quête:early l a

Barcelona’s Egyptian Greyhound and Berlin-based Ziel join forces in search of a modern sound rooted in the spirit of classic dancefloor cuts. Riding the revival wave, their EP blends Progressive, Trance, and Balearic elements with Classic House undertones.

A1 – Ziel’s "Divinity" is a sensual vocal track, channeling the eroticism and transcendentalism of past eras. Straddling the line between after-hours soft-trance and progressive house with Hi-NRG ambition, it delivers a compelling emotional punch.

A2 – "A Life in Paradise" follows in tone but leans further into Classic House. Less Hi-NRG, more warmth — it’s a strong warm-up tool, ideal for building energy early on.

B1 – "Nature Dancer" by Egyptian Greyhound brings a powerful kick and drum groove for peak time, combining Balearic colors and trancey aesthetics to ignite the dancefloor.

B2 – "Ace of Swords" sees both producers come together for a trippy, acid-tinged closer that fuses deep Trance and Balearic moods into a dreamy final statement.

Art Academy was a short-lived but impactful project masterminded by Stephan Kessler (of Aircrash Bureau), releasing just one single in 1990 on the iconic Suck Me Plasma imprint, a sub-label of Music Research. "The Banker”, co-produced by Holger Wick (Konzept), delivers a sharp fusion of techno and EBM, capturing the gritty, forward-pushing energy of early '90s German electronic music.

Limited edition of 300 copies on black vinyl and 200 copies on clear red vinyl, offering all original tracks along with the highly sought-after HWSK Mix of “The Banker”, previously only available on CD.

Art Academy was a short-lived but impactful project masterminded by Stephan Kessler (of Aircrash Bureau), releasing just one single in 1990 on the iconic Suck Me Plasma imprint, a sub-label of Music Research. "The Banker”, co-produced by Holger Wick (Konzept), delivers a sharp fusion of techno and EBM, capturing the gritty, forward-pushing energy of early '90s German electronic music.

Limited edition of 300 copies on black vinyl and 200 copies on clear red vinyl, offering all original tracks along with the highly sought-after HWSK Mix of “The Banker”, previously only available on CD.

Trust in 6 was a one-off project by Torsten Stenzel, produced in collaboration with André Fischer (Recall IV, Technoline, Scope) and Lars Janzik (Scrot). Their sole release, “Life in Ecstasy”, came out in 1991 on Techno Drome International, a sub-label of ZYX Records, and earned a spot on the first volume of the legendary Techno Trax compilation series. The track fuses techno and EBM with a dark, driving energy-layering classic trance arpeggios, eerie pizzicato samples, and haunting, hypnotic vocals into a standout piece of early '90s electronic music.


Limited edition of 300 copies on black vinyl and 200 copies on clear vinyl, including both original mixes, the renowned Digital Mix (also known as Razormaid Mix), and a radio edit.


First part of the Drexciya re-issue series! Drexciya might need an introduction for some, for others it is the most influential techno project ever. Part of the heritage of Detroit's Underground Resistance, Drexciya explored techno music like no-one else before. Raw and uncompromising music that reflects the harsh environment of the city where Drexciya was conceived. The aesthetics and the mythical approach combined with the unique music made this one of the biggest cult projects in techno music. Drexciya arguably stands for the darker side of techno and electro, music not only made for the club scene, but a further development of the music as an expression and extension of the mind. 20 years after the release of ''Deep Sea Dweller'' (their first release), and 10 years after ''Grava 4'' (their last), we present ''Journey Of The Deep Sea Dweller''. This series is an almost complete collection of their early works, and is remastered from the original master tapes. Since the original releases have such a strong character, appeal and stand on their own, this re-issue can never re-create the magic of those originals. So instead we stirred up the catalogue taking the tracks out of their original context, giving the 'in the know' listener a fresh experience and the new listener a document that is the best possible introduction to the aquatic world of Drexciya.

“After a stay in Detroit in 2022 (where I met some of the artists whose music I admire the most), I returned to Montreuil, illuminated and brimming with energy. I had my MPC2000XL repaired, found a second-hand Yamaha Motif ES6 at Zikplace in Croix de Chavaux, and a Korg Triton on Le Bon Coin. The three instruments connected together rekindled my practice of electronic music in my home studio. Passionate about the new setup, I tried to record a little each day.

After two years of work, I felt the desire to bring together the eight tracks that brought me the most joy during their recording. A certain nostalgia and/or melancholy can arise from the sounds of the instruments used, each dating from the late 1990s. They plunged me back into the house and R&B clips that played on MTV when I was a pre-teen, which I adored.

The recording is raw and conveys a message of peace, humility, and unity. It pays homage to the early hours of house music.

The title of the project, “please don’t wait,” is simple and refers to the passage of time, urgency, and the present moment. It’s a message that invites movement and action.”

-Mad Rey”

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.

At last, React — the Erick Sermon classic — lands on 7”! A dancefloor killer from the early 2000s, this track had clubs bumping with its raw energy. On the flip, I'm Good brings that crazy groove, a beat flipped and favored at countless b-boy battles. Both cuts feature subtle DNA re-edits — just extended intros and outros for smoother mixing. Out now on Spain’s Hace Calor label.

This is the second release that DJ Diplomat made all the way back in the early 90’s. His first release was repressed by Vinyl Fanatiks in 2019. This second repress we are doing for him was originally recorded in 1993 and engineered by Secret Squirrel AKA Hellfish who went on to create the Deathchant label in 1997, a label which Diplomat also recorded for. He was also responsible for the mega mixes on the Street Sounds electro series when it was relaunched in the noughties.

Enthused by the support his first repress received Will Diplomat decided to get back into the studio and start making fresh hardcore that sounded like it was made back in the day for the Vinyl Fanatiks sister label Amen Brother. His first release sold out many moons ago but his collab with former partner in the old 1993 hardcore group NARC (DJ Beagle) under the name Diplomat & Beagle is still in stock via Sequence.

Now check his examples of many samples!

Dimple Discs is pleased to announce its first release from the legend that is Jah Wobble. It is a completely solo work with Wobble writing playing and arranging. Lee Perry and King Tubby are deep influences with astounding top layer sonics. Jah Wobble, is an English bass guitarist and singer. He became known to a wider audience as the original bass player in Public Image Ltd (PiL) in the late 1970s and early 1980s; he left the band after two albums. Following his departure from PiL, he developed a solo career. In 2012, he reunited with fellow PiL guitarist Keith Levene for Metal Box in Dub and the album Yin & Yang. He continues to tour with a two hour show often presenting "Metal Box In Dub" with former Siouxsie and the Banshees guitar player Jon Klein who Wobble calls the greatest post punk guitarist.

Bobby Lyle is a keyboard legend from the fusion period of jazz in the mid to late 1970s. He was the pianist with Young Holt Unlimited and played with Jimi Hendricks, booked to go on the road with him just ahead of the untimely death. In 1974 he moved to Los Angeles and went on the road with Sly & The Family Stone, and then through dates with Ronnie Laws he met ex-Crusader Wayne Henderson who took him to Capitol Records where this, the first of three iconic albums was released in 1977. Bobby also became Wayne’s keyboard player of choice on his solo albums and productions through the remainder of the 70s and early 80s, contributing to the ‘At Home Production’ sound which defines these albums. “The Genie” was rediscovered in the ‘rare groove’ period of the 80s and is from which Bobby gets his nickname for the lightning pace and magic of his playing. This album is ultimate jazz funk from a period that gave us artists like Lonnie Liston Smith, Joe Sample and Bob James. Bobby still tours to this day with artists like George Benson and Anita Baker.

Black Truffle is pleased to announce a new edition of Kassel Jaeger’s Fernweh, returning François J. Bonnet’s electroacoustic project to the label five years after the acclaimed Meith (BT069). Originally released on Giuseppe Ielasi and Jennifer Veillerobe’s impeccably curated Senufo Editions in 2012, Fernweh stands near the beginning of the gradual expansion of Bonnet’s approach after the austere acoustic textures of Aerae and Algae (both released on Senufo), leading to the lush, layered environments of recent solo works on Shelter Press and the epic electronic expeditions undertaken in duo projects with Stephen O’Malley and Jim O’Rourke.

A major work in the Kassel Jaeger oeuvre, stretching over two LP sides, Fernweh draws together synthesized and musique concrète materials into a drifting assemblage. Its title’s meaning is close to the concept of ‘Wanderlust’, fitting for this music that moves freely and unexpectedly between what Bonnet calls ‘climates’. Beginning with fizzing electronics whose rhythm of gradual approach suggests breaking waves, the clinical atmosphere is soon haunted by intangible traces of lived reality. Textures call up wind, water, insects, the crunch of feet on sand or the clinking of glasses, yet they can never be identified with any certainty. At times these concrete elements possess a vivid ‘closeness’; at others, the sounds shade into a formless distance. Though the listener forms no clear picture from the concrete sounds, these elements aerate the music, lending it their space.

Drawing from the rigorous formal language and conceptual apparatus of the French musique concrète tradition—with which Bonnet, as director of the GRM and researcher into its deepest archival recesses, is intimately familiar—the music of Kassel Jaeger is equally informed by how underground experimental music has rethought electroacoustic techniques, with Fernweh at times calling up the grit and grime of para-industrial eccentrics like Maurizio Bianchi or the Toniutti brothers, and at other moments suggesting the slow-moving grandeur of early Olivia Block. Subtle features of dynamics and rhythm act as connective tissue between the numerous ‘scenes’, with wave-like envelopes, rapid pulsations, and short, tape-loop patterns all recurring throughout the piece, shared ambiguously between electronic and concrete sounds. Amid these shifting, often inharmonic textures, the electronic elements sometimes cohere into melodic shapes and chordal patterns, cutting through the fog in distorted arcs or underpinning the layered surface with slow-moving harmonies. Like his friend and collaborator Jim O’Rourke, Bonnet displays a radical openness at odds with academic tradition, allowing unabashed emotion to coexist with rigorous experimentation. As Fernweh dies away with mysterious shudders, listeners are left at once moved and unsure of exactly what they just heard.

These new collaborations follow the mesmerising 'Dissolve In the Rain' in 2022 where Calibre leaned into the blues of Chelou.

Belfast-born Dominick Martin has spent the last 30 years creating. With over 100 Singles and 25 albums, encompassing a myriad of tempos and genres. Painter, Multi-instrumentalist, singer, writer, producer and DJ.

Chelou is the moniker of London-based artist Adam Gray, a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer known for his psychedelic blend of folk, blues, and indie electronics. Raised in Camden and influenced by a musically rich environment, Chelou developed a reverb-soaked, dreamlike sound that combines minimal vocals, distorted guitar, ambient textures, and offbeat lyricism. His name, "Chelou," is French slang for "bizarre" or "strange," reflecting his enigmatic and unconventional identity.

He emerged in 2014 with the DIY EP The Quiet, gaining early support from BBC Radio 6 Music DJs like Lauren Laverne and Tom Ravenscroft. Tracks like "Halfway to Nowhere," "Out of Sight," and "Garden" drew attention for their raw, intimate tone and distinctive visual accompaniments. His debut album Out of Sight (2018) expanded his sound and artistic reach, featuring a popular animated video created by Robin Eisenberg.

Syncrophone Marks 20 Years of Abe Duque's 'What Happened' Ep With Special Anniversary Re-release Syncrophone Proudly Announces the Special 20th-Anniversary Re-Release of Abe Duque's Iconic 'What Happened' Ep. This Seminal Collection, Originally unleashed in the Early 2000s, Has Since Become a Cornerstone in the Techno and House Music Realms, Earning Its Status as a Timeless Classic. Abe Duque's 'What Happened' Ep Captivated Audiences With Its Distinctive Blend of Raw Energy, Hypnotic Rhythms, and Intricate Melodies. Each Track on This ep Is a Masterclass in Duque's Unique Production Style, Showcasing His innovative Approach to Electronic Music and Solidifying His Reputation as A trailblazer in the genre.

Underground Pacific is back with a new double vinyl compilation titled ‘The Only Good Wave is a Dead One’ that confirms, once again, its uncompromising taste for bold electronic music, psychedelic textures, and raw, electrified rock ‘n roll. This release brings together a varied group of artists, each of them adding something special to the journey.

The trip begins with “Excursions” by Gregory Moore, a piece that floats into a humid sonic world, between the nostalgic tones of vintage video game soundtracks, the Fourth World atmospheres of Jon Hassell, and the shimmering calm of ’90s Japanese ambient à la Takashi Kokubo.

Next comes Talee, the Rotterdam-based regular of the label, with “Makes Me Wonder”. Here, grunge-soaked vocals meet a tight dark disco groove, pierced by crystalline guitar chords that shimmer at the track’s heart. A song with its soul in the past and its feet in the club.

Label founder Cantor teams up once again with German duo New Hook on “Achtung! Achtung!”, an homage to the eponymous track by Italian producer Black Saagan. Fueled by vintage drum machines, punk-infused vocals, and melodies echoing the krautrock minimalism of Cluster, the track channels pure Cold War disco energy.

On “Scavengers”, Berlin based World Wild Web and Rasp Thorne deliver a pure mix of electro-rock noir – Suicide by way of David Lynch. Picture a never seen before episode of the series where Martin Rev and Alan Vega are playing live at the Roadhouse in Twin Peaks, while Laura Palmer slowly moves her head to the music, with a devilish smile on her face.

All the way from Grenoble to Berlin, H.L.M. deliver a dirty bass-driven anthem called ‘Fronde’. French spoken vocals spitfire over layers of distorted drones and hypnotic rhythms. The result is rough, hypnotic, and brings to mind the grooves of Death in Vegas.

New Hook return, this time solo, with ‘Unity’: a blend of groovy downtempo percussions, melancholic guitar riffs, and their signature brand of spoken word, a style that’s quickly become their sonic fingerprint.

Then it’s the turn of mexican-wave exponents Montessori featuring Vongold on “Ad Libitum”: a techy sunrise piece with soft pads, subtle build-ups, and an ecstatic sense of endlessness. After-party music for vast, open spaces.
Next up are SX2 from Ireland with their ‘Buttons’, offering a rolling tech-house banger laced with desert guitars. Psychedelic FX’s and whispered vocals drenched in delay slow the pace in a breakdown full of tension, preparing the floor to an euphoric release.

A dream from the pandemic era reappears: Cantor’s “Hannett’s Dream”, originally released in 2020 by Modular’s Project’s imprint ‘Nothing Is Real’ together with their own reworked version present also in two very limited vinyl-collector editions released by Underground Pacific. The introspection and hypnotic structure of the original cut here is replaced by a more stripped down arrangement, with a four-to-the-floor groove that is perfectly crafted for peak-time ignition.

Closing out the release is “Carissima” by the man behind iconic label Wonder Stories, Aimes – a Moroder-esque bassline and sensual vocals play on top of a warm groove that suddenly fractures into jazz-tinged, breakbeat mood, in the style of early Warp Records, just in time to get back into its disco-ish swing.

Contrary to what the title of this release might suggest, the wave isn’t dead at all. It’s well alive in the underground, reanimated by labels like Underground Pacific who are always ready to welcome artists who aren’t afraid to crash genres together and, above all, who are driven by the desire to make free-form, inspired pieces of music.

Having crested the west coast modular-ambient wave in just a few releases - including 2018's Sharing Waves on the influential LA experimental imprint Leaving Records - Sean Hellfritsch has swapped the mossy analog synth improvisations of his prior output for refined melodic arrangements dressed in sprightly dawn-of-digital textures. Big Earth Energy plumbs the depths of Hellfritsch's multimedia mind and naturalist heart, spinning an impressionistic narrative world off of cultural touchstones like the PC game MYST, and the work of Studio Ghibli composer Joe Hisaishi. Inspired by the aforementioned, and guided by Hellfritsch's experience as an animator and filmmaker, Big Earth Energy is the soundtrack to a hypothetical video game with a pointedly ecological premise, and a twist of psychedelic charm. In Hellfritsch's imagined virtual journey, the player assumes the perspective of a treefrog sixty-five-million years ago, hopping epochs with each new level, forming a comprehensive picture of the massive changes the planet has gone through over the eons. The ultimate goal of the game is not to amass resources, defeat enemies, or gain power, but to fully witness the unfolding of one of the biggest systems of energy imaginable - or as the album's creator puts it - "to explore the incomprehensibly vast energetic expression and mystery that is Earth." Big Earth Energy is steeped in exploratory RPG intrigue, possibility, and contemplation, lovingly overlaid with Miyazaki-an sentiments and aesthetics. The through-composed, organic, meandering synthesis heard on previous Cool Maritime albums has been fully replaced by meticulous polygonal arrangements that recall the computerized sheen of late 80s work by composers like Hiroshi Yoshimura, and Yoichiro Yoshikawa - using true-to-period gear no less. Even given its referentiality, Big Earth Energy comes off as forward-facing where so much reminiscent music remains fixed to a bygone moment in pop culture. Hellfritsch has created a musical world where the endless verdancy of the biosphere finds its parallel in the golden age of early 1990s video games, and late 80s Japanese environmental music, all while pointing to a hopeful planetary and artistic future that vindicates the motives of all of these muses.

Last year, 2024, the inimitable Future Sound of London graced us with 'Pulse Five', a CD instalment and follow-up to the classic Pulse EP series that began over 30 years ago as vinyl EPs. Now, as an extension of that original UK 12” series, six tracks have been hand-picked to create, “The Pulse E.P.-Volume 5” containing what had been previously unreleased DAT tape material from the early 90s. These unheard vintage recordings date back to the era of FSOL's much sought after classic singles and highly acclaimed Accelerator album.

California mail-order mystic Master Wilburn Burchette was first known from his ads, hidden in the back pages of Fate Magazine, Beyond Reality, and Gnostica News. On his 1972 sophomore album, Burchette channels dreamy early music, druid folk, electric fingerstyle, psychedelic balladry, and new age ontology to create a visionary guitar technique all his own. This faithful reproduction includes the original 12-page full color instruction book for the secret method of piercing the psychic heart.

Mr Bongo proudly presents Ritmo Italiano ‘Unspoken Sounds of Italian Tamburo’ a captivating compilation of percussive-driven, Italian gems curated by Sardinian multi-instrumentalist, percussionist and producer, Gabriele Poso. A journey into the heart of Italian musical history, it celebrates Italy’s rich rhythmic traditions, showcasing a selection of genre-traversing, Italian treasures from the ‘60s to the early ‘90s. Honouring the timeless rhythms of Italian percussion masters, alongside a brand-new exclusive composition by Gabriele, ‘Ritmo Italiano’ shines a light on the universal, primal language of the drum.

A connection sparked from an early age; percussion has always deeply resonated with Gabriele. It led to years of studying percussion traditions across Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Brazil, crafting his own songwriting skills in the process. An acclaimed producer and compiler, his releases on Yoruba Records, BBE and Soundway Records have garnered global support. Yet a growing need to rediscover the essence of his country’s cultural heritage laid the foundations for this new compilation.

In Gabriele’s own words, “Italy has always been a crossroads of civilizations, with influences from the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Middle East, and Europe converging over centuries. Ports like Naples, Genoa, and Venice played a crucial role as gateways for musical exchange, a melting pot of sounds and cultures brought by sailors, merchants and travellers. These influences blended with Italy’s own folk and religious traditions, creating Italy’s unique and emotionally resonant rhythms.”

Across the 12 absorbing tracks, there’s jazz influences, Italian library music aesthetics and experimental beats mixing with Afro-Cuban and Mediterranean rhythms. It’s a broad selection anchored by the drums. The synth-heavy, ‘80s jazz funk flavours of Gegè Munari's ‘Police Man’, sit side-by-side with the samba-infused ‘Napulitano D' 'O Brasil’ by Don Marino Barreto Jr. Tribal, earthly energy radiates from Naco’s ‘Volando Con Milton’, with Tullio De Piscopo serving up cosmic disco brilliance, and blistering jazz funk mastery coming courtesy of Agostino Marangolo. Taking the name of the compilation, a new original track by Gabriele, ‘Ritmo Italiano’, blends traditional rhythms with contemporary energy, Afro-Latin influences with Italian jazz essence. Recorded live in one take, it captures a raw, unfiltered vibe.

“Each track tells a story, connecting the past with the present, and highlighting the deep-rooted traditions that shape Italy’s rhythms. The collection also offers a glimpse into the diversity of Italian music with a variety of styles from the organic, earthy beats to the more experimental and modern takes on traditional rhythms. It’s a reflection of how these rhythms have not only shaped Italian culture but also influenced global music.”

REPRESS

New Delhi-based Peter Cat Recording Co. will release their debut album, ‘Bismillah’ on June 14, 2019 via French independent label Panache Records. Debut UK live shows are soon also to be announced by the band.


Peter Cat Recording Co. could almost have a question mark on the end of its name. Not least as founder & frontman Suryakant Sawhney refuses to explain where that name really comes from or what it means (perhaps a reference to the Tokyo jazz club owned by Haruki Murakami), but also since the very existence of the band itself raises a raft of questions. When was the last time we fell for an indie rock band for the right reasons? Not because the band in question nostalgically imitate a perceived ‘golden age’ but because they innately embody the fundamentals of such music: fantasy, sincerity and the freedom to make music without rules or career aspi- rations. And when was the last time this kind of band sounded like Sinatra, Barry White, the sweetest doo-wop, humid fanfares and a psychedelic wedding band, all at once? And all of this coming from India?
In truth, the story of Peter Cat Recording Co. was written within the triangle of San Francisco, Delhi and Paris.
In the first of these cities, Sawhney (a native of Delhi) pitched up to study film-making. More distracted by the city’s peaking live scene of the early noughties, this is where he started to make music and to sketch out an idea for the band.“
The people I lived with supported my idea of writing music, they introduced me to great mu-
sic. There used to be a great garage scene in San Francisco, like The Oh Sees also Ty Seagall, Mikal Conin, all those bands. This is a world I had never seen in my entire life. A big inspiration from San Francisco was that you could record yourself. You don’t need to be in a studio and spend a lot of money to make an album. You can do it”.


At the end of the 2000s, Suryakant returned home to New Delhi, and started his band for real, more or less the same band that plays today. “I wasn’t so concerned about will we be performing, will we be the greatest band, will we be trendy. I just wanted to make something that was consequential and important for us, I think. Something which would last, something people could listen to and be like « this is life changing ». It was for the sake of beauty”.


For the first few years and in India alone, this is exactly what Peter Cat Recording Co. did, in total indifference to the rest of the world. This was until young Parisian label Panache stumbled across the band online via Vice’s THUMP subsidiary, stupefied by the band’s cosmic video for seven-minutes-and-counting track, ‘Love De- mons’. And so in spring of 2018, ‘Portrait Of A Time: 2010-2016’ was released on Panache - making the first international release from Peter Cat Recording Co., bizarrely enough, an anthology of re-mastered, hidden gems from the band’s ramshackle back catalogue, previously recorded in Suryakant’s own living room. With Peter Cat’s off-kilter charm hitherto unheard of beyond the fringes of India, the release provided a gateway op-
Whilst the title track found its way onto Tracks Of The Year lists at the Guardian & NME, it was tricky for new PCRC enthusiasts to get a firm grip on the startling push/pull between the immediate, uncanny music this release gathered, and the cultural backdrop of New Delhi at which it was so startlingly at odds.


Opportunity for a wider fanbase to fall in love with their cloud-like, drunken songs for the first time.
If discovering your favourite new band via a ‘Best Of’ feels a curious premise, then ‘Bismillah’ does more than hint towards the promise of Peter Cat Recording Co’s future. Blending gypsy jazz, psychedelic cabaret, space disco, bossa supernova, Bollywood and uneasy listening with kaleidoscopic ease, in many senses, the band’s knack hasn’t altered. Always different, paradoxical, unpredictable yet somehow familiar. The new album opens to the strains of bird chatter, the whisper of a city’s soundscape and the first few notes from an instrument which seem to be calling us to the departure lounge, a fore-shadow of the flight ‘Bismillah’ launches its listener
on. Suryakant sings with the detached, rueful elegance of Sinatra marooned on a desert island, whilst his band create small space-time capsules which navigate their way through genres and eras – including the future – and between nostalgia and eccentricity.


Peter Cat recently trailed ‘Bismillah’ with the release of ‘Floated By’, an appositely titled musing on failure & missed opportunities, punctuated by the fulsome brass section which weaves through so much of the album.


The languid, blue quality to the track is offset by the attendant music video, created with footage shot, implau- sibly enough, at Suryakant’s own marriage ceremony (needless to say, the wedding band hired for the day was of course, Peter Cat Recording Co.) Sawhney dryly notes; “Hopefully it’s not a many-a-times-in-a-lifetime event. You can’t fake that set, those people actually having a good time, being really emotional and intense.” ‘Bismillah’’s colour-drenched album cover also captures Suryakant’s father-in-law making his wedding toast on that same day - a nod back towards the cover of ‘Portrait Of A Time’, itself a black & white image taken at the wedding ceremony of Suryakant’s own father.


A stumbling but gracious collection of songs rooted in a kind of drunken soul music, the melancholy nature of some of the songs on ‘Bismillah’ renders them almost liquid, before they develop into more dance-like shapes. Suryakant’s rangy voice swoops from the falsetto glide of ‘I’m This’ to the beat-up baritone blown along by the warm breeze of ‘Soulless Friends’. The elliptical structure of album opener ‘Where The Money Flows’ also al-
lows for the use of brief bursts of autotune effect on his vocal without feeling incongruous, whilst the desultory lyrics of ‘Heera’ (a Hindi word for diamond) - sharing something with the Morricone school of grand storytelling - have an emotional weight that would impress even coming from a native English speaker. Perhaps the most gleefully unpredictable moment on ‘Bismillah’ comes with the illusory, vocal loops on the intro to ‘Memory Box’, errupting into 8 exhilarating minutes worth of unbridled, string-backed disco joy. A cat might have nine lives, but on ‘Bismillah’ and beyond, Peter Cat Recording Co. are hinting towards an un- knowable multitude of dimensions. Throw them all together, and it equates less to a listening experience and more to an out-of-body experience.


Peter Cat Recording Co. are: Suryakant Sawhney (vocals/guitar/organ), Dhruv Bhola (bass), Kartik S Pillai (organ/guitar/electronics), Rohit Gupta (horns), Karan Singh (drums)

Santana Bridges the Divide Between Live and Studio Material on Moonflower: 1977 Double Album Features Extraordinary Performances, Soulful Vibes, and Dynamic Mix of Latin, Rock, Funk, and Blues
Sourced from the Original Master Tapes and Strictly Limited to 3,000 Numbered Copies: Mobile Fidelity’s 180g 33RPM 2LP Set Plays with Audiophile-Quality Detail, Balance, and Imaging
1/4” / 15 IPS original analogue non-Dolby master to DSD 256 to analogue console to lathe



Though it may seem strange now, Moonflower stood for nearly 15 years as Santana’s first and only live record released in the United States. This despite the fact that roughly half of the double album consists of new studio songs, including a zesty cover of the Zombies classic “She’s Not There” that reached the Top 30 of the singles charts.

However unconventional, the “split” strategy went over like gangbusters. Moonflower reached the Top 10 of the Billboard Top 200 and achieved double-platinum status — feats the group would not again replicate for 22 years. These, and the beautiful quality of the program itself, are among the reasons why the 1977 effort remains viewed by critics and fans alike as must-have Santana.

Sourced from the original master tapes, pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing in California, housed in a Stoughton jacket, and strictly limited to 3,000 numbered copies, Mobile Fidelity’s 180g 33RPM 2LP set of Moonflower presents the record in audiophile sound for the first time on a domestic reissue. Part of the MoFi’s Santana catalog restoration series, this collectible version features quiet surfaces and black backgrounds that expose the critical details, liquid tones, and dynamic interplay central to Santana’s music.

The enhanced sonics extend not only to Carlos Santana’s six-string wizardry, but to the rhythmic, melodic, and vocal elements that course throughout both the studio and live cuts on Moonflower. The grip and depth of the bass lines; the wash of the organ; the scope and carry of the vocals; the extension and weight of the low-end frequencies; the rich textures of the guitars, percussive devices, and keyboards: all appear amid wide, balanced soundstages and image with right-sized dimensionality.

Significantly rooted in the styles and approaches that inform the group’s first three records, Moonflower captures the final appearances of iconic percussionist Jose “Chepito” Areas and go-to keyboardist Tom Coster on a Santana album. As he did during the preceding five-year stretch, Coster inhabits a large role here, sharing songwriting credits on a majority of the new cuts and helping steer the arrangements toward spiritually minded albeit concise directions that encompass vibrant Latin, rock, and blues themes that began to escape the ensemble shortly after his departure.

Close your eyes and feel the warmth of the sun on the R&B-kissed “I’ll Be Waiting,” anchored by Carlos Santana’s gliding fretwork and Greg Walker’s creamy vocals. Enter the cosmic universe of “Zulu,” on which Coster’s nimble phrasing opens the gate to polyrhythmic beats, knotty grooves, and interlocking funk. Grab the album cover and drift off to paradise amid the equally evocative “Flor d’Luna (Moonflower),” a romantic slow dance that Carlos Santana ensures tiptoes en route to its blissful destination. Channeling a different spirit animal, the guitarist later lets loose on the hard-hitting “El Morocco,” on which he seemingly engages in a shootout with himself and wades into the rippling psychedelia that elevated the band’s early material.

Speaking of the past, Moonflower triumphs on that level as well. In more ways than one, the live selections — and the caliber of the performances — chosen for inclusion represent an abbreviated greatest-hits survey of the band up to that point. And, at the very least, a convincing argument about why Santana had progressed into one of the most formidable bands you could hope to see on a stage in the mid ‘70s.

Simultaneously representative and illustrative of the group’s breadth, tracks stem from the collective’s eponymous debut, Abraxas, and Santana III as well as the then-more recent Amigos and Festival. Whether you fall for the sidewinding spell of a spicy rendition of “Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen,” lose your head to the positively epic momentum of “Soul Sacrifice/Head, Hands & Feet,” or keep dropping the needle on the savory grace of the brilliant reading of “Europa (Earth’s Cry Heaven’s Smile),” this pressing of Moonflower puts you — and Santana’s first-chapter legacy — in good hands.

Random Coloured Vinyl
Nu-Tone presents Combo Tezeta's debut 7" vinyl record! The A-side, "La Danza Del Camaleón" is an instrumental cumbia-salsera that takes you on a tropical trip with a touch of psychedelia. On the flip side, a dark mid-tempo bolero called, "La Reina Nocturna". Remastered from the original verion, released by Discos Más in 2020. Based out of the Bay Area, Combo Tezeta plays a highly danceable blend of instrumental Cumbias, Chichas, and Musica Tropical inspired by the late 60's and early 70's era of psychedelic Peru. Layering the reverb-fueled sounds of surf rock onto the foundations of Cumbia, the band's focus is to highlight the rich melodies and hypnotic rhythms birthed from the Afro-Latin diaspora. Along with its appreciation of world music and its diverse cultures, Combo Tezeta's mission is to deliver the sounds and musical echoes of the past to the present through a combination of traditional and original music. Combo Tezeta was featured in Noise Pop 2023 and has played Pacific Northwest tours with Satan’s Pilgrim and Thomas Lauderdale of Pink Martini 2023. The band has played famed Bay Area Venues the Chapel, Eli’s Mile High Club and the Ivy Room.  In Summer of 2024 they toured the Pacific Northwest and Southern California, including an appearance at The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. The band was chosen by NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts to be one of 20 finalists (out of 7000), and featured them in the Northern California showcase of finalists at Lagunitas Brewery in 2024. “Oakland seven-piece Combo Tezeta kicked off the baile with a garage-band take on ’60s and ’70s classics and originals, with distorted guitars and jangly synths layering psychedelic ooze onto timbales and güiras. The musician’s solos revealed hard-won skills, but the band members looked remarkably chill as they played together fluidly.” – KQED

Founded in 2020 by Austrian producer Lee Stevens, Rising Seed has evolved into a joint venture with Ken Hayakawa and a collective of guest musicians. Blending Acid Jazz, Trip Hop, and Disco, the project bridges the warmth of live instrumentation with the depth of electronic production.
With a strong focus on recording and re sampling real instruments, Rising Seed crafts a rich, organic sound—where vintage samplers, drum machines, and analog textures meet hypnotic grooves and cinematic atmospheres. Inspired by artists like Moby, Kruder & Dorfmeister, and Massive Attack, their debut album True Lies unfolds like a layered collage, blurring the lines between past and future, truth and illusion.
The opening track, “Follow Me,” perfectly embodies this fusion: sampled instruments and vocal snippets blend seamlessly with live recordings of flute and saxophone, all set against a funky drum break. “Gone West” does the unthinkable—marrying a house groove with esoteric vocals, live sitar by Amrith Jan, and—why not?—a touch of harmonica. “Like A Lion” is a dub-infused downbeat track packed with crusty blues samples.
On “Freedom,” we hear a more minimalist side of Rising Seed, with a tight brush-drum arrangement and densely layered sitar melodies. Another high point is “Soldier of Peace,” featuring even more funky sitar and a subtle acid line, reminiscent of the early days of big beat. It’s followed by “True Lies,” which elegantly distills the downbeat sound of the late '90s while staying true to the Rising Seed formula.
“Psych Jazz” is, as the title suggests, both psychedelic and jazzy, albeit with a somber, low-slung trip-hop feel, while “Don’t Worry” is equally trippy yet more upbeat, carried by a moaning vocal sample that urges us not to worry. Finally, “Stay with Me” closes the album with a jazz-infused vibe that is both moody and uplifting, its shuffling drum groove and elegant piano melodies providing a fitting conclusion.

Abstraxion unveils Void Sequence, a high-energy EP blending progressive house, early trance, and raw ’90s club aesthetics — featuring remixes by Bliss Inc. and Maruwa.
Out June 6th on vinyl via Biologic Records, the release delivers rolling basslines, hypnotic builds, and razor-sharp grooves — all engineered for peak-time impact.
A forthcoming remix EP will include Bliss Inc. and Maruwa’s unique interpretations of the original tracks.
Supported by: Jennifer Cardini, Massimiliano Pagliara, Alinka, Eoin, BELLA, Bliss Inc., Maruwa, Chloé, Pletnev, Bella Sarris, Blu:sh, Fabrizio Mammarella, Miguel de Bois...

"The restorations of The Lost Recordings are worthy of those devoted to master paintings." — Le Journal du Dimanche

"We discovered these previously unpublished tapes in the archives of the RBB — the Berlin radio. This discovery is absolutely major because these two incredible musicians had recorded too little together and because this recording offers us the possibility to listen to them in works that were unpublished so far in their discography — notably an extraordinary sonata by Prokofiev! And what can we say about this Bach sonata, with an Andante that brought tears to the eyes of everyone present in the studio at the time." — Frédéric D'ORIA-NICOLAS, Musical treasure seeker

János Starker, cellist, and György Sebok, pianist, were both born in Hungary early in the 20th century. They were welcomed into the formidable Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, and emigrated to the USA, where they both held the title of Distinguished Professor at the Indiana University School of Music in Bloomington. Both heavy smokers and sometimes reputed — unjustly — to be harsh, austere and insensitive to trends, they were drawn to music in all its varieties and fascinated by its many colours. They had one aim only, one noble objective: to showcase the works all composers, as evidenced by this recording made in the legendary Studio 3 of Berlin Radio on 24 October 1963.

Starker and Sebok were fully imbued with the aesthetics that Prokofiev proclaimed: "I cultivate melody and strive to introduce feeling and emotion into my works. No matter that some call me a cubist, adding that I systematically avoid any emotional or romantic elements in my quest to reach only objectivity."

Next, and at the opposite end of the spectrum, is the Spanish passion of the two pieces by Granados and De Falla, pieces that nevertheless also convey melancholy. Starker and Sebok launch into the works with enthusiasm and intensity.

The last piece, Bach's Sonata in G Major, BWV 1027 for Viola da Gamba and Keyboard, is one of three he composed, probably in Köthen. Because they may have originally been written for other instruments, they can easily be transcribed for the cello and piano. They reveal the rich influences that pervaded the German region during the first half of the 18th century. The two musicians give us a sublime interpretation of the beauty of the counterpoint in this Sonata.

These recordings attest to the importance that the two superb musicians attached to working in the service of the composers. We wonder if, in that enchanted studio in Berlin in 1963, they knew how much further they went to bewitch us and touch us so profoundly.

A genuine lost gem of late psychedelia/very early progressive which has lain slumbering on a couple of ancient reel to reel tapes and a single 7” Acetate in an attic since 1971. Lead track Spare Time is a sublime, insouciant garage psych classic at the Open Mind/ Magic Potion level, with DR Hooker vibes on the vocals: from there the album goes on a trippy sonic voyage of light and shade, never losing an innate sense of melody, dreamy vocals, garage organ, lots and lots of distorted, unhinged guitar and featuring a blowtorch live cover of Better By You Better Than Me. No moment wasted here and the last track a magical surprise! 227 released copies in Fully Laminated sleeve that features the original artwork for The Moon of Gomrath. Printed Inner and Insert. Barcodes on Stickers, No Shrink-wrap.

My Boy Lollipop is the debut album by Jamaican singer Millie Small, capturing the infectious energy of the early ska movement. Driven by the global success of the title track, a genre-defining hit, the album delivers a lively mix of upbeat rhythms, playful melodies, and Millie’s unmistakable high-pitched vocals. With a blend of ska, pop, and R&B influences, it's a vibrant showcase of the sound that helped bring Jamaican music to international audiences. A must-have for fans of classic ska and timeless feel-good tunes.

DJ Support - Luke Una, Nikki Nair, Make A Dance, Boris Dlugosch, Gallegos

THIS YEARS BANGER IS HERE! After last years crossover smasher ‘Italo Disco Banger’, which picked up love from DJ Harvey, Gerd Janson and Fatboy Slim, Red Rack’em has been back in the lab, cooking up this years contribution to his ever growing, genre hopping series of ‘Bangers’. He’s hit discotheque paydirt once more with the euphoric tropical disco house burner vibes of ‘Secret Banger’. The feedback has been insane with early support from a wide range of tastemakers including Make A Dance, Nikki Nair, Luke Una, Boris Dlugosch and Gallegos, it’s a crossover, summer magic jam, perfect for those Adriatic or Balearic mornings. Secret Banger is an instant classic. Perfectly pitched for festival sunshine and late night heads down parties. It’s a ‘moment’ track, combining the biggest vocal hook this side of Daft Punk, ecstasy pads, tropical boogie strut and the trademark Rack’em club shaking sub bass. Secret Banger is a sureshot, guaranteed to give eyes closed moments to even the most frosty dancefloors. Monday is ostensibly ‘the deeper B Side cut’ but it’s also a certy club wrecker. Samples are being mad flipped people. A wacked out street soul snippet is sliced and diced before the track mutates into a huge pitched down late night jaw bothering incantation. The OG sample is hard cut into the track like a more clever than most DJ on the decks. You need this.

Top level new reggae music from the amazingly talented Kiko Bun.
All instruments, mixing, vocals and lyrics by Kiko himself. Recorded at his then North West London home studio. A truly incredible sound to achieve! Inspiration from the golden era of early 80s rub a dub but with a firm foot in the 2020s lyrically and sonically.

WRWTFWW Records is very happy to release Swiss cult band Grauzone’s recording of their April 12th 1980 live show at Gaskessel in their hometown of Bern. The 9-track album, documenting the very beginnings of the group, is available as a limited edition white vinyl LP in heavy 350gsm sleeve with special artwork by band member Stephan Eicher.

Experience the early Grauzone days, live from Bern, Switzerland, with a concert recorded at legendary local venue Gaskessel, with Martin Eicher on guitar and vocals, Christian G.T. Trüssel on bass, Marco Repetto on drums, Stephan Eicher on synth, and Claudine Chirac on saxophone. The performance is a true time capsule of the early 80s underground, showcasing the punk side of Grauzone with renditions of songs that were never officially released, as well as future fan-favorite “Moskau”. A piece of Swiss music history, This limited release is a must have for all Grauzone fans and DIY archivists.

About Grauzone:

The pioneering band from Bern (Switzerland) had a short-lived but highly-regarded career which birthed a cult discography that still fascinates and resonates today. Consisting of core members Martin Eicher, Stephan Eicher, and Marco Repetto, and on-and-off participants Christian GT Trüssel, Claudine Chirac, and Ingrid Berney, the elusive group broke new grounds in the early 80s, experimenting with punk and industrial music, early techno sounds, minimalism, new wave, pop, and various electronics. With an innovative and polished approach to design, visuals, performance, and all around style and philosophy on top of their superb music, the constantly transforming unit developed a whole experience - the Grauzone experience: wild and unpredictable, yet sophisticated and cohesive, or as Swiss music historian Lurker Grand would call it, "an Art band with a Punk attitude".

Completely rejecting the music industry rules and refusing to play the game of promotion, touring, release schedules, and TV appearances even though they had a multi-platinum international hit with the song "Eisbär", the band quickly disintegrated in full convention-defying glory, leaving behind an inspiring music legacy for the world to discover and discover again, one generation after the other.

Stephan Eicher went on to be, arguably, the most successful Swiss musician ever, with an international career extending from pop chanson to experimental escapades and collaborations with Moondog, artists Sophie Calle and Sylvie Fleury, and author Martin Suter among many other luminaries. Marco Repetto flourished as a techno and ambient producer, releasing multiple projects including releases on Aphex Twin’s Rephlex label.

Noumena is the second volume of music capturing percussionist Tim Barnes in a variety of collaborative settings recorded in extraordinary circumstances over the past few years. Since the 90s, he has collaborated with a range of talents in the indie rock, improvised & experimental music scenes. In 2021, Tim was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer"s at the age of 54, and he and his family went public with this immediately. The response from Tim"s network of friends and musical peers was overwhelming, and, beginning in late 2021, collaborative recordings were undertaken, coordinated and assembled by Tim"s longtime friend Ken (Bundy) Brown, with whom Tim had worked in the past as a member of the group Pullman, early pioneers of the new Americana movement in the indie scene of the late 90s. The recordings for Noumena feature the playing of Joshua Abrams, Oren Ambarchi, Ken Brown, John Dieterich, Darin Gray, Glenn Kotche, Robert Carlos Lange, Ro(b)//ert Lundberg, Douglas McCombs,, Matt Mehlan, Rob Mazurek, Tara Jane O"Neil Jim O"Rourke, Chad Taylor, Thollem, Britt Walford and Mike Watt. As with Lost Words, Noumena cuts a dramatic swath through a sweep of music styles, all of which are deepened by Tim"s versatile, intensely stimulated percussive feel.

The strength of Fan Club Orchestra's (FCO) trajectory lies in their nebulous, collaborative, and experimental nature, always with Laurent Baudoux at the centre. With its roots in the DIY impulses of the Brussels art and music scene of the late nineties, Baudoux rallied together a revolving cast of players with an unconventional ensemble of instruments to explore melancholic psychedelia that touched on drone and minimalism as readily as it carved minor pop hits from cracked electronics. Performances were often highly improvisational, aided by the barely controlled chaos that guest collaborators—such as American artist Mike Kelley—would inject into an appearance.

FCO self-released two albums in the early 2000s before finding a home with Sonig, where they released several more records up until their last with the label in 2013. This was a fitting frame as Sonig, like FCO, channelled the fervour and formalism of the experimental music history of the Rhineland, which includes Kraftwerk, krautrock, and key early electronic music studios.

Following an eleven year hiatus, Laurent Baudoux reassembled the group in 2024 and presented a new album with the esteemed Glaswegian label 12th Isle late in that same year. Building on the strength of the new iteration, and with the aim of reappraising some of the rich yet oblique history of the group through this new lens, FCO have remastered and reissued their 2013 album, 'An Insane Portrait'.

The recordings were originally commissioned in 2009 for Fabrizio Terranova's film 'Josée Andrei, An Insane Portrait' about the truly remarkable figure Josée Andrei. Shot in San Francisco, the film is an intimate portrait of Andre. Blind from birth, she is a witch, painter, photographer, tarot reader, and psychology and modern literature graduate.

'An Insane Portrait' captures a stripped-back FCO, with Baudoux working solely with original FCO member Ann Appermans. The configuration of Baudoux's electronics and Appermans' bass guitar yield a tender and preciously melodic suite of instrumentals.

Originally released on vinyl by Sonig in 2013, the remaster will again be presented by the label in a limited cassette edition and in digital formats, each featuring a bonus track that was not included in its original release.

The strength of Fan Club Orchestra's (FCO) trajectory lies in their nebulous, collaborative, and experimental nature, always with Laurent Baudoux at the centre. With its roots in the DIY impulses of the Brussels art and music scene of the late nineties, Baudoux rallied together a revolving cast of players with an unconventional ensemble of instruments to explore melancholic psychedelia that touched on drone and minimalism as readily as it carved minor pop hits from cracked electronics. Performances were often highly improvisational, aided by the barely controlled chaos that guest collaborators—such as American artist Mike Kelley—would inject into an appearance.

FCO self-released two albums in the early 2000s before finding a home with Sonig, where they released several more records up until their last with the label in 2013. This was a fitting frame as Sonig, like FCO, channelled the fervour and formalism of the experimental music history of the Rhineland, which includes Kraftwerk, krautrock, and key early electronic music studios.

Following an eleven year hiatus, Laurent Baudoux reassembled the group in 2024 and presented a new album with the esteemed Glaswegian label 12th Isle late in that same year. Building on the strength of the new iteration, and with the aim of reappraising some of the rich yet oblique history of the group through this new lens, FCO have remastered and reissued their 2013 album, 'An Insane Portrait'.

The recordings were originally commissioned in 2009 for Fabrizio Terranova's film 'Josée Andrei, An Insane Portrait' about the truly remarkable figure Josée Andrei. Shot in San Francisco, the film is an intimate portrait of Andre. Blind from birth, she is a witch, painter, photographer, tarot reader, and psychology and modern literature graduate.

'An Insane Portrait' captures a stripped-back FCO, with Baudoux working solely with original FCO member Ann Appermans. The configuration of Baudoux's electronics and Appermans' bass guitar yield a tender and preciously melodic suite of instrumentals.

Originally released on vinyl by Sonig in 2013, the remaster will again be presented by the label in a limited cassette edition and in digital formats, each featuring a bonus track that was not included in its original release.

New R&B discoveries continue to emerge and entertain the many followers of the New Breed musical cult; nobody finds more than the Kent connoisseurs.
Berna Dean’s two previously unheard recordings are by far her best. They were laid down at Cosimo Matassa’s New Orleans’ studios by GNP Crescendo but eschewed in favour of two relatively average sides. The great 50s R&B songwriter Jesse Stone provides a rocker for the much-admired Jimmy Breedlove and a super-catchy ‘This Morning’ for an unknown mixed vocal group that has a joyous gospel feel. Jesse also penned ‘Private Eye’, a classic early 60s story-song, for Buddy Wilkins which was issued on Al Sears’ Tri-Ess imprint.
The title track is used twice, on two very different Fraternity recordings. Kenny Smith’s version was issued in 1964 and has many followers, but the equally meritorious Coasters-inspired composition by the Citations is newly discovered. Win Menifee’s ‘I’m Runnin’ Around’ from the same Cincinnati label comes complete with a fascinating back-story.
There are three cover versions. Vermettya Royster’s ‘All Around The World’ is backed by James Brown’s 1961 band, while Roosevelt Lee's 1970 update of the 1947-originated ‘Hey Little Girl’ funks the tune up a la Godfather of Soul. The cover that will make the biggest noise is undoubtedly west coast band the Afterglows’ version of Barbara Lynn’s evergreen dancer ‘I’m A Good Woman’ – this is a future monster.
Golden Crest provides two fabulous male vocal group sides – the swinging ‘What’s On Your Mind’ by Eddie Daye’s Four Bars and the delightful harmonies of the appropriately-named, but unknown Delights ‘Mary Don’t You Weep’.
Blues still thrived into the 70s as Albert Washington’s mean and moody ‘Case Of The Blues’ proves. Smokey Wilson took the music into the late 70s with the storming ‘Goin’ Away Baby (Round Like An Apple)’, which benefits here from a 45-style edit. His Pioneer Club on 88th Street in South Central L A provides the atmospheric photo for this collection.
More early 60s movers come from Wilbur “Hi-Fi” White with ‘Don’t Look Now’, future hit songwriter Johnny Madara’s raucous ‘You Make Me Mad’ and Big Boy Groves ‘Bucket O’ Blood’ which brilliantly describes the kind of club these tracks would fit right into.
The LP version loses a few tracks, but so many collectors have strong preferences we’ve thrown the vinyl junkies a lifeline.

This is an album made during a crucial period in South Africa’s history during which there was a palpable feeling of a slow turning towards the collapse of the apartheid state side by side with an increasingly well-organised culture of resistance through the formation of the United Democratic Front (UDF) and various affiliated bodies. However, as a result, there was increased pushback from the state security establishment, a turning to dirty tricks and the formation of hit squads whose members murdered and tortured many of our friends and created chaos throughout South Africa as well as neighbouring countries.

This album is situated in this political environment however it took advantage of the new do-it-yourself music technologies available at that time. Technologies that made it possible to make and release records without interference from traditional record company executives. Two musician friends of mine pooled their resources after their respective bands had broken up. Ivan Kadey (National Wake) and Lloyd Ross (Radio Rats) built an 8-track recording studio control room and fitted it out in a second hand caravan and called it Shifty. They parked it in a garage attached to the only house left in a demolished and derelict mining village near Soweto on the outskirts of Johannesburg.
All the work on this album was completed there, mainly after hours and mostly alone where I enjoyed an exhilarating freedom to develop a whole new set of musical skills and ideas, incorporating my love of a wide range of music I’d grown up with. Influences of 1970s progressive/kraut/and psychedelic rock combined with mbaqanga bass styles, early reggae/dub and Indian tabla rhythms. Stockhausen, early Zappa and Holgar Czukay were radio text and shredding influences, and Chris Cutler’s band Henry Cow & Art Bears helped me see a way to political expression. Mostly though was the exciting post-punk and no-wave music coming through to us from Europe and America: bands like This Heat, the Mekons, Raincoats, Sonic Youth and Pere Ubu were immensely important to me as was my reading from the period: J.M.Coetzee’s first 3 novels are strong influences on Free State Fence; the stark landscape, superstition, ritual, and sexual repression are in many of his settings. JG Ballard was a constant presence throughout that period, especially whilst living in such a surreal environment, surrounded by mine dumps, but mostly I think the whole French post-modern philosophical movement—Derrida, Foucault and of course, Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation—set out a new sense of possibilities, possible ways to express oneself, ways to think, and ways to try and analyse the political intersection of public and private life. Most important at that time was the influence of sound recordings I had made and experiences garnered from working as a sound recordist on documentary films. These financed my work and later the studio and were consistent employment throughout the 1980s. Film work also enabled me to experience much of South Africa that was hidden from most. The track Independence Day is a good example; drawn from some time spent in the rural homeland of Venda. This then was the first full length Kalahari Surfers album, completed in summer of 1984 it was taken to EMI pressing plant but rejected by the cutting engineer as being ""political, pornographic and anti religious"". Chris Cutler at Recommended Records took up the challenge and released the album through his label. He wrote the original liner note

Matthew Herbert and drummer/vocalist Momoko Gill announce the release of new album Clay, via Strut Records in collaboration with Accidental. A soulful, elastic collaboration, Clay treads nimbly between the dancefloor and the more introspective moods of the early hours, both reminiscent of Herbert"s iconic album Around The House while taking off in a compelling new direction. Agile and open-hearted, Clay is a thrilling, sonically adventurous record from two of the UK"s most forward-thinking artists.

Embark on a sonic journey through Rod Stewart's unparalleled career with this comprehensive compilation. Ultimate Hits gathers his most beloved songs, from the heartfelt storytelling early classics like "Handbags and Gladrags" and "Maggie May" to the irresistible hooks of chart-topping anthems such as "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" and "Forever Young". More than just a collection of hits, this meticulously curated set spans decades, revealing the evolution of a true musical icon's enduring talent and versatility. This is the ultimate Rod Stewart experience for both longtime fans and new listeners, a testament to his lasting impact on music.

Rod Stewart’s Ultimate Hits will be a new career-spanning greatest hits collection. The release will be the first to include songs ranging from his 1971 hit, “Maggie May” to selections from 2024’s UK #1,“Swing Fever,” with key touchstone hits along the way - celebrating 6 #1 UK singles and a top 5 hit worldwide in consecutive decades. Rod will participate in several major milestone events this year, including his performance in the Teatime Legend Slot at Glastonbury Festival on Sunday, June 29th.

Compiled by Philip King
“And then came the rise of synth pop : blokes with dodgy haircuts hunched over keyboard-operated
machines stuffed with wires and do-it-yourself tone oscillators making sounds like a brood of geese
passing gas in a wind tunnel. Whoopee! This is the way the ‘70s ended : not with a blood-curdling bang
bang but with a cheap, synthesized, emasculating whimper.”
NICK KENT, NME.

All The Young Droids: Junkshop Synth Pop 1978-1985 is a new compilation that charts the
underbelly of the epoch-defining sound of the synthesiser in 80s popular music. Compiled by Philip
King (previously seen compiling All The Young Droogs, Glitterbest and Boobs - The Junkshop
Glam Discotheque), the music here connects the dots between DIY synth enthusiasts grappling with
new, cheap synthesisers at the tail-end of punk and wannabe, jobbing songwriters enthral to the new
music pioneered by Gary Numan, Depeche Mode and Daniel Miller’s Mute Records. Featuring rare
tracks of auto-didactic progressive pop music, proto-techno punk, shoot-for-the-stars-land-in-the-gutter
chart flops and heralded, underground synth classics, School Daze paints a picture of beautiful failure.
Complete with extensive sleeve notes written by King and never before seen imagery, all 24 tracks
were remastered by RPM in-house engineer Simon Murphy, many from vinyl copies due to lost master
tapes. The story told on All The Young Droids is one of the dawning opportunity presented by both the
emergence to the market of cheaper analog synthesisers and the distribution networks plus indie labels
that exploded with the advent of punk music in 1976. While the music that sprouted out all over the
globe in the wake of these factors was decried as fake, plastic, a refutation of punk’s guitar-led
revolution, it’s telling that much of the music on All The Young Droids.. was created in bedrooms,
ramshackle studios and home-made set ups with often borrowed equipment. In the era of record labels
jumping to capitalise on the success of The Sex Pistols, The Clash (both on major labels, of course)
these artists struggled to stand out from a new gold-rush with next to no budget or PR team. With radio
and labels desperate for the new Yazoo, what resulted was a testament to necessity being the mother
of invention.

At the time, the synthesiser was the music of the future, a shiny new machine that could paint like an
orchestra with a single finger and a 4-track. In the hands of Manchester avant-pranksters Gerry & The
Holograms it’s a pulsing, sardonic weapon.. the only instrument on the Messthetics classic lampooning
of New Wave fashion. In Hamburg, a 16 year old Andreas Dorau used it to write and record (with his
female classmates on vocals) a global smash in Fred Vom Jupiter (later licensed to Mute Records).
The hard-to-find English version (Fred From Jupiter, natch) is included here. Many artists with alreadystoried careers caught the bug and recorded synthesiser-fuelled peons to space, computers, the future
and, of course, love-interests. Harry Kakoulli, late of Squeeze, recorded a solo album in 1979 that
included the incredible power-synth-pop smash-that-never-smashed I’m On A Rocket. Similarly, Ian
North of Neo and American Power Pop stalwarts Milk ’n’ Cookies bought a Korg MS20 and used a
tape machine to record We’re Not Lonely, an absolute lost-classic of minimal synth pop. We’re Not
Lonely also features on the Junkshop Synth Pop sampler 7” twinned with John Howard unreleased
track You Will See, released April 12th 2025.

There are plenty of compilation debuts in evidence. Sole Sister were a mysterious trio who were
featured on the Scaling Triangles compilation of female-fronted, queer-adjacent post-punk /
underground music that also featured The Petticoats. Selwin Image were from San Francisco and
featured members of the recently defunct power pop/punk group The Pushups. Their stupidly catchy
The Unknown fizzes with New Wave energy - think XTC to Sparks but remains unreleased until now.
Dream Unit’s A Drop In The Ocean is an early synth wave cut, positively teaming with Joy Division
instrumentation, previously only released on a long-forgotten and super rare, self-released EP.
Incandescent Luminaire’s Famous Names belies an archetypal struggle of a small-town trying to
make it in a cruel industry but is a thrilling New Romantic-Synth Wave cross over with a OMD
gloominess that’s a joy to hear. Feminist Minimal Wave track I Am A Time Bomb by performance artist
Peta Lilly and Michael Chance is a revelation destined for new found cult status. It was released on 7”
and lost until now.

The flipside to the subterranean, never-made-it synth pop mentioned above are the ambitious, even
fruity attempts at success that have a perennial elegance to their confidence. New Jersey-ite Billy
London (real name Ed Barth) tried to cash in on the synth boom with Woman, released by a major
label, a lurching new wave track built on the Louie Louie rhythm and a wonderfully camp Lou Reedstyle sleazy vocal before exploding in the synthesised chorus. The song bombed but with a chorus like
this, you have to wonder why? Ex-Glitter Band member John Springate’s My Life is truly epic, with
doomed chord progressions and massive sounding drums turning into at least 3 different songs in the
course of the track. Before you wonder what’s going on the song resolves with a glorious return to the
main refrain.

The dry-ice-dressed dance floor is well catered for too. Design’s Premonition and Vision’s Lucifer’s
Friend are stone-cold minimal synth bangers, well loved but given a new lease of life here. The
Warlord’s The Ultimate Warlord was released in 1978, a homespun proto Hi NRG banger that was
later re-recorded by The Immortals in Canada who had a club hit with it. One-man- band Disco
Volante’s No Motion was re-issued by Synth wave label Medical in 2012 but makes its first vinyl
compilation appearance here. Close your eyes and you can imagine what Lawrence of Felt would have
sounded like with some cheap Korgs a little earlier in his career. Gibraltar-based trio The Microbes
imagined a computer programming people to dance - how prescient - and ended up with a propulsive,
robo-funk track with splendid rubbery bass playing over a tectonic drum machine. Previously picked up
by Belgian label Stroom TV, Dee Jay Bert & Eagle’s heavily Euro-accented I Am Your Master
demands the listener to “come to paradise!” In a frankly terrifying manner.
All The Young Droids is the first compilation to peel away from the narrative that dour, Minimal Synth
and Cold Wave were the only musical children of the first rush of synth pop. Philip King and School
Daze Records describe a much more complicated world: along with the austere, Brutalist children of
Daniel Miller (who produced Alan Burnham’s Bowie-Low-influenced Science Fiction here) was a
plethora of desperate cash-ins, accidental mainstream hits, ambitious pop dramas and major label
punts that went nowhere. Crucially, the compilation blurs the line between junk and treasure. What if the
two things are interchangeable. What if it’s all science fiction?

The Bluebells' Sisters is a perfect snapshot of early '80s "Sound of Young Scotland": Glasgow indie pop with bittersweet spirit, sharp hooks, and heartfelt harmonies. Signing to the then-nascent London Records, and working with a procession of esteemed producers (including Elvis Costello who became a mentor and teacher to the band), The Bluebells enjoyed three UK hits in the 1980s ('Cath', 'Young at Heart' and 'I'm Falling') before touring widely throughout Europe and North America, developing their live sound and signing to Seymour Stein's Sire Records in the U.S.

A decade later in 1993 that 'Young at Heart' hit the U.K. No 1 spot following its use as a T.V. advert for Volkswagen. Fast forward to this decade The Bluebells have reformed with a flurry of shows across the past two years including a triumphant return to Glasgow at Barrowlands for Celtic Connects, and just announced for the Acoustic Stage for Glastonbury Festival 2025.

This new edition of Sisters has been remastered and produced in consultation with the band, using the best audio sources available, including non-album singles and B-sides, bonus tracks from the original cassette edition and new liner notes from Will Hodgkinson.

"Chasing the funky symphonies that filled my head and my dreams..."

December 25th, 2023 - an Instagram post. Stimulator Jones shared half a dozen FIRE tracks from his beat tape archive. We were immediately drawn to the rough hewn boom bap.

"I'd release that", Rob commented.

Hours of material was shared and the result is this: Cool Green Trees (1999-2005). A collection of beats and loops Stimulator Jones created between the ages of 14-20 at home in his basement, bedroom and computer room in Roanoke, Virginia.

You will not believe the profound soulful genius contained within these naive schoolboy melodies.

December 25th, 1998 - 25 years ago to the day and his much-coveted Yamaha SU10 sampler was finally bestowed upon young Stimmy AKA Sam Lunsford: "I immediately hooked up a CD Walkman to the input jack and looped the beginning two bars of Grover Washington Jr.'s "Mercy Mercy Me". I don't know what exactly was so thrilling about hearing two measures of music repeating over and over but it was so infectious and hypnotizing and enthralling to me. I'll never forget that ecstatic rush of making my first loop - an uncontrollable, gleeful smile plastered all over my face." When you hear the pocket breakbeat symphonies featured here on Cool Green Trees, you'll feel the same sense of frisson.

In the wake of his Stones Throw breakthrough - Exotic Worlds & Master Treasures - Stimulator Jones was pegged by many as a 90s throwback artist. However, he literally IS a 90s artist. He's been recording music most of his life and he's now 40. He created the bulk of Cool Green Trees as a teenager. Everything before 2004 was recorded when Sam was still in school. He was in 8th grade when he made the 1999 tracks - he didn't even have his learner's permit. This album is a snapshot of a young man in a simpler time. Things were still mysterious back then and he was flying blind, relying on his ears and having to figure things out for himself: "I had no road map for becoming a beatmaker. I have been collecting music since I was a kid, I am a lifelong digger and seeker of cool and interesting sounds. I was there in the golden age of Hip Hop, and while I may have been a suburban white kid in Roanoke, Virginia, I was tuned in and I bought so many classic albums when they came out. I was attracted to Hip Hop because of the musical and poetic quality. I was hypnotized by the rhythms, partially because I was a drummer. I didn't brag about collecting my breakbeat records or making beats - it was something I did in isolation. It wasn't something I generally wanted to bring attention to and it didn't really score me any cool points. I certainly wasn't flexing on social media about it."

Hell, he can do that now!

Opener "Pharoah Jones" was inspired by Yesterday's New Quintet and Madlib's ability to capture that classic 70s sound whilst playing all the instruments. Sam created this one stoned afternoon by laying down a 2 bar loop and a shaker loop on his Yamaha SU700 sampler. He hung a microphone from the ceiling and played his Yamaha Stage Custom drum kit over the top before adding ender Rhodes and playing his dad's Selmer tenor sax through an Electro Harmonix Memory Man echo pedal. Yes! Up next, "Ghost Gospel" utilises a dope loop from a gospel record and adds some soul-funk drums overtop, whilst working that filter knob. Says Sam: "The loop reminded me of something Ghostface would rap over. The sample was in 3/4 waltz time but I flipped it for a 4/4 groove, a technique I picked up from RZA. "Ill Feeling" uses sped-up pieces from a dusty old funk record and putting them over a classic NOLA drum loop; gain chopping up a slow, bluesy 3/4 time signature and bending it to a 4/4 groove. Classy shit. "Capital Punishment" features drums tapped in live, inspired by MF Doom's Special Herbs series. "Do Not Adjust" consists loops found on a compilation of 70s French music at Happy's Flea Market, a classic Roanoke digging spot.

The sublime, evocative title track, "Cool Green Trees" was created when Sam was still living at home. He dumped samples off his SU10 into the family desktop and arranged them in a demo version of Pro Tools: "This track was sort of my ode to the DJ Shadow style of sample based production. Super spacey, slow, and moody. The heavily filtered drums were inspired by Alec Empire's 'Low on Ice' album. I later added some scratches and sounds from a Spider Man storybook record." "Chill Scratch" snags the final bit of a bossanova record and pairs it with a drum loop before adding experimental scratching run through an Electro Harmonix Memory Man echo pedal. "Poisonous Fumes" was made using a sampler, mixer and a turntable; a kind of mixtape beat collage with added scratches and sounds from various records. Using dialogue from superhero records was a nod to Madlib. "Welcome Aboard The Starship" is dark, downtempo trip-hop with a spooky bent. Sam paired a slow, hard drum loop with a guitar sample grabbed off a psychedelic rock record. To finish, he added various backwards sounds and weird atmospheric effects and a little scratching. Swoon.

Side B opens with "Keep On Runnin", made on a borrowed Roland SP202 sampler. Having always loved the sound of the Lo-Fi filter on those machines, reminiscent of the Emu SP1200, Sam always imagined Del or another of the Hieroglyphics crew rapping over this beat. You can certainly hear why. "Sounds Impossible" sees Sam experimenting with layering multiple kick samples at different volumes to create patterns similar to those heard by Showbiz and Lord Finesse during their God-level 1995 period. "Painted Faces" was made by chopping up a REDACTED record which he had gotten from Happy's Flea Market and paired it with a REDACTED drum loop. By the time Sam recorded "The Knew Style", he had acquired a shitty old 1960s portable turntable off eBay. It didn't function properly when he bought it but his brother opened it up, cleaned it out and got it working: "I remember he told me that there was a bunch of sand inside of it when he opened it up, as if its previous owner had taken it to the beach. I would take that turntable on my Happy's Flea Market digs so I could preview records...that's how I found this loop."

"Chicken Wing Blues Sauce" loops up a classic blues joint and pairs it with some REDACTED drums. A bit of filtering and arranging et voilà! "Kool Breeze", from 1999, is one of Sam's oldest surviving beats, as is "Sexx Bullets". The Roots sampled the same record, leaving Sam frustrated yet vindicated. "Soul Child" was an early SU10 creation, looping a dusty old Soul Children 45 and pairing it with 70s rock drum loops to great effect. "Take Off Runnin" was another loop found digging with a portable turntable. Paired with some boom bap drums it makes for a hypnotic head-nod groove. "Centurian" was intended to be a little beat interlude a la Pete Rock. The sample is from a sun-dappled soft-psych record and it's paired with a Robin Trower drum loop that just happens to fit perfectly. Sometimes you slap things together kind of haphazardly and magic happens. "Bozack" was the first beat Sam made using Pro Tools, his first foray into using chopped sounds instead of loops, an exciting new world. "Church" is beat interlude using a Phil Upchurch loop with the "Long Red" drums - a favourite break of Dilla et al. Sam was really on a tear in late 2004, probably because he was unemployed and phoneless and able to just make beats all day. He made "Splash One" on a borrowed Yamaha SU700 and again was experimenting with tapping the drums in live with his fingers, instead of using a loop or sequenced pattern. Channeling 9th Wonder, Sam used a water splash sound effect from a Batman record as a percussive element, hence the title (also a 13th Floor Elevators reference). The main loop is a backwards portion of one of his favourite Roy Ayers songs.

"Hank" is another fun little beat interlude thing, created on a borrowed Roland SP202 sampler with the fantastic Lo-Fi effect that resembled the Emu SP1200 at a fraction of the price. "73 goatee", from 99, is another of his oldest surviving beats, created in his bedroom with his Yamaha SU10 and his brother's Vestax MR-300 4-track recorder: "This one will always feel special. I can remember having a feeling all the way back then on the night that I created it that this was a solid beat with a catchy loop. There was something in the Fender Rhodes melody that resonated with me emotionally, and I had never heard a producer sample that portion before. I felt like I had found my own unique sound, my own unique loop. It came from an Ahmad Jamal '73. I actually even recorded myself rapping and scratching over this beat way back then, I still have that version in all its imperfect sloppy glory."

Sam explains just how much these tracks mean to him: "They all have immense historical and sentimental value and I'm proud of them. These beats come from an innocent, simple time when I was just figuring out how to craft these sounds. They're something very personal to me. They are the initial part of a journey that I really was taking *alone*. There was no YouTube. I couldn't Google shit. I didn't even know any other beatmakers, producers or DJs in my town that could teach me anything. It was always just me, alone, in a room with some equipment - chasing the funky symphonies that filled my head and my dreams. What I was doing wasn't cool. Most of my peers thought I was a weirdo and couldn't care less. Creating these sounds was an anti-social endeavour. In a sense, I felt like it was me against the world, and all I had to instruct and assist me were the recordings produced by my heroes - RZA, DJ Premier, Erick Sermon, Beatminerz, Showbiz, Diamond D, Beatnuts, Prince Paul, The Bomb Squad, Pete Rock, Q-Tip, E-Swift, Mista Lawnge, DJ Shadow, Cut Chemist, Peanut Butter Wolf, El-P and so many more...I dedicate this collection to them, and to my older brother Joe who has always been a musical and technical guiding light for me.

This was a time before every kid was a self-described producer and beatmaker, before everyone had a DAW, before Kanye and "chipmunk soul", before Red Bull beat battles, before there was any social media beyond chat rooms and AOL Instant Messenger, before Soundcloud, before SP-404 mania, before lo-fi beats to study to, before Splice, before targeted ads for MIDI chord packs, etc. In 99 when I told people that I had a sampler and made beats I was mostly met with bewildered confusion and indifference. Kids and adults alike would wonder why I got this weird machine for Christmas instead of something worthwhile like a Playstation or a mountain bike or even a guitar for that matter because at least that could be used to make "real music". Back then, sampling was still not widely respected as an art form - it was seen as lazy, talentless and unoriginal at best and outright criminal theft at worst. I had gotten respect for playing drums and guitar and things of that nature but this was a step in the wrong direction in the eyes of many."

The cover photo is a picture of Sam standing on his back porch in the latter part of 1998, just before he got his first sampler. He was 13 years old, in 8th grade. His dad took the picture with his 35mm film camera: "I actually wanted to be pointing my dad's .22 pistol at the camera lens but he wouldn't let me. He gave me an old walking cane to use instead. The Tommy Hilfiger puffer jacket came from the lost and found at William Fleming High School where my mom worked as a secretary. I was thrilled when she brought it home because we never spent money on expensive name brand clothing like that - we were for the most part strictly a sale rack, bargain bin, thrift store, yard sale, flea market kind of family when it came to clothes. My watch is some cheap off-brand fake gold department store watch." Mastering for this vinyl edition was overseen by Be With regular Simon Francis and it was cut by the esteemed Cicely Balston at Abbey Road Studios to be pressed in the Netherlands by Record Industry.