Buscar:metr

With some of the best DJs and selectors there is a certain mysterious sound or underlying feeling which unites the music they play, regardless of genre, year or tempo Luke Una is a master of telling a story through music and this compilation is a perfect example of his musical alchemy in action. Featuring tracks from Yusef Lateef, Airto Moreira, Crooked Man, Henri Texier and many more, it is a collection of new, old, rare and under-discovered music from around the world, all united by Luke under the banner of "E-Soul Cultura".It's best described by Luke himself, who writes: "As the 5AM city sleeps and the strobe lights are slowly turned off, we gather on the wrong side of town in a transcendental journey alone together. We are the late night disenfranchised holding on in various after parties, flats, lofts, random kitchens and basements into the outer cosmos with É Soul Cultura.

Music from exotic tear jerkers, Afro- spiritual jazz, cosmic Brazilian celestial grooves, machine street soul, dark horses, lost B- sides, £1 bargain- bin bombs, hidden gems, late night Italo dubbing, deep velvet N.Y.C garage, bass buggin sonic futurism, wrong speed 33BPM pitched up +8 new beat, majestic sunset strings, sweet vocals from heaven, no half steppin jazz dancing in outer- space and odd numbers. Yes… magical moments, together, holding on in witness protection suburban cul- de- sacs and Castle Court flats. Cosmic É high, 3000ft above the city getting evangelical to murky, wonky timeless beautiful music. This thing of ours dreaming of better days. Fail we may, sail we must, the sun will come up again."

Cocteau Twins, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Julia Holter, DIIV, Washed Out, Broadcast, Insides, Beach House, Drug Store Romeos. Introducing Beneather, a BAFTA-nominated composer from North London obsessively crafting sad, lo-fi, cinematic, ambient scandi-dreampop submerged in gently fuzzy tape loops. Much like the paintings of Gerhard Richter or a heavy mist rolling through a familiar landscape, the debut long player from Beneather obscures and blurs ten beautiful tracks beneath washes of cinematic, ambient scandi-dreampop – details emerge and fade, voices ooze and flow, tunes soothe and unnerve, metronomic beats click and swing. It would not be out of place on a David Lynch or Jim Jarmusch soundtrack. Inspired by the likes of Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Hammock, Grouper, Low, GAS, Huerco S., Emeralds, Jenny Holzer, William Basinski & ABBA!! Beneather is the solo project of Lewis Young - composer and collaborator in The Leaf Library, drone pop from north London. As a composer, Lewis recently scored the British short ‘Lucky Break’ which found its way into the BAFTAs short list only to narrowly miss out on the gong. Lewis is a multi-instrumentalist, producer, designer and filmmaker currently living in Walthamstow, London. He started as a guitarist in noughties math-rockers Tea with the Queen, shifting to bass for multi-harmonied Naomi Hates Humans before returning to thumping roots as drummer for The Leaf Library. Objects Forever - the imprint label created by The Leaf Library - has provided Lewis with the vehicle to jump back into experimental song craft, inspiring the genesis of Beneather. “I just needed to make a project which spoke to all the aspects of music I’ve loved creating as a multi-instrumentalist. Plugging things into things to make satisfying little electronic loops, then layering extremely minimal bass and guitar lines with a lo-fi aesthetic. Melinda and I spent a few days in the studio - picking out objects, patterns… items that could inspire a thread of instinctive wordless melody. I took that expressionism and sliced it to pieces, rearranging it into ambient vocal hooks.” Beneather is an exercise in hypnotic simplicity. Experimental, dream-like music built on layers of scratchy electronic tape loops, chiming spacious guitars and abstract pulsing vocals. These cinematic songs combine Grouper's wistful deviations with the warm fuzz of Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, the nocturnal hum of Emeralds, the crackling collapse of William Basinski and Low's glacial pop melancholy. Outside of compositions for film, TV and Podcasts - Lewis plays with the indie drone-pop band The Leaf Library, featuring Matt Ashton from John Peel faves Saloon (“World-weary yet innocent, blissful dream-pop” - UNCUT - 8/10). Lewis has supported the likes of Lali Puna, Joanna Newsom, Lætitia Sadier & Alexis Taylor.

Proprietary rhythm: Vector Rituals sees techno polymath Stefan Goldmann constructing polymetric rites of percussion. Synthesized from the ground up, timbral characteristics, metric properties, dynamic expression and microrhythmic phrasing are shaped by the interactions of layered control voltage functions. The result is an assembly of abstract dances ranging from the intricate to the powerful.
Near-humanoid behaviour emerges from liquid patterns, laid out and brought to life by the freewheeling encounter of modular waveforms and snappy envelopes. Sounds evoke metallic textures
– ringing, scraping – and group into virtual shapes from tiny spikes to vast surfaces.
Some of the parametric relationships employed are as loose as to imply chance drifts. Others lock in with strict regularity as found in the 13 vs. 17 polymeter pattern of opening track 'Nayba'. By contrast,
in the strictly repetitive yet highly asymmetrical sequence of 'Yukagir' each metric step has its own uniquely irregular duration. The center piece of this collection is 'Ayon' with multiple autonomous and
highly agile timelines. Its constituent layers break away in radial fashion and fall back together at widely spaced points of congregation.
All compositions herein present powerful proof of the unlimited capacity of electronic music to yield new principles of organisation and to solidify their expression into clear-cut gestalt.

Re-pressed: standard wallet, seafoam green vinyl, printed inner-sleeve

Residing now in Brighton, Bess grew up in the English countryside in a creative
family of songwriters and artists. Whilst her crystalline vocals draw favourable
comparisons to the likes of Marika Hackman and Julia Jacklin, her lyrics evoke
an imagery that often spins from the pastoral to the abstract. Handpicked by Lucy
Rose for signing to her own label Real Kind Records, tracks from the album are
already on high rotation at BBC 6 music.
Selected quotes:
'It's a stunner' - Chris Hawkins, 6Music
'Brilliant… does sound great' - Huw Stephens, 6Music
'One lovely thing this is… she has such a deft touch' - Steve Lamacq, 6Music
"Spectacular… One of the most unassuming yet remarkable young artists in the
UK, she has made a record so intimate that by the closing song she seems like an
old friend" - The Independent
"Brighton's Bess Atwell is a rare talent, a singer-songwriter whose languorous
voice sits midway between Lana del Rey's hazy delivery and Emmy the Great at
her most broken-hearted. ...she's that rare thing in the post-Ed Sheeran age, a
singer-songwriter worth keeping an eye on." - The Arts Desk
"What a cool, assured and lovely thing the second album from the Brighton
singer-songwrier is. What marks her out is her ear for a phrase and music that
can pierce the heart." - Metro
"Her vocals resemble Lana Del Rey with a greater twist of passion, marking her as
one of the most exciting young talents in English indie folk." - Clash

Re-pressed: standard wallet, seafoam green vinyl, printed inner-sleeve

Residing now in Brighton, Bess grew up in the English countryside in a creative
family of songwriters and artists. Whilst her crystalline vocals draw favourable
comparisons to the likes of Marika Hackman and Julia Jacklin, her lyrics evoke
an imagery that often spins from the pastoral to the abstract. Handpicked by Lucy
Rose for signing to her own label Real Kind Records, tracks from the album are
already on high rotation at BBC 6 music.
Selected quotes:
'It's a stunner' - Chris Hawkins, 6Music
'Brilliant… does sound great' - Huw Stephens, 6Music
'One lovely thing this is… she has such a deft touch' - Steve Lamacq, 6Music
"Spectacular… One of the most unassuming yet remarkable young artists in the
UK, she has made a record so intimate that by the closing song she seems like an
old friend" - The Independent
"Brighton's Bess Atwell is a rare talent, a singer-songwriter whose languorous
voice sits midway between Lana del Rey's hazy delivery and Emmy the Great at
her most broken-hearted. ...she's that rare thing in the post-Ed Sheeran age, a
singer-songwriter worth keeping an eye on." - The Arts Desk
"What a cool, assured and lovely thing the second album from the Brighton
singer-songwrier is. What marks her out is her ear for a phrase and music that
can pierce the heart." - Metro
"Her vocals resemble Lana Del Rey with a greater twist of passion, marking her as
one of the most exciting young talents in English indie folk." - Clash

Tsampikos Fronas aka June takes a departure from his dance orientated earlier work. Recorded between 2018 and 2020, Window of Time sees the Berlin-based producer explore sparser arrangements than his previous releases.

The record unravels like a dystopian cyberpunk novel, something akin to William Gibson’s Neuromancer. Both the title track and ‘Stratagem / Predator’ create an increasing tension that builds through repetitive sequences. The arpeggiated synths on ‘Year 2092’ evoke images of sprawling metropolitan city scapes, while the claustrophobic mood of ‘The Master of Electricity’, the first track written for the album, wouldn’t go amiss on a soundtrack to a sci-fi thriller like Blade Runner.

Created using modular synthesizers, analog sequencers and analog polyphonic synths, Window of Time eschews melody in favour of cold, pulsating rhythms. Combined with haunting choral toplines and minimalistic flourishes, such as those on album closer ‘Elegy’, June invites the listener on a free dive into their subconscious; to navigate boundless, unexplored territories.

Heavy Machinery Records and Tee Pee Records are very excited to announce 'Tales of Torment', the new record from Melbourne horror rock juggernaut Rot TV, out February 18, 2022. The record is led by first single 'Ready To Die', a relentless, loud n' proud rock number with "just the right ratio of headbangery to boogie woogie".

Rot TV are lovers of all things freakish and gritty - be it a demented old Lovecraft tale, or a BÖC tune on full blast. Their debut vinyl release FDA/Transylvanian Nights was a hard n’ heavy double feature of howling, riff-crazy horror rock, and their brand new debut LP Tales of Torment delivers all this and more. Rot TV have described their forthcoming album as a delightful journey to hell and back dedicated to ALL maniacs - and that means YOU.
credits
released February 18, 2022

Harriet Hudson-Clise - lead vocals
Graham Clise - guitars, percussion & vocals
Robert Muiños - guitars, percussion & vocals
Zac Holly - bass, synthesizer & vocals
Lee Parker - drums, percussion & vocals

Recorded, mixed and produced by Robert Muiños at Sauna Studios, Collingwood in 2021
Mastered by John Davis at Metropolis Mastering
Front cover painting by Chris Grande
Logo & handwriting by Harriet Hudson-Clise
Design and collage by Luke Fraser at Grin Creative
Project coordination by Amber Arizono
Series curated and produced by Miles Brown

Let’s Eat Grandma, the duo composed of songwriters,
multi-instrumentalists and vocalists Rosa Walton and
Jenny Hollingworth, release their third full-length
album, ‘Two Ribbons’.

 Co-produced by David Wrench and Let’s Eat
Grandma, the album includes previously released
singles ‘Happy New Year’, a celebratory song about
friendship, plus the stunning, melancholic title track
‘Two Ribbons’, glistening pop song ‘Hall Of Mirrors’
and ‘Levitation’, a glimmering and expansive track
driven by soaring synths.

 The band have also announced details of a UK tour,
their first in over three years, including a homecoming
headline appearance at the Sunrise Arena at Latitude
Festival, with further international shows to come.

 Deluxe 140g vinyl LP in 300gsm gatefold sleeve with
matt UV varnish and embossed foiling area, with
150gsm matt UV varnished inner sleeve and digital
download card, also with matt UV varnish.

 Deluxe LP includes exclusive 7” in spined sleeve disco
bag and 180gsm matt machine varnish inner sleeve.

 Tourdates - April 30 & May 1 Stag and Dagger Festival
Glasgow, July 24 Latitude Festival Southwold, October 6
Clwb Ifor Bach Cardiff, 7 Yes (Pink Room) Manchester, 8
Belgrave Music Hall Leeds, 13 Cluny Newcastle, 14
Metronome Nottingham, 15 Space 54 Birmingham, 16
Mash Cambridge, 18 Thekla Bristol, 19 Koko London, 21
Patterns Brighton, 22 Epic Norwich.

Limited to 250 copies worldwide.

Croatia's Fiume delivers a full length eight track lp for L.I.E.S., following his cult 2019 Bunker Records release.

Jasmin Mahmić, (who is also known for his Le Chocolat Noir project) returns with his absolute blackened industrial onslaught straight from the depths of the Balkans. Fiume takes us into a netherworld of short circuited electronics, scrap yard soundscapes and foreboding, stark ,straight from your worst nightmare vocals. Barren wastelands, tropical depression, vast nothingness of the modern age, pillaged republics and metropolis' that have gone wrong, this is world downfall music. Let your own irrelevance stare you down in the mirror, minutes crawl like days, horror of life goes on. These are the sounds in your head, try to claw your way out. Recommended!

"The album has been Half-Speed Remastered and cut to lacquers at 33RPM, across 2x heavyweight black vinyl LPs, to deliver maximum dynamic range in the sound.

Vinyl cut by Matt Colton at Alchemy Mastering, mastered by Tony Cousins at Metropolis. The album is true to the original LP design with a wide-spine jacket and printed inner sleeves, but now utilises colour photographs from The Last Temptation of Christ film. All images are newly re-scanned."

"The album has been Half-Speed Remastered and cut to lacquers at 33RPM, on 1x heavyweight black LP, to deliver maximum dynamic range in the sound.

Vinyl cut by Matt Colton at Alchemy Mastering, mastered by Tony Cousins at Metropolis. The album is true to the original LP design, but all images are newly re-scanned."

Highly acclaimed guitarist Philipp van Endert played and produced on
"Moon Balloon" the largest and most complex music project that he has been able to record with in his music career so far

Combined with the renowned Filmorchester Babelsberg he recorded an outstanding and unique album featuring his original tunes that combine Jazz, Classic and Film music. Philipps compositions were arranged by Peter Hinderthür and the live performance at Filmstudios Babelsberg was conducted by Jörg Achim Keller (BBC Concert Orchestra, Metropole Orkest, HR BigBand, WDR BigBand a.o.)

Co-produced with Metronomy's Joseph Mount, electro-pop artist TATYANA's debut album is a careful fusion of her classical harp training with her keen sense for pop production and songwriting. Inspired by late-2000s indie pop and Swedish pop auteurs, Treat Me Right is a sparkling, catchy collection of `80s synths and futuristic auto-tuned vocals. TATYANA has lived in Holland, Russia, Singapore, and Boston - where she attended Berklee College of Music on a full scholarship - before settling back in her hometown of London in 2018. The transient nature of her upbringing has certainly informed her music: from underground raves to viral YouTube covers to playing harp on tour with Neneh Cherry, there seems to be no scene that she doesn't thrive in. Last year, she released her thrilling debut EP Shadow On The Wall via Sinderlyn. The self-produced collection was met with praise from tastemaker outlets like NYLON, FADER, Office, Bandcamp, Line of Best Fit, and Crack, as well as an exclusive vinyl pressing with Vinyl Me, Please's Rising program. Treat Me Right is the irresistible product of these impressive first steps, the kind of precisely produced, impossibly catchy pop that takes other artists their entire careers to nail.

Hotel Paral.lel, released in 1997, marks the full length debut release from Austrian Christian Fennesz, originally released by MEGO, following the twitching drone as found on the 1995 EP Instrument, also included in this deluxe 2LP reissue. Once launched, Hotel Paral.lel was to instigate a sublime exploration of a wide variety of forms, from formal abstraction to shimmering drone around to ground zero glitch pop.

Recorded just before mobile computing devices became omnipresent it was an investigation into the sonic possibilities residing in guitar based digital music. Sz launches the career with a constantly buzzing sound that resembles a fax machine encountering a G3 laptop for the first time, realising the game is up. Nebenraum is the first foray into the style for which one would attribute to Fennesz. A glacial drone unexpectedly morphs into a gorgeous melody and microscopic groove. Adding pulse and melody was hearsay in the radical end of experimental music up until this point and with this single gesture, everything changed, for everyone. Blok M nails this trajectory home with a straight up 4/4 beat. Such rhythm also features on Fa with a euphoric mix of a thudding beat, sharp splinters of noise and a devastating exploding melody. Repetition plays heavily through this album as the hyper metronomic beat on traxdata lays a bed for all manner of buzzing electronics. On the closing “Aus” we see a glimpse of what was to come in the future works of Fennesz, an experiment in popping, bubbling pulse pop. A far more darker and experimental work than Fennesz’ subsequent work. This is an exquisite radical field of freeform noise, sliced techno beats and subtle ambient texture all coming together to create a timeless work. There’s little out there in the world of music, still to this day, that sounds remotely like Hotel Paral.lel.

With a radical reinvention of music Hotel Paral.lel is an essential addition to collectors of pioneering music in the late 20th Century and sounds as enthralling today as it did to the shocked ears occupying 1997.

Remastered by Stephan Mathieu.

The 4th full-length by Tokyo Metropolis electronica entity UNKNOWN ME, Bishintai, is a sublime synthetic suite of cosmic wellness transmissions exploring “the unknown beauty of your mind and body,” appropriately named for a kanji compound meaning “beauty, mind, body.” Crafted with software, synthesizer, steel drum, rhythm boxes, and robotic voice by the core quartet of Yakenohara, P-RUFF, H. Takahashi, and Osawa Yudai, the album unfolds like a holographic guided meditation, soothing but cybernetic, framed by subways and sky malls. Latticework electronics flicker with texture, glitch, wobble, and mirage, themed around sensory perception and body parts.

A diverse cast of collaborators assist in actualizing the collection's uniquely urban expression of new age ambient, from psychedelic footwork riddler foodman to multi-instrumentalist institution Jim O'Rourke to Japanese underground shape-shifters MC.Sirafu and Lisa Nakagawa. Although the group cites a therapeutic muse (“made for the maintenance of the minds of city dwellers”), Bishintai shimmers with an alien strangeness, too, like decentralized relaxation systems obeying sentient circuits. This is music of utopia and nowhere, channeling worlds within worlds, birthed from a sonic ethos as simple as it is sacred: “in pursuit of beautiful tones.”

Hope was first released in partnership with The Daily Mirror in April 2003 as a response to the Iraq War, the artist community came together for War Child once more with some of the biggest names in music recording an album of exclusive tracks in just three weeks to raise vital funds to give hope to the children of Iraq. The vinyl release of Hope features alternate artwork using the original concept designed by Nick Robertson that has never been used before. Hope is part of a series of four re-releases by War Child Records making the amazing music artists have donated to the charity available on DSPs and vinyl for the first time. All proceeds from these releases will directly fund War Child’s life saving work with children affected by conflict.

180g Coloured Vinyl Series Contains New Specially Prepared Liner Notes By Penguin Guide To Jazz Writer Brian Morton And By Paris’
Prestigious Jazz Magazine. Quincy Jones Big Band Bossa Nova + 2 Bonus Tracks (Yellow Vinyl) “Almost every track here is a small classic that you’re bound to have heard somewhere, without realising what it was. “Manha de Carnaval”, Luiz Bonf‘s peerless melody, is another that surfaces constantly in movies and behind commercials. Likewise, Jobim’s “One Note Samba”, which varies the metre and changes the pace most effectively. Jones recognised that he had something that could change the metre and flavour of almost any piece. “On the Street Where You Live” loses its slightly plonking sentimentality and turns into a celebration of community. “A Taste of Honey” acquires a new and exotic quality.” Penguin Guide to Jazz “There are few albums more enchanting than this one, which finds the perfect balance, among other things, to make everything swing, and to make us dance better. And you’ll be amazed to hear the voices of Roland Kirk, Paul Gonsalves, Jim Hall and Clark Terry. Yes, all of them are here.” Jazz Magazine Personnel: featuring Clark Terry (trumpet) Phil Woods (alto sax), Paul Gonsalves (tenor sax), Rahsaan Roland Kirk (Stritch, alto sax), Lalo Schifrin (piano), Jim Hall (guitar), Chris White (bass), Rudy Collins (drums), Jos Paula, Carlos “Bala” G
mez, Jack Del R o (percussion), Quincy Jones (conductor). Recorded in New York, August 13 & September 4-12, 1962. *BONUS TRACKS: Quincy Jones and His Orchestra. Similar personnel as Big Band Bossa Nova, also including Rahsaan Roland Kirk (flute, tenor sax, Stritch). New York, June 15, 1962. Original session produced by Quincy Jones. Originally issued in 1962 on the Mercury single 72012


b a2 | Boogie Bossa Nova Aka Boogie Stop Shuffle

Chris Imler likes to play drums standing up. He‘s the dandy with the killer offbeat, or, as one major German newspaper once put it, the "Grand Seigneur of the Berlin Underground". He has been making his mark on countless Berlin musical affairs since long before the fall of the Wall, with The Golden Showers, Peaches, Oum Shatt, Driver &Driver, Die Türen, Jens Friebe, to name but a few. He has also been perfoming across Europe as a solo artist for the past decade.

In "Operation Schönheit" (German for "Operation Beauty"), he has recorded his most, well, beautiful album to date. But Benedikt Frey's warm production subverts its own beauty with a multitude of clanking and ingling synth sounds, making the work very much about the cosmetic surgery it performs on itself. It's all in the tradition of the more experimental and electronic side of post-punk in which Imler and his unique groove are rooted. It doesn't take insider knowledge of Berlin's post-punk underground to realise that that Imler groove consists of rhythm that sings, vocals that dance and a look that fits, as illustrated by "Disappoint Me", his latest video: https://youtu.be/YeVJ75ljjB8

Elsewhere - such as in "Movies" - the rhythm sings, less electronically reduced, into the acoustics of an old, high-ceilinged Berlin apartment; metal clatters, a zither trembles and Imler plays with the metronome. Sometimes he moves ahead of time, sometimes trails behind it. He always manages to be in his very own groove, which carries everything along. And this is precisely the essence of the Imler rhythm, which lends itself to being applied to the very rhythm of life: Stretch and compress your time and loop it according to your own groove! Optimise nothing but feel everything! And dance to it! Even when contemplating everyday information overload, as Imler's high-speed mumbling suggests in the hectic yet smooth opening track "Temperature".

But being the ultimate night owl he is, Imler manages to make even the odd bout of paranoia seem like a good thing: like some kind of krauty, groovy B-horror-soundtrack-inflected high-pressure environment, "Whip Me" is a cross between Conrad Schnitzler and Bauhaus. In the title track, whose lyrics were written together with Jens Friebe, he intones: "You want to be something greater / You break your leg / When it heals again / You break it again" and sounds like the most gleeful fatalist you can imagine. Because in his city, one can still lose oneself better than anywhere else - a night easily becomes a whole universe that can be traversed, marvelled at and played with, and one might find one's old self again only when hearing "church bells" and "small birds singing". At least that's how Imler illustrates it in "Emptiness full of stars", and it seems likely that those "stars" are the human companions of the Berlin night in question.

And so once again Imler becomes Berlin's most important cultural ambassador: that scene of the eternally, and somehow successfully, failing creatures of the night, once the envy of the international postmodern bohème, has, despite many claims to the contrary, not been completely "optimised away", and its attitude to life is perfectly summed up in Imler's groove. And, of course, his look. "Schau Hin" (German for "Look!"), he sings in the track of the same name, masterfully dubbed out with the help of Melbourne's Leo James.

Quite right! Look - and listen.

Yours, Johannes von Weizsäcker (The Chap)

Bringing together therapeutic frequencies, forest bathing
(shinrin-yoku) and binaural sound, Hinako Omori's ‘a journey...’
combines inner healing and natural landscapes into in an
immersive cartography of the mind in ambient electronics. The
album progresses not track by track but as a continuous
journey, a stream of consciousness tracing hills and valleys with
the warmth of analogue synthesis and Omori’s voice always
close at hand. Omori detuned oscillators to create binaural
beats, syncing to the Hz of our brainwaves so that listeners
might further find themselves calmed by and immersed in these
soundscapes
 ‘a journey...’ was recorded at Omori’s home studio and Real
World Studios, when Omori was an invited to perform at the
immersive online festival WOMAD At Home. Spatial 3D
recordings are woven throughout the album, and situate each
track in different environments, from waterways to forests in and
around the Mendip Hills.
 It is Hinako’s work in sound engineering that provides the
bedrock of skills that manifest her vision for ‘a journey...’,
articulating a whole world in binaural field recordings, analogue
synthesisers, and augmented vocals.
 The album sits within a rich lineage of electronic musicians who
have looked to music for its healing properties, from
Venezuelan musician Miguel Noya to Pauline Anna Strom’s
ambient soundscapes; Pauline Oliveros’ deep listening
meditations and the augmented field recordings of Irv Teibel’s
‘Environments’ series.
 Mastered and cut by Matt Colton at Metropolis.
 LP pressed on white vinyl.

"Stand In The Fire" - Warren Zevon (voc, g, p); Zeke Zirngiebel (g, voc); David Landau (g); Bob Harris (synth, p, voc); Roberto Piñón (b, voc); Marty Stinger (dr)

Warren Zevon had toured for quite some time as a songwriter in the rock scene, released a few singles and landed a flop with his debut LP in 1969 before the tide finally turned. Roughly ten years later, his live album – put together from a five-day residency at the Roxy Theater in West Hollywood – entered the annals of vinyl history as one of the best live albums of all time and was awarded four stars by the magazine Rolling Stone. Ambiguously entitled by the comprehensively educated Zevon, who had been confronted with the tough side of show business, "Stand In The Fire" delivers genial simple pure and straightforward rock right from the start, which hit the public with a vengeance. Full of vim and elation, the band pours out the significant, biting verses with fire ("Jeannie Needs A Shooter") and fuels the emotional inferno with high-speed bursts of rock ("Excitable Boy"). Zevon proves his skills as a singer and songwriter in the ballad-like yet powerful "Mohammed’s Radio". In a direct comparison to this number we have the forthright, no-nonsense hit "Werewolves Of London" with its close harmonies. Just how Zevon manages to succeed in getting his delicate voice and lyrics over to the public is shown in the powerful mix of heavy and honky-tonk ("I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead") and finally in the thunderous final number – "Bo Didley’s A Gunslinger" – with its percussive and metrically complicated antiphony.

This Speakers Corner LP was remastered using pure analogue components only, from the master tapes through to the cutting head. More information under pure-analogue

All royalties and mechanical rights have been paid.

Recording: August 1980 live at The Roxy Theatre in West Hollywood, CA., by Billy Youdelman and Greg Ladanyi

Production: Greg Ladanyi & Warren Zevon

Ben Ritz has released EPs on Sweat Equity and Merge Layers. He's not afraid of the high bpms, but this isn't all blender no tender. This is futuristic, hard yet funky techno that is undeniably for the freaks. Find him in NYC or on his vinyl debut right here.

A1 "Up And Down" opens up with an ear-worm, repetitive melody that bangs and jacks with the hard kick and hi-hats. Freakish manipulation of the melody, tasteful breakdown and build-up, and a good dose of space throughout the track make this an undeniable sweat-dripper, trippy chugger. A2 "Do Make Me Strange" has a similarly catchy diddy that undulates around the drums. Restraint is the key here. Hard but funky, with distorted and drippy acidic takes on the main simplistic melodic line--this is a cerebral come-up, cooling your sweaty skin and leading your body to the nooks and crannies of the Hyper Groove.

The title track "Easily Disturbed" opens up the B side by ushering in the mood of the later hours. This is titillating, popping, syncopated, subtle, but still raucous techno right here. Perfect for mid-peak and when you're in your head, sending forces of rave rhythm telepathically to the rest of the dance floor. "Crystalline" closes out the EP with a boom and bang. Hypnosis overcomes. The ego-death has won out against your anxieties. This is music for the thrill-seekers of metropolitan dystopias worldwide...executed with nuance and style.

'Welcome To The End Of The World' delivers The Dead Milkmen's
trademark twisted humour along with some underlying dark elements
that will creep in to your consciousness if you pay close enough attention

The six tracks run the gamut of weird and wild, from the heavy, Ramonesinfluenced lead single 'Only The Dead Get Off At Kymlinge', a ghost story about the haunted trains terrorising passengers on the Stockholm Metro to 'Battery Powered Rat', a jangly instrumental about two popes, a chess game, and a rat at the Vatican. ("Battery Powered Rat is one of the weirdest things we've ever done", says drummer Dean Clean.)
Musically, the band draws on industrial influences, with a strong beat- driven aesthetic. "It's a pretty good representation of the different styles of things that we do", Dean Clean explains. "It's got some sort of heavy stuff and some groovy, almost dance-oriented stuff, which is fun to say".

wieder auf Lager Die Hamburger Band Faust gehört zu den großen Namen, die der Krautrock der 1970er-Jahre hervorgebracht hat. Als Jean-Hervé Péron und Zappi Diermaier 1971 ihr Debütalbum vorlegten, wollte das in Deutschland niemand hören, im Ausland jedoch verkauften sich "The Faust Tapes" über 100.000-mal. "There is no group more mythical than Faust", schwärmte der englische Musiker und Krautrock-Kenner Julian Cope Jahrzehnte später. Mit "Just Us" setzen Faust ihren musikalischen Weg fort. Während Diermaier seinem Handwerk - Schlagzeug und Perkussion - treu bleibt, integriert Peron allerhand unübliche Klangquellen in sein Bassspiel, verschiedene Streichinstrumente, Klavier und sogar eine Nähmaschine als Metronom. Tracks wie "Nur nous" und "Ich bin ein Pavian" zeigen, dass Faust nichts von ihrer Vorliebe für Avantgarde und Dadaismus verloren haben. Ausflüge ins folkloristische Gefilde ("Cavaqui-ho", "Gammes") runden das wahrhaft faustische Überraschungspaket ab.

Etran de L'Aïr (or "stars of the Aïr region") welcomes you to Agadez, the capital city of Saharan rock. Playing for over 25 years, Etran has emerged as stars of the local wedding circuit. Beloved for their dynamic repertoire of hypnotic solos and sun schlazed melodies, Etran stakes out a place for Agadez guitar music. Playing a sound that invokes the desert metropolis, Agadez celebrates the sounds of all the dynamism of a hometown wedding. Etran is a family band composed of brothers and cousins, all born and raised in the small neighborhood of Abalane, just in the shadow of the grand mosque. Sons of nomadic families that settled here in the 1970s fleeing the droughts, they all grew up in Agadez. The band was formed in 1995 when current band leader Moussa "Abindi" Ibra was only 9 years old. "We only had one acoustic guitar," he explains, "and for percussion, we hit a calabash with a sandal." Over the decades, the band painstakingly pieced together gear to form their band and built an audience by playing everywhere, for everyone. "It was difficult. We would walk to gigs by foot, lugging all our equipment, carrying a small PA and guitars on our backs, 25 kilometers into the bush, to play for free_ there's nowhere in Agadez we haven't played." Whereas other Tuareg guitarists look to Western rock, Etran de L'Aïr play in a pan-African style that is emblematic of their hometown, citing a myriad of cultural influences, from Northern Malian blues, Hausa bar bands, to Congolese Soukous. It's perhaps this quality that makes them so beloved in Agadez. "We play for the Tuareg, the Toubou, the Zarma, the Hausa," Abindi explains. "When you invite us, we come and play." Their music is rooted in celebration, and invokes the exuberance of an Agadez wedding, with an overwhelming abundance of guitars, as simultaneous solos playfully pass over one another with a restrained precision, forceful yet never overindulgent.

“I like it when music builds itself up in an organic fashion,” says Duncan Marquiss. “When it just seems to emerge and almost writes itself.”
This natural, intuitive and free flowing approach is evident all across the debut solo album from the multi-disciplinary artist. From tender yet sweeping acoustic moments to experimental electronic guitar manipulations, the album feels like a ceaselessly sprawling exploration of texture and tone. Despite veering into what sounds like electronic ambient soundscapes, the entire album is rooted in the guitars. “I enjoy trying to stretch the guitar as an instrument,” says Marquiss. “That reflects my playing style, always trying to make the guitar sound different, or create non-guitar like sounds.”
Marrying earthy, textural acoustic instrumentals that feel rooted in open landscapes, with those that capture the pulse and hum of a populated metropolis (Marquiss resides in Glasgow). The album was recorded in Aberdeenshire in Marquiss’ parents' garage. “Apart from the wind and the swallows nesting in the eaves there’s not many distractions around,” he says. This is a solo record that goes right to the very essence of Marquiss as an artist. The expansive yet intimate sounds he’s created here stem from the same peaceful isolation of where it all began.
There’s a cosmic touch tracing back to 1970s Germany (Michael Rother solo, Cluster, Harmonia, Popul Vuh soundtracks) that infiltrates much of the album, alongside some of its more pastoral textures, with Marquiss citing a wide range of listening habits. These include Bruce Langhorne's The Hired Hand, Jim O Rouke's Bad Timing, Arthur Russell and Laurie Spiegel.
Despite containing no lyrics, the album feels rooted in narrative and development. As the album unfolds the acoustic guitar becomes more prominent over the electric, almost as if nature is slowly taking back and growing over abandoned human-made structures. A record that, despite being experimental in tone and essence, retains a very human and natural touch throughout.

Not to add to the deluge of artistic clichés brought on by the Global Event Which Shall Not Be Named, but spending more or less a year in the house offers plenty of time for reflection, reevaluation, and revision. Though there was a lot to process already in those months, it was an opportune time to try and get your shit together, whatever that may mean for you. For Jakob Armstrong—in addition to many other things like the rest of us—part of it meant fine- tuning a collection of songs first recorded in late 2019. A prolonged process leading to five of the seven songs on Get Yourself a Friend retooled into their better-than-even final form. Jakob Armstrong—youngest son of Green Day frontman Billie Joe—began playing guitar at seven years old and honed his craft privately until about sixteen, playing in bands in and around Oakland after meeting friends with like-minded tastes in music. Soon enough, with the memories of Ultraman action figures fighting in his mind, he and a group of friends he cultivated from those years playing around and pouring over records, formed Ultra Q (its name inspired by an Ultraman prequel series). Opening double-shot “Pupkin” and “It’s Permanent” soar to the heights of Ultra Q’s powers in much different ways; the former a black-clad romp through a rainy graveyard, the former pushing straight to the clouds with its soaring chorus. “Straight Jacket” veers pleasantly close to the jangle-pop of the Go-Betweens. “Bowman” features guitars like cats getting into a scratch-fight while an astoundingly metronomic drumbeat is played live rather than punched out on a beat pad. Closing the EP is its title track, an affecting end credits anthem full of nostalgia and a twinge of regret. As a whole, Get Yourself a Friend marks the synthesis of a songwriter’s vision and his band’s ability, forged through an invisible existential threat and an ever-changing world, eager to show what they’ve found while we were all inside

Splash Blue is proud to present a brand new album borne from the latest collaboration between Jean-Paul ‘Bluey’ Maunick and Francisco Sales of Incognito – ‘The New Guitar Underground Vol 1’.

THE NEW GUITAR UNDERGROUND
The New Guitar Underground are Jean-Paul ‘Bluey’ Maunick and Francisco Sales of Incognito. Neither require introduction – Bluey – founder of the legendary Incognito, Inner Shade, CitrusSun and co-conspirator on the STR4TA project, solo artist, Composer and Record Producer & Francisco Sales, guitarist of Incognito and Citrus Sun, as well as being a solo artist in his own right, have come together to deliver a set of 10 highly crafted and accomplished tracks that lift the spirits and soothe the soul.
Inspired by the inspirational playing of the giants of the guitar world – Tony Mottola, Denis Budimir, George Benson, Bill Jennings & Melvin "Wah Wah" Watson to name but a few, the album reflects the deep love that Bluey and Francisco have for this multi faceted and beautiful instrument.
Guests on this album include bass players Francis Hylton, Hendrik Linder, Rui Pedro Pity and Julian Crampton, keyboardists Matt Cooper, James Berkeley and drummer Francisco Mendolia.
Of course the quality and depth of this musical composition should not be a surprise – given the pedigree of the artists involved, however, as Bluey says himself in the album notes, ‘’This is not a project seeking chart success. Just two guitar buddies having fun chasing musical waterfalls, and not sticking to the rivers and the lakes they’re used to.
We are just making ourselves happy. And if in doing so we make you happy too, then that, as they say, is "the payoff!" The result is an intoxicating fusion of guitars, samba, latin jazz, drum-driven beats, heavy bass lines - with some scratching and sampling thrown in for good measure!

First and foremost, deathcrash approached the task of putting together their debut album as music lovers. To all four members, a good album seemed to stamp out periods of their life, capturing a time, a feeling, a mood. This was their approach when trying to make whole two-years-worth of fragmented songwriting. Their songs may differ from each other in certain ways, but they manage to conjure similar feelings. ‘Return’ captures many of the difficult moments of the last couple years in the band members’ personal lives and yet, as a whole its complexity emerges as a beautiful and hopeful message. Amongst other things, writing the album was a cathartic process for the band, and so it can be for the listener too. The first parts of ‘Return’ came from quite a dark and jaded place. To get better can be a path marred by self-sabotage and a desire to hide. It can be easier to have no faith in something new, and rely on the comfort of an old feeling, even if it hurts. There is a reassurance in pain, a familiarity in its narrative. Return asks when things heal, where does the wound go? deathcrash recorded Return with their close friend and producer Ric James, who they’ve worked with since their early recordings. The album was recorded live, with an emphasis on dynamics, bringing together tense intimacy with atmospheric vastness. The members brought things to light they previously hadn’t, and shared words, riffs, ideas and thoughts for the first time. Each band member is able to see something that the others can’t, and write something unique. For deathcrash that is where the magic of making the album happens, when it clicks for everyone. As the album took form, a lot went on, and in many ways deathcrash got back in touch with a newer, more open feeling, sometimes happy, sometimes fearful. Something good returned that had previously been lost, and this is captured on the album. The album aims not to romanticise a dark place however, being equally about hope and renewal.

Now on album number seven , Metronomy has continued where many of their 2000s ‘cool’ band peers have dropped off along the way. Small World is a return to simple pleasures, nature, an embracing in part of more pared down, songwriterly sonics (some moments wouldn’t sound amiss on a Wilco release), all while asking broader existential questions: which feels at least somewhat rooted in the period of time during which it was made – 2020. For all that Mount seems to think he has made a comparatively sombre record, much of Small World still pulses with the zesty, tongue-in-cheek joie de vivre you’d expect of a Metronomy record.
So sure, things are different now Joe Mount is getting older and what’s on his mind is changing, but that doesn’t mark a change in quality for Metronomy. An immaculate set of tracks, Joe Mount’s ability as a songwriter and arranger shines through on Small World, evergreen. Metronomy might be growing up, but they’re not afraid to still have fun with it all. Through the tumultuous ebb and flow of the years, Metronomy continues to endure and make great pop music – and, really, that’s all that we could ask for.

Roaaaar time again! Delphi is one half of Tiger & Woods and back with a well-rounded solo effort. Far from unkempt or uninspired, his six efforts are sitting pleasantly between proto-house, Italo fun, new wave instrumentals and future dance. Silicone emotions meet vocodered vector graphics, handy rhythm trax that would have been hot on the mix shows of WBMX or WBLS are taking turns with neon colored leather hymns and test drive scores. All on one piece of wax. Love the past and join the future!

Re-mastering by: Cicely Baston at Alchemy/Air Mastering, London



Wendell Harrison was born in Detroit in 1942 where he began formal jazz studies for piano, clarinet and tenor saxophone. At 14, while still in high school, Harrison started performing & recording professionally with artists such as Marvin Gaye, Grant Green, Sun Ra, Hank Crawford … and many others.

In 1971, Harrison began teaching music at Metro Arts (a multi-arts complex for youth) where he also connected with Marcus Belgrave, Harold McKinney and Phil Ranelin…soon after they formed the (now legendary) Afro-centric TRIBE record label and artist collective. TRIBE used the Metro Arts complex as a vehicle to convey a growing black political consciousness. Wendell Harrison also published the very popular TRIBE magazine, a publication dedicated to local and national social and political issues, as well as featuring artistic contributions such as poetry and visual pieces.

In 1978 Harrison and McKinney co-founded REBIRTH, a non-profit jazz performance and education organization, in which many notable jazz artists have participated. Around the same time Wendell Harrison also created the WENHA record label and publishing company, which released many of his (now classic) recordings as well as those of other artists, such as Phil Ranelin, Doug Hammond and Reggie Fields (The Real ShooBeeDoo).

In the early 1990s, Wendell Harrison was awarded the title of “Jazz Master” by Arts Midwest. This distinction led Harrison to collaborate with fellow honorees and gave him the chance to tour throughout the United States, Middle East and Africa. Even to this day Wendell Harrison’s recordings for the TRIBE, WENHA and REBIRTH labels have a large worldwide fanbase.

DREAMS OF A LOVE SUPREME is a monster album that features an all-star line-up that includes Phil Ranelin on trombone, Harold McKinney on Keyboards and Roy Brooks on percussion. Although you can hear the 80ies creeping in with a smoother sound, more synths, and disco/R&B vocals… this remains a very spiritual (and soulful) jazz record. The record’s an irresistible blend of soul jazz combined with funky electric instrumentation…a groovy sound which is very much of its time, yet overtly timeless and as relevant today as it was back when it was initially released. Notes courtesy of Tidal Waves

Carl Finlow keeps on keeping on. As the world changes around him, the veteran producer continues to do what he does best - craft top-quality electro tunes which invoke the sound's Drexciyan heyday, yet carry themselves with an assurance that is all of Finlow's own.

Finlow remains a prolific producer more than a quarter of a century on from his emergence. Still averaging several records a year across a variety of aliases, recent times have seen Finlow forge particularly strong links with the Central Processing Unit label. Now, after a run of EPs for the Sheffield imprint which began with 2018's 'Projections', Finlow's Silicon Scally project offers up CPU's first drop of 2022 in the form of the 'Field Lines' LP.

Silicon Scally productions have long been marked out by how they combine piston-precise beat programming with more textured synth play. 'Field Lines' runs with this formula to deliver some of Finlow's most atmospheric material to date. At once shadowy and expansive, listening to 'Field Lines' is the aural equivalent of taking a night-time drive around some futuristic metropolis.

The beats cruise sleekly here. Many of these burbling machine-funk numbers hover at mid-tempo, the crisp clip of their drum programming given shape and depth by all sorts of percussive tones fizzing around at the fringes of the mix. Even when 'Field Lines' seems to set its sights on the club - the Bunker Records-aping 'Amino', for instance, or the dystopian whizz-bang of 'Static Fire' - the tracks here strut sturdily rather than giving in to full-on freakouts.

However, from this sturdy base, Finlow moves outwards. Working with tones which range from rapid-fire machine-gun bass to keening, dawn chorus keyboard pads, Finlow leads us through the futurescape with the expertise of a seasoned guide. Cuts like 'Submerged' and 'Yield' are brilliantly cinematic, blooming from those reliable drum pulses into miniature masterpieces of nocturnal electronics. Elsewhere on 'Field Lines' there is a mechanical majesty to 'Inhibitor' and 'Altered Domain' which invokes the brave new worlds that Kraftwerk repeatedly conjured in their heyday.

Central Processing Unit's first release of 2022 is 'Field Lines', an LP of electro-funk explorations from Carl Finlow's Silicon Scally project which will thrill regardless of whether it's experienced through headphones or out on the dancefloor.

RIYL: Drexciya, Kraftwerk, Cygnus, Annie Hall

First ever vinyl release of the soundtrack for this Wes Craven classic from 1991.

Limited Electric Blue and Oxblood "AsideBside" with Brown Splatter.

Composer Don Peake created an incredibly atmospheric and spooky score for this film. Peake's career is insane –as a guitarist and member of the Wrecking Crew, he’s played on albums by Marvin Gaye, Phil Spector, Everly Brothers, Mahalia Jackson, John Lennon, Jackson Five and more.

It's an incredible career and his musical diversity shines on this score. Fun fact: People Under the Stairs opened at #1 on the box office chart and stayed in the Top 10 for a month.

One of the most promising and talented composer/arrangers of her generation, Japanese, New York based and Grammy-nominated composer / Conductor Miho Hazama releases her inspired new album, Imaginary Visions. Lauded in Downbeat as one of “25 for the future” Miho is an international star in the making. As a Japanese artist based in New York, she is also chief conductor of the Danish Radio Big Band as well as a permanent guest conductor of Metropole Orkest in The Netherlands. Imaginary Visions, her first album with the Danish Radio Big Band featuring entirely her own music is a full-bodied and fresh exploration of big band music, bursting with exuberance and compositions that conjure images of release/escape, encouraging us to be free and to embrace life.

Nervous Records, the iconic label synonymous with the rise of house from the streets of New York City, will mark 30 years in the music industry by releasing the celebratory compilation LP ‘Nervous Records: 30 Years’ on October 1st (Part 1) and October 15th (Part 2).

Featuring original mixes of the label’s biggest tracks, plus remixes by some of its most celebrated acts, ‘Nervous Records: 30 Years’ is both a celebration of the past and of the future. Featuring a who’s who of electronic dance music, the long player sees names including Louie Vega, David Morales Darius Syrossian, Tensnake, Monki, Franky Rizardo, Danny Howard and more take on iconic Nervous cuts: ‘You Make Me Feel Mighty Real’, ‘Treat Me Right’, ‘Future Groove’, ‘Feel Like Singing’, ‘Get Up Everybody’, ‘Break You’, ‘Hot’, ‘End This Hate’, ‘Unspeakable Joy’, ‘Can Ya Tell Me’, ‘Jerk It’, ‘The Anthem’, ‘It Makes A Difference’, ‘Learn 2 Luv’ and ‘Don’t You Ever Give Up’.

The album marks one of the most enduring, extraordinary legacies to grace America’s illustrious music history, not just in electronica but far beyond. Founded in 1991 by Michael and his father Sam Weiss, and recognizable immediately by its distinctive character logo, the label grew rapidly, in no small part due to Michael Weiss’ practically unmatched passion for discovering new music.

“Louie Vega and Kenny Dope woke me at 4am on Tuesday night, Wednesday morning from their studio telling me they had something really different that I needed to hear,” Michael recollects. “I asked if they could play it over the phone. They said if I wanted to hear it I had to come to the studio. So of course I got myself up, got dressed and went there. That “really different track” ended up being ‘The Nervous Track’, a tune that became our signature release and was also highly instrumental in the emergency of London’s ‘Broken Beat’ movement.”

The label’s willingness to take chances on fresh sounds and innovative concepts rising up from the melting pot sidewalks of NYC ensured a body of work that has become a living musical history of the city. House cuts ‘Unspeakable Joy’ and ‘Nitelife’ (Kim English), ‘Get Up (Everybody)’ (Byron Stingily) and ‘Feel Like Singing’ (Sandy B) bump up against hip-hop anthems like ‘Who Got Da Props’ (Black Moon) and “Bucktown” (Smif-n-Wessun) and reggae cut ‘Take It Easy’ (Mad Lion); soulful flows from Mood II Swing (Kim English ‘Learn 2 Luv’, Loni Clark “Rushing”), Armand Van Helden (‘The Anthem’) and Nuyorican Soul (‘Mind Fluid’) sit alongside seminal techno singles like Winx’ ‘Don’t Laugh’. The young artists and producers who joined the Nervous Records’ family have gone on to become some of the most hallowed and celebrated dance acts of all time: Louie Vega, Kenny Dope, David Morales, Tony Humphries, Roger Sanchez, Armand Van Helden, Kerri Chandler, Kim English, Byron Stingily, Josh Wink, to name just a handful.

“We did a release with Josh Wink under his Winx alias entitled ‘Nervous Build-Up’,” Michael said. “It did well and it was obvious how talented Josh was. Subsequent to that release I was pretty persistent in asking him to continue to play me his new demos. During one phone conversation he said, “Mike I’m gonna play you something over the phone but don’t laugh when you hear it.” That demo ended up being ‘Don’t Laugh’, which became one of our biggest international hits and still to this day is one of America’s earliest and most impactful techno hits.”

As much a celebration of the label’s future as it is of their past, Nervous Records: 30 Years is but a marker in the imprints’ history, a clear sign of where they’ve been and also where they’re going. With 30 years behind them, the label’s determination to unearth new raw diamonds in the rough is as unwavering as ever.

“I’ve always been one to look at what others are doing (the industry at large) and think, “ok, are they doing this specific thing for a reason, or doing it because everyone else is doing the same thing” and make my decision based on that,” says Nervous Records’ General Manager Andrew Salsano. “In an age where data metrics and analytics reign supreme, I remain steadfast that they should be complementary to your decision and not the sole indicator to make one. So many songs today are written with 15 second hooks in mind for social media, and while there’s nothing wrong with that business model you will always be chasing the wave instead of carving out your own path and identity.

“My primary focus for the sound of the label has and will continue to revolve around signing good songs and music that has the ability to react at the street level first. The best results come from artists that are firstly given a bit of local love that grows into a global impact. Fresh ideas that express child-like curiosity and artists showing vulnerability in their music are also something I look for, artists and producers that are not making music with certain markets in mind, but rather their own style and signature that is unique but able to straddle the fine line of underground and overground.”

Still as raw, as underground and as finely tuned to the dance floor as they ever have been, perhaps the secret to the success - and the longevity - of Nervous Records has something to do with that hard, dogged, no-holds-barred NYC edge that runs through the veins of the label. With the next generation of producers rising from the clubs of New York, one thing is certain; Nervous Records will be there to find them, nurture them and bring them to the world at large, over the next decade and beyond.

"With a unique trademark sound that is instantly recognizable even through a massive block of ice, Finnish melodic power metal overlords Sonata Arctica never fail to enthrall their audience with captivating hymns of Nordic splendor and magic. Graced by the aurora borealis, they’ve released ten studio albums thus far, taking us into their world since the majestic tunes of their long-fabled debut, “Ecliptica.” Now, however, the band is about to start a whole new chapter. Aptly titled “Acoustic Adventures – Volume One,” Sonata Arctica carefully strip their sound of all things metal only to reveal precious, stunningly beautiful acoustic songs that still capture the heart, spirit and very essence of this band. After Sonata Arctica hit the road in 2016 to premiere their marvelously crafted acoustic set to a stunned audience and then again in 2019, the idea was born to immortalize these intimate, pure, and heartfelt renditions of their iconic catalog on two acoustic albums, the second of which will follow in close succession. “The fans truly seemed to enjoy this side of the band quite much so there was clearly a demand to record these versions of our music.” Having said that, such a release was only a matter of time, anyway: At the very heart of every Sonata Arctica song lies a sublime melody, wreathed in melancholy. “We originally planned to record these songs in Los Angeles at a friends’ studio but since most of our touring seized we decided to do the recordings a bit sooner,” remembers Henrik “Henkka” Klingenberg. “Acoustic Adventures – Volume One” was recorded during summer 2020, with mixing and mastering following suite. Even though the songwriting material is so strong in this band -- you could hear it played on a triangle or a saxophone and still get goosebumps -- some songs proved to be trickier than others. “Not all of the stuff we tried worked out which is why some songs were not recorded,” Henkka says. “Luckily we have quite a large collection to choose from so there’s really no shortage of material.” It’s no exaggeration. The band has over one-hundred songs to choose from, which is a rather fortunate situation. What’s typically Sonata Arctica about all this is that they not only replaced electric with acoustic guitars. Instead, they didn’t shy away from writing whole new arrangements. “Thus, a lot of the songs sound quite different from the original versions.” Starting with the songs they already performed during the “Acoustic Adventures” tours, they added some personal favorites or gems to the mix after that and recorded the whole bunch live! Opening with the mesmerizing “The Rest Of The Sun Belongs To Me” and going via the banjo and organ infused (!) “A Little Less Understanding” to the heartbreaking ballad “Tonight I Dance Alone,” it becomes clear that Sonata Arctica have found solace and a home in these tender versions. One song especially proved to be a challenge for Henkka. “‘Wolf & Raven’ was quite the thing to play on acoustic piano,” he laughs, “but the whole session was a big challenge for everyone. On top of doing it all live, we also didn’t use a click track or metronome so you had to be really alert and make sure the songs stayed in tempo. I think ‘For The Sake Of Revenge’ is still is my favorite. It turned out really special and so different from the original. We also didn’t play the acoustic version live so nobody has heard it.” Yet, he means. The next acoustic tour is around the corner. Singles & Videos: 03.12 „The Rest Of The Sun Belongs To Me“ Sigle & Lyric Video 14.01 „For The Sake Of Revenge“ Single & Video // Focus Track"

"With a unique trademark sound that is instantly recognizable even through a massive block of ice, Finnish melodic power metal overlords Sonata Arctica never fail to enthrall their audience with captivating hymns of Nordic splendor and magic. Graced by the aurora borealis, they’ve released ten studio albums thus far, taking us into their world since the majestic tunes of their long-fabled debut, “Ecliptica.” Now, however, the band is about to start a whole new chapter. Aptly titled “Acoustic Adventures – Volume One,” Sonata Arctica carefully strip their sound of all things metal only to reveal precious, stunningly beautiful acoustic songs that still capture the heart, spirit and very essence of this band. After Sonata Arctica hit the road in 2016 to premiere their marvelously crafted acoustic set to a stunned audience and then again in 2019, the idea was born to immortalize these intimate, pure, and heartfelt renditions of their iconic catalog on two acoustic albums, the second of which will follow in close succession. “The fans truly seemed to enjoy this side of the band quite much so there was clearly a demand to record these versions of our music.” Having said that, such a release was only a matter of time, anyway: At the very heart of every Sonata Arctica song lies a sublime melody, wreathed in melancholy. “We originally planned to record these songs in Los Angeles at a friends’ studio but since most of our touring seized we decided to do the recordings a bit sooner,” remembers Henrik “Henkka” Klingenberg. “Acoustic Adventures – Volume One” was recorded during summer 2020, with mixing and mastering following suite. Even though the songwriting material is so strong in this band -- you could hear it played on a triangle or a saxophone and still get goosebumps -- some songs proved to be trickier than others. “Not all of the stuff we tried worked out which is why some songs were not recorded,” Henkka says. “Luckily we have quite a large collection to choose from so there’s really no shortage of material.” It’s no exaggeration. The band has over one-hundred songs to choose from, which is a rather fortunate situation. What’s typically Sonata Arctica about all this is that they not only replaced electric with acoustic guitars. Instead, they didn’t shy away from writing whole new arrangements. “Thus, a lot of the songs sound quite different from the original versions.” Starting with the songs they already performed during the “Acoustic Adventures” tours, they added some personal favorites or gems to the mix after that and recorded the whole bunch live! Opening with the mesmerizing “The Rest Of The Sun Belongs To Me” and going via the banjo and organ infused (!) “A Little Less Understanding” to the heartbreaking ballad “Tonight I Dance Alone,” it becomes clear that Sonata Arctica have found solace and a home in these tender versions. One song especially proved to be a challenge for Henkka. “‘Wolf & Raven’ was quite the thing to play on acoustic piano,” he laughs, “but the whole session was a big challenge for everyone. On top of doing it all live, we also didn’t use a click track or metronome so you had to be really alert and make sure the songs stayed in tempo. I think ‘For The Sake Of Revenge’ is still is my favorite. It turned out really special and so different from the original. We also didn’t play the acoustic version live so nobody has heard it.” Yet, he means. The next acoustic tour is around the corner. Singles & Videos: 03.12 „The Rest Of The Sun Belongs To Me“ Sigle & Lyric Video 14.01 „For The Sake Of Revenge“ Single & Video // Focus Track"