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After Mischpoke #1 with BKGD Audio, Gras, Sonae and Lucrecia Dalt, this time Clark, Oval, Electric Indigo and Gudrun Gut are at the controls for #2. The Düsseldorf/Brisbane underdogs Tidy Kid, Pondskater, Ai and The Visitor provide the source material for their remixes. The music ranges from the living room to the club.

'Reet' is a lost treasure of late 1960s folk/psych-folk. The only album she ever put to tape, with clear pure voice and guitar. luckily recorded by Andres Raudsepp in 1969.

Reet will be loved in the same breath as ;Sibylle Baier, Vashti Bunyan, Molly Drake, Bridget st John, Reet Hendrikson deserves wider listening and recognition.

Reet Hendrikson was born in Estonia only months before the "great escape" into exile in 1944. Brought up and educated in Sweden, she went to study in the US in 1967 on a Fulbright scholarship, before she made her mark as an Estonian musician in Canada. While her arrangements of Estonian folksongs on the guitar reflected the styles of the sixties, her voice and choice of material sounded authentic and made a connection with ages past.

When Hendrikson arrived in Canada in 1968 via the US, her Estonian was native-like because of the high quality of Estonian schools in Sweden. She was thus able to characterise the identity of young ex-patriate Estonians – especially those born in exile from Soviet occupation – in a new and meaningful way. A formal musical background allowed her to create the arrangements that accompanied her simple but pure singing voice. Having heard her under northern Muskoka pines at an Estonian summer seminar, it didn't takeAndres Raudsepp ( of raindeer records)long to bring her to a recording studio. "Reet – Estonian folksongs" appeared in 1969.

Hendrikson soon found her way to the scholarly atmosphere of Boston where, as a multi-instrumentalist, she joined a group of musicians who favoured traditional folk music. Back in Sweden in the 1980ies, she was invited to join a scholarly society of Estonian young women, which she led during musical sessions. She visited Estonia as frequently as possible, trying in particular to be helpful to Estonian musicians by providing sheet music and much-needed repertoire from the Swedish National Radio Archives, where she worked for a while..

Reet Hendrikson died in Stockholm in the autumn of 2000.

Neben ihrer Zusammenarbeit mit Modern Cosmology, dem unglaublichen What Will You Grow Now? aus dem letzten Jahr und ihren fortgesetzten Tourneen mit den neu formierten Stereolab ist Laetitia mit Rooting For Love solo plus The Choir zurück in der Welt und ruft uns erneut dazu auf, uns auf unsere innere Ausrichtung und unsere Herzenskraft zu besinnen, um besser gerüstet zu sein für das, was kommen wird. Das regelmäßige Auftauchen von The Choir während Rooting For Love erinnert daran, dass diese Musik von einem Volk in der kritischen Masse stammt, zusätzlich zu einer Entwicklung, die die reichen harmonischen Felder, in denen Laetitia spielt, weiter vertieft. Die diversen musikalischen Arrangements tragen dazu bei - Orgel, Synthesizern, Gitarre, Bass, Posaune, Schlagzeugprogrammierung, Vibraphon und Zither, die alle auf verschlungenen Pfaden von Akkord- und Tempowechseln arbeiten. Der melodische Funk des Bassisten Xavi Muñoz führt zu gelegentlichen Dancefloor-Vibes und No-Wave-Rockouts, während Hannes Plattemier und Emma Mario abwechselnd die Tracks abmischen und das Material mit Vibes, zusätzlichem Drum-Programming und Synthesizern zusammen mit einer talentierten Besetzung von Spielern und Sängern aus Laetitas Source Ensemble und darüber hinaus bereichern. Ob sie sich Laetitia Sadier nun von der eigenen Zen-Shiastu-Ausbildung oder von den Texten von Véronique Vincent (Texterin und Sängerin von Aksak Maboul und einst Leadsängerin der Honeymoon Killers) inspirieren lässt, immer stellt sie sich der Wahrheit, ohne mit der Wimper zu zucken. Die Schatten, aus welchem Stoff sie auch immer bestehen - individuelle und kollektive, gegenwärtige und uralte - müssen erkannt und anerkannt werden, denn je mehr wir in uns selbst heilen, desto ungeteilter werden wir angesichts der drohenden neofaschistischen/neoliberalen Narrative, die die inneren und äußeren Landschaften verschmutzen. Wie das Titelbild des Winterbaums, das sich in den Wortmustern von Rooting For Love widerspiegelt, behauptet Laetitia, dass die Art und Weise, wie wir die kommende Welt heilen, und was wir daraus machen, eine Ko-Kreation sein wird. Die Qualität unserer Vorstellungskraft, die Ausrichtung, die wir unseren Gedanken geben, und die Fähigkeit, uns selbst und der Welt Liebe zu bringen, sind ein erster Schritt.

Malka Tuti is proud to present the solo debut EP by mister Andrei Rusu, 
 one half of Khidja.

After a series of stellar remixes in the past year to Cosmo Vitelli (on Im a Cliché), Dadalus & Bikarus, Santaka & Nic Arizona, Rusu is finally ready to present his own original solo materials to the world.


Ahead of a full LP planned on MT for later this year, Rusu is presenting us with 2 fresh new tracks. The A-side is a 120bpm dirty and distorted super- trippy banger for the biggest floors and the darkest rooms.

On the B-side Rusu collaborates with an artist known to the followers of the label - Decha, who contributes her signature expressive vocals on this half time industrial dub track. This time however, the vocals run through the hands of Rusu who soaks them with distortion and even more punk attitude, almost echoing the energies of the late Genesis P-Orridge.

The release includes 2 remixes by a couple of master remixers who also happen to be part of our extended family. 


Remixing the title track, and off the success of his 2 incredible albums
released on 2023 (Music From Memory & Offen), Philipp Otterbach supplies a remix for the books, channeling the original track’s intensity through oceans of reverb, whimsical samples and addictive trippy rhythms.
For the Hedesch Remix we’ve asked one of our favourite remixers out there aka Black Merlin to contribute his cut and boy he didn’t disappoint (does he ever?)


Black Merlin supplied us with a long and addictive psychedelic synthetic and very dubby journey for the b-side.

Suburban Architecture are pleased to announce the third in their 'Architecture Dubs' series of limited edition 10" vinyl releases, which sees some of the most revered names active during the mid 90s golden era of Drum & Bass deliver remixes of Suburban Architecture material in homage to that most innovative of periods.

Following on from the now sold out release of Architecture Dub #001 (featuring remixes from Peshay and DJ Trax), and #002 (featuring Blame and DJ Trace), edition #003 features remixes from two further legends in the scene, Nookie and DJ Crystl.

Nookie needs little introduction. From early 90s Hardcore through to present day heavy hitters via a string of mid 90s classics, Nookie has had an enviable career in the genre. Having recorded for seminal labels that heavily influenced the Suburban Architecture sound: Reinforced, Moving Shadow and Good Looking, Nookie was an obvious choice for this remix package. On this release he takes 2021's 'Renegade Horns' to more dancefloor oriented territory with an energetic roller that marries classic drum breaks with a contemporary production feel.

DJ Crystl is also a name with a storied history in Drum & Bass. Also releasing music since the early 90s, Crystl has seen releases on influential labels, Lucky Spin, Dee Jay Recordings, Moving Shadow and iconic US Hip Hop imprint Payday. Crystl's remix of 2020 Suburban Architecture cut 'New Horizons' carries classic 1994 flavour, delivering an extended, Amen-laced rework of the original, full of classic Intelligent sonics.

Pressed on 10" vinyl and housed in brown Kraft paper sleeves, the series makes visual reference to the exclusive dubplate pressings which introduced so many classic cuts to the UK's dancefloors in the 90s.

"7 Estrelas | quem arrancou o céu?" ("7 Stars | Who ripped the sky down?") is the fourth album of the Sao Paulo-based artist Luiza Lian, and her third collaboration with French/Brazilian music producer Charles Tixier. Nearly five years after the celebrated "Azul Moderno", the duo returns to the scene they materialized before a period of darkness that rewrote Brazil's history. And this new visit pushes the boundaries even further with resources that the singer-songwriter had only started exploring on the previous record. The tracks, "Tecnicolor" (featuring the only guest appearance on the album, as Luiza is joined by singer Céu) and "Homenagem" (Homage), continue to explore this new horizon, which becomes increasingly bizarre and deceptive. In addition to layering noises and electronic elements over her musicality, Luiza also explores the range of her vocals by digitally distorting them. The first tracks are just the initial steps in this new work: a profound reflection on how we distort our lives based on false reflections we see both digitally in our use of social media and materially in an increasingly consumerist society. The new album recreates this artificial context in an almost caricatured way, deliberately exaggerated distortions to generate the estrangement we should feel towards the values we cherish and reject based on this false reality we force ourselves to believe in.

Godzilla returns once more to face the combined might of Japan's most extraordinary scientists in the second picture of the Millennium-era: GODZILLA VS. MEGAGUIRUS. Looking for new ways to defeat the Big G, the JSDF invent an incredible new weapon called Dimension Tide, which creates a miniature black hole that will transport Godzilla far away from Earth. However, a byproduct of weapon testing leads to thousands of winged insects invading Tokyo and attacking Godzilla. The Big G fights back, but their new queen appears, now kaiju-sized due to Godzilla's atomic breath. A thrilling battle then occurs as Godzilla goes head-to-head with Megaguirus while the JSDF frantically works to disappear both monsters forever.

GODZILLA VS. MEGAGUIRUS saw the introduction of composer Michiru Oshima into the franchise with a fantastic score that built on previous Toho musical traditions with a view to the future. While using music composed by the great Akira Ifukube for two sequences, Oshima also unveiled her own theme for Godzilla. First heard in a slow and foreboding mode, it's quickly unleashed in gigantic low tones, as terrifying and inevitable as the Big G himself. Soaring heroic material represents the JSDF and their advanced Griffon aircraft, while powerful brass is used for the threat of Megaguirus. Cementing Oshima's reputation as a great composer, GODZILLA VS. MEGAGUIRUS is a classic of kaiju musical mayhem. - Charlie Brigden

Composed by Michiru Oshima
Artwork by Attack Peter
Manufactured in Czech Republic

Though often lumped in with New Orleans sludge bands like Eyehategod and Crowbar, Thou shares a more spiritual kinship with '90s proto-grunge bands like Nirvana, Alice in Chains, and Soundgarden (all of whom they've covered extensively, both in the studio and onstage). The band's aesthetic and political impulses reflect the obscure '90s DIY hardcore punk found on labels like Ebullition, Vermiform, and Crimethinc. From 2004 through 2016, the band has released four full-length albums, six EPs (some bordering on full lengths), two collaboration records with The Body, and enough material spread out over splits to make up another four or five LPs.

Sacred Bones Records is proud to present the new album, Magus, Thou's first full-length since 2014's Heathen. In the months leading into the new album, Thou will be releasing three drastically different EPs: The House Primordial on Raw Sugar, Inconsolable on Community Records, and Rhea Sylvia on Deathwish, Inc. Each record will focus on a particular sound—noisy drone, quiet acoustic, and melodic grunge—all of which is incorporated into the new LP, subsumed in the band's more standard doom metal.

While sonically, Magus may be a continuation of Heathen, thematically it stands as a stark rebuttal, a journey beyond the principles of pleasure and pain. It is more the culmination of these distinct EPs, which all orbit some internal black hole. FFO alienation, absurdity, boredom, futility, decay, the tyranny of history, the vulgarities of change, awareness as agony, reason as disease.

Gently Down Your Stream marked a creative zenith within the Columbus, Ohio, soul scene, at the juncture of the 1960s and '70s. The Four Mints were one of the most influential local group harmony outfits of their era and - with assistance from Columbus doyen and Capsoul purveyor Bill Moss - among the few to release a full length LP. The roster of backing musicians hired to provide aural landscaping reads like a Midwest super-group, with surprising appearances from Indianapolis-based vibraphonist Billy Wooten and drummer Bobby Allen of the Fabulous Originals from Dayton, Ohio. And though most of the material on 1973's Gently had been previously released as 45s, the collection - five singles and one priceless track saved from the scrap heap - gives witness to a world-class vocal quartet at its professional and intuitive peak. Under the watchful eye of arranger and mega-talent Dean Francis, the Four Mints pour forth from your speakers soulful, faithful and clear, but perhaps more importantly, intrinsically homegrown and utterly honest.

Taking on Medal Headz G.B.D.F., lifted from the recent Brainwaltzera LP Itsame, British drum & bass producer Peshay turns in a driving remix in a classic UK style. Rolling breaks meet a heady reese bassline and wide-angle atmospherics, put together with all the aplomb of a skilled craftsman doing what he does best. It’s music made for the dancefloor, delivered in a timeless style by one of the heads of the early Good Looking Records & Metalheadz years.

On the B1, Brainwaltzera takes the reigns with an extended version of the original album piece – a valuable reminder of the impressive source material, reimagined in a new context. For the B2, the artist offers a previously interconnected phase of Medal Headz G.B.D.F. up as a track in its own right. A spellbinding IDM reduction, it’s wrought with all manner of synth flourishes, elegant drum machine rhythms, and warping synths – a neat closer that offers a new and intriguing approach to an LP highlight.

a Medal Headz G.B.D.F Peshay Remix
b Medal Headz G.B.D.F Extended
[separated]

DREIEIER sind vier Musiker, die Mitte der Achtziger wenn auch nicht weltweit, so doch einige Bekanntheit erlangten und mehrere Preise eingeheimst haben: Franz J. Erlmeier, Fritz Köstler, Paul M. Ehrenreich und Robert "Bopo" Ponzer. Das ist ein paar Jährchen her. Und wie"s so ist, hat "Trikont" das Material nach rund 40 Jahren wieder ausgekramt. Und festgestellt: Das war gut. Es war sogar sehr gut! Ob es die - mittlerweile gewiss angejahrten - Jungs wohl noch gibt? Es gibt sie noch. Das ist nicht selbstverständlich und schon deshalb wert, eine Neuauflage ins Werk zu setzen. Info Trikont 1985: "Moderne Populärmusik mit Lust am rigorosen eklektizistischen Verwirrspiel, an Brüchen und Montagen. Bel ihrem Streifzug durch verschiedeíne Stile und Epochen der Pop-Musik frönen sie gleichzeitig der Unterbrechung des Gewohnten und der Pervertierung des Hergebrachten. Die Musik ist nicht neu - will es auch nicht sein -, jeídoch neuwertig. Sie wertet neu, verwertet Altes und Gehabtes und wertet um. Dies aber mit eiíner spielerischen Leichtigkeit und technischen Perfektion, sodass an der musikalischen Oberfläíche erzeugte Stimmungen immer wieder intern gebrochen und hinterfragt werden. Die Storys werden in virtuosem Englisch oder krudem, asíketischen Deutsch erzählt. Drei Eier, das sind vier Musiker, die Ihre Musik zum einen in München, aber vor allem in Aham, Niederbayern, ausgebrütet haben. Der Bayeriísche Rundfunk wählte sie zur besten Nachwuchsígruppe des Jahres 1983."

Mit dem wachsenden Wunsch nach früheren Werken von ELOY, dem gemäß Musikpresse "deutschen Flaggschiff des Art-und Progressivrock" kommt nun am 23.02.2024 mit "Destination" ein Album aus dem Jahr 1992 erneut auf den Markt, welches schon seit langem nicht mehr verfügbar ist. Da zu jener Zeit der frühen Neunziger die Vinyl-Platte quasi komplett "out" war, erscheint "Destination" nun als physisches Produkt erstmals auch auf Vinyl. "Destination" ist ein Album, auf welchem wir viele unterschiedliche Inspirationen und stilistischen Elemente verarbeiteten und vermischten. Obwohl Bassist Klaus Peter Matziol während der laufenden Produktion erstmals wieder für die Band zum Bass griff, entstand das Material überwiegend in der Zusammenarbeit von Michael Gerlach und mir, und es kam eine Melange aus atmosphärischen, aber auch sehr rockigen Klängen dabei heraus, wobei ich mich noch im Satzgesang mit mir selbst herausforderte, und wir durch diverse Fremdinstrumente das noch immer nicht komplett neu besetzte Line Up auffüllten. Es herrschte nach dem Erfolg des Vorgängers RA, welches ELOY nach dreijähriger Pause sofort in die offiziellen deutschen Albencharts zurück katapultierte, rege Aufbruchsstimmung. Der Sound und die Melange der Musik gelangen so, wie geplant." (Frank Bornemann, 2023)

Infinity Machine is a duo comprised of Juan MacLean - as in the Juan MacLean, longtime DFA traveler - and Gee Dee, also known as Greg Droggitis, a producer and DJ based in Brooklyn and 1/3 of the Earth Beat DJ troupe. The project name stems from a series of gatherings the two began hosting in various private spaces around New York City shortly after lockdown, though that description is a bit innocuous for the journeys traveled by its attendees. These events, billed as "psychedelic dance ceremonies" lasting 8 or 9 hours, began with a sound meditation to vibrational and acoustic instruments before eventually segueing into a "dance" soundtracked by a DJ set from Juan and Greg. Something clicked - that ceremonial tea! - and so Juan and Greg began playing and recording in their studio using the same approach: improvisation with equal attention placed on traditional acoustic (flute, guitar, gong) and more contemporary electronic (Yamaha DX-7) sounds. After awhile, there was literally three albums worth of material, each of them a voyage into the warm, liminal space between new age, ambient, drone and psychedelia. None of those genres quite fully describe what's across 001, 002, and 003 - available from DFA digitally and on a very limited run of cassettes (150 each!) - but if you've read this far then you're either the right kind of curious or just forgot what you were doing.

Infinity Machine is a duo comprised of Juan MacLean - as in the Juan MacLean, longtime DFA traveler - and Gee Dee, also known as Greg Droggitis, a producer and DJ based in Brooklyn and 1/3 of the Earth Beat DJ troupe. The project name stems from a series of gatherings the two began hosting in various private spaces around New York City shortly after lockdown, though that description is a bit innocuous for the journeys traveled by its attendees. These events, billed as "psychedelic dance ceremonies" lasting 8 or 9 hours, began with a sound meditation to vibrational and acoustic instruments before eventually segueing into a "dance" soundtracked by a DJ set from Juan and Greg. Something clicked - that ceremonial tea! - and so Juan and Greg began playing and recording in their studio using the same approach: improvisation with equal attention placed on traditional acoustic (flute, guitar, gong) and more contemporary electronic (Yamaha DX-7) sounds. After awhile, there was literally three albums worth of material, each of them a voyage into the warm, liminal space between new age, ambient, drone and psychedelia. None of those genres quite fully describe what's across 001, 002, and 003 - available from DFA digitally and on a very limited run of cassettes (150 each!) - but if you've read this far then you're either the right kind of curious or just forgot what you were doing.

Infinity Machine is a duo comprised of Juan MacLean - as in the Juan MacLean, longtime DFA traveler - and Gee Dee, also known as Greg Droggitis, a producer and DJ based in Brooklyn and 1/3 of the Earth Beat DJ troupe. The project name stems from a series of gatherings the two began hosting in various private spaces around New York City shortly after lockdown, though that description is a bit innocuous for the journeys traveled by its attendees. These events, billed as "psychedelic dance ceremonies" lasting 8 or 9 hours, began with a sound meditation to vibrational and acoustic instruments before eventually segueing into a "dance" soundtracked by a DJ set from Juan and Greg. Something clicked - that ceremonial tea! - and so Juan and Greg began playing and recording in their studio using the same approach: improvisation with equal attention placed on traditional acoustic (flute, guitar, gong) and more contemporary electronic (Yamaha DX-7) sounds. After awhile, there was literally three albums worth of material, each of them a voyage into the warm, liminal space between new age, ambient, drone and psychedelia. None of those genres quite fully describe what's across 001, 002, and 003 - available from DFA digitally and on a very limited run of cassettes (150 each!) - but if you've read this far then you're either the right kind of curious or just forgot what you were doing.

World Of Echo are proud to announce the long-awaited reissue, on 17th February, of the self-titled debut album by Bristol’s Movietone. Originally released in 1995 by Planet Records and reissued on CD in 2003 by The Pastels’ Geographic Music imprint, this is the first time Movietone has been reissued on vinyl. An expanded double-LP edition, it includes the extra tracks from the 2003 CD (their first two singles, and an unreleased demo of “Chance Is Her Opera”), and adds three more unearthed gems: demos of “Alkaline Eye” and “She Smiled Mandarine Like”, and an early take of “Late July”, recorded in a garden by Dave Pearce (Flying Saucer Attack) in 1993. Taken together, this is the definitive collection of music from the first phase of one of Bristol’s most remarkable groups.

Movietone was the cumulation of a series of events, explorations, and discoveries, starting at secondary school – the group’s core membership of Kate Wright, Rachel Brook, Matt Elliott and Matt Jones met at Cotham School in Bristol. As for many other groups, their early years were all about experimenting, and finding ways to ‘make do’, a DIY sensibility that would inform Movietone through their decade-long lifespan. From formative rehearsals in a shed in the garden of Brook’s family home, to recording early material to four-track in Redland Library, and on into the Whitehouse and Mr Grin’s studio sessions for their debut album, Movietone’s music fell together in a creatively unpredictable, yet conceptually rigorous manner.

By the time they released Movietone, they’d found a home with Bristol’s Planet, run by author Richard King and James Webster, who had both released their first two singles, “She Smiled Mandarine Like” and “Mono Valley”. There was other music happening around them in Bristol, too, from the Jones brothers’ avant-rock outfit Crescent (who were Movietone’s closest conspirators), through Elliott’s jungle/electronica project Third Eye Foundation, and Brook and Elliott’s membership of Flying Saucer Attack. A closely knit community, Movietone are the centre of this nestling architecture of groups.

The vision in the music, mostly, belongs to Wright, but Movietone ran in democratic creative consort. Listening back to Movietone, you can hear this democracy in action through the wildness of the music, which is balanced by the poetics of Wright’s lyrics and melodies. Full of half-captured memories and entangled abstractions, there’s an elliptical, ruminative quality to much of the writing here that shows the deep influence of the Beat Generation writers, along with a twilight environment captured in the songs that’s pure third-album Velvets, Galaxie 500, early Tindersticks, Codeine. Unpredictable interventions – the crashing glass in “Mono Valley”, the sudden explosions of “Orange Zero” – point towards the noise blowouts of My Bloody Valentine, the unpredictability of Sonic Youth; Wright’s understated vocal cadence suggest a deep, embodied understanding of John Cage’s Indeterminacy.

Movietone would go on to make three fantastic albums for Domino – Night & Day (1997), The Blossom Filled Streets (2000) and The Sand & The Stars (2003) – and their Peel Sessions were released early in 2022 by Textile. Still held in high regard by artists like Steven R. Smith, and The Pastels, whose Stephen McRobbie once described them as “one of the great unknown English groups,” it’s an absolute thrill to listen to Movietone anew – still inspired, still seductive, still magic, still mysterious.

Warehouse find!

Since emerging in the early 2000s with releases on the seminal Merck label, Proswell (Joseph Misra) has proven to be one of the most original voices in IDM. People Are Giving And Receiving Things At Incredible Speeds (PAGARTAIS), his debut on Sheffield's Central Processing Unit, is another Proswell record which overflows with creative energy. Containing five widescreen electronic epics, PAGARTAIS showcases some of the most ambitious work in the discographies of both artist and label.

The core sonic palette of PAGARTAIS is one schooled in the IDM and electronica sounds of imprints like Rephlex Records, B12 and Skam. These tracks are helmed by thick washes of keys, an array of playful synth tones and drums so deft it's sometimes hard to tell whether they have been programmed or played live. However, across almost forty minutes of music here Proswell explodes preconceptions about genre and form, his music gleefully jumping from one new sound to the next while assimilating electro, prog, computer game music, post-jazz and pretty much everything in between.

Opener 'PAGARTAIS I' sets the tone for the rest of the record. This is a track which never sits still - beginning with a distorted melee of drums that comes off like a strange new version of breakbeat, 'PAGARTAIS I' moves through some thrillingly idiosyncratic takes on Rephlex-school IDM, stargazing Detroit electro and The Comet Is Coming's futurist electronic jazz across its near-ten-minute runtime. Following number 'PAGARTAIS II' is no less impressive, referencing the hyper-modern computer sounds of Iglooghost and Kai Whiston while containing a driving opening section which could have soundtracked one of the legendary Wipeout games.

Although this fabulously unpredictable record often zips along at high speeds, Proswell is also able to dial things back when he needs to. Indeed, the second half of PAGARTAIS finds him slowing down a tad in order to deliver some of the album's most atmospheric material - 'PAGARTAIS III' blends cutting-edge electronics with sonorous jazz harmonies and fizzing improvised lead lines, the mysterious 'PAGARTAIS IV' is a sort of freeform variation on the maximalist, colourful electronica of Galaxy Garden-era Lone, and the slinking computerised Braindance number 'PAGARTAIS V' recalls Calum Gunn's recent CPU drop Addenda.

Really, though, none of these comparisons quite do justice to the inventive capacity of this music - Proswell's in a lane of his own here. An incredibly innovative fusion record that takes in IDM, prog, computer music, electro and plenty more besides, People Are Giving And Receiving Things At Incredible Speeds (PAGARTAIS) is the sound of a unique musical mind in full flight.

RIYL: Calum Gunn, Kai Whiston, Iglooghost, Rustie, Bogdan Raczynski

Back in stock!

NULLPTR never fails. Since emerging in 2016 with the Optical LP, Eddie Symons' project has become a byword for top-draw contemporary electro productions. After triumphantly returning to Sheffield's Central Processing Unit with 2020's Future World full-length, NULLPTR follows that album up with a new quartet of machine-funk slammers. Striking a balance between highwire, twitchy rhythm programming and some deft textural work, the Terminus EP demonstrates exactly why the NULLPTR name is so respected in the world of electro.

The first half here almost showcases the two sides of the NULLPTR sound in microcosm. Opening track 'Connected' zips along like one of the racers from a Wip3out game. The 808s are all booming breakbeats and hissing-piston hats, with a jittery synth bassline nipping in and out of the spaces left vacant by the drums. Atop these swirl eerie keyboard pads, the reverb from them draping across the rest of the instruments like fog above a city. By contrast, following cut 'Mesospheric Cruise' is the yin to 'Connected's yang. Where its predecessor was tense and coiled, this lilting number is expansive and open like a primetime Virginia joint - though the point where the wistful house pads strip back to foreground the twinkle-toed electro beat still has a pleasing crunch to it.

The B-side of Terminus serves dystopian snap from the off. Genre masters Drexciya are invoked by 'Syndicate'. The needle-gun bassline here turns itself inside-out across these five minutes, and all the while the tune is laced with some evocative shadow-realm synth pads. A similar energy courses through the EP's closing title-track, a cut which also brings into play a booming four-to-the-flour that gives it an unstoppable sense of forward-motion. Like 'Connected' and 'Mesospheric Cruise' - indeed, like all of the NULLPTR material that Central Processing Unit has brought us down the years - these jams will sound positively devilish when deployed in a dark basement.

The Terminus EP sees electro don NULLPTR (Eddie Symons) deliver four slices of unadulterated machine-funk heat.

RIYL: Virginia, Cardopusher, Drexciya, Silicon Scally

In this Bukky's latest offering, he has assembled some of his favourite DJs and producers including his old comp Rende Gillies Peterson, Orlando Voorn, Lesley Lawrence. His dear friend the godfather of Dub Dennis Bovell. Featuring original material compositions:

OBEDUN (Sweet SOUP) - Mixed by Orlando Voorn Inspired by his cultural background Bukky goes in search of the cuisine traditions of his mother land Nigeria. He sings praises of his favourite traditional African cuisines. Sang in his native dialect Yoruba language.

GENRE JAM – Afrobeat recently became a recognised genre. Whereby the unique percussion driven with soulful guitar hook lines and melodic piano phrases can be incorporated any genre as a version.

UNISEX DILENMA - it's just light-hearted, tongue in cheek commentary on the interplay between men and women and some of the stereotypical ways we see relationships, it's nuanced and that's why it's called Unisex Dilemma. Meaning people shouldn't take the song too literally.

ANNARKEY – Mixed by the Godfather of Dub Dennis Bovell. This a great example 0f Genre Jam whereby Rock or Reggae can be intertwined with Afrobeat. Especially from the Latin Rhythms which are all influenced by Afrobeat.

SUMMER BREEZE – Mixed by Lesley Lawrence is Jazzy instrumental track. It draws from Bukky's past recording and associations with the giants of Jazz i.e. Clifford Jarvis, Bob Ra Kalan Moses, and playing with Tony Allen who is heavily influenced Art Blackey and Max Roach.

a 01: Obedun (Sweet Soup) Orlando Voorn Mix

Approaching the 50th-anniversary release of Artreform, the label's boss, Kyiv-based DJ and sound producer JOSS is counting on experienced artists. The fresh record
with an updated modern design from the abstract art master Elemetalsource boasts two tech-house powerhouses at once: Fedo, the lead artist from Odessa, and Okain,
the Berlin-based musician and owner of Talman Records, who was invited as a remixer.

The three original tracks from Fedo deliver detached, robotic minimal house that could be playing on an interplanetary station as its well-coordinated machinery works
in unison. It is club-centric music with a moving, inventive groove, albeit without any live emotions. A respectful tribute to those 90s cult Plastic City records, and at the
same time, trendy sound for modern minimal and microhouse parties.

Okain's injection boosts the release's dynamics with more thumping rhythms and a hypnotic atmosphere. Nevertheless, this special guest star from Berlin flows in
organically, enhancing Fedo's material with his trademark style, perfected through years of releases on Bpitch Control and Tsuba, and thoroughly tested on Europe's best dancefloors.

2023 Repress

Maston’s Darkland is a breezy collection of the material from the Tulips sessions that didn’t make it on to the original LP. Originally a digital-only release for those in the know in the autumn of 2018, after re-issuing Tulips in 2020 it made too much sense for Be With to give Darkland a vinyl release.

Like Tulips, Darkland was recorded mostly in Hoorn, in the Netherlands, between 2015-2017 during downtime from Frank’s touring duties with Jacco Gardner’s band. Bits were also done in Los Angeles on some extended trips back home.

The collection plays like an alternate view of Maston’s instant modern classic Tulips; a companion piece to the LP proper with similar mixture of shorter themes and more full length tracks. As Frank Maston explains: “I think Darkland is the shadow of Tulips in a way… what it might’ve been in a different universe. But the heart of Tulips beats in these songs as well and they evoke the same memories and feelings for me. I see my process playing out across these songs - lots of experimentation and trying out new techniques and sounds and just sort of going for it.”

Frank goes on: “It was all from the same pool of material, like 30+ ideas. I was making a lot of little demos… some would be more fleshed out and become songs and others would just be a cool riff and not go anywhere. When I started trying to form it all into an LP I went through all the sessions and ideas and collected the ones I thought were the most fleshed out and cohesive together as a whole. There were a fair amount of songs that were finished and in hindsight really should have been on Tulips (like what would’ve been the title track). And the rest of these songs are either very early versions of tunes that ended up on Tulips or some cool ideas that just ended up being dead ends. It definitely shows how wide my net was in the beginning before I narrowed the record down stylistically.”

Darkland opens with its ornate 39 second title-track before striding into “Tulips”, that full-length title-track that never was. It’s a real head-nod, percussive-rich electric piano stunner that would’ve been a comfortable standout on the album proper. But now this “downlifting” gem is given ample room to shine on this record.

The funky organ-led bass and drums workout “Immaculate Conception” will keep your neck gently snapping while MPC fiends go reaching for their sampler. And that’s gospel. “Love Theme No 3” cuts a breathtakingly stylish vibra-slapped swathe through the middle of the opening side before we’re startled by the pronounced bass and twinkling percussion of “The Owl In Daylight”. Charming digi-drums underpin the wonky synth (quiet-)banger “Innovative Patterns” which has a lovely melodic switch-up in the final third before the tempo (and hairs on your neck) rise on the faintly creepy yet imminently groovy “Osiris”. The gorgeously soft-focus “Groove Experiment No 3” closes out the first half in slow-mo wonderment.

The lushly melancholic “Raincloud” ushers in side B before the emotionally-stirring “Phonic” taps at the door, coming on like the long lost sister to Pet Sounds’ “Let’s Go Away For A While”. Next up, the swooning beauty “Love Theme No 2” keenly sways in front of you, growing ever more insistent and hypnotic. The too-short “Italian Summer” conjures the same flirtatious imagery as the title hints at whilst “Endless” is a fascinating “piano-pella” alternative version to “Rain Dance” from Tulips. “Wonder Theme” has a nostalgic, exotic 60s swing and album closer “Willow” is a hushed, campfire folk gem. The gently circular strumming is just magical.

Speaking to Aquarium Drunkard back in 2019 about the sessions that became Tulips, Frank noted: “I was really surprised by the lack of sunlight during my first winter in Holland, so I would call it Darkland which then became the name of the first demo I wrote during that time. It was also the working title of the record when I first started writing. Some are full songs that didn’t make the cut (including what would have been the title track), some are just ideas that I never finished.”

Whilst we were working on Darkland’s vinyl release Frank explained more specifically about the music that didn’t make it on to Tulips: “When I was putting together the tracklisting for Tulips I was already thinking that whatever didn’t make it onto the LP would be cool to release eventually somehow. The response to Tulips has been so passionate over the years that it’s nice to be able to offer another piece of that world. And for me personally it’s amazing to have more of my work out there in the world. Most common bit of feedback was that many of these songs should have been on Tulips. The odd friend says it’s much better than Tulips.”

Just like Tulips before it, Simon Francis’s vinyl mastering for Darkland has been cut at 45rpm so you can trip out to this as well at a woozy 33 1/3. The artwork too has been designed by Frank himself as a literal visual continuation of the Tulips cover.

We couldn’t possibly say whether Darkland is better than Tulips, and luckily we don’t have to decide.

To celebrate their 50th Anniversary, The Residents undertook a secret, one-off performance in their hometown of San Francisco. Joined on stage by a hand-picked cast of guest artists, the group and their friends performed a dream setlist of classics from the band’s back catalogue, including songs never performed live before. Featuring guest vocalists, a girls’ chorus, spoken word pieces, a solo piano recital, orchestral and choral arrangements, rock freakouts, mariachi interludes and, of course, The Residents themselves. We present a recording of a show that will live long in the memories of all who were there. Showcasing the classics ‘Santa Dog’, ‘Constantinople, ‘Hello Skinny’ and an incredible selection of material spanning the group’s fife decades, this is The Residents as we’ve never head them before, and never will again.

High Roller Records, Als der inzwischen verstorbene Rhett Forrester die New Yorker Band Riot nach ihrem gut aufgenommenen Album "Born In America" von 1983 verließ, dauerte es nicht lange, bis er mit der Arbeit an seinem ersten Soloalbum begann. "Gone With The Wind" wurde ursprünglich 1984 auf dem französischen Label Bernett Records veröffentlicht. "Even The Score" von 1988 war das zweite und letzte offizielle Soloalbum von Rhett Forrester, da der legendäre Sänger am 22. Januar 1994 im Alter von 37 Jahren in Atlanta, Georgia, erschossen wurde. Obwohl auf "Even The Score" kein weiteres Studioalbum folgte, hörte Rhett nicht auf, neue Musik aufzunehmen. Er arbeitete mit verschiedenen Musikern in unterschiedlichen Bands und Projekten über einen Zeitraum von sechs Jahren bis zu seinem frühen Tod 1994 zusammen. Zwei davon sind auf "The Canadian Years" zu hören. Dr. Dirty (die Gruppe hieß ursprünglich Mr. Dirty, wurde aber wegen der Verwendung von zwei D's als Logo in Dr. Dirty umbenannt) war das Geistesprodukt des Gitarristen Rob Robins. Er erklärt: "Scot Gaines, der Bassist, und ich hatten schon fast ein Jahr lang geschrieben, als wir Rhett Forrester in Calgary trafen. Er hatte gerade seine Zeit bei Rick Plester's Black Symphony beendet. Wir waren auf der Suche nach einem Sänger, mit dem wir ein paar Gigs spielen konnten. Rhett wurde erwähnt, und wir trafen uns mit ihm, und es schien, als würde er gut passen! Wir haben ihm sofort die Songs vorgespielt, an denen wir gearbeitet hatten. Rhett war immer großartig im Studio und hat seine Parts aufgenommen. Ein echter Profi. Egal, was wir ihm vorsetzten, Rhett lieferte immer eine großartige Leistung ab." Die eigentlichen Demo-Sessions für Dr. Dirty fanden von 1992 bis Anfang 1993 statt. Rob Robins: "Wir haben vier Songs in Calgary aufgenommen: 'Red Bone Rock', 'Smoking Gun', 'In And Out' und 'Coming Home'. In LA haben wir 'Rescue Me', 'Hold On', 'Love Song' und 'Too Little Too Late' aufgenommen. Ursprünglich hatten wir ein gewisses Interesse von einem Label, gerade als sich das Projekt auflöste. Einer der wohl ungewöhnlichsten Beiträge von Rhett Forrester war 1992 (kurz vor den Dr. Dirty-Sessions) in Form von The Black Symphony (bestehend aus den drei Songs "In The Beginning", "Redemption" und "End Of Time") entstanden. Black Symphony war das Baby des kanadischen Gitarristen Rick Plester, der erklärt: "Ich habe so ziemlich das gesamte Material für die fünf Alben von The Black Symphony geschrieben. Ich habe in Magazinen in ganz Nordamerika Anzeigen für einen Leadsänger geschaltet und Rhett Forester hat sich gemeldet. Als er mich aus heiterem Himmel anrief, war ich angenehm überrascht, denn ich war schon vorher ein Fan von Riot gewesen. Ein paar Wochen später flogen wir Rhett nach Calgary in Kanada, wo ich zu der Zeit lebte. Einige Tage nach seiner Ankunft nahmen wir drei Songs in einem Studio in Calgary auf. Rhett war sehr unterhaltsam, es machte Spaß, mit ihm zusammen zu sein. Ich genoss seine Freundschaft. Er war sehr engagiert und brachte eine Menge mit. Am Ende war es traurig, dass ich ihn wegen seiner Drogenprobleme und abgebrannten Brücken gehen lassen musste."

High Roller Records, Als der inzwischen verstorbene Rhett Forrester die New Yorker Band Riot nach ihrem gut aufgenommenen Album "Born In America" von 1983 verließ, dauerte es nicht lange, bis er mit der Arbeit an seinem ersten Soloalbum begann. "Gone With The Wind" wurde ursprünglich 1984 auf dem französischen Label Bernett Records veröffentlicht. "Even The Score" von 1988 war das zweite und letzte offizielle Soloalbum von Rhett Forrester, da der legendäre Sänger am 22. Januar 1994 im Alter von 37 Jahren in Atlanta, Georgia, erschossen wurde. Obwohl auf "Even The Score" kein weiteres Studioalbum folgte, hörte Rhett nicht auf, neue Musik aufzunehmen. Er arbeitete mit verschiedenen Musikern in unterschiedlichen Bands und Projekten über einen Zeitraum von sechs Jahren bis zu seinem frühen Tod 1994 zusammen. Zwei davon sind auf "The Canadian Years" zu hören. Dr. Dirty (die Gruppe hieß ursprünglich Mr. Dirty, wurde aber wegen der Verwendung von zwei D's als Logo in Dr. Dirty umbenannt) war das Geistesprodukt des Gitarristen Rob Robins. Er erklärt: "Scot Gaines, der Bassist, und ich hatten schon fast ein Jahr lang geschrieben, als wir Rhett Forrester in Calgary trafen. Er hatte gerade seine Zeit bei Rick Plester's Black Symphony beendet. Wir waren auf der Suche nach einem Sänger, mit dem wir ein paar Gigs spielen konnten. Rhett wurde erwähnt, und wir trafen uns mit ihm, und es schien, als würde er gut passen! Wir haben ihm sofort die Songs vorgespielt, an denen wir gearbeitet hatten. Rhett war immer großartig im Studio und hat seine Parts aufgenommen. Ein echter Profi. Egal, was wir ihm vorsetzten, Rhett lieferte immer eine großartige Leistung ab." Die eigentlichen Demo-Sessions für Dr. Dirty fanden von 1992 bis Anfang 1993 statt. Rob Robins: "Wir haben vier Songs in Calgary aufgenommen: 'Red Bone Rock', 'Smoking Gun', 'In And Out' und 'Coming Home'. In LA haben wir 'Rescue Me', 'Hold On', 'Love Song' und 'Too Little Too Late' aufgenommen. Ursprünglich hatten wir ein gewisses Interesse von einem Label, gerade als sich das Projekt auflöste. Einer der wohl ungewöhnlichsten Beiträge von Rhett Forrester war 1992 (kurz vor den Dr. Dirty-Sessions) in Form von The Black Symphony (bestehend aus den drei Songs "In The Beginning", "Redemption" und "End Of Time") entstanden. Black Symphony war das Baby des kanadischen Gitarristen Rick Plester, der erklärt: "Ich habe so ziemlich das gesamte Material für die fünf Alben von The Black Symphony geschrieben. Ich habe in Magazinen in ganz Nordamerika Anzeigen für einen Leadsänger geschaltet und Rhett Forester hat sich gemeldet. Als er mich aus heiterem Himmel anrief, war ich angenehm überrascht, denn ich war schon vorher ein Fan von Riot gewesen. Ein paar Wochen später flogen wir Rhett nach Calgary in Kanada, wo ich zu der Zeit lebte. Einige Tage nach seiner Ankunft nahmen wir drei Songs in einem Studio in Calgary auf. Rhett war sehr unterhaltsam, es machte Spaß, mit ihm zusammen zu sein. Ich genoss seine Freundschaft. Er war sehr engagiert und brachte eine Menge mit. Am Ende war es traurig, dass ich ihn wegen seiner Drogenprobleme und abgebrannten Brücken gehen lassen musste."

Strut introduces a new special edition repress of the influential first volume of "Disco Not Disco", compiled by Dave Lee and Sean P, pressed on translucent yellow vinyl 3LP as part of the label"s 25th Anniversary.

This freakbeat jelly belly delight showcases the Bandits’ vaudeville humor, garage rock & catchy psychedelic pop! Considered a cult classic, this mixed bag of candy-coated fuzz is sure to satisfy your sweet tooth! Our favored stereo mix, pressed on yellow vinyl! Newburgh, New York psych-punks the Jelly Bean Bandits formed in 1966. Originally known as “The Mirror,” the band regularly packed area nightspots like the local Trade Winds, Poughkeepsie's Buccaneer Nightclub, and Burlington, Vermont's Red Dog.

In due time, they recorded a three-song demo reel that resulted in a three-album recording contract with Mainstream Records – however, unknown to Mainstream, these three songs represented the sum total of the Jelly Bean Bandits' repertoire, forcing the band to write enough additional material to flesh out a full-length LP in the course of a week. Amazingly, their eponymous 1967 debut is excellent, a freakbeat cult classic distinguished by emotive guitar and some innovative production techniques – all the more impressive, the album was recorded in a single 12-hour stretch. Mainstream hated the end result, however, and dropped the Jelly Bean Bandits just as they were commencing work on the follow-up – only one song was completed before the sessions were aborted, leaving just one ‘60s studio album from these confectionary con-artists. – Jason Ankeny

"The Jelly Bean Bandits" includes the following tracks: "Poor Precious Dreams", "Going Nowhere", "Goodtime Feeling", "Neon River" and more.

This version of the album comes as a 1xLP pressed on yellow vinyl.

Before releasing their lone self-titled debut album, one of the most rare rock records to be released in Europe in the 1970s, Paternoster provided the soundtrack for a film that could only have been made while the psychedelic movement was still in its first wave. The group’s first recordings presented here are the soundtrack for Herbert Holbaís 1971 hippie sci-fi film Die Ersten Tage (The First Days), screened at the Berlin International Film Festival, and interestingly played on Austrian TV in August of that year. The material issued here is the genesis of Paternoster and set the stage for the release of one of the world’s great rock albums with their self-titled debut the following year. The music has been painstakingly transferred directly from master tapes.

Auf seinem dritten Album ,Sleepwalking" verwebt der neuseeländische Komponist, Multi-Instrumentalist und Produzent JONATHAN BREE mit seinem unverwechselbaren Baritongesang stark orchestrierte Elemente - üppige Streicher, Hörner, Celeste- und Sopranchöre - mit Kammerpop aus einer vergangenen Zeit (LEE HAZLEWOOD & NANCY SINATRA). Die Songs tauchen auf eine ausgesprochen moderne Art und Weise in die Avantgarde ein und aus ihr heraus, darunter der Hit ,You're So Cool", dessen Masken-Video Ende 2023 über 31 Millionen Views auf YouTube hat und zum Musikvideo des Jahres 2017 im New Yorker Time Out Magazin gekürt wurde. ,You're So Cool" zeigt seine mysteriöse Band im Masken-Outfit, welches JONATHAN in den letzten Jahren mit einem weißen Ganzkörperanzug, einer Gesichtsmaske (mit Wangenknochen!) und einer Schalenperücke verfeinert hat. Ein gezupftes Cello, eine minimale Bass-Line und ein Schlagzeugmuster bilden JONATHANS Markenzeichen, dass sich durch das gesamte Album zieht. Mit ,Sleepwalking" blickt JONATHAN BREE in Richtung 60er Jahre Lounge, Exotica und französischen Pop. Es gibt mehrere Duette auf dem Album, insbesondere mit der neuseeländischen Musikerin PRINCESS CHELSEA (in ,Static" und ,Plucking Petals"), mit der JONATHAN seit vielen Jahren zusammenarbeitet. Die katalanische Musikerin CLARA VINALS ist zu Gast auf der Single ,Say You Love Me Too", die einen ausgeprägten SERGE GAINSBOURG-Stil hat, mit geflüsterten, intimen Vocals, die über einer markanten Basslinie und einem Drum-Pattern sitzen, das den Song antreibt.Als bekennender Workaholic und sozialer Einsiedler verbringt JONATHAN seine Tage (und Nächte) in einem schäbigen Heimbüro und versucht sein Plattenlabel Lil' Chief Records (Home of PRINCESS CHELSEA, RUBY SUNS u.a..) zu leiten, während er gleichzeitig Alben für Künstler wie PRINCESS CHELSEA produziert, in viralen Musikvideos für Duette über das Rauchen (,Cigarette Duet") auftritt und dann noch Zeit findet, sein eigenes Material aufzunehmen und seine Masken-Videos zu drehen. Und manchmal schläft er sogar. Aber nur manchmal.

repressed !

Dropping into chapters four and five of his Midnight Themes series, Marlon Hoffstadt responds to this summer's double set of 'Human Interpretations' - where Gramrcy, Eric Maltz, Johannes Albert, Bawrut and others remixed his previous work - with a two part EP of original material titled 'Law Of Attraction'. Marlon has steadily chiseled his way back into the scene with a series of acclaimed releases and is now in full swing with his Midnight Themes label and his Savour The Moment parties. For 'Part One', the Berlin native delivers four bold tracks, building bridges between classic sounds and a distinct knack for melodies. It's uplifting techno for a hopeful future and these killer cuts are ready and waiting to hit the dancefloors. Speaking of dancefloors, join Marlon to celebrate the release of both EPs on December 8th at Renate alongside DMX Krew, Kowton, Meggy, Gigsta and many more.

Warehouse find!

While the German producer Martin Matiske averages a new release under his given name every few years, there was a long stretch of time in which sightings of his Blackploid alias were much more rare. After dropping an EP for Frustrated Funk in 2006, fans found further material hard to come by over the next decade or so. However, Matiske has reinvigorated Blackploid in recent times, with the project making a few compilation appearances and dropping a couple of EPs across 2020.

That run now culminates inCosmic Traveler, a four-track affair which marks Matiske's debut appearance on Sheffield's Central Processing Unit. Given the long wait, it's great just to see Blackploid back among the fray once again. But for the project's CPU curtain-raiser to be an EP of such high-quality techno jams? Now that really is spoiling us.

Cosmic Traveler's title nods towards the sort of stargazing aesthetics one finds in classic Detroit techno. However, while there are undoubtedly ties to the Motor City in this music, the record ultimately steers less towards spacious atmospherics and more towards the taut, lean machine-funk of seminal practitioners like Dopplereffekt.

Matiske sets his stall out from the off. Opener 'Electric Engine' begins with a run of stiff-necked 808 kicks before hissing hi-hats, a grizzly bassline and all manner of futuristic sounds enter to warp the tune into hyperspace. Following cut 'Night Drive' repeats the trick of 'Electric Engine' but adds a pleasingly dinky synth lead in order to nudge itself slightly towards bleep-techno territory.

The two cuts on Cosmic Traveler's B-side are pure late-night goodness, a pair of mid-set heaters primed for dark basements. 'Pleasure Activism' delivers on the promise of its title and then some, pushing the Kraftwerk template to extremes by bringing a load of gnarly synth lines into play over a wobbling acidic chug. Finally, EP closer 'The Race' is reminiscent of both the twisted machine-funk of Gerald Donald's Japanese Telecom project and the playful modern evolutions of artists like fellow CPU high-flyer Jensen Interceptor.

The resurgence of Martin Matiske's Blackploid project continues withCosmic Traveller, an EP of timeless electro-funk and techno.

FFO: Dopplereffekt, Japanese Telecom, Jensen Interceptor, Cardopusher

Michal Vaľko, aka Line Gate makes a return to mappa with his third cassette for the label. Once again the material is deeply minimalist, but shows marked evolutions in the Slovak, Prague-based artist’s unique trajectory. This time comprising two relatively short pieces (compared to the 40- and 60-minute works previously published on mappa), 'Trap' is perhaps Line Gate’s darkest yet.

Whereas previously his works focused on psychoacoustic phenomena, or highlighted the sacredness and timelessness of “the drone”, ‘Trap’ is a personal reflection of the artist’s innermost feelings, and perhaps a mirror that is held up to each listener: disillusionment, hopelessness and apathy have become an ever-present features of the society around us. ‘Trap’ very directly expresses the feelings of being lost, of despair, of wandering and not seeing the end. Vaľko utilises drones and repetitive vocal/instrumental phrases to express the endlessness of these feelings, and his own captivity within them.

The pieces draw once again on the hurdy-gurdy, but also on Vaľko’s processed, sometimes transposed voice. On “Maze I” layers of humming voices and meandering sung melodies form an impenetrable wall of sound, as the voices’ timbres intertwine and overlap, giving rise to fascinating overtones and singular resonances. On “Maze II” Vaľko returns to the earthy sound of the hurdy-gurdy alongside some deep, crooning voices (transposed an octave lower) and embellishes its drones with a performance on glass cups. More than ever, Line Gate's music resonates not just in sonic terms, but also in its deep humanity and social relevance.

Clear Vinyl

Blue Lake is the musical moniker of American born, Copenhagen based multidisciplinary artist and musician Jason Dungan, who signs to the Tonal Union imprint for the release of his new longform album ‘Sun Arcs’. It follows 2022’s release ‘Stikling’, earning a nomination for ‘Album of the Year’ at the Danish Music Awards plus warm praise from The Hum blog and musicians and DJs alike including Jack Rollo (Time is Away/NTS) and Carla dal Forno. A self taught player, Dungan began freely experimenting with self-built multi-string instruments, preferring to build his own hybrid 48-string zither and working in the realms of left-field ambient music, off kilter folk and improvised acoustic minimalism.

The starting point of ‘Sun Arcs’ saw Jason travel for a week alone to Andersabo, a cabin set in the idyllic Swedish woods just outside of Unnaryd, known also as the music project, festival and residency space which has been run by Dungan since 2016, hosting artists like Sofie Birch, Johan Carøe and Ellen Arkbro. Whilst writing 1-2 pieces per day, a conscious decision was made to leave behind everyday distractions and shut out the outside world to instead focus on the natural passage of time as Dungan recalls: “My only sense of time came from these daily walks out in the woods with my dog, and an awareness of the sun’s path as it moved across the sky each day.”

The album’s immersive world unfolds with the opener ‘Dallas’, an ode to his home state and a musical synthesis of these two disparate spaces (Texas and Denmark), the touchstones of Dungan’s life. A folk-esque single acoustic builds to a flowing arrangement of clarinets, organ and cello drones coupled with percussion. ‘Green-Yellow Field’ chimes in as the first of two solo oriented zither recordings twinned with the dreamlike title track ‘Sun Arcs’, both densely rich as cascading and overlapping harmonic tones resound. ‘Bloom’ emerges with a krautrock psyche before an eruption of cello drones, slide guitar and free-ranging zither playing, ushering in the anticipation of spring. With half of the recordings conceived in Andersabo, Jason returned to Copenhagen to form the album's centre piece ‘Rain Cycle’ which features a tempered Roland drum machine alongside shifting zither improvisations. ‘Writing’ explores the shimmering harp-like qualities of sweeping playing figurations with Dungan mapping out adjusted tuning “zones” on the zither for unconventional but creatively liberating effects. ‘Fur’ captures the feeling of openness and the momentum of time, seeing Dungan perform waves of solo clarinet, often in one takes and embellished with textural drones, a zither solo, and layers of guitar. ‘Wavelength’ the album's closer is fondly inspired by the film works of Michael Snow and Don Cherry’s seminal live album ‘Blue Lake’ (1974), as it builds out from a drone-generated zither chord and features an alto recorder solo. Dungan found a deep connection to Cherry’s stripped back performance ethos, focusing on the core beauty of minimal instrumentation creating a genre-less meeting between folk and jazz. A dialogue is formed between the solo and the bandlike performances, interlinked in a geographical duality with all finding a sense of commonplace as musical sketches of visited landscapes. The bountiful instrumentation ebbs and flows as further layers emerge with Dungan constructing his material much like an artist would, recording and reviewing, adding and subtracting.

Musically it portrays a form of double life led by an American-identifying person living in Scandinavia, and a new found presence in Denmark, seeking out underdeveloped marshlands and barren stretches of beach adrift from other rhythms and distractions. Highlighting their individual and potent importance Dungan concludes: “Both places feel like “me”, I think on some level the music is always some kind of self-portrait.” ‘Sun Arcs’ depicts the intricate balance of nature’s cycles and the paths outlined by the seasons, from a winter dormancy to a warm sun drenched scene. The album scales new glorying heights and further defines Dungan’s musical narrative, inhabiting a unique space in left-field, improvised and experimental music, borning his most accomplished compositions to date. A singular and visionary expression, drawing on an array of instruments and sound worlds with a renewed sense of joy and discovery.

The album's rich tapestry was mixed by Jeff Zeigler (Laraaji, Mary Lattimore, Kurt Vile /Steve Gunn) and mastered by Stephan Mathieu (Kali Malone, KMRU, Félicia Atkinson).

Red Vinyl

EVOLV is a visionary window into the mind of Dubfire, the journey of the ‘hybrid’ being and its evolution. Last year in October, an 11-track debut album was released on his long-standing SCI+TEC imprint. And now, just over a year later, Grammy award winning producer Dubfire returns to that sonic discourse, drafting in an impressive array of names to re-interpret the material, and accompanied by Dubfire's new audio-visual EVOLV show which picked up where the critically acclaimed electronic performance experience HYBRID had left off.

New release in our limited vinyl series! Andy Vaz has been dedicated to his own label Yore Records and deep house releases for years. He is a reliable hub of good vibes and musical taste in Cologne. This can be heard internationally not only as a DJ and shop owner, but also on our limited vinyl release. 'A Collection Of Trax Vol. 1' includes new and previously released material: Let's start the release with classic deep house and a nice piano and vocals on 'Only'. Followed by a brand new track and a musical look back into the background imprint days. A well-balanced atmospheric piece - it doesn't get more minimal than this. On the flip it starts with 'Deutz Motorcity (From The D)' and a touching German intro followed by deep chords. Funky bassline, heavy drums - the final track must be an acid piece in true style.

Desmond Dekker recorded some of his best known songs together with his backing group the Aces. Their single “007 (Shanty Town)” made him Jamaican music’s first outernational superstar, reaching the 14th place in the UK charts. The Leslie Kong produced Double Dekker was first issued in 1973 and consists of the best material Desmond recorded during his early years. In 1969 he scored a number one hit with the legendary song “Israelites”. You’ll hear how the Ska music from the mid-60s developed to the Rocksteady sound. This was “Ska” or “Blue Beat”—(or its new name for the slower tempo “Rock Steady”), and the lyrics come from the Calypso-Mento method of telling about current events in music. He was really at his prime from 1969 to 1971, and recorded classics such as “It Mek” (1969) and “You Can Get It If You Really Want” (1970), which you’ll both find on this record. Even before Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff Jamaica already had their own international superstar, Desmond Dekker was his name.

Double Dekker is available as a limited edition of 750 individually numbered copies on orange coloured vinyl.

Kali Malone's anticipated new album "All Life Long" is a collection of music for pipe organ, choir, and brass quintet composed by Kali Malone, 2020 - 2023. Choral music performed by Macadam Ensemble and conducted by Etienne Ferschaud at Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-L'Immaculée-Conception in Nantes. Brass quintet music performed by Anima Brass at The Bunker Studio in New York City. Organ music performed by Kali Malone and Stephen O'Malley on the historical meantone tempered pipe organs at Église Saint-François in Lausanne, Orgelpark in Amsterdam, and Malmö Konstmuseum in Sweden. Kali Malone composes with a rare clarity of vision. Her music is patient and focused, built on a foundation of evolving harmonic cycles that draw out latent emotional resonances. Time is a crucial factor: letting go of expectations of duration and breadth offers a chance to find a space of reflection and contemplation. In her hands, experimental reinterpretations of centuries-old polyphonic compositional methods become portals to new ways of perceiving sound, structure, and introspection. Though awe-inspiring in scope, the most remarkable thing about Malone's music is the intimacy stirred by the close listening it encourages. Malone's new album All Life Long, created between 2020 - 2023, presents her first compositions for organ since 2019's breakthrough album The Sacrificial Code alongside interrelated pieces for voice and brass performed by Macadam Ensemble and Anima Brass. Over the course of twelve pieces, harmonic themes and patterns recur, presented in altered forms and for varied instrumentation. They emerge and reemerge like echoes of their former selves, making the familiar uncanny. Propelled by lungs and breath rather than bellows and oscillators, Malone's compositions for choir and brass take on expressive qualities that complicate the austerity that has defined her work, introducing lyricism and the beauty of human fallibility into music that has been driven by mechanical processes. At the same time, the works for organ, performed by Malone with additional accompaniment by Stephen O'Malley on four different organs dating from the 15th to 17th centuries, underscore the mighty, spectral power that those rigorous operations can achieve. All Life Long simmers in an ever-shifting tension between repetition and variation. The pieces for brass, organ, and voice are alternated asymmetrically, providing nearly continuous timbral fluctuation across its 78-minute runtime even as thematic material reiterates. Each composition's internal framework of fractal pattern permutations has the paradoxical effect of creating anticipated keystone moments of dramatic reverie and lulling the listener into believing in an illusory endlessness. On an even more granular level, the historical meantone tuning systems of each organ used, and the variable intonation of brass and voice, provide further points of emotional excavation within the harmony. The titular composition "All Life Long" appears twice on the album, first as an extended canon for organ and again in the final quarter, compactly arranged for voice In the latter, Malone pairs the music with "The Crying Water" by Arthur Symons, a poem steeped in language of mourning and eternity. For organ, "All Life Long" moves with a patient stateliness, the drama concentrated in moments when shifting tonalities generate and release dissonance and ecstasy. For voice, each word is saturated with feeling, the singers swooping gracefully downward to capture the melancholy of the narrator's relationship to the timeless tears of the sea. "Passage Through The Spheres," the album's opening piece, contains lyrics in Italian pulled from Giorgio Agamban's essay In Praise of Profanation. In it, Agamban defines profanation as, in part, the act of bringing back to communal, secular use that which has been segregated to the realm of the sacred, a process Malone enacts each time she performs on church organs. This is not music of praise, or of spiritual revelation, but it is an artistic enactment of translating the indescribable. It carries the gravity of liturgical chant, and its fixation on the infinite, but draws its weight from the earthly realm of human experience. A music that draws the listener into the present moment where they can discover themselves within the interwoven musical patterns that can come to resemble the passage of days, weeks, years, a lifetime.

Harm’s Way is Duck Ltd.’s most intuitive and organic album yet, the result of keen observation, self-possessed songwriting, and a collaborative spirit. Building on the successes of their previous releases, the deeply relatable album displays a band operating at a nuanced, lyrical and musical best.

Ducks Ltd. make inviting and frenetic guitar pop for when life feels overwhelming. While the band’s songs are ostensibly breezy, a palpable anxiety boils underneath that communicates something deeper about everyday existence. On their latest album Harm’s Way, the Toronto duo of Tom McGreevy and Evan Lewis hones in on interpersonal and societal collapses, urban decay, and the near-impossibility of keeping a level head when everything around you seems to be falling apart.

“They’re songs about struggling,” says singer and lyricist McGreevy (who also plays bass and rhythm guitar). “About watching people I care for suffer, and trying to figure out how to be there for them. And about the strain of living in the world when it feels like it's ready to collapse.” 

Even with its often dark subject matter, Harm’s Way is Ducks Ltd.’s most vividly rendered and collaborative collection yet. It’s an undeniable evolution for the band, not just in how these songs soar, but in their entire writing and recording processes. Composed on tour while supporting acts like Nation of Language, Illuminati Hotties, and Archers of Loaf, the album displays the band’s finely tuned songcraft and well-earned, road-tested confidence. “When we got signed, we had played maybe five or six shows ever. After last year, it’s in the hundreds. That experience can change your perception of your own music and songwriting,” says McGreevy. “In the past when we got stuck on a song we had a tendency to look at our favourite records to see how they tackled it. But now, instead of asking ‘what would Orange Juice do?’, we’d ask, ‘what would we do?’.” Lewis adds, “We have this really great thing where every decision with the band is filtered through both of us. Here especially, we really figured out how to make something that truly sounds like us.”

The band, fortified by this strong sense of sonic identity and a self-assurance in their new material—and in contrast to their critically acclaimed 2021 debut Modern Fiction and 2019 EP Get Bleak, both self-recorded and self-produced in a Toronto basement—wanted to bring Harm’s Way to life in a new city, with an outside producer, and with some of their favourite musicians. “We realised that so many of our favourite bands who are making guitar music right now are from Chicago,” says McGreevy. Working with producer Dave Vettraino (Dehd, Deeper, Lala Lala), they enlisted a marquee cast of Windy City collaborators to round out the tracks on Harm’s Way, including: Finom’s Macie Stewart (violin, string arrangements); Ratboys’ Marcus Nuccio (drums on most tracks); Dehd’s Jason Balla (who helped arrange the backing vocals, to which he also contributed); and backing vocals from Julia Steiner (Ratboys), Nathan O’Dell (Dummy), Margaret McCarthy (Moontype), Rui De Magalhaes (Lawn), and Lindsey-Paige McCloy (Patio). The band’s touring drummer, Jonathan Pappo, and bassist Julia Wittman also appear on the LP.

Ducks Ltd. are a band that already thrives on skirting the edges of buoyant jangle pop and driving power pop, and the duo credits these collaborators with helping to push their sound even further. “Historically our process has been really tightly controlled and insular. On this record, we worked with people who we trusted with a pretty wide range of musical backgrounds and they had approaches and ideas that helped open up the record's sonic palette,” explains McGreevy. “Jason thinks about backing vocals in a totally different way than I do and is super intuitive with melodic ideas. Julia and Margaret have a really deeo understanding of harmony. Macie and Dave were comfortable with the idea of improvising string parts which took some of those layers in some surprising directions. Dave also has an amazing ability to create atmosphere on a recording, and encouraged us to use a bunch of different techniques, tones, and processes to achieve that.”

Harm’s Way’s lush, melodic swagger is clear from the first notes of opener “Hollowed Out.” A song about living with decline (inspired by a Toronto sinkhole), its bright, indelible catchiness serves in contrast to its lyrical unease. Anchored by Lewis’ shimmering electric guitar, “The Main Thing” laments growing apart from a person whose views you once shared while managing to toss in references to both the unglamorous lives of middle relief baseball pitchers and the occult. Other songs split the difference between country and krautrock, like the rollicking “Train Full of Gasoline,” which uses the 2013 Lac-Mégantic rail disaster in Quebec as a metaphor for self-destructive patterns. Meanwhile, “Deleted Scenes” mourns the absence of someone no longer in your life (even if for very good reasons) and recalls The Cure at their most direct, and closer “Heavy Bag” employs enveloping, mournful strings to evoke a sense of how misery frequently loves company.

'Sparagmos' von Spectral Voice ist das zweite Album unter dem Banner von Dark Descent Records und markiert den Höhepunkt einer Periode katabatischen Eintauchens in das Material. Der Titel selbst, der auf den dionysischen Ritus des Zerreißens von Gliedmaßen anspielt, bildet die Bühne für eine tiefgreifende Erforschung von Leben, Tod und der ungezähmten Essenz im Inneren.

"Der Inhalt des Albums oszilliert zwischen Wehklagen und Begeisterung. Eine eindringliche, morbide Atmosphäre der Funerealität sehnt sich nach der Befreiung durch den Tod und beklagt die Qualen des Lebens. Gepaart mit Momenten des frenetischen Wahnsinns, der Erhabenheit, des Schreckens und der Ekstase ist der Punkt, den wir zu erreichen versuchen, der Moment, in dem - durch das Opfer - die atavistische Wildheit entfesselt wird und die ultimative Erhöhung des Lebens durch den Tod realisiert wird", reflektiert Schlagzeuger/Sänger E. Wendler.

Einflüsse aus den esoterischen Bereichen von Death, Black und Doom Metal, Dark Ambient und arkaner Literatur fließen in Spectral Voice's neuestem Werk zusammen. Mit dem klanglichen Können von M. Kolontyrsky (Gitarre), P. Riedl (Gitarre) und J. Barrett (Bass) - ebenfalls von Blood Incantation - sowie dem Schlagzeuger/Sänger E. Wendler, weben Spectral Voice einen Klangteppich, der selbst ihre eigenen hohen Standards übertrifft!

COLOURED VINYL RE-ISSUE OF THE 12TH STUDIO ALBUM BY PROG-METAL FOREFATHERS FATES WARNING Deluxe RED VINYL edition of this 2016 release, the twelfth studio album from American progressive metal veterans Fates Warning. They are one of the most successful US-based prog bands who have sold over a million albums worldwide. Right from the impressive first minutes of this album, Fates Warning proves itself to be one of those rare veteran bands capable of delivering new material as poignant and powerful as their many high points of the past. Fates Warning rose to international fame in the 1980s and was ranked as one of the early "flagship bands of progressive metal" along with Queensrÿche and Dream Theater, who were responsible for creating, developing and popularizing that genre.

20. Jubiläumsalbum der weltweit bekannten klassischen Crossover-Gruppe Il Divo mit neuem Material, darunter ein neuer Originalsong. Erstes Album
mit dem neuen Mitglied Steven LaBrie,nach dem Tod von Gründungsmitglied Carlos Marin im Jahr 2020. Il Divo hebt 2024 mit ihrem 10. Album "XX"
ab. Wieder einmal machen sie einen kreativen Sprung nach vorne und erweitern gleichzeitig ihren Stil und ihre Vision. "Das Album hat wirklich einen
eigenen Sound", so Sébastien weiter. "Es ist aufregend zu hören, wohin wir gehen. Es ist Il Divo, aber es ist das nächste Kapitel"."Es hat etwas
Magisches, dass wir 2022 auf Tournee waren, enge Freunde wurden und zusammen Musik machen", führt Steven weiter aus. "Es ist unglaublich."Für
Il Divo beginnt jetzt eine neue Zeitrechnung."Für mich ist Musik mehr als nur Unterhaltung", sagt David. "Sie trennt den Menschen vom Rest des
Tierreichs. Die menschliche Stimme ist zu Dingen fähig, die jeder im Publikum schwingungsmäßig zuordnen kann. Wir haben alle schon Traurigkeit
und Glück erlebt. Il Divo übersetzt extreme Emotionen in eine moderne Erfahrung von Menschlichkeit. Das ist keine Hintergrund Musik. Wir spiegeln
in unseren Schwingungen wider, wie Sie sich vielleicht fühlen, und ermöglichen eine Katharsis. Wir möchten, dass dies so lange wie möglich andauert.
Solange wir den Atem haben und in der Lage sind, das zu tuntun können, was wir tun, ist das alles, was wir wollen. Wir wollen Fenster der
Transformation für jeden schaffen, der bereit ist zuzuhören.""Alles, was wir tun, ist für das Publikum", erklärt Sebastien. "Carlos wird immer in
unseren Herzen sein. "Nachdem wir einen Bruder verloren und in 20 Jahren so viel erlebt haben, sind Il Divo und unsere Musik kein bisschen müde",
sagt Urs weiter. Das ist für mich das Wichtigste: Il Divo ist nach 20 Jahren immer noch da, und Il Divo ist da um zu bleiben."