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José González has delivered a new album, Against the Dying of the Light, a companion and further meditation on the themes of his critically acclaimed album, Local Valley. Where Local Valley turned inward toward place, language, and personal reflection, this new record widens its gaze, becoming an urgent call to preserve the light of humanity with all its flaws, at a moment when, technology increasingly shapes how we think, feel, and relate to one another.

While José has always embraced technological advancement, he questions the assumption that every new possibility must be pursued to its maximum potential, especially when progress comes at the expense of human flourishing, attention, and empathy.

Keeping in the tradition of folk music as protest, José’s new single — sharing its title with the forthcoming album — urges listeners to resist systems that dehumanize and divide: “Disconnect from every algorithm, every perverse incentive that drags you down. Let’s rebel against the replicators, against the dying of the light. Kill the codes that feed the hate, keep the codes that make you thrive, celebrate the **king fact that we’re alive.”

Across the album, González works within a deliberately minimal framework, pushing his familiar palette to new heights through subtle variation, restraint, and detail. Each song unfolds with its own distinct character, proving how much emotional and musical range can be achieved within self - imposed limitations. Written in English, Swedish, and Spanish, the record reflects his Swedish - Argentine roots and frames its humanist message as a global one rather than a purely personal or political statement.

José González is one of the most quietly influential artists of our generation. The Swedish - Argentine artist has built a singular musical world from hypnotic, minimal guitar work and his unmistakably gentle voice — a sound that has become deeply personal to millions of listeners worldwide. With billions of streams across platforms and hundreds of thousands of physical records sold, González’s songs often act as emotional landmarks. Ask almost anyone, and they can name at least one of his tracks tied to a defining moment in their lives.

Remixed With Love has set the benchmark for disco reworks for over a decade, with Dave Lee universally recognised as the most trusted name in the field when it comes to respectfully updating dancefloor classics from the original multi-tracks.

With original vinyl editions long deleted and constant demand from DJs and collectors, this brand-new one-off, vinyl-only release has been made possible via a fresh licensing deal with Sony Music, allowing eight of the most requested mixes from the catalogue to be pressed together for the first time.

This is not a repress; it is a bespoke, limited selection, and once the pressing has sold through, it cannot be repeated.

The cycle of life and nature is a precious and wondrous thing. We are born. We learn. We live. We die. And after death, another life awaits. When the world succumbs to the cold, dark grasp of winter, the promise of a spring birthing everything anew keeps hope alive. Such is the journey we make, and such is the lifespan of “Faþir”. Heaving, pulsating, filled with contrasts: ardent hostility and fiery revenge, blossoming life and lush fertility, soul-wrenching grief and deep anguish. Such is the path we walk under the guidance of the deities – the helping hand of a father, the nurturing wisdom in times of need. But sometimes, a treacherous god leads us into death and despair, albeit always with an underlying purpose. Such is “Faþir”.

With eloquence, elegance, and emotion, L. Swärd has created another monolith of sublime art to add to Forndom’s impeccable discography. This highly awaited follow-up to 2016’s “Dauðra Dura” is nothing short of a modern masterpiece, rooted in ancient ways. Expressive vocals and strings soar atop a foundation of unyielding drums, like spirits dancing in the skies yet bound to the human pulse. Never surrendering its strong connection to our mortal world, “Faþir” carries a deeply sacred dimension – a glimpse of the divine, seen through a lens of devotion and veracity. The joining of death and life, if you will.

The thick atmospheres and vast inner landscapes Forndom creates are more prevalent than ever, and from the first trembling string introduction of “Jakten” to the last wistful beat of “Hemkomst”, one is transported to another time, another place, and another mindset – leaving behind the calamity, stress, and superficiality of the modern world, and rediscovering the lost wisdom hidden behind the veil of passing years.

Born into a musical family Al Manfredi started writing songs when he was child. As a teenager in 1965, he formed the Nuts & Bolts in the small beach town of San Clemente, California. Inspired by the Kinks, the Beatles and the Byrds, the group separated themselves from the pack by also performing original material written by Manfredi and band mate Mike Ingram. In late 1966 they changed their name to the Lost & Found and relocated to Phoenix, Arizona, where they cut a rare single, “Don’t Move Girl” b/w “To Catch the Sun,” which now commands high coin from ‘60s garage collectors. When they returned to San Clemente in early 1967 their music had taken a more psychedelic direction. The Lost & Found were riding high that year, until tragedy struck. Ingram was found hanged under suspicious circumstances and soon after Lost & Found drummer Mike Ryer died of cancer at the age of 19. Heartbroken, Manfredi gave up on the band scene completely and moved to Garden Grove to teach at his family’s music store. But alone, behind closed doors, he kept writing songs and working on his music, recording hours of tapes, often tracking all the instruments himself. In 1973 he chose six of his best songs, some of them written back in the Lost & Found days, and had them custom-pressed as an LP. Only a handful of copies were pressed, and most of these were sent out to various record companies in the hope of landing a deal. Despite the outstanding quality of the music, there were no takers. But decades later, collectors discovered the Al Manfredi album and hailed it a West Coast rock masterpiece. In his Acid Archives book, Patrick Lundborg called its discovery a deus ex machina and compared it to David Crosby’s first solo album and Hawaii-era Merrell Fankhauser, “not just the acutely captured mellowness, but the self-confidence and the talent.”This little-known West Coast rock masterpiece was rediscovered and celebrated by Acid Archives founder Patrick Lundborg and others around the time that Manfredi died in 1995. This version of the album, overseen by Manfredi’s son Exile, and with Manfredi’s story told by Ugly Things’ founder Mike Stax, presents the complete package of an incredible lost and found artist. Contains the album, as originally issued, on side A with unreleased music on side B.

Orange Vinyl with exclusive illustrated notes/lyric insert ltd to 300 w/w.“Zimmerman conjures up a kind of Arcadian folk surrealism that is utterly his own” MOJO Never released before collection featuring Ian A Anderson & Maggie Holland recorded 72-80 is among Tucker’s finest - Free-ranging, Playful, Intimate - his Songpoet imagination unbound and in full bloom now on colour Vinyl for first time with (exclusive to this version) illustrated lyric insert with notes from Tucker.Recorded between 1972-80 this is the first ever release for ‘I Wonder If I’ll Ever Come True’ a stunningly beautiful, homegrown collection by Songpoet Tucker Zimmerman and friends. The range and depth is astonishing. From the heady surreal journey of ‘It All Depends’ Upon the Pleasure Man’, to the uplifting Gene Clark-esque 'So It Goes’, to some of his most beautiful & touching love songs in ‘Let’s Start Over Again’ & ‘Song’. Only one song has seen the the light of day before now - ‘Taoist Tale’ from his 1984 album ‘Word Games’. This recording from a decade earlier loses no power in its folkier stripped down style driven by Tucker’s strong narrative.

While living in bucolic seclusion in Belgium with Marie-Claire, Tucker invited visiting musicians (Derroll Adams, Wizz Jones, Maggie Holland, Dave Evans, Ian Anderson) into his home studio to play and live tape whatever songs he had at hand. Maggie Holland and Ian A Anderson feature, while Tucker found a freeing simplicity in just guitar, ’70s organ, bass and piano. We are so grateful to Ian A Anderson, who carefully kept and curated these recordings from 50 years ago. “Every time I would leave, Tucker would hand me another tape full of songs”. Ian worked with Tucker and ourselves to present this wonderful album. The collection is among Tucker’s finest - free-ranging, playful, intimate - his Songpoet imagination unbound and in full bloom. The ethos, the playing, the freedom, feels like Ronnie Lane’s time in the Welsh Borders. Unhurried, liberated, down-home and cosmic. Extraordinary music made among friends.
"Startling collection of intimate, home-recorded songs from the cult singer-songwriter adored by David Bowie and Big Thief alike.

When I first interviewed Tucker Zimmerman back in 2015 neither of us had any idea that, a decade later, he would be venerated by a new coterie of young fans, touring with maximal folk-rockers Big Thief and recipient of a concerted reissue campaign by the wonderful Big Potato Records. Last year I eulogised the “Arcadian folk surrealism” of his 1974 LP *Over Here In Europe but, if anything, this informal collection of intimate home-studio recordings is even better. Recorded between 1973 and 76 whilst living in Belgium and hosting such visiting folk musicians as Derroll Adams, Wizz Jones, Maggie Holland, Dave Evans, and Ian A. Anderson this is the kind of assured, organic freewheeling folk music that has the mellow, introspective rough-edged feel of some lost private-press LP, the kind rightly revered by Endless Boogie’s Paul Majors as “real people” music. A true find.” Andrew Male MOJO 4/5
“Here's a charming oddity: an unreleased album dating from the mid-Seventies by an American-born songwriter beloved of David Bowie and, more recently, Adrianne Lenker of the folk-rock band Big Thief. Zimmerman's a bohemian type who eschewed the big time for a life of gigging around Europe. He, his wife, Marie-Claire, and a handful of friends recorded these songs in seclusion in the Belgian countryside, and what songs they are. Slide On could have come from the Byrds when they discovered country music, Let's Start Over Again captures the dreamlike experience of being in love with unsettling clarity. This is a real unearthed gem.” 4/5 The Times

UILTY RAZORS, BONA FIDE PUNKS.



Writings on the topic that go off in all directions, mind-numbing lectures given by academics, and testimonies, most of them heavily doctored, from those who “lived through that era”: so many people today fantasize about the early days of punk in our country… This blessed moment when no one had yet thought of flaunting a ridiculous green mohawk, taking Sid Vicious as a hero, or – even worse – making the so-called alternative scene both festive and boorish. There was no such thing in 1976 or 1977, when it wasn’t easy to get hold of the first 45s by the Pistols or the Clash. Few people were aware of what was happening on the fringes of the fringes at the time. Malcolm McLaren was virtually unknown, and having short hair made you seem strange. Who knew then that rock music, which had taken a very bad turn since the early 1970s, would once again become an essential element of liberation? That, thanks to short and fast songs, it would once again rediscover that primitive, social side that was so hated by older generations? Who knew that, besides a few loners who read the music press (it was even better if they read it in English) and frequented the right record stores? Many of these formed bands, because it was impossible to do otherwise. We quickly went from listening to the Velvet Underground to trying to play the Stooges’ intros. It’s a somewhat collective story, even though there weren’t many people to start it.
The Guilty Razors were among those who took part in this initial upheaval in Paris. They were far from being the worst. They had something special and even released a single that was well above the national average. They also had enough songs to fill an album, the one you’re holding. In everyone’s opinion, they were definitely not among the punk impostors that followed in their wake. They were, at least, genuine and credible.

Guilty Razors, Parisian punk band (1975-1978). To understand something about their somewhat linear but very energetic sound, we might need to talk about the context in which it was born and, more broadly, recall the boredom (a theme that would become capital in punk songs) coupled with the desire to blow everything off, which were the basis for the formation of bands playing a rejuvenated rock music ; about the passion for a few records by the Kinks or the early Who, by the Stooges, by the Velvet mostly, which set you apart from the crowd.
And of course, we should remember this new wave, which was promoted by a few articles in the specialized press and some cutting-edge record stores, coming from New York or London, whose small but powerful influence could be felt in Paris and in a handful of isolated places in the provinces, lulled to sleep by so many appalling things, from Tangerine Dream to President Giscard d’Estaing...
In 1975-76, French music was, as almost always, in a sorry state ; it was still dominated by Johnny Hallyday and Sylvie Vartan. Local rock music was also rather bleak, apart from Bijou and Little Bob who tried to revive this small scene with poorly sound-engineered gigs played to almost no one.
In the working class suburbs at the time, it was mainly hard rock music played to 11 that helped people forget about their gruelling shifts at the factory. Here and there, on the outskirts of major cities, you still could find a few rockers with sideburns wearing black armbands since the death of Gene Vincent, but it wasn’t a proper mass movement, just a source of real danger to anyone they came across who wasn't like them. In August 1976, a festival unlike any other took place in Mont-de-Marsan – the First European Punk Festival as the poster said – with almost as many people on stage as in the audience. Yet, on that day, a quasi historical event happened, when, under the blazing afternoon sun, a band of unknowns called The Damned made an unprecedented noise in the arena, reminiscent of the chaotic Stooges in their early adolescence. They were the first genuine punk band to perform in our country: from then on, anything was possible, almost anything seemed permissible.

It makes sense that the four+1 members of Guilty Razors, who initially amplified acoustic guitars with crappy tape recorder microphones, would adopt punk music (pronounced paink in French) naturally and instinctively, since it combines liberating noise with speed of execution and – crucially – a very healthy sense of rebellion (the protesters of May 1968 proclaimed, and it was even a slogan, that they weren’t against old people, but against what had made them grow old. In the mid-1970s, it seemed normal and obvious that old people should now ALSO be targeted!!!).
At the time, the desire to fight back, and break down authority and apathy, was either red or black, often taking the form of leafleting, tumultuous general assemblies in the schoolyard, and massive or shabby demonstrations, most of the time overflowing with an exciting vitality that sometimes turned into fights with the riot police. Indeed, soon after the end of the Vietnam War and following Pinochet’s coup in Chile, all over France, Trotskyist and anarcho-libertarian fervour was firmly entrenched among parts of the educated youth population, who were equally rebellious and troublemakers whenever they had the chance. It should also be noted that when the single "Anarchy in the UK" was first heard, even though not many of us had access to it, both the title and its explosive sound immediately resonated with some of those troublemakers crying out for ANARCHY!!! Meanwhile, the left-wing majority still equated punks with reckless young neo-Nazis. Of course, the widely circulated photos in the mainstream press of Siouxsie Sioux with her swastikas didn’t necessarily help to win over the theorists of the Great Revolution. It took Joe Strummer to introduce The Clash as an anti-racist, anti-fascist and anti-ignorance band for the rejection of old-school revolutionaries to fade a little.

The Lycée Jean-Baptiste Say at Porte d’Auteuil, despite being located in the very posh and very exclusive 16th arrondissement of Paris, didn’t escape these "committed" upheavals, which doubled as the perfect outlet for the less timid members of this generation.
“Back then, politics were fun,” says Tristam Nada, who studied there and went on to become Guilty Razors’ frontman. “Jean-Baptiste was the leftist high-school in the neighbourhood. When the far right guys from the GUD came down there, the Communist League guys from elsewhere helped us fight them off.”
Anything that could challenge authority was fair game and of course, strikes for just about any reason would lead to increasingly frequent truancy (with a definitive farewell to education that would soon follow). Tristam Nada spent his 10th and 11th unfinished grades with José Perez, who had come from Spain, where his father, a janitor, had been sentenced to death by Franco. “José steered my tastes towards solid acts such as The Who. Like most teenagers, I had previously absorbed just about everything that came my way, from Yes to Led Zeppelin to Genesis. I was exploring… And then one day, he told me that he and his brother Carlos wanted to start a rock band.” The Perez brothers already played guitar. “Of course, they were Spanish!”, jokes their singer. “Then, somewhat reluctantly, José took up the bass and we were soon joined by Jano – who called himself Jano Homicid – who took up the rhythm guitar.” Several drummers would later join this core of not easily intimidated young guys who didn’t let adversity get the better of them.

The first rehearsals of the newly named Guilty Razors took place in the bedroom of a Perez aunt. There, the three rookies tried to cover a few standards, songs that often were an integral part of their lives. During a first, short gig, in front of a bewildered audience of tough old-school rockers, they launched into a clunky version of the Velvet Underground's “Heroin”. Challenge or recklessness? A bit of both, probably… And then, step by step, their limited repertoire expanded as they decided to write their own songs, sung in a not always very accurate or academic English, but who cared about proper grammar or the right vocabulary, since what truly mattered was to make the words sound as good as possible while playing very, very fast music? And spitting out those words in a language that left no doubt as to what it conveyed mattered as well.
Trying their hand a the kind of rock music disliked by most of the neighbourhood, making noise, being fiercely provocative: they still belonged to a tiny clique who, at this very moment, had chosen to impose this difference. And there were very few places in France or elsewhere, where one could witness the first stirrings of something that wasn’t a trend yet, let alone a movement.

In the provinces, in late 1976 or early 1977, there couldn’t be more than thirty record stores that were a bit more discerning than average, where you could hear this new kind of short-haired rock music called “punk”. The old clientele, who previously had no problem coming in to buy the latest McCartney or Aerosmith LP, now felt a little less comfortable there…
In Paris, these enlightened places were quite rare and often located nex to what would become the Forum des Halles, a big shopping mall. Between three aging sex workers, a couple of second-hand clothes shops, sellers of hippie paraphernalia and small fashion designers, the good word was loudly spread in two pioneering places – propagators of what was still only a new underground movement. Historically, the first one was the Open Market, a kind of poorly, but tastefully stocked cave. Speakers blasted out the sound of sixties garage bands from the Nuggets compilation (a crucial reference for José Perez) or the badly dressed English kids of Eddie and the Hot Rods. This black-painted den was opened a few years earlier by Marc Zermati, a character who wasn’t always in a sunny disposition, but always quite radical in his (good) choices and his opinions. He founded the independent label Skydog and was one of the promoters of the Mont-de-Marsan punk festivals. Not far from there was Harry Cover, another store more in tune with the new New York scene, which was amply covered in the house fanzine, Rock News (even though it was in it that the photos of the Sex Pistols were first published in France).
It was a favorite hang-out of the Perez brothers and Tristam Nada, as the latter explained. “It’s at Harry Cover’s that we first heard the Pistols and Clash’s 45s, and after that, we decided to start writing our first songs. If they could do it, so could we!”
The sonic shocks that were “Anarchy in the UK”, “White Riot” or the Buzzcocks’s EP, “Spiral Scratch” – which Guilty Razors' sound is reminiscent of – were soon to be amplified by an unparalleled visual shock. In April 1977, right after the release of their first LP, The Clash performed at the Palais des Glaces in Paris, during a punk night organised by Marc Zermati. For many who were there, it was the gig of a lifetime…
Of course, Guilty Razors and Tristam were in the audience: “That concert was fabulous… We Parisian punks were almost all dressed in black and white, with white shirts, skinny leather ties, bikers jackets or light jackets, etc. The Clash, on the other hand, wore colourful clothes. Well, the next day, at the Gibus, you’d spot everyone who had been at this concert, but they weren’t wearing anything black, they were all wearing colours.”

It makes sense to mention the Gibus club, as Guilty Razors often played there (sometimes in front of a hostile audience). It was also the only place in Paris that regularly scheduled new Parisian or Anglo-Saxon acts, such as Generation X, Siouxsie and the Banshees, the Slits, and Johnny Thunders who would become a kind of messed-up mascot for the venue. A little later, in 1978, the Rose Bonbon – formerly the Nashville – also attracted nightly owls in search of electric thrills… In 1977, the iconic but not necessarily excellent Asphalt Jungle often played at the Gibus, sometimes sharing the bill with Metal Urbain, the only band whose aura would later transcend the French borders (“I saw them as the French Sex Pistols,” said Geoff Travis, head of their British label Rough Trade). Already established in this small scene, Metal Urbain helped the young and restless Guilty Razors who had just arrived. Guitarist for Metal Urbain Hermann Schwartz remembers it: “They were younger than us, we were a bit like their mentors even if it’s too strong a word… At least they were credible. We thought they were good, and they had good songs which reminded of the Buzzcocks that I liked a lot. But at some point, they started hanging out with the Hells Angels. That’s when we stopped following them.”

The break-up was mutual, since, Guilty Razors, for their part, were shocked when they saw a fringe element of the audience at Metal Urbain concerts who repeatedly shouted “Sieg Heil” and gave Nazi salutes. These provocations, even still minor (the bulk of the skinhead crowd would later make their presence felt during concerts), weren’t really to the liking of the Perez brothers, whose anti-fascist convictions were firmly rooted. Some things are non-negotiable.
A few months earlier (in July 1978), Guilty Razors had nevertheless opened very successfully for Metal Urbain at the Bus Palladium, a more traditonally old-school rock night-club. But, as was sometimes the case back then, the night turned into a mass brawl when suburban rockers came to “beat up punks”.

Back then, Parisian nights weren’t always sweet and serene.

So, after opening as best as they could for The Jam (their sound having been ruined by the PA system), our local heroes were – once again – met outside by a horde of greasers out to get them. “Thankfully,” says Tristam, “we were with our roadies, motorless bikers who acted as a protective barrier. We were chased in the neighbouring streets and the whole thing ended in front of a bar, with the owner coming out with a rifle…”
Although Tristam and the Perez brothers narrowly escaped various, potentially bloody, incidents, they weren’t completely innocent of wrongdoing either. They still find amusing their mugging of two strangers in the street for example (“We were broke and we simply wanted to buy tickets for the Heartbreakers concert that night,” says Tristam). It so happened that their victims were two key figures in the rock business at the time: radio presenter Alain Manneval and music publisher Philippe Constantin. They filed a complaint and sought monetary compensation, but somehow the band’s manager, the skilful but very controversial Alexis, managed to get the complaint withdrawn and Guilty Razors ended up signing with Constantin with a substantial advance.

They also signed with Polydor and the label released in 1978 their only three-track 45, featuring “I Don't Wanna be A Rich”, “Hurts and Noises” and “Provocate” (songs that exuded perpetual rebellion and an unquenchable desire for “class” confrontation). It was a very good record, but due to a lack of promotion (radio stations didn’t play French artists singing in English), it didn’t sell very well. Only 800 copies were allegedly sold and the rest of the stock was pulped… Initially, the three tracks were to be included on a LP that never came to be, since they were dropped by Polydor (“Let’s say we sometimes caused a ruckus in their offices!” laughs Tristam.) In order to perfect the long-awaited LP, the band recorded demos of other tracks. There was a cover of Pink Floyd's “Lucifer Sam” from the Syd Barrett era – proof of an enduring love for the sixties’ greats –, “Wake Up” a hangover tale and “Bad Heart” about the Baader-Meinhof gang, whose actions had a profound impact on the era and on a generation seeking extreme dissent... On the album you’re now discovering, you can also hear five previously unreleased tracks recorded a bit later during an extended and freezing stay in Madrid, in a makeshift studio with the invaluable help of a drummer also acting as sound engineer. He was both an enthusiastic old hippie and a proper whizz at sound engineering. Here too, certain influences from the fifties and sixties (Link Wray, the Troggs) are more than obvious in the band’s music.

Shortly after a final stormy and rather barbaric (on the audience’s side) “Punk night” at the Olympia in June 1978, Tristam left the band ; his bandmates continued without him for a short while.

But like most pioneering punk bands of the era, Guilty Razors eventually split up for good after three years (besides once in Spain, they’d only played in Paris). The reason for ceasing business activities were more or less the same for everyone: there were no venues outside one’s small circuit to play this kind of rock music, which was still frightening, unknown, or of little interest to most people. The chances of recording an LP were virtually null, since major labels were only signing unoriginal but reassuring sub-Téléphone clones, and the smaller ones were only interested in progressive rock or French chanson for youth clubs. And what about self-production? No one in our small safety-pinned world had thought about it yet. There wasn’t enough money to embark on that sort of venture anyway.

So yes, the early days of punk in France were truly No Future!

We've got a bit of an obsession with Hozan Yamamoto here at Mr Bongo! A legend of Japanese jazz, he is rightly regarded as a true master and was recognised as a "living national treasure" by the Japanese government in 2002. Over five decades he pushed the genre into new directions, absorbing fusion, funk, spiritual jazz and many other sounds, resulting in a discography studded with gems of rare beauty. Exploring his back catalogue has taken us on an engrossing journey that now sees us reissuing another work from this ground-breaking musician.

Though not translating perfectly into English 'Akuma Ga Kitarite Fue Wo Fuku', (kitarite has not been a modern expression in Japanese) roughly means 'The Devil Comes Playing The Flute' / 'The Devil Is Coming While Blowing The Whistle' or 'Devils Flute’. It is the original soundtrack to Kôsei Saitô’s 1979 mystery and suspense movie, ‘Devil’s Flute’. The film is based on a story by the famous author, Seishi Yokomizo, and is centred around a much-loved fictional Japanese detective, Kosuke Kindaichi. A Japanese Sherlock Holmes that has been popular for generations.

Hozan Yamamoto was invited to compose the soundtrack directly by the producer of the film, Haruki Kadokawa. Mr Kadokawa also hired keyboard player and producer Yu Imai as assistant producer on the project, resulting in a stunning cosmic, breaks and beats-laden, funk, disco soundtrack extravaganza.

When it comes to the soundtrack and the technology of the time, Hozan Yamamoto and Yu Imai got inventive, tripped out, funked up, and experimented, creating a quirky soundtrack masterpiece that needed to be heard more outside of Japan. Differing from the more traditional Japanese music orientation of some of his other albums such as 'Beautiful Bamboo-Flute' (also released on Mr Bongo) the album showcases a number of genres, from lush atmospheric incidental music to disco and funk grooves, experimental nuggets, drum and flute workouts, to neo-classical and more.

A special record that showcases the further depths of this wonderful musician's talents.

Xylitol, aka producer and DJ Catherine Backhouse, shifts up the refinement and musical breadth for her second album Blumenfantasie, the follow-up to her Planet Mu debut Anemones.
With Blumenfantasie, Xylitol wanted “to make space and for the music to float and propel at once”, finding routes through the pointillistic figures, cascading synths and the meditative stillness of kosmische musik and bolder breakbeat programming. She reaches this delicate balance through careful subtraction, hoping “to convey a sense of intimacy and sadness but without sentimentality” which she manages with a feel and sound that's raw and intuitive.

Blumenfantasie rolls through detailed jungle workouts that flutter and bleep, through beatless ambience, taking a rare dip below 160 bpm for the elegiac Mirjana, the album’s most explicit nod to Krautrock with a drum break chopped up from Amon Duul II’s anthemic ‘Archangel’s Thunderbird’, through to Halo, a bare bones grime rhythm that calls to mind the missing link between industrial pioneers Nurse With Wound and Wiley's Eskibeat.

Catherine cast her net to draw in experimental audiovisual duo Sculpture and Reading based post-rock band The Leaf Library as collaborators, pulling the former’s whirling eddies of musique concrète into a slice of sublime aquatic jungle, and the latter’s radiophonic folksong into a dark and disorientating breakbeat workout equally indebted to Source Direct as to Broadcast.
Blumenfantasie moves with a confident, self-effacing fluidity which has been informed by DJ Bunnyhausen’s more regular DJ gigs. She speculates ‘if this album feels more cohesive than its predecessor it's likely because I've been DJing a lot more, with Worthing Techno Militia, with central and eastern european electronica collective Slav to the Rhythm, as well as being part of Italo Disco crew Flex. Moving between these zones seemed to open up hidden pathways between the disparate musical trajectories they represent.'
While Anemones contrasted the rough and the delicate, its successor is an album built for the head, hips and heart, with painterly sounds and a sense of intimacy that encourages deep listening while keeping its eyes on the strobelight and its feet on the dancefloor.

Juju Love, one of the earliest tracks created by HIA, receives it's first release on vinyl. Side A of the EP has been given over exclusively to Juju Love, cut at 45rpm for maximum bass, fidelity and dynamic range.

Unearthed for HIA's celebrated live performance at Terraforma festival in 2022, Juju Love has become a favourite with audiences around the globe at HIA's extensive live shows in recent years.

Previously only available as a live recording on a limited promo cassette tape 'HIA Live From The Back Of Beyond' (1993) and more recently on the digital only 'Preform' release on Headphone records.

Combined with Speedlearn (Frontal Lobe) and W.H.Y on Side B, these three tracks together are taken from a particular moment in HIA's timeline.

Speedlearn (Frontal Lobe) the definitive version of this track, was released on HIA's debut 'Speedlearn EP'(1993). Inspired by an episode of the surreal 1960's cult tv series The Prisoner, in which Speedlearn - a subliminal television-based education program presented as a revolutionary fast-track method of learning - turns out to be a tool for mass thought control and indoctrination.

W.H.Y appeared on Ambient Dub Volume 2 on Beyond Records (1993) and Preform.

All three tracks have been remastered & cut for vinyl by Stefan Bekte (Pole) at Scape Mastering,

12" vinyl in black disco bag, initial pressing of 300 copies.

The super rework magician Scruscru has been cooking up more goodness for Volume two of Blur's ReWax EP, and it's packed with disco-meets-jazz house class. First up, he tackles Sweet Fruity Brunch's 'Red Parrot' and makes it into a rolling jam with lush pads. Elsewhere, 'Rhythm Roulette' has punchy drums but plenty of piano euphoria, 'Matine' becomes a coy and funky number and 'Gift Of Love' is a romantic heart 'WalkToWalkIN' is a shuffling and jazzy vibe and 'Empyrean Jazz' closes with some spiritual percussion and gentle horns that will always seduce once the lights go low.

Tirakat brings together Jakarta-based trio Ali and Lebanese composer and multi instrumentalist Charif Megarbane in a collaboration rooted in long histories of cultural exchange between Indonesia and the Arab world. Ali are known for blending 1970s Indonesian psychedelic funk with Orkes Melayu, disco grooves, and Arab melodic forms, while Megarbane’s extensive catalogue has consistently explored similar cross-regional currents through jazz, library music, and Mediterranean-influenced arrangements. What connects the two is not genre alone, but a shared musical vocabulary shaped by overlapping histories, references, and lived cultural continuities.
The relationship between Indonesia and the Arab world stretches back over a thousand years, forged through Indian Ocean trade routes that carried not only goods, but languages, belief systems, instruments, and musical ideas. These exchanges were gradually absorbed into local traditions rather than replacing them. In Indonesia, Arabic musical elements entered through devotional practices and ensemble formats such as Gambus, Qasidah, and Orkes Melayu, where maq?m-derived melodic structures were adapted into local tuning systems and performance styles. Over time, these sounds became embedded within Indonesian popular music, shaping genres such as dangdut and informing a wider sonic landscape that remains audible today.

Fides Records continues its 10-year anniversary journey with X5. This instalment widens the emotional spectrum while staying locked to the club: dub-soaked pressure, sunrise euphoria, cinematic tension, and leftfield elegance: six tracks that underline the label’s taste for both functionality and narrative depth.

Side A opens with Jon Hester’s “Oblique”, a timeless cut where dubby undertones meet crisp percussion, crowned by a high-pitched saturated motif that results warm, powerful, and sharply functional. “Caballo Azul (Z.I.P.P.O Rework)” follows, reshaping Franzizca’s original through Z.I.P.P.O’s lens into a dub-infused, precise reinterpretation, layered with meticulous sound design and understated force. Closing the side, Pink Concrete’s “Now We Are” keeps the emotional momentum alive with euphoric tones and introspective energy that feel built for sunrise closings.

Flipping to Side B, Tal Fussman’s “Ghost” adds cinematic weight, driven by an organ-inspired chord progression and dynamic percussion showing his bold, colorful, and razor-precise creative process. Aasthma is the project of Swedish heavyweights Peder Mannerfelt and Pär Grindvik and land on FIDES with “The Love Bees”, a genre-defying anthem where disco and house flair shine through a peak-time techno skeleton. The record closes with Hiver’s “Restless”, an IDM-infused finale rich in harmonic complexity and breaky elegance, perfectly capturing the Milan-based duo’s distinctive, emotionally charged signature

2026 black vinyl, 2022 Abbey Road remaster, original 2012 artwork! When the mysterious masked collective calling themselves Goat first emerged in 2012, armed with an incendiary debut album 'World Music' - there was, and there still isn't, anyone else on earth quite like them. With their enticing mythology, music full of sinuous grooves and manic explosions of fuzz, Goat were outliers from the very beginning. 'World Music', received an avalanche of acclaim with critics, psych heads, outernational crate diggers etc, all left enraptured by its thunderous intensity, conjured from a singular mix of sounds from across the globe. 'World Music' is brimming with tracks now seen as 'classic' Goat live favourites. Tracks that have been wowing audiences all over the world; the afrobeat stomp of 'Disco Fever', the fuzz abuse of 'Goathead', the post-punk groove of 'Let it Bleed', the sing-along repetitive pop of 'Run to your Mama'... From the first note to the last, 'World Music' oozes with a sonic confidence rarely seen on a debut album. What Goat have is unique - they've managed to create a sound unrestrained by genre or any other boundaries. So if you haven't done so already, then it is now time you joined the Goat commune.

DOODSESKADER clearly haven’t had enough of redefining boundaries – they’ve only just gotten started. Tim De Gieter and Sigfried Burroughs return on April 3rd, 2026 with their third full-length album, The Change Is Me, a rollercoaster that can only be described as the unstable lovechild between witch house, hip-hop, industrial dream pop, and stadium rock that can’t decide if it wants to watch the world burn or shout from the rooftops that we need to save it. Their combination of grungy 90s melodies with distorted synths, sludgy bass, hard tuned vocals, rapping, singing, and explosions of undiluted rage at the current state of the world leave you wondering just exactly what it was you smoked last night, and if it was too much or not enough. The Change Is Me is an album that grabs you by the arm and asks if you’re ready to go on a grand adventure, then pulls you into its chaos before you can say “yes” or “no.”

Tim and Sigfried aren’t just breaking the boundaries between genres; they’re breaking out of their own Year cycle, a path they had laid out for themselves at the band’s inception in 2020. Up until now, the duo had set out to document their “journey to getting better” through writing one album each year: Year Zero (2020), Year One (2022), and most recently Year Two (2024). After spending eight months throughout 2024 and 2025 writing, recording, producing and mixing Year Three, the band scrapped the finished record entirely. Playing shows while simultaneously navigating the process of mixing Year Three created a sort of disconnect – the people that they were when they wrote that record and the people that playing shows made them become were no longer one and the same. “We’re people with faults and strengths, and we realized we needed to accept it. That’s equal parts bleak and liberating. If you’re so focused on self-improvement, you can’t even applaud yourself for how far you’ve come,” the band explains. “This project is meant to be a document of us and of the human condition, not a self-improvement handbook designed to keep us all stuck on what may or may not have happened to us or because of us in the past.”

DOODSESKADER chose instead to embark anew on a week-long creative journey in Tim’s own Much Luv Studio with one goal in mind: to make an album that captures who they are right now. Finally writing everything together in the same room for the first time in years, the process of bringing "The Change Is Me" to life was captured by Diana Lungu in their latest documentary, "Now I Know You See Me", out December 2nd, 2025.

"The Change Is Me" marks the beginning of DOODSESKADER’s shift into a more positive era, both musically and conceptually. Over the course of the 40-minute record we hear the two friends unite in a fight against a world that grows more and more disappointing, a concept made crystal clear in tracks like “Celebrity Culture Simp Farm,” “It Keeps On Stinging,” and of course the album’s epic closer “Suffering In Technicolor.” While their previous albums saw them trying to outrun their pasts and arrive at a better version of themselves, here the search for some external or internal revelation that will “make them better” is no more. It’s been replaced by the realization that change isn’t something we force: it’s gradual, and more importantly, it’s something that’s already there – we just need to reach out and accept it.

The band’s live appearances over the last several years have been instrumental in shaping their ideology. On stage is where the duo find connection; not only with the audience, but also with each other. Their sold-out release shows at Ancienne Belgique (2022) and VierNulVier (2024) have proven that they are one of Belgium’s must-see acts. Abroad, their energy has translated into a month-long EU/UK tour with French band Alcest in 2024, as well as appearances at festivals such as Roadburn Festival (NL), Eurosonic (NL), Hellfest (FR), Mystic Fest (PL), Jera On Air (NL), ArcTanGent (UK), Fluff Fest (CZ) and more.

"The Change Is Me" is out April 3rd, 2026 on DOODSESKADER’s own label, 45 Records.

Twice Grammy-nominated, Mercury Prize and BRIT Award-winning artist Arlo Parks announces her new album, Ambiguous Desire, due April 3rd via Transgressive Records.



Ambiguous Desire is Parks at her most confident and experimental, supplanting live band sessions for modular synths, ableton plugins and samplers that channel the frenetic, vibrant spaces she was immersed in, all while spotlighting the acclaimed poetry and lyricism she’s beloved for.



Reflecting on the making of the record, Parks shares, "I danced more than ever as I made this record, I made more friends than ever too, found myself in the weird underbelly of New York juke nights, unleashed, laughed and laughed and laughed. This record has desire at its centre. Desire is a life force, it’s a wanting, a yearning, a momentum - we are all alive because there is something or someone we want - desire is an engine. But it is also mysterious, tangled, random, enlightening and HUMAN."



Parks crafted the album with producer Baird (Brockhampton, Kevin Abstract). Their process unfolded between NYC’s vibrant, community-rooted nightlife and long, introspective days spent in Baird’s downtown loft. The result is Parks’ most vulnerable, self-affirming, and euphoric work to date.

Die zweifach Grammy-nominierte, mit dem Mercury Prize und BRIT Award ausgezeichnete Künstlerin Arlo Parks kündigt ihr neues Album „Ambiguous Desire“ an, das am 3. April über Transgressive Records erscheinen wird.



„Ambiguous Desire“ zeigt Parks von ihrer selbstbewusstesten und experimentellsten Seite. Live-Band-Sessions wurden durch modulare Synthesizer, Ableton-Plugins und Sampler ersetzt, die die frenetischen, pulsierenden Räume widerspiegeln, in denen sie sich bewegte, während gleichzeitig ihre gefeierte Poesie und Lyrik, für die sie so geliebt wird, im Vordergrund stehen.



Über die Entstehung des Albums sagt Parks: „Ich habe während der Arbeit an diesem Album mehr getanzt als je zuvor, ich habe mehr Freunde gefunden als je zuvor, ich habe mich in den seltsamen Untergrund der New Yorker Juke-Nächte begeben, mich gehen lassen, gelacht und gelacht und gelacht. Dieses Album dreht sich um das Thema Begehren. Sehnsucht ist eine Lebenskraft, sie ist ein Verlangen, eine Dynamik – wir alle leben, weil es etwas oder jemanden gibt, den wir wollen – Sehnsucht ist ein Motor. Aber sie ist auch geheimnisvoll, verworren, zufällig, erleuchtend und MENSCHLICH.“



Parks hat das Album zusammen mit dem Produzenten Baird (Brockhampton, Kevin Abstract) produziert. Der Entstehungsprozess fand zwischen dem pulsierenden, gemeinschaftsorientierten Nachtleben von NYC und langen, introspektiven Tagen in Bairds Loft in der Innenstadt statt. Das Ergebnis ist Parks' bisher verletzlichstes, selbstbewusstestes und euphorischstes Werk.

Heavyweight psychedelic improvisers EarthBall are back with their third and most monstrous record to date: ‘Outside Over There’, released on Upset The Rhythm (Nov 7th). Born from the haunted basements of Nanaimo, Canada, the quintet thrives on spontaneity, shaping improvisation into jagged hallucinations and ecstatic eruptions.
Recorded live-off-the-floor in 2024 in Jeremy, Izzy, and Kellen’s basement, and mixed by drummer John Brennan, ‘Outside Over There’ is an album that feels both summoned and inevitable. Each track lands with uncanny purpose, as if uncovered rather than written.
The opener, 100%, features a cameo from comedian and English icon Stewart Lee, who lent his blessing for the band to use a fragment of his stand-up. The album was mastered by John Dieterich (Deerhoof), with liner text contributed by longtime comrade John Olson (Wolf Eyes). Olson describes the album in his unmistakable style:
“This eight-track odyssey unfolds like a dreamscape, where whispered incantations brush against the shadowy fringes of the cosmos, and wild, Cézanne-inspired rock anthems erupt like geysers of color in the midst of a western warm and wet rain storm… culminating in the sprawling eleven minute masterpiece, ‘And The Music Shall Untune The Sky,’ aptly dubbed the Earth Crusher. A creation so utterly deconstructed and intertwined with the pulse of nature itself that if AI was called upon to conceive ‘Outside Over There’ anew, it would just spit back, “F.U. in Tree Font”. An enchanting invitation for even the flat-earthers to join the circle, if only just a little.”
EarthBall’s trajectory has been relentless. Their 2024 album ‘It’s Yours’ was praised by The Quietus as “fully aggressive and fully life-affirming,” and by The Wire as "a boisterous mind-melting album”. The band’s live double set LP ‘Actual Earth Music Vol. 1 & 2’ (2025) captured blistering performances: a performance opening for Wolf Eyes at the Fox Cabaret, and a Café OTO improvised throw-down featuring Chris Corsano and Steve Beresford. These releases on their own confirm them as one of Canada’s most vital experimental exports, not to mention the impressive self-released discography on their Bandcamp. The band’s reach has stretched far beyond their west coast roots with a UK tour May 2024, plus this past June, EarthBall closed Montreal’s Suoni Per Il Popolo Festival alongside Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Raven Chacon. This November they will perform at Le Guess Who? Festival in Utrecht, with a European tour to follow (tour dates below). Outside of EarthBall, each member carries their own torch. Jeremy Van Wyck, founding member of the legendary Shearing Pinx, has toured extensively, released over 100 records, and has been a vital force in the Vancouver and West Coast underground for the past 25 years. He and Isabel Ford (Izzy) play together not only in EarthBall, but also in Psychedelic Dirt, Shearing Pinx, Behaviours, and Crotch.
John Brennan collaborates widely, including recently with Endlings (Raven Chacon and John Dieterich), Evichen (Victoria Shen), Francesco Fonassi, Plan Your Future (with Greg Saunier of Deerhoof), Brennan/Corsano duo and Physics with John Dieterich. Kellen Maclaughlin performs with KVMP and Ora Corgan, while saxophonist Liam Murphy is a west coast staple, playing with the best across Vancouver Island and the mainland. On three of the tracks of ‘Outside Over There’, the band is joined by their comrade Justin Patterson, who also plays with Brennan in the duo Modale. This cross-pollination fuels EarthBall’s sound - a collective improvisation, psychically overdriven, and grinding into bloom.
Outside Over There’ is more than an album though, it is a ritual, a gathering of sound at the forest’s edge; where feedback, saxophone screams, and ecstatic vocals dissolve the boundary between chaos and clarity. EarthBall invite you into their circle, to share in the joyful terror of spontaneous creation. ‘Outside Over There’ will be released on November 7th through Upset The Rhythm digitally and as a limited blue-in-black vinyl LP.

Twice Grammy-nominated, Mercury Prize and BRIT Award-winning artist Arlo Parks announces her new album, Ambiguous Desire, due April 3rd via Transgressive Records.



Ambiguous Desire is Parks at her most confident and experimental, supplanting live band sessions for modular synths, ableton plugins and samplers that channel the frenetic, vibrant spaces she was immersed in, all while spotlighting the acclaimed poetry and lyricism she’s beloved for.



Reflecting on the making of the record, Parks shares, "I danced more than ever as I made this record, I made more friends than ever too, found myself in the weird underbelly of New York juke nights, unleashed, laughed and laughed and laughed. This record has desire at its centre. Desire is a life force, it’s a wanting, a yearning, a momentum - we are all alive because there is something or someone we want - desire is an engine. But it is also mysterious, tangled, random, enlightening and HUMAN."



Parks crafted the album with producer Baird (Brockhampton, Kevin Abstract). Their process unfolded between NYC’s vibrant, community-rooted nightlife and long, introspective days spent in Baird’s downtown loft. The result is Parks’ most vulnerable, self-affirming, and euphoric work to date.

Die zweifach Grammy-nominierte, mit dem Mercury Prize und BRIT Award ausgezeichnete Künstlerin Arlo Parks kündigt ihr neues Album „Ambiguous Desire“ an, das am 3. April über Transgressive Records erscheinen wird.



„Ambiguous Desire“ zeigt Parks von ihrer selbstbewusstesten und experimentellsten Seite. Live-Band-Sessions wurden durch modulare Synthesizer, Ableton-Plugins und Sampler ersetzt, die die frenetischen, pulsierenden Räume widerspiegeln, in denen sie sich bewegte, während gleichzeitig ihre gefeierte Poesie und Lyrik, für die sie so geliebt wird, im Vordergrund stehen.



Über die Entstehung des Albums sagt Parks: „Ich habe während der Arbeit an diesem Album mehr getanzt als je zuvor, ich habe mehr Freunde gefunden als je zuvor, ich habe mich in den seltsamen Untergrund der New Yorker Juke-Nächte begeben, mich gehen lassen, gelacht und gelacht und gelacht. Dieses Album dreht sich um das Thema Begehren. Sehnsucht ist eine Lebenskraft, sie ist ein Verlangen, eine Dynamik – wir alle leben, weil es etwas oder jemanden gibt, den wir wollen – Sehnsucht ist ein Motor. Aber sie ist auch geheimnisvoll, verworren, zufällig, erleuchtend und MENSCHLICH.“



Parks hat das Album zusammen mit dem Produzenten Baird (Brockhampton, Kevin Abstract) produziert. Der Entstehungsprozess fand zwischen dem pulsierenden, gemeinschaftsorientierten Nachtleben von NYC und langen, introspektiven Tagen in Bairds Loft in der Innenstadt statt. Das Ergebnis ist Parks' bisher verletzlichstes, selbstbewusstestes und euphorischstes Werk.

Stacey Kent is an American jazz singer in the mould of the greats, with a legion of fans, a host of honors and awards including a Grammy nomination, album sales in excess of 2 million and more than one billion streams, and Platinum, Double-Gold and Gold-selling albums that have reached a series of chart-topping positions.

Stacey, a comparative literature graduate with a passion for music, travelled to Europe to further her studies after receiving her degree from Sarah Lawrence College in NY. Through a series of twists of fate, she found herself in London where she enrolled in a graduate music program at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where she met her future husband and musical partner, Jim Tomlinson.

Kent's musical journey began with childhood piano lessons. A keen ear and true voice lead her to search out opportunities to express her love of music. However, nothing suggested the shift from the academic path to the one that propelled her to international recognition as one of the foremost jazz singers of her generation. With a catalogue of 13 studio albums, including the Platinum selling, Grammy-nominated Breakfast On The Morning Tram (Blue Note/EMI 2007) and an impressive list of collaborations, Stacey has graced the stages of nearly 60 countries over the course of her career.

Her worldwide fan base is testimony to her ability to express the emotional heart of her songs with delicately nuanced interpretations that transcend borders and defy categorization. Her unique multi-lingual repertoire includes standards, chanson, Bossa Nova, and originals written by Jim Tomlinson, her saxophonist/producer/composer/arranger husband in collaboration with the Nobel Prize-winning author, Kazuo Ishiguro with whom they have worked since 2006. She has also recorded with Brazilian legends, Marcos Valle, Roberto Menescal and Danilo Caymmi, and the celebrated French string quartet, the Quatuor Ébène.

Stacey's last studio album, Summer Me, Winter Me, was released in November 2023 on Naïve Records. A collection of fans' requests from her as yet unrecorded concert repertoire, Summer Me, Winter Me entered the French jazz charts at number 1 and has quickly established itself as a new highlight in her discography. She now returns with A Time For Love.

Portland-based krautrock band Motrik formed in 2013, its four members united by a pledge to modernize their beloved genre. Sharing a passion for pioneers like Can, Kraftwerk, and Trad Gras Och Stenar, the group has demonstrated its ability to deliver over a series of EPs and albums, most recently 2020's acclaimed Artificial Head. As they continue to experiment by incorporating additional influences ranging from funk and jazz to psych and prog Motrik's third full-length, a double LP titled MOON: The Cosmic Electrics of MOTRIK, is a further continuation in the story of an historic genre befitting of the album's cosmic artwork.

Motrik boldly takes full advantage of the space that four sides of vinyl allow on this latest offering. The middle of the album features two long suites that feel typical of the groups dynamic live performances, which frequently feature fog cannons, lasers, and other prop homages to Kraftwerk and company. The 13-minute "Stabilize" emerges from a haze of synth pulses and guitar tones, settling into a steady NEU!-like chug that swells and recedes like an ecstatic wave. On "Space Elevator", the motorik drive from which the band take their name evolves into an insinuating and sensual disco-like throb before the perfect proggy comedown in the final minute.

From his roots in House, Alex Finkin is a renowned producer and creative director. Working in his Paris studio he has developed numerous projects, notably his own (Roseaux), as well as commissions for radio and television. Meanwhile, with 30 years of production and DJing under his belt, Rocco Rodamaal belongs to the elite circle of House innovators who continue to influence the scene. He's played alongside some of the best in the industry showcasing his versatility and deep understanding of the genre, and remixed artists including Marshall Jefferson, Kerri Chandler, Louie Vega & Moodymann, Todd Terry, Barbara Tucker and Robert Owens to name just a few. Alex Finkin befriended Rocco Rodamaal, who he met via the soulful Parisian club Djoon, where Alex was resident from 2006 to 2014. They have since collaborated on a number of projects together, including "In Da Hood" released on COD3 QR in 2023. Kenny Dope's "O'Gutta" remixes are a series of house and club-focused reworks characterized by raw, gritty and often stripped-back percussion, which he now brings to "In Da Hood".

Ross McMillan, known professionally as Carlos Nilmmns, is a Scottish electronic music producer, DJ and composer originally from Glasgow. Over the years he has collaborated with a range of notable artists, including Grammy-nominated and Grammy-winning figures, including Kenny Dope, Carl Craig, Kevin Saunderson and Davina Bussey, plus respected artists like Niko Marks, Rolando, Laurent Garnier, Santiago Salazar, Hardrock Striker, Karl The Voice, Zadig, Ben Sims, Andrés (who worked with Jay Dilla and Moodymann), and YouANDme. His music has been released on Planet E, Trax, Cocoon, Ornaments, Circus, Virgin, Skylax/Universal Music France and more. His style draws from house, techno and jazz influences, often combining analogue and digital production methods. A returning regular and COD3 QR favourite, he's back with another stunner in "Latin Quarter".

K' Alexi Shelby is a prominent figure in electronic music and with a career spanning decades, he's established a significant influence on House and Techno. Throughout his career he's worked with many well-known artists and remixed tracks that are now key pieces. The cultivation of his massive musical catalogue has overflowed into albums and the three labels he heads. It's also led to legendary collaborations with artists such as The Pet Shop Boys, Robert Owens, Kenny Dixon, Roy Davis Jr., Maurice Joshua, Terry Hunter, Joe Smooth, Steve Silke Hurley, Tyree Cooper, Ron Trent, Glenn Underground, Larry Heard, DJ Pierre, Carl Craig, Felix da Housecat, Marshall Jefferson, Will Smith and countless others. Already respected around the world as a true underground House legend, he delivered "Flame" in 2025 for COD3 QR. Now he's back with "When I", another deep and sexy cut.

Benny Rodrigues a.k.a. ROD unveiled his new moniker, The Lost Souldancer when he dropped "No More Voices" for COD3 QR last year. In his own words, Benny says: "The Lost Souldancer is about coping with the loss of what once was. Finding comfort in the invisible rather than what can be seen. Disconnect to connect in order to be loved rather than liked." He continues this ethos with the delicate and melodic closing track "Life and Death".

Welcome to the world of Edward Blankman, a retired dentist who wrote elegant, minimalist jazz in obscurity circa 1970. At least that’s the story.

In truth, Edward Blankman’s Cape Cod Cottage is the 2021 concept album from Echo Park composer Brendan Eder.

A tender, wistful follow up to 2020’s To Mix With Time, the Cape Cod Cottage sound evokes the spirit of Erik Satie, Miles Davis with Gil Evans, and Stevie Wonder, balanced with the accessibility of 1960s lounge-exotica. Eder’s characteristic arrangements are crafted to reflect the past, without losing the innovative quality of his modern ear.

Eder created Blankman’s story to channel his own grief, with bittersweet tenderness. Read the liner notes, and you’ll be transported to the quiet shores of Cape Cod, where a lonely retiree mourns his late wife, Natalie, with walks in nature and evenings at his Wurlitzer.

The story is brought to life with a meticulously crafted package sporting classic liner notes, faux 1970s photographs documenting Edward with the musicians (taken during the actual session), a make-believe jazz label, and a commissioned oil painting of Edward’s cottage. Eder spent over a year rendering the compositions and charts according to his vision.

Eder brought together a dream line up with a ton of chemistry for the project; drummer Christian Euman (Jacob Collier), saxophonist Josh Johnson (Jeff Parker, Leon Bridges), and bassist Alex Boneham (Billy Childs), who all studied together at the Hancock Institute of Jazz. Rounding out the group is flutist Sarah Robinson, a recurring player in Eder’s ensemble, and Edward Blankman (Brendan) on the Wurlitzer.

The cast was booked for a single date with coveted engineer Michael Harris (Kamasi Washington, Angel Olsen, Fleet Foxes) at famed Electro-Vox Recording Studios. To create realism for Edward’s story, the charts were purposefully withheld from the musicians until they arrived at the studio. The result is an authentic and natural performance delivered by players at the top of their game, captured on pristine vintage equipment including the legendary Neve-8028 console.

Some tracks are just too good to only feature on a compilation, even if it is a significant and celebratory set like Leng’s 15 Year anniversary album from late last year. That’s certainly the case with Payfone’s brilliantly atmospheric ‘Dime Algo’, a seductive slab of slow-motion Balearic disco featuring ‘I Feel You’ vocalist Kyd Nereida, along with Sofi Hardoy and Ludmila Rodriguez.

For this single release Black Science Orchestra, one of Britain’s most storied production collectives, deliver some truly exceptional remixes. Initially making their name with a series of sensational house jams on Junior Boy’s Own across the 1990s, BSO became renowned for the quality of their remixes as well as an ever-evolving trademark sound that put soul, organic instrumentation and references to dance music’s rich and varied past front and centre.

Comprised of Rob Mello, Ashley Beedle and Darren Morris, Black Science Orchestra work has been rare in recent years but here they deliver some magical takes on ‘Dime Algo’, blending Payfone’s original instrumentation with their own low-tempo magic. The Vocal Mix begins with sparse drums, Kraftwerkian bleeps and heavy sub-bass, building the action in waves with 303 lines, electro synths, warm chords and Nereida’s superb lead vocals combining to re-frame ‘Dime Algo’ as a deep, far-sighted slice of chugging 21st century acid-disco. The Dub Mix stretches things out with effects-laden instrumentation, acid lines and vocal snippets. Deeper and woozier, with more prominent use of the trio’s 303 trickery and Payfone’s superb original elements, it’s a heady, intoxicating and loved-up interpretation that subtly gains intensity throughout its seven-minute duration.

In Hayk Karoyi’s music, the vibrant palette of the Mediterranean meets the deep layers of Armenian medieval culture. A composer, sound artist, producer, selector, and live performer, as well as a multi-instrumentalist specializing in Armenian woodwinds, Hayk channels his cultural identity intuitively, allowing memory, place, and subconscious expression to shape his sound. Coming from a mixed East Mediterranean and Armenian heritage, he has never aimed to define himself—or his music—within a single tradition.

Instead, his work exists as a continuous fusion: electronic music intertwined with ancient timbres, improvisation, and experimentation. His work has been presented in clubs, concert spaces, and international festivals across Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Armenia, Georgia, Uzbekistan, and Indonesia. He has appeared on festival lineups such as Terraforma Symposia (Italy), Stihia Festival (Uzbekistan), O3 Festival (Armenia), Nopa Sound Festival (Armenia), TKESHI FESTIVAL (GEORGIA) ,Urvakan Festival (Armenia), New East Festival (Barcelona, Spain), Suara Festival (Indonesia), and Un Week-end Festival (France).

“Yotqar” is a love letter to the artists and musicians who have shaped me; those whose music I’ve carried in my heart and those I’ve shared stages and moments with over the years. The album is deeply rooted in Armenian woodwind traditions, echoing voices of the masters I admire. Its soundscape stretches across a wide geography and draws inspiration from the mountains of Syunik to the streets of Anjar, weaving in local sounds, memories and emotions. Endless gratitude to my parents, and especially to my mother for the folklore melodies she sings while cooking, filling the house with warmth and history.” - Hayk Karoyi

Joff Bush and the Bluey Music team proudly present the brand-new Bluey album. Featuring 17 brand-new recordings including ‘Sleepytime’, ‘Flat Pack’, ‘Seesaw’, and the new ‘Bluey Theme Tune (Orchestral Version)’.

“This was our most ambitious album to date - so we wanted something extra special - something we’ve wanted to make for a long time."..."Hearing the music from episodes like ‘Sleepytime’ and ‘The Sign’ in all its orchestral splendour meant tissues needed to be on hand throughout the mixing process.”


“Fittingly, the theme of this album is ‘growing up’. Much of this music, like the episodes they derive from, explore what it means when kids start to discover their independence and venture out on their own. Whether that’s learning to sleep in their own bed or taking a spaceship to Mars. I hope you enjoy ‘Up Here’, as the opportunity I had to make this album is thanks to YOU!"

Pariah’s cult album re-issued! “Blaze of Obscurity” brings you pure Thrash Metal fury! Satan changed their name to Pariah in 1988-1989. There’s Heavy Metal, Power Metal, Thrash Metal, Death Metal, the list seems almost endless. Sub-genres are important in metal and bands are quickly classified and labeled. Pariah (the last re-incarnation of Satan) is one of few bands that are difficult if not impossible to classify. Is it Heavy metal? NWOBHM? Thrash Metal? Pariah did not make it easy to describe their sound. It might be too sophisticated to simply label it Heavy Metal, which in its infancy was a rather simple affair.

They don’t sound like any Metal band out there, perhaps discounting some of the more aggressive and technical ones, and then the signature NWOBHM sound is added. The guitar playing by Russ Tippins and Steve Ramsey is undeniably what defines Pariah as well as Satan in the past. Undeniably, Satan has gone a long way; from humble NWOBHM beginnings, to Experimental/Melodic Mettal (in Blind Fury) and something that could be described as a NWOBHM/Thrash Metal hybrid (“The Kindred”). It’s as if they’ve been experimenting trying to find their identity, and theyfinally found it. Stylistically, “Blaze of Obscurity” could be seen a step back to “Suspended Sentence”, but this time around they got everything right, down to the last note. Those who have heard Satan know what to expect: great guitar playing.

And sure enough, “Blaze of Obscurity” is a demonstration of guitar mastery and is overall a very guitar-driven album, with plenty of mind-boggling riffs and solos are all over the place, but more importantly, it’s a demonstration of some amazing songwriting as well. This is easily Pariah/Satan’s creative peak and one of the most consistent albums I’ve ever heard, featuring eight great and conceptually perfect songs with lyrics that come across as sophisticated and thought-provoking. It is not fair to put the entire spotlight on Tippins and Ramsey though since the drumming and bass work from Sean Taylor and Graham English really shines. The rhythm is fast and tight, keeping it focused, aggressive and intense till the end. Vocalist Michael Jackson (yes, that’s his name) has to be commended too as this is easily his careers best performance.

The verdict: “Blaze of Obscurity”: the level of musical genius expressed here, along with near flawless songwriting, is more than enough to skyrocket it to heights reserved only for classics. Probably not your choice for some light listening those quiet Sunday evenings, but those who take a more serious, intellectual approach when selecting their music will find very much to appreciate here.
Tracklisting

Expanded Edition Double Cassette Box Set including main album and Bonus Cassette with unique download cards


AE Productions in association with Sure Shot Recordings and In Effect Recordings are pleased to announce a 10 Year Anniversary Edition of the critically acclaimed Phill Most Chill and Paul Nice album as the Fabreeze Brothers.

The hugely successful first edition which was pressed on colour vinyl and supplied in double fold out sleeve sold out in only 2 weeks from release date and then the 2nd pressing black vinyl edition sold out a little while later but has for years been out of print but is increasingly requested by shops, via email, social media, AE Productions website back in stock requests, etc…

As it has been 10 years since original release back in 2015 at the time of proceeding with manufacturing, it was the perfect opportunity to do a 3rd pressing to mark the anniversary but we had to pull out all the stops for a 3rd run of this incredible album and also make it subtly different again in packaging design from the 1st and 2nd pressings so that each has it’s own particular feel and quality.

With help from the original designer and all-round vinyl artwork supremo Mr Krum we have found some nice adjustments for the gatefold sleeve where the detail from the insert sheet found in the original issues is incorporated into the inside panels of the sleeve. We have also tweaked the hype sticker to mark the 10th Anniversary Edition and updated the vinyl labels so as to work better with the new Splatter vinyl which follows the original red and yellow vinyl but each splattered with the opposite colour.

For something a little extra we have compiled a Limited Expanded Edition Double Cassette Box Set that includes the original album and also a ‘Bonus Tape’ which features all of the remixes, alternate versions, Original Versions of album cuts and bonus tracks found on B-sides of the array of singles and we included for good measure 2 tracks that only appeared on the promotional only LP sampler that ended up being different on the final release. This is limited to cassette just for the non-vinyl heads as all of these tracks already appear on vinyl. The outer box is A5 card in black with gold foil Fabreeze Brothers logo and comes with discography booklet.

‘The Bonus Tape’ from the box set is also available as a standalone cassette release with alternate j-card art work so that it has it’s own flavour and so that anyone that purchased one of the original run of cassettes that sold out before we could even ship any copies, did not need to purchase the main album again unnecessarily and to make it noticeable from the Expanded Edition Box Set version.

This version also has an alternate shell design in keeping with the clear shell with dark liner that was commonplace back in the 90’s and the cassette geeks may note the red text on the spine as was also a common design back then – giving this a pseudonym of ‘the 90’s tape’ during the design process.

We couldn’t stop there so we also have an extremely low quantity Limited Edition Mini Disc version which is the main album plus 8 of the bonus tracks from The Bonus Tape – only missing the 2 least significant alternate versions but clocking in at just a few seconds under 80 minutes – the absolute maximum for the format! Mini Disc???!!! You’re probably asking – yes!

While looking into the cassette duplication options we realised that the duplicator also offers Mini Disc production so we thought that it may be worth doing a very small run just because not only are professionally manufactured Mini Disc’s rare in Hip Hop, they are rare within the entire music industry as they never really took off as a medium to purchase music but ended up as the choice for home recorded Walkman and car use. Indeed, AE boss Mr Fantastic still has his main machine, portable and old discs. Amazingly also, the sleeve artwork transferred brilliantly to the Mini Disc template. They are manufactured using high quality Sony discs using ATRAC 4.5 codec.

All releases are supplied with unique free download codes on cards that are included inside the packaging but also with the Expanded Edition cassette and Mini Disc having 2 cards – 1 for the main album and a 2nd card for ‘The Bonus Tape’. The free downloads are supplied direct from Phill Most Chill’s Bandcamp page keeping it independent.

Step back into the irresistible world of Dutch pop legends Gruppo Sportivo with Vinylly! (Selected Songs '78-'91). a vibrant, limitededition celebration of the band's most iconic tracks. This double LP is the ultimate collector's item for fans of clever pop, quirky humor, and timeless hooks.

Featuring standout songs like ''Beep Beep Love,'' ''My Old Cortina,'' ''Up to Date,'' and cult favorites from The Buddy Odor Stop, Vinylly! captures the band's golden era with crisp remastered sound and a beautifully designed sleeve and 4-page booklet. A complete overview of a group that defined an era with their playful lyrics, sharp arrangements, and unmistakable charm.

The band is touring throughout 2026 to celebrate the 50th birthday of Gruppo Sportivo.

Featuring legendary artists and studio collectives including The Revolutionaries, The Aggrovators, Niney & The Observers, Twelve Tribes of Israel, Ken Boothe, Gregory Isaacs, Jimmy Riley and Phil Pratt , this release delivers deep basslines, spacious mixes and timeless rhythms.

Released in time for April, the album naturally aligns with long-established countercultural tradition , while remaining a serious, archival document of roots reggae and dub at its most atmospheric and powerful. An essential vinyl dub released on 180-gram incl. sleeve notes for reggae collectors, sound-system enthusiasts and vinyl buyers alike.

José González has delivered a new album, Against the Dying of the Light, a companion and further meditation on the themes of his critically acclaimed album, Local Valley. Where Local Valley turned inward toward place, language, and personal reflection, this new record widens its gaze, becoming an urgent call to preserve the light of humanity with all its flaws, at a moment when, technology increasingly shapes how we think, feel, and relate to one another.

While José has always embraced technological advancement, he questions the assumption that every new possibility must be pursued to its maximum potential, especially when progress comes at the expense of human flourishing, attention, and empathy.

Keeping in the tradition of folk music as protest, José’s new single — sharing its title with the forthcoming album — urges listeners to resist systems that dehumanize and divide: “Disconnect from every algorithm, every perverse incentive that drags you down. Let’s rebel against the replicators, against the dying of the light. Kill the codes that feed the hate, keep the codes that make you thrive, celebrate the **king fact that we’re alive.”

Across the album, González works within a deliberately minimal framework, pushing his familiar palette to new heights through subtle variation, restraint, and detail. Each song unfolds with its own distinct character, proving how much emotional and musical range can be achieved within self - imposed limitations. Written in English, Swedish, and Spanish, the record reflects his Swedish - Argentine roots and frames its humanist message as a global one rather than a purely personal or political statement.

José González is one of the most quietly influential artists of our generation. The Swedish - Argentine artist has built a singular musical world from hypnotic, minimal guitar work and his unmistakably gentle voice — a sound that has become deeply personal to millions of listeners worldwide. With billions of streams across platforms and hundreds of thousands of physical records sold, González’s songs often act as emotional landmarks. Ask almost anyone, and they can name at least one of his tracks tied to a defining moment in their lives.

Ruff Kutz presents 'Found Sound', a debut solo album by Pugilist.

At a time where art has become readily reproduced and seemingly disposable, I have made something longer-form to be enjoyed as a complete piece, rather than it's single elements.

Found Sound delves into my internal monologue, which I hope results in a personal and introspective listening experience. Building on my previous discography - you can expect versatile sounds and tempos, with a washy dub-wise feel, intoxicating atmospherics, all in a genre-free structure. The album is floaty, euphoric and perhaps a surprisingly light listen compared to my normal output, but with notably huge bass and intricate percussion throughout.

The album taps into nostalgic reference points without leaning on retrograde tropes. While sculpted by contemporary production and FX, the sound remains raw and not overly polished. The album is best described as a collage of sounds that I have steadily collected over the last decade, which have inspired me, some very cheeky sampling and many a late night working on my studio tan. It is a tribute to the music I grew up with and love the most, from past to the present. It is fitting that this release marks the 10 years since I started the Pugilist alias.

This wouldn't have been possible without Umeya, who the album is dedicated to.

The "Phunk Investigation vs. James Senese" collaboration, specifically the track "E'na Bella Jurnata,"

is seen as a high-quality fusion of Italian Disco and funky house, praised for its driving beats,

70s disco melodies, and signature saxiness from the legendary Senese,

making it an instant anthem for clubs and Ibiza.

Reviews highlight it as a grand cru of Italian dance music, blending classic vibes with modern house energy,

a must-have for disco and house lovers.

The ‘Haris – Fourtrack EP’ marks the debut release from Shimmy, a new reissue label with a sharp ear for overlooked gems. Originally released 25 years ago and long coveted on Discogs, this sought-after EP finally returns to the shelves, breathing new life into a classic of the tech house underground.

Haris made his mark in the late ’90s and early 2000s with releases on iconic labels like Oblong and his own imprint, Laus Records, collaborating with scene heavyweight, Terry Francis. Renowned for his mastery of rolling, groove-led tech house, Haris crafted a sound that remains timeless and endlessly playable.

Each of the four tracks delivers a distinct flavour for different dancefloor moments, offering real depth and versatility across the EP. Expect snappy tribal percussion, eerie synths, haunting vocals and deep, driving basslines - all the essential ingredients for a late-night shimmy.

Undun is the story of a man, Redford Stevens, dying in reverse, rewinding from the moment he became a statistic and hitting the points in his life where he's at his most self-aware. That he's a criminal who got caught up in the familiar street-hustle trappings that the modern media's documented countless times is a pivotal detail-- it's hit at an angle that seems to emphasize the futile inevitability of it all. His life could be any number of misdirected narratives that ends with a toe tag, and what details listeners learn about him are hazy, buried under archetypal turns of fate and decisive struggles. That this protagonist is a fictionalized composite of a handful of real people, filtered through a matter-of-fact narrative that splits character ambivalence with journalistic impartiality, only makes his lack of direction and the failure of any real closure stand out even more. "Lotta niggas go to prison," Dice Raw states on "Tip the Scale", "how many come out Malcolm X?"

So the Roots' latest album isn't a sprawling, rise-and-fall crime story, not a condemnation or a veneration of a man living outside the law, not a bullet-riddled grand guignol heavy on explicit details of soldiers getting cut down. It's a character study of a man whose existential crisis ends only with his death-- a death gone largely unspecified, the glamor and tragedy washed over with a doomed resignation. That's a hard thing to pull off, even for a band as given to deep-thinking concepts as the Roots are. And when your main lyrical catalyst is Black Thought-- a man more given to allusions than direct statements-- it's likely that it'll take a while for the full scope of Undun to really sink in.

If and when it does, it might strike listeners as a bit skeletal: omit the mood-setting instrumental bookends, including a brief, four-part orchestral suite that builds off Sufjan Stevens' "Redford (For Yia-Yia and Pappou)", and you've got maybe a half hour's worth of material. By ?uestlove's accounts, writing Redford's story introduced the headaches and challenges that come with scriptwriting into their songwriting, and what's left on Undun is the end result of frequent revisions and rewrites that attempt to reconcile character, theme, and continuity. If it comes at the expense of nuance, it's not always obvious: There's an easy-to-trace narrative line from Redford's acceptance of his fate ("Sleep") to his acknowledgement of how close it's approaching ("Make My"), back through declarations of aggravated toughness ("One Time"), and celebratory fatalism ("Kool On"), along ups and downs that juxtapose motivation ("Stomp") and helplessness ("Lighthouse"). When the vocal portion of the album ends with two of the bleakest sets of verses in the Roots discography, peaking with the estrangement of "I Remember" and the desperation of "Tip the Scale", Undun reveals itself as a story where a man's actual death isn't quite as tragic as the circumstances that pushed him to it.

Audience’ was a 14-track record that signalled a shift back to Hayes Bradley's dancefloor roots. It was a collision of breakbeats, trip-hop, and ambient textures that perfectly balanced nostalgia and forward-thinking sounds, and now it gets spun into all new worlds by some of the scene's most acclaimed contemporary stars.

Special Request, aka UK powerhouse Paul Woolford, has shaken up the scene with his thrilling mix of jungle, bass, techno, rave, and hardcore in recent years. The hugely prolific producer knows exactly how to blow up the club and does that here with two reworks of '& I Love U'. The Special Request Extended Mix is a meticulously crafted jungle workout, featuring precision drums, rising synth tension, and gorgeous melodies that dart throughout and will appear on the vinyl release only. The VIP version focuses more on celestial memories for a heavenly escape.

Next is Shanti Celeste, a house and garage favourite who crafts emotional, high-impact sounds on her own Peach Discs. Her remix of 'Play It As It Lay' is a bubbly, soft-focus, late-night sound with earworm synth motifs and rich bass that sinks you in deep for a nice, heady trip.

Piori is an alias of Canadian musician Francis Latreille, who has built a sprawling discography full of hyper-detailed techno steeped in science fiction and fantasy. He flips 'Awareness' into a zoned-out affair, with broken beats and cosmic synth waves over a bold bassline that shows, once again, why his productions are in such demand.

Last but not least is Kaifeng-born sound artist, DJ, and producer Yu Su, whose truly unique sound has made her a cult underground star. She flips 'Dear Treasure' into a slow motion and sleazy chugger with dark disco energy and raw live drums, shady vocal loops and otherworldly melodies that seep into your consciousness.

The long-awaited reissue of Another Song by Music Service, one of the finest Italo-Disco tracks goes to Antony Soumas, the amazing Greek DJ owner of Disco Time Records in Athens. Tony's passion for Italo-Disco style is known worldwide and is worth further amplifying. Among the spin-offs conceived by Amin-Peck (editor's note: in strict Bolognese dialect means "I hang myself!"), Another Song turns out to be the favorite of the "purists" of Italo. The synthesizers of George Fyron and Leonard Parker are excellent as always, but here we also find awesome sauce male voices! In a certain sense you have the sensation of listening to Big In Japan, but perhaps it is just a suggestion of the dee-jays who push one record after another. One last curiosity dictated by the sagacious dj-writer Antonio Stanzani, better known as Ciancio DJ: the Music Service band proposed to Luca Zanarini to sing Another Song, but the lyrics of the song did not yet existed His friend Gianni Ruberti made himself available and by isolating in a room for two hours he made the lyrics that all of us after more than 40 years enjoy.

That’s a project led by a flamenco guitarist who turns out to be a talented lyricist and singer.
Billy Sharp received early support from Billie Eilish on SoundCloud and later from Nils Hoffman, who fell in love with his toplines. This first glimpse into his musical landscape reveals an intriguing personality, touching contradictions, but beyond that and more simply: a voice, a guitar, and mesmerizing melodies.

We're talking about music that moves, transcends, and resonates with the listener's emotions. All the tracks are elegantly carrying the project's message: introspective and passionately intense.

Billy Sharp unveils "Rose Tint," an EP with a strong identity, destined to be one of those timeless pieces. Billy worked meticulously on each of the 4 tracks composing this debut EP, resulting in an impressive outcome. The first notes of the opening track are sure to captivate anyone with their touching vocals and top lines. The EP builds in intensity with each performance, culminating in "2013," a danceable and nostalgic track.

Solo 500 delivers another irresistible donut that takes the form of this 2-sided celebration of afro-latin & jazz-funk classics. GSC dusts off 2 deep catalog selections here — & part of the appeal is that neither side is a played-out sample cliché. This one is for heads who already burned through the obvious joints.

Side A digs into Manu Dibango beyond the endlessly flipped “Soul Makossa” universe. “The Panther”, from the 1973 album “Africadelic”, isn’t one of his commonly sampled tracks — & that’s exactly why it hits so hard. Low-slung Afro-funk, stalking bass & suspense-building horns that feel like a break record even if they haven’t been rinsed by every golden-era producer. Selectors who chase texture over recognition will understand the power here immediately. It’s the kind of cut hip-hop heads love not because they’ve heard it before — but because they haven’t.

Side B moves into Latin jazz-funk royalty. Ray Barretto is one of the most sampled percussionists of all time, but “Together” (from the 1969 album of the same name) sits slightly off the obvious break-beat path. Instead of a clean, isolated drum loop, you get rolling congas, warm keys & a communal groove that’s been DJ-tested far more than it’s been sampled. This is the type of Barretto cut that crate-diggers pull when they want rhythm to breathe — bridging jazz floors, disco-leaning sets & hip-hop selectors who think like musicians, not beat miners.

With two deeply cherished compilations already in the bag, Luke Una steps up for the third volume in his É Soul Cultura series on Mr Bongo. A love letter to the dancefloor and its power to unite people from all corners of society amid growing division and extremist politics. Genre-spanning in nature, the 15 tracks travel between cosmic soul, boogie, proto-house, slo-mo technoid grooves, drum machine afro, astral bass-bugging futurism, jazz funk, dance, and disco. Each having the ability to move the body as much as the heart.
 
From his formative years in Sheffield to co-founding Manchester’s much-fabled Electric Chair with Justin Crawford, through to helming the iconic LGBTQ institutions of Homoelectric / Homobloc, Luke has spent 40 years immersed in dance music. His latest outlet, É Soul Cultura, has grown from a label to a globe-spanning events series with Luke holding residencies and embarking on tours across the world from Japan and Australia to America and Europe. 
 
“For me, the dancefloor was never about a one-dimensional, thudding, 130 BPM beat only. It's a much more dynamic, broader vision than that. I cut my teeth in an era where a 100 BPM record had as much impact, excitement, and energy as a 134 BPM dancefloor jazz funk or techno record”, Luke mentions. É Soul Cultura Volume 3 is the perfect embodiment of that notion: “It’s about four decades in the trenches playing dance music, the late-night afters, the shebeens, the basements, warehouse parties, the eight-hour journeys in East London, through to festival sets at Houghton and We Out Here. It’s music unconstrained by genre or tempo and more about making your body move”. 

But this isn’t simply a collection of disparate dance tracks; they carry meaning and soul. “It’s less about escapism, more about reconnection. My experience of post-covid has been the coming together of all the clans in various clubs and gatherings. A reaction to a very toxic world out there, where the aggro rhythms of division have sought to divide us, and people don't meet as often. The coming back together face-to-face in clubs has encouraged a real love in the air, there's a real togetherness and collective spirit”.
 
Opening up the compilation is a track that channels that very message, the transcendental, soul-rousing Harris & Orr ‘Spread Love’. Joining the dots from there, to the low-slung deep house closer of Fatdog ‘Remember’, you’ll find electronic drum machine Nigerian funk, sitting side by side with dancefloor Cape Verdean brilliance, a post-punk cover of Fela Kuti, rubbing shoulders with cosmic electro, and an Una-championed, 8-minute, kickless DJ Harvey remix. There’s jazz funk in various guises moving from boogie synth to astral travelling, slo-mo acidic raw techno, and a ‘79 soul stepper, alongside swirling percussive Italo disco and tribal-charged house. All infused with an innate ability to bring people together.
 
As society becomes increasingly fractured, É Soul Cultura Volume 3’s message is more than movement. It’s about dance music’s power to unify people from all walks of life and break down the barriers that divide us.

With two deeply cherished compilations already in the bag, Luke Una steps up for the third volume in his É Soul Cultura series on Mr Bongo. A love letter to the dancefloor and its power to unite people from all corners of society amid growing division and extremist politics. Genre-spanning in nature, the 15 tracks travel between cosmic soul, boogie, proto-house, slo-mo technoid grooves, drum machine afro, astral bass-bugging futurism, jazz funk, dance, and disco. Each having the ability to move the body as much as the heart.
 
From his formative years in Sheffield to co-founding Manchester’s much-fabled Electric Chair with Justin Crawford, through to helming the iconic LGBTQ institutions of Homoelectric / Homobloc, Luke has spent 40 years immersed in dance music. His latest outlet, É Soul Cultura, has grown from a label to a globe-spanning events series with Luke holding residencies and embarking on tours across the world from Japan and Australia to America and Europe. 
 
“For me, the dancefloor was never about a one-dimensional, thudding, 130 BPM beat only. It's a much more dynamic, broader vision than that. I cut my teeth in an era where a 100 BPM record had as much impact, excitement, and energy as a 134 BPM dancefloor jazz funk or techno record”, Luke mentions. É Soul Cultura Volume 3 is the perfect embodiment of that notion: “It’s about four decades in the trenches playing dance music, the late-night afters, the shebeens, the basements, warehouse parties, the eight-hour journeys in East London, through to festival sets at Houghton and We Out Here. It’s music unconstrained by genre or tempo and more about making your body move”. 

But this isn’t simply a collection of disparate dance tracks; they carry meaning and soul. “It’s less about escapism, more about reconnection. My experience of post-covid has been the coming together of all the clans in various clubs and gatherings. A reaction to a very toxic world out there, where the aggro rhythms of division have sought to divide us, and people don't meet as often. The coming back together face-to-face in clubs has encouraged a real love in the air, there's a real togetherness and collective spirit”.
 
Opening up the compilation is a track that channels that very message, the transcendental, soul-rousing Harris & Orr ‘Spread Love’. Joining the dots from there, to the low-slung deep house closer of Fatdog ‘Remember’, you’ll find electronic drum machine Nigerian funk, sitting side by side with dancefloor Cape Verdean brilliance, a post-punk cover of Fela Kuti, rubbing shoulders with cosmic electro, and an Una-championed, 8-minute, kickless DJ Harvey remix. There’s jazz funk in various guises moving from boogie synth to astral travelling, slo-mo acidic raw techno, and a ‘79 soul stepper, alongside swirling percussive Italo disco and tribal-charged house. All infused with an innate ability to bring people together.
 
As society becomes increasingly fractured, É Soul Cultura Volume 3’s message is more than movement. It’s about dance music’s power to unify people from all walks of life and break down the barriers that divide us.

Mahjong Room is the second album Cameron Lew released under the artist name Ginger Root which explores his coming of age and discovery of his own signature sound; self coined as Aggressive Elevator Soul. Self Produced and Performed, this album marked the beginning of Ginger Roots' rise in popularity outside of his Huntington Beach hometown. Lew was still in film school at the time of recording and releasing Mahjong Room. His attention was equally focused on the music videos that were made for singles `Two Step', `Call it Home', `Jeanie', `Mahjong Room', and `Ohio'. Becoming a signature of Ginger Root releases, the video treatments of songs were humor-filled and directed and produced by Lew himself. Catching the attention of other touring indie acts Ginger Root spent most of the fall of 2018 on tour with artists Khrunagbin, Duran Jones & The Indications, The Marias, and Omar Apollo.