Pop & Rock News

Kagami is the duo of Jared Blum (Vision Heat, Gigante Sound) and Maxwell August Croy (En, Root Strata). Their eponymous debut, recorded between 2014 and 2017, finds the pair navigating a bracingly wide range of niches with aplomb and precision. Evoking summertime ambience, widescreen electronics, anthemic pop instrumentals and windswept romantic gestures, Kagami is a charming and dramatic record that at times recalls the soundtrack to some lost title from Nintendo's golden age or perhaps a spiritual successor to the miniatures of Yasuaki Shimizu's Music for Commercials.

Original cover art by Brenna Murphy, layout by Konrad Jandavs. Mastered by Helmut Erler, Cut at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin.

180 gram audiophile vinyl
Exclusively remastered
Including the bonus track "L'Hôtel"

Dieter Meier, heir turned conceptual artist, joined Boris Blank to form the electronic synth group Yello in the late '70s. Combining samples and beats with Meier's deep and distinctive voice, Yello became experts in combining the suave with the eclectic.

One Second was their 5th album, released in 1987. Highlight on the album are the B-side's opener "The Rhythm Divine" which features Shirley Bassey on vocals, and "Goldrush" which had a marvelous video that got heavy rotation on the music television networks.

This is the first reissue of One Second since its original release. To celebrate its rerelease, we've remastered the album to good effect and included the bonus track "L'Hôtel".

Seven years ago, Max Tundra sent Daphne and Celeste a tweet, asking if he could write and produce their comeback single. Four years later their song You & I Alone ripped through the internet. Today they announce the forthcoming release of the most unlikely comeback album of 2018.

Three years after their comeback song, 'BB' arrives online as their new album's appetiser, an uncompromising takedown of the anodyne and anonymous. BB stands for Basic Busker,' explains Max, any one of countless identikit instigators of mundane melodies that have brought the mood down in recent years. Pop music should lift the spirits - so why are the airwaves full of these mundane strummers'

The world has changed a hell of a lot since Daphne & Celeste stormed up the charts with their effervescent earworms U.G.L.Y. and Ooh Stick You, back near the birth of the 21st century. So you'd be forgiven for failing to predict the fruitful union of D&C with a maverick electronic producer known for his records on Warp and Domino Records. But Max Tundra has long held an ambition to become a pop producer, and this new album is an addictive combination of the eccentric, creative and melodic.

After an initial sharing of tracks and ideas around the release of that first single in 2015, Max Tundra set about writing an album's worth of material, inspired by the unique kinship, born of shared experience, between Daphne and Celeste, and his own unexpected part in their story. Last year, Tundra brought his suitcase full of songs to a desert retreat near Joshua Tree, where he joined D&C for the 'working holiday' that produced Daphne & Celeste Save The World.

A full-length album of giddy, ridiculous, genre-bursting pop, 'Daphne & Celeste Save The World' finds our friends in fine, soaring, melodic voice, with Tundra's restlessly inventive production a toothsome, chordy, maximalist feast. These 13 songs touch on subjects as varied as time travel, succulents, pipelines under the ocean, cabins in the wood, unadventurous guitarists and different regions of the brain, but above all the sweet, enduring friendship of those two people who, long ago, told us all to Ooh Stick You.

Moby releases a super limited one off coloured vinyl pressing of 'Play B-sides', via his Litttle Idiot imprint'. First time this has ever been pressed on vinyl. Featuring tracks from Moby's multimillion selling 'Play' era. 'Play B-sides' includes some lost treasures and some of Moby's Best works, including the global hit Flower.

Polytechnic Youth enter the fray once again, continuing an already productive year (these new 45s are 4/5/6th releases in 2018 already!) with a trio of quite brilliant yet totally different 45s.

Alpár aka Hungarian Bálint Zalkai, is the co-founder of 'Farbwechsel', the Budapest based record label, and his own recordings of electronic compositions (often built upon random looping sequencers in a minimalist style) are key to the label's release output thus far. His goal as he sees it is to catch a random pattern, loop it and build up a piece with that randomly pulsing theme. Just let to flow the voltages and sound waves and try not to disturb them or change their basic behaviours'.

The two tracks here were recorded with this approach very much in mind. The atmosphere of 'Mejiro' is not unlike a bird observation. Attempting to find the right spot, getting closer and closer to the bird, which almost controls you and your movements as you attempt to near it'. Whereas 'Wakayama' is a more direct piece, and maybe the most melodic song Alpár ever recorded. While 'Mejiro' is a woozy, cautious piece, 'Wakayama' is like a tropical fruit or the ume, (the japanese apricot), colourful and full of flavour yet -with thanks to- the slowly humming theme in the background, an element of sourness grips you at the back of your tongue as it ends!

A beautiful pair of tracks released as a double A side 45 early March 2018. Pressing of 250 numbered copies....

The third of March's trio of PY 45s, is a revisit to the always enjoyable dark electro world of Berlin's mighty DETOX TWINS.

The new record offers up a pair of killer synthpop gems which, in the words of the bands' Mark Vorderhaus drift into the arena of the unwell with their latest outing 'In the Hospital Garden', and pose the curious questions: Is it so unfortunate to surrender your mind to a permanent altered state Can losing oneself irreversibly to a manipulated insanity, actually prove to become a rare and wonderful freedom Attraction battles control as the transformation completes itself. The b-side, 'Transformation' depicts the liberated insanity without challenge, now thriving and pulsating beyond the point of any return.'

Two more ace tunes which precede a full length later in the year for Polytechnic Youth. Killer hooks from synth maestro Mark, aligned with glorious effect to Devi's icy Nico-esque vocals. Another winner for both artist and label!

A pressing of 250 copies. Hand numbered with sticker insert and destined to fly out super quick.

- 180 GRAM AUDIOPHILE VINYL
- GATEFOLD SLEEVE
- FIRST TIME ON VINYL
- INCLUDES 4-PAGE BOOKLET WITH SONG LYRICS AND CREDITS
- LIMITED FIRST PRESSING OF 1.000 INDIVIDUALLY NUMBERED COPIES ON RED VINYL

Frou Frou are an electronic duo composed of Imogen Heap and Guy Sigsworth from England. Heap and Sigsworth met each other on the London Scene in the mid-1990s. They released their first and only album Details in June 2002, which has elements of trip/hop, ambient, pop and rock, using a wide range of traditional instruments and the ethereal vocals of Imogen Heap. The warm sound of the songs lies in the use of the technology on the album. It's the atmospheric and dreamy feel created by combining the stunning vocals with creative electronic beats that makes the album to an outstanding piece of music. First single Let Go' is a dark exploration with strings and compelling vocals. Breathe In' is focused around a steady walking tempo and a skillful bassline.

The album received critical acclaim, several singles from the LP were released. Across the United States the duo had established a cult fan base where they promoted Details. After the disbanding of the duo in 2004 they reunited in 2017 and been touring ever since.

Details is now available for the first time on vinyl and is pressed on 1.000 individually numbered copies on red vinyl.

Das Debütalbum - TRUE steht weltweit bei über 1,7 Mio. Units (davon über 200.000/Platin in
Deutschland)Der Singlehit - WAKE ME UP steht bei 13 Mio. Downloads + 900 Mio. Streams weltweit
Über 3,7 Milliarden Audio- und Video-Streams gesamt. 15 Tracks inkl. der Hitsingle - Waiting For Love
und den neuen Singles - For A Better Day / - Pure Grinding .Topliner u.a.: Chris Martin von Coldplay
Wyclef Jean & Matisyahu, Mike Posner
Musikrichtung: Dance-Pop

Burning Rose and Pelvis records meet in the middle to dish up Dormir, a two piece machine from Melbourne, Australia featuring Morgan Wright (formerly of Melbourne hardcore act Imprisoned) and Harry Maslen (formerly of Postblue). Two tracks of blacked out vocal electronics originally released on cassette are now brought to the floor with remixes by Leo James (Canyons, Berceuse Heroique) and Cop Envy (Opal Tapes, Templar Sound). Cover art by Misha Hollenbach (P.A.M.) squares the corners on this all Australian slab of sound.

Burning Rose was founded in Sydney in 2016. We aim to present the freshest unheard voices of the Australian underground. Our community is nothing without our comrades, creators, and supporters. We aim to give back as much as possible to those who strengthen our practice. We'll never lose sight of this.

Through our shows, records and parties, we bring everything that we put online into a real and tangible environment.

Based in Sydney and Melbourne, Pelvis are a multifaceted leisure system celebrating dance, music, film and spatial design through their parties, clothing, record label and other projects.

Coital embellishers, tailors of state, gland enhancers, dance party Linux, a black economy enterprise, forever slippery and uncatchable.

Recent releases on the Pelvis Records imprint include Mystik Menn EP (a side project from two well-known house music henchmen), VA - DJ Tools Volume 1, Luca Lozano - King Blade, Pelvis - Dance Freak (with remixes from Mall Grab, DJ Haus & DJ Nozaki) and the Dance Freak Mixtape, split with NYC's Venus X (GHE20G0TH1K) and released on limited edition cassette

Seven years ago, Max Tundra sent Daphne and Celeste a tweet, asking if he could write and produce their comeback single. Four years later their song You & I Alone ripped through the internet. Today they announce the forthcoming release of the most unlikely comeback album of 2018.

Three years after their comeback song, 'BB' arrives online as their new album's appetiser, an uncompromising takedown of the anodyne and anonymous. BB stands for Basic Busker,' explains Max, any one of countless identikit instigators of mundane melodies that have brought the mood down in recent years. Pop music should lift the spirits - so why are the airwaves full of these mundane strummers'

The world has changed a hell of a lot since Daphne & Celeste stormed up the charts with their effervescent earworms U.G.L.Y. and Ooh Stick You, back near the birth of the 21st century. So you'd be forgiven for failing to predict the fruitful union of D&C with a maverick electronic producer known for his records on Warp and Domino Records. But Max Tundra has long held an ambition to become a pop producer, and this new album is an addictive combination of the eccentric, creative and melodic.

After an initial sharing of tracks and ideas around the release of that first single in 2015, Max Tundra set about writing an album's worth of material, inspired by the unique kinship, born of shared experience, between Daphne and Celeste, and his own unexpected part in their story. Last year, Tundra brought his suitcase full of songs to a desert retreat near Joshua Tree, where he joined D&C for the 'working holiday' that produced Daphne & Celeste Save The World.

A full-length album of giddy, ridiculous, genre-bursting pop, 'Daphne & Celeste Save The World' finds our friends in fine, soaring, melodic voice, with Tundra's restlessly inventive production a toothsome, chordy, maximalist feast. These 13 songs touch on subjects as varied as time travel, succulents, pipelines under the ocean, cabins in the wood, unadventurous guitarists and different regions of the brain, but above all the sweet, enduring friendship of those two people who, long ago, told us all to Ooh Stick You.

Transparent Pink Vinyl, Ltd. Artwork Sleeve

Seven years ago, Max Tundra sent Daphne and Celeste a tweet, asking if he could write and produce their comeback single. Four years later their song You & I Alone ripped through the internet. Today they announce the forthcoming release of the most unlikely comeback album of 2018.

Three years after their comeback song, 'BB' arrives online as their new album's appetiser, an uncompromising takedown of the anodyne and anonymous. BB stands for Basic Busker,' explains Max, any one of countless identikit instigators of mundane melodies that have brought the mood down in recent years. Pop music should lift the spirits - so why are the airwaves full of these mundane strummers'

The world has changed a hell of a lot since Daphne & Celeste stormed up the charts with their effervescent earworms U.G.L.Y. and Ooh Stick You, back near the birth of the 21st century. So you'd be forgiven for failing to predict the fruitful union of D&C with a maverick electronic producer known for his records on Warp and Domino Records. But Max Tundra has long held an ambition to become a pop producer, and this new album is an addictive combination of the eccentric, creative and melodic.

After an initial sharing of tracks and ideas around the release of that first single in 2015, Max Tundra set about writing an album's worth of material, inspired by the unique kinship, born of shared experience, between Daphne and Celeste, and his own unexpected part in their story. Last year, Tundra brought his suitcase full of songs to a desert retreat near Joshua Tree, where he joined D&C for the 'working holiday' that produced Daphne & Celeste Save The World.

A full-length album of giddy, ridiculous, genre-bursting pop, 'Daphne & Celeste Save The World' finds our friends in fine, soaring, melodic voice, with Tundra's restlessly inventive production a toothsome, chordy, maximalist feast. These 13 songs touch on subjects as varied as time travel, succulents, pipelines under the ocean, cabins in the wood, unadventurous guitarists and different regions of the brain, but above all the sweet, enduring friendship of those two people who, long ago, told us all to Ooh Stick You.

Seven years ago, Max Tundra sent Daphne and Celeste a tweet, asking if he could write and produce their comeback single. Four years later their song You & I Alone ripped through the internet. Today they announce the forthcoming release of the most unlikely comeback album of 2018.

Three years after their comeback song, 'BB' arrives online as their new album's appetiser, an uncompromising takedown of the anodyne and anonymous. BB stands for Basic Busker,' explains Max, any one of countless identikit instigators of mundane melodies that have brought the mood down in recent years. Pop music should lift the spirits - so why are the airwaves full of these mundane strummers'

The world has changed a hell of a lot since Daphne & Celeste stormed up the charts with their effervescent earworms U.G.L.Y. and Ooh Stick You, back near the birth of the 21st century. So you'd be forgiven for failing to predict the fruitful union of D&C with a maverick electronic producer known for his records on Warp and Domino Records. But Max Tundra has long held an ambition to become a pop producer, and this new album is an addictive combination of the eccentric, creative and melodic.

After an initial sharing of tracks and ideas around the release of that first single in 2015, Max Tundra set about writing an album's worth of material, inspired by the unique kinship, born of shared experience, between Daphne and Celeste, and his own unexpected part in their story. Last year, Tundra brought his suitcase full of songs to a desert retreat near Joshua Tree, where he joined D&C for the 'working holiday' that produced Daphne & Celeste Save The World.

A full-length album of giddy, ridiculous, genre-bursting pop, 'Daphne & Celeste Save The World' finds our friends in fine, soaring, melodic voice, with Tundra's restlessly inventive production a toothsome, chordy, maximalist feast. These 13 songs touch on subjects as varied as time travel, succulents, pipelines under the ocean, cabins in the wood, unadventurous guitarists and different regions of the brain, but above all the sweet, enduring friendship of those two people who, long ago, told us all to Ooh Stick You.

Chromatics turn the night into a woozy slow-mo disco ball twirl, and the titles say it all really: 'Tomorrow Is So Far Away', 'Let's Make This Moment A Moment To Remember'. The culmination is 'Tick Of The Clock', a quarter of an hour slowed almost to a stop. A flanged beat box ticks and a dense howl of organ chords crawls over vinyl crackle until eventually nothing is left but a slowly reverberating bassline. The night is over. After leaving the nightclub, the chill of the morning air is refreshing but still sends a shiver down the spine. - 4/5 Resident Advisor

Optimo's prolific DJ/producer/label boss JD Twitch aka Keith McIvor has curated a compilation of early '80s synth, industrial and cold wave classics and undiscovered gems in collaboration with The Vinyl Factory, following the (Cease & Desist) DIY! (Cult Classics from the Post-Punk Era 1978-82) compilation on his own Optimo Music label, and Youth Stand Up!, a collaborative recording project featuring young musicians from Glasgow, Ghana and Belize on his Autonomous Africa imprint.
Titled So Low and set for release on 19th February 2016 on double vinyl, CD and digital download via The Vinyl Factory, with hand screen-printed artwork by Katie Shannon, the 16-track collection had its genesis in McIvor's irregular club night of the same name in his hometown of Glasgow. So Low is an occasional night at The Poetry Club in Glasgow where I play some of the music I played when I first started DJing back in 1987,' McIvor explains. At that time the audience I played to mostly loathed what I was playing and rarely danced but then shortly after, when House music arrived I found a different audience who actually liked to dance.'
In response to my wife's deep love of this music and requests from some friends who were too young to hear it in a club at the time, or indeed were not even born when most of this music was made, I was persuaded to revisit a lot of records I still loved but rarely played out, and So Low was born. It has an extremely enthusiastic audience, a joyous atmosphere and is the antithesis of what a club in Scotland playing this music nearly 30 years ago would have been like.'
The term 'cold wave' was first coined on the cover of a 1977 issue of UK music magazine Sounds featuring Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider of Kraftwerk, and later by the same magazine in an article about Siouxsie and the Banshees, with the publication proclaiming, "Listen to the cold wave roar from the '70s into the '80s". It grew to take in the icy post-punk production and futurist, apocalyptic love songs of Joy Division, The Cure, Bauhaus and more.
So Low focuses on the perhaps lesser known protagonists of the scene, such as UK/European minimalists P1/E, Colin Potter and Gerry & The Holograms, and American industrial/experimentalists including Michigan's Hunting Lodge and avant-garde San Francisco collective Tuxedomoon, as well as a number of French and Belgian acts such as Siglo XX, Front 242, Marc Verhaeghen's The Klinik and Clair Obscur. Tracks from industrial forbearers Throbbing Gristle and band members Chris Carter and Cosey Fanny Tutti, who went on to record as Chris & Cosey, and Germany's pioneering minimal wave musician John Bender are also included.
With many of his contemporaries and newer artists alike coming forward as fans of the sound, McIvor and The Vinyl Factory have enlisted XL Recordings upstart Powell and Hamburg's Helena Hauff to provide remixes for their favourite tracks on the compilation.
Stay tuned for news on London, Glasgow and Berlin launch Parties, set to take place in early 2016.

Rumours believes that the only way to harmony is by allowing yourself to be extreme in every way.
After listening to MEGAMIX for the first time, the origin of the name reveals itself after every track you hear.
Rumours are Hannah Vandenbussche and Jonas Boermans (both active at Monami), Birds-singer Pieter-Jan Cools and Brutus drummer Stefanie Mannaerts. They joined forces a few years ago to produce something they call 'sjamaanhop'. A self-invented term that best can be defined as an enchanting combination of techno and trip hop. It's as if The Knife and Crystal Castles suddenly found the ideal pool partners in Four Tet and Nosaj Thing.
Where Rumours is known for their dark, fast paced and heartfelt live sets, they show they've got more to them in their first studio album. Influences from every corner creep into the songs, which makes it a quiet unusual, but balanced album. A mishmash of melancholy (every cry for help needs a saving anthem), a certain tint of sadness and that one urgent place in our hearts that we call desire.
For the visual aspect of the album, the Spanish party Island Ibiza was an obvious choice for the band.
The destination was not only a refuge, it was a place where hope and grief can exist together.

Montreal electronic duo Essaie Pas are back with their fifth album (their second on DFA Records).

Essaie pas always seek out fresh challenges. After all, there's a whole universe of sounds, sights, and new ideas to explore. Emerging from Montreal's sprawling electronic scene, the duo - Marie Davidson and Pierre Guerineau- feel completely free to express themselves, to sketch out hitherto unmapped musical regions.
Forthcoming album New Path takes this one step further. The duo's fifth album to date - and second on powerhouse label DFA Records -is loosely based on Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly', a classic of dystopian science fiction.
I read the book a long time ago, maybe 15 years ago, and it had a strong impression on me,' explains Pierre. In our previous work we always looked to music as inspiration in our lives, but this time we felt the desire to try something different, that's not based on ourselves but on someone else's universe. It was going to be more conceptual, more political.'
New Path touches on personal ground, on addiction, loss, and the lingering strength of identity within late capitalism's mass media paranoia. It pins down the central character's destructive addiction, using this as a metaphor to explore the dichotomous rupture between our inner lives and our social environment, one that is often fed and soothed by drug abuse, social media, or any kind of dependence.
I think it touches us on many levels,' Pierre continues. We can talk about drug addiction issues, we can talk about the mass surveillance world we live in, but there's also the experience of loss, of grief. I was surprised by how the book felt so modern and accurate to the time we live in right now. Dick's visions of surveillance are the reality of social control today.'
It's a record that continually ties itself in knots, a puzzle that is outwardly beguiling while the solutions remain inherently allusive. As Pierre points out, it's even present in the title. I like the fact that it sounds optimistic, but in the book it's actually an illusion,' he explains.
But it's a challenge met with humour, picking up on the wry elements of Philip K. Dick's own writing - witness the subtle wit of songs such as 'Complet Brouillé', 'Les Agents Des Stups' or as in 'Futur Parlé's tripped-out lyrics, offsetting intense themes with something a little more playful.
The conceptual nature of New Path belies the subtle personal shifts within the band. A husband and wife duo, Essaie pas thrive on freedom, on parting to focus on outside projects in Montreal and Berlin before returning renewed, flushed with fresh inspiration.
Both personally and for Essaie pas it's good that both of us have separate projects,' he explains. Marie has been constantly touring solo for the last year. On my side I've been producing other people's music (Bernardino Femminielli, Pelada or Sleazy to name a few). Collaborating in the studio with talented people with unique aesthetics and different creative processes is really refreshing as an artist.'
The complexity of the project mirrors the complexities within Essaie pas' career to date - forever unpredictable, their wiry, individual sound offers a tangled vision of tomorrow's aesthetics. I think this was the main challenge,' muses Pierre. To adapt what we've been doing live, which before was always changing, and corner it, make it cohesive'.
Ultimately, what the duo want is a challenge, to be forced to raise their expectations again and again, to look continually to the future. This is cold music for cold times, yet beneath this lies a continual search for the humane.

In October of 1992 Madonna released her 5th studio album, the provocative Erotica. Released by her own multimedia entertainment company in conjunction with her book, Sex, this was the most bold and audacious move yet in Madonna's storied career. Following the release of the album and book in 1993 The Girlie Show World Tour commenced, culminating in 8 sold out shows in Japan, one of which was recorded live and broadcast the world over. Recorded at the Fukuoka Dome on December 8, 1993, The Girlie Show documents this historic tour with the complete show of that night! An epic 3LP box set featuring tracks from Erotica as well as a bunch of vintage classics, available on black vinyl or limited edition WHITE, RED, and GREEN vinyl.

Limited to 250 numbered transparent red 180g vinyl in beautiful high gloss sleeve

Includes unlimited streaming of Nil By Mouth: The Singles via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

One of the great names of 1980s electro-funk is Hamilton, Ohio's own Roger Troutman. In addition to

scoring numerous funk and R&B hits throughout the decade, Troutman was a pioneer of the use of a talk box to layer effects over his vocals, and a highly influential figure to the world of West Coast Gangsta Rap, famously providing the vocal hook for 2Pac and Dr. Dre's hit single "California Love". He arrived on the music scene as an auxiliary member of Parliament-Funkadelic, featuring on the group's final album for Warner Brothers, before immediately splintering off to form a new, subsidiary group,

featuring a lineup including his brothers Larry, Lester, and Terry Troutman, a Bootsy Collins-produced hit, and the George Clinton-dubbed band name Zapp. The group's self-titled debut album was released in 1980, and charted at #20 on the Billboard 200 charts. Roger would not sit idly by after Zapp's debut. A year later Troutman would cut his first solo album, titled The Many Facets Of Roger. (Troutman would credit his solo works to the mononym of his first name.) The album rendered Billboard hits out of the single "So Ruff, So Tuff", and a synth-funk version of Marvin Gaye's "I Heard It Through The Grapevine", and featured contributions from various members of Zapp. Though the album was largely forgotten over the years, it remains an unheralded gem of the time period, noteworthy for its quirky and eccentric arrangements, and its far-reaching influence on hip-hop producers like Dr. Dre, J Dilla, and DJ Quik.

Black boys have a whole world of complexity that society makes us stomp out of ourselves." Language, Bryndon Cook's full-length debut as Starchild & The New Romantic, communicates his refusal to do so. Describing himself early-on as a young romantic boy from Maryland," Cook has long been a dreamer, a student of black music's rich lineage and its intersection with pop. He's drawn to landmark moments where artists have found truth in darkness, the diverse language of music living in their core. This record is his, lifting o­ from the monochrome world of Crucial, his 2016 EP on Ghostly International, up towards a dazzling crimson blood-rush of sky-high defiance and autonomy. On Language, Cook refines his phonics for funk, electro, and R&B, and arrives at a revelation, best summarized by a single motto: "my sensitivity is my strength."

When I wrote these songs, the sunshine of my mind was beginning to set in a dark place. I found myself developing almost a surrogate relationship with my telephone. I would fall asleep at night clutching it, waiting for a call. When we parted, I would become attached to my phone as a conduit to this person I had lost.'

Even if the valleys of their relationship were debilitating — a "black goth realm" to his soul, as Cook puts it — he often overlooks them in hopes of more peaks, more light, resulting in his most earnest, warm-hearted material to date. Take the tender single, "Hangin On." Cook beams above a prismatic soul-tinged shu­le and luminescent keys, still visited by the past yet at peace with the present.

The pitch is far more pointed on the album's title track, a vibrant, funk-fueled opener that wastes little time making its purpose heard. "Should have stuck with me kid," Cook begins, as nasty as he is rapturous. By its end, he's in full control. "Can I get a witness" He screams, invoking the power of an affirmation ushered from church aisles into the lexicon by Kirk Franklin.

Sonically and spiritually, Cook finds guidance in grand standards: looking up to producers Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, studying their contributions to the New Jack Swing era and pop music at large. Touchstone statements like Janet Jackson's Control, Michael Jackson's Bad, and Prince's 1999, singular breakout LPs from Terence Trent D'Arby and Bobby Brown, the honesty of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska and Carole King's Tapestry, the ingenuity of Laurie Anderson.

Cook also reflects on recent years with Solange, as part of her touring band, and collaborations with Dev Hynes aka Blood Orange, as reminders of artistic individuality. "Being around them now urges me to find my own way of delivering my own messages."Cook expands his message and its impact by arranging talents. For the first time, sessions included members of his band, The New Romantic, allowing for keyboard/synth parts to be recorded straight-through, with no punch-ins, and a more dynamic atmosphere overall. Further, Cook recruits The Newark Boys Chorus to underscore the most poignant lines of "Boys Choir," giving them the entire stage for the coda: "Be it understood. / This love is mine."

here is the long-awaited fifth volume of the well received electronic compilation series from the 1980's color tapes label. As with the other volumes you can find great examples of cold wave, minimal wave and synth electronics made by obscure British bands such as: Berserk In A Hayfield, Disintegrators, Lives of Angels, The Lord, plus a rare track by The good Missionaries, post Alternative TV.

Luciano e Valerio, Giacomo e Michele: Odeon are the union of two couples of Roman brothers who are not easily defined. Take the mellow melodies of Talk Talk and the celestial guitar riffs of Cocteau Twins bound together with some heavy Goblin-inspired bassline and you'll be close to picturing Odeon's signature sound. Drawing from '70 Italian B-Movies' soundtracks, psychedelic rock and early 80s new wave, and combining analog synths, dreamy guitars, melancholy vocoder and drum machine-driven percussion, Odeon put together a debut album that sounds fresh and classic at the same time. Ethereal and mesmerizing, Galaxies is the perfect soundtrack for a sonic journey through dying stars and forbidden planets.

Moby has released a new single and video for Like a Motherless Child,' from his forthcoming album Everything Was Beautiful, And Nothing Hurt. Featuring LA-based soulstress Raquel Rodriguez, Like a Motherless Child' is a re-work of the well-known spiritual, with its origins in the slavery of the American South. The track describes the void left when one feels separated from a parent, higher power or similar guiding force. Over the years this powerful song has been reinterpreted by the likes of Odetta, Lena Horne, Mahalia Jackson and Van Morrison. The album is a glowing tapestry exploring spirituality, individuality and the brokenness of humanity and finds him returning to his orchestral, soul, trip-hop and gospel roots.

Repress from their debut album from 1980 - light, spheric, early electronics ! The two electronic sonic inventors Juergen Krehan and Rudolf Langer founded Tyndall in the year 1980, naming their duo after a light scattering phenomenon in physics. Armed with an impressive array of instruments, devices and home-made synthesizers, they created free and easy electronic music in the style of the Berlin School (Berliner Schule), much to the liking of the legendary Sky Records who released their debut album.

The electronic sonic inventors Tyndall pulled out all the stops for their second album. Armed with an impressive array of analogue synthesizers, they unleashed the full force of their experimentalist ambitions, weaving synth pop, repetitive bass patterns, laminar sounds and carefree melodies into a unique amalgam of the Duesseldorf and Berlin Schools.

Dark Entries present the debut album from Bézier titled 'Parler Musique'. Bézier is Taiwanese-American musician Robert Yang who is also part of the Honey Soundsystem crew. A multi-instrumentalist, Robert grew up in Southern California then planted his roots in San Francisco in 2005. Over the years in SF he has built an impressive analog synth-based studio, which also serves as the creative hub for his riveting live performances.

Parler Musique clocks in at over 52 minutes with 8 tracks are spread across four sides for maximum loudness. The album title is a French transliteration on the phrase Parlor Music' and is evening music for a meeting of minds in a drawing room or a literary salon. To 'talk about music', the actual translation of the title, the album is a hotbed of ideas. Different genres are crisscrossed: punk, synthpop, jungle, new romantic, industrial and new wave. Airy melodies, surging arpeggios and symphonic breakdowns counterpoint cold digital drum sounds to convey beauty within inescapable and impending daily processes. The track titles for 'Parler Musique' zoom in on Romantic preoccupations with mystery, unknowns, depths--where themes combine to form an occult revelatory experience.

All songs have been mixed by Mark Pistel (Meat Beat Manifesto, Consolidated) at Room 5, San Francisco and EQed for vinyl by George Horn at Fantasy Studios. The vinyl comes housed in a jacket featuring a surreal circuit board pattern with pink bubbles flickering on an abstract horizon of water designed by Eloise Leigh. Each copy includes a postcard risograph-printed in fluorescent pink and dark blue with Dadaist text by Justin Aulis Long.

Is the drum the successor of human sacrifice or does it still sound the command to kill' Adorno, Motifs (1951)