quête:prolific

Red vinyl LP. Lars Finberg, confirmed genius guy and poet laureate of sunken 21st century Rock, acts as manager in perpetuity of THE INTELLIGENCE, primary vehicle for his prolific creative swirl and a project that has taken on new shapes across myriad trials and shifts. The project began in his Seattle bedroom – a lad and his Tascam cassette 8 track – with the classic Boredom & Terror and has now landed in his Los Angeles studio apartment – an urchin and his Tascam digital 12 track – with Lil’ Peril, a new album that finds Finberg 1000% back at the controls. Over the course of 11 albums (!), The Intelligence has established a backbone that boogies through revolutions, allowing each jam-crammed dispatch to feel and sound admirably unique. The angular sharp shocks heard in earlier years have steadily evolved into the ballooning grooves heard on more recent releases (including Finberg’s recent solo work). Lil’ Peril is a dreamy gamble that captures this current bubbling penchant in The Intelligence’s inaugural homemade mode. With inspirational templates as far-flung as LES PAUL, THE SPECIALS, LEE PERRY and MARY FORD, Lil’ Peril pulls off the absurd shift “from ‘No-Wave SANTANA’ to ‘SCREAMERS recorded by JON BRION’”. Playing shoulder parrot to studio engineers has no doubt informed Finberg’s approach to home recording, specifically in how much further he can go without wincing budget-minded eyes staring him down. This is immediately sensed on the opener “Maudlin Agency,” which begins with canned minimal bleep and closes with a full recreation of the “Brass Monkey” hook. These surprise-attack conclusions are a running current throughout the Lil’ Peril’s program and demonstrates that the main lesson Finberg has learned in The Intelligence is to never reel it in. Centerpiece banger “My Work Here Is Dumb” ranks among the finest Intelligence moments existent and an apex in Finberg’s songcraft, boasting a bonkers arrangement and a thematic gnaw that is both brutal and playful. The collection closes with the epic “Soundguys,” a suite cut-up that fuses CAN and STEELY DAN into one of the most dastardly tunes available for consumption in the plague age. As Finberg himself states, “They may say this is ‘lo-fi’, but I say it’s ‘no-CGI’”. “The band disintegrated, so it devolved back to the core idea: if I do every aspect, it’s indestructible.” 20 years on and Finberg has finally let everyone know what The Intelligence actually means! All those wily experiments and warm flubs have come back full circle and the shit’s pure goddamn gold. Proof positive that there is always some sort of cute trouble, farcical tragedy and Lil’ Peril at play with The Intelligence. - Mitch Cardwell, 2022. Tracklisting: 01 Maudlin Agency 02 70's 03 Keyed Beamers 04 Purification 05 My Work Here Is Dumb 06 Lil Peril 07 Frog Prints In Preset City 08 Portfolio Woes 09 Soundguys

Double Black vinyl LP. The first album from Twain released via Keeled Scales In 3 years and Twain’s first-ever double album. Major Guest in Big Thief’s Massive Double LP “Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You”. Matthew Davidson is a prolific contributor to beloved projects including Big Thief, whose latest album Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You features Davidson’s distinct contributions on six songs, as well as a current member of Buck Meek’s band. Davidson is also a former member of The Low Anthem, Spirit Family Reunion, and Deslondes and has toured with the likes of Langhorne Slim, Courtney Marie Andrews and more. He made his label debut as Twain with Rare Feeling in 2017. Twain's music resonates a transcendental weight, his performances reliably noted as raw and intensely emotional. The long-awaited album from Twain released via Keeled Scales is his first-ever double LP titled Noon. Twain’s first album in three years, Noon looks to explore the balancing exercise between soul-fantasy and self-scrutiny. The songs on Noon try to sit in the liminal state between the spirit’s ambition for itself and the often harsh truth of the present. The hope is to erode the barrier between those two states. ‘Twain’ is Mat Davidson’s approach to reconcile those two states, and to forget that they could ever exist in opposition.

Alex Chilton’s Feudalist Tarts (1985) found the Big Star/The Box Tops front man re-making himself as a southern fried hipster offering up original tunes like “Stuff” and sly soulful covers “B-A-B’Y” and “Thank You John” while adding a horn section to his road tested rhythm section. Side Two features a number of rare Chilton tracks including “Rubber Room” and “Wild Kingdom.” Chilton had hit rock bottom in his home town of Memphis after 15 years of substance abuse and hard partying. He chose New Orleans as the city where he would re-make himself. One of the benefits was exposure to all the music he would hear down there. He immediately immersed himself in the city’s laid back, stretched out grooves. The covers he chose for this record were songs he heard being played by older musicians around New Orleans. Expanded version includes a side of rare tracks. Out of print on vinyl since 1986. Includes seven original Chilton compositions. Original album release coincided with his most prolific touring schedule since his days in The Box Tops.

Chris Crack is back with a brand new album called Growthfully Developed. Fans and critics alike are already calling it the Westside Chicago native’s best album in the last few years. Pitchfork said “Crack’s latest album is a delicate balance of fresh and familiar from one of the funniest and most thoughtful rappers working today.” With song titles like “Pussy Better When You Eat It First” and “Shitting With The Door Open,” it’s no wonder why he’s said to have the best song titles in the game. Whether it’s heavy hitting 808’s, soul loops or head nodding boom bap Chris laces up the variety of beats with style and finesse. Praised by media outlets such as Billboard and Rolling Stone as well as by iconic hip hop artists such as Earl Sweatshirt and Madlib. Like the album title suggests, Chris has fully grown and developed to reach this point in his career and critics will believe that Growthfully Developed be looked back upon as a pivotal album in his prolific career. The 18 track effort is set to drop on vinyl this fall via Chong Wizard Records in partnership with Fat Beats. TRACKLIST: 1. I The Buck They Couldn’t Break 2. Chicago Don’t Make Industry Plants 3. Therapy Don’t Work, Try Drugs 4. Jordan Never Did That Move 5. Pussy Better When You Eat it First 6. Whoa Dair 7. Celebrate Everything Until Further Notice 8. Uknowwhereihadderat 9. Ate Ball in My Sock 10. Illuminati Phone Numbers 11. Shitting with the Door Open 12. Nine 2 Fives Make You Fake 13. Beer Just Bread in a Can 14. A Blunt Forced This Trauma 15. That Hate Us Because We’re Magic 16. Air Mattresses and Machine Guns 17. Weed is an Expensive Habit 18 . No Shortcut to Enlightenment

Since the late sixties Lee Fields has amassed a prolific catalog and has played and toured with such legends as Kool and the Gang, Sammy Gordon and the Hip-Huggers, O.V Wright, and many more. With a career spanning 43 years, it s mind-blowing that the music he s making today with Brooklyn s Truth & Soul Records is the best of his career. While drawing comparisons to The Moments, The Delfonics, The Stylistics, and of course James Brown, Faithful Man is able to create a space of it s own due to the group s desire to interpret and further the formulas of good soul music rather then imitate them. Chalk that up to Truth & Soul producers and co-owners Jeff Silverman and Leon Michels. These are the same individuals that co-wrote, produced, and played on Aloe Blacc s global smash I Need A Dollar, and have provided the back drop for records by Adele, Ghostface Killah, and Jay-Z to name a few. The older Fields becomes, the closer he gets to perfecting the sound of soul said DJ Oliver Wang about Fields in an NPR feature. Faithful Man is the next step towards perfection. A step that will find Lee Fields & The Expressions finally being bestowed the contemporary soul music crown.

Out of the Fog is a masterpiece of divine beauty and charm from the Norwegian composer / performer Daniel Herskedal featuring fellow Norwegian singer-songwriter Emilie Nicolas (4 Times Norwegian Grammy Winner - 2014: Pop soloist of the year and new artist of the year. 2018: Album of the year and pop artist of the year). Crafted with a warmth and awe-inspiring finesse, it’s the blend of Daniel’s unequivocally trademark sound of multi-layered brass, empowering harmonies and soaring melodic lines, with warmth and emotive power of Song and the collaboration with Emilie Nicolas that gives this album its uniquely defining quality. Having emerged in recent years as one of the most prolific and exciting Norwegian composers, Daniel is adeptly capable of straddling Jazz, Classical, soundtracks and now High-Art Pop as well as being a performer who has pushed his instrument beyond its limits. As a consequence it has earned him numerous awards and accolades including a Norwegian Grammy for Best composer and seen him write music for a global Coca Cola ad, the film (The Last Black Man of San Francisco), and the soundtrack for the 9/12 podcast (nominated for Best Score And Music Supervision at Ambie Awards) as well as his own acclaimed albums. Featuring legendary guitarist Eivind Aarset and percussionist Andreas Helge Norbakken, Out of the Fog is an astonishing album from Norwegian Jazz and Pop royalty, with music that is long-lasting and that leaves you wanting more and more. It’s breathtaking and powerfully moving.

Lee Fields is arguably the greatest soul singer alive today. In an age when the shelf life of an artist largely depends on posturing and trends, he has proven to be an unassailable force of nature. His prolific, decade-spanning career continues to reign supreme on the modern soul scene.

In early 2022, Lee reunited with Daptone Records and producer Gabriel Roth to record Sentimental Fool, a deep, blues-tinged, whollyconceived soul album. From his first line to his final plaintive lyric, the beauty, power, and raw humanity of Lee' s voice is on full display here; the culmination of an astounding career that has seemed to defy gravity, rising to only greater and greater heights.

Following their recent addition to the Prosthetic Records roster, multinational cybergrind quartet THOTCRIME are set to release their sophomore full length, titled D1G1T4L_DR1FT. With members hailing from Champaign-Urbana, IL, Philadelphia, PA and Nottingham, UK THOTCRIME’s prolific output to date has seen the band generate a buzz in online music communities and garner praise from Bandcamp Daily in the publication’s profile on the burgeoning cybergrind movement at large. D1G1T14L_DR1FT, the follow up to 2020s ønyøurcømputer, sees THOTCRIME continue to gleefully abandon genre convention in favour of boundless individuality and invention. Prosthetic debut LP from cybergrind curators/digital girls on your computer, THOTCRIME. D1G1T4L_DR1FT features collaborations with Pupil Slicer, Callous Daoboys, Dreamwell & Diana Gruber.

Following their recent addition to the Prosthetic Records roster, multinational cybergrind quartet THOTCRIME are set to release their sophomore full length, titled D1G1T4L_DR1FT. With members hailing from Champaign-Urbana, IL, Philadelphia, PA and Nottingham, UK THOTCRIME’s prolific output to date has seen the band generate a buzz in online music communities and garner praise from Bandcamp Daily in the publication’s profile on the burgeoning cybergrind movement at large. D1G1T14L_DR1FT, the follow up to 2020s ønyøurcømputer, sees THOTCRIME continue to gleefully abandon genre convention in favour of boundless individuality and invention. Prosthetic debut LP from cybergrind curators/digital girls on your computer, THOTCRIME. D1G1T4L_DR1FT features collaborations with Pupil Slicer, Callous Daoboys, Dreamwell & Diana Gruber.

The Discomfort Of Evening is the incredible and original soundtrack by prolific Belgian composer Michiel de Malsche to 2020 International Booker Prize winner The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld. Visceral and virtuosic, Rijneveld's novel follows Jas, a girl growing up in a devout Christian family that runs a Dutch dairy farm, whose brother dies in an accident after she wishes he would die instead of her rabbit. Lost in grief, her family falls apart as she becomes consumed by increasingly dangerous fantasies.

Michiel de Malsche has captured the atmosphere and spirit of Rijneveld's book perfectly, moving through moments of confrontation and introspection, sinking into spirals of despair, stasis and subtle hope and change. Brooding ambient basslines, driven by droning murmurs, are offset with melismatic electro-acoustic pieces that embody the novel's haunting and dissonant world, whilst also incorporating manipulated field recordings such as animal sounds and a church service, allowing for a full manifestation of Jas’s world in a completely new way.

De Malsche achieves this by rallying an unusual combination of acoustic instruments (16 in total) played by top-of-their-field musicians, creating a truly unique sound world and tonal palette, including an Ondes Martenot, a 7-stringed Chinese instrument called a guqin, a marimba, a string 6-tet, a toy piano and a bass flute.

De Malsche always confronts all emotional levels of his source material head-on, making his soundtrack into much more than just a fever dream. It is a precise description of, and accompaniment to, a devastatingly impactful book.
Michiel De Malsche is a Belgian composer, multi-instrumentalist and sound designer. He studied classical composition at the conservatories of Rotterdam and Ghent. His music has been performed all over the world and he has composed and produced dozens of soundtracks for contemporary dance, theatre, movies and documentaries.

Besides his work as a contemporary classical composer, he is active as a studio musician and producer in the world of electronic music.

Several things happened before a warm day when I met the four members of Frankie Cosmos in a Brooklyn studio to begin making their album. Greta Kline spent a few years living with her family and writing a mere 100 songs, turning her empathy anywhere from the navel to the moon, rendering it all warm, close and reflexively humorous. In music, everyone loves a teen sensation, but Kline has never been more fascinating than now, a decade into being one of the most prolific songwriters of her generation. She's lodged in my mind amongst authors, other observational alchemists like Rachel Cusk or Sheila Heti, but she's funnier, which is a charm endemic to musicians. Meanwhile Frankie Cosmos, a rare, dwindling democratic entity called a band, had been on pandemic hiatus with no idea if they'd continue. In the openness of that uncertainty they met up, planning to hang out and play music together for the first time in nearly 500 days. There, whittling down the multitude of music to work with, they created Inner World Peace, a collection of Greta's songs changed and sculpted by their time together. While Kline's musical taste at the time was leaning toward aughts indie rock she'd loved as a teenager, keyboardist Lauren Martin and drummer Luke Pyenson cite "droning, meditation, repetition, clarity and intentionality," as well as "'70s folk and pop" as a reference for how they approached their parts. Bassist/guitarist Alex Bailey says that at the time he referred to it as their "ambient" or "psych" album. Somewhere between those textural elements and Kline's penchant for concise pop, Inner World Peace finds its balance. The first order of business upon setting up camp in Brooklyn's Figure 8 studios was to project giant colorful slides the band had made for each track. Co-producing with Nate Mendelsohn, my Shitty Hits Recording partner, we aimed for FC's aesthetic idiosyncrasies to shine. The mood board for "Magnetic Personality" has a neon green and black checkerboard, a screen capture of the game Street Fighter with "K.O." in fat red letters, and a cover of Mad Magazine that says "Spy Vs. Spy! The Top Secret Files." On tracks like "F.O.O.F." (Freak Out On Friday), "Fragments" and "Aftershook," the group are at their most psychedelic and playful, interjecting fuzz solos, bits of percussion, and other sonically adventurous ear candy. An internal logic strengthens everything, and in their proggiest moments, Frankie Cosmos are simply a one-take band who don't miss. When on Inner World Peace they sound wildly, freshly different, it may just be that they're coming deeper into their own. Inner World Peace excels in passing on the emotions it holds. When in the towering "Empty Head" Kline sings of wanting to let thoughts slide away, her voice is buoyed on a bed of synths and harmonium as tranquility abounds. When her thoughts become hurried and full of desire, so does the band, and she leaps from word to word as if unable to contain them all. As a group, they carry it all deftly, and with constant regard for Kline's point of view. Says Greta, "To me, the album is about perception. It's about the question of "who am I?" and whether or not the answer matters. It's about quantum time, the possibilities of invisible worlds. The album is about finding myself floating in a new context. A teenager again, living with my parents. An adult, choosing to live with my family in an act of love. Time propelled us forward, aged us, and also froze. If you don't leave the house, who are you to the world? Can you take the person you discover there out with you?" - Katie Von Schleicher

Several things happened before a warm day when I met the four members of Frankie Cosmos in a Brooklyn studio to begin making their album. Greta Kline spent a few years living with her family and writing a mere 100 songs, turning her empathy anywhere from the navel to the moon, rendering it all warm, close and reflexively humorous. In music, everyone loves a teen sensation, but Kline has never been more fascinating than now, a decade into being one of the most prolific songwriters of her generation. She's lodged in my mind amongst authors, other observational alchemists like Rachel Cusk or Sheila Heti, but she's funnier, which is a charm endemic to musicians. Meanwhile Frankie Cosmos, a rare, dwindling democratic entity called a band, had been on pandemic hiatus with no idea if they'd continue. In the openness of that uncertainty they met up, planning to hang out and play music together for the first time in nearly 500 days. There, whittling down the multitude of music to work with, they created Inner World Peace, a collection of Greta's songs changed and sculpted by their time together. While Kline's musical taste at the time was leaning toward aughts indie rock she'd loved as a teenager, keyboardist Lauren Martin and drummer Luke Pyenson cite "droning, meditation, repetition, clarity and intentionality," as well as "'70s folk and pop" as a reference for how they approached their parts. Bassist/guitarist Alex Bailey says that at the time he referred to it as their "ambient" or "psych" album. Somewhere between those textural elements and Kline's penchant for concise pop, Inner World Peace finds its balance. The first order of business upon setting up camp in Brooklyn's Figure 8 studios was to project giant colorful slides the band had made for each track. Co-producing with Nate Mendelsohn, my Shitty Hits Recording partner, we aimed for FC's aesthetic idiosyncrasies to shine. The mood board for "Magnetic Personality" has a neon green and black checkerboard, a screen capture of the game Street Fighter with "K.O." in fat red letters, and a cover of Mad Magazine that says "Spy Vs. Spy! The Top Secret Files." On tracks like "F.O.O.F." (Freak Out On Friday), "Fragments" and "Aftershook," the group are at their most psychedelic and playful, interjecting fuzz solos, bits of percussion, and other sonically adventurous ear candy. An internal logic strengthens everything, and in their proggiest moments, Frankie Cosmos are simply a one-take band who don't miss. When on Inner World Peace they sound wildly, freshly different, it may just be that they're coming deeper into their own. Inner World Peace excels in passing on the emotions it holds. When in the towering "Empty Head" Kline sings of wanting to let thoughts slide away, her voice is buoyed on a bed of synths and harmonium as tranquility abounds. When her thoughts become hurried and full of desire, so does the band, and she leaps from word to word as if unable to contain them all. As a group, they carry it all deftly, and with constant regard for Kline's point of view. Says Greta, "To me, the album is about perception. It's about the question of "who am I?" and whether or not the answer matters. It's about quantum time, the possibilities of invisible worlds. The album is about finding myself floating in a new context. A teenager again, living with my parents. An adult, choosing to live with my family in an act of love. Time propelled us forward, aged us, and also froze. If you don't leave the house, who are you to the world? Can you take the person you discover there out with you?" - Katie Von Schleicher

Today Chicago-based percussionist, composer and producer Makaya McCraven announces the details of his new album In These Times, which is set for release on September 23rd via International Anthem / Nonesuch / XL Recordings. The first offering from the new album is a song tiled "Seventh String," which encapsulates the various musical dimensions present on McCraven's new album, a career-defining body of work that is a remarkable new peak for the already-soaring McCraven. In These Times is a collection of polytemporal compositions inspired as much by broader cultural struggles as McCraven's personal experience as a product of a multinational, working class musician community. It's the recording that he's been trying to create for 7+ years, as it's been consistently in process in the background while he's put forth a prolific run of releases including: In The Moment (2015), Highly Rare (2017), Where We Come From (2018), Universal Beings (2018), We're New Again (2020), Universal Beings E&F Sides (2020), and Deciphering the Message (2021). With contributions from over a dozen musicians and creative partners from his tight-knit circle of collaborators - including Jeff Parker, Junius Paul, Brandee Younger, Joel Ross, and Marquis Hill - the music was recorded in five different studios and four live performance spaces while McCraven engaged in extensive post-production work at home. Featuring orchestral, large ensemble arrangements interwoven with the signature "organic beat music" sound that's become his signature, the album is an evolution and a milestone for McCraven, the producer. But moreover, it's the strongest and clearest statement we've yet to hear from McCraven, the composer. Profiled in the New York Times, Vice, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, the Guardian, and NPR, among other publications, Makaya and the music he makes today is what Passion of Weiss explains, "is part of a necessary conversation about the next evolution of the Black improvised music known colloquially as 'jazz.' He's found the threads connecting the past with the present, and is either wrapping them with new colors and textures, or he's plucking them gleefully like the strings of a grand instrument." McCraven, who has been aptly called a "cultural synthesizer" and "beat scientist," has a unique gift for collapsing space, destroying borders and blending past, present, and future into poly-textural arrangements of post-genre, jazz-rooted 21st century folk music. In These Times encompasses his artistic ethos, his experiences, identity and lineage, while pushing his music to new heights.

Akae Beka's inimitable style of rich, deep, multi-layered songwriting, uncompromising devotion to RasTafari and soulful healing melodies developed over decades performing with St. Croix based band Midnite and countless recordings. At the point of his untimely passing in 2019, he had released over 70LP's. He is without a doubt one of the most prolific reggae artists ever known.

The stellar production trinity that is Zion I Kings have been involved collectively and individually in creating some of the most highly regarded contributions to the vast Akae Beka catalogue. Beauty For Ashes was named as the best reggae album of 2014 according to iTunes. A monumental achievement for undiluted, uncompromising RasTafari roots reggae music this side of the millennium. Two of the LP's tracks, Weather the Storm and Same I Ah One, have been catapulted into global notoriety in part due to the viral success of the YouTube video of the 'Dub in the Rainforest' session organised in St. Croix by Tippy I in 2014. The video offered an unparalleled audio visual insight of the powerful, captivating, energy of Vaughn Benjamin, Pressure Buss Pipe, Ras Batch, and many of the bredrin and sisterin of St. Croix rallying around the I Grade Dub living dub experience.

Following 8 years of anxious anticipation, for the countless Akae Beka fans that are also vinyl connoisseurs, this LP is now being released on as a 12" vinyl LP courtesy of Before Zero Records. This offers the listener not only the chance to enjoy this LP in an analogue form, but also the chance to hold the artwork as a 12" square masterpiece, created by the hands of Ras Marcus, the artist who gave the powerful visual presence that became synonymous to much of the I Grade / Akae Beka works over the years.

Spills is the debut album from Spairs (made up of Jonn Penney and Dan
Worton of Ned's Atomic Dustbin) and features mighty riffs, emotion and
rock/moshability one would expect from such pedigree
This prolific lyricist, combined with the multi- instrumentalist talent that is Dan
Worton, has created something very special. This isn’t a Ned’s Atomic Dustbin
side project, this is a totally new beast born out of lockdown.

“I’ve been coming a thousand years / you could call me the endless fuck,” goes the memorable opening line of Rubblebucket’s Earth Worship, a dance-forward, joyously layered collection of songs which work to dissolve the imaginary lines between the natural world and its inhabitants. Kalmia Traver and Alex Toth, the group’s front persons and co-writers, first began a friendship as jazz students at the University of Vermont. Soon after, they formed a prolific band that has delved into pop, funk, dance and psychedelia over five records, with performances spanning Bonnaroo to their self-curated Dream Picnic Festival, and collaborations with kindred genre-blenders including Arcade Fire and Questlove. But Traver and Toth initially bonded over another shared passion: the two were part of UVM’s Sustainable Community Development program. Though Toth communes with nature as part of his morning routine, and Traver is adept at foraging in the band’s adopted home of New York, songwriting explicitly about environmentalism in Rubblebucket has felt immaterial—besides, the band has shared its beliefs over the years by inviting anti-fracking, reproductive justice, and other organizations to table at their shows. But Traver was interested in writing love songs for and from the natural world, and both were inspired by their parents’ work in ecology and community facilitation, from which they saw a throughline to music’s communal healing. Traver suggested “earth worship” as a lyrical prompt for their sixth record, and with this concept at its core, the duo began writing Earth Worship: a Rubblebucket album with renewed shimmer, showcasing the group’s intricately sparkling beats, hushed yet hooky vocals and infectious melodic complexity.

“I’ve been coming a thousand years / you could call me the endless fuck,” goes the memorable opening line of Rubblebucket’s Earth Worship, a dance-forward, joyously layered collection of songs which work to dissolve the imaginary lines between the natural world and its inhabitants. Kalmia Traver and Alex Toth, the group’s front persons and co-writers, first began a friendship as jazz students at the University of Vermont. Soon after, they formed a prolific band that has delved into pop, funk, dance and psychedelia over five records, with performances spanning Bonnaroo to their self-curated Dream Picnic Festival, and collaborations with kindred genre-blenders including Arcade Fire and Questlove. But Traver and Toth initially bonded over another shared passion: the two were part of UVM’s Sustainable Community Development program. Though Toth communes with nature as part of his morning routine, and Traver is adept at foraging in the band’s adopted home of New York, songwriting explicitly about environmentalism in Rubblebucket has felt immaterial—besides, the band has shared its beliefs over the years by inviting anti-fracking, reproductive justice, and other organizations to table at their shows. But Traver was interested in writing love songs for and from the natural world, and both were inspired by their parents’ work in ecology and community facilitation, from which they saw a throughline to music’s communal healing. Traver suggested “earth worship” as a lyrical prompt for their sixth record, and with this concept at its core, the duo began writing Earth Worship: a Rubblebucket album with renewed shimmer, showcasing the group’s intricately sparkling beats, hushed yet hooky vocals and infectious melodic complexity.

“I’ve been coming a thousand years / you could call me the endless fuck,” goes the memorable opening line of Rubblebucket’s Earth Worship, a dance-forward, joyously layered collection of songs which work to dissolve the imaginary lines between the natural world and its inhabitants. Kalmia Traver and Alex Toth, the group’s front persons and co-writers, first began a friendship as jazz students at the University of Vermont. Soon after, they formed a prolific band that has delved into pop, funk, dance and psychedelia over five records, with performances spanning Bonnaroo to their self-curated Dream Picnic Festival, and collaborations with kindred genre-blenders including Arcade Fire and Questlove. But Traver and Toth initially bonded over another shared passion: the two were part of UVM’s Sustainable Community Development program. Though Toth communes with nature as part of his morning routine, and Traver is adept at foraging in the band’s adopted home of New York, songwriting explicitly about environmentalism in Rubblebucket has felt immaterial—besides, the band has shared its beliefs over the years by inviting anti-fracking, reproductive justice, and other organizations to table at their shows. But Traver was interested in writing love songs for and from the natural world, and both were inspired by their parents’ work in ecology and community facilitation, from which they saw a throughline to music’s communal healing. Traver suggested “earth worship” as a lyrical prompt for their sixth record, and with this concept at its core, the duo began writing Earth Worship: a Rubblebucket album with renewed shimmer, showcasing the group’s intricately sparkling beats, hushed yet hooky vocals and infectious melodic complexity.

Corrie Dick, a musician and composer specialising in euphoric, sonically-inventive drumming, is at the rhythmic epicentre of a new era of innovative British jazz. He is lauded for his dynamism, his melodic slant and for his playfully subversive take on style and genre. An artist of prolific and varied output, Corrie has long been an essential component of Laura Jurd’s music including Mercury Prize shortlisted Dinosaur; is a crucial co-pilot in Elliot Galvin Trio and Rob Luft Group; and co-writes music with an abundance of artists including alternative Indie band Ink Line. His 2015 release Impossible Things which skilfully fused Celtic folk and contemporary jazz with new takes on African rhythms culminated in sold out touring and concerts across the UK. Now Corrie resets for an album which further embraces the eclectic whims of a child of the iPod shuffle generation - finding cohesion among disparate elements. Concerning the idea behind Sun Swells, his latest project, Corrie explains: “I wanted to write a jazz album that had rock instrumentation at its core: guitar-bass-drums. Rob Luft (guitar), Tom McCredie (bass) and I have been improvising and writing together for years and years and we’ve forged a sound that is uniquely crunchy yet summery, so I wanted that sound at the centre but decorated with all sorts of elements. I basically wanted to make folk-rock-jazz but treat it how electronic music producer Mura Masa treats his tracks--chucking the whole damn fruit bowl at the thing but somehow keeping space and air in the arrangement and the mix.” The music on Sun Swells is highly unique in a way that is becoming a trademark for the highly gifted artist.

The LP version is limited to 1000 copies, pressed on blue vinyl, in a high grade spot-varnished gatefold sleeve.

700 Bliss is the forward-thinking duo of DJ Haram and Moor Mother. Their first full length for Hyperdub is an album of noise rap that ties together the raw edges of club music and hip hop with punk energy, jazz, house-party catharsis, percussion-heavy analogue sound design, and cheeky skits, ranging from experimental rap tracks with rolling hi hats and lyrical bravado, to poetry set to noise and sound collage.

Moor Mother and DJ Haram started collaborating in 2014 and eventually formed 700 Bliss, a blistering live act in Philly's DIY scene, releasing their 2018 debut, Spa 700 on Halcyon Veil / Don Giovanni Records. Since that time, both artists have grown global followings. Moor Mother is a prolific solo artist and collaborator, writer, and member of Black Quantum Futurism while Haram has been curating and creating radio shows, DJing, and producing (including an EP for Hyperdub in 2019).

‘Nothing To Declare’ is a smart, danceable revelation, a chiseled soundscape of dive bombing bass, piercing bleeps, crunchy distortion, and wavering synth lines. Welcoming in a variety of voices from their extended, cross-genre scene, 700 Bliss also bring along a cast of collaborators, including vocalists Orion Sun, Lawfandah, Ase Manual, and Ali Logout (from the band Special Interest), plus Palestinian producer Muqata'a, and writer M Téllez who delivers a surreal sci fi monologue over a pounding kick drum on ‘More Victories’.

‘Nothing To Declare’ is a deeply layered rewriting of hip hop and electronic music that gives more with each listen. You won't hear another rap album like it in 2022.

Volta Recordings – a brand new label digging in those much-prized vaults that hold some of the creme de la creme of Italian house, officially licensed, remastered and reissued for a new generation to indulge in.

First up an absolute classic club stomper from the early '90s. Peaktime piano house, produced by the prolific Luigi Stanga under the one-hit and out, S.L.D. moniker. Pure ecstasy bubbling up through those joy-filled chords, fizzing synths, choice vocal samples and grooving basslines. Too right we’re getting hot.

“I think it’s a mistake to equate ‘perfection’ with flawlessness. To be human is to be perfectly flawed,” Johanna Warren observes while describing the joys of analog recording. Her new LP Lessons for Mutants was tracked live with a band to two inch tape—a revelatory new way of working for Warren. “Tape forces you to commit to a performance, eccentricities and all. The little glitches and anomalies that we’re tempted to ‘correct’ are often what make a thing magical.”

Lessons for Mutants is the prolific songwriter’s sixth solo LP and her second for Wax Nine/Carpark Records. The album’s running theme of metamorphosis (the title of the closing track, “Involvulus,” is Latin for “caterpillar”) reflects major changes in Warren’s personal life: after a decade of relentless touring, as the world was closing its borders, the American multi-instrumentalist unexpectedly found herself quarantining in rural Wales, where she’s now permanently homesteading.

Though tracking for the new album began in New York in 2018 in tandem with the sessions for 2020’s Chaotic Good, the majority of Lessons for Mutants was recorded in the UK surrounded by sheep, cows and a forager’s paradise of wild edible plants—a far cry from the urban jungle of LA that Warren had most recently called home. The body of work that emerged from this dramatic about-face is Warren’s most dynamic to date, shapeshifting seamlessly from searing punk screams to sparkly psych-folk soundscapes, from the bootleg ambivalence of Dylan’s Basement Tapes to cosmic stoner grooves reminiscent of Black Sabbath’s acoustic moments.

“Sometimes I can relate to myself/ I disassociate more than I’d like to, but what can you do?” Warren croons in “Tooth for a Tooth,” a wistful piano ballad that conjures the grainy romance of some smoke-filled 1940s jazz club. This kind of to-the-bone lyrical honesty has always been one of Warren’s strong suits, but these latest reflections are especially unflinching. Being forced to stop touring brought no shortage of self-examination for Warren, who quickly came to view her history on the road as an addiction from which she’s been detoxing. This sentiment dances through opening track “I’d Be Orange,” a drum-driven indie rock number replete with Beatles-esque male backing vocals: “Thirst for power, hunger for fame/ Always was a junkie for pain,” Warren confesses. This exploration of masochistic ambition and artistic martyrdom overflows into grunge anthem “Piscean Lover”: “It’s alright, we’re not ok/ We burn out not to fade away.”

“There’s this unspoken rule in modern music—modern life, really—that everything needs to be Auto-Tuned and ‘on the grid,’” Warren concludes. “This record is an act of resistance against that. There’s beauty and power in our aberrations, if we can embrace them.”

(REMASTERED)

Just over a decade ago, Japanese indie-pop duo Tenniscoats recorded "Papa"s Ear" (2012) and "Tan-Tan Therapy" (2007), two albums made with musical and production help from Swedish post-rock/folk trio Tape. Originally released on Häpna, they are beautiful documents of the exploratory music made by a close-knit collective of musicians, fully at ease with each other, playing songs written by Tenniscoats and arranging them in gentle and generous ways. Released during a prolific phase of collaboration for Tenniscoats - during the late "00s and early "10s, they would also collaborate with Jad Fair, The Pastels, Secai and Pastacas - they have, however, never been available on vinyl. In collaboration with Alien Transistor, Morr Music is now reissuing these albums with bonus material.

Just over a decade ago, Japanese indie-pop duo Tenniscoats recorded »Papa's Ear« (2012) and »Tan-Tan Therapy« (2007), two albums made with musical and production help from Swedish post-rock/folk trio Tape. Originally released on Häpna, they are beautiful documents of the exploratory music made by a close-knit collective of musicians, fully at ease with each other, playing songs written by Tenniscoats and arranging them in gentle and generous ways. Released during a prolific phase of collaboration for Tenniscoats – during the late ‘00s and early ‘10s, they would also collaborate with Jad Fair, The Pastels, Secai and Pastacas – they have, however, never been available on vinyl. In collaboration with Alien Transistor, Morr Music is now reissuing these albums with bonus material.

Filled with graceful pop songs, autumnal folk tunes, and gentle yet risk-taking improvisations, »Tan-Tan Therapy« was the first Tenniscoats album to be released in Europe, after a run of albums on Japanese labels, and the excellent »Live Wanderus« (2005) on Australian imprint Chapter Music. It was also the first recorded evidence of their collaboration with the three members of Tape and that group’s extended musical family. It opens with one of Tenniscoats’ signature songs, the pop fantasia of »Baibaba Bimba«, with Tenniscoats singer Saya repeating a light-headed incantation over joyous brass. The essence of Tenniscoats is contained in »Baibaba Bimba«: uplifting melody and playful musicianship, tinged with distant echoes of winsome melancholy.

From there, »Tan-Tan Therapy« explores many hues of lustrous blue. »Oetu to kanki no Namoriuta (Given Song of Sob and Joy)« is an aquatic arbour, the musicians’ gentle performances growing together like vines and seaweed as Saya’s voice swims through the waterway. »Umbarepa!« is full of play and pleasure, sparkling with glockenspiel as snare drum tattoos push the song ever-forward. »Abi and Travel« floats past, a lovely instrumental built from shifting layers of synthesizer and pianet; »Good B.«, an extra track originally only available on the Japanese edition of »Tan-Tan Therapy«, is added to this reissue, and follows a similar thread, its humming pump and Hammond organs swirling under beautiful vocals from Saya and guest performer Kazumi Nikaido.

Throughout, you can sense the deep empathy the members of Tenniscoats and Tape have for one another. It’s a conversational, tender and, at times, fragile music that can only be created out of mutual trust and kindness, with each of the players contributing to the community of sound they’re building. There’s an element here, too, of feeling out the possibilities of what this creative meeting can achieve, something reflected in the loose-limbs sprawl of »Marui Hifo (Everyone)«, which echoes the seaside drift of Bristol post-rock group Crescent, and the following »One Swan Swim«, a dreamsong redolent of the sleepy sensorium of Robert Wyatt’s »Rock Bottom«.

The freedom and liberty at the heart of Tenniscoats is something Tape and their friends have picked up on, beautifully so, and run with during the entirety of »Tan-Tan Therapy«. This is music with its wings outstretched, wanting to take to the air, ready to fly.

Hoshina Anniversary offers a new LP of fluid, alchemical dance music in the shape of Hisyochi, on Impatience. Moving well beyond the initial influence of jazz fusion, electronica and his Japanese heritage, Hoshina Anniversary continues to carve deeper into his own cosm, and Hisyochi arguably represents this prolific producer at his most singular, refined and potent yet.

With nowhere to go and little to do, Hoshina was making music at a seemingly unstoppable torrent throughout the pandemic, sometimes sketching close to 100 tracks in any given month. Opening up a session from a previous track, he would erase all but one element, using it as a starting point for a completely new experiment, lending the body of work a subtle yet tangible coherence. Hisyochi was pieced together from a swathe of productions that came out of a particularly fertile period in the first half of 2021, which also birthed his recent release on Patience, Hyakunin Isshu.

Roughly translating to “somewhere cool to relax during a hot summer” according to Hoshina, Hisyochi transcends seasons but undoubtedly runs hot. Drum patterns are crisp, varied and invariably body-moving, basslines ascend at vertigo-inducing velocity, and dimly-lit jazz-bar piano is often the only element anchoring the sound to terra firma.

Following the plaintive, palette cleansing introduction of Rakka, Irahu plots the course with a light arpeggiator over a chugging rhythm before a warbly piano line to creeps in the back door. Misebayana is a jolt of gyrating mutant dance, part video game suspense and part footwork for drums and koto, while Kokoro no Heisei (Peace Of Mind) sees Hoshina deliver a salvo to stillness over a meandering, dubby spacewalk. Roman is an invigorating cut of warped dancehall tango, while the closing title track perfectly encapsulates the essence of the record and Hoshina Anniversary in 2022 in one elegant, acidic rinse.

Hoshina Anniversary is Yoshinobu Hoshina, from Hachioji, outside of Tokyo. He’s released records as Hoshina Anniversary on ESP Institute, Alien Jams and Youth, under his Suemori moniker for Osare! Editions and as Shifting Gears for Toucan Sounds, amongst others.

Hisyochi was written, produced and mixed by Hoshina Anniversary. It was mastered by Josh Bonati in NYC, and artwork is by Luca Schenardi.

Aurora Records is proud to present asamisimasa's latest album with two
pieces by composer Trond Reinholdtsen – Unsichtbare Musik (Invisible
Music) and SPASTIL (Late Style)
After nearly twenty years of collaboration, this is their first collaborative release.
Reinholdtsen is among Norway's most prominent composers of his generation
and has a significant international position with a long list of commissions on his
resume. asamisimasa has premiered seven works by Reinholdtsen at festivals
such as Donaueschingen, Ultima, Huddersfield, and Darmstadt. Being a prolific
voice within the experimental opera and music theatre scene, Reinholdtsen has
previously only released two works on CD. With this release asamisimasa wishes
to shed a light on his instrumental chamber music. This is the ensemble's fifth
portrait album, their second on Aurora Records. "Unsichtbare Musik" was
commissioned for a concert at the Berliner Philharmonie in 2009, and explores
the relationship between language and music, between words and sonorous
representation. The piece challenges both the act of listening, our perception of
musical sounds, and the attempt to conceptualize musical impressions and
experiences. Composed ten years later,"Spatstil" is based on the semantic
analysis of "Unsichtbare Musik" and the ensemble's performance history with this
work. "SPATSTIL" marks a clear, yet ironic distance from the previous piece
through a dystopian self- criticism. The pieces have a unique sonorous
sophistication and aims to inspire philosophical reflection as well as aesthetic
pleasure. The aim is that the album can contribute to a reflection on music's
conditions today by focusing on the solitary and secluded listening one does at
home.
asamisimasa was founded in 2001 by musicians who shared an interest for
experimental music. Since then the ensemble has won two Spellemann Awards
(2012, 2015) and premiered more than 80 new pieces and toured all over Europe,
USA and Asia.

After almost a decade-long hiatus, cult 6-piece MFMB announced their
return with the long-awaited album - Sugar
The followup to 2012's critically- acclaimed "Colossus", "Sugar" revives the dark
and driven alt- rock the Swedes made their name with - equal parts rigor and
finesse, wracked with nervous tension. This time around, however, a democratic
approach to the writing process was decided on, with each member contributing
equally to the sound and feel of the record. The result is unmistakably the sound
of MFMB, but reinvented for these tempestuous times. The making of the album
is a story in itself. "Sugar" is seven years in the making. It has been a bumpy ride.
They were not always the best of friends. Priorities changed. Members quit, then
joined again. It was never easy. We believe you can hear it on the album, how
every song is a result of differing opinions fighting it out until they landed. In the
end, it's MFMB, but ringing purer than ever before. MFMB have remained prolific
throughout their hiatus, which includes Joakim Lindberg becoming one of the
underground scene's most in- demand producers, working with the likes of Hey
Elbow, Spunsugar, This Is Head, and many more.

Joni Mitchell was at a turning point 50 years ago. After making four acclaimed albums with Reprise Records, including her 1971 masterpiece Blue, she left the label to join the brand-new Asylum Records in 1972. Over the next seven years, Mitchell would record some of the most acclaimed music of her career while changing her musical direction by adding more jazz elements into her song writing. The evolution culminated in 1979 with Mingus, her collaboration with jazz titan Charles Mingus, and her studio last album for Asylum.

The Asylum Albums (1972-1975), the next instalment in the Joni Mitchell archive series, explores the beginning of that prolific era. The collection features newly remastered versions of For The Roses (1972), Court And Spark (1974), the double live album Miles Of Aisles (1974), and The Hissing Of Summer Lawns (1975). All four were recently remastered by Bernie Grundman. The Asylum Albums (1972-1975 will be available on 23rd September on 5-LP 180-gram vinyl (Limited Edition Of 20,000) and as a 4CD set. The cover art for the set features a previously unseen painting by Mitchell. The set also includes an essay by friend and fellow Canadian Neil Young.

The Asylum Albums (1972-1975), follows Mitchell’s musical evolution over four albums as she embraced more jazz-inspired pieces and moved away from the folk and pop of her early years. It includes essential tracks like her first Top 40 hit, “You Turn Me On, I’m A Radio” and her highest-charting (#7) single “Help Me,” plus favourites like “Free Man In Paris,” “Raised On Robbery” and “In France They Kiss On Main Street.” Mitchell has been intimately involved in producing the collection, lending her vision and personal touch to every element.













l b6. Judgement Of The Moon And Stars (Ludwig’s Tune) 2022 Remaster











[x] e1. You Turn Me On I’m A Radio (Live) [2022 Remaster]
[y] e2. Big Yellow Taxi (Live) [2022 Remaster]
[2022 Remaster]
[xa] e4. Woodstock (Live) [2022 Remaster]
[xb] f1. Cactus Tree (Live) [2022 Remaster]
[xc] f2. Cold Blue Steel And Sweet Fire (Live) [2022 Remaster]
[xd] f3. Woman Of Heart And Mind (Live) [2022 Remaster]
[xe] f4. A Case Of You (Live) [2022 Remaster]
[xf] f5. Blue (Live) [2022 Remaster]
[xg] g1. Circle Game (Live) [2022 Remaster]
[xh] g2. People’s Parties (Live) [2022 Remaster]
[xi] g3. All I Want (Live) [2022 Remaster]
[xj] g4. Real Good For Free (Live) [2022 Remaster]
[xk] g5. Both Sides Now (Live) [2022 Remaster]
[xl] h1. Carey (Live) [2022 Remaster]
[xm] h2. The Last Time I Saw Richard (Live) [2022 Remaster]
[xn] h3. Jericho (Live) [2022 Remaster]
[xo] h4. Love Or Money (Live) [2022 Remaster]

A rediscovered untitled Mass by Adriaen Willaert "Missa Ippolito", a
hidden ode to the Cardinal of Ferrara, Willaert's patron.Adriaen Willaert
must have already been a prolific composer before he assumed the
position of kapellmeister at the Basilica of San Marco in Venice
After all, a second Mass of his was included in a large, illuminated choral
manuscript that was produced for the Illustrious Brotherhood of Our Blessed
Lady in 's- Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands (the first Mass in this manuscript,
Missa sex vocum super "Benedicta," can be found on the LP Adriano 2). The title
page of the Mass does not mention the name of the composition, only that of the
composer, Adrianus Willart. It was catalogued as a Missa sine nomine, a Mass
without a name. It is assumed that the work was composed between 1522 and
1527, at a time when Willaert was a member of the music chapel of Cardinal
Ippolito d'Este in Ferrara, Italy. At first glance, what's striking about this
composition is that one of the tenor voices sings a cantus firmus (a "given, fixed,
foundational voice" that provides the basis for each movement of the Mass, to
which the other voices are added) that always consists of the same 13 notes: mi
ut mi sol mi ut fa mi fa mi re mi.
In an article about the Mass, the musicologist Joshua Rifkin claims to have
discovered a sogetto cavato delle parole in this sequence of notes. This is a
compositional technique common for the time in which the notes of a melody, in
this case the cantus firmus, are derived from the vowels of certain words. The
notes used for the tone poetry are those of the Guidonian hexachord, a series of
the 6 notes ut-re-mi-fa-sol-la.
For example, the word Maria (Ma-ri-a) can be "translated" into the notes la mi la.
The cantus firmus of the Mass, according to Rifkin, fits the words "Primus
Ippolitus Cardinalis Estensis" (Ippolito I, Cardinal d'Este) perfectly. The Mass is
thus almost certainly (via a hidden message in the music) an ode to the Cardinal
of Ferrara who was Willaert's patron. This rediscovered untitled Mass by Adriaen
Willaert, which we have now sung as a world premiere, can therefore rightly bear
the name Missa Ippolito.

Today Chicago-based percussionist, composer and producer Makaya McCraven announces the details of his new album In These Times, which is set for release on September 23rd via International Anthem / Nonesuch / XL Recordings. The first offering from the new album is a song tiled "Seventh String," which encapsulates the various musical dimensions present on McCraven's new album, a career-defining body of work that is a remarkable new peak for the already-soaring McCraven. In These Times is a collection of polytemporal compositions inspired as much by broader cultural struggles as McCraven's personal experience as a product of a multinational, working class musician community. It's the recording that he's been trying to create for 7+ years, as it's been consistently in process in the background while he's put forth a prolific run of releases including: In The Moment (2015), Highly Rare (2017), Where We Come From (2018), Universal Beings (2018), We're New Again (2020), Universal Beings E&F Sides (2020), and Deciphering the Message (2021). With contributions from over a dozen musicians and creative partners from his tight-knit circle of collaborators - including Jeff Parker, Junius Paul, Brandee Younger, Joel Ross, and Marquis Hill - the music was recorded in five different studios and four live performance spaces while McCraven engaged in extensive post-production work at home. Featuring orchestral, large ensemble arrangements interwoven with the signature "organic beat music" sound that's become his signature, the album is an evolution and a milestone for McCraven, the producer. But moreover, it's the strongest and clearest statement we've yet to hear from McCraven, the composer. Profiled in the New York Times, Vice, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, the Guardian, and NPR, among other publications, Makaya and the music he makes today is what Passion of Weiss explains, "is part of a necessary conversation about the next evolution of the Black improvised music known colloquially as 'jazz.' He's found the threads connecting the past with the present, and is either wrapping them with new colors and textures, or he's plucking them gleefully like the strings of a grand instrument." McCraven, who has been aptly called a "cultural synthesizer" and "beat scientist," has a unique gift for collapsing space, destroying borders and blending past, present, and future into poly-textural arrangements of post-genre, jazz-rooted 21st century folk music. In These Times encompasses his artistic ethos, his experiences, identity and lineage, while pushing his music to new heights.

German powerhouse Sidney Charles steps up to the plate for Eastenderz latest and milestone 50th release. The prolific Hamburg producer hits hard with a four tracker of house and minimal goodness that has the club squarely in its sights.

Second album in less than a year from the prolific William Dorey. Includes the singles ‘Another Day, ‘Behind The Sun’ and ‘Losing My mind’. CD packaging is gatefold with choice of 5 inserts to ‘choose your own cover’. Building on the success of 2018’s ‘Filoxiny’ (listed as one of Q Magazine’s ‘354 Albums to Blow Your Mind’) and this year’s ‘Umoja’ (“a pleasure to listen to from start to finish” – Songlines magazine) – both of whose singles have peppered the playlists of BBC 6 Music and have lead to his helming of a Bandcamp takeover - Skinshape returns with the witheringly, prophetically titled ‘Arrogance is the Death of Men’. Written and recorded between November 2019 and July 2020, Skinshape bids torecreate something akin to the ‘old style’ of ‘Oracolo’ (2015) and ‘Life & Love’ (2017). With ‘Arrogance…’, Will Dorey’s blueprint points to a simple formula, aligning a bank of fresh drum breaks recorded at the end of 2019 to whatever he had to hand, for a long player recorded in the majority at home due to the COVID-19 lockdown. Forever balanced between sweetness and a sigh, as per his position ‘Behind the Sun’, the Skinshape essence, intricate yet always reachable, at times tailored in a single session and sourcing archive bric-a-brac when required, is all around on the sweetly strummed ‘Tomorrow’ and ‘The Eastern Connection’, featuring Ivan Kormanak on drums. Maintaining an incisive knowledge of global sounds that keeps him in the filmic company of Khruangbin and El Michels Affair, Dorey’s listening to vintage Vietnamese music and Asian film scores provides the basis of ‘Sound of Your Voice’ and ‘Flight of the Erhu’, starring Wan Pinchu on Erhu violin. Acutely aware of the world’s ongoing health crisis without preaching about the whys and wherefores, the title track and ‘Losing My Mind’ reflect enforced confinement as tranquil songs of both quiet consideration yet powerful release. Dorey’s guitar pieces and wraith-like soul continue to flicker with fascination as Indian Summers and fireside retreats beckon, with ‘Watching From The Shadows’ - about “standing up for yourself, and avoiding the limelight for your own good”– and ‘Outro’ gently bringing the album to rest.

Saib is the prolific producer and guitarist whose insatiable desire to create comes from his childhood: passionate about Bossa Nova, Japanese Anime Soundtracks, Jazz as well as old school Hip-Hop, he draws his inspiration from composers and musicians such as Yoko Kanno, Joe Pass and Nujabes. Bathing in the cosmopolitan culture of Casablanca, a melting pot at the crossroads of the two African and European continents. This diversity is a constant in his music, where groove and melody are skillfully mixed in a style inspired by the classic hip-hop productions of the 90s. Hip Hop beats form the backbone of Saib’s musical palette, as his style skips from Jazz flavors to lounge experiments and to upbeat four on the floor grooves ... and sometimes within a single track.

Saib’s hyper-productivity has allowed him to release, over the last five years, seven albums and more than a dozen EPs and singles, including releases on labels such as Chillhop Music, Cold Busted, Majestic Casual and Blue Note Records. Saib’s tracks are a regular fixture on Editorial Playlists including Spotify’s “Jazz Vibes” (2 million Likes) and “lofi beats” and have accumulated more than 500 million plays on streaming platforms.

Saib’s new LP, “Unwind” maintains the stupendous head-nodding grooviness that listeners have come to love from the young producer with a healthy added dose of Tropical and Lounge/Bossa-jazz influence. Album and single artwork done by star-Moroccan photographer Ismail Zaidy (IG: @l4artiste) who has seen his work featured in GQ Middle East, Art Basel, BASE Milano, Vogue Arabia, and has done partnerships with The Sims and Adobe. LP design work done by Jakarta label mainstay, Robert Winter. “Unwind” also includes features by Rotterdam’s ØDYSSEE and legendary Hip-Hop MC Masta Ace. Jakarta is ecstatic to share such a career-defining work, arriving digitally and physically September 16th, 2022.

The albums 1st single, “Mushroom Samba” arrives Wednesday, June 29th along with the vinyl pre-order announcement. The track is deliciously groovy, and is a perfect example of the kind of sunny, jubilant grooves to be encountered on the LP. Saib takes the lofi-expertise he’s become known for since his 2015 debut and brings a freshness to the beat-genre. The song is perfect for the onset of summer and will have you humming along to the brass refrain by the songs end.

2nd single, “Pennywise,” will be released July 13 and features legendary Hip-Hop MC Masta Ace on the album’s only vocal track. The track is a surefire splash of hip-hop that’s both nostalgic and forward-moving. Ace sounds as fresh as ever, flowing over a head-bobbing beat with lush, tropical guitar inflections. While the beat brings to mind sandy shores and sun rays, Ace’s two verses invoke skyscrapers and boomboxes, making “Pennywise” a perfect track for your summer hip-hop fix.

Saib’s 3rd single is the stunning, swirling, and utterly smooth “Cosmic Dust” with Rotterdam producer ØDYSSEE arriving August 10. Keeping with the tropical essence, the track comes and goes like waves on a beach. Soft sounds flow like water before the drums and bass wash in, building to a saxophone and piano heavy crescendo. Like the tide, the beat recedes and the track ends as gently as it began, leaving you wanting to hear it all again.

Single 4, the moody “Suave” arrives August 24 and is bossa nova at its core. What starts off with a familiar Brazilian groove quickly takes a hip-hop turn, with a smooth bass drop and crisp drums layered over bossa nova keystrokes. Warm / timeless saxophone punctuate the track, providing a mellow break between basslines and closing out the end. “Suave” is a sunny and soul-soothing fusion of bossa nova, jazz, and hip-hop, perfect for closing out the summer with.

“Unwind” is a project steeped in the beats that keep you moving and grooving but with a sonic and visual aesthetic palette that goes deeper and groovier than the surface level lo-fi artists that have proliferated in the last 5 years. Ranging from FloFilz and eevee imbued vibrations to Jonwayne-styled beats, Saib brings forth a sonic spa session that invokes a state of calm that leaves you an uplifting and energetic plateau. Dig it.

Emily Fairlight is a New Zealand songwriter with a rare talent for capturing the bare essence of stories and moods, combining beautifully honest lyrics with heartfelt melodies. The prevalence of acoustic guitar and intimate sharing of lived experience through song hint at folk music - or, as Fairlight self-deprecatingly calls it, “doom-folk”. Her powerful quivering vibrato and stark, haunting vocal tone are teak-hard yet soft as crushed velvet and have elicited comparisons to PJ Harvey, Bridget St John, Natalie Merchant and Cat Power, all musicians with distinctive voices and a lyrical talent for conjuring a kind of experiential realism. Sun Casts a Shadow is a stripped-down, timeless blend of Fairlight and McLeod’s songs, voices and guitars. Fairlight’s material carries the weight of experience, with McLeod’s harmony vocals and guitar adding colours from The Shifting Sands’ South Pacific Cosmic Rock palette to these vignettes of heartbreak and hope, while Fairlight’s voice brings character and a spectral quality to The Shifting Sands’ songs. With a pandemic devastating the international tour-scape in 2020, Emily's prolific writing continued back in NZ and another album has been recorded, showcasing a broader sonic palette and the continued maturing of Emily's songcraft. In the way that In The Pines marked a kind of unpressured bookend to the Triffids’ auspicious beginnings, before they took their next, bold, step, Sun Casts a Shadow is a quietly intriguing bridge between Fairlight’s past and future; a chapter in a story with many more to come

The stunning third album from Wyldest - aka London singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Zoe Mead. Taking cues from the vulnerable and honest songwriting of Elliott Smith to the melodic indie-pop of Soccer Mommy and Hovvdy, Feed The Flowers Nightmares is something of a coming of age moment and with co-production from Luciano Rossi (Idlewild, Dama Scout) the LP is set to further establish Wyldest as a quietly prolific, multi-faceted and increasingly assured talent.

"The prolific band returns with a brief and seething left-turn: a furious homage to the scummiest, crustiest hardcore of the early ’80s". (Pitchfork)

"Brain stem cracking scum-punk recorded tersely in the basement of my home. After a notoriously frustrating eon, the knee-jerk song path was aggressive and hooky. This is an homage to the punk bands we grew up on—the weirdos and art freaks that piqued our interests and pointed us on the trail head to here / now. Bad times make for strong music is something I agree with. I would say that is evident by the past few years of output from the underground. Transmissions have been all over the map: scanning…searching...sweeping out in the darkness looking for a foot hold.

OSEES A Foul From represents some of our most savage and primal instincts. Fight or flight. And the importance of a sense of humor in the darkest hour. Nothing wrong with keeping it snappy in the meantime. For fans of Rudimentary Peni, Crass, Bad Brains, Black Flag, Screamers, Abwärts, Stooges and all things aggressively tilted towards your face. You can lean back but don’t flinch…it’s a brief foray into the exhausting pogo pit, so stiffen your back and jerk with your knees. Enjoy." - John Dwyer

Aidan Baker is a classically-trained multi-instrumentalist using the electric guitar as his primary instrument. Using prepared and alternate methods of playing the guitar, along with various electronic effects, Baker creates music which generally falls within the ambient/experimental genre but draws on influences from rock, electronic, classical, and jazz. A highly prolific artist, Baker has released numerous recorded works, both solo and with various group projects - most notably the duo Nadja - on such independent labels as Karlrecords, Important Records, Southern Lord, and his own imprint, Broken Spine Productions. Baker is also the author of several books of poetry. A regular live performer, Baker has toured extensively around the world, including appearances at such international festivals as FIMAV, SXSW, Incubate, Unsound, and Mutek, among others. Originally from Toronto, Canada, Baker currently resides in Berlin, Germany. Recorded mid-pandemic, Songs of Undoing cannot help but have a sort of mid- or post-apocalyptic overlying concept, lyrically dealing with themes of exodus and travel / wandering, self-reliance, the weight of history...with pointed references to two post-apocalyptic, societal / environmental collapse novels, Octavia Butler's "Parables of The Sower" and Kate Wilhelm's "Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang." Musically, the songs move between minimal slowcore and a sort of textural noise-rock or what might be called deconstructed grunge, taking influence from artists like Lungfish, American Analog Set, PJ Harvey, and Stina Nordenstam.

Restock

If you've ever had the feeling that things just don't make sense, that there's a hidden world of dark magic waiting in the dead spaces, the forgotten corners... well this is the music for you.

Dutchman Erik Griffioen's obsession with the esoteric is well known, and for some time his Lloyd Stellar alias has focused on this sense of the world just out of view.

Griffioen runs LDI Records as an outlet for his prolific creativity, but this release for Gated pulls from his early works, the tracks that almost got away.

This is one-strobe-in-a-dark-room electro, which rides the fine line that exists somewhere between euphoria and madness. It's relentlessly underground. And we love it.