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ROCK JUSTICE is a new hard rock/metal act featuring singer Maggy Luyten (Ayreon, Beautiful Sin, The Prize, ex-Nightmare) and guitarist Bas Maas (Doro, After Forever).

The upcoming debut album, You’ve Been Served, is the result of Bas Maas’s long-held dream. He teamed up with Maggy Luyten to shape the powerful, driving sound of ROCK JUSTICE. The album blends varied song styles, tied together by a nostalgic vibe and well-crafted production.

“The idea came to life when I was still playing in After Forever, where I didn’t get a serious chance to contribute to the songwriting. I had written a couple of songs that didn’t make the cut and realized that if I wanted to get my own music out there, I’d have to do it myself, or at least with other people,” says Bas. When he decided to form a band, he had two rules: he wouldn’t sing himself, and it wouldn’t be a female singer. Finding the right guy proved impossible and after several try-outs, one name kept coming up: Maggy Luyten. “Mag’s voice completely blew me away. I thought, ‘This chick sings like a dude and she delivers.’ Not long after that, we met at an Ayreon album presentation in Utrecht. She wanted to hear my songs to see if they inspired her. They did.” The rest is history. Maggy recalls with a smile: “When Bas came over to hear what I’d worked on, we both knew we had something. I still picture him driving back home: window down, our demo blasting, arm out, metal horns up, huge smile!”

After years of delays and a very public, bitter dispute with Victory Records, Streetlight finally delivered their follow-up to Somewhere in the Between in 2013. The album is the band’s most ambitious in terms of song length and arrangement complexity, with several tracks stretching well past the five-minute mark. It carries a slightly more mature, weathered tone than earlier records, reflecting the turbulent period the band had endured to get it released. Despite the troubled road to release, it was warmly received and stands as a worthy closer to what many consider the band’s classic era.

2026 Repress.


There is with Tour-Maubourg an eternal desire to translate the feeling of love into music. Sometimes cheerful, sometimes melancholy, always exhilarating, the producer, native of Brussels and expatriate in Paris, has continued for 3 years to attract the praise of his peers and the support of a growing audience. The man who was described by Trax Magazine upon the release of his 1st EP as ‘‘one of the most promising producers of the French house scene’’ has revealed himself in this hyperactive new scene to become one of its best standards.

After several EPs released in France on Pont Neuf, FHUO (ie. Folamour’s label), as well as Happiness Therapy or in England and Germany on FINA and Salin, Tour-Maubourg unveils his first album, Paradis Artificiels. The Parisian producer refers to Charles Baudelaire’s poem, to which he links his melancholy music, who wrote:

‘‘common sense tells us that the things of the earth exist very little, and that the true reality is only in the dreams’’.

If the producer’s first EPs were mainly focused on club music, Paradis Artificiels oscillates between the atmospheres that made the success of these previous releases and those of a studio album. Composed of both house songs and downtempo sound researches, always flirting with the jazz sounds that have made the fame of the producer, this first album invites us on a journey in the lineage of St Germain, Massive Attack or Nicolas Jaar.

dgoHn (pronounced “John") is the moniker of John Cunnane, who hails from somewhere between London and Essex. ‘Tessares,’ his fourth album but his first for Planet Mu, is playful, unconventional drum & bass that contrasts sparse effects and melodic elements with complex drumfunk and breakcore. He often uses unusual time signatures and head-spinning polyrhythms inspired by jazz and math rock, sometimes within the same track. Somehow he makes it sound effortless, and occasionally pretty as well, keeping a fine balance that never feels punishing; exploratory without getting lost.

He's built a name for himself over the last two decades performing live at festivals and events around the world, while collaborating with fellow artists such as Macc, Nic TVG, Jodey Kendrick and Badun as well as solo releases.


The album opens with ‘Waiting For’ which combines complex breaks with melodic fills, spacey effects and dubbed out vocals that feel like snatches of lost conversations - a combination he uses throughout the album giving it an eerie touch of humanity. Lead single ‘I Couldn't Remember So I Made Something Up’ is in 15/8 time. It feels like a conventional melodic drum & bass track, but the time signature disrupts the listeners’ expectations, while the detuned melody eases its sense of dislocation. ’Whistling On A Tuesday’ opens with a light echoey piano countdown into bass stabs which introduce heavy whirling amen breakbeats that switch between 180 and 120 bpm. ’Holly Can Swim But She Doesn’t Really Like It’ is the most rhythmically challenging track here. It feels hard to hang on to as its knotty breaks play out over bell chimes, like something Autechre might make if jungle was in their DNA. The album ends on the dubbed-out drumfunk of ‘7 Years Or More,’ with an arrangement that builds a filmic, dusty atmosphere of chimes and electric guitar, layering in vocals, vinyl crackle and echoing synth giving way to tough drums, before all that is taken away so that just a voice remains.

Auf "What's This?" liefern CS Cleaners 11 Tracks verzerrten, neonfarbenen Art-Punk, der gegen die Absurdität des modernen Lebens wettert. Die Band ist beeinflusst von der Downtown-Musik New Yorks von der ersten vielfältigen Welle des CBGB über die Mutationen und Dekonstruktionen des No-Wave. Doch auch wenn der Sound von CS Cleaners in einer Musik verwurzelt ist, die manchmal ziemlich hart sein kann, nehmen sie sich selbst keineswegs ernst: "What's This?" ist in erster Linie Tanzmusik, wenn auch in einer Form, die wild genug für diese extremen Zeiten ist. Die Charaktere, die auf What's This?" porträtiert werden, sind oft in Momenten der Selbstzweifel und Panik gefangen. Wie der narzisstische Musiker auf der Vorab-Single "Come & Go", der total ausflippt, weil er befürchtet, das Rampenlicht zu verlieren. Ben Petrosor vermittelt Pathos in Zeilen wie "if I swallow my pride, I'll split in two", die Mitgefühl für einen unsympathischen Charakter in einer nachvollziehbaren Situation wecken. Wir erleben eine Vielzahl solcher Panikattacken auf "What's This?". Sie entspringen dem Überwachungsstaat der sozialen Medien, dem Druck, in einer zunehmend feindseligen Stadt zu leben, und natürlich der Überlastung.

Gorizont Sobytiy (Event Horizon), the duo of veteran electronic musician Nocow and his wife, DJ Designer, mark the project's debut with an album worth of material of 'frogg-step' / Pankratov Step. It's safe to say this is an intriguing proposition for even those well-initiated into the world of the contemporary Russian underground. What is perhaps most immediately obvious across the 11 tracks is a clear appreciation for golden-era Rephlex records, as if the duo are reflecting on how the iconic label was perceived in the Eastern bloc at the time. There's a nostalgic touch tugging at the heart strings with the warm ambient tones of 'Bananoivy Twist' or even the ballroom-esque organ melodies of follow up 'Chacha', both swiftly followed by a switch back into frantic gabber style kicks that recur across the album.

To give a little more away in terms of a background story, Nocow and DJ Designer draw influence from a film called Winter Evening in Gagra, a somewhat distant feeling artefact of late-Soviet cinema about a tap dancing champion's late nights spent gallivanting across the glitz of Moscow's pop music scene in the 1980s. Maximalist in its sound design, Pankratov Step draws its name from actor-protagonist Pankratov, not quite an out-of-time soundtrack as such but at the least a wry nod to the former world in which the film takes place. The cascading, brittle synthesis of 'Cemetry's Boss' forms an icy cinematic fusion again with a gabber influence at play whilst a fierce acid line works alongside myriad glitch rhythms and repeating keys on 'Octopus Werk'. Influenced by the local humour and sentimentality surrounding the film, a melodrama with themes of lost art and a kind of old-world transcendence the young circus performer yearns for, the duo use it as a vessel to describe the projects sound - a coalescing of vintage Soviet soundtracks, early IDM, Jake Slazenger and Expert Knob Twiddlers album. 'Pankratov-Step' becoming their own fictional genre. The LP marks another avant-garde chapter in Nocow's long back catalogue, as well as a fully formed collaborative debut for the currently enigmatic DJ Designer. Pankratov Step is the second release on GOST ZVUK sub-label MEMONT, curated by Kuzma Palkin.

Streetlight Manifesto’s debut full-length arrived in 2003 and immediately established the New Jersey band as a force in third-wave ska-punk. Fronted by Tomas Kalnoky, who had previously led Catch 22, the album blends furious horn arrangements with surprisingly dark, introspective lyrics about mortality and wasted youth. Tracks like "A Better Place, A Better Time" and "Point / Counterpoint" became instant fan favorites and remain setlist staples to this day. It developed a massive cult following and is widely considered one of the defining records of the genre.

Fenomenon are a trio hailing from Stavanger, on the west coast of Norway. Throughout their career they have released four full-length records, effortlessly moving between future jazz, downtempo, soul, and broken beat.

Their lush debut 12" Pacific Memories on Nuphonic made considerate waves and made the ears of many DJs perk up. As a result, the tracks "Pacific Memories" and "Solara" were featured on many big-name compilations and mix CDs such as Tom Middleton's The Sound Of The Cosmos, Hed Kandi, and MTV Summer Lounge. The latter was also featured in Michael Bay's sci-fi thriller The Island, featuring Scarlett Johansson. The follow-up single visjon.nord was only released as a white label promo due to the unfortunate demise of Nuphonic in 2002.

Pacific Memories: The Early Tapes collects tunes from both these EPs complemented by songs recorded around the same time. Originally released on CD only in 2006 by the Norwegian label Beatservice, it's now available on vinyl for the first time for its 20th anniversary. If you're a fan of Jazzanova, The Cinematic Orchestra, Kinobe, and Blue States, you can't miss this.

Pacific Memories: The Early Tapes is available as a 20th anniversary edition on black vinyl.

Fenomenon are a trio hailing from Stavanger, on the west coast of Norway. Throughout their career they have released four full-length records, effortlessly moving between future jazz, downtempo, soul, and broken beat.

Their lush debut 12" Pacific Memories on Nuphonic made considerate waves and made the ears of many DJs perk up. As a result, the tracks "Pacific Memories" and "Solara" were featured on many big-name compilations and mix CDs such as Tom Middleton's The Sound Of The Cosmos, Hed Kandi, and MTV Summer Lounge. The latter was also featured in Michael Bay's sci-fi thriller The Island, featuring Scarlett Johansson. The follow-up single visjon.nord was only released as a white label promo due to the unfortunate demise of Nuphonic in 2002.

Pacific Memories: The Early Tapes collects tunes from both these EPs complemented by songs recorded around the same time. Originally released on CD only in 2006 by the Norwegian label Beatservice, it's now available on vinyl for the first time for its 20th anniversary. If you're a fan of Jazzanova, The Cinematic Orchestra, Kinobe, and Blue States, you can't miss this.

Pacific Memories: The Early Tapes is available as a 20th anniversary edition of 250 copies on turquoise and yellow vinyl.

Gradual Isolation started in the early 90s as the musical project of 2 friends, Luc Van Den Bosch and Filip Van Breda, both living in Turnhout, Belgium.

They were inspired by EBM and new wave from the 80s and 90s and saw bands such as the Canadian Psyche as their great examples. With just a few synthesizers, a drum machine and a homemade microphone, they made music that could be described as emotional, and somewhat naive bedroom new wave. If the term emo-wave doesn't exist yet, it should be invented to describe Gradual Isolation's music.

Over the years, many tapes have been filled with their improvisations and about 20 to 30 songs have been more or less completed. They never officially released their music, only a handful of handmade cassette tapes were distributed to friends. They did not go further than a single performance in the local new wave bar ‘The Cave’ in Turnhout in 1991, but the duo stayed together and continues to make music to this day.

‘The Sky Converts’ and ‘Agony By Men’ appeared on Underground Wave Volume 7, and now, for the first time, a full-length LP ‘Remaining Faces’ has been released on Walhalla Records!

Trajectories collide in a wormhole as Tokyo-based Igaxx and Amsterdam-based Gropina converge on a crepuscular four-track 12-inch and digital release for Paesaggi Records. Igaxx drifts through near-beatless, spiralling psychedelia: “The Perception” is a slow-burn ascent, suspended in a state of perpetual anticipation, forever circling a climax that never arrives. “Someday in Time” settles into a steady pulse that glides outward, dissolving into the distance as if lost in quiet contemplation.

On the flip, Gropina reshapes the two pieces through his own sonic lens, like stepping through the looking glass. “The Perception (Version)” brings a supernatural, Kraut-inspired vibe, opening with a deceptive 2:35 intro before unfolding into Mother Sky-esque drums, primitive flutes, and reversed guitars. “Some Day In Time (Version)” is a dubby reinterpretation driven by a ’70s Ace Tone drum machine, a funky bassline, dub-soaked guitars, noir alto saxophone, and subtle details swirling through the mix.

Ikadub have been shaping their sound for a decade, oscillating between digital pulse and analog sounds. Character and rhythm that the duo offers to several singers according to style and mood, for a discography rich in beautiful encounters.

Tell The Truth is an example, if not the best, of a collaboration that rings true, hits hard and sounds killer! Prince Jamo delivers impeccable vocals to lyrics that resonate as current events prove him right, served by a riddim that makes you nod your head from the first bars. I want to say BIM!

Words have never been my strongest point. I have many ideas in my head, often too many. I can talk a lot about them, but putting them on paper is not really me. I rather just work on my ideas. ‘cause whatever your thoughts are, as soon as it is out there and people start to listen it becomes theirs. What I might have thought up before, and have as concept behind the music, might not be how someone else listens to it. And that’s okay.
If we keep in mind that my music is time focused, and I love it when it isn’t polished too much, so small errors become part of it, the music should speak enough for itself.
“Continuation” is my first studio album since “En de stilstaande tijd” (2019), and shows a rougher sound staying closer to my live sound. I see this as a continuation of my live performances, though this time with various multi-track recordings brought together as a whole, all done in my home studio “Studio De Baviaan” over the course of 8 months.
--- Sietse van Erve / Orphax, Janauary 2026

Our latest Holy Grail reissue is this private press spiritual jazz gem out of California from Rickey Kelly and his vibes & marimba. Features Diane Reeves (vocals) & Adele Sebastian (flute)!

Heavyweight 180g LP with tip-on sleeve, individually numbered 1-1000, card enclosed for liner notes & audio download

"Rickey, I know these are your friends, the guys you went to school with, but if you wanna record an album, you record with musicians who have been playing their whole life; whatever you write, they'll put their whole life into it. You play with your friends; they may not even play in tune."

These are the words of Slave guitarist Kevin Johnson, and they were to change the course of young Rickey Kelly's life.

It was 1978, and music student Kelly had approached Johnson with a tape of rough demos of some songs he'd written. A San Francisco native, Kelly had recently moved the short distance south to study music at LA City College in East Hollywood. He was a member of E.W. Wainwright Jr.'s African Roots of Jazz, and was spending up to 10 hours a day in practice on both vibes and marimba. He also played with Horace Tapscott, and had his own band made up of fellow students, but it was his ambition to make an album that led to the conversation with Johnson. It was a turning point in his education, and a decision was looming.

The next thing Johnson said was "You call the best jazz musicians. How'd you like to play with Billy Higgins?", a line that would seal it for anyone; for a youngster like Rickey just starting out in the business, you just don't turn down the opportunity to play with the likes of highly accomplished musicians, especially those of the calibre of legendary jazz drummer Billy Higgins.

Some calls were made and the date was set to record at Studio Masters on Beverly Blvd, a studio set up just a few years previous in 1973, owned and operated by Dot Records founder Randy Wood with his son John. Some of the other music professionals set to record with Kelley that day were flautist Adele Sebastian, bass player Tony Dumas, saxophonist Charles Owens and vocalist Diane Reeves, none of whom had previously played with Kelly before.

Kelly was impressed with the studio, with the gold records displayed on the walls and the famous musicians hanging out. 'It took a lot of humility for me to record with them, I mean I was nobody, nothing, and for not a lot of money either' remembers Rickey in a later interview with Calvin Lincoln, 'It taught me a lot, to practice hard, and study for the rest of your life, to give your all, and there's a lot of all to give'.

As the recording session took place, John Wood was listening in. He was impressed. Kelly didn't have the funds to manufacture and release the album himself, so Wood suggested it was pressed up on his in-house studio label, Los Angeles Phonograph Records, and thus the LP 'My Kind of Music' was released early in 1979. The album also saw a subsequent pressing soon afterwards on Dennis Sullivan's New Note label.

Kelly remains humble and proud of his debut album to this day. 'I was still a beginner' he says, 'These masters walked in, smiling, and gave me something worth gold'.

*Brand new Emika LP ‘Fountain’

* Part of the Kickstarter campaign ´´How To Make Music Immersive``

*Intimate lyrical songs with piano and synths, the blueprint for a follow-up immersive album in Q4 2026.

*Moody Electronic heavier songs in between the piano.

*For listeners who are tired of presets.

*Handmade, hand-played, honest-craft, 40 year old grown-up Emika. A mother of two, who lost her mother in 2025.

*Grief as a train on the way to the station of understanding love. A record written about the artist's personal life (Not a genre sound).

*If you like number drawings, you can draw on the artwork.

*Originally pressed in 2021 - this is a brand new master and cut.**

In partnership with Analogue Foundation, Oshu Records is proud to present the exclusive vinyl repress of "Laroyê" in a thick cardboard tip-on gatefold jacket on 2x 180g vinyl.

Acclaimed Hungarian, Berlin-based producer, composer and pianist Àbáse (AKA Szabolcs Bognár) returns, sharing a special, 5 anniversary remaster of his breakthrough project 'Laroyê'. Releasing on Friday 1 May via Bridge The Gap & Oshu Records, this sensitive exploration of Afro-Brazilian culture originally began as an audio diary, documenting Szabolcs’ travels and collaborations in Brazil through a collection of voice memos, fragmented beats, sketches and field recordings. As his journey progressed, and his collaborations and research deepened, the music project started to take on its own life:

"Laroyê evolved through weeks and months of research and collaborations into the album that it is now. That means that all the sessions were done in different apartments, small studios, often with borrowed equipment, which all adds to the character, but makes the creation of a coherent sound a challenge. Benjamin Tierney, Erik Breuer and Analogue Foundation did an incredible job with the mixes and with this new remaster. I truly believe that we are able to hear the tracks in a new light, with even more depth and clarity."

Coming from the West African Yoruban language, Àbáse stands for "collaboration" – a key element of the music perfectly encapsulated on 'Laroyê'. Recorded in Rio de Janeiro and Salvador, Àbáse spent five months working with diverse artists, from young talents to veterans of the Brazilian scene including Letieres Leite, Luciane Dom, Dofono d'Omolu, Afrojazz and more. The album explores the rich heritage of afro-brasilian culture through samba, MPB and Candomblé, mixing these with broken beat, hip hop and afrobeat, creating a contemporary homage to the classic Brazilian sound. Szabolcs shares:

"Despite already leading and managing musical projects that are close to my hearth, I always felt that one day I would like to start a solo project, where I could take full responsibility for the artistic direction and the music would reflect a truly personal vision. In 2017, I decided to take five months to fulfil a childhood dream and travel to Brazil to expand my creative horizon and expose myself to new influences."

An album standout is the bass-heavy, afro-brazilian ‘Agangatolú, which Àbáse describes as "best exemplifying the story and concept of Laroye as a collaborative effort - a research project exploring the rich heritage of Afro Brazilian culture through my own lens." The track features singers and percussion players Jadson Xabla and Gabriel Santana - two artists based out of one of the oldest terreiros (houses of worship) in Bahia, whilst drummer Jorge Dubman is an integral part of one of the most famous afrobeat bands from Salvador IFA. The contributions of one of Szabolcsoldest collaborators - Hungarian flautist Fanni Zahar - also made the track a full-circle moment.

On a quest for cosmic grooves of unity, Àbáses music pulls from an eclectic blend of global reference points, including modal jazz, Hungarian folk, West African, Brazilian, hiphop and underground electronic music. His work has drawn widespread critical acclaim from the likes of MOJO, Songlines, Soulection and The Guardian, and been supported by key tastemakers including Gilles Peterson, Jamz Supernova and BAMBII. As a keyboard player, Szabolcs has also collaborated with the likes of Wayne Snow, Dele Sosimi, Patti Smith, Emmanuel Wilkins, Gulty Simpson and Zeitgeist Freedom Energy Exchange.

'Laroyê' (2026 Remaster) will release on Friday 1st May via Bridge The Gap & Oshu Records.

LTD Edition, Artwork by John Frusciante

LP1 New album
LP2 Available on vinyl for the first time
LP3/4 Debut album on green vinyl
LP5 Second album on red vinyl

When I recorded the first 2 Trickfinger records, I had recently discovered that you could make electronic music in a room with a bunch of synced machines going at the same time, record it on a
CD burner and have a finished track. I've heard this process described as “overdubbing into the air”. It was as exciting to me as my first 4 track was when I was 14. I wasn't trying to be good, or
original. I was just excited that music could be made that way; it felt like I was a whole group of musicians playing together… or like I was jamming with ghosts of myself. This has actually been a
very common way of making electronic music since the 80s, particularly in the main pioneering genres like Chicago Acid and Detroit Techno, but anyways I didn't figure it out until 2006. In 2007,
I started doing it myself, which resulted in what was eventually released as Trickfinger, and Trickfinger II. I was just home from tour and was still in the middle of recording The Empyrean.

A couple of years later I started making music by overdubbing onto a computer, but using the same machines. I tried to make music that didn't sound like anything else. I saw a way of combining
Progressive Rock and Synth Pop which nobody had done. And I was combining my songwriting and guitar playing with these old machines in a way which I was sure was unique. I had reached a point
where it was more important to do something original than to do something good, whatever “good” means.

Some of this music did not get a proper release, and is compiled here as the vinyl record High Low. I don't think I have ever tried so hard at making music as I did during that period. This in contrast to
those two Trickfinger records, where I wasn't trying at all. There’s something to be said for both mental states. When you're in one, the other seems impossible. I was really pushing myself on High
Low. Looking back, it was as if I had an audience inside myself, driving me to go beyond my abilities, while at the same time I had a total disregard for any concept of an actual audience. It
was one of those periods in life where things come together in a certain way that feels natural at the time, but seems foreign in retrospect. It felt like I was going to die if I didn't do something musically
different.

The fourth record in this box is me breaking in a new mixing console, making live-to-stereo music. The record is called Rotation, and it is all new music. These tracks are more in the “not trying”
category, since we're on that subject. I had just come home from tour, and was just really glad to be in the studio with my machines. Acid Test thought it would be nice to do a box set commemorating the 10th anniversary of the release of Trickfinger, and so we put together this box set, with homemade cover art.
John Frusciante 2026

Nach der Veröffentlichung von „idea 1“, kündigt Kelela ihr neues, drittes Album an, das am 10. Juli bei Warp Records erscheint – und veröffentlicht die zweite Single „linknb“, produziert von Oscar Scheller.

Der Track entstand in einer Phase der Schreibblockade und begann als Mantra, das Kelela schrieb, um sich wieder an die Arbeit zu bringen. Angeführt von einem labyrinthischen Gitarrenriff über treibenden Metal-Drums ist „linknb“ ein Song über Selbstvertrauen, das man sich durch Schwierigkeiten erarbeitet hat, darüber, sich nicht klein machen zu lassen. „Es ist nicht schwer, mutig zu sein / Es ist leichter, zu viel preiszugeben / Ich weiß nur, dass ich den Weg geebnet habe, unterbezahlt.“

Das von Mischa Notcutt inszenierte Video versetzt Kelela in die Mitte einer urbanen Traumlandschaft. Als enger Freund und Kelelas ehemaliger Kreativdirektor war Notcutt die naheliegende Wahl. Das Video lässt Realismus und Abstraktion ineinanderfließen und verwandelt eine einsame Reise in eine Meditation über Selbstfindung und Erneuerung.

Mit „new avatar“ rückt alles, worauf Kelela hingearbeitet hat, in den Fokus. Sie begann ihre ersten Songs in der Indie-Szene von Washington, D.C. zu schreiben, bevor die Clubmusik und die elektronische Produktion, die ihre frühe Karriere prägten, die Oberhand gewannen. Mit „new avatar“ schließt sie den Kreis: R&B, unterlegt mit verzerrten Gitarrenklängen, trifft auf neue Schnittstellen in der Tanzmusik und gipfelt in einem Sound, der aus all den musikalischen Einflüssen schöpft, die sie je geprägt haben. Das Album enthält zudem Kollaborationen mit PinkPantheress, A. K. Paul und Fousheé.

„Dieses Album findet Trost in der Konfrontation“, sagt Kelela. „Ich möchte nicht, dass die Musik von dem ablenkt, was wirklich in der Welt vor sich geht; ich möchte, dass sie in dieser verrückten Zeit Sinn ergibt und den Menschen gleichzeitig hilft, mit der Schönheit und Freude in Kontakt zu kommen, die sie ebenfalls erleben.“

Das Album setzt sich mit einer Welt auseinander, die aus allen Nähten auseinanderfällt, und mit der Klarheit, die das Überleben erfordert.

„Die Leute sollten auch wissen, dass meine Freunde und ich ständig lachen und dass Humor kein Abwehrmechanismus ist; er ist Ausdruck dafür, wie scharfsinnig wir die Dinge einschätzen und wie klar wir die Welt sehen.“

Im Kern schildert „new avatar“ eine vielschichtige Erfahrung, und obwohl die Außenwelt präsent ist, schwächt sie Kelelas Entschlossenheit zu keinem Zeitpunkt.

About Kelela: Throughout her globally revered, boundary-pushing career, Kelela has established a lane of her own in R&B and electronic music. On her long-awaited third album, new avatar, the singer/songwriter (through the versatility of the guitar) challenges perceptions of these genres, while weaving together fragments of lived experiences to shape a world of connection and resilience during times of unrest.

The songs journey through Black femme rage, joy as resistance, Gotham City-esque dystopia, misogynoir, romantic tension, and more. It’s anchored by production that demands a broader rethink about alternative, rock and indie music.

Kelela’s defiant nature has propelled her so far already — from her hometown of Washington, D.C to world stages. In 2013, she released her debut mixtape, Cut 4 Me. She continued solidifying her revolutionary R&B sound with 2015’s Hallucinogen EP, with The New York Times naming its single, “Rewind,” one of the “25 Songs That Tell Us Where Music Is Going”. By 2017, she released her electric debut album Take Me Apart (which was followed by 2018’s TAKE ME A_PART, THE REMIXES), building upon her intimate storytelling.

After a nearly five-year hiatus, she returned in 2023 with her groundbreaking second album, Raven, and its critically-acclaimed counterpart, RAVE:N, The Remixes in 2024. Raven has been hailed as one of the ‘Best Albums of 2023’ by Pitchfork, Billboard, Vulture, Variety, and more, while the remixes solidified her as a leader in the dance music space.

In 2025, Kelela showcased yet another innovative side of her artistry with her live album In The Blue Light, which hit #5 on the Contemporary Jazz chart and #20 on the Jazz Albums chart. Now, with new avatar, Kelela displays the masterful intention she puts into forming new sonic cityscapes. But don’t confuse it with escapism: “I don't want the music to be a distraction from what's really going on in the world; I want it to help you get into it.”

Nach der Veröffentlichung von „idea 1“, kündigt Kelela ihr neues, drittes Album an, das am 10. Juli bei Warp Records erscheint – und veröffentlicht die zweite Single „linknb“, produziert von Oscar Scheller.

Der Track entstand in einer Phase der Schreibblockade und begann als Mantra, das Kelela schrieb, um sich wieder an die Arbeit zu bringen. Angeführt von einem labyrinthischen Gitarrenriff über treibenden Metal-Drums ist „linknb“ ein Song über Selbstvertrauen, das man sich durch Schwierigkeiten erarbeitet hat, darüber, sich nicht klein machen zu lassen. „Es ist nicht schwer, mutig zu sein / Es ist leichter, zu viel preiszugeben / Ich weiß nur, dass ich den Weg geebnet habe, unterbezahlt.“

Das von Mischa Notcutt inszenierte Video versetzt Kelela in die Mitte einer urbanen Traumlandschaft. Als enger Freund und Kelelas ehemaliger Kreativdirektor war Notcutt die naheliegende Wahl. Das Video lässt Realismus und Abstraktion ineinanderfließen und verwandelt eine einsame Reise in eine Meditation über Selbstfindung und Erneuerung.

Mit „new avatar“ rückt alles, worauf Kelela hingearbeitet hat, in den Fokus. Sie begann ihre ersten Songs in der Indie-Szene von Washington, D.C. zu schreiben, bevor die Clubmusik und die elektronische Produktion, die ihre frühe Karriere prägten, die Oberhand gewannen. Mit „new avatar“ schließt sie den Kreis: R&B, unterlegt mit verzerrten Gitarrenklängen, trifft auf neue Schnittstellen in der Tanzmusik und gipfelt in einem Sound, der aus all den musikalischen Einflüssen schöpft, die sie je geprägt haben. Das Album enthält zudem Kollaborationen mit PinkPantheress, A. K. Paul und Fousheé.

„Dieses Album findet Trost in der Konfrontation“, sagt Kelela. „Ich möchte nicht, dass die Musik von dem ablenkt, was wirklich in der Welt vor sich geht; ich möchte, dass sie in dieser verrückten Zeit Sinn ergibt und den Menschen gleichzeitig hilft, mit der Schönheit und Freude in Kontakt zu kommen, die sie ebenfalls erleben.“

Das Album setzt sich mit einer Welt auseinander, die aus allen Nähten auseinanderfällt, und mit der Klarheit, die das Überleben erfordert.

„Die Leute sollten auch wissen, dass meine Freunde und ich ständig lachen und dass Humor kein Abwehrmechanismus ist; er ist Ausdruck dafür, wie scharfsinnig wir die Dinge einschätzen und wie klar wir die Welt sehen.“

Im Kern schildert „new avatar“ eine vielschichtige Erfahrung, und obwohl die Außenwelt präsent ist, schwächt sie Kelelas Entschlossenheit zu keinem Zeitpunkt.

About Kelela: Throughout her globally revered, boundary-pushing career, Kelela has established a lane of her own in R&B and electronic music. On her long-awaited third album, new avatar, the singer/songwriter (through the versatility of the guitar) challenges perceptions of these genres, while weaving together fragments of lived experiences to shape a world of connection and resilience during times of unrest.

The songs journey through Black femme rage, joy as resistance, Gotham City-esque dystopia, misogynoir, romantic tension, and more. It’s anchored by production that demands a broader rethink about alternative, rock and indie music.

Kelela’s defiant nature has propelled her so far already — from her hometown of Washington, D.C to world stages. In 2013, she released her debut mixtape, Cut 4 Me. She continued solidifying her revolutionary R&B sound with 2015’s Hallucinogen EP, with The New York Times naming its single, “Rewind,” one of the “25 Songs That Tell Us Where Music Is Going”. By 2017, she released her electric debut album Take Me Apart (which was followed by 2018’s TAKE ME A_PART, THE REMIXES), building upon her intimate storytelling.

After a nearly five-year hiatus, she returned in 2023 with her groundbreaking second album, Raven, and its critically-acclaimed counterpart, RAVE:N, The Remixes in 2024. Raven has been hailed as one of the ‘Best Albums of 2023’ by Pitchfork, Billboard, Vulture, Variety, and more, while the remixes solidified her as a leader in the dance music space.

In 2025, Kelela showcased yet another innovative side of her artistry with her live album In The Blue Light, which hit #5 on the Contemporary Jazz chart and #20 on the Jazz Albums chart. Now, with new avatar, Kelela displays the masterful intention she puts into forming new sonic cityscapes. But don’t confuse it with escapism: “I don't want the music to be a distraction from what's really going on in the world; I want it to help you get into it.”

There’s this feeling that House Music is sometimes diluted into a pleasant, non-offensive and conformist formula. Well, Jackie Gritness - you may have heard of her big bro Gary - is bringin’ all the sweat, the attitude and the filth down - take it or leave it.

Jackie introduces herself from both sides on this well-strapped debut 12” - the slick swingin’ & sangin’
on the bass-heavy A side, and the raw clave trax and cunty snarls of the acid-laced B side.

No trace of over-production or tired sampling here: this is just Jackie, her mic and her lil’ groovebox -
gettin’ raw in the studio just like she does onstage. Only thing added is some wall-shaking mastering by New York OG Dietrich Schoenemann.

This is the kinda House that’s supposed to make regular folks wanna turn it off. This ain’t rated E for Everyone, it’s rated F for Freaks.

It’s music from the underground, for the underground - as it was first revealed on the runway of Glastonbury’s infamous NYC Downlow last summer.

And if that’s more than you can take - it’s alright. It’s not like Jackie will hold it against you.

Jackie Gritness
“Gary’s little sister.” His studio session resume reads like a House music who’s who - from David Morales to Fred P. He’s also been rockin’ clubs with the Playin’ 4 The City and MLIU crews - but she’s also been seen on Gideon’s fierce Homo-Centric Records. See, this bitch’s true feelings about House are stripped-down, bare-bones, and unapologetically sexual. With a radical ‘live’ attitude, she’s serving the realness with an irresistibly acidic zing.

Invada Records präsentiert ,Stranger Things 5 - Original Score from the Netflix Series" mit Musik der zweimal für den Grammyr nominierten und mit dem Emmyr ausgezeichneten Komponisten Kyle Dixon und Michael Stein. ,Stranger Things 5" erscheint in zwei Teilen, die den Original-Soundtrack zur 5. Staffel sowie die Originalmusik aus dem Finale enthalten. Band Eins umfasst 47 Titel, gepresst als 2LP auf ,Metallic Bronze"-Vinyl. Musik ist seit der ersten Staffel ein fester Bestandteil der Serie, in der sie einen perfekt passenden Vintage- und unheimlichen Ton angab. In jeder Staffel hat sich die Musik von Dixon und Stein mit der Serie weiterentwickelt und spiegelt eine tiefe Verbindung zum Leben der Charaktere und den immer intensiveren Handlungssträngen wider. In den Annalen von Film und Fernsehen schaffen es bestimmte musikalische Themen, über das bewegte Bild hinauszuwachsen; unvergessliche Soundtracks besitzen die unheimliche Fähigkeit, eine Epoche, eine ganze Ästhetik zusammenzufassen. Die produktiven texanischen Musiker Kyle Dixon & Michael Stein sind verantwortlich für ein Werk, das gleichbedeutend ist mit der fiktiven Stadt Hawkins, Indiana - der übernatürlichen Kleinstadt im Zentrum des Netflix-Hits ,Stranger Things". Doch während die Kleinstadt im Laufe der Erfolgsserie zum unwahrscheinlichen Schauplatz einer übernatürlichen Schlacht wird, haben sich auch die Klangwelten von Dixon und Stein im Gleichschritt erweitert. Mittlerweile komponieren Stein und Dixon Musik für Spielfilme, Dokumentarserien und groß angelegte Installationen und spielen in der Band S U R V I V E. In der Tradition von Vorgängern wie John Carpenter und Zeitgenossen wie Oneohtrix Point Never nutzen Kyle Dixon & Michael Stein ihre lebenslange Leidenschaft für Synthesizer und elektronische Musik als Vehikel für überlebensgroße Visionen.

Let's see now – you just love that hugely fertile foundation period of Jamaican pop music from the birth of ska, through the spectacularly brief two year heyday of rocksteady up to and including the arrival of the first incarnation of reggae a.k.a. early or 'boss' reggae. But you're also aware that the pioneers of these sounds (including The Pioneers!) won't be creating music in these styles or touring forever – so what do you do?

Well, if you're Neil Anderson, owner of Original Gravity Records, the creation bit isn't a problem. You put forth period-authentic style material from a 'roster' of acts – such as Junior Dell & The D-Lites - that in reality consist mostly of yourself (you are a multi-instrumentalist and lyricist after all!) and whichever extra musicians and session singer you rope in for a given track. In the case of Junior Dell & The D-Lites that singer was Adrian Dell – soon to be dubbed (no pun intended) 'Junior' - first appearing on 2021's uptempo ska tribute to Salvadoran retro-dancing internet sensation Aranivah, entitled Miss Aranivah. And you keep putting out stuff so profusely and effectively that there are clamours for you to tour 'the band' which - er - doesn't really exist. What a botheration! Still, maybe your session singer could become – well - a permanent singer? Maybe you can rustle up assorted bredren to become the rest of the band and...you know what? That might just work!

And so, in the blink of an eye, Junior Dell & The D-Lites becomes a bona fide actual live band fronted by a young Jamaican singer playing fresh 60s/70s-style Jamaican music with an energy last seen and heard in, well, the 1960s and 70s. And it tours so effectively that there are clamours for 'the band' – or more accurately, now – the band - to release an album. Wait...what now? And, by the way, you've got a European tour coming up in April wouldn't it be great if the album was ready to tour by then? Pressure drop? Pressure rise more like!

Then again, Junior Dell & The D-Lites have done so many sure-shot singles to date that assembling them along with a new cut, an extended version of one of the singles and re-recordings of two of the label's previous singles that were originally by 'label mates' The Regulators should be a cinch. So expect all the hits: bluebeat banger 20 Flight Ska, the euphoric ska bounce of the aforementioned Miss Aranivah and the title track, a de rigueur smattering of covers (opener Jump Around, midway markers Praise You and Just Can't Get Enough, and one of the re-recordings, closer Don't Look Back In Anger), early reggae groovers Cool Right Down, Last Night Reggay, Can't Stop The Reggae (in a new extended form) and crowd-pleasing new one Mi Try along with the other Junior Dell re-recording - the gorgeous Why Why Why which nods to the period of reggae between the sound of '69 and the arrival of roots.

Don't you brag and don't you boast but that's a Whole Lotta Skankin' going on! Do the ska, do the rocksteady, do the reggay, why– it's another scorcher!

Following Parnell March’s Back Bar Grooves EP in February and November’s release of the Dust Tears (lead song from Sarah/Shaun’s debut) remixes, Edinburgh’s Hobbes Music label returns with a second EP of dream pop from husband-and-wife duo Sarah/Shaun (pronounced simply Sarah Shaun), alias Sarah and Shaun McLachlan (pronounced McLochlun), who wooed hearts and wowed critics with debut EP ‘It’s True What They Say?’ last year.

‘It’s True What They Say?’ attracted fans across the board: Artist Of The Week in The Scotsman, rapturous reviews from The Skinny and Tokyo's Ban Ban Ton Ton blog, BBC 6Music airplay courtesy of Nemone (Mary Anne Hobbs' Morning Show), more radio play from Radio Scotland's Roddy Hart & Vic Galloway, plus Simone Butler (Primal Scream) and Jim Sclavunos (Bad Seeds) via their respective Soho Radio shows, not forgetting ringing endorsements from the likes of David Holmes, Youth, Kevin Bales (Spiritualized), Brent Rademaker (Beachwood Sparks) and Julian Corrie (Franz Ferdinand).

They played gigs supporting Glasgow's huge Glasvegas, at festivals (Kendall Calling, Dunbar Music, Hidden Door), plus a slew of venues across the Scottish capital, ending the year with a trio of shows supporting Glaswegian 80s pop legends The Bluebells at Aberdeen’s Tunnels, Dunfermline’s PJ Molloys and Edinburgh’s Liquid Rooms, while The List magazine tipped them among their Ones To Watch For 2025, with journalist Fiona Shepherd suggesting they were “blending the starry-eyed pop of Sonny & Cher with the electronic experimentation of Chris & Cosey.”

Very much the companion piece to the debut EP but arriving a full twelve months later, Someone’s Ghost is emblematic of the duo’s desire not to rush things or release anything half-baked.

“I’ve always wanted to create the perfect pop record and I do really feel that we’ve achieved that with this one,” says Shaun. And he’s clearly not the only person who thinks so.

REVIEWS, FEEDBACK ETC:

"I LOVE that! Dreamy dreamy pop." ROY MOLLOY (Marvellous Crane/Alex Cameron) on BLAST RADIO, Sydney
“the Scottish music scene’s cream of the cool... buzzy drum beats, high, distant chimes, and heavenly electronics…. very ethereal.” THE SKINNY

"Listening to Sarah/Shaun is like eavesdropping on a noir dreampop, long-distance phone call between them both, across two separate sonic locations. On this stunning 4-song EP, Sarah’s voice, effortlessly mesmerising, draws you into these big beautiful and haunting passages of perfect dream-pop. All beautifully produced in a multi-layered-scape of low-fi analogue textures, epic cinematic crescendos, intense electro-pulse grooves and warped psycho-pop guitar riffs. Within the songs lurk a sense of unresolved emotions, longing and pathos. There are shades of classic Lee Hazelwood & Nancy Sinatra but also Post-Punk Electronica and Beach House. But what a unique sound they’ve created of their own. I love it" DAVID MCCLUSKEY (The Bluebells)
"Absolutely beautiful" SEAN JOHNSTON (A Love From Outer Space)
"Lovely stuff here! Total quality." MARTYN 'MASH' HENDERSON
"Ooooh. Everything the last record promised is here. Well done" GEORGE T aka George Demure (Accident Machine)
"Vince clark Era Depeche Mode in places" KEVIN BALES (Spiritualized)
"Sounds cool. Well done" PETE KEMBER (Sonic Boom, Spacemen 3)
"Glorious, it (Debbie Harry) grabs hold of you and doesn't let go." IAIN DAWSON aka RAVECHILD (Everyone Wants To Play The Hits Podcast)

SOMEONE’S GHOST

Born out of an incredibly anxious, stressful time, the songwriting process for these recordings has been something of a personal tonic for Shaun…

“There was a period when I was having nightmares,” he reveals. “Apparently I was saying there was someone in the room, I was talking to that person and Sarah was seeing all this while I was still asleep.

So, I was thinking that this was my ghost. I started writing songs because I was going through something and I was dealing with something and writing songs was a comfort. My ghost was a comfort, whether it was real or not. The idea of it was a comfort.”

“I firmly believe that everyone has someone who watches over them but all of the songs are essentially about being there for someone,” he says. “Everybody needs someone but also everyone needs to stay real and keep what you have, keep it close, never let it go. If you don’t have it, continue to tell people you’re there for them. It’s about loving and hoping people will be good to you in return.”

While Shaun took the songwriting lead on Filter Of Love and EP closer The Sound Which Stresses The Sound Of My Ears, Debbie Harry was originally instrumentally conceived by producer Jaguar Eyes, alias Ali Chisholm, later lyrically completed by Shaun, and the EP’s lead track, Anhedonia, and one of its stand-outs (much like Starbed on the debut) was conceived by Sarah, as a result of experiencing a bit of a spiritual epiphany of her own.

“When I first heard the word Anhedonia, I didn't know what it meant but when I found out I thought about it quite a bit. How sad it would be to have no enjoyment in anything,” she explains. “This song is really about my own personal beliefs. When I have been down, that's one of the things that helps me the most. It talks about trying to make amends but realising, for some things, you can't. But I think with any kind of faith comes hope… which is always a good thing.”

A record about hope, truth, honesty, a belief in something bigger than oneself… and all set to a soundtrack that wouldn’t feel out of place in a David Lynch or Eighties feature film. What more could anyone ask for, really?

There’s equally a desire to offer something universal and positive to anyone who tunes in. The labels for the 12” edition reveal the dual mantras “Who just wants to survive?” and “It’s about time to live a little”, with both messages also engraved in each record’s run-out grooves. T-shirts accompanying debut EP It’s True What They Say? bore the slogan “Kill Them With Kindness” - leading caps intentional. Shaun carries the acronym KTWK everywhere he plays, as a reminder: it’s stitched into his guitar strap. And this particular wee pebble has already caused a few ripples: people have been approaching him at gigs to acknowledge their appreciation and respect for it.

"We feel we have made an honest, open, colourful, body of work,” say the duo. “We hope to go out and play the songs with the guys (our band) and then potentially make more records. We are taking things as they come. Everything has been organic so far, after all. We are looking forward to whatever this brings."

There’s this feeling that House Music is sometimes diluted into a pleasant, non-offensive and conformist formula. Well, Jackie Gritness - you may have heard of her big bro Gary - is bringin’ all the sweat, the attitude and the filth down - take it or leave it.

Jackie introduces herself from both sides on this well-strapped debut 12” - the slick swingin’ & sangin’
on the bass-heavy A side, and the raw clave trax and cunty snarls of the acid-laced B side.

No trace of over-production or tired sampling here: this is just Jackie, her mic and her lil’ groovebox -
gettin’ raw in the studio just like she does onstage. Only thing added is some wall-shaking mastering by New York OG Dietrich Schoenemann.

This is the kinda House that’s supposed to make regular folks wanna turn it off. This ain’t rated E for Everyone, it’s rated F for Freaks.

It’s music from the underground, for the underground - as it was first revealed on the runway of Glastonbury’s infamous NYC Downlow last summer.

And if that’s more than you can take - it’s alright. It’s not like Jackie will hold it against you.

Jackie Gritness
“Gary’s little sister.” His studio session resume reads like a House music who’s who - from David Morales to Fred P. He’s also been rockin’ clubs with the Playin’ 4 The City and MLIU crews - but she’s also been seen on Gideon’s fierce Homo-Centric Records. See, this bitch’s true feelings about House are stripped-down, bare-bones, and unapologetically sexual. With a radical ‘live’ attitude, she’s serving the realness with an irresistibly acidic zing.

This release is an act of breaking out of conventional categories for Seismic records. Established boundaries of genres are completely dissolved into an unpredictable flow of sonic associations. It’s an unexpected collaboration, yet it makes perfect sense from the first kick. Two artists from seemingly opposite ends of the musical universe come together to create a project which fearlessly embarks on the synthesis of hypnotic trance-techno and utter sonic chaos. This project is anything but predictable.

The duality is noticeable from the very first moment. One side brings relentless movement forward in the project: a raw, hypnotic pulse based on rhythm and precision, locking the listener in the present moment and not letting go. Unpredictable textures and psychedelic ornaments are constantly weaving through the rhythmic framework.

A dedicated listener may recognize that the whole EP carries the legacy of David Lynch’s work. The sense of peculiar uneasiness and indecipherability, overridden by the desire to find out what comes next, are exactly what the artists manage to capture and what is so characteristic of Lynch himself. At one point, the EP even reveals a moment as if a red curtain parts in the depths of the track and the listener momentarily catches echoes from the town where owls are not what they seem. Hidden within is a playful nod to the iconic Twin Peaks soundtrack.

2025 Reissue.



Münchenbuchsee, a suburb of Bern, Switzerland. Stephan Eicher is the youngest of three children. His father, a radio and TV repairman, is also a jazz violinist and a sound tinkerer in his spare time. In the family home's converted fallout shelter turned studio, Mr. Eicher experiments with homemade sequencers, tortures handcrafted drum machines, and abuses reel-to-reel tape recorders—all under the fascinated gaze of young Stephan.

The boy quickly develops a musical curiosity, exploring sound through various experiments and wanderings. Alongside his younger brother Martin, Stephan crafts audio plays on a homemade multi-track recorder (essentially several cassette decks hooked together!), which they write, record, add sound effects to, and perform for family and friends. Just a couple of nice kids, really...

Then comes 1972, and Lou Reed's Transformer album changes everything for the Eicher kids. For 13-year-old Stephan, it's a revelation—especially "Vicious", the opening track, which he plays on repeat for months. He convinces his father to buy him an electric guitar. Not stopping there, his father also builds him a tube amp using an old radio.

Then comes adolescence. A rough one. Stephan leaves home at 16 and moves to Zurich. With obvious artistic talent, he persuades his art teacher to help him get into F+F, a radical, alternative art school—despite his young age. Accepted, he starts learning video techniques, determined to become a filmmaker.

At F+F, Stephan organizes Dada-style happenings and concerts with a group of friends known as the Noise Boys. Among them: one of his teachers on bass, Veit Stauffer on drums (who would later found ReR/Recommended Records), his girlfriend Sacha on vocals, and Stephan on guitar. In one of their early performances, they release a remote-controlled mouse covered in dull razor blades into the audience to create panic and chaos. Keeping with this aggressive, confrontational spirit, they once played a concert while wearing headphones blasting Tristan and Isolde, trying to perform their own songs simultaneously—to maximize the cacophony. The goal was always the same: clear the room.

Their “songs,” if you can call them that, followed suit. Take "Hungeriges Afrika", for instance—performed entirely with power drills and some drum feedback.

To make ends meet, Stephan returns to Bern on weekends to work as a waiter at the Spex Club, the city’s main punk venue. On September 16, 1980, during a show by proto-electro group Starter, the police raid the club and arrest everyone. Stephan, who manages to avoid arrest, seizes the opportunity to “borrow” Starter’s gear left behind. He suddenly finds himself in possession of a Roland Promars synth, a Korg MS20, and a gorgeous CR78 drum machine, which he runs through a Big Muff distortion pedal to get that perfect gritty sound.

He then sets out to reinterpret some Noise Boys tracks, reworking them during impromptu sessions recorded on a dictaphone (yes, a dictaphone—now the lo-fi sound makes more sense, doesn’t it?). He ironically titles the resulting cassette "Stephan Eicher spielt Noise Boys" ("Stephan Eicher plays Noise Boys"). This gem features seven tracks, which are the ones reissued here.

Back in Zurich, he visits his friends Andrew Moore and Robert Vogel, who have a DIY cassette duplication setup. They make 25 copies of Stephan Eicher spielt Noise Boys for Stephan and his friends. Robert encourages him to visit Urs Steiger of Off Course Records and play him the tape.

Without much hope, Stephan shows up at Urs’s office. But Urs is instantly hooked and suggests releasing a 7” single. Due to space constraints, they reluctantly drop two of the seven tracks ("Hungeriges Afrika" and "One Second"). As for the musical score featured on the cover—it was randomly chosen and remains a mystery to this day. Calling all music theory nerds!

The 7-inch is pressed in 750 copies and released in the first week of December 1980—a date Stephan remembers well, as it’s the same week John Lennon was killed. Smartly, Urs sends a promo copy to François Murner, Switzerland’s answer to John Peel, who hosts a show on alternative station Sounds. Murner falls in love with the record and starts giving it airtime. To Stephan’s surprise, sales follow—and people actually seem interested in his music.

Even this modest underground success scares Stephan a bit. He stops making music for a year and moves to Bologna, where he works as a programmer at Radio Città, a feminist radio station.

Meanwhile, Stephan’s younger brother Martin, who’s also involved in the punk scene, joins the band Glueams as a singer and guitarist. Glueams, named after the fanzine run by two of its members (drummer Marco Repetto and bassist GT), eventually rebrands as Grauzone. Stephan is invited to their shows to project hacked Super 8 visuals live on stage.

Urs Steiger, now working on a compilation titled Swiss Wave – The Album, asks Grauzone to contribute alongside bands like Liliput, Jack and the Rippers, The Sick, and Ladyshave (Fall 1980).

For the album, Martin tasks Stephan with producing their recording sessions. Under Stephan's artistic direction, two tracks emerge: "Raum" and "Eisbär". During "Eisbär", Martin plays a minimalist bass line borrowed from post-punk band The Feelies (just an open string). Drummer Marco Repetto struggles to keep time. Later that evening, unhappy with the takes, Stephan builds a four-bar drum loop from a ¼-inch tape and uses it instead of the flawed original. He then adds bleepy synths and wind sounds to complete the track’s icy vibe before handing it over to Urs.

The Swiss Wave – The Album compilation is released quietly at first, but things snowball thanks to "Eisbär", which eventually becomes a smash hit—selling over 600,000 singles.

Meanwhile, Stephan plays in a rockabilly band called SMUV (named after Switzerland’s social security agency) and begins producing artists, including the debut album of Starter (1981), which includes a more pop-oriented version of "Minijupe".

By early 1982, Stephan starts spending time with the post-punk girl band Liliput (formerly Kleenex). They’re older than him, and he happily drives them around in his Renault Major, acting as their roadie.

By 1983, Grauzone—signed to the major label EMI, which turned out to be a misstep—is falling apart. Stephan begins to pivot toward a more mainstream pop sound with his debut solo album Les Chansons Bleues.

But that... is already another story.

Entering the abandoned warehouse full of haze and blinded by the strobe lights, you feel the rush when the bass kicks in. You have no idea if the year is 1996 or 2026, but it doesn't matter as long as you are alive.

Indeed, another batch of forgotten and previously unreleased radioactive acid techno has surfaced on the anonymous, vinyl-only Kilotoni imprint — possibly their strongest release so far.

A1 The peak of acid techno is perhaps found in its most stripped-down form. As the bass line throbs your breath out, you try to chase the kick drum in a game of hide-and-seek until complete exhaustion. It's something you play after the copies of Betty Ford and Sync In start to melt during a nuclear reactor accident.

A2 A ravey or hard-techno-oriented approach is applied to the acid techno formula here. The squelching, pulse-width-modulated synth makes for an eerie yet irresistible call to the dance floor. The snare rolls might just be your guilty pleasure.

B1 The flip side opens with funkier techno that the Voyager probes could bump to in outer space a million years from now. A wild acid line is accompanied by playful chords and beats. Detroit influences meet Nordic melancholy.

B2 The kick drum keeps pounding its way through while a lonely TB-303 is traveling in its own space and time. Influenced perhaps by the Midwest acid techno style, this could be a mid-90s DAT-tape lost inside the transatlantic postal system on its way to the Analog Records USA headquarters.

There are records that do not so much belong to an era as they pass through it, leaving traces rather than statements, circulating in the margins where function outweighs discourse. World Cup, written at the end of the 1990s by Kiko, emerged in precisely that way — as a techno track whose presence was felt less through promotion than through repetition, carried from booth to booth, absorbed into the working vocabulary of DJs who recognized in it something immediate and self-evident. Its architecture is minimal yet insistent, driven by tension and release, a form of clarity that resists ornament and instead privileges duration, pressure, and movement.

When it resurfaced in 2006, it did not return as a revision but as a continuation, reaffirming its role within the ecology of the dancefloor. The same internal logic remained intact, allowing it to re-enter circulation without friction, as though it had simply been waiting to be picked up again. In both instances, the track operates less as a fixed object than as a tool — something to be used, extended, and recontextualized in real time.

Bringing together these two versions alongside Tainted Life, the release traces a subtle but telling trajectory. If World Cupdefines a certain techno functionalism, Tainted Life reveals another dimension: a proto-Italo sensibility that gestures toward what would later coalesce as electroclash, not through stylistic declaration but through texture, tone, and attitude. Long absent from digital circulation and largely confined to obscurity, it appears here not as a rediscovery, but as a piece whose relevance has simply remained latent.

Nothing has been added, nothing has been altered beyond what was necessary to restore presence. The recordings are allowed to exist in their own continuity, detached from the temporal markers that might otherwise confine them.

The artwork, conceived by H5, extends this approach into the visual field. Its restraint is not aesthetic minimalism for its own sake, but a form of structural clarity, where composition and absence articulate a space in which the record can be encountered without interference, as if resurfacing from a parallel timeline that never fully closed.

If you like the sound of Millennium hardcore then this vinyl can’t be missed!

2026 Repress

If ever an album could transport you to the hazy sunshine and imagined halcyon paradise of Southern California in the mid-1980s, could capture the early evening warmth of hanging at an inclusive boogie jam as it approaches “magic hour” in Santa Ana or Anaheim, then it’s Vaughan Mason and Butch Dayo’s Feel My Love. A brilliantly produced deep slung, low rider funk classic originally released on Salsoul in 1983. It’s a masterpiece of “funk love music”.

Yes, this is indeed a perfectly formed five track “mini LP” of unparalleled heat, but there’s one song here that, above the rest, represents Orange County boogie-funk. A straight killer beloved by all that have had the pleasure of moving to it. A track that can fill up a dance floor within seconds of its starting. That song is the eternal title track, “Feel My Love”.

This is a work of art that made people fall in love with the funk. It transcends the limitations of genre. “Feel My Love”’s deceptive simplicity makes it perfect to drop during a house set, a classic funk party or at a west coast rap jam. It’s sexy, deeply emotional, melancholic, hopeful, passionate and just radiates so, so much raw energy. This is music.

The rest of the record is hardly filler though. Opener “Oh, Love” is a dizzying, emotional slow jam. With heaven-sent vocals riding gorgeous, sweeping keys that alternate between sweet twinkling lines and funk-fuelled stabbing. It’s sensational. A rollerskating jam named “Rollalong Songs” is an ultra-swish piece of dance floor dynamite. Its slick drums, staccato piano and neck snapping claps underscore Dayo’s buoyant vocals. It’s essentially “Bounce, Rock, Skate, Roll Part II”.

The flip begins with “Party On The Corner”. Smoother than silk vocals, day-glo synths, a bubbling bassline and guitar licks that surely received the Prince seal of approval. It’s another example of how Vaughan Mason and Butch Dayo flirt with perfection so routinely. The most majestic closer, the kaleidoscopic, cow-bell-assisted synth-funk heater “You Can Do It” is a proto-rap groover that truly smokes.

This prized LP is a stone cold jam and finding original copies on vinyl at affordable prices has been tough for years. Mastered brilliantly by Simon Francis, cut by Pete Norman and with lovingly reproduced artwork, this fresh Be With reissue ensures this legendary LP now sounds, looks and feels as sensational as it should.

After the acclaimed Bar Mediterraneo, Massimo Di Lena and Lucio Aquilina return with a new album that broadens the scope of their sound even further, sailing beyond the Pillars of Hercules into a constellation of gravity-defying creative freedom.

People Of The Moon is not an imagined cosmic species, but a dimension within us all. Deeply personal yet universally shared. An alternative way of thinking that lays dormant until we find the courage to untether it, helping us experience life more fully. It is that precious sphere of the soul that slips away from everyday life. A form of self-expression free from the social pressures that weigh on each, at every latitude on the planet.

Under the moonlight, these songs trace anxieties and aspirations, guided by the international language of groove and rhythmic motion, articulated in Neapolitan, Arabic, English, Spanish, and Portuguese. It speaks with equal clarity through the Afro-Cuban influences of Celavì (“That’s Life”), with its circular rhythmic energy, and through the Anatolian zurna of Ma Tu Che Bbuò (“What Do You Want?” in Neapolitan), moving from highlife guitars to the mandolins that have become a Nu Genea signature. New idioms and rhythms, filtered through an Italian perspective.

The first single Sciallà (“Go Away” in Neapolitan), released in the summer of 2025, already hinted at what was taking shape in the Nu Genea workshop - a radiant guide to embracing difficulty and finding relief in dance. Not so much an escape, but a form of catharsis. Looking up at the giant mirror ball orbiting above us, we catch a glimpse of our best selves reflected back, and appreciate that the People Of The Moon invoked in the title track are more familiar than we first realised.

There’s a kind of resilience in these voices that isn’t loud or triumphant, but persistent and rooted in the simple act of continuing. The imagery of high-speed motion is central to Onenon (“On and On”), where British singer and multi-instrumentalist Tom Misch helps conjure a Mediterranean brit-funk reminiscent of Pino D’Angiò’s basslines.

The voice in Acelera (“Speed Up” in Spanish) summons the strength to chase the moon as if it were an unattainable ideal, in this Andalusian-tinged track featuring María José Llergo, who also lends her voice to Celavì. Both tracks are among the more languorous arrangements, with flamenco palmas introducing an original fusion into the Nu Genea groove.
With its driving momentum, Puleza (“Clean Up” in Neapolitan) recalls the spirit of Nuova Napoli, albeit with vintage synth textures and wild, unrestrained delays. The track’s protagonist, performed by Fabiana Martone, is another of our lunar dwellers.

Yet even when it leans into forward motion, People Of The Moon doesn’t pulse at a frantic pace, moving instead through shifting states of speed, orbit, and suspension. In fact, the Levantine bossa nova Shway Shway (“Slowly, Slowly” in Arabic), sung by Celinatique, captures the orbital motion of the entire record. Not exactly slow, but measured. Rich in color, and marked by a rhythmic complexity that was also heard on the duo’s rare access to foundational afrobeat on The Tony Allen Experiments.
All the while, the album remains deeply attuned to melody - a Nu Genea hallmark - as heard in the effervescent hook of Carè (“Falling” in Neapolitan). In the lunar microgravity of these ten tracks, falling and flying become interchangeable with dancing as ways of following the beat, suspended yet compelled to move. That compulsion is also invoked by Brazilian percussionist Gabriel Prado, making his vocal debut on Ondas Do Mar (“Waves Of The Sea” in Portuguese). The pull of the waves, a constant interplay of motion and return, steady as a lunar phase, is impossible to resist. One might as well lean into the blue, not to dissolve but to rebuild. “Você vai ver que dentro de nós / vai rolar”: you’ll see that something will happen within us.

Ben is a Detroit-based producer who makes up half of Symptoms of Love, along with BPT records alum Ryan Spencer. He here brings us a 4 tracker of the absolute highest order. It both sounds like music that no one else is making, while also sounding like a pastiche of everything that you've ever liked in the past. The magic formula baby!!!!!!! Shall we walk thru the music together?

BPT founder and music's #1 man Jeremy Castillo has described the EP absolutely brilliantly as such: "YMO style dissonant electro with a Detroit touch on the a side, with pitched down Patrick Cowley psychedelic Macarena on the B-side.

The A1 and title track is an incredible statement of intent from Ben - it really does sound like if Hosono grew up in Detroit listening to Electrifying Mojo. It's an absolute blast of sunlight coming through your headphones. Press play and watch your vitamin D levels rise baby!!!

A2 cut "Music Remembers" is a groovy joy ride reminiscent of Galaxy II Galaxy, complete with re-pitched vocal chops and 808 claps galore. This will hit SO hard on a spring day if you live in a city currently blanketed in snow.

On the flip, B1 "Whose Water" will be a big hit with anyone who dug Dam Funk's Garret project. Introspective downtempo synth fans rejoice!!! And we wrap a stellar outing with B2's "New Sun" - a propulsive Cosmic workout that will open up any dancefloor. The psychedelic Macarena is right baby!!!

Hector Ram and Ricky Ramirez are starting to celebrate ten years of Short Attention Records and it's US house stalwart DJ Aakmael they've enlisted to pop the champagne cork and cut the cake. He's one of those artists who turns out plenty of music, much of it sounding within the same consistent deep house framework. But there's always a little something to his tunes that keeps you coming back for more - a perfectly chosen sample, a nagging bassline, a sense of melancholy that you cannot escape. All of that is true on his latest. 'Things Always Happen' has keys that convey beautiful pain, then 'If You Believe' is a deep house haze with smudgy samples and blues-y ache. 'Free' is more light with trilling jazz-funk keys and earthy guitar frets sprinkled into the mix. 'Stopmotion' shuts down with a signature Aakmael bump. Just timeless stuff.

WARNING: THIS IS FLATCORE AND HAS TO BE PLAYED LOUD !

Let's start by explaining what "FLATCORE" is; which is represented on this 3rd vinyl from this special serie on Flatlife Records: Flatcore is a cross between Hardcore, Progressive Trance, ACID and Hard Trance with a wink to the '90s. A concept from the mind of Jack Wax, who himself is incredibly fascinated and passionate about the more progressive hard trance movements of the '90s.

First track from Jack: "What The World Is Becoming To" is a serious question. AI, robots that do everything for you, wars, the internet; so much that has happening in the past 50 years, and where is it all becoming to?
Jack is supported on this release by "Dysistor"; this artist has also released music as DJ Hidden and Scorch and is also one half of "The Outside Agency." Then there's fresh talent on the B-side: TRIPHAZ from France. A fantastic, dark flatcore banger; he sent it as a demo, and Jack immediately jumped up and started screaming that he wanted it for this project.

So in total; a fantastic flatcore release, limited to 200 copies pressed on white vinyl. If you
like the harder stuff... check this one out.

She studied classical music on viola from the age of 3 through into college where she was on a path to be a performer in a large ensemble, but eventually left after feeling frustrated and limited in a world that did not provide much of an outlet for individual creativity. But the doors of perception really opened when she moved to British Columbia and was exposed to the raw beauty of the wilderness there.

She began recording at home using a basic audio setup along with a cello, viola, violin and double bass, and spent time making field recordings of natural sounds in BC. Her next idea was to actually move into nature to record, curious as to “how it would sound if I recorded outside entirely, with the natural reverb and sounds of the environment in the recording from the very beginning. The rustling of the leaves or a raven’s beating wings were as integral to the music as whatever I played.”

Fables is a mix of pieces that were recorded in the fall of 2024, in a small, remote cabin and outside, primarily using stringed instruments. The result is a series of stunning vignettes, meditations patiently unfurling like gentle waves, slowly advancing and retreating.4, in a small, remote cabin and outside, primarily using stringed instruments. The result is a series of stunning vignettes, meditations patiently unfurling like gentle waves, slowly advancing and retreating.

A Profound Non-Event, the debut album by Sydney-based three piece Daily Toll, comprises 11 songs traversing three years of forged friendships, collaborative experimentation and a shared love of growing through words and song.

Those attuned to the ever-vibrant Australian underground may already be well familiar with Daily Toll, their consistent live presence since their inception in 2021 embroidered by a handful of (mostly) home-recorded, (mostly) digital self-releases that have steadily accumulated an appreciative following. Initially the project of self taught musician, poet & artist Kata Szász-Komlós(they/them) and Jasper Craig-Adams(he/him), and expended to a three piece with the more recent addition of friend Tom Stephens(he/him), Daily Toll represents the union of three unique creative dispositions, of relationships blooming through the push and pull of creative practice. Mapping the band’s existence through their recorded output is to bear witness to the flux of three people learning to respond to one another and gently ossify into a collective vision that at once calls to mind folk song intimacy, post-punk dynamics and the artful poeticism of an adjacent Flying Nun legacy.

If those earlier recordings reflect a band imagining themselves into being in real time, A Profound Non-Event observes a clear shift in both conviction and approach. Recorded in just three days with Alex Bennett at the purely analogue Sound Recordings studio in Castlemaine and holing up at night in the century old cottage situated beside the studio, sheltering from the late-June wind and rain within walls littered with instruments and microphones, lighting fires to stay warm. Kata describes the experience as defined by “candle light and creative camaraderie”, an idyllic account of a collection of songs that glide with an undeniably warm, easy charm, evidenced in particular in the record’s second half as the tone turns increasingly introspective, the very sound of a cold evening’s drift into night. When contrasted with the moody swirl and sing-song bounce of the opening trio of tracks, there’s clear evidence of a band not simply in the process of becoming, but committed to finding their truth in that process.
Still, if Daily Toll display a reluctance to be wholly defined, then album centerpiece ‘Killincs‘ (positioned in the middle for a reason) might just be their Rosetta Stone. A verbose rumination on unsettled feelings of isolation and longing, exploring the challenges in making peace with one's decisions amidst the uncertainty of an often harsh world and the realisation that some things remain best unresolved - “I have the keys still, but I’ve buried the path”.

“My auntie asked me what’s my path?” spits Lord Jah-Monte Ogbon on his de but from the celebrated Lex Records. The lyric relatably references the cross roads he’s at in his current life, especially as someone right on the cusp of rap stardom. “Recently I’ve been thinking more and more about what comes next in my life,” the artist reveals.


It’s fair to say Ogbon’s Lex LP features less of the sh*t-talking court jester of old. Instead, there’s more of an imperfect man re-examining past mistakes so he can avoid any future forks in the road. There’s a particular focus on over coming heartbreak, inspiring Ogbon to admit he’s haunted by an ex so badly he now needs to call up the Ghostbusters for assistance.


Since emerging in the late 2010s, Lord Jah-Monte Ogbon has consistently lit up America’s underground rap scene and this is thanks to a refreshingly honest writing style. Amid the exquisitely wavy strings of 2021’s The Missing Link / The Sneaky Link, for example, he rapped: “Everyone thinks they’re play er, until their bitch doesn’t come home.” Biting and snappy, the nasally vocals carry the playful verve of comedian Richard Pryor bravely excavating personal Demons to solicit giggles.


All this brash, wry Redman-inspired storytelling continues on the new pro ject. Its first single is titled I’m Signed to Lex, Now I’m Up – a name that mirrors what a big moment releasing a project on the label that once housed MF DOOM represents for Lord Jah-Monte Ogbon’s legacy. “I’m really driven by being able to level up and give my family more financial freedom,” he hopes.
And, if auntie asked what his path was right now, what exactly would the rap per say? Lord Jah-Monte Ogbon concludes: “Auntie: this rapping thing feels like it’s finally about to pay off!”

Tim Maia’s self-titled 1973 album is one of those records that hits you from the very first groove and doesn’t let go. Originally released on Polydor Brazil, this was the fourth in a series of Tim’s self-titled albums and many fans and critics still consider it the crown jewel. Packed with irresistible hooks, lush arrangements, and that unmistakable Tim Maia swagger, the album captures the singer at the peak of his creative powers.If you’re new to Tim Maia, here’s the quick story: born in Rio de Janeiro, Tim was a larger-than-life icon whose music married American soul and funk with Brazilian samba and pop long before “fusion” was a buzzword. A true musical polymath, he absorbed everything from Curtis Mayfield to Motown and translated it into a sound entirely his own, gritty, passionate, and full of groove.



He didn’t just introduce soul to Brazil; he made it Brazilian.On this 1973 release, Tim pushes everything up a notch. The arrangements are bigger, slicker, and surprisingly majestic, without losing the raw spirit that earned him a devoted following. From the moment ‘Réu Confesso’ opens the album, you know you’re in for something special—smooth, funky, and heartfelt in all the right ways. The bittersweet ‘Gostava Tanto de Você’ remains one of his most beloved classics, while ‘O Balanço’ bursts with Brazilian flavor that practically dares you not to move. And with tracks like ‘Do Your Thing, Behave Yourself’ and ‘Over Again,’ Tim shows just how naturally the soul idiom fit him, even when he switched to English.This record has everything: deep grooves, soaring strings, magnetic vocals, and that unmistakable sense of joy that Tim Maia carried into every session. It’s a front-to-back winner—one of those albums that deserves a spot not just in Brazilian music history, but in any collection that celebrates great soul, funk, and timeless grooves.If you’re a longtime fan, it’s a reminder of why Tim Maia is legendary. If you’re discovering him for the first time, this is the perfect place to start. Either way: press play, turn it up, and let Tim do his thing.

2025 Repress

140g vinyl, remastered, double LP with the original LP along with a second record of 14 rare tracks

Sweet And Nice is the vital debut album from Jamaica’s undisputed first lady of song Marica Griffiths. It’s reggae at its most soulful. Slinking through a tight ten tracks of R&B and pop-sourced material, it became an instant best seller. 45 years after its initial release the LP is available again on vinyl, now as a double LP, with an extra record collecting 14 rare tracks.

Sweet And Nice has appeared over the years with a revised running order and under different titles. But the original’s opening sequence of loping soul is legendary, even beyond reggae circles. These songs are now returned to how they were presented on that first Jamaican release, and under their intended album title. Be With doesn’t mess with magic.

Marcia’s version of “Here I Am (Come and Take Me)” has long been lusted after, played by genre-hopping selectors to snapping necks for decades now. It’s followed by the sophisticated, rollicking wah-wah funk of “Everything I Own” and the slice of smooth lovers soul par excellence that is “Green Grasshopper” and her ace, lilting Neil Diamond cover “Play Me”.

The thundering, humid funk of “Children At Play” “sounds uncannily like a precursor of Massive Attack”, as FACT Mag astutely noted when they put Sweet And Nice at number 16 in their list of the 100 best albums of the 1970s. Otherworldly, moody and essential.

Side two keeps the fire burning. “Sweet, Bitter Love” should leave you swooning, and is also one of the album’s alternate titles. Curtis Mayfield’s already-eternal “Gypsy Man” is up next, recast as proto-lovers rock.

“There’s No Me Without You” is elevated to canonical status by the majestic, forlorn horns of the Federal Soul Givers and Marcia’s heartbreaking delivery. And if this doesn’t get you then surely the next track will: arguably the definitive version of Ewan MacColl’s “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”. Yes, seriously.

“I Just Don’t Want To Be Lonely” re-takes its rightful place at the end of the LP’s second side… but we couldn’t leave it at that. So we added an entire second record of rare material recorded around the same time as Sweet And Nice, much of it unavailable since it was originally released. Some of these songs have only ever been found on now unattainable 7" singles and no, rarity doesn’t always correspond with quality, but in this case we’re talking about some seriously jaw-dropping music.

Amongst 14 extra tracks you’ll find the exquisite late-60s singles “Melody Life” and “Mark My Word” which, along with the sumptuous reading of “Band Of Gold”, are now £100 records, if you can find them! Just sayin’. There‘s also a fantastic version of “The First Cut Is the Deepest” and an alternate take of “Play Me” with producer Lloyd Charmers adding his own vocals.

Everything’s been remastered of course, including the original LP, so Sweet And Nice now sounds even sweeter, and even nicer.

Todh Teri returns with a brand new record, and this time the spotlight falls on Hari Heart. The Return of Hari Heart marks the eighth release on Masala Movement Records and launches a fresh vinyl-only series that brings the mythical characters of Deep In India back to life in a bold new form. Todh Teri further expands his conceptual universe by focusing on deeper sonics & music explorations. Hari Heart guides the release with a delicious blend of nostalgia, analog warmth and a club-ready intentions - built for curious DJs (and listeners alike).

On the A side you will find Smriti (Remembrance) - a reimagined classic flipped into a peak-time driver - disco spirit, acid bite, and pure dancefloor release. Limited, loud, and made to move bodies. On the flipside we have ??a (Debt) - a deep, dubby slow-burn built around an evergreen melody which grows patiently - finally rewarding you with a sweet earworm.

The final tune on the record is Prem (Love) - a reinterpretation of a ’70s indie rock n roll gem. Unmistakably retrospective (if you know your history). Play it a bit longer into the dead wax, and you will catch a hidden acid sequence locked groove.

Art by Soju Aduckathil with creative direction from Masala Movement’s Manoj Kurian. This is the label’s eighth release, a vinyl-only exclusive, with more coming in 2026.