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Northern Front records 8th vinyl release is The Drowning World (Passive Margins EP) which is Response & Sonic under an alias, the EP consists of 3 atmospheric drum & bass tracks with tenor sax played by Jasper Byrne and 1 house track by Response. The vinyl will have full artwork sleeve by Mark McGuinness and has been mastered by Simon Davey exchange…….

Black Truffle is thrilled to present the first ever solo Donso n’goni recording from octogenarian Swedish multi-instrumentalist Christer Bothén. Active in the Swedish jazz and improvisation scene since the 1970s, often heard on bass clarinet, Bothén travelled to Mali in 1971, eventually making his way to the Wassoulou region in the country’s south where he encountered the Donso n’goni, the sacred harp of the hunter caste of Wassoulou society. Though playing the instrument has traditionally been restricted to those who belong to the hunters’ brotherhood, Bothén found an enthusiastic teacher in Brouema Dobia, who, after many months of intensive one-on-one lessons, gave Bothén his blessing to play the instrument both traditionally and in his own style. Returning to Sweden, he would go on to pass on what he had learned to Don Cherry and play the Donso n’goni in a wide variety of inventive settings, including the driving Afro-jazz-fusion of his Trancedance (reissued as BT118).

The seven pieces of Christer Bothén Donso n’goni offer up a stunning showcase of Bothén’s work on this remarkable instrument, heard entirely unaccompanied, except for the final piece where he is joined on a second Donso n’goni by his student and collaborator, the virtuoso bassist Kansan/Torbjorn Zetterberg, and Marianne N’Lemvo Linden on the metal Karanjang scraper. Recorded in three sessions in Stockholm between 2019 and 2023 in richly detailed high fidelity, the instrument’s buzzing, sonorous bass strings make an immediate, overwhelming sonic impression. Hyper-focused on hypnotically repeating pentatonic patterns, the seven pieces are at once relentlessly single-minded and endlessly rich in subtle variations. The concentrated listening environment turns small details, such as the deployment of the instrument’s segesege rattle on two of the pieces, into major events. Six of the seven pieces are traditional, with Bothén contributing the remaining ‘La Baraka’, but the line between tradition and the individual talent is imaginary here: as Bothén explained in a recent interview with The Wire’s Clive Bell, ‘I play traditional and untraditional, and I play the music forward and backward’. While the traditional Wassoulou pieces provide the rhythmic and harmonic elements, Bothén’s individuality as a performer is alive in every moment, felt acutely in boundless variations of attack, improvisational flourishes, and unexpected accelerations and decelerations. Captured entirely live and bristling with spontaneity, this music is undeniably the product of almost half a decade of Bothén’s devotion to the Donso n’goni and its traditional music.

Accompanied by detailed new liner notes by Bothén and stunning colour photos from his time in Mali, Christer Bothén Donso n’goni is a stunning document of a remarkable instrument, played with an almost spiritual intensity by one of contemporary music’s great explorers.

Saxophonist, flautist and producer Chip Wickham casts a formidable shadow across the worldwide jazz landscape. Originally from Brighton, but now dividing his time between the UK, Spain and the Middle-East, he has made a name for himself with a series of beautifully crafted solo albums that draw equally on the hard swinging spiritual jazz of Roland Kirk, Yusef Lateef and Sahih Shihab, alongside the music of British jazz legends such as Tubby Hayes and Harold McNair and the more contemporary sounds of Jazzanova, Kyoto Jazz Massive and Robert Glasper. His close working relationship with Matthew Halsall’s Gondwana Records has spanned close to two decades (since he played on Halsall’s 2008 debut ‘Sending My Love’) and has since released three standout releases on the label (the ‘Cloud 10’ LP, and the ‘Astral Travelling’ and ‘Love & Life’ EP’s). Once again returning to the heralded label, he now prepares to release his elegant fifth studio album ‘The Eternal Now’. Further exploring his penchant for hard-hitting soulful, spiritual jazz and modal hard-bop, it denotes an exciting new chapter in his much- revered discography, once which sees his unbridled artist flourish into new and fruitful pastures.

A beautifully crafted record, ‘The Eternal Now’ is a heartfelt ode to submitting oneself to the practice of creating art, and the freedom that’s derived from letting go. Speaking on his journey to bringing it into the world, Chip explains “The Eternal Now is a creative place where time has no purpose. A place where the past and the future don’t exist. A place where an artist can create something that is timeless and relevant. Writing this album has been a deliberate journey of exploration and drive into the furthest reaches of creativity. An attempt to push myself artistically into new spaces using new colours and new energy”. On how he approached this record in comparison to his previous offerings, he divulges ‘I had to be playful and take risks. It has taken longer than any other album to make and it has been so worth it. I have been drifting and taking the road less travelled as well as not looking back. I’ve enjoyed being on the outside and the freedom it has brought me to create something new and fresh and relevant and timeless.’

ll star cast from 4 different cosmic corners comes the more electronic side of Hamam. T hink of it as the dorian gray of Frankfurt airport , but instead it's at the hamam in istanbul. Fattish - no stranger to electronic versions of loved and cherished turkish songs, Fattish delivers a monster cinematic piece, strings section...the whole lot...check anything he puts his hands on, this one made it to the wax Kozmonotosman - our man on the moon, he visits regularly so if u need any rocks or bits ask him he will bring u, I got loads of rock so u can ask me alternatively.

My man delivers a super dope and groovy number from a not so well known jam from the 70's . Just get down and boogie on this. Kurt Adam - one of the new faves of the Hamam camp, delivers a taverna cut in a housey affair. Don't be fooled by the electronics, I drink raki to this any day at the drinkery. Hold me down if u can m gonna dance in euphoria, hear the wolfman roarrr.

For their inaugural release, London-based Vysyon presents Mercuri: an enchanting EP of enigmatic techno featuring work by Swiss artists Varuna & Mateo Hurtado. Having developed their brand of abyssal club music through releases on Amenthia Recordings & their own imprint A Walking Contradiction, Varuna dive into the void on 'Remote Pulsar'. Driven by a disorientating polyrhythm cloaked in opaque atmospherics, the trio's otherworldly approach to sound design is on full display. By contrast, the pounding 4/4 kick & propulsive acid bass of 'Uvez Echos' entrance the listener into a state of dancefloor reverie. Mateo Hurtado casts his own unique magic over the flip, showcasing his archetypal mystic sound established via an album on Annulled music & remixes for Space Drum Meditation. The mesmerising flute melody of 'An Invisible Fire, Working In Secret' casts a spell of hypnosis, while the flowing, amorphous pads & twisted bass of 'The Eternal Mirror' conjure visions of worlds unknown.

Limited 180g black vinyl (500 copies worldwide)
“Marcel Wave combine sharp-eyed Northern lyricism with DIY guitar-janglers rooted in a retro C86 aesthetic. Epic finale ‘Linoleum Floor’...is a gloriously bleak rumination on the horrors of enforced late-night hedonism worthy of prime Pulp” UNCUT
Marcel Wave write eulogies for tragic actresses, ancient riverbeds and concrete obscenity. Their inaugural sonic instalment ‘Something Looming’ is part trades club symphony, part itchy serenade, and part wistful lament. As their heady concoction of ‘Meades meets Pat-E-Smith meets Kirklees Borough Council’ gets prepped to be formally baptised on a dank stage near you, Upset the Rhythm and Feel It Records have dutifully stepped in to deliver its songbook to the masses on both sides of the pond.
Formed when Lindsay Corstorphine and Christopher Murphy of Sauna Youth and brethren Oliver and Patrick Fisher of Cold Pumas were summoned by northern ink-slinger Maike Hale-Jones, Marcel Wave’s debut offering is a walk through a smoke-filled pub with yellowing wallpaper and all eyes on you. It’s a chronicle of the death of the docklands, the decline of industry, of the high street, of civic pride, of civilisations, of hopes and dreams. As Hale-Jones delivers the bad news in her low, West Yorkshire brogue, Corstorphine adds the bells and whistles via the frantic pulsations of a wheezing Hohner organ in tandem with Fisher O’s rasping guitar. MW are completed by the throbbing basslines of Murphy and Fisher P’s fervent rhythms.
The title itself sets the tone for the listener. There’s a sense of foreboding in Hale-Jones’ lyrics which sit at the quintet’s core—elegiac, sardonic and piquant in equal measure. A mixture of narrative epilogues and inward paeans, her words weave tales across a broad thematic church. Crooked tales of urban renewal and the voices left behind are probed in ‘Barrow Boys’ and ‘Stop/Continue’ and are at the fore in ‘Where There’s Muck There’s Brass’ with its refrain lamenting ‘Concrete and slate shine in the rain, cities destroyed, nothing to gain’. In these lyrics, tower blocks loom over terraced houses with the same shadows that the Hollywood sign casts over Peg Entwistle before she takes her tragic leap. ‘Peg’ and ‘Elsie’ are both meditations on two different actresses with different fates crushed by the cut-throat trappings of showbusiness: ‘The mad hopes break, fragile as glass. She traded it all, for the cutting room floor.’ A snaking, existential dread also runs through the album, stated more obliquely in the otherwise poppier interludes of the title track ‘Something Looming’ and album opener ‘Bent Out of Shape’, and present too on the comparatively ramshackle ‘Discount Centre’, where Hale-Jones reports ‘On a mini bus on the outskirts of Enfield, I’m losing all of my spark’. On the album closing weeper ‘Linoleum Floor’, it is laid barer still—a keyboard-led reflection on the deflating nights out of our early-twenties.
Marcel Wave invites the listener to dance to society’s decline, and then to later weep into its lukewarm pint.

For his third long-player under the Phi-Psonics banner, Ford-Young marshalled a series of live recordings at the Healing Force Of The Universe record store in Pasadena, sculpting fourteen tracks, largely composed in the moment with a fluctuating cast of players, which wonderfully transmit his ideals of community and inner peace. Called "Expanding To One", it features exquisitely calming yet searching pieces like "There"s Still Hope", where Seth"s softly undulating bassline underpins beatific explorations from core Phi-Psonics members, Sylvain Carton and Randal Fisher (both on saxophone), and Josh Collazo (drums), alongside guests Zach Tenorio (Wurlitzer piano) and Mathias Künzli (percussion). Equally sublime, "Healing Time" ripples like a mountain stream, with Ford-Young, Carton, Fisher and Tenorio joined by Minta Spencer (harp), Dylan Day (guitar) and, on drums/percussion, Jay Bellerose, a revered LA stickman most recently under the spotlight in Jeff Parker ETA IVtet.

Swampmeat is the project of Dan Finnemore, former co-frontman of cult US rock & roll act Low Cut Connie (as recommended by the likes of Rolling Stone, KEXP, and - yes - Barack Obama), not to mention his role as behind the drums of PNKSLM's own The Castillians, as well as being a former member of the notorious Black Mekon. A long-time homeown secret in his native Birmingham, Swampmeat is now ready to step out of the shadows - over ten years after the project took its first steps. "Gin & Tonic" is a collection of country-fied rock and roll, straddling the edge between country, punk and rock and roll, with great songs and melodies.

Still Forms in Air is the debut album by Italian composer Francesca Marongiu under her own name. It draws inspiration from mid-1980s Japanese ambient music — Hiroshi Yoshimura, Satoshi Ashikawa, Takashi Kokubo — and, more subtly, from Italian experimental echoes rooted in both personal and cultural memory.

The album unfolds like suspended time, like architecture that quietly bears witness to the shifts that have shaped our cities and the ways we live in them. These tracks reflect an emotional and urban landscape, shaped by a gaze cast upon the mid-1980s and early ’90s — a time of subtle yet lasting changes in the form and meaning of shared space. That period marked a delicate turning point, later described as les années d’hiver: the slow onset of fragmentation beneath a surface of creative openness.

Still Forms in Air doesn’t dwell in nostalgia (though it draws from it), but reimagines that duality through a contemporary lens. Its sound blends memory and presence, layering ambient textures with a refined spatial sensitivity. It is a dialogue across decades — clear-eyed, affectionate, and quietly luminous.

Written, arranged and recorded by Francesca Marongiu in Rome and Pistoia between May 2024 and March 2025.
Francesca Marongiu: electronics, synthesizers, vocals, sound objects.
Antonio Gallucci: wind arrangements on track 1 and 4, bass and sound objects on track 3, drums on track 3 and 4.
Mixed by Francesca Marongiu and Antonio Gallucci. Mastered by Antonio Gallucci at Mercurial Mastering in Pistoia. Artist photo by Elisabetta Scarpini. Artwork by Daniel Castrejón.

Deluxe heavyweight sleeve with leather laminate finish Includes insert with liner notes by Steven Spielberg Movie directed by Steven Spielberg, loosely based on Spielberg’s adolescence and first years as a filmmaker Film stars an ensemble cast including Michelle Williams, Paul Dano, Seth Rogen, Gabriel LaBelle and Judd Hirsch Golden Globe nominated score composed by John Williams Film won the People’s Choice Award and nominated for five Golden Globe Awards Exclusive limited edition of 333 numbered copies on turquoise coloured vinyl This is a new colour variant – sales notes and tracks are as the previous version, note new cat number and barcode

Scowl is a band that sounds exactly like their name implies. Venomous, fierce, antagonistic. A sneer not to be crossed. Over the last five years, the Santa Cruz, California, band has firmly planted their flag in the hardcore scene with their vicious sound and ripping live show, sharing stages around the world with Circle Jerks, Touché Amoré, and Limp Bizkit, and filling slots at prominent festivals like Coachella, Sick New World, and Reading and Leeds. But with their new album, Are We All Angels (Dead Oceans), Scowl is aiming to funnel all that aggression through a more expansive version of themselves.Much of Are We All Angels grapples with Scowl's newfound place in the hardcore scene, a community which has both embraced the band and made them something of a lightning rod over the past few years. Standout single "Not Hell, Not Heaven" outright rejects the narratives cast onto them by outsiders. "It's about feeling victimized and being a victim, but not wanting to identify with being a victim," explains vocalist Kat Moss. "It's trying to find grace in the fact that I have my power. I live in my reality. You have to deal with whatever you're dealing with, and it ain't working for me." The band breaks from a sense of disassociation to seek deeper connections on "Fantasy." "It's incredibly challenging to try to balance my love for the scene while also feeling, in some spaces, extremely alienated and hated," Moss says. "`Fantasy' is about feeling like I don't know how to connect with these people anymore, because I have shelled myself away so hard." The album ends in a philosophical place on the closing, titular track, "Are We All Angels," asking questions like, "Is this all there is?" and ultimately putting it on the listener to decide. "It's about the personal struggle between good and evil. It doesn't matter how `good' or `bad' you are, there are systems that will try to rewrite your narrative no matter what you actually do," explains Moss, noting that punctuation on "Are We All Angels" has been deliberately omitted in an attempt to leave the statement open-ended. Are We All Angels is the highly anticipated follow-up to Scowl's debut, 2021's How Flowers Grow, a 16-minute primal scream over punishing riffs. But amidst the pounding chaos, it was the record's sonic outlier, a cleaner interlude called "Seeds to Sow," that, true to its name, planted the seed for what was to come for the band. "It kind of laid out this destiny for us, and I feel like now we're fulfilling that," says drummer Cole Gilbert. The band continued to expand their sound on 2023's widely acclaimed Psychic Dance Routine EP, incorporating more pop hooks and favoring gentler singing over heavy screaming, paving the way for what would come next.Scowl's growth got a huge boost from producer Will Yip (Turnstile, Title Fight, Code Orange, Balance and Composure), who broadened the band's scope. "Will would say, `Everything you have here is correct, but it's in the wrong place,'" says Gilbert. Moss adds: "Will really helped restructure a lot of the material. Some songs he tore apart to make more space for the really good hooks and choruses." But even through this more eclectic approach, Scowl loses none of their edge, and still manages to convey the anger and frustration that lies underneath. They are deeply committed to carrying the ethos of punk and its sense of community. "Hardcore and punk have sculpted how we operate, what we want to do as a band, and how we participate," says guitarist Malachi Greene. "At our core, we are a punk and a hardcore band, regardless of how the song shifts and changes."

Bone with Red Splatter Vinyl. New album from Field Medic, "surrender instead". surrender instead is everything a Field Medic fan could want and everything a Field Medic agnostic could need as a convincing sampler. The album returns to each checkpoint in Sullivan’s career thus far, documenting a twentysomething musician becoming a thirtysomething musician—an artist settling into what life exists just beyond the pale and oft-daunting demands of songcraft. This music does not adhere to one shape, and Sullivan is acutely aware of his own lore. He does not avoid well-trodden ground, but this is not the patchwork of old material that Floral Prince was near the dawn of this decade. These songs spawn from a never-finished nexus that hems the Field Medic universe together.

Motown’s L.A.-based Mowest label lasted less than two years, but managed in that short time to release some of the most adventurous music the company ever put out. And probably the most intrepid—and nowadays, adored—Mowest release of them all was the 1992 self-titled release from Odyssey. This one-off brought elite West Coast sessionmen like Wrecking Crew mainstay Don Peake, one-time Chicago member Donnie Dacus, and arranger/orchestrator extraordinaire Gene Page together with a bunch of West Coast hippie rockers (as Peake says, “We were invited to lunch, introduced to some nice people and told we were going to form a band”).

The happy result was a record that has appeared on more deejay turntables than you can count, a one-of-a-kind blend of funky Motown bottom with a spacy sensibility and sound that fits right in next to, say, the latest Khruangbin album on your psychedelic chill playlist even as it activates your 5th Dimension sunshine pop endorphins. The single “Our Lives Are Shaped by What We Love” is probably the pick to click, but the whole album is a total vibe. We’re reissuing Odyssey for the first time ever in the U.S. (the Japanese have long been all over this album) in blue-green “ocean spray” vinyl, complete with original album art including the lyric insert. Remastered for the format by Mike Milchner at Sonic Vision, and pressed at Gotta Groove Records for superior sound. A must!

It’s very difficult to describe someone as prolific as Misha Panfilov. So, I feel the best way to define him is to think of a “Trivial Pursuit Playing Piece,” where each pie piece represents one of the bands he heads up, and each band has its own distinct style and genre. Yet, when looked at all together, create the whole musical persona of Misha. This is the lens I would like to view his latest endeavor, Days As Echoes.

The vibe on this sophomore release channels Krautrock philosophy and Library music, peppered with elements of jazz, Ethiopian, cinema, ambient and bits of everything between. This atmosphere is created from all the instruments Misha uses and the resulting compositions are heard as repetitive patterns that are forged from the multiple layering of melodies. Thus, creating six unique songs with emotional granularity, yet collectively encompass a genuinely positive “feel good” vibe…with a hint of nostalgia.

Moods of the day, moods like echoes say, A future of hope is yours, by following the Sun’s ray.

The opening track, “Days As Echoes,” is a dedication to a much simpler time when the sky was bluer and the snow was whiter…just like how you remember it when you were a child. A time when people honestly cared more about everything as a given, and not as a selfish accolade. A time when optimism seemed within reach. In other words, nostalgia marred by awareness.

…Leading to a path where the skies are not gray. Where dreams of castles in the air are the mainstay.

“In A Dream” has a style that pays homage to both spiritual jazz and ambient music. A simple theme is introduced and leads to the climax of this stormy dream, putting it all in perspective. That pivotal point when one realizes the truth by re-tracing the events, which led to the epiphany of how to find the answer while traveling within this airy soundscape.

…Diurnal or nocturnal, day or night, Traveling the path of truth must be done without fright.

One can’t help but feel a definite traveling vibe that comes from “Moonscape Waltz” To me, it has a dual-characteristic that can be visualized as a train trip, either at sunrise or sunset. Regardless, the time is not of major relevance, but the actual pursuit is. Lao Tzu said, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with that first step.” This track takes you beyond that initial step into this vast world toward your destination as you search for the truth.

…The unknown is real, but you know the deal. People need people to show which direction you point the wheel.

“Together” is the most peaceful and solo oriented compositions of this album. It shows how one cannot achieve happiness alone, but the importance of having someone special or a group of others to help along the way. Not only to help seek your goal, but also the ability to enjoy the scenery while on your journey

…The end of this tunnel has a light that’s so bright. Illuminating the trodden way, your destination, now in sight.

One is free from the chains of the unknown as you listen to a “Few Layers For Smith”, a dedication to a friend. A song that draws energy from the ECM works of Steve Reich, thats married with a primitive lo-fi basement setting. Its positive force breaks those encumbrances and gives you a glimpse of your prize. But you ruminate on this and come to the conclusion that the path that led you there is equally important as the goal itself. Question is, how do you share your realizations and experiences?

…The route was cast, the trials have passed. The glittering treasure you sought is yours now, at last.

“Ocean Song” meanders from the ritual rhythms of its shoreline to the crashing riptides of unbridled guitar feedback, creating this raging ocean atmosphere. However, its message is quite clear and states that people’s goals and experiences are not just meant for personal growth, but to be shared with
others, so that they too can live vicariously thru your story and somehow utilize it for their own.

…The prize has been won, but the journey is never done. You now have the responsibility to share everything under the Sun.

These six songs, each with its own sound, collectively comprise the vibe of this album. One cannot help but feel a sense of joy and fulfillment when listening to it. Each song has its own unique mood, yet together create an atmosphere of hope and happiness that has no choice but to spill out of the listener. I feel this was the ultimate goal of Misha’s on this record. Quite a challenge for the man who never sleeps, but is always searching for the perfect beat. One may not fully grasp his musical mind, but this album does give you a gateway into the moods and magic of Misha!

- Brent Sawicki

Formed in Portland, OR in 1980, Poison Idea debut record features 13 songs in 13 minutes. Poison Idea were one of the first hardcore bands to inspire artists across multiple genre lines. Poison Idea’s 1983 Debut Release!!! Iconic Original Artwork! New Liner Notes by Jerry A. Features Sticker, Lyric Sheet, Credit Sheet, and Liner Notes.

2025 Repress

Kim Anh follows up her highly acclaimed After Dark EP with an eclectic remix package.
Kim Anh’s Can U Not Talk Records launched at the beginning of 2022 with the ‘After Dark EP’, its strong statement of intent receiving high accolades across the world and gaining the support of artists such as
Jennifer Cardini, Josh Caffe, Terr & many more. She now recruits a star-studded cast built around her Panorama Bar Family to remix the EP, showcasing community and connection whilst preserving queer
underground music.
Massimiliano Pagliara kicks things off by drenching the title track in acid, its resonant squelches gliding across the original’s infectious bassline. Alinka’s remix of ‘Recovering’ from the original release features next before Kim Anh remixes her own ‘House of Virgo’, incorporating a catchy organ bass to accompany her soulful, emotive vocals. Spotlight party founder Chris Cruse also provides a version of the track, turning it into a driving & hypnotic acid work-out, warming things up before Chrissy’s D&B flip of ‘Giving’ closes out the release with ripping bass and rolling breaks.

For his first Mondoj release, Finnish musician Olli Aarni journeys to the wide oblique, where shapes are implied by slants of light previously thought impossible, coming from sources dispersed and hidden. The paranoid eye turns them into phantasms: distant pop songs, fields of fair folk spinning vocoded fudge, an exquisite tasting menu, the shiny towers of an inflatable castle protruding from underground. Scientific inquiry reveals spoken word, diatonic harmony, wide stereo fields, spectral shenanigans, strong scores of wonder and tenderness on the Geneva Emotional Music Scale.

Bubblegum as they are, it's imperative to take these phantasms at face value. The real is elusive; they are all we have. And yet it's also imperative to question them with the greatest scrutiny, because what is wonder and tenderness worth if artificial? Cotton candy can be damned to the void by a single drop of rain. Lucky thing it's drought season. It's up to you, now, whether and how to partake.

And for the hidden truth: among these mirages hide true wonders, the likes of which you've never seen, undiscovered insectile joys, passionate hearts, berries blue to black, rasp to lingon. They are never to be disregarded.

Blodsträngen, the third from Gothenburg's inimitable fourpiece Blessings, begins and ends in the same space: the safety and familiarity of their rehearsal room. In between these moments however, the album knows no boundaries; it rampages through your inner sanctum, upending everything it can, razing everything you hold dear and drawing on the walls whilst panting, drooling and muttering to itself in strange tongues_ Blodsträngen is Blessings fine-tuning their deliberately dissonant sound whilst simultaneously casting their net wide for ever more left-field, experimental influences; a disparate collection of idiosyncrasies that the band somehow manage to pull into something cohesive, captivating and empowering. The band leave the messages and meanings behind their music open to interpretation as a means of sharing this attitude of openness with their audience because, when all is said and done, all that matters is all playing disgustingly loud music together in a room. FOR FANS OF Unsane, Breach, Young Widows, Black Flag, Trap Them, Converge, Old Man Gloom, At The Drive In, Swans, The Jesus Lizard

Heavily influenced by Motown and Stax soul sounds, Version is the second studio album by British DJ
and producer Mark Ronson, a triple platinum success in the UK that is by far his most successful and
helped to win him the BRIT Award for Best British Male Solo Artist.
Released in April 2007, it is entirely comprised of carefully selected cover versions produced with an
impressive cast of collaborators (from Ol’ Dirty Bastard to Robbie Williams) that produced three top
ten hit singles: ‘Stop Me’ with Daniel Merriweather, ‘Oh My God’ with Lily Allen and the timeless
Valerie featuring Amy Winehouse.

Experience the Double-Platinum 1996 Album in Audiophile Sound for the First Time
Mobile Fidelity’s Numbered-Edition 180g 45RPM 2LP Set Is Sourced from the Original Analogue Tapes
1/2” / 30 IPS analogue master to DSD 256 to analogue console to lathe

If great art, as many believe, is inherently polarizing, then the Stone Temple Pilots’ Tiny Music… Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop easily ranks as the California-based band’s finest album. Simultaneously celebrated and castigated upon release in spring 1996, the group’s third full-length finds vocalist Scott Weiland and company expanding their “grunge” palette with a smart blend of glam rock, psychedelia, jangle pop, and other related styles. Having benefited from long-view reassessments that shed the biases and meanness of initial criticisms, the double-platinum effort is now largely and rightly seen as a creative masterwork. All the more reason why it deserves reference-grade production.

Overseen by producer Brendan O’Brien, Stone Temple Pilots used bedrooms, hallways, bathrooms, and the lawn to capture a broad blend of textures, spaciousness, and ambience that helped underline the group’s obvious (and somewhat unexpected) leap from normal “alternative” status to an artist whose aspirations went beyond that of many of its contemporaries. You can hear the multitude of details and tonalities with previously unattained clarity, presence, and scope on this fantastic reissue, which also delivers the impact and punch every rock record deserves. Another tremendous asset: The depth, grain, and pitch of Weiland’s voice.

For all the contagious choruses and glossy melodies that help make Tiny Music… Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop sparkle, the vocal performances of the late singer arguably rank as the best that the much-missed Weiland committed to tape. None other than the Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan — who, like many peers and critics, felt a pressing need to reevaluate the record as both time marched on and the self-importance attached to the “alternative” scene faded — praised Weiland’s efforts by noting: “Like Bowie can and does, it was Scott's phrasing that pushed his music into a unique, and hard to pin down, aesthetic sonicsphere.”

Smooth and diverse, those traits are everywhere on Tiny Music… Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop. From the clever combination of emotional closeness and distance he brings to the catchy albeit ultimately melancholic “Lady Picture Show”; to the lounge-fly balladeering that causes “And So I Know” to lightly swing akin to a bleary-eyed house band’s final number at a 4 A.M. bar; to the effortless cool and laissez-faire casualness he articulates on the grinding “Pop’s Love Suicide”; to the dimensional raspiness, defiant energy, and let-loose wail that sail through the crunchy “Big Bang Baby.”

The latter tune, the record’s first single and per Weiland a conscious attempt by the band to deconstruct its prior approaches, clearly borrows from the Rolling Stones’ “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.” Because of it, the song drew all kinds of barbs from naysayers. Their disdain extended to most material on Tiny Music… Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop, which indirectly references other prized acts such as the Beatles, Cheap Trick, T. Rex, and Lush. Those cynics failed to grasp that Stone Temple Pilots were paying homage and having a blast, with even Weiland, then battling serious substance-abuse and legal issues, getting in on the action.

Stone Temple Pilots’ skeptics also turned a deaf ear to the records’ stellar pop craftsmanship, sticky hooks, and sly commentary on music-industry machinations and fame. Not to mention the band’s intent, made clear from the outset. In an interview conducted in 1994, guitarist Robert DeLeo stated: “The last thing I wanted to do with this band was make everybody believe we invented something.”

Seen through that lens and the hindsight afforded history, and appreciated independent of the self-righteous authenticity standards of the day, Tiny Music… Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop sounds borderline fearless while authoritatively checking all the right boxes for fun, flavor, and finesse. Part winking send-up, part tribute to the glitter rock age, and part middle finger towards the hip crowd that didn’t know what they were missing, this mid-90s classic repeatedly invites you to drop the needle and press play.

Mobile Fidelity's UltraDisc One-Step 180g 45RPM 2LP Set Plays with Authoritative Tonality, Airiness, and Clarity:
Pressed on MoFi SuperVinyl and Strictly Limited to
3,000 Numbered Copies
1/4” / 15 IPS Dolby A analogue master to DSD 256 to analogue console to lathe

Joni Mitchell is the only artist who could’ve made Hejira. The legendary singer-songwriter said as much when discussing the album decades after its release. Yet that fact seemed obvious from the moment the gold-certified effort streeted in fall 1976. An adventurous travelogue, probing narrative, and offbeat homage to freedom, Hejira remains an inimitable entry in the catalog of recorded music — a spare, gorgeous, meditative series of sonic vignettes comprised of floating harmonic pop, cool jazz, soft rock, and sensitive vocal elements that beckon feelings of motion, discovery, and self-examination.

Sourced from the original analog master tapes, pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing on MoFi SuperVinyl, and strictly limited to 3,000 numbered copies, Mobile Fidelity's UltraDisc One-Step 180g 45RPM 2LP set presents the record ranked the 133rd Greatest of All Time by Rolling Stone with definitive detail, richness, accuracy, and directness. Marking the first time the revered LP has received audiophile treatment, it's one of six iconic 1970s Mitchell records Mobile Fidelity is reissuing on vinyl and SACD.

Playing with a virtually nonexistent noise floor, dead-quiet surfaces, and superior groove definition, this collectible reissue reproduces in enveloping fashion the tones, textures, and craftsmanship that help Hejira function as the equivalent of a liberating trip down an open road with nothing but blue sky, natural landscape, and fresh air in the immediate vicinity. Passages bloom, carry, decay as they do amid an acoustically optimized environment. Soundstages extend far, wide, and deep, with black backgrounds and pinpoint images adding to the realism.

The reference-grade immediacy, airiness, and presence put in transparent perspective Mitchell’s dense strings of words, stream-of-conscious-like phrasing, and unhurried albeit forward momentum. Likewise, the instrumental contributions of her A-list support musicians — a cast that includes L.A. Express members John Guerin, Max Bennett and Tom Scott, plus Neil Young, Victor Feldman, and Abe Most — emerges with breathtaking clarity and dimensionality.

While Mitchell, whose intimate vocals and abstract guitar parts center everything, Mobile Fidelity's restoration of Hejira further reveals the visionary breadth of guitarist Larry Carlton and bassist Jaco Pastorius. Though heard on only four tracks, Pastorius' fretless bass epitomizes the fluid, subtle, flexible, roomy, and shape-shifting characteristics of songs that often appear to transpire out of nowhere akin to the formation of a puffy cumulus cloud overhead. In sync with Mitchell’s voice, Pastorius’ fusion hovers and floats, suspended in a fog you want to deeply inhale. The "grace notes" Mitchell desired on Hejira can now be heard in full. Ditto the luxurious tapestries of alinear lines, fills, and supplements unreeled on Carlton’s six-string.

Visually, the packaging of this UD1S set complements its identity as the copy to own. Housed in a deluxe slipcase, the LPs come in foil-stamped jackets with faithful-to-the-original graphics. This version is for listeners who desire to become immersed in everything about Hejira, including the unforgettable album cover — a pastiche of 14 different photos Mitchell used a Camera Lucida to assemble into one image that’s anchored by a portrait of her in a stoic pose — and the interior shots of Mitchell skating on a frozen Wisconsin lake wearing a pair of black skates, black shirt, and fur cape.

The notion of skating, feeling an awakening wind whipping against your face, and losing yourself to the surroundings are extremely apt for Hejira, which Mitchell wrote after a sequence of trips and relationships prompted her to reflect on the complicated conflicts between independence and marriage, success and satisfaction, duty and desire — and, more specifically, “the cost of being a woman.” The Canadian native delved into such themes before. But never as she does on Hejira, whose liberating, running-away aura doubles as another of Mitchell’s rejections of tradition as well as a suggestion of a better alternative.

At once observational and personal, expansive and insular, cheerful and poignant, Hejira spans a sea of human conditions, emotions, and circumstances. It addresses drifting, isolation, pleasure, place, time, and surroundings with strikingly poetic discourse matched with music that, save for the crooned ballad “Blue Motel Room,” forgoes conventional structures and choruses.

The jazz-based arrangements, marked by scaled-down percussion and all manner of bent, rounded, and unsettled notes, hint that Mitchell has no exact destination in mind. Excursions such as the moody “Furry Sings the Blues,” funky “Coyote” and edgy “Black Crow” throw open previously locked doors to possibility and journey. They signal it’s time for a welcome departure from norms and the past, one that leads to a heightened sense of clarity and perspective. Or, as Mitchell said upon choosing the album title, it’s time for “leaving the dream, no blame.”

Wegen der großen Nachfrage: die DAG-Tradition der Picture Discs wird auch mit dem neuen Album fortgeführt! 39 Jahre nach ihrem Debutalbum und 13 Jahre nach "Welcome Back To Insanity Hall" veröffentlicht eine der legendärsten original Psychobilly-Acts um den charismatischen, außergewöhnlichen (manche würden sagen "frenzy") Bandleader Mark "Sparky" Philips ein Dutzend neue Songs, oder sind's nicht doch 13? PSYCHOTIC MUTILATION! Schon von jeher scheren sich DAG einen Dreck um den klassischen Psychobilly-Purismus: Ihr Sound ist immer noch eine einzigartige Mischung (Hellbilly) und kombiniert Elemente von Rockabilly, Punk, höllischem Rock'n'Roll mit mal Country-esken Einflüssen oder dunkelsten Blues, alles immer geprägt von Sparkys rauem, giftigem Gesang. Und als ganz besonderer Gast tritt Emanuela Hutter von The Hillbilly Moon Explosion wieder im Duett mit Sparky bei ,Cast A Lonesome Shadow" an. Eine wilde und schräge musikalische Reise durch menschliche Abgründe, Wahnsinn und dunkle Sehnsüchte. "Psychotic Mutilation" mit genau den Songs, die diese kranke Welt verdient. Simply a masterpiece!! Die Pressung der LP-Erstauflage dürfte ein jedes Sammlerherz höherschlagen lassen, denn neben 180g Vinyl, klassisch schwarz oder Multicolour, gibt es noch ein Plakat und am Ende der endlos B-Seiten-Rille ein verstecktes Special zu finden, oder genauer gesagt: ganz in der Mitte der B-Seite....lasst euch überraschen. Hellbilly ist zurück! Dies hier ist die limitierte Picture Disc-Vinylversion, in ausgestanztem Sleeve und ohne Poster.

Following the release of Ghibli Jazz and Ghibli Reggae comes a brand new compilation of Ghibli covers from underground hip-hop producer Grey October Sounds.
Lofi Ghibli is the definitive Ghibli cover album - a 10-track record containing covers of Carrying You (Castle in the Sky), a Town with an Ocean View (Kiki’s Delivery Service),
Yasashisa Ni Tsutsumareta Nara (Kiki’s Delivery Service), and other iconic Ghibli songs. Grey October Sounds’ deft production takes classic Ghibli melodies and melds them
with hip-hop instrumentation, adding an all new dimension of chill to Joe Hisaishi’s compositions. With homages to both Ghibli and the aesthetics of lo-fi hip-hop, the artwork
by illustrious illustrator Rika Nagatani is the cutest thing to ever grace P-VINE’s catalog! With one of our iconic obi-strips attached, this is sure to be one for the collectors!
So put this on your turntable, take a deep breath, and chill out.

After impressions of Unguja and Borneo islands, Discrepant's chieftain Gonçalo F. Cardoso continues his sonic travelogue on insularity with 'Impressões de Várias Ilhas’.

Literally translated as "impressions from various islands", this third tome dwells on recordings and inspirations from three archipelagos of Macaronésia. Soaking in the sounds and recollections from Azores, Cape Verde and Canary Islands these diaristic endeavours spread throughout a number of real environments, from water caves and black stone beaches and lagoons to small harbours and everyday life scenarios, to project them into this not quite imaginary but not quite real memory haze that goes from a deeply personal impression to a resonating one.

Melding raw field recordings with processed ones and synthesized landscapes, Cardoso never falters into sonic tourism, conjuring small-ish takes both vivid and dreamy, infused with a sense of wonder that feels both bewildering, comforting and escapist. The breaking waves of 'Bufadeiros de São Vicente' soothing in their irregular pattern, mingling with the lone echoing tones not completely removed from Black Dice's 'Beaches & Canyon's most pensive passages, flow into the underwater ambience and suspended pads of 'La Cueva Scuba Livre', as reflections of the same sea crashing in on different lands, nature’s psychogeography. Further on, the queasy warm chord and scraping murmurs of 'Noite em Rabo de Peixe' mirror their nighttime framing while 'Rãs em Xoxo' veers closer to pure musique concréte, crossed by a subdued feeling of unease that lingers in the nostalgia of 'Cozido da Caldeira Velha', brimming within the haze of a Boards of Canada vignette. Summoning the past lives and future hauntings of its scenery, 'Salinas de Pedra Lume' is like the quiet epic of the album, meandering into the unknown among crackling field recordings, decaying synths and flute-like howls - or is it howl-like flutes? - recurring as glimpses from foregone existences, not necessarily Gonçalo’s own. Maybe ours?

Music & Photography by Gonçalo F. Cardoso
Artwork layout by Jeroen Wille
Master by Rashad Becker

Discrepant 2025
Pressed in Spain

Following on from 2018's "Wires" LP, their first studio album in over 25 years, and following up with "Humbucker" in 2020, and "in the Dust" in 2023, "Red Eyes" is the latest highly anticipated instalment in the reborn band that even a global pandemic couldn't stop , MOVING TARGETS! MT in the 21st century is a powerhouse, having toured US, Europe and Japan extensively since their reformation, and their latest album couples the next-level songwriting craft of Kenny Chambers with the cast-iron rhythm section of Yves and Emilien in arguably their most complete offering since reforming, "RED EYES" manages to sound reassuringly familiar and new and dynamic at the same time , and is everything you would want and expect from a MOVING TARGETS record, and more. Recorded with J ROBBINS (JAWBOX) at the helm (who also adds some percussion and backing vocals) "RED EYES" continues the MOVING TARGETS rebirth!

Originally released in 2010, "The Body"s All The Waters Of The Earth Turn To Blood" is a watershed album that changed the landscape of heavy music. Buoyed by the eclectic cast of musicians, from the undeniably potent collaboration with The Assembly of Light Choir as led by now longtime The Body collaborator Chrissy Wolpert, to guest contributors that include members of Dead Times, Fang Island, Lichens (aka Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe), Human Beast, and many more. The album"s singularly bleak, yet beautiful atmosphere not only set the tone for The Body"s career in breaking the mold, but set a new standard for what extreme music could do.