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24 Songs. A new project from The Wedding Present. A new 7” single every month throughout 2022. 24 Songs sees David Gedge writing with legendary Sleeper guitarist Jon Stewart for the first time, and a more perfect union could not have been predicted. The notion of a monthly 7” single is not new to The Wedding Present, but 24 Songs shows us that even classic concepts can be reinvented. The series also continues the band’s association with photographer Jessica McMillan, who has created stunning images and films as a visual accompaniment to the recordings. Explaining 24 Songs, David Gedge said: “In 1991, The Wedding Present were rehearsing in a studio in Yorkshire when we hit upon an idea that immediately thrilled us all. Our bass player Keith Gregory had been a member of the ‘Sub Pop Singles Club’ - a service that allowed subscribers to receive 7”s released by that Seattle label on a monthly basis. Keith wondered if we, as a band, could attempt a similar thing. In that instant, The Wedding Present’s Hit Parade series was born and, during 1992, we managed to release a brand new 7” single each and every month. “The Hit Parade went on to become something of a significant milestone in the history of the band and it’s a project about which I’m often asked. As its thirtieth anniversary approached, I began to wonder if we should celebrate it in some way. A ‘Hit Parade Part 2’ didn’t feel quite right, though. Then, someone said to me: “Other bands have released music in similar ways but there has been nothing like the Hit Parade.” And they were right! A 7” single a month seems, somehow, very ‘Wedding Present’. So, inspired by that little idea from three decades ago, we’ve embarked on this new project, 24 Songs. “Even though The Wedding Present have never been known for taking the easy route, the idea of recording 24 tracks and releasing them in this way could seem daunting to any band. However, I’ve been inspired by the music that has been written since Jon and Melanie joined the group. The thought of celebrating this exciting new line-up with an exciting new series has motivated us all… and I suppose we also didn’t want any of these songs to be hidden away in the middle of an album!”

He might be vocalist in bands such as Brighton-based progressive act Diagonal and psychedelic outfit Baron, but when it comes to his solo work Alex Crispin has typically worked in more wordless fields. Last year the songwriter, vocalist and producer released a triptych of ambient albums, consisting of two older albums in 'Idle Worship' and 'Open Submission', as well as new meditative work in 'Resubmergency'. On his new self-titled album, however, Crispin re-emerges from the cavernous soundscapes to – for the first time – put his vocal and song writing stamp on a record under his own name. “I personally find it easier to create more guarded, moody music, but I was at a point where I wanted to embrace a more universal, intimate and open side to what I might say” Crispin says. “Over time I’d got over certain blocks or preoccupations and so wanted to create something accessible and open hearted, which became a big driver for this record.” Pointedly self-titled to reflect the newfound confidence in his song writing away from the collective of a band, the album’s nine tracks are a warm embrace amidst troubled times. Musically there’s nods to everything from tropicalia and Brazilian MPB, to 80’s dusk pop balladeers The Blue Nile and Paul Simon’s explorations into African music. Lyrically aware of the snowballing turbulence that surrounds us, Crispin in reaction tries to see hope and looks around at the relationships and connections in his life that provide him strength. He opens 'Invisible (To Us)' with the words “Before the world did end, there was just one moment when, everybody thought there might be time, to look around again, to laugh to cry to sing.” Elsewhere, 'Listen & Learn' strikes at the heart of other underlying themes of the record, of the rarity of people opening up, taking on new ideas and allowing change. It’s accompanied with a rich, maximal sound palette of flute and sax that play around each other as Crispin’s vocal chips in with gentle encouragement. “One of the main markers on the album that I was aware of from the start, was to let myself express joy and positivity in the music” he says. “I have come to greatly prize the power of accessibility and universality over artistic 'coolness or trend', much in the same way that so often for me, the greatest pieces of art humans make nowadays are things like Pixar movies, with their combination of undeniable human talent and craft, alongside genuinely moving and accessible themes.” Indeed, there is a cinematic feel to much of Crispin’s own music, something brought over from his ambient creations – although his self-titled album possesses a panorama all of its own. Something like 'When I Reach The Ocean' has a hazy, pastoral feel to it like something out of the Canterbury Folk scene; there’s space between the notes though, which in turn pushes the track out to a greater expanse than the comparatively soft-edged and modest sound palette used to create it. Similarly, the likes of 'Effert' revel in the space afforded to them - in the case of the aforementioned in particular, Crispin lets his voice take a back seat and creates an open wash of sound that he allows the guitar to probe and explore within. “In making any music I am definitely conscious of trying to put in only what is effective” Crispin says. “It is so easy to clutter tracks without realising it, just having the ability to add stuff can just become addictive as it’s so easy to do with recording setups now.” The album started coming together at the end of 2020, with Crispin getting most of the songs to a concrete state, before starting recording in May 2021 with Diagonal bandmates Luke Foster (drums) and Daniel Pomlett (Bass), who put down rhythm tracks. Jazz saxophonist Rob Milne then added parts which would become the glue that held the whole organic aesthetic of the album together. There’s no doubt that lockdown played a part in proceedings, with a kind of forced focus resulting in a need for joyful expression. However, Crispin and his partner also suffered a bereavement which led to her travelling for large periods of time. “It was a very intense and difficult time and I think some of the intensity of emotion of that situation coupled with being alone must have inevitably contributed to the work itself” he says. It's perhaps why when even in moments of sheer happiness, such as the 'Sabu’s' breezily euphoric opener, Crispin ponders: “No-one really cares beyond this moment, and even when it's here, it's never here”. It’s the first of several bittersweet moments on the record that give the album its weight. On this new LP, Crispin recognises that sadness doesn’t mean throwing out hope, and that even in moments of joy there’s still a path ahead of you to take.

Scopitones will release Locked Down And Stripped Back Volume Two by The Wedding Present on 1 July 2022. The album will also be released on vinyl only in North America by HHBTM Records. Locked Down And Stripped Back Volume Two features home recordings of Wedding Present classics along with a previously unreleased song: ‘That Would Only Happen In A Movie’. The first volume in the series came about when David Gedge’s annual festival At The Edge Of The Sea went ‘virtual’ in 2020 and the band recorded semi-acoustic versions of songs to be streamed. An album of the tracks was compiled and released due to popular demand. The same thing happened the following year and so Volume Two features tracks initially recorded for 2021’s online festival. There’s a bevy of guest stars on this second album! Jon Stewart of Platinum-album-selling Sleeper fame reprises his new role as Wedding Present guitarist but is joined here by some Wedding Present members of old. Peter Solowka, from the band’s first line-up appears on ‘Nobody’s Twisting Your Arm’ playing his second instrument, the accordion, while Hit Parade guitarist Paul Dorrington contributes to a re-working of the Top 30 single ‘Blue Eyes’. Long-time Wedding Present bass player Terry de Castro returns to infuse the album with her own unique style, while current Wedding Present bass player Melanie Howard takes over the lead vocal duties on a beautiful version of 1986’s ‘At The Edge Of The Sea’. Last, but certainly not least, Amelia Fletcher – backing vocalist on George Best and Bizarro – also returns to the party! As on the first volume, each musician recorded and filmed their parts at home and, as before, it is fascinating to see how stripped-back arrangements bring out different aspects of these brilliant songs. Track-listing Brassneck / No / Careless / Nobody’s Twisting Your Arm / What Have I Said Now? / Perfect Blue / Everyone Thinks He Looks Daft / That Would Only Happen In A Movie / At The Edge Of The Sea / Blue Eyes / Dare / Octopussy

In the old attic, among dust and dimness, I once found an old children's magazine, that opened itself on a photograph of three melancholic girls eating soup. A distant voice, quietly singing ravels of poems from the 19th century, all gone and forgotten long ago, is accompanied by monotonous loops, played on toy keyboards, or are they maybe a rustling and hissing of twigs on the roof? repeating gusts of wind, slightly moving curtains over a flaking window frame? the pace of moonlight on the carpet? Do you also hear a horn, every now and then sounding from a frayed and yellowed picture of a castle on flower dotted wallpaper? Kot Kot’s "i pni" ("and stumps") LP brings another glimpse into Lena Filatova’s sound gathering & recording process and her unique sensibilities. Feeling as though born from some kind of advent calendar hiding forgotten sounds, neglected moments and haunting sentiments, waiting there for those inclined to have a look. Lena is curiously opening doors individually and in new unisons to arrive at sound collages & compositions born from both accident and design (see the 5/4 odd time signature in „Ottepel“). Vocals that are fragile yet often laced with a feeling of determination and emotive persuasion. Lyrics pulled from old children’s books, juxtaposed with often dark and foreboding loops and samples that dance asynchronously around each other beneath Lena’s voice & piano/toy keyboards. Often recognising and embracing the magic in imperfection and choosing to keep early takes & improvisations, capturing and treasuring what others might have failed to recognise and hold dear. Lena is always demonstrating an innate ability to sew all of these things together in such a way as to cast a spell on the listener from inside a zoetrope of curiously collected & curated frames. „i pni“ is a big and serious poetic work about the most hidden, almost lost and perished, but forever wandering between sleep and waking in an eternal hauntological dream of an old attic.

Finally the 4th volume of "The Encyclopedia of Civilizations" is here! This time it is not a split LP, but a collaboration. Modular synth maestro M. Geddes Gengras and left-field pop priestess Leyna Noel aka Psychic Reality join forces to compose together their new project inspired by Zoroaster: M.Goddess. An exquisite modern ambient record mixing leftfield, kosmische, new age, dub vibes... Very original and rich compositions with genius arrangements combining spacey synth sequences, dreamy guitars, modular sounds, weird rhythms... Along the lines of Craig Leon, Conrad Schnitzler, or the Mecánica Clásica's contemporary approach to the kosmische masters. "Zoroastrianism is an ancient religion that is still actively practiced today by a small population of people worldwide and has had a massive influence on western culture. Many things that appear to be integral to western thinking (and thus “wholesome”) indeed have their roots in ancient Iran. Dualities such as good and evil, light and dark, heaven and hell—even paradise is an old Persian word. For this project, we are exploring this Zoroaster moment—set in the bread basket of the Iranian plateau, six to seven millennia before the Common Era—that’s like a cross-fade. The fading of goddess worship and the first strains of the patriarchy. Not the -ism of today’s still-living religion, but the moment when this man Zoroaster came along and created a new religion that centred one god instead of the many. Forcing the divine feminine underground, if not fully occulted, obscured and engulfed into the mainstream enough to be forgotten. Goddesses that before had their own dedicated cults were converted into lesser players. We’re reviving those flames too."

Lolina project emerged at a time when CDJs became standard in clubs and artists from many disciplines began exploring their possibilities. In Lolina’s records and performances, they are used as a live sampling tool allowing her to move between composition and improvisation. On “Fast Fashion”, discarded vocal takes and phone recordings made while watching videos online or walking down the street are re-sampled across long-form collages. “Mark Ronson’s TED Talk Intro (Using Computer Remix)”, restyles a lecture about sampling and constructed of samples into a track that can’t be contained by any of its elements. Relaxed beats break down into stuttering, jokes turn into abstract situations, and meaning is altered through repetition. With transitions between different parts defining the listening experience, “Fast Fashion” reveals a process by which one thing can be changed into another. “Fast Fashion” is Lolina’s fifth album and first working with Deathbomb Arc. Digital to be released on Oct 27th with vinyl to follow in early 2022 ~ both on pre-sale now. Lolina previously released music as Inga Copeland and was a member of the band Hype Williams between 2009 — 2013.

‘Raiz’, the first release on the OITO//OITO Discos label, draws the musical focus towards the sound archives of Michel Giacometti, a French ethnomusicologist who dedicated his life to studying the oral traditions of Portugal which had become either lost or forgotten, with his collections still exhibited today in the Museum of Portuguese Music in Estoril. As with their previous releases, the duo carefully manage the source material and interweave it with their Acid House undertones, with both the original cuts ‘Ceifeiras’ and ‘A Poda’ doing a beautiful job at merging the powerful vocals with driving bass lines and rhythms. The opener in particular has a deep mysticism to it, the vocals leading the line as razor sharp pads craft a pulse alongside a steady but powerful drum structure. ‘A Poda’ takes things in a trippy-er direction, with the vocals stretched out in that prog house style that keeps the mind ticking over and the body left to its own devices. The breakdowns in this track are very effective, and really portray the soul of the original vocal performance and allow for the listener to connect with the wider feeling being conveyed. On the flip, the duo asked producers Switchdance and Terra Chã to put their spin on ‘Ceifeiras’, and the results only add to the atmosphere. Switchdance takes things down into murky depths, with a low slung beat expertly interspersed with driving bass notes, as sweeping chordal lines meander up above, giving a whole new angle to the original and winning over our hearts. Terra Chã’s version injects some swing into proceedings, with looping chordal stabs pulsating through the middle along with some beautiful melodic additions that exalt and inspire in equal measure.
Balanced, referential, blissful, dynamic. All this, and more, feature heavily on the first edition of OITO//OITO Discos, so why not come along and meander through time and space – it’s worth the trip…

The Decades Collected compilations are part of the new Collected compilation series, which is a collaboration between Universal Music and Music On Vinyl. The compilations bring together the biggest names of each decade, combined with forgotten hits and less discovered gems, giving the listener an experience of listening to their favorite tunes while uncovering new musical grounds at the same time.

Various Artists - Zeroes Collected features Nelly Furtado “I’m Like A Bird”, The Script “Breakeven”, The Black Eyed Peas “I Gotta Feeling”, Alphabeat “Fascination”, T.A.T.U. “All The Things She Said” and Mika “Grace Kelly” amongst others.

The masterful progressive sludge metal outfit Intronaut (USA) released their fifth album in 2015. This long sold out piece of underground art now makes a quick comeback in a limited-to-999 copies edition on double purple vinyl, wrapped in a gatefold jacket.

100 copies only

Apron Records has been instrumental in shaping the current landscape of contemporary electronic music coming out of the U.K. since 2014. After almost a decade of pushing their unique vision has made the Apron Records imprint one of the most in-demand labels in most independent record stores. Now more than 45 releases deep in their journey, Apron Records have teamed up with Patta Soundsystem to work on their first various artists release and to celebrate this monumental milestone, both camps have collaborated to create a clothing capsule to accompany this release. After working with the artist formerly known as Funkineven on ‘The Wave’ late last year, it was only right to showcase the diverse talents behind this movement.

Sharing a drawing board with Patta for the first time with Apron Records, together they have created a Trucker Cap and a Graphic T-Shirt that echo the racing theme of the whole project. Better Together is the slogan that runs throughout the entire collaboration, stressing how unity makes us stronger as individuals. Artwork for the record has been provided by Amsterdam based artist Jim Klok. His unique Acetone printing technique has now been immortalised on this LP, juxtaposing vintage cars with checkered racing flags to create a dynamic cover that would be right at home in a picture frame as well as a record bin.

System Olympia’s ‘Passi Mai’ is a beautiful 80’s inspired driving riddim layered with her own vocals that wouldn’t be out of place in an arcade or a sticky nightclub floor. Followed up by ‘Leven’ by Brassfoot, we get a wobbler from the NTS regular. Layed with Jamaican vocal samples and audacious arpeggiated bleeps, Leven is a soulful approach to techno tropes that have been bouncing around Brassfoot’s head. Shamos’ 737363 is a cryptic masterpiece. With dreamy pads as a backdrop for shuffling drum beats, euphoric sweeps and dynamically designed synthesis, this closes off the themes explored in the first half of the record.

Side B kicks off with J M S Khosah’s contribution to the record titled ‘Lessons’ which is a dancefloor filler, adorned with glamorous percussion, vocal samples and syncopated stabs ontop of a driving 4x4 kick pattern. Kicking things into 6th gear is a club-ready production from London's most soulful selector Shy One. Groovy basslines and a 2-step riddim make ‘Candy Floss’ an ode to the grimey and the glittery sides of London nightlife. This project champions one of the people that have been pivotal in the success of the label, Steven Julien whose track E46 is an emotional journey through his synth-laden East London studio. Bookending the project are two compositions from Compton’s-own AshTreJinkins. Showcasing his abilities to approach the project from both an ambient and a pure beat-making perspective in order to hold the whole project together.

Produced by Heidecker, Drew Erickson, Eric D. Johnson and Mac DeMarco, High School sees Heidecker emerging as an increasingly playful and poignant story teller, infusing childhood tales with new gravity. In conjunction, he announces Tim Heidecker Live! Featuring Tim Heidecker and The Very Good Band, his first two-act tour of comedy and music. Since 2016, Tim Heidecker has chronicled the annals of adulthood on a series of supreme singer-songwriter albums. The crushing devastation of divorce and the existential malaise of middle-age, the minutiae of home ownership and the ritual of family vacation, child rearing and global warming: Heidecker has handled it all with humor and heart. But, there’s one pivotal lodestar of human development he has yet to mine that’s right, High School. First single “Buddy” is a composite of a few woebegone friends, which finds Heidecker reminiscing on the familiar tragedy of the adolescent stoner, manifesting the destiny of undiagnosed depression and parents who didn’t care much. The song itself is a jangly delight, but it’s hard not to mourn for “Buddy,” then re-count whatever blessings you may have. After initial and fruitful sessions with Jonathan Rado, Heidecker started recording tunes with DeMarco and Erickson, who had also worked on 2020’s collaboration with Weyes Blood, Fear of Death. At DeMarco’s studio, they added drum machines and synths and sidewinding solos to Heidecker’s big strummed chords. Johnson (Bonny Light Horseman, Fruit Bats) helped Heidecker finesse the tunes even more, making the music as rich as the feelings. Kurt Vile contributed to one song, as well. Through all those sessions, it slowly became clear: Heidecker was writing not only about the adventures and misadventures of life as a Pennsylvania teen in the early ’90s, but also how it felt to lose a juvenile sense of mystery and possibility as an adult. He was writing about high school and, really, the way it helped shape everything else. Back at Pennsylvania’s Allentown Central Catholic High School, Heidecker dreamed of making it with one of his many rock bands — Time and Other Things, Shaggy’s Beltbuckle, and (incredibly) The Pulsating Libidos. Two years shy of his graduating class’ 30th anniversary, Heidecker admits he had little of substance to say when he was 17, like all but the rarest of precocious minds. In college, though, he found the friends with whom he built his comedy career, largely apart from music and without much thought for his time back at Central Catholic. He was focused on his future. It is fitting, then, that as Heidecker has become such a delightful singer-songwriter and collaborator, he returns to the first scene of his time as a musician. Maybe he’s right — he didn’t have anything to say or sing about life back then. But across the earnest and amusing High School, he finds plenty to say about those weird and wonderful and ordinary times.

We are proud to finally unleash this fresh package of dnb goodness from long-time label affiliate HLZ. Four brilliantly inspired tracks, each one specifically crafted around the Integral ethos epitomising futuristic funk and bass ridden with soul. So intricately deep and packed with his clinical signature punch; this release showcases the versatility of HLZ’s quality productions which always guarantee superb dancefloor measure.

When the whole world collapses around you, sometimes the only thing you can do is stomp it all loose. Erin Anne's second album, the gleaming, electrified Do Your Worst, charts that uninhibited romp through disaster. Written amid the rubble of personal grief and professional disappointment, later exacerbated by the devastation of a global pandemic, the record deepens Erin's venture into the blur between human and machine, adding a new roster of digital instruments to the mix. Drawing on dark, glossy '80s synthpop as well as the unabashed bombast of bands like The Killers, the L.A.-based songwriter deploys a cyborg persona to articulate a feeling of displacement from the world as a queer artist struggling to survive the machinations of late capitalism. With bright, interweaving synthesizers and ripples of Auto-Tuned vocals, Do Your Worst poses a dare to the world: Whatever you have in store, I'll take it standing.

Erin began writing her second album not long after adding a MIDI keyboard and vocal processing hardware to her home studio setup. While exploring her new gear, she found that she could work in the same vein as the artists and producers she loved the most. Do Your Worst takes inspiration from the music of Patrick Cowley, the disco and hi-NRG producer best known for working alongside Sylvester. Erin was taken by Cowley's use of vocoder on the 1982 album Mind Warp, where his distorted vocals create a queer, mutant subjectivity. That album rang out against the cataclysm of the AIDS epidemic; Erin found resonance in Cowley's music during the present-day pandemic. "I have found the most catharsis and the most safety in listening to the music of people in really, really horrific circumstances making something lasting and profoundly beautiful," she says.

Throughout Do Your Worst, which was mixed by Sarah Tudzin of Illuminati Hotties, songs like "Typhoid Mary" and "Florida" reckon with loss, despair, and abjection. "This Hungry Body" sears through pandemic-era touch starvation, while "Mirror Mirror" attends to the noxious but necessary funhouse of social media. On the playful, guitar-driven “Eve Polastri’s Last Two Brain Cells Have a Debate,” Erin uses the spy thriller TV show Killing Eve to explore queer codependency and masochism. Among these fraught subjects, Erin Anne finds opportunities for release. She stages internal conflict on a scale so massive that its details start to become clear; if they don't resolve, they at least become palpable.

"I’m very much a maximalist when it comes to production. I like vast landscapes. I like a stratosphere and a core -- I want the bass to be beneath the floor," Erin says. "This record is, in a lot of ways, a collection of some of the first moments that I was technologically able to achieve accurate renderings of how I hear my own emotional world."

North London-by-way-of-Suffolk soundsmith Gerry Read delivers his first release for Circus Company with the Lean on Something EP. After countless examples of his bold production moves on many of our brother and sister labels including Herbert’s Accidental Jr to more recently on Koze’s Pampa Records, Read has always displayed a kindred spirit mindset to ours in his adventurous musical angles, and we are very happy to present this particular set of rock-solid and uniquely diverse pieces.
The title track “Lean on Something” starts things off in fine and classic Read form, with knocking found-sound percussion, fizzing textures and slick use of chopped and disorienting vocal sample
bits, as the track layers unfold into a whimsical and wondrous melodic stargazing anthem. “Wooer at the Well” then follows and picks up the tempo with those fly live acoustic drum lines that gives
Gerry’s tracks that special beyond-electronic feeling, while once again the deft layering of such a rich sound palette builds and builds giving other mavericks like Four Tet a sincere run for their money. The mood then brilliantly shifts on the next track “Paramol”, where Read treats us to an almost Robotnik-era Italo sprinkling amidst his otherwise forward-thinking club floor-filling tendencies, with an amazing array of synth sections and an arrangement that should satisfy even the neo-purists out there amongst us. Finally, “Risotto” wraps up the proceedings with a warm, jazzy bouncer reminiscent of both Read’s as well as our own catalog’s charming early offerings, and a kind of landing-at-home-base sensation with smoky cubist funk feelings and an equal parts rough-yet-undeniably cool effervescent groove.

House Of Lucy is a special project by three friends and music producers from Warsaw, Poland (TAMTEN, Ivan Bayor & FOPA) who also happen to organize a mysterious event called “Lucyna” on Half Year’s Eve (sunny New Year’s Eve in summer). It is a local thing with lineups consisting of DJ’s and bands with very different musical backgrounds. This genre bending and melting situation, together with an utterly open-minded audience, creates some of the most unexpected encounters. This is the place where dub meets new wave, post punk meets house, electro meets jazz… This is the place where House Of Lucy comes from. Following the lyrics on the opening track:

“…welcome to house of Lucy
you can do anything at house of Lucy
anything at all
the only limit is yourself…”

Dark 80-ish synths, guitar riffs, dubby basslines, aggressive percussion, haunting vocals, and some soft cozy spots seem a bit much for one record? This is House Of Lucy after all, the only limit is yourself.

Moxie’s On Loop label is back with a new release from Eternal Ocean label founder Ronan. The new EP, Interdependence, follows on from his highly acclaimed debut album ‘Reflections On Intrinsic Value’ and further contributions to labels such as Pressure Dome, Vanity Press and Jungle Gym.

Ronan’s productions are described as ‘aquatic sounds for healing’ and this release for On Loop is no different. Very much driven by percussion, the EP opens with a trippy dub-infused ‘Suderoso’, whilst the second track ‘Interdependence’ showcases a more emotional driven production, filled with blissful, ethereal pads and hypnotic vocal samples. It’s a moment of reflection before picking things up again on ‘Geodesis’ where excitable drum patterns lead the way, bringing you to the centre of the dancefloor. ‘Morning Glory’ rounds off the EP in glistening style - the perfect sunrise anthem.

Deciding to take a brief hiatus after the 2020 release of Moxie Presents Vol. 5, On Loop made its return at the end of last year with the stunning release of Matisa’s ‘Peace Building’ EP. Back for good, the label has now evolved into a new era, signifying the start of this chapter with the the brilliant On Loop 001 compilation earlier this year. The release showcased Moxie’s global impact, enlisting new tracks from the likes of Eris Drew, Nicola Cruz, Space Ghost, Olive T, Nachtbreaker and more.

Something's happening in country music. Newer artists and younger audiences are embracing instrumentation, vocal stylings and song structures long thought drowned in the ocean of slick, snap-track productions. Not easily dismissed as merely regional or a novelty throwback, the trend could be on its way to full-blown movement. If so, Kimberly Kelly's Show Dog Nashville debut album may prove to be the clarion call. Either way ... she's not asking. I'll Tell You What's Gonna Happen is more than her (abbreviated) album title, more than a reference to her connection with a Country Music Hall of Famer, and much more than a historical footnote. Rather, it's a statement of musical confidence earned the only way that happens: talent, work ethic, experience, vulnerability, and courage. For Kelly, it's all of a piece. "I like to think of it as a sub-genre of country music called 'country music,'" she says with a wink. A native of Lorena, Texas, Kelly has multiple connections to the Nashville industry. She has also been unafraid to defy convention. "This is not my first rodeo," she says of her label debut. "I worked really hard in Texas before I came to Nashville. I wrote songs, put out records, did a radio tour, and played every weekend while earning a Master's degree. They say don't have a 'plan B,' but I watched my mom struggle to get that next level of pay. My mom earned her bachelor's degree when she was 60, so school was important to me to know I could take care of myself.

Third pressing on transparent pink vinyl. At the 2018 edition of Roadburn Festival - a congregation of all things obscure, heavy and experimental in Tilburg, the Netherlands - two generations of Japanese Krautrock genius took to the stage for a live collaboration that was just as hypnotic as it was inevitable. The artists in question were Tokyo's Minami Deutsch and the legendary ex-Can frontman Damo Suzuki. With Minami Deutsch's heady metronomic jams providing the backdrop on which Suzuki was left free to deliver his distinct improvised vocals, the Live At Roadburn LP is challenging, raw and, at times, totally alien. Divided into three parts, from start to finish the LP is consumed by an unrelenting motorik rhythm section that never lets loose for a second. At the flick of a switch, intricate guitars veer from hypnotic and meditative to skewed psychedelic freak-outs drenched in fuzz. Where Minami Deutsch's playing is sharp and meticulous, Suzuki's stream-of-consciousness ramblings steer the music into whatever direction he sees fit. The result is equal parts disorientating, sporadic and totally all-consuming - the only thing keeping you grounded being that distorted and seemingly-endless 4/4 drive. Repetition. Minimalism. Improvisation. Transcendence. That was the ideology of seminal Krautrock pioneers Can, whose 1970-1973 work with Damo Suzuki at the helm unleashed something in music that would change it forever. Some 45 years since Can's final record with Suzuki - the inimitable Future Days - and the spirit of that era still lives on. Not least because ever since then Suzuki has embarked on an endless one-man tour, traveling around the world and taking to the stage backed by countless different bands. Crossing paths at Roadburn, Suzuki's ensuing performance with Tokyo via Berlin-based group Minami Deutsch is now available to relive on wax.

Matte Silver 180g. Free MP3 Download. GUM aka Jay Watson is a multi-instrumentalist, founding member of POND and touring member of Tame Impala. Gum’s solo debut album was originally released in 2014 and has now been newly remastered by tour mate Kevin Parker. Delorean Highway is a collection of 10 songs, described as “paranoid pop songs, mostly about falling in love and all of the things that he thinks are going to kill him”. ‘Delorean Highway’ is the first track off the album of the same name, inspired by a dream Gum had of driving through the desert in the silver car from Back to the Future, before taking off into the night. In the real life, Gum can’t drive, but he has seen Back to the Future and it’s fair to say he does look a little bit like Doc. The second single, ‘Growin’ Up’ was unleashed onto willing ears towards the end of 2013 and taps into every emotion that the name would suggest – a sense of paranoia, doubt, fear, honesty and hopefulness.

Repress back in soon, now on black vinyl. Genre: Rock-Alternative; Dreampop, Indiepop, Lo-fi. RIYL: Jesus and Mary Chain, Galaxie 500, Belle and Sebastian, Sarah Records.

The purest a band can aim for is to present their milieu as a time capsule from the morning of. April Magazine deals deep in the hypnagogic charm of their surroundings. Since the 2018 release of “Shirley Don’t” a sneaky classic that first turned ears outside their SF Bay Area home the band has stirred out a handful of cryptic indie pop recordings nestled in warm aerosol hiss and scrappy hand-drawn cover art. Music that glints in the far back of an urban daydream where guitars could be bells, bells could be voices, and voices hardly find use in words. If The Ceiling Were A Kite is a document of things losing definition and time gone slack. The songs on If The Ceiling Were A Kite were recorded over a span of about two years, after Peter, Mike and Kati started playing together around a four track cassette player in Peter’s bedroom. Other kindred spirits like Julia Waves, Ian Collins, Anthony Comstock OBC, Zach Vito, and eventually David Diaz joined in on some of the recordings and live shows adding to the collective ‘whatever works’ ethos of April Magazine. April Magazine is Peter Hurley, Katiana Mashikian, Mike Ramos, David Diaz.

Shadow Kingdom Records is proud to reissue the classic debut album of
Italy's Bulldozer,'The Day of Wrath' in half purple and half clear vinyl with
red splatter.Italy's Bulldozer should require little introduction
During the 1980s, they were the even-uglier alternative to Venom and Motorhead,
and made their name with such anthems as "Whiskey Time" and "Ilona the Very
Best." They also had an utterly wild, over- the- top presentation and visual
aesthetic, all embodied in accurately monikered frontman AC Wild. They were a
cult band before "cult bands" were such a thing in the metal scene. In short, there
was one – and only one – Bulldozer. Their debut album, 'The Day of
Wrath',released iin 1985, became something like bottled magic: Bulldozer never
again sounded as dark and depraved and raw as they did here. While their
successive albums saw the band cleaning up their act and getting thrashier and
are no less beloved, 'The Day of Wrath' is widely/ rightly considered the classic
album from Bulldozer.

Felicia Atkinson’s music always puts the listener somewhere in particular. There are two categories of place that are important to »Image Langage«: the house and the landscape. Inside and outside, different ways of orienting a body towards the world. They are in dialogue, insofar as in the places Atkinson made this record—Leman Lake, during a residency at La Becque in Switzerland, and at her home on the wild coast of Normandy—the landscape is what is waiting for you when you leave the house, and vice-versa. Each threatens—or is it offers, kindly, even promises? —to dissolve the other. Recognizing the normalization of home studios these days, she revisited twentieth-century women artists who variously chose, and were chosen by, their homes as a place to work: the desert retreats of Agnes Martin and Georgia O’Keefe, the life and death of Sylvia Plath. Building a record is like building a house: a structure in which one can encounter oneself, each room a song with its own function in the project of everyday life.

At times listening to »Image Langage« is immediate, something like visiting a house by the sea, sharing the same ground, being invited to witness Atkinson’s acts of seeing, hearing, and reading in a sonic double of the places they occurred. In an aching moment of clarity in »The Lake is Speaking,« a pair of voices emerge out of the primordial murk of piano and organ, accompanying the listener to the edge of a reflective pool that makes a mirror of the cosmos. "I open my feet to fresh dirt, and the wet grass. I hold your hand. You hold his hand. In the distance without any distance. The comets, the stars." At other times, listening to »Image Langage« is more like being in a theatre, the composition a tangle of flickering forms and media that illuminate as best they can the darkness from which we experience it. On »Pieces of Sylvia,« a noirish orchestra drones and clatters beneath and around a montage of vocal images, stretching the listener across time, space, subjectivities. Atkinson says that "Image Langage" is like the fake title of a fake Godard film. There is indeed something cinematic about Atkinson’s work—not cinematic in the sense that it sounds like the score for someone else’s film, but cinematic in the sense that it produces its own images and langage and narratives, a kind of deliberate, dimensional world-building in sound.

»Image Langage« is built from instruments recorded as if field recordings, sound-images of instruments conjured from a keyboard, instruments Atkinson treats like characters, what she calls “a fantasy of an orchestra that doesn’t exist.” And then, speaking of Godard, there are the monologues, operating as both experimental-cinematic device and a literary style of narration. Voice can be a writerly anchor or a wisp of a textural presence. Atkinson’s capacious and slippery speech plunges into and out of the compositional depths, shifting shapes, channelling the voices of any number of beings, subjectivities, or elements of her surroundings—not unlike her midi keyboard, able to speak as a vast array of instruments.

»Image Langage« is an environmental record, in the vastest sense of the world. It is about getting lost in places imagined and real; it registers, too, the dizzying feeling of moving between such sites. It puts forth a concept of self that is hopelessly entangled with the rest of the world, born of both the ache of distance and the warmth of proximity.

For Félicia Atkinson, human voices inhabit an ecology alongside and within many other things that don’t speak, in the conventional sense: landscapes, images, books, memories, ideas. The French electro-acoustic composer and visual artist makes music that animates these other possible voices in conversation with her own, collaging field recording, MIDI instrumentation, and snippets of essayistic langage in both French and English. Her own voice, always shifting to make space, might whisper from the corner or assume another character’s tone. Atkinson uses composing as a way to process imaginative and creative life, frequently engaging with the work of visual artists, filmmakers, and novelists. Her layered compositions tell stories that alternately stretch and fold time and place, stories in which she is the narrator but not the protagonist.

Martens: "Matthew Sage’s (Cashed Media, Fuubutshi) »The Wind of Things« and »Catch a Blessing« are two favorites of new music in my shelter. So when a little while ago he dailed in with this idea to make a Country Western album together, i saddled up and joined the stampede. The result is a universal coming of age story."

Sage: "I have always found the idea of whatever 'Western' means in America to be very elusive. It feels like a fantasy that we keep trying to relive by retelling exaggerated stories. An echo of an echo of an echo..."

Martens: "In them, the dissatisfied, unfolds that wide open road. With television infused meditations of packing a gun on horseback, and chasing a bison herd under torrential rains."

All music, recording: Matthew Sage, Lieven Martens Except: piano on track 7 by Wietske Van Gils, field recording on track 7 by Mick Sage, and carillon on track 10 by Luc Dockx

Mixing, editing: Lieven Martens; mastering: Roman Hiele; typography: Jeroen Wille; risograph printing: Jan Matthé

Matmos are one of the most prominent experimental electronic artists working today, crafting work by creating new conceptual frameworks & immediately testing those frameworks absolute limits. For Regards / Uklony dla Boguslaw Schaeffer they've focused on another artist known, in large part, for doing the same. Boguslaw Schaeffer was one of the first Polish artists creating electronic music. In step with American contemporaries like John Cage and Morton Feldman, he worked across the boundaries of classical composition, electronic experimentation, and radical theater in playfully form-breaking ways. Matmos are not the first ones to recognize the power of his catalog, from Solo (a 2008 documentary that garnered numerous international awards), to the annual Shaeffer's Era Festival (most recently celebrated simultaneously in Warsaw and Los Angeles) his work continues to inspire. Regards.. however, was not just inspired by his work, Matmos were given access to the entirity of Schaeffer's recorded works to use as they saw fit, commissioned by the prestigious Instytutu Adama Mickiewicza. They re-assembled & re-combined these recorded works with modern instrumentations in a way that only Matmos could, and what emerges is a composite portrait of the utopian 1960s Polish avant-garde and the contemporary dystopian cultural moment regarding each other across a distance. To facilitate the transcultural exchange that is the album's essential premise, all song titles and liner-notes are provided in both English and Polish. The album was mastered by Rashad Becker and features illustration and design by acclaimed artist Robert Beatty (Tame Impala, Osees, Mdou Moctar). Like the anagrams of the letters of Boguslaw Schaeffer's name that were re-assembled to create some of the song titles, the album itself is a musical re-assemblage of component parts into possible but unforeseen new shapes. Adding harp from Irish harpist Una Monaghan, erhu, viola and violin from Turkish multi-instrumentalist Ulas Kurugullu, and electronic processes from Baltimore instrument builder Will Schorre, and Horse Lords wunderkind Max Eilbacher, the resulting arrangements constantly toy with scale as they move from the close-mic-ing of ASMR and the intimacy of chamber music to the immensity of processed drones and oceanic field-recordings that close the album. Offering a "life review" of production styles, Regards / Uklony dla Boguslaw Schaeffer builds temporary shelters out of the panoramic wreckage of modernist composition, sixties tape music, seventies dub, eighties industrial music, nineties postrock and dark ambient, 2000s era glitch fetishism, and contemporary post-everything collage sensibilities.

We can't think of many other performers like the singer/songwriter/dancer/actress Asha Puthli who have excelled in such a broad range of genres. From 60s psych, Classical Indian music, Free Jazz, Pop, Soul, Disco, to Rock, the list goes on. A 'best-of' or an 'essential collection' is always going to be a subjective thing, but for what is unbelievably the first official compilation covering the full breadth of Asha's illustrious career, we aimed to provide a snapshot into her ever-evolving musical journey and a tribute to the vast richness of her catalogue.

Some singers want to be famous, others are pop star icons, and some are artists; Asha is the latter. Asha is a true force of nature, regardless of the genre she explores, she fully commits, moves on, and reinvents herself, always progressing. Looking back on Asha's career, it is evident what a trail-blazer she was, opening doors for her contemporaries and those who came later to step through. Whether it was conscious or not, you can recognise Asha’s influence in aspects of Kate Bush's ethereal image and performance, in Donna Summer’s high-smooth vocal sound and disco stylings, and in the gumption and power of Grace Jones.

Kick-starting the compilation is ‘Pain’, the Indian psychedelic garage rock sounds of The Savages featuring Asha. We have to admit, we had to strongarm Asha into letting us include this track at first; also due to its rare nature (and lack of any master tapes) the recording we present here is raw and low-fi. However, we felt its inclusion was important to fully represent the journey of Asha's career, the same consideration was also applied to two of the Asha & The Surfers’ songs that we have included in this collection.

Asha saw a link between jazz and classical Indian music "the improvisation, the minor chords, the free form, the liberalness of the art" we showcase her love of jazz here with seminal works with the legendary Ornette Coleman, taken from the revered 'Science Fiction’ album. Asha's 'CBS years' are represented here, how could we not include 'Space Talk' on this collection, and how these years progressed into her amazing disco offerings such as 'I'm Gonna Dance' & 'Music Machine'. The bizarre 'We're Gonna Bury The Rock With The Roll Tonight' from 1980 has also won us over. A pseudo-50s throw-back song that sounds not un-similar to the post-modern, leftfield, pop of an MIA production to come years later. Rounding off the compilation we have Asha's interpretation of a Michael Jackson classic that sat lost on a cassette-only released in India.

"Insane and heavy beats by the og don Pixelord featuring great remixes by an all-star line-up comprising Dj Ride, Dj Pound, Starkey and Dranq!

Like a lightning bolt in the middle of a dark sea, PIXELORD has returned once again from the frozen lands to shock and disquiet the tides of Futuristic Bass Music. Perhaps the best thing about Russian electronic music godfather Alexey Devyanin's PIXELORD project returning to SATURATE! for this "Demonslayer" release is not simply the exciting and hard-hitting beats contained within, but the simple fact that it shall be offered on delicious, glorious VINYL. An artifact for all time, perhaps to be found in future wastelands by those who would consider this "Demonslayer" to be the VanHelsing (or perhaps Trevor Belmont) of the 21st century bass music scene.

The last decade has seen PIXELORD riding the wave of forward-thinking bass music, and always staying at the crest, and 2020 is no different. "Doomguy" comes tearing straight in with menacing, distorted synth weaponry, assaulting with ballistic beats (even some nods to Junglism) until finally bestowing some glittering melody atop the fray, showing that not only is Alexey an elder-statesman of the genre, he's still the eager bass monster that explores his own depths. The depths are again evident in "Pain Elemental" where the vibe is established immediately, and only delves deeper into the slightly-detuned bass signals and ominous creeping atmosphere. The melodic elements are no longer here to sooth, they are newly charged laser beams that sear the flesh, scorching the eardrums.

This foreboding, demon-dispatching vibe is indeed present throughout this entire release, as you enter the "Bonus Stage" of this deadly game, where the aggression does not abate, and the bass plays backseat to the synth bell sonic geometry on display. The drums especially feel the wrath of PIXELORD on this track, where some impossibly tortured tambourines take a beating, and the chopping and relentless reorganization of the rhythm keeps you churning with intensity. The title track brings the "wild style", even though the drums are less frantic, the bass frequencies and laser blasts from our protagonist, the ever-ready "Demonslayer", are sure to dismantle any submissive subwoofer in range.

"BFG" rounds out this collection in a disheveled fashion, dishing out low frequency divebombs and squelches, whilst otherworldly transmissions from synth realms afar come leaping in trying to assert their dominance, only to be eaten alive by daemonic bass and telluric currents of seismic drum activity. An utterly destructive end to this tale… BUT WAIT, IT GETS WORSE! We have here on hand SATURATE! stalwarts DJ Ride, DJ Pound, DRANQ and big daddy STARKEY on remix duty, who all take the tracks down their own rabbit holes to parts unknown, with equal aplomb. The result is equal in intensity and aggression, but the textures by which this is conveyed are wholly transformed and re-imagined skillfully.

All this on one slab of gorgeous VINYL. No demon shall stand a chance against PIXELORD's battalion of beats and bass."

Repress incoming...

Far Out Recordings proudly presents Milton Nascimento's Maria Maria. Recorded in 1974 and unreleased until almost thirty years later, the album was written as the soundtrack to a ballet which dealt with the legacy of slavery in Brazil. Raw, atmospheric and emotionally charged, Maria Maria reveals one of Brazil's greatest ever songwriters at his creative peak. Featuring an all-star cast of fellow Brazilian legends including Nana Vasconcelos, Joao Donato, Paulinho Jobim, and members of Som Imaginario, Maria Maria holds what Milton considers to be the definitive versions of some of his classic songs, including 'Os Escravos De Jó' and 'Maria Maria'.

Originally released in 2003 as a double CD package, with Milton Nascimento's 1984 follow up ballet soundtrack Ultimo Trem, Maria Maria will be available on vinyl for the very first time from December 2019, with Ultimo Trem set for vinyl release early 2020.

Milton Nascimento possesses one of the most immediately recognizable voices in Brazilian music: high and sweet and as breathtakingly sublime as that of any soul singer. It was this voice that the legendary Brazilian singer Elis Regina fell in love with back in 1964, having heard Milton perform his song 'Canção do Sal (Sultry Song)' at a private party in Sao Paulo. Ellis went on to record the song in 1967 -giving Milton his first hit in Brazil and beginning a career that has spanned over 50 years.

Born in Rio on the 26th October 1942, Milton moved with his adoptive parents at the age of 18 months to Tres Pontas, a rural town in the state of Minas Gerais, 500 miles north of Rio. He began his musical career as a young teenager, singing in a crooner style he learnt from listening to Brazilian singers and US groups such as The Platters on the radio. Hungry for more opportunities to perform, Milton moved to Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais, at the age of twenty. By the beginning of the 60s Milton had made a name for himself both as an accomplished singer and guitarist.

Milton became part of a local network of musicians, film makers, dancers, theatre directors and writers that included the journalist and song writer Fernando Brant as well as lyricist Marcio Borges and his younger brother Lo Borges. Together these four wrote and produced what would become Milton's milestone album, 'Clube da Esquina (Club on the Corner)'. The originality of 'Club da Esquina' shaped the local scene, and it reflects the essence of 'the Nascimento Sound'. Milton's religious upbringing as an Afro-Brazilian Catholic saw him exposed to church choral music from an early age. His love of this genre of music is apparent in both his celestial falsetto and vocal choral arrangements. This collection also displays his early fascination with evocative, non-verbal, scat-style singing, spare, harmonic guitar work and local folk music, jazz and rock.

In 1976, Milton and Fernando Brant teamed up with a new contemporary dance company called Grupo Corpo, whose Argentinian choreographer Oscar Araiz, would become a collaborator with the two musicians. Together, they conceived a show based on the composite life story of the daughter of a black slave called Maria. Nascimento wrote music to Brant's lyrics and "Maria Maria" was premiered in the main theatre of the Belo Horizonte Palacio das Artes that year. "Fernando wrote the lyrics for the ballet, but there were originally no lyrics for the theme song, "Maria Maria'". Milton and Fernando worked on the lyrics together, basing them on folk stories about black women of the countryside. Adds Milton "These memories are mostly things that we witnessed – Fernando and I – rather than what we experienced ourselves.

Milton's music is impressionistic, emotional and romantic. Relying on songs without lyrics as well as evocative vocalizing and choruses, Milton experimented heavily with Afro-Brazilian percussion and taped jungle sounds. His composing method for these recordings was highly unconventional: "I wrote the music for 'Maria Maria' in a tiny Rio apartment with friends and their kids running around and having fun! I love to be in noisy places, surrounded by people", he says.
The music on 'Maria Maria' was performed by an impressive group of young musicians who are today household names in Brazilian music, including Naná Vasconcelos (percussion and effects), Toninho Horta (guitars) and Paulo Moura (sax). Several vocalist including Naná Caymmi, Fafá de Belém, Beto Guedes, and Milton himself, had hits in years to come with reworkings of these songs.

Milton says his compositions follow his visions "like a movie", and he believes that reflects his long love affair with cinema. "I only began composing because of enjoying the movies so much," he says. "I wrote my first song "Peace for the Coming Love" after seeing 'Jules et Jim' (the cult 60s French film directed by François Truffaut), with my friend Marcio Borges. We went early in the morning and watched it four or five times in a row, then went to Márcio's home and wrote the song."

The songs also include solo spoken passages set to music, clearly influenced by this style of French art cinema. On the title track, Maria's story is narrated and translated to music through the use of African Percussion, drums and metal signifying the field slave tools of the day. 'Trabalhos (Works)' runs to work rhythms and whipcracks: no words, just pain. 'Lília' documents the beating of the slave woman. After 'A Chamada (The call)' and the triumphant 'Era Rei e Sou Escravo (I was a king now I am a slave' things begin to turn and Milton employs tropical jungle cries to symbolize freedom. 'Santos Catholicos x Candomble (Catholic Saints vs Candomble)' represents the battle between African and European religions through the music of both sides. Milton's heavenly falsetto pours into 'Francisco' and 'Pai Grande (Great Father)' and the outstanding 'Eu Sou Uma Preta Velha Aqui Sentada no Sol (I'm an old black lady, sitting under the sun)' conjures images of an old woman sitting deep in the forest, her memories painted in drums, piano and voices.

When words trail off at the beginning of claire rousay’s »everything perfect is already here«, ornate instrumentation is waiting to fill a void left by the breakdown of language. Yet it becomes clear as we trace rousay’s collaged sonic pathway that breakdown, of meaning and also of melody, is also a place to rest. everything perfect… is made up of two extended compositions that cycle between familiarity and unknowing. There are seemingly infinite ways to feel in response to these pieces of music, which shift tone across their languid duration, earnest like a familiar song but unbound from the emotional didacticisms of lyrical voice and pop form.

rousay builds a fluid landscape around the acoustic contributions of Alex Cunningham (violin), Mari Maurice (electronics and violin), Marilu Donovan (harp), and Theodore Cale Schafer (piano), whose respective melodies weave gently in and out, sometimes steady, sometimes aching, sometimes receding altogether in deference to less overtly musical sounds. That is, percussive texture in the form of unvarnished samples and field recordings: the rattle and rustle and the stops and starts of life unfurling, voices sharing memories nearly out of reach, doors closing, wind against a microphone. Everything comes from somewhere in particular, possessing the veneer of the diaristic, but sound’s provenance is secondary here and so these details become tangled and fused. On this release I hear such details not as individual ornaments or stories but the collective architecture of the greater composition. It’s an architecture that is not quite formed and thus full of openings out to the world unfolding.

“The world unfolding,” that’s a kind way of saying change, movement, loss, transformation. Things rousay here indexes, not without shards of desire or pain, still somehow what I hear is coarse peace in the in-between. These two pieces sweep you away and then bring you to earth, but which is which, anyway? Where am I now? What is different outside of me? What is different inside of me? Um. I think. everything is perfect is already here, like the answers to these questions, is loose and beautiful in surprising ways.

The music guides a certain experience of the world around. In claire’s music there is this marriage—not just a pairing or juxtaposition but an interrelationship, an eventual confusion—of song/texture, narrative/abstraction, figure/ground. Everything comes from somewhere in particular but not just the voices, the field recordings, the what is being said or meant, what matters is the where you are now. There are so many ways of anchoring oneself in the present, some have to do with fantasy or storytelling and some with accepting what is.

These two compositions find peace between these modes. They sweep you away and then bring you to earth, but which is which, anyway? Their mode of feeling is inquisitive. Where am I now? What has changed outside of me? What has changed inside of me? The music, like the answers to these questions, is loose and beautiful in surprising ways.

Tiptoe between the toadstools of Liverpool’s city parks, and amongst the foliage you might find a Strawberry Guy, contemplating his next chord-progression. Composing hi-fi symphonies from within his humble abode, the Welsh-born songwriter is ready to share the fruits of his labour with debut album Sun Outside My Window. A timeless vista of ethereal balladry looking towards 19th Century musical maestros and works of art, it brings new meaning to the term ‘Modern Classic’ and is the most optimistic of lockdown records yet.
“It’s about seeing the simple things in life and them making you happy,” tells Alex Stephens, the Guy behind the Strawberry. “I remember this day when I was really down… looking out the window, the sun beaming in was beautiful, it made me want to go outside – it was simple but made me so happy in that instance.”
A one-man impressionist, painting majestic soundscapes, Strawberry Guy blends truthful lyrics with lush arrangements to conjure new emotive worlds. Inspired by composers of the Romantic period, or Debussy, Ravel, and other classical artists of the 1800s, his wonderland moves like a Monet painting where arpeggios dance between meadows of dazzling dynamics and dramatic key changes. As former keyboard player of The Orielles and Trudy and The Romance, the light through his floor to ceiling windows has caused a dramatic Greenhouse Effect and now ripening on solo terms, his innocent uploads of ‘Without You’ and ‘F-Song’ comfort 2 million Spotify listeners a month. ‘Mrs Magic’ has received 40 million streams, landing at #13 in its chart and countless fan-created videos have appeared on YouTube. “Throughout history composers have tried to capture emotion, painting their own impressionist pictures with musical brush strokes… I guess I’m just trying to do the same and people enjoy that,” he suggests modestly.
Named by musical friends Her’s after his impeccable taste in milkshakes, Strawberry Guy upturns ‘bedroom artist’ perception, as each idea is crafted into a widescreen wonder where vocals tag-team instrumentals and countermelodies flourish within the Georgian walls of his Liverpool flat’s small space. “I want it to sound like I’ve squeezed an 80-piece orchestra into my room, and for listeners to wonder how all those strings got there,” he says. “Working on the 4-part harmonies, the orchestra became real; I began believing in myself.”
Imitating nature’s effect on emotion, like 70s songwriters, or the fantastical soundtracks accompanying vibrant scenes in the Japanese animated Studio Ghibli films and video games, landscape is brought to the fore. Monet’s picturesque Meadow at Giverny features as the album’s accompanying artwork – perhaps a reminder of the rural Welsh countryside views through his childhood home’s window; “I was inspired by how calm and peaceful the image felt. Its painted lines show real-life scenes in a magical way, which to me reflects my music.”
Just as the first Strawberry Guy EP Taking My Time To Be offered a slowing down for the soul, Sun Outside My Window is musically unhurried, written and recorded over 2 years. “Recording as a lone berry meant I could run with my emotions in the moment and deliver something true; it would have been an entirely different album had it been recorded in a studio,” he says.
Modern Classic? Only time will tell. For now this Guy’s happy-sad world is here to get the juices flowing and with, pandemic permitting, a US tour in 2022, life looks a whole lot sweeter. Until then, take it slow, be at one with the wilderness and remember, when life gives you lemons, swap them for Strawberries.

"The letter X marks the spot, crosses over, literally with a cross. It’s the former, the ex-. The ex-lover known simply as “an ex”. Ex- is the latin prefix meaning “out”. Exterior, an exit. Extraordinary. Excellent. It’s exciting. Generation X. X-files. X is the unknown. X is Extreme“

Extreme is Molly Nilsson’s tenth studio album. Recorded in 2019 and throughout the 2020 global pandemic at home in Berlin, Extreme is a departure for Nilsson, an explosion of angry love. It’s an album of anthems for the jilted generation, soaked with joy and offering solace, bristling with distorted, Metal guitars and planet-sized choruses that bring light to the dark centre of the galaxy. It’s an album of the times, by the times and for the people. It’s a record about power. About how to fight it, how to take it and how to share it.

Absolute Power explodes with massive guitars, double kick beats and the instantly iconic line “It’s me versus the black hole at the centre of the galaxy.” Nilsson’s performance itself portrays absolute power in its confidence but the song is a call-to-arms, an entreaty to grasp the here and now, to take the power back. It’s Nilsson pacing the ring and we’re instantly in her corner. Earth Girls takes familiar Molly Nilsson themes - female empowerment and subverting the patriarchy - but casually throws in one of the choruses of her career. “Women have no place in this world” she sings, but it’s the world that isn’t good enough. Stadium-sized but still warmly hazy, Earth Girls has its fists in the air, glorifying in harmony, almost ecstatic in its feeling good. Nilsson’s Springsteen-level conviction and righteousness bleeds through the speaker cones, the cognitive dissonance between the song’s cadences and angry lyrics redolent of Bruce in his prime. Female empowerment isn’t always an angry energy on Extreme, however. On Fearless Like A Child, Nilsson’s anthem to the female body and women’s sovereignty of it, she croons over a mid-80s blue-eyed Soul groove. It sets a nocturnal scene as the narrator surveys her past and her surroundings. Before we’re fully submerged in a dreamlike, Steve McQueen-era Prefab Sprout poem to learning from your mistakes the song erupts into one of those lines only Molly Nilsson can get away with: “I love my womb, come inside I feel so alive” she fervently sings. Against the backdrop of ever-encroaching, conservative rulings on women’s reproductive rights in places like Texas, it’s simultaneously angry and full of love.

Every song on Extreme is a gleaming gem in a pouch of jewels. On Kids Today, Nilsson is the voice of wisdom, archly commenting on the eternal struggle between youth and authority. Wisdom infuses Sweet Smell Of Success with a transcendent love that forgives the narrator’s shortcomings and celebrates the moment, it’s a letter to the author from the author that asks “what is success” and concludes that this is it, this song, this moment. It’s a rare moment of simple reflection that is generous in its insight to Nilsson’s inner life. “Success” is a tool of power and we don’t need it… We need power tools and there are moments on Extreme where it feels like Nilsson is showing us how to find them. It's an open conversation through out Extreme. She’s a warm, comforting presence through out the album and specially on these songs of encouragement, songs perhaps sang to a younger Molly Nilsson or, really, to whomever needs to hear them. “They’ll praise your efforts, they’ll call you slurs a rebel, a master, an amateur / Merely with your own existence, you already offer your resistance.” On Avoid Heaven she’s even more direct, pleading with us to avoid concepts of purity and to embrace the glorious, ebullient, emotional mess we’re often in as a method of upending the power structures who need things to be perfect.

They Will Pay brings back the big, distorted power chords in the form of a agit-punk, pop slammer. Of course, when Molly Nilsson does punk pop we get the catchiest chorus this side of The Bangles or The Nerves. It’s rendered in an off the cuff, throwaway manner that is just perfect in its roughness. However, it’s on Pompeii that Nilsson delivers the album’s epic, emotional heartbreaker. Like 1995 on Nilsson’s album Zenith, or Days Of Dust on Twenty Twenty, the lyrics of Pompeii are heavy with a transcendent sadness, an aching poetry that cuts to the truth of the heart like the best Leonard Cohen lines, though here delivered with an uplifting, life-affirming love. It contains the most personal moments of Extreme, a song lit by the dying embers of romance. Yet it’s here where the alchemy at the base of all Nilsson’s best work is found. Turning small nuggets of personal truth into big, generous universal moments that invite everyone to cry, to love and to fight the power. In an album of jewels, it might be the shining star.

Molly Nilsson’s biggest, boldest and most vital album to date, Extreme is about power. Against the love of power and for the power of love.

White Vinyl

Remastered reissue of Het Zweet's 1987 self-titled LP + a bonus LP, consisting of previously unreleased material.

Marien Van Oers work under the name Het Zweet (“The Sweat” in English) originally came out in the 1980s (specifically 1983-1988), but listening to the new reissue of this self-titled album from 1987 can feel like one is listening to something that’s both much more current and also much, much older than that. Van Oers, who passed away in 2013, made music that tended to get classed as “industrial”, and tracks here like the steady, clanging churn of “From the Lowland” or “On Earth” show why, but he was as or more inspired by tribal music intended to produce trance-like effects via rhythm and (percussive and vocal) repetition. Using instruments made by himself out of anything from shopping carts to cardboard tubes, the music of Het Zweet locks into grooves that somehow feel more elemental and physical than many of his contemporaries. It never quite feels like Van Oers is emulating or echoing the music of any particular region or tradition so much as trying to synthesize all the ones he’s heard into some sort of ur-pulse, an overtone so powerful as to compel the “Massive Trance” the title of the last song on the record evokes.

While the 1987 Het Zweet has four track titles per side, and on listening you can discern some segues and places where it feels like new movements do shift into place, it’s fitting to have this record on vinyl where the listener is encouraged to experience each side as one uninterrupted piece. The bonus material included on this reissue expands Het Zweet from one LP to two, the second LP consisting entirely of previously unreleased material. This bonus LP is sequenced similarly, with three untitled tracks and two live excerpts presented as side-long experiences that belie their disparate origins with a unity of sound and purpose. Van Oers’ percussive nous and distantly yelled chants certainly sound capable of working up a sweat in both the performer and any movement- minded listeners, but maybe the most striking thing about Het Zweet is how vital it still sounds, despite its age and relative obscurity.

Das Vindland-Debütalbum 'Hanter Savet' endlich wieder als Vinyl erhältlich! 'Probably the best thing in Pagan / Viking Metal for a long time!'

The second single from the Nicole Willis album Happiness in Every Style opens up the promised spectrum of joy into new ecstatic states. One In A Million is an unapologetic love song, which while connecting to this most traditional mode in soul music, also makes it correct for the dancefloor. Connoisseur terms such as 'crossover' or 'modern soul' might prove to be accurate here, but a membership in the soul scene is not mandatory to get down.

The main thing is that this up-tempo horn-driven groover, propelled by The Soul Investigators (as the usual suspects), should make things move inside, tickling nerves in scenesters as well as the layman, as their breakthrough hit If This Ain't Love did back in the day.

The world and the music business is different for Nicole Willis and the boys from up north. Nevertheless, One In A Million might be the underground hit that nobody saw coming. Or it just as well might not, but this is no excuse for not making quality music. This and more can be anticipated from the new album, dropping on Timmion Records in autumn 2015.

Valentina Goncharova's fundamental conceptual musical work released in full uncut form as part of Hidden Harmony Lost Tapes series (HHLTS01). Restored and mastered from the original 6.3 mm analog tapes. A large-scale work comprising eleven parts of varied, brooding, mystical reflection in which the author alters the instrumentation to fit both programmatic and musical character of each section.
Includes a 12-page booklet, which detailly explains the album's conceptual basis, background and creation context, and provides insights into unique sound recording and technical solutions adapted during the album recording in 1988. Created and written with direct involvement of V. Goncharova and I. Zubkov.

From the Liner notes:

"My task is to allow the listener to penetrate deeper into the music. The music is wholly improvisational. It has no concept in the rational sense of the word. It’s concept is purely intuitive. It presumes The Law of Analogies: “As above so below. Man is the same as the Universe. The Universe is the same as Man.” ("Emerald Tablet” by Hermes Trismegistus"). This intuition is a kind of rephrased logic which uses many more symbols which contain not only philosophical but also imaginative meanings/ visionary interpretations.

This music is a stream of consciousness in its purest form: not an imitation of a stream, as in the ‘suggestive poetry’ of the 20th century, but a stream where one flow is superimposed on another (a multilateral passage of recording). And, if we think this flow of music will be better understood under the influence of a verbal flow, then the verbal flow should also be more intuitive and associative, as objective for this short write-up you are currently reading.

Ocean did not appear within the coordinate system of logical scientific thinking of the last four centuries. It can be said that it is based on an intuitive concept of representations of the world which are captured in music figuratively. Similar to how myths were created in time immemorial with only partial support from verbal associations. Ocean is an experience of passing the Human Soul and Mind through the different states of the material world: birth, development, and achievement of perfection, transformation at the points of The Way and Silence, the manifestation of the harmony of the world (Om), which until then had remained in a latent state. It is averse to both mainstream contemporary physics and fringe scientific research. It exists outside their explanatory power.

Ocean is the source of all forms that can receive their life within time and space. Here it is. It has everything: beautiful and terrible, good and evil, self-sacrifice and betrayal. Boundless love and inspired creativity. But contact does not happen immediately. The memory of a bygone civilization is still fresh, and of the dearest things left with it."

Written, performed and produced by Valentina Goncharova
Composition A1 to C4 recorded in Kose subdistrict, Tallinn, Estonia (Recording period August-October 1988)
Composition D1 recorded in artist´s home studio in Lasnamäe subdistrict, Tallinn, Estonia (Recording period May 2021)

This three album Limited Edition Numbered set of Fleetwood Mac live
and studio tracks on Blue Vinyl recorded after the departure of Peter
Green and before the arrival of Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham
Fleetwood Mac made it big twice over: first as young kings of the late 1960's
British blues boom – blues fanatics who nonetheless made the pop charts with a
batch of memorable songs penned by founder Peter Green.
Then secondly, as the band that with its Rumours album Californian line- up,
tapped into a whole new market in the mid-1970's which became known as AOR -
adult oriented rock.
The music here is from a pivotal eighteen months in Mac's history as it lost its
original if- it- ain't- blues- we- don't- wanna- know attitude and looked to its own
songwriters - and America's West Coast sound - for inspiration.
After Peter Green's exit in May 1970 the rest of the band bravely decided to carry
on as a 4-piece, and so rented an oast house called Kiln House to try and 'get it
together in the country. Christine McVie joined, and one of the stand-out songs,
'Station Man', would endure for Mac in the bleak years before they moved to
California in 1974 where they struck gold with their eponymous white album and
then Rumours. 'Station Man' eventually found its way into the live set-list of the
Buckingham/ Nicks line- up and listening to it again here you can hear why: in
there, as far back as 1970, are some trademarks of the Rumours sound: threevoice harmonies, in- song tempo changes and ringing guitar sounds. Similarly,
'The Purple Dancer' and 'Jewel Eyed Judy' showcase a vocal harmonies and
melodic sense of things to come for Fleetwood Mac many miles down the line.

It seems Summer is here in May this year and so does the next DOGHOUSE Summer compilation! A lot of platers to "Gogo" your booty by the pool...Soon available! Sixties rockin' Pop at his best...

Nicki Bluhm's creative confidence and authentic vocals are front and
center on 'Avondale Drive', her sophomore solo album and the follow up
to her critically-acclaimed 2018 release 'To Rise You Gotta Fall'
The native San Franciscan who now calls Tennessee home possesses a
gorgeously emotive voice and her clear-eyed perspective on life informs the 10
tracks on the new release.
Produced by Jesse Noah Wilson and recorded in East Nashville, the new album
features a cast of musical luminaries including Oliver Wood, James Pennebaker,
Jay Bellerose, Jen Condos, Erik Slick, Erin Rae, Karl Denson and AJ Croce. The
album combines nostalgic country- rock with distinctly modern lyricism– an apt
contrast for the process of studying one's past in order to make a better future.
Stand out tracks include a duet with Oliver Wood on "Friends", the folksy "Juniper
Woodsmoke, the reflective "Learn to Love Myself and "Wheels Rolling," a
windows-down, hit-the-gas banger that ends the album.

All Good Things create cinematic epic rock that celebrates the underdog, lifts the fallen, and all out gloats in victory. Pairing post-apocalyptic pump-up rock with powerful lyrics, AGT crafts a massive, bombastic sensory assault of anthemic heavy rock, summoning vistas associated with gaming or blockbuster movies. Their worldwide 'For The Glory' hit has accumulated more than 50 million streams, now their full length debut album 'A Hope In Hell' is set for release on August 20th.

With golden voice and silver-dipped pen Grant-Lee Phillips presents
another milestone in a career brimming with the like - Little Moon is track
after track of well-anchored classic American music - rock and folk swirl
under clouds of cinematic strings for a primer on the art of the timeless
tune
His legendary well of melody is in full display on Little Moon, with even the most
lilting piano ballad standing comfortably on a thick, powerful trunk ('Older Now').
Long one of Los Angeles' most sought after songwriters, Grant-Lee meets Little
Moon with positive inspirations including the birth of his daughter Violet ('Violet')
and a creative calm that saw the songs well up organically from earlier live
collaborations with drummer Jay Bellerose, producer bassist Paul Bryan and
keyboardist Jamie Edwards. Captured live in the studio with limited overdubs, the
album keenly chronicles the sunny day feel of the songs and that ever-elusive in
the moment groove of a finely- tuned band working out equally finely- crafted.
Upon Little Moon's 2009 release, American Songwriter named it "His strongest
album ever." This limited edition pressing is on burgundy colour vinyl and limited
to 1,000 copies worldwide.