Cerca:mad voice

Toronto’s infamous psychedelic multimedia collective, Intersystems, make a surprise return with a new full-length LP, #IV. Coming via Waveshaper Media, #IV is Intersystems’ first new material since 1968! Intersystems’ pioneering avant/electronic music sounded positively alien in the 1960s, and more than 50 years later, this latest body of work sounds just as otherworldly.

When they arrived on the scene in the late 1960s, Intersystems stood out from their peers. Comprised of architect Dik Zander, light sculptor Michael Hayden, poet Blake Parker, and musician John Mills-Cockell (of Syrinx, Kensington Market and more), the group mounted groundbreaking pan-sensory events and released a trilogy of defiantly disorienting records.

Where more conventional purveyors of sonic psychedelia were content with fuzztone guitar and orientalist tropes, Intersystems managed to approximate the full psychedelic experience in all its euphoric wonder and terror. Initially wrangling homespun gadgetry, feverishly spliced-together tapes, and mutant beat poetry, Intersystems were also among the very first to deploy a Moog Synthesizer; their Moog modular system was the first to be imported into Canada. Intersystems’ three vinyl LP recordings, meanwhile, justifiably became coveted collector's items given their scarce quantity and singular unsettling vision.

The reissue of Intersystems’ full discography in 2015 prompted acclaim from a number of major outlets. Among them, PopMatters hailed the set as "one of those great lost recordings (three of 'em actually) that comes from the lysergic era..." Mills-Cockell’s work in Syrinx has also been reissued to great acclaim in recent years.

Fifty-plus years after their 1968 album Free Psychedelic Poster Inside, Hayden and Mills-Cockell decided to revive the long-dormant project with a series of sessions at Hamilton's storied Grant Avenue Studio. The resultant music remains remarkably congruent with the project's original vision while clearly emerging from the present moment. With original poet/lyricist Blake Parker now deceased, Hayden and Mills-Cockell made the counterintuitive (yet strangely apt) decision to render Parker's words electronically. As the computer-synthesized voice alternates between an eerily life-like delivery and slurred cybernetic faltering, it brings a new dystopian tint to the group's anxious surrealism. Taking cues from its predecessor, Free Psychedelic Poster Inside, a modular Moog Synthesizer system is the primary instrument, yet here it offers a dynamic blend of different sonorities: barbed wire basslines, Subotnickesque chirping, gestural plumes of colour and percussive filigree.

While the group cut their teeth in the 1960s, make no mistake these new Intersystems recordings aren't a “comeback" or an attempt to rehash the "good old days". What one hears instead is the sound of Mills-Cockell and Hayden re-energizing the project, bringing with them the myriad experience they’ve accumulated in the intervening 50 years. These aural concoctions—no less perplexing than their 1960s predecessors—build upon the Intersystems foundation but very decidedly reside in the present moment, reminding listeners of just how forward-looking this group was in the first place.

Optimo Music presents “Janara” the new album from Italy’s José Manuel. We always have our ears open for music that is unique, powerful and that can conjure up a ritualistic atmosphere, and this meistrerwerk did all that, and then some. We knew we had to release it after the first listen.

We’ll let José tell you about it….

This album is a result of the necessity of exploring and opening my mind to new musical horizons, by testing the main traditional instrument of the Italian region Campania, whose name is “Tammorra”. It is a big drum, which must not be confused with the typical tambourine, made from a wrap of wood shaped in a circle and covered with dried skin (almost always goatskin or sheepskin). This instrument was used during playful events, especially during rituals and ceremonies, such as the frequent devotional pilgrimages in honour of the Virgin Mary. By using this instrument, the sound, the rite and the magic could take possession of the mind and the body creating a perfect union. Also, the dancers, as if they were bitten by a tarantula and possessed by a strange evil, launched themselves to an uncontrolled dance by moving every part of their body.

In addition to the Tammorra, I also inserted some texts, which have been written by some Neapolitan friends and interpreted with Neapolitans voices, in honour of the “JANARA”. The Janara represents a popular belief of the Southern Italian regions, particularly of the Benevento area. The Janara is one of the many types of witches represented by folktales belonging to the rural tradition.

The Janara was expert in medical herbs, which were also be used for her magical practices, such as the manufacturing of ointment. The ointment gave her the power to become incorporeal with the same nature as the wind. According to the tradition, in order to snatch the Janara it was necessary to grab her by the hair. It was also said that if anyone was able to capture the Janara during her incorporeal moment then Janara herself would offer protection to them and their family for seven generations, in exchange for her freedom.

With this work I hope that the listener might get carried away by the spirit of this pagan and popular legend that can be still be considered as current. As a matter of fact, the folk tales speak of a probable comeback of the Janara, who after being burned at the stake seems to be thirsting for revenge for the evil suffered.

Some fresh material from Olivier Romero is always welcome here . Two new tracks with his special vibe between minimal and house’s micro voices .This time , the collaboration for the remix is coming from Paul Walter with 2 different versions.Sure that every one will find a preference in these 4 differents tracks that made an eclectic release!.

Negativland’s mirror image sequel to last year’s True False, The World Will Decide turns the focus away from the very human inability to accurately define reality, and towards the technologies being built to do a better job at it. But if sorting true from false seemed like a full time job back when all one had to keep track of was one’s own mind, life alongside the machines built to connect everyone only seems to multiply the uncertainties. On The World Will Decide, those uncertainties are made almost deliriously danceable: a netweb of densely sampled voices melting speech back down into music and back again, into what everyone can agree are the real questions—did that firefly really land on your finger? Would you like to be arrested? Does this app connect you to people, or replace them? Is this post an example of inauthentic behavior? Do people have to die? Or, as one of the many sampled voices on this work assures the listener: we can really feel like we’re here.

Rich in musical associations yet utterly singular in its voice, joyous with an inner tranquility, the music of Natural Information Society is unlike any other being made today. Their sixth album in eleven years for eremite records, descension (Out of Our Constrictions) is the first to be recorded live, featuring a set from London’s Cafe OTO with veteran English free-improv great Evan Parker, & the first to feature just one extended composition. The 75-minute performance, inspired by the galvanizing presence of Parker, is a sustained bacchanalia of collective ecstasy. You could call it their party album.

This was the second time Parker played with NIS. Joshua Abrams: “Both times we played compositions with Evan in mind. I don’t tell Evan anything. He’s a free agent.”

The music is focused & malleable, energized & even-keeled, drawing on concepts of ensemble playing common to musics from many locations & eras without any one specific aesthetic realization completely defining it.

“The rhythms that Mikel plays are not an exact reference to Chicago house, but that’s in there,” Abrams says. “I like to take a cyclic view of music history, can we take that four-on-the-floor, & consider how it connects to swing-era music? Can we articulate a through line? I dee-jayed for years in Chicago & lessons I learned from playing records for dancing inform how I think about the group’s music. The listener can make connections to aspects of soul music, electronic music, minimalism, traditional folk musics, & other musics of the diaspora as well. It’s about these aspects coming together. I don’t need to mimic something, I need to embody it to get to the spirit, to get to the living thing.”

For jazz fans, the sound of Parker’s soprano & Jason Stein’s bass clarinet might evoke Coltrane & Dolphy, even though they didn’t necessarily set out to do that & they play with complete individuality. Abrams sees a bridge to the historical precedent, too. “Since we first met in the 1990s, one of the things that Evan and I connected on was Coltrane’s music,” he says. “I hoped that we would tap into that sound world intuitively. In this case, I think that level of evocation adds another layer of depth, versus a layer of reference.”

Indeed, this is a performance in which the connections among the ensemble & the creative tension between improvisation and composition build into a complex mesh of associations & interactions. While the band confines itself to the territory mapped out by Abrams’ composition, they are remarkably attentive & responsive, making adjustments to Parker’s improvisations. When Parker’s intricate patterns of notes interweave with the band, the parts reinforce one another & the music rockets upward. Sometimes, Parker’s lines are cradled by the group’s gentle pulse & an unearthly lyrical balance is struck.

Drummer Mikel Patrick Avery is locked-in, playing with hellacious long-form discipline, feel & responsiveness. Jason Stein’s animated, vocalized bass clarinet weaves in & out with Lisa Alvarado’s harmonium to state the piece’s thematic material; the pulsing tremolo on the harmonium brings a Spacemen 3 vibe to the party. Abrams ties together melody & rhythm on guimbri, a presence that leads without seeming to. Like his bandmates, he shifts modes of playing frequently, improvising & then returning to the composed structure.

“As specific as the composition is, the goal is to internalize it & mix it up,” Abrams says. “The idea is to get so comfortable that we can make spontaneous changes, find new routes of activity, stasis & byways every gig. It’s like a web we’re spinning. If someone makes a move, we all aim to be aware of it, make room for it. Experiencing & listening is what it’s about, & Evan supercharges that.”

& “supercharged” is the word for this album. With Parker further opening up their music, descension (Out of Our Constrictions) is the sound of Natural Information Society growing both more disciplined and freer, one of the great bands of its time on a deep run.

Aguirre edition: Mastered by Helge Sten, Audio Virus, Oslo. Lacquers by Dubplates & Mastering. Liner Notes by Theaster Gates. LPs pressed on premium audiophile-quality vinyl at Pallas Records. US 2xLP edition available thru Eremite records.

Alan Vega’s name is synonymous with unfettered, tireless creativity. Beginning in the late 1950s, when he was a fine art student at Brooklyn College, through his years playing in Suicide, and all the way up until his death in 2016, Vega was constantly creating. That

process naturally led to a wealth of material that didn’t see the light of day immediately when it was recorded, which came to be known as the Vega Vault. Mutator is the first in a series of archival releases from the Vault that will come out on Sacred Bones Records.

Mutator was recorded alongside Vega’s longtime collaborator Liz Lamere at his NYC studio from 1995-1996, and it serves as a document of a particularly fertile time in his creative life. He had 11 full-length solo albums come out during the ’80s, ’90s and ’00s - plus numerous collaborations, and Suicide records A Way of Life and Why Be Blue. Mutator wasn’t shelved intentionally, but Vega’s back-to-thegrindstone M.O. meant that he had moved on to making his next record before this one was finished. Lamere and Vega’s friend and confidante Jared Artaud (The Vacant Lots) rediscovered the raw, unmixed recordings from the Mutator sessions in the Vault in 2019. Soon after, they mixed and produced them into the visionary album that was lurking within those tapes.

“Our primary purpose for going into the studio was to experiment with sound, not to ‘make records,’” Lamere recalls. “I was playing the machines with Alan manipulating sounds. I played riffs while Alan morphed the sounds being channeled through the machines.”

At the time of the Mutator sessions, Vega was massively inspired by what was happening in the streets of New York - not only the hip hop scenes that were exploding throughout the outer boroughs, but also the literal sounds of the streets, the traffic noise and industrial ambience of city living. That influence trickled into the sounds he and Lamere captured in those sessions. That sensibility, paired with Vega’s unmistakable voice and force of personality, is what made it the great album it is now. The final piece was the production job, completed by Lamere and Artaud 25 years after the songs were first captured.

Alan Vega’s name is synonymous with unfettered, tireless creativity. Beginning in the late 1950s, when he was a fine art student at Brooklyn College, through his years playing in Suicide, and all the way up until his death in 2016, Vega was constantly creating. That

process naturally led to a wealth of material that didn’t see the light of day immediately when it was recorded, which came to be known as the Vega Vault. Mutator is the first in a series of archival releases from the Vault that will come out on Sacred Bones Records.

Mutator was recorded alongside Vega’s longtime collaborator Liz Lamere at his NYC studio from 1995-1996, and it serves as a document of a particularly fertile time in his creative life. He had 11 full-length solo albums come out during the ’80s, ’90s and ’00s - plus numerous collaborations, and Suicide records A Way of Life and Why Be Blue. Mutator wasn’t shelved intentionally, but Vega’s back-to-thegrindstone M.O. meant that he had moved on to making his next record before this one was finished. Lamere and Vega’s friend and confidante Jared Artaud (The Vacant Lots) rediscovered the raw, unmixed recordings from the Mutator sessions in the Vault in 2019. Soon after, they mixed and produced them into the visionary album that was lurking within those tapes.

“Our primary purpose for going into the studio was to experiment with sound, not to ‘make records,’” Lamere recalls. “I was playing the machines with Alan manipulating sounds. I played riffs while Alan morphed the sounds being channeled through the machines.”

At the time of the Mutator sessions, Vega was massively inspired by what was happening in the streets of New York - not only the hip hop scenes that were exploding throughout the outer boroughs, but also the literal sounds of the streets, the traffic noise and industrial ambience of city living. That influence trickled into the sounds he and Lamere captured in those sessions. That sensibility, paired with Vega’s unmistakable voice and force of personality, is what made it the great album it is now. The final piece was the production job, completed by Lamere and Artaud 25 years after the songs were first captured.

Repress

2x12"

Zodiak Commune Records proudly presents its very first double LP made by label resident 1NC1N. High quality techno, acid and electro. Are you ready for the The Butterfly Effect Enjoy this limited release in the insectum serie!

A1. Digisynaptic Resonance
In this new age, technology is resonating on a digisynaptic level.
This track will surprise you...

A2. Voice Of Reason
Everyone has a voice of his own...for a reason.
Let your higher self speak!

B1. Nocturnal Humanoid
Not learning by experience.
Feeding by data is revolution.

B2. The Lost & The Missing (live)
Go back to the beginning of the Acid scene.
Relive the evolution.

C1. Walking Taiko
Listen to the rythmic art of Taiko.
Close your eyes...walk across Japan with all its beauty and hectics.

C2. The Ghost Of Holeenhyrst
Imagine a dark forest with a lost village.
You will be surrounded by this one person who supposed to be left...but did not.

D1. Whispering Transmission
Do not overuse a radio.
Sometimes it s better to communicate through whispering.

D2. Samsara
Embrace the infinity.
Ending it means start something new.

Isasa’s fourth LP is a guitar excursion from a skillful, humble guide. Minimal, contemplative songs, rich in atmosphere and warm in spirit.

Some musicians give their name to their first album, signifying introduction. Some hold it in reserve — it took Wire 39 years to get around to calling an LP Wire. But whenever they do so, they are making a statement. For Conrado Isasa, an acoustic guitarist from Madrid, Spain, the decision to call his fourth album Isasa reflects the fact that his music’s relationship to his own identity has evolved. Isasa presents an artist whose work reflects that he knows and accepts where he comes from.
Between 1993 and 2003, he played electric guitar in the hardcore metal band Down For The Count and the post rock combo, A Room With A View. These were collective statements, communications between small groups and a select underground community. After the latter group’s demise, Isasa stepped back from recording, and for a while from guitar playing as well. He spent some time learning to play the trumpet, but was inspired to return to the guitar in 2007 after he heard Geoff Farina play a Mississippi John Hurt song for the encore of a Glorytellers gig. Then came another period of learning, during which he studied the playing of Hurt, John Fahey, Jack Rose, and Glenn Jones.
Performing as Isasa, he made three records, each of which can be heard as confrontation with an artistic challenge. Las Cosas (2015) is between the man and his acoustic guitar; what could he do with his fingers, a slide, six steel strings, and a box of wood? Los Días (2016) faces the broader issue of how to deal with the requirements of the American Primitive guitar style. Like Fahey, Rose, and Jones, Isasa sought to make an album that used a cohesive sequence of guitar and banjo instrumentals to express personal experiences. With its references to the sights, sounds, and tastes one might encounter in Madrid, it is like a poetic diary written with the distance that comes from having mastered a second language. After making that record, Isasa toured parts of the United States, and played at The Thousand Incarnations Of The Rose, a festival that gathered representatives of American Primitive guitar’s past, present, and future in Takoma Park, the town where the style’s original synthesist, John Fahey, was born. Insilio (2019) began to look beyond that style, dealing with Hindustani raga forms and adding other instrumental textures.
And now comes Isasa. The name suggests something very personal, and it’s true that it draws upon Isasa’s closest relationships. Two compositions are either named for or feature the voices of his children, but their presence helps this music to transcend the purely personal. For what could be more universally shared than the joy and love one feels for children? Others invoke concepts — absence, liberty, love, reunion. They may mean one thing to Isasa, and another thing to you, but by sharing his reactions to them, he invites you to recognize yours. Isasa isn’t just using his experiences to tell you about his life; he is using what he knows about life to help us know a little more about ours.

Fado is the popular folk music of the cities of Portugal and is an
expression of "saudade". "Saudade" is a difficult word to translate for it means many things, sadness, longing for someone or something, the past or even the future; nostalgia, yearning, wistfulness all of which is expressed not only in words and music, but is the very vocal qualities of the singer. Amalia Rodrigues and fado have come to mean the same thing. Amalia is the goddess of fado, and although there are many fado singers in Lisbon, Amalia reigns supreme. Even without understanding Portuguese one can feel "saudade" when listening to her thrilling voice.

Winter Family is a duo made up of Ruth Rosenthal and Xavier Klaine, who met in Jaffa in 2004. Their dark, saturated and dense music is described as "Death Swing", "Weird Wave" or "Funeral Pop".

They recorded new parts of this new album in St Martin church of Maxéville, France. Xavier: "I recorded the pipe organ there, inspired by the Alsatian philanthropist organist Albert Schweitzer whose slow, bombastic performances, limited by faulty technique have always touched me deeply. In 2006, my aunt Loulou agrees to lend me the keys to the church. Ten years later, Loulou passes away, I play on this same pipe organ during her funeral. During the fall of 2018, in her room with old floral wallpapers, so cold, that I empty, surrounded by her missals and huge crucifixes I remix this pipe organs and the voice of Ruth. Through this late remixing, we wanted to deliver this woman from her agony, her eyes turned to the milkish Lotharingia sky and beyond, trying to illustrate this Catholic France of yesterday, as vain and terrifying as a month of November in this cold and humid garden, within reach of the incessant song of the A31 highway."

· First release of the Jagjaguwar 25th anniversary celebration happening in 2021. · Features production and composition accompaniment from Bon Iver, Mary Lattimore, Angel Bat Dawid, Gia Margaret, and Sam Gendel. · Limited edition Opaque Green vinyl. Over the last 12 years, Ross Gay's poems have given us indelible images and phrases of radical empathy and unabated gratitude; about community, collaboration, connectedness and hard work. They have crept into our hearts and made a home of all of us. And so we are launching our 25th Anniversary celebration with `Dilate Your Heart', our first spoken word album since titan Robert Creeley's self-titled release twenty years ago. "Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude" is given a gorgeous, slowly creeping bed of vines by Bon Iver, as Gay's unadorned voices speaks a lifetimes of Thank You's. On "Burial," harpist and composer Mary Lattimore's lunar landscape follows Gay's voice into space, telling of our endless energy exchange with nature. Chicago's Angel Bat Dawid dances with the frenetic, joyous scene Gay leads us through on "To the Fig Tree on 9th and Christian," in which a group of Philadelphia strangers scramble together to harvest the fruit of the titular urban fig tree. Songwriter Gia Margaret provides a mystical, amniotic environment for Gay's "Poem To My Child If Ever You Shall Be," a love letter to an imagined future child, treating Gay's voice like a message in a bottle to a far off idea made only of love and potential. Sam Gendel, a secret weapon collaborator, affects Gay's voice on "Sorrow Is Not My Name" to something glassy and almost singsongy. Throughout, Gay recites his poems with bright aliveness, his voice as warm and easy when he speaks about death as when he speaks about mercy, or love.

Bill MacKay and Nathan Bowles’ debut is well titled: keys are what they play
and keys unlock things too. Their trad bonafides are balanced with
inquisitive playing that adds surprise as a formal songwriting and arranging
tool. Spirited 21st Century folk music made of equal parts bluegrass,
classical, country, gospel and improv.
‘Keys’ is, on first blush, a collection of guitar and banjo duets - but from the
opening moment, it is clear that Bill and Nathan’s agreed-upon duo is a
living organism, growing as it goes. Behind the stately figures of ‘Idumea’, a
19th Century southern hymnal played out on their stringed instruments, a
low organ drone hums persistently, signalling that this music, while coming
from traditional places, is asking more of itself, seeking sparks of inspiration
to light the path forward.
Bill and Nathan met a few years back, if time has any meaning. It didn’t
seem to at the time - after the first night they hung out, it seemed as if
they’d known each other for a while already. A year later, in 2018, they
were booked as a duo at Cropped Out. Preparing for the show involved a
correspondence exchanging lots of provisional ideas, thoughts and music
back and forth from Chicago to Durham NC, then dashing through the ideas
again on the festival grounds an hour before the show. From this seemingly
hectic preparation, their playing that night was remarkably serene, a
spiritual treatise clothed in the casual and natural manner of the proverbial
porch, or in this case, riverside-jam, as the stage literally straddled the edge
of the Ohio River. It was a stellar, simpatico first moment that asked for
more moments like it.
After several more sets the following year, they felt ready to roll tape (as the
saying goes) and chose to do so in Chicago, with Nick Broste at The Shape
Shoppe. Again, an easy rapport prevailed, allowing them to work through
their collected ideas quickly and freely, with the moments of spontaneous
decision that can come only with comfort and trust in each other’s presence.
Throughout ‘Keys’, Bill and Nathan propel their power-folk engine with intent
and feeling, joy and solemnity, as images of wariness, wonder, anger,
deliberation, forgiveness, trust and devotion rise up from the music and roll
it forward into the unknown, a place we can sense both players are happy
to go.
Eight of the ten songs featured are originals, with the other two coming
from different centuries to this one. The diversity of song is matched by the
instrumentation: in addition to Bill’s guitar and Nathan’s banjo, they add
voice, piano, percussion, pump organ, requinto and electric organ to the
richness and rusticity, the traditionalism and open space of the
compositions.

Ed Cosens is stepping out of the shadows to take centre stage. The bewitching ‘If', his debut single, marks both the start of an overdue solo career and the latest chapter in the life of a longtime lynchpin of the Sheffield music scene. Best known as the guitarist/bassist and co-songwriter in Reverend & The Makers, Ed has spent 15 years conquering the charts and touring the world, yet leaving the limelight to others. With ‘If', the first song written for his forthcoming solo album, Fortunes Favour (due early 2021), he’s finally ready to reveal his true self. “It’s only taken 10 years or so for me to find the confidence!” says the self-depreciating singer, who shared stages with Arctic Monkeys members Matt Helders and Alex Turner before the Makers took off. “I subscribe to the fine wine way of thinking - allow things to mature fully before enjoying. Nobody wants to be Lambrusco!” ‘If' distils a lifetime of longing and loss, of dreams Vs. desires, into three mesmerising minutes of tremolo-rich, strings-soaked melody. Plangent chord progressions and mournful tones pair with poetic reflections on life’s twists and turns. Shades of The Beatles, Echo & The Bunnymen and Richard Hawley snake in and out. Emotions take over as Ed opens up fully for the first time. Drawing on Ed’s personal experience, he says of ‘If' "Its a love-lorn tale of the struggle between true love’s path and the path which you think you're destined to follow. It’s about the conflict between what you think you want, where you unwittingly lead yourself and ultimately where you should really be." “After several attempts, it became the song that sent me in the right direction. With a lot of albums, it takes one song to kick things off and this was that moment for me. It set out the stall for who I wanted to be as an artist with its strong sense of emotion and the journey that runs through it.” ‘If' was produced by Dave Sanderson, recorded at Giant Wafer studios in Wales at the tail end of 2018 and finally the man from Sheffield’s musical shadows can relish the start his solo career. “People ask why I waited so long, but there was no masterplan,” says Ed. “The time had to feel right. I found my voice along with an inner confidence and suddenly the itch was too much not to scratch. Once I'd started, I scratched like there was no tomorrow.”

“I wanted to try and showcase as many people as I knew on this mix. My idea of Late Night Tales was to distil a series of relaxing moments; the whole conceptual sonic of relax- ation. So, I was trying to think of all the collaborators and friends that I knew, who’d recorded stuff with this horizontal vibe. Plus, I was also trying to help my friends' stuff get into the world. I know the story of Khruangbin blowing up after appearing on the series (in fact, I think that's how I discovered them). So, the main idea was to create a certain atmosphere, but also to help some of my favourite collaborators and bud- dies to give their songs a little push out into the world. Hope you like it” Jordan Rakei
Due for release on 9th April, Late Night Tales celebrate their 20th anniversary with the release of multi-instru- mentalist, vocalist and producer Jordan Rakei’s majestic compilation. The 28-year-old modern soul icon effortlessly stamps his own jazz and hip-hop driven sound all over this gorgeous array of handpicked tracks. A beautifully layered blend that is mirrored in the music he’s made, itcomes as no surprise that such a supremely gifted songwriter should deliver a mix that is all about the song.
Rakei, born in New Zealand, but raised in Australia, moved to the UK in 2015; he released his debut album, Cloak, with Oz label Soul Has No Tempo, but his two subsequentLPs, Wallflower and Origin, came out on Ninja Tune, the former#2 in Album Of The Year for Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide poll, while Origin was nominated for Best Album at the AIM Awards. Jordan had this to say on his upcoming mix:
As Jordan says,there’s so much more to the song selection on Late Night Tales’latest outing than a random collection of artists. Many have some sort of personal connection, so just as Bonobo provided a platform for the breakout of Khruangbin on a previous LNT, this may have the same ef- fect for Rakei’s friends. After a soothing opener from Fink, good friend and big influence Alfa Mist (part of the Are We Live collective) delivers ‘Mulago.’ “I want to champion their sound and show the world how good he is, and I thought it’d be fitting to start the mix with family,” says Jordan.
Next up is Charlotte Day Wilson with ‘Mountains,’ followed by ‘Count A Heart’ from Moreton, an exclusive collab- oration with Jordan, who grew up on the same street in Brisbane, Australia. “She was the first artist I ever collabo- rated with, and one of the first artists to be involved in mycareer,” he explains. Elsewhere we hear Scottish producer and multi-instrumentalist C Duncan’s haunting ‘He Came from the Sun,’ Barcelona collective Oso Leone deliver a dreamy ‘Virtual U’ and Bill Lauren’s ‘Singularity,’ which evokes a striking sense of time and place.
Snowpoet’s ethereal ‘Evitenity’ is a “long mediative nar- rative over a beautiful soundscape,” which at times seems chaotic, nicely juxtaposed with undeniable beauty, and Maro’s kooky songwriting shines on ‘Always And Forever.’ Long-time buddy Armon-Jones contributes ‘Idiom,’ and Jordan’s exclusive cover version is a two-for-one, Radio- head’s ‘Codex’ merging with ‘Lover, You Should’ve Come Home’ by Jeff Buckley and another exclusive,original com- position by Jordan, ‘Imagination.’ The latter works as a piece with the spoken (Spanish) word voiced by movie director Alejandro González Iñárritu (Babel, Birdman, and The Reve- nant,) who is a big fan of Jordan’s. “He messaged me when I went to L.A and asked to come to my show. I was in such shock and we hung out after. I thought it would be nice to get him to do this in his native tongue, because I don’t think that’s been done yet on the series.” It certainly is a familyaffair. Not theblood is thicker than water kind, but certainly musical kindred spirits.

There’s something new under the sun. If you look at it closely,
something new is only (and always) created at crossroads –
when different and signi¦cant traditions are connected and
combined. On their own, these traditions have often existed
for a while. However, in this new form they have never
appeared together. The latest manifestation of something
new can now be found on the album “No Future Dubs”, the
interpretations of “No Future Days” – the most recent album
by German band Messer – by Finnish producer and old
friend of the group Kimmo Saastamoinen aka Toto Belmont.
The intentional traditions that merge on this grand and
digni¦ed album are post-punk, dub and techno. A new
chapter in the culturally constant narrative of dub is written
here. Through their past and parallel activities in hardcore
and post-punk bands, Messer drummer Philipp Wulf met and
befriended Kimmo, originally a drummer too. In their
continuous dialogue discussing their musical journey, Philipp
and Kimmo over the years more and more immersed
themselves in the aesthetic possibilities of dub and reggae.
Indeed, lots of musicians do not listen to the type of music at
home that they write and play in their respective projects
(Take me as an example: House is the music that I produce
and put on as a DJ. On my own, I listen to various stuff,
music by Monk and Messer for example). The same applies
to the protagonists involved here. By discussing dub und
through Toto Belmont’s steadily increasing producingexpertise, the idea of creating dub versions of selected
Messer tracks was born. The Messer album “No Future
Days”, released in 2020, proved to contain the perfect raw
material as the songs on this album are already produced in
a much more transparent way than on previous LPs – and
are hence more suitable for dub. Still, it’s a giant leap from
the originals to the dubs. These add a third dimension to the
described character of the post-punk/dub amalgam: techno.
The result is a sound that hasn’t existed before, especially
not with German lyrics (which scarcely, however, carry
meaning or messages here. Hendrik Otremba’s voice is used
more like an instrument, as if he was the ghostly ¦gure which
he often sings about and which now §oats and screams
through the sound space). The history of mutual contact and
in§uence of (post-)punk and dub (reggae), which Messer
have kept on writing, is glorious and reaches back far in
musical history. Still, it has always been a rather marginal
chapter not only in punk but also in dub history. But already
in the beginnings of punk (the British version, less the
American one), the presence and in§uence of reggae was
obvious in many places as both are united in their resolute
attitude as rebel music. This is how the two genres
recognized each other – especially the punks regarded
reggae as rebellious. As is known, already Johnny Rotten
mainly listened to dub in private. By using the name John
Lydon, he then – together with bass player Jah Wobble –
established the group PiL as one of the most exemplary
bands at the crossroads of dub and punk. The Slits, Pop
Group, Killing Joke, The Ruts and last but not least The Clash
along with the Mick Jones offshoot Big Audio Dynamite –
the thriving British music scene in the early 80s was full of
dub-in§uenced acts. The echoes meandered everywhere. In
the USA, it took longer until the in§uence of dub became
noticeable and it has never been as distinctive as in the UK.
The history of US hardcore, however, cannot be told without
bands like Bad Brains from Washington D.C. who on their
albums occasionally inserted conscious reggae and dub
tracks between breakneck hardcore tracks. Another
important group is Blind Idiot God who similarly included
dub tracks on their LPs – the contrast between densely
droning rock tunes and widely breathing dub versions can be
experienced very vividly here. In the 90s, dub’s in§uence on
post-punk decreased while turning up even more distinctively
somewhere else: Techno was in many respects susceptible
to dub, to say nothing of the music from the so-called British
hardcore continuum (jungle, drum & bass etc.), which directlydeveloped from dub and reggae. But also “pure” techno –
meaning techno without breakbeats – discovered its a¨nity
for the possibilities of dub at an early stage, in England for
instance in projects like Left¦eld or The Orb. In addition, the
project Rhythm & Sound was established in Berlin with close
ties to the Hardwax record store. With regard to this project,
you can’t really say where dub ends and where techno begins
(or vice versa) because of the interconnection of the two
genres here – everything is based on the steppers pulse
which links the two styles like a common DNA. With dub
techno a new genre was created. Until the present day, there
are producers who don’t produce anything else and DJs who
don’t put on any other music. The Messer dubs are
characterized by a grand majestic manner and force that
presumably someone like Mad Professor is able to produce
and that is also inherent in many Scandinavian productions
of the last 15 years; a crystal-clear aesthetic which locates
itself far away from Kingston or Brixton, but features a pulse
referring clearly to Berlin and Helsinki. The songs appear in a
completely new and deconstructed form, the instruments are
exclusively used as particles and raw material, not as riffs;
merely glaring guitar textures ¦ll the wide dub space. There
are many new elements that were added by Toto Belmont,
especially synthesizer sounds and drums. The ¦nal result
creates an enormous aesthetic power and dignity, and an
atmosphere you don’t want to leave anymore. “No Future” is
a well-chosen title as a reference to the protagonists’ punk
association; as a main thrust of the album, however, a
comma between these two words is imaginable as well.

“Maestro melodist Christophe Petchanatz (aka Klimperei) and all around music fanatic David Fenech engage remotely in a repetitive exchange of recordings and overdubs on their debut album titled ‘Rainbow de Nuit’, sporadically spanning over the last decade. Evocations of experimental and improvised jazz, chansonesque songs, bluesy folk, and outsider music undulate harmoniously across the record. From music boxes and walkie-talkies down to plastic straws, plucking various stringed instruments such as the charrango and banjo, kazoos and snake-charmer ocarina and flutes, all the way through the sweet accordion and melodica, found and traditional tuned percussion - there is far from a shortage of sound sources on this freakishly inviting record. What germinates as an imaginative and emotional chord progression played by Klimperei, evolves with Fenech layering additional recordings, which would then find their way back home to Klimperei yet again, and so on, and so forth. This recursive compositional and improvisational loop, combined with Fenech’s musique-concrete-like mixing and editing techniques, transforms the acoustic recordings by way of compression, saturation, and reverberation or simple pitch changes - resulting in the duo’s recordings seemingly sound like they may very well be an octet in real time. While the majority of the recordings have been ping-ponged remotely, David and Christophe unite under one roof to record the closing track of the album.

The pieces presented on ‘Rainbow de Nuit’ treat the ears to a carousel ride waltzing through a multiverse made up of surrealist puppet theaters, dramatic film noir act changes, and a mosaic of polyphonic instruments and toys alike. In other words, a score to a fable brought to life with haunting yet charming melodies and occasional hallucinatory voices reminiscent of laughter and infantile epiphanies which we hear on Tarzan en Tasmanie and Madrigal for Lola. This is taken a step further by Fenech, to a brief libretto of incomprehensible tongues on Pocarina. Amid the mysterious and dark (Septième Ciel and Rugit Le Coeur) also lies tender and simple compositions (Rainbow de Nuit and Chevalier Gambette), murky suspenseful melancholy (Levy Attend and Eno Ennio), and casually slipping into pensive psychedelic backdrops (Un Cercueil à Deux Places) - forming a colorful blend of sounds. A world of echoes. A tale of tales. One persistent earworm that you’ll likely be whistling and humming along to on a first listen.”

Hailing from Los Angeles, Jimmy Tamborello has been a key figure in refining what today is considered electronica for over 20 years. "The Seas Trees See" is the first of two Dntel albums to be released in 2021 by Morr Music in collaboration with Les Albums Claus: a free-floating and rather loose stroke of musical genius, giving ambience a whole new meaningful context. It combines crackles and hiss with deep, yet modest, synths and poignant, yet elegant, vocals and lyrics. "Away", its counterpart album, will follow later in 2021. It will showcase Dntel’s unapologetic love for pop music from a long-gone era, presenting yet another aspect of his multi-faceted personality. Dntel has always covered many musical grounds – from the pop-infused hits on "Life Is Full Of Possibilities" (Plug Research, 2001) to his much more abstract works on "Aimlessness" (Pampa Records, 2012), "Human Voice” (Leaving Records, 2014), and his electronics for The Postal Service (Sub Pop). Whatever his style – Tamborello has retained his very own musical voice.

When it comes to producing music, it can be a good idea to get away from the studio and find a more relaxed environment. Inspiration does not necessarily require huge bass bins. Fewer pieces of gear make it easier to really focus on ideas first and let them be. After recording "Hate In My Heart" – his most recent album, released in 2018 – this way, Tamborello continued working in that fashion, mainly jamming and getting ideas together for upcoming live shows. One of the first results of this creative process was the opening track of "The Seas Trees See" – a cover version of "The Lilac and the Apple", originally recorded by Californian folk singer Kate Wolf in 1977. Tamborello turns the acapella song into a vocoder-like extravaganza. Working with the original recording, the track perfectly sets the tone for what "The Seas Trees See" turns out to be – a quiet yet mesmerizing journey through sound and emotion, bringing together his very own sound design, disguised samples and an incredible feel for moods and atmospheres.

"I thought a lot about making an album that you would find in a thrift store", Tamborello remembers. Something "like a mysterious collection of sketches that leaves a lot unanswered. It doesn’t beg for attention or have any big moments." Despite its perfect and gentle flow, it is worth digging deeper, to surrender oneself to all the painstakingly placed details. Whether the beautiful and haunting piano work on "Movie Tears" or the almost sidechained-sounding "Yoga App" – every aspect of this album has been beautifully crafted, often bringing one of life’s biggest questions to the table: What if? What would have happened if Tamborello would have done this on that track or that on this track? It is good that he did not. Small things add up to something great, diverse and riveting.

The subtlety of his latest endeavor is fascinating. It opens up a new world, in which small musical sketches mean at least as much as perfectly produced pop anthems – if not more.

There are no two voices like these. The late Amália Rodrigues, the Queen of Fado, a unique singer up there with the great voices of 20th century popular song like Piaf, Sinatra, Ella, Oum Kalthoum. Mariza, the young singer that has helped bring Fado into the 21st century. Two of the greatest and most influential stylists of Fado, the ex-libris of Portuguese popular music, a world cultural heritage.

Two artists who have a lot in common, beyond their origin. Mariza swept global audiences off their feet like only Amália had done in the 1950s and 1960s, with her residences at legendary venues such as the Paris Olympia or Carnegie Hall. Through her critically acclaimed recordings and unexpected collaborations, Mariza expanded what Fado could be – just like Amália had done in the 1960s and 1970s. Mariza became the ambassador of Portugal’s music in the 21st century like only Amália had been able to be in the 20th century.

2020, the 20th anniversary of Mariza’s career, the centenary of Amália’s birth. “This the best way I can find to pay my tribute to Amália, and to thank her for the legacy and inspiration she gave us,” says Mariza. It’s been a long time coming, but now it’s here: Mariza Sings Amália. Ten Amália standards reinvented for the 21st century, their soul intact, their identity unmistakable, their stylings unexpected.

For this new album, Mariza invited an old friend – Brazilian musician and producer Jaques Morelenbaum, regular accomplice of Ryuichi Sakamoto or Caetano Veloso. Morelenbaum produced Mariza’s triple-platinum 2005 album Transparente; here, he creates a seductive, inspired series of orchestral arrangements, simultaneously classic and innovative, that allow Mariza to delve into songs we all thought we knew and make them new, fresh, ravishing.

Mariza may have performed all over the world, may have multi-platinum albums that topped charts throughout the glove, may have received endless prestigious awards – but in the studio, face to face with the standards that defined Fado for global audiences, Mariza is starting from scratch. She has recorded Amália before, but never like this, never with this wisdom, this experience, this power of interpretation. Now was the time to try on for size the great Amália classics: “Gaivota”, “Estranha Forma de Vida”, “Com que Voz”, “Fado Português”, “Povo que Lavas no Rio”, “Foi Deus”... Ten in all for an album where Mariza more than lives up to her awards, her success, her performances and assumes the mantle only Amália wore before: that of an ambassador of music, culture, talent.

Recorded between Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro, Mariza sings Amália. Like only Amália could have done, like only Mariza can. Is it Fado? Yes, and no. Above all, it’s a match made in heaven.

“The Obvious I would sound unutterably pretty even as an instrumental album. But once you factor in a voice whose purity has elicited comparisons to Robert Wyatt, Mark Hollis and Dean Wareham, the effect is something akin to hearing a ghost transmitting from a machine of its own making” - Pete Paphides ‘The Obvious I’ is the second album from Ed Dowie and is the second new master release from Needle Mythology. In 2017, Ed released his feted debut album ‘The Uncle Sold’, leading The Quietus to hail him as a “bold and starry-eyed visionary”, The Skinny to praise his “beautiful… stolen snapshots of glimpsed futures and lost pasts.” and BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction made the record one of their albums of the year. Now, four years on, Ed is to return with an album that will surely find him new followers alongside longtime fans such as Lauren Laverne, who described its predecessor as an “absolutely extraordinary” achievement. Adhering to Kraftwerk’s maxim about achieving the maximum emotional impact by the most minimal means 'The Obvious I' marks a pronounced evolution from Dowie’s earlier music. Co-produced by pioneering British experimental musician and sometime member of Polar Bear “Leafcutter John” Burton what ultimately emerged from these efforts – and what reveals itself with successive plays – is a beguiling process of alchemy. Each song from The Obvious I is the culmination of a beautiful process of distillation. A crystal extracted from chaos. Tumult distilled into lullaby. “My biggest battle,” says Ed Dowie, “was to ask myself how I can make something that reflects the turbulence of this period without adding to it.” By that metric, and several more, The Obvious I is no small triumph.

This critically acclaimed duo made their debut in 2018 with the album ‘Last things’
on Oslo Session Recordings (OSR003 & OSR003LP), which received international
praise.
For the duo’s ‘Chasing Sunset’ album, singer Siril Malmedal Hauge has this time around
contributed as a lyricist and composer on three tracks, including the title song; ‘Chasing Sunsets, ‘Time, and the jazzy ballad ‘Wake Up’, that also features tenor-sax-great
Knut Riisn s as special guest. Jazz guitarist Jacob Young is known for his three albums
as a leader on ECM (‘Evening Falls, ‘Sideways’ and ‘Forever Young’), as a sideman with
Manu Katche, Karin Krog, Sidiki Camara and as the driving force behind the label Oslo
Session Recordings.
On ‘Chasing Sunsets’ he has written three new songs, which feature him as both guitarist and singer.
The album consists of three vocal duets where Siril’s vocals blends with Jacobs voice;
check out the sonic adventurous feel on tracks; ‘How Can I Advise You’, ‘The Ceiling’ and
‘High Alert. The remaining songs are gems from the popular music canon, with surprises
like the cover of the famed Norwegian Pop Anthem of the north, ‘The Lovesong’ (Kj
rlighetsvisa), written by Halvdan Sivertsen and sung in English for the first time.
Other gems include the Burt Bacharach/Hal David classic ‘I Say A Little Prayer’, and other
well-known masterpieces such as ‘You are So Beautiful’ and ‘My Ideal’.

Autopsia is a cult art project dealing with music and visual production.
Its art practice began in London in the late 1970s and continued during the 1980s in the art centers of the former Yugoslavia.
Since 1990, Autopsia has acted from Prague, Czech Republic.
Above all Autopsia is not concerned with music. What is Autopsia? Art? Theory? Framing? Projection? Gaze? Autopsia is
language is image is sound. Autopsia is a tombstone on the grave of time. Autopsia is archaeology. The discourse of the
beginning and about the beginning. At the beginning is Death and the pity of Death. The music is in the pity.
The music of Autopsia oscillates from romanticism to avantgarde, from industrial rhythms and dark ambient drones to relentless
choral swells and academic minimalism.
Autopsia Archive 1982-1995
Engineered & Mastered at Mustakillah Studio Prague, 2017
Released by Other Voices Records VOX 35 LP
Marketed and distributed by Kontakt Audio

Dark, psychosexual electronics lurk between the teeth of Ester Kärkkäinen, the Las Vegas based artist also known as Himukalt. For the past six years, she has tirelessly pursued an avenue of bleak industrial productions that parallel the extremist works of Genocide Organ and Atrax Morgue. She has built a considerable reputation for uncompromising, full-frontal noise, releasing albums on Total Black, Malignant Records, Found Remains, and Foul Prey, amongst others. Between My Teeth was originally a cassette which came out in 2018 as a tiny edition on the Greek imprint Several Minor Promises and sold out immediately upon release. Himukalt returns to The Helen Scarsdale Agency with the necessary reissue of Between My Teeth as a vinyl edition with expanded artwork.

The album is a maelstrom of ill-tempered noise and blackened frequencies, sutured to a foundation of primitive, raw rhythms. Kärkkäinen cuts up her own voice with the digital equivalent of a rusted razor blade through her proclamations of misery, rage, and desire. The albums' opening track "Cataclysm" a turgid industrial production with Kärkkäinen adopting two distinct voices that, while they remain mostly indecipherable in content, the context presumes an inevitable, catastrophic and emotionally violent collapse in the relationship between two people. A tense rhythm clicks below the full spectrum bursts of harsh noise on "She Went Mad" followed by the smoldering power electronic moves of "I No Longer Belong" and "Not Proper." And the death disco groove of "Mine" is far more hellish than danceable through its scalded distortion and Kärkkäinen's vocal mantras about bodily self-loathing.

Another bold, declarative album in the ever impressive Himukalt discography. Remastered by James Plotkin and features a 12 page booklet of Kärkkäinen's signature collaged xerography.

"“Antidepressant”, originally released in 2006, is Lloyd Cole’s follow-up album to the critically acclaimed “Music In A Foreign Language”. It is a vivid album, recorded entirely by Cole himself, yet sounding like the production of a full band – a drastic change from the stripped-down sound of “Music In A Foreign Language”. Above all reigns Cole’s characteristic voice with his distinguished lyricism, ranging from the heartfelt to the sarcastic, which established him as one of the most articulate songwriters of the post-punk era. From the upbeat Bluesrock of the title track to the Country-esque “Travelling Light”, Antidepressant is a confident album with an impressive range.
It is finally available on vinyl for the first time ever via earMUSIC, including a bonus 7” Single featuring ‘Coattails’, a song recorded during the original album sessions which never made it onto the tracklist. Truly a collector’s item that no fan of the British pop-poet would want to miss."

It took Sibille Attar five years and a lot of soul searching to produce Paloma’s Hand, the 2018 EP that served as the long-awaited follow-up to her debut album, Sleepyhead. Both that record and her first EP, 2012’s The Flower’s Bed, seemingly left her with the world at her feet, with widespread critical acclaim, television appearances and a Swedish Grammy nomination for Best Newcomer. The years that followed, though, involved both creative and personal turmoil, and left her feeling increasingly adrift musically as the uglier side of the industry reared its head.

“For a long time in my life, I tried to sit in certain constellations to please other people,” she says. “And it didn’t work, because I could only do it for a little while before I’d get frustrated and want to do things my own way. There was a time when I felt like I couldn’t trust the business, and it was draining me of my love for the music. Eventually, I realised you can’t live your life trying to fit into somebody else’s mould all the time.”

Paloma’s Hand, a six-track pop odyssey that slalomed through genres, brought years of struggle to a long-overdue end. Just as importantly, though, it served as a much-needed palate cleanser for Attar, breaking through the barrier of writer’s block. Just two years later, she’s back with her second full-length, the aptly-titled A History of Silence, a reference to that long period of searching for her voice. “I thought about calling it A History of Violence, because in many ways, the album is like a violent attempt to tell my own story when I’ve been silenced,” she explains.

Key to the pace at which she was able to work this time around was a realisation that she functions best on her own - “I just felt like, “fuck it - I can’t be bothered dealing with other people and their opinions.” Accordingly, A History of Silence was written, recorded and mixed entirely by Attar herself, and where she needed a little bit of outside help - sweeping strings on the epic "Dream State", for instance - she penned the arrangements herself and had friends record them exactly as directed. “It seems like that’s the way I have to work to get things done, and it helped things come together really quickly - the first song was done at the start of 2019, and the last one was finished around the time the pandemic was taking hold. It was frantically fast, but I work one song at a time, so it was never too chaotic."

The album never sounds too chaotic, either; like Paloma's Hand, it takes a broad approach to pop, but one that’s anchored by the key through-lines of sharp melodies and atmospheric soundscapes. Largely recorded in Attar’s Stockholm apartment, A History of Silence finds room for everything from sparse alt-rock ("Go Hard or Go Home") to spacey, electropop (the Madonna cover "Oh Father"), via the more up-tempo likes of "Somebody’s Watching". “On some tracks, I had really specific influences in mind,” says Attar. “There’s a lot of eighties stuff going on, and I was deliberately tracking down those kinds of synthesizers to try to capture that sound.”

Attar shies away from talking in too much detail about the themes that run through A History of Silence - she wants the record to be received as universally as possible - but it’s clear that the album marks the beginning of a hugely exciting new chapter after the rebirth that Paloma’s Hand represented. “If anything, it’s like a preacher’s album,” she says. “I’m preaching to myself, teaching myself, telling myself off in the lyrics. It’s about accepting loss of power, changing expectations, and getting rid of some heavy baggage. That’s the way I made the album, and it meant I had no limits - every single idea I had, I tried. When I said I was falling out of love with music, that feels like a very long time ago now.”

Two of our favorite records that we here at Real Gone Music have reissued in the last few years were the debut pair of records (both originally released in the early ‘70s) by legendary Brazilian percussionist Airto; each album serves up a savory, bubbling stew of Brazilian folk, fusion jazz and bossa nova spiced with a hint of tropicalia. While Airto’s contributions on each record were, of course, front and center, there was another player on those records that almost stole the show: one Severino Dias de Oliveira a.k.a. Sivuca, a small, wizened man (often somewhat uncharitably described as “gnomish”) whose dazzling virtuosity on accordion, guitar, and keyboards—coupled with a powerful singing voice that belied his small stature—made one instantly sit up and take notice. Further investigation revealed that stealing the show was nothing new to Sivuca; championed by Oscar Brown, Jr., he was the instant star of tours by both Harry Belafonte and Miriam Makeba among others. Sivuca started making records back in the mid ‘50s, and recorded for a number of labels in the States, including Reprise and RCA, but it is this record, made in 1973 for the Vanguard label, that is the one that collectors worldwide have zeroed in upon. And with good reason; it offers the same beautiful blend of styles found on those Airto records, but with an emotional shading all its own, a joyfulness paradoxically infused with melancholy, best expressed on Sivuca’s mesmerizing take on Bill Withers’ oft-covered “Ain’t No Sunshine,” which is likely to become your favorite version.

Lydmor's new album 'Capacity' is a musical maze full of alluring mysteries. At the same time, it is part of a process of liberation, which is about opening oneself up and discovering one's capacity. For her previous album, Lydmor travelled to Shanghai. But on her new album, Lydmor has mostly travelled deep into herself. 'Capacity' is a contrasting musical work where fiction and reality merge into a multifaceted sound universe. It is the electronic pop artist's most personal, complex and conceptual album to date. There is almost a David Lynch'ish cut about 'Capacity'. The album is like a winding maze where it is difficult to decipher what is real and what is an illusion. Like a book with countless narratives. Without conclusions. Ambiguous. Full of alluring mysteries, dreams, reflections and messages about gender, identity, love, guilt and liberation. Rich in contrasts: Black/white. Silence/noise. Weakness/strength. Fiction/reality. Labyrinth/compass.
Multiple media has compared the quirky voice to the likes of Grimes, Kate Bush or Björk but inevitably the comparisons fall short. (Kaltblut Magazine) - With brutal honesty, unbelievable vulnerability and yet dreamy, she sings the soul out in her pulsating electronic pop songs. The soft, bright voice is deceptive. Denmark's "hidden gem" is a must-listen. (Flux FM) - She is every bit as innovative as Madonna ever was when she started out. Lydmor ticks all the boxes; the girl has everything. For my money she’s the most ground-breaking, inventive artist in Europe right now, possibly in the world. (God Is In The TV, UK) - A unique artist who somehow manages to combine sophisticated and subtle balladry with strident electronic pop, I’ve declared previously that I believe she is only one step away from becoming a big name. Perhaps the feelings are supposed to be mutually inclusive, as the song swings musically from simply cold to complexly hot. It is one that does try to combine both sides of her song writing persona, the introverted balladry and the more elaborate, extrovert electro-pop. (Nordic Music Review) - Revolting pop pathos, primed with pumped up beats. (Negative White, Switzerland)

La Musica is a dreamy track for the perfect Balearic experience. Written by the "Balearicos" it comes with 2 great remixes, one from the chillout legend Cris Coco and another one from Rudy's Midnight Machine .

The original version comes with a long and chill intro of over 2 minutes where echoes and synthetic pads build up the atmosphere to a heavenly happy place until the beloved classic combo of tr 909 and Korg M1 Pianos send all us back to 90s open air dance floor in Ibiza.

There is where the journey starts, accompanied by the piano chords and Brazilian sounding voices, saying: "La Musica".

After the Hype we go back to a chill place, and a soft ending of the track.
Perfect for a set on the beach or as a warm up record, will fit perfectly in your Balearic session.

Rudy's Midnight Machine takes the elements written by R.B. and shakes everything into a Disco dimension.

All the elements for the perfect track are in place: Funky Bassline, Open Hi Hats and muted guitar plus an exploding chorus with a great melodic hook.
You can't miss this tune if you are into Disco with a classy and modern feeling.

Chris Coco's remix is a classic take made with great taste.
He keeps the harmonic elements as well as the bass line almost intact, plays around with the vocals and adds melodic bits that almost give a tropical feeling.

Don't be fooled by a soft intro because the rhythm is soon coming in and taking the listener to the dancing zone. It may generate good moods and generally happiness.

When Linda Smith purchased a 4 track cassette recorder in the mid-1980s she was playing guitar in a band called the Woods, and thought it would be useful for sharing demos with her bandmates. In the end, the new hobby followed her from New York back to her native Baltimore, and over the next decade she’d release several albums worth of delicate, bewitching solo music on cassette. Till An- other Time: 1988-1996 is the first retrospective collection of Smith’s charmingly lo-fi music.

Sparse and gentle, Linda’s music is tinged with lovelorn melancholy despite the sweetness of her voice. Over ‘60s pop-indebted melo- dies on tracks like “A Crumb Of Your Affection”, she delivers ob- servations with an earnest softness. Elsewhere, her voice takes on a post punk deadpan, as on “I See Your Face.” The effect of both modes is a haunting charm, equally reminiscent of early Cherry Red Records and ‘60s yé-yé.

With a no-nonsense approach to recording, Linda recorded almost all of her songs at home. There was a creative freedom that came with recording on tape, and unbeknownst to her, this was a conclu- sion that many musicians were reaching at the time.

Unfortunately, the independence that made at-home recording ap- pealing to Linda also made it difficult for her to reach a wider au- dience. Relying on niche publications, cassette trading, and word of mouth to share music, Linda released a few 7”s on labels like Slumberland and Harriet but remained relatively local in terms of reach. Nevertheless, one can trace a direct line from Linda Smith to the ubiquity of bedroom recording today.

Young Knives will announce their fifth album, Barbarians, to be released on 4th September 2020. The announcement will be accompanied by a single, ‘Sheep Tick’, and its extraordinary video.

Barbarians was written, recorded and mixed by Young Knives (brothers Henry Dartnall and The House of Lords) in their studio near Oxford, UK. John Gray’s book Straw Dogs inspired the brothers to dial into the ultra-violent, brutal nature of human beings. Our progresses in science and knowledge have not made us any less barbaric: our entertainment is obsessed with it, our world is full of it. What if cruelty to others is just part of who we are? How do we live with that?

Building on a base of loved hits from their early work last decade (Voices of Animals and Men, Superabundance, Ornaments from the Silver Arcade) and the metamorphosis of 2013’s Sick Octave, Barbarians is a leap into sonic experimentation by a band who love to confuse and entertain in equal measure.

Corvair is what happens when you trap two Scorpio songwriters in a house together. Comprised of a Portland-based husband / wife duo of two seasoned musicians (Brian Naubert and Heather Larimer), Corvair’s debut album charts a starcrossed love story over three decades, five cities, and six continents. Spanning from atmospheric pop to jangly confessional, 70s AM to 90s FM, this work is laden with stunning turns of phrase and prodigious melodies, two voices leaping to meet in the ether. Corvair’s debut album was largely created during the COVID pandemic shut-down of Spring 2020. It includes work with drummer Eric Eagle (Jesse Sykes, Wayne Horvitz) and Engineer Martin Feveyear (Brandi Carlile, Mark Lanegan, Mudhoney), who also mixed the record. Larimer explains, “Being stuck in a house together with very little outside influence made us more emotionally raw, definitely weirder, and also more patient and intricate in developing the songs. And because we were in a bubble, cooking dinners from paranoidly-disinfected groceries and listening to old records, really disparate references from some of our favorite music ended up colliding in odd ways--an emotional Judas Priest bridge, an anthemic Pixies outro, a spacey keyboard sound from Steve Miller, Jeff Lynne's acoustic guitar tone, a Carpenters-style lush harmony. I think it's a wonderfully weird record, but also very in-your-face pop because what else are you going to do when the world feels like it's ending?" Separately, Naubert and Larimer have created or appeared on more than 20 records. Heather’s musical mainstay was the garage pop band Eux Autres, broadly hailed as a “veritable cult classic” band, radio-debuted by the legendary John Peel, and featured in many shows, movies and commercials. Brian is a longtime fixture of the Northwest rock community, having played in vital bands such as Tube Top, Pop Sickle, and the critically-lauded Ruston Mire, since 1993. More recently, Brian released his first solo record, Hoffabus and a record with the NW Supergroup, The Service Providers. Naubert and Larimer’s decades of separate music making have finally combined, culminating in this tour de force from two formidable songwriters. Corvair sounds like nothing you’ve ever heard and everything you’ve always loved.
Press quotes: “Smart, infectious, jangly pop.” Everett True // “An irresistible set of bouncy indie-pop tinged with surf music and ‘60s girl groups, contrasted with the band’s often-biting lyrics.” KEXP.org // “One of the more exciting independent releases of the year...a veritable cult classic.” Under The Radar // “Three chord garage pop that hangs on a raunchy guitar line and crisp production from Janet Weiss (Sleater-Kinney, Quasi).” MAGNET Magazine // Brian Naubert - vocals, guitars, bass, keyboards, percussion. Heather Larimer - vocals, keyboards, percussion.

About a hundred kilometers south-west of Bamako, on the left bank of the Niger River, the Malian village of Kela is known to be home to a large community of griot musicians (jeliw) mostly belonging to the Diabaté family. Their art is recognised throughout West Africa and many griots come from all over the world to stay there, sometimes for several years, in the hope of becoming immersed in it. The six pieces for voice accompanied by guitar or traditional koni lutes were recorded in 1978 (tracks 3 to 6) and in 2019 (tracks 1 to 3), in the same traditional dwelling, which still serves as a "studio". The accompanying booklet contains the testimonies of several important musicians who took part in the recording, and evoke key elements of their universe

Points of interests

- For the fans of the traditional repertoires of Mali's famous griot musicians.

- For music lovers who love the voices accompanied by the guitar and the traditional lutes of the griots.

- Recordings made 40 years apart in the same "studio": a dwelling located in the village of Kela (Mali), from where famous lineages of griots originate.

- Original sound archive on magnetic tapes, digitised and restored in 2019.

- Fourteen colour photographs, taken in 1978 and 2019 at the same time as the sound recordings.

Montreal-based producer & DJ Slick Shoota brings us Function, his debut LP and first solo release on the Teklife imprint. A native of Norway known for his renowned Oslo club night Ball Em Up, he's been a member of the elite crew since 2015, contributing tracks to the label's compilations such as On Life Vol. 2 and VIP Trax. Using a unique palate that combines both traditional footwork drums and eclectic otherworld sonics, this album expands on the signature sound he's been brewing during the course of his career, celebrating his longtime love of the Chicago soundscape, with a healthy helping of UK rave, jungle, and vibes from other fast paced club realms. Slick starts the record off with Hovercraft, a big burly mutant rap beat riding a glowing titanic wave of jungle subbass, with vicious hi-hats stabbing through the mix. Desire Path follows with hysterical horns cruising along a stampede of erratic Chicago percussion. A glitchy, malfunctioning computer meets drumline stomps on See Me Flex, resulting in a psychotic, yet psychedelic sci-fi soundscape. Ultra-distorted hardcore kicks open up Jellyneck, dropping straight into a dungeon of ghostly vocals and headlong toms. Warehouse 2K opens up the B-side with R&B chops and lasers floating on a charming cloud of pulsating pads. Mad doppler sirens loop around your head on Delahaze, as distant clangs and crashes fight an impatient, throbbing bassline. Classic rave atmospheres are met with Slick's elegant sound design on MTL Hardcore, his ode to his adoptive city. The album closes off with Special Tek, channeling the signature quirky drum sounds of the late DJ Rashad over a pounding, fast paced house beat, a wonderful nod to the Windy City and its influential sonic culture. Carving out his own sound from the legacies of Chicago, the UK, and other underground club hotspots, Slick Shoota has found his own recognizable voice within these realms of dance music, and this LP serves as documentation of that solidified voice. Years of studying the masters and immersing himself with their work has clearly paid off, and he's respectfully taking these sounds he loves in exciting new directions. Bridging gaps both historical and geographical, Function marks a pivotal point in his career, and is clear evidence that Slick Shoota is vital member of the legendary Teklife family.

It’s hard not to notice such an unforgettable sleeve, and if the music it protects is half as memorable as the artwork, you know you just have to hear it. We don’t think you’ll be disappointed because yes, this is the majestic 1971 album Un Muñeco De Madera, courtesy of the shadowy Sola, and it sounds exactly as you’d want it to. Originally released on RCA in Mexico, it’s kaleidoscopic Acapulcan-funk.

The album’s endless grooves are propelled by softly rocking, quasi-library funk breaks. Vocally, Sola is in step with the 60s French pop-chanteuse style, but of course her lyrics are delivered in sensuous Spanish. Her voice is beautiful. Pillowy soft and tender, it can suddenly explode in mystical anger. These are ten tracks of moody, mysterious vibes that stir the spirit and sooth the soul.

The LP was written, arranged and directed by prolific Spanish composer Manuel Alejandro, the man behind an incredible number of now classic Latin love songs from the 60s, 70s and 80s. As for Sola herself, next to nothing is known about the Mexican singer except the occasional whisper heard in only the darkest corners of the annals of music history. It’s said that upon growing disillusioned with the music industry she ended up in a convent of Carmelite Sisters. Fitting perhaps, given that Un Muñeco De Madera is a spiritual wonder of a record.

Much-loved single and title-track “Un Muñeco De Madera” opens the album. It introduces us to Sola’s sparkling Latin-funk, bursting with swaggering grooves sewn by tight drums, sweeping strings and lush keys. It’s followed by the serene but melancholic bossa groove of “Oye Mamá, Oye Papá” and the strings and guitar of “He Bajado Al Infierno” that hold up vocals reaching for an eternal truth. With full-on soundtracky feels, the rolling keys underpinning the Morricone-esque soundscape of “En Ellos Creo” will give you goosebumps. The gorgeous “Soy Rebelde” (“I’m Rebellious”), sets its gentle, piano-led delivery in delicate contrast to the lyrical sentiment.

Perhaps Sola’s most well-known track, the exotic bossa of “Tabu, Tabu”, is a formidable groove. Elegant bongos, prominent bass, delicate acoustics and a persistent flute blend with Sola’s unique voice; sinuous, sassy and forceful at the same time. The stunning “La Última Palabra”, while not literally the album’s last word, is nevertheless a stirring statement of strutting Latin soul, with more musical ideas packed into this one song than the entirety of most long-players.

If you hadn’t decided already, the final two tracks that are the funk-fuelled “Bada-Bada-Ba” and the horn-heavy percussive masterclass “Únete A Mi” will leave you in no doubt that this is one very special record.

Mastered with great respect by Simon Francis, cut by the master Pete Norman and with that sleeve lovingly restored by the Be With team, this re-issue ensures that Un Muñeco De Madera now sounds, looks and feels as beautiful as it deserves to.
: Un Muñeco De Madera (LP)

Three years in the making only to be held up nearly another whole year due to COVID, this dark brooding monster of an EP by Brussels based Strapontin, aka multi-disciplinary artist Patrick Belmont, is finally seeing the light of day.

Clocking in at over 35-minutes the record is almost album length and spans a multitude of depths and moods with elements of techno, new wave, rock 'n' roll, house and tribal…...all glued together with a sleazy atmosphere reminiscent of the electronic body music pioneered by Strapontin’s Belgian forefathers Front 242 and their German peers DAF.

Add to this a heads-down-no-nonsense darkroom beast of a remix by techno maestro Sascha Funke and the package is complete.

Strapontin provides us with some insight:

“It started with a desire to move away a bit from my 'dancefloor' side and go into more undefined fields, I wanted to work with blurry sensations that I can't understand. I like mixed feelings. Dramatex 300 is made of that ambivalent mood. The voice is saying 'I'm feeling empty' and 'I'm feeling healthy' at the same time. I like that paradox. Eunuque is a song but is also a character I will develop in a short movie (which will act as the 'music video' of the song). The Eunuque is a character full of anger yet he doesn't want to fight nor has he a target to aim at. A restrained aggressivity is boiling inside him/it that has no opportunity to escape from the body and gain release. The song is the fever he feels from these inner battles. I think Le Bain d'Huile and Anti-sceptical have the same slow and angry feeling. I'm proud of these tracks because they are a bit mysterious to me and it feels like they controlled me more than I controlled them.”

Getting plays from Monika Seta & Alexis Le-Tan

It is the simple thing that is so hard to do. This is the paradox that musician Lael
Neale has lived within throughout her development as an artist. It is the reason she
became enthralled with poetry. Poems are a distillation. Lael says, “this challenge to
winnow away what is unessential is the most maddening and, ultimately, rewarding
part of writing a song.”
Lael’s new album ‘Acquainted With Night’ is a testament to this poetic devotion.
Stripped of any extraneous word or sound, the songs are lit by Lael’s crystalline
voice which lays on a lush bed of Omnichord. The collection touches on themes that
have been thread into her work for years: isolation, mortality, yearning and reaching
ever toward the transcendent experience.
Lael grew up on a farm in rural Virginia but for nearly 10 years called Los Angeles
home. Those years were spent developing her songwriting and performing in venues
across the city but the right way to record the songs proved more elusive. She says,
“Every time I reached the end of recording, I felt the songs had been stripped of
their vitality in the process of layering drums, bass, guitar, violin, and organ over
them. They felt weighed down.”
In a moment of illumination, the solution presented itself: do the simple thing. In
early 2019, in the midst of major transition, she acquired a new instrument - the
Omnichord - and began recording a deluge of songs. Guy Blakeslee, who had been
an advocate for years, set up a cassette recorder in her bedroom and provided
empathic guidance, subtle yet affecting accompaniment and engineering prowess.
Limited to only 4-tracks and first takes, Lael had to surrender some of her
perfectionism to deliver the songs in their essence.
The first song she recorded was ‘For No One For Now’, which calls to mind the
agitated beat of driving fast on the freeway against the backdrop of the San
Fernando Valley’s bent palms. The song contrasts romantic idealizations with the
banality of folding sheets and toasting bread. It highlights her oft-thwarted attempts
to enjoy the day to day while her mind wanders off toward the dream, the ideal.
While Lael returned to her family farm in April 2020, Los Angeles is a player on this
album and ‘Every Star Shivers in the Dark’ is an ode to the sprawling city, the
outskirts of Eden. One can envision her walking from Dodgers Stadium to downtown,
observing strangers and her own strangeness but determined to find communion
with others. ‘Blue Vein’ is her personal anthem, a Paul Revere piece that gallops
through the town as a strident declamation. It is an amalgam of thoughts, concerns
and lessons as she nearly speaks the words, unmasked by flourishes, ensuring the
meaning cuts through.
Normally a morning person, Lael recorded most of these songs in the darkening of
the early evening, and so became ‘Acquainted With Night’.
CD in gatefold altpack.
LP first pressing on white vinyl.
Cassette with three-panel J-card in clear case.

It is the simple thing that is so hard to do. This is the paradox that musician Lael
Neale has lived within throughout her development as an artist. It is the reason she
became enthralled with poetry. Poems are a distillation. Lael says, “this challenge to
winnow away what is unessential is the most maddening and, ultimately, rewarding
part of writing a song.”
Lael’s new album ‘Acquainted With Night’ is a testament to this poetic devotion.
Stripped of any extraneous word or sound, the songs are lit by Lael’s crystalline
voice which lays on a lush bed of Omnichord. The collection touches on themes that
have been thread into her work for years: isolation, mortality, yearning and reaching
ever toward the transcendent experience.
Lael grew up on a farm in rural Virginia but for nearly 10 years called Los Angeles
home. Those years were spent developing her songwriting and performing in venues
across the city but the right way to record the songs proved more elusive. She says,
“Every time I reached the end of recording, I felt the songs had been stripped of
their vitality in the process of layering drums, bass, guitar, violin, and organ over
them. They felt weighed down.”
In a moment of illumination, the solution presented itself: do the simple thing. In
early 2019, in the midst of major transition, she acquired a new instrument - the
Omnichord - and began recording a deluge of songs. Guy Blakeslee, who had been
an advocate for years, set up a cassette recorder in her bedroom and provided
empathic guidance, subtle yet affecting accompaniment and engineering prowess.
Limited to only 4-tracks and first takes, Lael had to surrender some of her
perfectionism to deliver the songs in their essence.
The first song she recorded was ‘For No One For Now’, which calls to mind the
agitated beat of driving fast on the freeway against the backdrop of the San
Fernando Valley’s bent palms. The song contrasts romantic idealizations with the
banality of folding sheets and toasting bread. It highlights her oft-thwarted attempts
to enjoy the day to day while her mind wanders off toward the dream, the ideal.
While Lael returned to her family farm in April 2020, Los Angeles is a player on this
album and ‘Every Star Shivers in the Dark’ is an ode to the sprawling city, the
outskirts of Eden. One can envision her walking from Dodgers Stadium to downtown,
observing strangers and her own strangeness but determined to find communion
with others. ‘Blue Vein’ is her personal anthem, a Paul Revere piece that gallops
through the town as a strident declamation. It is an amalgam of thoughts, concerns
and lessons as she nearly speaks the words, unmasked by flourishes, ensuring the
meaning cuts through.
Normally a morning person, Lael recorded most of these songs in the darkening of
the early evening, and so became ‘Acquainted With Night’.
CD in gatefold altpack.
LP first pressing on white vinyl.
Cassette with three-panel J-card in clear case.

Tala Vala combine experimental recording methods bridging marginalised genres, synths, brass and strings, jagged guitars and primal percussion.

John Roffe-Ridgard is a producer and former touring musician and Ben Locket is a composer for TV and Film.

The pair began making music in 2017 and self-released their first EP on a limited vinyl run. Mixed by Jake Jackson at Masterchord studios, the records were sold exclusively through Sounds of the Universe and Bandcamp.
Enthused by the interest in the record and selling out the run, the pair set about recording a full-length album expanding on the ideas of the fist ep. The album was again performed and produced by Ben and John using mainly analogue processes, where possible utilising 24 track tape and mixed by Jake. The self-titled record was self-released on vinyl and made it into the Stranger Than Paradise top 10 albums of the year.
Album number two began as a soundtrack project in early 2019, it was abandoned as they became disillusioned with the boundaries the film was imposing. The only remaining music from the soundtrack session is the opening cue which can be heard as the last track of what became Modern Hysteric, album two.
The new album was worked on throughout 2019 and mixed in early 2020 again sticking to mainly analogue processes, avoiding any audio plugins and computer editing. Jim White (Dirty Three, Xylouris White) guest drums on two of the tracks ( Reoccurring Weather & Haxen ) bringing his instantly recognisable style to the Tala Vala sound. In addition to the string quartet and brass sections, a kora player and the manipulated voice of soprano singer, Grace Davidson can also be heard throughout the album.

Modern Hysteric will be released in early 2021 on the bands’ newly set up Number Witch Records distributed via Forte music.

Dominique Fils-Aim is a JUNO Award winning singer-songwriter from
Montreal who draws inspiration from soul icons of the 40’s and 60’s such as Billie Holiday, Etta James, and Nina Simone.
While her musical roots are grounded in early soul and jazz, her voice transcends contemporary urban soundscapes. Her sophomore record Stay Tuned!
won the 2020 JUNO Award for “Vocal Jazz Album of the Year” as well as the Felix prize for “Best Jazz Album” at the ADISQ Gala.
Her 3rd album THREE LITTLE WORDS is a startlingly self-reflective look at affecting societal change while reminding the listener that it is equality and love which feeds the soul and inspires us to do better. Fils-Aim has a disarmingly literal interpretation of soul music as music that comes from the soul, and the album pays homage to a plethora of musical genres that fed and nurtured her love of lyric-driven jazz and soul music.
Love and loving oneself is the common link throughout, and Fils-Aim is certain that love is the key that will provide us with a path to equality. We need to, and deserve to, fight for the right to love both ourselves and each other.

One of the most striking documents of Italy’s Minimalist movement, Giusto Pio’s "Motore Immobile" is a work with few equivalents. Produced by Franco Battiato in 1979, at the outset of a long and fruitful period of collaboration between the two composers, and issued by the legendary Cramps Records, its triumphs were met by silence, before falling from view.

"Motore Immobile" now sits within a reappraisal of a large neglected body of efforts made by the Italian avant-garde during the second half of the 1970’s and early 80’s. It is singular, but not alone. It resonates within a collective world of shimmering sound, one familiar to fans of Battiato, Lino Capra Vaccina, Luciano Cilio, Roberto Cacciapaglia, Francesco Messina and Raul Lovisoni.

An exercise in elegant restraint - note and resonance held to the most implicit need. Where everything between root and embellishment has been stripped away. A sublime organ drone, against interventions of deceptively simple structural complexity - executed by Piano, Violin, and Voice. A sonic sculpture reaching heights which few have touched. A thing of beauty and an album as perfect as they come.