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Having already unearthed three collections of archival ‘70s recordings by Catherine Christer Hennix, Blank Forms continues their annual illumination of the visionary Swedish composer’s music by turning to more recent work with this first-time vinyl edition of Hennix’s “Blues Alif Lam Mim in the Mode of Rag Infinity/Rag Cosmosis,” a 2014 piece first released as a CD in 2016 (Important Records).

The double album captures the April 22, 2014 premiere of Hennix’s composition by by the Chora(s)san Time-Court Mirage, her expanded just intonation ensemble, featuring a brass section of Amir ElSaffar, Paul Schwingenschlögl, Hilary Jeffery, Elena Kakaliagou, and Robin Hayward; live electronics by Stefan Tiedje and Marcus Pal; and voice by Amirtha Kidambi, Imam Ahmet Muhsin Tüzer, and Hennix herself. Intended to reveal the blues’ origins in the eastern musical traditions of raga and makam, “Blues Alif Lam Mim in the Mode of Rag Infinity/Rag Cosmosis” has its roots in Hennix’s 2013 realization of an “Illuminatory Sound Environment,” a concept developed in 1978 by anti-artist Henry Flynt on the basis of Hennix’s own “The Electric Harpsichord.”

As Hennix explains in Other Matters, Blank Forms’ 2019 collection of her writings:

“Rag Infinity/Rag Cosmosis presents fragments of ‘raga-like’ frequency constellations following distinct cycles and permuting their order, creating a simultaneity of ‘multi-universes.’ When two such ‘universes’ come in proximity of each other and begin unfolding simultaneously along distinct cycles, there is a kaleidoscopic exfoliation of frequencies as one universe is becoming two, but not separated—the effect of cosmosis is entrained, binding two or more frequency universes into proximity where their modal properties interact and blend, creating in the process entirely new microtonal constellations in an omnidirectional simultaneous cosmic order with phenomenologically ‘transfinite’ Poincaré cycles (cyclic returns to initial conditions).”

As with Hennix’s best work, the organic unfolding of this quivering drone belies a precision that opens onto the infinitesimal. Upon its mesmerizing ebb and flow, the vocalists incant a devotional poem written in Arabic by Hennix and featuring quotations from the Quran. Also reproduced on the album’s gatefold jacket, Hennix’s reduction of the sacred text to its most elegant formulation invites the contemplator to bring their inner knowledge to the composition for use as a prompt for meditation. Yet the piece offers depth to even the most secular listener willing to immerse themselves in music brimming with such serene intensity.

Catherine Christer Hennix (b. 1948) started her creative life playing drums with her older brother Peter, growing up in Sweden where she heard jazz luminaries, such as John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, Dexter Gordon, Archie Shepp, and Cecil Taylor perform from 1960 to 1967. Directly after high school, Hennix went to work at Stockholm’s pioneering Elektronmusikstudion (EMS), where she developed early tape music, incorporating computer generated speech done at the Royal Technological University (KTH), where she was an undergraduate student. After traveling to New York In 1968, she met artists Dick Higgins and Alison Knowles who invited her to stay at the Something Else Press Town House where she had the opportunity to meet, among others, composers John Cage, James Tenney, and Phil Corner. During the following years she developed fruitful collaborative relationships with many composers in the burgeoning American avant-garde, including, most significantly, Henry Flynt and La Monte Young. Young introduced Hennix to Hindustani raga master Pandit Pran Nath and she would later study intensively under him as his first European disciple. While Hennix continued to make music performing alongside Arthur Russell, Marc Johnson, Henry Flynt, and Arthur Rhames, she also served as a professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at SUNY New Paltz and as a visiting Professor of Logic (at Marvin Minsky’s invitation) at MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. In recent years Hennix has led the just-intonation ensemble the Chora(s)san Time-Court Mirage, which has featured musicians Amelia Cuni, Amirtha Kidambi, Chiyoku Szlavnics, Hilary Jeffrey, Amir El-Saffar, Benjamin Duboc and Rozemarie Heggen. She currently resides in Istanbul, Turkey pursuing studies in classical Arabic and Turkish makam.

For more than five decades, John McLaughlin has deployed his peerless guitar technique, compositional gifts, and imagination in service of a deeply personal higher calling, forging a vast legacy unmatched in improvised music. Now as the world reels from the toll of the ongoing viral-induced global lockdown, McLaughlin reflects on both the perils and potential of this challenging moment with ‘Liberation Time’. Characterised by both joy and reflection, ‘Liberation Time’ finds McLaughlin harnessing his frustrations and redirecting that energy. “The result,” he explains in a candid liner note, “was an explosion of music in my mind.”. Unusual for McLaughlin’s recent projects, ‘Liberation Time’ is not the work of one fixed ensemble. With physical proximity no longer a prerequisite, McLaughlin drew upon decades of experience as a bandleader to select musicians best suited to each composition. “That is a choice that can only be made correctly if you know how the musicians play,” he explains. “Not just how well they play technically, but how they play intuitively. Only then can you make the right decisions.” “As the Spirit Sings” introduces the album by contrasting churning rhythmic tension (stoked by drummer Vinnie Colaiuta and bassist Sam Burgess) with McLaughlin’s soaring guitar figure - all underpinned by Gary Husband’s subtle,expansive piano. Knotty post-bop figures form the basis of “Right Here, Right Now, Right On,” one of the most jazz-inflected performances McLaughlin has laid down in some time, featuring Nicolas Viccaro (drums), Jerome Regard (bass), Julian Siegel (tenor saxophone), and Oz Ezzeldin (piano). It is impossible to ignore the profound brotherhood that exists between the members of 4th Dimension - McLaughlin’s current ensemble, which includes Husband along with Etienne Mbappe (bass) and Ranjit Barot (drums). They are featured on the soulful “Lockdown Blues,” a playful refraction examination of blues tropes first released last summer to benefit the Jazz Foundation of America.

Damskooo is the new house label from Amsterdam. An expression of dancefloor music and house culture. The first release is composed by Daniele Temperilli with the dancelfoor in his mind. On the A-side you will find next to the music the fresh illustrated logo by Julie van Straaten. On the B-side you will find a tribute to the scene of the Amsterdam house culture, also made by Julie

As a New Era beckons globally, Manchester’s primo Manctalo merchants – Red Laser Records – quietly unveil their latest clutch of specialist space-age kinetics. A fifth-kind encounter enabling users to bridge the continuum of dance & interaction between our Earth-dwelling selves and the inter-dimensional overlords.

Containing three brand new movements in machine music from our treasured production stable of Kid Machine, Bob SwanS and Il Bosco; it also houses an honorary appearance from revered Danish spearhead Flemming Dalum, who serves up a particle-splitting redux of a lesser-known proto-techno nugget from Belgium. Dalum’s been traversing the star-clusters on his own intrepid missions for a while, so we’re mega buzzed to have him back on the RL mothership.

Stretford based synthesizer technician, Bob SwanS has been drafted in specifically by RL head Il Bosco for his advanced skills on the patch bays. “Aphelion Run Theme”, the point of which an object’s orbit is furthest from the Sun, vividly detailing in sound the journey our collective consciousness must undergo in order to reach the Highest Elders. We highly recommend utilising this track alongside Dr. Greer’s outstanding work with extra terrestrials.

KID Machine’s celebratory, vocoder-led Manctalo message: “It’s The K.I.D” is a sonic motif to our interplanetary relatives; this cybernetic b-boy’s way of spray painting the Red Laser logo over Proxima Centauri B’s subway network in neon-blue, pyroxene paint.

Bosco lets loose with one of his most impassioned creations to date too. “We Almost Lost Oddbins” previously titled: “Save Our Scene”, a universe-wide cry for help recorded when worldwide limitations on dancing and human co-exchange were at their most aggressive; its nonetheless positive outlook inviting us all to look both inward and outward for solutions in the New Normal.

Encased within a striking monolith art print, depicting the mystic energies of ancient galaxies it heralds the now widely-accepted belief that we are in no way alone in this universe and that channels of communication between more advanced civilisations than ours have already begun…

Repress

Punctual like a Swiss watch, Driftmachine presents a new album that once again astounds and delights. We know their trademark: solid mechanical percussions, forceful bass and melodies systematically built around circular patterns. "Spume & Recollection" is the sixth Umor Rex album by the Berlin duo, and what better way to celebrate the label's 15th anniversary than with a new record from the masters of labyrinthine cables and patches. Regarding "Nocturnes" (UR 2014), their debut album, we described their sound as precise and symmetrical, identical concrete blocks mounted and articulated in a random order. Their already obsessive style continued to evolve with their third record, "Colliding Contours" (UR 2016), now pushing further into abstract dub, ultra-tense grooves, and even more kinetic loops, moving further away from conventional musical structures. Between these two albums they released the remarkable "Eis Heauton" (UR 2015), a kind of hypnotic experiment informed by shadowy atmospheres, chance, and an intuitive dialogue with their musical machines, a unique situation in which they acted as bemused observers in hunt for epiphanies, resulting in an exquisite amalgamation of lucid dream-logic and mechanical precision. A one-of-a-kind soundtrack for minute and wordless scenes unfolding in pitch-black back alleys and hidden, alchemical basements. A similar map was explored with "Shunter" (UR 2018), a superb secret meeting between avant-garde phantasmagoria and concrete experimentation. "Radiations" (UR 2017) offered B-sides and bonus tracks, in addition to collaborations with Shackleton and The Sight Below, a kind of preamble that united Driftmachine’s different expressions and leanings.

When Andreas Gerth and Florian Zimmer come up with new material, one listens with high expectation. Looking back on their discography, one could safely anticipate a high quality album densely layered with their familiar leitmotifs. And yet, "Spume & Recollection" takes us by surprise and finds a new way to transfix. Fresh methods and ideas are introduced to their dynamics and formula. Yes, of course, you can still expect a healthy dose of kosmische, which is one of the dominant features in Driftmachine’s DNA; but this is now entwined with novel materials, semi-material patterns of alien code stretching over exhilaratingly tense and detailed grooves, clouds of gas shifting on top of deep dub architecture and blocking out the sun for prismatic effect. Even more of a surprise is the immediate, streamlined nature of these tracks, making "Spume & Recollection" their most accessible record and, perhaps, the most addictive (and this without sacrificing the essential mystery and strangeness at the core of Driftmachine’s sound).

We have previously described their work as post-industrial-dub; right now, we might just call it hypno-music for man and machine to dance and dream together. "Spume & Recollection" takes this concept as far as it can go without breaking, and finds some strange new feelings, and weirdly danceable grooves, to shed some light on this dark and dazzling ride.

All songs written & produced by Andreas Gerth & Florian Zimmer in Berlin Mastered by John Tejada Artwork & Photos by Daniel Castrejón

Ulna’s OEA is a “bar-rock getting sober record.“ The first full length solo record of Ulna, aka Adam Schubert of Cafe Racer, OEA is an ode to reinvention. Along with the release comes a rebranding--formerly Ruins, Schubert’s new pseudonym ULNA is a reference to a pivotal moment in his childhood. At the age of 14, Schubert shattered the bone on the inside of his forearm in a skating accident, and took up the guitar. “That’s what made me serious about playing music,” says Schubert.

This name change also accompanied Schubert’s shift towards sobriety--OEA was created right as Schubert reconfigured his life without drugs or alcohol. With the exception of the final track, “Dead Friends,” the whole album was written while in a recovery program. “You have to reinvent your whole personality, you have to be a different person,” says Schubert.”Who am I if I’m not the crazy drunk dude who’s doing drugs in the bathroom?”

OEA is an intensely personal record, in subject matter but also quite literally--Schubert plays every instrument, though the record feels far from a home-demo, recorded and mastered by Robby Hanes at Strange Magic Recording in Chicago’s Logan Square. Schubert’s songs are ambling and full of picked guitar and retro harmonies, a stylistic sensibility he attributes to a love for the Beatles and “acoustic rock with a weird punk edge,” a-la Big Thief and Kurt Vile. Though instrumentally sunny, his vocals hint at something else - there’s an underlying ache. OEA is an easy listen, but with a depth of emotion that demands listeners’ attention.

OEA explores the range of emotions experienced in the transition to sobriety, from fear to backslide to self doubt. At first listen, “Turn The Record On” feels almost like a love song, with a chorus of “turn the record on/ you’re my favorite song,” but in actuality the song is the story of an empty encounter rather than romance. “It’s kind of about this sad hookup with someone else who is equal in your addiction, you’re just using each other because you don’t want to be alone in your using,” says Schubert. “We both have this problem and we can have fun in it together because we both understand. They know the score.”

While “Turn The Record On” speaks to a moment of shared addiction, other tracks examine what comes after sobriety. “And I took the pill like I should / and I stayed clean just like I said I would,” begins “Last Song,” which Schubert cites as one of the hardest tracks to write. “I got sober and I take medication and - I’m doing all this stuff now but nothing’s changed,” says Schubert. “ I think that’s pretty common in people who get sober. I did all this stuff and now what?”

The penultimate track on the album, “Last Song” fades into a noisy interlude that gives listeners the feeling of motion, like entering a tunnel and emerging into a quieter, lo-fi recording, the closing track “Dead Friends.” The only non-studio track, “Dead Friends” was recorded in Schubert’s home, and carries with it a warm intimacy. “I wanted it to sound like you’re outside somewhere, you're walking, and you step inside somewhere that feels safe,” says Schubert.

This closing track embodies the mood of OEA- warm but with a melancholy edge, like coming in from the cold but still feeling a lingering chill. It’s an album that feels comfortable and cohesive--though individual tracks stand alone, OEA works best when listened through start to finish. It’s a record to put on while cooking dinner and let sink in.

Written with a libidinal urgency that has come to characterize Kool Keith’s legendary lyricism, “Keith’s Salon” explores our current obsessions with luxury, beauty, and notoriety. But rather than fetishize the beautiful dum-dums who walk red carpets in black Prada gowns,

Kool Keith's most recent studio album shifts our attention to the work and workers that underpin our fantasies of American excess and the good life.

As such, the album is also a timely meditation, during quarantine, on the economic precarity many of us now find ourselves in. Having doubled-up with Triple Parked, the production team of avant-techno maven Bruno Pronsato and Benjamin Jay, “Keith’s Salon” moves between halcyon sonics and atonal warlord dystopia, while keeping beats minimal for Kool Keith to spread extra ketchup on the hamburger. An album at once topical and futuristic, lush and bizarre, "Keith's Salon" is about the business of making people beautiful. It's time to work.

Originally released in 1986, the second full-length album of the legendary Los Angeles Speed Metal pioneers SAVAGE GRACE stands on the top of the greatest US Power / Speed Metal albums of all time.
NEW REISSUE! Special 2021 vinyl audio mastering faithful to the original recordings, and liner notes by the founder Christian Logue.

Originally released in 1985, the debut full-length album of the legendary Los Angeles Speed Metal pioneers SAVAGE GRACE stands on the top of the greatest US Power / Speed Metal albums of all time.
NEW REISSUE! Special 2021 vinyl audio mastering faithful to the original recordings, and liner notes by the founder Christian Logue

LP edition of the sold out CD/Pamphlet from 2016. The score by Schmid, reading by Landry, and edited/produced by McCann. Includes a big poster of The St. Francis List.

Emily Martin and Derek Baron on St. Francis (Feb. 2021):

What does it mean to pray? To address someone, to plead for something, to welcome humiliation and failure: Please, let me forget about the China Chalet parties, please let there be no countries and no war, please let me love you. Is prayer iteration, or just repetition: My god, my god, my god, my god… To know spleen you just have to be down to be humiliated. But do we know for sure that we are miserable? How do we know?

This is how it has to go. We listened to this for the first time together in May 2017, while driving from Chicago to New York along the I-80 in Pennsylvania, stopping at the rest area that I later mistook for the famous picture of American “culture.” We stayed at a hotel and may have ordered a pizza. Content first, then, content again. Went inside and drank wine in relative silence, burping. Recognizing the sacredness in the plot of Friends. A choral melisma representative of holy Joy.

The dreams of moving through a convoluted space of passages, staircases, open courtyards, rooms just glimpsed past a door. It doesn’t seem possible that you can get from one place to the next but according to the logic of the dream you do. I think this has to do with how each little unit of ‘content’ happens at a different distance from your ear. The holiness of the periphery. That you can catch a shard of history if you only find the right distance to stand from the painting.

But prayer is also like the magic language we were talking about — faith that words do something more than just mean — they have the capacity to effect change in the world, and not just in the like, “words change ppl’s minds” kind of way, but in that the words themselves actually have agency. Form: sing-along.

Matière Mémoire presents the MMXX Series: In anticipation of the year 2020, Matière Mémoire asked 20 experimental/electronic artists to create an original 20 minutes piece and an artwork. Throughout the year batches of 5 new vinyls will be released.

Each record is limited to 500 copies and comes as a crystal clear vinyl featuring an original track of 20 minutes on one side, and a laser engraved artwork on the other. Each 12" is housed in a transparent sleeve printed with the MMXX logo, coming with a print of the artist artwork.

Participate in this series: Franck Vigroux, John Duncan, Phill Niblock, Jim O’Rourke, Reinier Van Houdt, Stephen O’Malley, CM Von Hausswolff, Hampus Lindwall, Oren Ambarchi, Shiva Feshareki, Bérangère Maximin, Kassel Jaeger, Daniel Menche, Charlemagne Palestine, Giueseppe Ielasi, Carlos Casas, Susanna Santos Silva, Joachim Nordwall, Karbé Dinel, Mauro Lanza

Matière Mémoire presents the MMXX Series: In anticipation of the year 2020, Matière Mémoire asked 20 experimental/electronic artists to create an original 20 minutes piece and an artwork. Throughout the year batches of 5 new vinyls will be released.

Each record is limited to 500 copies and comes as a crystal clear vinyl featuring an original track of 20 minutes on one side, and a laser engraved artwork on the other. Each 12" is housed in a transparent sleeve printed with the MMXX logo, coming with a print of the artist artwork.

Participate in this series: Franck Vigroux, John Duncan, Phill Niblock, Jim O’Rourke, Reinier Van Houdt, Stephen O’Malley, CM Von Hausswolff, Hampus Lindwall, Oren Ambarchi, Shiva Feshareki, Bérangère Maximin, Kassel Jaeger, Daniel Menche, Charlemagne Palestine, Giueseppe Ielasi, Carlos Casas, Susanna Santos Silva, Joachim Nordwall, Karbé Dinel, Mauro Lanza

Matière Mémoire presents the MMXX Series: In anticipation of the year 2020, Matière Mémoire asked 20 experimental/electronic artists to create an original 20 minutes piece and an artwork. Throughout the year batches of 5 new vinyls will be released.

Each record is limited to 500 copies and comes as a crystal clear vinyl featuring an original track of 20 minutes on one side, and a laser engraved artwork on the other. Each 12" is housed in a transparent sleeve printed with the MMXX logo, coming with a print of the artist artwork.

Participate in this series: Franck Vigroux, John Duncan, Phill Niblock, Jim O’Rourke, Reinier Van Houdt, Stephen O’Malley, CM Von Hausswolff, Hampus Lindwall, Oren Ambarchi, Shiva Feshareki, Bérangère Maximin, Kassel Jaeger, Daniel Menche, Charlemagne Palestine, Giueseppe Ielasi, Carlos Casas, Susanna Santos Silva, Joachim Nordwall, Karbé Dinel, Mauro Lanza

Matière Mémoire presents the MMXX Series: In anticipation of the year 2020, Matière Mémoire asked 20 experimental/electronic artists to create an original 20 minutes piece and an artwork. Throughout the year batches of 5 new vinyls will be released.

Each record is limited to 500 copies and comes as a crystal clear vinyl featuring an original track of 20 minutes on one side, and a laser engraved artwork on the other. Each 12" is housed in a transparent sleeve printed with the MMXX logo, coming with a print of the artist artwork.

Participate in this series: Franck Vigroux, John Duncan, Phill Niblock, Jim O’Rourke, Reinier Van Houdt, Stephen O’Malley, CM Von Hausswolff, Hampus Lindwall, Oren Ambarchi, Shiva Feshareki, Bérangère Maximin, Kassel Jaeger, Daniel Menche, Charlemagne Palestine, Giueseppe Ielasi, Carlos Casas, Susanna Santos Silva, Joachim Nordwall, Karbé Dinel, Mauro Lanza

Der gebürtige Stuttgarter und international renommierte DJ und Produzent Danilo Plessow (Motor City Drum Ensemble) deckt auf seiner Fabric-Ausgabe mit seinem feinen Gespür für Soulfulness und perfekte Instrumentierung mehrere Jahrzehnte, Locations und Genres ab. Raritäten von den 70ern bis heute, die teils bis heute digital nicht erhältlich sind, schmücken das 28-Track-Mixset, von denen 11 Highlights als Full-Length-Tracks den Weg auf die Gatefold-2LP (samt Download-Code) fanden, darunter Plessows exklusiver Kollabo-Beitrag mit den beiden Jazz-Instrumentalisten Francesco Geminiani und Peter Schlamb, sowie Cabaret Voltaires "Taxi Mutant", das hier erstmals auf Vinyl erscheint.

After he became one of the most respected name in the global Balearic scene skipping rocks across water and moving through an amazing and different philosophy. A Vision of Panorama's latest release is an extremely well-designed album which is morphing his synth-o-logy on even more subtly and glistering shapes. With previous 12'' releases on Mellophonia, Cala Tarida Musica and Omena gave us the first sings ''Tiger'' was a matter of time. Boogie-crafted sound with squelching percussions and a touch of 'jazz in the house' which representing the charismatic sound of Larry Heard is managing not only to satisfy his already fans but to be discovered by tones of new ones who their musical references are not only the European 'state of Balearic music' but the breezy US sound too

Limited 3 track 7” Pressed on Half & Half Blue/Clear vinyl Includes postcard and poster
Part of the Optic Sevens 3.0 Reissue Series
The Servants debut originally released in 1986 on Head Records is backed here with Loggerheads, that was recorded during the same session as the A side and a track that David Westlake has always wanted to appear on 7”. The second track on the B side is a previously unreleased version of the A side that was recorded in 1985. Produced by Adrian Borland, who also plays keyboards on the track.

A reissue of the 2016 demo tape by New Orleans band
Special Interest, who combine elements of no wave,
glam and industrial music. First time vinyl pressing with
bonus track, new sleeve designed by Studio Tape Echo
and 8 page risographed zine insert.
Four of the tracks here are raw early versions of songs
that would appear in slightly more refined form on their
debut album, 2018’s ‘Spiralling’. The other four pieces
are unique to this release, including a cover version of
Italian new wave band Chrisma, raging opener
‘Disease’, the over-saturated shoegaze-punk of ‘ATC’
and comedown lament ‘I’ll Never Do Ketamine Again’.
The band’s second album ‘The Passion Of’ (2020) was
widely acclaimed and appeared in many album of the
year lists. It was recently followed by a companion
album of remixes on Boy Harsher’s Nude Club label,
with all profits going to NOLA charity House Of Tulip.
“A blistering vision of punk as possibility.” - Pitchfork
“Members Alli Logout (vocals), Ruth Mascelli (synth and
drum machine), Maria Elena (guitar), and Nathan
Cassiani (bass), together manage to make their
instruments and vocals sound like a fight for our
existence.” - The Quietus
Recorded and mastered by Jasper Denhartigh at Bird
Island Recording March-May 2016. Originally selfreleased on cassette in 2016. Cut by Beau Thomas at
Ten Eight Seven. All songs by Special Interest except
‘Black Silk Stalking’ written by Chrisma.
Black vinyl in 3mm spine reverse board sleeve with 8-
page risographed zine, digital download card and
sticker.

Our XXL Bonzai Mouse Pad is geared towards the gamer in you, and sizes in at 40x45cm to provide maximum coverage when the frenzy kicks in.Control your movements and stay in the fight with a smooth, soft cloth top, which features the classic Bonzai Records logo on a black background. The underlay is padded to reduce pressure so you can game, produce or casually browse for hours on end.

Soundtrack for the critically acclaimed Jim Jarmusch film Only Lovers Left Alive, starring Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton. The score for Only Lovers Left Alive - a collaboration between SQÜRL (Jim Jarmusch, Carter Logan and Shane Stoneback) and Dutch lutenist Jozef Van Wissem - serves as a reflection of the distinct textures of Detroit and Tangier, bridging ancient and modern sounds, entangled and timeless. Avant-Baroque lute weaves through twenty-first century guitar grit, heavy back beats, Moroccan percussion, synth bass, field recordings, and numerous sonic effects to create a cinematic tapestry. Guest vocalist Madeline Follin (Cults) appears on SQÜRL's syrup soaked re-interpretation of the Wanda Jackson hit "Funnel of Love". Zola Jesus' commanding vocal soars through Van Wissem's "In Templum Dei". And Yasmine Hamdan's intimate and evocative "Hal", recorded on the set of the film and mixed by SQÜRL. The film and soundtrack album were released worldwide in 2014, and quickly earned the group the Cannes Soundtrack Award from a consortium of film and music critics. In the years that have followed it has remained a favorite of critics and fans alike, who have continued to hunt down the limited vinyl copies in existence.

The Running Man’, was composed by Harold Faltermeyer (Beverly Hills Cop, Top Gun, Cop Out, and the upcoming film Top Gun, Maverick).

The original (1987) 17 track album has been expanded to 35 tracks for this deluxe edition, which includes additional music and unreleased and alternate cues. The album was remastered by Chas Ferry from the original Paramount Pictures sources. The 2 LP gatefold package features original artwork created by Florian Mihr and includes images from the film and extensive liner notes by Daniel Schweiger on the inner sleeves.

In the year 2019, America is a totalitarian state where the favorite television program is The Running Man - a game show in which prisoners must run to freedom to avoid a brutal death. Having been made a scapegoat by the government, an imprisoned Ben Richards (Arnold Schwarzenegger) has the opportunity to make it back to the outside again by being a contestant on the deadly show, although the twisted host, Damon Killian (Richard Dawson) has no intention of letting him escape.

Jazz meets Dance... GoGo Penguin Remixed - ein logischer Schritt!
Das in Manchester ansässige Jazz-Trio hat schon immer akustischen Jazz mit der Energie und Seele
elektronischer Musik verbunden und in Clubs wie auf Festivalbühnen Rave-artige Zustände erzeugt. Jetzt
gehen sie diesen Weg auf einem speziellen Albumprojekt weiter und lassen ihre Musik neu erfinden.
Auf ”GGP/RMX” widmen sich angesagte Producer und Remixer wie Squarepusher, Machinedrum, James
Holden oder Clark den besten Tracks des Trios und katapultieren sie in neue Klanglandschaften.

After the exceptional first volume of ‘Rakka’, Vladislav Delay is taken by the wanderlust again for a ravishing 2nd album of elemental electronics inspired by the Finnish wilderness. RIYL Shackleton, Rian Treanor...
Where 2020’s ‘Rakka’ represented some of Sasu Ripatti aka Vladislav Delay’s most intensely noisy textures and rhythmic complexity, as inspired by walks in his native Finnish wilderness, his follow-up further draws on and refines that experience in a beautifully brutalist bouquet of brambling distortion and tempestuous pulses that speak to the chaotic power of nature’s ecological interdependence. In the process ‘Rakka II’ fulminates Delay’s reactive sound even closer to the styles of Shapednoise, but still distinguished by his signature,
freehanded style of percussive tumult that reaches beyond techno and club music into an ecstatic, holistic hybrid of power ambient, black metal, avant-dub, free jazz, and extreme dance musicks.
While still breathlessly busy and densely overgrown, ‘Rakka II’ is intended as the romantic answer to the more hostile first volume. Its seven parts balance a sense of febrile passion with hyper-disciplined logic in more explicitly emotive, optimistic gestures that emerge from its atonal murk and convulsive structures.
Boundaries of discord and harmony are smudged almost into the red, but rendered with the spatial definition that become a hallmark of Delay’s best work for over 20 years, but never heard quite so wild and lushly semi-conscious as on cuts such as the soaring and collapsing ‘Raato’, or the craggy might of ‘Raaha’, and the heart-in-mouth headiness of ‘Rapaa.

Ryley Walker currently resides in New York City. But his latest LP is a Chicago record in spirit. The masterful Course In Fable, the songwriter’s fi@h solo effort,
draws from the deep well of that city’s ferCle 1990s scene, when bands like Tortoise, The Sea and Cake and Gastr del Sol were reshaping the underground,
mixing and matching indie rock, jazz, prog and beyond.
Walker spent his formaCve years in Chicago, absorbing those heady sounds and finding ways to make them his own. Even though he emerged at first in folkrock
troubadour mode, it makes sense that he’s arrived at this point; each LP has grown more intricate and assured, his influences disClling into something
original and unusual. To put it simply: Course In Fable is Walker’s best record yet, full of acCve imaginaCon and endless possibiliCes.
Last October, Ryley went straight to one of the primary architects of the Chicago sound to make the LP. John McEn:re, Course In Fable’s producer/engineer/
mixer, can rightly be called a legend for his work with Tortoise, Stereolab, The Red Krayola, Jim O’Rourke and countless others over a prolific career that now
spans more than three decades. Seeing his name in an album’s liners is preVy much a trademark of quality.
Another Windy City exile, McEnCre is based on the west coast these days, working out of the Portland, OR studio he’s dubbed Soma West. On the seven songs
here, he delivers the signature shimmering and prisCne sonics he’s become known for over the years. But McEnCre was also inCmately involved with Course
In Fable’s overall creaCve process. “I told him to take the mixes and have at it,” Walker says.
The result is a rich, immersive affair — a headphones record if ever there was one. Course In Fable’s songs are twisty, labyrinthine things, stuffed full of ideas
(Walker half-jokingly calls it his “prog record”). But no maVer how complex it gets, the album is never overwhelmingly busy. Wiry guitars melt into gorgeous
string secCons (arranged by Douglas Jenkins of the Portland Cello Project). Tricky Cme signatures abound but feel as natural as can be. Melodies o@en dri@ in
unexpected direcCons but remain downright hummable. Like Walker’s beloved Genesis, the pop element is never too far from the surface even when shit
gets weird. (And speaking of weird, Ryley says that in addiCon to Genesis, much of the album’s inspiraCon comes from “Australian extreme scooter riders on
YouTube and balding gear heads on Craigslist.” Go figure.)
To help put together these various puzzle pieces, Ryley assembled a band made up of several longCme collaborators. Bill MacKay (another Chicago mainstay)
and Walker have made two excellent instrumental duo records of interlocking guitars and warm give-and-take — a rapport very much in evidence
throughout Course In Fable. The freakishly talented drummer Ryan Jewell has performed with Walker for years now in a variety of seangs, from
straighborward song-centric sets to blown-out improv extravaganzas. Bassist Andrew ScoJ Young (Tiger Hatchery, Health&Beauty) has logged many miles on
tour with Walker; he and Jewell are frequently astonishing, a buoyant-but-always-locked-in rhythm secCon, able to navigate someCmes dizzying turnarounds
with apparent ease. Listening to the interplay between Walker and these musicians and you might be fooled into thinking they’d spent a year roadtesCng
Course In Fable’s songs. But it all came together relaCvely fast, thanks to demos, rehearsals and the kind of musical empathy that comes from years of
playing together.
Beneath the wondrous interplay, you’ll find some of Walker’s most personal – if sCll typically crypCc — lyrics, hinCng at some of the trials the songwriter has
been dealing with in recent years. Balanced with necessary doses of dark humor and oddball poetry, Course In Fable feels most of all like a life-affirming
record, fresh air in the lungs, sun on your skin. “Fuck me, I’m alive,” Ryley sings at one point, a moment of both disbelief and pure joy.
Walker has released his albums on a who’s-who of independent labels over the past decade — Tompkins Square, Dead Oceans, Thrill Jockey and Drag City
among them. This Cme around, he’s doing it DIY-style, puang Course In Fable out on his own Husky Pants imprint. You’re in good hands. This is an album that
sounds great (mastered by Greg Calbi), looks great (artwork by Jenny Nelson and design by Michael Vallera). It probably even smells great. Whether you’ve
been onboard since the beginning or are new to the Ryley Walker universe, you’re in for a treat.

On February 27, 2018, Chris Forsyth & The Solar Motel Band (comprised, in this iteration, of long-time SMB bassist Peter Kerlin and Kerlin’s Sunwatchers battery mate Jason Robira on drums) were close to wrapping up an 18-date tour of the EU and UK with a two-set, one hour and 45 minute show at Cafe OTO, London’s premier venue for adventurous music. Highlights of that show are included in this live release, RARE DREAMS: SOLAR LIVE 2.27.18, recorded before a packed house seated mere feet from the band’s amplifiers. These recordings reveal a band that is clearly in high spirits and high gear, operating with an expansive, improvisatory fleetness that allows them to stretch the material to almost ludicrous extremes and then let it to snap back to some semblance of form while somehow seemingly never wasting a note, a beat, a gesture. The four tracks included here comprise material culled from (at the time) the two most recent Solar Motel Band records DREAMING IN THE NON-DREAM (No Quarter, 2017) and THE RARITY OF EXPERIENCE (No Quarter, 2016) plus covers of two Neil Young songs - the autobiographical plaint “Don’t Be Denied,” lyrically relocated by Forsyth from Young's Canada and Hollywood to the more personally relevant geography of New Jersey and Philadelphia, and encore “Barstool Blues” (they’d run out of material to play, so another Neil Young tune it was). While the covers establish Forsyth’s basis, serving as an homage to Young and the quest for self-realization, the long tracks’ jams showcase the trance-inducing power of the Solar Motel Band as a performing entity. Kerlin’s gymnastically propulsive bass playing locks in with Robira’s relentless thud, each serving as counterpoint to some of the most blistering guitar work of Forsyth’s career. The telepathically dynamic interplay of the trio explodes with whiplash intensity across the 15-plus minute takes of “Dreaming In The Non-Dream” and “The First 10 Minutes of Cocksucker Blues,” each song’s structure serving as a framework for extended lava flows of energy. At one point late in the “Dreaming” jam, Forsyth unplugs the jack from his guitar, dragging it across the strings and lashing the body of his single-pickup “parts" Esquire, producing a desiccated barrage of percussive static. This is music beyond the notes; it is an expression of pure electric ecstasy, a simultaneous negation and celebration of rock music’s (indeed all musics’) essential energy. In contrast to the expansive but meticulously detailed guitar arrangements of his recordings, here Forsyth’s unhinged live guitar sound positively roars with a barely restrained vocal intensity, from liquid melodic lines to gnarled blasts of free jazz scree, to pulsating lead/rhythm vamping. I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing this band up close for a number of years now and I can authoritatively attest that while every show is different, when the SMB is running down a steep hill at full speed (as on these takes), they become a single leaderless vibrating sonic tornado, possibly beyond the control and logic of the players themselves, picking up listeners along the way and taking them along for the ride straight into a solar furnace of sound. - Jerome Onfront, Philadelphia

TRANSVITAEXPRESS is a psycho-phonic tale of the afterlife. Maybe one of the weirdest italian albums ever released.

'TRANSVITAEXPRESS is the sonorous realization of an idea that had been developing in me for some time and to which the encounter with the poet Barbarino gave the decisive push. I used the "tape-sound" technique, that is the organization and integration of sounds, noises, speech, song and rhythm, of which the resulting sound, being the result of electronic manipulation of the sound events themselves, is audible, therefore repeatable, only by means of magnetic tape. The sound material is, in part, reportage, so the work often takes on the character of a “disc-truth”, in part it is a faithful reconstruction of parapsychological events. We have defined this work "Psycho-phonic tale" in fact it is a sound experience, that is, a journey into the world of sounds of an "afterlife", rooted in us due to childhood, ancestral reminiscences, superstitions, legends, anxieties, utopias and above all fear. Fear of the mystery, fear of the unknown.

TRANSVITAEXPRESS is therefore the sound representation of these cultural and existential limits, and is therefore a critical, liberating, provocative work. I certainly do not expect, and perhaps I do not want someone after having listened to tell me that it is "beautiful".

TRANSVITAEXPRESS is the name of a train full of ... that travels in an afterlife so "beyond" that it coincides with the most central point of my ego. Perhaps the most logical "end-continuation" of life, the least imaginative, the least corrupt. The distortions, things that are too, or too little, defined, realistic situations, clichés, monotheisms and captions are embedded in the most traditional dream fabric, the most suitable in my opinion to promote approaches with the mysterious, with the esoteric, with the magical.'

M. GIOMBINI

ollowing the demise of emo band Mineral in 1997, singer/guitarist Chris Simpson (Mineral/ Zookeeper/ Mountain Time) and bassist Jeremy Gomez reunited to form The Gloria Record. Taking an acoustic and more organic approach than their previous work, The Gloria Record (with the addition of guitarist Brian Hubbard, drummer Matt Hammon, later replaced by Brian Malone and Ben Houtman on the keys, organs and synthesisers) were unarguably the logical progression from Mineral’s emo throes - quieter, delicate and fervently impassioned. Heralded as a “band with big visions and bombastic sounds”, the quintet fostered their admiration for artists with similar arena sized visions ( Radiohead, REM, U2) to produce a sound that was reminiscent of their British contemporaries and American indies. In 1998 the band released their self-titled EP, followed by the intricate offering of 2000’s A Lull In Traffic and 2002’s full length effort Start Here, before disbanding after extensive US tours in 2004. Start Here, the brilliant debut album from The Gloria Record is back on vinyl at long last. Originally released in April 2002, the ten songs are bolstered with four bonus tracks including rarity The Dead Brother, a live version of L’Anniversaire Triste and demos of I Was Born In Omaha and My Funeral Party. Start Here will be released on black double vinyl in a gatefold sleeve on April 16th. The Gloria Record in the press: “…stacked to the gills with nuances that pay back repeat listens in a big way.” - Austin Chronicle “Where their earlier works were true emotional explorations -- singer Chris Simpson's heart fully on sleeve -- The Gloria Record abandons their emo roots for an indie rock growl” - Popmatters “Simpson’s work in Mineral and the dream-pop act The Gloria Record had long established him as a formidable songwriter…”

Svart Records is proud to present The Limit. Punk & Doom originators go straight to the soul of heavy rock on their new album Caveman Logic to be released via Svart Records on the 9th of April 2021. More than a super-group, The Limit goes over the edge, to deliver real-deal, soulful Rock and Roll. Consisting of members of legendary Punk instigators The Stooges, the founders of Doom Rock Pentagram, legendary NYC Punk originators Testors and infamous Portugese metal band Dawnrider, The Limit break out from the foundations of heavy rock and defy all expectations, to show a new generation what doom and punk really means. On the new album Caveman Logic, Bobby Liebling, singer and main-man of Pentagram, one of the originators of early Doom Rock and an inspiration for generations of Heavy Rock fans, on vocals, gives the performance of his career, singing like his life depended on it. Sonny Vincent, enigmatic legend of the early NYC Max's Kansas City, CBGB Punk scene with his band Testors, having been on the road and recording with members of The Velvet Underground, lays down the guitar driven songs, his writing bearing all the hallmarks of ground-breaking Rock history in it’s filthy DNA. Phenomenal bass playing from Jimmy Recca, ex- The Stooges, and Ron Asheton’s New Order, gives The Limit the intense and world-class, speaker-destroying bottom end. Joined by Hugo Conim on Guitar and João Pedro Ventura on Drums from Portuguese band Dawnrider, The Limit fuses star-dust pedigree with an organic incendiary chemistry that’s instantly raw and real. A dream come true to those that know their Doom/Punk history, The Limit brings the past right up to date on Caveman Logic, with an essential, burning passion at the heart of their songs. Seldom has a collaboration of well known stars in music sounded so vigorous and frenzied as The Limit’s caveman-like roar. The Limit is an astoundingly fresh and hot-blooded shot to the veins that Heavy Rock needs in this day and age. Conjured forth by stone-age pioneers, Caveman Logic goes to the heart of impassioned Heavy Rock and Punk, to deliver the basic and vital elements often missing in so much of today’s music. If you want primitive and straight to the soul primal rock, fresh from the grave and exhumed for a new unwitting future, look no further than Caveman Logic. This is it.

Svart Records is proud to present The Limit. Punk & Doom originators go straight to the soul of heavy rock on their new album Caveman Logic to be released via Svart Records on the 9th of April 2021. More than a super-group, The Limit goes over the edge, to deliver real-deal, soulful Rock and Roll. Consisting of members of legendary Punk instigators The Stooges, the founders of Doom Rock Pentagram, legendary NYC Punk originators Testors and infamous Portugese metal band Dawnrider, The Limit break out from the foundations of heavy rock and defy all expectations, to show a new generation what doom and punk really means. On the new album Caveman Logic, Bobby Liebling, singer and main-man of Pentagram, one of the originators of early Doom Rock and an inspiration for generations of Heavy Rock fans, on vocals, gives the performance of his career, singing like his life depended on it. Sonny Vincent, enigmatic legend of the early NYC Max's Kansas City, CBGB Punk scene with his band Testors, having been on the road and recording with members of The Velvet Underground, lays down the guitar driven songs, his writing bearing all the hallmarks of ground-breaking Rock history in it’s filthy DNA. Phenomenal bass playing from Jimmy Recca, ex- The Stooges, and Ron Asheton’s New Order, gives The Limit the intense and world-class, speaker-destroying bottom end. Joined by Hugo Conim on Guitar and João Pedro Ventura on Drums from Portuguese band Dawnrider, The Limit fuses star-dust pedigree with an organic incendiary chemistry that’s instantly raw and real. A dream come true to those that know their Doom/Punk history, The Limit brings the past right up to date on Caveman Logic, with an essential, burning passion at the heart of their songs. Seldom has a collaboration of well known stars in music sounded so vigorous and frenzied as The Limit’s caveman-like roar. The Limit is an astoundingly fresh and hot-blooded shot to the veins that Heavy Rock needs in this day and age. Conjured forth by stone-age pioneers, Caveman Logic goes to the heart of impassioned Heavy Rock and Punk, to deliver the basic and vital elements often missing in so much of today’s music. If you want primitive and straight to the soul primal rock, fresh from the grave and exhumed for a new unwitting future, look no further than Caveman Logic. This is it.

Law of pinch conscious; think hard, look up, surge - reach over for balance. The next chapter predicts new fragrance, hidden logic, harmony. All will be well, it’s meant to feel like slipping. The law is told from the top ledge. Links woven from grass, becoming thick columns and then chains. The law is held by the mouth, speaking blankly whilst meaning shifts. What balance. What deep understanding.

The shadow that Gary Bartz casts over the last six decades of progressive Black music, and his continued dedication to same, makes him a logical and very welcome contributor to the Jazz Is Dead label. An alto saxophonist steeped in the history and tradition of his instrument who is also restlessly experimental and not prone to purism of any kind, he enjoys both the respect and admiration of his peers and the hero worship of several generations after him - including Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad, which inevitably led to Gary Bartz JID 006. A look at his body of work reveals dalliances with bebop, hard bop, free jazz, spiritual jazz, soul jazz, jazz-funk, fusion and acid jazz, all while resolutely remaining unmistakably Gary Bartz. There's early work with Eric Dolphy and McCoy Tyner in Charles Mingus' Jazz Workshop, work with Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln, a stint in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, and also one with Miles. There's his groundbreaking and highly influential Ntu Troop albums of the early '70s and his jazz-funk work including two classic albums with the Mizell Brothers, one of which supplied A Tribe Called Quest with a sample that was smooth like butter. And while on the subject of samples, the Bartz catalog has provided hip-hop and other genres with a rich source of them, and artists who have gone to his well when producing beats also include Black Sheep, Jurassic 5, Casual, RPM, Warren G, Photek, Statik Selektah, Chi-Ali, 3rd Bass, Showbiz, ZTrip, Young Disciples, and many others.

"Lifetime" ist die lebensbejahende Debüt-Single von Romy. Romy, den meisten bekannt als Romy Madley Croft und Teil von The xx, hat den Song während des Lockdowns in ihrer Heimat London geschrieben und zusammen mit dem britischen Erfolgsproduzent Fred again produziert. Die Auszeit von ihrer Band hatte Romy zuvor genutzt, als DJ durchzustarten oder Kollegen beim Songwriting zu unterstützen, so schrieb sie u.a. am Grammy prämierten Dua Lipa-Song "Electricity" mit. "Lifetime" ist eine Hymne auf das Leben und von dem Traum endlich wieder mit Freunden, Familie und geliebten Menschen vereint zu sein. Es ist Romys erste Veröffentlichung seit dem letzten The xx Album "I See You", welches in Deutschland Platz #1 der Album-Charts. Logisch, dass der Song im Original auch gute Airplayergebnisse verzeichnen konnte und in diversen Jahresbestenlisten auftauchte. Im Laufe des Herbstes erschienen dann verschiedene Remixe von befreundeten Künstlerinnen, die nun auf 12" verewigt werden. Tracklist: 1. Lifetime Jayda G Baleen Mix 2. Lifetime Planningtorock "Let It Happen" Remix 3. Lifetime HAAI's Green Lamborghini Romix 4. Lifetime Anz's Togetherness Remix 5. Lifetime.

Black Screen Records und Toge Productions haben sich zusammengetan um im März 2021 Andrew Jeremys ruhigen, relaxten und jazzigen Lo-Fi Soundtrack des Talking Simulators Coffee Talk auf Vinyl zu veröffentlichen. Der Soundtrack erinnert an die beliebte "lofi hip hop radio - beats to relax/study to" Videos auf YouTube und erscheint nun auf Matcha grünem und Kaffee braunem Doppel-Vinyl und kommt in einem wunderschönen Gatefold Sleeve mit brandneuem Artwork der indonesischen Designerin Natto (@vulpetrope) und Liner Notes des Coffee Talk-Entwicklerteams. "Jazzige Akkorde, Hip-Hop Beats, knisterndes Vinyl, ein kühler Kopf, ein entspanntes Herz und ein Gebet. Das ist alles was man braucht, um Musik für Coffee Talk zu schreiben. Die Musik ist beruhigend, entspannt einen und - am allerwichtigste - erwärmt einem das Herz." - Andrew Jeremy, Game Producer / Music Composer Coffee Talk ist emotionaler Talking Simulator, in dem du Kaffee zubereitest, den Geschichten einer fantasievollen, modernen Gesellschaft zugehörst und Probleme mit ein oder zwei heißen Getränken lösen kannst. Das Spiel stellt das Leben so menschlich wie möglich dar. Gleichzeitig triffst du Charaktere, die mehr sind als nur Menschen. Tauche ein in die Geschichten der Bewohnerinnen und Bewohner eines alternativen Seattles! Über eine dramatische Liebesgeschichte zwischen einem Elfen und einer Sukkubus oder einem Außerirdischen, der versucht, das Leben der Erdlinge zu verstehen. Diese Spiel spiegelt die Geschichten der modernen Welt wider. ENG Black Screen Records and Toge Productions teamed up to release Andrew Jeremy's soothing, relaxing and jazzy lo-fi soundtrack to their coffee brewing and heart-to-heart talking simulator Coffee Talk on limited edition vinyl this Winter. The soundtrack will be available on matcha green / coffee brown double vinyl and comes in a beautiful gatefold sleeve with stunning new original artwork by Natto (@vulpetrope) and liner notes by the Coffee Talk dev team and comes with a free Coffee Talk logo sticker. "Jazzy chords, hip-hop beats, vinyl crackles, a chilled mind and heart, and a prayer, that's all you need to make music for Coffee Talk. It's soothing, relaxing, and most importantly, keeping the warmth of your heart." - Andrew Jeremy, Game Producer / Music Composer Coffee Talk is a game about listening to people's problems and helping them by serving up a warm drink out of the ingredients you have in stock. It is a game that depicts lives as humanly as possible, while having a cast that is more than just humans. Immerse yourself in the stories of alternative-Seattle inhabitants, ranging from a dramatic love story between an elf and a succubus, an alien trying to understand humans' lives, and many others modern readers will find strongly echo the world around them.

Alto saxophonist, composer and producer Logan Richardson’s career has been marked by his deep engagement with the Black American improvised music tradition as much as by his fearlessly open-minded embrace of the contemporary sounds of the global diaspora and his keen gaze towards the future.
‘AfroFuturism’ (his fifth solo album) synthesises all those elements together into a stunningly audacious statement that is epic in its scope while providing a deep, intimately personal view into its creator’s inner life.
The core of the album is a series of towering alt-rock/trap/wonky beat soundscapes created Logan’s extensive range of keyboards, synthesizers and programming along with the latest iteration of his Blues People band - Igor Osypov
on guitar and Peter Schlamb on vibes and keys, with Dominique Sanders on bass and sharing production duties, and the thunderously virtuosic drumming of Ryan J. Lee and Corey Fonville rounding out the rhythm team.
Logan intersperses these with an array of diverse sonic interludes, scraps of found audio, unexpected, limpid pools of introspective strings performed by Ezgi Karakus and quiet glades of hushed balladry from long-time collaborator, vocalist Laura Taglialatela. Over all, his unmistakable keening voice on alto sax provides the constant narrative thread. “I was trying to get back deeper to the core of my artistic voice: using fresh production processes to mix in my interconnected influences and all the sounds I hear, while trying to find a sense of roots.”
As one of today’s most singular voices in contemporary music, with AfroFuturism Richardson delivers not only a hugely impressive statement, but one with a direct and urgent message for the future that is rooted in his own and the larger contemporary Black American state of affairs, while reminding us of his musical unpredictability. One can only imagine what he’ll do next.

Debut release by Asymetric80. Music made during lockdown, a reflection of these uncertain times. From Apoptygma Berzerk to Covenant, with a genuine ‘Valencia Sound’ from ’90s.

Cardinal Fuzz and Feeding Tube Records are pleased to announce ‘DATALAND’, a collaboration between Dead Sea Apes, Black Tempest and Adam Stone achieved mainly through internet data transfer during the Covid lockdown of 2020. Insistent, evolving electronic sounds encounter a variety of guitars and percussion, from the clockwork kosmische of 'Lost Hours' to the stumbling nosie dub of 'Shop Soiled', while Adam Stone's words meditate on life in the post-industrial west, our increasingly atomised and data-driven society and its logical conclusion in a corporatised dystopia.
'Dataland' is a meditation upon the average existence of a 'developed-world' human in the early 21st century. Whilst not struggling with the harsh physical demands of industrial labour as we did in the recent past, our plight continues to embody the melancholia and confusion of alienation. Under the bewildering complexity of rationalised social and economic systems, we may indeed have become unwitting prisoners within, what the sociologist Max Weber termed, "the iron cage of bureaucracy" - tripping the minutes away in a daily pantomime of data-driven surrealism. This six song collection is a fusion of electronica, monologue, 'real drums' and guitar, and was recorded at various locations in sad old England over the last two years or so. An almost psychedelic sense of puzzlement, nausea and fatigue accompanies being lost in the omnipresent number-generating machines and anti-human modelling systems that now run our world. This is the realisation that defines the essence of the album - that your life is now only as real as what is displayed on the screen of your constant technological companion.

An unlikely meeting of two like-minded spirits, »First Man in the Moon« sees the former Swans guitarist and Hallow Ground regular Norman Westberg and the prolific double bass player Jacek Mazurkiewicz collaborate for five evocative tracks. The pair finds common ground beyond the boundaries of atmospheric drone, abstract jazz and experimental music and blurs the lines between the acoustic and the electronic.The two first met when the composer Mazurkiewicz supported Swans with his solo project 3FoNIA on their 2014 European tour. »I really enjoyed his approach,« says Westberg about the Polish musician’s blending of the acoustic qualities of his instrument with electronically generated sounds. A decision to collaborate was made and when the US-American musician returned to Eastern Europe to support Michael Gira on his solo tour in late 2019, Mazurkiewicz reached out to him with the idea of booking some studio time before Gira’s two concerts in Warsaw. »Recording was very fun and easy,« remembers Westberg. »It was just two people enjoying hearing and reacting to what the other is doing.« »First Man in the Moon« is not however a plain document of these improvised sessions, but also shaped by Mazurkiewicz’s approach as a composer. Once the recordings were finished, he selected and edited the recorded material, refining the peculiar dialogue between the guitarist’s meditative drones and bright chords and his own rhythmic yet subtle approach to playing the double bass, sometimes plucking the strings and occasionally using his bow to underscore
Westberg’s fleeting melodies, but also using the instrument in unconventional ways to generate sound. A feeling of weightlessness prevails throughout the aptly-titled »First Man in the Moon.« Even at their most abstract however, these five improvisations-turned-compositions remain tangible, lively, and joyfully explorative. It is a record that you wouldn’t expect from either of these musicians, but
the logical result of two idiosyncratic minds sharing not only space and time, but also their respective visions with each other. Credits:
Recorded at Studio Diamentowy Pies/ Damian Pielka, engineering/Piotr Mazurek, engineering assistance/Jacek Mazurkiewicz, mix/
Lawrence English, mastering/John Fell, photographs.