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First ever retrospective of Phương Tâm, the groundbreaking Saigon teenager who became one of the first singers to perform and record rock and roll (known in Vietnam as nhạc kích động, or, action music) | 25 tracks spanning Phương Tâm’s recording career: early rock and roll, surf, twist, soul, blues and jazz ballads recorded in Saigon between 1964-1966, featuring electric guitars, contrabass, lush brass, saxophone, drums and organ, and rich backing vocal arrangements. | Produced by Mark Gergis (compiler of Sublime Frequencies’ 2010 compilation Saigon Rock and Soul) and Hannah Hà (daughter of Phương Tâm). | Audio restored and remastered from original records and reel tapes. | A family story – as told by Hannah Hà, whose dedication to discovering and sharing her mother’s musical legacy, is helping to put Phương Tâm back on center stage after 55 years | Adds critical context to the fragmented understanding of Vietnamese popular culture at the time.

Billed as 'controversial' in its press materials for its open spiritual message, this jazz inspired record was Prince’s first fully independent release, issued without any major label backing. One of its songs 'The Work, Pt. 1' was released by Prince as a free download on the file sharing service Napster - this move, along with direct to consumer stream and download options on the NPG Music Club, made Prince a digital music pioneer. This record is a favourite among Prince’s most fervent admirers due to its complex musical narrative, its use of live drums/full horn section and the striking album art by artist Cbabi Bayoc, which still hangs in the hallowed halls of Paisley Park today. The CD has long been out of print and the original vinyl pressing was incredibly limited.

The four tracks that comprise Giving Water to the Dead were composed using sound materials originally recorded for the sound installation Histories of the Present, a public artwork commissioned by the City of Berkeley in 2019. But where the installation was about a melding of practices and sounds into a single gesture, Crouch and Novak wanted to take the opportunity of a split release to exploring divergent paths starting from common ground. For Giving Water to the Dead, each artist started with the same source material and plotted their own direction without direct influence from the other. As artists in a relationship and sharing a studio this was no easy feat. Despite the planned divergence the resulting tracks compliment each other, as the artists do.

Yann Novak and Robert Takahashi Crouch are a creative and romantic couple living and working in Los Angeles. Their collaborative practice incorporates field recordings, photography, and video as tools to investigate the relationship between site and subject. Their performances and installations have been presented at the AxS Festival, Pasadena; California Museum of Photography, Riverside; Desert Daze Festival, Southern California; Downtown Berkeley BART Plaza, Berkeley; Gays Hate Techno, Northern California; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; LACMA, Los Angeles; PØST, Los Angeles; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York and others. Their compositions have been published by The Tapeworm, Murmur Records, Estuary Ltd., IO Sound, and Untitled & After.

Sunny Ozuna is a living legend and a man worthy of praise on many levels. In the Texas and Latin Music pantheon, few have been at it longer and are more revered by their fans and peers than Sunny is. He became a star right out of high school in the late `50s and hasn't looked back in the seven decades since. Among countless other honors and notable achievements, Sunny was the first Latino artist to appear on Dick Clark's "American Bandstand" (in 1963). He penned "Smile Now, Cry Later," a hit for him and The Sunliners, which along with the theater masks that grace the album's cover, became staples in the Chicano Soul and Lowrider Soul cultures. We have been fans of Sunny & The Sunliners' music for a long time. We first got in touch with Sunny to try to reissue some of his records in 2013 but we didn't sign a deal until 2015. It took a trip to San Antonio and then two years of steady phone calls before they decided "if you have been chasing us for this long, you must be serious." With Sunny's blessing we started getting everything mastered, scanned, and planned. First we released 2017's Mr Brown Eyed Soul Vol. 1 compilation that put rare 7" sides next to some of his biggest hits and mixed in some choice album cuts for good measure. In the wake of that, we released three of Sunny's full lengths with their original track lists and art: Smile Now, Cry Later, Little Brown Eyed Soul, and The Missing Link - all of which were Record Store Day releases that raised money for the victims of 2017's Hurricane Harvey. For the 7" collectors, we reissued 45s, making some very hard to come by sides widely available again and pressing some tunes on the format for the first time. In 2020, as an homage to Sunny, we released Dear Sunny... a compilation of Big Crown artists covering Sunny & The Sunliners songs. Through all of this we were able to do what we set out to do: get Sunny's music to a new audience of people and make it all accessible and available again to his existing fanbase. Sunny still keeps a busy schedule and loves performing as much as he did as a teenager. His music and the music that it directly influenced are seeing a resurgence in popularity in the last few years. With any luck at all, our efforts played some small part in that, and on that note, we present Mr Brown Eyed Soul Vol. 2 - another compilation curated by us, where we dig a little deeper into Sunny's catalog and pull some lesser known gems that hold court with his hits. Hats off again to Mr Brown Eyed Soul himself, San Antonio's own, Sunny Ozuna, we are sure you will enjoy the music.

Sunny Ozuna is a living legend and a man worthy of praise on many levels. In the Texas and Latin Music pantheon, few have been at it longer and are more revered by their fans and peers than Sunny is. He became a star right out of high school in the late `50s and hasn't looked back in the seven decades since. Among countless other honors and notable achievements, Sunny was the first Latino artist to appear on Dick Clark's "American Bandstand" (in 1963). He penned "Smile Now, Cry Later," a hit for him and The Sunliners, which along with the theater masks that grace the album's cover, became staples in the Chicano Soul and Lowrider Soul cultures. We have been fans of Sunny & The Sunliners' music for a long time. We first got in touch with Sunny to try to reissue some of his records in 2013 but we didn't sign a deal until 2015. It took a trip to San Antonio and then two years of steady phone calls before they decided "if you have been chasing us for this long, you must be serious." With Sunny's blessing we started getting everything mastered, scanned, and planned. First we released 2017's Mr Brown Eyed Soul Vol. 1 compilation that put rare 7" sides next to some of his biggest hits and mixed in some choice album cuts for good measure. In the wake of that, we released three of Sunny's full lengths with their original track lists and art: Smile Now, Cry Later, Little Brown Eyed Soul, and The Missing Link - all of which were Record Store Day releases that raised money for the victims of 2017's Hurricane Harvey. For the 7" collectors, we reissued 45s, making some very hard to come by sides widely available again and pressing some tunes on the format for the first time. In 2020, as an homage to Sunny, we released Dear Sunny... a compilation of Big Crown artists covering Sunny & The Sunliners songs. Through all of this we were able to do what we set out to do: get Sunny's music to a new audience of people and make it all accessible and available again to his existing fanbase. Sunny still keeps a busy schedule and loves performing as much as he did as a teenager. His music and the music that it directly influenced are seeing a resurgence in popularity in the last few years. With any luck at all, our efforts played some small part in that, and on that note, we present Mr Brown Eyed Soul Vol. 2 - another compilation curated by us, where we dig a little deeper into Sunny's catalog and pull some lesser known gems that hold court with his hits. Hats off again to Mr Brown Eyed Soul himself, San Antonio's own, Sunny Ozuna, we are sure you will enjoy the music.

Sunny Ozuna is a living legend and a man worthy of praise on many levels. In the Texas and Latin Music pantheon, few have been at it longer and are more revered by their fans and peers than Sunny is. He became a star right out of high school in the late ‘50s and hasn’t looked back in the seven decades since. Among countless other honors and notable achievements, Sunny was the ­rst Latino artist to appear on Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand” (in 1963). He penned "Smile Now, Cry Later," a hit for him and The Sunliners, which along with the theater masks that grace the album's cover, became staples in the Chicano Soul and Lowrider Soul cultures. We have been fans of Sunny & The Sunliners' music for a long time. We fi­rst got in touch with Sunny to try to reissue some of his records in 2013 but we didn't sign a deal until 2015. It took a trip to San Antonio and then two years of steady phone calls before they decided "if you have been chasing us for this long, you must be serious." With Sunny's blessing we started getting everything mastered, scanned, and planned. First we released 2017's Mr Brown Eyed Soul Vol. 1 compilation that put rare 7" sides next to some of his biggest hits and mixed in some choice album cuts for good measure. In the wake of that, we released three of Sunny's full lengths with their original track lists and art: Smile Now, Cry Later, Little Brown Eyed Soul, and The Missing Link all of which were Record Store Day releases that raised money for the victims of 2017's Hurricane Harvey. For the 7" collectors, we reissued ­ve 45s, making some very hard to come by sides widely available again and pressing some tunes on the format for the ­rst time. In 2020, as an homage to Sunny, we released Dear Sunny... a compilation of Big Crown artists covering Sunny & The Sunliners songs. Through all of this we were able to do what we set out to do: get Sunny's music to a new audience of people and make it all accessible and available again to his existing fanbase. Sunny still keeps a busy schedule and loves performing as much as he did as a teenager. His music and the music that it directly in‑uenced are seeing a resurgence in popularity in the last few years. With any luck at all, our efforts played some small part in that, and on that note, we present Mr Brown Eyed Soul Vol. 2 – another compilation curated by us, where we dig a little deeper into Sunny's catalog and pull some lesser known gems that hold court with his hits. Hats off again to Mr Brown Eyed Soul himself, San Antonio's own, Sunny Ozuna, we are sure you will enjoy the music. Tracks: Side A 1 I Can Remember 2 Sitting In The Park 3 Give Me Time 4 Should I Take You Home (Keyloc Version) 5 If I Could See You Now 6 Come Back Baby 7 Viva Mi Triestesa Side B 1 Runaway 2 Sharing You 3 I’ve Never Found A Girl 4 Together 5 I’m No Stranger 6 Best Of Both Worlds 7 Baby, I Apologize

The French-Hong Kong DJ and producer Romain FX, founder of Fauve Radio and Fauve Records, debuts on Cracki Records !

After having made his mark on renowned labels such as Exploited, Eskimo Recordings, Novaj 新し, LAGASTA, Fantastic Voyage, Mamie's Records or Hard Fist Records, the ultra-productive artist is about to release Le Sucre d'Adam a new EP of 4 tracks and 2 remixes with the Parisian label Cracki Records.

Mixing Italian dream house, jazz, and Italo Disco, Romain FX wanted to create with this EP a timeless record and convey a message of hope for a better world.

The first track "Zeste d'Orange" is full of joyful emotions, with a feeling of unity and sharing, strongly influenced by 80-90's pop songs like "Rise Up" by The Parachute Club, and "Send Me On My Way" by Rusted Roots.

With its melancholic keyboards, "Le Sucre d'Adam" is a pure concentrate of Italo Dream House, and it's not a coincidence that Romain FX entrusted the remix of the track to the German Lauer, specialist of the genre.

"Italominati" with its powerful bass, draws him in the field of the fairy, influenced by artists like Todd Terje or Skatebård. It is the Korean producer Shubostar, new figure of the dark disco scene, who took care of the remix for a very effective cosmic version !

Last track of the EP, "Crave Cave Rave" with its Rave UK and progressive house accents was imagined as a long DJ Set closing. Intense and heavy at the beginning, the track ends with a feeling of extreme release, closing the EP in the most beautiful way.

*** REISSUE OF AN UTRA-RARE MODERN-SOUL MONSTER BY (JAMES) VAN BUREN ***

Born in Arrow Rock, Missouri Van Buren started sharing his love of blues and jazz with the public in 1956. Originally a drummer, he spent many years on the road with such legends as T. Bone Walker and Lou Rawls. In the early 1980s Van Buren founded his own JVB record label on which he released a couple of records and later CDs.

These two tracks are definitely the most obscure of his discography. With its positive and uplifting vibes it will certainly put a smile on the face of all our listeners and Tramp fans too.

Side A contains the vocal version of "Bronco Queen" which has already been featured on the 3rd volume of our "Can You Feel It" compilation album. Side B contains the equally great Part 2 which justifies alone this re-release.

LIMITED TO 500 COPIES

Felicia Atkinson’s music always puts the listener somewhere in particular. There are two categories of place that are important to »Image Langage«: the house and the landscape. Inside and outside, different ways of orienting a body towards the world. They are in dialogue, insofar as in the places Atkinson made this record—Leman Lake, during a residency at La Becque in Switzerland, and at her home on the wild coast of Normandy—the landscape is what is waiting for you when you leave the house, and vice-versa. Each threatens—or is it offers, kindly, even promises? —to dissolve the other. Recognizing the normalization of home studios these days, she revisited twentieth-century women artists who variously chose, and were chosen by, their homes as a place to work: the desert retreats of Agnes Martin and Georgia O’Keefe, the life and death of Sylvia Plath. Building a record is like building a house: a structure in which one can encounter oneself, each room a song with its own function in the project of everyday life.

At times listening to »Image Langage« is immediate, something like visiting a house by the sea, sharing the same ground, being invited to witness Atkinson’s acts of seeing, hearing, and reading in a sonic double of the places they occurred. In an aching moment of clarity in »The Lake is Speaking,« a pair of voices emerge out of the primordial murk of piano and organ, accompanying the listener to the edge of a reflective pool that makes a mirror of the cosmos. "I open my feet to fresh dirt, and the wet grass. I hold your hand. You hold his hand. In the distance without any distance. The comets, the stars." At other times, listening to »Image Langage« is more like being in a theatre, the composition a tangle of flickering forms and media that illuminate as best they can the darkness from which we experience it. On »Pieces of Sylvia,« a noirish orchestra drones and clatters beneath and around a montage of vocal images, stretching the listener across time, space, subjectivities. Atkinson says that "Image Langage" is like the fake title of a fake Godard film. There is indeed something cinematic about Atkinson’s work—not cinematic in the sense that it sounds like the score for someone else’s film, but cinematic in the sense that it produces its own images and langage and narratives, a kind of deliberate, dimensional world-building in sound.

»Image Langage« is built from instruments recorded as if field recordings, sound-images of instruments conjured from a keyboard, instruments Atkinson treats like characters, what she calls “a fantasy of an orchestra that doesn’t exist.” And then, speaking of Godard, there are the monologues, operating as both experimental-cinematic device and a literary style of narration. Voice can be a writerly anchor or a wisp of a textural presence. Atkinson’s capacious and slippery speech plunges into and out of the compositional depths, shifting shapes, channelling the voices of any number of beings, subjectivities, or elements of her surroundings—not unlike her midi keyboard, able to speak as a vast array of instruments.

»Image Langage« is an environmental record, in the vastest sense of the world. It is about getting lost in places imagined and real; it registers, too, the dizzying feeling of moving between such sites. It puts forth a concept of self that is hopelessly entangled with the rest of the world, born of both the ache of distance and the warmth of proximity.

For Félicia Atkinson, human voices inhabit an ecology alongside and within many other things that don’t speak, in the conventional sense: landscapes, images, books, memories, ideas. The French electro-acoustic composer and visual artist makes music that animates these other possible voices in conversation with her own, collaging field recording, MIDI instrumentation, and snippets of essayistic langage in both French and English. Her own voice, always shifting to make space, might whisper from the corner or assume another character’s tone. Atkinson uses composing as a way to process imaginative and creative life, frequently engaging with the work of visual artists, filmmakers, and novelists. Her layered compositions tell stories that alternately stretch and fold time and place, stories in which she is the narrator but not the protagonist.

A lot has been said and repeated about the interiority of this club music - how the joyful tremor of the "Raingurl" refrain holds hands with such soft and doubtful verses. How special it is that house music so of New York can contain storytelling cultivated so far away. That repetition is born of people all over the world going out, and staying in, with this music as a compass; songs that define so many late night hangs for crews of friends, singalongs in DJ booths, contemplative 5am walks home from the club. What can get lost in that repetition, in the shifting canonization of these recordings as symbols of any one scene or moment, is what was behind the pair of round glasses reflecting so tirelessly outwards. Yaeji, an exceptional friend only at the very beginning of finding her path as a cross-disciplinary artist and collaborator. Yaeji wrote this music while going out nearly every night of the week to DJ and support her own NYC community of friends at their turns behind the decks. These tracks originated from explorations in dancefloor anonymity, growing from seeds planted by sharing her first musical experiments online.

When words trail off at the beginning of claire rousay’s »everything perfect is already here«, ornate instrumentation is waiting to fill a void left by the breakdown of language. Yet it becomes clear as we trace rousay’s collaged sonic pathway that breakdown, of meaning and also of melody, is also a place to rest. everything perfect… is made up of two extended compositions that cycle between familiarity and unknowing. There are seemingly infinite ways to feel in response to these pieces of music, which shift tone across their languid duration, earnest like a familiar song but unbound from the emotional didacticisms of lyrical voice and pop form.

rousay builds a fluid landscape around the acoustic contributions of Alex Cunningham (violin), Mari Maurice (electronics and violin), Marilu Donovan (harp), and Theodore Cale Schafer (piano), whose respective melodies weave gently in and out, sometimes steady, sometimes aching, sometimes receding altogether in deference to less overtly musical sounds. That is, percussive texture in the form of unvarnished samples and field recordings: the rattle and rustle and the stops and starts of life unfurling, voices sharing memories nearly out of reach, doors closing, wind against a microphone. Everything comes from somewhere in particular, possessing the veneer of the diaristic, but sound’s provenance is secondary here and so these details become tangled and fused. On this release I hear such details not as individual ornaments or stories but the collective architecture of the greater composition. It’s an architecture that is not quite formed and thus full of openings out to the world unfolding.

“The world unfolding,” that’s a kind way of saying change, movement, loss, transformation. Things rousay here indexes, not without shards of desire or pain, still somehow what I hear is coarse peace in the in-between. These two pieces sweep you away and then bring you to earth, but which is which, anyway? Where am I now? What is different outside of me? What is different inside of me? Um. I think. everything is perfect is already here, like the answers to these questions, is loose and beautiful in surprising ways.

The music guides a certain experience of the world around. In claire’s music there is this marriage—not just a pairing or juxtaposition but an interrelationship, an eventual confusion—of song/texture, narrative/abstraction, figure/ground. Everything comes from somewhere in particular but not just the voices, the field recordings, the what is being said or meant, what matters is the where you are now. There are so many ways of anchoring oneself in the present, some have to do with fantasy or storytelling and some with accepting what is.

These two compositions find peace between these modes. They sweep you away and then bring you to earth, but which is which, anyway? Their mode of feeling is inquisitive. Where am I now? What has changed outside of me? What has changed inside of me? The music, like the answers to these questions, is loose and beautiful in surprising ways.

No global pandemic can dull the drive of musicians to create. At the onsetof the Covid-19 crisis artists everywhere found themselves ponderingwhat music making looks like under quarantine. In the absence of touringand in-person recording New York’s Ben Pirani and Evolfo - members ofwhom play in Ben’s backing band The Means Of Production - prove thespirit of collaboration can still flourish under social distancing with the helpof file sharing. And so the idea to exchange remixes of existing materialrevealed itself. Each musician recording their parts from home andzapping them across the city to be assembled. Peachy, from Evolfo’s 2017 LP Last Of The Acid Cowboys released onBrooklyn’s Royal Potato Family is given a solemn reharmonization byPirani. Jumping off with cacophonous strings and horns it then shifts to awinter’s day post-bop groove with Matt Gibbs original vocal swirlingabove. Cacophony returns and bookends the track leaving the listener toponder the poetic lyric. Try Love, from Ben Pirani’s 2018 Colemine LP How Do I Talk To MyBrother is stripped to it’s vital elements and built up again. Evolfo’sreimagining unfolds with a searing sunshine fuzz guitar. As the uniquegroove heats up Matt and Raff stack Ben’s original vocals getting to themessage of the tune we, together. After two big key changes the tunepours into a psychedelic zone’s unknown punctuated by sheets ofdelayed saxophone.

A lot has been said and repeated about the interiority of this club music - how the joyful tremor of the "Raingurl" refrain holds hands with such soft and doubtful verses. How special it is that house music so of New York can contain storytelling cultivated so far away. That repetition is born of people all over the world going out, and staying in, with this music as a compass; songs that define so many late night hangs for crews of friends, singalongs in DJ booths, contemplative 5am walks home from the club. What can get lost in that repetition, in the shifting canonization of these recordings as symbols of any one scene or moment, is what was behind the pair of round glasses reflecting so tirelessly outwards. Yaeji, an exceptional friend only at the very beginning of finding her path as a cross-disciplinary artist and collaborator. Yaeji wrote this music while going out nearly every night of the week to DJ and support her own NYC community of friends at their turns behind the decks. These tracks originated from explorations in dancefloor anonymity, growing from seeds planted by sharing her first musical experiments online.

Freestyle continues with their drive to unearth rare and classic UK funk, soul & boogie records with a reissue of a formerly white label-only, rare-as-hens-teeth debut 12" by UK soul icon Rick Clarke from way back in 1981.

Sharing the same line-up of performers as the eponymous group Potion (Rick Clarke, Carlton White on bass & Everton McCalla, formerly of Light of the World and later Freeez, on drums) though credited on the OG press as Rick Clarke alone, this 12" came out originally in the same year as the also sought after Potion 12" "Catch The Feelin' (Showstopper)" - a year before we would see Rick & Everton release the classic british electro funk of "Magic" as Side On (with Peter Mass) on Beggars Banquet.

This is a classic slice of British disco funk, showcasing an early vocal talent that would go on to become a key feature of the late 80s UK soul scene, alongside a tight-as rhythm section. The subtly dubbed-out instrumental mix is a real treat too, bringing those synth flourishes and soaring horns to the fore and letting us hear Carlton's bass work wonders unencumbered.

A simple idea in an over complicated moment. Strip away aesthetics and be artist centric, sharing and explore collisions, sounds and genres. Step out of comfort zones to release a series of EPs of broad, challenging and deep music.

Starting with The Proposal by A Strange Wedding, this Lyon based producer from the Worst label, builds on their "modern style" slow trance to create a label anthem, a template. Stretched Arp, hypnotic bass and searing melody, underpinned by ocean wide kick. Merci for the perfect beginning.

Datasal are next, as this Gothenburg's trio's debut arrives. Acoustics (Miyazawa flute / Fender bass) and electronics (Roland RS-09 / Korg Mono) collide; prog rock meets post punk meets dance; outside organised compositions to improvise to the beat.

Side two leads back to the origin. 84PC, the dormant Tel Aviv collective that developed out of the city's Michatronix Crew (featuring Katzele, Naduve, Asaf and Yovav), return with a previously unreleased remix from Khidja. Their "Welcome To The Pleasuredome" moment is peak time perfection.

To close Barcelona's Iro Aka arrive with another debut. Having dispatched edits on Hard Fist and 44,100Hz Social Club, their bubbling 303 is a tender dreamtime finale that points ahead.

Available on vinyl for the first time since it's original CD-only release in 2007. Tenor saxophonist Fred Anderson and drummer Hamid Drake had the closest of relationships, as close as a father and son might have. Their communication was at a higher level musically and emotionally. The music on this album reflects not only their masterful musical skills, but a conversation in music that is exceptionally powerful and unique. For From the River to the Ocean, they assembled a band consisting of fellow Chicagoans to record the most relaxed, perfectly balanced album they made together. It may seem hyperbolic to call From the River to the Ocean Fred Anderson's greatest album, but the empathy and cohesiveness of the ensemble, coupled with the saxophonist's brilliant, searching improvisations, makes it a powerful contender. From the River to the Ocean is an especially varied outing, ranging from Anderson's classic set-closing blues "Strut Time" to the meditative, spiritual, modal track "For Brother Thompson," dedicated to the late trumpeter Malachi Thompson and featuring bassist Harrison Bankhead on brooding piano and Drake chanting in Arabic. The record's title track and the closer, "Sakti/Shiva," find bassist Josh Abrams laying down an astounding bed on guimbri, the threestringed Moroccan acoustic bass familiar to fans of Gnawa music. Another of the album's delights is guitarist Jeff Parker, well known Jazz guitarist as well as member of Tortoise. Here, Parker displays an immense sensitivity and melodic genius, sharing solo spotlight with Bankhead's cello on "From the River to the Ocean" and sculpting a stunning array of shapes on the group's swinging take on Anderson's "Planet E." Underneath it all is Hamid Drake, an intensely creative soul continuing to challenge himself. Drake's growth is not measured in how many different instruments he plays - indeed, he's scaled back his arsenal over the years - but in the depth and musicality of his feeling. On this record he is remarkably light and airy, playing with tremendous delicacy and clarity. Propulsion can be introduced without a pneumatic drill, and Drake instigates an avalanche of rolling forward momentum on the opening moments, inspiring the two basses and guitarist to move, to make something moving, and in turn to further inspire Fred Anderson to some of his most forceful and imaginative playing ever documented. If the individual is a small receptacle of expressivity, a mountain spring if you will, then it is in ideal settings like this one that the springs join forces, turning into streams, then bigger and bigger tributaries, finally swelling into rivers that open into the oceanic creative waterways. Thank goodness Anderson and Drake tapped into that wellspring, drawing directly from the source

Available on vinyl for the first time since it's original CD-only release in 2007. Tenor saxophonist Fred Anderson and drummer Hamid Drake had the closest of relationships, as close as a father and son might have. Their communication was at a higher level musically and emotionally. The music on this album reflects not only their masterful musical skills, but a conversation in music that is exceptionally powerful and unique. For From the River to the Ocean, they assembled a band consisting of fellow Chicagoans to record the most relaxed, perfectly balanced album they made together. It may seem hyperbolic to call From the River to the Ocean Fred Anderson's greatest album, but the empathy and cohesiveness of the ensemble, coupled with the saxophonist's brilliant, searching improvisations, makes it a powerful contender. From the River to the Ocean is an especially varied outing, ranging from Anderson's classic set-closing blues "Strut Time" to the meditative, spiritual, modal track "For Brother Thompson," dedicated to the late trumpeter Malachi Thompson and featuring bassist Harrison Bankhead on brooding piano and Drake chanting in Arabic. The record's title track and the closer, "Sakti/Shiva," find bassist Josh Abrams laying down an astounding bed on guimbri, the threestringed Moroccan acoustic bass familiar to fans of Gnawa music. Another of the album's delights is guitarist Jeff Parker, well known Jazz guitarist as well as member of Tortoise. Here, Parker displays an immense sensitivity and melodic genius, sharing solo spotlight with Bankhead's cello on "From the River to the Ocean" and sculpting a stunning array of shapes on the group's swinging take on Anderson's "Planet E." Underneath it all is Hamid Drake, an intensely creative soul continuing to challenge himself. Drake's growth is not measured in how many different instruments he plays - indeed, he's scaled back his arsenal over the years - but in the depth and musicality of his feeling. On this record he is remarkably light and airy, playing with tremendous delicacy and clarity. Propulsion can be introduced without a pneumatic drill, and Drake instigates an avalanche of rolling forward momentum on the opening moments, inspiring the two basses and guitarist to move, to make something moving, and in turn to further inspire Fred Anderson to some of his most forceful and imaginative playing ever documented. If the individual is a small receptacle of expressivity, a mountain spring if you will, then it is in ideal settings like this one that the springs join forces, turning into streams, then bigger and bigger tributaries, finally swelling into rivers that open into the oceanic creative waterways. Thank goodness Anderson and Drake tapped into that wellspring, drawing directly from the source

A simple idea in an over complicated moment. Strip away aesthetics and be artist centric, sharing and explore collisions, sounds and genres. Step out of comfort zones to release a series of EPs of broad, challenging and deep music.

Starting with The Proposal by A Strange Wedding, this Lyon based producer from the Worst label, builds on their "modern style" slow trance to create a label anthem, a template. Stretched Arp, hypnotic bass and searing melody, underpinned by ocean wide kick. Merci for the perfect beginning.

Datasal are next, as this Gothenburg's trio's debut arrives. Acoustics (Miyazawa flute / Fender bass) and electronics (Roland RS-09 / Korg Mono) collide; prog rock meets post punk meets dance; outside organised compositions to improvise to the beat.

Side two leads back to the origin. 84PC, the dormant Tel Aviv collective that developed out of the city's Michatronix Crew (featuring Katzele, Naduve, Asaf and Yovav), return with a previously unreleased remix from Khidja. Their "Welcome To The Pleasuredome" moment is peak time perfection.

To close Barcelona's Iro Aka arrive with another debut. Having dispatched edits on Hard Fist and 44,100Hz Social Club, their bubbling 303 is a tender dreamtime finale that points ahead.

The only album by Austrian trio Cultural Noise is a an electronic marvel. Band members were Gerhard Lisy, Walter Heinisch and Karl Kronfeld, and instruments used included an ARP Sequencer, an ARP 2600, a VCS 3, an EMS Digital Sequencer, a Mellotron M400, a Micro Moog, a Roland Studiosystem 700, a Roland Analogue Sequenzer and an electric guitar. With these weapons and a strong influence from the Berlin school Cultural Noise created a rich electronic tapestry which expanded through the two pieces of this record, one per side, being compared by reviewers to works by Zanov or Anna Själv Tredge. Mentions of Tangerine Dream are also present on reviews, although Cultural Noise have a pretty unique personality on their own and besides sharing the use of Mellotron, sequencers and analog synths we have a totally personal concept here which sets them aside from all TD impersonators of the era.



The album was originally released in 1980 on CBS and later repressed in 1981 which came in a B&W version of the sleeve that some sources list as a self release private pressing done by the band themselves - this has been denied by members of Cultural Noise.



500 copies only reissue, housed in its original full colour version artwork.

Vinyl now gone back to June. RIYL: Slowdive, DIIV, Electric Youth, The Cure, My Bloody Valentine. Solo project of Los Angeles based Matthew Doty (ex-Saxon Shore). For Matthew Doty, Deserta has always been about exploring a sonic universe that allows him to express a kaleidoscope of emotions, without having to say much at all. Through a patchwork of reverb-tinged textures – drone guitars, lingering synths and driving percussion – the Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist weaves together stories of care, frustration and catharsis that ultimately stretch to a gentle resolve. On new album Every Moment, Everything You Need, Doty chronicles the kind of year we all fear, full of uncertainty, tension and sustained pressure, and transforms it into a celebration of perseverance. It’s an essential reminder that we have the power to shape the stories we tell. The pandemic meant that Doty had to give up his studio and downsize a lot of his gear and instead, carve out a space in his two-bedroom apartment to craft the next chapter of Deserta. Sharing the space with his wife and son, Doty and his partner are also essential healthcare workers, which meant the couple would often have to tag-team childcare, along with 13-hour shifts in PPE and people constantly calling with questions about the ever changing guidelines and protocols. Once the blueprint for Every Moment, Everything You Need was set, Doty reached out to a number of collaborators to stitch together his vision for the sonic landscape. James McAlister (Sufjan Stevens, The National, Taylor Swift) came onboard to perform and record drums, while Caroline Lufkin (Mice Parade) wrote and performed vocals on the ethereal “Where Did You Go.” Elsewhere, the LP was mixed by Dave Fridmann (Tame Impala, Mogwai, Interpol), with Beach House and Slowdive producer Chris Coady engineering and co-producing, making this the first time Fridmann and Coady had worked together on a project. While the vocals are more prominent than Deserta’s previous albums, it’s their amalgamation with the instrumental aspects that secures Every Moment, Everything You Need as Deserta’s most confident and assured release to date. An affecting emotional candor teamed with persistent riffs and tenacious rhythms sees Doty unafraid to dive deeper; an unrestrained approach that ushers in a lustrous purging of agitation and anxiety. Showcasing those dark, exhaustive thoughts through crucial swells and looped, electronic soundscapes, it’s an LP that’s infinitely layered, with something new to discover with each and every enchanting listen.

International Feel founder and guru of the sunset soundtrack, Mark Barrott returns with a new EP entitled Travelling Music. After spending the last few years writing & producing for other people, Mark is focusing his creative efforts inwards & rediscovering his own musical compass, calling it ‘the best medicine and therapy there is’. It’s this energy he looks forward to sharing via a number of releases over the coming months, including a new La Torre compilation, a series of Bandcamp only releases (Bandcamp Editions), the soundtrack to a new Japanese documentary (??) and this new vinyl release, Travelling Music.

He refers to the title track as Balearic trance. Not in the overblown Dutch sense, but trance as a metaphor/mechanism for an altered state, through hypnotic unraveling synth lines and a dash of wonkiness thrown in for good measure . Elsewhere on the EP, Arcade Scene flexes its melodic Italo dance moves with a slight nod to New Order, but a version of the group that’s beamed in from an alternate reality, where The Haçienda was called Il Tesoro and relocated to Ancona via a Gerd Janson DJ set circa 1991.

Chillin’ 4 work channels Aphex Twin from his easy listening Gentle People remix era, with added Sketches from an Island / Ry Cooder-esque guitars and the reprise of Travelling Music already feels like a La Torre sunset classic, bouncing with sequenced polyrhythmic arpeggios, before gently evaporating into a Vangelis-meets-Edgar Froese heat haze.

As with most of his work, Barrott calls this folk music…the telling of stories from everyday life and being Ibizan in origin, there are always a lot of varied & crazy stories to tell, but this chapter in particular feels like a deep burnt therapeutic transmission straight from the heart.

The Howling is a collaborative project started by writer Ken Hollings and sound artist Howlround devoted exclusively to their shared love of text, audiotape and trash aesthetics. An intense collision of spoken word and analogue tape effects, the Howling's first performance took place at the Iklectik in September 2019 as part of a special programme to celebrate The Tapeworm's 10th anniversary.

Despite the pandemic, they have managed to continue working and conferring together since then, sharing sound files, texts and mixes online, which has resulted in All Hail Mega Force, their first full-length release for The Tapeworm. The two extended tracks contained on this audiocassette reflect their shared interest in Fluxus and how informal rules and permutations can be set up to work themselves out through loops and repetitions. A straight line connects Terry Riley's tape experiments in Paris from the early 60s with their experimental recordings in the Wimpy Bar on Streatham High Road, one of their favourite meeting places. 'The idea of instant, disposable one-off creations appealed to us a lot at the time,' The Howling explain, 'particularly as both pieces were conceived and developed during different phases of Covid lockdown in the UK.'

The title and source material are derived from the kid's adventure movie MegaForce, starring Barry Bostwik and Michael Beck. Designed to sell a range of Mattel hi-tech action toys, MegaForce tanked at the box office but lives on in the collective consciousness of those who share with The Howling a special love for Trash and Trash Aesthetics.

The two tracks also share similarities in approach and realization.

'All Hail Mega Force' was created by reading combinations of the words 'All Hail Mega Force' into a voice memo recorder, transferring it to tape, cutting the whole thing as a single long loop and then stretching it across three reel-to-reel machines simultaneously, using two pencils and a pint glass full of loose change to try and maintain sufficient playback tension. Over time the loop started to degrade, which accounts for the increasingly slurry and unpredictable playback, plus frequent ruptures caused by the tape becoming jammed and having to be tugged through the machine workings by hand. Twenty-four minutes later and the result was a completed new work and a slight backache.

The text for 'Are You Man Enough For Mega Force?' was recorded live in the Wimpy Bar on Streatham High Road, 28 November 2021. It was cut to tape and looped on 3 December 2021 at Warrior Studios, Loughborough Junction. Dragged by motor and then by hand across two tape machines with copious amounts of closed input feedback provided by a third rushing in to fill the gaps. One take with no effects or overdubs, but one tiny edit in the middle when something fell over.

Across eight studio albums, DECAPITATED grew from the adolescent dream of teenagers from a small Central European town to one of the leaders of the metal genre. Each successive album further expands the band’s sound with genre-bending authenticity and integrity. As Metal Injection rightfully observed, “any self-respecting death metalhead knows the name well.”

DECAPITATED’s music is a weapon forged by four young men from a historic medieval-fortified town in Poland, which catapulted them to the top of a worldwide subculture. Like a rose in the devil’s garden, the DECAPITATED story builds triumph from tragedy. The gleeful grotesquery of extreme metal imagery and rifftastic bludgeoning beckons listeners to uncover broader truths.Upon the release of 2017’s Anticult, Metal Hammer declared DECAPITATED “a serious successor to the likes of Pantera and Lamb Of God – a band who can draw new legions into the metal world as its new champions.” Their diverse follow-up, 2022’s Cancer Culture, delivers on that promise.

Instantly recognizable devastation and deceptively sinister hooks abound. Freshly minted DECAPITATED anthems like “Last Supper,” “Hello Death,” “Just Cigarette,” “No Cure,” “Iconoclast,” and “Cancer Culture” shimmer with sonically sharp production and unrelenting bombast. There’s also a newly increased emphasis on melody, even venturing into darkly romantic territory. Wacław "Vogg" Kiełtyka (guitar), Rafał "Rasta" Piotrowski (vocals), Paweł Pasek (bass), and James Stewart (drums) are at the top of their game, delivering the goods at peak performance. Jinjer vocalist Tatiana Shmayluk and Machine Head frontman Robb Flynn make guest appearances.

Set on the descending plains of a mountain range amid a dense forest, Krosno boasts a 14th-century Gothic church, a Subcarpathian museum, and stunning artisan glassware. In this Polish town, teenage music student Wacław "Vogg" Kiełtyka discovered records from bands like Morbid Angel, Cannibal Corpse, Metallica, and Machine Head. The guitarist and his younger brother, drummer Witold “Vitek” Kiełtyka, cofounded DECAPITATED in 1996, inspired by a wide range of technical death, blackened thrash, and local heroes, like KAT and the world-renowned Vader. Death and black metal reigned supreme in the Polish scene of the 1990s, where Behemoth originated as well. In fact, a Vader song called “Decapitated Saints” inspired the band’s moniker.
The organic musical chemistry between the Kiełtykas was akin to the brotherly connectivity and vibe driving Pantera, Gojira, and the classic era of Sepultura. In 2006, Kerrang! praised the first three DECAPITATED albums - Winds of Creation (2000), Nihility (2002), and The Negation (2004) – as “superbly conceived and executed eruptions of technical brilliance and razor-sharp songwriting that turned these youthful Poles into one of the genre’s most widely respected bands.” That year’s Organic Hallucinosis further perfected Vogg’s penchant for blending extremity with catchy hooks.

The rule-breaking ferocity and invention of the first four albums reinvigorated death metal, as DECAPITATED inspired a new generation of bands who followed suit. Sadly, this era came to a shocking end in late 2007. While touring Russia, the band’s bus collided with a large truck near the border with Belarus. Both Vitak and then-singer Adrian “Covan” Kowanek sustained severe head injuries. Tragically, Vitak passed away in a Russian hospital a few days later. He was just 23.Vogg summoned the courage to continue, in honor of his brother and what they created, and returned with a new incarnation of DECAPITATED and the fiercely adventurous comeback album, Carnival is Forever (2011) featuring new vocalist Rafał "Rasta" Piotrowski. Blood Mantra (2014) introduced bassist, Paweł Pasek. Blabbermouth declared it “perhaps the most poised and gutsy” DECAPITATED album, adding “its courageous bends make it a turbulent but pleasurable ride.”

Cancer Culture sounds brilliant, modern, and tasty. “There is no place for any fake, plastic, bullshit drum machine or anything like that,” Vogg insists. “It’s all organic, pure, and clear, showing the true face of the band. Vogg and company entrusted the Cancer Culture mix to David Castillo at Sweden’s Fascination Street Studios / Studio Gröndahl (Sepultura, Carcass, Opeth, Katatonia), and legendary American producer Ted Jensen (Metallica, Slipknot, Pantera, Machine Head, Korn).
The devoted supporters who traveled to see DECAPITATED on international tours with the likes of Lamb Of God, Meshuggah, Soulfly, Fear Factory, and Suffocation over the years will recognize the ever-present pummeling backbone. Longtime fans and newcomers alike will connect to the variety of atmospheric depth throughout Cancer Culture’s ten boundlessly energetic and creative tracks.
“If you told me 25 years ago, in my neighborhood in the South of Poland, that I would be in Machine Head, sharing riffs with Robb Flynn,” Vogg marvels. “It’s simply incredible. It means that everything is possible in your life. That gives me the faith to believe that I can achieve even more in my career. The dreams we have when we are kids, things we can barely imagine, can happen.” Flynn contributes a hauntingly beautiful vocal to the Cancer Culture track “Iconoclast.” “Clean vocal singing is a really new thing in DECAPITATED,” Vogg notes. “It’s really unique and amazing.”

Driven by Vogg’s passion and integrity, the dual emphasis on creative invention and technical prowess maintains DECAPITATED’s stature as genre-leaders in 2022 and beyond. The band’s supporters continually demonstrate confidence and absolute certainty DECAPITATED will deliver.

Across eight studio albums, DECAPITATED grew from the adolescent dream of teenagers from a small Central European town to one of the leaders of the metal genre. Each successive album further expands the band’s sound with genre-bending authenticity and integrity. As Metal Injection rightfully observed, “any self-respecting death metalhead knows the name well.”

DECAPITATED’s music is a weapon forged by four young men from a historic medieval-fortified town in Poland, which catapulted them to the top of a worldwide subculture. Like a rose in the devil’s garden, the DECAPITATED story builds triumph from tragedy. The gleeful grotesquery of extreme metal imagery and rifftastic bludgeoning beckons listeners to uncover broader truths.Upon the release of 2017’s Anticult, Metal Hammer declared DECAPITATED “a serious successor to the likes of Pantera and Lamb Of God – a band who can draw new legions into the metal world as its new champions.” Their diverse follow-up, 2022’s Cancer Culture, delivers on that promise.

Instantly recognizable devastation and deceptively sinister hooks abound. Freshly minted DECAPITATED anthems like “Last Supper,” “Hello Death,” “Just Cigarette,” “No Cure,” “Iconoclast,” and “Cancer Culture” shimmer with sonically sharp production and unrelenting bombast. There’s also a newly increased emphasis on melody, even venturing into darkly romantic territory. Wacław "Vogg" Kiełtyka (guitar), Rafał "Rasta" Piotrowski (vocals), Paweł Pasek (bass), and James Stewart (drums) are at the top of their game, delivering the goods at peak performance. Jinjer vocalist Tatiana Shmayluk and Machine Head frontman Robb Flynn make guest appearances.

Set on the descending plains of a mountain range amid a dense forest, Krosno boasts a 14th-century Gothic church, a Subcarpathian museum, and stunning artisan glassware. In this Polish town, teenage music student Wacław "Vogg" Kiełtyka discovered records from bands like Morbid Angel, Cannibal Corpse, Metallica, and Machine Head. The guitarist and his younger brother, drummer Witold “Vitek” Kiełtyka, cofounded DECAPITATED in 1996, inspired by a wide range of technical death, blackened thrash, and local heroes, like KAT and the world-renowned Vader. Death and black metal reigned supreme in the Polish scene of the 1990s, where Behemoth originated as well. In fact, a Vader song called “Decapitated Saints” inspired the band’s moniker.
The organic musical chemistry between the Kiełtykas was akin to the brotherly connectivity and vibe driving Pantera, Gojira, and the classic era of Sepultura. In 2006, Kerrang! praised the first three DECAPITATED albums - Winds of Creation (2000), Nihility (2002), and The Negation (2004) – as “superbly conceived and executed eruptions of technical brilliance and razor-sharp songwriting that turned these youthful Poles into one of the genre’s most widely respected bands.” That year’s Organic Hallucinosis further perfected Vogg’s penchant for blending extremity with catchy hooks.

The rule-breaking ferocity and invention of the first four albums reinvigorated death metal, as DECAPITATED inspired a new generation of bands who followed suit. Sadly, this era came to a shocking end in late 2007. While touring Russia, the band’s bus collided with a large truck near the border with Belarus. Both Vitak and then-singer Adrian “Covan” Kowanek sustained severe head injuries. Tragically, Vitak passed away in a Russian hospital a few days later. He was just 23.Vogg summoned the courage to continue, in honor of his brother and what they created, and returned with a new incarnation of DECAPITATED and the fiercely adventurous comeback album, Carnival is Forever (2011) featuring new vocalist Rafał "Rasta" Piotrowski. Blood Mantra (2014) introduced bassist, Paweł Pasek. Blabbermouth declared it “perhaps the most poised and gutsy” DECAPITATED album, adding “its courageous bends make it a turbulent but pleasurable ride.”

Cancer Culture sounds brilliant, modern, and tasty. “There is no place for any fake, plastic, bullshit drum machine or anything like that,” Vogg insists. “It’s all organic, pure, and clear, showing the true face of the band. Vogg and company entrusted the Cancer Culture mix to David Castillo at Sweden’s Fascination Street Studios / Studio Gröndahl (Sepultura, Carcass, Opeth, Katatonia), and legendary American producer Ted Jensen (Metallica, Slipknot, Pantera, Machine Head, Korn).
The devoted supporters who traveled to see DECAPITATED on international tours with the likes of Lamb Of God, Meshuggah, Soulfly, Fear Factory, and Suffocation over the years will recognize the ever-present pummeling backbone. Longtime fans and newcomers alike will connect to the variety of atmospheric depth throughout Cancer Culture’s ten boundlessly energetic and creative tracks.
“If you told me 25 years ago, in my neighborhood in the South of Poland, that I would be in Machine Head, sharing riffs with Robb Flynn,” Vogg marvels. “It’s simply incredible. It means that everything is possible in your life. That gives me the faith to believe that I can achieve even more in my career. The dreams we have when we are kids, things we can barely imagine, can happen.” Flynn contributes a hauntingly beautiful vocal to the Cancer Culture track “Iconoclast.” “Clean vocal singing is a really new thing in DECAPITATED,” Vogg notes. “It’s really unique and amazing.”

Driven by Vogg’s passion and integrity, the dual emphasis on creative invention and technical prowess maintains DECAPITATED’s stature as genre-leaders in 2022 and beyond. The band’s supporters continually demonstrate confidence and absolute certainty DECAPITATED will deliver.

Ángel Rada is one of the most interesting music experimantalists of Venezuela. He started his career in the late 1960s as a member of The Gas Light, one of the big names on Venezuela's live circuit in the era, sharing the stages with other artists such as Apocalipsis, Un Dos Tres y Fuera, Vytas Brenner, Daniel Grau, Pablo Schneider, Miguel Ángel Fuster... Rada is one of the three basic artists who set an electronic music scene in Venezuela, along with Miguel Ángel Noya and Vinicio Adames.



Rada had attended the Escuela Superior de Música José Ángel Lamas and then continued his studies in Germany, where he was impressed by krautrock music, especially by its more electronic side. He met Kraftwerk when they were recording at Kling Klang Studio, and also knew Klaus Schulze–who would become an example for him to to follow. This contact with the Kraut scene would be the biggest influence on his works from the 1970s, which would end synthesizing in Rada's first record: 1983's Upadesa, originally released on his own independent label Uranium Records. Since then he has released more than 20 albums up to date, making him one of the most prolific experimental musicians not only in his country but also in the whole world.



Rada's aproach to electronic music is based in what he calls ethnosonic music. He is interested in the mixture of various styles which he filters through the use of technology, so in his electronic compositions one can hear echoes of ethnic sounds from all over the globe as well as some jazz influenced improvisation, ambient and synthesized sounds.



The Wah Wah edition is the first ever vinyl reissue of this landmark LP and has been remastered for vinyl by Roger Prades @ Prades Mastering. Includes an insert with liner notes by Salvatore Maldera.



It is a strictly limited edition of 500 copies only.

AOW is a new collaborative project from Dan Ghenacia and Tolga Fidan emerging from a new period of creativity and inspiration for the Lisbon-based artists.

Long time friends and fellow lynchpins of the European house and techno scene, Ghenacia and Fidan started working closely together through 2020 and 2021 while sharing studio space at Boa Lab. They found themselves at the heart of an artistic community of musicians, designers and engineers, which took shape around Ghenacia’s experiments with alpha wave generation, inspired by Bryon Gysin’s Dream Machine.

Ghenacia and engineer Anine Kirsten developed a modern update on Gysin’s 1950s design, which has been installed at exhibitions in London, Lisbon and Paris. At its heart, the project explores the natural hallucinatory effects of alpha wave projections on the eyelids, and the therapeutic benefits of the experience. Out of this spirit of psychedelically-charged experimentation, Ghenacia and Fidan have been working beyond the confines of their typical club-oriented material, creating ambient soundtracks to artist exhibitions in Boa and auditory backdrops to Alpha Wave Experience installations.

AOW bridges the gap between this new period of creativity and Ghenacia and Fidan’s life-long passion for electronic dance music. Compared to the strictures of house and techno they’re best known for, the three tracks on Hear the Light explore a more open, inquisitive sound with roots in UK electronica and West Coast psychedelic breaks (a seminal scene when Ghenacia was in the Bay Area in the 90s). Crucially though, it’s not a pointedly retro sound, but rather a result of rich streams of inspiration meeting and passing through crisp, modernist production techniques to offer something
genuinely fresh on the ears.

Working outside of their comfort zones and guided by creative philosophies springing from research, shared experience and community, Hear the Light marks a new step forward for Ghenacia and Fidan, with many more developments promised for the future.

Following years of international touring and a lengthy list of critically-acclaimed collaborations with Brian Jonestown Massacre's Anton Newcombe in recent years (most recently the duo's self-titled 2018 LP), the new album will be Parks' first full-length solo offering since her debut, 'Blood Hot', was released back in 2013 on Alan McGee's 359 Music label. "In my mind, this album is like hopscotch", Parks says: "These songs were pieced together over time in London, Toronto and Los Angeles with friends and family between August 2019 and March 2021. So many other versions of these songs exist. The recording and final completion of this album took over two years and wow - the lesson I have learned the most is that words are spells. If I didn't know it before, I know it now for sure. I only want to put good out into the universe." A growing disillusionment with the state of the world paired with an injury that stopped Parks from being able to play guitar and piano for months meant the album was nearly shelved. "I really felt discouraged to complete this album", she recalls: "I stopped listening to music for honestly about a year altogether and turned to painting instead. I really had to convince myself again that it's important to just share whatever good we can - having faith in ourselves to know that our lights can shine on and on through other people and for other people. The thought of anyone not sharing their art or being shy of anything they create seems like a real tragedy to me. Even if it's not perfect, you're capturing a moment." Recorded over a two year period but with songs, lyrics and ideas dating back over a decade in some form, 'And Those Who Were Seen Dancing' is an album full of such moments, people and places. Col LP is on 180g ultra-clear vinyl, standard sleeve.

Following years of international touring and a lengthy list of critically-acclaimed collaborations with Brian Jonestown Massacre's Anton Newcombe in recent years (most recently the duo's self-titled 2018 LP), the new album will be Parks' first full-length solo offering since her debut, 'Blood Hot', was released back in 2013 on Alan McGee's 359 Music label. "In my mind, this album is like hopscotch", Parks says: "These songs were pieced together over time in London, Toronto and Los Angeles with friends and family between August 2019 and March 2021. So many other versions of these songs exist. The recording and final completion of this album took over two years and wow - the lesson I have learned the most is that words are spells. If I didn't know it before, I know it now for sure. I only want to put good out into the universe." A growing disillusionment with the state of the world paired with an injury that stopped Parks from being able to play guitar and piano for months meant the album was nearly shelved. "I really felt discouraged to complete this album", she recalls: "I stopped listening to music for honestly about a year altogether and turned to painting instead. I really had to convince myself again that it's important to just share whatever good we can - having faith in ourselves to know that our lights can shine on and on through other people and for other people. The thought of anyone not sharing their art or being shy of anything they create seems like a real tragedy to me. Even if it's not perfect, you're capturing a moment." Recorded over a two year period but with songs, lyrics and ideas dating back over a decade in some form, 'And Those Who Were Seen Dancing' is an album full of such moments, people and places. Col LP is on 180g ultra-clear vinyl, standard sleeve.

It would have seemed like a dream come true, when a young teenage country girl was drawn to New York landing work as a maid, nanny and sometime session singer, to suddenly find herself with a worldwide hit record. It should have changed her life from then on, but such is the fickle nature of the music business that she never managed to maintain the fruits of her record sales. Despite many fine single releases and this very fine and well respected album, she was soon to fall down the snakes as quickly as she had climbed the ladders. King and Goffin worked for Aldon Music, owned by Don Kirshner, where they were enjoying hits for the likes of Bobby Vee, The Drifters and Tony Orlando. Kirshner asked them to write a possible follow-up to Dee Dee Sharp’s #2 hit Mashed Potato Time, and they quickly came up with The Loco-Motion and had their live-in nanny Eva sing the demo with Carole herself playing piano and singing back-ups with her. Kirshner absolutely loved it and decided to keep the song for his own newly formed Dimension Records. Here for all to enjoy is her musical legacy in the form of this fine début album.

Dena Miller grew up on a diet of folk before spending 6 years writing and exploring projects through Philly's punk scene, Oberlin's conservatory experimentalist and NY's DIY history before arriving at her debut album 'Woodpecker' . Think Waxahatchee, Told Slant & Moldy Peaches...
Black vinyl with inner sleeve lyrics & download.

Deer Scout’s debut full length Woodpecker is a record about memory and the subconscious. And like an unforgettable dream that keeps you puzzling over its riddles for days, it’s as packed with direct symbols as it is with ruminative haze. “I approach songwriting as a process of boxing things up, or putting away a time capsule,” explains front person Dena Miller, who wrote the album over a period of six years. It’s a culminating collection of the project’s many sounds and influences to date, from Philly’s punk cooperatives to Oberlin’s conservatory experimentalism to New York’s DIY history. At the center is Miller’s assured guitar fingerpicking and boldly clear voice, firmly grounded even as it gently probes uncertain emotional and musical terrain.

Raised by two folk musicians in Yonkers, Miller began recording songs as Deer Scout her freshman year of college in Philadelphia. There, she wrote Woodpecker’s earliest song “Synesthesia” about a train ride home from a basement show: “Night in the city / Big house on the corner / Her voice has the timbre of summers ago,” recalls Miller resonantly. After Miller’s transfer to Oberlin College, Deer Scout began touring DIY venues around the country and sharing stages with favorite artists including Waxahatchee and Told Slant. The twinned intimacy and intricacy of those two influences is reflected in the carefully adventurous arrangements on Woodpecker, which features, among other contributors, bass from close collaborator Ko Takasugi-Czernowin, cello from Zuzia Weyman, drums from Madel Rafter, and guitar from Miller’s father Mark—who also wrote the song “Peace with the Damage” and originally released it with his band Spuyten Duyvil in 2011.

Many of the songs on Woodpecker were written during periods of grief or change. “I used to sing myself to sleep as a baby and I think music still plays the same role in my life—it’s a way of self-soothing or seeking comfort,” explains Miller. “But there’s also part of it that comes from wanting to connect with people." Recorded and mixed primarily by Heather Jones at So Big Auditory in Philly with overdubs by Miller at home, Woodpecker is an exercise in portraying the incommunicable. “Cup”—about a relational psychology test called “a walk in the woods” that turns encounters with symbols into meaning—uses watery arpeggios, wintry strings, and roving bass to create a liminal sonic space, optimistic but tense. “Cowboy,” with airy layers of acoustic guitar riffs and Miller’s charmingly double tracked voice, takes its little fish, big pond inspiration from the character Joe Buck in Midnight Cowboy. And “Afterthought,” with its unexpectedly bright resolutions, is about God, love, and the complexity of empathy; “Heaven isn’t watching us,” sings Miller candidly over pedal steel.

Though Woodpecker is a record about uncertainty and the unknown, it’s also about compassion and connection—as Miller was able to find over the course of writing and recording this next chapter for Deer Scout and first release for Carpark, which she’s excited to at last share with the world.

Continuing with the theme of finding and releasing quality 21st century CD-only tracks on to 7” vinyl, Jai Alai now are proud to present their fourth release which showcases the stand-out tracks from the only two albums released under the name Sir Wick.
Chad ’Sir Wick’ Hughes is probably best described as a musician (trombone, piano, percussion), composer, teacher, adjudicator and clinician, but somehow that doesn’t seem quite enough to describe such a unique musical talent. Born in Detroit, and graduating from the same High School as Diana Ross, Paul Thompson, & Ron Carter, he went on to study composition and arranging, and holds regular clinics around the north and mid-west US states sharing his expertise.
The topside on this limited edition release is the lead track from his debut album “An Interpretation Of A Universal Language” (2007 Sir Wick Entertainment LLC) which features the sublime vocals of Sedalia Marie, a beautiful mid-pacer, whilst the other side “I Love You” features the mellow vocals of Anthony Saunders on a track from Chad’s opus work “A Tale Of Two Fools”, which he began in 1996 but only finally orchestrated and released as his second album in 2017 - a soundtrack featuring a full orchestra comprising eight woodwind parts, full strings, big band brass, and seven-piece rhythm section.
Originally intended as an operetta, it was evolving into something bigger; an opera, musical or stage play maybe, but he finally referred to it as a ‘novical’ (a musical novel), which best describes this story of a young musician falling in love for the first time. A biopic, maybe?
One could easily take these two fabulous tracks at face value as simply just another great double-sider, but isn’t it nicer to know the full story?

Steve Hobbs (Solar Radio, Totally Wired Radio)

New York-based duo Bottler, Pat Butler and Phil Shore, are the vanguard of their own distinctly eclectic sound. Raw, emotive, bold and highly creative, the duo has successfully carved out their own path with a series of EPs that represent the broad scope of their production prowess. Over the last five years Bottler have been working on their debut album, ‘Journey Work’, a milestone achievement that marks a pivotal moment in their music career. The LP is a distillation of the duo’s multifaceted upbringing, blending a variety of styles together bound together by an overarching attitude and approach that embraces creative freedom and self-acceptance.



Pat and Phil are childhood friends whose bond is akin to that of blood relatives. Their parents are best friends and they grew up side by side, developing their deep love for music together; sharing discoveries and inspirations, learning to play and perform, and nurturing their creativity together. Now formally ordained as Bottler, they channel their eclectic tastes into a sound that encapsulates the love and trust that forms the foundation of the friendship. The duo blends a myriad of styles to create songs that emanate warmth, joy, sorrow, pain and the full spectrum of human emotion.



The album title, like their music, is open to interpretation. The duo reveals themes related to chronicling life’s many ups and downs, the deep preparation that must be taken ahead of a spiritual ceremony or psychedelic experience, and, simply, the journey taken during the conception and creation of an album. A quote from Walt Whitman also partly inspired the title; “every leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the stars”. However, the intention behind the title is to allow for ambiguity, giving the listener an opportunity to write their own narrative.



Across 11 cuts Bottler illustrate their distinct take on electronic music, weaving in elements of indie, pop, rock, house and techno with confidence and panache. ‘Journey Work’ starts at ‘Home’, a song that is fizzing with positive energy, Pat’s vocals welcoming the listener to the start of this meandering audio adventure.

‘Chrysalis’ opens with delicate piano keys that guide us into a bombastic bassline and energising drum beats. As it progresses, scintillating layers of synth and strings are added, creating a highly affecting, uplifting atmosphere.



‘Melatonin’ follows up next, merging heartfelt vocal delivery with a sombre instrumental, and a stirring guitar riff. A glorious demonstration of Bottler’s songwriting capabilities, which are also evident on ‘Vinyl’, an uptempo dance number with an unbelievably catchy chorus. Here we see the duo channel their experience of playing in multi-member bands, as the breaks and arrangement feel perfectly suited to a festival-sized crowd.



On ‘Tacoma’, Pat and Phil channel their appreciation of house and techno into a haunting cut that utilises reverse strings and extended vocal refrains to chilling effect. A heady club track for the twilight hours. ‘Meds’ incorporates muted singing, mystical pad work and a mesmerising riff to produce a captivating slice of uncomplicated dance music.



This is followed by ‘Hot Water’, which feels like a trip to a Californian beach, circa 1965. The vocals drift over a bouncing bassline with a complementary guitar riff. ‘Mako’ features Samurai Velvet singing about fireflies and afterlife in a wonderfully heartrending manner, Bottler’s instrumental keeping things simple, yet highly effective.



We head back underground with ‘Weed’, a dense, gloomy cut with inspired use of chopped up vocal clips, stuttered throughout, alongside a mean bassline. ‘You’re Old’ is the soundtrack to an explosion of festival euphoria, dancing shoulder to shoulder with your best friends, forgetting all your troubles and living in the moment. An anthemic song that transposes Bottler’s idiosyncratic style onto the pop blueprint. Finally, ‘Cicada Rhythm’ closes the LP with a pensive, yet joyful feeling. A chunky bassline is juxtaposed with Pat’s angelic vocals cascading over the top. A hint of tribalism comes through, as we approach the end of the Journey Work…



Five years in the making, fuelled by the desire to express their deep love for music of all varieties, Journey Work is symbolic of the long road it takes to accept oneself and be comfortable expressing one’s truth. Diverse, dynamic and daring with a rawness and honesty that is rare to find, the album marks a triumphant debut for Bottler and one that crystalises their unique identity.

The word that jumps to mind when hearing Deanna Petcoff's music for the first time is “yearning”. A whirlwind of emotions, her debut record To Hell With You, I Love You is a reckoning with the loss of a relationship, documenting the aggressive highs and deeply emotional lows that come from falling out of love.

Recorded in Toronto over the course of a year spent in-and-out of lockdowns, she was able to look more closely at the nuances and minutiae of relationships and examine the ways in which they can either grow or falter. She writes about her frustrating experiences as a24-year old woman finding her voice and identity while navigating a never changing world, exploring the ins and outs of love and heartbreak with a grace and quick wit that belies her year. Her rich, textured voice juxtaposes her soft imagery and her vulnerable and starkly honest lyrics welcome us into a world where even a fleeting moment of emotion can become its own monument.

Based in Toronto, ON, Petcoff shaped her own unique brand of beautiful and confessional indie rock through years of devotion to music, sharing stage with the likes of Molly Burch, Tokyo Police Club, The Nude Party and many more. She excels with heart-on-her-sleeve-emotive lyricism that showcases her strength as a songwriter and a vocalist, and on To Hell With You, I Love You, she wanted to present “the whirlwind of emotions you have when you’re grieving a relationship, which can feel like the death of a part of you or what you thought your life was going to look like.” It’s an album that ebbs and flows with a confidence and an assuredness as she tackles the highs and lows of falling in and out of love, and everything in between.

Often when music is constructed with synths and other electronically generated sound makers, their level of exactitude and control is such that the vocalist will either wittingly or otherwise seek to emulate the relative artifice of the soundscape. This is often done to great effect, think Kraftwerk. But what if there was a unit whose music was synth-generated but the vocals were coming from a hot-blooded, singing-for-the-cheap-seats approach? If done well, it’s a case of two great tastes that taste great together, which brings me to System Exclusive.

Their multi genre / time period collision is like a car accident where all parties walk away not only unscathed but sure they had a great time, like two different recording sessions sharing the same space and making it work. Vocalist Ari Blaisdell (previously of Lower Self, The Beat Offs) co-exists excellently amidst the driving beats and synth waves and her guitar further helps to jailbreak the tunes from the often sterile entrapments that synths provide. Matt Jones (previously of Male Gaze, Blasted Canyons, and continuing Castle Face behind-the-scenesman)’s smart use of live drums bring great juxtaposition against the machines. Ari’s irony-free sincere delivery is the perfect closer on this very cool record, recorded ably by Enrique Tena Padilla (Osees, Wand, Beach House) in their backyard studio mid-pandemic and adorned with original artwork by Miles Wintner (L.A. Takedown, Mr. Elevator, Devon Williams). If you don’t get this slab of goodness, well, that act of non-compliance will confirm you as the pain-in-the-ass that many have described you to be in great detail during Zoom chats. How dare they! Prove them wrong! Reduce their snark to mere pseudo-intellectual piffle! Your lifeline arrives in March. Grab it. — Henry Rollins

Repress

Founded in October 2017 and known in first place as a party series in Essen, The Third Room expands its spectrum with their debut as a label and mastering studio as well. Those three disciplines going hand in hand and forming our vision as a creative collective. Creating, crafting and sharing the passion that drives us.

After a bitter series of event cancellations caused by the corona pandemic we had to find a way to overcome this financial crisis which has put lot of people in a difficult situation who are driven by love and dedication for what they do. In first place we wanted to give all ticket buyers who waived their refunds for the cancelled The Third Room x Bassiani event at UNESCO World Heritage's Mischanlage a "thank you" gift in form as a Fundraiser Compilation. We wanted to preserve what we have built up over the years at our home base. Because we do believe that the Mischanlage is maybe the most aesthetically-techno place we've ever seen.

We, the founders Ahmet Sisman & VNNN., reached out for artists we have invited on our events, build up a strong relationship and sharing the same ambition for what we stand for. Not only regular guests such as Dax J, Ellen Allien or SHWD & Obscure Shape who have accompanied us over the years, but also new friendships have risen up with artists like Henning Baer, Hector Oaks or Markus Suckut. Or collectives such as Lebendig, R-Imprint, Brutalism, Purify and Acid Wave Records. It is safe to say that we have our own special story with each artist on this compilation and it shows once more that music unites us in these hard times. If you like what you hear, buy the music, support the artists and the local scene. Everyone who has held their T3R x Bassiani Tickets will get a download link of the compilation.

Limited to 1000 copies.
Pressed on Blue Vinyl.
Includes postcard and poster.
The Bluebells have dug deep into their archive to give us the earliest recordings of these tracks, which have never been released before and are exclusive to this 7”
‘Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool’ is longer and more vibrant containing an extra verse and guitar solo which are not on previous versions. This is the closest recording to the one that was originally intended to be released on Postcard in 1981. The sleeve, designed by Bobby Bluebell features 2 of the earliest photos of the band.
THE BLUEBELLS were formed by songwriter / guitarist Robert Hodgens aka Bobby Bluebell in 1980. When deciding to form a group to start performing his songs, Hodgens remembered two punk musicians from Bothwell (brothers Ken and David McCluskey) he had interviewed for his fanzine, 10 Commandments. David (drums/ backing vocals) and Ken (vocals / harmonica) joined Robert and The Bluebells started performing live in and around Glasgow.
The Bluebells were soon involved in the burgeoning scene coalescing around Postcard Records in Glasgow (Orange Juice, Josef K, Go Betweens, Aztec Camera, Jazzateers), and it wasn’t long before The Bluebells were sharing stages throughout the UK with some of the Postcard groups. A single (Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool) was scheduled for release on Postcard, however after appearing on the
front page on Melody Maker and in NME / Sounds etc, major record companies started making serious offers to sign the group. The Bluebells appeared on BBC music program The Old Grey Whistle Test, the first unsigned group to do so, and it wasn’t long after this television appearance that the group signed a major record contract with London Records.
The Bluebells were soon in the studio working on songs for their debut album, with Elvis Costello producing. They were invited to open on UK tours for Haircut 100 and Elvis Costello & The Attractions, and started releasing singles to critical acclaim (Forevermore, Cath, Sugar Bridge). However it was their fourth single I’m Falling (co-written by Robert and Ken) that finally resulted in commercial success, chart success, and appearances on Top of the Pops.
The Bluebells released their debut album, Sisters, in 1984 to further commercial chart success, which was continued when their next single, Young At Heart, gave the group their second big hit single. However, when Young At Heart was reissued
in 1993, it reached number 1 in the chart for a month, making The Bluebells regular fixtures on Top Of The Pops

What It Means To Fall Apart sees Mayday Parade wading in a wide range of complex emotions. The band shared the first taste of the album with the anthemic single “Kids of Summer,” which infuses nostalgic memories of their care-free formative summers at Warped Tour into song, followed by the self-confrontational and vulnerable “Bad At Love.” On the newest single “One For The Rocks And One For The Scary,” the band sings about making the most of the time we have with the people we love.

Their seventh studio album together, What It Means To Fall Apart was created with longtime collaborators Zack Odom and Kenneth Mount, and saw the band diverge from their typical path in the studio. With no final destination in mind and setting their sights on just writing the best songs they could, they started chipping away at something, letting go of any attachment to whether they left the studio with a single, an EP, or a full record. They arrived at a fully realized album, 12 contemplative tracks written through the eyes of a band moving forward with the knowledge they could only gain from looking back. Full track listing can be found below.

The band is looking forward to sharing these songs in venues around the world, noting that it’s not just about creating music for them, but how that music connects them with their fans and each other. “We all live in different states and have separate lives with different things going on,” bassist Jeremy Lenzo shares, “But just being able to get back together and play music is always a highlight.” Lead singer Derek Sanders mirrors that sentiment as well, sharing that the spark that started Mayday Parade still shines bright, “Even after all this time and plenty of other ways it could have gone or plenty of other things that we could be doing with our lives, we're lucky to be able to do this.”

As we emerge into the Now with a fresh perspective and renewed vigour, Red Laser Records usher in a novel epoch of Manctalo movements for our post-COVID enjoyment.

Entrusting piloting duties to four well decorated RL commandos, the EP serves to remind us all that despite everything that's happened, we can still find solace in red lasers, smoke machines and high-powered strobe lights.

Splitting open the collective dancefloor inertia is Kid Machine's 'Only Machines Allowed'.

A cybernetic b-boy jam straight outta the planet MEGOH circa 4044. Guided by electrified vocoder lines and a plutonium-grade, armoured groove this impenetrable battle rocket should issue the much needed power boost to get your body kinetics firing again when they release the e-barriers to hedonism.

Returning star fleet lieutenant Count Van Delicious has been collecting entities from the outer galaxies since his appearance on RL EP 9 ('Dark Fruit' w/ Senor Chugger).
Here he announces his return with an end-credits epic, an #inabiteveryoneelse theme from this young vet on a pants-off permo-buzz, up-scrolling through technicolored c64 visuals and deploying his now trademark zoopa-arps, euphoric synth stabs and thunderous low end shudder to deadly effect.

Meanwhile, Ste Spandex continues his cybernetic realignment surgery, dissecting a well circulated disco meme and adding voluptuous gender-neutral enhancements that'll be getting the next generation of androids frisky, despite their lack of reproductive organs. Fizzling synths, spherical repetition and a multi-dimensional mix of high voltage rhythms leaving that vocal line permanently downloaded in your memory cloud. No sharing necessary.

Scottish deep space observer Ernesto Harmon provides some cosmic ruggedness to close off our mission. Reinforced & galvanised low-end rhymix coalescing with humanoid synth expression and an infinite, carbon-free energy source keeping momentum plateaued through the morning after the night before. There's no off switch baby!

For astral travellers seeking solace in the new Now, EP12 kindly acts as an upgrade to your possibly dormant dancing system as you stumble out into the new nocturnal environment. Hopefully reminding us that the simple act of moving alongside one another in a pitch black, laser-guided club space hasn't changed that much...

Limited press, with artwork which could be the next top selling NFT, we urge our RL family to bag this collectable chronicle from the Red Laser Corp.

Welcome to our new Trix Trax series, a series dedicated to sharing the Techno side of things.This is a huge EP showcasing a very special selection of Techno from the versatile JD Typo.

New album by pioneering German beatmaker FloFilz. On Close Distance, the lofiturned-hifi producer blends hip-hop inspired beats with contemporary jazz, alt r&b and a little rap. Featuring Alfa Mist, Blue Lab Beats, Jerome Thomas,

KeepVibesNear, Summers Sons & C.Tappin, Dal & Hunter Rose. Close Distance is his fourth album for Melting Pot Music. Since 2013, the self-taught bedroom producer and classically trained violinist has sold more than 10k LPs and gained 200 million streams.

Close Distance literally means “near in space or time” (or “nah dran”, as we say in German). The 16 songs on Close Distance came to life over the past two years. Many sketches were birthed at FloFilz's old home studio in Aachen. Some songs were made from scratch in London, where Flo did sessions with UK jazz supremos Alfa Mist and Blue Lab Beats at their studios. One was recorded in a kitchen in Streatham, where rap duo Summers Sons and pianist C.Tappin reside.
More sessions were already in planning when lockdown kicked in and travelling was no longer an option. Around the same time, Flo was about to move from Aachen to Berlin which he eventually did in November 2020. Once installed, he started sharing beats and files out of his makeshift studio in Moabit. Beat folders were sent to
London where two of our favourite new alt R&B vocalists – Jerome Thomas and KeepVibesNear – live. Another one went to Dartmoor where the jazz/hip-hop trio Dal added their magic touch while Hunter Rose processed her sultry vocals in Cape Town - 12 flying hours away from Berlin.

The album artwork has been created by Indonesian illustrator Fatchurofi, who caught FloFilz's attention through his work for everybody’s favourite band Khruangbin. Taking influences from Japanese Ukiyo-e art, Fatchurofi is adding a zen-like clarity (and tranquility) that resonates very well with the album.

It is no exaggeration to say that FloFilz has not only created another inspiring album with Close Distance but one that demonstrates how music can close the distance which we all have experienced (and still do) in a beautiful way.