Hip-Hop News

Colleen ‘Cosmo’ Murphy presents Balearic Breakfast Volume 1. An eleven track compilation of gloriously transcendent genre-hopping music inspired by one of the most listened to shows on Worldwide FM; most tracks impossible to find on vinyl.

How does one make a Balearic Breakfast?

You need to obviously start with one part blissful sunshine, rising over one part white sand, set to the sound of the sea looping back and forth. But what else - that perfect, idyllic backdrop aside - sums up that most important time of the day, specifically when spent right in the heart of the most glorious archipelago in the western hemisphere?

Luckily, DJ, broadcaster and producer Colleen ‘Cosmo’ Murphy has perfected the recipe.

Colleen has been mixing together Balearic Breakfast shows on Worldwide FM for the last few years after starting in earnest during the first pandemic lockdown. Her shows offer a remedy to the pressures of the outside world; each is curated with the admirable aim of trying to “create a musical atmosphere for escape”, be it from bad weather or bad vibes.

Inspired by formative experiences at The Loft in NYC and on the terrace at Space, Colleen’s Balearic Breakfasts are endlessly eclectic and always inspiring, pulling together - in her words - a “hodge-podge of chill out, spiritual jazz, deep soul, percussive house, quirky disco, indie-dance and what may ‘traditionally’ be called ‘balearic’ (whatever that may be).” Basically, the kind of music you want to hear as the sun breaks over the horizon.

For her first Balearic Breakfast album (lovingly compiled for the ever-visionary Heavenly Recordings), Colleen has put together a set of songs that allow the listener to drift with her between myriad genres and join the unseen dots between them. The journey takes in shooting star ambient sounds, deep soulful hypno-house, ecstatic Neu-esque locked grooves, ethereal sea-shore jazz and Southern Hemisphere starlight disco, with tracks by artists such as Friendly Fires, Mildlife, Linkwood and Lady Blackbird (a track praised by Elton John, who called it “a groove that blows my mind”) and producers such as Andrew Weatherall (under his Asphodells alias), Ashley Beedle, Coyote, the late, great Phil Asher and Cosmo herself.

Flowing together, the tracks perfectly create that musical atmosphere for escape - a recipe for daydreaming yourself into a Balearic Breakfast state of mind. Tune in and leave the everyday behind. The sun’s rising overhead and the waves are at your feet, whatever time of day it is wherever you might be in the world.

Bristol-based trip hop trio Jabu this week announced details of their second album. ‘Sweet Company’ will be released on November 20th via the group’s own do you have peace? imprint.

Sweet Company is the second album by Jabu. Where their first LP, Sleep Heavy, was an unflinching exploration of grief, dark and disembodied, Sweet Company’s deep, sedative soul feels like more of a lovers’ outing: optimistic, becalmed, looking outwards as well as inwards, and longing for the kind of human connections where ego and self-consciousness might dissolve. It is perhaps also an exhortation to love and accept yourself, to recover a lost innocence and peace – that paradise which has always been lost. Released via their own do you have peace? label, Sweet Company is on the one hand a very intimate and private-sounding work - the sound of life played out in a room, a bubble, a home, a head. The rhythms of everyday domesticity: listening to the plants, cars in the street, voices through the wall…. going to work, not going to work, sleeping heavy or not sleeping at all. Wavering on the brink of a revelation, of something just beyond the material world, while you wait for the kettle to boil. The core Jabu trio of producer Amos Childs and vocalists Jasmine Butt and Alex Rendall is present and correct. Sweet Company has theexhilarating sweep and confidence of a collaboration between people who trust and understand each other implicitly, and, secure in that knowledge, are able to give the absolute best of themselves to us. As before, Jasmine’s voice is a textural, painterly instrument, layered and blurred into abstraction, resisting the limits of language; the songs she sings on are portals into vast internal landscapes where the normal rules of gravity are suspended, every sound is smothered in a cathedral-like resonance, and you're both fearful and hopeful that you might never find your way back out again. Alex takes a more narrative, confessional and no less engaging pop tack: as on the gauzy, decelerated 2-step of ‘Lately’, with his masochistic, self-mocking entreaties to “be cruel to me … I like it when you make a fool of me”. Childs has a true hip-hop fiend's ear for a striking sample, and how to loop it to most hypnotic and rapturous effect, but here takes things to ever more powerfully uncanny and auteurish places, drawing inspiration from the voidal bliss-outs of shoegaze (AR Kane’s amniotic dream-pop epic 69 is one influence cited) and the space-time disturbances of dub, commanding both a raindrops-on-cobwebs delicacy and an immense, oceanic pressure. His productions seem to resist linear progression - instead they move by a kind of unstoppable diffusion, like weeds reclaiming an unkempt garden, or alien flora patterning the sea-floor and coral-caves of the subaquatic level of a computer game which may exist only in your, or his, imagination. Perhaps it's Daniela Dyson, the British-Afro-Colombian artist who contributes her vivid, energising poetic mysticism to two tracks, who best sums up Sweet Company's ambition and effect: “Me quiero perder en los momentos tan puros en su esencia que Las Horas mismas se detienen para ser testigo de nuestro amor” (I want to lose myself in the moments so pure in their essence / that The Hours themselves stop to bear witness to our love…). For a precious half an hour, we're invited to celebrate the smallness of our lives - and the limitless grandeur which that smallness contains. When it ends, we step back from the brink but things aren’t quite the same anymore: we’re haunted by what we briefly almost knew.

Reissue on Burnt Orange Marbled Vinyl

Blockhead is New York producer Tony Simon, a revered talent who has put out a wealth of crucial albums. They are all getting reissue treatment now as some are almost 20 years old, but they have weathered that time well. Music By Cavelight is another of his masterful takes on broken beat and nu-jazz and this one comes on nice orange-marbled wax. It peaked at number 43 on the UK Independent Albums Chart back in 2004 when it first landed and it only came to be on Nina Tune after its original label stopped answering the artist's calls.

Sol Set is a Detroit-based collective, an amalgamation of composers, musicians, artists and vocalists brought together by producer John Beltran, whose new label All Good Music chooses its debut album for its inaugural release. John Beltran and Shane Donnelly preside over seven sumptuous and confident slices of modern, sub-kissed soul and Latin sure to put a smile on anyone's face, even those of us faced with an altogether more British summer. Influences range from the Steve Wonder-style double vocals of 'Bliss Mode' to the South American 'Rhythm of the Sun', which echoes the beach bum haziness of Jorge Ben, but the vibe remains joyful and skillfully yet effortlessly executed throughout. Gorgeous.

The acclaimed Kito Jempere joins Cherrystones and DJN4 on the label for 2020, with an album full of international minds. Working with array of collaborators across a cast of friends including Jimi Tenor, Wolfram, Hard Ton, Lipelis, Rich Thair (Red Snapper), Ruf Dug, Cedric Gasaida (Azari & III) and many more, presenting this, his third long play.

A hail of freedom of thoughts and voices before these changed times, recorded and shared across continents. Kito - following releases with DFA, Lo Recordings, Bordello A Parigi, Hell Yeah and Duca Bianco - acts as curator rather than conductor, the idea not to transform the contributions but allow them absolute.

Sending music and receiving back, nothing was touched to keep the truth and honour. From Tokyo to London, Berlin to his base in St Petersburg, trusting the chosen artists led to a broad palette, as his 4/4 driven funk expands with Jazz horns to Motorik percussion, Avant-Reich vocals to White Isle melodies, J Pop Balearics to Chanson stories wrapped around Club memories.

A true world meeting, crossing borders and genres. An eye on the dance floor and week long chill outs. With remixes from the likes of Samo DJ, Lipelis, Cable Toy and more to follow, this is more than Yet Another Kito Jempere Album.

The term jazz hop is a term my brother B Jazz and I used to toss around back in 2005-2006 when we were working on the Liquid Crystal Project. I define #jazzhop as BOOM BAP hip-hop with a JAZZY musical soundscape. Jazz hop lends itself to those hip-hop sensibilities with the hard hitting drums with that hip-hop swing and the deep groovy bass lines. Then it’s topped with lush strings, vibes, horns and all the influence of jazz music and stylings. This album experience is varying degrees of general emotions that I feel; from my #mood to my #feelings and even to #daydreaming about being in #brazil. This album experience was born out of requests from so many around the world that have asked me to release something reminiscent of the J RAWLS sound from the late 90’s and early 2000’s. People wanted to re-live those days and I felt the same way. Jazz hop feels like the hip-hop from those days. It feels good; it feels comfortable and 1uite frankly, for me, it’s the perfect music. It’s my first love. And, today, I share that love with you….

An instrumental jazz hop album experience produced and arranged by J RAWLS. This album experience was mixed by J RAWLS & STORM9000. B JAZZ played beautiful keys all over this experience. My brother JARRARD HARRIS played the saxophone on the song #swing. The bonus song on this experience was so beautifully written by TAVARIS and KAMAU and was masterfully performed by TAVARIS, MIDDLE CHILD & KAMAU. My brother STORM9000 put the cherry on top when he MASTERED this experience.

‘Beijing Spring’ is a documentary film that is written, produced and directed by Andy Cohen and co-directed by Gaylen Ross. Damian Lazarus has produced a new soundtrack for this acclaimed documentary – an exclusive presentation of music taken from, and inspired by the critically acclaimed film. This soundtrack album is also the first release on the new Secret Teachings record label.

Focusing on a group of artists called the Stars (founded by Ma Desheng and Huang Rui, and including Ai Weiwei and others), this documentary film chronicles the struggle for free speech and free artistic expression, in the People’s Republic of China during a brief period of political reform during the late 1970s, known as the Beijing Spring.

After the police forcefully shut down the Stars’ confrontational art show hung on a park fence, and arrest activist Wei Jingsheng for posting an essay on the 'Democracy Wall' critical of the Party, thousands of citizens take to the streets near Tiananmen Square, marching in protest and demanding the right to free speech – the first such demonstration since the Communists seized power.

The authorities, provoked by the demonstrations and threatened by the foreign media attention, close down 'Democracy Wall' and force most of the Stars group into exile. Recording it all is a daring young filmmaker named Chi Xiaoning. Hidden for decades, footage from these brave acts of rebellion are now featured in AC Films’ ‘Beijing Spring’ for the first time.

Damian Lazarus first met Andy Cohen in a nightclub in Geneva. This chance meeting led to a commission to embellish the existing more traditional soundtrack with a modern take, something more experimental. Within two days of the meeting, Damian was recording musicians playing ancient Chinese musical instruments in a recording studio in Bali. Each musician experimenting around the same tonal scale, while Damian’s friend Millane contributed vocals. After these intense recording sessions, it was back to Damian’s studio in Italy to edit, compile and complete, before the whole album was mixed by the Grammy nominated Bruno Ellingham. The result is a dense, fascinating album and a worthy partner release to this relevant and pertinent documentary film.

This soundtrack also serves as the first release on the new Crosstown Rebels sister label Secret Teachings. Secret Teachings explores music from the outer reaches, often far from the clamour of the dancefloor. Under the Crosstown Rebels label umbrella, Secret Teachings also shares the same mission. It will endeavour to discover and nurture new talent, and champion the obscure and exciting, from around the world. Collaborations with visuals artists will also be at its core. The artwork for ‘(Music Inspired by The Film) Beijing Spring’ has been created by the great Ma Desheng himself.

The intoxicating songs of the Sirens found in the bay of Napoli are irrististible to all, lured to their sounds as if by magic. Writhing to their hypnotic and sudctive voices. Through the warm, soapy waters of Naples Bay. Partenopes music echoes round the pillars of rocks until listeners can bear it no longer and they are pulled onto the dancefloor, as if transported to another land.

Amerza's ICON is a 12-minute exploration of krautrock wormholes with saturated percussion and lurid vocal interventions. The B-side is shared by a downtempo "33 1⁄3 rpm-versions' acidic jam and a Rubber Johnny-esque concrète sound piece.

Imagine a sound that merges Berlin School into the 4th World or a „kraut-groovy, afro-beat from a jungle far from the bush“, as The Guardian once described the sound of Circuit Diagram, a Hamburg/Berlin based electroacoustic-trance duo. Ursumpf marks the duo’s first solo physical release, apart from the collaboration with Richard Fearless, also known as Death In Vegas, on Hamburg’s Golden Pudel Pudel Produkte label in 2020.

Jon K & Elle Andrews' MAL imprint returns with its second release - a long rumoured excursion from Equiknoxx skippers Gavin “Gavsborg” Blair and Jordan “Time Cow” Chung operating under the Gav & Jord masthead for the first time. It’s their most probing x tight set of productions thus far - showcasing that naturally wild rhythmic mutability that’s earned them followers in every corner of the experimental paradigm over the last few years.

‘Writings Ov Tomato’ ties off a loop between Equiknoxx and their early supporter Jon K, who was pivotal in bringing their productions to the attention of Sean Canty at DDS, who went on to release their by-now seminal ‘Bird Sound Power’ album a good half-decade ago. This new set of tracks came about after MAL urged to the duo to explore any under-excavated musical territory they’d been thinking about since they began to tour the world, and the result is this incredible, purely instrumental LP that romps between Autechrian mutations, avant R&B swangers, Jersey-style sluggers and proper, wig-flipping club missiles.

Who else would boot off a new LP with a track titled ‘Childish House Mafia’? The fact it sounds like Actress formulating an industrial noise tape using ritual chants just makes it all the more screwy. The title track returns the duo to more familiar ground, with prickly “Bird Sound Power” drums notched up a few BPM and spliced with whirring trap hats and disorienting synths. ‘A Yow Jon K’ is a Kingston-fried take on sun-bleached Miami electro, with a rolling beat filled out by Gav & Jord’s hard boiled soundboard x foley crunches, before ‘Pig Pilot’, the record’s most substantial cut, loops JBC Radiophonic Workshop convulsions around a booming 4/4 that wouldn’t sound completely out of place at Berghain’s Klubnacht. Saturating the hook and allowing ferric hats to fill in the gaps, the pair manage to fabricate a sound closer to 1970s library music than Villalobos, and we’d wager you ain’t ever heard owt like it.

Combine all this with lower-key slithering industrial-ambient moments like the plughole-wonked outro ‘Brent Bird’ (named after Gav’s producer brother), the tuned tinkle of ‘No Sweat in my Sweatpants’ and the airborne elegance of ‘Appinness’, and you’ve got another Equiknoxx joint that draws from the syncretic mosaic of Afro-Latin-Sino-US influences and re-contextualises them into remarkably odd and effective structures that dance in the integers of a myriad styles.

THEME reshapes Arp Frique & Mariseya with their third release
THEME drives us further into their experimental/electronic mission with their third release, a remix of Arp Frique & Mariseya’s "Nyame Ye". Pulling its soulful vocal into a looping playground of crafted grubby synths that fill all the right spaces, it dials down the tempo effortlessly whilst leaving just enough feeling from the original in its wake, THEME slowly sucks you deep into this downtempo gem

Recorded at ‘The House of IMIZWA’ studios, reggae artist and Asian Dub Foundation frontman Ghetto Priest teams up with Carlton ‘Bubbler’ Ogilvie to produce and unleash his fresh reggae take of the mighty Aaron Neville’s iconic 1973 rare groove classic ‘Hercules’. With Mr Ogilvie on keyboards, Ital Horns on brass duties Greg Blackman on backing vocals and Crucial Tony on guitar, Ghetto’s beautifully executed, deft vocals ride over a rock solid riddim - the original version taken from Ghetto’s forthcoming ‘Big People Music’ LP. You’ll hear this blasting out of low rider windows rolled down in the summer heat and radios across the globe in 2021 and beyond.

Ashley Beedle and Darren Morris take the North Street West ‘HOLYVOODOU’ remix on a musical detour through hidden Louisiana backwaters to visit a ‘vaudou’ priestess to collect some gris gris and onward to New Orleans to meet Doctor John at the Mardi Gras. Leaning heavily towards the Meters school of phrasing, the North Street West version is infused with layers of eloquent keyboards, righteous handclapping, chicken bones and a generous helping of Bayou Funk, making a connection to the Aaron Neville original. A North Street West Dub and Radio Edit are available as part of the digital package.

Originally conceived as a hip-hop scratch/battle record for turntablists, Do or Die is made up of short instrumental beats interlaced with sound effects and vocal snippets. Predominantly constructed from obscure vinyl samples, the record also features an Emu Drumulator, and live performance samples of cello, organ and percussion. Re-contextualized as home listening experience, the album sounds timeless and fresh, a musical journey rich with drama, romanticism, and humour.

Do or Die, was produced over the course of a year (2003-2004), and self-pressed by Milk & Beef as 1,000 vinyl LPs at the end of 2004. This pressing was taken on by short-lived label The Thin Man, and released in 2005 with catalog number TTM001.

Of the 1,000 copies pressed, 100 were distributed directly by Milk & Beef, and we believe a further 150 were sold through The Thin Man. So roughly 750 copies remained in stock, 50 of which were held by the artists, 700 by the label.

In 2009, Milk & Beef were approached by Bladud Flies! with a view to re-releasing Do or Die. The Thin Man were duly contacted to request the return of the 700 copies, but to our horror and disgust, confessed to having 'thrown them in a skip' a couple of years previous. They showed very little remorse, and we were left shocked, upset, and short of 700 records...

Not wishing to dwell on this distressing and acrimonious situation, we decided to go ahead anyway, individually screen-printing a new sleeve design for the 50 copies still in our possession, and releasing them as a now very limited one off edition: Do or Die (Resurrection). Vinyl purchasers will also receive a free download of a digital version re-mastered by The Bricoleur and featuring 2 bonus tracks, Louise and VW.
We suspect there are still copies of The Thin Man release of Do or Die out there somewhere, possibly in the back of a record shop, or maybe in a skip near you. However, it's safe to say that this limited run of 50 editions are all salvaged artefacts to be treasured.

Is this the end of the Milk & Beef story Or will there be 'Life After Death'...

- Milk & Beef

Racah is an on-going collaboration between South England based sound artists RSPTN (f.k.a. Rasputin) and The Bricoleur. Their Summoning / Edge Lands is the 6th entry into the Bladud Flies! Abhorrent Jukebox 7" series. Selected from over four hours of continuous music, these two short tracks are microcosmic distillations of the nighttime recording session as a whole, downbeat, fugue state ambience occasionally boiling over into pulsating blasts of noise.

The claustrophobic Summoning takes some cues from dub with a distant bass line propelled by a slow lurching beat and spluttering space age electronics, while Edge Lands is an even more disparate and dissonant affair. Murky, blown-out tones shift into pink noise as the childlike chimes of a carillon lullaby echo sinisterly in the background.

The 7" lathe comes housed in a beautiful screen-printed sleeve with yellow paper inner. A particularly elegant touch is the BF! logo and catalog number that has been engraved on side A.

RSPTN (formerly Rasputin) is a London based producer and one half of both Racah and Milk & Beef. North/South is his first solo release for Bladud Flies! and the fifth volume of the Abhorrent Jukebox 7' series.

On Planet North, the resonance of temple gongs and dreamy tape-reversed ambience are interspersed with snippets of dialogue before settling into an almost industrial middle section. Blown-out, slowed-down drumkit and an off-kilter guitar loop disperse into what could be a symphony of tambouras propelled by a fantastically heavy hip-hop beat of the Madlib/Dilla variety, of which there are many throughout North/South.

The melancholic tremolo of a minor-key classical guitar phrase opens Planet South, accompanied by beats and the nocturnal noise of a thousand crickets chirping in the background. The track shifts gears abruptly: field recordings and a Puerto Rican jazz double bass line give way to hypnotic, Congolese inspired rhythms.

Moog bogie woogie music from Tim `Love` Lee and Eric LoPresti`s `Against Nature` sonic/visual exhibition in New York, July 20 - 26, 2005.

Representatives of Kyiv’s downtempo wave, Kostya Kottov and Techija, have long been probing the ground for launching their own label. The starting point was their joint promoter POVILNO, under the banner of which they’ve been running events for the past few years. Staking on eclecticism and musical diversity, they’re ready to present the first compilation of the newly minted imprint – a collection of slow-burning tracks inspired by the power of organic elements and psychedelic experimentation from artists around the world, including duo Stevie R and Parisinos, Roe Deers, Dan Bay, Colossio, LEONOR and ID_UA.

The compilation opener “Information Society” sees the massive bass lines of UK label bosses Inside Out, Stevie R and Parisinos, their sense of drama and epicism meet the chilling vocals from 70s videos about information overload. The result is a slow but weighty track for early dancefloors and late night hangouts. “People Know” from label mate, Ukrainian producer ID_UA, is a psychedelic stroll under a palm-crossed sky. A tight groove with tantalising synths and a splash of trippy guitar parts. The mood is picked up by the Mexican Colossio with the exceptional diamond collection “Shofar”, a perfect dancefloor piece where guitar and brass sounds intertwine to leave a mark, a constant intrigue and a mysterious atmosphere that hypnotizes you and keeps you moving.

At the helm of the B-side is Lithuanian nightlife powerhouse Roe Deers with “Monotony Killed Dinosaurs”: soft breaks and a tight beat laden with shifting percussion immerse you in the nighttime jungle. “The Darkside of Orgánica” by Frankfurt-based musician Dan Bay is a fusion of the tranquility of nature and a sense of danceable energy; a track that hangs on to raw and dynamic beats and a winding lead, providing a pulsating, hypnotic immersion. Closing the rotation is Guadalajara-based producer Leonor’s ‘RWandaS Bells’, which blends influences of folk music and primal rhythm with a special dub flavour. Close your eyes and embark on a fascinating journey to complete this compilation.

MF DOOM is the man in the iron mask. The most mysterious figure in hip-hop has also become one of the most popular, supplying beats and rhymes for Gorillaz, De La Soul, Madlib, Danger Mouse, and Wu-Tang Clan, and drawing praise from heavyweights like Just Blaze, Nas, and Mos Def. Since 2002, DOOM has released numerous volumes of Special Herbs, one of the longest-running instrumental series in hip-hop history. Now, volumes three and four of the acclaimed series are available on vinyl for the first time in years. With obscure loops and dusty samples galore, Special Herbs Vol. 3 & 4 is a must-have for any DOOM fan or hip-hop head. Also includes a limited-edition bonus 7', featuring two beats from DOOM's days as a member of 90s hip-hop trio KMD.

Paul Wise aka Placid is the driving force behind ‘We’re Going Deep’ – a thriving online community and record label that’s showing no signs of slowing down as we start the new year. Born out of a lifelong affair with the many shades of electronic rhythm and an obsession for collecting records that first started in 1988.

As a label owner, his mission couldn’t be clearer: releasing new music for heads - old and new. Fresh cuts aimed squarely at the dance floor, your front room or even just the headphones! Rather than staying too hung up on the past, he’s very much focused on serving up the best in new Acid, Electro, Techno, Deep House along with the odd slice of Downtempo goodness.

Sticking to the trusted format of 4 different producers, all serving up high grade electronic explorations, WGD 006 launches with another stellar line up. Headed up by the foreboding sounds of Versalife with “Omikron” on A1, spacious atmospherics and half-step beat usher in a gnarled bassline that simply won’t let go. As delicately placed melodic touches light up an otherwise pitch black soundscape and open up the spaces in between, it’s a superb reminder of the Dutchman’s majestic talent. Accompanied with an outing from Belgium’s rising talent Mariska Neerman, snappy percussion and machine pulses greet you from the off on A2 “Twin”, evolving into a fully emotive and uplifting ride. Leading with layered synths, Neerman demonstrates her sparkling knowhow for drenching you in heart warming pads and strings that harmoniously sing.

Written under his Analogue-1 alias, head to B1 for the legendary sounds of James Zeiter shimmering through on “Counterpoint”. A subtle and stripped back 4/4 trip into the lighter side of acid inspired grooves that shuffles out into the unknown: tweaking all the way as the intensity build. Powerful stuff at the right moment, do not underestimate the alchemy at work here. Last but not least, newcomer Morthen Kiang leaves us on a punchy 909 driven martian inspired work out, that fully summons the vibe of our Red Planet friends. A perfect ending note packed full of machine oscillations and cosmic waves.

XX is the debut Ep from Tori Music, the new Label created in 2020 from the german producer Jacob Groening based in Berlin. All recordings and productions for this ep have been made in 2020. Some parts were recorded in Varanasi and some parts have been produced or recorded in Berlin.

Phantasy are proud to introduce the first reverberations of a new project from Tunisian multi-instrumentalist Houieda Hedfi, produced alongside Olof Dreijer, best known for his work in The Knife and as Oni-Ayhun. Foreshadowing an upcoming full-length album, two distinctive tracks are accompanied by a remix from Portugese DJ/producer Nídia.


‘Appel du Danube’ gradually expands from twinkling glass to lucid strings and classical piano, a startlingly emotive composition that’s cinematic in scope and ambition. Hedfi and Dreijer both feature on title track ‘Echos de Medjerda’, inviting listeners to lean into a spacious circle of percussive sound, conducting a brief journey full of melodic lurches and static interference, hinting at both magic and menace.



Nídia, a key member of Lisbon’s hugely influential Principe collective, continues the fluid nature of the project by contributing tarraxo and kuduro influences to the traditional Tunisian rhythm elements throughout ‘Echos de Medjerda’.

Well Street welcome south London based Kincaid to the label. Expect precision drum programming and sound design cut across 4 floor-focused workouts. Limited pressing!

Drawing on a diverse range of influences, Quimbie’s debut album ‘Sunday Fiction’ is a sophisticated journey through myriad grooves. From dancefloor to home listening vibes, it’s a riot of warm chords, dusty samples, booming bass and infectious rhythms. The mysterious producer has managed that difficult feat of crafting a ‘dance’ record that works outside of a club context, imbuing his tracks with a charisma and vibrancy that appeals to the mind as much as the body.

A perfect complement of analog synths and drum machines make the perfect bed for Quimbie’s magpie-like sample selection, and the overall effect is a wistful, engrossing record that you’ll want to come back to again and again.

An infrequent but invigorating contributor to Phantasy, U returns with a beguiling new single entitled ‘Ecstasy’. Initially available as a limited pressing with a sleeve designed and printed by U themselves, this haunting return promises to draw the curious into two divine rhythms, transferring unknowable forces and mysterious energies.

The first side of the artefact portrays ‘Ecstasy’, a wide-eyed and spectral incantation rich in intimacy, whispering voices and earthy psychedelia. Somewhere between machine funk and folk canticle, a sonic gift perhaps for a field in England bathed in moonlight, else a dire basement dripping in energy, ‘Ecstasy’ leaves the system almost spiritually.

On the contrary, ‘Morpheus’ presents a tougher meditation, a creeping jam with an analogue consciousness, ghostly rave echoes and a conundrum at its heart. The dream seems so real, but what if you can’t wake from it after all?

The new collaborative project between Deborah Jordan and K15 explores the concept of our own humanity while attempting to address what does in fact make each of us human. While the inspired pairing of revered singer and songwriter, Deborah Jordan, alongside the boundless versatility of producer and musician K15 (Kieron Ifill) for a whole album seems too good to be true, this is actually a project that each of their respective roads have been converging towards for years.

The songs throughout ‘Human’ beautifully embrace the array of styles that both Jordan and Ifill have become attributed to – from the brilliant Culross Close-esque production of album opener ‘Running’ to the twinges of broken beat found in ‘Innervision’ and the more acoustic, piano-driven tracks like ‘Change’. The masterful production is both sparse and intricate affording Jordan’s typically incredible vocal the appropriate space to explore these sonic soundscapes in her own inimitable way while expressing those very characteristics about our own humanity.

PDD are super excited to welcome Only Child to its ever growing label roster.

Alex Burkat returns with his first vinyl release in 3 years on New York City / Philadelphia based underground record label.

The Spiral Island features the best of his unreleased material from when he was living in Flatbush, Brooklyn NY from 2010-2014. Expect meditative ambient, classic downtempo dubstep, and hypnotic drone.

Early Support

King Britt, Eamon Harkin

Phantasy is proud to introduce the first release from Polish-born, London-based experimentalist, PYTKO. ‘Save My Day’ and ‘Wife’ offer a tantalising introduction to a unique sonic world, remixed delicately by DJ Python.

Bristling and vulnerable, ‘Save My Day’ is an aching internal monologue reborn as a haunting melody. Led by guitar in the outsider spirit of This Mortal Coil or Dead Can Dance, PYTKO’s compelling vocals invite listeners to lean further in, conjuring dream pop textures within her personal but ambiguous songwriting.

A student of sound design and composition for moving images, PYKTO’s approach is more abstract but no less intriguing on ‘Wife’, a cryptic story told through ghostly sonics, establishing a sensibility somewhere between DIY indie and futurist pop visions.

One of the most creative and singular electronic musicians in recent years, DJ Python builds on his recent acclaim with a spectral and sensitive rework of ‘Save My Day’. Suspending PYTKO’s vocals atop a weightless bed of dreamlike percussion, the New York producer pushes his signature ‘deep reggaeton’ style to its psychedelic finest.

For the first release of Cartulis Music new Sublabel DEL we have a split EP that swings between, downtempo grooves and breakbeat rhythms, On one side find the Russian artist Low Tape and on the other Unai Trotti's new alias debut, DJ Mostoles.A

For its second release, Climate of Fear proudly presents “So Nice,” the debut LP from Soft Boi aka Pessimist aka Kristian Jabs. Following 2019’s sludge-crawl collab with Karim Maas and the eco-hellscape new age of Boreal Massif’s “We All Have An Impact,” Jabs turns his attention to a new nightmare: dating. “So Nice” dials back the suffocating d’n’b bass weight. Jabs has perfected, opting instead for a shimmering palette of magenta hued synth leads and chunky Rhythm Nation snare cracks.
Across this languid backdrop, Jabs narrates the inner monologue of his Soft Boi counterpart. By turns cheeky, seething and emotive, his terse lyrics dissect modern masculinity with unflinching control. Hours blearily wasted on dating apps, spiraling arguments and circular
obsessions, the clammy loneliness of self-obsession and the rigid fury of objectification all spread out across the album like an oil spill.
From the opening credits roll of “Saying Hi To You,” through the slo-mo rave sheen of “Fais Moi La Guerre” (feat Nastychong), the junglist malaise of “And Shout” and the boiled trip hop of “Guestlist,” “So Nice” is an album of surprising violence, tightly coiled and covered an
artificially-sweetened pop glaze. As Soft Boi, Jabs reclaims the conceptual from its oft-clinical corner, giving us a concept / breakup album rooted in the club marketplace, executed with
punk’s jugular concision and driven by a deep antipathy for modern life & love.