Suche:part 2

* A welcome reissue of a deep digital bass-rumbling excursion from the Sounds `n’ Pressure crew with 3 mixes of `Once Inna Dubtime’.
* Highly sought-after UK dub, originally released on the Sounds `n’ Pressure label in 1996.

* A UK Dub outing from 1996 from The Rootsman, originally appearing on his debut album on Third Eye Music - `In Dub We Trust’.
* A mid-paced steppers piece with more than enough weight to cause distress at any sound system gathering.
* This is the first time `African Style’ has been unleashed as a single.

* A UK Dub outing from 1996 from The Rootsman, originally appearing on his debut album on Third Eye Music - `In Dub We Trust’.
* A mid-paced steppers piece with more than enough weight to cause distress at any sound system gathering.
* This is the first time `African Style’ has been unleashed as a single.

* Originally released on the Abba Jahnoi label in 1993, `Jah is Version’ is one of the holy grail’s of the UK roots reggae and dub scene.
* A raw and minimalist production style from Danny Red and crew with a stripped down dub version.
* Other versions and re-recordings of this track have emerged, but this is the original and best.

Sleep Researchers is about a journey, which I haven't finished yet so I don't know what it sounds like. My father reads a few lines, betsy sings into a walkman and over the microphone of a toy casio. I bought a new Portastudio which has the buttons stuck, so when I get it running I record it in ableton. I like the way the sounds blend together on that old machine. I like to think of these tracks as sounds that will accompany moments. audio photos. a man held up in the body the words are worn out He came for me in the early morning but I was sleeping. a man tied to the ground with roots in the desert a man delayed in the body -- Francisco Sonur

Rave for Interest? X-Vandals! The fourth release of Frankfurt- and Berlin-based label Klinika will be out on the eleventh of December. X-Vandals is uniting two of Brazil's most recognized names in electronic music in this upcoming project. The duo consists of Davis, as a central figure of São Paulo's new school electronic music scene, and founding member of the ODD warehouse-party series, and his counterpart Martinelli, as one of ODD's very own resident DJs. As X-Vandals they deliver untrained, raw, and direct sounds filled with restless and stirring energy. Prepare yourselves for "Rave for Interest". Three highly effective tracks: Arena, Ravin for interest & Premier Minister de la Mort providing you Detroit schooled, super fast & non-compromising techno. Enjoy!

Double BLACK Vinyl, Gatefold sleeve, DL card. René Laloux’s celebrated 1973 sci-fi animation ‘La Planète Sauvage (Fantastic Planet)’, is overhauled with a re-imagined soundtrack by electronic modernists Stealing Sheep and legendary sound innovators The Radiophonic Workshop. This exclusive release is part of Fire Records’ re-imagined score series. “No institution has had a greater impact on the development of electronic music than the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.” The Vinyl Factory. It’s a real pre-Avatar conundrum that Stealing Sheep, with the help of Bob Earland, Dick Mills and Roger Limb from the Radiophonic Workshop, unravel. Creating an ethereal excursion that’s narrated by Roger Limb; like a futuristic Martin Denny, or Dr Who gone ambient techno, with a hint of Forbidden Planet 50 years on. It’s an analogue swirl set in an off-world paradise; a field recording from the future. This is a creative, generation-spanning, union brought together to score this unique cult film. A must for fans of psyche electronica and Stealing Sheep’s formidable ‘Big Wows’ album. “Stealing Sheep devour a broad range of styles, incorporating everything from the dark dance-pop of Grace Jones to the experimentations of Radiophonic Workshop pioneer Delia Derbyshire and John Carpenter soundtracks.” The Guardian // ‘La Planète Sauvage’ is a thing of ambient beauty punctuated with electronic earworms that switches from intensely ominous to otherworldly dream like moments.

The wheels rattle into the thrilling unknown on The Coral’s first new music since 2018, finding the unsurpassed, metamorphic gonzo-pop five-piece in the company of crooks, sell-by-date candyfloss and plastic skeletons as they release Faceless Angel. Of misplaced memories from a place and time that might never have been, the track precedes a new and vividly evocative body of work from the legendary Merseyside band in the form of their TENTH and first, ever double-album: Coral Island.

Squinting into the neon-lit penny arcades and draining an after hours glass with the displaced and dispossessed once the power is pulled, The Coral’s latest caper concerns listeners with the light, shade, thrills and profound melancholy of coastal palaces packed with fun and fright. Both now and then, or perhaps never as fiction encroaches on reality, the feverous anticipation of a night amongst the screams, fights and romance of the fair become part of life on the newly-built Coral Island.

Welcoming travellers one trepidous step at a time, Faceless Angel sits amongst a series of promised audio visual portraits of and inspired by the Island’s inhabitants. Conceived and created by artist, Edwin Burdis, the single’s video was filmed ‘on’ Coral Island itself, a sprawling diorama purpose-built inside a deserted Chinese restaurant in Cardiff. It’s the band and fans’ first venture onto the surreal land mass, populated by surreal sculptural forms, charity shop-finds, looming mountains and gathering storm clouds. Filmed in debt to the traditional model-based filmmaking methods of greats like George Lucas or Ray Harryhausen, Burdis navigated Coral Island at waist-height and via camera-friendly pathways to gather 360 degree footage from inside and outside his and The Coral’s fascinating, fabricated world. The expansive and ambitious installation also provides the album artwork for Coral Island as well as designs for Faceless Angel and future singles.

Indebted in part to the classic pre-Beatles rock and roll era of Duane Eddy and Chuck Berry alongside the clattering of a weary ghost train’s rusted wheels on worn steel, Faceless Angel’s title evokes DC Comics ominous occult detective series, Hellblazer and the broken character of the strip’s protagonist, John Constantine.

Outernational Sounds very proudly Presents The Mallory-Hall Band "Song of Soweto" & "The Last Special".
Limited, fully licensed digital and vinyl reissues of two crucial South African sessions led by Charles Mallory and Al Hall, Jnr., featuring Kirk Lightsey, Marshall Royal, Rudolph Johnson, Billy Brooks and more! Essential companion pieces to Kirk Lightsey’s legendary ‘Habiba’.
Featuring tracks:
Song Of Soweto: Side A – ‘Song of Soweto’, ‘Hamba Samba’; Side B – ‘Cape Town Blues’, ‘Moroka Rock’, ‘The African Night’
The Last Special: Side A - ‘The Last Special’, ‘Princess of Joh’Burg’; Side B - ‘Amafu (Clouds)’, ‘Blue Mabone’
Never released outside South Africa, and out of print since 1974, Outernational Sounds presents two long-lost Johannesburg sessions from the Mallory-Hall Band – an all-star review of West Coast jazz stars who toured apartheid South Africa in the mid-1970s.
Sanifu Al Hall, Jnr. is a musician’s musician. During a storied career stretching across six decades, Hall has recorded with the greats of the music including Freddie Hubbard, Doug Carn, and Johnny Hammond, and leads his own Cosmos Dwellerz Arkestra. But until recent years, the only records on which he had appeared as leader were a brace of rich, funky LPs, Song Of Soweto and The Last Special, issued only in South Africa under the moniker of The Mallory-Hall Band (named for Hall and his co-leader, guitarist Charles Mallory – musical director for Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, Mallory was conductor for Dusty Springfield touring bands, and had worked with John Lee Hooker, Stevie Wonder, and many others). Neither LP had any wider release, and both have remained out of print since 1974. How did a young stalwart of the Los Angeles jazz scene end up in a recording studio in apartheid South Africa?
Al Hall, Jnr. and Charles Mallory had arrived in South Africa as part of the touring band for the singer Lovelace Watkins. Sometimes billed as ‘the Black Sinatra’, the Detroit-born Watkins sang standards and ballroom classics on the Las Vegas circuit. He never made it big in the US, but in his 1970s heyday he was a huge star in southern Africa, and 1974 he hired a jazz big band to accompany him on a tour of South Africa – Hall and Mallory were part of the line-up, alongside Mastersounds bassist Monk Montgomery, pianist Kirk Lightsey, tenorist Rudolph Johnson, drummer Billy Brooks, and Marshall Royal, musical director of the Count Basie band. The tour was a huge success, and during downtime from performing, members of the group managed to independently record no fewer than three albums. Lightsey and Johnson’s stunning Habiba was the first (reissued as Outernational Sounds OTR.013), and it was followed by two crucial sessions led by Hall and Mallory – Song of Soweto and The Last Special, issued on the local IRC imprint.
Visiting apartheid South Africa in 1974 was a controversial choice for any artist. Numerous artistic and cultural bodies around the world had already announced that their members would boycott the country in solidarity with the struggle against apartheid, and working in South Africa was severely frowned on by anti-apartheid activists everywhere. For a Black band, touring the country to play to mostly white audiences could have been seen by many both inside and outside South Africa as a questionable decision. ‘It was a batch of mixed reactions when I choose to visit South Africa whilst apartheid policies were in place,’ Hall recalls. ‘To me the choice was a simple one – “I wanna see for myself!” I also wanted to be a part of breaking down racial barriers, having been down some of the same roads in my own country.’
The albums were recorded by a twelve-piece band at Johannesburg’s Video Sounds Studios in December 1974, and feature the legendary pianist Kirk Lightsey, Black Jazz recording artist Rudolph Johnson, and the rest of the touring band. Both records are superbly arranged slabs of peak 1970s funky big band soul jazz, with tasteful Latin inflections and more than a nod to South Africa’s upful township jazz sound. They are the sonic traces left by a seasoned African American band who were touring South Africa in the depths of the apartheid era, and who immediately moved beyond the segregated hotels and ballrooms to build links with local South African players and audiences.
Never previously available outside South Africa, Outernational Sounds’ new editions of Song of Soweto and The Last Special (alongside our edition of Kirk Lightsey’s Habiba) represents the first time these albums have been in print for nearly fifty years. Fully licensed from Gallo Records and pressed at Pallas in Germany from Gallo’s original masters, they feature new sleeve notes from Francis Gooding (The Wire) based on interviews with Al Hall, Jnr., and a reminiscence from pianist Kirk Lightsey.

A musical journey with Emile Parisien is an adventure, something way out of the
ordinary. The soprano saxophonist’s sound is instantly recognisable - as is the way
with the greats - and you know that you are in the best possible company to set off
for a destination shrouded in uncertainty.
 For the past twenty years, the one-time child prodigy of Marciac has found ways to
astonish, to shake up and to enchant listeners with colourful and productive
experiments. His driving force is a passion which seems physically to take hold of
him as he plays.
 Anyone who has seen his development as a performer knows what he’s about; there
is an element of the dance but also the tension of a coiled spring. And among the
musicians who seek him out are not only the very best of his own generation but also
the jazz masters, such is his reputation both as a leader and as an inspirational
partner.
 As a musician he is one of a kind, with a power to be evocative and to bring
convincing shape to the unpredictable. His musical language can express sudden
frenzy, keeping the listener completely on tenterhooks, but there are also outbursts of
tenderness and a palpable emotional honesty.
 ‘Louise’ takes its title from Louise Bourgeois and more specifically her sculpture of a
spider, ‘Maman’. Her monumental work has motherhood as its theme, also conveyed
through the metaphor of weaving, an underlying thread that runs through Emile
Parisien’s creation.
 He has assembled a group of musicians who bridge the two sides of the Atlantic. The
saxophonist has set out to combine the essence of jazz with his own purposes; so,
what shines through here are both his kaleidoscopic imagination and his appetite for
breaking down barriers. Three American musicians are in the group, all of them
friends whom he has got to know over time.
 Their eagerness to engage in fruitful conversations with a trio consisting of Parisien
himself and two of his closest colleagues from France is miraculous. All kinds of
nuances and a confluence of influences are to be heard here. We find variations of
pace from skittering syncopations to the softly majestic.
 Textures are meticulously calibrated, with a broad palette of instrumental colours
both in the original compositions and in a burning cover of Joe Zawinul’s
‘Madagascar’. This collective endeavour leaves plenty of room for individual
inventiveness, yet there is a happy balance between the different personalities as
well. Emile Parisien, always hyperalert, knows when to step back and to leave the
initiative to his partners, but will then re-enter authoritatively and be the catalyst who
completely re-energise them.
 ‘Louise’ is just magnificent in its twists and turns, and in the way it celebrates the
sheer joy of the groove. ACT have taken a path towards intoxicating freedom with a
team of artists in complete balance both individually and collectively. Through its
subtle amalgamation of diffidence and affirmation, this pellucid music tells us the
truth about life.

”Es gibt eine Galaxie von Klaviertrios im heutigen Jazz-Universum”, hat das BBC Music Magazine festgestellt, ”aber nur wenige strahlen so hell wie das von Marcin Wasilewski”. Auf ihrem siebten ECM-Album
beleuchtet die vielseitige polnische Gruppe ein für sie charakteristisch weites Spektrum der Musik. Auf
En attendant stehen kollektiv erarbeitete Stücke neben Wasilewskis formbarem ”Glimmer of Hope”, Carla
Bleys zeitlosem ”Vashkar”, dem hypnotisierenden The Doors-Klassiker ”Riders On The Storm” und einem
Streifzug durch Johann Sebastian Bachs Goldberg-Variationen. Flüssiges Zusammenspiel ist das Markenzeichen dieses Trios, dessen mehr als ein Vierteljahrhundert langes gemeinsames Wirken zu einem geradezu telepathisch tiefen Verständnis zwischen Wasilewski, Bassist Kurkiewicz und Schlagzeuger Miskiewicz
geführt hat. En attendant wurde im August 2019 in den Studios La Buissonne in Südfrankreich aufgenommen und von Manfred Eicher produziert.

There’s an ancient Japanese legend in which a horde of demons, ghosts and other terrifying ghouls descend upon the sleeping villages once a year. Known as Hyakki Yagyō, or the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons, one version of the tale states that anyone who witnesses this otherworldly procession will die instantly—or be carried off by the creatures of the night. As a result, the villagers hide in their homes, lest they become victims of these supernatural invaders.

Such is the inspiration for the latest album from EARTHLESS. “My son is really into mythical creatures and old folk stories about monsters and ghosts,” bassist Mike Eginton explains. “We came across the ‘Night Parade of One Hundred Demons’ in a book of traditional Japanese ghost stories. I like the idea of people hiding and being able to hear the madness but not see it. It’s the fear of the unknown.”

Whereas 2018’s Black Heaven featured shorter songs and vocals from guitarist Isaiah Mitchell on much of the album—an unprecedented move for the San Diego power trio—their latest is a return to the epic instrumentals EARTHLESS made their unmistakable name on. Night Parade Of One Hundred Demons is comprised of two monster songs—the 41-minute, two-part title track and the 20-minute “Death To The Red Sun.”

The scenario that allowed for this kind of exploration was a stark contrast to that of Black Heaven. At that point, Mitchell was living in the Bay Area, which made it difficult for the band to get together and work on the type of long instrumental pieces they’re known for. But in March 2020, the guitarist moved back to San Diego. More specifically, he moved back the night the pandemic lockdown kicked in. Bad timing, perhaps—or maybe perfect timing.

Plus, they were all on the same page about not wanting to do another record with vocals. “In a way, I think this album was a reaction to our last record,” Eginton says. “Black Heaven was outside our comfort zone. I think it was a good record, but it was challenging to write songs in a more traditional verse-chorus-verse format. This one was more enjoyable. I’m sure we’ll do more vocal tracks in the future, but for the time being I see that album as a one-off.”

Given the record’s inspiration, it should come as no surprise that Night Parade of One Hundred Demons strikes a more sinister tone than the rest of the band’s catalogue. “It definitely has a darker, almost evil kind of vibe compared to stuff we’ve done in the past,” Rubalcaba says. “There’s more paranoia and noise, and some of Isaiah’s whammy-bar stuff kind of reminds me of these Jeff Hanneman moments in Reign In Blood, where it just seems like everything is going to hell. It’s pretty fun.”

Night Parade of One Hundred Demons was recorded in San Diego with Rubalcaba’s childhood friend Ben Moore, who’s worked with everyone from DIAMANDA GALAS and BURT BACHARACH to CEREMONY and HOT SNAKES. When Eginton wasn’t tracking his bass parts, he worked on the album’s incredible sleeve art. “He really dedicated himself to the project,” Rubalcaba says. “He’d be drawing in the studio with, like, a coal-miner’s lamp on his head while we were doing overdubs. He really knocked it out of the park.”

All told, Night Parade of One Hundred Demons isn’t just a return to the band’s traditional format—it’s a return to their very beginnings. “This album actually has the very first Earthless riff in it,” Eginton reveals. “We just recorded it 20 years after we wrote it. But we’re really happy with how this record came out. We feel it might be our finest to date.”

The wheels rattle into the thrilling unknown on The Coral’s first new music since 2018, finding the unsurpassed, metamorphic gonzo-pop five-piece in the company of crooks, sell-by-date candyfloss and plastic skeletons as they release Faceless Angel. Of misplaced memories from a place and time that might never have been, the track precedes a new and vividly evocative body of work from the legendary Merseyside band in the form of their TENTH and first, ever double-album: Coral Island.

Squinting into the neon-lit penny arcades and draining an after hours glass with the displaced and dispossessed once the power is pulled, The Coral’s latest caper concerns listeners with the light, shade, thrills and profound melancholy of coastal palaces packed with fun and fright. Both now and then, or perhaps never as fiction encroaches on reality, the feverous anticipation of a night amongst the screams, fights and romance of the fair become part of life on the newly-built Coral Island.

Welcoming travellers one trepidous step at a time, Faceless Angel sits amongst a series of promised audio visual portraits of and inspired by the Island’s inhabitants. Conceived and created by artist, Edwin Burdis, the single’s video was filmed ‘on’ Coral Island itself, a sprawling diorama purpose-built inside a deserted Chinese restaurant in Cardiff. It’s the band and fans’ first venture onto the surreal land mass, populated by surreal sculptural forms, charity shop-finds, looming mountains and gathering storm clouds. Filmed in debt to the traditional model-based filmmaking methods of greats like George Lucas or Ray Harryhausen, Burdis navigated Coral Island at waist-height and via camera-friendly pathways to gather 360 degree footage from inside and outside his and The Coral’s fascinating, fabricated world. The expansive and ambitious installation also provides the album artwork for Coral Island as well as designs for Faceless Angel and future singles.

Indebted in part to the classic pre-Beatles rock and roll era of Duane Eddy and Chuck Berry alongside the clattering of a weary ghost train’s rusted wheels on worn steel, Faceless Angel’s title evokes DC Comics ominous occult detective series, Hellblazer and the broken character of the strip’s protagonist, John Constantine.

Al Doum and the Faryds continue their journey toward a New Direction. Now, they live in a futuristic Garden of Delights, inhabited by strange bright bubbles, golden wheels, water secrets and mysterious plants. From their home of Love & Nature, they set out to travel the Universe to forge a new Being together. Their typical blend of Spiritual-Jazz, Psychedelia and Afro-Latin Rock remains on the same wave, accentuating the collective rite of liberation and expansion of the spirit. There's certainly a greater lightness and airiness, expecially in the most immediate and direct arrangements to convey the message of brotherhood; because the absolute weapon lies in female voices and choirs. These chants are incisive gospel and soul sermons and their narration magically permeates throughout the album. Everything is always supported by the balance between robust and biting guitar riffs, raga-rock incursions, tribal rhythm sections and impregnable and captivating sax drifts; and echoes of the soft lysergic sound of the 60s cannot be missing. This is music of multiple forces, a sacred harmony to overcome barriers, which sees no enemies and breaks down egos. It's the playfulness and the power in making music together, the true magic recipe of these Freaky People: we are what the Universe wants!

St. Paul and the Broken Bones announce their new album ‘The Alien
Coast’, released on ATO Records. Produced by Matt Ross-Spang and
featuring eleven new, original songs, ‘The Alien Coast’ is the first St.
Paul and the Broken Bones album tracked in the band’s hometown of
Birmingham, AL. The arrangement allowed the octet to spend more time
and tap a broader creative community than ever before, resulting in their
most ambitious work to date.
 Led by singer and lyricist Paul Janeway - a former bank teller and
preacher-in-training who learned to sing in his church choir - the octet
explore thrilling new territory on ‘The Alien Coast’, a fever dream
convergence of soul and psychedelia, stoner metal and funk, animated
by the very “fire and brimstone” which Janeway invokes in the album’s
opening line. Unlimited studio-time allowed individual members of the
band to experiment with synths and samples on ‘The Alien Coast’, and
even collaborate with Birmingham beatmaker and hip-hop artist Randall
Turner.
 Janeway cites a similarly disparate range of influences that wove their
way into the writing for ‘The Alien Coast’, from Greek mythology and
dystopian sci-fi, to works of art like Bartolomé Bermejo’s Saint Michael
Triumphs over the Devil and 17th Century Italian sculpture, to colonialperiod history books. “The title actually came from reading about the
history of the Gulf of Mexico, which is home for us,” he recalls. “When
the settlers - or invaders, really - first came to the Gulf Coast they
couldn’t figure out what it was, and started referring to it as the Alien
Coast. That term really stuck with me, partly because it feels almost
apocalyptic.”
 St. Paul and the Broken Bones have reached incredible heights since
breaking out with their first album in 2014. Their previous three albums
each debuted in the Billboard 200, their legendary NPR Tiny Desk has
over 7 million views, they’ve opened for the Rolling Stones, shared the
stage with Elton John, and appeared on several television shows
including Jimmy Kimmel Live, Austin City Limits and more. They were
also the first-ever musical performance on Stephen Colbert’s Late Show.
St. Paul and the Broken Bones announce their new album ‘The Alien
Coast’, released on ATO Records. Produced by Matt Ross-Spang and
featuring eleven new, original songs, ‘The Alien Coast’ is the first St.
Paul and the Broken Bones album tracked in the band’s hometown of
Birmingham, AL. The arrangement allowed the octet to spend more time
and tap a broader creative community than ever before, resulting in their
most ambitious work to date.
 Led by singer and lyricist Paul Janeway - a former bank teller and
preacher-in-training who learned to sing in his church choir - the octet
explore thrilling new territory on ‘The Alien Coast’, a fever dream
convergence of soul and psychedelia, stoner metal and funk, animated
by the very “fire and brimstone” which Janeway invokes in the album’s
opening line. Unlimited studio-time allowed individual members of the
band to experiment with synths and samples on ‘The Alien Coast’, and
even collaborate with Birmingham beatmaker and hip-hop artist Randall
Turner.
 Janeway cites a similarly disparate range of influences that wove their
way into the writing for ‘The Alien Coast’, from Greek mythology and
dystopian sci-fi, to works of art like Bartolomé Bermejo’s Saint Michael
Triumphs over the Devil and 17th Century Italian sculpture, to colonialperiod history books. “The title actually came from reading about the
history of the Gulf of Mexico, which is home for us,” he recalls. “When
the settlers - or invaders, really - first came to the Gulf Coast they
couldn’t figure out what it was, and started referring to it as the Alien
Coast. That term really stuck with me, partly because it feels almost
apocalyptic.”
 St. Paul and the Broken Bones have reached incredible heights since
breaking out with their first album in 2014. Their previous three albums
each debuted in the Billboard 200, their legendary NPR Tiny Desk has
over 7 million views, they’ve opened for the Rolling Stones, shared the
stage with Elton John, and appeared on several television shows
including Jimmy Kimmel Live, Austin City Limits and more. They were
also the first-ever musical performance on Stephen Colbert’s Late Show.

Many of you will be aware of the band Homegrown Syndrome (we released the single a few years ago). They were also known locally as Homegrown Funk & the band Memphis that put out one extremely rare two sider. A party Side 'Shake and Rock' flipped with a top of the rung ballad 'Inside My Love', it has everything collectors want, Rarity & Quality so sells for 500+ all day long, below Robert Garcia gives us the history....

"Memphis" were members of the Memphis based group "Home Grown Funk." Home Grown Funk was also known as "Homegrown Syndrome," a controversial name bestowed to them. Before heading to LA they gigged all over Memphis. Some of the members were from an earlier 70s group called "Brothers Unlimited" and had earlier ties during the 60s with the "Memphis Invaders" (a peaceful civil rights activist group).

With aspirations of pushing Homegrown further, a few members including Jerry Jones made the move out west. It was LA 1977 when they were introduced to Ike Tuner through a mutual friend "Ricky G". It was a casual meetup. Then one night Ike had his son Ike Jr. go check them out while performing at the Soul Train hangout spot "Maverick Flats". Ike Jr. praised their performance to Ike and he had them come out to his Inglewood studio. The group walked into the studio with a funky track already playing and that's when Jerry Jones improvised this opportunity and started singing. Ike then turned and said… "Who is that singing?" Jerry said, "Thats me." Then Ike replied " YOU BIG MUTHAF***A! You could be my new Tina." From that point the group cut bunch of tracks with Ike over the years up until they're feature on his 1980 album "The Edge."

In 1981 Perry Kibble (Keyboardist for Taste Of Honey) was at "Concerts In The Park" and heard Home Grown Funk performing. He linked up with the group and got them a deal with Arista. During this time they recorded their hit track " Confrontation." Perry suggested that the group change their name because he didn't want another group with the work "Funk" in it and hence "Homegrown Syndrome." They also use the Arista studio to cut an unreleased acetate with tracks "Got the love" and "Party Vibes" soon to be reissued on ATON.

Around the same time they were introduced to a fella named Roger Green. Green asked the group to come over to his home studio to cut the track "Inside My Love." Upon naming the record Roger Green suggested to go by "Memphis" since they were all from there. This record was eventually pressed in 1982 as small run becoming extremely hard to find.

Words by: Robert Garcia

Many of you will be aware of the band Homegrown Syndrome (we released the single a few years ago). They were also known locally as Homegrown Funk & the band Memphis that put out one extremely rare two sider. A party Side 'Shake and Rock' flipped with a top of the rung ballad 'Inside My Love', it has everything collectors want, Rarity & Quality so sells for 500+ all day long, below Robert Garcia gives us the history....

"Memphis" were members of the Memphis based group "Home Grown Funk." Home Grown Funk was also known as "Homegrown Syndrome," a controversial name bestowed to them. Before heading to LA they gigged all over Memphis. Some of the members were from an earlier 70s group called "Brothers Unlimited" and had earlier ties during the 60s with the "Memphis Invaders" (a peaceful civil rights activist group).

With aspirations of pushing Homegrown further, a few members including Jerry Jones made the move out west. It was LA 1977 when they were introduced to Ike Tuner through a mutual friend "Ricky G". It was a casual meetup. Then one night Ike had his son Ike Jr. go check them out while performing at the Soul Train hangout spot "Maverick Flats". Ike Jr. praised their performance to Ike and he had them come out to his Inglewood studio. The group walked into the studio with a funky track already playing and that's when Jerry Jones improvised this opportunity and started singing. Ike then turned and said… "Who is that singing?" Jerry said, "Thats me." Then Ike replied " YOU BIG MUTHAF***A! You could be my new Tina." From that point the group cut bunch of tracks with Ike over the years up until they're feature on his 1980 album "The Edge."

In 1981 Perry Kibble (Keyboardist for Taste Of Honey) was at "Concerts In The Park" and heard Home Grown Funk performing. He linked up with the group and got them a deal with Arista. During this time they recorded their hit track " Confrontation." Perry suggested that the group change their name because he didn't want another group with the work "Funk" in it and hence "Homegrown Syndrome." They also use the Arista studio to cut an unreleased acetate with tracks "Got the love" and "Party Vibes" soon to be reissued on ATON.

Around the same time they were introduced to a fella named Roger Green. Green asked the group to come over to his home studio to cut the track "Inside My Love." Upon naming the record Roger Green suggested to go by "Memphis" since they were all from there. This record was eventually pressed in 1982 as small run becoming extremely hard to find.

Words by: Robert Garcia

New York trio Sunflower Bean announce their second record Twentytwo in Blue. The album will be released on March 23rd when all members of the band - Julia Cumming, Jacob Faber and Nick Kivlen - will be 22 years old. The album comes almost two years and two months after the release of their critically acclaimed 2016 debut album Human Ceremony.

Co-produced by Unknown Mortal Orchestra's Jacob Portrait (who also mixed the record) and HC-producer Matt Molnar of Friends, Twentytwo in Blue shows Sunflower Bean stay true to their guitar band core and classic rock-inspired roots, while exploring new sonic textures with more direct and progressive themes. Unlike their debut, which was essentially a compilation of songs Sunflower Bean wrote while still in their teens, Twentytwo in Blue was made in the year between December 2016 and December 2017 and showcases how far the band has come since playing together in their high school days.

To celebrate the album announce, Sunflower Bean share a new single and follow up to I Was A Fool' entitled Crisis Fest.' 2017—we know/ Reality's one big sick show/ Every day's a crisis fest,' vocalist and bassist Cumming sings. This last year was extremely alarming, traumatic, and politically volatile,' explains the band about the track. While writing this album, we often reflected back on the people we met while on tour. We felt a strong kinship with the audiences that came to see us all over the country, and we wanted to write a song for them - something to capture the anxieties of an uncertain future. 'Crisis Fest' is less about politics and more about the power of us, the young people in this country.'

Sunflower Bean find a sublime maturity and progression to their sound and songwriting on Twentytwo in Blue. If there was a ragged beauty in the gauzy, groovy wall of sound of Human Ceremony, there's a new directness to these songs, a product of the band's growth and the insanity of the times we're in. Sunflower Bean have gained a newly confident voice that they bring to the second album, one that doesn't shy away from addressing the other events of those two years—political changes and cultural shifts that have left America and the world stupefied. This has been such an unbelievable time,' says Kivlen. I can't imagine any artist of our ilk making a record and not have it be seen through the lens of the political climate of 2016 and 2017. So I think there's a few songs on the record that are definitely heavily influenced by this sort of—whatever you want to say what the Trump administration has been.' A shit show,' offers a helpful Faber.

Ultimately, this record is much more than a political statement or piece of commentary on today's political climate. I think one word that always comes to mind when I think about this record is lovable,' says Cumming. We want the songs to be something that someone can get attached to, and have be a part of them. Because that's what I look for in songs myself, and that's the kind of experience we want to give to others.'

Once again a ground breaking album, the first Afro Peruvian music heard outside of Brazil and the album to introduce Susana Baca to the world.

“This is secret music - a collection of beautiful songs and infectious grooves that’s been hidden for years in the coastal towns and barrios of Peru. It’s not the guys with flutes and drums in woolly hats - it’s music of the black Peruvian communities. Black Peruvians? Yes, Peru was involved in the slave trade too - and this wonderful,funky music is part of that legacy” - David Byrne

Beyond their highly sought after 1978 album Festa Para Um Novo Rei­ - home to the mystical jazz-funk classic ‘Vidigal’ and released on Philips’ iconic Musica Popular Brasileira Contemporanea series (MPBC) - little is known about Marcos Resende & Index, even to aficionados of obscure Brazilian music. Far Out Recordings is immensely proud to present their previously unreleased self-titled debut album from 1976, contributing a crucial missing work from the glory days of progressive Brazilian instrumental music.

Born in Cachoeiro de Itapemirim, Brazil in 1947, Marcos Resende was a prodigious child who learned to play the accordion at the age of two, and the piano aged six. In spite of his immense musical potential, he travelled to Lisbon in the 60s to study medicine. Yet continuing to explore his musical passion on the side, he formed a trio which went on to open for Dexter Gordon at the Cascais Jazz Festival in 1971. From here he formed the electronic oriented prog-jazz group Status, who opened shows for the likes of Elton John, Phil Woods, Stan Getz, Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, but in spite of their relative live success they have no known recordings.

Now established as a highly regarded keyboardist, composer, and innovative electronic musician, Resende returned home to Brazil following Portugal’s Revolução dos Cravos in 1974. Inspired by US jazz and British progressive rock he’d experienced while residing in Europe, Resende went all out acquiring a keyboard arsenal to be reckoned with, which included the Prophet 5, Yamaha CP-708 and Mini Moog. Determined to integrate his newfound inspirations with Brazilian rhythms and jazz traditions, he formed a new quartet with Rubão Sabino (bass), Claudio Caribé (drums) and the late great Oberdan Magalhães, of Banda Black Rio and Cry Babies fame. Marcos Resende & Index recorded their self-titled debut at Sonoviso Studios with the legendary sound engineer Toninho Barbosa, known as the ‘Brazilian Rudy Van Gelder’ whose impressive resumé includes the era defining classics Light As A Feather by Azymuth, Previsão Do Tempo by Marcos Valle, and Quem É Quem by João Donato. Marcos Resende & Index fits perfectly amongst these masterpieces, sharing both the timeless ethereal qualities as well as the progressive and futuristic ideals of Light As A Feather in particular.

After a 5 year hiatus, Tel Aviv based artist Naduve, returns to Cocktail d’Amore Music with Hypogeum. Each of these tracks facilitates its own special part in the life of party. Starting off on a hypnotic and forward driven note Echo Wave Bay leads dancers perfectly into hypnosis with its trance inducing melodies which wave upward and downward. Title track Hypogeum begins to pull on the heart strings with its soft synths floating over pastel textures before giving way to the aptly titled FX Jungle, a deep trip into the low lying canopies of your imagination. Ending where we began Thursday Gem explores the same cyclical themes as Echo Wave but in a subdued fashion making it a perfect choice for winding down any raucous party.

Noah Gundersen returns with his much anticipated new album, 'A Pillar of Salt' ahead of a US headline tour. The project is a return to form for Gundersen, coupling heartfelt lyrics with his signature understated vocal performance. With over 100 Million career streams and 100k album sales, this album is sure to take Noah's career to the next level. Featuring singles "Sleepless in Seattle" and "Atlantis," a stunning duet with Phoebe Bridgers, fans old and new will be celebrating this triumphant piece of art. CLEAR VINYL LP

Volume three of his four part solo album set. (Monstruos Y Duendes)The music of Myrddin goes through marrow and bone and is both complex, passionately rhythmic and profoundly emotional.

As Could Change begins, you'll notice how little audio material is really needed for your brain to start turning things into things. The merest slice of a plosive becomes a beat. The notes buried in every vowel are a bass line that nobody's fingers can reach. And of course the lyrics are the music: a synthetic voice, stripped of its humanity, that will relentlessly call to your brain like a siren and beg you to make sense of what doesn't. This piece isolates your perceptive abilities in the audio realm the way an optical illusion works on your eyes. Its melody is the amount you'll struggle to turn sound into sense. On top of that, it's delightfully fucking annoying. Marc Matter first came around as part of Institut fuer Feinmotorik, The Durian Brothers and Salon des Amateurs and has been politely shoving vocal recordings through various sorts of blenders ever since. (Angela Sawyer)

'No Beauty In The World' is a reflection of how in a world so cruel we can find beauty, with its music bouncing between beautiful ambience and piano loops, modular synth melodies to darker textural and feedback driven drones. Unlike other wounds records where the fluidity of the entire album tells a story, 'No Beauty In The World' explore various sonic possibilities and territories. This is a culmination of over 2 years of writing and recording, constantly driven by the uncertainty and darkness in the world that we live in. Despite it all, the sonic arc of the album gives us something to hope for, maybe there is beauty in the end. The record was engineered and mixed by Diogo Strausz (Far Out Recordings) in France and mastered (digital and vinyl) by Lawrence English (Room40). The record features collaborations from guitarist Carlos Ferreira and drummer / synthesist Phillip Stosberg.

'No Beauty In The World' is a reflection of how in a world so cruel we can find beauty, with its music bouncing between beautiful ambience and piano loops, modular synth melodies to darker textural and feedback driven drones. Unlike other wounds records where the fluidity of the entire album tells a story, 'No Beauty In The World' explore various sonic possibilities and territories. This is a culmination of over 2 years of writing and recording, constantly driven by the uncertainty and darkness in the world that we live in. Despite it all, the sonic arc of the album gives us something to hope for, maybe there is beauty in the end. The record was engineered and mixed by Diogo Strausz (Far Out Recordings) in France and mastered (digital and vinyl) by Lawrence English (Room40). The record features collaborations from guitarist Carlos Ferreira and drummer / synthesist Phillip Stosberg.

Jozef K continues with part 2 of this stunning project on Takeout under his Eternal Blood moniker, showcasing his stunning take on post-Rave tinged House & Techno.

These tracks will tick so many boxes for those who love the atmospherics of Jamie XX to the rawness of 808 State as both EP's take you on a fascinating journey with the vibe of the UK's magnificent North West.

Jozef's material is regularly supported by the likes of Dixon, Mano le Tough, The Blessed Madonna and Sasha, and we're excited to have him join us with 2 sublime EP's

Since its launch in January 2019, Deutsche Grammophon’s “XII” has grown with new compositions every month. Renewal has always been part of music, long before the invention of such distinctive categories as “Classical” or “Contemporary”. Deutsche Grammophon’s commitment to the process of musical creation took a fresh direction 2019 with the launch of “XII”. The changing seasons and life’s restless stream of feelings and emotions lie behind the sounds of “XII”, Deutsche Grammophon’s celebration of new works by some of today’s most innovative and creative musicians. Building upon the Yellow Label’s commitment to new repertoire, “XII” presents a series of works with the power to punch through the crowd of monthly releases and establish an online home on influential music-streaming playlists. Their composers, free from rigid genre boundaries, reflect contemporary classical music’s diversity.

Hamburg-based sludge metal act High Fighter are
gearing up for release of their first live album ever.
 Soon after their sophomore album, the critically
acclaimed ‘Champain’ in 2019, the band were
forced to stop promoting the record live due to
obvious reasons, when they got invited by German
tv and iconic live format WDR Rockpalast to be
part of a special Offstage series.
 Filmed in August 2020 at an industrial, breathtaking setting of the Landschaftspark DuisburgNord, Germany, High Fighter’s only show since the
beginning of the pandemic, without a crowd, was
aired on national television.
 This live album was recorded by Dominik Schenke
with a pre-mix by Christoph Scheidel at 79 Sound
Studio, while Jan Oberg (Earth Ship / Grin) added
the final mix and mastering at Hidden Planet
Studio in Berlin.
 With their vibrant blend of sludge metal, doom and
stoner blues, High Fighter‘s ‘Live At WDR
Rockpalast’ features a heavy set and collection of
songs taken from the band’s first three records: the
rough and raw 2014-debut EP ‘The Goat Ritual’,
their first full-length album ‘Scars & Crosses’
(2016, Svart Records) and the latest, fast-paced
and brutal sludge juggernaut ‘Champain’, released
in 2019, also on Argonauta Records.
 White coloured vinyl.

Pinegrove’s new album, ‘11:11’, is an unqualified triumph, an
album that seizes listeners with hook-filled songs imbuing
feelings of warmth, urgency and poetic beauty, even as it
asks some of life’s big and difficult questions.
 On previous Pinegrove recordings, band member Sam
Skinner usually oversees mixing duties, but this time out,
noted producer and former Death Cab for Cutie member
Chris Walla has assumed the role. Calling previous album
‘Marigold’’s production “crisp and contained,” Hall, who coproduced ‘11:11’ with Sam, sought more of a “messier” feel
for these new songs. Most of the recording took place at two
Hudson Valley facilities (Levon Helm Studios in Woodstock
and The Building in Marlboro) with the final touches done
side by side with Walla in Seattle.
 ‘11:11’ features lush soundscapes, organs, Megan
Benavente’s melodic and adventurous bass playing, Josh
Marre’s signature guitar work and a special guest - Doug
Hall, Evan’s father- playing piano on many tracks. The record
sounds intimate, yet expansive.
 “It spends equal time on optimism, community, reaffirming
what we are and how it’s our duty to look out for one
another,” says singer Evan Stephens Hall. “There’s anger,
love, hope and grief. The record has all of that.”
 The opening mini epic track, ‘Habitat’, is a two-part
masterpiece of texturalism, brimming with robust, percussive
guitars and driven by unsettling shifts. Another key track is
‘Alaska’, a happy-go-lucky romp of dense, bracing guitar
rock, lurching out of the gate with tectonic force and boasting
hooks at every turn. Later, the breezy, pastoral folk-tinged
‘Iodine’ glistens with exquisite vocal harmonies, and ‘Flora’ is
a beautifully appointed apology to nature, its luxurious
country rock feels connected to past masters like the Flying
Burrito Brothers or early Wilco.

As no strangers to the West End Records back catalogue – both having taken on remix duties individually in the past – 2022 sees Michael Gray and Dr Packer combine to give two classics the Rework treatment. Brenda Taylor’s seminal “You Cant Have Your Cake And Eat It To” is finessed into a contemporary disco standard: Taylor’s voice still cutting through with plenty of soul while synth and pianos provide the groove. “Don’t Make Me Wait” cuts a slightly edgier tone, with acid-like bleeps and plenty of reverb making it a perfect counter track as part of this release.

Another set of essential Reworks from West End.

His third studio album in as many years, ‘La La La’ arrives as the follow-up to 2020's album 'Cheap Medication' and 2019's debut 'Next Episode Starts In 15 Seconds’ in what is the next instalment of Johnny's annual series of releases. The new album continues a prolific spell of activity for the songwriter that has also seen him release two compilations of outtakes and rarities (Low Fidelity Vol. 1 & 2); work in collaboration with his partner Billie Piper and playwright Lucy Prebble (Succession) to score the entire soundtrack for the critically acclaimed Sky Atlantic series ‘I Hate Suzie’ and write the original motion picture soundtrack to Billie Piper's film 'Rare Beasts

Capitalising on a defining year where PET NEEDS released their debut album ‘Fractured Party Music’, spent a summer playing outdoor gigs with fellow Xtra Mile artists as part of The Gatherings and recorded new music, the four-piece from Colchester step up a gear with huge plans for 2022. First up is the release of a deluxe edition of Fractured Party Music featuring 4 extra tracks including the new single ‘Punk Isn’t Dead (It’s Just Up For Sale)’. The album and single is out digitally on 14th January 2022. A few days later the band set out on a vast UK tour supporting Frank Turner – playing potentially to over 20K people – which culminates on 27th Feb at London Brixton. ‘Punk Isn’t Dead…’ has become a live favourite and has been rerecorded with that added live energy with Sam Duckworth (Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly) producing. Playlists to pitch for: Spotify: The Punk List The Pit Feel Good Rock Pure Pop Punk Pop Punk’s Not Dead All New Punk Apple: New In Rock Breaking Hard Rock Pop Punk YouTube: New Rock Deezer: Punk Rock Other plans for 2022 include further far-reaching tours supporting Frank Turner across Europe and USA (dates for US tour to be announced), dates supporting Skinny Lister in Germany, their own headline shows and summer festivals. Below is the campaign overview for 'Fractured Party Music' standard format, released in March 2021.

The career defining 5th album from South African Slam juggernauts VULVODYNIA. Featuring a slew of guest performances and production from Christian Donaldson. Looking in a medical textbook will tell you the following: Vulvodynia is a chronic, severe vaginal pain with no identifiable cause. While the severe part is dead on, what a medical textbook won’t tell you is that Vulvodynia is also the pioneer in what is rapidly becoming South Africa’s most eviscerating export: Technical Slamming Brutal Deathcore. With lobotomizing, lurid riffs, skin-shredding blast beats and slams gruesome and filthy enough to induce septic shock, Vulvodynia are a lethal plague, spreading throughout the flesh of today’s heavy music scene—infecting one set of ears at a time, and leaving no survivors. Vulvodynia have toured Europe, USA, Australia, New Zealand, and played numerous festivals worldwide.

The career defining 5th album from South African Slam juggernauts VULVODYNIA. Featuring a slew of guest performances and production from Christian Donaldson. Looking in a medical textbook will tell you the following: Vulvodynia is a chronic, severe vaginal pain with no identifiable cause. While the severe part is dead on, what a medical textbook won’t tell you is that Vulvodynia is also the pioneer in what is rapidly becoming South Africa’s most eviscerating export: Technical Slamming Brutal Deathcore. With lobotomizing, lurid riffs, skin-shredding blast beats and slams gruesome and filthy enough to induce septic shock, Vulvodynia are a lethal plague, spreading throughout the flesh of today’s heavy music scene—infecting one set of ears at a time, and leaving no survivors. Vulvodynia have toured Europe, USA, Australia, New Zealand, and played numerous festivals worldwide.

The career defining 5th album from South African Slam juggernauts VULVODYNIA. Featuring a slew of guest performances and production from Christian Donaldson. Looking in a medical textbook will tell you the following: Vulvodynia is a chronic, severe vaginal pain with no identifiable cause. While the severe part is dead on, what a medical textbook won’t tell you is that Vulvodynia is also the pioneer in what is rapidly becoming South Africa’s most eviscerating export: Technical Slamming Brutal Deathcore. With lobotomizing, lurid riffs, skin-shredding blast beats and slams gruesome and filthy enough to induce septic shock, Vulvodynia are a lethal plague, spreading throughout the flesh of today’s heavy music scene—infecting one set of ears at a time, and leaving no survivors. Vulvodynia have toured Europe, USA, Australia, New Zealand, and played numerous festivals worldwide.

John Lodge, legendary bass player, songwriter and vocalist of The Moody Blues, and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, is to release a new live album entitled ‘The Royal Affair and After’. It features incredible new live recordings of all his Moody Blues hits, plus special tributes to all his bandmates, Graeme Edge, Justin Hayward, Mike Pinder and Ray Thomas. John is delighted to release this album, an album that encompasses the songs that he describes as being ‘the soundtrack of his life’, and continues in his deeply-felt quest to ‘Keep the Moody Blues music alive’. The album was recorded live in Las Vegas on ‘The Royal Affair Tour’, with additional tracks recorded during his subsequent USA dates. During the summer of 2019, Lodge was delighted to be part of the ‘The Royal Affair Tour’, with YES, Carl Palmer, Arthur Brown, and ASIA, and what followed was an epic summer. For John it was unique opportunity to bring his electrifying show to both long established fans, and to those new to the Moody Blues. The album comprises many of the incredible Moodies hits penned by Lodge, classics such as “I’m Just a Singer (in a Rock and Roll Band),” “Gemini Dream,” “Ride My Seesaw,” “Isn’t Life Strange,” and “Steppin’ in a Slide Zone”, plus the wonderful “Saved by the Music” from the Blue Jays album.

As funny as it may sound, Anaïs Mitchell has spent the past 15 years in some kind of hell. OK, not actual hell, but the multi-faceted world of Hadestown, a musical project she began in Vermont in 2006 that has grown into a Tony®- and Grammy®-award-winning Broadway phenomenon with touring editions now delighting audiences as far away as South Korea.

“I experienced so much joy working on Hadestown, but it just kept ramping up and up and requiring more and more attention,” Mitchell admits. “I had to become so single-minded and really put blinders on to my other creative life.” As it did for many artists, the COVID-19 pandemic unexpectedly offered Mitchell a blank slate to reconnect with her own music. The result is a new self-titled album made with close collaborators from Bon Iver, The National and her own band Bonny Light Horseman, Mitchell’s first collection of all-new material under her own name since 2012’s Young Man in America.

“I was nine months pregnant when the pandemic reached New York, so we made an 11th hour decision to leave and have the baby in Vermont,” Mitchell recalls. “We left the city and had the baby a week later, and then like everyone, we were in the midst of this unprecedented stillness. It felt like I could see behind me: oh, there’s New York City. There’s Hadestown. There’s my life with just one kid. A certain kind of stress and expectations. In Vermont, we moved onto my family farm and lived in my grandparents’ old house, with a new baby. I’d look at pictures on my phone from a few months earlier and wonder, whose life was that? This record, and the songs that are on it, came out of that time. I got into a flow again that I hadn’t felt in a really long time.”

Dubbed by NPR as “one of the greatest songwriters of her generation,” Mitchell is a master of the worlds of narrative folksong, poetry and balladry. Those talents are evident from the first moments of the new album, as Mitchell narrates what she calls “an unbearably romantic” trip over the Brooklyn Bridge colored by Bon Iver member Michael Lewis’ heartstring-tugging saxophone accompaniment. “Having left New York, I was able to write a love letter to it in a way I never could when I was living there,” she says. “It was like, fuck it. This is how I feel. There is nothing more beautiful than riding over one of the New York bridges at night next to someone who inspires you.”

Produced by Mitchell’s Bonny Light Horseman bandmate Josh Kaufman, the album proceeds to chronicle Mitchell’s reconnection with the Vermont roots that have been so formative in her life and music. “Bright Star” finds her making peace with the idea of being at peace in the familiar setting of her grandparents’ house, while “Revenant” was inspired by paging through a box of journals and letters belonging to herself and her grandmother — “a very pandemic activity,” she says. “That house is literally my happy place. I can picture myself as a kid, in this house, laying on the carpet with a sunbeam coming through the sliding glass door. There’s something about it that is really connected in my mind to my childhood and a very free, imaginative, creative time. “Revenant” has a lot to do with that house and reconnecting with my childhood self.”

Mitchell concedes that she tends “to be someone who thinks it has to be hard in order for it to be good or beautiful,” but that feeling has changed, partly thanks to her deep connection with musicians she’s met through the 37d03d collective established by The National’s Aaron and Bryce Dessner and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. During the pandemic, some of those artists participated in a “song a day” writing group — an idea Mitchell says is usually “totally opposite of how I roll. But it really helped me to gain access to some kind of trust and intuition and flow. I began a bunch of these songs while doing that.”

“It unlocked something that allowed me to finish a bunch of songs I’d been sitting on, and feeling a bit paralyzed about how to finish them,” she continues. “Because no one was touring, it’s not like I was playing them for anyone before we were in the studio. In other times, I’ve trotted things out in advance. Here, it was like, here’s all these brand new songs. Let’s discover what they can be. That was really exciting.”

That discovery process took flight at Dreamland Recording Studios outside Woodstock, N.Y., which Mitchell describes as “this weird, janky, beautiful church - it’s my favorite studio in the world.” Kaufman, Lewis and Big Red Machine drummer JT Bates formed a core band around Mitchell, while Aaron Dessner and Thomas Bartlett joined the sessions mid-week on guitar and piano, respectively.

After the appropriate COVID tests came back negative, “it was a pretty extraordinary feeling to hug, kiss and share the same space playing together,” Mitchell says. “We went into that world for a week and didn’t leave the studio for any reason. I felt very safe with all those guys. It was warm and joyful.”

Mitchell says this environment brought out unexpected details in the material, which was recorded almost entirely live together in the room. “Sometimes we tried separating things out, like vocals, but we always ended up back in the room together,” she says. Indeed, after spending the better part of a day recording overdubbed versions of “Little Big Girl” that nobody loved, the musicians gave up and tracked it again live. “We got so frustrated that we went in and I was like, I’m just going to sing this as hard as I fucking can. It felt like that’s what the song wanted to be,” Mitchell says. “It felt like all those songs wanted to be recorded as live as possible.” The exception to the rule was Nico Muhly's arrangements for strings and flute, which were added from New York City afterward.

Mitchell will debut the new material during various headline tours in the U.S. and Europe in 2022, at which she’ll be accompanied by players from the album. On stage, she can’t wait to further hone the sights, sounds and scenes that bring the songs to such vivid life. “I’ve spent a lot of time trying to write in the voice of other characters, especially with Hadestown. It’s fun for me, but these songs are not that,” she says. “Weirdly, they’re all me. The narrator is me. That’s why it felt right to self-title the album. It felt like after so many years of working on telling other stories, now here are some of mine.”

As funny as it may sound, Anaïs Mitchell has spent the past 15 years in some kind of hell. OK, not actual hell, but the multi-faceted world of Hadestown, a musical project she began in Vermont in 2006 that has grown into a Tony®- and Grammy®-award-winning Broadway phenomenon with touring editions now delighting audiences as far away as South Korea.

“I experienced so much joy working on Hadestown, but it just kept ramping up and up and requiring more and more attention,” Mitchell admits. “I had to become so single-minded and really put blinders on to my other creative life.” As it did for many artists, the COVID-19 pandemic unexpectedly offered Mitchell a blank slate to reconnect with her own music. The result is a new self-titled album made with close collaborators from Bon Iver, The National and her own band Bonny Light Horseman, Mitchell’s first collection of all-new material under her own name since 2012’s Young Man in America.

“I was nine months pregnant when the pandemic reached New York, so we made an 11th hour decision to leave and have the baby in Vermont,” Mitchell recalls. “We left the city and had the baby a week later, and then like everyone, we were in the midst of this unprecedented stillness. It felt like I could see behind me: oh, there’s New York City. There’s Hadestown. There’s my life with just one kid. A certain kind of stress and expectations. In Vermont, we moved onto my family farm and lived in my grandparents’ old house, with a new baby. I’d look at pictures on my phone from a few months earlier and wonder, whose life was that? This record, and the songs that are on it, came out of that time. I got into a flow again that I hadn’t felt in a really long time.”

Dubbed by NPR as “one of the greatest songwriters of her generation,” Mitchell is a master of the worlds of narrative folksong, poetry and balladry. Those talents are evident from the first moments of the new album, as Mitchell narrates what she calls “an unbearably romantic” trip over the Brooklyn Bridge colored by Bon Iver member Michael Lewis’ heartstring-tugging saxophone accompaniment. “Having left New York, I was able to write a love letter to it in a way I never could when I was living there,” she says. “It was like, fuck it. This is how I feel. There is nothing more beautiful than riding over one of the New York bridges at night next to someone who inspires you.”

Produced by Mitchell’s Bonny Light Horseman bandmate Josh Kaufman, the album proceeds to chronicle Mitchell’s reconnection with the Vermont roots that have been so formative in her life and music. “Bright Star” finds her making peace with the idea of being at peace in the familiar setting of her grandparents’ house, while “Revenant” was inspired by paging through a box of journals and letters belonging to herself and her grandmother — “a very pandemic activity,” she says. “That house is literally my happy place. I can picture myself as a kid, in this house, laying on the carpet with a sunbeam coming through the sliding glass door. There’s something about it that is really connected in my mind to my childhood and a very free, imaginative, creative time. “Revenant” has a lot to do with that house and reconnecting with my childhood self.”

Mitchell concedes that she tends “to be someone who thinks it has to be hard in order for it to be good or beautiful,” but that feeling has changed, partly thanks to her deep connection with musicians she’s met through the 37d03d collective established by The National’s Aaron and Bryce Dessner and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. During the pandemic, some of those artists participated in a “song a day” writing group — an idea Mitchell says is usually “totally opposite of how I roll. But it really helped me to gain access to some kind of trust and intuition and flow. I began a bunch of these songs while doing that.”

“It unlocked something that allowed me to finish a bunch of songs I’d been sitting on, and feeling a bit paralyzed about how to finish them,” she continues. “Because no one was touring, it’s not like I was playing them for anyone before we were in the studio. In other times, I’ve trotted things out in advance. Here, it was like, here’s all these brand new songs. Let’s discover what they can be. That was really exciting.”

That discovery process took flight at Dreamland Recording Studios outside Woodstock, N.Y., which Mitchell describes as “this weird, janky, beautiful church - it’s my favorite studio in the world.” Kaufman, Lewis and Big Red Machine drummer JT Bates formed a core band around Mitchell, while Aaron Dessner and Thomas Bartlett joined the sessions mid-week on guitar and piano, respectively.

After the appropriate COVID tests came back negative, “it was a pretty extraordinary feeling to hug, kiss and share the same space playing together,” Mitchell says. “We went into that world for a week and didn’t leave the studio for any reason. I felt very safe with all those guys. It was warm and joyful.”

Mitchell says this environment brought out unexpected details in the material, which was recorded almost entirely live together in the room. “Sometimes we tried separating things out, like vocals, but we always ended up back in the room together,” she says. Indeed, after spending the better part of a day recording overdubbed versions of “Little Big Girl” that nobody loved, the musicians gave up and tracked it again live. “We got so frustrated that we went in and I was like, I’m just going to sing this as hard as I fucking can. It felt like that’s what the song wanted to be,” Mitchell says. “It felt like all those songs wanted to be recorded as live as possible.” The exception to the rule was Nico Muhly's arrangements for strings and flute, which were added from New York City afterward.

Mitchell will debut the new material during various headline tours in the U.S. and Europe in 2022, at which she’ll be accompanied by players from the album. On stage, she can’t wait to further hone the sights, sounds and scenes that bring the songs to such vivid life. “I’ve spent a lot of time trying to write in the voice of other characters, especially with Hadestown. It’s fun for me, but these songs are not that,” she says. “Weirdly, they’re all me. The narrator is me. That’s why it felt right to self-title the album. It felt like after so many years of working on telling other stories, now here are some of mine.”

Napalm's 2000 album now re-released on Red Vinyl