quête:separation

“One day, I’ll be a ghost, a spirit, that moves with you along the winds,” pines Twin Atlantic’s Sam McTrusty on the beautiful and cinematic ballad ‘Your, The End’, the fitting opener to the Scottish alt-rockers’ eighth album ‘Separation From The Animals’. “It’s about the responsibility I feel around being a parent,” he says, revealing that he cried while recording his vocal over bandmate Ross McNae’s tender Beatles-y piano part. If the album says anything, it’s ‘All You Need Is Love’, told with maturity and reckoning with the past to make sense of the present. ‘Separation From The Animals’ is an album born of two tales of triumph and perseverance – one of McTrusty grappling with his own ghosts, and the other of their finest album to date coming after a time when band morale was at an all time low. When their friends’ bands and peers were all calling it quits, words of wisdom from those close to the band were urging them to take time off. The album started out as a McTrusty solo effort, isolated in his new home. The day the band finished work on their last album, 2024’s ‘Meltdown’, was also the day McTrusty packed up his entire life and studio to start a new life in Toronto with wife and two kids, unaware of the rich seam of songwriting that it would inspire.

Savage Grounds is the synthpunk and minimal synth swiss project of LUX REC head Daniel Cosmo among Florin Büchel and the mesmerizing Kleio Thomaïdes (part of Bound by Endogamy as well). After nine previous releases, Separation Shock represents the last record by the trio before the temporary hiatus they have decided to start. You could expect the classical, raw, and minimalistic sound that defines one of the best acts in the genre coming from central Europe. Pure analog synth madness with the always-evoking and hypnotic vocals of Kleio. A must-have for any minimal wave collector. Presented in ONE-OFF truly limited edition of 300 copies lacquered pressed on 180 gr. high quality solid SILVER GREY vinyl. All tracks have been specially mastered for vinyl by Daniel Hallhuber at Young and Cold Studios (Germany).

A collection of spellbinding, melismatic vocal improvisations taken from 78s cut between the mid 1920s to mid '30s - a period defined by the aftermath of the Ottoman Empire’s partition, the Greco-Turkish War and the compulsory population exchange that followed.

This same period also represented a time of intense efforts, following the establishment of the Republic, to westernise the new nation's music - coupled with a ban on traditional music education in schools, and later a complete ban on broadcasting Ottoman-Turkish classical music on the radio. As such these performances seem shrouded in an even more distant past, and feel quite intimately connected with forms of Greek amanes and rebetiko - having stemmed from the same Ottoman makam system, both with a subject-matter focussed on heartbreak, yearning, and pain.

A collection of spellbinding, melismatic vocal improvisations taken from 78s cut between the mid 1920s to mid '30s - a period defined by the aftermath of the Ottoman Empire’s partition, the Greco-Turkish War and the compulsory population exchange that followed.

This same period also represented a time of intense efforts, following the establishment of the Republic, to westernise the new nation's music - coupled with a ban on traditional music education in schools, and later a complete ban on broadcasting Ottoman-Turkish classical music on the radio. As such these performances seem shrouded in an even more distant past, and feel quite intimately connected with forms of Greek amanes and rebetiko - having stemmed from the same Ottoman makam system, both with a subject-matter focussed on heartbreak, yearning, and pain.

I think I call it “Haifisch”, the german word for shark. Why? I don’t know. I think it sounds like an electrified diving animal!

B & C können laut sein, leise und alles dazwischen. Eine ziemlich treffende Beschreibung, wenn auch etwas heruntergebrochen. Ein sound-ästhetischer Angriff, der Einflüsse wie Sunny Day Real Estate, Neutral Milk Hotel und Nirvana offen legt, ihr 2011 erschienenes Debütalbum ,Separation", das Balance and Composure als eine der vielversprechendsten Underground-RockNewcomer präsentierte. Separation ist ein wegweisendes Werk des Post-Hardcore und Emo. Der kraftvolle und emotionale Sound ist ein Muss für Fans des Genres. Mit Tracks wie ,Void" und ,I Tore You Apart In MyHead" zeigt das Album die dynamische Bandbreite der Band und derer Songwriter-Skills ebenso. Die Themen des Albums - Isolation, Verlust und Bewältigung werden durch den leidenschaftlichen Gesang und die raue Instrumentierung bestens ins Bild gesetzt. Wenn Du auf der Suche nach einem authentischen Post-Hardcore-Erlebnis bist, ist ,Separation" ein Muss für deine Sammlung. Für Fans von Citizen, Turnover, Tigers Jaw, Touché Amoré, Sunny Day Real Estate.... - Neue 2025er-Pressung auf klarem, grünen Vinyl!

Producer, DJ, and composer Seb Wildblood returns tothe fold with third album "separation anxiety." Set for release via his own "all my thoughts" label, the prolific producer"s blissful electronics are on full display across the album"s 10 tracks, his most ambitious and fully realised offering yet. "The record largely explores coming to terms with abandonment, and what that looks like when starting to build a future of your own," explains Wildblood.

Songs Of Loss and Separation, the sprawling second album from TIMES OF GRACE is insistent in its bluesiness, bleeding distortion and emotion, weaving effortlessly between pensive, heavy, midtempo rock riffs and atmosphere. The band's sophomore effort and first since 2011 channels a haunting romanticism and deep spiritual yearning that collide in beautiful melancholy. The vocal interplay of Adam Dutkiewicz and Jesse Leach makes for a rich, dense, and enthralling concoction, powering through various trips through dark nights of the soul and mind-expanding excursions into the wild.

'Producer and multi-instrumentalist FRNT BZNZZ returns with the second installment in a six-part series of 45s from the Aloha State.

Just like the rst 45, the A-side 'Separation Anxiety' takes to the same raw electro boogie feel, this time with more layers. The 4-minute ride into the artist's complex, often haunting production is up before you know it.

The B-side opens new doors in the series with vocals - angsty, yearning, a little somber. 'Always Wanted' is a slow burner for those looking to alleviate heavy doses of straight-laced modern funk. Something about Aiea High School prom circa 1990s, and a feeling of being left out.'

Iraqi band Babylon Trio from Brussels plays an electrified ravey mix of contemporary Iraqi and Arabic music styles, such as choubi choubi, dabke, maqam and electronic hybrids that put the dancefloor on fire. Their debut album 'Habibi' features songs about their old life in Iraq and new life in Brussels, Belgium, with topics such as separation from loved ones, love, beauty, honour and pure Arabic party bangers. This year will mark the power of the contemporary Iraqi street sound of Babylon Trio throughout Belgium, Europe and beyond.

Integral Records proudly present the latest project from head honchos Artificial Intelligence. Introducing The Series --Season 1. As the title suggests, this fresh bunch of emotive and futuristic cuts comprises four unique listening episodes that will take you on an exhilarating journey spanning across soulfully-refined molten liquid jams, and signature A.I. heaviness. Stay locked for the Season 2 premiere!

Décalé. is a fresh new label based in Biarritz ( France ). Décalé. focuses on reissuing worldwide 'french speaking' music from the 80's / 90's. Travelling into multiple genres : Synth-Pop , West Indies , New Beat , Occitan Folk , Afrobeat , ... and taking taste in weird and obscure records.For it's first release , Décalé. started with one of the most awaited french zouk ( in the ear of the beholder ) albums : Nar'Chiveol - 'Esperance Music Wir'. Originally released in 1988 on a private press in Guadeloupe and the same year on West Indies Records in Paris .'Apocalypse Now Ho' is now a well known banger for diggers and Décalé. wanted to show the whole album that is really surprising by crossing West Indies genres.From disco west indies with 'Séance de Nuit' and 'Spleen Maria' , weird rumba funk with 'Fo Nou Pédalé' to early biguine inspiration with 'Separation KC'. To close this album , ' Apocalypse Now ' and ' Swingue Zouk La ' sounds like a revolution didn't yet happen in carraibean music.

PILO makes his full-length debut on BNR with the pure dance-floor grit of his Original 'Flourishes' EP. Following his breakout Boys Noize collaborative single 'Cerebral' and Miami Noize 2016 highlight 'Break Me Down', the rising star has hit full stride with a four track assemblage packed with his signature textures and ethereal mesh. 'Flourishes' brings out PILO's full range as it puts forward both the relentless darkness seen in past
productions coupled with a fresh emotive momentum exemplary of a year locked away in his Los Angeles studio. The result is a new direction for PILO and an evolving soundscape far beyond his years. And his mom loves it.

We were very happy to be asked by Connaisseur
Recordings if they could put out another album with our
music! Now it's all come together and they've asked us to
do our own press release for it and quite like the album,
we want to do it in our own way, personal and from the
heart. It's been a few years since our last Connaisseur album, and
a lot has happened since. We've built a new studio,
matured musically, acquired new gear, sold old gear, done a
lot of gigs, lost faith in music and regained it again.
The process of making The Loneliest Man In Space (this
album) was a genuinely pleasant experience, as we never
really set out to make an album at all. We didn't
conceptualize or have any grandiose plans, we simply
enjoyed ourselves in the studio.
Inspiration was running high, so we focused on making a lot
of music uninterrupted, rather than signing tracks, which
left us with quite a bulk of unsigned material. The idea to
release these tracks as an album came from our friend
Alex, at Connaisseur. We instantly jumped on the idea,
listened through the material, taking some tracks out and
composing a few new ones, to make it sit more together as
a whole. We tried to come up with a title that would ft
the feeling of the sum of tracks and settled on The
Loneliest Man In Space. As the album, to our ears, sounds a
little melancholic and a little spacey.
We sincerely hope that you enjoy the album either as a
listening experience, a dance experience or something in
between!

Thank you, and much love!
Vegard & Chris // Of Norway

'Music aged in time, resonating from the surface to the core through layers and sediments of stones - the strata. Four morning recording sessions with a separation between them of between three and ten months - a chronozone that will rest for a time and on which the next one will be added, thus forming the total of the six pieces of the album - becoming six strata.
'A slow-moving album that develops landscapes of subtle but continuous evolution, where we find layers of diverse nature created from different procedures, bathed in the calm waters of wabisabi, where melancholy, immensity, insignificance, the potential of the unemerged, coexistence and simplicity converge at the same time.'

Since emerging from Italy's underground over a decade ago, Ninos Du Brasil (Nicolò Fortuni and contemporary artist Nico Vascellari) have developed a potent sound that blends live batucada percussion, electronics, punk energy, and visceral vocals sung in an imagined language. Along the way, they've built a reputation for incredibly intense and unpredictable live performances.

This fifth full-length follows Antro Pop, released on Codalunga / Hospital Productions in 2021 in the middle of covid lockdowns with a canceled world tour leaving the world in wait. Out of that imposed hiatus Orden Micelial began to take shape.

The trademark Ninos elements remain intact: frenetic drumming, ritualistic chants, and relentless percussive intensity, while exploring new sonic territory. Most notably on "Innaya Som," the duo embrace a full-blown guitar-driven rock assault, revealing the hardcore roots that have always underwritten their music.

Recorded and produced by longtime collaborator Rocco Rampino, the album achieves a veritable wall of sound—dense and overwhelming, yet retaining remarkable clarity and separation throughout.

Part carnival rave, part punk freak-out, Orden Micelial finds Ninos Du Brasil expanding their mythology without losing any of the wild energy that has made them one of contemporary underground music's most distinctive acts.

If you dig deep enough into the internet's lower depths, you'll find a shaky video shot on a camcorder. In 43 seconds, we see a makeshift drum kit built out of backyard Ostbahnhof trash, hear distorted vocals, and feel the anarchic energy of band and ravers dissolving into each other. It's now been twenty years since Bonaparte played their very first show at the legendary Bar25 on Berlin's Spree river. The ringmaster of this unhinged musical theater was Tobias Jundt then, and it's Jundt again now bringing the Bonaparte extravaganza back to the stage. New and nostalgic sit close together when the party's been going this long. Or, as they put it: "PARADISE IF YOU CAN STAND IT."

From late October through mid-November, Bonaparte will tour Germany, Austria, and Jundt's native Switzerland at full intensity, the full lineup - band to burlesque. Since their 2006 debut through their supposed farewell in 2019, Bonaparte played over 800 shows in 28 countries. Bottom line: "Too Much" isn't enough to properly celebrate a body of work like this. And the new songs from "PARADISE IF YOU CAN STAND IT" are far too significant not to bring to the stage. The lo-fi trash-punk of Bonaparte's earliest records has been built out with added layers, in production (largely alongside British avant-garde electronic artist HELiX) and in the songwriting itself.

The world certainly hasn't gotten any simpler since 2006. Tracks like "EVERYBODY PRESiDENT," loosely riffing on Zoe Leonard's poem "I Want A Dyke For President," and the corrosive "BRAiN ROT" mirror the social chaos we find ourselves in 2026. "OBEY (THERE iS STiLL A RiOT GOiNG ON)" is just as furious, though here the principle of hope still holds, as a multigenerational choir concludes "everything will be okay." Jundt speaks across generations again on "i LOVE YOU (MORE LATER)," dedicated in equal measure to his parents and his daughters: "Let the echo chamber bleed - from here into eternity."

The reconciliation and hope Bonaparte allows for and tends to, amid violence and all that noise, make "PARADISE IF YOU CAN STAND IT" a singular document of an artist grown wiser. Separation and grief don't cancel out love and vitality - they depend on each other. Ultimately, the album is a record of searching for and finding a home. To arrive, you have to let go.

And what better place to let go than in step with Bonaparte's wild, hedonistic party circus, finally back to gently terrorize our cities?

Music From Memory presents ‘Mutualkind’, by Asa Tone, the collaborative project of Melati ESP, Tristan Arp and Kaazi. Written between Indonesia, Mexico City, Berlin and New York, the record unfolds through a process of continual exchange, where distance itself becomes part of the group’s music formation.

At the centre of the album is the idea of a shared language, formed across differences in geography, experience and musical approach. One such process explores Tristan’s electronic hand percussion triggering fragments of Melati’s voice in real time, while a library of spoken words and phonemes are reshaped through chance-based rhythmic processes. Voice becomes percussion, rhythm becomes melody, and the lines between individual contributions begin to dissolve.

Some pieces, including ‘Water Talk’ and ‘Second Language’, were recorded live in a single take, while others were assembled gradually through remote exchange. During the final sessions in Indonesia, Balinese percussionist Putu Septa contributed kendang to two tracks, bringing the instrument into dialogue with modular synthesis, FM textures, electronic drums, MIDI wind instruments and Melati’s shifting vocal forms.

Sounds are slowed, stuttered and reorganised, reflecting a world shaped by illusory borders, vanishing landscapes and glitching ecosystems. Yet the album remains rooted in the act of tending to something shared: a musical field built through listening, improvisation and repeated moments of reunion.

‘Mutualkind’ seeks to blur boundaries without erasing the identities that meet across them, providing a space in which voice and instrument, self and other, separation and togetherness can briefly exist at once.

MFM086 will be released on vinyl and digitally via Music From Memory on October 22nd 2026.

Ty Segall, precleared for flight in full rock congress with the band (Ben Boye/Evan Burrows/Mikal Cronin/Emmett Kelly), shifts Chrome. Songs of massive riffs, swung, tightly arrayed lines of fuzz & distortion, twin-guitar attack-and-parry, endopic keyboards kicking, precise & thudding power, a rhythmic core on the march in full BAND energy. The songs are lyrically allusive trips, dark passages in the labyrinth, everything in the air bristling collectively, as minds collide.

As WARNING prepares to release Rituals of Shame - their first new music in twenty years,vocalist/guitarist Patrick Walker is self-effacing about what led to this moment. Over the last two decades he continued to write and release music, satisfied that he had achieved what he set out to do with WARNING. In those intervening years, interest in WARNING swelled, organically gathering an ardent fanbase. In particular, the 2006 album, Watching from a Distance, has gained a cult following. In response to a transformative period in his life, Walker turned towards writing new songs, and it soon became apparent that these belonged to WARNING. In early January 2025, he started with a completely blank canvas, and piece by piece, he started to fill it with ideas that evolved to become the songs that make up Rituals of Shame.

His immersion in the project became a full-time pursuit. After successfully demoing the five songs, Walker retreated to a remote house on a hill outside Florence, Italy, to refine the lyrics. Recording took place at The Arch Studio, a 140-year-old former church in Southport, UK. Chris Fullard (Idles, Sunn O))), Ulver) handled the recording and mixing. Walker's lifelong musical inspirations can be traced through Rituals of Shame. The ambitious structural arrangements harken to Marillion’s complex but soaring episodic songs. They retain a sparsity that is reminiscent of June Tabor’s economic arrangements; thick with melody but with a diaphanous air to them. Citing John Brenner of Revelation as an enduring inspiration, Patrick credits him with introducing the idea of how to infuse heavy music with significant emotional depth. Often reluctant to discuss the minutiae of his lyrics, Walker does acknowledge that making this album was a direct response to the immediate concerns of his current life period. Rituals of Shame also echoes the enduring themes and fixations that have marked most of his work: guilt, shame, personal failure, obsession, longing, and separation, but, most of all, he says, love. Short: WARNING return with Rituals of Shame - the pioneering Doom band's first new music in 20 years! FFO: My Dying Bride, Candlemass, YOB, Black Sabbath, 40 Watt Sun, Pallbearer, Pagan Altar

This is not a Ben Vida, Booker Stardrum, and Will Epstein record; it’s a Play Time record. That’s a subtle but important distinction, for a couple reasons. One, the sound of Magic Object—a polymetric blend of improv and pulse minimalism for saxophone, drums, and Moog—doesn’t really sound anything like any of their many other ensembles or respective solo projects. And two, it was only while making Magic Object, their debut album, that Play Time realized they were a band at all.

Let’s back up. The roots of the trio date to 2020-21, when Will and then Booker moved to the Hudson Valley, where Ben was already living. The three got into the habit of playing together at Ben’s house, and they soon realized that their hang sessions felt fundamentally different from making music in some falling-down studio in Bushwick. Where those experiences were rushed and cramped, a new sense of time and space now suggested itself. Where once they rat-raced the music, now they relaxed into it.

Early gigs yielded similar revelations. A booking at Tubby’s, the beloved Kingston venue, evolved into a kind of residency. Tubby’s is a small space, fitting around 100 people, with a bar in the front room and a stage in the back. Play Time decided that they didn’t want to play on the stage; they wanted to play in front, among the people in the bar. Rather than hogging the spotlight and overpowering the other voices in the room, they blended with the energy of their surroundings and emerged as a sort of minimalist-jazz-krautrock bar band.

Gradually, they discovered a newfound “elasticity”—Ben’s word—that reshaped the music from inside. “It’s this communal thing,” he says. “It’s vibes. And it’s embedded in the community up here, which feels really vital and nourishing.” They were jamming, but it wasn’t just a free-for-all; they found themselves listening to each other in new ways. “Ben and Booker joke that they’re always playing in different time signatures,” Will says. “We’re all going forward with our own ideas, but we’re open to each others’ as well, and they’re all sort of dancing together.”

“We all have our painterly solo projects,” Will says—where, Booker adds, “we do a lot of studio arranging and thinking and composition that takes shape over a period of time.” Play Time, on the other hand, is all about being in the moment. That spontaneity was key to the process of recording the album. They booked two days in their friend Joey’s studio, a converted wooden barn. “It’s just a live room,” Booker says. “There’s no separation or anything. So we’re all in the space together and it’s got this beautiful, woody sound, and that’s very much the sound of the record.” For two days, they just jammed, for seven or eight hours each day. When it was over, they went through, edited down the portions they liked, and added very judicious overdubs designed to enhance the original recordings without fundamentally altering them, staying true to the spirit of the sessions.

The result is something like a snapshot and a mission statement all rolled into one. “You’re hearing us discover the voice of the band in real time,” Ben says. “We finished those sessions and we were like, ‘Oh, that’s what our band sounds like now.’”

Now, with Magic Object, the rest of us get to find out too.

—

Balmat is a label with a cloudy outline. Jointly shepherded by Albert Salinas and Philip Sherburne, two friends living in Cardedeu, Catalonia, and on the Balearic island of Menorca, Balmat grew out of Lapsus Radio, a weekly show born almost ten years ago. Balmat’s mission is simple: to foster new ideas, expand upon personal obsessions, and put enveloping sounds out into the world.

“Balmat” means “empty” or “void” in Catalan. But quite apart from any negative connotations, we prefer to think of it in terms of possibility: a space waiting to be filled.

The Temptations Get High on Psychedelic Soul: Cloud Nine Soars with Ambitious Arrangements and Production, Features Standout Vocal Performances and Instrumentation by the Funk Brothers

The Temptations’ Cloud Nine announced that Motown — and “The Sound of Young America” — would never be the same. Influenced by the emergence of cutting-edge rock and pop currents, as well as increasing sociopolitical turmoil, the album broke down barriers between rock, psychedelia, and soul while heralding the arrival of visionary arrangements and production techniques. Bookended by traditional R&B numbers, the 1969 record sent the Temptations in bold new directions and signaled the advent of psychedelic soul.

Sourced from the original master tapes, strictly limited to 3,000 numbered copies, pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing, and housed in a Stoughton gatefold jacket, Mobile Fidelity’s 180g 45PM 2LP set presents Cloud Nine in audiophile sound for the first time on a domestic pressing. This collectible reissue bestows Norman Whitfield’s extraordinary production with the grand-scale dynamics, natural tonality, expansive openness, and low-end weight it deserves. The timbre of each of the five members’ voices is readily identifiable — even within the group harmonies — bestowing a realism never experienced outside the recording studio.

Making its debut on 45RPM, the album further benefits from the wide groove space by playing with greater separation and more realistic presence than prior editions. Everything from the brassiness of the horns to the dry snap of the snare comes across with reference-grade clarity and positioning. And since Motown’s renowned Funk Brothers backing band plays on many of the cuts, you’ll want to savor every note. The imaging, soundstaging, and organic bloom-and-decay of the notes make that possible.

Amid Cloud Nine, the instrumentation and architecture stand out as much as any element. Never before had a Motown album contained such ambitious patterns and complex passages. Seemingly conscientious of the departure from their past methods, the Temptations and Whitfield bunched together the tracks that mark a deep dive into psychedelic territory and counterbalance them with seven sterling soul cuts that dovetail with Motown tradition drenched with heartfelt vocals, swelling strings, and finger-snapping beats.

On the original 33RPM release, traditional Motown soul — laden with heartfelt vocals, swelling strings, and finger-snapping beats — occupies Side Two. These songs reveal an ensemble still very much on top of delivering pristine pop-soul material graced with romantic sweetness, persuasive insistent, and soaring highs. Re-energized after the departure of lead singer David Ruffin, who was fired for a variety of reasons in June 1968, the Temptations seamlessly meld with his replacement, Dennis Edwards, on one melodic gem after another.

The collective tackles five songs co-written by the legendary Motown team of Barrett Strong and Whitfield. Not the least of which are the smooth, shuffling “Why Did She Have to Leave Me (Why Did She Have to Go)” and deceptively simple, horn-spiked “Gonna Keep on Tryin’ till I Win Your Love.” On these tracks, as well as on a lush rendition of the ballad “Love Is a Hurtin’ Thing” and pleading, tender send-up of the Gerry Goffin-Carole King classic “Hey Girl,” Edwards and Paul Williams take turns on the lead with the estimable Eddie Kendricks, Melvin Franklin, and Otis Williams providing backing support.

All five vocalists trade-off leads on the simmering title track, a groundbreaking composition shot through with wah-wah-pedal effects, liquid funk, deep bass lines, Cuban percussion, saturated reverb, and gang choruses. Whitfield mines each member’s natural vocal range with spectacular results, keeps time with cymbals, and channels both the heated temperatures and escapist desires of a society embroiled in war, conflict, and experimental drugs.

Amazingly, the Temptations top themselves on the similarly revealing “Run Away Child, Running Wild.” Nearly 10 minutes in length, the song explodes R&B parameters and harbors a cinematic scope. Urgent pianos, distorted guitars, stripped-down percussion, steamy Hammond organs, minimal bass motifs, five distinct voices narrating the tale of a boy who fled home and now finds himself amid the scary, unforgiving external world: They combine to give the urgent tune a walls-closing-in atmosphere where fear and desperation reign. Bolstered by an extended instrumental section that precedes a climactic return of the singers’ voices, “Run Away Child, Running Wild” equaled the success of the record’s title track, with both reaching No. 6 on the pop charts.

How enduring is the signature song from Harry Chapin’s Verities & Balderdash? So timeless that it became the subject of a 2025 documentary in which artists from multiple generations weigh in on its impact on their lives and craft. “Cat’s in the Cradle” doubtlessly remains the main event on the singer-songwriter’s 1974 album. The legendary opening track also serves as a guidepost for the bold personal and social material that follows — as well as the gorgeous folk-rock arrangements that underpin the New York native’s most commercially successful work.

Sourced from the original master tapes, pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing, housed in a Stoughton jacket complete with a four-page insert, and strictly limited to 3,000 numbered copies, Mobile Fidelity’s 180g 33RPM LP of Verities & Balderdash presents Chapin’s fourth full-length in audiophile quality for the first time on vinyl. Captured during a golden era for sonics and production, the Top 5 effort features remarkable tonal balance, instrumental separation, and organic naturalism. Those valued aspects come into supreme focus on this reissue, which plays with dead-quiet surfaces and a low noise floor.

The newfound clarity, openness, and imaging underscore the lasting appeal of Chapin’s tender deliveries, soulful timbre, and careful phrasing. Every word comes across with incredible realism, while his underrated guitar playing occupies its own distinctive space. Also notable: The extension of the tasteful string accents; airiness of the backing vocals; depth and shape of the spare bass lines; and width and depth of the soundstaging. When on “Six String Orchestra” Chapin calls out names of instruments, they appear like magic, the band performing feet from you. Chapin has never sounded so lifelike on record.

Certified double platinum, Verities & Balderdash resonated with the times and public. “Cat’s in the Cradle” reached No. 1 on the chart on its way to being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. The romantic ballad “I Wanna Learn a Love Song” flirted with the Top 40 and wrapped listeners in the equivalent of a cozy blanket. The record’s other single, the mini-epic “What Made America Famous?,” helped establish Chapin as one of the country’s most incisive and insightful commentators.

Verities & Balderdash teems with situational devices and topical matters. Chapin observes everything from the polarization of the nation to changes in moral standards and cultural priorities. He investigates pressing themes without ever turning preachy or elevating himself above the matters at hand. On “Halfway to Heaven,” whose coda races to the finish and ranks as the most urgent moment on the record, Chapin inhabits the mind of his frustrated protagonist akin to an eagle-eyed novelist.

Conveying emotions that range from melancholic to carefree, Chapin is as much of a singer as a storyteller. He assumes the voice of multiple characters within a single narrative. During the quirky “30,000 Pounds of Bananas,” a tale based on a delivery-truck accident in 1965, Chapin alters his delivery, pronunciation, and diction to become an old man reflecting on the mishap and mess. The tempo, too, adjusts to match the speed of the vehicle Chapin describes.

Adorned with timely laugh tracks to reinforce the bittersweet humor, the stripped-down “Six String Orchestra” takes everything up another notch, with Chapin intentionally missing guitar notes or playing a broken passage to illustrate the failures of the hopeful protagonist who doesn’t have what’s required to make it as an artist.

Chapin, of course, did not have any such problem. The lynchpin of a career cut short by a tragic traffic incident, Verities & Balderdash is Exhibit A of the savvy craft, feeling, and perspective he lent to American music.

The moment the instantly recognizable intertwined guitar passage on the title track to the Eagles' Hotel California begins, the record's genius becomes obvious all over again. Ranked the 118th Greatest Album of All Time by Rolling Stone, certified by RIAA as the third best-selling LP in history, and considered the foundation on which the Golden State's mid-‘70s music scene was built, the 1976 landmark is a music staple immune to shifts in trends, eras, and styles. Fearlessly addressing the chaos and consequences of American life, its songs remain strikingly prescient and gain creedence with each passing day.

Mastered from the original analogue master tapes, pressed on MoFi SuperVinyl, and limited to 17,500 numbered copies, Mobile Fidelity's UltraDisc One-Step 180g 45RPM 2LP vinyl box set ensures you will want to permanently check into and never leave this particular Hotel California. Up to the herculean task of standing head and shoulders above all prior reissues, this collectible edition plays with extreme clarity, organic richness, tube-like warmth, massive dynamics, and microscopic levels of detail. You'll be able to practically smell the colitas and feel the breeze in your hair. Songs come across with an epic sweep and feature immersive, front-to-back soundstages that allow the music unprecedented air, roominess, and separation. As for the noise floor? It's basically as invisible as the spirits that waft in the corridors of the unforgettable title song.

Aesthetically, the premium packaging and presentation of the UD1S Hotel California pressing befit its esteemed status. Housed in a deluxe box, it features gorgeous foil-stamped jackets and faithful-to-the-original graphics that illuminate the splendour of the recording. From every angle, this UD1S reissue exists as a curatorial artefact meant to be preserved, touched, and examined. It is made for discerning listeners that prize sound quality and production, and who desire to fully immerse themselves in the art – and everything involved with the album, from the renowned cover art to the meticulous finishes.

Indeed, the opportunity to zero in on all the particulars of the 26-million-selling Eagles record dubbed "a legitimate rock masterpiece" by vaunted Los Angeles Times scribe Robert Hilburn has never been better. A global phenomenon that marked the band debut of guitarist-singer Joe Walsh, Hotel California continues to resonate and connect with listeners of all generations taken by its narrative depth, stark directness, picturesque melodies, daring majesty, and ardent emotionalism. Adorned with a breathtaking exterior photograph of the Beverly Hills Hotel that serves as the simultaneously haunting and alluring cover art, and rounded out by a rear-cover shot of the Lido Hotel lobby that reinforces a notion that teeters between permanence and transience, Hotel California is brilliantly tied to a specific place that functions as a universally understood metaphor for the American Dream.

Confronting the darker undercurrents and oft-ignored constructs attached to that romantic notion, the record's songs revolve around a host of shared themes: excess, mobility, stability, illusion, fame, destruction, and idealism included. Notably, Hotel California appeared at a crucial junction in American history: During the country's bicentennial and amid escalating controversies related to the Vietnam War, energy crisis, and governmental corruption. That the Eagles manage to channel such cultural, social, and economical matters into a cohesive, stately, big-picture statement is alone a stupendous feat. That the album's reach, boldness, vitality, accessibility, and understated intensity have never waned make it a marvel.

Reflecting on Hotel California 40 years after its original release, and indirectly explaining its enduring appeal and increasing relevance, singer-songwriter Don Henley confirmed the record pertains to the "loss of innocence, the cost of naiveté...the difficulties of balancing loving relationships and work, trying to square the conflicting relationship between business and art; the corruption in politics, the fading away of the Sixties dream of ‘peace, love and understanding.'"

It can be argued that Henley and company squarely hit on and drove home those ideas in the surreal title track, chart-topping "Life in the Fast Lane," and grand "The Last Resort" alone. But that would miss the forest for the trees. Experienced as an unbroken whole, complete with the pristinely shot imagery and physical grooves, Hotel California unfolds like a geography-conscious saga by James Michener and plays like colour-saturated movie shot on 70mm film by Martin Scorsese. It's about our collective and individual decisions – and the shape of our past, present, and future. And, just like that conjured by our imaginations, Hotel California continues to take on a life of its own.

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.

Sounds of Sirius Music unveils SOSNZ011 – Eye of Deva, a release exploring perception, truth, and higher awareness through deep frequencies.

The Eye symbolizes seeing beyond the surface.
Deva, rooted in Sanskrit, represents divine light and elevated consciousness.

Together, Eye of Deva becomes the vision of the divine — awareness beyond separation.

A-side by Fedo, remixed by Mihai Pol.
B-side by PRT Stacho, remixed by Last Pines.

A release shaped by close friends of Sounds of Sirius.

This is a follow up to our last successful piano duo release "In Spite Of Everything“. This time it is four hands on two grandpianos and a computer. Henrik on robot automatic disklavier grandpiano and Bugge playing a grandpiano. Reworked from live recordings at famous Radialsystem in Berlin. Cinematic, acoustic, minimalistic, playful, complex. Studio recordings made from stereo live concert recordings only possible with the help of new AI Stem separation. The full EP will be available on a specially pressed black-white vinyl.

2025 Repress

Demi Riquisimo’s Semi Delicious celebrates its 20th release with a peak-time 4-track EP from Leeds-based production talent, Kepler— another stand out addition to the label’s impressive catalogue, dropping on 29th November.

Opening the Ep is ‘Step Up,’ a sub-bass-driven journey that layers relentless percussive grooves, squelchy acid lines, and proggy chord hooks, encapsulating the quintessential Semi Delicious vibe.

Next up, ‘Swoon’ glides in with a playful FM- bass lead, steering the track’s flow while staccato vocal stabs and soothing pads create a perfectly balanced, dancefloor-ready arrangement.

On the B- side, ‘Acid Flow’ delivers as promised, with classic 303 leads and smooth basstones, set against Kepler’s signature drum palette for a distinct yet timeless feel.

Rounding off the EP, ‘Separation’ brings a swing-infused, stab by house vibe—a nod to classic US house, yet unmistakably stamped with Kepler’s unique UK tech-house sound.

The debut studio album from multi-platinum singer RAYE. Featuring number one single Escapism feat. 070 Shake.

Four times BRIT nominated, RAYE is one of the most streamed artists in the world with over
2.3 billion streams of her music. She has a double-platinum, four platinum, two gold and
three silver singles to her name. She is also indisputably one of the UK's premier
songwriters. Her songs have amassed over 3 billion streams, having written for some of the
world’s biggest artists including: John Legend, Ellie Goulding, Khalid, David Guetta, Diplo,
and Beyonce. In 2019 she was awarded The BMI Impact Award in recognition of her 'groundbreaking artistry, creative vision and impact on the future of music, in 2022 she was
nominated for the Ivors Songwriter of the year, landed R1 Brits List and made her debut solo
TV performance on Jools Holland. During the summer of 2021, her cries of frustration for not being able to release her album were heard worldwide, leading to a mutual separation from her label and allowing her to
carve her own path. Having made her public tirade, followed by her personal 'declaration of
independence', Raye in effect has obligated herself to deliver the ground-breaking first
album that her 2019 BMI award prophesied.