Buscar:need for mirro

BENNY THE BUTCHER THE PLUGS I MET 2 THE PLUGS I MET 2 IS NOW AVAILABLE IN A LIMITED EDITION BURGUNDY PRESSING

Mere months after releasing an undisputed AOTY contender for 2020 with Burden Of Proof and only three months after being shot, Benny got back on his feet (way ahead of schedule) and re-immersed in his element “back to that little pot, that little flame.” While he has separated himself from his peers, Benny from Montana Ave knows the game is to be sold and never told and he has put all of these accolades in his rearview mirror to focus on his next lick; The Plugs I Met 2. The Plugs I Met 2 is the coronation of a true G going from worker to the PLUG---and never looking back. “I came in as an underdog, to filling out my position as one of the elite rhymers in the industry. Plugs 2 expands upon that mindset; the same confidence, same attitude, cocky, but I still have something to prove” Benny asserts. Produced entirely by Harry Fraud, the Brooklyn bred producer describes The Plugs I Met 2 as “the story of a hustler who’s realized success but understands how fragile it is. Lyrically the album shows Benny reflecting on what he’s sacrificed to get here and what he’ll need to do to continue his rise to the top. With this project we set out to transport the listener into a world that was lush but still gritty, triumphant but still emotional and sonically diverse across the board.”

Meg Myers is the epitome of divine feminine energy and magic, transforming her sound through deep introspection via spiritual awakening. Through her work, she has built a reputation for creating beyond the limits of typical genres, as is the case with her new album, TZIA. From songs such as “Me” and “My Mirror,” she embodies spiritual and musical transcendence. Weathers is not your typical alternative rock band. Inspired by the counterculture of the 80’s and 90’s, the group has garnered a reputation for creating introspective songs that resonate with the masses. Their newest album, Are We Having Fun? builds on the foundation they’ve laid for themselves, but with a new edge. With unforgettable melodies and themes throughout, including a feature from The Maine’s John O’Callaghan, Weathers continues to inspire and speak to those who need it.

Îlot, an isolated element within a different whole. For his new album, Sheldon, emblematic rapper of the 75e Session collective, continues his work of introspection on organic compositions, filled with the multiple references that build the musical universe of the artist.

Produced by Epektase and mixed by Sheldon himself at Winslow Studio, the project leaves a lot of room for the guitar and the rapper's 60/70s rock influences such as Bowie and the Beatles. There are also influences from Soul, R&B, Lo-Fi and Jazz, pushing the meeting of rap with other musical genres even further.

A nod to Böcklin's painting Isle of the Dead, a work of multiple interpretations that obsessed the painter himself, the island echoes feelings of isolation and solitude, but also the need to escape and introspect. We thus find the themes that haunt Sheldon: his childhood and his relationship with others, his questions about his place as a human being, which he poses head-on or through lighter notes of humour, and his dismay at a world for which he "knows the problems, not the solutions". His texts, unique and personal, reveal his most intimate thoughts. Like a conversation, they resonate within each of us and create a strong bond, a deep sense of understanding, against the backdrop of all the sweetness and melancholy of the images he conjures up: "One more day on my islet, watching the sailboats go by."

The metaphor of the islet continues in the visual universe built around the album, where the central element is a monolith used to represent isolation and emptiness. Made up of four mirrored sides, this imposing artefact represents both the island and the subject of the album: the central element is not the main subject, Sheldon, but rather what he tells us about the world around him.

The duo WILDES from the south of Germany, consisting of Jana Pantha and Jenny Tulipa, presents a musical mix of electro-synth-pop, post-punk and dark disco influences. After the release of their first EP “RAWWR” in 2021, their debut album entitled “KLISCHEE” will be released on 3 February 2023. Released via the Kommando 84 label, the album features 11 songs and a musical re-interpretation of German-language Neue Deutsche Welle sounds. The songs combine spoken word passages in which the singers combine a certain irony with word-playful rhymes. In addition to world-political, social issues, the songs revolve around the complexity of the new romance in love - between cosmos and stereo. The strong and experimentally avant-garde lyrics accompany the danceable pulse of the drum computer, melodic synth waves and the shimmering solos of the lead guitar.

The album “Klischee” begins with an electro-pop track that combines consistent grooves with atmo- spheric sound arrangements and a lead guitar that accompanies our journey to the moon. With the chorus’ high-pitched words, „Konsum - leg mich auf den Moon“ (“Consumption - put me on the Moon”), WILDES dryly yet humorously allude to a society that couldn’t fly “higher”.

The following cheeky song Leger in Schwarz combines impeccable post punk with influences from the NNDW scene. A short love story led by the electronic beat of the synthesizer makes the hearts of the night beat faster. With casual reduction, a guitar riff leads through the song. The guitar solo finally rounds off the plea about the longing for a good flirt.

Italo disco shimmers and pulsates on the driving song Capri. With lyrics like “Pack the boats - Vai a bordo”, Capri is a homage to the tried and tested Italo feeling with a cappucino on the terrazza, or indeed on the yacht with a view of the rocky walls of the island. An electric charge of sequencers and synth tracks acts here as a lightness of being in contrast to the porosity of the rock.

An electrifying electric guitar solo kicks off the fourth track with a mysterious invitation to Steig ein translated, get in. Hypnotised by the lights of the road, dazzled in the side mirror, a clearly repeating rhythm leads into the chorus and through the coming verses. English spoken-word lyrics add to the stoicism of the German language. The song’s great power ends with the line Lost in the dark, holding open the finale of the “Night Drive” encounter.

Digital and stereo on all channels, the distinctly tight and robust rhythm sounds in the song Apparat. A clear and simple synth melody is heard as a contrast and the electric bass gives the balance of the machine at points. Hiddenly, WILDES points here to the superior power that can control human action beyond all limits. A piece as a laudation to all the science fiction novels that play with the switching of the individual parts.

Side One of the vinyl is finalised by a song called La Grande Bellezza that motivates to dance and sing along. The punky pop craft lives through the recurring beat of the rhythm guitar. Here the focus is on the woman in all her facets. The great beauty, una donna, who can do everything as well as wanting everything and nothing...a strong woman who, however, also staggers and wants to jump off the cliff. Clearly and distinctly, the musical accompaniment of the drum machine and the accompanying synth melody reflect hidden parallel worlds and the ambiguity of character - of life? We get a desire for more and turn the round record.

The B side starts with a powerful guitar riff, complemented by a catchy and strong bassline that runs through the song. In this work, WILDES provocatively describes the West’s lust for the much-cov- eted Schwarzes Gold black gold. The song is reminiscent of the works of the band D.A.F. and thus ties in with the electronic punk sound spate.

The driving guitar riff joins in with the reduced synth bass sequence - the electro-pop song with the title Hitze (Heat) came onto the digital music market as the first single from the LP in the summer of 2022. Pulsatingly, the drum computer lets the beats vibrate to the rhythm of heated air. The duo po- etically describes heat with supercooled voices, a clarity in the sky that makes everything flow, that makes the breath dry. The work ends with a melodic synth solo.

Ich lad dich ein, I invite you - we have all said or heard this sentence before. A chance meeting of two people later leads to the altar in love. A far-reaching question that more or less arises in many love relationships at some point “Do you dare?” positions itself in lyrical contrast to the simple ques- tion in the refrain “Do you need sugar?”. WILDES plays with laconic poetry and, full of irony, makes the listeners think about living together. Krautrock contours are skilfully used in this piece. Reduced to the essentials, the chorus immediately sticks in the ear. A cheerful mix of steel drums and infec- tious solo.

Toccami - touch me! We sit on padded leather chairs - “you’re a rocket! Peng Puff Peng” - this song by the band WILDES joins experimental art-punk-pop, electronically with flowing synth waves we take off immediately. Melodically sung, lyrical layers of lyrics dance loosely light and gracefully in the ears of the viewer. The rhythmic beat visualises the feeling of floating in a spaceship. It’s love in the universe - “I love you, my darling” sounds tipsy in the beat-heavy disco refrain.

Hypnotically, WILDES launches into the final song of the entire LP. The title Zone takes us on a journey through time. Inspired by the film Stalker, we find ourselves in a science fiction setting that couldn’t be more present in today’s European events. The musicality of the electric guitar riffs ac- companied by simple new wave drums drives the listener into unknown realms.

Repetition and electronic synth sounds play a compositional role alongside rocking guitar riffs like their forerunners in the NDW scene. Lyrically, each song varies between pop-romantic and politically critical passages. Listeners start pondering about hedonistic life and its consequences. Sometimes it feels like listening to a Tarantino soundtrack in German, other times it feels like listening to an 80s track by a James Bond. Science fiction fantasies and reality add up in dadaistic theatricality to spir- ited synthpunk of the New German Wave from the South. Discoid beats and driving drums in digital are included.

7A Records are proud to announce the 50th Anniversary
Edition of Michael Nesmith’s “Pretty Much Your Standard
Ranch Stash” album. The LP version is pressed on 180g
opaque grey vinyl and comes in a gatefold sleeve, includes
extensive liner notes and session details by Andrew
Sandoval and lyrics to all of the songs. Also included is a
bonus track, the 1973 alternate version of “Marie’s Theme”.

The Album:
Nesmith’s time with the Monkees was well and truly in the
rear-view mirror and he needed a new place to live and
work. He caught the ear of Jac Holzman, head of Elektra
Records, and a path forward miraculously appeared.
Realising that most of the record companies at the time
didn’t understand Country Rock, Nesmith convinced
Holzman to start a new label, Countryside. Nesmith would
run the label, put together a ‘house band’ and produce
albums by various up and coming country artists.
Unfortunately, most of the new label’s releases didn’t make much of an impression and Nesmith soon started to
contemplate his own music again. Aided by the power of his Countryside house band, he quickly crafted Pretty Much
Your Standard Ranch Stash, a full and final RCA album. Despite its commercial sheen, Ranch Stash wasn’t a success saleswise and it became the closing remark to a heavy chapter in Nesmith’s life, a final “adios” to Monkee Mike, to the cosmic
cowboy, and to his family, as he moved further on up the trail.

7A Records are proud to announce the 50th Anniversary
Edition of Michael Nesmith’s “Pretty Much Your Standard
Ranch Stash” album. The LP version is pressed on 180g
opaque grey vinyl and comes in a gatefold sleeve, includes
extensive liner notes and session details by Andrew
Sandoval and lyrics to all of the songs. Also included is a
bonus track, the 1973 alternate version of “Marie’s Theme”.

The Album:
Nesmith’s time with the Monkees was well and truly in the
rear-view mirror and he needed a new place to live and
work. He caught the ear of Jac Holzman, head of Elektra
Records, and a path forward miraculously appeared.
Realising that most of the record companies at the time
didn’t understand Country Rock, Nesmith convinced
Holzman to start a new label, Countryside. Nesmith would
run the label, put together a ‘house band’ and produce
albums by various up and coming country artists.
Unfortunately, most of the new label’s releases didn’t make much of an impression and Nesmith soon started to
contemplate his own music again. Aided by the power of his Countryside house band, he quickly crafted Pretty Much
Your Standard Ranch Stash, a full and final RCA album. Despite its commercial sheen, Ranch Stash wasn’t a success saleswise and it became the closing remark to a heavy chapter in Nesmith’s life, a final “adios” to Monkee Mike, to the cosmic
cowboy, and to his family, as he moved further on up the trail.

If we want to look into the future, we have to start considering the implications more holistically. All too often, science fiction is a dystopian projection of the current era's grimmest realities spiked with pragmatic historical hindsight - but what if instead it was able to reflect our needs, hopes, and dreams? On "SPINE", award-winning Danish composer SØS Gunver Ryberg considers a sustainable alternative, buoyed by interconnectedness, empowerment, and understanding. Channeling her dextrous sound design into advanced, time-bending music that fluctuates through techno, experimental ambient, and soundsystem-vibrating bass music, she maps out an artistic landscape that's futuristic and complex, but never oppressive.

Ryberg is an accomplished producer who's developed her sound over many years, playing concerts and working tirelessly on video game soundtracks, film scores, dance, performance, and multichannel installation pieces. Her first solo album "Entangled" appeared in 2019 on Berlin's esteemed Avian imprint, and was praised for its sensitive approach to noise and abstracted techno, while its EP-length followup "WHYT 030" was nominated for the Nordic Council's prestigious music prize this year. "SPINE" is the inaugural release on Ryberg's own label Arterial, and stands as a thematically dense statement of intent. The label provides a platform to extend Ryberg's artistic goals and reflect not just her world but a world she wants to see develop in the future: somewhere connected and creative, where exploration and free expression is prioritized over genre division and petty compromise.

This philosophy is central to the sounds on "SPINE", which have been carefully sculpted to accurately lay out Ryberg's worldview. Opening track 'Unfolding' presents a sonic ecosystem that flourishes as it spreads itself out, and quivering kick drums vibrate alongside unstable atmospherics. There's the faint fingerprint of Chain Reaction's notional dub techno in there somewhere, but Ryberg interrupts the thought before it can coagulate, assuring the listener that her vision isn't ponderous but playful and optimistic. This mood flickers into view again on the title track 'Spine', as fragmented breaks rumble beneath disorienting synths, faint images of a life we once knew refracted into cosmic beams of light. 'Mirrored Madness' meanwhile is warm, assertive, and optimistic, contrasting skittering cybernetic percussion with dense, enveloping harmonies.

When she pushes rhythm into the background, like on the cinematic 'We tumble on the edges', Ryberg's compositional skill is placed under the microscope. We're presented with the opportunity to examine another dimension of her work, the mystery beneath the stone, hearing saturated, alluring pads infused with hidden harmonies. In these moments, Ryberg implores all of us to consider the environment, asking us to think about the earth's essential nutrients on the dreamy 'Phosphorus Cycle', and what we might do to save ourselves on the delirious 'Where do we go from here'. Ryberg's concern isn't chastising, it's laid out in a warm embrace. The future could still be bright - there's something beautiful in the complexity if you just take the time to look closely.

With so much going on in the world right now, it's safe to say we need to spread far more Joy then is circulating…

And who else deliver's Joy of this magnitude? The king of disco, Dr Packer. The Legendary Champion Records has enlisted the mirror ball man of the last decade to flip this absolute classic from Staxx and the gorgeous vocals of Carol Leeming. Perfect for sunsets AND sunrises, charge your cocktails!


DJ Feedback:

David Guetta - tasty update

Utah Saints - Minitsry Of Sound / FFRR - Cool groove. Production on point

DJ Kue - Dope!

MING - Nice one, I'll Play !!!

Steven 'Sugar' Harding - Milk & Sugar / M&S Recs - Love it!

DJ Rae - Good memories, nice work

Ember - Huge!

D.O.N.S. - Cool House tune. Support!

Black Legend - Defected / Simma Black - big one

Ruben Mandolini - Snatch! / Mother / Saved - Nice!

Sugarstarr - Defected / Toolroom / Vienna - Excellent

Tommie Sunshine - PACKER ALWAYS DELIVERS!!!

Vanilla Ace - Nice sounds

Kyle Kinch - Realm / Solotoko / Farris Wheel / HUGS - groovy

Severino - sweeet

MB Mgmt - top draw !

Jerk Boy - I've been eye'ing of this for a reboot for years ! I played this to death back in the day!..great remix !

Yolanda Be Cool - Sweat It Out / Club Sweat - cool...

Japanese street music icon, Yasushi Ide released new album featuring Don Letts, Josh Milan, Jeff Mills, DJ Krush and more.


"This is a sound track for rude, underground adults! Amazing mixture of reggae, dub, funk, jazz, rock, afro, house. Masterpiece that goes beyond genres of music created by great producer, Yasushi Ide who has relentless motivation and global network of talents." - Shuya Okino (Kyoto Jazz Massive / Kyoto Jazz Sextet)

"Great album! It is amazing to finish such a big project involved many collaborators at this high quality only in a year and 4 months. The magic of Cosmic Suite is there are variety of styles, and it makes you feel deep and spiritual at one point, but at the same time you can feel relaxed. Also, I have to say that the sound quality is great. It sounds very clear and it can only be done with top level recording and mixing professionals." - Ken Ishii

Yasushi Ide is the Japanese street icon. In the 90's he was called "the Guru of Shibuya-kei" which was the movement of Shibuya style of eclectic pop by the artists such as Cornelius, Pizzcato Five, or Original Love who is once again recognized in City Pop revival of recent years. (Yasushi Ide was a manager of Original Love, and also Kenji Ozawa)

Through his works, he has been creating the global network of musicians such as Josh Milan of the Blaze, house music icon, Don Letts, the pioneer of connecting punk rock with reggae, and Jeff Mills, Detroit techno legend, and released a great amount of hi-quality music on his label, Grand Gallery.

The Cosmic Suite project started in 2020, during the pandemic. It started as a project to reconstruct the parts of music Jeff Mills created for Chieko Kinbara, a violinist which Mills produced. However, it turned out to be 36min of spaced themed original track = Cosmic Suite.
(There are few phrases of Jeff Mills music left in the final version) This masterpiece created a buzz in the music scene in Japan and overseas, and became Yasushi Ide's new beginning.

In June, 2022, Ide released "Cosmic Suite 2". Originally, Cosmic Suite was an instrumental. "Cosmic Suite" is the reconstruction of "Cosmic Suite 2" with the element of vocals. In this project, Don Letts, Josh Milan, DJ Krush are featured as guest musicians. Moreover, drums of Tony Allen, the legendary Afrobeat drummer, and Style Scott, a drummer known for his works in early days of ON-U label, and Gota Yashiki, a Japanese drummer known for his works with Soul II Soul are featured in this album. Also, Japanese brightest talents such as Kan Takagi of Major Force, Kaoru Inoue aka Chari Chari, Tomoyuki Tanaka aka Fantastic Plastic Machine and Calm are featured as artists and engineers. This is the true dream team of the Japanese underground music scene.

The artwork is done by Josue Thomas, the founder of popular fashion brand, Gallery Dept. He is also featured as poetry reading artist in track 1 of "Cosmic Suite 2." Ide and him collaborates in various projects under the concept of "Universal Music Connection."

Yasushi Ide's also well received as a dub artist. (beside his wide range of musical styles)
His dub cover of Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine (Space Dub Mix)" is selected for "Late Night Tales mixed by Don Letts" in 2021.

Highlight of "Cosmic 2" is the unique dub sound in tracks such as "Lava" feat. UA, the Japanese singer often described as "Japanese Bjork", and "Sumimasen Suite" feat. Rebel Dread (= Don Letts).

Tokyo is the melting pot of street music from all around the World such as Dub, Jazz, House, Hip Hop, Afrobeat, Punk rock, Techno,,, You can see the influence of all spectrums of rebel music in this album. This unique avant-garde music can only be created by Yasushi Ide, who has been heavily involved in this truly unique music scene for a long time.

“Arguably his generation’s best lyricist” – Mojo // “The year’s stand-out album for me” – Stewart Lee // “A sort of modern-day pastoral” – Simon Armitage, Poet Laureate // The follow-up to last year’s first volume, English Primitive II continues the themes introduced previously in a harder, more electric and psychedelic style. The songs were mostly recorded during the same sessions but, if EPII showcased the ‘songs of innocence’, this new set comprises ‘songs of experience’. Callahan's lyrical themes here are frequently the sleaze and corruption of our ‘betters’, the intentional and unintentional brutality meted out on those weaker and the sometimes perverse ways in which this happens. There are moments of reflection among the broken mirrors, but they allow scant solace or reassurance. Dressed in another of Scottish artist Pinkie McClure’s witty and detailed stained glass creations and recorded at home and under a railway arch, EPII rises above its origins and invades the wider world, in all its colour, gritand glory. Each song serves as a monument to its internal tale – in fact, the whole LP is as much a collection of musical short stories as it is an album of songs. Opening with Invisible Man, the impression of a regular person with hidden grievances, biding his time and waiting to lash out is given. Waves of distant samples ebb and fall as the warped guitars swell and crash behind the main themes. We don’t know when this explosion will happen – we only know it will. A sleazy celebration of Britain’s position as the laundering capital of the world follows in the form of Beautiful Launderette. It’s good that we keep everything nice and clean for the whole planet, isn’t it? Business as usual, keeping the globe turning – that’s our role and we love it. The Parrot rocks like only a prolonged evisceration of governmental mouthpieces and their court stenographers can. It’s a thankless task making sure that the powers that be retain their authority in all things and patrolling the borders of what is allowed to be said and believed, but somebody’s got to do it. If you’re providing a service, you’ll need to present a united front against the grievances of the public, so you’ll need The Scapegoat. Mistakes and accidents can’t be the company’s fault, so you’ll need to pay someone to be publicly and repeatedly sacked to make it appear as if you’re solving problems and getting better. Lessons will be learned, going forward. The disturbing tale of Bear Factory begins side two and is the real-life story of the murder of one of the singer’s primary-school classmates in the 1970s, and true in every detail. The victim’s body was never found but the killer justifiably imprisoned for life. A more ancient scent of death pervades The Burnet Rose. This ground-hugging plant covers the graves of the victims in a seventeenth-century plague village on the Yorkshire coast to this day, commemorating their sacrifices when all around have forgotten. It’s this particular songwriter’s favourite flower. Orgy of the Ancients describes the intimate intricacies of ageing politicians and the press as they decide whether to go to war. In grotesque scenarios worthy of Caligula, they decide the fates of our children. And it’s not even half the truth. To finish, the songwriter looks back to an admired predecessor, when he sets William Blake’s famous poem London in a groovier setting than we’re used to – in the form of London by Blakelight. If London swings, it’s from the Tyburn tree. Tracks: Invisible Man / Beautiful Launderette / The Parrot / The Scapegoat / Bear Factory / The Burnet Rose / Orgy Of The Ancients / London By Blakelight

Italian sound artist GIULIO ALDINUCCI returns with his 4th album on KARL: "Real" is again a truly masterfully composed and sound-designed ambient masterpiece and a more than worthy follow-up to the critically acclaimed "Borders And Ruins" (2017), "Disappearing In A Mirror" (2018) and "Shards Of Distant Times" which all made it onto several year's best lists.

With now his 4thalbum for Karl, the sound artist from Siena / IT has proved a steady and prolific artist on the label roster. And each time, GIULIO ALDINUCCI delivers a new ambient masterpiece that clearly carries his signature as composer / producer and yet reveals a slightly different approach to his modus operandi. ALDINUCCI's massive layers of sound, built from field recordings and an array of electronic gear, blend droney ambient with heavenly voices / sacred music that create an atmosphere of a consolatory melancholy – alien, but with a graspable presence of human souls. And each album deals with a topic that ALDINUCCI came across in his observations of and reflections about today's society.

In the words of GIULIO himself:

"The digital media we live with shape and define reality by filtering it, letting us run the risk of living without our personal and unique one. My new album expresses a need of something unmediated and authentic. "Real" is a reflection on the endless possibility of sonic transformation, the ability we have to create new realities transmuting the soundscape around us and the inner soundscape inside us, even only by imagining it. A (deep)real experience permeated by dreamy lyricism."

Art has the power to mirror and capture its creators surroundings and environment. Art can also reflect something much more personal by offering us a glimpse of the artist’s mind. Hands Rest, the 2nd studio album by German composer and musician Aparde, does both. While reflecting the essence of Berlin’s club scene, in which Aparde undoubtedly is immersed in, the album also takes us to the depths of the musician himself, far from clubs and live sets, to a world that is both intimate and profound. “I think that I always process circumstances uncon- sciously in my music and that my way of thinking is full of internal conflicts,” he says. It is this duality, of an artist who is both entertaining Berlin’s nightlife through electronic sounds and delving deep into his own emotions through avant-garde pop, that epitomises Aparde’s work.


Hands Rest, which was created over the span of one year, has a cathartic feel to it, “the process was very diffused in terms of time, because over the past year my life circumstances have been very complicated and often frustrating, and I had to motivate myself again and again.” While he crafted the tracks, Aparde was in fact processing his own thoughts and feelings after the end of a long relationship, and listeners navigate through varying soundscapes that seem to accompany Aparde’s own internal commotions as he himself navigated a turbulent year. “It the break up was accompanied by numbness and repression. This was followed by a period of inactivity and the thought of ending my activity as a musician,” he tells.

New one by Montreal singer-songwriter Deb Edison, working once again as The Submissives and willfully unchanged from 2016's Do You Really Love Me? cassette (Fixture). Six years into the most tumultuous period in global history since WWII – a pandemic, right-wing infiltration, attempts at government overthrow, climate catastrophe looming, a near-complete loss of the moral compass, conspiracies lording over facts natural resources running out – and Deb's still here, staring a hole through the floor/your head. "No one ever changes," she coos on "In a Pinch," and these songs are a textbook example of that sentiment, and her artistic embodiment of psychosexual desire, ready to shatter some lives and walk away looking for the next one. "I'm waiting for your signal/I'm several years older," she drones on "Sick Kinda Love," further reinforcing a long-held stance that the obsession, internalization of feelings, and the human power dynamic of The Submissives are on the menu once again. You'll find whatever it is you want to find in here, just dig in. Deb might even be talking about you, though there's a good chance she's not, and if you don't have the goods you can be sure she's gonna be doing all she can to passively drive you away. "Chirp Like a Bird" reads as Deb's bottom-looking-up retort to Whitehouse's "Wriggle Like a Fucking Eel," and might even be more severe, because she doesn't need microphonic feedback and screaming to intimidate. If you're in for surface thrills, scrape up the Shaggs-esque rock stumble, swooping viola, and behind-the-beat bash tapping out each of these eleven tracks. This is how it is; you get what you get, and you might be upset, but that's all on you. You'll never get to the bottom of this sketch. TRACKLIST: A1 Wanna be your thing A2 When it was all new A3 In a pinch A4 Sick kinda love A5 Chirp like a bird A6 I'm a mirror B1 Goodbye Betty B2 Four five B3 Isn't you B4 Think of me B5 Sweetly

“I had to write myself back into existence,” says Jessie Baylin. “I’d been feeling lost, empty, unsure if I’d ever make music again, and I think this album came along to remind me of who I really am, of who I could still become.” Indeed, Jersey Girl is more than just another record for Baylin; it’s a radical act of self-actualization, a moving work of reflection and rebirth from an artist who’s spent the better part of her adult life running from her roots. Written and recorded with GRAMMY-winning producers Daniel Tashian and Ian Fitchuk (Kacey Musgraves, Birdy), the collection marks Baylin’s first release since the passing of her longtime collaborator Richard Swift, whose influence looms large here even in his absence, and it signals the start of a profound new chapter, one marked by love and empathy for the face staring back in the mirror. The songs are lush and dreamy here, drawing on a hazy palette of warm guitars and vintage keyboard tones, and Baylin’s performances are nothing short of mesmerizing, her tender voice front-and-center in the mix as she grapples with guilt and shame, pain and healing, purpose and identity. Baylin’s the first to tell you this wasn’t an easy record to make—in fact, it wasn’t a record she intended to make at all—but sometimes the biggest breakthroughs come from the most unexpected places. “I had to be tricked into writing these songs,” Baylin confesses, “but it was a good kind of trick. I didn’t realize what was happening until I was already in the midst of it, and that turned out to be exactly what I needed.”

After three studio albums and over a decade deep into the music game, THE INTERRUPTERS deliver their new album, In The Wild. This 14-track opus is the real deal; it's a story of survival, a story of resilience, by a band being bold and rejecting the easy impulses of simply repeating what's worked before. Together during lockdown, Aimee Interrupter, partner and guitarist Kevin Bivona, and his younger twin brothers, Jesse (drums) and Justin (bass), decided to put idle hands to work. After building a home studio in their garage together, Kevin stepped up and took charge of production duties to become "the accountable one" this time around. The record took shape in an unforced and organic fashion, and the recording process was evidently a fun one, which is reflected in the sound of the album, gliding across a spectrum of breathless punk rock, doo-wop, gospel, dancehall, and the band's customary nods to the lineage of two-tone. It's further evidenced in the uplifting spirit and the glittering rollcall of guests (Tim Armstrong, Rhoda Dakar, Hepcat, The Skints) involved too. Thanks to the cocoon of the intimate environment they'd built and relaxed working practices, the results made for the most personal Interrupters album to date, as well as being the one all four feel most connected to. The follow-up to their 2018 breakthrough album, Fight The Good Fight, which spawned multiple singles including "She's Kerosene", with over 50 Million streams to date. This smash-hit sent the band to the top of the radio charts across the globe, playing live with everyone from Dropkick Murphys to Green Day. It was Spring 2020 as they were headed out on an 8-week Hella Mega stadium tour in support of Green Day, Weezer, and Fall Out Boy in the U.S., when like the rest of the world, the band's plans went kaput. The forced time at home gave them a period of much-needed rest, followed by an injection of creative energy that led the band to write over 80 songs, curate a live album and documentary film about their lives and their first trip to Japan. THE INTERRUPTERS will be back on the road in mainland Europe in 2023.

“Rob wanted the world of The Northman to feel harsh and uncomfortable, and for everything to feel like it was caked in mud and dry blood, so it was crucial for the score to mirror that.” Composers Robin Carolan (Tri-Angle Records) and Sebastian Gainsborough (Vessel) were given a task of epic proportions when director Rob Eggers (The VVitch, The Lighthouse) asked them to create the score for his ambitious and highly anticipated new film The Northman, releasing on April 22nd. They needed to make a score that both honored the immense research that had gone into the authenticity of this Viking era period piece and complimented the cinematic maximalism of the film for a modern audience. The artists stretched themselves to the depths of their creativity and the resulting album is a gorgeous sonic tableaux that places the listener right in the center of the film.

While arranging the score the composers consulted musician and ethnographer Poul Høxbro for inspiration and insight into the history of Viking music. Having backgrounds in left field electronic music, Robin and Sebastian felt liberated by the constraint of using a small selection of musical tools for this piece. “Electronic music has almost limitless potential when it comes to making sounds and that’s obviously an incredible thing, but you can also go down the wormhole and get lost in it sometimes. There’s no risk of that happening when you only have a few primary instruments to draw upon.” Robin remarked.

They utilized traditional instruments such as the tagelharpa, langspil, kravik lyre, and säckpip to build the cinematic world of The Northman but they also took creative freedoms in adding instruments likes drums, which some academics believe wouldn’t have played a big part in Viking musical culture, simply due to the lack of archaeological evidence of actual drums. “One of the pieces we wrote was intended to emulate the sound of a bullroarer; an ancient instrument used in sacred rituals or in battle to intimidate enemies. It makes a really disorienting roaring vibrato sound and low frequencies capable of traveling insane distances.” Robin says when asked about one of the more unique aspects of the score. Everyone involved put so much effort into both their research and their creativity and this richness is evident in every track. The album as a whole is a cinematic masterpiece of sound and ambiance, both gorgeous and disturbing, like the film it so beautifully accompanies.

“Rob wanted the world of The Northman to feel harsh and uncomfortable, and for everything to feel like it was caked in mud and dry blood, so it was crucial for the score to mirror that.” Composers Robin Carolan (Tri-Angle Records) and Sebastian Gainsborough (Vessel) were given a task of epic proportions when director Rob Eggers (The VVitch, The Lighthouse) asked them to create the score for his ambitious and highly anticipated new film The Northman, releasing on April 22nd. They needed to make a score that both honored the immense research that had gone into the authenticity of this Viking era period piece and complimented the cinematic maximalism of the film for a modern audience. The artists stretched themselves to the depths of their creativity and the resulting album is a gorgeous sonic tableaux that places the listener right in the center of the film.

While arranging the score the composers consulted musician and ethnographer Poul Høxbro for inspiration and insight into the history of Viking music. Having backgrounds in left field electronic music, Robin and Sebastian felt liberated by the constraint of using a small selection of musical tools for this piece. “Electronic music has almost limitless potential when it comes to making sounds and that’s obviously an incredible thing, but you can also go down the wormhole and get lost in it sometimes. There’s no risk of that happening when you only have a few primary instruments to draw upon.” Robin remarked.

They utilized traditional instruments such as the tagelharpa, langspil, kravik lyre, and säckpip to build the cinematic world of The Northman but they also took creative freedoms in adding instruments likes drums, which some academics believe wouldn’t have played a big part in Viking musical culture, simply due to the lack of archaeological evidence of actual drums. “One of the pieces we wrote was intended to emulate the sound of a bullroarer; an ancient instrument used in sacred rituals or in battle to intimidate enemies. It makes a really disorienting roaring vibrato sound and low frequencies capable of traveling insane distances.” Robin says when asked about one of the more unique aspects of the score. Everyone involved put so much effort into both their research and their creativity and this richness is evident in every track. The album as a whole is a cinematic masterpiece of sound and ambiance, both gorgeous and disturbing, like the film it so beautifully accompanies.

The wiggy wanderings of Oog Bogo wind up on the same island of lost joys all at once, manufacturing a virtual jukebox of singles and side flips that won’t unplug, and just keeps reeling and raging on instead. A bright metallurgy of guitar pop, psych, post-punk and apocalypse disco embosses the sleek, multicoloured flash of ‘Plastic’.

 Oog Bogo are a four-piece rock band from Los Angeles and their new album is ‘Plastic’, an electrifying set of songs and sounds that just don’t stop, working like a machine that makes joy and endless flips and repetitions, whether in front of the turntable or out in the real world.
 In the past several years, Oog Bogo dropped two records that previewed this explosion in wildly divergent ways: 2019’s ‘Oogbogo’ EP, with wigged-out production, its contorted fun house mirror images pulling punk, psych and new wave in and out of focus in a chaotic procession of mutant tunes. 2021’s ‘EP2’ radiates a starkly different vibe, as chilled-out guitar-pop tunes conjure a flowing medley of plaintive echoes and atmospheres in a mellow mist of hiss.

 Kevin Boog recorded these records in a largely hermetic state: at home on 4-track, playing all the parts, slowly drawing out the sounds. The songs for ‘Plastic’ were demoed this way too, as a starting point for a group interpretation - but when, for obvious reasons, logistics prevented everyone from getting in the same room to even rehearse, the planned recording session at Ty Segall’s Harmonizer Studios took on a different shape.

 Starting off with only drummer Thomas Alvarez (Audacity) to accompany him, Kevin
realized that any obstacles to getting the record made were also opportunities, for
something else that was also right to happen. Rather than reach for the design of the
demos, he kept himself in the present moment, approaching every passage as fluidly
as possible, playing what he needed to play, staying open to what he needed to
know. It didn’t hurt that the laptop with all his songs crashed right after he walked into
the studio! There was no way possible but forward.
 The direction was right on with the guys at Harmonizer - Ty Segall’s sense of
imagination made him the ideal production counterpart to walk together with Kevin
into this world, psyched to experiment and ready to get weird at any time. Ty and
engineer Matt Littlejohn met all requests and requirements in the form of sounds, with
gear and approaches that amazed and delighted, and an eternally ebullient spirit.
 As this was Oog Bogo’s first time recording away from home, Kevin was a kid in a
candy store - where the store owner turns out to be a Wonka-esque philanthropist.
As band members Mike Kreibel (Dirty & His Fists) and Shelby Jacobson (Shannon
Lay) joined the session, there was a synchronicity and community with everyone
involved, finding an unexpected road to realizing the songs, with all the colours and
hues they added making everything pop that much harder.
 Fluidity was key: ‘Plastic’’s tunes depict a polymorphic cast of characters. As in life,
they leap avidly from style to style; from pretty psych rock to new wave apocalypse
disco and harsh post punk bleakness, sometimes in a verse and a half. Corkscrewing
over and over like a riff-driven space-coaster, morphing in and out of each
successive moment with increasing momentum and gravity, ‘Plastic’ defines and
redefines Oog Bogo, with sweet tunes, barely-controlled intensity and sharp
production moves - a killer first album and an equally killer evolving state of mind.

The wiggy wanderings of Oog Bogo wind up on the same island of lost joys all at once, manufacturing a virtual jukebox of singles and side flips that won’t unplug, and just keeps reeling and raging on instead. A bright metallurgy of guitar pop, psych, post-punk and apocalypse disco embosses the sleek, multicoloured flash of ‘Plastic’.

 Oog Bogo are a four-piece rock band from Los Angeles and their new album is ‘Plastic’, an electrifying set of songs and sounds that just don’t stop, working like a machine that makes joy and endless flips and repetitions, whether in front of the turntable or out in the real world.
 In the past several years, Oog Bogo dropped two records that previewed this explosion in wildly divergent ways: 2019’s ‘Oogbogo’ EP, with wigged-out production, its contorted fun house mirror images pulling punk, psych and new wave in and out of focus in a chaotic procession of mutant tunes. 2021’s ‘EP2’ radiates a starkly different vibe, as chilled-out guitar-pop tunes conjure a flowing medley of plaintive echoes and atmospheres in a mellow mist of hiss.

 Kevin Boog recorded these records in a largely hermetic state: at home on 4-track, playing all the parts, slowly drawing out the sounds. The songs for ‘Plastic’ were demoed this way too, as a starting point for a group interpretation - but when, for obvious reasons, logistics prevented everyone from getting in the same room to even rehearse, the planned recording session at Ty Segall’s Harmonizer Studios took on a different shape.

 Starting off with only drummer Thomas Alvarez (Audacity) to accompany him, Kevin
realized that any obstacles to getting the record made were also opportunities, for
something else that was also right to happen. Rather than reach for the design of the
demos, he kept himself in the present moment, approaching every passage as fluidly
as possible, playing what he needed to play, staying open to what he needed to
know. It didn’t hurt that the laptop with all his songs crashed right after he walked into
the studio! There was no way possible but forward.
 The direction was right on with the guys at Harmonizer - Ty Segall’s sense of
imagination made him the ideal production counterpart to walk together with Kevin
into this world, psyched to experiment and ready to get weird at any time. Ty and
engineer Matt Littlejohn met all requests and requirements in the form of sounds, with
gear and approaches that amazed and delighted, and an eternally ebullient spirit.
 As this was Oog Bogo’s first time recording away from home, Kevin was a kid in a
candy store - where the store owner turns out to be a Wonka-esque philanthropist.
As band members Mike Kreibel (Dirty & His Fists) and Shelby Jacobson (Shannon
Lay) joined the session, there was a synchronicity and community with everyone
involved, finding an unexpected road to realizing the songs, with all the colours and
hues they added making everything pop that much harder.
 Fluidity was key: ‘Plastic’’s tunes depict a polymorphic cast of characters. As in life,
they leap avidly from style to style; from pretty psych rock to new wave apocalypse
disco and harsh post punk bleakness, sometimes in a verse and a half. Corkscrewing
over and over like a riff-driven space-coaster, morphing in and out of each
successive moment with increasing momentum and gravity, ‘Plastic’ defines and
redefines Oog Bogo, with sweet tunes, barely-controlled intensity and sharp
production moves - a killer first album and an equally killer evolving state of mind.

Greg Dowling and Shane Johnson return to the Go Deep label for their third album, ‘This Bit of Earth’. Beginning work in the relative normality of 2019 and finishing over the strange summer of 2020, the resulting music mirrors the thoughts that such upheaval brings out - our world and our place in it - while also functioning as a kind of travelogue of journeys past and planned, real and imaginary.

Mixing samples with modular synths, programmed drums with jazz loops, and quirky plugins with outboard gear, the album ranges far and wide while retaining a warm, natural core sound.

The title track opens proceedings on an ambiguous note. A simple double bass motif weaves around a misheard vocal sample, layers of piano and vibraphone take up the call, and the whole thing gradually spins off axis to a distorted, disjointed finish. ‘Suburban Key’ follows on a groove of busy drum work and deep sub bass, the stately piano and strings setting the stage for an undulating synth solo.

Further in, ‘Alice on Jupiter’ takes a deep breath and blends field recordings, gently swelling pads, modular bursts and a recurring picked melody.

‘Back Trace Dub’ strolls the imagined streets of Irish author Kevin Barry’s ‘City of Bohane’, noting the “taint of badness” in the air and revelling in the tense, dub-noir atmosphere. Later on, the spoken word intro of ‘I Could See’ expresses the dread of confinement and the relief and ecstasy of release, a theme the music reflects as it steadily builds to a joyful climax.

And closing the album on an optimistic note, the languid, emotional Culatra Ferry remembers better, beautiful days in the sun and looks hopefully forward to more.

“Highlights are the stunning sonics of Suburban Key, with its dusty groove and fast paced drums, stately piano, and cinematic strings reminiscent of a Four Hero orchestral masterpiece. High As Scaffold is full of warmth and soul and is yet another example of Fish Go Deep going even deeper into the dark blue waters of their brilliant musical minds.” Ban Ban Ton Ton review, Japan

“So good. Real beauty” Laurent Garnier, Radio FG, France

“Really liking this, would love to support on radio” Colleen 'Cosmo' Murphy, WorldwideFM, UK

“Lovely album” Osunlade, Yoruba Soul, US

“Very very nice album...love the new directions here” Charles Webster, Openlab, SA

“Absolutely beautiful piece of work” Darimont, RWAV, Germany

“A lovely LP of eclectic sounds” Jimpster, Freerange Records, UK

“Delightful album this. Very much appreciate the musicianship and we need that in the world right now as the commercial music world starts to fire up its nonsense for the new beginning” Vince Watson, Yoruba, Netherlands

“Such a fucking great body of work, and on par with ANY of the great albums I've listened to recently” Billy Scurry, Ireland

“There’s some REAL magic here. Possibly the deepest year from this duo” Charles Levine, Soul Clap, US

“A fabulous surprise. I'm sure if he were still alive Jose Padilla would have hailed this as his number one album of the year, it certainly is mine” Steve Miller, Afterlife, UK

“Great album... will play in next shows” Franck Roger, Real Tone, France

“Beautifully produced and great atmospherics” Ashley Beedle, Black Science Orchestra, UK

Radio and DJ support from Ron Trent, Hector Romero, Ame, Cian Ó Cíobháin, Bill Brewster, DJ Sprinkles, Harri, Honey Soundsystem, Alexkid, Moodymanc, Hifi Sean, Kassian, Freddie Garcia, 6th Borough Project, Stuart Patterson, Lars Behrenroth, Fred Everything, Mark Roberts, Cut n Shut, Will McGiven, Stefano Tucci, Tristan Jong, Matthias Schober, Trevor Fung, Ben Davis, Max P and more.

Graham Nash: Live is the unique project arriving on May 6, on which Nash revisits his first two classic solo albums, Songs For Beginners and Wild Tales, recorded live in concert The live albums were recorded in 2019, each in their entirety with their songs in familiar sequence. Nash was joined on stage by a seven- piece band led by his
longtime collaborators, Shane Fontayne (guitar and vocals) and Todd Caldwell (keyboards and vocals), The album was mixed by Grammy Award® winner Kevin Killen and mastered by Grammy Award® winner Bob Ludwig.

An extraordinary Grammy Award® winning renaissance artist – and selfdescribed "simple man" - Nash was inducted twice into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, for his work with CSN and his work as a solo artist, beginning with these two landmark albums, Songs For Beginners and Wild Tales.

Nash's lifelong commitment to his work is unwavering. His inspiration is simple: "All the things we stood for, that love is better than hatred, that peace is better than war, that we have to take care of our fellow human beings, because that's all we have on this planet - those things are still true today. I need to know that I've brought something into the world that was positive and not negative."

Red Vinyl

Time has come for Futurepast to release a long format album: Alarm Phase Red - catalogue number FPLP01 - will be the first full-length work from Futurepast founder Davy Vandegaer, appearing here under a new name: Brainwashed Today.

Rooted in a conceptual approach of electronic music, this double LP ranges from industrial ambient to experimental techno. Like an antidote to a twisted reality of controlled screens and mental isolation, Alarm Phase Red uses the raw language of electricity
to reach the core of the machine and sabotage it, reverse its effects by mirroring them. Fighting fire with fire, deflecting the pressure and strain of a world driven by fear and anger, the music of Brainwashed Today acts like a cathartic escape from technological enslavement.

With the purchase of the vinyl comes a batch of three digital bonus tracks pursuing further the sound research of the album.

Clear Vinyl

Written and conceived by Stephan Crasneanscki, ‘LOVOTIC’ is a concept album by Soundwalk Collective, composed in collaboration with lauded actress and singer/songwriter Charlotte Gainsbourg. Featuring veteran techno stalwart AtomTM, rising singer/composer/performance artist Lyra Pramuk, celebrated actor Willem Dafoe, and writer/philosopher Paul B. Preciado, the album is released by the new Berlin-based Analogue Foundation.

Inspired by a relatively new field of research that seeks to explore and develop the possibilities of sexual and emotional relationships – and even love – between humans and robots, ‘LOVOTIC’ interrogates the impulses, ideas, and needs underlying this phenomenon. The project ventures into a future where sex, intimacy and desire are reformulated through the connection of humans, robotics, and artificial intelligence.

In an age of such hybrid entanglement with the machine, human identity requires the construction of new forms of intimacy, gender, and sexuality. At present, however, such technologies are primarily used to produce programs of limited sexual iterations that do not question the preformatted categories of gender and sexual orientation. In contrast, on ‘LOVOTIC’, Soundwalk Collective ask whether the future of sex and sexuality could instead be an exponentially expanding kaleidoscope. Where does the impulse of preference come from? What sets of words from our vocabulary can be communicated to the AI mind to generate a new identity for desire? Could the machine be another technology that brings us closer together?

Sonically ‘LOVOTIC’ is unidentifiable, artificial, and genuinely futuristic, occupying an amorphous androgynous netherworld at the borderlands between biotic and android. Traditional musical signposts are virtually non-existent, instead offering a mercurial, formless sound which mirrors the flourishing of gender fluidity it suggests could be on the horizon.

The production tangibly evokes the odd, rubbery textures of faux flesh, the slick virtual glide or glitchy mishaps of software, and the sleek shine of hardware. Gleaming sound design creates shard-like surfaces redolent of Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto’s ‘Glass’, the slippery stretched sonics Gabor Lazar, and the unsettling dark ambience of TOWERS and Hallmark ‘87.

At turns intimate and inviting, with whispering-in-your-ears ASMR vocals evoking blissful, heightened sexual states, within ‘LOVOTIC’ there’s optimism, but also unease; As well as the positive, it implies the negative ramifications of technology. At points a synthetic siren’s call appears to lure the listener to a darker place, with audio malfunctions suggesting dystopian science. Voices morph from gentle to distorted – a glitch in the system causing the mask to slip, like virtual lizards – ‘They Live’ or ‘V’ (?), for the metaverse age.

Here, Charlotte Gainsbourg invokes a being of unknown identity – an artificial eve, the oracle and the portal – speaking from an unspecified time in the future. The voices of AtomTM, Lyra Pramuk and Willem Dafoe weave in and out of Charlotte’s, often overlapping, merging into one another, expressing the entity of a being that’s ephemeral and in constant flux, oscillating between the natural and artificial. The record’s other bonafide singer, Lyra Pramuk’s delivery alternates between spoken word, operatics and partially- unintelligible language.

A multi-media project, ‘LOVOTIC’ also features the work of writer, philosopher and curator Paul B. Preciado – a leading thinker in the study of gender and body politics. Paul contributes a post-apocalyptic, quasi scientific and fictional text, which adds further fantasy, artistic and intellectual depth, augmenting the listener’s experience. Like all the best Sci Fi, his words seem prescient, describing what could become a likely reality in the future. Paul performs his written texts on the opening and closing tracks of the album; ‘The Age Of Mutation’ (in Spanish) and ‘Primate Love’ (in English).

Soundwalk Collective is an experimental sound collective helmed by Stephan Crasneanscki in collaboration with Simone Merli, which operates in a continuously rotating constellation of sound artists and musicians. The Collective’s approach to composition combines anthropology, ethnography, non-linear narrative, psycho- geography, the observation of nature, and explorations in recording and synthesis.

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.

In February of 1976 Eddie Carmichael left the group “The Voshays” after catching the bandleader/manager stealing from the band. Derry Shepherd and Duncan Bethel left at that time also. About a week later I asked Derry if he would be interested in starting another band and he said sure. At that point Duncan Bethel agreed to participate and he recruited his friend Flynn Emanuel to play trombone. Derry was the manager of the cafeteria at Sears Department Stores in The Pompano Fashion Square Mall and he met Sandy Ficca who was the manager at Chess King Men’s Clothing Store in the same mall. Sandy also agreed to join the group and we auditioned bass players and chose Dave Segal and only one keyboard player auditioned and that was Bob Groszer. We now had all of the personnel for the group and we commenced rehearsing in the recreation center in Pompano Beach, FL at Westside Park. We did a few “Chitlin’ Circuit“ gigs to fine tune the band and music and then moved over to the beach circuit. While there we would perform spring and summer months at “The Ocean Mist” on the Strip in Fort Lauderdale, FL and for the fall and winter months the Big Daddy’s 8600 Club on Miami Beach. After 18 months of constant gigging I suggested that the band go into the studio and record some original music. Now all we needed was some serious financial support and songs. I met a man by the name of Jerry Bullard and convinced him to back the project. We formed our own independent label “Get Off Records” and publishing company “Situated Music”. At that point Dave Segal and Sandy Ficca left the group and Bruce Saddler who was the drummer for The Voshays joined us on the drums for the first two recordings. Sandy Ficca returned as drummer and brought in his old friend and bandmate Daryl Walker to play Bass on five of the six remaining songs. We recorded the entire album in five days at SRS Studios and Triad Studios both in Fort Lauderdale, FL in August of 1977. The first single “Give It Up (Let Yo Funk Fly Free) was a winner released only in the New York tri state area where in two weeks it reached number 16 in the top 100 and was poised to go number one nationwide on the R&B charts in the next two weeks. Henry Stone, owner of TK Records in Hialeah, FL wanted to sign the group as did many other major record labels including Maurice White of Earth, Wind & Fire. But the usual problems of the music business reared its ugly head and the record was pulled from all radio airplay and the group who became disenfranchised with the business of the industry decided to call it quits. Derry Shephard went into Gospel Music production, Sandy Ficca went on to become the drummer for the Pop/Rock recording artists “Firefall”. Daryl Walker is a session player and music teacher, I did studio sessions and played in several cover bands and toured internationally. Bob Groszer toured with Sly Stone and other legendary recording artists. Dave Segal went on to start New York Bass Works in New York. Flynn Manuel became a music teacher in The Broward County School District and Bruce Saddler and Duncan Bethel left the Music industry completely. We were young and not good business people at that time and did not understand the rules of do’s and don’ts of the music industry. But we had three talented songwriters, a great arranger, a killer band and all the financial support that we needed. Looking back if we only had an experienced manager I truly believe Mirror would have gone on to create some great music over the years that followed.
Peace and love all the time,

Translucent red LP housed in a beautiful gold mirror-board sleeve with large Thundercat logo hologram sticker and gold holofoil detail. Includes two bonus tracks: ‘$200 TB’ and ‘Daylight (Reprise)

Vinyl only (no digital) 2021 Black Friday release

If indeed "you blows who you is," as Louis Armstrong once famously said, then Stephen Bruner's bass is a mainline to the soul of a man whose DNA was transcribed from the stars onto staff paper. His Flying Lotus-produced debut, The Golden Age of Apocalypse, offers both stone-cold skill and uncanny astrality, picking up where the pair left off on 2010's Cosmogramma and further distilling the jazz current running through that landmark Lotus release. A longtime contributor to others' albums, Bruner, aka Thundercat, is accompanied by an impressive cast ranging from Erykah Badu to members of Sa-Ra and J*DaVeY, to pianist Austin Peralta and his own Grammy-winning brother, drummer Ronald Bruner, Jr. Still, the end result is unmistakably a Thundercat record -- a lush and magical document combining classic jazz fusion, futurist electronic strains and timeless musical seeking.

Spanning a cosmic stew of players, locations and times, The Golden Age of Apocalypse was years in the making. . There's the ebullient "Daylight," a soft whirl of bluesy piano, New Age synth, snapping beats and warm bass. There's "Walkin'," an upbeat soul strutter powered by Bruner's digitally distorted plucks. There are raw, improvised numbers like "Jamboree" and virtuosic bass pileups like "Fleer Ultra." One of the album's most stunning moments arrives with a spacious cover of George Duke's "For Love I Come," a taut beauty spangled with crystalline harp and keys. Bringing this string of divinely unexpected moments to a moody and cinematic close is "Return to the Journey." There, Bruner sings, "Time will pass us by," but listeners needn't worry. Inside of this space, time really isn't a thing.

It's debut time!

Making his first appearance on wax is Manchester's hottest property, Approach Release. When he isn't creating cross-genre chaos behind the decks, this genial gee mans the tram, so you gotta know he's comfortable at the controls.
In addition to a clean drivers license, the man is in possession of some seriously deep crates and this three-tracker sees him pick out a few obscurities in serious need of some scalpel.

The A side serves up the swooning space disco of 'Krypton Factor', a mid-tempo trip into the mirror ball nebula which pairs sweet female vox and dramatic sax with malfunctioning electronics and chest height bass riffs. File it under set opener, sci-fi frother and future anthem!

Over on the B side, A.R. indulges in a little beatific boogie via 'Coma', an outer national excursion building from bubbling bass and classy keys into the eventual heart-swelling vocal, an arms aloft moment if ever we've heard one.
We've been dropping this anywhere there's a CDJ and are just as happy as you lot to have it on wax. Approach Release makes it three hits out of three on the B2, as a slept-on slice of synth-pop Francais gets a necessary extension and leaves its lame chorus on the cutting room floor. Tune in for taut drum machines, playful melodies and a chic vocal.

100% Drum Fun Guaranteed.

Since '66, when the British singer- songwriter emerged as the voice of his
generation with the seminal Family band, through every twist of his four-decade
solo career, Chappo's output has defied music industry protocol, challenged
genre, and held up a mirror to the times. "I've never stopped writing," he reflects,
"and with Life In The Pond, I felt the need to hear what I'd put down in music."
Released in 2021 on Ruf Records and Chappo Music, Life In The Pond draws a
line under a period in which the 79-year-old had been absent from the studio but
privately prolific. Twelve years since 2009's acclaimed rarities collection Hide Go
Seek, "A true lionheart still roars," raved The Mirror, Life In The Pond reconnects
the veteran with faces from his past – including ex-Family multi-instrumentalist
John 'Poli' Palmer as co-writer and producer while taking the pulse of modern life.
"Mostly it's anger at politicians that's kept me fired up," says Chapman of the
lyrics.
As for the music, Life In The Pond connects the dots between Chapman's
founding influences. "It's about nostalgia for the different musical styles that
influenced my life. American rock from the '50s to now. British R'n'B from the '60s,
like Georgie Fame, the Stones, Zoot Money. Folk, Blues, Motown, Stax, Blue Note
jazz, Classical, Americana, and Country. A whole mess of influences…" More than
four decades later, Life In The Pond ties all those threads together, finding
Chapman's voice in vintage form and his musical radar more receptive than ever,
on a tracklisting that roams from hypnotic seven-minute epic "Nightmare #5" to
"Rabbit Got The Gun's" dystopian soul-funk.
The world has turned a few times since '66, but Roger Chapman still has
something to say – and with Life In The Pond, his voice as an artist is more vital
than ever. "I'm very pleased and grateful that Poli gave me the opportunity," he
says, "because I think we came up with the goods on this album."

When Roberto Carlos Lange, the musician known
as Helado Negro, began writing ‘Far In’
immediately following the release of his acclaimed
2019 ‘This is How You Smile’, he could not have
predicted that we would soon need to learn how to
stay at home and be the stars of our domestic
dancefloors with intimate and online communities.
The titular pair in ‘Gemini and Leo’ stay indoors to
discover each other anew with music recalling
Lange’s youth growing up in South Florida
listening to 80s club songs, and their return
sampled in 90s hip-hop.
Visions past and future meet in a euphoria of
uptempo drums, Jen Wasner’s (Flock of Dimes)
funky bassline, and Opal Hoyt’s (Zenizen) galactic
swirl of warm and steely synths and bright backing
vocals.
What was a prophesying rehearsal for the
musician will, we can hope, soon be our fresh
start, a choice to bring that energy home, or go out
to meet it.

KiNK is back with number six on his sometimes experimental, often exemplary, but always exciting Sofia outfit. The driving force of Clap On 2 are the tropes of acid and its numerology (101/202/303/). The opener Disco Spectrum shows why the sound rose from the shards of smashed mirror balls in Chicago – updated and optimized for today. Turbo – nomen best omen – takes it even further, faster and fiercer, while the theme song completes the pogo picture. Finally, Almond Break lulls you into a false sense of security (think yoga camps, namaste cults, kale drinks and Balearic sunsets), before it turns into a pagan ritual to complete this acid test. Remember: wo wants to own the future needs to conquer the past!

SOFIA: Founded by Strahil Velchev and Konstantin Petrov, Sofia is not only the physical location where this music was made, the city where they met and developed as artists, but also a paradox that is reflected in the art and music that comes from the place. Beautiful and ugly at the same time, clean and dirty, brutal as well as romantic, it’s a place where aesthetically seemingly incompatible styles come together in a twisted, yet unifying form. The photographs for the sleeves are made by influential local selector DJ Valentine, effortlessly capturing the local reality.

Yellow Vinyl

From his early years on the music scene in Edinburgh, Theo Kottis has built a buzz as one of the UK's most exciting DJs. He is also the curator of his own unique sound, crafted on his Beautiful Strangers series, and gained clout from star DJs the world over.

The Mirror EP is fronted by a euphoric party track inspired by Kottis' lockdown yearning for "the kind of party where you don't stop dancing" - and crafted perfectly for this purpose. The raw energy of breaks and rave piano stabs is permeated by Busola's pep talk, getting the listener and the dancer geared up for the summer of release after a year of restrictions.

On the B Side, "Onda" takes its name from the Spanish word for waves. This is a blissed out relaxation after the intensity of the A-Side, an ode to an Ibiza poolside which still maintains a strong groove. Playful
pads pop out under sublime strings for an instantly nostalgic vibe.

Theo Kottis words on the release "Earlier this year during peak winter lockdown, craving the kind of party where you don't stop dancing, I took matters into my own hands, producing this new single "The Mirror", featuring Busola - who is the life of the party - to bring euphoric sounds to my living room and now to yours.

The thought of the impending "Summer of Love" got me through lockdown and I wanted to create something energetic and fun to mirror that excitement. I'd seen Little Gay Brother, the LGBTQ+ party and community perform at many festivals and knew their vibe would be an ideal source for this raw energy - I was introduced to Busola who provided the ultimate summer of self-love pep talk, something we all needed to get back out there post lockdown!

The second track is a nod to my summer escape to Ibiza where I played Pikes poolside and spent time in the sea and watching waves - "ondas" in Spanish - to reset and relax.

Get yo ass in the house, robot-- you cyber-spectre, you outhouse prime minister, you hard-headed mirror ninja, snapping selfies, living in the pixelated seams between bursts the of flashing images, birthed in a pool of TV static and Tik Tok dust. BLACK ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE AIR is here, not to save but to drown you. Heads better learn how to swim cause listen, this record is beat soup, hearty yet still minimal, a sonic mirage of prophetic soul that drop kicks your "chill beats to study to" Youtube playlist and hyper-intellectual rap podcasts into a hadron collider; it's only black matter on the other side-- 13 mesmerizing tracks about memory and imprinting and the future, all of them wafting through untouched space like the ghostly cinders of a world on fire, unbound and uncharted, vast and stretching across the universe. Moor Mother is a holographic figment of an Afrotopian dream, all at once goddess and warrior, mystic and cyborg, griot and future time traveller, etching noisy pieces of reverie into our consciousness for decades now. But check it: on BLACK ENCYCLOPEDIA she's joined by a wide-range of friends, collaborators and co-conspirators on a trip through the murky cosmos, navigating the black universe with stardust as currency. In these times, they'll say, as they click and mash their way through the same inter-webs that seek to strangle them, BLACK ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE AIR is just what we need: a post-everything, 12:01 on the doomsday clock, anti-trip hop type of situation. "We ain't gotta fight no more," they'll say; the rest of us, we'll put this record on and imagine again that it's real.

We used to enjoy presenting Chapelier Fou's work using the idea of music in the form of a treasure hunt. However, while the phrase in itself it still just as relevant today, we would never have imagined that it would become such an integral part of one of his albums. Or two of his albums to be perfectly exact - Méridiens and Parallèles. Two records with twelve songs each which answer each other back in the form of anagrams. They are like the two sides of the same planet - similar but simultaneously so different. They need to be discovered one after the other taking the time necessary to travel through the sound territories produced by his imagination. The starting point is a sombre night in Uqbar… Chapelier Fou's opening reference to Borgès was obviously not made by chance. He subsequently confided in us the objective of his diptych, namely to combine reality with fiction to question certainties and our relationships with the imaginary sphere. He has continued with his traditional classical-contemporary electronic approach which, although now known to a wide audience, has the advantage of opening up a whole range of possibilities right up to the infinite scale. Moving away from an "État Nain" (Dwarf State) to take refuge on an asteroid...Throughout Méridiens, each composition can be seen as a universe in itself or a specific landscape with its own temporality. Proof of this is the introduction to the chamber music format composed for and performed by only strings which can only be given the date we want to give it. This is "État Nain" in which violins are played like guitars. In some parts we find the spirit of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra and the idea of cheering up classical instruments and not taking everything too seriously. In other parts, we find something close to a mischievous and childish unplugged grunge anthem that could be from the French series Les Shadoks. This mischievous view of things is shown to full effect in Am Scharchtensee. The introduction shows Chapelier Fou's whole classical universe and mastery of orchestration in which "modular" electronics provide a subtle and discreet backdrop. Then, the record suddenly switches to a surrealist dialogue between these classical sounds and modular synthesizers with the flavour of the German pioneers Kluster/Harmonia to name but one example. Timelessness and imaginary places. La vie de cocagne confirms this choice of total freedom. It's traditional music with old sounds, a kind of forgotten bourrée (old French dance) in which electronic sounds disturb the established order and thus reach another musical dimension. Le méridien du Péricarde followed by Désert de Sonora push this idea of a trompe l'oreille and a hall of mirrors even further. The latter track ends almost like a catchy 80s melody and we can no longer find any logical meaning. We let ourselves be carried away by this profusion of madness and are a little amazed by this mastery of sound, composition and space. It sometimes all seems like a succession of conjuring tricks. Chapelier Fou takes not being serious very seriously indeed. The end song Everest trail is the perfect conclusion, a deadpan track in which the primary aspect of a totally classical melody in all its straightness is underpinned by a permanent exchange of electronic tweets which mocks the main musical posture. This impertinence harks back to Pierre Schaeffer who directed the ORTF's very serious experimental department in another era and allowed the development of Jacques Rouxel's series Les Shadoks thus introducing the general public to the notion of concrete music. This is also perhaps why Louis Warynski's stage name is French – because he has opted to use his French musical heritage. Thus the first singles selected from this album, Constantinople with its groovy and jazzy allure and Le Triangle des Bermudes evoke composers like Michel Magne or Michel Colombier both of whom have totally open minds and consider all music to have the same importance, namely that of sound. In absolutely all the tracks that make up Méridiens, you will find at least one detail - a pattern, melody, sometimes a simple sound - that will draw you back to explore it a little more. And the words are carefully weighed for sure. It's quite simple. This is undoubtedly his most hypnotizing and catchy album. Chapelier Fou has become a complete master of his own universe. He draws the start and finish lines himself and no one can follow him in a field that now belongs to him alone. Composed imaginary spheres, illustrated territories...Music is just as meaningful as the more visual arts. Therefore the artwork of Méridiens had to project each of the twelve tracks considered individually and not just the whole album as such. Chapelier Fou therefore asked his old friend the contemporary artist Corentin Grossman to create twelve windows to represent glimpses of the twelve worlds composed for the record. Windows or mirrors when it comes to that? You can never be sure of anything...Space OK. But what about time? The years go by and sometimes we forget that fact. But a simple glance back is often enough to gently touch the time that has passed. It is over 10 years since his first official record and he has been composing, recording and sharing his music for almost 20 years. 20 years is a long time. It makes some people look old while others fall into reassuring but sterile nostalgia. Chapelier Fou, on the other hand, has released his most ambitious project and tried to take a higher view of his discography that was itself nevertheless irreproachable. Although the journey is over we can see Parallèles universes on the horizon. Chapelier Fou has announced 12 additional tracks which are like echoes of the compositions on Méridiens' and will be released on the album Parallèles next spring. They are neither twins nor opposites – they are instead totally original new compositions which go further in exploring a universe which is already richly abundant.

There are records with empathy, records which are your friends and then there's the others... There might be little difference between them, a certain "je ne sais quoi", an "almost nothing but still something" which makes the difference between almost pointless and vital records. Despite, or rather thanks to his cynical despair, Matt Elliott's music never holds up a moralizing mirror to us - on the contrary, it creates a compassionate dialogue with listeners like the rhythm of two steps that synchronize to become as one. In 2016, Matt Elliot brought out his seventh solo album The Calm Before whose obscure title is neither exactly threatening nor comforting... the calm before what? Before the storm for sure but maybe also before the great record, the immediate classic we felt might be coming for a long time in the dual discography of the Bristol-born artist working under his own name and his electronic alias Third Eye Foundation. The elegant details and perspectives of Little Lost Soul (2000) already hinted at the upcoming masterpiece from the English singer-songwriter. The Mess We Made (2003) was Matt Elliott's first solo album and portrayed a universe in a kind of flight towards Balkan horizons made up of visceral despair. With the Songs trilogy, he put aside the electronic side of his work to continue working with a minimalist, stark and lucid style of writing. The Broken Man (2012) was full of tears and long laments sometimes carried by Katia Labèque's piano on a record which painted new shades of grey. On this record Matt began working with the producer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist David Chalmin (La Terre Invisible) who has kept on collaborating with the Bristol-born singer since then. Their partnership continued on Only Myocardial Infection Can Break Your Heart (2013) and The Calm Before (2016). Stéphane Grégoire is the head of the Ici D'Ailleurs label which has accompanied Matt Elliott since 2005 and perhaps he describes this album the best: "This new record by Matt is without a doubt his best album to date, a record that takes him into another dimension where he fully asserts himself as a songwriter and singer of the calibre of artists like Bill Callahan, Leonard Cohen or Johnny Cash." Matt Elliott's other records all seemed like empathic links between each other. Farewell To All We Know is an instant classic based on the sensitive piano and superb arrangements of David Chalmin, the sensitive cello of Gaspar Claus, the subtle bass of Jeff Hallam (who has also played with Dominique A and John Parish). There is a clear form of alchemy in all of this and still we find Matt Elliott's usual atmospheres and scenery, the same Eastern European folk music, long songs that take time to settle over time. Everything is the same but also is transfigured. By making his music stark and purifying and redefining the subject matter, Matt Elliott's work became so much more delicate. However this work is never frail nor really turned in on himself and thus becomes like a vital tune that vibrates and unfolds. The opening song Farewell To All We Know seems torn between the fear of what tomorrow may bring, inevitability and hope for the future in a permanent and progressive dramatic tension expressed by his Spanish guitar, the impressionist style piano and Matt's voice teetering on the edge of whispers. A funereal tribute to endless twilights and the dawns we all dream of seeing. There are touches of Leonard Cohen from Songs from a Room or Thanks For The Dance in The Day After That with Gaspar Claus's counterpoint cello. There is no spirit of resignation in Matt Elliott's work - life's path has to be followed against all odds. We have to follow the river's flow to reach the immense ocean and its infinite freedom. The haunted instrumental Guidance Is Internal harks back to the atmospheres of Howling Songs (2008) with its guitar parts full of scansions and muted threats. The music is transcendental but never seems afraid of the risk of falling. This is also what Bye Now tells us with its quasi-obsolete simplicity and sunburst melancholy reminiscent of the work of Luiz Bonfá, Bill Evans on Peace Piece or laidback crooners of the 50s. In Farewell To All We Know, Matt Elliott incessantly alternates between the dual desires to face up to the world or to protect himself from it. Hating The Player, Hating The Game is a lucid statement about the dullness of our daily lives sometimes, our right to get out of the game and no longer want to be part of it. Matt Elliott is tender but spares no one, particularly himself. Aboulia speaks of the tiredness of living and of looming death while Crisis Apparition says that there is always a time for reconstruction after chaos. This is like initially wearying wandering in the ruins of Aleppo with the slow dilution of the melody into a hallucinated drone. However the smell of great fires always fades and the earth always regenerates. Matt Elliott seems to suggest that the survival instinct is stronger than any cold winds could ever be. Matt Elliott never sings of certainties and prefers possibilities. Possibly the worst is over? Maybe... Maybe the storm has passed and devastated everything, now we just have to rebuild and live again. Farewell To All We Know shows us the distance that still needs to be walked and he walks next to you - right next to you, he is the friend who doesn't spare you the truth like all true friends really do.

Three years after the platinum Effet Miroir (Mirror Effect), Zaz is about to release her fifth album. A record she began making during the spring 2020 lockdown.

After a frenzied decade of sold-out concerts, awards and prestigious collaborations (Quincy Jones, Charles Aznavour), it was after her last world tour which ended in the United States that Zaz refocused herself. For this album, recorded between Provence (Southern France), Brussels and Amsterdam’s area, Zaz worked with Dutch producer REYN (Vanessa Paradis, Stephan Eicher, Benjamin Biolay, Gaëtan Roussel…). “Imagine a world in tune with you”, advises Zaz in the first single. “When you see the state the world is in, it saddens me. What are we going to leave for our children?", asks the artist, who has always held deeply ingrained questions of education and environment. “It's sad, scary. But ‘Imagine’ is a song of hope", she explains, putting things into perspective.

Farewell covers a lot of ground across the span of its 26 songs and two-hour run time. Yet every moment is a reminder of why Minus the Bear were such an experiential live band. They were always pushing forward, evolving their sound, and finding new ways to balance brainy musicianship, pop worship, meditative sentimentality, and adrenalized fervor into their own signature concoction. Further bolstered by the mix of Matt Bayles and master job by Ed Brooks at Resonant Mastering, the album sounds like a fully immersive live experience. + RECORDED DURING MINUS THE BEAR'S 2018 FAREWELL TOUR + 2021 MARKS THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FORMATION OF MINUS THE BEAR + MIXED BY MATT BAYLES (SOUNDGARDEN, PEARL JAM, MASTODON, THE SWORD) + MASTERED BY ED BROOKS AT RESONANT MASTERING (R.E.M., DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE, FLEET FOXES) + FIRST AND ONLY OFFICIAL LIVE RELEASE FROM MINUS THE BEAR + RETAIL EXCLUSIVE VARIANT ON CUSTOM OPAQUE GREY VINYL LIMITED TO 1,900 COPIES + 3xLP PACKAGE COMES IN TRIPLE GATEFOLD SLEEVE WITH SPOT INKS + 3xLP PACkAGE INCLUDES PRINTED INNER SLEEVES WITH METALLIC SPOT INKS + 3xLP INCLUDES A DOWNLOAD COUPON

Grey Marbled Vinyl

VARIÁT is the new experimental metal one-man band of Ukrainian artist Dmytro Fedorenko. Through dissonant noise poetry, corrosive synthesis, and subtle seeds of interiority and folk song, VARIÁT creates a sound world of austere urban psychedelia, invoking themes of primitivism and mysticism within the volatile currents of a contemporary digital era.

Conceived in 2020 as a provocative creative outlet, VARIÁT is founded on ideas of transgression, reinvention, and liberation, the consequence of observing prescribed artistic boundaries and pursuing new depths of aesthetic freedom. The project began as an exploration of new recording techniques: metallic materials used as percussion and channelled through blown amps, toms played with a hammer, drilled cymbals, raw, dimensional textures produced from found objects.

For the project’s debut album ‘I Can See Everything From Here’ a library of recordings rooted in musique concrète initiated countless sessions of seismic, discordant guitar noise and overloaded detonations of low end. Synthesizers calibrated and treated to sound like traditional instrumentation, rhythms of deluge and disarray. Compositions constructed with an intent to preserve their original modality; the chaotic spark of their inception.

The artwork created for ‘I Can See Everything From Here’ is an aquarelle (watercolour) painting, an ink-based projection which mirrors the sound of the album with dense, fragmentary shades of black and extensive tendrils of detail. A microcosmic depiction of the graphic power that defines ‘I Can See Everything From Here’.

LP pressed exclusively for National Album Day 2021 on gold vinyl in
single-pocket jacket with custom dust sleeve and digital download
coupon.
 Through ‘Titanic Rising’, Weyes Blood, aka Natalie Mering, has
designed her own universe to soulfully navigate life’s mysteries.
Manoeuvring through a space time continuum, she plays the role of
melodic, sometimes melancholic, anthropologist.
 Tellingly, Mering classifies ‘Titanic Rising’ - written and recorded during
the first half of 2018, after three albums and years of touring - as The
Kinks meeting WWII or Bob Seger meets Enya. The latter captures the
album’s wilful expansiveness (“You can tell there’s not a guy pulling the
strings in Enya’s studio,” she notes, admiringly). The former relays her
imperative to connect with listeners. “The clarity of Bob Seger is
unmistakable. I’m a big fan of conversational songwriting,” she adds. “I
just try to do that in a way that uses abstract imagery as well.”
 The Weyes Blood frontwoman grew up singing in gospel and madrigal
choirs. (Listen closely to ‘Titanic Rising’ and you’ll also hear the jazz of
Hoagy Carmichael mingle with the artful mysticism of Alejandro
Jodorowsky and the monomyth of scholar Joseph Campbell.)
‘Something To Believe’, a confessional that makes judicious use of the
slide guitar, touches on that cosmological upbringing. “Belief is
something all humans need. Shared myths are part of our psychology
and survival,” she says. “Now we have a weird mishmash of capitalism
and movies and science. There have been moments where I felt very
existential and lost.”
 As a kid, she filled that void with ‘Titanic’. (Yes, the movie.) “It was
engineered for little girls and had its own mythology,” she explains.
Mering also noticed that the blockbuster romance actually offered a story
about loss born of man’s hubris. “It’s so symbolic that The Titanic would
crash into an iceberg, and now that iceberg is melting, sinking
civilization.” Today, this hubris also extends to the relentless adoption of
technology, at the expense of both happiness and attention spans.
 But Weyes Blood isn’t one to stew. Her observations play out in an
ethereal saunter: far more meditative than cynical. To Mering, listening
and thinking are concurrent experiences. “There are complicated
influences mixed in with more relatable nostalgic melodies,” she says.
“In my mind my music feels so big, a true production. I’m not a huge,
popular artist, but I feel like one when I’m in the studio. But it’s never
taking away from the music. I’m just making a bigger space for myself.”

Emboss Star is the new album by Kochi-born, Kyoto-based artist Kazumichi Komatsu, the first to be released under his own name following a prolific run of material as Madegg.
Informed by a range of earlier work including EPs, installation works, video works, as well as live appearances at fashion shows, parties & raves, the material collected on 'Emboss Star' has been prepared and refined over the past four years, its final collation described as like arranging the pieces on a chess board; every piece strategically placed.
In its entirety Emboss Star is intended to emphasize the fundamental aspects of sound, and its relation to the material processes of playback; the grain of a rough recording, the jump and skip of a needle, the backwards gargle of a rewind. Individual parts shift suddenly, mirroring the abrupt transitions of everyday life. In this Komatsu attempts to reconfigure our response to sound, and the associations it often evokes; to reconsider the exchange of information and image, to alter perceptions.
Inviting a state of subconscious reverie – a mood often linked with ambient music but rarely matched as it is here – Komatsu adds an element of resistance to Emboss Star, as if depicting the tranquility of a dream, as well as its inevitable disturbance.
With creativity now compressed into a form of contemporary communication often ruled by vanity, redundant hashtags and tiresome jargon, Komatsu navigates the noise, recognizing technological ennui yet finding beauty, folklore & imaginative possibility.

Emboss Star is a collection of folk songs for lost connections. A vivid form of refuge.
3 vinyl only bonus track included. Mastered by Sean McCann.
The artwork for Emboss Star depicts an object created by Kazumichi Komatsu using 3D printing.












l 12: Umi Ga Kikoeru (Extremely Raw Version) [feat. Dove & Le Makeup]