Search:les paul

Corbin (FKA Spooky Black) makes captivating, honest, and raw music that harkens back to the days when the singer-songwriter’s artistic vision prioritized vulnerability over image. The St. Paul, Minnesota native came to prominence during the rise of the SoundCloud gold rush, helping to influence the new generation of Gen Z songwriters. Songs such as the haunting portrait of addiction “Diazepam”, and his battle with insecurity and instability in relationships “ICE BOY”, showed off his ability to connect with the plight of modern adolescence. But it was the internet-breaking, classic ballad of yearning “Without You”, that inspired a generation of disaffected and abandoned adolescents, serving as a soundtrack to make the alienated feel a little less alone. He’s attracted some of the biggest names in music, featuring on songs with Chief Keef, Trippie Redd, and The Kid Laroi, among others. With his latest record, Crisis Kid, Corbin dials back the angst in favor of an intimate vocal style that sounds like he’s reading his diary from a candlelit cabin. A more polished and refined version of Corbin resurfaces as he contemplates collective suffering, generational trauma, and the quest to find hope during the bleakest timeline, offering a voice for the voiceless.

'Find El Dorado' is a deeply personal new album of reinterpretations, that sees Weller revisit songs that have long lived in the back of his mind - now reimagined with fresh meaning and a sense of reverence. Less a covers album and more a map of his emotional and musical DNA. Produced by Steve Cradock, the album includes further guest appearances from Declan O’Rourke, Noel Gallagher, Amelia Coburn, Seckou Keita, Robert Plant and more.

First single Lawdy Rolla on 7” due out on 20th June.

»Mother Nature« is the debut solo album by Berend Intelmann, a key figure in the German indie music scene since the late 1980s. Having made his name as a member of groups such as Hallelujah Ding Dong Happy Happy, Guther, and Paula, Intelmann most recently focussed on his work as a producer for artists such as Jens Friebe, MissinCat, or Fotos. »Mother Nature« sees the multi-instrumentalist and singer navigate between pop sentiment and his penchant for classical music on these eight pieces, three of which feature additional contributions by Karaoke Kalk label mate Marla Hansen, synth pop iconoclast Der Assistent, and the versatile Mieke Miami, respectively. »Mother Nature« combines a sense of playfulness with cunning compositional rigour to stunning effect.

Intelmann took full creative licence and worked with the instruments that he feels most comfortable using: the drums, synthesizers, and his voice. While inspired by his life-long passion for pop music in all shades, he also took some cues from his more recent passion for classical music. »The synthesizer melodies are arranged like string quartets, while the songs are presented as musical themes strung together so that they form a coherent story,« he explains. The resulting sound isn’t quite as »krauty« as someone called it, instead the artist prefers to call it »slow-kraut—1980s synth sound with 1970s George Duke-style beats,« though of course he never attempted to fit in one specific genre or replicate a certain sound: This is simply the essence of Berend Intelmann as a composer and storyteller.

The lyrical matter of »Mother Nature« is inspired by life and death. This informs an album that masterfully creates contrasts and utilises the friction generated between them to tell its stories. The album opener and second single »All Gone« greets its audience with the couplet »In the long run / We’re all gone,« but sets this to soothing sounds that form a joyful counterpoint to the fatalism of the words. Also the slowly-unfolding first single »Life Of Another One« sets the stage for a reflection on memories that have become so distant that they feel like belonging to another person altogether with sombre, intertwined melodies. However, these darker tones slowly give way to laid-back grooves, Intelmann’s smooth vocalisations and whirling synthesizer sequences.

The collaborations—a vocal duet with Marla Hansen on »A Focused Mind,« Der Assistent’s subtle theremin contributions to »The Less We Cared« and Mieke Miami flute and saxophone playing on »Mother Nature«—further enrich this album that the artist claims has been »co-produced by friends and family.« Indeed, »Mother Nature« might be Intelmann’s solo debut proper, but he remains a teamplayer at heart.

Crack the coffers, Oh Sees have spawned another frothy album of head-destroying psych-epics to grok and rock out to. Notice the fresh dollop of organ and keyboard prowess courtesy of Memory Of A Cut Off Head-alum and noted key-stabber Tom Dolas, while the Paul Quattrone / Dan Rincon drum-corps polyrhythmic pulse continues to astound and pound in equal measure, buttressed by the nimble fingered bottom end of Sir Tim Hellman the Brave and the shred-heaven fret frying of John Dwyer, whilst Lady Brigid Dawson again graces the wax with her harmonic gifts. Aside from the familiar psych-scorch familiar to soggy pit denizens the world over, there’s a fresh heavy-prog vibe that fits like a worn-in jean jacket comfortably among hairpin metal turns and the familiar but no less horns-worthy guitar fireworks Dwyer’s made his calling card. Perhaps the most notable thing about Smote Reverser is the artistic restlessness underpinning its flights of fancy. Dwyer refuses to repeat himself and for someone with such a hectic release schedule, that stretching of aesthetic borders and omnivorous appetite seems all the more superhuman!

"1980 was a huge year in pop music with every genre competing for hits. We have already included many tracks on the records of the 1980 Yearbook, the 80-84 Final Chapter, and their extras so far in our appreciation of the year…

Those tracks were generally the bigger hits of the year, with their chart achievement a factor in their inclusion – however – that’s not the whole singles story of the year, and our celebration of 1980 wouldn’t be complete without shining a light on some of the years’ singles that have been compiled much less frequently over the years.

Welcome to THE VAULT for 1980… Some of the tracks included were Top 40 hits, some missed the chart completely. Some were representative of massive selling albums, and some were big hits in the U.S. and not in the U.K… but all are part of the wonderful pop story of 1980. "

The Oh Sees wasted no time in racing headlong into nightmarish battle with the mighty Orc, clawing even farther up the ghastly peak stormed so satisfyingly by their previous A Weird Exits. The band is in tour-greased, anvil-on-a-balance beam, gut-pleasingly heavy form, nimbly braining—with equal dashes of abandon and menace—on this fresh batch of bruisers and brooders, hypnotically stirred into to the cauldron of chaos you’ve come to expect. On Orc, fresh blood Paul Quattrone joins Dan Rincon to form a phalanx of interlocking double drums, alternately propelling and fleet-footing shifting ground to pinion John Dwyer’s cliff-face guitars to the boogie. Tim Hellman keeps it swinging like a battle-axe to the eyebrows. The tunes veer toward the violence of their live shows, with a few tasty swerves into other lanes: heavy to lush, groovy to stately. Throughout, it remains sinister in its swaggering skulk, manic in its fuzz-fried fugues. They hit all the sweet spots the heads foggily remember, and there’s plenty to sweat over if you just hopped into the sauna. More evil…more complex…more narcotic…more screech… more blare…more whisper…there’s even more Brigid. Less “Thee,” but more of everything else.

*180g virgin leaded vinyl in a deluxe textured heavy gatefold cover, with paste-on artwork and special anti-static innersleeve.* Note: The pressing is absolute on point!!!!

Vincent Gallo and Harper Simon with a beautifully recorded suite of songs and instrumentals.

" More than two decades since he blew minds with a suite of brilliant releases on Warp, Vincent Gallo returns to the world of music at long last in Butterfly, his duo with Harper Simon, with the project’s full-length debut, “The Music of Butterfly”. A gesture of gentle, DIY / bedroom left-field pop, falling within the rough territory for which Gallo became renowned during the late '90s and early 2000s, while interweaving fascinating flirtations with minimalism and experimentalism, it’s a truly captivating piece of work that’s hard to get off the turntable after the first needle drop.

In the arts, the lines between genius and madness, as well as fact and fiction, often blur. Such, it seems, has always been the life of the artist, filmmaker, actor, musician, and composer Vincent Gallo. A cult figure and a member of various creative undergrounds for the better part of half a century, Gallo has courted controversy, ruffled feathers, and made some of the most singular statements to flirt at the outer edges of popular culture that can be called to mind. Arguably most well known for his work in film, during the late '90s and early 2000s - notably with his soundtrack for “Buffalo 66” and a suite of releases on Warp - Gallo became something of a sensation in the world of independent music for a visionary, incredibly unique and sensitive approach to sonority. For a time, the world was abuzz, waiting on bated breath for more, and yet time passed. Bar a few fragments, appearing here and there, almost nothing has been heard from Gallo, within the world of music, for more than 20 years. That is, until now, with the release of “The Music of Butterfly”, the debut full-length of Butterfly, his duo with Harper Simon: beautifully produced and issued by Family Friend Records - Gallo’s own label, founded in 1981 - in a deluxe edition that simply left us speechless: 180g vinyl in textured heavy gatefold cover with paste-on artwork and thick anti-static innersleeve. More or less picking up from where we last encountered him, spinning captivating melodies and gentle song-craft within the quieter temperaments of DIY, left-field pop, once again, and at long last, Vincent Gallo, encountered in an incredibly successful collaboration with Harper Simon as Butterfly, reminds us that he’s as much a force within the realm of music as he is within film. Not to be missed. This one isn’t going to sit around for long.

Vincent Gallo’s biography reads like the stuff of blaring beauty: a figure of moderate fame in his own right, who has remained at the centre of cultural ferment as the decades have rolled by. Born in 1961, in Buffalo, New York, as the story goes he ran away to New York City at the age of 16 and fell into the brewing counterculture of the Downtown scene, William Burroughs and John Giorno, in addition to the cream of his own peers, and began making paintings, music, and experimenting with film. In addition to being a member of the now legendary band Gray, with the artist, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and the filmmaker, Michael Holman, Gallo appeared in the cult 1981 film “Downtown 81”, before slowly beginning a career as an actor and catching the eye of Claire Denis, who brought his talents into the broader cultural gaze. Catapulted into the public by his own subsequent career as a filmmaker with “Buffalo '66” (1998) and “The Brown Bunny” (2003), both of which were marked by controversy and praise, Gallo further captivated the public with a partially brilliant, if not relatively brief, flurry of activity in the realms of music.

While Gallo had already been making music for roughly two decades at the time of his release of the “Brown Bunny” soundtrack, and the four release issued by Warp in rapid succession between 2001 and 2002 - “When”, “Honey Bunny”, “So Sad”, and “Recordings of Music for Film” - the almost fanatical fandom reached a fever pitch at the moment, allowing him, for some, to be regarded as much, if not more, as a musical artist than an actor and filmmaker. Anyway you cut it, in a few short years, he proved himself to be a polymath of rare talent. Somewhere along the way, while both were working as members of Yoko Ono's Plastic One Band, Gallo met the New York based, highly regarded singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer, Harper Simon, who also happens to be the son of Paul Simon. The pair fell into an incredibly fruitful duo collaboration, which came to be called Butterfly, and “The Music of Butterfly” being their debut full-length release.

Written, performed, and recorded by Vincent Gallo and Harper Simon in New York City between the winter of 2018 and the spring of 2019, the ten tracks comprising “The Music of Butterfly” are cumulatively a gesture of gentle, DIY / bedroom left-field pop, falling within the rough territory for which Gallo became renowned during the late '90s and early 2000s, making one feel like barely a moment had passed since we’d encountered his graceful hand at song-craft. Stripped back and raw, while retaining a sense of warmth and intimacy, across the length of “The Music of Butterfly” the duo of Gallo and Simon weave something completely captivating at the juncture of minimalism, experimentalism, and pop: meandering moments of texture and tone, slowly forming toward flirtations of melody that flower into song and back again. Somehow playful and light, while also remarkably emotive and personal, it’s almost as though each of these tracks crystallised out the air, unlabored and exactly as they should be without a note or beat more.

An engrossing immersion into both Gallo and Simon’s remarkably accomplished minds, having followed the path toward one another after radically different experiences and careers, “The Music of Butterfly” is one of those records that’ll be hard to get off the turntable after that first needle drop, and rarely leave the listening pile for some time to come. Issued by Family Friend Records in a beautiful deluxe edition that is unmatched even among the most stunning recent productions we can call to mind - 180g vinyl in textured heavy gatefold cover with paste-on artwork and thick anti-static innersleeve - it’s lovely to have Gallo back in the musical mix after so many years. "

Googling “paradise house”, the first results to pop up are an endless list of European b&b’s with whitewashed lime façades, all of them promising “…an unmatched travel experience a few steps from the sea”. Next, a little further down, are the institutional websites of a few select semi-luxury retirement homes (no photos shown, but lots of stock images of smiling nurses with reassuring looks). To find the “paradise house” we’re after, we have to scroll even further down. Much further down.

It feels like yesterday, and at the same time it seems like a million years ago. The Eighties had just ended, and it was still unclear what to expect from the Nineties. Mobile phones that were not the size of a briefcase and did not cost as much as a car? A frightening economic crisis? The guitar-rock revival?! Certainly, the best place to observe that moment of transition was the dancefloor. Truly epochal transformations were happening there. From America, within a short distance one from the other, two revolutionary new musical styles had arrived: the first one sounded a bit like an “on a budget” version of the best Seventies disco-music – Philly sound made with a set of piano-bar keyboards! – the other was even more sparse, futuristic and extraterrestrial. It was a music with a quite distinct “physical” component, which at the same time, to be fully grasped, seemed to call for the knotty theories of certain French post-modern philosophers: Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Paul Virilio... Both those genres – we would learn shortly after – were born in the black communities of Chicago and Detroit, although listening to those vinyl 12” (often wrapped in generic white covers, and with little indication in the label) you could not easily guess whether behind them there was a black boy from somewhere in the Usa, or a girl from Berlin, or a pale kid from a Cornish coastal town.

Quickly, similar sounds began to show up from all corners of Europe. A thousand variations of the same intuition: leaner, less lean, happier, slightly less intoxicated, more broken, slower, faster, much faster... Boom! From the dancefloors – the London ones at least, whose chronicles we eagerly read every month in the pages of The Face and i-D – came tales of a new generation of clubbers who had completely stopped “dressing up” to go dancing; of hot tempered hooligans bursting into tears and hugging everyone under the strobe lights as the notes of Strings of Life rose up through the fumes of dry ice (certain “smiling” pills were also involved, sure). At this point, however, we must move on to Switzerland.

In Switzerland, in the quiet and diligent town of Lugano, between the 1980s and 1990s there was a club called “Morandi”. Its hot night was on Wednesdays, when the audience also came from Milan, Como, Varese and Zurich. Legend goes that, one night, none less than Prince and Sheila E were spotted hiding among the sofas, on a day-off of the Italian dates of the Nude Tour… The Wednesday resident and superstar was an Italian dj with an exotic name: Don Carlos. The soundtrack he devised was a mixture of Chicago, Detroit, the most progressive R&B and certain forgotten classics of old disco music: practically, what the Paradise Garage in New York might have sounded like had it not closed in 1987. In between, Don Carlos also managed to squeeze in some tracks he had worked on in his studio on Lago Maggiore. One in particular: a track that was rather slow compared to the BPM in fashion at the time, but which was a perfect bridge between house and R&B. The title was Alone: Don Carlos would explain years later that it had to be intended both in the English meaning of “by itself” and like the Italian word meaning “halo”. That wasn’t the only double entendre about the song, anyway. Its own very deep nature was, indeed, double. On the one hand, Alone was built around an angelic keyboard pattern and a romantic piano riff that took you straight to heaven; on the other, it showcased enough electronic squelches (plus a sax part that sounded like it had been dissolved by acid rain) to pigeonhole the tune into the “junk modernity” section, aka the hallmark of all the most innovative sounds of the time: music that sounded like it was hand-crafted from the scraps of glittering overground pop.

No one knows who was the first to call it “paradise house”, nor when it happened. Alternative definitions on the same topic one happened to hear included “ambient house”, “dream house”, “Mediterranean progressive”… but of course none were as good (and alluring) as “paradise house”. What is certain is that such inclination for sounds that were in equal measure angelic and neurotic, romantic and unaffective, quickly became the trademark of the second generation of Italian house. Music that seemed shyly equidistant from all the rhythmic and electronic revolutions that had happened up to that moment (“Music perfectly adept at going nowhere slowly” as noted by English journalist Craig McLean in a legendary field report for Blah Blah Blah magazine). Music that to a inattentive ear might have sounded as anonymous as a snapshot of a random group of passers-by at 10AM in the centre of any major city, but perfectly described the (slow) awakening in the real world after the universal love binge of the so-called Second Summer of Love.

For a brief but unforgettable season, in Italy “paradise house” was the official soundtrack of interminable weekends spent inside the car, darting from one club to another, cutting the peninsula from North to centre, from East to West coast in pursuit of the latest after-hours disco, trading kilometres per hour with beats per minute: practically, a new New Year’s Eve every Friday and Saturday night. This too was no small transformation, as well as a shock for an adult Italy that was encountering for the first time – thanks to its sons and daughters – the wild side of industrial modernity. The clubbers of the so-called “fuoriorario” scene were the balls gone mad in the pinball machine most feared by newspapers, magazines and TV pundits. What they did each and every weekend, apart from going crazy to the sound of the current white labels, was linking distant geographical points and non-places (thank you Marc Augé!) – old dance halls, farmhouses and business centres – transformed for one night into house music heaven. As Marco D’Eramo wrote in his 1995 essay on Chicago, Il maiale e il grattacielo: “Four-wheeled capitalism distorts our age-old image of the city, it allows the suburbs to be connected to each other, whereas before they were connected only by the centre (…) It makes possible a metropolitan area without a metropolis, without a city centre, without downtown. The periphery is no longer a periphery of any centre, but is self-centred”.

“Paradise house” perfectly understood all of this and turned it into a sort of cyber-blues that didn’t even need words, and unexpectedly brought back a drop of melancholic (post?)-humanity within a world that by then – as we would wholly realise in the decades to come – was fully inhuman and heartless. A world where we were all alone, and surrounded by a sinister yellowish halo, like a neon at the end of its life cycle. But, for one night at least, happy."

Zur Feier des 50. Jubiläums von Venus and Mars wurde diese spezielle Vinyl-Edition mit halber Geschwindigkeit
geschnitten, wobei Miles Showell in den legendären Abbey Road Studios die Original-Masterbänder von
1975 in hoher Auflösung übertrug. Das Album ist eine sorgfältige Reproduktion der Originalpressung in
Großbritannien, mit Nachbildungen des originalen runden Aufklebers „Venus and Mars are alright tonight“
und des Lesezeichenaufklebers „comparative sizes of sun and planets“ und wird mit zwei Postern mit Fotografien von Aubrey Powell und Sylvia de Swaan geliefert. Das ikonische Album-Artwork von Hipgnosis
wurde sorgfältig nachgebildet und in einer Klapphülle präsentiert.

Issued on le Kiosque d'Orphée in 1979, Voyage aux fonds de la Mer is the only LP by Alain Meunier (not to be confused with French classical music cellist of the same name), and is one of the most elusive collector pieces of the 1970s electronic experimental French scene.

This rare sought after album starts with an instrumental guitar introduction but from the second track onwards it becomes a totally electronic experimental psychedelic trip that can be aligned with the most kosmische side of kraut rock, and of course also with other works by French experimentalists of the era like Pascal Comelade's Fluence or Richard Pinhas' production (including Heldon). Guitar comes in now and then showing also a certain Robert Fripp influence.

Instruments used according to the insert sheet that came with the LP are a Korg 800 DV synthesizer, a K.O. Welson Clavinet, effects like a Fender Echo or a Electroharmonix Small Stone phaser and a fuzz pedal, plus Meunier also used a Gibson Les Paul Custom Guitar, a 12 string acoustic Eko guitar and a 6 string Morris guitar.

First ever vinyl reissue. Limited edition to 500 copies only. Remastered sound.

Repress!

Techno phenomenon Charlotte de Witte today announces her brand-new EP “Power Of Thought”, out October 19 on her own KNTXT label. The trio begins with the title track “Power Of Thought” - which immediately erupts into a hypnotic techno beat interspersed with spoken mantras of mindfulness. This is followed by “Pria”, a pulsating journey featuring hypnotic, mantra-like vocals. The EP ends with ambient track “Abada”, punctuated with the occasional drum and chanting vocals before it quickly strips away to silence.

“For ‘Power Of Thought’, I wanted to create an EP that touches deeper emotions and captivating the meditative trance you have when you let go on the dance floor,” says de Witte. “‘Pria’ has already brought me a lot of joy over the last few months when I have played it during my sets. It offers a moment of reflection and a chance to catch your breath during the rougher, more peak time tracks I play. ‘Abada’ is a track that I really enjoyed making. I discovered these magical chanting vocals and I just knew I wanted to use them in a track. Though this track is maybe less playable in one of my sets, I feel that Abada found its home on this EP and completes the ‘Power Of Thought’ circle.”

Best known for her “dark and stripped-back” brand of techno and crossover to other sounds of the underground, Charlotte de Witte pushes the boundaries of the electronic genre with music that has a distinct and unforgettable sound that is uniquely her own. De Witte’s innovative ability allows her to seamlessly blend genres and styles that
have won her a dedicated fan base and critical acclaim.

“Power Of Thought” is the followup EP to de Witte’s “Overdrive” EP, campaign and tour, which recently wrapped with a Los Angeles takeover last month and included performances at Brooklyn Mirage, Primavera Sound, Rock Werchter, Super Bock Super Rock, Lowlands and Rock En Seine. The “Power Of Thought” release will include an exclusive apparel drop as well and will coincide with the opening day of KNTXT Turbo Club, de Witte’s epic 3-day pop-up event series taking over Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE) from October 19 - 21, 2023.

With a different “KNTXT” each day, the turbo-charged pop-up will feature a massive lineup of performances, a dedicated KNTXT shop, immersive music experiences and other surprises at an undisclosed location in Amsterdam. Capacity will be very limited and tickets can be purchased now at https://kntxt.be/events/ade.

Following ADE, de Witte will embark upon the KNTXT Latin America Tour on October 26, which will take her to Mexico City, Buenos Aires and São Paulo.

Volume 1 of this expertly curated project of 90s Italian House - put together by Don Carlos.

If Paradise was half as nice… by Fabio De Luca.

Googling “paradise house”, the first results to pop up are an endless list of European b&b’s with whitewashed lime façades, all of them promising “…an unmatched travel experience a few steps from the sea”. Next, a little further down, are the institutional websites of a few select semi-luxury retirement homes (no photos shown, but lots of stock images of smiling nurses with reassuring looks). To find the “paradise house” we’re after, we have to scroll even further down. Much further down.

It feels like yesterday, and at the same time it seems like a million years ago. The Eighties had just ended, and it was still unclear what to expect from the Nineties. Mobile phones that were not the size of a briefcase and did not cost as much as a car? A frightening economic crisis? The guitar-rock revival?! Certainly, the best place to observe that moment of transition was the dancefloor. Truly epochal transformations were happening there. From America, within a short distance one from the other, two revolutionary new musical styles had arrived: the first one sounded a bit like an “on a budget” version of the best Seventies disco-music – Philly sound made with a set of piano-bar keyboards! – the other was even more sparse, futuristic and extraterrestrial. It was a music with a quite distinct “physical” component, which at the same time, to be fully grasped, seemed to call for the knotty theories of certain French post-modern philosophers: Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Paul Virilio... Both those genres – we would learn shortly after – were born in the black communities of Chicago and Detroit, although listening to those vinyl 12” (often wrapped in generic white covers, and with little indication in the label) you could not easily guess whether behind them there was a black boy from somewhere in the Usa, or a girl from Berlin, or a pale kid from a Cornish coastal town.

Quickly, similar sounds began to show up from all corners of Europe. A thousand variations of the same intuition: leaner, less lean, happier, slightly less intoxicated, more broken, slower, faster, much faster... Boom! From the dancefloors – the London ones at least, whose chronicles we eagerly read every month in the pages of The Face and i-D – came tales of a new generation of clubbers who had completely stopped “dressing up” to go dancing; of hot tempered hooligans bursting into tears and hugging everyone under the strobe lights as the notes of Strings of Life rose up through the fumes of dry ice (certain “smiling” pills were also involved, sure). At this point, however, we must move on to Switzerland.

In Switzerland, in the quiet and diligent town of Lugano, between the 1980s and 1990s there was a club called “Morandi”. Its hot night was on Wednesdays, when the audience also came from Milan, Como, Varese and Zurich. Legend goes that, one night, none less than Prince and Sheila E were spotted hiding among the sofas, on a day-off of the Italian dates of the Nude Tour… The Wednesday resident and superstar was an Italian dj with an exotic name: Don Carlos. The soundtrack he devised was a mixture of Chicago, Detroit, the most progressive R&B and certain forgotten classics of old disco music: practically, what the Paradise Garage in New York might have sounded like had it not closed in 1987. In between, Don Carlos also managed to squeeze in some tracks he had worked on in his studio on Lago Maggiore. One in particular: a track that was rather slow compared to the BPM in fashion at the time, but which was a perfect bridge between house and R&B. The title was Alone: Don Carlos would explain years later that it had to be intended both in the English meaning of “by itself” and like the Italian word meaning “halo”. That wasn’t the only double entendre about the song, anyway. Its own very deep nature was, indeed, double. On the one hand, Alone was built around an angelic keyboard pattern and a romantic piano riff that took you straight to heaven; on the other, it showcased enough electronic squelches (plus a sax part that sounded like it had been dissolved by acid rain) to pigeonhole the tune into the “junk modernity” section, aka the hallmark of all the most innovative sounds of the time: music that sounded like it was hand-crafted from the scraps of glittering overground pop.

No one knows who was the first to call it “paradise house”, nor when it happened. Alternative definitions on the same topic one happened to hear included “ambient house”, “dream house”, “Mediterranean progressive”… but of course none were as good (and alluring) as “paradise house”. What is certain is that such inclination for sounds that were in equal measure angelic and neurotic, romantic and unaffective, quickly became the trademark of the second generation of Italian house. Music that seemed shyly equidistant from all the rhythmic and electronic revolutions that had happened up to that moment (“Music perfectly adept at going nowhere slowly” as noted by English journalist Craig McLean in a legendary field report for Blah Blah Blah magazine). Music that to a inattentive ear might have sounded as anonymous as a snapshot of a random group of passers-by at 10AM in the centre of any major city, but perfectly described the (slow) awakening in the real world after the universal love binge of the so-called Second Summer of Love.

For a brief but unforgettable season, in Italy “paradise house” was the official soundtrack of interminable weekends spent inside the car, darting from one club to another, cutting the peninsula from North to centre, from East to West coast in pursuit of the latest after-hours disco, trading kilometres per hour with beats per minute: practically, a new New Year’s Eve every Friday and Saturday night. This too was no small transformation, as well as a shock for an adult Italy that was encountering for the first time – thanks to its sons and daughters – the wild side of industrial modernity. The clubbers of the so-called “fuoriorario” scene were the balls gone mad in the pinball machine most feared by newspapers, magazines and TV pundits. What they did each and every weekend, apart from going crazy to the sound of the current white labels, was linking distant geographical points and non-places (thank you Marc Augé!) – old dance halls, farmhouses and business centres – transformed for one night into house music heaven. As Marco D’Eramo wrote in his 1995 essay on Chicago, Il maiale e il grattacielo: “Four-wheeled capitalism distorts our age-old image of the city, it allows the suburbs to be connected to each other, whereas before they were connected only by the centre (…) It makes possible a metropolitan area without a metropolis, without a city centre, without downtown. The periphery is no longer a periphery of any centre, but is self-centred”.

“Paradise house” perfectly understood all of this and turned it into a sort of cyber-blues that didn’t even need words, and unexpectedly brought back a drop of melancholic (post?)-humanity within a world that by then – as we would wholly realise in the decades to come – was fully inhuman and heartless. A world where we were all alone, and surrounded by a sinister yellowish halo, like a neon at the end of its life cycle. But, for one night at least, happy.

The prolific, virtuosic original Bjarki Sigurðarson returns to the concept album format, with ‘A Guide To Hellthier Lifestyle’. It’s the first LP to be released on Differance.

‘A Guide To Hellthier Lifestyle’ explores the psychological landscape of contemporary social issues, offering a sideways rumination on lifestyle dilemmas and wellness obsessions, presenting itself as a response to the modern condition. It combines storytelling with innovative sound textures – encouraging listeners to pause and contemplate the absurdities of contemporary life. Neither a critique nor an endorsement, it represents an honest exploration of our world through Bjarki’s sonic lens, gleaming a heart of darkness, but eventually finding light.

The album utilises hyper-stereo techniques, soothing melodies, complex audio structures, AIgenerated voices and sampled vocals – influenced by Coil, Genesis P- Orridge, and Paul Lansky. Bjarki investigates how specific frequencies can impact consciousness, awareness, mood, and mental state, thereby influencing our perception of reality. His vaporous sound design provides a listening experience that bridges the physical and imaginative realms; sometimes placing the listener in contemplative sanctuary, and at others making them lost – somewhere strange, uneasy, disconnected.

Bjarki on his Guide To Hellthier Lifestyle

“This new album has been two years in the works. It’s sort of my take on all the social weirdness and wellness obsessions happening right now. It kicked off with a track I started in California – the story of a soul that got born into the wrong womb. During that time, I was noticing more and more of this whole ‘wellness religion’ everywhere – people trying to sell you ‘good vibes’ and random people offering you life coaching sessions on Instagram who maybe have less life experience than a houseplant. All these apps that track our every move; it’s like they’re repackaging control and calling it ‘self care’. Capitalism in yoga pants. Thats when I started putting ‘A Guide To Hellthier Lifestyle’ concept together. A never ending, self improvement rabbit hole. We are all being sold this idea that we are not quite enough and we need to buy our way out to being better.

At one point, I took a break from the album and started working on another album full of satirical speeches, AI generated voices, where I create my own voices and type in some ideas of speeches, taking the piss out of wellness gurus and life coaches. I messed a lot with these AI voice generators, creating these deep, faux serious monologues. Proper weird stuff, but it cracked me up. Reminded me of the early days, when I was 13, making tracks on Fruity Loops, mucking around with text-to- speech generators. After the break I came back to finish ‘The Guide’ on a much deeper level.

I moved part of my studio to Latvia and continued in the countryside for few months. I realised that I just wanted something beautiful. So, yeah, this album is all of that. It’s spiritual, bits and pieces from the past, all these weird cultural moments, and whatever strange places my head goes. It’s a reflection, a rebellion, a bit of a piss take. But mostly, it’s just me, doing what I do.” - Duncan Clark

The album will be released only in its entirety, December 13th digi, with no advance singles.

Irishman Dom Martin is a multi award winning artist from Belfast Northern Ireland.
The 34 year old's music is steeped in the atmospheric celtic hallways of the past with many likening his style and stage presence to the likes of the late greats Rory Gallagher and Belfast's own Gary Moore.

Equally at home with an acoustic guitar in hand tearing at the heartstrings of the audience, he's an inducted UK Blues Hall of Fame Artist as a result of three consecutive acoustic awards, and his trusty telecasters and Les Pauls that lead his power trio, delivering him two consecutive Instrumentalist of The Year Awards, Dom tours internationally on a regular basis and has built a reputation for his emotional and powerful legendary shows.

His latest album 'Buried In The Hail' garnered rave reviews and was voted Best UK Blues Album of 2024 at the UK Blues Awards.

Whilst touring the UK and Europe in 2023/2024, many tracks from 'Buried In The Hail' were recorded live along with several from his previous albums, 'Spain To Italy' and 'A Savage Life'.
The result is 'Buried Alive', a double live album by one of the most exciting artists to come out of Ireland in a very long time.

It’s abundantly clear from the first bars of their 5th studio album Through Other Reflection, that this is, and could only ever be, The Soundcarriers. From the enchanting vocal duets of folk-bidden Chanteuses Leonore Wheatley and Dorian Conway; to the precise bass lines of Paul Isherwood and the limber, jazz-cool, Hal Blaine-esque drums of his his co-songwriter Adam Cann; from the fairy-like flutes, 60s-garage guitars and organ sounds pilfered from the archives of exotica - listening to the Soundcarriers resembles a rediscovery of all the most prized, esoteric corners of the 1960s, all bundled up, warped and refracted through the quartet’s astutely modern cultural lens. Channelling Tropicalia, Middle Eastern psychedelic Jazz/Funk, The French Library sounds of Nino Nardini, and a whole host of lavish obscurites beside, Through Other Reflection delivers another sonic adventure from one of the most unique and distinctive voices of British Psychedelia. After an 8 year wait for their album 4 - 2022’s Wilds - it thankfully didn’t take so long for the follow-up this time round. In many ways, this feels like a companion to Wilds; recording again at their Nottingham warehouse studio, Through Other Reflection retains that same organic glow, all the passions and imperfections of a tightly clipped unit jamming out these living, breathing pop-art nuggets as if straight onto the acetate.”We wanted to keep an air of spontaneity with this album and not get too bogged with the recording process”, explains Cann, “It was more a case of getting the songs as tightly written and arranged as possible first so we could get them down quickly in the studio. It always takes longer than you think” Less packed with strident pop hooks as its predecessor however, the music of Through… has been given extra licence to breathe, stretch out, and wander more uncharted terrains. While gleaming psych-pop of tracks like ‘The City Was’, or ‘Already Over’ confidently carry on from where they left off, from the album’s 2nd track ‘Always’, the trip becomes a little less predictable. Starting out as a smoky Procol Harum-meets-French-Psych organ ballad, the music drifts, as if of its own accord into an eerie, garage trance that lingers, cycles, and hypnotises, growing ever stranger, reaching ever-further away from its point of conception. And almost every track on Through Other Reflections holds that outer-body moment, where the band fix themselves on a limber, lysergic groove, lose all grip on time and reality, and melt themselves away into a liquid state of blind euphoria. There are sequences on this record that feel more like rituals than songs, built upon a single hypnotic rhythm which, like the centre of a vortex, pulling everything under its beatific command. Take the finale to ‘What We Found’ for instance, sounding like a ghostly march across the psychedelic moors, or ‘Feel The Way’, where a single athletic drum-loop rises and rises, growing ever more urgent and suspenseful underneath its frantic harpsichords and rasping flutes. Full of such rich stylisms as these, The Soundcarriers showcase themselves as abstract storytellers par excellence by virtue of their textures and arrangements alone. Resembling Romantic composer Maurice Ravel, but if he had just a four-piece rock band at his disposal, Through Other Reflects is rich with detail; there’s shakers, rattles, clarinets, booming drums; there’s synthesiser swarms, chiming xylophones, vintage organs and experimental Cluster & Eno-esque ambiences. Within all this nuance the music flows like some undisclosed narrative swathed in a magnetic secrecy. “It almost comes across like a story in some ways”, says Cann of the album, “the music is quite sectional with elements of exotica and cinematic type layers, it's a good balance of grooves, tunes and weirdness”. No more is this “epic cinematic feel” heard more proudly than on short instrumental ‘Sonya’s Lament” - its innate, hauntological atmospheres befitting a Peter Strickland soundtrack, or the classics of Lex Baxter, the so-called ‘Founder of Exotica’ himself. On the other hand, providing a greasier undercurrent to all these bucolic sounds is a leaning towards a more “direct” lyricism referencing more “external concerns. Laying down the first tracks for the album in the wintry gloom of pre-lockdown 2020, and drawing inspiration from time spent in Berlin, Through Other Reflections returns to some of the post-apocalyptic futurism explored in 2014’s Entropicalia - a loose concept album inspired by J.G Ballard’s The Drowned World. “The songs explore a disillusionment with the way things are going particularly after 40 years of neoliberalism”, says Cann, “They follow that folk-song tradition of wanting to escape to an imagined time, but here it’s more urban than pastoral. The first couple of ideas I came up with when doing some music in Berlin and had some time to wander aimlessly. And think the atmosphere seeped in, particularly on The City Was and Already Over. He continues, “One aspect of the title, ‘Through Other Reflections’ is about synthesis and layers of influence. How things can be filtered through other things and change the perspective. This is something you get in cities as well.” Though, as with everything The Soundcarriers make, “It can mean anything. It also just sounds kind of cool.”

Mariano Melo, also known as Marian Sarine, is a Brazilian multi-instrumentalist based in Sao Paulo, specialising in percussion and drums. His latest album, Asas Terenas, is his first under this name and started with organ recordings made with Felipe Pato in late 2019 and was completed with additional instruments added in the years that followed. Asas Terenas features a mix of rhythmic improvisations built on modal scales, combining dynamic interplay between notes and percussion. Drawing inspiration from artists like Charanjit Singh, who merged traditional North-Indian ragas with electronic music, and African organists like Hailu Mergia, it combines old and new sounds, merging spiritual elements with energetic rhythms. As Sarine himself says, Asas Terenas is a sonic mixture that moves the feet and lifts the soul, creating an experience that is both pristine in sound and transcendental on the dancefloor.

For Patricia Kaas' her sixth album Dans Ma Chair, she went to New York to work together with the successful producer Phil Ramone (Ray Charles, Billy Joel, Paul Simon), Lyle Lovett and, for the second time, James Taylor. With Taylor, she recorded the duet ""Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight"". Two singles from the album received silver status, ""Je voudrais la connaître"" and ""Quand j'ai peur de tout"". The latter was written by Diane Warren and later succesfully translated and covered by Sugababes as ""Too Lost in You"". The album went to #1 in Belgium and reached the Top 10 in Finland, French, Germany, and Switzerland. Dans Ma Chair is available as a limited edition of 1000(?) individually numbered copies on red coloured vinyl and includes an insert.

A unique, dreamy Dutch-language indie-folk record reminiscent of Jessica Pratt and Joni Mitchell.



Catbug is the project of singer-songwriter Paulien Rondou who grew up in Duisburg, a Belgian village near Tervuren. After completing her 'Cabaret' studies at the Antwerp Conservatory, Paulien moved to her mother and stepfather's little farm in Westmalle. Although she left without any specific goal in mind, it didn't take long for the first wonderful songs to originate in this environment.

Catbug released her debut album Universe back in 2018. A record that immediately put her on the map within the Belgian music landscape. "Since the release of King Fisher, Catbug's first song, we have been sitting here on the edge of our seats", Radio 1 wrote about it at the time. Despite the fact that her musical career had clearly taken a direction, Paulien did not feel comfortable living the big city life. That said, it didn't take long before she left Antwerp behind to run the organic farm De Paardebloemhoeve in Malle. As it turned out, that farm was the ideal habitat for Paulien to work on her first Dutch-language album slapen onder een hunebed peacefully and quietly. This album was also well received in Belgium and was even picked up by Japanese label Think!Records. In one way or another, Catbug's music reached the Japanese label and, upon their request, several hundred vinyls were immediately sent out to Japan. In no time, all vinyls were sold out. Despite the fact that Catbug's lyrics are sung in Dutch, the people in Japan love her music.

Now, three years later, there's the brand new album Musjemeesje. The album has become an ode to all the birdson and around the farm, which again served as the breeding ground for all the new songs. One winter day in 2021, Paulien was given a pair of binoculars as a gift and decided to learn as much as she could about the birds on and around the farm. Soon she learnt to recognize the distinctive sounds and ways of flying of many different species, and a separate story began to form with each bird. There was something in them that Paulien identified with, and she wanted to try to map it out. This is where the idea was born of writing an album of songs about birds. "Birds always manage to uplift and inspire me with their crazy habits and their twittering. They reach out to the child in myself", Paulien added herself. For this album, Paulien worked with producer Aiko Devriendt again, who also did the mix. They recorded the album in pianist Guy Van Nuyten's studio and just like they did the last time, a conscious choice was made to keep it sober. Less is more. This resulted in a unique, dreamy Dutch-language indie-folk record reminiscent of Jessica Pratt and Joni Mitchell.

Rarely has there been a better album opener than Fun n' Frenzy, a shimmering yet abrasive mix of Subway Sect dustbin lid guitar, No Wave twitchiness, a hint of psychedelia and a crooning vocalist intoning poetic, abstract lyrics that conveyed existential menace. Continuing with Revelation, Crazy to Exist and single tracks like Sorry for Laughing, The Only Fun In Town was an extraordinary achievement - eclipsed by the groups split. It remains an early 80s high point. Those who haven't heard it should; those who have might tempted by this latest upgrade, which features remastered sound and different extras'. Josef K 'The Only Fun In Town' (Jon Savage - Mojo 2014)
Crepuscule presents a new limited coloured vinyl edition of The Only Fun In Town, the influential debut album by iconic Scottish guitar group Josef K, originally released on Postcard Records in July 1981.
500 copies only of TWI 052 have been pressed for release in 2019, with Disc 1 on black vinyl and Disc 2 on gold vinyl, matching the iconic sleeve artwork by Krysia Klasicki.
Speedily recorded in a small studio in Brussels, The Only Fun In Town was a defiantly abrasive, serrated long-player in the mould of the second Velvets album, Josef K having already shelved a more conventional recording. Sharp-edged pop singles abound - It's Kinda Funny, Sorry for Laughing, Revelation - along with rattling Haig/Ross twin guitar classics such as Fun 'n' Frenzy, Heart of Song, Forever Drone and The Angle.
The Only Fun In Town topped the independent charts on release and remains a canonical post-punk album. This remaster arrives housed in a handsome gatefold sleeve, and by way of bonus tracks also features several Postcard single A and B sides including Radio Drill Time and Chance Meeting. Side 4 features all four tracks from JoKay's celebrated John Peel Session in June 1981, including Heaven Sent and The Missionary.
'Josef K were The Sound of Young Scotland, together with Orange Juice ' (Paul Morley)

Still just 19-years-old, Toby Lee is already a three-time winner of Young Blues Artist of the Year at the UK Blues Awards - yet the virtuoso guitarist is only getting started. Praised as a remarkable talent by the likes of Jools Holland and Joe Bonamassa, 2024 represents a big breakthrough year as Toby releases his first album of all-original material ‘House On Fire’ on October 4th via 100% Records. As you’d expect from someone that The Times hailed as, “One of the best guitarists in Britain,” his six-string talents dazzle throughout with a rich tapestry of scorching leads, evocative melodies and swaggering grooves. Yet his vocals have come on leaps-and-bounds, his maturity and emotional expression providing a voice strong enough to front a band regardless of his guitar skills. His songs and stylistic scope have expanded too, with a set that moves seemingly effortlessly between classic blues jams, punchy hard rock, intimate acoustic moments and a modernist approach to classic soul and Stax-style R&B. It’s all played with a winning combination of youthful abandon and undeniable accomplishment. Toby Lee’s talents have been recognised by an array of legends. When he was 10, a get well soon video that he made for BB King went viral, leading to an invitation from the blues legend’s family to play at his club in Memphis, while the late Bernie Marsden was an early mentor and champion. He subsequently shared the stage with the likes of Buddy Guy, Joe Bonamassa, Slash, Billy Gibbons and Peter Frampton, while enjoying other high profile moments, such as starring in a West End production of ‘School of Rock’, performing with McFly on ‘Tonight at the London Palladium’ and featuring in ‘The Ellen DeGeneres Show’. Toby has now exceeded 500 million views on social media. His ability has been recognised with numerous endorsements. He has been a Gibson artist since the age of 10, and a recent highlight came when he helped launch Gibson’s custom Jeff Beck ‘YardBurst’ 1959 Les Paul Standard alongside fellow guests including Jimmy Page, Johnny Depp and Graham Coxon. Blackstar Amplification issued his own signature amp, the St James Toby Lee 50 6L6 head and cab, and he is also endorsed by D’Addario Strings.

Still just 19-years-old, Toby Lee is already a three-time winner of Young Blues Artist of the Year at the UK Blues Awards - yet the virtuoso guitarist is only getting started. Praised as a remarkable talent by the likes of Jools Holland and Joe Bonamassa, 2024 represents a big breakthrough year as Toby releases his first album of all-original material ‘House On Fire’ on October 4th via 100% Records. As you’d expect from someone that The Times hailed as, “One of the best guitarists in Britain,” his six-string talents dazzle throughout with a rich tapestry of scorching leads, evocative melodies and swaggering grooves. Yet his vocals have come on leaps-and-bounds, his maturity and emotional expression providing a voice strong enough to front a band regardless of his guitar skills. His songs and stylistic scope have expanded too, with a set that moves seemingly effortlessly between classic blues jams, punchy hard rock, intimate acoustic moments and a modernist approach to classic soul and Stax-style R&B. It’s all played with a winning combination of youthful abandon and undeniable accomplishment. Toby Lee’s talents have been recognised by an array of legends. When he was 10, a get well soon video that he made for BB King went viral, leading to an invitation from the blues legend’s family to play at his club in Memphis, while the late Bernie Marsden was an early mentor and champion. He subsequently shared the stage with the likes of Buddy Guy, Joe Bonamassa, Slash, Billy Gibbons and Peter Frampton, while enjoying other high profile moments, such as starring in a West End production of ‘School of Rock’, performing with McFly on ‘Tonight at the London Palladium’ and featuring in ‘The Ellen DeGeneres Show’. Toby has now exceeded 500 million views on social media. His ability has been recognised with numerous endorsements. He has been a Gibson artist since the age of 10, and a recent highlight came when he helped launch Gibson’s custom Jeff Beck ‘YardBurst’ 1959 Les Paul Standard alongside fellow guests including Jimmy Page, Johnny Depp and Graham Coxon. Blackstar Amplification issued his own signature amp, the St James Toby Lee 50 6L6 head and cab, and he is also endorsed by D’Addario Strings.

Katia und Marielle Labèque, das berühmte Klavier-Schwestern-Duo mit mehr als fünfzigjähriger Karriere,
veröffentlichen ihr neues Album, das der Musik von Philip Glass gewidmet ist als umfangreiche 3-LP Box.
Mit Begleittexten von Philip Glass und Fotos von der Aufführung in der Pariser Philharmonie.
Sein zwischen 1993 und 1996 komponiertes Triptychon, das auf den Filmen von Jean Cocteau basiert, wird
hier vervollständigt. Nach ihrer viel beachteten Aufnahme von ”Les Enfants Terribles”, die hier enthalten
ist, präsentieren die Pianistinnen nun zusätzlich auch die beiden verbleibenden Werke der Cocteau-Trilogie:
”Orphée” und ”La Belle et la Bête”, arrangiert von Glass’ Musikdirektor Michael Riesman.
Nach seiner Porträttrilogie (Einstein, Gandhi und Echnaton) wandte sich Philip Glass für seine Opern
den Werken von Jean Cocteau zu. So greift er den Mythos von ”Orphée” (Orpheus) und ”La Belle et la
Bête” (Die Schöne und das Biest) wieder auf. Er schließt seine Trilogie mit ”Les Enfants Terribles” (Die
schrecklichen Kinder) ab, einem ebenso tragischen wie erschreckend leichten Roman, in dem zwei Kinder
in den vier Wänden ihres Zimmers eine imaginäre und grenzenlose Freiheit erlangen. Dies sind Themen,
die Glass’ hypnotische, unendliche Musik unter den Fingern von Katia und Marielle Labèque aufs Schönste
beschwört.

Perpignan Burning: the Southern French capital of garage rock in search of the riff. Or as Lou Reed would put it: "You can"t beat two guitars, bass, and drums." Content: 27 previously unreleased tracks on the double LP and six digital-only bonus tracks. All tracks on this compilation were recorded in or around Perpignan, France, and go to the musical extremes of an extreme city. Whether garage punks or freakbeat mods, country punks or city rockers, whether pioneers or new to the scene: the only thing that counts is the riff. Pascal Comelade, infamous riff explorer since the 1970s, is the unlikely godfather of this bunch of punks and rockers. He opens the trip with his emblematic cover design and closes it with his own Riffifi orchestra to the ultimate riff of The Stooges" "I Wanna Be Your Dog".

The Decades Collected compilations are part of the Collected compilation series, which is a collaboration between Universal Music and Music On Vinyl. The compilations bring together the biggest names of each decade, combined with forgotten hits and less discovered gems, giving the listener an experience of listening to their favourite tunes while uncovering new musical grounds at the same time.

DJ Beeno and Paul Bradley have been mainstays of the Kniteforce roster for some time now, and it was only a matter of time before they appeared on the same EP, and this seemed like the perfect time.

DJ Beeno makes a rare traditional piano breakbeat track in the style of early Remix Records, circa 1994. Then, Paul Bradley takes the track and makes it more 1995 in style with big kicks, bigger breaks, and stabs for days.

Paul Bradley then goes back, once again, to the 1994 sound with his track, with all the energy of a freight train only stopping for the euphoric breakdowns. DJ Beeno then takes the track and flips it upside down with his signature sound, a sound that cannot be described easily but will put a fat smile on your face none the less!

By it's very nature "Radio Chevére", the new album by Rio 18 and their host of guests cannot be categorized simply: at once both a Latin mixtape and a radio show, it's also an internationalist love letter, an offering to the goddess of Tropical Music and all that it encompasses. Ambitious, yes. Foolhardy, possibly. But sincere, committed and FUNKY? Definitely.

With the voice of guest DJ Coco Maria as our guide, "Radio Chévere" takes us on a journey through myriad musical styles and stories. Stopping off at Uruguay, Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, California, New York and countless other sonic destinations via Samba, Salsa, Funk, Cumbia, Joropo, Disco, Psychedelic and Electronic stylings, "Radio Chévere" is also a musical metaphor for migration - a journey from one continent, one life to another.

This album features songs in no less than four languages (Spanish, Portuguese, Welsh and English) and includes collaborations with Brazilian legends the +2's (Moreno Veloso, Kassin and Domenico Lancellotti) on the tender samba ballad, "Oh Minha Querida", transatlantic Yacht Rock gods Young Gun Silver Fox ("She's In LA"), "Sao Paulo's finest" Silvia Machete on the sweaty funk "Maybe Man" and Venezuelan Llanera and Joropo queen Luzmira Zerpa sings "Padre Tiempo", set to an incessant Afro-Venezuelan pulse. Why this torrent of eclectica now? Having recorded three albums in Welsh, predominantly inspired by Brazilian music, Rio 18 founder, Carwyn Ellis had a hard time following 2021's "Yn Rio": "We'd made a concept album with an orchestra. How do you follow that?" he says. "So I retreated to my laboratory, learned as much new music as I could, started learning Spanish too, and ended up writing tunes in a bunch of languages and styles, all of which reflected things I've learned or experienced over the last couple of years."

Since the group's inception in 2018, on the suggestion of Chrissie Hynde when he toured South America as a member of the Pretenders, Carwyn has been on a voyage of musical discovery through the styles of that continent. And in those five years he learnt a lot! But in a radical new move, Carwyn has stepped back from the mic, preferring to focus on writing and producing, handing over the vocal duties to band members Baldo Verdu (Venezuela) and Elan Rhys (Wales) plus a host of collaborators. "They can sing and express what I'm feeling so much better than I can, and both Elan and Baldo bring an authenticity and strength to our songs that surprise and elevate me. Collaborating with so many other inspiring artists on this album has helped us to grow and assimilate more styles - we're halfway through our next album already."

Rio 18 is an internationalist collective with Celtic and Latin roots and love at their core. With eye popping carnivalesque cover art by the brilliant Colombian graphic artist, Yoda, "Radio Chévere" is both timely and timeless.

On Chastity’s upcoming, self-titled fourth record, Williams decided to write a fully non-fiction work. Out Friday, September 13 2024 on Deathwish (US), Dine Alone (Canada), and Big Scary Monsters (UK/E) ‘Chastity’ is a 13-track record about the things that have always run through the band’s records—struggle, death, despair, redemption, darkness, and light—but this time, the songs ascend to new depths of intensity and desperation, new heights of resolution and power. “It’s really about the first nosedive that I did as a young person,” says Williams. “It’s a record about struggle, about the missing years. It’s also a thank you to some people in my life.” The record hurtles through melodic hardcore, shoegaze, and emo, all magnificently and enormously rendered thanks to slick work from John Paul Peters (Propagandhi, Comeback Kid), who engineered and mixed the record. Chastity’s first three full-length records—2018’s Death Lust, 2019’s Home Made Satan, and 2022’s Suffer Summer—formed a trilogy that defined a 4-year arc of the band’s contribution to outsider music. Each record was informed by Williams’ life, but each was also conceptual and interpretive, refracting his experiences through a level of remove. On the self-titled record there’s a beautiful and affirming ending to it’s closer, centered on the band’s first and enduring idea: life is less shitty if we live it together.

"One of the best bands to come out of NYC since who gives a shit." -CVLT Nation. When you enter White Hills' lair in Brooklyn, the duo's insatiable desire for music and art is immediately palpable. Crates of vinyl from floor to ceiling line the long hallway. Guitars appear at every angle, one lying across a sofa in obvious mid-play with others in cases tucked beside amplifiers into every conceivable corner. Synthesizers and cables cover the purple satin bed while gouache paintings in various stages of progress strewn the floor. Album covers, movie posters, books, paintings, prints and souvenirs of subversive culture occupy the remaining wall space. A sanctuary of adoration, creation and imagination, it's also the nerve center of their record label Heads on Fire Industries and the site where the final mixes of their latest album Beyond This Fiction took shape. For nearly two decades, White Hills have been blowing minds with their sonic alchemy: a unique mix of neo-psychedelia, art rock, and post-punk- at once original and recognizable. Their cult reputation emblazoned in celluloid following their performance in Jim Jarmusch's sultry vampire romance Only Lovers Left Alive, the duo has toured vigorously since their inception. With a vast catalogue that astounds and a relentless punk ethos, time seems to energize the duo, making them increasingly daring and prolific. "Music creates a bliss beyond sex and drugs," professes one-woman rhythm section Ego Sensation. "We'll never stop making music. It's the highest high to be had in life." Founding member Dave W, whose signature other-worldly guitar sorcery defines the White Hills sound, grabs his Les Paul to record a melody lingering in his head from last night's dream before it escapes. Outside, the sound of passing sirens, honking horns and bits of conversation remind you that you're in the middle of New York, a city so flush with rock legacy and artistic innovation it would take lifetimes to drink it all in. A voice from outside shouts, "This shit is going for 3! These people got to be out of their fucking minds!" Dave shakes his head and laughs, "There's no place I'd rather be." Committed to a vocation marked by extremes, doubt, struggle and moments of ecstasy, Dave and Ego continue this torrid affair with music bearing their latest fruit Beyond This Fiction. Inspired by the ideas of Joseph Campbell, the writer/philosopher known for the book The Power of Myth, the album explores the idea of "riding between opposites"- forging one's own path unrestrained by the dualistic constraints of society. It's a cry to all the seers among us- call us outsiders or rebels- who feel smothered by convention and see nonconformity as the gateway into divine mystery. Recorded with Martin Bisi, known for his iconic NYC sound developed through his work with no-wave titans Sonic Youth, Swans and Lydia Lunch, Beyond This Fiction sees Dave W (guitar/vocals/synths) and Ego Sensation (drums/bass/vocals) orchestrating their distinct guitar heavy meditations into songs with a stronger focus on vocals than previous albums. Opener "Throw It Up In The Air" and closer "Beyond This Fiction" both have a lush quality that flirts with shoegaze. "Killing Crimson", a song that takes inspiration from Killing Joke and King Crimson, has a driving beat and a catchy hook that begs for a sing-a-long. "The Awakening" plunges into the meditative ambient abyss the band is well known for, featuring the unique voice of frequent collaborator poet Dan McGuire to deliver the meaning behind Beyond This Fiction. The album harnesses the seductive accessibility of 2015's Walks For Motorists while evoking the tempestuous soul of the band's seminal 2011 H-p1. Notorious shapeshifters, White Hills make Beyond This Fiction a familiar surprise. Back in the lair, Dave draws eyes on his hands in preparation for the day's video shoot. Ego reaches in the closet pulling out the red velvet jacket she wears on the cover of Beyond This Fiction where she stands in a NYC alley holding a glowing orb. "That's the portal- the gateway into the mystery. The music will take you there.".

The notion of house music as a form of uptempo soul music is intrinsic evidence with a record like the one on hand. Professor Supercool’s If You Love Somebody is many things at once: an example of a special brand of British pop music, influenced by US-American soul more or less from the get-go, the Second Summer of Love, the conception of Balearic as a music genre, the cultural interchange of European dance floors and DJs from across the pond and underground music marketing through the vessel of special one-time pressings. The mysterious Professor Supercool is actually a moniker for Dr. Rob of The Blow Monkeys’s fame, who produced the song with a veteran and legendary DJ of the Northern Soul scene „The Real Hector“ – a resident at the famous Wag Club.

Originally a part of the band’s Album Spring Time For The World, it appeared first as a special For-Promotion-Only-12“ in 1989 with limited information as a trial ballon to „avoid preconceptions“. The fear was without reason. Like the band’s other big dance floor record and Balearic fave LA Passionara a year later, it got played and supported by the DJs of its time. Next to Graeme Park at the Hacienda or Paul Oakenfold, it also got picked up by Mastermixer Tony
Humphries and became a staple at his radio and club sets for KissFm respectively Club Zanzibar. While the vocal mix found its way on said album, the preferred 12“ instrumental version has never been released anywhere else up until now and made the record go for a substantial amount of Discogs dollars.
Expanded with an edit by the label’s in-house DJ Gerd Janson that is supposed to work as a dub alternative to the vocal mix, the 12-inch and bundle download contain the original plus a faithfully restored and remastered version of the instrumental in demand. If you love this record it is impossible to let it go.

It’s abundantly clear from the first bars of their 5th studio album Through Other Reflection, that this is, and could only ever be, The Soundcarriers. From the enchanting vocal duets of folk-bidden Chanteuses Leonore Wheatley and Dorian Conway; to the precise bass lines of Paul Isherwood and the limber, jazz-cool, Hal Blaine-esque drums of his his co-songwriter Adam Cann; from the fairy-like flutes, 60s-garage guitars and organ sounds pilfered from the archives of exotica - listening to the Soundcarriers resembles a rediscovery of all the most prized, esoteric corners of the 1960s, all bundled up, warped and refracted through the quartet’s astutely modern cultural lens. Channelling Tropicalia, Middle Eastern psychedelic Jazz/Funk, The French Library sounds of Nino Nardini, and a whole host of lavish obscurites beside, Through Other Reflection delivers another sonic adventure from one of the most unique and distinctive voices of British Psychedelia. After an 8 year wait for their album 4 - 2022’s Wilds - it thankfully didn’t take so long for the follow-up this time round. In many ways, this feels like a companion to Wilds; recording again at their Nottingham warehouse studio, Through Other Reflection retains that same organic glow, all the passions and imperfections of a tightly clipped unit jamming out these living, breathing pop-art nuggets as if straight onto the acetate.”We wanted to keep an air of spontaneity with this album and not get too bogged with the recording process”, explains Cann, “It was more a case of getting the songs as tightly written and arranged as possible first so we could get them down quickly in the studio. It always takes longer than you think” Less packed with strident pop hooks as its predecessor however, the music of Through… has been given extra licence to breathe, stretch out, and wander more uncharted terrains. While gleaming psych-pop of tracks like ‘The City Was’, or ‘Already Over’ confidently carry on from where they left off, from the album’s 2nd track ‘Always’, the trip becomes a little less predictable. Starting out as a smoky Procol Harum-meets-French-Psych organ ballad, the music drifts, as if of its own accord into an eerie, garage trance that lingers, cycles, and hypnotises, growing ever stranger, reaching ever-further away from its point of conception. And almost every track on Through Other Reflections holds that outer-body moment, where the band fix themselves on a limber, lysergic groove, lose all grip on time and reality, and melt themselves away into a liquid state of blind euphoria. There are sequences on this record that feel more like rituals than songs, built upon a single hypnotic rhythm which, like the centre of a vortex, pulling everything under its beatific command. Take the finale to ‘What We Found’ for instance, sounding like a ghostly march across the psychedelic moors, or ‘Feel The Way’, where a single athletic drum-loop rises and rises, growing ever more urgent and suspenseful underneath its frantic harpsichords and rasping flutes. Full of such rich stylisms as these, The Soundcarriers showcase themselves as abstract storytellers par excellence by virtue of their textures and arrangements alone. Resembling Romantic composer Maurice Ravel, but if he had just a four-piece rock band at his disposal, Through Other Reflects is rich with detail; there’s shakers, rattles, clarinets, booming drums; there’s synthesiser swarms, chiming xylophones, vintage organs and experimental Cluster & Eno-esque ambiences. Within all this nuance the music flows like some undisclosed narrative swathed in a magnetic secrecy. “It almost comes across like a story in some ways”, says Cann of the album, “the music is quite sectional with elements of exotica and cinematic type layers, it's a good balance of grooves, tunes and weirdness”. No more is this “epic cinematic feel” heard more proudly than on short instrumental ‘Sonya’s Lament” - its innate, hauntological atmospheres befitting a Peter Strickland soundtrack, or the classics of Lex Baxter, the so-called ‘Founder of Exotica’ himself. On the other hand, providing a greasier undercurrent to all these bucolic sounds is a leaning towards a more “direct” lyricism referencing more “external concerns. Laying down the first tracks for the album in the wintry gloom of pre-lockdown 2020, and drawing inspiration from time spent in Berlin, Through Other Reflections returns to some of the post-apocalyptic futurism explored in 2014’s Entropicalia - a loose concept album inspired by J.G Ballard’s The Drowned World. “The songs explore a disillusionment with the way things are going particularly after 40 years of neoliberalism”, says Cann, “They follow that folk-song tradition of wanting to escape to an imagined time, but here it’s more urban than pastoral. The first couple of ideas I came up with when doing some music in Berlin and had some time to wander aimlessly. And think the atmosphere seeped in, particularly on The City Was and Already Over. He continues, “One aspect of the title, ‘Through Other Reflections’ is about synthesis and layers of influence. How things can be filtered through other things and change the perspective. This is something you get in cities as well.” Though, as with everything The Soundcarriers make, “It can mean anything. It also just sounds kind of cool.”

It’s abundantly clear from the first bars of their 5th studio album Through Other Reflection, that this is, and could only ever be, The Soundcarriers. From the enchanting vocal duets of folk-bidden Chanteuses Leonore Wheatley and Dorian Conway; to the precise bass lines of Paul Isherwood and the limber, jazz-cool, Hal Blaine-esque drums of his his co-songwriter Adam Cann; from the fairy-like flutes, 60s-garage guitars and organ sounds pilfered from the archives of exotica - listening to the Soundcarriers resembles a rediscovery of all the most prized, esoteric corners of the 1960s, all bundled up, warped and refracted through the quartet’s astutely modern cultural lens. Channelling Tropicalia, Middle Eastern psychedelic Jazz/Funk, The French Library sounds of Nino Nardini, and a whole host of lavish obscurites beside, Through Other Reflection delivers another sonic adventure from one of the most unique and distinctive voices of British Psychedelia. After an 8 year wait for their album 4 - 2022’s Wilds - it thankfully didn’t take so long for the follow-up this time round. In many ways, this feels like a companion to Wilds; recording again at their Nottingham warehouse studio, Through Other Reflection retains that same organic glow, all the passions and imperfections of a tightly clipped unit jamming out these living, breathing pop-art nuggets as if straight onto the acetate.”We wanted to keep an air of spontaneity with this album and not get too bogged with the recording process”, explains Cann, “It was more a case of getting the songs as tightly written and arranged as possible first so we could get them down quickly in the studio. It always takes longer than you think” Less packed with strident pop hooks as its predecessor however, the music of Through… has been given extra licence to breathe, stretch out, and wander more uncharted terrains. While gleaming psych-pop of tracks like ‘The City Was’, or ‘Already Over’ confidently carry on from where they left off, from the album’s 2nd track ‘Always’, the trip becomes a little less predictable. Starting out as a smoky Procol Harum-meets-French-Psych organ ballad, the music drifts, as if of its own accord into an eerie, garage trance that lingers, cycles, and hypnotises, growing ever stranger, reaching ever-further away from its point of conception. And almost every track on Through Other Reflections holds that outer-body moment, where the band fix themselves on a limber, lysergic groove, lose all grip on time and reality, and melt themselves away into a liquid state of blind euphoria. There are sequences on this record that feel more like rituals than songs, built upon a single hypnotic rhythm which, like the centre of a vortex, pulling everything under its beatific command. Take the finale to ‘What We Found’ for instance, sounding like a ghostly march across the psychedelic moors, or ‘Feel The Way’, where a single athletic drum-loop rises and rises, growing ever more urgent and suspenseful underneath its frantic harpsichords and rasping flutes. Full of such rich stylisms as these, The Soundcarriers showcase themselves as abstract storytellers par excellence by virtue of their textures and arrangements alone. Resembling Romantic composer Maurice Ravel, but if he had just a four-piece rock band at his disposal, Through Other Reflects is rich with detail; there’s shakers, rattles, clarinets, booming drums; there’s synthesiser swarms, chiming xylophones, vintage organs and experimental Cluster & Eno-esque ambiences. Within all this nuance the music flows like some undisclosed narrative swathed in a magnetic secrecy. “It almost comes across like a story in some ways”, says Cann of the album, “the music is quite sectional with elements of exotica and cinematic type layers, it's a good balance of grooves, tunes and weirdness”. No more is this “epic cinematic feel” heard more proudly than on short instrumental ‘Sonya’s Lament” - its innate, hauntological atmospheres befitting a Peter Strickland soundtrack, or the classics of Lex Baxter, the so-called ‘Founder of Exotica’ himself. On the other hand, providing a greasier undercurrent to all these bucolic sounds is a leaning towards a more “direct” lyricism referencing more “external concerns. Laying down the first tracks for the album in the wintry gloom of pre-lockdown 2020, and drawing inspiration from time spent in Berlin, Through Other Reflections returns to some of the post-apocalyptic futurism explored in 2014’s Entropicalia - a loose concept album inspired by J.G Ballard’s The Drowned World. “The songs explore a disillusionment with the way things are going particularly after 40 years of neoliberalism”, says Cann, “They follow that folk-song tradition of wanting to escape to an imagined time, but here it’s more urban than pastoral. The first couple of ideas I came up with when doing some music in Berlin and had some time to wander aimlessly. And think the atmosphere seeped in, particularly on The City Was and Already Over. He continues, “One aspect of the title, ‘Through Other Reflections’ is about synthesis and layers of influence. How things can be filtered through other things and change the perspective. This is something you get in cities as well.” Though, as with everything The Soundcarriers make, “It can mean anything. It also just sounds kind of cool.”

"One of the best bands to come out of NYC since who gives a shit." -CVLT Nation. When you enter White Hills' lair in Brooklyn, the duo's insatiable desire for music and art is immediately palpable. Crates of vinyl from floor to ceiling line the long hallway. Guitars appear at every angle, one lying across a sofa in obvious mid-play with others in cases tucked beside amplifiers into every conceivable corner. Synthesizers and cables cover the purple satin bed while gouache paintings in various stages of progress strewn the floor. Album covers, movie posters, books, paintings, prints and souvenirs of subversive culture occupy the remaining wall space. A sanctuary of adoration, creation and imagination, it's also the nerve center of their record label Heads on Fire Industries and the site where the final mixes of their latest album Beyond This Fiction took shape. For nearly two decades, White Hills have been blowing minds with their sonic alchemy: a unique mix of neo-psychedelia, art rock, and post-punk- at once original and recognizable. Their cult reputation emblazoned in celluloid following their performance in Jim Jarmusch's sultry vampire romance Only Lovers Left Alive, the duo has toured vigorously since their inception. With a vast catalogue that astounds and a relentless punk ethos, time seems to energize the duo, making them increasingly daring and prolific. "Music creates a bliss beyond sex and drugs," professes one-woman rhythm section Ego Sensation. "We'll never stop making music. It's the highest high to be had in life." Founding member Dave W, whose signature other-worldly guitar sorcery defines the White Hills sound, grabs his Les Paul to record a melody lingering in his head from last night's dream before it escapes. Outside, the sound of passing sirens, honking horns and bits of conversation remind you that you're in the middle of New York, a city so flush with rock legacy and artistic innovation it would take lifetimes to drink it all in. A voice from outside shouts, "This shit is going for 3! These people got to be out of their fucking minds!" Dave shakes his head and laughs, "There's no place I'd rather be." Committed to a vocation marked by extremes, doubt, struggle and moments of ecstasy, Dave and Ego continue this torrid affair with music bearing their latest fruit Beyond This Fiction. Inspired by the ideas of Joseph Campbell, the writer/philosopher known for the book The Power of Myth, the album explores the idea of "riding between opposites"- forging one's own path unrestrained by the dualistic constraints of society. It's a cry to all the seers among us- call us outsiders or rebels- who feel smothered by convention and see nonconformity as the gateway into divine mystery. Recorded with Martin Bisi, known for his iconic NYC sound developed through his work with no-wave titans Sonic Youth, Swans and Lydia Lunch, Beyond This Fiction sees Dave W (guitar/vocals/synths) and Ego Sensation (drums/bass/vocals) orchestrating their distinct guitar heavy meditations into songs with a stronger focus on vocals than previous albums. Opener "Throw It Up In The Air" and closer "Beyond This Fiction" both have a lush quality that flirts with shoegaze. "Killing Crimson", a song that takes inspiration from Killing Joke and King Crimson, has a driving beat and a catchy hook that begs for a sing-a-long. "The Awakening" plunges into the meditative ambient abyss the band is well known for, featuring the unique voice of frequent collaborator poet Dan McGuire to deliver the meaning behind Beyond This Fiction. The album harnesses the seductive accessibility of 2015's Walks For Motorists while evoking the tempestuous soul of the band's seminal 2011 H-p1. Notorious shapeshifters, White Hills make Beyond This Fiction a familiar surprise. Back in the lair, Dave draws eyes on his hands in preparation for the day's video shoot. Ego reaches in the closet pulling out the red velvet jacket she wears on the cover of Beyond This Fiction where she stands in a NYC alley holding a glowing orb. "That's the portal- the gateway into the mystery. The music will take you there.".

Endlich erscheint das gefeierte 2019er Album als luxuriöse Doppel-LP!
Auf den 12 Tracks von 'The Situation' das zusammen mit seinen langjährigen Freunden und Wegbegleitern Kuma Harada, Walter Latupeirissa (beide Bass) Max Middleton (Keys), Juan van Emmerloot und Jeff Allen (beide Drums) entstand, erleben wir den Bluesmeister einmal mehr in Höchstform.

Der muntere Opener und Namensgeber des Albums lädt verheißungsvoll ein. In seinem unnachahmlich zurückhaltenden, "understated" Stil beleuchtet Snowy auf den folgenden Tracks unterschiedlichste Lebenslagen, stets untermalt und kommentiert von seinem markanten Gitarrenspiel. Das Ergebnis ist ein reifes, in sich schlüssiges und immens zufriedenstellendes Album.
Das erstmalig auf Vinyl erscheinende Album kommt als 180Gr. Doppel-LP mit Lyric-Sheet, wattierten Innenhüllen und markantem Spotlack-Effekt im Artwork, bei dem das Hauptelement herausgestellt wird. Die edle LP-Version ist streng limitiert auf 500 Stck.

Die Presse schrieb zum CD-Release:
Rock Hard 7.5/10: "Auf "The Situation" (Snowy White/Soulfood) begeistert der passionierte Les-Paul-Spieler einmal mehr mit einem wunderbaren Solo-Ton, aus seiner rauen, zerbrechlich wirkenden Stimme spricht darüber hinaus die pure Lebensweisheit. Geschmackvolles Blues-Album von einem Mann, der nichts mehr beweisen muss, es aber trotzdem tut."

Guitar 4.5/5: "…zwölf fantastische und lebhafte groovende Nummern…"

Good Times: "Starke Refrains, eingängige Melodien, reichlich Energie…"

Jazz Thing: "…eine Menge guter, von einer gewiss auch altersbedingten Nachdenklichkeit geprägter Songs. Sehr schön."

Break Out: "Eine Platte in die man ganz tief versinken kann."

Rocks 8.5/10: "White führt ein exzellentes Bluesrock-Dream-Team an…"

Classic Rock 7/10: "Eleganter Soft- und Bluesrock…"

eclipsed 8/10: "Grandiose Musik für ruhige Momente, die durch die warme und organische Einspielung gewinnt."

Legacy 12/15: "Auf jeden Fall ist Snowy & Co. ein hochwertiges Genre-Album gelungen, dessen zusätzlicher Reiz es ist, eben über die Grenzen dieses Stils hinauszuwachsen!"

In the early 1990s gangsta rap was becoming more popular. KRS-One took to the mic and continued to write socially conscious raps resulting in the hard-hitting 1992 album Sex And Violence which would be the fifth and final studio album under the Boogie Down Productions name. Produced by KRS-One, Pal Joey, Kenny Parker, D-Square, and Prince Paul, the album explores the darkest sides of the American urban landscape and psyche, with KRS as narrator, detailing all sides of the matrix. While singles like the alarming drum-driven "Duck Down" and the funky-as-hell "We In There" got most of the attention in ‘92, the deeper sequence reveals plenty of additional gems: the history lesson of the dark and dusty "Drug Dealer"; "Ruff Ruff", with scowling MC favorite Freddie Foxxx (aka Bumpy Knuckles); the grooving "Questions and Answers," and the frantic record industry track "How Not To Get Jerked." The album kicks off with an intro skit featuring KRS-One as a DJ in panic needing vinyl which at the time was a dying format while cassettes and CDs became the dominant format. Thirty-two years later vinyl DJs and Hip-Hop vinyl collectors no longer need to panic. Get On Down in partnership with Sony Music's CERTIFIED is proud to bring back to vinyl this underrated gem in the BDP catalog. Featuring one of the dopest album covers by American artist Robert Williams, Sex and Violence is pressed on colored vinyl and packaged in a gatefold jacket with full lyrics.

2024 Repress

180 Gram, Tip On Sleeve RSD version of this classic. One of the rarer records of the mythical Strata East albums is finally reissued for the first time on Heavenly Sweetness!
The recording of Earth Blossom, the John Betsch Societys one and only album, seems something of an enigma nowadays. For even though Nashville is clearly one of the towns in the US with the highest number of recording studios, who would have thought that the capital of country music would give birth to one of the forgotten masterpieces of 1970s spiritual jazz. The path leading to the album starts in 1963 when John Betsch, originally from Jacksonville in Florida, arrives in Nashville to study at Frisk University. He is a young drummer and joins Bob Holmes trio. Holmes is one of the towns major jazz organists and pianists; he becomes Betschs mentor and, over the space of two years, John will play alternately with him and with the trumpeter Louis Smiths group. However, in 1965, John leaves town to go to the prestigious Berkeley University in Boston and do a two-year course along with his fellow debutants with names like John Abercrombie, Ernie Watts and Alan Broadbent. Two years later, he is invited by a pianist friend, Billy Chilf, to join the legendary singer/songwriter Tim Hardins group. Just after Woodstock, John Betsch and Tim record a psychedelic album Columbia will never release together with the members of the future group Oregon: Colin Walcott, Glen Moore, Paul McCandles and his friend Billy Chilf. But he soon leaves this group to return to Nashville where he hooks up again with his friend Bob Holmes. Two years later, he is accepted on Archie Shepp and Max Roachs famous course at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMASS) and for the next four years he participates in this collective of intellectuals and musicians under the aegis of the two masters.
During this period he returns to Nashville to form his Society whose music is obviously influenced by the Afrocentric ideas of the UMASS student and political movement. However, the album, recorded in one day and in one take, also bears the hallmark of their generations psychedelic experiences, and in the themes and playing of the musicians we can hear a less violent form of music than the radical free jazz of New York or Chicago. Nature and environmental themes are the inspiration behind tracks touched by the spirit of Coltrane but also of Flower Power.

After Amherst, John Betsch joins Marion Browns group in 1976, leaves Tennessee for good and makes his home in New York over the next ten years or so. He plays and records with Dollar Brand, Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre and many others, before heading off to France. He has lived in Paris for the last twenty years and played in Steve Lacy, Mal Waldron and Archie Shepp bands, as well as forming groups of his own. He now lives in Paris and plays with many musicians/bands.

Originally released in 1969, “Poe Through The Glass Prism” was one of the first ever concept-based rock albums. This Scranton, PA band (the first rock group from the Northeast to perform on national television shows and obtain a major record label deal) adapted Edgar Allan Poe poems to psychedelic rock with stunning results: swirling organ, fuzz bursts, passionate vocals… the sound quality was exceptional as the album was engineered and produced by Les Paul (the legendary inventor of the electric guitar and many studio recording devices) at his recording studio in New York. The album and its single “The Raven” hit the Billboard, Cashbox and Record World charts in 1969 and remained on for several weeks.

We’re proud to offer the first ever band sanctioned LP reissue of this cult psychedelic classic.

*Sourced from the original master tapes
*Insert with liner notes by Plastic Crimewave and rare photos

“The Glass Prism were forerunners of the Goth movement. “The Raven” was the first true expression of Goth Rock.

Es ist 6 Jahre her, dass wir das letzte Mal von Adrienne Pauly gehört haben. 6 Jahre sind lang und kurz zugleich, die Zeit, die ihre Lieder brauchten, um zu reifen und zu reifen, um veröffentlicht zu werden, um uns angeboten zu werden. Dieses dritte Album ist ein persönliches Werk, in dem Adrienne sich uns mit Poesie anvertraut und uns in ihr Universum hineinzieht, das sofort identifizierbar und doch so ganz anders ist. Es ist ein Album, an dem die langjährigen Weggefährten Gaby Concato (Melissa Mars, Jacques Dutronc, Vanessa Paradis) und Axel Concato (PY JA MA) sowie die Seele der Stranglers, Jean-Jacques Burnel, mitwirken. Die Schauspielerin und Sängerin feierte ihren ersten musikalischen Erfolg 2006 mit ihrem Debütalbum, das von den Singles "La fille du prisunic" und vor allem "J'veux un mec" getragen wurde. Diese brachten ihr im selben Jahr eine Nominierung bei den Victoires de la Musique in den Kategorien "Album Revelation of the Year" und "Artist of the Year" ein. 2024 freut sich Kuroneko nun Neues der Künstlerin veröffentlichen zu können.

Fronted by vocalist/guitarist Taylor Madison, and with Jake Clarke on drums and Mike Paulshock on bass, Webbed Wing cement their place in modern rock supremacy across 10 tracks of fuzzed-out pop nostalgia on new album Vol III. One impossibly-catchy anthem after another, loaded with Madison's signature sardonic wit, makes for one of the most exciting alternative rock records of the year. Taking notes from the likes of The Lemonheads and Teenage Fanclub, "Further" opens Webbed Wing's new album Vol. III with a bang--in less than 10 seconds, we're all the way in with Webbed Wing as they expertly intertwine the vibrancy of modern pop, the heaviness of grunge, and the sincerity of country. Brazen and self-deprecating, "Burn It Down" finds Madison unpacking what it means to fly too close to the sun. Its mid-tempo mastery is a testament to the trio's connection as musicians and friends; everything about this song just works. Drawing inspiration from big country ballads and shoegaze gems alike, the song shows off a different side of what listeners can expect from Vol. III.

For Patricia Kaas' her sixth album Dans Ma Chair, she went to New York to work together with the successful producer Phil Ramone (Ray Charles, Billy Joel, Paul Simon), Lyle Lovett and, for the second time, James Taylor. With Taylor, she recorded the duet ""Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight"". Two singles from the album received silver status, ""Je voudrais la connaître"" and ""Quand j'ai peur de tout"". The latter was written by Diane Warren and later succesfully translated and covered by Sugababes as ""Too Lost in You"". The album went to #1 in Belgium and reached the Top 10 in Finland, French, Germany, and Switzerland. Dans Ma Chair is available as a limited edition of 1000(?) individually numbered copies on red coloured vinyl and includes an insert.