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Marshall Applewhite has returned from the red planet with a new discovery in tow, his Lowercase EP! As a musical pioneer he needs little introduction but a few lauds include: the creation of an entire genre of electronic music, starting legendary label YoSucka! featuring his hit release "Go Home", now running a fantastic and creative label project called Junted sharing experimental and strange sounds. For all those in the Detroit techno community, his music has been an inspiration and his devil may care attitude is a welcome refreshment from the often overly serious and judgemental air of the industry. These tracks once again change up his style, leaning a bit more toward a house groove, but with plenty of his signature freakish basslines and trippy vocal samples to ride along. Released via PITS, a Detroit-based electronic music label run by cohort John Joe XO. The project is entering its fifth year of life this summer of 2021, so in celebration this special edition release will also be shared on 12" vinyl. The label has seen support from many artists over the years including Exos, Blazej Malinkowski, Justin Carter, Laurent Garnier, John FM, and more.

A sequel to the 2001 series Blue Planet, it took 4 years to complete this seven part new exploration of the underwater worlds, with 125 expeditions across 39 countries and 6000 hours of underwater filming. The series was broadcast on BBC One on 29 October 2017 with viewing figures exceeding 10m and its exposure of plastic pollution in our oceans has started a global conversation about reducing plastic waste.

With over 120 soundtracks to his credit which have grossed 24 billion dollars at the box office, Hans Zimmer has been honoured with many accolades: an Academy Award, two Golden Globes, three Grammys, an American Music Award, a Tony Award and The Henry Mancini Award for Lifetime Achievement. His Academy Award nomination for Interstellar marked his 10th Oscar nomination.

The composition is completed by Jacob Shea and David Fleming from Emmy and BAFTA nominated Bleeding Fingers Music. Bleeding Fingers has created original music for productions including the Fox’s The Simpsons, BBC’s Planet Earth II, National Geographic’s Princess Diana In Her Own Words, NBC’s hit Little Big Shots, Sony’s Snatch (TV), Amazon’s American Playboy, AMC’s The Making Of The Mob, Netflix original Roman Empire and History Channel’s Mountain Men.

A few years back I had this dream: I was walking through vast grasslands
towards a solitary hill
On top of the hill was a movie house. On the marquee: History of Jazz.I kept
thinking about it. What was in the movie house? What happened before? What
followed? Why was I going there? Why "History of Jazz"? To reach some kind of
insight, I began a film script, extending the dream tenfold. The script morphed
into a novella-sized book, a series of songs, and finally, a "mind-movie" podcast,
forming this labyrinthine, multi- medium story – equal parts dream, film and
waking life. Figuring out how to transcend the traditional parameters of the album
to create a more panoramic story- vision is something I've been unconsciously
trying to do for some time. I've been pushing against the edges – toying with
narrative, characters and visuals with Easterween and Niagara, a weird children's
book Daydreams for Night – but the scope of life behind Rialto felt too
irrepressible and expansive to be boxed in an album. The book and podcast have
kicked open the doors – allowing the album to lead or serve where it should.In
Rialto's extended narrative, Klaus (loner, insomniac) is working a stint as a driver
for a small town writer's festival. Following a series of unsettling paranormal
events, he finds himself agreeing to a strange request - to deliver a film reel in
time for its premiere at a secluded movie house - the Rialto. The journey leads
him through a circuit of strangely located, oracular movie houses, screening a mix
of dreams, fantasies, memories and prophecies - numinous films of personal
revelation. Inhabiting the movie houses are underworld characters and spirits
with ambiguous motivations, some helping and some hindering Klaus's quest. It's
a Dantesque, deep cleanse pilgrimage to untangle bitterness and trauma,
rediscover a lost clairvoyance, ancestry, and ultimately, the medicinal source of
eternal youth. A metaphysical noir. A hyperstition.Rialto's album stars seven
singer-artists playing characters alongside mine: Tamara Lindeman (The Weather
Station), Daniel Knox, Thom Gill (Owen Pallet, Beverly Glenn- Copeland), Ryan
Driver (Jennifer Castle), Felicity Williams (Bahamas), Robin Dann (Bernice) and
Martin Tielli (Rheostatics). All Toronto- based like me except Daniel (Chicago).
Performed by the Venuti String Quartet with arrangements by Andrew Downing.
Produced by Jean Martin (Tanya Tagaq). It's my 13th album and fourth on Tin
Angel - previous releases on Tin Angel: Miracle In The Night (2019), Small Town
Water Tower (2016), and Niagara (2014). Each of Rialto's eight podcast episodes
features a chapter from the book performed by a cast of twenty five - made up
almost entirely of musicians – including the speaking voices of the
aforementioned singers, as well as Meg Remy (U.S. Girls), Claudia Dey, Veda Hille,
Devon Sproule, Luka Kuplowsky and others. Rialto is available as a 101-page eBook (illustrations by David Ouimet) on Sud de Valeur Press. Premiere
performances begin fourth quarter 2021. Happy Rialto listening, reading,
watching, dreaming...

Matrimony emerged from the scrum of yobbos making noise in late-'80s
Australia (Cosmic Psychos, Lubricated Goat, etc), a nearly all-female
band of punk-pop minimalists as raw emotionally as musically
Building songs around simple, repetitive bass lines and the languidly morose
vocals of one Sybilla, the band reveals its disaffection more through what it
doesn't say than what it does. So while choppy guitar squalls underpin songs like
'Kitty Finger' and 'Fish and Chips Sweetheart,' elsewhere the playing is stripped
nearly bare. Sybilla's love/ hate relationship with her titular subject on 'Mr. Pop
Star' is reduced to a series of stuttered yelps, while her dispassionate plea on
'Come Back Baby' is backed only by finger snaps and the ubiquitous heavy bass
lines, distilling a lifetime of self-pitying angst into a two-minute session in front of
a cracked bedroom mirror. Matrimony also pays a nominal tribute by covering the
Scientists' 'Frantic Romantic' even more dourly than the original.

First Word Records is very proud to present you with 'Peace + Harmony'. The first EP from our most recent signing, K S R .

Hailing from Moss Side, Manchester, this young talent has been steadily building a rep for himself over the past few years as one of the UK's most exciting soul vocalists, with his releases encompassing an eclectic assortment of alternative R&B, future soul, hip hop and D&B. Influenced by an array of neo-soul artists, such as D'Angelo and Anderson .Paak, his own soulful style has already seen him tour and collaborate with a number of UK peers; working on projects with label-mates Children of Zeus & Australia's REMi, and supporting the likes of Etta Bond & The Mouse Outfit, as well as performing sell-out headline solo shows in Manchester and London, and playing various festivals across Europe, including the We Out Here festival very recently.

Since he began developing his music in 2017, K S R has had support from the likes of 1Xtra, BBC Radio 1, BBC Introducing, Mixmag, NTS, Reprezent, Unity & Soho Radio, in addition to featuring on a slew of D&B tracks with artists like Lenzman, BCee, Emba & Redeyes. The collab with Emba was recently named a 'Kiss FM Future Selection' courtesy of Hybrid Minds and features have been supported on Spotify's 'New Music Friday' and 'Mandem - Kings' amongst others. His debut release 'Unfiltered' appeared on Polarface Records in 2019, which was followed by single 'Flex With Me' (also produced by Tyler Daley from Children of Zeus) then an independent second EP, 'Take Control', followed in late 2020 (during the pandemic) which amassed over 500k streams. Additionally to the releases, he was recently recruited by Manchester United as part of their 21/22 season kit announcements, as well as working with Nike and Size? on a special MCR-themed Air Force 1 release.

It's now time for a new extended project from Roosevelt Kazaula Sigsbert - better known as K S R . 'Peace + Harmony' is a solid set of alternative R&B, produced by Dom Porter and mixed by Eric Lau. Six tracks in all, including the single, 'Harmless' (which received support from the likes of Mr. Scruff (Worldwide FM), BBC Manchester and Victoria Jane (BBC Radio 1), was 'Track Of The Week' on 1Xtra/BBC Introducing, and saw the video racking up several thousand plays in its first weekend) and follow-up 'CGWY' featuring Children of Zeus on a brand new interpretation of their classic track 'Get What's Yours'. From the intro track 'I Wonder', to the downlow future soul of 'Lily Apart', to the autobiographical vibes of 'Born In '98', to the closing track 'Given Summer', also featuring the vocals of Ayeisha Raquel, each track on the EP is of course laced with Roosevelt's unmistakable silky smooth vocals, and is set to join his already impressive catalogue of underground soul classics such as 'Alien Boo', 'Stylin' and 'New Love'.

K S R says "my third EP, P E A C E + H A R M O N Y is a collection of my thoughts and experiences from my journey throughout the last two years of my life. Lots of aspects of my life changed over 24 months, along with everyone around the globe. When we were thrown into the unknown at the start of 2020, I stepped away from music for a while as I couldn't find any peace in my creativity and needed to evolve. I finally started to feel cohesive with my songwriting and music, and I could feel harmony between myself and my art once again."

'Peace + Harmony' by K S R is released on vinyl & digital on First Word Records, late 2021.

Red hot Modern Soul 45 recorded in Memphis, Tennessee in 1985. Big thanks to Robert Garcia @mrbighappy & Daniel Mathis @quartzwatches for the research and words on this one!!

Brotherhood Band was started by Ernest Coleman(EC) and Clint Hyson, who met thorough a US Navy band called "Mid-South", which was the US Navy's premier musical organization operating out of Millington, Tennessee (20 min outside of Memphis). The group initially played as an instrumental jazz band. In keeping up with the times, they shifted gears towards a more contemporary sound. Shortly after, they decided to cut a single. Enter "Nicci's Theme", which is the B-side here and it's a beautiful jazz tune EC wrote for a girl he fell in love with. This song was supposed to be his door way in, but he actually never opened the door with her.

A few weeks later Clint called EC and played this syncopated bass line for him over the phone. And then EC being the ladies man that he was wrote the lyrics to "Leather Pants" to it. Part of the lyrics read "The pants they stretch, but they don't bust. Enough to make a blind man cuss", but it originally read as, "The pants they stretch, but they don't bust. Enough to make a PREACHER cuss". The song was ready, but they needed to find a singer. That's when member Richard Owens mentioned that he had a young cat back in Atlanta named Taji. In a gamble Taji drove up to Memphis for the Sunrise recording studio session to record the track. According to EC when Taji laid the vocals down he took the song to the next level. In fact it was so impactful that EC, who is now a Grammy producer, still references Taji's sessions when working with new artist.

After the single dropped the group played at Memphis hot spots, Bills Twilight Lounge and Club No Name. EC even had an idea to host a local leather pants contest as a way to promote the song. This lead to a frenzy of women seeking to be "Miss Leather Pants".

C-L-A-S-S-I-C library breaks and beats set of super-heavyweight espionage-funk.

One of two Be With forays into the archives of revered British library institution Conroy, we present one of our favourites on the label - the super in-demand Background Action from Sammy Burdson, originally released in 1975. Rare and sought-after for many years now, this is one of those cult library LPs that rarely turns up on even the deepest dig.

Sammy Burdson was one of the many, many aliases of the mighty Austrian composer, arranger and conductor, Gerhard Narholz. Founder of adored library label Sonoton in 1965, and a classically trained composer, his work runs from easy listening through pop, jazz and electronic, to avant-garde.

Background Action’s first side is all Blaxploitation wah-wah, funky clav and heavy, heavy drums. It’s top-quality takes on the sort of hard-knocking psychedelic sleuth-funk that the library labels gave us in spades. However, we think the real killers are over on side B. Styles upon styles upon styles is what we have. The trio of swish “Water Pollution” variations are pure gold. The two-part mid-tempo b-boy drumathon “News Background” is nothing short of epic whilst the sensational “Kabul Trip A” and “Kabul Trip B” are two different takes on some tough funk, street jazz style with some dope organ, bass and drum sounds. In short, this is a must for both DJs and producers.

The British library label with those instantly recognisable “orangey-red” sleeves, Conroy began releasing production music in 1965. A sub-label of Berry Music Co, its catalogue typified the library industry’s strange mixture of tradition and experimentation from the start. Conroy’s early releases included work by big band stalwarts like Eddie Warner as well as early electronic recordings by the likes of Belgian experimental pioneer Arséne Souffriau. With Berry Music Co working as a distribution partner to the German library label Sonoton, it was through the Conroy that a great deal of German library music found its way into the UK market.

Conroy stopped putting out new music in the 1980s, but its history and its catalogue offer an excellent window into the trends and eccentricities of a highly unique industry at the height of its international appeal.

This re-issue of Background Action has been mastered for vinyl by Be With regular Simon Francis from audio from the original tapes. Richard Robinson has handled reproducing the iconic, hypnotic original Conroy sleeve. Essential.

C-L-A-S-S-I-C library breaks and beats set of heavy drums and louche funk.

One of two Be With forays into the archives of revered British library institution Conroy, we present one of our favourites on the label - the super in-demand Dramatic Tempi / Larry Robbins Background Rhythms, originally released in 1975. Rare and sought-after for many years now, this is one of those cult library LPs that rarely turns up on even the deepest dig.

As a single LP, Dramatic Tempi / Larry Robbins Background Rhythms is two distinctly different collections of music. The first side, Dramatic Tempi, is made up of four tracks each from Sammy Burdson and Klaus Weiss.

Sammy Burdson was one of the many, many aliases of the mighty Austrian composer, arranger and conductor, Gerhard Narholz. Founder of adored library label Sonoton in 1965, and a classically trained composer, his work runs from easy listening through pop, jazz and electronic, to avant-garde.

About as cult as it gets when it comes to library music legends (German or otherwise) Klaus Weiss produced essential records on German library labels Coloursound, Selected Sound and Sonoton, as well as making two essential entries in the Conroy catalogue. Having started his career at the age of 16 as a jazz drummer, the Klaus Weiss trademark electronic sound is unsurprisingly built on top of sometimes funky, sometimes frenetic, but always hard-hitting drums.

The second side is both titled and also credited to Larry Robbins Background Rhythms. We have to admit to being stumped as to who Larry was, but we don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to assume it might well be yet another incarnation of Gerhard Narholz’s.

First up from Dramatic Tempi are the phased, gargantuan hip-hop beats of Sammy Burdson’s impeccable “Pop Waves”. This is otherworldly funk on a whole new level. Hearing is believing. The magnificently titled “Cyclodrom” is up next, a beast of booming bass and wah wah guitars over frenetic funk drums. “Devils Drive” is dramatic, blaxploitation street funk with rolling, pounding drums. “Crime Ways” is an acid-squelch, slow-pace neck-snapper.

Klaus Weiss starts by askings us “Is It Hip” and we can only answer “yes it is!” to the clean, skipping drums, booming bass and proto-hip-hop bells, layered beneath laconic and melodic guitar shredding. This is just horizontal soul perfection. “The Camp”, propelled by jazzy guitar à la Joe Pass over fast drum and conga breaks, gives way to the dark guitars and cymbal crashes of “Tomorrow”. It sounds like an early New Order jam session. Closing out a pretty startling side of library greatness, “Rhythm Trip” presents early stuttering funk before easin' on in to a jazzy, soulful groove; all breezy guitar and warm keys. Lush.

Larry Robbins Background Rhythms is a lighter, poppier affair, but it’s not without its drum-heavy bangers. “Vox Pop” and “Pop Phase” each have clean, open-ish drum breaks, ripe for sampling or more daring DJ sets. “Pop Twang” is a short and sweet beat-heavy number that gives way to the fantastically out-there “Canned Pop”. We‘d love to know if this was ever actually licensed for something! The final seven tracks are a set of 1-to-2 minute “Percussion Takes”. All compelling, and all equally useful for any number of production needs. Get sampling.

The British library label with those instantly recognisable “orangey-red” sleeves, Conroy began releasing production music in 1965. A sub-label of Berry Music Co, its catalogue typified the library industry’s strange mixture of tradition and experimentation from the start. Conroy’s early releases included work by big band stalwarts like Eddie Warner as well as early electronic recordings by the likes of Belgian experimental pioneer Arséne Souffriau. With Berry Music Co working as a distribution partner to the German library label Sonoton, it was through the Conroy that a great deal of German library music found its way into the UK market.

Conroy stopped putting out new music in the 1980s, but its history and its catalogue offer an excellent window into the trends and eccentricities of a highly unique industry at the height of its international appeal.

This re-issue of Dramatic Tempi / Larry Robbins Background Rhythms has been mastered for vinyl by Be With regular Simon Francis from audio from the original tapes. Richard Robinson has handled reproducing the iconic, hypnotic original Conroy sleeve. Essential.

BIOHAZARD formed in Brooklyn in 1988 and soon after released their first demo. The band consisted of founding members Billy Graziadei (vocals, guitar), Bobby Hambel (lead guitar) and Evan Seinfeld (vocals, bass). After the release of their second demo in 1989, drummer Anthony Meo left the band and drummer Danny Schuler replaced him. BIOHAZARD released their combined the urban sounds of hard-core, metal and rap with scorching lyrics describing the forces at work in our modern urban lives. With an impressive career spanning over 20 years with 10 albums (on both indie and major labels), the band sold over 5 million records. In 1990, Biohazard signed a recording contract with Maze Records. The band's self-titled debut album was poorly promoted by the label and sold approximately 40,000 copies. The album's subject matter revolved around Brooklyn, gang-wars, drugs, and violence.

In 1992, Biohazard signed with Roadrunner Records and released Urban Discipline, which gave the band national and worldwide attention in both the heavy metal and hardcore communities. The video for the song "Punishment" became the most played video in the history of MTV's Headbanger's Ball, and the album sold over one million copies. The band also began opening for larger acts such as Pantera, Suicidal Tendencies, House of Pain, Fishbone, and The Cro-Mags. In 1993, the hardcore rap group Onyx brought on Billy Graziadei for an alternate "Bionyx" version of their hit single "Slam" with Biohazard as their backup band. This led to a collaboration on the title track of the Judgment Night soundtrack. The soundtrack would go on to sell over two million copies in the United States. Months later, the band left Roadrunner Records and signed with Warner Bros. Records Inc. who released their third studio LP, State of the World Address. The album was produced by Ed Stasium in Los Angeles and contained the single "How It Is" featuring Sen Dog of Cypress Hill, for which a video was also shot. During their 1994 tour, the band made an appearance on the second stage at the Monsters of Rock festival held at Castle Donington. State of the World Address went on to sell over one million copies, and Rolling Stone magazine selected the Biohazard logo as the best logo of the year.

This was the last Biohazard album with Bobby Hambel, who left due to differences with the rest of the band. The band recorded their fourth studio album, Mata Leao, as a three piece in 1996. It was produced with the help of Dave Jerden. For the 1996-97 Mata Leao Tour, former Helmet guitarist Rob Echeverria joined the band. The band also played on the Ozzfest mainstage alongside Ozzy Osbourne, Slayer, Danzig, Fear Factory, and Sepultura. While touring Europe in support of the Mata Leao album, the band recorded their Hamburg, Germany, show for their first live album, No Holds Barred (Live in Europe), which was released in 1997 through their former label, Roadrunner Records. The band signed to Mercury Records and released their fifth studio album, New World Disorder, in 1999, once again with Ed Stasium as a producer.

The relationship with Mercury Records soured quickly as the band felt betrayed and misunderstood by the label. They severed their ties with the label amidst the merger of Mercury Records, Island Records, Def Jam Records, and Polygram into the Universal Music Group. The following year, Biohazard signed two new record deals with SPV/Steamhammer in Europe and Sanctuary Records for the remainder of the world. Despite the new record deals, the band took some personal time in order to work on other projects. Graziadei and Schuler also collaborated in transforming the band's rehearsal Brooklyn studio into a digital recording studio, known as Rat Piss Studios and soon after changed the name to Underground Sound Studios. Re-investing into the band, Graziadei and Schuler honed their engineering and productions skills while recording and producing local acts and new Biohazard demos. The band then undertook the process of writing, recording, and producing their own music. Their studio work led to the band's sixth studio album, Uncivilization, released in September 2001.
The album featured several guest appearances by members of bands such as Agnostic Front, Hatebreed, Pantera, Slipknot, Sepultura, Cypress Hill, Skarhead, and Type O Negative. Shortly after the release of Uncivilization, guitarist Leo Curley left the band and was replaced by former Nucleus member Carmine Vincent, who had previously toured with Biohazard as part of their road crew. The band had to cancel scheduled European festival dates when Carmine Vincent underwent major surgery. The band did manage to find a temporary guitarist, Scott Roberts, formerly of the Cro-Mags and the Spudmonsters, in time to join the Eastpak Resistance Tour with Agnostic Front, Hatebreed, Discipline, Death Threat, Born From Pain and All Boro Kings. Biohazard completed their seventh studio album in seventeen days; Kill Or Be Killed was released in 2003. While touring North America with Kittie, Brand New Sin and Eighteen Visions, Biohazard announced that Roberts would remain as their permanent lead guitarist. The tour was curtailed when it was announced that Seinfeld had fallen ill. With more downtime due to Seinfeld's illness, Graziadei and Schuler collaborated to mix Life of Agony's live comeback album, River Runs Again: Live 2003. Once Seinfeld was healthy again, the band toured Japan and North America, headlining over bands such as Hatebreed, Agnostic Front, Throwdown, and Full Blown Chaos.

By the end of 2003, the band had begun recording its eighth studio album, Means To An End. The completed album was lost in a studio disaster, forcing the band to completely re-record the album, which was finally released in August 2005. In October 2004, Graziadei announced that Means To An End had been the final Biohazard album and that he would continue playing with his new band Suicide City as his main focus. One month later, on the Biohazard website, it was announced that there would in fact be a 2005 Biohazard tour. On December 15, 2005, Seinfeld and Graziadei participated in the Roadrunner United conglomerate event at the Nokia Theater in New York for an all-star event. The show opened with Biohazard's "Punishment," performed by Seinfeld, Graziadei, Sepultura's Andreas Kisser, former Fear Factory member Dino Cazares, and Slipknot's Joey Jordison. Graziadei and Schuler relocated their recording studio to South Amboy, New Jersey and renamed it Underground Sound Studios. The studio was renovated to include a live room with 20-foot (6.1 m) ceilings and 4,000 square feet (370 m2) of studio space. After Schuler's departure from the studio business, Graziadei relocated the studio to Los Angeles and changed the name to Firewater Studios. In January 2008, the classic lineup of Evan Seinfeld, Billy Graziadei, Danny Schuler and Bobby Hambel made the announcement that rehearsals had begun for a 2008 summer tour to commemorate the band's 20th anniversary. They toured Australia and New Zealand in April with Chimaira, Throwdown, Bloodsimple and headliners Korn to celebrate their newly declared reunion. The band also took part in Persistence Tour 2009, and announced at one of their shows that they were working on a new record. Biohazard brought in producer Toby Wright to work on the album and after several months at Graziadei's Firewater Studios in Los Angeles, the band completed their recording sessions. In June 2011, Biohazard announced that Evan Seinfeld had quit the band and Scott Roberts returned to replace Seinfeld for two UK dates but no decision regarding a permanent replacement was made. In January 2012, the band decided that Scott Roberts would remain with the band as a permanent member. The new album, Reborn In Defiance, was released worldwide, with the exception of North America, on January 20, 2012 through the Nuclear Blast label. In support of the album, Biohazard embarked on a short co-headlining tour of Europe with Suicidal Tendencies in the latter half of January 2012. After touring the world in support of Reborn in Defiance, the band entered the studio to work on a new release and after a falling out, Roberts departed the band.

Biohazard remains as it’s core founding members of Graziadei, Shuler and Hambel. Graziadei has since ventured off onto a solo career as BillyBio and teamed up with Cypress Hill frontman Sendog to start Powerflo. Both groups are working on their second releases due out late 2021 and early 2022.

Limited coloured marbled vinyl edition of this album Booker T. & the M.G.s formed as the house band for Stax Records and provided playbacks for numerous singers, including Wilson Pickett and Otis Redding. During a - recording break for Billy Lee Riley, 17-yearold keyboardist Booker T. Jones, guitarist Steve Cropper, Lewie Steinberg on bass and Al Jackson Jr. on drums began messing around with a bluesy organ riff. The president of Stax Records, Jim Stewart, was at
the mixing board. He liked what he heard and recorded it. The result: „Green Onions,“ with „Behave Yourself“ as the B-side.
The record became a hit when radio DJ Reuben Washington played it four times in a row, even before the band had a name. The single went to #1 on the US R&B chart, #3 on the pop chart, reached #7 in the UK
and sold over a million copies. The song was listed as one of the 500 greatest songs of all time by Rolling Stone magazine and received a Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1999. It was followed by the allinstrumental album „Green Onions“, which is now a classic of the era.

The album was included in Robert Dimery‘s 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Booker T. & the M.G.s have been called the most influential stylists in modern American music. Until the 2000s, they
played as the house band for countless world stars such as Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Johnny Cash, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Neil Young and many others.

"It’s a voice that soars –pure, clear and true —above bass and synths, traditional percussion and infectious Mande guitar grooves. A stop-you-in-your-tracks voice instantly familiar to anyone in Mali, West Africa: Rokia Koné, aka the Rose of Bamako. On her debut international release, she’s teamed with Irish-born, California-based rock producer Jacknife Lee —and reimagined the Malian sound in ways leftfield and ground breaking.
BAMANAN is a collaboration that connects the great ancient kingdoms of Mali and the bustling modern street life of its capital, Bamako to a remote recording studio nestled within California’s Topanga Canyon. That bridges deep tradition and forward-facing innovation. One of Mali’s most beloved and dynamic artists, Rokia Koné is a force to be reckoned with. Her captivating performances in the city’s local maquis clubs very often last for hours, as Koné runs the gamut of emotion from joy to despair, fury to tenderness, wielding that astounding voice with grace and power. In 2016, she joined feminist supergroup Les Amazones d’Afrique and made her debut on an international stage alongside the likes of Oumou Sangaré, Angélique Kidjo and Kandia Kouyaté. Jacknife Lee is the acclaimed producer of bands including U2, R.E.M and The Killers, and has a Grammy for his work on Taylor Swift’s multi-million selling Red. Stadium-sized soundscapes are his speciality. Yet BAMANAN finds Lee upholding the stark beauty of Rokia’s voice with subtlety and sensitivity. Every nuance and breath is heard, each inflection and melismatic improvisation carefully preserved on this exciting debut."

Soul singer Betty Harris – mainly known for her Jubilee and Sansu recordings – was born in 1939 in Orlando, Florida. As a teenager she worked as a mate for Big Maybelle who encouraged her to start singing. First recording was released in 1962, her major hit was a cover of Solomon Burke’s “Cry To Me” in 1963. Taken at a slower pace, Harris’ rendition turned the song into a Billboard Hot 100 number 23 hit and soon became a deep soul classic. A total of three further singles including a reissue of “Cry to Me” were released on Jubilee with “His Kiss”, which was released on January 4, 1964, another deep soul ballad, reaching the lower part of the Billboard Pop and R&B charts. In 1964, Betty Harris switched record labels to Sansu, a New Orleans label, where she was produced by Allen Toussaint. Her recordings with Sansu produced ten singles and Toussaint raw yet sophisticated Southern soul arrangements behind Harris’ rich, distinctive vocal, are considered prime specimens of the classic soul era. Soul Perfection, originally licensed on UK label Action in 1969 , was in fact a collection of her previous works on Sansu, a rare groove affair rapidly in demand between a crowd of obsessive fans all over the world. Harris retired from performing in 1970 to raise a family and made an occasional return in 2007 with the album Intuition.

"Rock and metal music have always been a haven for those who have bigger stories to tell; who have grander emotions to convey. For more than thirty years, Finnish figureheads Amorphis have done their best to carve their very own niche in heartfelt yet aggressive, melancholic yet soothing tunes. On “Halo”, their staggering fourteenth studio effort, the Fins underline their trailblazing status as one of the most original, culturally relevant and rewarding acts ever to emerge from the land of the thousand lakes. In the past, mythology and legend took the role of today’s pop culture: Stories and a set of values uniting us by giving us a voice and a tapestry on which we can find each other and identify with something. By weaving the tales of Finnish national epos “Kalevala” into their songs and interpreting them in a timeless way, Amorphis combine the role of ancient minstrels and luminaries of the modern world, honouring tradition without getting stuck in the past. The vibrant, lively, and touching beauty that is “Halo” highlights their musical and storytelling mastership on a once again soaring level: It’s a progressive, melodic, and quintessentially melancholic heavy metal masterwork plucked from the fickle void of inspiration by original guitarists Esa Holopainen and Tomi Koivusaari, bassist Olli-Pekka Laine, drummer Jan Rechberger, longtime keyboardist Santeri Kallio and vocalist Tomi Joutsen, the band’s long-standing lyrical consciousness Pekka Kainulainen and a selected group of world class audio professionals led by
renowned Swedish producer Jens Bogren. Considering the band’s prolonged journey in the forefront of innovative metal music, it’s difficult to grasp how Amorphis manages to raise the proverbial bar time and time again, presenting a more than worthy finale to the trilogy begun with 2015’s “Under the Red Cloud” followed by 2018’s “Queen of Time.” “It really is a great feeling that we can still produce very decent music as a band,” says Holopainen, a founding member of the band. “Perhaps a certain kind of self-criticism and long experience culminate in these latest albums.” To the songwriter himself, “Halo” sounds both familiar and different. “It is thoroughly recognizable Amorphis from beginning to end but the general atmosphere is a little bit heavier and more progressive and also organic compared to its predecessor,” he elaborates. Tomi Joutsen, the man with vocal cords capable of unleashing colossal, bear-like growls as well as singing soothing, mesmerising lullabies, adds, “To me, ‘Halo’ sounds a little more stripped down compared to ‘Queen Of Time’ and ‘Under The Red Cloud.’ However, don’t get me wrong: when a certain song needs to sound big, then it sounds very big.” He’s right, of course: By stripping down some of the arrangements, the monumental moments become even more monumental. That’s of course also thanks to producing renaissance man Jens Bogren who harvested the thirteen final tracks from a batch of thirty songs Amorphis offered him. “Jens is very demanding, but I really like to work with him,” says Holopainen. “He takes care of the whole project from start to finish, and he allows the musician to focus on just playing. I may not be able to thank Jens enough. Everything we’ve done together has been really great, and this co-operation has carried Amorphis significantly forward.” Indeed. Setting off with the stormy grandeur of opener “Northwards,” Amorphis take us on an epic journey through the lands of the north, their rich cultural and historical heritage and musical traditions. This is not only an album for fans or metal connoisseurs. It’s a must for every imaginative mind out there with a soft spot for cinematic soundscapes, triumphant melodies and breathtaking dynamics measuring the borderlands of light and dark. However, no Amorphis album would be complete without the imaginative and poetic storytelling of renowned lyricist and “Kalevala” expert Pekka Kainulainen. “From day one, Pekka has always been an enthusiastic and prolific lyricist for Amorphis,” says Joutsen. “It is a slow process of translating archaic Finnish poetry into English and adapting it our progressive rhythms. Fortunately, Pekka does everything on time and with great care.” Since 2007’s “Silent Waters,” Kainulainen has been navigating the mythological waters of his homeland with great skill and respect. For “Halo,” he outdid himself once again. “‘Halo’ is a loose themed record filled with adventurous tales about the mythical North tens of thousands of years ago,” he explains. “The lyrics tell of an ancient time when man wandered to these abandoned boreal frontiers after the ice age. While describing the revival of a seminal culture in a world of new opportunities, I also try to reach the sempiternal forces of the human mind.” Thirty-one years after their inception, with uncounted global tours under their belt and fourteen albums deep in their career, Amorphis still proves to be the musical fountain of youth, an extraordinary band constantly reinventing itself without abandoning its mystical roots. With “Halo”, they deliver an astonishing album that deserves to be played everywhere, transcending the realms of metal and rock by its sheer profoundness and musicality."

"Rock and metal music have always been a haven for those who have bigger stories to tell; who have grander emotions to convey. For more than thirty years, Finnish figureheads Amorphis have done their best to carve their very own niche in heartfelt yet aggressive, melancholic yet soothing tunes. On “Halo”, their staggering fourteenth studio effort, the Fins underline their trailblazing status as one of the most original, culturally relevant and rewarding acts ever to emerge from the land of the thousand lakes. In the past, mythology and legend took the role of today’s pop culture: Stories and a set of values uniting us by giving us a voice and a tapestry on which we can find each other and identify with something. By weaving the tales of Finnish national epos “Kalevala” into their songs and interpreting them in a timeless way, Amorphis combine the role of ancient minstrels and luminaries of the modern world, honouring tradition without getting stuck in the past. The vibrant, lively, and touching beauty that is “Halo” highlights their musical and storytelling mastership on a once again soaring level: It’s a progressive, melodic, and quintessentially melancholic heavy metal masterwork plucked from the fickle void of inspiration by original guitarists Esa Holopainen and Tomi Koivusaari, bassist Olli-Pekka Laine, drummer Jan Rechberger, longtime keyboardist Santeri Kallio and vocalist Tomi Joutsen, the band’s long-standing lyrical consciousness Pekka Kainulainen and a selected group of world class audio professionals led by
renowned Swedish producer Jens Bogren. Considering the band’s prolonged journey in the forefront of innovative metal music, it’s difficult to grasp how Amorphis manages to raise the proverbial bar time and time again, presenting a more than worthy finale to the trilogy begun with 2015’s “Under the Red Cloud” followed by 2018’s “Queen of Time.” “It really is a great feeling that we can still produce very decent music as a band,” says Holopainen, a founding member of the band. “Perhaps a certain kind of self-criticism and long experience culminate in these latest albums.” To the songwriter himself, “Halo” sounds both familiar and different. “It is thoroughly recognizable Amorphis from beginning to end but the general atmosphere is a little bit heavier and more progressive and also organic compared to its predecessor,” he elaborates. Tomi Joutsen, the man with vocal cords capable of unleashing colossal, bear-like growls as well as singing soothing, mesmerising lullabies, adds, “To me, ‘Halo’ sounds a little more stripped down compared to ‘Queen Of Time’ and ‘Under The Red Cloud.’ However, don’t get me wrong: when a certain song needs to sound big, then it sounds very big.” He’s right, of course: By stripping down some of the arrangements, the monumental moments become even more monumental. That’s of course also thanks to producing renaissance man Jens Bogren who harvested the thirteen final tracks from a batch of thirty songs Amorphis offered him. “Jens is very demanding, but I really like to work with him,” says Holopainen. “He takes care of the whole project from start to finish, and he allows the musician to focus on just playing. I may not be able to thank Jens enough. Everything we’ve done together has been really great, and this co-operation has carried Amorphis significantly forward.” Indeed. Setting off with the stormy grandeur of opener “Northwards,” Amorphis take us on an epic journey through the lands of the north, their rich cultural and historical heritage and musical traditions. This is not only an album for fans or metal connoisseurs. It’s a must for every imaginative mind out there with a soft spot for cinematic soundscapes, triumphant melodies and breathtaking dynamics measuring the borderlands of light and dark. However, no Amorphis album would be complete without the imaginative and poetic storytelling of renowned lyricist and “Kalevala” expert Pekka Kainulainen. “From day one, Pekka has always been an enthusiastic and prolific lyricist for Amorphis,” says Joutsen. “It is a slow process of translating archaic Finnish poetry into English and adapting it our progressive rhythms. Fortunately, Pekka does everything on time and with great care.” Since 2007’s “Silent Waters,” Kainulainen has been navigating the mythological waters of his homeland with great skill and respect. For “Halo,” he outdid himself once again. “‘Halo’ is a loose themed record filled with adventurous tales about the mythical North tens of thousands of years ago,” he explains. “The lyrics tell of an ancient time when man wandered to these abandoned boreal frontiers after the ice age. While describing the revival of a seminal culture in a world of new opportunities, I also try to reach the sempiternal forces of the human mind.” Thirty-one years after their inception, with uncounted global tours under their belt and fourteen albums deep in their career, Amorphis still proves to be the musical fountain of youth, an extraordinary band constantly reinventing itself without abandoning its mystical roots. With “Halo”, they deliver an astonishing album that deserves to be played everywhere, transcending the realms of metal and rock by its sheer profoundness and musicality."

Retro-futurist cinematic synth-fest from Supersilent keyboardist and composer. Just as radio drama is said to provide the best pictures, so some music can make for a perfect film soundtrack without the need for a film to exist at all. ’The Haze of Sleeplessness’ is a case in point: as the album starts to play, the listener’s imagination kicks in and does the rest, supplying the necessary plot, character and setting until a full-scale narrative unspools behind one’s eyes. A suite of seven movements whose common musical material is continuously recycled into new shapes and sounds, while recurring leitmotifs create a connecting thread of continuity, ’The Haze of Sleeplessness’ operates on several levels simultaneously. Most obviously, perhaps, it’s an unapologetic synth-fest; a love poem to old-school electronica and analogue sound whose squelches, bleeps and blurts can’t help but recall the heroic era of Wendy Carlos, Vangelis and Tangerine Dream. It’s also a remarkably original and successful attempt at using by now antique instruments to form a true orchestral palette, building a symphony of sound through combining monophonic sources and their new digital variants into a densely populated audio landscape that is captured with astonishing sonic fidelity. The super-saturated surface of the music fairly crackles with raw electricity, as if the over-amped distortion was about to short-circuit itself, with a wobbly jack plug connection flickering dangerously before finally cutting out. That many of these sounds and their treatment can’t help but suggest the retro-futurist setting of a dystopian sci-fi thriller might make the cinematic analogy inevitable, but it doesn’t lessen the music’s power or cheapen its effect.

From director George Miller, originator of the post-apocalyptic genre and mastermind behind the legendary Mad Max franchise, comes Mad Max: Fury Road, a return to the world of the Road Warrior, Max Rockatansky. An apocalyptic story set in the furthest reaches of our planet, in a stark desert landscape where humanity is broken and almost everyone is crazed fighting for the necessities of life.

The film’s epic score is written by Tom Holkenborg, aka Junkie XL, a Grammy nominated and multi-Platinum producer, musician and composer. Junkie XL’s versatility puts him on the cutting edge of contemporary music, as well as in the vanguard of exciting film composers. He is able to draw on his extensive knowledge of classical forms and structures while keeping one finger planted firmly on the pulse of popular music. When this eclectic background is paired with his skill as a multi-instrumentalist (he plays keyboards, guitar, drums, violin, and bass) and mastery of studio technology, a portrait emerges of an artist for whom anything is possible.

Music on Vinyl proudly presents the brand new Ennio Morricone Themes series, a unique collection of the greatest scores ‘The Maestro’ composed for movies over the past 70 years, divided into different Themes.

Western is the first in a series of five double vinyl releases that bring together some of Ennio Morricone’s greatest soundtrack music.
Each Theme centers on a different movie genre, together they allow the listener to rediscover the unmatched genius of the greatest movie composer of all time. Western contains a selection of defining Morricone songs, featured in legendary (Spaghetti-) Western movies like “Once Upon A Time In The West”, “A Fistful of Dollars”, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”, “A Pistol for Ringo”, “The Return of Ringo” and many more, selected on 2 LP's.

ENNIO MORRICONE

Starting 70 years ago as an arranger for the piece Mamma Bianca, Ennio Morricone is the emperor of scores and soundtracks. Morricone has always been a huge influence for the likes of Hans Zimmer, Danger Mouse, Muse, Metallica and many more musicians. He’s one of the most successful composers of all-time, selling over 70 million records and winning dozens of awards.

Entitled "The Body Remembers", this 14 song collection is a well rounded
combination of dance/pop, pop/rock, and ballads including a re-imagined version
of her mega-hit 'Lost In Your Eyes' with Joey McIntyre.
Her musical contributors on this new release range from Grammy award winning
DJ Tracy Young, to Emmy Award winning composer/ producer/ Cinderella
drummer Fred Coury, Former Guns n Roses guitarist DJ Ashba and, iconic mixers
Josh Gudwin and Brian Malouf. This album marks the debut of 19 year old
musical prodigy Sean Thomas. This recent Berkley graduate is Debbie's
producing partner on the majority of songs.

Following up on 2021"s highly acclaimed Hologram EP, the rebooted lineup'
vocalist/guitarist Oliver Ackermann plus drummer/vocalist Sandra Fedowitz and
bassist John Fedowitz (both of Ceremony East Coast)' delivers an overclocked
set of futuristic electronic punk music encoded with punishing industrial rhythms,
swirling voltage- starved guitars and unclassifiable auditory annihilation. Across
thirteen tracks recorded in seclusion throughout the nihilistic absurdity of the
coronavirus pandemic, See Through You is proof-positive that the group hailed as
'The Loudest Band in New York' is still finding new ways to push the needle
deeper in the red

Produced by Jonathan Wilson (Dawes, Father John Misty, Conor Oberst), Erin Rae's highly anticipated new album Lighten Up is a timeless amalgam of classic pop, cosmic country and indie rock, recorded earlier this year in California’s Topanga Canyon. Three years have passed since the release of her critically acclaimed debut Putting On Airs, which drew high praise from publications from Rolling Stone to NPR Music. She mostly spent her time on the road, performing at Newport Folk and Red Rocks, sharing stages with Iron & Wine, Jason Isbell, Jenny Lewis, Hiss Golden Messenger and Father John Misty, before her touring came to a sharp halt at the start of the pandemic. The solitude of the road and then the pandemic created space for Rae to undergo a sonic and philosophical shift where she found personal catharsis in creating an album that reflected on her newfound lessons of self acceptance, alongside finding the confidence to offer social commentary on the environment, gender identity and equality. “My last record was a lot of self-assessment and criticism, and trying to kick old habits and ways of relating and not relating to people,” Rae acknowledges. “This one is about blossoming, opening up, and living a little more in the present moment. Fully experiencing what it is to be human.” With a renewed sense of agency, Rae also took a more active role in creating the kaleidoscopic soundscape that became Lighten Up, setting out to reflect a sound she calls, “an emotional pallet, I could get lost in.” Alongside Erin and Jonathan Wilson, who contributed various instruments, the album also features guest appearances from fellow rising star singer songwriters, Meg Duffy, Ny Oh, and Kevin Morby.

Mit Priorities (2012), Automatic (2015) und Technology (2018) hat das Quartett aus Bedford seinen eigenen Weg eingeschlagen, indem es heftige Riffs mit unwiderstehlichen Pop-Melodien auf Alben verband, die frech, aber beschwingt, wild, aber raffiniert sind und dabei ganz anders klingen als alle anderen. Offensichtlich war dies auch ein Erfolgsrezept, denn Technology erreichte Platz 5 der britischen Albumcharts.

Doch selbst bei einer Diskografie, die sich durch verwirrende Erwartungen auszeichnet, kann nichts die Hörer auf Amazing Things vorbereiten - mit seiner Fülle an Stilen, Emotionen und popkulturellen Anspielungen ist es das brennbarste Pulverfass einer Platte seit Limp Bizkits Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water. Es ist eines der besten Alben des Jahres, und zweifellos das exzentrischste.

The new album by the Peruvian-born / Berlin-based experimental artist Ale Hop was conceived in a context of immobility and provides six sonic vignettes that wonder about location, circularity, rootedness and experience. In collaboration with Ana Quiroga,
Concepcion Huerta, Daniela Huerta, Elsa M'balla, Felicity Magan, Fil Uno, Ignacio Briceño, KMRU, Manongo Mujica, Moises Horta, Nicole L'huillier, Raul Jardín, Sukitoa Onamau, Tomas Tello.

Following her explorations on music's inherent fixation to geographic space and time, be it through the longing of home ("Apophenia" 2019) or scientific magnification of invisible worlds ("The Life of Insects" 2020), Berlin-based Peruvian-born experimental composer Ale Hop's fourth album, "Why Is It They Say a City Like Any City?", was conceived in a context of immobility. During the lockdown
months, she started a process of remote collaboration, by sending messages, posted from various cities along a South American trip, to thirteen musicians from around the world. She journaled her impressions upon these places to an intimate fictional character while reflecting on matters of time,
sound, space, cosmology and colonial memory. The thirteen musicians dialogued with this voice by taking upon the challenge of responding to the messages with sound collaborations.
Field recordings, mouth drumming, drone cellos, electronic loops, arrhythmic rhythms and voices came back from this experiment. Ale assembled them, by layering, twisting and turning, into sonic vignettes that wonder about location, circularity, rootedness and experience, making it the first time she's set her guitar aside. Expect no answers to the album's title question, but an innermost psychedelic rumination.
"Despite the technological resources that appear to dilute distances, the simulation of closeness mirrored on the digital space is an emptied body, a state of precarity, a flat surface; unable to withhold an experience of exchange," Ale states. "So, I began this project by asking myself, how can we escape from the reduced experience of the virtual? The idea behind this experiment was that my messages and the places they describe could drive the composition, be a catalyzer, a
score. Thus, to use geography as a tool to remember and imagine, to allow new soundscapes to emerge."
"Memory, diffuse and divergent, sometimes reaches out to the future in its search for form, taking shape from the reflections and echoes that come back … like throwing a rock in a pond and having a rock thrown back at you."

The debut album from hotly tipped kiwi band Jamie and The Numbers, finally sees a release via Pete Brady’s Superfly Funk and Soul Records. After years of limited release 7”s being fought over worldwide by collectors and fans, this superb LP is the culmination of years of work for highly gifted Tongan-Kiwi Jamie Mavusa. Based in Wellington she can occasionally be seen singing soul tunes for Tapestry Music Promotions at many of their Music Reviews and also in her gospel choir at Church. It was at one of the Tapestry Music shows in Wellington that Jamie met Simon from Deltaphonic Records/The Numbers and after watching Jamie perform an amazing version of "Wade In The Water”. It was suggested they do some recording together with the view of doing some cool Soul classics and a bunch of originals too, the rest is now history.



The Numbers are an incredibly tight Wellington based band. Prolific writers of their own original material they are a 4 piece that consist of three brothers from Wainuiamata and a newly adopted Kiwi originally from Birmingham England. If you get a chance check these guys out they are brimming with cool retro tunes and some barnstorming original songs played with verve and passion and their shows are always fun, 2019 they supported "From The Jam" on their visit to New Zealand and after teaming up with Jamie have played Pasifika Festivals and open-air concerts to thousands of people. The Numbers collectively have played, sessioned, recorded for other artists on such labels as Gut Records, D-Star, EG Records, Imaginary Records and have in excess of 40+ published songs with Universal, Complete Music, KWS Records NYC and Cherry Red Records.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There is nothing quite like an evening under the rhythmic spell of the legendary David Morales. Stepping on the dancefloor while he's behind the decks requires full trust and surrender. You agree to hand the reins of your mind, body, and spirit to his intuition and ability to guide you to where you need to be at all times. It will occasionally be cathartic and intense. It will often make the hairs on your body stand on end, and make you sweat more than you ever have before. The endorphin release will be powerful. You will feel like you can touch joy and euphoria it in the air around you. As he gently brings you back down to reality, you will feel renewed and ready for anything life brings your way. This is more than a night of dancing. This is an experience at the hands of a magical maestro of music. How is this possible from a night on the dancefloor? Well, it begins with the brilliant mind of an artist at the peak of his creative power, imbued with the empathy necessary to connect with what has become a global legion of fans. "If there is any secret, it's really simple: I love what I do with all of my heart," Morales says. "I'm a DJ first. I thrive on human interaction. I am always adjusting my sets based on what the people in the room need. Each night, we form an emotional connection that inspires the music as it comes."

For Morales, "working in the studio is important, but it exists as a way of supporting the DJing experience. It's all to inform how it will work on the dancefloor."

To that end, you're reading these words as you dive into a new collection of Morales classics. Ever the collaborator, he has enlisted the input of a wide range of voices and talent. There is the diva power of fellow legend Ultra Nate, who brings her signature sass to "I Can Dream," while Michele Perera's explosive chemistry with David is all over the inspiring "Life is a Song" and "Never Give Up", as well as the impassioned "Addicted."

Morales reminds the listener of his ever-evolving musical scope in collaborations with blondewearingblack ("What Can I Do"), Lea Lorien ("Never Looking Back"), and Blakkat ("Can't Get Enough"). There's the clubland supergroup of David with Mr. V, Scotty P. and DJ Rae on "The Feels." Rounding out the set is a reunion with longtime muses Elle Cato ("I Feel Love") and British soul icon Joe Roberts ("Easy"). Just be sure to listen closely, because there's bound to be a surprise tucked between these grooves to tickle your ears and move your body.

The beauty of this sparkling new foray into electronic music is the heightened intimacy between Morales and the music. What you are hearing here is almost exclusively from the man's own fingertips. "The technology has evolved in the most extraordinary and liberating ways," he says, adding that he is now able to be far more directly hands-on during the building of each track. "Back in the '90s, I had to have more people involved, With the changes and growth in technology, I can now do it, myself. I don't even have to be in the studio anymore. It's smart, financially, but it's also way more fun and creative."

David adds, "I don't have to wait to manifest an idea anymore. I can just build my ideas as they come to me." In fact, he reveals that many of these new tracks were born in unique places, like planes, cars, his bedroom, and a host of other settings. "Music is always spinning around my mind. I no longer worry about losing an idea."

Surviving the highs and lows of an ever-changing world has also brought Morales back to the basic essentials of life and music. "The pandemic has brought things full circle for me," he says. "I love what I do and I still have the passion of a kid who is just getting started"

Yet, we know that Morales has been in the game for longer than a minute. He's a Grammy award-winning producer, remixer, and songwriter. He has lent his skill to countless of records by icons that include Mariah Carey, Madonna, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Aretha Franklin, Donna Summer, Seal, and Jamiroquai. As a turntable artist originally from New York City, he earned his bones of credibility back in the '80s and '90s in clubs like the Paradise Garage, Red Zone, Tunnel, and Club USA. He initiated the concept of DJs touring beyond their hometowns with countless, wildly successful treks that have taken him the farthest-reaching corners of the world. As electronic music thrives on pop radium, David tops the list of every young artist and DJ as a primary influence.

Even with such a staggering legacy, Morales never looks over his shoulder.

"That is how you stumble and fall," he says. "If you get all caught up in the past, you're going to lose sight of what is right in front of you. You lose the excitement of discovery. That is what gets me off; taking what I know and combining it with what I don't know as I learn it. There is nothing better than experiencing how it all comes together. It's different every time."

And that is the ultimate secret to that extraordinary spell that David Morales casts over us all every single time.

Hailing from Sydney, Australia, prolific producer Cabu (860K Monthly Listeners and more than 90M cumulative streams on Spotify alone) has come a long way; from his successful remix work – from Joe Hurtz's "Stay Lost" edit (37M Spotify-streams) to Big Wild's "Empty Room" flip (20M Spotify-streams) – to his consistently catchy original productions, Cabu's only getting started. He keeps this momentum alive with the EP "So Far To Go", his first to be released by Ta-ku & Jakarta Records' sublabel 823 Records.

823 is a perfect place for Cabu's bouncy, hypnotic grooves and is a return to form for what "Cabu" represents: a driving force in the pursuit of happiness through sound. It's a well-timed collaboration, as Cabu's fanbase has continuously grown over the past few years through features on Australia's Triple J, DJ Complexion's Future Beats Radio, Soundistyle, The South East Grind, Mutual Friends, ThisSongIsSick, Majestic Casual, Soulection Radio, BBC 1xtra, Pilerats, Maison Kitsune and more. To that end, "So Far To Go" features some of the most talented artists to come out of the Pacific continent, such as Milan Ring (95K monthly Spotify listeners) – coined "Australia's R&B Princess" by Apple Music – Brisbane native hit-maker Young Franco (1M+ monthly Spotify listeners), Kamaliza (123K monthly Spotify listeners), NOÉ, Gabby Nacua, Pastel and of course label-head Ta-ku himself.

1st single, "Process" featuring Ta-ku & Milan Ring was released on November 3rd. Hypnotically bouncy, with heavenly synth pads, crisp percussive elements combined with the ethereal voices of Ta-ku and Milan harmonically push the sonic envelope to make this track an infallible groovy knockout. As Cabu says, "Process" is "the dream-like state in which you take gratitude in your current situation whilst being hopeful in the future." The track provides a perfect taste of these artistic and creative powerhouses. The stunningly beautiful music video – directed by Sydney based Redscope Films and premiered on The Sound You Need – is the perfect accompaniment.

2nd single, "Sun & Moon" featuring Young Franco & NOÉ is set to be released on December 10th along with an announcement of the EP and pre-order. The song is a contagiously bouncy bop, with the different vocal harmonies and synth chords giving the track an almost prime 00's throwback, it's the perfect year-end anthem to keep dancing and growing through the good and bad.

The album's focus track, "About U" featuring Kamaliza will be released along with the EP release on January 28th, 2022. The song perfectly blends electronic elements within an R&B / Soul aesthetic, and is all about moving forward with intention, from the lyrics to the groove, making you feel tipsy on life.

All singles off the EP will be accompanied with custom visualizers by Perth-based design / creative firm Gesture Systems. The album's single-releases and videos will be promoted in-house via the artist's and the label's social media channels in Germany and Australia.

The 823 label represents the appreciation for the people, ideas and places that inspire and push their protagonists forward. "823 celebrates the simple beauty of everyday life and the people in it that inspire us." (Regan Matthews aka Ta-ku)

Los Angeles-based duo SANA SHENAI began in 2009 when their Dublab radio-affiliated ambient quintet Golden Hits went on hiatus. Jimmy Tamborello (Dntel, The Postal Service) and Mitchell Brown (LAFMS, Sun Araw, Sissy Spacek) have since amassed a mountain of material culled from 10 years of home recording. In late 2018 the 5-song digital EP "Forewarm" was released by Leaving Records, which now joins seven other pieces on this physical debut double LP for Les Albums Claus, "WARM FORMER".

Brown reveals: "We initially set out to make oddball minimal techno using 50's-80's musique concrete studio techniques and modular synthesizers. This almost happened, perhaps best exemplified by the cut "Humid Beings", but even by the first session's end we'd given in to the open-endedness of our gear, jamming entirely different stuff." Warm Former's sound palette is vast with plenty of almosts and could be's, hosting shape-shifting polyglot sound-field games to investigate, decipher and redecipher. Tracks "Frozen Host" and "Laqua" might be considered uncanny and reminiscent of memories not quite your own. "No One There to Confirm" is the moody melodic sprawler that heavily features both Serge and Buchla synths. Wonky, splicey 1/4" analog tape loops are hiding all over this album but are definitely the stars on "Wizard A Baby". "Worm Farmer" might be the most accessible tune, falling near the crossroads of motorik 70's krautrock and the sprightlier side of Tamborello's own Dntel catalog.

Translucent red LP housed in a beautiful gold mirror-board sleeve with large Thundercat logo hologram sticker and gold holofoil detail. Includes two bonus tracks: ‘$200 TB’ and ‘Daylight (Reprise)

Vinyl only (no digital) 2021 Black Friday release

If indeed "you blows who you is," as Louis Armstrong once famously said, then Stephen Bruner's bass is a mainline to the soul of a man whose DNA was transcribed from the stars onto staff paper. His Flying Lotus-produced debut, The Golden Age of Apocalypse, offers both stone-cold skill and uncanny astrality, picking up where the pair left off on 2010's Cosmogramma and further distilling the jazz current running through that landmark Lotus release. A longtime contributor to others' albums, Bruner, aka Thundercat, is accompanied by an impressive cast ranging from Erykah Badu to members of Sa-Ra and J*DaVeY, to pianist Austin Peralta and his own Grammy-winning brother, drummer Ronald Bruner, Jr. Still, the end result is unmistakably a Thundercat record -- a lush and magical document combining classic jazz fusion, futurist electronic strains and timeless musical seeking.

Spanning a cosmic stew of players, locations and times, The Golden Age of Apocalypse was years in the making. . There's the ebullient "Daylight," a soft whirl of bluesy piano, New Age synth, snapping beats and warm bass. There's "Walkin'," an upbeat soul strutter powered by Bruner's digitally distorted plucks. There are raw, improvised numbers like "Jamboree" and virtuosic bass pileups like "Fleer Ultra." One of the album's most stunning moments arrives with a spacious cover of George Duke's "For Love I Come," a taut beauty spangled with crystalline harp and keys. Bringing this string of divinely unexpected moments to a moody and cinematic close is "Return to the Journey." There, Bruner sings, "Time will pass us by," but listeners needn't worry. Inside of this space, time really isn't a thing.

Black Truffle is pleased to announce For McCoy, a new work by Eiko Ishibashi dedicated to the widely loved character of Jack McCoy, portrayed by Sam Waterston in Law & Order. Following on from Hyakki Yagyō (BT064), For McCoy finds Ishibashi further exploring the unique space she has carved out in recent years, bringing together musique concrète techniques, ECM-inspired jazz, lush layers of synths and hints of pop into immersive and affecting structures crafted in her home studio, aided by a group of close collaborators.

Beginning with overlapping layers of descending flute lines, the expansive ‘I Can Feel Guilty About Anything’ (whose two parts stretch out over more than thirty minutes) unfolds with a free-associative logic, embracing dreamlike transitions and unexpected cinematic cuts. As a hovering cloud of synthetic tones and multi-tracked voices fans out from the spare opening moments, Joe Talia’s skittering cymbals settle into a gently propulsive groove, soon joined by melodic fragments performed by Daisuke Fujiwara on multi-tracked saxophone. As the drums cede to field recordings and ominous synth figures, the uncommon meeting of saxophone and electroacoustic techniques call to mind the more spacious moments of Michel Redolfi and André Jaume’s Synclavier-propelled oddity Hardscore or the early work of Gilbert Artman’s Urban Sax. As the piece continues on the LP’s second side, distant dialogue rumbles beneath a surface of processed flutes, blurring into a cavernously reverberant backdrop for stark ascending lines performed by MIO.O on violin. Eventually, the piece settles into a gorgeous passage of abstracted dream pop, where Ishibashi’s multitracked vocal harmonies glide atop synth chords, errant pings and snatches of outdoor sound.

Fragments of melodic material reappear throughout the spacious opening piece, finally stepping to the forefront on the closing track, ‘Ask Me How I Sleep at Night’. Here, over a shuffling groove supplied by Jim O’Rourke on double bass and Tatsuhisa Yamamoto on drums, layers of flutes, saxophones and guitars sound out melodies whose combination of twisting irregularity and soulful immediacy calls up prime Keith Jarrett, while their closely voiced harmonies suggest Kenny Wheeler or even Wayne Shorter’s Atlantis. In a classical gesture of closure, the web of melodic lines eventually leads back to the descending flute figures with which the record began. Presented in an immersive, impeccably detailed mix by Jim O’Rourke and arriving in a sleeve featuring Ishibashi’s beautiful drawings of Jack McCoy, For McCoy is an essential release for anyone following the enchanted and unique path being forged by Eiko Ishibashi.

How To Train Your Dragon 3: The Hidden World is the 2019 American computer-animated action fantasy film based on the eponymous book series by Cressida Cowell. It’s the third and final chapter of the trilogy. The story is written and directed by Dean DeBlois and stars the voices of Jay Baruchel, America Ferrera, Cate Blanchett, Craig Ferguson and F. Murray Abraham. The plot follows Hiccup who discovers Toothless isn’t the only Night Fury and how he must seek ‘The Hidden World’, a secret Dragon Utopia, before a hired tyrant named Grimmel finds it first.

The trilogy received acclaim from critics for its animation, voice acting and musical score. This third installment grossed over 525 million dollar worldwide, becoming the fifth highest grossing animated film of 2019. It was even nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 92nd Academy Awards.

The score was conducted by John Powell, who is best known for his work on Happy Feet (2006), Ferdinand and Solo: A Star Wars Story. He was nominated for an Academy Award for How to Train Your Dragon (2010). Powell has worked closely with Hans Zimmer and was a member of his music studio.

How To Train Your Dragon 3: The Hidden World features the track “Together from Afar” by Jónsi (Sigur Rós) and the bonus track “The Hidden World”. This 2LP is housed in a gatefold sleeve and is available as a limited edition of 500 individually numbered copies on solid blue (LP 1) and solid red (LP 2) coloured vinyl. The package contains a 4-page booklet and an exclusive postcard.

After years spent living on opposite sides of the Atlantic world events threw Laura Mary Carter and Steven Ansell of Blood Red Shoes back together into what has become the must fruitful era of their 17 years together.

“It’s been a loooong time since we both lived in the same city”, explains Steven. “I mean we actually wrote this album in LA at Laura’s place, then came to the UK to record it…and then everything went nuts”.

Realising very quickly that they wouldn’t be able to release the album or tour until the world returned to some kind of normality, the band found their energies quickly spilled over into other projects. Laura-Mary started a podcast, Never Meet Your Idols, with her best friend in LA, interviewing everyone from Zack Snyder to Mark Lanegan to CHVRCHES. It is now about to start its third season. Steven started applying his love of electronic music by writing and producing other alternative artists like Circe, ARXX, Aiko and XCerts, racking up millions of streams in the process.

Having worked together on Laura–Mary’s forthcoming solo mini album Town Called Nothing and restless from the lack of touring, the duo started jamming out in rehearsal rooms, which led to the light-speed writing, recording and release of the impossibly-titled Ø EP in the summer of 2021. Which concludes what the band call an “off year”.

And that brings us back to GHOST ON TAPE. It appears that like David Lynch’s The Lost Highway, nothing is linear in the world of Blood Red Shoes. Written and recorded before their most recent EP, GHOSTS ON TAPE is a huge jump into new terrain for the band. Musically and emotionally their most mature work, it is a complex, imaginative, and very gothic development on their sound. Musically, it leaves almost no trace of their former selves.

Grey Marbled Vinyl
Mit unerschütterlicher Hartnäckigkeit hat die undurchdringliche Schwermetall-Hartkernfabrik HATEBREED eine weitere eiserne Guss- und Schallwaffe mit dem Gewicht des falschen Selbst hervorgebracht. Es ist keine Überraschung, dass ihr achtes, abendfüllendes Album das Ergebnis des üblichen Schweißes und Blutes ist, das HATEBREEDs einzigartige Nische in der Musikwelt seit über zwei Jahrzehnten zementiert hat. Bekannt für ihre Fähigkeit, ihren Fans eine intensive und kathartische Veröffentlichung zu bieten, haben HATEBREED ihren Schreibstil durch diesen Albumzyklus herausgefordert, um Material zu produzieren, das in einer zeitgenössischen Welt, die von Überreizung, emotionaler Dämpfung und mangelnder sozialer Geduld überflutet ist, außergewöhnlich gut zu vergleichen ist. "Weight Of The False Self' ist eine perfekte Darstellung von HATEBREED im Jahr 2020, ein frischer Ansturm von baldigen Klassikern mit all den Elementen, die Sie vom ersten Tag an hierher geführt haben", erklärt Gitarrist Frank Novinec. Fast jedes Individuum trägt ein metaphorisches Gewicht in Bezug auf sein emotionales Konstrukt. Unsere Erfahrungen prägen, wer wir werden, und im Laufe der Zeit entsteht allmählich eine schwere Last, die wir immer weiter mitschleppen. Für viele von uns wird die Last so groß, dass wir uns schwer tun, von unten herauszukommen, geschweige denn uns zu bewegen.

Es sind diese Kämpfe, die sich durch das Gewicht des falschen Selbst übersetzen lassen. "Ob man es sieht oder nicht, jeder trägt eine Last. Die Musik, die wir lieben, hilft uns, diese Last zu tragen", erklärt Sänger Jamey Jasta. Stücke wie "Cling To Life" liefern ein Wortspiel, das normalerweise bedeutet, sich verzweifelt an die letzten Atemzüge zu klammern, aber hier zeigen diese Worte, dass es nach wahrem Verlust und Trauer aufrichtige Erleichterung bringen kann, sich an die Idee von Glück und Zukunft zu klammern. Am anderen Ende des philosophischen Spektrums präsentiert die erste Single "Instinctive (Slaughterlust)" nicht nur ein neues Vokabular-Wort, sondern schreit auch nach der Kraft, die von unseren Verteidigungsmechanismen ausgeht, wenn wir in eine Ecke gedrängt werden. Wenn jemand von seiner Vergangenheit verfolgt wird, von einer anderen Person, oder wenn er nur sein eigenes Territorium verteidigt, ist es nur eine Frage der Zeit und der Entfernung, bis er zu einer wilden, ursprünglichen Bestie explodieren kann. "Es sollte verboten sein, ein so schweres Lied zu machen", beschreibt Bassist Chris Beattie. Das Lied "Wings Of The Vulture" ist eine Metapher für all die negativen Kräfte der Natur, des Schicksals und der Menschheit, die hoffen, uns in einigen unserer schwächsten Momente zu erbeuten, indem sie auf den Tod von etwas Sinnvollem warten. "A Stroke Of Red" berührt, entgegen dem, was auf den ersten Blick scheint, das Konzept, die Wahl zu haben, sich selbst oder anderen zu schaden. "Auge um Auge, aber das macht jeden blind. Wenn man einmal diesen dunklen, gewalttätigen Weg gegangen ist, gibt es kein Zurück mehr.

Dieses Lied ist eine dunkle Leinwand; ich verlasse meinen Körper, um schreckliche Dinge auf einer anderen Ebene zu tun, und komme zu mir selbst zurück, um daraus zu lernen, so dass man diesem dunklen, fleischlichen Verlangen niemals nachgibt", erklärt Jasta. Das Album-Artwork des renommierten Heavy-Metal-Künstlers Eliran Kantor zeigt einen Mann, der an der massiven Skulptur einer Steinbüste herummeißelt. In Kantors klassischem Malstil, der durch den Lehm von Aufruhr und Traurigkeit bricht, beginnt ein Licht durch den Fels zu scheinen, während der Bildhauer sein Gesicht von den blendenden Strahlen der Heilung abwendet. Das Bild kombiniert visuell die Themen des Albums, nämlich den emotionalen Kampf und die Überwindung des Schmerzes, nachdem Schichten von Depression, Angst, Verrat und Herzschmerz die Seele eines Menschen verhärtet haben. Im Laufe von mehr als 20 Jahren und 8 Alben ist der Schreibprozess für eine Band wie HATEBREED in ihren Wurzeln sicher geblieben, aber dennoch hat sie sich nach knackigen und überzeugenden Stücken mit progressivem Sound umgeschaut, die dem Mix hinzugefügt werden sollen. Es gibt Wellen von frischen Klängen, während das massive Fundament, auf dem HATEBREED stehen, weiterhin stark gehalten wird. "Auf diesem Album habe ich mich wirklich angestrengt und mich dazu gebracht, die Dinge umzuschreiben, bis sie besser waren, bis es klickte. Ich habe mich aus dieser Komfortzone herausgerissen. Im Zeitalter der Altlasten, in dem die Bands so viele Hits aus ihrem Katalog bei Shows spielen müssen, hören wir gerne, dass die Fans neue Songs verlangen, wenn wir live spielen", erklärt Jasta, "wir haben mit diesem Album wirklich unsere Stärken ausgenutzt". "An fleischigen Rippen und adrenalingeladenen Trommeln mangelt es auf dieser Platte nicht. Ich bin stolz darauf, dass wir durchweg einen Soundtrack liefern, zu dem man in seinem Wohnzimmer moshen und seine Wohnung zerstören kann", erklärt Schlagzeuger Matt Byrne. Bei der erneuten Aufnahme des Albums mit Hilfe von ZEUSS erlebte die Band ein Gefühl der Herausforderung und des Durchbruchs, das es ihr ermöglichte, eine neue Ebene des Klangs zu erreichen.

Nachdem er mehrere Jahre lang mit der Band gearbeitet hat und während er normalerweise seine Zeit mit Bands verbringt, die einen ziemlich anderen Sound haben, ist Zeuss in der Lage, HATEBREED zu testen und ihre bereits berüchtigte Schwingung zu erweitern. "Es war wirklich großartig, wieder mit Zeuss an diesem Projekt zu arbeiten. Ich liebe die Art und Weise, wie die Gitarren klingen", kommentiert Gitarrist Wayne Lozinak. Im Laufe der Zeit scheint die Qualität der Produktionstechnologie immer besser zu werden und ein sicheres und produktives Nest zu schaffen, in dem das Album

Hot on the heels of his preliminary EP on Stroboscopic Artefacts, Embryo, which paved the way to the present album, and two years after the landing of his 2016-released inaugural LP, Montagne Trasparenti, Mannequin helmsman Alessandro Adriani returns with his highly anticipated full-length debut for SA, Morphic Dreams. Throughout eleven cuts painstakingly executed but lacking not an iota of the fresh, spontaneous oomph that made his sound stand out of the crowd of techno producers to have emerged over the past decade, Adriani lays the foundations to a suspended sound imaginarium, governed by its own rules and principles of gravity. Revolving around the notions of sublimation and quest for inner balance, Morphic Dreams is comprised of four distinct sequences, conceived and designed as reflections of four mental states, each of them linked to the four alchemical elements i.e. Water, Earth, Air and Fire here represented by the A, B, C and D-sides. Fluid and enveloping, the A-side bathes the listener in some zero-G uterine vortex, pitching and rolling from the slo-burning exotic sensuality and tribal spell of The Tropical Year to the trunk-bending, arpeggiated fast-track pulse of Storm Trees, through Raindances feverish electro swing. Entering a further abrasive, minerally rich phase, the B-side unleashes Adrianis dark side with optimum conviction. Deeply anchored in earthly materiality, this new evolution stage starts off to the frantic Italo bass of Dissolving Images, rushing headlong into a kaleidoscopic maelstrom of fractured reflections and nasty Giallo-like ambience. The delirious body stretch sequence then rather abruptly swerves onto a calmer flux with Dust/Mist, a much enticingly hip-swaying collaboration with Simon Crab, ex-member of the seminal 80s UK industrial-experimental band Bourbonese Qualk, before Casting The Runes engulfs us into a tormented world of swollen eeriness and disquieting esoterism. Back to a widescreen showcase of droney distortions, nasty acid swashes and other quirky drum programming, Hors De Combat opens a new chapter, shortly followed by the playful bass intricacies and modular jeu-de-piste of Invisible Seekers, featuring Avian affiliate and longtime friend Shawn OSullivan. A further mind-expanding piece, C-side closer Crow deploys its blackened wings wide and high as a chaos of martial percussions and liquefying synths slivers crash past the red-hot skyline. A fluttering melodic interlude, Things About To Disappear blazes a clean trail for Make Words Split And Crack to flourish, slowly but surely blooming into a nonstop grandiose twelve minute-shy finale geared up with the stirring cacophonic force of a Ligetian symphony and something of an epic-scale Kubrickian soundtrack.

Soundtrack from Academy Award-nominated actor Ethan Hawke’s 2001 film Songs written by Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy with the score performed by Tweedy and Glenn Kotche Featuring two previously unissued bonus tracks and available on CD and (for the first time) Vinyl. Includes performances by Wilco, Billy Bragg, Robert Sean Leonard, “Little” Jimmy Scott, and more Packaging features new liner notes from Ethan Hawke, Glenn Kotche, and a conversation between Jeff Tweedy and Grammy®-winning set producer Cheryl Pawelski “It was pivotal for me. There was a burst of creativity that continues to this day because I took the last remaining guardrails off of what I’d been willing to allow myself to do.” –Jeff Tweedy The same year of his Oscar®-nominated performance in Training Day, Ethan Hawke made his full-length film directorial debut with Chelsea Walls (starring Kris Kristofferson, Uma Thurman, Vincent D’Onofrio, Robert Sean Leonard, and more). A fan of Wilco, Hawke approached Jeff Tweedy about scoring the film, and Tweedy agreed. Around this time, Tweedy had collaborated with musician and producer Jim O’Rourke (Sonic Youth, Stereolab) for a special live performance. As fate would have it, O’Rourke had been working with Glenn Kotche, and O’Rourke introducing Tweedy to Kotche would lay the groundwork for the trio’s work together on the debut album by their band, Loose Fur. Tweedy also asked Kotche to work with him on an improvised soundtrack to the movie he had agreed to score.













[m] 13. Finale (Extended) [Bonus Track]
[n] 14. Promising [Bonus Track]

Tom Middleton is focused on the future in many ways. His new alias GCOM is an all-new, 21st century redesign of his original Global Communication concept and collaboration with Mark Pritchard. The new album E2-XO is some of the most advanced music he has ever made, both in sound and concept. signifying a technological, creative and philosophical evolution into the new era; from planetary communication and understanding to Galactic Communication.

Wiseblood is one of the most well-known Corrosion of Conformity albums and was released in 1996 as the fifth studio album by the American heavy metal band. The album charted on the Billboard Top 200 Album Charts and peaked at #104. The history of Corrosion of Conformity in modern heavy music is highly significant, not least due to guitarist Pepper Keenan’s formation of all-star project Down, along with Pantera’s Philip Anselmo and members of Crowbar.

Wiseblood includes the tracks “Drowning in a Daydream”, which was nominated for Best Metal Performance at the 40th Grammy Awards, and “Man Or Ash”, on which Metallica’s James Hetfield provides backing vocals.

Wiseblood is available on black vinyl.