Suche:pandemic

When Cicadas appear in the area they cause a huge uproar. It’s hard to escape the distinctive noise these critters make, reaching up to 120 decibels. The hypnotic, trance-inducing sound disappears with the insects. A few months after Cykada's explosive debut, the world was hit by turbulence and from Cykada there was silence - fortunately only seemingly, because the next cycle began underground, in the privacy of the studio. It was there that the cicadas matured, waiting for a metamorphosis.

The year 2019 was very successful for Cykada, with a brilliantly received debut album, concerts at numerous festivals in the UK and Europe such as Glastonbury, Wilderness, London Jazz Festival, BAM Festival, La Defense Jazz Festival or Love Supreme Festival, along with constantly composing and preparing material for the second album. As the musicians entered the studio, the coronavirus pandemic was already in full swing across the globe. It was clear then that the world would never be the same. With increasing restrictions Cykada went underground, waiting for changes to surface again. Unfortunately the expected change that was happening seemed only for the worse - Brexit and its socio-economic consequences, worldwide disinformation, accelerating climate catastrophe and Russian invasion of Ukraine. The collapse of the old world order is the perfect moment for metamorphosis and with this message Cykada steps out again into broad daylight, matured and carrying a message with their long-awaited second album “Metamorphosis”.

The meaning behind the title is multifaceted. It refers both to changes taking place in our society and changes to our world as nature defends itself from human stupidity and greed. It is also a reference to the personal and musical development of the band members in that difficult period. It all became a foundation to bravely attempt to make new beginnings.

The metamorphosis is also clear in the musical aspect of Cykada. Their debut album was already difficult to shoehorn into specific genres with their sound that balanced jazz, electronics and elements of global music styles. With the second album their eclectic style has evolved into something distinct and innovative, combining folk/jazz song form and improvisation with heavier sounds inspired by sound system culture and rock. The band grew into a septet thanks to multi-instrumentalist Rob Milne, expanding the horn section to 3 instruments and galvanising its sound. But the biggest change that happened compared to the first album is the singing of Cykada leader Jamie Benzies in singles “So Divided” and “The Crack in the Bricks”. Both songs carry an important message, showing us that the changes in the world are already happening and that only we can make it head in the right direction. This unique sonic mix along with the message unleashes a powerful energy that the musicians want to send to and infect every listener.

Depending on your personal circumstances, the Covid pandemic was either a blissed-out paid holiday or a stressful and seemingly never-ending time of loss and hardship. Both ends of the spectrum are gorgeously captured here by London-based Joy Ellis, who wrote her third album 'Peaceful Place' during those strange weeks.

Though a renowned singer, she decided to strip things back to just piano for this record, with long-time collaborators Adam Osmianski on drums and Henrik Jensen on double bass fleshing out the sound.

It is a poignant listen from front to back, with all the many different emotions of that time conveyed perfectly, from grief to uncertainty, hope to despair, in one immersive record. The sheer beauty of these songs and the meaning of the melodies stay with you long after they have finished playing, making this a real triumph out of adversity and one that is sure to stand the test of time.

I Talk To Water, the fifth album for Kompakt by Danish producer Kölsch, is the artist’s most personal statement yet. While all the trademarks that make his music so popular and powerful are still present – lush, melodic techno; swooping, trance-like figures; sensuous, shivery texturology – I Talk To Water is also a deep and intimate rapprochement with family and history, a beautiful, finely detailed document of loss and memory, and a tracing of the long, unbroken thread of grief that runs through our lives once we’ve lost those we loved.

The emotional core of I Talk To Water, then, is a cache of recordings by Kölsch’s father, Patrick Reilly, who passed away in 2003 from brain cancer. With time rendered elastic by the pandemic and its associated lockdowns, its sudden, alienating shifts in everyday living, Kölsch found himself reflecting on his father’s passing and ongoing spiritual presence, thinking about how best to memorialise such a significant figure in his own life. Those recordings opened a gateway, of sorts, for Kölsch to move through – a way to bring past and present together and entwine them in a sensitive, poetic manner.

Kölsch’s father was a musician – “touring in the sixties and seventies, in the Middle East especially, he was doing the whole hippy trail, playing guitar, and wrote some songs over the years,” he recalls. “But all in all, he decided to focus on family rather than pursue a musical career.” Reilly kept playing and writing music over the years, though Kölsch hadn’t listened to the material for some time: “I’d never had the guts to listen to it, because I just felt too fragile listening to his voice. It’s such a tough thing to go through.”

During the pandemic, though, Kölsch listened through the fragmented body of work that his father had produced over the years. “I decided I’m gonna finally release my dad’s music twenty years after his passing,” he reflects. “This whole album is about the process of loss, and for me it’s been one of my main driving forces in my musical life, the whole emotional aspect of whatever I’ve done has been based in that feeling that he’s not there anymore.”

Recordings of Reilly appear on three songs across I Talk To Water. His guitars drift pensively across “Grape”, offering a lush thread of melody that Kölsch wraps with clicking, driftwood rhythms and droning, melancholy bass. “Tell Me” is a lovely three-minute art song, a sadly beautiful reflection, minimally adorned with gentle keys and a muted pulse. And on the closing “It Ends Where It Began”, Kölsch lets his father’s acoustic guitar take centre stage for a lament that’s unexpectedly folksy, a guitar soli dream, which Reilly originally recorded in 1996. “He actually recorded it for my first album that never came out,” Kölsch reveals, “and I had it sitting around forever. That is purely him.”

These three imagined collaborations between father and son are poised and delicate. But their relationship also marks the gorgeous music Kölsch has made across the rest of I Talk To Water, from the itchy yet lush “Pet Sound” (titled in tribute to one of Reilly’s favourite albums), the flickering synths and yearning vocal samples that slide through “Khenpo”, the ecstatic shuddering that marks “Only Get Better”, or “Implant”’s slow-motion pans and subtle reveals.

There’s also the title song, where Kölsch is joined by guest Perry Farrell (Jane’s Addiction, Porno For Pyros), singing a mantra for internal reflection: “I talk to water / Searching for myself / Looking for answers / Oceans of you.” Farrell’s appearance brings another timbre, another spirit to the album, aligning neatly with his recent interest in electronic music. “He was completely taken by this idea of talking to water,” Kölsch says, thinking about the ways we collectively lean towards the natural world as a comfort and a listener, a guide through mourning, a way to map out the terrain of the heart. This mapping is something that Kölsch has proven remarkably adept at through the years; dance music for both body and mind, but also both for the here-and-now, and for the hereafter.

“I Talk To Water”, das fünfte Album des dänischen Produzenten Kölsch für Kompakt, ist zweifellos das persönlichste Statement des Künstlers bislang. Während alle Markenzeichen, die seine Musik so beliebt und kraftvoll machen, immer noch präsent sind – üppige, melodische Techno-Tracks; schwebende, tranceartige Elemente; sinnliche, fiebrige Texturen – ist “I Talk To Water” auch eine tiefe und intime Annäherung an Familie und Geschichte. Es ist ein wunderschönes, fein ausgearbeitetes Dokument des Verlusts und der Erinnerung, und es verfolgt den langen, ungebrochenen Faden der Trauer, der durch unser Leben läuft, sobald wir diejenigen verloren haben, die wir liebten.

Der emotionale Kern von “I Talk To Water” besteht aus Aufnahmen von Kölschs Vater, Patrick Reilly, der 2003 an Hirnkrebs verstarb. Durch die Pandemie und ihre damit verbundenen Lockdowns, die plötzlichen, entfremdenden Veränderungen im Alltag, fand Kölsch sich in Gedanken an den Tod seines Vaters und seine fortwährende spirituelle Präsenz wieder. Er überlegte, wie er eine so bedeutende Figur in seinem eigenen Leben am besten verewigen könnte. Diese Aufnahmen öffneten ihm sozusagen ein Portal, um Vergangenheit und Gegenwart miteinander zu verbinden und sie auf sensible und poetische Weise zu verweben.

Kölschs Vater war Musiker – “er tourte in den sechziger und siebziger Jahren, vor allem im Nahen Osten, auf dem Hippie Trail, spielte Gitarre und schrieb im Laufe der Jahre einige Songs”, erinnert sich Kölsch. “Aber alles in allem entschied er sich, sich auf die Familie zu konzentrieren, anstatt eine musikalische Karriere zu verfolgen.” Reilly spielte und schrieb jedoch im Laufe der Jahre weiterhin Musik, obwohl Kölsch das Material lange Zeit nicht angehört hatte: “Ich hatte nie den Mut, es anzuhören, weil ich mich einfach zu zerbrechlich fühlte, seine Stimme anzuhören. Es ist so schwer, das durchzustehen.”

Während der Pandemie hörte sich Kölsch jedoch durch das fragmentierte Werk, das sein Vater im Laufe der Jahre produziert hatte. “Ich beschloss, die Musik meines Vaters zwanzig Jahre nach seinem Tod endlich zu veröffentlichen”, reflektiert er. “Dieses ganze Album handelt von dem Verlustprozess, welcher für mich generell eine der Hauptantriebskräfte in meinem musikalischen Leben ist. Der ganze emotionale Aspekt von dem, was ich getan habe, basierte auf dem Gefühl, dass er nicht mehr da ist.”

Auf “I Talk To Water” sind Aufnahmen von Reilly in drei Songs zu hören. Seine Gitarren ziehen nachdenklich durch “Grape”, bieten einen üppigen Melodiefaden, den Kölsch mit klickenden, treibenden Rhythmen und dröhnendem, melancholischem Bass umwickelt. “Tell Me” ist ein schönes dreiminütiges Kunstlied, eine traurig-schöne Reflexion, minimal geschmückt mit sanften Tasten und einem gedämpften Puls. Und auf dem Abschlusstrack “It Ends Where It Began” lässt Kölsch die akustische Gitarre seines Vaters im Mittelpunkt stehen, ein überraschend folkiger Klagegesang, den Reilly ursprünglich 1996 aufgenommen hatte. “Er hat es tatsächlich für mein erstes Album aufgenommen, das nie veröffentlicht wurde”, enthüllt Kölsch, “und ich hatte es ewig liegen.”

Diese drei erdachten Kollaborationen zwischen Vater und Sohn sind ausgewogen und zart. Aber ihre Beziehung prägt auch die wunderschöne Musik, die Kölsch im Rest von “I Talk To Water” geschaffen hat, angefangen bei dem nervösen, aber üppigen “Pet Sound” (benannt als Hommage an eines von Reillys Lieblingsalben), den flimmernden Synthesizern und sehnsüchtigen Vocal-Samples in “Khenpo”, den ekstatischen Erschütterungen in “Only Get Better” oder den langsamen Schwenks und subtilen Enthüllungen in “Implant”.

Es gibt auch den Titelsong, in dem Kölsch von Gast Perry Farrell (Jane’s Addiction, Porno For Pyros) begleitet wird, der ein Mantra für die innere Reflexion singt: “I talk to water / Searching for myself / Looking for answers / Oceans of you.” Farrells Auftritt bringt eine weitere Klangfarbe, einen weiteren Geist in das Album, der gut zu seinem jüngsten Interesse an elektronischer Musik passt. “Er war völlig fasziniert von der Idee, mit Wasser zu sprechen”, sagt Kölsch und denkt darüber nach, wie wir kollektiv zur Natur als Trost, Zuhörer, Führer durch die Trauer neigen, um die Gelände des Herzens zu kartieren. Diese Kartierung ist etwas, in dem Kölsch im Laufe der Jahre erstaunlich geschickt war; Tanzmusik für Körper und Geist, sowohl für das Hier und Jetzt, als auch für das Leben danach.

South London Soul Band Trambeat, influenced by the floor shaking sound of 1960's Motor City. With brand new single, "Don't Hold Back"

Trambeat were formed in 2012 by guitarist Graham Potter and drummer Des" Jammy" James. Graham and Des had played together in several bands previously and already had a good musical understanding. Trambeat's manifesto; to write original songs influenced by a love of Northern Soul, Motown, Rocksteady and RnB. But also to look forward and include elements of more contemporary genres. Bass player Nipper Smith, Saxophonists Robin Ogleby and Nadia Barbosa, and organist Emer O'Hanlon were recruited to form the core band and Trambeat set about recording and gigging with various vocalists until, in 2016, Aimee Grinter became Trambeat's permanent lead singer.

Written by Graham Potter and Des James, "Don't Hold Back" is in some ways a comeback single for Trambeat. The pandemic years took their toll on many bands and Trambeat in particular, with the loss of founding member Robin Ogleby being a very hard blow. Following a tribute single in 2021 to raise money for Robin's charities, and a couple of festival gigs in the summer of 2022, theyndidn't have much appetite for writing new material, and were unsure whether to continue as a band without Robin. It was during a jam between Graham and Des in late 2022 that the bones of "Don't Hold Back" came together. The drums and rhythm guitar clicked into an infectious dance groove with echoes of vintage Motown. The band members came together in the studio with renewed enthusiasm and laid down the track in just a day. The band, who remained close,even during this hiatus, realised how great it was to be back in the studio together again. Graham's lyrics, as well as the euphoric feel of the track, reflected this new optimism within the band. "Don't Hold Back" is a celebration of life, of deep friendships and most of all, of love!

Plays on Gary Crowley's show on BBC London.

Regularly played by Button Down Radio, Heavy Soul (Cambridge), The Influential Factor show on Solid Front Radio (album of the week for TTN), Mod Radio UK (various shows), The Edward B'stard Radio Show, several stations in Germany and Edge Radio and couple of others in Australia

Subtropic Cosmos is the international debut album by Japanese artist Hitomi Moriwaki.

Composed and recorded at her Fukuoka home during the worldwide pandemic between 2020-2022, the album was produced by Hideki Urawa, who has also worked with Kikagaku Moyo and other musical acts on Guruguru Brain.
Hitomi Moriwaki is a multidisciplinary artist working with a wide range of mediums besides music, including: magazines, ceramics, digital art, and animation.

"Subtropic Cosmos" in particular is a wonderful work that conveys the "joy of making things" to listeners, as it is filled with various influences from her diverse activities.

As suggested by the album title, most of the songs were created under the unprecedented conditions of corona--and as a result, were inspired by the consciousness of traveling through imaginary foreign lands and nature. As if adventuring through the universe inside of her own mind, Moriwaki's versatility is best experienced through her fearless fusion of hip-hop, pop and experimental music. Through a lens of psychedelic production by Hideki Urawa, this album is a truly special, one-of-a-kind space experience for listeners to enjoy and embark upon.

Voted DJ Mag’s Underground Hero in 2022, DJ & producer Lauren Flax has been a fixture in Brooklyn’s electronic scene for two decades. On her latest project Liz & Lauren EP, she teams up with Liz Wight of shoegaze techno duo Pale Blue, whose sultry vocals explore questions of love and isolation to the tune of Detroit house and acidic techno.

Flax and Wight became fast friends in 2021 after being introduced by Pale Blue member & 2MR co-founder Mike Simonetti, who’d enlisted Flax to remix Pale Blue’s “Breathe.” Naturally, when Flax needed a vocalist for some tracks she was working on shortly after, she knew just who to call. “I was in my last year of grad school doing an internship in community mental health helping kids cope with the trauma of the pandemic,” Wight says of the time. She channelled this experience as she wrote and recorded the lyrics to Liz & Lauren EP from her home in Los Angeles.

As a result, the lyrics on Liz & Lauren EP are open-ended musings on connection, isolation, and convention. Lead single “Fix Everything” can be read both as an indictment of the trappings of marriage or, on Flax’s view, a rousing call to action, applicable to issues ranging from the degradation of the environment to the attack on LGBTQ+ rights in America. As the EP progresses, Wight’s airy vocals consider the pitfalls of love, from the destructive power of infatuation to the pain of outgrowing a relationship.

Sonically, Liz & Lauren EP feels like a natural progression from Flax’s first release on 2MR, 2021’s Out Of Reality, which saw her exploring a more minimalist production style for the first time in her work. “I Don’t Want To Hurt You” and “Fix Everything” pulse with bright, dynamic production, while slow burner “Return To Love” takes a sparser approach, anchored by a muted drumbeat and a simple, earworm synth refrain. “I’d Risk It All To Be With You” is a masterful balance of both; it even gets the club treatment on the EP’s closing remix, courtesy of Flax’s friends Mark Archer and Simon Neale (Shadow Child) of MASC.

Liz & Lauren EP is an impassioned collection that showcases both Flax and Wight’s artistry in equal measure. For both artists, it’s a testament to stepping outside the norm (DJing for Flax, performing in Pale Blue for Wight) and collaborating with others, the fruits of which are sure to be felt on the dancefloor for years to come.

Italian producer NND returns after release on Exarde with different vibes:

A1 elegance track produced during the pandemic has nostalgic vibes, a touch of acid, and techno beats. A2 influenced by the 80s of the italo disco mixed with house rhythms, a journey to be enjoyed from start to finish. Side B is the most dancefloor part of the record characterized by darker sounds, techno and electro sounds mark the time of this side.

repress !

From LUXXURY’s infamous edit series, these long sought after tracks are finally getting a proper release in this new limited series. 'Never Gonna Dance Again?' is a hopeful look to a post pandemic world, blending a well known blue eyed soul vocal with a bassline straight from Paradise. 'Black Curtains' is a deep cut cover of an AOR classic, while 'Black Magic Reaper' is a gloriously slow, psych disco haze. 'We’re All Gonna...' loops a sleazy French jazz disco B side with a vocal sample from a Purple guest.

Radio Slave drops ‘Wild Life’ on Rekids this May

Following the recently dropped ‘Strobe Queen’, which picked up support from Honey Dijon, Sean Johnston, Laurent Garnier, BBC Radio 1’s Pete Tong and Danny Howard amongst many more, Radio Slave returns with another standout House cut ‘Wild Life’, turning in two exceptional Disco and Dub mixes.

“I’ve always adored the “Wildpitch” era of DJ Pierre, Roy Davis Jnr, DJ Duke and labels like Power Music It’s definitely influenced my work as Radio Slave and “Wild Life” started out as a nod to that early nighties sound. Conceived during the pandemic, I had the track mapped out and then with help of a good friend I decided to add live bass, loads of analogue keyboards and record the whole thing live and it became this super funky disco jam.” - Radio Slave

Radio Slave aka Matt Edwards is one of dance music’s undisputed heavyweights. Having made his name as a DJ in the 90s, he went on to become the king of edits, twisting pop, R&B and indie cuts into essential versions that consistently set clubs alight. Since the mid-2000s, Edwards’ originals have helped define modern dance music, tackling techno, house, breakbeat, minimal and disco whilst exploring dub, balearic sounds and ambient across the myriad of other aliases and projects.

Two mavericks, out on the weekend, trying to make it pay...

"Maverick was the word that came to mind when I listened to this music. A slightly wayward independence of spirit and outlook. The word originally referred to an unbranded male calf that had become separated from the herd (because Texan rancher Sam Maverick was so negligent in his branding - ‘if it ain’t branded, it’s a Maverick’). But Sam’s grandson Maury Maverick gave it a different twist in his short but stormy Congressional career as the only liberal member of the Southern Democratic caucus. Maury was so out of step with his own folks that he not only voted in 1937 to make lynching a federal crime, he even addressed the House to condemn the practice as barbaric. His attempt to ban racist mob murder sadly failed, but it’s that refusal to march in step which distinguishes the two ‘mavericks’ who made this record.

Who would attempt to combine cunning ethnological forgery, Scottish folk songs, claw-hammer guitar, untutored horn-tootling, elastically relaxed drumming and garage electronic fuckery? Only Greg and Stefan, high on sea, sunshine and mis-judged micro-dosing – that’s who. ‘Don’t drown’ was offered as practical advice during the self-described ‘Yellow Submarine’ phase of making this record. And while they managed to avoid literally doing so (phew), they sound here like they got pretty ‘deep in’ to an Octopus’s sound world all their own. This surprisingly clear analogue recording has just enough Bikini Bottom grit to ensure traction. The tunes are inviting, and the sonic disruptions are too good-natured and goofy to upset even the most delicate digestion.

The sessions have had a couple of years to marinate, courtesy of some pandemic, and are here offered in that most Archducal of vinyl formats, the double ten inch. What are you waiting for, a side of Crabby Patties? Get your water-wings and dive in (unless you’re tripping)!" - Bruce Russell (The Dead C)


Pumice is the long-running, endlessly inventive project of New Zealand native Stefan Neville (1974), whose shambolic music is equally reminiscent of Kiwi pop groups such as The Clean and Tall Dwarfs as well as the country's experimental noise-rock bands like the Dead C. Largely recorded solo by himself on junky equipment, his songs typically feature blown-out guitars, wheezing chord organs, and vocals disguised by tape hiss and static.

Greg Malcolm (1965) is a guitarist from New Zealand who has played everywhere on the globe and with all most everyone, including Rosy Parlane, Toshimaru Nakamura, Tetuzi Akiyama and Bruce Russell, as well as solo releases on his own label, Corpus Hermeticum, Kraak and Celebrate Psi Phenomenon.

Eli Escobar returns for his 9th full length LP. While his last few projects found him exploring downtempo beats, EBM and ambient in§uences, this latest offering of Eli's studio craftsmanship marks a return to the sound of his early releases like Up All Night and Happiness. Warm samples expertly woven into classic drum machine rhythms and searing synth lines, The Beach Album takes listeners on a journey through golden era hip hop beats, feel-good NYstyled house grooves into sweaty techno bangers. Similar to Eli's DJ sets, the 16 track long player has something for everyone. Created during the uncertainty of the pandemic when as Eli put it, "It didn't feel like the right time to release dance music," The Beach album celebrates the return of NY nightlife and optimism for the future.

After the first Freedom Dance release “Earth on Faya/Is This The Future” already sold-out, we are glad to present the new Gigi Testa tracks taken from his unreleased materials and produced during this pandemic period.

Atlantis on A side is a raw house track created with only two elements: one drum machine and one synthesizer, this composition will take you deep exploring the underwater world;

Agua Fluida on B side is a bouncing gem including myriad of melodic
elements drums and sound efx creating a fluid percussive flow.

Repress!

Amazingblaze is the latest red-hot new talent to be signed up by Charlotte de Witte's KNTXT label. The Russian artist serves up four fierce techno weapons on his Venture EP, due for release on 25th February 2022.

Though a relative newcomer, Amazingblaze is already making big moves mixing up heavy-hitting hard trance and techno. He has a sound that combines old school influences with new school sound design, and it never fails to captivate the dance floor. On this first EP for KNTXT, all of the signature Amazingblaze essentials are here: weighty drums, massive synths and authentic atmospheres.

Says the artist, "The Venture EP was started when I was living in Saint-Petersburg and there was a pandemic situation. Experimenting with different shades of techno I created a pretty authentic sound which works very well on the dance floor. After leaving Saint-Petersburg I decided to move to Moscow, gladly the pandemic restrictions there were lifted and I became inspired by the new city and parties where I've never been before, I completed the EP adding some new bangers with an already experienced touch.”

Says Charlotte de Witte, “My eye fell on Amazingblaze for the first time during the preparation of my Tomorrowland Around The World Set, where I closed with his beautiful track "Stratosphere". A couple of months later, I fell head over heels in love with his track "Venture", which, I'm proud to announce, turns out to be the title track of the newest EP on KNTXT. Venture captures every crowd of people I’ve played it to, ever since I debuted it in my set at Exit Festival. The entire EP is an out of the box masterpiece.”

First up is the mighty 'Venture' with its pummelling drums and turbo-charged trance stabs. They are bright and bring the energy while a rapped vocal adds something utterly fresh. 'Inner Fire' ups the ante further with a diva female vocal straight from the classic trance era. She brings waves of euphoria and, after a spine tingling breakdown, the machine-gun grooves fire on. There is terrific turbulence in the synth stabs of techno gem 'Flashback' as well as industrial textures and walls of white noise that bring real tension. ‘Neutron’ closes down with the most fierce groove of the lot, this time rippled with cosmic psy trance chords and irresistible video game synths to take you into the next dimension.

Venture EP is a superb outing from Amazingblaze.

Symphony Orchestra is a new group from Maximilian Turnbull and Michael Rault. Both Rault and Turnbull are accomplished songwriters, performers and producers in their own right, with Turnbull leading The Badge Epoque Ensemble, playing with the group Darlene Shrugg, and once releasing records under the name Slim Twig and Rault having released several psychedelic rock & roll classics under his own name in the past decade. The pair have worked together in various capacities for many years, writing and recording together on U.S. Girls' In A Poem Unlimited, and contributing to each other's releases, but the debut LP from Symphony Orchestra (due out May 12th on Telephone Explosion) marks their first release as an official entity.

Needless to say, there is a potent creative chemistry between Rault and Turnbull and Radiant Music showcases the alchemy between their distinct skill sets. The album is an exercise in pure collaboration. After years spent focusing on solo projects and working as hired guns on other projects, the duo came together with no specific intentions other than to work free of boundaries and direction. Freeing themselves from the familiar pressures of deadlines and expectations, they found a sense of discovery through togetherness. Duties on this project were split between Rault acting primarily as a one-man rhythm section and lead vocalist with Turnbull bringing chord sketches and his trademark aphoristic lyrical musings to the table. Trading off roles on guitar and keys from song to song, the duo's deft approach to melody bleeds through their instrumental parts as much as it does through Rault's vocal melodies. The majority of this album was self-engineered over the course of three sessions in 2018, at Michael's Montreal studio. Dormant during the pandemic, Rault's move to Los Angeles and the birth of Turnbull's twin sons, work reignited in 2022. The latterly tracked instrumental 'Concerto' and ballad 'Unthink The Thinkable' provide a dynamic depth to the album perhaps attributable to this tumultuous pause. Mixing came courtesy of Steve Chahley & Tony Price (U.S. Girls, BÉE, Jane Inc, etc).

In all of their work, Rault and Turnbull have made a hallmark of elaborately precise production and arrangement, Radiant Music is no different, though its pared-back simplicity provides a streamlined directness. The pairing of Rault's soulful, elastic vocal with Turnbull's evocatively cerebral lyrics provides a thrilling sensation unlike anything else in their respective catalogs. With an explosive, groove-forward approach, kaleidoscopic walls of vocal harmony and technicolor displays of guitar work, these 31 minutes of music will most certainly stimulate the mind of any fan of classic pop rock and funk. The blown-out breakbeats, winsome woven vocal melodies and propulsive wah-wah guitars of the title track evoke memories of an after-school cartoon special that never really existed outside of a lysergic daydream. "Harp In The Wind" is a perfect moment of overcast melancholy complete with ribbons of weeping synthesizers and velcro-fuzz guitar that could rip a clean line through Kevlar. "Know Thyself" and the harmony-rich "Intersection" are standout tracks that find a kinship in Stereolab's space-age effervescence. "Concerto" is a slab of beaming, mischievous funk that nods to Billy Preston's extraterrestrial keyboard explorations.

Radiant Music, like the best pop music, is life-affirming, confectionary, and enticing. Symphony Orchestra have created an album that hits you right where you need it, anchoring heady, adventurous sonic ideas down to a solid foundation of masterful songcraft, virtuosic instrumental performances and undeniable groove. Not a bar, nor beat is wasted.

On Delta Estácio Blues, São-Paulo-based singer, composer and actor, Juçara Marçal delivers an electric, unflinching take on contemporary Brazil where samba, tropicalia and maracatu are reimagined via hip-hop production techniques.

Created under an oppressive political climate as Brazil suffered from the pandemic, pain, anguish, chaos and anger run through Delta Estácio Blues. Co-produced by Marçal with fellow Metá Metá founder Kiko Dinucci the album was partly inspired by Danny Brown’s 2017
leftfield rap masterwork ‘Atrocity Exhibition’.

For fans of: Metá Metá, Moor Mother, Kiko Dinucci, Damon Locks, Neneh Cherry

Andrea opened this sophomore album Due In Color mostly during 2020 and 2021. You may reverb that those times were slightly crazy due to the small matter of a pandemic which is what lead the artists to explore a world of more hazy and experimental jazz sounds. That in turn inspired him to use more acoustic sounds in his music and so this is a record that turns its back on dark and booming club spaces and heads instead towards blooming fields of expansive downtempo, textured ambient and dreamy soundscapes.

Talla 2XLC is celebrating his forthcoming birthday with the annual
spectacular Technoclub event along with faithful friends such as DJ
Dag, Woody van Eyden, Andreas_Kraemer, Sven Wittekind, Ulli
Brenner ,LXD and Bluefire amongst others. While during his career
has faced many obstacles and unfortunate situations, he manage to
stay ahead of his game by gaining the respect and admiration of his
fans and DJ colleagues. His career is a bright example of an artist
that fight against all odds and work ultra-hard to be always at the top
of download shops charts with his single releases and at the top of
the physical sales charts with his long lasting Mixed CD compilation
Technoclub that in 2023 celebrates its 25th year anniversary. Well
known for his ability to provide brilliant remakes of huge trance
classics on his label Technoclub Retro while on That’s Trance service
original solo tracks or collaborations with brilliant singers such as
Christina Novelli and fellow DJs like Ronski Speed or Ralphie B. Last
year he established his psy-trance label Dreamscape with remixes
by his psy-trance alter ego Zyrus 7. Talla 2XLC is not just a pioneer
in techno and trance music scene but also a frequently booked DJ
performing on the most iconic festivals and club events such as Nature One, Mayday, Airbeat One and many more as he knows excellently to entertain his crowds with memorable DJ sets . Talla 2XLC embraces social media with active accounts in the most of them with hundreds of followers.

During the pandemic lockdowns he conquered twitch with
his very successful live DJ sets receiving donations and support from
his global fan base. What is more Talla 2XLC is taking part in wide
variety of documentaries narrating his contribution in the development and growth of electronic music culture. He is co-founder of MOMEM - Museum Of Modern Electronic Music in Frankfurt that any electronic music follower should visit to learn about the history of our culture.

For his 2023 Birthday he has a huge surprise to all his vinyl lovers.
He is going to release his BDay Bash EP that will include two massive
tracks already released digitally under his techno moniker RRAW on
Technoclub Pure. The two massive mainstage techno friendly anthems Wonderful Dayz and The Promised Land. Both tracks have been fans favorites and have been road-tested extensively by Talla 2XLC and many other well-known artists worldwide. Banging mainstage techno basslines, slamming kicks, haunting dark moody atmospheres, acid touches and strong euphoric breakdowns followed by massive hands in the air dark climaxes, turn both tracks into must have for any vinyl lover who wishes to embrace Talla 2XLC techno moniker RRAW. Wish Talla 2XLC happy birthday by purchasing his Bday Bash EP with hi latest techno alias RRAW out on ZYX Music.

DJ Girl is a DJ and producer who was raised in Detroit, but since the pandemic has been based in Austin, Texas. She's the co-founder of the up and coming Eat Dis Records and her recent releases have been generating excitement in all the right places.
In some ways, 'Hellworld' feels like a direct relation to a lot of early 2000s Planet Mu releases. It could sit neatly alongside Hellfish or Neil Landstrumm, with a similar anything-goes, gleeful attitude, but instead DJ Girl mashes together a driving sound that is founded upon Detroit techno and electro, Chicago juke and Miami bass, with an old school/new school production style that's finessed with distortion and sparse IDM production.
It's a midwest USA style that takes a leaf from DJs and producers such as the wild-style hard techno of Lenny Dee, the tough midwest acid of Woody McBride and the system wrecking electro of Dynamix II, with a joyful, take-no-prisoners bounce.

'Hellworld' kicks off with the industrial juke of 'Get Down', followed by the powerful electro of 'Opp Pack Hittin' (the first of two tracks to feature MC Malik McFly).

'Technician' is a chirpy old school electro track that gets crazier as it progresses, while 'Lucky' mashes together samples and rough beats like an electro version of breakcore.

'Gallery' again features Malick McFly and switches between footwork beats, pumping techno and electro.

'So Hot' is hard 8-bar electro while 'When U Touch Me featuring Irish producer Lighght feels like a very manic take on hyperpop.

The album ends with the tough, spiralling acid of 'Groover' which wouldn't be out of place on a late nineties Jeff Mills mix. The fun is infectious on this one.

RAMZi's 'hyphea', the new album by Montreal based artist Phoebé Guillemot. It is her latest sonic quest containing 10 new tracks, of which some are versions of the score she made for a documentary about mushrooms called 'Fun Fungi' (directed by Frederic Lavoie).

Recorded between November 2021 and May 2022, writing 'hyphea' started off somewhat as an attempt to escape boredom and frustrations imposed by the severe restrictions during the pandemic. For Phoebé it was a way to reconnect with RAMZi who's spirit brought her back to mystical feelings and gave hope for future magical adventures after having felt disconnected for a while.

RAMZi is a wild spirit from the forest and refers to a parallel autonomous world that keeps evolving. In her own words: “The music remains as a doorway to that world. It has never been about me, I always see that entity bigger than myself. The process of writing 'hyphea' was rather intuitive. I don’t think about styles of music before producing tracks. Those are more like an adventure in itself, each one set in a different ecosystem.”

Artwork by Marinka Grondel.

In May 2020 Cocoon Recordings released the third album of Harald Björk. With the club scene on Covid-hold , tours canceled and all of our favorite DJ’s locked up at home… not the optimal conditions to release an album on a nr.1 world wide club empire as Cocoon. How ever we decided not to let a virus kill our beloved culture, as Mr. Sven Väth put it „I would like to share with you the album of Harald Björk… which has soothed me and I hope will also give you a soundtrack for these uneasy days“. It felt right to release it.

The release was shrinked from a thought of vinyl box to a digital release with future plans on vinyl. However covid decided to stay and time went. The queue at the vinyl factories didn’t make the process easier… But at one point the dream factory of Kranglan Broadcast decided, enough! , the world has to keep on dreaming. And what is a better way to embrace dreams then to release a vinyl full of of dreamers, groundbreaking in their corners of the electronic umberella. Dreamers doing their thing not even looking at the norm or what’s the recent hype.

Aditional info:
Houndtooth finest Throwing Snow who Harald met in New York 2013 during their term at RBMA brings a bassdriven rollercoaster with the arpeggios from Spektrum bouncing like rubberballs through an impressive broken drum work. The remix came delivered with a text saying „I like my drums slamming“ and so do we.

Ada takes the eteric pads of Waldmeister and place them in a auditive dreamstate, an emotional hybrid of space and vacuum. Large feelings, yet so close. It builds, stretches and builds until we are shown the enlighted truth in the end of the tunnel. Harald is a long time fan and colector of Adas music which he got to know through the lovely label of Areal and has continued to love through the Pampa era. First remix from Ada on Kranglan was the epic remake of Sabor Latino, Sabor de Ada! We are delighted to have her art on the label once again.

The pandemic 2020 took away the most fun of beeing in the club scene, sharing stages with brilliant interesting dreamers showing and exchanging visions performing music. Under these strange conditions Molø and Harald ended up sharing a physical stage at the stream festival United We Stream. One thing led to the other and Harald took a deep dive in to Molø‘s great melodic techno universe. Some times you find gold in your own hometown. Molø’s take on Waldmeister build on the mellow arpeggio from the original track and brings them to a perfect chilled out afterhours. Imagine watching the sunrise to this beauty.

Swedes are a people of high integracy but as loyal citizens we allways attend formal events by the state. Skudge and Harald met at the Swedish National Radio price anouncement, both nominated for „electronic act of the year 2011“. It was an akward event with radio interviews and canapés, not very techno, the signum of Skudge. How ever Skudge won it all leaving both Avicii and Swedish House Mafia empty handed. Landberg, the swing king of Skudge is the kind of person that will tell you why the TR-909 has to be master clock to get the right groove in a techno performance, if you ask… which you do ??! If you’re looking for techno with groove look no further, Skudge is king! In his take on Walking Path he display the power of minimalistic dirty grooves, a 909 and a 303 what else do we need?

The 12“ vinyl comes with a fresh re-master of album single Medan Du Sov and an unreleased bonus track, Drifting, a balearic sundazed love story.

Rich Aucoin is announcing his next album entitled Synthetic - The record is a rare Quadruple Album with its 4 seasons/LPs being staggered in 6 month intervals over the next 2 years

The album, which began at The National Music Centre in Calgary, Alberta in March 2020, houses one of the world's most extensive collections of rare and historic synthesizers. There, Aucoin was doing the Artist In Residence program and recorded 51 synthesizers to begin the project. The project was paused with the start of the pandemic and Aucoin shifted back into film scoring and worked
on the critically- acclaimed and short- listed New Yorker - Films of the Year documentary, No Ordinary Man, about the trans- masculine jazz musician Billy Tipton.This record is a good demonstration of Aucoin's scoring potential as well as it's a quadruple instrumental album; a huge contrast to United States, Aucoin's previous, and most vocal heavy album to date. Lyrics just take me so long to write that I just want to take a couple years to make other kinds of albums before going back to lyrical music as I can write instrumental music much faster. This first fulllength features Aucoin as the solo musician playing some 37 synthesizers including: Arp 2600s, the Supertramp owned Elka Rhapsody 610 String Machine, Formanta Polivoks, Novatron T550, Oxford Synthesizer Company Oscar, Selmer Clavioline CM 8 and the legendary TONTO which the first release off the record
was made on.

Tracks: Tonto / Hypernormalization / Algorithm / Future / Buchla / Esc / 456 /
Space Western / Return

Soulful sounds from the South of Italy, coming courtesy of Soul Departure Recordings label head Kikko Esse. Four dynamic, emotive, and downright delectable house cuts that will have you dreaming of Italian coastlines and Campari’s. Produced to perfection, laced with feeling and driven by groove, it’s house that hits you in the heart.

Son of Chi returns to Astral Industries, alongside Spanish artist Clara Brea, for the collaborative release of AI-29. A product of fate, chance experiments, but most of all, sensitive artistry - ’The Wetland Remixes’ exists as a confluence of two kindred musical spirits, a wayfaring epic that draws together a rich archive of ecological field recordings, live instrumentation and higher inspirations.

Ahead of Hanyo’s concert at Calma (Madrid) at the end of 2019, the curators organised a special dinner and arranged the meeting of Clara and Hanyo. As Hanyo recalls,“It was like stereochemistry. There was an instant match and understanding, and basically we decided in a split second to exchange recordings and to collaborate on future live and studio experiments.”

The auspicious meeting of the two ignited a remote exchange of materials and ideas, as the world descended into a series of pandemic-related lockdowns. The first of said recordings included the stems of Clara’s ‘Wetland Project’ - a site-specific audiovisual project originally produced for Eufonic Festival (Spain), using field recordings from the Ebro Delta nature reserve (one of the most threatened regions of climate change on the Iberian peninsula).

From this initial impetus, Hanyo began working on the first sketches of the album back in Rotterdam, Netherlands. Just like their meeting in Madrid, the project developed naturally and spontaneously with extraordinary ease. Later, Hanyo started adding field recordings from the Magic Cave and Wetlands of the ‘Kallikatsou’ (Patmos, Greece) as well as organic and acoustic overdubs, featuring bass, drums, percussion, guitars, oud, piano, hammond organ, wurlitzer, flutes, bells, and mouth harp.

In the distance, the sound of birds peak through the effervescent wash of the wetland soundscapes. The pass of running water flows deeper into a land full of secrets never told. On the strike of dusk, the silhouettes of shapely trunks and foliage melt slowly into the impenetrable darkness. As darkness passes, light emerges, with exquisite moments of tranquility that seemingly emerge from nothingness.

Beneath the shimmering veneer of textures, wildlife and melodies, one may hear the deeper references of ’The Wetland Remixes’. With credit to Clara’s input, for Hanyo the album process became a kind of refuge, and ultimately inspired the return to the core of Abstract Sound - what the Sufis call“Saut-i Sarmad.”Such references allude to the spiritual quality embedded in the music - the autonomous process of self-expression, the great mystery. Hanyo: “An ambience like this cannot be created by routine. There is no blueprint. The music has to find you. It’s like a blessing if it happens. You should not interfere, just observe and be impressed...”

Deep, luscious mind trips as per the classic Chi sound, ‘The Wetland Remixes’ beautifully correlates the interconnecting dots of geography, ecology, and mythology’s forgotten lore.

Like every record Superchunk has made over the last thirty-some years, Wild Loneliness is unskippably excellent and infectious. It’s a blend of stripped-down and lush, electric and acoustic, highs and lows, and I love it all. On Wild Loneliness I hear echoes of Come Pick Me Up, Here’s to Shutting Up, and Majesty Shredding. After the (ahem, completely justifiable) anger of What a Time to Be Alive, this new record is less about what we’ve lost in these harrowing times and more about what we have to be thankful for. (I know something about gratitude.

I’ve been a huge Superchunk fan since the 1990s, around the same time I first found my way to poetry, so the fact that I’m writing these words feels like a minor miracle.) On Wild Loneliness, it feels like the band is refocusing on possibility, and possibility is built into the songs themselves, in the sweet surprises tucked inside them. I say all the time that what makes a good poem the “secret ingredient” is surprise. Perhaps the same is

true of songs. Like when the sax comes in on the title track, played by Wye Oak’s Andy Stack, adding a completely new texture to the song. Or when Owen Pallett’s strings come in on “This Night.” But my favorite surprise on Wild Loneliness is when the harmonies of Norman Blake and Raymond McGinley of Teenage Fanclub kick in on “Endless Summer.”

It’s as perfect a pop song as you’ll ever hear sweet, bright, flat-out gorgeous and yet it grapples with the depressing reality of climate change: “Is this the year the leaves don’t lose their color / and hummingbirds, they don’t come back to hover / I don’t mean to be a giant bummer but / I’m not ready / for an endless summer, no / I’m not ready for an endless summer.” I love how the music acts as a kind of counterweight to the lyrics.

Because of COVID, Mac, Laura, Jim, and Jon each recorded separately, but a silver lining is that this method made other long-distance contributions possible, from R.E.M.’s Mike Mills, Sharon Van Etten, Franklin Bruno, and Tracyanne Campbell of Camera Obscura, among others. Some of the songs for the record were written before the pandemic hit, but others, like “Wild Loneliness,” were written from and about isolation.

I’ve been thinking of songs as memory machines. Every time we play a record, we remember when we heard it before, and where we were, and who we were. Music crystallizes memories so well: listening to “Detroit Has a Skyline,” suddenly I’m shout1singing along with it at a show in Detroit twenty years ago; listening to Overflows,” I’m transported back to whisper-singing a slowed-down version of it to my young son, that year it was his most-requested lullaby.

Wild Loneliness is becoming part of my life, part of my memories, too. And it will be part of yours. I can picture people in 20, 50, or 100 years listening to this record and marveling at what these artists created together beauty, possibility, surprise during this alarming (and alarmingly isolated) time. But why wait? Let’s marvel now. - Maggie Smith

Surrealism is more than an artistic style - it is an artistic
movement. In this sense, Lydia's third OAM was created
during the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. Lydia adapts her
own surrealism, which is re§ected in the artistic language
with the cover symbolized by the Las Pozas and the tracks
Excile and Uncontrol on the vinyl. She musically explains the
inner con§ict between rational choices and wild reverie in a
di¨cult time. Ben Sims rounds out the theme. Giving Lydia
another supporter from her personal favorite producer's box
for OAM.

The inaugural release of p.istol is introduced by Biodive, who sets the tone with his four track “Limpet Minds’ EP, written in the depths of lockdown from the producer's studio in Cape Town. NAFF label head Priori contributes a no-nonsense remix of the title track - just in time as the world escapes the monotony of pandemic life.