quête:silent one

Vladislav Delay presents the fourth EP in his "Hide Behind The Silence" series with five 10" releases coming throughout 2023. Intuitive and raw music, momentary and reflective, released on Ripatti's own label "Rajaton".

Stillness is a myth. Consider concepts such as ”still water”, or ”still air” for that matter. Go to a restaurant, ask them for a glass of still water, hold it against the light and see where we’re at. Even though the water itself has been captured and imprisoned in the glass, it never stops breathing. It’s filled with tiny particles, dancing. Everything can be explained on a molecular level, but since we’re not scientists – and even if you happen to be – it’s the natural world of perception that moves me.

Still air is very similar. A hot summer’s day with zero wind feels completely still. It’s the closest I have felt to complete stillness. Or for a more urban adaptation, imagine the same vibe inside a normal apartment. In those moments, revelations and mind- blowing experiences can be had with experiments in stillness.
Try this: Just sit down for a minute on a sunny day, making sure there’s enough natural light. Do absolutely nothing. Try not to breathe for a bit. (If you need a mental anchor, you can play Cage’s 4’33” in your head but nothing else.) Watch the tiny dots of dust dancing :..’ ̈.:; ́ ́*°.,’:,. ̈ ̈ ̈ ̈:,.’
The movement is crazy, but the feeling of stillness comes from witnessing how subtle it is. In (perceived) complete stillness, every act of microscopic mobility seems to speak volumes. Yet, it feels both reassuring and oddly threatening that the stillness is never complete. What if we would need absolute stillness? Or is it just enough that we can perceive something as such? Extremes attract, so for both water and air, extraordinary movement is equally fascinating. That is also a luxury item of sorts. For us to enjoy a very ”loud” body of water or air, we need to be safe, in enough control of the situation. So when you are, it’s worthwhile to pay attention and take it all in.
A rapid flowing free with extreme strength and just barely in control. Look at that water go! No still water on this one, only ”sparkling”. A windy day when birds seem surprised how hard it is to fly, but in the end they make it. Trees bend but don’t break. The wind shows you its movement but doesn’t hurt you. It feels friendly, like a big clumsy dog that doesn’t quite understand its size.
It’s beautiful to be a guest of the elements, but not at the mercy of them. A new kind of dialogue forms.

Q&A with Sasu Ripatti:

1) Tell us something about the EP series ”Hide Behind the Silence”, what’s the idea and what can we expect?

Exploration of inaction. Of many kinds. In arts and in personal life, or at bigger and more serious levels. Questioning myself as a human being as well as an artist. Acknowledging the growing activism all around, and the very clear need for it, and how it reflects my own inaction.
Musically speaking, after Rakka, Isoviha and Speed Demon, I finally found some relief, but more importantly lost the need to go musically ever more outward and intensive. I felt quite strongly certain periods/moods from the past and they made me revisit some musical ideas or states of mind I was exploring early on.
It’s about live moments being captured, not much premeditation or editing. More intuitive and raw, even though the end result (to me) feels and sounds quite introspective and calm. It’s not very ambitious. Momentary and reflective.

2) Your music doesn’t sound very silent. Does it come from somewhere behind the silence?

Oh, this time to me it sounds quite quiet and playing with space if not silence. I don’t know what’s actually behind silence, but I think silence is the source of everything. We just don’t understand it yet.

3) What kind of thoughts or experiences gave inspiration to this series?

Writing this in Nov ’22, it’s not a stretch to say the world has been really unwell. Sometimes, like Mika Vainio put it, the world eats you up. I feel a bit like that. And I try to hide in my studio and stay away from it all, but it’s getting harder by the day. I’ve been questioning myself and thinking if what us artists are doing is worth anything, and whether it’s just a selfish thing I’ve been doing for the past 25 years, running away from everything. I haven’t come to a conclusion yet.

4) Is it easy for you to be in silence, or around silence?

Absolutely. I not only hide behind silence but I also love silence. It’s only since I started going back to nature as a grown-up person that I sensed and was enveloped by silence, true silence. I have begun to appreciate it a lot. I think all the people should spend more time in silence.

All tracks composed and produced by Sasu Ripatti.
Artwork by Marc Hohmann, photography by Shinnosuke Yoshimori.
Mastering by Stephan Mathieu for Schwebung Mastering.
Vinyl cut by SST Brueggemann.
Publishing by WARP Music Ltd.

After their first LP (now sold out) on LES DISQUES A REBOURS in 2021 their second LP, "Stories", quickly followed one year later on TOPSY- TURVY in 2022.

Now the boys have put together yet another fabulous album full of infectious powerpop-punk-tunes!

The three musicians have all played in lots of bands before the SUTTLES, such as OPERATION S, PERIPHERIQUE EST, PROTOKIDS, LES ARONDES, JON AND THE VONS, LES BRAQUEURS and share a very cool and French punk'n'roll-sound.

The music is a mix of early Punk Rock and late 70's Power Pop: think about THE NERVES, THE UNDERTONES, THE JAM, JOE JACKSON.

Everybody sings, in English, French and Spanish. The band shares a huge amount of energy, coming directly from Punk rock and mixed with a very catchy sense of pop melody.

BLUE-BLACK COLOURED VINYL! LIMITED TO 100 UNITS
Irakli’s new album is due to come out October 2023 on Live at Robert Johnson. Mechanical Moon is a retrofuturistic adventure of beautiful compositions and pulsating rhythms which are weaved together over the span of eight tracks.

We are immersed into evocative atmospheres, full of intricate textures. This is techno where you close your eyes and board an ocean liner that slowly rises and floats towards the moon.

Happy human with sad eyes roamed the neon-lit streets of the artificial island. This section of the metropolis had been designed as a necessity more than any other amenities. It had been allocated a budget surpassing the one for waste management in a city housing over a billion inhabitants.

Society had managed to eradicate love, yet it still grappled with untamed primal instincts such as dancing, sex, or violence. The island provided a discreet haven, away from the prying eyes of telescreens that silently stared into all souls. Similar to Las Vegas centuries ago, it was a safe space where anything was fair game.

Once there, night time lasted all day. Everything retained an analog essence. Music emanated from vintage record players. Amidst the laughter and tears, the artificial glow of the mechanical moon had become the last reminder of life outside.

A life so repetitive that he had been consumed by the desire to transform into a machine or a human satellite. Yet, breaking the cycle in such a manner remained impossible. And so, he wandered for hours on the island, among the weary faces.

Happy as one could be.

Since its release in 2013, Nick Lowe’s holiday album Quality Street: A Seasonal Selection for All the Family has been critically lauded for “the retro-reinvention of the Christmas album” (Uncut) and was heralded by TIME and Rolling Stone as one of the greatest holiday records of all time. Featuring original tunes by St. Nick himself, such as the witty “Christmas at the Airport” and tender “I Was Born in Bethlehem,” to reimagined covers like an ironically bombastic, swinging rendition of “Silent Night” and the rearranging of
Wizzard’s “I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day” and Roger Miller’s “Old Toy Trains.”

Some of Lowe’s collaborators and admirers make songwriting appearances on the album as well, including the Ron Sexsmith-penned “Hooves on the Roof” and Lowe’s co-write with his former Little Village bandmate Ry Cooder on “A Dollar Short of Happy.” Rolling Stone said it best that an album like Quality Street is “worthy of your holiday bonus.” For the album’s 10th anniversary, Quality Street is being reissued on red color vinyl and includes a bonus 45 single of Nick Lowe’s covers of “Winter Wonderland” and “Let It
Snow.” Nick’s longtime tourmates Los Straitjackets are his backing band on both tracks and this marks the first time that either song is available on vinyl. The 10th anniversary LP is limited to 1,000 copies worldwide.

Still one of the most highly regarded horror films of all time, F.W. Murnau's unauthorised adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, Nosferatu (1922), is an Expressionist masterpiece of the silent era. Much of the original score by Hans Erdmann (meant to be played live by an orchestra) was lost, leading Nosferatu to inspire several subsequent soundtracks, the best known of which is by Hammer Horror composer James Bernard, written for the Tanis Film video reissue of the film in 1997.
The world premiere of the score was performed by Nic Raine and the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra at the London Film Festival the same year and now, almost twenty years later, the score is being pressed on vinyl for the first time.

Recently reformed Swedish death metal pioneers DISMEMBER are proud to announce that they have once again joined the ranks of NUCLEAR BLAST RECORDS, where they released their demo, Reborn In Blasphemy (1990), their 1991 debut album, Like An Everflowing Stream, as well as the four records that would follow. Between 1988 and 2011 DISMEMBER earned a notorious reputation as the “Motörhead (version) of death metal”, through eight classic albums and furious live shows around the globe. The band was formed by Robert Sennebäck, David Blomqvist and Fred Estby in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1988 and has long since been regarded as one of the originators of the trademark Swedish death metal sound, next to other pioneering bands such as ENTOMBED, GRAVE and UNLEASHED. DISMEMBER recorded a couple of self-released demos before their 1990 demo cassette, Reborn In Blasphemy, with Matti Kärki on vocals and ENTOMBED's Nicke Andersson taking over most lead guitar parts, got picked up for a wider release by NUCLEAR BLAST RECORDS. In 1991, their first full-length, Like An Everflowing Stream (Nuclear Blast Records), saw the light of day, which was recorded by Tomas Skogsberg at the now legendary Sunlight Studios, and featured Richard Cabeza (UNANIMATED) on bass. DISMEMBER released their acclaimed sophomore album, Indecent & Obscene, in 1993, which to this day remains their most successful output.

Released in 1997, the fourth studio album by Sweden's DISMEMBER totally lives up to its title, and provides a harsher, more aggressive sound than its predecessor. Including a barrage of great tracks like 'Misanthropic', 'Of Fire', 'Silent Are The Watchers', it also marked the debut of drummer Fred Estby as producer. This remaster by Patrick W. Engel adds an impressive additional punch resulting in the ultimate version of this classic.

'Nothing left but silence' is Erik K Skodvin’s third solo album for Sonic Pieces and his most quiet to date. Subtitled as "Musical improvisations and quiet collages from the subconscious”, Skodvin reduces his instruments to guitar, reverb and amp - and creates a skeleton of eight hypnotic ragas that meanders in an eternal loop between ephemeral and singular.

Only on the horizon it’s possible to sense that Skodvin has also touched the neoclassical terrain in earlier productions - on Nothing left but silence, however, he acts as a twilight player who is not afraid of the coldness of endless space and who knows how to subjugate the shadowiness of the visible world. Carried by the noise of the amp and the occasional click of the effects pedals, a monolithic, reduced blues emerges, whose mediumistic quality nevertheless reveals that Skodvin's music always comes from the body - and as such is always searching for space. A space that - in this case - blends the vastness of the Norwegian steppe with the brittleness of American wasteland (as if Deathprod and Loren Connors were one and the same person), creating a persistent state between deceleration and absence of presence - that leads Skodvin ever closer to the inner essence of sound.

Initially recorded at Saal 3, Funkhaus, Berlin by Nils Frahm in 2015, the album has itself been subjected to silence as a forgotten relic, re-found and now released in a time where it might connect more with the contemporary state of mind. Welcome to the entrance to the periphery.

A.R. Kive collates the three most astonishing works from that most miraculous of duos - A.R. Kane - comprising the ‘Up Home’ EP from 1988 that signified the band’s dawning realisation of their own powers and possibilities, their legendary debut LP ‘sixty nine’ (1988) and its kaleidoscopic, prophetic double-LP follow up ‘i’ (1989).

In founder-member Rudy Tambala’s new remastering, the music on these pivotal transmissions from the birth of dream pop, have been reinvigorated and re-infused with a new power, a new depth and intimacy, a new height and immensity. Vivid, timeless and yet always timely whenever they’re recalled, these records still force any listener to realise that despite the habits of retrospective myth-making and the
safe neutering effects of ‘genre’, thirty years have in no way dimmed how resistant and dissident to critical habits of categorisation A.R. Kane always were. Never quite ‘avant-pop’ or ‘shoegaze’ or ‘post-rock’ or any of those sobriquets designed to file and categorise, A.R. Kive is a reminder that those genres had to be coined, had to be invented precisely to contain the astonishing sound of A.R. Kane, because
previous formulations couldn’t come close to their sui generis sound and suggestiveness. This is music that pointed towards futures which a whole generation of artists and sonic explorers would map out. Now beautifully repackaged, remastered and fleshed out with extensive sleeve notes and accompanying materials, ‘A.R. Kive’ reveals that 35 years on it’s still a struggle to defuse the revolutionary and inspirational possibility of A.R. Kane’s music.

A.R. Kane were formed in 1986 by Rudy Tambala and Alex Ayuli, two second-generation immigrants who grew up together in Stratford, East London. From the off the pair were outsiders in the culturally mixed (cockney/Irish/West Indian/Asian) milieu of the East End, with Alex and Rudy’s folks first generation immigrants from Nigeria and Malawi, respectively. The two of them quickly developed and fostered an innate and near-telepathic mutual understanding forged in musical, literary and artistic exploration. Like a lot of second-generation immigrants, they were ferocious autodidacts in all kinds of areas, especially around music and literature. Diving deep into the music of afro-futurist luminaries such as Sun Ra, Miles Davis, Lee Perry and
Hendrix, as well as devouring the explorations of lysergic noise and feedback from contemporaries like Sonic Youth and Butthole Surfers, they also thoroughly immersed themselves in the alternate literary realities of sci-fi and ancient history (the fascination with the arcane that gave the band their name), all to feed their voracious cultural thirsts and intellectual curiosity.

It was seeing the Cocteau Twins performing on Channel 4 show the Tube that spurred A.R. Kane into being - “They had no drummer. They used tapes and technology and Liz Fraser looked completely otherworldly with those big eyes. And the noise coming out of Robin’s guitar! That was the ‘Fuck! We could do that! We could express ourselves like that!’ moment”, recalls Tambala - and through a mix of
confidence, chutzpah, ad hoc almost-mythical live shows and sheer innocent will the duo debuted with the astonishing ‘When You’re Sad’ single for One Little Indian in 1986. Immediately dubbed a ‘black Jesus & Mary Chain’ by a press unsure of WHERE to put a black band clearly immersed in feedback and noise, what was immediately apparent for listeners was just how much more was going on here - a
tapping of dub’s stealth and guile, a resonant umbilicus back to fusion and jazz, the music less a conjuration of past highs than a re-summoning of lost spirits.
The run of singles and EPs that followed picked up increasingly rapt reviews in the press, but it was the ‘Up Home EP’ released in 1988 on their new home, Rough Trade that really suggested something immense was about to break. Simon Reynolds noted the EP was: Their most concentrated slab of iridescent awesomeness and a true pinnacle of an era that abounded with astounding landmarks of guitar-reinvention, A.R. Kane at their most elixir-like.

If anything, the remastered ‘Up Home’ that forms the first part of ‘A.R. Kive’ is even more dazzling, even more startling than it was when it first emerged, and listening now you again wonder not just about how many bands christened ‘shoegaze’ tried to emulate it, but how all of them fell so far short of its lambent, pellucid wonder. This remains intrinsically experimental music but with none of the frowning orthodoxy those words imply. A.R. Kane, thanks to that second generation auto-didacticism were always supremely aware about the interstices of music and magic, but at the same time gloriously free in the way they explored that connection within their own sound, fascinated always with the creation of ‘perfect mistakes’ and the possibilities inherent in informed play.

‘sixty nine’ the group’s debut LP that emerged in 1988 had
critics and listeners struggling to fit language around A.R. Kane’s sound. As a title it was telling - the year of ‘Bitches Brew’, the year of ‘In A Silent Way’, the erotic möbius between two lovers - and as originally coined by the band themselves, ‘dream pop’ (before it became a free-floating signifier of vague import) was entirely apposite for the music A.R. Kane were making. Crafted in a dark small basement studio in which Tambala recalls the duo had “complete freedom - We wanted to go as far out as we could, and in doing so we discovered the point where it stops being music”. There was an irresistibly dreamy, somnambulant, sensual and almost surreal flow to ‘sixty nine’s sound, but also real darkness/dankness, the ruptures of the primordial and the reverberations of the subconscious, within the grooves of remarkable songs like ‘Dizzy’ and ‘Crazy Blue’. Alex’s plangent vocals floated and surged amidst exquisite peals of refracted feedback but crucially there was BASS here, lugubrious and funky and full of dread, sonic pleasure and sonic disturbance crushed together to make music with a center so deep it felt subcutaneous, music constructed from both the accidental and the deliberate, generous enough to dance with both serendipity and chaos. ‘sixty nine’ remains - especially in this remastered iteration - ravishing, revolutionary.

The final part of this ‘A.R. Kive’ contains 1989’s astonishing double-LP ‘i’ which followed up on ‘sixty nine’s promise and saw the duo fully unleash their experimental pop sensibilities over 26 tracks, plunging the A.R. Kane sound into a dazzlingly kaleidoscopic vision of pop experiment and play. Suffused with new digital technologies and combining searingly sweet and danceable pop with perhaps the duo’s strangest and boundary-pushing compositions, the album did exactly what a great double-set should do - indulge the artists sprawling pursuit of their own imaginations but always with a concision and an ear for those moments where pop both transcends and toys with the listeners expectations. Jason Ankeny has noted that “In retrospect, ‘i’ now seems like a crystal ball prophesying virtually every major musical development of the 1990s; from the shimmering techno of ‘A Love from Outer Space’ to the liquid dub of ‘What’s All This Then?’, from the alien drone-pop of ‘Conundrum’ to the sinister shoegazer miasma of ‘Supervixens’ — it’s all here, an underground road map for countless bands to follow.” Perhaps the most overwhelmingly all-encompassing transmission from A.R. Kane, ‘i’ bookended a three year period in which the duo had made some of the most prophetic and revelatory music of the entire decade.

After ‘i’ the duo’s output became more sporadic with Tambala and Ayuli moving in different directions both geographically and musically, with only 1994’s ‘New Clear Child’ a crystalline re-fraction of future and past echoes of jazz, folk and soul, before the duo went their separate ways. Since then, A.R. Kane’s music has endured, not thanks to the usual sepia’d false memories that seem to maintain interest in so much of the musical past, but because those who hear A.R. Kane music and are changed irrevocably, have to share that universe which A.R. Kane opened up, with anyone else who will listen. Far more than other lauded documents of the late 80s it still sounds astonishingly fresh, astonishingly livid and vivid and necessary and NOW.

Radiorama were one of the most successful Italo disco projects in the 1980s.

With hits like „Chance To Desire“, „Aliens“ and „Vampires“, the Italians conquered all European charts.
The album „Four Years After“ from 1989 is now remastered available on CD and vinyl.

Repress!

‘Little Orphan Boy’ is the second single taken from album ‘This Is Brian Jackson’, presented with remixes by Two Soul Fusion, a.k.a. Louie Vega and Josh Milan.

The veteran artist’s first true solo LP in over 20 years, ‘This Is Brian Jackson’ is produced by Phenomenal Handclap Band founder Daniel Collás. Collás lovingly re-frames and updates ideas and demos that Jackson first laid down back in 1976, right around the time he recorded ‘Bridges’ with Gil Scott-Heron, for a solo project that never saw the light of day… until now.

Alongside his ‘Two Soul Fusion’ partner Josh Milan, Louie Vega gives the album’s closing track ‘Little Orphan Boy’ two truly vintage remix treatments, taking the song on an eclectic, soul-stirring, timeless journey. The extended ‘Two Soul Fusion’ mix calls to mind the golden era of Masters at Work productions, featuring a Latin-infused percussion groove, shimmering organs and in-the-cut funky guitar lines. The ‘Downtempo’ remix lets Brian Jackson’s vocals ride over a head-nodding, stripped back, yet equally soulful arrangement.

“A dream to work with Brian Jackson” says Louie Vega. “I mean, he’s a big part of our musical landscape and has been a huge inspiration in our lives. From way back to my early years in the Bronx, through to my DJing and producing career, into productions like Nuyorican Soul, Elements of Life, Kenlou, Brian and Gil have always been with us! Now to work on such an amazing song with Brian’s keyboard work and lead vocal, it made it so much easier for Two Soul Fusion (Josh and I) to find that pocket and groove. We had to create an epic piece and take you on a trip through several styles, it was calling for it. That’s due to the original work of Brian Jackson, a true Master at Work & Two Soul Fusion hero!!! I’m looking forward to seeing what’s next on the horizon with us and the one & only Brian Jackson.

Brian Jackson: “I have always loved the musicality and the rhythmic power that surges through the artistry of Louie Vega since I first heard him in Masters at Work. I made a silent wish that one day I would hear one of my songs given that special treatment. Imagine my elation to know that it would finally happen – with a song I wrote and recorded 45 years ago for a solo project that might have never happened if not for producer Daniel Collás and BBE chief Peter Adarkwah! Louie, along with Two Soul Fusion partner Josh Milan and I are alike in so many ways, I knew that if we ever got together, magic would happen and well… here’s to magic! My love and gratitude to Louie, Josh, Daniel, Peter and the beautiful BBE family.”

Der britische Singer-Songwriter James Bay ist nicht zurück zu halten: Am 8. Juli veröffentlicht er sein lang-ersehntes drittes Studioalbum „Leap“ und springt voller Mut ins Kalte.

Mit ganzen zwölf Songs berührt er Herzen weltweit und macht seinem Gold-ausgezeichneten Debütalbum „Chaos and the Calm“ ehrwürdige Konkurrenz. Auch ihn rissen die letzten Jahre mit – persönliche Umstände, die Pandemie, Ängste, Selbstzweifel: Alles Gefühle, die er eigentlich nie so teilen wollte oder konnte waren auf einmal die neue Normalität. Mit „Leap“ wagt er jedoch nun den Absprung und verarbeitet das Geschehene mit motivierenden, hoffnungsvollen und von Liebe geprägten Songs.

Spätestens seit seinem Top 10-Hit „Hold Back The River“ ist James nicht mehr zu unterschätzen und zählt mehrere BRIT Award Auszeichnungen, GRAMMY Nominierungen, sowie den deutschen ECHO-Preis der Kategorie „Best International Newcomer“ zu seinen vielen musikalischen Erfolgen.

2022 setzt er den Hut wieder auf; James Bay ist zurück!

How sad, if timely: this stunning reissue of the 1994 live album arrived in the very week that trumpeter Masekela passed away. One of the most successful ambassadors ever for African music, his fusing of the continent's rhythms and instruments with contemporary jazz and rock proved irresistible. Nearly every one of you has heard him, thanks to guess spots with The Byrds and Paul Simon. His breakthough hit from 1968 — the infectious "Grazing In The Grass" — is here, along with another 11 tracks recorded at Blues Alley, the U.S. club that gave us Eva Cassidy. Notably, despite its early-1990s origins, this is all-analogue." — Sound Quality = 90% - Ken Kessler, HiFi News, May 2018

"...Hope is one of those intensely visceral, large as life, and immediately present recordings that will make pretty much any system sound at least very good, and will cause better ones to raise goose bumps." - Wayne Garcia, The Absolute Sound, August 2008

"...The high quality original mix plus Analogue Productions' superb mastering has resulted in a terrific, very transparent sonic with great impact." - John Henry, Audiophile Audition

What more can be captured from the masterpiece that the late trumpet great Hugh Masekela left devoted fans, the effervescent Hope. Now cut at 45 RPM and spread over four 200-gram premium LPs, you're about to discover the answer to that question. The eight sides of vinyl reduce distortion and high frequency loss as the wider-spaced grooves let your stereo cartridge track more accurately. And this set is plated and pressed at Quality Record Pressings, Acoustic Sounds' own industry-lauded LP manufacturer. Virtually silent surfaces coupled with sharp delineation of musical detail are QRP pressing hallmarks.

Two Stoughton Printing old-style tip-on gatefold jackets house the four LPs, which are contained in a custom-designed slipcase reproducing the original artwork.

A longtime audiophile demonstration disc. Hope will show off your system's dynamic range as well as any record ever released. Hugh Masekela, the outstanding South African trumpeter, assembled a seven-piece group and recorded this great set live at Washington, D.C.'s Blues Alley. The songs stretch over a period of nearly five decades and serve as an informal guided tour of Masekela's life. The songs are honest and bare, and as for the sound — WOW!

Unlike a prior 45 RPM version that included seven songs, this 45 RPM reissue contains the full program as originally recorded with all 12 tracks included! Plus, as an added bonus, we've included a special insert — featuring an exclusive interview with Grammy/Emmy Award-winning engineer David Hewitt, who recorded Hope originally.

"Hugh's record is right up near the top for a lot of reasons," Hewitt says.

Hewitt and his team were afforded the time they needed, and they pulled out all the stops to pull off what's now recognized as an all-time great recording. They used better-quality microphones, they were mic-ing the room for ambient sound, and Masekela was performing for a sophisticated and appreciative audience.

"We used stuff from our stash of mics as opposed to what you'd find typically at a jazz club. We actually had control via the record label and producers, so we could take our time. We had the ability to mic the room for abient sound. ... you've got people that actually know and appreciate the music and respond accordingly. What you've got there is all the right stuff at the right time and the right people, and then something magical happens."

Listen to that magic unfold — put on this Analogue Productions 45 RPM 4LP reissue of Hope, and be transported.

*REISSUED ON LIMITED EDITION BLUE VINYL*

London-based electronic songwriter Ryan Lee West aka Rival Consoles to release his most personal work to date in the form of a mini-album titled ‘Night Melody’ through Erased Tapes on 5th August 2016. During the release of his acclaimed full-length album ‘Howl’ and heavy touring in late 2015, Ryan came out of a 13-year long relationship and found himself making music throughout the winter months. The result of his efforts is a 34-minute, 6-track mini album ‘Night Melody’, born out of and shaped by long hours working into the night. It’s nocturnal in sound; mysterious in the way that the early hours so often are.

“I found myself, in a silent home, with the days getting dark very early. I’ve never before in my life been affected by the lack of light so much. I just remember it always being night time. I would either make music into the night, go out drinking with friends, or go to parties and dance into the early hours, every day, week after week, month after month, until eventually the days became brighter again.” The opening statement ‘Pattern of the North’ starts off with a collage of spliced synth melodies, inspired by anxiety that accompanies going home for Christmas. It’s followed by ‘Johannesburg’, an early sketch gradually filled out during his tour in South Africa.


“After playing it around some of the cities, I got a lot of inspiration to bring it to life and push it into something that really moves me. I think this is one of my most colourful pieces of music, with its driving rhythm and almost a homage to Terry Riley’s ‘In C’ towards the end, with a build of very simple, hypnotic parts. I especially love that for over five minutes the piece is tied to just one note. This makes the ending very dramatic, because all of a sudden there is this harmonic change.” ‘Lone’ started life around the time Ryan was working on his ‘Sonne’ EP in 2014. It’s the result of constant adjustments to find the perfect balance of fragility and assurance. As everything on the album, it’s a carefully considered, emotionally mature piece. “I think, as I get older, I need music to represent something and not just sound interesting, though of course the two are connected.” The closing statement ‘What Sorrow’ is a fitting end to the album, building from gentle melancholia to a joyous crescendo. It’s a sensibility that’s central to the record; joy and sorrow both find their counterpoints.


“This record is very personal to me and I hope it offers something for other people, as it helped me to make it and to listen to it. Almost every synth line was recorded intuitively, without perfection but with a lot of intention and expression. I’m not interested in making something sad or making something happy. I want music to be bittersweet, to be more complex, like life – containing moments of vibrant colour and hope, as much as darkness and sadness.” This summer will see Ryan follow on from his recent North American Tour with the appearance at many festivals including Lovebox, Secret Garden Party, La Route Du Rock, Sea Change and Tale of Us-curated Afterlife party at Space, Ibiza.

The Waterboys’ eighth studio album is made available on vinyl for the first time, in ‘Seville’ orange. Originally released in 2003, ‘Universal Hall’ was recorded in the basement studio of the titular hall, a theatre and concert venue in Findhorn, Scotland. It is the most nakedly spiritual of the band's records, all the more so for having been mostly written and entirely made in the spiritual community at Findhorn. At the time of release, band leader Mike Scott described ‘Universal Hall’ as "a record containing eleven spiritual songs that articulate - to the best of my ability - the vision that drives, challenges, sustains and transforms me.” This vision is explored in now-classic Waterboys numbers such as Peace Of Iona, The Christ In You and Universal Hall itself, One track, the celtic-flavoured I've Lived Here Before, was written with Liam O'Maonlai of Hothouse Flowers. The album also saw the return of the band's fiddler Steve Wickham, his first appearance on a Waterboys’ record since ‘Room To Roam’ in 1990. The vinyl format is 180g Orange vinyl. The CD format is packaged in a jewelcase with 16 page booklet.

In the realm of computer-generated music, all compositions are essentially binary, consisting of zeros and ones, representing data and information. Within this binary structure, every musical event exists amidst a backdrop of unchosen possibilities, creating a sense of absence and mourning for what could have been. The bittersweet emotional quality often found in certain electronic music may stem from a combination of its underlying aesthetic principles, a yearning for a lost vision of the future, and the subtle interplay between presence and absence inherent in the creative process itself.

Released for the first time on vinyl and including 2 unreleased tracks, Tales From The Silent City is a deep electronic journey with the unmistakable Niko Tzoukmanis's sound and sensitivity. The album features sequences that shimmer and persist, while gentle pads offer soothing relief to weary listeners.
Tales From The Silent City not only draws inspiration from a nostalgic era of sequencer-driven music but also anticipates the trend of seeking solace in '90s-influenced ambient techno during uncertain times.

Marc Richter aka Black To Comm released his debut record 20 years ago. In 2023 he is still busy releasing music under various disguises and is currently signed to the Thrill Jockey label. To celebrate this anniversary his own Cellule 75 label is re-releasing some classic out-of-print vinyl albums that originally came out on the defunct Type and De Stijl labels. The LP will feature a full-colour lyric sheet / poster exclusive to this edition.

After releasing the critically acclaimed Alphabet 1968 on the seminal Type label (Grouper, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Yellow Swans), Richter chose De Stijl for this 2012 album, an American label that had just put out future classics by the likes of Circuit Des Yeux, Hype Williams and Wolf Eyes.

EARTH is a 2009 silent film by Ho Tzu Nyen, one of Singapore's foremost visual artists. After hearing Black To Comm's Alphabet 1968 Ho Tzu Nyen invited Richter to accompany the film at Berlin's Asian Film Festival, Unsound in Krakow and several other art biennals and music festivals around the world.

In his own words: "Most of the music was composed under the influence of heavy pain killers while recovering from a broken leg (the recordings literally took place in bed). The music (like the film) is about slowness and decay, states of unconsciousness, sleeping and waking up, dying and being reborn. The film is a post-apocalyptic collage based on paintings by classical European painters (Caravaggio, Delacroix, Rembrandt, Gericault) -- the music translates this concept employing corresponding collage-based sampling techniques using loops made from vintage vinyl and shellac records combined with acoustic and electronic instrumentation and voice."

From the original De Stijl one-sheet:
"Richter’s already formidable expressive power stretches over all of EARTH. Reflecting the countless cyclical forces that make up, oh, more or less everything we know and are, the music on EARTH is bracing, lovely, bustling and still, and at times bittersweet, a commingling of sensations and emotions that can’t be neatly separated from one another. (EARTH is complex, as you know.) Guests on EARTH include David Aird, a.k.a Vindicatrix (on the Mordant Music label), contributing startling vocal work; Renate Nikolaus on an array of instruments and noise devices; Rutger Zuydervelt (singing bowls); and Christopher Kline (singing saw). EARTH is Black to Comm’s seventh album and his debut for De Stijl, following the acclaimed Alphabet 1968 (on Type) and last year’s vinyl-only collaboration with Mike Kelley of Destroy All Monsters (on the En/Of label)."

Alex Neilson in The Wire:
"The most marked aspect of Earth is the voice of David Aird, aka Vindicatrix. Imperious and dolorous, he has the gravity of post-Climate Of Hunter Scott Walker, David Sylvain or Klaus Nomi stripped of the pathetic ritz. This is something that's easy to do badly, but Aird pulls it off with aplomb. On "The Children" he breaks into a morose yodel, rolling the words around his palate and colouring each syllable black before gifting them to the air. The meaning isn't understood verbally as much as viscerally. Beneath Aird's ululations, Richter casts handfuls of angelic debris from keyboards and digital devices, generating a celestial electronic tapestry reminiscent of Japanese musician Nobukazu Takemura. Sounds vie and twist at frequencies you can't so much hear as feel in the bridge of your nose, and the variety and full-bloodedness of the accompaniment is what prevents Aird's vocal from occassionally lapsing into shtick."

Published in 1989 in the "Weekly Shônen Magazine", "Hajime no Ippo" by George Morikawa has become over the years a cult sports manga, and remains to this day one of the longest river series, still being published, counting more than 130 volumes.

It is only natural that an animated version was born in 2000, produced by Madhouse, under the name of “Hajime no Ippo: The Fighting! of 76 episodes (covering the first thirty volumes of the series). This narrates the beginnings and the rise of a high school student, Ippo Makunouchi, in the world of professional boxing. Find now a selection of the best anime music with rock and jazz accents with the final destination: The ring! Three composers worked for this selection: Tsuneo IMAHORI (TRIGUN and GUNGRAVE), Hideki TANIUCHI (in collaboration with Yoshihisa HIRANO on DEATH NOTE) and Naoya MORI.

Beautiful release coming from Italy drawing inspiration from the intense colors of the works of the painter Tania Cantone on this work of love; "Sharade" by Pino Presti & Garden Planet. Mediterranean and Balearic lushness from the talented Pino Presti, and the eclectic keyboardist Claudio Calzolari, his son Andrea Calzolari, bass player Andrea Verardi and the organist Guido Mazzella. All together they created that magic, that long-forgotten, set aside, almost hidden atmosphere, which covers various genres such as lounge, future jazz, bossa-nova, ambient, which obviously includes chillout and downtempo vibes from the hot summer nights in the Mediterranean. So much vibes on this one release coming from the Italian friends of BEST Record! Recommened!

When I first heard Natalie Rose LeBrecht's time-suspending, air-ionizing music, more than twenty years ago, I thought "this kid is on to something." She's been proving that thought right ever since. Her recordings, from the teenage 4-track tapes she made as Greenpot Bluepot to the recent albums under her own name, have been fascinating dispatches from her progressively deeper dives into her gorgeous, weird, wildly idiomatic aesthetic. Holy Prana Open Game is a jewel of intensely personal cosmic music, created through a remarkable process of openness, craftiness, addition and subtraction. It belongs to a tradition of albums that document a rich, meditative sound as it rises up to join the world outside its creators' minds: Alice Coltrane's Universal Consciousness, Harmonia's Musik von Harmonia, Philip Glass's North Star, Talk Talk's Laughing Stock.

"Meditative" is specifically the idea here: Holy Prana Open Game had its origins in the fourteen days LeBrecht spent silently meditating in her home's small music room in the summer of 2019. "I came out of that bursting with the will to create new music," she says, and she created it sound-first. LeBrecht taught herself to program an analog synthesizer's timbres from scratch, and built a new set of glacial, heady compositions out of them, eventually singing to accompany the keyboard parts she was playing.

Then she closed her eyes at her computer, "let my mind be clear and open, imagined light pouring down through me, and began auto-writing to my memory of the music playing through my mind. Most of the lyrics emerged this way, and then I used my conscious mind to refine them a bit at the end." One other song came along with LeBrecht's new pieces, a cover that seems wildly unlikely from the outside and makes total sense in its context: it's a version of Atoms for Peace's "Amok" (which had been created by improvisation and editing, too), mutated into her own idiolect.

In early March of 2020, LeBrecht recorded Holy Prana Open Game's analog synth parts with Martin Bisi at his studio in Brooklyn--and then the world shut down. As you may have gathered, LeBrecht is very much a spiritual, head-in-the-stars type. She is also extremely hardcore, and if making the art she wants to make means doing things the hard way, she cracks her knuckles and gets down to it. Within weeks, she had taught herself how to record, mix and edit with a digital audio workstation. She recorded her vocal parts (sometimes multi-tracked into a radiant choir) at home, assembled a rough mix of the album, and sent it off to her collaborators.

LeBrecht spent some years studying with and assisting La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela at their legendary sound-and-light installation, the Dream House. As with their work, her singular, precisely focused vision is shored up by its openness to artistic voices beyond her own. For Holy Prana Open Game, she worked with the Australian guitarist Mick Turner and drummer Jim White (both of Dirty Three, the Tren Brothers and innumerable other projects), as well as woodwind player David Lackner, a longtime presence on her recordings.

Turner and White have been playing together in one context or another since 1985; in the summer of 2020, they were only blocks from each other in Melbourne, Australia, whose strict lockdown meant they couldn't meet up to record together. So both of them, as well as Lackner, recorded their improvisational additions to LeBrecht's rough mixes individually, often without hearing each other's contributions. "I had asked them to play as much as they could on each track," she says, "and told them that I would edit it all down in post, so I had a lot of source material of theirs to work with."

LeBrecht arranged and edited the recordings from all four of their homes to flow together like breath across the duration of her suite. Prana, one of the album's central conceits, is in fact the Sanskrit word for breath, with the connotation of the breath of life. Like LeBrecht's music, prana flows at its own pace, and demands stillness to take in fully--but it's also subtly playful and surprising, a force that can be as light as air or as immersive as the atmosphere itself.

White Vinyl

Greyscale #10 is here for the masses! To make things even more exciting, the long awaited is a double vinyl edition! Submersion has been on many top deep and dub techno labels in the past 15 years such as Silent Season, Space of Variants, Milieu Music, Deep Electronics, diametric, Rohs! and more. A landing at Greyscale makes complete sense for the quality Submersion is known for. 'Entrainment' is for those deep dub techno fans that like extended atmospheric tracks surrounded by a heavy ambience. 3 of the 4 sides have 1 track to its entire side making the fidelity of these top notch! 'Transversal, Planetary, Capsule' fills up side A with an amazing and gentle intro that has ominous clouds on the horizon. The beat is distance, while the nuances of the airspace is fully dedicated to submerging you deep within. A truly magical and enveloping sound. The next track to uncover is 'Filter, Gradation, Centrifuge'. Imagine that the earth is a ever-evolving dub techno track and you were viewing or listening to it from the distance of the moon. This would be it! There is a tremendous distance that is created in this track where chords flow and move like clouds over large areas of distance. Sometimes, the best description is a visual one if it helps. Breathtaking! 'Stimulant, Perspective, Sensory' starts the next piece of vinyl with another epic one. It morphs like a planet is being formed before your eyes. Basslines move like mountains while chords strike like distance thunder. The last side has 2 tracks sharing the side. 'Reflectance, Reverberant, Cortisol' and 'Predawn'. The first is a grandious ambient number that sounds heavenly while the last featured song is equally stunning as almost a reprise of a previous. Entrainment will be available on white 180-gram double vinyl as well as CD digipak and digital. These are all supersonic soundscapes to immerse yourself in! Masterpieces!

The Other Maria represents the character trait each of us has inside within ourselves. The silent part of us that we try to regulate, keep restrained from others and managed just beyond reach from the rest of the World. It represents the compartmentalized potential to do, say and respond with great chaotic harm, despite all unfortunate consequences. It is a full release feeling that we sometimes quietly envy as we witness with disgust and disapproval.

Widely considered a character flaw to many, yet, some would relish in the opportunity that could summon such an unpredictable internal animal. Every life has two parallel parts. The one for "them", the version of yourself that abides by all the acceptable and expected rules of engagement - often a side that is given credit on face value. The side that achieves progress through peaceful and less confrontational means. The one you use to survive.

And the other side, the one for you. An uncompromising, unthinkably ruthless version that knows no limit. That knows no fear. The side of yourself that tells you yes, when you know that "no" is the better answer.

The Other Maria isn't about comfort. It is about hard truth, but also recognizing raw emotions that stem from feeling undeniably free.

And what could one do with such a dark, yet wonderworking ability - when the absence of fear and consequence presides over the judicious process leading to an enviable fate - convinced that all actions are pure, justified, direct, but conniving. The feeling of relieved of all guilt and accountability?


But as diabolical as it can be and appear. Along with the negative static, there can be progress. As true imposes are exposed, so does the transparency of reality. A precious truth that's needed to fully understand the severity of the situation.
And with this, comes a valuable knowledge from a low level in which one once descended. Dreadfulness is softened to predictability.

- Jeff Mills, April, 2023

Warehouse find!

Teenage Fanclub have announced news of their tenth studio album, Endless Arcade, released 5th March. Even if we weren’t living through extraordinarily troubling times, there is nothing quite like a Teenage Fanclub album to assuage the mind, body and soul, and to reaffirm that all is not lost in this world.

Endless Arcade follows the band’s ninth album “Here”, released in 2016 to universal acclaim and notably their first Top 10 album since 1997; a mark of how much they’re treasured. The new record is quintessential TFC: melodies are equal parts heart-warming and heart-aching; guitars chime and distort; keyboard lines mesh and spiral; harmony-coated choruses burst out like sun on a stormy day.

In the 1990s, the band crafted a magnetically heavy yet harmony-rich sound on classic albums such as “Bandwagonesque” and “Grand Prix”. This century, albums such as “Shadows” and “Here” have documented a more relaxed, less ‘teenage’ Fanclub, reflecting the band’s stage in life and state of mind, which Endless Arcade slots perfectly alongside. The album walks a beautifully poised line between melancholic and uplifting, infused with simple truths. The importance of home, community and hope is entwined with more bittersweet, sometimes darker thoughts - insecurity, anxiety, loss.

Such is life. But the title track suggests, “Don’t be afraid of this endless arcade that is life.”

A preview from the album came in February 2019 with Raymond’s ‘Everything Is Falling Apart’, an online single released at the outset of a six-month tour and a highlight of Endless Arcade.

Everything is falling apart? Well, yes, but the song was written long before COVID-19 arrived. Neither was Raymond’s inspiration political or social, but more, “the entropy in the universe, the knowledge that everything eventually decays,” he explains. But Raymond says relax. Or rather, “Relax, find love, hold on to the hand of a friend”.

Fortunately, Endless Arcade was virtually finished by the time lockdown was announced, bar the odd tinker under the engine hood. It seems timely, given how everyone had to initially stay home under lockdown, that the album starts with Norman’s ‘Home’, though it was chosen in part because of its opening line: “Every morning, I open my eyes...” The album’s longest track (at seven minutes) typifies TFC’s relaxed groove, culminating in Raymond’s peach of a guitar solo.

Norman’s search for ‘home’ could be literal: after all, he’s been living in Canada for the last 10 years. But it’s also figurative. Like Norman’s other Endless Arcade songs – The Sun Won’t Shine On Me’, ‘Warm Embrace’, ‘I’m More Inclined’, ‘Back In The Day’ and ‘Living With You’ – his words on ‘Home’ are etched by loss and yearning. “Without going into too much detail, the last eighteen months have been challenging for me on an emotional level,” he admits. “But it’s been cathartic channelling some of these feelings and emotions into song.”

In contrast, Raymond’s songs – he’s also responsible for ‘Come With Me’, ‘In Our Dreams’, ‘The Future’ and ‘Silent Song’ – are philosophical and questing. As he sings in ‘The Future’: “It’s hard to walk into the future when your shoes are made of lead”, but he’s still going to try, “and see sights we’ve never seen.”

In the band’s own near future, they’re already planning another new album given they can’t yet tour the one they’re releasing now. Welcome back, Teenage Fanclub, unafraid of this endless arcade that is life.

Warehouse find!

Teenage Fanclub have announced news of their tenth studio album, Endless Arcade, released 5th March. Even if we weren’t living through extraordinarily troubling times, there is nothing quite like a Teenage Fanclub album to assuage the mind, body and soul, and to reaffirm that all is not lost in this world.

Endless Arcade follows the band’s ninth album “Here”, released in 2016 to universal acclaim and notably their first Top 10 album since 1997; a mark of how much they’re treasured. The new record is quintessential TFC: melodies are equal parts heart-warming and heart-aching; guitars chime and distort; keyboard lines mesh and spiral; harmony-coated choruses burst out like sun on a stormy day.

In the 1990s, the band crafted a magnetically heavy yet harmony-rich sound on classic albums such as “Bandwagonesque” and “Grand Prix”. This century, albums such as “Shadows” and “Here” have documented a more relaxed, less ‘teenage’ Fanclub, reflecting the band’s stage in life and state of mind, which Endless Arcade slots perfectly alongside. The album walks a beautifully poised line between melancholic and uplifting, infused with simple truths. The importance of home, community and hope is entwined with more bittersweet, sometimes darker thoughts - insecurity, anxiety, loss.

Such is life. But the title track suggests, “Don’t be afraid of this endless arcade that is life.”

A preview from the album came in February 2019 with Raymond’s ‘Everything Is Falling Apart’, an online single released at the outset of a six-month tour and a highlight of Endless Arcade.

Everything is falling apart? Well, yes, but the song was written long before COVID-19 arrived. Neither was Raymond’s inspiration political or social, but more, “the entropy in the universe, the knowledge that everything eventually decays,” he explains. But Raymond says relax. Or rather, “Relax, find love, hold on to the hand of a friend”.

Fortunately, Endless Arcade was virtually finished by the time lockdown was announced, bar the odd tinker under the engine hood. It seems timely, given how everyone had to initially stay home under lockdown, that the album starts with Norman’s ‘Home’, though it was chosen in part because of its opening line: “Every morning, I open my eyes...” The album’s longest track (at seven minutes) typifies TFC’s relaxed groove, culminating in Raymond’s peach of a guitar solo.

Norman’s search for ‘home’ could be literal: after all, he’s been living in Canada for the last 10 years. But it’s also figurative. Like Norman’s other Endless Arcade songs – The Sun Won’t Shine On Me’, ‘Warm Embrace’, ‘I’m More Inclined’, ‘Back In The Day’ and ‘Living With You’ – his words on ‘Home’ are etched by loss and yearning. “Without going into too much detail, the last eighteen months have been challenging for me on an emotional level,” he admits. “But it’s been cathartic channelling some of these feelings and emotions into song.”

In contrast, Raymond’s songs – he’s also responsible for ‘Come With Me’, ‘In Our Dreams’, ‘The Future’ and ‘Silent Song’ – are philosophical and questing. As he sings in ‘The Future’: “It’s hard to walk into the future when your shoes are made of lead”, but he’s still going to try, “and see sights we’ve never seen.”

In the band’s own near future, they’re already planning another new album given they can’t yet tour the one they’re releasing now. Welcome back, Teenage Fanclub, unafraid of this endless arcade that is life.

The Joshua Jaswon Octet is a Berlin-based contemporary jazz ensemble, featuring a broad cross-section of exceptional young musicians from Europe's leading jazz scenes. Lead by the London-born saxophonist and composer, the ensemble released its debut album Silent Sea in October 2020, which was selected by BBC Music as one of the best jazz recordings of 2020/21 and received 4 and 5 star reviews across the UK and international media. Polar Waters draws out the distinct musical personalities of each member of the Octet into the group's collective sound was a part of the ensemble's natural evolution from its first record and something that has developed through extended time living with and performing the music. Jaswon focused on exploring the fluidity of roles, sound colours and textural combinations in the ensemble and how this related to both the collective and individual.

Nucleus's Elastic Rock is undisputedly a milestone in Jazz-Rock. A beautiful and vital debut album, it was first released on Vertigo in 1970. Original copies are now very tricky to score and, like all the Nucleus records, it’s aged ridiculously well. This Be With re-issue, re-mastered from the original analogue tapes, shows off just why this deserves to be back in press.

Genius trumpeter and visionary composer Ian Carr was one of the most respected British musicians of his era. He was a true pioneer and saw the potential in fusing the worlds of jazz with rock, just as Miles Davis and The Tony Williams Lifetime did in the US. In late 1969, following the demise of the Rendell-Carr quintet, and tiring of British jazz, Carr assembled the legendary Nucleus. Regarding music as a continuous process, Nucleus refused to “recognise rigid boundaries” and worked on delivering what they saw as a “total musical experience”. We can get behind that.

Under bandleader Carr, Nucleus existed as a fluid line-up of inventive, skilled musicians. This constant evolution and revolution was all part of the continuous musical exploration and discovery that took jazz to new levels. And the music has kept relevant. To steal a line from a review of our re-issue of Roots, when it comes to anything Nucleus “it’s basically already hip-hop”.

The very title Elastic Rock could be regarded as the group's MO, describing a melting point between their rock and jazz impulses. Indeed, housed in a memorable gatefold jacket designed by Roger Dean, the die cut molten teardrop shape on the front sleeve opens to reveal a fiery volcanic crater. On the back, Dean's drawing has Carr with saxophonist Brian Smith, guitarist Chris Spedding, drummer John Marshall, bassist Jeff Clyne and sax, oboe and pianist Karl Jenkins in a circle, the central core of a movement and the basis for its activity.

Recorded over four days in January 1970, Elastic Rock didn't sound like any other British jazz album. Exploding out the gate, "1916" opens with Marshall's frantic pounding before melancholic horns enter. The smooth title track, "Elastic Rock" is just a gorgeous electric blues track. Light drums, gentle melodic horns, piano and a solid bassline serve as the perfect bed for Spedding's graceful bluesy guitar melodies. The serene "Striation", a Clyne and Spedding collaboration, is led by bowed bass and is the epitome of calm before the late night laid back vibe of "Taranaki" breezes along sweetly and smoothly with great trumpet and tenor.

The truly emotional "Twisted Track" is elegant with horns, while guitar is gently played with drums and bass. Initially deeply soothing, it gradually builds with various solos and duets. "Crude Blues (Part 1)" features an excellent oboe part by Jenkins with laconic guitar helping out. "Part 2" is livelier, with a heavy backbeat and great wind parts. "1916 (Battle Of Boogaloo)" features a steady bassline and great call and response parts from the horn section.

The highly-charged centrepiece of the record, the mesmeric epic "Torrid Zone" features an hypnotic bassline and hi-hat with some of the ensemble's best soloing. Brilliantly encapsulating the jazz fusion aesthetic so desired by the group, the rhythm section is rock-influenced but magically retains a laid-back jazz vibe. Just perfection. Spacey jazz in the style of In a Silent Way, the semi-ambient "Stonescape" features smooth, muted brass, warm, smokey keys and a barely-there rhythm section. Heavenly.

The bubbling, fragile restraint of "Earth Mother" partially utilises the "Torrid Zone" bassline but takes the energy in a different direction with Marshall's frenetic drumming and Spedding's unpredictable riffing. Next comes the very idiosyncratic drum solo track by Marshall in the appropriately-titled "Speaking for Myself, Personally, in My Own Opinion, I Think." The album closes with the raucous "Persephones Jive", a track that ends the album frantically, riotously, just as it began.

This Be With edition of Elastic Rock has been re-mastered from the original Vertigo master tapes, Simon Francis’ mastering working together with Cicely Balston's cut at AIR Studios to weave their usual magic with these wonderful recordings. The stunning die-cut gatefold sleeve has been restored in all its molten glory.

Unreleased but perfectly formed "hidden" album, recorded in 1989-90 by Nuno Rebelo on the wake of his "Sagração Do Mês De Maio" double LP (composed in 1988 as soundtrack to the third Manobras de Maio fashion event in Lisbon). The tracks convey a sense of investigative curiosity regarding computer composition and they sound wonderfully artificial. Titles as "Moon OK", "Tiny Space Ships" or "Dança Das Creaturas Elásticas" ("Elastic Creatures Dance") embody this idea of otherworldness, a kind of music actually coming from another place, composed and played by elastic creatures. It displays the functional qualities of Library Music, illustrating playful as much as moody and dense moments. In this way the album comes across as a soundtrack for moving images, sure, but with unusual framing and sharp angles. A unique object in the Portuguese avantgarde, keeping its distance from Academia but also from contemporary independent releases ("Plux Quba" by Nuno Canavarro comes to mind). António Duarte's 2019 mastering enhances this collection of music liberated from the archives of one of the most brilliant, active and challenging musicians of his generation.

Nuno Rebelo was born in 1960, graduated in Architecture, founded Street Kids and Mler Ife Dada, played in the "transitional" line up of GNR in 1982. His creativity expanded into improvised music. Performances and recordings with other musicians multiplied. He composed music for theatre, dance, jingles and, on an almost contradictory scale to his underground credentials, soundtracks for the Expo 98 and Porto 2001 mega events.

“Improvisações Cristalizadas” by Nuno Rebelo:
Short electronic pieces composed in 1989-90 using the Atari 1040ST computer with Steinberg Pro24 Software, Two Yamaha Sound Modules (TX81ZX and TG55) and Ensoniq Mirage Sampler with keyboard. The composition method for each piece evolved from a short improvisation on the Mirage keyboard, recorded in MIDI to the computer. Counterpoint permutations (inversion, reversion, inverted reversion, transpositions) were then applied through the software, distributing the variations of the initial improvisation by other timbres. No other musical material was used.

Fase Luna ist das vom Ozean inspirierte, pulsierende Pop-Album von LA Priest, alias Sam Eastgate, das am 5. Mai über Domino veröffentlicht wird. Nach GENE aus dem Jahr 2020, das nach einer modularen Drum-Maschine benannt ist, die Sam mit 150 selbst gebauten Schaltkreisen entwickelt hat, reduziert sich Fase Luna auf Sam und seine Gitarre: neun sonnendurchflutete Tracks voller Glückseligkeit. Bei den Aufnahmen in Mexiko und in den Regenwäldern Costa Ricas ließ sich Fase Luna von der mythischen Geschichte der jeweiligen Region und den uralten Verbindungen zum Meer inspirieren. Roh und ungefiltert bietet Fase Luna ein One-Way-Ticket in eine andere Welt."

"The Concert" is the first discographic collaboration between percussionist Alexandre Babel and visual artist Latifa Echakhch. The record is intimately linked to the eponymous exhibition presented at the Swiss Pavilion during the 59th Venice Art Bienniale.

For her exhibition in the Swiss Pavilion, Latifa Echakhch created an orchestrated and enveloping experience, a rhythmic and spatial proposal that allowed the visitor a complete perception of time and of his own body. What is the origin of rhythm? How does the body perceive time? How does the mind rearrange it? Can we substitute one perception for another, the visual for the sound? Can fragments of memory go back in time and recreate a different story?

Her proposal entered a dialogue with the building around it, designed by Bruno Giacometti. The artist revisited its architectural programme as well as the prototypical progression of these exhibition spaces, originally defined for the display of classical art. She appropriated the entirety of the spaces, simultaneously exploring continuity, movement and sequence. Their relationship to light, and the different sounds that emerge from them. Yet the exhibition was entirely silent and the musical composition "The Concert" functions as its sound rendering, by following a similar path.

This one-sided vinyl is a complementary and inseparable partner piece to the exhibition and its eponymous catalogue, the latter having been published in April 2022 by Sternberg Press. The music features field recordings made at the Swiss Pavilion itself as well as pre-recorded percussion sounds and significant contributions by the Berlin-based musicians Jon Heilbronn, Rebecca Lenton, Theo Nabicht, Nikolaus Schlierf.

The record, available only after the closing of Latifa Echakhch’s exhibition offers a concluding phase to the project. The resonance of its sensory score. It reactivates the experience of the physical journey of the installation, without imposing itself as a transcription or an illustration. Through texture, temporality and its totality, the record stands as a resonance of the rhythms that have structured the pavilion, the harmonies that have composed it and the sounds that have inhabited it.

Latifa Echakhch Lives and works in Vevey, Switzerland. She graduated from the École nationale supérieure d’arts in Cergy-Pontoise and the École nationale des beaux-arts in Lyon. Galleries representing her include kamel mennour (Paris and London), kaufmann repetto (Milan and New York), Dvir Gallery (Tel Aviv/Brussels) and Pace (New York). She took part in the main exhibition of the Venice Biennale Arte in 2011 and was awarded the prix Marcel-Duchamp in 2013 and the Zurich Art Prize in 2015. Through her interdisciplinary installations, Latifa Echakhch is recognized for the fine balance between forcefulness and fragility of her visual language, inserting surrealist and conceptual elements, and her use of symbols that–in her own words–are both "political and poetic".

Alexandre Babel Lives and works in Berlin. He is a drummer, composer, and curator. His projects redefine the boundaries of musical convention, confounding listener expectations in the conquest of new contexts. Babel has been the artistic director of the contemporary percussion group Eklekto 2013–2022. In 2020, the monographic Festival Les Amplitudes in La Chaux-de-Fonds focused on Babel’s compositional and curatorial work. He is a laureate of the Swiss Music Prize from the Federal Office of Culture 2021.

Gretchen Goes to Nebraska is the second studio album by American heavy metal/hard rock trio King’s X. It is a concept album based on a short story written by drummer Jerry Gaskill.

The album received virtually universal critical praise for its uniquely progressive musical approach and varied styles and is considered as one of their works, a seminal record within the progressive metal genre. It achieved high slots on various Album Of The Year-lists, including #4 in Kerrang!.

Gretchen Goes To Nebraska is available as a limited edition of
1500 individually numbered copies on gold coloured vinyl.

Nach der Veröffentlichung der 2CD-Version des Albums Moonage Daydream im letzten Jahr, wird der Soundtrack nun am 31. März als 3LP Vinyl veröffentlicht.

"Moonage Daydream" beleuchtet das Leben und Genie von David Bowie, einem der produktivsten und einflussreichsten Künstler der jüngeren Musikgeschichte.
Auf Spielfilmlänge nimmt uns Brett Morgen mit in die Welt Bowies, erforscht anhand von großartigem, vielfältigem und nie zuvor gesehenem Filmmaterial, Live-Auftritten und Musik (Morgen sichtete vier Jahre die Archive des David Bowie Estates) seine kreative, musikalische und spirituelle Reise.
Durch den Film führt uns dabei die Erzählerstimme von David Bowie selbst.
Das Begleitalbum zu "Moonage Dream" enthält Songs aus Bowies gesamter Karriere, darunter bisher ungehörtes Material, speziell für den Film und dieses Album angefertigte Mixe und Gesprächspassagen Bowies.

Zu den Highlights des Tracklistings zählen ein bisher unveröffentlichtes Live-Medley von "The Jean Genie / Love Me Do / The Jean Genie", aufgenommen beim berühmt-berüchtigten letzten Ziggy-Stardust-Konzert im Londoner Hammersmith Odeon 1973 und mit Jeff Beck an der Gitarre. Weitere Raritäten sind eine frühe Version
des Hunky-Dory-Favoriten "Quicksand" und eine bisher unveröffentlichte Live-Version von "Rock 'n' Roll With Me", mitgeschnitten bei der legendären "Soul Tour" 1974.

Pressing Info: 180g clear blue vinyl, printed inner-sleeve. Based between Brussels and Berlin, Golden Hours is comprised of past and present members of Gang Of Four, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Tricky, The Fuzztones and The Third Sound, to name just a few. A band with mileage and stories, they trade in rock'n'roll missives that are at times dark, tense and hypnotic, at others sweaty, relentless and danceable. Made up of Hákon Adalsteinsson (Guitar/Vocals), Rodrigo Fuentealba Palavacino (Guitar), Tobias Humble (Drums/Vocals) and Wim Janssens (Bass/Keys/Vocals), Golden Hours' self-titled debut album is due for release March 31st 2023 on Fuzz Club Records. Wim says of the project and its incoming debut: "The musical backgrounds of each member are pretty broad but somehow when we come together there's a pretty clear definition of what our music should sound like. There's a beautiful friction between the noise we produce and the love for melody that seems to overtake at just the right moment. There never seems to be a lack of ideas when we come together. In silent agreement, every idea gets tried and will be further developed into a song or skipped in a heartbeat. No time is wasted. It all happens pretty automatically."

Based between Brussels and Berlin, Golden Hours is comprised of past and present members of Gang Of Four, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Tricky, The Fuzztones and The Third Sound, to name just a few. A band with mileage and stories, they trade in rock’n’roll missives that are at times dark, tense and hypnotic, at others sweaty, relentless and danceable. Made up of Hákon Adalsteinsson (Guitar/Vocals), Rodrigo Fuentealba Palavacino (Guitar), Tobias Humble (Drums/Vocals) and Wim Janssens (Bass/Keys/Vocals), Golden Hours’ self-titled debut album is due for release March 31st 2023 on Fuzz Club Records. Wim says of the project and its incoming debut: “The musical backgrounds of each member are pretty broad but somehow when we come together there’s a pretty clear definition of what our music should sound like. There’s a beautiful friction between the noise we produce and the love for melody that seems to overtake at just the right moment. There never seems to be a lack of ideas when we come together. In silent agreement, every idea gets tried and will be further developed into a song or skipped in a heartbeat. No time is wasted. It all happens pretty automatically

MONO have long drawn equal inspiration from the light and dark of life, spawning more than two decades of musical turbulence and melodic transcendence. Heaven Vol. 1 marks the beginning of a new annual tradition from MONO: A new EP released on Christmas Day each year, leaning into the light at precisely the time when we need it the most - surrounded by loved ones and hopeful for what the turn of the calendar may bring us. Recorded by Takaakira `Taka' Goto at his home studio in Japan (with drums recorded by Amak Golden at Golden Hive Studio in Prague) - and mixed by Rafael Anton Irisarri and Jeremy deVine at Black Knoll Studio in New York - Heaven Vol. 1 finds MONO at their most hopeful and cinematic. Of each of Heaven Vol. 1's three tracks, MONO offers these words: Lucia: "This song was written when our beloved longtime partner Jeremy (the owner of our American label Temporary Residence Ltd.) welcomed his second child. The song is constructed with two parts; the first part celebrates the birth of a new life and the second part heads towards dreams and hope. We wrote this song with the feeling of Santa Claus riding a sleigh through the snowstorm, smiling, jumping into the swirl of pure white light and carrying many dreams." Smile: "We drew upon the snowy scenery of Christmas that we experienced when we were young. Your exhaled breath is white. Your heart is dancing in the endless silvery white world, and when you are about to grab the snow with your hands and turn around, your parents look back at you with a smile. We wrote this song whilst remembering moments like this." Silent Embrace: "Time passed and we became adults. Life is like climbing and descending many steep mountains, but the reason we're still able to continue walking is because of our loved ones, colleagues, friends and family who quietly stand by us and giving us courage and strength. We wanted to express our gratitude with this song." Limited (220 copies ww) Single Colour (Purple Vinyl) Edition!

Taka Noda AKA Mystica Tribe has been releasing deep music on vinyl since 2011 on labels including SD Records, Solar Phenomena, Silent Season, and his own Mystica Tribe Records. Working in the dub/techno continuum, he is one of only a handful of artists who creates brilliant tunes at both ends of the spectrum, from heavy, psychedelic warehouse techno to beautifully orthodox reggae-infused dubwise. For his first ZamZam, he leans hard into the latter.

Noda describes his approach to these tunes as a “virtual live band,” and while “the only real live instrument is the melodica, I wanted to capture the energy of a live band with this song.”

A master of both melody and rhythm, Noda does exactly that with “Ido” (which means a well for water). The mood hits immediately with a loose & confident groove built from impossibly-live sounding drum work, a perfect orthodox bassline, and achingly beautiful interplay between piano, clav, and melodica. Somehow both melancholy and bright, it captures that moment when winter gives way to the first hint of spring, sun finally breaking through clouds after months of rain and darkness.

Rather than a simple dub of the A side, the version is a complete rebuild of the tune. “Ido - Renren Version” (which means flowing like tears, or a river) drops the tempo down to 120 but goes harder rhythmically in spite of its slower tempo. Opening with a stark, dark, and menacingly driving bassline and warped dub siren, the vibe is completely transformed from above-ground to below. Hard percussion, new melodica parts, and 4-4 hats & kick take it into that full post-punk dub territory that the world needs more of. Much more!!

Over the last half decade, the music collective Constant Smiles has produced a prolific output of acclaimed music, culminating in their forthcoming record Kenneth Anger, masterfully brought to life by engineer Jonathan Schenke (Parquet Courts, Liars, Dougie Pool). The group is known most recently for their much-praised debut album for Sacred Bones records, Paragons, an emotionally resonant offering of indie folk masterpieces that all confront the internal ways we process our struggles with intimacies, addiction and humanity produced by Ben Greenberg. Constant Smiles' primary singer/songwriter Ben Jones uses the creative process as a tool for working through deeply transformative periods in his life. The band's indie folk music lays bare this internal process, but on Kenneth Anger, the music shifts to synth pop and looks externally, examining creativity, community, ritual, and their place in the healing process. Ritual takes a primary role in the eponymous Kenneth Anger. Not only is auteur Kenneth Anger himself known for his sensorial depictions of ritual, Jones often used the films as a silent visual back drop during his song writing sessions, a ritual that grounded the creation of the album. And while the director's use of saturated color inspired the warm `80s synth style production, the director's trailblazing spirit of authenticity also pushed Jones through his most vulnerable expression to date. While the narrative undertones of the songs deal with fear and isolation and anxiety, the songs themselves were created through the healing process of ritual, and enriched with collaboration, community and trust. The resulting music produces a balm that can genuinely recalibrate the nervous system. The listener journeys through the depths of every track while being lifted and guided by the music's transformative, hypnotic power and this illustrates one of the foundational accomplishments of the album. Just as a Kenneth Anger film explores the underbelly of the unconscious through often soothing visuals, Kenneth Anger the album conjures the underworld into a series of synth pop classics.

Following her 2021 debut, ‘Save My Day’, remixed by DJ Python, PYTKO returns to Phantasy with ‘Silent’, experimental and introspective electronic songwriting this time radically reworked by beloved pop-experimentalist, Bullion.

On ‘Silent’, PYTKO invites listeners to lean in closer than before. Seemingly untangling the frustrations of a faltering love affair, it’s vulnerable lyrics arrive buried beneath a sophisticated arrangement that, with bit-crushed electronics and rumbling bass notes, seems to decay with haunting effect. In contrast, the austere ‘Orchids & Limes’ mines an equally original sound, a striking sort of cyber-balearica sculpted around PYTKO’s intricate guitar work, conjuring an even darker sense of romance.

In radical contrast, Bullion proves a perfect fold to PYTKO’s vision with his positively high-spirited flip of ‘Silent’. The man behind DEEK Recordings and cult hits such as Blue Pedro keeps PYTKO’s perspective front-and-centre, while performing an alchemy of magic and melancholy that results in one the most memorable remixes in Phantasy’s fifteen-year history.

Futurismo present their new anthology series: Altered Vision, beginning with SUBURBAN ANNIHILATION The California Hardcore Explosion / From The City To The Beach: 1978-1983.

This aggressive collection draws from California’s rich history of punk, more specifically hardcore: a new sound that eschewed melody for intensity, a sound that took punk harder and faster, a sound intrinsically American. Whilst hardcore was also burning over on the East Coast, it was in California that it had ignited and sprawled, a sonic punch in the face that raged socio-political disdain and total abandonment for commercialism, fuelled by a crumbling American Dream and the collapse of family values.

Suburban Annihilation takes you from the major cities, to the coastal towns, to the SoCal suburbs, showcasing some the most important bands of the West Coast. Blasting off with the Adolescents ‘I Hate Children’, it heads from the year zero of Middle Class’s ‘Out Of Vogue’ to the surf punk of Agent Orange’s ‘Bloodstains’, from the blues tinged outlaw of The Gun Club’s ‘She’s Like Heroin to Me’ to the classic anti-anthems: ‘Live Fast Die Young’ by the Circle Jerks, lifted from their seminal Group Sex album, and the hardcore staple ‘California ÜberAlles’ by the Dead Kennedys. Also present are so many other bands integral to the era: T.S.O.L, Wasted Youth, Germs, Social Distortion, Suicidal Tendencies, Negative Trend, Flipper and many more.

Though the music was designed to repel, this historical document has been lovingly designed to remind us that this genre created some of the most immediate and acutely-realised music ever produced. Making this collection of choice cuts essential for long-time fans of hardcore and punk, just as those new and inquisitive about one of the most angry and pissed off genres to have given birth in America.

This 2xLP comes in a choice of limited edition coloured vinyl, it has a tracklist co-curated by Henry Rollins, it contains liner notes by Lisa Fancher of Frontier, a bio by award winning author Benjamin Myers, and contains a booklet featuring an array of images by the legendary punk photographer Edward Colver.

‘Change’ is the brand-new album by Anika, the first solo music from theBerlin based artist in 8 years.
A British ex-pat and former political journalist, Anika has collaborated withBEAK>and Tricky and released two albums with Mexico City’s Exploded.
View to great acclaim. The single ‘Change’ tackles personal growth as well as wider issues and grapples with eternal questions as to whether one can ever truly change.
It has been 11 years since the release of her last solo album, 2010 cultfavourite ‘Anika’; she suddenly found herself with a lot to say. “This album had been planned for a little while and the circumstances of its inception were quite different to what had been expected. This coloured the album quite significantly. The lyrics were all written there on the spot. It’s a vomit of emotions, anxieties, empowerment and of thoughts like - How can this go on? How can we go on?”
The intimacy of its creation and a palpable sense of global anxiety are
seemingly baked into the DNA of Change. Spread across nine tracks, the central feeling of the record is one of heightened frustration buoyed by guarded optimism. The songs offer skittering, austere electronic backdrops reminiscent of classic Broadcast records or ‘High Scores’-era Boards of Canada, playing them against Anika’s remarkable voice - Nico-esque, beautifully plaintive and - in regards to the record’s subject matter - totally resolute. Incantatory tracks like ‘Naysayer’ and ‘Never Coming Back’ are both a call to arms and a warning. “‘Never Coming Back’ was written after reading Rachel Carson’s ‘Silent Spring’,” she explains. “I was living in the old East countryside outside of Berlin, where there seemed to be no shortage of birds. Apparently their numbers have dropped significantly, but it is one of these changes that we never really stop and notice. We take things for granted, until it’s too late. With all this other noise
going on, care for the environment has quickly been moved to the backburner. So long as we get what we want NOW and on demand, who cares about whether we are taking care of the future?”