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Grand River and Sofie Birch are set to unveil their collaborative EP, titled “Our Circadian,” on November 24, through Melantónia.

The two-track release follows Grand River’s final release under the now-discontinued Editions Mego label earlier this year, and Sofie Birch’s two solo albums from 2022. Our Circadian represents the second collaborative release on Melantónia, a platform founded by Hanna Maria & Mattia Onori in 2021, dedicated to music for non-dance environments, featuring early contributions from artists like Polygonia, Plants Army Revolver, and Melantónia co-founders Hanna Maria & Mattia Onori themselves, amongst others.

“Our Circadian” was conceived remotely in 2021 during the lockdown, with the aim of encapsulating two distinct moments of those days – early morning and late afternoon – along with their subtle emotional nuances. The first track of the release – 7PM – conveys dreamy atmospheres that flow into colorful rhythms, recalling the electroacoustic nature of the label’s melancholic sounds. The gloomier 3AM, on the other side of a 7“ record, offers a timeless introspection of a gently intensifying synth sound’s fling.

Grand River, a composer and sound designer, brings her background in linguistics to her work. She draws inspiration from minimalism and ambient music, resulting in atmospheric and rhythmically intricate compositions. Her artistic pursuits traverse the realms of art and electronic music, exploring forms of communication that transcend language, often influenced by nature, scale, and movement. Grand River’s impressive portfolio includes sound installations at 4DSOUND/Monom and Terraforma’s Il Pianeta, as well as performances at prestigious venues like Barbican, Rewire, MUTEK, Le Guess Who?, CTM, Draaimolen, and Atonal’s Kraftwerk. She has also worked on remixes for notable acts like Tangerine Dream. Since 2016, she has curated the label One Instrument, offering a unique creative challenge to artists: creating music using only a single instrument.

Sofie Birch, a celebrated sound artist and producer, is known for her lush ambient releases, art installations, live performances, DJ sets, and her NTS show “Ambient Abracadabra.” Her sonic creations can manipulate space, infuse it with a profound sense of calm, and invite listeners to engage in meditation and introspection through the healing qualities of sound and vibrations. Her music acts as a conduit for understanding the complexities of the mind and body through artistic expression, characterized by a distinct emphasis on stillness, suspension, and sustain. Sofie’s soundscapes open gateways to dream-like states of perception and heightened presence, providing a transcendental journey into an alchemical biosphere. Her extensive repertoire includes performances at renowned events such as Barbican, Roskilde Festival, MUTEK, Unsound, CTM, Rewire, Monom, and Terraforma, as well as award-winning compositions for VR experiences and animated films, in collaboration with artists like Baum & Leahy and animation director Pernille Kjaer.

As Our Circadian takes its final form, it promises a narrative of resilience, creativity, and the indomitable human spirit guided by the artistic mastery of Grand River and Sofie Birch.

Frozen reeds presents the only recorded duo playing of two legendary musical figures. Derek Bailey and Paul Motian – two longstanding pioneers of distinct strains of improvised music – came together for a brief period of collaboration in the early 1990s. Tapes of their two known live performances (one at Groningen’s JazzMarathon festival in the Netherlands, the other a year later at New Music Cafe, NYC) were recently unearthed in the Incus archives, and their contents will surprise and delight fans of both supremely idiosyncratic musicians.

The Groningen concert (1990) is released on vinyl, while the New York date (1991) is included with the digital download, free of charge for all purchasers. A conversation between Bill Frisell and Henry Kaiser on Bailey, Motian, their intertwined backgrounds, and the significance of these recordings is included as sleeve-note insert.

“This is one of those moments that we’re always hoping for, and it's so rare. And it's so hard to talk about, because it's so beautiful. It's like you're seeing some new species of plant that you never knew existed or something.” – Bill Frisell

Each player bringing decades of crucial experience to their encounters – with histories taking in vast swathes of the development of jazz and free improvisation – these fleeting shared moments provide some of the most riveting playing in the career of either.

There is precious little recorded evidence of Motian as a free improviser, but his mastery is beyond any doubt in these recordings. From knife-edge precision to textural haze, Motian’s palette is astounding, but perhaps even more impressive is his confidence in the non-idiomatic conversation itself. Pushing far beyond the established vocabulary of free percussion, his playing allows a measured degree of repetition to take form, giving rise to almost song-like structures. The covert influence of the drummer’s work on the post-rock genre (just taking its first nascent steps in the early 1990s) is made overt here.

In turn, Bailey allows some of his most unashamedly melodic passages to unfold without a mote of his trademark contrariness or antagonism. Patterns that would be acerbically disrupted elsewhere are allowed to settle, with variations of note and timbre introduced more gradually than is typical of his playing. When forceful changes in dynamics or tone do arrive, they do so in such close tandem with Motian’s rhythmic and textural transitions as to beggar belief. The guitarist’s duos with percussionists (Jamie Muir, Han Bennink, John Stevens…) arguably provide some of the highlights of his discography. ‘Duo in Concert’ represents a strong addition to the list.

An elegant sense of construction pervades the sets, as the duo ably fulfil the promise of free improvisation: carving out hugely compelling, expertly balanced, and thrillingly paced music as if from thin air.

Originally released in 2003 on CD via Post-Parlo Records, and two years later on vinyl via Morr Music, the »Home EP« sees Benjamin Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie, The Postal Service) and Andrew Kenny (The American Analog Set) each contributing three original tracks and playing one of the other's songs. This 2023 vinyl edition is released via Morr Music (EU+UK) and Barsuk Records (US). It features the artwork by Jan Kruse, that was originally made for the 2005 Morr Music version.

The EP was released as the fifth and final volume of the early-’00s series of split albums on Austin, TX indie Post-Parlo, the Gibbard/Kenny pairing followed short contributions in the series from such varied notable early-aughts indie artists as Kind of Like Spitting, Britt Daniel (Spoon), Bright Eyes, Pavo and Super XX Man.

Gibbard and Kenny’s installment came out during a prolific era for both writers: The American Analog Set had released the classic »Know By Heart« album in 2001 and followed it in 2003 with the acclaimed »Promise of Love«, while Gibbard’s profile was rising significantly via the critical and commercial success of The Postal Service’s »Give Up« and Death Cab’s »Transatlanticism«. Unlike the more lush arrangements of their main projects, both Kenny and Gibbard took a simple approach for their entry into the Home series, recording on cassette four-track machines in their respective living rooms in New York and Seattle and each performing four exclusive stripped-down tracks (including a cover of one of the other’s songs – Kenny choosing a rendition of Death Cab’s »Line of Best Fit« and Gibbard delivering his version of AmAnSet’s »Choir Vandals«).

»Home EP« showcases two brilliant songwriters whose legacies continue to shine twenty years later. The American Analog Set recently announced »For Forever«, their seventh album and first new music in 18 years, which was released last week and followed the band’s announcement earlier this year that The Numero Group will reissue their first three albums »The Fun of Watching Fireworks« (1996), »From Our Living Room to Yours «(1997), and »The Golden Band« (1999) as a vinyl boxset in early 2024.

Benjamin Gibbard has recently finished fronting both bands on the sold out Death Cab for Cutie / The Postal Service co-headline tour of arenas and amphitheaters in the United States celebrating the 20th anniversary of »Give Up« and »Transatlanticism«.

“More than anything, I wanted to make an album that was generous, that was useful,” says Ben Folds. “I want you to finish this record with something you didn’t have when you started.” Indeed, Folds’ masterful new collection, What Matters Most, isn’t so much a statement as it is an offering, an open hand reaching out to all those wounded and bewildered by a world that seems to make less and less sense every day. Recorded in East Nashville with co-producer Joe Pisapia, the album marks Folds’ first new studio release in eight years, and it’s a bold, timely, cinematic work, one that examines the tragic and the absurd in equal measure as it reckons with hope and despair, gratitude and loss, identity and perspective. The songs are bittersweet here, hilarious at times, but often laced with a quiet sense of longing and dread: a text message goes unanswered; an old classmate descends into the dark depths of internet conspiracies; a relationship unravels in the middle of a lake. And yet, taken as a whole, the result is an undeniably joyful record that refuses to succumb to the weight of the world around it, an ecstatic reminder of all the beauty and promise hiding in plain sight for anyone willing (and present enough) to recognize their moments as they arrive.

“I feel like there are two sides of me,” says the Nashville-based singer-songwriter and guitar virtuoso known as Sunny War. “One of them is very self-destructive, and the other is trying to work with that other half to keep things balanced.” That’s the central conflict on her fourth album, the eclectic and innovative Anarchist Gospel, which documents a time when it looked like the self-destructive side might win out. Extreme emotions can make that battle all the more perilous, yet from such trials Sunny has crafted a set of songs that draw on a range of ideas and styles, as though she’s marshaling all her forces to get her ideas across: ecstatic gospel, dusty country blues, thoughtful folk, rip-roaring rock and roll, even avant garde studio experiments. She melds them together into a powerful statement of survival, revealing a probing songwriter who indulges no comforting platitudes and a highly innovative guitarist who deploys spidery riffs throughout every song. Because it promises not healing but resilience and perseverance, because it doesn’t take shit for granted, Anarchist Gospel holds up under such intense emotional pressure, acknowledging the pain of living while searching for something that lies just beyond ourselves, some sense of balance between the bad and the good. Featuring: David Rawlings, Allison Russell, Jim James, Micah Nelson

“A piece of music never truly comes to An end. Revisiting a theme illustrates this idea that life goes on.” These are the words of Wayne Shorter, uttered in 2018 upon the release of Emanon, his final opus. On this record, the octogenarian uses dusky hues to shade in the passions of his youth - drawing and science-fiction, as well as the causes he has defended all his life - the fight against ecological upheaval and structural racism. This sentiment did not fail to resonate with Julien Lourau, who has reached a stage in life where he has begun to look back over certain pages written by the man he has always considered one of the masters of his trade. Five years later, this Parisian native has also chosen to revisit his glory days, offering reworked versions of specific tracks composed by his titular elder throughout the 80s. “When I play this music, I find myself back in my teenage bedroom. These are my standards, and they remind me of autumn in Rambouillet.” At that time, after practising his scales, Julien would also play Dungeons & dragons, and immerse himself in SF as well as heroic fantasy - epic influences which are not without a certain connection to the dreamworlds Shorter conjured up, as another fan of landscapes beyond the grasp of reality.

This album features four themes taken from Atlantis, which came out in 1985, and two from Joy Ryder, released three years later. To these, he has added a composition penned at around the same time for Sportin’ Life, the penultimate LP by Weather Report. This is rounded off by a tune taken

from Native Dancer, the record which, ten years earlier, in 1975, brought together this saxophonist who learnt his trade alongside Art Blakey, before joining Miles’ second quintet, and Brazilian Milton Nascimento.

“Between Native Dancer and Atlantis, Shorter did not release anything under his own name, but he took the time and care to really perfect his writing. Upon his return, he injected a very Brazilian form of subtlety into his compositions, especially rhythmically. And from a harmonic point of view, these themes are extremely sophisticated, and reveal truly singular colours. In fact, he decided to display the score as if it constituted the liner notes of Atlantis.”

Julien Lourau is a fan of every Wayne Shorter era, from his Blue Note days, where Mr Gone defined the bases of a truly unique repertoire, all the way to his final quartet - a reference like no other. He decided to focus on this “highly electric” period, which is not necessarily Shorter’s best known, nor his most widely appreciated - despite being a unanimous reference, Shorter has nonetheless never had a direct descendent. In Lourau’s line of sight there lies a desire to focus on typically South American tonic accents which characterise this repertoire, twinned with the ambition to switch up their actual sound “by attempting to open up onto a production highly influenced by eighties fusion". However, he admits that modifying the structures of these most unique of worlds constituted a fresh challenge. “There’s this labyrinthine harmonic system where you’ve no idea how it holds together, but where it’s actually impossible to touch the slightest element without the whole edifice wavering. It is in fact a very difficult thing to achieve!”

In order to successfully transcribe all this creativity free of obstacles, Julien Lourau once again called upon the help of Mathieu Debordes. From January 2023 onwards, Mathieu endeavoured to break down all the musical elements, on paper, before creating any actual music. The record was therefore constructed on the faith of these scores, without necessarily transiting through a creative residency - just two live gigs, to make sure the setup worked. Besides Mathieu Debordes and his synthesisers, Julien Lourau has assembled an ad hoc team by his side. On the bass, according to the track, we can hear erstwhile companion Sylvain Daniel or a new acolyte on the fretless bass, Joan Eche Puig.

Stéphane Edouard, on percussion, even dives headfirst into an unlikely proto-rap of sorts, on Pearl On The Half Shell (where, on the original version, Bobby McFerrin adjusted his interventions in a rather madcap style). Aesthete and drummer Jim Hart as well as pianist Leo Jassef also figure on this release - both were present on previous project devoted to label

CTI. “At sixteen, I wanted to sound like Michael Brecker rather than Ben Webster - that was equated with modernity in those days”, adds Julien with a smile, as for him, all this rings out a little like a logical next step, a joyful immersion into the fountain of youth. And if, for this record, he plays the soprano more than ever, the saxophone Shorter set in his sights on, he never tries to replicate an unattainable ideal note by note. What would be the point?

“Wayne Shorter is not just a saxophonist’s saxophonist. In fact, I don’t know a single person who has risen to challenge of his solos. I have not done it myself either, but on the other hand, I have retained a lot of his phraseology. His way of approaching the instrument reveals a more evanescent language, a work on colour and shape. Keeping this in mind has allowed me to gravitate towards certain elements, that in hindsight, I find echoes of in my work, even in Groove Gang.” Shorter etches out these phrases, creating a groove within which Lourau had traced subtle punctuation, managing, from a highly written base, to create fresh apertures, promises of a great escape. Emblematic of this standpoint, his regal version of Ponte de Areia, originally a wonderful dialogue between Milton Nascimento and Wayne Shorter. Here, the Frenchman takes liberties with the original melodies, without ever growing distant from the original spirit, extending one section with delicacy, offering a rubato development and then a groove “like a little suite”. Julien Lourau also renews with an accomplice from last century, Magic Malik, who lends his high-pitched vocals to the track. Though they had not recorded together for more than twenty years, the two of them got on as if they had only ceased collaborating yesterday, everything flowed naturally. The track was wrapped up in just one take, much like other themes, such as opener Who Goes There where the flautist deploys smooth, enchanted and smoky wisps.

Fundamentally, reflecting of the sleeve which features a child playing with a ball, image that could symbolise the sun just as much as the moon, Julien Lourau manages to translate the ambiguous candour which characterizes Shorter’s work - solar and crepuscular at the same time, that of a visionary and poet definitively situated outside of all chronology, but with whom Julien shares surprising and ‘timely’ coincidences. Shorter was born August 25, 1933, the same day as Julien’s father, “if we take time zones into account”, and who died on Lourau’s birthday, March 2, 2023. Should we take this as a random fact? Or could we not see here the sign of a destiny connecting the agnostic Frenchman to the man who, as a fervent Buddhist, believed in the transmission of his spiritual flow ?

A collection of structured piano improvisations and their surrounding sonic environments, an album in four parts: Songs From a Distant Summer | From November For Snow | Together Recorded between 2011-2013, the album was never intended to be a direct response to the seasons. The coincidence of the recordings having been made at points within the seasons was only pointed out at a later date by a friend. Alongside wishing to avoid any parallels or associations being drawn with Vivaldi’s masterpiece, the title - “The Seasons Are Not Four” - a line from a poem by Syrian poet Adonis , appeared to fit perfectly - recognising our relationship to time but also alluding to the impossibility of truly categorising it. Due to label arrangements and complications the majority of these recordings have remained unreleased for a decade. One notable exception being the piece “I Promise”, that went on to amass in excess of 24 million streams - an unfathomable prospect for a piano-less pianist recording a reunion between himself and a piano at a point of not having played one for several months. The Seasons Are Not Four serves as a sonic record of real-time responses to the character of a piano, to transient states of being and to disparate, fleeting moments in time - some will hear Summer in Winter, others- Autumn in Spring; distant conversation beyond the sounds of a hesitant human shuffling fingers against wooden keys, the ticking of a grandfather clock or the song of birds outside masking passing traffic. - ‘The Seasons Are Not Four, a week is not seven days, a year is more than it is, and less’ Adonis

Take the 101 north out of Los Angeles, and you'll pass by Agoura Hills, where the core duo of the band Dub Thompson grew up. Whatever you see in that town won't readily prepare you for the music they wrote while there, but you're free to look."Most everyone who's in a group who's our age lives on the Internet," says guitarist Matt Pulos. "The kinds of things that have shaped our band aren't anchored to any one time or place."Pulos and his bandmate, drummer Evan Laffer, are currently both 19 years old, and are putting that line of thought to the test; their musical influences travel from the Midwestern malaise of Big Black and Pere Ubu, to Kraut pioneers Can and Kraftwerk, while bowing to the British belligerence of The Fall and This Heat.Recording the album while living with Foxygen's Jonathan Rado at his rented house in Bloomington, the band had its first taste of a heavy Indiana summer, and all the humidity and insect life that buzzes along with it. "We woke up every day, ate hard-boiled eggs and stood on a porch," says Pulos of the experience.Their first collection of songs slyly unties the shoes of genre and convention, shapeshifts mischievously, and tramples on the promises delivered on the name itself.There are only eight songs on this rangy debut.Intense blasts of hook-filled noise rock ("Hayward!"), rocksteady marionette stomp ("No Time"), hypnotic bouts of doomy poetics ("Epicondyles"), outlandishly sexy groove rock ("Dograces"), and a number of other bite-sized forays into parts unknown are made manifest across 9 Songs. The vibes are strong here. Pulos sings and plays like he's working out long-standing grudges, pulling the most sinewy tones from an acoustic guitar and ripping huge chunks of demon flesh out of his electric. Laffer matches him step for step on the drums, an exacting presence behind the kit who pushes even the band's more placid moments into bouts of tension. Together they succeed in animating their musical ideas to startling, almost unnatural life. Reverb units, keyboards, samples and processing gluing everything together, saturated in the August heat and worn in until they sound second nature, it's like somehow you've been listening to these songs forever.

‘Desert Queen’ stands as Adam Beyer’s fourth original release of the year, making 2023 one of the most prolific of his career.

The boss has set the standard in 2023, with a string of first-rate EPs and singles highlighting the year. From the ‘Legend’, to ‘Simulator’ with Green Velvet and more recently the excellent AI-referencing ‘Robotic Arms’ which dropped in August, he’s been on an inspired run of form.

Next up is ‘Desert Queen’, a momentous cut only finished in late September that mixes up formidable bass tones, a celestial chord-driven melody and a striking vocal effect utilising a re-sung vox from the iconic Israeli singer Orfa Hazra. This is large in every sense. We can’t wait to see it light up the Gashouder during the massive Drumcode x Awakenings party at ADE.

‘Soulful’ delivers on its promise, a richly satisfying jam imbued with bags of warmth and groove that’s primed for a variety of dancefloor scenarios.

The last twelve months have been a whirlwind for Henry Counsell and Louis Curran, the men who make up Joy (Anonymous). Having established themselves during the Covid-19 era by playing impromptu meet-ups on London’s South Bank, they have graduated to bigger venues, travelled to far-flung locales and recorded their second album, Cult Classics, while maintaining the spontaneous energy and irrepressible joy that made their name. Their music revels in the euphoria of being alive and all the feelings, good or bad, that come with it. It invites us into a community, draws us close and promises the night of our lives.

Recorded over the course of a year, the blueprint for Cult Classics was laid down over a two-week span at Imogen Heap’s Round House in east London. Joy (Anonymous) invited friends old and new to visit - they’d record live instruments in jam sessions upstairs and then retreat to a second room to flip and loop and generally mess with the sounds, moulding them into sizzling dance tracks. “Loads of people were coming up to me like ‘I thought this was going to be a dance record?’” Louis says, remembering the quietly beautiful music they’d be recording. “I’d be like, don’t worry about that, just keep playing.” He’d send it back to people later and they’d be floored - “That was my bit and you’ve made it... jungle!”

It was an organic and creatively fulfilling approach, one that didn’t allow any of the music to get stale or stagnate. As they built the tracks from the sounds they’d collected, Joy (Anonymous) would weave the new songs into their famously improvised live sets, testing them, refining them, taking note of the audiences’ reactions. In a year punctuated by a lot of travel, they’d also incorporate the voices of people they met along the way - “Beazley’s Poem”, which opens the record, features the words of a man who was working security at a Fred Again show at New York’s Terminal Five. “He was basically doing the opposite of his job and being a hype man, climbing on the fence and ramping up the crowd - we ended up hanging out with him - like, who’s this legend?” Louis explains. “He just speaks really amazingly about his life, all these amazing thoughts and opinions - he started jumping on the mic when we were playing, preaching these amazing messages to the crowd, like that we all need to be nicer to each other. The first time we played the record in its entirety, he introduced us and that’s the recording we’ve used.”

Joy (Anonymous) remain dedicated to the spirit of spontaneity. They shut a street down with a surprise waterside party in New York. On a trip to Copenhagen they played an impromptu set in a cafe, which turned into a house party and a night-long good time. In Lithuania, they ended up playing in a decommissioned prison. It’s harder, perhaps, to keep that spirit alive now that they are operating more within the confines of the music industry but they will keep lugging their kit to wherever the party calls for as long as they can. “I think if we lose that, we’ve kind of lost what makes us us,” Henry says.

Bursting with multi-genre reference points and disparate influences, Cult Classics is very much a dance album. The samples we made ourselves or we took from music that is quite different to dance music, but we definitely wanted to shout out a lot of the dance influences that we love,” Henry says. They listened to a lot of Daft Punk and Basement Jaxx as well as The Prodigy (“more rage stuff”), taking songwriting tips from their dance forebears, but also recording bits that felt more like jazz and motown (see: A Place I Belong and the lovely album closer, You’re In Or You’re Out). Emir Taha’s gentle classical guitar runs like a thread throughout Cult Classics, washing into the undertones of the record, tying it all together.

The album follows the beat of a night out, from frenetic, sweaty movement to the gentler winding down as the dawn breaks. At times it is euphoric, celebratory and pure, whirling fun, at others it seeks the joy in the darker emotions that life throws our way. 404 is designed to encapsulate everything about the Joy (Anonymous) journey so far. Skittering beats and ghostly vocals give way to vibrating house chords: sirens blare as we approach a dubstep drop. It’s dramatic and wild, ratcheting up, seeming to settle then hitting you with an intense and frantic breakdown before the ghostly vocal returns to lull us back into the world. It has the feel of a hungry cat playing with a mouse, toying with it before letting it get away.

What sounds like someone playing the spoons on playful, housey How We End Up Here is actually Louis’ restless habit of clicking his rings on everything, one of a myriad of calling cards and easter eggs that day one fans will recognise. They rework Miley Cyrus and Swae Lee’s Party Up The Street into a French-electro-inspired future classic, adding a note of melancholy to a tune that you can imagine hearing blaring from every car on a summer drive. The lyrics on Cult Classic are generally reassuring, inspirational, originally drawn from Henry in stream-of-consciousness freestyles. You’re fine the way you are, they seem to say - the repeated “No need to try” of A Place I Belong, the assurance that “It’s in me all the time” on In Me All The Time. Even the summery but regretful Did You Wrong hints at the growth that is possible from less than ideal behaviour. For Joy (Anonymous), joy isn’t about just being “happy” all the time - it’s about relishing every element of your being.

The name ‘Joy (Anonymous)’ is taken from the work Henry did with Alcoholics Anonymous groups: it is a way to build a community around sharing joy. Their impromptu live sets are known as ‘meetings’; they encourage fans to share moments of joy to their website. They care deeply about the scene they’ve come up in and are determined not to leave it behind. Every show is another chance to reach out and connect with people who love to come together and revel in music as loud as it can go.

Support slots for Fred Again and The Streets, wild B2Bs with Fred and Skrillex, and a set at Four Tet’s Finsbury Park all-dayer this summer have given the duo the opportunity to live out childhood dreams and introduced their infectious live shows to new audiences at huge venues.

With an album as assured and joyful as Cult Classics on the horizon (and a killer collab with The Blessed Madonna coming up), they’re only going to reach higher heights. But the essence of Joy (Anonymous) remains on the South Bank. Between shows at Ally Pally in September, they dragged their camping chairs and gear back down to the banks of the Thames: and it just felt right.

“Azazel” is the second vinyl release of this year and the EP debut from Priorato (MX), with some interesting and outstanding remixes by Colossio, Ludviq, and Chinosynth. This vinyl release will offer a diverse range of remixes, each bringing its own interpretation and style to the original track "Azazel".

A1. Led by Rubén Torres, a DJ and producer from Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, focusing on indie dance and techno, the original track for "Azazel" is characterized by a solid bass sequence, hypnotic vocals, and a blend of electronic and organic elements.

The song creates an enigmatic and immersive atmosphere, gradually building a powerful and addictive groove, it offers a musical experience that transports listeners to a trance-like state, inducing feelings of euphoria and escapism.

A2. For the first remix we have the honor to have again on board Colossio, he’s also known as one of Mexico's most talented producers, with previous releases on labels like Duro, Calypso, and Exit Strategy. His remix of "Azazel" is expected to bring a mix of high energy and darkness to the track, showcasing his signature style.

B1. Originally from Guadalajara, Mexico but now based in Barcelona, Spain, Head honcho Ludviq, delivers a remix that promises to be energetic, groovy and psychedelic, incorporating unconventional percussions and sounds recorded from the city chaos and nature calmness environments.

B2. Based in Culiacán, Mexico, Chinosynth's remix aims to infuse a human touch into the track by incorporating analog sounds from studio instruments such as guitars, bass, and synths, while maintaining a dance floor-oriented vibe.

40 plus years after Out of Vogue and Pay to Cum came, USA HC punk has died many deaths. Only to be brought back to life wave after wave. Perhaps only to be sold again as a cleaner version of itself. However there seem to always be a bunch of miscreats that spit on HC grave and enjoy making dirty and aggressive fast music as if their lifes were on it. NOSFERATU is one of them. What we have here is the long promised vinyl version of their last year cassette tape. On it you’ll find 11 songs of boom box sounding hardcore PUNK. Fast and raging, without an ounce of metal or cuteness on it. Think of YDI or E-13 but also WRETCHED or SYSTEMATIC DEATH. Short songs as burst of energy with an attention to detail to their craft the way only someone who has worn out their HEREJIA or ANTI-DOGMATIKSS tapes can create. In so many words, NOSFERATU sounds, in my mind, as the missing hidden track on Killed By Hardcore vol. 2. This version of Society’s Bastard comes as a double A side 12” with the same program repeating on both sides, why not? Packed in a beautiful sleeve and recorded at D4mt Labds in a whim merely a week after writing them. (Tesco Holocaust

Death metal is the great undead of subgenres: rising, again and again, to take revenge on the living with maximum violence. Servants of the zombie code and masters of old school brutality, Germany’s ENDSEEKER have made their intent to kill again more than apparent over the last nine years. Formed in Hamburg in 2014, the quintet have swiftly built a reputation as one of European death metal’s most dynamic wrecking crews. From the aspirational evisceration of first full-length Flesh Hammer Prophecy, to Metal Blade debut The Harvest in 2019, and the widely acclaimed Mount Carcass two years later, Endseeker have cooked up such a formidable formula that their rise to glory seems almost inevitable. But like everyone else, they were stopped in their tracks by the Covid pandemic and its aftermath. As that global horrorshow fades in the rear-view, Endseeker are poised to return with their most crushing and charismatic album to date: Global Worming Death metal is a serious business and Global Worming is Endseeker’s most focused and sophisticated offering to date. Nonetheless, there is always room in the underground sewers for a brain-eating monster or two, and fans of zombie-centric death metal will be more than satisfied with the new album’s brilliant, bloody contents. Consumed in its belligerent entirety, Global Worming soon emits the acrid stench of a future classic. Endseeker have stayed true to their deathly roots, while also writing some of the most imaginative songs in their history. Supremely catchy but as brutal and ugly as the arcane gods demand, Global Worming promises to burrow under the world’s skin with maximum force.

Producer Tom Thiel has worked in the medium of electronic music since the 1980s, been active in the musical epicenter of Berlin since 1987 and with the Sun Electric duo, he was already at the forefront of live / “real time” electronica since the 1990s.
Incidentally, Sun Electric are set to release an archival live set from this period on Arjunamusic later this year.
Though not everyone becomes exceptional on the basis of “veteran” status alone, Thiel’s latest work shows that he has made good on one of the main promises held out by electronic music and sound synthesis: namely, that it would also provide unexpected, novel, highly individualized syntheses of different attitudes, atmospheres, and affects. This is happily the case with Thiel’s new Arjunamusic release (his first full solo outing since his eponymous 2011 album): it’s a series of colorful, self-contained vignettes that are perceptibly drawn from an eclectic pool of personal

Death metal is the great undead of subgenres: rising, again and again, to take revenge on the living with maximum violence. Servants of the zombie code and masters of old school brutality, Germany’s ENDSEEKER have made their intent to kill again more than apparent over the last nine years. Formed in Hamburg in 2014, the quintet have swiftly built a reputation as one of European death metal’s most dynamic wrecking crews. From the aspirational evisceration of first full-length Flesh Hammer Prophecy, to Metal Blade debut The Harvest in 2019, and the widely acclaimed Mount Carcass two years later, Endseeker have cooked up such a formidable formula that their rise to glory seems almost inevitable. But like everyone else, they were stopped in their tracks by the Covid pandemic and its aftermath. As that global horrorshow fades in the rear-view, Endseeker are poised to return with their most crushing and charismatic album to date: Global Worming Death metal is a serious business and Global Worming is Endseeker’s most focused and sophisticated offering to date. Nonetheless, there is always room in the underground sewers for a brain-eating monster or two, and fans of zombie-centric death metal will be more than satisfied with the new album’s brilliant, bloody contents. Consumed in its belligerent entirety, Global Worming soon emits the acrid stench of a future classic. Endseeker have stayed true to their deathly roots, while also writing some of the most imaginative songs in their history. Supremely catchy but as brutal and ugly as the arcane gods demand, Global Worming promises to burrow under the world’s skin with maximum force.

“Praying to god whether or not I believe there is one” - PH

Petra Hermanova and Unguarded announce In Death’s Eyes (UGD-009), the debut solo LP under the artist’s own name. This LP features nine tracks utilizing folk and sacred musical technique and instrumentation which drift between song and heavy distorted drones. In a disciplined display of beauty, pain, and astute musicianship, Hermanova brings forth a notable accomplishment of an album. In Death’s Eyes confronts death from start to finish with a rare fervor that leaves one feeling it was utterly necessary for Hermanova to produce - to survive. The transcendent impulse, or the influence of religious music, bears heavily on Hermanova’s compositions in her choir arrangements, but is most apparent in her use of pipe organ, opening the record on Black Glass. Having written organ parts for a significant portion of the record, she sought out the renowned organist Denny Wilke to record with her in the Merseburg Cathedral. Captivated by Wilke's profound skill as a player and knowledge of the Ladegast organ, Hermanova invited him to collaborate on Two Deaths where he delivers an impressive improvisation. While religious music offers spiritual solace from grief, folk speaks to the human and earthly as told by the individual, be they songs of suffering or joy, sin or salvation. To Hermanova, the clean promise of liturgical music is not enough to alleviate the blunt pain of grief. Contrasting the spiritual is the voice of the individual sufferer - the folk musician. For Hermanova, the autoharp embodies this contrast. The autoharp, a familiar sound in Appalachian folk music since its mass production in the late 1800’s, is an affordable instrument designed for the unskilled player. It is the antithesis of the organ which is costly, gargantuan, reserved for skilled players, and quite literally a part of the church. Through In Death’s Eyes the sounds of transcendence blend with the worldly, the tension between them poignantly expressing Hermanova’s struggle for spiritual resolution against the reality of death and loss. Like Hermanova’s lyrics, the artwork, conceptualized by Enes Güç and Evelyn Bencicova, is riddled with symbolism and allusion. We find Hermanova on the cover, digitally rendered. Reclining like an anatomical Venus, her vital organs are exposed, suggesting she is denied a transcendent death and is instead immaculately human. Bearing a sickle, her legs are metallic like armor, both symbols of protection. We see here in this image, as we hear in the nine tracks of IDE, the metaphoric state of someone ravaged by loss, choosing to tear herself open in an attempt to heal. - Reece Cox Petra Hermanova is a musician and visual artist based in Berlin. In 2018, Hermanova began working with the autoharp, which has since become the central pillar of her musical practice. Drawing inspiration from folk, medieval drone, and contemporary textural expressions, as well as Appalachian autoharp music, she creates emotionally driven arrangements accompanied by vocals. In her lyrics, she speaks to the fragility and tenderness of the human condition, religious conceptions of death, and introspective landscapes through narrative and symbolism. Hermanova debuted live at the Berliner Festspiele event The Sun Machine is Coming Down, performed at Trauma Bar und Kino accompanied with her choir, and recently took part in Sorour Darabi’s durational performance From the Throat to the Dawn. Her debut solo album, In Death’s Eyes, is set for release in 2023 on the art platform and label Unguarded. The album, where she wrote for the autoharp, pipe organ, solo voice and choir, features the acclaimed organist Denny Wilke playing the 19th century Ladegast organ of the Merseburg Cathedral. She has toured internationally with previous projects, including extensive sound and visual collaborations with Jon Eirik Boska (Hydropsyche) as well as with her award-winning band Fiordmoss. She was recently announced as a SHAPE+ platform artist.

McKowski is pleased to confirm details of his debut solo album: ‘Notes From The Boneyard’, a new release that arrives courtesy of the Deltasonic label.

In anticipation of the record, the Irish songwriter and multi-instrumentalist has unveiled the single “Return of Pygmy Pony”.

“Return of Pygmy Pony” is one of 10 cinematic tracks, alongside previous single “Lake”, that comprise upcoming album ‘Notes From The Boneyard’. Envisioning a fictional world known as ‘The Boneyard’, McKowski’s debut will promise a purely instrumental album of atmospheric folk and otherworldly soundscapes to capture your imagination and seep into your soul.

Utilising a unique blend of acoustic guitars, strings, analog synths, and electronic toys, Mckowski creates a haunting and evocative journey across its transient 35 minutes. Gifted with the talents of some old allies, ‘Notes From The Boneyard’ sees guest musicianship from the likes of Steve Wickham (viola), Howe Gelb (guitar), Laura Mcafadden (cello), Dave Murphy (pedal steel), with St Francis Hotel also adding further elements of atmosphere and production.

With one foot rooted in a dark woodland and the other foot stepping into unknown territory, the end result is a must-listen for fans of soundtracks, the surreal, or simply those searching for the unexpected. Like the wooden beauty of Angelo Badalementi’s ‘Straight Story’ mixed with the dark synth undertones such as Carpenter-esque Moog; it’s the ideal companion for those pensive days and long nocturnal hours.

Another Michael, the captivating and introspective musical artist, is poised to make a profound impact with their highly anticipated upcoming record, “Wishes to Fulfill.” Comprised of Michael Doherty (vocals, guitar), Nick Sebastiano (bass), and Alenni Davis (drums), the band has honed their craft and expanded their sonic horizons, promising a musical journey that will resonate deeply with listeners.

With “Wishes to Fulfill,” Another Michael continues to delve into the depths of human experience, exploring themes of longing, hope, and the pursuit of dreams. The album showcases their signature heartfelt songwriting, as well as their ability to craft intricate melodies and lush arrangements. Michael Doherty’s evocative vocals guide listeners through a tapestry of emotions, inviting introspection and connection on a profound level.

Anticipation for “Wishes to Fulfill” has been steadily building, with fans eagerly awaiting the band’s next chapter. Another Michael’s previous releases have garnered critical acclaimand a devoted following, and their latest record promises to be a culmination of their artistic growth and exploration. With its thoughtful lyrics, mesmerizing instrumentation, and captivating performances, “Wishes to Fulfill” is set to solidify Another Michael’s position as one of the most exciting and introspective acts in contemporary indie music.

Celebrated composer, performer, saxophonist, soloist, band leader, educator, activist, and mixed-media artist Matana Roberts returns with a new installment of their acclaimed Coin Coin series. For over a decade, Coin Coin has been the central artistic project for Roberts, a remarkable exploration of American ancestry and the nature of memory through "sound quilting": modern composition that draws on a wide range of musical sources and traditions, along with research-driven historical and genealogical narratives that yield prose and poetry both spoken and sung, field recordings, and graphic scores. The Quietus declares "when the 12-album cycle is complete, it will be regarded as a singular masterpiece of 21st century sonic and narrative art" and Pitchfork calls it "one of the most provocative ongoing bodies of work by any American musician." Coin Coin Chapter Five: In the garden... is the first new recorded audio chapter since 2019 and centers upon reproductive rights, summoning the story of a family ancestor who died in early adulthood, from a cause kept obfuscated and hushed, shrouded in disinformation and shame. Roberts reimagines diaristic and oral narratives, delivered in strident streams of spoken word that punctuate the hour-long work, with recurring musical themes frequently accompanied by the declarative refrain "my name is your name / our name is their name / we are named / we remember / they forget." As Roberts writes in the accompanying liner notes essay: I find it absolutely disgusting that the same trauma my grand ancestor, whose story we are telling in this chapter, is closely mirroring the experiences of some poor soul today as I write this... Our aforementioned grand, who perished at a young age, leaving her growing children motherless, did not have to die. The negative consequences of her death have reverberated down through generations in my family line, in the same way that a similar resounding might happen for someone else's ancestral line generations from today. While often jazz-adjacent, and with Matana's inimitable saxophone and indomitable voice at the core, Roberts situates Coin Coin outside the Jazz genre and within heterodox pathways of post-modern composition, electroacoustic music, sound collage, experimental voice, and sound art. In the garden... undeniably continues to express and expand upon the project's magnificent iconoclasm, nonetheless being the most jazz-inflected chapter since Coin Coin Chapter Two: Mississippi Moonchile(2013). Recorded in Brooklyn with a stellar acoustic ensemble that includes Stuart Bogie, Gitanjali Jain, Darius Jones, Matt Lavelle, Mike Pride, Ryan Sawyer, Corey Smythe, and Mazz Swift, abetted by some sparkling pieces featuring modular synthesis courtesy of album producer Kyp Malone (Bent Arcana, TV On The Radio), In the garden... traverses a vivid stylistic array of thematic overtures, excursions and set pieces, ranging from spacious textural invocations to gorgeously tempered horn-led compositions to driving free jazz and exhilarating through composed bursts of cacophony. With storytelling spoken-word lead vocals by Roberts channeled recurringly throughout, alongside various other deployments of layered and group voices, the album is alternately a meditation and fever dream of narrative potency. This is some of the most intense and intensive music Roberts has composed and captured to date, richly conceived and deeply felt, restless yet focused, unflinchingly substantive and unique. Coin Coin Chapter Five: In the garden... channels epigenetic trauma and tragedy with teeming complexity and fierce beauty _ a eulogy, testimony, and celebration, melding music and language in a stunning polychromatic flow of vernaculars and poetics. A powerful work of subjective commemoration and historical-cultural communion that speaks indelibly to the present moment.



2x10” in 350 gsm widespine jacket w/interior colour flood + 300 gsm printed inners + 20”x 10” fold-out insert + DL card

Bobby Caldwell's second album, Cat In The Hat, from 1980, is one of his greatest moments and another masterwork of soulful sophistication. Featuring the eternal "Open Your Eyes", brilliantly sampled by J Dilla for Common's "The Light", it's about as essential as records get. Like its eponymous predecessor, it's been out of print for far too long. To finally release the hugely-anticipated reissue is one of our sincerely proudest moments.

Whilst Ned Doheny is known in Japan as "Mr California", native New Yorker Bobby Caldwell has always been "Mr AOR" to his Far-Eastern friends. His distinct charm is an irresistible blend of soul, jazz, and pop influences. He possessed phenomenal songwriting prowess, smooth vocal performances, was both a great soul guitarist and dextrous keyboard player and known for genius chord progressions. It all added up to a multi-layered brilliance entering the studio, and the singular sound he landed on was laced with soulful, sweeping strings and funky horns, touching lightly on disco, while allowing his supple voice to carry the stunning tracks he'd crafted.

Right from the off, it's easy to tell that Cat In The Hat is a deeply special record. It's fantastically produced and incredibly well-rounded, carving its own lane with deep soul, warm jazz and a stunning vocal delivery that really helped Bobby reach out to some big new audiences at the time. Goosebumps at the ready for the rolling power-piano funk of "Coming Down From Love", opening up the album with a track as good as anything Steely Dan or The Doobies ever crafted, with a vocal performance from the heavens. Pumping AOR wonder "Wrong Or Right" is up there with the slick, classy rhythms of prime Ned Doheny whilst the cool, skipping soul of guitar-drenched "To Know What You've Got" is a funky ballad par excellence, with elemental traces of "What A Fool Believes". No bad thing. Closing out Side A, the folk-funk of "You Promised Me" is a bright, soulful strut with a wonderful vocal coda that just builds. Sensational.

The delicate bounce and falsetto self-harmonising of "It's Over" offers a truly delightful introduction to Side B, and serves as a great precursor to what follows. Bobby's dynamite "Open Your Eyes" is likely the reason you're all here. As if he needed it, the eternal J Dilla further immortalised Caldwell in the hip-hop canon with his production of Common’s epochal “The Light,” which heavily samples the magical “Open Your Eyes.” On a post paying tribute to Bobby in March 2023, Questlove claimed that he "got word Brother Bobby loved it". Bobby's original has seen new life even more recently from the likes of Dwele and Kendrick Lamar and deservingly so, as its insistent drums and staccato piano created a modern-soul classic. You'd think that would be hard to follow, wouldn't you? Not so, when you're Bobby Caldwell. Indeed, the horn-drenched stepper "Mother Of Creation" is absolutely ace, and, whisper it, possibly the album's finest track, all funky piano and guitars with horn lines to die for. Exquisite ballad "I Don't Want To Lose Your Love" rounds out the album beautifully.

Bobby sadly passed away on 23rd March 2023, after a long struggle with mitochondrial damage and oxidative stress, due to an adverse effect from a fluoroquinolone antibiotic. The reissue of Cat In The Hat will be available on vinyl across the globe, ensuring that fans of his incomparable talent - and soul music enthusiasts worldwide - can radiate in the deep beauty of this seminal album. Meticulously remastered and cut by both Simon Francis and Cicely Balston respectively, it has been pressed to the highest possibly quality at Record Industry in Holland.

This record"s origin story is as elusive as Pharoah was about everything Pharoah. It was born out of a misunderstanding between him and the India Navigation producer Bob Cummins, and was recorded at a crossroads in his career with a group of musicians so unlikely that they were never all in the same room again. There was a guitarist who was also a spiritual guru, an organist who would go on to co-write and produce "The Message", and a classically trained pianist - his wife at the time, Bedria Sanders - who played the harmonium despite never having seen one. At times ambient and serene, at others funky and modal, PHAROAH radically departed from his earlier work. It would become one of the artist"s most beloved records and one of the great works of the 20th century. With Pharoah Sanders" blessing, the limited edition embossed version of this 2 LP box set presents the definitive, remastered version of PHAROAH, his seminal record from 1977, along with two previously unreleased live performances of his masterpiece "Harvest Time". This is the first official rerelease of PHAROAH, which has been bootlegged often since its original release in 1977. These exceptional live versions of "Harvest Time" - which Pharoah performed during an intense European tour in the summer of "77 and which are included here for the first time - turn the original, beloved composition on its head. PHAROAH will be released a year after the legendary tenor saxophonists" untimely passing, and two years after the release of what was to become his final album, the widely acclaimed PROMISES, a collaboration between the composer Floating Points and Pharoah Sanders, featuring the London Symphony Orchestra. The first pressing of this limited edition box set comes with an embossed cover and is accompanied by never-before-shared photographs and ephemera, as well as a 24-page booklet featuring rarely seen photographs, interviews with many of the participants, and a conversation with Pharoah himself.

One of Death Metal's biggest bands, DYING FETUS return with their highly anticipated new album, Make Them Beg For Death. Recorded in Baltimore with longtime producer Steve Wright and mixed by Mark Lewis (Cannibal Corpse), Make Them Beg For Death contains every DYING FETUS hallmark. The veteran Death Metal band’s ninth album is fast, intense, and brimming with unstoppable grooves. Monstrous riffs, blast beats, unstoppable hooks, and earth-moving grooves define their catalog. “We put our own twist on Death Metal,” explains co-vocalist/guitarist John Gallagher. “We were like most bands, starting in the garage, drinking beer, having a little fun on the weekend, finding the right amps through trial and error. We blended aspects of bands we liked – Suffocation, Obituary, Deicide, and Cannibal Corpse, among others; the dual vocal approach of Carcass – and made them our own. ‘Let’s make it moshy, let’s make it slammy.’” Make Them Beg For Death delivers savage beatdowns equally designed to pulverize and mesmerize. “It follows on from where Wrong One To Fuck With left off,” drummer Trey Williams promises. “We don’t need to participate in the technical death metal arms race. We’ve got the big guns, and we’ve proven that. It’s all about pointing them in the right direction, so to speak.” To the men of DYING FETUS, the mission is straightforward. “The philosophy is the same now as it was when the band started,” Gallagher confirms. “To write catchy riffs and to make it memorable. Whatever style of music you’re doing, make it something people want to hear repeatedly.”

A.R. Kive collates the three most astonishing works from that most miraculous of duos - A.R. Kane - comprising the ‘Up Home’ EP from 1988 that signified the band’s dawning realisation of their own powers and possibilities, their legendary debut LP ‘sixty nine’ (1988) and its kaleidoscopic, prophetic double-LP follow up ‘i’ (1989).

In founder-member Rudy Tambala’s new remastering, the music on these pivotal transmissions from the birth of dream pop, have been reinvigorated and re-infused with a new power, a new depth and intimacy, a new height and immensity. Vivid, timeless and yet always timely whenever they’re recalled, these records still force any listener to realise that despite the habits of retrospective myth-making and the
safe neutering effects of ‘genre’, thirty years have in no way dimmed how resistant and dissident to critical habits of categorisation A.R. Kane always were. Never quite ‘avant-pop’ or ‘shoegaze’ or ‘post-rock’ or any of those sobriquets designed to file and categorise, A.R. Kive is a reminder that those genres had to be coined, had to be invented precisely to contain the astonishing sound of A.R. Kane, because
previous formulations couldn’t come close to their sui generis sound and suggestiveness. This is music that pointed towards futures which a whole generation of artists and sonic explorers would map out. Now beautifully repackaged, remastered and fleshed out with extensive sleeve notes and accompanying materials, ‘A.R. Kive’ reveals that 35 years on it’s still a struggle to defuse the revolutionary and inspirational possibility of A.R. Kane’s music.

A.R. Kane were formed in 1986 by Rudy Tambala and Alex Ayuli, two second-generation immigrants who grew up together in Stratford, East London. From the off the pair were outsiders in the culturally mixed (cockney/Irish/West Indian/Asian) milieu of the East End, with Alex and Rudy’s folks first generation immigrants from Nigeria and Malawi, respectively. The two of them quickly developed and fostered an innate and near-telepathic mutual understanding forged in musical, literary and artistic exploration. Like a lot of second-generation immigrants, they were ferocious autodidacts in all kinds of areas, especially around music and literature. Diving deep into the music of afro-futurist luminaries such as Sun Ra, Miles Davis, Lee Perry and
Hendrix, as well as devouring the explorations of lysergic noise and feedback from contemporaries like Sonic Youth and Butthole Surfers, they also thoroughly immersed themselves in the alternate literary realities of sci-fi and ancient history (the fascination with the arcane that gave the band their name), all to feed their voracious cultural thirsts and intellectual curiosity.

It was seeing the Cocteau Twins performing on Channel 4 show the Tube that spurred A.R. Kane into being - “They had no drummer. They used tapes and technology and Liz Fraser looked completely otherworldly with those big eyes. And the noise coming out of Robin’s guitar! That was the ‘Fuck! We could do that! We could express ourselves like that!’ moment”, recalls Tambala - and through a mix of
confidence, chutzpah, ad hoc almost-mythical live shows and sheer innocent will the duo debuted with the astonishing ‘When You’re Sad’ single for One Little Indian in 1986. Immediately dubbed a ‘black Jesus & Mary Chain’ by a press unsure of WHERE to put a black band clearly immersed in feedback and noise, what was immediately apparent for listeners was just how much more was going on here - a
tapping of dub’s stealth and guile, a resonant umbilicus back to fusion and jazz, the music less a conjuration of past highs than a re-summoning of lost spirits.
The run of singles and EPs that followed picked up increasingly rapt reviews in the press, but it was the ‘Up Home EP’ released in 1988 on their new home, Rough Trade that really suggested something immense was about to break. Simon Reynolds noted the EP was: Their most concentrated slab of iridescent awesomeness and a true pinnacle of an era that abounded with astounding landmarks of guitar-reinvention, A.R. Kane at their most elixir-like.

If anything, the remastered ‘Up Home’ that forms the first part of ‘A.R. Kive’ is even more dazzling, even more startling than it was when it first emerged, and listening now you again wonder not just about how many bands christened ‘shoegaze’ tried to emulate it, but how all of them fell so far short of its lambent, pellucid wonder. This remains intrinsically experimental music but with none of the frowning orthodoxy those words imply. A.R. Kane, thanks to that second generation auto-didacticism were always supremely aware about the interstices of music and magic, but at the same time gloriously free in the way they explored that connection within their own sound, fascinated always with the creation of ‘perfect mistakes’ and the possibilities inherent in informed play.

‘sixty nine’ the group’s debut LP that emerged in 1988 had
critics and listeners struggling to fit language around A.R. Kane’s sound. As a title it was telling - the year of ‘Bitches Brew’, the year of ‘In A Silent Way’, the erotic möbius between two lovers - and as originally coined by the band themselves, ‘dream pop’ (before it became a free-floating signifier of vague import) was entirely apposite for the music A.R. Kane were making. Crafted in a dark small basement studio in which Tambala recalls the duo had “complete freedom - We wanted to go as far out as we could, and in doing so we discovered the point where it stops being music”. There was an irresistibly dreamy, somnambulant, sensual and almost surreal flow to ‘sixty nine’s sound, but also real darkness/dankness, the ruptures of the primordial and the reverberations of the subconscious, within the grooves of remarkable songs like ‘Dizzy’ and ‘Crazy Blue’. Alex’s plangent vocals floated and surged amidst exquisite peals of refracted feedback but crucially there was BASS here, lugubrious and funky and full of dread, sonic pleasure and sonic disturbance crushed together to make music with a center so deep it felt subcutaneous, music constructed from both the accidental and the deliberate, generous enough to dance with both serendipity and chaos. ‘sixty nine’ remains - especially in this remastered iteration - ravishing, revolutionary.

The final part of this ‘A.R. Kive’ contains 1989’s astonishing double-LP ‘i’ which followed up on ‘sixty nine’s promise and saw the duo fully unleash their experimental pop sensibilities over 26 tracks, plunging the A.R. Kane sound into a dazzlingly kaleidoscopic vision of pop experiment and play. Suffused with new digital technologies and combining searingly sweet and danceable pop with perhaps the duo’s strangest and boundary-pushing compositions, the album did exactly what a great double-set should do - indulge the artists sprawling pursuit of their own imaginations but always with a concision and an ear for those moments where pop both transcends and toys with the listeners expectations. Jason Ankeny has noted that “In retrospect, ‘i’ now seems like a crystal ball prophesying virtually every major musical development of the 1990s; from the shimmering techno of ‘A Love from Outer Space’ to the liquid dub of ‘What’s All This Then?’, from the alien drone-pop of ‘Conundrum’ to the sinister shoegazer miasma of ‘Supervixens’ — it’s all here, an underground road map for countless bands to follow.” Perhaps the most overwhelmingly all-encompassing transmission from A.R. Kane, ‘i’ bookended a three year period in which the duo had made some of the most prophetic and revelatory music of the entire decade.

After ‘i’ the duo’s output became more sporadic with Tambala and Ayuli moving in different directions both geographically and musically, with only 1994’s ‘New Clear Child’ a crystalline re-fraction of future and past echoes of jazz, folk and soul, before the duo went their separate ways. Since then, A.R. Kane’s music has endured, not thanks to the usual sepia’d false memories that seem to maintain interest in so much of the musical past, but because those who hear A.R. Kane music and are changed irrevocably, have to share that universe which A.R. Kane opened up, with anyone else who will listen. Far more than other lauded documents of the late 80s it still sounds astonishingly fresh, astonishingly livid and vivid and necessary and NOW.

The White Series continues after a little pit stop. Tankwart is at the start with four tracks of wave, triphop and kraut and leads us into a cosmic slipstream. As one half of Dâdalus & Bikarus he is already known to us and now shows a more danceable side of his productions. Tankwart is known around here for his versatile DJ sets, which always surprise us with a pinch of the unexpected. We also find this in his music – Tankwart gives the supposedly familiar a new and sparkling twist.

Indies Only LP is opaque green vinyl. Both LPs come with a download. The moment the needle drops on Bite, the new A Giant Dog record, one’s conception of what an A Giant Dog record sounds like bends like space and time around a starship running at lightspeed. The biggest point of departure is that Bite is a concept album, concerning characters who find themselves moving in and out of a virtual reality called Avalonia. A Giant Dog’s first album of original songs since 2017’s Toy, Bite finds the band Sabrina Ellis, Andrew Cashen, Danny Blanchard, Graham Low, and Andy Bauer at their peak as musicians, challenging themselves with more complex arrangements and subject matter that forced them out of their heads and into those of the characters who occupy this supposed paradise. “We had to find ourselves within, or project ourselves into, the principal characters. We developed them, got to know their minds, emotions, and motivations, and then expressed those in nine songs,” Ellis explains. Themes of addiction, gender fluidity, living ethically in a capitalist society, physical autonomy, avarice, grief, and consent bubble beneath the promised happiness of Avalonia. This is evident in songs like “Different Than,” where Ellis sings, “My body can’t explain the things my mind don’t comprehend” as if societal gender pressure is squeezing its protagonist out of their skin. The songs on Bite are full of bombast, at turns calling to mind the spacefaring operatic rock of Electric Light Orchestra and the high drama of an Ennio Morricone film score. The album’s narrative sweep is epic in scope, its characters facing impossible odds and certain doom, existing as comfortably with the sci-fi grandiosity of Thin Lizzy’s Jailbreak as it does with the high fantasy of Dio and Iron Maiden. Appropriately, A Giant Dog came to this narrative armed to the teeth with new ideas, unleashing synthesizers and string sections to create what Ellis describes as orchestral, symphonic, futuristic punk. To achieve this, they left their home turf of Austin, Texas, for La Cuve Studio, just outside of Angers, France. Living in the French countryside, A Giant Dog laid down their vision of the future against a decidedly pastoral backdrop. On walks from Angers to La Cuve, Ellis says that they “would see many things, and also nothing at all. Swans on the river. Romani people living in little trailers, with a side hut built for their dog. A juggler on a unicycle—not fucking with you.” “We thought we wouldn’t be allowed back in France after this trip, to be honest,” they continued. “Five loud, stomping, clapping, rowdy Americans who ran through the streets of Angers for three weeks in November 2022.” The experience capped two years of planning and writing, fleshing out the universe of Avalonia beyond the bounds of most concept albums. The resulting nine songs do not merely occupy this space: They’ve lived in it, and they want out.

Blonde on Blonde: A double album that transcends time, defies space, suspends reality, and looks through the human soul and tells the listener characteristics about themselves they didn't know. Professor Sean Wilentz, historian-in-residence for Bob Dylan's Web site, comes as close to summing up its brilliance in his superb Bob Dylan In America as any who've tried: "The songs are rich meditations on desire, frailty, promises, boredom, hurt, envy, connections, missed connections, paranoia, and transcendent beauty – in short, the lures and snare of love, stock themes of rock and pop music, but written with a powerful literary imagination and played out in a pop netherworld." No lie.

As part of its Bob Dylan catalogue restoration series, we are thoroughly humbled to have the privilege of mastering the iconic LP from the master tapes and pressing it on 45RPM LPs at RTI. We feel that the end result is the very finest, most transparent edition of Blonde on Blonde ever produced. Forever renowned for what the Bard deemed "that thin, that wild mercury sound," the album's famed aural character lives and breathes on this superb version, with wider and deeper grooves affording playback of previously buried information and lifelike presentation of the studio sessions.

Prized for a unique sound that cultural critic Greil Marcus tagged "the most glamorous record imaginable; listening you can see the chequered jester's suit Dylan had worn on stage for the nine previous, furious months," Blonde on Blonde is to music, production, prose, and performance as what hydrogen is to water. The secret to its inimitable aural character partially stems from Dylan's request in Nashville to producer Bob Johnston to remove the baffles from the studio room, allowing the musicians to interact as well as the music to assume a more organic quality that drifts from one microphone to another.

The story of Blonde on Blonde is almost as compelling as the music within. Dylan, frustrated with how initial attempts fared in New York, relocating to Tennessee and pairing with Nashville's top session players as well as members of what would become the Band, feverishly chasing perfectionism while also arriving at an on-the-fly feel that remains a reference point for recorded music. The Bard sweated over lyrics, demanded his band get the exact sounds he heard in his head, and limited most takes to a handful at most. A majority of songs were recorded long after midnight, the post-A.M. vibe reflected in the nocturnal aura, woozy optimism, inversion of intervals, and spiritual soulfulness of the playing.

Selected Songs 1997-2003 compiles some of the finest moments in the recording history of Hydroplane, the Melbourne-based indie-pop three-piece that operated alongside The Cat’s Miaow through the second half of the nineties. It’s the third release in what feels, now, like a loosely planned series by World Of Echo, documenting the music made by this group of friends in Melbourne sharehouses (The Cat’s Miaow’s Songs ’94-’98, 2022), or in the case of The Shapiros (Gone By Fall, 2023), while traversing the International Pop Underground.

Hydroplane would be familiar to anyone already following these breadcrumb trails – Andrew Withycombe, Bart Cummings and Kerrie Bolton were the group’s core, all members of The Cat’s Miaow. With Cat’s Miaow drummer Cameron Smith itinerant, having moved to London, the trio used this opportunity to expand their music. It’s a subtle, but important shift. If The Cat’s Miaow was about the perfect, minimalist, two-minute pop song, Hydroplane’s music was far more open-ended, embracing the loops and drones, sampled house-y shuffle beats, the burbling of a Roland Jupiter-4 synth, all of which the trio joined, effortlessly, to their endless capacity for moving, elegant melodicism.

They may have only planned to release one seven-inch single, but the sound Hydroplane created was so bewitching, so compelling, that the project’s lifespan ran for around half a decade, and they ended up releasing three albums, including a self-titled debut recently reissued by Efficient Space, and seven singles. There are all kinds of compelling things happening in the music compiled here – the hazy repetition of the gentler side of Krautrock is in here, somewhere, which also suggests Stereolab at their most intimate and disarmed; the gently drifting guitars, gauzy and oneiric, set the songs adrift and floating, each one lost in its own imagined, distracted world. Songs like “The Love You Bring” set indistinct tonal floats across dance rhythms, in a way not quite heard since My Bloody Valentine’s “Instrumental” – but with the added gift of Bolton’s gorgeous voice.

This loose coalition with dance music, and the quiet experimentalism at the heart of Hydroplane, also gestures towards peers like Hood, Acetate Zero and Other People’s Children, and releases on renegade labels like Wurlitzer Jukebox and Enraptured. Like those groups and labels, The Cat’s Miaow were reconciling independent pop music’s past – sweet melody and melancholy, chiming and droning guitars – with the futures promised by DIY electronics and nascent digitalia, the interface of indie and IDM that led to some of the underground’s most blissful, texturally swoonsome music. All that is here, but also, the poise of the melodies is pure Cat’s Miaow, though, with Bolton’s voice sailing, pacifically, over some of the most pared-down, gorgeous music made during their decade.

It was a time, too, when such music could make waves – “We Crossed The Atlantic”, one of their early singles, was picked up by John Peel, who played it repeatedly on his legendary radio show, the song reaching #13 on his 1997 Festive 50. That the song itself was a cover of a tune by 1960s Australian beatnik-pop-poet Pip Proud felt even more perfect – a group of outsiders paying tribute to another outsider, played on the radio one of the few broadcasters brave and human enough to take a chance on this music. But it was a time where everything was up for grabs, and genres were flowing into each other: folk songs went drone; indie re-discovered noise; ambient pop floated, again, out onto the dancefloor. And while they may have been sequestered away in Melbourne, Australia, Hydroplane felt core to that scene, a quietly driving force.

Compiling material from across their brief but mercurial career, this double album perfectly captures the magic and mystery of Hydroplane’s dreamlike, perfect pop songs.

Featuring contributions from Brittany Howard, Daniel Tashian (Kacey Musgraves, Demi Lovato), Julien Baker + more. Since moving to Nashville to start their music career in 2012, Becca Mancari has been lauded for their dextrous songwriting and prodigious guitar playing. Their sophomore album The Greatest Part, released in 2020, was an indie rock opus that garnered acclaim from The New York Times, NPR, and more. After its release, however, Mancari was despairing. An illness in their family, coupled with a realization that their alcohol dependency had become untenable, led Mancari to begin the hard work of taking ownership of their existence by mending broken relationships and investing in their mental health. "I didn't realize it then, but looking back, I was a passenger in my own life," Mancari says. The transformative period of self-reckoning was the catalyst that ultimately steered Mancari to write and produce their triumphant new album, Left Hand. After a disheartening studio session with an outside producer, Becca became convinced that they were capable of rendering their vision independently. Close friend and musical ally Juan Solorzano, who has played on all of Mancari's albums since the debut of Good Woman in 2017, joined them in the studio to co-produce the majority of the record. In addition, Daniel Tashian (Kacey Musgraves, Demi Lovato) co-wrote and co-produced the song "Don't Close Your Eyes," encouraging Mancari to track every instrument on the initial demos. As much as self-producing this album was an act of resilience and growth in one's own craft, Mancari brought trusted friends like Brittany Howard, who they play with in Bermuda Triangle, Julien Baker and Zac Farro into the process. Insecurities that had dogged Mancari since childhood couldn't weather the force of energy in that studio, where they executed decisions with newfound certainty. The title track, "Left Hand," is named for the Mancari family crest. After a lifetime spent feeling like they didn't belong, Mancari unlocked a perfect metaphor in the crest: "In many cultures children born with a dominant left hand were taught not to use that hand, and were told that using the right hand was `normal' and `correct.' Similarly, queer children are often times told that it's not `normal' for them to love who they love and that they need to `change.'" On Left Hand, Mancari offers the listener a collection of songs that should be played in moments when we are in need of reassurance and encouragement. No song exemplifies this better than the ebullient track "Over and Over," which is a reminder to friends that happiness doesn't need to be fleeting. "I wanted to write a queer pop song that has meat on its bones," they say. Inspired by one of many reckless and joyful hangs with dear friends in Nashville, the enlivening pop song makes a promise to them, and to the greater community Mancari embraces on this album. "There is something to the feeling/ Head hanging out of the window/ Being ok that we don't know," sung on the chorus over a beat replete with congas and shakers. What follows is a promise to anyone who ever feels like the greatest moments of their life are disappearing in the rearview: "We can have it like we used to, over and over and over and over again." For Fans of boygenius, Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker, Julia Jacklin, Caroline Rose, Miya Folick, Molly Burch, Widowspeak.

With I Will Make a Baby in this Damn Economy, Fat Tony embodies the kind of quixotic figure he would rap about; a singular entity who’s motivated, confident, and hungry; a perpetual-motion-machine locked in a staring contest with his country. It’s the latest album in his catalog produced entirely by L.A-based producer Taydex since 2020’s Wake Up. Later that same year Fat Tony released Exotica, and ever since he’s demonstrated he is in his own lane as a professional rapper with the mind of a magician, as quick to conjure an image as pull it out from under you, deftly manoeuvring through so many details and references a listener feels as if they have witnessed the work of an illusionist. He paints these canvases inside of songs that rarely spill past three minutes; they’re pocket-sized diaries replete with acute observations, character studies, microdoses of storytelling, and single-minded ruminations on a topic that bud, blossom, and fade before too long. Fat Tony & Taydex’s I Will Make a Baby in this Damn Economy cements Tony’s status as someone whose albums are not so much lyrically-lyrical as they are picaresque.
As with any Fat Tony project, the bars are tight as ever, but are so fluid for the 34-year-old it’s almost easy to take for granted the details, warmth, and humanity inside his free-associative tales of day-one friends who’ve passed, edgelord grifters who want to spit game, and nights on ketamine. Taydex’s production sprints through disparate yet simpatico styles, dipping its toes into Pi’erre Bourne-esque bass (see lead single “Spectacular”), house (“Loosen Up”), and even hyperpop. Meditations on loss and grief are woven throughout, but Tony throws a few curveballs as well: Consider “Alexis,” which sweetly reflects on a long-term platonic friendship. Taydex finds a Teddy Riley-indebted New Jack Swing groove just deep enough for the feeling to land and underlines the song’s sincere candor. This is the appeal of Fat Tony writ-large: his boisterous voice and genial personality invite you to the party, then you stick around to hear what he’s saying, which is frequently more introspective and complex than one assumes.
Written and recorded in Taydex’s new studio in North Hollywood, Tony says, “We had much more freedom and flexibility in making this album and you can hear it. It felt like a family project.” If the album is comfortable and loose, it is also dense and substantial. The album’s final two tracks contextualize the immediacy of what came before it—the mezcal with ices drank, Paul Wall swangin’ through to drop knowledge, the Polaris Prize-winning rapper Cadence Weapon providing a vibe check. “Make a Baby” accounts for Tony who’s seen everything, and knows he’s met the one to be a father with, and yet chooses to take his time to get it done. Taydex’s beat recalls turn-of-the-century R&B and the millennial promise of an endless good time. Sombre closer “Jasper, TX” is Tony coming to grips with the story of James Byrd, Jr., a Black man from East Texas dragged to his death by three white supremacists in 1998. These songs are not only trademarks of Tony’s fastidious rapping—they are deeply personal examples of his approach to artistry and life itself, where every decision is made in the shadow of history.
It’s here the mission statement of I Will Make a Baby in this Damn Economy comes into focus—you get the sense he means it, he’s ready for it, he’ll fight for it. He’s waiting to take the world at its word.

Amanaz were serious, and they made a serious stab at an album. They titled their album Africa, according to original band member Keith Kabwe, “because of how it was shared and how its inhabitants were butchered and enslaved, its resources stolen… all the atrocities slave drivers committed. “ Thus, their “Kale,” a blues sung in Nyanja, that traced the continent’s arc from slavery to Zambia’s independence closes the album. Kabwe and rhythm guitarist John Kanyepa have a winsome softness to their vocals, which sit politely aside the feral growl of drummer Watson Baldwin Lungu, bassist Jerry Mausala and bandleader/lead guitarist Isaac Mpofu. Africa’s vibe ranges from anxious (“Amanaz”) to escapist (“Easy Street”) to straight-up pissed-off. On the “History of Man,” his voice whiskeyburned, his distorted guitar buzzing like swarming hornets, Mpofu indicts his species.
There’s a darkness to Africa not found on any other Zamrock records, and a melancholy drifts throughout, specifically on Mpofu’s more restrained “Khala My Friend,” which stands as an effective, bleak situation for the Zambian everyman, the average citizen of a struggling, new nation, who might have had relatives in conflict-torn countries on the horizon, who might have been struggling to find his next meal, who might have seen a bleaker future than his president promised. Then there’s the clear Velvet Underground-influence on the nostalgic “Sunday Morning,” which, as Kabwe
recalls, was the first song written for the album, back in 1968, when Velvet Undergound and Nico was a new release - and the underground funk of “Making The Scene.” The album also tackles traditional Zambian music and early-‘60s rock – punctuated, of course by Kanyepa’s wah-wah and Mpofu’s fuzz guitars. But every time Amanaz get too deep, too violent, they come back with an accessible song and woo their listener back to the groove. “Green Apple” is a civil song, featuring Kanyepa’s sighing guitar. It is a perfectly arranged album, from the dichotomy of Mpofu’s and Kanyepa’s lead and rhythm guitars, to the vocal harmonies, to the rhythm section’s sense of space and time, which allows Africa’s funk to build. Inexplicably, Africa was given two separate mixes and two separate presses: one version is dry, with the vocals and drums mixed loud, the other slathered in reverb, with the vocals and drums disappearing into the mix, and with the guitar solos mixed much louder. We’ve presented them both here as they each have their appeal: it’s up to the listener to pick the one he or she prefers. This is a highpoint of the Zamrock scene and we hope that this can be seen as its definitive reissue.

Cristian Vogel, the esteemed electronic music producer and composer, is set to release his 27th album, 'Fase Montuno'. This highly personal release is a visionary take on the futuristic potential of Latin American electronica.

Set to be released on Achim Szepanski's legendary Mille Plateaux label, 'Fase Montuno' is poised to make a significant impact on the electronic music scene in 2023. The label's commitment to innovative and genre-defying music is a perfect match for Vogel's boundary-pushing creativity, and promises to deliver an unforgettable listening
experience for fans old and new.

Don't miss out on this latest release from one of electronic music's most talented and visionary artists. 'Fase Montuno' is an essential addition to any music lover's collection, and a testament to Vogel's continuing relevance and creativity in the electronic music world.

Am 4. November veröffentlicht PJ Harvey eine Sammlung von B-Seiten, Demos und Raritäten.

Die Sammlung beinhaltet 59 Tracks der letzten drei Jahre und wurde von Jason Mitchell zusammen mit dem langjährigen Produzenten von PJ Harvey neu gemastered. Zusätzlich enthält die Sammlung 14 zuvor unveröffentlichte Songs und gibt Fans die Möglichkeit, die bereits veröffentlichten Songs erneut zu genießen.

Zudem zeigt das Artwork bisher unveröffentlichte Archivfotos.

Diese Sammlung ist als 3CD und LP Box Set erhältlich.

Mancunian pianist and producer Matt Wilde prepares to release his debut album 'Hello World' via Band on the Wall Recordings. With a slew of hotly tipped projects released over the past two years via Root Records & Inner Ocean Records- Matt has been steadily gaining support from the likes of Jamie Cullum, Gilles Peterson, Jazz FM & many more. With his name firmly cemented as one to watch in the Jazz / Beats landscape, 'Hello World' promises to be his most expansive body of work to date.

'Hello World' is an audio catalogue of personal experiences, thoughts and feelings, shared with honesty and curiosity for the human condition. Matt crafts emotive and uplifting compositions denoting a tender illustration of the human experience, finding and celebrating the simple and beautiful moments of life.

Lucinda Williams’ music has gotten her through her darkest days. It’s been that way since growing up amid family chaos in the Deep South, as she recounts in her candid new memoir, Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets I told You. Over the past two years, it’s been the force driving her recovery from a debilitating stroke she suffered on November 17, 2020, at age 67. Her masterful, multi-Grammy-winning songwriting has never deserted her. To wit, her stunning, sixteenth studio album, Stories from a Rock n Roll Heart, brims over with some of the best work of her career. And though Williams can no longer play her beloved guitar – a constant companion since age 12 – her distinctive vocals sound better than ever. The band rocks out on the album’s jubilant opening track, “Let’s Get the Band Back Together,” which features a gang of background singers, including Margo Price and Buddy Miller. Inspired by “that need for community after all the isolation of the pandemic,” Williams offers, the song is “about getting old friends together again who’d drifted apart.” Price also joins her on the bluesy protest, “This Is Not My Town.” The evocative “New York Comeback” also includes guest vocalists – Bruce Springsteen and Patti Scialfa. A Lucinda Williams fan, Springsteen had joined her onstage in London a few years back, and he and Scialfa had wanted to contribute to a Williams album for a while. With Reese Wynans on B3 and the Pettibone-Mathis guitar attack, the musical setting perfectly matches the theme of “Comeback,” as well as on the catchy story-song “Rock N’ Roll Heart,” to which Springsteen and Scialfa also contributed vocals. Says Williams, “Having Bruce and Patti on these songs feels really great. It’s just so cool!” As she promises on the powerful last track of Stories from a Rock n Roll Heart–one of the best albums of her career–Lucinda Williams is “never gonna fade away.”

Introducing "Beats on Boat Vol. 2" - the highly anticipated compilation album featuring some of the most talented and respected names in the lofi hiphop scene With tracks from the likes of FloFilz, Made in M, digitalluc, and Klaus Layer, to name a few. This project promises to deliver a unique blend of chill beats and groovy rhythms that
will transport listeners to a world of laid-back vibes.

Released through ear-sight, tracks from "Beats on Boat Vol. 2" will be released every two weeks starting from
May 31st and will be accompanied by a live set, filmed on Berlins river Spree.

One of the standout features of this album is how each artist brings their own unique style to the table. From FloFilz's jazzy beats to Made in M's dreamy soundscapes, listeners can expect a diverse range of sounds and textures that will keep them hooked like fish on a rod.

Another thing that sets "Beats on Boat Vol. 2" apart from other compilations is the focus on both lofi hiphop and lofi house. While these two genres may seem vastly different at first glance, they actually share a lot of common ground - both are built on a foundation of warm textures, and infectious grooves.

A must-listen for anyone who loves lofi music, chill beats, or just wants to experience something truly unique. With this roster of top-tier artists, the focus on both lofi hiphop and lofi house, and its live beat sets on a boat in Berlin, this compilation is sure to make waves. Hop aboard and tune in!

Mastered by digitalluc
Cover design by Otto Stobbe

2023 Repress

Snoop Dogg is a legendary personality. He burst on to the scene in the early 90’s and stole the show with his appearances on Dr. Dre’s classic album, The Chronic which cemented him as a prominent figure within the halls of hip hop. Since then he has gone on to release multiple platinum albums, star in major motion pictures, and even host a TV show with the one and only, Martha Stewart! In 2017, Snoop releaed the album, Neva Left which was a call back to the style that gained him notoriety. Packed with features from the likes of Too $hort, Wiz Khalifa, K CAMP, Nef The Pharoah, Devin the Dude, KRS-One, Redman, Method Man, BADBADNOTGOOD, Kaytranada and more.

Damian Lazarus’ Secret Teachings imprint welcomes a unique project from Malian and French pairing Siraba, unveiling their debut single ‘Ngana Fôlly’ alongside remixes from Philou Louzolo and Peaking Lights. Meaning ‘The Great Path’ in Bambara, Siraba - the duo consisting of Malian hunter Boubacar Samake and Damien Vandesande, one half of French electronic band dOP - are on a path of bringing the traditional sound of the Wassoulou to the world. They met in 2003 when Damien visited Mali to work with local artists and met Boubacar’s father - the legendary Sibiri Samake. Working together on multiple occasions, the two promised to work with one another and Boubacar on a project one day, and 17 years later, the two connected to begin to develop their unique sound and showcase their shared universe.

Inspired by the music of the master hunters from across Mali, the ‘Dozo’, the project transmits values based on justice and righteousness, love and respect for others, moral and spiritual rectitude and protection for everyone. Debuting on Damian Lazarus’ Secret Teachings imprint, an outlet for the Crosstown Rebels boss to delve deeper into musical realms outside of the norm and away from the dance floor, the pair will release their debut album in September, with a series of live performances set to be announced. Their first single arrives in early June with ‘Ngana Fôlly’

A spiritual and hypnotic production rooted within Dozo musical tradition, featuring Boubacar playing the Ngoni while singing in Bambara, ‘Ngana Fôlly’ is a resonant and rich production combining organic textures with warping synths, rich bass and sweeping electronics, capturing the magical essence of Mali across a fascinating journey. Providing the first remix on the package, Dutch DJ/producer and DJ Mag ‘Artist To Watch for 2023’ Philou Louzolo harnesses Boubacar’s vocal and places it at the heart of his soaring remix as stripped-back percussion and a commanding low-ends guide sweeping synths, before handing over to San Francisco husband-and-wife pairing and Dekmantel signees Peaking Lights who tip things down a bright and blissful rabbit hole of soundscapes as vibrant guitar riffs and twisting leads work amongst off-kilter melodies and acid flecked tones for an eight-minute trip.

"If you’ve ever wondered what Catharsis covering The 13th Floor Elevators might sound like, wonder no longer—and that’s only the start!" - Decibel Magazine GELD make their Relapse Records debut with their third full length, Currency // Castration! The Australian band distills a despairingly hellish vision of the world into a thundering crack to the temple through an unsparing fusion of hardcore’s bleakest violence with metal’s ruthless strength-through-conviction. GELD's abrasive take on the genre is distorted through a lense of fuzzed out psych soundscapes; vocals truly sound like unhinged barks, while guitars, bass, and drums crash against one another frenetically, each track burning brighter and brighter. Every moment of Currency // Castration is urgent. Tracks such as “Chained to a Gate” edge and scratch at a relief that is ultimately denied, toying with the nightmarish promise of a breakdown that never comes. Elsewhere, "Cut You Down" pulses with frantically itching riffs that stream forth. "Fog of War" snaps and snarls; while "Secret Prison" evinces the honed physique of Japanese hardcore fed through the broken brain of someone on a years-long Rrröööaaarrr-era Voivod spin-out. Despite the band's innovative approach to the genre, GELD makes no pretensions at being “interesting” for interesting’s sake - As vocalist Al Smith puts it, “One of the most boring things people can do is try to dress up what someone else has already contributed to a genre and make it ‘clever’… We’re more interested in finding our own position.” With Currency // Castration, GELD offers no promise of a higher purpose or resolve. Rather, they lean into dissociation, finding truth and meaning in the transcendental joy of simply escaping, surviving, existing.

Blackened thrash veterans LEGION OF THE DAMNED slay on new studio album The Poison Chalice The LEGION slays again! Dutch thrash veterans LEGION OF THE DAMNED have once again entered into an alliance with the devouring depths of black and death metal and unleash another angry beast, The Poison Chalice, on May 26, 2023 via Napalm Records. The shredding monster delivers the most delicious pitch-black brew and tortures dark souls into demonic underworlds. Founded in 1990 as Occult, the thrash machine around founding members Maurice Swinkels and Erik Fleuren was reborn as LEGION OF THE DAMNED in 2005. On The Poison Chalice, the band unites with Fabian Verweij as second guitarist besides Twan van Geel and hails together with bassist Harold Gielen performing as a five piece for the first time ever on a studio album. Conquering the European charts for decades, the LEGION crowned itself at #17 in the Official German Album Charts with predecessor Slaves Of The Shadow Realms (2019). For almost 35 years, they have formed their aggressive signature sound from the most horrific ingredients of thrash and death metal, combined with brutal blackened influences, resulting in one of the most defined and unique sounds in the scene. The Poison Chalice comes to life by spreading its eerily beautiful wings within the first few seconds, then dives headfirst into a hellishly furious storm before the second song ""Contamination"" absolutely kills. In classic LEGION OF THE DAMNED manner, there is no escape as the track relentlessly drives into the abyss. The album spreads brutal and ice cold thrash soundscapes through relentless attacking drums and incredible guitar harmonies from both lead guitarists, underlined by angry bass lines. Infectious thrash treasures such as “Progressive Destructor”, and the almost seven-minute berserk “Behold The Beyond” break necks with hammering guitar riffs and bloody double bass infernos. “Beheading of The Godhead” delivers what the song title promises, before the past 48 minutes of hate closes with a final deep gulp from “The Poison Chalice” - leaving no one behind. Together with producer Erwin Hermsen, the band has closed the gates of the underworld in Toneshed Studio and demonstrates that they remain the unchallenged masters of brute and unrelenting death-thrash metal in 2023

Often dubbed reggae's answer to the Buena Vista Social Club, the notorious Jamaican collective prove that they are still on top of their game with a new album, which journalist David Katz already declaring it was "their best one yet".

In addition to the usual cast of Inna de Yard legends, this new album features the pristine vocals of '70s icon Johnny Osbourne and '60s memorable duo Keith & Tex. Thirteen songs of pure emotions, exceptional musicality and authenticity gathered on a riveting album which promises to be a firm favourite amongst reggae lovers and general music fans alike.