Buscar:gasp

“My introduction to “noise” came from a record shop in Lake Worth, Florida ran by a musician named Kenny 5. Kenny had left Detroit sometime in the mid nineties and had begun selling used records and CD’s from the downtown strip of this tiny southern Florida city in a humble shop sandwiched between a deli and a dog grooming business. Kenny previously was on labels like Amphetamine Reptile and timeSTEREO, and the records and videotapes that would be on repeat at his shop were a vast sonic expanse that spoke to the eclecticism of his experience as a touring musician participating and adjacent to American noise culture through the early to late 90’s. In 1998, I was eleven years old and I would order a pizza with him and watch VHS tapes of Japanese noise and deathmatch bootlegs, as well as any other sonic and subcultural rarities that far outstripped my age to comprehend (notably the RRR “Journey Into Pain” compilation and various Vanilla Tapes videos). This widecast net of information formed an introduction to a reality that did not fall deaf on me, but it took many years later for me to reorient the specific freedoms of what this dense and cathartic sound culture had imparted on my life and would continue onward to.

What does this have to do with this selection of choice recordings from the Secret Boyfriend catalog for the enmossed label? For the uninitiated, Secret Boyfriend is the long running moniker of Ryan Martin, North Carolina musician and label proprietor of the Hot Releases imprint. For over a decade from this writing I have watched Secret Boyfriend, and Hot Releases by extension as a curatorial and archival effort, embodying the multiplanal capacity that noise loosely functions from as an umbrella ideology and formalist avenue for sound creation. For anecdotal purposes, from (before) 2006 until roughly 2023 the East Coast of the United States showcased a vibrant network of eclectic regional festivals that saw wide swaths of artists addressing and negotiating the notion of what qualified “noise” from a conceptual and ideological perspective. Some festivals honed in on particularities in aesthetics and tropes, and others had a kind of “catch-all” implementation that allowed for a salvation of the sort of alienated and singular artistry that was amassing throughout these territories. While clear guidelines had been set from regional predecessors as to how noise with a capital “N” should maneuver, Secret Boyfriend is emblematic in the spirit of fluidity that was either implicitly coupled to the notion of the genre, or grew to evolve towards or devolve from.

Within Secret Boyfriend performances, I have seen and admired a mirroring from a ravenous appreciator of this culture at large back towards itself. Typical of a Secret Boyfriend set is an interchangeable narrative arc wherein blistering feedback laden scrap metal improvisations are forayed into naive ambient or “pop” songs, or skipping CDs, or mixer feedback play, or delayed Roland 707 drum workouts all at once and in a unique hegemony. Secret Boyfriend's stylistic mastery of each endeavor is at once an homage to a history of loving listening and enacting, while a brave step into the realm of actualizing the unique fluidity of his own practice. In performance and the action of network engagement, Secret Boyfriend operates a survey of that which he sought to hear and that which he cultivates around his work. His operations are mirrors, and the project (alongside his other peers) is a reflection on the ethos of his time.

Conversely his recording practice narrows in on these moments and allows for a different kind of intimacy or alienation for the non live listener. This record of selected “pop songs” (let's call them that) is particularly poignant at a time when the culture Martin mirrors is at a strange crossroads with itself. The aforementioned festival networks necessarily change and shift. The onlookers become the artists, the artists find new horizons, and the spaces for these cycles fade into locales of a distant memory. It seems, from my perspective, that audiences currently yearn for a more bottlenecked experience, searching for some ontologically vetted manifestation of an idea, of a sound and less for an experience that functions in opposition to our collective banalities. This makes sense in the face of general global catastrophism that plagues us. We need certainty of what something is somewhere, don’t we? Noise as an idea has expanded and contracted to so many iterations of itself it is hard to tell what it even is, and it is particularly difficult to identify in the absence of solid network activations a moment to reflect on its own complexities and nuances. In the face of so much change, I argue that the language of noise culture at large has on one hand become increasingly didactic and predictable, and laughably inclusive and non linear on the other. Probably has always been this way, but now we are in the midst of a moment of extreme access and indexicality, which somehow cauterizes expansion and naivety and chance.

This record highlights the Secret Boyfriend that obscures didacticism by highlighting output that opens up for more challenging catharsis and emotive signal processing. It provides an entry to the materialism of a cultural field full of ecstatic complexity and beautiful inconsistency. In these muted moments Secret Boyfriend has given us over his career we have an argument for evolving languages that further challenge our notions of what is supposed to happen and how it is supposed to be presented. In his more song oriented expansiveness, we can punctuate the ability to think in new modalities. Listening to these recordings reminds me of the polarity of sitting in the record store as a kid and understanding that His Name Is Alive is on 4AD and (gasp!) timeSTEREO. This trite early impression that nothing is really as different as our imaginations might want them to be, and that we can do whatever we want mostly within the creative realms we work through is an important filter to look through Secret Boyfriend as a project and a vessel. If we can achieve abandon and vulnerability through our artistic endeavors, then we have a sound model for, maybe, new potentialities. If that’s too much projection, or just complete liberal bullshit, I am fine with that. Secret Boyfriend's oeuvre at best offers us moments of reprieve to ponder these complexities, or at least a moment to zone out on a drive through North Carolina Highway 54.

You have one pocket of life that you must do whatever you want to inside of. Secret Boyfriend does it affectionately, in a variety of forms, and always with deep sentimentality. These recordings are a wonderful set of songs to begin further investigation from. Thank you Ryan for allowing as many avenues as possible to continue a broad cultural exchange and conversation that intersect and refract while being the kind of artist that is brave enough to not phone in the effort.”

- Nick Klein , May 2024

Back in 2018, Argentinian producer Fernando Pulichino released ‘Search of Indigo’ on Leng, a shuffling slab of colourful, Balearic-adjacent dub disco featuring his own distinctive lead vocals and backing vocals from Luca Gasparini. Six years on, the track returns renewed and refreshed thanks to a string of new floor-friendly reworks by LTJ Xperience and Pulichino himself. Fernando kicks off the EP with his ‘AM Mix’, an inspired re-invention that re-frames the song as a hard-wired, acid-fired chugger – all restless, razor-sharp TB-303 lines, low-slung bass guitar and sparkling piano riffs. On the digital version of the EP Pulichino has also offered up his ‘PM Mix’, a deliciously Balearic disco dub rich in colourful synth sounds, elastic bass, flanged guitars and sun-bright piano licks. It's LTJ Xperience’s trio of remixes that lie at the heart of the EP though. The Italian producer, real name Luca Trevisi, initially made his name as a downtempo and nu-jazz producer before perfecting a trademark style of chugging, slow-motion hedonism that draws influence from both deep house and nu-disco. His main Remix foregrounds many of these trademark elements, in the process delivering a bongo-rich chugger laden with delayheavy bass guitar sounds, head-nodding drums, heady guitar loops and echoing vocal snippets. On the Dirty Mix, Trevisi reaches for tight, short TB-303 ‘acid’ loops, a more sparse and heavy rhythm track offering a more heads-down, dubbed-out affair that should delight those who love late night and early morning hypnotism with flashes of wide-eyed sonic bliss. Then, to round things off, Trevisi delivers a heady, atmospheric and spaced-out Dub full of jazz guitar licks, bubbling electronics, vocal snippets and effects-laden bass. It’s a winning combination.

Steven Wilson is no stranger to composing music that appears to counter everything else before it in his catalogue. Bass Communion, his long running solo electronic project, is no exception to this perverse streak that apparently likes to turn all expectations upside down. The Itself of Itself, Bass Communion's first album for 12 years, skilfully pays testament to this. Long established as a purveyor of mostly atmospheric or ambient textures, the seven cuts that represent The Itself of Itself take detours from this approach in order draw as much from musique concrete, noise music, abstract electronics and uneasy listening. Whilst still rippled with the same shades of light and dark that can be found throughout all of Bass Communion's work, The Itself of Itself reveals a fascination with analogue sounds and, more importantly perhaps, 'unwanted' analogue artefacts like tape hiss, wow and flutter, static noise, and sonic break-up, taking the music into a space at once different yet familiar. 'Apparition 3' presents a stark nod to Wilson's established command of shifting textures steeped in penumbral gauze, while 'Bruise' is akin to a space probe adrift and headed towards a white dwarf as all communication is reduced to a disturbing and indecipherable crackle. Between the other five cuts we witness fragmented, garbled and buried voices, vast vacillating banks of grainy hum, what sounds like the dying gasps of an oboe, spooky swirls from an indiscernible source, swathes of tape hiss, moody drones, and spiralling slivers of noise. Meanwhile on the title track, a mellotron flute rusts and collapses in on itself in a way that renders it the very antithesis of the one deployed on 'Strawberry Fields Forever'. Everything adds up to a dynamic listening experience where unease, dread and comparatively claustrophobic torrents of sound make (un)natural bedfellows to moments of enchantment and serenity. Above all, The Itself of Itself sees Steven Wilson cutting his teeth on an album that's at once cinematic and moody whilst proving him to be a master in electronic music craftsmanship. It's an album that might surprise some of those who have thus far been paying attention to his work as Bass Communion, but setting out to please everyone was never part of his raison d'etre. The Itself of Itself catches Bass Communion spreading its weatherbeaten wings to embrace new strategies and a strong desire to journey elsewhere. Arriving in a wonderful Carl Glover designed deluxe cover also comprising a 24pp. booklet of his photographs and an obi strip, this version of The Itself of Itself arrives in December on Lumberton Trading Company as a 2LP pressed in an initial run of 1000 copies.

Musikalisch gesehen ist „Shadowreaper“ der logische Nachfolger von „The Black Stream“ und legt direkt mit ‚Into The Evergrey‘ los, das mit
geschmackvollen Akustikgitarren beginnt, um dann in ein treibendes Monster überzugehen. Das folgende ‚The Horrors Of Endlessness‘ wirkt wie eine
unerbittliche Warnung vor der Idee der Ewigkeit. Während NIGHT IN GALES das Tempo insgesamt recht weit oben halten, schaffen sie es auch, den
Fuß vom Gaspedal zu nehmen, um z.B. in ‚The Nihilist Delta‘ sanfte Momente durch all die anhaltende Dunkelheit hindurchscheinen zu lassen.
Während ‚Spirals‘ einen unwiderstehlichen Groove erzeugt, ist es ‚Sculptures And Defleshed‘, welches alle Stärken der Band in perfekter Manier
bündelt. Das abschließende ‚Walk Of Infinity‘ lässt den Hörer in völliger Dunkelheit zurück - kein Licht in Sicht.
Und doch sind bei „Shadowreaper“ einige Dinge anders. Nachdem sie vier Alben in Folge mit Dan Swanö gemacht haben, wurde die Produktion dieses
Mal Fredrik Nordström anvertraut, dem Mann, der in den Neunzigern in seinem berüchtigten Studio Fredman die großen prägenden Klassiker des
Genres geschaffen hat: „Slaughter Of The Soul“ (AT THE GATES), „The Jester Race“, „Whoracle“ (IN FLAMES) und natürlich „The Gallery“ (DARK
TRANQUILLITY). Das Endergebnis klingt für NIGHT IN GALE-Verhältnisse extrem brachial sowie ungeschliffen und vermittelt das so sehr begehrte
‚Live-Feeling‘. Es ist fast so, als würde man die Tür zum Proberaum oder zur Konzerthalle öffnen und sich direkt dem Geschehen und der riesigen
Soundwand aussetzen.
TERRITORY: Deutschland, Österreich, Belgien, Schweiz, Tschechische Republik, Frankreich, England, Italien, Irland, Niederlande, Polen

Lara Sarkissian’s long-awaited debut full-length, ‘Remnants’ is an ornate patchwork of ancient and modern sonic shapes that uses the vernacular of electronic music to reformulate Armenian traditions and memories. Taking digitally modeled instruments (such as the kanun, a large zither, and the duduk, an ancient double reed woodwind instrument), vocals, davul and dhol drums, tenor saxophone (from acclaimed Paris-based player Adrien Soleiman) and myriad electronic elements and techniques, Sarkissian tangles the old and the new, creating an immersive, narrative-driven experience that’s powered by history, mythology and her own familial connection to the West Asian landscape. It’s an album that’s best absorbed like a film; only multiple encounters can reveal its layered themes and references to industrial music, noise, various club styles, ambient and traditional folk.

Born and raised in San Francisco and currently based in Los Angeles, Sarkissian has developed her unique approach to composition over years of relentless experimentation across various disciplines. Her interest in music production initially stemmed from her filmmaking and video editing work, when she began to sculpt her own sound collages and scores to accompany the visuals. Since then, she’s constantly blurred the boundary between dance and experimental music, DJing around the world, producing AV installations and scoring film and video projects that have been exhibited in Berlin’s Gropius Bau, Montréal’s Musée d’art contemporain, the Music Center Los Angeles and other prestigious institutions, and releasing music with labels such as Tresor, Knekelhuis, All Centre, Silva Electronics and CLUB CHAI, the label and event series she co-founded. In recent years, she’s also been able to advance the theory behind her art, publishing a conversation with ethnomusicologist Sylvia Alajaji in the Journal of the Society of Armenian Studies in 2021, and unveiling her methodology in Norient’s ‘This Track Contains Politics – The Culture of Sampling in Experimental Electronica’ a year later.

‘Remnants’ is a new stage in Sarkissian’s evolution as an artist; not only is it her first proper album, but it’s the inaugural release on her new platform btwn Earth+Sky. She sees the label as a place to encourage collaborations between musicians and producers and prioritize sound in visual arts realms, and ‘Remnants’ is the ideal proof of concept. It opens with ‘Heaven, or Paradise; and Hell’, a track that’s inspired by the layout of the Armenian sharakan (or hymn) ‘Aravot Luso’. Sarkissian imagines the original piece’s harmonies and melodies as parts of a dreamy electronic opera, using digital kanun sounds to punctuate her woozy, evocative synths. Soleimen joins on tenor sax in the third act, while Sarkissian repeats the chant and Jace Akira adds ghostly traces of electric guitar and bass. And on the rousing ‘Our Dead Can’t Rest (Old Jugha Flute Dance)’, Sarkissian chops urgent davul and dhol drum rhythms with spine-chilling shvi woodwind sounds lifted from a documentary about Old Jugha. The title is a reference to the moving of graves by Armenian families; the area initially housed over 10,000 elaborately carved khachkars (cross stones), one of which is pictured on the album’s cover, provided by historian Argam Aivazian’s archive.

On ‘Miracle’, Sarkissian samples atmospheres from the post-Soviet Armenian comedy film ‘Կիսանդրի’ (Kisandri). She takes this opportunity to lighten the mood a little, powdering her smudged samples with tightly edited breaks and bass thumps. It’s not until the album’s middle section that the duduk, perhaps Armenia’s best-known instrument, makes its appearance. Its familiar reedy tones, popularized by Djivan Gasparyan on his many Hollywood soundtrack appearances, emerge on ‘Unraveling (Interlude)’, weaving through the acidic ‘Zephyr’ and ‘Far from the eye far from the Heart’, a post-punk inspired stomper. Sarkissian mutates the instrument almost beyond recognition, pitching and layering it into a voice-like wail that creeps between her woody, dancefloor-primed percussion on the former, and turning it into a gentle, ghostly moan on the latter. And she brings ‘Remnants’ to a close with two of her most cryptic tracks, marrying digital kanun strings with Soleiman’s resonant tenor hums on ‘What Solace Can I Give’, and looping the same saxophone sounds until they dissolve into the air on the beatless closer ‘…nothing matters more than touching you although i haven’t touched you yet’.

It’s an album that ties up Sarkissian’s various interests and experiences, finding a romantic, poetic glimmer of light in history’s darkness. But most of all, ‘Remnants’ is about the optimism of starting anew, and rebuilding a life from the pieces of everything that’s been left behind.

Continuing our quest to get all of the classic early AMT albums released on vinyl, we turn to 2006’s ‘Starless And Bible Black Sabbath’, and with the help of Makoto Kawabata’s studio wizardry, we’ve made it possible.

This latest instalment in the ‘Acid Mothers Temple Vinyl Archives - First Time On Vinyl’ series (as with the three previous SOLD OUT releases in the series) have all been meticulously put together with the help of Makoto Kawabata with the original CD artwork recreated for these vinyl editions from archive photos stored in the vaults at the Acid Mothers Temple in Osaka, Japan and the original audio remastered by James Plotkin.

Here’s what "Brainwashed" had to say upon it’s original CD only release back in 2006 …

“The title track is the meat of the beast, beginning with a minute of booms and gongs reminiscent of a thunderstorm before launching into some slow, heavy Sabbath-esque riffs. Squealing guitar and synth effects accompany the vocals of bassist Tabata Mitsuru, whose voice captures some of the sound and feeling of Ozzy's more than it does the melody. The pace is slower than most AMT fare, but things speed up considerably around the eight and a half minute mark. The group convincingly imitates the Sabbath guitar sound here and the rhythm section is particularly tight, giving listeners something on which to hang their ears or even providing them with a chance to gasp for air during Makoto's guitar explorations. Around the sixteen minute mark, everything comes to a wailing halt before the band returns to the dirge-like tempo that started the song. This pattern continues for the duration of the piece, until a couple of minutes before the ending, when the group makes a smooth transition to acoustic guitar and processed vocals to cool down.

Clocking in at nearly thirty-five minutes, the length alone may tax some listeners. However, the second track, "Woman From A Hell, "provides relief, which with a running time of six minutes is uncommon in the Acid Mothers canon for its brevity. This one condenses many of the ideas of the title track, and accomplishes much of the same evocation of Sabbath, but with the vocals in a more prominent role. The disc comes full circle, ending with thunderstorm sounds much like theones which started the album. Though the title track could have been shortened and perhaps an additional track included, this album remain some of the group's more accessible releases in some time and should please fans old and new alike.

According to the group's website, Makoto is reviving the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. line-up after a year of recording and touring with the Cosmic Inferno. This is a shame of sorts, since the Cosmic Inferno infused a much-needed vitality to the group that it had lacked since the departure of vocalist Cotton Casino. Yet the reformed Melting Paraiso U.F.O. has the potential to be even better since, if anything, Makoto seems to be the Mother of Reinvention.”

Acid Mothers Temple & The Cosmic Inferno are: Tabata Mitsuru - Bass, Vocal, Maratab - Hiroshi Higashi - Synthesizer, Dancin' King - Shimura Koji - Drums, Latino Cool - Okano Futoshi - Drums, God Speed - Makoto Kawabata - Guitars, Speed Guru

Am 19. November 1984 wurde „Unter falscher Flagge“, das zweite Album der Toten Hosen, veröffentlicht. Um diesen 40. Geburtstag gebührend zu feiern, erscheint am 15.11.2024 „Unter falscher Flagge 1984 – 2024: Die 40 Jahre-Jubiläumsedition“ in opulenter Ausstattung mit 16 Bonustracks, drei davon bislang unveröffentlicht!

Nachdem die Band mit ihrer gerade mal ein Jahr zuvor rausgekommenen Debüt-LP 1983 in erster Linie in der Punkszenen für Aufsehen sorgte, wurde die zweite Scheibe auch erstmals von der sich seriös gebenden Musikpresse wahrgenommen. Für viele, die gehofft hatten, dass sich der Spuk mit der Düsseldorfer Radautruppe schnell wieder von selbst erledigen würde, gab es ein bitteres Erwachen. Die Hosen hatten hörbar die immer noch rudimentären Kenntnisse ihrer Instrumente erweitert, kaschierten das mit aggressiver Spielfreude und deutlich mehr durchgetretenem Gaspedal als noch auf dem Erstlingswerk.

Dadurch und unzählige wilde Konzerte in immer voller werdenden Clubs zementierten sie allmählich ihren Ruf als chaotische aber ernstzunehmende Band.

„Unter falscher Flagge 1984 – 2024: Die 40 Jahre-Jubiläumsedition“ erscheint in einer aufwendigen, auf 7.000 Exemplare limitierten und nummerierten Auflage. Das Hardcover-Gatefold-Deluxe-Book enthält das Album als 180g-Vinylschallplatte und CD sowie eine Bonus-CD mit 16 Bonustracks, die rund um die Original-Veröffentlichung auf Singles, Maxis und diversen Demos erschienen. Die Demoversionen von „Shake Hands“, „Betrunken im Dienst“ und „Der Mord an Vicky Morgan“ wurden erstmals aus den Untiefen des DTH-Archives exklusiv für diese Jubiläums-Edition ausgegraben!

Das aufwendig gestaltete Booklet im LP-Format enthält auf satten 32 Seiten eine Vielzahl bislang unveröffentlichter Fotos, historisch wertvoller Presseartikel und weitere Schmuckstücke aus der Sammlung der beteiligten Musiker. Darüber hinaus steht die Band Kolja Podkowik, einem der weltweit renommiertesten Tote Hosen-Sachverständigen, in einem langen, intensiven und ungeschminkten Interview Rede und Antwort über die Geschehnisse rund um den langsamen Aufstieg der fünf Düsseldorfer Glücksritter.

CD1
1. Spiel mir das Lied vom Tod
2. Liebesspieler
3. Letzte Wache
4. Der Abt von Andex
5. Der Mord an Vicky Morgan
6. Im Hafen ist Endstation
7. Unter falscher Flagge
8. Sekt oder Selters
9. Der Schandfleck
10. Betrunken im Dienst
11. Shake Hands
12. Warten auf Dich
13. Im Hafen ist Endstation 2

CD2
1. Spiel mir das Lied vom Tod
2. Es ist vorbei
3. Till To The Bitter End
4. Seafever
5. Hofgarten
6. Hip Hop Bommi Bop
7. Faust in der Tasche
8. Head Over Heels
9. La Historia Del Pescador Pepe
10. Schöne Bescherung
11. Vom Surfen und vom Saufen
12. Der Schandfleck - Demo
13. Unter falscher Flagge - Demo
14. Shake Hands - Demo
15. Betrunken im Dienst - Demo
16. Der Mord an Vicky Morgan - Demo

Area Silenzio is eat-girls" debut record and it is both haunted and haunting. For the past four years, the French trio have been crafting their songs into little self-contained worlds with the patience of entomologists, taking them out all over the country and Europe to confront them with the wilderness of a live audience. The ten resulting tracks are a collection of electronic madrigals, groove-driven songs played on a mischievous multi-speed Victrola, ranging from languid dub drips to full-on drum machine cavalcades. Their live performances have that same ghostly, ephemeral quality. There is something other-worldy about the three of them, a suggestion of telepathy, their three voices blending together or going their separate ways like a flock of starlings. They secured opening slots with artists as different as Thalia Zedek, Exek and The Young Gods, just to name a few. It is the elusive essence of their music that allows them to feel at ease pretty much anywhere they find themselves: part no-wave disco rhythms, part post-punk throbbing basses, folk tunes and synthesizers in equal measures, with a perpetual attention to hooks and melodies. The album was self-recorded, a necessary measure to protect the delicate nature of the inner landscapes painted by the band. In this case "delicate" does not mean "soft" by any means: the industrial disco inferno of "A Kin", the ritualistic kraut stampede of "Para Los Pies Cansados" and the bubbly post-funk rhythms of "Trauschaft" will leave you gasping for air once you come out on the other side. "On a Crooked Swing", the opener, is all arpeggiated bass and stumbling kicks. "Unison" will dip you into a hallucinatory river where nothing is what it seems to be and rescue you at the very last second. "Canine", the first single off the record, will gently but firmly reach for your jugular with its vulpine Farfisa and deceptively nonchalant drum beat. The vocal polyphonies on "3 Omens" sound like a field recording of traditional music from a tiny country that has yet to be discovered. eat-girls exist on a slightly different plane from ours, where everything is teeming with secrets and hidden life. Area Silenzio is a precious polaroid shot from that world, or, as Tom Verlaine would have it, "a souvenir from a dream".

Area Silenzio is eat-girls" debut record and it is both haunted and haunting. For the past four years, the French trio have been crafting their songs into little self-contained worlds with the patience of entomologists, taking them out all over the country and Europe to confront them with the wilderness of a live audience. The ten resulting tracks are a collection of electronic madrigals, groove-driven songs played on a mischievous multi-speed Victrola, ranging from languid dub drips to full-on drum machine cavalcades. Their live performances have that same ghostly, ephemeral quality. There is something other-worldy about the three of them, a suggestion of telepathy, their three voices blending together or going their separate ways like a flock of starlings. They secured opening slots with artists as different as Thalia Zedek, Exek and The Young Gods, just to name a few. It is the elusive essence of their music that allows them to feel at ease pretty much anywhere they find themselves: part no-wave disco rhythms, part post-punk throbbing basses, folk tunes and synthesizers in equal measures, with a perpetual attention to hooks and melodies. The album was self-recorded, a necessary measure to protect the delicate nature of the inner landscapes painted by the band. In this case "delicate" does not mean "soft" by any means: the industrial disco inferno of "A Kin", the ritualistic kraut stampede of "Para Los Pies Cansados" and the bubbly post-funk rhythms of "Trauschaft" will leave you gasping for air once you come out on the other side. "On a Crooked Swing", the opener, is all arpeggiated bass and stumbling kicks. "Unison" will dip you into a hallucinatory river where nothing is what it seems to be and rescue you at the very last second. "Canine", the first single off the record, will gently but firmly reach for your jugular with its vulpine Farfisa and deceptively nonchalant drum beat. The vocal polyphonies on "3 Omens" sound like a field recording of traditional music from a tiny country that has yet to be discovered. eat-girls exist on a slightly different plane from ours, where everything is teeming with secrets and hidden life. Area Silenzio is a precious polaroid shot from that world, or, as Tom Verlaine would have it, "a souvenir from a dream".

The beats on Capital Punishment, from RZA, Rockwilder, Domingo, and other A-list maestros, are grimy, radio- friendly, yet low-ley cutting-edge, affirming its status as an undisputed classic. Big Pun was as much a visionary — conceptualizing every song — as a consummate pro in the booth. Citing Picasso and Baby Jesus while purporting to “twist your temples into pretzels,” Pun made Minute Rice out of multi-syllables. There’s no way to describe Pun’s febrile liberties with the king’s English. He doesn’t really breathe; when he does, it’s a sharp gasp for air that almost mimics his Ginsu-like wordplay. Pun’s habit of sucking wind before spitting an ill verse mimics the effect of a lit grenade about to land and decimate entire sections of the population. If Pun’s dense rhymes invoke mixed metaphors, that’s likely because he’s an impossible amalgam of wanton wooer and lyrical hitman, an overweight lover with a murderous mouthpiece.

"Spell Shock" ist die fulminante Rückkehr der Satanic Speed Metal-Beschwörer und Provokateure aus Portland, BEWITCHER. Im Verlauf eines Jahrzehnts, während dessen sie musikalische Dunkelheit manifestiert und die von Motörhead und Venom gelegten Grundlagen mutwillig mißbrauchten, haben BEWITCHER bewiesen, dass sie zu Recht zu den meistbeachteten Bands des Undergrounds gehören und mit Bands wie Cavalera, Municipal Waste und Creeping Death (um nur einige zu nennen) den Asphalt aufgewühlt haben. Auf "Spell Shock" geht das Trio nicht nur bei Tracks wie dem bombastischen Opener "Starfire Maelstrom" zurück zum Gaspedal, sondern schwelgt auch im Rock mit "Out Against the Law" oder wird beim elegischen "We Die In Dust" liturgisch. Diesmal haben BEWITCHER niemand Geringeren als den legendären Gitarristen, Songwriter und Metal-Punk-Fanatiker Lars Frederiksen (Rancid, Old Firm Casuals) engagiert, um ihr Hell-and-Back-Chaos zu beschwören, und das Ergebnis ist absolut unheilig. Selten klangen Hellfire so gut. "Spell Shock" ist erhältlich als: Standard CD Jewelcase, schwarze 180g LP im Klappcover, Digitales Album.

Coke Bottle Green & Transparent Orange Vinyl. This soundtrack features 54 tracks from the game "Headbangers - Battle of the Dancers", the latest game mode in "Headbangers: Rhythm Royale". This exceptionally diverse album was entirely composed and performed by Charles Bardin and Valentin Ducloux, with additional vocals by Priscilla Cucciniello on several tracks. Get ready to ruffle your feathers to the rhythm of all these pigeon-themed songs! Composer Charles Bardin: "With Battle of the Dancers, we wanted to create the most varied soundtrack in the history of video games. This was our intention from the very beginning. The 54 tracks on this album draw their inspiration from a wide range of musical styles: rock, funk, electro, pop, folk, reggae, punk and many more. We conceived this soundtrack as a tribute to music in all its diversity, all combined with silly lyrics about our pigeon friends."

Young Marble Giants' "Colossal Youth" has mystified and beguiled audiences since its 1980 release. Seen by primary songwriter Stuart Moxham as "a last gasp" at making a record, Stuart insisted the one-off 7" deal offered by Rough Trade be altered to allow an entire album . . . that paid off when with a big seller which produces cover versions even from bands whose members were a decade or two away from being born on the album's release. When YMG disbanded, Stuart was at a loss; he'd never envisioned a follow-up. A series of experimental recordings made with pal Phil Legg (Essential Logic) and supported by other YMG members, musicians from This Heat and Swell Maps, old Cardiffian pals, and new friends like Vivien Goldman resulted in an album, "Embrace The Herd", as The Gist. Released just before Rough Trade made bold moves toward pop charts with Scritti Politti, The Smiths and others, the album was odd for its time, but has since taken on the lustre of genius. Years of silence followed, thereafter intermittently broken by the odd release from small labels. Stuart delved into family life, though he never stopped writing and recording. In more recent years, two retrospective compilation of lost recordings by The Gist have been released, as well as a superb collaboration with French arranger Louis Philippe, "The Devil Laughs". "Fabstract" is the final gathering of Stuart's lost recordings. Compiling long-lost YMG-era tracks with the recent brilliance of "Crow, Crow" and "Suburban Monochrome", through bits of whimsy and vastly alternate versions of fan faves, this diverse album shouldn't work . . . but it does, telling a satisfying story of an underrated talent whose mistake was following his muse, not the charts. This album precedes a new recording, years in the making, produced by Dave Trumfio, which promises to be Stuart's most complete - and original - work since "Colossal Youth". Tracks:

This is the first release from "Wenha", the successor label of "Tribe", which was established by Wendel Harrison in the 70's. This album is full of spirituality and blackness, and it retains the philosophy of "Tribe", but it also incorporates the smooth feeling of the early 80's. This is the first release from "Wenha", the successor label of "Tribe". This is the first release from Wendel Harrison's "Wenha" label, the successor to "Tribe" and a collector's item that has always fetched high prices for its original version, but it has been highly acclaimed not only for its rarity but also for its content, which has made many experts in the industry gasp in delight. This is a superb gem that has made many pundits roar not only in terms of rarity but also in terms of content! The players on the side include Phil Ranelin (Trombone), Harold McKinney (Keyboards), Roy Brooks (Percussion), and many other Detroit heavyweights, including Phil Ranelin (Trombone), who founded the Tribe together. The album starts with "Take Time Out" (A1) featuring soulful vocals, followed by the spiritual jazz "Pink Snowballs And Violet Skies" (A3) with its exhilarating bellow, and then the jet-black groove-filled jazz funk number "Where Am I?" (B1) is a truly historical document that beautifully captures the transition from the '70s to the '80s!
For this reissue, the 7inch "No Turnin' Back / Rocket Love" released at the same time on "Wenha" has been added to VINYL as a BONUS DISC, and a bonus track "Patrina's Dance" (B3) has been added to the LP. This is the latest reissue of the album in a completely new guise!








[h] C1. No Turnin' Back [7-inch]
[i] D1. Rocket Love [7-inch]

Jazz-infused prog rock act Catapilla began in London in 1970, with saxophonists Robert Calvert (who later worked with Daevid Allen in various Gong spin-off projects) and Hugh Eaglestone, bassist Dave Taylor (of chart-topping pop act Edison Lighthouse, and later active in hard-rock group, Liar), along with drummer Malcolm Frith, guitarist Graham Wilson and clarinet player/flautist, Thierry Rheinhardt; original vocalist ‘Lady’ Jo Meek quit early (to work with the keyboardist, poet and science fiction author, Julian Jay Savarin) and was duly replaced by her sister, Anna, whose gutsy gasps gave the band its noteworthy difference, along with the woodwinds and horns. Former Millionaires’ bassist Cliff Cooper (who had worked with producer Joe Meek before founding Orange Amplifiers), brought Catapilla to the attention of Black Sabbath’s manager, Patrick Meehan, who swiftly got them a contract with Vertigo, Philips’ prog subsidiary; this self-titled debut has four freaky tracks, including the side-long closer, “Embryonic Fusion.”

‘EVERYTHING IS HERE’ is a journey through space and time, inspired by the more rarefied aspects of prog rock and the wistful side of psychedelia.


Fusing these influences with the accessibility of French electronic and the groove of R&B and disco, this album depicts the sweet dizziness of contemplation. Nostalgic, yet determined and modern in it’s genre blending, the first album of Kartell truly reveals what’s been underlining in his previous EP.

Taking influences in the space and dream pop aesthetic, the musical approach of the album embraces the 60’s and 70’s fascination for outer space, exotic locations, technologies and science fiction which was on the edge of becoming reality.

Nebulous textures and otherworldly sounds characteristic of space rock are infused throughout the record, while keeping a focus on making catchy songs, leaning on a minor-key groove and a pop yearning. It’s also a challenge and an artistic proposition to gather a wide range of genres to tell a story. Densely produced and cinematic, the album draws a truly living landscape where live bass, drums and guitars hold the line, evolving around hazy effects and synthesizer layers.

‘EVERYTHING IS HERE’ is a journey through space and time, inspired by the more rarefied aspects of prog rock and the wistful side of psychedelia.


Fusing these influences with the accessibility of French electronic and the groove of R&B and disco, this album depicts the sweet dizziness of contemplation. Nostalgic, yet determined and modern in it’s genre blending, the first album of Kartell truly reveals what’s been underlining in his previous EP.

Taking influences in the space and dream pop aesthetic, the musical approach of the album embraces the 60’s and 70’s fascination for outer space, exotic locations, technologies and science fiction which was on the edge of becoming reality.

Nebulous textures and otherworldly sounds characteristic of space rock are infused throughout the record, while keeping a focus on making catchy songs, leaning on a minor-key groove and a pop yearning. It’s also a challenge and an artistic proposition to gather a wide range of genres to tell a story. Densely produced and cinematic, the album draws a truly living landscape where live bass, drums and guitars hold the line, evolving around hazy effects and synthesizer layers.

Gentle Ben and His Sensitive Side is now Gentle Ben and His Shimmering Hands: a new line-up means a new album! Here's the new line-up: Ben Corbett (aka Gentle Ben, vox in SixFtHick), Tony Giacca (bass in SixFtHick, guitars in GB&HSS), Dan Baebbler (guitars in SixFHick, bass in GB&HSS) and Jhindu-Pedro Lawrie (drums). "Brut" is how the album is titled and brut it is! The band creates create music of a rare and savage beauty. Soaring highs, crunching lows and in between only the sound of grown men crying into their beers and young lesbians gasping for air.

Ollie Spalding and Jack Watts were friends first, and songwriting partners second, and this quality sets them apart. They're marked by that peculiar alchemy when two voices become one, a special sense of human connection wrought through harmony and emboldened with experience.

New album 'Redsetter' is their coming- of- age moment - gilded indie- folk with an optimistic sense of maturity, it dares to look towards the light. "We had literally no idea what was gonna happen!" Ollie gasps when looking back on the pair's self-titled debut album. Sculpted over the pandemic and released on Real Kind Records - the boutique Communion imprint chaired by Lucy Rose - the record displayed their core values. "The emotion has to be right," says Oliver.

"When we record songs, we want to stay true to the emotion - as though those songs had just been written seconds before they were recorded." The success of their debut brought fresh experiences - writing with Flyte, collaborating with everyone from Matthew & The Atlas and Victoria Canal to Talos and Olafur Arnalds - but also new challenges.

New LP 'Redsetter' takes them from their base in Brighton to a remote part of Texas (and back again); it's a record that's driven by a special kind of determination, dealing with intimate bonds, familial connections, and a quiet sense of renewal. Looking for perfect moments within our imperfect lives, Memorial have displayed extraordinary sense of character to drive themselves forwards. "We've let go of trying to make everything sound perfect," says Jack. "Being vulnerable in that way means that the end product is truer to you than it ever could be. There's a realness to it." Memorial have taken true ownership of their lives, pushing through enormous challenges to unlock new aspects of their artistry, and actualise their dreams.

London-based four-piece Adult Jazz announce their first full-length album in a decade, So Sorry So Slow, out 26 April 2024 via Spare Thought. Alongside the announcement comes lovesick new single ‘Suffer One’ featuring Owen Pallett, a cautious excavation of self and sexuality, clambering across a gorgeously shapeshifting, filmic five-minutes.

Containing some of the band’s most abrasive but gentle, beautiful and melismatic work to date, So Sorry So Slow has many defining characteristics: romance, panic, devotion and remorse, threaded together by an intentionally laser-focused love. It’s deeply personal, bruised and candid in its expressions of tenderness, and deeply pained in its concurrent reflections of ecological regret. Across its hour-long runtime, a delicate, frenetic energy and glacial heaviness coexist, the band pitting those paces against one another. In their richly experimental timbre, dancing strings and fluttering falsettos prang against a bed of brass drones like a wounded bird.

“We started writing in 2017 and began recording in 2018,” says vocalist Harry Burgess. “We genuinely thought it might be finished in 2018! But things kept developing and, having resolutely not struck while the iron was hot, there was no real external push to rush things after that, so we just kept letting things shift and unfold until it felt right. Listening back to my voice notes it’s nice to notice that there are fragments of ideas from the whole period 2017-2023 which have shaped the record.”

Recorded in bursts at studios across London and in the band members’ flats, at Konk, on the Isle of Wight and in Sussex, So Sorry is unambiguous in its evolution. Sonically, there are sparks of the arrhythmic brightness that afforded the band’s critically acclaimed debut album Gist Is its cult adoration, for fans of Arthur Russell and Meredith Monk, but with a blossoming, melancholic darkness often overhead. Piano sprees and luscious string sections appear like low-hanging stars on a night-time drive, whilst plunging vocal distortions and humming brass loops resurrect heavy limbs in a bad dream.

“I usually have objects as kind of totems for ideas,” explains Burgess. “The album initially started out to do with performance… the totem was a head mic, one of the subtle skin-tone ones, discreet on the forehead of a West End star. A number of the first songs in their original forms were almost musical theatre piano ballads. I think that was really a device to write about my life as the ‘main character’ (pre internet-speak reframing): regrets about romance, relationships - unsustainable relationships with the self and others.”

“However, once we started writing, the ideas about unsustainable personal relationships, loving unevenly and heartbreak conflated with a more expressly ecological regret. Like contending with big feelings of loss, endings, beauty, desolation, and with how much joy the earth contains in it. Feeling so much gratitude bound up in waves of sadness. Maybe witnessing a slow-motion goodbye to all that, or its last gasps. I love the earth and the life it supports so much. I love how ecosystems fit together - even the brutal stuff. It may be basic to say, but now is the time to be laser focused on that love. I was thinking about human centrality on earth, us as the ‘main character’, the way that is served by faith and romanticism, and the subsequent disingenuous understandings of our position in the ecosystem, as only stewards somehow, rather than subjects. The totems at this point: a herald’s horn, lorry inner tubes, archaeological tools. I guess from doom, industry, history respectively.”

“Now I would say the record is about gripping. Totems being: crampons, rope, drips, desalination equipment, accruing various survival tech. I think gripping sums up both of the threads. There’s the emotionally correct clinging to the earth that is the substrate of everything we value, or the delusional clinging to our imagined dominant position. But also the practical, technological aspects of creating a sustainable relationship, of remaining here. Then I think of romance again.”

So Sorry So Slow comes out 26th April 2024 on Spare Thought, mixed by Fabian Prynn at 4AD Studios and mastered by Alex Wharton at Abbey Road.

Adult Jazz is Harry Burgess, Tim Slater, Steven Wells and Tom Howe.

Lost in the soot and fall out from Youngstown, Ohio's infamous Black Monday steel industry collapse was Tony March's cross-generational Tammy label. From its early days as a doo wop powerhouse to their last gasps chasing disco hits, Tammy unintentionally documented Youngstown's small but prolific Black music scene. This single LP surveys the label's best R&B, soul, funk, and disco, with 13 tracks from Ice Cold Love, Lynn Minor, J.C. & the Soul Angels, The Snapshots, Iron Knowledge, Roy Jefferson, and Steel City Band. Housed in a deluxe tip-on jacket, with a booklet crammed full of notes and ephemera, The Tammy Label continues Numero's 20 year tradition of preserving regional Ohio music.

Sheer Magic Transparent Silver Glitter Colored Vinyl. Lost in the soot and fall out from Youngstown, Ohio's infamous Black Monday steel industry collapse was Tony March's cross-generational Tammy label. From its early days as a doo wop powerhouse to their last gasps chasing disco hits, Tammy unintentionally documented Youngstown's small but prolific Black music scene. This single LP surveys the label's best R&B, soul, funk, and disco, with 13 tracks from Ice Cold Love, Lynn Minor, J.C. & the Soul Angels, The Snapshots, Iron Knowledge, Roy Jefferson, and Steel City Band. Housed in a deluxe tip-on jacket, with a booklet crammed full of notes and ephemera, The Tammy Label continues Numero's 20 year tradition of preserving regional Ohio music.

Lips & Rhythm sails into Summer 2024 with a fresh EP from Residentes Balearicos.

The Ibiza-based duo of Alessandro Doretto and Luca Averna have been turning out sun-soaked dance music for several years now from their studio in the islands.

The title track 'Paraiso' is a timeless tune with just the right blend of slowed down Acid and Flamenco guitar + claps.

'Polvo Mineral' is a bit mysterious with ethereal pads, big drum fills and chanting.

'I Wanna Dance' harkens back to the beautiful Italian Dream House era from the early 90s with lush chimes and driving synth lines over pitched down vocals and uplifting backing harmonies.

The remix of 'Paraiso' is from Brazil-born, New York formed, Gaspar Muniz, who reworks the title track into a breaky electro number fit for a late night in Rio De Janeiro.

A summer record that's been dance-floor tested!

Sophisticated atmospheres to raw dance floor beats, Ema Remedi give us her own unique style with 2 groovy tracks. Legendary Steve O Sullivan, Mosaic Records owner, brings us one amazing reinterpretation, an impressive magical piece. Vinyl only.

Full of Hell Coagulated Bliss bio Full of Hell burst forth with incredible force from the small, dagger-shaped city of Ocean City, Maryland, 15 years ago. Over five full-lengths, five collaborative full-lengths, and countless splits, EPs, singles, and noise compilations, they’ve evolved at extraordinary speed, their music becoming more complicated and technical without ever slowing down or losing its soul. Everything on a Full of Hell album feels like a blur: smears of guitar, harsh noise shaken like gravel in a bag, singer Dylan Walker’s snarl and bite carrying him into outer space or into the core of the earth. They’re coiled, interlocking, impossible to penetrate, and they move with alarming speed. They have now reached terminal velocity. Having created their own context, they’re now able to walk around within it, to survey its terrain, to visit far corners and see who’s nearby. Coagulated Bliss sounds like Full of Hell, but it’s nothing like any Full of Hell record that’s come before it. These songs are trimmer, less freighted with anxiety, more interested in opening up than speeding away. Its bile is sometimes funneled into traditional song structures. It never shies away from the extreme harsh noise, unrelenting spirit, and pitch-black sadness of previous Full of Hell records; if anything, the leanness of these songs makes them feel even heavier. Nevertheless, there are tracks here you might find yourself whistling hours after listening. It’s an extraordinary and unexpected evolution in sound for a band who made their name on rapid metamorphosis, and it’s the logical endpoint of everything Full of Hell has covered so far..

Canadian performer and composer Sarah Belle Reid’s 2021 acclaimed album, first time on vinyl, expanded with two new incredible songs, remastered featuring new artwork. From distant ocean song to the clang and howl of a murky forgotten memory, MASS is a dreamlike collage of shrill shrieks, gasps, corroded brass choirs, and melting modular synth soundscapes, all heard through a mist of hiss and noise. Fused with equal parts spastic improvisation, shrouded ritual, and meticulous arrangement, it presents a sonic topography at once tongue-in-cheek, sensitive, and nightmarish. With discordant chorales and angular trumpet improvisations churning in an ever-evolving wash of whispers and howls, MASS is a collection of three hazy, harsh, and frightful sound worlds. With tracks meandering between aggressive rhythms, eerie ambiances, and abrasive cut-up electronic textures, MASS draws inspiration from early tape music, horror film soundtracks, and grindcore. It was assembled between listening to extended doses of Else Marie Pade, Daphne Oram, Eliane Radigue, the Locust, Edgard Varèse, Maryanne Amacher, Dick Raaijmakers, Naked City, Mr. Bungle, and Thomas Ankersmit, bringing a little bit of all of them along with it. MASS was recorded and mixed over the course of three weeks in January–February 2021 while in the midst of a cross-country move. Recorded entirely in short-term housing away from her studio (and most of her instruments), Reid relied exclusively on her voice, trumpet, flugelhorn, household objects, and Make Noise's Strega semi-modular synthesizer for all sound materials. Original sound materials were recorded loosely and independently with little to no overdubbing, instead relying on meticulous editing and processing in the manner of classic tape music.

Canadian performer and composer Sarah Belle Reid’s 2021 acclaimed album, first time on vinyl, expanded with two new incredible songs, remastered featuring new artwork. From distant ocean song to the clang and howl of a murky forgotten memory, MASS is a dreamlike collage of shrill shrieks, gasps, corroded brass choirs, and melting modular synth soundscapes, all heard through a mist of hiss and noise. Fused with equal parts spastic improvisation, shrouded ritual, and meticulous arrangement, it presents a sonic topography at once tongue-in-cheek, sensitive, and nightmarish. With discordant chorales and angular trumpet improvisations churning in an ever-evolving wash of whispers and howls, MASS is a collection of three hazy, harsh, and frightful sound worlds. With tracks meandering between aggressive rhythms, eerie ambiances, and abrasive cut-up electronic textures, MASS draws inspiration from early tape music, horror film soundtracks, and grindcore. It was assembled between listening to extended doses of Else Marie Pade, Daphne Oram, Eliane Radigue, the Locust, Edgard Varèse, Maryanne Amacher, Dick Raaijmakers, Naked City, Mr. Bungle, and Thomas Ankersmit, bringing a little bit of all of them along with it. MASS was recorded and mixed over the course of three weeks in January–February 2021 while in the midst of a cross-country move. Recorded entirely in short-term housing away from her studio (and most of her instruments), Reid relied exclusively on her voice, trumpet, flugelhorn, household objects, and Make Noise's Strega semi-modular synthesizer for all sound materials. Original sound materials were recorded loosely and independently with little to no overdubbing, instead relying on meticulous editing and processing in the manner of classic tape music.

Creeping through an imaginary border, sidesteppin’ through the night like cyber phantoms eavesdropping on early morning machinery shifts, an industrial solstice for pagan mystics. After five years Torino’s mysterious SabaSaba are back with ‘Unknown City’ an imaginary soundtrack for a dystopian city: digital raga, horror Exotica, half-speed techno, metallic dub and organic electronics.

The duo of Andrea Marini (synth, guitar, electronics, tapes) and Gabriele Maggiorotto (drums, percussion, effects, programming) return with their most political manifesto yet, an intricate musical essay inspired by China Miéville’s novel ‘The City And The City’, examining border control, repression, an unknown city where people move like ghosts without personality and without communicating, monitored on sight by the authorities. SabaSaba’s personal OST is a whirlwind of analog and digital instruments colliding, textured samples, syncopated drums and spiritual synth sweeps often heightened by Ambra Chiara Michelangeli’s eerie viola playing, an ancestral force resisting under a cement tower, modulars gasping for air, endlessly reverberating into noir-soul and gray landscapes.

Like Miéville’s two imaginary cities Ul Qoma e Besźel, SabaSaba’s journey is cavernous, claustrophobic at times, but a clear sense of evasion and resistance breaks through, small flickers of light, like a cyborg calibrating himself - the hypnotic dub ambient of ‘False Speech’ - for an ecstatic liberation - the trance inducing ‘Wrists Free’ featuring UK industrial techno duo Jerome. ‘Ul Qoma’ unites

Immerse yourself in the musical universe of ONE PIECE MOVIES - BEST SELECTION! Enjoy over 70 minutes of music from the One Piece films for the first time on vinyl, taking you on a journey through the adventures of the famous Straw Hat crew.

Fully licensed.

Luffy, a mischievous boy, dreams of becoming the king of the pirates by finding the "One Piece", a fabulous and mysterious treasure. But, inadvertently, Luffy one day swallowed a "magical devil fruit" that turned him into a rubber man. Since then, he is able to contort his elastic body in all directions, but he has lost the ability to swim, the height for a pirate! Over the course of ever more incredible adventures and chance encounters, Luffy will gradually compose his crew and multiply friendships with the peoples he discovers, while facing formidable enemies.

Kohei Tanaka worked on the composition and arrangement of this album.

About Tonder:
Match made! Between poet Alex Deforce and Azertyklavierwerke more specifically. Over a runaway beat, they seem intent on taming the search for love, or anything that smells like it from far or near. "Swiped right, match made" dictates Deforce as rhythmically and unflappably as if he were a Chat GPT controlled computer: more mechanical and cold love has never sounded. What follows would not have been out of place on the soundtrack of Fritz Lang's Metropolis: an industrial drum computer gasping for breath in an attempt to ward off an epileptic fit.
Contemporary yet headstrong, cryptic yet unapologetic: Tonder is an intriguing song full of contradictions that leaves you orphaned but also addicted.

About Soort Van Nerd:
A hearty dash of tristesse rubbing up against the best work of such masters of Weltschmerz like Sufjan Stevens or Spinvis: "Soort Van Nerd" translates as "Kind of nerd" and is a kind of genius underground pop song.
Melancholy and sincere emotion, it is still allowed. Melancholy but above all thoughtful: Azertyklavierwerke handles words and sound extremely sparingly but cuts deeper into his or anyone else's skin as a result. On a nostalgic but austere bed of a drum machine, a naive piano line he pokes Eternal-sunshine-of-the-spotless-mind-wise where it hurts: "I wish you could melt, like an ice cube in the sun."

Kallaikoi is the term used to refer to all the Celtic clans settled in ancient Gallaecia (northwest of the Iberian Peninsula). They were skilled in metallurgy and the production of tools and weapons, and worshiped a variety of deities, some of them related to nature
and war. Although they disappeared as an ethnic group in antiquity due to Romanization and subsequent consequences, their cultural legacy and Celtic influence in Galicia persist until today. Somehow, that ancestral legacy lingers between the grooves of this
release you have in your hands.

The double EP opens with The Transhumans: Techno, syncopated bass drums and industrial nuances appear in 'Ánima'. Ian Axide proposes robust and percussive Techno in 'Antro', while Obseth lets arpeggios fly in 'Pink Pills'. These tracks are indebted to that
Techno reminiscent of the late 90s golden years monolithic sound.
Side B opens with the local heroine and co-founder of Archaic, Proyecto Inopia, who opts for resounding rhythms and synth sequences sharp like shark teeth, seemingly paying homage to earlier decades in 'Hécate'. Mist Gasp also follows a metallic monotrax line in 'Standarte'. And the first 12” closes with Brai’s '75', where he unleashes Techno meets New and Synth Wave with a nod to the 80s.

The second EP lowers the intensity and tempo, opening with the calm and nostalgic Electro from Synth Alien in 'Pakhum'. Local artist Lefrenk raises the tempo and intensity in arpeggios in a propulsive Electro-Techno wave in 'Fenix'. And also from A Coruña, Roi controls the beats in an electro base that advances later towards obsessive and lacerating synths in 'Melusa'.

The last side of the double album is opened by David Karro with 'Ionosphere', a track with unsettling synths that doesn't need beats to shape its hypnotic and nebulous character. 27 003 delves into the sounds of classic Electro drum machines in 'Sweet', also with clear IDM and dreamy evocations. Corrosivo continues in that vein, with marked Sheffieldier echoes in 'Fast Food'. The EP is closed by Death Whistle with one of his usual opuses where darkness, beauty and epic coexist.

Limited release.

After “The Legend of Kaspar Hauser” directed by Davide Manulli, Vitalic is once again putting his music to moving images with “Disco Boy” by Giacomo Abbruzzese (awarded a Silver Bear at the 2023 Berlinale). Electronic, intense and navigating between a variety of different atmospheres, the soundtrack - much like the film it accompanies - is full of promise and mystery. “The Swamps”, “La Guerre” and “Helicopter” are reminiscent of the intense, dark and foreboding productions of Thomas Bangalter for “Irreversible” by director Gaspar Noé. In contrast, “Winter is Coming” and “Lost Time” are places of melancholy and sweetness where all bass has completely disappeared. As for the eponymous theme for the film, “Disco Boy”, it pays true electronic homage to the sound of disco. The retro-futurist soundtrack to “Disco Boy” oscillates between devastating kick drums, moist ambient and dreamlike swathes. Vitalic has created uncharted sonic landscapes that invite us on a voyage of initiation and self-discovery.

Teramo, Italy's Inutili, return with their fifth full-length album, "A Love Supreme." It's a departure from the band's last albums After a long lockdown, Inutili discovered the pure pleasure of playing music together. In their own words: The album was made simply and naturally through free and psychedelic jam sessions in the band's rehearsal room. A declaration of love for music, just a holy respect for music without schemes: A Love Supreme! Inutili is Alessandro Antinori (bass, guitar), Pietro Calvarese (guitar, vocals), Giancarlo Di Marco (guitar, bass) and Lorenzo Mazzaufo (drums, percussion, vocals). Special Guest: Francesco Gaspari (synthesizer, programming)

In apartheid-era South Africa, gospel music provided solace and served as a tool for covert communication to circumvent the censorship of the settler regime. By the 2010s, South African gospel, deeply ingrained in the soul of Soweto, assumed a new role—as a heartfelt cry against persistent failures and shortcomings, a cry mourning a South Africa that never materialized.

A new South Africa needed a new gospel sound.

In 2016, nine young men from different parts of Diepkloof, a celebrated neighbourhood brimming with talent within Soweto's sprawling township, came together to form the sound of a new South Africa under the name Diepkloof United Voice.

Diepkloof United Voice's music has gone viral multiple times on TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook, garnering between 60,000 to 2 million views. The comments section displays flag emojis from Brazil to India, showcasing the global reach of their music.

This album was recorded on site in Soweto, in an abandoned classroom of Lebowa Elementary School in Diepkloof Zone 3, where the choir rehearsed for years. Amid rolling blackouts, Diepkloof United Voice poured their heart, soul, and vocal chords into their debut record, combining classic South Africa gospel, Soweto's own kasi soul, American blues, and Zulu flavor, to present the contemporary gospel sound of a changing South Africa.

The promise of a new South Africa might finally be realized, as Diepkloof United Voice guarantees the country's future is guided by the truth, uttered with each gasp of breath from their inimitable voices.

In apartheid-era South Africa, gospel music provided solace and served as a tool for covert communication to circumvent the censorship of the settler regime. By the 2010s, South African gospel, deeply ingrained in the soul of Soweto, assumed a new role—as a heartfelt cry against persistent failures and shortcomings, a cry mourning a South Africa that never materialized.

A new South Africa needed a new gospel sound.

In 2016, nine young men from different parts of Diepkloof, a celebrated neighbourhood brimming with talent within Soweto's sprawling township, came together to form the sound of a new South Africa under the name Diepkloof United Voice.

Diepkloof United Voice's music has gone viral multiple times on TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook, garnering between 60,000 to 2 million views. The comments section displays flag emojis from Brazil to India, showcasing the global reach of their music.

This album was recorded on site in Soweto, in an abandoned classroom of Lebowa Elementary School in Diepkloof Zone 3, where the choir rehearsed for years. Amid rolling blackouts, Diepkloof United Voice poured their heart, soul, and vocal chords into their debut record, combining classic South Africa gospel, Soweto's own kasi soul, American blues, and Zulu flavor, to present the contemporary gospel sound of a changing South Africa.

The promise of a new South Africa might finally be realized, as Diepkloof United Voice guarantees the country's future is guided by the truth, uttered with each gasp of breath from their inimitable voices.

As an important agent of Gothenburg’s underground scene, Dan Johansson has been a member of several experimental harsh noise projects such as Sewer Election, and lo-fi indie folk bands like Enhet För Fri Musik and Amateur Hour. Ordeal is his latest solo output, and might as well be ashes stuck in the blast furnace's edges of his last longing career. Not by means of summing up genres or as a culmination of his musical development, but as a profound music piece weaved in his own household.

With not much more than a synthesizer, Vätterns Pärla is built by trembling, dissonant drones stained in feedback and reverberation, thickly textured by the no-fi quality of the recording, depicting a menacing atmosphere congested with heavy fumes. In Johansson's words, Ordeal "takes inspiration from the early 80’s albums of Maurizio Bianchi, filtered through a Gothenburgian no-fi bleakness. It’s an album for inner voyage, childhood memories, and places that now lost purpose and meaning”.

There's certainly intimacy and nostalgia, yet a claustrophobic, hypnotic ambiance wraps it all up in a contained and narrow space. Emphasis is put on texture rather than on detail, on color rather than on progression, on suspense rather than on conclusion. Tension varies stiffly, sometimes a drone layer dismantles and the mood seems to filter, but ragged edges are never polished. We can feel the walls and the air, which although tarnished, can be breathed in somehow. It's as if waking up in a dark room and having to recognize it with our ears and tact, testing its dimensions and its surface. The stillness in the chamber is like the stillness between gasps of storms.

Without visible stars, an enclosed share of night sky hides a heavy load of industrial debris underwater. These remnants are maybe the pearl regarding the album's title. It all can seem like a dream, a grim mechanical soundscape deafened by hefty, yet sporadic winds. Soil strives to make something grow, but sprouting is kept suspended, held by a dismal presentiment. Long shadows on the ground prove that darkness is about to befall. And as these shadows stretch, almost about to break up in a loud strike, the noise turns white.

Nach dem letzten Album "Pale Horse" 2021 sowie dem Re-Release bzw. Best-of Album "Looking Back" (2022), veröffentlicht das Projekt Winter mit "Fire Rider"den nächsten Longplayer. Bewegte sich "Pale Horse" noch im vornehmlich düsteren Gothic-Rock Bereich, tritt Winter mit den neuen Songs deutlich auf das kreative Gaspedal und überrascht mit einer überaus spannenden Mischung zwischen besagtem Goth-Sound ("Unholy Blood", "Into The Void" feat. Florian Grey) und fast schon klassischem Rock im Stile der 80er Jahre, wie der Titel Song "Fire Rider", das sprichwörtliche "Children Of The 80s" oder auch die erste Single "Pray" zeigen. Fast schon stilbeschreibend für die Mischung auf dem Album ist hier die Cover Version des Sisters Of Mercy Songs "Under The Gun", der sich auch in der Original-Version zwischen den unterschiedlichen Stilrichtungen bewegt. Musikalisch ist "Fire Rider" insgesamt mutiger, zuweilen etwas aggressiver als der Vorgänger aber auch wiederum extrem eingängig. Symptomatisch kann hier der Song "When All Is Said And Done" erwähnt werden, der einen wunderbaren "Chris Isaak" Vibe in der Strophe sowie fetzigen Up-Tempo Rock-Sound im Refrain perfekt kombiniert.

The inaugural release on KMRU's own fledgling OFNOT imprint, 'Dissolution Grip' is an ambitious project that emerged from his studies at Berlin's prestigious UDK. The Kenyan composer and sound artist is best known for his field recording work, and as he traveled across Europe and the wider world for regular live performances, he made a point to snapshot each city. But the more he studied and the more he examined his practice, the more KMRU began to wonder what the purpose of these recordings were, and what bearing they might actually have on his self-expression. Simultaneously, he'd begun to dive more wholeheartedly into the world of synthesis. In a way, synthesis is the most basic form of sound, and KMRU started to wonder not just how he could harness these sounds but how he might be able to more dynamically combine them with field recordings.

Guided by Jasmine Guffond at Berlin's Universität der Künste (better known as UDK), KMRU looked at waveforms - the visual representation of sound itself - and embarked on a process where he would write scores from the shapes, gradually turning the scores into raw synth sounds. Considering the spaces he was inspired by and shuttled through, KMRU decided that instead of using environmental recordings as an aesthetic marker, he would use these captured moments to guide the waveforms. So each sound is birthed from a field recording, but none of those recordings are audible in their original form. For example, on the digital bonus track 'Along A Wall', KMRU recorded in an old shack on his family's compound in Nairobi, where wind was shaking the building to its foundations. Listening to the finished piece, we can hear subtle electronic tones that rub and vibrate against each other, slowly saturating and mimicking the erratic motion of the wind. The original recording has been removed, but the feeling remains.

The album's opening side 'Till Hurricane Bisect' is a 15-minute epic that evolves at its own glacial pace, carefully transforming blustering wind sounds into gasping drones, glassy oscillations and choked distortion. Cosmic and meditative, it's a testament to KMRU's skill as a sound engineer and patience as a composer, combining the gentle world building of his acclaimed Editions Mego album 'Peel' with the rumbling energy of 'Limen', last year's collaboration with Aho Ssan. On the title track, KMRU takes the opportunity to flex his orchestral muscle, conducting a cast of warbling synth tones into a durational symphony. Starting as quietly as a whisper, 'Dissolution Grip' expands at its own pace until it's a dense wall of harmony, powerful but never completely overwhelming. It's music embedded with a rich sense of place that informs us of KMRU's past and present, and signals where his musical philosophy might take us in the future.

Limited rerelease. Unavailable for years. The legendary album from 1984. Fully remastered by David Cunningham. These recordings were originally released on cassette by Touch in 1984 with the exception of 'Parts Of My Body', released on a single by Canal Records in 1979. Performed by: Steve Beresford: bass, piano, farfisa organ, prophet 5, trumpet, flugelhorn, euphonium, percussion, glockenspiel, voice, toy piano, melodica, noises, rhythm tracks, drumkit. David Toop: guitar, prepared guitar, bass, percussion, flute, alto flute, glockenspiel, voice, tapes, noises, rhythm tracks David Cunningham: tape treatments with guests: Lol Coxhill, Dawn Roberts and Maartje ten Hoorn 'The atmosphere which General Strike conjure together suits an old fashioned, cold war-ish scenario of technology. Their 'Interplanetary Music' is the space pop of George Pal and 'The Day The Earth Stood Still', of computers built like Blackpool Tower in order to struggle through simple trigonometry, of 'The Jetsons' and I.G.Y. They go no further than Expo 67, the world's last gasp of optimism. And although there are dark and disquieting moods set in this mosaic which their listeners have pieced together, it is made with a humour which is true to the spirit of adventure which those references apply. The sanitation merchants who make up most of the world's record-makers today would forbid our ears from hearing these strangely electric keyboards, earthworked textures, bizarre chattering of percussion, and voices that seem like puzzled robots. Cataloguing the sound in that way makes it all seem a bit of a joke, but it isn't: laughter is encouraged, but it's serious music, made with a great deal more serious spirit than the great and disheartening mountain of music which today implores you to hear and not listen.' (Richard Cook).

Alek Lee is back on Antinote to release his debut LP ‘You’. Covering 16 songs and crafted in theproducer’s studio over the past few 4 years, the Tel Avivian has swapped the misty aura of his first two EPs for a smoked out haze. ‘You’ effortlessly blends digi-dub, boogie, and yacht rock to create a washed out, dub-pop sound befitting of its place of recording sat at the edge of the desert and the sea. If Lee’s earlier works were defined by brooding downtempo beats with kids television vocal samples sprinkled amongst them, then the album hears the producer open himself up to the process of the singer-songwriter, getting behind the microphone and optimistically speaking words of his own.

But perhaps that may be put too bluntly. Fankly, Lee fluidly moves between crooning, whispers, gasps all the way to full on ballad style singing effortlessly and with ease. His newly develop vocal experiments are too supported by an impressive array of collaborators which can be found in the LP’s liner notes. These collaborations also help to mix far-flung musical styles into the LP. For instance, take Kol Hayom featuring Keren Ilan. It’s a laid-back tune that would sit comfortably beside Rita Lee tropicália. Or Love To Puff You Baby featuring $hkuru, which upends Donna Summer’s bodily groove into a heady bop.‘You’ is a testament to Alek Lee’s prolific exploration of his own brand of dub: shimmering off-beat guitars, low-fidelity beats and deep grooves. Oh and always a melodica line found somewhere amongst it.