Cerca:future 3

The second album from Wehrmacht, “Biermächt” saw the band maturing while still retaining their Thrashcore roots. Released in mid-1988, “Biermächt” featured a slightly cleaner production than the one found on their debut album. To some fans this rendered the album with much less intensity, but to our ears the sound was still very powerful. The massive reverb used on the first album made “Shark Attack” sound like a true shark attack and only added to the overall intensity. This time around the drums are more compressed and some blast beat parts tend to get lost in the overall blur of things. But on the same token, the guitars are much sharper sounding. Marco Zorich and John Duffy were truly evolving as guitar heroes. The thing that is really great and different compared to “Shark Attack” are the funny bit songs. We love them and enjoy them. A lot of the songs on “Biermächt” were leftovers from their demo days, including the phenomenal “Night Of Pain”, one of our all time favorite Thrash songs ever, but newer stuff like “Radical Dissection” and “Balance Of Opinion” showed the band handling a more mainstream Thrash sound somewhere in the middle of a Slayer/Kreator sound and Metallica/Megadeth. There is a certain progressiveness to those songs that hint to a more elaborate musical future. “Biermächt” is a very strong Crossover/Thrash album with a laid back party vibe to it. The sound, however, is very in-your-face. This is not a subtle album by any means. It’s not that they were the funniest bunch around (their side project Spazztic Blurr went a lot further). But Wehrmacht did have their own specific sound (mostly because of the vocals and guitars). Especially after all these years it becomes obvious all Crossover lovers and Thrashers from those days do in fact have this album and hold it dearly. The album has historic importance as well as huge sentimental value. Biermächt is a landmark in eighties Crossover Thrash and should be checked out immediately by all newbies.

Repress coming in June of this sold out LP from last year. LP, 45 RPM, Limited Edition. Style: Post Rock, Downtempo, Shoegaze. The last widely available Hood album was 2005’s critically acclaimed Outside Closer on Domino Records but the Leeds post-rockers actually released a later collection of songs entitled “The Hood Tapes”. This was presented at the time as a tour-only CD available at their final burst of shows and later part of their highly sought after Recollected box set. Until now the standalone album has been impossible to find even on CD and has never been issued on vinyl. In the sleeve notes to the Recollected set, the band describe the album as ‘something made in a hurry in order to have something to sell on the road’ but “The Hood Tapes” is a lot more than that. It contains all new music that seems to straddle their career from scratchy experimental New Zealand weirdo lo-fi to the stuttery and staccato r&b influenced pop they sprinkled over that last Outside Closer missive. “The Hood Tapes” could also be seen as a series of sketches of potential future musical avenues open to the band who eventually instead chose to remain silent and although key band members still operate under such names as Bracken, The Declining Winter and A New Line (Related), there has never been any further work issued under the Hood umbrella. “The Hood Tapes” therefore is an overlooked key component to their storied history and this essential release brings it in line with their more well-known work.

CAIVA and Julian Muller deliver their first collaborative release on Live From Earth Klub. „Without You“ is an expressive work of art that transports CAIVA‘s vocals on driven and club ready dynamics. With the eponymous single the duo sets a high standard for post isolation dance energy. We are eager to present the project as well as interrelated performances in the future.

DJ Aquatraxx debuts on UTTU with an epic 5 track EP made up from live sessions in his Rome based studio.. Drexcian inspired houz muzik.

Following a 15-year hiatus from publishing, Neapolitan techno's founding imprint - Conform Records - made an emphatic resurgence in 2020 to resume its intrinsic role in the progression of electronic music, ensuring that the genres' virtuous roots and formative values remained instilled within its future. Having re-released its entire back-catalogue in digital format from its original DAT distribution in the 90s, label head Gaetano Parisio now shifts his focus to the modern audience, with contemporary records that serve to marry these two golden eras of dance music.

Showcasing his immense theoretical knowledge and authenticity, earned through decades of experience in the industry, Parisio's latest project - his 6 part "Fragments 2930" EP - honours the meditative euphoria of Conform's early releases. Militant and driving in their effect, each cut presents its own melodious theme; running parallel to the strong percussive undercurrent of high impact techno that can be heard across the extended player. "Fragments 2930" was initially conceived as a single sound block and later fragmented into these 6 single units. As represented in its title, "Fragments 2930" also includes the catalogue numbers 29 and 30, with the double vinyl characteristic of a 2-release miniseries.

Available to purchase on vinyl from May 27th and across digital platforms on June 10th, Gaetano's latest release is further proof that the label's discography now only grows to hold more future classics.

"A horizon of flood-stricken
boulders and clay
is a granular segue of fade
and decay which begins imperceptibly,
builds to a pitch,
and then oscillates frequency,
phases and hitches
the patterns and cycles of
deluges past
to a future diluvium,
planetary, vast."

Imperial Tiger Orchestra's Mercato 12th years Anniversary Edition includes the best of both albums Mercato & Addis Abeba remastered with bonuses live recordings in London, Paris, Addis, Tokyo & Cape Town.

Imperial Tiger Orchestra, the finest connoisseurs and grooviest performers of Ethiopian music from the Golden Age.

Back in 2007 in underground Geneva, band leader Raphaël Anker decides to gather musicians for a one off live performance revisiting the golden age of Ethiopian music.
A memorable event that forced all the musicians to carry on.
As Imperial Tiger Orchestra.

Consisting of members with very diverse backgrounds (free jazz, noise experimentations, contemporary music, twisted pop…) the Orchestra soon travels to Addis-Abeba where they perform with local luminaries and deep learn about the large diversity of Ethiopian music.
A life-changing experience which brings them back to the studio and to a plethora of successful gigs around Europe, Eastern Europe, Japan and Africa.

The Tiger's unique sound is a mesmerizing re-interpretation of Ethiopian music's golden age mixed with the digitalized themes that appeared in the 80s and filtered through their eclectic influences, a sort of retro-futuristic and progressive Ethiopian rock. This Anniversary edition brings back thunderous rhythms and feverish hooks, down tempo moments and fast paced epiphanies, electronic sounds and ambient nirvanas.

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12“ TRANSPARENT BLUE VINYL + POSTER + DOWNLOAD

Continuing its tradition of genre bending output, Veyl comes forth with one of its most innovative releases to date. 'Still III' is a collaboration between Supreme Low (Jerome Tcherneyan of Years of Denial) and New York-based MC, Sensational, who has been pushing hip hop’s boundaries for over 30 years. Tcherneyan first saw Sensational in France in 1999 while meeting in New York in 2001. The two quickly connected and kept in touch throughout the years when they finally got the chance to record material together in London in
2016.
With beats created mainly using an SP1200 (a sampler associated with hip hop golden's age and raw Techno), Fuzz/Distortion pedals and dub units like Echoes/Spring Reverb, psychedelic modulations such as Chorus/Flanger/Phaser and a modular synth, Sensational’s rhymes were totally improvised on the spot in a 3 a.m. studio session under heavy influence. The result is a powerful fusion of sound and style that shatters all expectations and delivers an audio vehicle bridging past, present and future.
While not lending itself to categorisation, 'Still III' packs Narcotic beats, llbient, Dub, Noise Rap, Bass terrorist, Freak Style, Raw poetry and more into an 8 track release which is unlike anything out right now.
Joining on the release are Tcherneyan collaborators Broken English Club, who appears on the ominous opener, 'Doomed' as well as Years of Denial co-conspirator Barkosina, who, as always, mystifies with her
vocal presence on 'The World'. Also appearing, Meanad Veyl remixing 'Everybody Ready' and Belgian pioneer hypnsokull finishes off the release in perfect fashion with a remix of 'Raw Shit'.

In the constant state of flux that house and techno are in since their inception, Berlin’s Sascha Funke is at once a fixture and an emblem of the city’s transformations. Probably best-known for his work on BPitch, Kompakt or the evergreen MZ, Funke’s EP for Running Back is an amalgamation of sounds, influences and atmospheres. Subdued rave euphoria, robotic disco-influenced techno-pop and hints of Berlin’s long gone „Dubmission“ party ethics get re-arranged, extracted and reconfigured with „German engineering“ values.
Take the ritual QAM for instance. Using a sample and the legendary morse melody of the weather forecast at the end of each „Tagesschau“ and putting it in a completely different context, is a prime example of a free-form approach to making music and making nostalgia future-proof.
That also holds true for the rest of the EP. While titles like FEZ (Freizeit- und Erholungszentrum) or SEZ (Sport- und Erholungszentrum) refer to lost places in East Berlin, the tracks are anything but. Yearning, precisely programmed and full of joie de vivre at the same time, they all lock into and complement each other. So much, that you will find a new favorite with every listen.

Los Angeles-based experimental producer Al Lover will release his new studio album ‘Cosmic Joke’ on May 27th via Fuzz Club Records.
A staple of the global psychedelic scene, Lover has spent nearly a decade fine-tuning a broken, abstracted form of electronica that pools together a tapestry of trip-hop, synthesised krautrock, dub and dark ambient. Utilising an arsenal of samples, drum machine, analogue synths and live instrumentation, Lover’s is a kaleidoscopic sound that’s J-Dilla, DJ Shadow and Lee Scratch Perry by way of Brian Eno, Kraftwerk and Kluster. Central to Lover’s music is a desire to explore the fringes of psychedelic music and the common threads that run through its far-reaching styles, drawing elements from the past and connecting them to the future. Through the years he has released a number of studio albums and beat tapes, remixed the likes of Osees and Night Beats, been resident DJ for the Levitation and Desert Daze festivals and collaborated with the likes of Goat, Anton Newcombe, Cairo Liberation Front and White Fence. Now, Lover returns with his latest studio album, ‘Cosmic Joke’ – a series of synthesised philosophical meditations on modern life, in all its tragicomic absurdity. "'Cosmic Joke' came from observing the rising, compounded absurdity in recent years and seeing structures of normalcy dissolving. It’s my attempt to view these things as part of a higher-order process, through a metaphysical lens rather than an ideological one. It’s been an exercise in holding the paradoxical relationship of comedy and tragedy, joy and pain, growth and decay, scale and decline as part of an interlocked system that, at a deep level, is essential to how we interface with the world.”

Deluxe Edition is on 180g transparent green vinyl, gatefold sleeve, printed inner-sleeve.

Los Angeles-based experimental producer Al Lover will release his new studio album ‘Cosmic Joke’ on May 27th via Fuzz Club Records.
A staple of the global psychedelic scene, Lover has spent nearly a decade fine-tuning a broken, abstracted form of electronica that pools together a tapestry of trip-hop, synthesised krautrock, dub and dark ambient. Utilising an arsenal of samples, drum machine, analogue synths and live instrumentation, Lover’s is a kaleidoscopic sound that’s J-Dilla, DJ Shadow and Lee Scratch Perry by way of Brian Eno, Kraftwerk and Kluster. Central to Lover’s music is a desire to explore the fringes of psychedelic music and the common threads that run through its far-reaching styles, drawing elements from the past and connecting them to the future. Through the years he has released a number of studio albums and beat tapes, remixed the likes of Osees and Night Beats, been resident DJ for the Levitation and Desert Daze festivals and collaborated with the likes of Goat, Anton Newcombe, Cairo Liberation Front and White Fence. Now, Lover returns with his latest studio album, ‘Cosmic Joke’ – a series of synthesised philosophical meditations on modern life, in all its tragicomic absurdity. "'Cosmic Joke' came from observing the rising, compounded absurdity in recent years and seeing structures of normalcy dissolving. It’s my attempt to view these things as part of a higher-order process, through a metaphysical lens rather than an ideological one. It’s been an exercise in holding the paradoxical relationship of comedy and tragedy, joy and pain, growth and decay, scale and decline as part of an interlocked system that, at a deep level, is essential to how we interface with the world.”

It’s the desire to celebrate their sonic bounty that first got Oberst and the band excited about
the idea of comprehensive reissues. But this wouldn’t be a Bright Eyes project if a moment
devoted to appreciating the past weren’t turned into an opportunity to connect with the future.
That’s where the companion EPs (on Opaque Gold vinyl) come in. Or as Oberst puts it, “the
supplemental reading” for the primary reissues: one six-track EP per reissued album, each
featuring five reworked songs from that album. “My thing was they had to sound different from
the originals, we had to mess with them in a substantial way.” Plus one cover that felt “of the
era” in which that particular albums was made - a song that meant something to the band at
the time. To help the EPs come alive in the fullest way, Bright Eyes called in lots of old friends,
like Bridgers, M. Ward, and Welch and Rawlings, as well as new ones like Katie Crutchfield of
Waxahatchee.
 ‘Fevers And Mirrors’ is pressed on Merlot Wave coloured double vinyl

It’s the desire to celebrate their sonic bounty that first got Oberst and the band excited about
the idea of comprehensive reissues. But this wouldn’t be a Bright Eyes project if a moment
devoted to appreciating the past weren’t turned into an opportunity to connect with the future.
That’s where the companion EPs (on Opaque Gold vinyl) come in. Or as Oberst puts it, “the
supplemental reading” for the primary reissues: one six-track EP per reissued album, each
featuring five reworked songs from that album. “My thing was they had to sound different from
the originals, we had to mess with them in a substantial way.” Plus one cover that felt “of the
era” in which that particular albums was made - a song that meant something to the band at
the time. To help the EPs come alive in the fullest way, Bright Eyes called in lots of old friends,
like Bridgers, M. Ward, and Welch and Rawlings, as well as new ones like Katie Crutchfield of
Waxahatchee.
 ‘Fevers And Mirrors’ is pressed on Merlot Wave coloured double vinyl

It’s the desire to celebrate their sonic bounty that first got Oberst and the band excited about
the idea of comprehensive reissues. But this wouldn’t be a Bright Eyes project if a moment
devoted to appreciating the past weren’t turned into an opportunity to connect with the future.
That’s where the companion EPs (on Opaque Gold vinyl) come in. Or as Oberst puts it, “the
supplemental reading” for the primary reissues: one six-track EP per reissued album, each
featuring five reworked songs from that album. “My thing was they had to sound different from
the originals, we had to mess with them in a substantial way.” Plus one cover that felt “of the
era” in which that particular albums was made - a song that meant something to the band at
the time. To help the EPs come alive in the fullest way, Bright Eyes called in lots of old friends,
like Bridgers, M. Ward, and Welch and Rawlings, as well as new ones like Katie Crutchfield of
Waxahatchee.
‘Fevers And Mirrors’ is pressed on Merlot Wave coloured double vinyl.

Trees Speak are back!
Speak’s new album, “Vertigo of Flaws: Emancipation of the Dissonance and Temperaments in
Irrational Waveforms” comes as a double-vinyl edition, single CD and digital release. The limitededition first pressing only of the vinyl includes a bonus 45 enclosed in an 8-page 7”x7” booklet
insert housed within the gatefold sleeve with cover artwork created by Soviet Union propaganda
artist Lazar Markovich Lissitzky in 1911.
Trees Speak are back!
This new release is a vast leap into an ocean of space and sound, a quantum leap into cybernetics, biology, anti-gravity,
time travel, dream speech and transfiguration. A seriously next step release!
Showing no signs of slowing down their rapid creative pace – incredibly this is their fourth album in the space of just over
one year – ‘Vertigo of Flaws’ is a mighty 29 tracks, one and a half hours of music across one double album that is surely
going to be a defining point in their musical career, a giant leap into the sonic unknown, an epic exploration of intensity
and sound.
Alongside their now trademark German krautrock motoric-beat rhythms, angular New York post-punk attitude, tripped-out
60s spy soundtrack, psyche-rock, and 70s synthesizers and vocoders, here you will also hear a new cosmic spacial
awareness (both personal inner space and galactic outer space) and a truly wilful pushing of sonic boundaries - as police
sirens, static noise, alarms, radio signals, avant-garde voices, and orchestral string quartets, all collide to add beautiful
dissonance to uber-powerful, intense, addictive and propulsive rhythms - in the process creating a truly unique
soundscape that Trees Speak have made wholly their own.
If you ever wanted to hear Can, Hawkwind, Destroy All Monsters, Pere Ubu, electric eels, John Cage, Liquid Liquid,
Tangerine Dream, Suicide, Neu!, Laurie Spiegel, Art Ensemble of Chicago, John Barry, Mother Mallard’s Portable
Masterpiece Company, Sun Ra, Stockhausen, John Carpenter, Electro-Acoustic and Musique Concrete and Mars in one
band - then this is it!
Trees Speak are Daniel Martin Diaz and Damian Diaz from Tucson, Arizona and their music often draws on the cosmic nighttime magic of Arizona’s natural desert landscapes. ‘Trees Speak’ relates to the idea of future technologies storing
information and data in trees and plants - using them as hard drives - and the idea that Trees communicate collectively.
Special guests from the hyper-creative hub of the Tucson music scene on this release are Gabriel Sullivan, Ben Nisbet, Saul
Millan, Stephani Guilmette, and Davis Jones.
The album Vertigo of Flaws was recorded in Brooklyn, New York, and Tucson, Arizona during the plague of 2021.
Extract from Vertigo of Flaws sleevenotes:
‘As we travel through space and time, avoiding the discarded remains of the industrial period, the
deconstruction of social norms through the expression of art, music, and philosophy guide the human
experience towards the unknown.
All that remains are musical echoes scattered throughout the universe, like ancient vibrations that now
populate the cosmos. These waves now show signs of decay. Melody, beauty, tonality have all but fallen
away as dissonance blossoms. As John Cage wrote in 1937,
“Whereas, in the past, the point of disagreement has been between dissonance and consonance, it will be,
in the immediate future, between noise and so-called musical sounds. New methods will be discovered,
bearing a definite relation to Schoenberg’s twelve-tone system and present methods of writing percussion
music and any other methods which are
free from the concept of a fundamental tone”.
Similarly, George Van Tassel claimed the Integratron as capable of
rejuvenation, anti-gravity, and time travel. So, what remains of the
“people”? We have adopted from them our own Zeitgeber: their pulses
now guide our sun, our planets, our earths, and are the new circadian,
diurnal, and ultradian rhythms of the galaxy. Traumsprache, dream
speech, is now the internal language of trees.
Decaying metal and machines liberated the note unto nature’s table,
and we sip the delicious nectar of music once more irrational, elaborate,
violent, vast. The past is the future, musical disintegration its own rebirth.
We are nature, once more the computer of the Universe.’

CircoLoco Records is proud to present the Monday Dreamin’ Vinyl Box Set, a 5-LP collection releasing on May 20, 2022.

Featuring heavy-hitting releases from visionaries of every era of CircoLoco’s 20-year party history, including Carl Craig, tINI, Kerri Chandler, Rampa, Sama' Abdulhadi, and other icons, the acclaimed debut compilation album from CircoLoco Records is presented in matte full color sleeves with box artwork designed by TOILETPAPER.

With support from DJ’s worldwide and accolades including back-to-back Essential New Tune awards from BBC Radio 1’s Pete Tong for Seth Troxler’s “Lumartes,” and DJ Tennis’ “Atlanta,” Monday Dreamin’ has already carved out a unique place in the world of dance music having been featured in the digital world of Los Santos in Rockstar Games’ blockbuster Grand Theft Auto Online: Los Santos Tuners which also featured Monday Dreamin’ artist Moodymann as a new character in the world.

Monday Dreamin’ is the first project from the pioneering partnership between global club culture icons CircoLoco and the creators of some of the world’s most popular and critically acclaimed video games, Rockstar Games, a partnership aimed at elevating and supporting dance music through the collective power of the two entertainment brands.

It started, as it so often does, with two old friends hanging out.

John Shima and C P Smith were joking around one evening in their home city of Sheffield. At some point, Smith challenged Shima that, if the latter could produce a record using nothing more than a small modular synth setup, then Smith would release it on his Central Processing Unit label. As heads will know, while Shima has drops on imprints like FireScope and Subwax Excursions to his name, he had never previously released anything via CPU. Shima accepted, and thus we now have his CPU debut, the four-track EP CPU Modular 1.

The specific setup that Shima worked with for these tracks was Smith's Doepfer A-100P6 Suitcase, a small but mighty combination of modules and programmers. It's no surprise that Shima was able to familiarise himself with the equipment in double-quick time - after all, Shima was an early adopter of the Eurorack modular format back in the day. What emerged from the CPU Modular 1 sessions was a quartet of devastatingly effective DJ tools, mid-set rollers which will get the dance moving something crazy.

Opener '003' kicks the EP off as it means to go on. There's something at once stiff-necked and buoyant about the rhythms here, all thwacking Roland tones and snares which crack like someone whipping a length of sheet metal. While the beat barrels unyieldingly onwards, the programming in the tuned modulars is more exploratory and even trippy, full of delay-laced bleeps and flighty rhythmic motifs. It comes together for a cracking mix in the vein of artists like Jerome Hill and London Modular Alliance. Second A-side cut '010' is no different, the street-beat groove and grumbling low-ends underpinning all manner of modular wizardry.

CPU Modular 1 is really timeless stuff, a set of percussion-heavy, future-focussed beats which recalls Smith's own CPU drop 'DJ Tools Vol.1 - 808 Tracks'. '011' kicks of CPU Modular 1's second-half with a dose of Drexciyan dystopia, playing an atonal loop off of an insistent bass wiggle and neurotic hi-hats. Even when Shima tightens or slackens the modulars here, '011' remains unyielding, a dose of pure 'Wip3out' energy that you could happily groove to all day long. The EP closes out with '005', a gnarled, gurgling production which still retains the dancefloor punch of the rest of the record.

For his Central Processing Unit debut, John Shima was tasked to produce four tracks using a single small modular setup. Unsurprisingly given the pedigree of this seasoned machine-funk pro, Shima aced the assignment.

After releasing their 'Kerrang Top 50 Album of 2020' & seething debut
album 'Paradise', Scotland's Rock'n'Roll 3-piece Cold Years were about to
reap the fruits of their labour touring the world spreading their 'fist in the
air' punk rock anthems when the world came to a holt
While for many this kind of obstacle would have stopped them in their tracks but
not Cold Years, the time for pissing & moaning is done.
With singer/guitarist Ross Gordon relocating to Glasgow, never making any secret
of his frustrations with feeling trapped in the suffocating environs of his native
Aberdeen, inspiration for album 2 'Goodbye To Misery' was born.
Written remotely throughout the first 3 months of 2021, Cold Years found a fresh
approach to create using daily Zoom sessions to write emailing ideas back and to
throughout the second lockdown. With a change of scenery and this fresh
approach to writing, 'Goodbye To Misery' is 12 tracks born out of the want for a
more positive future rather than the self-destruction & misery of 2020's 'Paradise'.
Recorded in May 2021 the band yet again travelled south to The Ranch Studios in
Southampton to work with long-time collaborator Neil Kennedy (Creeper, Boston
Manor, Milk Teeth).
"This record is us saying you can break away from those things that are bringing
you down. It's about standing up for yourself and not letting anybody tell you what
you should or shouldn't be doing. It's a defiant statement."
Press ads in Visions, Classic Rock, Piranha (POS), Start (POS), Slam, Rocks,
Eclisped Covermount tracks in Classic Rock, Visions, Rocks Press features in
Visions, Classic Rock, Piranha, Start, Slam, Rocks, Eclipsed Radio: #6 German
Rock Charts for Home (single)

Modes continues the forward thinking soundscapes explored on Dyne’s recent album Teal, which garnered acclaim from peers and fans alike -including Late Night Tales, Toddla T, Ransom Note, and BBC6 Music presenters - and sold out quickly on vinyl.

Lush synths and dreamy vocals are paired with up-tempo afro-inspired house, with tinges of percussive jazz and future soul. Dyne's trademark slick production can be relied upon once more, as well as the music's insistent rhythmic drive and intensity.

Modes employs some of New Zealand's most well known and iconic vocalists, in addition to many new rising stars. Frequent collaborators Lord Echo, Ladi 6 and Mara TK (Electric Wire Hustle) return, alongside soul legends Dallas Tamaira aka Joe Dukie (Fat Freddys Drop), Che Fu and Troy Kingi.

Marking over 16 years as an artist, Robert James unveils his debut album Battle of The Planets. A milestone in any musician’s career, the LP illustrates the breadth of Rob’s tastes and influences, exploring the rugged terrain of planet electronica. Ranging from breaks and electro to house and techno, Battle of The Planets was made during lockdown, a period of creativity and isolation for many artists around the world. Across 10 skillfully produced cuts Rob takes us on an intrepid adventure into the cosmos, where mysterious atmospheres and uplifting melodies sit side by side with captivating dance floor rhythms. Many shades of his personality come through on this album, all tied together by his unique sonic identity; informed by his years spent on the dance floor, behind the decks and in the studio. On Battle of The Planets Robert James presents a distillation of his extensive knowledge and experience into one succinct, highly engaging body of work.

AOW is a new collaborative project from Dan Ghenacia and Tolga Fidan emerging from a new period of creativity and inspiration for the Lisbon-based artists.

Long time friends and fellow lynchpins of the European house and techno scene, Ghenacia and Fidan started working closely together through 2020 and 2021 while sharing studio space at Boa Lab. They found themselves at the heart of an artistic community of musicians, designers and engineers, which took shape around Ghenacia’s experiments with alpha wave generation, inspired by Bryon Gysin’s Dream Machine.

Ghenacia and engineer Anine Kirsten developed a modern update on Gysin’s 1950s design, which has been installed at exhibitions in London, Lisbon and Paris. At its heart, the project explores the natural hallucinatory effects of alpha wave projections on the eyelids, and the therapeutic benefits of the experience. Out of this spirit of psychedelically-charged experimentation, Ghenacia and Fidan have been working beyond the confines of their typical club-oriented material, creating ambient soundtracks to artist exhibitions in Boa and auditory backdrops to Alpha Wave Experience installations.

AOW bridges the gap between this new period of creativity and Ghenacia and Fidan’s life-long passion for electronic dance music. Compared to the strictures of house and techno they’re best known for, the three tracks on Hear the Light explore a more open, inquisitive sound with roots in UK electronica and West Coast psychedelic breaks (a seminal scene when Ghenacia was in the Bay Area in the 90s). Crucially though, it’s not a pointedly retro sound, but rather a result of rich streams of inspiration meeting and passing through crisp, modernist production techniques to offer something
genuinely fresh on the ears.

Working outside of their comfort zones and guided by creative philosophies springing from research, shared experience and community, Hear the Light marks a new step forward for Ghenacia and Fidan, with many more developments promised for the future.

"Turn To See Me" is yet another step forward for The Dining Rooms, an artistic duo that never lacked creativity. This ninth album of theirs is a further confirmation: an intense record, inevitably influenced by the events of the last two years and therefore imbued with dark and melancholy sounds, but at the same time positive and aimed at a hopefully better future. Once again, there are numerous collaborations and blends of various musical genres (hip-hop, folk, jazz, electronic, trip hop) that do not, however, betray the 'cinematic' trademark of the Milanese outfit.

Repossessed by the past, bitten once again and forced to relive drama, history, memories, tradition and roots. A past that needs exorcizing, bending and re-imagining in order to move forward and depend on. This is ‘Rimorso’, Mai Mai Mai’s colossal mediterranean gothic album.

Known for his incredible blend of Southern Italian Folklore, industrial drone, proto-techno & punishing miasmic electronic music, Toni Cutrone aka Mai Mai Mai approached ‘Rimorso’ with a clean slate. Following ‘Nel Sud’ (La Tempesta International, 2019) and his mediterranean trilogy ‘Theta’ (Boring Machines, 2013), ‘Δέλτα’ (Delta) (Yerevan Tapes, 2014) and ‘Φ’ (Phi) (Not Not Fun Records / Boring Machines, 2017) the Roma based noise artist recreated his spirits of the past by collaborating with musicians and ethnomusicologists that work on the present, on traditions that are still passed on and morphing continuously, healing our nostalgia for a lost future. ‘Rimorso’ sheds the past heavy use of samples and sound manipulation in lieu of a human element: voices, percussion, lap steel guitar all embedded in a rich cultural heritage.

Years in the making – ‘Hillbillies In Hell’ (13) presents 16 timeless tribulations - a Lovecraftian clutch of Ancient Terrors, Sinful Seductions, Grinding Poverty, Debilitating Disfigurement, Hell's Eternal Maze of Hardships and God's Blazing Light of Redemption.

A misty shroud of marginal 45s - some of these sides are impossibly rare and are reissued here for the very first time. All for your cautionary listening pleasure.

SEE Little Richard Miller witness THE FIRE CAME DOWN! HEAR Dee Mullins declare I AM THE GRASS! ATTEST to Eddie Noack's brutal final fate in BARBARA JOY!

The Carter Family - 2001 (Ballad To The Future), Henson Cargill - Skip A Rope, Porter Wagoner - Julie, Eddie Noack - Barbara Joy, Waylon Jennings - The Road, Sammi Smith - Birmingham Mistake, Norma Jean - One's On The Way, Wendy Bagwell And The Sunliters - This Train, Dee Mullins - I Am The Grass, Hank Thompson And The Brazos Valley Boys - I Cast A Lonesome Shadow, Porter Wagoner - Lonely Comin' Down, Henson Cargill - The Pain Will Go Away, The Carter Family - Poison Red Berries, Bobby Bare - When I've Learned, Roger Miller - I Know Who It Is (And I'm Gonna Tell On Him), Little Richard Miller - The Fire Came Down

RIYL: Beach House, Cocteau Twins, Cigarettes After Sex, Slowdive. Isolated from any kind of music scene and enveloped by the cold Brutalism of Preston, White Flowers are a young, enigmatic band developing their own eccentricities away from the influence of big cities. New EP ‘Are You’ is a sonic and aesthetic collage drawing deeply from their environmental and social surroundings. The songs on the EP may at first seem delicate and beautiful, but closer listening reveals dark undertones and dry humour fuelled by the frustration of feeling trapped with no way out. Driven by this sense of claustrophobia, the duo have sought to create a form of escapism outside of their physical and geographical limitations. Recorded late 2021 between Preston and Bristol, ‘Are You’ weaves together a mixture of intuitive home recordings and refined studio production aided by producer Ali Chant (PJ Harvey, Portishead, Perfume Genius). The four songs on the EP are an intentional collection of contrasts and paradoxes - beauty and repulsion, calmness and mania, anxiety and stasis - all combined to form a balanced whole. Whilst influenced in part by the writings of the late Mark Fisher and his idea that we are haunted by futures that failed to happen, that what might have been may yet be the dream that saves us, White Flowers have also found inspiration in the Brutalist architecture that adorns their hometown - futuristic yet dated buildings that serve as an appropriate visual metaphor for Fisher’s theories. Bleakly imposing yet comfortingly familiar, the monochromatic starkness of these structures has fed into the imagery for the record, as well as the sounds found within. Not intending to wallow in cynicism, however, White Flowers’ art ultimately aims to provide a way out of these dystopian fever dreams and spiralling thoughts into a forward facing place.

19 minutes of brutally up front and relentlessly rowdy hardcore punk, that slams a firm British stamp on the classic Swedish Hardcore blueprint. This wrecking ball sits somewhere between the 80’s Hudiksvall sounds of MISSBRUKARNA, the damaged NO FUTURE confessions of THE PARTISANS and the sheer rock and roll audacity of the SKITKIDS. Back to back riffs that'll stick to your brain like the glue at the bottom of your bag and steaming drums blasts that’ll plough through your skull like a juggernaut driven by a maniac high on amphetamine. Mylo Oxlo provides the artwork once again, perfectly capturing the claustrophobic animosity of the Rat’s latest 12 song romp and rampage. Fittingly dropping on the year of the Rat while the Tories take a strangle hold of the U.K for another 4 years. Hold onto your seat, feel the burn and don’t you dare turn this fucker down.

A new 6-track mini album from a musician with a long list of credits including South African trumpet legend Hugh Masekela, afrobeat co-creator Tony Allen and Ethiopian jazz originator Mulatu Astatke as well as many Brit-jazz and international roots artists. "It's Time" blends spiritual Afro-jazz groove with free improv, spoken poetry and other-worldly atmosphere, with lyrics and titles hinting at unorthodox takes on reality and the times we live in.

Phil Dawson is a top London guitarist who has worked and schooled himself extensively in many different African, Latin and Brazilian music traditions together with styles that more typically cross the radar of someone with a similar British background: roots reggae, punk rock, blues, soul, R'n'B, jazz and funk. As a sideman, he's played with a host of living legends of Afro-fusion music including South African jazz trumpet giant Hugh Masekela, Nigerian afrobeat co-creator Tony Allen, Ethiojazz pioneer Mulatu Astatke, the Algerian "king of rai" Khaled, and London based Ghanaian afro-rock dons Osibisa. Heavy company for sure.

Now he's releasing a new mini 6 track album of original compositions under his own name and band - Phil Dawson ٤-tet - and he's joined by a stellar cast of London's finest players who include Rowland Sutherland (flutes - Airto Moreira, David Murray, Carla Bley), Khadijatou Doyneh (spoken word - The Heliocentrics, Danny Keane), Gaspar Sena (drums - Alfa Mist, Maria Chiara Argiro), Marius Rodrigues (drums - Oriole, Hermeto Hermeto Hermeto), Lekan Babalola (percussion - Cassandra Wilson, Ali Farka Toure) and Matheus Nova (bass - Antonio Forcione, Ed Motta, Jazzinho). Phil himself features on guitars, Fender Rhodes and piano.

'This is great' - Gilles Peterson, BBC Radio 6 (on 'It's Time)

'Beautiful' - Kassin (producer Caetano Veloso, Sonzeira etc) (on 'It's

Time')

'Rapid-fire guitar work with variety and energy' – The Guardian, UK

'A great guitarist' – Tony Allen

'An absolute killer - irresistible' - Snowboy (on 'Gnostic Hilife')

'Phil Dawson and his (quintet) are really smoking at the mo. No wonder the London jazz young guns are ripping it up with bands

like this leading the way. Miss them at your peril' – Russ Jones (Future World Funk)

Jazzwise Review

The British guitarist Phil Dawson is a fixture of a plethora of Brit-jazz bands and international roots outfits; his nuanced stylings have graced the work of A-listers from Ethio-jazz guru Mulatu Astatke to such late African greats as Tony Allen and Hugh Masekela. Like any an in-demand session player worth his chops Dawson also fronts his own trio/quartet/quintet, all of which allow him to stretch out and do his own thing, which – with his quintet - he does to pleasing effect here.

Buoyed by flute, bass and percussion, It's Time is a six-track brew combining free improv and spoken word with Afro-spiritual groove and a far-out esotericism befitting these strangest of times. Opener 'It's Time (Radio Edit)' is a psychedelic romp through a beneficent cosmos where ringing chords and woodwind trills underpin Khaditjatou Doyneh's pathos-laden musings on love and the universe and one of three variations on a theme. Over three minutes longer at 9:34, 'It's Time (aka Ougama)' is a freewheeling instrumental made dazzling by Dawson's silver-fingered guitar work; Doyneh resumes her pronouncing on the more dissonant but equally mind expanding 'It's Time (Fully Spoken)'. Then there's 'Gnostic Hilife', whose three interpretations each juxtapose the structures of this West African lingua franca in ways tight, spacious and inventive

Returning with a signature live approach, John Swing drops
the latest Warm Sounds 12" with infectious evolution and a reflection of the future.

Fractal percussion locks 4 bass-minded grooves that blend techno and house with a hypnotic jazz industrialism recalling both
the modern and the ancient. Inter-modular paganism built
for primitive dance sessions.

Released for the first time in CD and Digital format in 2017 this is the sixth album by Luca Trevisi LTJ Xperience.

It contains some of his most played songs such as Get Down, Let There Be Groove, Put Me Down and the one that gives the title to the album Beggar Groove here in its two versions.

The release is in a limited edition double album on White vinyl. Luca LTJ Trevisi (LTJ Xperience) trained as a producer DJ in the late 1980s. Resident first at the Kinki Club in Bologna and then at Cap Creus in Imola, he is one of the first Italian DJs to program house and above all to re-propose Black Music, Jazz and Latin Bossa, all the genres that then over time gave way to Acid Jazz and Nu Jazz.

He began his work as an artist and producer with Irma Records and in the 90s also his activity as an international DJ who saw him play at the Blue Note and the Jazz Café in London, at the Giant Steps in New York and at the Jazz Festival in Montreux.

In 1999 he released his first solo album under the name LTJ Xperience. To date he has released 7 albums all on Irma Records, several compilations, many singles and remixes also collaborating with international labels such as Far Out Recordings, Sleazy Beats, Future Classics, E.A.R., Music For Dreams, Apersonal Music.

Pachakuti is a musician and producer with family roots in Colombia. He plays keys, tenor saxophone and clarinet. While living and working in Berlin, he draws inspiration from the natural world, investigative travels, and ancestral traditions of Latin America and beyond. His expressive and rhythmical playing and his instantaneous compositions are directed at the human core, arousing subtle experiences. While not being conformed to one style, it always invokes a sense of liveliness and depth to be delved in. young.vishnu is a producer and DJ. He has studied philosophy and music in Hildesheim, Germany, which heavily influenced his views on meaning and mythology in music. In his DJ sets he selects and plays classic and contemporary Funk, Soul and Afrobeat. His practice as a DJ informs his work behind the boards directly, adding also more organic grooves and broader spectrum of musical styles to his in Hip-Hop based production. If you had to put one single tag on their forthcoming album Dédalo, the best choice would be Jazz. That being said, Pachakuti and young.vishnu's sound worlds might be better described in their own words: "We just make music and try to incorporate what we love about it". They are musical freethinkers with shared interests in eastern philosophy and botany who interweave Hip-Hop, Latin and Funk with musical storytelling and world mythology. Undoubtedly, their most ambitious work to date, Dédalo (Spanish synonym for labyrinth), recorded and produced over the course of a year, shows Pachakuti & young.vishnu's ambitions and growth. Where their debut work Semilla (2020) centered around the image of the seed, Dédalo takes on the entire garden. Besides playing multiple instruments by themselves, Pachakuti & young.vishnu invited a growing group of befriended musicians into the studio, including percussionist maestro Eric Owusu (Pat Thomas, Ebo Taylor, Jembaa Groove) and drummer Leon Raum (Bokoya, Wyl), as well as Brazilian newcomer vocalist Laíz, and members of their former band project Soularkestra. The 16 recorded songs, ranging from 1:19 to 14:58 minutes, take you on an emotionally honest, metaphoric journey through the maze of human existence, of modern society and mythic poetry. The mostly instrumental tracks build on expressive melodies, layered rhythms, and a wide range of musical instruments, merging the sounds of Jazz with the classical word of orchestras and choirs, and urban soundscapes with traditional instruments such as the Andean Kena and Charango, the Colombian Gaita and Marimba de Chonta, and an Indian harmonium. The Album thus weaves together past and future, and diverse cultural threads, sounds and ideas in an act of cultural appreciation and global conscience. Mixed and mastered by Roe Beardie at The Brewery Studios, Berlin. The album artwork itself merges the visionary art of Mexican painter Sergio Chávez Hollar with an original artwork-inlay of Brazilian artist Laíz and the work of Carsten Pölking of the Nima Compositions Archive.

Dédalo will be available digitally and on double-vinyl with inside-out print cover and colored inlay with credits and painting by Laís De Mello Barbero.

When it comes to floor-filling tracks that balances smart drum programming with pure melodic bliss, you can always rely on John Beltran to deliver. The five track EP contains masterful ambient pieces with a Detroit/Chicago analog house vibe brining a warm and psychedelic feel. He joins the label’s third release with a brilliant chill-out EP entitled ‘The Peninsula’, united by another Detroit legend Luke Hess, bringing his traditional 303 upbeat sound remixing ‘Begin Again’. Visual artist Alona Rodeh also joins the release showcasing her stunning High-Vis (Future, Black) which featured in her first solo exhibition at the Christine König Galerie in Vienna last year.

Red Vinyl

Time has come for Futurepast to release a long format album: Alarm Phase Red - catalogue number FPLP01 - will be the first full-length work from Futurepast founder Davy Vandegaer, appearing here under a new name: Brainwashed Today.

Rooted in a conceptual approach of electronic music, this double LP ranges from industrial ambient to experimental techno. Like an antidote to a twisted reality of controlled screens and mental isolation, Alarm Phase Red uses the raw language of electricity
to reach the core of the machine and sabotage it, reverse its effects by mirroring them. Fighting fire with fire, deflecting the pressure and strain of a world driven by fear and anger, the music of Brainwashed Today acts like a cathartic escape from technological enslavement.

With the purchase of the vinyl comes a batch of three digital bonus tracks pursuing further the sound research of the album.

Strut continue their deep dive into the archives of Black Fire Records with a new reissue of Oneness Of Juju’s Bush Brothers & Space Rangers, showcasing the band at the peak of their powers in 1977.

Oneness had enjoyed two fruitful years with Black Fire prior to these recordings, breaking through with the African Rhythms and Space Jungle Luv albums. “When we recorded African Rhythms we didn’t use a guitar,” explains bandleader Plunky Branch. “So, when vocalist Jackie Eka-Ete and guitarist Ras Mel Glover came in in around ‘75, that moved our sound into a more soulful direction. The drummer on this album, Tony Green, was the drummer with Gil Scott Heron and he added a little more sophistication to our soulfulness. African percussionist Okyerema Asante was also fully incorporated into the band after joining in 1976. By 1977, we were in full production mode recording songs; one or two of the tracks here also feature Brian Jackson, known for his work with Gil.”

Primarily recorded at Arrest Studios in Washington DC, the album is packed with landmark Oneness tracks including ‘Be About The Future’ (“possibly the first ecology-themed song that I know of”) the George Clinton-influenced ‘Plastic’, an acoustic alternative version of ‘African Rhythms’ and strong covers of Caiphus Semenya’s ‘West Wind’ and Bobby Womack’s ‘Breezin’’. Plunky continues,

Strut continue their deep dive into the archives of Black Fire Records with a new reissue of Oneness Of Juju's Bush Brothers & Space Rangers, showcasing the band at the peak of their powers in 1977. Primarily recorded at Arrest Studios in Washington DC, the album ispacked with landmark Oneness tracks including 'Be About TheFuture' ("possibly the first ecology-themed song that I know of") the George Clinton-influenced 'Plastic', an acoustic alternative version of 'African Rhythms' and strong covers of Caiphus Semenya's 'West Wind' and Bobby Womack's 'Breezin''. Plunky continues, "The album is composed of several different sessions featuring different personnel and only first came out as an album in its own right when Black Fire MD Jimmy Gray started working with P-Vine Records in Japan during the '90s. For me, it's one of the hottest periods for the band."

Your Old Droog is back with the new album, TIME. It features appearances by MF DOOM, Aesop Rock, Mick Jenkins, Elzhi, Blu, and Wiki. As the title indicates, the project is the culmination of years of work. "This is basically my debut album," Droog explains. "Some of this material was recorded back in 2017, but I suppose the universe felt it would make more sense if it was released at another point in the future. Hence the name, TIME." Featuring production by Quelle Chris, 88 Keys, Edan, Mono En Stereo, and more, TIME= was a surprise release on digital outlets, and is now available on vinyl for the first time:

English thrash metal outfit Xentrix is commonly referred to as one of the “big four” of English thrash metal, given their popularity in the underground metal scene of the mid-1980s to mid-1990s. The band was formed in 1984 under the name Sweet Vengeance, but after signing with Roadrunner Records they changed their name to Xentrix in 1988. Not long after, Xentrix released its debut album Shattered Existence in 1989. In support of the album, the band toured with Sabbat. The album set the tone for future works and lifted Xentrix to many metalheads’ treasured band.

Shattered Existence is available as a limited edition of 1500 individually numbered copies on translucent red coloured vinyl and includes an insert.

The final installment of the electronic fusion projects that Walter Bachauer concocted for Klaus Schulze’s Innovative Communication label, Visions of Audio delves further into minimalist musique concrete, extending themes developed on Memorymetropolis in drawing on non-European vocal chants, here applied in dissociative layers. The diverse, complex arrangements include the symphonic synths of ‘Promised Land’ and the war-mode Sensurround of ‘1922 In Baku,’ as well as the obtuse loops of ‘The Final Ritual,’ the work inspiring future hitmaker Pilooski. Mondshine fans, Berlin School freaks and abstract electronica lovers should bag it.

The second album from the transatlantic duo Wilma Vritra is richly orchestrated, replete with references to faith, mythology, and the cosmos, its 11 tracks grapple with themes of self-preservation and refuge from the world, even as they edge their way to a sort of redemption. Grotto is the work of two musicians separated by an ocean but undoubtedly operating on a shared wavelength. One is Will Archer, a Newcastle-born but London-based multi-instrumentalist and composer who today records as Wilma Archer, but who you might also know for his writing and production for artists like Celeste, Nilufer Yanya and Jessie Ware. Wilma Archer’s debut solo album A Western Circular, featured guest spots from the late MF DOOM, Future Islands’ Samuel T Herring, Sudan Archives and Laura Grove. The other is Hal Donell Williams Jr, aka VRITRA - a Los Angeles-based rapper whose tales of graft and grind are often couched in spiritual or cosmic terms. VRITRA has previously collaborated with Matt Martians via The Jet Age of Tomorrow, Pink Siifu and YUNGMORPHEUS. Grotto’s striking cover image is by Swampy, an enigmatic Californian street artist whose itinerant lifestyle – tales of squatting and train-hopping across North America – have made him a demi-mythical figure. A playful image, but it communicates the album’s themes – of a voyage through darkness, and the promise of light at the end of the tunnel.

RIYL: Velvet Underground, Lou Reed, Nick Cave, Patti Smith, Leonard Cohen, Iggy Pop, Radiohead & Tom Waits. "If you have never heard the Doctors of Madness, you should. Musically they are the Velvet Underground, New York Dolls with shades of glam, hippie, prog and punk all rolled into one, yet are still totally original. Vastly underrated, they should have been huge. Pure genius" Vic Reeves…. The DOM are “the missing link between David Bowie & The Sex Pistols” (The Guardian May 2017). Exploding onto the music scene in 1975 with their theatrical, William Burroughs-inspired Sci-fi nightmare, they were misunderstood by many, but those who knew understood the importance of the band’s dangerous, uncompromising approach to lyrics, to music and to performance. Among the many fans of the band were acts as diverse as The Damned, Vic Reeves, Joe Elliott of Def Leppard, Spiritualized, Julian Cope, The Adverts, The Skids and Simple Minds. The Sex Pistols supported them, so did The Jam & Joy Division. They were the first to combine the avant-garde approach of The Velvet Underground with a distinctly European aesthetic. The blue hair, exotic stage-names, the lyrical themes of urban decay, political propaganda, mind control and madness were all taken up by the punk bands who followed in their wake. The DOM were trailblazers, pioneers, adventurers…pushing the boundaries of rock music and theatre to see how far it would go before it bust. What happened after them was due, in no small part, to what they achieved in 3 short years. They may not have been Jesus Christ, but they were, arguably, John the Baptist!!! Now, 40 years after they imploded, they are back…with an album seething with lyrical anger and passion. It is the most potent and incisive musical dissection of modern life and contemporary politics released the decade. With tracks titles like “So Many ways To Hurt You”, “Sour Hour”, “Make It Stop!” and the ground-breaking sonic assault of the title track “Dark Times”, Richard “Kid” Strange proves once again that he has his finger firmly on the pulse of our times, just as he had when he founded the band in 1974. Produced by John Leckie (Radiohead, Stone Roses, Pink Floyd), the new album, Dark Times, features contributions from Joe Elliott (Def Leppard), Sarah Jane Morris (Communards), Terry Edwards (PJ Harvey, Nick Cave etc), Steve ‘Boltz’ Bolton (The Who, Scott Walker) and the young protest singer Lily Bud, alongside the current thrilling and thunderous DOM rhythm section of Susumu Ukei (bass guitar) & Mackii Ukei (drums) of the Japanese extreme glam-metal band Sister Paul, and Dylan O Bates (violin and keyboards). Julian Cope, another rock star who, like Strange, found the confines of music too tight for his ambition, his energy and his imagination, was blown away when he first heard the songs, declaring, “These Dark Times are enormously informing: the RULES OF THE FUTURE are indeed being forged right now”. Top producer Martyn Ware (Human League/Heaven 17) said the album “…reminds me of Iggy Pop’s Kill City album – love it.” and Biba Kopf (The Wire) declared, “Still listening to new DOM album with immense interest and pleasure”. The first single, Make It Stop!, is an impassioned howl against the global drift to right wing extremism and persecution of minorities, and is already a live showstopper for the band. It features the thrilling cross-generational combination of Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott and Lily Bud on backing vocals. In the period since the last DOM gig in 1978, Richard has written a memoir, collaborated on a cantata with internationally celebrated composer Gavin Bryars, worked as an actor on films with Tim Burton, Martin Scorsese, Harmony Korine & Jack Nicholson, toured the world in a Russian version of Hamlet with James Nesbitt as his grave-digging co-star, played Glastonbury, sung baritone in the British premiere of Frank Zappa’s200 Motels at the Royal Festival Hall, directed a multi-media evening celebrating the life and work of William Burroughs, won Best Art Film Prize at the Portobello Film Festival last year, had his own live talk show, worked with Tom Waits and Marianne Faithfull on the William Burroughs/Robert Wilson stage play The Black Rider, curated events for the Tate Gallery, and sung Walt Disney songs with Jarvis Cocker.

Ex RSD LP on transparent red vinyl, gatefold sleeve with lyric inner sleeve and DL card. Final copies now reduced to £7.99. The tracks on this album have never been officially released before now. The eight songs on this album were recorded in 1978 on a 2-track stereo Revox A77 tape recorder. The recordings are unashamedly analogue, using one microphone and guitars plugged directly into the tape recorder. Bouncing down tracks irreversibly as they went on, forced to make creative decisions that could not be undone. Some hard choices had to be made with the mix, but with no record company meant no record company agenda. TV Smith & Richard Strange could write and record whatever they wanted – and did! It has been an enormous pleasure to rediscover these recordings, the result of a friendship of two artists emerging from broken bands and each about to embark on a lifelong adventure in words and music. TV SMITH - I wasn’t having a lot of fun in 1978 when Richard asked me to collaborate on a song he was writing called “Summer Fun.” I was in the final stages of songwriting for the second Adverts album “Cast Of Thousands,” a project that already seemed doomed to failure given an unenthusiastic record company, a band in the throes of falling apart, and a dwindling audience - but my creative juices were in full flow and I was ready for something different. I already knew Richard, of course, from the Doctors Of Madness, who I’d followed in the years before punk when I was still living in Devon and they were one of the few bands to come and play in the area. I considered them a warped poetic glam band with gothic leanings, and was slightly surprised when the song I’d been invited to work on turned out to be a kind of California surf pastiche. But I was game to get involved, and after we’d finished it and ventured forward with regular writing and recording sessions over the following weeks it soon became clear that “Summer Fun” was just a gateway drug, and the songs that were emerging from our combined forces were going to quickly become much deeper and much darker // RICHARD STRANGE - Watching the remnants of a musical dream being swept away by the juggernaut of corporate punk rock in 1976, I felt a combination of jealousy and resentment towards many of the key players who had been responsible for our demise. The Sex Pistols had supported my band Doctors of Madness early in their career and nicked not only our future but £12.00 from a pair of trousers in our dressing room in Middlesbrough Town Hall! The Jam, who supported us over four shows at London’s fabled Marquee Club, were how I imagined The Who would be if they’d joined the Young Conservatives. Warsaw, our go-to support band in Manchester, had just changed their name to Joy Division, and Johnny and the Self-Abusers, our Scottish flag wavers, had become Simple Minds. All were being feted by the all-powerful music press, while we were being buried. But there was one punk band for whom I never had anything but the greatest affection…The Adverts.