quête:shoe

Canadian producer Dylan Khotin-Foote has kept his Khotin alias going for the better part of a decade; the impressionistic electronic project shifts with the movements in his life. Sometimes it leads, like when the club-friendly grooves of 2014's Hello World immersed him in the heart of Vancouver's underground dance scene, and sometimes it follows, like 2018's Beautiful You, a downtempo salve for DJ fatigue. His melodic sensibility and playful ear for atmosphere remain the rippling core of the project's fingerprint; whether beat-driven or ambient, a foggy smear or a dusted and pristine print, a Khotin track has a distinct and instantly recognizable swirl. During and after the 2020 release of Finds You Well, his second LP on Ghostly International, Khotin-Foote settled back into a slower vibe in his hometown of Ed- monton. Even before the pandemic, his pivots to softer production, and away from DJing, left him with fewer opportunities in Vancouver and club bookings overall, and as a self-identifying introvert, he was fine with that. But the change of pace did open space for Khotin-Foote to grapple with concepts of adulthood and career. At his lowest, he almost walked off this musical path altogether; instead, he doubled down on the craft _ the tone, pacing, and dynamism of new material _ arriving at a definitive full-length. With Release Spirit, Khotin releases himself from the pressure of expectation, fusing and refining everything we know about his music. The warmth and familiarity of Khotin's dreamy, dulcet style meet new ideas and frameworks, a natural progression, a modest revelation; Khotin confirms it is okay to move slowly and he's never sounded better doing it. The album title borrows from the "release spirit" mechanic in the video game World of Warcraft. When players die, they are prompted to release their spirit and return as ghosts to find their corpses and come back to life. Khotin sees it as a worthy metaphor for the impending change his return home presented and the resulting process of purging artistic expectations to find his creative self again. On this go- around, he is freer, more playful, and more intentional within his palette of warped synth, breakbeats, and piano sounds _ including the classic Casio SK-1 presets he's used since the start _ mingling with wistful samples, field recordings, and other abstract snippets. For the first time, he enlisted Nik Kozub to do the mix and assist with sequencing. Khotin-Foote has long worked with the Edmonton-based musician and engineer in the mastering phase, as well as their days co-running the label Normals Welcome, and this time was able to involve his ears earlier given their newfound proximity. "I think it's my best sounding record to date." We begin on "HV Road" or Happy Valley Road, where Khotin-Foote spent time during a family vacation in British Columbia's Okanagan Lake. His plans to record crickets at night are quickly foiled by his younger siblings; the cute exchange orients the listener to a core memory of sorts, setting the tone of universally understood warmth and wonder that has defined some of Khotin's most transportive tracks. Hazy percussion takes hold, and we are swept further into the wisp of "Lovely," a grooving, melodic standout built on the interplay between the beat and human voice-like hums. Khotin knows this zone well; equally suited for a reverie or a club warm-up. The bubbling atmosphere and absurdity of "3 pz" offer a cosmic/comic interlude and also speak to reflections on his family's move to Canada two generations ago, and the audio tutorials they used to learn English. "I can only imagine my grandpar- ents repeating some of the bizarre phrases." "Fountain, Growth" finds Khotin in collaboration with Montreal's Tess Roby (Dawn to Dawn) for the project's first-ever vocal track. Roby's soft cadence echoes atop spiraling air pockets of rhythmic production, lending a breezy, almost shoegaze pop feel. Throughout the single and the album, wind gusts between the compositional layers, akin to the roaming spirits of its namesake, curving around the birdsong of "Life Mask" and seamlessly reaching "Unlimited <3." The latter bumps in slow motion; disembodied whirrs from his Casio collide with 808 drums and sub-bass for a vibe that teeters on trap and instrumental hip-hop. Release Spirit rests in a dream sequence. Oscillating synth lines dance around the heartbeat of "Techno Creep," a hyperactive REM state before the digitized ambient sprawl of "My Same Size." In the final pass, Khotin imagines transcontinental travel from the glow of his screen. He recorded "Sound Gathering Trip" to soundtrack a genre of YouTube videos he's taken to that follows train routes through Europe and Japan. The scene is serene and moving; piano keys warble as static-filled sound design shimmers off the rails, from cityscapes to the countryside, an introspective ride through a world beyond his bedroom. It doubles as an apt parting image for Khotin's project as a whole: dreaming big but happiest when riffing on the details, shaping environments from the inside out. Over the last decade, he has stretched from his core in Edmonton, leaving a trace in Vancouver and beyond; but when all signs point home, he loops back to see it all from a different vantage, revitalized, refined, and free.

Part 2 of the Settle Down debut on E-Beamz with 2 tracks connecting the dots beween the eras of UK club music history.

The clattering drums & undulating bassline of 'Sniper' give way to warping mentasms that evoke memories of some of the earliest strains of dance music from acid house to jungle tekno and hardcore.

'No Shoes on The Carpet' speeds things up and doffs it's cap to the ragga jungle of the mid 90's as well as the first strain of what would become drum & bass with the deep, diving bassline recalling classics from the Philly Blunt & V Recs back catalogues.

This is no holds barred dancefloor weaponry of the highest calibre.

Historically Fucked is a four way entanglement made to create short, eruptive songs and then set about obliterating them from the inside, like improvising a barrel to encase themselves in and then proceeding to lick their way out of it. It is about playing and laughing at playing, and it is about not doing either of those things sometimes. Sometimes it is to do with talking, howling or grunting, and sometimes it is to do with hitting and rubbing.
Historically Fucked contains four people, who each share the same duties, and whose names in sequence are Otto Willberg, David Birchall, Greta Buitkuté and Alecs Pierce. They are from Manchester and often other places. Guitar, bass, drums and voices keenly jostle amid the group’s frenzy of spontaneous rock throttles. Some of these rampant exercises in avant are collected on ‘The Mule Peasants’ Revolt of 12,067’, the band’s new album, released by Upset The Rhythm on February 3rd. This is the group’s first release since 2018’s mantlepiece staple ‘Aliven Wool’ (Heavy Petting). This is Rock and/or Roll as fertilizer, uncivilised and free, as if one were to imagine what the Plastic Ono Band would’ve hit upon if they had read ‘Riddley Walker’, the sound of an entire timeline of expression put back together back-to-front, misshapen and irradiated.

‘The Mule Peasants’ Revolt of 12,067’ is not mere Sedentary Rock but Blasted Basalt, Frog worshipping cave-funk, harmolodic hullabaloo-wop, a musical game of “badger in the bag”. It is the sound of sacks crammed full of aggregate, a chimerical mind-meld, a seductive din that is to a hound dog in blue suede shoes what a raking of the dorsal fin with a fat marrow pinecone is to a pelican in the midst of being fired from the academy.

‘The Mule Peasants’ Revolt of 12,067’ by Historically Fucked was recorded by Rory Salter, mixed by Otto Willberg and mastered by Mikey Young. The liminally worrisome artwork was painted by John Cobweaver.

“They say these days that History is Fucked. Nothing ever dies but continues to rule the earth as an undead tyrant that cannot accept its own decomposition, look earwardly upon the dance of the proudly dead and decrepit!”

Vymethoxy Redspiders, Leeds 2022

PINK VINYL

Austin-based, shoegazers Blushing will see the release of their debut EP Tether for the first time on vinyl on February 10, 2023 through Kanine Records. The limited (700 copies) pink colored vinyl is packaged as a double EP. Paired with sophomore EP Weak on the b side, the vinyl features new double-sided cover artwork, where fans can choose which side's cover art to display and includes an mp3 download code. Blushing's first step out into the musical world showcases shimmering guitars chords and infectious choruses, which sent shivers through the deam-pop community upon its original release After receiving such a positive response from Tether, Blushing quickly got to work writing and recording a follow up EP. Weak, a bit of a misnomer, solidified the group's reputation for writing catchy hooks over dreamy, soaring and at times extremely heavy instrumentation, which resulted in the band finding their signature sound. This release follows up Blushing's 2022 full album release, Possessions, an album with charismatic vocals, dreamy guitar hooks, swirling bass lines, filled with dream pop intensity and produced by Elliott Frazier (Ringo Deathstarr). Lead single "Blame" featured Miki Berenyi (Lush) and Mark Gardener (Ride) lent a hand on mixing and mastering. Blushing features two husband and wife duos consisting of Michelle Soto (guitar, vocals), Jacob Soto (drums), Christina Carmona (vocals, bass), and Noe Carmona (guitar). Jacob and Noe have been lifelong friends that played in bands growing up in El Paso, TX. Blushing is a part of the modern dream pop and shoegaze community that has helped Blushing create an album that all indie music lovers need to hear. Fans of LUSH, Cocteau Twins, My Bloody Valentine, RIDE, Slowdive won't be able to resist.

Electronic pop quartet Ladytron announce their highly anticipated seventh studio album "Time"s Arrow". Crystalline melodies enveloped in icy textures and rippling arpeggios, shoegaze, disco, and industrial sounds that combine in their signature electro pop style. Forming in Liverpool in the late 90s, Ladytron"s debut album "604" was released a year ahead of 2002"s "Light & Magic in 2005 - "a quantum leap record" said Pitchfork. The group were lauded as leaders of the new electro pop and electroclash scenes then flourishing, and "Light & Magic" went on to be influential, for both independent and mainstream electronic pop music which followed.

RED APPLE MARBLE VINYL REPRESS.

Everything changed for The Beths when they released their debut album, Future Me Hates Me, in 2018. The indie rock band had long been nurtured within Auckland, New Zealand’s tight-knit music scene, working full-time during the day and playing music with friends after hours. Full of uptempo pop rock songs with bright, indelible hooks, the LP garnered them critical acclaim from outlets like Pitchfork and Rolling Stone, and they set out for their first string of shows overseas. They quit their jobs, said goodbye to their home town, and devoted themselves entirely to performing across North America and Europe. They found themselves playing to crowds of devoted fans and opening for acts like Pixies and Death Cab for Cutie. Almost instantly, The Beths turned from a passion project into a full-time career in music.

Songwriter and lead vocalist Elizabeth Stokes worked on what would become The Beths’ second LP, Jump Rope Gazers, in between these intense periods of touring. Like the group’s earlier music, the album tackles themes of anxiety and self-doubt with effervescent power pop choruses and rousing backup vocals, zeroing in on the communality and catharsis that can come from sharing stressful situations with some of your best friends. Stokes’s writing on Jump Rope Gazers grapples with the uneasy proposition of leaving everything and everyone you know behind on another continent, chasing your dreams while struggling to stay close with loved ones back home.

"If you're at a certain age, all your friends scatter to the four winds,” Stokes says. “We did the same thing. When you're home, you miss everybody, and when you're away, you miss everybody. We were just missing people all the time.”

With songs like the rambunctious “Dying To Believe” and the tender, shoegazey “Out of Sight,” The Beths reckon with the distance that life necessarily drives between people over time. People who love each other inevitably fail each other. “I’m sorry for the way that I can’t hold conversations/They’re such a fragile thing to try to support the weight of,” Stokes sings on “Dying to Believe.” The best way to repair that failure, in The Beths’ view, is with abundant and unconditional love, no matter how far it has to travel. On “Out of Sight,” she pledges devotion to a dearly missed friend: “If your world collapses/I’ll be down in the rubble/I’d build you another,” she sings.

“It was a rough year in general, and I found myself saying the words, 'wish you were here, wish I was there,’ over and over again,” she says of the time period in which the album was written. Touring far from home, The Beths committed themselves to taking care of each other as they were trying at the same time to take care of friends living thousands of miles away. They encouraged each other to communicate whenever things got hard, and to pay forward acts of kindness whenever they could. That care and attention shines through on Jump Rope Gazers, where the quartet sounds more locked in than ever. Their most emotive and heartfelt work to date, Jump Rope Gazers stares down all the hard parts of living in communion with other people, even at a distance, while celebrating the ferocious joy that makes it all worth it -- a sentiment we need now more than ever.

Ever dream you're in a spaceship on a never-ending journey to an unknowable destination? That's how Nyles Lannon often thought of life in the early part of the pandemic, when time seemed to stand still, before the vaccines or even knowing when there might be any. But whether that spaceship is a desolate prison or a vessel for escaping to a better world depends on how you use it. With literally nowhere to go, the Film School guitarist and his then-12-year-old son Skye, on drums and modular synths, would jam most evenings in Nyles's home studio, just to have something to focus their minds on and counter the tedium of "remote learning." What started out as a way to keep his talented kid busy became a means to process the anxiety and disorientation of that strange, scary stretch of time. The result is Vanishing, a ten-song album of moody melodies, new wave beats, droney rock, and even an electrogroove instrumental interlude, by the father-son project they named Nyte Skye.

The emotional toll of lockdown, our collective grief, the literal darkness that engulfed the sky thanks to devastating wildfires brought on by climate crisis—these are heavy subjects, but the songs also convey how we managed to keep each other sane, and inspired, through it all. Film School devotees will find plenty to love; so will fans of the Police (Stewart Copeland being one of Skye's major

influences), the Cure, Spiritualized, and Elliott Smith. The album's opener, "Dream State (I'm Vanishing)," is a wistful synth-driven indie gem about disappearing into an alternate universe where worries don't exist. "Doing Time," with its massive washes of 12-string guitar and sophisticated syncopated beat, is a shoegazey meditation on holding onto a child's sanguine outlook in the face of adversity. If dream pop track "Take Me Up Again" is the album's bounciest, its counterpoint is "Faded," whose bittersweet melody and gentle rhythm bely themes of physical and emotional frailty.

Ultimately, not only did working on Vanishing help the duo cope with a uniquely challenging situation, but just being stuck at home helped stoke their creativity. "Music was the only thing I did during the pandemic, besides online school," Skye says. "It gave us all this time we didn't have before to make the album." For Nyles—knowing they might never have that kind of time again—to be able to put out a record with his son is, simply, "a dream come true."

Vanishing was written, recorded, and produced by Nyles Lannon and Skye Lannon and mixed by Dan Long, with additional contributions from Zach Rogue (Rogue Wave), Nichole Kreglow (backup vocals), lyricist Neil Rodenmeyer (Lupa Rosa), and Ian McDonald (FUTRVST).

The British shoegaze band Chapterhouse released two albums during their existence, Whirlpool (1991) and Blood Music (1993). Blood Music spawned the single “We Are The Beautiful”, which was released during that same year and also appeared as a 12”.

The 1993 EP We Are The Beautiful features the title track, a mix of the title track, and two additional tracks: “Frost” and “Age”. Except for “We Are The Beautiful”, none of the tracks have been released on Chapterhouse’s studio albums.

We Are The Beautiful is available as a limited edition of 750 individually numbered copies on gold & black marbled vinyl.

The story of the new album begins when Las Robertas met producer Owen Morris (Oasis, The Verve, Ash, New Order) at a small, art gallery party in downtown San Jose. The result of this chance meeting is Love is the Answer, an album where the Welsh producer successfully highlights Las Robertas love of 90’s alt-rock greats like The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Dandy Warhols, The Charlatans, LUSH, RIDE and The Breeders, while still sounding uniquely like Las Robertas.

Love is the Answer is a compilation of songs about love towards the universe, individual freedom and of hope in a time where the world seems ever closer to being consumed in chaos. It contains a pop edge while still combing shoegaze and psych rock influences.

The Zephyrs release their brand new album “For Sapphire Needle” on January 27th 2023 alongside Spanish comrades Acuarela, their first since 2010. With only 2018’s double A-side single “The Witches” and “The Crown Prince of Lies” in between, this represents their first collection of new songs in 13 years: from short and tightly constructed country-folk introspections to sprawling, spaced-out psychedelia, including a couple of extremely sharp pop glimmers and a killer Morricone-like instrumental. Originally conceived of as a series of 4 track EPs based on the seasons in which they were created, the recordings spanned into a patchwork of sessions with long-time collaborator and producer Michael Brennan at his Substation studio, neighboring a naval port in Rosyth. The ongoing recording sessions were made possible with the kind support of Robert Dillam, drummer for The Zephyrs and ex-guitarist for Creation band Adorable. With songs ranging from short and tightly constructed country-folk introspections to sprawling, spaced-out psychedelia, what resulted was an album near to double length. The collection presented as “For Sapphire Needle” is a cut-down selection of these songs. The record opens with “Leatherback”, a Crazy Horse inspired wall of distorted guitars drawing on lyrics from The Zephyr’s first album and pre-history, followed by the four songs earmarked for the first of the seasonal EPs – Winter – whose artwork was photographed in the alley behind Traceyann Campbell’s (Camera Obscura) house in Glasgow. Elsewhere on the album, “I tell you what” had much of its writing and recording initiated in a wooden shack near Aviemore and “Bolder” tells the story of overheard bar-side conversations and delayed flights in Denver airport, where lizard people live underground and some say the new world order lays dormant. The domestic depression of “How have you been today” precedes closing opus “Aliens”, inspired in equal measures by the maturation as social control science fiction of The Tripods and the schlock b-movie imagery of Rocky Erickson’s The Evil One. The album is the work of older and more consistent The Zephyrs. Stuart, David and Robert joined by collaborators: guitarist John Brennan and keyboardist Will Bates. The songs and sounds are sculpted out of slabs of time with friends at the Substation, a de facto weekly youth club for musicians who refuse to grow old. The triple bridges of Queensferry, the shipbuilding cranes of Rosyth docks and Babcock's shop - one of the few places in Scotland you can buy a real periscope over the counter - are just some of the backdrops as the Zephyrs rehearse for nobody but themselves. Yet, ever since Jean-Luc Picard himself told us that "this is not a holiday", it has become a unique and unbeatable way of peering up above the waterline, reinventing themselves and returning to the scene. Indeed with 10 songs in 46 minutes which wade across Gram Parsons and Big Star, Slowdive and spaghetti Western: folk, rock and shoegaze… as if they were trying to shorten the path to the California sky passing through Scotland and then Almería in Spain.

Faitiche presents Groupshow’s Greatest Hits: The ten tracks on this first vinyl album by Groupshow (Hanno Leichtmann, Andrew Pekler, Jan Jelinek), recorded between 2005 and 2018, document concert recordings and studio improvisations by the trio.

In improvisation there are no mistakes, only missed opportunities. Groupshow found their first opportunity in the routines of live performance and they used this opportunity to break with these routines. The trio consisting of Jan Jelinek, Hanno Leichtmann and Andrew Pekler came together in the context of Kosmischer Pitch, playing live versions of the music from Jelinek’s 2005 studio album of that name. During this project, the musical interaction between the three participants quickly emancipated itself from the original programme, departing from fixed roles and finding a distinct form in constant change.

Groupshow sessions – rehearsal, concert or recording – are always improvised. The interplay of the various sound sources, converging from the directions of “electronics”, “percussion” and “guitar”, does not follow the Krautrock wave logic of crescendo and morendo. Jelinek, Leichtmann and Pekler have established a method of transparent density in which links and breaks are not concealed but remain audible. The music works through attraction and repulsion, with a loosely organized structure that always leaves enough room for the next intervention.

The principle here, repeated even in the smallest units, is that of duration. Groupshow think of their music in terms of an installation: no starting point, no dramaturgy, and ideally no end. Concerts take place not raised up on a podium, but in the middle of the room on a level with the audience, who only enter the space with the musicians and instruments once their interaction is already underway. In 2008, Groupshow used this approach to create a live soundtrack for Andy Warhol’s film Empire, over the full length of eight hours and five minutes.

Recordings in general and the “Greatest Hits” format in particular are another key aspect of this ongoing work on a collectively modulated continuum. The ten tracks on this first vinyl album by Groupshow, recorded between 2005 and 2018, document the ephemeral capturing of opportunities that were not missed. Extracts and essences of an endless movement of searching. The sprawling form of the whole, suspended in succinct, separate units.
To paraphrase Lao Tzu and Roland Barthes, one might say: Once their work is done, they are no longer attached to it. And because they’re not attached to it, it will remain.

Arno Raffeiner, 2022

The album’s seemingly brief tracklisting belies a work of great beauty and depth, and one which turned into a one-man crusade for singer/guitarist Lars Andersson, intertwining deeply personal stories with his love for the era of Romanticism. “Every time I go to a museum and I’m about to pass through the era of Romanticism I stop in awe,” says Lars of the enduring appeal of the 18th century artistic movement. “Whatever it is – stories, paintings, music – it triggers something deep within me, something profoundly human. It really hits a nerve, and it utterly immerses me to a point where I can’t move.” The album replicates this feeling; a gloriously over-the-top blend of Slowdive and Sigur Rós, mixed with the single-mindedness of Daniel Johnston and the noisiness of Nirvana, it’s as bold and beautiful and every bit as ornate as the art that inspired it. Unlike their acclaimed debut, 2019’s All That Ever Could Have Been, which gradually came into focus with a 15-minute opening track, Picturesque hits home from the very first note of the short and sweet opener, ‘Ballerina’. That’s not to say there aren’t epics here – ‘Metamorphosis’ is essentially a 12-minute suite of three movements; blistering closer ‘The Lot’ is 11 minutes of Swans-inspired heaviness – but everything is much more direct and focused. This isn’t an album to lose yourself in, it’s one to get swept away by. “‘More is more’ was definitely the credo when making this record,” agrees Lars. “A big inspiration were bands like Pond and the way they manage to fill their songs up with stuff to the absolute maximum. While I definitely tried to give the listener some room to breathe at certain points and while, in good old post-rock fashion, it still builds up and breaks down, it relies much more on simple melody and harmony as opposed to noisy experimentation to transport feeling.” Never more so than on the first single, ‘The Golden Age’, which is the album’s centrepiece; a soaring slice of über-shoegaze that is so stunning you can’t take your eyes or ears off it. Like all the songs on the album, it’s based around a fairy-tale from the Romantic era. In this case, it’s Heinrich von Ofterdingen by the German poet, author and philosopher Novalis (other influences are: The Steadfast Tin Soldier by Hans Christian Andersen; The Seven Ravens and Hans in Luck by the Brothers Grimm; Undine by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué and The Golden Pot by E.T.A. Hoffmann), with Lars drawing parallels between the titular character’s mystical and romantic searchings and his own personal quest. This is apt as the album has been an overriding obsession for Lars for the past two-and-a-half years; as well as writing and recording the songs (bandmate Phillip Dornauer played drums), he also mixed and mastered them at his Alpine Audio studio and Picturesque is very much his Brian Wilson or Kevin Shields moment. MOLLY were in the middle of their European tour when Covid hit in early 2020, forcing Lars to retreat back to his home outside Innsbruck and giving him time and space to think about every detail of the record. “Well, I was on a quest I guess,” he admits. “Like everyone, I was stranded at home and at some point I just said to myself, ‘If not now, then when?’ It was an intense process. I’ve worked on music from other bands and artists before but producing and mixing your own music is an utterly different animal. It was probably the most intense thing I’ve ever done, but it was also incredibly rewarding and the feeling of it all coming together piece by piece is incomparable.” The artwork is just as effective. “I think of Radiohead’s OK Computer – what you hear on the record is what you see on the cover,” explains Lars. “We were inspired by what we call ‘wimmelbilder’ hidden pictures in German, a very specific style in art where there are a lot of little things happening. When you see it from further away, it looks organic like a lost painting from the area of Romanticism, but the closer you look the more digital it gets. It’s a nice analogy.” He’s right, it perfectly sums up the conflict between Romanticism and 21st century life. “Romanticism was basically an answer to the Industrial Revolution as well as the social and political norms of the Age Of Enlightenment,” concludes Lars. “Now, we all live in a much more industrialised, materialistic, individualistic and sterile society than any early Romanticist could have ever possibly imagined. Over 200 years later the Romanticists have lost the battle.” With the divine and downright pulchritudinous Picturesque, MOLLY begin the fightback.1.Ballerina 2.Metamorphosis 3.The Golden Age 4.Sunday Kid 5.So To Speak 6.The Lot

After spending his debut album exploring techno and mechanical sounds in the depths of the Pas-de-Calais mines, Toh Imago looks up to the sky, with an open breeze on his face, as tree branches and canopy filter out the sun’s rays on Refuge. All the machines used during the album recording are tuned at 432hz, carrying the mystical benefits of Earth’s resonance. Spending just seconds with the opening track, the listener is drawn into the safety that Refuge was intended to provide, and each subsequent piece pulls you deeper and deeper into the album’s forest.

Textextext - (add your write up)

‘Refuge’ was recorded on the edge of the Mormal forest, in the North of France. With nature as a setting and studio accomplice, the album features synthesizers, field-recordings, as well as the acoustic qualities of reverbs from the nearby forest. As the artist’s inner world and nature converge in moments of self-reflection, so the album’s 11 recordings harmoniously unfold in a cavalcade of machines and organic sonorities.

While the first LP 'Nord Noir’ explored his family’s mining past, ‘Refuge' is about being present and the desire to re-contextualize the relationship between nature and humans. It is a record of uplifting tones that is filled with optimism, imbued with the lightness of those who finally reconnect with nature, their roots, and the feeling of groundedness.

Like the steps taken on a walk in the woods, the 11 tracks sonically tell the story of an inner journey divided in three chapters. "Asile sauvage", "Sylve barbare" and “Avril Mormal" take the listener into a fast-paced progression of rhythms. When the heart of the forest is reached, the journey becomes intimate, revealing a sacred space where breathing becomes the leading tempo ("Locus Neminis") and the traveller becomes a spirit lost in space ("Cosmos Intra”). The journey's climax is reached with "Monde intérieur". The album closes with "Chiff Chaff" which accompanies the listener back to a reality, hopefully a more reassuring one.

Across the album, Toh Imago finds inventive ways of opening a dialogue between nature and machine, both literally and metaphorically, creating a soundscape that both feels like and was created by the natural world that surrounds him.

The album offers a shelter from a predetermined world. It’s a story told through ambience, racy and subtle electronics, and the memories of lichens clinging to shoes.

Presenting the third volume of Keroxen's annual series of Radar compilations, joining the musical dots between restless and free-spirited artists working across the Canary archipelago.

With volume 1 loosely based around the indie and shoegazing art rock sounds made in the Islands, and a second volume exploring the experimental electronic music of Tenerife, we now welcome Volume 3, with a special showcase of Canary artists working from the diaspora.

Meet the hallucinatory acid folk from Tarragona based artist Transistor Eye, Amsterdam’s trio Halli Crigi raw, jazz/noise guitar improvisation, the glitchy and abstract piano minimalism by Sweden based Hara Alonso and the custom made midi based electronic orchestral compositions by Berlin based visual artist Arístides García aka Anisotrópico. Each artist delivers approximately 10 minutes of unique music which mixed together creates a weird and surprisingly fluid psychedelic journey, wrapped up as it’s always the case with these series in the pastoral retro-futurist collage artwork by Canarian artist Pura Márquez.

Another document showcasing the other side of this holiday destination, it’s not just hotel resorts and poolside lounging here, enter the wonderful and weird world of Keroxen.

Nixon was released in 2000 and immediately enshrined by the British music press. Uncutnamed it album of the year, Mojo ranked it 10th, and Q was still doing their lists alphabetically. The NME called Nixon “near to perfect” and the Guardian said that the band was “reinventing American music.”

Meanwhile, most people in America continued to have no idea who Lambchop were. (“I don’t think Nixon made much of an impression on anyone over here,” Wagner told a seemingly baffled interviewer in spring, 2001.) Lambchop’s take on America—sly, tender, mysterious but mundane—is less a realist’s portrait than a surrealist’s impression: funnier, more pathetic, more improbable than what actually exists. In 2007 I met a German man named Frank who told me he loved seeing the band overseas because it meant getting to sit in a plush, quiet room while drinking tons of beer and listening to Lambchop, which I guess he imagined Americans were mellow enough to actually do.

Nixon is still an improbable album. The band never sounds like they’re trying very hard and yet every song breaks some convention or another. Despite its showbiz arrangements, the music is tenuous and weird (a contrast that the band toyed with again on 2012's Mr. M), and Wagner’s falsetto—usually the most vulnerable part of a man’s singing range—sounds less like a Romeo

During his long and fruitful career, multifaceted singer-songwriter Don Covay recorded in a variety of styles, including gospel, doo-wop, soul, rock, and blues, and his enviable skills as a songwriter were responsible for the likes of Chubby Checker’s ‘Pony Time,’ as well as Aretha Franklin’s ‘See Saw’ and ‘Chain Of Fools.’ Following his departure from Atlantic, Different Strokes For Different Folks was cut for the small Janus label at the esteemed Swampers HQ in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, the resultant groove irresistibly mixing funk, soul, gospel, and rock, all the while working in plenty of Covay’s individual humour.

Vandermeer spielen Shoegaze mit Rock-Einflu?ssen. Während der Coronapandemie schrieben sie ihr drittes Album "Grand Bruit" statt zu touren. Die Songs handeln von persönlichen Rückschlägen, politischen Entwicklungen (die Corona-Leugner-Problematik), Verlustängsten, einer intimen Auseinandersetzung mit Social Distancing und dem Alleinsein, während man mit den meisten Maßnahmen konform ist. Die Fassungslosigkeit gegenüber den Egoismen, den Demonstrationen der Corona-Leugner, dem Zuwachs der Neuen Rechten. Eine Wut, eine Fassungslosigkeit, ein Aufstehen, ein Dagegenhalten - das ist "Grand Bruit".

Falling Floors is a psych-rock three piece, formed in the pandemic out of a desire for distraction from dark times and an unending stream of shit news (seriously, what the fuck is going on?) There’s no master plan, no grand ambition, no product-market fit, just a shared love of 60s psych, 70s rock, and the fearless, genre-less experimentation of Krautrock and early prog to get us through.
Riding the trans-Pennine underground (up the hill and out of the crags, down there, you know?), you can hear magical sounds coming out of the Valley. On a cold and wet Calderdale winter, the band recorded their self-titled first album, DIY, live, in two days in Hebden Bridge. Rawness not perfection and feel over finesse were the aims. This album, a trans-Atlantic joint release by Riot Season (UK) and Echodelick (US), lives by slips, fuck-ups, and simple, joyous expression.
Falling Floors is Rob Herian (ex-feral stoner rockers Early Mammal) on guitar and vocals, Harry Wheeler (no ravers The Family Elan) on bass and keys, and Colin Greenwood (ex-shoegaze folk rockers No Sorrows) on drums. It’s no one’s project, and no one’s in charge. But there’s enough in common to keep it honest.

Rising from the berliner underground, Longhair have earned with the years a notorious reputation on the scene supported by some of our favourite imprints. Amsterdam's Italo-tastemakers "Bordello a Parigi", "Permanent Vacation" and Paramida's "Love on the Rocks" have found a place for the trance-spacey sound of the berliner based duo.

"Axis Mundi" is a space oddity that rises from our living room all the way to the solar system, Earth, Saturn and Pluto until the end of the Galaxy, no borders, the limit is set by yourself. Hammering and corrosive basslines, full of small little details and shining hidden stars in form of brilliant melodies that will make an exciting journey thru the Milky way.

Longhair show here their great versatility blending different subgenres that vary from Indie dance, leftfield house, Nu-Disco and everything in between and adding their particular cosmic touch and some trancy elements. A record that will work great either at the club wearing our favourite dancing shoes or chilling at home at our sofa.

Get ready for a cosmic trip, to the infinity and beyond..

Sometimes you can´t hear the words...

...since anything beyond everything she wants to give a hint...

... it´s not pretty (but it´s pretty).


James K debuts on Incienso with sophomore album Random Girl. What’s gathered at first is a heterogeneous mixture of intimacy and sore, collected between 2014-2018. As if in a cruel playground game, K breaks a tracklist full of complex soundscapes, voice manipulation, and dazzling shoegaze with a self-built noise box, stethoscope throat-voice and a cellphone recording from a fake tropical island on ecstasy. Consequently, Random Girl is a voice against infantilization of girlhood, a decisive refutal of integrity, fighting what can be understood as the death of expression. Take a sip of water before your memory error blinks. Dial to K. Listen to the disfragmented territory and the cast of it she’s making. It might not be what you will have thought tomorrow.

‘Random Girl’ is out September 30th, 2022 on Incienso
Written & Produced by james K
Mixed by Paul Corley
Mastered by Anne Taegert at Dubplates and Mastering
INC-016

Artwork by james K, Alex McCullough & Jen Shear

Matthew Doty didn't set out to write a solo album. His first batch of weightless and brightly lit material under the name Deserta began to take shape in 2017. Shortly after finding out he was going to be a father, Doty started working on a batch of songs inspired by the joy and the unknown of the world he was about to enter. That inspiration is the sonic and emotional backbone of debut album Black Aura My Sun.

Like a hot air balloon headed straight for the stratosphere, Deserta reveals yet another side of the songwriting Doty has spent decades refining. As experimental as it is enthralling, Black Aura My Sun applies the vapor-trailed production values and sublime dynamics of Doty's previous group projects (including post-rock band Saxon Shore and the synth-laced post-punk of Midnight Faces) to a shoegaze-y sound that splits the difference between Slowdive and Sigur Rós.

Doty began finding his own musical voice in the early '00s with the sky-piercing efforts of Saxon Shore. While it was initially a collaboration with Josh Tillman (a.k.a. Father John Misty), Doty was Saxon Shore's only consistent member over the course of five acclaimed records. His responsibility spilled over into everything from booking shows to the songs themselves. He was never completely alone in his pursuit of post-rock perfection, however, so Deserta is very much a new endeavor: a trial-by-fire that was written, recorded, and mixed in total solitude.

Deserta expands and contracts, with chords that drift like clouds, drums that drag and dissipate, and hooks that hang in the air for what feels like forever. That doesn't mean Black Aura My Sun is a subtle or soft record. It actually whips up quite a racket and is particularly heavy when piped through a pair of headphones.

Deserta is Doty's main creative outlet right now and a one-way ticket to another dimension entirely.

LP is black vinyl + LP3 insert for full album Download. Check out the first 18 or so seconds of “Can I Ride”, the title track on the first release by Polvo, the two-guitar juggernaut that represented the other side of Chapel Hill indie rock (more on that in a moment). That two-note riff, and the guitar twang that follows, recalls the opening notes on another monster song: “The Sprawl”, a key track on Sonic Youth's epochal Daydream Nation, an album released in October 1988, less than two years before Polvo formed. This compilation's nine tunes—the first seven from the Can I Ride double 7” EP (1990), the last two from the “Vibracobra” b/w “The Drill” 7” (1991) are not quite the sound of a torch being passed, but they were a sign that Sonic Youth's weird tunings, the hardcore punk and proto-indie rock on SST Records, and R.E.M.'s hazy rock (three big influences on this era of Polvo) were changing lives. Even back then, the impossibly catchy roar from Merge’s flagship act Superchunk was known to outsiders as the sound of Chapel Hill. But Polvo was something different from the same region. While the band never cottoned to the “math rock” tag (and it’s hard to disagree with them), there is no question that there was a distinct “how can we make guitar rock sound different from all the other guitar rock” vibe going on in the mid-Atlantic, from Richmond (math rock’s true home, don’t @ me) to the North Carolina Triangle over to Louisville and down almost to Atlanta. (If the Mastodon dudes aren’t down with Polvo, I’ll eat your shoe.) No, Polvo were their own brand of squall, not afraid of big hooks (“Leaf ”), odd tempos and textures (“Lull”) and rolling thunder (“Totemic”), and answers to the musical question, “What if the Feelies grew up on Dinosaur Jr.?” (“Tread on Me”). Indie rock? Not the 2022 kind. Math rock? Eh, not really. This was the sound of a new Southern rock, of a pre-internet guitar storm that looked at what came before and said, “What's next?” Track listing: Side A 1. Can I Ride 2. Leaf 3. Lull 4. Totemic 5. Tread on Me. Side B. 6. Teen Dream 7. Snake Fist Fighter 8. Vibracobra 9. The Drill

Special 10th Anniversary Edition In Brown Card Artboard Sleeve With Additional Lyric Print Insert

Slowdive singer and songwriter’s third solo album, which was originally released in November 2012. It is a stunning record and one which, upon its release, underlined the claims that Neil was one of the finest and most underrated British songwriters of recent times. It’s also a very special release in the Sonic Cathedral catalogue; the shoegaze label licensed the record from Jack Johnson’s Brushfire imprint for the UK and Europe and it was the start of a relationship that also gave us the Black Hearted Brother album in 2013 and, ultimately, brought about the reformation of Slowdive in 2014. But Palindrome Hunches is a very different beast. Both stately and understated, this moody and mesmerising collection of peculiarly British folk songs was made with the Band of Hope, a Wallingford, Oxfordshire based collective consisting of Ben Smith (violin), Drew Milloy (double bass), Paul Whitty (piano) and Tom Crook (guitar). Together with producer Nick Holton, banjo player Kevin Wells and backing singer Aimee Craddock, they recorded the album to tape over a few weekends in the music room of their local junior school. “At first we were going to record in a studio, but everything seemed too clean,” said Neil at the time. “We just went through the songs and recorded them live without very much rehearsal. We wanted to be spontaneous and simple and to keep the little mistakes that sneaked in.” This goes a long way to explaining the album’s humanity and intimacy, and also why it has had a quiet life of its own over the past decade, gradually growing in stature alongside Neil’s more high-profile activities with Slowdive; copies of the 2012 original and even the 2017 repress currently fetch up to triple figures on Discogs. The stunning opener ‘Digging Shelters’ was used to devastating effect in the posthumously released James Gandolfini movie Enough Said – a fitting home for a song that rubs shoulders here with ruminations about love and loss such as ‘Tied To You’ and ‘Spin The Bottle’ and, on ‘Wittgenstein’s Arm’, an Austrian pianist who had his right arm amputated in World War I and lost three of his brothers to suicide. The wordplay of the title track is almost light-hearted in comparison; “I wanted to write a song that was the same forwards and backwards, but it didn’t quite work out,” explained Neil, adding that he also chose ‘Palindrome Hunches’ for the album’s title because “I like the idea of things being reversible”. A couple years later, by reforming his old band, he proved that. And now, ten years on, it’s the perfect time to rewind to this understated, underrated classic. Side A 1 Digging Shelters 2 Bad Drugs and Minor Chords 3 Wittgenstein’s Arm 4 Spin The Bottle 5 Tied to You Side B 1 Love Is a Beast 2 Palindrome Hunches 3 Full Moon Rising 4 Sandy 5 Hey Daydreamer 6 Loose Change. Praise for Palindrome Hunches on its original release: ““Nope, it ain’t shoegaze as it's been codified and re-codified. But why be disappointed in someone following his muse to a logical conclusion when that path was always the one he walked on?” – Pitchfork An exquisite set of dark folk music” – The Times “Draws from the same understated, reflective well as John Martyn” – MOJO “‘Tied To You’ doesn’t merely evoke Nick Drake but withstands the comparison – evidence of the songs’ quality” – Financial Times “Halstead’s songs breathe the sort of honesty and goodness that’s harder and harder to find in the iTunes age” – The Independent “Given the chance, they could be songs that continue to enchant for many years to come” – The Line Of Best Fit

Sunking is the experimental sights and sounds of Seattle natives Bobby Granfelt & Antoine Martel, an outlet for the duo whose music is "steeped in funk, fusion, and the dreamier end of the rock spectrum," said Seattle"s The Stranger. The Stranger also went on to say that "this city needs more groups like sunking, who flit among genres such as hip-hop, jazz, and shoegaze rock while messing with the DNAs of each style they address." Both Granfelt and Martel are also members of High Pulp, a jazz collective that draws influences from punk rock, shoegaze, hip-hop, and electronic music. Also signed to ANTI-, their album "Pursuit of Ends" came out in April of this year. "High Pulp blend old-school bebop with contemporary soul and electronica vibes, as though someone convinced the ghost of Duke Ellington to reinterpret a Chemical Brothers album," said the A.V. Club.

After a long period of time separated from their bandmates due to COVID,
The Homeless Gospel Choir and Teenage Halloween went into their
respective studios and recorded two new songs each
Derek Zanetti of The Homeless Gospel Choir had this to say about the process:
"After spending months apart from each other and feeling the bitter bite of
quarantine, we wanted to write songs for each other to help us get through the
lonely times. "Pittsburgh Shoes and "Harrisburg Shoes" are love songs written to
encourage and uplift one another and remind ourselves about the goodness that
is to come.
It was amazing for us to all be in a room together playing music and capturing the
magical moments of being a band. All of the elements and musicality that is so
important, small nuances, and inside jokes are all laid out in a way that you can
hear everything." Pressed on Opaque Yellow Color vinyl.

Felix Laband’s The Soft White Hand is the masterwork of an artist who expresses himself through musical and artistic collage acting together to reinterpret his sources and to express significant elements of his own personal story.

Released by Munich-based Compost Records, the 14-track album is Laband’s first full-length offering since the critically acclaimed Deaf Safari in 2015. It is heralded by the single “Derek and Me”, and is being pressed on vinyl for distribution globally.

In The Soft White Hand Laband works with source materials that will be familiar to those who know his previous four records – Thin Shoes in June (2001), 4/4 Down the Stairs (2002), Dark Days Exit (2005) and especially Deaf Safari which reached deep into the South Africa scene and its political culture to inspire its vocal and music sampling. However, the disengagement he felt from his homeland during his latest album’s creation – an abiding sense of untethered-ness to place and space, exquisitely rendered in tracks like “Death of a Migrant” – is perceptible in Laband’s desire to illuminate instead aspects of his own life.

“For this album, my source material became almost autobiographical as opposed to African statements I’ve worked with previously,” says the artist. “I have sampled a lot from documentaries from the 80s crack epidemic in impoverished African American communities and believe my work speaks unapologetically for the lost and marginalised, for those who are the forgotten casualties of the war on drugs. In the past, I have had my issues with substance abuse, and I know first-hand about the nightmares and fears, what it feels like to be isolated and abandoned.”

Few artists have managed to air these intimate aspects of their life so luminously as Laband does in tracks like “5 Seconds Ago”, “They Call Me Shorty” and in the strange and meditative “Dreams of Loneliness”. “I’ve been building this weird, autobiographical story using other people talking. It’s kind of humorous but it is also sad and beautiful,” says Laband.

Yet, as in all of Laband’s recorded output, the delineations between emotions are never starkly drawn and The Soft White Hand is also shot through with beauty. Nature appears in recordings made in his garden in the intimate early morning hours, whether as in the calls of the Hadada Ibis and other birdsong in “Prelude” or of the vertical-tail-cocking bird in “Derek and Me”. The last is a wonderful track with Derek Gripper, the South African experimental classical guitarist of international renown, whose 2020 song “Fanta and Felix” imagines a meeting between Fanta Sacko and Laband.

Laband’s eloquence in reinterpreting classical composers such as Beethoven in “We Know Major Tom’s a Junkie” is another thrilling aspect of the new record. “I’ve been properly exploring classical music on this album,” explains Laband, “taking melodies from classical compositions and reinterpreting them”. A fresh quality comes to his work through this sonic adventuring: the tender manipulation of the mundaneness of the computer’s AI voice to reimagine and reinvent iconic lyrics and melodies in strange and unexpected configurations.

The Soft White Hand is Laband’s most cohesive body of work to date. Yet it remains, in its sheer artistic scope, impossible to describe fully. Darkness abuts the gossamer light. A song that summons the sunrise and all the hope of a new day could also be about the final dipping down of the sun that portends a troubled night ahead. Interludes are invitations to expand outwards or shift inwards. Mistakes and “weird fuckups” in the sound are cherished as convincing statements against what Laband calls the “grossness” of perfect sound in modern music.

For this world-leading electronic artist, the boundaries are unfixed. He is inspired by the German Dada artist, Hannah Höch, who memorably declared: “I wish to blur the firm boundaries which we self-certain people tend to delineate around all we can achieve.” His music consequently reflects a primal artistic impulse that is also visible in Laband’s considerable visual art output as seen recently in several solo exhibitions such as that held in the No End Gallery in Johannesburg in 2019 and in the works he produced during his 2018 Nirox Foundation Artists Residency. “My music is always about collage, as is my art,’’ he affirms. “Everything I do is collage. It is a medium I find very interesting because you are taking history and distorting it and changing its meaning and turning it upside down and back to front.” In her book Recollections of My Non-Existence, Rebecca Solnit calls collage “literally a border art”; it is “an art of what happens when two things confront each other or spill onto each other”.

With The Soft White Hand, Laband is confirming his singular ability to achieve this in both art and music, melting the divisions between the two creative disciplines until they become one. He is also affirming his belief that an album of music should be more than a collection of unrelated tracks, but should unfold a fully integrated, cohesive story as in the song cycles of the great classical composers. In doing so, he claims his position as one of the most significant artists working today.

Artist Statement – Felix Laband – August 2022

When the Khmer Rouge took their captives for processing, they identified their class enemies by looking at their hands. If they were sunburned, rough and calloused, they were those of a peasant, a proletarian to be spared. But if they were soft and white, then they were those of a city-dweller, an intellectual or bourgeois, an adversary to be liquidated.

In calling this album The Soft White Hand, I was reflecting on the Cambodian genocide and how it resonates in contemporary South Africa. The apartheid era is over, and gone with it is white political domination. Yet economic and social privilege is still held in soft white hands. But those who grasp it know just how tenuous is their hold, how it singles them out, and my music reflects their subconscious fears, the stress and guilt of clinging on to what others envy and desire.

The soft white hand of the title suggests to me a further image, one that relates to all of postcolonial Africa. In my mind’s eye, I see the soft, duplicitous handshake of the smooth representatives of the superpowers making deals and promising gifts that benefit only them, and not their African dupes.
Yet, soaring above the wailing of sirens sampled from the first day of the invasion of Ukraine, my music is also about love gained and passion lost. It is about the tender caress of a soft white hand that conducts you into a place of dreams to be enfolded by nocturnal melodies.

Tiny Blue Ghost are a band possessed. Haunt- ing, melodic vocals soar over a dreamy landscape of floating guitars, washy drums, and meandering bass that can pull suddenly into focus at a mo- ments notice. Moving seamlessly across genre to genre, Tiny Blue Ghost can’t simply be defined by any single label- unless you want to come up with a new term for a band that blends the best parts of bedroom pop, shoegaze, twee, indie, post-rock, and college rock.

Originally released in 2006 as a mini-CDr in a limited edition of 300
signed and numbered copies, this immersive selection of solo recordings
by Savage Republic, Scenic and Independent Project Records founder
Bruce Licher finally gets the expanded reissue treatment
Newly packaged in oversized die cut pocket folders complete with various inserts
to give a more complete artistic presence to the unique and special music that is
being shared. CD packaging is designed by world-renowned graphic design artist
Bruce Licher.
The three original tracks "recorded in the summer of '97 on a cassette 4-track" are
now accompanied by a fourth instrumental that ventures into atmospheric
electronic territory. The bonus track was composed on an old Roland SH-2000
synthesizer Licher found while living in Arizona; it is, rather fittingly, named
"Number 09" "an homage to the Beatles' most adventurous piece of
experimentation. 'Exploratorium' reclaims equal fondness for the natural and the
industrial. This inquisitive approach is made clearer "and intriguing" by the
unexpected pairing of the original three tracks with "Number 09". Whereas "Peak",
"Going Home" and "The Penstemon Field" eagerly play with stretching the role of
guitars and bass, "Number 09" takes its cue from the hypnotic synths of the
Human League's 12" from 1979 'The Dignity of Labour' and sets off for an
unconstrained sonic trip that goes from the jarring to the meditative. It's a
mesmerizing blend of ambient and post- rock, noisy shoegaze and pastoral
melodic structures, droning avant-garde and soundtracks at their most.

new pressing on red & black swirl vinyl. RIYL: New Order, Drab Majesty, The KVB, Black Marble, The Soft Moon. Layering synths, guitars, electronic percussion and live drums, Houses of Heaven fuses early industrial and techno rhythms with the melodicism of shoegaze and a heavy dose of dub-influenced effects on their first full-length album titled 'Silent Places.' Written against the backdrop of the Northern California wildfires, ever-growing tent cities and the continued rise of empty luxury housing in the Bay Area, the album explores the intimate experiences that transpire within the chaotic confines of modern living. Opener "Sleep" basks in the tension surrounding the album's inception with blown-out kick drums, claustrophobic verses, and deteriorating vocal effects. Sharp arpeggiated synths and woozy strings neutralize the track's subterranean anxiety with texture and sensuality. Produced by Matia Simovich (Inhalt) and with engineering credits that include Monte Vallier (Weekend) and John McEntire (Tortoise), it's a potent introduction to the muscular sound design underpinning the album. Booming taiko drums sound the beginning of "Dissolve the Floor," the album's most club-ready track. A pulsing arpeggio gives the song its industrial heartbeat while disintegrating tape delay throws menace into the hazy atmosphere. The undulating techno beat breaks and repairs itself with seductive and satisfying timing. "In Soft Confusion" doesn't stray from the album's obsidian narrative as it envisions and ponders the aftermath of human extinction. Sonically speaking, though, it's the album's most uptempo offering with Tecon's supremely infectious chorus vocal hook and Beck's dizzying guitar riffs. The intricate electronic drum programming is elevated by Ott's live drumming, which lends a refreshingly human touch to the potentially icy, and often mechanical, sonic territory of synthdriven music. Adding density to the album's shadowy allure are the unusual sounds and vintage outboard effects that Tecon and Simovich impressively maneuver into the album's tonal palette. Great care has been taken to finesse familiar pop structures with an inventive edge. It's this mindfulness of past and present that is sure to secure Silent Places as a standout album in the new decade. Also Available From Houses Of Heaven: Remnant 12" EP

ROOMER is the name of the latest Berlin music sensation. Call it slowcore, shoegaze, dream pop, noise- or indie rock. Whatever way you like! The band's influences are definitely an eclectic lot. Just like with all good bands. But their sound is now! ROOMER are consisting of well-known Berlin scene musicians* who only now start to appear as ROOMER: Ronja Schößler, Ludwig Wandinger, Luca Pusch and Arne Braun. The birth of the band, however, goes back to a session at Kunsthalle Below about a year ago "We recorded a few songs on our own with some equipment that was lying around there and then recorded a few overdubs at home in Berlin," says Ronja Schößler laconically about the founding myth of ROOMER. On this EP they sound like a band that has been playing together for many years and knows exactly where they want to go with their music. ROOMER proves once again that a circle of friends making music is b asically unbeatable as a band formation.

Since starting Babehoven in Portland, Oregon in 2017, Maya Bon has
shown herself to be a gifted heart-on-sleeve songwriter, using music to
peel back the layers of her own experience "sometimes sad, sometimes
surreal, always vividly rendered " to reveal universal emotional truths
hidden in the most intimately personal of details
After a handful of self- released EPs and their label debut on Double Double
Whammy with 2022's "Sunk" EP, Babehoven's first full-length album "Light Moving
Time" is due October 28 2022.
"Light Moving Time" is emblematic of Babehoven's wide range of dynamics, and
each of those sounds are taken further. You can hear the pared-down languor of
"Yellow Has a Pretty Good Reputation", the smoldering guitars of "Demonstrating
Visible Difference of Height", the peculiar charm of "Nastavi, Calliope", and the
soft tenderness of "Sunk". Alternating seamlessly acrossstyles, Circles and
Philadelphia have the wispy ambient calm of a Liz Harris track, I'm On Your Team
falls somewhere between a flowy country song and an 80s power ballad, Marion
contains the plucky indie- folk warmth of Hovvdy, and Stand It and Pockets are
coated with My Bloody Valentine's wobbly shoegaze. But in contrast with those
EPs, these tracks utilize Bon's voice with greater emotional impact than ever
before. Pressed on Bone Color vinyl

"You can't have good relationships with bad people." The desire to build good things with good people wins in Hoge's opinion, and with themes of love, trust, vulnerability and sacrifice - Hoge explores the real stuff on new album "Wings On My Shoes"

Extremely rare, under the radar afro-psychedelic LP from South Africa. This mysterious band was produced by African funk master, composer, guitarist and producer Almon Sandisa Memela, who was active since the mid 1950s, first as a musician and guitar teacher and then also as a producer. He is famous for his 1970s Afro funk works Funky Africa and the very sought after Broken Shoes.

Action features a cool mixture of incipient afro-funk and garage pop/psych, with one of its songs having been compiled on the famous Next Stop... Soweto compilation series that helped ignite the current fever for African music.



RIYL: Ofege, Blo, Aktion, The Apostles, SJOB Movement, Soweto and the likes.



First ever vinyl reissue, reproducing the original sleeve artwork and with remastered sound. 500 copies only.

For their fourth release, Selected Works are reissuing the classic South African record from the legendary Beaters, Lost Memories. Fusing R&B, Funk and Soul this collection of tight instrumentals was initially released on CBS in the late 60s. This band would later morph into the legendary South African outfit Harari. Psychedelic soul masterpiece on the CBS LAB imprint. First ever reissue only from Selected Works. Deluxe vinyl repress based on the original CBS pressing with all original artwork in Tip On Covers. Fully licensed and remastered.

Ricky Ross, songwriter and lead singer for Deacon Blue, one of Scotland’s best loved and most successful bands, follows the release of 2020’s City Of Love, the band’s most successful album in 25 years, with a solo album ‘Short Stories Vol. 2’. The album will be released on CD, vinyl and digitally on 5th August 2022 by Cooking Vinyl.

repress

Levon Vincent returns with his fourth full-length studio album Silent Cities a striking departure from his previous records. This, his first release experimenting with the cassette format, Silent Cities is a kind of mixtape through more private moods and personal pitches (literally given Levon’s non-standard tunings).

While Levon has always pro
duced dance floor jams with the intention of raising people’s heart rates, Silent Cities began with 72 bpm: his average resting heart rate, and the concept of tuning the music he was making to his own body rather than increasing anything. This brought the tempos down to 72 bpm or even half of that, at 36bpm. Programming the record during the empty cityscape of Berlin lockdowns, this is the first time Levon’s created an album for the home stereo or for headphone listening whilst navigating through a city. A mixtape specialist in his youth; he was always wanted to play with the cassette format. The results are sure to delight any listener, with the ever-present ambient, krautrock, shoegaze, hip-hop and electro influences coming to the foreground on this work.

“I was expanding further along the lines of a surprise favourite from my previous LP, a song called She Likes To Wave To Passing Boats which was not a 4 on-the-floor piece to play in clubs but a more impressionistic piece of music that I wrote to expound some emotions one day” says Levon. “It was a song written using just intonation. I really love how warm the pure 4ths sound, so when working on the new LP Silent Cities I decided to use my own tunings”.

Historically, the use of just intonation has meant that such instruments could sound "in tune" in one key but at the expense of more dissonance in the other keys. None of the songs on Silent Cities use standard Western equal temperament, Levon created his own scale designs coupled with the ancient ratios found in just intonation.

Born in Houston in 1975, Levon’s life changed dramatically when his parents moved their family to New York in 1981, uprooted from what he knew, the shock, the change from Houston to New York at 6 years old, is referred to constantly in Levon’s Musical output over the years. Levon's family moved houses in and around NYC from 1981 -2010, never more than a mile or two from the WTC. He lived on the Lower East Side during his teenage years and early 20s. This time period and this locale are also a big theme recurrent in his music as he tries to convey how the "downtown" lifestyle and culture-melding affected him so much at a tender age. He cut his teeth working in record shops around lower Manhattan, and while working at the Halcyon Record shop in Brooklyn he (alongside DJ Jus-Ed) was instrumental in creating the wave that came to be known as the "NYC House Renaissance" circa 2010. During the Y2K years he studied 20th C post-minimalism at Purchase college of New York under James McElwaine (who tangentially produced Man Parrish’s Self-Titled proto-hip-hop debt LP). Levon was fortunate to study theory with avant-garde composer Dary John Mizelle and orchestration under conductor Joel Thome. He undertook masterclasses with Philip Glass and also served as intern for John Kilgore, engineer for Steve Reich, where he was present for notable mix sessions such as “Violin Phase.”

Post-minimalism clearly remains an influence not to mention the early sampler stars of 80s freestyle and synth pop. Mixing such far-reaching influences is something Levon executes tremendously well. The first track Everlasting Joy moves at a head nodding 96 BPM tempo, reflecting formative influences like Paul Hardcastle’s Rainforest or Art Of Noise’s Moments in Love. “Those types of songs were a big eye opener for me as a youth, because it was where I realised songs in popular culture didn’t have to be kept to just 3 minutes, and they didn’t require vocals either. So, Everlasting Joy is a song with that intention, one that might be radio-friendly, despite the long arrangement and without vocals. You could say it was inspired by 107.5 in NY because that was a station I listened to a lot in the 1980’s.”

The majority of demos on Silent Cities were recorded before Covid-19 hit the world - when Levon had found a studio space outside of home in his adopted city of Berlin. It was a career first - working on music outside the bedroom. This riding the train or bicycling ‘going to work’ in Berlin opened up a new mood in his music, using the time back and forth to be inspired - commuting as an NYC transplant who still feels as a tourist in Berlin, with a pair of headphones, looking out the window on the train, or stopping on bridges and parking his bike to enjoy Berlin's skyline and horizon. Then, the pandemic struck and “work” came to a halt. Levon had recorded so much material during that year in the studio out of house it seemed like an inflection point for him to lighten the burden of the possessions he was carrying.

“People close to me have watched me give away synths and hardware regularly and I have given away my record collection every few years for my whole life. As a struggling artist in my 20s who had worked in record stores that whole time, I learned that moving constantly with 12k records just wasn't the way to live. So, in light of the pandemic, I set up a shop online, and sold all my music equipment. I also created a separate shop for all my sneakers and clothes. Easy come, Easy go. This provided me with a slow drip type of income that carried me quite well through the pandemic and it allowed me to focus on my own art and music. Getting rid of all my possessions felt like a weight being lifted from my shoulders and I was able to stay the course and remain committed to the music. I needed a further 2 years to mix and arrange the LP. If it weren’t for the pandemic, I would not been able to make this type of LP, so in light of everything, I was able to turn a depressing time in to something lasting and musically very positive.”

You can hear how his approach to a cassette release retains the "Medium is the Message." ethos. Silent Cities is a spooling, warm piece about life memories and embodiment.

Winter’s glittery, holographic image takes on a darker shade in the grooves of their 4th album, What Kind of Blue Are You? The record sees Samira Winter return to the kind of hooky shoegaze of her early recordings. A darker, more world-weary perspective informs the honest and emotionally unguarded lyrics. Sonically, What Kind of Blue... is Winter’s greatest achievement yet. Texturally,, bellowing fuzz and wirey guitars evoke a new sonic territory. Tracks like “Atonement” (ft. Hatchie), “Good” (ft. Sasami) and “Fool” claw, scrape and wriggle their way into your ear. Produced by Joo Joo Ashworth (Sasami, Automatic, Dummy). Recently completed a US and Europe tour as part of Hatchie’s band. 4 pre-release singles and a video for “Atonement”. Featured guest peformances from Sasami Ashworth and Hatchie. Recent collaborations with Pachyman, Mile High Club, and Jorge Elbrecht. “Utterly charming kaleidoscopic dreampop... her perfect palette of sounds draws you in but she’s got the tunes to keep you around” Brooklyn Vegan // Tour Dates Europe & Australia (Supporting Hatchie). Sept 25th Bristol @ Louisiana, Sept 26th Manchester @ YES, Sept 27th London @ Village Underground. // Track Listing: Side A 01. Wish I Knew 02. Atonement 03. Good 04. Sunday 05. Crimson Enclosure Side B 06. Write It Out 07. Lose You 08. Fool 09. Mr. On-My-Mind 10. Kind Of Blue

While she might be best known as an improviser (most notably in the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, the Feminist Improvising Group and more recently with the likes of Les Diaboliques), Maggie Nicols’ talents stretch into song, dance, poetry, performance and composition. When Cafe OTO was shut over lockdown we invited her to follow up the wonderful solo ‘Creative Contradiction’ with some time spent singing alone at the piano. ‘Are You Ready?’ comprises an LP of songs and a 2CD edition which includes a companion disk of freely improvised meditations entitled, ‘Whatever Arises.’ Songs - seemingly contradictory to the practices of free improvisation - have been a vital part in Nicols’ relationship to music. It was singing bebop with pianist Dennis Rose which nurtured and challenged Nicols, allowing her to develop her own skills and sound amongst a repertoire of standards sung in clubs and pubs. Singing alongside Julie Tippetts in Centipede showed her how heady experimentation could be woven into composition, and a more recent gig with pianist Steve Lodder played out ‘The Maggie Nicols Songbook.’ Are You Ready? recalls Nicols’ own compositions from memory, working out tunes and turning them over. New routes down old paths form in moments of improvisation and all wrong turns are played out with joyous discovery. What John Stevens dubbed Maggie's “ability to find the ‘rhythmelodic’” meets a willingness to be understood and to understand. Solo at the piano, Nicols is still firmly rooted in the collective however - “Sans Papiers” sets the words of poet Vicky Scrivener to tune; a story of migration and struggle which is as important to Nicols as the songs her mother wrote. Such an intimate recording of her own compositions came with a certain amount of reflection and anxiety - best confronted with time spent freely improvising. ‘Whatever Arises’ - a companion disk to the ‘Songs’ - is a meditation of sorts, a process of ‘following the energy’ which has its roots in John Stevens’ work. “Improvisation gives the confidence to compose,” Nicols told us in an interview about some of her archival tapes, and here the two are as important as each other. Beginning with breath and repetition, ‘Whatever Arises’ allows Nicols’ to find new voices, accompanied by the piano and over dubbings of her tap shoes on the concrete floor. Brilliantly she is able to share her moments of discovery with the listener, finding comfort in vulnerability. Whilst rooted in Stevens’ work, Nicols’ improvisational techniques also remind us of Pauline Oliveros’ Sonic Meditations. They are what has allowed Nicols to find her own sound, to ‘teach herself to fly.’ They have allowed Nicols to grow and share and to be able to keep close the songs that mean so much to her, now shared with us. Recorded at Cafe OTO on July 15th, 16th and 17th 2021 by Shaun Crook. Mixed by Shaun Crook. Mastered by Sean McCann. Artwork by Annalisa Colombara. Lettering by Rosella Garavaglia. Layout by Maja Larrson. ‘Slow Within The Urgency’ inspired by mindfulness teacher Jeff Warren. Original poem ‘Sans Papiers’ by Vicky Scrivener. Original poem ‘You Darkness’ by Rainer Maria Rilke. Music and lyrics to ‘Music Is The Healing Force of The Universe’ by Mary Maria Parks.