Suche:múr

LORCO aims to evoke an ancient Naturalism, like a relic brought back to light from the depths of the sea, a buried simulacrum rescued from the pyre that sought to erase the philosophical legacy of Giordano Bruno.
"Stories are battle axes to be unearthed" (Wu Ming).

In Giordano Bruno Will Have His Revenge on Rome, the human presence is sparse. Voices are rare, words remain in listening.
It’s industrial music played “as forests think” (Eduardo Kohn), speaking the language of waterfalls, hurricanes, and serene lakes Far from the factories, it listens to something we still belong to.

Madronas’ debut LP Erogenous Biome is an amorphous, murky, cathartic offering. A duet of modular synthesizer and winds that’s equal parts doom and ecstasy, it’s the sound of a majestic butterfly emerging from it’s slimy chrysalis just in time to catch the sun setting on the end of days, a bewitching, heavy ceremony, a power-wash of both mind and spirit.

Tracked in one continuous take at Brooklyn’s Heavy Meadow studio, individual tracks were gleaned from the purge and eschew predictable structures, making for a dense, fluid suite of improvisation, like dancing smoke ribbons in the dark. The duo's chosen sound sources are seemingly opposite - Ry Fyan’s modular’s coming from electronic oscillators, Isaiah Barr’s saxophone and various flutes originating with the breath - but the visceral, imprecise, alive quality to the sound of both lends the record a thrilling combination of rapturous harmony and gritty, intense friction.

Opening the session in ritualistic, foreboding fashion, Voluntary lurches to life with rattles and wandering, bassy arpeggios before a suona’s cry signals the seance has officially begun. Ostraca Loam spits explosive modular rhythms and eerie shrieks for the flute to float above, while Detritus Harp smudges mechanical whirring, pensive horn and wind chimes for an untethered drift. Petrified Microdot swells with menacing sci-fi sequences and breathtaking sax runs until they both run out of breath, and Negative Lingam starts out in a panic of breathy riffing before exhaling into one of the most sublime passages on the record. Rhythmic pounding and undulating flutes punctuate Lenticular Shroud, before The Preparation Of The Novel sets the winds aside for a synthesized dual fit for electric dreams. The title track dominates the B-side, it's shimmering levity slowly unfurling to reveal itself as a kind of post-apocalyptic devotional music, deep space drifting grounded by earthly flutes, and Vale Of Cashmere offers an ascetic, contemplative closure, sparse flute and chiming rhythms organic or electronic - by this time it’s hard to know, it doesn’t matter either way.

Erogenous Biome is a world of it’s own, and one Impatience is honored to offer a window into.

RIYL - Senyawa, witchcraft, Colin Stetson , Civilistjavel, Mars (the planet), Finis Africae, raga, Stephen O’Malley, modular synthesizer, Anthony Braxton, Shabaka.

Madronas is Ry Fyan and Isaiah Barr. Fyan is a painter and tattoo artist, this is his first release. Barr is a prolific instigator of the downtown New York scene, producing and playing saxophone in jazz circles with his group Onyx Collective, as a player and/or producer on records by Nick Hakim, David Byrne and Wiki, performing live with William Parker and as part of his projects Universal Space Jam and Cafe Dewanee.

Erogenous Biome was recorded and mastered by Griffin Jennings at Heavy Meadow, Brooklyn.

Vinyl was cut by Beau Thomas at Ten Eight Seven Mastering, Berlin.

Artwork is by Ry Fyan, typography and layout by Nicolas Turek.

Transport yourself to the vibrant streets of Havana with the Buena Vista Social Club's eponymous album, a captivating journey into the heart of Cuban music! Recorded in 1996 by acclaimed producer Ry Cooder, this timeless masterpiece celebrates the rich tapestry of Afro-Cuban rhythms and soulful melodies that have enchanted audiences for generations.

Buena Vista Social Club is both the name given to this extraordinary group of musicians and the album, recorded in just seven days in 1996 in Havana's 1950s vintage EGREM studios. From the infectious energy of "Chan Chan" to the heartfelt nostalgia of "Dos Gardenias," each track immerses listeners in the intoxicating blend of son, bolero, and guajira styles. Led by legendary musicians such as Ibrahim Ferrer, Compay Segundo, and Omara Portuondo, the Buena Vista Social Club ensemble delivers performances that are as exuberant as they are intimate, capturing the essence of a bygone era while igniting a passion for Cuban music that knows no bounds.

The acclaim of the original album has elevated the artists (including Ibrahim Ferrer, Rubén González and Omara Portuondo) to superstar status, inspired an award-winning film by Wim Wenders, and has contributed to popularizing Cuba's rich musical heritage. Produced by Ry Cooder for World Circuit, the timeless quality of the music and the sheer verve of the veteran performers have ensured that this will go down as one of the landmark recordings of the 20th century.

This 45 RPM Analogue Productions reissue pressed by Quality Record Pressings on four dead-silent LPs makes every note a transcendent experience. Meticulously crafted using the finest materials and exacting standards, this reissue pays homage to the golden age of vinyl, capturing the warmth and depth of the original recording in stunning detail. The package includes a 12-page booklet with lyrics and stunning studio images, topped off by a tip-on old style gatefold double pocket jacket made by Stoughton Printing.

Embark on a musical odyssey filled with warmth, joy, and the irresistible allure of Havana nights!

Second volume of tributes from Kutmah.
A beat tape for the brotha from anotha planet, the most high Ras G & the Afrikan Space Program
All beats by Kutmah / Cover Photos By Kevin Ramos

The Italian 80s avant garde / anarcho scene is explored in this limited 12” release presenting Nengue and their previously unreleased cover version of the new wave classic Los Ninos Del Parque and the electro pop wave African Beat.

The tumultuous political climate of the 1960s through 1980s inspired Italian artists to craft an introspective, psychological musical landscape. As civil unrest, violent demonstrations, and political murders became commonplace, Italy's centres of intellect vibrated with activist energy. This atmosphere gave birth to a unique, mechanized sound that blended electronic elements with a raw, discordant aesthetic, reflecting the chaotic spirit of the times.

Through vintage forms of social networking and music sharing, a community led process steered the scene, publishing zines and records that grasped alternative concepts of music and lifestyle.

Nengue, were similar to many of these lo-fi, retro-future electronic music pioneers. Based in Rome, their music / art backgrounds flowed with anti-art, extreme noise, futurism, industrial, experimental, martial, folk, free jazz and exotica.

With a couple of releases as a duo, as was often the case, they appeared in numerous other projects and the music was a mixture of their individual backgrounds.

Extraordinarily, only appearing on a couple of obscure cassette compilations, indicative of the time, the quality of Nengue’s productions stands testament. Originally approached to reissue their Cosmic meets Kraftwerk inspired African Beat, a wonderful yet simple electronic idiom, layers of electronica rising, each element an addition flow, vocals the release’s waves.

However, the discovery of their cover of Los Ninos Del Parque – describing it as ‘powerful anarchic nonsense’ – is rightfully now the primary focus.

Acting as some Brutalist interpretation, its sharp electronics and industrial vocals, propel you to a brick-strewn squat party and a place in anarcho folklore.

These are matched with a remix / remake by Berlin’s Bionda e Lupo. Presenting a ‘Neumisch’, Sneaker’s exacting studio mastery and Sano’s additional vocals are a blessing – a new duo version – dynamic and wonderfully special.

To complete, the powerful dub of African Beat closes. Stepping out of his time as one half of Romanian duo Khidja (DFA / Hivern Discs), Andrei Rusu builds on his recent solo releases / remixes for Malka Tuti with a fantastic, bottom heavy version, perfectly building with expertise, an EP for the basements of today that was made in the dark times of the past.

A once shocking 1962 LP of love songs…by men, for men. A long lost treasure featuring the cool & sophisticated vocals of Gene Howard and a cast of prime studio jazz musicians, performing a set of standards sung to a male suitor. Ahead of its time in every way. Decades ago, JD Doyle, renowned LGBT music historian and archivist, happened upon a copy of Love Is A Drag. Doyle would often play cuts from it on his radio show, Queer Music Heritage. He remained intrigued by the lack of either artist or producer credited on the album. A vague line of jacket text ambiguously announced, “For Adult Listeners Only - Sultry Stylings by a Most Unusual Vocalist.” And, the facts behind the album would have most likely remained unclear if it were not for one Murray Garrett Out of the blue, Murray Garrett contacted JD Doyle and wanted to talk about the album. According to Garrett, through his photography career, he had forged a friendship and partnership with prolific big band vocalist, Gene Howard. The two worked together on projects, eventually teaming with Jack Ames, founder of Edison International Records. When queried for ideas for a potential Edison International release, Garrett recalled a performance he had once seen in Greenwich Village - a performance of a man singing love songs to another man, in serious fashion, i.e., not at all campy or overly-dramatic. Gene Howard (straight and happily married!) agreed to sing on the record, accompanied by a who’s-who of Los Angeles A-list session men. Upon release, the record sold well in Hollywood, with Frank Sinatra, Liberace, and Bob Hope among its biggest advocates.

Long running Italian post-hardcore and noise punk band STORMO are set to make their return in 2025 with their forthcoming fifth album, Tagli/Talee, set for release via Prosthetic Records on March 21. Translated as ‘cutting’ and ‘grafts’, STORMO’s latest full-length serves as a document of their extensive travels whilst on tour throughout Europe, with each song acting as a vignette of their surroundings to create a broader picture of humanity at its most personal.

Toy Tonics Music Berlin presents "Para Mytho Disco". The 2nd "Kapote" album of label founder and creative director Mathias Modica.
Keyboarder, DJ, producer, music nerd, graphic designer, multi-instrumentalist, sub-culture impressario and artist (formerly known as Munk of Gomma records.)

Kapote & Toy Tonics
In the last years Kapote was in the spotlight mainly for building the Toy Tonics label with his friends. Developing a platform for new positive quality dance music with a human touch. Toy Tonics is the opposite of the dark, druggy Techno and Trance sounds of the last years.
The warm inclusive music of Toy Tonics represents a new vibe that a young generation of diverse, stylish and culturally intersted generation of dancers loves now. Kapote's Toy Tonics became the key label for that vibe. (In 2024 Toy Tonics made 150 Toy Tonics events in 18 countries. With more than 150.000 people dancing. 90 millions streams on their music.)
Toy Tonics is more than a music label: It's a audio - visual universe. A community, almost a movement.
Based on a new positive attitude and aesthetic diversity. Mixing musicianship with DJ culture, analogue music with electronic, ideas from the past with sounds from now. To create something new. Connecting dance music with graphic design, art and underground fashion.
Kapote and his gang release vinyl, posters, shirts, art fanzines and make exhibitions and partys.

Toy Tonics started in Berlin as a underground niche project. But now became the key label of the new house, wild style disco and organic dance music scene.
Probably one of Berlin's biggest electronic music phenomena along with Keinemusik and Live from Earth.

It went fast: 2020 Kapote's crew started to make small parties in Berlin's off spaces. The "Toy Tonics Jams". The parties became "talk of the town", and Berlin clubs like Griesmühle and Panorama Bar invited the crew. Then international clubs and festival called. Toy Tonics were invited to SONAR (playing the mainstage with Kaytranada and DJ Tennis), KALA festival, Montreux Jazz festival.
Now TT has a residency at Panorama Bar Berlin and sold out events in Europe leading clubs like Phonox in London, Rex Club in Paris, Tunnel in Milan.
Toy Tonics now is the reference brand of a new generation of music loving dancers. Similar to Gomma records, Kapote's former label (2003 - 2015) that was one of the key labels of the "indie dance" scene of the Y2K years (along with DFA and Output Records).

Kapote created a multi-cultural movement with graphic designers, photographers, illustrators from the Berlin scene.
They publish the Toy Tonics Pocket Poster magazine, posters and design shirts. They organize the Toy Tonics Pop Up Galleries mixing music and art. In underground venues in Berlin and in new gallery spaces and museums around Europe.
Toy Tonics has been invited by Palais de Tokio museum in Paris, Triennale Museum Berlin, Design week Milano to create events.
The new Kapote album
The 12 tracks have a very own style. Based on dance music, but going much further. "Para Mytho Disco' is a futuristic mix of sounds. It's far away from the dark monotone techno and trance music from Kapote's hometown Berlin. Instead, he creates warm friendly atmospheres full of sonic colours and little musical surprises.
Kapote's knowlege of music history and his backround as a jazz piano student and son of classic music composer is clearly inside this music. Before turning into a DJ and electronic music producer he has been playing in bands since he was 13 years old.
The album is full of emotional chord progressions played by Kapote on various keyboards. Sometimes reminding music from the past, without being retro at all. The basslines and melodies are inspired by jazz fusion from the 1970ies. And he programmed syncopated grooves that come from afro-american dance music. There are influences from Japanese electronic music (Yellow Magic Orchestra), from 1980s Synthwave and from 1990s electronica (like Squarepusher and Luke Vibert).

Kapote plays keys, bass, flutes and percussions, he plays synth solos and sings on a few tracks. The complexity of the arrangements makes this music never boring. Lot of melodies and solos that catch the listener. Colourful soundscapes that make you want to listen or dance to this album more, and discover details also after you heard it several times.

Kapote background

Before starting Toy Tonics, Kapote used to run a label called Gomma. He produced four albums under the name Munk and music for other artists.
He produced music with Peaches, Franz Ferdinand founder Nick McCarthy, with New York street art legend The Rammellzee, Italian actress Asia Argento, the first three albums of WhoMadeWho and worked with LCD Soundsystem (listen to "Kick out the chairs", the Munk song with James Murphy )
In those "Gomma days" Kapote aka Munk was also one of the main DJs for VICE magazine parties and made music for art projects and fashion brands (Margiela, Prada, Colette).
In 2015 he stopped Munk and Gomma and started Toy Tonics. He found young producers and helped to develop their sound (Coeo, Cody Currie, Gee Lane, Barbara Boeing, Sam Ruffillo). Later he founded the sublabel Kryptox to release music by Berlin based bands that make new forms of jazz or neo classical sounds.

Under the name Kapote Mathias didnt release much:
Only his Kapote debut album "What it is" (2019) and an EP called "Electric Slide" (2022) and a collabo EP with Italian producer Sam Ruffillo ("Robot Salsa").

An although his Munk and Kapote music was an underground phenomena his music has always been a favourite of many great people from the scene.
Supported by DJs like Harvey, Chromeo, Moodymann, Jennifer Cardini, Gerd Janson, MYD, Andrew Weatherall to Blessed Madonna, Justice and Laurent Garnier… to name just a few.

Containing a ltd 12" 300gsm artwork print! Inspired by the foothills of the Sierra de Guadarrama mountains north-west of Madrid, his home since August 2022, Milo Fitzpatrick presents "Sierra Tracks" the new album from his expansive, cinematic, chamber-jazz project Vega Trails. Having cut 2022"s beautifully resonant debut album "Tremors in the Static" as a duo, alongside saxophonist Jordan Smart (Mammal Hands and Sunda Arc), Milo now substantially expands upon that blueprint with his follow-up, "Sierra Tracks", which, as the title suggests, was conceived at his new home in central Spain and adds piano, vibraphone and strings to the mix. The beautiful Spanish countryside offered inspiration too.

As a founding member of Dublin experimental folk group Lankum, Ian Lynch explores submerged leylines of music and song. Forging a musical path that is all at once dark, mysterious and foreboding, but ultimately transcendental. His new solo project One Leg One Eye sees him taking a fresh approach to musical arrangement culminating in a sound that is more rooted in the raw aesthetics of second wave black metal than contemporary folk. The project was born across 2021, a period in which Lynch was able to enjoy the freedom of experimenting and exploring different paths of sound design without expectation or pressure. Seeking out interesting settings to record music and gather field recordings, there are several environments, external and interior, whose respective essence have seeped into the spirit of the music and come to represent Lynch’s artistic approach and development with this singular debut album, …And Take The Black Worm With Me. Rediscovered spaces in Dublin and the familiar enclave of his bedroom are intrinsic to the distinct and sometimes harrowing atmosphere conjured throughout the album’s five enveloping compositions. One particular location, an abandoned factory where his father worked when Ian was a child, provided a space of great inspiration and intrigue during this time. Lynch frequently visited the large abandoned warehouse and sang with his shruti box, contented in his solitude. ‘I’d Rather Be Tending My Sheep’, grew into existence from those initial sessions, eventually finding a home as an emotive centrepiece to the album. Reflecting on the overall recording of …And Take The Black Worm With Me, Lynch says, “Everything I was doing with these songs was all kind of new to me; experimenting with different sounds, textures and palettes and seeing what I could come up with by piecing it all together. I spent about a year making the album. I loved the whole process because it was basically just me in my bedroom recording everything. The experience of recording like this and having my own time to do it was amazing. I could focus on recording a specific element and happily spend all day working on that one part, doing it as many times as I wanted. At the end of the day if it didn’t feel right, I could just try it again the next day. When you’re on your own you can spend as much time as you want on particular parts until you feel that it’s absolutely perfect. I found that to be a really liberating experience. It was probably my favourite experience recording music.” The collection of songs (and their chronology) featured on …And Take The Black Worm With Me tell a story unique to Lynch’s experiences with anxiety and recognising his shadow self. Whilst the album became an outlet of personal expression for Lynch, the overarching themes and subsequent journey to confront one’s internal dichotomy of light and dark before accepting this inherent duality is universally shared. The eerie and often unsettling world contained within the album’s texturally dense opener ‘Glistening, She Emerges’, driven by the captivating drone of distorted uilleann pipes, immediately immerses the listener in this transportive work. It descends with a great heaviness, yet woven throughout the arrangement is a fascinating and indescribable entity that draws you further into this otherworldly dimension. This mood continues as the tracklist progresses and transitions into Lynch’s haunting realisation of ‘Bold and Undaunted Youth’ which further demonstrates a cinematic influence to Lynch’s compositional style. Sonically, Lynch effectively builds an impressively vast terrain with brilliantly murky lo-fi recording techniques and an unshakable curiosity to move beyond conventional structures and play with the timbre of the instruments available to him. From recording hurdy-gurdy or concertina to tape and experimenting with loops and effects pedals to stitching field recordings together, there’s an intimacy established between Lynch and his audience established through the simultaneously eerie and beautiful tones courting through …And Take The Black Worm With Me. This culminates in ‘Only the Diceys’, the extraordinary closing track in which we reach a place of resolution mapped into the album’s narrative structure. Mixed by longtime collaborator John ‘Spud’ Murphy in his Dublin-based Guerrilla Sounds Studio and mastered by Harvey Birrell …And Take The Black Worm With Me features contributions from Ruth Clinton (Landless) on church organ and vocals by Laurie Shanaman (Ails, Ludicra). Of Shanaman’s participation, in particular, which further illustrates the lo-fi and DIY ethos to the recording, Lynch says, “Laurie is my favourite black metal vocalist of all time and so I reached out to her hoping to have her involved in some way. She did, and she features on the opening track by providing some incredible screams. She recorded them into her phone and sent them over to me; what appears on the album is literally a phone recording of her screaming in her kitchen!” …And Take The Black Worm With Me continues Ian Lynch’s groundbreaking work with Lankum; recontextualising traditional forms and generating new spheres of music in his wake, confirming his status as one of the most interesting and innovative artists working in Ireland today.

The album was conceived as a response to his EP Winter Sunshine. The record, recorded at his home in Istanbul, finds Evgeny in a highly intimate setting. His piano and atmospherics are complemented by his long- time collaborators Iana Chekina (cello) and Pavel Mackevitch (viola, violin). The first notes of "Glare of Us" greet the listener warmly and invite her to relax into a tour through the seasons and different moments of the day.

Look At Us Now: the long-awaited debut album from Song Festival sensation Gustaph!

"I wanted to make a record that makes people feel good about themselves."

Good things come to those who wait: after more than 20 years as a musician, Gustaph is releasing his debut album, Look At Us Now. The title is a phrase from the song Because Of You, which won him seventh place at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2023.

"Look At Us Now may be taken literally," Gustaph explains. "Look where we are now after 20 years of hardwork. And look where we are with the queer movement: as a queer artist, I can openly be myself and sing about the things that are important to me."

Gustaph's soulful voice takes us through various themes, from believing in yourself and fickle lovers to chosen family and loss.

Look At Us Now is a pop record infused with nineties house, dance and disco, but we also spot a ballad (Miss You The Most) and two Scandi-pop tracks: Like You, an ode to love and Darker Days, an epic track that will pull you through bleak periods with panache.

"I wanted to make a record that makes people feel good about themselves," Gustaph says. "One that they put on while getting ready to go out or just to start the day. A little pick-me-up that makes them think: Yes, now I can kick ass."

When you play the record for the first time, you'll already be able to sing along to a bunch of tracks: there's Because Of You of course, butalso more recent singles like Already Know, Faith In What You Feel and Calls Your Name.

The record was produced in London with Richard X, known for his work with Róisín Murphy, Alison Goldfrapp and Pet Shop Boys, among others. "That's very close to who I am as an artist, so that collaboration just made sense," Gustaph explains.

Look At Me Now sounds like a party where everyone is welcome. The club tour kicks off at Ancienne Belgique. Come celebrate!

DJ Support from Luke Una, Colleen 'Cosmo Murphy' and Greg Wilson.

Two bona fide classic 70s cuts reworked for now.

‘Papa Stoned’, Ian Ossia’s driving take on one of disco’s seminal tracks, the Norman Whitfield masterpiece, ‘Papa Was A Rolling Stone’ by The Temptations, relentlessly hammers the groove home, leaving the dance floor no option but total surrender.

‘Dream A Dream’ sees a 1994 Ian Dewhirst re-edit of the glorious ‘Dreaming A Dream’ by Crown Heights Affair respectfully retouched by Ché & Matica, who bring the beats into time, overdub additional elements and create a DJ friendly intro/outro for what is an essential update.

Seit mehr als einem Vierteljahrhundert lärmt sich Sänger und Gitarrist Harry Armstrong in verschiedenen Bands durch die britische Musikszene: ORANGE GOBLIN, DECOMPOSED, HANGNAIL, END OF LEVEL BOSS, THE WINCHESTER CLUB, EARLS OF MARS, BLIND RIVER_um nur einige zu nennen. Am 21. März 2025 folgt nun endlich das langersehnte zweite Album von NOISEPICKER auf Exile On Mainstream. Nach dem 2018 veröffentlichten Erstling war es zwar nicht wirklich ruhig geworden um die Zweimann-Band mit Kieran Murphy (u.a. COLD COMFORTS, PAIGE KENNEDY), verschiedene Verpflichtungen wie z.B. der extensive Tour-Schedule von Orange Goblin, ließen wenig Zeit für Studioaufnahmen. Doch nun ist es soweit. Nachdem NOISEPICKER auf dem EOM25-Festival im Mai 2024 bereits erste neue Songs vorstellten, ging es kurz danach ins Studio. The Earth Will Swallow The Sun ist das Ergebnis und überrascht mit einem Sound, den Peace Off 2018 bereits vorwegnahm, der aber nun zu voller Blüte gereift ist. Auf der Basis von Blues und Noise erschaffen Noisepicker etwas völlig eigenständiges, mit deutlichen akustischen Verweisen an Tom Waits ebenso wie an The Jesus Lizard. Inhaltlich ist das Album eine Abrechnung mit politischen und gesellschaftlichen Themen, die uns aktuell beschäftigen und die Ohnmacht, unterdrückte Wut ebenso illustrieren wie die Möglichkeit eines Ausbrechens, ohne in blinden Aktionismus zu verfallen. Hier ist nichts poliert, perfekt oder konstruiert. Stattdessen sind NOISEPICKER laut, authentisch und ständig im Wandel, beeinflusst von allem, was Doom, Punk und Blues ist. Und diese Herangehensweise kanalisieren sie in Songs, die emotional, catchy und einzigartig sind.

Kneading dough is tricky – you should know how it’s supposed to feel. If you try too hard you could make it worse. It’s a beautiful practice – creation with a gentle touch, to work at something so it can be left alone. “If it’s too drawn out it’s awful. It’s easy to give too much.” Dance in the mirror. Contemplate your veiny hands. Who do they remind you of?

You begin by mixing flour and water. “What happens when your people die? Why’d they move the rock to the other side of Ulster Park?” Eliza Niemi asks two seemingly unrelated questions in a rising melody with guitar accompaniment, like fingers playing spider up to the nape of your neck. Gentle pressure. Strands of gluten form to bind the mix. A new question lingers in the binding. When she admits “but I don’t know how to tell if I’m feeling it or not,” that question surfaces through the text. It is reiterated throughout the album. When I’m working with dough I think the same thing to myself.

On Progress Bakery, her second album as a solo artist, Eliza knows to leave some questions alone – to let juxtaposition and tension be the proof. It doesn’t have to be hard. The feelings and revelations they provoke rise in the heat. The smell is sweet. Crispy on the outside and soft all the way through. She playfully slip-slides through words and sounds and images, delighting in surprise, skimming ideas like stones cast across clear water, touching down briefly with uncommon grace.

The question provoked between those opening lines resurfaces in the strands between songs – “Do U FM” is fully formed and beautifully layered, while “Novelist Sad Face” is a short, acapella rendering of gentle curiosity. What is holding these ideas together? Some songs demand more, seem to carry a whole load – eventually the skipping stone will halt to sink and resume its idle duty – while others drift in and out of focus, the way thoughts and dreams become interwoven before the mind is sunk into true sleep.

Music and words don’t always have to interact. Where she decides to keep them apart gives a new contour to where and how she puts them together. The kind of thing you’re supposed to take for granted with songs and their singers comes alive in Eliza’s hands – the little miracle of mixing, kneading, stretching, and stopping.

So often on Progress Bakery, Eliza teases out truth and meaning by asking questions. “Do I wanna be crying?” “Do you want me good or do you want me bad?” “Do I need an eye test?” “I’m writing songs in my head while you’re going over stuff with me — is that cruel??” In “Pocky” Eliza ends with a question that feels to me like the actual biography, succinct and revealing:

I don’t wanna be made to see
I just wanna ask “what’s that?”

Grace that ought to be rare, but in its care and precision is offered humbly, with great generosity, and without announcing itself. Eliza’s simple, miraculous music is given further form and shape by a group of collaborators – invaluable guest musicians Jeremy Ray, Evan Cartwright, Steven McPhail, Kenny Boothby, Ed Squires, Carolina Chauffe, Dorothea Paas, Louie Short, and Avalon Tassonyi. Together with Louie Short, who recorded, mixed, and produced the album along with Jeremy Ray and Lukas Cheung, Eliza has cultivated a richness in sound and texture that prods and provokes the ticklish ear. Barely audible guitar tinkering, a brief lo-fi field recording of trumpets, the harmonic clicking of a looped synthesizer, a flourish of reeds, a child’s conversation, each uncanny sound perfectly placed, rippling out under a soft breeze.

Lay in bed alone at night and ask aloud to the stillness,

“What were you doing at the Albuquerque Airport?
What were you doing there??”

And hear your question answered by a dream of swelling, undulating cellos. Try to grasp at the melody and structure. It’s not an answer (if there could be one), but it moves deeper, closer to the weird layer of fleeting moments and disconnected images, barely perceptible at its core. Wait for the dream reel to click into place.

Eliza took me for a ride in Nicole (her beloved Dodge Grand Caravan) and told me she’d been thinking of the album as an embodiment of transition – and I think every transition, known or unknown, carries the weight of new meaning, skittering off the surface tension of life as you know it, creating ripples, sometimes bouncing off and sometimes breaking through. There is a trick you can use to tell if a dough is glutinous enough. You’re supposed to stretch it out as thin as you can without breaking it and hold it up to the light. If you can see through, even if it renders the world murky and uncertain, you should leave it alone. I love this trick. It’s one that Eliza seems to know intuitively: work gently and ask questions and don’t always expect answers, and when you can, take a glimpse at something new, and then leave.

"When the Distance is Blue" is Macie Stewart"s International Anthem debut. The Chicago-based multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser describes the collection as "a love letter to the moments we spend in-between" - a letter realized via an intentional return to piano, her first instrument and the origin of her creative expression. Here Stewart creates a striking and cinematic work through collages of prepared piano, field recordings, and string quartet compositions, one that gives shape to a transient universe all its own while tracing the line of her musical past, full circle.

Forbidden ist das achtzehnte Studioalbum der englischen Rockband Black Sabbath, das ursprünglich am
5. Juni 1995 veröffentlicht wurde. Diese Aufnahme war die Wiedervereinigung der Besetzung von Black
Sabbath aus der Tyr-Ära von 1990 mit der Rückkehr von Neil Murray und Cozy Powell.

This best-of album, curated from his vast catalog, features eight carefully selected songs that highlight his genius. With exclusive access to the master rights to all of his works, P-VINE presents this showcase, a truly special collection that reflects the depth and breadth of Irvine's musical contributions.

Weldon Irvine was a musician whose cutting-edge style and emotionally resonant melodies won him widespread admiration across generations and genres, from the jazz and soul scenes of the 1970s to the club and rare groove movements of the 1990s and beyond. Known for his diverse musicality, Irvine left behind a legacy of timeless tracks. This best-of album, curated from his vast catalog, features eight carefully selected songs that highlight his genius. With exclusive access to the master rights to all of his works, P-VINE presents this showcase, a truly special collection that reflects the depth and breadth of Irvine's musical contributions.

Mesmeric, confessional alt-folk with hints of americana - weaving beautiful stories with deep and poignant lyricism and relatable storytelling, creating a sense of familiarity even in the ambiguous, leaving no choice but to feel everything with her. Mann’s debut album,

- Clara Mann’s evocative debut album Rift navigates the fractured environment of the in-between—those liminal spaces exposed between light and dark, growth and remorse, loss and reclamation. It is a record that makes a strong case for hope, those luminescent silver linings in the dark. With Rift, Clara Mann acknowledges the cracks through which both despair and hope can seep. It is a deeply personal record, yet it is universally resonant, holding the mirror up to herself and to the world around her. It is a record that reflects on embracing our fault lines, navigating the ruptures that can erupt from them and moving forwards, in motion, with a renewed sense of self and aliveness. Mann’s debut album, Rift is all of her—her past, her present, her emotions, her experiences—and now, it is for you.

- Influenced by artists like Jacques Brel, Edith Piaf, Judee Sill, and Tom Waits, Mann has a deep love and care for songwriting

- The album was primarily recorded at the 4AD Studios in London, produced and mixed by Fabian Prynn (Martha Skye Murphy, Ex:Re, Fabiana Palladino) who carefully facilitated an imaginative space for Mann to express the playful, strange and real parts of herself

- She has previously toured and collaborated with the likes of Daniel Rossen (Grizzly Bear), Billie Marten, Skullcrusher, Bill Ryder-Jones, Youth Lagoon and Willie J Healey

"Gudatall" Music Cassette Edition. Limited to 100 pcs on white cassette.

“Gudatall” by Murg offers a stark reflection on humanity’s cyclical failures and the looming retribution of nature. This compelling creation, rooted in the bleak landscapes of rural Sweden, channels the essence of black metal’s golden era while forging a path of its own. With “Gudatall”, Murg explores themes of isolation, ecological despair, and the inevitable return to our primal state, all through a meticulously crafted sound that resonates with the cold, harsh beauty of the wilderness.

"Strävan" Music Cassette Edition. Limited to 100 pcs on solid grey cassette.

“Strävan” is the third opus from the enigmatic yet revered Swedish black metal duo Murg. Embarking on a sinister and sombre journey, the album is driven by deliberate, slow-paced riffs that emanate stoic darkness and fierce pride. Murg embrace a musical minimalism that cuts straight to the bone, defying simplicity and predictability. “Strävan” stands tall and unwavering in its unyielding intensity – as a resolute farewell to creation itself.

NOW Music proudly presents NOW That’s What I Call Gold – The Ultimate Hits – this essential 3-LP set brings together 46 tracks by legendary artists with timeless anthems, celebrating some of the greatest hits of all time, including chart-topping classics and enduring favourites.



LP1 sets the stage with Queen’s electrifying ‘A Kind Of Magic’, followed by Philip Bailey & Phil Collins’ #1 ‘Easy Lover’. The Police feature with their #1 smash ‘Message In A Bottle’, while The Killers follow with their record-breaking anthem ‘Mr. Brightside’. The massive ‘Stick Season’ from Noah Kahan is up next before the first side finishes with Lana Del Rey’s stunning ‘Video Games’. Flip the LP over for contemporary classics from Coldplay and Duran Duran. Sinéad O’Connor’s ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ still sounds raw and breath-taking and is followed by classics from the Pretenders, Shirley Bassey, Dusty Springfield, and Soft Cell’s ‘Tainted Love’, one of the best-selling UK singles of the ‘80s, whilst another of those closes out the first LP: Ultravox with their masterpiece, ‘Vienna’.



LP2 delivers a legendary lineup, including Billy Joel with his Grammy-winning ‘Just The Way You Are’ and Céline Dion’s powerful version of ‘All By Myself’. John Denver’s ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’ and Paul Simon’s groundbreaking ‘Graceland’ are featured along with the pop genius of Electric Light Orchestra with ‘Last Train To London’. While on the other side timeless ballads from Elton John with ‘Tiny Dancer’ and Lewis Capaldi’s ‘Someone You Loved’ come ahead of Wings, Simply Red and ‘60s gems from Stevie Wonder, The Supremes and the peerless ‘Walk On By’ from Dionne Warwick.



LP3 opens with Neil Diamond’s universally beloved singalong anthem, ‘Sweet Caroline’ and Cliff Richard’s mid-70s classic, ‘Devil Woman’. Disco legends Donna Summer (‘MacArthur Park’) and Gloria Gaynor (‘I Will Survive’), lead into Sophie Ellis Bextor’s ‘Murder On The Dancefloor’ which became a smash for the second time recently. Ed Sheeran and Pharrell Williams had enduringly popular hits with ‘Galway Girl’ and ‘Happy’, and the side closes with the harmonic vocals of All-4-One and their beautiful signature song ‘I Swear’. The final side is packed with anthemic and uplifting classics kicking off with Spandau Ballet’s ‘Gold’, Survivor’s ‘Eye Of The Tiger’, and Take That’s soaring ‘Rule The World’. The remainder of the collection celebrates and showcases some of the ‘70s greatest tracks including Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Lost In France’, Marianne Faithfull’s poignant ‘The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan’ and Blondie’s era-defining and genre-defying #1 ‘Heart Of Glass’.



NOW That’s What I Call Gold is a must-have for all music lovers —packed with legendary artists, timeless hits, and unforgettable moments in pop. Don’t miss out on this golden treasure trove of musical brilliance!

compiled by tsunaki kadowaki
artwork by yoshirotten
mastering by kuniyuki takahashi

Tsunaki Kadowaki, a staff member at Kyoto’s record store Meditations, the supervisor of "New Age Music Disc Guide", and the founder of Sad Disco, curates the fourth installment of "Midnight in Tokyo" themed around Ambient Kayō.

The Midnight in Tokyo series by Studio Mule focuses on Japanese music, serving as a soundtrack for Tokyo nights—whether for home listening, club play, or as a driving BGM, transcending location and space. After a six-year hiatus, the fourth volume takes "Ambient Kayō" as its new perspective, compiling genre-defying tracks released between 1977 and 1999 to explore the intersection of Japanese ambient and pop music.

For this long-awaited fourth installment, selections were made regardless of record label status (major or independent), era, format (vinyl or CD), original release price, or prior reissues. Instead, the focus was on music that deeply moves the listener, is open-minded and evocative, brims with inspiration and spiritual insight, and embodies the "utagokoro" (singing heart) of Japanese artists.

Opening the compilation is "Umi e Kinasai" by Yōsui Inoue, a legendary Japanese singer-songwriter whose works have recently gained renewed interest as hidden gems of Walearic and ambient pop

Composed and arranged by Katsu Hoshi—who is also known for his arrangements on Inoue’s masterpiece Ice World—the track features renowned players such as Masayoshi Takanaka, Hiroki Inui, and Shigeru Inoue. The song embodies a yearning for Balearic horizons, tinged with youthful vibrancy and sentimentality.

Next, "Oritatamu Umi", compiled from Keiko Nosaka, a 20-string koto player, and George Murasaki, a pioneer of Okinawan rock, is an instrumental track from their album "Niraikanai Requiem 1945". As the title suggests, it carries themes of requiem and remembrance, conveying poetic lyricism even without words. Blending Ryukyuan/Okinawan harmonies and indigenous elements, it unfolds as an intimate and nostalgic piece of progressive rock.

Also featured is "Natsu no Kowareru Koro" by Higurashi, a folk-rock band led by Seiichi Takeda, formerly a guitarist of The Remainders of The Clover, the predecessor of RC Succession. Like the opening track "Umi e Kinasai", this song was also produced by Katsu Hoshi. It stands as a folk/new music piece that takes a step into an "otherworldly" realm, recommended for fans of Twin Cosmos and Masumi Hara.

From the enigmatic Blue, the only work left by the mysterious composer S.R. Kinoshita, comes "Mangrove", a hidden treasure of Japan's ambient/new age scene from the CD era. With an oriental and enigmatic atmosphere, the track evokes a mystical world of deep, uncharted jungles, unfolding as an otherworldly New Age Kayō.

"Yaponesia Sakura", selected from Rehabilual’s sole album New Child, is a masterpiece of Japanese new age music. Produced by Swami Dhyan Akamo, a disciple of Indian meditation teacher Osho and a renowned balafon player, the track features Michio Ogawa (Chakra) and Atsuo Fujimoto (Colored Music). Their collective artistry creates an exquisite spiritual ambient pop sound.

"Asa no Hitoshizuku", the opening folk song from Sachiko Kanenobu’s album Sachiko, is also included. Known for her legendary folk album Misora, produced by Haruomi Hosono, Kanenobu’s fourth album after resuming her career was inspired by her experiences living in San Francisco and revolves around the theme of "love." This track carries the same intimate poetic world as Misora, imbued with a pure, crystalline innocence.

From the synth-pop band E.S. Island, known for the Haruomi Hosono-produced *Teku Teku Mami", comes "Yume Fūrin ", selected from their long-lost new age classic Nanpū from Hachijo. Created while the band’s core duo was living in Hachijō Island, the album aimed to sonically capture "the high and happy vibrations of everyday island life." This track offers a dynamic, tribal-infused New Age Kayō experience.

Dubbed "the world's first Min’yō House Mix" "Esashi Oiwake (Maeuta) " comes from Kanazawa Akiko HOUSE MIX Ⅰ, a collaboration between Japanese house music pioneer Soichi Terada and Akiko Kanazawa, a renowned min’yō singer. Through the prism of club music, Hokkaido's Esashi Oiwake, one of Japan’s most iconic folk songs, is transformed into a futuristic ambient pop piece with intricate sound design.

The compilation also includes "Sweet Ong Choh", a track from Voice From Asia, a group active between 1989 and 1992 featuring vocal artist Shizuru Ohtaka. Taken from their imaginative minimal work Voice From Asia, released under Aoyama Spiral’s music label Newsic, the song presents a tranquil, tribal-minimal soundscape enriched by ethnic instruments.

Hailed by Haruomi Hosono as having “a shaman residing in her voice,” singer-songwriter Nami Hōdatsu also appears in the selection. Known for her collaborations with Henry Kawahara, her debut album featured "Asa-Hikari-Ame-Yume", a track that now stands as a precursor to modern vocaloid/synthesized vocal music—a hidden gem of post-choir aesthetics that deserves rediscovery.

Likewise, "Tennessee Waltz", from Naomi Akimoto’s album One Night Stand, supported by members of Mariah, serves as another early prototype of vocaloid/synthesized vocal music. The track weaves fragmented vocal samples, pastoral yet sweetly minimal synth sounds, and mechanical beats into a strikingly unconventional piece in the history of Japanese music.

Closing the compilation is "Heaven Electric", a track from Nav Katze’s album Gentle & Elegance, which featured remixes by Autechre, Seefeel, and Sun Electric. Merging elements of IDM, ambient techno, and chillout, the song embodies an optimism reminiscent of space music while seamlessly blending a mystical Japanese aesthetic—an ambient pop masterpiece.

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The album presents 12 exquisite pop tracks infused with an ambient feeling, resonating deeply with the evolving landscape of the mid-2020s—a time of post-hyperpop and Y2K revival.

Tsunaki Kadowaki (Compiler)

Born in 1993 in Yonago, Tottori, Tsunaki Kadowaki is a staff member and buyer at Kyoto’s Meditations record store. He is the editor of New Age Music Disc Guide (DU BOOKS) and a contributor to Music Magazine, Record Collectors' Magazine, ele-king, and more. Kadowaki has written liner notes for multiple Japanese releases (Brian Eno, Masahiro Sugaya etc.) and runs the Sad Disco music label under Disk Union. He also curates Spotify’s official New Age Music playlist and performed as a DJ at YCAM’s Audio Base Camp #3 in 2024.

Fourth Wave's latest compilation feels like a musical postcard from Japan's vibrant underground, gliding through genres with effortless charm. Mari Nakamoto's 'Day Dreaming' sets a tranquil mood with her airy vocals drifting over soft, dreamy instrumentals. Yudai Suzuki's 'Midnight Calling' brings smoky sax riffs and laid-back grooves, perfect for late-night introspection. Yasuhiro Abe's 'Night Fish' dives into psychedelic waters, swirling with hypnotic melodies and unpredictable rhythms. Maki Asakawa's 'Kohi Hitotsu' radiates raw emotion, her voice rich with longing. Yuji Ozeki's 'Futaribun No Yume' blends traditional Japanese sounds with modern electronics, crafting a sound both timeless and futuristic. Jin Kirigaya's 'Matenro Monogatari' closes the collection with cinematic depth, its sweeping arrangement lingering long after the final note.

Stass is the perfect German/Swedish collaboration in the old school death metal scene.

Old school 90’s death metal, where the guitars have a fat sawing sound.

Brutal vocals by Crematory-singer Felix Stass.

Together again with his Swedish buddy master-guitarist Rogga Johansson, and new Dutch bass-player Alwin Roes (Dead End, Stygian Dark), this album brings Stass to the next level!

“New Dead World Order” is the 3th full-album by Stass, after “The Darkside” (2017) and “Songs Of Flesh And Decay” (2021).

For fans of: Carnage, Dismember, Lik, Unleashed, Paganizer, Crematory, Entombed & Entrails.

Stass is the perfect German/Swedish collaboration in the old school death metal scene.

Old school 90’s death metal, where the guitars have a fat sawing sound.

Brutal vocals by Crematory-singer Felix Stass.

Together again with his Swedish buddy master-guitarist Rogga Johansson, and new Dutch bass-player Alwin Roes (Dead End, Stygian Dark), this album brings Stass to the next level!

“New Dead World Order” is the 3th full-album by Stass, after “The Darkside” (2017) and “Songs Of Flesh And Decay” (2021).

For fans of: Carnage, Dismember, Lik, Unleashed, Paganizer, Crematory, Entombed & Entrails.

Stass is the perfect German/Swedish collaboration in the old school death metal scene.

Old school 90’s death metal, where the guitars have a fat sawing sound.

Brutal vocals by Crematory-singer Felix Stass.

Together again with his Swedish buddy master-guitarist Rogga Johansson, and new Dutch bass-player Alwin Roes (Dead End, Stygian Dark), this album brings Stass to the next level!

“New Dead World Order” is the 3th full-album by Stass, after “The Darkside” (2017) and “Songs Of Flesh And Decay” (2021).

For fans of: Carnage, Dismember, Lik, Unleashed, Paganizer, Crematory, Entombed & Entrails.

WHO IS ULTAN O’BRIEN? Ultan O’Brien is a fiddle player and composer from the wilds of County Clare in the West of Ireland. Ultan is a performer as well as a regular at sessions all of Ireland and can be found by chance in any pub in Dublin, Cork or some remote village on the edge of nowhere, flying jigs and reels around the room. Ultan was reared in the rich tradition of Irish music which is so commonly found and heard in Co Clare, but he also delves deep into sound art and experimental music. He has often been heard in the back of a car after a few pints quoting lines from Alvin Lucier or speaking at length about improvisation and its place in modern Irish music. Ultan O’Brien is a fresh and vital player who has much to offer with his unique approach and technique to a tradition so old and ever ready for a subtle change every 100 years or so. Ultan has played and recorded with people and bands such as Skipper’s Alley, Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin, John Francis Flynn, Slow Moving Clouds, Cuar, Laura Jurd, Martin Green, Natalia Beylis, Paul Roe and Nic Gareiss. ‘in its Ultan’s fiddle playing sincerity of tone it reminds me somewhat of those great caoineadh which were played with such elusive grandeur by Denis Murphy and Pádraig O’Keefe’ Adrian Scahill ‘lets the heart brighten and the feet tap’ Richard Hollingum -KlofMag


ABOUT THIS WONDERFUL ALBUM: ‘This album, Dancing the Line, is my first solo album of music played on an alternatively-tune alto fiddle. I found that the resonance and growl of this lower tuned instrument sat me perfectly into the sound-world I wanted to be in, giving vibrancy to my own compositions and nestling into the traditional music I grew up with.’

Listening to Unknown Path's Pathfinder for the first time is a claustrophobic experience. It's as if the tracks had been recorded to tape and left to decompose for 10 or so years, then dug up and re-recorded. A thick layer of grunge and an overall murky feel sets the tone for Path 0.1 and continues throughout the EP. Paths 0.2 and 0.3 add a more upbeat feel to proceedings, as the beats get scattered around like they were in a pinball machine. Path 0.4 finishes off the experience by bringing the tempo back down, while all the time keeping the uneasy atmospherics that make this EP a unique and rewarding listen.

You may not require any introduction to the members of ROACH SQUAD, or at least one or two of the band. Needless to say, Hugo Mudie (The Sainte Catherines), Frankie Stubbs (Leatherface), Graeme Philliskirk (Leatherface) have all graced the Paradise Gutters around the Punk Rock world for some time. Joining them is Alex Keane (The Murderburgers), along with another local Sunderland Lad, Sim Robson. As with many of the members previous works, a DIY approach to writing and recording the album was taken. The bulk of the recording took place at their own Rocket Studios in Sunderland, UK with the exception of Hugo laying down the vocals from his home in Montreal (Quebec, Canada). Some of you will have noticed the line-up contains two vocalists, and indeed this is the case. For this new Band, Frankie wanted to take some time out from vocal duties and concentrate on playing his guitar. This sees Hugo taking front stage... Not for every song, though! Who knows what you expect, but what we do ask of you before listening is that you find your comfortable spot, abandon any preconceptions, and as always play it loud.

Denude is made up of members from the bands Piglet, Murder In The Red Barn,
Fuiguirnet, and Credentials.
Recorded by Shane Hochstetler in Milwaukee, WI. Mastered by Carl Saff in Chicago,
IL.
Their debut album, A Murmuration of Capitalist Bees, was recorded with minimal
production over three days at Howl Street Recording in Milwaukee. Engineered by
long-time friend Shane Hochstetler (Child Bite, Call Me Lightning), the album captures
the raw, immediate energy of the band's live sound. With just 14 hours of live tracking
and very few overdubs, the result is a tight, visceral eight-track LP that reflects the DIY
ethos Denude embodies.
Its a grinding, strutting, semi-broken kind of sound, and honestly we love it- we think you
will too. It manages to feel heavy without relying on heaps of distortion or growled
vocals, which don't get us wrong, we love. But it's fascinating to hear Denude's unusually
limber take on what feels like real emotional weight."- Fecking Bahamas

Robot84 is a master of blending Italo disco and Balearic house into perfectly escapist sounds for grown-up dancefloors and now he returns with Promo Vol 5, another vital drop in his celebrated limited edition vinyl series. This one has four more standout tracks including the lead 'Let's Do It' (Vocal) and its dub counterpart, 'Let's Do It' (Dub) alongside the Balearic-inspired 'Beats From the Far East' (which has already been hammered by the likes of Bill Brewster, Chris Coco and Colleen 'Cosmo' Murphy) and the more calming sonic waters of the blissful 'Ambient Love'.

Fust--the lyrical powerhouse Southern rock band from Durham, North Carolina--announce their new album Big Ugly, out March 7th on Dear Life Records, the record label that launched the careers of MJ Lenderman and Florry and that has become a haven for contemporary songwriters. Big Ugly arrives after the release of 2024's Songs of the Rail--"one of the best alt-country compilations_in a long, long time" (Paste) -- and 2023's standout Genevieve, which unassumingly introduced new listeners to Fust's unmistakable blend of "small-town poetry" (Mojo) with a familiar yet probing "country-tinged folk-rock" (KEXP) that made it "one of the most fun rock records of the year" (Pitchfork). Genevieve was their studio debut, recorded with producer Alex Farrar (Manning Fireworks, Rat Saw God, Tomorrow's Fire) in Asheville, North Carolina. The reception was far better than the band expected, stirring them to immediately start working on Big Ugly, their second collaboration with Farrar. Recorded over ten days in June of 2024, Big Ugly is the explosive sound of Fust uncovering a freedom within their sincere form of loose and fried guitar rock, realizing more than ever before an intimacy within bigness. The members -- Aaron Dowdy, Avery Sullivan, Frank Meadows, John Wallace, Justin Morris, Libby Rodenbough, Oliver Child-Lanning--weave their voices alongside guests like Merce Lemon, Dave Hartley (The War on Drugs), and John James Tourville (The Deslondes) to form a music that sounds like a conversation between old friends. And that's exactly what it is. At its heart, Big Ugly is a story cycle, following tough-skinned characters who seem to inhabit a shared and fictional small town--Big Ugly--that in reality gets its name from a lowly populated and unincorporated area in southern West Virginia around where Dowdy's family has deep roots. The album cover_a mural from the Big Ugly Community Center just off the Big Ugly Creek--was painted by locals for a 2004 play performed by the children that interpreted their elders' stories. In a way, Fust's Big Ugly does something similar as it takes the same area as its backdrop and reimagines a life depicted in the mural between the bars, gas stations, general stores, and double-wides. Throughout the album, we join the characters in finding history and meaning in the banal theater of their own private jerkwater.The songs on Big Ugly are hearteningly varied, moving from beer-fisted radio country to elegiac drones to deconstructed ballads. Songs like "Spangled" take up the theme of past traumas and present desensitizations colliding, of the small and cosmic coinciding in the life of a heedless protagonist. "Bleached" finds the soul-searching narrator recalling the feeling of inner vacancy in their childhood: thoughtless, speechless, herded around like cattle in backseats. And "Mountain Language" laments the poverties of Southern life at the same time that it promotes a higher poverty, a country utopia that's just out of grasp, where we could live if we could only "make it up the mountain again." The mystical hermeticism and the dime-store everyday are two sides of every insignificant thing in the town of Big Ugly.

Die britische Indie-Pop Band The Lathums kündigt ihr neues drittes Studioalbum 'Matters Does Not Define' für den 7. März 2025 an. Die Band hat bereits zwei aufeinanderfolgende Alben auf Platz 1 der offiziellen britischen Albumcharts vorzuweisen und ein weiteres Jahr mit riesigen Open-Air-Shows hinter sich. 'Matter Does Not Define' wurde von der Band, bestehend aus Sänger Alex Moore, Scott Concepcion (Gitarre, Piano und Gesang), Ryan Durrans (Schlagzeug) und Matty Murphy (Bass und Gesang), in ihrer Heimatstadt Wigan geschrieben, bevor es in den Kempston Street Studios in Liverpool in Begleitung des langjährigen kreativen Mentors John Kettle und des Produzenten Chris Taylor aufgenommen wurde. 'Matters Does Not Define' folgt auf ihr bisher erfolgreiches zweites Album 'From Nothing To A Little Bit More' und ihr Debüt 'How Beautiful Life Can Be' von 2021.

Die britische Indie-Pop Band The Lathums kündigt ihr neues drittes Studioalbum 'Matters Does Not Define' für den 7. März 2025 an. Die Band hat bereits zwei aufeinanderfolgende Alben auf Platz 1 der offiziellen britischen Albumcharts vorzuweisen und ein weiteres Jahr mit riesigen Open-Air-Shows hinter sich. 'Matter Does Not Define' wurde von der Band, bestehend aus Sänger Alex Moore, Scott Concepcion (Gitarre, Piano und Gesang), Ryan Durrans (Schlagzeug) und Matty Murphy (Bass und Gesang), in ihrer Heimatstadt Wigan geschrieben, bevor es in den Kempston Street Studios in Liverpool in Begleitung des langjährigen kreativen Mentors John Kettle und des Produzenten Chris Taylor aufgenommen wurde. 'Matters Does Not Define' folgt auf ihr bisher erfolgreiches zweites Album 'From Nothing To A Little Bit More' und ihr Debüt 'How Beautiful Life Can Be' von 2021.

Limited Red Vinyl

Tuning the Wind was created in 2022 as an installation piece. Since then, it has been adapted into multichannel, 4DSOUND, and stereo installations, as well as performed live on numerous occasions around the world. The piece has a duration of 36 minutes and 15 seconds. For the vinyl pressing, it has been divided into two parts.

Composer Aimée Portioli, known professionally as Grand River, recorded various types of wind and then reworked them through layering and pitch adjustment to create a musical piece where the wind itself becomes a prepared instrument. At times, the sound of the wind is tuned to the 440 Hz reference, while at other times, the instruments are tuned to the sound of the wind. In Tuning the Wind, nature and music merge seamlessly. Synthesizers and wind recordings become indistinguishable, blending natural sounds with human-made instruments. The boundary between a gust of wind and an instrument-generated sound fades away. Human artistry and nature’s symphony merge to become one.

Wind is air in motion. It makes no sound until it encounters an object. The sounds it produces depend on the strength of the wind and the shape and material of the object it touches. When the wind blows, trees sway, buildings rattle, materials move, and sound waves are generated. Some believe that temperature changes create layers of air, and that the friction between them forms a unique sound—perhaps the true voice of the wind, which birds may be the only creatures capable of recognising. Sometimes the wind howls; at other times, it sings or whistles, shifting from a gentle murmur to an angry roar. The wind’s range of frequencies, tones, and timbres is vast and varied. Tuning the Wind is a piece about the wind, made with the wind—an abstract expression of our ongoing conversation with nature.

Concept, composition and production by Aimée Portioli. Wind recordings by Aimée Portioli and Pablo Diserens.
Mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri. Front cover photo by Bárbara Cameán and Aimée Portioli. Back cover photo by Maria Louceiro. Design by Daniel Castrejón.

Emanuela Hutter and Oliver Baroni front this Anglo-Italian masterly, modern rockabilly band, making worldwide waves from their home base of Zurich. Highlights of this 2011 relaunch album Buy Beg or Steal include a rockabilly cover of Enola Gay and their classic hit duet between Demented Are Go"s Sparky and Emanuela: My Love For Evermore. The song"s murder ballad viral video now has over 25,000,000 views. An international cult hit, it has also inspired myriad tattoos, multiple 7" pressings and well over fifty cover versions. The LP version features an exclusive extra track.

"Belgians most hidden melodic black/death metal jewel SLAUGHTER THE GIANT will release their follow up to their successful album ""DEPRAVITY"", this time through Swedish upcoming label AT DAWN RECORDS. ""ABOMINATION"" is a six-track mini album. Their music embodies a captivating blend of modern and old school melodic black/death metal from both Scandinavia and America. Reminiscent of bands like The Black Dahlia Murder, Dimmu Borgir and Necrophobic to name a few."

"Belgians most hidden melodic black/death metal jewel SLAUGHTER THE GIANT will release their follow up to their successful album ""DEPRAVITY"", this time through Swedish upcoming label AT DAWN RECORDS. ""ABOMINATION"" is a six-track mini album. Their music embodies a captivating blend of modern and old school melodic black/death metal from both Scandinavia and America. Reminiscent of bands like The Black Dahlia Murder, Dimmu Borgir and Necrophobic to name a few."

Cindy Lee, Arthur Russell, Viagra Boys, On-U Sound. In the discourse around new albums from singular, world-building artists, the phrase “a big step forward” can often be a blinking red warning sign. You know you’re about to be pulled somewhere new against your will. Inertia is a hell of a thing. It’s nice here. Surely, the party’s not over yet? JJULIUS’ Vol. 3 album is a big step forward, or a step up, out of the murky basement of the preceding two volumes. There’s no time to acclimate. A spindly violin grabs you by the hand and pulls you into the pastoral bounce of “Brinna ut,” which, in spite of its meaning (“Burn out”), creates the kind of blind positivity and warm stomach feeling less cynical people might find in self-help seminars. For us, we have records like this. And, inertia be damned, Vol. 3 has charm like a balm. JJULIUS records have always arrived like meteors from another planet, an impression hammered home by the fact that they’re titled like compendiums of artifacts. And while Vols. 1 and 2 carried that notable tinge of darkness, Vol. 3 has (almost!) cast that shadow, adding elements of disco (“Dödsdisco”) and dream-pop (“Etopisk hallucination”) to his forever favorites Arthur Russell, African Head Charge, and The Fall. Some of that new car smell could be attributed to a change in process. Each song was written over beats played by Tor Sjödén of the wild-eyed Stockholm group Viagra Boys, beats that were themselves inspired by tracks from the likes of Patrick Cowley, CAN, Count Ossie, Black Devil Disco Club and others that Julius would send to him as inspiration. Unless you’re Mark E. Smith, fervor fades. Eventually we all crave a lie down in some nice grass, a few minutes to gaze at the sky and wonder if everything is actually all that bad. Vol. 3 gives you 35 of those respiting minutes. “No looking back, no misery, no talking trash, no enemies.”