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Founded in 2012, the Kid Colling Cartel (named in reference to the Colombian origins of the frontman) consists of Kid Colling (vocals and guitar), Alex Logel (organ and keyboard), David Franco (bass), and Florian Pons (drums). Describing their style as "Alternative Rock Blues," the band primarily performs Colling"s compositions and draws inspiration from various genres such as groove, funk, and especially rock-never abandoning its blues roots. The harmony and musical camaraderie of the group on stage are undeniable, with Kid Colling, primarily a guitarist, standing out for his charisma and a recognizable voice that he can modulate at will. It is important to him not to confine the Cartel to a specific style but to address a broad audience that can easily appreciate their music without necessarily being devoted to pure blues. In 2017, the Kid Colling Cartel released its first album, "In the Devil"s Court," and the upcoming album titled "Living on the Wild Side" is scheduled for February 2023.

After winning three leading Belgian music awards with Humo's Rock Rally, De Nieuwe Lichting and Sound Track, girl band BLUAI is expanding its horizons. On their debut album Save It For Later, the trio leaves for a road trip through the sonorous areas populated by the likes of Big Thief, Pinegrove, Haim, and Alabama Shakes.
Save It For Later is a record not unlike a Polaroid picture. Belgian songwriter Catherine Smet captures the memories of her youth in lyrics with a perfume of Americana, country pop, and indie folk. The stories areset in her native Flanders, but close your eyes, and galloping horses on a ranch in Mississippi form the backdrop of BLUAI's debut album.

Catherine Smet (vocals, guitar), Mo Govaerts (drums), and Caitlin Talbut (bass) joined forces with producer Willem Ardui (blackwave.) for this record. BLUAI's instrumentation was expanded with banjo, twelve-string guitar, and lap steel. Engineer Tobie Speleman received 'Nashville tuning' as a briefing. BLUAI thus shifts the focus from indie rock to Americana and breaks open the band's frame of reference, with influences ranging from Maggie Rogers to Alabama Shakes to The Japanese House.

Save It For Later is the creation of a group that came together two years after the formation of BLUAI, found a common drive, and is now cruising at full speed. BLUAI is here to stay.

Nippon Psychedelic Soul 1970-1979 is Time Capsule’s continuation of the deep dive into Japan’s rich history of folk and psychedelic soul music.

Vinyl LP with 4 page insert, original artwork and photos

The kaleidoscopic psychedelia of 1970s Japan captured a fragile and fertile moment as the country sought its future in funk grooves, heavy reverb and lyrical hallucinations.

The follow-up compilation to Time Capsule’s Nippon Acid Folk, Nippon Psychedelic Soul takes myriad pathways into the tripped-out undergrowth of 1970s Japan. Finding their feet at home and looking for inspiration abroad, the musicians featured here were engaged in the communal soul-searching that followed the breakdown of the 1960s protest movements. Some made it big, others drifted into oblivion. The music they left behind shimmers with intensity.

At the core was Happy End, the first project of YMO’s Haroumi Hosono, whose distortion-heavy guitar and crisp back-beat laid the foundations for Japanese lyrics that flipped the paradigm of Japanese rock music on its head. With it came a new found sonic ambition, such as in the bold Philly-soul style arrangements of producer Yuji Ohno, whose work with occult wandered Yoshiko Sai shares some of the bittersweet grandeur of Rotary Connection or David Axelrod.

Then there was Jun Fukamachi, a pioneer of Japanese synthesis, whose debut album was a carnival of orchestral funk, euphoric horn lines and rich production, complete with soaring guitar solos, psychedelic organ and a truly cinematic finale. The first and only time Fukamachi would sing on record, ‘Omae’ rips like the ultimate end-of-nighter.

Influenced by giants of the US soul scene, maverick composer Hiroshi “Monsieur” Kamayatsu (otherwise known as ‘the Brian Wilson of Japan’) went one step further, enlisting Tower of Power to play on ‘Have You Smoked Gauloises?’ The B-side to Monsieur’s biggest-selling single, it coasts with sophisticated cool - a liquid bassline and suave keys comping under a roaring trademark ToP sax solo. No surprise it found favour once more on the Acid Jazz dance floors of ‘90s London.

Such was the spirit of experimentation that big studio productions and private press releases sat side-by-side, with the likes of Momotaro Pink and Kazushi Inamura, taking their hopes of success into their own hands with the resources available to them. More reflective but no less robust, theirs was a heavy, fat-backed drum sound, soaked in dramatic, soulful psychedelia.

If some were dreamers and others space cadets, none were further out than sci-fi writer, musician, activist and self-made scientist Tadashi Goino, who transformed his own fantasy novel Messenger from the Seventh Dimension into an operatic prog odyssey with few discernible musical reference points – a majestic and completely bonkers outlier even among company as strange and brilliant as that which is collected here.

Less a compilation of a scene, as a compilation of a sentiment, Nippon Psychedelic Soul is a wild ride from start to finish, shattering the narratives of the Japanese folk and rock tradition into a million tiny pieces.

Most audiophiles know Alan Parsons Project's I Robot by heart. Engineered by Parsons after he performed the same duties on Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, the 1977 record reigns as a disc whose taut bass, crisp highs, clean production, and seemingly limitless dynamic range are matched only by the sensational prog-rock fare helmed by the keyboardist and his creative partner, Eric Woolfson. Not surprisingly, it's been issued myriad times. Can it be improved? Relish Mobile Fidelity's stupendous UltraDisc One-Step 180g 33RPM box set and the question becomes moot.


Mastered from the original master tapes and pressed at RTI on MoFi SuperVinyl, I Robot comes to life with reference-setting realism on this numbered, limited-edition reissue. Boasting immaculate highs and lows, generous spaciousness, and see-through transparency that takes you into the studio with Parsons and Woolfson at Abbey Road, this definitive edition is designed to demonstrate the full-range capabilities of the world's best stereo systems while offering listeners the convenience of having all the music on one LP.

Featuring a nearly inaudible noise floor, this transcendent UD1S edition functions as a repeat invitation to savor reference-grade soundstages, immersive smoothness, sought-after instrumental separation, three-dimensional imaging, and consummate tonal balances. Able to be played back at high volumes without compromise or fatigue, it is a demonstration record for the ages – the likes of which are no longer being made. This is the very reason you own and invest in high-end audio gear.

The special characteristics of this UD1S version extend to the premium packaging. Housed in an elegant slipcase, the reissue features special foil-stamped jackets and faithful-to-the-original graphics. Aurally and visually, it is made for discerning listeners who prize sound quality and production, and who desire to fully immerse themselves in everything about this conceptual landmark. The Alan Parsons Project's most famous record deserves nothing less.

Inspired by and loosely based around the Isaac Asimov stories of the same name, I Robot delves into themes of artificial intelligence and technological dominance that make the record extremely relevant in the 21st century. Indeed, Parsons and Woolfson's pinnacle creation dovetailed with the ascendency of Star Wars, which itself is experiencing a rebirth in an age of self-driving cars, smart devices, and mindless automation. Lyrically, songs such as "The Voice" call into question human behavior – and their relationship to increasing robotic supremacy – in everyday life. Parsons and Woolfson reflect the associated paranoia, dichotomy, and transformation via shifting sci-fi arrangements steeped in drama and moodiness.

The absorbing tunes on I Robot also continue to fascinate due to their perfectionism and innovation. Borrowing from Pink Floyd's strategies, Parsons and Woolfson utilize a looped sequence on the title track to create new downbeats. "Some Other Time" employs two different lead vocalists and yet gives the illusion that only one is involved. Captivating strings, a piccolo trumpet, and bona fide pipe organ grace "Don't Let It Show." The origins of "Nucleus" stem from a unique analog keyboard concoction dubbed "the Projectron," devised by Parsons and electronic engineer Keith Johnson. Andrew Powell's orchestral and choral arrangements top it all off, with "Total Eclipse" arriving as a frightening track that presages the climactic "Genesis Ch. 1 V. 32."

Does man or machine win in the end? Decide as you get lost in Mobile Fidelity's UltraDisc 180g 33RPM LP pressing. Secure your numbered copy today!

More About Mobile Fidelity UltraDisc One-Step and Why It Is Superior
Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab's UltraDisc One-Step (UD1S) technique bypasses generational losses inherent to the traditional three-step plating process by removing two steps: the production of father and mother plates, which are created to yield numerous stampers from each lacquer that is cut. For UD1S plating, stampers (also called "converts") are made directly from the lacquers. Since each lacquer yields only one stamper, multiple lacquers need to be cut. Mobile Fidelity's UD1S process produces a final LP with the lowest-possible noise floor. The removal of two steps of the plating process also reveals musical details and dynamics that would otherwise be lost due to the standard multi-step process. With UD1S, every aspect of vinyl production is optimized to produce the best-sounding vinyl album available today.

MoFi SuperVinyl

Developed by NEOTECH and RTI, MoFi SuperVinyl is the most exacting-to-specification vinyl compound ever devised. Analogue lovers have never seen (or heard) anything like it. Extraordinarily expensive and extremely painstaking to produce, the special proprietary compound addresses two specific areas of improvement: noise floor reduction and enhanced groove definition. The vinyl composition features a new carbonless dye (hold the disc up to the light and see) and produces the world's quietest surfaces. This high-definition formula also allows for the creation of cleaner grooves that are indistinguishable from the original lacquer. MoFi SuperVinyl provides the closest approximation of what the label's engineers hear in the mastering lab.

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Ajo Se Po is the third album by alto-saxophonist and percussionist Kevin Haynes, released with his band Grupo Elegua. The album integrates musical elements with references to his deepening spiritual understanding. Haynes has created a modal harmonic language incorporating Afro-Cuban melodies and classical kora playing - his alto-sax, infusing the album with a personal 'voice'.

Yoruba spirituality is at the heart of Haynes' musical thinking which also includes both Nigerian and Cuban dimensions. This is especially reflected by the use of recitation and Cuban bata drumming being employed on all tracks, with each piece growing out of a particular bata rhythm. Each such rhythm is dedicated to a particular Orisha, or divinity.

As well as influences from Afro-Cuban, Native Nigerian and folkloric Bata, Haynes' music is a fusion of contemporary jazz incorporating Mandinga folk and praise songs and hard bop.

Kevin Haynes and Grupo Elegua have performed at renowned jazz festivals including Havana Jazz Festival, Cuba and Salamanca Jazz Festival, Spain. Haynes has also featured on Moses Boyd's hit album Displaced Diaspora.

Previously available on digital only, Ajo Se Po is now released on vinyl.

ORANGE VINYL

Daniel Boeckner understands the grit and gravel that accumulates in the heart and that it takes an unwavering courage to crack through that clutter and burrow to the other side. And in Boeckner's hands, that quest comes via post-apocalyptic synth and guitar heroism, a rallying cry for those always coming home through the scorched clouds. Throughout his work with Wolf Parade, Handsome Furs, Divine Fits, Operators, Atlas Strategic, and more, the iconic Canadian indie rocker recognizes that few feelings are more gratifying-more memorable, more generative, more abundant-than hope. But it takes getting the hell out of your own way. A culmination of that deep library of musical reference, Boeckner is set to release his first album under his own name: Boeckner! No matter where his genre exploration has taken him, there's something about growing up in punk and DIY spaces that puts collaboration in Boeckner's blood. Composed of a collection of intimately familiar elements, Boeckner! elicits the same thrill of young passion and discovery. It's a jet-powered chase through a tech-noir cityscape-fueled by a dream and that special someone in the passenger seat. That urgency and passion have always been a trademark of Boeckner's, and writing on his own pushes those feelings further into the center of the scope. But while Boeckner may be the clear driving force behind the album, he's not without collaborators for his solo debut. After meeting producer Randall Dunn while contributing to the soundtrack to the Nicolas Cage-starring psychedelic horror film Mandy, Boeckner knew he'd found the perfect counterpart for his solo debut. "I'd been a fan of his forever, especially the Sunn0))) records he produced," Boeckner says. "Working with Randall really unlocked some suppressed musical urges, things that I enjoy in my private life but don't normally weave into what I'm releasing-like occult synth, pseudo-metal, krautrock, and heavy psych influences." That base allows Boeckner to thoughtfully weave between emotional imagism and more grounded storytelling. Throughout the record, his imagery delves into science fiction, but it's charged first and foremost by experience. The trio of Boeckner, Dunn, and drummer Matt Chamberlain (Pearl Jam, David Bowie, Fiona Apple) formed a sort of dark engine for the album, and Chamberlain's ingenious approach of triggering a vintage Arp synthesizer simultaneously with each drum track helped Boeckner shape the record's atmosphere. That tense futurism was influenced by Boeckner's time staying in Dunn's Circular Ruin studio, a dusky, electronic aura burned into every track. By the end of the album, Boeckner! eases from sci-fi epic into something more akin to a torched VHS copy of a John Cassevetes film, the chemtrails and nuclear fallout fading long in the distance. Like all good sci-fi, the emotion and pain hits home for the author and listener alike, and the genre flourishes bolster the human experience. In revealing more than ever before, Boeckner! ratchets up the musical intensity to unforeseen levels and hopes to find some peace at the end of the journey.

Miles Davis' A Tribute to Jack Johnson is the best jazz-rock record ever made. Equally inspired by the leader's desire to assemble the "greatest rock and roll band you have ever heard,” his adoration of Johnson, and Black Power politics, Davis created a hard-hitting set that surges with excitement, intensity, majesty, and power. Bridging the electric fusion he'd pursued on earlier efforts with a funkier, dirtier rhythmic approach, Davis zeroes in on concepts of spontaneity, freedom, and identity seldom achieved in the studio — and just as infrequently accepted by the mainstream.

Sourced from the original analog master tapes, pressed on MoFi SuperVinyl, and housed in a Stoughton jacket, Mobile Fidelity's 180g LP reissue brings it all to fore with startling realism. Benefitting from SuperVinyl’s nearly inaudible noise floor, superb groove definition, and clean, ultra-quiet surfaces, this 180g LP showcases everything — from the bold tonality of the headliner's white-hot trumpet solos to the decay of crashing cymbals, carry of wiry guitar notes, and echoes of the studio — in reference fashion.

Bristling with exuberance, Davis' high-register passages explode with authority and commanding presence. Around him, a barrage of urgent backbeats, knifing riffs, and supple bass lines emerge amidst black backgrounds. One of the most prominent differences long-time fans will notice is how much more aggressive, immediate, and vibrant the music sounds, with those aspects central to the composer's original desires.

Utilizing wah-wah and distortion, the go-to instrumentalist of the performances— guitarist John McLaughlin — attacks with a nasty edge, slashing style, and vicious streak that allows A Tribute to Jack Johnson< cross the until-then-impenetrable divide between rock and jazz. Davis puts both feet in the former camp and erases any gap. The stories of the record’s creation are nearly as legendary as the sounds within: Two sessions, multiple jams, different sets of musicians (several uncredited), and near-miraculous production perfectionism that made it all appear cohesive.

The least-well-known masterpiece of Davis' career, the 1971 record — seamlessly assembled and spliced together by producer Teo Macero — was a victim of limited record-label promotion. Audiences also didn’t immediately know what to make of its original cover art — faithfully replicated here. In addition, the powers that be at Columbia Records were directing the public’s attention to Miles at Fillmore, a completely different kind of album guided by two keyboardists. A Tribute to Jack Johnson practically lives in a different universe, one from the future. To many listeners who did manage to hear it — among them critic/musician Robert Quine, Stooges leader Iggy Pop, and renowned critic Robert Christgau — it surpassed everything that came before.

Indeed, Davis treated it as a personal manifesto: An opportunity to salute the Black championship boxer admired for his threatening image to the establishment and impeccable taste in clothes, cars, women and music. Davis explains in the liner notes his affinity for Johnson — a stance mirrored by the defiant music, which hits with a prize fighter's force and reflects the graceful elegance with which a pugilist navigates the ring — and closes the album with a Johnson quote read by Brock Peters.

Inspired not only by Johnson but by Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone, Davis changed his approach and his band. He surrounds himself with a cadre of musicians in their 20s and, in the case of bassist Michael Henderson, a 19-year-old fresh from touring with Stevie Wonder. Henderson gives Davis what he requested: boogie-based grooves that don’t lose shape or direction. Soprano saxophonist Steve Grossman, drummer Billy Cobham, and organist Herbie Hancock adhere to a similar aesthetic that prizes brazenness, innovation, and energy.

In that vein, during a portion of “Yesternow,” Davis segues into a separate performance (which became known in its entirety as “Willie Nelson”) played by guitarists McLaughlin and Sonny Sharrock, bass clarinetist Bernie Maupin, keyboardist Chick Corea, bassist Dave Holland, and drummer Jack DeJohnette. Dig it!

Talking with jazz scholar Bill Milkowski — who himself noted how McLaughlin’s unrestrained style, decibel-forward volumes, and rapid-fire power chords engendered himself to the rock crowd at the same time that his harmonics and syncopation still definitely made him a jazz player — guitarist Henry Kaiser summed up part of the appeal of A Tribute to Jack Johnson as well as anyone, saying: “It’s a jazz record that way way more open than other jazz records at the time, but still not free jazz. McLaughlin’s rhythm guitar playing on ‘Right Off’ — the use of different chords in a rock shuffle than what anybody had used before — was revolutionary.”

And to think that’s just one aspect of a record that contains multitudes. “Never let them forget it.” Indeed.

Of the countless accolades and analyses that surround Blue, no point is more significant than the fact that the 1971 Joni Mitchell album continues to become more popular, revered, referenced, and relevant with each passing day. Such vitality is not only extremely singular; it is the ultimate measure of great art and, in the context of Blue, indisputable proof of the record's accessibility, integrity, and timelessness. If the most brilliant and everlasting music seeks to find truths shared by all of humanity, Blue can be said to be universal doctrine.

Sourced from the original analogue master tapes, pressed on MoFi SuperVinyl, and strictly limited to 12,000 numbered copies, Mobile Fidelity's UltraDisc One-Step 180g 45RPM 2LP box set presents the landmark album with reference-grade detail, tonality, and directness. Marking the first time the beloved LP has received audiophile-quality treatment, it's one of six iconic 1970s Mitchell records Mobile Fidelity is reissuing on definitive-sounding vinyl and SACD sets.

Everything about Blue sounds more intimate, involving, and inescapable on this transparent pressing, which benefits from a virtually non-existent noise floor and superior groove definition. Mitchell's voice, positioned front and center, and primarily accompanied by minimalist acoustic guitar, piano, and dulcimer playing, comes across clearly and prominently. Suspended notes and radiant chords double as question marks, commas, and phrases. The in-the-room presence and spatial dimensionality make absolute the full-range spectrum of introspective emotions — hurt and distress, self-awareness and joy, difficulty and uncertainty, warmth and desire — Mitchell navigates, queries, and contemplates throughout the record. The defencelessness the singer once spoke about is laid bare here like never before.

The packaging of the Blue UD1S set complements its distinguished status. Housed in a deluxe box, both LPs come in special foil-stamped jackets with faithful-to-the-original graphics that illuminate the splendor of the recording. This UD1S reissue exists as a curatorial artifact for listeners who prize sound quality and production, and who desire to engage themselves in everything involved with the album, including the unforgettable cover photograph of a ruminative Mitchell shot by Tim Considine.

Deemed the third Greatest Album of All Time by Rolling Stone; universally celebrated by critics, fans, artists, and educators; and defined by a spell of disarmingly vulnerable songs that are at once confessional, intense, spare, honest, painful, hopeful, and exquisite, Blue charts love, spiritualism, independence, and loss like no record before or since. Widely considered the album that established the singer-songwriter template, the largely autobiographical LP changed everything shortly after its original release in June 1971. Amazingly, it continues to do so more than five decades later.

An incalculable influence on generations of artists, it stands as the through-line from Carole King, Elton John, James Taylor, Joan Armatrading, and Leonard Cohen to Patti Smith, Carly Simon, Emmylou Harris, and Rosanne Cash to 21st century contemporaries like Brandi Carlile, Taylor Swift, Sharon Van Etten, and Courtney Barnett. Teetering between agony and optimism, it is — to borrow a phrase from Mitchell's eternal "A Case of You" — a bottomless "box of paints."

The beauty of the stripped-down arrangements, intoxicating melodies, and Mitchell's wisdom on Blue didn't go unnoticed. Critical acclaim, coupled with the depth of the material and Mitchell's reputation, propelled the album into the Top 20 in the U.S. and Top 10 in the U.K. Yet while so much pop music diminishes with age, Blue has defied norms and headed in the opposite direction. Its 50th anniversary year witnessed an outpouring of tributes, reflections, and testimonials that helped frame the record's escalating importance and symbolism — apt in an age in which women have become the prominent trailblazers in rock, R&B, and hip-hop.

Perhaps most succinctly, in a 2021 article celebrating the LP, the Los Angeles Times declared: "In 1971, nothing sounded like Joni Mitchell's Blue. 50 years later, it's still a miracle." Nothing, indeed. Yet "miracle" suggests Blue partially owes to a divine agent or inexplicable circumstance. And though Mitchell's bracing conviction and forthright sincerity can appear otherworldly, her musical approach and lyrical storytelling is nothing if not personal and human. What we hear is pure truth — no matter how aching, complicated, or stark.

Much has been written about the circumstances that inspired the songs on Blue: Mitchell's romances; her time overseas; her disdain for celebrity; her lingering sense of loss at having given up her daughter for adoption; her treatment by the very same industry that her music made uncomfortable; her prolonged search for resolution. These situations and experiences pushed Mitchell to question everything — especially big-picture concepts that have always obsessed mankind: fulfilment, autonomy, love, honesty, being.

"I wanna make you feel free," Mitchell sings on the record-opening "All I Want." Mission accomplished. Blue is liberation — and the start of a freedom that continues to impact music, culture, and identity today.

More About Mobile Fidelity UltraDisc One-Step and Why It Is Superior
Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab's UltraDisc One-Step (UD1S) technique bypasses generational losses inherent to the traditional three-step plating process by removing two steps: the production of father and mother plates, which are created to yield numerous stampers from each lacquer that is cut. For UD1S plating, stampers (also called "converts") are made directly from the lacquers. Since each lacquer yields only one stamper, multiple lacquers need to be cut. Mobile Fidelity's UD1S process produces a final LP with the lowest-possible noise floor. The removal of two steps of the plating process also reveals musical details and dynamics that would otherwise be lost due to the standard multi-step process. With UD1S, every aspect of vinyl production is optimized to produce the best-sounding vinyl album available today.

Dire Straits never made a big to-do about its final run. In classic understated British fashion, the band simply let its music speak for itself. And how. Originally released in September 1991, On Every Street became the group's swan song – a lasting testament to the influence, musicianship, and integrity of an ensemble whose merit has never been tainted by cash-grab reunions or farewell treks. It remains an essential part of the Dire Straits catalog and a blueprint of the distinctive U.K. roots rock the collective played for its 15-year career.

Sourced from the original master tapes, housed in gatefold packaging, and pressed at RTI, Mobile Fidelity's 180g 45RPM 2LP set of On Every Street presents the album like it has always been meant to be experienced: in reference-grade audiophile sound. Recorded at AIR Studios in London and produced by Dire Straits leader Mark Knopfler, it features all of the band's sonic hallmarks – wide instrumental separation, visceral textures, seemingly limitless air, broad soundstages, atmospherics that you can almost reach out and feel. Each element is made more vibrant, physical, and lifelike on this collectible reissue, which marks the first time this 60-minute work has been available at 45RPM speed.

Afforded generous groove space and black backgrounds, the songs from On Every Street burst with nuanced details and vibrant colors. Dire Straits' playing appears to float, their intricate performances organized amid hypnotic, fluid, three-dimensional arrangements. Mobile Fidelity's definitive-sounding set also brings into transparent view Knopfler's finely sculpted guitar lines, expressive tones, and laid-back vocals – as well as the balanced accompaniment from his band mates. Here's a record on which you can hear the full blossom and decay of individual notes, and imagine the size and shape of the studio. It is in every regard a demonstration disc. And it happens to be filled with timeless fare.

Remarkably, On Every Street almost never came to light. Dire Straits initially dissolved in September 1988 after touring behind its blockbuster Brothers in Arms and suffering the departure of two members. At the time, Knopfler professed his desire to work on solo material; bassist John Illsley also explored side projects. But Knopfler's decision in 1989 to form the country-leaning Notting Hillbillies reignited a spark to reconvene his primary band and craft a fresh batch of songs. Six years removed from Brothers in Arms, Knopfler, Illsley, keyboardist Alan Clark, and keyboardist Guy Fletcher teamed with A-list session pros – steel guitarist Paul Franklin, percussionist Danny Cummings, saxophonist Chris White, guitarist Phil Palmer included – to create what still stands as an unforgettable farewell.

The platinum record brings the band full circle in that it returns Dire Straits to a quartet formation; finds the group refreshingly out of step with the era's prevailing trends; and sees Knopfler and Co. knocking out song after song with the deceptive ease of a punter tossing back a pint at a pub. That subtle cool, clever poise, and innate control – signature traits that no other band ever matched – dominate On Every Street. Knopfler's clean, virtuosic six-string escapades unfurl with dizzying melodicism and economical efficiency. Led by his winding fills and focused solos, Dire Straits traverse a hybrid landscape of rock, jazz, country, boogie, blues, and pop strains with near-faultless prowess.

More than any other entry in the group's oeuvre, On Every Street welcomes quick detours down back alleys and into the depths of human souls. What makes it more brilliant is its staunch refusal to cater to commercial expectations or take advantage of prior successes; every passage feels true, every measure echoed in the service of song. It's evident in the humorous satire of "Heavy Fuel," closeted desperation of the witty "Calling Elvis," and shake-and-bake bounce of "The Bug." It pours from the album's darker corners, as on the high-and-lonesome melancholy of the title track and bruised emotionalism of "When It Comes to You."

Hinting at the open-minded approaches and boundless curiosity he'd embrace as a solo artist, Knopfler doesn't limit himself when it comes to style or subject matter. Look no further than "You and Your Friend," a shuffle whose all-inclusive lyrics encourage an array of interpretative meanings. Another of the album's deep cuts, "Iron Hand," comes on as one of the band's most memorable moments – the narrative addressing the abuses of power at the 1984 Battle of Orgreave during the U.K. miners' strike. Given cinematic heft by the expert production, the true-fiction account puts into perspective the richness, poetry, and depth of On Every Street.

"Every victory has a taste that's bittersweet," sings Knopfler on the title track. At least that bittersweetness seldom sounded so damn good on record.

For a few years Leo Robinson was the sort of hidden secret you sometimes come across in local music scenes. First in Manchester and now in Glasgow, he’d pop up regularly on DIY bills or as local support to a touring act, quietly blowing them off stage with his rich baritone vocal and homespun lo-fi tales of folklore and animism. With The Temple – his debut on PRAH Recordings – he looks set to cross over from being a cult concern.

“There's a spectrum within the album between fully mythologising or symbolising my lived experience, and just stating it in very matter of fact terms - that push and pull between the need to abstract and the need to break through the abstraction and have an honest moment with oneself” he explains. “This is one of the themes of the album as well as part of the process. The aim was to take all these anecdotal or symbolic elements and merge them into one narrative and one world, in a way that you can find your way through the record as if it were a landscape or language with its own logic.”

The record takes on a pastoral, slightly baroque nature that Robinson partly attributes to a friend screening a lot of ‘70s BBC material in his book shop that they used to hang out at. There are also elements of jazz, flickering to life in “The Spring”’s piano-led finale and coda.

Thematically, Robinson likens it to a Jungian ‘Hero's Journey’, his voice possessing a character who goes through several defined stages of consciousness. From conception and the beginning of an earthly life, the first half of the album recognises the development of the protagonist’s narrative and identity, before “The Pink Light”’s freeform departure from the hitherto more song-based suite devastatingly shatters this. The second half of the album then sees the protagonist witness “the uncontainable” water; learning that true divinity lies not in the individual self or lofty notions of gods and temples, but in the unremarkable nettles, insects and dogs on the roadside riverbank - referenced on tracks “The Cormorant” and “The Spring”.

Although now residing north of the border, The Temple was written while Robinson was finding his feet in Manchester, having moved there to go to art school as a teenager (as a visual artist, he has exhibited at the Tiwani Contemporary in London and Cardiff’s Chapter Arts Centre). As a result, many of the tracks bear out the shadows of his experiences in the northern city – at their most visible and explicit on the beautifully fragile storytelling of “The Pavement”. Written the day after the Manchester Arena Bombings, it recalls Robinson waking up to go to work on a hot summer’s day to discover that his street had been blocked off for terrorism investigations; it then progresses through the rest of his day, amidst the grimly surreal aftermath of the previous night.

Having written the chords, melodies and lyrics to the album, Robinson fleshed out the tunes by scoring out parts for the additional instrumentation, but it was only when a friend sent a demo to PRAH that he was able to fund its full recording. Guitars, vocals, piano and French Horn (the latter recorded by Lauren Reeve-Rawlings) were put down at Green Door Studios in Glasgow. Microphones were placed around the room and the sound of the musicians stepping on creaky floorboards and opening creaky doors were left audible to further the record’s live feel. The harpsichord heard on “The Serpent”, meanwhile, came from University of Glasgow lecturer David McGuinness. Strings were then recorded at PRAH Studios by Francesca Ter-Berg and Raven Bush, the Social Singing Choir adding their choral vocals to “Temple II”.

The result is an album that feels both luscious and yet intimately raw; as grand as Richard Dawson at his most panoramic but containing the rough edges and skeletal looseness of a Calvin Johnson work. At times Robinson lyrically moves towards the surreal, but ultimately this is a record grounded in reality; a true showcase of Robinson’s skill as a lyricist and songwriter.

**GREEN VINYL**Firefriend RCKNRLL ‘São Paulo is one of the largest, filthiest, and most violent cities of the world. And this is the music we make here’. Captured live at the No. 74 in São Paulo – brace yourself for a one way trip to the heart of darkness. RCKNRLL is an transcendental psychedelic sonic assault, a lightning storm of guitar haze and drugged-out wailing. Mainlining an elegantly wasted take on two-chord avant garage rock that makes direct reference to Plastic Inevitable era Velvet Underground, where Yury Hermuche devotional fuzz layerd on top of Julie and Caca primal throbbing rythm - you will feel the effect as time and space start creasing and folding in at the edges. The overall music created at this venue on this night is so intense and claustrophobic that, at times it will pin you back into your seat – such is the physicality of Firefriends music. This is not just another live album - this is a mission statement. With a taste for hallucinogens and the drone RCKNRLL is completely unyielding, it offers no concessions to listeners, demanding they embrace the distortion - . Do yourself a favour. Turn the music on, the lights off, and let yourself go. RCKNRLL, FUZZ, FEED YOUR HEAD

Snips returns on his own Barbershop Records for the release of his latest "Nebuer EP". The project is a mix of sample heavy House and Hip Hop that Snips has become synonymous with. The EP was inspired and dedicated to his newborn son, with each track being a reference to a specific step in his journey into fatherhood. While its an extremley personal body of work it still doesnt shy away from being club ready and an essential addition to any DJs collection

Montenegrin born in Istanbul, precocious pianist growing up in an embassy, brilliant musician. Prolific composer speaking eight languages, he arranged music for jazz, pop music, adopting multiple identities.
For one label, he is Andy Loore; for another, Emiliano Orti. For others, he is called Alan Blackwell or Johnny Montevideo, but behind all these aliases, there is only one man: Janko Nilovic.

Exploring the shelves of musical production, venturing into the less-illuminated corners of library music, Janko Nilovic's name lights up dozens of shelves on which his soundtracks, his records for Editions Neuilly or Sforzando, but above all his twenty albums for Editions Montparnasse, are stored. A considerable and imposing work, rich in orchestrations of keyboards, strings and brass instruments, themes, atmospheres and melodies. A repertoire in which the cinema, television and advertising have come to find their delight ...

Subjected to the sharp blades of samplers, reduced to a few effective seconds, joined with rhythmic beats, some of his tracks have infiltrated hip hop for a long time , leading the most curious to go back to the source to get the complete albums from which the precious loops had been taken.
Almost unknown to the general public, Janko Nilovic is a master for the initiated, whether they are at his side in the studio or comfortably seated in their armchair savouring the final result on their turntable. His discretion combined with his long years of silence on the record could lead one to believe that he had cleverly arranged his disappearance from the radar to make Janko Nilovic a mystery that has never been completely solved.

Until this message from The Soul Surfers.
A few miles away, in their studio fired up by analog funk, the Muscovites had been put back on the Nilovic track by multi-instrumentalist Shawn Lee. A few passionate discussions later, and the desire for a joint album was already lighting up the amps, making the bass strings shiver and the drum skins tighten.
Initiated by the coming and going of scores, the collaboration finally continued in studio for a real exchange, instantly bouncing off proposals, developing ideas in a live group dynamic that distance would have made impossible.
To feel the vibrations accumulated for decades at the CBE studio (like Chatelain Bisson Estardy), a mythical place founded in 1966, in which many albums, especially library, were immortalized. A place where consoles, equipment and instruments were kept as they were, accumulating in their wiring, meters and speakers, endless hours of experimentation and recording.

A place that Janko knew well and where an old acquaintance was waiting for him. A Hammond organ with a Leslie booth whose keys he had already flattered in the past and behind which an improvisation and a single take were enough to complete the eponymous title.
Together, Janko Nilovic and The Soul Surfers have built Maze Of Sounds, a musical labyrinth paved by the master's keyboards where the soul-funk groove of the fiery Russians is the listener's thread, his point of reference in this maze of atmospheres and emotions, at once cinematic, nostalgic, dancing, dreamlike and contemplative.

An album where, however, nothing is compartmentalized. Where, blown by the whirlwind strung by a violin quintet, the barriers move preparing the entrance of a Slavic choir, letting a screaming guitar come and go alongside the crystalline liveliness of the Fender Rhodes, organize some rhythmic aerations at the disposal of the samplers.

A fusion between the cleverly blackened scores, between the science of precisely written arrangements and the soul-funk feel of The Soul Surfers. An album such as Janko Nilovic has been dreaming of making for years.

The cinematic opening track Inthenever starts off as a film >> somewhere on a desolate coast, where everything has already ceased. This is going to be an album with a story and depth, a fearless tour of the barren shores of our days // or is it possibly just a mirage conclusion of their razor-sharp sound brutalism? Tittingur's third album, Epiphany, is here, pounding with waves they had not done before.

It seems as though this dyad has disposed of all the genre confines that had locked them in, and have grasped the sound of new subject matters, for which the moniker of experimental techno is finally too narrow. With utter urgency and candid to their emblematic, thunderous sound, Dominik's and Matus's deafening mallets collide in beats which are now, more than ever, drenched in a mass of palpable gloom and anguish. As though we could touch the rising levels of the oceans, and smell the melting of the glaciers themselves.

In one way or another, the music of Tittingur has always been about nature, its fierce essence, and its stark contrast with the post-era that we have found ourselves living in. However, whereas before, it was the sound of old, weather-stained concrete, and the pounding of abandoned, overgrown buildings, now it is, unavoidably, their most direct and honest return to nature landscapes, and to human, age-old traditions, referenced in the Slovak folk motives, recordings and found sounds.

On Epiphany, Tittingur's sound becomes yet more abstract, in a sound world that is ambiguous but also unified, and works on its own. The duality of nature and technology, of inland human folklore and the trenches of deepest oceans, invite us to come closer and observe the volatile obliteration taking place. Can we even attempt to re-assess our position with nature, or is this whole experiment doomed to fail?

Unsurprisingly, in the echoes, all the ingredients of the classic Tittingur sound are still present, distilled into new forms >> the ever-present over-saturation, the exaggerated, maximalist approach and megalomania >> the sound of impending climate change, doom, and near-apocalyptic visions, the scent of borovička mixed with the wild North Sea, the agony of contemporary urban life, and the adventure of wilderness: ferocious synths, monumental beats, aggressive basslines and crumbling noise-scapes built of a found-sound, music concréte-like, collagist approach.

At moments, it seems the means have changed. Just until you realise that the sentences of this story are spoken in a new language. If you dive deep enough, and listen to the essence that the music of Tittingur articulates, it's surprisingly easy to understand >> although the notions and emotions are difficult to put into words. The profound narrative of Epiphany is that of an endless inner struggle of society, anxiety, crises, and ambiguously easy // difficult solutions in the post-modern global chaos. It is the calm before a storm. It is the storm. Is it the calm. It is all of it, in itself. credits

Returning to Intrepid Skin after her brilliant debut EP, and following on from a string of acclaimed releases since then, Berlin-based producer, DJ, and label owner Valerie Ace presents four new cuts of powerful hard dance and techno. Strass and Stress is out 1st March as both vinyl and digital.

With a background in organising DIY raves and a commitment to community-led efforts in electronic music, Valerie carefully fuses references from a range of genres into a singular, contemporary take on techno. Guided by an instinctive ear for experimental, groove-driven frameworks, her strain of dance music is hard-edged but mischievous, playful but heartfelt.

Diving straight into the peak hours, opening track 'Taking a Risk' is a swirl of hard kicks, frantic alarms and distorted leads; a statement of intent for what is to follow. Hot on its heels is the aptly-titled 'Slay'- a marching roller with double drops of acid, warped sonics and echoing glitches. Plunging into a hazier zone, 'Anxious not Afraid' takes an intoxicated spin on psytrance, building a vast acoustic space with equal parts tension and release. Closing off the EP, 'How To Fit In' jumps back onto the floor with an unrelenting spiral of
industrial-leaning hard drum chaos.

Strass and Stress is an all gas no brakes package of four crucial cuts from a producer on top of her game.

Following his blissfully abstract, piano-based collaborations with Harold Budd and Ruben Garcia over the last 20 years, The Arcades Project is John Foxx’s first solo piano album, released on vinyl for the first time. This latest work has a fresh sense of wonder, as if returning to the instrument after the raging analogue noise of his last major work, 2020’s Howl (by John Foxx And The Maths) necessitated a further retreat into quiet, minimal music. Reviews for The Arcades Project: “Delicate evocation of the ambience of a city’s galleried passages.’ Mojo 4 ****. 'This exquisite and refined solo piano work is a fine addition to a body of work made by an artist always investigating memory and imagination.’ The Quietus Album of the Month for April 2023. 'His most evocative music.’ Uncut Magazine 8/10. ‘Delicate, drifting and hypnotic.’ Record Collector 4 ****. ‘Unmissable’ Electronic Sound Magazine. 'Its minimalism is moving; its restraint rich in reverie. Foxx's 21st-century body of work grows ever more absorbing.’ Prog magazine. ‘An album that has the potential to be a classic of modern times and a reference point for classical ambient for years to come.’ Louder Than War. ‘Awed wonder . . . and frequently beautiful.’ Classic Pop. 'Foxx has created 12 stunning pieces of music . . . sparse, minimalistic, and extremely moving . . . It goes a long way in demonstrating just how much of a genius he is' Spill Magazine.

For a long time, the music of Congo-born Bony Bikaye had to be sought in the purgatory of "world music", where diamonds in the rough cohabited with bland nightmares of white dudes who froze rumba like fish sticks. Worse, they did put it on the menu, when so many longed to move on. Take Bikaye, who grew up listening to modern european music, digs Krautrock, struggles with tradition, obviously looking for trouble in the genre. In Brussels, he recorded a few albums with CY1 (Loizillon/Micheli), and brilliant defectors from Aksak Maboul, produced by Hector Zazou. Now it's up to french trio TONN3RR3 to take up the torch and build this project that proudly brags: "It's a bomb". Thought up at home by Guillaume Gilles (compo/keyboards), the album was finished at One Two Pass It studio, with Olivier Viadero and Gae"lle Salomon on percussion, Yoann Dubaud (machines & bass) and Guillaume Loizillon (synth of CY1 fame, and matchmaker of this affair). It's a deeply musical record, crafted by no-attitude reference players with nothing left to prove, and you can hear it. Floats well above the fray. "Keba na butu", beware. Indeed : beyond the simple pleasures of soukouss, or the rumba guitar riff that spins like a merry-go-round that skipped technical inspection, lie lush orchestrations. Freestyle, synthetic : something old, something new, something what-the- fuck-is-that-now. There's straight, there's syncopated, there's 808 and knee-jerk inducing bass patterns_with a vision. BIKAY3 plays his voice more than ever. His crazy vibrato has improved like hard liquor over the years. In "Zela" and "Balobi" in particular, he puts it to good use with flamboyant, Screamin' Jay Hawkins-style antics. He can also resort to pure storytelling : "La fore^t et les dieux", is a French-spoken excursion into the wild, moving along in grasslands of synths and percussion with TONN3RR3. A tale of gods and spirits, plain and simple. Nicole Mitchell brings the occasional flute in "Akei" for this trip in the bush of ghosts where lingala and kikongo rub with English and French. They saved "It's a bomb" for the end, a bastardized rumba, with rimshots that slap like a cool hand on willing skin. We're living in a golden age of reissues coming out in droves and satisfying our desire to catch up on our neighbors' musical heritage, but let's not miss the boat : it's now or never to listen to the music of the living. - Halory Goerger

The title of Staś Czekalski’s debut translates as ‘Adventures’. It’s fitting for an album that invokes feelings of exploring, roaming, ambling through bustling cities and changing seasons, around castles and swaying fields, down the pixelated paths of old computer games, and all the way home.

We get the sense of being on some carefree yet critical quest, with Staś taking on the role of narrator as much as composer. Part fable, part Moomins, part seek and you shall find, these boppy, wide-eyed and reflective tracks set imagination in motion.

These are sonic adventures in a more literal sense too, at once quietly bold and intricately arranged. Bouncing around a playful gamut of references, from the whimsically lo-fi electro-acoustic pop of Anne Laplantine through trip-hoppy bedroom ambient and indietronica, Staś sets this blend twinkling with his singular form of magical thinking.

Back in 2020 The Whole Truth dropped a heap of gospel inspiration on Parkway in the shape of “Lord, Quench my Soul.” Three years later and they’re back stronger than ever.

The original Believe is an intense call for hope, featuring some amazing hooks and instrumentation that reference the sound of classics yet still bring new flavors.

Parkway boss Mark Seven has stretched the piece out into two further mixes, injecting time and space to create club friendly mixes that are high on hope!

Altogether it’s more timeless magic from the label you rely on

It’s a family affair. One formed almost thirty years ago, back in the mid-nineties, when the pair joined seminal French jazz combo Olympic Grammofon. For twenty-four years they have worked together as Bumcello, each complementing the other, echoing polar opposites. The Boom in Bumcello is none other than Cyril Atef, incisive drummer, relentlessly pushing beats towards new horizons. The Cello is Vincent Ségal, cellist without blinkers and extraordinary musical alchemist. Since 1999, these two die-hard music fans, coming together for mercurial results, have released one record after the other whilst conquering the hearts of their live audiences, old regulars as well as new recruits. We have all been seduced by the way their music leapfrogs categories - these two experts are much more interested in kindred spirits than pigeonholing, and this very spirit is celebrated on more than one track of this ninth record, whose concept is original to say the least.

Everything began with an idea by Cyril Atef - a soundtrack based upon drawings penned by Marin, Vincent’s son, architect and visual artist. The musicians involved then coached their reaction to these images on a score, and the pair were charged with collating and adjusting the results. These thirteen ink drawings, in a heroic fantasy vein, constituted a matrix which was then to serve as a guide, like a roadmap through a singular and multi-faceted labyrinth. The key to this sonic fresco is in Bumcello’s image – an eclectic aesthetic twinned with a great sense of contrast. Herein lies the trademark of this entity animated by the gift of musical ubiquity, gorged on scales and rhythms, capable of a slap as much as a gentle caress. From classical music to electronics, from improvised music to sophisti-pop, everything is allowed with no preconceived ideas. They can even reclaim the traditions of others, all the better to propel them towards new horizons - this is how the very history of music has always panned out.

If you listen between the lines and look at the details, more than one piece bears witness to the moments and individuals that have impacted the criss-crossing lives of Vincent and Cyril. The track Crash is the perfect excuse to create a Jamaican-style jam with New York inflections, and we can see, in capital letters, the name Hilaire Penda, playing alongside Bumcello at the Apollo Theater in the associated drawing. This bass player from Cameroon, who died on 5th November 2018, was more than just a friend for the two Frenchmen. He was one of the family. Similarly, they give a nod to another Cameroonian, and another departed friend - singer of rock band les Têtes brûlées, Zanzibar, through the vocals of fellow countryman Zanzi. The ghost of Rémi Kolpa Kopul, emblematic voice of Radio Nova, haunts the margins of Spark Av, in a vocal sample with a smattering of effects. As for I Remember Tim, it directly honours the memory of Timothy Jerome Parker, aka The Gift Of Gab, another friend who left us in 2021. Tim is depicted in a drawing with the docks of Oakland in the background, and it’s his alter ego within Blackalicious, Chief Xcel, who remotely added his signature to the track, notably by adding the words of Lateef The Truthspeaker to brass and woodwind sounds.

These are the only additions to Bumcello’s original nucleus, all the better to create a genuine musical concoction where Vincent Taurelle is in charge of production and mixing sessions recorded live and direct. He is also invited for a twinkle on the keys (piano, synths, Wurlitzer, organ), on a handful of tracks. Already at the commands of previous opus Monster Talk, always taking care over the slightest detail, the one that makes all the difference, this pianist is now also part of the family. “Everything he brings is perfect, whether added though slight touches or through very important choices”, say the two members of a combo which today, appears to us under the guise of a trio, adding an extra dimension to a far-reaching mix, in the image of the veiled or more explicit tributes making up the cornerstones of this release.

Booker, a drawing where we see the musicians enter a club, honours James Booker, great pianist from New Orleans who has always fascinated Vincent, in a genre that is off-beat and gender defying. Her Story was created by Cyril in support of the Iranian women’s movement. Aysyen Kampe evokes, even in the original drawing, a tradition that remains impactful for Bumcello – Haitian mysticism, and Ouï Khouïette Ouï conjures up the beats of the Allaoui, a war dance from Western Algeria, one they have taken part in in the past with the help of Cheikha Rabia. They deliver a metal version, original and surprising, especially as Marin Ségal’s drawing features the Nicholas Brothers, those iconic dancers of the 30s jazz scene!

Resolutely hard to pin down, Bumcello’s beats can initially take on the structure of disjointed house, though Sangre begins like a film soundtrack, “in a Mexican style” adds Vincent, who was at the origin of this track. A delicate alap on the cello can open up onto afrobeat rhythms, a well-pitched voice can enchant, like on the amazing The City Has Eyes which has everything of a hummable pop hit. Emblematic of this manner of encompassing all music without being exclusive, Le Grand Sommeil, a direct reference to the Howard Hawks movie inspired by Raymond Chandler, a precursor of David Lynch, begins nice and smooth but ends on a wild tempo, on a drum’n’bass tip, as in the good old days of Cithéa, when this Party story began in the other century.

Suburban Architecture are pleased to announce the third in their 'Architecture Dubs' series of limited edition 10" vinyl releases, which sees some of the most revered names active during the mid 90s golden era of Drum & Bass deliver remixes of Suburban Architecture material in homage to that most innovative of periods.

Following on from the now sold out release of Architecture Dub #001 (featuring remixes from Peshay and DJ Trax), and #002 (featuring Blame and DJ Trace), edition #003 features remixes from two further legends in the scene, Nookie and DJ Crystl.

Nookie needs little introduction. From early 90s Hardcore through to present day heavy hitters via a string of mid 90s classics, Nookie has had an enviable career in the genre. Having recorded for seminal labels that heavily influenced the Suburban Architecture sound: Reinforced, Moving Shadow and Good Looking, Nookie was an obvious choice for this remix package. On this release he takes 2021's 'Renegade Horns' to more dancefloor oriented territory with an energetic roller that marries classic drum breaks with a contemporary production feel.

DJ Crystl is also a name with a storied history in Drum & Bass. Also releasing music since the early 90s, Crystl has seen releases on influential labels, Lucky Spin, Dee Jay Recordings, Moving Shadow and iconic US Hip Hop imprint Payday. Crystl's remix of 2020 Suburban Architecture cut 'New Horizons' carries classic 1994 flavour, delivering an extended, Amen-laced rework of the original, full of classic Intelligent sonics.

Pressed on 10" vinyl and housed in brown Kraft paper sleeves, the series makes visual reference to the exclusive dubplate pressings which introduced so many classic cuts to the UK's dancefloors in the 90s.

The English duo Persher, Arthur Cayzer (Pariah) and Jamie Roberts (Blawan), take the same subversive, boundaryless approach to extreme music that underpins their electronic explorations. Their individual singles output are highly anticipated in the dance world in part because of their affinity expression beyond a trend. The debut album Sleep Well is ferocious and innovative. Cayzer and Roberts take a decidedly unconventional approach to writing, using the full potential of the studio in their exploration of extreme music. What sounds like a live band performance is more often than not an amalgam of many different sessions, the duo applying techniques from electronic music to heavier sonics. Recording in Roberts" studio at Funkhaus, the home of the former East German state-owned radio station, Cayzer would improvise long takes on guitar and bass, contorted and mutated by Robert"s using his extensive modular setup to add weight and texture. This primordial ooze of raw sonics was then chopped up and reassembled into bristling hooks and corrosive atmospheres. The duo"s playful, exuberant approach to music is evident in their absurdist themes and lyrics. Much of the album is inspired by "really disgusting food". Medieval Soup from the Milkbar references the epically bad meal of gray, gruel-like soup, and seeps into the track"s noxious slurry and stomach-churning riffs. "Portable Aquarium" was born of a cup of herbal tea overflowing with foliage. Their playful and often self-deprecating sense of humor allows them to find inspiration in the smallest of life"s events. Persher"s Sleep Well provides a daring, revelatory expansion on heavy music"s myriad mutations. The duo uses their production skills and their humor to embrace the powerful release they find in extreme. Persher"s debut album exudes the sheer joy of making music unconstrained by genre boundaries, as gleefully weird as it is visceral and primal.

Originally released in 1984, following the band"s evolution from the Southern Death Cult, to Death Cult, and then simply The Cult, Dreamtime finds the outfit featuring Ian Astbury and Billy Duffy, pivoting from their goth and punk roots into something eclectic, aspirational, and adventurous. Rife with lyrical references to the indigenous cultures of the Americas and Australia, and set against a more bombastic and muscular musical backdrop, Dreamtime hints at what would envelop the band over the next four decades, a dedication to their wholly unique songwriting, both musically and thematically, and the frenzy that was soon to come with the release of Love only a year later. "Spiritwalker," the first single from the album, hit #1 on the U.K."s independent chart.

Originally released in 1984, following the band"s evolution from the Southern Death Cult, to Death Cult, and then simply The Cult, Dreamtime finds the outfit featuring Ian Astbury and Billy Duffy, pivoting from their goth and punk roots into something eclectic, aspirational, and adventurous. Rife with lyrical references to the indigenous cultures of the Americas and Australia, and set against a more bombastic and muscular musical backdrop, Dreamtime hints at what would envelop the band over the next four decades, a dedication to their wholly unique songwriting, both musically and thematically, and the frenzy that was soon to come with the release of Love only a year later. "Spiritwalker," the first single from the album, hit #1 on the U.K."s independent chart.

2023 Repress

Frank Maston’s Tulips is a sample-ready film score to the best 70s movie never made. Originally a super-limited self-release on his Phonoscope label in late 2017, Tulips has already become incredibly sought-after. Be With were introduced to Maston by mutual friends Aquarium Drunkard and it didn’t take long before we decided this modern classic deserved a reissue.

Inspired by the deep-grooving soundtracks of Italian cinema - think Morricone, Umiliani and Alessandroni - Maston conceived the entire Tulips project as a continuation of these revered works. Frank designed the artwork and made two 16mm films to accompany the music: “It wasn’t just the LP… it was kind of a whole vibe I was trying to create. Not really trying to emulate the things that influenced me but more trying to make something that could sit alongside those records on a shelf. I’m still very proud of the project.”

There’s a distinct library music feel too, with wiry organ, spacey keyboards and loping 60s guitar hinting at KPM and DeWolfe. Like the best library music, Tulips creates a cinematic universe through sound alone, evoking moving images in the listener’s technicolour imagination. It turns out that was accidentally on purpose: “I was discovering a lot of library music for the first time… listening to a composer’s entire catalog or finding all this obscure stuff. I wasn’t entirely conscious of the influence until I started making this music and realized I was channeling the vibe. That’s when I began focusing more on weaving melodic themes throughout the record to make it function more like a soundtrack”.

Tulips was recorded between 2015 and 2017 in a small studio in a village called Zwaag in Holland, during downtime from Frank’s touring duties with Jacco Gardner’s band. “Tulips” comes from the title of the very first demo he made in Holland, it was the first thing that came to mind. Makes sense.

Recording in Europe with some very European influences in mind, Frank wanted to eschew any American influences. But we can still feel the studio wizardry of the likes of Brian Wilson and Harry Nilsson in there somewhere. A psychedelic bedroom-pop song-cycle, full of hypnotic hooks and dusty drums, Tulips manages to sound charmingly homemade yet wholly widescreen.

Dreamy opener “Swans” is an exquisite soul instrumental and recalls the soft-psych of Koushik, which Be With loves of course. Tropicalia influences abound in the cool and breezy “New Danger” and the KPM-references are loud and proud on the lush organ pop of “Old Habits”. Fast-paced “Chase Theme No. 1” manages to be both tense and laid back, decorated by acid-drenched spaghetti Western guitars. The glorious Gainsbourg-esque melancholia of “Infinite Bliss” is all gauzy flutes and happy-sad vocalizing and the title is almost perfect: it’s bliss, no question; *if only* it went on forever. Side A closes with “Evening”, a subtle bossa nova beat thing. Gorgeous.

Side B opens with the heat-shimmer guitars of “Rain Dance”, evoking an unreleased Byrds or Buffalo Springfield backing track. Yes, it’s that good. “Sure Thing” is music to accompany an elevator ride you never want to end, but in a good way! The ornate “Garçon Manqué” is as beautiful as the instrumentals on Pet Sounds (think “Let’s Go Away For A While”) and the wistful “Turning In” starts like a stroll in the park before Maston introduces a scorched-Earth guitar solo that would startle if it wasn’t so pitch-perfect. “Chase Theme No. 2” is a briefer, more keening counterpart to what we hear on side A. The head-nod bass-drums-keys funk of “Hues” rounds out this staggeringly assured set; still opening each phrase with a plaintive strum, but using vibrato and heavy reverb to accent the electric organ melody. Sublime.

All these top drawer musical references might sound like just more of the usual release notes hyperbole, but there’s a reason that this still-young LP already changes hands for big money. It really is that good. Of course that first pressing didn’t hang around for long and Frank’s regularly been asked about a re-press pretty much ever since.

Re-issuing Tulips on Be With made sense to Frank “because the record would fit in so well with the catalogue”. Having already delved into the archives of KPM and Themes, and beginning to do the same with Coloursound and Selected Sounds, the collaboration “just makes sense and seems inevitable”. We agree.

Frank wasn’t sure a record of instrumentals with obscure soundtrack references would be an easy sell when it was originally released, and was surprised when Tulips turned out to be exactly what some people wanted to hear. We reckon its timeless beauty ensures that it’ll *always* have an audience.

The record was originally cut to be played at 45rpm, a technical quirk that grants the home listener the opportunity to go deeper, for longer. Played at 33rpm, the more languid unfurling of the tracks proves just as wonderful a trip. As a psilocybin-soaked case study from Aquarium Drunkard back in January of 2019 describes, some of the songs sound as if they were intended to be heard that way. The slower speed allowing the listener to step inside and perhaps even “crack the code” of the music’s meaning.

Mastered for this vinyl reissue by Simon Francis and featuring alternative burnt orange artwork from Maston himself, this Be With pressing is limited to just 500 copies. Hypnagogic it may be, but please don’t sleep.

The UK avant-garde’s rising star, Bristol-based multi-instrumentalist Bingo Fury is announcing his debut album ‘Bats Feet For A Widow’ due out 16 February via tastemaking label state51. Filled with noir elegance, ‘Bats Feet For A Widow’ is an album that revels in extremity. The album was recorded in a local church in Bristol, taking inspiration from the musician’s complex relationship with his strong religious upbringing. The influence of the church building resonates throughout the album.

‘Bats Feet For A Widow’ is full of strange experiments, obscure references, offbeat one-liners, heart-breaking sentimentality and surging creativity. At the heart of it all is Bingo Fury’s crooning bass vocal, lending a vivid and slyly humorous voice to universal themes of love and pain.

Alongside the album announcement, Bingo Fury is releasing new single ‘Leather Sky’, a tender piano ballad charged with real emotion and a heartbreaking cornet refrain played by band member Harry Furniss. In this cinematic track full of paralysing despair, the musician sings: “You know I’m trying to give you everything / It all gets in the way.”

Bingo Fury on the single: “Leather Sky is a difficult song to describe succinctly. It’s about being separated from someone against both of your will. Somebody close to me became very unwell and communication became restricted, almost non-existent. The song took shape during that period. A few of the surreal lines ended up becoming reality.”

Although very much a solo songwriter, Bingo Fury’s compositional process relies on contributions from his entire band - bassist Megan Jenkins and drummer Henry Terrett have been playing together since their teens. In one of their various incarnations, they recruited local avant-jazz legend, cornet player Harry ‘Iceman’ Furniss, with guitarist and percussionist Rafi Cohen later completing the line-up.


The album announcement follows the release of the cacophonous single ‘Power Drill’, which garnered praise from The Line Of Best Fit and DIY. This comes after Bingo Fury’s debut EP, ‘Mercy’s Cut’, that came out last year to an abundance of critical acclaim from the likes of BBC 6 Music, The Quietus, Loud & Quiet, Clash, as well as earning himself a spot on the NME Top 100. Filled with rich, cinematic allure, the EP is both beautiful and unsettling and underlines Bingo Fury’s complete abundance of compositional ideas.

The UK avant-garde’s rising star, Bristol-based multi-instrumentalist Bingo Fury is announcing his debut album ‘Bats Feet For A Widow’ due out 16 February via tastemaking label state51. Filled with noir elegance, ‘Bats Feet For A Widow’ is an album that revels in extremity. The album was recorded in a local church in Bristol, taking inspiration from the musician’s complex relationship with his strong religious upbringing. The influence of the church building resonates throughout the album.

‘Bats Feet For A Widow’ is full of strange experiments, obscure references, offbeat one-liners, heart-breaking sentimentality and surging creativity. At the heart of it all is Bingo Fury’s crooning bass vocal, lending a vivid and slyly humorous voice to universal themes of love and pain.

Alongside the album announcement, Bingo Fury is releasing new single ‘Leather Sky’, a tender piano ballad charged with real emotion and a heartbreaking cornet refrain played by band member Harry Furniss. In this cinematic track full of paralysing despair, the musician sings: “You know I’m trying to give you everything / It all gets in the way.”

Bingo Fury on the single: “Leather Sky is a difficult song to describe succinctly. It’s about being separated from someone against both of your will. Somebody close to me became very unwell and communication became restricted, almost non-existent. The song took shape during that period. A few of the surreal lines ended up becoming reality.”

Although very much a solo songwriter, Bingo Fury’s compositional process relies on contributions from his entire band - bassist Megan Jenkins and drummer Henry Terrett have been playing together since their teens. In one of their various incarnations, they recruited local avant-jazz legend, cornet player Harry ‘Iceman’ Furniss, with guitarist and percussionist Rafi Cohen later completing the line-up.


The album announcement follows the release of the cacophonous single ‘Power Drill’, which garnered praise from The Line Of Best Fit and DIY. This comes after Bingo Fury’s debut EP, ‘Mercy’s Cut’, that came out last year to an abundance of critical acclaim from the likes of BBC 6 Music, The Quietus, Loud & Quiet, Clash, as well as earning himself a spot on the NME Top 100. Filled with rich, cinematic allure, the EP is both beautiful and unsettling and underlines Bingo Fury’s complete abundance of compositional ideas.

London soul star Jordan Mackampa returns with a new album titled Welcome Home, Kid! out 16 February 2024 via AWAL. This new music sees Jordan come back to his love of R&B, soul, funk and gospel with references to Dru Hill and Blackstreet, producing a new sound that nods to his earlier soundcloud works and the nostalgia of his childhood. It's brazen and bold and presents an incredibly assured artist that is no longer afraid to show off their Blackness, queerness, or sexual expression in all their forms. Getting to this place has taken Jordan decades of growth, patience & gruelling lessons to reach this state and now he can stand in his Blackness proudly. This album tells the story of how he got to this place of self-worth and the stories of the varying complex but beautiful perspectives about the Black experience. He is open and honest about sex, intimacy, imposter syndrome and how he navigates healthy love, toxic heartbreak, friendships and forgiveness. The core theme of this record is introspection with Jordan explaining, “This was a big theme for me in writing a lot of these songs because no one else has lived life in my shoes, I really had to take other peoples’ opinions & stories out of the writing and put myself at the forefront of everything. Which in turn, made me put the guitar down more and stand centre stage naked in a way. This new album for me feels even more personal now - I use more self language of “I” over “we” because all of these stories are about me and my life in even more depth than the first record touched upon, whilst covering more bases either through my own first person story telling of something current I’m dealing with or a past situation I’m using music to heal through. The debut was me figuring out shit, this album is me putting the last puzzle piece on the board.”

Harm’s Way is Duck Ltd.’s most intuitive and organic album yet, the result of keen observation, self-possessed songwriting, and a collaborative spirit. Building on the successes of their previous releases, the deeply relatable album displays a band operating at a nuanced, lyrical and musical best.

Ducks Ltd. make inviting and frenetic guitar pop for when life feels overwhelming. While the band’s songs are ostensibly breezy, a palpable anxiety boils underneath that communicates something deeper about everyday existence. On their latest album Harm’s Way, the Toronto duo of Tom McGreevy and Evan Lewis hones in on interpersonal and societal collapses, urban decay, and the near-impossibility of keeping a level head when everything around you seems to be falling apart.

“They’re songs about struggling,” says singer and lyricist McGreevy (who also plays bass and rhythm guitar). “About watching people I care for suffer, and trying to figure out how to be there for them. And about the strain of living in the world when it feels like it's ready to collapse.” 

Even with its often dark subject matter, Harm’s Way is Ducks Ltd.’s most vividly rendered and collaborative collection yet. It’s an undeniable evolution for the band, not just in how these songs soar, but in their entire writing and recording processes. Composed on tour while supporting acts like Nation of Language, Illuminati Hotties, and Archers of Loaf, the album displays the band’s finely tuned songcraft and well-earned, road-tested confidence. “When we got signed, we had played maybe five or six shows ever. After last year, it’s in the hundreds. That experience can change your perception of your own music and songwriting,” says McGreevy. “In the past when we got stuck on a song we had a tendency to look at our favourite records to see how they tackled it. But now, instead of asking ‘what would Orange Juice do?’, we’d ask, ‘what would we do?’.” Lewis adds, “We have this really great thing where every decision with the band is filtered through both of us. Here especially, we really figured out how to make something that truly sounds like us.”

The band, fortified by this strong sense of sonic identity and a self-assurance in their new material—and in contrast to their critically acclaimed 2021 debut Modern Fiction and 2019 EP Get Bleak, both self-recorded and self-produced in a Toronto basement—wanted to bring Harm’s Way to life in a new city, with an outside producer, and with some of their favourite musicians. “We realised that so many of our favourite bands who are making guitar music right now are from Chicago,” says McGreevy. Working with producer Dave Vettraino (Dehd, Deeper, Lala Lala), they enlisted a marquee cast of Windy City collaborators to round out the tracks on Harm’s Way, including: Finom’s Macie Stewart (violin, string arrangements); Ratboys’ Marcus Nuccio (drums on most tracks); Dehd’s Jason Balla (who helped arrange the backing vocals, to which he also contributed); and backing vocals from Julia Steiner (Ratboys), Nathan O’Dell (Dummy), Margaret McCarthy (Moontype), Rui De Magalhaes (Lawn), and Lindsey-Paige McCloy (Patio). The band’s touring drummer, Jonathan Pappo, and bassist Julia Wittman also appear on the LP.

Ducks Ltd. are a band that already thrives on skirting the edges of buoyant jangle pop and driving power pop, and the duo credits these collaborators with helping to push their sound even further. “Historically our process has been really tightly controlled and insular. On this record, we worked with people who we trusted with a pretty wide range of musical backgrounds and they had approaches and ideas that helped open up the record's sonic palette,” explains McGreevy. “Jason thinks about backing vocals in a totally different way than I do and is super intuitive with melodic ideas. Julia and Margaret have a really deeo understanding of harmony. Macie and Dave were comfortable with the idea of improvising string parts which took some of those layers in some surprising directions. Dave also has an amazing ability to create atmosphere on a recording, and encouraged us to use a bunch of different techniques, tones, and processes to achieve that.”

Harm’s Way’s lush, melodic swagger is clear from the first notes of opener “Hollowed Out.” A song about living with decline (inspired by a Toronto sinkhole), its bright, indelible catchiness serves in contrast to its lyrical unease. Anchored by Lewis’ shimmering electric guitar, “The Main Thing” laments growing apart from a person whose views you once shared while managing to toss in references to both the unglamorous lives of middle relief baseball pitchers and the occult. Other songs split the difference between country and krautrock, like the rollicking “Train Full of Gasoline,” which uses the 2013 Lac-Mégantic rail disaster in Quebec as a metaphor for self-destructive patterns. Meanwhile, “Deleted Scenes” mourns the absence of someone no longer in your life (even if for very good reasons) and recalls The Cure at their most direct, and closer “Heavy Bag” employs enveloping, mournful strings to evoke a sense of how misery frequently loves company.

“I like to work with a variety of instruments and set ups,” says Mark Van Hoen, sometimes known as Locust or Autocreation but here working under his own name on the excellent Plan For A Miracle, his first physical release of solo music since 2018’s Invisible Threads. ”Sometimes it’s literally in my studio, with all the hardware electronics available. Sometimes the laptop, using software instruments. Some of the tracks on this record were recorded in the desert (Joshua Tree) using a 4-track tape machine and small modular synthesiser set up. Each track was recorded in different location using different instruments, which accounts for the distinction between each piece. It’s also about my own reaction to my environment, and what’s going on in my life at the time.”

The Croydon-born Van Hoen started musical life in the early 1990s, signing for R&S records in 1993 but developing his own, myriad and distinctive style across a range of releases on Touch, Editions Mego and other labels, using a battery of instruments, including analogue synthesizers and taking a number of different approaches to recording, rather than ploughing a single sonic furrow. He has worked on a number of collaborations, including with Nick Holton and Neil Halstead of Slowdive, under the moniker of Black Hearted Brother - their Stars Are Our Home was released in 2013. “I have known Neil Halstead since 1992,” says Van Hoen. “He shared a house with me for a couple of years, and the music I was making and listening to along with clubs I was attending had an influence particularly on Pygmalion, the final Slowdive album on Creation.”

Each track on Plan For A Miracle does indeed sound like a world unto itself, a mini-environment, a weather condition, an ecosystem created for the moment. It’s a collection of tracks recorded over the past few years, released on Bandcamp - despite his apparent absence, Van Hoen works constantly. Opener “Climates”, in its exquisite limpidity, feels like a homage to Brian Eno, one of his most formative influences in his teen years, commencing with Music For Films, which he bought in 1979. “This Is For Them”, feels like a ghostlike throwback to early drum & bass or electronica, reminiscent of his own, earliest outings. “There have been a number of requests from labels to make some more music like my very early releases on R&S,” says Van Hoen. “This is part of ‘letting go’ and realising that there’s nothing less creative about going back to those styles again.”

“Pencil Of Spheres” is something else again, a magnificent, imaginary glass structure, shimmering, refracting, without visible means of suspension, a thing of impossible beauty. “Electric Lights” evokes an abandoned fairground, its lights still pulsating, its music lingering. “The Underpass”, meanwhile, insofar as it reminds of anything at all, is faintly reminiscent of Cluster or Neu’s! West German ambience, the urban mundane rendered magical, the sodium lights, the whitewashed walls. The reverberant, faintly oriental chimes of “Insight” transport us yet again, burgeoning and intensifying.

The landscapes, the skyscapes rendered on Plan For A Miracle feel unpopulated as a rule - but when he does introduce vocal elements, Van Hoen has a history of doing so to spectacular effect - think of “Real Love” from 1998’s Playing With Time, the seductive intonation of its title recurring throughout like a series of massive holograms, echoing, stuttering, breaking up, surging. Here, there are just the faintest of vocals, barely distinct, disquieting. “There’s been a bit of a game changer in recent times,” explains Van Hoen. “AI software that enables you to extract vocals and instrument parts from virtually any recording. That means sampling individual parts from existing sources is no longer limited to the original mix exposing certain parts soloed. The vocal parts I use are from multiple sources and often pitch shifted altered rhythmically and melodically.“ There’s further vocal chatter on “I Really Do”, proceeding at a faster pace as if giving chase, or being pursued - distant, enigmatic. “The Music”, meanwhile, its beat tolling, lost in its own fog of static, features a curious intonation, like the ghost of a lost Walker Brother.

Sadly, the album’s title is in reference to a personal tragedy on Van Hoen’s part - the loss of his wife. Titles such as “I Won’t Give Up”, which faintly reminds of another Eno masterpiece, Another Green World, in its nautical hurly-bury, or the pastoral strains of “Mrs Who”, heavily clouded with sadness, seem to allude to this. “In fact the record was recorded entirely before she passed away,” says Van Hoen, “most of it before she even became very ill. The title was given to the album when it started to look like she wasn’t going to make it beyond a few months. It was something Osho said - “plan for a miracle” - so it was a statement of hope. Unfortunately it was not to be.” Although the album is non-thematic, non-specific in its atmospheres, sound paintings, elegant structures it most certainly stands as a magnificent monument to Osho’s memory.

-David Stubbs.

Hailing from Adelaide, South Australia in 1985, the ‘debut’ full-length by Where’s the Pope? established the band as a bridge between greasy, hardcore punk thrills and manic thrash attacks. After a hiatus and a slight line-up change, Sunday Afternoon BBQs diverts from the typified, aural reference points in critical UK punk icons such as Disorder and Discharge but sees the band refined as they carve out a passage soaked entirely in their own electric stink. This is a record rejoicing in the lore of beery adolescents on the edge of the city streets with the dark, frenetic menace of ‘Geek Attack’, or the tumultuous sludge of ‘Tourist Dream’ insurmountably evidential in just how profoundly important the band was to the Australian circuit.

repress, yellow viny

When we established Balmat in 2021, neither of us could have imagined that within two years, we’d be putting out an album by one of our musical heroes: Mike Paradinas, aka µ-Ziq. The British producer has been an inspiration to label co-founders Albert Salinas and Philip Sherburne since the 1990s. In fact, his album-length remix project The Auteurs Vs µ-Ziq was one of the very first pieces of electronic music that Philip bought, way back in 1994. To have the opportunity to release his music now feels like a real full-circle moment.

Paradinas, of course, needs no introduction. Under a slew of aliases, chief among them µ-Ziq, the British artist revolutionized leftfield electronic music in the 1990s—coincidentally, this year marks the 30th anniversary of his debut album, Tango N’ Vectif, for his friend and sometime collaborator Aphex Twin’s Rephlex label—and his label Planet Mu has built up a formidable catalog of visionary, forwardlooking records, mapping virtually every corner of the electronic spectrum. With 1977, he turns the clock backward in a sense, and not just with the album’s title: Rooted in classic ambient and electronic sounds, these 15 tracks evoke the anything-goes spirit of the early ’90s, before the tools and tropes had calcified into cut-and-dried styles.

There’s no shortage of familiar sounds on 1977. There are echoes of raves and chillout rooms and transmissions from the fringes of techno; there are detuned synths and glistening reverb tails and, above all, gauzy vox pads, the eerie glue that holds it all together. The title, he says, is meant to invoke a general sense of nostalgia, bookmarking a year in his boyhood when he became more selfaware. More than anything, 1977 sounds like µ-Ziq distilled: Stripped of his signature breakbeats and customary chaos, Paradinas’ first-ever strictly (well, mostly) ambient album presents the essence of his music in a whole new light.

Along the way Paradinas touches on dark-ambient drones (“Marmite”), horror-film themes (“Belt & Carpet”), jungle breaks (“Mesolithic Jungle”), and even house music (“Houzz 13”), which marks the first bona fide dance-floor moment on Balmat to date). Yet the album never—to our ears, anyway— feels expressly retro. Rather, Paradinas plucks timeless sounds out of the ether and gives them a gentle tap, spinning them into unexpected new orbits. At times, 1977 feels like an experience of extended déjà vu: When we first listened to it, we had the sense that we already knew this music. It was as though we had heard it years ago, perhaps on a battered cassette tape lent to us by a friend, and been searching for it ever since. We hope you feel the same.

Roberto Agosta, or just Agosta as he likes to be called, is a Sicilian DJ and producer from Catania active all along the eastern coast of Sicily, a place that proved to be a soulful place and a training ground for a long career, making him an excellent music selector and a reference point in the spread of alternative music.

A soundtrack music enthusiast since he was a child, now a vinyl "serial gathere", Agosta has always put his vast knowledge at the service of a very personal sound that sums many different music styles and contaminations, simple and profound but straightforward and direct at the same time.

Agosta’s eponymous album, released on LP, CD and digital formats, was conceived during the Covid-19 lockdown, thanks to the precious collaboration of friend DJ and producer Massimo Napoli aka Galathea, with whom Roberto has already started another project called AN-AN that will produce a new record for Space Echo at the end of 2022.

This record highlights a typical chill-out aesthetic, thanks to its trip-hop and ambient rhythms and atmospheres, while a deeper exploration reveals the psychedelic essence of the entire work, a daring and exciting journey in the most primitive Sicily, and the energy that sustains all of its ten tracks.

Much of their author and his lifestyle - mainly based on meditation, the search for spiritual elevation, the relationship with nature and the regaining of contact with those particular places and with the people who live there - is revealed by those tracks that constitute a soundtrack for this spiritual but also extremely physical journey.

The song titles are, in fact, intrinsically linked to Roberto’s real life: the Gorna and Ilice mountains at the foot of Etna, the Carricante vineyard and its excellent wine, Unna, Three Chestnuts, Varanni, Don Alfio, Lady G. Each of them represents a pleasant and dreamlike narration and the escape from the complex dynamics of a city like Catania, among echoes of the most dreamy Pink Floyd, the softer side of ’70s krautrock, but also the Massive Attack and Tricky’s Bristol scene.
There’s also an excellent choice of synthesizers and overdubbed guitars, thanks to the talent of the multifaceted musician and producer Salvo Bruno Dub, and of Manuela Amalfitano, Loredana Poidomani and Deran Obika’s voices.

Agosta is an introspective, deep work with a cinematic vocation, perfectly rooted in the territory where it took shape, among sunny landscapes, lush with vegetation but also deserted and arid lands. From Sicily to the cosmos... enjoy!

Daniel Land's new album, "Out of Season", is his most ambitious record to date, a series of reflections on history, memory, and post-Brexit Britain, which was inspired by his return to the landscapes of his youth – the rugged, underpopulated west coast of Somerset. The album was written and partly recorded in Daniel’s studio in a static caravan, overlooking the coast, during the period when the UK was tearing itself apart over its relationship to Europe. "I didn't set out to write about Brexit", Daniel says, "I have a kind of horror of political music. But I couldn’t escape the atmosphere of the time – this strange, distorted version of ‘Englishness’ in the national psyche. I’ve always been interested in memory and nostalgia; Brexit illustrates the dangers of taking seductive, possibly false memories at face value”. Songs like “White Chalk”, “Island of Ghosts”, and the album’s title track, represent a series of attempts to reclaim an older, more peculiar idea of England which, Daniel says has been “Lost in the nationalist mythmaking of the past decades” – the island of misfits and outsiders exemplified by the works of Derek Jarman, for example, whom Daniel was rediscovering while working on the album. “I must have read 'Modern Nature' ten times over the years”, Daniel says. “What I love about Jarman is that he had a deep, abiding love for England, but it was a very complicated, critical and a very queer kind of love. That was very much my mood, going into the making of this album”. Like Jarman’s work, "Out of Season" probes national identity whilst also displaying resolutely queer themes throughout. Daniel’s voice – once described by The Guardian as "The spawn of Elizabeth Fraser and Anthony Hegarty” – is less heavily reverbed than before, bringing to the fore his often-confessional lyrics, inspired by the frankness of modern queer poets like Andrew McMillan, Seán Hewitt, and Ocean Vuong. A lyrical highlight is the gorgeous “Southern Soul”, a deceptively straightforward recounting of a decades-old hookup with a closeted guy from his hometown which, Daniel says, “Serves as a metaphor for everything I’m talking about in the album”. And in keeping with the album’s nods to the heroes of gay literature, Daniel’s self-styling of the album as a “Dream Pop Album on National Themes” deliberately references the full title of Tony Kushner’s era-defining play "Angels in America", whose central character is namechecked in the hook-laden “Lemon Boy” – a song which must surely stand as Daniel’s most deliciously pop moment yet. Lauded by Mark Radcliffe, Guy Garvey, Tom Robinson, and many others, Daniel Land makes music that, in the words of BBC Radio 1, "You can't help but think the late John Peel would have loved".

A lot of water has flown under the bridge since Błoto released their last album. Sadly, in Polish rivers it wasn't just water flowing, but also all sorts of sewage of unknown origin, which destroyed the condition of these once vibrant bodies of water; it eventually led to a real catastrophe on the Odra River, which, after all, surrounds the entire city of Wroclaw, the band's birthplace. It is time for a decisive response. Błoto is making a comeback with a seven-inch vinyl and their first singles in over two years - "Szlam" and "Ścieki".

Climate change had already led to a permanent hydrological drought, which was echoed on Erozje LP. Today, as many as 91.5 percent of Poland's rivers are in very poor condition. It is not only drought that threatens rivers, but also excessive salinity. This is precisely the kind of disaster that happened on the Odra river. It resulted in 360 tonnes of dead fish and death of the river along a stretch of almost 500 km, and the reason for that was short-sighted human activity that could have been avoided. Still, the decision was made to turn the river into a cesspool.

Two years of hiatus is far too long. During this time, reality has not let up for a moment, providing new inspiration. Szlam (eng. sludge) is the sediment that forms on the river bed and sometimes the river banks. The Polish word derives from German (Schlamm), which means swamp - or mud. Szlam is therefore a sticky and unsettling remorse that rests somewhere at the bottom of the human consciousness.

In "Szlam" and "Ścieki" tracks, you will not only hear references to Erozje, but also to Kwasy i Zasady LP. For it is also a metaphor for everything that pours out of the media, smartphones, and then flows into one's head. The constant bickering, conflicts and dirty play in political campaigns, scandals to which we are already numb. On top of this, hate speech, low-quality stupefying influencer content, resulting in an ever-decreasing cultural capital of a society that breeds conformists, individualistically-minded egoists and mindless consumers. This state of affairs spawns a society of egoists, incapable of critical reflection, questioning and rebelling against reality.

The sound and genres explored by the band are, as usual, difficult to pigeonhole. These two musical miniatures contain a lot of anxious and neurotic sounds, as well as synth glitches evoking emotions such as fear, anger, sadness and guilt. The quartet consisting of Wuja HZG, OlafSaxx, Cancer G and Latarnik managed to distill this mental state by encapsulating it in shades of breakbeat ("Szlam"), and broadly defined house music ("Ścieki").

The 7" vinyl will be released on January 08th 2024 by Astigmatic Records.

Two years after the release of his first self-titled album, DJ producer Massimo Napoli aka Galathea presents the new 'Sacred Love', in which he once again avails himself of the collaboration of his friend producer and bass player Salvo Dub, as well as a combo of respected musicians: singer Kadi Koulibaly - originally from Burkina Faso - already featured on the first album, Giulia La Rosa, author of the lyrics and performer of the title track, pianist Mario Pappalardo, percussionist Sergio Spitaleri and drummer Luciano Cantone.
'Sacred Love' is definitely a more mature, intense and profound journey than the previous album of the same name, which enhances the magical dreamlike and spiritual atmospheres of a certain African culture.
The album guides the listener along a path of multi-ethnic contaminations: "Divinité", "Ouaga" and "Koloko", well interpreted by Kadi, touch on the sacredness and mysticism of the African continent and blend well with the Spiritual Jazz sounds that have evolved in the West.
"Divinité", through the spoken word of French poet Diego Hernandez, tackles the themes of faith, life and the relationship with one's 'self', with references to French chanson productions, in which Kadi's spiritual song, at times 'Saharan', intersects and expands into cosmic space.
The title track, the first single from the album, also released on 7" (45rpm) in two versions, is an Afro-American gospel with a typically afrobeat rhythm, vaguely reminiscent of Nina Simone's 'See-Line Woman'.
North Africa is represented by "Equator", while we climb further north into the middle of the Mediterranean Sea with "Medican Blues", to land in Stromboli with the Deep Jazz of "Ginostra", whose title recalls the village of the marvellous island in the Aeolian archipelago.
Then we have the Cuban track "Caminito", a sort of Cha-Cha with a romantic piano melody (à la Chucho Valdez) well performed by maestro Mario Pappalardo; and then again "Eos", strongly Balearic with a Brazilian mood; "Impression", a dreamy journey of impact; "Sirens", already present on the first album and here reworked in a new Spiritual-Ambient version produced by Agosta.
"Sacred Love" is thus an original and musically borderless album, which expands a certain African sacred culture and naturally blends Afrobeat, Jazz and Blues atmospheres with the Balearic sounds of Mediterranean culture.
Enjoy listening!

Julian Cannonball Adderley's only Blue Note album, Somethin' Else, would likely forever be famous in music lore if just for the presence of Miles Davis. The iconic composer/trumpeter steps into the role of sideman on the 1958 set, one of just a handful of times he'd make such a move after the calendar passed the mid-1950s. Yet evaluating Somethin' Else strictly on Davis' involvement misses the big picture. Plain and simple, Adderley's jubilant work remains a jazz landmark due to the chemistry of its Hall of Fame personnel, enthusiasm of its participants, and sophistication of its arrangements – not to mention the reference-grade production and inclusion of the definitive renditions of two all-time jazz standards.

Limited to 6,000 numbered copies, pressed on dead-quiet MoFi SuperVinyl at RTI, and mastered from the original master tapes, Mobile Fidelity's ultra-hi-fi UltraDisc One-Step 180g 45RPM 2LP collector's edition pays tribute to the record's merit and includes the bonus track "Allison's Uncle." Offering reference-calibre sonics, this spectacular collector's version provides a clear, transparent, ultra-dynamic, and up-close view of a cornerstone effort that witnesses Adderley and Davis sharing horn duty alone for the only time in their fabled careers – an arrangement that occurred as a result of Adderley having joined Davis' majestic sextet a year prior. The premium packaging and beautiful presentation of the UD1S Somethin' Else pressing befit its extremely select status. Housed in a deluxe slipcase, it features special foil-stamped jackets and faithful-to-the-original graphics that illuminate the splendour of the recording. No expense has been spared. Aurally and visually, this UD1S reissue exists as a curatorial artefact meant to be preserved, touched, and examined. It is made for discerning listeners that prize sound quality and production, and who desire to fully immerse themselves in the art – and everything involved with the album, from the iconic photos to the gorgeous finishes.

MR. COMPLEX is a veteran MC from NYC, Polyrhythm Addicts and many classic records since 1995. He drops his first 7” record: “I’m Ready” featuring Dres, from Black Sheep and El Fudge from the Rawkus era b/w “Commercial Rap”. Production is from a new undiscovered producer MORTAL 1.
“I’m Ready” is a high energy track with sharp heavy lyrics redefining why their presence is still needed. The B side “Commercial Rap” is a vintage Mr. Complex song where he references classic TV commercials with top notch wordplay. MR. COMPLEX AND MORTAL 1 recorded a whole album "FOREVER NEW" that is due late spring.

ESP Institute artist Bartellow, one third of the project Tambien and otherwise known in the Contemporary Classical sphere as Beni Brachtel, returns to the label with his second full-length release, Noosphere. While currently heading the SVS label and residency series out of Munich, Beni’s resume expands well beyond electronic music to include immersive sound installations such as The Adven- ture Of The Empty House (solo live performance across seven floors of Walter Henn’s Deckelbau building), a slew of compositions for the Bavarian State Opera (for which he doubled as conductor), and a prolific career of over twenty-five theater scores for institutions such as the Münchner Kammerspiele, Schauspiel Basel, Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin, Berliner Ensemble, Schauspiel Köln, Schaus- piel Graz and with directors Ersan Mondtag, Alexander Eisenach, Jessica Glause and Tobias Staab among others.

Noosphere is a compendium excerpting from theatrical scores WUT (Elfriede Jelinek, at Schauspielhaus Köln, directed by Ersan Mondtag, 2020), Ödipus and Antigone (Maxim Gorki Theatre Berlin, directed by Ersan Mondtag, 2017), Der Zauberberg (Thomas Mann, Schauspiel Graz, directed by Alexander Eisenach, 2017), Hass Tryptichon (Sybille Berg, Wiener Festwochen / Maxim Gorki Theatre, directed by Ersan Mondtag, 2019), Wonderland Ave. (Sibylle Berg, Schauspielhaus Köln, directed by Ersan Mondtag, 2018), Die Verdammten (after Visconti ́s film, Schauspielhaus Köln, directed by Ersan Mondtag, 2019) and Roi Ubu (Alfred Jarry, Theater Neumarkt, Zurich, directed by Alexander Eisenach, 2018).

The work traverses homages, infusing everything from Baroque to Impressionism, and while these types of references are certainly built into the canon of Theatre as a discipline, here we gather histor- ic layers in an even wider net. Under the self-referential thumb of Contemporary Classical music, this sort of "hindsight" approach has been largely avoided, however, in today’s all-access arena, the constant stream of historic causal-chained events has opened a delta where anything is possible. This defines Bartellow’s stance among his colleagues as well as his cultural position as a composer.

Beni considers beauty a fleeting objective in the arts, that expression is often expected to follow notions of Destructivism or the unfulfilled. Art will pore over wounds, collective angst, mourn- ing a loss of natural habitat or a fear of technological invasion, yet there is a bitter irreverence for the friction or salvation in beauty itself. Acknowledging this subjectivity — what one audience considers superficial pleasure may be deeply profound to another — he leans into musical instinct as if composing via divine conduit.

Noosphere conjures a array of suspense, ecstasy, melancholy, and dread, but in isolating the work from its theatrical component, Brachtel directs our focus toward formal qualities, clearing unim- peded space to conceive fresh narratives and examine dynamism and interconnectivity. In sympathy with often difficult theatre pieces, the passages can be dark and transgressive, but more importantly they remain relative to Brachtel’s circumstances at their time of creation. The title Noosphere speaks to the evolution of human thought and knowledge, opening a door to subjective points-of-view. For example, Nexus II On The Beach refers to both Roberto Musci’s Water Messages On Desert Sand as well as the film Bladerunner, invoking the image of an android enjoying the sunset, but whether or not this abstraction may be considered beautiful depends the listener’s cumulative life experience and perspective.

This is hybrid chamber music, augmented by electro-acoustic layers, juxtaposing various periods and successively processing their residual themes into a trans-generational rendering of “now.”