Suche:s tunes

Rico Puestel is back on Exhibition with a surprise 3-track EP from the Dub realms! Something not necessarily to expect from him right here, right now...

Inspired by the music playing in the record stores on his childhood day visits, Rico zen-likely crafted these special dub tunes that feel like an endless BR Space Night episode from his teenager days...

In 1990, a friend was thinking about acquiring a synthesiser...

Synthesisers... mysterious keyboard instruments with lots of knobs that made strange sounds. Something we’ve always known about but never really had an opportunity to experience up close. Most of the music we grew up listening to and loved featured synths.

So we trawled through the Trading Post and found an old Roland JX-8P going cheap. I had a car, my friend had the cash - now we had a synth! We wanted to make electronic music, but something was missing...

Shortly after, a drum machine was acquired. Like the synth, we had no clue about them but very soon a Roland TR-707 was acquired. Pooling our remaining funds, we purchased a 4-track tape recorder and began to learn how to use these instruments to compose music.

Fast forward to 1991, SWLABR was born. I'd fallen down the techno rabbit hole and amassed several more electronic devices... synths, samplers, sequencers and began composing tunes with a techno flavour in my bedroom studio - some of which feature on this EP in all their original glory, tape hiss included!

Bonded over the struggles of the pandemic and a mutual love for Motown, Soul and Afrobeat, Denmark"s renowned outlet for jazz, April Records proudly presents "Moko Jumbie", the debut by it"s latest outfit "A Plane To Catch". The vibrant Danish jazz scene came to a crashing halt along with the rest of the world in early 2020, and a tight-knit community of up-and-coming musicians were thrust into a void, robbed of the largest part of their livelihood and joy, live performance. Gathering in a graffiti-smudged artist"s space in an old industrial facility in Copenhagen"s outskirts, they created a space for themselves to improvise in a funky, groove-based setting. What came out was an expression of longing for all that was lost during the pandemic - a musical antidote to the loss of fun, joy, community, movement, travel and youthful abandon that the pandemic had temporarily put a halt to. Exploring the rich exchange between West African musical traditions and Western funk and soul, this is music meant for dancing, transporting the listener to dance floors both real and imagined. Featuring warm, raw production the record creates a real sense of energy and intimacy, as if the listener is in a dark club with an electric jam band. Through the eight compositions the quintet joyfully navigates familiar harmonic clichés from 70"s soul tunes, a variety of infectious toe-tapping grooves, playful improvisations and melodic duo horn arranging. Explorations of darker tonalites popularied be Ethio-Jazz legend Mulatu Astatke provide a welcome departure through harmonic contrast and propulsive polyrhythmic groove. The title "Moko Jumbie" derives from a mythical character in Afro-Caribbean folklore. During carnival season masked Moko Jumbies can be seen dancing on stilts in colorful garments, towering over the crowds. Part gods, part healers, part ghosts, and most importantly: moving expressions of freedom and the perfect mascot for this celebratory album.

Ruth Koleva hails from Sofia, Bulgaria, and has been a TV star and singing out concert halls for years. She has also long been singing on some superb broken beat and nu-jazz records while working with top-level production talent and having her tunes remixed by Zed Bias, Kaidi Tatham, Mark de Clive-Lowe and Eric Lau.

The neo-soul star's Ruth album gets a special anniversary edition release here with four heart-melting and textbook neo-soul tunes on the A-side then some super remixes on the flip. This is timeless stuff that works on the heart and the heel in equal measure.

Repressed!

Sound of a legend of the Vinyl back to the Vinyl... Never left rave... And still Rave On ! 3 tunes of an acid classic style, maitrisé...The sound is clear and easy like a rising sun. Cheezy, Ravy, Psché, and BANGING !

Repress!

Superb new LP from the crew... Magestic tunes, dancefloor, melting new tricks to the old shcool style of each... Defenitly a beautyful pack of anthem ! Soon at a cinema near you:)

The sleeve from Lilas Dupont is a pure jewel.

The music opens with our praised IND and a mystic Acid Tribe tune, thinlace of acid glass bubbles... The l'Art Cene and Severus tunes brings a sweet kick experimentation. The flip is in the same vein : mental and delicate acid fairy tales.

Derrick Jamerson was the son of Motown bassist James Jamerson Jr. and grandson of Motown Funk Brother's house band bassist James Jamerson. He himself made a select few house records back in the mid-nineties which have been unearthed by some contemporary deep diggers.

A couple of his tunes now get reissued on this The Legacy Continues EP on Endangered Musique. 'So Hard' is traditional US house with organ chords, chattery claps and well-placed vocal samples, then 'Hot House' gets a bit more loose and soulful. On the flip are three different versions of Derrick's biggest tune, 'Adventures Of A Disco Diva', all of which bring some form of piano house magic.

C-Mantle skillz for three Speedcore/Breakcore mental tunes, complex structures and rhythms, a true innovative happening in the world of Hardcore ! But at first you'll get a mental Dubcore 180 BPM, long thick fat weapon to play with Dj Scud Soot tune :) - Pressed at 200 – 150 only for sale.

The label is crated by Mathtiiaas Rosén (Mattias Lindgren) AKA Microman in 1995 in Stureby outside south of Stockholm Sweden.
in the beginning as a way of getting out things that Plumphuse Records did not...

After moving to UK in 98 more got in to it´s own "style" much because of London and that market, ...The label is just Microman´s backyard for experiments and try fix the holes in a dj set, the tunes needed in between the other. A techouse deep house funk house techno hybrid, now lately with the Ahab 13 taking the jump in to Brake Beat and Jungle looking back paying respect to 1998 old school.

Ahab 15 is here and Microman is on the case with a four track ep called: Freja - With a melodic yet stomping sound for both the bar before the gig.

A1: Stoopid Geneie 126 BPM a dark random bass and motion progressive rhymes.
A2: Omberg 122 BPM deep house soft rumble bass positive cords... To the more Techno style.
B1: Freja 132 BPM hybrid techouse journey with a brake down after 03:30 going into strings and full bass line revealed.
B2: Lite mer forskning 130 BPM balearic style sound with electric live bass and steel guitar melancholic melody.

Psycho Bummer is proud to present UFO!, a true originator for bass music in the United States and a hero to us since before we can remember. As part of San Francisco's Phunckateck crew in the 90's, UFO!'s early music staked out a militantly abstract form of techstep that was unlike anything else around at the time. Releases like "Science Fact / Enemy Infiltration" in 1999 were among the first US-produced drum'n'bass records that many stateside ravers bought, and while we can only speak for ourselves, UFO! was a huge inspiration in getting us to make our own music.

On the "Level Up" EP, UFO! continues a recent exploration of jungle, footwork, and juke-influenced tracks that are completely unpretentious and fun yet carry a certain strain of weirdness that links back to his early music. From heads down rollers like "Operation Drag n Drop" to the bizarre rush of "Level Up", this stuff is unmistakably UFO! and it's an honor to have him on our label. We hope you'll love these tunes as much as we do.

Ches Was born in Barbados, and from that faraway small group of islands comes this outstanding piece of Caribbean Soul. Like many of the artists we love, Ches had his fair share of travels and troubles. He dedicated his whole life to music pursuing that ideal of living by the dream we all keep sticking to when it comes to soul music. After the teenage years spent listenting to the sound of the American Black Music legends of the times, whose frequencies made it to the radio stations in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, he decided to pack up and go big studying music in New York City thus finding he was gifted with songwriting, where he always puts soul, jazz and a touch of reggae music. Wirl label (West Indies Record Ltd.) was his recording home with which he released a number of tunes both solo and with his band The Outfits. He then traveled far and wide, spending a couple of years in Canada (another proof of Canada’s music industry solid ties with the sound from the islands), eventually ending up where Funk Investigators’ patrol member Yann Vatiste has found him and secured the license for this release. Stay tuned for more tales about this man, he might be closer to you than you think.

Yo! Boombox is the new instalment of Soul Jazz Records’ Boombox series on the early days of hip-hop on vinyl and features some of the many innovative underground first-wave of early rap and disco rap records made in the USA in the period 1979-83.

The album includes the first releases of seminal groups such as Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five and The Funky Four Plus One More through to a host of rarities and little-known obscurities such as the Carver Area High School band’s ‘Get Live 83’, an awesome record made at a Chicago high school.


The album is released as a deluxe triple LP complete with 3x full inner sleeves of extensive sleeve notes, exclusive photography and original label artwork. There is also a very-limited one-pressing only special deluxe version that comes with an extra bonus super-rare 7” single of ‘Magic’s Rap’ by Magic’s Trick, aka ex-marine Magic Fraga, a record that was only ever available on US military bases!


Yo! Boombox also features the stunning photography of Sophie Bramly, one of a very select group of photographers (alongside Henry Chalfant, Martha Cooper, and Joe Conzo) who were allowed full access to document the exciting early days of hip-hop in New York.
These first exuberant wave of innocent, upbeat, party-on-the-block rap records were the first to try and create the sounds heard in community centres, block parties and street jams that first took place in the Bronx in the mid-1970s. Where the first DJs – Flash, Kool Herc and Bambaataa – were back-spinning, mixing and scratching together now classic breakbeat records like The Incredible Bongo Band’s Apache or Babe Ruth’s The Mexican, these first pre-sampling rap records were all made using live bands, often replaying then current disco tunes.

As Chic’s ‘Good Times’ was to ‘Rappers’ Delight’, the songs here feature then-current dancefloor hits such as the Tom Tom Club’s ‘Genius of Love’, Cheryl Lynn’s ‘To Be Real’, MFSB’s ‘Love Is the Message’ while MCs rapped over the top, creating a unique new sound. In fact, the links between disco and rap date back earlier to the ‘party style’ MCing of figures such as the legendary DJ Hollywood or radio DJs like Frankie Crocker.

This new Soul Jazz Records collection
celebrates these first old-school rap
records, bringing together rare, classic
and obscure tracks released in the
early days of rap.

"Bastian Epple makes an eagerly anticipated return to marionette under his elusive MinaeMinae guise that imagines rich sonic architectures for the journeying spirit to voyage to. Räumlichkeit is Epple’s debut album and third release to date following Gestrüpp from 2020, venturing further into melodic electronic nostalgia and percussive beat oriented soundscapes.

Growing up in a small village in southern Germany, Bastian Epple was never interested in kitschy folk sounds, rather he took solace in the time he would spend meditating to repetitive and hypnotic patterns. His guitar strumming and what sounded to his mother like a young Philip Glass on a cheap Casio keyboard encouraged little Epple to tread on this self-taught path of developing his own musical language. This led him to start experimenting with a tape recorder and layering sounds with non-musical samples to eventually working with a DAW.

Bastian went on to study Media Art at the Center for Art and Media (ZKM) in Karlsruhe and graduated with a diploma in film and documentary media - where he now works as a freelance filmmaker and lecturer at Stuttgart Media University. However, this never stopped him from creating and playing with wide-eyed sounds, eventually amassing a vast collection of tunes and finally emerging from this anonymity.

Utilizing modular synth, self made tape echos, synthetic sounds, recordings of ethnic percussion and guitar, MinaeMinae understands musical material similar to documentary footage which he would splice, repitch, and rearrange intuitively into captivating worlds."

We are super excited to present this third slice of exclusive and brand new music from friends and family of the label. We hope you love these big orange slabs of vinyl as much as we do.

Volume 3 takes another deep dive into the diverse range of styles that we love here at SB. Ranging from disco and soul tinged house, to some deeper goodness and on to raunchy acid and techy stompers. Everything you would expect to hear at any one of our parties.

As always a huge thank you to all the incredible artists who’ve contributed to this edition. These wouldn’t happen without you… Now grab your mates, stick these tunes on loud, and DANCE!

InnerCore Project brings us two 2 brand new 12" releases 'Innercore Project Dubs' Vol 1 & 2

"You will find a nice vary of styles in my Dubs Volume releases, ranging from Jungle Techno, Old Skool Hardcore, Jungle, Rave and anything in between. Big shouts to all that made these tunes possible! Respects to you all, I hope you enjoy these tunes." - InnerCore

2023 Repress

Dst Prod Comes With Afull Pumpin Fata Prod ! Dancefloor To Death Swheezy To Life !
Fatal Tunes !

The old school Noar from the LSDF Krew... Tunes found back in time... Hardcore and Acid... with a 120 respect casse-dédi.

This reissue expands the offering with some of their earliest known recordings, combining to form a full menu from a legendary band that ushered bluegrass into a more modern era! The band, led by the virtuosic mandolin player Roland White, delivers a collection of traditional and original tunes that showcase their impeccable musicianship and tight harmonies.

But it's not just about technical skill - the Kentucky Colonels also bring a sense of soulfulness to their music. Vocal tracks like "I Am A Pilgrim" and "Lonely Heart Blues" are delivered with heartfelt emotion, while instrumentals like "Dusty Miller" have a haunting beauty that lingers long after they've ended

Lewis Taylor's legendary magnum opus: The Lost Album. "Now you're talking. That's my favourite LT album. Unlike all of the others, there isn't anything about it that embarrasses me." Straight from the genius's mouth. What can we say about this? Well, it's the most requested record ever at Be With Towers. The Lost Album was the intended follow-up to his first album but Island rejected it for fear of "confusing" the marketplace and its conception of Lewis as a soul artist. Their loss. It's a breezy sunset masterpiece.

The genesis of this incredible record needs unpicking a bit. Lewis stopped promoting the first album after a year and went home to record a completely different record that was the most un-R&B album you could probably ever hear: "I pushed in such an extreme direction the other way with what eventually became The Lost Album. It was a knee-jerk reaction to a perceived ‘trapped in R&B’ feeling I was going through at the time. Some people around me were in favour of it and others weren’t. In the end I think I lost confidence in it and did Lewis II instead." We did at least get Lewis II, which is a remarkable album, and he kept Island happy...for a bit. Not long after, Lewis was dropped. And what was to become The Lost Album could've been...er...lost. Forever.

Thankfully, however, Lewis and longtime partner Sabina Smyth revisited those scrapped demo tracks in 2003. They decided to re-arrange, re-record and then self-release them. So it was that the brand new version of The Lost Album finally dropped in late 2004. It's sheer perfection, and we don't say that lightly. The Lost Album was a fully 50/50 collaboration between Lewis and Smyth. As well as production, Sabina did a lot more writing on it, from the melody to "Listen Here" to the chord sequence for "Let's Hope Nobody Finds Us." Thankfully, Sabina is credited this time around.

No, it's not straight up "soul music" in the vein of his previous work. Yet, in its perfectly formed suite of one dozen songs, The Lost Album is dripping in soul. It's so warm, so effervescent and so alive with possibilities. It features deep, fresh imprints on well-loved, accessible sounds. It's a proper 70s style double album. Just one listen and the musical influences on The Lost Album are fairly self-explanatory, as Lewis recently told us, but it's always nice to hear that, in case we were in any doubt, he was definitely channeling Love, Yes, Brian Wilson, CSN, Laura Nyro and, of course, Todd Rundgren. The influences don't end there: "I’m particularly fond of my bass playing on that album, there’s a lot of Chris Squire going on which is cool."

Deep orchestral opener "Lost" is a sublime, harp-laced, string drenched gem, a cinematic, melancholic Axelrod-esque mini-epic that simply beguiles. Written by Smyth, it evokes Donny Hathaway's celestial "I Love The Lord, He Heard My Cry" from Extensions Of A Man. The only problem is the brief 90 seconds running time. It segues into the classic Brian Wilson-meets-power-pop-rock splendour of "Listen Here" which, with its outstanding extended harp-licked beatless intro, sounds like the younger cousin to Boston's "More Than A Feeling". We then drift into the ringing guitars of classic 70s rock anthem "Hide Your Heart Away". It's Lewis's personal favourite, "especially the multi-tracked guitar solo – I was listening to Boston at the time, which was fun." A-ha!

A new version of the heart-stopping, shoulda-been-a-massive-pop-hit "Send Me An Angel" opens Side B before the arrival of, in Lewis's completely correct words, "the clear standout, "Leader of the Band"; the perfect distillation of everything that album was trying to achieve." Soaring, piano-led Rundgren-esque power pop that makes the hairs on the back of your next stand on end. Truly, otherworldly. This is pure pop for now (and then) people. The simple jangly brilliance meets experimental prog-rock of "Yeah" sounds like simultaneously like prime CSNY and late 90s Radiohead (if they'd had a slightly more accessible bent and could write better tunes).

Oh, you wish The Beach Boys had continued writing amazing songs beyond Holland? Well, allow us to point you in the direction of the downlifting stunner "Please Help Me If You Can" and the warm textures and brilliant atmospherics of goosebump-inducer "Let’s Hope Nobody Finds Us". Words can't really describe the sheer beauty of these songs. So we'll stop trying. Just listen. Listen, listen, listen. Closing out this remarkable side of music, the accidentally Balearic "New Morning" should be blasting out at every sunrise set in Ibiza, this summer and forevermore.

The final side opens with the vaguely Beatlesey "Say I Love You". It's just classic, soaring pop-rock songwriting and should strictly be canonical. It's that good. The sassy, Stonesy swagger of "See My Way" injects enough rock'n'roll attitude to compensate for the rest of record's peace-loving, AOR sun-dappled vibe whilst album closer, "One More Mystery", emerging out of the rubble of the previous track, comes on initially like a Baroque-Pop George Harrison before piling crunching drums and screeching guitar solos atop the dreamy harmonies til close.

When asked what it means to have these records available on vinyl for the first time, Lewis is in no doubt: "It’s great and it’s really nice to be able to offer fans a different listening experience. There’s a whole other dimension with vinyl that taps into that whole nostalgia thing, well for me anyway. Something about the physical aspect of pulling it out of the sleeve and putting it on, it does tend to make you feel like you’re more engaged."

Lewis was adamant that he wanted all new artwork for The Lost Album vinyl sleeve and his brief was just the sort of classic tropical-beach-at-sunset you’d want to see on the front of a record that sounds like this. On the finished sleeve, the beach at sunset is just where we start out, before heading up through the painterly clouds and heading out into the stars. And yes, the lettering is a definite subtle nod to all those in-between-period Beach Boys bootlegs we all love. Simon Francis's sensitive mastering combines with Cicely Balston's precise cut for Alchemy at AIR Studios so the album sounds appropriately outstanding. The immaculate Record Industry double LP pressing will ensure this previously lost masterpiece stays forever found.

The English is Federico Jusid's sweeping, nostalgic and raw score to Hugo Blick's six part contemporary Western. Giving a nod to 1950s western soundtracks, the score is enriched by Dvořák’s String Quartet No. 12. known as the "American", written during Dvořák’s stay in America, and only three years after the events of the series. Also featured on the album are the beautiful folk songs by The Wailin' Jennys, Melanie, Crooked Still, Ora Cogan and Tom McRae. The second track on the album, Tâtačiksta_ - I Cherish You, features a tender reading by Emily Blunt.

Jusid’s music structure is based on leitmotifs, very simple and symmetric, constantly varied and developed to mirror the protagonists’ journeys. Big orchestral sounds underpin epic and romantic themes. Sound design, processed percussion and ethnic instruments effortlessly blend in with the orchestral material. Federico describes his compositional process – “Unlike other projects, I started working with Hugo Blick, at a very early stage, some time before he even started shooting. Inspired by the scripts, his story board and chatting about the classics, I wrote different piano tunes and first mock-ups and sent them over to him… Often, I have received scenes cut to my own music and that made the process deeply organic and profound. The music became a core element of the structure of the show, instead of a later addition. In the end, Hugo and I worked for an entire year to develop this score”.

From Mar del Plata, Argentina, we proudly present a new promising incoming house oriented label. Carefully crafted tunes in a pink/white splatter vinyl with a striking cover artwork designed by Martín Varbaro.

A wild and funky collection of Afro grooves that was ahead of its time in 1977 and has become a collector’s item in recent years, especially due to the growing international interest in Colombian picó sound system culture. Fruko and his studio bands Wganda Kenya and Kammpala Grupo treat us to a diverse set of African and Caribbean styles, laced with crazy synths, psychedelic guitar and infectious pan-African polyrhythms. By the time Discos Fuentes released the album “Wganda Kenya Kammpala Grupo” in 1977, Wganda Kenya’s discography was expanding with many 45 singles and appearances in various artists collections. The group’s 1975 debut record “África 5.000” was a full length LP in the U.S. and a various artists compilation in Colombia, which was followed by the self-titled long player the following year. However, Kammpala Grupo, which shared the album’s title and was credited to three songs on the record, had never appeared before, yet was basically the same studio group as Wganda Kenya. Most likely the creation of this short-lived studio band was just a ploy by the label to make it seem like there were more groups playing the type of exotic afro tracks favored by the picotero DJs of Colombia’s Caribbean coast (especially in Barranquilla and Cartagena). 1974 Discos Fuentes’ management had sent musician, band leader and producer Julio Ernesto “Fruko” Estrada to the coast on an A&R mission to discover what people were dancing to in the verbenas (communal open air neighborhood parties) run by the owners of picó sound systems (decorated mobile DJ rigs). Always game for an adventure, Fruko was tasked with bringing some popular examples of these esoteric, hard-to-find African, French and Dutch Antillean records back to Medellín to serve as inspiration (or to outright copy) so that the label could enter into the growing regional market and spread its popularity to the interior of Colombia and other Latin American countries via its own studio creation, Wganda Kenya. Fuentes was always returning to exploit the rich African-rooted culture of the coast as it had with the cumbia and other regional genres before, so in a way it was not surprising that they were attuned to this particular niche phenomenon from a marginalized sector of the population. The most popular genres with the champeta dancers in the 70’s and 80’s were styles like Congolese rumba, highlife, afrobeat, juju, mbaqanga and soukous as well as the music of Haiti, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Curaçao and Dominica, all of which were fiercely guarded by the DJs who had managed to acquire them often through extreme means of travel, barter and intense digging. The record kicks off with the joyful ‘El Gallo Africano’ which features exquisite interplay between Sepúlveda’s highlife style guitar and an authentic-sounding African style saxophone, perhaps played by Carlos Piña. In reality it was ‘Go Call Police Chief’ by prolific Nigerian highlife guitarist Chief Oliver Sunday Akanite, aka Oliver De Coque. Next up is Kammpala Grupo’s ‘La Yuca Rayá’ (‘Grated Yuca’), written by Isaac Villanueva in a style he termed son haitiano which sounds much more like Zimbabwe Shona mbira music. Wganda Kenya’s ‘Caimito’ (star apple, a type of tropical fruit), on the other hand, is actually a cover of a relatively well-known Haitian merengue song. Kammpala Grupo then takes us from the French Antilles to the multi-cultural discotheques of Paris, where a cover version of Black Soul’s Afro-boogie anthem ‘Black Soul Music’ is retooled and renamed ‘King Kong’, perhaps in a nod to the 1976 remake of the monster flick of the same name. Side two introduces us to the infectious merengue rebita of Angola via ‘La riphyta’ with “Paparí”, aka Mariano Sepúlveda, doing the vocals and faithfully replicating the Angolan guitar style. ‘La Trompeta Loca’ (‘The Crazy Trumpet’), probably the nuttiest track on the album, is an ingenious cover of ‘Ye Gbawa Oo Baba (Tribute To Nigeria)’ by Joe Mensah of Ghana. As with all their covers of African tunes, this rendition tightens up the original with some pop sheen, more consistent drumming and higher production values, remaking it into a powerful slow-burning dance floor filler. This is followed by one of the most powerfully original songs to come out of the entire Wganda Kenya project, Mike Char’s reggae anthem ‘El Nativo’ with Joe Arroyo on vocals. The record ends on a more authentically Caribbean sounding note with the instrumental ‘El testamento’, a cheerful islands banger with bright brass, syncopated calypso beats and chunky cuatro guitar (or ukulele). The original was in the mento genre and titled ‘Sweet meat’, written and recorded by Jamaican trumpeter Bobby Ellis. First time reissue. 180g vinyl.

When Chet Baker lit up the West-Coast scene during the 1950s, he became a Jazz idol who
appealed to a younger generation and impressed even the most acerbic critics. He jammed
alongside Tenor Sax stars Vido Musso and Stan Getz, and joined Alto Sax legend Charlie
Parker on various West-Coast gigs. Hailed as the Prince of Cool, Chet caused a sensation
when his mellifluous Trumpet tones were first heard blending with Gerry Mulligan's deep
toned Baritone Saxophone in the famous Mulligan Quartet . It was in 1952 when they joined
forces on tunes like Walking Shoes and Line For Lyons. It wasn't long before they departed
ways with Chet establishing his own Quartet that launched a recording career blessed by
the plethora of performances gathered on this triple LP set. He plays his distinctive style of
trumpet along with presenting Chet the singer. Our collection opens with Let's Get Lost and
My Funny Valentine before advancing to include I Fall In Love Too Easy, The Thrill Is Gone,
That Old Feeling and Chetty's Lullaby. So, let's get lost in the eternally cool world of Chet
Baker.

From Alehouse to Playhouse Bjarte Eike and his barnstorming Barokksolistene capture the vital spark of Restoration London’s entertainment scene with a captivating new recording for Rubicon Classics! The Playhouse Sessions will be released on 23 September 2022 to coincide with Barokksolistene’s concert double-bill at London’s Southbank Centre.

‘A smattering of Purcell, dances from Playford’s Dancing Master, shanties, reels and ballads succumb to a nine-piece ensemble drawing on Baroque, jazz and folk styles for a no holds barred hooley of riotous improvisatory give and take,’ (BBC Music Magazine review of The Alehouse Sessions, August 2019)

London’s musicians, pushed in the 1650s, to the margins of society by order of Oliver Cromwell, found room for new forms of entertainment in city-centre taverns and alehouses. They remained there long after the restoration of the monarchy, performing sets of dances, theatre songs and bawdy ballads to audiences glad to be free from Puritan constraints on pleasure.

Norwegian violinist Bjarte Eike and his Barokksolistene have restored the spirit and substance of those long-forgotten performances with their Alehouse Sessions, hailed by The Times as ‘irresistible’ and ‘fabulously unrestrained’ by The Guardian. Five years ago the Norwegian violinist and his band scored a best-selling album with The Alehouse Sessions on Rubicon Classics. They return to the label with another compelling collection of music and words of the kind on offer more than three centuries ago at Henry Purcell’s favourite Westminster watering holes. The Playhouse Sessions, set for release on Rubicon Classics on 23 September 2022, reflects the uplifting energy and engaging emotional contrasts of Barokksolistene’s Alehouse performances.

“The album contains a sort of inner narrative that runs through the recording,” says Bjarte Eike. “It has become like a play in its own right, with each track being a small tale within a larger story.” The recording’s tracklist includes Eike’s beguiling arrangements of music from Purcell’s semi-opera The Fairy Queen and his own original compositions on words from the play on which it is based, Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream; popular songs and ballads such as ‘The Irish Washerwoman’, ‘I often for my Jenny strove’ and ‘The Three Ravens’; tunes from Purcell’s welcome odes and stage shows, Come ye sons of art and Dido and Aeneas among them; the ‘Willow Song’ from Shakespeare’s Othello; Eike’s own voice in Puck’s monologue from Act 5 of A Midsummer Night’s Dream; and John Dowland’s sublime air ‘Can she excuse my wrongs’.

London’s theatres were closed at the start of the English Civil War in 1642 and remained shut until the Restoration. Alehouses offered redundant musicians, actors and dancers a place to scrape a precarious living and soon became their creative refuge. “Although a few surviving theatres reopened in 1660 with the return of Charles II, there was little money around to rebuild those that had been demolished,” observes Bjarte Eike. “And a generation of musicians had already found an audience in places like the Black Horse in Aldersgate Street. So popular were their alehouse sessions that Cromwell tried to abolish them! But they outlived him and became part of Restoration musical life.” The form of a Barokksolistene Alehouse, he adds, is like a creative room. “Within its framework I can frequently refurbish the show with new contents. The Playhouse project is likewise an extension of the ever-evolving Alehouse Sessions. Together they tell the story of music and theatre in London during Cromwell’s time and after the Restoration. Of course there’s an historical context to what we do. But there’s also the practical context – which is even more important to me – of connecting with a contemporary twenty-first century audience. An Alehouse / Playhouse performance is not something for the museum; it's about music made in the present moment, just as it was in the London alehouses of Purcell’s day -- with their playhouses annexed to the rear of the beer-drinking saloons. The encounter of musicians onstage and the audience in the hall is the real magic of it. We have to fuse the audience into the action of our performance!”

The Playhouse Sessions will be launched on Friday 23 September with a late-night concert at the Purcell Room and a post-concert Alehouse Session in the foyer of the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Soprano Mary Bevan is set to join Eike and his Alehouse Boys for the first half of their Southbank Centre double-bill, offering unique interpretations of songs from Purcell shows and other hits from the late seventeenth-century London stage. “The Southbank Centre is a direct descendant of concerts given in the 1650s in the alehouses of London,” notes Eike. “These alehouses after all staged some of the world’s first public concerts. Later, after the Restoration, it became common for promoters to advertise alehouse concerts in the press and offer subscription tickets. Purcell and his fellow musicians were thus just as at home performing there as they were in the chambers of the royal court or in London’s new theatres.”

Bjarte Eike launched his Alehouse Sessions in company with like-minded musicians 15 years ago. The ensemble comprises a core of regular performers, all of whom have committed to memory a huge setlist of up to four hours of music. Typically they meet a day or so before a concert tour to share a meal and make music together; then next day, re-grouping thirty minutes before the show, they discover Eike’s select-menu for the evening. “That ensures that every show is fresh,” he notes. “I make sure we never repeat the same programme twice. It’s therefore essential to work with people who share my outlook and dare to adventure. We’re into a high-risk sport, with lots of traps and places where the unexpected appears - for good or for ill. And so the audience knows we’re vulnerable. But our skill is seen in how we re-act on the hoof to the unpredictable. That’s authenticity and honesty - and above all it’s a performance that’s genuine.”

Armed with a classical training and a background in folk music and improvisation, Bjarte Eike was drawn naturally to Early Music in all its stylistic variety. “I never really felt at home with only one genre,” he recalls. “Early Music allowed me to study profound, complicated compositions, but performing it has also opened up the chance of rebellion and uproar! Early music offers wide, multi-faceted areas of musical exploration for me. You find, for instance, links to different types of music wherever you look in seventeenth-century English repertoire. And I am fascinated by all these connections. They offer a foundation for the Alehouse Sessions and for all Barokksolistene performance more generally. Every member of the group plays, sings, dances and improvises without limitation. We’re all interested in the many different fields of being a stage performer and pushing hard at the ‘normal’ boundaries of what it means to be a classical musician.”

STEB delivers a brand new single featuring Dario Rossi and remixes from Marvin & Guy, Feel Fly and Van Der Kirche & THC. Italian STEB is no stranger to cooking up floor filling hits. For this latest offering he works with Dario Rossi, a renowned drummer with a signature style like no one else.

Their 'Kauris 1979' is a beautifully deep house track with shimmering chords and twinkling melodies. Echoing claps help drive this most classy of tunes forwards under subtle vocal sounds and the whole atmosphere is full of late-night magic.

The vibrant Marvin & Guy remix has a cosmic edge and that's the case here with this excellent remix. It layers in mysterious whistling leads and 80s synth sounds as well as a rasping bassline that brings a different perspective than the original.

Feel Fly remix brings all that alongside some feel-good piano chords that light up a punchy nineties house bassline.

Van Der Kirche & THC then join forces for an expansive broken beat remix with crisp hits and silky bass all making for a sublime trip.
This is is a package packed with disco-tinged grooves for late-night dance floors.

200 copies ~ Vinyl 180 grams ~ No Repress!

World-renowned saxophonist Chris Potter releases a brand new recording of music live from the legendary New York venue: the Village Vanguard. Capturing moments from Chris’ annual residency (recorded 2022), the new album features an all-star band comprising Craig Taborn, Scott Colley and Marcus Gilmore. Reimagined folk tunes (Nozani Na, Olha Maria), powerful spirituals (Got the Keys to the Kingdom) and uncommon jazz standards (Blood Count, Klactoveedsedstene) make the final cut from the multi-night residency. Expect high energy, intensity, technical brilliance, effervescent joy and a snapshot of one of the world’s greatest saxophonists in his element.

Tunes from Mr Freeze 03 & Old Skull 03... plus two unrealesed tunes !

Banging Hardtek with a

Repress of some of the greatest Hesed tunes with new mastered versions... A fat big double pack of 160/170 Acid Mental tunes.

Repress of Mackitek Crop 02 : One side from FKY, and his oldschool acid pumpin tribe, and one side from Mackitek : two solid hardfloor tunes.

The story of Lucia Rango, an Apulian singer who was active for a short period during the Sixties, rightfully belongs to that category and meets all requirements for becoming a legend. In 1967, when she was almost unknown, she recorded Lucia Rango Show, an entire album made of songs taken from the repertoire of her friend Piero Ciampi, who worked closely with her on their selection and arrangements. Being one of the most maudit and personal authors of national songwriting, Ciampi had always been a perfect outsider: blunt, shy, extremely talented, and unable to adapt to the rules of the music business. But above all, the Leghorn-born singer was a superb songwriter. The match between his songs and Rango's classical voice and ethereal beauty looked like a very promising one, but never brought any success.
Arranged and orchestrated by Maestro Elvio Monti, and embellished by the participation of Alessandro Alessandroni's I Cantori Moderni, the record is a perfect child of the Sixties, featuring beat tunes and “yè-yès”, Italian canzone, intense ballads, Brigitte Fontaine-like atmospheres and a rediscovered duet of Lucia with her friend Piero, Non chiedermi più, whose recording was known among insiders at the time but sadly appeared to be lost forever. Ciampi's voice lives again in a song that has remained unreleased for more than 50 years within this new expanded version of Lucia Rango Show, thanks to the long research of journalist Lucilla Chiodi (Musica Jazz). Needless to say, the album is an enormously valuable historical document for all fans of Ciampi's output and Italian music in general: along with classics such as Fino all'ultimo minuto, Quando il giorno tornerà and Hai lasciato a casa il tuo sorriso – all originally included in Ciampi's first LP released under the alias Piero Litaliano in 1963 – Lucia Rango's voice consigns to history as many as six songs conceived and written specifically for her recording debut by Ciampi along with Elvio Monti. To date, Rango's invaluable interpretations are the only versions ever recorded of Samba per un amore, Il tuo volto, Stasera resta qui, Primavera a Roma, Ti ho sognato and Sono stanca.

Here we‘ve got two tunes that come with a fascinating story. Recorded in the late 70’s, but never released, this music was thought to be lost.But let’s go back to the beginning. Rose was originally a member of family affair called „The Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose“ heralding from Dania Beach, Florida. The group had early success with a recording contract with United Artists, which produced two albums in 1972 & 73 respectively, plus an extensive number of single release taken from these albums, which included the million seller ‘Too late to turn back now’.

But Rose’s story starts even further back, singing solo and as part of the Gospel Jazz Singers in the late 60’s, with even a solo appearance on The Ed Sullivan TV show. In 1970, at her mother’s request, she returned home to form the family group and to use her contacts in the music industry to move things forward. The group stayed together until 1976. Soon after Rose returned to a solo career, but few further releases appeared. During this time she recorded a number of tracks in Miami at The Music factory with producer Shirley Cowell, who later received a grammy nomination for her work with Lena Horne. Arrangement was done by gold-certified studio veteran Frank Owens. By this time the Disco sound had taken over much of the music industry and these tracks had a Hi-Energy feel that was much in favour at the time. This session produced the titles ‘Here’ and ‘I want you to stay with me’ but no release was forthcoming.

For many years they became almost forgotten, until the next chapter of the story.In 2018 DJ and record collector Dave Thorley saw an old & dusty acetate disc for sale online, credited to Rose Cornelius. When listening to it he realised that this was indeed Sister Rose of the aforementioned group and purchased it, initially with the intention of simply playing it in his DJ sets. Dave offered the disc to his friends of the Disco Bizarre crew from KitKatClub / Berlin for their record label. Rose, in turn, was contacted and she was kind enough to give permission for its release and additional contemporary remixes/ re-edits. Thus New York producer veteran DJ Duke and San Francisco Disco authority Jim Hopkins landed on the bill. You now have the results of this story on Disco Bizarre’s latest release - a story that has spanned fifty plus years. We at Disco Bizarre are excited about the final results and are happy we‘re able to share it with you.

Mental acid...
A side brings a long KVN23 night frogs acid song...
The flip offer 2 other mental acid tunes. In a deep calm trippy way : peacefull style.
Welcome to Semper on da first vinyl !

The Lower Lights is well known as one of the most emotionally potent ambient records of recent years. It is a collection of 10 tunes from a busy period in which 36 undertook a year-long 'Audio Diary' project. The sounds are immediate and direct, demanding of your full focus and a mix of dark and urgent, cyberpunk-inspired and emotionally charged ambient sounds that bring all new thinking to the genre. Nice work.

If a record goes for around $3000 on the second-hand market then you know it's something special. And that is the case with New York vocal soul group The Topics' gold-standard and one-and-only album 'Giving Up'. Now you can own two of the best tunes from it on this new 7" from P-Vibe for a much more reasonable price. The tunes selected are indicative of the heart-achingly sweet and yellow soul sounds explored across the whole album. You get both 'God And You' and 'At Last It's Over' which have some utterly next-level vocal harmonies. Do not sleep on this one.

Stoned Part II is Lewis Taylor's pure, perfect dance-pop album. His second self-released album and fourth album proper, it initially appeared on his own label Slow Reality in 2004. It's been licensed to Be With for this long-awaited double LP release, its first ever vinyl edition. Gravely misunderstood at the time by hardcore fans and the music press alike, it has aged quite magnificently. An experiment in the sounds of contemporary pop and dance music, Lewis's wonky take on funky pop would annihilate anything kicking around the charts, then or now. If only it were given half a chance.

Stoned Part II is brimming with Lewis's trademark soul, his singing as beautiful as ever, but the rhythms throughout are more upbeat, the overall sound a more smooth and slicker dance-funk presentation. Roughly half the tracks are absolutely essential, fascinating re-workings of tracks from the eternal Stoned Part 1, as Lewis explains: "When we were doing Stoned we were trying different approaches with everything so we ended up with more than one version of nearly all the songs which left us with more than an album's worth of material. There was a lot of really cool house tunes around at the time which we were both really into and that shaped the sound and production, some songs more directly than others." Amen to that.

The swoonsome, string-drenched opener "Madman" is quite the departure, a bleepy, bumping soulful disco-house record with a bassline to die for. Is there anything he can't do? It's followed by another huge dancefloor stomper, "Keep Right On" again riding another killer bassline over funky drums and featuring Lewis's dazzling vocals. There's no let-up with the sparkling "Reconsider" which sounds an awful lot like Daft Punk meets Nile Rodgers (prescient as ever, our Lewis). The wide-eyed French filtered house vibe is to the fore here, and how this wasn't picked up by someone like Kylie and taken wholesale to the top of the charts is something we'll never understand.

Opening the B-Side, "When Will I Ever Learn 2" really slaps, presenting a breezier, more upbeat funk take on the brilliant original and incorporating "From The Day We Met" from Stoned Part I. "Out Of My Head Is The Way I Feel" is absolutely fantastic and one of Lewis's very best songs. The vocals, self-harmonising and virtuoso playing are next level. To close out the side, "Carried Away" is a real standout, Lewis's gorgeous falsetto riding a quasi D&B groove to begin with before adorning a more classically funky 2-step rhythm. The marriage of undulating synths and guitars is stunning, giving way to Lewis indulging his goosebump-inducing Brian Wilson harmonies.

The funky, Rhythm King drum machine soul of "Stoned Part 2" refashions the original in the style of an unearthed Sly Stone classic, circa There's A Riot Going On. Yes, it's that good. On we then glide to "Positively Beautiful 2" which, if it's even possible, manages to be better than the original. The epic, orchestral opening truly captivates before Lewis truly gets down with kaleidoscopic dancefloor-slaying Philly soul-funk. It's surely tracks like this which help explain why he was soon to be tapped up by Dangermouse and Cee-Lo for the musical director role with Gnarls Barkley. "Throw Me A Line" closes out the side

"Shame 2" is a blissful, restrained version of the massive original, without the crazy psych-soul wig-out. Definitely more radio-friendly, that's for sure. The gorgeous mellow vibe continues with "Won't Fade Away", featuring more Beach Boys harmonies over a barely-there pulse (a version of which later pops up in an altered state on The Lost Album). The album bows out with - you guessed it - a psych-soul wig-out! "Keep On Keeping On", a real highlight, opens with looped sampled drums a la Massive Attack and Lewis's multi-layered self-harmonising again very much high in the mix. It amps up gradually to feature vocals dripping with tune and bite before screaming guitars and crashing drums really blast this whole set into the stratosphere.

Simon Francis’s vinyl mastering, approved by Lewis himself, presents the twelve tracks over a double LP so it sounds exactly as it should. The records have been cut by Cicely Balston at Air Studios and pressed at Record Industry. Allow Lewis Taylor to get you Stoned, Part II.

Hailing from the south of Italy, Nico Lahs is a man of many tasks. Besides running the great „Cosmic Rhythm“ label, Nico has more than a decade of quality house music releases on labels like Moods & Grooves, Local Talk, Omena, Delusions of Grandeur or Josh Wink’s Ovum under his belt! „Easy loving you“ shows his diverse skills: proper club trax („Keep on groovin’“), freaky yet groovy stuff (well… “Freakin’“), emotional deep house („Come get me“) and raw and deep tunes („Easy loving you“), Nico Lahs can do it all!

Since we've known him, Robert Lloyd has made quite clear his enormous affection for the songs and sounds of Freakwater, the duo of Janet Beveridge-Bean and Catherine Irwin who've been wrongly denied their place as rightful and willful progenitors of alt-country's 'movement', which (frankly) is to their credit. Their genius in offering absolute authentic to the sound old-time Appalachian folk music with a modern façade that in no way negates tradition (one of their albums is titled Feels Like The Third Time) is unparalleled within the genre, and Freakwater remain under-appreciated. After the start of Covid, Robert dared approach Janet with the idea of recording together. Over the course of the long pandemic, songs were bandied about for months, and when recording was finally practical, a band was assembled with dates set up for a recording session in Valencia, Spain. Robert and Janet were joined by Robert's long-time ally, Pete Byrchmore, the musical foil for Robert's solo album on Virgin and a former Nightingale, Mark Bedford, the bassist for Madness and Terry Edwards' Near Jazz Experience, and Pablo Roda, Spanish mystery drummer, couldn't have worked out more perfectly. Tracks were selected without regard for collective presentation, just the goal of walking out of the studio with an album of perfect gems. Forget Lee & Nancy or George & Tammy, Rob and Janet have an immediate chemistry that only sounds long-lived - and too uniquely them to merit any comparison. The title track, Black Cat, Dark Horse is the sole Lloyd / Bean / Byrchmore composition and one of the record 's highlights. Jim Elkington, collaborator with Jeff Tweedy and Richard Thompson, contributes Heavy Reckonings and a song written with Janet, The True Lovers' Knot And The Lie, while Robert adds reworkings from past releases - Sweet Georgia Black and Black Country (with Pete) - not to mention the unreleased Eggs And Bacon. Janet brought One Shot and the unheard Freakwater song Arc Of A Smile. Covers of tunes from Dion and The Monkees and a magnificent Jon Langford song, "Tears Like Stars" round out the album. We daresay the album is among the finest you'll hear in 2023. That it doesn't fit perfectly into any preconceived genre is a testament to its quality. "Songcraft" is a word used infrequently today, yet Black Cat, Dark Horse will show that good songs endure. We're proud that Robert and Janet will find some new admirers through this album's release. The Michael Cumming / Stewart Lee film King Rocker made a case for Robert Lloyd-as-losthero; this album furthers that idea and shows a compelling side of Janet's talent and abilities which will be a surprise to her fans and serve as an entry point to exploring her many other compelling projects.

Stimela were a popular and successful South African Afro-fusion outfit led by guitarist, vocalist, songwriter, producer and arranger Ray Phiri. The band was formed under the name ‘The Cannibals’ during the 1970s when Phiri got together with drummer Isaac Mtshali, keyboard player Thabo Lloyd Lelosa and bass player Jabu Sibumbe. They initially started out as instrumentalists, but later evolved to Afro-fusion when they joined forces with vocalist Jacob “Mparanyana” Radebe in 1975. The story of ‘The Cannibals’ ends when Radebe died in 1978 but the ‘Stimela’ story was only just beginning.

In 1979, after a life-changing experience in Mozambique (where they were stranded for three months) the band members had to sell all their belongings to take a train home. This trip was a watershed moment as it was here where they conceived the new name for the band: The Zulu word for “locomotive-train” STIMELA.



Stimela would soon become little short of an institution in their home country of South Africa. With soulful tunes and gripping lyrics, the band has recorded platinum-winning albums such as Fire, Passion and Ecstasy, Shadows, Fear and Pain & Look Listen and Decide. In addition to recording their own material, the group supplied instrumental accompaniment on albums by a lengthy list of legendary artists. Stimela would go on to gain global fame after being featured on Paul Simon’s iconic 1986 ‘Graceland’ album and the mega tour that followed.



Ray Phiri would enter into many successful collaborations with major acts and artists such as Harari, Joan Baez, Willie Nelson and Manu Dibango. In 2017 he was diagnosed with lung cancer and died at the age of 70. Phiri has received many awards in recognition for his contribution in the music industry, one of these is the Order of Ikhamanga awarded to him by the South African president. This was to honor his sterling contribution to the South African music industry and the successful use of arts as an instrument of social transformation.



Stimela is the tale of a South African band who have battled their way through dark days to take their rightful place in the forefront of the South African apartheid-era music invasion. One of their most memorable tracks “Whispers in the Deep” was even restricted from being broadcasted by the old South African Broadcasting Corporation.



On the album we are presenting you today (Fire, Passion and Ecstasy from 1984) the unique sounds of Ray Phiri’s Stimela are fully showcased. Expect infectious hypnotic build-up grooves, cinematic lowdown jazz-funk, Afro-soul, delightful reggae, gospel influences and funky synth-boogie sounds…all with a touch of early eighties new wave and hints of Island disco mixed with sensual bubblegum pop. It comes as no surprise that the album has now become a sought-after item due to its addictive and original-sounding nature, a must-have for any self-respecting record digger!



These recordings completely encapsulate Stimela’s fusion style. They managed to craft a modern South African sound that continues to influence SA musicians to this day. Never in a rush, yet always with a sense of purpose and direction – like the steam train after which they took their name.

Tidal Waves Music now proudly presents the first reissue of this fantastic Afro-fusion classic since 1990 (originally released in 1984 on Gallo Records) & this is also the first time the album is getting a release outside of the African continent. This rare record (original copies tend to go for large amounts on the secondary market) is now finally back available as a limited 180g vinyl edition (limited to 500 copies) complete with the original artwork. Also included is a double-sided insert containing rare pictures of the band.

Focussing on DJ related cut & paste tunes, Needlework supply us with 2 more turntablist dancefloor bombs.