Buscar:electric sp

MILKY CLEAR VINYL.

''The lightness of the C86 Sarah Records guitars come with the significant counterweight of more ominous Factory Records basslines.The lyrics and vocals are stark, sandpapery and sardonic, akin to Jonathan Richman, Kiwi Jr and, Bodega.'' Ducks Ltd. - EP Review - God Is In The TV
Toronto’s Ducks Ltd. (formerly Ducks Unlimited), the bright jangle-pop duo of Tom McGreevy (lead vocal, guitar, bass, keyboards) and Evan Lewis (guitar, bass, drum programming), accomplish the impossible. The pair craft songs that play to very specific inspirations without drowning underneath them—immediately evidenced on their critically acclaimed EP, Get Bleak, and sharpened on Modern Fiction, their debut LP. “The Servants, The Clean, The Chills, The Bats, Television Personalities, Felt,” Evan rattles off. “Look Blue Go Purple is one I reference a lot with our production.” Echoes of ‘80s indiepop abound, but they never overwhelm. This is not a nostalgic record, after all, nor is it a derivative one. Instead, across 10 cheery-sounding songs, Ducks Ltd. explore contemporary society in decline, examining large scale human disaster through personal turmoil (hence the title, taken from a university course called Gnosticism and Nihilism in Modern Fiction, influenced by Graham Greene novels. Bookish indie fans, look no further.)

Writing the album was intimate. Tom drafted the nucleus of a song on an unplugged electric guitar and brought it over to Evan’s apartment, where the pair sat in his bedroom, placing percussive beats from a drum machine under nascent melodies, passing a bass back and forth, adding organs and bridges where necessary. “It’s computer music trying extremely hard not to sound like computer music,” Tom jokes. Fearful that limited and expensive studio time would kneecap the project creatively, eroding their charming naivete, the pair re-recorded the album in a storage space owned by Evan’s boss. Ornamentation through collaboration followed: there’s Aaron Goldstein on Pedal Steel in the Go-Betweens’ “Cattle and Cane”-channeling interlude “Patience Wearing Thin,” Eliza Niemi on cello (“18 Cigarettes,” a song loosely inspired by a 1997 Oasis performance of “Don’t Go Away”), and backing harmonies from Carpark labelmates The Beths (on an ode to friendship at a distance, “How Lonely Are You?,” “Always There,” and on the sped-up Syd Barrett stylings of “Under The Rolling Moon.”) While in his native Australia due to covid-19, Evan worked closely with producer James Cecil (The Goon Sax, Architecture in Helsinki) on Modern Fiction’s finishing touches—at one point, in the mountains of the Macedon Ranges in Victoria, recorded a string quartet (featured on “Fit to Burst,” “Always There,” “Sullen Leering Hope,” “Twere Ever Thus,” “Grand Final Day.”)

It’s danceable, depressive fun, with some relief: in “Always There” and “Sullen Leering Hope,” Modern Fiction’s faithful heart. “There’s a tendency in my writing, because of my world view, to be very bleak.” Tom explains. “A quality I don’t always see in myself and really appreciate in others is the courage to go on.” And yet, the record manages resiliency—enough for pop fans to fall in love with.

Contemporary and historical Porest recordings channelled from behind the somnambulistic event horizon. The now sound... The bleak oblique. The minimal and the maximal. Filmic chamber drones, meditative radio massage and forged spiritual violence bury pop ephemera into the swirling murk of de facto instrumental nihilism and orchestral context-free drama.
Side A: A harmful journey into sickness and despair. You get sick and die.
Side B: You are healed. You stand erect and live forever.
Layered field and radio recordings back electro-acoustic experiments via electric saz, strings, balypso, reeds & synths. Big drones, small ensembles and mood-anthems recorded by Porest and friends between 1995 and 2020 in West Oakland, Germany, Sumatra, Syria, Hanoi and London.

A remix album of Tolerance by Osaka-based electronic musician Junya Tokuda released from remodel, a label established by Yuzuru Agi and Studio Warp.
In addition to performing live and releasing works, Junya Tokuda runs the web label Linesound and organizes the electronic music event "Line".
His previous releases include "map not seen EP" (Linesound, 2011), "A Day In The Alley" (shrine.jp, 2016), "Unleash EP" (LongLongLabel, 2018), and "No Man's Land" (shrine.jp, 2020). jp, 2020).
remodel also released solo album, "Anemic Cinema", in April 2021, prior to this work, and his track was included in a two-disc compilation, "a sign 2", released in May 2020.
This album "VANITY RE-MAKE/RE-MODEL Vol.1" is a remix album using material from the Tokyo-based project Tolerance by Junko Tange from Vanity Records.
The production was done in parallel with "Anemic Cinema" (late August 2020 to mid-December 2020), and the basic musicality, especially the brilliant treatment of sound by dub-like spatial effects, is common to both works.
However, in this album, the material of Tolerance is sometimes vague and fragmented like a torn tape swimming on the surface of the water, and at other times like a tape reel rolling down from the ocean-like sound image created by the skillful blending of pads and moving noises through the manipulation of dub effects.
The tactile sensation of poking and stroking the ears (like ASMR), which was also felt in "Anemic Cinema," is more vividly revealed by the carefully considered incorporation of a foreign object.
In addition, the instrumental aspect of Toleranece's musicianship, especially the effective use of the electric piano sound, is also impressive. Interestingly, in other tracks, the bassline exerts a strong pull and draws out the phrasing aspect of Junya Tokuda's musicianship as if in response to the electric piano.
Junya Tokuda's music, which even creates an organic feel with its deft handling of generated sounds and samples, reveals its caliber and hidden patterns through the inclusion of Tolerance voices, noises, and instruments that seem hard, rough, and axially distorted. It is an exhilarating and magical work.

“Impressions / I Am Thousands” is the new release from Berlin-based electronic producer and multi-instrumentalist sUb_modU, aka the brainchild of Italian Romeo Sandri. Both songs form part of the jazz musician’s debut album ‘Descent To The Centre’, a record that is an autobiographical and existentialist account of oneself, blending the electric/psychedelic spectrum of jazz with house, avant-garde and ambient leanings.

Following on from “Pidgin Synths EP”, a releases that entangled a homage to afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti with synth-heavy original material, sUb_modU has amassed an impressive list of tastemaker support through his unique reinterpations, from the likes of Gilles Peterson (BBC 6Music), Ross Allen (NTS) and Virgil Abloh (Off White). Alongside the release of his debut album is a special edition, double A side single, 7” featuring an exclusive 45 Centre Edit of the iconic “Expensive Shit” paired with a sUb_modu original “RAM Generation”.

"This is another one that went down a storm” – Ross Allen (NTS), Best of 2020
“"Quite a lot of people have been asking me about that Fela Kuti cover…”
– Gilles Peterson (BBC 6Music)
“A killer electronic-filled reinterpretation” – Twistedsoul
With further support from Virgil Abloh (Off White), TRENCH & DJ Mag

Beggars Arkive announce the LP reissue of Gary Numan’s
fifth album, ‘Warriors’, on orange vinyl. Originally released
in 1983 and co-produced with Bill Nelson, the album
continues Numan’s ambient-funk experimentations.
 “I still like a lot of the ‘Warriors’ stuff and Bill Nelson did a
lot of very inventive things on it which, because of our
differences, I failed to appreciate at the time. I think the
Mad Max image convinced a lot of people, the press
especially, that it was a sci-fi album. Much of it though was
actually quite autobiographical. Even songs like ‘The
Iceman Comes’ and ‘This Prison Moon’ were more to do
with what I was going through than anything sci-fi. Lyrically
I was already becoming overly focused on the career
struggle. ‘Warriors’ was written, in the main, in a hotel
room in Jersey. My girlfriend had just left me, I’d been
evicted from the house I was living in and I felt pretty much
alone in more ways than one. Despite its surface gloss of
futurism it was really very inward looking. To me the image
was meant to represent someone fighting for survival as
much as anything” - Gary Numan
 The achievements over his four-decade career (and
counting) are remarkable for someone who never made
any concessions to mainstream success. Seven Top 10
singles, including ‘Are ‘Friends’ Electric?’ and the debut
solo hit ‘Cars’; seven Top 10 albums, three of which
topped the charts; and huge critical acclaim, most notably
with the Inspiration Award at the prestigious Ivor Novellos.
 In a career that spans over forty years, the music evolves
and the themes change. But fans remain fascinated by
Numan for the v

VERY LIMITED COPIES OF THIS PREVIOUSLY RSD U.S. ONLY RELEASE

Engine Kid, the post hardcore collective featuring Greg Anderson (Southern Lord label owner, also in Sunn O))), Goatsnake & Thorr's Hammer) announce a special Record Store Day 6 x LP box set release Everything Left Inside, featuring the Novocaine/Astronaut 12 inch, Bear Catching Fish 2xLP, Angel Wings 2xLP and Split w/ Iceburn / Everything Left Inside 12 inch.

Almost 30 years since the inception of Engine Kid and the trio find themselves comprehending the enormity of their creation, honouring and celebrating the mountains they formed and the canyons they created.
Engine Kid was born in Seattle, WA 1991. The band's original lineup consisted of guitarist/vocalist Greg Anderson (Southern Lord, Sunn O))), Thorr's Hammer, Goatsnake), drummer Chris Vandebrooke & bassist Art Behrman. The three had all been in hardcore/punk bands around town and all had a burning desire to create a sound that was unlike anything they had done in the past. After just a few months of existence they quickly recorded and self-released the Novocaine 7”. Circa 92’ a close friend and bassist Brian Kraft (Krafty) replaced Behrman, and at that moment the entire aesthetic and execution of sound became heavier, darker and extremely dynamic. The power trio was picked up by local label C/Z records and set out upon recording the new music they were quickly creating. In 1993 the band had two releases on C/Z; their first offering was the Astronaut five song EP recorded by John Goodmanson. The songs were primitive and exemplified the bands worship of Slint and their loud/quiet song dynamic In the summer of 93’ the band drove all the way to Chicago to record with their hero Steve Albini in the basement of his house. They emerged with the eight song album they called: Bear Catching Fish. Albini intuitively captured the band exactly as they were at that moment: raw, vulnerable and mammoth.

Shortly after the albums’ release Jade Devitt replaced Vandebrooke on drums. This transition was extremely crucial in the “second phase” of the group. Devitt was an absolute beast and his power helped launch the band miles beyond where they had ever been before. The sound of “The Kid” started to transform into a sound much more of their own. The three dudes were hellbent on pushing the bounds of sonic exploration to its absolute fullest. Suddenly there was an abundance of depth within the sounds they were creating. Eclectic influences of punk/hardcore (Black Flag, Die Kreuzen), Metal (Entombed, Carcass) and even jazz (Mahavishnu Orchestra, Miles Davis electric era) were in a full collision course with the already dynamically heavy foundation of the band. The levee had broken and the resulting flood of sound completely saturated everything in its path.

Engine Kid toured relentlessly. They were constantly on the road playing every nook and cranny they possibly could. Any moment not spent on the road was instead spent focused on making their new material as potent as possible. Early in 94' the band decided to pay homage to their mutual love of jazz/fusion and recorded three instrumental pieces that would become a split album with like minded powerhouse Iceburn. The Engine Kid/Iceburn album showcased each group's love of jazz loosely framed by the intense enthusiasm of underground music. The album was released by Revelation records in 1994.
During the summer of 94’ the band reconvened with producer John Goodmanson at Bad Animals & AVAST! studios to record the new material that was literally bleeding out of the reinvigorated trio. These recorded songs were much more progressive, heavier, harder and more focused than past works. They even tackled John Coltranes’ “OLE” adding saxophone and trumpet from their brothers in Silkworm. In March of 1995, Revelation Records released these recordings as the Angel Wings album. Unfortunately "the Kid" flew too close to the sun and broke up very shortly after the album's release.

Everything Left Inside 6xLP box set (RSD release) includes:
LORD 288.1 Engine Kid-“Novocaine/Astronaut” 12”
LORD 289 Engine Kid-Bear Catching Fish 2xLP
LORD 290 Engine Kid-Angel Wings 2xLP
LORD 288.2 Engine Kid-Split w/ Iceburn /Everything Left Inside 12”
16-page color photo/liner note booklet.

UK multi-instrumentalist and story-teller Mara Simpson's new album In This Place will be released on September 24th, 2021. A heady blend of alt-folk, analogue synth and classical composition, In This Place is a tale of quiet rebellion, and taking back control. Fittingly, the new album marks the start of another new journey for Mara. In This Place will be the first record to be released on Downfield Records, a non-profit imprint set up by Simpson, placing artists at it’s centre. “I want to try and promote transparency and equality, assist other artists to get public funding and to ‘pay’ forward the time and resources I’ve benefited from,” she says. The label’s mission is to see musicians paid fairly and release records through a creative and joyous process.

Whilst the struggles of 2020 will go down in history, for Mara it was 2019 that was the tough one. A year spent consumed by worry, whilst in and out of hospital with her one year old daughter, had left Mara feeling like she was playing a constant game of catch up with a world that wouldn’t slow down. With songs ready to be recorded for her new album, she headed into the studio. “I stepped into the studio not needing my hand held, just my voice heard” explains Mara, who quickly came to the realisation that she was working in a toxic environment. Enough was enough

It was whilst waiting for a train that she had the sudden realisation that the album she was recording would never see the light of day. Struck by an overwhelming feeling of failure, Mara began to ruminate on the time and money she had wasted but then something clicked. “Perhaps it’s something about train stations, the coming and the goings, that allows a stagnating frame of mind the grace and space to clear” she says. “The funny thing is, upon realising failure, the despair I’d been feeling was now replaced with something else...Relief”.

Feeling re-energised, Mara called her dream producer Ellie Mason, of Voka Gentle, and together the pair began working on a new record. “I’ve been more hands-on with this album than I’ve ever been, taking a much more active role in production. Throughout the whole process Ellie has heard my voice, and been open to any possibility” explains Mara. “We’ve stumbled across golden moments, recording four part harmonies in Brighton’s oldest church, using every drum there is in Brighton Electric, layering New Zealand bird song with tape delayed piano, all thanks to her nurture, playfulness and kindness” she continues.

Album opener ‘Serena’, named after the apartment building in Brighton where Mara’s daughter was born, is based on the experience of becoming a mother and the responsibility of making important healthcare decisions. “How will I know how to love you” she sings over undulating synths and sparse piano chords. Title-track ‘In This Place’ is about the confrontation between mother and new-born child. The ‘sizing-up’ of one another as they embark on a new journey together. “When I left home to travel around the world and was so worried about breaking my Mum’s heart,” says Mara. “I just remember her saying that your children are never yours to keep. This is a song about the rawest of loves, and the fact that however much we love someone, they are never ours, and the beauty in that.”

In addition to the experience of motherhood, the songs on In This Place take inspiration from a wide range of places, including Mara’s ‘second home’ New Zealand. ‘Christchurch’, written in response to the Christchurch Mosque shootings in 2019, layers New Zealand birdsong on top of swirling piano and moving choral vocals. ‘Fault Lines’ was inspired by The Waitangi treaty. Signed in 1840 in New Zealand by the British Crown and Maori chiefs. The British understood that the Maori were signing over land that the British could now govern and effectively ‘own’, however to the Maori people it is impossible to own land, in the same way that you can’t ‘own’ air. “We live and die, the land remains and we are just it’s keepers for the very short time we are here. This song is about us not owning this earth - how can we? We are only the guardians of it while we are here” says Mara.

Backed by a band of accomplished musicians (Jools Owen (Bears Den) on drums, James Smith (Anaïs Mitchell) on banjo, Alexandra Hamilton-Ayres on clarinet and strings by Poppy Ackroyd) on In This Place, Mara sounds the most confident she’s ever sounded. With her new material, Mara Simpson hopes to promote a gentle, yet radical shift toward kindness and it’s this warmth that can be both heard and felt across her new record.

Tchamantché, meaning “point of equilibrium” in Bambara, is the fourth album of Mali singer Rokia Traoré. Released in 2008, and dedicated to her fellow countryman Ali Farka Touré, one of the African continent's most internationally renowned musicians, the album is a turning point in the singer’s career after she has spent a large part of it revisiting the Malian musical tradition. Tchamantché reveals a unique sound in which electric Gretsch guitar riffs come to mingle with the ancestral sounds of Malian instruments, offering a new setting to her crystalline voice. If Traoré favors minimalist and emotional acoustic ballads, she clearly assumes her blues and even rock influences, signing an intimate and voluptuous album of artistic maturity.

Penny Records presents the vinyl version of the soundtrack from the TV Series "Anna" written and directed by Niccolò Ammaniti. Fueled by Niccolò Ammaniti's passionate and immersive creative style, the score for 'Anna' was approached almost as a character study. 'Anna' exposes a world of extreme conditions where the essentials of human existence flourish in a wide range of emotions and sentiments tainted through the eyes of children. Striking brutality and primal savagery go hand in hand with the beauty of innocence and hope. Rauelsson's musical language for 'Anna' includes tense and spare textures that blend seamlessly with intimate ambient minimalism; classical elements that coexist with electronic drone experimentation and tribal rhythms, candid piano melodies buried in tape loops and otherworldly rituals of wordless voices. To arrive at this music landscape, Rauelsson enlisted an international cast of collaborators including Finnish percussionist Tatu Rönkkö, German cellist Anne Müller, American multi-instrumentalist Peter Broderick and Oslo-based vocalist Simin Tander. With this ensemble, Rauelsson's music documents a journey of survival that highlights the power of imagination and love.

Credits:

Music by Raúl Pastor Medall except A3 (Salvatore Cardillo, lyrics by Riccardo Cordiferro), A5 (Raúl Pastor Medall, Peter Broderick and Anne Müller), B3 (Raúl Pastor Medall and Anne Müller) and A2, B1, B2 (Raúl Pastor Medall and Tatu Rönkkö)

Played by Peter Broderick (Violin), Anne Müller (Cello), Raúl Pastor Medall (Piano, Electric Piano, Synthesizers, Electronics), Tatu Rönkkö (Drums, Percussion) and Simin Tander (Voice) with additional contributions from Christoph Berg (Violin), Aisha Burns (Violin) and Giulia Dragotto (Voice)

Recorded in 2020 at Rockaway Studios (Castelló, Spain; engineered by Raúl Artana), Niu (Benicàssim, Spain; engineered by Raúl Pastor Medall), Old House at Galgeberg (Oslo, Norway; engineered by Olav Torget), Tanum Church (Bærum, Norway; engineered by Olav Torget) and Indigo Studios (Palermo, Italy; engineered by Fabio Rizzo)

Additional recordings by Peter Broderick (Co. Galway, Ireland), Anne Müller (Berlin, Germany) and Tatu Rönkkö (Helsinki, Finland)

Produced by Raúl Pastor Medall and Niccolò Ammaniti. Mixed by Raúl Pastor Medall and Adam Selzer at Niu and Type Foundry (Portland, OR). Mastered by Adam Gonsalves and Adam Selzer at Telegraph Audio Mastering (Portland, OR). Lacquer mastercut by Andreas LUPO Lubich at Loop-O (Berlin, Germany). Artwork by Emiliano "Stand" Cataldo.

Essential Aliensis the 10th Helvetia album. Helvetia is the solo project of Jason Albertini from Duster. Helvetia resides in Portland, Oregon but was formed in Seattle, Washington in 2005 after Duster first went on hiatus. The songs onEssential Aliens were recorded over the last year, in Jason's basement. Since the band's inception, Jason has continued to employ a rotating cast of band members and collaborators, which now includes Steve Gere and Samantha Stidham. Steve and Jason also played in Built To Spill together from 2012 until 2018. In 2019 Duster started playing shows and recording again. During this time Jason started writing what would becomeThis Devastating Map. Released at the beginning of August last year, Post-Trash called it"a constantly shifting project that takes experimental lo-fi into brilliantly colored psych directions with a concise glow."Then the pandemic took hold. With normal life at a standstill and unable to hang with his bandmates, Jason focused his energy on his daughter's homeschooling schedule, and recording. He focused on finishing one song a day and was soon honing in on a new album. Essential Aliensdistills and simplifies the Helvetia sound. Reverb and delay are absent, replaced by warm fuzz and intimate room sounds. Progressions morph with stoner repetition and end in head scratch. Drums distort, muted bass lines prop up acoustic guitars blown out on a cassette four-track. Cheap electric guitars are barely in tune and recorded direct, almost painfully in your face. The songs are short blasts of psychedelic chill, unrooted by genre, a rummage around an alien radio dial. These are simple songs about keeping yourself from falling apart, to remind you that you can be strong. The visual elements for the album come from a recurring dream, which centers around a period in Jason's childhood when he lived in Basel, Switzerland, and believed that he lived with a ghost. In the dream, Jason's life becomes turned upside down because of a series of unexplainable events that turn out to be orchestrated by the ghost, and he wakes up convinced that he is a ghost as well. These are simple songs about keeping yourself from falling apart. To remind you that you can be strong. This is a weird blues.

While the world continues to be in a bizarre mixture of feelings and circumstances, we can thankfully still hark back to last fall when the sophomore LP from the elusive and innovative KAMM band, Cookie Policies gave us an opportunity to reflect on the past while fully looking toward the future.
The album presented a beautifully unique blend of listening-oriented music styles, combining the early roots of the four producers and their pre-DJ formative musical travels. It is now our great pleasure to introduce an EP set of specifically dance floor-focussed remixes that take the diverse textural arrangements and expansive sonic bliss of the LP and stretch it around some solid percussive membranes, sure to excite many DJs and dancers out there in the wild as things begin to reopen.

KAMM band members Dave Aju, Alland Byallo, Kenneth Scott, each chose one original album track to rework with a more propulsive feel and from Aju's psychedelic West Coast breaks rendition of the noir-esque "CCBPGC", to Byallo's high vibe leveled-up flight of "Bird Call", or Scott's bold section-by-section recreation of the sprawling "The Soft Glow Of Electric Sex" laser-designed for heads-down late night club sessions, the boys came through to say the least. The real A1 treat of this reinterpretation package however comes from unanimous artist choice and label favorite I:Cube, whose majestic take on "Shleem" sees the veteran producer and master remixer move the bubbling ambient piece into bumping and rich space-age deep house territory, equal parts angelically uplifting and pure 5am club-belter/mind-melter.

Limited edition vinyl set featuring eight live installations from the ISM Hexadome, recorded in binaural sound at MASS MoCA (Museum of Contemporary Art, Massachusetts) in December 2019. Listening to the recordings on headphones recreates the detailed sense of spatialisation and movement of the ISM Hexadome's immersive 52-channel sound system that these works were exclusively composed for. The album also includes artwork prints of 10 still images excerpted from the installations created by visual artists in collaboration with the sound artist. The prints by Holly Herndon & Mathew Dryhurst and Tarik Barri are bonus visual material, as it was not possible to use the tracks for the record.

‘K Bay’, out on Domino Recordings, is the first new solo
material from Matthew E. White in six years.
Matthew E. White describes the album as a “love affair
with music.” It’s a record thrillingly engaged with an
eclectic range of contemporary and 20th Century popular
music. The daring production mines and foregrounds longsimmering but previously veiled influences from the realms
of hip-hop, electronic pop and dancehall but all filtered
through White’s self-described outsider perspective.
‘K Bay’ is an homage to Kensington Bay, his home studio
where he records his personal projects and is his
sanctuary of creativity (White’s second studio,
Spacebomb, is where he works on collaborative projects
and has recorded and produced records by Foxygen,
Natalie Prass and Flo Morrissey).
More than love, romance, or self-reliance, this is the
animating ideal of ‘K Bay’ - that we can forever strive for
something better, no matter how flawed or blessed we
have already been. A decade ago, Matthew E. White made
a classic beauty no one expected; on ‘K Bay’, he has
made a masterpiece by harnessing what he’s learned from
that community and life itself in entirely unexpected,
electrifying, and reaffirming ways.

The edition that marks the start of the brand-new Comets Coming could not be more suitable: it is that Rodrigo Brandão, like his grandfather Herman Poole Blount, dust of stars that the world knows as Sun Ra, may have his feet on the Earth, but he has definitely a sidereal head.

Brandão arrived recently to Portugal, but already left a strong mark in the most adventurous Lisbon scene, having performed several concerts in which his language has been wrapped in the exploratory sounds of musicians such as Rodrigo Amado, João Valinho, and Hernâni Faustino. The agitator, poet and spoken word artist, brought a vast experience that over the years saw him collaborate with artists as distinct as the members of Metá Metá or Prince Paul (that one!) on BROOKZILL!.

This work, however, came in his luggage, across the ocean, on the rediscovery trip that brought him from Brazil to Lisbon. OUTROS ESPAÇO was recorded in São Paulo in late 2019 with a luxury crew: Tulipa Ruiz and Juçara Marçal added to the microphone, Thiago França played flute and alto & tenor saxophones, Guilherme Granado dealt with the synthesizers and effects, Marcos Gerez measured the overall pulse with his electric bass, Thomas Rohrer played soprano and 'rabeca' (fiddle), and Paulo Santos dealt with the percussion. In addition to the base band, OUTROS ESPAÇO also features some members of Sun Ra Arkestra's current incarnation. Respectively: Danny Thompson (RIP) on baritone and bongo, Elson Nascimento on 'surdo' (tom drum), Knoel Scott on tenor and soprano, with the giant Marshall Allen in a prominent role leading the collective towards the unknown, while playing the alto sax and synthesizer.

In OUTROS ESPAÇO, Brandão reaches for words from different origins, from contrasting times and cultures, all with magnetic resonance imaging: what is not from his furrow comes to him from Candomblé (“Quando Os Orixás Desfilam Sobre A Cracolândia”), from his readings of Sun Ra (“Eu Sou 1 Instrumento” is an adaptation of the poem I Am An Instrument), or from the school's playgrounds (“Jamais Nos Esqueceremos”). And in these words there are teeth and nails ingrained in injustice (“Quantos Coltrane...?, “Todo o Dia Tem +”) and kaleidoscopic delusions that result from the speed of light (“Sol da Meia Noite”).

The crew that travels through these OUTROS ESPAÇO (PT for "Other Spaces") has freedom as the main fuel, jazz as a measure of their reach, and all swings in the world as maps, so they can lose themselves at the end of the cosmos. There is urgency and reflection, craziness and precision, surprise and well-known ancestral raw material, that makes us vibrate inwardly with the same trembling as the comets that are coming.

The visionary and veteran Scotty Hard was responsible for making everything sound like the music of the spheres, dealing with the mixing from his INGUASONIC SOUND studio in Brooklyn, NY.

And lastly, in January, Rob Mazurek, another frequent ally of Brandão, another notorious space traveler, offered a poem that frames this project. Among other things, he writes:

Make this place sing

Make this place thunder

Make this place shake

It couldn't be in any other way.

Recorded live in Atlanta in early 2020 in the final hours before the stages
of the aching world fell dark, Fully Plugged In celebrates the sweat filled
nights, the communal noise, the profound physical presence at the
heart of rock and roll.
Daniel Romano and The Outfit embody the classic swagger of classic Rolling
Stones, the epic, electric, eternal folk of prime Fairport Convention, the primal
freedoms released by the original punks, the intimate, personal emotions celebrated by classic country, boldly reinventing Romano’s rich songbook.
Julianna Riolino, who’s voice blends so perfectly with Romano’s own, steps
powerfully into the spotlight at key moments, ripping open the song in ‘Rhythmic Blood’ and ripping open your heart in the country weeper ‘The One That
Got Away (Came Back Today)’.
Hear, here - wild sounds, genius song-writing, ebullient drumming, exuberant musicality, and disparate influences are powerfully, uniquely synthesized.
Shockingly united. Fully Plugged In.

Over the last few years, NuNorthern Soul has established a number of traditions, most notably annual releases that provide a snapshot of the label’s output while also considering their suitability for certain seasons. Perhaps the most popular is founder Phil Cooper’s Summer Selections series, which each year showcases warm and sunny gems mined from a range of forthcoming releases.

The 2021 edition of the sampler, the third in total, may well be the best yet. Six tracks deep and as subtly varied as you’d expect, the entertaining set features tracks from a mixture of exciting newcomers, experienced producers and long-time members of the NuNorthern Soul family.

To kick things off, Cooper introduces us to Marshall Watson, an American producer who later in the year will release two five-track EPs on the label. ‘A Door To The Sky’, which will feature on the Sunsets On Larkin Part 1 EP, is sumptuously sun-kissed, with delay-laden electric guitar textures and sparkling electronics reclining over a tactile electronic groove.

LOVA’s ‘Echoes of Memories’, the track that follows, recalls the atmospheric, synthesizer-sporting new age Balearica popularised by Quiet Force in the late 1980s. The Italian producer was signed after bringing a USB stick of productions to one of Phil Cooper’s gigs in Ibiza; his Gypsophilia EP will be one to check when it drops later in the year.

Gusk’s ‘Sketch #4 - Anafi Nights’ is seductive and exotic. It’s a crackling and atmospheric musical painting that daubs starry stabs and yearning melodies atop a bubbly, lo-fi drum machine beat. It provides a perfect snapshot of the Greek musician’s Mediterranean Sketches EP, which gathers together home recordings made between 1997 and 2003.

Arguably even more immersive and enveloping is ‘Aqua Blancas Sunrise’ by Tambores En Benirras, the musical project of Cumbrian selector DJ Gripper. A slow-burning delight full of intricate musical flourishes –think drifting female vocalizations, Indian-influenced percussion, twinkling pianos and haunting clarinet motifs the track is one of the many highlights on the Barrow in Furness based producer’s forthcoming debut album for NuNorthern Soul.

To round things off, Cooper has chosen to offer-up cuts from two very experienced artists. George Solar (real name Georg Boskamp) is an Ibiza-based German producer who has been collaborating and releasing music since the late 1980s. ‘Infrared’, his contribution to Summer Selections 3, is a languid and glassy-eyed slab of slow-motion Balearic dub. His Los Ra-yos Del Sol EP will be one to look out for later in the year and is his debut solo release.

The sampler’s final missive fittingly comes from long-time friend of the family B.J Smith, a regular contributor to NuNorthern Soul releases who has reunited with Huw Costin – a vocalist he previously worked with on Smith & Mudd releases for Claremont 56 for a double A side single due later in 2021. ‘Sun When You Come’ is as warming and hazy as you’d expect and features Costin’s emotive, reverb-laden vocals and mazy electric piano solos rising above a suitably horizontal groove. It provides a stunning, sunset-ready conclusion to another superb set of Summer Selections.

Composer and saxophonist Brian Brown produced some of the most refined Australian jazz recordings during the 1970s. A versatile musician whose distinct impressionist music melded modern jazz with the outer limits of free experimentation. Considered to be his greatest work was the 1975 concept album Carlton Streets, an ambitious recording that romanticised the sights, sounds and the nostalgia of this once-bohemian Melbourne neighbourhood. Differing from his eco-jazz composition Wildflowers heard on the recent Roundtable compilation Pyramid Pieces, Carlton Streets explores the polar opposite, offering jazz impressions of the urban environment. Comparable to other pioneering jazz-rock groups such as Ian Carr's Nucleus and mid-period Soft Machine, the album is a mosaic of ecstatic jazz-rock groove, spirited free improvisation and expanded experimental textures. A potent fusion that owes as much to Australian 20th-century avant-garde composers as it does to the influence of the electric jazz innovators, specifically early Weather Report and Herbie Hancock's Mwandishi. The Roundtable are pleased to showcase this important artist and offer a new edition of this landmark Australian jazz recording. Restored from the original master tapes and presented in a gatefold sleeve including liner notes and rare photos. Released for Record Store Day 2021.

Bad Waitress’ antsy art punk revels in fits of fury and ego. It spits in your face and winks, ferocious and playful. The Toronto-based four-piece play like they’re conspiring or casting a spell, each member wielding a different power, howls and erratic drum fills and fiery riffs fueling one another.
That improvisation spirit doesn’t stop at their music. Katelyn Molgard, Nicole Cain, Kali-Ann Butala, and Moon finish each other’s sentences. Their conversations flow like free jazz. When asked to describe Bad Waitress’ sound, they agree on one word: conviction. “We play with conviction. There's nothing apologetic about it,” Kateyln says. “Even with our bizarre song structures, we don't hide anything in our music. It's just very...I don't like the word raw, it’s overused, but...raw.” The band fidget between genres, instead honing a distinct energy. “It's energetic. It's electric,” Moon adds. “It's whatever word that we can think of later that's better than raw.” Nicole suggests, “Honest?” Katelyn jumps in, “Rawnest.”
Bad Waitress’ debut full-length album, No Taste, finds strength in mood swings, from upbeat “groovin down the street” songs like “Strawberry Milkshake” to “I'm gonna fucking punch everyone” songs like “Lacerate,” as Nicole puts it. “It’s good to listen to when you're walking alone at night. I get really anxious, but I feel powerful when I listen to this album, like I’m fucking untouchable. It’s basically a self-defense album.”
Traces of Sonic Youth, Fugazi, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and The Stooges can be heard throughout No Taste. The band also cite jazz as an inspiration. Moon’s background playing improv jazz, blues and swing makes it an essential force, at the core of Bad Waitress’ music and collaborative process. “Moon usually has a weird drumbeat that they’ll play spontaneously, then Nicole will jump in with her wack ass music sensibility on bass, and then Kali will play something that’s super wrong in a good way,” Katelyn says. “And then I’ll make sense of it and find where the chords are. It’s bizarre.”

Fresh one on Music With Soul - a channel for hot 7"s that always fly out here. TIP!

"Two and a half frenetic minutes that sound like Aphex Twin and The Incredible Bongo Band dancing Capoeira in the early hours of an illegal rave, somewhere in the deep amazon forest. After the success of his first solo 45, Alex Figueira comes back to the aesthetics of the early Fumaça Preta, with an utterly bonkers 45 that can only be described as an “in-your-face acid macumba techno breakbeat funk freakout”.

The flip side contains a haunting Psychedelic ballad, with the sweet vocals of Maddie Ruthless, from NY’s leading Lovers Reggae sensation, The Far East. Equally trippy and beautiful, the soothing sounds of the Wurlitzer piano and the electric sitar will be bouncing in your head for hours after first listen. The kind of song that finds collectors dropping eye-popping sums, decades after the original release. Guarantee your retirement now by getting a few copies! The song “Maracas” is the main theme of the movie “Maracas, tambourines and other hellish things” directed by fellow record nerds Matteo Fava and Dave Potsma. They managed to convince Figueira to play the main character, and later on, to do the complete music score. The movie tells the story of a struggling underground musician / part time record store clerk, whose music career is basically going nowhere until an improbable encounter gives his life a dramatic turn. They asked Figueira to give them something with “a fresh tropicalized take on Blacksploitation”. One might argue, after listening to the insanity carved on the grooves of this piece of vinyl, that he certainly did deliver.

The characteristic mix of synthesizers and heavy percussion used by Figueira in almost all his projects, gains here a somewhat freer dimension, embracing the chaos openly, without ever neglecting the groove, nor the ancestry axis. Values that are at the core of the label. Even while laying down all the instruments himself, Figueira has managed to capture the same out of control tropical psychedelic spirit of his former band, Fumaça Preta. Fans of the group’s outfit will certainly be rejoiced by this new release.

The flip carries “Grasping & Wishing”, an evocative Psych ballad that retains the same tripped-out flair of the A side, while slowing down the tempo considerably with a decidedly african 6/8 beat. Sung by New Orleans’ own “Rocksteady Queen”, Maddie Ruthless, stepping out of her classic Reggae background, to grace the track with her beautiful voice, permeating the issues of belonging, doubt and introspective reflection portrayed in the lyrics, with a thin layer of exquisite fragility that will comfort your ears.

The production includes a significant number of sound effects, ranging from different types of percussion performed with liquids to bamboo flutes of different sizes and several layers of multiprocessed electric Sitar tracks. Listen carefully and you will discover new sonic nounces every time you put the record on."

Ephat Mujuru exemplifies a unique generation of traditional musicians in Zimbabwe. Born under an oppressive colonial regime in Southern Rhodesia, his generation witnessed the brutality of the 1970s liberation struggle, and then the dawn of independent Zimbabwe, a time in which African music culture - long stigmatized by Rhodesian educators and religious authorities - experienced a thrilling renaissance. Under the tutelage of his grandfather, who was a respected spirit mediumand mbira master, Ephat showed an early talent for the rigors of mbiratraining, playing his first possession ceremony when he was just ten years old. By then, guerilla war was engulfing the country and his grandfather Muchatera tragically became a victim of the violence, a devastating blow to the young musician. In the midst of the liberation struggle, mbira music became political. Eventually, the Rhodesians were defeated, but rather than return to the past, the nation of Zimbabwe was born and a new future unfolded. Ephat threw himself into the spirit of independence, singing of brotherhood, healing, and unity: crucial themes during a time when the nation's two dominant ethnic groups, the Shona and the Ndebele, were struggling to reconcile differences. Ephat's band would eventually follow the popular trend and add electric instruments. But before that, he and Spirit of the People released two all-acoustic albums, and they may well be the most exciting and beautiful recordings he made in his career. Mbavaira, the second of these albums, was released in 1983. As the independence years moved on, there would be fewer and fewer commercial mbira releases. But for the moment, Ephat had the required stature and reputation. Also, with the energy and drive we hear in these recordings, the album could easily rival the pop music of its day. Within a few years after the release of Mbavaira, it and albums like it became harder to find in Zimbabwean record stores. Ephat adapted to the times and formed an electric band. They recorded more albums over the years but none of them have the particularly delicious energy of Spirit of the People in the first years of Zimbabwe's independence.

Responding to a comment that the foreground of his Western photographs
feels like a stage set, the photographer and auteur Wim Wenders suggests,
‘that impression is basic to the American West and everything people have
built there has a highly theatrical air.
This animates Places of Consequence, the second album and first solo LP
from Cameron Knowler, which deploys guitar and banjo as cinematic tools to
soundtrack and investigate the region.
‘Despite the fact that the lightheartedness of youth lifts and the problematic
components of the West reveal themselves over time,’ Knowler says, ‘there are
still ways of harnessing the space to richly creative ends.’
Single ‘Puerto Suelo,’ which features acoustic and electric guitars playing in unison and a small orchestra of kitchen utensils, shows Knowler’s knack for gorgeous melodies, and nods to LA session wizards like Blake Mills or Sam Gendel.
Places of Consequence is testament to making the effort, and a document of
Knowler’s clear talent.

Dutch symphonic metal band Delain released their third studio album We Are the Others in 2012 to positive reviews from music critics. The album title was inspired by the murder of 20-year-old Sophie Lancaster, whose murder was likely a hate crime due to her being part of the goth subculture. The album spawned two single releases: “Get The Devil Out of Me” and the title track, for which the band shot a music video that included many well-known people from the metal scene, including George Oosthoek, Sharon den Adel, Robert Westerholt and Rob van der Loo. The album features guest contributions by the likes of Burton C. Bell (Fear Factory) and Marko Hietala (Nightwish) and was produced by Jacob Hellner (aka Tripod), who is best known for producing most of Rammstein’s albums.

For RE:WARM 006 we present a collection of music from one of San Francisco’s best kept secrets, Dr Robert Blackman. “The Unimaginable DreamWorks” is a collection of five tracks from three musical masterpieces he put out between 1983-1985 on his own ‘Riverwinds’ imprint. A practising chiropractor by day with his own holistic health centre in San Francisco, these songs became his love, passion and focus. Together with Michael Pluznick, a very accomplished percussionist they painstakingly put together an ensemble of musicians to bring the tracks to life. The melting pot for this body of work was Hyde Street Studios which still today is based in deepest San Francisco and has seen names such as Neil Young, Earth Wind & Fire and John Waters to name a few grace its studio space. Singers and musicians alike came together from all over the world to bring Robert’s vision to reality. This included an Australian didgeridoo player, an electric violin and piano player from Paraguay as well as singers and a choir from the surrounding local churches. Together through Dr Robert Blackman’s eyes they created a fabulous sound of twisted disco punk funk like no other that still sounds relevant today as it did back in the eighties. The energy and the stories are clear to hear throughout the five tracks which make up “The Unimaginable DreamWorks” of Dr. Robert Blackman 1983-1985. Artwork was key to the releases and the “Peace Is Alive” painting incorporated on the label of the release appeared in TIME magazine in 1984 when Dr Robert Blackman was treating combat vets, suffering from PTSD and this was the name of the job fair for veterans he set up. To promote the album at the time Dr Robert Blackman flew up over San Francisco in a single engine prop airplane loaded with 50,000 leaflets

Schneider TM is the multidimensional music project of Dirk Dresselhaus which has been operating since the mid 90's. His latest opus is also his first for release for Editions Mego.

With an extensive catalogue under his belt, one may wonder where this one takes us? The 8 of Space orbits the realm of "pop" more overtly than the project has done for 14 years, residing in the line of works that temporarily ended with "Skoda Mluvit" from 2006. In the age of scattered streaming listening habits The 8 Of Space champions the classic album format with connected tracks that act like chapters adding up to what could be framed as an 'audio-movie'. The 'plot' revolves around a post-dystopian landscape which posits the make up of reality in the future.

The vessel is electronic pop music but one which takes inspiration from the spirit of a multitude of musical forms absorbed into a trans human sound world where biological & technological elements complement each other (We are NOT The Robots!). The music unifies the analog world of acoustic and electric instruments with electronic & digital possibilities that range from heavily processed acoustic & electric guitars and bass, tube organ, analog modular synth units, acoustic drums and percussion, analog & digital drum machines & effect units, hardware and software processing. Experimental & extended musical techniques build a world of musical elements that is sometimes upside down and mirrored. Electric guitar becomes rhythm machine & modular system, voice becomes sound object & synthesizer, effects are used as instruments, acoustic guitars are being modulated by voices etc. Reality and illusion are getting mixed up. One can hear short moments of longer recordings in the tracks which are snapshots of bigger musical pictures that lurk behind what's actually audible. Generative music, audio spirals like clockworks create ever changing musical combinations; thrown-in sounds, polyrhythms & cascades based on the concept of chance attributed to the service of the SONG.

The lyrics are a key component. Holistic, associative poetry acts as interactive trigger points for the mechanisms of existence in times of a paradigm shift that are open to the listeners discretion. Autobiographical elements combine with science fiction and dreams, protagonists shift where the 'I' or 'me' is not necessarily the voice of the artist, nor even the same person. Alongside a more naturalised voice another protagonist appears represented by a processed voice. This character, named iBot, evolved around the start of the millennium and has appeared on some previous Schneider TM recordings. It can be seen as a post-human, or even a trans-human character, a combination of human & technology, uncertain of the future, which lends iBot it's melancholic tone.

In the opening song "Light & Grace" iBot appears in an advanced form of AI, which managed to hack & hijack a commercial space travel program (eg, Virgin Galactic) to invite those rich, who profited most from the destruction of planet earth, for a holiday trip into space to unknowingly fly them directly into the middle of the sun. In this episode it seems to have developed higher ethics than humanity itself with ambition to save the planet with as much of its cooperative life as possible."Light & Grace" serves as an intro / opener for this album to be followed by 7 other tracks featuring different windows of consciousness represented by diverse characters & protagonists.

All the elements on The 8 of Space, the music, sounds, vocals and artwork fit together as a whole, creating a dazzling electro pop future questioning it's own certainty. This is experimental electroacoustic pop music featuring glorious melodies dancing along human/machine voices, each track is a small universe that triggers the physical mind and tickles the subconsciousness.

Mara TK, a golden voiced, Maori-Scottish world-wandering citizen of Aotearoa (New Zealand) announces his debut solo album 'Bad Meditation', released 7th May on Extra Soul Perception. Stepping out on his own, Mara TK is the former frontman of the acclaimed Kiwi future soul trio Electric Wire Hustle. Written and produced by Mara himself, 'Bad Meditation' is his 13 track opus, a deeply personal account of heritage, love, loss and healing.

An alumnus of Red Music Academy in Toronto, Mara TK's work beyond Electric Wire Hustle has seen him collaborate with critically lauded names including Om'Mas Keith of Sa-Ra Creative Partners, Detroit producer and J Dilla collaborator Waajeed, and Steve Spacek.

Extra Soul Perception is a collaboration and community music platform that started life between the UK, Kenya and Uganda but is now continuing to grow and connect independent musicians worldwide. Now with Mara TK added to the roster, Extra Soul Perception has released music by Lex Amor, K15, Maxwell Owin, Lynda Dawn, Hibotep, Karun, Labdi, Faizal Mostrixx and more.

*Nb: The solo version of 'Met At The River' is a digital exclusive only.

Concentric Records presents Radiant, the third compilation of its introductory release trilogy. Featuring music by ASWA, HOLOVR, Max Loderbauer, Petre Inspirescu, Supply, The Waves, William Selman, the album evokes luminous, iridescent and ethereal sonic spaces - a journey that overcomes struggles, spinning upward towards the light.

The album opens with calm, bright and assertive tonalities, evoking mental spaces prone to exploration and wondering. Molecular textures and real-world sounds bring us closer to an intimate and physical sphere, a voice. Ultimately everything dissolves into a synthetic domain of acid-like washes, in a cinematic sense of departure.

MAX LODERBAUER has been an active engineer, producer, and musician across four decades. He first came to notice in the late ‘80s as a member of Fischerman’s Friend. Known then as Daimler Max, Loderbauer’s associates included Stephan Fischer and Tom Thiel, as well as producer Thomas Fehlmann. Once the group went dormant, Loderbauer and Thiel established Sun Electric; one of the leading sources of entrancing downtempo and ambient techno through the ‘90s. During the 2000s and 2010s, Loderbauer collaborated in numerous settings, including NSI with Tobias Freund, Chica & the Folder with Paula Schopf, and Moritz von Oswald Trio with Vladislav Delay and Moritz von Oswald. Loderbauer was partly responsible for some of the most progressive and experimental electronic music released during these years. In 2011, he and contemporary Ricardo Villalobos assembled Re: ECM, a project that involved radical transformations of ECM label recordings by the likes of Bennie Maupin, Christian Wallumrød, John Abercrombie, and Arvo Pärt. More recently he consolidated the collaboration with Ricardo Villalobos via the Vilod project, and with Samuel Rohrer and Claudio Puntin as Ambiq - both described as ‘a fertile patch of inspiration, shaking up the principles of minimal techno with the loose, expressive qualities of jazz’. The album opening track - ‘Harmonic’ - feels like a glowing dream. Composed of stunning electronics in a polychromatic, blinding and shimmering light; harmonious interwoven melodies calmly wind down invoking a serene mental state and grounding peace.

WILLIAM SELMAN was the very first artist ever approached by Concentric Records prior to the label’s birth, back in 2018, following his defining release ‘Musica Enterrada’. A musician and multimedia artist currently based in Portland, Oregon, his work employs analogue and digital synthesis techniques, live percussion and instrumentation, and his own rich field recordings to create compositions and sound art focused on the ideas of place and environment. Selman's recent works have been released on Mysteries of the Deep and Hausu Mountain.

PETRE INSPIRESCU is an extremely versatile composer. As co-founder of the legendary RPR Soundsystem together with Rhadoo and Raresh, he mostly produced club-ready, heavily textured takes on tech-house and minimal techno. In 2015 he released his first album on Mule Musiq, considered a significant departure from his previous work, scoring piano, strings and woodwind instruments for the first time, resulting in a set that sat somewhere between ambient and neo-classical. Since then, he continued to explore further sonic territories, adding in vintage synthesizers and occasional nods to dub techno, resulting in melodious sequences of musical movements that relate to the work of classical composers, American minimalists and ambient legends. ‘The Garden’ is a dreamy, intimate and nature inspired composition, recorded in his home studio in Ibiza sometime in the Summer.

DJ and producer SUPPLY (youngest so far on the label) was born and raised in Gießen, within sight of the skyscrapers of Frankfurt am Main, and has been living in Berlin since 2017. Musically socialised through hip hop, he found his connection to electronic music produced in Chicago and Detroit in the 90s by moving to FFM in 2013. For almost 6 years he has hosted his own events in his hometown. His productions connect the dots between hip hop, retro futuristic movie soundtracks and techno, he recently released on YAY Recordings. ‘Inhale / Exhale’ was created during a time of stress and mental tension, partly self-inflicted, partly result of my surroundings, as it turned out in retrospect. The track tries to capture a moment of taking a deep breath by releasing that tension for a moment. I came up with the first sketch one night around 4am, the final arrangement found its way onto a C60 Chromoxid Cassette - inhale - exhale.’ - Supply

THE WAVES is a post-punk and synthwave-inspired project led by Maayan Nidam, that places her vocals at its front and centre. As a musician obsessed with sound and the technology behind its creation, her workflow places a strong focus on the studio environment. Triggering chain reactions between guitar pedals, drum machines, modular synths and acoustic instruments, generating sounds in unpredictable ways. Drum machines keep a steady groove as to give support to an array of guitars and synthesisers, all topped with The Waves own, mostly unmasked, lyrics and voice. ‘Hold On’ was written by Maayan during the 2020 pandemic as she dived deeply in studio work in Berlin. Her lyrics are featured as part of the art print insert, and have became a central statement to the LP and its narrative - the power to hold on and break through.

Jimmy Billingham's HOLOVR project has racked up various releases on some of the most forward-thinking electronic music labels over the past few years, including Firecracker Recordings, Likemind, Further Records, Opal Tapes and his own Indole Records. Though best known for melodic, drifting acid techno and electronica, he's equally at home crafting textured ambient soundscapes. HOLOVR's deeply emotional synth passages and pads will take you on a journey into the outer. 'Melancholy of Time came out of a period exploring ways of producing and recording outside of the grid-based structures that I was previously working with. I wanted to strip it back to what I often find to be the emotional core of a piece of electronic music - ebbing and flowing synth pads - but to push and pull it a bit to create a slight disjointedness, unpredictability and shop-worn texture, as if it's coming apart and fraying, yet retaining a sonic clarity. I recorded it live using looped and layered synth phrases, underpinned by a layer of hiss and pin-prick textures. I find reflections on time and its passing to be a recurrent feature of my work, both in a more straightforward way of harking back to music of a certain period or pieces of equipment but also in a more abstract sense of creating a feeling where time doesn't matter - a deep feeling of now; that escape that you find in music and other ecstatic experiences. Though of course we’re always in - and running out of - time, and hence the melancholy.’ - Jimmy Billingham

Hailing from the German underground scene, ASWA aka Attila Fidan has an intricate, hypnotic style of electro, techno and ambient. Coming from visual arts and not primarily a trained musician, Attila produces under various and multiple monikers: ‘I never really start out knowing which moniker the track will be made under’. Since 2017 he runs a boutique Berlin label named ‘Tape Archive’. ‘Dust Palace’ is a synthetic piece that resonates with a cinematic vastness, closing the LP in an uplifting tone that evokes new departures and new beginnings.

’Angelo lost his shit over it. Aaliyah’s 3rd favourite track of all time is on it. David Bowie rocked up with it to a TV interview, declaring it “the most exciting sound of contemporary soul music”.

In 1996, Lewis Taylor released his self-titled masterpiece. A true modern classic, it’s an album that was years ahead of its time. Forget 25 years ago, it could easily have been made in 2021. An effortless blend of neo-soul, sophisticated pop, smart grooves and laid-back white funk, it enjoyed rapturous reviews from critics and music legends alike. But the album never managed to make an impact and given what was likely a token vinyl release at the time, the original records have long since been near-impossible to find. Lewis Taylor’s Lewis Taylor remains a holy relic for some and criminally unknown to most.

Lewis Taylor’s impeccable influences created a dazzling sonic palette: the LP as a whole suggests the visionary brilliance of Prince; the vocal stylings evoke the yearning power of Marvin Gaye; the effortless guitar playing shares the virtuosity of Jimi Hendrix; the haunting tones conjure Tricky; the innovative production and engineering invite comparisons to studio mavericks like Todd Rundgren and Brian Eno; the multi-layered, complex harmonies flash on Pet Sounds-era Brian Wilson; the dark, drama is reminiscent of both Scott Walker and Stevie Wonder; the complex arrangements create textures and moods with the feel of Shuggie Otis on Inspiration Information; the bold experimentation is akin to progressive artists like Faust and Tangerine Dream; the atmosphere is in conversation with Jeff Buckley’s Grace… and we could go on. That might all sound like marketing hyperbole, but not as far as Be With is concerned. It is a genuine wonder how an album this good could’ve passed so many people by.

But despite all the reference points, the similarities are really only skin-deep because the album sounds truly original. It occupies its own distinct, strange universe that feels dark and brooding one moment, bright and joyous the next. Ultimately, Taylor sounds like Taylor.

Although you wouldn’t know it from the credits, the album wasn’t the work of Lewis alone. Sabina Smyth gets an executive producer credit on the original sleeve, but in fact she worked with Lewis on the production and arrangements, did a lot of the backing vocals and she co-wrote Track, Song, Lucky and Damn with Lewis.

Lewis clarified all this in a Soul Jones interview with Dan Dodds in 2016. He explains how not giving Sabina the credit she was due at the time was an unfortunate consequence of where his head was at and he’s now trying to set the record straight.

Together they created an exquisite and sensually-charged record, with a freshness to the writing that makes the songs catchy, melodic-yet-deep and sometimes even funky. The music is predominantly guitar-led and a mixture of organs and synths, live drum loops and electronic percussion make for a sort of modern soul backing orchestra.

On the surface the album is gorgeously laidback, but beneath the lush, sometimes slick, production there’s a murkiness in the seriously gritty funk/hip-hop instrumentation. Lewis Taylor can be a claustrophobic listen. Even its one-word, often seemingly throw-away track titles add to the sense of unease. In its most positive moments, there’s still a sense that things aren’t quite right. The magic comes from this compelling tension.

The languid, strutting “Lucky” is a sensational opening statement. Sinuous electric guitar winds around the shaking percussion with a killer bass line rattling your bones, and Lewis’s voice is sublime. Its six-and-a-half unhurried minutes manage to distill the work of Marvin, Al Green and Bobby Womack because yes, it’s *that* good. Up next is the tough, dusty drum and jazzy, unsettling psych-guitar workout of “Bittersweet”. Aaliyah described it the “perfect song”, which says it all. By turns loping and soaring, tightly coiled and blasting free, 25 years on its discordant, swaggering majesty still sounds like future R&B.

The swinging, blue-eyed funk of “Whoever” oozes sophisticated sunshine soul for hazy days before “Track” sweeps in. The music tries to lift us up, beyond the reach of the vocals trying to drag us back down as Taylor sings “my mood is black as the darkest cloud”. The spare, dubby electro-soul of “Song” closes out the first half of the album with barely contained dread as it creeps towards the lush, synth-heavy coda.

The smouldering “Betterlove” eases us into the second half, coming on like a languorous response to the call of “Brown Sugar”, before sliding into the shuffling, softly-rocking “How”. Somehow the remarkable “Right” manages to both warm things up and smooth things out even more. Taut yet luxurious, it’s definitely not wrong.

“Damn” was to have been the album’s title track and you might also be able to hear its influence on D’Angelo’s Voodoo, maybe most obviously in the chaotic closing moments of “Untitled (How Does It Feel)”. Building to a screeching wall of noise that suddenly cuts dead, “Damn” sounds like the natural end to the album, with the celestial a cappella “Spirit” serving as a heavenly reprise.

When it came to the sleeve, art director Cally Callomon heard Taylor’s music as “sideways off-camera glances at a plethora of influences he had” and wanted to interpret that visually: “I went off into night-time London to see if I could find his song titles in off-beam low-fidelity photographs. I even found a shop called Lewis Taylor”. With a slide for each of the album’s ten tracks, nine of them are on the inner sleeve and the slide for “Damn” makes the front cover. It should’ve been the album’s title, but concerns over distribution in the US scuppered this.

One of UK soul’s most fascinating artists, Andrew Lewis Taylor is an enigmatic figure and a hugely under-appreciated talent. A prodigious multi-instrumentalist who got his start touring with heavy blues/psych outfit the Edgar Broughton Band, he released two albums of psychedelic-rock as Sheriff Jack before Island signed him on the strength of a demo alone. But Taylor was destined to be one of those artists unable (or unwilling) to be pigeonholed and despite the best efforts of Island’s publicity department the music never sold in the quantities it needed to or deserved to. Island eventually let him go in the early 2000s and in June 2006, Lewis Taylor retired from music.

Typical for the mid-90s, this CD-length album was squeezed onto a single LP for its original vinyl release. Simon Francis’s fresh vinyl mastering now spreads out the ten tracks over a double LP so nothing is compromised. And as usual, the records have been cut by Pete Norman and pressed at Record Industry. The original artwork has been restored at Be With HQ and subtly re-worked to work as a double.

This sprawling psychedelic soul opus really is a forgotten should-be-classic. We know that there are those of you who know, and as for the rest of you, we’re a bit jealous that you’re getting to hear Lewis Taylor for the first time.

For Indie Stores Only. Joan Shelley’s out of print 2014 album is repackaged here in a deluxe tip-on jacket and pressed on purple vinyl. Limited to 2,000 copies worldwide. Electric Ursa was recorded out of the spotlight in Louisville, Kentucky. A quiet, 8 song record which owes much to the post-rock history of its hometown on songs like “Something Small” and “Rising Air”, while “River Low” and “Electric Ursa” hint at the brilliant Over and Even waiting just around the corner. Electric Ursa brought Shelley to the national stage. Rolling Stone noted that the songs project “a huge, resplendently pained serenity” while Pitchfork declared that while the album “isn’t her debut, it is her absolute arrival.”

The second compilation EP to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the establishment of Sound Of Speed!

A-1, by UK Kieron Ifill K15 (WILD OATS, EGLO, APRON) with an impressive sophisticated electric jazzy track that symbolizes the label.

The debut work "Wait" from DISTANT HAWAII is a cult hit, and also from RHYTHM SECTION INTERNATIONAL and MOODS & GROOVES.

A-2 by HIDDEN SPHERES from Manchester, who has release experience and has an impressive unique rhythm composition and airy synth usage.

The Japanese twin duo SATOSHI & MAKOTO, whose two albums released from YOUNG MARCO's label attracted a lot of attention.

Sapporo's KUNIYUKI participated in the music of his brother SATOSHI as percussion, a 90's synth riff reminiscent of the dawn of Detroit techno.

KUNIYUKI from Sapporo, who has live experience on the world stage, participated in the percussion with an ambient feeling that delicate keyboard

work is folded in multiple layers.B-1, which weaves a groove in a quiet humor, a masterpiece electric jazz world that draws you in from the beginning

of the song and gets caught up in the world view in a blink of an eye

Includes 4 songs including KUNIYUKI TAKAHASHI's new song B-2, which has been developed and acclaimed by DJ Sprinkles. KUNIYUKI is in charge of mastering.

It's not often that an album disavowed by its own author at the time of release goes on to become considered a modern classic. Yet that's exactly what happened with Chicago blues legend Howlin' Wolf's 1969 LP The Howlin' Wolf Album, a release that has since attained mythical status due to the controversy behind it. Released on Cadet Records, a subsidiary of legendary imprint Chess Records, The Howlin' Wolf Album was a radical experiment for a wellestablished artist: attempt to integrate electric instruments and psychedelic arrangements into his revered signature blues sound. The result was an album that Wolf himself initially disregarded on the nowinfamous cover, but one that has won a special place amongst dedicated music aficionados thanks to its unique mix of traditional blues and electric rock elements. Get On Down's reputation for high quality reissues continues with The Howlin' Wolf Album, which features a special Stoughton vinyl pressing with audio remastered from the original analog tapes for optimum sound quality and comes packaged in a paste-on style jacket featuring the album's famous original artwork. A1. Spoonful A2. Tail Dragger A3. Smokestack Lightning A4. Moanin' at Midnight A5. Built For Comfort B1. The Red Rooster B2. Evil B3. Down In The Bottom B4. Three Hundred Pounds Of Joy B5. Back Door Man

Last autumn Leng Records welcomed a new name to the roster, Greek DJ/producer Lex, via some warming and colourful tracks on the label’s 10th Anniversary LP and sampler EP. Now the Athenian has returned with his first full release for Paul Murphy and Simon Purnell’s popular imprint.



Real name Alex Andrikopoulos, Lex first rose to prominence in his home city of Athens when he ran the Radical Soundz record shop during the first decade of the millennium. More recently his reputation has spread worldwide thanks to his association with Leng, a recent 12” on B2 Recordings and DJ sets that frequently join the dots between disco, house and techno.



His first full EP for Leng is arguably his most musically expansive collection of tracks to date, with a swathe of guest players – keyboardist Artis Boriss and drummer/percussionist Harold Perez most prominently – swinging by to help bring Lex’s vivid musical visions to life.



For proof, check out lead cut ‘Punta Allen’, an eight-minute chunk of organic dancefloor goodness in which Lex and his musical associates layer steel pan style melodies, spacey synthesizer flourishes, eyes-closed electric piano solos, warming chords and jangling guitars atop a heady bass guitar line, unfussy drums and sweaty pots-and-pans percussion. The track’s effortless evolution, which slowly unfurls before rising towards a gorgeous and joyous conclusion, is testament to the Greek producer’s dancefloor instincts.



You’ll find more low-slung, dub disco-influenced bass on the exotic ‘The Jamail Pass’, where mazy and feverish organ solos and rolling hand percussion provide a platform for Paqua member Alex Searle’s Nile Rodgers style guitar sounds. The track’s inherent funk – emphasized by occasional bass guitar solos and fills, as well as some tumbling synth sounds – is apparent throughout the track, something that only adds to its smile-inducing allure.



Closing out a very impressive first EP on Leng is ‘Angels of Rhythm’, a hazier, faster and more intergalactic excursion that cannily combines the low-slung bass of dub disco with the intoxicating vibes and warming dreaminess of deep house. The track’s intoxicating late-night feel is partly due to an undecidedly cosmic spoken word vocal from sassy singer Harrier Summer, though Artis Boriss’ pitch-bend-sporting synth solos and fizzing electronic noises certainly help. Driving but also deep and groovy, ‘Angels of Rhythm’ offers a memorable conclusion to a very impressive EP.

Composer, multi-instrumentalist, poet, griot, improviser and community
leader William Parker presents a pair of brand new trio albums which further expound on his limitless vision.
One of the iconic and enduring music leaders to emerge in the world over the
last half century, William Parker continues to raise the bar higher.
‘Mayan Space Station’ is his first electric guitar trio album, and features Parker
on bass, alongside Ava Mendoza (electric guitar), and Gerald Cleaver (drums).
Cosmic multi-hued blues, perfect for space and time travel. The unparalleled
rhythmic firmament created by Parker & Cleaver is matched by Mendoza in full
flight. All of the promise imagined by a trio recording of these musicians with
compositions by Parker is delivered to the fullest.
Mendoza’s prodigious talents have illuminated many projects and recordings
as both leader and collaborator over the past decade. As is certainly clear here,
she is committed to bringing expressivity, energy and a wide sonic range to the
music. Gerald Cleaver is an exceptionally gifted poet of drum sound who can
play in the deepest of pockets and manifest all manner of sound to perfectly fit
contours within the most open of forms.
Cleaver & Parker have worked closely on numerous projects, notably within the
nonpareil full-improvising trio, Farmers By Nature, together with Craig Taborn.
William Parker is in vibrant grandmaster blossom here on double bass - in both
pizzicato & bow-as-prism modes.
William Parker: bass, compositions,
Ava Mendoza: electric guitar,
Gerald Cleaver: drums

George Otsuka (or Ohtsuka), sadly passed away in March 2020, was one of Japan’s most renowned jazz drummers. ‘Sea Breeze’, released in 1971on the Union label, is his first record in quintet formation and is reissued here on a single LP housed in a gatefold sleeve.

And we can say that George Otsuka knew how to surround himself: Shunzo Ohno is on trumpet and Flugelhorn, Takao Uematsu on tenor sax and soprano, Takashi Mizuhashi on bass and Hideo Ichikawa on electric piano.

If all the tracks on this album are solid, included the astonishing cover of “Fool on the Hill”, it is especially “Sea Breeze”, the eponymous track opening the album that will make an impression. A super and long jazz-funk track where the five musicians, in perfect osmosis, leave each other enough space to express the full extent of their talent.

Recent copies of the original vinyl,which were only released in Japan have sold for £200-300.

Having already unearthed three collections of archival ‘70s recordings by Catherine Christer Hennix, Blank Forms continues their annual illumination of the visionary Swedish composer’s music by turning to more recent work with this first-time vinyl edition of Hennix’s “Blues Alif Lam Mim in the Mode of Rag Infinity/Rag Cosmosis,” a 2014 piece first released as a CD in 2016 (Important Records).

The double album captures the April 22, 2014 premiere of Hennix’s composition by by the Chora(s)san Time-Court Mirage, her expanded just intonation ensemble, featuring a brass section of Amir ElSaffar, Paul Schwingenschlögl, Hilary Jeffery, Elena Kakaliagou, and Robin Hayward; live electronics by Stefan Tiedje and Marcus Pal; and voice by Amirtha Kidambi, Imam Ahmet Muhsin Tüzer, and Hennix herself. Intended to reveal the blues’ origins in the eastern musical traditions of raga and makam, “Blues Alif Lam Mim in the Mode of Rag Infinity/Rag Cosmosis” has its roots in Hennix’s 2013 realization of an “Illuminatory Sound Environment,” a concept developed in 1978 by anti-artist Henry Flynt on the basis of Hennix’s own “The Electric Harpsichord.”

As Hennix explains in Other Matters, Blank Forms’ 2019 collection of her writings:

“Rag Infinity/Rag Cosmosis presents fragments of ‘raga-like’ frequency constellations following distinct cycles and permuting their order, creating a simultaneity of ‘multi-universes.’ When two such ‘universes’ come in proximity of each other and begin unfolding simultaneously along distinct cycles, there is a kaleidoscopic exfoliation of frequencies as one universe is becoming two, but not separated—the effect of cosmosis is entrained, binding two or more frequency universes into proximity where their modal properties interact and blend, creating in the process entirely new microtonal constellations in an omnidirectional simultaneous cosmic order with phenomenologically ‘transfinite’ Poincaré cycles (cyclic returns to initial conditions).”

As with Hennix’s best work, the organic unfolding of this quivering drone belies a precision that opens onto the infinitesimal. Upon its mesmerizing ebb and flow, the vocalists incant a devotional poem written in Arabic by Hennix and featuring quotations from the Quran. Also reproduced on the album’s gatefold jacket, Hennix’s reduction of the sacred text to its most elegant formulation invites the contemplator to bring their inner knowledge to the composition for use as a prompt for meditation. Yet the piece offers depth to even the most secular listener willing to immerse themselves in music brimming with such serene intensity.

Catherine Christer Hennix (b. 1948) started her creative life playing drums with her older brother Peter, growing up in Sweden where she heard jazz luminaries, such as John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, Dexter Gordon, Archie Shepp, and Cecil Taylor perform from 1960 to 1967. Directly after high school, Hennix went to work at Stockholm’s pioneering Elektronmusikstudion (EMS), where she developed early tape music, incorporating computer generated speech done at the Royal Technological University (KTH), where she was an undergraduate student. After traveling to New York In 1968, she met artists Dick Higgins and Alison Knowles who invited her to stay at the Something Else Press Town House where she had the opportunity to meet, among others, composers John Cage, James Tenney, and Phil Corner. During the following years she developed fruitful collaborative relationships with many composers in the burgeoning American avant-garde, including, most significantly, Henry Flynt and La Monte Young. Young introduced Hennix to Hindustani raga master Pandit Pran Nath and she would later study intensively under him as his first European disciple. While Hennix continued to make music performing alongside Arthur Russell, Marc Johnson, Henry Flynt, and Arthur Rhames, she also served as a professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at SUNY New Paltz and as a visiting Professor of Logic (at Marvin Minsky’s invitation) at MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. In recent years Hennix has led the just-intonation ensemble the Chora(s)san Time-Court Mirage, which has featured musicians Amelia Cuni, Amirtha Kidambi, Chiyoku Szlavnics, Hilary Jeffrey, Amir El-Saffar, Benjamin Duboc and Rozemarie Heggen. She currently resides in Istanbul, Turkey pursuing studies in classical Arabic and Turkish makam.

Clear Vinyl

Freddy Fresh is a legend. Period. From a plethora of 12“es on labels like Nu Groove, Drop Bass Network, Forced Nostalgia, Spaziotempo, Lone Romantic or Toolbox Killers to albums on 90s scene mainstays like Harthouse, Anodyne or Eye Q to countless releases on his own imprints like Howlin Records, Analog Records USA and Electric Music Foundation. From remixes for the likes of GusGus, Heaven 17, Kitachi, Steve Stoll, Frankie Bones and many more to hitting the UK Top 40 with the massive BigBeat smasher „Badder Badder Schwing“
produced alongside Fatboy Slim. The man has done it all. Nearly.
And therefore Intrauterin Recordings is proud to present the first ever Drum'n'Bass release in the more than 30 year spanning career of the one and only Freddy Fresh!
With „333“ Freddy Fresh is going down a twisted, hard stepping and yet positive alley of what the man himself refers to as Modular Drum'n'Bass that is unmistakably cooked up live and direct in his Minneapolis-based studio. Expect a whirlwind of swirls, swooshes, bleeps and FX alongside raw junglistic beats and the most positive Synth bass motif you've heard in a long while.
Yet the singles' main dancefloor smash is to be found on the flip side. „Watch It Go Roun Roun“ is a raw classic, a heavy original JumpUp banger driven by a killer vocal performance by Mike Gates a.k.a. Mikey Dredd. Likely better known to many for his Techno productions on labels like Kanzleramt, Creation Rebel or Howlin Records rather than for his MC skills this is the very first time Mikey Dredd's secret love for taking up the microphone as a proper Jungle / Drum'n'Bass MC is officially recognized and revealed on wax as a late tribute to and
honoration of a large scale talent which passed away way too soon in 2019. Lighter crew!
Initial pressing will be limited to 225 copies on 7“ whitelabel vinyl. Hand-stamped with stickered cover.


b B1: Watch It Go Roun Roun featuring Mikey Dredd

After a very short break Daje Funk are back with a super fresh redesign. The label is also fully embracing the move from their previous 10” format to 12” with the obvious bonus that they are now able to cram just that little bit of extra music onto their releases.

Their latest release, the Slam Dunk EP, is their 9th since the label arrived and it’s been a memorable journey so far. Keeping things decidedly funk with a modern dancefloor twist for their latest instalment they have assembled and all-star cast of producers with Dutch edits wizard, Ronny Hammond, England’s Shit Hot Soundsystem and Uptown Funk and Italian producer Coldbeard all taking turns to vie for dancefloor gold.

Together they have turned in one mighty slab of black wax.

The EP opens with Ronny Hammond’s ‘Keep On Groovin’ and it’s a very serious club track. For those of you with long memories and deep collections the original used here was sampled for Screen II’s Hey Mr DJ, a 90’s house classic on Cleveland City and it feels just as essential right now in 2021 as it did in both the 70’s when the original arrived and in the 90’s. Keep On Groovin’ is a proper funk bomb and Ronny has taken it to town with the addition of a powerhouse bassline, ass shakin’ drums and cheeky ear worm vocal samples. Indeed there is no chance that you will be able to sit still when this one drops. Expect it to cause serious dancefloor mischief over the coming summer months.

Shit Hot Soundsystem is up next with ‘Woah’ with label co-boss De Gama adding some extra scalpel action. Another track with classic subject matter, this often sampled track has rarely sounded as good as on this monstrous funky outing. It still sounds as fresh and exciting as the first time you heard those vibrant and vital synths and beautifully layered vocals. ‘Woah’ is both immediate and essential and will be soundtracking parties for years to come.

Over on the flip Uptown Funk’s ‘South Side Boogie’ also has De Gama on edit duty and here things head off downtown 70’s funk style. Brass stabs, wah guitar, and spicy synth licks all combine for a track which has plenty of joyous zest as it combines disco edges with a funk packed groove combing to deliver serious club heat.

Seeing the EP out is Coldbeard and he takes up deeper still with a bubbling groove which captivates from the first notes of the dynamo synth bass before adding in electric guitar licks and a rhythm line to die for. A Funky Situation is a perfect example of how to build a track piece by piece until it becomes utterly essential. Once you have heard that Rhodes and the vocal stabs working together you just know that this one will need to be played religiously.

Four utterly essential tracks which perfectly bridge the gap from the 70’s to 2021. Nine releases deep Daje Funk delivers yet again on its mission to make funk as utterly essential in clubs again nearly 4 decades after it’s glorious genres beginnings.

Legendary psychedelic guitar music from the Islamic Republic of Mauritania finally available on vinyl!
Originally released as a double CD in 2010, Wallahi Le Zein! has persisted as a cult classic, a collection of a rarely heard and utterly unique underground music scene, raw and unfiltered.
For fans of the more raw side of Sublime Frequencies, Sahelsounds, the ripping tape-hiss psychedelia of Les Rallizes Denudes, and anyone remotely interested in GUITARS.
12” 160 gram black vinyl LP, with 2 spot color reverse-board jacket, and 8-page full sized booklet with extensive notes and photos, and a history of Mauritanian guitar playing.
‘’this is the first curated collection of unfiltered Mauritanian guitar music ever, and I'm glad it's been introduced with such thoroughness and care.’’ 8.0 Pitchfork
The LP version we now present is intended as an immersive entry into this music: gnarled and virtuosic electric guitars weave hypnotically throughout melismatic sung poetry and exclamations, pulsing hand drums, party chatter, buzzing rigged desert sound systems, and all manner of the ambient sounds of Nouakchott wedded to oversaturated cassette in all its swirling, breathing, psychedelic glory. Operating entirely outside of any local recording industry, these songs were collected from bootleg tape stalls, wedding souveniers, and networks of musicians, expertly curated, researched and produced by Matthew Lavoie.
Drawing from the deep well of Mauritanian classical music, the gamut of musical modes and the tidinitt lute repertoire are transposed to the electric guitar - often with frets removed or additional frets installed, “heavy metal” distortion pedals and phasers built into guitar bodies, blurring the lines between Haratine and Beydane musical cultures, the ancient and the futuristic. At times transcendent and transfixing, and conversely a furious and cascading intensity that commands jaw-dropping attention.

Sam Prekop's eponymously titled LP is a study in pop nuances. Simultaneously transporting the listener from mild climes and swinging palms to darkened skies and wind blown steppes, the record will be easily recognized by fans of The Sea and Cake. Known to many as the singer and main songwriter for said group, Mr. Prekop is assisted on this release by Chad Taylor (Chicago Underground Duo), Josh Abrams (ex-Roots, Town and Country), Jim O'Rourke (Gastr del Sol) and Archer Prewitt (The Sea and Cake). Those expecting to find more of the computer beats and trickery found on The Fawn and Two Gentlemen are in for a surprise. Whilst prevalent on "Faces and People" - (a lucious groove overlayed by cornet and guitar), the computer takes a back seat to real strings, drums, piano, electric piano and organ as well as electric and acoustic bass. The subtle grooves, a trademark of The Sea and Cake records, are still present here as Sam and his band blend West African rhythms with a bit of soul, jazz and pop. The resulting record is something wholly original, elegant and earthy. A cauldren, if you will, of sweet smelling and enlightening stew. So line up, grab a spoon, and dig in. All the ingredients and intoxicating aromas necessary for an auditory feast are contained within.

A deep dive into the one of most collectable jazz catalogues in the world, a selection of some of the rarest and most sought-after recordings from the 60s and 70s, a time when British jazz began to find its own identity. Drawn from the iconic labels of Decca, Deram, Argo, EMI Columbia/Lansdowne Series, Fontana, Mercury, & Philips. A figure in British modern jazz for over half a century, Don Rendell was both active protagonist and key witness to the main developments in the music from its rise out of tiny clubs and back rooms on up to the most prestigious national stages. From his earliest performances in London’s West End and his work of the 50s and 60s — most not ably with the Don Rendell-Ian Carr Quintet — to the lower profile work of the 70s and 80s, his quite assurance and consistent performance marked him out as a highly respected figure among his peers. He is one of a handful of British artists to feature on Blue Note Records and appeared on some of the most distinctive and characterful British jazz albums by the likes of Michael Garrick, Stan Tracey, Amancio D’Silva, and Neil Ardley. Even though Rendell eschewed much of the free and electric fusion styles that came to the fore in the late 60s, in the main sticking to an acoustic sound with melody and rhythm at its heart, he similarly bridled at any notion that he was merely a ‘bopper’, a description he positively hated. In many ways, Space Walk was as much a valedictory as transitionary album for Rendell. It was his last for Denis Preston, the fabled producer behind Lansdowne Studios, described by Neil Ardley as a ‘rare Diaghilev like figure’ who steered many of the key figures of the British jazz scene into the studio when nobody else would record them. It was also Rendell’s final project for EMI Columbia and his last as a leader for a major record label. After Space Walk, Rendell would record for smaller, independent labels like Spotlite. But as much as the album is a farewell to one chapter, it also marked the way forward to the next..

Riding the razor’s edge between rigorous experimentation, innovation, and tradition, London based, Italian composer, cellist, and electronic performer, Sandro Mussida, joins the Die Schachtel family with Rueben, his 3rd solo LP.

Active since the early 2000s, Sandro Mussida worked extensively with Mark Fell, Curl Collective, Lorenzo Senni, Oren Ambarchi, and Alessandra Novaga, among others, as well as a founding member of the interdisciplinary artists' group TQS Collective, before releasing his solo debut, Ventuno Costellazioni Invisibili, on Metrica in 2017, followed by Eeeooosss, released by Soave in 2019. Rueben, like its predecessor, deploys a microtonal vocabulary within a three-instrument sound palette and builds upon Mussida’s long-standing investigations of active listening, augmented by a developing practice that challenges aural perceptions of historical, non-equal-tempered tuning systems.

The 3rd instalment of Die Schachtel’s Decay Music series - launched to highlight inspired contemporary experimental efforts in the ambient, ethereal, and emotively abstract music - Rueben was recorded during 2018 in the church of St.Giusto in Volterra, Italy. Deeply inspired by Italian Renaissance paintings encountered by Mussida during the work’s composition, and conceived at the intersection of acoustic and electronic aural fields, in careful response to the space itself, the sounds of electric guitar, bass clarinet and cello - treated as minuscule sound atoms, rapidly projected to form structures of evolving densities - harmoniously enter into dialogue, forming a multi-layered, contemplative sonic landscape, within the interwoven complexity of their own reflections.

Central to Mussida’s work is the role of the performer, the experience of sound in a given space, and the relation of those sounds to memory and observation. Across the length of Rueben, bound to the work’s inspiration in the visual realm, the interplay between the senses blurs, presenting the act of listening as a mirror for the experience and legacies of seeing. In Mussida’s hands, sound emerges as a trace or memory suspended in a non-linear conception of time, where imprint, movement, and event, as they relate to place and happening, are perceived by the ear, recalling the Russian theologian Pavel ​Florenskij​’s idea of ‘reverse time’, that likens temporal condition activated by experiences with art as similar to that of dreams.

Vast in scope and intricate detail, the 9 discrete compositions that form ​Rueben​ unfold in a series of interconnected, shimmering landscapes of tone and texture, each, through the interplay of their elements, configuring a radically dense rendering of minimalist, ambient music that challenge the perceived boundaries of those historical definitions. The identity of individual sound sources fades against their collective whole, sculpting an inward-looking aural image of the church of St.Giusto, that echoes the radiance of the paintings that lay at the heart of the album’s inspiration.

An inspired and radically forward-thinking realization of electro-acoustic music, Mussida pushes toward innumerable possible futures of experimental practice, imbued with ghosts and histories of the past. Rueben is issued Die Schachtel on vinyl in a one-time edition of 250 copies, pressed to 180g marble vinyl and housed in a pro-printed inner sleeve and jacket, featuring an original Sumi-e painting by Japanese artist and avant rock drummer Akihide Monna (Bo Ningen), contained in a silk-screen PVC sleeve.