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Nazamba & Dubsetters kicked off this new Finnish Dub & Sound label in a superb style recently and what better way to follow that up than with the reggae master, smoking king and weed aficionado Linval Thompson. This might sound like one of his classic lost cuts from the 70s but it is actually an all new tune from the Jamaican reggae icon. Dubsetters provide the gentle, percussive rhythms which are organic and deep, with Linval's smooth mic work up top adding to the global conversation about the decriminalization of cannabis. Flip it over for an even more mellow and dubbed out sound on the b-side.

Beatservice are delighted to present the debut album from the irrepressible Norwegian outfit, b0ka, with 13 genre-surfing tracks lovingly presented on the gloriously pop-centric 'Forever, My Friend'.

Friends since as far back as kindergarten, the b0ka players released a selection of highly regarded singles between 2013 and 2016, with their music arriving via prestige imprints including Eskimo, Paper Recordings, Diamond Club, and their own b0ka Recordings. They've since pursued a diverse range of projects, including Lakehouse, OJKOS, Bjørnar Sira and Den Kosmiske Overorden, with their expansive sounds routinely winning admirers throughout the global music community. The pandemic-induced lockdowns allowed the band an opportunity to re-visit long lost b0ka projects: reviewing dusty hard discs before funnelling the best morsels into the Sagrada Jukebox mixtape earlier this year. It was during this journey of sonic rediscovery that the masterfully diverse 'Forever, My Friend' was ushered into existence.

Drawing on all-manner of far-flung influences and brilliantly assembling the components with a pop-ready sophistication, this is spectacular work from b0ka, marking their return to release action in breathtaking style.

A famous anthem once begged: “Don’t Make Me Wait.” Sometimes, though, it’s good to make ‘em wait—even just a little bit. Case in point: The production duo of Fabrizio Mammarella and Phillip Lauer, known to clubbers, DJs and music heads as Black Spuma.

Three years after their last EP—and nearly a decade into their production existence—the duo have finally given us a full-length manifesto. Sure, there have been a smattering of remixes and EPs over the years on labels like Futureboogie, International Feel and Live At Robert Johnson. But on their new LP “No No No,” the Spumas at last get to stretch out and give us their full-meal-deal.

The pair birthed the tracks at Lauer’s famed Pyramide III studio, with 10 tunes finalised and selected remotely, thanks to the wonders of high-speed Internet. While the Spumas are well-known (both together and as solo acts) for their melodic, 80s-tinged club workouts, the album format has allowed the guys to push their sound into parts unknown. The album drops at the end of May on Permanent Vacation, and it distils all the things we love about the duo: The melody, the playfulness and the musicianship of two veterans in full command of their powers.



Take the tune “Obereggen,” which expands a punchy, staccato bassline into that sweet spot where trance and italo can play next to each other. Or the cut “Fracture,” which is built on a Detroit-like chassis but makes room for gorgeous pads, subby bass and a nimble breakbeat.

For the established fans, there’ll be plenty to latch onto, including the title cut (and first single), which sounds like something Robocop may have produced if he’d taught a violence diversion program.
Meanwhile, cuts like “Dillingen” remind us of one of those lost Eurythmics B-sides that show up in the dark corners of MixesDB. The album was mixed and mastered by Lopazz, and boasts a colourful cover from Berlin-based artist Ilja Karilampi.

So, 17 years after initially meeting, we finally have a full album from these Spuma Men. And in the end, it was worth the wait.

'Malombo music is an indigenous kind of music. If you listen to it, you can feel that it can heal you, if you’ve got something wrong. It’s healing music.'
Lucky Ranku

"Lucas ‘Lucky’ Madumetja Ranku (1941-2016) was one of the greatest African guitarists of his generation. He first made his name with the Malombo Jazz Makers – the successor group to the legendary Malombo Jazzmen, formed in Mamelodi township by guitarist Philip Tabane, drummer Julian Bahula and flautist Abbey Cindi. When Tabane left the Jazzmen in 1965, Bahula and Cindi called on Lucky to replace him, and the Malombo Jazz Makers were born. Building on the popularity and success of the original Malombo Jazzmen, the Malombo Jazz Makers become immensely popular, touring widely, winning numerous jazz competitions, and recording two successful albums for the Gallo label.

The deep and hypnotic Down Lucky’s Way was their third album. Recorded in 1969, it was the first Malombo Jazz Makers album to feature additional instruments, and the first to feature Abbey Cindi on soprano saxophone as well as flute. But more than anything else, Down Lucky’s Way is a transfixing showcase for Lucky Ranku’s sui generis guitar virtuosity. Quite different from their previous recordings, the album shifted the Jazz Makers’ sound toward hypnotic, extended compositions, layered by organ bass and guitar overdubs. Of all the Malombo Jazz Makers recordings, Down Lucky’s Way is the deepest of mood, and the richest of vision.

However, through one of the erasures that are ubiquitous in South African musical history under apartheid, it seems that the record may not ever have been properly issued. Original copies are outrageously rare – only a few are known among collectors. When we asked Lucky about the album, he was unaware it had ever been released, and had never seen a copy. Perhaps it was pulled; perhaps it was pulped; perhaps Gallo simply took their eye off the ball. Nobody knows, but it is not impossible that the apartheid authorities were involved, for by 1969, the Malombo Jazz Makers were well known to them.

Julian Bahula’s introduction of malopo drums to the music of the original Malombo Jazzmen was a moment of crucial political and cultural radicalism for South African jazz. Traditionally used by BaPedi people for healing, the malopo drums of Malombo music re-centered jazz
around indigenous sounds and culture, and over the next decade, the Malombo Jazz Makers became deeply involved in political opposition to apartheid. Their recovery of indigenous sounds made them the musical standard bearer for the Black Consciousness movement, and they toured South Africa clandestinely with the writer and anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko. They also broke apartheid laws by playing with the white rock group Freedom’s Children, sometimes appearing on stage in masks or made up with UV paint to avoid detection by the authorities; they appeared regularly at the rule-bending Free People’s Concerts organized by David Marks, where Marks’ clever exploitation of a loophole – mixed audiences were prohibited from attending ticketed concerts where anyone was being paid, but the law said nothing about private functions played by artists for free – meant people could come together in defiance of apartheid laws. The notorious Special Branch would raid their concerts; Lucky remembered police storming an auditorium, throwing smoke bombs.

Eventually the political situation became too dangerous, and the band were being actively sought by the police. Though Abbey Cindi remained in South Africa, both Julian Bahula and Lucky Ranku went into political exile in the UK, where Bahula founded the group Jabula with Lucky and former members of Cymande, Steve Scipio and Michael ‘Bami’ Rose. With Jabula, Julian and Lucky worked tirelessly for the anti-apartheid movement, raising funds and awareness all over Europe and in the US. They played with Dudu Pukwana’s Spear in the joint formation Jabula-Spear, and worked together in Bahula’s Jazz Afrika formation, and Bahula organized the first Concert for Mandela in 1984 (it was Jabula that supplied the chorus for The Special A.K.A.’s hit single ‘Nelson Mandela’). Lucky also played and recorded with Chris McGregor’s South African Exiles Thunderbolt group. After the fall of apartheid, they both remained living and working in the UK. In 2012 the South African government awarded Julian Bahula the Gold Order of Ikhamanga for his cultural work during the struggle against apartheid.

Until his death in 2016, Lucky continued to play with countless groups and musicians. putting together the band Township Express with Pinise Saul, and leading his own African Jazz Allstars. The influence of his playing on the international perception of South African township music was immense, and he was held in the highest regard by his peers – ‘Lucky was a guitarist who could bring any house down’, said Michael ‘Bami’ Rose.

But despite his continuous presence on the UK live circuit over four decades, Lucky Ranku never recorded an album as leader. And so as well as restoring an important lost piece of South African musical heritage, Down Lucky’s Way is a precious opportunity to hear one of Africa’s foremost guitarists stretching out, in focus and in his element."

First issue since 1969 of the Malombo Jazz Maker’s unknown third album.
Liner notes featuring interviews with Julian Bahula and Lucky Ranku.
Fully licensed from Julian Bahula.

Dutch progressive Death Metal legends Phlebotomized at the peak of their 30 year old career!

Phlebotomized is among the oldest Death Metal bands from Holland and one of the first using violin and synthesizers in extreme metal. Their typical “Death Metal with a twist” caused a stir in the booming Dutch metal scene back in the early 90’s. Formed in 1989, Phlebotomized started out as a Grindcore/Death Metal band,
inspired by acts like Morbid Angel, Nocturnus and Paradise Lost. Later on, the band began to use keyboard and violin arrangements, resulting in their unique sound. Their “Devoted to God” demo (1992) was recognized as a classic one demo worldwide. In 1994 Phlebotomized released their seminal “Immense Intense Suspense” album which offered an intelligent blend of atmosphere and brutality. It took the Death Metal scene by storm, giving both the band and the album a legendary Cult status worldwide.

The band played numerous shows but disbanded shortly after the release of their second full-length album “Skycontact” in 1997.

After a hibernation of 16 years, Phlebotomized regrouped in 2013 upon the re-release of their classic albums. The band played several live-shows and

An explorative sonic landscape with the beautifully eclectic sounds of drum and bass at its core, Sustance’s debut album is every bit as thought-out, polished, and innovative as we’ve come to expect from one of drum and bass’ brightest prospects.

Having grown up listening to seminal Shogun albums like Spectrasoul's 'Delay No More' and Icicle's 'Under The Ice', ‘Perceived Connections’ acts as a full circle moment for the producer, who now finds himself following in the footsteps of the artists who profoundly influenced his approach to creating music.

Written between London and Berlin across a twelve-month period, 'Perceived Connections' encapsulates both of the alluring sides of Sustance's sound. In the same fashion that the album's writing process pivoted between two capital cities, Sustance's debut album presents both deep and expressive tracks such as 'I Want You' and 'Sweet Relief', as well as showcasing heavy, sound system-destroying tunes like 'Undercurrent' and 'Ten Ton’.

“The album title comes from the Zen idea that everyone perceives the world through their own perspective. Two people can listen to a record side by side and have totally different experiences. I really liked that idea as music is inherently so subjective. Sustance

Accompanying Sustance on this LP voyage is a plethora of D&B’s hottest talent, with Pola & Bryson, Visages, Flowdan, Strategy, Duskee, T-Man, Catching Cairo & Zara Kershaw all sprinkling their own flavours across the album.

Traversing an array of sounds, styles, and genres throughout, 'Perceived Connections' is nothing short of an exceptional extended body of work from a producer whose razor-tight approach to music has seen him emerge with one of the crispest and most captivating sonic palettes in drum and bass music.

High Roller Records, Wiederveröffentlichung 2023, schwarzes Vinyl, ltd 150, Einleger. In den Fußstapfen der einzigartigen Mercyful Fate und zusammen mit obskureren Acts wie Alien Force, Randy und Crystal Knight gehören die Kopenhagener Witch Cross zu den besten dänischen Heavy-Metal-Bands aller Zeiten. Das 1984er Album "Fit For Fight" ist sicherlich eines der Top-5-Alben in der Geschichte des dänischen Heavy Metal. Nach einer langen Pause folgte auf "Fit For Fight" das zweite Album "Axe To Grind" im Jahr 2013 (ursprünglich veröffentlicht von Hell's Headbangers und nun auf High Roller Records für ein breiteres Publikum wiederveröffentlicht). "Axe To Grind" war für mich ein großartiges Comeback-Album", sagt Gitarrist und Gründungsmitglied Mike Koch heute. "Wir hatten einige Gastmusiker/Sänger Gastsänger und Chris Tsangarides hat das Album gemischt, es war also eine starke Verbindung zur Vergangenheit. Die Songs waren wirklich gut, vielleicht ein bisschen zu old-school, aber das ist es, was wir auf dem Album wollten."Wir waren überwältigt, wie die Presse uns gelobt hat", fährt der Witch Cross-Gitarrist fort. "Es fühlte sich gut an und gab uns das Gefühl, dass die Band das Richtige getan hat, obwohl "Fit For Fight" so ein Kultalbum war. Es gab allerdings eine Ausnahme: "In unserem Heimatland bekam "Axe To Grind" nicht so viel Aufmerksamkeit, wie wir gehofft hatten. Aber die Konzerte, die wir dort gespielt haben, waren großartig." "Axe To Grind" war das zweite Album der Band nach einer langen Pause. Wie kam es überhaupt zu der Wiedervereinigung und wann und warum hat Mike Koch beschlossen, doch ein neues Studioalbum aufzunehmen? "Ich war mit einer Menge anderer Musik beschäftigt und wollte ein Metal-Album schreiben", erklärt er. "Also habe ich angefangen Ideen zu sammeln, und als wir 2012 bei Keep It True spielten, hatten wir ‚Demon In The Mirror' aufgenommen, das wir auf dem Festival spielten, um zu sehen, wie die Leute darauf reagieren. Zusammen mit 'Demon In The Mirror' sind 'Pandora's Box' und 'Bird Of Prey' meine Lieblingssongs auf der Platte. Nach 'Keep It True' beschlossen wir, dass wir mit 'Witch' weitermachen müssen." Koch hält es jedoch nicht für richtig, zu sagen, dass "Axe To
Grind" dort weitermachte, wo "Fit For Fight" aufgehört hatte: "Nein, das stimmt nicht wirklich. Es ist eher eine Verbindung zur Vergangenheit, als zu dem, was wir 1985-86 musikalisch weitergekommen wären, wenn wir ein weiteres Album gemacht hätten. Es gibt einen Song namens 'The Chosen One' auf dem neuen Album "Angel Of Death", der meiner Meinung nach viel mehr im Stil von Witch Cross von 1985 ist."

High Roller Records, Wiederveröffentlichung 2023, schwarzes Vinyl, ltd 150, Einleger. In den Fußstapfen der einzigartigen Mercyful Fate und zusammen mit obskureren Acts wie Alien Force, Randy und Crystal Knight gehören die Kopenhagener Witch Cross zu den besten dänischen Heavy-Metal-Bands aller Zeiten. Das 1984er Album "Fit For Fight" ist sicherlich eines der Top-5-Alben in der Geschichte des dänischen Heavy Metal. Nach einer langen Pause folgte auf "Fit For Fight" das zweite Album "Axe To Grind" im Jahr 2013 (ursprünglich veröffentlicht von Hell's Headbangers und nun auf High Roller Records für ein breiteres Publikum wiederveröffentlicht). "Axe To Grind" war für mich ein großartiges Comeback-Album", sagt Gitarrist und Gründungsmitglied Mike Koch heute. "Wir hatten einige Gastmusiker/Sänger Gastsänger und Chris Tsangarides hat das Album gemischt, es war also eine starke Verbindung zur Vergangenheit. Die Songs waren wirklich gut, vielleicht ein bisschen zu old-school, aber das ist es, was wir auf dem Album wollten."Wir waren überwältigt, wie die Presse uns gelobt hat", fährt der Witch Cross-Gitarrist fort. "Es fühlte sich gut an und gab uns das Gefühl, dass die Band das Richtige getan hat, obwohl "Fit For Fight" so ein Kultalbum war. Es gab allerdings eine Ausnahme: "In unserem Heimatland bekam "Axe To Grind" nicht so viel Aufmerksamkeit, wie wir gehofft hatten. Aber die Konzerte, die wir dort gespielt haben, waren großartig." "Axe To Grind" war das zweite Album der Band nach einer langen Pause. Wie kam es überhaupt zu der Wiedervereinigung und wann und warum hat Mike Koch beschlossen, doch ein neues Studioalbum aufzunehmen? "Ich war mit einer Menge anderer Musik beschäftigt und wollte ein Metal-Album schreiben", erklärt er. "Also habe ich angefangen Ideen zu sammeln, und als wir 2012 bei Keep It True spielten, hatten wir ‚Demon In The Mirror' aufgenommen, das wir auf dem Festival spielten, um zu sehen, wie die Leute darauf reagieren. Zusammen mit 'Demon In The Mirror' sind 'Pandora's Box' und 'Bird Of Prey' meine Lieblingssongs auf der Platte. Nach 'Keep It True' beschlossen wir, dass wir mit 'Witch' weitermachen müssen." Koch hält es jedoch nicht für richtig, zu sagen, dass "Axe To
Grind" dort weitermachte, wo "Fit For Fight" aufgehört hatte: "Nein, das stimmt nicht wirklich. Es ist eher eine Verbindung zur Vergangenheit, als zu dem, was wir 1985-86 musikalisch weitergekommen wären, wenn wir ein weiteres Album gemacht hätten. Es gibt einen Song namens 'The Chosen One' auf dem neuen Album "Angel Of Death", der meiner Meinung nach viel mehr im Stil von Witch Cross von 1985 ist."

Repeat Offender Records - was active between 2006 and 2010, recreating the '92 UK Breakbeat Rave Sound with tracks from label owners Wax & Inferno and a roster of like minded artists pushing the "Nu-Rave" sound at the time. These are label archive copies from the original press run from 2009 supplied in original printed sleeves in very limited quantities its Old New Old Skool...

Hania Rani announces "On Giacometti" a tender meditation on the life and art of Alberto Giacometti and family. "On Giacometti" is a collection of beautiful recordings inspired by the renowned artist and family and features some of Rani's most profoundly delicate compositions to date. Invited by film director Susanna Fanzun, to score her forthcoming documentary on the legendary artist Alberto Giacometti, Hania Rani took herself to the Swiss mountains to compose in blissful isolation. As Rani explains eloquently below the compositions are based on improvised melodies, simple harmonies and structures and inspired by the silence of the mountains as Rani returns to her main instrument, the piano. The results are beguilingly reminiscent of her beloved debut album Esja, but with subtle extra layers of synthesiser, and on two tracks cello from friend and long-running collaborator Dobrawa Czocher.

'On Giacometti' is presented as a limited edition LP with bespoke packaging featuring Les Naturals - Chocolat (Gmund) sustainable recycled paperboard made from 100 % recovered paper with Foil Artwork by Łukasz Pałczyński. Plus Double sided printed insert and download code inside.

Hania Rani "On Giacometti":
‘When I was asked to compose a soundtrack for a movie about the family of Giacometti I didn't think twice.

Alberto Giacometti, a Swiss artist, who worked mainly as painter and sculptor has been one of my favourite artists for a long time. His individual style, aesthetics and the character of his creative process is still fascinating to me on many levels, so being able to dive even deeper into his universe, getting to know not only him but also his family was an opportunity that I couldn't miss. Little did I know how far this "yes" will take me - not only mentally and on a creative level but also physically. Thanks to the director of the documentary - Susanna Fanzun and by a stroke of luck and a couple of extra questions I decided to move for a couple of months to the Swiss mountains, not far away from the place where Giacometti was born and where the place he called home was, although he didn't live there. Susanna showed me a place close to her hometown where I could rent a studio and work on the soundtrack but also for my other projects. It was the middle of a winter, the area was full of ice and snow, just like only it can happen still in the mountains. The residency house was located in a valley surrounded by high mountains and the sun in the winter season was not coming up for too long during the day. I remember she told me about it and added "that not everyone is feeling well there, but I hope you will". I did.

Being almost separated from reality, the city and its entertainments, people rushing and everything that usually takes my attention I could fully concentrate on the music and soundtrack, spending most of the day with my own thoughts and having enough space to experiment and be free in a creative process. This soundtrack would probably be a very different thing if composed in a place that I am usually living in. I took this a chance to explore something new about myself as a composer and human being, taking the opposite direction that I would usually choose for myself.

The album "On Giacometti" includes the excerpts from the soundtrack, the most representative tracks and those which became a strong voice itself. Based a lot on improvised melodies, simple harmonies, structures and silence it reminds me of my debut album "Esja" which was partly composed and recorded in another chilly place - Iceland. All these components, both mental and physical, guided me back to my main instrument - piano, which I tried to redefine again with a language of the space that I was working in. The space is usually the key element that gives me the answer about the arrangement or character of the project. Space seems to be the first to appear and music is the invisible power which is changing its angels.’ Living surrounded by mountains makes you change the perspective and understanding of scale as Alberto Giacometti once famously wrote in a letter: It gives an impression that things that are actually far away, like mountains, are close and the other ones that are not so far away, like people, seem small, watched from a distance. You feel like touching the mountain top with your finger could be as easy as touching the tip of your nose. The snow additionally protects the whole area from the noise, each sound lands softly on the ground accompanied by echoes of immeasurable space. Each scratch or whisper is becoming an autonomic entity, opening the gate to the world of ghosts and lost spirits. It's easy to think that time stands still there, while nothing is moving and changing at the first sight. But the ubiquitous ice and snow reveal the passage of time, transforming frozen paysage into the wild stream of water - each day, hour and second. Melting and vanishing, clearing the space from white powder and noise consuming surface. Invisible process for a one night traveller, becomes painfully real for longer time settlers. Time flows with each new wave of sound coming through the river, reminding us that we are part of the cycle, which endlessly repeats itself.

Defamator is the long-time-coming debut project of 24-year-old Chloe Gallardo. It tells a story of betrayal in love and friendship and the painful reality of overcoming love lost and former heartbreak.


Drawing influences from artists such as Broadcast, Grouper & My Bloody Valentine Gallardo adds her own haunting, folk-style vocals and hyper-specific lyrics to create a sonic unique to her. A style that she describes in her words as “dark shoegaze bedroom indie pop”.

Album opener “Bloodline” epitomises this bittersweet modus operandi. 15 seconds into its dainty acoustic strum , Gallardo adamantly sulks “I’m fucked up” - the salvo of a lyric about feeling like a family disappointment. As the track lifts up into a cascading gaze-pop rush, recalling the likes of Bachelor and Snail Mail, we’re blessed with a pristine elegance that belies the song’s raging core.
“I have always written music this way.”, she says of this fundamental contradiction. “It’s funny because I try so hard to write darker sounding songs and they always come out way too pretty. So, I’ve resorted to writing the most gut-wrenching and intense lyrics to compensate.”

Written mostly during peak-pandemic times in Gallardo’s bedroom - (“you can hear how scared and alone I was.”) - the songs that made their way onto Defamator arose from a concerted period of healing. Drawing from the teachings of therapy, the songwriting process gave her the means to channel some deeply entrenched emotional scars.
This venting of anger is implicit throughout the record. The album’s title - Gallardo’s own neologism - uses the concepts of “defamation” and “defamatory speech” to innovate a kind of pejorative accusation. As a result, it is like we are actively listening to Gallardo forcefully take command of her past. Of the title track she explains: “The song Defamator is about someone who spoke untruthful things about me in order to manipulate me and the way people perceived me and I felt that was an underlying theme in most of the album.”

Recorded at Jazzcat Studios in Long Beach California with Jonny Bell (Hanni El Khatib, Adult Books, etc.) Defamator marks Gallardo’s first time in a “legitimate recording studio”. And it shows. Bell’s production is vital moving part here. There’s more stripped back affairs - ‘There Will Be Blood”; ”The Way’ - songs which gently seethe and purr like Grouper’s spectral dream-pop; Gallardo’s fluttering folk-ish voice gloriously pushed to forefront.

Total Annihilation Beach is the latest collection from Caveman LSD, one of the handful of monikers of Special Guest DJ / uon / sometimes just shy. Their releases under this name have always had the character of sonic transmissions – crushed sine-waves hurtling out of a wormhole, remote pirate radio bandwidths, whale-song picked up on radar, and so on. Here, the signal seems to come from a place whose remoteness is not defined by distance, but adjacency: these are alternate reality bops.

What does it sound like? Kind of solarpunk, but dirty; not at all an artifact from a hopeless culture. Percussion at the forefront; warm timbres and tones – never have I heard this producer play with tabla and tambourine loops as they do in “Lost Hours,” the opening track of the EP. The buildup holds tension and dynamics tight, with a vocoder-smoothed moan – sampled from the caveman’s own voice, on the low – alternating between two notes; when the beat decompresses for the first time two and a half minutes in, one hears the amorphous and cavernous pads we know so well from shy. “Bottle Service Angels” picks up with another acoustic drum loop, and a clap entering 18 seconds in swings the rest of the track into your hips – there’s even an alternate percussion interlude

sandwiched in the middle. The drums are turned over by a distorted and delayed wave, almost like a cop siren, which finds an answer in the track’s final seconds: we hear them blaring, but distantly (the demo version of this track, from spring 2020, was called “ACAB Beat”).

The B side begins with a textured, heaving slab of ambience: “The Sun Will Sink Into the Ocean.” It is perhaps the sun one sees setting over “Total Annihilation Beach” – a phrase that came to shy while tripping on LSD in San Francisco, which felt to them like a post-apocalyptic haven for the rich. Seems on point. There is a machinic repetition to the track, but also sweeping curtains of sound that move like mist. But what comes at nightfall? Not cops, not raiders nor bottle service angels – nothing, actually. Just a void into which one lobs praise. “H6 Remix” adapts a Mesopotamian hymn to the divine wife of a moon deity, dated to 1400 BCE; the strings of the sampled oud playing it out are rich and trail beautifully with reverb. Caveman LSD’s gesture of remixing such a song reads sincere – the reality we inhabit is likely just as brutal as the one to which these transmissions belong; however, in both, honor exists. Love follows.

Few artists exude as much passion for, and dedication to, their craft as Tom Marshall (AKA Marsh). Since he first emerged on the electronic music scene in the mid-2010s, Marsh has sculpted a uniquely soulful sound that has captivated his listeners and earned him a fast-growing and intensely devoted fanbase. Marsh's forthcoming album 'Endless' follows two previous bodies of work; his 2017 debut 'Life On The Shore', and his critically-acclaimed Anjunadeep debut LP, 'Lailonie', the latter of which has accumulated over 20 million streams to date. Marsh also has an array of widely-supported anthems in his discography. 'Come Together' (with Nox Vahn), 'Little Darling' and the Beatport chart-topping 'Lost In You' are some of his best-loved tracks, all streaming well into the millions and winning support from electronic music's biggest artists, including Joris Voorn, Pete Tong, Diplo, and RÜFÜS DU SOL. The two years since Marsh released his previous album 'Lailonie' have seen Tom moving around the States and touring the globe in a world rapidly opening up post-pandemic. This whirlwind, semi-nomadic lifestyle has inspired his third artist album 'Endless', and caused him to take stock of his values. In his own words, "I've written this entire album on the move, writing from so many different homes. On a deeper, more spiritual level, this has led me to question, what is truly home, and will we experience home after this life?" 'Endless' comprises twelve memorable tracks, including collaborations with vocalists Jodie Knight, Leo Wood, and Mariel Beausejour. Drawing on influences as diverse as the rich trance sounds of the 2000s that soundtracked his teenage years, and the musicality of crossover drum & bass acts like Pendulum, Tom's next offering is perhaps his most expansive in scope. Opening with the subtle first track 'Pneuma', the album moves from the emotive and lyrical, on lyrical, emotive tracks like 'Sleep' and 'Forgiveness', to piano house melodies on 'Reminiscent' and smooth broken beats on 'Blue', all united by Marsh's innate warm musicality.

Jean-Luc Mocard met Jean Ronde in September of 2009, while working at the CASIO Palaiseau factory, near Paris. Before, they were both active musicians with a particular taste for synthesized music, touring extensively through European and Asian underground venues and clubs. Eventually, their furious passion for collecting 80’s keyboards brought them together to become the fabulous duo Vive Les Cônes.

Presently based in Porto, Portugal, by a matter of pure chance, Vive Les Cônes is a CASIO explosion, the fuel of a dancing machine that never stops and cherry picks moments from dance and pop music culture along the way. Their live concerts are non-stop hit parades featuring their very own local cult classics, such as “Bonaparty” or “Brocoli-Rave”, and medleys of pop-culture classics ranging from video-game soundtracks, to dance hits, to classical music.

“De France”, their debut album, is the product of years of playing live, training and mastering the perfect CASIO technique. Every track in this album is played live using only pure unmodded Casio PT-380 and Yamaha PSR-37 keyboards, thrift store fx pedals, bringing to the recorded form the meticulously crafted tracks that set dancefloors on fire all throughout the world.

The album is an eclectic journey through electronic and dance music on cheap keyboards, from traces of House Music in “Maillon” and the instant hit “Je Ne Sais Pas”, fumes of vaporwave in “Machine à Vapeur”, and, of course, baguettes of French electro in “Brocoli-Rave”, the track that usually andeuphorically ends Vive Les Cônes’ set.

The Quietus has referred to the duo as a “weird John Shuttleworth take on house music”, but them being French, a better comparison would be something like “Daft Punk lost all their gear on tour and had to play a gig using some old keyboards”. But could they even do it? Maybe a “Pascal Comelade on molly live set for Boiler Room” could make thembetter Justice. We’re not really sure what to compare them to though, and probably there’s no need to compare them to anything, as the best thing you can do is to give them a go and check them out for yourself.

Jean-Luc Mocard met Jean Ronde in September of 2009, while working at the CASIO Palaiseau factory, near Paris. Before, they were both active musicians with a particular taste for synthesized music, touring extensively through European and Asian underground venues and clubs. Eventually, their furious passion for collecting 80’s keyboards brought them together to become the fabulous duo Vive Les Cônes.

Presently based in Porto, Portugal, by a matter of pure chance, Vive Les Cônes is a CASIO explosion, the fuel of a dancing machine that never stops and cherry picks moments from dance and pop music culture along the way. Their live concerts are non-stop hit parades featuring their very own local cult classics, such as “Bonaparty” or “Brocoli-Rave”, and medleys of pop-culture classics ranging from video-game soundtracks, to dance hits, to classical music.

“De France”, their debut album, is the product of years of playing live, training and mastering the perfect CASIO technique. Every track in this album is played live using only pure unmodded Casio PT-380 and Yamaha PSR-37 keyboards, thrift store fx pedals, bringing to the recorded form the meticulously crafted tracks that set dancefloors on fire all throughout the world.

The album is an eclectic journey through electronic and dance music on cheap keyboards, from traces of House Music in “Maillon” and the instant hit “Je Ne Sais Pas”, fumes of vaporwave in “Machine à Vapeur”, and, of course, baguettes of French electro in “Brocoli-Rave”, the track that usually andeuphorically ends Vive Les Cônes’ set.

The Quietus has referred to the duo as a “weird John Shuttleworth take on house music”, but them being French, a better comparison would be something like “Daft Punk lost all their gear on tour and had to play a gig using some old keyboards”. But could they even do it? Maybe a “Pascal Comelade on molly live set for Boiler Room” could make thembetter Justice. We’re not really sure what to compare them to though, and probably there’s no need to compare them to anything, as the best thing you can do is to give them a go and check them out for yourself.

ULTRADISC ONE-STEP BOX SET OF BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN'S 1973 DEBUT PLAYS WITH AUDIOPHILE SOUND: LIMITED TO 7,500 NUMBERED COPIES.

1/4" / 15 IPS analogue master to DSD 256 to analogue console to lathe

Teeming with identifiable characters, youthful romanticism, vivid narratives, and sophisticated arrangements, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. is a personal postcard from the heart, soul, and mind of a rock ’n’ roll lifer bent on discovering his world and what lays beyond it. The 1973 album establishes many of the signature themes and sounds Bruce Springsteen would embrace throughout his unparalleled career. No wonder a majority of the songs — “Blinded by the Light,” “Lost in the Flood,” “Spirit in the Night” included — remain staples of the New Jersey native’s fabled concerts.

Sourced from the original analog master tapes, pressed at RTI on MoFi SuperVinyl, and strictly limited to 7,500 numbered copies, Mobile Fidelity's UltraDisc One-Step 180g 33RPM LP set is the definitive-sounding version of Springsteen’s daring debut. Afforded the benefits of SuperVinyl’s nearly non-existent noise floor, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. plays with a clarity, directness, and emotionalism that practically whisks you into the New York office in which Springsteen — accompanied by then-manager Mike Appel — played a few originals for legendary Columbia Records executive John Hammond and earned a record deal.

That solo-centric aspect of Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. — credited only to Springsteen and featuring only a handful of accompanying musicians — helps make it unique in his catalogue. So do the acoustic-based frameworks, revealed on this pressing with newly exposed detail, nuance, and immediacy. The music emerges with an openness that gives flight to the Boss’ storytelling. His words flow with unbridled, stream-of-conscious pacing and vibrant imagery; they pay homage to and update a tradition established by Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, and Jack Kerouac. Equally important, Springsteen’s still-underrated vocal performances can now be appreciated in full-range fidelity. Earnest, transparent, and sincere, his singing comes across with an urgency that distinguishes him from the era’s singer-songwriter mold and a raw energy that underlines his unflinching belief in rock ’n’ roll.

Recorded in just three weeks, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. also stands out by way of its insightful artwork. Designed by Grammy winner John Berg, the inviting cover is appointed with images of the local landmarks, beachfronts, and geography that provide the backdrops for some of the songs. Those graphics are complemented by the beautiful packaging of Mobile Fidelity’s UD1S edition. Tucked in a sleek slipcase, the LP is housed in a special foil-stamped jacket with faithful-to-the-original graphics. In every way, this reissue is made for listeners who prize sound quality and who want to engage themselves in everything involved with this invigorating album.

An aspirational declaration by a then-23-year-old musician who was already a seasoned veteran of the Jersey Shore bar-band scene, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. can in many ways be seen as a semi-fictional autobiography released more than four decades before Springsteen penned his official tome. Elaborate, descriptive, and absorbing, Springsteen’s lyrics spark with the enthusiasm and exuberance of a wide-eyed adventurer ready for possibility, excitement, and fun — but who is also mindful of loss, pain, and disappointment. Words often tumble and collide like dice spilling from a jar; shaken and fully intact, they pour forth with purpose and without self-conscious concern.

One of two songs composed after label president Clive Davis cited the need for a radio-friendly single, the opening “Blinded by the Light” provides an unforgettable introduction. It flares with a blend of confidence, fun, and poetry that helps define Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. Crackling with wiry guitars, funky chords, Clarence Clemons’ cool-toned saxophone, and action-packed lyrics, the shuffle simultaneously expands and contracts — and establishes Springsteen as a master of rhyme, alliteration, and breathless expression. The thread continues on “Growin’ Up.” Steered by ascending piano lines, soulful grooves, and frisky rhythms, the coming-of-age confessional is at once rebellious and controlled, fearless and vulnerable, honest and boastful. It is a tale to which multiple generations still relate.

Such universality has always been a Springsteen trademark. It surfaces throughout Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., as does another Boss hallmark: the importance of friendship and tight bonds. These concepts relate to the fact many of the songs — see the feverish “Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street?,” strutting “It’s So Hard to Be a Saint in the City,” and tender “For You,” the latter complete with brilliant Hammond organ shading — are directly tied to the friends, acquaintances, places, and happenings he knew. “Lost in the Flood,” whose cinematic drama and epic scope hint at the directions Springsteen would pursue on his next LP, extends that familiarity while addressing the kind of socially conscious issues with which he’s forever been associated.

Balancing the label’s vision of him as a folk-based singer-songwriter and his own desire to play rock ‘n’ roll with a full band, Springsteen never again made a record like Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. One of the most captivating debuts in history, it heralds the start of a legacy whose import Springsteen seemingly foretells on “Blinded by the Light”: “He’s gonna make it tonight.” And how.

Many people consider the Tbilisi scene (thanks to the artists that turns around Khidi club) as one of the most advanced and influential in the entire world. Giorgi Kolbaia (aka Downwell) & Giorgi Kharanauli are a good example of those talented georgian artists. They have made partnership as Initial Light to present a more relaxed work in relation to their solo acts stuff, “40 Degrees In The Air” is a blend of Italo, breaks, synthwave and modern ebm / new beat keeping a common pleasant industrial taste in the 6 tracks included in their vinyl debut.

Swing Family's Music Force is dramatic mid-80s synth-funk. From the maverick mind of Sauveur Mallia, it's a thrilling and uniquely brilliant album from start to finish. It's undoubtedly known and revered for its unbelievable standout track, "Mission Africa". Those that know, know. And if you don't know, get to know. It's the reason this record has been hugely sought-after for the best part of two decades. Originally released on Tele Music in France in 1985 but now tear-inducingly rare, this is the definition of "a welcome reissue."

Swing Family is basically a supergroup of French Funk royalty. Led by French disco lord and Arpadys maestro Sauveur Mallia, they were augmented by trombonist Alex Perdigon from legendary French funk rock collective Godchild, trumpeter Kako Bessot from funky fusion group Synthesis and saxophonist Pierre Holassian, a member of Giant, Janko Nilovic's French jazz orchestra. So, about as heavyweight as it gets for funky French goodness. Mallia handles, of course, bass duties throughout, as well as utilising his arsenal of synths including his E-mu, Yamaha Dx7, Roland MSQ 700, Mini Moog and Oberheimm.

The maximalist disco fusion of "Exorcistor" is perhaps a bit too 80s French cheese for most tastes, so either linger on its singular style or head straight to the soundtracky typo-funk of "Greewich Boulevard". A deep, swaggering powerhouse, it comes on like mid-80s Chic jamming on the set of Beverly Hills Cop with Kashif. Yes, *that* good. It's followed by the vital "Music Force", a synthy, sleazy instrumental full of sax and flute and those 80s drum fills. Just the right side of acceptable.

OR! You can even choose to forget all the rest and just stick "Mission Africa" straight on. A rumbling, strutting, afro-cosmic low-profile banger. The slick drums hit hard, the synth strings warm things up, overlapping horns add swagger whilst electric guitar flourishes and a chanted refrain sit in the mix quite perfectly. A track that's almost impossible to describe and do justice to. You just need to hear it. Preferably as you saunter into your favourite after-hours club, after spotting all your friends at once, as you cut a swathe to the bubbling dance floor. A track quite like no other, it makes you sit up within its first bars and, to us at least, sound like something you'd have heard on a Print Thomas mix from the mid 00s. Basically, it's cosmo-galactic.

The B Side opens with "Musical Stars", an oh-so-80s funk-lite track which, at times, sounds like something Daft Punk may have left on the cutting room floor during their Discovery sessions. Another unimpeachable favourite of ours is the druggy brilliance of "Gentleman & Musician". You can almost hear the white powder through the speakers, as soaring, acidy synths, slick, heavy beats and the irresistible interplay of the primo horn players create a real sleazy wonder. "Film Action" follows, a galloping horn-heavy synth romp with moments of extreme bass breakdown brilliance before the drama-synths of "Episode Double" take things up another notch as it oscillates between gorgeous funky horns and urgent bleepy magic. Super tense, super funky and super stylish. Just ace. The elctro-tinged horn workout "Fatal Lady" closes things out majestically.

The audio for Music Force has been remastered by Be With regular Simon Francis, ensuring the punch of Sauveur's bass and those sick drums come through to the fullest. Pete Norman’s expert skills has made sure nothing is lost in the cut whilst the original and iconic sleeve - complete with perky Liberty Belle - has been restored here at Be With HQ as the finishing touch to this long overdue re-issue.

Spatial & Co is a synth-drizzled, spaced-out bass-heavy discoid-funk masterpiece from French disco lord and Arpadys maestro Sauveur Mallia. Recorded for French library label Tele Music, in 1979, it's by turns cosmic funk and creeping crime funk, bursting with low slung, k-i-l-l-e-r basslines, loping drum breaks and sparkling percussion. It's so funky it hurts.

Confidently swaggering out the gate is "Future Vision", with its loping yet dextrous bassline across strutting beats setting the scene. "Cosmic News", with its live crowd noises over killer bass work is reminiscent of Bernard & Nile's "Chic Cheer". The bass vs synth workout "Baby Bass" increases the propulsion whilst the dark and mysterious vibes of "Star Odyssey" serve as cosmic respite from being overpowered by funk. The temperature and tempo are raised with the bouncing sophisticated funk of "Meteor One", a slinky interstellar instrumental of the highest order before the sultry, melodic "Bass For Love" offers some attractive slow-mo sleaze to close out the first side.

Opening up Side B, the menacing, beatless "Space Alert" sounds like all those sci-fi theme tunes from your childhood, synthesised into one glorious (black) whole. "Galaxy Wars" is next, another majestic cosmic gem, sans drums. The ultra-percussive flex of "All The Bass" sees the return of the frenetic funky bass and neck-snapping drums. The stretched out funk of "O.V.N.I. Telex" is irresistible and cavernous in scope whilst the swirling, dramatic "Galactics" is an ominous yet melodic wonder. The throwaway funk-lite "Animals Bass" is a bit of a daft way to close out this otherwise flawless set but, hey, flirting with perfection is probably always more fun than actually achieving it.

Sauveur Mallia is a crucial figure in the history of electronic and dance music and a hugely underrated French library bass player and composer from the Arpadys / Voyage crew. This is just the beginning of Be With's Mallia - Tele Music reissue campaign!

The audio for Spatial & Co Vol. 1 has been remastered by Be With regular Simon Francis, ensuring the punch of Sauveur's bass and those sick drums come through to the fullest. Pete Norman’s expert skills has made sure nothing is lost in the cut whilst the original and iconic sleeve has been restored here at Be With HQ as the finishing touch to this long overdue re-issue.

WRWTFWW Records is proud to present the first official worldwide reissue of the sophomore album from fabled Japanese folk singer-songwriter/actress/writer Hako Yamasaki, Tsunawatari. The limited edition 180g vinyl LP comes in a heavy sleeve with the original artwork, and the digipack CD has one bonus track. Tsunawatari is also available in digital formats.

Recorded right after her outstanding debut Tobimasu, Tsunawatari was released in 1976 on Elec Records, one of the first independent labels in Japan, and solidified Hako Yamasaki as one of the most gorgeous voices of the country and an exceptional musician and singer. A truly perfect follow-up, it immortalizes the bitter beauty of heartache with tearful performances and nostalgic empowerment.

The beauty of melancholic songs reaches heartbreaking heights in Tsunawatari, a magnificent ode to the sorrow of lost love and the time that passes offered to the world with a very unique brand of folk music. The kind of folk that goes for the guts, folk that shamelessly flirts with tearful blues, contemplative soft pop and psychedelic nostalgia. Put the needle on "Help Me" - there’s simply no holding back.

Hako Yamasaki, a pioneer in both the creative boom and the rise of feminism of 1970s Japan, went on to release over thirty albums, building an impressive discography and a fascinating career filled with ups and downs. Her work, inimitable and timeless, deserves the utmost recognition and should be celebrated. Again and again and again.

Tsunawatari is released in conjunction with Hako Yamasaki’s classic debut album Tobimasu, also available on WRWTFWW Records.

The duo WILDES from the south of Germany, consisting of Jana Pantha and Jenny Tulipa, presents a musical mix of electro-synth-pop, post-punk and dark disco influences. After the release of their first EP “RAWWR” in 2021, their debut album entitled “KLISCHEE” will be released on 3 February 2023. Released via the Kommando 84 label, the album features 11 songs and a musical re-interpretation of German-language Neue Deutsche Welle sounds. The songs combine spoken word passages in which the singers combine a certain irony with word-playful rhymes. In addition to world-political, social issues, the songs revolve around the complexity of the new romance in love - between cosmos and stereo. The strong and experimentally avant-garde lyrics accompany the danceable pulse of the drum computer, melodic synth waves and the shimmering solos of the lead guitar.

The album “Klischee” begins with an electro-pop track that combines consistent grooves with atmo- spheric sound arrangements and a lead guitar that accompanies our journey to the moon. With the chorus’ high-pitched words, „Konsum - leg mich auf den Moon“ (“Consumption - put me on the Moon”), WILDES dryly yet humorously allude to a society that couldn’t fly “higher”.

The following cheeky song Leger in Schwarz combines impeccable post punk with influences from the NNDW scene. A short love story led by the electronic beat of the synthesizer makes the hearts of the night beat faster. With casual reduction, a guitar riff leads through the song. The guitar solo finally rounds off the plea about the longing for a good flirt.

Italo disco shimmers and pulsates on the driving song Capri. With lyrics like “Pack the boats - Vai a bordo”, Capri is a homage to the tried and tested Italo feeling with a cappucino on the terrazza, or indeed on the yacht with a view of the rocky walls of the island. An electric charge of sequencers and synth tracks acts here as a lightness of being in contrast to the porosity of the rock.

An electrifying electric guitar solo kicks off the fourth track with a mysterious invitation to Steig ein translated, get in. Hypnotised by the lights of the road, dazzled in the side mirror, a clearly repeating rhythm leads into the chorus and through the coming verses. English spoken-word lyrics add to the stoicism of the German language. The song’s great power ends with the line Lost in the dark, holding open the finale of the “Night Drive” encounter.

Digital and stereo on all channels, the distinctly tight and robust rhythm sounds in the song Apparat. A clear and simple synth melody is heard as a contrast and the electric bass gives the balance of the machine at points. Hiddenly, WILDES points here to the superior power that can control human action beyond all limits. A piece as a laudation to all the science fiction novels that play with the switching of the individual parts.

Side One of the vinyl is finalised by a song called La Grande Bellezza that motivates to dance and sing along. The punky pop craft lives through the recurring beat of the rhythm guitar. Here the focus is on the woman in all her facets. The great beauty, una donna, who can do everything as well as wanting everything and nothing...a strong woman who, however, also staggers and wants to jump off the cliff. Clearly and distinctly, the musical accompaniment of the drum machine and the accompanying synth melody reflect hidden parallel worlds and the ambiguity of character - of life? We get a desire for more and turn the round record.

The B side starts with a powerful guitar riff, complemented by a catchy and strong bassline that runs through the song. In this work, WILDES provocatively describes the West’s lust for the much-cov- eted Schwarzes Gold black gold. The song is reminiscent of the works of the band D.A.F. and thus ties in with the electronic punk sound spate.

The driving guitar riff joins in with the reduced synth bass sequence - the electro-pop song with the title Hitze (Heat) came onto the digital music market as the first single from the LP in the summer of 2022. Pulsatingly, the drum computer lets the beats vibrate to the rhythm of heated air. The duo po- etically describes heat with supercooled voices, a clarity in the sky that makes everything flow, that makes the breath dry. The work ends with a melodic synth solo.

Ich lad dich ein, I invite you - we have all said or heard this sentence before. A chance meeting of two people later leads to the altar in love. A far-reaching question that more or less arises in many love relationships at some point “Do you dare?” positions itself in lyrical contrast to the simple ques- tion in the refrain “Do you need sugar?”. WILDES plays with laconic poetry and, full of irony, makes the listeners think about living together. Krautrock contours are skilfully used in this piece. Reduced to the essentials, the chorus immediately sticks in the ear. A cheerful mix of steel drums and infec- tious solo.

Toccami - touch me! We sit on padded leather chairs - “you’re a rocket! Peng Puff Peng” - this song by the band WILDES joins experimental art-punk-pop, electronically with flowing synth waves we take off immediately. Melodically sung, lyrical layers of lyrics dance loosely light and gracefully in the ears of the viewer. The rhythmic beat visualises the feeling of floating in a spaceship. It’s love in the universe - “I love you, my darling” sounds tipsy in the beat-heavy disco refrain.

Hypnotically, WILDES launches into the final song of the entire LP. The title Zone takes us on a journey through time. Inspired by the film Stalker, we find ourselves in a science fiction setting that couldn’t be more present in today’s European events. The musicality of the electric guitar riffs ac- companied by simple new wave drums drives the listener into unknown realms.

Repetition and electronic synth sounds play a compositional role alongside rocking guitar riffs like their forerunners in the NDW scene. Lyrically, each song varies between pop-romantic and politically critical passages. Listeners start pondering about hedonistic life and its consequences. Sometimes it feels like listening to a Tarantino soundtrack in German, other times it feels like listening to an 80s track by a James Bond. Science fiction fantasies and reality add up in dadaistic theatricality to spir- ited synthpunk of the New German Wave from the South. Discoid beats and driving drums in digital are included.

lack Marble Vinyl! High Vis were formed in 2016 from the ashes of some of the UK's best hardcore bands. Gild-toothed frontman Graham Sayle's anguished lyrics about life in working class Britain were familiar to fans of Tremors' full-throttle thrash, but alongside his former bandmate Edward `Ski' Harper and veterans of Dirty Money, DiE and The Smear, High Vis sought to transform that energy and intensity into something entirely new.Like scene-mates Chubby and the Gang did by pulling in unlikely source material from classic doo-wop or Micromoon have by combining everything from psychedelia and metal into their high potency mix, High Vis' 2019 debut album, No Sense No Feeling showed the band were never going to be constrained by any sense of genre rules or regulations. Its claustrophobic rattle bore traces of Joy Division, Bauhaus, Crisis, The Cure and Gang Of Four lurking in the shadows. 2020's synth-driven EP, Society Exists, was further evidence of the band's restless creative MO.High Vis' second album Blending sees them open their viewfinder wider than ever before.

Alongside longstanding favourites such as Fugazi and Echo and The Bunnymen; Ride and even Flock Of Seagulls were shared reference points as the band worked on the album together.From the anthemic sweep of opener "Talk For Hours", through the title track's psychedelic swirl and "Fever Dream"'s baggy groove, it sees High Vis' sound blossoming into something with an unlimited richness. The hazy drift of "Shame" or the melodic jangle of "Trauma Bonds" may take them until uncharted waters, but they still have all the power and bite that made No Sense No Feeling so remarkable.Lyrically, the album represents another leap forward too. Talking frankly about poverty, class politics, and the challenges of everyday life, Sayle's lyrics have always addressed the downtrodden and discarded communities across Britain slipping below the waterline. This time around, Sayle's lost not of that social consciousness, but he's looked at himself and his own emotional landscape, and in the process created something that feels more universal, that reaches a hand-out to people and ultimately gives a message of hope."To me, the lyrics are less selfish," reflects Sayle. "In the past, I couldn't see past whatever was going on with me.

It's about accepting things and being open to conversations and learning to talk to people rather than just thinking that we're all doomed."The song "Talk for Hours" is a prime example of that. Born out of an afternoon meeting up with an old group of mates "repeating the same thing and not actually learning anything about each other" it offers to actually break the cycle and to listen and speak frankly about shared feelings and experiences. "Trauma Bonds", meanwhile, traces the broken lines of those living in lost communities, but ultimately realises that despite our shared scars, there's still hope to move on to a better future."The message of the album is you're not who you're told you are," Sayle summarises. "You're not your class background. Whatever it is, you're not that. Don't resign yourself to thinking you can't be this and you can't be that."It's a vitally important message right now, and one that could be the motto for not only Blending, but for High Vis themselves.

The one arm keyboard luminary is well known in the entertainment circle of Western Jamaica. Born on the 2nd of March 1954, the accomplished singer and musician hails from Hayes, Clarendon. In 1969 he went to live in Kingston until 1973. Ancel's first effort in a recording studio was inside the popular Randy's in downtown Kingston. He did a single called 'Riding On' on the Musical Barber label out of Mandeville.
In 1977 he joined a group called Solid Foundation and stayed with them for two years. After that he moved to Montego Bay to sing with Stamma and the Sounds of Mobay, with who he appeared on Reggae Sunsplash festival in 1980.
Johnny made the move for the United States in 1982, and formed his first own band 'Uprisers' in Pittsburgh city.
One of the things he likes to talk about is how he once reunited the famed Clarendonians with Peter Austin and Ernest Wilson. Both pioneer icons were at irreconcilable odds with each other for quite some time. When he came back to Jamaica in 1985, he invited Ernest Wilson to do back-up vocals for him. For the same studio session, he also invited Peter Austin for the same back-up duties, and that was how the reunion came about. Inside famous Aquarius studio, there was Burning Spear's personal Band called Burning. The songs recorded there were 'Moving Out' and 'True Love' with top musicians : Tony Green on the saxophone, Bobby Ellis on the trumpet, Dwight Pinkney on the guitar, Calvin on percussion, Nelson Miller on the drums and Maurice Gordon on bass. This was not the first time Ancel was working with Peter Austin. When the split came in the ranks of the Clarendonians, Ancel was asked to fill the breach. He thus teamed up with Peter Austin and their first single together was entitled 'Out Of Sight'. They later entered the annual Jamaica Festival Song competition in 1975. Their entry was entitled 'Paradise On Earth' which Ancel said was quite popular. However, it was not popular enough to prevent the late Roman Stewart from copping the award with 'Hooray Festival'.
After the release of 'Moving Out', Johnny moved to Miami and continued his career as a solo artist, singing with different local bands. He did a number of singles, notably were 'Faith, Patience and Love' and 'Stand Back' for a producer called Jolly in Miami. In 1988 Powell formed his second band Benja, a band which gained increasing popularity in the time in South Florida. They have performed on several festivals, played in most major clubs and were a big success in Andros Island in the Bahamas for an audience who not necessarily consider Reggae their prime choice of music.

The saddest part of his life was when he lost his left hand to what doctors termed as a cancerous situation in 1977. This did not, however, stop him from learning how to play keyboards. Initially he was taught by the late Bobby Vaugh in Montego Bay and also got further teaching from jamaican saxophinist Reuben Alexander.

Now approaching 70 years old, Ancel is still very active in his music. In previous years he performed at the Marcus Garvey Celebration and is currently working with the “Synergy Band” at Royalton Hotel in Negril under the stage name “Ancel P.” Let the one arm keyboard luminary life and music live eternally !

Produced by Ancel "Johnny" Powell & Patricia Wallace
Engineer: Melvin Williams
Recorded at Aquarius Studio (Kingston, JA) in 1985

Bass: Maurice Gordon
Drums: Nelson Miller
Guitar: Dwight Pinkney
Saxophone: Tony Green
Trumpet: Bobby Ellis
Percussion: Calvin
Keyboards: Winston Wright
Backing vocals: Ernest Wilson & Peter Austin from the Clarendonians

Welcome to the "Consume Land Flea Market". This is the atmospheric setting and at the same time the luminous title of the debut album of young producer Noayama. "It centers on the contradiction between turbo-capitalist consumerism and the desire for vintage stuff in all kinds of shapes and colors to escape reality for a bit. I think it's quite a nice and suitable metaphor for the position my generation is in right now" says the 21-year-old producer, musician and interdisciplinary artist.

On about 40 minutes, Noah Berger, who grew up near Munich, spans a wide musical arc with his alter ego Noayama. He combines Hip Hop aesthetics with playful Electronica and acts skillfully in the interstices of Pop. Hints of 70s Funk hedonism, Old-School House vibes and modern J-pop sensibilities can also be found on "Consume Land Flea Market." The binding agent of the album is Noayama's "Punk Attitude" which comes through clearly on his tracks and beats and is an elementary part of his producer DNA. "I just like to drift, it's very central to the way I work" adds Noah.

Just as important for him are intergenerational collaborations, which adorn his debut work in numerous ways. An illustrious round of artists is therefore represented on CLFM. It starts with young female rap artist Maassai from the New York underground scene who can be heard on the pulsating opener "Get You Back". Also from N.Y.C is Hprizm, a member of the legendary avant-garde rap group Anti-Pop Consortium, who is featured on the dark and gritty "I Went Left" and the bouncer "War." Funkstörung is also involved here. Not too much of a coincidence as Noah has been encouraged since his teenage days by his father Michael Fakesch, one half of the Glitch-hop pioneers who became famous in the late 90s. With "The Legendary Godmother of Japanese Electronica" Coppe' on "Majesty" and the German singer-songwriter her tree on the song "Flâner", introverted pieces have also found their place on CLFM. In addition multilingual verses with Silo Inf3rnx from the townships in Gugulethu on "Ingozi" and on top "the homies from the neighborhood" Anothr and Taprikk Sweezee who give the album further facets through their contribution.

Noayama combines elements and working methods of the last five decades in a relaxed manner and bundles them into a genuine piece of work. Emblematic of this approach is the choice of features. So is the gear he uses. He incorporates old synths (Roland Jupiter 8, Nordlead) and drum machines (Roland 808, Roland 909) with playful ease with common software tools. It's also pretty convenient that he's currently studying Digital Arts at the Kunstuni Linz. In fact, his semester project is the visualization of his own album which means that every single track and every interlude gets its own video. Well, Noayama is just a gambler.

On Labyrinth, Heather Woods Broderick serves as our reflective host, subverting expectations of conventional songcraft with impressionistic language and quietly relentless explorations of the human experience that's at once light and dark, more circular and less linear. "Many of us yearn for stillness and peace, as an escape from the movement all around us," she explains when asked about the themes of the album. "Yet movement is perpetual, happening all the time on some level. It's as wild as the wind, yet eternally predictable in its inevitability. It is linear in part, but infinite in its circuitry. Our lives just punctuate it." Broderick began crafting Labyrinth in March 2020, when most forms of move- ment were brought to a screeching halt. The Maine-born, Los Angeles-based songwriter _ who, in addition to her work as a solo musician, built a life playing and touring with acts such as Sharon Van Etten, Beth Orton, Damien Jurado, and Efterklang _ was suddenly forced off the road for the first time in her career. She used this disruption as an opportunity to pare down her creation process and construct the scaffolding for Labyrinth in her apartment. Employing only the most crucial tools at her disposal, Broderick found herself opening different artistic doors as she focused on sharpening her recording skills, capturing the majority of the album on her own before finishing the remainder with co-producer D. James Goodwin. For all of Broderick's sage lyricism and vocal authority, Labyrinth never provides the listener with any easy answers. If the image of the labyrinth represents the enormity of modern life and the difficulty of navigating it, Heather Woods Broder- ick provides a guide to its endless kinetic wonders _ of being present, aware, and connected despite its disconnects. She describes the texture of its walls, its indifferent rhythms, and the inherent poeticism of feeling lost amid the dead-ends and unexpected turns. At this point in our history, perhaps that's all we need to keep moving.

Grey Vinyl

On Labyrinth, Heather Woods Broderick serves as our reflective host, subverting expectations of conventional songcraft with impressionistic language and quietly relentless explorations of the human experience that's at once light and dark, more circular and less linear. "Many of us yearn for stillness and peace, as an escape from the movement all around us," she explains when asked about the themes of the album. "Yet movement is perpetual, happening all the time on some level. It's as wild as the wind, yet eternally predictable in its inevitability. It is linear in part, but infinite in its circuitry. Our lives just punctuate it." Broderick began crafting Labyrinth in March 2020, when most forms of move- ment were brought to a screeching halt. The Maine-born, Los Angeles-based songwriter _ who, in addition to her work as a solo musician, built a life playing and touring with acts such as Sharon Van Etten, Beth Orton, Damien Jurado, and Efterklang _ was suddenly forced off the road for the first time in her career. She used this disruption as an opportunity to pare down her creation process and construct the scaffolding for Labyrinth in her apartment. Employing only the most crucial tools at her disposal, Broderick found herself opening different artistic doors as she focused on sharpening her recording skills, capturing the majority of the album on her own before finishing the remainder with co-producer D. James Goodwin. For all of Broderick's sage lyricism and vocal authority, Labyrinth never provides the listener with any easy answers. If the image of the labyrinth represents the enormity of modern life and the difficulty of navigating it, Heather Woods Broder- ick provides a guide to its endless kinetic wonders _ of being present, aware, and connected despite its disconnects. She describes the texture of its walls, its indifferent rhythms, and the inherent poeticism of feeling lost amid the dead-ends and unexpected turns. At this point in our history, perhaps that's all we need to keep moving.

Pressing Info: 180g translucent pink vinyl, limited to 250 copies, download card included. Five years on from their 2018 debut album 'Great Vowel Shift', Lviv, Ukraine-based krautrock outfit Sherpa The Tiger are now returning with their second album, 'Ithkuil, via Fuzz Club Records - with 100% of the profits from the release going to the band to help support them during the war. Where their previous work was centred around vintage synths, minimal ambient and neon-lit kraut-disco grooves, 'Ithkuil' sees Sherpa The Tiger explore more expansive and layered structures and compositions - incorporating intricate guitars, flute, arpeggiators and jazzy piano references, alongside an array of other elements that originate from a broad spectrum of past and present music genres. "This album bears the name of 'Ithkuil' for a reason", the band state: "Like the language we borrowed the title from, the sound of the record has a lot of levels, layers, and orchestral nuances. We consider this album and its pieces a single journey. Every track of the LP works as a mandatory stop for contemplation and reflection that happens on the route of the listener." Sherpa The Tiger began working on the new material in 2019 during their EU live shows in support of 'Great Vowel Shift' and chalk the more textured and cinematic results down to a more collaborative approach. "We wanted to rethink the Krautrock heritage explored on our last album and made a clear stylistic shift that was determined by a totally different approach to our music-making. The tunes on 'Great Vowel Shift' were cooked in a sort of live-looping mode with two musicians jamming. This time, with 'Ithkuil', the process of creation was shared among 4 musicians, and that approach had a great impact on the final result." Several years in the making and now released against a backdrop of war and invasion in their home country, 'Sherpa The Tiger' say that 'Ithkuil' acts as a snapshot of pre-war times: "Since the war caught us in the middle of planning the release as opposed to creating the music itself, the album can be perceived as a wistful reminder of the pre-war life that doesn't seem to be coming back. The life we actually experienced but lost any recollection of and which we are desperately trying to bring back through the music created by the other us now dwelling in an absolutely different reality."

“Wild Boy …” is a reissue of the well-known 2016 release curated by Brian Chidester, renowned researcher and biographer of Eden Ahbez. Especially for this album, Brian wrote an interesting text about Abi’s life, which definitely became the decoration of the release.
With the new 2020 re-release, we went a little further and kept what is commonly referred to as studio cuts. It’s a few more minutes in the studio with ahbez himself, full of emotion and life. In addition, to the delight of fans, the edition includes an additional composition Nature Boy (Mantovani Orchestra).
Especially, it is worth noting the outstanding mastering prepared from practically decomposed tapes by the Grammy-nominated Jessica Thompson, which guarantees the deepest and warmth possible sound. Jessica a huge ahbez fan and we’re highly appreciated for what she has done to save his music for the future.
Eden Ahbez is definitely at the origin of psychedelic music and this release can be taken as further proof. Over the past twenty years, the iconic figure of the world’s first hippie Eden ahbez has become famous primarily for his 1948 song “Nature Boy”, praising universal love, and his amazingly solo album from the 1960s called “Eden’s Island” – one from the first concept albums in the history of music and probably the first psychedelic music album. “Wild Boy: The Lost Songs Of Eden Ahbez” deepens understanding of the origins of the psychedelic movement in the 1950s.
The disc contains a musical selection of works by Eden ahbez himself, written by him in the period after Nature Boy. The inclusion of songs such as “Palm Springs” – Ray Anthony Orchestra and “Hey Jacques” by Erta Kitt gives the listener the chance to discover for the first time the little-known recordings of world-famous artists composed by Eden ahbez. Through “Wild Boy” and “Surfer John” you can hear the author’s handling of absurd rock and exotic experimentation, as well as sweet psychedelic pop like Monterey (with Paul Horn on flute). Overall, Wild Boy: The Lost Songs Of Eden Ahbez offers an overview of the lost works of 1949-1971 with seven unpublished recordings and eight rare singles.
If in 2020 you are missing the hallucinogenic content in Eden Ahbez, it amazingly makes up for that deficiency with simple chords, expansive arrangements, and lyrics about travel, relaxation, free love, and spirituality. Thus creating the standard of psychedelic music. Eden Ahbez’s songs weren’t only fantasy and his personal philosophy was the real thing that he lived.

reviews:

“This carefully and extensively researched compilation culls covers by top notch mainstream artists juxtaposed with unreleased Eden recordings. What might sound like a mixed bag is actually more like a chronological, musical non-fiction novel about Eden Ahbez. While Eden was writing hundreds of songs and performing live and making recordings in various styles, his songs were also being picked up by popular artists like Nat King Cole and Eartha Kitt who recorded with a more polished mainstream style. There are also some early rock n roll style recordings here. Eden’s professionally recordings often end up as Novelty Pop records such as “Child of Nature” and “The Clam Man” but if you read between the lines and listen to the lyrics it is pretty eye-opening that he is singing about Eastern-religion-style and pre-hippie philosophies about being at one with the planet Earth.
All of this is explained in the lengthy liner notes inside the lp along with a few choice photos that establish Eden as a founding father of Southern California mystic/psychedelic music.” – Tiki_News
“Eden Ahbez’s life philosophy was summed up in the lyrics of his most famous song, “Nature Boy,” a 1948 hit for Nat King Cole: the song describes a “strange enchanted boy” who wanders the world in search of truth. “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn,” he concludes, “is to love and be loved in return.” Ahbez was a pre-cursor of California’s beatniks and hippies, and an exalted icon of ex-otica via his rare 1960 album Eden’s Island. Beyond “Nature Boy” and Eden’s Island, though, there were nu-merous lesser-known Ahbez record-ings. Ahbez biographer Brian Chidester has been doing an exemplary job of archiving and documenting that catalog of work. The Exotic World of Eden Ahbez (reviewed in UT#38) appeared a few years ago, gathering together 14 Ahbez-related rarities” – Ugly Things

If you were smart enough to get your grubby paws on the first Scrap Metal compilation, you probably have a pretty good idea of what you’re in for with our second installment. Featuring long-lost gems from ultra-rare 45s and private press singles—plus one previously unreleased banger—Scrap Metal 2 maintains a steady NWOBHM course. Packed with infectious outliers and supremely talented one-and-done metal warriors from the crucial British movement of the late ’70s and early ’80s (and some killer American obscurities inspired by them), this collection delivers all the fist-pumping, riff-mongering and flashy solos of heavy metal’s golden age. As always, every track has been officially licensed and every artist gets paid. As a late entry into the NWOBHM sweepstakes, JJ’s Powerhouse was formed in Merseyside, England, by guitarist Jon “J.J.” Cox with members of his previous band, Quad. Much like the opener to the original Scrap Metal comp, you can hear early Metallica coursing through this legendary ripper. Coincidentally, this ultra-rare 45 was released in ’83, the same year as Kill ’Em All. Taking their name from a 1978 sci-fi novel by Marion Zimmer Bradley, Welsh super troopers Storm Queen reveled in animal-print clothing and flying Vs. The Motörhead-meets-Priest anthem “Raising the Roof” is the flipside to their only single, which the band self-released in 1982. Led by guitarist Dave Morse, Storm Queen’s earliest lineup included bassist Bryn Merrick (RIP), who would go on to join The Damned. Roaring out of Birmingham, England, in 1975, Jameson Raid palled around with fellow Brummies Black Sabbath and named themselves after a failed 19th century attack that helped kick off South Africa’s Second Boer War. Their three-song 1979 debut featured the infectious “It’s a Crime,” which comes across like a deadly hard-glam version of Budgie. Still fronted by vocalist Terry Dark, they’re going strong as of 2022. A.R.C., a punky proto-metal group from the UK, released the boozy single “Home Made Wine” b/w “The Chase” in 1979 and—as far as we know—were never heard from again. They’re not to be confused with a gang of Tolkien enthusiasts also called A.R.C., who released two NWOBHM singles in the early ’80s and actually were heard from again. Nonetheless, the A.R.C. we have here was led by a thirsty lad named Klaus Brunnenkant, who liked to rock n’ roll all night and party every day. Both sides of Metropolis’ sole single bear the legend, “Unauthorized duplication shall result in getting your ass beat.” This San Jose metal squad released their only single in 1986 and dedicated it to Metallica bassist Cliff Burton, who had recently been killed in a bus accident. “The Raven” is the serpentine NWOBHM- and Edgar Allan Poe-influenced flipside to “Time Heals Everything,” and yeah, you can hear the guitars going out of tune on the solo, but that’s part of the charm. Of the two dozen or so metal bands that have called themselves Prowler over the years, we’re pretty sure this particular Prowler is the only one from San Diego. These dudes take a thrashier approach than most of the bands here on Scrap Metal 2: “Temporary Insanity” strikes a deft balance between early Anthrax and early Testament, with just enough hard rock swing to keep it from getting overly staccato. Self-released in ’86 as the band’s only single, the song is the flip to “I Love It.” Not much is known about Christian Steel beyond this: They put out their only single in 1983, which boasted “Need Your Love” as the flip to “I Don’t Want To.” The former, included here, sounds kinda like a dizzy, more metallic version of ’70s Jersey rockers Starz, who famously influenced the likes of Mötley Crüe, Poison and Twisted Sister. Ohio guitarist/vocalist Marty Soski’s career dates back to at least 1969 with the Inside Experience track “Be On My Way,” which we unearthed for our own Brown Acid: The Third Trip. This time, we’ve got a monster Soski cut that he recorded under the name Black Rose. Released in 1982, the absolutely smokin’ “Sidewinder” was the A-side on the band’s sole single. The main riff isn’t far off from Y&T’s major-label banger “Mean Streak,” which was released the following year. When Dark Age titled their 1987 album The Youngest Metal Band in the World, they weren’t even sort of kidding. Legend has it that “Star Trippin’,” which was released as a single a year earlier, was written by guitarist CJ Rininger when he was just 12 years old. His brother Dave, the vocalist, was two years younger. Old photos of the band—complete with pineapple haircuts—seem to bear this story out. Either way, the song is pure flash metal, conjuring Sunset Strip sleaze all the way from Ohio. By now, all you heads know Los Angeles magic men Sorcery from their storied appearance in—and soundtrack for—the death-defying Ozploitation flick Stunt Rock. What we have here in “Whales” is a previously unreleased track from the same 1978 recording sessions. It’s a little bit Zeppelin, a little bit prog, and a whole lotta thundering riffage. Why this languished in the vaults for so long is anyone’s guess. Better late than never!

If you were smart enough to get your grubby paws on the first Scrap Metal compilation, you probably have a pretty good idea of what you’re in for with our second installment. Featuring long-lost gems from ultra-rare 45s and private press singles—plus one previously unreleased banger—Scrap Metal 2 maintains a steady NWOBHM course. Packed with infectious outliers and supremely talented one-and-done metal warriors from the crucial British movement of the late ’70s and early ’80s (and some killer American obscurities inspired by them), this collection delivers all the fist-pumping, riff-mongering and flashy solos of heavy metal’s golden age. As always, every track has been officially licensed and every artist gets paid. As a late entry into the NWOBHM sweepstakes, JJ’s Powerhouse was formed in Merseyside, England, by guitarist Jon “J.J.” Cox with members of his previous band, Quad. Much like the opener to the original Scrap Metal comp, you can hear early Metallica coursing through this legendary ripper. Coincidentally, this ultra-rare 45 was released in ’83, the same year as Kill ’Em All. Taking their name from a 1978 sci-fi novel by Marion Zimmer Bradley, Welsh super troopers Storm Queen reveled in animal-print clothing and flying Vs. The Motörhead-meets-Priest anthem “Raising the Roof” is the flipside to their only single, which the band self-released in 1982. Led by guitarist Dave Morse, Storm Queen’s earliest lineup included bassist Bryn Merrick (RIP), who would go on to join The Damned. Roaring out of Birmingham, England, in 1975, Jameson Raid palled around with fellow Brummies Black Sabbath and named themselves after a failed 19th century attack that helped kick off South Africa’s Second Boer War. Their three-song 1979 debut featured the infectious “It’s a Crime,” which comes across like a deadly hard-glam version of Budgie. Still fronted by vocalist Terry Dark, they’re going strong as of 2022. A.R.C., a punky proto-metal group from the UK, released the boozy single “Home Made Wine” b/w “The Chase” in 1979 and—as far as we know—were never heard from again. They’re not to be confused with a gang of Tolkien enthusiasts also called A.R.C., who released two NWOBHM singles in the early ’80s and actually were heard from again. Nonetheless, the A.R.C. we have here was led by a thirsty lad named Klaus Brunnenkant, who liked to rock n’ roll all night and party every day. Both sides of Metropolis’ sole single bear the legend, “Unauthorized duplication shall result in getting your ass beat.” This San Jose metal squad released their only single in 1986 and dedicated it to Metallica bassist Cliff Burton, who had recently been killed in a bus accident. “The Raven” is the serpentine NWOBHM- and Edgar Allan Poe-influenced flipside to “Time Heals Everything,” and yeah, you can hear the guitars going out of tune on the solo, but that’s part of the charm. Of the two dozen or so metal bands that have called themselves Prowler over the years, we’re pretty sure this particular Prowler is the only one from San Diego. These dudes take a thrashier approach than most of the bands here on Scrap Metal 2: “Temporary Insanity” strikes a deft balance between early Anthrax and early Testament, with just enough hard rock swing to keep it from getting overly staccato. Self-released in ’86 as the band’s only single, the song is the flip to “I Love It.” Not much is known about Christian Steel beyond this: They put out their only single in 1983, which boasted “Need Your Love” as the flip to “I Don’t Want To.” The former, included here, sounds kinda like a dizzy, more metallic version of ’70s Jersey rockers Starz, who famously influenced the likes of Mötley Crüe, Poison and Twisted Sister. Ohio guitarist/vocalist Marty Soski’s career dates back to at least 1969 with the Inside Experience track “Be On My Way,” which we unearthed for our own Brown Acid: The Third Trip. This time, we’ve got a monster Soski cut that he recorded under the name Black Rose. Released in 1982, the absolutely smokin’ “Sidewinder” was the A-side on the band’s sole single. The main riff isn’t far off from Y&T’s major-label banger “Mean Streak,” which was released the following year. When Dark Age titled their 1987 album The Youngest Metal Band in the World, they weren’t even sort of kidding. Legend has it that “Star Trippin’,” which was released as a single a year earlier, was written by guitarist CJ Rininger when he was just 12 years old. His brother Dave, the vocalist, was two years younger. Old photos of the band—complete with pineapple haircuts—seem to bear this story out. Either way, the song is pure flash metal, conjuring Sunset Strip sleaze all the way from Ohio. By now, all you heads know Los Angeles magic men Sorcery from their storied appearance in—and soundtrack for—the death-defying Ozploitation flick Stunt Rock. What we have here in “Whales” is a previously unreleased track from the same 1978 recording sessions. It’s a little bit Zeppelin, a little bit prog, and a whole lotta thundering riffage. Why this languished in the vaults for so long is anyone’s guess. Better late than never!

Valencian producer Pépe's love of iridescent melodies, velvety pads and complex rhythms has seen him skilfully combine house, bass music and breakbeat in recent years. His music is globally reaching, having garnered attention from top artists including Ben UFO, Peggy Gou, Shanti Celeste, Moxie, Mount Kimbie and Disclosure.

His heartfelt, mercurial and emotive sound is ever present on his new album for Lapsus, which also incorporates a lush sonic forest, resplendent in detail and jam packed with influences. The album 'Reclaim' opens the door to experimentation and sound design, while embracing the braindance and hyperpop sphere with surprising maturity. It is an amalgamation of electronic sounds and pulsating structures in which orchestral sounds, folk music, ambient textures and an strong vocal presence, both synthetic and authentic, sparkle.

'Reclaim' imagines a post-human future, where nature once again reclaims lost ground and is free to flourish and take root around manmade structures. Pépe exhibits his personal reverence for the work of Antonio Cortés Ferrando, the architect behind the Espai Verd building, which broke architectural and urban planning norms by using computation to create structures that promote the organic growth of foliage. It is a building designed for the future, where flora cultivates indefinitely.

In Pépe’s own words, "At a time when we have witnessed how nature strives to regain ground, once humans are removed from the streets, it is important to start thinking critically about new techniques in the creation of art and design, and imagining a future where posterity is embodied in the rejuvenation of a greener world".

Following the release of their 2021's critically acclaimed album The Black Stone Affair, instrumental cinematic-soul outfit Whatitdo Archive Group unleashes two startling new singles: "Forbidden Cove" and "The Cashmere Chamber", out on limited edition 7'' on March 24th via Record Kicks. The 45 is limited to 500 copies worldwide and it is just an appetizer of the upcoming new album Palace Of A Thousand Sounds, scheduled for release on May 5th, 2023. Whatitdo Archive Group previous 45s went sold out in weeks and are currently very in-demand from collectors and djs.

On side A, we find the first single "Forbidden Cove". We are immediately greeted with top-notch production that feels like we stumbled upon yet another lost rarity, but this time from the heyday of American "exotica" music from the mid-century movement of the early '60s (think Martin Denny and Les Baxter). The twist here is that the underlying tone is dark, heavy and cinematic. WAG flexes their compositional chops and maturity with clever arrangements, a tight rhythm section and dreamy vibraphone that lead us to dense Arthur Verocai-esque orchestral arrangements and hypnotizing eastern flavors.

From the first notes of the Javanese metallophone, Whatitdo Archive Group welcomes you into "The Cashmere Chamber", on side B of the 7''. Less a room and more an auditory experience, "Chamber" skillfully guides you deeper into its world complete with menacing drums and bass, sinister vibraphone melodies and a haunting choir. But this driving force of the rhythm section isn't enough for WAG; we see the song quickly blossom into an adrenaline pumping guitar feature layered expertly with a Turkish baglama saz and percussion. This track is a sample-worthy heater for any DJ.

The new album Palace Of A Thousand Sounds will be available May 5th, 2023 on limited edition LP, CD and digital platforms. Palace Of A Thousand Sounds finds Whatitdo Archive Group entrenched deeper in the worlds of mid-century exotica and library music—from the Tropicalia-steeped Amazon to the minor key tonalities of the far-out Near East.

Steeped in obscurity, a cult following of crate-diggers and musical oddity collectors has been brewing over the mysterious releases of the Whatitdo Archive Group. Surfacing in 2009 from the high deserts of Reno, NV USA, this three-piece recording collective (Alexander Korostinsky, Mark Sexton and Aaron Chiazza) focuses solely on curating, performing and preserving esoteric soundtrack, library and deep-groove collections. As an onlooker, it's hard to tell whether the music they are procuring is actually archival, music of their own creation, or both. Their debut LP The Black Stone Affair, the formerly lost soundtrack music of a once-shelved Italian cinematic masterpiece, was released in 2021 and received praise from the likes of Wall Street Journal, Mojo Magazine, Uncut, Shindig and Blues & Soul Magazine, BBC 6 (UK), FIP (FR), KCRW (US), JazzFM (UK) and more. Two years later, the Whatitdo Archive Group is back. Get ready for an exotic adventure with their sophomore full-length effort: Palace of a Thousand Sounds.

“This is me at my most imaginative, freakiest, and yet still most grounded and introspective,” says Japanese American rapper/actor Lyrics Born not only about his new album Vision Board, but also his “self” and his existence. “I feel like a new man! I’m healthier physically, spiritually, mentally, and emotionally.” The lead single and video “Diamond Door” is a pop/rap banger that lands you with an infectious barb and keeps you hooked for days, and is a thinly-veiled tribute to a particular style of female appreciation, but it can also be taken as a welcome mat to the new era of Lyrics Born. The accompanying video which shows Lyrics Born in his current physical form - svelte, stylish and with a confident swagger - reinforces this next chapter in his life. 60 pounds lighter, he lost the weight during the pandemic when he knew he needed to make a change. “Touring was becoming harder, and I was having all these weird health problems, but nothing that anybody could put their finger on,” he explains “My anxiety was high. I was not sleeping well. I was on the verge of really bad health.” And this improvement brought more confidence which shows in his new album. Vision Board is a focused affair that found him stretching his creativity farther and challenging himself to write in a way he’s never written before. Recorded primarily in New Orleans and produced by Rob Mercurio of Galactic (who also produced 2015’s Real People and 2018’s Quite a Life), it posited him in a new environment that helped his creative juices flow even more fluidly. “There’s nothing like recording in the Crescent City. It just gets in your blood, and the results are always funky and wild.” “This is about as psychedelic as I’ve ever been,” LB says. “I’m so proud of this album. I’m in a different space. The world is in a different space, and I wanted to celebrate that, loosen up and really create some imagery and share some emotion that I never have. I was listening to a lot of Shuggie Otis; a lot of obscure psychedelic soul and later Temptations,” he explained. “This is like if Alice in Wonderland was Japanese.” Vision Board was also inspired by another Bay Area rap luminary, although one who’s no longer with us - Gift of Gab. The dexterous Blackalicious MC and fellow Quannum Projects alum had a profound effect on Lyrics Born’s life, both creatively and philosophically. “I asked myself on some of these songs: ‘How would Gab approach them?’” he said. “I’d play with certain cadences, certain styles; I tried to stretch stylistically, lyrically and vocally on every single song. None of the patterns are the same.” Lyrics Born’s vulnerability shines through on the nine-track effort, something he’s not ashamed to admit (nor should he be). At one point during the pandemic, he was losing one friend, peer or family member every other week - from Zumbi of Zion I to Gift of Gab to Digital Underground’s Shock G. While many of the songs are deeply introspective, he had to “write some fun shit,” too. Celebratory horns, uptempo rhythms and fiery bars pepper the project from start to finish, and truly encapsulate Lyrics Born’s evolution of not just a groundbreaking Asian-American MC but also a human being. As the only Asian-American MC to release 10 studio albums, the first Asian-American to play major music festivals like Coachella and Lollapalooza and the first Asian-American to release a greatest hits compilation, Lyrics Born has been breaking barriers his entire life - and he’s not going to stop anytime soon. From the bombastic and tribal “I’m the Best Rapper in the World” with its self-winking boastfulness to the playful scat of “Bang Bang Bang” that slinks like an outtake from West Side Story, to the smooth and seductive “Who's The Best? (Dear Young LB)," to the psychedelic and swoony ”Alligator Boots” with it dreamy “Walk on the Wildside”-esque reverby sway, Vision Board sees Lyrics Born tackling different tones, textures and genres without fear and making them completely his own. It's an eclectic body of work that boasts more synths, more psychedelia and is generally more abstract.

Freestyle puts out another reissue 12" in their drive to unearth rare and classic UK funk, soul & boogie records - this time a much needed pressing of the late Candy McKenzie's heavy boogie-funk cover of Patrice Rushen's classic Remind Me. Produced by Candy's late cousin, and seasoned session bass player, John McKenzie (and licensed from the family estate) this was originally released in 1983 - and comes with an excellent dubbed-out 'Different Style' instrumental version on the flip.

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Candy McKenzie (1953-2003) was a North West London-based vocalist from a Guyanese family heavily steeped in musicianship . She began learning the piano at a young age, picking up vocal harmony from her father, a jazz bass player. Her brothers Bunny & Binky, were also celebrated bassists. Candy would marry young in 1970 at the age of 17, though just one year later her brother Binky (who played with the likes of Cream, Alexis Korner & John Mclaughlin in the late 60s) tragically killed her mother and father, along with Candy's husband in an attack at the family home to which Candy was present. Candy was also injured but escaped with her life.

In the years that followed the tragedy Candy, regularly accompanied by her brother Bunny, would find reggae vocal session work - often at the Chalk Farm Studios frequented by many key producers & acts. She found her way onto Aswad's first album and Keith Hudson's legendary Flesh Of My Skin Blood Of My Blood LP - and a little while later on a couple of sessions with Bob Marley for Island, under the supervision of Lee Perry.

The latter two parties took a keen interest in Candy, with Island wisking her away to Jamaica in 1977 to record an album at the legendary Black Ark. Her vocals found their way onto The Congos seminal Heart of the Congos LP, but the album she recorded with Perry was shelved - with just the Black Art holy grail 12" Disco Fits / Breakfast in Bed finding it's way to release at the time.

Back in London, Candy spent the early to mid 80s recording various lovers and funk/soul 12"s, including this fantastic cover of Patrice Rushen's Remind Me, produced by her cousin John. She went on to record singles for labels like Elite & Cooltempo throughout the '80s and early '90s, and appeared as backing vocalist with the likes of Leonard Cohen, Whitney Houston, Elton John and Diana Ross. She passed away in 2003, with her one and only album recorded at the Black Ark finally seeing release on Trojan in 2011.

Candy's cousin John McKenzie got his starts in the music industry in the mid 70s as part of prog group Man and communal festival rockers Global Village Trucking Co., as well as playing with the likes of Annette Peacock and Steve Hillage. His father Mike McKenzie was also a key Carribbean jazz figure in the UK throughout the early 1950s, through to the '60s and '70s. John would become a heavily in-demand session musician - playing with everyone from the Eurhythmics to Bob Dylan - while also finding time to produce this record, alongside a couple of excellent 12"s with Mel Gaynor as Finesse, between 1982 and '83. He would regularly tour the world as a live musician for a huge array of headline acts, appearing on multiple chart hits, and in his later years was a member of the excellent group Ibibio Sound Machine. He lost his battle with cancer in 2020.

This reissue is dedicated to the memory of both John & Candy McKenzie.

It's hard not to see the hype around BRUIT= as the next big thing in post-rock. While their 2018 EP Monolith provided a promising indication of their son- ic ambition, it was their debut LP The Machine is Burning and Now Everyone Knows It Could Happen Again which really set off the trig- ger. Receiving rave reviews around the globe and selling out the first vinyl pressing of 3.000 copies within less than a year, BRUIT= have no need to prove themselves beyond what they have already achieved so far. Consisting of three musical meditations, Apologie du Temps Perdu Eng. apology for time wasted sees BRUIT= cut down on their massive sound in favour of a more subtle contem- plation. In contrast with their recent streaming single «Parasite (The Boycott Manifesto)» with its direct message for Spotify CEO Daniel Ek and his listeners, the band have seemingly forgone their activist agenda paring back the grand thematic gestures and poignant spoken-word excerpts. Instead, BRUIT= let the music do the talking, reaching an activism which is more visceral, but all the more personal. "This ambient EP is conceived as a comma between our first album and the next one," explains bass player & violinist Cle'ment Libes about the purpose of this record. "It is an invitation to lose time, a parenthesis in the frantic race of our society." Existing somewhere between the grand genius of soundtrack composers like Hans Zim- mer and Ramin Djawadi, and the experimental prowess of fringe pop artists like Radio- head and Darkside, Apologie du Temps Perdu reveals the hidden power of film scores. We all know that moment in which we cease to be conscious of the musical accompani- ment and we become truly absorbed in the story. The music becomes part of scenery, and in this moment we lose track of time. Talking of his own work Ramin Djawadi (Game of Thrones, Westworld) notes: "If you were to turn the picture off, there is a story there and a connection to the characters and the plots." In the same way, through the sweeping strings of «La Sagesse de Nos Ai"eux», the ethereal tape loops of «Re^veur Lucide» and the undu- lating synths of «Les Temps Perdus», worlds are created to get lost in, and we experience the full power of music with our eyes and ears open. RIYL Hans Zimmer, Nils Frahm, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Balmorhea, Max Richter, Olafur Arnalds, A Silver Mount Zion, Boards Of Canada

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



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



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



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



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

Electric Light Orchestra leader Jeff Lynne did more than figuratively reach for the sky on Eldorado. Daring to be bold, and creating imaginative worlds that invite the listener to escape the mundane, the visionary composer-musician achieved a multidisciplinary fantasia and, in the process, a prog-rock landmark. Nearly 50 years later, the concept album's brilliance can be experienced like never before in cinematic, IMAX-worthy fashion.

Sourced from the original analogue master tapes, pressed on MoFi SuperVinyl vinyl at RTI, housed in a keepsake box, and limited to 10,000 numbered copies, Mobile Fidelity's UltraDisc One-Step 180g 45RPM 2LP set of Eldorado allows the long-time audiophile staple to resonate with reference-setting dynamics, tones, and colours. Conjuring the feeling of journeying to different horizons, the record's songs teem with layer upon layer of details, which can now be heard as the producers intended. This very special release both pays tribute to the record's merit and enhances the spectacular program for generations to come.

Presenting the album with breathtaking clarity yet retaining the warmth, texture, and emotion that differentiate live music from reproduced sounds, the collectible reissue features beguiling levels of in-the-moment presence, grand-scale sound-staging, and instrumental balance. Bursting with a veritable cornucopia of stimuli, MoFi's Eldorado package also benefits from superb separation and immersive atmospherics that stem from the meticulous remastering process – as well as an ultra-low noise floor, industry-leading groove definition, and dead-quiet surfaces courtesy of the MoFi SuperVinyl properties.

The premium packaging and gorgeous presentation of the UD1S Eldorado pressing befit its extremely select status. Housed in a deluxe box, it features special foil-stamped jackets and faithful-to-the-original graphics that illuminate the splendour of the recording. No expense has been spared. Aurally and visually, the reissue exists as a curatorial artefact meant to be preserved, touched, and examined. It is made for discerning listeners that prize sound quality and production, and who desire to fully immerse themselves in everything involved with the album.

An artistic breakthrough that established Electric Light Orchestra as a pioneering band (and confirmed Lynne as the leading practising Beatles disciple), the 1974 effort remains notable for its involvement of a full orchestra and choral section, the range of which are captured with exquisite results on this LP. Eldorado distinguished itself from the band's first two works not only via Lynne's sharpened songwriting but due to the hiring of an orchestra that augmented the group's three string players. Co-arranged by Lynne and conductor Louis Clark, the symphonic movements bolster the contagious fare without ever drowning it. The accents also act as transports into the varied narrative universes.

Finished as a story before Lynne put notes down on paper, Eldorado ironically owes its inspiration to Lynne's father. In response to his dad's criticisms about the band, Lynne conceived a melodic tour de force that, like The Wizard of Oz, which informs the cover art, emphasizes the power of everyday dreams and everyman heroism. It's no coincidence that the sonic journey begins with an overture punctuated by the words of a cynic who condemns "the dreamer, the un-woken fool."

Beautiful yet fun, ambitious yet consistent, Eldorado proceeds to celebrate such romantics and escapists. A Technicolour escapade marked by lush melodies, fluid crescendos, and an intoxicating blend of energetic rock and sweeping orchestral elements, the album weds rich imagery and sweeping sounds in manners that make the two inseparable. In Lynne and company's hands, reality and fantasy collide, and dissolve any dividing lines. The proof is not just in the epic production, but in the timeless (and catchy) nature of songs such as the balladic "Boy Blue," power-pop packed "Illusions in G Major," and, of course, the aptly titled hit, "Can't Get It Out of My Head."

Decades later, Eldorado doubles as an invitation to break away from monotony whether you're listening to your Mobile Fidelity reissue on a large system or an excellent pair of headphones.

MoFi SuperVinyl


Developed by NEOTECH and RTI, MoFi SuperVinyl is the most exacting-to-specification vinyl compound ever devised. Analogue lovers have never seen (or heard) anything like it. Extraordinarily expensive and extremely painstaking to produce, the special proprietary compound addresses two specific areas of improvement: noise floor reduction and enhanced groove definition. The vinyl composition features a new carbonless dye (hold the disc up to the light and see) and produces the world's quietest surfaces. This high-definition formula also allows for the creation of cleaner grooves that are indistinguishable from the original lacquer. MoFi SuperVinyl provides the closest approximation of what the label's engineers hear in the mastering lab.

More About Mobile Fidelity UltraDisc One-Step and Why It Is Superior

Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab's UltraDisc One-Step (UD1S) technique bypasses generational losses inherent to the traditional three-step plating process by removing two steps: the production of father and mother plates, which are created to yield numerous stampers from each lacquer that is cut. For UD1S plating, stampers (also called "converts") are made directly from the lacquers. Since each lacquer yields only one stamper, multiple lacquers need to be cut. Mobile Fidelity's UD1S process produces a final LP with the lowest-possible noise floor. The removal of two steps of the plating process also reveals musical details and dynamics that would otherwise be lost due to the standard multi-step process. With UD1S, every aspect of vinyl production is optimized to produce the best-sounding vinyl album available today.

Antipodean Anomalies 2 is Left Ear Records' most ambitious project to date, a compilation that took over 4 years to license and includes 17 artists across a double LP. AA2 picks up where the first iteration left off, with co-compilers Chris Bonato and& Bridget Small continuing to dig through the music of the geographically isolating and maverick landscapes of Australia and& New Zealand.

As with the first iteration, Left Ear continues its to excavation ofe the music from these vast micro-scenes that evolved out of a number of small community-focused domains, creating their own unique reinterpretation of musical influences from near and far, spanning the years 1980 – 1992.

The compilation scopes an overlooked epoch from Adelaide, presenting acts such as the DNA Lounge, TCH & Will Kuiper. A close-knit community of like-minded mates that made distinctive electronic music together throughout the 80’s, all of which remained unreleased until now. Holbrook Buchanan capture the ambiance of Perth’s heat prodded afternoon’s perfectly with their track Hunger, a breezy 9-minute minimal-jazz jam that includes kalimba, water samples & conga. Furthermore, artists like David Watson & Colin Offord use samplers and handmade instruments to offer a more abrasive and experimental aesthetic.

To round out the compilation, artists such as Jane Stevenson, discovered a 7” at an op-shop and found the needle stuck on the word, ‘Aloha’. Using tape loops, she chose to highlight imperfections rather than hide them and in unison managed to cross boundaries of time; the 60s (album voice) and the 80s (my voice), of location; Hawaii and Australia, and of language; “Aloha and Hi”. This ethos echoes the compilation's vision, to champion artists that implement impromptu creativity, and who have a desire to create regardless of their surroundings and resources. AA2 signs off with the Back to Back Zithers, drawing inspiration from the haiku poems of Basho. To illustrate this, Kari set a Kacapi improvisation to the backdrop of the cicada chorus of summertime in outer Melbourne.

For this uniquely personal retrospective spread over twelve vinyl discs, Sven Väth takes us back to the early days of his DJ career. On What I Used To Play we meet great pioneers of electronic music, gifted percussionists, obscure wave bands, and innovative producers of a bygone 'new electronic' era. Rough beats and irresistible grooves from the identification stage of house, techno, and acid remind us not just how far electronic music has evolved over the past four decades, but how great it was to dance to EBM, techno, and house for the very first time.

If there is one protagonist of the electronic music scene who has remained curious, innovative and at the very cutting edge of music for over four decades, it's Sven Väth. His multi-layered artist albums and Sound of the Season mix compilations have been defining the genre for over two decades, and even today, he is constantly on the lookout for the next top tune to add to the highlights of his next set. At least, that's the case when he's not producing them himself as an artist or remixer. "Actually, it's always been part of my DNA to think ahead," and nothing had been further from his mind than looking back at his past, but when in spring of 2020 the international DJ circuit had to be scaled down to virtually zero, the 'restless traveler' suddenly had time. Time to stop and reflect on "how it actually was back then, at the very beginning of my career..."

"It was a great trip and with every track, beautiful memories came flooding back".
In the London apartment, he had just moved into, Sven has set up a "little music room", where he cocooned himself for several days, "to look way back for the first time and review my musical journey through the eighties, so to speak."

The interim result was six thematically oriented playlists with a grand total of 120 tracks from 'early 80s' to 'Balearic late 80s', together with excursions into afrobeat, European new wave, and EBM sounds and a few epochal techno/house tracks from the USA in between. From these 'Best of Sven Väth's favorites', the project What I Used To Play crystallized. Sven remembers how the Cocoon team reacted to his proposal: "They found the idea of making a compilation out of it MEGA from the beginning and everyone said 'Sven, go for it', but then, of course, the work really started, namely, to clear the rights and to get clean sounding masters of the up to 40-year-old tracks. There was also disappointment, of course. We couldn't clear certain titles because the rights holders in the USA had fallen out with each other or simply disappeared from the scene. In short, it wasn't easy, but now I can safely say we got the most important tracks."

Finally, after two years of research, curation, design, and administrative fine-tuning, the "little retrospective" from 1981 to 1990 is available. The exquisitely packaged, and three-kilo heavy box set is not only physically impressive, WIUTP is also the definitive record of Sven Väth's musical development. On each of the twenty-four sides of vinyl, you can trace track by track, what influenced him during which phase, and how he took off as a DJ from his parents' Queen's Pub straight into the spotlight at Dorian Gray. There and at Vogue (later OMEN), Sven became the style-defining player in the DJ booth that he still is today.




1981 - 1990: Future Sounds of Now

In the early eighties, the crowd in clubs like Vogue and Dorian Gray danced to what nowadays we call 'dance classics' - mainly disco, funk, soul, and chart pop. It was up to a new generation of DJs, including Sven Väth, the youngest protagonist in the Rhine-Main area at the time, to create their own club-ready music mix. Good new tracks and potential floor-fillers were rarities that had to be sought out and found, in order to prove oneself worthy.
Without MP3s, internet streaming, or other digital download possibilities, music didn't just gravitate to the DJ, instead, it had to be tracked down. In well-stocked record stores in Frankfurt and Wiesbaden or even in Amsterdam, London, or New York, Sven and friends sourced the material for countless magical nights. On WIUTP we can follow Sven's very personal journey through this wild, innovative era in which synth-pop, funk, hip-hop, and disco were successively replaced as 'club music' by house, techno, acid, and breakbeat. By the end of the decade, it was clear to see that these once exotic 'fringe' phenomena would soon become 'mass' phenomena.



Early 80s

Dirty Talk by the Italian-American duo Klein & M.B.O. represents the most innovative phase of the Italo-disco genre in the early eighties like no other track. Mario Boncaldo (I) and Tony Carrasco relied entirely on the original synthetic drum and percussion sounds of the Roland TR-808, coupled with the raunchy vocals of Rossana Casale and guitar accents of Davide Piatto. Of course, other tracks from this period were also influential in style, most notably Unit by Logic System, which worked as the perfect soundtrack to the laser lighting system at the legendary Dorian Gray club. With stomping beats and robotic rap interludes, Bostich by Yello also belongs on Sven's eternal playlist - after all, it caught the attention of Afrikaa Bambaataa, who invited the Swiss duo to perform at the Roxy in New York in 1983.



EBM Wave - Mid 80s

From today's point of view, the almost ten-minute-long, downtempo track Giant by Matt Johnson's band project The The, would probably not be considered an obvious club classic. However, a closer (re)listen reveals the rhythmic intricacies of the percussion overdubs by JG Thirlwell (aka Foetus) on Johnson's composition, and it becomes clear why this exceptional piece of music is one of Sven's absolute favorites. Other classics from this phase include Kaw-Liga by the mysterious The Residents, the hypnotic-synthetic Our Darkness by Anne Clark (and David Harrow), and last but not least, the somber, monotonous anthem Where Are You? by 16Bit, one of Sven Väth's projects together with Michael Münzing, Luca Anzilotti from 1986.



US House - Late 80s

You certainly can't talk about Chicago house without mentioning Frankie Knuckles. The resident DJ at the Warehouse not only gave the name to an entire genre, but also produced epochal floor fillers on the Trax label like the timeless Your Love, sung (and moaned) by Jamie Principle. Acid house protagonists Phuture also hail from Chicago, and on We Are Phuture (also released on Trax) we hear the chirping acid sounds of the legendary Roland TB-303 in full effect. Another featured classic is No UFO's by Detroit's Model 500 aka Juan Atkins, who is rightly considered the 'Godfather of Techno' even if the genre-defining track from 1985 still breathes with the spirit of hip-hop and electro from the first breakdance era.





Afrobeat

Le Serpent, by Algerian-born Abdelmadjid Guemguem, is a track that sounds completely different from everything else on WIUTP. Made in 1978, it's a monumental, rousing groove created without bass or synths, just with five congas! Even though Guem sadly passed away in 2021, his immortal, acoustic beats are understood all over the world and will continue to enrich many thousands of DJ sets for years to come. Another classic that not only Sven appreciates beyond measure is Hugh Masekela's Don't Go Lose it, Baby. In addition to being one of the most important jazz pioneers, the trumpeter and freedom fighter from Johannesburg was very experimental, integrating electronic sounds into his music in later years, in a similar vein to Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock. Dutch jazz pianist Jasper van't Hof's afrobeat project Pili Pili has also aged well. The trance-like, almost sixteen-minute-long track of the same name, manages to fill a whole side on the seventh of twelve vinyl discs in the WIUTP box.



UK-US-Euro - Late 80s

Time for a change of scene, in the truest sense of the word, and from a musical perspective, this section is like landing on another planet. First up is Andrew Weatherall's classic remix of Primal Scream's Loaded, featuring the iconic Peter Fonda sample (lifted from the 1966 biker film Wild Angels) that came to personify the mood triggered by the British Second Summer of Love in the late eighties: "We wanna be free to do what we wanna do, and we wanna get loaded...". This period also saw the emergence of M/A/R/R/S whose only single, 1987's Pump Up The Volume, became a club classic with support from DJ legend CJ Mackintosh. In this most eclectic of sections, we also encounter New York house and reggae producer Bobby Konders and his seminal Nervous Acid.



Balearic - Late 80s

Those who know him, know that Sven had already lost his heart to the 'magic island' of Ibiza as a teenager, so with that in mind, the WIUTP project couldn't end without a Balearic chapter. Inspired by Manuel Göttsching's E2-E4, the immortal, eponymously titled Sueño Latino belongs in there without question. Equally popular on the island was, and still is Break 4 Love by Raze, which thinking about it, would also fit perfectly into the house chapter. Last, but not least, there's an overdue reunion with Sven Väth himself, in his role as frontman of the successful Frankfurt trio OFF. Together with Michael Münzing and Luca Anzilotti (later of Snap!) this 'Organization For Fun' created the off-the-wall club hit Electric Salsa in 1986 which incidentally turned into an international chart smash, putting Sven in the enviable position of having to decide between pop stardom and a DJ career. Well, we all know how that decision turned out and the rest, as they say, is history. A not insignificant part of his story is What I Used To Play. Enjoy!