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Die Alben ".neon", "Agape" und "Melting Sun" der Post Black Metaller LANTLÔs nun auf farbigem Vinyl!

With his new album, Gecko Turner confirms that he is a standout artist in the global groove scene, a must for the outernational sounds aficionados.

Somebody From Badajoz is the fifth studio album in his much lauded discography and his first in seven years, eagerly anticipated by both his fans and himself: "this business of dedicating yourself to music and making songs... it's a long game."

With the release of his first two, remarkable, albums, Guapapasea! (2003) and Chandalismo Ilustrado (2006), Gecko started cultivating what one astute journalist defined as Afro-maduran soul—the "maduran" bit referencing Extremadura, a region in central-western Spain.

Badajoz, Gecko's birthplace, is the biggest city in the area, on the border with Portugal, by the Guadiana River. It is a place that oozes history, where there is constant movement at the border, and people's character is friendly and open-minded with foreign habits.

Gecko's Afro-maduran soul isbuilt on Afro-American music and drenched in Brazilian, African, Latin American and Jamaican sounds. There are also echoes of a youth marked in equal parts by our man's admiration for the Beatles and the flamenco that could be heard everywhere in Badajoz in the seventies. It makes for a singular sound and a musical language of its own—spicy, succulent, full of nuances, but with a very personal flavour.

The album opens with the Nigerian talking drums of Twenty-twenty Vision, (neo) soul in a magical falsetto, carried by a sumptuous orchestral arrangement with a cinematic flavour: "I'd been thinking about doing something called 'Twenty-twenty Vision' for some time, making a play on words with the vision we have of the world after the year 2020 and the medical expression, which, in ophthalmological terms, means 'normal or complete vision.' Beyond that particular song, I think that's the mood of the album: a look at society in the twenties of the 21st century and the feelings and demons it produces."

It's followed by De Balde, a very special song born from a posthumously discovered lyric by the great writer Carlos Lencero, a regular collaborator of Camarón, Pata Negra, and Remedios Amaya, and also from Badajoz. While conceived as a fandango, Gecko has moulded it into his sound in such a seamless way it now seems as if the words could only have been written to be embraced by the percussion, brass, and backing vocals heard on the album. It's the only lyric on Somebody From Badajoz not written by Turner, still it sits rather comfortably with the rest, sharing the same emotivity and sensitivity, as well as the trademark humour and irony.

Other tracks see more protagonism for the rhythm.The beat-driven Ain't No Fun Preachin' to the Choir features Gecko's vocals walking the thin line between singing and talking over a phenomenal afro-disco-funk-infused trailblazer. In Am I Sad? it's impossible to not bob your head to the queen of Papatosina's mongrel rhythm, as close to the banks of the Guadiana river as it is to the shores of the Mississippi. Qué Siesta Tan Buena, He Babeao Y To! is an ode to the snooze in true Afro-Maduran fashion. And in Come And Try, the Caribbean influence is evident—lovers' rock that invites you to dance in good company.

In these songs, and throughout the album, for that matter, the musicians accompanying Gecko, who himself plays many of the instruments as well, shine brightly. All hailing from Extremadura, Javi Mojave (percussion), Álvaro Fdez 'Dr. Robelto' (bass), and Rafa Prieto (guitar) have been carrying him with delicate forcefulness since he started out as a solo artist. At the same time, the wonderful and essential voices of Deborah Ayo, Astrid Jones, Fani Ela Nsue, and Miriam Solís give the album a sunny variety of colours. And there are many more—a sensational group of musicians contributes dazzling harmonic bursts to many of the songs. The palette of sounds is very diverse and rich in textures and nuances, including, for example, the ngoni, bells, and various repurposed kitchen utensils.

The groove is always around, moving between the magical border sound of Everybody Knows Somebody From Badajoz and Little Dose, the silky soul of The Sibariteo Appreciation Society, and the exultant celebration of End Of The World (which surprisingly sees Gecko turning to the occasional use of autotune), a piece that could be used for the final credits of a Monty Python film and, in fact, closes the album.

Gecko Turner has done it again with Somebody From Badajoz, looking to the future without losing sight of the roots. In times of upheaval all over the globe, when people are looking for purity, he delivers a formidable piece of work: risky, optimistic in spite of everything, and with a decidedly bastard sound. Let's rejoice.

With his new album, Gecko Turner confirms that he is a standout artist in the global groove scene, a must for the outernational sounds aficionados.

Somebody From Badajoz is the fifth studio album in his much lauded discography and his first in seven years, eagerly anticipated by both his fans and himself: "this business of dedicating yourself to music and making songs... it's a long game."

With the release of his first two, remarkable, albums, Guapapasea! (2003) and Chandalismo Ilustrado (2006), Gecko started cultivating what one astute journalist defined as Afro-maduran soul—the "maduran" bit referencing Extremadura, a region in central-western Spain.

Badajoz, Gecko's birthplace, is the biggest city in the area, on the border with Portugal, by the Guadiana River. It is a place that oozes history, where there is constant movement at the border, and people's character is friendly and open-minded with foreign habits.

Gecko's Afro-maduran soul isbuilt on Afro-American music and drenched in Brazilian, African, Latin American and Jamaican sounds. There are also echoes of a youth marked in equal parts by our man's admiration for the Beatles and the flamenco that could be heard everywhere in Badajoz in the seventies. It makes for a singular sound and a musical language of its own—spicy, succulent, full of nuances, but with a very personal flavour.

The album opens with the Nigerian talking drums of Twenty-twenty Vision, (neo) soul in a magical falsetto, carried by a sumptuous orchestral arrangement with a cinematic flavour: "I'd been thinking about doing something called 'Twenty-twenty Vision' for some time, making a play on words with the vision we have of the world after the year 2020 and the medical expression, which, in ophthalmological terms, means 'normal or complete vision.' Beyond that particular song, I think that's the mood of the album: a look at society in the twenties of the 21st century and the feelings and demons it produces."

It's followed by De Balde, a very special song born from a posthumously discovered lyric by the great writer Carlos Lencero, a regular collaborator of Camarón, Pata Negra, and Remedios Amaya, and also from Badajoz. While conceived as a fandango, Gecko has moulded it into his sound in such a seamless way it now seems as if the words could only have been written to be embraced by the percussion, brass, and backing vocals heard on the album. It's the only lyric on Somebody From Badajoz not written by Turner, still it sits rather comfortably with the rest, sharing the same emotivity and sensitivity, as well as the trademark humour and irony.

Other tracks see more protagonism for the rhythm.The beat-driven Ain't No Fun Preachin' to the Choir features Gecko's vocals walking the thin line between singing and talking over a phenomenal afro-disco-funk-infused trailblazer. In Am I Sad? it's impossible to not bob your head to the queen of Papatosina's mongrel rhythm, as close to the banks of the Guadiana river as it is to the shores of the Mississippi. Qué Siesta Tan Buena, He Babeao Y To! is an ode to the snooze in true Afro-Maduran fashion. And in Come And Try, the Caribbean influence is evident—lovers' rock that invites you to dance in good company.

In these songs, and throughout the album, for that matter, the musicians accompanying Gecko, who himself plays many of the instruments as well, shine brightly. All hailing from Extremadura, Javi Mojave (percussion), Álvaro Fdez 'Dr. Robelto' (bass), and Rafa Prieto (guitar) have been carrying him with delicate forcefulness since he started out as a solo artist. At the same time, the wonderful and essential voices of Deborah Ayo, Astrid Jones, Fani Ela Nsue, and Miriam Solís give the album a sunny variety of colours. And there are many more—a sensational group of musicians contributes dazzling harmonic bursts to many of the songs. The palette of sounds is very diverse and rich in textures and nuances, including, for example, the ngoni, bells, and various repurposed kitchen utensils.

The groove is always around, moving between the magical border sound of Everybody Knows Somebody From Badajoz and Little Dose, the silky soul of The Sibariteo Appreciation Society, and the exultant celebration of End Of The World (which surprisingly sees Gecko turning to the occasional use of autotune), a piece that could be used for the final credits of a Monty Python film and, in fact, closes the album.

Gecko Turner has done it again with Somebody From Badajoz, looking to the future without losing sight of the roots. In times of upheaval all over the globe, when people are looking for purity, he delivers a formidable piece of work: risky, optimistic in spite of everything, and with a decidedly bastard sound. Let's rejoice.

'Guerrilla Girls!', die mit Spannung erwartete Veröffentlichung von Ace Records in 2023, beschreibt eine aufregende Reise von den Ursprüngen des Punk Mitte der 70er Jahre über Post-Punk, schrille Frauen-Combos, Grunge-Bands und Riot Grrrls der 80er und 90er bis hin zu den She-Punk-Bands der letzten Jahre - sozusagen eine über fünf Jahrzehnte alte Alternative zur Macho-Hegemonie des Rock.
Die Sammlung hebt Songs hervor, die aus einer dynamischen Unterkultur weiblichen kreativen Ausdrucks hervorgegangen sind. Was die vorgestellten Künstlerinnen eint, ist eine gesunde Missachtung der Art und Weise, wie die Musikindustrie ihre weiblichen Darsteller in hübsche, neoliberale Pakete schnürte. Von Patti Smith, der universellen Mutter der Punkbewegung, bis hin zu den Bags, Bikini Kill und Skinny Girl Diet - diese Musik ist Anti-A&R.
Das Digipak enthält ein 40-seitiges Booklet mit einem ausführlichen Einführungs-Essay von Lucy O'Brien (Autorin von She Bop: The Definitive History Of Women In Popular Music) und einem Track-By-Track-Kommentar von Compiler Mick Patrick (dem langjährigen Verfechter für alle Stilrichtungen weiblicher Musik bei Ace). Wer das Ganze lieber auf LP hätte, greift zur Doppel-Vinyl!

Romantik im inneren Zerwürfnis
Das Elektro-Duo Neon Neet vollzieht auf ihrem Debütalbum den Spagat zwischen grandiosem Songwriting und detailverliebtem Sounddesign. So ziehen sich Themen wie das Problem der Selbstoptimierung oder Beziehungen im virtuellen Zeitalter durch die Songs. 'Post-human' zeigt ein reifes Debüt welches sie doch verspielt der Hörer*Innenschaft nähert. Ein Angebot sich der Romantik des inneren Zerwürfnis hinzugeben.

The debut album from post-folk travellers Immaterial Possession, a quartet, half of whom came from an artist commune and half who were card-carrying Elephant6 alumni. ‘Immaterial Possession’ is a rich tapestry of a record, a gorgeous, melodious return to a time when influences co-habited freely and whatever was close at hand made the music of the day. All set to Syd Barrett-era Floyd and Nico with haunting lines, it’s perfectly tinged with gamelan harmonies, evocative Spanish guitars and xylophone. Exuding mystical symbolism; they wear luscious threads, they’re part of something/anything; perhaps a neo-modern-folk commune of artists in search of a canvas to stretch out over their juxtaposed influences. Immaterial Possession was conceived by Atlanta natives, Cooper Holmes and Madeline Polites, who met while living together at an Atlanta artist commune that was integrated into the DIY music, theatre, and arts scene. Some years later the duo moved to the neighbouring musical town of Athens, GA. They were soon joined by seasoned drummer, John Spiegel, and eventually fulfilled with multi-instrumentalist Kiran Fernandes (keyboards, clarinets, flutes) - descendant of the Elephant 6 Collective scene. It’s eastern, it’s eerie dream pop, it’s spacious and ethereal… A perfectly wild trip, and where it ends is immaterial.

Money Mouse Records moves effortlessly into the neon-hued vibes of 80's boogie culture with their latest 7" offering from Nashville's CA$H BONU$. Made up of some familiar faces from Music City's funk and soul movement, Andrew Muller and Nick DeVan are joined by Amber Woodhouse who lends her powerfully silken vocals to the mix. With the addition of Pittsburgh's synthesist maestro, Buscrates, along with Muller's deftly executed production flourishes; this record goes straight to the sweet spot of post-disco lushness. "Got Me Thinkin Tonight" is designed for the late-nite dancefloor aficionados, taking cues from some of the era's greats and shaking things up into something new and heaving. The synth work and beats weave together with Woodhouse's amorous lyrics to create a dancefloor jam that sounds just as at home in 1982 as it does in 2022. That magic is repeated on the B-side with "Joy & Pain" a straight up hustler of a track, with a driving drums and heady arrangements that, again, are meant to get the dancefloor churning. Woodhouse's vocals deliver a sweet soulful emotion that jives perfectly with a groove that would make Rod Temperton proud. And don't forget the heavy drum break at the end. CA$H BONU$ is bringing the boogie heat to your feet for real.

Vector Lovers has remained a firm favourite of the underground electronic music scene cognoscenti and holds a coveted place among the most hallowed of record shelves, and with good reason. Since the early 2000s Martin Wheeler has explored a sparse audio wasteland in order to develop a new sonic palette that looks outward to electro, IDM and ambient.

After self-releasing a handful of his own productions on the Iwari label, Wheeler’s career defining album was signed by British label Soma in 2005, leading to the first great revival of 90s IDM. Capsule for One' was an unrivalled masterpiece that perfectly synthesised the heritage of the Hardcore Continuum with renewed airs and degree of clarity that ushered in a new millennia and sound. It arrived as a worthy successor to the venerated Warp artists of the time, while embracing new panoramas and technologies.

Capsule for One' is a melancholic album, with an almost cosmic spirituality that provokes daydreaming. From its opening track 'City Lights From a Train' it welcomes the listener onto an infinite journey at the speed of light, connecting the past, present and future, folding time and space and painting neon cities populated by cyborgs. The album reaches its zenith with 'Melodies and Memory', featuring Wheeler’s very own voice, which has arguably become one of this century’s greatest electronic ballads to date. In fact, the impact of 'Capsule for One' was such that Tracey Thorn commissioned him to produce her song 'Easy', from the album 'Out of the Woods' Virgin, 2007.

For its forthcoming release on Lapsus Records, Martin Wheeler has remixed each and every song on 'Capsule for One', as well as adding two previously unreleased tracks 'A Simulation' and 'Perfect Score', both produced around the same epoch. This extra special release, with artwork redesigned by Josep Basora, features a double marbled vinyl and a limited edition insert print.

New Studio Album after long 8 years! Produced by Jack Endino in Chile and Mastered by Tony Cousins (The Verve, The Stone Roses) at Metropolis Studios U.K, Lacquer cut by Richard Simpson (Beck, Flamin’ Groovies, Lou Reed). After 8 long years The Ganjas returns with a new studio album, a joint production between Jack Endino and the band. Like the 2012 album ‘Resistance’, this LP combines sounds and styles that have marked the band since its inception; long space rock songs, neo grunge guitars, Manchester-reggae rhythms, and ballads with R&B vocal harmonies. For fans of: Sundial, Keith Richards, The Stone Roses, Swervedriver
A job that very well summarizes the more than 20 years of uninterrupted career. After the compilation album ́Ghost River ́ (2015) and having finished the European tour in September of the same year, the drummer changed, the long-lived founder Aldo Benincasa left and Nes entered, who had already replaced him on a couple of occasions. In March 2017 they embark on a trip to El Médano a mountain refuge that is on the border between Chile and Argentina, and in there for several days they shaped the songs that gave life to this album. Then, in 2018, Jack Endino, an old acquaintance of the group, travels from Seattle to Santiago to record 10 songs with different nuances and colors, lyrics in English and Spanish, radio cuts and long durations, rock, groovy and power ballads, at Estudios Lautaro. The album has songs like ‘America’ and ‘Ex-Pilot’ an opening and closing of almost 10 minutes in a cadenced and hypnotic groovy march, spatial and psychedelic in the purest style of The Verve's A Northern Soul album. While ‘Space Trees’ and ‘10.000 Años’ are short, powerful, fast and acid songs with the grunge and alternative rock stamp that sounded in the 90's, nothing to envy to Sundial and Swervedriver. There is room for Manchester-reggae moments in ‘New Berlin’, an instrumental dance song that was born in that city thanks to the collaboration with Andrés Bucci and ‘Listen To The Lion’, a trippy and deep Dub-Reggae cut. R&B ballads have always been part of the group's work and on this album they stand out with ‘Generation’, the title that gives the album its name, with a sound reminiscent of Keith Richards solo songs and the emotional nirvana-esque ‘Far Along The Way’. The mix was carried out in 2019 between Seattle and Santiago de Chile, during upheaval and social protests as a result of the October outbreak and was mastered in 2020 at the Metropolis studios in the U.K. by Tony Cousins, an engineer who had already worked with The Verve and The Stone Roses, influences recognized by The Ganjas. Due to the pandemic the release was postponed to the end of 2022. For the likes of: Sundial, Keith Richards, The Stone Roses, Swervedriver. Genre: Alternative / Indie

'Acabou Chorare' is the second album from Novos Baianos, a legendary band who formed in Bahia, Brazil in the 1960’s. They are considered to be one of the most important and revolutionary groups in Brazilian music.

'Acabou Chorare’ was originally released in 1972 by Som Livre after the success of their first LP 'É Ferro na Boneca’ in 1970. It was both a hit and a cultural milestone and rightly considered to be one of the most important and influential albums of all time, charting at number one in a Rolling Stone Brazil's 'Top 100 Brazilian Albums Ever’ chart.

'Preta, Pretinha’ placed 20th in the same publications list of the greatest Brazilian songs of all time. Upon release, 'Acabou Chorare' stayed near the top of the album charts for more than thirty weeks and received huge radio support across the country. It also became very popular in Europe shortly afterwards.

The unique sound of this record is a result of the fusion of samba, MPB, rock and bossa nova, and strong influences from Gilberto Gil (who frequently played with the group), as well as bossa nova legend, Joao Gilberto.

Our 50 Years Anniversary edition is a celebration of this wonderful record and features a neon yellow and transparent curaçao split vinyl, gatefold sleeve, A2 colour poster and OBI Strip.

Los Angeles Free Music Society (LAFMS) formed in the mid-1970s as a loose-knit experimental music collective and multimedia publishing vehicle. Founded by teenage Le Forte Four members Chip Chapman, Joe Potts and Rick Potts and soon joined by Tom Recchion of Doo-Dooettes, LAFMS incorporated free improvisation, modular synthesizers, tape music, sampling, musique concrète, homemade instruments, noise, mail art and avant-rock in permissive and anarchic sessions at the Raymond Building and Poo-Bah Record Shop in old Pasadena. Inspired by The Residents, LAFMS self-released records and periodicals, organized performances and connected with fellow outsiders via post in the years before punk. Their uninhibited, egalitarian ideal of music-making and DIY distribution would influence generations of underground musicians.

Poo-Bah Records, with its import bins and backroom jam space, attracted the pseudonymous artists forming the initial incarnation of long-running collective Smegma. Early members Ju Suk Reet Meate, Dennis Duck, Cheez-it Ritz, Big Dirty, Amazon Bambiand Dr. Id contributed to various LAFMS compilations and combinations before several core members relocated to Portland, Oregon in 1975, where they recorded their debut album Glamour Girl 1941. Originally released on the LAFMS label in 1979, the LP combines rock instrumentation with tape, synthesizer, horns and voice in a tempestuous cauldron of anti-academy improv and alien noise. Beyond its roots in LAFMS, Smegma would help shape the early Portland punk scene in the late '70s alongside Wipers and Neo Boys. In more recent years, they have collaborated with Merzbow and Wolf Eyes.

This first-time vinyl reissue is limited to 500 numbered copies. Comes with insert.

Limited Metallic Silver Vinyl is exclusive to INDIE STORES. "Money Mouse Records moves effortlessly into the neon-hued vibes of 80's boogie culture with their latest 7" offering from Nashville's CA$H BONU$. Made up of some familiar faces from Music City's funk and soul movement, Andrew Muller and Nick DeVan are joined by Amber Woodhouse who lends her powerfully silken vocals to the mix. With the addition of Pittsburgh's synthesist maestro, BusCrates, along with Muller's deftly executed production flourishes; this record goes straight to the sweet spot of post-disco lushness. "Got Me Thinkin Tonight" is designed for the late-nite dancefloor aficionados, taking cues from some of the era's greats and shaking things up into something new and heaving. The synth work and beats weave together with Woodhouse's amorous lyrics to create a dancefloor jam that sounds just as at home in 1982 as it does in 2022. That magic is repeated on the B-side with "Joy & Pain" a straight up hustler of a track, with a driving drums and heady arrangements that, again, are meant to get the dancefloor churning. Woodhouse's vocals deliver a sweet soulful emotion that jives perfectly with a groove that would make Rod Temperton proud. And don't forget the heavy drum break at the end. CA$H BONU$ is bringing the boogie heat to your feet for real!"

Limited Metallic Silver Vinyl is exclusive to INDIE STORES. "Money Mouse Records moves effortlessly into the neon-hued vibes of 80's boogie culture with their latest 7" offering from Nashville's CA$H BONU$. Made up of some familiar faces from Music City's funk and soul movement, Andrew Muller and Nick DeVan are joined by Amber Woodhouse who lends her powerfully silken vocals to the mix. With the addition of Pittsburgh's synthesist maestro, BusCrates, along with Muller's deftly executed production flourishes; this record goes straight to the sweet spot of post-disco lushness. "Got Me Thinkin Tonight" is designed for the late-nite dancefloor aficionados, taking cues from some of the era's greats and shaking things up into something new and heaving. The synth work and beats weave together with Woodhouse's amorous lyrics to create a dancefloor jam that sounds just as at home in 1982 as it does in 2022. That magic is repeated on the B-side with "Joy & Pain" a straight up hustler of a track, with a driving drums and heady arrangements that, again, are meant to get the dancefloor churning. Woodhouse's vocals deliver a sweet soulful emotion that jives perfectly with a groove that would make Rod Temperton proud. And don't forget the heavy drum break at the end. CA$H BONU$ is bringing the boogie heat to your feet for real!"

Green Vinyl

Föllakzoid are nearly unparalleled in the hypnotic lysergic drenched neo-psychedelic experience. On their debut it is mostly a rather bulky one, determined by the downright dirty, distorted electric guitar, which is also usually accompanied by a spacey, howling and herbaceous howling one. In addition, there is fat bass and powerful drums. During the prolific post-napster musical era dominated by myspace, the Chilean musical field opened up so that many bands could broaden their creative spectrum by taking global and timeless references as an aesthetic holy grail. This experimentation had the internet and specialized forums as a search engine, which not only provided the world parameters in trends, but also allowed to find true hidden gems, bands that were adored by a few connoisseurs of the real quality left behind by the record labels. In this context, a group of university students who have known each other from school began to rehearse in the Caracol Vip underground (Santiago, Chile), in a room owned by a local heavy-metal legend, Juanzer. Equipped with tube amplifiers, Marshall and other custom made, the members of that time: Gonzalo Laguna on vocals, Juan Pablo Rodriguez on bass, Domingo García-Huidobro on guitar, Diego Lorca on drums and Francisco Zenteno on second guitar, they began to play endless jams without a strict sense of songs or directed compositional notion. The rule was to follow the noise in a journey through valleys and peaks that allowed the spontaneous appearance of textures, lyrics, phrases and some invented chords that did not resemble anything that had been heard at that time. The rehearsals were transformed into true live performances without an audience, which were only seen by a few curious, among alcohol, smoke and deafening noise, which could only end when the owner of the room (Juanzer) entered to turn off the equipment. Over time he himself stayed as an auditor, witnessing how the musicians stripped themselves in their rehearsals. Considered at that time as play or fun, the idea of forming a band with a name came with the real live performances to which they were invited, without yet having songs made, at the end of 2006. The myth of their first live performance alludes to a numerical superstition, on July 7, 2007, in a small bar in Providencia (Santiago), which also provided the band with an upward recognition for the psychedelic-punk music they were doing, with a voracious vocalist who destroyed everything on stage and a band that stood firm on the endless songs they built. The name that was invented for that occasion was the result of a nonsense about the German word feuerzeug brought to the group by their close friend Alfredo Thiermann (who would later make the cover of the first album and become keyboardist), which the members of that time took and Spanishized at will. This neologism represents the second founding myth of the band since the interest in bands like Can, Neu! and AMON DUUL II and the characteristic motorik rhythm would soon arrive, in the form of kosmische musik. By 2008 the band had already added several live performances and some songs appeared, among which were Directo al Sol and Loop (nod to the English band), which allowed a greater deployment of ambient-noise resources, almost close to the 'concrete' music. The deconstructed rock of Spacemen 3 was also present in the form of repeated sequences on the bass and drums, as the layers of shrill guitars formed the foam of the tide bursting in the darkness of space. With the ideas and general feeling of the sound that they already had, the band made the decision to record their first album with the sound engineer and Juan Pablo's brother, Ignacio 'Nes' Rodríguez, who later together with JP would form the BYM label to make the first CDs of the forthcoming debut of Föllakzoid and other bands that Nes was recording. Sheltered that winter in the studio that Nes had built in an old house in Recoleta, the band recorded the bulk of the songs on the album with a new jam that emerged in that room composed of 1 note and moments of rising intensity: Sky Input I and II appeared to complete a set of songs that came from rock but were slowly passing to a level of trance and cacophony typical of orchestrated and atonal music. With three takes per song but only one take of the jam, the album was finished with a few extra takes and overdubs, some made in the house of Nes himself, who contributed a guitar to Loop, although it does not appear in the credits, and additional takes of "Pelao" Zenteno with delay and reverse for almost all songs. The names of the songs came from the lyrics that Laguna had worked from the live versions to the studio finals, except for Loop, Sky Input and El Humo. The cover of the album, which as mentioned was made by Thiermann, represents well the spirit of those days, when creative magma looked for an outlet through the instruments without any restriction or explicit direction from any of the members of the group. The image of the tree towards the sky speaks of the roots that rise towards the immensity, the nature projected towards the stratosphere. Ideas that the neo-psychedelia of those years seemed to capture well, echoing in the Chilean bands that at that time were gathering around the BYM label. Both the creative fluency and the lack of a musical director ensured that Föllakzoid was an original band that did not impose themselves a way of doing things or sounding, collective music took shape in the most wonderful way, without characters, without a record name, without faces. Just an instant in space. 2022 GALAXY GREEN coloured vinyl

While frontman Tom Greenhouse’s off-kilter observations and bizarro anecdotes remain front and centre, this time round the band up their game with a more vigorous sound that keeps pace with Greenhouse’s wholly distinctive lyrical style. Greenhouse continues to revel in telling increasingly surreal short stories, rejoicing in the power of the deadpan one-liner and bedecking his songs with far-flung cultural references. But now the band employ a variety of techniques with improved pro- duction, from the impulsively bashed keyboards and jubilantly repetitive guitar stabs that have be- come their trademark, to flirtations with–heaven forbid!–melody, chord progressions and arrangements which elevate their tried-and-tested blueprint into a more exciting and cohesive whole.

Opener Musicians is the perfect embodiment of this conscious development. Here, Greenhouse re- counts a sarcastic tale of half-truths that see him galavanting around town trying to put a band to- gether. Sonically, it begins with a caustic callback to the group’s first EP Crap Cardboard Pet and its über-minimalist aesthetic. But by the end of the song a joyous festival of afrobeat-inspired in- struments including samba whistles, bongos and saxophones are added to the mix as the front- man, ironically, fails in his mission to recruit more players.

With Get Unjaded, the band have somehow conjured something close to pop, without abandoning the repetition and wit that’s relished by their early fans. I Lost My Head also adopts a jangle-pop sheen with a luscious synth melody, as the frontman ditches the spoken-word for a surly croon (his first known attempt at actual singing!) that provides a welcome breather from the onslaught of dense recantations that are the band’s bread-and-butter.

While the lyrics here are still often humorous and political, Greenhouse has also notably expanded his interests on this album to include a new host of topics. The influence of extraterrestrials, for ex- ample, infiltrates the subject matter frequently. On The UFOs, the mysterious protagonist Blinkus Booth’s isolationist lifestyle is apparently interrupted by the spectres of otherworldly visitors, while closer The Neoprene Ravine feels like an extract from a deep space rock opera. Here, jaunty and angular instruments pile-on as we are fed images of an interstellar Spinal Tap, the titular fictional band “The Neoprene Ravine” who are “the alien equivalent of the Velvet Underground” and include an alien Lou Reed yelping “too busy sucking on my little green ding dong!”.

Meanwhile, Hard Rock Potato is propelled by a vortex of keys and synths, a real noise-pop gem comprised of real guitar chords (!) and rock-orientated riffs. Here the stream-of-consciousness lyrics take shots at the sinister financial industry, and include one of the many top-tier one-liners on the album: “It’s not gambling if you’re wearing a tie (even if you’ve got no trousers on)”.

On Sod’s Toastie, The Cool Greenhouse have pushed their distinctive flavour of post-punk to the point of perfection – their incongruous riffs, alchemical instrumental chemistry, and irreverent spo- ken-word vocals are a delight throughout. Sod’s Toastie is hilarious at times, and at others just hilariously good – a not-so-difficult second album.

Yellow and black splatter

While frontman Tom Greenhouse’s off-kilter observations and bizarro anecdotes remain front and centre, this time round the band up their game with a more vigorous sound that keeps pace with Greenhouse’s wholly distinctive lyrical style. Greenhouse continues to revel in telling increasingly surreal short stories, rejoicing in the power of the deadpan one-liner and bedecking his songs with far-flung cultural references. But now the band employ a variety of techniques with improved pro- duction, from the impulsively bashed keyboards and jubilantly repetitive guitar stabs that have be- come their trademark, to flirtations with–heaven forbid!–melody, chord progressions and arrangements which elevate their tried-and-tested blueprint into a more exciting and cohesive whole.

Opener Musicians is the perfect embodiment of this conscious development. Here, Greenhouse re- counts a sarcastic tale of half-truths that see him galavanting around town trying to put a band to- gether. Sonically, it begins with a caustic callback to the group’s first EP Crap Cardboard Pet and its über-minimalist aesthetic. But by the end of the song a joyous festival of afrobeat-inspired in- struments including samba whistles, bongos and saxophones are added to the mix as the front- man, ironically, fails in his mission to recruit more players.

With Get Unjaded, the band have somehow conjured something close to pop, without abandoning the repetition and wit that’s relished by their early fans. I Lost My Head also adopts a jangle-pop sheen with a luscious synth melody, as the frontman ditches the spoken-word for a surly croon (his first known attempt at actual singing!) that provides a welcome breather from the onslaught of dense recantations that are the band’s bread-and-butter.

While the lyrics here are still often humorous and political, Greenhouse has also notably expanded his interests on this album to include a new host of topics. The influence of extraterrestrials, for ex- ample, infiltrates the subject matter frequently. On The UFOs, the mysterious protagonist Blinkus Booth’s isolationist lifestyle is apparently interrupted by the spectres of otherworldly visitors, while closer The Neoprene Ravine feels like an extract from a deep space rock opera. Here, jaunty and angular instruments pile-on as we are fed images of an interstellar Spinal Tap, the titular fictional band “The Neoprene Ravine” who are “the alien equivalent of the Velvet Underground” and include an alien Lou Reed yelping “too busy sucking on my little green ding dong!”.

Meanwhile, Hard Rock Potato is propelled by a vortex of keys and synths, a real noise-pop gem comprised of real guitar chords (!) and rock-orientated riffs. Here the stream-of-consciousness lyrics take shots at the sinister financial industry, and include one of the many top-tier one-liners on the album: “It’s not gambling if you’re wearing a tie (even if you’ve got no trousers on)”.

On Sod’s Toastie, The Cool Greenhouse have pushed their distinctive flavour of post-punk to the point of perfection – their incongruous riffs, alchemical instrumental chemistry, and irreverent spo- ken-word vocals are a delight throughout. Sod’s Toastie is hilarious at times, and at others just hilariously good – a not-so-difficult second album.

Ultramarine & Anna Domino meet again for a reworking of their collaborative track '$10 Heel'.

The song originally appeared on the Ultramarine album Signals Into Space (Les Disques du Crépuscule, 2019). $10 Rework replaces the urgent, jittery rhythm of the original with a straighter House backbone and then proceeds to disassemble the structure with a pair of freestyle, hands-on-the-desk, on-the-fly dub mixes.

Anna Domino's stream-of-consciousness lyrics tell the impressionistic tale of post-club after-hours chaos in Times Square, NYC circa 1979. Anna raps off studio equipment brand names like passing neon signs glimpsed in a blur through a taxi cab window.

Iain Ballamy wields his saxophone like a graffiti artist with a spray can; scrawling and skronking across the canvas. Ric Elsworth lurks in a side alley, unraveling a trash can monologue of wild flamming bongos.

Ultramarine is the UK duo of Ian Cooper & Paul Hammond. Formed in 1989, their albums include Every Man and Woman is a Star (Rough Trade, 1991), United Kingdoms (w/ Robert Wyatt) (Blanco Y Negro, 1993) and Signals Into Space (w/ Anna Domino) (Les Disques du Crépuscule, 2019).

Anna Domino is an American musician based in LA and NY, best known for her classic run of releases on Belgian label Les Disques du Crépuscule in the 1980s and '90s.

Iain Ballamy is a composer and saxophonist; a member of the Loose Tubes collective in the 1980s and more recently with several albums to his name on ECM.

Ric Elsworth is UK-based percussionist and vibraphone player.

Futurismo are proud to present a deluxe remastered vinyl package of the classic 1980 album: Red Exposure by the uncompromising Chrome.

Arguably considered the San Francisco bands greatest work, Red Exposure, the fourth album to feature core members Damon Edge

and Helios Creed, was the definitive version of Chrome’s idiosyncratic approach to sound: a projected vision of near future dystopia via an undefinable guise of experimental space rock and punk-tinged alien soundscapes. Here, the band simultaneously draw from the otherworldly noises of their past records, whilst pushing their synthesizers forward into, albeit oblique, pop song structures.


Edge’s vocals are structured more like an instrument than a voice, lyrics painting images of humanities future on the edge of total destruction. As Creed’s guitar work multilayersit’s way into a completely different aural spectrum, beautiful yet violent, slashing against rhythmic pulsations, loops and experimentations, to create a sound that even today feels beyond the here and now. This distillation of the bands repertoire seemed to envision a deconstruction of rock ‘n’ roll, aimed to break past the shell of cliché that it would of course eventually come to inhabit. Which is why despite it’s age Red Exposure remains a record that still sounds like the sonic product of a far off civilisation, making this disk of new wave nihilism vital for fans of Space rock, Krautrock, Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire and Suicide.

The deluxe remastered version of this out of print 1980 LP is presented here in ltd edition coloured vinyl. It comes packaged in a chromed mirrorboard sleeve, contains a large screen printed poster printed with neon ink featuring unseen photographs of the band, and a bonus track.

Dark-folk songwriter Chantal Acda and beyond drums-percussion musician extraordinaire. Eric Thielemans propose a new score for Koyaanisqatsi, re-actualising the incredibly beautiful, raw, rhythmic and touching images of this 80’s cinematographic masterpiece. Slow deep electric waves, lonely synths in sonic desert landscapes, rhythmic pulses, transporting drums and bells, and deeply longing sounds and voices make up the audible fundamentals of this imagined, neo shamanic, ritualistic music to accompany the Earth as it keeps on supporting our post human frenetics even today. This release contains a selection of the musical material scored for a live performance together with the screening of the movie. The live performance premiered on Film Festival Gent and Vooruit in the fall of 2022. Tracklisting LP SIDE A 1 Koyaanisqatsi Part I / 23'36 SIDE B 2 Koyaanisqatsi Part II / 13'00 3 Koyaanisqatsi Part III / 10'48

'Swooping, sub-heavy sci-fi from Riz Maslen. Leda Maar is a new moniker for the established artist who’s released a crop of downtempo and electronic music as Neotropic and Small Fish With Spine, as well as collaborated with the likes of Future Sound of London, filmmaker Andrew Kötting, and featured in PSP-era Grand Theft Auto soundtracks.

Mana’s long lasting love of Riz’s 1996 Laundrophonic EP, released under her Neotropic name, spurred this new release. That 12” was a deep and dark web of rhythm and ghostly urban found sound that one Discogs reviewer aptly named “coin-slot Dubstep”. With elements mostly sourced from tape recordings made in and of her local laundromat, it still stands out as a remarkably contemporary feeling work; more like a post-Fisher, post-hauntology observation of urban life from the last decade, taking the ambient temperature and undercurrent pressures of the 90s. Asking if she had anything in continuity with this slice of her discography, and describing our interest in her take on “space and bass”, Maslen returned to us with Stairway 13.

Heavy-lidded and ethereal in long form, the album’s balance of bass weight, mechanical metre, and darkly tinted new age feels like a cinematic re-approach to some of the textures, moods, and themes of Laundrophonic. Originally designed for an installation, Stairway 13 folds in her decades’ experience in sound design and theatre, along with shards and elements abstracted from her more recent folk-like music, zoning into a deep, retreated, altogether dreamlike and expansive atmosphere. The scale and soundscape is reminiscent of Geinoh Yamashirogumi and their Ecophony album series, resonating to similar frequencies and exploring themes of chaos and re-birth in feature-length form.

Stairway 13’s four parts spread and swoop as single extended sides across this double LP. Carried by waves of sub bass and heavenly chorus, and later punctuated with autonomic clicks of machinery, whirrs, and pulses - sometimes reminiscent of FSOL’s weirder and more clipped staccato sampling in sections of their cyberpunk ISDN - the work forms a gothic, otherworldly ambience. A subtle space opera.'

The first album of Web Web is very uncut, raw, live and direct. Oracle is the first output of a German Supergroup. Check the musician credits below and you'll get the score. The initial idea was to record a spiritual-jazz type of album, with all its imperfection as far as intonation, sound, influences of tunes... just like from their big jazz-heroes in the 70ies (e.g. Strata East, Black Jazz).

Web Web's idea was to record a jazz jam session while to found and proclaim being a fictive band, a formation, which did not exist, while telling people, it would be a secret jam session recording of the Seventies. The prompt problem they were facing: Oh, we never would be able to play concerts, doing interviews, or placing photos on sleeves or post likeness images online. So they decided to reveal their real identities:

Web Web are: Roberto Di Gioia (Piano, Synth, Percussion), Tony Lakatos (Tenor- and Sopranosaxophone), Christian von Kaphengst (Upright Bass) and Peter Gall (Drums).

Roberto Di Gioia (Mastermind of Web Web): - The four of us set up very close in a big room, so we could hear and feel each other the best way. The music became more intensive, improvisations became more dynamic and it was impulsive .

The album Oracle' was recorded on one day, only first takes were used!

We want to keep the burning spirit and the loose vibe we had during the recording session. And we play concerts the wild and free way we recorded this album. Web Web will be on tour 2018, but playing a few concerts in 2017.
Furthermore, one main decision to blab their real identities was: The second Web Web album is recorded in June (with guests like the famous and unique Gembri-player and multiinstrumentalist and singer Majid Bekkas from Morocco).
Both albums were engineered, recorded and mixed by Jan Krause (Beanfield, Poets Of Rhythm).

Roberto Di Gioia: - Tony was tuning his Soprano too high, and his (overdubbed) tenor way too flat!
My synthesizers were somewhere in between...HA! We exactly had the sound we had in our minds, we had it exactly there were we wanted it: a bit of Sun Ra here, a bit of Horace Tapscott there. On some tunes Tony's soprano just sounds like a trumpet, since due to his weird tuning the soprano develops different frequencies in relation to other instruments.

Oracle' is the first live jazz release on Compost. Produced by Roberto Di Gioia and Michael Reinboth.

Roberto Di Gioia has been working with numerous jazz-legends, such as Woody Shaw, Art Farmer, James Moody, Johnny Griffin, Charlie Rouse, Clifford Jordan, Clark Terry, Roy Ayers, Gregory Porter and many more.

From 1990 to 2008: member Klaus Doldingers Passport. As a pianist he made recordings with Udo Lindenberg (MTV-Unplugged, 2011), Charlie Watts ( Music Of The Rolling Stones , 2005), Console ( Reset The Preset , 2003), The Notwist ( Shrink 1998, Neon Golden , 2002). Since 2007 he is working together with Samon Kawamura and Max Herre as KAHEDI: Max Herre ( Hallo Welt , 2012), Joy Denalane ( Gleisdreieck , 2017), u.v.m...His own group MARSMOBIL (produced by Peter Kruder) will release his fourth studioalbum in winter 2017.

Tony Lakatos originates from the world famous Lakatos-familiy from Budapest, Hungary. His father was a famous violinist, as well as his younger brother Roby. He started playing saxophone when he was 15 years old. Tony studied at the Bela-Bartok-Conservatory in Budapest, and made his degree in 1979. Since then he played on over 350 jazz albums (!!), to name a few: Al Foster, Kirk Lightsey, Randy Brecker, George Mraz, David Witham, Terri Lyne Carrington, Anthony Jackson. Tony was a member of Jasper Van´t Hofs PILI PILI. Since 1993 he is working with the HR Radio-Bigband as a soloist.

Christian von Kaphengst learned the piano at the Peter-Cornelius-Conservatory in Mainz when he was 6 years old. From 1988 to 1995 he studied upright-bass at the - Musikhochschule in Cologne. He was touring with his own Jazzquartett - Cafe du Sport to Pakistan, India, Turkey and West-Africa. Since 1999 he regularly plays with Patti Austin and The New York Voices in Europe. Von Kaphengst played with the greatest musicians, such as Randy Brecker, Nat Adderley, Roy Hargrove, Joe Sample, Charlie Mariano, Katja Ebstein, Xavier Naidoo, Roachford, Yvonne Catterfeld.

Peter Gall won some important German awards already when he was a youngster, like - Jugend Jazzt . He was touring with the famous - Bundesjazzorchester conducted by German jazz legend Peter Herbholzheimer. He studied at the Berlin University Of Fine Arts and at the Jazz Institute Berlin with John Hollenbeck. Gall made a masterclass at the Manhattan School Of Music with John Riley. He has been working with Seamus Blake, Ben Street, Gabriel Rios, Jasmin Tabatabai, Thomas Quasthoff, Peter Fessler.

Limited edition picture disc in full colour printed sleeve

Covered In Stars featuring members of Luna, Spacemen 3, Slowdive, Spectrum, Add N To (X), The Vacant Lots, Spiritualized, Slipstream and more.

This is a wonderfully colourful, beautiful fun and powerfully transcendent album by Fuxa, Featuring driving drum machines, gritty fuzz bitten guitars on The Sun Is Shining and Mary, 80's neon midnight post-punk disco grooves on Shadazz and perfectly blissed out floating in space vibes (Help Me Please and Cluster Fuxa). The synths shimmer and elevate, guitars attack and sparkle and the vocals deliver dark romanticism which evoke often David Cronenberg inspired fantasies such as photographs of car crashes, crushes on perfect strangers and unknown futures. 
 - Simon Scott (Slowdive)


Fuxa returns in 2022 with a new album  'Covered In Stars'
 
Eight new songs and several years in the making, of what can best be described as a full on sonic explosion. Mixing space-rock elements, krautrock rhythms, punchy beats and swirling electronic sweeps and beeps that would make for a perfect soundtrack for any warp speed travelling cosmonauts with phasers set to fun!!
 
For the past 25 years Fuxa front man Randall Nieman has no doubt been on a cosmic journey in sound and space. from his early beginnings a part of Detroit locals Windy and Carl as a guitarist/synth player, running and releasing close to 100 releases on his own label Mind Expansion, to later joining Sonic Boom's (Spacemen 3) group Spectrum for close to a decade. Performing the songs that Spacemen taught him touring across North America and Europe as well as recording and releasing several releases with Sonic under the Spectrum moniker. 
Randall has since worked with and released numerous amounts of material with the likes of Martin Rev (Suicide), The Telescopes and Dean and Britta (Luna) to name a few.
 
It is no surprise that Randall would once again build this new album with friends that he became close to over the years musically and there's certainly no shortage of indie royalty star power on this album
 
Produced by Randall Nieman, Richard Formby and Stefan Persson.
Mastered by Simon Scott (Slowdive)
This album features guest appearances from Britta Phillips and Dean Wareham (Luna), Ann Shenton (Add N to (X)), Mark Refoy and Jonny Mattock (Spiritualized, Slipstream), Roger Brogan (Spectrum/Dean Wareham), Jared Artaud (Vacant Lots) and more! Each adding an unmistakable and timeless element that Fuxa's core members have created. 
It would be hard not to notice the sheer aesthetic glory of this release as once again Randall has chosen the amazing James Marsh (most would remember him as the phenomenal artist responsible for all the Talk Talk albums over the years. His artwork is not only featured on the jacket but on both sides of the limited edition picture disc vinyl.
Covered in stars is a celebration of 25 years of music and friendships made along the way. 

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Fuxa! 

Ghent based psych jazz collective Compro Oro, are set to release new album 'Buy The Dip' on the 2nd September via the groove-obsessed Sdban Ultra label. Having received critical acclaim for their 2020 album 'Simurg' - a collaboration with Murat Ertel, co-founder and frontman of Istanbul's cult psychedelic folk band BaBa ZuLa and his singer partner Esma Ertel - the band's fifth album is less ethno- and more techno-logy, both on a musical and conceptual level.

With tastemaker fans including BBC 6 Music's Gilles Peterson and Stuart Maconie alongside Jazz FM's Jez Nelson, the band's spontaneous quest for psychedelic sounds and jazz grooves has not stopped expanding since their formation in 2014.

After imaginative musical trips to Havana, Mogadishu and Istanbul for previous releases, Compro Oro went looking for sounds and inspirations from other corners of the globe for 'Buy The Dip'. Synthesizers and electronic effects spice up Compro Oro's distinctive musical marriage of vibraphones, electric guitars, jazzfunk rhythms, exotic percussions and dubby bass patterns. Band leader and composer Wim Segers created these new compositions often on piano or vibes in a more analogue way, leaving enough room for his band mates to colour each track when fine tuning the song.

Segers was inspired by the world of crypto markets and the specific concept of 'buying the dip': bitcoin diggers who play the markets at specific 'low' moments to gain higher profits when prices go up again. Are we all reduced to consuming creatures, seeking for nothing more than the thrill of pointless spending and endless profits? It's a fairly philosophical question - especially for an instrumental album - but it's key for the punchy and eclectic sounds on 'Ben Hur' and 'Bitcoins'.

Apart from those synths and fx, a fair bunch of neo-noir western vibes sprout up on this album as well - think detuned piano's, flamenco-like guitars, rattling snare drums, and imminent whistles. Add to that some laid back sunny pop sounds ('Kayak'), off-hook and swaying Turkish psychedelica ('Karsilama') and even some haunted, kraut-ish vocal parts ('Dungeon'), it's evident Compro Oro has a musical voice without any equal in Belgium and beyond.

Compro Oro released their first album 'Transatlantic' in 2015, an ode to jazz vibraphonist Cal Tjader, an icon of the 1950's Latin jazz movement. The release received critical acclaim back home, lauded in the press as a drunken mix of Buena Vista Social Club and guitarist Marc Ribot's, Cubanos Postizos. Subsequent live shows have been called a celebration for the hips, the ear and the soul.

2017 saw the release of 'Bombarda', a bold EP that sailed South and East of Cuba, incorporating different ethnic rhythms and melodies in elaborate jams. No palm trees and cocktails in Havana this time, but instead dingy basements and LSD in West African cities. The critically acclaimed 'Suburban Exotica' followed in 2019 with 'Simurg', released in 2020, earning the band global success.

Dark-folk songwriter Chantal Acda and beyond drums-percussion musician extraordinaire Eric Thielemans propose a new score for Koyaanisqatsi, re-actualising the incredibly beautiful, raw, rhythmic and touching images of this 80-ties cinematographic masterpiece. Slow deep electric waves, lonely synths in sonic desert landscapes, rhythmic pulses, transporting drums and bells, and deeply longing sounds and voices make up the audible fundamentals of this imagined, neo shamanic, ritualistic music to accompany the Earth as it keeps on supporting our post human frenetics even today. This release contains a selection of the musical material scored for a live performance together with the screening of the movie. The live performance premiered on Film Festival Gent and Vooruit in the fall of 2022.

Currently based in Belgium, Dutch-born Chantal Acda (b. 1978) has worked under the Sleepingdog moniker since 2006, making three acclaimed albums that closed on the 'With Our Heads in the Clouds and Our Hearts in the Fields' (2010) album for which she collaborated with Adam Wiltzie (Stars of the Lid, A Winged Victory For The Sullen). They toured the UK and Benelux with Low in 2011. After all this, it was time for her first real solo record. Playing in various formations (Isbells, True Bypass, Marble Sounds) had made her conscious of the patterns that we all, as humans, share in. So, she sought out kindred spirits with whom she might record an album filled with freedom and intensity, and who were conscious of the patterns we so often fall back on. Nils Frahm was the first of these to cross her path. The inventive German pianist and producer is an intense and adventurous performer and was a perfect match for it. Acda also experienced a direct bond with Peter Broderick, a multi-instrumentalist known from his solo work (on labels such as Bella Union and Erased Tapes) and from his work with, among others, Efterklang. Cellist extraordinaire Gyda Valtysdottir from Icelandic group Múm had previously worked with Chantal as a member of the Sleepingdog live band. And lastly, Shahzad Ismaily stumbled into this picture by chance, but when Acda and he found themselves in the same room they formed an instant rapport. After this first record, 3 other solorecords followed. Chantal kept on searching for a deeper connection with the outside world and recorded "The Sparkle In Our Flaws" (2015) and "Bounce Back" (2017). She also released some live recordings with her band and also Bill Frisell, a highly respected jazz guitarist.(2018). These records were released on the German label Glitterhouse. Chantal and her band toured with these records in Europe. In 2019 Chantal created her first music/theatre performance P_wawau for Oerol Festival, The Netherlands. She worked with Valgeir Sigurdson (Björk, Bonnie Prince Billy,...) and singers from Het Nederlands Kamerkoor. As a result of this, she released the recorded music: Puwawau (2019). In 2021 Chantal released her most recent album Saturday Moon. (2021) For this album she worked with her band (Eric Thielemans, Alan Gevaert, Gaetan Vandewoude and Niels Van Heertum) but also with Bill Frisell, Shahzad Ismaily and Mimi and Alan Sparhawk (Low). Saturday Moon was very well received, internationally, by the press.

Eric Thielemans is a drummer and percussionist. Travelling across music scenes and disciplines, Thielemans navigates by means of his own compass. Most known for his resonant solo works like a Snare is a Bell, Sprang, Aural Mist and Bata Baba Loka and many collaborations with musicians in the experimental music scene, as well as the Jazz scene, and indie folk/pop/rock scenes Thielemans keeps on pushing the borders and expanding conscious aural spaces and territories. Recently, Thielemans has collaborated with PVT - a trio together with Mika Vainio & Charlemagne Palestine (album released April 2020) , PAT - a new trio together with Oren Ambarchi and Charlemagne Palestine, A new duo together with Oren Ambarchi, Billy Hart ("Talking about the Weather"), Chantal Acda ("The Sparkle in our Flaws", "Bounce Back", "Puwawau", "Saturday Moon"), Marshall Allen (Sun Ra), Tape Cuts Tape, Distance Light & Sky, Jozef Dumoulin, Trevor Dunn, Shahzad Ismaily, Vaast Colson, Nico Dockx, and many more. Currently Thielemans is working on r-e-s-o-n-a-n-c-e , a culminative work that encompasses and brings to the surface the underlying currents within his life in and with music. Withing r-e-s-o-n-a-n-c-e he investigates the everyday magic through conversations, writing and score writing to invite as many souls as possible to experience and co create the magic in the everyday.

Deluxe 180gram vinyl edition comes in a foil-embossed and die-cut cardstock jacket with printed inner sleeve and additional 12x12 art cards featuring the collages of Maciek Szczerbowski. All the art interacts with the die-cut jacket framing. Edition of 300. Rooted in a distinct and immediately identifiable sound_with the cello of Rebecca Foon (Saltland, Set Fire To Flames, Thee Silver Mt Zion) and the marimba of ex-Godspeed You! Black Emperor percussionist Bruce Cawdron at its core_Esmerine has long embroidered emotive chamber works using threads of post-classical, post-rock, Minimalism, neo-Baroque, jazz, pop and a wide array of folk traditions. Multi-instrumentalist Brian Sanderson, who joined the group in 2012, has furthered Esmerine's melodic and ethnomusicological sensibility ever since, expanding the ensemble's palette as its third core member with guitars, ngoni, ekonting, hulusi, brass horns of all sorts, and more. Since 2003, six stately and filmic instrumental albums have inscribed compositional landscapes through epigrammatic miniatures, longform multi-movement chronicles, and all manner of evocative musical prosody between. Marked by an inimitably turbid yet tempered pastoralism, alternately lit by dappled dawn and disquieted dusk, Esmerine's musical narratives balance asceticism and romanticism, melancholy and hope, stillness and wanderlust. Esmerine now shares Everything Was Forever Until It Was No More, its seventh full-length album and first in five years. The band surprise-dropped the full album digitally on 06 May 2022, with the CD and Deluxe 180gram LP editions hitting stores on official release date 26 August 2022. Following an acclaimed run of mid-career records on Constellation through the 2010s_the last three of which have all been finalists or winners of Juno Awards for Instrumental Album of the Year and/or Album Packaging of the Year_Esmerine began working on new music at decade's end. Under the auspices of a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts, and a summer 2019 residency at Le Château de Monthelon (an artist commune in France where the band has cherished long-standing spiritual, creative, and personal connections), compositional seeds were planted_and then pandemic rooted everyone in place. In between lockdown waves, at the respective rural Québec homesteads of Cawdron and Foon, longtime co-producer Jace Lasek (The Bernard Lakes) began capturing the band in various stripped-down configurations with spartan remote equipment. More fulsome arrangement and overdub sessions at Foon's converted barn during the summer of 2021 brought the album to full fruition_where a notable increase in the use of acoustic piano also poured forth, with just about every band member having a go. The record also signals the definitive integration of bassist Philippe Charbonneau_having joined Esmerine as a touring member pre-pandemic, he plays throughout the album on upright and electric bass, with turns on piano and synth, as well as sound design contributions via tape echo and other processing. Everything Was Forever Until It Was No More grapples with the existential tensions between atmosphere and airlessness, seclusion and claustrophobia, forbearance and coalescence. In many ways it is one of Esmerine's most restrained records. Only a few passages are driven by full percussion. There is palpably less Sturm and Drang or overt crescendos compared to its recent predecessors. The new album roils with a different sort of dynamic intensity, where instrumental densities ebb and flow within an overtonal centre, melding into each other with gauzy timbral warmth, sometimes tracing fleeting tendrils outwards, but always rotating around a saturnine gravitational force. Everything Was Forever Until It Was No More is like a dark forest lit by a closely-orbiting opalescent planet; it could be the alternate score to Von Trier's Melancholia or Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

(Cargo Collective Title) RIYL: Silver Mt Zion, Rachel’s, Grails & Do Make Say Think. 180g LP, custom window-cut letterpress jacket with artworked 300gsm inner + DL. Esmerine presents Everything Was Forever Until It Was No More, its first album in five years, following a celebrated run of Juno Award winning and nominated records throughout the preceding decade. Founded by ex-Godspeed You! Black Emperor percussionist Bruce Cawdron and cellist Rebecca Foon (Saltland, Silver Mt Zion, Set Fire To Flames), the acclaimed instrumental music ensemble and has long embroidered emotive chamber works using threads of post-classical, post-rock, Minimalism, neo-Baroque, jazz, pop and a wide array of folk traditions. Esmerine conjures a distinctive and immediately identifiable sound that consistently defies the trappings of “fusion”, forging emotive cinematic soundtracks under the overriding sonic sensibilities of postpunk grit, Wall-of-Sound, drone and dark ambient. Recorded by longtime co-producer Jace Lasek (The Besnard Lakes), the new album manifestly carries on in this fine tradition. Everything Was Forever Until It Was No More completes Esmerine’s “Anthropocene” triptych: a series of album-length meditations that began in 2015. The album title itself has minor meme status in eco-artistic circles, appropriated from its original context Alex Yurchak’s 2005 book about the collapse of Soviet Russia by several exhibitions and works interrogating artistic production in the age of environmental crisis. (Foon is also well-known for her climate activism as co-founder of Pathway To Paris.) The album grapples with existential tensions between atmosphere and airlessness, seclusion and claustrophobia, forbearance and satiation, scarcity and abundance; it is one of Esmerine’s most restrained and wistful works. Instrumental densities ebb and flow, melding into each other with gauzy timbral warmth, sometimes tracing fleeting tendrils outwards, but always rotating around the saturnine gravitational force of a darkly glowing sonic center. Everything Was Forever Until It Was No More is like a somber forest lit by a closely-orbiting opalescent planet; it could be the alternate score to Von Trier’s Melancholia or Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.Esmerine planted these compositional seeds before pandemic rooted everyone in place, under the auspices of a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts and a 2019 residency at Le Château de Monthelon in France. Lasek then began documenting the band between lockdowns in various stripped-down configurations with spartan remote equipment at the rural Québec homesteads of Cawdron and Foon, culminating in final sessions at Foon’s converted barn in summer/fall 2021, notably with extensive use of the barn’s resonant acoustic piano. Brian Sanderson appears on his fourth Esmerine album since joining in 2012, continuing to expand the ensemble’s ethnomusicological sensibility and melodic sound palette with guitars, ngoni, ekonting, hulusi, and brass horns of all sorts. Everything Was Forever… also signals the full integration of bassist Philippe Charbonneau, who joined Esmerine as a touring member pre-pandemic and plays throughout the new album, along with sound design contributions via synth, tape echo and other processing. Everything Was Forever Until It Was No More features the pandemic collage artwork of Maciek Sczcerbowksi, in a second Esmerine album art collaboration following their Juno award for Album Package of the Year for Lost Voices in 2015.

Ghent based psych jazz collective Compro Oro, are set to release new album 'Buy The Dip' on the 2nd September via the groove-obsessed Sdban Ultra label. Having received critical acclaim for their 2020 album 'Simurg' - a collaboration with Murat Ertel, co-founder and frontman of Istanbul's cult psychedelic folk band BaBa ZuLa and his singer partner Esma Ertel - the band's fifth album is less ethno- and more techno-logy, both on a musical and conceptual level.

With tastemaker fans including BBC 6 Music's Gilles Peterson and Stuart Maconie alongside Jazz FM's Jez Nelson, the band's spontaneous quest for psychedelic sounds and jazz grooves has not stopped expanding since their formation in 2014.

After imaginative musical trips to Havana, Mogadishu and Istanbul for previous releases, Compro Oro went looking for sounds and inspirations from other corners of the globe for 'Buy The Dip'. Synthesizers and electronic effects spice up Compro Oro's distinctive musical marriage of vibraphones, electric guitars, jazzfunk rhythms, exotic percussions and dubby bass patterns. Band leader and composer Wim Segers created these new compositions often on piano or vibes in a more analogue way, leaving enough room for his band mates to colour each track when fine tuning the song.

Segers was inspired by the world of crypto markets and the specific concept of 'buying the dip': bitcoin diggers who play the markets at specific 'low' moments to gain higher profits when prices go up again. Are we all reduced to consuming creatures, seeking for nothing more than the thrill of pointless spending and endless profits? It's a fairly philosophical question - especially for an instrumental album - but it's key for the punchy and eclectic sounds on 'Ben Hur' and 'Bitcoins'.

Apart from those synths and fx, a fair bunch of neo-noir western vibes sprout up on this album as well - think detuned piano's, flamenco-like guitars, rattling snare drums, and imminent whistles. Add to that some laid back sunny pop sounds ('Kayak'), off-hook and swaying Turkish psychedelica ('Karsilama') and even some haunted, kraut-ish vocal parts ('Dungeon'), it's evident Compro Oro has a musical voice without any equal in Belgium and beyond.

Compro Oro released their first album 'Transatlantic' in 2015, an ode to jazz vibraphonist Cal Tjader, an icon of the 1950's Latin jazz movement. The release received critical acclaim back home, lauded in the press as a drunken mix of Buena Vista Social Club and guitarist Marc Ribot's, Cubanos Postizos. Subsequent live shows have been called a celebration for the hips, the ear and the soul.

2017 saw the release of 'Bombarda', a bold EP that sailed South and East of Cuba, incorporating different ethnic rhythms and melodies in elaborate jams. No palm trees and cocktails in Havana this time, but instead dingy basements and LSD in West African cities. The critically acclaimed 'Suburban Exotica' followed in 2019 with 'Simurg', released in 2020, earning the band global success.

10x12inch bundle + book

What is going on here then? Well, digging through the ever shrinking tunnels in the cave system that is our warehouse we come across many forgotten ore and metal deposits that silently beg to be unearthed. Since we are not the beroerdste, we reckon it's about time to put some of these on offer to you, the unsuspecting consumer. And we have hit the jackpot in this case! For a limited time only (and as long as stock lasts) we offer 10 (yes TEN) records from the vast Creme Organization back catalogue + a copy of the glorious Godspill Artwork Book for just 50 (yes FIFTY) Smackeroonies! Which titles you will get will be a surprise, so take a chance take a chance boys & girls and all shades inbetween, cause here's a breath of fresh air in these times of inflation and global uncertainty! Love, the management.

How can music be violent when it's not loud? When is malice beautiful? Amidst the gloom, listening to Chalk is a restorative experience. Neophobia is a meditative saga which, despite the name, radically embraces the aesthetics and methods of post-modernity. In between identical gamelan pieces, Chalk weaves an abrasive collage of sounds and musics that touch on peace punk, musique concrete, & American primitive. Neophobia explores the schizophrenia and horror of living in the contemporary era, an odyssey with an indeterminate point of departure or return. Chalk is an amorphous musical project orchestrated by Barry Elkanick (Institute, Blue Dolphin) While this is Barry's 'solo project' he regularly invites friends, other musicians and artists to accompany him. Under 'Chalk' Barry has self-released 8 cassettes since 2015. While wildly ranging in recording techniques & approach, the cassettes have informed and culminated in the final sound present on "Neophobia" which is his first LP for Post Present Medium. Barry wrote and recorded "Neophobia" independently out of his home in Houston, TX on computers and tape machines. LP limited to 300 copies, includes poster.

Italo disco meets Balearic ethno-funk in the third installment of re-edits from DJ collective Siffleur. Side A is your leftfield, sensual 80s nostalgia, your introspective, post-multiverse ‘club tropicana’. Side B will take you on a dreamy night-journey through city streets where love is a pink neon light.

After more than two decades flexing his muscles on the local underground scene and gaining a legendary cult status on his Tenerife home turf, the island’s most famous postman, as he’s affectionately known by his consorts, Tomás de la Rosa aka Postman breaks radio silence to bulldoze his way through the canyons surrounding his hometown of Santa Cruz into an unknown and unsuspecting world. We present thus, Postman’s first ever album of original bangers, micro chopped two steppers and rage induced breakbeat anthems.

Constructed over the course of global confinement, Seeds of Light marks a return to creative activity from the man who regularly delivers your post (its not just a random artist name). Postman aka Tomás de la Rosa has taken his time, compiling sketches and unfinished songs, rummaging through the deep ends of his hardrive, stitching early production sketches with recent compositions, revising, reediting and rebuilding with a more mature and concise attitude, eventually completing, almost unintentionally, the perfect self referential retrospective album. Far from being just a compilation album, Tomás managed to create an explosive document, suspended in time, in which styles are intertwined regardless of fashions and fads – letting go of the ‘modern’ or ‘up to date’ burden - so common these days in electronic music.

It is not an easy album, like many of his previous work it demands extra attention to experience the full crystallization of his complex sound structures. We find ourselves in front of a truly surgically precise work of art whose result comes as a waterproof war machine, refined and incisive, resonating deep with soul and groove.

Postman develops his sound palette throughout the album from very basic sound snippets into a concrete dance world of synthetic sounds eventually creating a parallel reality where J. Dilla could be living in Chemnitz instead of Detroit and releasing records for a label called Raster-Throw. Glitch sampladelics!

Incursions into Grime are also abundant with nods to the ineffable East Man, reunions with his beloved Funkstörung or many other stimulating revisions of lifelong genres and breaks populate this multidimensional sound space, see soul, dancehall, breakbeat, two step and the UK hardcore continuum.

Special mention to the magnificent fluid artwork by the very talented Catalan visual artist Alba de Corral. A still photo from one of her kinetic AI systems programmed directly in code, which matches perfectly the essence of Postman's brutalist alien sound.

Vinyl limited to 200 copies

Deluxe Edition / LP+Poster

Back in 2017, Moderat announced that they’d be taking an extended break following a final concert in front of 17.000 people in their hometown of Berlin. And now they return. MORE D4TA, the group’s fourth album, arrives more than six years after its predecessor (2016’s III). Created largely during a time when touring (and most traveling) was off the table, MORE D4TA is an album that wrestles with feelings of isolation and information overload—issues that have become particularly pronounced over the past two years. The ten songs on MORE D4TA are rooted in collaboration, but long before any of its tracks were laid down, Moderat spent months hanging out and getting musically reacquainted, indulging in extended bouts of experimentation and slowly fleshing out ideas as they dove into modular composition, field recordings and other sonic oddities.
But no matter how far the band ventures into music’s outer realms, they always wind up back in their own unique soundworld, a place where emotive pop and fluttering electronic soundscapes walk hand in hand. Many of its lyrics are rooted in Ring’s frequent trips to Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie museum (often with his infant daughter in tow), where he’d seek refuge in the great paintings of the past while worrying about the future.
What they make isn’t necessarily dance music, but it is something that shines brightest in the dark of night, the group’s rich melodies and Ring’s ethereal vocals emitting a warm, almost bioluminescent glow. After spending the better part of two decades making music together, they’ve carved out a sound and aesthetic that are all their own, and MORE D4TA showcases a group that’s creatively recharged and fully dedicated to its craft.

Toro y Moi siebtes Studioalbum MAHAL ist die bisher wohl kühnste und faszinierendste Reise des musikalischen Masterminds Chaz Bear. Mit einer weiten Spannbreite zwischen Genres und Sounds - vom zotteligen Psychedelic Rock der 1960er & 1970er hin zum luftigen Sound des Mod-Post-Punks der 90er-Jahre - nimmt das Album die Hörer*innen mit auf eine musikalische Expedition, in der sie im Rücksitz von Bears philippinischen Jeepney, der auch das Albumcover ziert, Platz nehmen können. So ist MAHAL ein unverwechselbares Toro y Moi-Erlebnis, welches in Verbindung zu seinen vorigen Werken steht und dennoch einen ganz neuen Weg einschlägt, wie es nur Bear tun kann. Seit der Veröffentlichung des bahnbrechenden Electronic Pop-Albums Causers Of This 2009, hat Toro y Mois Alben stets die Idee, was sein Sound sein könnte, weiterentwickelt. Dennoch findet sich in Bears Backkatalog nur wenig, das einen auf die Deep Groove-Exkursion auf seinem bisher vielfältigsten Album MAHAL vorbereiten könnte. Mit den ersten Tönen des Albums werden wir direkt in den Beifahrersitz gesetzt, umgeben von den Motorengeräuschen des Jeeps und bereit für die Fahrt, die Chaz und seine Gefährten für uns geplant haben. Einige der 13 Tracks auf MAHAL - das Wort für Liebe in der auf den Philippinen gesprochenen Sprache Tagalog - finden ihre Anfänge in der Zeit um das deutlich rockigere What For? aus dem Jahr 2015. So liefert das neue Album eine ganz klare Antwort und spannt den Bogen: What For? - For Love. MAHAL wurde größtenteils letztes Jahr in Bears Studio in Oakland in Kollaboration mit Künstler*innen wie Sofie Royer, Unknown Mortal Orchestras Ruban Neilson, Alan Palomeo von Neon Indian sowie The Mattson 2 fertiggestellt. "I wanted to make a record that featured more musicians on it than any other record of mine," erklärt Bear. "To have them live on that record feels grounded, bringing a communal perspective to the table." Im Resultat ist MAHAL üppig und voller Überraschungen - sei es durch das locker lässige "The Loop", das an Sly and The Family Stones erinnern lässt oder dem elastischen Psych-Rock bei "Foreplay" sowie der schwindelerregenden Mulatu Astatke-Anlehnung bei "Last Year".

Toro y Moi siebtes Studioalbum MAHAL ist die bisher wohl kühnste und faszinierendste Reise des musikalischen Masterminds Chaz Bear. Mit einer weiten Spannbreite zwischen Genres und Sounds - vom zotteligen Psychedelic Rock der 1960er & 1970er hin zum luftigen Sound des Mod-Post-Punks der 90er-Jahre - nimmt das Album die Hörer*innen mit auf eine musikalische Expedition, in der sie im Rücksitz von Bears philippinischen Jeepney, der auch das Albumcover ziert, Platz nehmen können. So ist MAHAL ein unverwechselbares Toro y Moi-Erlebnis, welches in Verbindung zu seinen vorigen Werken steht und dennoch einen ganz neuen Weg einschlägt, wie es nur Bear tun kann. Seit der Veröffentlichung des bahnbrechenden Electronic Pop-Albums Causers Of This 2009, hat Toro y Mois Alben stets die Idee, was sein Sound sein könnte, weiterentwickelt. Dennoch findet sich in Bears Backkatalog nur wenig, das einen auf die Deep Groove-Exkursion auf seinem bisher vielfältigsten Album MAHAL vorbereiten könnte. Mit den ersten Tönen des Albums werden wir direkt in den Beifahrersitz gesetzt, umgeben von den Motorengeräuschen des Jeeps und bereit für die Fahrt, die Chaz und seine Gefährten für uns geplant haben. Einige der 13 Tracks auf MAHAL - das Wort für Liebe in der auf den Philippinen gesprochenen Sprache Tagalog - finden ihre Anfänge in der Zeit um das deutlich rockigere What For? aus dem Jahr 2015. So liefert das neue Album eine ganz klare Antwort und spannt den Bogen: What For? - For Love. MAHAL wurde größtenteils letztes Jahr in Bears Studio in Oakland in Kollaboration mit Künstler*innen wie Sofie Royer, Unknown Mortal Orchestras Ruban Neilson, Alan Palomeo von Neon Indian sowie The Mattson 2 fertiggestellt. "I wanted to make a record that featured more musicians on it than any other record of mine," erklärt Bear. "To have them live on that record feels grounded, bringing a communal perspective to the table." Im Resultat ist MAHAL üppig und voller Überraschungen - sei es durch das locker lässige "The Loop", das an Sly and The Family Stones erinnern lässt oder dem elastischen Psych-Rock bei "Foreplay" sowie der schwindelerregenden Mulatu Astatke-Anlehnung bei "Last Year".

Toro y Moi’s seventh studio album, ‘MAHAL’, is the boldest and most fascinating journey yet
from musical mastermind Chaz Bear. The record spans genre and sound - encompassing the
shaggy psychedelic rock of the 1960s and ‘70s, and the airy sounds of 1990s mod-post-rock -
taking listeners on an auditory expedition, as if they’re riding in the back of Bear’s Filipino
jeepney that adorns the album’s cover. But ‘MAHAL’ is also an unmistakably Toro y Moi
experience, calling back to previous works while charting a new path forward in a way that only
Bear can do.
 ‘MAHAL’ is the latest in an accomplished career for Bear, who’s undoubtedly one of the
decade’s most influential musicians. Since the release of the electronic pop landmark ‘Causers
of This’ in 2009, subsequent records as Toro y Moi have repeatedly shifted the idea of what his
sound can be. But there’s little in Bear’s catalogue that will prepare you for the deep-groove
excursions on ‘MAHAL’, his most eclectic record to date.
 The second the album begins we’re immediately transported into the passenger seat, jeep
sounds and all, ready for the ride Chaz and company have concocted for us. Seeds of some of
‘MAHAL’s 13 songs date back to the more explicitly rock-oriented ‘What For?’ from 2015.
 ‘MAHAL’ was mostly completed last year in Bear’s Oakland studio with the involvement of a
host of collaborators, Sofie Royer and Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s Ruban Neilson to Neon
Indian’s Alan Palomo and the Mattson 2.
 “I wanted to make a record that featured more musicians on it than any other record of mine,”
he explains. “To have them live on that record feels grounded, bringing a communal
perspective to the table.” As a result, ‘MAHAL’ is lush and surprising at every turn, from the
cool-handed ‘The Loop’, which recalls Sly and the Family Stone, to the elastic psych rock of
‘Foreplay’ and the dizzying Mulatu Astatke-recalling of ‘Last Year’.
 Lyrically, the album zooms in on generational concerns, picking up where the ‘Outer Peace’
standout ‘Freelance’ effectively left off. Bear seems to be surveying the ways in which we
connect with technology, media, each other, and what disappears as a result. Cuts like the
squishy ‘Postman’ and ‘Magazine’ take a deep dive into our relationship with media in a
changing digital world. “It’s interesting to see how we adapt to this new age. We’re so
connected, but we’re still missing out on things,” Bear ruminates while discussing the album’s
themes.
 It’s not all introspection. Bear cools things down near the album’s end with the Mattson 2-
featuring ‘Millennium’, a laid-back jam with tricky guitar licks about ringing in new times even
when everything else seems upside down. “It’s about enjoying the new year, even when it’s
been shitty,” Bear explains. “There’s nothing else to do.”
 Finding a sense of joy in the face of adversity is embedded in ‘MAHAL’s DNA, right down to the
jeepney that literally and figuratively brings the music out into the community. “We know that
touring is messed up for now, and large gatherings are a fluke,” he explains. “It’s about the
notion of us going out to the people and bringing the record to them.” And with the wide-open
atmosphere of ‘MAHAL’, Toro y Moi stands to connect with more listeners than ever before.

In March 2020, Tahiti 80 had a plan to start recording their new album in the studio. That plan, of course, along with everything else in the world, got derailed. But the five-piece group was resilient and resourceful. They quickly shifted to a socially distanced plan B that included file swapping and virtual sessions, all refereed by producer Julien Vignon. The result, due for release in March 2022, is the buoyant Here With You, a collection of eleven upbeat songs that unfold like a prescription for a post-pandemic panacea.

“When lockdown in France happened, we said, 'We're not going to stay at home not doing anything,'” says singer-guitarist Xavier Boyer. “And our new plan became a hopeful thing, waking up every morning and seeing what the other guys had worked on. It wasn't always easy, but this new method allowed a freer approach where we could really go all the way with an idea without being influenced by each other’s suggestions. It must've been overwhelming for Julien, who ended up selecting all our arrangements. But he stayed positive all the way through.”

To help stay inspired and focused during their time in isolation, the band created a mood board, with the centerpiece a photo of an early '90s rave in the UK.

Boyer says, “Whenever you see pictures from this era, people seem very innocent. There are no cell phones and everybody is in to what they are experiencing. We kept that picture in mind as a kind of mantra that would help everyone feel connected to this idea of people celebrating, gathering and just having fun. We were missing the connection with people, and thought it would be great if we could create music that would inspire that kind of emotion.”

Indeed, the songs on Here With You are brimming the feeling of communion that we've all been missing over the past two years. It's there in the catchy opener Lost in the Sound, which walks the walk with Chic guitar flicks, urban nightfall sparkles and an inviting chorus (“Your heart grooves like a thousand 808s on the right time”). It's there in the Jackson 5-style syncopated bounce of “Vintage Creem,” the lush, dreamy “Breakfast in L.A.” and the panoramic sweep of “UFO.” And it's there in the first single “Hot,” which matches an irresistible groove with a neon-lit, percolating arrangement that evokes the disco clubs of 1979.

What's remarkable is that though Tahiti 80 displays a clear affection for sounds of the past, from bubble gum to '70s soul, they never trade in mere pastiche. Their take is more a slightly warped and playful carnival mirror mash-up of classic pop styles, given depth through Boyer's hang-gliding, coolly emotive vocals and lyrics that often rub against the euphoric grain of the music.

“I like to think of songs as a three-minute drama,” says Boyer. “This concept of drama definitely adds different levels to our music. There's the melody, the lyrics, then the production that can maybe emphasize or counterbalance the interaction between the yin and yang in a song.

“There's a difference between the very upbeat, sunshine-y soft rock and the lyrics, even on our past albums,” he continues. “Not dark, but a little more melancholy, and also looking for some kind of motivation, talking to yourself. Like with a lot of Motown songs, you get that feeling where you body’s dancing while your mind’s reflecting, reminiscing.”

That alluring blend of happy-sad has been a signature part of the Tahiti 80 sound from the time Boyer and bassist Pedro Resende formed the group in 1993, as students at the University of Rouen. Taking their name from a souvenir t-shirt given to Boyer's father in 1980, the duo recruited guitarist Mederic Gontier in 1994, and with the addition of drummer Sylvain Marchand a year later, the lineup was complete. The foursome released a self-produced and self-financed EP, 20 Minutes, in 1996, which resulted a record deal with French label Atmospheriques in 1998. Their full-length debut Puzzle, produced with Ivy's Andy Chase and mixed by Tore Johansson, went gold and featured the international hit “Heartbeat” that established the band throughout Europe and Asia.

In the years since, Tahiti 80 – with the additions of Raphaël Léger on drums and Hadrien Grange on keys - has released eight acclaimed albums. The band has fused what MOJO called a “glorious entente of old and new technology” (including singles like “Yellow Butterfly,” “1000 Times,” “Sound Museum,” “Crush!” and “Big Day,” which was featured on a FIFA video game soundtrack), while collaborating with such producers and arrangers as Richard Swift, Tony Lash and Richard Anthony Hewson, who famously arranged The Beatles' “Long and Winding Road.” Boyer has also put out two solo albums, the first under the anagram Axe Riverboy and the second under his name. In 2019, the band released Fear of an Acoustic Planet, a stripped-down reimagining of some of their best-loved tracks from the previous twenty years. It served not only as a look back but a reminder of their formidable songwriting skills.

Boyer is definitely a student of the timeless three-minute pop song format pioneered by '60s artists like The Beatles and The Beach Boys. He says, “I see it as kind of a frame for a painting. Most of the songs on this album, I wrote a verse, pre-chorus and chorus. There aren't many middle eights. I wanted it to be very concise. I feel like people have less attention. There's so much music. It's too easy to switch off or skip to another track, so I want to hook the listener. The three-minute song is kind of an easy code to crack, but at the same time you have to figure out a new way to tell the stories that we've heard before.”

And the stories on Here With You are very much about the longing for connection. Of the album title, Boyer says, “In the world right now, that can mean a lot of different things. Like missing our fans, missing going to concerts. In a way, it can be a statement of what happened last year, and a wish of 'I want to be here with you again.' It's our ninth album. We've had some had some very open, conceptual titles like Puzzle, Activity Center. Sometimes they were more specific like Fosbury orWallpaper for the Soul. Here with You, seems more personal, more engaging in terms of relationships. When I suggested that title, everyone in the band said, 'Yeah, that's it.'”

Until Tahiti 80 can resume a full tour schedule, Boyer says he hopes the new record will make that personal connection. “If I see from the point of view as a music fan, sometimes I see albums I like as companions throughout my life. So if we can be a part of people's existence, even if it's a song that reminds them of the time they were driving with the windows open and it was sunny. Or a sad song that resonates with them after a breakup. That's what we're all looking for when we're making music. You do this very personal thing and you want it to touch as many people as possible.”

A globetrotter in the most pure and respectful sense, away from the trappings of neo-colonialist ventures and predatory tourism, Discrepant head honcho Gonçalo F. Cardoso returns to his Island impression series to offers us another glimpse of his deep, abstract impressions of (an)other island.

After passionately collecting the sounds and lives inhabiting the main Island of Zanzibar, Unguja, released through Edições CN back in 2018, Cardoso now dwells into the Malaysian heartbeat of the Borneo forest through Island recordings made during a trip in 2016. Assembled in situ with meticulous craft from portable recorders, samplers and battery powered synths, these nice recollections conjure the spirits that lurk behind the inhabitable and the communal that are as much part of a personal memoir as an impressionistic portrait open to new meanings. Focused compositions that flow organically, bending the environment in & out of shape into a new dreamlike exotica with plenty of breathing room for every detail, silence and movement to surface.

A particular moment suspended in time, haunted perpetually by its bygone existence. Something no postcard or photograph could ever, ever come even close to.

This is Lost Soul Enterprises big 15th release on wax, a tidy compilation of off-kilter dance floor cuts and misfit synthpunk anthems.

Side A commences with the gothic, neon-soaked Miami bass of ALONZO's "Cruising with Pap," featuring sinister verses delivered by a shadowy syrupsipping secret guest vocalist. Up next is bucking bronco NICK KLEIN's slow-mo industrial headbanger "Posture Test. The sonic equivalent of a sweat-soaked concrete floor, it lurches along at its own mechanical pace amid the metallic hiss and howl. Lastly, wild synth lines and ethereal dubbed-out samples dart in and out over a tough, punchy rhythmic foundation in NAEEM's "TLX," an android's sci-fi electro vision gone haywire.

On the B side, HEIDI SABERTOOTH's "Was It You" launches us deep into chugging acidic territory, combining enigmatic spoken vocals and a psychedelic, slowly evolving SH-101 line over a persuasive groove. Like a slap in the face after that comes raucous synth-punk powerhouse SSPS with "Paradise Lozt," raw as fuck, chanting a litany of dystopian tales atop pumping drums and a wash of demented organ-like synth stabs. Finally we close with the short but powerful "New Vape City" by the nomadic DOUCE ANGOISSE - an absolute earworm, a doleful coldwave ballad whose lush production plays perfect counterpoint to the icy, deadpan sentiments within.

From the shadows of Slovenia, Shadow Universe is an instrumental music project, creating breathtaking cinematic soundscapes from post-rock, neoclassical/ambient and post-metal elements. Their third album, Subtle Realms, Subtle Worlds is released on 11 March 2022 worldwide on Monotreme Records. Formed in 2017 by Peter Dimnik and Žan Šebrek, Shadow Universe merge contrasting textures of shimmering ambient soundscapes and heavy anxious darkness to portray the diversity of nature and life on earth and beyond. Subtle Realms, Subtle Worlds: Every person experiences the world differently, which puts us into our own unique bubbles, subtle worlds. Subtle Realms, Subtle Worlds finds the band turning their songs into living, breathing ecosystems, carefully dissecting every moment of peace and chaos alike. The album sees the building particles of the universe as separate worlds, with their own story, perception, rules and individual inner realm. Opening track Organism, which portrays the coherence of forming organisms; from a vast universe itself down to the tiniest building particles of it, sets the tone with its slow, tense build to crushing, exhilarating peaks. Don’t Look at It and You’ll See It evokes free-flowing spontaneity through beautiful cascading piano and emotive violin, towering guitars, and soaring synths. Masterfully harnessing both the quiet and the loud, Hymn for the Giants glorifies our almighty and precious trees, with moments of calm cut apart by vast swathes of brutal, yet considered, cacophony. Losing Home’s portentous, droning synths and trumpet ratchet up the suspense, while on Antares Goes Supernova the band carve out layer upon layer of affirming and effecting riffs, each one more powerful than the last. Season of Eternal Maze wraps up the album with a meditative piano and harmonium, wide guitar driven melodies and guides you to your inner maze.