon Classics on 23 September 2022, reflects the uplifting energy and engaging emotional contrasts of Barokksolistene’s Alehouse performances.

“The album contains a sort of inner narrative that runs through the recording,” says Bjarte Eike. “It has become like a play in its own right, with each track being a small tale within a larger story.” The recording’s tracklist includes Eike’s beguiling arrangements of music from Purcell’s semi-opera The Fairy Queen and his own original compositions on words from the play on which it is based, Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream; popular songs and ballads such as ‘The Irish Washerwoman’, ‘I often for my Jenny strove’ and ‘The Three Ravens’; tunes from Purcell’s welcome odes and stage shows, Come ye sons of art and Dido and Aeneas among them; the ‘Willow Song’ from Shakespeare’s Othello; Eike’s own voice in Puck’s monologue from Act 5 of A Midsummer Night’s Dream; and John Dowland’s sublime air ‘Can she excuse my wrongs’.

London’s theatres were closed at the start of the English Civil War in 1642 and remained shut until the Restoration. Alehouses offered redundant musicians, actors and dancers a place to scrape a precarious living and soon became their creative refuge. “Although a few surviving theatres reopened in 1660 with the return of Charles II, there was little money around to rebuild those that had been demolished,” observes Bjarte Eike. “And a generation of musicians had already found an audience in places like the Black Horse in Aldersgate Street. So popular were their alehouse sessions that Cromwell tried to abolish them! But they outlived him and became part of Restoration musical life.” The form of a Barokksolistene Alehouse, he adds, is like a creative room. “Within its framework I can frequently refurbish the show with new contents. The Playhouse project is likewise an extension of the ever-evolving Alehouse Sessions. Together they tell the story of music and theatre in London during Cromwell’s time and after the Restoration. Of course there’s an historical context to what we do. But there’s also the practical context – which is even more important to me – of connecting with a contemporary twenty-first century audience. An Alehouse / Playhouse performance is not something for the museum; it's about music made in the present moment, just as it was in the London alehouses of Purcell’s day -- with their playhouses annexed to the rear of the beer-drinking saloons. The encounter of musicians onstage and the audience in the hall is the real magic of it. We have to fuse the audience into the action of our performance!”

The Playhouse Sessions will be launched on Friday 23 September with a late-night concert at the Purcell Room and a post-concert Alehouse Session in the foyer of the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Soprano Mary Bevan is set to join Eike and his Alehouse Boys for the first half of their Southbank Centre double-bill, offering unique interpretations of songs from Purcell shows and other hits from the late seventeenth-century London stage. “The Southbank Centre is a direct descendant of concerts given in the 1650s in the alehouses of London,” notes Eike. “These alehouses after all staged some of the world’s first public concerts. Later, after the Restoration, it became common for promoters to advertise alehouse concerts in the press and offer subscription tickets. Purcell and his fellow musicians were thus just as at home performing there as they were in the chambers of the royal court or in London’s new theatres.”

Bjarte Eike launched his Alehouse Sessions in company with like-minded musicians 15 years ago. The ensemble comprises a core of regular performers, all of whom have committed to memory a huge setlist of up to four hours of music. Typically they meet a day or so before a concert tour to share a meal and make music together; then next day, re-grouping thirty minutes before the show, they discover Eike’s select-menu for the evening. “That ensures that every show is fresh,” he notes. “I make sure we never repeat the same programme twice. It’s therefore essential to work with people who share my outlook and dare to adventure. We’re into a high-risk sport, with lots of traps and places where the unexpected appears - for good or for ill. And so the audience knows we’re vulnerable. But our skill is seen in how we re-act on the hoof to the unpredictable. That’s authenticity and honesty - and above all it’s a performance that’s genuine.”

Armed with a classical training and a background in folk music and improvisation, Bjarte Eike was drawn naturally to Early Music in all its stylistic variety. “I never really felt at home with only one genre,” he recalls. “Early Music allowed me to study profound, complicated compositions, but performing it has also opened up the chance of rebellion and uproar! Early music offers wide, multi-faceted areas of musical exploration for me. You find, for instance, links to different types of music wherever you look in seventeenth-century English repertoire. And I am fascinated by all these connections. They offer a foundation for the Alehouse Sessions and for all Barokksolistene performance more generally. Every member of the group plays, sings, dances and improvises without limitation. We’re all interested in the many different fields of being a stage performer and pushing hard at the ‘normal’ boundaries of what it means to be a classical musician.”

Ashee’s epic Oxytocin which has been ringing across big rooms across the globe, is finally getting a vinyl only release.

Oxytocin encapsulates everything that keeps the dancefloor going straight on till morning - the rolling bassline and haunting vocals keep you intrigued as the track progresses and builds become increasingly intense, relieved by a punchy and face-melting climax. This track has been getting bodies moving all over with its infectiousness - it truly is a dancefloor weapon and has been road tested by everyone from DJ Tennis, Carlita, Kiimi and many more. On the flip side is Ashee’s pumping rendition of Motomami, another dancefloor weapon exclusive to this vinyl package.

Ashee has already graced labels such as Aus, Life & Death and Circoloco and played live at everywhere from Gotwood to Sonar. Here he delivers an exclusive vinyl only double Aside with floor-filling effect.
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Myriad Path takes us down JUNO's many roads of style, texture, and mercurial sonic (r)evolution, where catchy chaos meets elaborate compositions in the band's trademark uncompromising style. The record is a biting and fiercer sequel to the debut album “Young Star” (Jazzland Recordings, 2020), with the band becoming more conceptual and showing a darker side of JUNO than we have heard before.

The album ranges from dissonant sounds in the face of fierce drum grooves and explosive rap to big, dreamy pop choruses, floating improvisation, and beautiful harmonies. Surrealism, caricatured over-the-top scenarios, vulnerability and inner turmoil create a zig-zag pattern of textual and musical revelation, which integrates the listener into JUNO's multifaceted reality.

On Myriad Path, the band members' individual voices are displayed more clearly than ever before, and the music takes inspiration from, among others, the experimental and progressive Rock in Opposition scene, pop stars Charli XCX and Caroline Polacheck, hip-hop legends such as The Notorious B.I.G. and Kendrick Lamar, as well as the groundbreaking poet and musician Moor Mother.

When JUNO debuted with the single "Mike" in 2020, they were already one of the country's most sought-after live bands, and since their inception they have played over a hundred concerts at festivals and venues across Europe. The band made waves at both By:Larm and Trondheim Calling, and was also selected to represent Norway in the showcase festival Nordic Jazz Comets in 2022. The unusual line-up with two vocalists, tenor saxophone, double bass and drums gives the music an unmistakable and immediately identifiable sound.

The debut album "Young Star" (Jazzland Recordings, 2020) received uniformly excellent reviews from the Norwegian and foreign press. In the same year, they also received the Subjekt award for "Artist of the Year".

A precedent of sorts to, erm, Armand van Helden vs Fatboy Slim’s 1999 bout, ‘The Heavyweight Sound Fight’ takes pride of place among iDEAL’s hall of oddities with one of the zaniest recordings by three international leaders of the avant-garde. Double LP with an LP-sized 12-page booklet designed by Sean McCann of Recital.

Adapting all the pomp and ceremony of a boxing match to ludicrous ends - including a flier depicting each artist with their dukes up - they produced what sounds like a great night out for NYC’s experimental cognoscenti with Charlie Morrow (USA) vs Carles santos (Spain) each backed by a band - Soho Baroque Opera Company with the assistance of the New Wilderness Foundation - while Sweden’s Sten Hanson acts as referee, and Armand Schwerner takes the role of announcer in thick, nasal New York brogue. It’s brilliantly daft and subversive but accomplished in a witty way that maybe escapes too many solemnly po-faced avant-garde conceptualists nowadays, and remains a strange outlier in the history of NYC avant garde and beyond.

“Operating as an aural window into an happening that occurred more than 40 years ago, “The Heavyweight Sound Fight” unveils a different context of experimental music than is not often encountered today. Running across the album’s four sides, within all the seriousness of art and technique, is the unmistakable presence of humor, play, and the absurd. The audience can’t help but laugh and cheer as the announcer - effecting a deep New York accent and nodding toward notable attendees like Allison Knowles, Dick Higgins, and Jackson Mac Low - takes an active role in the fight, each artist delivering an array of vocalizations - from extended technique utterances to rants - against the next, with the bands weighing in and engaging in their own battles, ranging from big band dirges and marches, to outright experimental electronic madness. It’s a trully raucous affair that brings that radicalism carried by its sounds into entirely new zones.

According to Marrow, he was deemed “winner” in an “off-script” move by the judges, and Santos never spoke to him again, continuing the wild and wonderful mystery and humor of the performance into the present day. Who knows what Santos, who sadly passed away in 2017, would say.”

REPRESS

Alessandro Cortini (Nine Inch Nails/How To Destroy Angels) composed the Forse series using a Buchla Music Easel. Forse, meaning "maybe" In Italian, is a series of 3 double LP releases Cortini recorded for Imprec to release in 2013.

"All pieces were written and performed live on a Buchla Music Easel, in the span of one month. I found that the limited array of modules that the instrument offers sparked my creativity. Most pieces consist of a repeating chord progression, where the real change happens at a spectral/dynamic level, as opposed to the harmonic/chordal one. I believe that the former are just as effective as the latter, in the sense that the sonic presentation (distortion , filtering, wave shaping, etc) are just as expressive as a chord change or chord type, and often reinforce said chord progressions.

Of all the years with Nine Inch Nails the period spent writing and recording the instrumental record Ghosts I-IV is probably the one which changed my approach to music making the most. After that record I started getting more into instrumental composition, although I tried to approach it in a different way. While we had a vast array of tools and instruments at our disposal then, I decided to approach my pieces limiting myself to one instrument only, as I found myself being more decisive when faced with a limited creative environment."

We are celebrating our 4 years anniversary with Houseum Records, so what better way than to gather together 12 artists we particularly like around a compilation rich in diversity? This double vinyl invites you to explore different horizons thanks to the multiple facets proposed. We let you discover this unexpected project full of surprises.

The Zephyrs release their brand new album “For Sapphire Needle” on January 27th 2023 alongside Spanish comrades Acuarela, their first since 2010. With only 2018’s double A-side single “The Witches” and “The Crown Prince of Lies” in between, this represents their first collection of new songs in 13 years: from short and tightly constructed country-folk introspections to sprawling, spaced-out psychedelia, including a couple of extremely sharp pop glimmers and a killer Morricone-like instrumental. Originally conceived of as a series of 4 track EPs based on the seasons in which they were created, the recordings spanned into a patchwork of sessions with long-time collaborator and producer Michael Brennan at his Substation studio, neighboring a naval port in Rosyth. The ongoing recording sessions were made possible with the kind support of Robert Dillam, drummer for The Zephyrs and ex-guitarist for Creation band Adorable. With songs ranging from short and tightly constructed country-folk introspections to sprawling, spaced-out psychedelia, what resulted was an album near to double length. The collection presented as “For Sapphire Needle” is a cut-down selection of these songs. The record opens with “Leatherback”, a Crazy Horse inspired wall of distorted guitars drawing on lyrics from The Zephyr’s first album and pre-history, followed by the four songs earmarked for the first of the seasonal EPs – Winter – whose artwork was photographed in the alley behind Traceyann Campbell’s (Camera Obscura) house in Glasgow. Elsewhere on the album, “I tell you what” had much of its writing and recording initiated in a wooden shack near Aviemore and “Bolder” tells the story of overheard bar-side conversations and delayed flights in Denver airport, where lizard people live underground and some say the new world order lays dormant. The domestic depression of “How have you been today” precedes closing opus “Aliens”, inspired in equal measures by the maturation as social control science fiction of The Tripods and the schlock b-movie imagery of Rocky Erickson’s The Evil One. The album is the work of older and more consistent The Zephyrs. Stuart, David and Robert joined by collaborators: guitarist John Brennan and keyboardist Will Bates. The songs and sounds are sculpted out of slabs of time with friends at the Substation, a de facto weekly youth club for musicians who refuse to grow old. The triple bridges of Queensferry, the shipbuilding cranes of Rosyth docks and Babcock's shop - one of the few places in Scotland you can buy a real periscope over the counter - are just some of the backdrops as the Zephyrs rehearse for nobody but themselves. Yet, ever since Jean-Luc Picard himself told us that "this is not a holiday", it has become a unique and unbeatable way of peering up above the waterline, reinventing themselves and returning to the scene. Indeed with 10 songs in 46 minutes which wade across Gram Parsons and Big Star, Slowdive and spaghetti Western: folk, rock and shoegaze… as if they were trying to shorten the path to the California sky passing through Scotland and then Almería in Spain.

Draconian Times is probably the main album for Paradise Lost, so much so that they still tour the album today, which remains one of the milestones in the Metal scene of all time. Recorded at The Forum in London, this live set includes a few fan favorite tracks from their extensive back catalogue which rounded out a truly spectacular performance. Are there any highlights? Oh yes. Opening track ‘Enchantment’ still ranks as one of the best songs this band has penned and the moment when the haunting piano intro gives way to the rest of the band kicking in is a real shiver-down-the-spine moment. ‘Hallowed Land’ and ‘Forever Failure’ (complete with Charles Manson intro) sound as powerful and relevant as when they first came out, and the performance of ‘Shadow Kings’ stands head and shoulders above the original. After being released on DVD and CD, the album was also released on double vinyl, here you will find two new unreleased colors and a truly exceptional packaging: this album comes out in deluxe Triple Gatefold edition, in two colors (Gold / Silver) 500 limited edition each.