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2025 Repress
Yes! Tommy Guerrero’s much-loved 4th LP – the smooth West Coast classic From The Soil To The Soul - gets its first ever vinyl release. As the follow up to his revered Soul Food Taqueria, this album was originally released by Quannum Records 2006 but only on CD. Working with Tommy directly, the LP has been fully remastered, cut on to heavyweight wax, and comes with artwork freshly reworked by the man himself.
From The Soil To The Soul represents a continuation of Tommy’s blissful guitar-soul whilst demonstrating increasingly complex chops and a slightly darker side to his distinctive sound. His spare, effortless funk is blended here with elements of Americana, heavy psych, lo-fi fuzz and intoxicating Latin rhythms. Combined with his typically breezy, laid-back San Franciscan style, it’s a vibe from start to finish.
Recorded primarily in his home studio, Tommy wrote, arranged and played nearly all the instruments, including bass, guitar, keyboards, percussion and kalimba. Renowned street artist Barry McGee, aka Twist, designed the cover art which Tommy has now recast in a deep, deep red for the vinyl version.
As ever with Tommy, the highlights are many and memorable. From twinkling, sun-drenched opener “Hello Again” to the penultimate, punk-rocking track “Let Me In Let Me Out” (featuring the melodic yet fearsome rapping of Lyrics Born), the variety across the LP is relentless, but satisfying, and without once losing focus.
We’re treated to the gorgeous hip-hop blues of “The Under Dog”, Meters-style Hammond B-3 jams like “War No More” and “No Guns More Glory” and Balearic bangers like Bing Ji Ling’s star-turn on the sleazy “Don’t Fake It.”
Curumin’s soulful guest vocal elevates the already-great Brazilian lounge feels of “Salve” to hitherto unscaled heights and the heavy, driving basslines - funky and warm on “Badder Than Bullets”, sombre and intense in “Tomorrow’s Goodbye” and “Molotov Telegram” – never fail to move both body and soul.
But our favourite track is the beautiful breezy pop of “Just Ain’t Me”. A bittersweet, skipping ballad which boasts an incredibly rare instance of Tommy singing. “What you want from me, I can never give” he repeats throughout, lending the already-melancholic atmosphere greater poignancy. It would’ve been number 1 across the planet in a parallel universe.

Barry Can't Swim veröffentlicht sein mit Spannung erwartetes neues Album, „Loner“ auf Ninja Tune!

In „Loner“ sehen wir Barry Can't Swim dabei zu, wie er die Welt, in der er sich befindet, erkundet. Geprägt vom überwältigenden Erfolg von Barry Can't Swims ausverkauften Liveshows auf der ganzen Welt, bleibt es seinen Wurzeln verhaftet, während er über Identität und Bodenständigkeit nachdenkt. Barry Can’t Swims hochgelobtes Debütalbum, „When Will We Land?“, das im Oktober 2023 veröffentlicht wurde und derzeit mehr als 100 Millionen Streams verzeichnet, erhielt unendlich viel Lob, darunter auch die Nominierung für den Mercury Music Prize 2024, neben Künstler:innen wie Charli xcx, Beth Gibbons, English Teacher, Ghetts und The Last Dinner Party. Barry Can’t Swim ist nun stolz darauf, neben Aphex Twin, Nia Archives, Burial, Jamie xx, Fred again.. oder Jon Hopkins als in die engere Auswahl für den prestigeträchtigen Preis gekommen zu sein - was als elektronischer Solokünstler eher seltener vorkommt. Darüber hinaus wurde er bei den BRIT Awards 2024 in der Kategorie „Dance Act“ nominiert und stand auf der Shortlist für das schottische Album des Jahres.

Barry Can't Swim veröffentlicht sein mit Spannung erwartetes neues Album, „Loner“ auf Ninja Tune!

In „Loner“ sehen wir Barry Can't Swim dabei zu, wie er die Welt, in der er sich befindet, erkundet. Geprägt vom überwältigenden Erfolg von Barry Can't Swims ausverkauften Liveshows auf der ganzen Welt, bleibt es seinen Wurzeln verhaftet, während er über Identität und Bodenständigkeit nachdenkt. Barry Can’t Swims hochgelobtes Debütalbum, „When Will We Land?“, das im Oktober 2023 veröffentlicht wurde und derzeit mehr als 100 Millionen Streams verzeichnet, erhielt unendlich viel Lob, darunter auch die Nominierung für den Mercury Music Prize 2024, neben Künstler:innen wie Charli xcx, Beth Gibbons, English Teacher, Ghetts und The Last Dinner Party. Barry Can’t Swim ist nun stolz darauf, neben Aphex Twin, Nia Archives, Burial, Jamie xx, Fred again.. oder Jon Hopkins als in die engere Auswahl für den prestigeträchtigen Preis gekommen zu sein - was als elektronischer Solokünstler eher seltener vorkommt. Darüber hinaus wurde er bei den BRIT Awards 2024 in der Kategorie „Dance Act“ nominiert und stand auf der Shortlist für das schottische Album des Jahres.

Jessica Winters Debüt ist ein vollendetes, mutiges und hinterfragendes Album voller Persönlichkeit, das irgendwo zwischen Therapie und Tanzfläche angesiedelt ist. Musikalisch finden sich Anklänge an Kylie Minogue und dem Glanz der 80er-Jahre-Madonna, der Extravaganz von Prince und Queen, der Energie und des gelegentlichen Knurren des Punk und der verträumt hochgezogenen Augenbraue der Psychedelia. In einer Welt, in der maximalistischer Pop zurück ist und Therapie-Memes das Mass aller Dinge sind, ist "My First Album" der perfekte Soundtrack.

Jessica Winter ist eine britische Sängerin, Songwriterin und Produzentin, bekannt für ihre experimentelle Popmusik, die Elemente verschiedener Genres wie Pop, Industrial und Indie vereint. Bisher hat Jessica eine Reihe von EPs veröffentlicht, die ihre Fähigkeit, unkonventionelle Themen und introspektive Texte in Popsongstrukturen einfließen zu lassen, unter Beweis stellen. Zusätzlich zu ihrem Soloprojekt verfügt Winter über eine umfangreiche Liste an Referenzen als Co-Autorin und Produzentin, die mit Künstlern wie The Horrors, The Big Moon, Jazmin Bean, Phoebe Green, Lauren Auder, Pre Goblin, Sundara Karma, Walt Disco und Brodka zusammenarbeitete.

From his early-’60s days as hip shaker Twistin’ Harvey to his late-’70s nights on the light up dance floor in search of a “Disco Lady,” Harvey Scales survived scrapes with the pop charts, bankrupt record companies, walk outs, sit ins, strikes, price hikes, lay offs, and under table payoffs over a 40 year career. Compiled here for the first time are Scales’ Cuca and Magic Touch recordings, 27 slabs of cracker jack R&B, stomping northern soul, divorce-ridden deep soul, feverish funk, and hustling disco spread across 2 LPs and housed in a deluxe gatefold jacket.. Bill Dahl’s in depth notes document the entire sordid affair, with dozens of period photos and ephemeral bits illustrating the accompanying 20 page book. So necessary.

From his early-’60s days as hip shaker Twistin’ Harvey to his late-’70s nights on the light up dance floor in search of a “Disco Lady,” Harvey Scales survived scrapes with the pop charts, bankrupt record companies, walk outs, sit ins, strikes, price hikes, lay offs, and under table payoffs over a 40 year career. Compiled here for the first time are Scales’ Cuca and Magic Touch recordings, 27 slabs of cracker jack R&B, stomping northern soul, divorce-ridden deep soul, feverish funk, and hustling disco spread across 2 LPs and housed in a deluxe gatefold jacket.. Bill Dahl’s in depth notes document the entire sordid affair, with dozens of period photos and ephemeral bits illustrating the accompanying 20 page book. So necessary.

Hardcore Rap music is still here! Mike Redman is considered a cult legend known for his unorthodox music production in various genres. He's well known as an artist in the Jungle and Hardcore scene, as a renowned movie score composer and made a name for himself as organiser of the infamous 'Redrum Hip-Hop' events since the 90's which hosted international artists from Guru to Cannibal Ox, Public Enemy, Beatnuts and many more. He also set up Redrum Recordz, a pioneering independent record label focusing merely on anything musically unpolished. Even though Mike Redman (which is his name of birth by the way) was often linked to many Hip-Hop success stories and produced records for artists such as Public Enemy and Big Daddy Kane, Mike has just recently, after many years, decided to produce a solo record featuring the Rap artists he admires and form the foundation of his legacy. With great respect towards his mentors, in a non-profit manner, Mike now releases 'Redrum Relics' featuring Rap icons such as Kool Keith, Chuck D, Schoolly D, Sticky Fingaz, Young Zee, Chino XL, O.C. and many more. This album is truly exceptional and is not made with the intention to be commercially successful, but is a love-letter to a period in time where passion was the motivation. 'Redrum Relics' brings Rap music back to the golden era with a contemporary touch and keeps it unpolished and unyielding as ever. People that tend to say that Hip-Hop is dead might want to reconsider.

The project’s title track is the perfect blend of gossamer shoegaze and Graveface’s signature eerie nocturnal feel, with the lyrics similarly balancing the purity of love against mankind’s darker instincts in the face of romantic obsession.

“‘For Keeps’ is a story written from the perspective of someone who is so desperately in love, they’d do anything to hold onto that love,” the band shares. “We just wanted to explore a really dark part of the human psyche.”

To further elucidate on these themes, Night School has shared a music video that pairs performance footage with a narrative of amour fou that gets a little bit too fou—I won’t spoil anything, but there is manslaughter involved.

Pelican has always been a band that's not just from Chicago, but distinctly of Chicago. Formed in 2000 by guitarists Trevor Shelley de Brauw and Laurent Schroeder-Lebec alongside brothers Bryan and Larry Herweg on bass and drums respectively, Pelican's foundation was built upon the rule-free, genre-agnostic scene synonymous with the Fireside Bowl. "The `90s in Chicago was a free-for-all. Everyone was just coming from a place of pure creativity," says Shelley de Brauw. With Schroeder-Lebec returning to the band following Dallas Thomas' departure in 2022, this reunified version of Pelican allowed the band to tap back into the spirit of their formative era and build something distinctly new with Flickering Resonance. While longtime Pelican fans will recognize the album as an update to the band's ethos_one that's been constantly evolving since their very first EP_their new partnership with Run For Cover Records emphasizes something that's always been implicit to the Pelican formula. These songs take as much inspiration from titanic `90s post-hardcore, space-rock, and emo as they do traditional metal, showing that though Godflesh and Goatsnake records occupied the shelves of Pelican's songwriters, so too did Quicksand, Christie Front Drive, and Hum. "A lot of people didn't hear it at first," says Schroeder-Lebec. "I was like, well, I guess the metal world is where we fit. But now, we're more willing to acknowledge all the suits we're wearing."On Flickering Resonance, Pelican doesn't attempt to reinvent itself as much as emphasize the elements that were so often overlooked. Though Pelican's thick sonic backbone remains intact, the songs on Flickering Resonance show a more humanistic side of the band. Tracks like "Evergreen" and "Indelible" tease Pelican's doom-metal roots, but these songs feel equally, ebullient and truthful, playing like Texas Is The Reason songs transmuted into a post-rock landscape. Recorded with longtime musical compatriot Sanford Parker, who recorded their first EP, Pelican begins this new chapter of their career with an album that's neither full reinvention nor back-to-roots revivalism. After so much time apart, and with so much life having been lived between the original Pelican lineup's last recording sessions together, the band approached it with renewed vigor and a more communal spirit."There was more room for openness and critique with the understanding that we're all trying to craft the best song possible and that every suggestion is valid until it's proven invalid," says Shelley de Brauw. That process allowed everyone to embrace the material with a shared vision. "We didn't move forward unless we all wanted to move forward, and that felt like real community building," says Schroeder-Lebec of this unified approach. "I went from seeing it as my art and my craft to our craft that we were shaping together."In doing so, Pelican allowed themselves to look at their music less as a means of hard-earned catharsis and more as an appreciation for the glimmers of joy that occur even in the bleakest landscapes. Songs like "Cascading Crescent" and "Indelible" don't languish in what's been lost, these tracks see the band embracing what remains in their hands instead of lamenting what's slipped through their fingers. It's a concept that's mirrored in the artwork of Christian Degn that graces the cover of Flickering Resonance. It's a piece built off the concept of flame meditation, and how the smallest flames can often bring about the biggest transformations. A song like "Flickering Stillness" exemplifies this feeling through its sonic expanse, putting the band's sonic density and hyper-focused clarity on display, but with an emphasis on the profound human connections that have kept Pelican going all these years. "When Laurent left and we were able to carry it through, there became a real sense of gratitude for the fact we still have this artistic outlet and a community of people who want to be a part of it" That feeling of deep, grounded appreciation isn't just one that's within the band members, it's expressed in every track on Flickering Resonance. Because at the very core of Pelican, are four individuals who have grown both separately and together, and always will.Like a distant light faintly glowing in the darkest night, Flickering Resonance is a reminder of all that has passed us by, but also all that is still to come.

Over sixty years into a life in music, Amina Claudine Myers revisits old compositions with a quiet force on Solace Of The Mind, her first solo record since receiving an NEA Jazz Master honours. Recorded for Red Hook Records and produced by Sun Chung, it hears Myers at the piano, Hammond B3 organ and mic, reinterpreting personal standards such as 'African Blues', 'Song For Mother E', 'Cairo' and 'Steal Away' with patient, spacious phrasing and the tonal sensitivity she's honed since her days with the AACM. Chung's production renders every harmonic shimmer and pause with startling clarity; a glistening move compared to last year's duo release with Wadada Leo Smith, adding a returnal layer to an otherwise eclectic discography, spanning free jazz and blues-rooted experimentalism. In her words, "I wanted to play (the originals) differently this time."

Despite the outright denial in its title, death is present in every one of the songs on Never Die, the collaborative album from MIDWIFE’s Madeline Johnston and Matt Jencik (of Implodes, Don Caballero, and Slint’s live band). Jencik held the tenderest thought imaginable when he came up with that phrase—Never Die—the fact that the people he loves eventually would, a certainty that feels impossible and remote, until the day it absolutely doesn’t. Never Die represents Jencik’s desperate bid to hold onto everyone he loves, to keep them on Earth so fiercely that they might enter the grave with claw marks on their skin.

Johnston, who recognizes the grace of mortality (and who, as MIDWIFE once sang: “I don’t wanna live forever,” over and over) serves as the spiritual guide for the album, transmuting the fear of death into an incentive to live more keenly and dearly. Following a number of ambient drone instrumental albums, Jencik felt the need to set himself a new creative challenge: to write vocal-heavy songs. He worked on them alone in his basement, recording directly to a four-track cassette. He sent those demos to a different collaborator to tinker with before that partnership eventually dissolved. Then, he thought of Madeline: the way her voice tended to glower in her songs, as well as her commitment to minimalism, which fell squarely within the project’s aesthetic and spiritual impulses.

“I was immediately drawn to what she was doing,” Jencik says. In both of their work, Jencik and Johnston understand minimalism as a vehicle for enormous, desperate and universal emotions. Entire worlds come in and out of existence between each of their sparse notes; a great breadth of feeling is bedded into the simple structure of their songs. Never Die offers a calm confrontation with the dour inevitability that bookends our lives. When the fact of death looms over life, it tends to denature every experience we have and every relationship we know we’ll eventually have to forfeit back to the Earth. No one, no matter how hard we love, makes it out of this alive thing. But we feel anyway. And we love anyway. And we sing anyway. Here, Jencik and Johnston have sung ‘die’ over and over, snowglobing life in the process.

JOVA! LIVE! LOVE! is the perfect album for anyone who wants to relive the emotions felt during Jovanotti’s legendary shows!
Recorded during the PalaJova2025 tour dates, “JOVA! LIVE! LOVE!” is a Best Of album composed of 27
iconic tracks from Jovanotti’s career. Inside are all the historic hits, including ”Il più grande spettacolo
dopo il Big Bang”, ”Ragazza Magica” and ”L’ombelico del mondo”, but also more recent tracks such as
”I love you baby” and ”Un mondo a parte”.
The album is available in two unmissable formats: Triple LP and Double CD.

Tracks include unearthed fragments of BLADDER FLASK, circa ’80s by Richard Rupenus, a founding member of THE NEW BLOCKADERS.

STEVEN STAPLETON, ANDREW LILES, RICHARD RUPENUS.





New studio album “Backside” on vinyl by Nurse With Wound, includes unearthed fragments of Bladder Flask by Richard Rupenus, circa ’80s, also released on Cd in 2024 (there is also a DIY “lathe cut”).
Cover art by Babs Santini.


The paths of Nurse With Wound and Bladder Flask first crossed in 1980 and the following year Bladder Flask’s debut album One Day I Was So Sad That The Corners Of My Mouth Met & Everybody Thought I Was Whistling (Orgel Fesper Music) was distributed by United Dairies.


Following the aborted project for a second Bladder Flask album, scheduled for 1981, some forty years later, Richard Rupenus approached Steven Stapleton to use fragments of old recordings he’d unearthed from “Bladder Flask”, an invitation that Stapleton accepted, and rather than simply remixing or reworking existing Bladder Flask tracks, Steven Stapleton and Andrew Liles have succeeded in reinforcing Nurse With Wound and Bladder Flask’s sense of the absurd in this new opus “Backside”.



“As the closest release style-wise to classic old NWW in decades, the album’s opening track ‘Backside’ could almost be a relic of the early 1980s, full of squeaky and crunchy noises, big plate reverbs, lots of plunderphonics meets musique concrete type cut-up work, bizarre vocals and all sorts of unfathomable sonic elements. It’s quite an intense listen, but totally enjoyable. ‘Chernobyl Picnic’ feels more like ‘Cooloorta’-era NWW, as it involves more use of extended tones, with lots of liberally chopped-up and totally messed about sounds, much of it fried and modulated in the most fascinating ways, a kind of harsher and more multi-faceted ‘Soliloquy For Lilith.’ An excellent release, especially for jaded old NWW fans who want more in the style of ‘the good old days’ (Alan Freeman)”.

On 2018’s “Folk”, New Orleans songwriter and singer Sabine McCalla presents her own interpretation of grass-roots southern music. Combining elements of jazz, country blues, calypso, New Orleans R&B and Haitian creole compas, Sabine spins stories of heartbreak and hope through intimate arrangements and honest inflections. Recorded by Sam Doores (the Deslondes) and Duff Thompson (Mashed Potato Records), “Folk” exposes Sabine’s love of laments and folk spirituals, her penchant for simple truths and her interest in divining fundamental wisdom about love and loss from a small tangle of words. Commanding in its simplicity, with most songs sung a capella or with minimal guitar or vocal accompaniment, the EP’s five songs tell the stories of lost souls and broken hearts, embedded with painful truths that come to us calmly, the ones that are physically and psychically impossible to ignore.

In 2006, Danger Mouse is King Midas of the music world. He has an uncanny knack for creating jagged, dense, frenzied beats and odd, eerie, vivid soundscapes that never compromise the music's natural flow. Meanwhile, rapper and singer Cee-Lo, a veteran of Atlanta's Dirty South scene, has never been one to be constrained by hip-hop conventions, and is a willing partner in adventure. The result is an intrepid psychedelic blend of pop, hip-hop, soul, and rock that consistently challenges and delights. It's no wonder that "Crazy," with its modest riff, irresistible hook, and disarming opening line ("I remember when, I remember, I remember when I lost my mind") became a worldwide Internet sensation a full six months before the official release of St. Elsewhere. But that relatively simple soul-pop gem is the tamest track on this wide-ranging, often dark and introspective collaboration. (In fact, the duo considers Gnarls Barkley to be a wholly new creation, as opposed to a collaboration of existing artists.) "Everybody is somebody, but nobody wants to be themselves," Cee-Lo croons on "Who Cares?" He and Danger Mouse try very hard not to be their old selves as they creatively and confidently break down boundaries, but the brilliant cores of their musical personae Cee-Lo's eccentric spiritual soul man and Danger's bold sonic explorer remain. Marc Greilsamer.

‘With Time, We Learned To Ask Less’ is the first duo album by Giuseppe Ielasi and Riccardo D. Wanke after decades of friendship and the occasional artistic collaboration. Working with only electric guitar and electric piano as well as a gentle dose of reverb, these improvisation-based recordings showcase the rapprochement of two artists whose interests are perfectly aligned. Their carefulness, attention to detail, and shared desire to sculpt space through music instead of just occupying it create a unique harmony between these two exceptional musicians who consistently stay mindful of the old adage that music is the space between the notes. Following up on solo albums sees them seamlessly combining the sparse but lush aesthetics of those experiments throughout these 44 minutes. Having lived close to each other in Northern Italy, where the prolific mastering engineer Ielasi still resides to this day, he and Wanke were members of the group Medves together with Andrea Belfi, Renato Rinaldi and Stefano Pilia before Wanke relocated to Lisbon. When Ielasi, who had mastered Wanke’s recent solo albums including 2023’s »i« for electric pianos, was invited to play a concert in the Portuguese capital in the summer of that year, the two took the opportunity to go on stage together. Infatuated by the results of this fully improvised set, they organised a two-day session in Ielasi’s Monza studio shortly thereafter and edited the recordings over the course of the following months. The resulting album shows them moving slowly through sonic space and time, complementing and counterpointing each other’s playing. They leave each other room in which to unfold and let short moments of silence speak for themselves. ‘With Time, We Learned To Ask Less’ is the closest you will get to hearing the air sing.

Cinthie makes a welcome return to her own 803 Crystal Grooves imprint this June for its sixth release, the project comprises four original"s showcasing Cinthie"s many different sonic styles and influences.
The past decade has seen Berlin"s Cinthie moving from strength to strength, racking up milestone achievements like her DJ Kicks mix compilation and a steady stream of critically acclaimed material via the likes of Aus, Heist, Shall Not Fade and of course her own 803 Crystal Grooves label where she returns here with some fresh machine jams.
"Grooves" kicks off the package, a dynamic dance floor cut fuelled by processed vocals uttering the track title, murky bass stabs, heavily swung drums and gritty saturated stabs all dynamically evolving and unfolding throughout. "Boxer" follows next and showcases Cinthie"s love for dub-tinged sounds, laying down spiralling dub echoes, a snaking bass groove and hypnotic chord sequences atop a robust, swinging rhythm section.
"Hands Up" then kicks off the B-Side, shifting gears to a classic House aesthetic with dreamy keys, bright stab sequences, glistening synth textures and smooth strings, intertwined with soulful vocals and classic 909 workout. "She Wants It" then concludes the EP on a more cinematic tip with sweeping lead synths, fluttering arpeggios, elongated bass drones and vocal lines running with raw, crunchy drums.

The latest hype from the Will & Ink cult is the Ottagone series. Over the past couple of months, the ever-prolific techno imprint has started dropping unannounced batches of no-nonsense, dancefloor-oriented techno grooves. Dub-heavy and club-ready, the full series is a goldmine for passionate techno DJs -- but until now... digital only. On the Ottagone Selected series, the most wanted tracks are pressed on vinyl for the first time. Essential techno gear for DJs who like to groove.

"World of Pooh immensely brightened the dark corners of San Francisco, California during the years 1983-1990, with their most recognized guise being the MMF trio that existed & thrived during the years 1986-1990. This is the lineup you’ll hear documented on this exceptional collection of 45s, compilation tracks and assorted ephemera. The band has ranged from being a footnote for some (“is that the band Barbara Manning was once in?”) to a fondly-regarded memory for others (“the Land of Thirst album is a forgotten classic”) to a turnstile, door-opening band for still others — like me. They arrived in my life as they were slowly exiting theirs, and I eagerly attended a half-dozen shows of theirs circa 1989-90 around San Francisco moments after I moved there. They were instantly my favorite local band, one I was instantly duty-bound to see whenever & wherever they played. Their jagged and discombobulated take on underground pop music was exceptionally fertile, feral and fetching, and it served as a personal gateway drug that flowered my own appreciation for many different kinds of subtle musical tension.
I also spent at least five glorious years watching Jay Paget, who drummed for World of Pooh and later the Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, ply his rhythmic trade with much aplomb. He was always a steady hand behind the musical wheel of innovative bands who often threatened to careen off course. And I’ll admit to an untoward admiration of (and fascination with) World of Pooh founder, guitarist and singer Brandan Kearney from the moment I met the guy. Not only was he exceptionally friendly and welcoming to a carpetbagging interloper quickly trying to horn in on his scene (me), he was at once one of the most quick-witted, self-deprecating, highly intelligent & musically conversant people I’d ever met. Everything he and his band were doing, along with the mind-boggling DIY gunk he was pushing through his record label, Nuf Sed, and via his multiple other bands (among them: Caroliner & Archipelago Brewing Company, with several more to follow), made me extremely curious and not a tiny bit jealous about these wiser, weirder and musically more daring freaks who were making art, love & war in the relatively grittier & non-gentrified San Francisco of the day.
What I’ve learned in the 35 years since the band broke up is just how highly regarded they were (and remain) by not only those who saw them, but by a now-considerably larger group of humans who’ve subsequently heard & loved their records. I know that their place in the late 1980s was a small but special one, and I’ve seen plenty of online clamoring for more, more, more about this ephemeral and poorly-documented band. And rightly, here it is, lovingly assembled: their two hard-to-come-by 45s, a handful of comp tracks, and a quartet of phenomenal songs just coming to light for the first time, including that Half Japanese cover that dimly existed in my memory as a live song they naturally pulled off with sangfroid, from a time and space when we were all a little younger. - Jay Hinman"

You're strolling down an alley in New Orleans or Brooklyn late at night and this sound jumps out at you -- rock & roll, classic rhythm & blues, sung and played with verve, personality, and joy. The dance floor is full. You stroll in and hear sounds that wouldn't have sounded out of place on the legendary Specialty Records of the 1950s and '60s.

Indeed one of the eight cuts onWrite It Down, the new album fromJackson& The Janks, comes from the repertoire of rhythm & blues singer Mamie Perry, first recorded in 1959. The rest areJacksonLynch originals, inspired by his time living and playing music in the Crescent City. Theuniquearrangementsof the band itself have deep roots in NOLA, too, with Matt Bell (Esther Rose) on lap steel, Craig Flory (Tuba Skinny) on bass saxophone and Sam Doores (The Deslondes) sharing backing vocals while trading-off on drums and keys.

Jacksonand the Janks have performed at the Brooklyn Folk Fest, Blackpot Festival (Louisiana), and Oldtone Festival (New York) and did a video session for tastemaker series GemsOnVHS and Jackson a solo session for Paste. Its residency on Fridays in Brooklyn (when they're not on tour) packs the house week after week with fans and folks drawn in by the word-of-mouth buzz and the sound.

Time may be "longer than rope," as Prince Buster once said, yet certain records have such an explosive impact, everyone knows they're classics from the minute they're released and Symarip's Skinhead Moonstomp, first issued in 1969, was one of them. The intro grabbed you within seconds, and the invitation to dance was irresistible. "I want all of you skinheads to get up on your feet. Put your braces together and get up on your feet. And give me some of that o-l-d moon stomping..."

Burning Sounds are proud to re- issue a new version of the iconic album with the
original singer Roy Ellis. Includes extensive sleeve notes & Q&As with Roy Ellis +
Skinhead Moonstomp 12" version.

Reissue of in-demand Italo title, with accompanying edits by Hysteric. "For the much-requested 12'' reissue of Roaring Mosquitoes, Best Record followed the hint by a die-hard German researcher and esteemed DJ of 'hidden musical treasures' Frinda Di Lanco. Further enriching this reissue - masterfully remastered by Dom Scuteri - with two of his splendid edits is the Australian DJ-producer George Hysteric, one of the world's leading authorities and a leading figure in Italo Disco. The juxtaposition of the two songs performed with grit and physicality by Agostina Casalino and her cousin Antonietta Casalino (aka Roaring Mosquitoes) highlights two aesthetically and rhythmically similar approaches, albeit with different roots and inspirations. "You Aren't With Me" has the merit of not wanting to reinvent the genre, but exploits the familiarity of pop-dance forms, obtaining an immediate catchiness. The piece stands out for its linearity while reworking melodic mechanisms typical of the 80s new wave: short instrumental intro, well-defined verse-chorus, obsessive repetition of melodic hooks that make it an immediate and "dragging" song on the dance floor. The arrangement focuses on a solid electronic drum groove, sinuous basslines, clean guitar riffs, "cutting" keyboards and the use of the chorus typical of the Italo Disco of those years. Some passages recall the melodic line and rhythmic progression of "Tonight... Crazy Night", an intriguing song that the Canadian artist Dorine Hollier created in 1984 at the Titania Studios in Rome with Pierluigi Giombini. Even with "Ah Ah Ah Ah" which features a vibrant and cheerful sound there's a playful use of citation for some idea that Diego Pepe took from a Micky & Joyce track. It evokes the "space disco" spirit of Jean-Pierre Massiera and the influence of the French scene of 1979: polyphonic synthetic strings, echo effects on electronic hi-hats and a vaguely futuristic atmosphere, but with an even more captivating sound revitalized with more scratchy modern touches and compressed basslines. A mix of vintage and contemporary that enhance its charm."

Step back into one of the most exciting years in pop history – a time when boundary-pushing alternative anthems, flawless dancefloor fillers, global megastars and fresh faces all collided on the charts. NOW - Yearbook 1997 celebrates an unforgettable year of hits with 43 massive tracks across a 3-LP set pressed on gorgeous green vinyl.

LP1 kicks off in style, with the stunning jazz-drenched ballad from legend George Michael, ‘Older’, before Natalie Imbruglia's huge debut single ‘Torn’. The Cardigans had a #2 smash with ‘Lovefool’ and Hanson hit the US & UK #1 with ‘MMMBop’. ‘Barbie Girl’ from Aqua and the Spice Girls’ anthemic ‘Spice Up Your Life’ were both #1s, and Boyzone’s ‘Picture Of You’ was a huge hit and featured in the film ‘Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie’. Eurovision glory happened for the UK in 1997, and winners Katrina And The Waves with ‘Love Shine A Light’ close the first side…while over on the other, a second George Michael classic from his ‘Older’ album, the beautiful ‘You Have Been Loved’, opens ahead of another contemporary masterpiece ‘Secret Garden’ from Bruce Springsteen. Texas scored a UK top 5 with ‘Say What You Want’, and Sheryl Crow had a top 10 hit with ‘A Change Would Do You Good’. Paul McCartney’s ‘Young Boy’ is next before ‘Ready To Go’ which gave Republica a Top 20 chart debut, and closing the first LP, Robbie Williams’ ‘Old Before I Die’, which became his second smash as a solo artist.



LP2 kicks off with Radiohead’s defining ‘Paranoid Android’, ahead of Kula Shaker’s hit cover of ‘Hush’, and alt-pop from Embrace (‘All You Good Good People’), The Charlatans (‘North Country Boy’) and The Seahorses (‘Love Is The Law’) before the side closes with Oasis’s huge #1 ‘D’You Know What I Mean?’ – the lead single from their third album ‘Be Here Now’… Flip the LP over and discover some of 1997’s dancefloor gold – opening with the club juggernaut and #1 ‘Professional Widow’ from Tori Amos, remixed for single release by Armand Van Helden, along with Olive’s UK #1 ‘You’re Not Alone’ and the huge ’97 ‘Now Voyager’ remix of ‘You Got The Love’ from The Source feat. Candi Staton. En Vogue’s powerful ‘Don’t Let Go (Love)’ is up next, ahead of ‘I Wanna Be The Only One’, a #1 for Eternal feat. Bebe Winans. LP2 finishes with pure pop gems from 911 with ‘Bodyshakin’, Backstreet Boys with ‘Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)’ and Steps with their debut hit ‘5, 6, 7, 8’.



The final LP opens with Pet Shop Boys’ and their brilliant version of the musical classic ‘Somewhere’, ahead of the genre-blending #1 ‘Your Woman’ from White Town, and the atmospheric ‘Out Of My Mind’ from Duran Duran. Suede’s plaintive ‘Saturday Night’ leads into three of the years’ electronic dance music highlights: Orbital provided the theme to the remake of ‘The Saint’, Moby with his re-imagining of the classic film-series theme: ‘James Bond Theme (Moby’s Re-Version)’ and The Chemical Brothers with the massive ’Block Rockin’ Beats’ completing the side…Turn the LP over for the final side featuring the debut from All Saints with ‘I Know Where It’s At’, and fabulous dance-pop from Whitney Houston with ‘Step By Step’, and both Ultra Naté and Dannii Minogue enjoyed euphoric hits with ‘Free’ and ‘All I Wanna Do’. Pan-European smash ‘Encore Une Fois’ from Sash! is followed by Ricky Martin’s global success ‘María’… but the final word on the collection goes to Elton John. His superb ‘Something About The Way You Look Tonight’ was one half of the biggest selling single of – not only 1997 – but of all time and ends the collection on a perfect pop high.



NOW – Yearbook 1997: A celebration of the diversity and creativity in the charts of a truly magical year in pop.

25th anniversary edition of the widely acclaimed tribute album celebrating the music of Brian Wilson & The Beach Boys. 24 exclusive tracks. New remaster on 2 LPs in a gatefold sleeve with extensive liner notes and many rare photographs.

Monde UFO follow the celebrated ‘7171’ album with a trip to the mysterious ‘Flamingo Tower’. In the shadows of the Los Angeles bustling music scene, the enigmatic collective led by visionary Ray Monde create a trance-like fusion of psychedelia and avant jazz, mantra-like evocations, brash moody ambience and passages reminiscent of long-lost library music.

Magnifying Monde UFO’s idea of musical chaos, their early sonic escapades into off-kilter exotica is now elevated with sweeping atmospheric waves of sound inspired by an eclectic brew of Arto Lindsey, Khan Jamal’s ‘Drum Dance To The Motherland’, Keith Hudson, Milford Graves, Marion Brown, Don Cherry and Lennie Tristano.

Cast deep into number theory with occasional quasi-religious touchstones, ‘Flamingo Tower’ bustles with background sounds overlaid with intimate melodies conjuring plenty of suitably strange illusions; a synthetic orchestra plays baroque pop, a guitar is set to auto destruct and Ray Monde’s hushed vocals carry a bracing narrative. It’s an evocative album, one for the heavy music nerds, sprinkled with ear candy and proliferated by mysterious numbers which litter the song titles.

“Monde UFO wander through a humid mist of exotic samba shuffles, shamanic whispers, and reverberating laser beam synthesizers.” New Commute

When a limited edition 45 single landed on the desk of Jazz Room Head Honcho Paul Murphy he contacted the guys straight away. "Do you want a 45 piece of wax released on Jazz Room Records?" Bells were ringing!

The A Side is a Latin Afrosound version of the Sun Ra Classic "Watusa". Featuring members of the Los Angleles based Afro Latin Beat Collective "Jungle Fire".

You might have noticed this getting quite a few spins on the Gilles Peterson show on BBC 6 Music.

The B Side is a funky version of the Charles Mingus composition "Meditations On Integration".

Rush releasing July 2025.

Die Ära der Mix-CDs mag schon lange vorbei sein, doch wenn man sich 'Midnight Ragas' anhört, das neue Album des legendären Downtempo-Produzenten und Thievery Corporation Mitbegründers Eric Hilton, könnte man der Meinung sein, sie wäre nie weg gewesen. Man stelle sich Khruangbin vor in noch entspannter, wie sie einen alten Billy Dee Williams-Werbespot für Malt Liquor vertonen, neu abgemischt von Zero 7, und man kommt der Sache schon sehr nahe. 'Midnight Ragas' - ein süchtig machendes Hörerlebnis.Auf dem Album sind auch die Thievery Corporation-Mitglieder Natalia Clavier und Puma Ptah zu hören.'Midnight Ragas' ist Erics 8. Solo-Studioalbum und der Nachfolger von Sound Vagabond und seinem Ambient-Album Out of the Blur.- Ltd. Col. LP: (Bone Color Vinyl)Tracklist LP:A-SeiteA1. Life (In The Deep End)A2. Leave It All (feat. Puma Ptah)A3. Je ne t’aime plus (feat. Natalia Clavier) videoA4. Behind My Eyes (feat. The Infinite Daisy Chains)A5. All I Want (feat. Puma Ptah)A6. Burkina FasoB-SeiteB1. Midnight RagaB2. Sol Interior (feat. Natalia Clavier)B3. Galactic ShineB4. Madame AshaB5. L’Ocean (feat. Natalia Clavier)B6. Beautiful Moment (feat. The Infinite Daisy Chains)

Following on from last year's acclaimed ‘R.O.I.’ album, Manchester’s favourite sons Aerial Salad are set to return to the fray with a brand new 5-track EP titled ‘Roi de l’herb’ to be released June 27th via Venn Records.
Having released their ‘Dirt Mall’ album during lockdown, which was a pretty grim time to put an album out, the release still eventually opened up some exciting doors for the band and captured Aerial Salad at their most Aerial Salad; loud, brash, silly and emotive.
This led swiftly to 2024’s ‘R.O.I.’ album that marked a real evolution in the band’s sound and songwriting.

“R.O.I. is a concept album but rather than being about a band, it’s from the perspective of an individual pushed to the brink of insanity by the ever-present quest from commercial success,” explains singer and guitarist Jamie Munro. “The idea came from my job; I’ve been working in the tech industry in ‘sales’. ‘Return on investment’ was probably my most uttered phrase for a few years, I was sick of it, sick of having no positive impact on the world and sick of the tech bro, double espresso, thirsty thursdays, work hard - play hard bollocks culture that comes with it. ‘R.O.I.’ is me saying ‘know what, you can actually earn a lot of money in life, even without the fallacy of educational infrastructure and financial privilege, however, it comes at the cost of your soul, time and energy. ‘R.O.I.’ is called such because it’s in the opposite pursuit, it’s not about a return on a financial investment, it’s about doing something with your life that’s enjoyable.”
This brings us crashing into 2025, no longer in the same line of spirit destroying work, with some seriously exciting gigs on the horizon, Aerial Salad wanted to kick off the next era of the band with a short, fast and hard EP and have served up 5 absolute bangers that sit somewhere between ‘Dirt Mall’ and ‘R.O.I.’ The EP is called ‘Roi de l’herb’ because of the track ‘King Of The Grass’: “We tour and play a lot in France, we’ve played most of our “best” gigs in France, so out of curiosity I wanted to see if the title would translate well, naturally, when the translation contained both “ROI” and l’herbe” - I though, fuck it, that’s about as spot on a title for this EP as we can possibly muster.”
‘King of The Grass’ is about the band’s bassist Mike Wimbo who works for Rochdale council on the greens team, which means he spends his life in the pouring rain chopping down overgrown hedges and mowing lawns. Elsewhere on the EP, ‘Inject Your Blood’ is another romantic love song inspired by the TV series ‘True Blood’ (“I’d inject your blood, into mine just to feel you close”), ‘Wires’ rages against the world of AI and GPT, whilst the EP’s opening track ‘My Girl’ is a chaotic, high energy catchy punk song, nothing profound, nothing complicated. It’s a punk song as god intended, a few chords and a load of shouting.
“The EP is like the teaser for what’s next,” summarises Jamie. “The overall hook for this EP is one of hope, that by sticking to what you believe in you can do anything.”

Originally released in November 1970 by Epic Records, this is a 12 song hits collection from US funk/soul legends. Standard black vinyl with download code insert. Marketing

Repress!

In the mid-1970s, a force of nature swept across the continental United States, cutting across all strata of race and class, rooting in our minds, our homes, our culture. It wasn’t The Exorcist, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, or even bell-bottoms, but instead a book called The Secret Life of Plants. The work of occultist/former OSS agent Peter Tompkins and former CIA agent/dowsing enthusiast Christopher Bird, the books shot up the bestseller charts and spread like kudzu across the landscape, becoming a phenomenon. Seemingly overnight, the indoor plant business was in full bloom and photosynthetic eukaryotes of every genus were hanging off walls, lording over bookshelves, and basking on sunny window ledges. The science behind Secret Life was specious: plants can hear our prayers, they’re lie detectors, they’re telepathic, able to predict natural disasters and receive signals from distant galaxies. But that didn’t stop millions from buying and nurturing their new plants.



Perhaps the craziest claim of the book was that plants also dug music. And whether you purchased a snake plant, asparagus fern, peace lily, or what have you from Mother Earth on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles (or bought a Simmons mattress from Sears), you also took home Plantasia, an album recorded especially for them. Subtitled “warm earth music for plants…and the people that love them,” it was full of bucolic, charming, stoner-friendly, decidedly unscientific tunes enacted on the new-fangled device called the Moog. Plants date back from the dawn of time, but apparently they loved the Moog, never mind that the synthesizer had been on the market for just a few years. Most of all, the plants loved the ditties made by composer Mort Garson.



Few characters in early electronic music can be both fearless pioneers and cheesy trend-chasers, but Garson embraced both extremes, and has been unheralded as a result. When one writer rhetorically asked: “How was Garson’s music so ubiquitous while the man remained so under the radar?” the answer was simple. Well before Brian Eno did it, Garson was making discreet music, both the man and his music as inconspicuous as a Chlorophytumcomosum. Julliard-educated and active as a session player in the post-war era, Garson wrote lounge hits, scored plush arrangements for Doris Day, and garlanded weeping countrypolitan strings around Glen Campbell’s “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.” He could render the Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel alike into easy listening and also dreamed up his own ditties. “An idear” as Garson himself would drawl it out. “I live with it, I walk it, I sing it.”



But as his daughter Day Darmet recalls: “When my dad found the synthesizer, he realized he didn’t want to do pop music anymore.” Garson encountered Robert Moog and his new device at the Audio Engineering Society’s West Coast convention in 1967 and immediately began tinkering with the device. With the Moog, those idears could be transformed. “He constantly had a song he was humming,” Darmet says. “At the table he was constantly tapping.” Which is to say that Mort pulled his melodies out of thin air, just like any household plant would.



The Plantae kingdom grew to its height by 1976, from DC Comics’ mossy superhero Swamp Thing to Stevie Wonder’s own herbal meditation, Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants. Nefarious manifestations of human-plant interaction also abounded, be it the grotesque pods in Invasion of the Body Snatchers or the pothead paranoia of the US Government spraying Mexican marijuana fields with the herbicide paraquat (which led to the rise in homegrown pot by the 1980s). And then there’s the warm, leafy embrace of Plantasia itself.



“My mom had a lot of plants,” Darmet says. “She didn’t believe in organized religion, she believed the earth was the best thing in the whole world. Whatever created us was incredible.” And she also knew when her husband had a good song, shouting from another room when she heard him humming a good idear. Novel as it might seem, Plantasia is simply full of good tunes.



Garson may have given the album away to new plant and bed owners, but a decade later a new generation could hear his music in another surreptitious way. Millions of kids bought The Legend of Zelda for their Nintendo Entertainment System back in 1986 and one distinct 8-bit tune bears more than a passing resemblance to album highlight “Concerto for Philodendron and Pothos.” Garson was never properly credited for it, but he nevertheless subliminally slipped into a new generations’ head, helping kids and plants alike grow.



Hearing Plantasia in the 21st century, it seems less an ode to our photosynthesizing friends by Garson and more an homage to his wife, the one with the green thumb that made everything flower around him. “My dad would be totally pleased to know that people are really interested in this music that had no popularity at the time,” Darmet says of Plantasia’snew renaissance. “He would be fascinated by the fact that people are finally understanding and appreciating this part of his musical career that he got no admiration for back then.” Garson seems to be everywhere again, even if he’s not really noticed, just like a houseplant.

Kali’s artistry has always felt otherworldly, ethereal, and elusive. ‘Sincerely,’ represents her most vulnerable and intimate work to date, offering an existential glimpse into the way she romanticizes life and her inner world. The album is a sanctuary, an escape from the chaos, a search for peace, and an act of catharsis. ‘Sincerely,’ is a collection of letters to the world, allowing her fans to witness her at her most exposed as she invites them into her emotional journey.

Originally released in 2005, Street Education is the explosive debut from Street Life - longtime Wu-Tang Clan affiliate and Method Man’s onstage partner-in-rhyme. Executive produced by Method Man, the album delivers raw street wisdom, classic East Coast grit and features production from Rockwilder, Allah Mathematics, Inspectah Deck and Fantom of the Beats. Tracks like “Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop,” “A Star Is Born,” and “What’s Up”
showcase Street Life’s sharp lyricism and his undeniable chemistry with Method Man.

THIS SPECIAL 20TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION ARRIVES IN
TANDEM WITH THE WU-TANG CLAN’S ENTER THE FINAL CHAMBER FAREWELL TOUR, A GLOBAL EVENT
CELEBRATING THE LEGACY OF ONE OF HIP-HOP’S GREATEST COLLECTIVES.

Originally released in 2005, Street Education is the explosive debut from Street Life - longtime Wu-Tang Clan affiliate and Method Man’s onstage partner-in-rhyme. Executive produced by Method Man, the album delivers raw street wisdom, classic East Coast grit and features production from Rockwilder, Allah Mathematics, Inspectah Deck and Fantom of the Beats. Tracks like “Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop,” “A Star Is Born,” and “What’s Up”
showcase Street Life’s sharp lyricism and his undeniable chemistry with Method Man.

THIS SPECIAL 20TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION ARRIVES IN
TANDEM WITH THE WU-TANG CLAN’S ENTER THE FINAL CHAMBER FAREWELL TOUR, A GLOBAL EVENT
CELEBRATING THE LEGACY OF ONE OF HIP-HOP’S GREATEST COLLECTIVES.

Originally released in 2005, Street Education is the explosive debut from Street Life - longtime Wu-Tang Clan affiliate and Method Man’s onstage partner-in-rhyme. Executive produced by Method Man, the album delivers raw street wisdom, classic East Coast grit and features production from Rockwilder, Allah Mathematics, Inspectah Deck and Fantom of the Beats. Tracks like “Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop,” “A Star Is Born,” and “What’s Up”
showcase Street Life’s sharp lyricism and his undeniable chemistry with Method Man.

THIS SPECIAL 20TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION ARRIVES IN
TANDEM WITH THE WU-TANG CLAN’S ENTER THE FINAL CHAMBER FAREWELL TOUR, A GLOBAL EVENT
CELEBRATING THE LEGACY OF ONE OF HIP-HOP’S GREATEST COLLECTIVES.

Formed in the town of New Mills, Derbyshire in 1980, Oi legends Blitz revitalised the UK punk scene of the era, their incendiary debut Voice Of A Generation a massive commercial success, but the 1983 follow-up Time Empire Justice had a different line-up and new wave orientation, pointing to fissures in the group; then, in 1990, guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Nidge Miller teamed up with former Attack frontman Gary Basnett for The Killing Dream, a studio swansong that revived the name with Nidge fully in control. Devotees will love the sterling guitar work on this final piece of the Blitz jigsaw.

US veteran JT Donaldson makes the sort of killer tech house that immediately makes you want to move. This time out the Dallas, Texas resident lands on Dolfin Records with a deeper sound that is raw and heavy. 'Choose' rides on knackered-sounding kick with just deft synth smears for company. 'Don't Sweat' has a double-time rhythm with sombre chords adding the soul and 'Want Her Around' gets the hips swinging with its lovely claps, muted, softly glowing sustained synths and lumpy deep house drums. Flipping the script yet again. 'Sunday Drive' is a more nimble and jazzy dancer and 'Take 2' is a sunny house sound with hints of Metro Area nu-disco synth magic and a big fat bassline.

House music doesn’t get much funkier than Demuir’s ‘New spirit’ EP. Whether it’s the classic sampling on the title track – an homage to his mother-, or the rolling funk bass and vocal chops on ‘Ain’t no stoppin’ ‘, Demuir brings an unstoppable groove with his 2nd release on Heist.

The man behind so many great house records has kept himself rather busy with building his own fanbase, openly debating the role that big platforms play and the firm grip they have on talent. Rather than conforming to the standard route, Demuir chooses to navigate the winding road of building his own following through his production classes, engineering and music releases through artist-first channels like Patreon.

His recent move from Toronto to Chicago feels perfectly in line with the sound Demuir is bringing forward on his first record on Heist since his 2019 classic ‘Werq, feel, gruv, vogue’. Those 6 years were well worth the wait: The ‘New spirit’ EP is a perfectly-balanced mix of creativity, confidence and character. The Demuir sound is instantly audible throughout the release and he’s not afraid to make bold choices. Each track has its own identity, its own place on the record and it’s one of the things that make this record stand out in the best way possible. The forward-leaning grooves, the tight mixing and the classic use of soulful samples are a treat to listen and dance to. There’s hints of the 90s New York sound (New Spirit), soulful disco-tinged grooves his new home-town is known for (Ain’t no stoppin’), lean-back and summery melodic grooves (No minions allowed) and deep, bassheavy dubby grooves (Whatchu want is all I got) to remind everyone that Demuir is an absolute master of modern day house music.

We’ve been playing all these songs for a while and we’re happy to finally share these with you.

As always, enjoy the music and play it loud!

Lars & Maarten