Buscar:la dreams

In his youth days, Gontran lived on the road. He describes himself as a member of the alternative hippie generation, not of those who claimed wanted to change the world, but of those who actually took an alternate way of living. He travelled, took any jobs available to make some money to live wherever he was, and wrote beautiful songs accompaining himself on guitar. From time to time, when the stars aligned, when there was the chance, he would rent some studio time and lay down his compositions, always in a pretty bare way with little arrangements added on the spot, mostly by musicians who happened to be there and who improvised their parts - one take, we have it. With this procedure he released Funambule in 1975 and L'envol in 1977. He also worked with Dominique Le Roux on a joint venture LP in 1979.



On offer here is the first ever vinyl reissue of Gontran's second album L'envol, recorded in two hours on a Paris studio with a bass player (F.D. Aldonse) and two female vocalists whose surnames have been lost in the depths of time - Victorine and Theodorine. As the other Gontran albums, it was self released in a limited run private pressing which has nowadays become an elusive piece in the collectors market - so rare that it doesn't even appear on Phileas Folk's great The French Folk Magic Time Guide book.



The beautiful music contained within is a delightful sample of Gontran's excellent singer-songwriter qualities and his commitment to portray his inner world and livings through his musicated poems. He names as his biggest influences big names like Leonard Cohen, who he had the chance to meet and chat with when in Mumbai back in 1999, Bob Dylan or Jack Kerouak, but Gontran was centered in his vivences and commited to his need to express himself that he really doesn't sound like anyone but Gontran.



Amazing homemade folk sounds from an artist who, ironically, was always traveling abroad and stayed little at home!



A very rare private pressing, recently featured in Hans Pokora's last Record Collector Dreams book, valuing an original copy with 4 stars!

Clouds Without Water is a project that came about after the chance meeting of two ambient experimentalists. They were both in attendance to perform at the same electronic music festival but came together over their shared love of Bristol Sound. Working over long distances and through the isolation of the pandemic, they sent tracks to each other "without plans or discussion, only wordless questions buried in the music." What resulted was this album, which evokes celestial dreams, moon-lit otherworldly landscapes and plenty of deep introspection. It is space music for spacing out to.

Music For Dreams signal the summer with the debut LP from Ibizan royalty DJ Pippi & Willie Graff, released digitally on May 27th with the physical version following on the 8th July. The latest bounty from the Danish label’s long and fruitful relationship with the White Isle, Follow Your Dreams is a twelve plate tapas packed with the assorted styles and flavours of the Balearic sound - a complex blend delivered with a warmth, feeling and tone which bring it all together as a whole.

Collaborating on and off over the past fifteen years, with resulting singles gracing the likes of Compost, Leng and Archipelago, DJ Pippi and Willie Graff posses a unique combination of Balearic heritage; one an Italian export who helped originate the sound and style of the genre through his legendary DJ sets at the likes of Pacha and KU in the eighties, the other a trailblazing talent born on the island, who started his residency at Pacha in summer 2000 at the tender age of 17. Their intergenerational entente speaks to Pippi’s unyielding passion for sonic progression and the musical maturity of Graff, as well as a shared love of the soulful side.

The lyrics of the tracks of "IV:LETVM" revolve around death, war, forces of nature and superstition as well as rituals. This consistently heavy lyrical content is matched by the instrumental brutality of the nine tracks. The quartet from Giessen in Hesse presents itself on its new album exclusively martial, destructive, and evil. Song titles like 'War Dreams Of Itself', 'Lessons Of Darkness', 'Certain Death', 'Suffering' or 'Sadness' point the way ¬– no coincidence that the band’s official logo consists of an axe and a mace. DEPRAVATION cultivate a resounding style mix of black and death metal with a crust side to it, which is served fiercely and lingers bitterly. Exactly this is what the group is after since their first release "I:PRAEDICTVM" in 2012 succeeded by "II:MALEDICTVM" one year later. Following 2020's "III:ODOR MORTIS", "IV:LETVM" marks the second album for LIFEFORCE RECORDS. After more than ten active years, in which split records with ANCST and SLOWLY WE ROT were released, DEPRAVATION enter the scene without the pretense of following current trends or living up to any particular genre. "IV:LETVM" is the expression of diverse musical influences and above all one thing: relentlessly extreme. "IV:LETVM" was recorded at Red Tape Company by Simeon Lauber in Gießen. Nikita Kamprad (Der Weg Einer Freiheit/Ghost City Recordings) is responsible for mixing and mastering.

Als LACRIMOSA 1994 ihr bahnbrechendes "Schakal"
veröffentlichten, waren sie die erste Szene-Band, die
Gothic und Metal kombinierten, und dies in eine
klassische Orchestrierung einbetteten! Von der
Metal-Presse als zu düster und von der Gothic-Presse als
zu hart verrissen, fand sich der Band zunächst auf
einsamen Posten. Zwei Jahre später waren LACRIMOSA
Headliner der Dark Winter Nights Festivals, der ersten
Festival-Tour, die Gothic- und Metal-Bands wie THE
GATHERING, SENTENCED oder DREAMS OF SANITY
auf einer Bühne vereinten. Der Rest ist Geschichte: Viele
Bands, sowohl aus der Metal- als auch aus der
Gothic-Szene, folgten ihrem Beispiel und Gothic Metal,
sowie Symphonic Metal wurden bis heute zu etablierten
Musikstilen. In der Zwischenzeit haben LACRIMOSA ihre
musikalischen Fähigkeiten weiterentwickelt und
perfektioniert, während sie seit mehr als 20 Jahren Shows
auf der ganzen Welt von Argentinien bis China spielen
und nun alles in diesem Meisterwerk zusammenführen:
Leidenschaft trifft auf Vollkommenheit, Schmerz trifft auf
Erlösung und Dunkelheit trifft auf das leitende Licht der
Liebe! "Leidenschaft" ist mehr als ein neues Album, es ist
ein magisches Erlebnis purer Hingabe!

DOUBLE BLACK LP : 2 x 140 G Black Vinyl , Sleeve & 2 x Heavy Weight Printed Inner with UV Gloss Finish

Legendary electronic music duo Orbital return Early 2023 with new album “Optical Delusion”, the Hartnoll brothers first studio album since 2018’s Monster’s Exist. Recorded in Orbital’s Brighton studio, “Optical Delusion” includes contributions from Sleaford Mods, Penelope Isles, Anna B Savage, The Little Pest, Dina Ipavic, Coppe, and perhaps most surprisingly, The Medieval Baebes.
Earlier this year, Orbital celebrated their storied history with “30 Something” which, unlike other Best Of’s, contains reworks, remakes, remixes and re-imaginings of landmark Orbital tracks including “Chime”, “Belfast”, “Halcyon”, “Satan”, and “The Box”

SHORT BIOG:

“A human being experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest of humanity – a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison…”

You many have seen this quote attributed to Albert Einstein on social media, the archetypal Smartest Guy Ever apparently having an out-of-character religious epiphany. It certainly leapt out at Paul Hartnoll of Orbital who spotted it in Michael Pollan’s 2018 book How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression and Transcendence.

“As soon as I saw ‘optical delusion’ I thought Oh hey, that’s the album title,” says Paul. “It just seemed to say so much about how people construct their own realities, how we see patterns that aren’t there, how we see what we want to see.

“But it’s actually a misquote. He never quite said that. In the German original what he’s really saying is that human experience is as relative as physics. Wouldn’t it be good if we could accept that, and find a kind of universal theory of everything for the human race? Then you look at everything from history to art to your Twitter feed and you think yeah, that’s what we’re all trying to do all of the time…”

Hence ‘Optical Delusion’, the tenth original Orbital album and the latest in a burst of renewed post-pandemic creativity for two brothers who’ve stayed at the top of their game longer than anyone from the post-1988 Class of Acid House.

Now with ‘Optical Delusion’ the Hartnolls dig deeper into the unquiet psyche of our increasingly surreal and disordered world. Sketched out partly during lockdown but fully recorded in the uncertain After Times, the album summons up conflicting emotions and sometimes beguiling images from years when the science fiction doomsdays that the Hartnolls watched on TV as kids finally came true. There are mesmeric tracks with names like ‘The New Abnormal’ and ‘Requiem For The Pre-Apocalypse’ and ‘Day One’. But there are also straight-up bangers and ethereal cosmic dreams, abstract sound wars and deeply human songs of separation and loss.

And it all starts with a bang. Lead single ‘Dirty Rat’, an outright Fall-meets-Front-242 class rant with vocals by Sleaford Mods mob orator Jason Williamson, harks right back to the Hartnolls’ days of politicised anarcho-squatpunk. It began as a remix swap (Orbital did the Sleafords’ ‘I Don’t Rate You’) and morphed into a comic, brutal, bass-driven harangue not so much against our rulers but at the petty, mean-spirited, frightened, Mail-reading voters who put them there: the people who are “blaming everyone in hospital/blaming everyone at the bottom of the English Channel/blaming everyone who doesn’t look like a fried animal.”

Also key to the album is opening track ‘Ringa Ringa (The Old Pandemic Folk Song)’ which returns to an Orbital truism, that time always becomes a loop. This chugging, cyclical Orbital groove gives way to an unnerving past-meets-present timeslip fit for ‘Sapphire And Steel’ as goth maenads The Mediaeval Baebes materialise to sing ‘Ring O’Roses’ – the innocent nursery rhyme whose roots are in the Black Death.

“I’ve always liked folk music and mediaeval sounds,” says Paul, himself an occasional Morris dancer. “I had the basis of that track and I wanted to spin it off somehow.” Trawling his archives he stumbled on The Mediaeval Baebes’ version of ‘Ring O’Roses’ “and my hackles just went up. I was like, my God, this is the original pandemic folk song.”

?his being Orbital, there are collaborations galore on the album, the roles once played by Alison Goldfrapp, Lady Leshurr or David Gray now filled by new talents. London singer-songwriter Anna B Savage contributes a compellingly fragile, Anohni-like vocal to ‘Home’, in which nature reclaims the scorched and vacant mega-cities. ‘Day One’ is a pulsing techno track featuring the singer Dina Ipavic. Paul got in touch with her after working on a score for a sculpture show of giant robotic installations by his friend Giles Walker during the pandemic. First Paul cut up his own score and Ipavic’s vocals on the track The Crane, which appears on the deluxe version of the album. Then he thought, Why not work with her for real? The result is school of ‘Belfast’, a bassy dreamscape with vocalised clouds billowing above.

The pensive ‘Are You ?live?’ adds to the Orbital product range of existential questions (‘Are We Here?’, ‘Where Is It Going?’) in collaboration Bella Union signings Penelope Isles, AKA brother and sister act Lily and Jack Wolter. “They’re our studio mates, they work upstairs!” says Paul happily. “And they’ve both got amazing voices.”


But Orbital are Orbital and never far from the dancefloor. “Eventually the more abrasive bits came back into the fold…” ‘You Are The Frequency’, first of two tracks to feature mysterious vocalist The Little Pest, surrounds the listener with warped voices ordering you to the dancefloor (Phil: “we wanted the idea that the music is kind of absorbing you”). And the second, the sinister ‘What A Surprise’, traps you in a paranoid electronic hall of mirrors.

In another nod to Orbital’s resurgent past the cover artwork once again comes from fine art painter John Greenwood, creator of fantastical grotesques for the covers of ‘Snivilisation’, ‘In Sides’ and Orbital’s most recent album, 2018’s ‘Monsters Exist’. Orbital had just had a slick Mark Farrow cover for ‘30 Something’ – this is a return to the overripe and bulbous techno-organic constructions that somehow express Orbital’s own uncontrollably fertile sound.

There are gaps in the future that Orbital are desperate to fill too; there will be tours and festivals and rooms and fields full of people. Those long paralysed months when we had little to look forward to but a Zoom DJ set made Paul and Phil appreciate the things that make life worth living.

2 x Solid White LP, 5mm spine Sleeve UV Gloss Finish, 2x Heavy Weight Printed Inner Sleeve UV Gloss finish, marketing sticker.

Legendary electronic music duo Orbital return Early 2023 with new album “Optical Delusion”, the Hartnoll brothers first studio album since 2018’s Monster’s Exist. Recorded in Orbital’s Brighton studio, “Optical Delusion” includes contributions from Sleaford Mods, Penelope Isles, Anna B Savage, The Little Pest, Dina Ipavic, Coppe, and perhaps most surprisingly, The Medieval Baebes.
Earlier this year, Orbital celebrated their storied history with “30 Something” which, unlike other Best Of’s, contains reworks, remakes, remixes and re-imaginings of landmark Orbital tracks including “Chime”, “Belfast”, “Halcyon”, “Satan”, and “The Box”

SHORT BIOG:

“A human being experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest of humanity – a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison…”

You many have seen this quote attributed to Albert Einstein on social media, the archetypal Smartest Guy Ever apparently having an out-of-character religious epiphany. It certainly leapt out at Paul Hartnoll of Orbital who spotted it in Michael Pollan’s 2018 book How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression and Transcendence.

“As soon as I saw ‘optical delusion’ I thought Oh hey, that’s the album title,” says Paul. “It just seemed to say so much about how people construct their own realities, how we see patterns that aren’t there, how we see what we want to see.

“But it’s actually a misquote. He never quite said that. In the German original what he’s really saying is that human experience is as relative as physics. Wouldn’t it be good if we could accept that, and find a kind of universal theory of everything for the human race? Then you look at everything from history to art to your Twitter feed and you think yeah, that’s what we’re all trying to do all of the time…”

Hence ‘Optical Delusion’, the tenth original Orbital album and the latest in a burst of renewed post-pandemic creativity for two brothers who’ve stayed at the top of their game longer than anyone from the post-1988 Class of Acid House.

Now with ‘Optical Delusion’ the Hartnolls dig deeper into the unquiet psyche of our increasingly surreal and disordered world. Sketched out partly during lockdown but fully recorded in the uncertain After Times, the album summons up conflicting emotions and sometimes beguiling images from years when the science fiction doomsdays that the Hartnolls watched on TV as kids finally came true. There are mesmeric tracks with names like ‘The New Abnormal’ and ‘Requiem For The Pre-Apocalypse’ and ‘Day One’. But there are also straight-up bangers and ethereal cosmic dreams, abstract sound wars and deeply human songs of separation and loss.

And it all starts with a bang. Lead single ‘Dirty Rat’, an outright Fall-meets-Front-242 class rant with vocals by Sleaford Mods mob orator Jason Williamson, harks right back to the Hartnolls’ days of politicised anarcho-squatpunk. It began as a remix swap (Orbital did the Sleafords’ ‘I Don’t Rate You’) and morphed into a comic, brutal, bass-driven harangue not so much against our rulers but at the petty, mean-spirited, frightened, Mail-reading voters who put them there: the people who are “blaming everyone in hospital/blaming everyone at the bottom of the English Channel/blaming everyone who doesn’t look like a fried animal.”

Also key to the album is opening track ‘Ringa Ringa (The Old Pandemic Folk Song)’ which returns to an Orbital truism, that time always becomes a loop. This chugging, cyclical Orbital groove gives way to an unnerving past-meets-present timeslip fit for ‘Sapphire And Steel’ as goth maenads The Mediaeval Baebes materialise to sing ‘Ring O’Roses’ – the innocent nursery rhyme whose roots are in the Black Death.

“I’ve always liked folk music and mediaeval sounds,” says Paul, himself an occasional Morris dancer. “I had the basis of that track and I wanted to spin it off somehow.” Trawling his archives he stumbled on The Mediaeval Baebes’ version of ‘Ring O’Roses’ “and my hackles just went up. I was like, my God, this is the original pandemic folk song.”

?his being Orbital, there are collaborations galore on the album, the roles once played by Alison Goldfrapp, Lady Leshurr or David Gray now filled by new talents. London singer-songwriter Anna B Savage contributes a compellingly fragile, Anohni-like vocal to ‘Home’, in which nature reclaims the scorched and vacant mega-cities. ‘Day One’ is a pulsing techno track featuring the singer Dina Ipavic. Paul got in touch with her after working on a score for a sculpture show of giant robotic installations by his friend Giles Walker during the pandemic. First Paul cut up his own score and Ipavic’s vocals on the track The Crane, which appears on the deluxe version of the album. Then he thought, Why not work with her for real? The result is school of ‘Belfast’, a bassy dreamscape with vocalised clouds billowing above.

The pensive ‘Are You ?live?’ adds to the Orbital product range of existential questions (‘Are We Here?’, ‘Where Is It Going?’) in collaboration Bella Union signings Penelope Isles, AKA brother and sister act Lily and Jack Wolter. “They’re our studio mates, they work upstairs!” says Paul happily. “And they’ve both got amazing voices.”


But Orbital are Orbital and never far from the dancefloor. “Eventually the more abrasive bits came back into the fold…” ‘You Are The Frequency’, first of two tracks to feature mysterious vocalist The Little Pest, surrounds the listener with warped voices ordering you to the dancefloor (Phil: “we wanted the idea that the music is kind of absorbing you”). And the second, the sinister ‘What A Surprise’, traps you in a paranoid electronic hall of mirrors.

In another nod to Orbital’s resurgent past the cover artwork once again comes from fine art painter John Greenwood, creator of fantastical grotesques for the covers of ‘Snivilisation’, ‘In Sides’ and Orbital’s most recent album, 2018’s ‘Monsters Exist’. Orbital had just had a slick Mark Farrow cover for ‘30 Something’ – this is a return to the overripe and bulbous techno-organic constructions that somehow express Orbital’s own uncontrollably fertile sound.

There are gaps in the future that Orbital are desperate to fill too; there will be tours and festivals and rooms and fields full of people. Those long paralysed months when we had little to look forward to but a Zoom DJ set made Paul and Phil appreciate the things that make life worth living.

Repress !

The long-awaited reissue of the best ever album of rare Eastern and psychedelic Jazz music by this famous Hungarian guitarist
Gabor Szabo, originally released in 1968. For the first time as extended edition with 2 bonus tracks: radio versions of Fire Dance
/ Ferris Wheel from the 1969 7” single 7”. Deluxe 8-sided Digipak CD and Gatefold Vinyl come with long, exclusively written
inner notes by the famous researcher and biographer Douglas Payne. Remastered by Martin Bowes at Cage Studios (UK).
Gabor Szabo was one of the most original guitarists to emerge in the 1960s, mixing his Hungarian folk music heritage with a deep
love of jazz and crafting a distinctive, largely self-taught sound. Born in Budapest, on March 8, 1936, Szabo was inspired by a Roy
Rogers cowboy movie to begin playing guitar when he was 14 and often played in dinner clubs and covert jam sessions while still
living in his hometown. He escaped from his country at age 20 on the eve of the Communist uprising and eventually made his way
to America, settling with his family in California.
He attended Berklee College (1958-1960) and in 1961 joined Chico Hamilton's innovative quintet featuring Charles Lloyd. Urged
by Hamilton, Szabo crafted a most distinctive sound; as agile on intricate, nearly-free runs as he was able to sound inspired during
melodic passages. Szabo left the Hamilton group in 1965 to leave his mark on the pop-jazz of the Gary McFarland quintet and the
energy music of Charles Lloyd's fiery and underrated quartet featuring Ron Carter and Tony Williams.
Szabo initiated a solo career in 1966, recording the exceptional album, Spellbinder, which yielded many inspired moments and
"Gypsy Queen," the song Santana turned into a huge hit in 1970. Szabo formed an innovative quintet (1967-1969) featuring the
brilliant, classically trained guitarist Jimmy Stewart and recorded many notable albums during the late '60s. The emergence of
rock music (especially George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Jimi Hendrix) found Szabo experimenting with feedback and more
commercially oriented forms of jazz.
During the '70s, Szabo regularly performed along the West Coast, hypnotizing audiences with his enchanting, spellbinding style.
From 1970, he locked into a commercial groove, even though records like Mizrab occasionally revealed his seamless jazz, pop,
Gypsy, Indian, and Asian fusions. Szabo had revisited his homeland several times during the '70s, finding opportunities to perform
brilliantly with native talents. He was hospitalized during his final visit and died in 1982, just short of his 46th birthday.

Originally released in May 2006 through the German label Karaoke Kalk, »Osaka Bridge« was an album that captured the joyful amateurism of Tori Kudo's free-spirited Japanese collective Maher Shalal Hash Baz and Bill Wells’ rich, wistful and easy sense of melody. Approaching brass band and jazz music with a knack for making playing imperfectly feel perfectly right, »Osaka Bridge« became nothing short of groundbreaking when it was released to critical acclaim, becoming an instant classic among musicians and fans alike. Coinciding with the release of the second LP of Wells’ on-going collaboration with Danielle Price on tuba, »The Sensory Illusions«, Karaoke Kalk makes this highly sought-after record available again on vinyl for the first time in 16 years.

The pairing of the prolific Scottish pianist and composer and the fluctuating collective active since the mid-1980s was an easy, natural one—a union particularly apt and complementary. But this is not to say that the 15 recordings which made up »Osaka Bridge« were in any way seamless. The horns played by these self-taught musicians strain and struggle with Wells’ luscious arrangements; each note is given all the stiff emphasis that you’d expect of a high school brass band at its first rehearsal. Songs fall in and out of rhythm, and a track like »Poxy« misses its intended swing feel by a country mile. Of course, this is all part of the magic. Maher Shalal Hash Baz take Wells’ melodies and strip them back to their emotional core, disallowing all artifice and revealing a stark, serene beauty.

Particularly affecting are »On The Beach Boys Bus«—described by colleague Jens Lekman as the »the most beautiful melody I’ve ever heard«—and »Time Takes Me So Back«, the two tracks sung by Kudo’s wife Reiko. Inspiration for both pieces came to Wells in dreams. The former was sung by a group of tanned Californians on the way to a Beach Boys convention, the latter by his grandmother shortly before she passed away. Reiko’s voice gives each song a haunting fragility that enhances their phantasmagoric character. »Cowtail Calypso«, on the other hand, was born when Wells asked Tori Kudo to sing Roger Miller’s »King Of The Road« over a syncopated, propulsive melody. Kudo’s ambiguous response (»maybe,« which according to Wells usually translated to »forget it«) resulted in a brief, idiosyncratic track that nevertheless exceeded all of Wells’ expectations.

Of the instrumental tracks, »Liquorice Tics« stands out for its rolling rhythms and circular melody, while »Family Sighs« creates a brooding atmosphere which perfectly encapsulates the conflicting feelings many people have for their immediate family. For the most part, the instrumentals are concise—a melody stated once and then dispensed with—but their brevity only heightens the impact. Even (or especially) 16 years later, »Osaka Bridge« continues to be an almost accidentally timeless document that captured fleeting moments and personal revelations at their most spontaneous and unaffected. As someone put it so aptly in a Discogs comment a few years back, »this is the album which is able to make aliens understand what humankind is about.« You better turn up the volume so that everyone can hear it everywhere.

We are excited to present a 4-song EP by the iconic French synth duo, Deux, entitled Let’s Go ! Gérard Pelletier and Cati Tête formed Deux shortly after meeting in Lyon in 1981. They became known for their stripped-down synthpop compositions and suitably cold duets, through their first Minimal Wave release entitled Decadence (2010) and later their Golden Dreams EP (2012). In the late 1980s and early 1990s, they began to branch out and make more dancefloor-oriented music. The Let’s Go ! EP features three remastered mixes of their underground classic Let’s Go ! and an unreleased version of Everybody’s Night. This release is pressed on 180-gram black vinyl, presented in a heavy printed sleeve, based on their 1991 artwork, and accompanied by a black and white photo of the duo. The record is pressed as an edition of 999 copies.

Repress !

The long-awaited reissue of the best ever album of rare Eastern and psychedelic Jazz music by this famous Hungarian guitarist
Gabor Szabo, originally released in 1968. For the first time as extended edition with 2 bonus tracks: radio versions of Fire Dance
/ Ferris Wheel from the 1969 7” single 7”. Deluxe 8-sided Digipak CD and Gatefold Vinyl come with long, exclusively written
inner notes by the famous researcher and biographer Douglas Payne. Remastered by Martin Bowes at Cage Studios (UK).
Gabor Szabo was one of the most original guitarists to emerge in the 1960s, mixing his Hungarian folk music heritage with a deep
love of jazz and crafting a distinctive, largely self-taught sound. Born in Budapest, on March 8, 1936, Szabo was inspired by a Roy
Rogers cowboy movie to begin playing guitar when he was 14 and often played in dinner clubs and covert jam sessions while still
living in his hometown. He escaped from his country at age 20 on the eve of the Communist uprising and eventually made his way
to America, settling with his family in California.
He attended Berklee College (1958-1960) and in 1961 joined Chico Hamilton's innovative quintet featuring Charles Lloyd. Urged
by Hamilton, Szabo crafted a most distinctive sound; as agile on intricate, nearly-free runs as he was able to sound inspired during
melodic passages. Szabo left the Hamilton group in 1965 to leave his mark on the pop-jazz of the Gary McFarland quintet and the
energy music of Charles Lloyd's fiery and underrated quartet featuring Ron Carter and Tony Williams.
Szabo initiated a solo career in 1966, recording the exceptional album, Spellbinder, which yielded many inspired moments and
"Gypsy Queen," the song Santana turned into a huge hit in 1970. Szabo formed an innovative quintet (1967-1969) featuring the
brilliant, classically trained guitarist Jimmy Stewart and recorded many notable albums during the late '60s. The emergence of
rock music (especially George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Jimi Hendrix) found Szabo experimenting with feedback and more
commercially oriented forms of jazz.
During the '70s, Szabo regularly performed along the West Coast, hypnotizing audiences with his enchanting, spellbinding style.
From 1970, he locked into a commercial groove, even though records like Mizrab occasionally revealed his seamless jazz, pop,
Gypsy, Indian, and Asian fusions. Szabo had revisited his homeland several times during the '70s, finding opportunities to perform
brilliantly with native talents. He was hospitalized during his final visit and died in 1982, just short of his 46th birthday.

Did you know Micheal "Eyedea" Larsen - one half of the progressive hip hop duo Eyedea & Abilities - once released a solo project under the moniker Oliver Hart? Fresh on the heels of winning three of the most notable MC Battles of the time - Scribble Jam (1999), Rocksteady MC Battle (2000) and the nationally televised HBO Blaze Battle (2000) - and the release of his debut album with musical partner DJ Abilities, First Born, Eyedea was inspired, intent, insatiable. He used most of his earnings from those MC battles and the group's rigorous touring schedule to build himself a home studio and teach himself how to record and mix records, and in less than a year's time, he returned to share the fruits of his labor. Originally released in 2002, The Many Faces of Oliver Hart or How Eye One The Write Too Think was written, produced, recorded and engineered by a 20-year old Eyedea (aka Oliver Hart). Featuring the songs "Weird Side", "Here For You", "Step By Step" and "Bottle Dreams", which Complex named as #11 on a list of the best songs ever released on Rhymesayers Entertainment, the album was a diverse body of work that demonstrated Eyedea could not be easily defined, nor should he be.

This land runs through Katherine Paul’s blood. And it called to her. In dreams she saw the river, her ancestors, and her home. When the land calls, you listen. And KP found herself far from her ancestral lands during a time of collective trauma, when the world was wounded and in need of healing. In 2020 she made the journey from Portland back to the Skagit River, back to the cedar
trees that stand tall and shrouded in fog, back to the tide flats and the mountains, back to Swinomish.

It is a powerful thing to return to our ancestral lands and often times the journey is not easy. Like the salmon through the currents, like the tide as it crawls to shore this is a story of return. It is the call and response. It is the outstretched arms of the people who came before, welcoming her home. The Land, The Water, The Sky is a celebration of lineage and strength. Even in its deepest moments of loneliness and grief, of frustration over a world wrought with colonial violence and pain, the songs remind us that if we slow down, if we listen to the waves and the wind through the trees, we will remember to breathe.

There is a throughline of story in every song, a remembrance of knowledge and teachings, a gratitude of wisdom passed down and carried. There is a reimagining of Sedna who was offered to the sea, and a beautiful rumination on sacrifice and humanity, and what it means to hold the stories that work to teach us something.

Chord progressions born out of moments of sadness and solitude transform into the islands that sit blue along the horizon. The Salish Sea curves along her homelands, and when the singer is close to this water she is reminded of her grandmother, how she looked out at these same islands, and she’s held by spirit and memory.

The Land, The Water, The Sky rises and falls, in darkness and in light, but even in its most melancholy moments it is never despairing. That is the beauty of returning home. When you stand on ancestral lands it is impossible to be alone. You feel the arms and hands that hold you up, unwilling to let you fall into sorrow or abandonment. In her songs Katherine Paul has channeled that feeling of being held. In every note she has written a love letter to indigenous strength and healing.

There is a joy present here, a fierce blissfulness that comes with walking the trails along the river, feeling the sand and th stones beneath her feet. It is the pride and the certainty that comes with knowing her ancestors walked along the same land, dipped their hands into the water, and ran their fingertips along the same bark of cedar trees.

This is a story of hope, as it details the joy of returning. Katherine Paul’s journey home wasn’t made alone, and the songs are crowded with loved ones and relatives, like a really good party. And as the songs walk us through the land it is important we hover over the images and the beauty, the moments that mark this album as site specific. The power of this land is woven throughout, telling the story of narrow waterways, brush strokes, salmon stinta, and above all healing.

Let it take you. Move through the story and see the land through her eyes, because it is a gift, a welcomed sʔabadəb.*

*The word “gift” in Lushootseed, the language of the Coast Salish people“

Hollie Kenniff's second LP for Western Vinyl, We All Have Places That We Miss, is a gallery of cloudlike synths, seraphic strings, and humming guitars, all coaxed into cohesion by Hollie's own wordless singing. The album's 2021 precursor, The Quiet Drift, landed on Bandcamp's Best Ambient list alongside the description "Drawing on the deep tones of drone, dream pop harmonies, and new age's bright tranquility, Kenniff evokes the forests, lakes and rivers of her past and present surroundings with a zen patience." Here on Places_ she strides even further into reminiscence, seeking and commemorating the fondly tragic ache of half-remembered locales lost to time: A grandparent's dim living room from an ambiguous decade; a lonely clearing beside a trail we can't remember if we walked or just dreamt; the calming light of a movie that aired years before we were born though our feelings insist we were there with the characters. We All Have Places That We Miss transmutes such glimmers into a palpable sonic kingdom that can be revisited at will, recalling the pedal-board ambience of Windy & Carl, Adam Wiltzie, and Liz Harris.

An official reissue, with the original gatefold jacket and the original large booklet reproduced. Pressed on 180 gram vinyl, with side D etched. Sweden's Tribulation have been one of the most innovative bands working in metal in the new millennium. Their third album The Children Of The Night (2015) saw the band leap even further from their death, black and thrash metal origins and add hints of psych rock, prog and classic rock into the mix. Pitchfork called it "a sprawling, compulsory tale that doesn't turn dull. ... There is no way to arrive at a consensus artist who will satisfy everyone, but The Children Of The Night comes close." Svart Records presents, in conspiracy with Century Media, an official reproduction of the original 2015 double LP, that has already become a rarity.

An official reissue, with the original gatefold jacket and the original large booklet reproduced. Pressed on 180 gram vinyl, with side D etched. Sweden's Tribulation have been one of the most innovative bands working in metal in the new millennium. Their third album The Children Of The Night (2015) saw the band leap even further from their death, black and thrash metal origins and add hints of psych rock, prog and classic rock into the mix. Pitchfork called it "a sprawling, compulsory tale that doesn't turn dull. ... There is no way to arrive at a consensus artist who will satisfy everyone, but The Children Of The Night comes close." Svart Records presents, in conspiracy with Century Media, an official reproduction of the original 2015 double LP, that has already become a rarity.

LA veteran techno producer, AXKAN, lands his new full-length album on SONIC GROOVE. Inspired by a wave of torturous dreams during the pandemic, AXKAN dedicated his isolation time to curate the sound of this 12-track LP, NIGHTMARES. Dropping his signature soundtrack of angst fueled broken beat industrialized techno, AXKAN further displays his sophisticated sound architecture by delving into darker melancholic, experimental and rhythmic noise territories. Add three collaboration pieces featuring long-time friends ORPHX, UVB and AYARCANA and we have a well rounded album of monstrous proportions.

Perth-based artistic hub 823, led by producer / creator-extraordinaire Taku, joins forces with producers Idealism & Lucid Green for “Undone,” a genre-melting LP that bridges sonic comfort, textured tones and lush timbres into one serene, 10 track experience. LP arriving February 3rd, 2023 via 823 x Jakarta Records.

Finnish-born producer and pianist Idealism (1.5mil Spotify Monthly Listeners - SML) and French transplant Lucid Green (568k SML) are no strangers to each other’s subtle, yet potent productions. Having worked together on a number of past releases, their upcoming, fully collaborative LP “Undone” is a natural journey into the beautiful ambient, downtempo, lo-fi worlds they’ve each created. Through visits to Lucid’s flat in Paris and ideas being exchanged remotely, the duo experimented with different sounds, instruments and aural environments, in the process crafting a natural partnership that sits in a comfortable, melancholic pocket. With lulling guitar and poignant piano progressions that provide a pillow to rest your ears, and downtempo percussions that keeps you ebbing and flowing along on a subtle current, unsure where one wave ends and the next begins, only the albums progressions dictate the head-nod. Featuring the likes of Yutaka Hirasaka (220k SML) and Charlie Kurata (aka Charlie – 200k SML; Duumu – 109k SML), the album soars, reminiscent of life’s simple, yet wholly memorable moments that bring you a nostalgic pause.
As with all 823 releases, the project is a visual one as much as it is a musical project. The first singles visualizers are a fusion of Hopes & Dreams Club & 823’s design aesthetics with personal super8 footage captured by Idealism & Lucid Green, beautifully expressed from Hopes & Dreams Club member Mindi Ossi. Each visualizer and single art will easily stand on its own, transporting you to worlds familiar, yet undeniably groovy and sonically comfortable.
823 is a multifaceted Perth-based record label, fashion brand, and artistic community, founded by Australian producer and all-around creative, Ta-ku (852k SML). With an astute attention to detail and an ethos that appreciates the everyday things in life, 823 doesn’t stick to any particular genre. Past 823 releases include “So Far To Go” EP via Cabu (753k SML), Ta-ku and matt mcwaters’s duo project “Black and White,” featuring Masego collaboration “Flight 99” (17mil streams on Spotify), the “All Things Considered” compilations, a curated, collaborative series featuring both budding and wellestablished artists around the world and have included Idealism, Wun Two, pastels, L.Dre, Flobama, SwuM, Jinsang, Tenderlonious, among a host of others, as well as multiple sold out clothing capsules.

Support from Call Super, Ame, Slam, Fish Go Deep, Lars Behrenroth, Iron Curtis, Severino, Laurent Garnier and more

New York’s very own JW Francis announces his brand new album ‘Dream House’ – his third with London based label Sunday Best Recordings. Coinciding with the announcement is the gloriously up-beat new single ‘Casino,’ which offers a glimpse into what to expect on his forthcoming feel-good LP. When JW isn’t writing songs about his own life or surreal imagery, he writes about other people – most notably around the month of February when he writes valentines songs on his fans’ behalf. ‘Dream House’ encapsulates all of this and forms a collection of glorious tracks written for other people: “Every year, about 6 weeks before Valentine’s Day, I make the following post on social media: “If you send me the name of your Valentine, and the reason you love them, I’ll write a song for them on your behalf.” That is how Dream House was born, 3 years ago. Over the past three years, I have received over 300 requests from fans to write songs for their loved ones. All of the songs on Dream House come from this project, some of them have been reworked to speak more to the artist’s life, others have remained exactly as they were first written. Ultimately, this is an album about caring for others, and the way we express it.” Written and recorded at the start of 2021 in NYC, ‘Dream House’ is slightly reminiscent of The Strokes and even has hints of Lou Reed, however the project is still quintessential JW Francis with its blissful melodies and dreamy instrumentation; perfectly fitting given the album’s title. Along with the announcement comes ‘Casino’, a track about pursuing your dreams, as JW explains, “This song is about taking a gamble on myself as a musician, quitting my job, and living the life I want to be living. The video explores the two lives I was living before I got the opportunity to follow my dreams and doing music full time.” ‘Dream House’ follows the hugely well received ‘WANDERKID’ and ‘We Share a Similar Joy’ and once again proves why JW is the king of laid-back and effortlessly cool song-making.

New York’s very own JW Francis announces his brand new album ‘Dream House’ – his third with London based label Sunday Best Recordings. Coinciding with the announcement is the gloriously up-beat new single ‘Casino,’ which offers a glimpse into what to expect on his forthcoming feel-good LP. When JW isn’t writing songs about his own life or surreal imagery, he writes about other people – most notably around the month of February when he writes valentines songs on his fans’ behalf. ‘Dream House’ encapsulates all of this and forms a collection of glorious tracks written for other people: “Every year, about 6 weeks before Valentine’s Day, I make the following post on social media: “If you send me the name of your Valentine, and the reason you love them, I’ll write a song for them on your behalf.” That is how Dream House was born, 3 years ago. Over the past three years, I have received over 300 requests from fans to write songs for their loved ones. All of the songs on Dream House come from this project, some of them have been reworked to speak more to the artist’s life, others have remained exactly as they were first written. Ultimately, this is an album about caring for others, and the way we express it.” Written and recorded at the start of 2021 in NYC, ‘Dream House’ is slightly reminiscent of The Strokes and even has hints of Lou Reed, however the project is still quintessential JW Francis with its blissful melodies and dreamy instrumentation; perfectly fitting given the album’s title. Along with the announcement comes ‘Casino’, a track about pursuing your dreams, as JW explains, “This song is about taking a gamble on myself as a musician, quitting my job, and living the life I want to be living. The video explores the two lives I was living before I got the opportunity to follow my dreams and doing music full time.” ‘Dream House’ follows the hugely well received ‘WANDERKID’ and ‘We Share a Similar Joy’ and once again proves why JW is the king of laid-back and effortlessly cool song-making.

With One Day, Fucked Up have delivered one of the most energizing and intricate albums of their career, a massive-sounding record that arrives in deceptively small confines. The Canadian hardcore legends have been known for their epic scale in the past, so it might be a surprise that Fucked Up’s sixth studio album is their shortest to date, written and recorded in the confines of one literal day (hence the title). Don’t mistake size for substance, though: The band’s sound has only gotten bigger, more hard-charging, with even denser thickets of melody. “I wanted to see what I could record in literally one day.” That singular idea came to mind for guitarist Mike Haliechuk in the closing months of 2019. Haliechuk got himself into a studio and proceeded to write and record the record’s ten tracks over three eight-hour sessions, reconnecting with the core the band’s songwriting essence in the process. Initially, Fucked Up vocalist Damian Abraham was also set to complete his vocals in similar fashion—that is, before the lockdowns of 2020 took place. As it turns out, the isolation yielded creative dividends, as Abraham returned to contributing lyrics as well for the first time since 2014’s Glass Boys. “It almost felt like it might be the last time I’d ever get to record vocals for anything,” Abraham says of the stakes he felt while putting his part to tape, before reflecting on how he approached the lyrical process: “What do I want to say to friends who aren’t here anymore? What do I want to say to myself?” Over swarms of tuneful noise that evoke Sonic Youth circa Daydream Nation, Abraham lets loose on gentrification in “Lords of Kensington,” which was inspired by an “incredible” Toronto neighborhood that was regularly subject to life-ruining police surveillance and structural violence. “The police chief during that era he just opened a cannabis store,” Abraham explains. “It’s so cynical and gross, what society has come to but by being in a band, we’re culpable in changing the neighborhood, too, since the punk spaces and cool happenings that pop up are part of gentrification. Are you building a culture? Or are you ruining something that’s already been there?” Then there’s the dusky burn of “Cicada,” a sonic cousin to Dose Your Dreams’ excellent standout “The One I Want Will Come for Me” that features Haliechuk taking lead-vocal duty. The song is dedicated to lost friends, and in his words, it’s about “what life is like after you lose people, and our responsibility to carry them forward into the future, using the things they taught us as a light. I like to imagine the sound of cicadas as a metaphor for our strange life in the subculture we all just live these weird little hidden lives under the dirt, and then once in a generation, one of us gets to bust out of the dirt and intone their song so loud that it can be heard all over.” One Day is an undeniable work of confidence from a band that continues to operate at the top of their game, making music that’s guaranteed to last a lifetime and beyond.

"One Day" ist eines der energiegeladensten und komplexesten Alben der kanadischen Hardcore-Legende Fucked Up, obwohl es nur 10 Songs enthält. Fucked Up waren in der Vergangenheit eher für ihre epischen Auswüchse bekannt, von gewaltigen Konzept-Alben bis hin zu 12-stündigen Konzerten - es mag also überraschen, dass ihr sechstes Studio-Album ihr bisher kürzestes ist, geschrieben und aufgenommen innerhalb eines einzigen Tages - was dem Album auch den Titel gab. Man sollte nun aber nicht Spiellänge mit Substanz verwechseln: Der Sound der Band ist nur noch größer geworden, noch härter, mit noch dichterem Melodie-Dickicht. Das Album klingt vollmundig und unmittelbar, mit Musik, die brutal und leidenschaftlich rüberkommt, so wie sie nur Fucked Up machen können. Die Gitarren klingen gigantisch und die musikalische Abenteuerlust, die das epische, üppige "Dose Your Dreams" von 2018 kennzeichnete, ist auch hier sehr präsent. "One Day" ist ein unbestreitbares Werk der Zuversicht von einer Band, die weiterhin auf höchstem Niveau agiert und Musik macht, die garantiert ein Leben lang, und darüber hinaus, hält.

Clear Vinyl

"One Day" ist eines der energiegeladensten und komplexesten Alben der kanadischen Hardcore-Legende Fucked Up, obwohl es nur 10 Songs enthält. Fucked Up waren in der Vergangenheit eher für ihre epischen Auswüchse bekannt, von gewaltigen Konzept-Alben bis hin zu 12-stündigen Konzerten - es mag also überraschen, dass ihr sechstes Studio-Album ihr bisher kürzestes ist, geschrieben und aufgenommen innerhalb eines einzigen Tages - was dem Album auch den Titel gab. Man sollte nun aber nicht Spiellänge mit Substanz verwechseln: Der Sound der Band ist nur noch größer geworden, noch härter, mit noch dichterem Melodie-Dickicht. Das Album klingt vollmundig und unmittelbar, mit Musik, die brutal und leidenschaftlich rüberkommt, so wie sie nur Fucked Up machen können. Die Gitarren klingen gigantisch und die musikalische Abenteuerlust, die das epische, üppige "Dose Your Dreams" von 2018 kennzeichnete, ist auch hier sehr präsent. "One Day" ist ein unbestreitbares Werk der Zuversicht von einer Band, die weiterhin auf höchstem Niveau agiert und Musik macht, die garantiert ein Leben lang, und darüber hinaus, hält.

Hailing from Brussels, Bandler Ching is a creation of musical ideas from composer and saxophonist Ambroos De Schepper (Kosmo Sound, Azmari and Mos Ensemble).

Flawlessly blending contemporary jazz, electronics, trap, hip-hop and global beats, the sound is based around the freedom of expression and improvisation and performed with astounding conviction. With the help of Alan Van Rompuy (Azertyklavierwerke), Federico Pecoraro (ECHT!) and Olivier Penu (Kel Assouf), the four idiosyncratic artists come together to express their musical identity to dazzling effect.

After a period of exploration, the quartet are set to release their debut album 'Coaxial' on the 27th January, via the groove-obsessed Sdban Ultra label. A hypnotic trip through each band members' musical fantasies, the band have their roots in jazz. "We start from Jazz and we give it our own attitude with improvisation and a lot of freedom and eventually mix it with influences such as electronics, beats, hip-hop etc," says De Schepper.

From the free-spirited beauty of 'You Call It' and pulsating, loose beats of 'Awpril' to the luminous 'Dag na Naamdag' inspired by warm winter memories and wild summer dreams, De Schepper gives the sax a new place in its musical sphere. The album title refers to the band members' various musical influences that coalesce around one artistic centre. That centre is 'Coaxial' - a distinct sound with a clear identity, yet versatile and difficult to catergorise.

Elsewhere, the bass-heavy 'RoodGroen' features Vieze Meisje (performer Maya Mertens) while the sonoric mayhem of 'Smooch' mutates without border - mischievous, dynamic and unpredictable at the same time. 'Rave Fever' is rich cataclysm of sound and rhythm while the intriguing 'You Have Got Me' and album closer 'Kitsune' showcase the magnetic soundings of Bandler Ching.

Chaos & Colour, the energetic and triumphant 25th studio album from British hard rock legends and progenators Uriah Heep, bristles with explosive classic rock guitars, supreme harmonies, and Heep’s famously generous keyboard foundation.

Led by founding member Mick Box, it is no surprise that themes of light, love and, ultimately, positivity are constant through the eleven tracks. Opener “Save Me Tonight” shows the band’s weighty yet blistering chops, whilst “One Nation, One Sun” is a journey of soaring balladic contemplation.

“Fly Like An Eagle” emanates magic and mystery in a way that the late, great Ronnie James Dio would have heartily approved, and “Closer To Your Dreams” is a battle cry for all rockers to get out there and do it, with Shaw imploring that “So many have tried but slipped away/Now it’s time for you to have your say.” Throughout the album, Bernie Shaw’s timeless vocals are expertly supported by keyboardist Phil Lanzon, bassist Dave Rimmer and Box, with Russell Gilbrook on drums rounding out exceptional performances throughout.

Produced at Chapel Studios by Jay Ruston, and engineered by Pieter Rietkirk, Chaos & Colour is a superb album of quality hard rock from the pioneers of the genre who continue to create top class material. Old fans will be reinvigorated whilst new fans will surely find Chaos & Colour an exceptional discovery.

Chaos & Colour will be available to pre-order from November 4, in Black and Coloured Vinyl configurations, as a standard CD Digipak, a Deluxe CD packaged in a hardcover book with Uriah Heep’s Chaos & Colour signature patch and in digital formats.

 ‘Silent World’ is perhaps the most personal album
of drummer, composer and bandleader Wolfgang
Haffner yet.
 A master of clarity, focus, and reduction,
accompanied by Dominic Miller, Nils Landgren, Till
Brönner, Bill Evans, Rhani Krija, and many more.
 ‘Silent World’ is about the essentials of being
human, a message which Haffner signals clearly
with concise track titles such as ‘The Peace
Inside’, ‘Hope’ or ‘Belief’. Sometimes we’re in the
world of hymns, sometimes of dreams, but there is
always a melody to be grasped and a pulse to be
felt, and those points of reference give a basis for
the listener to focus and to enjoy the music
thoroughly.

Hot release alert!!! For the next release on Best Record, the storied Italo institution delivers its first original artist album in over 40 years, as Raffaele "Whodamanny" Arcella joins forces with Cosimo "Cosmo" Mandorino for a suite of dancefloor dreamspells called 'Fantasy'. Working under the name CHOP - short for Channel Operators - the duo craft colorized confections of magical motion and ecstatic energy, with atmospheres of infectious disco, future-gazing funk, wavey pop balearica, and booty boppin' boogie beat intermingling, and further enhanced by layers of dub sorcery and saxophonic sunshine. It's a celebratory and soaring adventure of warmth, whimsy, and wonderment, one that pays brilliant homage to the deep history of Neapolitan dance music, while ever forging new paths into the uncharted beyond. Limited edition vinyl release!! Future classic.

The increasingly vital Jorkes makes a big step up to the acclaimed Live at Robert Johnson label with her standout Sweet Dreams EP. As with all Jorkes EPs, the artwork features photography shot by Daniel Rajcsanyi.

Jorkes has been making big and bold moves recently. She is the co-founder of the unique Freeride Millenium label which is a hotbed for queer dance music. German-born but Austria based, she has an influential residency at Radio 80000 alongside ParisBöhm and is a resident at Stuttgart's Romantica where she plays a thrilling mix of disco, house, techno and everything in between. She is someone who always serves to highlight the importance of the dance floor as a place of sexual and cultural liberation and this new EP is another innovative statement that comes as she rides a wave of high profile radio, DJ and media support for recent outings on her own label.

Opener 'You Will be Mine' is a song about obsessing after an unattainable stranger on the dance floor who disappears into the night. It's a silky disco house sound with chords that sing and a floating bassline that lifts you off your feet. The melodic motifs bring charm and cosmic energy and the whole track has a lush, musical feel. The equally excellent 'Robot Lover' muses on human detachment in this technological era of internet porn, dating apps and screen obsessions and how a robotic lover might be a better fit than a real life partner. It is another elastic and disco-tinged rhythm, with elegant chords and dancing keys over a suspensory bassline. Intimate vocal whispers bring tenderness to this timeless track.

On the flip side, 'Sweet Dreams' layers up infectious claps and tinny percussion over an irresistible deep house groove. It's a widescreen, symphonic sound that brings very real but subtle joy and closer 'CDEvaLo' is the name of a crossdressing male-to-female and sex-worker friend of Jorkes. She sings the introduction lyrics in Greek and they translate as "It was a very beautiful day, while we were sitting at the park we thought of going out for a coffee and realized we have no money and are absolutely broke. So we discussed about who is gonna put the wig on to "go and make a visit“ Greek slang for sex work so we'll have money again." It is a comment on the number of young people who arrived in Athens over the years to do cross-dressing sex work after being kicked out by their Orthodox Christian homes. The track flips the script with a more playful disco sound, characterful vocoder vocals and glossy synths over a jacked house beat.

This is an expansive EP that shows off the different sides to Jorkes's unique sound.

THE FRIIMEN MUZIK COMPANY (also known as FRIIMEN) was formed after the Biafran war in 1973-1974 in the town of ABA in the eastern part of Nigeria. Aba was the Number 1 Music Hub in the entire Eastern Region of Nigeria. While bands and artists like ‘Ofege’ and ‘Fela Kuti’ ruled the LAGOS scene, bands like ‘Friimen’ and ‘The Apostles’ were ruling the ABA scene. Before forming the band, most of its members were already working together as freelance session musicians backing up solo artists on several recordings and concerts (or were playing in military bands that gradually became civilian bands because the war had just ended). FRIIMEN members’ credits were numerous and they played, wrote or performed on recordings from well-known acts like The Funkees, The Jets, The Apostles…and countless others. When they started concentrating on writing their own songs, the group instantly took off and became an overnight hit that resulted in them doing multiple successful nationwide tours. FRIIMEN would go on to record three albums: Free Man (1976), We Can Get It On (1978) and Merry Man (1979). All three albums were released on the Aba based label Anodisc Records (THE key label to be on if you wanted your music heard and out there), Anodisc also released hit records by ‘Sweet Unit’ and ‘Voice Of The Cross’ but The Friimen Muzik Company was the label’s signature band. The album we are presenting you today (Free Man from 1976) was recorded at the famous Decca Studios in Lagos and comes swinging right out of the gate with a set of no less than EIGHT monster tunes. Expect nothing less than crazy afrobeat and over the top melodic funk influenced by a wide array of artists (both local and international). Mesmerizing solos, captivating grooves, impeccable sequences that turned many heads…everything you need to get a dancehall into a complete uproar. The musicians’ skills are just plain incredible! FREE MAN is a quintessential record that every serious collector or fan needs to have in his/her collection.

LIXTP, the collaboration between Love International Recordings and the Test Pressing website, yields its second release following 2021’s label debut from Fantastic Man.

This time it falls to Test Pressing founder Paul Byrne AKA Apiento to open 2023’s account with the simmering ‘Escape Reality’ EP.

Having carved out a prestigious career over the years, as A&R for Junior Boys Own, International Feel and Test Pressing labels, and releasing his own Apiento productions on Music For Dreams, World Unknown and World Building, Apiento goes in deep across six tracks of esoteric electronica and transcendental dance.

The influence of Detroit techno can be found in the complex drum work and dreamy synths of tracks like ‘Those Busy Circuits’ and ‘Axis’, whilst hedonistic dance vibes are served up on ‘Everything Move’. Presenting a broad palette of moods and tones, Apiento delivers an allencompassing release for lovers of the real electronic groove.

‘Escape Reality” by Apiento is released on Love International Recordings/Test Pressing from 10th February 2023.

Whether intentional or not, Philadelphia’s Circa Survive have become experts on that critical second word of their band name. With six full-length records and three EPs behind them, the beloved alt-prog/post-hardcore giants are entering their 17th year together amid global upheaval and personal renaissance, creating together while navigating through one of the most unstable chapters in American history. It’s a necessarily existential period, where that one imperative rises to the top: survive.
In early 2020, the band was forced to reschedule the tenth anniversary tour for their ground-breaking 2010 LP Blue Sky Noise. Pushing off the tour—now slated for 2022—and delaying plans for a new record has ushered in a new chapter for Circa Survive.

Two Dreams, the forthcoming seventh full-length record from Philadelphia’s Circa Survive, is a project of dual realities in both theory and practice. The 12-track record comprises two individual six-song EPs, titled A Dream About Love and A Dream About Death. The dreams in question aren’t the idyllic material of sleep, but a much more tangible, dark surrealism. They’re the twin experiences of vocalist Anthony Green after relapsing and overdosing on heroin during the writing of the album.

With Two Dreams, Circa Survive aims higher in both collective spirit and individual practice. After nearly two decades of international tours and festival mainstages, the band has regrouped to protect one another and their work. They’re playing the long-game. “I want to make 100 more records,” laughs Green. But now, the goal isn't to simply survive. It’s to thrive.

Paranoid and lazy, never knowing who is your friend and who is just
watching a screen, never really hungry and never satisfied - Fever Dreams
and Daymares of Family Dinners with the network news so loud you can
hear the white noise pop like firecrackers
Floating through this dimension on the path of least resistance, unnoticed and
unbothered til you're old enough to die. The pitiful fantasy of having people cry at
your funeral, while your spirit watches from the rafters. Feeling lost in your body
like a ghost under a bed sheet.
Fourth Dimension Intervention, by The Homeless Gospel Choir, was recorded over
five days in August 2021 at The Lodge KY by John Hoffman. It's the first album to
feature all five members of the band, the first self produced album, and the first
full length to be released by Don Giovanni. Pressed on Seaglass Blue color vinyl.

-4 Songs from Upcoming Albums. -Pressed at 45 RPM for High Fidelity. -Strictly limited to 150 copies. Top 4 features four songs from four forthcoming LP's on the Cold Busted label. To start the series off we have beats from label favorites Sim Nagai, Mister T., and Emapea plus two artists who were recently signed to the label: Goodge and MichRyc. Sim's latest album, Equator Hotline, features exotica-fueled beatscapes and transportive vibes. The equator itself is breached on "Deep in the Rainforest" as busy percussion playfully accompanies the downtempo drum beat. Goodge's jazz-funk dreamscape is sonically interpreted through the grooves in tracks like "Heart of the City" from the forthcoming album Echoes of Yesteryear. Here, cool electric piano keys, a snazzy saxophone, and scratchy guitar are buoyed by an uptempo drum track that transmits a cool inner city feel. MichRyc's friend Emapea helps out with "Monkeys in the Jungle," from Under the Surface, a deep instrumental hip hop cut that almost sounds influenced by Saharan guitar bands like Mdou Moctar. Mister T. returns to Cold Busted with Synchronized Roots, another fantastic album encompassing the many styles of the prolific producer. "Looking Above" continues on a dubby tip, delivering a more heady and smoked-out feel. Each record is limited and pressed at 45 RPM with two tracks on each side for maximum fidelity.

The old adage about Elvis Presley is that his soundtrack work never held a candle next to his studio albums. Though true for a majority of his film-related outings, the traditional notion is forever disproved by his Blue Hawaii set. Originally released in 1961 in support of the film in which he starred, the triple-platinum LP spent nearly five months at the top of the Billboard album charts; outsold his two prior studio efforts; and ultimately, remains the second-best-selling soundtrack of the musical-dominant 1960s. And now, it has received sonic treatment befitting rock royalty.

Recorded before the King started to burn out on soundtracks and go into a creative tailspin, Blue Hawaii presents him in tremendous voice. The newly uncovered layers of detail, body, emotionalism, and tonality on this SACD bring that treasured element – as well as the brilliance of the arrangements and accompaniment – to light like never before. Presley's warm crooning alone warrants unmitigated attention. It's not for nothing that this record – replete with panache, whimsy, romance, and seriousness – forever altered the course of his career.

Much like the film itself, the music on Blue Hawaii subscribes to a feel-good aesthetic. Presley plunges into a stylistic deep end with equal parts fearlessness and fun. He delves into early rock ‘n' roll ("Rock-A-Hula Baby"); touching balladry ("Hawaiian Wedding Song"); playful rumba ("Beach Boy Blues"); relaxing luaus ("Hawaiian Sunset"); and naturally, island-inspired fare ("Ku-U-I-Po"). It becomes immediately evident that the King is enjoying himself and committed to the mission. Is Blue Hawaii all serious art? No, but it was never intended to be. Rather, it serves as a showcase of Presley's outgoing personality and chameleon-like ability – like that of Frank Sinatra – to inhabit different roles and entertain.

Of course, Blue Hawaii remains timeless for another reason: The inclusion of the timeless, gorgeous, and still-untouchable staple "Can't Help Falling in Love." Penned by Hugo Peretti, Luigi Creatore, and George David Weiss, the love song quickly transformed into an international standard – with Presley's definitive version hitting No. 2 on the charts and ultimately becoming the closing song to his concerts. Ranked among the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time by Rolling Stone, its conviction, sentiment, and depth testify on behalf of why Presley still reigns as the King.

However subtly, the staple also underscores another reason Blue Hawaii should never be overlooked in Presley's canon: the ace musicians involved in its creation. Guitarists Scotty Moore and Hank Garland; drummer D.J. Fontana; percussionist Hal Blaine; pianist Floyd Cramer; bassist Bob Moore; and iconic gospel backing vocalists the Jordanaires all contribute masterful performances. Hearing them with such expressiveness, openness, and realism on this 2LP 45RPM & SACD should forever alter how Presley's 1961 soundtrack – the finest of his career – is viewed. As he sings in the title track, dreams come true, indeed.

More than one of Jack's many nicknames, Zagg is also a shout out to her
uncanny ability to select an unanticipated word or musical flourish, her
disarming poetic acumen, her ability to zoom in and out at lightning
speed and spin a phrase into a mantra, or the opposite of a mantra
Each song on this record is its own unique little world, keeping a listener
delightfully off-kilter throughout the entire affair.
Opening track 'FMK' operates likes a sonic thesis statement. For a quiet moment,
Jackie's confessing her recurring mother-in-law dreams and initiating a suddendeath round of Fuck Marry Kill. Then on a dime she somersaults into rocket-pop
posture, ready to cut loose and head to the movies with her best boogie- boy:
'Let's go to the movies and dance a little…you can share my Twizzler…Let's go to
the movies, you can dance at the movies!!!' The charging, industrial pop of 'Get
Out' is augmented with punching strings that are both lovely and foreboding. In
the lithe, Rickie Lee Jones-nodding 'Yesterday's Baby,' a giant foot-shaped cloud
looms in the mouth- shaped sky and Jackie gets microscopic — 'Why don't you
just let it burn out/Toss that glass of wine out/Stamp that Camel Light out/Shut
your mouth up shut up your mouth.' After a few more dances, deep diaphragmatic
breaths, and Blood on the Tracks winking ballads, knock-out marathon track 'Keep
Runner' gives it straight to some Wile E. Coyote tomfool who's out getting his butt
blown up again." The energy of the record, I think, comes from finding out Patti
Smith didn't make Horses until she was 29. Extremely influential Wiki experience.
Oh, and Adam Green, my all- time favorite songwriter and artist, painted me
looking like a doctrinal seer peering into a cartoon mirror for the cover.
Pressed on Transparent Yellow color vinyl.

Dead Dreams Don’t Die vol 1 marks the inception of Half Grand Records, a label focused on no-frills, raw talent electronic music. This artefact contains new output from several members of legendary Borft Records. Nimam (Spregleda) gives us a riotous and exuberant Drum and Bass banger that will have your teeth jingling. Jon Doppler’s signals transform from searing blasts of psychedelia to soaring synths that will make you pine for days of yore. A Stantz drops some body music that's equal parts acid and mosh pit. The closing track is by a group specific to the label; Cracktros. Cracktros is a collaborative group project that will continue to grow as more artists join the HG fold. With this number, the collective explores fantastic textures in this riveting deep house ditty. Keep your eyes peeled on this label.

John Holt has one of the finest and most versatile voices to come out of Jamaica.Whether fronting the great vocal group 'The Paragons' which he joined around 1965,singing many of their greatest hits including'Tide is High','On the Beach','Wear You to the Ball' to name but a few or his extensive solo career.A career that saw him covering every musical style from Pop,Lovers,Soul and his much overlooked Roots period.

John Holt (b.1947,Kingston,Jamaica) was a child prodigy he began his career being a regular voice on talent contests run by Vera Johns across the Jamaican Island.He cut his first single in 1963 for Leslie Kong's Beverly's label,'I Cried a Tear/Forever I'll Stay' and sang many duets with various singers of the day including 'Rum Bumper' with Aton Ellis.
In 1965 to 1970 as stated above was John Holts Paragon years in a period which he also ran solo with hits such as 'Fancy Make Up','A Love I Can Feel' and 'Lets Build Our Dreams'.
For this release we are looking at his extremely productive period working with Bunny'Striker'Lee.This reissue of John Holts classic1976 album 'Before The Next Tear Drop' is an album filled with classic after classic sung by Mr.Holt effortlessly.....
Hope you enjoy visiting these tracks....

Landmarks and milestones are always memorable, but the 50th EP release on FUSE feels that little bit more special as head honcho Enzo Siragusa steps up to the mark and returns for the second time this year. Having launched the label in 2011 with his now iconic ‘The Sagamore’ EP, the renowned selector and producer has grown and shaped the FUSE from a Sunday after-hours to one of the most notable names within house and techno worldwide - anchoring the label at the heart of its identity and bringing its trademark sound to an international audience. Following material from original residents Rich NxT, Rossko, Seb Zito and Archie Hamilton through to regular guests and close friends such as Guti, East End Dubs, Michael James and Fabe, October sees Siragusa showcase both his and FUSE’s evolution over the past decade as he uncovers two bustling productions across his ‘Dreamscape’ EP.

A production oozing with his signature sound, yet introducing fresh subtleties in amongst the track’s snaking groove and hypnotic melodies, ‘Dreamscape’ welcomes a title cut full of energy as the FUSE boss picks up right where he left off to provide yet more heavily requested material on home turf. On the flip, ‘Bean That Talks’ sees Siragusa get playful while maintaining the vigour of his bustling live sets, combining chunky low-ends with skippy percussion and rich pads to showcase precisely why he and FUSE continue to flourish as leaders of a sound that they can truly call their own.