Buscar:ha lo

2LP - 180 Gram Vinyl Jazz Standards Live is a remarkable collaboration between two iconic jazz musicians: Kenny Wheeler, a legendary trumpeter and composer known for his versatility, and Rain Sultanov, a saxophonist celebrated for his rich tone and innovative style. This album captures an unforgettable performance that has never before been released physically. Blending the expressive power of Wheeler's trumpet and Sultanov's saxophone, the quintet delivers a warm and resonant sound that harks back to the golden era of jazz in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Fans of Herbie Hancock's V.S.O.P. quintet will recognize the vibrant interplay reminiscent of Freddie Hubbard and Wayne Shorter. This double vinyl LP is a treasure trove for jazz enthusiasts, featuring a mix of beloved standards and original compositions by Wheeler. Adding depth and character to the performance is Shahin Novrasli's masterful piano work, which infuses the album with a distinctive mood. Meanwhile, Paul Clarvis on drums and Ruslan Guseynov on bass provide a dynamic and cohesive rhythm section that elevates each track. Jazz Standards Live is not just an album; it is a testament to the boundless creativity and artistry of two jazz maestros, uniting their talents to create an experience that is both timeless and fresh. Whether you're a longtime jazz aficionado or a newcomer to the genre, this album promises to captivate and inspire.

2LP - 180 Gram Vinyl Jazz Standards Live is a remarkable collaboration between two iconic jazz musicians: Kenny Wheeler, a legendary trumpeter and composer known for his versatility, and Rain Sultanov, a saxophonist celebrated for his rich tone and innovative style. This album captures an unforgettable performance that has never before been released physically. Blending the expressive power of Wheeler's trumpet and Sultanov's saxophone, the quintet delivers a warm and resonant sound that harks back to the golden era of jazz in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Fans of Herbie Hancock's V.S.O.P. quintet will recognize the vibrant interplay reminiscent of Freddie Hubbard and Wayne Shorter. This double vinyl LP is a treasure trove for jazz enthusiasts, featuring a mix of beloved standards and original compositions by Wheeler. Adding depth and character to the performance is Shahin Novrasli's masterful piano work, which infuses the album with a distinctive mood. Meanwhile, Paul Clarvis on drums and Ruslan Guseynov on bass provide a dynamic and cohesive rhythm section that elevates each track. Jazz Standards Live is not just an album; it is a testament to the boundless creativity and artistry of two jazz maestros, uniting their talents to create an experience that is both timeless and fresh. Whether you're a longtime jazz aficionado or a newcomer to the genre, this album promises to captivate and inspire.

Radioactive Toys aus Köln spielen einen schnellen Punkrock/Hardcore a la "Poison Idea". Es wird geknüppelt, aber auch gerockt. Erscheint auf dem Hamburger Label Rookie Records.

Italian composer and saxophonist Laura Agnusdei returns with “Flowers Are Blooming In Antarctica” a career defining record that sees the artist diving into uncharted waters, a profound timeless meditation on our relationship with planet Earth, the eco-conflicts arising and the fascination with non human forms of life, backdropped to a vivid soundtrack of coral exotica, spiritual Jazz, fourth-world minimalism, tropical electronics, tribal futurism and contemporary elegance.

Every step of Laura Agnusdei’s path, from electroacoustic experimentation to her constant research based upon the acoustic dimension of wind instruments and their interaction with polymorphic electronic sounds, seems to have pivoted into a new sense of awareness, as if the mind and intellectual practice has finally caught up with the body, the heart and the soul, resulting in her most organic and transcendent work yet. “Flowers Are Blooming In Antarctica” is loosely inspired around a trifecta of pioneering ideas that explore unconventional reality: James Bridle’s ‘Ways Of Being’ with his radical story that mixes ecology, tech and intelligence; Luigi Serafini’s late-70s fantastical ‘Codex Seraphinianus’, an unparalleled collection of flora, fauna, anatomies metamorphosed into new fragile beings; J.G. Ballard’s climate-fiction foreshadowing sci-fi ruminations. These influences shift Agnusdei’s musical trajectory injecting doses of terrestrial malaise, the earthy sub-saharan ‘Ittiolalia’ with its wah-wah filtered sax and trance inducing groove; the rubbery playfulness of ‘Oasi Bar’; the gentle eco-system of ‘P.P.R.N’ reminiscent of Herbie Hancock’s innovative synthesis of funk, space and synthesizers; the kaleidoscopic northern lights of ‘Emperor Penguin Lullaby’, where south-east Asian echoes reach icy shores; the Jon Hassell hyper-ambience of ‘Cuttlefish REM Phase’; the post-apocalyptic march of ‘The Drowned World, a jazz standard for an artificial civilization on the brink of self-destruction. Nothing feels out of place and it’s no coincidence that one of the most powerful messages on the record is delivered on centerpiece ‘Are We Dinos?’ via an interview conducted with two preschoolers. Radical optimism or sonic liberation?

Laura Agnusdei’s tenor sax cuts deep all across “Flowers Are Blooming In Antarctica”, a laser baton raised up to the clouds, a conductor orchestrating devotional soundscapes for a three-eyed dolphin, guiding us through prismatic pastures and acidic oceans. Her tropicalized realm is pin-pointed with Miles-like sheer clarity, a bristling nakedness on the verge of exploding at any time, creating an album where ascension becomes the unifying code.

Anxious’ second album Bambi arrives this winter on Run For Cover Records. It’s been a whirlwind few years for the Fairfield, Connecticut five-piece – since the release of their debut album Little Green House, there’s been little time for anything other than consistent touring with bands like Hot Mulligan, One Step Closer and The Wonder Years. Somewhere during that endless grind, vocalist Grady Allen was sitting in a hotel room and stumbled upon a name typed into a long-forgotten memo on his phone: Bambi. “We should have named the band Bambi,” he recalls admitting to his bandmates. Bambi stuck with the band after that night and eventually it evolved from a “what-if” into the name of Anxious’ second full-length album.

Bambi is a record of remarkable growth, depth, ambition, and energy. It takes all the unsolvable and unavoidable problems of exiting adolescence and makes them resonate in urgent and authentic new ways. The album has deep roots in the storied lineage of Northeast tri-state hardcore and emo, but it also fully embraces the widescreen alternative rock songwriting at which Anxious have previously only hinted. It’s a statement of purpose, the kind of album that comes from a band reconciling where they’ve been with where they want to go. Bambi is the sound of Anxious putting everything on the line–and coming out on the other side better than ever.

Inspired by “big swing” records like Blink-182’s self-titled or Jimmy Eat World’s Clarity, Anxious set out to redefine the band without losing sight of what made them work in the first place. Tracks like “Head & Spine,” “Sunder,” and “Tell Me Why” showcase the scope of Anxious’ evolution, tapping crunchy ‘90s rock guitarwork, layered ‘60s-esque harmonies, and crisp, modern production that captures the unrivaled energy of seeing the band play live.

Jules Reidy"s sublime music maps the human experience in glittering constellations of sound. The guitarist is a driver of Berlin"s fertile contemporary music scene. A wide-eyed imagination combined with technical mastery guide each work in Reidy"s extensive catalog, from solo guitar albums and collaborations with innovative peers, including recent works with claire rousay, Oren Ambarchi, Andrea Belfi and Sam Dunscombe to major commissions from JACK Quartet and Zinc & Copper. The songs of Ghost/Spirit collectively convey an astral sense of yearning and wonder, pushing towards transcendence. The album charts a deeply personal journey with love, spirituality and transformation expressed in fractal guitar figures, ethereal vocal vapors and rippling microtones. Reidy"s guitar approach unlocks the tonal and textural possibilities of the instrument from their use of alternate tunings and astute processing. The maximalist melodics of album opener "Every Day There"s a Sunset" are bolstered by rumbling bass samples from Andreas Dzialocha, Reidy"s collaborator in the duo Sun Kit. On "Satellite," cello samples from Judith Hamann stretch out through the cosmos, orbited by spiraling finger-picked guitars, while stacked trombone chords echo out into the ether. Thundering drum samples from Berlin metal mainstay Sara Neidorf push the album to ecstatic peaks on "Every Day There"s a Sunrise," fragmented rhythms breaking apart in the atmosphere. Field recordings of the Berlin S-Bahn recur throughout the album, another endless cycle of leaving and returning that shuttles beneath the album"s whirling tones. Ghost/Spirit captures the inherent power and agency in choosing to offer yourself up to the universe and let go, ego death and prayer rendered in incandescent sonics. Reidy"s inimitable skill as a guitarist, producer and composer is on full display, and when combined with the intensity of experience, the resulting album is a remarkable work of art.

Hailing from the Basque Country, Spain, Big Muff Brigade is a stoner-rock powerhouse that is going to make a mark with their ambitious debut album. This full-length release is a bold effort to encapsulate the rich diversity of the stoner-rock genre, blending elements of epic doomy metal and bluesy desert rock, with the grittier edges of indie rock, into a kaleidoscope of sound. Thematically the album delivers a sharp critique of contemporary society, where fleeting attention spans and shallow digital interactions overshadow enduring values like friendship, loyalty and the pursuit of knowledge.

Through their music, Big Muff Brigade confronts this cultural decline with a heavy dose of raw emotion and authenticity. It’s also a tribute to the iconic Electro-Harmonix Big Muff PI fuzz pedal, a cornerstone of their sound and the inspiration for their name. If you’re a fan of stoner-rock in all its forms, Big Muff Brigade’s debut-album is a must-listen; a (distorted) sonic odyssey that pays homage to the genre’s roots while exploring new horizons: it’s loud, raw and alive, with heavy and dynamic grooves, a lot of fuzz and hypnotic riffs!

All the shades of green. Plants. Water. The absolute necessities of life. Music, too, is an absolute necessity. To capture both color and sound in a bottle to put atop a piano like a houseplant. A clock. A fern. Synesthesia. This music is meant for that. To close your eyes and see green. To drown in the color of piano. A melancholic covey that pulls hard on the heart strings musically and lyrically, brushed over with a plethora of improvisation in smooth watercolors.

With Tim Hill’s new trajectory, we are offered a fresh neuron sprawl, branching beyond lyrics in interrupted pieces of sound. He takes our reptilian brains and welds them to our unborn futures, placing us inside of his droplet. Here, we're forced to reflect out, something singular multiplies, nature brings her face in, something shifts, our speed changes, the Self refracts and what's left jumps on sustained lines that eventually arch into meditation milk. It becomes a karmic cleanse of the amygdala, a launch from normal feeling life. Tim takes the risk, committing to diving deeper into his own bottomless pool of art, gifting us with sensory treats that dilate our old perimeters. It's sky as theatre, handing out everything but answers to questions. And where do we go? Where starlight mingles. Where minds never land.

A seasoned musician in all forms, Tim Hill has toured the world as a keyboardist, guitarist, saxophonist, and drummer, with a long time stint with LA group the Allah Las, and well known acts such as Nick Waterhouse, Curtis Harding, PAINT, and others.

First vinyl edition of Carme López’ debut album of entrancing bagpipe arrangements. Unravelling forms of early music and funereal, queered droneworks full of strange tonalities, phased harmonics and curious subversions.

Carme López is a researcher and teacher of traditional Galician oral music, and ‘Quintela’ features her debut recordings for the Galician bagpipe, split into four longform movements totalling 40 minutes of supremely engrossing drone flourishes. Misunderstood by many, the bagpipe is here brought into the experimental realm as a form of decontextualisation, fashioning the instrument’s naturally peculiar timbres into soft, wavering tones.

Despite its unusual resonance, in López's hands the bagpipe almost becomes a pipe organ, producing long, swaying, sustained tones that highlight the instrument's complex timbral qualities. López plays with its breathy overtones, placing microphones on the bag itself to pick up residual sounds while she sculpts its squeals into cavernous siren calls, and then extracting half-rhythms from its reeds on the elegiac closer 'iv: CACHELOS. a César De Farbán'.

The instrument’s inherent wheezing and anomalous timbre lend the recordings a wavering foundation that feels designed to unsettle, but somehow becomes nothing short of entrancing through almost imperceptible harmonic shifts and odd tunings. It’s meditative music that requires active participation, focussed listening - so as to make sense of all the infinitesimal shifts and faults - in a way that feels unique to this most maligned, misunderstood, almost mystical instrument.

Being Dead knows how to make an entrance - within the first several seconds of EELS, the duo's new record, the bright, hard-strummed guitar line on "Godzilla Rises" conjures cinematic immediacy, a creature emerging from the depths of the ocean in campy, freaky stop motion, fittingly so. Being Dead's records are mosaics, technicolor incantations, each song its own self-contained little universe. And while the dreamlike EELS probes further into the depths of the duo Being Dead's psyche, it is, most importantly, in the year of our lord 2024, a 16-track record that is genuinely unpredictable from one track to the next: a joyous and unexpected trip helmed by two true-blue freak bitch besties holed up in a lil' house in the heart of Austin, Texas. They decamped to Los Angeles for two weeks to record with GRAMMY-winning producer John Congleton, writing songs for the record until days before they left. The radical shift in process was welcome - a good balance and a challenge, Congleton helping them find new ways to work and helping peel back the layers on the core of their songwriting. Being Dead has grown from a duo to a trio live, including bassist Ricky Motto (who is immortalized finally on record here, particularly in the giggles on "Rock n' Roll Hurts") The resulting EELS is a darker record, tapped more into the devilishness within, but it's also a more raucous, rougher ride sonically. There's heartbreak, excitement, enchantment, dancing - we move through it all at a high-octane pace. Falcon Bitch and Smoofy never want to do the same thing twice on any song, and they don't. From the pummeling garage rock distortion of "Firefighters" to "Dragons II," which appears in its demo form taped on a hand recorder, it's unexpected but intuitive, and, most importantly, singularly Being Dead. Like its animal namesake suggests, the songs on EELS are malleable, the record like slithering through murky waters or strange half dreams, mysterious and beautiful in how it moves, reflective in a wavering sheen. Dipping into each song feels like uncovering a new cavern, plunging into depths unknown but fully open to what will be revealed. On the album artwork, an illustration by the artist Julia Soboleva, there are some weird disparate spectral creatures, a stark glimmer against a cloudy darkness. It's a fitting encapsulation of Being Dead, exuding a welcoming, playful energy even if something foreboding lurks just beyond the pale - more out of frame that's left to uncover, no path unexplored, strange and beautiful in the light.

Purple Tree Fog Vinyl. Being Dead knows how to make an entrance - within the first several seconds of EELS, the duo's new record, the bright, hard-strummed guitar line on "Godzilla Rises" conjures cinematic immediacy, a creature emerging from the depths of the ocean in campy, freaky stop motion, fittingly so. Being Dead's records are mosaics, technicolor incantations, each song its own self-contained little universe. And while the dreamlike EELS probes further into the depths of the duo Being Dead's psyche, it is, most importantly, in the year of our lord 2024, a 16-track record that is genuinely unpredictable from one track to the next: a joyous and unexpected trip helmed by two true-blue freak bitch besties holed up in a lil' house in the heart of Austin, Texas. They decamped to Los Angeles for two weeks to record with GRAMMY-winning producer John Congleton, writing songs for the record until days before they left. The radical shift in process was welcome - a good balance and a challenge, Congleton helping them find new ways to work and helping peel back the layers on the core of their songwriting. Being Dead has grown from a duo to a trio live, including bassist Ricky Motto (who is immortalized finally on record here, particularly in the giggles on "Rock n' Roll Hurts") The resulting EELS is a darker record, tapped more into the devilishness within, but it's also a more raucous, rougher ride sonically. There's heartbreak, excitement, enchantment, dancing - we move through it all at a high-octane pace. Falcon Bitch and Smoofy never want to do the same thing twice on any song, and they don't. From the pummeling garage rock distortion of "Firefighters" to "Dragons II," which appears in its demo form taped on a hand recorder, it's unexpected but intuitive, and, most importantly, singularly Being Dead. Like its animal namesake suggests, the songs on EELS are malleable, the record like slithering through murky waters or strange half dreams, mysterious and beautiful in how it moves, reflective in a wavering sheen. Dipping into each song feels like uncovering a new cavern, plunging into depths unknown but fully open to what will be revealed. On the album artwork, an illustration by the artist Julia Soboleva, there are some weird disparate spectral creatures, a stark glimmer against a cloudy darkness. It's a fitting encapsulation of Being Dead, exuding a welcoming, playful energy even if something foreboding lurks just beyond the pale - more out of frame that's left to uncover, no path unexplored, strange and beautiful in the light.

Dies ist die zweite Auflage von The Monsters "You're Class, I'm Trash", dem noch aktuellem Monsters-Album aus dem Jahre 2021 (erste Auflage war gelb und mit einer 7" Bonus-Single). Diese zweite Auflage hat ein neues pinkfarbendes Sleeve-Design, kommt als 180g Vinyl und mit einem zweiseitig bedrucktem Insert. HI-SPEED-BOOGIE-FUZZ-GARAGE-TRASH-ROCK-N-ROLL FROM LEGENDARY BERNESE GARAGE PUNKS PLAYED WITH A CHAINSAW-ON-STEEL 13 SPLATTER HITS INCLUDING SMALL HORROR OPERA BY SWISS FILM COMPOSER MARIO BATKOVIC The Monsters wurden 1986 in Bern der Schweiz gegründet, als Alternative zur damaligen populären Musik (z. B. Disco, Pop, Top 40 Rock). Sie nannten dies "Teenage Primitive Rock n' Roll Chainsaw Massacre Garage Trash Mix up Rockabilly mit Punkrock und Garage" und haben sich zu einer gefragten Garagen-Punkrockband gemausert, die auf Festivals, in Klubs und großen Hallen so weit gen Osten wie Japan, gen Süden wie Brasilien und gen Norden zu den Skandinavier resit und dort audspielt. Sogar im so Wilden Westen wie New York City in Amerika. Und dann öffnet 2020 die Türen, YAHOO!!! Die Welt wurde komplett abgeschottet und die Pläne aller änderten sich! Da es in naher Zukunft keine Tourneen gäbe, war es jetzt an der Zeit, ein neues Album zu machen. So widmete sich die Band zwei Wochen, um ihren Proberaum aufzuräumen und neue Musik zu schreiben, und 3 Tage im Berner Shirt Off Studio um diese aufzunehmen. Voila! Hier hast du Rosemary's Baby den Knüppel aus dem Sack: 13 raue, laute und spritzig klingende Tracks, die live ohne Overdubs (nur der Gesang/das Geschrei') aufgenommen wurden. Textlich ist das Album eine komplette Katastrophe mit nicht viel mehr als 120 Wörtern, welche aneinandergereiht meistenfalls keinen Sinn ergeben! Es ist eigentlich völliger Quatsch, aber THE MONSTERS lieben es! Das Cover stammt übrigens vom Berner Surrealisten Jerry Haenggli.

Alternative Tentacles Records is thrilled to announce the first-ever vinyl release of two long-awaited tracks, previously available only in digital format. This highly anticipated split 7" features Jello Biafra & The Guantanamo School of Medicine and The November 3, with two explosive songs: "Blunder Blubber" and "IFAR." "Blunder Blubber," originally released as a digital single to mark Rush Limbaugh's passing and was recorded during the TEA PARTY REVENGE PORN recording sessions, highlights everything iconic about Jello Biafra & The Guantanamo School of Medicine. The song critiques the rise of right-wing extremism, tracing its roots back to Rush Limbaugh's influence and the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine under President Reagan in 1987—a policy change that allowed one-sided political commentary on public airwaves. Biafra argues that this set the stage for the toxic media landscape, fueling figures like Limbaugh and the current wave of ""MAGA"" rhetoric. Reflecting on the political climate, Biafra notes, "I wrote the song back when Clinton was president, seeing the writing on the wall. I was hoping never to use it, but we had no choice but to update and perform it now." On the flip side, The November 3 delivers "IFAR," a fiery debut track that first dropped during the 2020 Republican National Convention. Blending punk rock energy with raw political outrage, lead vocalist Billie O' Rights unleashes a bold, biting rant, backed by Tom Pain’s searing guitars. Pat Triotte and Justice Ferrall add their creative touches to this electrifying anthem, capturing the chaotic spirit of the times. "IFAR," is a raucous, tongue-in-cheek commentary on partisan divides, clocking in at just two minutes of catchy, irreverent fun. Interestingly, the song was reportedly conceived during a mundane moment: Pat Triotte was baking blueberry muffins one Saturday afternoon when the idea hit, and within hours, the track was recorded— and the muffins were supposedly amazing. Despite the humorous and often provocative tone of both songs, the core message of this release is clear: a call to action to vote. With this limited 7" vinyl, Alternative Tentacles Records urges everyone to make their voices heard in the 2024 election and beyond! Don't forget to VOTE!

Swedish talent Dold drops nuanced techno cuts on 10" via SHDW's Mutual Rytm X.

Stockholm-based Patrik Eriksson, aka Dold, is a cultured producer known for crafting hypnotic loops with a minimalist, emotive touch-bridging underground dancefloors and introspective listening.

As a DJ, producer, and co-founder of Arsenik, Dold has championed raw, unembellished techno since 2015. His releases on Key and Fuse blend Detroit techno's legacy with IDM's intricacy and ambient's ethereal tones, creating a style that is both timeless and forward-thinking. Whether it's crafting tapestry's recorded via hardware in the studio or performing live, Dold continues to innovate, honouring techno's roots while exploring its future, and his talent is on full display across his label debut on Mutual Rytm X.

'Grainy' opens the EP and showcases Dold's ability to craft deep and loopy techno with a stripped-back, emotive
edge. It's deft but enthralling, with innovative synths rising and falling through the minimal drums. 'Surface' is another compelling deep cut with hurried drum funk and subtle synth pulses, adding a futuristic edge to the groove. The fantastic 'Blush' brings smears of warm synth and machine soul to a dynamic dub techno rhythm that bends the
past with the present. Digital bonus cuts 'Dub at Heart (Club Version)' and 'Dub at Heart (Sofa Version)' offer
contrasting perspectives of the same track, with the first aiming directly for peak-time sessions, while the latter closes the package on a laid-back tip.

After two pandemically conditioned ‘reaction’ albums - Yay! (2023) and Neigh!! (2024) - a few non-album singles and a compilation album, a downsized and sleek Motorpsycho is back where we all know and love them, with an epic, sprawling double album, filled to the brim with inventive, organic and ecstatic rock-based music. Rejoyce Psychonaut! This eponymously titled, 11 song work, has exactly as much variety & diversity, accord and discord, as one expects from a band that has released a few albums before, and that these days must be regarded as an institution in European rock. From concise 3min-something pop-rockers, to 20mins plus progressive epics, via acoustic intimacies and psychedelic wig-outs, this is concentrated Motorpsychosis: commenced Rebis, countdown initiated. Ever closer. Ever sharper... Since the traditional 3 or 4 piece rock band seems to be a dying breed these days, and MP always was a band in flux anyway, a new pragmatic era has begun in the Psychoverse. The band has, in what one might call alchemical terms, been ‘dissolved and purified’, and is by now again reduced to the core two founding members HMR & BS. This is nothing new, it has happened a few times before, but these days they are also the owners and creators of the record company NFGS, which is now the hub of all recorded band activity, and Motorpsycho marks the final severance of existing ties to other labels for the first time in 35 years. If ‘freedom is free of the need to be free’, this is it. Yikes! The minimalist title of the album is then not just easy to remember, it’s also a statement: a new era has begun in the Psychoverse, a state of affairs reflected in execution and details as well as title, if not perhaps, in ambition or size: “Senex psittacus negligit ferulam” *. This is a time of new beginnings for a band that has spent two years consolidating and reseting before charging ahead anew on a new path, trumpets blaring (...and trumpets don’t come much more blaring in the Psychoverse than with this grandiloquent hyperbole. Good fun! ). New day rising indeed. The core band was adroitly helped by a gaggle of greats from all over the Scandinavian musical landscape on these recordings: drummers Ingvald Vassbø and Olaf Olsen, string arranger/violinist Mari Persen, vocalist Thea Grant, and - as usual - honorary psycho, brother Reine Fiske, were all fellow travellers on this musical journey. Motorpsycho was co-produced by the band and Deathprod, and mixed by Andrew Scheps. Motorpsycho are not the best at what they do, they’re the only ones that do what they do. NFGS2025 *: “Senex psittacus negligit ferulam,” or “An old parrot doesn’t mind the stick.”

In a trajectory full of about-faces, Music for Four Guitars splices the formal innovations of Bill Orcutt's software-based music into the lobe-frying, blown-out Fender hyperdrive of his most frenetic workouts with Corsano or Hoyos. And while the guitar tone here is resolutely treble-kicked—or, as Orcutt puts it, 'a bridge pickup rather than a neck pickup record'—it still wades the same melodic streams as his previous LPs (yet, as Heraclitus taught us, that stream is utterly different the second time around). Although it's a true left-field listen, Music for Four Guitars is bizarrely meditative, a Bill Orcutt Buddha Machine, a glimpse of the world of icy beauty haunting the latitudes high above the Delta (down where the climate suits your clothes)..."—Tom Carter

Album features and was co-produced by Joseph Shabason. String arrangements by Owen Pallett. Thom Gill has written songs for Chaka Khan, in addition to contributing to albums by The Mountain Goats, Owen Pallett, Joseph Shabason, Bernice, and many others. Way Through is a collaborative album by Toronto musicians Chris Cummings, Joseph Shabason, and Thom Gill (as Cici Arthur). Inspired by moments of discovery in familiar places, the album's title reflects the feeling of uncovering hidden paths in life. Musically, it blends mid-century influences like Jobim and Sinatra, with producer-instrumentalists Shabason and Gill crafting lush, expansive soundscapes. Featuring a 30-piece orchestra led by Owen Pallett, the album brings a grand scale to Cummings' intimate, reflective lyrics. The project began in 2020 when Cummings lost his job and turned to full-time music for the first time in his life. His collaborators tailored the arrangements to showcase his understated vocal delivery against sweeping orchestral backdrops. Songs like 'Cartwheels for Coins' and 'Prior Times' explore themes of regret and emotional complexity, contrasting the grandeur of the music with Cummings' quiet introspection. Tracks like 'Damaged Goods' provide upbeat moments with doo-wop harmonies, while the cinematic closer 'No Fight Or Flight' emphasizes the filmic quality of the album. Through its orchestral richness and deeply personal lyrics, Way Through captures the tension between ambition and realism, offering a poignant reflection on life's unpredictable journey

A special ‘Submerge” 12” EP featuring a bunch of reworks of this pivotal track from Apta's forthcoming ‘The Pool’ album on Castles in Space.

Kicking things off, Apta's own rework of the original sees the shadowy textures and droning wall-of-sound backdrop turned into a static-strewn dreamland of a piece, underpinned by a flickering guitar riff, cracked snare drums and fuzzed-out Odyssey strokes before launching into the euphoric half-time vocal refrain.

The follow-up sees Clay Pipe boss, illustrator and musician step into her Hardy Tree guise for a beautifully hypnotic waft of wistful folk-tinged electronics and shimmering ambient textures. It's warmly nostalgic, and packed full of all the feel of a lovely Clay Pipe release.

Following on from that, modular wizard Polypores takes pieces of the original and stretches them into an organic swell of texture and movement, warping the low basses and flickering modular plinks (and / or plonks) into a beautiful, undulating wall.

Flip over and It's none other than the brilliant Pye Corner Audio, providing an organically blooming suite of saturated percussion and woozy drifting oscillators, in peak PCA fashion. There are few artists that can do as much as with little as Martin Jenkins can, and hearing his audio sunshine underpinning the vocal line is breathtaking.

It's good to get the ears nice and soothed too before the aural assault and hypnotic spirit-cleansing heft of the legendary Gnod. Dubby throbbing bass and cavernous reverb tear the original into shards and piece it together as a churning, industrial powerhouse before shooting the rest into the endless reaches of space.

Closing things out on a space theme is the ideal way to do things too, with Field Lines Cartographer's remix taking things waaay into the outer reaches. Grounding bass churns and stellar synth sweeps float below the modulated vocal line, resulting in a perfectly crafted drone, rich in melody but untethered to the earth.

Prolific Norwegian trumpeter and ECM veteran Arve Henriksen returns with Estonian guitarist/composer Robert Jürjendal in tow, matching his idiosyncratic shakuhachi-style melodic condensations with Jürjendal's glassy electro-acoustic soundscapes and sonorous percussion.

Henriksen releases a lot but is remarkably reliable; his playing is so versatile that hearing it dematerialise into different ensembles and individual methodologies is always a treat. Jürjendal is a veteran guitarist, but doesn't approach his instrument from a purely classical standpoint, taking a Fripp-inspired path towards texture, processing and looping his sounds until they're barely recognisable. The duo share a similar love for Hassell's Fourth World ambience, and here inject new life into that mood.

Jürjendal's percussion is impressive: he offsets cascades of oddly-tuned electronics on 'Tuonela' with booming, ritualistic tom hits that punctuate Henriksen's melancholy phrases; and on the brilliant 'Ancient Bells', plays a set of gongs and gamelan-style instruments, creating swirling hammered tonal clusters that quiver beneath Henriksen's echoed-out, spirited improvisations. It's not always that corporeal, either; on 'A Remarkable Flow', he loops guitar phrases, creating gentle vibrations that rumble in the background while he mirrors Henriksen's pitchy zig-zags with high-pitched oscillator vamps.

Even on the peaceable 'Miraculous Lake', discreet kalimba loops set a celestial tempo that anchors the duo's gaseous soundscapes. And although they veer towards end-credits loveliness on the Göttsching-influenced 'Reunion Hymn', it’s balanced by the album's darker passages, like 'Rebirth' and 'Another Me'. On the latter, Henriksen's trumpet is transformed into a voice-like warble, while Jürjendal replies with glacial E-bowed drones that resonate creepily alongside his lysergic FM pads.

Amongst the hundreds of recordings issued by Sun Ra and his Arkestra, under their various guises, the majority were recorded in concert or in makeshift studios such as their early 1960s set-up at NYC's Choreographer's Workshop. Beyond those, roughly 22 albums were recorded at Variety Recording Studio in New York's Times Square. However, on August 25, 1986, Sun Ra and cohorts entered Mission Control, a state-of-the-art 24-track studio north of Boston, which was teeming with electronic keyboards and otherworldly sound generators. Nestled within that arsenal was a brand-new digital ultra keyboard — the Prophet VS ("Vector Synthesizer").
Of all the keyboards Ra played throughout his half-century career, the Prophet was one of the most sophisticated. There's no evidence that he had played either of the instrument's earlier incarnations, the Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 and Prophet-10. Created using microprocessors, a then-new technological advance, under the auspices of engineer Dave Smith in 1978, the Prophet-5 revolutionized electronic music as the first polyphonic and, most importantly, programmable synthesizer.
Ra was intrigued by the Prophet (surely by the instrument as well as by the name). Recorded during a single day, it's about time that these once lost performances have now been found.
It was a joy and a thrill to be sitting at the console hearing this music for the first time, especially with my fingers on the faders and knobs of the mixing desk. We watched the oxide fly off the 2" tapes during playback, making this our one chance to digitize before they metamorphosed into dust. Welcome to the new Sun Ra album....35+ years after it was recorded. The Omniverse has expanded once again.

Raw, violent, and catchy, Blitz’s 1982 debut album sounded like a shot of pure rock and roll through the violence of the English working class. Made up of two punks and two skinheads, with a lot to say about violence and football, Blitz appealed to all kinds of lowlifes, who finally had a voice for their generation. This new version of the long out-of-print classic includes three bonus tracks (two from the ‘Carry On Oi!’ comp and one from the ‘Total Noise’ comp).

Music is storytelling, and some of the best stories have been told through centuries-old traditional folk songs. On their new album ‘Northern Sky’, The Wellermen have given this rich traditional musical history a new sound, hoping to continue to captivate millions of fans around the world. It helps that The Wellermen’s four members all bring their respective experience and perspectives to the table. The fact that they’re from different corners of the world really adds something to the music - there’s something romantic about the way the members have to go on a voyage to see each other.

The Wellermen’s history is well-known: having been the originators of the sea shanty trend on Tiktok, they’ve since gone from strength to strength, gaining a huge following across social media with new trends linked to their music. Their versions of ‘Misty Mountains’ and Ed Sheeran’s ‘Nancy Mulligan’, along with their spine-tingling rendition of ‘Hoist The Colours’ have racked up billions of views across Tiktok and youtube and over 110m streams of their debut album, and led them to appearances on shows like Ant and Dec, LAst Week Tonight with Jon Oliver, The Colbert Show and more.

The group have now returned with their new album ‘Northern Sky’, where they have gone above and beyond to show they are indeed masters of their craft. Recorded in a cottage in the picturesque hills of Surrey, they poured their considerable knowledge and prowess into the album’s 12 tracks, all of which fit their love of storytelling. On the Scottish folk song ‘Wild Mountain Thyme’, for example, the group’s harmonies and rich vocals capture the nostalgic, wistful nature of the song, which speaks of love and nature’s beauty. The group’s tribute to Johnny Cash on the song ‘Hurt’ is set to be a fan favourite - melding the raw and uninhibited torment of the original with the dignified but heart-rending grief of Cash’s version.

Elsewhere on the record the original song and title track ‘Northern Sky’ is a perfect demonstration of the Wellermen’s gift for creating a real dynamic, steering it gently from the darker, more ominous numbers into something truly uplifting. ‘Tall Tales’, another original, is a wonderful portrayal of humorous one-upmanship - a call-and-response that is likely to get crowds’ feet stomping and hands clapping. Say the Wellermen: “It’s all about connection and storytelling, and we hope the listeners are able to find something meaningful.” One thing is absolutely certain: these talented young men are in it for the long haul.

After 10 years, WOLF HALL returned our screens in 2024 bringing Hilary Mantel's epic saga to its grim conclusion in WOLF HALL: THE MIRROR AND THE LIGHT. Directed by Peter Kosminsky, the six episodes tell the continuing story of Thomas Cromwell (Mark Rylance) and his complex relationship with Henry VIII (Damian Lewis) after the execution of Anne Boleyn,.

The new soundtrack reunites original Wolf Hall composer Debbie Wiseman with The Locrian Ensemble. Debbie Wiseman comments on her return to that world - "The distinctive sound of Wolf Hall is all about immediacy and being in the present with these characters. Drawing on elements from the original Wolf Hall score, new themes have been created for our soprano, Grace Davidson, our viola player, Philip Dukes, and our mandolin player and guitarist John Parricelli. It's been the most thrilling experience composing the score for this production."

Next on Coming from... Returning to... DIN - Fantastic Planet. Originally released on DOVe records in 1992 gets it’s long awaited reissue.

“Fantastic Planet represents the first international release by DIN, the disko project of Pupka Frey, formed in 1987. Inspired by the surreal Czech animated film. Fantastic Planet is an artificial soundtrack to a space-horror fantasy. Albeit predictably, the music is completely electronic, with emphasis on analog textures reminiscent of the 70’s electronic movement. New elements have been added, most notably the very fashionable tekno sound. “

Einige nannten Studio, das Projekt der schwedischen Musiker Dan Lissvik und Rasmus Hägg, "das fehlende Glied zwischen The Cure und Lindstrom", Pitchfork hörte Durutti Column und Can, als das Duo sich als Teil einer sich locker entwickelnden Szene entfaltete - zunächst neben dem Label Service (Jens Lekman, The Whitest Boy Alive) und später Sincerely Yours (The Tough Alliance, jj) - und den Boom der 2010er Jahre an der Schnittstelle von elektronischer und psychedelischer Musik, angeführt von Indie-Größen wie Caribou, Four Tet und Darkside, vorwegnahm. "West Coast, ihr bahnbrechendes Debüt aus dem Jahr 2006, fängt eine ferne Romantik der Balearen ein, die auf Krautrock, Disco, Dub und Afrobeat trifft, mit Pop-Lyrik aus dem New Wave, modernisiert von zwei Göteborger Kunsthochschulabsolventen. Sie zitieren DJ Screw, J Dilla und Joy Division sowie fühe 80s Live-DJ-Sets von Beppe Loda, DJ Mozart und Baldelli. Damals auf Vinyl gepresst in limitierter Auflage über ihr eigenes Information-Label und bis heute auf den meisten Streaming-Diensten nicht zu finden. Im Nachglühen des Albums im Jahr 2007 verschwanden Studio hinter einem Berg von Remix-Anfragen (darunter ein Remix für Kylie Minogue, der veröffentlicht wurde) und der Bürokratie des Labels. Eine erweiterte Version des Albums erschien unter dem Titel "Yearbook 1" auf CD und erreichte Platz 23 der Pitchfork-Jahresliste der Top-Alben des Jahres 2007. "West Coast" landete schließlich auf Platz 57 auf der "Best Albums of the Decade"-Liste von FACT Magazine.

Seit der Veröffentlichung ihres gefeierten Debüts "Versions of Modern Performance" 2022 (u. a. mit Höchstwertung um US-Rolling Stone) hat sich vieles für Nora Cheng, Penelope Lowenstein und Gigi Reece verändert. Im Herbst desselben Jahres zog die junge Band von Chicago in die Ostküstenmetropole, wo Penelope und Nora an der New York University ihr Studium begannen und das erste Mal überhaupt Musik außerhalb des elterlichen Zuhauses schrieben. Der Einfluss der neuen Umgebung macht sich unmittelbar im Sound bemerkbar. Zugleich wendet sich der Blick in Zeiten beispielloser Veränderungen nach innen. Im Januar 2024 kehrten Horsegirl nach Chicago zurück, um die neuen Songs aufzunehmen. Im "The Loft" Studio stellten sich dort ein Fokus und eine Intimität ein, wie sie wohl nur entstehen können, wenn es schlicht zu kalt ist, das Gebäude zu verlassen. Cate Le Bon führte die Band derweil in neue, helle und klare Sound-Gefilde, die Raum und Textur gegenüber den dichten Soundflächen des Debüts in den Vordergrund rücken und das charakteristische Songwriting von Horsegirl betonen. Dazu zählt auch der erstmalige Einsatz von Violinen, Synths und Gamelan. Die Leadsingle "2468" ist ein Beispiel für die offenkundige Experimentierlust auf "Phonetics On and On". Mit seinen Raincoats-artigen Streichern und energischen Drums verdreht einem der Song in seinem fortlaufenden Crescendo immer mehr den Kopf. Das dazugehörige Video stammt von der Schriftstellerin und Regisseurin Eliza Callahan und wurde von Alexa West choreographiert. Es ist schwer vorstellbar, dass Songs wie die auf "Phonetics On and On" augenblicklich von irgendwem anderes stammen könnten als von diesem Trio bester Freundinnen. Nora, Penelope und Gigi schreiben mit ungefilterter Aufrichtigkeit über Szenen ihrer Jugend als Momentaufnahmen des Lebens. Die Liebe zueinander ist dabei in jedem Augenblick spürbar und resoniert durch und durch im Zusammenspiel auf ihrem zweiten Album. Horsegirl gründeten sich 2019 in der umtriebigen DIY-Szene Chicagos. Die damals 17- und 18-jährigen Schülerinnen zählen Yo La Tengo und Pavement zu ihren erklärten Vorbildern. Ihr Debüt, auf dem Steve Shelley und Lee Ranaldo als Gäste zu hören sind, nahm die Band in Steve Albinis Studio mit John Agnello (Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr.) auf. Zuletzt tourten Horsegirl u. a. mit The Breeders.

There are very special records that achieve mythical status amongst collectors and vinyl diggers. THE SHARPEES GO ON AND LAUGH is top of that tree.

Welcome to the strange world of Nothern Soul…

The story began some years ago when legendary UK record dealer John Anderson discovered an acetate in Chicago with the record title GO ON AND LAUGH scrawled on it but no artist name.

He sold it to cutting edge Northern Soul DJ John Vincent who credited the track to THE JUST BROTHERS when playing out.

The acetate, by now popular amongst the Rare Soul cognoscenti, was traded back to John Anderson who passed it on to Mark Dobson, aka Butch. His DJ sets around the World made it an in-demand dance floor filler and a subject for many years of much conjecture as to the ID of the mystery artist who had recorded this masterpiece which was not just a one-off uber rarity but also the epitome of Nu-Northern Soul cool.

Fast forward to 2016 when USA record label Secret Stash gained access to 200 plus master tapes recorded in the 1960’s by the Windy City’s ONE-DER-FUL set up.

They were forwarded to UK Soul entrepreneur Mark Bicknell who to his amazement found GO ON AND LAUGH in the haul. And finally the whodunit mystery was over with the artist identified as THE SHARPEES, who far from being obscure unknowns aee fondly well known in Soul circles for their much loved DO THE 45 and TIRED OF BEING LONELY singles. Secret Stash promptly issued GO ON AND LAUGH in America but demand far outstripped simply and it quickly sold out with copies now fetching northwards of £150.

ANORAX - living up to its #eatsleepcollect mantra - have snapped up the rights and are delighted to issue it as a 500 run limited edition 7”.

GO ON AND LAUGH is coupled with the timeless classic TIRED OF BEING LONELY. It follows the release by ANORAX of gems from DRIZABONE, JAY. J Feat. BIG BROOKLYN RED and DON CARLOS

Seit der Gründung 2010 durch Andrew Weatherall und Sean Johnston entwickelte sich die Clubreihe "A Love From Outer Space" (ALFOS) zu einer britischen Institution, expandierte und erreichte ein internationales Publikum. Als Reaktion des Undergrounds auf den schnelllebigen Mainstream verfolgte ALFOS einen langsameren, nachhaltigeren Ansatz bei einem Tempo von maximal 122 bpm. ALFOS wurde für seinen eklektischen und hypnotischen Sound bekannt, der alles von Cosmic und House bis zu Dub und Post-Punk vermischte. Dieser Jubiläumssampler spiegelt die Musik wider, die ALFOS in den letzten 15 Jahren geprägt hat. Das von Johnston zusammengestellte und gemischte 19-Track-Album ist eine Hommage an die reiche Geschichte des Clubabends und sein Engagement, musikalische Grenzen zu erweitern. Es enthält zahlreiche exklusive Titel, darunter The Blow Monkeys' begehrten Neville Watson-Remix und Brioskis "Call 626", sowie eine breite Palette von Sounds, die sowohl die Vergangenheit ehren als auch die Zukunft begrüssen.

Seit der Gründung 2010 durch Andrew Weatherall und Sean Johnston entwickelte sich die Clubreihe "A Love From Outer Space" (ALFOS) zu einer britischen Institution, expandierte und erreichte ein internationales Publikum. Als Reaktion des Undergrounds auf den schnelllebigen Mainstream verfolgte ALFOS einen langsameren, nachhaltigeren Ansatz bei einem Tempo von maximal 122 bpm. ALFOS wurde für seinen eklektischen und hypnotischen Sound bekannt, der alles von Cosmic und House bis zu Dub und Post-Punk vermischte. Dieser Jubiläumssampler spiegelt die Musik wider, die ALFOS in den letzten 15 Jahren geprägt hat. Das von Johnston zusammengestellte und gemischte 19-Track-Album ist eine Hommage an die reiche Geschichte des Clubabends und sein Engagement, musikalische Grenzen zu erweitern. Es enthält zahlreiche exklusive Titel, darunter The Blow Monkeys' begehrten Neville Watson-Remix und Brioskis "Call 626", sowie eine breite Palette von Sounds, die sowohl die Vergangenheit ehren als auch die Zukunft begrüssen.

Tradition shapes your work. For saxophonist and bandleader Shabaka Hutchings, that's something he's long understood. After years spent in the orbit of London's jazz circuit, he examines and reimagines his influences with a dexterity that's unique. Drawing out the vision underlying his new album, he says, I see energy as being a form of wisdom to be passed down through the ages.'

Unpicking the album's title, he continues, "When we study the music, the lives, the words of our master musicians we obtain a glimpse of that artist's essential energy source. This is the core vitality of the individual which leads them to utilise the musical specifics of their chosen genre in a way that mirrors their inner source of power. This is an intuited wisdom that's handed to us from the legacies of our elders.

The album is a document of sessions combining Hutchings with a group of South African jazz musicians he's long admired. His connection to the group was Mandla Mlangeni (bandleader of the Amandla Freedom Ensemble), whom he'd flown there to play with over the past few years. Recorded across just one day, the group drew on their South African lineage - heroes like Zim Ngquwana and Bheki Mseleku - to bring their own slant to the American jazz lineage which is reconfigured in Hutchings' compositions themselves.

Going beyond the jazz greats Hutchings cites, influences are drawn from plenty of other sources: Caribbean calypso, central African song structures and Southern African Nguni music all play a part. Bringing together those ideas with the contributions of his bandmates is, he explains, crucial to what he sees in the role of an album artist. Even though I wrote all the music, for me, the leader of the project isn't the person who writes all the music but the one who has a vision for how certain musical elements will be combined."

A regular sight on stages around London and beyond, playing - and often leading - groups like The Comet Is Coming, Sons of Kemet and Melt Yourself Down, he's part of a generation whose idea of jazz is pointedly unrefined. That's to say, Wisdom of the Elders comes from an artist interested in the indefinable gaps more than fitting into boxes.

Repress!

The word 'classic' gets thrown around a lot these days, often abused and attached to things that don't deserve the tag.
I think we can all agree that an outfit like Earth, Wind & Fire are truly deserving of such an accolade, since their first tentative steps in the early 1970's as an outfit the Chicago, IL pioneers have made themselves a force to be reckoned with and have sold over 90,000,000 units worldwide! Fusing together Jazz, Funk, Soul, African and Brazilian sounds EWF have been at the top of their game for decades, seeing them inducted into the legendary 'rock n roll hall of fame' at the turn of the millennium. Respect due. On this special, legit 12" reissue we are treated to 2 stellar reworkings by one of Disco and modern dance music's most respected names - Danny Krivit. Danny's tenure in dance music has almost been as long as EWF's themselves so it makes sense that he's on deck to breathe some dancefloor magic into their cult classics 'Brazilian Rhyme' and 'Runnin'. Both tracks are massive club anthems with them being generously sampled over the years and featuring in the playlists of too numerous to mention DJ's and selectors. Both of these amazing edits are extremely sought after and have been legally reissued by Above Board Distribution in conjunction with Danny Krivit and the legal rights holders - Sony Music Entertainment. This high quality repress features original Columbia white label Disco promo artwork and has been remastered from Sony's original sources by Optimum Mastering, Bristol UK.

Celebrating 50 years of Kahil El'Zabar's Ethnic Heritage Ensemble's legacy and unwavering contribution to Great Black Music. 'Open Me, A Higher Consciousness of Sound and Spirit' is a new Ethnic Heritage Ensemble sound, constantly shifting gears and tempos in a jazz-blues continuum, in perpetual spontaneity, combining their meaningful music history with an innovative approach to arrangements, performance and improvisation. This is Ancient / Future Music for the Now and Beyond.

Open Me is a joyous honoring of portent new directions of the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble; it's a visionary journey into deep roots and future routes, channeling traditions old and new. It mixes El'Zabar's original compositions with timeless classics by Miles Davis, McCoy Tyner, and Eugene McDaniels. Thus, the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble continues affirming their indelible, half-century presence within the continuum of Great Black Music.

For Open Me, El'Zabar has chosen to push the sound of the EHE in a new direction by adding string instruments --the addition of strings opens new textural resonances and timbral dimensions in the Ensemble's sound, linking the work to the tradition of improvising violin and cello from Ray Nance to Billy Bang, Leroy Jenkins, and Abdul Wadud.

Open Me contains a mixture of originals, including some El'Zabar evergreens such as "Barundi," "Hang Tuff," "Ornette," and "Great Black Music" (often attributed to the Art Ensemble of Chicago but is, in fact, an El'Zabar composition).

As a milestone anniversary celebration and a statement of future intent, Open Me effortlessly carries El'Zabar's healing vision of Higher Consciousness of Sound and Spirit.

"With their dulcet fusion of ‘60s French ye-ye pop, slinky Studio One reggae, and liminal Brazilian tropicalia, Claude Fontaine’s songs embody the best kept dreams of a globally connected world. The second album from the Los Angeles artist reflects the dream of creating the soundtrack for this utopia by the sea.

Released on Innovative Leisure, La Mer is a mesmerizing portal. It’s impossible for it to exist outside of the modern moment, but it floats on the gilded dust of the past. At times, Fontaine channels Jane Birkin as backed by Jorge Ben. Francois Hardy locked into sonic reverie with Mulatu Astatke, or Margo Guryan making lovers rock.

None of this is a happy accident. For her second opus, Fontaine assembled some of the most gifted musicians of the last five decades. First and foremost is her co-writer and producer, the multi-platinum Grammy-Award winning Lester Mendez, whose resume includes everyone from Grace Jones and Baaba Maal to Shakira and Nelly Furtado.

As with Fontaine’s self-titled first album, the legendary Tony Chin appears on guitar, bringing the orphic tones expected from someone who has played with some of the greatest reggae musicians of all-time (King Tubby, Dennis Brown, Lee Perry, Jackie Mittoo, Max Romeo, Sly & Robbie). On bass, there’s Ronnie McQueen, one of the co-founders of Steel Pulse. Sergio Mendes’ percussionist, Gibi Dos Santos, supplies propulsive locomotion. So does Ziggy Marley’s drummer, Rock Deadrick. And that’s just the abridged list of storied instrumentalists who appear on La Mer."

Loyle Carner will release his highly anticipated sophomore record, 'Not Waving, But Drowning' on 19 April via AMF Records.

'Not Waving, But Drowning' follows Loyle's BRIT (Best Male, Best Newcomer) and Mercury Prize nominated, top 20 debut 'Yesterday's Gone'. The bedrock of honest and raw sentimentality that you heard on 'Yesterday's Gone' left an inextinguishable mark on music in general and UK Hip Hop in particular, standing out as an ageless, bulletproof debut.

'Not Waving, But Drowning', Loyle's new album, gives yet more evidence - as if it were needed - of his razor-sharp flow and his unique storytelling ability. Yes, he can rap, but he allies that with the sensitivity of a poet, the observational skills of a novelist, and warmth of your best friend. The album opens with 'Dear Jean', a letter to his mother in which he's telling her that he has found the love of his life, 'a woman from the skies', and he's moving out.

It goes without saying that Loyle's music is hard to categorise, but what is even more impressive is that for someone who grew up listening to Mos Def, Biggie Smalls, Roots Manuva, and Wu Tang Clan, he doesn't sound like any of them. Although he might from time to time give lyrical nods to them, he's no imitator.

Loyle loves cooking. There are two tracks on this album named after chefs. The British-Israeli chef Yotam Ottolenghi, and the now deceased Italian chef Antonio Carluccio. 'Ottolenghi' the first single from the album was featured on the BBC Radio 1 B-list, BBC 6 Music A-list and has already been streamed over 5 million times.

Loyle refers to real life for everything, the title of 'Yesterday's Gone' came from a song of his step father, the title of his new album 'Not Waving, But Drowning' comes from a poem by his grandfather, which in turn came from a Stevie Smith poem. What you hear on the track 'Krispy' is real. He is pouring his heart out to his best friend Rebel Kleff after their relationship went downhill, he invites him on the track to say his piece but he doesn't turn up, so we get a flugel solo instead.

Loyle also has his own personal black consciousness movement. When he refers to his 'fathers' in the track 'Looking Back' he really is referring to two fathers. His biological father, a black man who he knows, but knows very little of, and his step father, a poet and musician who happens to be a white man but died a sudden unexpected death from epilepsy (SUDEP). With no real emotional ties to his biological father, but a deep connection with a deceased step-father, where does a young child turn He succinctly captures many of the great, unspoken, cultural and historical paradoxes of multicultural Britain on 'Looking Back'.

An album like this is hard to find. It is for those who like their Hip Hop to have soul, and their soul to have spirit. This is because it works on so many levels, but it is reflecting the personality of its creator. There are a host of collaborators here, Jorja Smith, Rebel Kleff, Kiko Bun, Kwes, Jordan Rakei, Sampha, Tom Misch and more, but none are overpowering. They blend righteously into place.
Loyle is not bitter with people who have let him down, or a society that lets so many down, but the combination of anger and love he has gives his voice the perfect blend of strength and vulnerability. This might be a coming of age album, but it's also a coming of ageless album. Loyle's 2019 Spring tour - which includes London's Roundhouse - sold out within 20 minutes of being on sale.

Not Waving, But Drowning



A rapper that raps about family is hard to find. The boys in the 'hood' tend not to be that interested in how much a 'brother' loves his mother, or how much he misses his dad, or even how much he misses his best friend. The boys in the 'hood' tend to be obsessed with the size of their cars, girls, bank accounts, and other personal 'possessions'. Loyle Carner's Mercury and BRIT Prize nominated debut 'Yesterday's Gone' (Released 2017), made it clear that he wasn't that kind of rapper. In fact, every time I talk to him about his work we talk about the world, and we tended to confuse ourselves by calling his work rap, poems, or songs, sometimes in the same sentence. They are in truth all of these things.



Here's some poetry.



Honestly I need them.

I hate them but I grieve them

I think I've finally found the reason

Trust

Like the fire needs the air.

I won't burn unless you're there.





'Not Waving, But Drowning', Loyle's forthcoming new album, gives us yet more evidence, (if it were needed), that he still has what rappers call, flow, but he hasn't lost any of his story telling qualities. Yes, the boy can rap, but a rapper with the sensitivity of a true poet, the observational skills of a novelist, and warmth of your best friend. The album opens with 'Dear Jean', a letter to his mother in which he's telling her that he has found the love of his life, (a woman from the skies), and he's moving out. He really loves the woman from the skies, but he still loves his mum, and so he reassures her that there is no competition, and tells her that 'She's not behind me or behind you, but beside we and beside two', his words. Or to put it another way, moving out without moving out. My words.



It goes without saying that Loyle's music is hard to categorise, but what is even more impressive is that for someone who grew up listening to Mos Def, Biggie Smalls, Roots Manuva, and Wu Tang Clan, he doesn't sound like any of them. Although he might from time to time give lyrical nods to them, he's no imitator. He says finding his own voice was something he always found easy. Although young, (in terms of a musical career), he has confidence in his own words and his own voice, and has never been tempted to sound like he's been hanging out in the USA, or rolling in 'Grime' on the mean streets of East London. And so when it comes to the creative process he doesn't simply find a beat to jump on and ride. Beats are important, but they are tenderly layered with samples, keyboards, or live drums, all imaginatively assembled for the laying on of words. Some tracks start with the idea, some with poetry, and some with a verse from a singer or some other melodic inspiration, but there is no formula.



Here's some poetry.



Don't hold any memories of us

Rather hold you everyday until the memories are dust

Yo we only caught the train

Cos you know I hate the bus





A prolific reader, who has dyslexia is hard to find. Add ADHD (Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) to that and life should become even more difficult. To deal with your difficulties you devise coping strategies, which can differ from person to person. Loyle loves cooking. There are two tracks on this album named after chefs. The British-Israeli chef Ottolenghi, and the now deceased Italian chef Antonio Carluccio. Loyle describes himself as 'weird' because he is happy to read a cookbook as if he was reading a novel or a book of poetry. He has opened a cookery school for young adults not just because he loves food and wants to make more of it, but because it is one of the few things that can focus the ADHD mind. And when it comes to his other love, football, his approach is the same. Focus. He wanted to be a striker he says, up front scoring goals, but found his best position was in midfield because he was able to focus, check options, and see passes ahead of time, providing passes for other players just when they needed them. He says, 'You don't grow out of ADHD, you grow into it.' Loyle is also working with Levi's® on their music project where he is mentoring young musicians over a six month period, culminating at Liverpool Sound City festival.



More poetry.



When the going is tough

I wait till it falls on deaf ears

Hearsay

Without the boundaries of love



He also said, 'Ask most people and they will say that they love their mothers, but most are not going to rap about her'. On his first album Loyle's mum Jean wrote about the 'scribble of a boy' that growing up would take things apart to see how they worked. On this album she speaks with pride about a man who has found his place in the world.



Yes, poetry.



I'm still looking for the answers

Trying to find the right questions

Still waiting for my fathers

But can't break them in to sections



This poetry is serious. Loyle has his own personal black consciousness movement. He told me that he always felt safe at home, and being the darkest one in the family never meant a thing, but then when he had to face the outside world he felt hostility. It shook him up. Now he had to start asking questions, but what were the questions. This is serious. When he refers to his 'fathers' in the verse above taken from the track 'Looking Back' he really is referring to two fathers. His biological father, a black man who he knows, but knows very little of, and his step father, a poet and musician who happens to be a white man but died a sudden unexpected death from epilepsy (SUDEP). So to whom would a young black (or mixed race) kid turn He succinctly captures many of the great, unspoken, cultural and historical paradoxes of multicultural Britain when he says, 'My great grandfather could of owned my other one.' We are a people descended from enslaved people on one hand, and enslavers on the other, something we are still struggling to come to terms with, and this can be apparent in one family. A big book could have told you that, but here we get it in one line on the track, Looking Back.





Loyle refers to real life for everything. The album is peppered with captured moments that he records on his phone. These moments can range from conversations with taxi drivers, to capturing the moment when England scores a goal in the world cup. The title of 'Yesterday's Gone' came from a song of his step father, the title of his new album 'Not Waving but Drowning' comes from a poem by his grandfather, which in turn came from a Stevie Smith poem. What you hear on the track 'Krispy' is real. He is pouring his heart out to his best friend after their relationship went downhill, he invites him on the track to say his piece but he doesn't turn up, so we get a flugel solo instead. Yes people, this is real.



An album like this is hard to find. It is for those who like their Hip Hop to have soul, and their soul to have spirit, this is an album for those who have, (I'm sorry, I'm going to say it), emotional intelligence. This is because it works on so many levels, but it is reflecting the personality of its creator. There are a host of collaborators here, Jorja Smith, Rebel Kleff, Kiko Bun, Jordan Rakei, Sampha, Tom Misch and more, but none are overpowering. They blend righteously into place. Loyle is not bitter with people who have let him down, or the society that has let him down, but the combination of anger and love he has gives his voice the perfect blend of strength and vulnerability. This might be a coming of age album, but it's also a coming of ageless album. His first album worked, and this second album is a continuation of that work. Not creating a form, but being formless, as someone like Bruce Lee once said.

And here's some poetry from mum.



We talked long in to the darkest hours

Until we saw the burnished sky

And our eyes stung

As our words blurred and became thoughts

As we were silenced by the dawn

We clung to each other like sailors in a storm

The next release from 29 Speedway is Break, the new EP from NY’s Relaxer, the long running alias of Daniel Martin-McCormick (Black Eyes, Ital and co-founder of Dripping), and it signals a decisive shift in his music. The tape features two remixes by the singular DJ Marcelle.

What happens when dubby drum & bass meets Dischord’s post-punk colossus Black Eyes? “Break” is the new EP from NY’s Relaxer, the long running alias of Daniel Martin-McCormick (Black Eyes, Ital and co-founder of Dripping), and it signals a decisive shift in his music.

Prompted by friends to write a drum & bass live set just as Black Eyes was reuniting, the results didn’t quite fit the d&b genre. But it felt right. Quick, nimble, with room for the ferocity of his favorite post punk and some of the spaciousness of dub. Evergreen vibes, really, but seen from a fresh perspective.

Honed over a period of two years, the five tracks on “Break” fuse Relaxer’s careening, technoid sounds with free jazz-tinted drum programming, snarling sound design and spacious echo trails. It’s a perfect fit for 29 Speedway’s future-facing, exploratory anti-genre approach to electronics. The tape features two remixes by the singular DJ Marcelle and mastering by Dubplates & Mastering.

The original track came back in February and proved an immediate hit. Next to the original, versions from the likes of DJ Spen & Gary Hudgins also helped make this a breakout tune in the first quarter of 2021. Now comes the turn of Kenny Dope, one half of Masters at Work, the most seminal house duo of all time. Kenny Dope is an obsessive record collector, studio wizard and all-round musical encyclopedia whose influence on the scene cannot be overstated. He has been involved with numerous projects, from The Bucketheads to running his Dopewax label and never fails to impress.

This new remix from the Brooklynite is a glorious one baked in the sun's warming rays. It's built on a loose, Latin-tinged beat with big chords, expressive xylophone stylings and plenty of irresistible syncopation. The buttery smooth vocals bring the soul up top and help make this a timeless tune that will unite all dance floors. An instrumental mix is also included that strips things back, shows off the track's effortless musicianship, and draws out the beats for extra dance floor impact.

These two vital versions are the sort of life-affirming, and feel-good house sounds the world is desperate to hear right now.

Big Crown is proud to present Crown Jewels Vol. 3. As we are approaching seven years as a label these compilations have given us an opportunity to put the different artists on the label together on the same release. These compilations are something of a calling card for the "Big Crown Sound" where we get to put the most well established next to the newest on the roster and through that paint a picture of the overall ethos of the label. It's been extremely satisfying for us when the fans of one Big Crown artist discover another one because they are label mates. We put out these Crown Jewels comps with the hope that it will continue that process. Even though not all BCR artists can be found in the same aisle of the record store, after listening to Crown Jewels Vol. 3, it should be clear how they all fit on the same record label. When we started Big Crown we wanted to have a label that's only boundaries were defined by our taste, not by genre. Seven years later, we can say we have been able to do that. There is a sound, but that sound stretches into a lot of different directions, but that sound is uniquely ours. Thank you to everyone who has supported us thus far and please stay tuned as we continue pushing our sound and putting out tunes we believe in.

Seit ihrem Debüt als Brijean hat sich das Projekt der Schlagzeugerin/Singer-Songwriterin Brijean Murphy (der perkussive Herzschlag für Live-Bands wie Mitski, Poolside und Toro y Moi) und des Multiinstrumentalisten/Produzenten Doug Stuart mit Einfallsreichtum bewegt und Psych-Pop-Abstraktion mit Dancefloor-Sensibilität verschmolzen. Durch Körper und Geist, Rhythmus und Lyrik geben sie den Welten um sich herum und in ihrem Inneren einen Sinn. Das Album "Feelings" von 2021 zelebrierte die Selbstreflexion, die EP "Angelo" von 2022 verarbeitete persönlichen Verlust und fiel mit der ersten Headliner-Tour des Duos zusammen. "Macro", das im Juli 2024 auf Ghostly International erscheint, ist das zusammenhängendste, dynamischste, kollaborativste und songorientierteste Werk von Brijean. Hierzu holte sich die Band verschiedene Gastmusiker in ihr Wohnzimmer in LA, mit dabei sind u.a. Chris Cohen und Khruangbins "DJ" Johnson Jr.. Farbenfroh, kollaborativ, anspruchsvoll und mit viel Spaß belebt das Album einen Makrokosmos mit Charakteren, Stimmungen und Standpunkten, die in der Vorstellung verwurzelt sind, dass kein Gefühl endgültig ist und der einzige Ausweg ein Durchgang ist.

Cape Verdean singer Mayra Andrade's multi-layered music embraces a blend of radiant, dancing colors, velvet beats and spicy melodies. Her voice is subtly seasoned with pepper, as if the Europe of pop had always been atropical archipelago. Andrade is arguably the front-runner of the many talents that have emerged from Cape Verde over the years.

Her vividly-hued music which is full of energy and a warm, adventurous upredictability is sung in Cape Verdean creole, English and Portuguese. Mayra’s pop spans the world’s entire vast sweep from Western romanticism, Southern sensuality, domestic reggae and African. It is topical, tropical, traveling pop that, in the words of Mayra, is “music that reflected my life”.

On this live album recorded at Union Chapel Mayra Andrade presents her new guitar and vocal collaboration ‘reEncanto’. The Cape Verdean singer performs her repertoire alongside musician Djodje Almeida, inviting us to discover the source and the essence of her songs which she was the author all along her discography – since Navega (2006), to Manga (2019).

Mayra Andrade se revisite en duo voix et guitare dans une ambiance intimiste appelée reEncanto. La chanteuse capverdienne accompagnée uniquement de son collègue musicien Djodje Almeida, nous invite à redécouvrir l’origine et l’essence de certaines de ses chansons dont elle a été l’auteur et compositrice tout au long de sa discographie – de ‘Navega’ (2006), à ‘Manga’ (2019). Cet album a été enregistré live en novembre 2023 à Union Chapel à Londres durant la tournée du même nom.