Suche:from the land

LP edition of the sold out CD/Pamphlet from 2016. The score by Schmid, reading by Landry, and edited/produced by McCann. Includes a big poster of The St. Francis List.

Emily Martin and Derek Baron on St. Francis (Feb. 2021):

What does it mean to pray? To address someone, to plead for something, to welcome humiliation and failure: Please, let me forget about the China Chalet parties, please let there be no countries and no war, please let me love you. Is prayer iteration, or just repetition: My god, my god, my god, my god… To know spleen you just have to be down to be humiliated. But do we know for sure that we are miserable? How do we know?

This is how it has to go. We listened to this for the first time together in May 2017, while driving from Chicago to New York along the I-80 in Pennsylvania, stopping at the rest area that I later mistook for the famous picture of American “culture.” We stayed at a hotel and may have ordered a pizza. Content first, then, content again. Went inside and drank wine in relative silence, burping. Recognizing the sacredness in the plot of Friends. A choral melisma representative of holy Joy.

The dreams of moving through a convoluted space of passages, staircases, open courtyards, rooms just glimpsed past a door. It doesn’t seem possible that you can get from one place to the next but according to the logic of the dream you do. I think this has to do with how each little unit of ‘content’ happens at a different distance from your ear. The holiness of the periphery. That you can catch a shard of history if you only find the right distance to stand from the painting.

But prayer is also like the magic language we were talking about — faith that words do something more than just mean — they have the capacity to effect change in the world, and not just in the like, “words change ppl’s minds” kind of way, but in that the words themselves actually have agency. Form: sing-along.

Outside Ludlow / Desert Disco is the first major solo release from Australian performer-composer Sam Dunscombe, now based in Berlin after residing for the past decade in San Diego and Tokyo. A virtuoso clarinettist who has performed in composed and improvised settings with artists such as Klaus Lang and Taku Sugimoto, their practice also embraces computer music, lo-fi electronics and field recordings, in addition to their long-term commitment to archiving, studying and performing the work of Romanian spectralist composer Horatiu Radulescu.
The two side-long pieces presented on this LP began from a chance encounter in a specific geographic location (documented in the photographs that grace the record’s sleeve). Exploring California’s Mojave desert with a friend, Dunscombe made the unlikely discovery of a tangle of quarter-inch tape snared on a cactus. The digitised version of this tape, variously edited and processed, as well as Dunscombe’s own transcription and embellished performance of some of its material on Hammond organ, makes up one of the main ingredients of the LP’s first side. The other is a field recording of the area outside the ghost town of Ludlow, where the tape was found, where haunted silence is punctuated by freight trains and clusters of explosions from gold mines and the local marine corps. Far from any kind of documentary approach, the resulting composition reaches back to the smeared atmospherics and overdriven tape crunch of Hands To, Small Cruel Party or Joe Colley, before the Hammond organ rises up to cast a spectral shimmer reminiscent of 1960s tape music classics like Arne Nordheim’s ‘Warszawa’.

On ‘Desert Disco’ (its title perhaps a clue to the content of the mysterious tape), Dunscombe zeroes in on a single fragment of the tape, accompanying it with analogue synthesis to craft an immersive work based on a single chord. Throughout the course of this work, the monolithic opening sonority gradually splits apart, revealing an infinity of rhythmically phasing lines that swarm like a cloud of insects and patter like falling rain, placing Dunscombe’s piece in a lineage of patient electronic exploration that includes landmarks like Costin Miereanu’s Derives and the contemporary work of Jim O’Rourke.

Limited edition vinyl with images by Sam Dunscombe and design by Lasse Marhaug. Mastered by Joe Talia at Good Mixture, Berlin.

A unique new album of poetry and music featuring Marianne Faithfull set to the music of Warren Ellis, and featuring Nick Cave, Brian Eno and Vincent Ségal
With She Walks in Beauty, Marianne Faithfull with composer and multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis releases one of the most distinctive and singular albums of her long, extraordinary life and career. It was recorded just before and during the first Covid-19 lockdown – during which the singer herself became infected and almost died of the disease – with musical friends and family including not only composer Warren Ellis but Nick Cave, Brian Eno, cellist Vincent Ségal and producer-engineer Head. She Walks in Beauty fulfils Faithfull’s long-held ambition to record an album of poetry with music.
It’s a record that draws on her passion for the English Romantic poets, a passion she fostered in her A Level studies with one Mrs Simpson at St Joseph's Convent School in Reading. From there she entered the world of As Tears Go By, of Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones, Top of the Pops and the left-hand path of pop and stage stardom. Sixties iconography and outrage followed, as did her subsequent battles with addiction before her 1979 return to powerful female and artistic autonomy with Broken English, an album which featured her setting to music Heathcote Williams’ poem of eviscerating rage, Why D’Ya Do It?
Drawing deep on the poetry of Shelley, Keats, Byron, Wordsworth, Tennyson and Thomas Hood, Faithfull’s vocal performances set to Ellis’s subtle collages of sound draw out the heart, the quick, the vibrant living matter in all these great poems, making them fresh, renewing them with the complex, lived-in timbres of her voice, and set to a subtle palette of ambient musical settings. It’s both a radical departure and a return to her original inspirations as an artist and performer.
The greatest poetry is best heard, and Faithfull’s accounts of some of the greatest lyric poetry in our language – Keats’ Ode To A Nightingale and Ode To Autumn – are spine-tingling in their deep understanding of the poetry’s powerful currents of meaning and identification. On Nightingale, her voice opens up like an epic landscape, while in Shelley’s miniature masterpiece, To The Moon, she sounds otherworldly, as if calling down from another medium, and the atonal, otherworldly sound textures provided by Eno on Bridge of Sighs and La Belle Dame Sans Merci become a compelling foil for Faithfull’s haunting interpretations of these rich, dark poems.
“They’ve have been with her her whole life,” says Ellis. “She believes in these texts. That world, she inhabits it, embodies it, and that really comes through. There’s just something about the way she can deliver that is incredibly affecting.”
“Eventually I always end up where I was meant to be,” says Faithfull. “I’ve noticed that. It may take a long time, but I get there. I never forget these things. After all these years, I’ve drawn the strands back and they still mean something and they resonate more, actually, because I now have life experience. Life and near-death experience. Many times! Not just once.” She Walks in Beauty is scheduled for release April 30th, with artwork created for the album by British artist and lifelong friend, Colin Self, and with the full texts of the poems, and commentary, included in the liner notes. While Faithfull continues to recover from the after-effects of Covid-19, and the world around us continues to struggle with the impact of the worldwide pandemic, these are poems and performances to steady and lift the spirit.

Shura announces a deluxe version of her acclaimed 2019 album
‘forevher’, released via Secretly Canadian.
‘forevher: Deluxe Edition’ is released on cassette and features the
eleven original album tracks with nine extras. These include acoustic
versions of five album tracks recorded and produced with Sam Evian
and featuring Hannah Cohen on backing vocals, previous Bandcamp
single ‘magazine launch (demo)’, last year’s collaborative single
‘elevator girl’ featuring Ivy Sole and two unreleased tracks including
‘obsession’.
On ‘obsession’, Shura explains: “‘obsession’ was one of the songs I
wrote whilst I was writing ‘forevher’. I always wanted it to be a duet
between two women but it never came to fruition during the recording
process. Then, when I toured ‘forevher’ in Europe, Rosie Lowe came
with us and we’d always spoken about wanting to collaborate on
something together and I suddenly remembered this song, which I loved
but had somehow never finished. I sent the track across to Ro and when
she sent back her rough take I was like ‘YES. this is it.’”
With ‘forevher’, Shura’s immediately identifiable way with love, touch and
how we talk about it reached even greater creative heights. Having
moved from West London to New York following her adored 2016 debut,
,Nothing’s Real,, it’s all mirrored in a lyrical journey from rejection and
loss to desire, long-distance love and the prospect of how we make
something real actually work.
In 2020, Shura emerged as one of contemporary pop’s accidental
trailblazers. A frank, funny voice in the LGBTQ+ community whose
contribution to the paradigm-shift in the cultural landscape cannot be
underestimated.
Written primarily about Shura’s relationship with her girlfriend and their
long-distance conception, ‘forevher’ traces everything from the initial pull
of desire to that first real life meeting (‘the stage’), before recognising
when the connection develops into something scarily meaningful. It’s a
classic NYC-to-London love story but one told through the totally modern
filter of dating apps, unanswered texts, Skype chats and MUNA gigs.
And whilst how to live - and love - as a queer woman has always been
integral to Shura, it’s remarkable to hear these stories twisted through
such a gorgeous amalgam of influences: Joni Mitchell and Minnie
Riperton, Bon Iver and Frank Ocean, Prince and Ariel Pink. Through
these inspirations, Shura’s own modern, outlier perspective found a
newer, more daring approach to sound and song.

Originally released on CD in 2012, Chapter's landmark compilation of 70s gay musical pioneers gets a vinyl release for the first time ever - and on limited baby pink vinyl to boot! Strong Love explores the first wave of openly gay songwriting, emerging after New York's Stonewall Riots kickstarted the modern gay rights movement in 1969. It took just a few years for the defiant chanting and interlocked arms of early 70s pride marches to reverberate onto record, and Strong Love begins with the earliest known example, 1972's A Gay Song by London hippie collective Everyone Involved. Across 15 tracks, the compilation takes in disarmingly personal folk, uplifting soul, outsider country and dark synth-rock. But tellingly, none of its songs could be considered well-known. New York's Steven Grossman released the first major label album by an openly gay artist in 1974, and Tom Robinson hit the UK Top 20 with the fiery Glad To Be Gay in 1978, but these are the exceptions. The coy ambivalence of Lou Reed and David Bowie was about as sexually adventurous as the 1970s music industry got, and most Strong Love artists released their own self-funded recordings in very limited numbers. Unlike their lesbian counterparts, who joined forces to create long-lasting record labels, strong distribution networks and considerable sales figures, gay male musicians in the 1970s existed largely in solitary bubbles. Which doesn't mean they didn't carve out niches of their own. Chris Robison played with the New York Dolls and Elephant's Memory, while LA glam seducer Smokey saw members of the Stooges and Quiet Riot pass through his backing band. Steven Grossman was covered by Twiggy and Scrumbly & Martin are infamous for their work with San Francisco drag hippies the Cockettes. Strong Love illustrate the vision, talent and raw courage that drove 1970s songwriters to sacrifice popular careers for the sake of honesty and selfexpression. Compiled by Chapter Music's Guy Blackman, with an evocative introduction from drummer RIchard Dworkin (who played with Blackberri and Buena Vista), the album is a powerful tribute to pioneering artists whose music has been neglected for too long.

Demon Records presents the narrated TV soundtrack of a partially ‘lost’ six-part adventure set in a
future Ice Age, starring Patrick Troughton as the Doctor.
The Doctor and his friends land on Earth in the future, and find it in the grip of a new Ice Age.
They join a team of scientists struggling to hold back the huge glaciers that threaten all human
life. A giant creature is discovered inside the ice and quickly comes to monstrous life – it’s an Ice
Warriors from Mars! It intends to find its crashed spaceship, where a whole crew of Warriors is
waiting to be revived…
Presented across a trio of 140g Molten Ice vinyl discs, this 1967 TV soundtrack – only four
episodes of which survive as film recordings - is narrated by Frazer Hines, who co-stars as the
Doctor’s companion Jamie, with Deborah Watling as Victoria. The guest cast includes Bernard
Bresslaw as the Ice Warrior Varga, Peter Barkworth as Leader Clent, and Peter Sallis as Penley.
Incidental music is by Dudley Simpson, and the familiar strains of the Doctor Who theme are
courtesy of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
The coloured LPs are presented in fully illustrated sleeves which, when assembled together, form
the cover image. Original episode billings, and full cast and credits, are included.
Dummedy-dum, Dummedy-dum, Dummedy-dum, Dum-dum…

Captain Rip Hayman (b.1951, New Mexico) has come ashore again, bearing fresh cargo. A student of John Cage, Ravi Shankar, and Philip Corner, Rip was a founding editor of the notable Ear Magazine (1975-1991), and since 1977 he has run New York's oldest bar, the Ear Inn. The focused minimalism of his new LP Waves: Real and Imagined varies from the collaged spectacle of his first Recital LP, Dreams of India & China (2019).

This oceanic dish holds two side-long works: “Waves for Flutes,” a multi-tracked flute composition recorded by the artist in 1977. ‘Angelic’, ‘Grave’, and ‘Sad’ modes overlap an effect of medieval choral organum, as shifting patterns evoke water and wind variations of the shore and vast sea beyond. An enchanting and arresting piece.

The second side holds “Seascapes,” which was recorded on the Pacific ocean in February and March of 2020 – through calm seas and tempestuous storms. The ship as the instrument played by the sea. We feel both lost and saved when at sea, the landfall feared or longed for.

The album is dedicated to all those whose souls have been lost and found at sea amidst the waves, for each sea wave is a child of Oceanus & Tethys, Greek gods of the sea, every one sent on their way to play...

Rostam war einst Gründungsmitglied von Vampire Weekend und produzierte deren ersten drei Alben, wofür er unter anderem mit einem Grammy ausgezeichnet wurde. Auch nach seinem Ausstieg bei Vampire Weekend, deren ersten drei Alben Rostam Batmanglij maßgeblich prägte, wurde es nicht ruhiger um den amerikanischen Songwriter, Sänger und Produzenten. 2017 veröffentlichte Rostam sein vielbeachtetes Solodebüt "Half-Light". Wenig später produzierte und schrieb er mit und für die amerikanische Sängerin Clairo Musik für deren Debütalbum "Immunity". Aktuell ist Rostam wieder für einen Grammy nominiert, für seine Produktion des aktuellen Albums der Band Haim, "Women in Music Pt. III". Dazwischen fand Rostam in den letzten drei Jahren immer wieder Zeit neue Songs für "Changephobia" zu schreiben und aufzunehmen. Auf dem neuen Werk experimentiert der Musiker mit Sound-Landschaften, beeinflusst von 50er Jahre Bebop und 90er Jahre Neo-Psychedelia. Inhaltlich streift Rostam auf "Changephobia" unter anderem Themen wie die globale Erderwärmung ("These Kids We Knew"), Sex ("Unfold You") und das uramerikanische Phänomen des Road Trips ("4Runner"). Angesprochen auf den Albumtitel verrät Rostam: "Vor ein paar Jahren traf ich eine fremde Person auf einer Parkbank und wir kamen ins Gespräch. Ich öffnete mich und erzählte von einigen Änderungen in meinem Leben, die meinen Lebenslauf erheblich auf den Kopf stellten." Die Person ermutigte Rostam, dass Veränderungen gut sind und er an diesen festhalten solle. "Die Lieder auf 'Changephobia' sollen nicht die Angst vor Veränderungen feiern, sondern das genaue Gegenteil."

Rostam war einst Gründungsmitglied von Vampire Weekend und produzierte deren ersten drei Alben, wofür er unter anderem mit einem Grammy ausgezeichnet wurde. Auch nach seinem Ausstieg bei Vampire Weekend, deren ersten drei Alben Rostam Batmanglij maßgeblich prägte, wurde es nicht ruhiger um den amerikanischen Songwriter, Sänger und Produzenten. 2017 veröffentlichte Rostam sein vielbeachtetes Solodebüt "Half-Light". Wenig später produzierte und schrieb er mit und für die amerikanische Sängerin Clairo Musik für deren Debütalbum "Immunity". Aktuell ist Rostam wieder für einen Grammy nominiert, für seine Produktion des aktuellen Albums der Band Haim, "Women in Music Pt. III". Dazwischen fand Rostam in den letzten drei Jahren immer wieder Zeit neue Songs für "Changephobia" zu schreiben und aufzunehmen. Auf dem neuen Werk experimentiert der Musiker mit Sound-Landschaften, beeinflusst von 50er Jahre Bebop und 90er Jahre Neo-Psychedelia. Inhaltlich streift Rostam auf "Changephobia" unter anderem Themen wie die globale Erderwärmung ("These Kids We Knew"), Sex ("Unfold You") und das uramerikanische Phänomen des Road Trips ("4Runner"). Angesprochen auf den Albumtitel verrät Rostam: "Vor ein paar Jahren traf ich eine fremde Person auf einer Parkbank und wir kamen ins Gespräch. Ich öffnete mich und erzählte von einigen Änderungen in meinem Leben, die meinen Lebenslauf erheblich auf den Kopf stellten." Die Person ermutigte Rostam, dass Veränderungen gut sind und er an diesen festhalten solle. "Die Lieder auf 'Changephobia' sollen nicht die Angst vor Veränderungen feiern, sondern das genaue Gegenteil."

New imprint Distant Waters, from Nantes, France is an ode to high seas, far away oceanic lands and unknown marine wildlife. Co-founder of the label, Sans Sucre, who released previously on Antam records and Planet Tapes offer this first EP from Distant Waters.

The A1 of this four-track EP, Tetrodoxin, is the starting point of the aquatic story, with whales samples and aquatic groove, it fit perfectly to warm up a wet dancefloor.

A2, Aqualung is inspired by asian groove, with some tastes of Yellow Magic Orchestra matching with 303 elements.

The B-side follows up with Sequential Hermaphrodism, A downbeat track with an heavy hip hop inspired bassline. Then it finish with Ampullae Of Lorenzini, the most dancefloor oriented track of the EP, with a mysterious sweet voice.

Renowned Jazz musician Ulf Kleiner lands on Ian Pooley’s Pooled Music this April with ‘Tubes’Grande’ featuring three remixes from the label boss.

A long term collaborator of Pooley, lending rich keyboard work to the legendary producer’s records over the years, Ulf Kleiner is better known outside of electronic music. Taken from his 2020 LP, ‘Pianoskop’, ’Tubes Grande’ is a light but immersive piece of acoustic modern Jazz that, at just 3.36 minutes, begs repeat listens. Pooley’s interpretations, a ‘Main Version’, ‘Dub’ and ‘Analog Piano Dub Mix’ lead Kleiner’s work to the dancefloor in distinct ways, showing off the producers deft touch and studio experience across the package. From the decidedly organic, mid-paced house of the ‘Analog Piano Dub’ to the dense, electronic melodies of the ‘Main Version’ to the blissed out ‘Ian Pooley Dub’ this Pooley in the form of his career.

Recorded in 1973 in Rome - at Piero Umiliani’s "Sound WorkShop" – this one of the stand-out italian libraries to say the least. The whole record oozes a dreamy, mysterious, surrealist atmosphere enhanced by the vivid instrumentation that open a series of mesmerizing pieces which range from the gentle to the hypnotic. Eastern sounds, ritual horns and assorted metal banging and scrapping add to the whole mix for a landmark sound that will eventually evolve in delirious lysergic passages, hypnotic bass riffing, stoned funk beats, dubbed-out passages and Rino De Filippi trade-mark collage and sound manipulation.

Music in Exile announce their forthcoming remix EP, featuring reworkings of Music Yared by Melbourne cult hero, Mikey Young (Total Control, Eddy Current Suppression Ring, The Green Child). SINDAYO - MIKEY YOUNG REMIXES features remixes of an original track from Music Yared’s self titled debut EP, released last year through Music in Exile. In addition to today’s announcement, we’re delighted to also share the first single, Sindayo (Mikey Young’s Masinko Remix - Radio Edit), out March 26 via Music in Exile.

Mikey Young’s legacy is well known throughout the Australian music scene, most notably as part of garage punk band Eddy Current Suppression Ring, and synth-driven outfit, Total Control. However, the talents of Young extend well beyond the performance setting to the world of engineering and mastering with his name appearing in the liner notes of an incredible number of releases, becoming something of a trademark of quality. In this release, Young showcases his skill and nuance, creating a remix where tradition and sonic exploration co-exist.

Anbessa Gebrehiwot and Haftu Reda are masterful players of krar and masinko, traditional string instruments from Eritrea and Ethiopia. Now based in Melbourne, Australia, the pair collaborate with multi-instrumentalist Dale Gorfinkel to create an innovative ensemble sound that celebrates their East African culture. The band's seemingly endless repertoire ranges from modern takes on folk songs to new, original compositions with Anbessa’s strong vocal presence a perfect match to Haftu’s sweet lyrical modesty.

Music Yared’s compositions are inspired by traditional Etheopian and Eritrean folk songs and they sing about love, distance, separation and culture. Their songs also feature virtuosic mastery of traditional instruments - the krar, (a 5 string lyre style instrument), and the masinko (a single string violin-like instrument that is played using a bow.) Although inspired by tradition, Music Yared’s compositions embrace the notion that music is always developing and changing with the times. Taking influence from traditional folk songs, Music Yared finds newness and originality through their personal approach to their lyrics, their treatment of rhythm, and the creation of new beats. This change and openness to new sounds is also apparent in their instrumentation, as they pair their traditional instruments with drums, as well as samples of bass lines and percussion.

Given their openness to new musical approaches and experimentation, it only seems fitting for the songs of Music Yared to be remixed, allowing further exploration of their inherent musical attitudes towards change and development. The first single from the EP, Sindayo (Mikey Young’s Masinko Remix - Radio Edit) traverses new sonic territory, pairing the traditional character of Music Yared with contrasting ideas from different sonic landscapes. Beginning with a musical acknowledgement to the original song, Young’s remix then changes direction into a new sonic world; synth pads and melodies swell and intertwine, samples interject, whilst grooving electronic beats underpin a new approach to texture and song structure.

Recorded by Dale Gorfinkel in Thornbury. Mixed and mastered by John Lee at Phaedra Studios.
Remixed & additional production by Mikey Young in Rye.

The trio of fiddle player Erlend Apneseth with guitarist Stephan Meidell and drummer Oyvind Hegg-Lunde follows up their Nordic Prize-nominated album of 2019, ‘Salika, Molika’, with a remarkable suite of tunes inspired by the rhythms and physicality of the human body in motion.
Originally commissioned by FRIKAR Dance Company to accompany the performance of a new work, ‘Skaut’, dealing with the covering of the body in different cultures, the music of ‘Lokk’ takes the trio further than ever before into completely fresh areas of electro-acoustic improvisation.
The sounds of their original instruments are integrated with electronic beats and treated textures to form a kind of enhanced digital-folk style whose influences stretch from traditional south Asian ragas to contemporary dance culture from around the globe.
The result is intense, and intensely rhythmic, music where the normally separate realms of the cerebral and the corporeal can appear to fuse into one irresistible groove.
As the trio rocks on - in a dream of perfect interplay between instruments and players, soloists and ensemble - deep, trembling sub-bass intersects with ethereal ambient soundscapes. Elsewhere, the twittering of birdsong - from both real bird-calls and the uncanny imitation of them by Apneseth’s Hardanger fiddle - meets archival recordings of Norwegian herdswomen.
“Our musical idea for this project was to unite different extremes, connections that felt “forbidden” in one form or another”, says Stephan Meidell. “For example, by using the sampled recording of traditional herd-calling, blended together with aesthetics from more contemporary music styles. This exploration has led us further into a rhythmic and danceable landscape than in previous releases. We also wanted to use this opportunity to deliberately make more dance-related music. As regards the original commission, were pretty free to do what we wanted, but there was one specific dance in mind, ‘Valdresspringar’, for which Erlend wrote the melody. It’s a traditional, asymmetrical dance and has a very particular form. The melody is on the track called ‘Springar’, which we then messed around with.”
This “messing around with” element is key to the sound of ‘Lokk’, whose playful experimentation over the nine separate tracks creates a beguiling, constantly surprising sense of adventure and intrigue that both draws the listener in, and then keeps them on their toes as to where the next stage of the journey will take them. It also becomes inescapably obvious that this is a group of three equals.
The contributions of Stephan Meidell and Oyvind Hegg-Lunde, as musicians, co-composers and producers, appear every bit as important as that of Erlend Apneseth, who performs superbly throughout. “Even though the trio carries Erlend’s name, it’s a band in every sense of the word”, says Stephan Meidell. “We make the music together, where everyone brings their ideas and we build on each other’s input and output. This is not our “coming out” as a band, but the group is sometimes interpreted as having a hierarchical structure, as a soloist and accompaniment.”
As is evident from the trio’s live performances, where each member seamlessly integrates the acoustic and the electronic elements in their respective sounds through constant monitoring and tweaking, Apneseth, Meidell and Hegg-Lunde are also pioneers,
creating real-time effects that in the past were only available through post-production or the intervention of a sympathetic engineer and a truck-load of kit. ‘Lokk’ translates this fleet-footed improvisational approach, and the players’ lightning-speed reaction times, back into the environment of the recording studio, where the music composed for the original FRIKAR dance piece was further embellished and adapted. Played live, it will continue to change again, as improvised music always does.

81355 (pronounced `bless') is a meeting of the minds between three pillars of the Indianapolis music scene; Sirius Blvck, Oreo Jones, and Sedcairn Archives. While the three have worked together in the past, this is their first start-to-finish collaboration, and the result is the stunning and distinctive debut Time I'll Be of Use. Simultaneously mystical and stark, somber and danceable, the project grapples with hard-wired truths and imagines alternate realities with better futures. These lucid wanderings amongst the street fires sound like a cross between the ghost of progressive electronic music of the 70s with its innovative eccentricities, and acrobatic wordplay delivered with sharp resolve. While surrealist in its metaphors and abstraction, it doesn't betray a present awareness. Reflecting on Black struggle in the pandemicridden and democracy faltering landscape of 2020, each member arrived from a synchronistic space, and the recording process ended up being largely intuitive. On "Capstone," the opening track on the album, Sirius Blvck offers a look from inside his space, "This is what we've come to. Generational curses I still can't undo. Just taught my lil girl to tie her shoes now she running to. Holy smokes lungs made of leather like it's comfortable. Climbing up this infinite ladder to get a better view." These three musical vagabonds have met up to find even themselves surprised with the results. Drawing inspiration from the likes of biting poetic commentary of the late Naptown residents, Etheridge Knight and Kurt Vonnegut, OJ summons a golden-era flow and paints a picture of the group's influences, surroundings, and trajectory in one fell swoop in "Thumbs Up." "Alright, in my feelings tonight, Honda Civic overturned as it burns through the night. Bone Thugs in these streets no Surender in sight. I'm writing poems from a jail cell, Etheridge Knight. I throw a fit when I flip it, it's all vintage. A pearl white Bronco like OJ you done did it. The sunshine shatters the rock painted so vivid. Two-hundred fifty pounds of gifted we so lifted_ wassup?" Sirius, with poetry present even in his speaking voice, adds, "It's a way to carve our story in the sky before we're gone. This is us choosing to believe that this time, things will be different. It is an affirmation to the universe. This time I'll see the whole blessing. This time I'll be of use."

“Vax!” – Reminiscent of all the slippery vinyl that glitched under so many sweaty wet fingers in a steamy basement before time – a picture that seems highly illegal in our current antiseptic climate of hopefully germ free adolescents. Vax-inate! Give them the needle! It’s time.

Deti Vechnosti – Pered Rassvetom opens the gates to plug into the socket of our collective deranged consciousness, generating frisky and flamboyant specks to brightening darkness that confines our lives. Offering glimpses of the great unknown we also carry within. The Track introduces Chikiss & Mustelide’s new group “Deti Vechnosti”.

Alexander Arpeggio & OhLandy’s “Der Anruf”, wich originally appeared as a French language version on a previous Sameheads / Diapason tape release tells those tales of hot and hotter heat. Karmic payback for the sweaty and long nights enveloped in the halo of resonating frequencies of silly and high-spirited mischief.

Rouge Mécanique – Down the Line – follows suite in the odyssey that is a demented night out, sitting in front of a club, realising that the leatherjacket you picked up a few streets ago from the ground doesn’t smell like adventure but like spew.

The B-Side opens with Automatenfall – a hardware electronic 3 piece, previously appearing live at Sameheads during a “My Friend calls it K-Jazz” event. A yearning that eventually gets us on a spiritual path and headed toward enlightenment through the meandering melange of chimes, that little sounds that usually overcome us in the weirdest of times.

Das Kinn – the new project from Toben Piel, who’s part of Frankfurt’s MMODEM family, and one half of Les Trucs evokes memories of better days, black leatherpants – think Falco meets DAF – Überpop for the Untergrund.

Stopping for a final coup d’œil is Alessandro Adriani’s – Preserved Data Space. A persuasive case of brutally but lovingly worked machines serenading sawtooth waves of an infinite Weiter, a dissolving timeframe – the longest after hour I’ve been to, it lasts more than a year now already and counting.

Written by Michael Aniser.

Wetzt die Äxte, Speere und Schwerter – monumentaler Black Metal ist mit STORMRULER auf dem
Vormasch! Schärft die Klingen und macht euch bereit für die Schlacht mit den US-Black-Metal- Senkrechstartern STORMRULER! Das Zwei-Mann-Projekt aus St. Louis, bestehend aus Gitarristen/Sänger Jason
Asberry und Schlagzeuger Jesse Schobel, erzeugt eine eiskalte Black-Metal-Atmosphäre, inspiriert aus
zeitgenössischem Metal und düsteren Erzählungen von Krieg, High-Fantasy und Geschichte. Auf STORMRULERs fulminantem Debütalbum Under The Burning Eclipse, welches 2021 über Napalm Records erscheint, gibt die Band genau das zum Besten: Auf 19 Tracks, erzählt das Album erschütternde Geschichten
von Krieg, Tod, Sieg und Niederlage und liefert ein unvergleichliches, höllisches Hörerlebnis, in welchem
sich bedrohliche Ambient-Parts und lodernde Black Metal-Riffs die Türklinke in die Hand geben. Under
The Burning Eclipse von STORMRULER ist ein musikalisch vollendetes Debütalbum voller fantasiehafter,
düsterer Fabeln, die Fans von extremem Metal nicht verpassen wollen!

Debut solo album by the Red River Dialect songwriter. Recorded at the Hotel2Tango, Montreal, by Howard Bilerman. Featuring Thor Harris (Swans, Thor & Friends, Shearwater) on drums and Thierry Amar (GYBE!, ASMZ) on bass, with guest appearances from Tom Relleen (RIP) (Tomaga, Melos Kalpa), Catrin Vincent (Another Sky) and Coral Rose (The Silver Field, Red River Dialect).
David has written five critically acclaimed collections of songs under the Red River Dialect name. The last two albums (released by Paradise of Bachelors) achieved a glowing Pitchfork review and a Folk Album of the Month award from the Guardian. Selected press below.
“Folk Album of the Month. Alert, anti-colonialist folk. Songwriter David Morris brings alternate seduction and disquiet on this worldly album steeped in the British landscape... a wide-eyed, curious creature, willingly alert to the world.” – 4/5 The Guardian
“Animated with a new intensity, the Cornwall band’s fifth album may be its most ingenious and immersive mix of folk and rock yet. It’s also Morris’ most compelling set of songs. He invests small sensations with outsize power, finding joy in sensory pleasures as well as in the mystical inquests that music allows. Even as the record is steeped in the long history of British folk music, that balance of the tactile and the spiritual anchors these songs in the present moment.” – Pitchfork
“The most underrated folk-rock band in Britain. The idea of them as a Cornish-born, Buddhist-inclined Waterboys is more potent than ever. Their fifth album of elementally-battered, rueful and rousing folk-rock ... is as stirringly anthemic as they've managed thus far.” – MOJO
“A beguilingly atmospheric record… imagine Steve Gunn transplanted to Kernow.” – Clash
“Gorgeous and moving, anchored by the heft of the physical but reaching for more. The epic spareness, the way it manages to be both still and an enveloping swirl, reminds me most of Talk Talk. There’s a prayerful intensity to the quiet bits, a listening, wondering awe, that makes the rock payoffs more powerful. The album works as a restless, searching, gorgeous whole. Morris and his band have never been better.” – Dusted
“It’s not often that a band comes along and over the course of nine songs both plays to the tradition and stands it on its ear. RRD has taken the challenge of playing with reckless abandon to heart, generating an album that stands on the shoulder of giants showing no fear.” Folk Radio

Monastic Love Songs continues the tradition that David has established over the course of five albums with Red River Dialect: using a song cycle to articulate a relationship with inner and outer landscapes, inspired by the Taoist approach of observing the movement of the heavens in order to understand the cosmos within, and vice versa. The joyful closing track Inner Smile was initially written as a poem of thanks to his Tai Chi teacher Hollis and takes its name from a Taoist practice.
The songs were written during the final weeks of a nine-month retreat at Gampo Abbey, a Buddhist monastery in Nova Scotia where David took ordination as Buddhist monk. The album title is sincere, with a little tongue-in-cheek. The songs mostly explore human relationships within the community, with outliers: Gone Beyond shimmers with cosmic devotion, in Rhododendron a reverie grows from the shadow of a flower. Steadfast concerns the love to be found beyond the urge to like and be liked, when you can’t avoid that difficult person. Leonard Cohen, on his six years living in a monastery:
“You know, there’s a Zen saying: ‘Like pebbles in a bag, the monks polish one another.’
David considers this album to be a follow up to 2015’s Tender Gold and Gentle Blue. The cover of that lp featured an image of him on top of Skellig Michael, in the years before the island was made famous as the home of the Jedi. He considers the visit to that abandoned Celtic monastic site to be one of the influences that stirred up his motivation. Skeleton Key speaks of what was given up to go, and what he was giving up to leave, referencing the Tibetan concept of the ‘bardo of becoming’.
The album came about through a series of fortunate encounters. David’s friend Tom Relleen visited him at the Abbey in May 2019, mentioning a postponed plan to visit the Hotel2Tango. A spark was sown: this studio had long figured in David’s imagination. Many of the releases on Constellation Records, which he had become a die-hard fan of in his teens, were recorded there. Tom contributed some Buchla synthesizer to the opener New Safe, which concerns healing in emptiness and light.
In May David was given permission by the senior monastics to acquire a guitar, which was swiftly baptised as “Malibu Barbie”. Having let the identity of being a songwriter loosen up, not playing an instrument in six months, he was unsure what would happen. In the single hour he was permitted to practice each day, songs began to cascade. The first, Purple Gold, concerns a reacquaintance with first love. David wrote to the Hotel2Tango asking if they had any days available in mid-July?
Engineer and studio co-owner Howard Bilerman replied that they did, and a date was set. Did Howard know any local drummers or bass players who might do a session? He did, too many to choose from, what kind of style? David decided to ask for his ideal: did Thierry from Godspeed ever do sessions? Howard sent him the demos. Thierry was up for it. On the day he went deep into the cover of traditional song Rosemary Lane, his double bass singing on this and on Circus Wagon.
David asked if there were any local drummers he would recommend? Thierry said “many, what style?” David tried his luck again, “two of my favourite drummers are Thor Harris and Jim White.” Thierry said let’s invite them. Thor, having met David a decade earlier, flew from Austin to Montreal for that July day in the studio. Nine months of watching thoughts come and go in meditation helped David recognise this as an opportunity to practice enjoying the day without expectations.
He is, however, grateful that this album came out the way it did, channelling some of what it was like to live those nine months in a monastery overlooking the Gulf of St Lawrence, frozen and flowing.

Mixed by Jimmy Robertson at SNAFU, London, mastered by DenisBlackham.

Beyond the Flesh (Re-issue) Almost ten years since its initial release Century Media re-releases "BEYOND THE FLESH" on CD and vinyl with remastered sound! After a phenomenal demo tape, SKELETAL REMAINS from California (USA) released their first full length album in 2012 which offers classic Death Metal from the rotten crypt and awakes the spirit of late 80s/ early 90s Morrisound stuff. If you like the early hymns of Gorguts, Pestilence, Death or Morgoth surely, you'll freak out with Skeletal Remains! "BEYOND THE FLESH" will be re-released on May 21st and will be available as Ltd. CD Edition (+ 4 Bonus tracks from “Desolate Isolation” Demo) and Gatefold LP (180g vinyl). Condemned to Misery (Re-issue) Half a decade since its initial release Century Media re-releases “CONDEMNED TO MISERY” on CD and vinyl with remastered sound! Three years after having released their studio debut album SKELETAL REMAINS dropped their second kick-ass Death Metal album. This is a Must-Have for fans of well-groomed Oldschool Death Metal. “CONDEMNED TO MISERY” will be re-released on May 21st and will be available as Ltd. CD Edition (+ 4 “live in Tokyo 2016”-tracks) and Gatefold LP (180g vinyl). Desolate Isolation – 10th Anniversary Edition Founded in 2011 Califonian Death Metal force SKELETAL REMAINS quickly evolved into one of the new driving forces within the hard-contested Death Metal landscape after releasing four powerful studio records. To celebrate the bands 10th anniversary Century Media releases something special and reissues the 2011 “Desolate Isolation” demo tape on 180g vinyl including various bonus content (4 “live in Tokyo 2016”-tracks, 3 bonus tracks) compiled from one decade of SKELETAL REMAINS band history. Featuring a brand-new artwork by Mark Riddick this release is the definitive SKELETAL REMAINS collectors’ item for every die-hard fan out there. “Desolate Isolation – 10th Anniversary Edition” will be re-released on May 21st and will be available as black LP and on all digital platforms.

Beyond the Flesh (Re-issue) Almost ten years since its initial release Century Media re-releases "BEYOND THE FLESH" on CD and vinyl with remastered sound! After a phenomenal demo tape, SKELETAL REMAINS from California (USA) released their first full length album in 2012 which offers classic Death Metal from the rotten crypt and awakes the spirit of late 80s/ early 90s Morrisound stuff. If you like the early hymns of Gorguts, Pestilence, Death or Morgoth surely, you'll freak out with Skeletal Remains! "BEYOND THE FLESH" will be re-released on May 21st and will be available as Ltd. CD Edition (+ 4 Bonus tracks from “Desolate Isolation” Demo) and Gatefold LP (180g vinyl). Condemned to Misery (Re-issue) Half a decade since its initial release Century Media re-releases “CONDEMNED TO MISERY” on CD and vinyl with remastered sound! Three years after having released their studio debut album SKELETAL REMAINS dropped their second kick-ass Death Metal album. This is a Must-Have for fans of well-groomed Oldschool Death Metal. “CONDEMNED TO MISERY” will be re-released on May 21st and will be available as Ltd. CD Edition (+ 4 “live in Tokyo 2016”-tracks) and Gatefold LP (180g vinyl). Desolate Isolation – 10th Anniversary Edition Founded in 2011 Califonian Death Metal force SKELETAL REMAINS quickly evolved into one of the new driving forces within the hard-contested Death Metal landscape after releasing four powerful studio records. To celebrate the bands 10th anniversary Century Media releases something special and reissues the 2011 “Desolate Isolation” demo tape on 180g vinyl including various bonus content (4 “live in Tokyo 2016”-tracks, 3 bonus tracks) compiled from one decade of SKELETAL REMAINS band history. Featuring a brand-new artwork by Mark Riddick this release is the definitive SKELETAL REMAINS collectors’ item for every die-hard fan out there. “Desolate Isolation – 10th Anniversary Edition” will be re-released on May 21st and will be available as black LP and on all digital platforms.

Beyond the Flesh (Re-issue) Almost ten years since its initial release Century Media re-releases "BEYOND THE FLESH" on CD and vinyl with remastered sound! After a phenomenal demo tape, SKELETAL REMAINS from California (USA) released their first full length album in 2012 which offers classic Death Metal from the rotten crypt and awakes the spirit of late 80s/ early 90s Morrisound stuff. If you like the early hymns of Gorguts, Pestilence, Death or Morgoth surely, you'll freak out with Skeletal Remains! "BEYOND THE FLESH" will be re-released on May 21st and will be available as Ltd. CD Edition (+ 4 Bonus tracks from “Desolate Isolation” Demo) and Gatefold LP (180g vinyl). Condemned to Misery (Re-issue) Half a decade since its initial release Century Media re-releases “CONDEMNED TO MISERY” on CD and vinyl with remastered sound! Three years after having released their studio debut album SKELETAL REMAINS dropped their second kick-ass Death Metal album. This is a Must-Have for fans of well-groomed Oldschool Death Metal. “CONDEMNED TO MISERY” will be re-released on May 21st and will be available as Ltd. CD Edition (+ 4 “live in Tokyo 2016”-tracks) and Gatefold LP (180g vinyl). Desolate Isolation – 10th Anniversary Edition Founded in 2011 Califonian Death Metal force SKELETAL REMAINS quickly evolved into one of the new driving forces within the hard-contested Death Metal landscape after releasing four powerful studio records. To celebrate the bands 10th anniversary Century Media releases something special and reissues the 2011 “Desolate Isolation” demo tape on 180g vinyl including various bonus content (4 “live in Tokyo 2016”-tracks, 3 bonus tracks) compiled from one decade of SKELETAL REMAINS band history. Featuring a brand-new artwork by Mark Riddick this release is the definitive SKELETAL REMAINS collectors’ item for every die-hard fan out there. “Desolate Isolation – 10th Anniversary Edition” will be re-released on May 21st and will be available as black LP and on all digital platforms.

UK South coasters relocating from West to East, Katja
Rackin and Sam Stacpoole have been grafting and
honing alone, away from the expertise of music
producers and other governors since 2016. The result
is unadulterated and unclean, unabashed and
uncompromised.
Through their love of artists such as The Kinks, Alex
Chilton and The Nerves, or any other artist who
spends less time with the polishing cloth and more
time with the power shower, Holiday Ghosts make
music with a lean and primitive rock ‘n’ roll spirit.
Drums are stripped naked to the point of metronome
status and no stomp boxes, nor cajóns or didgeridoos
are found to obscure the energy of guitars at their
rawest.
In stories of landlords, steady jobs, wrong turns, short
straws, sunny moods and city life, Kat and Sam share
lead vocals alongside returning bandmate and
songwriter Charlie Murphy and a host of other
musicians from Falmouth, Cornwall where the band
began.
Two albums in with Punk Slime Records and Holiday
Ghosts are back with their third full length, ‘North
Street Air’, their first for FatCat Records. Twelve songs
of love, hate and everything in between.
For fans of White Fence, Goat Girl, Porridge Radio,
Juan Wauters, Yo La Tengo, Total Control, Terry,
Chubby and the Gang, Uranium Club, The Velvet
Underground, Violent Femmes, Modern Lovers.

Australian artist Indigo Sparke Brings her deeply personal lived experiences to her music, highlighting the spaces between the polarity of softness and grit. Pulling from her experiences of addiction, of healing, of queerness, of heartbreak, of joy, of connection, of the softness and of the grit alchemizing it all into tenderness through her music, she conjures up a myriad of feelings that is undeniably potent. It was in 2019 that Indigo lived and travelled across America, in places like NYC, Minneapolis, Topanga, Taos, in many hotel rooms and amidst the vast stretching landscapes on the never ending highways, channelling her creative energy into the completion of her debut album, echo. echo was recorded between LA, Italy and New York, co-produced by Sparke, Adrianne Lenker (of Big Thief), and Andrew Sarlo (producer of Big Thief, Nick Hakim, Bon Iver, Hand Habits, etc). The record was completed at Figure 8 Studio in New York City, studio of musician Shahzad Ismaily. Phil Weinrobe (producer/engineer for Leonard Cohen, Damien Rice, Adrianne Lenker, Buck Meek, etc) engineered and mixed the album. "Indigo's writing and voice are ethereal and angelic and guide me through internal canyons and plains. I'm deeply grateful to have been part of this and to have gotten to play and sing along side Indigo, and to have been able to eternalize a very special space and time with her, which I will always cherish." -Adrianne Lenker "With these songs and her filament voice, Indigo brings us in to a private place and lights a fire there." -Feist

Nick Lapien and Robin Koek's latest collaborative album, Days Bygone, helps launch Delsin's Interstellar Series as they continue to explore beyond the dancefloor trappings of conventional techno to create a body of work steeped in mystery. Although not totally devoid of percussion, Artefakt shift their focus away from dominant drums and lean on the keys and pads to map out the landscape each track traverses. Sometimes furtive and suggestive, elsewhere pearlescent and diffused across great expanses, it's these striking, sublime formations which define the atmosphere Lapien and Koek have created - a textured, dynamic exercise in techno as internalized listening music.

The idea for Suemori's new alias arose in conversation with Osàre! Editions label boss, Elena Colombi. An inheritance from his grandfather, the name sets the tone of the album that synthesises traditional Japanese instruments into an electronic format. Dub and drone’s eerie resonance collides with staccato electro and fizzling acid on ‘Yakkosan.’ Driven by a meditative beat, flutes and choral voices glide through 'Senpai Kouhai' while ‘Hankumoi’ shudders with lucid synth. The cultural iconography of Japan emerges from this dark, textual landscape, haunted both by the ghosts of the past and spectral sound of the future.

Words by Hannah Pezzack

You Can See Your Own Way Out is the first collaborative record between Ilyas Ahmed (Geographic North, Immune, Mie Music) and Jefre Cantu-Ledesma (Shelter Press, Mexican Summer, Type). Long-time friends and satellites orbiting the same communities and scenes, You Can See's inception was never really a question of if, but when. Combining Ahmed's explorative guitar/synth-work and Cantu-Ledesma's field recording, sound processing and electronics, the result presents as a book of short stories or vignettes highlighting their individual strengths. At times evoking pastoral landscapes, others frayed edges of disintegrating photographs, there's always the suggestion of a forked path or a promised destination. Jonathan Sielaff guests on bass clarinet.

“Some of the most extraordinary songs I’ve heard in years.” Brian Eno

Les Disques du Crepuscule presents The Salt Garden (Landscaped), an album of extended pieces by acclaimed quiet music ensemble Fovea Hex, featuring longform remixes by British songwriter and producer Steven Wilson and Serbian soundscape artist Abul Mogard, as well as a previously unreleased mix by Peter Chilvers.

Formed in 2005 by Irish musician Clodagh Simonds, Fovea Hex have since released 3 albums (Neither Speak Nor Remain Silent, Here Is Where We Used to Sing and The Salt Garden), drawing favourable comparisons with Nico, This Mortal Coil, Ligeti and even Schubert.

The Salt Garden (Landscaped) is pressed on crystal clear vinyl, and comes packaged with a CD version featuring 4 tracks in total. The outer sleeve is printed in white reverse board and features an image taken by Crepuscule designer Joel Van Audenhaege during a recent trip to Greenland. The inner bag offers detailed liner notes as well as an interview with Clodagh.

As well as Steven Wilson and Abul Mogard, other high-profile admirers include film director David Lynch, who invited the group to play at his Cartier Foundation exhibition in Paris in 2007, and Brian Eno, who has described Clodagh’s work as “some of the most extraordinary songs I’ve heard in years.”

The Salt Garden (Landscaped) gathers together 3 long ambient remixes of tracks from the Salt Garden EP trilogy, originally released between 2016 and 2019. The core album is pressed on crystal clear vinyl and showcases ‘Solace’ and ‘Is Lanza Light & Given’, both re-worked by musical polymath Steven Wilson. “I’ve long been a fan of Fovea Hex,” explains Steven, “which for me is some of the most sublimely beautiful music ever recorded. It’s a mix of electronic and acoustic sounds played on instruments ranging from state-of-the-art to ancient and arcane.”

As well as the two tracks reworked by Steven, the bonus CD enclosed with the vinyl album also finds room for ‘We Dream All the Dark Away’, the widely-acclaimed re-interpretation by Abul Mogard of ‘All Those Signs’ from the Salt Garden II EP. By turns haunting and sinister, but always beautiful, the piece features vocals by both Clodagh and Brian Eno, as well as cello by Kate Ellis, and modular synth and effects by mysterious soundscaper Mogard.

An additional special bonus track on the CD is an unreleased remix of lesser -known 2015 digital single ‘By the Glacial Lake’ made by musician Peter Chilvers, best known for his collaborations with Brian Eno, Karl Hyde, Chris Martin and Tim Bowness.

“I feel truly honoured!” says Clodagh Simons, who began her career in cult folk-psyche band Mellow Candle, and since then has guested on albums by Mike Oldfield, Thin Lizzy, Russell Mills, Matmos, Current 93 and Steven Wilson. “It’s been fascinating to witness how these pieces have been so imaginatively and skilfully revisioned in the hands of Steven, Abul and Peter. Each piece has emerged into a completely fresh new light, with a different vibrancy, yet remains grounded in what was there before.”

2020 has been one rough ride for everyone, forcing us all to review what we thought was normal and maybe, one would argue, even our priorities.

Two years have passed since their previous Inflict LP and we don’t really know how what recently happened impacted on the band’s mastermind Michael but what’s sure is that Veil Of Light are now a fully grown-up band.

Landslide is their fifth full-length (and their third on Avant!) and it’s definitely their most elaborated album.

Ten new songs, rather than the usual eight, with a perfect balance of Coldwave-inspired intimate atmosphere and synthpop catchy melodies. Musically speaking it’s still clear where the Swiss duo draws their influences from, right in between New Order’s moodiness and The Klinik trying one softer, less brutal approach to their Electro. But a new sense of privacy is reflected all through these new tracks, enhanced by lyrics now more personal than ever.

The Prayer Wheel is a page torn out of a private diary, Love And Money is a mechanical mantra for a no-way-out situation; Suburban War is a confession of defeat whispered at night, No Return is the last dance before reaching the point of.

This is the kind of record that takes its time, and takes its toll, we just need to sit down and listen because there’s much to discover.

RIYL: Depeche Mode, New Order, Naked Eyes, Lust for Youth, Black Marble

The Süddeutsche Zeitung hailed Johanna Summer’s performance
at the Young Munich Jazz Prize in 2018 as “a small sensation.”
The pianist, born in Plauen in Saxony in 1995, had encompassed
the whole gamut, from jazz freedom to classical rigour. The critic
from this respected newspaper marvelled at her “amazing gift to
make well-known melodies sound so convincingly her own, they
develop a real sense of creative urgency.” Summer’s winning of
the prize itself became almost incidental; far more significant was
the fact that this competition heralded the arrival of one of the
most interesting new pianists in European jazz.
For her debut album, Summer has chosen to make compositions
by Robert Schumann the point of departure for her journeys into
pianistic fantasy. Schumann’s cycles of piano pieces
‘Kinderszenen’ (scenes from childhood) and ‘Album für die
Jugend’ (album for the young) had been familiar to her since
childhood, not just as player and listener but also - because
Schumann was from nearby Zwickau - as works by someone from
her region of Germany. From an early age she was enchanted by
both the melodic and the pictorial aspects of these short pieces.
And yet, to make her own adaptations of seven of the pieces was
a far from a simple task: “I worked for a long time on re-casting
them, trying out all of the pieces in all keys and in a lot of different
time signatures, creating several miniature interpretations and
finally arrived at this selection, which I shaped into a cohesive
sequence with a single arc.”
The depth of her involvement with the original Schumann pieces
comes across strongly on the album. As does her impressive and
complex personality as a jazz musician with a very wide range of
expression: romantic passages and an instinct for melody but also
powerful grooves and exciting innovations. And all imbued with a
sense of how to tell stories through music, a mature and clear
vision of dramaturgy, dynamics, tension and atmosphere. A
sentence written by Schumann seems to predict exactly the kind
of new life that Johanna Summer has breathed into these pieces:
“How infinite is the realm of forms, with everything that can be
used and worked on for centuries to come.”

Next up for Shall Not Fade's new Killer Cuts series is London-based DJ and label boss Tom Frankel. The up-and-coming producer has gained attention and respect for his slick techy house cuts that take from a range of classic house and UKG sound palettes. He makes his debut on Shall Not Fade with Milestones EP, six tracks of skippy house that reminisces early 90s raves.

The record meshes modern sounds with nostalgia; "Better Perspective" is a pulsing laid back house track but with a swerving bassline that gives it edge. Frankel experiments with the sounds of a warehouse rave in a nod to dancefloor romance, "Mandy Cuddles" - melding the classic M1 house piano with searing jungle vocals that cut through the melody like a laser.

Showing the cheekier side of his production, "Slippery Nipple" pays homage to filter house, a skippy garage bassline bringing it up to date. The funkiness of this one is unavoidable, making even the most static hips move; onto "Peak District", a throbbing 90s style roller to keep the pace going.

The two final tracks dabble in the darker end of Frankel's sound palette; "Tapas" adds heavy bass and percussive organ stabs to a clean house sound while "Cuckoo Land" is a deep, sweeping club track that formed a spaced out end to an otherwise high-intensity EP.

Fold Unfold is the debut album by violinist Katrine Grarup Elbo from the Danish collective We like We. As a solo artist she steps out from the safety of group performance and presents a vulnerable portrait using only her classical training and analogue electronic setup.

Peaceful scenarios of natural beauty that hover like calm mist over cold streams are interrupted by spine chilling forces. Naked passages and electroacoustic electronics together create ripples in time as the pieces mold into flowers reaching for the outer edge. Elbo summons the most time stopping affairs using only the most basic of ingredients, as a true master. Clouds of uncertainty and reason echoes infinitely into the ether as she moves in and out of acoustic and manipulated sonic landscapes. Imagine Jocelyn Pook´s captivating Masked Ball piece from Kubrick´s Eyes Wide Shut with its clouds of mystery, suddenly turning unmasked and fragile, as if abruptly standing vulnerable in the shadows listening only to the reverb of the room and ones own breath.

The album was recorded and mixed at Saal 3, Funkhaus, Berlin with Antonio Pulli. In the 29 minutes runtime, we are presented with transportations through silent, almost Baroque sounding pieces towards overpowering, processed alterations of her violin that vibrates like echoes springing off the stars. A stunning debut with all its natural purity and intimacy.

7TH May sees the release of London based trio Penya’s self-titled Sophomore LP, a wild and untamed album that reimagines the global music landscape

It’s an exciting return for the band who have been championed by the likes of Gilles Peterson and lit up festival and club stages in the UK and beyond. Penya look set to carry on the momentum with high profile support on BBC Radio 6 music and Worldwide FM to add to an influx of preorders from fans. Penya;s debut LP “Superliminal” was released via On the Corner Records in 2018. Gilles Peterson highlighted the band as “one to watch” and they enjoyed widespread support that included Tom Ravenscroft, Stuart Maconie, Jeremy Soul, Bonobo Worldwide FM, Boiler Room and The Vinyl Factory, not to mention a spin from Jordan Rakei while he was sitting in for Mary Anne Hobbs on BBC Radio 6 music,

Penya have made numerous live appearances, Worldwide Festival Leysin, We Out Here festival, Fusion Festival (Germany) and End of the Road festival (where they featured in a live broadcast on BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction to name a few, as well as supporting bands like Melt Yourself Down, and Sons of Kemet.

Studio work has expanded via collaborative releases with Dengue Dengue Dengue, Photay, Sarathy Korwar and the Tanzanian artist Msafiri Zawose

“Penya” will be released on 7th May 2021 via the band’s own label “Liminal Recordings” with support from PRS foundations Momentum fund

Repress

Dakar, Senegal. From this hostile land Midnight Menace is the latest KAOS assigned and one of its kind. You all with your support to the label via bandcamp fixed his computer so he can deliver this first one as an introduction. His Schranz/hard techno beat dives into a trance-mission direct to your brain in order to make your body shake.

Moving on to France JKS is half of Jawbreakers his techno rave music is really influenced by iconic figures from the 90's rave culture (Dave the Drummer/ Stay up Forever) name track is a retrotesque beat with a powerful bass-line moving between trance, body music and electro clash. With a ton of class.

Next one on the list delivering one of those weirdo tracks that from time to time we love to showcase on our compilations. DJDJ debuts with a darkroom alike anthem. Job Sifre and DJ Dorien punishing with a high intensity Body music song, taste their Bloody Mary.

Closing this record P.E.A.R.L goes pure HEARTCORE, with his already known Spanish primitivism, a gabber kick and a dismounted amen break dissolves into a mood melody to chill a floor at the peak ready for the next explosion.

This are HEARTCORE ESSENTIALS pls use them responsibly.
#oftenplusneverminus8

Straight Outta Caledonia is the first commercially available “Greatest Hits” of the outsider songwriter Jackie Leven, an artist
who has largely remained in obscurity in his native Scotland despite being one of the greatest wordsmiths – and singers – it ever
produced. A well-travelled musician who began making psychedelic, progressive music in the late 60s before emerging as an
epic storyteller full of pathos, humour and humanity in the 90s, Leven lived and wrote like many of the fragile, gregarious
characters of his songs; large, full of life and empathy. Leven passed away in 2011 after recording 30+ albums under different
guises or with his briefly successful New Wave band Doll by Doll. Straight Outta Caledonia is a compilation collated by Night
School Records on its Archival label School Daze that seeks to introduce Leven’s music to new generations.
In an age of isolation, alienation and loss of visceral experience, Jackie Leven’s music can be massive and welcoming. It feels
connected to some universal humanity and vibrates with vitality. His songs are often full of tragedy and comedy simultaneously,
cutting straight to the heart, often plugging directly into the nervous system of the listener. His lyrics are rich, dense with imagery
that can veer from apocalyptic to the comically banal in a sentence, with a songwriting panache that can be heavy handed to
almost bursting point before skewering the song with a clownish, warm punchline. His productions ranged from Bob Dylan’s
Rolling Thunder Revue style rock band orchestrations with strings and organ as on the epic Ancient Misty Morning or they could
be pared down to the purest form of folk song as on Poortoun: Leven on stage alone with an acoustic guitar, albeit played with a
mastery of the instrument that he often only hinted at. Musically his sound can bend traditional structures or stay completely
confined within them yet still forever push towards an ecstatic release, as on the cinematic Snow In Central Park.
The most exciting, jaw-droppingly effective tool at Leven’s disposal was his voice. A multi-octave instrument that, though
damaged during a savage assault in Fife, he used with flair; he had both a brazen disregard for the rules and a deep humility, all
of which is evidenced with every phrasing. A baritone that could flit up through the register – always touched by his gentle
Kirkcaldy accent – it’s the prime delivery method for his songs. Leven’s voice enabled him to inhabit the characters in his songs to
an uncanny degree, a skill that in turn enables the listener to empathise with them and, subsequently, the singer. It’s most evident
in stand out song The Sexual Loneliness Of Jesus Christ, a breathtaking re-telling of the life of its protagonist, not as a pure,
sinless messiah but as a sexually frustrated, solitary man condemned to an existential loneliness no one else will ever feel. In
many ways the track is the archetypal Jackie Leven song. Produced by Pere Ubu’s David Thomas, what strikes the ear first –
after the samples of unemployed workers in Glasgow following the closing of the Clyde shipyards – is the audacious, rhythmic
tremolo effect Leven employs through the verses before the production opens up to allow Leven’s vocal to lift into a soar, a
freeing glide powered both by the force of the singer’s chutzpah and the inherent, doomed destiny of the protagonist. With any
other singer such subject matter could come across as gauche or worse, pretentiously sonorous, but Jackie Leven’s genius was
such that he could be this cinematic and brazen while touching something elemental and true in the beholder. It’s a skill evident in
every song on Straight Outta Caledonia, the trademark of a songwriter who revelled and excelled in intensity with a lightness of
touch.
In his lifetime, Jackie Leven toured, wrote and recorded at a ferocious rate. He recorded under aliases to avoid record contract
restrictions, played house shows in Europe after or instead of official concerts, events which were often spoken word story telling
masterclasses as well as performances of his often bewilderingly dense songbook. His music has traditionally been catalogued
as “folk” music and has been largely banished to a small, dedicated group of international fans and apostles both private and well
known, like author Ian Rankin or Glenn Matlock. Since his passing in 2011 however, there has been a growing recognition
amongst a newer generation, with artists like James Yorkston or Molly Nilsson publicly stating the influence of the unsung
troubadour on their own craft. Jackie Leven’s fairytales for hard men are often forensic deconstructions of masculinity, sad and
ecstatic, light and shadow, always endlessly rich, a resource as bountiful as Leven himself’s human spirit undoubtedly was.

The Running Man’, was composed by Harold Faltermeyer (Beverly Hills Cop, Top Gun, Cop Out, and the upcoming film Top Gun, Maverick).

The original (1987) 17 track album has been expanded to 35 tracks for this deluxe edition, which includes additional music and unreleased and alternate cues. The album was remastered by Chas Ferry from the original Paramount Pictures sources. The 2 LP gatefold package features original artwork created by Florian Mihr and includes images from the film and extensive liner notes by Daniel Schweiger on the inner sleeves.

In the year 2019, America is a totalitarian state where the favorite television program is The Running Man - a game show in which prisoners must run to freedom to avoid a brutal death. Having been made a scapegoat by the government, an imprisoned Ben Richards (Arnold Schwarzenegger) has the opportunity to make it back to the outside again by being a contestant on the deadly show, although the twisted host, Damon Killian (Richard Dawson) has no intention of letting him escape.

Otto A Totland's modern compositional elements are most widely recognized as half of the Norwegian duo Deaf Center, where his melancholic, intricate piano work provides haunting relief to the beds of noise and deep strings from Erik K Skodvin. Pinô is the first full-length release by Totland, though his solo work has been released once, as the 5-minute A-side of Sonic Pieces 7inch Harmony From the Past. Otto's previously brief vignettes are now expanded into a fully personal realization of his own style.
Initial track Open fills itself with heavy, knowing pauses that quickly become overwhelmed with the desire to understand what's to come. Each silence leads into quick flutters of keys, preparing the listener for a vast terrain of giddy beauty, bleak depths, and true contentedness. Pinô quickly recalls deep winter; in front of a fireplace for days on end, you lose how far along you've ventured into the 18 tracks without any idea how far is left to go. The experience feels inevitable, with no other option but to curl up somewhere cozy and appreciate the sense of timelessness that Totland has created. His album is a haunting modern compositional treasure, expressed through instrumentals completely unique to Totland and captured masterfully by Nils Frahm at Durton Studios.
With Pinô, Otto A Totland appears out of the Norwegian landscape, sharing an achievement that will provide a relief during the brooding winter darkness. Though a highly personal endeavor, the recognizable continuation of Totland's compositions will attract fans of Deaf Center, and the cinematic and classical components of his solo work will hold sway for those familiar with Harold Budd or Dustin O'Halloran.

The Pinô 2nd edition LP comes in a reversed cardboard jacket, printed in- and outside with full tone colours and holds printed innersleeves with the original artwork.

Based in Bristol, LTO first made waves as part of mysterious electronic collective Old Apparatus. As a solo producer, LTO has since attracted attention with three albums.

LTO's ambition to create ever more ambiguous and far-reaching sonic environments, whilst retaining something of the familiar and physical, have led him to take inspiration from imagined landscapes of the folklore of his Welsh ancestry and of the planet Mars. Both images of enchanted forests battling enraged giants from the underworld and unimaginably hostile planetary events guide this work of great magnitude.

In 'Daear', LTO explores an expansive sound pallet of swelling synths and noise, ambiguous string instruments, thunderous percussion, unearthly voices and his signature sound the piano, mostly processed beyond recognition. The result is a mysterious and deeply textured journey that could be set in both the distant past and uncertain future, on this planet or beyond.

Electronic producer Intriguant with his 3rd album Spirits on vinyl as a limited release under record label from Singapore, TAV Records.
When it comes to the relationship between electronic music and its interaction with Singapore, we always find the theme of longing connectivity through its panorama even within the many concrete walls and high-rises we have grown accustomed to living in. With Spirits, Intriguant takes the role of an observer and explores the landscapes of many different cultures and sounds that have taken habitat past and present. Driven by hauntingly futuristic break-beats of the 90s, shaped 808s, imagined club sounds of dancing folks, bass-heavy textures reminiscent of Burial, Spirits is both for the late- night vanguards and personal home listening rooms. Intriguant's third album encompasses his experiences as an artist most vividly, highlighting his ability to use the flexibility of electronic music to link floating ideas to the physical world.

The Analog Vault is honoured to be working with Intriguant for our third release as TAV Records.

1st time ever on vinyl! Reissue of the long out of print first and final 1998 LP from influential Topeka, KS emo/indie/post-hardcore pioneers Vitreous Humor. Remastered by Bob Weston. Includes rarities not featured on the original release!

'Without You' is the second release from Athens of the North house band, it's a lovely deep house side with obvious influences. 'Without You' came together while warming up some new gear that had landed in the studio during lockdown and as often happens when you're not trying too hard something just comes together. For the vocal we had a multitrack tape of Avelino Pitts from the band Gold (Sadly he passed a few years ago) and Edinburgh singer Lucy (more to come from her soon). While we may be known for disco and funk AOTN crew grew up in the early 90s, so house is our bread and butter, so you will be hearing more.

On the flip side is something we have been wanting to do for some time, I always loved Mary Love's 'Come Out Of The Sandbox' but felt the structure of the track was a little tricky to play out. We went ahead and restructured the track as well as adding synth parts and created a 12-inch mix that never was (but should have been). We brought to the mix to Ady Croasdell at Ace Records (who currently own the rights) and asked if he would let us release the track legitimately, thankfully Ady liked it and kindly gave us the green light, so delighted that it's not only out but licensed correctly.