Поиск:how hard

Shasta Cults is the musical project of Canadian electronics technician Richard Smith. For almost two decades, Smith was the official Buchla & Associates go-to repair person for studios, collectors, and musicians around the world, having worked with artists like Aphex Twin, Suzanne Ciani, Mort Subotnick and institutions like NYU, The Library of Congress and Mills College in Oakland, Ca.

Recording demonstrations of the rare equipment that found its way on to his workbench is how Smith describes the origins of Shasta Cults. Although sounds have been trickling out for decades via Soundcloud and other outlets, it wasn’t until 2017 that Smith recorded his first album using one of these rare instruments – the Buchla 700. Configurations, released this past September by Important Records, features eight tracks of heavily-modulated, wave-shaped explorations drenched in effects, and was the catalyst for his latest releases.

Recorded over the span of 3 months in the fall of 2018, this album was programmed solely on the only fully-functional Buchla Touché. Developed in the early 1980s with hardware by Don Buchla and software programmed by musician David Rosenboom, the Touché features waveforms generated internally by twenty-four digital oscillators using frequency modulation and sophisticated digital and analog signal processing for timbre and output assignment, all of this controlled via a six-octave black and white keyboard, unusual for a Buchla instrument.

This LP is a continuation on themes first heard on Configurations, with more consideration given to the generation and capturing of the pieces. This album is less dark than previous releases, showcasing the incredible fidelity of the hardware used and Smiths evolution as an audio engineer. Put on some headphones, find a comfortable chair, and let this LP transport you to the mystifying southern cascades of Siskiyou County.

Rounding-off a landmark year for Clark which saw an accelerated drive for variety and freshness - including skewed renditions of Bach performed at the Royal Albert Hall and a hugely acclaimed score for TV series ‘Kiri’ - the leftfield legend takes it back to the source with two bangers for the massive.

The riff-powered heavy electrics of ‘Branding Problem’ romp from Detroit to Belgium via Chicago and the M25. It’s platinum-grade dancefloor techno, but it’s more too. The production flair and inventive sound sculpting ensure a level of quality and originality not found in your average grist-for-the-mill DJ fodder.

‘Legacy Pet’ is hardcore and tech step dipped in loopy juice; it’s the sound of a raver wandering out from a cavernous warehouse, across fields and into an enchanted dingily dell dance, throwing gun fingers with the goblins and faeries.

“I’ve been quite amused at how easy it is to stream background music these days. How accessible it all is and how entitled we all feel to it, like it’s some sort of air freshener you spray in your Uber.

For some reason I’m imagining a future where Elon Musk does a streaming deal, so he can prance around controlling nano implant VR chips for 1 million amortal coastal elites, while the rest of us don’t have electricity and only manage one rave a year - to a sound system powered by rationed candles. This is music for that fantasy scenario, ha.

Anyway, I don’t want these 2 tracks to be part of background air freshener world. They are limited edition club gear. I wanna play them out so badly in my live show.

Influences: Hardcore UK rave, Detroit techno, Jungle, Oizo, Ed Rush and Optical, No U-Turn. The origins, the source and it’s constant subsequent mutations. BEHOLD THE CONTINUUM, HARDCORE WILL NEVER DIE.” Clark

This is some serious top shelf material out of Baltimore and a certified masterclass in sweet symphonic soul. Optimistics was originally released in 1970 on Turbo and it’s every bit as essential as The Chi-Lites, The Delfonics and The Moments yet nowhere near as known. Those original copies are ridiculously rare and, of course, the prices are equally ridiculous.

Optimistics is a killer LP throughout, beloved of discerning hip-hop producers worldwide and routinely championed by the legendary Pete Rock. The genius George Kerr has handled the production on what is an album of beautiful, naïve soul for mind and body. It’s bursting with goodness and, like the best of its genre, it radiates a heart-breaking ambience that cuts right to the core.

The band of Billy, Harold, James, Charles and Jerome are described on the back cover as “five young, black knights who have embarked on a musical crusade and they're gonna slay a lot of dragons along the way”. We’re not entirely sure how many mythical serpents were dispatched during the making of this album but we can certainly attest to the sense of evangelical drive.

Evergreen opener “You Put Something New In My Life” is a heart-stopping ode to a transformative love. A ballad with spine-tingling chord changes and melodic switch-ups to spare, its sweeping strings and precise drums complement the falsetto delivery perfectly.

It’s followed by the equally beguiling “Let’s Love”. Another string-drenched harmony ballad, it revolves around delicate piano and distinctive guitar lines, crying out to be recontextualised by the best sampling technicians. Closing out the A side, the wonderfully restrained “Love Is God Almighty” is harp and horn-driven, barely-there soul from a higher plain. Heavenly.

Ushering in the flipside, “Should I Let Myself Go”, sampled recently by Knxwledge, is sensational guitar-soul with a yearning that could bring the most hardened soul to tears. It’s followed by the uptempo, Temptations-funk of “Man” and quietly-great “If I Could Influence Man”, where the competing vocals ride a chugging, funky breakbeat and delicious guitar licks. The refreshing, groovy “Say It Baby” is an appropriately positive, upward looking closer. Its sentiment and feel speaks directly to both the band name and the title of this, their only album. Truly optimistic.

The whole LP is a winning blend of slow, spine-tingling ballads and joyously upbeat tracks. It’s a case of A+ vocals, melodies and harmonies over beautiful playing and arrangements. It deserves to be canonical.

This fresh reissue has been mastered with the usual care by Simon Francis and cut by the legendary Pete Norman. The artwork has been lovingly reproduced by the Be With team.

Optimistics should be known to a much wider audience. We’ve hopefully gone some way towards rectifying that.

Funky soul-jazz organist Caesar Frazier crafted superior Hammond funk. 75, his second LP, is a rare gem. It’s comfortably his greatest artistic statement.

The follow-up to Hail Ceasar!, it’s a taut, grooving set that expands his sound and, put simply, it’s got better songs. The key elements of his debut album are all there – production from maestro Bob Porter, accompaniment from hip players (Bernard “Pretty” Purdie, Cornell Dupree, John Tropea) and arrangement from Horace Ott - but the overall sound is elevated. The tightly jamming, expressive jazz-funk makes for a richer, fuller, more satisfying experience.

75 is a mixture of hard-driving originals, deeply beautiful slower numbers to vary the tempo and a couple of classy covers. The crazy bombastic “Mighty Mouse” - a riot of horns, organ and in the pocket drums - became an acid jazz classic at Dingwalls and it’s easy to see (hear?) how. A blissed out, lushly instrumental take on Seals and Crofts’s “Summer Breeze” follows, perfect for those sunshine sets.

Side A closes with the heavenly “Sweet Children”. A loping, funky jazz masterpiece famously sampled by Kanye West for Common’s “Real People” from Be. It opens beautifully, with soaring sax and a funky horn section combining with weightless keyboard tones atop snapping drums. Unsurprisingly, the excellence endures right through to the end.

The B side opens with perhaps the album’s most famous track. "Funk It Down” contains the familiar “I can feel the funk” vocal refrain throughout. But it’s the gorgeous, insouciant bridge that you should all know and love, having been used as the hook for Gang Starr’s “Ex-Girl To Next Girl”. A great cover of Stevie Wonder's “Living for the City” comes next, with an unforgettable bass-line which anchors the entire heavy rhythm section workout. Dizzying organ, triumphant horns and sun-dappled guitar grooves combine to create “Walking On The Side”, rounding out a pretty smoking set.

This is one of those rare 70s funk-soul-jazz LPs on which a bad track cannot be found. It’s all essential. So of course finding original copies on vinyl at affordable prices has been tough for years.

Mastered brilliantly by Simon Francis, cut by Pete Norman and with painstakingly reproduced artwork by the Be With team, this fresh Be With reissue ensures this legendary LP now sounds, looks and feels as sensational as it should.

One of the greatest enigmas of the music scene in mid to late 1970s Harare was The New Tutenkhamen, a band which played an eclectic brand of Zimbabwean township music combining
traditional rhythms and western influences. The band included some luminaries of Zimbabwean township music. Elisha Josamu was an alumnus of the fabulously-named Hallelujah Chicken Run Band (alongside Thomas Mapfumo), and Green Jangano’s long-running Harare Mambos, and would later form Two Plus Two with bassist Christopher “Chex” Tavengwa. Jethro Shasha played the drums, and would arguably become the New Tutenkhamen’s most famous export, making continental waves working with likes of Salif Keita. Paul Sekerani played the rhythm guitar, with Amos Chatyoka on the organ, while the enigmatic Maggie Mbuli provided vocals and F. Manda played the sax. The New Tutenkhamen recorded I Wish You Were Mine at Teal Records, produced by Crispen Matema, a talented jazz drummer in his own right who had played drums on the all-time classic Skokiaan, and had backed Louis Armstrong on his 1960 Rhodesia visit. Combining the
heavyweight producing talents of Matema and the writing chops of Josamu, The New Tutenkhamen band created an album howcasing various musical styles popular at the time. From the afro-jazz jam session aesthetics of “Tutenkhamen Theme”, “Big Brother alcom” and “Forever Together”, to the almost Van Morrison-sounding “Sunday Morning”; from the upbeat rock ballad “True Love”, to the funk-infused dance song “Togetherness”; from the bouncy jazz
exhortations to work hard in “Ane Nungo”, to the brassy, raunchy foot-stomper “Me & Dolly”. The title track “I Wish You Were Mine” is a ska-infused ballad that wouldn’t be out of place in post-war
Birmingham, while the star of the show is “Joburg Bound”, itself a fast-paced rock piece with Motown undertones and funky guitar lines. As a collective effort, I Wish You Were Mine provides a fascinating insight into a fraught time in Zimbabwe’s history, and the bands plying their trade through the turmoil, making music for young people, by young people.

A mind-bending blend of modular synth performance, Anthony Baldino’s dynamic Twelve Twenty Two LP is a treat for all ears. Baldino’s transcendent album is available both digitally and on vinyl on Thursday, October 24 via MethLab Recordings.

“The record focuses heavily on the modular synth as a composition tool and instrument. I originally approached this as a collection of tracks that were recorded straight out of the machine with little to no editing. The work flow of generating a complex patch and then figuring out the overall arch and performance of the piece was really exciting. The Tip Top Audio Circadian Rhythms was a key compositional tool in this process and was used to organize the overall structure of these pieces. It wasn’t until I stumbled upon a patch, the opening synths in ‘Fading Quickly Now,’ that I went back to how I used to write and shifted to harvesting sounds and rhythms from the modular and arranging and editing them in the box. That patch was originally created for a different track on the album, which I’ll let you find, but IH ad accidentally changed the clock rate before tearing the patch down. Hearing it in that new way triggered a whole new thought process and emotional reaction for me.” - Anthony Baldino

Originally approached as a collection of tracks recorded straight out of Baldino’s machine with little editing, Twelve Twenty Two is a complex piece of thoughtful modular work. A truly stunning display of masterful sound design, Baldino’s sound resonates with listeners from first note to last. Existing in a unique space where ambient sounds meet vivacious bass, Baldino seemingly exists in an impressive league of his own, with Twelve Twenty Two standing apart powerfully from the masses. With an already powerful arsenal of artists and releases, MethLab Recordings adds a brilliant 10-track addition to their already wild playbook.

“From the beginning, it was important for me to keep this record musical and emotional and not just an exercise in technicality, so using both the modular and the computer to arrange felt really good both emotionally and sonically and created a different balance to the record that I really liked. Switching the process up a bit halfway through kept things interesting and I think the body of work really benefits from it. This record is split in half with performance based/straight out of the machine tracks and the other half organized in the box. But when listening back, the two approaches overlap so much that it’s hard to tell where one approach ends and the other begins.” - Anthony Baldino


About Anthony Baldino:
Born and raised in New York, Anthony Baldino is an LA-based composer and sound designer whose work spans an enormous range of production avenues. The likelihood that you haven’t heard his world is nearly impossible, with music and sound design in too many trailer campaigns to list, including Prometheus, Interstellar, Ex-Machina, Star Wars: Rogue One, and Avengers: Infinity War and End Game just to name a few. From there, his work ventures to the opposite pole of production with custom sound design based compositions for Dolby Labs mixed in Atmos, beautifully glitched out remixes, and continues on to mind-bending modular synthesizer performances.

With his debut artist release, he delivers a devastatingly beautiful album grounded in IDM that focuses on modular synthesizers/ While a vast amount of modular synth music is currently being released, this album goes far beyond the typical beeps and boops that one may expect when they hear “modular IDM record.” This record is as technical as it is emotive. Tasteful and incredibly detailed, Twelve Twenty Two bridges the gap between sound-design laden beats and cinematic motifs and ambiences. This record does not disappoint and is sure to become a favorite of electronic music fans.

The album opens up with a slowly unfolding melody that seems to be within grasp, but never actually repeats itself. Incredibly tasteful glitchy sound design leads us into a build that one would only expect to be in a movie, and then drops into a full-on sonic assault of impeccable drums and rich synths. From there, the record traverses a wide array of texture, time and technique. Closing with a track that makes you feel like you could actually reach out and touch the sound and float in its space, the sonic landscape created in Twelve Twenty Two is a true treat for ears.

Utopia Music are back for another release and it features the artists who have helped create its identity. Dropping in October, Mikal and Mako are here to take you into the darker months.

Their next release sees label head Mako join Mikal for a punchy a-side titled ‘Under the Earth’ and joins two masters of their craft for a track which is pervasive. Stabs of sub and clattering breaks draw you in whilst the second drop pad heralds back to old Bad Company.

On the flip, Mikal presents ‘Switch It’, with a howling ambient backdrop and ticking patches of percussion. Mikal goes for the dark and moody sounds and in doing so, highlights why he’s come under the guise of Goldie and Andy C. He has already proven his heavyweight formula through a variety of labels, including the esteemed Metalheadz imprint, showing a penchant for the darker styles of drum & bass and he boasts an enviable production standard.

Bristol based Utopia Music have recently relaunched the label and in doing so, have already reaffirmed why they grew to become such tastemakers. With the double-sided single from Break, M-Zine’s hard-lined ‘Equate EP’ and Hydro’s expansive ‘Lateral Thinking’ LP, they’ve delivered a host of releases to wet the appetites of drum & bass listeners who were waiting for Utopia’s return.

Goldie – “These guys are at the top of their game”
Break – “One of the best labels in dnb, very happy to be involved”
Ulterior Motive - “Big tunes”
Spectrasoul - “The quality is always super high”

Lock up your 303s, Roy Of The Ravers is back with a brand spanking new album and it's quite possibly his strongest and wrongest to date! Following a limited run cassette version of the album, Who Are Ya lands on gatefold vinyl and spans 10 tracks and nearly 60 minutes of top quality turns, which sees our star player's BPM rising up into tougher, more hardcore-esque territory (Supremacy Acid, Roy Shat Over Ref) Who Are Ya also takes in some seriously smoked-out, slow-mo squelchers (Phaelon Acid 4, The Box) essentially making it a game of 2 halves (no mid tempo tracks allowed - ok??!) Through-out all of the album's giddy twists and turns however, it's Roy's trademark 303 constantly on the boil that crowns him man of the match, as he dribbles it skilfully from in and out of the mix, making him top of the league for acid once again. Hoorar!!

FPO (onesheet currently in development):

-

The digitally remastered release of JAK3's Moonlight Radiation is a menagerie of cyberpunk mutations arising out of the Memphis revival rap movement. The album's big, blown-out sound might have seemed an incidental result of an analog recording process in its original cassette release. Now, rendered in digital clarity, listeners can better perceive how JAK3 sculpts varying degrees of panic, aggression and resolve very intentionally through the hard mix of industrial noise, inventive beats, flush synths and recordings from a slew of rappers including Freddie Dredd (Toronto), Apoc Krysis (Memphis), and fellow Waistdeep Clique members Agnarkea and Calsutmoran.

The short format of Moonlight Radiation's 16 tracks allows JAK3 to cover a lot of ground, and even within a single track he keeps one guessing. Track 2, "2FAKE," goes from an atmospheric burn, to a slow drive with the snappy flow of Moistbread, and then abruptly crashes back into an oozing vortex of synths. The penultimate interlude "Return from Hyperspace" sounds like one is being forced through a hellish modem, only to land in a haunted and abandoned transmitter for the closing track, "This Night Will Never End."

Between, those tracks, one gets a tour of the wild possibilities that could come next from this producer and the sounds emerging from the Memphis chopped-and-screwed scene. In a milieu that is retreading the past, the mutants of Moonlight Radiation may seem to be arriving a little prematurely. But you can't stop evolution when the field is so wide, and young producers like JAK3 are moving fast.

Back in stock!

Extracting a rich sense of emotion from an evolving analogue set-up, Hammer follows up his previous FMB outings Dahlia and C-Space with a similar tone and sound palette as he lays out a new EP with 3 tracks that capture the Feel My Bicep sound perfectly, striking the balance between delicate melody and power with aplomb. This EP follows what has been a heavy 2019 gig schedule, with stand out sets at many top festivals and clubs such as Glastonbury, Panorama Bar and Parklife, along with both an Australian and Indian tour under his belt. The lead track ‘Parabola’ manifested as a slow burning percussive experiment that, as Hammer explains, ‘quickly got fired up by an extra 10bpm for the dance floor effect, turning itself into an acid led epic’ and as a consequence accidentally becoming the A1 at the same time. ‘Parabola’ is followed by ‘Panoptic’ and ‘Entropy’; all three track names inspired by his recent love for physics podcasts. He describes how ‘they are based around types of curvatures and levels of order that, in my head, are the visualisation of the 3 tracks inside workings; the engine room of the time machine.’ All three tracks were created with Hammer’s much loved Yamaha CS1-X, ‘a spaceship in its own right’, he explains. ‘A Xoxbox and a Roland SH-2 did the rest of the hard work. Time to enter the twilight zone with this one’! Bicep continue to add substance to what has now become a distinctive and singular label with this new 12" courtesy of their long term friend and blog contributor Hammer. With their previous offering from James Shinra still in many roving record bags and with a release catalogue full until the end of the year, the development of the label has reached a certain zenith and here - as head strong and highly effective as ever - Hammer makes a welcome return to the label with another batch of machine-driven dance tracks.After 12 years of promoting parties in Glasgow, The Hammer Hits goes on tour inviting guests such as Sally C, Jennifer Cardini and fellow FMB signee Cromby across the UK, Ireland and Berlin.

Originally released in 1978 on the obscure label out of Mississippi, Commercial, Let Me Be Your Lover is now reissued and available again for this first time. This is a timely reissue of this ultra-rare LP that is fetching prices upwards of £600 online.

The album includes the absolute monster album version of the modern soul/crossover classic Gonna Find A True Love, which was reissued on Miles Away earlier this year. The album version of this track gives the 7” a run for its money.

“This album features the hit track ‘Gonna Find a True Love’. When we first heard this song, it really hit home and inspired us. The beat is uplifting and irresistible. This song is so very relatable not only to us but to others throughout the world and it’s still relevant today!! It’s hard to resist the song’s tempo! Go ahead - grove to the beat and find yourself a true love!” Estus Patterson, 2019

Let Me Be Your Lover is an album is undeniably deep, soulful and passionate and now fully licensed from Estus and Lester Patterson.

Meander is the more experimental alias of one of the absolute best Hardcore producers ever "Ophidian".

On his "Dead Things EP" he has taken experimental broken up Industrial Hardcore and Drum & Bass to a next level, something hardly thought possible...

We could fill a book worth's of linear notes on how great this 4 track EP is. But why even try... Just listen for yourself and lets let the music do the talking. In this case is says a whole lot!

Philippe Cam is the Thomas Pynchon of the electronic music world. Little is known about him and only a couple of pictures have been put online since he emerged on this planet to write his first and only album18 years ago. We know he worked as a sailor and that’s it. If you dig deeper you might find out that he worked as a DJ in the beginning of the 90ies in Brussels and began to study electronic music there and also began to write music for theaters and ballets.

The American distributor Forced Exposure once wrote that about him: „Philipe Cam is a star in his own field. He is among the few people who have succeeded to write hypnotic dance music without a conventional beat still conveying a thrilling, dramatic feel. Cam has developed an accurate, intense and complex formula of modulation-techno. Starting with music similar to Pan Sonic in 1996, his music turned towards a more elegant form of minimal music. Abstract soundtracks lead to an organic form of music, which was equally influenced by modern techno as Wolfgang Voigt's Studio 1/Gas or Basic Channel/Maurizio. Cam's music corresponds heavily to the Cologne scene, where his music is appreciated and played throughout the clubs by the likes of Michael Mayer, Tobias Thomas and various other DJs as well as experimental djs from the A-musik corner.“

So what’s new with his music? Basically the art of filtering is still his passion. Maybe he can be less associated with techno and the themes of his new tracks emerge in a more distinctive pattern? Well that’s hard to say, we would comment the energy of his early techno days in Brussels have returned here in a fierce way with some oft he tracks. The rhythmic movements are classy and stick with you. Whereas other tracks look for a distinctive relaxation of some kind.

We are releasing the album as a double clear vinyl with cover art by Yvette Klein who also designed the cover for his Philippe Cam’s album 18 years ago. Graphics for "Rotterdam" come from Cologne designer Daniela Thiel. We also would like to thank the cultural department of Cologne for supporting us to finance the album and to see the artistic value in this piece of minimalism.

The album kicks off with the mellow and soothing "Cocoa Beach". A Gentle beat that moves like bodies swaying in the hot summer sun. The clock moves a step forward and then a step backward as evolution takes a rest.

"Manga" feels like an acceleration to the moon, the contemplative moments come in spurts and hide in the intervals of the chords which are on the loose. Philippe Cam is the most energetic person in the world when it comes to core activity, this is head banging stuff for the ambient lounge.

"Short Summer" is a heavy and violent recognition. As intensive as it is it knows when to stop and disappear. In the ear and brain of the listeners it leaves an indisputable echo which lingers on for minutes. We suggest not to make a pause but jump directly into "Vermillions Sands".

What can be said about into "Vermillions Sands"? Be prepared some Terry Riley might lure around the corner to offer you some oranges on a silver plate, but don’t eat them. This is luring and beautiful at the same time. Maybe the best ambient track ever written and yet who can ever venture to say that without making a fool of himself. "Vermillions Sands" comes in waves and they could be longer we think.

"Rotterdam" the home of Philippe Cam for a long time but not anymore. He moved away. So that changes the perspective. But when was the track written? "Rotterdam" seems mechanical and rusty and spooky and divided. This arrangement is very different to all the other tracks so far and is almost dub in style but way more fractured. A steady stop and go emerges. But the longer it runs the better it gets. At minute 6 the brain resets itself and tries to grasp what has happened so far, reconstruction as a result of its own phantasmic imagination and hardly true at all, wonderful. Applause included!

Here comes "Bis", a short episode of a track and before we can comment on it, it is already over.

"The Game" is a mule of a track. It has a quiet stubborn sequence that bites and kicks you in the back without any change in near sight. We can hear a voice whispering, which sounds like a miniature vocoder featuring the voice of a child calling out - never stopping. This is treadmill to some extend but starts to breathe towards the middle of the track and slowly changes perspective. In fact there are some changes taking place here which go beyond a sound design that works heavily on the stereo image. Stick with it and the experience will be a great one.

"Ultimate Fly For Halloway" somehow orchestrates how you might feel after you climbed a 8000 meter high mountain and reached the top. A rejoicing off a special kind. Lava for the ears. No cheerleader murder plot sorry.

"Last Track" is a perfect example of a true minimalistic pice of music that manages to make contact with other genres and does this with elegance, determination and a lot of soul.

key selling points: The key selling point is the fact that Philippe Cam once was referred to as one of the main protagonists of the minimal music scene along with Wolfgang Voigt's Studio 1/Gas and Basic Channel/Maurizio. A true artist with a vision which is very rare.

Philippe Cam has picked up the sound he was famous for but has developed it further without selling out to any genre and expectation that rules our daily business.

Exactly this is the strength of the album to create a vivid world of impressions by using instruments in a whole different way than all software developers would suggest.

"Rotterdam" is a piece of art that can set off a firework when you listen to it and it owes nothing to anyone.

Available on vinyl for the first time in 40 years, Outernational Sounds proudly presents a cornerstone document from the Los Angeles jazz underground, Flight 17 – the first appearance on record of the legendary Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, led by their founder and mastermind, Horace Tapscott.

"The Arkestra would allow the creativity in the community to come together, would allow people to recognize each other as one people and ask, “Now what can we do to make this community better? What can we do for this community together?”...That’s how the Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra – the Ark – began, with the knowledge that we wanted to preserve the black arts in the community."
Horace Tapscott

Horace Tapscott’s Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra (P.A.P.A.) was one of the most transformative, forward-thinking and straight-up heavy big bands to have played jazz in the 1960s and 1970s. Countless musicians passed through its ranks, and in Tapscott it was led by a musical visionary who should be ranked with the very greatest names in the music. If P.A.P.A. doesn’t have the interstellar rep of that other famous Arkestra, and if the name Tapscott doesn’t ring bells like Monk or Tyner, there’s a reason why: in an industry dominated by record labels, a band that doesn’t record doesn’t count. And the Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra didn’t record for nearly twenty years. But recording success was never their concern – they weren’t about that.

First formed as the Underground Musicians Association in the early 1960s, Tapscott always wanted his group to be a community project. From their base in Watts, UGMA got down at the grassroots. They played for the people, organising fundraisers in parks and coffee houses, hosting teach-ins and workshops for young and old, and mixing it with radical theatre groups, firebrand poets, political radicals, Black separatists, community groups and churches. They lived communally, supporting each other and their people, and built an ark for the Black arts in the heart of the city. The group was renamed the Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra in 1971, and soon after they established a monthly residency at the Immanuel United Church of Christ which ran for over a decade, while still playing all over LA and beyond. But through all this, they never released a note of music.

It was the intervention of Tom Albach, a fan of Tapscott and the group, that finally got them on wax. Determined that their work should be documented, Albach founded Nimbus Records specifically to release the music of Tapscott, the Arkestra, and the individuals that comprised it. The first recording sessions in early 1978 yielded enough material for two albums, and the first release was Flight 17. From the surging avant-gardism of Herbie Baker’s title track to the laid- back summertime groove of Kamonta Lawrence Polk’s ‘Maui’, or Roberto Miranda’s uptempo Latin jam ‘Horacio’, Flight 17 showcased the radical voices of the Arkestra’s members. Led out by Tapscott’s hard-swinging piano, this is the first flight on wax of the West Coasts’ foundational community big band – energised, hip and together. Open up the gates and prepare for departure!

This edition of Flight 17 contains two tracks previously only available on the 1997 CD edition: ‘Coltrane Medley’ and ‘Village Dance’, recorded live at the Immanuel United Church of Christ. It is released as a limited vinyl-only edition on a 180g pressing by Pallas. Fully licensed from Nimbus West founder Tom Albach.

Yeketelale is the third album from Franco-Ethiopian group uKanDanz, combining a heady brew of rock energy, saxophone zigzags and Ethiopian melodies, all fronted by veteran singer Asnake Gebreyes grooving harder than ever.

In Ethiopia, sons follow fathers and, together, their names tell a story. Some discographies are the same way. After Yechelal (''It's Possible''), Awo (''Yes!''),here's Yeketelale (''It Continues''), the third album from Ukandanz.
The adventure that links Damien Cluzel (guitars) and Lionel Martin (tenor sax), the two founders of the group, with the Ethiopian singer Asnake Guebreyes continues and, with this album, takes on new colors and a new dimension. It is a polished synthesis that keeps the rock energy of their first recordings and gives even more space to the subtle vocal ornamentations that mark great Ethiopian singers. Add to that a groove that is more danceable than ever, carried by Adrien Spirti's synth bass and Yann Lemeunier's drums, and you have the magic formula of Yeketelale.

This came about slowly over the course of a dialogue that began in the early 2000s when Damien Cluzel, arriving with a circus in Ethiopia, met up with the occupant of the next room in their hotel. A stroke of luck: this was Francis Falceto, high priest of the Ethiopiques collection (Buda, 30 volumes to date) which had introduced to the West the treasures of swinging Addis, the capital that vibrates to the sound of big brass orchestras. With him, he dives into the capital's nightlife and meets a galaxy of musicians. The singer Asnake Guebreyes is among them.

Recruited by the famous Police Orchestra at the tender age of 16, he already had all the power, energy and class of his role model, Tlahoun Guessessé ''the Ethiopian James Brown''. He began his solo career at the beginning of the 1990s with several major successes, most famously an explosive duo with the singer Fekker Addis.

This experience made a big impact on the French guitarist. Having learned how to blend in with a uniquely Ethiopian groove, he was now ready to take it to other places and in other directions. In his old friend Lionel Martin, he found an ideal partner to engage in such experiences. But they needed a singer. The idea of Asnake Guebreyes was mentioned. Then Francis Falceto called and suggested going to see him at the Addis Music Festival. Ukandanz, a rock version of Ethiopian groove, was born.

Some pieces, like the disturbing Yene Hassab, call to mind Herbie Hancock's experiments in the seventies, as well as the Juju guitars of the Gulf of Guinea. Others, like the dark Fetsum Deng Ledj Nesh, allow Asnake's voice to soar above the synthetic waves, like a siren song for a freighter in distress. Dance and trance are not left out, with inspiration from the inexhaustible Ethiopian traditional repertoire. In a nod towards Asnaké's first album (Ahadu, also reissued by Buda) Ukandanz returns to its track Ajiré, transfigured by the guitar, claps and synthetic bass and takes us back to the glory days of breakdancing. Listening to the two versions gives the key to understanding the unique touch of Ukandanz and of the rich musical colours of Yeketelale (''It Goes On''), a fusion musical journey that brings the electric spark of the Frendj (Westerners) to Ethiopian lyricism.

Fiestas is an ultra catchy foxtrot by the Colombian clarinet player and ar-ranger Ricaurte Arias. This American-style swing spiced up with a layer of Colombian sauce is an irresistible ear worm that takes the concept of smoothness to another level. Definitely the foxiest of all foxes.

The legendary composer and band leader Pacho Galan’s take on Estambul is another example of how American swing and Colombian music can blend into a unique musical melting pot. The song starts with hard tambor breaks and maracas kicking in badly. The playful horns driven by the cumbia rhythm make it impossible not to dance on this tune.

Aggelos Baltas is a veteran of the global electronic music scene, responsible for a handful of celebrated EBM 12”s as Dream Weapons, and a particularly heady and open-ended brand of krautrock as Fantastikoi Hxoi. His newest project, Anatolian Weapons, was conceived as a way to bring together these two seemingly mismatched concepts, with the polyrhythmic percussion and wailing tones of Greek folk music serving as their unlikely bonding agent. His output garners praise particularly around the Golden Pudel scene, such as Vladimir Ivkovic, and Phuong Dan. Lena Willikens, from the same circle, included Baltas’ track “Disillusioned” on her Dekmantel Selectors compilation in 2018.

But where much of what Baltas has released as Anatolian Weapons is instantly recognizable as dance music, To The Mother Of Gods—Baltas’ debut album for Beats In Space—is something else entirely. Created in tandem with Greek folk musician Seirios Savvaidis, it is a work of simultaneous collaboration and subtraction whose meticulous construction becomes more apparent with every listen. An album-length exploration of what happens when the principles of dance music are applied to pre-digital musical modalities. It is a record of psychedelic folk music that has more in common with Kikagaku Moyo, Minami Deutsch, and the Habibi Funk label than it does with anything else Baltas has produced under any alias. It’s difficult to imagine this music in any kind of club setting.

And yet, it’s very much the work of a DJ. Baltas initially heard Savvaidis’ music through a friend, and was absolutely amazed. “It was his very esoteric, pagan [music and] beautiful lyrics that grabbed me,” he writes. Seirios is a composer and performer of traditional Greek folk music with a growing discography of regional psych-rock gems. Baltas reached out to collaborate and the seeds of To The Mother Of Gods were sown.

Savvidis contributed stems of ten songs, which Baltas deconstructs and rearranges with appreciation of the ancestry of their lineage and of the deceptively ancient eerie, droning qualities inherent in the style. Occasionally augmenting Savvaidis’ recordings with his own, Baltas treats these elements as if raw materials for an architectural process.

To The Mother Of Gods showcases Baltas’ arrangement skills. He treats Savvaidis’ songs as landscapes, filling them with slanted, droning light and setting the singer’s vocals in dead center. His years behind the decks have given him an intuitive understanding of dynamics—drums crest and recede like tides, snippets of bassline repeat and swirl. He knows how to entrance, and when to push the music from the head to the body. Opener “Taratchi Katarratchi” (“Stormy Cataract”) is sung as a spell to ward off the fear of death, but Baltas’ orchestration demonstrates that dancing is an equally effective way of dispelling the darkness. The beat he assembles from Savvaidis’ playing recalls the late-night ecstasies of Primal Scream circa Screamadelica.

To The Mother Of Gods is a reminder that folk music and dance music are both powered by their audience as much as the musicians themselves. Savvaidis’ lyrics echo pagan Greek themes, touching on what Baltas calls “the magic of nature.” At times, as on “Kalesma” (“Invitation”), this can feel incantatory. Savvaidis chisels his vocal melodies into hard, clipped syllables, their cadence recalling Gregorian chant, and yet Baltas cloaks these details in washes of distortion. “Ston Stavraito” (“In Stavraithos”) is delivered with a lamentive tenderness that Baltas swells into a prideful stomp, immersing Savvaidis in marching drums and distant vocals that form a resilient protest-song. To The Mother Of Gods is a testament to the ongoing and innate truth that music can take us beyond ourselves. That repetition and drone can shepherd us to a liminal space beyond thought and rationality, where the wall between perception and reality does not exist. Call it spirit, if you want, and watch as it courses its way through modern-day dance music, mid-century psych, and the ancient sounds of the anatol.

Anatolian Weapons’ To The Mother Of Gods will be available from Beats In Space on June 14, 2019 in limited vinyl and unlimited digital forms.

Artist Highlights
• Aggelos Baltas is an Athenian music producer creating and Djing under the monikers of Anatolian Weapons, Fantastikoi Hxoi, and Dream Weapons.
• The Anatolian Weapons moniker is an outlet for Baltas to explore global music—from African to Anatolian and Middle Eastern, while also incorporating sounds from his home country of Greece.

This Ltd edition vinyl release see’s a 50 track digital album whittled down to an 8 track sampler encompassing what label bosses Vinyl Junkie and Rachael E.C have determined to be the tracks that represent them best. The selection is predominantly on the junglist tip with a sprinkling of Drum & Bass here and there, which is basically what their label Ghetto Dub is all about.

The proceedings are kicked off by Birmingham born but Bristol based jungle overlord, the man they call Aries, who comes in with a real deep and bass heavy roller called Pre-Rolled, guaranteed to get everyone on their feet and feelin’ the vibes. This is followed by a rising star of the UK jungle scene; Java, who brings in the amens with a ragga style vocal lick for his track Screwface, which has been slaying dancefloors on dub for the last couple of months. Another artist that is really making a BIG name for himself lately is Veak. He comes in HARD with his first offering Lawd A Mercy which is a definite pull up track with a filthy bassline that will nail your head to the dancefloor. X-E-Dos concludes the first vinyl with Feel For Me which is a hard hitting but atmospheric drum fuelled workout, keeping the vibes rolling and maintaining the energy levels perfectly.

Enter the second vinyl and Veak is back, this time teaming up with another UK jungle don; Kumarachi. The combination of these two production masterminds has manifested something quite special in this awesome track Chrome Siren. Punchy in your face amens laced with more killer bass riffs and a mesmerising female vocal make this a definite for the front of your box. Sypmtom steps up next and adds that dark techy vibe like only he knows how; Come Mash Up maintains the jungle vibe but goes on a journey into the realms of drum & bass. Galvatrons track, Buss Up Shot is pure jungle, no doubt about that. Chopped up amens and a deep rumbling bassline are complemented with a beautifully melodic piano section. Last but by no means least, the man like SR takes the limelight with another wicked amen workout. Special Ops VIP gives a nod to the mid 90’s for sure… Wicked oldskool vibes and a sure fire hit with all the junglists that remember those times.

smog’s music has been on a steady path towards monumentalism since emerging out of the recesses of Berlin in 2015.

Originally from Paris, growing up cutting his chops in the capital’s hip hop undergrowth, the young producer makes music that is as challenging as it is evocative. On “sequel’70” – his debut album – bass, techno, electroacoustic music and jungle are rung through his singular take on the hardcore continuum. The production is powerful, dynamic and geared to bulldoze the dance. It’s clear why the likes of Resident Advisor have tipped smog as an “important artist to watch” and why his tracks have been appearing in sets from artists of the calibre and creative range of Objekt, Donato Dozzy, Samuel Kerridge or Go Hiyama.

With his debut album, smog lays bare a world of start and stop mechanics. Tracks twist and turn through stuttering panoramas of crashing beats, majestic peaks and post-rave intensity. On its most moving moments the gorgeously burnt out cinematic pads of “Mécanique Oblique” are a particular highlight – “sequel’70” feels like coming up in the middle of an industrial wasteland. It’s almost as if the end of the world wasn’t such a terrible prospect after all.
Jungle architectures are pulled apart and reconstructed on “Gelid”, “Dazzle” and the phenomenal “Abschluss SCAN”. Souvenirs of gabber echo through heavy handed kicks and speaker defying noise blasts. IDM inflexions creep their way in opportunistically, but even at its most abstract – album midpoint “Straightforward” sounds like a geiger counter being set off – it all sounds more like the possibilities offered by the future of rave rather than an attempt at paying homage to the genre’s heritage.

There’s a special energy and irreverence to smog’s music and there’s deep reflection in how he connects the dots of the subfamilies of rave. His attention to sound design would almost be worth the trip alone, but the album remains superb even at its most disorderly.

Exactly two years after their latest Front Teeth LP, the Zürich-based duo VEIL OF LIGHT is back with a new album called Inflict which will be out May 10 on Avant! Records. This is their fourth full-length and their industrial-tinged synth-based post-punk keeps on getting better, making Inflict their strongest release to date. In these eight new cuts you'll hear how their sound has gotten heavier, bulkier, even more beat-driven. Tracks like So Hard and Holy Wars display drums pounding like noises from a rusty machinery, synths on You Done Me Wrong and Fact2019 they’re so sharp they can slice through your skin, Europe and Animal Instinct feature melodies from the abandoned industrial district of your ghost town. We could go on but you are probably aware of what these two Swiss are all about, and if you don’t you'll know the Veil Of Light when you face it. Artwork by Basel-based visual artist and photographer Samuel Trümpy. Limited edition LP on orange vinyl!

* Remix Records third new EP is an absolute banger. Alexander Norman faces off against rave legend Whizzkid and comes up with 4 stunningly beautiful, yet perfectly heavy hardcore classics. Leaning into the early years, 1991 and 1992, these full on anthems are guaranteed to do the deed. Not to be missed….

Club / DJ Support
Billy Bunter, the Fat Controller, Glowkid, Slipmatt, Dj Jedi, Dj Luna-C, Dj Brisk, Clayfighter, Jimni Cricket, Bustin, Sc@r, Doughboy, Saiyan, Dave Skywalker, Ponder and many others

By the late '70s, Alice Coltrane had largely gravitated away from jazz, incorporating Hindu chants and hymns into her music to reflect a newfound sense of creative omnipotence. However, in April 1978, she would return to her roots, performing at University of California, Los Angeles to make her first and only live album.

Transfiguration, featuring drummer Roy Haynes and bassist Reggie Workman, showcases Alice's many compositional talents and fierce improvisatory abilities. Throughout this double LP set, her playing evokes the time spent in her late husband John Coltrane's band and the avant-garde music of her earlier years.

As biographer Franya J. Berkman writes, "Her up-tempo keyboard work here is the most exciting of her commercial career. With its rapid-fire transpositions of short figures; its long modal passages, rhythmic play, and timbral inventiveness; its sustained energy and burning pace; and the unrelenting support of Haynes and Workman, she takes leave of the jazz business with a truly breathtaking swan song."

Alice Coltrane would not revisit jazz on record for another 26 years, turning instead to spiritual music made with students at her Vedantic Center and self-releasing a series of cassettes under her Sanskrit name, Turiyasangitananda. It is hard to imagine a better farewell than the intense and spellbinding Transfiguration.

Cypress Hill is widely respected and considered to be amongst the main progenitors of West Coast rap and Hip Hop in the early 1990s. With megahits like 'Insane in the Brain', 'I Wanna Get High' or 'Tequila Sunrise' they crossed-over to mainstream breaking all records for a rap band up until
that time. Cypress Hill were the first Latino-American hiphop group to have RIAA Certified platinum and multi-platinum albums. As musicians they
became famous for the crazy sounds produced by DJ Muggs and Bobo and the stoner sympathetic lyrics of B-Real and Sen Dog. They redefined
and shattered the boundaries of hip-hop, crafting gutter-dirty tracks that fused deep bass lines with blissful, stoned-out melodies and aggressive
hard rock riffs, creating a unique imprint.

Les Points Pay A Twisted Homage To The Early Foundations Of Electronic Music Where Hard To Get Tapes, Dystopia And The Sound Of The Wretched Worker Where Present In Genres Like Post-punk, Industrial, Minimal Synth, New Beat And Wave.

It's changing, the worker searched for post-leftist solutions and got lost.
Nine circles applauded the proletariat and imagined how a community
could be congregated, while screams of violence would be filtered by boiling blood.
Exploiters of labor either find themselves rotting away in a never ending icy rain or are dragging their selfish accumulations on their chests for eternity - while the worker slowly identifies himself as a counter-commodity. Algorhythms (fraud) always mislead - once the worker gets past them only Dis will be awaiting her/him.

From the mists of 1989 comes The Landlord with this monolithic slab of rave history - 'I Like It'. Instantly recognisable, those widely sampled piano stabs, that bassline.... it's all there. Produced by Canadian super-producer and Big Shot Records label owner Nick Fiorucci this much sought after rave anthem was highly prized and coveted by those in the know back in the day, no-one had any idea as to how huge the record would become as it soundtracked every dancefloor, warehouse, field and loft from '89 onwards, this is it, the real deal! Enter: The Maghreban. One of R&S Records contemporary artists and an unashamed Hardcore / Jungle / Breakbeat enthusiast, he seemed like the perfect remixer. Maghreban's mix is respective of the roots and the legacy of 'I Like It', referencing some of it's later sampled incarnations in a clever and knowing way, a true DJ tool that has been road-tested and checked in clubs across Europe and beyond, his epic 'Revenge Remix' shows a deep understanding of the history of these particular records and how they work on the dancefloor. This one will have people crying for more! Also featured on this special RSD 2019 release is the OG 'Blow-Out Dub', the one that started it all. Classic material from end to end right here. Essential business from Above Board distribution and Nick Fiorucci / Big Shot Records.

It's easy to fall for a nostalgic approach to dance music, to cuddle oneself in the warm analogue sounds of late 1980's dance productions - especially with the heavy ongoing reissue trend going on. However, we have to stay focus: look out for contemporary sounds and means of production. Parisian producer Nathan Melja makes his debut on Antinote with an idiosyncratic three-tracker and our guess is that it sounds contemporary.

On the A-side: one tune: Deadrums. Both the name and the music speak for themselves. It's hard, it's efficient and at the same time, there's quite a lot going on, tiny bumps on the straightforward road to techno ecstasy. Nevertheless, Deadrums is a precise piece of machinery, an atmospheric banger, yes, but with deadly jaws made out of tempered steel to tear a dancefloor apart, piece-by-piece. On the B-side, Angels stands out as a perfect example of a song that has many dancefloor qualities but, like some of DJ Sprinkles' seminal recordings, turns out to be more of a late-night tale of urban wanderings on wet pavements (think Taxi Driver and its soundtrack by Bernard Hermann). Contemplative, melancholic and - let's say it - sad, its nagging melody can bring a little tear to the eyes of the most sensitive ones. Rounding up the 12' is Candy, a tune under the influence of bad boys like DJ Overdose, or Ghettotech legend DJ Assault - so that you can dry your tears.

It's Nathan Melja's first release on Antinote, but he's definitely not a newcomer. He's been around since Antinote exists, and we're glad to finally collaborate with him.

Seasoned Producer Oliver Kapp Takes Us Back To The Glory Days Of Underground Techno Where Pounding Sound Systems Ruptured The Space Time Continuum For Fun. The Old Guard Will Already Know That Kapp Has Pedigree, From Running And Releasing On His Own Record Labels Indulge And Raygun To A String Of Appearances On Stockholm Ltd, Logistic And Gigolo, His Dedication To The Cause Is Unquestionable. Which Is Why His First Appearance On Cocoon Recordings Is Long Overdue. What We Get Are Dj Friendly Tools Designed For That Time Of Night When The The Second Hand Stops Ticking. Kapp Presents A Perfect Collection Of Timeless Warehouse Techno, Like The Genre Itself There Are No Beginnings Or Ends, Just A Constant Barrage Of Hi Octane Machine Funk, Underpinned By Heavy Duty Beats That Somehow Manage To Induce A Sense Of Weightlessness On The Dance Floor. Scaling Down The Bpms To A Sub 130 Tempo, The Ep Is A Masterclass In How To Balance The Old School With The New. - loud Whisper Is Both Tough And Relentless, Generating An Hypnotic State That Ensnares The Dancer In Suspended Animation As Strobe Lights Flicker Across Closed Eyelids. Scattered Hihats Motor Forward And Trance Inducing Sequences Splice And Dice Causing Mind And Body To Drift Apart. - mantash Is An Altogether Gentler Excursion. Loose Tribal Rhythms Slalom Through The Metronomic Kicks Before Giving Way To Distant Chords That Embrace The Dancefloor In A Warm Fuzzy Glow. This Lush Vibe Extends Over The Rest Of The Track While The Beats Roll On, Accompanied By Delicate Melodies That Enhance The Ride. Euphoria And Delirium Combine On The Aptly Titled - rapture , As Chopped Up Vocal Fx Alternate Across A Hard Hitting 909 Pattern Complete With Angular Snares And Ride Cymbals That Bang The Box Into Submissio

After a long wait, Melbourne's Public Opinion Afro Orchestra (The POAO) is set to release their second album, 'Naming & Blaming', a pulsing, percussive journey into classic afrobeat. Recorded by a 17 piece ensemble, led by fierce vocals and a howling horn section, it's a fitting 21st-century response to the world-shaking music of 1970s Nigeria. The result is true to the afrobeat blueprint of hypnotic, extended songs, improvisation and political comment but adds to the formula a host of pan-African influences and hip-hop elements that reflect the deep ranging roots of the band. As the title suggests, and in true afrobeat tradition, Naming & Blaming pulls no punches. It is an outspokenly political record, a cauldron of strong opinions where indignation and optimism coexist. Led by the vocals of MC One Sixth and singer Lamine Sonko, the critique of colonialism is applied to both the African and Australian experience, the battles of many cultures informing the group's ethos as does the importance of community and staying true to one's convictions. Uplifting visions of a brighter possible future as laid out in 'No Passport,' the album's rambunctious opening song, are balanced with honest reflections on injustice like guest Robbie Thorpe's take on Australia's chequered history in the title track.For the Naming & Blaming cover, the band was honoured to have the opportunity to work with one of the originators of the Afrobeat movement Lemi Ghariokwu, the legendary collage artist and illustrator responsible for all of Fela's most famous album covers of the 1970s. This relationship is what the POAO is all about, paying respects to the culture and keeping it alive and relevant in the 21st century. Over the last decade, The POAO have established themselves as a firm festival favourites with their contemporary approach to Afrobeat.

Chicago-based Matt Warren has been a DJ for forty years and has been a producer since 1984, when he released his debut single Rock The Nation. This inspired Matt to cofound Sunset Records in 1985, which released several house classics. However, in 1987, Matt resigned from Sunset Records and founded AKA Dance Music.

The first single that AKA Dance Music released was Bang The Box, which sold over 50,000 copies in America and nowadays, is regarded as the first hard house track. Bang The Box was the first of seven singles that AKA Dance Music released between 1987 and 1988. By then, Matt's second label was part the history of house music.

After the demise of AKA Dance Music, Matt Warren continued to travel the world DJ in some of the top clubs. Meanwhile, Matt continued to produce new music, remix tracks by some of the biggest names in music.

By the nineties, Matt was also writing, arranging, mixing, and producing a wide variety of artists and bands. He sometimes was asked to play on a number of albums. However, he still loved house music, and worked on several releases.

As the new millennia dawned, Matt continued to work in a variety of roles in the ever-changing music industry, and occasionally released some new music. Over the next few years, Matt has been working as a producer, engineer and remixer, which meant he had to put his own career on hold, until he began working with a familiar face.

In 2016, Matt was reunited with house diva Pepper Gomez, who was now running her own label Wake Up! Music. By then, Pepper Gomez had dawned the MyMy Lady G moniker and embarked upon a career as producer. She had travelled to Chicago, to record Elena Andujar's genre-meting album Flamenco In Time at Matt's Sound Studio Recording. Matt took charge of engineering, programming, mixing and production on Flamenco In Time while MyMy Lady G added backing vocals and assumed the role of executive producer on this groundbreaking project. After the completion of Flamenco In Time, MyMy Lady G asked Matt Warren if he would like to record an album

It didn't take long for Matt to answer in the affirmative, and in early 2018, he hit the comeback trail. He was accompanied by a group of talented musicians and vocalists including gospel singer and soulful diva Jan McGhee, Elena Andujar and legendary house diva Pepper Gomez who plays a starring role on the album. That album was recorded over the course of several months, and eventually became Music Is My Life which marks the comeback of Mark Warren.

Matt Warren has been away to long, now one of the pioneers of Chicago House makes a welcome return with a groundbreaking new album. This is Music Is My Life, the first ever Nu House album, which is guaranteed to transform Matt Warren's career and become part of dance music history.

Khaliphonic 11 Is A Truly Epic Release From One Of Our Most Prolific Artists, Brendon Moeller Aka Echologist, Aka Beat Pharmacy. In Just The Last Two Years, Moeller Has Released On Labels As Varied As Echocord, Silent Season, Kynant, And Rohs!, To Name Only The Most Well-known. Recognized Globally For A Singularly Organic And Dubwise Approach To Techno, We Are Proud To Have A Close Working Relationship With An Artist Who Coaxes Humanity And Warmth From Machines Like Few Others. The Dub Purpose Ep Is One Of His Finest Achievements.

As We Planned A Third Zamzam Release From Our Favorite Well Of Hardware Sonics, Four Tracks Emerged As Comprising A Set That Simply Did Not Want To Be Separated. The Four Tunes That Make Up This Ep Felt Like Chapters In A Single Gorgeous Narrative, And So A 12' Was Born.

We Asked Brendon How Dub Influences His Process, And What This Ep Specifically Is About. He Replied:

"dub Facilitates Whatever Vision I Have With Music, Which Is One Of The Reasons I Incorporate A Dub Approach In Everything I Do. Whether Infusing Nyabinghi Rhythms With Epic Strings, Roots Dub With Industrial Dread Or Grungy Modular Antics With Stepping Vibes, Dub Is The Glue That Keeps It Together. The Inspiration Behind These Tracks Are On-u Sound, Wordsound And Bill Laswell, Travellers Who Understood The Possibilities Of Dub."

The Dub Purpose Ep Does In Four Tunes What Many Lps Struggle To Do In Eight - It Builds A Cohesive Narrative Arc That Moves From Menace, To Exploration, Through Mystery, Closing With Beauty. And Just Wait Til You Hear It On A Proper Sound...

Mastered By Sam Precise.

The 45 of Everyday People - World full of people is well known on the modern soul and funk scene and it relatively easy to find a copy for maybe 500 pounds. What was always less well known was that there was also an LP by the same band but labels as People Pleasure. I first came across this LP in Turku, Finland in the early 2000s when at the house of DJ and Collector Felix Manell who pulled a pile of rare and interesting bits that day. I did not really appreciate the true rarity until trying to source my own copy. The next copy I saw was in Japan in 2004 but was not going anywhere. Roll on 15 years, Russell Paine, collector, DJ and super record researcher called me saying he had finally unravelled the mystery and was talking to Bill brown & Al Hall Jr. Russel sets himself the hard task of only putting out unreleased material on his own label so we also work together on LPs and Singles on Athens of the North. After we managed to clear the rights the final hurdle was finding a clean copy, not an easy task. After asking loads of deep collectors, Zaf put me onto DJ Nick the Record who very kindly lent me his minty personal copy, a huge favour considering how rare this record is, almost impossible to replace. So we mastered from the vinyl (no tapes exist) and while it still sound pretty raw it is twice as good as the O.G. Been a long time coming.

This album is the result of some musings on what drives us in life and how we come to terms with our place in the world. I wrote it around the time I was finishing my philosophy degree. I had also come to a point where I wanted to make music that was more personal, emotional and conceptual than before.

We are deficient creatures. Powerless and ignorant of reality as a whole, and unfortunately our characteristic existence makes us painfully aware of that. Reality is fundamentally hostile (or indifferent rather) and we are not well 'fit' to live in it. We try to deal with this through emotional means. We seek comfort for our deficiencies, a sense of purpose and belonging...

Chemistry between individuals is an amorphous and elusive notion. It is usually seen as something that occurs between two people who are sharing a physical space, with access to each other's body language and energy. However, modern technology has provided many other opportunities for chemistry to blossom and be explored and this record is just one example of that: Vent is proud to present Kina, a double LP of musical collaborations between MAYa and Tolga Baklacioglu.

Tolga Baklacioglu is an associate professor in aeronautical engineering. He is also a musician. For several years, he has been steadily building a body of work that explores the outer boundaries where techno and abstract textures merge and blur. In 2014, Tolga created a label, VENT, as a platform for his explorations and those of likeminded travelers within this sonic realm.

MAYa Hardinge works in film. She is also a musician. She has collaborated with numerous artists. Beginning in 2008, She released 4 EPs under her solo guise MAYa. Considering her background in film, it comes as no surprise that her work has a strong visual element. Pre- dating Beyonce´'s Lemonade by many years, her last two EPs were visual albums made in

collaboration with various directors.

It makes total sense that MAYa and Tolga should have made an album together. Their interests and backgrounds overlap and diverge meaningfully in a way that has all the hallmarks of good musical chemistry. There is however one unusual element to their collaboration: they have never met. Tolga lives in Eskisehir (Turkey) and MAYa lives in New York City.



Always on the look out for inspiration and new collaborators, Tolga stumbled across MAYa's videos online. What he saw and heard inspired him to reach out and contact her. After some correspondence they decided to experiment with the prospect of making music together. Perhaps deprived of the traditional notions of chemistry defined by proximity, they found inspiration across time and space in the name of exploration and discovery. Tolga began by sending MAYa files of beats and ambiance. Upon finding the ones that spoke to her, MAYa went to work disassembling, adding, subtracting and rearranging. MAYa's work would then go back to Tolga, a world away, for further input and then back again. In this way each track was painstakingly constructed and a true chemistry was born. One built on sensitivity, support and honest artistic communication. In a word: LISTENING.

The songs cover a broad spectrum of topics, from the deeply personal feelings and experiences, to world events, and the fundamental aspects of life and death. Kina is a document of two artists from different backgrounds and their shared visions of the interplay

between one's private microcosm and the global macrocosm of our time; a testament to the fact that, for all its vastness and diversity, this world offers inspiration and potential collaboration around every corner. The music contained within has traveled around the world many times before reaching your ears. As MAYa and Tolga have done before, it is now your turn to LISTEN.

'Sometimes it's hard to say how you feel,' says songwriter-vocalist
Jade Vincent. 'These songs are vulnerable stories for me to tell -
they're things I couldn't say out loud. But I found that I could sing
them. And then I closed my eyes when they would listen.'
Listening to Vincent's songs were her partner - producer/composer
Keefus Ciancia - and DJ and producer/composer David Holmes.
Together, Vincent, Ciancia and Holmes make up Unloved, the musical
project that evolved out of a late-night Hollywood bar in 2015,
releasing a stunning debut album the following spring and this year
crafting the soundtrack to Phoebe Waller-Bridge's acclaimed new
series 'Killing Eve'.
Introduced to Ciancia through soundtrack work, Holmes found
himself invited to DJ one night and to curate other nights at the
Rotary Room. To invite Holmes to DJ is to unleash a kind of whirling
dervish of musical enthusiasm but through those nights the trio
discovered a shared love for 60s girl groups and French pop and film
noir soundtracks, Brigitte Fontaine, Shuggie Otis, George 'Shadow'
Morton, Bruno Nicolai, Lee Hazlewood and Jack Nitzsche, along with
a tremendous desire to work together.
Their debut EP - 'Guilty Of Love' - and the full-length, self-titled
album that followed in the spring of 2016, offered a quite remarkable
thing: a sound at once hauled out of the silty depths of the past and
simultaneously wholly modern. There was the soft hiss of a lo-fidelity
recording - the murky crackle of sample, beats and half-remembered,
long-lost favourite tunes. However, much of the songs' success
belonged to Vincent's sublime voice and lyrics, both possessed of an
aching, rich-smoked tone of loss and love.
Unloved's second album, 'Heartbreak', is about love. The album plays
out each song like a vignette of nothing but love. The songs that rose
up were in some ways surprising, but also felt insistent. 'They're real
feelings and real experiences that I had the guts to finally say, but
always ambiguous, this is very important to me,' she explains, 'and
always about love, one way or another.'
LP pressed on red coloured vinyl with digital download code.

The story of Seattle's rise to global rock supremacy in the late 80s and early 90s begins with Green River. Made up of Jeff Ament (bass), Mark Arm (guitar/vocals), Bruce Fairweather (guitar), Stone Gossard (guitar) and Alex Shumway (drums), the
quintet put out three 12's and a 7' single during its brief existence.
Green River's influence on Seattle's music scene spread far and wide thanks to the members' dispersion into bands including Pearl Jam, Mudhoney and Love Battery, as well as the punk glam sludge rock songs they left behind. 'By '83, '84, there was
definitely a movement that was happening within hardcore, like Black Flag slowing down for My War,' says Arm. 'The Replacements and Butthole Surfers were rearing
their heads, and they're very different bands, but they're not hardcore - the Replacements are pretty much straight-up rock, and Butthole Surfers were God knows what. Sonic Youth's Bad Moon Rising was around, and a lot of really
interesting post-hardcore things were happening.'
Green River, formed in 1984, were part of that evolution, with a sound that straddled a lot of different genres - blues, punk, bloozy straight-ahead rock. The mini-LP 'Dry As A Bone' - which came out in 1987 - and the band's lone full-length
'Rehab Doll' - which came out in 1988 - were released as a single CD with a few bonus cuts, including their sneering cover of David Bowie's 'Queen Bitch' and their marauding version of Dead Boys' 'Ain't Nothin' to Do', in 1990 - but they've been
unavailable on vinyl for years.
Now, these slices of Seattle music history are not only back in print, they're accompanied by items from the vaults that had been forgotten about for decades.
'Dry As A Bone' was recorded at Jack Endino's Reciprocal Recording in 1986 and it shows the band in furious form, with Arm's yowl battling Fairweather and Gossard's
ferocious guitar playing on 'This Town' and 'Unwind' opening as a slow bluesy grind then jump-starting itself into a hyperactive chase. The deluxe edition includes Green
River's cuts from the crucial Seattle-scene compilation 'Deep Six', as well as long-lost songs that were recorded to the now-archaic format Betamax.
'Rehab Doll', recorded largely at Seattle's Steve Lawson Studios., bridges the gap between the taut, punky energy of 'Dry As A Bone' and the bigger drums and thicker
riffs that were coming to dominate rock in the late 80s. This new edition of 'Rehab Doll' includes a version of 'Swallow My Pride' recorded to 8-track at Endino's Reciprocal Recording, which features a more accurate depiction of how the band
sounded when they played live. 'When I listen to these mixes, I think, 'This is how we actually sounded - this is the kind of energy we had,'' says Shumway.
Green River's place in American music history is without question but these recordings paint a more complete picture of the band - and of rock in the mid to late 80s, when punk's faster-and-louder ideals had begun shape-shifting into other ideas.
CDs in digipack with 12-page booklet. 2LP formats in gatefold jacket with custom dust sleeve and digital download code.

2018 played host to a bumper crop of sounds from some of Philly's grittiest, including Great Circles mainstays M//R and Chaperone. To close out the year that was, we are pleased to present Heckadecimal's 'Murder Tape.'

A Minneapolis-based producer and acid auteur, Heckadecimal has been a fixture within the vibrant Midwestern electronic music community for nearly 20 years. Founder of the legendary 'Anti-human' events and co-curator of the ever-prolific Always Human Tapes imprint - alongside Ryan Wurst and Peter Lansky - Heckadecimal's reputation is one of unrelenting creativity and tireless advocacy for sonic experimentation. His work has found its way to light via a slew of pseudonyms and stage monikers, including The Worm, noface and Wonder Sirens.

In short - Heckadecimal lives and breathes the sonic matter that he leaves pouring out of studio monitors, busted bar systems and finely tuned rave stacks, wherever his travels take him.
Live performance lies at the core of Heckadecimal's practice. When he stormed through Inciting HQ in Philly earlier this summer, he took command over an arsenal of hardware that reminded us of how Octave One or Shawn Rudiman might show up. These were machines that he had lived with; touched with custom modifications, hand-drawn stickers and pockmarks incurred in battle, one got the sense that the gear was a personal extension of the artist.

Perhaps it's a bit maudlin, but we feel a certain kinship with this project. Indeed, these tracks at times feel very much of a piece with the gnarled tonalities in which our stable typically traffics; all low-slung riddims that reach at equal lengths towards mutated IDM aesthetics and post-Packard Plant techno extrusions. These are future perfect grooves that glide along under the vast Midwestern sky, providing a fertile communication conduit with the City of Brotherly Love.

Give thanks for acid. Great Circles will see you in the New Year..

2019 will kick off in style at Blumoog music. Catalogue N.009 District Omega ep is a classy blend of electronic house and techno beauty. One of the key players in the development of electronic music scene Dan Curtin, joins Blumoog for another fine project. With over 70 singles and 9 LP's to his name Dan brings all his valuable experience into this number by chipping in 3 tracks out of 4.

A1 Pay to win, is an intricate, driving and bass heavy techno floater with a refreshing feel to it and with a couple of suspenseful breaks. M.R.E.U.X loved Pay to win and did a superb job remixing it on A2, a darker and more sequential approach redefine this tune but maintaining the heavy bass line. B1 District Omega is a percussive and uplifting 6 minute of upbeat house with crafty voice inserts. B2 ends this ep with a lovely jacking and jazzy house bomb with some virtuoso solos that will make you go wow!
Dan certainly knows how to tweak those knobs.

All the hard work is paying off for M.R.E.U.X with his Blumoog concept by releasing material that defines the musical evolution and contribution of techno veterans. Excellent work Dan and M.R.E.U.X! More to come in 2019 from Blumoog Music.

The Lemonheads' first record in 10 years!
Covers album - Includes versions of Nick Cave, Yo La Tengo, The Bevis Frond, Eagles and more.

Extensive world tour over the 12 months, including Europe, USA and Asia. Banana scented scratch & sniff vinyl sleeve!

'The Lemonheads are no strangers to a cover, the grunge-pop heroes perfect the art.' NME

The Lemonheads follow up the critically acclaimed 'Varshons' from nearly ten years ago with another eclectic collection of covers.
Produced by director Matthew Cullen and mastered by Howie Weinberg (Beastie Boys, Nirvana, The Ramones), their tenth studio album brims with the slowly-matured vocal of Evan Dando as he lures a host of personal faves to his melodic lair. He really has become one of the great expressive singers of our time.
What they said about Varshons:

'Gram Parsons, Wire, and GG Allin: You'd be hard pressed to find three more disparate rock acts, yet on 'Varshons' they all sound like the Lemonheads - boppy, overcast alt-rock delivered at a fast clip and sung in a whiskey tenor.' Pitchfork

'Varshons 2' is a hokey jukebox filled with unique versions of Yo La Tengo, Nick Cave, The Bevis Frond, NRBQ, The Eagles, Paul Westerberg, The Jayhawks, Lucinda Williams and John Prine.
Like Hank Williams slumped in his car between gigs, strumming and hollering, reasoning and weeping, humming it on over, Evan and his Lemonheads make every tune their own.