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A journey, in 16 tracks, through the career of this pioneer band of the Latin American Punk 'n' Roll scene, active since 1987 and founded in the city of Quilmes (Argentina). Punk 77, Street Punk and Punk 'n' Roll on glorious vinyl and for the first time in Europe. DESCRIPTION Doble Fuerza is a pioneering band of the Latin American punk 'n' roll scene that has been active since 1987 (hence the title of the LP). Founded in the city of Quilmes (Argentina), south of the Buenos Aires metropolitan area, they have built their own recognizable sound, influenced by punk 77, street punk and punk 'n' roll. For the first time in Europe, on a long-playing record, on glorious vinyl, 16 tracks that represent a detailed tour through Doble Fuerza's 35-year career, remastered for the occasion. The result is most entertaining and activating. Primitive sonorities of angry young men doing street-punk without concessions in "Disturbios" Riots and "La Vida Se Va" Life Goes, give way to heartfelt street love in a hard-power-pop vein ("¿Por Qué No Me Llamas?" [Why Don't You Call Me?], "Encontrarte" [Find You], "Sola" [Alone]) and Ramonesian essences in "Desocupado" [Unemployed]. And all of this leads to their personal punk 'n' roll sound with a Buenos Aires accent, i.e. punk-rock clearly influenced by punk 77 and the rock 'n' roll of the 50s and 60s. In "Leave Me Alone", "Anestesiado" [Anaesthetised], "Grito de Revolución" [Revolution Yell], "Almas Gemelas" [Twin Souls] and "Canción de Libertad" [Song of Revolution] you can sense some of the many bands of the three decades that are part of their wide musical background and that have served as teachers to forge their style. Nor do they forget the cheerful tavern hymns to sing loudly and to overcome the struggle and heartbreaks with good humor, "Otra Vuelta de Cerveza" [Another Round of Beer] and "El Rey del Fernet" [The King of Fernet]. The three covers of this collection deserve special mention. Three adaptations sung in Spanish that the quintet led by Hugo Irisarri makes totally their own: "Pibes de Barrio" (Cockney Rejects), "Laburando" (Cock Sparrer) and "Spanish Bombs" (The Clash). The accent may be different, but the situations, the sound references, the messages... become immediately familiar and recognizable. "1987" is a careful presentation letter on this side of the pond of the Argentinean band's wide repertoire that unites commitment, fun and enthusiasm in equal parts

Given The Fall's penchant for iconoclasm, it's no surprise that they decided to say goodbye to the '70s with a series of gigs at Northern England's gruffest halls. The band's formidable live show was met with even more derision and disorder than customary during these late '79 and early '80 performances, and they skillfully amplified such sentiments back at the crowd. Totale's Turns, The Fall's first live album, was released on Rough Trade just prior to their pivotal third album, 1980's Grotesque. "The difference between you and us is that we have brains," shouts Mark E. Smith to open Totale's Turns as the band breaks into the rollicking "Fiery Jack," their latest single at the time. Each player is at their jagged best: Marc Riley and Craig Scanlon's splintering guitars, Steve Hanley's thunderous bass and Smith's combative sneer reverberate over "Rowche Rumble," "Choc-Stock" and "Spectre Vs. Rector" more than any studio would ever allow. Totale's Turns never panders to live-record conventions, serving instead as a gripping exhibit of The Fall en masse and arguably the most accurate document of the group to date. Superior Viaduct's edition is the first time that Totale's Turns has been available on vinyl domestically. Liner notes by Brian Turner.

Repress.

Back in print and just in time for summer relaxation. It's hard to believe this album came out over 10 years ago. Back then we thought it was too rough for consumption, were we wrong! Today, “Songs” can be heard on hundreds of playlists around the world and still attracts listeners with its unique sonic grit. It became a template for LOFI producers and has even been featured in multiple Thrasher skate videos. Its appeal continues to cross genres and remains entirely random, but unmistakably Dwight. If you missed out on this album the first time, it's your chance to get that first PPU restoration of Dwight's solo songs from the 80s. This is the restoration that took over 2 years and included; phones held up to speakers, cassette to 1/4 reel transfers, Tascam manipulations, scotch tape, and a pair of scissors.

Dwight Sykes aka Sporty Cat, was born February 27, 1956 in Nettleton, Mississippi. At the age of two Dwight and family moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan where he would remain for most of his younger years. At the age of nine Dwight started his musical career singing background vocals with a spiritual group, Airs of Harmony, Jr., now known as the Michigan Nightingales. After three years of signing, Dwight started playing guitar. He joined his first r&B band, The Kenyatahs, at age thirteen and then played for five years with the group. Following the break up of the group and the death of his mother, Dwight enlisted in the U.S. Army. During that time he played guitar and drums for the band 100% Pure Poison. They played throughout Germany for 18 months. After being honorably discharged, and back in the states, Dwight started playing in numerous local Michigan bands including Domain, and Chaos. Eager to write his own material, Dwight created the group Jahari. They toured for a couple of years in the Michigan area until another break-up. Still under the Jahari alias, Dwight wrote "Situations" which received respectable air-play on Michigan local radio stations, WKMI, WQXC, WRDR, WKZO and WKDS. Dwight now resides near Atlanta, Georgia. He continues to write and produce songs on his Tascam 464 four track console. Although he uses other avenues to provide for the upkeep of himself and son, his love of music keep the hope alive that he will one day get that big break in the music business. Dwight Sykes - Songs Volume One is a collection of material written, produced and recorded by Dwight Sykes on 4-Track Cassette, in his home studio L.U.S.T. Productions.

Noelle & The Deserters bring South-Western honky tonk and songs of heartbreak from the high deserts of New Mexico to the golden hills of California. Fronted by singer-songwriter Noelle Fiore, their music draws inspiration from the likes of Emmylou Harris, Loretta Lynn, Marty Robbins, J.J Cale, Gene Clark, Townes Van Zandt, and the great outlaw country players. The Deserters include seasoned players Graham Norwood (Bryan Scary, Graham Norwood) on guitar, Alicia Vanden Heuvel (The Aislers Set) on bass, David Cuetter (Tarnation) on pedal steel, and Jerry Fiore (Sonic Love Affair)on drums, all based in the Bay Area and Sacramento. Fiore was raised in Taos, New Mexico. As a guitar player and vocalist, she was a founding member of Sweet Chariot, singing and playing guitar / banjo. Later, she and Tim Cohen (The Fresh & Onlys) founded the band Magic Trick, recording four full length albums for labels Hardly Art and Captured Tracks. Fiore is also a current member of the Shannon Shaw Band, on guitar and vocals. High Desert Daydream is Noelle & The Deserters debut album, out on Speakeasy Studios SF. The songs on the album, written by Fiore, touch on life in the west, growing up in Taos, living in California, songs of love, memory, marriage, work, good times, and bad times. Like all classic country music, the songs are infused with a sense of real-life struggles and living life in the everyday. Fiore’s incredible voice carries the album, and her songs are at once moving, powerful, tender, humorous, and intimately relatable. Produced by Noelle Fiore and Alicia Vanden Heuvel, High Desert Daydream feels country, yet of the west, of California and New Mexico, of experimental fronts in country music, and is truly a work of beauty.

Tracks

1981, the leaden years are over, the socialist left is in power in France and the first wave of punk seems a long way off. However, the youth of the day had not said its last word, and bands were springing up all over the place, free radio stations were opening up, fanzines were being published, concerts were being staged on the fly and little by little a scene was forming, a motley crew of kids in revolt, radical activists and just plain old folk passing through.

After having cut their teeth in a variety of more or less confidential bands, in which you'd come across a good number of players from this up-and-coming alternative scene, the members of Guernica moved up a gear, determined to blow on the still-glowing embers of rebel rock. With the shortage of venues the rule at the time, they began by scouring the suburban MJCs, putting on wild concerts and eventually meeting up with the squatters of the Couronnes commune and the members of V.I.S.A., with whom they played an active part in organising concerts in squatted buildings in these relegated areas of the capital.

In February 1983, the V.I.S.A. association and the Abattoir art collective (which included some members of Guernica) organised a concert at the Usine Pali-Kao. That evening, two groups took to the stage in succession: Guernica and a fledgling duo, Bérurier Noir. The evening will go down in the history of alternative rock as one of the key turning points of the period. After the departure of Loran, who played guitar with both bands, Fabrice Benoît joined Guernica on guitar, and the gang continued for a few more months, ending on a high note with a chaotic concert at the Eldorado in Paris.

Until now, it's been impossible to get your hands on any of the band's recordings unless you're lucky enough to own the Paris Mix compilation, the Guernica/Bérurier Noir split or the V.I.S.A. Usine Cascades 1982 cassette. This vinyl, a perfect record of the era, brings together the six tracks recorded by the band at the time.

Mother Twilight is the second Faun Fables album. It has since been noted by Scottish author R.J. Stewart as a work containing true artifacts of the oral underworld tradition. Dawn and Nils made a hand-assembled first pressing and peddled it to nearly every bar and rural hall across North America from 2001-2003. Drag City reissued the CD in 2004. Things are glowing outside, enough to bring any sun worshiper in for the night. But you must remain outside and begin walking. It"ll prepare you for the night, which otherwise comes as a chilling surprise. If you pay attention this time, maybe you"ll understand why you"re becoming invisible. When your memory began, it wasn"t startling, wasn"t a mistake. It came out of an old, dark and familiar thing, like a storyteller, like Twilight... so save us from fear, mother, and tell your story. Dawn McCarthy"s creative background was forged in oral tradition amidst a large musical family in Spokane, Washington; studying piano, music theater, rock bands, guitar, folklore and ethnomusicology. Dawn cut her teeth as a singer and performer with various bands and cabarets in Madison, Wisconsin and New York City, most notably as yodeler with the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus, who inspired her to want a gypsy life with a kindred spirit someday. Her focus took a pivotal turn in that direction in 1997 with a solo quest through the UK and Ireland and their bardic traditions; singing songs in clubs and homes, all the while undergoing a pastoral, psychological experience with the land. Upon her return to the States, a fateful meeting with Oakland, CA born-and-raised Nils Frykdahl (Sleepytime Gorilla Museum) moved McCarthy back to the West to begin a new creative collaboration in the thriving hills and art community of the San Francisco Bay Area. Since 1999, Faun Fables have released six albums and performed their animist, otherworldly folk music across North America and Europe, with shows in Australia, New Zealand and Israel, as well. Dawn"s writing and voice (described by The New Yorker as "one of the more compelling instruments in contemporary music") opens hearts and minds with a whisper to a rallying battle cry, further animated by Frykdahl"s adventurous musicality and vocals. Dawn has written musical theater performed by the Idyllwild Arts Academy, among others, and has lent her vocals to Bonnie "Prince" Billy on The Letting Go and What the Brothers Sang. In 2022, Faun Fables debuted their family band, joined onstage by their daughters with vocals, percussion, keyboard and dance.

Early Moods’ sophomore album A Sinner’s Past is the ultimate dosage of classic early 70s proto-metal, 90s grunge riffing and timeless songwriting delivered with an explosive youthful energy. The Los Angeles area quartet burst onto the scene fully formed with a sound that somehow simultaneously merged gritty underground Street Doom with slick “big box” Heavy Metal melodies on their self-titled RidingEasy debut album in 2022. And it’s the band’s highly skilled musicianship paired with exquisite aesthetic taste — in addition to their killer live show — that has made them an immediate popular favorite. A Sinner’s Past takes those elements several steps higher with a nod to Soundgarden’s huge sonic depth, the low-mid fuzz drenched tones of Sabotage and classic 70s melodies and structures of Ulli Roth-era Scorpions. The latter in particular inspiring the album’s intricate tonal shifts and shimmering twin leads. “I’m very proud of these songs,” says guitarist Eddie Andrade. “We did a lot of different things, took a lot of chances and show a lot of growth, and I think people will pick up on it. I was trying to use more open chords, not the typical styles. We came off touring with Candlemass and Pentagram, sharing those shows with our heroes really pumped us up. We went into the studio just hungry to record.” The album was recorded near the band’s home base in Pico Rivera, CA by Allen Falcon of Birdcage Studios, who also mixed their debut album. “He’s a good friend of the band and we wanted to be more comfortable, in a relaxed environment for this,” Andrade says. “He had a lot of input and his ideas made a lot of impact on this recording.” The band started recording in May 2023, then worked on the album on and off for 3 months between tours, which also lends to its very refined sound. Early Moods was founded in 2015 by Andrade and vocalist/keyboardist Alberto Alcaraz after a few years of playing in thrash and death metal projects before the two realized that the classic doom that they’d grown up with was what they really wanted to explore. Going through a few lineup changes while delving deeper into the diverging influences that were calling, Early Moods arrived at the sound and lineup that grew their fanbase locally. The band released their debut EP Spellbound in 2020 on German label Dying Victim Productions, followed by their self-titled debut full length on RidingEasy Records in 2023. Early Moods is Oscar Hernandez on lead guitar, Chris Flores on drums, Elix Felciano on bass, Alcaraz on vocals/synth and Andrade on guitar.

Cool Rasta is an album by The Heptones, which consisted of Earl Morgan, Barry Llewellyn, and Leroy Sibbles. Brought up in the Trench Town area of Kingston, their first successful record was “Fatty Fatty”, first released in 1966. Since then, they have had several hits including “Country Boy”, “Mama Say” and “Book Of Rules”. At the guiding hand of top producer, Harry Johnson they recorded Cool Rasta, which came out in 1976.

The title track of the album is a typical example of The
Heptones at their brilliant best.


Cool Rasta is available as a limited edition of 750 individually numbered copies on orange coloured vinyl.

Recorded by award-winning mastering engineer Kevin Gray's record label, Anthony Wilson's Hackensack West is Cohearent Records' follow-up to Kirsten Edkins' Shapes & Sound album. Produced by Joe Harley and recorded all-analogue/all-tube at Gray's studio, Cohearent Recording, the AAA vinyl release is pressed on 180-gram vinyl at RTI and housed in a deluxe tip-on gatefold jacket.

From the liner notes:

The week before these sessions in the summer of 2023, I sat down each morning with the goal of composing one new song by day's end. I knew I'd soon be in the room with my dear friends Gerald Clayton, John Clayton, and Jeff Hamilton, three musicians whom I trust the most, and with whom I've played the most over the last couple of decades. I tried to imagine themes that would feel natural to us, the kinds of songs we could simply dive into without much thinking. When we headed to Kevin Gray's studio to record, I brought seven new songs along with me. Five are included on this album.

"Daido" is dedicated to Japanese photographer Daido Moriyama, who became known in the late 1960s for his grainy, sometimes blurry, high-contrast black and white images made throughout Japan. I love his pictures taken on the streets of various Tokyo neighbourhoods such as Shinjuku. His portrait of a menacing stray dong, from his series "A Hunter," is the kind of picture that, seen just once, is unforgettable. These days Daido is still out on the street making pictures, at the ripe young age of 85.

"Verdesse" has a sinuous, chorinho-like melody and rhythmic feel. The tune seems to weave and bob playfully in a space of brightness the way a grapevine seems to curl towards the sunlight. So I named it after a wine grape native to the pre-Alpine region of Isère, near Grenoble in eastern France, that makes a particularly delicious and drinkable white wine.

I wrote "Sunday," well...on Sunday. It unfolds slowly, like a good Sunday does when there's nothing to do, you can sleep in, you've got your person beside you, and you just relax into the day.

"The Lands" is dedicated to a family very dear to my heart: that of tenor saxophonist Harold Land. My mother met Harold when they were both teenagers growing up in San Diego, California. The two of them became lifelong friends, and a little later, Harold enjoyed a fruitful musical association and close friendship with my father, Gerald Wilson. Harold, his lovely wife Lydia, and their son Harold Jr. were extended family for us; they looked after me with love and care. Some of my first gigs ever as a young guitarist were with Harold's incredible band that included Oscar Brashear, Billy Higgins, Richard Reid, and Harold Land Jr.

I've loved Todd Rundgren's "Marlene" since I first heard it on his epic double-album Something/Anything. With its tender, well-contoured melody buoyed by a few special harmonic surprises, it almost seems like something from the pen of Burt Bacharach. It tells such a complete musical story. Rundgren's recorded version has a beautiful endlessly repeating tag. So we played the melody simply, and used the tag as a small staging area for a bit of improvising.

Hackensack West is our alias for engineer Kevin Gray's studio Cohearent Recording, a place inspired by Rudy Van Gelder's first studio in Hackensack, New Jersey. Located inside Van Gelder's parents' home, the musicians played in the living room! It was there, in 1954, that Thelonious Monk recorded his classic tune "Hackensack," a "contrafact" melody over the chord changes to the Gershwins' "Oh, Lady Be Good!" In contrafact-like fashion, my own bebop-spirited melody "Hackensack West" seems to nod toward the changes of a few recognizable standards, without corresponding to any particular one.

Stolen Goods Records announce Pergola's cinematic techno 'Zed' EP, featuring a remix from indie-dance legend CURSES.
Exploring hypnotic, emotionally charged melodies and vast techno breakdowns, the title track opens up the EP with a strong sense of mystery. Suspenseful strings build in anticipation as the bassline filters in intensity, this deep space offenng is the perfect example of a tune fit for the club as well as headphone-listening.

'Freak' is a beautifully intense piece featuring soft synths marked by subtle scratches, a feel-good vocal and the catchy strum of a quitar. '"Zed' is then given the CURSES treatment, the Optimo Music, Bordello a Parigi and Correspondant artist amplifies its retro feel resulting in nine minutes of pure dark disco hedonism. Closing out the release is an ambient collaboration between Pergola and Luigi Sambuy, 'Tunnel' is an ode to the early days of IDM through to the '70s.
*"Zed' marks the third release on Lele Sacchi & Asian Fake's Stolen Goods Records and follows up their widely acclaimed 'Volume 0' compilation as well as the recent collaborative EP between Black Loops & Innocent Soul. Since its launch last summer, the label has seen the support of artists like Dixon, Sasha, DJ Seinfeld and DJ Sneak and has garnered plays on prestigious stations like NTS and BBC Radio 1. The imprint continues its strong start to the year with three new tracks from the hyper-talented Pergola: a newcomer to the scene whos aready listed on labels such as Multinotes, Sementa ano Adriatiques Siamese, the latter which saw/ him reach number one on Beatport's Electronica chart.

Deer Jade – Jukurpa

Tired of grey skies and long faces? We’ve got a serious dose of musical vitamin D for you! Deer Jade is hailing from the picturesque Lake of Geneva, an area about which the late Jean Paul Belmondo had to say a thing or two. Her infectious smile and uplifting energy behind the decks already made her a household name in clubs and festivals around the globe. This solo debut is an expression of her strong self confidence and in-syncness with the world surrounding her. “Jukurpa” might be just one of the most flamboyant house tunes you’ll come across this year, readymade for swaying to on an early summer morning dancefloor. “Cosmic Dream” is of a more introspective nature, putting gentle psychedelic synth movements to good use. There’s a lot of heart in Deer Jade’s music. We’re happy to give it a home.

David Hasert & Niconé – Wasting My Time With You

Tired of grey skies and long faces? We’ve got a serious dose of musical vitamin D for you! ?This Cologne – Berlin joint venture is shedding rays of sun galore with this lost in reverie deep house jam. Built around a catchy as hell soul vocal and occasional piano outbursts “Wasting My Time With You” will certainly be one of our favorite tunes to waste our time to in 2024.

Deer Jade – Jukurpa

Hast Du genug von grauem Himmel und langen Gesichtern? Wir haben eine ordentliche Dosis musikalisches Vitamin D für Dich! Deer Jade stammt vom pittoresken Genfer See, einer Gegend, über die der unvergessliche Jean Paul Belmondo so einiges zu sagen hatte. Ihr ansteckendes Lächeln und ihre mitreissende Energie hinter den Decks haben sie bereits zum gerne gesehenen Gast in Clubs und auf Festivals rund um den Globus gemacht. Dieses Solo-Debüt ist Ausdruck ihres starken Selbstbewusstseins und ihrer Verbundenheit mit der Welt, die sie umgibt. “Jukurpa” ist vielleicht einer der extravagantesten House-Tunes, die man in diesem Jahr zu hören bekommt, wie geschaffen zum Mitschunkeln an einem frühen Sommermorgen. “Cosmic Dream” ist von eher introspektiver Natur und holt uns mit sanften psychedelischen Synthesizer-Bewegungen ab. In der Musik von Deer Jade steckt eine Menge Herzblut. Wir freuen uns, dass sie es bei uns verschüttet.

David Hasert & Niconé – Wasting My Time With You

Hast Du genug von grauem Himmel und langen Gesichtern? Wir haben eine ordentliche Dosis musikalisches Vitamin D für Dich! Das Köln-Berliner Joint Venture versprüht mit diesem verträumten Deep-House-Jam jede Menge Sonnenstrahlen. ?”Wasting My Time With You” ist mit seinen ?catchy Soul-? Vocals und gelegentlichen Klavier?-?Kaskaden sicherlich einer unserer Lieblingssongs, mit dem wir im Jahr 2024 unsere Zeit verschwenden werden.

This freakbeat jelly belly delight showcases the Bandits’ vaudeville humor, garage rock & catchy psychedelic pop! Considered a cult classic, this mixed bag of candy-coated fuzz is sure to satisfy your sweet tooth! Our favored stereo mix, pressed on yellow vinyl! Newburgh, New York psych-punks the Jelly Bean Bandits formed in 1966. Originally known as “The Mirror,” the band regularly packed area nightspots like the local Trade Winds, Poughkeepsie's Buccaneer Nightclub, and Burlington, Vermont's Red Dog.

In due time, they recorded a three-song demo reel that resulted in a three-album recording contract with Mainstream Records – however, unknown to Mainstream, these three songs represented the sum total of the Jelly Bean Bandits' repertoire, forcing the band to write enough additional material to flesh out a full-length LP in the course of a week. Amazingly, their eponymous 1967 debut is excellent, a freakbeat cult classic distinguished by emotive guitar and some innovative production techniques – all the more impressive, the album was recorded in a single 12-hour stretch. Mainstream hated the end result, however, and dropped the Jelly Bean Bandits just as they were commencing work on the follow-up – only one song was completed before the sessions were aborted, leaving just one ‘60s studio album from these confectionary con-artists. – Jason Ankeny

"The Jelly Bean Bandits" includes the following tracks: "Poor Precious Dreams", "Going Nowhere", "Goodtime Feeling", "Neon River" and more.

This version of the album comes as a 1xLP pressed on yellow vinyl.

Child of the Universe is the fourth studio album by Australian singer-songwriter Delta Goodrem. It includes the three singles “Sitting on Top of the World”, “Dancing with a Broken Heart” and “Wish You Were Here". The former achieved three times Platinum Certification in Australia. The album peaked at #2 on the Australian Albums Chart and at #1 on the Australian Artist Albums Chart. It went on to become Gold Certified. For this album, Goodrem explains that she experimented with different chord changes and different areas of music: "I feel I can do anything on this album, I'm relishing that. I feel like the sky's the limit but at the same time it's very raw." Child of the Universe is available on vinyl for the first time as a limited edition of 1500 individually numbered copies on silver coloured vinyl and includes an 8-page booklet with photos and lyrics.

Child Of The Universe by Delta Goodrem, released 25 January 2024, includes the following tracks: " Wish You Were Here", " Sitting on Top of the World", " Hunters and the Wolves" and more.

This version of Child Of The Universe comes as a 2xLP. This release comes with (a) Booklet.

The vinyl is pressed as a silver disc. Another vinyl is pressed as a silver disc.

EP compilation of essential UK house cuts recorded between 1987 - 1990. TIP!


Before British house and techno found its’ distinctive groove at the turn of the 1990s, one act led the way: Bang The Party, a trio who emerged from London’s vibrant underground party scene in the mid 1980s and proved, beyond any doubt, that UK producers could make music every bit as magical as the pioneering productions put forward by their counterparts in Chicago, Detroit and New York.

By the time long-running DJs and party promoters Kid Batchelor and Leslie Lawrence joined forces with trained engineer Keith Franklin at legendary North-West London reggae studio Addis Ababa in 1987, they’d spent years as DIY dance music activists in Britain’s capital city. They channelled these experiences and their love of imported house and techno sounds into a new project, Bang The Party, in the process becoming the first British act to appear on Transmat, a reflection of the quality and authenticity of their music.

The latest Rush Hour Reissue Series release offers a snapshot of some of the numerous gems nestled in the Bang The Party catalogue, delivering a much-deserved celebration of one of Britain’s most significant early acid house collectives. It features four fully remastered cuts recorded and released between 1987 and 1990 – on-point and far-sighted club workouts that sound as fresh and timeless now as they did when Britain was sweltering under its infamous ‘second summer of love’.

Fittingly, the EP begins with ‘I Feel Good All Over’, the group’s ground-breaking debut single. Dedicated to their home city and one of the earliest UK interpretations of house music, the track exists in the grey area between Chicago house and New York ‘garage house’ – all jaunty organ stabs, jacking Windy City beats, restless bass and soulful vocalizations. ‘Jacques Theme’, which follows, originally nestled on the B-side of that single release. An early, acid-flecked expression of hip-house with a British twist, breakdance-friendly bongo patterns and a dose of Larry Heard-inspired deep house dreaminess, the track remains an under-appreciated classic whose rap verses reflect the popularity of hip-hop in London at the time.

1988’s ‘Release Your Body’, Bang The Party’s most celebrated early release, was reissued in the United States by Transmat, reflecting the strong working relationship between Derrick May and Kool Kat Records’ Neil Rushton. A hypnotising affair propelled forwards by sweat-soaked drum machine beats, jacking fills and an addictive bassline, the track offers another near perfect distillation of the band’s Black American musical influences while delivering something genuinely new and fresh.

Rounding off the EP is a choice cut from Bang The Party’s sought after 1990 album Back To Prison. Doused in the star-lit synth sounds of the Motor City with jaunty organ stabs inspired by the kind of New Jersey jams championed at East Orange institution Club Zanzibar, ‘Let It Rip’ is a superb slice of deep house soul featuring a lead vocal every bit as emotive as anything laid down by Robert Owens. Like the rest of Bang The Party’s output, it has stood the time better than anything laid down by their London contemporaries.

Van Halen did more than announce to the world the earthshaking arrival of a revolutionary guitarist. Performed by an enterprising California quartet that took its name from two of its principal members, the 1978 debut ripped headlines away from punk, injected fresh energy into a then-moribund rock 'n' roll scene, reimagined how heavy music and throwback pop could coexist, and invited everyone to experience the top-down pleasures of a beach-front Saturday night every day of the week no matter where they lived. Painstakingly restored by Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab, and the first of a multi-album series in an exciting partnership between the famous reissue label and Van Halen, Van Halen delivers feel-good thrills and hormonally charged desires like never before.

Limited to 12,000 numbered copies, pressed on dead-quiet MoFi SuperVinyl at RTI, and mastered from the original analogue master tapes, Mobile Fidelity's ultra-hi-fi UltraDisc One-Step 180g 45RPM 2LP collector's edition pays tribute to the record's merit and allows fans to experience Van Halen's original blend of raw power, Hollywood flair, and vaudeville fun for generations to come. Playing with reference-setting sonics that elevate a 10-times-platinum landmark whose importance cannot be quantitatively measured, this definitive version provides a clear, clean, transparent, balanced, and turn-the-volume-up-to-11 view of an album that birthed entirely new styles. Since MoFi's unique SuperVinyl compound allows you to crank the decibels to your wildest desires without risking noise-floor interference, prepare to not only hear but feel Van Halen in your chest, no fifth-row concert seat necessary.

The premium packaging and gorgeous presentation of the UD1S Van Halen pressing befit its extremely select status. Housed in a deluxe box, it features special foil-stamped jackets and faithful-to-the-original graphics that illuminate the splendor of the recording. No expense has been spared. Aurally and visually, this UD1S reissue exists as a curatorial artefact meant to be preserved, touched, and examined. It is made for discerning listeners that prize sound quality and production, and who desire to fully immerse themselves in the art – and everything involved with the album, from the iconic cover art to the meticulous finishes and, yes, of course, Eddie Van Halen's pioneering fretwork and his brother Alex's double-bass percussion.

Indeed, could a piece of music that transformed how countless guitarists approached their instrument be more fittingly named than "Eruption"? Likely not, and in just 102 seconds, Eddie Van Halen rewrote, reimagined, and reconfigured a vocabulary last significantly updated a decade earlier by fellow six-string wizard Jimi Hendrix. Akin to the Washington State legend, Eddie Van Halen developed his own techniques and tones all the while making his seismic accomplishments seem effortless. Devoid of the pretence, ego, and showiness that infected many of his imitators, the Dutch native sticks to a straightforward approach that underlines the authority, prowess, and visionary scope of his playing and then-unheard-of finger-tapping skills. Throughout Van Halen, he establishes himself as an instant idol – a savant whose otherworldly combination of breadth, poise, feel, speed, force, and melody seems beamed in from another galaxy.

As does nearly every song on the record, whose cohesiveness and dynamic put into perspective the advanced chemistry and one-for-all spirit the youthful band had out of the gates. Having paid its dues for years in bars and clubs – going as far as recording a 24-track demo for Kiss bassist Gene Simmons at Village Recorders only to be spurned by management companies that felt its music wouldn't go anywhere – Van Halen finally got a deserved break when Warner Bros. executives signed the group in 1977. The subsequent recording sessions further testify on behalf of the band's synergy and alignment. Completed in just a few weeks with producer Ted Templeman, Van Halen was primarily cut live in the studio with minimal overdubs and edits. The explosiveness, energy, and electricity remain definitive, and as heard on this UD1S set, put the group on a private stage – humming amplifiers, Frankenstrat guitar, bright spotlights, sweaty headbands, and then some.

Van Halen yielded just one hit in the form of a Top 40 single (a breathless cover of the Kinks' "You Really Got Me") but practically every song on the revered LP has become a staple. Named the 202nd Greatest Album of All Time by Rolling Stone and considered by countless experts as one of the best debuts in history, the record displays what can happen with four distinct talents gel and strive for the same purposes. In Van Halen's case, the latter almost always involved partying, freedom, sex, and, in the immortal words of singer David Lee Roth, living "life like there's no tomorrow." The celebration manifests from the opening notes of the strutting "Runnin' with the Devil" – announced with the blare of droning car horns, Michael Anthony's robust bass line, and Alex Van Halen's thumping drumming – and continues through the conclusion of the white-hot "On Fire," goosed by Eddie Van Halen's race-track-ready lines, Roth's flamboyant deliveries, and the rhythm section's cat-like pounce.

Picking out individual highlights on Van Halen is akin to trying to count all the stars in a clear nighttime desert sky: There are far too many to identify, once you see one you notice another dozen you didn't spot before, and the cluster is best enjoyed as a whole. What's evident over repeat listens is the sheer diversity, a fact that's often overlooked: The high harmonies and background funk of "Jamie's Cryin'"; the insistent cane-and-a-tophat shuffle and doo-wop shoo-bop vocal break on "I'm the One"; the throwback acoustic blues that spreads into fast-paced, single-entendre wildfire on the Roth-led standout interpretation of John Brim's "Ice Cream Man." Like the man says, on Van Halen, all the flavours are guaranteed to satisfy.

More About Mobile Fidelity UltraDisc One-Step and Why It Is Superior


Instead of utilizing the industry-standard three-step lacquer process, Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab's new UltraDisc One-Step (UD1S) uses only one step, bypassing two processes of generational loss. While three-step processing is designed for optimum yield and efficiency, UD1S is created for the ultimate in sound quality. Just as Mobile Fidelity pioneered the UHQR (Ultra High-Quality Record) with JVC in the 1980s, UD1S again represents another state-of-the-art advance in the record-manufacturing process. MFSL engineers begin with the original master recordings, painstakingly transfer them to DSD 256, and meticulously cut a set of lacquers. These lacquers are used to create a very fragile, pristine UD1S stamper called a "convert." Delicate "converts" are then formed into the actual record stampers, producing a final product that literally and figuratively brings you closer to the music. By skipping the additional steps of pulling another positive and an additional negative, as done in the three-step process used in standard pressings, UD1S produces a final LP with the lowest noise floor possible today. The removal of the additional two steps of generational loss in the plating process reveals tremendous amounts of extra musical detail and dynamics, which are otherwise lost due to the standard copying process. Every conceivable aspect of vinyl production is optimized to produce the most perfect record album available today.

MoFi SuperVinyl


Developed by NEOTECH and RTI, MoFi SuperVinyl is the most exacting-to-specification vinyl compound ever devised. Analogue lovers have never seen (or heard) anything like it. Extraordinarily expensive and extremely painstaking to produce, the special proprietary compound addresses two specific areas of improvement: noise floor reduction and enhanced groove definition. The vinyl composition features a new carbonless dye (hold the disc up to the light and see) and produces the world's quietest surfaces. This high-definition formula also allows for the creation of cleaner grooves that are indistinguishable from the original lacquer. MoFi SuperVinyl provides the closest approximation of what the label's engineers hear in the mastering lab.

The story of Elvis Presley’s ‘discovery’ has passed into showbiz legend and his recordings at Sun Studios have gone down in history. Between 1953 and 1954 That’s When Your Heartaches Begin, That’s All Right, Blue Moon Of Kentucky and Milkcow Blues Boogie were cut. By chance, two covers stood out; Arthur Crudup’s That’s All Right and Bill Monroe’s Blue Moon Of Kentucky which were adapted into high-energy mixes of Blues, Country and Rockabilly. Reaction in the Memphis area was enthusiastic and the Band continued to perform their weekly slot on the Louisiana Hayride Radio Show and bonus tracks from the Hayride Radio Show have been included on this LP. Elvis was the first and greatest star of the Rock ‘n’ Roll era and his early recordings will always retain their appeal.

‘Demos/sketches/interludes from the hinterland between records. Drum machines and single take vocal sketches tied together with downtime synth experiments and recordings of local disappearing areas.’ True as it is, Jabu’s strap-line is a somewhat understated take on what also proved to be a transformative experience for them. The follow-up record to their 2020 sophomore LP ‘Sweet Company’ (and the ensuing ‘Versions’), ‘Boiling Wells’ weaves a smudged, group -mind spell. Originally released earlier this year without fanfare as a digital-only release, it now receives the proper release attention it deserves, issued in a neatly packaged vinyl edition of 300 copies. Dreamlike, woozy, raw and in dub, the album documents a blossoming process, and encapsulates a fragment in time - holed up in the country, soaking up the atmosphere in collective isolation, creatively embracing the limitations of a small recording set-up, and finding a new way to work as a band. “My mum had gone away so we’d decided to take the mixing desk and a couple of drum machines out to her house and set it up in the front room. We did it a couple of times to get the bulk of the tunes on 'Boiling Wells' done, one in summer and one boozy one around Christmas. I think we all immediately enjoyed working that way, sat around all together, more of an immediate thing. Jas started to play a lot more guitar, her and Al would write lyrics on the fly or be programming a drum beat in or something. We were all switching around and getting ideas down really quickly, not worrying too much if they were good or not. The music was limited by the stuff we had there, I didn’t bring a big desk so we only had six channels or so, and everything was basically just recorded in as a stereo take so we were more or less stuck with it after we’d laid it down - which was nice too. I don’t think we would’ve changed them anyway; it was the sound of the room and of us doing it together in the moment that was really important.” There has always been a collaborative heart to Jabu, though its nature has shifted and morphed over time. In their earliest incarnation, in after-school jams, Alex Rendall would rap over Amos Childs’ beats, but by the time they began releasing music in 2012, Al had found his singing voice – a sweet, soulful counterpoint to Amos’ increasingly dub-wise, experimental backing. Both are founder members of Bristol’s Young Echo, a collective of friends and musicians first operating loosely together on radio shows, artistic collaborations and events, and later on, running a record label. As expansive as their original remit was, Young Echo has steadily evolved since featuring in The Wire’s 2013 cover feature on Bristol’s new school of post-dubstep bass music. Of late, Seb (aka Vessel) has been working with violinist Rakhi Singh on string arrangements for Jabu, and the upcoming residency at Bermondsey’s MOT will showcase relative newcomers Birthmark and Intel Mercenary alongside the regular crew. Jabu’s debut album proper, ‘Sleep Heavy’, arrived in 2017 courtesy of Blackest Ever Black. A sublime, focused meditation on grief and loss written largely by Amos and Al, it marked the debut of Jasmine Butt (aka Guest), adding a further layer of vocal texture to their palette. ‘Sweet Company’, their first album written as a trio (released via their own do you have peace? label), drifted into lighter, more ethereal introspection. Featuring guest appearances by Sunun and Daniela Dyson, remixes by Equiknoxx’s Time Cow and Young Echo ‘s Ossia teased out the inherent pop and dub sensibilities respectively. Recent times have also seen remixes by kindred spirits Seekers International and Jay Glass Dubs, and a collaboration with the renowned T.S. Eliot Prize-winning dub Poet and musician Roger Robinson on a pair of plaintive, aching 7” singles. Jabu’s broad raft of inspirations can be experienced first -hand on their monthly NTS Radio show ‘Music 4 Lovers’, co -hosted by long-time friend and soul afficionado Andy Payback. A celebration of the endless tapestry of interrelated musical connections, it runs parallel to Jabu’s own reinterpretation of their influences. For ‘Boiling Wells’, Amos remembers a diet of “A.R. Kane, Cocteau Twins, DJ Screw, Southern/Memphis rap mixtapes, early 90’s jungle, Karen Dalton, Sybille Baier, Vashti Bunyan, Svitlana Nianio, a lot of soul, Armand Hammer & Alchemist, Grouper, Bobby Caldwell. Jazz was a constant, Japanese, Polish, Latin, American…”. And from those diverse strands, something new and singular has formed, to line up alongside them. ‘Boiling Wells (Demos ‘19-’22)’ is released by UK newcomer Six of Swords in a limited vinyl edition of 300 copies, pressed on black vinyl housed in full colour 270 gsm matt varnish sleeve and black paper inner, with full download coupon

Second chances are rare in rock 'n' roll. Most bands only get one shot at the brass ring, and once the opportunity passes by, it's gone forever. Maybe that's why Uncle Lucius sounds like a band reborn on Like It's The Last One Left, a cathartic comeback album that reunites the platinum-selling group — and pumps new blood into its roster — after a five-year hiatus. Written and recorded in the band's hometown of Austin, Texas, Like It's The Last One Left isn't just a return to form; it's an expansion, bolstering Uncle Lucius' mix of amped-up Americana and greasy roots-rock with string arrangements, adventurous production, and the sharpest songwriting of the group's career. "There are no limitations this time around," says frontman Kevin Galloway. "We're exploring different areas of American roots music, and we're doing it our own way. There's a new perspective that comes with stepping away from something for a while, then coming back to it. You can see it with new eyes." Rooted in lyrics about resolve and resilience, Like It's The Last One Left blurs the boundaries between genre and generation. It's a battle cry from a band that's rededicated itself to fighting the good fight, trading the breakneck pace of the group's past for something a little more swaggering, stabilizing, and singular. "Remember to breathe," Galloway sings during the album's final moments, delivering those lines like a veteran road warrior who's seen his share of exhaustion. That's good advice. After spending a decade in the trenches, Uncle Lucius has caught its breath, seized the moment, and enjoyed a much-deserved victory lap. Like It's The Last One Left is the soundtrack to the next leg of the journey.

Breaking Teeth (3rd Single / Will have a music video & Reddit AMA) Breaking Teeth is the 3rd of 4 singles from their new album The Fear Of Letting Go. Tyler Tate (vox) describes this track as the heaviest song on the record and sounds simply - "pissed off". "When I wrote the lyrics I was so fed up with the world & my life in general. Set back after set back, problems around every corner. Living should be simpler but the society we live in prevents that. We should all be pissed about it.” Band will do Reddit AMA & MV Visualizer We're All Left Suffereing (2nd Single / With Album announce) 'We're All Left Suffering' is the second of four singles from Michigan based metalcore band Hollow Front's upcoming album 'The Fear Of Letting Go'. The release follows their 2022 album ‘The Price Of Dreaming’ (#9 Current Hard Music Albums, #35 Current Digital Albums, #42 Independent, # 48 Current Rock Albums) which received praise from New Noise “a blistering and bruising experience, evoking myriad emotions and conveying a heady and moving blend of euphoria and despair.” and RockNLoad “Hollow Front has dropped nothing short of a phenomenal album with The Price of Dreaming. While the release doesn’t do anything new, it takes an already established formula and polishes it into a perfect shine. If you’re a fan of any of the modern Metalcore titans, you’ll love this release, hopefully as much as I do. Utterly brilliant.” 'We're All Left Suffering' is the first song the band has released since the announce of Dakota Alvarez's departure (former guitarist/singer) and marks the next chapter in the bands journey. The song will be accompanied by a music video and lined up with the announce of their forthcoming record "The Fear Of Letting Go" (Out October 27th). Lead vocalist states “This track is an anthem for the broken spirited. We live in a world riddled with heartache and constant struggle. Whether mentally, physically, or financially; we area collective of human beings doing our best to survive. I think with everything that’s happened in the world over these last three years, things might seem hopeless. It feels like the whole world has gone mad, and we’re all just here suffering along for the ride. It can be incredibly discouraging being a human in today’s social and economic climate. So I think this song is for those people who are sick of dealing with the bullshit life is throwing at them, and just want to truly breathe for once.”

STUNNA is the 4th studio album from Bay Area Heavyweight and Certified Legend, P-Lo. Known for being one of the main pioneers of the modern West Coast Hip Hop sound, P-Lo assembles an all-star cast to deliver not just an album, but a frequency – an energy. With standout tracks like "Good (feat. Larry June)," "Again (feat. E-40 & LaRussell)," & "Stunna Anthem," STUNNA continues P-Lo's mission in spreading positivity and shining a light on what makes the Bay Area a special place. The album features appearances by Larry June, Michael Sneed, Too $hort, Lucky, Kamaiyah, ALLBLACK, 22nd Jim, E-40, & LaRussell.

Hey!Tonal is the first album by HEY!TONAL, a project helmed by the guitarists, multi-instrumentalists and sound designers Mitch Cheney (Rumah Sakit, Sweep the Leg Johnny) and Alan Mills (Chiisai-oto). Each member constructed the album instrument-by-instrument between 2006 and 2008 over a vast geographical area from NYC, Chicago, Florida, San Diego and Nantes in France. Main collaborators included Kevin Shea (Storm & Stress), Theo Katsaounis (Joan of Arc, Dead Rider), and Dave Davison (Maps & Atlases). Kenseth Thibideau (Rumah Sakit, Sleeping People) and Julien Fernandez (Chevreuil) joined the group for a song as well. In 2009 the album was released by Africantape on CD format; now, Hey!Tonal has been remastered by Carl Saff and pressed tovinyl for the firsttime.

Previously unreleased live soundboard recordings from this groovy group from the '60s San Francisco Bay Area scene. Along with The Sopwith Camel, The Beau Brummels, The Mystery Trend, The Great Society, Jefferson Airplane, The Warlocks and The Grateful Dead, The Final Solution were part of the first wave of San Francisco rock bands having formed in 1965. They were very popular all over the Bay Area and appear on countless early posters of the period, but they never released anything. If you dig The Great Society and The Warlocks 'Emergency Crew' demos, this is for you!

A Grey Area is the brand new album from GRAMMY nominated Canadian singer-songwriter JP Saxe, featuring singles I Don't Miss You, Everything Ends (feat. Lizzy McAlpine & Tiny Habits) and Moderación (Con Camilo) via Arista Records/Sony Music. A Grey Area follows up on JP's hit 2021 album, Dangerous Levels of Introspection.

This release heralds the launch of a new 7” series from Mr Bongo. In partnership with London-based DJ and digger, Miche, the series will feature his latest discoveries, as well as choice cuts, taken from his 'With Love' compilations. For the inaugural offering, we take a trip to hazy San Francisco, California, in 1977. Smoke, Inc. were an emerging band in the Greater San Francisco Bay area and a regular fixture in the buzzing live music scene. They had a strong following and were in rotation in most of the Bay area clubs, as well as opening for numerous prestigious acts such as Sly & The Family Stone, Taj Mahal, The Pointer Sisters and Toots and The Maytals. Members of the group worked with Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Wonder, Frank Zappa, Martha Reeves & The Vandellas, and many others considered the cream of the crop of the music world.

Smoke, Inc. featured Roy Schmall on keyboards and vocals, Stan Terry on lead vocals and harmonica, Michael 'Ollie' Schotka, on bass and vocals, Keith Stafford on drums and vocals, and Archie Williams Jr on guitar. They went on to release one 12" EP and two 7" singles. One of those 7’s included 'Waitin' For Love’. It was first released in 1977 and came out on the band's own self-titled imprint. It has gone on to become their rarest and most sought-after recording, now fetching up to an astonishing £2,500 on Discogs. It is a breezy, feel-good, modern/crossover soul beauty, with an infectious sing-along chorus, floaty flute solo, and packed with pure, uplifting dancefloor energy. The B-side features a cover version of the Holland Dozier & Holland-penned classic 'It's the Same Old Song’, made famous by the Four Tops.

Miche enthuses, “I included this gem on my first ‘With Love’ compilation and knew that it deserved its own dedicated reissue complete with original artwork. I’m delighted to get the chance to make that happen for this incredible, soulful AOR glide from a band that is well due another round of appreciation. It’s very rare, and consequently very expensive, so here it is for you all to spin and add to your record collections.”

46 years since its original release, it is our privilege to help Roy and the gang’s light shine once again and let a whole new audience relish the beautiful sounds of 'Waitin' For Love'.

S Transporter is Izaak S and Ryan Spencer, a pan-American duo of exact origins unknown. With roots spanning from Detroit to San Francisco, the project is somewhere around four years old, though no one remembers exactly when it started. The songs were initially demoed in Ryan's bedroom and promptly forgotten about in the chaotic whirl of both members’ efforts in other music projects, DJing, and party-throwing ventures until Ryan played them at his weekly, Monday Is The New Monday (co-founded with PGS' Ben & Zach). Immediately, the songs burst with new life into our ears, and we excitedly requested to hear more. In a tale every creative can relate to, Ryan simply didn't know if they were any good. We found them extraordinary.

What followed were several months of additional recording sessions in a collective effort to finalize the tracks, done at Ryan's apartment in Southwest Detroit, Izaak's in SF, and the Portage Garage in Hamtramck. Bay area DIY underground luminary Anya Ghiorzi joined the group and contributed her vocal talents to the songs, which began to exhibit a sound representative of the genre-collisions featured at MITNM– from krautrock and boogie to trance, acid, and house– in a way other PGS releases have hinted at, but have not fully expressed until now.

S Transporter is the name of the EP, the project, and all four songs. A maximalist sound with a minimalist presentation, naming the songs - so many years after their inception - would, perhaps, take away from the feeling that struck all three of us the first time we heard them on a club-grade sound system.

Izaak S and Anya Ghiorzi are San Francisco residents, musicians, and DJs in the Loveshadow dance collective.

Ryan Spencer is a Detroit resident, DJ, co-founder of Monday Is The New Monday, and is a member of Freakish Pleasures.

"S Transporter 1"
Uptempo, backspin-laden electro/acid with a winding 303 bassline that reveals itself slowly over the pulsing breakbeat backbone. Immersive, haunting and enchanting.

"S Transporter 2"
Downtempo electro. Slap bass. Heavy boogie. Sensual vocals reminiscent of early Chris N Cosey carry you through this industrial funk heater. Heavy synth lines and rhythmic grooving guitar that is club-ready for dance floors of all kinds.

"S Transporter 3"
A fast paced, percussion forward adventure with balaphone melodies and bending synth pads. Spoken words guide the journey, arriving at a movement inducing Juno ascension that dances into a calm end.

"S Transporter 4"
Encompassing the seemingly disjointed, individualistic styles of S Transporter 1-3, ‘4’ combines elements of the entire release into one final gesture. ‘4’ could be Byrne/Eno ("Regiment"), but it's something else - the product of decades of dance music history, distilled by two musicians & DJs into one song.

credits
releases July 19, 2019

PGS 010
S Transporter
"S Transporter"
EP

2015-2019
Written, Mixed and Produced by Izaak S & Ryan Spencer
Vocals by Anya
Bass on “2” by Lucas De Leon Turner
Percussion & additional production on "3" by Shigeto
Percussion on “3” by Julian Spradlin

Mastered by Josh Bonati at Bonati Mastering
Recorded at Izaak's apartment in San Francisco, Ryan's apartment in Southwest Detroit and the Portage Garage
Records Pressed at Archer Record Pressing, Detroit, MI
Design by Will
MMXVIX

Yo! Boombox is the new instalment of Soul Jazz Records’ Boombox series on the early days of hip-hop on vinyl and features some of the many innovative underground first-wave of early rap and disco rap records made in the USA in the period 1979-83.

The album includes the first releases of seminal groups such as Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five and The Funky Four Plus One More through to a host of rarities and little-known obscurities such as the Carver Area High School band’s ‘Get Live 83’, an awesome record made at a Chicago high school.


The album is released as a deluxe triple LP complete with 3x full inner sleeves of extensive sleeve notes, exclusive photography and original label artwork. There is also a very-limited one-pressing only special deluxe version that comes with an extra bonus super-rare 7” single of ‘Magic’s Rap’ by Magic’s Trick, aka ex-marine Magic Fraga, a record that was only ever available on US military bases!


Yo! Boombox also features the stunning photography of Sophie Bramly, one of a very select group of photographers (alongside Henry Chalfant, Martha Cooper, and Joe Conzo) who were allowed full access to document the exciting early days of hip-hop in New York.
These first exuberant wave of innocent, upbeat, party-on-the-block rap records were the first to try and create the sounds heard in community centres, block parties and street jams that first took place in the Bronx in the mid-1970s. Where the first DJs – Flash, Kool Herc and Bambaataa – were back-spinning, mixing and scratching together now classic breakbeat records like The Incredible Bongo Band’s Apache or Babe Ruth’s The Mexican, these first pre-sampling rap records were all made using live bands, often replaying then current disco tunes.

As Chic’s ‘Good Times’ was to ‘Rappers’ Delight’, the songs here feature then-current dancefloor hits such as the Tom Tom Club’s ‘Genius of Love’, Cheryl Lynn’s ‘To Be Real’, MFSB’s ‘Love Is the Message’ while MCs rapped over the top, creating a unique new sound. In fact, the links between disco and rap date back earlier to the ‘party style’ MCing of figures such as the legendary DJ Hollywood or radio DJs like Frankie Crocker.

This new Soul Jazz Records collection
celebrates these first old-school rap
records, bringing together rare, classic
and obscure tracks released in the
early days of rap.

From Alehouse to Playhouse Bjarte Eike and his barnstorming Barokksolistene capture the vital spark of Restoration London’s entertainment scene with a captivating new recording for Rubicon Classics! The Playhouse Sessions will be released on 23 September 2022 to coincide with Barokksolistene’s concert double-bill at London’s Southbank Centre.

‘A smattering of Purcell, dances from Playford’s Dancing Master, shanties, reels and ballads succumb to a nine-piece ensemble drawing on Baroque, jazz and folk styles for a no holds barred hooley of riotous improvisatory give and take,’ (BBC Music Magazine review of The Alehouse Sessions, August 2019)

London’s musicians, pushed in the 1650s, to the margins of society by order of Oliver Cromwell, found room for new forms of entertainment in city-centre taverns and alehouses. They remained there long after the restoration of the monarchy, performing sets of dances, theatre songs and bawdy ballads to audiences glad to be free from Puritan constraints on pleasure.

Norwegian violinist Bjarte Eike and his Barokksolistene have restored the spirit and substance of those long-forgotten performances with their Alehouse Sessions, hailed by The Times as ‘irresistible’ and ‘fabulously unrestrained’ by The Guardian. Five years ago the Norwegian violinist and his band scored a best-selling album with The Alehouse Sessions on Rubicon Classics. They return to the label with another compelling collection of music and words of the kind on offer more than three centuries ago at Henry Purcell’s favourite Westminster watering holes. The Playhouse Sessions, set for release on Rubicon Classics on 23 September 2022, reflects the uplifting energy and engaging emotional contrasts of Barokksolistene’s Alehouse performances.

“The album contains a sort of inner narrative that runs through the recording,” says Bjarte Eike. “It has become like a play in its own right, with each track being a small tale within a larger story.” The recording’s tracklist includes Eike’s beguiling arrangements of music from Purcell’s semi-opera The Fairy Queen and his own original compositions on words from the play on which it is based, Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream; popular songs and ballads such as ‘The Irish Washerwoman’, ‘I often for my Jenny strove’ and ‘The Three Ravens’; tunes from Purcell’s welcome odes and stage shows, Come ye sons of art and Dido and Aeneas among them; the ‘Willow Song’ from Shakespeare’s Othello; Eike’s own voice in Puck’s monologue from Act 5 of A Midsummer Night’s Dream; and John Dowland’s sublime air ‘Can she excuse my wrongs’.

London’s theatres were closed at the start of the English Civil War in 1642 and remained shut until the Restoration. Alehouses offered redundant musicians, actors and dancers a place to scrape a precarious living and soon became their creative refuge. “Although a few surviving theatres reopened in 1660 with the return of Charles II, there was little money around to rebuild those that had been demolished,” observes Bjarte Eike. “And a generation of musicians had already found an audience in places like the Black Horse in Aldersgate Street. So popular were their alehouse sessions that Cromwell tried to abolish them! But they outlived him and became part of Restoration musical life.” The form of a Barokksolistene Alehouse, he adds, is like a creative room. “Within its framework I can frequently refurbish the show with new contents. The Playhouse project is likewise an extension of the ever-evolving Alehouse Sessions. Together they tell the story of music and theatre in London during Cromwell’s time and after the Restoration. Of course there’s an historical context to what we do. But there’s also the practical context – which is even more important to me – of connecting with a contemporary twenty-first century audience. An Alehouse / Playhouse performance is not something for the museum; it's about music made in the present moment, just as it was in the London alehouses of Purcell’s day -- with their playhouses annexed to the rear of the beer-drinking saloons. The encounter of musicians onstage and the audience in the hall is the real magic of it. We have to fuse the audience into the action of our performance!”

The Playhouse Sessions will be launched on Friday 23 September with a late-night concert at the Purcell Room and a post-concert Alehouse Session in the foyer of the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Soprano Mary Bevan is set to join Eike and his Alehouse Boys for the first half of their Southbank Centre double-bill, offering unique interpretations of songs from Purcell shows and other hits from the late seventeenth-century London stage. “The Southbank Centre is a direct descendant of concerts given in the 1650s in the alehouses of London,” notes Eike. “These alehouses after all staged some of the world’s first public concerts. Later, after the Restoration, it became common for promoters to advertise alehouse concerts in the press and offer subscription tickets. Purcell and his fellow musicians were thus just as at home performing there as they were in the chambers of the royal court or in London’s new theatres.”

Bjarte Eike launched his Alehouse Sessions in company with like-minded musicians 15 years ago. The ensemble comprises a core of regular performers, all of whom have committed to memory a huge setlist of up to four hours of music. Typically they meet a day or so before a concert tour to share a meal and make music together; then next day, re-grouping thirty minutes before the show, they discover Eike’s select-menu for the evening. “That ensures that every show is fresh,” he notes. “I make sure we never repeat the same programme twice. It’s therefore essential to work with people who share my outlook and dare to adventure. We’re into a high-risk sport, with lots of traps and places where the unexpected appears - for good or for ill. And so the audience knows we’re vulnerable. But our skill is seen in how we re-act on the hoof to the unpredictable. That’s authenticity and honesty - and above all it’s a performance that’s genuine.”

Armed with a classical training and a background in folk music and improvisation, Bjarte Eike was drawn naturally to Early Music in all its stylistic variety. “I never really felt at home with only one genre,” he recalls. “Early Music allowed me to study profound, complicated compositions, but performing it has also opened up the chance of rebellion and uproar! Early music offers wide, multi-faceted areas of musical exploration for me. You find, for instance, links to different types of music wherever you look in seventeenth-century English repertoire. And I am fascinated by all these connections. They offer a foundation for the Alehouse Sessions and for all Barokksolistene performance more generally. Every member of the group plays, sings, dances and improvises without limitation. We’re all interested in the many different fields of being a stage performer and pushing hard at the ‘normal’ boundaries of what it means to be a classical musician.”

De La Soul is never far away from the conversation about great music but as of late, they have been back in the headlines more than ever as their music finally got added to digital streaming sites. Buhloone Mindstate is a lesser-known but just as good album as the most famous Three Feet High and Rising and was a critical success at the time. The lead single has samples of Michael Jackson's 'I Can't Help It' and Smokey Robinson's 'Quiet Storm', there is a collab with Biz Markie on 'Stone Age' and MC Shortie No Mas appears on many tracks including the particularly standout 'In The Woods'.

De La Soul is never far away from the conversation about great music but as of late, they have been back in the headlines more than ever as their music finally got added to digital streaming sites. Buhloone Mindstate is a lesser-known but just as good album as the most famous Three Feet High and Rising and was a critical success at the time. The lead single has samples of Michael Jackson's 'I Can't Help It' and Smokey Robinson's 'Quiet Storm', there is a collab with Biz Markie on 'Stone Age' and MC Shortie No Mas appears on many tracks including the particularly standout 'In The Woods'.

Underdog Recordings fills a 25 year old gap in its catalogue with "The Original Jungle EP" by Darkdean & Hankinson featuring MC Stevie A on 3 tracks and introducing Carmen Naida on the 4th. There never was an Underdog 13, until now, 4 banging brand new old skool jungle style tracks made in 2019 on this limited edition EP. Dark Dean & Stevie A have been residents at one of the South Coasts biggest raves- Destiny, from the mid nineties to the present day and team up with new gun- Hankinson to encapsulate the vibe of the legendary nights at the Manor at Matchams, on vinyl.

In the Detmold area (Westphalia, Germany), there wasn‘t much going on for metal fans in the first half of the eighties. Fortunately, the members of two bands met in 1982 in a chip shop and recognized their common preference for hard music by their long hair, leather jackets and moustaches, which were good manners at that time. In this moment SACRAFICE were born, who subsequently became local heroes - of course influenced by the NWOBHM that was just spilling over into Germany, but also by the usual suspects like Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Rainbow or Kiss, as well as Judas Priest and the early Accept.

Two unusual choices were made at once: In the spirit of Def Leppard or Led Zeppelin, the band name was deliberately changed - i.e. NOT Sacrifice, but Sacrafice. And they decided not to make the typical demo tape, but a 12“ EP on their own. This one is called „The First Experience WIth The Unknown“ and can be bought here and now on Discogs for 120 Euro and more used.... But already the book „Heavy Metal Made In Germany“, which was published in the nineties via Iron Pages, lists the record as „Top German Metal Rarity“.
No wonder, because the quite aggressive heavy rock and metal knows how to please even today - or maybe especially today - and reminds us of the upbeat mood of the German metal scene in the first
half of the eighties. This is also true for the three live tracks, which have been elaborately restored in days of work.

Another house number are the tracks of the follow-up band TranQuilL
(that‘s right, that‘s the correct spelling). The mostly overlong songs can be classified as heavy prog. Due to various circumstances these pearls remained (as good as) unreleased. Again, a lot of time and work was invested in restoring and mastering these private studio recordings (there are six long TranQuill songs on the CD version, while there was only room for two tracks on the LP, without losing sound quality).
As always, the printed inlay contains liner notes (actual interview with a former band member). Photos and other illustrations.
The CD version of the Golden Core re-release has already received very good reviews in Rock Hard and Good Times, among others!

Balearic believers rejoice! Japanese tropical-fusioneers Coastlines are back with the worldwide vinyl release of Coastlines 2. The follow-up to their classic debut, this is the sound of Coastlines's global influences. If the dedication to intricate sonic details is particularly Japanese, the overarching feel captures the sprawling grandeur of the international balearic community. As they put it, Coastlines 2 presents "a more precise and beautifully polished magic hour." If that isn't Balearic, we don't know what is.

Takumi Kaneko and Masanori Ikeda don’t radically alter their sumptuous template with this second LP; and we wouldn't want them to. Yet with a more focused flow from first track to last, both Coastlines and Be With feel this is an even stronger album than their first. One thing that hasn't changed is the use of instrumentals instead of words to express their themes; namely, "the emotional expression of being soaked."

Opener "Tenderly" is appropriately titled, a gentle Latin shuffle easing you back into the Coastlines sound. An organ-heavy synthy exotica that's in step with Lovelock's contemporaneous "Washington Park". Their über-horizontal take on Hawkshaw & Bennett's "Mile High Swinger" (from Synthesiser And Percussion, reissued by Be With!) evokes cocktails-by-the-pool as the sun slowly sets. The blunted deep jazz-funk swing of "Alicia" is a rearranged reimagining of the Gabor Szabo song from his classic Jazz Raga LP. This here sounds like an outtake from The Chronic.

As the sun goes down, "Combustione Lenta" soundtracks the relaxing slow burn of an idyllic bonfire on an isolated beach. Displaying a beautiful new side of Coastlines, we're treated to Moments In Love vibes and melancholic guitar arcs. The piano-laden early morning wonder of "Night Cruise" started life as a completely different song, but the duo found a particularly good loop from the initial sketch and reconstructed it into this sophisticated 80s instrumental soul groove. "Waves And Rays" is all undulating acid waves and lighthouse light. A chopped and screwed steel drum G-Funk with soaring synths and nods toward the squelchy machine soul of Mtume and Jam & Lewis. Yes, *that* good.

The bouncy futureboogie cosmic chug of "Sky Island" represents the beginning of the sunrise, casting images of 80s Japanese fusion and definitely one to play out early doors to get the crowd stepping. "Area Code 868" is the strutting staccato sound of Joe Sample waking up in the Caribbean to craft his piano funk drenched in sunshine. Accordingly, the tentative, naive melodies of "Sand Steps" represent that vivid feeling first thing in the morning, as you step on to the sandy beach in the sunshine and take a deep breath. The world is yours.

The emotional, organ-piano-steel drum-driven "Song For My Mother" is a slo-mo show of sincere gratitude to all the great mothers. "Yasmin's Theme" is Coastlines's Brazilian homage, recalling for them that early summer feeling. It's propelled laconically by the carnival beat of batucada`s big bass surdo drum and complimented by sweeps of warm keys and radiant vocal harmonies. Blissful beatless closer "Asafuji" conjures a scene from a wonderful morning spent with the people of Shizuoka, the symbolic mountain of Japan, Mt Fuji and its inhabitants. It sounds like Dâm-FunK jamming with Sabres Of Paradise.

Coastlines 2 was painstakingly crafted, across the pandemic, at Masanori's rented place in Tokyo and then brought back to his home studio and worked on slowly and repeatedly. With limited time to see each other, the duo became more united in their "consciousness with natural progress."

Mastered by Simon Francis and cut by Cicely Balston at Air Studios, this magnificent double LP has been pressed by the good people at Record Industry.

With his new album, Gecko Turner confirms that he is a standout artist in the global groove scene, a must for the outernational sounds aficionados.

Somebody From Badajoz is the fifth studio album in his much lauded discography and his first in seven years, eagerly anticipated by both his fans and himself: "this business of dedicating yourself to music and making songs... it's a long game."

With the release of his first two, remarkable, albums, Guapapasea! (2003) and Chandalismo Ilustrado (2006), Gecko started cultivating what one astute journalist defined as Afro-maduran soul—the "maduran" bit referencing Extremadura, a region in central-western Spain.

Badajoz, Gecko's birthplace, is the biggest city in the area, on the border with Portugal, by the Guadiana River. It is a place that oozes history, where there is constant movement at the border, and people's character is friendly and open-minded with foreign habits.

Gecko's Afro-maduran soul isbuilt on Afro-American music and drenched in Brazilian, African, Latin American and Jamaican sounds. There are also echoes of a youth marked in equal parts by our man's admiration for the Beatles and the flamenco that could be heard everywhere in Badajoz in the seventies. It makes for a singular sound and a musical language of its own—spicy, succulent, full of nuances, but with a very personal flavour.

The album opens with the Nigerian talking drums of Twenty-twenty Vision, (neo) soul in a magical falsetto, carried by a sumptuous orchestral arrangement with a cinematic flavour: "I'd been thinking about doing something called 'Twenty-twenty Vision' for some time, making a play on words with the vision we have of the world after the year 2020 and the medical expression, which, in ophthalmological terms, means 'normal or complete vision.' Beyond that particular song, I think that's the mood of the album: a look at society in the twenties of the 21st century and the feelings and demons it produces."

It's followed by De Balde, a very special song born from a posthumously discovered lyric by the great writer Carlos Lencero, a regular collaborator of Camarón, Pata Negra, and Remedios Amaya, and also from Badajoz. While conceived as a fandango, Gecko has moulded it into his sound in such a seamless way it now seems as if the words could only have been written to be embraced by the percussion, brass, and backing vocals heard on the album. It's the only lyric on Somebody From Badajoz not written by Turner, still it sits rather comfortably with the rest, sharing the same emotivity and sensitivity, as well as the trademark humour and irony.

Other tracks see more protagonism for the rhythm.The beat-driven Ain't No Fun Preachin' to the Choir features Gecko's vocals walking the thin line between singing and talking over a phenomenal afro-disco-funk-infused trailblazer. In Am I Sad? it's impossible to not bob your head to the queen of Papatosina's mongrel rhythm, as close to the banks of the Guadiana river as it is to the shores of the Mississippi. Qué Siesta Tan Buena, He Babeao Y To! is an ode to the snooze in true Afro-Maduran fashion. And in Come And Try, the Caribbean influence is evident—lovers' rock that invites you to dance in good company.

In these songs, and throughout the album, for that matter, the musicians accompanying Gecko, who himself plays many of the instruments as well, shine brightly. All hailing from Extremadura, Javi Mojave (percussion), Álvaro Fdez 'Dr. Robelto' (bass), and Rafa Prieto (guitar) have been carrying him with delicate forcefulness since he started out as a solo artist. At the same time, the wonderful and essential voices of Deborah Ayo, Astrid Jones, Fani Ela Nsue, and Miriam Solís give the album a sunny variety of colours. And there are many more—a sensational group of musicians contributes dazzling harmonic bursts to many of the songs. The palette of sounds is very diverse and rich in textures and nuances, including, for example, the ngoni, bells, and various repurposed kitchen utensils.

The groove is always around, moving between the magical border sound of Everybody Knows Somebody From Badajoz and Little Dose, the silky soul of The Sibariteo Appreciation Society, and the exultant celebration of End Of The World (which surprisingly sees Gecko turning to the occasional use of autotune), a piece that could be used for the final credits of a Monty Python film and, in fact, closes the album.

Gecko Turner has done it again with Somebody From Badajoz, looking to the future without losing sight of the roots. In times of upheaval all over the globe, when people are looking for purity, he delivers a formidable piece of work: risky, optimistic in spite of everything, and with a decidedly bastard sound. Let's rejoice.

At the beginning of the eighties reggae music became increasingly in tune with what was happening in Kingston’s dance halls… probably more so than at any time since the sound system operators had started to make their own shuffle and boogie recordings in the late fifties. The international audience and the critics were too busy looking for a new Bob Marley to appreciate what was happening downtown and failed to acknowledge that this was a return to the real, raw roots of the music. Brash, confident, young record producers who were totally in tune with the youth audience stepped forward and seized the moment…

Oswald ‘Ossie’ Thomas began his apprenticeship in the music business at the age of
fourteen and served his time as a record salesman for Bunny ‘Striker’ Lee and Winston ‘Niney The Observer’ Holness before moving on to Miss Sonia Pottinger’s Tip Top Records.

“I ended up working in three record stores on Orange Street from 1976 to 1981… Yeah man! Me deh ‘pon me bicycle till I buy my motorcycle! Them days records were coming out left, right and centre… every day!” Ossie Thomas.

It was during his time with Miss Pottinger that Ossie began to produce records for
himself and in 1979 Ossie and Phillip Morgan began the Black Solidarity label based deep in the Kingston ghetto on Delamere Avenue. Phillip initially inspired Ossie to start the label and soon Triston Palma, Phillip Frazer and “a youth named Gary Robertson” joined in although Gary later left for Canada.

The Soul Syndicate rehearsed in the Delamere Avenue area and Tony Chin gave Ossie a cut of a rhythm that he used for Triston Palma’s ‘A Class Girl’… the label’s inaugural release. The record was a sizeable success and paved the way for hit after hit after hit on Black Solidarity. Ossie worked with just about everybody who was anybody during this critical period of the music’s development including vocalists Robert Ffrench, Little John, Sugar Minott, Frankie Paul and most notably Triston Palma.

For this release we have compiled some of the version sides to those releases. Dub still being an integral part of the Reggae Sound System Sound. So sit back and listen to what Black Solidarity, one of the most important and often overlooked labels were bringing to the dance, dubwise, back in those heady 1980’s times.

With grateful thanks to: Paul Coote, Nick Hodgson & Hasse Huss

With his new album, Gecko Turner confirms that he is a standout artist in the global groove scene, a must for the outernational sounds aficionados.

Somebody From Badajoz is the fifth studio album in his much lauded discography and his first in seven years, eagerly anticipated by both his fans and himself: "this business of dedicating yourself to music and making songs... it's a long game."

With the release of his first two, remarkable, albums, Guapapasea! (2003) and Chandalismo Ilustrado (2006), Gecko started cultivating what one astute journalist defined as Afro-maduran soul—the "maduran" bit referencing Extremadura, a region in central-western Spain.

Badajoz, Gecko's birthplace, is the biggest city in the area, on the border with Portugal, by the Guadiana River. It is a place that oozes history, where there is constant movement at the border, and people's character is friendly and open-minded with foreign habits.

Gecko's Afro-maduran soul isbuilt on Afro-American music and drenched in Brazilian, African, Latin American and Jamaican sounds. There are also echoes of a youth marked in equal parts by our man's admiration for the Beatles and the flamenco that could be heard everywhere in Badajoz in the seventies. It makes for a singular sound and a musical language of its own—spicy, succulent, full of nuances, but with a very personal flavour.

The album opens with the Nigerian talking drums of Twenty-twenty Vision, (neo) soul in a magical falsetto, carried by a sumptuous orchestral arrangement with a cinematic flavour: "I'd been thinking about doing something called 'Twenty-twenty Vision' for some time, making a play on words with the vision we have of the world after the year 2020 and the medical expression, which, in ophthalmological terms, means 'normal or complete vision.' Beyond that particular song, I think that's the mood of the album: a look at society in the twenties of the 21st century and the feelings and demons it produces."

It's followed by De Balde, a very special song born from a posthumously discovered lyric by the great writer Carlos Lencero, a regular collaborator of Camarón, Pata Negra, and Remedios Amaya, and also from Badajoz. While conceived as a fandango, Gecko has moulded it into his sound in such a seamless way it now seems as if the words could only have been written to be embraced by the percussion, brass, and backing vocals heard on the album. It's the only lyric on Somebody From Badajoz not written by Turner, still it sits rather comfortably with the rest, sharing the same emotivity and sensitivity, as well as the trademark humour and irony.

Other tracks see more protagonism for the rhythm.The beat-driven Ain't No Fun Preachin' to the Choir features Gecko's vocals walking the thin line between singing and talking over a phenomenal afro-disco-funk-infused trailblazer. In Am I Sad? it's impossible to not bob your head to the queen of Papatosina's mongrel rhythm, as close to the banks of the Guadiana river as it is to the shores of the Mississippi. Qué Siesta Tan Buena, He Babeao Y To! is an ode to the snooze in true Afro-Maduran fashion. And in Come And Try, the Caribbean influence is evident—lovers' rock that invites you to dance in good company.

In these songs, and throughout the album, for that matter, the musicians accompanying Gecko, who himself plays many of the instruments as well, shine brightly. All hailing from Extremadura, Javi Mojave (percussion), Álvaro Fdez 'Dr. Robelto' (bass), and Rafa Prieto (guitar) have been carrying him with delicate forcefulness since he started out as a solo artist. At the same time, the wonderful and essential voices of Deborah Ayo, Astrid Jones, Fani Ela Nsue, and Miriam Solís give the album a sunny variety of colours. And there are many more—a sensational group of musicians contributes dazzling harmonic bursts to many of the songs. The palette of sounds is very diverse and rich in textures and nuances, including, for example, the ngoni, bells, and various repurposed kitchen utensils.

The groove is always around, moving between the magical border sound of Everybody Knows Somebody From Badajoz and Little Dose, the silky soul of The Sibariteo Appreciation Society, and the exultant celebration of End Of The World (which surprisingly sees Gecko turning to the occasional use of autotune), a piece that could be used for the final credits of a Monty Python film and, in fact, closes the album.

Gecko Turner has done it again with Somebody From Badajoz, looking to the future without losing sight of the roots. In times of upheaval all over the globe, when people are looking for purity, he delivers a formidable piece of work: risky, optimistic in spite of everything, and with a decidedly bastard sound. Let's rejoice.

For this uniquely personal retrospective spread over twelve vinyl discs, Sven Väth takes us back to the early days of his DJ career. On What I Used To Play we meet great pioneers of electronic music, gifted percussionists, obscure wave bands, and innovative producers of a bygone 'new electronic' era. Rough beats and irresistible grooves from the identification stage of house, techno, and acid remind us not just how far electronic music has evolved over the past four decades, but how great it was to dance to EBM, techno, and house for the very first time.

If there is one protagonist of the electronic music scene who has remained curious, innovative and at the very cutting edge of music for over four decades, it's Sven Väth. His multi-layered artist albums and Sound of the Season mix compilations have been defining the genre for over two decades, and even today, he is constantly on the lookout for the next top tune to add to the highlights of his next set. At least, that's the case when he's not producing them himself as an artist or remixer. "Actually, it's always been part of my DNA to think ahead," and nothing had been further from his mind than looking back at his past, but when in spring of 2020 the international DJ circuit had to be scaled down to virtually zero, the 'restless traveler' suddenly had time. Time to stop and reflect on "how it actually was back then, at the very beginning of my career..."

"It was a great trip and with every track, beautiful memories came flooding back".
In the London apartment, he had just moved into, Sven has set up a "little music room", where he cocooned himself for several days, "to look way back for the first time and review my musical journey through the eighties, so to speak."

The interim result was six thematically oriented playlists with a grand total of 120 tracks from 'early 80s' to 'Balearic late 80s', together with excursions into afrobeat, European new wave, and EBM sounds and a few epochal techno/house tracks from the USA in between. From these 'Best of Sven Väth's favorites', the project What I Used To Play crystallized. Sven remembers how the Cocoon team reacted to his proposal: "They found the idea of making a compilation out of it MEGA from the beginning and everyone said 'Sven, go for it', but then, of course, the work really started, namely, to clear the rights and to get clean sounding masters of the up to 40-year-old tracks. There was also disappointment, of course. We couldn't clear certain titles because the rights holders in the USA had fallen out with each other or simply disappeared from the scene. In short, it wasn't easy, but now I can safely say we got the most important tracks."

Finally, after two years of research, curation, design, and administrative fine-tuning, the "little retrospective" from 1981 to 1990 is available. The exquisitely packaged, and three-kilo heavy box set is not only physically impressive, WIUTP is also the definitive record of Sven Väth's musical development. On each of the twenty-four sides of vinyl, you can trace track by track, what influenced him during which phase, and how he took off as a DJ from his parents' Queen's Pub straight into the spotlight at Dorian Gray. There and at Vogue (later OMEN), Sven became the style-defining player in the DJ booth that he still is today.




1981 - 1990: Future Sounds of Now

In the early eighties, the crowd in clubs like Vogue and Dorian Gray danced to what nowadays we call 'dance classics' - mainly disco, funk, soul, and chart pop. It was up to a new generation of DJs, including Sven Väth, the youngest protagonist in the Rhine-Main area at the time, to create their own club-ready music mix. Good new tracks and potential floor-fillers were rarities that had to be sought out and found, in order to prove oneself worthy.
Without MP3s, internet streaming, or other digital download possibilities, music didn't just gravitate to the DJ, instead, it had to be tracked down. In well-stocked record stores in Frankfurt and Wiesbaden or even in Amsterdam, London, or New York, Sven and friends sourced the material for countless magical nights. On WIUTP we can follow Sven's very personal journey through this wild, innovative era in which synth-pop, funk, hip-hop, and disco were successively replaced as 'club music' by house, techno, acid, and breakbeat. By the end of the decade, it was clear to see that these once exotic 'fringe' phenomena would soon become 'mass' phenomena.



Early 80s

Dirty Talk by the Italian-American duo Klein & M.B.O. represents the most innovative phase of the Italo-disco genre in the early eighties like no other track. Mario Boncaldo (I) and Tony Carrasco relied entirely on the original synthetic drum and percussion sounds of the Roland TR-808, coupled with the raunchy vocals of Rossana Casale and guitar accents of Davide Piatto. Of course, other tracks from this period were also influential in style, most notably Unit by Logic System, which worked as the perfect soundtrack to the laser lighting system at the legendary Dorian Gray club. With stomping beats and robotic rap interludes, Bostich by Yello also belongs on Sven's eternal playlist - after all, it caught the attention of Afrikaa Bambaataa, who invited the Swiss duo to perform at the Roxy in New York in 1983.



EBM Wave - Mid 80s

From today's point of view, the almost ten-minute-long, downtempo track Giant by Matt Johnson's band project The The, would probably not be considered an obvious club classic. However, a closer (re)listen reveals the rhythmic intricacies of the percussion overdubs by JG Thirlwell (aka Foetus) on Johnson's composition, and it becomes clear why this exceptional piece of music is one of Sven's absolute favorites. Other classics from this phase include Kaw-Liga by the mysterious The Residents, the hypnotic-synthetic Our Darkness by Anne Clark (and David Harrow), and last but not least, the somber, monotonous anthem Where Are You? by 16Bit, one of Sven Väth's projects together with Michael Münzing, Luca Anzilotti from 1986.



US House - Late 80s

You certainly can't talk about Chicago house without mentioning Frankie Knuckles. The resident DJ at the Warehouse not only gave the name to an entire genre, but also produced epochal floor fillers on the Trax label like the timeless Your Love, sung (and moaned) by Jamie Principle. Acid house protagonists Phuture also hail from Chicago, and on We Are Phuture (also released on Trax) we hear the chirping acid sounds of the legendary Roland TB-303 in full effect. Another featured classic is No UFO's by Detroit's Model 500 aka Juan Atkins, who is rightly considered the 'Godfather of Techno' even if the genre-defining track from 1985 still breathes with the spirit of hip-hop and electro from the first breakdance era.





Afrobeat

Le Serpent, by Algerian-born Abdelmadjid Guemguem, is a track that sounds completely different from everything else on WIUTP. Made in 1978, it's a monumental, rousing groove created without bass or synths, just with five congas! Even though Guem sadly passed away in 2021, his immortal, acoustic beats are understood all over the world and will continue to enrich many thousands of DJ sets for years to come. Another classic that not only Sven appreciates beyond measure is Hugh Masekela's Don't Go Lose it, Baby. In addition to being one of the most important jazz pioneers, the trumpeter and freedom fighter from Johannesburg was very experimental, integrating electronic sounds into his music in later years, in a similar vein to Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock. Dutch jazz pianist Jasper van't Hof's afrobeat project Pili Pili has also aged well. The trance-like, almost sixteen-minute-long track of the same name, manages to fill a whole side on the seventh of twelve vinyl discs in the WIUTP box.



UK-US-Euro - Late 80s

Time for a change of scene, in the truest sense of the word, and from a musical perspective, this section is like landing on another planet. First up is Andrew Weatherall's classic remix of Primal Scream's Loaded, featuring the iconic Peter Fonda sample (lifted from the 1966 biker film Wild Angels) that came to personify the mood triggered by the British Second Summer of Love in the late eighties: "We wanna be free to do what we wanna do, and we wanna get loaded...". This period also saw the emergence of M/A/R/R/S whose only single, 1987's Pump Up The Volume, became a club classic with support from DJ legend CJ Mackintosh. In this most eclectic of sections, we also encounter New York house and reggae producer Bobby Konders and his seminal Nervous Acid.



Balearic - Late 80s

Those who know him, know that Sven had already lost his heart to the 'magic island' of Ibiza as a teenager, so with that in mind, the WIUTP project couldn't end without a Balearic chapter. Inspired by Manuel Göttsching's E2-E4, the immortal, eponymously titled Sueño Latino belongs in there without question. Equally popular on the island was, and still is Break 4 Love by Raze, which thinking about it, would also fit perfectly into the house chapter. Last, but not least, there's an overdue reunion with Sven Väth himself, in his role as frontman of the successful Frankfurt trio OFF. Together with Michael Münzing and Luca Anzilotti (later of Snap!) this 'Organization For Fun' created the off-the-wall club hit Electric Salsa in 1986 which incidentally turned into an international chart smash, putting Sven in the enviable position of having to decide between pop stardom and a DJ career. Well, we all know how that decision turned out and the rest, as they say, is history. A not insignificant part of his story is What I Used To Play. Enjoy!

• There was plenty of genuine discontent in Britain at the tail end of the 1970s, and it had little to do with bin strikes or dark rumours about overflowing morgues. In the world of popular music, the most liberating after-effect of the Sex Pistols was that anyone with something to say now felt they could make a 7” single. “Winter Of Discontent” is the sound of truly DIY music, made by people who maybe hadn’t written a song until a day or two before they went into the studio. It’s spontaneous and genuinely free in a way the British music scene has rarely been before or since.

• “Winter of Discontent” has been compiled by Saint Etienne’s Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs, the latest in their highly acclaimed series of albums that includes “The Daisy Age”, “Fell From The Sun” and “English Weather” ("really compelling and immersive: it’s a pleasure to lose yourself in it" - Alexis Petridis, the Guardian). The era's bigger DIY names (Scritti Politti, TV Personalities, the Fall) and the lesser-known (Exhibit A, Digital Dinosaurs, Frankie’s Crew) are side by side on “Winter Of Discontent”. Mark Perry’s Sniffin’ Glue command – “Here’s one chord, here’s another, now start a band” – was amplified by the Mekons and the Raincoats, whose music shared a little of punk’s volume, speed and distortion, but all of its obliqueness and irreverence.

• The discontent was with society as a whole. No subject matter was taboo: oppressive maleness (Scritti Politti); deluded Britishness (TV Personalities); gender stereotypes (Raincoats, Androids of Mu); nihilistic youth (Fatal Microbes); alcoholism (Thin Yoghurts); self-doubt and pacifism (Zounds). The band names (Thin Yoghurts!) and those of individual members (Andrew Lunchbox!) had enough daftness to avoid any accusations of solemnity.

• “Winter Of Discontent” is the definitive compilation of the UK DIY scene, and a beacon in grim times.

The album’s seemingly brief tracklisting belies a work of great beauty and depth, and one which turned into a one-man crusade for singer/guitarist Lars Andersson, intertwining deeply personal stories with his love for the era of Romanticism. “Every time I go to a museum and I’m about to pass through the era of Romanticism I stop in awe,” says Lars of the enduring appeal of the 18th century artistic movement. “Whatever it is – stories, paintings, music – it triggers something deep within me, something profoundly human. It really hits a nerve, and it utterly immerses me to a point where I can’t move.” The album replicates this feeling; a gloriously over-the-top blend of Slowdive and Sigur Rós, mixed with the single-mindedness of Daniel Johnston and the noisiness of Nirvana, it’s as bold and beautiful and every bit as ornate as the art that inspired it. Unlike their acclaimed debut, 2019’s All That Ever Could Have Been, which gradually came into focus with a 15-minute opening track, Picturesque hits home from the very first note of the short and sweet opener, ‘Ballerina’. That’s not to say there aren’t epics here – ‘Metamorphosis’ is essentially a 12-minute suite of three movements; blistering closer ‘The Lot’ is 11 minutes of Swans-inspired heaviness – but everything is much more direct and focused. This isn’t an album to lose yourself in, it’s one to get swept away by. “‘More is more’ was definitely the credo when making this record,” agrees Lars. “A big inspiration were bands like Pond and the way they manage to fill their songs up with stuff to the absolute maximum. While I definitely tried to give the listener some room to breathe at certain points and while, in good old post-rock fashion, it still builds up and breaks down, it relies much more on simple melody and harmony as opposed to noisy experimentation to transport feeling.” Never more so than on the first single, ‘The Golden Age’, which is the album’s centrepiece; a soaring slice of über-shoegaze that is so stunning you can’t take your eyes or ears off it. Like all the songs on the album, it’s based around a fairy-tale from the Romantic era. In this case, it’s Heinrich von Ofterdingen by the German poet, author and philosopher Novalis (other influences are: The Steadfast Tin Soldier by Hans Christian Andersen; The Seven Ravens and Hans in Luck by the Brothers Grimm; Undine by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué and The Golden Pot by E.T.A. Hoffmann), with Lars drawing parallels between the titular character’s mystical and romantic searchings and his own personal quest. This is apt as the album has been an overriding obsession for Lars for the past two-and-a-half years; as well as writing and recording the songs (bandmate Phillip Dornauer played drums), he also mixed and mastered them at his Alpine Audio studio and Picturesque is very much his Brian Wilson or Kevin Shields moment. MOLLY were in the middle of their European tour when Covid hit in early 2020, forcing Lars to retreat back to his home outside Innsbruck and giving him time and space to think about every detail of the record. “Well, I was on a quest I guess,” he admits. “Like everyone, I was stranded at home and at some point I just said to myself, ‘If not now, then when?’ It was an intense process. I’ve worked on music from other bands and artists before but producing and mixing your own music is an utterly different animal. It was probably the most intense thing I’ve ever done, but it was also incredibly rewarding and the feeling of it all coming together piece by piece is incomparable.” The artwork is just as effective. “I think of Radiohead’s OK Computer – what you hear on the record is what you see on the cover,” explains Lars. “We were inspired by what we call ‘wimmelbilder’ hidden pictures in German, a very specific style in art where there are a lot of little things happening. When you see it from further away, it looks organic like a lost painting from the area of Romanticism, but the closer you look the more digital it gets. It’s a nice analogy.” He’s right, it perfectly sums up the conflict between Romanticism and 21st century life. “Romanticism was basically an answer to the Industrial Revolution as well as the social and political norms of the Age Of Enlightenment,” concludes Lars. “Now, we all live in a much more industrialised, materialistic, individualistic and sterile society than any early Romanticist could have ever possibly imagined. Over 200 years later the Romanticists have lost the battle.” With the divine and downright pulchritudinous Picturesque, MOLLY begin the fightback.1.Ballerina 2.Metamorphosis 3.The Golden Age 4.Sunday Kid 5.So To Speak 6.The Lot

..."An alternate universe where Brian Eno produced "Rumours" and Alex Chilton wrote songs with Blondie..." San Francisco 5 piece LATITUDE sophomore album "Mystic Hotline" builds on the foundations of their acclaimed 2017 Debut with a triumphant foray into 21st century power pop. Centered around the dazzling vocal performance of Amy Fowler, tight band arrangements and accomplished delivery, the 10 tracks crackle with proficiency and elan. ..."Effervescent power pop bliss with infectious melodies, jangly guitars, sparkling synths, and more hooks than your local bait & tackle...." Although often drawing comparisons to such pop heavyweights as Blondie, The Nerves, Nick Lowe, and The Pretenders LATITUDE are far from revivalists, as this album testifies. "Mystic Hotline" reflects the present darker mood of the country, veering from carefree 60s/70s pop into more angsty 80s territory. That sentiment is evident in "Damage Control", a sonic bristling at a grotesque new Trump reality. "Rising" testifies to the senselessness of the Ghost Ship fire in Oakland, and the media blame game that followed. Vertical Highway is a deceptively happy ditty about death. Those are counterbalanced by songs like Thursday Is The New Sunday's praise for lazy love and I Love The Radio, a tribute to the many talented female musicians in the Bay Area.

On December 2th Svart Records will release the slowly gestated second album by the mystical Finnish progressive rock group Getsemane, who describe themselves as performing music "molded from the jawbones of a pike", in reference to the Kalevala where Väinämöinen built his first kantele The group first got together in 2009 in the Tampere area to perform live music for a fire theatre. After the shows they decided to continue as a band finding ever more polyrythmic and progressive ideas still drawing from the Kalevala mythos and eccentric psychedelic visions. Getsemane self-released their eponymous debut album in 2015, and the follow-up Viimaa is due for release this December. Best known for their dynamic live shows, the group's new album is full of unusual time signatures, meandering melodic lines and ethereal landscapes, not forgetting hard rocking in the best 70s style. Those that are into classic prog rock in the lines of Haikara, Tabula Rasa or King Crimson will feel immediately at home. The first single off the album, Varma kuolema ("Certain death") is a good representative of the entire album. According to the band, the song gives "A gruesomely honest but a cradling, positive vibe of the meaninglessness of life."