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Originally released on tape by SicSic in 2014, Aprilnacht commemorates a decade of music from Brannten Schnüre and marked the spring in a tetralogy of albums about the four seasons when it came out. Back then the Würzburg-based project consisted solely of Christian Schoppik, who later welcomed Katie Rich to take over the vocals. He used to perform as Agnes Beil, but dropped the name when, while making this album realized his music was becoming "much gentler and more fragile". Aprilnacht already captured the particular musical ideas that Schoppik would thoroughly keep exploring, delving deeper and deeper into the use and manipulation of samplers from sources so diverging as to wander between the five continents to post-war German family television and cult cinema. Heir of the ritualistic intensity of Coil, of the intricate sampler assemblies of Ghédalia Tazartès', and of the dusty, dismal old ballads from around the world, Brannten Schnüre manages to make these paths cross in a territory that is as inherent as it is uncanny; sieged by the past and intimate as a hearth. An organic approach to folk, ambient, and sound collage, where ethereal yet thoroughly textured pieces coalesce in enthralling, delicate, and innermost musical rituals.

The album cover paintings reveal the temper: dreary old towns where shadows come to dim the slow passage of crepuscular colors, a soft area of reanimation where wind and light come close and foresee the night of spring. Aprilnacht was inspired by the stories of German philosopher and writer Friedrich Alfred Schmid Noerr, whose work exhaustively examines the conflict between paganism and Christianity, safeguarding myth in a way that Schoppik describes as boldly modern, humorous and unpredictable in its variations of the Germanic folklore motifs. "I wanted to do the same with the music," he states, and the music here could as well be suitable for a night when household deities welcome wandering will-o'-the-wisps, water nymphs, and gyrovagues to discuss Perchta's leadership of The Wild Hunt, but this album is not a folk tale, it's not an elegy to worlds already gone, hidden in years; it's an intersection of routes that open mysteriously before our ears like a congregation of vapors. Aprilnacht is a gathering of voices; "There are too many children, and none of them keeps quiet," reads the last verse of «Requiem für eine Ringelnatter.»

Sensuality drips over the music to celebrate both the voluptuousness and tragic quality of nature; "It's raining on me, urine from your flowers," Schoppik sings in «Urin deiner Blüten» and later on, faced with a snake's erotic features, as if he wanted to be embraced by it: "Your quick, sharp tongue and your warm venom; that's what the pond is missing." Orality is where this profusion of contents thrives. When the voices get closer and condense, the words reveal the saliva employed to pronounce them; we feel the mouth and the tongue, but when breath envelops them in sorrow and softens their edges, they sound distant, diffused in the atmosphere, letting go of the body that held them. These two vocal facets oscillate permanently and interact naturally with the fertile assembly of samplers and instruments that develop throughout the album, which condense and disperse impersonating each other, interweaving to search for a specific syntax. Tangled whisperings of enigmatic phrases, timid voices that stick out to check the scene but hide away quickly, shivering trance chants and monastic ambiances, distant screams and clamors in between chaos and warfare swirl until bursting into subtle songs where even Mother Mary comes forth softly. Soothed by foggy atmospheres and crackling punctuations, these voices shape a vulnerable crowd, an occasion of fragility. Along this swarm of songs thrown into thin air, accordions sound like heavy-breathing lungs; clarinets sigh like curtains shaking; violin solos wander around like bees; Gjallarhorns cries distend like fleeing cattle; glockenspiels evoke remote music boxes and inherited toys; backward emanations emerge like slender waves retreating. On the banks of stretching loops and ember textures is where the songs slowly nest, collecting the words to find their tone.

A poem by Jorge Teillier says, "To talk with the dead you have to choose words that they recognize as easily as their hands recognized the fur of their dogs in the dark. To talk with the dead you have to know how to wait: they are fearful like the first steps of a child. But if we are patient one day they will answer us with a flame that suddenly revives in the fireplace." This may be Brannten Schnüre's main purpose: To find the voice to speak to those of whom we were a vision. Not in mourning, but acknowledging the obscure and volatile nature of spring's regenerative force, searching for the treasure of balance, as evidenced in the lyrics of «Requiem für ein Schwalbennest,» "Its nest was destroyed so many times before it was finished, and despite that, the shallow builds as if it is infatuated." The same idea is here in the words of Schmid Noerr, who made poetry an act of resistance to the horror of Nazism; "Since having seen the ability of a brilliant spirit to die, with a calm mouth that everyone saw, health is true again and we affirm it, even if rivers of blood flow." And as we call for the dusk's kindness, waiting to return home and eat with our kin by the stove, our ears become used to the games of the night. We feel like we're rowing on wetlands, while the "moon musick" keeps us vigilant against the slightest movement of water or sweet moan because eeriness here is imperative for survival. Do not succumb to the insipid howl of death, for nothing may last but mutability. You see, the rock has moved a little during the night; the rest is just wind fleeing from the void.

London-based four-piece Adult Jazz announce their first full-length album in a decade, So Sorry So Slow, out 26 April 2024 via Spare Thought. Alongside the announcement comes lovesick new single ‘Suffer One’ featuring Owen Pallett, a cautious excavation of self and sexuality, clambering across a gorgeously shapeshifting, filmic five-minutes.

Containing some of the band’s most abrasive but gentle, beautiful and melismatic work to date, So Sorry So Slow has many defining characteristics: romance, panic, devotion and remorse, threaded together by an intentionally laser-focused love. It’s deeply personal, bruised and candid in its expressions of tenderness, and deeply pained in its concurrent reflections of ecological regret. Across its hour-long runtime, a delicate, frenetic energy and glacial heaviness coexist, the band pitting those paces against one another. In their richly experimental timbre, dancing strings and fluttering falsettos prang against a bed of brass drones like a wounded bird.

“We started writing in 2017 and began recording in 2018,” says vocalist Harry Burgess. “We genuinely thought it might be finished in 2018! But things kept developing and, having resolutely not struck while the iron was hot, there was no real external push to rush things after that, so we just kept letting things shift and unfold until it felt right. Listening back to my voice notes it’s nice to notice that there are fragments of ideas from the whole period 2017-2023 which have shaped the record.”

Recorded in bursts at studios across London and in the band members’ flats, at Konk, on the Isle of Wight and in Sussex, So Sorry is unambiguous in its evolution. Sonically, there are sparks of the arrhythmic brightness that afforded the band’s critically acclaimed debut album Gist Is its cult adoration, for fans of Arthur Russell and Meredith Monk, but with a blossoming, melancholic darkness often overhead. Piano sprees and luscious string sections appear like low-hanging stars on a night-time drive, whilst plunging vocal distortions and humming brass loops resurrect heavy limbs in a bad dream.

“I usually have objects as kind of totems for ideas,” explains Burgess. “The album initially started out to do with performance… the totem was a head mic, one of the subtle skin-tone ones, discreet on the forehead of a West End star. A number of the first songs in their original forms were almost musical theatre piano ballads. I think that was really a device to write about my life as the ‘main character’ (pre internet-speak reframing): regrets about romance, relationships - unsustainable relationships with the self and others.”

“However, once we started writing, the ideas about unsustainable personal relationships, loving unevenly and heartbreak conflated with a more expressly ecological regret. Like contending with big feelings of loss, endings, beauty, desolation, and with how much joy the earth contains in it. Feeling so much gratitude bound up in waves of sadness. Maybe witnessing a slow-motion goodbye to all that, or its last gasps. I love the earth and the life it supports so much. I love how ecosystems fit together - even the brutal stuff. It may be basic to say, but now is the time to be laser focused on that love. I was thinking about human centrality on earth, us as the ‘main character’, the way that is served by faith and romanticism, and the subsequent disingenuous understandings of our position in the ecosystem, as only stewards somehow, rather than subjects. The totems at this point: a herald’s horn, lorry inner tubes, archaeological tools. I guess from doom, industry, history respectively.”

“Now I would say the record is about gripping. Totems being: crampons, rope, drips, desalination equipment, accruing various survival tech. I think gripping sums up both of the threads. There’s the emotionally correct clinging to the earth that is the substrate of everything we value, or the delusional clinging to our imagined dominant position. But also the practical, technological aspects of creating a sustainable relationship, of remaining here. Then I think of romance again.”

So Sorry So Slow comes out 26th April 2024 on Spare Thought, mixed by Fabian Prynn at 4AD Studios and mastered by Alex Wharton at Abbey Road.

Adult Jazz is Harry Burgess, Tim Slater, Steven Wells and Tom Howe.

Following the force of their introductory singles 'Tabernacl' and 'St Agatha', the band return with an invitation to explore their landscape of violent poetry and gothic propulsion to the fullest extent yet. Prepare to be lulled under their spell once more with the slow-burn of forerunning single, 'Remoter Heaven'.

Produced by long-time collaborator Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard's Tom Rees. It begins in a dream state of hypnotic repetition that mounts in intensity, with vocalist Jack Shephard presiding over it all with his distinctive, poetic drawl. His protagonist is revisiting a memory of the pain inflicted by a thorn as a child; "I was awake with feeling", he confesses, before the song takes on the momentum that feels like a triumph over the numbness attendant to adulthood.

Of the track, Shephard shares: "I liked the idea of writing a very simple narrative to a big, epic song - something as modest as the story of a child playing in some flowers and then bursting into tears when a thorn pricks their leg. The words are an ode to that sensitivity we embrace when we are young. Then, when we become adults, we insist on subjugating all of that wonderful, absurd rage."

'Remoter Heaven' follows on from 'Tabernacl' and 'St Agatha' which earned Slate rave write-ups and support from publications including NME, CLASH, So Young, DIY, Buzz Magazine, The Most Radicalist and more, as well as early radio plays from the likes of Huw Stephens and Steve Lamacq on BBC 6Music, Matt Wilkinson on Apple Music 1, John Kennedy on Radio X and Jack Saunders on BBC Radio 1.

A humanity-reminding suite of miracle moments, Someone Like Me unites a geographically unbound cast of real people in pursuit of a meaningful connection. Taping their lived experience in economic studios in quiet English counties, Pacific Northwest woodland retreats and the big city bustle of Sydney and Los Angeles, these kindred spirits rendered sheer beauty in the process. Custom pressed folk songs of love, loss and the lord saviour.

Illuminating minor works from seasoned players such as former Syndicate Of Sound chart-topper Sharkey and late-era Canned Heat lynchpin James Thornbury, the collection simultaneously honours the fleeting amateurism of hobby musicians. With their one shot at tangible vinyl, freshman Lynne Ann Kingan realised her loose bubblegum rocker on campus time, while U.S. Navy recruit Fred Potts cut his unconditionally serene ballad remotely stationed on a Spanish naval base. Spartan production continues to reign with Jon Betmead’s hair-raising gospel, howling into infinite space, and Goldrust’s stripped back garden hymn.

Throughout the hour-long reflection, faith has an intermittent yet revelatory presence, most overtly with the divine choral soul of Seventh-day Adventist quartet Remnant. More subtly, Gary Ramey and Jim Kennedy both turned to song in their spiritual quests, offering their all to a universal power. An irrefutable compilation cornerstone, the National Office For Black Catholics showcased Charles Murphy’s lionhearted account of the Black experience at a 1971 concert. Five years earlier, high school seniors The Superwomen would use their hauntingly angelic harmonies to address racial inequity with a breathless take on ‘Lowlands’.

Reaching the furthest corners, Someone Like Me secures the inaugural licence of three homespun masterpieces. Discovered by fluke in the digital haystacks of Youtube and Soundcloud, Jim Huxley’s bedroom pop earworm melds peacefully into Charlie Webster’s synthesized reverie. Meanwhile, Hollywood’s John Agostino introduces us to the bizarre world of tax scam records, with the artist only now learning that his tender psych-folk demos were leaked via a 1977 bootleg.

Compiled and lovingly restored by armchair digger Mikey Young (Eddy Current Suppression Ring/The Green Child), Someone Like Me pays due service to seventeen rarefied journals of truth and devotion. Adorned with visual artist Chris Fallon’s figure and flora dream extractions, the uniting songbook is further detailed by expansive track-by-track liner notes and a forward from San Franciscan poet Rod Roland.

You get older, you have a family, and you start to slow down-that's how things are supposed to go, right? Not for Montreal band Corridor, who have returned on their fourth album, Mimi, with a sound and style that's more widescreen and expansive than anything that's preceded it. The follow-up to 2019's Junior is a huge step forward for the band, as the members themselves have undergone the type of personal changes that accompany the passage of time; even as these eight songs reflect a newfound and contemplative maturity, however, Corridor are branching out more than ever with richly detailed music, resulting in a record that feels like a fresh break for a band that's already established themselves as forward-thinkers. Mimi immediately recalls the best of the best when it comes to indie rock-Deerhunter's silvery atmospherics immediately come to mind, as well as the spiky effervescence of classic post-punk-but despite these easy comparisons, Corridor remain impossible to pin down from song to song, which makes Mimi all the more thrilling as a listen. "The goal was to work differently, which is the goal we have every time we work on a new album-to build something in a new way," Robert explains. "This time, we took our time." And so in the summer of 2020, Corridor's members-Robert, vocalist/bassist Dominic Berthiaume, drummer Julien Bakvis, and multi-instrumentalist Samuel Gougoux-holed away in a cottage to engage in the sort of creative experimentation that would lead to Mimi's ultimate creation. Corridor tinkered with the songs' raw parts digitally and remotely over the next few years, with co-producer Joojoo Ashworth (Dummy, Automatic) lending their own specific talents in the theoretical booth. The process was a byproduct of not having access to their rehearsal space due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but also a result of the four-piece leaning harder into incorporating electronic textures than on previous records. "For a long time, we identified as a guitar-oriented band, and the goal of making this whole record was trying to get away from that," Berthiaume states. Berthiaume also describes Mimi as a record about "getting older" and "figuring out new parts of life"-but despite any claims of transitional growing pains from the band, Mimi is a record bursting with new energy and life, a vibrance that's owed in no small part to Gougoux joining the band full-time after pitching in on live performances in the past. "I come more from a background of electronic music, so it was nice to involve that with the band more," he explains, and Mimi contains a distinct rhythmic pulse reminiscent of classic era-post-punk's own melding of dance and rock textures. Over bright, chiming guitars and ascending synths, Robert addresses his looming mortality on "Mourir Demain": "I wrote it when my girlfriend and I were shopping for life insurance," he laughs. With our little daughter growing up, we also considered making our will. I said to myself, 'Oh shit, from now on I'm slowly starting to plan my death." Don't mistake this as music about dead ends, though, as Mimi embraces and champions unfettered creativity while paving a way for Corridor's own bright future. "We just focused on making a record that sounded the way we wanted," Gougoux exclaims while discussing the band's aims. "There were no limitations when it came to what was possible."

DISBELIEF’s new album’ Killing Karma’ once again underlines the band's singularity and their persistence to follow an unconventional way for more than 30 years against all resistance. DISBELIEF have grown into a very experienced band that has always kept an open minded spirit, yet remote from any mainstream connection, in order to further sharpen their Death Metal style with implacable conviction and dedication. A colossal, destroying, atmospheric, yet subtle wall of sound was conceived with this new album. The band invited two of the most unique singers in the German Metal scene on ‘Killing Karma' : Michelle Darkness (End of green) and Joschi Baschin (Undertow). They perform on some of the album songs : ’The Scream that slowly disappeared’ , ‘Flash of inspiration’ and the epic ‘Reborn’. DISBELIEF captivates the listener further with a special rendition of Killing Joke classic ‘Millenium’, shaping it into a very memorable remake which will surprise a lot of fans out there. Lyric wise, DISBELIEF vocalist Karsten ‘Jagger’ comments : "'Killing Karma' is a declaration of war to desperation, grief and helplessness, an unbelievable musical journey through the human soul threatening to break under the weight of life." DISBELIEF ’s new album ‘Killing Karma’ is a diversified, captivating , strength giving, crushing Death Metal monster !

Here In, Absence" ("Here, In Absence" for the book) is the result of the dialogue between the Finnish photographer Mikael Siirilä and the music artists The Humble Bee & Offthesky initiated by IIKKI, between March 2023 and January 2024.

After a first release in 2019 on IIKKI ("All Other Voices Gone, Only Yours Remains"), a second one in 2020 on LAAPS ("We Were The Hum Of Dreams"), Craig Tattersall (The Humble Bee) and Jason Corder (Offthesky) come back with a third stunning out-of-time beauty, paired with the Mikael Siirilä photography works.

Craig Tattersall is a former member of The Remote Viewer and Famous Boyfriend bandmate Andrew Johnson. Tattersall's music can be found these days more often under his alias The Humble Bee; as a founder member of The Boats; and in his collaborative works with the likes of Bill Seaman in The Seaman And The Tattered Sail. He has run the wonderful label Cotton Goods from 2008 to 2015 and since 2009 he has recorded 16 solo albums on his moniker The Humble Bee and almost the same under his name on some collaborations.

Jason Corder is experimental-ambient multimedia artist based in Denver, CO. He has been producing music, video art, audio software, and the occasional interactive sound sculpture, for over 20 years. He teaches private courses on generative music and occasionally lectures on various sound design topics at Denver University. He currently is the Audio Director at the Denver based videogame studio Dire Wolf. Over the years, he has worked with labels such as Home Normal, 12k's term, Facture, LAAPS and more. Over the years he has performed at Mutek, Decibel, Communikey and other festivals, sharing the bill with likeminded artists Pole, Matmos, William Basinski, and more.

Mikael Siirilä: "I am a darkroom artist (b. 1978) based in Helsinki, Finland. My small individual photographs examine the themes of absence, presence and outsiderhood. My characters appear immersed in their inner worlds and moments of being: simultaneously absent and intensely present. The pictures also reveal the outsider’s gaze, lost in observation and reflection. My pictures are true observations captured with minimal interaction with the subjects. Their origin is in the act of looking, and they feel causally connected to the world. The craft of printmaking is inseparable from my artistic expression. I work solely with black & white film and the darkroom. The slow, contemplative process lends the pictures a calmness. I make physical pictures I want to stare at, feel and become lost in. Again and again."

Fine Art Book, Ltd. to 500 copies:
Hardcover book printed on Munken Lynx 150g/m2 // 80 pages, 18cm x 24cm, 51 photos // Logo and slot embossed // Selective UV varnish // Visible seam and cutting cover pages // Hand-numbered, hand-stamped.

Irresistible Brazilian blues reggae from the heart of the Amazon rainforest. A psychedelic guarana induced trip and ode to the fading indigenous cultures and shifting hegemony in Brazil. This one-off release by Manaus native Natacha Fink was originally written in 1986 as the lead track on NOSSA MUSICA - a compilation celebrating regional music from the Amazon. Emerging out of the dictatorship, Natacha and her fellow artists rejected the aesthetic standards driven by internal colonialism and sought out new ways to express themselves away from the styles of the dominant Rio-São Paulo axis. What surfaced was a melodic blend of genres, with Natacha’s haunting vocals and playful lyrics gliding over an arrangement of guitars and double bass. Vocal backing is led by Torrinho, well known for his layered composition style, whose song ‘Porto de Lenha’ is recognised throughout Amazonas as an unofficial anthem. Hidden within the Amazon, Pirarublue lies in that wonderful space between innocence and honesty. Proudly exploring cultural and ecological spaces through a refreshing, ghostly infectious groove. For fans of Gal Costa, Elis Regina, Chico César, Jorge Ben Jor and Joni Mitchell.

Accompanying Natacha’s beguiling single is the field recording “Unseen Songlines” by artist and academic Nimalan Yoganathan. The composition immerses the listener in the soundscapes of Mamori Lake, a remote village inside the Brazilian Amazon. Nimalan explores the ambiguous perception of sounds emanating from the dense rainforest and deep beneath the Amazon River, where we hear the sounds but cannot see their sources: an acousmatic concert performed by the rainforest itself. Processed field recordings of birds and frogs, as well as underwater hydrophone recordings of dolphins and fish subtly weave throughout electroacoustic textures and beats. The listener is invited to hone in on the musical subtleties hidden throughout the environment. The compositional methods employed in this piece draw on the concepts of sonic rupture, presence, absence and memory found in the dub music tradition.

This limited edition 7” by Sticky Buttons puts these two outlying works together for a unique listening experience, combining the human and more-than-human experience of life at the heart of Brazil. Both uniquely Amazonian but with a universal appeal.

Music is a form of world building. I love to develop sonic characters and set them into fictional ecosystems with unique textures, acoustics and atmospheres. Each song forms a different landscape, through which a vocal character guides us and tries to tell us its stories." — Ludwig Berger

Ludwig Berger's 'fictional' debut album "Garden Ediacara" unfolds as a musical eco-fiction, guiding listeners through a speculative ecosystem with synthesized vocals. Infused with storytelling techniques from sci-fi and fantasy, the album intertwines melodic songwriting with electroacoustic sound design. Inspired by hydrofeminism and eco-fiction novels, such as "A Door Into Ocean" by Joan Slonczewski, the album delves into the geological period of Ediacara around 600 million years ago — an era so remote it resonates as a glimpse into a possible future. The Ediacaran period was characterised by a peaceful and thriving ecosystem inhabited by soft-bodied creatures without eyes and bones, which were completely wiped out through the appearance of a new species. "Garden of Ediacara" alludes to this period, celebrating both the pleasures of biodiversity as well as mourning its inevitable loss. The narrative unfolds as an exploration of growth and interconnection in the shadow of a coming extinction. The track titles, written by Daisy Lafarge, reveal themselves as a cohesive poem and contribute to the album's narrative.

Informed by his practice of field recording that focusses on intimate encounters with plants, animals and geological phenomena, as well as his studies in electroacoustic composition, Berger expands his palette for his debut in 'fictional' music. The album prominently features a post-human, non-binary death metal voice synthesizer, physical modeling instruments, and microscopic field recordings of plants, insects, as well as aquatic and geological life. With impressionistic strokes, Ludwig Berger crafts vibrant worlds using glassy timbres and more-than-human voices, guiding listeners through emotionally ambiguous terrain, seamlessly oscillating between moments of intimacy and irritation, melancholy and playfulness.

Ludwig Berger is a landscape sound artist, educator and musician. In his compositions, installations and performances, he enables intimate and playful sonic encounters with plants, animals, buildings and geological entities. He is founder and curator of the label Vertical Music, which releases field recordings and experimental music. Berger holds degrees in electroacoustic composition, as well as musicology, art history and literature. As a sound researcher and teacher at the Institute for Landscape Architecture at ETH Zurich from 2015-2022, he studied the sonic dimension of Japanese gardens, alpine glaciers and urban landscapes, which among other things led to the release of the acclaimed album trilogy 'Melting Landscapes', 'Dammed Landscapes' and 'Buried Landscapes'.

Reissue of the classic 1987 LP by former Barracudas vocalist, Jeremy Gluck in collaboration with Nikki Sudden (Swell Maps + Jacobites) & Rowland S Howard (The Birthday Party + These Immortal Souls) with contributions from Jeffrey Lee Pierce (The Gun Club) and Epic Soundtracks (Swell Maps + Crime & The City Solution). The original LP track 'Hymn' has been removed (Jeremy never liked the vocal) and replaced with a different sounding reprise of the opening track 'Looking For a Place To Fall' at the end of side one, making it feel like a suite. New liner notes by Jeremy Gluck.

LAKE's neues Album "Let's Build A Roof" KLP213 wurde von Nordwest Legende KARL BLAU produziert und ist süß, funky und nostalgisch - ein Inbegriff psychedelischen Pops. Das Vorgänger Album "Oh, The Places We'll Go" bestand aus leichteren, fröhlicheren Songs. Themen wie Wunder und Idealismus zeichneten aber bereits vor, in welche Richtung es beim nächsten Album gehen würde. "Let's Build A Roof" ist wie ein Reisebericht über die Plätze an denen die Band war, die Geschichten die sich da ergaben und die schönen und unschönen Erinnerungen, die aus ihnen hervorgingen. Eli Moore und Ashley Eriksson's strahlende Songwriting Chemie bildet die Grundlage für "Let's Build A Roof". Ihre Retro-Klimper Pop Ästhetik wird durch eine breite Instrumentierung (Synthesizer, Keyboards, Gitarren, Flöten und ausgewählte Percussion Instrumente) und wechselnde Tempi, die eine fragmentierende, kaleidoskopische Wirkung haben, ausgearbeitet. Jeder Track ist ein einzigartiges Juwel. Und ohne die wundersame und kindhafte Schönheit zu opfern, die LAKE in den letzten 4 Jahren ausgamacht hat, beweisen sie mit "Let's Build A Roof", dass Wundersames und Schönes nicht nur Kinderkram sind. Es ist LAKE's anspruchvollstes Werk bis jetzt.

Swedish synth-pop phenomenon Kite's second 7 inch since signing with Dais in 2023 finds the duo of Nicklas Stenemo and Christian Hutchinson Berg swinging for new heights of romantic desolation and baroque grandeur. They describe the A Side, "Losing," as a "six-minute empty call for emotional response." Stately piano and anguished voice reverberate in a vaulted hall, before gradually building into a widescreen anthem of synths, drums, and soaring vocals decrying the steady deadening of life and love: "It's deadly quiet in your old heart / Are you there? / I see dark skies on the rise / And daylight shows no remorse / And I realize it is my life / But It's losing all meaning." Swedish dark music icons Anna von Hausswolff and Henric de la Cour join the chorus as the song cascades towards an ominous horizon. The B Side, "Glassy Eyes," showcases Kite's mastery of somber, sweeping balladry. Hushed church organ elevates and anchors Stenemo's devastated confessional, swaying between resilience and defeat. The band describes the song as a reckoning with "the privileged and existential anxiety of drifting through life dispassionately," contrasted with "the yearning to connect profoundly with others and a desire for experiences that stir the soul before facing one's final moments." Like a hymn, the emotion thickens as it deepens, approaching both darkness and divinity: "Deep as I go, nothing to find / Oh catatonia, I won't cry / Nothing can grow, everything dies / Behind my glassy eyes."

Swedish synth-pop phenomenon Kite's second 7 inch since signing with Dais in 2023 finds the duo of Nicklas Stenemo and Christian Hutchinson Berg swinging for new heights of romantic desolation and baroque grandeur. They describe the A Side, "Losing," as a "six-minute empty call for emotional response." Stately piano and anguished voice reverberate in a vaulted hall, before gradually building into a widescreen anthem of synths, drums, and soaring vocals decrying the steady deadening of life and love: "It's deadly quiet in your old heart / Are you there? / I see dark skies on the rise / And daylight shows no remorse / And I realize it is my life / But It's losing all meaning." Swedish dark music icons Anna von Hausswolff and Henric de la Cour join the chorus as the song cascades towards an ominous horizon. The B Side, "Glassy Eyes," showcases Kite's mastery of somber, sweeping balladry. Hushed church organ elevates and anchors Stenemo's devastated confessional, swaying between resilience and defeat. The band describes the song as a reckoning with "the privileged and existential anxiety of drifting through life dispassionately," contrasted with "the yearning to connect profoundly with others and a desire for experiences that stir the soul before facing one's final moments." Like a hymn, the emotion thickens as it deepens, approaching both darkness and divinity: "Deep as I go, nothing to find / Oh catatonia, I won't cry / Nothing can grow, everything dies / Behind my glassy eyes."

Delphine Dora is a prolific composer, improviser and musician who has released on a plethora of labels including Recital, Morc, Sloow Tapes, Feeding Tube, Okraïna and more, and ‘Le Grand Passage’ is her Modern Love debut, a stunning set of songs for piano and voice, recorded in one take without overdubs or edits.

In an act of pure expression, Delphine Dora recorded the 8 songs of ‘The Great Passage’ in a single take, succumbing to a whirlwind of inspiration that transported her beyond the material world. Baroque paradigms bleed into fragile, introspective mantras, expressed through a made up language of existential yearning and channeled through piano and voice. It’s music that caresses the sublime, made without any premeditation.

Delphine was nearing the end of a three-day prepared piano residency when an technician stepped in to tune her grand piano for her final performance. He removed the objects from the strings and fixed the pitch, leaving Dora with a freshly tuned instrument. Mesmerised by its new sound, she proceeded to switch on her recorder and pour out her soul, channeling, in her own words, "something greater than myself".

The result is some of the most unusual but elevated material the prolific composer, improviser and multi-instrumentalist has ever recorded, rooted in a deep understanding of European musical history but willing to push at its boundaries, questioning the earthly logic of life and death, asceticism and impiety. Glistening imperfections lash 'The Great Passage' to the physical world, but Dora - seemingly possessed as she quivers in a fictional dialect - lets her fantasies intensify her spirit, lifting the music towards the heavens. It's not sacred music, per se, but it is unashamedly mystical.

On the luxurious, languid opening, Dora dissolves eerily familiar romantic piano motifs into an attentive ceremony, singing with charged emotion. Her words aren't really decipherable, but their resonance vibrates beyond language; it's striking to hear how confident she is in vulnerability. She lets the piano wrap into her voice, connecting us directly to a unique mode of emotional expression by urging us - the listener - to project our own meaning onto her abstracted words.

Dora refers to the act of improvisation itself as a way to indicate "the fragility of being”, and as her words blur in and out of focus, dipping from a hoarse croak to a choking wail, she places herself at the very edge of musical formality, questioning strictures put in place to suffocate self-expression. Her music has often been labeled "outsider", but here she sounds intimate and interconnected, more self-consciously candid than anything traditional might have allowed. She conjures affecting, plainspoken poetry, like a bedside diary written in a hypnagogic, delirious state: a stream-of-unconsciousness, channelling the beyond.

The album title connects to a book dedicated to French philosopher and activist Simone Weil, who famously pored over global religions to ascertain spiritual truths. To Weil, meditation was a passage to access mystical experience, or a bridge between humanity and divinity. In Dora's hands, this idea is a corridor between herself and the listener, a liminal place where she's able to address feelings without making anything explicit. The title, of course, also refers to life, its impermanence, finitude, and fragility, presenting the complex, multi-dimensionality of being through one of the most undiluted, unbridled set of songs imaginable.

Hit La Rosa are the heirs of the psychedelic cumbia of Los Mirlos and Los Destellos. The band explores the many facets of Peruvian cumbia music, infusing it with pop music, folklore, jazz and dancehall to produce its distinctive grooves and hooks. “Ceres Entrópicos” it’s a collage of the landscapes and rhythms of Peru, product of sound exploration and free composition. This special edition of the original album has some remarkable additions like ‘El Pongo’, their single with the legendary amazonian group Los Mirlos and the remixes of the outstanding Latin producers El Remolón (Ar) and Ballcap (Mx). The band's precise-yet-dreamlike music and punk sensibility all come together to make music that explores life's shadowy sides. They are one of the Peruvian bands with the biggest international growth and one of the few with a Tiny Desk Session. The band is inspired by the sound of Peruvian Cumbia roots and also explores the folklore of other cultures around the world. Their experimentation is wrapped with a contemporary sound and psychedelic vibe that blends into a particular and unique harmony. The band hit Lima's underground scene in 2014 and released their first studio album in 2017 called "Hit La Rosa y Su Gran Unidad Tropical". In 2021 they released “Ceres Entrópicos”, their secondstudio album (digital only). From the beginning until now they have been part of the biggest festivals in Peru, the rest of Latin America, USA and Europe. “Ceres Entrópicos” it’s a collage of the landscapes and rhythms of Peru, product of sound exploration and free composition. First time vinyl edition

Datashader emerges from the shadows with a striking breaks- and bass-heavy debut release that challenges the fabric of our digital existence. Replete with a Dopplereffekt remix, it nods to the legacy of revered anonymous acts such as Scopex, Drexciya and Underground Resistance, pushing the boundaries of both electronic music exploration and its conceptual underpinnings. As a critique of the erosion of genuine human connection in the digital age, Datashader delivers a barrage of billowing subs, infectious electro, recontextualized jungle, and techno, serving as a poignant counterbalance to current dance floor-centric norms. It’s a contemporary anti-soundtrack that offers a haunting mirror to the societal costs of technological convenience.
In a world engulfed by the digital realm, where social media platforms thrive and dominate every aspect of our lives, the enigmatic project known as Datashader was founded to reflect on the pervasive erosion of authentic human connection through various virtual realities. Artistically, Datashader seeks to critique the impact of technology on human identity and relationships, breaking with an archetype of digital conformity and expressing a profound disillusionment with the superficiality of online interactions through music. Genuine human connection and art cannot be quantified by likes, comments, or followers but rather thrives in the visceral realm of shared sonic experience and human emotion. This idea is at the core idea of Datashader, whose artistic expression ranges from avant-garde composition and electronic experimentations to art, installation, film and more.
Expressed within the varied contexts of diverse artistic mediums, Datashader explores the concept of “technological gentrification”, which describes the gradual displacement of human interaction by technology. Just as gentrification alters the urban landscape, driving out communities and cultures, digital gentrification transforms the social landscape, replacing genuine connection with curated online personas.
Musically, Datashader’s practice confronts this dystopian reality, highlighting the alarming consequence of people becoming mere nodes in a network, reduced to a collection of data points. This is manifested sonically by a blistering assault of breaks, recontextualized IDM, abstract electronics and otherworldly synthscapes, conceived as the aesthetic counterbalance to much of contemporary electronic music’s dancefloor focus.
Datashader dives deep into genres and influences which stand for a form of sonic resistance: A contemporary anti- soundtrack – a sonic mirror of the price we pay for convenience and instant gratification. A self-image in constant flux. No false technological idols.

As part of Subtext's 20th anniversary, Subtext presents the debut album from bela as a co-release with Unsound.

bela was based in Seoul when they began to develop the framework for 'Noise and Cries (굉음과울음)'.Chewed up by a society that's slow to embrace those who exist on the margins, they and their close friends became fixated on the concept of death. "I wanted to cry, I Wanted to die," they recall. "The precariousness of living in South Korea hits different. I thought, let's share what is killing us." bela refused to lose hope, so they inventoried the sounds, experiences and emotions that had formulated their identity and wondered how this might form a different sort of South Korean musical expression. They considered the guttural death metal growls and industrial music they heard when they began to interface with Western culture as a teenager, the idiosyncratic folk rhythms that rattled away in the background of state events, the evocative, euphoric drones that had offered them solace, and the heady, cybernetic maximalism that's come to define contemporary queer club music.If this was going to be an album about death, bela knew wouldn't it be preoccupied with loss, but rooted in a deep desire to regain the will to live.

'Noise and Cries (굉음과울음)' is the first time bela has recorded their voice, and they metamorphose it from moment to moment, embracing a precarious vulnerability. Opener 'The Sage' references Jungtaryeong, two well-known arias from the Korean Pansori tradition - a folk form that is usually performed by a drummer and a singer. Screaming, whispering and rasping, bela twists borrowed words from the original arias, repurposing them to highlight the hypocrisy and brutality of patriarchal wisdom.

These bellowed phrases contrast with an abrasive rhythm that bela based on the eatmore jangdan, an irregular, traditional beat that's been remoulded into a jerky, electro-acoustic call to action. Even if the gargled Korean wordplay can't be fully understood, the mood translate flawlessly. On 'Death Will I', they reassemble the damaged relationship between a queer child and their

US progressive metal band EXIST make their return this Spring with their fourth album, Hijacking the Zeitgeist, set for release via Prosthetic Records on April 12. EXIST’s latest full-length sees the group expand upon their established dichotomy of extreme metal technicality and sanguine atmospherics with an intentionally more concise approach to songwriting, resulting in the most direct and emphatic album of their 14 year career. Similarly to 2020’s Egoiista, EXIST took on a keen co-production role as recording sessions commenced in early 2022, with the band emphasising a collaborative approach to the songs arrangements. Drum co-production was handled by John Douglass (Mr. Bungle, Entheos and The Contortionist) before vocals were handled by Mike Semesky in the winter. Hijacking the Zeitgeist’s sonic heft isn’t without its diaphanous counterpoints too, as Phelps and new addition Charles Eron (guitar and synths) craft deceptively complex interplay on album high points in Thief of Joy (featuring Sanjay Kumar of Inferi and Wormhole), Blue Light Infinite and soaring closer Window to the All. EXIST’s sonorous sonic landscape is bolstered by immersive rhythmic lock-ins between Alex Weber (bass and vocals) and Brody Smith (drums), that shine in Anup Sastry’s mix and Kris Crummett’s mastering work. At the core of Hijacking the Zeitgeist lies a multifaceted exploration of algorithmic rabbit holes, conspiratorial paranoia, and the universal traits that lie within humanity - these cautionary tales are tied together in striking detail with album art by Sebastian Jerke. EXIST treats both the allure and perils of both digital mazes and the real world, with equal parts wide eyed awe and horror.

Five years on from their acclaimed second album “Public Mono”, Burning Ferns return with a new LP “World Of The Wars”. And my oh my, how things have changed. “World Of The Wars” is the sound of a band grappling with the world going to hell, and making sense of it through the medium of pristine guitar pop. Initially recorded remotely in the face of Covid lockdown and completed at their Le Mons studio, Newport in 2021/22, it is an album of relentless musicality and guile. Songwriter Tony Gray displays unerring quality control to deliver 12 startling new songs that push on from the power pop of previous releases to more widescreen musical aspirations.
Mitwirkende
veröffentlicht am 7. April 2023

Songs wriiten by Anthony Gray. The album was mixed by Charlie Francis (REM/High Llamas/Robyn Hitchcock) with artwork provided by Newport’s greatest cult hero, the musician and artist, Jon Langford.

PHANTOM OF THE AFTERS is the 3rd album from Irish rapper Kojaque, out on his very own Soft Boy Records. With landmark projects Deli Daydreams and Town’s Dead, that saw him 2x nominated for Choice Music Prize, receive support from Radio 1, 1xtra, 6Music, support Loyle Carner & Lana Del Rey and headline festivals across Ireland, Kojaque changed the rap landscape (and Irish culture) for good. Collaborations on his latest project include Biig Piig, Wiki, Charlotte Dos Santos and Gotts Street Park. The album traces blurred outlines of childhood trauma, depression, grief and love, interweaving the physical and emotional journey of central character Jackie Dandelion with bigger questions about immigrant identity, homesickness, cultural stereotypes and ultimately the reconciliation of self. Kojaque has created a cinematic-universe that is bigger in scope but also more tender and intimate in approach than ever before. It’s this willingness to be vulnerable - grotesque, even - that’s captured in the album’s iconic artwork, which subverts the bigoted depictions of Irish caricatures in 19th and 20th century Punch Magazine cartoons and sees this particular Phantom of the Opera remove not just those distorted masks, but also his own.

With songs that are cocksure and contemplative, brutally honest but also refreshingly myth-making, PHANTOM OF THE AFTERS marks a new era from Kojaque: one of his generation’s most unique talents. In suitably audio-visual style, the album traces blurred outlines of childhood trauma, depression, grief and love. It interweaves the journey of central character Jackie Dandelion from Dublin to London with bigger questions about immigrant identity, homesickness, cultural stereotypes and ultimately the reconciliation of self. It’s this willingness to be vulnerable - grotesque, even - that’s captured in the iconic artwork, which subverts the bigoted depictions of Irish caricatures in 19th and 20th century Punch Magazine cartoons and sees this particular Phantom of the Opera remove not just those distorted masks, but also his own.

The record drops alongside one of its more brooding moments, ‘WHAT IF?’: a soulful ode to anxiety, and the crippling impact of fear in moving forward in life or your relationships. “I’ve been obsessed with Charlotte Dos Santos ever since I heard her project Cleo,” Kojaque comments. “She’s just got such a distinct voice and sound. I sent the track over hoping she’d be into it and she sent me back a near perfect hook.” A fully independent artist, Kojaque has brought a stellar lineup of guests together on his latest work: from Biig Piig, Charlotte Dos Santos and NY rapper Wiki (who featured on ‘JOHNNY MCENROE’) to Gotts Street Park (‘BAMBI’) plus production credits such as Calvin Valentine (Ryan Beaty), Tony Seltzer (Eartheater, Freddie Gibbs) and Karma Kid (Hak Baker, Shygirl).

PHANTOM OF THE AFTERS will see Kojaque continue to blaze a trail around the world. He first came to prominence with the genre-bending concept record Deli Daydreams: it became the first mixtape to ever be nominated for the Choice Music Prize, and demonstrated his prowess not only as a polymathic artist, but DIY label-head (co-founding Soft Boy Records, which was subject to a Boiler Room documentary) and visual artist (Kojaque has received a prestigious Royal Hibernian Academy Award for his film-making). Even as the rest of the world sat up and paid Irish Art some long-overdue attention, Kojaque’s creative output has remained thrillingly uncompromising. Tour-de-force debut album Town’s Dead examined everything from gentrification, masculinity and mental health to a gnarly love-triangle unfolding on New Year’s Eve, held together by a multi-hyphenate attitude. Once again nominated for the Choice Prize, Kojaque played a sold-out UK & European headline tour around the restrictive local lockdowns, with the album landing additional support across the likes of Radio 1, 1xtra, 6Music, plus shows with Lana Del Rey and Loyle Carner (who also sampled Kojaque on hugo). With his landmark projects to date, Kojaque changed the rap landscape (and Irish culture) for good. On PHANTOM OF THE AFTERS, you sense he’s just getting started.

'starsdust' is an ambient album composed from the fragments of Runnner's 2023 album 'like dying stars, we're reaching out.' singles 'ten' and 'eleven' are glitchy, colorful moments of reflection stretched across a few meditative minutes. Runnner's noah weinman says on the creation of this release: "I made one rule for myself while making this record and it was that I wasn't allowed to record any new audio. Every sound on this album is a repurposed stem from Like Dying Stars, We're Reaching Out. I was allowed to pitch, flip, stretch, and chop anything I wanted, but everything had to begin from something already recorded for the last album. It started out as something fun to do in transit (and to alleviate my flight anxiety). I was doing a lot of solo touring at the time and my affinity for cheap Southwest Airlines flights meant a lot of layovers. I think I made the first three or four sketches either in the air or at the airport. I made the rest of the album during the spring of 2023 when I was mostly stuck in bed recovering from tearing my achilles tendon and the subsequent surgery. A project that seemed to perfectly fit my constraints. The initial process of making these songs was an attempt to remove myself from the process a bit. I'd (sort of) randomly choose stems from songs, like the bass from one track, the drums from another, and maybe find a banjo or piano loop from a third, and then throw them together. It usually made something chaotic at first, but the joy of the album was sifting through that initial cacophony and finding the kernel of the song to keep pursuing. Many attempts were abandoned, but the twelve featured here I consider to be my most fruitful endeavors. It was very exciting, scary, and rewarding to step outside of my wheelhouse on this record and I hope you ennnjoy it."

, Old fat furry cat-puss , Wake up and look at this thing that I bring, Wake up, be bright , Be golden and light , Bagpuss, Oh hear what I sing. 12th of February, 1974, and for an audience of small children at 1:45pm, a life irrevocably coloured by the wayward wonderings of one saggy cloth cat. Some 44 years later and Earth Recordings opens the door to Bagpuss & Co. once again, revealing for the first time the original music in all its newly-mastered splendour. The 32 tracks that make up the main body of the compositions are – like all good folk music – a patchwork of traditional pieces, half-remembered tunes and pure improvisation. It's testament to Sandra Kerr and John Faulkner's musicianship that the recordings work so well, not only within the context of the television episodes, but as an album in its own right. Of the recording, Oliver Postgate (in his exquisite autobiography 'Seeing Things') says: "Between them Sandra and John could play every sort of instrument from a mountain dulcimer to an Irish fiddle. They knew and could sing every tune in the world and didn't bother with written music, except as a last resort. They were exactly suited to Gabriel the Toad and Madeleine the Rag Doll and in those roles were happy to play whatever music and sing whatever songs would be needed." Those songs manifested themselves as reworkings of familiar tunes ('I Saw A Ship'; 'Row Your Boat'; 'Bucket's Burning'), takes on traditional ballads ('Brian O'Lynn'; 'The Frog Princess'; 'Weaving Song'; 'The Old Woman Tossed Up in a Basket') and delicious flights of fancy ('The Bony King of Nowhere'; 'Turtle Calypso'; 'Uncle Feedle'). The counterpart to Madeleine and Gabriel's more polished ditties are the interludes from the mice; a raggle-taggle chorus that accompanies the creatures' efforts of help (with the mice once famously going on strike when they were not permitted sang as they worked). Again, Postgate muses: "Once I had worked out a few episodes I would make a very rough list of the bits where I though music would be appropriate. I would send it to Sandra and John to think about. Then we would borrow a fairly silent room in a remote house and, taking the various articles that we intended to celebrate with us, would spend a happy day with a tape recorder, thinking up and recording whatever songs and tunes came to mind." The outtakes provide an intimate – and often very humourous – insight into the trio's work ethic, if it can be called such a thing. (By all accounts they sound as though they're having a very jolly time indeed.) Highlights include alternative opening words and end music, as well as Postgate sound-checking in character as Bagpuss. This never-before heard audio provides a real treat for fans (and indeed those new to the Smallfilms stable) – affirmation again to the enduring quality of these special recordings, and the beloved programme that inspired them. "An accidental classic of the folk-roots underground that we never dared hope we’d hear with such clarity."Stewart Lee

LEGENDO is a work of sonic weird fiction. A pulp fantasy. A descent through the cracks in reality, punctuated by bizarre encounters and freaky transformations. It oozes an odd mixture of wonder and fear, a fascination with whatever might be lurking around the next unlit corner, met with relentless excitement and leading towards ghastly discoveries. Like a vision of a new mythological age, one that aims more at subverting and making fun of itself than educating towards any kind of morality. Or a self-conscious fantasy RPG turning into a full-on immersive experience. The author, Lubomir Grzelak AKA Lutto Lento, arranged this eccentric narrative as a follow up to his previous LP, the ominous Dark Secret world, while also settling out to subvert the atmosphere of that record. In his Haunter debut he embraces his own quirkier side, delving further into eerie derision and surreal trickery. He achieves that by remodeling his penchant for heavy bass and gloomy dub into a kind of otherworldly folk music, drawing in deterritorialized string instruments, cheeky digital sound design, Coil-ian horror synths, and drums that remind as much of heavy metal as of Hollywood neo-classicism. It is by pushing the envelope on the most contradictory elements that LEGENDO ascends to a form of mocking poetry. Many weird characters are encountered through the narrative: from the various musicians that contributed to the music (such as vocalist John Glacier, guitarist Adam Repucha and koto player Katarzyna Karpińska), but also many fringe fascinations that hail from Grzelak’s native Poland: from the 1897 painting ‘Skarby Sezamu' by Stanislaw Wyspiański that inspired the track of the same name, to the delirious paganism of outsider artist Stanislaw Skukalski, to the lullaby referenced in ‘Iskiereczka’. These entities all dwell inside LEGENDO and conduct its chapters, rendering the liminal dimension of its sound as real as it is in its creator’s mind.

A quietly influential figure among electronic and experimental circles since the late 90s, Berlin based sound artist Hanno Leichtmann has been developing a sprawling and idiosyncratic vision both as a creator and curator.

With a keen sense for charting new territories, Leichtmann's work spawns a multitude of languages that go from deli-cate ambient excursions to techno explorations or abstract sceneries on numerous sound installations, releases on such esteemed labels like Entr'acte or The Tapeworm and collaborations with artists like Valerio Tricoli or Jan Jelinek. A reflection of his keen sense of discovery.

Centered around the Villa Aurora Organ, an intriguing and mostly unknown instrument built in 1928/29 by the Artcraft Organ Company in Santa Monica, California, 'Outerlands' presents a deeply personal approach to the instrument's particular properties, very much in line with Discrepant's ethos. Consisting of a pipe organ, a wall mounted marimba and a two octave tubular bells/chimes ensemble, remotely controllable by MIDI, the Villa Aurora Organ's rich palette of sounds is translated into 12 short tracks capable of conveying the mesmerising spirits of minimalism, exotica and de-votional music.

Starting with the ecstatic sound of the pipe organ, 'Lucero' sets up the hypnotic mood for 'Outerland's excursions through moments of spiralling repetition - 'Tramonto' -, blissful contemplation - 'Sunset' or 'Notteargenta' - or underly-ing tension - ‘Coperto’. 'Espera' amps up the unease, with queasy organ tones lurking beneath marimba harmonic motifs that wouldn't sound out of of place on some survival horror movie, while 'Miramar' or 'Revello' bring an uncanny sense of familiarity through its repetitive melodies.

Drifting seamlessly through a variety of moods that somehow feel connected - the outerlands are within you, if you allow yourself to let go.

Northwest & Nebulous is Liverpool-based musician Luce Mawdsley’s sixth studio release, a lush and accomplished instrumental album suffused with radiant and fluid possibilities, where expansively cinematic instrumentals conjure queer cowboy landscapes via the Northern English coastline. The album is a world-building piece of work, pulling from folk, Americana and soundtrack influences, fusing their romantic and exploratory energies to signal the beginning of a new journey for composer, with an open invitation for listeners to come along for the ride. The album was recorded and mixed by Luce Mawdsley in the Grade II listed Scandinavian Church in Liverpool, with a core chamber trio of Luce on guitar, organ and percussion, Nicholas Branton on clarinets, and Rachel Nicholas on viola. A self-taught musician, Mawdsley has released a host of both solo and collaborative albums (Mésange, Cavalier Song), and in 2023 started Pure O records, an independent record label dedicated to the nurture of queer and curious music based in the Northwest of England. “Wordlessly fashions heady, droney atmospheres that could soundtrack a film where a man walks through a monochrome desert” - The Quietus “The spindly guitars and knotty progressions of ‘Insect Fire Dance’ and ‘Heathen’ explore an unprissy English prog with soil under its fingernails” - 8/10 UNCUT "A triumph of imagination – a wide-eyed stare at the skies, in love with sound and possibility." - **** The Skinny “It’s not a stretch to suggest that no one is making music like Mawdsley. While the Liverpool visionary’s 2020 release, Vulgar Displays of Affection (Maple Death Records), was something likened to splintered bones passing through a meat grinder, Mawdsley’s Luke Two is far removed, solidifying the notions of an artist leaping from one sound world” - Sun 13 “Hallucinatory echoes of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s dream-realism symbolic El Topo share room with otherworldly portals and the all-too real depressive, bleak traps of a run-down, unloved English seaside town.” Monolith Cocktail

Carpet is a band from Germany with huge influences by prog rock, psychedelic music, stoner rock and jazz. It's like putting Motorpsycho, Jaga Jazzist, the Notwist and the Beatles in a studio to create new material together. After their debut "Elysian Pleasures" in 2013, which was highly appreciated by listeners and the press (e.g. album of the month, eclipsed magazine), they widened their musical spectrum on the following two albums "Secret Box" (2017) and "About Rooms and Elephants" (2018) - all released on the Colour Haze Label Elektrohasch. The path to the new album began with a songwriting weekend in a tiny, remote cottage in the Italian Alps and continued in the band's own studio and in the studio of their mixing engineer Maximilian Wörle in their hometown Augsburg. With "Collision", Carpet recorded a strong and powerful album: "Some songs and parts were created in one go, almost from the gut, and are bursting with energy. Others were worked out down to the last detail and developed into sophisticated song structures." It is certainly this perfectly dosed, precise mixture of a heavy rock attitude with sophisticated songwriting and finely balanced arrangements that in a way marks the band's DNA.

Circus of Desire is the much anticipated third studio album from Grammy-nominated folk singer-songwriter Olivia Chaney. Worked up over five eventful years, this collection of lovingly wrought songs was recorded in NYC with long-time collaborator, producer and musician Thomas Bartlett (David Byrne, the Magnetic Fields, Sufjan Stevens, The National, St. Vincent, Father John Misty)

Consisting of ten originals and one cover (a revoicing of Dory Previn’s haunting ballad ‘Lady with the Braid’), this album is Olivia set free. Taking their departure from real life experiences, these songs strain towards the universal. The title track blends the carnivalesque and meditations on ancient wisdom with an anthemic, dancy refrain. ‘Calliope’ is a tribute to Olivia’s daughter, named after the Greek muse of music and epic poetry, picturing this little life as part of the ever-revolving cosmos. ‘To the Lighthouse’ tells the story of her sister who left the capital to live on a remote island. Like ‘Mirror, Mirror’ and ‘Why’, a pair of tracks about erotic love, this song reflects upon our capacity to flee and transcend inherited trauma. ‘Zero Sum’ is a setting of a metaphysical number poem by Olivia’s grandfather, a mathematician and poet. ‘I Wish’ - the album closer, is the ultimate breakup song.

Whilst staying true to her folk roots, Olivia enters new musical territories with Circus of Desire, venturing into the realms of pop and dance. The record features cameos from a number of friends, including string arrangements by Nico Muhly and banjo and guitar from Sam Amidon. The result of this rich blend of musical influences is an album that looks honestly, sometimes despairingly, but primarily hopefully at the carnival that is life - ‘we’re in a dance with death, with fire…we’re all in a circus of desire’.

Circus Of Desire by olivia Chaney, released 22 March 2024, includes the following tracks: "Why", "Galop", "Bogeyman", "Mirror, Mirror" and more.

This version of Circus Of Desire comes as a 1xLP.

LP in gatefold sleeve. The band members are active with an impressive list of bands and projects - in pop, jazz and remote areas -, and relinquish this broad-mindedness with a self-evident love for adventure and exciting interaction.The result is a collective in continual transformation, maintaining a balancing act between wonder and determination.

Exactly two years after their debut album, the project formerly known as Weltschmerzen returns as Pain Palace. The project's new moniker resolves potential confusion with the eponymous record label, but it is a change in name only // the music remains ambiguous in genre but emotionally resolute, an amalgam of approaches bound by an awareness of the remorseful nature of the world.

This is a continuity in creed rather than sound. Apart from the occasional drums // peculiarly captivating in tempo and rhythm // Pain Palace do little to invoke their first album. Despite the similar setting of an intensive week-long recording session in rural Slovakia, the trio arrives at a place that is distinct even from all their earlier projects. From a viewpoint where the world's indifference is recognised as a landscape, the tracks are presented as seven distinct perspectives that range from brutalist chaos to tenderness but always remain compassionate.

This is best revealed in On the Height of Despair // the album's nearly ten-minute-long climax that seemingly borders on collage only to become an engulfing suite of severe movements. The music of Pain Palace stands apart from what Tomáš Pristiak, Matus Mordavsky and Dominik Suchy create either solo or in their respective bands (Tante Elze, Tittingur), and it is the 13th release by the wistful label Weltschmerzen.

Miles Davis created just one studio album with his original sextet: Milestones. And he made every moment count. Pairing with Cannonball Adderley, John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones, Davis not only laid the groundwork for the modalism that immediately followed but tailored a genuine modern-jazz masterwork laden with performances among the most explosive of his distinguished career. Sandwiched between the more famous 'Round About Midnight and the epochal Kind of Blue, Milestones remains a seminal work of art.

Sourced from the original master tapes and pressed on dead-quiet SuperVinyl, Mobile Fidelity's numbered-edition 180g LP grants each musician their own space amid broad soundstages. Afforded the benefits of a nearly non-existent noise floor and supreme groove definition, this vinyl reissue doubles as a time machine back to the February-March 1958 recording sessions.

Colors, shapes, and dimensions appear in the manner that resembles what you'd glean from behind a studio control room's window. Davis' burnished trumpet is rendered in three-dimensional perspective and seemingly coaxes the band to play with unburdened zest. Coltrane's trademark saxophone teems with lifelike tonality and images with specificity; his solos work in tandem with and against the driving rhythms. Garland's swaggering piano lines? Visualize the keys as he hits full stride, the chords and fills slithering around skeletal frameworks.

Inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and selected as a "Core Collection" record by the Penguin Guide to Jazz, Milestones is as famous for its title track – widely considered ground zero for modalism and bolstered by Jones' hallmark "Philly Lick" rim shot – as the players that produced it. The launching pad for many of Davis' improvisational flights, the album teases the explorations Coltrane would soon chase. Davis' own solo work broaches territories that far exceed what he had done in his bop-rooted past. Every song is a highlight.

Take the bravado "Dr. Jackle," featuring a hot-foot pace and bebop strains, or "Sid's Ahead," which continues the album's blues theme while juggling edgy harmonics and inside-out structures. On "Billy Boy," distinguished with an arco bass solo from Chambers, Garland gets a turn in the spotlight and channels the openness practised by one of his heroes, Ahmad Jamal. Even more instructive is the band's reading of Dizzy Gillespie's "Two Bass Hit." Three years removed from the version Davis and company recorded for the trumpeter's Columbia debut, this interpretation demonstrates the extent to which the group had jelled in a relatively short amount of time.



Then there's "Straight, No Chaser," the definitive rendition of Thelonious Monk's signature piece. Coltrane's marbled playing pulls at the tune's borders, Adderley takes liberty with solos, and Davis dances around his mates, at one point quoting "When the Saints Go Marching In" while demonstrating his knowledge of tradition and casting an eye towards the future.

About that future. Garland already had one foot out the door during the Milestones sessions to the extent Davis spells him on "Sid's Ahead." Jones would stick around for a bit longer but soon plot his exit. History proves Davis navigated the changes with visionary aplomb. Yet the chemistry, excitement, and beauty the sextet achieves on Milestones cannot be overstated. This reissue helps put the album in proper perspective – and presents the music the fidelity it deserves.

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.

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.

First compiled as a double CD in 2002, Moon's Milk (in Four Phases) is a suite of four EPs that Coil released seasonally via their in-house Eskaton imprint across 1998. The line-up for these sessions were John Balance, Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson, Drew McDowall, and William Breeze. Recorded primarily at their home studio in Chiswick, London on the eve of a permanent relocation to the small seaside town of Weston-Super-Mare, the collection has long loomed as a pivotal and pinnacle work in the group's discography, but has never been officially reissued, or repressed on vinyl. Time has only ripened its tapestry of regal strangeness. Arranged sequentially in tribute to the equinoxes and solstices, Moon's Milk captures Coil at a revelatory crossroads, leaning deeper into improvisation, spontaneity, and sound design. "Moon's Milk or Under an Unquiet Skull" initiates the proceedings on Spring Equinox, a two-part netherworld organ séance woven from vocal drones, cathedral keys, seasick strings, and opiated undertow. From there, Summer Solstice skews lighter but no less incantational, with Balance embracing his voice-as-instrument across lucid dream torch songs ("Bee Stings"), purgatorial spoken word ("Glowworms/Waveforms"), sultry chamber pieces ("Summer Substructures"), and falsetto ravings ("A Warning From The Sun (For Fritz)"). Autumn Equinox exudes more of a pensive and twilit mood, from the Rose McDowall-sung folk ballad "Rosa Decidua" ("I hear your voice sing near to me / I've put away the poisoned chalice (for now) / And lie down amongst the flowerbeds") to hall-of-lords hallucination "The Auto-Asphyxiating Hierophant" to the liminal string-plucked classic "Amethyst Deceivers," featuring excellent alien guitar by Breeze layered with Balance's oft-quoted couplet: "Pay your respects to the vultures / For they are your future." The album's final chapter, Winter Solstice, is its most swooning, remote, and ceremonial. Opener "A White Rainbow" stirs strings, layered choral vocals, and shivering rhythm into an imploding burial hymn. "North" oscillates bleakly, a ghost in the machine murmuring opaque prophecy ("This black dog has no owner / This black dog has no odour"), while "Magnetic North" is its inverse, a guided meditation of gently flickering software and surreal chakra poetics ("Red rose filling the skull / Yellow cube in the lower pelvis / Silver moon crescent below the navel"). The suite fades to grey with a traditional English carol ("Christmas Is Now Drawing Near"), rendered like an executioner's song by Rose McDowall's doomed, beautiful voice. The Dais box set includes the entirety of the rare Moon's Milk Bonus Disc CD-R / 2019 Threshold Archives Copal CD, which includes three collaborations with Thighpaulsandra. This material is as rich and intoxicating as the previous four phases, ranging from electro-acoustic singing bowl rituals ("Copal") to dissonant electronic recitations of visionary Angus MacLise poetry ("The Coppice Meat") to ominous classical melancholia ("Bankside"). Once again, Coil confirm the vastness of their confounding, infinite alchemy, explored and refined across decades of experimentation - both sonic and bodily. From postindustrial to post-everything, theirs is an art untethered, in the wilds of its own design.

Stunning outernational funk for the psych breaks dancefloor featuring the mesmerizing vocals of Ukrainian jazz singer Mona. Sung in her mother language, "Moya Vode" is about the "ancient ritual to put a spell on water and remove all negativity through its power".

Mona and MC Fame, a well-known Ukrainian hiphop producer and activist, both left their hometown Kyiv last year and found a new home in the Hammerbrook district of Hamburg, Germany, where they quickly connected with the lively funk scene of the city. Together with the Mocambo crew they set off to work out some magic by combining universal funk grooves and Ukrainian folklore.

Mona's mystical soulful vocals are backed by the "Hammerbrook Sound Machine", a group featuring members of Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band and the Mighty Mocambos, with instruments like the Tsymbaly or Drymba added on top. The "folk-funk" continues more electronically on the instrumental flip side when MC Fame takes over the lead on Moog synthesizer. Dive into this spell!

Following on from debut album 'For Years' and previous Hemlock releases 'October/Macondo' and 'Shaded/Antipolo' we are proud to present the new release from Airhead.

'Lightness' marks a subtle yet precise shift into new sonic territory, beating at a higher tempo and releasing from much of the dominant of sub bass that propelled his earlier work. The refracted take on drum and bass was conceived while staring out over Laurel Canyon and realising the desire to float away. Once grounded, Rob set about trying to capture that feeling by removing all weight from the drums and letting the melodies drift through. Harmonically this is his most advanced record, drawing inspiration from studying and adapting some of the techniques from Joe Pass, Barry Harris, Ted Greene and Mick Goodrick to work for other instruments.

The overall sound is analog and highly dynamic, featuring tightly packed layers of guitar recordings and effects treatments. Clips of ethereal sounding experiments with synthetic voice software can be heard on 'Still Waiting For U' and 'Ghosts in CS' punctuating the sweetness with an air of uncertainty. The symphonic closing piece 'Unbearable Lightness' is a collaboration with American contemporary classical composer Nico Muhly.

Airhead operates uniquely within electronic music, as a session musician he regularly performs at iconic venues to huge crowds yet is still relatively unknown as a producer outside of UK underground circles. Lightness is his most bold and individual release to date and is destined to reach a wider audience.

dog-rose is an exploration of musical articulation and vocalization. Its themes can be felt gnawing at the surface of the world: people's clumsy everyday intimacies, the neverending pursuit of self-knowledge, God. Of foremost interest was the unreliability of memory as a tool through which we experience life, yielding an attempt to dismantle it into its minute elements.

"I arrived at a combination of diary entries in the form of field recordings, various, mostly acoustic, instruments through which I invoke different modes of memory // its associative functions, and my own voice, more an agent of introspection than any conventional vocal. The lyrics were originally written as pop-songs, but committed to the form of contemporary music they appear as field recordings made to be sung. They are field-songs."

"To me, musicmaking is a dialogue with sounds where I seek to understand their character and how to handle them. This is a performative process and admittedly also a projection – what I am actually discussing is myself. The recording took place at a remote cabin in the forests of Tribeč. Most of my work is created in isolation, regardless of the social distancing and lockdowns of the outside world."

Tomas Pristiak is a member of Tante Elze, Pain Palace (FKA Weltschmerzen), and dog-rose is his first solo album and the 11th release by contemplative label Weltschmerzen.