Suche:mad work

Ambient instrumental version of Steve Von Till’s previous release No Wilderness Deep Enough.
Limited Violet Colour Vinyl.
For fans of Neurosis, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Ólafur Arnalds, Nick Cave & Warren Ellis, Brian Eno.

“Von Till has delved into prolonged and hypnotic expressions of darkness and decay...achingly slow post-classical hues (glissandro strings, mournful horns, reverb piano) fusing intimacy to grandeur. But the most stentorian, weariest voice imaginable - graver even than Mark Lanegan - and the existential dread of his words equally chills to the bones.” 4/5 MOJO (No Wilderness Deep Enough)
Steve Von Till has made a life’s work out of seeking the elemental. With a solo discography that stretches back more than two decades, he has toiled in a shadow realm, peeling back layers of reality in a never-ending search for true meaning and raw emotion. A Deep Voiceless Wilderness strips back the veil even further. An achingly beautiful ambient work with neo-classical leanings, the album is a hallucinatory and elegant rumination on our disconnect from the natural world, each other, and ultimately ourselves.
For some listeners, the album may recall the work of modern composers like Jóhann Jóhannsson, Brian Eno or Gavin Bryars. For Von Till, it’s about surrendering to the spirit of place—and to the original intent behind his 2020 solo album, No Wilderness Deep Enough. That album marked a significant first for Von Till: It was his first solo record without a guitar in hand. Instead, Von Till intoned powerful and thought-provoking lyrics over piano, cello, mellotron and analog synthesizers. A Deep Voiceless Wilderness is that same album without Von Till’s words.
“This is how I originally heard this piece of music,” he says. “Without the voice as an anchor or earthbound narrative, these pieces have a broader wingspan. They become something else entirely and unfold in a more expansive way. The depth of the synths, juxtaposed with the strings and French horn, have space to develop and allow the listener to imagine their own story.”

ith canceled shows, closed venues and lost incomes, the pandemic was bad news for many music artists. But it wasn't only bad news in 2020, as many artists used their struggle to do what they do best during difficult times: create great music. This is why N.E.W.S. Records, a record company based in Ghent releases 'Bad News. Good News.'. A limited edition vinyl record with great songs that couldn't be played live because of the pandemic. The record itself is made from the ashes of newspapers and magazines containing the bad news that hit the music industry in 2020 (and prevented artists from performing live). As proof that great music always survives bad news, no matter how desperate things can get. To create the records, N.E.W.S. Records worked with And Vinyly, a UK-based company specialized in pressing vinyl records with ashes.

Many artists collaborated on the project and shared their insight on how the bad news happening in the music world influenced their music, like Johannes Genard, lead singer of School is Cool: "The one good thing about bad times is that they open new perspectives on things you've grown accustomed to, and that is exactly our core business as artists: comforting during challenging times; challenging during comfortable times and finding new ways to look at old things."

The compilation contains some exclusives like the Brihang & Compact Disk Dummies 'Steentje / I Remember' mash up, recorded live for 'Week van de Belgische Muziek' and Sam De Nef's cover of the belpop classic 'Satelliet Suzy' recorded for StuBru.

At the end of 2016, after ten years and seven albums, Nick Thorburn quietly decided to put an end to Islands and retire from music. There was no announcement or farewell, only two shows at Webster Hall in New York and the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the band’s widely adored debut album Return to the Sea. “This seemed like a perfect time to put a cap on things and close out the circle,” Thorburn says. He switched focus, selling and producing a pilot television script, creating a graphic novel with preeminent comics publisher Fantagraphics, and scoring a few films and the occasional BBC radio show. Thorburn’s years-long leave of absence resulted in a kind of rock and roll Rumspringa, with Nick unable to shake the bug for making records. After a sudden burst of creativity from a few weeks of working in his kitchen studio, Thorburn had written dozens and dozens of songs informed by everything from late-70s avant-disco to Thea Lim’s time-travel novel An Ocean of Minutes, and would write dozens more over the next year and a half, almost all with a clear focus on rhythm and groove. Thorburn decided that if he was going to make another Islands record, he’d do it without a deadline. He also wanted to work with outside producers, which would be his first time since 2009’s Vapours. He reached out to that album’s producer, Chris Coady (Beach House, Yeah Yeah Yeahs) , and asked Islands drummer Adam Halferty and guitarist Geordie Gordon to join him in a recording session at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles. “At the time I still wasn’t sure what this new music was going to be, or if coming back to Islands even made any sense,” says Thorburn. “But once we started playing, it quickly became clear this would be the next Islands album

A collection of songs / mixtape from Sunun + Jiinx - made up of all their own material, a combination of fully realised songs (some of which you might recognise from earlier outings on BKV, Idle Hands, Euphonic Rhythms etc) as well as unheard demos / ideas and alternate versions. The mix was compiled by Jiinx over a period of nightshifts - sat in his (now cubed) car with the computer running through the stereo. You can hear the dry eyes as the tape moves through sleep deprived jungle to new-age and ambient interludes - with voices (including Sunun's own) moving in and out like real world sounds intruding into a dream (there's also a cameo from Jiinx's daughter). The tape operates in the spaces between waking and sleeping and night and day - and manages to walk the line between euphoric rave afterglow and sleepless sickness and disorientation. Definitely one for the shift workers / ravers / insomniacs. Dedicated to the roofless Beemer.

May 28 will see prolific Japanese vibraphonist, multi-percussionist and composer Masayoshi Fujita mark a new sonic direction with his forthcoming album Bird Ambience on Erased Tapes.

Bird Ambience brings several fresh changes for the artist. Until now, Fujita would separate his acoustic solo recordings from the electronic dub under his El Fog alias and experimental improvisations with contemporaries such as Jan Jelinek, Bird Ambience sees him unite all of these different sides to his work for the first time, into one singular vision. He also makes a lateral leap from his signature instrument the vibraphone, on which he created his acclaimed triptych Stories (2012), Apologues (2015) and Book of Life (2018), to the marimba, which takes centre stage on his new album alongside drums, percussion, synths, effectors and tape recorder.

“The way of playing the marimba is similar to the vibraphone, so it was kind of a natural development for me and easier to start with, yet it sounds very different”, explains Masayoshi. “The marimba bars are made with wood and it has a wider range than the vibraphone, which gives me a bigger sound palette with more possibilities. I play the instrument with bows and mallets, and sometimes manipulate it with effects.”

Bird Ambience also marks his liberation from fastidious preparation for past solo releases to new endeavours in improvisation. “I prioritised trying to capture the wonder which happens during those occasional magic improv moments. Sometimes the mic-ing and placement of instruments was pretty rough; things weren’t perfect and everything was done quickly, but it turned out as the final recording. Overall when I
couldn’t decide between two takes, I told myself to go with the first”, Masayoshi recalls.

Arranged with a perfect Kanso-like balance, the unhurried pace of Bird Ambience allows each sound and phrase enough time to be mindfully absorbed and savoured. This subtle but affective work carries ethereal remnants of Midori Takada’s minimalism, the static atmospheres of Mika Vainio, To Rococo Rot’s organics and the bucolic electronics of Minotaur Shock. Fujita vaporises contemporary and classical, ambient and dismantled dub, controlled noise and fragments of jazz into an atmospheric, static mist, which he skilfully coerces into new forms.

After 13 years in Berlin, Masayoshi recently relocated to a new home and studio in the rural Japanese mountain village of Kami-cho, Hyogo, following his life-long dream of creating music in nature. Even though the album was entirely recorded in Germany before he left, it has this palpable sense of reverie found in the natural world. From there we can only imagine the kind of impact his new life in rural West Japan will have on future works.

Ian McDonnell is an Irish producer living in Wicklow near Dublin. Alongside his solo releases as Eomac he's also one half of the duos Lakker, noeverything and Lena Andersson. 'Cracks' represents a change of scenery and a change of practice from his previous two albums which were both conceptualised from the outset and recorded while living in Berlin. In contrast 'Cracks' was made in a beautiful rural part of Ireland without any outside pressure. These circumstances allowed Ian to wipe the slate clean and make an album guided by his mood on any particular day, connecting into the subtle power of his new environment and reflecting it, rather than working to please the suffocating demands of clublife. The title 'Cracks' comes from the idea that, to quote Leonard Cohen, a crack is "how the light gets in", but also of course it's a title that bears witness to the cracks fomenting in the world right now. The music comes across with depth and passion, sounding deep and mossy with Eomac's penchant for punchy, shuffling drums underpinning the emotive tracks. From the off, the furious 'Mandate For Murder' flips and repeats Akala's protest about systemic racism, rushing deep into the panicked sirens of 'Portuguese Man O' War'. The album settles into a sense of mystery, wildness and dark otherworldliness with the foggy drone and timber kick of 'Ancient Self' reflecting the awe and spiritual connections to his new environment, much like the gorgeous strings and aqueous bleeps of 'Seashells' or the pitch-shifted shoegaze of 'Prophetess'. At other points it responds to the human condition, for instance the cathartic 'Falling Through the Cracks' where a broken scream is pitted against clattering drums. At other moments it simply reaches out; 'Reasons to Live's' whispered mantra of "I know you are loved by somebody" is gently insistent. It ends with a reference to a place he's left behind, seen through the lens of nature. 'All the Rabbits in the Tiergarten' could be a missing track from Aphex's Ambient Works, albeit with cut-up scissoring drums. The album is a fruitful move, inwards and forwards.

Following a limited 7” vinyl release of SunPalace edits in 2020, BBE Music finally delivers the full-length versions of Moodymann and Kenny Dope’s ‘Rude Movements’ remixes, alongside brand new interpretations by François K, Frankie Feliciano and OPOLOPO, plus a special edit by Phil Asher.
François Kevorkian needs no introduction to fans of House and electronic music. Featuring keys by Eric Kupper, his ‘SATS Dub’ and ‘TradMix’ versions of ‘Rude Movements’ are simply classic works, summoning House music’s golden era forward in time, to the here and now.
Bonus spaced-out ‘Flerken Space Bubbles’ and beat-less ‘Atmosphere’ revisions are also included in the digital version: both invaluable tools for DJs. Ricanstruction label founder and
long-time champion of the good groove, Frankie Feliciano delivers a slick and faithful update of ‘Rude Movements’, with a slight Latin soul twist. Swedish mix-king OPOLOPO turns in a typically live-sounding, funky and dancefloor-ready jam (ready whenever the dancefloor is,
anyway) The full, extended version of Moodymann’s remix retains the original ‘jammed’ feel of Rude Movements, adding stellar flute, sax and piano solos to that hypnotic vibe. Kenny Dope’s Afro-Latin inspired ‘Dancefloor Powder’ version is joined this time by a rough’n’ready, street tough ‘O'Gutta’ mix; calling all b-boys and b-girls! For the expanded digital package, we are also including a special edit by our sorely missed brother Phil Asher, created for his
own DJ sets and now available to all.
Made famous by David Mancuso at his New York Loft Parties, ‘Rude Movements’ was an obscure Brit-funk b-side recorded in the home studio of Mike Collins. The track’s unique sound, coupled with pristine sonics and production values caught the audiophile ears of
Mancuso, and the rest is history. Soon the track found its way into the hands of Loft Party denizens Larry Levan, Nicky Siano, Frankie Knuckles and Danny Krivit and continues to influence House and electronic producers through to this day.

Family Of Swede hail from Oakland, California and released one single in 1976 on Butter Fields Records called 'Everybody Must Pay' & 'I Got To Move On'. Prior to this they released one single as The Epics on Bridge Town Records called 'We Are Made As One'.

Both 'Living From day To Day' and 'Where Are You' are previously unreleased and were recorded in the 1970s. 'Living From Day To Day' is a glorious uptempo soulful dancer that features dueling lead vocal exchanges with some excellent clav work. On the flip the tempo is dropped with the deep soul ballad 'Where Are You'.

What began as a challenge to fight creative stagnation, soon grew into a fully-fledged audio-visual project for Belgian DJ, producer and live artist, Biesmans. Setting himself the goal of making three tracks per week for a month, he re-scored ‘80s pop culture moments – including films, TV shows and games, resulting in a brilliant 12-track work encompassing new wave, indie, dark wave, electro and
disco.
Moving his modular-heavy studio to Berlin in 2014, the ensuring years saw Joris Biesmans drop heat on Correspondent, Disco Halal, AEON, 17 Steps and Future Disco. He’s been a core member of Watergate
family since his arrival in the capital, working as the club’s sound technician. He made his debut on Watergate Records in 2020 with the well-received ‘Electric Love’ EP.
The ‘Planes, Trains & Automobiles’ album took shape in April last year as the lockdown was starting to take grip and Biesmans needed a positive distraction. Ensconced in the music of his childhood and ‘80s
pop cultural fodder, he locked himself in his studio and set about creating, later digging through archival footage to match the music. Biesmans, who previously undertook work scoring films, was so absorbed by the process, he’d sometimes do it in reverse; allowing the vintage media be the guide. Throughout the period, the clips were shared each Monday, Wednesday and Friday on his Instagram, building up a firm following from fans, friends and colleagues. And thus, the project found its wings, developing into an album.
Throughout the dozen tracks, highlights are plentiful; from the neon ambience of the Kraftwerk-inspired ‘ ‘Cosmic Cruise’, which later accompanied a smoky scene between Tom Cruise and Rebecca de Mornay in ‘Risky Business’; the sun-soaked, retro-pop title track, which became the album’s first single, and was paired with a jubilant dance scene from the Breakfast Club; ‘Cold Void’, the album’s second single, which saw Biesmans link up with fellow Belgians Boi Wonder and Tom the Bomb for a dark wave creation built around a heavy guitar solo and set against a backdrop of Blade Runner clips; and the silky electro funk of ‘Another World’ that soundtracks scenes from Miami Vice.
Biesmans explains about ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles’: “I started this as a lockdown challenge, in which I would make three tracks per week for a month, alongside providing videos where I re-scored
footage of 80s pop culture moments. Inspired by the movie of the same name, I picked the title because it ties to the theme of ‘mobility’. Our society is based upon being mobile and when Corona hit us, we
could taste a bit of being immobile. As an artist that meant, I could focus on making music 100%. No distractions, no weekend gigs, no parties just making music. This new lifestyle resulted in my first album.
A journey into the past but looking forward to the future, experimenting with other genres and techniques to make a real album that goes beyond club music.”

Growing Bin switches back into reissue mode with an off-kilter obscurity from Austrian eccentrics Molto Brutto. Equal parts amateur funk, indie jangle, art rock and idiot pop, "2" is a real weird bastard with a whole lot of charm. As the Bin continues to grow in all directions, there's plenty of space for new sounds to take root. Alongside patches of Ambient, Balearic, Kosmische and Jazz, Hamburg's audio allotment now stretches to accommodate the strange waves of Molto Brutto.

Basso dug their first LP a decade back in Stuttgart's Second Hand Records, embracing their abrasive style of sandpaper sonics and experimental urges. Interest piqued, he made the journey through their DIY catalogue, capturing excellent collaborations under the Ganslinger alias before bumping into the second of their two LPs. Originally released on their Golfdish imprint in 1988, "2" walks into the pub with an air of accessibility, but quickly unravels into glorious chaos - pissing in the corner and passing out on the bar. Pop structures are suggested then subverted.
Pints of Paisley slosh out of a broken Glass, tape loops spool onto shabby Material, and indie janglers are just a couple of stamps short of a Postcard.

Turning you tipsy, this loveable rogue starts to tell you his life story, but you're going to have to fill in some blanks. They miss 'Blackie', but who is he - a dog? What happened on the 'Deadly Vacation'? Is that song really about a 'Goldfish', or did they find out the name of America's horse? Words repeat until they lose all meaning, awkward poetry masks a lost laureate and a drunken Wurlitzer sends the room into a spin.

The pubs are shut, so get happy drunk with Molto Brutto.
Patrick Ryder

HIGHLIGHTS An emblematic figure of the Brazilian avant-garde and a key part of the cultural climate that made the rise of tropicália possible, Walter Smetak was a Swiss musician and inventor of instruments who developed his career in Brazil. "Smetak" (1974), his debut album, was produced by Caetano Veloso and Roberto Santana, and had the support of Gilberto Gil. It sums up a personal universe that combines Afro-Brazilian ritual traditions, theosophy, microtonal studies, collective improvisation and the use of unconventional musical instruments. Liner notes by Caetano Veloso. DESCRIPTION Walter Smetak was a Swiss cellist, composer, inventor of musical instruments, sculptor and writer who developed his career in Salvador, Brazil, and became an emblematic figure of the Bahian avant-garde and a key part of the cultural climate that made the rise of tropicália possible. Since 1969, he has carried out various workshops of experimental music at University of Bahia. His music was materialized in two albums: "Smetak" (1974) and "Interregno" (1980). "Smetak" was produced by Caetano Veloso and Roberto Santana, with the support of Gilberto Gil. There he unfolded a radical sound universe, based on the investigation of Afro-Brazilian ritualistic traditions, microtonality studies and collective improvisational open processes, always under the influence of theosophy, which he discovered in Brazil, and which allowed him to generate a symbolism represented in the construction of his own unconventional instruments, many of them of a sculptural nature, made with unusual materials such as PVC pipes, pumpkins and polystyrene foam, which he called plásticas sonoras. Around 150 instruments were created by Smetak, many of them in a surrealist style. They have been exhibited on various occasions in museums and galleries. His music was often based on graphic scores, many of them of great beauty. In addition to Smetak, Caetano Veloso and Roberto Santana, musicians such as Gereba, Tuzé Abreu, Djalma Correa, Capenga, among others, participated in the recording of this album. The author of one of the most important studies on Smetak, Marco Scarassatti, has written on the work of the Swiss-Brazilian artist: "His original and metaphysical work goes beyond any mysticism created around his figure. He investigated the relationship between sound and light, space and form, microtonality, collective improvisation, as a sound alchemist, a multimedia and unplugged prophet-visionary. While transforming matter, Smetak transformed himself and many of those around him." This reissue reproduces the much sought after original 1974 edition, published by Phillips. It includes the catalog of instruments used, adds a brochure with new photos and presents the remastered audio. The liner notes were written by Caetano Veloso. This project is part of Incidencias Sonoras: COINCIDENCIA experimental music & sound art platform, by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia.

Outside Ludlow / Desert Disco is the first major solo release from Australian performer-composer Sam Dunscombe, now based in Berlin after residing for the past decade in San Diego and Tokyo. A virtuoso clarinettist who has performed in composed and improvised settings with artists such as Klaus Lang and Taku Sugimoto, their practice also embraces computer music, lo-fi electronics and field recordings, in addition to their long-term commitment to archiving, studying and performing the work of Romanian spectralist composer Horatiu Radulescu.
The two side-long pieces presented on this LP began from a chance encounter in a specific geographic location (documented in the photographs that grace the record’s sleeve). Exploring California’s Mojave desert with a friend, Dunscombe made the unlikely discovery of a tangle of quarter-inch tape snared on a cactus. The digitised version of this tape, variously edited and processed, as well as Dunscombe’s own transcription and embellished performance of some of its material on Hammond organ, makes up one of the main ingredients of the LP’s first side. The other is a field recording of the area outside the ghost town of Ludlow, where the tape was found, where haunted silence is punctuated by freight trains and clusters of explosions from gold mines and the local marine corps. Far from any kind of documentary approach, the resulting composition reaches back to the smeared atmospherics and overdriven tape crunch of Hands To, Small Cruel Party or Joe Colley, before the Hammond organ rises up to cast a spectral shimmer reminiscent of 1960s tape music classics like Arne Nordheim’s ‘Warszawa’.

On ‘Desert Disco’ (its title perhaps a clue to the content of the mysterious tape), Dunscombe zeroes in on a single fragment of the tape, accompanying it with analogue synthesis to craft an immersive work based on a single chord. Throughout the course of this work, the monolithic opening sonority gradually splits apart, revealing an infinity of rhythmically phasing lines that swarm like a cloud of insects and patter like falling rain, placing Dunscombe’s piece in a lineage of patient electronic exploration that includes landmarks like Costin Miereanu’s Derives and the contemporary work of Jim O’Rourke.

Limited edition vinyl with images by Sam Dunscombe and design by Lasse Marhaug. Mastered by Joe Talia at Good Mixture, Berlin.

Returning with their first new music in 8 years, Stubborn Heart have announced their anticipated new album 'Made Of Static'. Luca Santucci and Ben Fitzgerald, who have spent the last few years developing the ten brooding electro-soul tracks that make up the successor to their lauded 2012 self-titled debut, have once again struck a fine balance between ominous synth-soundscapes and introspective songwriting. Balance is the key theme here. With Fitzgerald leading the production and manning the machines, the sound is rawer than on their previous album. Left-field pop with dark, icy edges, it finds a home somewhere in between r&b and cold wave. Santucci brings the heart and with it his aching, obsessive lyrics and a desire for something grittier in its presentation. The duo's talents complement each other perfectly throughout. Santucci has amassed an impressive list of writing and vocal credits in his time, with the likes of XL and Warp signee Leila Arab, Plaid, Riton and Soulwax amongst them. Fitzgerald has also been hard at work at his home studio programming various styles of music for artists and producers from around the world. As Stubborn Heart, they come armed with some serious experience and a wealth of influences. There's an honest simplicity in the way they create, with lyrics written in an immediate, direct fashion with the aim to catch a feeling rather than emulate one. On their first album Stubborn Heart garnered praise from the likes of Pitchfork, NME and the UK broadsheets. It was named album of 2012 at Gilles Peterson's Worldwide Awards and Rough Trade placed it in their top 20 best albums the same year. However, it's now that we're presented with an album they feel better represents their dynamic - an album born from the duos combined creative static - as such, 'Made Of Static' is the first fruit of their reunion, aiming to step on from where they left off, and with the promise of much more to follow.

Electroacoustic music composed in 1991 by Michèle Bokanowski for Patrick Bokanowski short film "La Plage" (4parts)

Limited edition of 300 copies. Unconventional 4 different cover artwork (75 copies each) on embossed cardboard (2 colours version : Lavanda and Tabacco), one credit sheet inside. All on high quality recycled paper.

Invisibilia - the new Canti Magnetici serie curated by Andrea Penso - is proud to introduce for the first time on vinyl a composition of Michèle Bokanowski, one of the most poetic composers in the avantgarde european music scene.

Remained unpublished until today, this composition is made as soundtrack for the short film "La Plage" (1992) created by the experimental filmmaker Patrick Bokanowski (husband of Michèle Bokanowski).

"La Plage" is probably the less "concrete" composition made by Michèle Bokanowski. It is pure liquid abstraction in sounds. It is one of those rare compositions really out of time and space. As expressed by Pip Chodorov, editor of 4 DVDs that contain all the films directed by Patrick Bokanowski, we can feel the works created by Michèle Bokanowski and Patrick Bokanowski are a sort of "spiritual search for the overrunning of perception, and thereby oneself. Searches into abstraction in the real, mysterious blanks that recover the daily".

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Any other singer can sing a love song and the audience will think about lovers lost and found. When I sing a love song it is a metaphor for the yearning of a subjugated people to be free.”

Miriam Makeba’s ‘Keep Me In Mind’ was her last album for Reprise and reflected major changes in both her own personal life and politically within the USA. After becoming a national star globally following the success of ‘Pata Pata’ in 1967, she had fallen out publicly with her mentor and ‘Big Brother’, Harry Belafonte. Makeba made the decision to return to Africa following an invitation from President Sékou Touré of Guinea. In Conakry, Makeba met Stokely Carmichael, President of civil rights organisation the SNCC and they would later marry. “With the Vietnam War, the student protests and the riots in the ghettos, everyone is scared,” Makeba said. “Everyone is afraid that there will be a great black uprising.” Makeba’s concerts were widely cancelled and both her and Carmichael were followed relentlessly by the FBI.
Reprise also terminated her contract but brought in producer Lewis Merenstein for her final recording for the label, best known for his work with Van Morrison on ‘Astral Weeks’. Merenstein suggested two Van songs for Makeba to cover, ‘Brand New Day’ from the ‘Moondance’ sessions and ‘I Shall Sing’ and further songs were added to reflect both the political climate and Makeba’s own memories including Stephen Stills’ ‘For What It’s Worth’ and Lennon & McCartney’s wistful ‘In My Life’. New compositions by Makeba and her daughter Bongi included ‘Lumumba’, a personal tribute to Congolese independence leader, Patrice Lumumba. Reflective of the times, the album is infused with a palpable despair but, as in all of her music, a quiet determination still shines through.
This new reissue of ‘Keep Me In Mind’ is presented in its original artwork and features rare photos and new extensive liner notes by Francis Gooding of The Wire. Remastered from the original tapes by The Carvery.

- Definitive edition of Miriam Makeba’s final album for Reprise in 1970
- Remastered by The Carvery from original reel to reel tapes
- 1LP and 1CD feature brand new sleeve notes by Francis Gooding of The Wire + rare photos

Liz Phair announces ‘Soberish’, her highly-anticipated new album and first collection of original
material in eleven years. Produced by Phair’s longtime collaborator Brad Wood - known for helming
Phair’s seminal albums ‘Exile In Guyville’, ‘Whip-Smart’ and ‘whitechocolatespaceegg’ - ‘Soberish’ is
released via Chrysalis Records.
Almost thirty years since her peerless debut album ‘Exile In Guyville’ was released (voted #56 in
Rolling Stone’s 2020 list of the 500 Greatest albums Of All Time), Phair returns with a new record that
will both intrigue and satisfy her long-standing fans and introduce her to a smart young audience
whose contemporary heroes have been reading from Phair’s playbook since they first picked up a
guitar.
Liz Phair has achieved the kind of status in her industry rarely bestowed on recording artists. Her
albums in the 1990s were central to the indie rock canon of the day. Her image was featured in
countless magazines, early Apple commercials and Gap ads. Her eponymous album for Capitol
Records in 2003 took Phair in a pop direction that ruffled some critics’ feathers but nonetheless went
gold, galvanizing a host of new fans, particularly among young women who fell in love with hits like
‘Why Can’t I’ and ‘Extraordinary’, tracks that were featured in several major films and TV shows,
including 13 Going On 30, Raising Helen and How To Deal. Liz has picked up two Grammy
nominations and a spot in Pitchfork’s Greatest Albums Of The 90s, with over five million record sales
to date (including three US gold albums). She sang ‘God Bless America’ at the opening game of the
Chicago White Sox World Series victory in her hometown in 2005.
‘Soberish’ is a portrait of Phair in the present tense, taking all of the facets of her melodic output over
the years and synthesizing them into a beautiful, perfect whole. She’s at the top of her game in the
recording studio, drawing upon years of experience in television composition to weave through the
songs daring and unexpected sound design. With Brad Wood’s exquisite engineering and masterful
production, the result is a wholly fresh yet satisfyingly familiar sound that challenges on the first listen
and seduces with each subsequent play through. The earworms are strong with this one.
Phair says, “I found my inspiration for ‘Soberish’ by delving into an early era of my music development,
my art school years spent listening to Art Rock and New Wave music non-stop on my Walkman. The
English Beat, The Specials, Madness, R.E.M.s Automatic for the People, Yazoo, The Psychedelic
Furs, Talking Heads, Velvet Underground, Laurie Anderson, and the Cars. The city came alive for me
as a young person, the bands in my headphones lending me the courage to explore.”
None of the arrangements on Soberish are traditional songwriting standards but the hooks are so
catchy, the imagery so compelling, that the listener is drawn effortlessly along with the music. There
are the off-kilter, unexpected guitar chords listeners will recognize as her signature style, a mainstay
from her earliest work; the instantly knowable choruses of her most pop-friendly songs of the early
2000s; the frank lyricism and storytelling that has opened doors for countless women picking up
guitars and attempting to speak about their experiences.
Phair shares insight into the meaning of her title: “‘Soberish’ can be about partying. It can be about
self-delusion. It can be a about chasing that first flush of love or, in fact, any state of mind that allows
you to escape reality for a while and exist on a happier plane. It’s not self-destructive or out of control;
it’s as simple as the cycle of dreaming and waking up. That’s why I chose to symbolize ‘Soberish’ with
a crossroads, with a street sign. It’s best described as a simple pivot of perspective. When you meet
your ‘ish’ self again after a period of sobriety, there’s a deep recognition and emotional relief that
floods you, reminding you that there is more to life, more to reality and to your own soul than you are
consciously aware of. But if you reach for too much of a good thing, or starve yourself with too little,
you’ll lose that critical balance.”

"Can you say it again" is the result of a multidisciplinary project between pieter dudal and brussels based photographer marlies van wielendaele. the latter offered a series of pictures taken on one of her trips to india with the initial aim of combining these with sounds recorded during the same trip. while working with these images and sounds, dudal found himself more and more alienating from the source material. the context in which these has been registered was unknown to him and made it almost impossible to create a set of new meanings within the Indian context surrounding the source material.

Hence, he radically erased and deleted all recordings he had and started all over again. instead of trying to understand the image and making connections with the sound material, dudal relied on the technique of free association to create his own narratives linked to the images. these small stories formed the basis to envision music and resulted in this album which heavily relies on tapeloops and piano recordings.

Dudal is the moniker of Belgian based musician pieter dudal. in 2014 he founded dauw, a label with a strong focus on the interaction between music and visual art. Beside running the label, he also makes music and has released his first ep in 2014 while individual tracks appeared on several compilations.

May 28 will see prolific Japanese vibraphonist, multi-percussionist and composer Masayoshi Fujita mark a new sonic direction with his forthcoming album Bird Ambience on Erased Tapes.

Bird Ambience brings several fresh changes for the artist. Until now, Fujita would separate his acoustic solo recordings from the electronic dub under his El Fog alias and experimental improvisations with contemporaries such as Jan Jelinek, Bird Ambience sees him unite all of these different sides to his work for the first time, into one singular vision. He also makes a lateral leap from his signature instrument the vibraphone, on which he created his acclaimed triptych Stories (2012), Apologues (2015) and Book of Life (2018), to the marimba, which takes centre stage on his new album alongside drums, percussion, synths, effectors and tape recorder.

“The way of playing the marimba is similar to the vibraphone, so it was kind of a natural development for me and easier to start with, yet it sounds very different”, explains Masayoshi. “The marimba bars are made with wood and it has a wider range than the vibraphone, which gives me a bigger sound palette with more possibilities. I play the instrument with bows and mallets, and sometimes manipulate it with effects.”

Bird Ambience also marks his liberation from fastidious preparation for past solo releases to new endeavours in improvisation. “I prioritised trying to capture the wonder which happens during those occasional magic improv moments. Sometimes the mic-ing and placement of instruments was pretty rough; things weren’t perfect and everything was done quickly, but it turned out as the final recording. Overall when I
couldn’t decide between two takes, I told myself to go with the first”, Masayoshi recalls.

Arranged with a perfect Kanso-like balance, the unhurried pace of Bird Ambience allows each sound and phrase enough time to be mindfully absorbed and savoured. This subtle but affective work carries ethereal remnants of Midori Takada’s minimalism, the static atmospheres of Mika Vainio, To Rococo Rot’s organics and the bucolic electronics of Minotaur Shock. Fujita vaporises contemporary and classical, ambient and dismantled dub, controlled noise and fragments of jazz into an atmospheric, static mist, which he skilfully coerces into new forms.

After 13 years in Berlin, Masayoshi recently relocated to a new home and studio in the rural Japanese mountain village of Kami-cho, Hyogo, following his life-long dream of creating music in nature. Even though the album was entirely recorded in Germany before he left, it has this palpable sense of reverie found in the natural world. From there we can only imagine the kind of impact his new life in rural West Japan will have on future works.

Leo Ceccanti should be a familiar name to all followers of the Claremont 56 label. Alongside sometime studio partner Gianluca Salvadori, he was responsible for two delightfully distinctive Almunia albums released on the label, 2011’s New Moon and 2013’s Pulsar. Both sets were filled with golden, sun-kissed sounds, psychedelic grooves and immersive, life-affirming soundscapes.

Now he’s decided to go it alone as Leo Almunia, delivering a debut album for Claremont 56 that’s every bit as alluring, wide-eyed and evocative as those he made with Salvadori. In keeping with his previous work, the album blends layered acoustic and electric guitars with toasty bass, dreamy synthesizers and grooves that variously touch on hypnotic house, chugging mid-tempo disco, sunset-ready Balearic beats and, on the glistening, life-affirming album highlight ‘Wishing Star’, loose-limbed jazz breaks.

What’s most significant about Ceccanti’s personal musical style is not the blend of stylistic influences he draws on – think psychedelic rock, progressive rock, jazz-rock, new age ambient and slow-motion disco – but rather the way he uses it to paint vivid aural images that genuinely linger long in the memory.

After opening with the duelling guitars and chunky dub disco grooves of ‘Sinking Fields’, Ceccanti sashays between magical moments of rush-inducing positivity, heart-tugging poignance and heady nostalgia.

Along the way, you’ll find numerous sonic highlights. On the intoxicating 21st century psychedelia of ‘Panerea’, jangling chords and eyes-closed psych-rock guitar solos ride a chugging, thickset electronic bassline, while ‘Il Cormorano’ is a metronomic, flash-fried workout rich in fuzz-tone guitar motifs, bluesy riffs and echoing instrumental touches.

He cannily joins the dots between Mid-West Americana and throbbing, psychedelic disco-chug on ‘Loveblind’, while ‘Minor Circle’ sits somewhere between Santana, the Pat Metheny Band and sunrise-ready Balearic blues. Arguably even better is the saucer-eyed brilliance of ‘Brillo De Luna’, where a dubbed-out electronic beat becomes enveloped in life-affirming acoustic guitar chords, exotic slide guitar motifs and string-bending solos. If John Lennon had ingested MDMA rather than LSD before writing ‘Across The Universe’, it would probably sound like this.

Then there’s the album’s crowning moment, closer ‘Can’t Hold a Lover’. A heart-aching, largely ambient instrumental that channels the loneliness and anguish felt by many of those separated from their nearest and dearest during the pandemic, it sees Ceccanti brilliantly wrap a variety of sun-bright guitar textures and solos around some of the loveliest synthesizer chords you’re every likely to hear. On an album packed with effervescent, mood-enhancing musical highs, it’s a rare moment of bittersweet bliss.

Miriam Makeba's 'Keep Me In Mind' was her last album for Reprise and reflected major changes in both her own personal life and politically within the USA. After becoming a national star globally following the success of 'Pata Pata' in 1967, she had fallen out publicly with her mentor and 'Big Brother', Harry Belafonte. Makeba made the decision to return to Africa following an invitation from President Sékou Touré of Guinea. In Conakry, Makeba met Stokely Carmichael, President of civil rights organisation the SNCC and they would later marry. "With the Vietnam War, the student protests and the riots in the ghettos, everyone isscared," Makeba said. "Everyone is afraid that there will be a great black uprising." Makeba's concerts were widely cancelled and both her and Carmichael were followed relentlessly by the FBI. Reprise also terminated her contract but brought in producer Lewis Merenstein for her final recording for the label, best known for his work with Van Morrison on 'Astral Weeks'. Merenstein suggested two Van songs for Makeba to cover, 'Brand New Day' from the 'Moondance' sessions and 'I Shall Sing' and further songs were added to reflect both the political climate and Makeba's own memories including Stephen Stills' 'For What It's Worth' and Lennon &McCartney's wistful 'In My Life'. New compositions by Makeba and her daughter Bongi included 'Lumumba', a personal tribute to Congolese independence leader, Patrice Lumumba. Reflective of the times, the album is infused with apalpable despair but, as in all of her music, a quiet determination still shines through.

The group Magizter formed in Malmö, Sweden in the early 90s, and mainly consisted of former members of the Hungarian industrial band Das Kapital, of which some managed to flee to Sweden from the communist regime before the fall of the Soviet Union.

Gyula Szilagyi, who was the first to make his escape via train through Berlin in 1987, recalls: “it was a few weeks before mandatory military service would begin, and our passports should have been turned over to the authorities”. Risking deportation and prison, he was granted asylum in Sweden after some months in Stockholm.

Szilagyi and the rest of the band were all part of the underground scene in Budapest, of which some had been under surveillance by the secret police since their teens. It was a tight knit community where anti-communist and illegal literature was distributed, and many bands shared mutual members.

The track “Das Kapital” was produced in Malmö in 1993 by Szilagyi and fellow Magizter member Zoltan Lengyel, in a home studio overlooking the Möllevång Square, were Szilagyi had moved after some years working at the glass factory in Orrefors. He had managed to save a few performances by Das Kapital recorded on cassette, of which one served as sample material for the Magizter track; an homage of sorts to a group involuntarily disbanded.

The cassette sampled here was recorded in 1986 during a live concert at the university-affiliated venue Ráday Klub, where Das Kapital performed alongside the British industrial act Left Hand Right Hand (who had formed from the Sheffield band Zahgurim).

On the eve in question, Szilagyi remarks: “we used a guitar that we had made ourselves to resemble a Kalachnikov rifle. During the concert at Ráday Klub the guitar was destroyed using a drill machine. It made a powerful sound effect”

A remix of the remix is offered by Vienna-based Heap, who with his own productions as well as his work with the Neubau label is building a bridge towards the new era of European industrial music.

It’s a given that timing is everything in music – most obviously in terms of composition and production but often just as much in regard to conception and release – the latter two doubly poignantly so in the case of this massive DOOM vs The Sugarcubes mash-up LP from turntablist and producer Krash Slaughta.

Which is why the tale of this project’s gestation is perhaps what should be told about it before anything else.

Begun last August and finished on 25 October, the album started life as an idea born from a casual listen to final Sugarcubes album Stick Around For Joy that Krash had bought a copy of years before in a charity shop. Contemplating the cover art while listening to the LP and the track Hit in particular, it came to him that here might be the musical basis for a concept LP in the grand tradition of the hip-hop mash-up album. Thus the project was born, becoming something of an obsession as lockdown restrictions recommenced through a sanity-testing autumn. As it developed, the provisional title of Stick Around For DOOM morphed into Sugar Coated DOOM and Brighton artists Leigh Pearce and Rob Crespo were roped in to create the artwork. So pleased was Krash with the results that he decided to self-finance the pressing of the LP to vinyl which in turn would allow him to send a copy to DOOM in the most fitting format. On that basis, along with his dad’s advice that if you want something done properly; do it yourself’, he initiated the process for a limited press run as soon as the project wrapped and telephoned his dad (who’d been shielding and who he hadn’t seen for months) to say he’d done precisely that. In a tragic twist, this turned out to be their last ever conversation, for Krash’s dad died suddenly the next day. Two months later of course, while waiting for the Covid-slowed vinyl pressing process to complete, came a further tragic twist as the world received the delayed news that DOOM himself had also passed away back in October – in the event, only five days after Krash’s father. So it’s no understatement to say that Sugar Coated DOOM carries significant emotional resonance for its maker, forever linked as it will be to the deaths of two of his personal heroes.

Which brings us to the content. The album contains seven vocal tracks, with an alternate version of one and instrumental versions of five of the seven across two sides of an album with the music, track names, LP title and cover art mashing up musical, lyrical/ textual and visual elements of The Sugar Cubes’ Stick Around For Joy with DOOM acapellas, track names and references. Listeners won’t need long to appreciate that Krash Slaughta was right to be proud of his creation, almost certainly correct in thinking DOOM would dig it and no doubt The Sugarcubes too. Also, who would have thought The Sugarcubes had so much potential for beat-mining? But then seeing potential in the unexpected was always a vital skill from the golden era of sampling in hip-hop and those who follow in the tradition. The first track proper, for example, swipes Madlib’s lo-fi beat from underneath the vocals for Figaro and replaces it with the looped and beefed-up opening bars of the Cubes’ I’m Hungry. The result is a natural fit. But then the blending of elements in every track on this release provides evidence of the effort and love put into its creation, reinvigorating DOOM’s classic vocals while re-purposing The Sugarcubes in a manner that will delight. Indeed, if you’d didn’t know the work of Bjork’s former band, you’d be unlikely to pin an early 90s alt-rock LP as the sample source. I imagine listeners will have a hard time picking a favourite too. Perhaps Hit It (based on the track which triggered the project idea in the first) which splices the Bond-theme-ish Hit with My Favourite Ladies might prove the most popular, or the monkey’s favourite, Nurse Chong, which blends Happy Nurse with Raedawn (named for Tommy Chong’s daughter) from Viktor Vaughn LP Vaudeville Villain. Whichever one punters pick though, anyone who hears anything off this will know it’s one to rank alongside your other favourite hip-hop mash-up albums. And who knows – perhaps even Mr Daniel Dumile himself might have considered it a not unfitting epitaph.

If you mention the name of Metamorfosi in front of any fan of Italian progressive rock, you get a unique effect: awe, wonder, united to the memory of the masterpiece that firmly established them as fundamental exponents of the genre. We are obviously talking of "Inferno", published in January 1973 and inspired by the eponymous first poem of the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri.

But the musical maturity of "Inferno" had not come immediately, at least not in discographic terms, as it happened for example in the case of Alphataurus, Biglietto per l’Inferno and Campo di Marte, typical meteors of Italian prog that made their debut with a bang and then dissolved into thin air for decades. In fact, Metamorfosi debuted with a work that was indeed less complete, but not negligible.

“...e fu il sesto giorno” is born after two years of gestation, since the singer Jimmy Spitaleri joined the band I Frammenti in 1970. It is the period of maximum splendour for the music which at the time was called ‘avant-garde pop’ and that only later would be labeled as ‘progressive rock’, a music scene in which the Metamorfosi of the beginning just partially fit in as they were partly still anchored to old beat styles, and as they engaged in the exaltation of the Catholic faith at the textual level. The religious content of the album is substantially unequivocal from the cover, in which Jimmy Spitaleri is portrayed in a symbolic laying on of hands to the rest of the band, his disciples and fellow adventurers.

If it is true that the weakness of the Italian prog scene has always been found in the singing, Spitaleri is a notable exception, who does not show any shortcoming throughout the disc. In addition, some elements - the guitar solos, the interventions of flute and keyboards, a solid rhythmic base, a sometimes unpredictable song structure - anticipate what will come from there after a few months. "...e fu il sesto giorno" is, therefore, contrary to what is often said, a major premise, a flower waiting to bloom and show everyone its own beauty.

When most musicians reach a career milestone they take it on tour. Texas, whose debut album turned 30 last year, had bigger ambitions. Rather than simply perform their old songs, the Scots set out to meet their old selves – the wide-eyed kids who made Southside, their two million-selling, Top 3 debut, and the band who bounced back eight years later with the six times platinum White On Blonde.
The vaults at Universal were raided for recording sessions for both albums, stored on tape and DAT and never digitised. Top of Texas’ list was their first, failed attempt at I Don’t Want A Lover, scuppered by Chic bassist Bernard Edwards.
“Just after we signed, we were in the studio with Bernard and Chic’s drummer Tony Thompson,” recalls guitarist Johnny McElhone. “Bernard got coked up and ended up running away to Mexico before Sharleen even started her vocals. But that’s a whole other story.”
Late in 2018, the aborted version was found, alongside several songs recorded during different sessions which didn’t make their debut. The biggest revelation, however, was a 15-strong batch of tracks from the White On Blonde sessions which both Johnny and Sharleen Spiteri had forgotten existed.
“When we made that album, no one in Britain gave a shit about Texas,” says Sharleen. “We were still doing really well in Europe, but here we couldn’t get arrested.
“No one at our label was asking to hear any music or pushing us, so we just kept writing and recording and trying out new stuff until we felt the record was ready. Hence we ended up with a lot more material than usual.”
So good were the songs that Texas initially planned to release them as a ‘lost’ album, possibly to be called Blonde On White. But working with their old recordings inspired them to start writing new songs.
“Tweaking the old stuff was so much fun,” says Sharleen. “It felt like us, now, collaborating with ourselves of 25 years ago. It was amazing to go back there – my voice was so young! – and to hear how much energy and passion we had. We were fighting for our careers at the time, trying to prove that Texas were still relevant.
“Our excitement at finding this treasure trove of songs collided with our excitement from back then and, unplanned, new songs started coming. You could say we were inspired by ourselves, if that didn’t make us sound insanely big-headed.”
Hi, Texas’ tenth album, is the result of that bonkers journey back but has its eyes firmly fixed on the future. The title track and sensational first single aptly fuses the two. A brand new collaboration with Wu Tang Clan, it finds a soulful Sharleen nestled next to boisterous raps from RZA and Ghostface Killah over a cinematic backdrop of lush beats and acoustic guitar.

Raymond Charles Robinson was not just a legend, “the genius”, a “force of nature” and “a presence”. He was also pure energy, the source of a radiant glow that dazzled everyone who ever came near him. His passion for music, women, and rhythm, coupled with his love of life and laughter, were ingredients that made his work a monument of 20th century culture. He left essential traces – in jazz, blues, soul and R&B – because music is something inseparable and Ray lived its rhythms from the inside.

Born in poverty, raised in America’s racist South, blind at seven and an orphan at 15, Ray had all it took to be a success… Those attributes, plus a few titles in his case that he’d recorded for Swing Time, made such an impression on Ahmet Ertegun that he signed Ray to Atlantic in 1952. The next ten years forged the legend of Ray Charles. And now, six decades later, the tracks on this album are still hits hummed by all generations.

INTERMISSION MUSIC is the soundtrack to An Intermission, an artists film by Edwin Mingard made in collaboration with a group of young people experiencing homelessness in Stoke-on-Trent, England. Like the film, the soundtrack was made collaboratively by the group, working with Edwin and composer Tom Haines.

ALL PROFITS from the soundtrack go to a dedicated fund to support the young people as they take their next steps in life. All partners have worked for free or at cost to make sure this is as much of the cover price as possible.

The film won Jury Special Mention at IDFA, the world's most prestigious documentary festival; was selected for New Contemporaries, and longlisted for the Aesthetica Art Prize. In 2021 it is screening at the London Short Film Festival; Future Now Symposium; and is being exhibited at South London Gallery from May 2021.The soundtrack is being showcased on all these platforms.

The Guardian are releasing the film in 2021. Their documentaries consistently receive tens of thousands of views, and the release of INTERMISSION MUSIC will be highlighted here also.

Freshly started label blickwinkel (Dauw sister label) announces the release "Balts" by Schreel Van De Velde. It’s the first outing of the duo Lucas Schreel and Casper Van De Velde under this new moniker and can be seen as the follow-up album of Schreel's acclaimed debut album which was released last year.

As the album titles suggest, love in all its glory formed a major inspiration in the making of this album. The duo, however, didn’t restrain themselves to a sole conceptualization of this theme but instead explored it more widely and free. The result is a consistent collection of compositions reflecting on human encounters, relationships, sexuality and more. It’s love and broken love. It’s attraction and repulsion.

With Balts, the duo created a set of animal miniatures evoking feelings of melancholy while also joy and happiness have their place. Given the instrumental nature of the songs, the music remains kind of mythical and never really shows its true meaning. As such, these little miniatures form the duo’s own unique wildlife and is open for the listeners interpretation and own narrative. Dolfijn is the first single from the album and will be released on all digital platforms alongside a video by Jelle Martens.

Lucas Schreel is a classically trained guitarist based in Brussels. His first solo album We're Never Afraid of Getting Up Every Morning was released through Sentimental Records in 2020 and was well-received both in written-press (Humo, Enola & Indiestyle) and radio (Duyster, Radio 1 & Klara). Besides his solo work, Schreel is also a member of the lo-fi indierockband Kloothommel.
Acclaimed Brussels percussionist Casper Van De Velde made quite a name for himself through his bands like SCHNTZL, Bombataz, Donder among others. His work received prices at International Jazz Contest d’Avignon and Storm! Contest (Jazzlab). Casper is currently also a member of the recently formed An Pierlé Quartet.

Blickwinkel is a freshly born label based in Ghent and Brussels. It’s founded by Pieter Dudal (Dauw) and visual artist Jelle Martens (Nicolas Jaar, Vinyl on Demand, W.E.R.F.). After working in the music scene separately for almost a decade, they found common ground in both their admiration for sound, image and especially its dialogue. Unfettered by place or genre.

81355 (pronounced `bless') is a meeting of the minds between three pillars of the Indianapolis music scene; Sirius Blvck, Oreo Jones, and Sedcairn Archives. While the three have worked together in the past, this is their first start-to-finish collaboration, and the result is the stunning and distinctive debut Time I'll Be of Use. Simultaneously mystical and stark, somber and danceable, the project grapples with hard-wired truths and imagines alternate realities with better futures. These lucid wanderings amongst the street fires sound like a cross between the ghost of progressive electronic music of the 70s with its innovative eccentricities, and acrobatic wordplay delivered with sharp resolve. While surrealist in its metaphors and abstraction, it doesn't betray a present awareness. Reflecting on Black struggle in the pandemicridden and democracy faltering landscape of 2020, each member arrived from a synchronistic space, and the recording process ended up being largely intuitive. On "Capstone," the opening track on the album, Sirius Blvck offers a look from inside his space, "This is what we've come to. Generational curses I still can't undo. Just taught my lil girl to tie her shoes now she running to. Holy smokes lungs made of leather like it's comfortable. Climbing up this infinite ladder to get a better view." These three musical vagabonds have met up to find even themselves surprised with the results. Drawing inspiration from the likes of biting poetic commentary of the late Naptown residents, Etheridge Knight and Kurt Vonnegut, OJ summons a golden-era flow and paints a picture of the group's influences, surroundings, and trajectory in one fell swoop in "Thumbs Up." "Alright, in my feelings tonight, Honda Civic overturned as it burns through the night. Bone Thugs in these streets no Surender in sight. I'm writing poems from a jail cell, Etheridge Knight. I throw a fit when I flip it, it's all vintage. A pearl white Bronco like OJ you done did it. The sunshine shatters the rock painted so vivid. Two-hundred fifty pounds of gifted we so lifted_ wassup?" Sirius, with poetry present even in his speaking voice, adds, "It's a way to carve our story in the sky before we're gone. This is us choosing to believe that this time, things will be different. It is an affirmation to the universe. This time I'll see the whole blessing. This time I'll be of use."

Have you ever felt like you’re being watched? Have you felt unseen eyes staring at you, monitoring your every move? Composer and guitarist Daniel Davies reflects on this familiar paranoia on his new EP, Spies. Across its five stirringly atmospher- ic tracks, the frequent John Carpenter collaborator evokes the tingle you get on the back of your neck when you sense you’re under surveillance - a feeling some psychologists have dubbed the “psychic staring effect.”

The songs for Spies were composed in the fall and winter of 2020, in the depths of pandemic lockdown. Working in isolation in his L.A. studio, Davies composed the five tracks entirely alone. With no collaborators, his gaze turned inward, and the songs feel intimate and intense. Yet at the same time, they would become the most sonically expansive material he’s ever put on a solo record. His guitar and synthesizer are bolstered by double bass, cello, viola, and violin, adding a new depth to the music.

As he did for his 2020 full-length Signals, Davies teamed up with acclaimed visual artist Jesse Draxler for the artwork. The stark, black-and-white piece that Draxler contributed for the cover of Spies perfectly captures the mood of the record. Eyes are cut out, disassociated from faces, their gazes made inscrutable. Yet they seem to fix on the listener. Have you ever felt like you’re being watched? Maybe you are.

The reactivation of the Made To Measure series continues with this CD
reissue of ‘Geographies’, a very special album by the maverick French
composer and producer Hector Zazou that features an orchestral suite
originally released in 1985.
It showcases some of Zazou’s most exquisite compositional work, fusing a chamber ensemble, some classical and contemporary vocals, unorthodox production, and an ironical, affectionate take on early 20th century classics (think Satie et al).
With evocative song titles such as Cine Citta and Sidi Bel Abbes, and even a catchy folk-like tune, Vera C, this album is a playful voyage in time and space. In addition to the original 9 tracks there are 13 bonus tracks, entitled 13 African Proverbs for Vocal Quartet.

The venerable composer and keyboardist Stale Storlokken follows up his previous Hubro release (and solo debut recording), The Haze of
Sleeplessness, with a second solo album performed entirely on pipe organ and recorded at Steinkjer Church by Stian Westerhus.
He describes the album as “a cavernous cathedral of sound”. While the Norwegian Grammy-nominated ‘The Haze of Sleeplessness’ used a whole keyboardmuseum’s worth of antique synths and contemporary digital software to create
its vast array of sounds, everything on ‘Ghost Caravan’ is the product of one organ’s pedals, pipes and sonic plumbing.
“There’s not so much of a relationship to ‘Haze’, says Stale Storlokken of the new album. “That album was more based on improvised ideas that were tweaked and arranged , while this one is all improvised with almost no editing at all. Everything you hear is from the church organ, with no additional instruments.
The basic concept of the record, and the arrangement of the titles and pieces, is done in such a way that they alternate between a fluent, “on the move”, abstract mood and a more recognisable, concrete and grounded mood. At the same time it should be so open that listeners will hopefully have their own unique experience. The organ at Steinkjer is not a big organ but it has some really nice sounds, with a number of quirks and mechanical eccentricities that suit my music.”
The organ is partly a reconstruction based on a Wagner organ in Nidarosdomen built originally in 1741, the organ is housed in the strikingly modernistic Steinkjer kirke, designed by Olav S. Platou in 1965, and featuring glass panels by the artist Annar Millidahl. What Ghost Caravan does share with its predecessor is a seemingly limitless acoustic space for the listener’s imagination to roam in, with Storlokken creating a cavernous cathedral of sound.
The audio dynamics span an enormous range, capable of stretching from the quietest breathy whisper to a basso profundo squawk or scream, sometimes within seconds of each other. Similarly, the incredible variety of sounds that Storlokken coaxes from the organ can defy rational analysis, with the resolutely analogue instrument appearing to echo the industrial, found-sounds of clanking machinery or buzzing electronics that one might expect to encounter through digital sampling or the tape-based experiments of musique concrete.
Over ten separate improvised pieces which connect into an informal suite through the repetition of key elements and sequential titles (with four ‘Spheres’ and four ‘Cloudlands’, plus ‘Ghost Caravan’ and ‘Drifting on Wasteland Ocean’), Storlokken has made a strikingly unified, self-referential aesthetic world that can stand as a true work of art.

Having already made a big splash on labels like Rush Hour, Ghostly, Spectral Sound and Werkdiscs, the London based producer Moirétees up his third full length player for Hypercolour. ‘Good Times’ goes someway to pulling back a positive energy to recent global events and finds Moirécollaborating with fellow artist Demigosh on a good chunk of the album cuts. Hazy agit house and drowsy beats anchor an album filled with smooth ambience and soulful sampling.

Low frequencies and foggy tones make tracks like ‘Magdan’ and ‘Vertigo’ strike a chord between lo-fi electronica and abstract ambient noise, whilst the collaborations with Demigosh add an ethereal soulful touch that’s both stirring and emotive in equal measures. Exotic beat science is deployed on cuts like ‘R1’ and ‘Telefunk’, whilst the jazzy licks and lumpy rhythms of ‘Lost In Pacific’ seal off an extraordinary album that exemplifies the advancing maturity of Moiré’s sound and vision.

Debut solo album by the Red River Dialect songwriter. Recorded at the Hotel2Tango, Montreal, by Howard Bilerman. Featuring Thor Harris (Swans, Thor & Friends, Shearwater) on drums and Thierry Amar (GYBE!, ASMZ) on bass, with guest appearances from Tom Relleen (RIP) (Tomaga, Melos Kalpa), Catrin Vincent (Another Sky) and Coral Rose (The Silver Field, Red River Dialect).
David has written five critically acclaimed collections of songs under the Red River Dialect name. The last two albums (released by Paradise of Bachelors) achieved a glowing Pitchfork review and a Folk Album of the Month award from the Guardian. Selected press below.
“Folk Album of the Month. Alert, anti-colonialist folk. Songwriter David Morris brings alternate seduction and disquiet on this worldly album steeped in the British landscape... a wide-eyed, curious creature, willingly alert to the world.” – 4/5 The Guardian
“Animated with a new intensity, the Cornwall band’s fifth album may be its most ingenious and immersive mix of folk and rock yet. It’s also Morris’ most compelling set of songs. He invests small sensations with outsize power, finding joy in sensory pleasures as well as in the mystical inquests that music allows. Even as the record is steeped in the long history of British folk music, that balance of the tactile and the spiritual anchors these songs in the present moment.” – Pitchfork
“The most underrated folk-rock band in Britain. The idea of them as a Cornish-born, Buddhist-inclined Waterboys is more potent than ever. Their fifth album of elementally-battered, rueful and rousing folk-rock ... is as stirringly anthemic as they've managed thus far.” – MOJO
“A beguilingly atmospheric record… imagine Steve Gunn transplanted to Kernow.” – Clash
“Gorgeous and moving, anchored by the heft of the physical but reaching for more. The epic spareness, the way it manages to be both still and an enveloping swirl, reminds me most of Talk Talk. There’s a prayerful intensity to the quiet bits, a listening, wondering awe, that makes the rock payoffs more powerful. The album works as a restless, searching, gorgeous whole. Morris and his band have never been better.” – Dusted
“It’s not often that a band comes along and over the course of nine songs both plays to the tradition and stands it on its ear. RRD has taken the challenge of playing with reckless abandon to heart, generating an album that stands on the shoulder of giants showing no fear.” Folk Radio

Monastic Love Songs continues the tradition that David has established over the course of five albums with Red River Dialect: using a song cycle to articulate a relationship with inner and outer landscapes, inspired by the Taoist approach of observing the movement of the heavens in order to understand the cosmos within, and vice versa. The joyful closing track Inner Smile was initially written as a poem of thanks to his Tai Chi teacher Hollis and takes its name from a Taoist practice.
The songs were written during the final weeks of a nine-month retreat at Gampo Abbey, a Buddhist monastery in Nova Scotia where David took ordination as Buddhist monk. The album title is sincere, with a little tongue-in-cheek. The songs mostly explore human relationships within the community, with outliers: Gone Beyond shimmers with cosmic devotion, in Rhododendron a reverie grows from the shadow of a flower. Steadfast concerns the love to be found beyond the urge to like and be liked, when you can’t avoid that difficult person. Leonard Cohen, on his six years living in a monastery:
“You know, there’s a Zen saying: ‘Like pebbles in a bag, the monks polish one another.’
David considers this album to be a follow up to 2015’s Tender Gold and Gentle Blue. The cover of that lp featured an image of him on top of Skellig Michael, in the years before the island was made famous as the home of the Jedi. He considers the visit to that abandoned Celtic monastic site to be one of the influences that stirred up his motivation. Skeleton Key speaks of what was given up to go, and what he was giving up to leave, referencing the Tibetan concept of the ‘bardo of becoming’.
The album came about through a series of fortunate encounters. David’s friend Tom Relleen visited him at the Abbey in May 2019, mentioning a postponed plan to visit the Hotel2Tango. A spark was sown: this studio had long figured in David’s imagination. Many of the releases on Constellation Records, which he had become a die-hard fan of in his teens, were recorded there. Tom contributed some Buchla synthesizer to the opener New Safe, which concerns healing in emptiness and light.
In May David was given permission by the senior monastics to acquire a guitar, which was swiftly baptised as “Malibu Barbie”. Having let the identity of being a songwriter loosen up, not playing an instrument in six months, he was unsure what would happen. In the single hour he was permitted to practice each day, songs began to cascade. The first, Purple Gold, concerns a reacquaintance with first love. David wrote to the Hotel2Tango asking if they had any days available in mid-July?
Engineer and studio co-owner Howard Bilerman replied that they did, and a date was set. Did Howard know any local drummers or bass players who might do a session? He did, too many to choose from, what kind of style? David decided to ask for his ideal: did Thierry from Godspeed ever do sessions? Howard sent him the demos. Thierry was up for it. On the day he went deep into the cover of traditional song Rosemary Lane, his double bass singing on this and on Circus Wagon.
David asked if there were any local drummers he would recommend? Thierry said “many, what style?” David tried his luck again, “two of my favourite drummers are Thor Harris and Jim White.” Thierry said let’s invite them. Thor, having met David a decade earlier, flew from Austin to Montreal for that July day in the studio. Nine months of watching thoughts come and go in meditation helped David recognise this as an opportunity to practice enjoying the day without expectations.
He is, however, grateful that this album came out the way it did, channelling some of what it was like to live those nine months in a monastery overlooking the Gulf of St Lawrence, frozen and flowing.

Mixed by Jimmy Robertson at SNAFU, London, mastered by DenisBlackham.

Founded in 2010, Hussle’s All Money In made an epochal debut with its very first release, “THE MARATHON,” marking Hussle’s fifth official mixtape and follow-up to his introductory “BULLETS AIN’T GOT NO NAME” trilogy. Named among XXL’s “100 Best Mixtapes of 2010,” the collection was quickly followed by 2011’s “THE MARATHON CONTINUES” and then 2013’s “CRENSHAW.” Along with his work as a lead artist, Hussle has previously collaborated with a veritable who’s who of contemporary hip hop, including Kendrick Lamar, Drake, Rick Ross, YG, Ty Dolla Sign, Meek Mill, DJ Mustard, Young Thug and many more. As if his musical career and role as label boss weren’t enough, Hussle is also successful entrepreneur. In addition to The Marathon Clothing line and store, Hussle also owns a number of successful businesses including The Marathon Agency, SC Commercial Ventures, Proud 2 Pay, and of course, All Money In No Money
Out Records.



[b] 2 Rap Niggas [Explicit]

Freedom is the debut EP from South East London vocalist + DJ Ell Murphy for Shall Not Fade sub-label Time Is Now. The EP sees Ell collaborating with 5 acclaimed producers in the UKG scene; DJ Crisps, Stones Taro, Highrise, Picasso & Tuff Trax; each one hand-picked by Ell to bring their unique production style to the release; and made entirely during lockdown over the past year, working remotely with the producers based in Rotterdam, Australia, Japan & London.

ARTS is glad to present the very first full length work from one of our most unique artists in the roster, after a few records on the label and an impressive impact on the scene, KRTM worked on a larger project that aimed to express freely something deeper, and most likely something that was inevitable and that needed to get out into the sun. Despite the format, this is little more than a usual LP, the entire body of work is larger, but essentially presented in a very personal way in each single part of the elements and written tracks, we are glad to give you "It Will Make The World A Better Place", there are not many words that are needed to describe what you are going into, we hope that this piece of art will sign your future as will sign ours.

Be With is delighted to present Jorge López Ruiz’s El Grito (Suite Para Orquesta De Jazz), eternal Argentinian magic released on CBS in 1967 that must be one of the most sought-after South American jazz LPs.

Living in Buenos Aires in the 60s, driven by creative impulse and rage Jorge López Ruiz used music as his platform to protest the Argentine military dictatorship: “I could never stand dictatorships, to be told how you have to think, what you have to do. Nor did I endure discrimination”.

A young López Ruiz had appeared on a television panel alongside writer, politician and philosopher Arturo Jauretche, criticising the Onganía dictatorship. Jauretche told López Ruiz “Now say it with music”. This was the deep inhale that lead to El Grito, literally “The Scream”. As López Ruiz later explained “Jauretche urged me that my protests should not remain in words and acquire the consistency of a work… but it was not so much what he told me but how he told me, what prompted me to make the work take shape, first in a live concert and then in a recording”.

As the police and military began resorting to kidnapping, torture and summary executions to quiet dissent, with depressing inevitability the artist community and their work were a particular target of the increasingly brutal regime. El Grito was banned not long after it was released and the majority of original copies were unceremoniously destroyed.

The work of a genius artist living under an opressive dictatorship, erased by the government of the time, this is buried treasure in every sense and it’s been a rare record for over 50 years. But it isn’t just being hard to find that has pushed up the prices of those few original copies that survived, this is a foundational record in the development of jazz in South America.

El Grito (Suite Para Orquesta De Jazz) is a showcase for Jorge López Ruiz’s skills as a composer and arranger as he leads a virtuoso orchestra of the likes of Mario Cosentino (alto sax), Baby López Furst (piano), Pichi Mazzei (drums), Gustavo Bergalli (trumpet), Oscar López Ruiz (guitar), Arturo Schneider (flute) and Jorge López Ruiz himself plays double bass on the fourth and fifth movements.

As the album’s sub-title explains, The album is a Jazz orchestra concept suite. Five movements, to be heard as a whole, that end where they begin.

“When I wrote it there was no history of a cyclical work in jazz. But I didn't notice that, I needed to express something and I did it. At that time they told me I was crazy, that such a thing was very difficult to do. But hey, I like challenges”.

Yet this is not challenging jazz. There are certainly avant garde, free jazz flourishes, but the hard bop characteristics make this a very accessible album: easy to listen to without being easy listening. López Ruiz’s love of film brings a definite cinematic feel.

The title movement opens the album in bombastic style. “El Grito” grabs you by the lapels and refuses to let go. Raw then controlled, it’s by turns stabbing then soothing, with rage weaved in and out of the elegant styles. “M.A.B. = Amor” is our favourite here. With a tense introduction and a patient build, a gentle sax sweeps in to lift everything up to meet the serene piano and soft drums. Elegantly paced, it moves back and forth between deep contemplation and a more urgent call and response between strings and horns. A near-eight-minute, slow motion marvel.

The second side eases in with the beautifully-titled “Hasta El Cielo, Sin Nubes, Con Todas Las Estrellas” (“Up To The Sky, No Clouds, With All The Stars”) a relatively brief mid-tempo piece featuring López Ruiz’s insistent bass notes high in the mix, and again blending the sublime with the emotive with its wild horns and tight rhythm section.

It’s followed by “Tendré El Mundo” (“I Will Have The World”) which also leads with hypnotic bass, but this time swifter, driven by crashing drums, rapid horn conversations and effortlessly cool piano flourishes. Rounding out the suite, “De Nuevo El Grito” (something like “The Next Scream” or “The Scream Renewed”) is a stylish closer. Whilst López Ruiz’s bass shifts the track along, the horns and piano are more restrained, yet no less stunning.

This Be With edition of El Grito sounds sensational, if we do say so ourselves. Working with audio from the original analogue tapes, the vinyl mastering chops of Simon Francis are on full show here in what he considers to be some of his best ever work for Be With. Pete Norman’s cutting skills have made sure nothing is lost. The tortured artwork has been restored here at Be With HQ as the finishing touch to helping this revered work find a rightful place in every protest art collection.

Originally released as a 12” single in 1982, ‘Every Brother Ain’t A Brother’ was the final record from Brooklyn multi-instrumentalist and producer Freddie Thompson’s Panaché band. Built around a fully cleared sampled bassline from ‘The Message’ by Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five, ‘Every Brother Ain’t A Brother’ plays out like a summertime stroll through New York in the early 80s. The streets are full of excitement, but as the lyrics, written by vocalist Denise Williams (not to be confused with Deniece Williams of ‘Let’s Hear It For The Boy’ fame) make it clear, they’re dangerous as well.

Thirty-nine years later, Isle of Jura is proud to present the first official 12” reissue of ‘Every Brother Ain’t A Brother’. A cult classic from the disco-rap era, the reissue includes the original vocal and instrumental versions of ‘Every Brother Ain’t A Brother’ plus a Jura Soundsystem special version with additional live percussion.

Originally made up of Freddie, his wife, the singer Debra Thompson and keyboardist Douglas Glover, Panaché formed at the behest of a local disco DJ, Carl Nelson. In the wake of Chic’s early singles, Carl felt a French name would give Freddie a competitive edge. “He explained it to us that it was a French word for style and elegance. Panaché, a step above chic,” Freddie reflects.

Business minded, Freddie formed his own label, Roché Records and joined SIRMA - The Small Independent Music Manufacturers Association. “It was very hard for the independent manufacturers to get airplay and distribution at the time, so we all came together,” he remembers. Through SIRMA, Freddie met Joe and Sylvia Robinson from Sugar Hill Records, who several years later, let him sample ‘The Message’ for ‘Every Brother Ain’t A Brother’.

In 1979, Panaché scored some radioplay when they covered ‘Not On The Outside’ by ‘60s D.C R&B group The Moments. Emboldened, they brought onboard backing vocalists and recorded their only album. This Is Panache saw the band blurring the boundaries between soul, jazz-funk and disco and become a sought after collectible.

By 1982, Debra had stepped back, and one of Panaché’s backing singers was center stage, Denise Williams. “Denise was good with writing poetry,” says Freddie. "She had one called ‘Every Brother Ain’t A Brother’. It was about the unrest that was going on in the city at the time. I thought I could do something with that.”

After releasing ‘Every Brother Ain’t A Brother’ in 1982, Panaché quietly moved from center stage to behind the scenes. Over the last thirty-nine years, Freddie has continued to work in the music industry as a session musician and producer. “As soon as we stopped trying to become stars as Panaché, we became busy working in the industry,” Freddie laughs.

Global electronic sound specialist - Producer and DJ Oliver Williams aka "The Busy Twist" is at it again. Among his numerous projects as a producer, this double-sider, dancefloor-focused EP is one of his seldom seen, more personal works in the vein of what he does best: an uptempo, bass-heavy madness, influenced by his regular trips to Africa, Latin America and the West-Indies, packed with undeniable British club music culture and production technique. Highly infectious energy, pure sunshine, 100% good vibes. Following up on The Busy Twist previous collaborations with Congolese singer Tres. "Nanko" is another joyful, sun-soaked, highly danceable Electro-Soukous party joint, loaded with captivating guitar grooves and soulful vocals. On the flip, "Rwendo Rweupenyu (The Journey Of Life) Remix" is an outstanding take on Zimbabwean Sungura Music (one of the country's most popular genres), originally performed by street band Daniel & Gonora Sounds, led by singer-guitarist Daniel Gonora and his drummer son Isaac. Respectfully using Daniel's mind bending guitar riffs and highpitched, uplifting vocals, The Busy Twist and his collaborator delivers an inspiring and remarkably effective version of the original song. Vinyl contains exclusive extended and instrumental Dj-friendly versions of both tracks that won't be available for download anywhere.